Tonal Dissonance, Demon, and The God Machine (Chronicles of Darkness)

As regular readers know, I am an avid fan of the World of Darkness. I've made about half a ton of content for it over the years, and I've got several more projects floating around in my mind for it that I'm putting proposals together for. And while I don't like a lot of the changes made for the Chronicles of Darkness releases, mechanically, most of what I liked about the games' original incarnations survived intact.

Except for Demon. And while I can acknowledge that what was tried wasn't inherently bad, I've been chewing over the God Machine for a while now, and I wanted to try to put into words why I think it didn't really work as an addition to the setting.

And then the Blue Screen awoke, and the universe ceased to be.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Demons, Angels, and Clark's Third Law

In the long ago and far away, I devoured a friend's copy of Demon: The Fallen. While I would be the first to admit it was far from perfect in a mechanical sense, it had such a feeling of gothic depravity that fit neatly into the darker corners of the setting that I couldn't help but be intrigued by it. Though I made several characters for the game, every new chronicle I tried to join fell through before we could really get going. So when I heard that Demon was going to get a Chronicles of Darkness release, my ears perked up and I paid attention.

Demon: The Descent is not what I expected... and not really what I wanted.

Tonally, the two games are similar enough that they're clearly related. In presentation, though, they're worlds apart. In Fallen you have the setup that most players think of from an RPG titled Demon, in that you play a Demon who has broken loose from their nether realm, found their way to Earth, and they are laying the groundwork for their own plans. They're rebels, and while some may be here merely as agents of chaos to watch the world burn, others are attempting to lay more subtle plans, or merely to ensure their own, selfish ends.

Descent, though... well, it feels like the Matrix.

These were not the demons I was looking for.

The reason for this is the setup of the literal plot device of the God Machine.

The clue here is in the tagline on the cover; a storytelling game of techgnostic espionage. If that sounds like technobabble, let me break it down. Gnosticism is a spiritual practice whereby individuals believe that the material world around them is an illusion; a lie generated by a demi-godlike entity to imprison the minds and spiritual power of humans. It is only by subverting this lie, and acknowledging the truth of the universe, that one can escape the prison built by this demiurge.

If that sounds familiar, it's the same inspiration for both versions of Mage. But whereas Mage keeps the mystical angle (at least according to all the reading I've done so far), Descent leans into the technological. The God Machine is a literal alien machine that is infinitely more complex than merely mortal minds can conceive of. This intelligence understands far more than anyone possibly could, and it is ancient beyond knowing. And, as Clark's Third Law states, any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.

So you have a game where a vast, cosmic horror computer spans the cosmos, and several of its programs (the titular demons) have gone rogue. Is that a playable game? Sure. Is it a horror game? You could make it one, if you wanted to. Gnosticism is, after all, pretty damn terrifying as an idea.

But does it jive with the rest of the Chronicles of Darkness setting?

Monsters and Computers Create Tonal Dissonance

One of the major, appealing factors of the Chronicles of Darkness setting (and the World of Darkness before that) is it's all meant to fit together. Sure, you can play a chronicle that's just about vampires, just about werewolves, or just about mages, changelings, or prometheans... but you can also play a chronicle where all of those things (as well as the communities they inhabit) overlap with one another. It creates a richer tapestry, and populates the shadows with all kinds of horrors and wonders just waiting to be discovered.

This is where the God Machine trips and falls on its face, in my opinion. Because it really doesn't feel like it belongs with the rest of the setting.

Vampires and werewolves are purely supernatural creatures, and have always had an air of dark mysticism to them. Changelings and the fae are capricious creatures from out of our folklore. Mages, though they use a similar framing device to Demon, fit much more firmly within the mystical than they do the technological. Even Promethean, based on the pseudo-science of alchemy, feels more magical than it does academic.

Then along comes the God Machine. While there's a lot of hemming and hawing in the text about how it is actually far more complex than presented in the rules, it's still broken down in a way that reflects on computers and technology that a modern audience will understand... and that really makes it feel like a dark sci-fi game, rather than a supernatural horror game. While that's not inherently an issue (magic and technology co-existing and mutating together have been themes of a lot of WoD content in the past), it feels like a square-peg-round-hole scenario.

And honestly, I feel like most of it is in the presentation.

