Living Land Revision

The Axioms
Tech
6: The Living Land would, in theory, be at the beginning of the Bronze Age, except for
the fact that the natives reject the use of Dead Things and thus exploit virtually none of
the technological potential of the shadow, except through miracles which let them
construct living, spiritually powered tools. Kaah maintains the axiom at this level, even
though he could afford to let the tech axiom plummet all the way to one or two, in order
to facilitate the survival of members of the cosms he invades, so that they can live long
enough to yield up all of their possibilities to him.
Members of the resistance communities struggle to exploit whatever they can from the
Tech Axiom so long as they can hold onto things. The invention of pottery makes it
possible to begin to smelt metal. Metal now begins to be smelted and tools made out of
soft metals. The first alloys are created and bronze is invented. More sophisticated
weaponry now develops: swords, daggers, improved spears with metal tips, and the first
bows. Oil lamps are invented. Fermentation is discovered, enabling the making of wine
and beer. The invention of the plow triggers an agricultural revolution by lowering the
mobility of the populace but increasing its agricultural productivity. Increased food
productivity may (with an appropriate social axiom) encourages the beginning of the
development of specialists, because now it begins to be possible to produce a sufficient
food surplus to allow some people to devote their lives to something besides avoiding
starvation. Cloth now begins to be created.
Animal herding is very popular among resistance communities, as the world laws do not
cause living creatures to get lost the way it does to tools; as a result, it is much easier to
herd animals and gather fruit than it is to try to conduct agriculture, though the resistance
communities try anyway.

Magic
0: There is no magic whatsoever; sentients must manipulate the world entirely through
their bodies, technology or miracles.

Spirit
27: There is no goddess but Lanala and the Saar is her prophet. All other faiths but
Lanala worship lose power in the Living Land, becoming contradictory. The cult of
Stalek is an unusual case. While Stalek is rejected by all faithful Edeinos, at the same
time, the cult of Lanala effectively acknowledges his existence by their very fervent
rejection of him. Everyone is born with faith in Lanala, but it is possible to reject that
faith and turn to Stalek. His miracles are not inherently contradictory, but the use of
Dead Things which he urges to his followers and those miracles relating to Dead Things
are contradictory.
Every living thing is seen as being a creature of Lanala. While some have a hard time
communicating, others may be quite talkative and powerful with strength granted by
Lanala. This is the form which spiritual entities take on in the living land, for Keta
Kalles sees the Body and the Soul as one. Everything that lives has spiritual power.

Everyone is born with an add of Faith and is born with access to every miracle they're
aware of. Focus can be used unskilled; those who buy the Focus skill are known as
Optants and are listened to because they are wise in the ways of Lanala and will bring
you many good experiences.

The plentiful spiritual energy of the world reduces the difficulty of all miracles of Axiom
level 20 or less by 7. Possibility energy can be spent on miracles which suppress the
power of enemy mythos in an area, rendering them impotent even if a contradiction could
normally be created in the area. Miracles can bear messages between cosms or even open
portals between them. Aspects of other axioms can be suppressed with miracles (such as
Kaah rendering magnetic devices impotent in the living land), effecting even attempts to
make contradictions, unless said attempt overcomes the miracle's strength. Divine
invocations can create items similar to eternity shards, though it requires a superior or
better success to have much effect.

It is possible for believers to travel to the Lands of the Seasons, where many new
challenges and experiences await them. Every believer visits all four at least once if he
manages to live a full life, and many go more than once. This will be described in more
detail, later.

Social
7: It is possible to form permanent villages with a refined conception of land ownership
and specialization of social roles at this axiom level. Kings may exist, usually either
elected or holding their position by sheer strength. Slavery is also now possible, along
with peaceful trade, poetry, and sports. Travelling storytellers exist who can spread glory
sparks among an entire region, if that region shares a common culture.
The Living Land is divided between nomad tribes of Jakatts and humans and small
resistance communities who try to live by farming. Hunter-gathering, nomad
pastoralism, and agriculture are all supported by the social axiom, although the world
laws bias things towards the former two.

