Wiki Highlight: Federation Remnant Culture (Galactic Culture)

 The winner of this month's "Release the Balloon People" poll was Federation Remnant Culture, a lengthy document detailing the "standard" Galactic Culture of Psi-Wars.

I wanted to write it for a few reasons.  First, whenever I read up on a sci-fi game, I find myself at a loss as to how the world works.  With a fantasy setting, I assume it works like every fantasy novel ever written unless told otherwise (for example, I do not need to be told that taverns exist or how they work). For games set in the modern world, I can draw on real world experiences and cultures (and likewise, I can research historical settings).  But when it comes to sci-fi settings, I need to be grounded in how the day-to-day life works. Do kids go to school in Trinity: Aeon? What's a day of work look like in Transhuman Space? What does romance look like in Eclipse Phase? How do people dress in Sufficiently Advanced? And so on.

The answer to these questions in Psi-Wars are "pretty much just like you'd expect," and I wanted to emphasize that, to set the reader's mind at ease. Psi-Wars is to space opera what D&D is to fantasy, after-all, but I find it helps to be told that explicitly, so I don't have to worry.

That said, there are almost certainly in-universe things that tend to be very specific that players would like the option of name-dropping.  What TV shows do people watch in Psi-Wars? What drink does Space James Bond what shaken, rather than stirred? What game does a smuggler get caught cheating at? In principle, these don't matter: the character likes some TV show, the spy likes some drink, and the smuggler plays some game, and we can abstract this away (Current Affairs (Pop Culture), Connoisseur (Alcohol) or Gambling) but players often like to name-drop.  So the last section of culture mostly references these things and consists of a variety of names and simple concepts and some traits that a player might tie into them.

I released it as a draft to my backers rather than on the wiki because the real reason I wrote it was to settle on a baseline before I started writing Lithian culture, which is the next big project (and likely most important non-standard culture in the setting), and I wanted to know what I was contrasting it with, and what topics I should cover.  So I wanted that written up, and then once I had Lithian culture written up, I could compare, contrast and edit them to work better.  But once my backers overwhelmingly chose this as an option, I realized they're probably right: I can always go back in and edit Federation Remnant culture, it's extremely useful already, and it's going to serve as inspiration and a foundation for Lithian culture anyway.

So, I hope you enjoy it.  You can read it here.

Wiki Spotlight: Psi-Wars Currencies

"I can do Calamari Flan… But I can only pay half."

―

Greef Karga, the Mandalorian

Do you know what Psi-Wars needs more than anything? If you answered "Unnecessarily detailed rules on currencies in Psi-Wars that nobody will use" then you, my friend, have the same sort of problem my brain does late at night.  Because that's what I wrote. 9,000 words of obsessively detailed currency rules.

Why would I do this? Well, first, because my brain wouldn't shut up about it.  I kept coming up with new currency ideas, and I had to sketch them somewhere.  Believe it or not, these are somewhat edited down from what I originally had! But more than that, I got to thinking about the Heist, and what people would steal, and how they would expect to get paid. Combined with my recent explorations of finances for other things, I found myself coming up with all sorts of questions, questions like:

• Do cash-based currencies even make sense in a sci-fi setting?
• If they don't, what do people on remote, "uncivilized" worlds use for money?
• If they use cash, or commodity currencies, how much do they weigh?
• How do you handle interstellar commerce? How do you balance the books of a star-spanning corporation or empire?
• If the Empire controlled financial institutions, what prevents them from freezing the accounts of political dissidents?
• Why would the Empire allow the Alliance to use the same financial institutions they do?
• How do criminals get around various laws to buy stuff on the black market or get paid by fixers?
• What does commerce in the Umbral Rim look like? How crazy can we get it?
• Do the Keleni even need money?
• What sort of money did various ancient empires use? Do they still use them?

I began to answer the questions for myself, writing out notes, looking up rules for these in other books, discovering the Flux rules in Cyberworld, diving into various financial concepts, and as I wrote out the notes, they became more and more detailed, and I had to trim them down further.  I had a noted down quick summary of every currency which, I notice, is no longer present in the article, but I could add it back, if you guys prefer.

I've separated this off for a reason.  I imagine the vast majority of people playing Psi-Wars just scratch off the word "Dollar" in GURPS and replace it with "Credit" and don't think more about it.  And when they get to an alien world with alien commerce, they just stop for a moment, shrug and make up something on the spot.  And, you know, that's fine.  I've listed that as a default set of rules in my currency article.  But some inspiration for some of these weirder currencies might be nice, and if you think about things like my questions above, you might want some answers to things like "How can a criminal do business in the Empire?" and "Do Keleni have money?", so I've provided those. I've even added some rules to allow you invest your character more deeply into a particular currency, and to play up its impact on the setting, if you want.  I may further expand these, depending on what people want. But I don't expect most people will ever use them, so everything about the article is self-contained. It's a "nice to have" that you can explore at your leisure.

Psi-Wars Development Journal: it's just a Cultural Thing

 

I have a bad habit lately of not talking about what I'm doing with Psi-Wars.  This is partially because I'm busy with several different side-projects and I often get interrupted by kids and life in general, so I pick up a thing, make some progress on it, park it, and then come back to it later.  I also find that where Psi-Wars is right now, I benefit a lot from picking at small things, like little edits to a race (the Keleni, most recently) or adding some gear here and there. This doesn't make for the exciting, focused sort of discussion like I had back back in the more "iterative" phase of Psi-Wars, and maybe I should find the discipline to return back to that, but in the meantime, this is working, so I stick with it.