Consider a different take. Think of the lost and buried places among the world. Forgotten ziggurats carved with long-dead languages where abominable deeds were done. Lost empires frozen in the polar regions that still teem with creatures that would drive one mad. Star-bound entities to whom humanity is a mere curiosity, and things with black wings who soar on the solar winds of the void. Beings who are built on ritual, on names, and on formulas.

What I just described is the Cthulhu Mythos, but that feeling could have been used to give Descent a sheen of the mystical, the weird, and the supernatural. Especially since as Lovecraft often said, the beings of the mythos are only gods to humanity, and their rites, rituals, and devices are simply so far beyond us that we can no more comprehend them than an ant might understand calculus.

This would, I think, have been a far better framing device for maintaining the consistent tone of the setting, and getting players onboard with the game as a whole. It could have maintained that air of ignorance versus knowledge, and given players the chance to inhabit truly alien mindsets. That's not what happened, of course, but I think it would have prevented a lot of players from straight-up walking away from this game because it was so distant from the supernatural angels and demons they expected, and which the setting would more easily support.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Why Are So Many Settings Post-Apocalyptic?

Folks who've been following my expansions for Sundara: Dawn of a New Age have noted several things about my setting that seem to buck the trend for a lot of other worlds we play in. For example, I'm doing everything I can to eliminate the idea of non-human characters all being part of religious and cultural monoliths by introducing a wider variety of cultures, physical adaptations, and faiths into the world. I'm foregoing the idea of national and even racial identities (which are surprisingly modern constructs), and focusing more on localities, clans, tribes, and a world in the smaller-scale. I'm including a lot of unique "period" technology, ranging from the dragon steel of Ironfire (a version of pattern-welded "Damascus" steel), to the wind catchers used for air conditioning in the towers of Silkgift.

But I realized something else that I did without even thinking about it, specifically because it's confused a lot of players used to traditional settings who are reviewing Sundara; namely they're under the impression that this is a young world, or that folks are playing during the golden age of this setting.

Young world? Not so much...

While several of the cities I've written guides for are only a hundred to a few hundred years old, Sundara is by no means a young world. Folks who checked out Archbliss: City of The Sorcerers (for either Pathfinder Classic or DND 5E) have seen that this floating city has been going strong for millennia. Moüd, pictured above, has only been recently re-inhabited, because the city was abandoned centuries ago due to a catastrophe that took an entire guild of modern necromancers to get under control until the place was habitable again. The cultures being released in my Species of Sundara books (particularly the ones for the elves and the dwarves) didn't just appear overnight; that kind of development takes a long time.

The longer I thought about what is giving this impression, though, the more I realized there's another relic of Tolkien's famous tales that made its way into our games without us really remarking on it. Because almost every setting I've ever played in has been a post-apocalyptic setting, or one that's in the middle of a Dark Age... and that's something I just didn't want to do when it was time to make my own world.

As always, subscribe to my weekly newsletter if you want to stay on top of all my releases. And if you want to help me keep this blog going, consider becoming a Patreon patron today!

And The World Fell Under a Shadow (Every Time)

One of the central themes of Tolkien's Lord of The Rings is that the world is in a dark place. Men have grown weaker and weaker, and amazing places and peoples have fallen into ruin, or been utterly forgotten. There is corruption everywhere, and the world is slowly approaching its last gasps. There are still some pinpricks of light where elder races preserve relics from the days of glory, but it is a dank, dreary, deadly world that has entered a twilight... basically a slightly more hopeful version of Dark Souls if you read between the lines.

And this is the same model so many, many RPG settings follow. All you need to do is look at the loot you find, and where you find it. It's why the Older is Better trope reigns supreme in so many of our games (I wrote more about that in Older is Better: A Trope That's Become a Reflex For Many Writers for those who need more details).

I didn't really intend to become the new standard, you know.

Because while most of us don't think of Middle Earth, Golarion, and other settings as post-apocalyptic (since we associate that with stuff like Mad Max, The Road, and zombie movies), most of them are. And if they didn't go full apocalypse (which Golarion has done half a dozen times according to the timeline), the game tends to be in a dark age. Old knowledge and techniques have been lost, relics of the past are rare but superior, and people are always trying to build back to where they were once more.

