[UA] Terminus, GA

[Mike Lake]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris Williams" <lord_of_the_geeks at hotmail.com>
To: <ua at lists.unknown-armies.com>
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 1:12 AM
Subject: [UA] Terminus, GA

> So how does [Terminus] sound? Do you think it could make for a fun 
> setting? Are there any hideous, glaring faults with it? Does the cosmic 
> roach motel aspect smack too much of railroading?

I'm late with my response, and most of  what I want to say has already been 
said.    I'm consigned to mere elaboration.  (A valuable lesson to us all.)


My first thought, simply based on the name "Terminus," was that the city 
might be a cosmic sewage drain: when things become irrelevant but refuse to 
leave the world, kept alive by some hard knot of habit or fringe belief, 
they eventually drift into Terminus to die.  Or be dispatched.  Nobody knows 
(and few indeed care) what happens to those who end up in Terminus, but 
those few who are clued-in know it's a one-way trip.



Big things and big people, like also-ran godwalkers, end up in Terminus, but 
so do little things and little people, like that dried-up old man you used 
to see every week in the library, marking the days to his death.  Current 
events in the outside world don't impinge much on Terminus; its inhabitants 
believed, and believed hard, in something now consigned to the past.



This would be a fine way to explore magical schools that you like, but which 
canon says no longer exist-the last surviving practitioner has finally made 
his way to Terminus.  Maybe he's locked in a death struggle with his 
arch-rival, once the leading exponent of a rival belief, now the only 
exponent of that belief, neither ready to admit that it no longer matters 
who triumphs.



With the Invisible Clergy almost filled, and the Comte getting ready to turn 
out the lights, the pace of Terminus has sped up lately.  Not much time left 
to tie off all the lose ends that call the city home.  Those not overly 
distracted by their own obsolete agenda have noticed how much more quickly 
the burn-outs and left-overs have been vanishing lately.  Some speculate the 
city itself has grown weary of its existence; a few suggest it's absorbed 
too much of the spirit of its residents.  Maybe they're right; it all comes 
out the same in the end.



As tempting as it is to let Terminus die with a whimper, not a bang, as its 
inhabitants do, that's not in the cards.  Terminus has been trying to 
overdose on metaphorical sleeping pills, or maybe gas itself in the garage, 
for generations, and people keep showing up and interfering.  See, as the 
last seats of the Invisible Clergy fill, more matters, not less, from the 
general world become irrelevant without realizing it, and without graciously 
accepting obsolescence.  This is understandable, with the pace of life 
accelerating daily.  Why, fashions hardly go out of style a decade before 
they become "classic" or "retro."  This is just their way of fighting for 
their place in the sun, edged prematurely from the spotlight-but the cosmos 
is running out of time, and there are still so many ideas left that need 
airing, however briefly.  So Terminus is undergoing a population explosion, 
especially of people and things angry to discover themselves here so soon 
(or indeed, at all).  They haven't had time to adjust to teleological middle 
age, much less the old folks' home.  Sooner or later, all that anger is 
going to boil over somewhere, probably lots of somewheres at once.  A lot of 
has-been adepts are going to blow more and bigger charges until someone 
misuses a major charge in an outright Gotterdammerung, and Terminus will at 
last blow its metaphorical brains out with its dad's service .38-just in 
time for the end of the rest of the world.



Interesting that Grim Fandango should be mentioned already.  I borrowed 
heavily from that masterpiece in creating my own city of the dead, complete 
with geography that changed to reflect an evolving population.  The campaign 
failed, largely because my players couldn't get into the noir worldview, but 
also largely because I left them without clear signals of what to do next. 
I was proud of the city's conception, and still regret its failure.



The railroading you worry about shouldn't be a problem, since it's part of 
the campaign premise, and operates on a macroscopic level.  It's 
moment-to-moment railroading that players really rebel against.  Still, let 
your players know up front that Terminus is the end of the line.



Marshall Tucker Band's "Can't You See" would make a fine theme song.