But I wanted to at least add something to this blog, so people don't get the sense that Psi-Wars is dead, so perhaps I should just do a journal whenever I run across something interesting, or I want to talk about what I'm working on.  For today, I wanted to bring up culture, especially day-to-day life.

Cultural Familiarity in Psi-Wars

So, I've been struggling a bit with Cultural Familiarity in the established world of Psi-Wars. I've touched on this topic before in Iteration 5, but that iteration was for general topics.  It was for you, dear reader, creating your own setting. Now that I have actual names and cultures (Maradonians, the Shinjurai, the Westerly, Lithian culture, the Keleni), we need to decide which of these have Cultural Familiarity penalties and which don't. Is the difference between the Shinjurai and the Westerly like the difference between an American and a Frenchman, or the difference between an American and the Chinese?

Annara or Traditional Keleni Communion

Keleni traditionalists call Annara the pure form of Communion, the one that Keleni practiced in the past and still practice today. This may or may not be true; evidence suggests that the ancestral form of Communion gave rise to both Annara and True Communion, and that each has a piece of the original.

Annara, the Kelen word for “Communion,” (or more accurately, total unity of all things, or a sense of transcendence gained from feeling connected to all things), focuses more strictly on the natural telepathy of the Keleni people. It cultivates unity through telepathy and connection with one’s ancestors, and trains the Keleni in empathy for all beings, Alien or Keleni, sapient or animal. It also cultivates the ancient tradition of prophecy that traces its lineage back to the dawn of the Keleni faith-philosophy.

Unlike True Communion, Annara retains traditional Communion trappings, such as “folk healer” exorcisms and esoteric medicine. They also often learn Religious Rituals to better serve their community. Dogmatic traditionalists may teach their followers to fight with the resonance staff, and ancient Keleni weapon, but many also teach the force sword.

The intent focus on Keleni matters means that followers often learn a great deal about the language, history and culture of the Keleni. It also means that the religion attracts religious fanatics and xenophobic traditionalists. Many practitioners of True Communion hold Annara in awe, seeing it as the “lost half” of Communion secrets, but non-Keleni often find it difficult to win the trust of a Keleni master well enough to learn the style.

The Symbols and Rituals of True Communion

Aniconism

True Communion believes that depictions of the supernatural, be they idols or symbols, tend to unduly distract one from his inner journey in understanding the world. One can hold onto an idol, put his faith in that idol, and forget that the physical thing he holds is an illusion, nothing worth having faith in. Moreover, once the divine is given a face, people begin to forget its cosmic qualities and begin to overly humanize it. Thus, True Communion often, though not universally, chooses to eschew any symbolism at all.

True Communion symbolism tends to focus on things that naturally guide on to right and proper conclusions. They tend to be known by their tools and their words, rather than their great idols or symbols. Thus, the temples of True Communion tend to be remarkable bare of baroque imagery, favoring instead creating a place of profound peace and introspection, a natural place where one can lose himself in his own introspection.

This is not a strict taboo, however. The Keleni traditionalists are more likely to eschew imagery than human/alien traditions, as Traditionalists believe that True Communion and Keleni culture go hand in hand. Alien traditions, especially human traditions, feel the need to differentiate themselves from others and humans especially, caught up in their empires and factions, feel the need to have some symbol of their faith that they can point to. Even more extreme versions, such as the cults inspired by True Communion found within the Divine Masks tradition, absolutely have idols, but arguably have fallen far from what True Communion stands for.

Akashic Symbolism and Ceremonies

Akashic Symoblism

The Akashic Record

According to initiates of the deepest Akashic Mysteries, a successful initiate finds the Akashic Record at the end of a long and harrowing astral journey. Most initiates describe them as a single tablet of glowing light that once touched, floods the mind with knowledge, but some describe it as an old woman, a statue of an old woman, or an aging book bound in human flesh. Artwork commonly depicts the Akashic Record as a glowing tablet held a loft by an Akashic Oracle, at the highest point of the artwork. The Akashic Record represent enlightenment, and the highest degree of initiation.

The Tree of Time and the Golden Path

Initiates of the Akashic Mysteries describe their astral journey as walking a winding maze until they reach the foot of a mountain that brings them to the road to the Akashic Record. When they look back down, they can see the fullness of time laid out before them. Some describe it as like a tangle of yarn, or a labyrinth, but the most common description is like a tree.

Those who learn the see the future describe a similar “maze” of branching possibilities. For example, when asked about whether or not a woman should accept a marriage proposal, Oracles actually see a myriad possible outcomes, including many possible outcomes if she says yes and if she says no. The near present has the least possibilities, and they’re very likely, the “thickest” branches, while those far away are the least possible and the most numerous, the “thinnest” branches.

The Akashic Order, thus, likes to describe time as a tree, with the present as the trunk, the roots as the past, and the branches as the possible future. The tree of time is ultimately the symbol of the Akashic Mysteries.

When walking the paths of the astral maze, many Akashic Initiates describe being guided by the golden light of the Akashic Record. This makes the preferred path “golden.” This has created the term of “the golden path” as the one true set of choices everyone must make to reach the enlightenment of the Golden Record. Many who follow the Akashic Mysteries like to have a great tree in a garden with golden ribbons hanging from its branches, to symbolize their dedication to following this “golden path.”

The Coming Storm

Beyond a particular point, no Akashic Oracle can see the future. She sees instead the writhing strands of chaotic impossibility. Beyond this point, precognition is impossible, the “Time Horizon.” This may just mean that every precognitive has limits, but the horizon refuses to move past a certain point: it comes swiftly and closes in on the current generation! And events that Akashics can see shortly preceding the Time Horizon depict awful slaughter, mayhem and carnage, though their exact nature varies, and who inflicts this carnage is invisible to the eyes of the Akashics (they can see the burning cities and the dead strewn about, but not who will destroy human civilization). Most have concluded that they cannot see the future beyond this because, for humanity, there is no future.

