Runehack RPG 0.1: Pivoting in a New Direction

It's time for the truth to be revealed. Maybe I never really wanted a game that's action-filled in the first place. I have always dreamed of a D&D game with an all-bards party, where they'd go on a world tour. Or something similar for another system. I lost this dream of mine somewhere along the way to Game Dev years ago and have forgotten about it... until today.

It's time to showcase how the musical pillar will work for the Runehack RPG!

A quick musician doodle redeemed from Mishroomarts

Music Pillar

There are four qualities that the music can have:

• Intensity can range from Calm to Strong, describing how loud the music's loudest tones are. It utilizes Muscle.
• Tempo can range from Slow to Fast, describing the general speed at which the music is played. It utilizes Agility.
• Authenticity can range from Bright to Dark, describing whether the music is more upbeat or emotional. It utilizes Comprehension.
• Creativity can range from Stock to Fresh, describing whether the music is predictable or if it's unafraid to experiment outside of the music theory's range. It utilizes Hunch.

Training isn't represented as a musical genre because it defines your expertise with musical instruments. You can play a number of musical instruments equal to 1 + your Training, and they can have a total number of unique properties equal to your Training.

Note: You can select a musical instrument in place of one of the expert areas that your Training gives you in the Core Pillar. If you do so, you will have expertly knowledge in how this instrument works, its history, maintenance, and significant artists who primarily played this instrument.

The musical instruments can have the following properties:

• Pedaled. Advantage on rolls for Intensity.
• Two-handed. Advantage on rolls for Tempo.
• Multi-tonal. Advantage on rolls for Authenticity.
• Contiunuous. Advantage on rolls for Creativity.
• Static. Advantage on rolls for both Intensity and Tempo.
• Custom-made. Choose one of the musical qualities. You can use Training in place of the original stat when rolling for that quality using this instrument. You can take this property multiple times.

Musical Performance

When performing, it is important to appease the crowd's demands. The GM begins by secretly rolling 4d6 and dividing the numbers between the qualities. The highest roll stands for a preference for high rolls in that quality, the lowest roll stands for a preference for low rolls in that quality, and anything in between begins neutral. If multiple numbers are the highest/lowest, it's applied to multiple qualities. If all four numbers are the same, they correspond to low (1-3) or high (4-6) rolls. The GM keeps them in the order of Intensity, Tempo, Authenticity, and Creativity behind the screen.

At the start of every round, the GM rolls 2d12 without adding them together to see which preferences flip. If they were neutral so far, they get tipped either way at GM's discretion.

• 1-3: Intensity
• 4-6: Tempo
• 7-9: Authenticity
• 10-12: Creativity

These preferences can be represented in crowd actions. These are, on purpose, ambiguous to keep the band guessing. For convenience, each is listed twice to be easier to reference. The GM should mention ideally two of them (one if there aren't two) at the start of each round to clue the players in on what the audience demands.

• Intensity (low)
• or Tempo (low): swaying
• or Creativity (low): whistling
• Intensity (high)
• or Tempo (high): head-banging
• or Authenticity (high): stomping
• Tempo (low)
• or Intensity (low): swaying
• or Authenticity (high): lights above heads (e.g. lighters)
• Tempo (high)
• or Intensity (high): head-banging
• or Creativity (high): playing air instruments
• Authenticity (low)
• or Creativity (low): screams
• or Creativity (high): crowd wave
• Authenticity (high)
• or Intensity (high): stomping
• or Tempo (low): lights above heads (e.g. lighters)
• Creativity (low)
• or Intensity (low): whistling
• or Authenticity (low): screams
• Creativity (high)
• or Tempo (high): playing air instruments
• or Authenticity (low): crowd wave

The DC for all music-making rolls is 8 unless said otherwise. However, the players must either roll above the DC as usual, or under if the audience demands low for some musical quality. Whether a player is trying to roll over or under 8 should be announced before the roll along with the musical quality (e.g. "I'm trying to go for low Tempo). Due to this, any musician can choose to roll with a disadvantage at will, and they can choose whether their stat is ignored, added to, or subtracted from a roll after it is made. The goal is to play according to the crowd's preferences, confirmed by the reactions described by the GM. If a musician succeeds in playing according to the crowd's preferences two times in a turn, or when they roll exactly 8, they get a Starpower Point.

Starpower Points are a way of performing extra actions while keeping up the performance. The pillar will feature some special actions that can be performed by spending an act or a number of Starpower Points. The details aren't worked out yet, but for now, examples could include:

• getting the crowd to sing in your place,
• dance moves,
• musical instrument tricks,
• activating special effects such as fireworks,
• jumping onto the crowd and letting it carry you,
• tossing a keepsake into the crowd.

Each would have its effect, but right now I don't have any further details worked out. Maybe some could coordinate their preferences or something like that.

---

That's about it for now. Of course, once finished the pillar would feature its own roles, their features, and so on, but that all should be done on another day. All that being said, ... it should be obvious this isn't what I want my game to be about, but I do want it to be an actual part of the game. It's not on my priorities list, but I had some time to spare during Easter and thought of working this out before I get to the final details of the core system I want to release this year as a way of relaxing. It might not come off as all that funny of an April Fools joke, but I came up with it not too long ago. The article was written in about 2 hours, most of this isn't set in stone yet. Obviously, it borrows some ideas from Play It by Cheer!, and that's because I really liked the foundation I've laid out there. Its stats map nicely onto this system's stats, Training is an awesome "ace in a sleeve" stat that'd work universally elsewhere, and... I think when I get to making the roles for this system, I'll make it so that the roles are named differently. Writing all this out made me realize that the roles probably should have different names in every pillar.

Anyway, writing the Core Pillar article took me too long, I wrote like 5 or 6 articles since I mentioned it last time it, so I can't promise I'll publish it before I begin the playtests. I'll see what I can do though. I like the way the game's development is going, and my 12 good games resolution is going to be finished soon enough. Or, it would be, if Witcher 3 wasn't still ahead of me.

That's about it! Thank you for reading, and happy beginning of April, everyone!

Runehack RPG 0: Goals and Foundations

The time has come. Let's talk about what I've been working on for some time now. Just to be clear, these articles will be focused on the game's design more than on the worldbuilding.

The old cover art for the Runehack RPG was drawn by Kate Chaste. While it's fine work, over the years I changed my mind and ended up not using it for the game. The new cover art has already been drawn by my wonderful girlfriend Arell, but I figured I could use this for the article series so that these would still get a thumbnail of some sort. I'll reveal the new cover art when the game is finished.

Premise

I like the idea of going beyond the usual pillars of experience. I feel like combat has been explored in many games, the exploration is something some games already do really well, and social interaction is something I have my own opinions on (briefly: give tools, not skips). I will have to do something for some of these, but generally, I don't want to delve too much into those. So, how do I plan to go beyond?

This game takes place in my world Runehack which I talked about several times on my blog. In this world dominated by megacorporations, there's a secretive organization with its own goals. The base assumption is that the organization will face the megacorporations, trying to dig up dirt on them by infiltrating their buildings to search for interesting information about them and then sharing it with the public. Imagine whistleblowers but with exciting freerunning and hacking involved.

That being said, this is the base game that I want to publish this year. I'd like to expand on the game after with extra pillars of experience that could be added or removed without anything changing too much. Of course, you would leave out the base premise of the game if you were to remove the hacking and the freerunning pillars. Still, the same can be said about any system - if I remove combat from D&D, it becomes a vastly different game from what most players experience it as. The big difference I'm leading to is that in my game, I want everything I label as a pillar of experience to be something the game could easily focus on throughout a campaign, even if other pillars are dropped.

Goals

I aim to finish the game's first version by the end of this year. This includes the rules for the three pillars I wish to begin with.

The core pillar is the only pillar you can't remove from the game, since it includes the mechanics that other pillars rely on. These include your fantasy species, regular rolls made using your attributes, some additional background-related traits, and the core of the action economy that's shared with all other pillars.

The freerunning pillar is what I spend most of the time developing. The best way I can put it is that it's an upgrade of what I tested with the Fairy Heist: areas connected by passages that some can pass, some can't, and some can pass but they'd get slowed down. Think of this as Mirror's Edge, or Assassin's Creed, but done in tabletop and ideally without the players fighting their opponents.

