Go play then do the tuning.

No more than Brainers would eat brains.

I think I might stick with +weird. I think +hunger as a stat is wicked hot but I'm not sure it works in just the right way (cause the other playbooks will get it too.) Things like +dark + corruption +horror circle around what I'm trying to get at but can't quite put a finger on.

Everyone always picks the the Violation Glove. This stat is a measure of how quick you are to use it.

Oh hey, I found my old (two or three years now) Bulwark notes! Back when I was really taken with Fading Suns! Hilarious, I know. Lots of this stuff won't be in the game when the hack is ready but it provides historical context to where my thoughts were abandoned some years ago on the Bulwark subject.

Warning: a lot of this stuff is barely reskinned stuff from Fading Suns, and necessarily won't make it into any Bulwark that I run in the future. I don't really see the Bulwark through the FS lens anymore. More like the AW goggles. So, the complex and fixed factions and large byzantine government probably won't factor in too significantly. All that's back near the bright nodes with fat domains. Out here near the Outer Dark, so close to the abyss people are more pragmatic when there's not enough guns for soldiers, souls for newborns or untainted food to eat. Then again, Bulwark could be all about faction politics where lives are cheap and easily spent in the stifling overcrowded metropolises.

However, you might still find some of this interesting. I'd like to hear about the stuff you find hot or interesting and not the stuff you think is lame or boring.


Bulwark, An Outline

Some notes on Theme: a dark gritty, (sur)realism + arcanopunk

Major themes of Ritual, Redemption and Occult / Secret / Hidden.

Also: Carrying the fire, a fragile light in the dark, a slow apocalypse, dwindling numbers and murkiness. There are not enough souls to go around.

Negotiation, Hegemony and patterned relationships: instead of a Newtonian mechanical universality, we get a localized, negotiated network of entities. Things very much have to be cajoled into action or effect.

There is no or little microscopic world or life. Organs function in an essential, teleological way. Biology is the relationships between various essences, vitae and humours. The brain is a vessel for the soul, like a jar is for water.

Complex society without industrialization. Gender divisions exist within Hearths but not within institutions; thus Caste becomes more important than Gender; it is secondary to Caste, House and Bloodline.

Bloodlines are domain specific ethnicities. See genasi in DnD, similar. More or less human shaped with environmental or thematic modification. Oh, there is no Human human (that is, no white westerners.)

Sartorial Guidelines: A long shirt, toga, sarong, shift or sari, some sort of vest or light coat, a heavier over coat or long coat, a number of sashes, belts or crests, sandals. In colder climates boots, a heavy loose pullover and stockings.

Displayed wealth is generally in terms of slaves, caste, signifiers of station, finely made items or religious adornments. Overt material wealth re: jewels or 'bling' is pretty tacky or silly. Attaches, either Covenant or Agency.

The Umbral

The collected, ever changing and uncatalogued ghost, spirits, numen, and miscellaneous kami that live in the Umbra, a realm overlaid on the common one experienced by most of humanity. Truth be told, it's a scary, fucked up place. Only the skilled and hardened or the natives themselves have any chance at navigating or talking to anything there by actively seeking it out. Often, one has a guardian fetish or sprite to deal with all the sublimity and horror.

The Abyssal

Outside the relative safety of the humanity's material anchors of wards and enclaves is a realm of alien and hostile nature that's inhabited by all types of exotic and unspeakable monsters. The further one strays from the refuge of the nodes, the more likely one is to encounter such beings, and eventual enter into their domains. It's uncertain if there is (are) some greater intelligence(s) leading these demon hordes or governing their lands, or if they're acting as mere beats on some base instinct. They are the single greatest threat to humanity. Many lives and much effort is spent on guarding the current wards and their respective domains, and heroically reclaiming lost ones.

