HD: The game of super-dimensional existence (Flatland meets Cyberpunk)

Introduction:

In search of the deep metric we enter the data stream. Time spreads out before us. The world stops its calm motion, the gravity well clinging to us as the chittering of the Caylings beats on our minds. Names, colors, dreams, desires, the world quakes, waiting.

The Quatrons:
    according to Sarah Keizel

First Quatron:
    Time
    The Well
    The Day
    The Poles

Second Quatron:
    Charge
    Mass
    Entropy
    Evolution

Third Quatron:
    Strangeness
    Charm
    Truth
    Beauty

Fourth Quatron:
    Color
    Name
    Dream
    Desire

Fifth Quatron:
    Metric
    Transformation
    Equivalence
    Existence
 

Information analysis was a nascent science around the turn of the millennium. The science of information analysis did not become what any of it's initial researches expected. With the development of immerse user interfaces, experiments where performed permitting a modulation of how data was perceived, allowing dimensions to be swapped in the three-dimensional interpretation of the system. As these experiments advanced, including more complex methods of overlaying high dimensional collections of information, strange phenomena began to occur to the users. Some seemed to have flashes where the world seemed to stand still. Others began to float or slide slowly, unaware of this odd motion. Most disturbing of all, some testers, disappeared completely.

The cause of this took years to fully discover. It seemed that there was a fundamental threshold of dimensionality, beyond which unpredictable changes to the user occurred. Most systems contained a firm lock, preventing excessive dimensionality, but still the occasional reports of strange phenomena increased. Cutting edge users would disappear, be turned inside-out, or vanish for ten minutes everyday. Often the survivors would appear insane by any external standard, and where committed to institutions, with other more mundane cases of information burn-out.

Then Sarah Keizel broke the barrier.

She had been experimenting with cutting edge systems, which had been determined illegal due to health risks. As her system was being shut down she suffered a slight maladjustment. In high-dimensionality experience there is a firm hierarchy that is always present, separating the higher dimensionality from lower dimensionality. It feels like a tension, pulling lightly at your mind and body. The higher you go, the stronger it gets. It's how you walk back down the ladder. Sarah suddenly reversed the ladder, and more importantly, realized she had done so. As her physical voice cried out to the police officers to stop shutting her down, they stopped. As did everything in a three block radius of her flat in Boston. In the ensuing calm, she escaped.

With Sarah, everything changed. She found that after her inversion, she had to constantly fight to keep hold of her lower dimensional perceptions. She would suddenly see the world in vast complexity, narrowly missing simple things, like oncoming traffic. Her flight, seeking answers is now the stuff of legends, and her eventual fate is unknown. Some claim she was taken by the Choir of Names that spoke with her in whispers during her journey. Some say she transcended beyond the finite dimensionality of this world. Others claim she was captured by some government, and is the center, willing or not, of secret experiments on and with those like her.

Regardless along the way she trained a handful, and they trained more, creating several disparate subcultures learning to understand the power of the higher dimensional states.
 

Character Creation:

1) Develop a Concept:

Choose a reason why your character was on the cutting edge of data manipulation. Was it thrill, curiosity, addiction, or just luck? How was she found by her mentor? Did he want to explore the Realms, decipher the mysteries of the Choir of Names, or use his new found perceptions for some more mundane goal? Do other people in her life know? Does his erratic behavior cause them concern? Who can she trust? What does he love? Where does she think she is headed? And what are his immediate goals?

2) Choose a Sponsor:

As far as anyone knows the only person who has ever learned to disjoin on her own is Sarah Keizel, the so-called Digital Messiah. She trained others to duplicate her discovery, and they trained still more. Who she was trained by forever clouds her way of disjoining, as well as her new perspective on the world. While he may have escaped the sponsor, their influence is still within him, and it is a constant struggle to see the world in ways beyond the sponsor's terms.
 