The hacking pillar is the final pillar that I want to have in the game when it's published, but it's also the one I'd have the easiest time dropping if I don't manage to finish it on time. It's the dice-placing minigame from The Asterist.

Core Pillar

While the core pillar is something I'm largely satisfied with by now, consider it still a bit of a work in progress. It's unlikely that it will change from now on, but it might if I am compelled enough to do so.

This system's method of rolling is a roll-over using 2d6 or 1d12, with the addition of one's relevant attribute. When a character rolls for its attribute, it can choose to roll Reliably (2d6) or Recklessly (1d12). This is a concept I've described before on my blog, and it's to give the players some control over how their die roll might end up. I will happily borrow the rules for advantage and disadvantage from Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition since I want the numbers to stay within their bounds. An attribute has a range of 0 to 4, with some exceptions.

For now, I'm feeling a bit experimental. I want to preserve a proven mechanic from a previous game, which is why I've decided this game will have five stats, but two of them can be replaced by a single one for some characters.

• Might - physical strength. Pushing, lifting, dragging, and so on.
• Agility - dexterity. Sleight of hand, dodging, acrobatics, balance, and so on.
• Training - tools knowledge. Picking locks, making mechanisms, artistic performance, and so on.
• Comprehension - abstract knowledge. Physics, chemistry, psychology, history, and so on.
• Hunch - guessing. Searching for hidden things, intuition, and so on.
• Height - replaces the Might and Agility of characters who are so tiny that their Might and Agility wouldn't matter more than their height. Unlike other stats, this one ranges from 4 to 17, and when one uses it, they roll 3d6 and succeed when they either roll their exact height, below their height when they would use their Might, or above their height when they would use their Agility. Possessing a height stat also reduces the number of acts you can perform in a turn by 1.

Most of these attributes also come with some extra benefit attached to them. For now, since it will be relevant, I will mention just that you get a number of hunches per day equal to your Hunch attribute, which you can spend to make a guess statement towards your GM about a thing your character could reasonably guess. You must make it clear that you are using your hunch, by saying something along the lines of "I have a hunch that..." for example. Your GM then tells you whether your hunch was correct or not. Yes, it's the mechanic I've tested with the Clues and Hunches, I like it a lot.

When it comes to the playable species, there's a plan to include seven of them. I've considered including the digital ghost that I've introduced in Runehack: The Asterist, but in the end, I've realized it might be too powerful for the freerunning pillar. It would be fine as an opponent now and then, but as a player character, it's just too much. As for the rest, here they are listed along with a rough outline of their traits:

• Dwarf. Possesses a touch so sensitive, that they can see anything that's touching a surface they touch with their bare skin. This functions up to 1 area away.
• Elf. Can see in the dark and perform one additional activity per day. Their lifespan is also extra long, but that doesn't really matter within the game itself.
• Fairy. Possess the Height stat, and they can also naturally fly. Once per turn, they can use an act to move twice. I might add one or more traits, since right now a Small Runebot is an objectively better version of a fairy.
• Goblin. Over a week, they can adjust their physiology through a diet, gaining a trait of their choice. I'll be honest, neither do I know what exactly will these abilities be just yet.
• Human. One of their attributes is increased by 1. Furthermore, they can spend 1 hunch after a roll to force a reroll, keeping the new result.
• Orc. One of their attributes is increased by 1. They get an additional act on their turn that they can only use to move. They can also choose one attribute that they can increase after a time beyond 4.
• Runebot. Their body is a puppet remotely controlled by their mind from a safe location. Their body is highly modular, and it can come in a Regular or Small model (the difference being that the Small model has a Height stat). With the increase in level, they get more and more components that they can attach to their body. I will need to find a way of compensating the Small runebots for a loss of an act, but for now, this is it.

Pillars' Commonalities

I don't know yet how I'll work out the progression across all the pillars, but what I do know is that every time a character gets to "level up", they will have to increase one of their lowest pillars by a level.

There are two ways of tracking what a character does in this game: activity and act. A character gets to choose to do 6 activities per day. They could in theory be split up and shuffled around, but I've wanted a way of tracking the activities one does that's somewhat simple, so for now consider them uninterrupted blocks (as unnatural as it may be). Some activities can include sleep, work, mission, or anything else of significant time investment, such as an important social interaction, or research. Matters such as transportation, eating, and so on, aren't tracked and are assumed to be performed as part of these activities. On a turn-by-turn basis (like during a mission), a character can take 3 acts per turn.

I'm quite hyped for this project. It's been a long time coming, and I want to play it. There's still a long way to go though, so for now this is everything I can say here. Thank you for reading, and have an awesome day!

Languages in Runehack, and Mental Load in Worldbuilding

This article is not written just because the articles made under the tag myRPGs have almost overtaken Runehack. It is part of the reason for this, but I'm writing this because it's a thing I've pondered for a while.

On one occasion in the past, I've talked about the mental load of a media consumer. Sure this is something I spoke about only regarding a D&D homebrew, but it extends beyond this. People love detailed worldbuilding, but detailed worldbuilding isn't for everyone. This is why I feel so many writers talk about the worldbuilding icebergs, an illusion of detailed worldbuilding by merely alluding to some matters in the world, or developing the fictional cultures only in a couple of areas that interest the author the most. And there's some truth to it all. In an ideal scenario, an author who wishes to make a highly realistic world would have a worldbuilding project on their hands that would take them a lifetime to finish. It would take others a lifetime to absorb because such a project would be just as complex as our reality.

One area that fascinates me and intrigues me a lot is the culture around languages. The way we speak influences the way we label things, think, and act. Its influences leak into the way we speak in other languages - our accents, our interactions, the way we express ourselves in other languages, and so much more. Tolkien has put a lot of effort into his Elvish languages. And honestly, I struggle with that. No matter how I put the letters together, they rarely sound good, and I can only imagine writing a dictionary 100 words long for this purpose. There are tools for this online; one person even made a game out of conlang development. No matter what, though, the made-up words feel off to me most of the time. Then again, this is the same thing I've said about my attempts to compose music, and I overcame that hurdle earlier this year, so I'll be able to overcome this mental block in a couple of years too.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that in an ideal scenario, I'd create a world with a myriad of in-depth languages that influenced each other, and use them to at least label everything in the world. However, not only would I see such an endeavor as time-consuming, but due to the mental load it would require I see it as fruitless. Some would enjoy such details, but seeing just how much time it's taking me, I figured I'd take an easy way out. I began worldbuilding for Runehack and writing my novel that takes place in it by coming up with placeholder names, and I feel like they're sticking to me. The city names are mostly English words that express something about the place. People's names, meanwhile, are just jumbled-up English names, regardless of their real-world origin. So what if Samwell originates from Samuel, which is Hebrew in origin. I could reverse-engineer a meaning for the names if it was that important, for now, I'll just let it slide.

That being said, there are some fun linguistic things I came up with for Runehack. I doubt I'll develop them into full languages, they're just neat tidbits of information I wanted to share for a while.

Yes, at one point I thought I'd make the explanation for a shared language something like a 2001: Space Odyssey-style obelisk of knowledge. But that would raise more questions than solve problems.
Daily speedpaint 027 - Ancient language, by DaiSanVisART

Franqa

Let's begin with the most important idea that took me the longest to develop. See, Runehack is a world in which sharing the culture would be difficult. The bubbles of civilization are separated by the wilderness full of dangerous shapeshifters. Therefore, all the cultures would be developing to be radically different. And language, too, is a thing that changes and shifts over time. Due to this separation, they would drift to the point where they'd have a hard time understanding each other. But what if it wasn't this way?

Franqa is a plant that grows special tea leaves. According to the latest Mindlore research of Runehack's scientists, its effects are psychedelic in nature, kind of like being high. Several minutes after drinking it, one can speak, read, write, and understand spoken language called the same as this plant - Franqa. Nobody can tell what the exact origin of this language is, but it's consistent. The effects of Franqa tea last for roughly 4 hours.

