In reply to Sapphire (msg # 116):

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Eventually much more information becomes available. The GOWLOTUS* sends out people to remove resistance communities "With Extreme Predjudice" because they are providing the energy the high lords want, and a few thousand people dying is just not as important as stopping that flow.

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Eventually, The Five Realms RPG will come out. This is one of the things people complained about and were happy to see removed from Eternity. Those people are...well, not "dead to me", but....

*Government Of What's Left Of The United States

Personally I think it is a bit early for this kind of information to be available, three months into the invasion 50% of people in Pure area and only 11% of people in Dominant area  are transformed. These number are high but considering most transformed are not looking to run because this is now their reality and it made sense. Add to that the fact that they need to transform again to suffer reality vanishing, I'd guess that at three month marker very few people vanished.

I'd guess with the war raging reports of people vanishing will be common, many people are missing many have lost contact with friends and families. IMO the catastrophic effect of double transforming is still unknown. Add to that that most of Core Earth are Dominant zone not Pure I'd guess it would take months for the full effect of vanishing to be understood.

I'd even hazard to guess that at this stage in the war, people are not even aware about the the fact there is transformation effect and not even about the impact of Axioms but this is just me :)

In the fiction (which is all very early days) it became clear early in the first book about the transformations. They are a major part of the story, and extremely 'in your face' and blatent.  And frankly terrifying.

In a population of 100m people (around the Alyse population I think... I'm probably underestimating, but then again a lot died) we are going to have around 15 million people tranformed. That's quite a lot of people! At the numbers you are talking about, everyone knows at least ten people that have transformed and are terrified that they are going to be next.

As for the people dying... That's probably going to be known too.  Lots of people will have fled. And in the words of the rule book: the results will often be fiery. If you 'only' have 100,000 people having fiery deaths even .. or perhaps especially ... in time of war that gets people's attention. Most of them will be blowing up in managed refugee camps.  Indonesia is a much bigger population (around six times as big), as is North Africa, and both have easy ways for people to flee

I wasn't going to 'know' about the transformations blowing up IC, but I'm happy to have been briefed. It makes it easier.

The other stuff about 'this is how the High Lords get their power'... I think that's up to the story. As The GM says there are powerful NPCs that have interacted personally with the High Lords (and survived) and come away with intelligence.

I think we will have to agree to disagree :)

I think that most of the high hit areas have a significant loss of communication from within the region. There are millions of people lost, dead missing and no clear civil authority to organize it (we are talking day 90).

I am going to hazard a guess that there are thousands if not ten thousands or more casualties every day. From exposure, hunger and disease, the US has been hit hard its ability to mobilize support was severely hampered. Most of the refugees would be people who are afraid the war is going to reach them soon, i.e. never been transformed, add to the fact that only a minor part of the transformed die (the chances of double transformation at day 90 are very low). I'd say at this time it should be a myth.

I mean the world suddenly have dragons, werewolves, pulp hero actions and cyberpunk priests there is an influx of rumors of weird happens and a the notion of people disappearing (fiery or not) is just one extra rumor hidden by a massive reports of death and destruction and weird occurrence.

Hmm, Pierre makes a study of this [Scholar(Reality) at +1] but I am currently working on 'he is aware that there can be a danger but not the extent of it'. The DGSE's main study population are French refugeeing into Germany or Spain (both pure zones) so yeah, fiery explosions are a thing. It is however the transformed (who usually have cyber) who blow up so they currently consider it a cyber thing. Moving from this to 'whole populations dying' has not yet (imao) happened.

And yes, he heaved a quiet sigh of relief when he failed to personally blow up when leaving France.

Disagree on which bit?

On the transformations occuring... read the fiction... read the published scenarios. The picture you paint isn't the picture in Alyse. Perhaps it is in the USA of course, but Sapphire is from Alyse.

On the exploding people. I think Pierre said it well. I only know about it because I've been briefed: it's not nearly as 'in your face' as people transforming.

On the 'powerful NPCs have told powerful government officials' that's part of the story. The NPCs the GM named are in the fiction. And I suspect we don't know IC or OOC yet.

I do genuinely get your point about the chaos and the transformations Ben: If I was GMing a game, I might run it that way. (I don't actually because in my game the exploding fireballs happen the second you cross into another cosm, so it is far far more obvious... and thanks again for making me aware it was a house rule). In this game though, we've been briefed (or at least some of us have).

@Pierre
Too right! Sapphire too! There was a reason she had to be voluntold, and that was half of the reason.

And your point about the cyber would be valid if it was just france. It's Alyse too, and every other Cosm. That wouldn't stop people putting two and two together and getting 22.

Disagree on how obvious it was and how common it was.

This is Apeiros game and his word is binding, I'll accept whatever he dicate.

However, the whole treatment of the fallout of the invasion IMO show how immature the game designer were. It is very easy to say million of people are refuges but it has consequences, if you want to look at a minor example from our world, look at the civil war in Syria and how it affect the country and the death rate (most of which didn't die in the fighting).