 
Sarah Keizel
Point of View: Those trained by Keizel often have an eclectic view of the Realms, and are often host to strange visitors. Her approach was often very tailored to the individual she was instructing. There is a strong sense in her training that others must be taught the disjoining. Often the world separates into those who will be taught, and those who can never learn.
Effects: Gain either Explain or Discern as a focus.
Members: There is no real organization for Keizel's students, they often do not know more than one or two others of their brethren.
Rogues: Since membership is essentially nonexistent, there is little difference between rogues and more loyal members. At most rogues are more likely to turn to action in response to difficulties than Keizel would have wanted.
Infonauts
Point of View: The Realms are the new frontier, to explore and marvel at their mysteries is the true purpose of human endeavor. Classifying them is the wrong approach, they must be experienced, understood, and explored. The journals of the Infonauts are as bizarre as they are informative.
Effects: Gain either Decipher or Escape as a focus.
Members: Most members congregate at the Hall of Dreams Lost, a lunar Realm heavy with the Fourth Quatron. Here they exchange stories and copy journals. All members are expected to keep journals and explore the Realms. 
Rogues: Some Infonauts have lost the purpose of their fellows, seeing the Realms as places to be exploited or leaving the cause of exploration. Either are poorly received, but for very different reasons.
The Church of the Digital Messiah
Point of View: The world is over, and a new one is being born, Keizel was the first, and she opened the doors, now it is up for humanity to follow her path and find transcendence. The Realms are merely steps on the way to true Infinitude. Only by emulating Keizel can this path be walked, emulating her contemplation and her self-less conversion of those she encountered on the way.
Effects: Gain either Persuade or Aid as a focus.
Members: The organization of the Church is loose, but firmly hierarchical, the keepers of the way being several trained by Keizel herself. There is a strong concern that none be taught the disjoining before they are ready to receive the wisdom.
Rogues: Whether from lack of patience or faith, some lose track of the contemplative, peaceful way the Church wishes it's adherents to follow. Of course sometimes it's more a desire to chart a more personal path through life and the Realms.
The Elite
Point of View: The world is about the best climbing to the top. Before there was too much mediocrity, those corporate and governmental machines filtered the incompetent to the top like so much pond scum. Now disjoining has leveled the playing fields, and it's time for the true elite to rise again. And everyone else had better move out of the way.
Effects: Gain either Intimidate or Endure as a focus.
Members: All members already showed talent before they were recruited. The disjoining only heightens that. However there is a firm sense that one should never be found unworthy of that gift, a place in the Elite is not maintained by negligence.
Rogues: Some members simply can't handle the near megalomania of the other members of the Elite. Others can't handle being part of a group of people so obviously inferior. 
Searchers for the Lost
Point of View: The great gift of disjoining, is the ability to control the process. Often a searcher is someone who lost a loved one to full disjoining, possibly even before Keizel's discovery. Obsessed with finding the lost souls of the missing testers, they search the Realms, and try to find a way to bring them back.
Effects: Gain either Observe or Defense as a focus.
Members: The searchers are a loose confederation, helping each other sharing the results of their investigation. Often these meetings are informal gatherings near the Charm Pole. Here a disproportionate number of searchers try to determine the origin of the wailing figures that appear here.
Rogues: Those who give up hope, either to despair or rage can leave. The searchers do not care about them unless they interfere with their work. Now the ones who leave because they decide the lost might just prefer things that way are another matter entirely.
System Id
Point of View: It's time for a revolution. And the disjoining is the key to bringing it about. The stuck up control freaks in the government have no idea of the power that freedom can bring. Especially the freedom from their mundane perceptions. Disjoining is not simply a glimpse of somewhere else, it is a new way of life that will leave the rest of the world behind in the dust. And system id is on the crest of that wave.
Effects: Gain either Attack or Create as a focus.
Members: From civil disobedience to actively causing mass chaos the system id takes all kinds and doesn't like pulling it's punches. Often their particular mode of activism leaves even those who can disjoin confused and a little worried, but there is always a reason.
Rogues: Sometimes a life of constant struggle pales and you just want to have some normalcy and calm for a while. And sometimes you can't shake the need for more direct action. And system id doesn't care, as long as you stay out of their way.
Big Name Hunters
Point of View: The opportunities of the Realms permit a sort of one-upsmanship never even considered before. The hunters seek the most bizarre, the most rare, and the most dangerous information. And they love to display their trophies as well as the stories behind them. It's all a game, but it's all in how you play it. 
Effects: Gain either Solve or Lie as a focus.
Members: The hunters typically gather in one of a number of hunting clubs and lodges located around the Realms, often in out of the way places. Insular, but helpful to friends the hunters are always in search of something new and exciting.
Rogues: Even retired hunters are still members, they have stories after all, but those who hunt prey with a little too much bloodlust, or have developed unhealthy obsessions with certain places are often dropped from the rosters. No one needs that kind of trouble walking around.
Architects of the Dream
Point of View: It's not so much playing god, as being able to correct the little odds and ends. Or perhaps it is about playing god. Regardless the architects build domains in the Realms, second to none. Often they like to put complications in, make it all into a game. Architects see the entire world as a plan to be edited and often like to make comments in the margin.
Effects: Gain either Build or Decipher as a focus.
Members: Architects interact with a combination of (usually) good natured banter and digs. Each is trying to create a vision of the world, and this causes some problems when those visions conflict too much. An architect is usually expected to be doing something productive, whether modifying a Realm or developing a new one. 