The plant was native to the south-eastern regions of the New World, not too far from Moorwell. Its use was discovered even before the Era of Monsters, and it has spread all over the world thanks to its usefulness. It started off as a tool for use by travelers, diplomats, and translators, but it made its way into other areas of life too. Once its use became widespread, some people started to learn Franqa even when not under its influence. The tea leaves of Franqa are viewed as a symbol of community and cooperation. The plant even made its way into the everyday language. When someone wants to be honest and straightforward without trying to deceive the listener, they say they'll be "frank".

This is how all the cities of my world can talk to each other without issues, by using their lingua franqa.

The Unnamed Languages

The last two languages are why I haven't posted this article earlier - both are raw, underdeveloped ideas. The first is a language developed by some elves living in a humid jungle. This language is based on the premise of uninterrupted flow, which is why it contains no stopping sounds. Its vowels would be the typical a, e, i, o, and u sounds, and its consonants would be as follows: f, h, l, r, s, v, z, ʃ (labeled š), ʒ (labeled ž), and θ (labeled đ). The kh sound could in theory fit in too, but I found it too harsh to be used by the elves. As for going beyond that, other than phonotactics I don't have much worked out. I tried making a dictionary several times, but it always sounded bizarre, so I never did it completely. Fun fact, though, one of the earliest iterations of this language is the origin of Avurai University's name. Avurai was meant to mean "flying island" in this language.

The second language I wanted to make, and the newest one among all these, is a goblin code that has evolved into an artform. It's actually quite the opposite of the elvish language, inspired by the Hush language of the Limberwisk Isle. Both of these languages lack vowels. The phonotactics and phonetic dictionary of this goblin code is simple: every "syllable" (if it can be even considered that since it lacks a vowel) is made up of a consonant p, t, or k, followed by an optional letter r, s, ʃ, x, or f. There are no forbidden combinations, and the words can be quite long. The result might sound a bit like beatboxing, which is why this code became an artform of its own.

Tip Tap

Tip tap is a code known by some of the dwarves of Runehack. It utilizes their sensitive touch perception, which lets them sense the micro-vibrations of anything they touch with bare skin. Since most dwarves walk to most places barefoot, some have developed a secret minimal language for communicating with each other that utilizes lifting up the tips of their feet rhythmically to communicate.

Those who communicate using this code are referred to as tappers. It is one of the few ways of communicating that doesn't require the communicators to see or hear each other.

Tip Tap was developed originally by the dwarves who worked in the mines and forges, to inform each other of important things in their surroundings. Eventually, this language became widespread and generalized to be used in other loud work environments, such as forges and factories. It was and is also sometimes used in works or places where staying silent is crucial, such as animal hunting, prison inmate contact, special military forces, burglary, and spying.

Tip Tap is a simple oligosynthetic language with 45 morphemes, primarily focused on the domain of working. The word order in a sentence is Subject-Verb-Object. Adjectives follow after the Nouns they describe, e.g. "document (that is) old".

Due to its simple nature, the language lacks tenses other than present, and a large variety of terms that are not present in it. For example, since there is no term for water, most would refer to it as "Drink", even when it's not clean water or a large pool of water.

Since this is a written medium, we will utilize the Taixuanjing to codify this language. Each symbol represents the sequence, in which the tips of dwarves' feet (called "toes" from now) are touching the ground. Disruptions in the lines are the moments when the left (upper line) or right (bottom line) toes do not touch the ground. Please, assume the toes are touching the ground between the symbols.

⚍ ⚌ ⚎

𝌁 𝌅 𝌂

𝌃 ⚏ 𝌄 

The only restriction for tap sequences is that none of the ideas communicated can begin nor end with ⚌, seeing how that's the natural state for feet to be at.

Important messages can be communicated with both tips of feet and heels, by lifting an entire foot and softly stomping it against the ground or the floor. In this notation, the top two lines stand for a left foot, and the right foot is represented by the bottom two lines. While the line is doubled, it could in theory let the writer represent the heels and tips of the feet separately. However, this isn't utilized in Tip Tap for reasons forgotten by history.

𝌪 𝌊

𝍎 𝌎

The 𝌆 symbol isn't used, since its meaning is identical to ⚌. Symbols 𝌮 and 𝍖 are not listed, because these would require the tapper to jump in the air if standing.

These messages could in theory be tapped using the hands and fingers too. If a wall isn't part of the same material and surface as the ground, the tapper will have to bring the hand to the ground. Tapping the message using two fingers can be enough to convey the message to others.

Quick Messages

Since these are messages of vital importance, they are all symmetric – they can be communicated in an identical manner with either the left or the right foot. Furthermore, they are the only messages that require you to lift a heel. Chances are, if a tapper needs to communicate this message, they aren't concerned with being heard, so it's usually done by stomping the same foot twice or thrice.

Taps	Meaning
𝌪⚌𝌪 or 𝌊⚌𝌊	"Go away!" "Save yourself!" "Leave!" The message implies immediate danger to anyone who's receiving the message.
𝍎⚌𝌪 or 𝌎⚌𝌊	"Come here!" "Help me!" "I'm in danger!" The message implies immediate danger to the tapper, and a request for help or assistance.

Negation

Most messages are made so that they do not require the user to negate things. But in case it's necessary, 𝌃 and 𝌄 tend to be used. These taps are reserved for negation because they were too complex when used along with other terms.

People

Messages that involve people usually begin with the ⚏ taps.

Taps	Meaning
⚏⚏	I
⚏⚍	Guard, protector, security
⚏⚎	Civilian (someone not related to the work)
⚏𝌅	My colleague
⚏𝌁	My boss
⚏𝌂	My subordinate
⚏ followed by a Place	Someone in the Place (used only when it's clear from the context)

 

Items

Taps	Meaning
⚍⚏	Valuable
⚍⚍	Lock
⚍⚎	Junk
⚍𝌅	Consumable
⚍𝌅⚎	Food
⚍𝌅𝌂	Drink
⚍𝌁	Document
⚍𝌂	Tool

Places

Taps	Meaning
⚎⚏	In front of me
⚎⚍	To my left
⚎⚎	To my right
⚎𝌅	Behind me
⚎𝌁	Safety / Relaxing Place
⚎𝌂	Workplace
⚎⚏⚎	Home

Adjectives

Depending on the context, these can stand for a color, or another attribute of an item.

Taps	Meaning
𝌁⚏	Bright (color), New, Young
𝌁⚍	Yellow, Sticky, Sharp
𝌁⚎	Red, Hot, Burning
𝌁𝌅	Dark (color), Old
𝌁𝌁	Green, Slippery, Flat
𝌁𝌂	Cold, Wet

Actions

Taps	Meaning
𝌂⚏	Take, Keep, Want
𝌂⚍	Store, Drop, Don't Want
𝌂⚎	Throw (if followed by something that can be thrown) Go (if followed by place)
𝌂𝌅⚎	Eat
𝌂𝌅𝌂	Drink
𝌂𝌁	Relax
𝌂𝌂	Work

Numbers

The numeric system that dwarves use somewhat resembles the Roman numerals. One communicates a number by starting with a 0 and then listing all the numbers that add up to the desired number. For example, the number 11 would be communicated as 𝌅𝌂⚎⚍. Tip Tap uses Many for the numbers greater than 15, and Few for fractions, as well as negative numbers, since it never really needed these.

Taps	Meaning
𝌅	0
⚍	1
⚎	2
𝌁	4
𝌂	8
𝌅⚏	Few*
𝌅𝌅	Many*

* When the criminals use Tip Tap to discuss money, Many (followed by a number without a 0) stands for 10.000× the number of credits, and Few stands for 1× the number of credits. If neither Many nor Few are mentioned, the value equals 100× the number of credits.

Sorry that languages other than Tip Tap aren't as developed. I just wanted to share these ideas instead of having them lying around in my archives, waiting to do something cool with them. At least I'm happy that Tip Tap is quite defined.

But that's about it for now. Thank you for reading, and have a great day!

