Despite the fact that Dawning Star is
designed as a relatively firm sci-fi setting (it's not hard sci-fi
but there isn't readily available artificial gravity, FTL travel,
anti-gravity repulsors, etc), we wanted to have psionics as part of
the setting since... well, psionics are cool. However, we didn't
just want to make some weak explanation that humans mutate or some
such and develop psionics; we wanted it to be something more unsual,
involved, and ultimately terrible. The concept did not really
coalesce until I was working on Helios Rising where I wanted to do a
haunted space station location, but we don't have ghosts. So I came
up with the idea of information ghosts, corporeal begins who had been
reduced to the information that described their body and mind, and
that were able to survive on an alternate level of reality where only
information exists. This level of reality ended up being called Red
Truth because I use color naming as a reoccurring structure in
Dawning Star and because the ultimate truths of the universe could be
seen in Red Truth, if your mind was strong enough to find them.
Red Truth grew from there. In it's
final form, Red Truth is a different layer of reality that is
normally separate and invisible to ours. Certain beings can learn to
perceive Red Truth, and thereby gain extranormal amounts of
information about their surroundings. For example, if someone looks
at a table in Red Truth they can easily discern it's exact height,
weight, chemical makeup, etc. With some more effort and skill they
can sift through the information to see where it was made, or even
who touched it last. The problem is the mind of sentient beings were
not designed to perceive Red Truth, and it tends to overload the
minds of those who touch it. Thus Red Truth can inflict serious
mental stress and trauma and those who regularly expose themselves to
it. Also if Red Truth is accessed too much in a given area, the
barrier between our level of reality and Red Truth can weaken,
allowing Red Truth to infect our reality, casting a dull red glow
over the area with no obvious source. It is a virulent infection,
almost as if Red Truth wants to come into our level of reality.
Reports of creatures living in Red Truth in the information dead
space between stars, consuming all information they can, are surely
just rumors.
Also as a side note, there are truths
(i.e. levels of reality) beyond Red Truth if various legends from
more perceptive species are to be believed. According to yaom
legend, Yellow Truth has a king that rules it that hungers for
madness, while Black Truth is where the spirits of the dead wait for
this universe to end and the next one to start. Of course these are
just legends.
So what does all this mean for FATE
Dawning Star?
Red Truth in Dawning Star is
represented by a skill that allows characters to gain normally
impossible information from their surroundings. Stunts allow
additional uses of the skill, such as reading minds, blocking
information from others (effectively blinding them), wiping out
information in solid forms (books, computer drives, etc) with a
touch, store vast amounts of information, and so on all the way up to
actively editing information in Red Truth so to move objects, ignite
fires, or bend the minds of others to your will.
Unlike other skills, most characters
cannot use Red Truth at all; it is not ranked at Fair as a default,
but instead is not ranked at all. The vast, overwhelming majority of
sentient life has no ability to perceive Red Truth. Red Truth is an
incredibly rare talent that only a handful of species can access
naturally. These rare species start with Average Red Truth as one of
their racial skills, and can advance it and learn the related stunts
as normal. If the players of such characters plan on making Red
Truth a major skill for the character, should have some tie to Red
Truth in their high concept or trouble aspects.
Other species can learn to perceive Red
Truth, but only after massive mental trauma due to exposure to Red
Truth, such as a character suffering a severe consequence from
interactions with Red Truth. This would most often be caused by
staying too long in an area infected with Red Truth, or being subject
to attack via Red Truth by someone knowledgeable in its intricacies.
For such an event to have happened in the characters past before the
game, they must have an aspect that refers to it, which allows them
to assign skill points to Red Truth as normal. Otherwise they must
go through such exposure in game and afterward change one of their
aspects to note this event. The Red Truth exposure must be a
sufficiently harrowing experience that it marks the character for the
rest of his or her life for it to be severe enough to allow that
character to perceive Red Truth afterward.
My thought currently is to allow most
basic uses of Red Truth, such as just gathering physical information
about something, to occur with a normal challenge. More complex uses
of Red Truth, such as reading minds or psychometry would require the
expenditure of a fate point. More hostile uses of Red Truth, such as
editing information of a heavy rock to change its inertia and thus
throw it at someone, would require a contest and an expenditure of a
fate point. At any point a character could open themselves more
deeply to Red Truth instead of spending a fate point, but doing so
inflicts a consequence on the character. Some stunts may allow extra
Red Truth only consequences or such.
Locations can have Red Truth aspects if
it has begun bleeding into the area, creating a consequence that can
be used to add to most uses of the Red Truth skill. If characters
spend fate points over some threshold in a given area they may cause
an infection, or make an existing one worse, possibly adding or
changing the aspects present.
Red Truth and psionics in Dawning Star
are meant to be something that is powerful but terrible. Even the
races that can access Red Truth naturally fear it and do not well
understand it. So I'm hoping to make a system that promises great
power at great cost, and where choices may have unexpected
consequences.
I really dig the concept- The Red Truth is kind of the realm of the platonic ideal, and yet touches on the Lovecraftian "knowledge can be horror" theme.
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