Newest Trigate Impedimenta

The setting is always being worked on, but what are the newest arrivals in the universe?

“There’s always work to be done for the furtherance of philosophy.”
— Cometan, The Omnidoxy

NNNew stuff! Everybody loves new stuff. As games progress in a few different formats other than in-person games, there’s going to be new things that are added. As much as I claim the Trigate universe as my own, I know that I am not solely responsible for its creation. As with everything else, I borrow from all my experiences, including those I have with other individuals!

With that being said, what are some of the newest things that have found their way into the Trigate universe?

Concepts

Despite their being a large number of already existing concepts, I am always amazed when a player comes forward and says, “Those are all neat, but what about This?”

After some discussion, the idea gets molded into something we both enjoy, and thus it spreads across the Trigate universe to fill in blanks and make itself known. Over the last couple of years, here are some of the new ones that have come about.

The Kopiatze was an idea from repeat player Grand Mouser. Their request was simple: they wanted to play a character who was a lot like Taskmaster in the Marvel Universe. A martial combatant who, through either adoptive muscle memory, eidetic kinesthesia, or some other capability, allowed the character to copy movements and actions performed by other individuals simply by seeing it be performed. Kopiatze itself literally means "copying" in the Basque language.

This one I expanded on as it is a concept I had always wanted to capture but did so in ways that did not work out as well as I had hoped. The Kahunga is a culmination of many different ideas from various cultures, but the basic idea is an individual who is capable of arcane magic through the tattoos they have on their body. I'd recommend reading up on Hawaiian kākau and the Tohunga ta moko of the Māori as a starting place for the ideas behind the Kahunga.

The Rummage (trust me, you'll get it in a moment) came into existence from new player WantonWonton. I'm really not a fan of lifting things wholesale, so after I found out where the idea came from and the player stopped playing, I changed things around. The original idea was essentially a Junk Mage from the awesome RPG Heart: The City Beneath, who is someone who puts scraps of esoterica from various sources together to be something greater. So after a little Zak spit-polish, the idea was changed from the Junk Mage to the Rummage. (Oh come on, it's clever.)

Despite above where I say I try to avoid lifting things wholesale, when I read about this concept in the upcoming Robert J. Schwalb RPG Shadow of the Weird Wizard, I knew I wanted something to imitate it. The Accursed is someone who has been cursed by one of the Divine Children for some reason. They have continued to thrive under this curse however, with the added benefit of while they are capable of carrying this burden, others are not. Share the love, let them experience the curse!

This one is entirely from a series of dreams I had, with player TacosAreRomantic helping me out with some things and eventually playing one. Her ideas helped formalize the idea of the Reborn. The Reborn are individuals who have nearly died but not completely. However, their brush with death has granted them the unique ability to break back into the afterlife... allowing all kinds of hijinks to ensue.

There are two ideas I've loved, but couldn't really exist in any strong capacity in the Trigate universe. The first are the Sha'ir, an alternative to wizards in the Forgotten Realms who gained abilities by communicating with the spirits of the elements, the genies.

The second are the Onmyoji, Japanese mystics who practice Onmyodo. Onmyodo, the way of Yin and Yang, is a combination of animism and a few religious practices that mesh together to create an art around clairvoyance, controlling and communicating with spirits, and are commonly associated with ofuda, talismans on strips of paper. There is some commonality between the two, so when you take both of them to create something new, the Shayojir is created.

Another idea spun together with the assistance of Grand Mouser. They knew they wanted to play something similar to a Wukong or Wadjet, but with a more mystical flair attached. Turns out we both love the game Cultist Simulator and its newly released followup, Book of Hours. The Moth is associated with chaos, yearning, and passion, but also knowledge.

Originally I wanted to name them something related to Ītzpāpālōtl, the Aztec goddess known as the Obsidian Butterfly (honestly, how bad ass of a name is that), but instead went with Tzitzimime, which is the classification of Aztec deities in which Ītzpāpālōtl falls in. That being said, the Tzitzimime are individuals who are granted powers by the Primordial Moths, ancient beings who undoubtedly seek the most ancient of lights.

Originally called the Luckbender until TacosAreRomantic made me aware of the term getimian, which is an adjective from Old English that is used to describe something that is to happen, come to pass, or happen to. It also doesn't help that Exalted has the Getimian Exalted, who are essentially walking paradoxes. Someone who is a Getimian has incredible luck. Everything seems to go their way! Some of them can even steal luck, making people around them very unlucky.

Okay. This one is weird and goes back almost ten years. An old character showed up from maaaaaany years ago before I had moved Trigate into the Third Age. With discussion with the players, we figured this individual would have some unique capabilities based on where they came from. And of course... if you have one like that, that means there have to be others out there.

So… a Pseudohistorian is an individual who claims to come from secret histories, alternate timelines, or something similar. Oddly enough, their knowledge is still incredibly useful… and potentially dangerous.

Species

As the Planar Council gains information about neighboring planes, it is no surprise that there are new species of sophonts that are discovered.

One thing I have stayed away from is an entire species that is essentially, in some capacity, incredibly influenced by vampires. It has been done. I like to do things differently. A few months ago I ended up discovering the Abhartach, and it gave me enough inspiration to start moving in a direction.

What is an Abhartach? They are based off an early Irish legend and long story short: vampire dwarves. However, the most interesting thing I discovered is that in literary circles, the Abhartach is considered as an alternative origin to Dracula. In 1998, Professor Elizabeth Miller published an essay in her book Dracula: The Shade and the Shadow, that pointed out that Stoker’s research notes for Dracula do not indicate that he had a detailed biographical knowledge of Vlad III, the individual usually thought to be the origin of the character.

Vampire dwarfs who may be the true origin of vampirism? Hmm… how could I not use that? Besides, even I will admit that the Trigate universe lacks a variety of dwarves.

Not related to the previous thought in any way, I also haven’t had a species that is “undead” in any capacity. It doesn’t really work for the ideas with the Planar Council, so while undead sophonts exist they are generally not of the playable sort. However, going back through my notes I realized this type of situation has occurred a few times. The first treefolk really threw the Council for a loop, as they weren’t aware that anything relating to plants could be intelligent. So what if their idea of what being “undead” was, was challenged?

Ideas of living worlds have always fascinated me as well. Things like the Creep that the Zerg have from Starcraft, the tree planet Atys from the game Ryzom, to many others.

So what would happen if you had a living world where the growth started to get out of control, to the point a type of antibody had to be created to fight that back and get it under control? What if it was undead in nature, but still entirely natural? Would it still even be undead?

There is a species of Folklings in there somewhere, with skeletal appearances and not quite alive but also not dead. I have to admit that Bwonsamdi and the whole area of Maldraxxus with its Necrolords probably gave me most of my visual inspiration here.

Those are some of the more concrete things that have come into existence, but as always, there is always a lot more swirling around waiting to be put to the ink.

Thanks for reading and hopefully more updates to follow!