Within this writhing chaos, some Akashics can see gaps, and can peek at futures just beyond them. These tend to show humanity in a terrible state of subjugation or slow dissolution, but on one, beyond which the Akashic Record is visible, they see a safe and surviving humanity.

Akashic Oracles have a difficult time relating the horror of the Coming Storm (the first time an Oracle witnesses it, the GM might call for a Fright Check), and dislike talking about it. In iconography, artists like to depict it as a literal storm or as a burning tree; Akashics who have seen the Coming Storm prefer the burning tree, as they describe the Coming Storm as “devouring the tree of time,” but feel it might confuse the lay person. Within the temple on Persephone, an obscure wall has been painted entirely black and seems to move and writhe in the torchlight, and has the hellish imagery of skulls and slavery depicted on it; the Akashic Oracles claim the horror of this wall in a dark and foreboding passage comes to the closest to accurately depicting the Coming Storm.

Veils

The Akashic Oracle must isolate herself from the world to make the best possible predictions. Knowing the future, she must refrain from interacting with the world more than necessary lest her actions introduce unforeseen consequences, and she must not let worldly concerns distract her, lest they impact her visions.

The Akashic Order uses veils to symbolize this separation from the “supernatural,” or the silent places where visions take place, and the “real” world, where the rest of us live, and what the visions speak of. Those who enter an Akashic temple must pass through a silken veil, and those who will be initiated must pass through multiple veils, while the Akashic Oracle wears a veil while out in public, especially over her eyes.

The Veil symbolizes innocence and the dividing line between the supernatural and the physical. By wearing a veil, the Akashic Oracle denotes herself as connected to the “supernatural.”

The Devils of Persephone

The Devils of Persephone, important to the origins of the Akashic Mysteries, remain a potent symbol for the Akashic Mysteries. Akashic artwork depicts the Devils as standing between the supplicant and the tree of time, or haunting the labyrinth of time, stalking those who would reach the Akashic Record. They appear twisted or phantasmal creatures with black or shadowy skin, white eyes or no eyes at all, and great, fang-filled maws and long, hungry tongues. If an artwork depicts a point of light (a knight’s upraised force sword, or the Akashic Record itself), they recoil from that light as though in fear. They often decorate the facades of Akashic Temples, and statues of them stand before the veils of initiation. While outsiders interpret them as the monster, Akashic imagery treats them as guardians, as those who stand between the supplicant and the ultimate truths they seek, testing the worthy and devouring the unworthy.

The Symoblism of Time

The standard Akashic symbols tend to represent metaphors for time itself, explaining its shape, the needs of the Akashic Order and the ultimate lesson of the coming galactic calamity and the need for enlightenment and knowledge. The Akashic Order uses these symbols to teach the layman and to enlighten the initiate, but they have additional, more specific symbols.

The visions of oracles tend to be highly symbolic and confusing and often deeply personal. The Akashic Order has compiled entire libraries full of that imagery, to help explain the visions of their oracles, but they also drill these symbols into their initiates. They find that those steeped in the lore of that imagery are more likely to see that imagery in their visions, and thus these symbols create a language of interpretation that makes the visions easier to understand.

The Akashic Order often uses this imagery, in addition to the imagery noted above, in their Mystery Plays, in their ceremonies, and they’ve found their way into the heraldry of the Alliance.

Animals: Small adorable creatures, who often speak. Represent the poverty stricken, the weak, those who need to be protected; also represent the struggles of the common world, and often live in a harsh nature. For powerful, frightening animals, see the Great Beast.

Blood: Guilt, failure, the consequences of a past action catching up to one.

Blossoms: Any number of the poison blossoms of Persephone make their way into the symbolism of the Akashic Order. Their meaning varies from blossom to blossom, but generally symbolize love, innocence or the price of power.

Chains: Symbolize the bonds of vows, or connections between two people.

Darkness, the Void: Calamity, the Coming Storm, the Unknown.

Fire: Chaos, rapid change, the destruction of rightful rule; the Coming Storm.

Stars, Astronomical Phenomenon: A new journey, the need to travel, appointing a desired location.

Shadows: That which could be, but is not

The Blind Woman: Symbolizes oracles, oracular knowledge, or self-sacrifice

The Crown: Symbolizes rightful rule.

The Eye: Symbolizes knowledge, insight, psionic power, or the Akashic Record.

The Fool: Symbolizes innocent violation of rightful rule, an accidental (and possibly fortunate) violation of rules; can also symbolize another perspective.

The Force Sword: If vertical or held aloft, symbolizes a force driving away “Darkness.” If held horizontally or across the body, symbolizes righteous defense. If lowered (at a downward angle) but active, symbolizes restraint or control.

The Great Beast: Symbolizes slaughter, murder, war crime and violent violation of rightful rule.

The King: Symbolizes rightful rule.

The Knight: Symbolizes a powerful ally, someone that will defend or protect rightful rule.

The Lover: Symbolizes temptation away from one’s duty; a violation of the sacred.

The Mask: Usually two toned, with the left dark and the right bright. Symbolizes deception, or a hidden/masked nature, or something that cannot be known.

The Princess: Symbolizes a powerful victim or pawn, someone who others should sacrifice to gain safety or prosperity.

