House of the Rising Sun...

Jakk Bey

Jakk Bey

One Thousand Club
Kernal of an idea for a Modernis game, or rather a protagonist and his merry crew for folks to meet.


A Zenith has decided to tour the Threshold, beyond the Wall, openly.  


Not as a hero righting wrongs, or carrying a banner of war, but as a Flash star--his concerts and songs are smuggled onto the Mana Net, uploaded secretly to the Realm and those inside the Wall, from various locations, using ley lines to upload his pirate signal into the Mana Net, and his songs of freedom ring throughout the Realm.  Think a combination of Joe Hill and Bob Marley, a charismatic troubadour, with a full Circle, and a crew of Dragon Blood Outcases and God Bloods as roadies, touring outside the Wall, from town to town, city to city, and at each stop, their songs and message is spread by smugglers back to the Realm, his songs not only catchy and popular songs of freedom and light hearted rebellion, political and heart felt, but also carrying the message of the Unconquered Sun back into the Realm, reviving the themes of worship of the Sun, the return of the First Age, diatribes against the Blood and their tyranny, songs to warn folks away from the siren songs of the Deathlords and Yozi, spreading the words of the faith back into the Creation, in underground clubs, pirated signals uploaded into the Mana Net, spread by word of mouth, he sneaks beyond the Wall, giving guerrella-theater-esque concerts and demonstrations, only to melt back beyond the Wall, and back into the arms of his fans and followers.


Accompanied by a Dawn Caste bouncer, his Eclipse manager, Twilight Mystech Engineer, and a Night Caste who acts as a booking agent, he also has a crew of Outcastes as bouncers and roadies, along with a few God Bloods who also act as followers.  


The problem is: he's getting very popular amongst the rebellious youth of the Realm, his songs are catchy and hit the young folks right where it hurts, their own feelings of rebellion and dis-satisfaction in the status quo, he also rings a note amongst the prole classes, even the Freedmen are wont to hum his tunes under their breath.


So, the Agents of the Wyld Hunt are afoot, to squash this trouble-maker and his band of freebooting pirates of the Mana Net...


Thoughts?  Suggestions?
 
What's the name of the band? Why is the Zenith the sole Solar performer, and are the DBs on the instruments not important enough to recognize?


 How do they get around, beyond the Wall?


 Would the Night and Eclipse work better if their roles were swapped?
 
Haven't gotten names yet, just trying to flesh out the idea a bit.  Yes, I was thinking that having DBs and Heroic Mortals in the band, and perhaps a Lunar on bass.  


The Solars are running the show though--booking, travel arrangements, persuading Spirits and Gods to help them out, hacking the Mana Net to upload their signal.


You know, swapping the Eclipse out as booking agent might work better, and the Night Caste as manager.  Night Caste to get their damn money from the clubs and their distributors, and the Eclipse to do their PR and book the gigs, doing the paperwork to set up the whole shebang.


That's why I popped this up here.  Good call.
 
Having a GF Siddie as the point guy for the underground distribution of hard-copy and other sundry non-downloadable materials wouldn't hurt, either.


 The party is treading on multiple power groups' toes in the Realm; an interesting twist would be that instead of the groups cooperating, the first attempts to intercept the Solars are marred by turf wars between different Realm agencies.


 Indeed, perhaps some groups will seek to indirectly aid the Solars for their own purposes in the byzantine power struggle that is the Realm...
 
Bingo.  


Let's face it.  House Cynis will probably be just decadent enough to blare the Solars tunes, just to be asshats at an orgy or two, both for the irony, and for the joy of spreading disquiet amongst their guests who are already feeling funny at being at a Cynis orgy.  


Having a Gold Faction Sideral might not be a bad way to go with the mix.  Hiring the band, helping them smuggle in their signal and copies of their music--appearing over and over again in different guises to assist in the efforts.


Of course, that means a Bronze Faction Sideral might have to come down and be The Man getting down on them too.


Not to mention the campaigns against the Anathema Music from the IO, and the odd campaign to suppress it.  


I like the idea of getting into a Modernis plot that doesn't neccessarily center on beating the snot out of people or critters, but rather about spreading ideas and memes amonst the masses.
 
Am I missing something,


Cause i must have missed something...


What Wall are we tlaking about?


Did I miss a page?


OMG, Have I missed some crucial element, caus eI am reallly starting to feel like that dream where i am tied up with a pencil in my mouth and I only have 4 minutes to solve the Fibbianacci series first 100 numbers, but i am supposed to skip all the prime numbers.


What is the Wall


I really hope we are mixing some Berlin Wall or some reference to the China Wall, or maybe it is a Pink Floyd "The Wall" or could it be Paul Wall y'all?


What wall are we referring to?
 
Jakk created a campaign milieu of his own, termed alternatively as 'Modernis' or 'The Long Second Age.'


 It's posted on Lore5; read it, and all will be made clear.
 
Only if you have the Realm run a counterattack by producing a girl band of a trio of young Dynasts that brings the Realm's propaganda to the fringes.


