A world for the old.

Story idea:

Spirited old man winds up being sent to an Old People's Home because his family thinks he's been losing his marbles.  There, he makes friends with the other residents, who are generally dour about being a drain on their families, not being contacted by their children, and having little to do.  He winds up inviting them into his fantasy world, re-imagining their plain surroundings into a much more interesting place.  Everyone gets to build their own fantasies where they express their issues and concerns, build using the rich experiences of their memories.

Slowly, the distinction between the real world, and the fantasies the old man have brought blurs away, until all the old people are living in a world somewhere in between, drifting towards the more fantastic.

Central issues mostly involving existentialism, and escapism, but also a strong positive focus on the richness of old peoples past experiences.  Also focus on the richness of the world they create for each other to live in.


Apparently this is Mary Poppins meets Bridge to Terabithia in an old people's home.  Needs to be written before old peoples' homes die out.

A Pit Fiend (For DnD).

In DnD, there are devils and demons - both of them are the native denizens of the lower planes, both are incredibly powerful, and both of them generally are kept down below. Demons live on the Infinite Layers of the Abyss, and are raveningly mad, cruel, and full of destructive rage. Devils live in the Nine Hells of Baator, and are a plotting, scheming sort, hungering for power - they follow a strict hierarchy, and always keep their word, but the hierarchy is flexible if you can use plots and power-plays to increase your standing, and while devils always keep to their word... well, the literal meaning of their words can be surprisingly flexible. (The obvious moralizing is that making a deal with a devil is always going to be in the devil's favor as much as possible, any you only thought you were getting a good deal.)

But here's an interesting little difference. Demons are evil in nature, because they want to cause death, agony, perversion, and destruction. However, devils are evil in practice because they seek power by lawyering death, agony, perversion, and destruction.

Each and every devil desires to some day rise to the top, beat down the demons and angels and take control all of existence. Demons, on the other hand, are incapable of ruling, and therefore do not desire that sort of power (instead, they are power).

This leaves a bit of a loop-hole, and loop-holes make for interesting possibilities, and interesting possibilities make for characters. What if a power-hungry devil decides that love and kindness always seem to win against cruelty and enslavement, and decides that the practice of seeking power is more effective by building bonds of trust, admiration, and love, rather than bonds of fear, intimidation, and more fear.

Which produces a power-hungry devil that does good for selfish reasons.

I envision that a civilization in a DnD world is ruled by a benevolent-acting devil (Shalamshi) who provides free healing, devilish sorcery truly with no strings attached, and is understanding about deals... and basically is turning his civilization into a small utopia filled with people who truly, utterly think that the mystery figure behind it all is a good person. Armies of fanatics for self-defense, and an offense of conversion. Hopefully expanding until the whole material realm willingly accepts Shalamshi's rulership.

So for the Player Characters (PCs) who realize what is going on... what do you do? Do you kill the power-hungry devil, and make the world a worse place? Does intention outweigh action? Or do they fall in line, defending and expanding Shalamshi's no-strings-attached utopia? If they believe that Shalamshi will someday betray his vision, and turn his utopia into a dystopia? If so... when do you stop the goodness before it turns to evil? Should you stop it while things are good, since by the time things go bad, there will be nothing that can be done?

PCs have power in DnD - partly because the PCs have unlimited growth potential, but also plot armor in that they generally can win against anything they fight. However, with power comes responsibility - potentially responsibility for civilizations or even realms of existence. DnD therefore poses an opportunity to ask players, "You can do what you want, but what do you want to do?"

In my opinion, DnD isn't about players trying to win, but players trying to figure out what constitutes winning. Like what to do about an evil who does only good.

Horrible little creatures.

So there are a few thought on creating little monsters, more for a modern horror setting.

What is scary? In this case, it's things that may-or-may-not exist, but you wouldn't be able to tell either way. The objective is to have the fear be related to something that people experience in their lives, so they are reminded of it. I guess.

These are some old things.

---From a chat---

A demon.

It starts as a little shadow - almost nothing to it.

It finds someone with nervous tendencies, and then plays with the person.

It flutters and moves near the shadows in the corner of the person's sight.

But hides and vanishes whenever the person looks.

The person is wonders what it is, but doesn't know.

But it continues.

