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uptown
downtown
lololol
downtownin the low city recently (1d10)?---
As in, the ruined quarter. I think this ends the regions of the colony part; I don't expect to provide such write-ups for the neighbourhood. I have a basic idea what's next, but sooner or later I'll need to get to the hard part like the character classes or something like that.
It's in the air. It's in the hearts of men. The officials who arrive from Metropole do not speak of it, and in fact, would actively scoff at the notion if it was brought before them, for they are too invested in the old system and petty court intrigues to see or admit what others can see clearly. They would, perhaps, mention there are reform plans drawn at the royal palace, but no matter, surely these are not to be felt by the average man, and certainly no shocks to the system at all, merely minor tweaks of interest only to the Vice-Regent's administrators. Those colonials who come back from Metropole, having travelled there to study or make connections, merchants whose tongues are not as tied as those at high rungs of society, even soldiers of the garrison loosening up after a drink in one of many wineries of the city, though - they see and speak about moods those people are insulated from.
They speak of the mood on the street, both in the capital of the empire and in many other cities they have visited, and how the old ways of doing things are somehow ever more commonly held to have run their course. They bring back the topics of discussions between cafeteria and teahouse patrons, on matters of philosophy and law which at some point in the past have inocuously shifted towards criticisms of the current methods of governance. They tell of shifting alliances between the powers and how that may impact the tensions which are ever growing between kings. They speak of how many people's ancestral livelihoods have changed because of new industries, new machines to perform the labor which was once men's, and new ways of organizing production.
There's a ship entering the harbor. It hoists the flag of Metropole and it does not carry just the goods.
What's the shocking news to just arrive from Metropole (1d10)?
----
I guess it could be more inspired.
And now... what? The setting's done, it seems. At least in the broad kind of strokes I intended initially. I guess I gotta come up with character classes. Have some notes, but that part was less specific.
On the topic of inspiration, I constantly have this feeling like it could be a bit better. Like, more impressive, more unique, less looking like I was crossing off a list of historical events instead of coming up with some better stuff, and so on. You know. More inspired. But then, I don't want to leave it hanging until I just hit that one Great Idea. Which might be the next day, but more likely never. And as I am working on the basis that it is historically inspired, I guess I can allow myself a bit of that crossing off a list stuff. And, you know, the big reason for setting up this thread is that it makes me feel pressure to carry on with this little project, so I don't want to give myself the comfort of letting go for a while. (Because then the while would become, you know, ever.)
The first group are those with direct links to Metropole. The mother country has vast armies, vast fleets, vast resources, and vast concerns. The last is their weak point. If the armies are spread thin, if fleets can't control colonial waters, if resources must be directed towards more pressing demands - then there is a chance.
You get a re-roll on any test of your resistance to poison or disease.
As long as you are in a society, you can survive indefinitely on odd jobs without preparation or loss, and always manage to establish rapport with the local working class. You also seem to somehow never tire by physical labor.
You get a re-roll on any test against your cool. Since keeping your gear in proper shape has become a nigh-instinctual habit for you, your weapons never succumb to conditions like rust or decay, or getting wet.
You have a preternatural luck at not drowning. As long as you don't do anything supremely stupid, you will be washed onshore at some random place after an unspecified amount of time. (If it's an intentional swim, let's say you get a re-roll before you succumb to overconfidence.)
You still have a bunch of friends in various positions, and once per session you may just stumble upon one, as long as it makes sense in context. Whether it instantly solves your needs is an entirely another thing.
You can't be caught by surprise, and anything in your hands, including your hands themselves, counts as a hand weapon.
You have a +1 bonus to hit and wound against anyone you could convincingly pass off as an oppressor. Also, if you happen upon someone who also came from the old country/fought for the cause, they will recognize you for who you are.
Once per session, you can declare you know an answer to a question on some scientific matter, or wow people by turning up a random factoid nobody expected a grunt like you to know.
Something about you registers to people as reliable and trustworthy, and once per session a person from the low rungs of society might recognize you as "the single kind one". Whether any of that's true about you, they are willing to help, as much as their meager means allow.
You can avoid notice, including the notice of a false identity, as well as any rogue.
