ZEITGEIST Adventures in ZEITGEIST setting book now available (formerly an announcement of the Level Up Kickstarter)

[efreund]

I don't think I ever planned what its original trait would've been. Maybe make it something related to storms?

In adv12, it makes it clear that Avilona used to be (metaphysically at least) an Eagle. And now the Eagle has died.

So riffing off of that, maybe everyone can see really far? (i.e. the world doesn't need telescopes)

 

[arkwright]

I'd probably just keep it simple. Original trait: 'long-lasting, high-speed flight is easy.' I seem to recall that there was a thing in the books or that you told me, Ryan, that pre-Skyfall the dragons could fly at hundreds of miles per hour.

 

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

It would have to be something that would be easy to overlook.

 

[RangerWickett]

Update 16 February 2022 - Adventures in ZEITGEIST is now available!
I wanted to post a bump in the EN Pub forum, but we're trying to direct discussion at first to this thread: ZEITGEIST - Adventures in ZEITGEIST is here!

Thanks! I look forward to any questions, flattery, or insults you may have. And if anyone needs help planning new adventures in the ZEITGEIST setting, I'd love to help brainstorm and scheme!

 

[hirou]

I was very pleasantly surprised yesterday, I didn't realize they were this close to being finished!
There are bunch of weird bookmarks in the end of the pdf file, is this just me?

EDIT: btw, does "The Truth about Axis Island" point to something in particular from gideonpepys campaign? I'm afraid I didn't read it in full. Just from the text I got vibes that

Spoiler

Voice of Rot was a literal word-made-manifest in ages past, and was somehow incorporated in the new Seal

, which may or may not influence my own campaign now.

 

[RangerWickett]

No, the 'unspeakable word' mentioned in that spoiler section ("There is a word that is not written in this book, a word that twenty years ago every person in the world knew, but now all but a handful have forgotten.") starts with an O.

 

[skotothalamos]

No, the 'unspeakable word' mentioned in that spoiler section ("There is a word that is not written in this book, a word that twenty years ago every person in the world knew, but now all but a handful have forgotten.") starts with an O.

Oddcog, obviously.

 

[Crispy120286]

I recently purchased adventures in zeitgeist. I love it. Very well done! Now i have no intentions of ever running it in 5e. I do however love he setting materials.

I have one question on Planarite. Is that a recent invention? As in post Gears od Revolution discovery? I dont recall it ever being mentioned.

Id love to use it in my campaign. I just restarted my campaign with Fate Core. Same characters as before. One character, Kieran Oddcog, who was an alchemist technologist in pathfinder, would be very interested in planarite and could use it to pioneer the new branch of science called Arctech.

Right now we are about a week past the Colossus attack on Flint. Im running a few interrim sessions before theyre sent away to Ber. How would you suggest discovery of Planarite? Or perhaps someone who has been researching it? One idea i have is Kieran was recently given the title of Royal Technologist by King Aodhan and with it he is getting a laboratory. He will get the old Pemberton Technologies building in Pardwright. Maybe Pemberton left some stuff behind in his haste to leave? So far Kieran loves Pemberton and he's always treated the party well, i cant wait for the ending of this module for the big reveal.

 

[RangerWickett]

'Planarite' is terminology we realized we could use to distinguish between 'realistic' technology and magical technology, and to justify why the setting isn't overrun by airships or robots. The idea is for them to be a sort of resource that the Narrator can use as a Macguffin if someone wants to build neat steampunky tech, but which you can easily say, "Sorry, there's enough of it for this one cool machine, but not enough for society to mass produce this technology."

Like, normal matter is made up of protons, electrons, and neutrons. Planarite adds in other components (which I don't plan to fully codify because I'm not clever enough). Maybe it's other literal elements, like Time is literally an atomic element. Or more interestingly, stuff like tachyons (time), planckions (space), pyrons (fire), etc. are fundamental particles (akin to quarks and leptons and other stuff more complicated than what they taught me in high school). Certain types of matter might have a mix of normal baryons (protons, neutrons, electrons) and planons (the 8 elemental energies).

So by 522 AOV, the scholars of Lanjyr are realizing that by studying these base components, and learning to detect them, they can identify materials that can create magical properties. As chapter 3 points out, witchoil and firegems are planarite, and people have used them for a long time without really understanding the deep root level chemistry of them (or maybe the alchemy). There are other types too that are less common to find, or which aren't as easy to make.

As for your game, the Pemberton idea could work, though I think Tinker Oddcog fits better for the paradigm-shift level of innovation we're talking. Maybe in the ruins of the Ob facility in Cauldron Hill, Kieran can stumble upon a half-completed thesis that postulates an 8-planon framework, and which has identified the atomic structure of firegems and witchoil, with a hypothesis that others could exist too, and that they're actually the building blocks of magic.

---

To be clear, I'd never use this sort of codified spell physics system in a lot of games, but I think it could fit the vibe of ZEITGEIST. Of course, it's also possible that this codification only really works while Jiese is around, and in other parts of the multiverse reality is a messy soup instead of a beautifully-faceted crystal.

 

[arkwright]

Planarite is solidified elemental matter/mana. The Coaltongue's firegems are planarite, Nalaam's magic crystals are planarite, witchoil is planarite. Just a convenient generic term, and a useful one given how important the planes are to the setting.