Subject: BALTEREX: PART 1
From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun Jun 26 17:03:03 EST 1994

BALTEREX:  Where Reality is Nicely Ordered 

Balterex is an invading realm designed to land in Pakistan and 
Afghanistan,  with plans to expand to India.  It's history follows. 

   Balterex has always been ordered and broken down into 
identifiable  castes.  Everyone  had a function and did it to 
the best of their ability.  The four castes, Technologist, Magist, 
Spirtualist and Psientologist each did their part in society 
while fighting the others for dominance.   At one point it was 
discovered hat the Psientologist were secretly mind controlling 
the leaders of the other castes and they were virtually 
destroyed. 
  Then the Darkness Device came.  He chose the leader 
of the Magists to be its High Lord, who convinced many follwers 
of all the castes to follow him on a crusade to bring the structure 
of Balterex to the rest of the Cosmverse.  For two centuries 
nothing was heard from them. 
  Balterex soon began to die.  Advancements in the 
powers of the castes stopped and the planet began to change. 
Food was difficult to grow by any means and good water was 
hard to find.  It became obvious to the Spiritualists that the 
Trinity of gods, the god of Technology, Magic and Psi had 
abandoned the world.  Then a miracle occured. 
  The Darkness Device and its current High Lord, a 
Technologist returned to the cosm to see how it had changed 
and to gather new troops for their depleted army.  When the High 
Lord, Ferric so the fate that had befallen the world he decided to act. 
He ordered Zorrem, the Darkness Device, to refill the world 
withpossibilities and to raise its axioms to match the Devices. 
Needing soldiers to continue to raid cosms, Zorrem did so. 
  The result was a world that struggled to understand its 
new order.  Many still refuse to follow Ferric, even though he 
saved their world from death. 

AXIOMS 
Tech 27:  Balterex was a 19 until the surge.  Even the 
Possibility Raiding party had never achieved much in the 
advance of technology.  When Ferric came to power a 
century ago he ordered the Tech axiom raised.  The end 
result was a technologicly confused world 
  Their weapons still look like those of our 19th century. 
Powerful energy cannons look like Long Toms and hand held 
energyweapons look like colt revolvers.  This can provide quite 
a shock whensomeone points a Blunderbuss at you and it fires 
a plasma beam. 
  Balterex has mastered their higher axiom levels. 
Everything available in Tharkold and the Cyberpapacy is 
available inBalterex in a more evolved form. 

Magic 20:  When Zorrem chose his original High Lord they 
quickly raised the Magic axiom to support wishes.  Until then 
they had been equal to Aysle at an 18.  They have a complete 
understanding of their axiom. 

Spiritual: 20  Religion has always been a driving force on 
Balterex.  Communities of laity can gather and create a miracle. 
  There are four religions on Balterex.  Technologist, 
Magist, Psientologist and Trinty.  The first three relate to one 
of the castes while the last one refers to the full trinity that the 
members of the Spiritualist caste worship. 
  Every priest believes in the power of the trinity.  They 
specialize in one of the other three powers however. 

Social 20  Even though Balterex is highly ordered, they still 
function somewhat primitively.  The castes interact through 
frequently hostile means and would not tolerate each other if 
 their religion did not say that tolerance is necessary. 

WORLD LAWS: 

The Law of Castes: (You knew this was coming) 
  The Law of Castes defines each member of society as 
belonging to one of the four castes.  They have no choice in 
what caste they are born into, though genetics does play a part. 
The four castes are: 
Technologist: The technologists are the only ones who can take 
full advantage of the high tech axiom.  All other castes are 
limited to tech 23. 
Magist:  Only the magists can use magic.  The other castes 
cannot even learn any magic skills. 
Spiritualist: The only ones who can use focus.  Depending on 
which god they specialize in they can simulate the abilities of 
one of the other three castes through the use of special 
miracles. 
Psientologists:  They have access to psionics. 

