Author Topic: DF in Australia - We're all screwed  (Read 3174 times)

Offline LeviathanZero

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DF in Australia - We're all screwed
« on: August 27, 2013, 03:12:42 AM »
So, once my current (Mistborn) campaign winds up I'm looking at running a DF game in Australia, and figured I should start writing up a nice little background for Australia in this setting.
I've seen a few bits and pieces done by other people around the place so if anyone has any further suggestions, let me know :)

Dresden Files - Australia - A History

Uluru. If you wanted to point at one big cause, that's it right there. A massive convergence of ley-lines with an absurdly strong Earth affinity, the mere presence of something so strong was always going to cause some issues with the Veil, especially on such a large landmass with neither physical borders of water to ground out the magic nor country borders for people's minds to create metaphysical borders.

Birthed from Uluru's world-warping power were the Dreamtime Gods, powerful creatures from the Nevernever who walked the land long before the first Aboriginal peoples came. With them came many strange and bizarre creatures and even plants, turning the Island-Continent into their new hunting ground.
Over many long millenia the Aboriginal people learned ritual magics that lent them a degree of control over the Veil between the worlds, and coupled with the power inherent in the land and Uluru managed to strengthen the Veil, causing some of the God's power to slowly wane and the strange creatures to lose their supernatural abilities and adapt to the Mortal world.
The Veil was still thinner than almost anywhere else on Earth but a sort of harmony had been achieved, the Aboriginal people's belief in the Dreamtime kept the Veil calm, and the Elders strengthened small breaches as they happened.

Across the waters in New Zealand the Maori people had gone through much the same with their own Gods, but while the Ley-lines connecting the two land masses were immense, the Tasman Sea mitigated much of their power, causing New Zealand to develop a much more temperate ecology.

Then, of course, Europeans came and everything went (further) into hell.
The more the Aboriginals were driven away from areas the less they were able to steward the Veil when it wore thin, and the more of them that were killed the less there were to maintain harmony.
Slowly, cracks began to form in the Veil. Things slipped through one way or the other, people vanished, Australia's fauna, already terrifying as Mortal animals, would sometimes regain sparks of their inhuman power from the NeverNever. Wizards did their best to ward the settlements and strengthen the Veil but it wasn't going to be sustainable. Some secretly began conferring with the Aboriginal Elders, working with them to regain that balance.

The Senior Council believed that something had to be done to stop the problem at what they perceived to be its source, and finally a Warden was sent, with all the Senior Council's authority, to deal with it. He believed that it was the Aboriginal people's Dreamtime beliefs that were thinning the Veil, and thought that by eliminating this belief they would stop the Veil from getting worse.
His solutions began with Christian missionaries and eventually ended with the Stolen Generation, kidnapping Aboriginal children en-mass to be raised by White people, forgetting the Dreamtime.

Abhorred by this final step the local Wizards who had worked with the Aboriginies betrayed the Council, captured their Warden and handed him over to the Elders. Nobody knows exactly what happened to him, but they say his punishment was commensurate with his crimes.
Severing all ties with the White Council, the Wizards of Australia and New Zealand formed an alliance with both Maori and Australian Aboriginal tribes, creating their own organisation, melding Western and local traditions and magics to shield the unknowing Mortal populations.

Fast forward to the present day and this has been mostly successful, all major cities and settlements have been built in such a pattern as to strengthen the Veil in those areas, channeling the banal beliefs of the people residing there to build a bastion against the Nevernever. In Canberra the great works of Parliament Circle act to ground out the forces involved and tie the wards together, ensuring that most people who live in Australia have no idea about the Magical world.
However the further from civilisation you venture the more the Veil thins and the more the Nevernever seeps into the world, spend too long away from the cities and the constant background presence of the Nevernever permeates you, changing you ever so slightly into a tougher but less civilised individual.
Unfortunately the unknown Warden's damage has echoed through the decades, much of the Aboriginal culture is lost and its people have lost their way. While the Dreamtime still remains a part of their soul and psyche, the knowledge of how to contain it is rapidly being lost.

Across the sea, New Zealand is faring much better, both due to distance and the Maori culture remaining strong, even managing to creep into the Western culture that dominates both countries. As such a great deal of New Zealand rangers do tours in Australia, helping their trans-Tasman siblings to maintain order.

Setting Notes
This bit is more of a list of points right now, but I plan to expand it out.