As for Aysle, my understanding was that the invasion was a bit different there. Uthorion was the Gaunt man servant and under Orrorsh reality. Since he wanted a Darkening device of his own he had to invade another reality and take it's device, so the invasion was very minimal (in term of reality alteration). The whole taking the body of the queen trick was to avoid transforming the Aysle reality but still working under its rules.

So I think there was a lot less transformation and reality storm when Aysle was taken.

I think I agree on the topic of the invasion and what would happen (and the naivety) And your point on Ultherion is valid too. But it's OK: the fiction is good. The game is good. A bit of suspension of disbelief (don't look too closely) and it's all fine.

@Alyse particularly smooth
I think the Nile Empire invasion went pretty smoothly too. Also Nippon Tech (incredibly smooth and stealthy as you would expect... infact is there an invasion at all?). The USA though ... that was a brutal invasion, as was Orrorsh. The Cyberpapacy... it kind of got derailed in mid invasion. And the reality there is crazy right now. Reality Storms everywhere


@How I feel about it
The first time I ran Torg I did 'it was a stealth invasion' and the governments were unaware. The players were preventing the invasion, rather than reacting to it. We had a lot of fun, and the invaders were repelled. We used the rules, and the settings, but there wasn't the need to do 'how would core earth respond' because it was all secret

This time I'm doing it much more 'NATO has been invaded, how would it respond'. I'm picking NATO because the USA, France, Belgium, Norway, Spain, UK... are all NATO.. and they all have been invaded. So the players are now NATO operatives (even the Orrorsh and Nile Empire operatives). I've made the timeline much tighter (1 month after start, not three months).. the world is reeling, unsure of what is happening. There is full militarisation, martial law, chaos outside the transformed regions. Most of the invasions have all stalled right now (from the events in the fiction) and core earth is able to react. The generals I've met have all been seriously impressive people (not like fiction / Hollywood at all), and I think in times of a war like this they would respond sensibly. (Goodbye democracy of course)

But I'm also doing the transformations much quicker: most people have already transformed... I did that because when they are transformed they accept the new world as the normal. That means that there isn't as much chaos in the conquered places: I didn't think I could write the chaos around a real war of this scale successfully. (That's why I ran the first one in stealth mode). Plus the fun of Torg is going to the conquered worlds who run a different society. With the transformations happening quickly, I can do that.

The downside to my approach is that everyone is part of a military structure and some people don't like that. But given the nature of 'Taskforce Storm' (an joint operation between Queen Ardinay and NATO) that's probably going to work out. Oh... and I will be knighting all the members of Taskforce Storm, and making them members of 'The Royal Order of the Storm' so they will in fact be Storm Knights.

All non-standard of course. I'm doing it this way because I don't have the skills needed to run it the way you describe (your comment about Syria for example)
This message was last edited by the player at 10:48, Fri 26 June 2020.

@Pierre

No bias here! Totally stating the facts as they are!

I think I’ll hold off on posting in the Magic and Myth thread until Apeiros weighs in on how much we know about transformation, Glories, stelae, etc. Have we been briefed on anything by whoever got us together? I’m still not quite sure if we’re working for the Delphi Council, or ad box for the US government, or for someone else. Or no one.

Are the days getting longer is it something I missed? or is it something on a need to know basis? :)

I would also suggest that our OOC differences of opinion here easily mirror IC differences of opinion.  And yes, I would absolutely say there's a high degree of "opinion" involved here, even though the topic at hand is a matter of facts.  Look at the current COVID-19 pandemic; its death rate is actually pretty comparable to the transformation table at 3 months, and we have some people arguing that it's all a conspiracy theory, others that it's the end of the world, others saying we haven't figured out all the details yet, and dozens of other very strong opinions about this perfectly real thing.

On top of having been told at least some of it, Sapphire also comes from Aysle, where accepting things at face value is the norm.  Ben has a much more complicated worldview.  So it makes perfect sense to me that Sapphire sees or hears about it once and decides, "Yep, this is a thing that happens," while Ben remains guarded against panicked rumors in the midst of a really weird invasion so if he's heard about someone just vanishing six weeks after being brought out as a savage, he'd likely figure, "Sure, they probably went back."  Because people don't just vanish, right?


Probably likewise on the days getting longer thing -- the GM did mention that it's happening, but I believe we're still at the "it's subtle" stage so some people might have noticed and many might not.  Especially out on a farm at the edge of the Living Land where tracking days gets fuzzy anyway.

First off, wow!  I thought I missed a week of this thread or something, but there's a lot of chatter from last night.



The way I always viewed is was that when crossing over a boarder, you may be affected by the boarder storm.  If you're a transformed Ord and the Reality Storm "attacks" the Ord, then POOF... they're gone.  If they make it through the storm, then I would apply the transformation rate table to them.

And no matter how much we agree or disagree, I'm so happy to have these conversations.  Discussing Reality Mechanics is so much fun!