Akashic Ceremonies

The Akashic Mysteries use rituals to induce trances in themselves, to impress their followers, and because by following rigid protocols, they can slowly strengthen destiny to ensure that the future occurs as they predicted. All ceremonies require Religious Ritual (Akashic Mysteries). Such ceremonies may be performed by a priest or priestess of the order, but traditionally an Oracle is always present and the ceremony takes place under her authority, even if she plays no more than a symbolic role.

Supplication

Those who wish to ask a question of the Oracles of the Akashic Mysteries must submit their request in advance. For off-worlders, the Oracles prefer that the request be submitted before setting foot on the world. The Order decides which questions to take and on what schedule, and then notify those whose questions have been accepted.

When the supplicant, the one who has a question he wishes answered, arrives at the Akashic Temple, he is greeted by his companion, a member of the Temple who will accompany him at all times. He is ritually bathed, purified and dressed in preparation for meeting the oracle. Most temples encourage fasting. When the appointed time arrives, the companion gives the supplicant a ceremonial wafer dosed with a hallucinogen (traditionally Dream Nymph, but as that’s a dangerous poison, some temples use a more mild hallucinogen; see B440), and then guides him into the bowels beneath the temple where the Oracle awaits him. To reach her, he must pass through corridors full of symbolic imagery and at least one veil. The exact course depends on the message the temple wishes to give the supplicant (which may be political rather than mystical, something like “Look how powerful we are” or “Behold how much you need us”).

Finally, he stands before the Oracle. She usually sits upon a chair, tripod or throne, often in a room full of vapors. She gives a dramatic display in telling the supplicant the answer to his question (Performance or Religious Ritual). Usually, the temple divines the truth in advance, as the best precognition occurs in silent sensory deprivation chambers. Once the truth is known, the temple then usually decides what they want to tell the supplicant, and the Oracle focuses more on the impact of her performance than on how correct the answer is.

The real purpose of the entire affair is to put the supplicant on the right path. Thus, a man might ask “Who should I marry?” The order then turns their attention to his future and divines how they might answer his question in such a way to best help the Order. For example, if he tricks a local duchess into believing that he’s noble and marries her, he might have a miserable marriage and die to assassination, but their child would be an important hero in the future. And thus, they’ll couch the prophecy in revealing his “lost” aristocratic bloodline, in convincing him to rule, and in setting him on a path where he will meet the duchess, and gives him clues so as to recognize her as the woman he should marry.

Matchmaking and Marriage

Matchmaking is such a common question that the Oracles generally don’t accept such questions, and instead take a pro-active approach. A whole branch of the Akashic Order dedicates itself to keeping tabs on the bloodlines and eugenic traits of the various houses. These “Matchmakers” regularly go out and visit noble houses and consult on the viability of particular matches. These matchmakers tend to be low ranking members of the Akashic Order and might not even be psionic, and do not wear veils. They consult on the genetics of proposed matches and even propose matches to houses that seek them.

Oracles do investigate good matches. Generally, far-seeing oracles will have found particular people in the future that they wish to ensure will come into existence, and the oracle and matchmakers will work together to trace a bloodline lineage to the prophesied child, the Oracle working from the future backwards, and the matchmakers working from the present forward. Once the right matches have been found, the matchmakers will propose the matches and if that doesn’t work, the whole Akashic Order may begin to leverage their influence to push for a particular match. As such, traditionally, one accepted a proposed match from a matchmaker on principle, because one never knew when the entire Akashic Order would throw its weight behind the match.

The Akashic Order does not need to oversee wedding, but the nobility likes their stamp of approval, so a matchmaker will usually attend. They like to use the symbolism of the princess and the knight, the chains of the vow made between the two, and veiling the bride, to represent her innocence and purity. Sometimes, an Oracle will arrive to oversee the wedding, a veiled figure who stands apart from the proceedings as a silent witness. At the end of the ceremony, she might foretell the results of the marriage (usually highlighting the glamorous elements of their coming life, rather than pronouncing doom and gloom).

Note that in the modern Alliance, matchmakers and oracles still exist, but in far fewer numbers and without the influence they had before. Many disregard their advice (and bloodlines decay as a result) and even those who wish to consult with Akashic matchmakers are often unable to find any. “Traditional” Akashic weddings are rare

Judgment

The Akashic Oracles have their roots in psychic criminal investigation, and have a long tradition of predicting crime before it occurs. When an Akashic Oracle uncovers a crime that matters in the context of the Coming Storm, the order will duly note the prophecy and then move into action. The Akashic Order accepts the sovereignty of the aristocracy, and thus leaves it to them to practice law enforcement, but in extreme cases, the Akashic Order will turn up on a noble’s doorstep with a fully veiled and ceremonially garbed Oracle, who pronounces the wickedness of a particular person and demands a specific punishment. As always, the punishment is meant to not only prevent the crime, but to push the rest of society in a particular direction. At times in the past, the Akashic Order has even condemned the innocent because doing so had an important and beneficial impact on the future.

Initiation

Initiation greatly resembles supplication. It begins with a request, the arrival at the temple, the assigning of a companion, purification, ritual garments, the ceremonial wafer and then being guided into the bowels of the temple.

Thereupon it changes, depending on the level of initiation. The Akashic Order has three levels of initation. The first, lesser initiation or noble initiation, either initiates someone as a member of the Akashic Order, or inducts a noble into the “true” mysteries of the Akashic Order and “gives him his purpose.” Traditionally, all ruling nobles underwent the noble initiation, but in the Alliance few bother. Note that this step is not necessary to consider oneself a follower of the Akashic Mysteries; it is, instead, the “next step,” closer to a pilgrimage than a baptism, an optional step that shows intense devotion, or a mandatory step for those who wish to join the religious organization and gain Religious Rank.