* The White Council has almost no presence here beyond an embassy in Darwin to keep up communications. They are extremely mistrusted and at times downright hated, Australian magic is enforced instead by [Dammit, I need a good name!] and the Rangers (local Wardens).
* This organisation is much less formal and bureaucratic than the White Council, with Aboriginal and Maori representatives making up at least half the leadership.
* The whole country is of course dominated by the Summer Court but there is an embassy of the Winter Court in Melbourne which is largely responsible for its changeable weather.
* Most of Australia's fauna and flora are mortal, but every now and then some power from the Nevernever seeps through and causes one or a group to become much more dangerous
* The ghost of Ned Kelly still roams around Victoria, and is all but invulnerable
* Tasmania is much more clement than the rest of Australia, thanks to separation by the Tasman Straight

Laws of Magic
Not being governed by the White Council, Australia has its own Laws of Magic, enforced by the Rangers

#1 Do not kill living things directly with magic (For turning the magic of Life back on itself harms both yourself and your magic, and the land around you)
#2 Do not mess with the Veil! (seriously, does this need explaining? Even opening a rift into the Nevernever is frowned upon, and must be fully, manually closed once used)
#3 Do not mess with the Dreamtime (again, really need explaining?)
#4 Do not directly alter the mind of any awakened being (For this causes a resonance with your own mind and brings you mental harm) [Exception, a disciplined, trained individual can willingly let someone into their mind and let them alter it if they wish to]
#5 Do not make thralls of the living or the spirits of the Dead (Clarification: Raising the bodies is fine as long as the animating spirit is either willing, or your own)
#6 Do not attempt to travel through time (For it causes magic to be cut off from its own source, which is Bad)



*Whew*
I'm sure I have more, but I think that's enough for one typing session! If anyone has suggestions or feedback, they would be more than welcome :)

*Edit*
Potential organisation leadership name, Hapu
« Last Edit: April 15, 2015, 04:18:43 AM by LeviathanZero »

Offline wyvern

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Re: DF in Australia - We're all screwed
« Reply #1 on: August 27, 2013, 04:39:45 PM »
Hm... Interesting stuff.  I note that there's no direct equivalent to the White Council's seventh law - do dealings with Outsiders fall under one of your existing ones, or are they just not acknowledged in Australia in the first place?

There's also no "don't transform another" law here - initially I thought the "don't mess with minds" one might cover that, but, hey, turning someone into a kangaroo doesn't directly mess with their mind...

For a name for the local warden-equivalents, I'd suggest looking at native languages and finding some sort of word for "warrior" or maybe "shaman" - wikipedia often has decent language references.  (Or, well, decent for gaming purposes; it may not be the sort of thing you'd want to cite in a scientific paper, but for gaming you just need something that sounds good - it doesn't have to necessarily be right.)

Offline UmbraLux

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Re: DF in Australia - We're all screwed
« Reply #2 on: August 27, 2013, 10:07:08 PM »
I like it! 
[Dammit, I need a good name!]
Names...they could recognize the mix of cultures and call it something like "Altjira Federation" or emphasize the aborigine culture by using "Guruwari".  Naming it after a place or person important to the agreement would also work well. 

Have you considered adding Ned Kelly to your history?   ;)
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Offline bobjob

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Re: DF in Australia - We're all screwed
« Reply #3 on: August 27, 2013, 10:44:09 PM »
I like it!  Names...they could recognize the mix of cultures and call it something like "Altjira Federation" or emphasize the aborigine culture by using "Guruwari".  Naming it after a place or person important to the agreement would also work well. 

Have you considered adding Ned Kelly to your history?   ;)

Ned's already in the history under Setting Notes
The entire Red Court was taken down by the new Winter Knight? From the lowliest pawn all the way up to the King? *puts on sunglasses* Knight to G7. Check mate.

Playing:
Shale Buckby

Offline UmbraLux

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Re: DF in Australia - We're all screwed
« Reply #4 on: August 27, 2013, 10:55:39 PM »
Yeah, could be more to it than just a ghost.  But that's probably just my liking of history showing.   :)
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Offline LeviathanZero

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Re: DF in Australia - We're all screwed
« Reply #5 on: March 30, 2015, 03:20:56 AM »
I do apologise for the thread necomancy here, but I am FINALLY starting my Dresden AU game soon so I thought it was a better option than re-starting the thread :)

Hm... Interesting stuff.  I note that there's no direct equivalent to the White Council's seventh law - do dealings with Outsiders fall under one of your existing ones, or are they just not acknowledged in Australia in the first place?

