Life After Death
From Consider Yourself in Eternity: An Ascension Guild Guide for Those Considering an Endless Life
No one truly dies, my friend, but who truly lives? That’s Roaa’s paradox. The soul abides in eternity, submerged within the mystical lattice of its crypt stone. When treated with reverence, a crypt stone offers peace after the suffering of this galaxy, but who can guarantee that your stone will always be treated with dignity? You may know pain, confusion, even wanderings outside your refuge if your stone passes to the wrong people. We’ve all seen old, discarded stones, and heard of late-cycle stones goaded into performance with the thread of pain. And even if we find our way to a safe rest, how is it meaningful? To be human is to desire love, achievement, strength, freedom – to always quest for the next dream.
A Golem gives you the power to be human again – human forever.
It’s a simple procedure. Guild professionals will collect your soul within a sturdy crypt stone and join it to a new body, not as a power supply kept asleep, but as a conscious, free-willed being in full command of body and mind. A second crypt stone powers your body, but has no other influence over it. Your will not age or sicken, and although you may tire, it is because of the mind’s habit, not the body’s failings. (You will feel a natural sensation prompting you to acquire a new crypt stone when necessary. It feels like any other normal bodily urge, though it is rare – the recommended array for a given body powers it for an average of 100 standard years.)
If you make a stronger financial commitment, your Golem body will outperform your own through more than its lack of frailties. With skin of rock and blood of silver flame, you’ll shrug off the gravest accidents and run faster that the swiftest sprinting predators – or fly above the clouds. Your sculpt won’t alienate you from humankind – it will represent a higher beauty.
More modest options are available, even emergency bodies in the unlikely event that something damages your near-inviolate form. The Guild works hard to set standard prices across all income ranges in civilized Roaa. But it is here we come to the most common question of all:
Why is it so expensive?
It’s hard to see yourself as a Golem when you first glance at the prices. It looks like a privilege for the supremely rich. It’s a common – and incorrect – misapprehension. Remember that as a true immortal your earning potential is practically limitless. This opens up extended payment plans and loan arrangements that just don’t present themselves for any other investment.
In the next section, we’ll explore several leasing schemes. You’ll be able to pre-screen yourself to see if you qualify.
Public Annotation to the Star Net Edition
Anonymous; Linked to Resource
Yeah, yeah. You’ll make infinite money, so why not get into infinite debt? But the truth is that if anyone could afford to be a Golem, everyone would be a Golem – and nobody could be one, since you need at least one pauper powering every stone immortal. Even if you get a loan, you might end up spending centuries as a near-slave to pay your creditors. Some “freedom.”
Oh yeah: They don’t mention side effects, do they? No more “base joys.” The smell of bread is olfactory data. Love’s rush is a distant echo and sex brings no physical satisfaction. You won’t become emotionless – you’ll just lose the feelings that grow from the delicate interaction between mind and body. If you’re weak you’ll waste immortality on the Star Net, simulating the pleasures of your now-ashen flesh.
Did I mention that they wear out? Stone doesn’t heal.
* * *
Praise the Gods, Hidden and otherwise. This took way more time that it should have. I got a little pbsessed with getting this chapter just right. It’s a big one: around 40 pages establishing the nature of runecraft, the particular style of magic that makes space opera civilization possible in Knights of the Hidden Sun. This one’s a real smörgåsbord, covering Golems, vehicles, and as much else as we could fit in.
I was very concerned with making runecraft feel real and consistent so that players could feel like natives of the world. That’s hugely important in any exotic game setting. Star Trek and Star Wars both use a consistent visual language that helps immensely, to the point where we feel like we could navigate those worlds pretty well if we suddenly ended up there. We have a great artist on the job with Hidden Sun, but we need text that will back that up by laying the ground rules of everyday experience, especially when it comes to a form of “magitech” that follows very specific principles.
Supporting text includes a framework for what you’d call “technobabble” in an SF game, but which I mentally tag “runebabble,” in ours. You need the equivalent of Trek’s EPS conduits, though not to the point where they dominate the narrative. I needed to add new material covering all of that. Development also made big changes to the style, rendering most of it as in-world stuff that you can introduce verbatim — the same style we picked for other chapters. Lastly, I made some changes to reduce confusion (I got rid of duplicate names for certain vehicles) and make some setting elements better fit the conflicts that are part of the Galaxy. For instance, crypt stones used to provide a lot more power, but we need to keep demand up so that space pirates keep stealing souls.
By the way, it feels pretty cool to write sentences like that last one.
Chapter Four? Already six pages in. Should be way faster. It’s not only more straightforward, but I now have proper office space to work in. Expect future updates faster!
Yay! I was beginning to wonder. Hope to see this soon. I think this will fill a niche that’s only starting to be explored.