The Greater Initiation, or the Akashic Initiation, is open only to precognitives who have undergone the lesser initiation and serve the Akashic Order. It reveals the Akashic Record to the initiate. This step makes one an Akashic Oracle, and is necessary to learn the how to read Deep Time.

The Final Initiation, also called the Shadow Initiation or the Dying, can only be undertaken by predestined oracles who have undergone the Akashic Initiation and have seen the Akashic Record or by someone the Shadow Council wants as their personal assistant. This inducts them into the Shadow Council, the ruling body of the Akashic Order.

A lesser initiate is guided past a veil and into a chamber full of imagery of the Devils of Persephone. There he must prove his worth. The initiate is questioned. The priest demands the initiate answer his name and purpose and then tests the initiates knowledge of Akashic Theology (a basic Theology test at between +0 to +4, usually questions about basic imagery). If the supplicant passes, he must sacrifice. The Priest tests the initiate’s conviction with a test of pain using a ceremonial variant of a neurolash. The target must pass a Will roll at between -0 to -4. Fanaticism applies its usual +3, while High Pain Threshold halves the penalty. If he passes, he makes a vow of secrecy to never reveal what he is shown in the initiation.

If the initiate passes, his companion guides him past the next set of veils, to a room with labyrinthine imagery. There, a priest or priestess reveals symbols pertinent to the initiate, most commonly a small symbolic chain, flowers, and tokens etched with more abstract symbols. Akashic Knights receive their force sword at this time. The priest or priestess accompanies these revelations with seemingly nonsensical pronouncements that, in fact, illustrate something of the initiate’s future, and how that future is symbolized in the symbols shown here.

Then the Companion guides the initiate past a third set of veils to a room where an oracle stands before an image of the Akashic Record. The Companion instructs the supplicant and she pronounces his purpose, the role he plays in the Akashic Mysteries. Then, the Companion instructs the initiate in the words and actions he must say and perform in the Akashic Mystery.

Finally, the Companion guides the initiate past the final set of veils, returning him to the chamber of Devils. There, he must speak the words and perform the ceremonial actions (Religious Ritual at +4) to be allowed out. If the character fails, the Companion couches him quietly until he gets it right, and then he’s allowed to leave.

The Akashic Initiation matches the Noble Initiation, but in place of an oracle, the third chamber has a sensory deprivation chamber or a pool in which the would-be oracle must float The previous steps only prepare her for the rigors of the true test, which begins now. Her companion guides her into the trance necessary to find the astral space in which the Labyrinth of Time resides, and the initiate must locate and read the Akashic Record. The exact rule for this are left up to the GM: it might be a roll of the Prognostication skill, or it might be Akashic Theology with a bonus from ESP talent, or the GM might play out a highly symbolic astral adventure. If the character fails to find the Akashic Record, most of the time, they’re lost in the labyrinth and never return, becoming comatose. A few simply retreat in terror from the experience, and any oracle can tell at a glance whether the character has read the Akashic Record.

The Final Initiation resembles the lesser initiation, except the third chamber is the Shadow Council Chamber itself, and the Shadow Initiate “never returns.” After introducing herself to her fellow Shadow Councilors, she is allowed to leave an enter via a secret passage that all Shadow Initiates use to enter the Shadow Council Chamber, and thus does not “return” to the original chamber as in the other two forms of initiation.

The Akashic Mystery

The Akashic Mystery is a mass ceremony held every 4 Persephone years. The Akashic Order invites attendees, who must be initiates in the Akashic Mystery. As with the supplication, each attendee receives a companion, is ritually purified, given a ceremonial wafer, etc, and then brought to a vast chamber.

An oracle conducts the Mystery. First, she reveals powerful symbols and speaks a prophecy for the coming four years using those symbols. Then she conducts a grand play in which all attendees must play out the role given to them during their initiation. They use the symbols given to them, perform the actions taught to them, and speak the words told to them during their initiation, as directed by their Companion and the Oracle. This grand play reminds them of the role they play, casts their lives as but parts in the grand Akashic Mystery, and gives them insights into what they must do for the coming period of four years.

Afterwords, the Akashic Order treats everyone to a grand feast; the Akashic Order accepts donations from the nobles attending, and most nobles make a point of trying to one up one another by bringing the greatest foods they can, or so it was during the height of the Akashic Order’s influence. Modern Akashic Mysteries are much more somber affairs.

The Cultural Context of the Akashic Mysteries

The Akashic Mysteries deeply tied to the Maradon culture and its rise to Galactic dominion.  The roots of the Akashic Mysteries lie in the Maradon culture's ancestral legacy of psionics, eugenics, and the discoveries made on the new world of Persephone.

Neo-Rational Symbolism and Ceremonies

Neo-Rationalists tend to be less formal than other philosophies. They lack strict organizations and what passes for Neo-Rationalism tends to change based on what is currently fashionable among the intellectual elite, united only by the Rationalist Canon and its antecedents. Neo-Rationalists do like ways to display their rational piety and to hone their minds, however, and so ceremonial actions do occasionally become popular and widespread.

Aristocratic Culture

This is a bit of a last-minute addition.  When I wrote the Alliance, I finished it up and released it to my Patrons and then put all the posts up in advance.  Then, as my patrons read it, I got some feedback and one of the things I realized was that I lacked aristocratic culture.  What to aristocrats do with their spare time? How does one woo an aristocratic girl?  What offends and what does obligation demand you do? I've touched on some of these already, but I wanted to expand on those elements.

What I have turns out to be quite a bit of material, perhaps too much material.  I'd love your feedback on what you found useful and what you didn't.  In the meantime, though, enjoy, and I hope this gives you a better vision of how the Alliance feels, at least from the perspective of an aristocrat.

