Ritual Entrances of the Palace Semi-Infinite

One of the main inspirations for the Palace Semi-Infinite is The Gardens of Ynn, and one of the things I love about Ynn is the ritual entrance. While I prefer to keep the exact relationship between the palace and reality nebulous, this is an option I'd consider for similar ritual entrances.

The Main Entrance

Anyone can get to the Palace with an invitation. A valid invitation must:

• be written in ink. Some frequent visitors even tattoo their invitations, although this is considered gauche.
• state the parties invited. The scope can be specific ("Jane Doe") or broad ("the bearer of this invitation") but must be somehow limited in number ("with a retinue of not more than seven") and time ("before the feast of St. Alouicious in the year 2003").
• be signed. An invitation will not work for the person who signs it, even as a plus one.
• be written (technically, only signed) inside the Palace.

Present your invitation to a guard or doorman at the entrance to any building and convince them to open the door for you. When you pass through, you will arrive in a random (but consistent) room of the Palace. (Some people claim that the guard must "announce" your arrival as part of the ritual, but this is in fact unnecessary and increasingly old-fashioned.)

The Servant's Entrance

1. Find a coin on the ground that is not yours and which you did not see drop. It must be worth at least 12 of a smaller denomination of coin. Pick it up and keep it.
2. Recite: "I, [insert name], gladly accept this payment for a week's honest work."
3. Enter thru any unwatched door.

You are marked as a servant of the Palace for the next week. This means:

• a small bonus to remain unobserved by palace inhabitants (other than servants).
• a penalty to the reaction rolls of palace inhabitants.
• you are unable to sign invitations to the palace.

At the end of the week, you will be ejected from the palace (if you haven't escaped already), unless you secure more stable employment first.

The Palace Semi-Infinite

The implicit setting of PALACE RUN. The palace is richly-appointed, labyrinthine, and endless. Some would say “infinite”, but it is surely partly bounded as it has relatively easy access to the outside. The format is from Jack Shear, although I’m sure I haven’t done it justice.

Aesthetics

• Whole rooms of one color or material, tables set for hundreds, imperial staircases, gilt-framed family portraits, exotic tributes and gifts, the slow approach to the throne.
• Scaffolding for renovation and construction; kitchens so large they have their own weather systems; secret doors, passageways, and whole hidden complexes for servants.
• Vast unread libraries, dusty rooms of unknown purpose, sacred crypts and chapels, a lonely child exploring.

Themes

This is an RPG and not a fable. These are ideas to be interrogated, not morals to be enforced.

• “The rich are different from you and me.”
• Hierarchy scales poorly. Bureaucracy fills the gaps.
• Systems are people. Ritual, habit, and operational discipline hold them together.

Adventures

The core of PALACE RUN does provide some rough motivations (“Enrich”, “Entertain”, “Escape”, “Ingratiate”, “Investigate”, and “Overthrow”), but these hooks have a little more meat and should work in a more traditional set-up.

• The Duchess of the North Wing is to be wed this week, but the baker’s union is striking for better working conditions after a recent outbreak of “doughlung.” She will pay handsomely for a cake, but the provider risks being marked a scab.
• The palace is of such scale that at any given time, some portion is on fire. The palace bucket brigade does what it can, but after the fire passes through, there’s always work to be done. An imperial magistrate had to abandon their staff of office while escaping, and will pay handsomely for its return. What else might be found if you can beat the recovery crews?
• The youngest prince of the Southwest Expansion has gone missing! He’s only seven and he was last seen in the Bronze Armory, fiddling with a strange gauntlet.

Designer’s Notes

The first thoughts I had of the Palace Semi-Infinite were merely “what if the adventure site were so fabulously wealthy that it really stopped mattering?” But in the years that it’s stewed since, I think it’s gotten significantly weirder, and hopefully better.

Inspirations

• Blame! by Tsutomu Nihei
• The Gormenghast series by Mervyn Peake
• Buckingham Palace, Iolani Palace, Casa de Pilatos, and others

Links, Aug 2020

 

Podcasts

On The Media

OTM recently “rebroadcast” a past favorite episode of mine about post-apocalyptic literature. Interviews are with Jeff Vandermeer, Claire Vaye Watkins, and Kim Stanley Robinson discussing the nature of horror.

Here Be Monsters

An endless source of mood pieces and ruminations, HBM is parting ways with KCRW and seeking alternative funding. While they acknowledge this could mean a Patreon, they’re trying to get listeners to sponsor the podcast first. So that’s a potential avenue for promotions, shout-outs, or stranger ideas if you’re interested.

The Dungeon Economic Model

I heavily favor shorter podcasts, and these 10-minute faux PSAs about dungeon ecology with inexplicable running gags are really working for me.

Dead Club Podcast

Tunng is a long-time favorite band of mine and they’re releasing a podcast to accompany their new album.

RPGs

Game Jams

Itch.io has a big problem with navigability. Some kind soul has made a dynamic page that lists all ongoing physical game jams. So if you’re in a slump, maybe try one of these.

Understanding Monsters

Dan at Throne of Salt, my unrequited blogging rival, has a really good post on monsters. It neatly articulated some ideas I hadn’t been able to pin down, and I know I’ll be referring back to it.

Drawing Maps

Anne at DIY & Dragons has done another comprehensive dive into a single game mechanic, this time examining map-drawing-for-advancement. It’s really good and thought provoking, and might give you ideas about “fixing” the ranger class or running more cut-throat rivals.

