What did you like/disklike about the Space Gods

[Rabbitball]

On a more pedantic note, I never viewed the Space Gods as "disklike". That was reserved for Aysle...

I didn't find much in Aysle to dislike.

So now I know there are two who did not see the typo...

[ProfessorK]

Didnt notice til you pointed it out.

[Zackzenobi]

On a more pedantic note, I never viewed the Space Gods as "disklike". That was reserved for Aysle...

I didn't find much in Aysle to dislike.

So now I know there are two who did not see the typo...

Ahh there's my reading glasses. Lmao. Well played sir

[jhosmer1]

It crystallized a few things in my brain.

It's official, TorgHacker has a Crystal Skull!

[TorgHacker]

Damn, you're onto me.

[Matthew Surridge]

This thread came up in another discussion, and I hope nobody minds if I resurrect it. It may be too late to be useful, but I have reasonably strong feelings about the topic as my players ended up spending a lot of time in the Akashan realm in my old game, and I liked the reality quite a bit. As I recall the Space Gods sourcebook had come out by the time the group had finished the Relics of Power trilogy; I gave it a bit of time, then had the player characters race agents of the High Lords to meet the Akashans as they arrived in Peru (without the players knowing what they'd find, only that their long quest to light the signal fire was about to pay off in *something*). And then, as I described the arrival of the Akashan ship, and the Akashans descending in their cosmic grandeur … one of my (straight, male) players asked "Are there any women among them?" I thought of Sarila, said "sure," and — he slapped down a Romance subplot. As I recall, I looked at the card and said "Y'know, you're not really allowed to target NPCs with these things. But in this case … sure, what the heck, I'll allow it." I showed him the picture of Sarila in the book, and he was happy enough. For a while.

Anyway: the only thing I didn't care for was the ancient-aliens aspect. I'm not wild about ascribing the triumphs of antiquity to aliens, more so since it's often non-white civilisations having their great buildings written off as being built by aliens (I tend to agree with utsukushi's post about this a couple pages back). I think what I did was reverse it — the Akashans showed up, said "whoah, nice pyramids, guys," and had their civilization affected by the Incas instead of the other way around. Other than that, the power-creep factor actually helped my campaign — since I had three players who'd been building their characters through play for well over a year, the Space Gods and Tharkold sourcebooks actually gave new players a way to grab a starting template and face the kinds of dangers that the older characters could deal with. (Not really a concern for the new game, but it was convenient then.) I will also be honest and say I don't remember the alignments at all, other than a vague recollection everybody (in my campaign) seemed to be Coar anyway.

What I really liked:

— the setting bringing some large-scale science fiction into Torg. The Cyberpapacy was and is fun, but cyberpunk's different from Space Opera, which was what the Akashans had — a real Star Trek feel.
— the biotech spin, which made it feel different from Trek. The imagery was really interesting, and felt like some of the more bleeding-edge SF of the time (as I remember, anyway).
— the reality trees, because I love being easily able to have multiple realities active in a small geographic area (there are of course ways to do it otherwise, but the trees make it much easier).
— the fact that there were non–High Lords who understood reality and how it worked and how to go from world to world; it made the idea of multiple realities a little less inherently hostile, showing that relations between cosms didn't have to be about war.
— The general imagery and visual approach

Also liked:
— the idea of multiple alien races. Although they mainly turned up as NPCs.
— I remember I liked the South American setting, too, though I don't remember specifically why, other than having a lot of adventures with the characters based in an Akashan complex on Earth dealing with attempts by the High Lords (especially Malreaux) to infiltrate, corrupt, or undermine the powerful newcomers.
— The Comaghaz worked fine (see above note with the Romance subplot), but I did find it difficult to come up with multiple plot points involving the psychic nature of the plague before the big reveal hit. Foreshadowing the mystery of who was behind them, yes, but actual story beats were surprisingly tricky for me to develop.

Just my 2 cents Canadian.

[Scaramouche]

LIKED
- Something for South America, which was otherwise weirdly forgotten
- The promise of biotech alien proper sci-fi wierdness

DISLIKED
- Toothless 'benevolent eco-protector' casting / reality trees
- Lack of sufficient wierdness

WHAT I WOULD WANT
- More Arrival / Annihilation. Real strangeness, communication difficulties, inscrutable singing alien artifacts, vermin infestations in technology gardens, smuggled biotech explosively devolving when taken outside its home axioms
- Not friends. Friendly factions, perhaps, or potential for cooperation, but not friends right out of the gate.
- Astrological / calendrical gonzo space fantasy like in Ninefox Gambit / Raven Strategem. Perhaps with flavor poached from Mayan calendars.
- Law of conspiracy / Area 51 or X-Files style 'difficulty of exposing information' stuff.

[TorgHacker]

Hey folks, I do want to set expectations here, with the thread being resurrected.

We do have a plan for the Akashans, and it's fairly set now. Just don't want anyone thinking we're still looking for input is all.

[Savioronedge]

Hey folks, I do want to set expectations here, with the thread being resurrected.

We do have a plan for the Akashans, and it's fairly set now. Just don't want anyone thinking we're still looking for input is all.

With that in mind, I want to mention the one thing the Space Gods brought up as a potential possibility which never occurred and has absolutely no chance in TE:

Kadandra! Not necessarily that specific cosm, but the idea that a sufficiently technologically advanced people could use non-invasive reality tech to help our fight if we could just ask them. "Cosm catastrophe folds" or reality trees, neither hope was truly explored in oTORG.

I eagerly await the new reveal.