After all, what's the point of playing a space aristocrat if you can't go to a space gala, get your space knickers in a twist because someone said something mean about one of your ancestors, then lose the girl you were trying to woo to some space jock, and then challenge him to a duel and accidentally kill him, right?

Patreon Double Trouble: the Names of Humanity and Building Imperial NPCs

Today, I've got not one, but two, Patreon posts!  In the first, I've got the Names of Humanity, a proposed expanded list of the generic sci-fi names offered in Iteration 5.  These include a brief discussion of the various "ethnicities" of humanity in Psi-Wars, and where the original culture groups came from ages ago, to create a cohesive set of names, as well as a discussion of how to mix and match them.  Hopefully, this gives you plenty of ideas on how to name your characters.  The Names of Humanity is available right now to all $3+ patrons (and no, you're not crazy, back in the State of the Patreon I argued that this would be a $1+, but in retrospect, it's less of an aside or generic article, and more of a preview of coming Psi-Wars material, so thus appropriate for $3+.  I hope this change does not offend!)

Next, I have Building Imperial NPCs, an open invitation to all $7+ patrons (my Disciples) to contribute to the Empire by creating your own NPCs.  I've included instructions, what I'm looking for and what I'm not, as well as questions and real or fictional characters to inspire you.
Go and take a look!  If you're not a patron, as usual, I'd love to have you!

A Psi-Wars Cultural Checklist

The point of all of the previous posts in this mini-series is to give you ideas on what do for a new and unusual culture in your setting.  The point of an unusual culture in psi-wars is to remind the players that they're in an alien setting.  It should be filled with aliens clicking their prayer beads while chanting mantras in foreign languages, or a tattooed savage looking to trade exotic fire weasels for much needed survival supplies.  Star Wars is a very cosmopolitan setting, where aliens can be regularly found off-world, rubbing shoulders and mingling with one another, rather than the more segregated sci-fi settings, like Star Trek. Thus,we should be ready to conjure up a new alien culture at the drop of a hat.

But those cultures don't have the be terribly unusual.  In such a cosmopolitan setting, many cultures will have already rubbed their traditions off on each other.  In the real world, everyone from the US to Europe to Japan and China know who "Iron Man" is, and most of them at least know what Christmas is, even if they don't all celebrate it.  Girls wear skirts and high heels, men wear suits and ties, and everyone can wear a t-shirt and jeans.  We might expect something similar of our Psi-Wars cultures. Some cultures might remain distinct and unusual, but only so far as to give local flavor (the British have different accents and food than Americans, but they're not so alien that they inflict a cultural familiarity penalty).  For most "local color" like this, I recommend no more than about three distancing mechanisms.

However, some cultures remain extremely distinct.  Sometimes, these cultures represent entire cultural spheres.  The "Sinosphere," or the area around China, all use Chinese characters to some extent, and know works like the Romance of the Three Kingdoms or the works of Confucious.  They're well-versed in the ideas of Buddhism, at least, and often Confucianism or Daoism.  They tend to favor cuisine featuring rice and noodles and using chopsticks to eat.  They tend to share values too, to some extent.  Someone from Vietnam travelling to Korea will definitely have to deal with some local differences (the language, at least, will be different), but he'll still find things far more understandable than if he flies to Boston or Paris.  There might be a Cultural Familiarity penalty between the West and the Sinosphere, but not between two places within the Sinosphere or the West.  Likewise, Psi-Wars might have something similar, where you have a "galactic core" culture that's different from the culture of a particular galactic arm, like the difference in Star Wars between Imperial space and Hutt space.

Some cultures remain distinct and unusual within a given cultural sphere.  This might be the result of strength, or of colonization, but it could just be a distinct minority that clings carefully to its traditions.  Jews, throughout history, have often been this sort of culture, interfacing well with outside cultures, while remaining inscrutable to those outside cultures.  Such a culture might have a cultural familiarity penalty while its adherents have purchased Cultural Familiarity with the local dominant culture.

In the case of a genuinely distinct culture, one that inflicts a cultural familiarity penalty, I recommend at least 3 cultural differences, and at least one value that contrasts with the "Galactic Standard society" that explains the fundamental distinctness of the culture.  You can certainly do more than this, but be careful with going crazy, unless you and your players particularly enjoy deep cultural exploration or really exotic cultures. Whatever you design, you have to remember, maintain and run.

The Philosophy (and Religion) of Psi-Wars

Philosophy is devoted to rational discourse, whereas mysticism tries to reach beyond the limits of reason to what cannot be said or even thought.
- Peter Adamson, the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps

(Philosphy) particularly suits a martial-arts campaign in which the character knows combat skills with different (and even antagonistic) spiritual teachings; by adopting both schools' philosophical teachings, they may be combined without conflict.
-GURPS Compendium I

In Psi-Wars, I've chosen to use the Philosophy skill where I should probably use Theology. I've done this, first, as a legacy of GURPS 3e, where "Theology" has a Western connotation (Catholicism is studied with theology not philosophy), while "Philosophy" has an Eastern connotation (Buddhism is studied with philosophy not theology).  I suspect 4e would disagree and suggest that all religion is theology and rational discourse about the nature of reality is covered with philosophy.  Furthermore, Philosophy suggests a state of mind, which is more important to a game about psionic powers.  While Communion is definitely inspired by, and carries the trappings of, religion, it is in fact a highly psionic phenomenon, and understanding it carries the same sorts of approach that understanding natural philosophy might.  Which brings us to the blurry line between philosophy and theology, in that both traditions have defined a culture's worldview, often discussed the nature of God, ethics, morality, the meaning of existence, the immortality of souls, and so on.  Theology and philosophy often informed one another, and throughout much of history, except for artificial distinctions ("Philosophy is Greek, Theology is Islamic"), they represented a similar sort of body of knowledge.  Thus, for my purposes, I'm going to largely treat them as the same, but we must realize that they are not the same.  Philosophy arms its adherents with the logical skills necessary to pursue an argument to its natural conclusion, while theology concerns itself more with an understanding of a body of religious doctrines, texts and laws.