  The Law of Castes makes any attempt to use a tool 
outside of those allowed by the caste impossible for ords and 
always a 4 case contridiction for P-rateds.  If the use is already 
4 case, a magist using a Living Land miracle in Balterex, it 
 becomes a 9 case. 
  The LoC also effects wishes and invocations. 
Wishes are made with the Wish skill.  They must be 
structured to include exactly what the player wants, i.e. level 
that mountain, and the minimum effect that they will accept, i.e. 
or allow me to find a smooth and easy pass through it.  The 
most powerful effect becomes the result of a spectacular 
success.  If the minimum desired effect is greater than what 
the GM decides would be a minimal success, then the 
invocation or wish will fail unless it achieves the success level 
 that the GM assigns the minimal effect. 
  Since even I don't understand that, let me clear it up 
with an example.  A magist wants to sink an island.  He states 
his wish as follows: 
  I want that Island sunk, or, at least, the water to cover 
  the bottom 100 feet. 
  The GM asigns a minimal difficulty of 40 for there to be 
some minor coastal flooding, to cover 100 feet he decides is a 
Good success. 
  A spectacular success will cover the island in water. 
  The player has the Wish skill at 21.  He rolls a bonus 
of 21.  A total of 42 is an Average success.  The player gets 
nothing.  When a wish fails it cannot be repeated for 1 week. 

The Law of Psionic Surpression: 
  Ever since the Psientologist caste was nearly 
destroyed the few remaining psientologists have had to work 
very hard to get even a minor effect, but attempts to use 
Psionics are less painful.  There is a +15 to the difficulty of 
any attempt to use Psionic Manipulation and a -10 to the 
DN for psionic resistance. 

The Law of Shifting Possibilities: 
  When Zorrem flooded Balterex with possibility energy 
 the cosm was unable to properly store all of it.  The world is a 
again generating new P's and spending them immdiately.  This 
makes life very unpredicatble.  GM's should feel free to throw in 
an unexpected but minor changes while in Balterex.  A 
damaged wall could be repaired by the constantly shifting 
possibilities 
  This law has 2 game effects.  The first is that all 
attempts at divining the future, by any method, have their 
difficulty increased by 10. 
  There is also a chance that the characters can gain 
extra P's at the end of an adventure.  While they are recieving 
their reward for their deeds, the LoSP may try to shove a few 
extra in, or cancel those that they are getting to reduce its 
excess of P energy.  To determine what happens roll a die and 
consult the following table: 
1         -2 Possibilities 
2-5       -1 Possibility 
6-15      no change 
16-19     +1 Possibility 
20        +2 Possibilities 

From: [email-masked] 
Subject: BALTEREX: PART 2 
Date: Sun Jun 26 17:03:03 EST 1994 

HIGH LORD AND DARKNESS DEVICE: 
Ferric, High Lord of Balterex 
Caste: Technologist 

DEX 17: 
  Acrobatics 19, Dodge 30, Maneuver 23, 
  Melee Weapons 22, Unarmed Combat 25, Energy 
  Weapons 30, Fire Combat 25 
STR 21: 
  Climbing 24 
TOU 30: 
PER 14:       
  Find 17, Trick 19 
MIN 15: 
  Survival 19, Test if Wills 18, Willpower 30 
CHA 12: 
  Taunt 20 
SPI 20: 
  Reality 33, Fiath (Technologist) 24, Intimidation 25 

Possibilites: 70 
Equipment: 
Cyberware:  Interdermal Plate  +7 
      Exodermal Plate +6 (Total TOU 43) 
CyberValue 2 (reduced through CyberPsychosis checks) 
  Photon Rifle DV: 35, Plasma pistol DV 30 
  Ket Armor TOU+12(35 Max)  Can fly at mach 1 

  Ferric fought under Morric, the first HL of Balterex. 
He quickly rose to the head of the Technologist caste.  He 
looked with envy at the growing power of the Magist HL and 
decided to try and sieze power rom him.  100 years to the day 
after Morric became HL Ferric assassinated him. 
  Ferric attacked Morric at a feast celebrating 100 years 
of success.  Ferric stabbed him in the back while he ate.  It 
was enough to kill him with one blow.  Zorrem immediately 
chose Ferric as his new High Lord. 
  The first thing Ferric did was to raise his tech axiom 
by 7 points.  The axioms have been stable since then. 
Spritualists have recently begun asking Ferric to raise their 
power.  After seeing the power of the Living Land, Ferric just 
might agree. 

ZORREM 
DEX 0 
STR 0 
TOU 200 
PER 22: 
  Alteration Magic 37, Divination Magic 30, Find 30, 
  Language 35, Trick 30 
MIN 48 
  Conjuration Magic 50, Apportation Magic 55, 
  Science 55,  Science(Computer) 58, Test of wills 51, 
  Willpower 55 
CHA 20 
  Charm 22, Persuasion 25, Taunt 28 
SPI 45 
  Faith(Nameless One) 50, Focus 46, Intimidation 50, 
  Reality 60 

Possibilities:  12,387 before the invasion of Core Earth 

TECHNOLOGY: 
I'll keep this brief.  They have All the cyberware that CP and 
Thark have. Reduce the CyberRating by 1 to reflect advances 
in technology.  If the adjusted rating is 0, the item is no 
longer considered invasive and has no effect on the Cyber 
Rating. 