It's a whole 'nother thing if you have, actually, been living in the colony already.
----
I don't feel like I'm good at writing this part. Took me too long, for just a list of ten ideas. I have the vague notion it might actually be easier if they're separated by class, but then, I would need a good list of classes first. Still, there's going to be a fighter class in any case.
--EDIT--
I am in the process of reworking this one. When that's done, perhaps then I will finally have a pattern for character classes.
You're a knife fighter. As long as there's a knife in your hands, you fight as well as a fighter of your level.
You're immensely convincing when pretending to be a noble (and it's entirely possible you actually are a noble). You can always count on plenty of character witnesses and members of society willing to host you interminably.
You are a competent forger of documents, capable of replicating jargon and writing style relevant to the kind of document you're about to produce, as well as other people's handwriting.
Who knows what you were getting at. Every other day, you stay undercover. But once in your life, you may reveal everything was All According To Plan. Perhaps there's a large hidden weapon cache waiting just for the right moment, or that general sent to crush you was really another secret agent all along. At Game Master's discretion, you may also convincingly pretend to be another position from this list to keep cover.
You're an infiltrator. You're supremely competent in getting in the good graces of people who have all reason to be ever vigilant for enemies and wary of outsiders, and subsequently maintaining your cover. Also, you get a re-roll if you get to roll to spot impostors, spies, etc. etc.
Through a combination of half-remembered factoids, willful ignorance of danger, reality-defying obsession, and pure blind luck, you are as capable of surviving in the wild as an explorer of your level. There's one-in-six chance of unforeseen consequences, on top of any other possible consequences, but you get a re-roll to any immediate test against inconveniences they might cause.
You're as competent, in the context of practical pharmaceutics, as a scholar of your level. Also, you get a re-roll on rolls against incapacitation by chemical means thanks to your experience with all the stuff you took.
You're a supremely skilled seducer. As long as the mark is willing to consider, you will succeed at seduction. However, for some reason it always ends hilariously badly. You have 1d10 days of head start before that happens.
You're a competent trader and can get 20% higher prices for any mundane wares you might be peddling. 50% if they are somehow illegal. 100% if they're coming for you at the moment, since you can play it off as a one-time offer.
When you want to insult or ridicule someone in a position of legal or societal authority, in speech or in writing, you always hit the right buttons. Depending on their disposition, the result may involve such reactions as frothing rage or a determination to obliterate your social standing, but the general public will be at least secretly favourable towards you. If the individual you want to insult has a positive reputation, it will be taken as friendly ribbing unless you're taking on a particularly revered figure.
Although I might do the wizard in some way anyway.
(Point is I really want to do the professionally-goes-into-the-jungle class as a separate class. Sort of a ranger without the suck. I'm not the one who came up with the idea - that was a certain blogger, he called it "the Traveller" - but I'm not sure if he realized what he did was basically the ranger. The catch is that he did it as a class for a professional caravan guide or whatever and I want to do the kind of whitey fella who arrives from beyond the sea just so he could go into the jungle and explore, for kicks and science, rather than simply "I live nearby so I know the area" which said blogger's description kind of implied. One way to solve the problem is to do a single scholar class and say the explorer is a subset of it, but I'm afraid I'll fail to provide some important element of the intended archetype this way.)
I guess that's for the moment, so I'm hitting the post button.
----
Metropole maintains a policy of 1:12 ratio of gold to silver prices, similar to other great powers. A piece of silver, however it may be called, is considered a basic unit of currency, though cheaper metals are in common use for everyday needs. Great merchants sometimes speculate on rates of exchange of various countries, but such concerns and opportunities are beyond the reach of most people.
The colony produces much wealth. Wealth derived from the jungle takes different forms, from honest trade goods such as tropical wood or tree products, through more exotic wares like rare pelts or medicinal plants, but the most coveted finds are precious commodities. Silver, gold, and gems. The last of these is rare, although not so that prospecting is not a viable occupation in the eyes of many. Silver and gold are more common in bulk, and when exploration parties arrive with elven plunder, it often takes the form of silver and golden wares and bullion. Much the same can be said of mining and other industries. In the end, it is silver and gold that are used to express this wealth.