Runehack: Everling

I like augmented reality. Whether it's trying to grab one's attention all over the place like in the somewhat dystopian short movie Hyper-Reality, or removing parts of your worldview like in the Black Mirror's dystopian White Christmas episode. Strange how this technology for covering up reality with lies is prominently used in dystopias, I wonder why.

Well, now imagine if absolutely everything was digitally created. You might think that that's just something akin to the real world's VRChat, or some MMORPG played from the first person, but there's a reason why I started with augmented reality. In Runehack, illusions created by the runes are by default augmented reality. They are not bound to a surface unless they are defined by one. If you have sufficient computing power, you could run a whole city like this. In fact, you could even simulate its citizens if you have the technology for it. Welcome to Everling, the definitely-not-dystopian city which has a motto that goes "Where no one deserves to die!"

This was without a doubt the most difficult city to describe yet. In the time it took me to finish this article, I managed to make even a videogame demo of my TTRPG that takes place mainly in this city. The TTRPG is difficult to write too, and the video game needs a proper tutorial, so I really hope I'll be able to finish it all soon. Until then, may you enjoy reading this article, and have a nice day!

Edit: Some of this information is outdated, and yet to be updated.

Everling

After perfecting the technology that allowed machines to scan people's brains, Lifestock made a deal with Nixly Everglade to begin a large-scale experiment. South of the city of Moorwell that links the two continents, somewhere just above the ocean's floor, hovers an illusory city of immortals. Hundreds of thousands of people who signed up for brain scans are eternally simulated here, living out their lives as digital ghosts without any physiological needs however they wish.

Geography

Everling's image is located above the Southern Ocean's floor, directly south of the city of Moorwell which connects the Old World with the New World. The location of the actual computers that run the city is kept secret, but rumors have it they are located in some cavern that's not too far away. Otherwise, due to the depth of the city's location, and due to its illusory nature, there is no noteworthy physical geography.

The city's only import of note is amber, which is supplied during the maintenance hour in great amounts to keep the city's computers running. While the city doesn't produce anything physical, its intangible exports are all worth mentioning. Great amounts of research are done in Everling nearly every single day, speeding up the scientific progress for everyone. The entertainment industry of Everling is booming, with some exceptional concepts making their way to other cities. Finally, ever since the digital ghosts have proven to be relatively safe when near tangible sentients, sometimes they are taken out of the Everling and brought to other cities, running on their own privately owned piece of hardware.

History

When Nexuspace developed its first runebots, Lifestock needed something to compete with and developed its digital ghosts. Both of these creations were run by rather simple algorithms though, lacking anything that would resemble a soul or consciousness. Once Lifestock brought the inventor Nixly Everglade to Moorwell, they exchanged their knowledge and together standardized her brain scanning machine, letting the people she would scan be compatible with most modern runetech that has Mistweb access.

After perfecting their creation but before this technology could be publicly released, Nixly suggested to the President of Moorwell starting a city full of ghosts, with several phases of slowly opening it up to the public. The President agreed, and this is how Everling came to be.

During the first phase, the ghost was restricted to existing only within the city of Everling. This has proven to be mostly safe. Some ghosts have developed the ability to alter the code that runs them from inside, which resulted in some breaches of Everling's restrictions, the most significant of which was a ghost who was simulated during the maintenance, and a ghost who managed to leave Everling's boundaries. The developers tried to patch these mistakes, but the ghosts within always found another way to crack the code. After a lot of time and resources had been sunk into this fight, the developers gave up and began lying to their higher-ups, claiming everything is going fine.

The second phase was opening up the ghosts to the public in some restricted way. The city of Wineholm has been chosen as a testing site for this phase for several reasons, the most prominent of which was the fact that most of its population was arunic and thus completely unaware of the ghosts' presence. While this event had a significant impact on the culture of Wineholm, it was eventually considered safe to proceed with the next phase.

The current phase is a broader public presence. People whose mind scans are popular enough and don't regularly break Everling's programmed rules can pay extras to let their ghost access other cities and interact with regular people outside of Everling. In some extreme cases, ghosts who are allowed access to other cities are given their own hardware that simulates them, making them independent from Everling.

Structure

Before we dive into describing Everling's districts, it's worth mentioning the space it operates within. While our reality has three pairs of directions to travel in—up and down, left and right, forward and backward—the city of Everling is a digital construct not restricted by the physical laws of our reality. With enough ingenuity from the innovative bright minds of Lifestock, the city's capacity was greatly expanded by introducing two new spatial directions: charm and strange, and ana and kata. Everything simulated within Everling uses five coordinates instead of three and rune-powered sentient beings (runebots and digital ghosts, to be specific) have two extra variables that determine the last two coordinates of the simulated objects and people that they can see. Charm and strange are used for expanding the city by creating new districts, and they stretch further than other cardinal directions do. Ana and kata, meanwhile, are used for expanding the interiors of the buildings, by adding extra "floors". Everlingers are simulated in a way that disallows them from phasing through walls or leaving the city's nonexistent outside walls, the "bubble" it's inside of.

Everling is a sphere that's split into nine district groups: one for each cardinal direction (save for ana and kata), plus one for each direction's middle. However, each intersection of these districts results in a unique mixture. For example, the upper south-eastern charmern area of Everling is a mixture of Religious, Performance, Philosophy, and Noble districts. This results in 81 unique combinations of districts. For the sake of brevity, though, the list below describes only the nine ways to group them based on their directions.

Personal Districts. These districts are made up of a great multitude of apartments that each ghost can adjust to their whims. Some ghosts simply desire their own apartments, even if they do not need them for any external reasons, such as a need for sleep. Every district that's central in any of the directions belongs to this group.

Religious Districts. All of the upper districts have some buildings and establishments that focus on theology and the practice of religion. This is mostly characterized by temples and religious communities that reside here. Most of the temples are dedicated to scorning the Pantheon of Misfortunes, but diarchy is sometimes practiced in Everling too.

Getaway Districts. If a ghost tries to find ways to escape Everling or to hack it, they have the best chances of finding ways to do that in the bottom districts.

Experiential Districts. Northern districts focus on non-interactive experiences, such as movies, literature, illustrations, musical performances, etc. This area is full of galleries and other such displays.

Performance Districts. The southern districts are where thins presented in the northern districts are shown. The artists and those who study art can be found here.

Interaction Districts. The western districts of Everling provide their citizens with various forms of interactive entertainment.

Philosophy Districts. Most of Everling's scientists and thinkers reside. in its eastern districts. Laboratories, debate chambers, and forums can be found here.

Weird Districts. The most dangerous and bizarre districts of Everling are found in the strangern areas. The further strangewards you go, the more odd people, glitches, and visible inconsistencies one can find.

Noble Districts. The districts located in the charmern parts of the city are the most elegant, organized, elaborate, and uniform. By traveling further charmwards, you may encounter stricter, steadier, more stable ghosts, with more and more rules of conduct to follow.

Culture

Digital ghosts' capabilities differ radically from those of organic beings. They can create and customize an avatar that's perceived by others (sight, sound, and other sensations). Due to this, they are assigned IDs for identification. The digital ghosts can communicate with each other nearly instantly using text-based communication that's within their minds. Since their appearance is completely illusory, they are intangible to the ordinary world, which means that phasing through solid walls is commonplace for them. To be able to use solid objects, they'd have to invest some of their simulation time into telekinetic powers.

The entire city of Everling and all its citizens, usually called Everlingers, are simulated by the hidden computers that run the city. But like any computer, they too have their limitations. While the computers have enough computing power to run all the citizens and the entire city at any given moment, a demand for higher fidelity arose among the citizens, leading to the restructuring of the system. Since some people would forgo being simulated all day long for being simulated at a higher quality, the city now runs on a processing power distribution scheme.

Each hour of simulation is nicknamed "hyre" in Everling, labeled with the time at which this hour ends. For example, hyre 14 is a period of time between 13:00 and 14:00 (or 01:00 and 02:00 in the afternoon). The city goes under regular maintenance during the last hour before midnight (23:00-00:00), in which it corrects any corruption and assigns all the citizens their hyres for the next day. During this hour, the ghosts are simulated at their minimal level, during which they get to only use their instant text-based communication to talk with each other and to organize their hyres for the next day.

