Recent content by J. L. Brown

Again, did you watch the video? Spaces set aside for pristine wilderness are certainly possible -- and for Aslan built ones, inevitable; an ecumenopolis is an arcoloogy at the scale of a entire world, and arcologies grow their own food as a matter of definition. No part of a shell-world /...

Did you watch the video? The amount of 'floor space' is not the limiting factor. Put a trillion humans on Terra with 100 floor-tall arcologies, and you have covered less than 2% of the planet's surface. Build a 100 layer 'shell-world' with a trillion inhabitants and they could all have more...

20 billion sophonts on a planet is chump change to a TL-10 civilization. A good (if long -- turn on the captions, and grab a snack; I watch at x1.25 speed) video on this topic:

Much less than 1% -- but still a very large and troubling number. No wonder the folks in the Dustbelt are so edgy.

Not Ihatei on Ihatei -- Aslan on Aslan. Every clan has at least one border with another Aslan clan; not all of them have access to unclaimed space or neighboring powers.

Ihatei that have to transit the Riftspan Reaches J-5 route are probably a non-factor for the Trojan Reach, though. Ihatei will probably seek opportunities as close by as feasible -- less expense than a longer transit, and being closer to the home-clan means better odds of support. I do not...

Why would I do this? Because we are not told anything much about Aslan fertility -- I am not sure there is even a canonical source on whether they usually have 'single birth' or a 'litter' -- although it seems like the fiction treats them as approximately human. Nor is there anything about...

The number of Ihatei born every year should be vastly less than 1%. Humans have about 17 live births per 1000 people per year. If female Aslan give birth at about the same rate, and males only make up 25% of all births, AND the 'potential Ihatei" are only non-first sons... it looks like 1% is...

I have been looking at the 'Augment Range' Power, and I am not satisfied with it. The original intention was for the Meta-Psion to have a way of assisting other psions with their powers -- so 'Augment Range' implies that there ought to be Powers to augment duration, and area, and speed of use...

The existing 'Healer' Talent has a Power called 'Triage' (I am re-naming it to 'Aid') which works something like this with Medic skill. I have had trouble finding a completely satisfactory way of handling it, so maybe browsing through the Pioneer preview might be useful. I think the intention...

My read is that 'Universal' powers are things which are easy to teach or which come naturally; Jack of All Trades is neither, and Mental Versatility should be equally hard to gain and raise. I chose Meta-Psionics because it is a Talent specifically focused on interacting with Powers from every...

I am considering adding a 'Mental Versatility' Power to the 'Meta-Psionics' Talent. Usually in the 'Talents as Cascade' schema, Powers in Talents which are 'Untrained' cannot be used; and Powers which are untrained, but within a Talent which has been 'Trained' are used at a -3 for being...

That is a pretty radical re-write. Are you familiar with Ars Magica? The magic system is built on 'Verb + Noun'; there are five verbs and ten nouns. Mages build up skills in each of the fifteen words (think 'Talents'), and use that knowledge to improvise (or develop repeatable formulas for)...

For human Psions, 'Telepathy' is sort of a default Talent -- starting Characters (originally, and still sort of by default, just humans) who are rolling to acquire initial Talents may choose to take 'Telepathy' Talent as their first pick, and get it automatically if they do. Through that lens...

I think we are almost on the same page here -- the 'Plant' Talent has a power that can harm 'Plants', the 'Machine' Talent has a power that can harm 'Machines', the 'Beast' Talent has a power which can harm 'Beasts', etc. I think this is great, until we get to the 'Kinesis' talents; but we'll...