Self-evident for those of you who know it well enough.
For those of you who don't:
This Dune RPG would be political and feudalistic, like GSTK, GoT, and IRG, but in space (in a very summarized description). It is based off/inspired by the original science-fiction novel "Dune" by Frank Herbert.
This thread here is to merely test the water and gather support before I or we make a properly formatted proposal.
My idea is to have the status quo in the Empire similar to how it is before Paul Atreides' ascension & jihad.
(Dune's world before it goes off the deep end so to speak )
The monopoly of power in the Empire is cut up into three political powers:
-First there's the Emperor, feudal overlord of the known universe.
Planets, and other inhabitable structures such as moons, are fiefs, controlled by Houses. Some are owned by the Spacing Guild (which I will explain later).
-The Landsraad is an assembly, similar to a parliament house or council, of all the noble houses in the Empire.
They constantly argue with the Emperor and try to limit his power and vice versa, as expected.
-The Spacing Guild is a guild that has a complete monopoly over transportation in the Empire.
Thus, they have a lot of power. This would probably serve as the faction for players who want to be merchants.
-The Bene Gesserit and other factions should also be a playable.
Since this is a loosely based idea, I think there could be a system for creating fiefs and discovering new ones. Of course, planets like Arrakis and Caladan could be created and used, same for their houses, but it would be worth more RP effort to create your own planet(s) and house.
Of course, all of you are rolling your eyes at that, completely doubting it could work, but bare with me here;
I think this could work with a strict system of moderation and registration.
Mentats: Dune's universe has a history where humans once became complacent and apathetic to the point where they let sentient machines do everything for them, and eventually the machines enslaved them. They then eradicated all machines in a crusade, and began the mental education of the human race where they would train human brains to be on the level on advanced computers with abilities of divination and mind-reading and such. Enlightened, so to speak.
In the current time frame, only two schools exist: The Bene Gesserit, and the Spacing Guild. The Bene Gesserit is strictly female; a religious sisterhood that has a selective breeding program where they seek to eventually bring into being the "Kwisatz Haderach" which would be a male with complete prescience who can/will lead the world and the Bene Gesserits upon threads of time as he wills.
The Spacing Guild is a guild of mentats that are strictly mathematical, and sometimes mutate themselves with spice melange from Arrakis to make them able to "fold space";
folding is how they transport things and people around the universe, and thus how they control transportation. They also control banking.
Folding allows them to move around space without actually leaving a planet or area, essentially wrinkling a distance to make it shorter.
Mentats are, in a nutshell, humans with trained higher capabilities, anciently designed to replace "thinking machines" which they exterminated in a holy war.
Mentats are often times steward-like characters that serve houses and such, but can fill many roles and be many things. In Paul Atreides' case, it came in the form of a messiah-like aura and manner.
In the Bene Gesserit's case, they become future-foreseeing witches and beauties.
- Noble players could undergo mentat training, but it would require some form of trade-off or difficulty to prevent it from being too widespread.
- Spacing Guild and Bene Gesserit etc players would be mentats immediately, but their abilities specialized.
Let me also clarify that I disagree with all current media adaptations of Dune. They're butchered and incredibly influenced by Sy-fy Channel-esque series'.
Although the 1984 version is arguably decent in interpretation, it was ruined by certain factors.
I will say one thing: things do not look like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sa...uneTV-2000.png
I had always interpreted everything as looking medieval in that book, and I intend to lead this RPG in such a direction.
*If you see an error or mistake on my part, please tell me; it's been a while since I've read Dune*
Last edited by Dirty Chai; October 06, 2012 at 01:47 AM.
Feel free to join the social group.
Joining the group doesn't mean you're totally on-board;
you'll just have access to more information and up-to-date ideas from the proposal.
Contributions and suggestions are highly appreciated.
Last edited by Dirty Chai; October 06, 2012 at 12:57 PM.
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