TheKawaiiEdition/TheMountainPeople

The Mountain People

Intro

The Mountain People live under the Kawaii Isle, especially inside and under the Imperial Mountain. Legend has it that they were once Oni who attempted to invade the center of Creation through the element of metal and were transformed into creatures of Order by doing so. Other legends claim that Otakuthon became bored waiting for humanity to be created and tried creating his own humans, but it didn't work out so well, so Gaia made him lock them away until such a time as humanity emerged. Certain other legends claim they are refugees from other RPG universes.

All that is known of their origins for sure is that they came to give allegiance to the Great Maker, Otakuthon, and that if you call them 'dwarves', teams of REALITY LAWYER NINJAS will quickly find you and kill you so dead you never called them 'dwarves'.

Their continual exposure to stone has transformed them into a race of adept rock musicians, warriors, blacksmiths, and artificers.

At one time, they reproduced in a fairly normal manner. Then Otakuthon got bored one day and decided to divide them into castes and to cause them to reproduce by spores.

After the lawsuit from GDW was settled, he shuffled the castes around and called them 'glorgs', because the names for these divisions never make sense anyway. The Mountain Folk waited until he went to sleep and simply renamed them as 'clans'. He also changed it so that children were made by two Mountain Folk getting together and carving a baby out of certain kinds of veins of rock. This proved a disaster because only one of the clans had the right skills to make any babies. Giving in to pressure, Otakuthon changed it so that the parents only had to acquire a certain kind of gem and concentrate on it together to make babies.

This was too easy, and soon the area was overrun with babies.

Finally, Otakuthon installed an Ultimate System Terminal and created a massive MMORG. To create a baby, you must now find the correct items in the game, combine them together, and then the Ultimate System simply creates a baby for you. And potty-trains it in advance, ASSUMING you remembered to get enough units of Solarian Dust Motes to add to your baby. Which many people screw up; we won't discuss what that does.

The Mountain Folk soon found they could gain all sorts of powers in reality by gaining them for their characters in the game, leading to massive MMORG addiction. This might have turned them all into game junkies, except for two things.

First, Otakuthon went off to hang with his robot girl harem for a few millenia.

Secondly, the first of a series of invasions from the deep ravaged the Halls of the Mountain Kings. They were forced to get offline and form an army to repel the invasion.

Ever since then, they have struggled to balance their national MMORG addiction with the needs of real life, an on-going struggle. Each clan carefully regulates access to the Ultimate System, using it as a reward for good service to the Clans. As rivalries between the clans have built up, they are reflected in the game as well, where members of different clans often fight out the duels they must avoid in real life, if everyone is to survive.

The Clans

Clan Philosopher : The deep thinkers of Mountain People society. They are the students of mystical lore of the Mountain Folk, building the most potent artifacts and studying the most basic sorcery. They don't handle mundane reality so well, though.

Clan Rock : The entertainers and performers of Mountain People society. They keep up the morale of the people in time of war and they demonstrate that you CAN rock into Mordor. They have over 25,000 songs about Orichalcum. At least 3,000 of them can be identified as different by non-Mountain People. Not exactly the greatest of fighters.

Clan Smith : The practical workers and artisans of Mountain People society. They don't propose abstract plans of government or build omnipotent artifacts; instead, they handle all the mundane jobs from forging weapons to sweeping the streets without which everyone else would starve while buried in filth, naked.

Clan Warrior : The soldiers and generals of the Mountain Folk. Everyone must fight, but they are the best at it. They tend to be the most stolid and least creative or entertaining of the clans.

Government

Each Clan chooses its own leader; the four clan chiefs, plus the High Priest of Otakuthon (Usually from Clan Smith, but not always) form the ruling council which decides everything. Sometimes with wands and axes.

Clan Philosopher organizes itself as a meritocratic bureaucracy. Clan Rock has an informal structure where whoever draws the biggest audience is Clan Chief. Clan Smith is a republic. And Clan Warrior is led by whoever demonstrates they are the most bad ass, though it's organized as a military hierarchy.

Society

Each Clan is divided into many different Guilds according to profession who pass down the secret arts they find inside the game. Most people have their firmest loyalty to their Guild or else to their parents. Adults are encouraged to marry other guild members, though it's legal to marry anyone. This can complicate trying to have children, however.

Most people work 10 hours a day and spend as much of the rest of their time in the MMORG as possible. Access to the MMORG requires a valid day's work chip or a vacation chip to allow you to log-in. If you will not work, you will not game. Of course, there's a flourishing black market in chips...

The MMORG

The MMORG is, in fact, a giant simulation of the surface world, called 'World of EverCrack'. Taking on avatars inside the game, its players don't realize they're actually helping the Ultimate System test out possible futures and correct its model of reality by playing. Monsters slain within the game drop a wide variety of treasures; some simply provide in-game benefits, while others can be assembled into items which provide in-game benefits and convey various powers upon the Mountain People.

Exalts can play the game and gain the advantage of being able to use their real charms inside it. They can eventually learn lesser Mountain People powers from it; powers which require up to half their real Moe.

Mortals can play; they have a hard time, but they can gain powers too. This tends to begin either transforming them into Mountain People or else in a few rare cases into gods. Or so the legends say...