It is important to note how incredibly crippling this lowered social axiom is to Core
Earthers. Measurement of time beyond morning, noon, afternoon, and night become
impossible. Unit discipline collapses, causing soldiers to fight like a bunch of heroes
who happen to be at the same place. Subunits become impossible and the chain of
command evaporates. It is not possible to successfully lead more than a few hundred
people at a time. While maps can exist, abstract writing systems like the Roman
Alphabet don't work; no one can abstract enough to understand them. The result is that
books are useless. Cooperation between groups is limited to the occasional short-term
alliance. Sophisticated theological systems become incomprehensible. Science is
forgotten.

World Laws:

A brief guide to terms:

Everything in the Living Land fits into three categories. The living are
things which are alive, from plants to Edeinos. The dead are things which
used to be alive, or things which were made from something alive. Roadkill,
a plucked fruit, a cotton shirt, and a plastic bowl (made from oil, which came
from dead dinosaurs) are all examples of dead things. The unliving are
things which were never alive—rocks, the metal frame of an automobile,
liquid mercury, and so forth. Edeinos tend to refer to both the dead and the
unliving as 'dead things', but this is because their social axiom is too low to
make a distinction. The dead and the unliving are treated differently by the
World Laws in some cases.

The Cycle of Life:

Time is a circle, and so is life. All living things are born, grow, flourish, grow old, then
die and become the stuff from which new life springs. Death is not a permanent
condition, for new life always springs forth from the remains of the old. The result of
this world law is that nothing stays dead for very long; the dead quickly becomes the
seedbed of new life.

Anything which dies within the Living Land quickly rots away, becoming the seedbed for
new life, or is eaten by some passerby, thus re-entering the cycle of life. Things which
die in the Living Land will either be eaten by something or will rot and become a seedbed
for new life within twenty four hours. Things which have been dead longer than a day
(which were brought into the living land from outside it, or which were protected from
the world laws by being carried by someone of a contradictory reality) rot away or are
eaten within a span of time equal to (25 – Torg value of days it was dead) in Torg units.

For example, Joe has disconnected. Joe has an Armani shirt which is six months old.
That's a Torg value of 12 in days. The shirt will rot away in an amount of time with
value 13, which is six minutes. Joe is carrying a six-pack of Coke. It was bottled three
months ago. That's a Torg value of 10 in days. The Coke will go bad within a Torg
Time Value of 15, which means it will last 15 minutes. Joe's beloved slacks are a good
two years old and have always brought him luck. That's a Torg value of 15 in days.
They will rot away in a Torg Time Value of 10, which means 1.5 minutes. Joe is
carrying his family's bible, which has been passed down through the generations since it
was bought by a distant ancestor in 1861 on his way to serve in the Civil War. This is a
Torg value of 24 in days. This means it rots in a Torg Time Value of 1, which is 1.5
seconds.

Some quick guidelines:

Dead 27 or more years: Rots within one combat round (10 seconds)
Dead 4 to 26 years: Rots within a minute.
Dead between 25 days to 3 years: Rots within an hour.
Dead between 6 days to 24 days: Rots within four hours
Died between 36 hours and 5 days: Rots within half a day.
Died a day or ago or less: Rots within a day of its time of death.

Anything derived from an organic base (cloth, paper, plastics, processed food, fermented
beverages) is subject to the Cycle of Life. Many synthetics will be effected, if they are
primarily based on organic substances (such as being made from oil). Things made from
never living materials (stone, metals, ordinary water, many chemical concoctions) do not
rot, but are instead affected by Lanala's Love of Life.

The Cycle of Life is not an invasive world law; as a result, anything dead which is being
carried by a living creature of another reality will not rot so long as it remains in physical
contact with that being and the being does not disconnect. Thus it is possible to transport
canned goods or a loaf of bread in your backpack and have them stay good for your entire
visit to the Living Land so long as you never disconnect and never put your backpack
down, ever. If you either eat the food right out of the can or maintain a long-distance
connection while you are cooking it, it won't rot on you once opened, either.