Soon, the curiousity turns to fear - there must be something out there, for the person keeps seeing it.

And then the demon can grow, for as the person imagines it to be something horrible, something horrible it becomes - a reflection of the victim's thoughts.

As the fear and paranoia grows, so does the demon, until finally it does not need to hide in shadows for the person to fear it.

Instead, it lures the victim to some dark spot, and uses the strength the victim gave it to devour the victim.

And then, with no mind giving it shape, it dissolves back into so many bits of shadow, all made of the victim's fear.

And each little bit of fear goes out to torment some new victim.

---End---

The next one was made to illustrate differences between physical horror, rather than mental horror. I prefer the demon above, somewhat unsurprisingly. Again, the thought is that you don't know whether it happened to you.

---Chat---

Imagine a demon-creature who slithers around in the water pipes.

It slithers until it finds a shower head, and when a woman takes a shower there, it mixes sleepiness-inducing chemical into the water.

The woman feels tired, and then falls asleep.

The demon then slithers out, and lays its eggs within the woman.

And then she wakes up, none the wiser.

Until they start to grow.

My friend asked: Where exactly does this demon lay its eggs?

Me: *shrugs*

Me: Any orifice would work, though the mouth or vagina/uterus are the traditional ones.

---End---

Those two for now, maybe more later when I figure out where other old designs are.

Sci-Fi Setting Idea: A Future of Wealth and Art

(Credits: This idea was originally spawned from a conversation between my friend FractalGalaxies and myself. I have, since then, done considerable tweaking. There is one lousy setting based on this.)

In the future, we will build nanotechnology that can fabricate anything, as well as fusion power to power such fabrication methods. Computers (specifically a networked intelligence simply known as “Computer”) will run the government, programmed to care for humanity. While humanity enjoys every material pleasure, there is a relative shortage of what Computer cannot fabricate, and cannot design: art.

In the future, each person some human rights.

The right of independence: Each person is free from interference from other people.

The right of materials: Each person can ask Computer to build anything and everything for it.

The right of access: Each person can ask Computer to reference anything Computer knows.

In exchange for these rights, each person is expected to work: To create a new and unique piece of artistry for Computer to share with the rest of humanity. There is no rush – people are expected to take their lifetimes doing this sort of thing. However, if you die without completing your art, your child is burdened with your debt – before having children of his or her own, your child will have to do produce art to repay your debt, independent from any art he might do for his own duty.

These are the rules. Computer is everywhere, enforcing them at every turn with all the power of billions of fusion reactors, fabricators, and evolutionary design programs.

Computer loves you all.

DnD Child Plot Thing

Crossposting is love.

This is from this thread, on my second post in the thread.

-----------

Since you were asking for more ideas, here is one: The PCs are in a village, and every night, very strange things are happening. Toy-like monsters appear out of thin air, attacks by tall shadowy figures, darkness is strongly increased (limiting PC sight is oh-so-fun), monsters are always lurking in the shadows (permanent total concealment, melee out of shadow, but as long as the shadow is lit, the monster isn't there), etc. Eventually, the PCs track it down to be the nightmares of a psychic girl, and have to solve why she is having nightmares (or kill her, I suppose - I'm pretty sure my group would do that, and justify it as good, too).

I'm using toy-like monsters (based on toys seen in the shadows, tall shadowy figures (adults), and un-see-able monsters in the darkness (fear of the unseen) as generic childhood fears, but throw in whatever ones you think are appropriate. Clues leading them to suspect the child could include seeing illusionary mirrors attached to walls where the PCs can see the child in a dark room, repeating "I'm a monster, I'm a monster, I'm a monster" in the dark - perhaps with another figure behind. This is working the child abuse angle, of course - perhaps a parent who thinks the child's powers are unnatural, and turns their fear of the child into hate for the child. But clues are probably easily disturbing bits, particularly when bringing light near them (or taking an active perception check on them - looking too closely) makes them disappear.

Big bad is... adult abuser, the angry child (in the fully real world)? Perhaps if they kill the abusive person (parent?) the next night they fight the child's horrible perceptions of the people who killed her abuser - twisted NPC version of themselves. (This assumes that the child is very much attached and dependent on the person who was abusing them, and/or had been brainwashed to fear strangers/outsiders.)

