Sorcerer in Space

[TickTock Man]

I have read most of the threads in this forum, and I have read several old ones that mentioned a developing Sorcerer in Space mini-supplement.  I do not see it available, was it abandoned?  Is it still in the wokrs?  I have Demon Cops and Charnel Gods, and I have considered putting a high-tension space marine type of scenario together to mix it up, and Sorcerer in Space might be a shortcut.  Any word?

Thanks!

-Angelo

[Ron Edwards]

YEAH, MIKE!!

Hey, I heard about Sorcerer & Space. Is it coming out soon? Gee, that Ron Edwards sure is a goof, advertising it in the back of his books, and it isn't even out yet! Amateur vanity-press publisher, huh?

(Angelo, thank you for providing an entirely independent source of guilt for the developer of Sorcerer & Space, who would remain nameless except that it's Mike Holmes.)

Best,
Ron

[Doyce]

Hey, never let it be said that I'm unwilling to support my fellow gamers... allow me to tote some of those bags of guilt over to Mike's.

THAG WANT SORCERER & SPACE. *whimper*

[joshua neff]

As someone who plays with Mike on a regular basis, let me add:

Mike, anytime you want to run--er, playtest--Sorcerer in Space, even an extended run, I would be so up for it. The others in the group would also play it at the drop of a hat. So...you have no excuses. None.

As Julie would say, "Nag, nag, nag."

[Old_Scratch]

It seems like in the spirit of Sorcerer and this website, the wrong thing to do here would be to sit around and wait for this mini-supplement. I'm sure it'll be great, but perhaps we could float some ideas out there for other Sci-Fi concepts of Sorcerer?

Questions such as what are Demons and what is Sorcery would be a good point to explore the topic:

Are Demons your psychic powers, or shadowselves that slowly swallow your soul as you reach beyond time and space?

Are Demons your bio-engineered Clone selves gene-wired to protect their own mentor?

Ancient artifact machines bound by human beings, artifacts whose real goals and intentions are beyond human ken?

Android Slaves and concubines?

Creatures beyond time and space in a Lovecraftian sense?

Bio-engineered extensions of one's self? Little golems of one's own body that carry out are every whim and desire in our little incestuous oribital enclaves?

How about one's self? You could go the wierd sci-fi route and make the body a transgressive thing, the human body has become a thing that can change gender and form at will, you can split selves off and change consciousnesses.

A sort of cosmic destiny, with your demon being your fate as foretold by the stars - a sort of Dune-esque setting.

Or perhaps Demons are those things lurking in the stars and tempting us as we near the heavens even more, making it a passion-play in the sense of Fading Suns.

AI's? Or Gene Therapy clinics that transform us into slaves over time (as in the AIs described in Sorcerer and Sword).

AI and nanotechnology put into our bodies to make us the warriors of the future, things that can drive us to snap and turn into killing machines while on leave at some orbiting pleasure-slave brothel housing the conquered alien races?

Are AI Spaceships the Demons, the wombs in which we travel through the stars and put our trust in organic-molecular computers?

Are the demons the ancient space-faring ancestors who have finally beckoned us forward into the future? Are they the creatures that took us from our home and place and exiled us onto that shithole our ancestors called earth?

Are the demons bio-engineered weapons of war that serve our beck and call and can turn against us when we least expect it?

Are Demons the last essence of dying suns, sort of cosmic gods who can but whisper and cling to human minds lest their names be forgotten forever?

Are the demons the fragments of the one God who shattered to a billion pieces throughout the cosmoverse at the very act of creation?

There's a few ideas... I hope we can draw this out into a great discussion...

--Garett

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

I see three immediately-viable applications of Sorcerer that might be labeled SF.

1. Pure vicious cyberpunk, right from Alfred Bester, K.W. Jeter, and early William Gibson. Not the loa stuff of later Gibson (which I consider extremely lousy), but the short stories Burning Chrome, Johnny Mnemonic, and the novel Neuromancer.