Also, on the note of realism on how Core Earth reacts and refugees and death.  I don't think it was naivete necessarily.  One, it is a lot of work to figure out a global response to something.  Two, they touted Torg as a fun game where you're in an action movie that travels from genre setting to genre setting.  The darkness of the reality of an event like this doesn't fit into anything fun and adventurous.  Not that I wouldn't love to play a game like that... it's just not Torg.

Quick question that kind of relates because I'm getting different impressions from different people -- we are in the Living Land, right?  It was my understanding that that's how this whole farm works, taking advantage of the way things grow there to produce lots of food quickly and cheaply, while violating all kinds of local principals to think about things like crops and stuff, right?

So for instance, to use her laptop I'm assuming either we've set up a generator that periodically has to be replaced or that Koharu has been importing spare power supplies.  Or both.  But if I remember right, while a lot about transformation was harsher than it is in Eternity, in oTORG it was much easier to leave something alone for five minutes and still come back to it.  Am I remembering that right?  Or is that just wishful thinking because Koharu wants her laptop?  If I need to edit that to be a hand-written spreadsheet on far too many pieces of paper I can do that.

In reply to Koharu Saito (msg # 130):

Your laptop can transform or your pencils and paper can rot.  Either way.  :D

But yeah, I'm too lazy to look at my books, but I remember leaving things around taking longer to transform in Torg compared to Torg Eternity.  But then again, I could have just been running it wrong.

And yeah... The Living Land.  I forgot about that... I probably can't even see the sun directly if we're in the Living Land.  Hopefully the mist is light enough that I can pinpoint the sun's location.  :S

You can only pinpoint the quadrant that the sun is coming from, when in the deep mist. And not always

But we aren't there at the moment (I checked in a PM) we are still in core earth. The GM told me in a PM "until the adventure actually starts, you are in CE"

The time from sunset to sunrise you should be able to measure though: assuming we have a clock that works, and we have the social axioms good enough to use both the clock and the idea of being able to time things... Oh wait... we might not have... Good things we are Storm Knights

Thanks, Sapphire!  In CE, Koharu's post stands easily, and she's certainly much happier being on that side of the line.



Oh, dear.  That's a very good point.

...Koharu quits.  Good luck in there, all!


(Just to be clear, I'm kidding; I'm not really quitting rather than go in the Living Land!  But wow, it wouldn't be her first choice.  She might honestly prefer Orrorsh.)
This message was last edited by the player at 16:50, Fri 26 June 2020.

I refused point blank to go to the living land until I was Voluntold! And then of course I enthusiastically volunteered.

• IC I am frankly terrified of it. There is no magic. None. Not one little bit. So Elves get wasting disease and die
• OOC I am looking forwards to it a lot! I want to see how an Elf with lots of Life magic stacks up against the Edeinos and Dinosaurs :) Don't expect subtlety is all I can say ...

@Orrorsh
Hmm... er... hmm... I might need to be voluntold even harder... Like really harder...

Pft.  "Elves get wasting disease and die."

Where are your priorities?  My phone won't work!!!

:Soft whistling:

So my first expectations for the Mathematician being asked, in early to mid June, about days getting longer, was "Solstice is approaching." But, no, the actual number of hours in a day has been increasing. Like the mythical boiled frog, it has been a slow increase and y'all have been busy so it didn't register, but sometime in the next week, shortly before you drive into the LL to bring relief to the Farm communities and get food to bring out to feed refugees, the Earth will have stopped completely. The sun will be stuck over one spot in the Atlantic ocean. The Workbook describes what this will mean if someone doesn't fix it...

In reply to Apeiros (msg # 136):

I hope I didn't jump the gun too much :S

In reply to Matthew Matherson (msg # 137):

No, it was Great. I had spent 6 hours home early from work yesterday refreshing and hoping for posts in any of my online games, finally going to bed. Then first chance I get to look today and there was a postplosion! It was great, but I hadn't read your IC post before reacting to the OOC posts.

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Seriously, the following is deep level stuff; stuff many High Lord's don't even know, and even the Gaunt Man sees this as Mythology;
In the beginning there was only Eternity and The Void; and between them grew The Maelstrom, seething, constant creation and destruction, spinning endlessly with nothing escaping... untill two things did escape. Two ultimate beings of pure purpose. The Nameless One is Destruction personified, and Apeiros is the Avatar of Creation. Apeiros has taken a special and specific hand in this Cosm, which is extremely dangerous for it as the only goal a Darkness Device has is to destroy enough Possibilities to find Apeiros so The Nameless One can find it. Apeiros itself is behind this group forming in this place, at this time.

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So I've been rereading TORG revised and I have a question to all the TORG veterans out there.

How often rolls over 60 are? and how often Glory happens?

How often did the groups you were part off uprooted stella's (assuming you used the rules as are)?

Not often by default, but when we were 'lifting' we put effort into it.

You kind of need to have a natural 20/10 followed by a 10 or 20, then you play a card and a possibilty

So that's 1/100 rolls but there are a few of us. Perhaps 1/10 rounds of play. You could do it every few combats if you (as pierre said) were putting effort in