A citizen of Everling is assigned 24 hyres. The first 12 hyres are randomly assigned to each person, so that no person gets the same hyre twice, and all the sums of hyres for the same periods of times assigned this way are equal. Afterward, each citizen gets to pick the rest of their 12 hyres, going in the order of their popularity. due to the fact that nothing is simulated at that time, this process takes an exceedingly small amount of time, despite it being done by hundreds of thousands of ghosts. However, since the city can only support so many people at any given time, there are upper limits on how many hyres can be given out for every hour. This combined with the fact that one can give their hyres to others results in a hierarchy, in which the latter hyres have a greater value. This is because an earlier hyre, such as hyre 4, is used up before a latter one, like hyre 22. Once a hyre starts being used, it can't be traded away, so on an ordinary day, higher hyres will run out of stock first before the less popular people get their turn to schedule their times.

What can one do in a city that has no use for money? The citizens of Everling sooner or later came up with three answers: Seeking new experiences through leisurely activities like games or media consumption; learning more about the world through examination, studying all and any areas of science; or performing for others through the exhibition, creating art to be preserved in others' memories forever. Some might find pursuits beyond these, but most of Everling's population falls into at least one of these three philosophies.

If there's something beyond IDs that makes the Everlingers distinct from one another, it's their Popularity. Popularity in Everling stands for a leaderboard that displays the order in which all ghosts are rated by each other, as well as the city's ruling AI. The Popularity is a whole number unique to each ghost. Popularity is updated at the end of Maintenance by asking the ghosts to rate up to 5 random Everlingers they've meaningfully interacted with on the previous day.

In Everling, phrases like those below can be heard, and traditions such as the following tend to be practiced:

• Everlingers have plenty of nicknames for the non-digital people of Runehack. Those who believe the digital ghosts to be superior use terms like "mortals", "temps", "craves", and "bygons". Those who would see them as equals would instead use terms like "souls", "antzes", and even "reals".
• Ghosts use the nickname "sorx" for those whose minds were scanned to create digital ghosts. Its pronunciation is identical to the word it was derived from—source. It came to be because of a temporary glitch that imposed a character limit on ghosts' messages for almost a week.
• Everling is a silent city. Most of the citizens use text-based chat for communication, since it's much faster and doesn't require spending hyres on sound-based illusions. Those who would make sounds in Everling are usually either performers, trying to get the attention of others, or unusual in some different way.
• An avatar of higher quality shows that a ghost has gotten their hands on many hyres to spend all at once. Most of the ghosts put on their high-quality avatars either when they have nothing better to spend their hyres on, or when they really want to impress someone else who's special to them. High-quality avatars appear less polygonal and more complex in their form. This is why many use words derived from "arch" such as arching, arched, or even archon to describe high-quality avatars.
• The slogan of Everling is "Because you don't deserve to die!".
• The ability to hack the city of Everling is referred to as asterism. Ghosts who can hack the city are based on this called asterists. Asterists can hack Everling to change it in a myriad of ways, including teleportation, corrupting other ghosts, accessing forbidden information, overcoming the city's filters, or even getting an avatar simulated during the maintenance time. Once the news of this has spread outside of the city, these terms have been used occasionally for non-ghost hackers who aren't necessarily hacking Everling too.
• Organizing performances (concerts for short) is complicated in Everling. The performer or performers (artist, for the sake of brevity) first determines the time in which they plan to perform. Usually, the artist has a group of 5-10 benefactors who are popular enough to snatch many of these hyres early for a minimum quality of the concert during the maintenance. Once the day begins, the artist announces their concert and hyre(s) during which it will take place. The ghosts who want to attend it must be able to contribute at least one hyre to the artist while keeping at least one for themselves for an avatar to attend the concert with. A concert can take anywhere from 1 to 4 hyres of time, though usually, it's just a single hyre since more than that can be very difficult to organize without lots of benefactors.

Subculture Showcase: Hoverboarders

Note: This section is not meant to imply that the presented subculture is in any way unique to or most represented within this city. It is just a subculture I chose to present because it felt most thematically fitting and it wasn't introduced yet.

Art Curiosities: Legally, all hovering vehicles are required to have glowing undersides. Shoes with glowing soles, such as those worn by the woman in the illustration above, represent the free spirit that allows them to metaphorically "fly". The elegance of geometric lines combined with torn clothes is characteristic of this subculture. Some extend the geometric lines to their body in the form of tattoos. Those who have long hair usually wear a bandana that lets them tie up their hair quickly before a ride. Their outfits usually take on the "flying colors"—yellow for the sun, blue for the day's sky, and white for the clouds. The "boarder jacket" is an iconic article of clothing that's been adapted from the hoverboarder subculture into casual wear over the decades. The woman is wearing a crop variant of the boarder jacket, and the man is wearing one tied around his waist. Gloves are must-have, protective elements like knee pads not so much. The armbands worn by both of the characters represent the specific group they belong to, and they can come in a variety of colors.

This artwork was kindly created by my wonderful girlfriend Arell.

Volerite is a material that revolutionized Runehack's modes of transportation thanks to its unique property of falling upward. This process took a long time though because people needed to develop a way to reliably gather it, as well as runetech that would apply sufficient telekinetic force depending on the number of passengers that the vehicle carries. Once humanity has achieved these two feats of ingenuity, the sky was the limit for them. Literally.

The first hovering vehicle prototypes were hoverboards, occasionally also called voleboards. Since they were usually used by a single person, they were calibrated specifically for this person's weight. While modern hoverboards have changed significantly since then, this early invention has set the foundation for the subculture of hoverboarders that has remained for decades ever since.

At first sight, the hoverboarder values appear contradictory. They believe one should be independent and free, yet loyal to their group, providing support to those they value. Truth is, they seek the balance between these things, for one can't ride a hoverboard long and well without keeping their balance. Hoverboarding isn't an easy feat, especially not when you go up to heights illegal for the sentients to fly at. The higher you fly, the harder you'll fall if an accident occurs. Learning how to hoverboard, and how to do it well, requires a group, but riding a hoverboard has to be done alone. Other boarders will applaud a well-executed stunt and encourage those who fail or fall to try again. However, mocking those who stop boarding is frowned upon within the community.

A group will only accept self-sufficient members who can keep up with the rest. To test the skill of those who wish to join a group, a race is organized. In this race, the newcomer must race the rest of the group, arriving at the finish line in a high enough place (traditionally 4th or better). Each group has its own quirks to this race that characterize its overall personality and/or goals. For example, if this group is interested in illegal activities, the race tests the newcomer's willingness to break the law by flying above the legal height limit, and sometimes even within private city zones. Groups that are made up of thrill-seekers tend to have a segment of the race that takes place outside of the city walls. If a newcomer manages to win this race and joins a group that's made up of ambitious hoverboarders, the newcomer takes the place of the group's slowest member, who is forced to leave the group. Many other specifics exist for the various groups.

Some phrases and expressions that came to be thanks to the hoverboarder subculture include:

• "Berjuice" is a slang that stands for the fuel that runetech devices require, derived from 'amber' since that is the substance's main ingredient, and 'juice' due to the color it tends to have.
• "Flying colors" describes the color scheme of yellow, blue, and white. Sometimes, it is accentuated by black or brown.
• "Off-boarder" is a stunt, in which the rider launches off the board, runs a distance while losing sight of the board due to the board flying underneath a surface, such as a bridge, and finished when the rider jumps back on the board.
• "Slick" is a slang adjective or adverb used for well-executed stunts. The term has found its way outside of the boarder subculture too, generally describing a job well done. It's generally considered awkward when public speakers or workers in an office environment use it.
• "Turv up" is a verb used to describe the moment when an inexperienced hoverboarder ends up upside down. It's difficult to recover from this state without a specialized board, and thus the turved up rider is forced to stop their flight to correct themselves. Riders do not assist turved up riders, unless it is a group's leader (or someone close to that position in groups without an explicit leader) who sees potential in the turved up rider.
• "Waller" or "wallie" is a stunt, in which the rider flies vertically up on a board, parallel to a tall wall, such as the side of a building, or a city wall. While it sounds easy in theory, it actually requires a specialized hoverboard that can telekinetically hold up the rider in this vertical position. Without one, the rider who attempts to execute this trick will most likely turv up, unless they have huge amounts of skill.

