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[great spiral] more setting detail
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I think I'm going back on the weird gravity in the spiral
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there is a top and bottom and gravity just does straight down
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it makes areas less homogenous - there can be precarious overhangs on the ceiling of the tunnel with a 1.2 kilometer drop underneath and such
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and keeps the idea of moving 'upwards' more coherent
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regarding taking damage
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seekers are of course not immortal
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they are sturdier than humans but not so sturdy that local fauna can't break them
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they do have a pain sense - it's a standard installation for frames because it's how you learn not to damage your frame
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they tried things like having a fixed upper limit on pain feedback to avoid traumatic experiences but then seekers would just get used to pain and start doing reckless shit
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the psycholith is the sturdiest part of any seeker, but it too is not invincible
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small damage to it, like breaking chips off, can cause essentially brain damage, in the form of lost memories or skills
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any serious damage kills the seeker
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losing a limb is a big deal - there's no autorepair nanites, so you'll have to retreat to a base camp to get it fixed, and it will also hurt like fuckhell
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but any injury is survivable as long as the psycholith is intact
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a newly-activated seeker is like a young child, needing to learn to adjust to an unfamiliar world and body
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but it doesn't last as long as human childhood, generally being up to speed within 2-3 years
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they aren't complete blank slates, it seems - they existed in some form before activation
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nobody knows where psycholiths come from, just that they find them in the ruins
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do seekers die of old age? it's a little complicated
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a seeker who's like, a chef, or some other non-combat job, can live for at least 100 years
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but beyond that... well, there aren't any seekers older than that
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so it's hard to say if they're immortal or not, but if you keep to one profession and aren't intellectually adventurous, your mind starts to decay into predictable loops
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and the energy source within a psycholith does not seem to be infinite
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overuse of coraluma can burn them out
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if you use it a small amount, you recover energy quickly and are fine again
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if you use it a large amount, then in addition to draining lots of your energy and requiring you to rest and recover, your ability to generate energy can be damaged
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essentially, if you run out of MP, you can cast by spending your max MP
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if you use it a huge amount, then you die
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psycholith power is supplemented in most frames by a biofusion cell, which converts organic matter into fuel for basic body movement
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so when you just walk around, you aren't draining your core, as long as you've been eating well
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older frames have a functional sense of taste in order to tell high-efficiency matter from low-efficiency matter
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modern frames have improved biofusion cells that can absorb much wider varieties of fuel, and some don't bother including a taste sense as it's no longer necessary
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but many have one installed, because eating good food is an important experience
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and it's a shame to not be able to taste complex cuisines
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some don't bother, instead just shoving whatever into their mouth and worrying about other things
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coraluma can't channel biofusion energy, though, that only comes from the psycholith itself
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ability to use coraluma is something each seeker has an aptitude for
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not can/can't, but in terms of efficiency of energy conversion
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a low-proficiency coraluma user might be restricted to a coraluma lamp, only using combat-oriented devices as a last resort and only at low power
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a high-proficiency coraluma user might have a lightsaber and a super laser cannon and a defensive forcefield all active simultaneously
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proficiency is also not fixed
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it can be trained
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and limits can be altered by emotional state
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a seeker feeling stronger emotions can get higher output from coraluma devices
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age is a very floaty concept for seekers
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you can measure from time of activation or time of discovery but even then, different seekers seem to activate with different levels of maturity
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so more than age, people tend to lean on seeker association rank
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although there are those who stay out of the maw and focus on other pursuits
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unranked seekers can come off as either weirdly innocent or weirdly wise and worldly
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there are also unranked seekers who do explore the maw, but remain unregistered for their own reasons
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the association does not like when you do this
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it's dangerous
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so there's sort of two meanings of the word 'unranked' as a noun
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meaning 1: a seeker who rejects the spiral and finds their own path within outside seeker society
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meaning 2: a dangerous hostile weirdo who's probably in the spiral for sinister reasons
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Irregulars
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if a seeker is sighted outside of their rank territory - a rank 3 seeker in turn 5 - then the official stance on what the higher-ranked seeker should do is:
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- note their identity and the turn they were sighted on
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- try to get them to come back with you, but don't go out of your way if doing so will put your life in danger
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- if they return to the association, punitive measures will be taken, possibly including rank reduction or being temporarily forbidden from entering heaven's maw
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- if they do not return within a time limit, then they are recorded in the seeker association records as "dead (suicide)"
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not all upper rank seekers follow this policy to the letter
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some will, some might go out of their way to rescue an out of depth seeker in danger, some might go out of their way to capture them by force
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seeker cuisine does not line up with human cuisine
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it focuses on different priorities - high-quality ingredients, processing for easy fuel conversion, and aesthetics
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because what tastes good to seekers is based more on the limitations of the biofusion cell
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so many delicious seeker dishes would be fatal to a human
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the seeker city and the human city have a fair amount of contact, but their inability to meet face to face complicates things
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but they trade across the planet using autonomous drones
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religion!