Rogues: An architect who sabotages another Realm's construction has committed a grave faux pas, and is usually dealt with harshly. An architect with a loss of creative vision is often treated as a failure, regardless of any other achievements.
Democritus Inc.
Point of View: This corporation has applied a significant portion of their research to higher dimensional perceptions for years. When they noticed the effects of several of their test "drivers" being trained by Keizel, they realized the possibilities. Focused heavily on research and codifying the Realms, Democritus seems of two minds about most things, striving to discover more of this new world, and make a profit from the technologies that come from it.
Effects: Gain either Discern or Persuade as a focus.
Members: Employees of the corporation are expected to follow company orders, especially if they are gifted with the disjoining. They tend to be well supported, on the company dole, but also monitored. 
Rogues: Leaving the corporation is hard, the company has significant incentive to keep their investment if possible. Some manage to make their way out of the pressure to remain. The rumors about secret squads hunting them seem to be false, at least for now.
Department 19
Point of View: A conspiracy within a conspiracy. They consider themselves the good guys, trying to help prevent the government and other organizations from coming down to hard on their brethren. Of course as the data analysis department for a multinational organization (which no one seems to know for sure) they also need to get the job done. Disjoining is immense help for this purpose.
Effects: Gain either Observe or Lie as a focus.
Members: Those who spend their days working in the department have a sort of double life. They keep track of more information than any other group in history, but they have to be careful of being seen doing what they must.
Rogues: Visible rogues don't survive long, but those who've managed to fake their own deaths, or otherwise disappear remain on good terms with the department, if not their superiors.
The Called
Point of View: The Caylings are a strange phenomena, they seem to be collections of random information, that take on an almost lifelike sense of autonomy. Most treat them as a sort of wildlife. The called consider them the key to the Realms. They seem to have a strange ability to understand the Cayling's chatter, and almost communicate back. It is unpredictable, the the Realms are new enough that no one is willing to say it is impossible.
Effects: Gain either Aid or Build as a focus.
Members: The called are a disparate group, with a common goal. They want to prevent destruction of the Caylings and work to understand them better. They prefer to be less direct in their methods, and help people rather than scare them away.
Rogues: Some called become a little to violent or lose their connection to the Caylings. Actually harming a Cayling is however one of the most horrible offenses for a called, even if by accident.
Singers of Names
Point of View: Singers feel a connection to the Choir of Names, the strange presence that makes itself known to those who travel to the higher dimensional layers of the Realms. The Choir of Names is in some ways a present deity to the singers. They struggle to combat the forgetting, which they view as a force opposed to the Choir. The result is the Singers have become the archivist and librarians, helping to conserve information.
Effects: Gain either Explain or Endure as a focus.
Members: The singers have a variety of libraries and storehouses in the higher dimensional layers. Most house only a few singers, with many singers wandering in search of information at risk of forgetting.
Rogues: Provided rogues do not turn against their former allies they are accepted, often fondly. Often rogues occur because of a vision granted by the Choir. In this case they are still considered to be singers, simply of a different calling.
Project Omicron
Point of View: The United States had two major edges in learning about disjoining, first the presence of Keizel in their borders, second a well developed project investigating the phenomena already. When a few covert members of the project were trained by Keizel, project omicron changed drastically. Now the project is operating as a combination of intelligence agency and tactical response unit for problems related to disjoining. To protect the people, and serve the government. But in which order?
Effects: Gain either Defense or Solve as a focus.
Members: The officers and analysts in the project are often well trained in a specialized field. With superiors that rarely understand their problems and a potential opposition that far outclasses them, these people often fight a losing battle. But the project must go on.
Rogues: Retirees are not uncommon, but the project likes to keep an eye on them. The alternative is to disappear, and it can be done. But those who remain to fight the good fight will sorely mind.
Salvation's Army
Point of View: The primal state of information is zero content. This is the pure state, the place where all dimensions meet. It is an ultimately nihilistic goal, but working towards it involves removing the unnecessary content. This is the doorway to seeing the pure state, the gateway. Keizel is said to have achieved just this, and the goal of the army is for everyone to learn the value of content and lack of content.
Effects: Gain either Create or Escape as a focus.
Members: Like a radical environmental organization the army is filled with a variety of different levels of activist, from banner artists to terrorists who destroy vast quantities of information, that make the classic denial of service attacks look paltry. 
Rogues: No one is too radical to be ousted from the army, but some leave, whether from a change of heart, or a desire for more active help. 
The Order of Daath
Point of View: Entropy is the only god. And reality falls to it's relentless assault. Let the power of entropy set you free as the world decays around you. Forgetting is an important part of this process. Let the world fall around you, and help it along. 
Effects: Gain either Attack or Intimidate as a focus.
Members: The members of the order are much like cultists, although some houses are more violent and controlling than others. There are even more contemplative houses which focus upon entropy in a disjoining version of martial arts.
Rogues: Since the order is so fragmented rogues are rarely recognized as such. However those who actively oppose the order, rogue or not, are often made to regret this action.
The Abandoned
Point of View: Bits and pieces, lacking a full education the abandoned are less able to see the Realms, and are more embroiled in the mundane world.
Effects: Gain any one focus. Cannot have more than 15 points in Disjoins.
Members: There is no organization of those left half trained.
Rogues: In a sense they all are. Most try to return to their normal lives, with varied success.