The Instrumentality of the Covenant

The oldest order of monastics and the dominant one in the Dominion of the Empire, those sworn to the Covenant guided humanity through the early days of the unmaking, striving to ensure that human culture would survive by maintaining both the Wards and the proper rituals. Their near impervious monasteries and shrines can be found in most human domains, settlements and gates. The church is divided into a number of orders, lead by Exarchs. It's very much a pastoral role. The major sects are listed here:

The Orthodox represents the old, authoritarian guard of the Instrumentality, maintaining stability and making religious law (to which everyone in the Empire must at least pay lip service.) They are the most concerned with temporal power. The Orthodox is divided into two sects: Fas and Lex. The former focuses on internal law and administration. Traditionally, the Primarch has been from the Fas Orthodox. Lex Orthodox priests act as chief administrators and bureaucrats for the Imperial apparatus, being lead by the Cloistered Emperor [an emperor who's abdicated from the throne.] The Lex Orthodox and the Cloistered Emperor also sponsor the Vevix, a martial force who turn away no one regardless of status and origin. Recruits seek citizenship as freemen and the possibility of gaining land, to become a member of the gentry.

All members of the Orthodox are firm believers of accepted sacramental forms: ritual, stations of office, canonical law &c. Wavering from time-tested doctrine is seen as dangerous and foolhardy. All must walk the right path with correct guides. Those that don't may lead us again to ruin.   

The Cavix are the quintessential defender of the faith. Physical guardians of the wards and cloisters of Covenant. Their origins stem from the defenders of the pilgrims who were drawn to the safety of sect and the protection the Bulwark offered against the in rushing darkness, answering the need for hard-line and able soldiers. Rivaled by few, the Cavix are the oldest surviving military force in the Dominion. Fanatically dedicated to defending tenants of the Covenant and it's acolytes with might and force of arms, they are respected if not feared by most denizens of the Dominion. They've personally saved countless Exarchs from assassination, and thus they became an ordained order, giving them special powers within and without the Covenant, conceded to by the Landsraad houses, who were trying to cover up their involvement.
   
Membership is harsher than the other orders, as only hale infants are accepted, and from
then on spend fifteen or more years of spiritual contemplation and study, and rigorous martial    training.

The Visparad are keepers of the Bulwark and its lesser wards, which stave off the horrific abyssal demons and sublime umbrood. They're the main line of defense against the imminent and continually postponed eschaton. Deeply mystical, occult and arcane, they also serve the sect as keepers of relics, rites and ritual. Their vaults hold most of the prized of the sect's artifacts and their libraries hold knowledge that even the Exarchs may not be privy too, all thanks to their insatiable curiosity. 
   
They're master demonologists, linguists, archivist and archaeologists often, in secret,    accomplished thurgists. Which lead to a split in the order, between the more academic priests    and those that felt their work and skills were more needed out in the land that they were bound    to protect. So for every monk that stayed and indexed true names of demons there was one that    uttered in them battle with the beasts; for every one that stayed and maintained the shrines, there was one that was purging reclaimed ones from the penumbra.

The Seiddar are clerics that follow the latter path.

The Avesta serves as inquisitors. These fanatical and disciplined Avesta are the hard-liners of the Covenant. They lack an Exarch of their own, and must obtain the seal of the inquisitorial synod to pursue their suspected heretics and demons. However, their zeal is even too regressive for the Primarch's tastes but ve's thankful for the ability to unleash them on victims and enemies alike. 
   
They are considered penitents, owing duty to any Orthodox priest.

The Ceiwyn (Xi Win) are off-shoot of the Visparad and now a full-fledged order; they're the principle healers and biologists of the Sect.


The Agencies of the Multitude

   The Labyrinth: Those who can travel through the liminal space between the domains.
   
   The Scarvers: Those who can arrange to get various things and services

   The Artificers: Markers and workers of the Ancient technologies of the Unmaking, the
   Fall and the Ruin.

   The Reeves: Bankers, Barristers, Solicitors and Notary Publics.

   The Blooded: Sanctioned, ritually, to be slavers and sellers of Slaves and Slave
   Houses, bound to the Lex Orthodox

Hearths of the Landsraad (Houses)

Hearth: extended family based around a large tenement, communal.

House: A collection of Hearths, allied in a somewhat collective way, often with land to use, or other Houses bound to them.

Slave; Person, House or Hearth: Directly indentured to another House as property.

Free; Person, House or Hearth: Independent beyond oneself, house or hearth.

