Urgent!
Please read this if you are a member of the Fading Winter Society!As many of you knew, several of us were working on a theory that the banality of computers could be overcome so that the glamour of these objects could be utilized, espcially the glamour prevalent in cyberspace. I, Alexus, was working quite extensively upon this project, and thus this web site has suffered. Others who have aided me were Pepper and my beloved Sir Howell.
A week ago, I had the opportunity to spend some time in the Dreaming. Sir Howell accompanied me. I was fortunate enough to have my laptop with me, and I began working again on my theory. Some influence of the Dreaming made my formerly useless attempts at casting Protocol in an IRC channel suddenly possible, and I soon found all of the members of the channel speaking to me polietly, and addressing me as "My Lady". It was quite amusing. I allowed Sir Howell to try Willow-Whisper, and he found that he could talk to the garden, which we had "made" in our channel. It seems now, that objects, places, and people in cyberspace are as real as objects, places, and people are in the Dreaming. And it is now possible for glamour to affect things in this realm.
Incidentally, you may go and talk to our garden in our channel. (If you are a member of FWS, you know the channel's location, and how to get there.) A helpful nocker who was with us was able to use Effigy in cyberspace, and he created a copy of the garden. The copy is in the form of a 'bot', and the real garden can speak through this bot. The bot is called A_Garden, and I can assure you, this is a real live sentient garden, which exists exclusively in cyberspace. Parenthetically, A_Garden has the power to enter other channels and speak therein. A_Garden is very excited about this, and she spends a great deal of time lurking in channels such as #flowers and #organic.
If you would like to learn how to manipulate glamour in cyberspace, please e-mail me or Pepper. For now, we will teach only members of FWS. Also for now, the cantrips seem only to work while the caster is located in the Dreaming. Cyberspace and the Dreaming seem to have an affinity for one another, which further proves the theory behind the Fading Winter Society: That Technology will bring the Dreaming back to us soon.
{Storytellers note: I am working on creating a Cyberspace Realm for gaming. All of the above happened in the chronicle I'm running, so it is being play tested. For now, this is roughly the realm as it stands now:
The Cyberspace Realm
This realm allows a changeling to cast all cantrips in cyberspace. This includes web pages, e-mail, IRC channels, local BBS's, online games (MUDs, MUCKs, MOO's, etc), and offline games (Tetris, DOOM II, Quake, etc). Anything that exists in the psuedo world of cyberspace can be affected (whether you can 'see' it or not). For example, if you are in an IRC channel, and your nick is Bob, and you say, "Bob dives into a big, clover shaped pool with green water", then there is now a clover shaped pool in existance in cyberspace, and you can cast cantrips which affect that pool.
It is difficult to imagine how some cantrips will be useful cyberspace. For example, Hopscotch (level one Wayfare) would seem useless in a chat channel, since you can simply type, "Bob jumps 50 feet up into the air!" But when applying it to online or offline games, where your character is bound by programing to not be able to jump, it can be very useful. In these situations, the programing will act 100% as if your character has jumped. If a monster is attacking you in a MUD, he will miss.
Following is a list of realm levels. I'm still not entirely sure how these will end up, since I need to play test this a little, but here are my ideas for now.
Plain Text
This describes places where there are no graphics and few colors. E-mail, IRC, old text adventure games, and ANSI based BBSs are examples. Most cyber people and things here are left to the imagination. The more human's that are around imagining, the easier it is to cast the cantrip. So, an IRC channel where people are role playing will be easier to affect than a channel where people are talking about servere lag and Pentium processors.
This level covers Web Browsing and simple GUI (Windows) style games. Windows itself can also be affected, although I'm not sure why you'd want to (unless you use QuickSilver on it, to make it run at a decent speed. . . hehe . . Sorry Microsoft :) ) You can use Chicanery to make people confuse one web site for another (think of all the great fun for Pooka!) or use Fair Fortune on your Solitaire game.
Covers CD Roms, newer games (Doom II, Quake, Decent, etc), high graphics online games (networked Doom, AOL style games where you download pretty pictures, etc). Also works on GIFs and JPEGs. (If the GIF or JPEG is a part of a web page, it falls under Gooey Interface.)
Sci-Fi LawnmowerMan stuff. You know, goggles, gloves, gyro suit. Anything that requires special equipment and gives a feeling of cyber-reality counts under this one. The Nintendo PowerGlove, however, doesn't quite cut it, and falls under High Res and MultiMedia...
This is really Sci-Fi futuristic stuff. You have to 'jack in' to use this realm. Read some William Gibson or Bruce Sterling, or watch Jonny Nmemonic to know what I mean. This is where the cyberspace is so 'real', it could be mistaken for the World of Darkess, or the Dreaming itself. Nothing is left to the imagination, and the character believes the world she is in is real.
Like I said, I'm playtesting this, so watch for updates or changes. Also, I'm playing with the idea of a Computer or Cyber Art, so stick around.
-And, hehe, if anyone from White Wolf happens to see this . . . HEY! These are GREAT ideas, and work BEAUTIFULLY in game! Please let me write for you!! :) . . . If they work out good enough, I'll be sending you an official query letter . . . I have a copy of your writer's requirements. . .-}
people were intrested in casting cantrips in cyberspace!
{I shall infuse this page with a little banality, by saying that all writings herein are Copyright(C)1996, by Becky Flesher. Changeling:The Dreaming and all words and refferences to it are copyright or trademarked or what ever to White Wolf Gaming Studios. Please, don't steal from either of us without permission!! Using this stuff for the benifit of personal gaming is fine, but copying it to other websites or copying it in any other way without getting the go-ahead from me first is inexcusable.}