Hm. I should probably add in an "Outer Gates" law, you're right.

Quote
There's also no "don't transform another" law here - initially I thought the "don't mess with minds" one might cover that, but, hey, turning someone into a kangaroo doesn't directly mess with their mind...

I'm of two minds about this one. The Laws I'm putting together here I'm largely trying to keep as a "there will be some kind of direct backlash/side effect caused by Magic itself" rather than "This is an arsehole move, don't do it" (those largely come under mundane laws), and I can't recall something talking about a direct feedback to the caster from shapechanging magic, unlike killing and mind screwing, which we have some very direct results of.

I'll need to ponder that one some more.

Offline LeviathanZero

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Re: DF in Australia - We're all screwed
« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2015, 03:31:57 AM »
I've also decided to throw in a couple of new pieces of canon from the Dresden LARP playtest that I was part of. Namely:

Meili is running around, he's the Norse god of Travel... or used to be. Now he's just another Asgardian working for Monoc Securities and is *really* annoyed at Thor suddenly getting this huge revival and all the limelight. Please, The Travel God was WAY more important than Mr Thunder was.
Thanks to some deals done with Ferrovax and the White Court the New Years after the Red Court was destroyed, Meili now has Jersey as his Demense to start rebuilding his power, a series of movie deals showing that he's just as awesome as his brother Thor and way more important, and a "Lonely Planet" rival with him as a travel guide. All designed to increase public awareness of him and let him creep back up to some kind of power.


Secondly Tom Hiddleston *is* Loki. That's right, Loki is running around playing an actor famous for playing Loki.
Tell me it's not something he'd *totally* do ;)

Offline jftravis

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Re: DF in Australia - We're all screwed
« Reply #7 on: March 30, 2015, 10:09:42 PM »
I'm of two minds about this one. The Laws I'm putting together here I'm largely trying to keep as a "there will be some kind of direct backlash/side effect caused by Magic itself" rather than "This is an arsehole move, don't do it" (those largely come under mundane laws), and I can't recall something talking about a direct feedback to the caster from shapechanging magic, unlike killing and mind screwing, which we have some very direct results of.

I'll need to ponder that one some more.
If your game, and your as-yet-unnamed governing body, make the default White Council assumption about transformation, then the target is effectively destroyed. Their human body and mind are irrevocably gone, in many cases, especially if they remain in their transformed state too long. This period of time can be "instantly", if the transformee is weak-minded.

Also, said governing body would be the ONLY ones capable of policing such activity, unless there's actual "real world" precedent there for people telling a court "She turned him into a newt!" and being believed.

In short, if your "magic police" have extensive back-history (and it sounds like they do), they'd have to have created policy to cover such things.

/2¢
You say "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" like it's a bad thing...

Offline LeviathanZero

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Re: DF in Australia - We're all screwed
« Reply #8 on: March 30, 2015, 11:35:40 PM »
Ah, yeah, one thing that I really should have actually written down.

So, the Laws of Magic are supposed to be there for things where the magic itself has a direct feedback on the user/nature of magic.
Eg, killing someone with a magical beam of fire causes a direct effect on the user, corrupting their magic, so there's a Law about it.
However, burning them with a flamethrower doesn't mess with their magic.

Similarly, directly screwing with someone's brain causes a similar feedback, but (near as I can tell) turning them into a creature and their mind decaying from the shock doesn't have the same effect. Hence there's a Law for the first but not the second.

However, there will be policing of mundane crimes done through magical means (ie, like torturing someone and destroying their mind through turning them into a Newt might not be against the Laws of Magic, but it's still against the Law of the country).
I'm still as yet undecided if the policing of mundane crimes through magical means (I really need to shorthand that) is going to be the purview of the Rangers, or if they will have a liaison with "Special Operations" groups like Murphy's old department who are aware of the Occult who will be specially trained and equipped to deal with such things.
Though I'm leaning toward the latter.

So there will be the Rangers, who deal with breaking the Laws of Magic, Magical creatures, tears in the Veil, all that kind of thing. They will almost exclusively be magically-powered individuals and are roughly Warden equivalent.
And then there will be a Special Division of the Police Force who are a mix of mundanes, and mages who don't want to/don't have the power to become a Ranger who will deal with Magical Practicioners breaking Mundane Laws.

Hopefully that makes sense.