Only rarely does the game glitch in such a way as to produce real world effects in the world above. Rarely compared to how many hours people spend logged-in, anyway.

Certain rumors claim this game was the beta version of the Games of Divinity...

Relations with the Realm

The Mountain People demonstrated the necessity of their eternal war against the Things From Below to the Empress early in her reign. She gifted them with certain Harem Age warmachines she wanted out of the possible hands of rivals and supplies them with various subsidies in return for them doing a certain amount of crafting work and jade extraction for her.

Unfortunately, with her missing, the subsidies have stopped flowing in and the Mountain People are starting to have trouble making ends meet. If this keeps up, the Realm may find itself with a surprise entrant in the Civil War...

The city of Mountain Gate (55,000) sits on the South Face of the Imperial Mountain and is home to both Mountain People and humans, where most trade between the two is conducted.

The Mountain People of Halnia

Centuries ago, certain clans were expelled from the Halls of the Mountain Kings for cheating on-line. It was expected they would dwindle and die in the surface world, unable to reproduce. The Neo-Empress exiled them to the Scavenger Lands, hoping they would wreck havoc on her enemies there.

Instead, they made their way to Halnia, where they discovered they were now able to reproduce normally. However, their fertility is low, so they seem to have basically replaced the role of WOEC in their lives with sex instead. So long as outsiders aren't listening, no one seems to be complaining...

Mountain People Talents

Mountain People refer to the powers gained from playing World of EverCrack as 'Talents'. While they are bought with XP, as with Charms, etc, you must rack up the Moe requirement of the Talent worth of weeks of playing WOEC in order to buy the power. NPCs occasionally screw up and get the wrong power; PCs never do unless their player finds it amusing.

The one exception is 'Made of Rock', which can be bought at any time if you have enough XP and enough Endurance to buy it again.

Some Talents cost Moe; others provide permanent benefits. Mountain People have two sources of Moe: Game Moe, which only works inside WOEC, and Real Moe, which works both in and out of the game. They have a Game Moe pool equal to their Permanent Moe * 4 + Performance (WOEC Roleplaying) ability. Their Real Moe pool is equal to the sum of Moe * 6 + their Health Levels + 2 * (Clan Prime Ability).

The Clan Prime Ability for the four clans:

• Clan Philosopher : Bureaucracy
• Clan Rock : Performance
• Clan Smith : Craft
• Clan Warrior : Highest Attack Ability (Thrown, Archery, Marital Arts, Brawl, Melee)

Each Clan has six Favored Abilities which their Talents are tied to (and all Mountain People have Endurance favored for free):

• Clan Philosopher : Bureaucracy, Dodge, Investigation, Lore, Occult, Resistance
• Clan Rock : Linguistics, Performance, Presence, Ride, Sail, Socialize
• Clan Smith : Awareness, Craft, Larceny, Medicine, Stealth, Survival
• Clan Warrior : Thrown, Archery, Marital Arts, Brawl, Melee, Athletics

Mountain People also can choose two abilities from other Clans to favor, representing secrets they stole from other Clans.

The Basic Toolkit Charms

• Newbie (Ability) Talent 1/1
  • Expert (Ability) Talent 2/2
    • Master (Ability) Talent 3/3
      • Grandmaster of (Ability) Talent 4/4

(Charm Types as per charm guide on main Kawaii Edition Page)

Newbie (Ability) Talent

• Cost: 1 mote / 2 dice
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Re-Fun
• Minimum Ability: 1
• Minimum Moe: 1
• Prerequisite Charms: None

Newbies mess up a lot, but also have beginner's luck. This lets a Newbie reroll two failed dice for every mote he spends, up to his Moe + Ability.

Expert (Ability) Talent

• Cost: 4 motes
• Duration: One Scene
• Type: Speech
• Minimum Ability: 2
• Minimum Moe: 2
• Prerequisite Charms: Newbie (Ability) Talent

With time, the Newbie becomes an expert, always showing some minimal level of competence. On every roll for the scene with this ability, he can reroll a number of failed dice equal to his Moe.

Master (Ability) Talent

• Cost: 6 motes
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Re-Fun
• Minimum Ability: 3
• Minimum Moe: 3
• Prerequisite Charms: Expert (Ability) Talent

A true master never screws up completely. The Mountain Folk may convert a number of failed dice equal to his Moe to successes.

Grandmaster (Ability) Talent

• Cost: 8 motes, 1 WP
• Duration: One Scene
• Type: Speech
• Minimum Ability: 4
• Minimum Moe: 4
• Prerequisite Charms: Master (Ability) Talent

Your skills are now legendary. Every time you roll, convert a number of failed dice equal to your Moe to successes.

Commants Here

I think you over costed the expert charm, at it's current cost even assuming that the mountain people get the same slightly inflated stat levels I can't see any circumstance where they would be rerolling more than 12 dice thus making Expert (ability) talent useful it would probabily be more useful costed at about 3 or 4 motes the conversion ones are fine at the higher cost because of the assured success. - Blackedout

Alright, I'll take your advice. I always struggle with costs. --JohnBiles