Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Tomorrow every member of TS wakes up simultaneously next to a large glowing orb, your new dungeon core.
A helpful set of tutorial dialogue boxes appear to inform each member of the delightful game to follow. There's also a convenient communications system that looks remarkably like The Sietch forums, with an added functionality for trading items and resources. Any item, once created, generates a blueprint. It can then be duplicated just by expending the resources required to make it. This goes for everything from a stone knife all the way to a completed room or even a fully furnished castle. Both items and their blueprints can be traded between players.
The world is a combination of tower defense, RPG, and dungeon core. Currently, each person has a territory about 1000 meter radius from the core, giving roughly 775 acres of land to gather from and cultivate. As the core accumulates mana, the territory slowly expands. Nobody's territories yet overlap but with time it will happen. Attempting to walk out of your territory causes headaches and nausea, followed eventually by death if you don't return to your territory soon enough. You can move your core but it stops gathering mana while in motion and moves at a snail's pace.
The core passively gathers mana increasing its potency and territory size automatically. When any creature is killed inside the territory, it gathers much more mana and there's a quick jump in size. If any creature attacks the core, it is instantly destroyed but takes a large chunk of mana with it, which depends on how strong the creature is. You may also permanently expend mana to permanently enhance your body, increasing toughness, strength, or other attributes at the cost of mana and territory. Though currently cost prohibitive, there are options to eventually spend several years of growth to buy various sci-fi and fantasy powersets like The Force, Ninjutsu, or Mentat skills. No member can be killed as long as they still have mana. If you die, you form a new uninjured body next to your core a few minutes later. Any equipment or clothes are left where you died, however. The exception is if your core runs out of mana entirely, then death is immediate and permanent. Sietchers also do not age, indeed those past their prime appear to be aging backwards towards their best time. The territory grows by around a meter per day and weaker monsters such as goblins are worth an entire day's passive gain, while a powerful dragon might add an entire year of growth.
The terrain is different for each person and it becomes apparent TS members are spread at least across an entire continent. Nobody is starting on barren land or in the ocean, though some can see it and everybody seems to have some water source, at least a small stream, available nearby. It appears on further discussion each person actually wound up on the terrain they favor and understand the best. The land is virginal and extremely robust, possibly in the equivalent of the Carboniferous age as the trees are immense and wildlife is very abundant. The tutorial "helpfully" notes that there are ore veins somewhere underground. Animal life is surprisingly abundant, some of it mostly familiar but going rapidly into fantasy creatures like dinosaurs and Griffons.
If you block your core off from the outside world entirely, it quits collecting mana, and openings for mana intake must be large enough for you to walk through comfortably. Strangely, although walls block the intake of mana, doors do not as long as they aren't locked so you don't have to be in the weather all the time. Windows also don't block mana intake as long as they're large enough.
A countdown timer indicates how long before a wave of enemies will attack. It starts at one week, which will generate a group of 20 goblins armed with sticks and rocks who spawn one at a time and have about the same strength, speed, and intelligence of a child. It will spawn a single hobgoblin boss more akin to a teenager, armed with a wooden club. The first wave is not sufficient to wipe out your starting mana though it will be a serious hit if you don't kill any of them at all. Further waves will appear once a week and each one will be slightly stronger than the last. The menus helpfully inform you that although the goblins aren't strong enough to break even a thin wall, in the future eventually monsters will come at you with fire, explosives, and other destructive weaponry so you're going to need to fortify!
How far can The Sietch go working together and trying to build up decent defenses? Will we make it into space?
A helpful set of tutorial dialogue boxes appear to inform each member of the delightful game to follow. There's also a convenient communications system that looks remarkably like The Sietch forums, with an added functionality for trading items and resources. Any item, once created, generates a blueprint. It can then be duplicated just by expending the resources required to make it. This goes for everything from a stone knife all the way to a completed room or even a fully furnished castle. Both items and their blueprints can be traded between players.
The world is a combination of tower defense, RPG, and dungeon core. Currently, each person has a territory about 1000 meter radius from the core, giving roughly 775 acres of land to gather from and cultivate. As the core accumulates mana, the territory slowly expands. Nobody's territories yet overlap but with time it will happen. Attempting to walk out of your territory causes headaches and nausea, followed eventually by death if you don't return to your territory soon enough. You can move your core but it stops gathering mana while in motion and moves at a snail's pace.
The core passively gathers mana increasing its potency and territory size automatically. When any creature is killed inside the territory, it gathers much more mana and there's a quick jump in size. If any creature attacks the core, it is instantly destroyed but takes a large chunk of mana with it, which depends on how strong the creature is. You may also permanently expend mana to permanently enhance your body, increasing toughness, strength, or other attributes at the cost of mana and territory. Though currently cost prohibitive, there are options to eventually spend several years of growth to buy various sci-fi and fantasy powersets like The Force, Ninjutsu, or Mentat skills. No member can be killed as long as they still have mana. If you die, you form a new uninjured body next to your core a few minutes later. Any equipment or clothes are left where you died, however. The exception is if your core runs out of mana entirely, then death is immediate and permanent. Sietchers also do not age, indeed those past their prime appear to be aging backwards towards their best time. The territory grows by around a meter per day and weaker monsters such as goblins are worth an entire day's passive gain, while a powerful dragon might add an entire year of growth.
The terrain is different for each person and it becomes apparent TS members are spread at least across an entire continent. Nobody is starting on barren land or in the ocean, though some can see it and everybody seems to have some water source, at least a small stream, available nearby. It appears on further discussion each person actually wound up on the terrain they favor and understand the best. The land is virginal and extremely robust, possibly in the equivalent of the Carboniferous age as the trees are immense and wildlife is very abundant. The tutorial "helpfully" notes that there are ore veins somewhere underground. Animal life is surprisingly abundant, some of it mostly familiar but going rapidly into fantasy creatures like dinosaurs and Griffons.
If you block your core off from the outside world entirely, it quits collecting mana, and openings for mana intake must be large enough for you to walk through comfortably. Strangely, although walls block the intake of mana, doors do not as long as they aren't locked so you don't have to be in the weather all the time. Windows also don't block mana intake as long as they're large enough.
A countdown timer indicates how long before a wave of enemies will attack. It starts at one week, which will generate a group of 20 goblins armed with sticks and rocks who spawn one at a time and have about the same strength, speed, and intelligence of a child. It will spawn a single hobgoblin boss more akin to a teenager, armed with a wooden club. The first wave is not sufficient to wipe out your starting mana though it will be a serious hit if you don't kill any of them at all. Further waves will appear once a week and each one will be slightly stronger than the last. The menus helpfully inform you that although the goblins aren't strong enough to break even a thin wall, in the future eventually monsters will come at you with fire, explosives, and other destructive weaponry so you're going to need to fortify!
How far can The Sietch go working together and trying to build up decent defenses? Will we make it into space?