3) Generate Attributes:

Roll 3d6 five times.
Place one of these in each quatron, splitting the value between core and disjoint. Note, that most characters may not start with more than 20 disjoint total, abandoned cannot start with more than 15.

1st Quatron
Core: The mundane aspects of the first quatron are based on motion and timing. Dexterity and agility as well as speed and accuracy are all components of the first quatron.
Disjointed: When disjointed the character becomes incredibly clumsy, often incapable of walking or moving in a any directed way. Also timing will become harder, and accurately aiming a shift is more difficult.
Shifts: From small changes in physical or temporal position, to more potent displays of master over space and time the first quatron will get someone somewhere or keep them away. The time dilation effects it can produce are harder, but often just as effective.

2nd Quatron
Core: The second quatron describes the application and resistance of physical force. Both strength and stamina, this quatron allows the application of precision to be effective.
Disjointed: Without this quatron a person is very vulnerable to physical harm and cannot apply any significant physical force.
Shifts: This quatron provides powerful changes to physical systems around you. Changing magnetic or gravitational fields, or moving heat and light, all of these are possible with this quatron.

3rd Quatron
Core: This quatron provides the social relations central to interaction between people. Here is empathy and leadership, as well as guile and manipulation.
Disjointed: With this quatron disjointed a person becomes so socially maladjusted that people are immediately disgusted in a visceral way. This prevents people from relating to the person and vice versa.
Shifts: The application of this quatron includes all forms of indirect manipulation of other people. This includes projecting emotions, making light suggestions, and causing confusion. The center of this is influence, the third quatron cannot be used to directly control a persons action or change their thoughts.

4th Quatron
Core: The fourth quatron is the quatron of perception and relation to the world. This quatron gives the ability to understand the senses, both internal and external, as well as taking these into depictions of the world.
Disjointed: The disjointed person loses touch with the world, their perceptions simply don't update, and they are effectively operating blind and deaf.
Shifts: The shifts of the fourth quatron contain the direct manipulations of people. This includes telepathy and mind control, although the later is taxing for all but a short period of time. The limitation is however that the fourth quatron is never subtle, and the target is always aware of the effects of it, even if they cannot prevent them.

5th Quatron
Core: This quatron is the source of creativity and raw intelligence. The developing of plans and the ability to relate perceptions with new courses of actions are all part of this quatron.
Disjointed: When this quatron is disjointed the person ceases to be able to change their course of action, they mindlessly follow their last plan of action until they are returned to this quatron.
Shifts: The shifts of the fifth quatron are the most subtle of all. This allows such effects as healing and creating new technology. The major limitation of this quatron however is that it requires an understanding (i.e. an appropriate focus) of the systems being changed or it becomes very difficult and time consuming.
 

4) Choose 2 Focii:

Aid - helping another person, usually medical or emotional support.
Attack - trying to hurt someone.
Build - constructing something for some purpose.
Create - creating art or interesting ideas.
Defense - preventing harm to yourself or others.
Decipher - understanding information in any unusual format.
Discern - finding hidden context or motives.
Endure - resisting fatigue, chemical agents, or pain.
Escape - getting away from trouble.
Explain - relating information clearly and efficiently.
Intimidate - changing someone's mind with threats or direct challenge.
Lie - producing false information undetectably.
Observe - acquiring information, and more importantly the right information.
Persuade - changing someone's mind with social graces and manipulation.
Solve - finding solutions to problems or puzzles.
 
 

System:

1) The Basics:

When a character makes an action, where this is some doubt about the outcome, the result is handled by rolling a number of dice indicated by the difficulty of the action in question. If the dice roll under the appropriate quatron, the action succeeds, if they roll over or equal the quatron it fails. If a degree of success is needed, the difference between the roll and the quatron is used to indicate this. For example, in combat this difference indicates the base damage on a successful attack. The following chart gives a general idea of difficulties. If the quatron exceeds the maximum value of the dice, the action simply succeeds, only roll if the degree of success is important.
 