Relations

The three major cities Everling has relations to are Wineholm, Moorwell, and the rest of Lifestock-owned city-states.

The first appearance of Everlingers in Wineholm has caused a great cultural shift there. The isolated culture there is largely incapable of interacting with the digital ghosts. The few people who can, called mediums by the locals, serve as the mediators between the illusory tourists and the locals.

Moorwell is the city that conceived of Everling as it is, and it is the city that remotely manages it to this day. However, this management has to be discussed with RXLNC. While Lifestock is responsible for Everling's maintenance and it still technically owns it, RXLNC tries to propose her own suggestions as to how the city should be updated. If it had the tools to do so, she would make the city independent of outside influences.

All cities owned by Lifestock are possible tourist destinations for the Everlingers nowadays, and they welcome this opportunity. Other cities welcome with open arms the strange creations created by the digital ghosts who have all the time in the world just to be creative or enjoy their lives.

Curiosities

Everling might be illusory in its nature, but that doesn't mean it has no points of interest. Some of them include:

• The Bazaar of Oddities is a marketplace found in the bottom stranger areas of Everling (Getaway and Weird districts' overlap). In it, Everlingers pretend to be selling illusory keepsakes of things from the world living above the ocean's surface. However, it's more often a place where one can seek information regarding matters illegal within the city, such as asterism or escaping Everling.
• The Coralside is one of the few beautiful natural sights of Everling. It's a natural coral reef growing on the ocean floor in the bottom north-eastern districts (Getaway, Experiential, and Philosophy districts' overlap). Usually, it would be too dark down there, but thanks to Everling's illusory nature, the Everlingers who look upon it see a myriad of colors this coral possesses.
• Death's Auditorium is a massive temple in the upper parts of Everling (Religious district), stretching from the charm to strange (Noble to Weird district). This is the world's greatest temple dedicated to scorning the deity of death.
• Escapist's Tower is found in the Getaway-Interaction district on the bottom west of Everling. It's a challenging experience, in which ghosts are tasked with leaving the tower before their time runs out. (Think sort of like if an escape room was an MMORPG.)
• The Grandhall is a building in which the biggest performances are traditionally held. It's apparently capable of housing one hundred thousand people without being crowded thanks to the four-dimensional seating system. This theatre is located in the Noble, Getaway, and Experiential districts' overlap, in the bottom north-charmern areas of Everling.
• The Kolloseum is a massive battle arena in the overlap of Experiential and Weird districts' overlap (north-strangern Everling). Its participants emulate battles with each other through the weapons that are made to specifically corrupt the ghosts struck with them.
• The Lucky Gem is a casino in the central Interaction district on the west of the city. It's the largest gambling house visited by many ghosts on a daily basis to win or lose numerous hyres, both by spending them there, but also by betting them in hopes of winning better ones.
• Sunken Repository of Sciences is a library in the Philosophy Noble district, in the east-charmern side of Everling. While this place is usually called a library, it's actually closer to a museum—proper books would be extremely complicated for ghosts to simulate, so instead the information retained in this building is displayed on the walls of various rooms. Every empty room of this building is akin to a book, and ghosts flip its pages by traveling anawards and katawards.
• The Workshop Deluge is named after the organization that owns it. This is a "company" that produces video games and sells them outside of Everling. All of its proceeds go to RXLNC, which is used for keeping Everling afloat, financially speaking. Thanks to its staff being digital, they produce high-quality games at a stunning speed. It's located in the north of Everling (Experiential district), despite the fact one would expect it to be located in the Interaction district on the west.

The first depiction of Everling as seen above was commissioned from Katechaste nearly two years ago. This was before I knew about its districts, extra dimensions, hyres, or many other details I introduced in this article. The whale isn't a permanent part of it, it's just swimming through the illusion.

Important People

A few examples of the important people from Everling:

• 4T5R (Fortifier), ghost, male; seeks and reports exploits, glitches, and hacks to RXLNC, and once they are fixed he creates content for the public to lampshade them. Other ghosts find the tales of his exploits entertaining.
• 9DC8 (Naindy), ghost, female; scientist researching the history of Runehack before the era of monsters began.
• Mister 0FIR (Ofir, originally Nullifier), ghost, male; the master asterist. He's known for making offers that are difficult to turn down.
• RXLNC (Our Excellency), ghost, female; the ruler of Everling.
• Shark1 (Shark Anne), ghost, either; a performer who usually flies around the city in the evening hyres, taking shape of a giant snake-like lizard with tiny legs, a catfish-like mustache, and big expressive eyes.
• X8R (Excitor), ghost, either; one of the most well-known ghost artists who's keeping up several illusory art pieces in Wineholm's capital city.

Runehack Holidays

When I started to write this article, I had been feeling creatively stuck on NaNoWriMo for two weeks. I doubt I will catch up at this point, and I've come to terms with that. But while I'm giving up on the writing goal of finishing the novel within the month of November, I am not gonna give up on the goal of finishing the novel overall. Maybe what I need for jumpstarting my creativity is to just... focus on something else for a bit.

The end of the year in our world tends to be a season of many holidays. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and likely many more. I'd love to take this opportunity to make up a couple holidays celebrated locally or globally in Runehack, one for each of Moon's cycles in a year. Not all of these are old or official holidays, some are just events that happen yearly and are broadly recognized. Expect six more next time around!

I hope you'll enjoy this article, and I wish you a great day!

It's rather difficult to find art for holidays that I'm making up, so... just imagine this is roughly what a Wildenfeast can look for in a fairy family. Or perhaps they have graduated from some sort of rune-related school. As for the background, maybe they're holding this celebration in a city park... in a city very close to the equator. That happens to not be a jungle, somehow.
... or maybe the art just has some wholesome vibes I wanted to share.
Artwork by Ivy Dolamore

Wildenfeast

Date: 1st day of spring

The cruel weather is on its leave and nature is still too drowsy to be dangerous. The early spring is a time when everyone brings out tasty treats and celebrates the moment of truce between the wilderness and the civilization.

Decoration. To show nature's presence, people decorate the area in which the feast is to take place with wreaths or festoons made up of leaves and branches. Nature isn't present only in people's surroundings, it makes up their bodies too. Thus, people who want to show their holiday spirit usually wear either a garland of flowers on their head, or one or two articles of clothing with natural motifs such as leaves, vines, or flowers.

A small group of elves and fairies fell in love with this kind of clothing, and over time their outfits became more natural. Over the years, they began to wear them earlier and later around the Wildenfeast time, until it became a daily outfit style for them. Some people didn't like this due to the general apprehension people feel towards the wilderness beyond the walls, so this small group grew more rebellious in their ideals. This marked the beginning of the Wilderpunk subculture. 

Family. Usually, it's celebrated in the privacy of homes by the parents and the children who aren't married yet. The presence at Wildenfeast represents being part of a family, so exceptions aren't uncommon: parents who wish to show their child's partner that they are willing to accept them, a single parent's romantic interest, an orphaned child who is very close to the family, and many other exceptions are considered normal in real life as well as in the fiction that showcases Wildenfeast.

Meals. The feast eaten on this day consists mostly of fruits, vegetables, and grains left over after the winter. Eating meat is believed to bring nature's wrath upon the household, which is why the Wildenfeast meals contain meat. Traditional meals eaten during the Wildenfeast include salad rolls wrapped in paperbread; oiled pasta noodles mixed with spinach, garlic, and chopped tomatoes; and egg-fried rice.

Heartcall

Date: 42nd day of spring

All people are social animals who desire companions. Most people desire to have one companion who is much closer to them than others. Following the naming pattern of northcall, everyone is invited to follow the call of their heart shortly before the spring equinox, either to have a lovely time with their romantic partner or to confess their feelings.

Confession. While couples can form on any day during the year, this is a chance for those who have strong unexpressed feelings for another person to show them without judgment. Those who are not brave enough record their confession, either as a voice message or on a paper, and personally deliver it to their romantic interest.

