Where do we all belong?

 Image Credit: Michael Goh 

By Christopher Robin Negelein 

Tamalu is world long gone. How long? I'm still figuring that out since elves live so damn long in several popular fantasy games.

But anyway. Where do our  Bastions sit and how do they sit where we can have cool magic ships go meet them on regular basis for adventure -- I mean trade. 

Welcome to the Ribbon

(My Discord readers got a snippet, now here's the longer version.)

The Ribbon. Most of the known bastions are, from a god’s eye view, close to each other. There are still weeks and months of travel and re-supply, but they can still be reached. This area, which many have named The Ribbon, or the Known Void,  or Mite’s Way, is roughly a long stretched web of trade routes that flow in the same path and currents as the old world, Tamalu, before it crumbled apart.

Helmsmen often refer to traveling “upstream” and “downstream” as they go with or against the current of the bastions and surrounding debris. What really makes navigation possible is that the bastions in the Ribbon move at a similar speed or predictable patterns.

 There is much more debris and matter floating in Tamalu’s old orbit, most of it at different speeds. Not only does this mean there are occasional navigational hazards in the present, there have been  — historically -- newly arrived bastions at the “head” of the Ribbon. 

No surprise that many expeditions are funded to scout out ahead of the Ribbon for fresh discoveries and riches. Many times, it is the same bloodlines, companies and guilds all competing with each other in a somewhat friendly rivalry since they don’t see each other as true competition  back on their home bastions. 

If the stakes or politics were ever to change, the true ruthless nature of these power players could push the Ribbon into its first, true war. 

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The naming of things

The terms upstream and downstream leave me feeling "meh," which makes them more placeholders for now. And I'm already contemplating the difference between Ribbon and Flow. I have also noticed in my effort to make this whole setting more mystic and less science, I've been avoid the words space and orbit though I did have to back to them on occasion. Oribt is hard as it implies so much, a circular/oval path in one direction. Trying to address those in more nautical terms becomes clumsily but we we'll see. 

What are we fighting for?

On the other hand, grabbing a little bit of orbital mechanics means we have generated to things that are good for exploration and conflict, the head of the Ribbon. By exploration, I also mean the GM getting to introduce new headliners into their world. This where the bright and bold events every power player's attention. (The sneaky stuff will come in from the flanks, as it always does.)

And if the party wants to be were the party is at for finding new resources and getting the power players to notice them, this is where it's at. 

Go, Ganza! Go. 

 I'm open to bribes for more Cypher stuff! You can do a one-timer at  https://ko-fi.com/ganzagaming , or regularly via this Patreon. Regardless, I'm still working on Solar Sails, a fantastical world of SPELLs that's JAMMERed with all sorts of the fantastical. 

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