 
Difficulty: Dice rolled Combat Use Example Shift Example
Easy 1d6 Hitting a stationary object. Determine what a target is thinking about.
Normal 2d6 Hitting a held or surprised person. Determine what a target is saying to herself.
Hard 3d6 Hitting a person in combat with you. Determine what a target saw earlier today.
Very Hard 4d6 Hitting a person running away from you. Determine the reasons a target joined the corp.
Nigh Impossible 5d6 Hitting a person stand on the platform, as your train goes by. Determine the target's greatest fear.

 

2) Focii:

When a focus is applicable to an action the player may roll an additional 1d6, this adds to their quatron for the purpose of the action. Every time a six is rolled in this way, reroll the die and add the both results to the quatron. Since a quatron which is disjointed is effectively at zero, the only actions that may be taken with a disjointed quatron are those that have a focus associated with them.

Example:
Jude is trying to help her friend Naomi, who has just been beaten to an inch of her life by some thugs. Jude has the Aid focus, so the first aid she performs gains the focus die. Jude's fifth quatron is 13, but Naomi's wounds place her near death, so the difficulty is 4d6. The difficulty dice roll a 19. Jude's character rolls the focus die, and gets a six, she then rerolls and gets a three. She then adds the nine total to her quatron, this gives her a 22, which means she is able to remove three points of damage from Naomi.
 

3) Opposing Actions:

Sometime people try to beat the snot out of each other. Or perhaps they are less direct, regardless competition is a fundamental element of any game system. In this case any action has a difficulty value attached, so if two actions oppose each other, roll the difficulty dice for each as normal. Then determine the results as follows:
 
 
Result: Effect:
Both characters fail their actions. Both actions fail, stalemate.
One character succeeds, one fails. The successful character wins the contest.
Both characters succeed.  The character with the highest difficulty die roll succeeds, the other fails. If a tie then they stalemate.

Examples:
Faith is trying to kill Jed. Needless to say Jed is less than inclined to let that happen, and is fighting back. Neither has an appropriate focus, but they are both using their first quatron, going for accuracy and speed over raw strength. Faith's first quatron is 12, Jed's is 9. In either case the difficulty is 3d6. Faith rolls a 17, and Jed rolls an 8. Since Jed was the only one who succeeded in an action, he hits Faith. If Jed had rolled a 14 and Faith an 11, Faith would be the one who hits Jed. If Faith had rolled a 14 and Jed a 17, then neither would have hit, and it would be a stalemate. If Jed rolled a 5 and Faith a 10, then Faith would still hit Jed, since her difficulty dice rolled higher. If they both rolled a 7 it would again be a stalemate, as they matched difficulties.
 

4) Combat:

In combat actions are taken in bouts, where each character may disjoin, join, or take an action once per bout. Actions occur in ascending order of first quatron. Higher first quatron characters may interrupt and act anytime before their turn, but may themselves be interrupted by even higher first quatron characters.

Example:
If four characters are in combat, of first quatron values 6, 8, 12, and 15. They act in that order, but if the 12 wishes to act before the 8, she can. But the 15 can pre-empt the 12, and act before either of them.

In combat when a character is attacked they may act to defend themselves, if they haven't already acted. If a character chooses not to act on their turn, this is all they can do. In this case the attack becomes a contested action as above. Either way the result of a successful attack is the target taking damage.
 

5) Damage:

Take the degree of success on an attack that hit a character and multiply it by 1 if the no weapon was used, 2 if the weapon was improvised or small, like a knife, and 3 if the weapon was something fairly deadly, like a sword or a gun. This damage is added to any damage already taken, and the resulting effect on the person is shown by the following table:
 
 
Amount of Total Damage Effect
less than second quatron no significant injury
less than twice second quatron Injured: all difficulties increased by one die.
less than thrice second quatron Nonfunctional: cannot take any actions other than to join or disjoin.
thrice or more of second quatron Dead or Lost, Lost only if the character was disjointed at the time.

In addition to these effects the amount of damage also counts against the total disjoin of the character. So a character with 13 disjoin, has effectively only 5 if they take 8 damage.

In order to remove damage, use a fifth quatron action for medical attention, or via a shift heal the wound directly. The former can be only applied once per day to a character. In either case the difficulty is 2d6 for no significant wounds, 3d6 for Injured, and 4d6 for Nonfunctional.
 

6) Disjoining and Shifts:

In order to use a quatron for a shift, the character must disjoin one or more quatrons. The total disjoint of these quatrons is the value use when determining the success of a shift. The effect of having a quatron disjointed is that the value is effectively one. Hence any action with a quatron which is disjointed will fail unless it has a focus die.

Two situations can increase disjoint beyond the sum of disjoined quatron. First, a character who is hardware linked, i.e. has a virtual reality link to the Net and appropriate software, gains five additional points of disjoint, assuming one quatron is already disjoined. Second, a character who has entered the realms gains an additional five points of disjoint, regardless of whether any quatrons are disjoined. These two bonuses cannot be combined.