If we look at religion and philosophy both as a way of viewing the world, then we can see the common ground more clearly between the two, and we understand their place as a distancing mechanism.  We're describing through what lens a culture views the world, how they choose to describe it, and the points of agreement all in a culture have (and the fault lines of their most common arguments). Religion in particular is a major touchstone for a culture.  It contains all the rites and traditions associated with a culture: If people go to mass on Sundays and dress "their Sunday best" and attend the same weddings, they begin to form a community, a specific community that might not contain those who follow other beliefs.  A common refrain to describe this is "belonging before believing," an idea that people  join a community before they come to accept its deepest teachings.  Philosophy doesn't necessarily contain this sort of power, though some communities definitely rise up around philosophies (such as the Marxist commune or various attempts to create Libertarian communities).  Nonetheless, I'm going to attempt to discuss both at once.

I'm going to do this so that I can use the excellent GURPS Religion, which to this day remains one of my favorite books from the 3e days and is still very much relevant today.  We'll have a few troubles with it, namely that we're using a sci-fi setting which has some specific issues (though Religion does touch on those), that what we're describing isn't entirely religious in nature, and that GURPS Religion must necessarily be limited in scope, but I'll try to add what I've learned from my various forays into the world of Philosophy and Theology.

I'll tackle religious creation here the same way I did Social Engineering a few days back: the book itself is "good enough" without further commentary, but I'd like to post more than just "Here you go, use this book!"  So I'll walk through the Religion Creation Checklist with you, to give you an idea of what points to hit and what points you might skip, and where major questions might arise.

The Ways of Psi-Wars: Cultures and their values and literature

Most of the distancing mechanisms we've discussed have, ultimately, been very superficial:  how a culture dresses, how a culture plays, how a culture speaks.  When you peel back the surface, though, you'll start to see that all of these things are just expressions of what a culture values, which itself is often shaped by its experience with the world (though it often sees those experiences through the lens of its values, so this cuts both ways)

I began this series with language and I'm going to end with religion ("philosophy"), because, to me, these are the two ultimate expressions of culture.  Language describes not just how a culture speaks,but how it thinks and how it formulates what it thinks, how it expresses it.  Its religion enshrines what it believes, how it sees the world, and how it comes together as a community.

I want to restate, before I go any further, that the intent in Psi-Wars isn't an in-depth exploration of culture.  Psi-Wars is not Anthropologists In Spaaaace, but a crazy action game.  The intent here is to rapidly conjure up a sufficiently interesting species that someone could play them, or they could pose an interesting challenge to a group (for example, a diplomat who is trying to negotiate for an alliance against the Empire).  The point of values is to get at the heart of how a culture thinks, to make the rest of your design organic, but you can just as easily turn it the other way around.  If you have a street-savvy race with a weird dialect and a penchant for extremely colorful clothes, and someone decides they want to play as them, then it might be worth going back and pondering why the race thinks as it does.

It's also worth pointing out that Psi-Wars will feature a few major elements, like the Empire, the Alliance, and the remnants of whatever culture existed before the two fractured into their sprawling, galactic civil war.  Not every "alien culture" actually features aliens.  Our weird, distant culture is often human... though we need to be careful not to make them too weird!

Leisure in Psi Wars Part 2: Fun and Games

In designing our distancing mechanisms, we need to be careful not to clutter up our setting.  The point of Psi-Wars isn't to explore exotic cultures, but to have exotic cultures as a backdrop for a vast galactic war.  For the most part, the exact nature of these don't matter.  The weird, bug-eyed guy speaks weird gibberish and drinks a weird drink and listens to weird music and, for the most part, that's enough.

Sometimes, however, players will want or need to participate in the weird activity.  This is true of dancing, where knowing the right moves can impress a space princess, and it's definitely true of sports and games, where the plot might turn on the outcome of a game.

Like all other distancing mechanisms, we expect our sports and games to be something exotic and unusual, even if we draw our initial inspiration from a real world sport of game.  But we need to know how our hero might participate in a particular event, and how he might win, especially if the plot turns on that.  At the same time, it's Psi-Wars, not Space Poker, so we need to keep our detail to a minimum.

So what is there to do around here? Leisure and Art in Psi-Wars

For a lot of people "Culture" means the fine arts: ballet, museums full of beautiful paintings, exquisite sculptures and the height of fashion.  Thus, if we speak of a "cultural familiarity," some might expect that this would include at least some discussion of these elements.  In a sense, that's true.  These represent how a culture decorates their environment and themselves, and what they do when they've got time on their hands.  It's also profoundly associated with what they value.  A highly religious culture might exclusively paint iconography or forbid any painting whatsoever!  Another heroic culture might love to retell the stories of their great heroes and features them, performing great deeds, in their art.  Another culture, favoring freedom and self-expression, might routinely challenge all assumptions about what art even is.

For this post, I'm going to skip the discussion of values, but it's something I'll come back to, as it's very fundamental.  What's important to understand here is that art expresses values.

Like food and language and virtually everything else cultural, art and leisure also expresses status.  More expensive art and leisure activities tend to be the exclusive domain of the wealthy, who may well flaunt their collections or knowledge just to display their status for others.  The poor might not be able to do this, or might make of  point of conspicuously avoiding excessive consumption by sticking to cheaper or more practical tasks.