I didn't really stop to think about it, but Sundara does exist in opposition to this setup. Because the world isn't new. It isn't in some golden age. There have been catastrophes that have destroyed cities and altered regions in the past. There have been wars, and coups, and all the other growing pains of civilizations. But the purpose of the setting (and the themes of many of the cities I've released for it so far) is about progress. It's about moving forward, using the resources that exist to overcome trials and challenges. It's about invention and creation, rather than about looking backward to try to recreate the world as it was.

There are plenty of secrets, ruins, relics, and more scattered throughout the map, but what is just as common is that for every old way of doing something, there's a new way to improve on the process. A way to make it faster, stronger, better that represents a step forward in thinking, or in solving new problems... or solving the old problems that previous generations ignored, for those who read the secrets of what's going on in places like Moüd: City of Bones.

A Difference in Attitude

The more I thought about this, the more I wondered how deeply it affects our story desires, setting expectations, and even attitude as players and Game Masters. About how much of the "no guns in my fantasy" or "you can't make new magic items, only find lost and forgotten ones" attitudes are influenced specifically by this foundation. Wondering whether or not part of the restrictive attitudes a lot of games have is because it's baked into the setting that invention, progress, attempts to forge new paths are not what this world is about.

We aren't here to rebuild and move on, to become better than we were. Instead, we're just trying to survive in the shadow of lost glory.

Just some food for thought this week, and a request that all of us take a look inside and ask what we're trying to do with our games. As always, there's no right or wrong way to do this, and you should pursue the kind of games you want, and that are fun for you... but it's important to look at those games with a critical eye, and to break down the elements involved so you can recognize them for what they are.

If You Haven't Checked Out My Setting Yet...

For folks who are curious as to what a setting that's looking forward and trying to build a better tomorrow looks like, particularly in comparison to the more traditional settings we have where the world seems to be crumbling and civilization is just trying to hold on, consider checking out some of the releases I've put out so far!

- Ironfire: The City of Steel (Pathfinder and 5E): Built around the Dragon Forge, Ironfire is where the secret to dragon steel was first cracked. The center of the mercenary trade in the region, as well as boasting some of the finest schools for teaching practical sciences, Ironfire is a place where discovery and danger walk hand in hand!

- Moüd: The City of Bones (Pathfinder and 5E): An ancient center of trade and magic, Moüd was lost to a cataclysm, and then buried in myth. Reclaimed by the necromantic arts of the Silver Wraiths guild, this city has once again become a place teeming with life. Despite the burgeoning population, though, it is the continued presence of the undead that helps keep the city running, ensuring that Moüd is not swallowed up once more.

- Silkgift: The City of Sails (Pathfinder and 5E): Built on the cottage industry of Archer cloth (an extremely durable material used for sails, windmills, etc.), Silkgift is a place that prizes invention and discovery. From gravity batteries that store the potential of the wind, to unique irrigation systems, to aether weapons, the city positively churns out discoveries... and then there's the canal they cut through the mountains that makes them a major center of trade across the region.

- Hoardreach: The City of Wyrms (Pathfinder and 5E): A center of power across an entire region, Hoardreach is ruled over by a Cooperation of five different dragons. A place for refugees and outcasts of all sorts, Hoardreach boasts some of the most unusual citizens and creations from across Sundara. Infamous for their sky ships, which require the cast-off scales and unique arcane sciences of the Dragon Works to take to the air, one never knows just what they'll find in this city built atop a mountain.

- Archbliss: The City of The Sorcerers (Pathfinder and 5E): A floating city in the sky, Archbliss has been a refuge for sorcerers for thousands of years. It's only in relatively recent years that the city has allowed those from the ground below who lack the power of a bloodline to join them in the clouds. However, while there are certainly amazing wonders to behold, there is a darkness in Archbliss. Something rotting away at its heart that could, if not healed, bring the city crashing to the ground once more.

- Gods of Sundara (available for Pathfinder and DND 5E): In a world with no alignment, and where the gods are often genuinely mysterious forces that are far too large for mortals to truly comprehend, the divine feels genuinely strange and unknown... something that really does have to be taken on faith. This supplement provides a sample pantheon for Sundara, but also provides instructions on how to easily make your own gods in a world where you can't cast a spell and tell whether someone is good or evil.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my cat noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!