When disjoined the character gains several advantages, based on the number of quatrons they have disjoined.
 
 
Number of Quatrons Effects
1 Can access the global databases and the Net, this puts a vast quantity of information at easy access.
2 Can perceive the Realms, and converse with entities in the Realms nearby.
3 Can enter and leave the Realms.
4 Can bring a small group to the Realms with you, by effectively opening a gateway.
5 You become Lost, vanishing from all the Realms.

7) Improvements:

Each game session characters receive one to three improvements. These may be spent to increase a character's quatrons. In any case it requires two improvements to increase a core quatron, and three to increase a disjoint value.
 
 

Settings:

1) Core:

The Core is the world of everyday life. It is the place where the disjoint leave to enter the Realms, and ultimately it is the source of the information that filters and transforms into new and varied forms in the aether of the Realms. The Core is our world, a decade or two in the future, and only a little darker, only a little more alienated. The downward spiral is present, but humanity has yet to fall down the precipice. The signs of decay are waiting, and the corporations and the governments of the world begin to steps towards a tyranny of a dark future, but the steps are small, uncertain, and ever wary. It's not a world of apathy yet, but the path is certainly before us, and the educated observer knows it's only a matter of time until it happens.

The major antagonists of the Core, are just as likely protagonists. One corporation's move towards controlling it's resources could also be a move towards protecting it's employees from outside attacks. A government agency leans a firmer hand, both stopping freedoms once held sacred, but also trying honestly to make things safer. The best of intentions and fine line slowly lean the corporate and government powers towards control, and control of the most important resource, information.

With the discovery of the Realms, things have become more complex. It is possible that the opportunities afforded by a new frontier with prevent the need people feel for safety, allow risks to enter into people's lives and the mindset of those who influence them. The desire to explore is a very strong human urge, and it only takes a little dream to drive people out of their everyday lives. Perhaps the Realms are the key to a brighter future. Or perhaps they are the threat that will bring about the darkest days of well meaning tyranny.
 

2) Corporations:

The corporations of the Core are still interested in profit more than control. They want to find novel ways to do this, but also keep their cash cows as long as possible. As time has gone on corporations find themselves with more freedom of movement, the ability to occlude their actions, to keep the press happy and on the dole gives them leverage and opportunities they are just beginning to exploit.

The best corporations to use in HD are one's that exist today, just pushed a little ahead. Merge two well known corporations, or create a renamed version of an existing one. Interesting names aside, there is something chilling when the corporate scheme you are investigating is actually the cause of corporation with a real history and real effect on your lives as players. But remember corporations aren't evil, they are profit driven, they have a tendency to overstep their bounds as long as they don't think they'll get caught, but they don't try to destroy the world or overthrow the government, there's no money in it.

Also don't forget that no corporation acts in complete unity, each of the different parts is run by someone, and that someone has their own biases and perceptions. Often there is surprisingly little communication between parts, this is especially true in HD, where managers tend to be more oriented to controlling their part of the corporation and keeping their positions, than working in the best interest of the corporation as a whole. But everyone has reasons for what they do, and an antagonist should have a face, just like a protagonist, even if the players never see it.
 

3) Governments:

Security is the watch word of the governments in the Core. Now more than ever everything they do is open to analysis, not just by punk kids, but by enemy agents. Being off-line is no longer a defense, and paranoia is at an all time high. This means government agencies will tend to come down hard on information crime, and be liberal about how they define it. Less concerned with trying to imprison the perpetrators, they will try to scare them, and keep them in line. This isn't really a policy, more it is the trickle down of the anxiety and fear that the government employees feel at their vulnerability. Ultimately this tendency has proven to be their own worst enemy.

Governments suffer the disunity of corporations to an even greater extent, and the most common way this appears is in corruption, petty to massive. It's more common in some places and some jobs than others, but few people manage to keep the idealism that allows resistance to a little on the side. This doesn't necessarily mean that the only trustworthy officials aren't corrupt, it's more a matter of most officials in HD are keeping someone's secrets or interests in mind, often neither simply theirs or the public's. It's how things are done, and most of the time it is left unnoticed. Only the truly blatant occurrences are blown up, and then everyone gets even more paranoid.

Governments also will almost certainly have some secret or semi-secret agencies to deal with the disjoint. Sometimes these are derived from existing agencies, intelligence, law enforcement, or even trade commissions. What they do and how they do it are often variable, and especially confusing for the average disjoint, as the best way to hide your secret agency personnel is within your less secret agencies.
 