2. Surreal, violent, semi-religious, tentacular action drama, one-half Alien and one-half The Sacred and the Profane. It looks like space opera but is really opera-opera, with a healthy dose of horror.

3. Frenetic anime, with boobs and butts, featuring energy axes and E.E. "Doc" Smith rods & cones of force. Think Star Wars with a little more zap and crackle; see the 1980s Japanese adaptation of Lensman.

In all three cases, the Humanity concept is essentially Luddite: raw emotion and passionate commitment is more important and valuable than anything else, specifically the techno-gadgetry. "Trust your feelings." The fact that this theme is juxtaposed with near-orgasmic technophilia is to be overlooked in full.

Best,
Ron

[DannyK]

Here's a couple ideas I've kicked around:

Schizmatrix Sorcerer: drawing heavily on the Shaper/Mech stories of Bruce Sterling, sorcerer are either Mechanist Cyborgs or gene-engineered Shapers fighting an endless war for dominance of the solar system.  The Demons, in this case, are your Tech -- always bleeding edge, never completely trustworthy.  The premise: how posthuman are you willing to become to get what you want?  When you reach zero humanity, you've passed over the cusp from "posthuman" to "nonhuman", and you cease to play the game, spend the rest of your time herding robot lobsters on Io or something.  

Steampunk Sorcerer: drawing heavily on Phil Foglio's comic Girl Genius: Sorcerers are the people who have the spark that lets them create infernal machines -- huge steam-golems of war and industry.  Demons here are the machines themselves, which cannot work without Sorcerers to tend and repair them.   Zero humanity means becoming the kind of hubristic, megalomanic mad scientist that gives Sorcerers a bad name.

[TickTock Man]

Lots of great stuff here!  Very provocative questions, Old Scratch.  You set my wheels spinning.

If it helps any Mike, when the supplement is done, I will buy one.  Or two.

I prefer the darker and grittier takes on sci-fi.  (are there two words more overused than "dark and gritty"? sheesh.  sorry.)  But its true.  I would opt more for the first and second of Ron's suggestions, and I like both DannyK's.  Demons as genetic technology, or implants, or wicked suits of armor that are as much as a coffin as a defense system are all appealing to me.  As I said initially, I like the space-marine and cyberpunk types of sci-fi.  The paranoia, the isolation, the gut-wrenching, cold-sweating fear.  Its like 7th grade in space.

Seriously though, I am a steampunk fan also (see the Iron Kingdoms web site for ideas there).   Great lumbering machines chugging about as they spew black smoke into the air, with the sorcerer as "mad mechanic" has a lot of possibilties, up to and including Price -1 "smells like coal".

By the way, my all time favorite book by Bruce Sterling is The Artificial Kid.
Read it if you can, you will not be sorry!

Anything we can do to help, Mike?

-Angelo

[DannyK]

You know, the steampunk setting would be even neater if the PC's are among the first in the land: not just building robot armies for your lord, but actually bringing the Industrial Revolution in your own person, deciding that such-and-such farmers get the boot so you can mine coal there and where the Dark Satanic Mill should go.

[TickTock Man]

I agree in part, DannyK.  While the nature of sorcerers is that they are rare, they ar ealso usually intuitive and strong willed.  They are certainly motivated, if nothing else.  This makes them the perfect type of person to be the catalyst of an amazing revolution, especially given the whole "science, when sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic" principle.

But, I think in many instances they might lack the organization to implemet such a change.  Sorcerers have the tendency to be pariahs because of the very qualities that allow them to make the intuitive leaps necesary to master and innovate with demons-as-technology.  What stops them from falling prey to the tyranny of those who would abuse their abilities, or from falling into the "crazy old hermit of the techno-coot variety" syndrome?  
(I am not a doctor, I have no idea if that is a real syndrome).

On the other hand, depending on culture, people seem to accept technology readily, as if it is part of who we are.  I wonder if people would respond with the same "recoil in horror" reaction to sudden technological advances as they do to summoning demons.  Maybe, given that demon-as-genetech or demon-as-implant could have a real creepy factor to it.  Steampunk could have a Frankensteinian feel to it, too.  GM's call, I guess.