Thay have weapons directly equivalent to those of Tharkold. 
Increase the damage value by 2. 

If anyone has the time to post some real weapons, like my 
Photon Rifle, I would appreciate it.  I'll probably get around 
to making my own in a week or so. 

MAGIC: 
Most mages use spells highly similar to those of Aysle. 

Wish is a Mind skill that is used to shape ones desires 
into a wish that is acceptible. 

RELIGION 
Each member of the Spiritualist caste has 
Faith(Trinity/XXXXX) where XXXXX is one of the three primal 
faiths, Technologist, Magist, and Psientologist. 

Everyone on Balterex must have 1 add in Faith. 

I'll come up with an exact list of miracles allowed in the 
near future. 

  They also have a special class of miracles called 
Simulation miracles.  These miracles simulate the powers 
of the other castes. 
  Simulation miracles for spells and psionic powers 
have a difficulty equal to the DN+5 of the spell or power. 
Miracles that simulate the effects of Cyberware have a difficulty 
double the operation difficulty for that piece of cyberware. 
  Members of the Spiritualist caste recieve a number of 
Simulation miracles equal to their Faith.  They only get the 
simulation miracles for their faith.  A priest with 
Faith(Trinity/Magist) could only simulate magic. 

PSIONICS 
  Same as those of Akasha.  Remember to adjust 
the difficulty for the Law of Psionic Supression.  I stronlgy 
reccommend that you use Kansas Jim's Psi rewrite rules. 

COSM ATTRIBUTE LIMITS: 
13 in all.  However, each caste can raise one attribute by 1 to 
a max of 14. 
Technologist :  DEX, STR or TOU 
Magist :  MIN or PER 
Spritualist:  SPI 
Psientologist : MIN or PER 

RELATIONS WITH OTHER REALMS: 

Aysle:  The Warrior of the Dark would be interested in gaining 
some of the more powerful spells that Balterex has.  They will 
probably have a cordial relationship as Aysle has nothing to 
offer in return.  But Ferric does not want to make too many 
enemies. 

Cyberpapacy:  Malraux will not like the appearance of such a 
powerful realm.  He will especially hate the relationship they 
form with Mobius and his Nile Empire.  There should be 
some hostilities here. 

The Living Land:  They won't really care about each other. 
There will be some attempts by Ferric to discover whethe or 
not he should raise the Spritual axiom a few points. 

The Nile Empire:  As the nearest realm to Balterex, Ferric 
has to deal with Mobius.  As Mobius is not interested in 
expanding towards Pakistan and India at the moment, the 
two realms are not in conflict.  Ferric will immediately agree 
to aid Mobius against Malraux.  This alliance should spell 
doom for the Cyberpapacy in France. 

Nippon Tech:  3327 will be intrigued by the social order and 
advanced technology.  It is too far beyond his Tech axiom 
though and he will be frustrated in his attempts to understand 
it.  Niether HL is very interested in an open or secret war with 
the other. 

Orrorsh:  The Gaunt Man won't like this new hitch in his plan. 
He will take immediate steps to remove this threat.  Ferric 
will take a natural dislike to the chaos that fear causes and 
will retaliate strongly for any actions taken against his realm. 

Space Gods:  The Akashans won't like the Law of Psionic 
Surpressionand will probably send Monitors armed with 
Biotech and some Tech 27energy weapons to help fight this 
realm.  Ferric will be extremely intrigued by Biotech.  If the 
invasion does not go well, he may burn out all of his stelae 
and abandon this invasion, using the burnt out stelae to 
raise his tech axiom and spiritual axiom. 

Tharkold:  It is apparent that Zorrem knows Malgest.  Zorrem 
has instructed Ferric to have nothing to do with Malgest and his 
Technodemons.  Zorrem now favors abandoning this invasion 
and moving on to new targets, possibly the Star Sphere. 
   What he is not telling Ferric is that he knows the 
translation of the runes on Malgest.  They say that Malgest 
will someday destroy his brother.  Zorrem fears that this brother 
will be him as they were made at the same time. 

That's all for now.  I'll work on a miracle list and a list of 
weapons and equipment when I get a chance. 
Suggestions for these lists are welcome. 

Daniel