With the first article on world building and the first race I get into one interesting question one why to add one race. I also get more into depth on my campaigns history and who-s-who.
I concluded on biomodified humans and a falling empire. Which is what I'll build on further in this post.
So we have a limited number of planets and a limited FTL drive. So... Empire what makes empires? Why do I want to work with empires, that will be part of this post too.
Now on the empire. In big hits like Star Wars we have the big evil empire, apparently for some reason they are evil we are not really in the original prequels given a reason or motivation other than them being hard line autocrats. Religion seems to dominate the struggles found in Star Wars.
In foundation the empire has reached a breaking point and its stagnation has finally reached critical mass, the empires interest in perpetuating itself has become impossible as corruption spreads and planets wants to secede from an empire that is becoming increasingly selfish and bloated with corruption. See this is good.
Dune plays on this just as much with decadent nobles fighting over who controls the fuel for the sprawling empires FTL travel. I like that a lot, the introduced FTL is not some small miracle absolutely no one cares about but is central to the plot. We also see the empire sending in its goons: The super soldiers of the Sardaukar legions. Hmm...
Both historically and in fiction empires need some really strong trooper to give them dominion over others.
Another thing that popped up when I wanted to do my campaign as a player wanting to play an angelic character, this happened when I announced the campaign and I had to actually meet my players wishes. I'll get more into that later but this campaign had a rather rocky start. Knowing the player though he would enjoy a feudal society very much and angels could easily fall in under biomodified humans and they'd make an interesting angle with respect to gameplay.
At this point I was definitely set on the feudal decaying empire, now I'd need to build and actual empire. Now that I'm building an sci-fi setting my empire faces a distinct set of challenges: It must encompass many different cultures and peoples: In history only two empires Rome and the Mongol empire.
I'm very enthusiastic about history and I love Rome, there is something about their legions and their culture I just love of course. I also have studied their dark side quite a bit and it's interesting.
While most stories about Rome takes place in the vibrant era of the republic where Rome has many rivals or the early imperial era where we have all the familiar Roman imagery of the legionaries we see in movies and the somewhat corrupt empire I choose to take the late Roman empire we find in the era of the great migrations, invading barbarians and seceding states. Being a dropout from the Religious studies of university I took notes on the religious tensions we find in the late Roman empire, also legionaries. I'm definitely copying the Roman empire, I'm even taking the Roman aesthetic too.
How do I get my empire to this point?
With my setting being sci-fi I need a history for my empire.
On to my angels: With a feudal society I can meet the players desire and not break the setting. The player has a strong favor of melee too and a disdain for technology. The design here becomes complicated, I'm going to roll with the players idea of the emperor wanting exotic angelic women and they'd be placed on mountainous planets where they'd actually be able to use their ability to fly. Unlike the Salamander girls from earlier these Homo Optera (Winged humans) aren't going to fill out a biological niche.
Other than that they fit nicely into the requirement on variation and my idea of classical Greek elements. Fitting in with the setting I need to do the biotech part of it.
Right so I need to do some Math. Biotech describes the procedure and a user from the GURPS community Wavefunction helps me figure out these numbers. I also figured the bones would have to be lightweight making an interesting weakness to crushing damage. With all the muscles build for speed their metabolism will also be fast again I got help from Wavefunction to figure this out. Now they will just need some quirks to fit the setting I'll be good.
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