Interesting idea, thoughm DannyK.  Sorcerer as revolutionary.  Definitely worth exploring!

[erithromycin]

Off the top of my head (though I think about this sort of thing every once in a while):

HUMANITY:\ the gap between survival and profit - pure desire for gain is the loss of the 'edge' that keeps you human

SORCERY:\ interaction with entities whose sole desire is personal gain - gain here includes cash reserves, territory, any form of carte blanche, fame/noteriety for its own sake - these by definition include corporations, politicians, those parts of the shadow economy that occupy similar/overlapping nexii of human interaction, and, to more than a little extent, the machinery of power, whatever its form may be. rituals are negotiation, the fetishistic purchase and assembly of components, recruitment montages played out in neon-lit markets where the stalls glow silver under the endless dirty rain to synth-driven experimental music.

DEMONS:\ sample demons -

inconspicuous: John_Company - john is a big demon with spawn and a variety of covers. when its powers manifest they do so as figures in clean-fitting suits that appear moulded - its need is that its sorcerer on occasion performs single tasks at designated times and places.

parasite: Conditioned_Response - CR is a demon that grants a significant boost to will in specific circumstances, usually related to illegality*. its need is for atonement, usually financial or penal for perceived wrongdoing. [*as the demon is the controller, this resistance may kick in even if the sorcerer does not desire it]

passer: Non_Executive_Personal_Assistant - the NEPA is a shackle to 'the job' - though theoretically subservient, its oversight capacity is such that it exerts tremendous control over continued appointment. its need, so to speak, is to have control over its sorcerer.

object: Killing_Machine - KM is a weapon that has no purpose other than death - it is the easy way made real, polycarbonate hyperalloy doom - it combines boost to either will or stamina with special damage such that it kills things very quickly. its need is to be held - it will not help you otherwise, and it can suddenly become very persuasive as an argument.

possessor: Indentured_Personality_Subsumation - it takes your body over for long periods of a time and uses cloak automatically to hide these actions - it allows you to boost your lore. when combined with another demon it grants perception to allow you to see what's going on in the other half of your life.

----
Yeah.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Pure vicious cyberpunk, right from Alfred Bester, K.W. Jeter, and early William Gibson. ...
In all three cases, the Humanity concept is essentially Luddite: raw emotion and passionate commitment is more important and valuable than anything else, specifically the techno-gadgetry. "Trust your feelings." The fact that this theme is juxtaposed with near-orgasmic technophilia is to be overlooked in full.

Ahem. <clears throat> Inside.

Inside's straight up cyberpunk, distilled straight from reading Neuromancer, Snow Crash (ok - so anime cyberpunk), and Everyone in Silico. I've got to disagree that the only Humanity concept is emotion. In Inside, it's the ability to distinguish truth from artifice, which is more much clarity of mind than feelings.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Clinton,

I think Inside is better than cyberpunk, specifically because it does offer far more sophistication in terms of Humanity issues.

Best,
Ron

[sirogit]

I'll pimp my http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=12546>Sex and Robots as another take on sci-fi Sorcerer; I don't know enough about scifi classification to attempt to label it suffiecently. But the Humanity definition is 50/50 human emotions over gadgetry/truth from artifice, but both of the issues depend on each other, really.

I think the defining point for a setting be fit for Sorcerer isn't darkness, grimness or surreality, but intensity of emotion; There has to be big protagonists ready to take this plunge into the extremes of the huamn condition to get what they want, and the metaphysics of the world has to bow to that framework. I think its inability to do non-intense settings is one of the greatest features of the game.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

I suppose this is as good a time as any to remind people that the cover copy on the front of the book, "An Intense Role-playing Game," should be read with frizzing-out hair and trembling hands. Finishing with "Dude" is optional.

Yes, I wrote it as a tribute to my late 70s, early 80s high school speech patterns. For me and my friends, Sean Penn's character in Fast Times at Ridgemont High was only marginally parodic ... "Why are you guys laughing? That guy talks normal."

Best,
Ron