Fine Dining in Psi-Wars: Cuisine and Intoxicants

"So, what are we eating?"

Ever played in an RPG where someone's in a tavern and he goes to order food, then stops and asks what he's ordering?  What indeed!  In a fantasy game, we can just hand-wave away something like turkey legs and beer, but if we're in an exotic location, especially a sci-fi one, players expect that their character's aren't ordering a burger and fries.  What does one eat in Psi-Wars?

The answer should change from region to region.  Rafari's people live off the bounty of his planet and understand what it brings.  Dun's homeworld, Grist, likely offers food as appetizing as its name ("You haven't lived until you've tried fried Chort on a stick from a street vendor." "Chort... isn't that a kind of sewer crab?" "Well, we have to do something with them!").  Like all the rest of our distancing mechanisms, we can use food to push the characters farther from their comfort zone.  In the core, we might have familiar foods, like space burgers with space fries, but on the rim, nothing is recognizable.

Mostly, this just matters for flavor. It's nice to know what people can order, to be able to offer a few quick names and descriptions, but cuisine serves many roles in a setting.  It can act as social lubricant.  What is Carousing or Connoissuer without the right beer or wine?  It can also act as a unique sort of goal ("Where's the cocaine shipment?"), and it can present danger (being drunk during a raid, or working out where to get food while starving on a world).  While we need names and descriptions, sometimes, we need mechanics too!

Psi-Wars Economics: Trade, Exotic Resources and Money

First Ship of the Year by Dress-7

We've already touched on Psi-Wars economics when we looked at Psi-Wars infrastructure.  This time, I'm going to get into a little more specifics, but not too much, for two reasons.  First of all, nobody cares.  That is, Psi-Wars is not a game about counting coins and worrying about trade runs (though you're free to hack such a game out of the Psi-Wars framework).  Rather, we need to know the economics of Psi-Wars so we know what to say we're smuggling, or so we can give bits of flavor and color.  What do we call hyperdrive fuel?  Why would pirates hit that shipment and not some other one?  What do we call money?  And what's for dinner?

Psi-Wars Linguistics

Whoa, lady, I only speak two languages, English and bad English.-Korben Dallas, the Fifth Element

In a campaign, language diversity has two main functions. It provides an obstacle; when explorers encounter a new race, they may not be able to communicate. It also is a source of color; a nonhuman, or a human from a different culture, may have an accent, or a strange way of phrasing things.
-Bill Stoddard, GURPS Fantasy, page 66 

Nobody gives a damn that the alien is speaking twi'lek, except for description. The times where language mattered in Star Wars can be limited to one time in the entire series. C3PO wasted his points on buying 6 million forms of communication.
-Raoul Roulaux, Gentleman Gamer

Raoul is largely right about Star Wars and language.  Where Star Trek or Game of Thrones have internally consistent and largely speakable languages, Star Wars has a series of funny sounds that only sounds like an alien language.  The point of language in Star Wars is like all the other distancing mechanisms in Star Wars: to provide the window dressing of space opera. We expect aliens to speak alien (it would be "unrealistic" for them to speak English), so they jabber on in alien-sounding gibberish.

That doesn't mean we have to do the same in Psi-Wars, of course.  Language serves a purpose, as Bill Stoddard points out.  Moreover, Psi-Wars is based on Action, and Action definitely features language (though often in largely the same way that Star Wars does: It's important that the Middle Eastern terrorist shout things that sound Arabic, to be "realistic" but it's not that important that he's speaking comprehensible Arabic).  Finally, the reasons Star Wars has funny languages remain important.  We still need aliens to sound alien, we still need exotic things to sound exotic, and we still need to give the impression of a sweeping galaxy.

Socially Engineering Psi-Wars: Distancing Mechanisms

The GM’s most important trick in this kind of campaign
is distancing mechanisms: situations, customs, or objects that
are alien and perplexing, both to the PCs and to the players.
It’s best if they aren’t just random weirdness. Not only is it
“playing fair” to come up with logical reasons, working out
the implications of a premise can suggest additional weird
elements, deepening the effect. A campaign of this sort is a
riddle for the players; when they start anticipating the consequences of their characters’ actions, they’ve answered the riddle. At that point – and not before – it’s appropriate for them to buy Cultural Familiarity, freeing their characters of skill
penalties for not knowing how things work.
-Bill Stoddard, GURPS Social Engineering

 This singular paragraph will be the core of most of what I'm doing during this iteration, so let me parse what Mr. Stoddard is talking about.

An alien race, or a strange setting, should feel alien or strange, and that means not everything should work the way it does in our ordinary world.  The whole point of science fiction and fantasy is to visit and explore new and unusual worlds.  They might have a sense of familiarity, but to have a sense of authenticity, something should be alien about them. There should be some element (a mechanism) that helps separate (distance) this "exotic world" from the "ordinary world" that players are more familiar with.

Ideally, these mechanics should logically flow from the nature of the world the players find themselves in. In Dune for example, the natives, the Fremen, have completely blue eyes, obsess over water and worship the sand worms.  This makes sense, though, because the planet is a desert and spice, which causes blue eyes, is one of the few sources of nutrients on the planet.  Once someone understands the logic that underlies the culture of the Fremen makes perfect, internally consistent sense.

These distancing mechanisms represent the hurdle to socializing with another culture.  That is, they are the crux of why you have a -3 for socializing with someone with whom you do not share Cultural Familiarity.  Once you understand the logic of the culture, you have bridged the "distance" and you may purchase Cultural Familiarity.