Though it does not want for resource, the colony had seen too much of its bountiful riches wasted, sent back over the sea and for all practical purposes lost to the colony, or lost at sea. At best, what is retained is merely spent on imported luxuries by nobles and landowners who control the trade and feel no need to develop local industries, when all they would want can come from Metropole. But if the country is to move ahead in the world, it cannot be so, it needs to stand on its own two feet. Its wealth must enrich the nation, not be shipped off year after year to the benefit of only the distant capital cities of empires.
Player characters may spend their money on leisure and recuperation, and it is certainly an open option to them, but the assumption is rather that they may hide or develop over time nobler concerns than simply that.
Thus, you learn - convert whatever recent experiences you can recall into useful skills and behavior patterns - when you have time to tune out for a while and meditate on what had happened. Mere living your life in comfort is not that. Either you reflect on what purpose drove you, or you spend what you gained, but the value used in this way must be gained the hard way first. Merely living off rent does not count, as it is no different in practice to feudal rents of the nobles. It's about wealth you gained during the latest expedition, not by a safe return on investment. Although, for that matter, an investment in a fast ship you personally sail to run the blockade, by all means counts as just such an expedition.
Once there's enough time to rest and recuperate, your character gains experience:
The Vice-Regent maintains a hold on gunpowder weapons in the Colony. Unlike most of the laws of Metropole, this one he is keen on upholding. Just as Metropole has a vested interest in its colonies not having the means to rebel, so do the Vice-Regents have to maintain their positions. The colonial garrisons keep a tight lid on stores of gunpowder. Control over arms themselves is less strict, for without powder, they are hardly more than an unwieldy club. Ships coming into the harbours are supposed to retain them on board, but there is not always an inspector waiting on the wharf to enforce the law. Smuggling is all over the place, and special licenses can be bought or earned for exceptional service. Thus, ownership of weapons is more common than laws would indicate, although they are still confiscated on Vice-Regential authority.
Small amounts of powder are relatively easy to come by, by less than legal means and from apothecaries, as long as one does not arouse suspicions. Larger, that's a different matter. There are no powder mills in the colony, even though, if one was to closely follow geological and prospecting reports, one would quickly realize the needed materials are out there to be found in quite reliable amounts. Excluding a raid on a gunpowder store or a clandestine milling operation, there always remains smuggling. Explosives of other kinds, as less suited to their use for guns, are usually considered to belong to the same category as mining equipment.
Seaside forts and towns and larger cities are equipped with cannons. Since the former lie on the lowlands, this is a highly undesirable post for those who were not born in the colonies. Which is to say, soldiers. Therefore, many of these forts are fully staffed only on paper, whether by conscious design, desertion, or attrition. Cannons are of concern to the Vice-Regency since they are such a crucial piece of modern warfare, but they also are hard to move and even harder to do so in an inconspicuous way, so it is rare when it is a cannon that is at the crux of an issue.
Though cannons are commonly mounted on ships as well, a chief exception to that principle are the river gunboats. These, instead, carry the infamous flame guns. The average ship of the line fights at a range beyond the possibilities of a flame gun, but on a river, where your enemies are monstrous wildlife or angry natives or local smugglers likelier than a seaworthy vessel, it is enough.
Pistols and blunderbusses are not uncommon. They are too small and short-ranged for battlefield use. They are still subject to regulation, but oversight is lax. A low profile and avoidance of irate or aggressively drunk officials tends to be enough to avoid harassment.
Air guns are strictly illegal. If getting caught with a gun carries a risk of its confiscation and your mishandling by enforcers of law, getting caught with an air gun carries a risk of summary execution.
By law, muskets are only to be kept in arsenals, but colonial militias are often given leeway in handling them, for purposes of colonial defense. Metropole-born soldiers cannot be everywhere at once. Usually, those more important of settlements have a nominal garrison force to protect the local gunpowder store. It is, nonetheless, undersupplied just as often. Many a pirate raid came to fruition for want of powder on the side of defenders; raids by opposing powers, in theory graver, more than once are simply written off as the calculus of war, rarely ever meant for actually holding the territory. Settlements large enough to form militias, but also out of the way enough that gun-armed enemies are not an issue, often stock up on crossbows. They are considered more reliable in the colonial climate.
