I’ve circled back to this lovely scrabble idea - Spell FRIEND and Enter - from mindstorm again and again, and have finally sat down to sketch what a potential campaign in BREAK!!’s Outer World could look like.
I think there are a thousand ways to slot this into BREAK!! - weird Calian crypts, ancient Divine Ruler temples, Buried Kingdom Machine Labyrinth - but the following was my immediate thought. Is it the most creative of the choices available? Probably not, but it sure sounds fun to me.
World Truths:
Directly taken from the post, we have some World Truths to adhere to:
There is a fallen ancient civilization in this world, and they’ve left behind their sanctums (dungeons) and all of their lost technology resides within them.
The main bulk of technology left behind are small square tiles imprinted with a letter. Imagine, if you will, a scrabble tile. These tiles are highly sought after and exist as something between prized treasure, keys to the locks, and magic items.
The sanctums of these ancient creators are locked up tight and the only known way inside them is with the ancient tiles.
Device-like, standardized, and technically capable squares? Sounds like Gleysian Puretech shenanigans to me. Gleysian fits the bill quite perfectly here and, given their empire’s whole schtick was floating/moving islands, you essentially have the entire pick of the Twilight Meridian to slap down ancient vaults.
For example:
- Hard-to-reach and flooding underwater one? Sunken Isles it is.
- Winding subterranean machine complex? Stahlfeld has abandoned Manathene Refineries (Source, pg. 339).
- Rumor has it the Magia University in Portia has a vault under their library but good luck getting access.
Every treasure hunter worth their salt can speak the ancient language.
Admittedly, my gut instinct is to make the language Gleysian Code and have it follow standard Language rules, chosen from one’s History - a bit against the vision from the original post. BREAK!! already has a Translation Journal item (Source, pg. 176) so not having the language isn’t an end all scenario, you’ll just have to work a bit harder at it. This is something I’d explicitly give as information to the Players during character creation to let them decide.
Because I mean, come on, Gleysian Code is just perfect:
Want to break out the thesaurus? Not allowed, unless the characters have secured a thesaurus in the world.
It’s an ancient language too, so it’s probably pretty hard to get.
To further the point above about the Translation Journal, it might be a fun angle to have better Tomes (Source, pg. 176) exist within the vaults and the Player gets to use its Insight for Translation checks. A Beginner’s Tome has an Insight of 12 so even if your party is all on the lower Insight side and no one speaks Gleysian Code, you have a reliable source.
I’d make it so only the Forgotten Lore Tome has the full “thesaurus capability” so it becomes a rather coveted item.
Scope of the Campaign/Factions:
The existing Factions of the Outer World lend quite naturally to a loose-fit campaign “structure” that expands from local, starter delving to exploring the broader world and more dangerous vaults.
Start: Naturally, the campaign starts out on the island of Stahlfeld, the Old-Tech Junker paradise filled with ancient factories and rust-covered, drone-filled salvage yards. Our party has found themselves as existing or newly recruited members of a Junker group living out of their own small scrap yard. This group has been on quite the hot streak…of bad luck; other groups have been outwitting them, the nearby Helical Archive simply has more resources, and many a venture has been stopped short by the rogue Drone.
This is all about to change, however, because they have just stumbled upon gold - a bag of misplaced Techno-Tiles. With a new fire lit under the gang, they set off into the junkheaps of Stahlfeld looking for vaults to crack open for loot!
Expanding Out: There are plenty of directions for the campaign to head over time and, at risk of putting a concrete direction on it, one likely Faction to reach out to the group (after they gain a reputation) is the Helical Research Archive on Stahlfeld itself. Their interests align well, and they have the resources to equip the Party with naval travel, expedition stipends, and eventually their own airship.
Antagonists: Early on, a recurring rival Junker group sounds plenty fun alongside miscellaneous scrapyard adversaries. As the Party expands into more circles, it is rather likely they will anger at least one larger faction (Magia University, Nyanko, etc.), which they will have to deal with both personally and at a faction level. Attention on the Party, both good and bad, builds organically over time as they find more and more tiles - centralizing a very lucrative stash for enterprising rivals to steal.
Endgame? Not much point to build out an ending for a campaign that doesn’t exist but hey what about a Borderlands Vault Monster? Maybe an infamous vault contains a functioning Gleysian Gigaframe, the likes of which would put whichever Faction to uncover it into the dominant position of power. Unlike other vaults, however, its entrance puzzle contains a few unique pieces that aren’t within the standard tileset! Where oh where might it be?
Gameplay Loop:
The original described gameplay loop - open vaults, find tiles, open more vaults - and the associated tile contraption system fits perfectly into BREAK!! and doesn’t really require mechanical specifics, I feel. As stated within, discuss and agree on the outcome effect of a given word then build up a WORD spellbook to maintain some consistency (and save headache ruling it every time). Let the shenanigans and chaos fly free at the table.
Optionally, you could make the Techno-Tiles an actual item, taking up Inventory Slots and having a standard price. My initial thought is a single tile takes up 0.1 Slots and has a price of 25 Coins. You could vary the prices per-letter based on frequency of use (common letters are used faster and thus are more rare/costly) but that sounds like a potential hassle.
Not much else need be said mechanically - BREAK!!’s Adventure Site rules run as-is and you can just grab any dungeons/modules that spark your imagination. I’d personally recommend onepagedungeons with their upcoming Runes in Ruins, BREAK!!’s concept sketches for Sprocket, and modules from ECOMOFOS!! like To Put Away a Sword and Into the Antlion’s Den for a variety of funky tech dungeons. Happy to take recommendations as well!
Conclusion:
Thinking on this campaign has me really wanting to give it a run, even if only for some short tests. There is a funny and fitting intersection here of BREAK!!’s inspirations (i.e., Zelda) and their mechanics continually tying so well together - though I feel Prismatic Wasteland says it better than I could here.
Comments