Sword Ferns & Salmon Flesh

Linden at Lapidary Ossuary reached out to me a while ago about hacking PALACE RUN for their own ends¹, and now has a more finished game to show for it. I’ve really enjoyed seeing what elements they chose to keep and scrap, and what elements were added to the game (it has a lot more now). I’m eager to hear how it plays some time.

There is no logic to these images, the post just felt naked.

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1 Please do! You don’t need my permission (writing on this blog is CC-BY-SA 4.0 and the 200 word RPG entries are all CC-BY 4.0), but you have it.^back

Other Palaces

I entered the 200 word RPG challenge! I nitpick and revise constantly, so you can see the final version here, and past versions here (I am bad at GitHub). I wanted a widget to see my revisions side-by-side, so there's also this:

PALACE RUN Swapper

(Art from Evlyn Moreau, used by permission.)

Notes

• In the swapper, I did not mark the changes when lists were re-ordered. Between versions 0.4 and 0.5, I made all the lists alphabetical, because I worry about limiting my imagination by consistently "matching" e.g. "kitchen" and "food". I also think it's more presentable. (In longer lists I do this to catch duplicates.)
• Due to my personal refereeing style, CHECKs are very rare in practice, so I had a hard time deciding a good value for STAT. The expected damage of an attack that causes a CHECK is 4, occurring on 5 in 6 attacks. Therefore, if STAT=18, there is a 1 in 4 chance of failing a CHECK as a result of the first attack. At STAT=16 this is 1 in 3, and at STAT=12 this is 1 in 2.

The Future

I've been working on the set-up of a specific palace, "The Palace Semi-Infinite". I had some wonderful playtesters who were willing to just mess-up a a palace, but I think something with more direction might have better staying power. I'm keeping the palace generation parts, but I may end up scrapping the game system for Into the Odd or something.

That said, the system is a svelte 61 words in the official word-counter, so it may make a reasonable base for future entries. I'm eager to see what other people have cooked up when I have a chance to sift through them.

PALACE RUN 0.2

I wrote this game that I'm very pleased with. I'm hoping to enter it in the 200 word RPG competition when submissions are open. Until then, I'll be playtesting it and tweaking it on Discord, and you should hit me up for a link to the server if you're interested.

Rules

The current version, at time of writing.

One player is REFEREE. Others, CHARACTERS.
"d6" means "six-sided die". "d20", 20-sided.

CHARACTERS
===
Choose name, POSSESSION. STAT=18.
CHECK or SAVE: roll d20<=STAT.
(CHECKS do; SAVES avoid.)
Attacks auto-hit, d6 damage to STAT.
After 2+ damage, SAVE. Failure --> STAT=1.
STAT<=0 --> death.
REST --> STAT=18.

POSSESSIONS

• Sword (+1 damage)
• Hand-mirror
• Marbles (100)
• Chalk
• Glue
• Flute
• Rope
• Wine
• Bucket
• Hammer

ROOMS
===

d6	ROOM	CONTENTS
1.	Courtyard	Plants
2.	Gallery	Sculptures
3.	Ballroom	Pillows
4.	Bedroom	Baskets
5.	Kitchen	Banquet
6.	Library	Fountain

d6	EXITS	FEATURE
1.	N-E	ENCOUNTER
2.	N-S	GLINT
3.	N-W	TREASURE
4.	S-E	TWIST
5.	S-W	Way UP
6.	E-W	Way DOWN

ENCOUNTERS
===
2-in-6 whenever CHARACTERS dawdle, REST, or clamor.
Flight auto-succeeds, CHECK or become lost.

d6	Mood	Encounter
1.	Sleepy	Guards
2.	Happy	Nobles
3.	Sad	Animals
4.	Afraid	Servants
5.	Hungry	Intruders
6.	Angry	Supernatural

GLINTS
===
Encounter clues.

TREASURE (d6)
===

1. Jewels
2. Wine
3. Porcelain
4. Tapestry
5. Letters
6. Gold

TWIST (d6)
===

1. 1 damage crossing (example: thorns).
2. Secret Door: CHECK locates.
3. Oubliette: SAVE or fall (d6 damage).
4. Non-Euclidean: exits to far rooms.
5. Unique room-type (example: laboratory).
6. Palace exit.

(194 words!)

Inspirations

• Into the Odd (free)
• Bastionland
• DIE TRYING
• The Witch Woods Microdungeon
• The Gardens of Ynn

Sparks

Tables are rough to fit in the game because each number also counts as a word. A d6 table is a minimum of 14 words. So I put this together, but can't even begin to fit it in. I worry that some of the words are too similar anyway though.

d20	Spark 1	Spark 2
1	ancient	banquet
2	black-market	ceremony
3	crystal	chandelier
4	dancing	chivalry
5	decadent	diplomacy
6	exotic	education
7	foreign	espionage
8	gambling	façade
9	gilt	gift
10	hidden	history
11	honorable	hunting
12	illegitimate	inheritance
13	ivory	intrigue
14	legal	marriage
15	luxury	money
16	mahogany	music
17	marble	piety
18	painted	taxes
19	social	tradition
20	usurping	war

Notes

It works well so far. I'm running a game on discord that's a mostly-straight whimsical fantasy palace. One of my players is putting together another game that's flavored after Darkest Dungeons. We haven't yet used the combat rules in anger, and running a game on Discord takes getting used to, but I'm optimistic.