Colonial nobles and great landowners, in public, often grumble about the powder laws as infringement on noble privileges, but it is them who benefit, and in privacy they know it. A slave uprising without access to comparable weaponry is not going to succeed. Soldiers of the garrison never fail to march out when that happens. It is an unofficial, but symbiotic relationship. Many nobles own small-caliber hunting rifles, and the greater ones can afford to provide their enforcers with gunpowder weapons.
What all of that means, is that non-gunpowder weaponry is a suitable pick for any random crack-squad of adventurous ne'er-do-wells.
----
Weapons exist in three categories: small, concealable ones, mid-sized (medium; the hand weapons proper) which sometimes may be worn as part of everyday suit, but are going to be quite obvious unless you put on a loose coat or cloak, and large, which are likely to be strictly military or, at best, hunting equipment, you probably can't wear indoors anyway, and may require two hands to use.
Weapons which generally aren't meant to be lethal, such as sticks, clubs, or other mostly civilian, mostly blunt implements, are probably going to deal damage as if they were one size smaller.
The common country folk and quite often the urban lower classes will carry around a facon, a large knife-dagger which is a bit of a status symbol and can serve as an all-purpose tool. Anywhere there is farm work to do (from gardens to slave plantations), chances are it will be done using machetes. Middle classes are likely to go unarmed, carry side-swords in the fashion of small nobility if they are allowed, or use walking sticks to follow the fashions from the other side of the ocean. The nobles will often wear side-swords as a mark of their status.
The elves, alongside with more easily comparable weaponry, used to wield clubs laden with obsidian blades. Coming in various sizes, they are equivalent to a sword, one- or two-handed. There are differences in use, but not big enough to warrant a different classification.
Melee weapons - in general, small weapons deal 1d4 damage, medium deal 1d6, and large deal 1d8. With these guidelines, there are some points to note.
Machete - a sturdy, multi-purpose agricultural tool of varying sizes and shapes. The smaller count as small, larger are mid-sized and both function quite well as a weapon. Oh, and they can be used for agricultural work, too.
Sabre - a type of side-sword which looks vaguely exotic and dashing when worn, and is really handy when you fight from horseback. Count +1 to damage when used this way. Obviously, mid-sized, and can get you odd looks or assumptions of being a cavalry officer.
Staff, pole, etc. - these are large, but deal 1d6 damage since they're not meant to be all that lethal. If there's a sharpened spearhead on the end of a long pole, it's a spear and deals 1d8 damage instead. A lance is generally any type of straight polearm with a sharp point meant for cavalry fighting, which may or may not carry penalties when used on foot sue to its streamlined design (or lack of any design).
Bayonet - as a category, it's all types of weapons that can be stuck to the end of a gun and used as a spear. A dedicated bayonet used in this way deals 1d8 damage. In many cases, a knife can go into the barrel and do the job in a pinch; 1d6 damage with such an improvised bayonet, and a roll to hit of 1 means it fell out, or got stuck, or broke, etc.
----
Ranged weapons also exist in three size categories, but since it is the projectile that does the actual damage, the relationship between size category and damage dealt is somewhat less strict. For purposes of concealment, though, the principle remains the same.
Blowgun - a weapon favoured by native peoples of the jungle, it is a tube for shooting darts. Usually small; the darts deal 1d3 damage. Watch out for the poison, though. That's what's going to wreck you if you get hit. The frogs have mastered the skill of using their vocal sacs to power the weapon and as such, they deal 1d6 damage by it.
Bow - the old bow is still popular with native warriors and hunters. It's a mid-sized weapon dealing 1d6 damage.
Crossbow - the crossbow is a common weapon for hunting in the colonies, and frequently used for defense. They exist in various sizes, from hand-held (small, 1d4 damage), to standard light hunting crossbows (medium, 1d6 damage), to large weapons meant to be used from ramparts (large, 1d8 damage). In general, they need a turn to reload, unless some fancy and possibly exotic mechanism is employed, either to increase the shooting rate, or to increase damage.
----
Armor and guns for a separate post.
----
I kept the section on armor for a separate post, because, well, it needs some sort of armor class or whatever and it's tied into game mechanics more deeply than just picking a damage die and hoping nobody will notice I don't know what I am doing.