4) Conspiracies:

The are groups that influence the world with even less known about them than governments and corporations. These conspiracies large and small have been around for quite some time. Often their interests are simple, but furthered by not being subject to outside control. The problem with a conspiracy though is that is is most dangerous when exposed, and the disjoint offer exactly that risk.

Sample Conspiracies:

The Hall of Kings: Basically a glorified collection of extended families. They formed in the 1400's as an attempt by several merchant families in Europe and North Africa to consolidate their rising position in society. For the most part they have developed their financial holdings very well, putting some of their more prominent members in the top hundred richest people in the world. The organization however has a strong belief in self starting, each generation must prove their worthiness. Legality however is unimportant, and the number of skeletons that some members have accumulated is phenomenal. Likely some families will be interested in exploiting the disjoint, while others wish to keep their secrets protected, often working all but directly against each other.

Wheel and Tongue: A classic gentleman's club dating back to Victorian era England and Prussia, one of the first to allow female and non-white members, before the 20th century. The club was founded due to a wager between a British businessman and a Prussian diplomat. The wager was based on ferreting out three unimportant secrets the other had made up. To this effect they both founded the first clubhouses for the Wheel and Tongue. The results of the bet are lost in legend, but the central tenets of the club has always been mind games and clever scheming.

The Collective: A more modern secret society founded by some unknown group right after the WW1. Their goals are enigmatic and they seem to have different organs operating at cross purposes. One interesting facet of the Collective is a tendency to use other societies in their plans, manipulating or even subverting entire operations from underneath their noses. Rumors suggest that the Collective is possibly just a conspiracy of conspiracies, made up of rogue teams and organs stolen, or perhaps even still present in their original organizations.
 

5) The Public:

The people of the Core are slowly losing hope, and finding it replaced with mass media. Advertising is getting more an more present, and people are beginning to care less and less. People let themselves be told the way the world works, let other people handle their money, their problems, their purchases, and their politics. The buck is passed in an unending loop, and very few feel how stifling it is becoming. A rebellion of sorts is in the works, but it is just a collection of like minded critics, every counter culture soon finds itself added to the media's idea of what is new and exciting, killing any revolution in their works. The only place safe from this is the Realms, as the media can't explain what it is to the average person, it lies just beneath notice, and scares the daylights out of them.

Most people are afraid, and they don't really know why. They want to be safer, they want to be protected, and to know that their choices are right, even if it means not making any. There is not longer an exciting enterprise or a risky adventure in the Core, it is simply strained monotony, with people following trends as dictated to their subgroup. The sense of well meaning incompetence permeates, no one intends to let you down, and the blame is so diluted no one really did. People are no longer rewarded for a job well done, so they do the least effort, and those few idealists who do more fall by the wayside. But also, there is a uniform feeling that something is missing, something that the media can only fill for a short time, and if someway can be found to provide that something, perhaps the public will stop their decay.
 

6) Realms:

The Koshen Ranges: The first thing most disjoint see upon entering the Ranges is the bright and ever-changing aurora from the Charm pole. As far as the searches are concerned this is simply an after effect of the wailing creatures that reside near the pole. However residents of the Ranges speak of strange messages that appear in the colored lights. They suspect that a local maximum in the strangeness and color dimensions causes an increase in the content through the upper regions of the Range. Jacob Koshen was the first disjoint to reach the Range and decided to settle down amid the landscape, which resembles a neon colored version of an African svelte. He raises Caylings of all sorts here, as do many of the other residents. This is perhaps the best place to find a little hospitality deep in the third quatron, and the place to acquire the best trained Caylings, provided you can convince their herder's you will treat them well.

Teah's Bridge: The most tactically important location in the low Evolution realms, it is essentially a calm within the storm of chaos, it extends between the lower and higher Well parts of those realms, and provides the only access to a collection of orbital stations called Constellation 9. These stations are a corporate trading house for sensitive information, and is protected fairly well by Democritus.

Cipher House: This huge mansion has been present near the midpoint of Metric for as long as anyone can remember. The house has been taken over as one of the largest hunter clubhouses, and is usually known only as such. One lesser known aspect of the house is that it contains at least two wings never successfully explored by the hunters, although they attempt it on occasion. What mysteries might be held here are often speculated, but no one is quite sure.

Deal a Plenty: Entropy and Evolution meet here at a local maximum, with a sudden influx of Dream. As far as anyone can tell this is the place that Solitaire and Minesweeper go to die. The records of every gam ever played by them are here, and other games of that same sort. No one has ever been able to explain this odd collection, but it is occasionally visited by disjoint in search of potentially useful information. Likelihood aside there seems to be a greater than average amount of useful content that can be gleaned from here. The department seems to have taken a rather intense interest in certain parts of this junkland.