Minor House: A House bound to another House without any non-slave Houses below it.

Middling House: A House that is both bound to another House and has Houses bound to it.

Major or Noble House: A House that has a House bound to it but is unbound.

The Landsraad: The governing body of the Major Houses; something like a treaty.

The Imperial House, the dominating House of the Landsraad. Governs all of the Domain of Man.

Vevix: Non-House allied militia; bound to the Cloistered Emperor(ress) and the Lex Orthodox.

The Cloistered Emperor: An abdicated Emperor that governs the Lex Orthodox and the Vevix.

Notice the tension between the sitting Emperor and the Cloistered one; the former makes the decisions but cannot go to war or make public laws without the consent of the later.

There are often intra Major House groups that serve the interests of the high house and its subordinate houses, these are generally militias, intelligence agencies and occult groups “house wizards.” Local traditions may also come up as domain exclusive groups.

Houselessness
      ? Covenant
      ? Agencies, particularly
      ? Slavery (selling ones name, essentially)

This is fucking amazing.

Jeff, I think you've got something hot here that AW doesn't cover at all:

Research Lore, Forbidden and Otherwise
Psychic Powers/Sorcery
Go Crazy!
Become twisted and corrupt!

The rest of the things of the list are things that AW can handle with any hacking at all.

The reason these are absent is because Vx doesn't design to proscribe the internal states of the player/character or build in any kind of morality or judgement on the MC's part. The GM in dogs presents a situation to the players and they judge it, the GM never says 'yeah, the King of Life is down with that.'

Now, it's clear to me that this will be the hardest and most important part of the hack. Everything else is just a reskinning of the colour.

I'll add to the list (which is already more or less complete):

Investigate!
Deal with incomprehensible draconian bureaucracy!
Terrorize those beneath you!

It's not so much about balance or variation (important, sure) but the rewards part is really the 'Give the Player's what they work for but not what they want.'

Anyways, my post has NOTHING to do with the MC advice. Nothing. It's advice to players.

That advice is to be the fuckery you want to see in the world. The MCs is going to be dishing out all sort of apocalyptica, details, fuckery, NPCs, Moves to 2-4 players. There might be Chocolate and Vanilla fuckery but man, the Strawberry fuckery is absent. Instead of whining to the MC about not enough Strawberry, be the Strawberry fuckery.

You don't think the Hocus is running the Cult very well? Take it or start your own! Gunlugger pussying out? Pick up the assault rifle! Brainer not really exploring the Psychic Maelstrom? Open up that brain! Sure, maybe you don't see you Angel as a fighter but no world is more sink or swim than AW. Just because you a PC doesn't mean you can't make hard Moves.

I was talking with Joe today about this, and he put it to me like this: if you take small risks in AW, you're fucked. So, you might as well go big and take the big ones. Moreover, I would add that if you want to see something in the fiction happen that isn't happening, step on up and make it happen.

In other words: BE AGGRESSIVE! BEE! EEE! AGGRESSIVE!

That would be my advice to players of AW.

That's what came to me walking back to my lodgings after Harper's game.

Be the fuckery.

Me and Jeff were talking about these ideas we had for a kind of Death Spiral for both WH40K and Bulwark.

The last bits from the WH40K thread:

Orly: I don't see the "madness meter" as a player Move, or even so much as a parallel Harm meter but as a micro-Front. So that the custom moves, countdown clock and description are all compressed into one thing. While the player is getting a few extra moves, it should be constantly providing opportunities for the MC to make hard moves and advance the fiction.

What I like about it is that each PC becomes a Front in their own right. Both to themselves and to the other PCs. Mechanically it's all out in the open but it's more hidden in the fiction. I think it could create the right kind of tension with the group.

Then Jeff said: That would also be an excellent way to run a "dark pact", I think. Make a custom move for the threat (the demon the character strikes a deal with) that provides advantages to the player in exchange for advancing the front, and allow the front to tick forward descriptively as well (like the character does something wicked and evil).

I wanna talk about this mirco-Front dark pact thing more, but I'm pretty exhausted at the moment.

Questions, comments and concerns are invited!

Ima grok it some more first.