See, I'm not quite set on game mechanics. All of this can be subject to change.
The thing is I have a general idea, but it is kind of by definition beholden to a specific, D&D-ish set of mechanics. To just go along with these is the path of least resistance, and it'll likely end up like every other game of that school of design. Also, even within that school I might just tweak a few things.
----
Armor does not suit the colonial climate well. The native peoples often eschew it altogether, or employ exotic means of protection which don't quite follow the old world logic. Elsewhere, battlefield armor has already been discarded for most purposes, as heavy gunpowder weapons make short work of it, and it is too expensive to equip every low-born grunt with it. But in the colonies, the powder laws have created a cottage industry in armor-making. Few of these items are of good quality, but to many enough, mediocre is still better than none.
Padded vest -
Brigandine - an old type of armor, consisting of metal plates sewn to the inside of a padded jacket, virtually resurrected in the colonies for ease of production. It is, however, heavy and hot.
Breastplate -
Three-quarters armor - the best form of protection to be found, also the most expensive and impractical. Such armors were used in the initial conquest, then less and less so as Vice-Regency was founded and its hold over the country grew. Nowadays, such armors are to be found in personal possession of great landowners, as heirlooms and showpieces.
Cloak - when used to deflect blows, it works as a small shield. It's also inconspicuous and can protect you from rain, which is a nice bonus.
something more exotic -
yeah, at this point I'm leaving out some space to fill in later -
----
But it might as well be so that your drive is a personal, or barring that, a professional calling. It is something you do and draw pride from. You're not just a fellow who goes to places, and, in fact, you are not even a fellow who goes to places and brings back valuables found in there. You, instead, are a fellow who has been to places as the first one in generations and brought back not just wealth of gold - you certainly could have, for the allure of gold is not lost on every such as you - but wealth of knowledge. This is, most likely, why you came all the way over from the old world. To explore. Discover. Experience.
It used to be so, indeed, that conquerors cared for naught but gold and other valuables. Many still do see the colonies as a mere source of wealth, great merchants and great nobles of Metropole for personal enrichment, Metropole itself to prop up their regime. The people of the colonies, for a while, did not care either, the locals too bothered with staying alive and whole under the watchful gaze of easily roused authorities, and the newcomers, well, much alike their social betters, coming to a new land beyond the sea in a hope to grow rich quick. But these are enlightened times, and many of those who have lived in the colonies for generations see them as a homeland to be explored, rather than plunder to be exploited until it runs out. Newcomers flock to the colonies as they did once, but what drives them now is curiosity, be it a personal desire, or an academic mission to gather and measure all that the colonies have to offer. In any case, the two are rarely separate.
1d10
You can always get the gist of what's spoken around you, regardless (especially) if you don't speak the language. Always. Meaningful communication may take a while but it'll take a while rather than a month.
----
On an impulse, I'm posting it because it's been a while since the last post, I feel like I'm not failing to deliver a promise or whatnot, and now there's a chance I'll finish it in time. I gotta get to work regarding the mechanics, that stuff's stalling me. I'ts kind of like, it's hard to come up with the front-end stuff when you didn't figure out the back-end stuff. (That's why that post on armor is left unfinished.)
(Also, the rogue class should provide the possibility of playing as Gregor MacGregor. I'm gonna think on it.)
----
Lightning gathering operations in the western regions have only increased in scope since the arrival of the new invention from Metropole.
When a flask of glass is covered in thin tin foil in a certain special way, it can be made to retain the lightning charge. For most, it is not more than a precious curio, but never-ending thunderstorm over the western city is an opportunity not to be passed. And so, a cottage industry has sprung up around it, one of procuring of bottled lightning.
Apart from officials to pass off as prestige items and persons of science for their experiments, bottled lightning has also found an unlikely use - if perhaps predictable - among adventurers and miscreants of all sorts; as it appears, actual military men tend to hew to the tried-and-true ways of dealing damage.