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seekers as a social group don't have much belief in gods as we understand them
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but a lot of the same spirituality is imparted on the spiral itself
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some believe that the spiral is alive, and orchestrates events within itself
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as a sort of fate
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the silent voice luring seekers into the spiral is the voice of the spiral
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of course, some believe this is all bullshit
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there's no hard evidence of spiral intelligence, it's just how you think about the mysteries surrounding it
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further expositing possible. ask questions
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the Seeker Association is not a sinister one, but they tend to get fussy about rules in the name of protecting novice seekers
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and a fair number of seekers push back and do things that are against those rules
dragon time
Are there weird but non hostile things in the spiral besides psycholiths ?
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absolutely
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it's full of weird shit
dragon time
Also is there any social significance to where someone's base psycholith was found in the death maw
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that'ssss a great question
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maybe there's like. a dubiously-true claim that psycholiths found on higher turns are stronger
dragon time
Like I imagine there's a bit that's linked to age because everyone from 3 is gonna be older and everyone from 9 is prolly like post Death Knell
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oh true
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yeah I think the death knell happened when the furthest exploration was around turn 7
dragon time
The big wall point where things start getting freaky
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yeah
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things other than monsters and weird terrain hazards that you might find in the great spiral:
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- mysterious substances that could be the basis for new kinds of seeker equipment
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- ancient devices of inscrutable function and purpose
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- massive obelisks and other physical anomalies that defy logic and ordinary physical laws like gravity
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- pieces of buildings that don't correspond with any human civilization, bearing unknown writing systems
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- places where euclidean geometry breaks down
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- places where time flows differently than on the surface
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- the sensation of being observed by some immense, distant intelligence
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- increasingly complex and powerful autonomous wardens that target anything foreign to the spiral
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list is non-comprehensive
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the higher you go, the weirder the spiral becomes
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the divisions between the turns are not exact
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but the environment does seem to drastically change about once per revolution
Master Chieve
I think
Master Chieve
Ten starts out working with the Association
Master Chieve
and makes it up a few ranks legit
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But ultimately realizes that he can't accomplish his objectives within their ranks
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the seeker association prefers slow and steady progress
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but on the other hand, there's an unwritten rule about high-ranked Seekers:
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any seeker ranked 7 or above
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is probably some kind of fucking weirdo
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normal people don't go that high
Master Chieve
eccentric anime personalities in the upper ranks
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yeah
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and the higher the weirder
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if you've made it to turn 9 and come back, you're probably some kind of sociopath
Master Chieve
not necessarily
Master Chieve
but
Master Chieve
probably
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probably
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seekers are not computer people
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their brain is the psycholith, and nobody knows how they work
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but if you asked a seeker to do a really intensive math problem, they would need a calculator
dragon time
Steeples fingers. So there was the Death Knell, big trauma for all the survivors. They're not equipped to have an organized system for what if all the humans die on the spot at the same time. Is it lore compliant for Plory to have just. Made a cemetery on school grounds.
dragon time
Personally dug every single grave
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yes
dragon time
It's been like 80 years since the Death Knell it has had plenty of time to do that and also have been exploring
dragon time
Hell yeah
dragon time
Possibly it's done stuff like bring back a bunch of flowers from the spiral because nothing else is gonna grow out here and then found out that oh. This kind of flower grows aggressively and turns into a large hostile being when it's planted near organic corpses. And that could be a how did you meet and become friends character hook.
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I think I want to slightly adjust the Death Knell mechanics
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just so that there's things for seekers to eat
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it only kills lifeforms that meat a certain requirement. mass? species? intelligence?
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specifically only humans? any external species that's been brought live into the maw?
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I like the last one
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no humans, no dogs, a lot of bugs are out because they flew in on their own
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single-cellular life is not affected
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nor are plants or fungus
Master Chieve
The maw took note of who was entering and said “these specific fuckers are banned”
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the general form of death it causes is violently bleeding from everywhere and falling over dead instantly
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seekers are unaffected both because they generally aren't organic and because psycholiths are spiral native
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(or at least predated human contact with the spiral)
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while age isn't as big of a thing in seeker society as it is in human society, the Death Knell is like a generational divide
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those who were activated before it, who were broadly traumatized by it
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and those who were activated after it, who only have an academic idea of what humans are like
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the settler city outside the spiral is called Baltia
Master Chieve
The seekers can still call humans on the phone so
Master Chieve
They at least have that much contact
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yeah
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but on the phone they're basically just, humanlike model seekers
dragon time
Oh good we have plants. And maybe some animals
dragon time
Relatively recent incident where a pig got into the Maw and then every single pig died and the seekers all like 
oh that's fucked
oh that's fucked
dragon time
I like the brought into the maw angle because it certainly implies something and nobody likes it
dragon time
But at least... we have wheat for cake