Thursday, November 24, 2011

The Liquid Library

Here's another waking-up-from-sleep idea:  A long forgotten cult knew how to extract and distill knowledge into liquid form.  Somewhere there is a library of what is left of their art.  Tiny vials hold passphrases, bottles maps, and casks the genealogies of extinct families.  Far in the back, through double doors, is an entire lake.  And a woman who has been there for decades, trying to drink it all.

7 comments:

  1. Do you know the old AD&D2E Tome of Magic? There are some interesting ideas in the Thought sphere priest spells and magic items like the "Thought Bottle," etc.

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  2. Hm. It would be interesting to note that the method of brewing and whether or not it went sour had to do with how the imbiber FELT about the memory imparted. =)The same memory could be nostalgic, sweetly romantic, or a bitter rankling beginning to regret.

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  3. Homer takes a sip out of a bottle labeled Ornithology. "Mmmmmmmm... migration patterns of the Eastern Yellow-backed Flyeater..."

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  4. Thanks all.

    @Welcome: I have it, but paid more attention to the mu spells than priests. I look back through it.

    @fictive: brewed emotions is a cool idea in itself, though would have to be left mostly to roleplaying in-game.

    @Zanazaz: Now I'm thinking it could be just info like books, but also skills like the Matrix: "I know kung-fu."

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  5. In my short-lived mi-go colonists game, skills were large gelid things you could eat, the downside being that each one you ate made you bigger, slower and hungrier. You could also have them surgically removed (although then they weren't reusable). So the players had the choice of making themselves into effective but ignorant footsoldiers or nearly-sessile but highly competent managers.

    That was also the game where they started at the south pole and were surprised to find (a) their base in ruins, and (b) humans using machines near their remote mining facilities. I could've used gate-based travel for it, but I didn't think of it.

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