The Price of Money

I'm really not much of an economics guy. Seriously. But a few days ago I started thinking about money in Ark Frontier, a society with thousands of refugees stuck on board a sealed ark-ship for nearly two decades. Here's what I came up with.

Oh, by the way, I've come up with a name for the world: Arat. The two native intelligent species, the vaion and the raxene, are collectively referred to as the Aratene.

The Ark was designed to become a self-sufficient arcology city, able to indefinitely support nearly 50,000 people. So the day-to-day needs of everyone on board can be met with only a little effort in production, maintenance, and distribution. Even with the population growing since the doors closed, there's little danger of exceeding the Ark's capacity for quite some time.

Everyone on-board receives a basic ration of essentials, has quarters assigned, and receives a small basic income of credits, the currency used by the human colonists. Those who perform additional services (maintenance, making and selling goods, policing, government, and so on) receive extra credits.

Of course, the reason credits are the basic currency is because the Ark turned up and saved people from the teeth of a worldwide apocalypse. When the Aratene came onboard, most of them had only the clothes on their backs, and only a few had decided to grab their life-savings in the face of imminent death. This means that the supply of gold pieces on the Ark is severely limited, which has inflated their value considerably. In addition, it's an unofficial currency mostly used by the underworld and the black market.

Now, all of that is about to change, as the Ark's doors are finally opened.

While the Ark will continue to subsidise and support  the colonists as settlements are established and life returns to normal, as the settlers become self-sufficient that support will be rolled back, allowing the Ark's resources to be saved for emergencies or used where they are most needed for the overall benefit of the colony.

Perhaps more importantly, as gold pieces are recovered from the ruined settlements and cities now devoid of life, the shadow economy will be rocked as the market is flooded with gold coins. I can see this having several effects.

The relative value of gold will begin to drop. By the time gold returns as a standard currency, it'll likely be worth a tenth of its former value.

Crime bosses, whose wealth currently comes from gold and a captive population, will need to react quickly if they want to maintain their hold on power. They'll need to send teams out to secure gold before someone else finds it, meaning some of the first registered Blazer teams may actually represent criminal syndicates. This will likely result in the frontier becoming treacherous and lawless, and bandits who can look after themselves in the Phantom-infested wilderness may become a real problem.

What do decent folks think about recovering gold from ruined cities — cities occupied by their kin only eighteen years earlier? Is it pragmatic, or grave-robbing? I can see strong opinions forming here, although the naysayers are likely to be powerless in the face of economic reality. Some people are going to be driven to collect the coins, and once they enter circulation there's not much you can do.

It also gives Blazer teams the chance to amass a lot of wealth, if they're willing to overlook the moral concerns. Will adventurers become the nouveau riche?

The more I dig around, the more details I uncover. I can feel Arat coming into focus... although it's still a land in flux. I'm actually planning to detail several potential points in the colony's timeline, to plot a sort of road-map for the colony's likely development and also provide additional game launch-points. But that's a topic for another post.

Discovering Imaginary Worlds

I've been working on a couple of world map projects this week, which has me thinking about mapping as literal world-building.

I've been commissioned to create the world map for +Nathaniel Robinson's Kung Foo City based on his rough draft, and I've also started putting together the map for Ark Frontier.

I've always enjoyed drawing world maps. It becomes a sort of meditative exercise, where I virtually wander the world, thinking about the landscape and putting myself on the ground as I carve out coastlines, raise up mountains, plot the courses of rivers, cast swathes of desert and forest. As I go, I'll discover hidden places, little nooks and secluded vales, remote islands, and long-forgotten cities. I find out who lives in these places, and what they're like, or what they used to be like. The ideas I already have in mind not only take form, but expand and suggest new possibilities.

Mapping is a form of storytelling. This is particularly true with Ark Frontier, where the default campaign will start with a tiny known area at the centre of the map. As the players (and the rest of the settlers) uncover more of the world, they also encounter new challenges and learn about the disaster that almost destroyed civilisation. By taking that into consideration, the map I design will influence how those developments and discoveries play out.

To some extent, it's a bit like a game of Final Fantasy, where you're initially funnelled through a linear experience, then gain access to the world map but are still limited by mountains and coastlines, then finally unlock an airship that lets you go anywhere you want. Ark Frontier starts you at the world map stage (and you can climb the mountains if you're dedicated enough), but it's no surprise that the Final Fantasy series is one of my inspirations for the setting. I'm dedicated to nonlinear exploration though, so there aren't any literal restrictions on where the characters can go, but some areas will naturally be more difficult than others. Creature design also plays a part in that, as there are a lot of different monsters that require a range of tactics to overcome, but that's a subject for another post.

The Kung Foo City map is a bit of a different beast, since I didn't have to design the layout. However I still find myself walking the mountain-ranges as I draw them, and I've been trying to impart a unique character to different areas. The mountains of the north are lofty and jagged, while those of the fertile southeast rise in sugarloafs from the flat plains. To the west, the desert wastes are dotted with mesas and steep-sided plateaus. I'm pursuing a similar technique with the major cities, drawing unique and flavourful icons for each.