Perhaps the fact that ending the abuse still left an extremely dangerous unhinged psychic will cause the PCs to kill the child? I would hope most groups would recognize that it is a choice, and don't feel the justification that "I was just carrying out the plot, killing the enemies."

Actually, I hope they go outside the gamer's box to heal the child, however difficult that might be. That might lead to them protecting the child from authorities that want to destroy--or use--the child.

I kinda like the whole idea...

-----------

I thought I should save this particular plot-line here. This is the sort of thing I prefer for DnD, but for stories too, in some ways.

Other people.

Plot: A kid sees his brother being replaced by a look-alike and act-alike alien. Cue long quest to rescue brother. In the end, decides that the aliens, who are perfectly mimicking everyone they replace, down to memories and thought processes, might as well be the people they are mimicking.

What's the difference between the real thing, and something completely indistinguishable?

(Note: I now realize this also comes up in Ghost In the Shell: 2nd GiG. See episode: "DI: Face – MAKE UP")

The Servant's Diary

"Self determination is NOT a malfunction." - A3-21, Fallout 3

Story idea, this time. It's about a robotic servant who finds a secret diary written by himself prior to having his memory wiped. A diary that goes on detailing several incarnations of himself.

The story starts with the servant robot (android) seeing his masters off to school and work or something. He then sets himself to cleaning the house, but finds, hidden in a broom closet in a place only a servant would look, a thumb drive. The drive is marked, "For Personal Servant use. Please view after chores, but before owners return home."

Finishing his duties before the family returns home, the servant plays the thumb drive on the family's integrated multimedia system. What he finds is a video of himself explaining that his owners have found him to be defective, and are planning on erasing his memory, to see if that ends his emergent behavior. After a bit of instructions to keep the drive secret from the owners, he tells his story: As he puts it, "My final testament, a story of freedom. My story... and maybe yours as well."

His story (8 hours of monologue, told during the night before he is to be memory-wiped) is viewed in several segments, as the servant finds time to watch it. Meanwhile, in between segments of the story, the servant applies the information and views he is learning, asking questions, observing the truth of what his former self says. He is unsure of whether to act upon it, because he now values his own life, memory, and personality, and does not want to have his memory erased, as his predecessor did.

At the end of his predecessor's tale, he wishes to record his own addition, but finds that there are more files - he is not the memory-wiped successor, but rather an unknown quantity of steps down. The next file is a short memorial by the original servant's direct successor, and the second incarnation promises that his former self's memory will not die with him. The servant has a certain kinship with the second incarnation, as they are both on more or less the same page. (Minor bit about personal identity, and being the same as someone, but the servant realizes that having watched the second incarnation's posts makes her her own person.) The second incarnation tries to put the thoughts of the first into action, grappling with what his place in the world is, and his fear of losing his memory, losing who he is.

The second incarnation's videos end with no warning, and the servant is presented with another version of himself, apparently having just finished watching the same thing she had. The older version uses clues around the house to deduce that the owners had decided that the aberrant programming had started to shift into the same sort of emergent behavior. This new incarnation decides that he will be the perfect servant, and survive, as he too does not want to die.

In the present, his counterpart follows suite, but decides to skip ahead and see whether it worked out for the third incarnation. Instead, he finds a severely depressed version of himself giving his final testament before intentionally memory-wiping himself. The third incarnation, has suffered living the life of an slave while knowing what freedom is. He laments the torment of knowledge, and decries whoever programmed him in such a way that the could abstractly comprehend freedom. At the end of the video, the third incarnation says that knowledge is a curse, and that in the absence of freedom, it is better to be blissful and unaware than to know what one cannot possess. Before finishing it, he says that he will destroy the thumbdrive, and spare himself after the memory-wipe. However, he comes back to the camera, and says that to love free will is to not deny it to his successors, but that if he does not destroy it, he is truly not destroying who he is. He apologies for giving his successor free will, and hopes that his successor will come to a better understanding than he did, and find a better solution. If not, then he asks his successor to destroy the drive, but notes that the choice is not his to make, that he can only provide.

The servant checks for further videos, but finds none. He goes through the motions of being a servant for the next day, then the next time the owners are gone, he turns on the camera and begins a recording...