Tain Jyabion: A mountain range that seems to reach up to Lunar Proper, this is in fact a great heap of corrupt packets. Filled with this entropy rich soil it grows strange entities, and the Caylings here are far more vicious than most. Nestled amidst these entropy peak is a monastery, one of the best martial arts houses in the order. However, reaching it can be a trial in itself, and the level of corruption can be dangerous to the untalented student, even after they have arrived at the house.
 

7) Traveling the Realms:

There are two major modes of transport in the Realms, first is Keizel's Way. This is a path through many of the coreward Realms following the initial explorations of Keizel. It isn't very direct, but it is kept safe by the church. They are dotted by way stations which link between them, allowing somewhat faster transport. On the other hand it's not really possible to journey covertly along this heavily traveled route. The other is the Death of Truth, this is a strange corridor that coils around the Desire and Well axes. Some speculate that this is in fact the missing Existence axis, but no one has given any good reason for this. It is very fast, but the occasional traveler disappears. They always reappear, but sometimes days or months after they should have arrived.
 
 

Running the Game:

1) To Boldly Go:

The first kind of game that HD lends itself towards is an outward exploration game, searching for new Realms, and new entities. Looking for the elusive Existence axis, or the missing Desire poles makes a potential adventure in itself. And as the Realms gain populations and interests of the Core begin to seep into the Realms, at the heels of the explorers.

Another variant of this is the characters in search of some information, and searching the Realms for it. This can be especially interesting if they are piecing parts from various Realms and the Core reasons for doing this begin to become more and more problematic and insistent. Which could make this a combination of murder mystery and scavenger hunt.
 

2) The Core Beckons:

The game can also center directly around the core, and combating some threat there. The possibilities are many and almost any modern day heroic adventure can be constructed. In close Realms, genre's can be altered, extracting someone from a corporate retreat which blends into a medieval castle can be entertaining and very deadly. The most important aspect of any Core centered game is that everyone has their reasons, and there is always a face, whether it's surrounded by ten levels of corporate security or died three years ago, motivations are the key to a believable and interesting opposition.
 

3) Hope Returns:

The characters could also be engaged in continuing Keizel's example, and bringing hope and wonder back to the people who have lost it. This will be a sot of pilgrimage with threats both internal and external. Fighting the good fight is hard, and the world is on the brink of a disaster, and the Realms may hold the key to a return to an age of hope rather than apathy, but it will take much hard work for even the littlest of results. It isn't easy to make the world a better place, but now's the time to try, because in five years it may be too late.
 

4) Sample Antagonist: Special Acquisitions and Analysis

A small branch of the watchdog branch of any major corporation, they are interested in acquiring more disjoint, and will use some very heavy handed tactics to convince them to join with the company.

Alan Quifle:
1st Quatron 12 / 3
2nd Quatron 9 / 9
3rd Quatron 15 / 2
4th Quatron 10 / 6
5th Quatron 13 / 1
Focii: Lie, Solve, Persuade

Alan is a driven man, and he wants to make his department the best it can be, and to do this he needs help from more disjoint than the two he has recruited.
 

Tess Ghest:
1st Quatron 11 / 2
2nd Quatron 12 / 3
3rd Quatron 13 / 5
4th Quatron 14 / 1
5th Quatron 9 / 6
Focii: Lie, Aid, Escape

Tess is in over her head, and she needs the corporate dole to provide for her heroin addiction. Alan knows about this and recruited her using it, but he keep the files looking clean for his supervisor.
 

Mac Heinz:
1st Quatron 15 / 1
2nd Quatron 16 / 2
3rd Quatron 6 / 9
4th Quatron 12 / 1
5th Quatron 10 / 4
Focii: Explain, Attack, Intimidate

Mac has always liked to hurt people, he was transferred into Alan's department just because of this tendency.
 
 

5) Sample NPCs:

Disjoint:

Info Trader:
1st Quatron 9 / 4
2nd Quatron 7 / 4
3rd Quatron 14 / 2
4th Quatron 14 / 0
5th Quatron 13 / 2
Focii: Solve, Decipher, pick one

Back Alley Doc:
1st Quatron 9 / 3
2nd Quatron 4 / 4
3rd Quatron 11 / 2
4th Quatron 6 / 6
5th Quatron 15 / 1
Focii: Aid, Defend, pick one

Core:

Thug:
1st Quatron 11
2nd Quatron 15
3rd Quatron 7
4th Quatron 8
5th Quatron 8
Focii: Attack, Intimidate

Wage Slave:
1st Quatron 9
2nd Quatron 8
3rd Quatron 13
4th Quatron 9
5th Quatron 12
Focii: Lie, Escape
 

© 2002 Mendel Schmiedekamp