Already, whether by desperation or death-wish, some willing or forced by circumstances to risk their bodily health have been preparing jars or buying them from middlemen - the latter more common, as merchants have also arisen who reap the benefits of the trade without risking themselves to the lightning strikes - carrying them towards the storm and mounting tall metal poles, to gather up the electric fluid from the charged air. With good luck, one can fill out their bottles and avoid a lightning strike. With bad luck, any piece of metal, from the pole itself to buttons and nails in their clothes and shoes, can attract a strike before the flask, to an effect that is all too predictable. It is dangerous trade, and unreliable, and so the output from this way of procurement is not a large one, but also easy to get into and the land does not lack for the desperate.
The lightning flask is one of the wonders of the modern era, but it is not the most novel thing to appear in the colonies.
However, much has changed is another invention which has recently arrived from beyond the sea, the balloon. A bag of warm air large enough to carry aloft a few persons, it can come much closer to the storm clouds than any erect metal pole. Already it is being used to bring the tip of the fluid-gathering needle ever higher, but the results are best when a conscious mind is up there. The benefits, meanwhile, are measured in numbers of flasks filled with lightning and shipped overseas with every outgoing ship. Thus, the dangerous trade has become even riskier, for apart from the lightning, there also is the simple risk of falling or getting carried off by wind to directions unknown.
Despite its propensity for all these misfortunes, the balloon offers a hitherto non-existent, save for certain fanciful and unreliable claims of magical crafts, opportunity for exploration of the colonial interior. From above, land can be surveyed and mapped. Mesas which so far were considered uscalable can be now, in theory, be reached from such a balloon to lift a team of adventurous (and hopefully industrious) daredevils just over the edge of the cliff, if only such were to step forward. There is a risk involved, and getting back down is another matter which may or may not be considered in advance. But such concerns have never, in the past, prevented such fellows from appearing.
It's pointing towards the thing the character needs most at the moment. The Game Master is encouraged to interpret it in loose and poetic ways.
The parrot can be ornery at times, but generally will agree to help, as long as that's within the realm of possibility.
It will not, provided it's roughly in range, and also will not break upon impact. It can be destroyed by other means, though, and does not return, so it will have to be found and collected if it is to be re-used.
Whether it's used as a weapon or as a tool, you have a +1 bonus to any test involving its application.
It's basically a mostly-reusable hand grenade made of angry ants. Which in a pinch you can also show off and cause a sensation in naturalist circles.
A dose of the water causes rapid closing of wounds and purges the organism of poisons and illnesses; full recovery requires a day of rest. There are 1d4+2 doses left.
When you use this clock to measure time or assess your current location by dead reckoning - especially at sea - you will never be wrong.
A token of recommendation from a widely respected person will help you out through a lot of what would otherwise be, at best, a charisma check, or turn into a charisma check what would otherwise be a sure hostile encounter. The game master is encouraged to role-play the other side of the conversation as demanding a story of how the character met the Important Person, etc. etc.
The effect does not take place if you already wear armour; the feather simply stays a feather. If you had a hat or another head covering, it falls off to make place for the headpiece.
This rifle grants you +1 to hit and wound rolls, never misfires, and if it was to break for any reason involving a roll, you can re-roll it. In addition, NPCs who might be positively inclined towards a fellow sharpshooter/hunter/firearm expert/etc. etc., will be.
(The game master is encouraged not to destroy these items; putting them at risk or having them stolen is a decent way to get the player to act, though.)
----
You know what guys, I have a bit of a serious problem here. Like, I wanted to include an Explorer class (sort of like a XVIII Century-themed Ranger) and a Scholar class (like a not-necessarily-a-wizard intellectual to build up the theme of the Enlightenment era), but I have this issue: BOTH ARE THE SAME. Like, I wanted to pattern the "Ranger" off Alexander von Humboldt and the "Scholar" off the intellectuals and engineers of the era, but the dude was, like, a scholar all the way through. If I leave that out, all I'm left with is, like, a native guide. (And conversely, if I remove all the exploratory themes off the Scholar, what's left is severely diminished.) Which is fine, but doesn't quite tick off all the boxes I want it to tick off, metaphorically speaking. Do you have any insight on this?
The other explorer that comes to mind is Jimmie Angel (the guy the Angel Falls are named after), but he's a 20th century guy.