Date. Those who already have a romantic interest traditionally share a meal in the privacy of either partner's home and afterward show the partner one's love through their love language. It's polite to give one's partner at least a small gift on this day, whether it's a flower or a dessert. The usual ingredients for desserts gifted on Heartcall are honey, strawberries, and chocolate.

Loneliness. Not everyone has a romantic partner or seeks one. On the day of Heartcall, it's normal for groups of single friends to go out together to one or more establishments such as restaurants, bars, and clubs. To incentivize their customers, these businesses tend to give discounts on their drinks on the Heartcall's evening.

Trickstorm

Date: 70th day of spring

Toward the end of the spring, the Silver Dame tends to act a little ridiculous. Sometimes she waters the world beneath her, but only for a minute. Sometimes, she stomps her feet upon her misty dress, while the shine of her radiant smile blinds people's eyes. And on some occasions, she gathers the ice from the Caldfort and throws it down upon people. With the unpredictable weather, some decided to play tricks on each other too.

Common Comedy. Some pranks repeat year after year because they are easy to pull off. These include but are not limited to spoken lies that are soon revealed to be lies, runic illusions that startle people, paper slips that insult their reader, or putting something inedible into someone's meal or drink.

Fashion. Not everyone can appreciate a good prank, of course. Those who do not wish to participate in pranks on this day of the year show it by making most of their outfit for the day black, gray, or brown. It's generally frowned upon when a person dressed this way plays a prank on the day of the Trickstorm.

Reward. People who enjoy and embrace pranks tend to reward the ones they find to be the most impressive by gifting the prankster something small, such as a piece of candy, a glass ring, or a bandanna. Some see this as an opportunity to get back at the prankster, for example by gifting them a candy wrap full of glitter, or a bandanna with something embarrassing on it.

Runic Revolution Anniversary

Date: 25th day of summer

The monstrous paramorphs beyond the walls have kept the civilization divided for a long time. However, it is thanks to the cunning of those knowledgeable of the runes that the society could be reunited and begin cooperating yet again. Runetech allows people to communicate with each other instantaneously, travel great distances to see new places, and so much more. This is why there's a year dedicated to celebrating the development of the first rune-powered computing mechanism.

Parade. A couple of major cities have a parade with vehicles that display gigantic illusions of the most iconic pieces of prominent runic technology. These include runebooks, runecards, water pumps, hovering vehicles, runebots, and abstract representations of Mistweb.

Science Fairs. The Runic Revolution Anniversary is the most common day for science fairs to happen. It is an opportunity for the students to make a scientific model of something they've learned at school to impress others, or to invent something completely new. Most of the time, it's the former rather than the latter though.

Truce. On this day, the two megacorporations that rule most city-states of the world do not try to compete or outdo each other. Lifestock and Nexuspace put their differences aside on this day, as their leaders travel to the Grand Republic, the most neutral ground, to host a polite ball there. Royals of the independent kingdoms are also invited.

Lingershine

Date: 45th day of summer (Summer Solstice)

Dreams are visions of the unreal that come to people as they sleep. Some would say that the dreams are origins of many myths and legends. Dreams can also stand for hopes or goals that people have. All three of these are celebrated on the longest day of the year. When a tale or a piece of fiction within the world of Runehack talks about the ordinary world and the world of myths crossing or merging, it usually happens on the day of Lingershine.

Dances. While drinking and eating are prominent parts of the Lingershine celebrations, the most important part of it is dancing. Generally, these dances are split into three types, based on how many people it takes to perform the dance. The Whirlin is a formal dance for two that has a strong accent on the first beat, and alternates between quadruple time and double time, both taking roughly the same time. The Tetric Dance is a dance performed by exactly four people, standing with their backs to each other. Its music alternates between triple time and double time, making it feel like every other bar misses one beat. Finally, the Stride is an informal dance performed by any number of people, though fewer than four make it look awkward. It uses a common time signature.

Masks. Most of the Old World believed that on the day of Lingershine people and creatures of legends enter this world to join in on the party, which is why one should wear a mask for any kind of Lingershine party—to blend in with the weird creatures. While such beliefs are ridiculed in the New World, Old World sees it more as a sentimental remembrance of the old times before the era of monsters, when people actually believes such myths to be real. The only requirements for the masks are to represent some legend and to cover the area around one's eyes, with or without covering the eyes. Anything else, including covering the rest of one's face, is considered optional.

Resolutions. Setting goals for the next year, and sharing what you've managed to accomplish within the last year, both make up part of the Lingershine celebrations. One is encouraged to share both of these with their close friends so that they could be proud and support each other. It's not frowned upon for one to fail in fulfilling their resolutions, usually with a phrase: "Perhaps some of them are meant to stay dreams."

Swimming Week

Date: 60th-66th days of summer

People's habits can become a widely recognized holiday when they are repeated by people often enough. During the first week of the last moon of summer, many people tend to go to the beaches or pools for a refreshing swim due to temperatures being fairly high. This is how over time, it became a part of the global culture.

Fashion Shows. On the first day of Swimming Week, fashion shows tend to be held, describing the current trends in swimwear, hoping to get those who care too much about trends to invest in a new set of swimwear.

Games. Since it's a time of fun and joy, those who partake in Swimming Week come up with various games to play in the water, or on the beach. One of the most common ones is Aquatic Catch, a game of tag played in the water. Another fairly common game to play is Spraywar. It's played with toy weapons that shoot water and has a huge variety of rules that are or aren't followed by its players. Only one rule is consistent: when someone is hit by the water, they are eliminated from the game for a short duration of time, roughly a minute. Other games exist too, of course, with plenty of them being locally known but not widespread across the globe. One such game is Pearlhunt, played in the city of New Prista on the last day of Swimming Week.

Relaxation. Certain pools, such as the ones commonly found in Ashington, heat their water up and possibly add some minerals into the water to boost the swimmers' health. Such pools aren't a center point of fun times and focus instead on relaxation and peace. Surely these kinds of pools operate all year long, but during Swimming Week they give great discounts to lure in new customers, in hopes of getting them used to it.

Consciousness in Runehack

Sometime recently, I turned 10.000 days old. I really wanted to publish an article on such an opportunity, but I didn’t have anything ready. I’m still working on the Moorwell article, having a hard time getting to it because of the hardships I’m currently experiencing. Perhaps a short article on an obscure topic of consciousness will do for this occasion.

Didn't want this article to not have any art in it, but it's difficult to find a picture for a topic like "consciousness", so... let's pretend this is a digital ghost as described later in this article.
The picture comes from the Daily Renders June 2021 collection by Josh Pierce.

Consciousness

One of the core concepts of the world of Runehack is consciousness. It’s different from something being merely alive or animated, consciousness means awareness of yourself and your surroundings. What are some oddities about the consciousness present in the world?

For one, people of this world have a concept of submemory, which is a part of one's memory that persists even if it's not in one's memory. So a fairly popular but unverifiable theory suggests, that consciousness is somewhere not in one's body, perhaps not even in the physical world. The following aspects of consciousness would suggest that this theory might hold true.

Dreams and Elves

When someone falls asleep, their consciousness enters a dream. It's not known whether there is an actual place where the dreams happen, or if it is just a mind's illusion. Strangely, the elves of Runehack possess a mysterious ability of dream-walking, which lets them enter other people's dreams while sleeping. The dream-walking is largely forgotten for several reasons: the impracticality of setting it up, the moral quandaries of using it, and the ease of instant communication thanks to the runetech connected to the Mistweb.

Each elf retains a supernatural link to its blood, even once it leaves the elf's body. When an elf falls asleep, they can sense the presence of people who are very close to their blood (a couple of inches or centimeters at best). This distance is unlimited when the ring moon's light shines upon the elf. The most reliable way for an elf to dream-walk would be to touch the sleeping person whose dream they wish to enter, but some elves create pendants that hold a small amount of their blood to give to people. An elf in another person's dream is largely ignored by the dreamer and their dream characters. If the dream-walker attempts to shape another person's dream in a way lucid dreamers would, the dream characters will turn aggressive towards the intruder until they are removed from the dream. This aggression can be overcome in two ways - either if the elf is trusted by the dreamer whose dream they have entered, or if the elf does so during the Blood Moon (lunar eclipse).