Here's the map the players will start with in Ark Frontier. Can you feel the pull of distant horizons?

Ark Frontier Progress

I've decided on the final elements for Ark Frontier, and with those choices nailed down I've been able to move forward on the world-building. I also started setting up a layout design for it, where I may or may not be starting to compose some of the document rather than writing it in a Google Doc like sane people do. I figured it would avoid double-handling if I just started entering creature stats directly into stat-blocks, and I may or may not decide to use InDesign like a word processor. I've done it before for PowerFrame supplements, and it does lend itself pretty well to blocking out a manuscript and then filling in the bits until it's done.

Anyway, elements! I was a little worried that ten might be too many, but they are organised into five pairs: Light and Shadow, Fire and Cold, Life and Death, Sink and Float, Spark and Null.

Some of those are pretty obvious, and some... not so much. Sink is basically gravity or an attractive force, while Float is antigravity and repulsion. Spark is electricity, and Null is sort of non-conductivity, but also encompasses stuff like anti-magic, negation, and void.

The pairs create some interesting dynamics from an in-game philosophical standpoint. Before the Phantom Storm, the indigenous people knew and utilised the five elements of Light, Fire, Life, Sink, and Spark, which they consider positive or natural forces.

The others — Shadow, Cold, Death, Float, and Null — are considered negative or unnatural; whereas normal darkness or cold is simply the absence of light or heat, the elemental forces of Shadow and Cold can actually generate darkness and cold directly. Death as a force encompasses undeath in its various forms, from animated corpses to spectres. The five unnatural forces were forbidden to mages, and even knowledge of them was suppressed. It may be that tinkering with the forbidden elements was somehow responsible for the Phantom Storm, but that's an unanswered question.

With the appearance of Phantoms (initially Shadow, Cold, and Death), knowledge of the negative elements has become widespread. Some think that they should remain forbidden territory, while others believe it is best to "know thy enemy" by researching and mastering these new fields. This has created a split between white and black mages. There are some who prefer to be called grey mages, who dabble in both sides, but most white mages would classify any use of unnatural elements as black magic.

There are also summoners, who feel that the best way to defeat the Phantoms (or to gain personal power) is to gain mastery over them and use them as tools, but this is an outlawed and persecuted pursuit.

Interestingly, this approach to the positive and negative elements also creates some conflict with the human colonists — in particular, their use of anti-gravity technology, which is seen as taboo. I suspect that the Council has placed an official ban on the use of antigrav out of respect for the indigenous beliefs, but that may not stop people from using it on occasion. The cryogenic storage system was also viewed with suspicion, but it relies on the removal of heat rather than the literal generation of "cold energy" and so it has the official seal of approval. This doesn't stop some element of prejudice against the recently-thawed Sleepers, however.

World-building is interesting because each piece you add sends ripples across the setting, interacting with already-established elements and suggesting new things to add and directions to explore. Add sufficient details and follow the consequences to their logical conclusions, and eventually a complete picture of the world emerges like a tapestry.

Endless Hexagons

This week I've decided to start work on a series of infinitely tile-able hex maps I've been thinking about for a while. I may be avoiding the fiddly-work required to finish off the Blade Bind Sparring Partner, but at least I'm procrastinating productively!

The maps are designed to print comfortably on both A4 and Letter size paper, and feature 1-inch (25mm) hexes. I did get a bit worried that they might be a bit small, but totally scientific polling on G+ points to a majority preferring more hexes per page than the larger alternative.

The first set I'm working on is Winding Canyons, with arid rocks and sand. Tonight I finished off the third of six planned maps. Here's a preview where I've tiled two copies of all three together.

I've made an effort to make sure the rock edges tone together pretty well, but the sand shading is a little less well blended. I'll make some cacti for a couple of the other tiles to provide a bit of variety from the dry grass and loose stones.

One of the cool things about this particular design is that you can not only rotate and tile the sheets as shown, you can "brick-tile" them by slipping every second column down by half an edge-length, which results in even more potential layouts.

Other sets I have planned include Forest, Swamp, Ruins, City, and maybe more. I'm planning on making six map tiles for each, and putting them up on DriveThruRPG for $3 a pop.

Sparring Partner

I managed to program how to deal with someone playing a Joker on an Engage (including the edge-cases of someone playing two Jokers in succession, or both players simultaneously playing a Joker), but it was pretty challenging to keep track of and debug everything. 

I needed a bit of a break before I tackle the same basic programming for Winds, and then hunt down all the other places where the AI might play a Joker and fill in a few other functions. After that, I'll see if I can get someone to help with external testing, and work on enhancing the interface.

Freelancing

I'm still editing Altais: Age of Ruin, and have also done some short scenario edits for Arcana Games. Last week I finished off the M.A.S.S. art, and I've now been engaged to illustrate a spin-off book. I should be pretty busy until the end of June, but I always have room to take on extra jobs!