Also the other day I learned that Dr. José Gregorio Hernández (finally) got beatified and is thus officially a cleric.
i dropped that like an extra-hot potato
*scribbles down furiously*
*checks wiki* *scribbles down, like, double furiously*
I'm gonna tackle the cleric one of these days, but it'd have to involve some unique spin on the class. Also I'm beginning to seriously consider merging the explorer concept into the scholar. The bonus would be that it'd avoid the issue of having a non-native out-native-ing the natives at being native.
----
I guess I might have found the key: this is going about to be One Big Thing the character is about to do. The cost, of course, is that I had to write off a lot. At first, I began writing up the effects of all these, but they mostly came off as "work it out with the GM", because they're rather open-ended and I had no better idea. Only then it hit me I don't quite need that. But I'll put the intended effects in a toggle-box, in case I need them in the future.
The player gets to decide what the superweapon does. The Game Master decides what is necessary to construct it. Afterwards, it can be fired once or kept as a threat.
You receive as warm a welcome from progressive elements of high society as it is cold from officials (at least openly). This may extend to accomodation, funding, etc. However, even the friendly hosts might still demand to be entertained with a debate on philosophy.
The player gets to decide what kind of machine the invention is. The Game Master decides on the implementation.
The player defines a field: involuntary soul transfer, ghost manipulation, designer poisonmaking, fleshcrafting, etc. Once a laboratory is established, the character can work in the chosen field, to the possibility of money, connections, and arguable fame. If a specific project is announced by the player, details are worked out together with the Game Master.
The player and the Game Master work out how much data needs to be gathered for the character to perfect the theory. Once the theory is deemed perfected, the player can declare one-time use of a natural phenomenon as if it would occur at their command.
You have an uncanny ability to get in the good graces of authorities. Given a few hours of explaining your economic theories, you will always land a nice cushy administrative post or head position in a banking establishment. Negative results are assumed to be the fault of other people.
At any point in the game, the player can declare the economic theories actually work. From that point on, the authorities no longer buy into them - if already implemented, they need to be implemented again correctly to work. The player and the GM are to work out the benefits.
Your wide theoretical knowledge can be applied to medicine.
For the fighter and the rogue, the premise is that they get a unique skill or something like that. For the explorer, it's some fun item or something that they already got in their past explorations. So, for the scholar, it's one big idea that they might want to talk out with the GM, perhaps to one day see accomplished.
----
It is a new age; an age of knowledge.
In the past, people have lived for centuries beholden to stolid dogmas, fearful to think of what lies behind the horizon and what makes the spheres of the world turn. It took long, way too long, for some to begin asking questions, but begin they did. And once those first brave few did, others came in their wake.
It is the first era in history when a warship can be sent to the other side of the world just to perform astronomical observations.
But yet, not all is well. The world is still far from reason - true, capital 'R' Reason - becoming its guiding principle. It's all the more grating, given the fact rulers see its worth, take to it as wasps to honey, yet all that they draw from it is new ways to control and conquer. Even if sent to perform observations, it was still a warship. Oh, surely, many scholars have taken to them, to use that as an opportunity to introduce new methods and ways of governance, to construct new machines which they hope will soon find uses not for warfare, in small increments when and how they can. But not all those who wish for freedom of the mind are satisfied with a mind which can only extend its freedom as far as the handler's leash lets them.
Bravery - intellectual bravery as well, and perhaps the most; one needs to dare to know - comes with a price to pay. Of course it has; else it would not be bravery. Perhaps the way is to leave and start over.
Apart from less immediately practical pursuits, you are an expert in...
As a scholar in this age, there is a lot you have put your mind to, some practical, some theoretical... and some that is likely the second, but seems to have an interesting potential for application if enough hands and funds are thrown at it. In fact, that tends to be why you decided to travel to the colonies. Perhaps only there it can be realized, due to a need for data that only there can be gathered, or unique raw materials, or some other factor. Perhaps you wish your project to be realized, but Metropolitan society is too hide-bound to let you work at a few small things, for science. And perhaps, you want to move away to a place where you will not be demanded to use your skill and knowledge for petty games of dynastic one-upmanship.
1d10 odd projects you might have had as a scholar (which may or may not be related to the result of the previous roll):