One member will be a Wood-aspect who was brought up in an Immaculate temple who went on a quest with a Water-aspect athlete to jouney into the Threshold to destroy a Behemoth.  During the journey the two of them fell in love but he died.  Because the journey was made on behalf of the glory of the Immaculate Faith, the Wood-aspect decided to leave the temple.  She was allowed to leave but only if she aided the Realm in this venture.


With her is her cousin, a peppy Air-aspect from the Southern desert.  She was born and raised there as her family was a branch that was in disfavor with the house.  As such, she's never visited the Realm.  Because she was raised away from the oppressive culture of the Realm, she doesn't let things bother her too much.  Also, because she would run around with a rather dubious crowd, she learned more than a few skills at thievery and is very good at machines, especially those from the First Age.


The third of the trio is a rather closed mouth Earth-aspect.  She was attached to the project on behalf of the All-Seeing Eye.  Her history is shrouded in mystery and she's not very inclined to reveal it, not even those she's working with.  She's more of a warrior than a performer, though.  As such, when she's on stage she tends to stay in the background.  When a fight starts out is when she really comes to the front.


The leader of this project is the Air-aspect's older brother, a Fire-aspect.  He's an officer in the Legions and is just as disenfranchised as the rest of his family.  He sees this project as a way to advance his career and standing, and so it's quite important to him.  Even though he's the leader of this operation, the trio often dismiss his orders, and usually succeeds even better for it.


He is aided by a Water-aspect who was trained in the Thousand Scales, a gift Dynast who's always able to make others look at him as an old buddy.  He uses his charm and education to manage the business end of this project.


With this sworn brotherhood is an extremely young Sideral, a Chosen of the Maidens of Secrets, who is the best prodigy of First Age technology and magic that the Bronze Faction has.  He was attached to the sworn brotherhood to seek out hearthstones near the fringe to powerful and important manses that were lost to the Wyld.  Hunting down these spheres of Essence connected to the surviving manses is a priority with the Sidereals.


And I officially apologize for coming up with this post, but I really couldn't stop myself.
 
On the counterattack route...


 What's the best way to deal with dissatisfaction? Channel it into something else. So, instead of the rebellious youth looking for something interesting and latching onto the Solar message, give them...a competition!


 That's right--all DBs of a century and younger can audition to become the next...


Imperial Idol!
 
Or how about a pair of Lunar brothers.  They were raised in an orphanarium in the Threshold that was a cult to Luna and was managed by a nun whose totem was a penguin.  They were horrible little ruffians and the only thing that could calm them was blues music.  One day, as they were making trouble, they both Exalted but it led one of them being imprisoned in Lookshy.  He stayed there, hiding the fact that he's a Lunar Exalted, and when he was finally free, his brother picked him up and took him to see the penguin just as he promised.  There, they found out that the orphanarium was being shut down for tributes unpaid and soon all those poor kids without parents wouldn't have anything.  And so, the pair goes around the Threshold, trying to find their old comrades in music to get the band back together to raise enough tribute to keep it in operation.  Besides actually getting gigs, they have to make their way past supremacist Exalted beastmen, the agents of the All-Seeing Eye, and a vengeful betrothed, a Scavenger Lands princess, who accepted the Black Exaltation just to have the power to kill one of the brothers for abandoning her on her wedding day.  Despite all these hardships, though, the brothers will find a way around these little setbacks.  They're on a mission from Luna, after all.


"It's 106 thousand miles to Great Forks, we've got a full pool of Essence, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses."


"Hit it."
 
All right, all right, all right, enough of this tomfoolery.


I think we all pretty much admit that the idea of using music and bands and the recording industry is a great idea to explore in your Modernis setting.  Music can be used as both a tool of government propaganda as much as political protest.  I think that it would be great if you developed several bands and their agendas and their type of music.  Here's a few suggestions, although they're mostly inspired by what I know of the mundane Exalted setting.  Still, I hope they prove useful.


For the Realm, I'm imagining an industry that is quite poppy, either much like modern J-pop or even 80's music.  Bands in the Realms are marketed quite heavily to commercialize the products of the Houses that sponsor the bands.  They sing very catchy, very formulaic, very superficial music in order for it enjoyable to as wide of an audience as possible.  The look of music on the Mana Net in the Realm is, I imagine, very much like MTV is right now, affecting the music industry more than they report it.


The North is very isolated with city-states being closed off from traveling to other parts for most of the year.  One of the best inspiration for this region would be then probably Russian folk music.  The music of the North is generally very simple affairs using very traditional instruments with every city having its own unique style on how those instruments are used.  You could have it where one of the biggest events throughout the North is a spring concert tour.  On this tour, the cities of the region all agree to send a number of their best musicians and bands around to each other to celebrate the thaw and the fact that it's easier to travel around.  This could be a time of much merriment as people let loose after being cooped up for so long.  It'll also probably be the only chance the citizens of a city get to hear anything different.  When it comes to the shadowlands of the North, I think of gypsy violin music, especially the kind in "The Red Violin."  Fiddles screeching out haunting jarring discordant rhythms would terrify those caught amongst the ghosts and ghouls as the sounds fight with the blustering winter winds to be heard.