The practice of entering the dreams of someone who an elf hates, only to haunt the dreamer with an uncontrollable nightmare has led to the elves being judged in many societies. Thus, this practice has become a taboo, something that parents don't even teach their elven children is a possibility anymore. When an elf in the present day finds out, it is either through an old scripture, experimentation or from someone else who has found out already.

Consciousness Duplication

Thanks in part to Nixly’s genius, the technology that allows for one’s mind to be copied is real in this world. It’s a lengthy process that takes roughly an hour or so to complete, during which one’s head has to wear a scanning helmet made for this purpose. Using this technology, plenty of people have been backed up and turned into runebots and/or ghosts. The difference between a ghost and a runebot is a presence of a physical body characteristic for the runebots, as opposed to a hologram-like illusory visage of the ghosts. A ghost can enter a runebot body, and a runebot might be able to produce a ghost.

After Nixly has been retrieved from the Wineholm, her creation has been integrated with the potential to interact with the Mistweb, allowing the people whose brains have been scanned to interact with the technology. This marked the invention of the first truly conscious Artificial Intelligence... in a way. While its existence is based entirely on the runes, it is not actually artificial - it has existed before being scanned and emulated.

The first experiments were to restrict these minds to the runebot bodies, which turned out to be quite successful. Afterward, Nixly suggested the creation of a utopia at the bottom of the sea to test out the potential of her ghosts (illusory projections of these emulated minds), creating an afterlife of sorts for those who can afford it. The city was called Everling, and anyone who's wealthy enough can send their mind scan there to live on forever, as long as the city's server keeps running. Slowly and cautiously, the ghosts are nowadays getting integrated into the common society, limited by a plethora of restrictions.

Rumors claim that memories between a person and the emulation of their mind scan can "leak" over long periods of time when one of them ceases to be, whether it's due to the emulation stopping irreversibly, or because of the person dying. There are no actual records of this sort of thing happening, which is why it's treated as a mere myth by normal people. And yet, there are still people who would consider this to be yet another proof that one's consciousness exists outside of this world.

---

That's about it for this topic. I wanted to write, and it seems I finally succeeded in motivating myself into doing so. Thank you for reading, I hope you've enjoyed it, and have a nice day!

Design of Runehack: Fairy Heist

Much like last year, this year I decided to join the One-Page RPG Jam. After a bit more than a week worth of designing and working on it, I've made my submission, a game called Runehack: Fairy Heist. I'd love to share with you some of my processes regarding how I've designed it. Enjoy!

Art provided by my wonderful girlfriend, Arell.

Theme

This year's theme is exploration, so my thoughts started there. I didn't want to hold on too tightly to the theme, as long as it would lead me somewhere interesting since the theme on this game jam is optional anyway.

The first thing that sprung to my mind when I read that word is all the mechanics for exploration in the D&D. Managing your food, traveling through the wilderness, avoiding getting lost, deciding how fast you're going. I tried to think of how to put a spin on that and came up with a concept for a game that I worked on for a bit until I lost interest in it. It would be a game about a religious pilgrimage northwards. It felt less like a roleplaying game and more like a resource-management strategy game. I might publish it nonetheless someday, once I figure out some good ways to weave roleplaying into it.

I tried to think of some interesting unusual spaces that one could explore next. The identity, the outer space, the myriad of worlds,… In the end, I was inspired by a wonderful video that has taught me a couple of interesting things. Among others, the one that caught my attention the most was that a home can tell a lot about a person. Sure I might not have conveyed that in the final product, but that got me thinking: who could be exploring other people's houses a lot? Since they were mentioned in the video, I was reminded of borrowers, but I decided to put a malicious twist on it: fairy burglars. Just regular burglars, but they are fairies.

Mechanics

Making the player characters this tiny has some interesting consequences. In the Timberhaven article, I talk briefly about the biology of the fairies. Their heights vary quite a bit in their terms, going from 6 to 17 centimeters. Curiously, that reminded me of the range of results one can roll on 3d6, from 3 to 18. I believe it's at this moment that I decided to use only d6's in this system. A height difference of 10 cm isn't that significant for humans, but it is very much so for the fairies. Immediately, I remembered the Lasers&Feelings and came to realize that this is the perfect opportunity for using the mechanic. Someone who's extremely tall is, after all, stronger than someone who's shorter. And on the other hand, someone shorter has much greater finesse and agility. Or well, they could in theory, but that's what I'm running with here.

I knew that I'd love to have this game take place in the world of Runehack, so the fairies would be using a couple of abilities with their runetech, most likely the runecards. I came up with a couple, kept tweaking them, and ended up with a total of 6 abilities. Thanks to the adjustments I've made, each of the abilities should be useful to the player even outside of the heists, mostly in social encounters. If I were to add more abilities, I would definitely do my best to make them work in both of these contexts. I'll definitely want to write an article on my thoughts regarding social encounters in the future.

Systemic Design

After some time spent working on the system and the rules behind the heist segment of the game, I came to realize something. I could turn this into a systemic game. I wanted to write an article on how to make systemic games for quite a while, but never really had the focus and motivation needed to do so. Perhaps subconsciously, I made this game systemic once I began using the phrases "can('t) see" and "can('t) hear" everywhere I could. How do the big folk become aware of the fairies? By hearing or seeing them. When can they hear them? When they do something loud, like flying in a neighboring room. I know that fairy flight is usually in media rather silent, but in this context, I decided otherwise to make the game more interesting. It makes sense if you consider these big folk to be highly vigilant of potential burglars, especially in a world in which they can be 10 centimeters tall. Once I started permitting combinations of abilities to work with each other, I knew that I've got on my hands a game that's systemic, and I was actually pleasantly surprised about it.

Action Economy

Let's talk about the big folk and the turns. While a fairy can move twice and perform one act on their turn, the big folk can move four times and perform three acts, to depict the stark difference in scale. In order to make it a little easier for the fairies (pun not intended), I've added a free option for them to retreat to a hiding spot within their current area, making it feel fair once again (... pun intended). The big folk have to first search a hiding spot, then try to catch a fairy, and then either hold it in their hand, or imprison it. Once a fairy is captured, that's it - they can't do anything until someone else does something to free them. Every big folk on the map can hold 3 fairies at most, but there's a trade-off: The Distract ability has a 1/day use, in which it can make someone fall asleep. No rolls involved, it costs 1 credit, and just like that - the big folk is asleep, and all fairies held in their grasp are free.

Enemy Variety

Fitting rules onto a single page is very difficult, but luckily the rules permitted me to add variant rules, GM side rules, and lore on the second page. One of the sections I wrote in there described the variants of the big folk, most of the Runehack's sentient species. While in this case I left the human as an exception with no special abilities (to let the GMs start off easier), the rest each has some way of breaking the players' routine.

• A dwarf can automatically sense the presence of others in the room, as long as they touch the same surface. This means that some of the obstacles can be searched by a dwarf without expending any additional actions on it.
• An elf is immune to the ability that would make him fall asleep, rendering him as both a dangerous foe to be captured and not let go by, but also an ideal opponent for heists which involve only one big folk.
• A goblin is capable of crawling through passages for fairies only. Figured this would be the easiest one to explain for the goblins.
• An orc can either move or perform one extra act on their turn.
• A runebot can detect the presence of other runetech devices (such as the runecards that the fairies use their abilities through), and they can also manipulate them through their access to the Mistweb.
• Finally, while they are not a single sentient race per se, I figured I'd give a bit of a spotlight to the arunic folk, who are by this game's rules immune to all illusions and telekinesis provided by the fairies' abilities.

I'm quite satisfied with the options I provided within my ruleset, and the curious interactions. I feel like I'll keep getting surprised with this system, especially if I continue expanding on its abilities. I hope to publish a supplement that would contain more abilities for the game, as well as several maps that a GM could take wholesale or adjust before using them in their own games.

I've already been shocked a couple of times with the rules interactions that are built into the system, and I want to actually run a campaign in it. In the meantime, thank you all for reading, and have a wonderful day!