The West would undoubtably sound Caribbean, using those very cool drums that was in "Weekend at Bernie's."  Western music would have a very Wailers feel that seems to go against the piracy and raiding that's rampant throughout the islands.  Maybe one of the reasons why they use such melodies is to take their minds off how cutthroat the region is.  The Skullstone Archipelago would probably have music that would be dirge jazz, much like the sounds from New Orleans.  It's somber and slow at first, but as it goes on it explodes into something more celebratory, not of life but rather of the power of death.


I think one of the best inspirations for the South would be Indian pop music.  There's a sense of the tradtional in the music but the pageantry of the videos is all modern, showing slick dancing singers in smooth white suits surrounded by a slew of sexy belly-dancing starlets.  There could even be a Bollywood type of films in the South that works closely to the music industry that makes the two industries more entwined here than anywhere else in Creation.  The Southern shadowlands would probably be the home to hard rock industrial music as the armorers of the Thousand use the spectral flames of the volcanoes to fashion armor for those in service to the First and Forsaken Lion.


East - I think that the music of the East would have originated with drums, and concerts would have been drum circles banging out an ecstatic beat with the ambient noises of the forest as the audience imbibed psychedelic mushrooms.  Over time, I think this would have evolved into trance music that combines electronica with natural percussive and wilderness sounds.  Imagine raves that spans several heights of massive tree branches that have had speakers and lights attached to them and controlled by a dj, putting on a spectacular show of sight and sound as the audience take mind-altering drugs and percieve Creation in ways that not even Charms could allow.


River Province - I think that music from the River Province would be rock'n'roll, but the type of rock'n'roll would differ from city to city.  Lookshy would probably be a traditional source of rock'n'roll, showcasing artists much like Elvis, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles.  Sijan, because of its dark nature and with tradtions continued of the long dead, would have a rock'n'roll similar to Johnny Cash, although the younger generation could just be developing goth music there.  Nexus, as the most urban of cities in all of Creation, could have hair metal, power rock, punk, hip hop and rap heard in its various districts.  Great Forks, on the other hand, would be hippified with folk rock acts like the Grateful Dead.  Thorns, quite naturally, would have hardcore death metal blaring out of the Juggernaut as the Masks of Winters slowly crawl and conquer more of Creation.


This leaves grunge to be assigned, but then again, perhaps it's best that it's not.  Grunge music could be played by only a few types of bands that constantly travel on a wide circuit, gaining the name of their style because that's how they are from travelling so far so much.  It's a much more underground genre that, with a little effort, can be stylized to be more in sync with the other genres whenever a grunge band plays with an a different kind of act.


Those are just a few ideas I had off the top of my head.  Music is definitely not a forte of mine and I don't know all the genres that well, but I do hope it helps you out Jakk.
 
alohahaha--That's pretty much close to how I was going to run things.  The North has a confluence of sounds--from drum heavy to eerie ocarina type affairs, with an emphasis on folk tunes and ballads.


The South ranges from Middle Eastern styles to Indian inspired, to Gem's heavy duty drums and raucous screeches, suitable for a large venue.


The West I was thinking not just island music from the Caribbean, but also the drum heavy South Pacific.  All in all, I'm thinking heavy on the drums, everywhere.  


The East has the most varied of music, from gentle chimes and woodwinds, to heavy string ensembles, to koto inspired drums, to fiddles and lonely banjo-esque hill music.


The River Provinces, with their confluence of folks reach out to embrace it all, and mix it all up.


The Realm will have orchestras.  They'll have modern style techno beats, they'll have industrial, they'll bring the rock, and then some, as well as the jazz inspired bits from the slaves and Freedmen.  


The Threshold, overall will be more folky, ballads, country, and bluegrass inspired folks music, with bursts of wild rock and roll and blues.


No matter what though, the Realm is going to be where you have to go to get signed.  There will be labels in the Threshold and the outer lands, but not big ones, not ones that will get you on the Mana Net, so the grassroots approach is going to be relatively new, which the power of this new Solar phenomenon--Solars uploading their pirate signal in the Mana Net, and the Wyld Hunt going after this subversive threat that has the DB youth shaking their booties, and singing songs dedicated the Unconquered Sun...


All in all, I think this campaign is going to be a Road Movie sort of thing, more in the vein of Pump Up the Volume, but with lots more folks with guns, magic powerz, and Dragon Blooded Agents rolling around trying to stop the pirate signal...
 
Here's a plot twist that characters, after hearing about (and possibly interacting with) the Solar group, can run into:


 Recently, a new band has appeared on the Realm music scene. Their music is edgy, their lyrics downright heretical, bordering on treasonous. And the clincher? They call themselves 'The Anathema,' with all the ostentatious accoutrements one would expect--Caste marks emblazoned boldly on their foreheads, loud jewelry and artifacts made from magical materials favored by the Anathema, and even anima banners and Essence traces no Terrestrial should be able to produce.


 The government is strangely silent regarding the group; even the Immaculate Order does nothing but verbally condemn their lyrics. Various Houses are vying to sign the group, even as performances sell out minutes after tickets are available.


 What is this mysterious band, and who are their members? What relationship or accomodation have they reached with the Realm?
 
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