Items inside sealed, air-tight opaque cannisters and other containers or otherwise
somehow concealed from being seen will also not rot, because the Cycle of Life does not
see them; instead, Lanala's Love of Life will try to separate the container from its owners.
Once opened, the contents are noticed and will quickly rot unless consumed or kept
constantly in contact with someone of another reality. This makes canning a viable way
to preserve food, if you can manage to hold onto your cans. (This also means that outer
layers of clothing rot before inner layers, since the inner layers are concealed from sight).
This makes Realm Runners very valuable for resistance communities, as a fair sized truck
can haul huge amounts of canned goods to the community, which then doesn't have to
worry about the food going bad. Many communities also import empty cans if they can,
in order to can their own harvests.

Outside the Living Land, the Cycle of Life only applies to things which a person of
Living Land Reaity is touching or which he is exerting a long-range contradiction over.
Possibility-rated Jakkats can invoke the Cycle of Life in order to make dead things rot at
a distance, and ord Jakkats can do it by touch if they haven't disconnected, although it
requires prolonged concentration and is a contradiction outside the Living Land. The
difficulty of the effect is the Torg value of the weight of the dead thing or things being
effected. Affecting more than one dead thing at a time requires use of the one on many
rules.
Example: Jarara is stalking through the ruins of Gaithersburg, Maryland. He finds
himself confronted by a Civil War era church which is inside a hardpoint (generated by
the statue of the Infant Jesus and Mary inside it) and is now home to a small resistance
community, which tries to shoot him. He decides that it is time to introduce the wooden
church to the Cycle of Life. After much arguing with the GM, they finally decide the
building weighs a ton (Torg Value 17), so the difficulty for his long-range contradiction
to force the Cycle of Life on the Church is 17. The church is 142 years old, and so he can
rot the church in 1.5 seconds. It swiftly collapses around its inhabitants if he succeeds.

Jarara could also have touched the building and exerted his reality over it, which would
require a contradiction check, but not a reality skill check.

Items carried by a person of Living Land reality outside the Living Land will
automatically come under the law whether they want them to or not; objects simply
touched by such a person must be brought under their reality by deliberate choice. Thus,
a Jakatt could ride in a wooden boat without causing it to rot, but if he took up an oar and
tried to help paddle, the rotting clock would begin.

One final note: Rather than rotting, anything which is a 'seed' will germinate instead of
rotting if it is still fairly intact (things which rot also have new life germinate in them, but
it is often different kinds of life). Many forms of vegetable food are effectively seeds and
seed delivery systems (apples, pears, melons, etc). They will simply sprout, unless
processed to the point where their structural integrity has been destroyed. (Pumpkin pie
will rot, a pumpkin will sprout new vines and try to produce new pumpkins).

Lanala's Hatred of Death

Lanala made the world for the living, not the dead. A certain amount of unliving material
is necessary to form an arena on which life plays out, but the living are meant to interact
with the living, not to pile up unliving posessions. Lanala takes action to remove the
temptation to use dead things by quickly removing them from the presence of the living.

Any unliving tool or raw material brought into the Living Land will quickly be separated
from its owners. Those who are of Living Land reality (or who have disconnected within
it) will find themselves tending to discard dead things, especially if they aren't actively
using them. Even if an item is not discarded, events will conspire to separate it from its
ower.

Those who are not of Living Land Reality only lose things by outside intervention, rather
than losing track of them; however, it means that holding onto any dead or unliving thing
for more than twenty four hours is a contradiction; anyone who has a dead or unliving
thing on their person that they have possessed more than twenty four hours must make a
contradiction check at the beginning of every scene to see if they disconnect due to this
contradiction.
Picking up unliving things (but not dead things) is a contradiction in the living land,
requiring an immediate contradiction check. (Picking up dead things is not a
contradiction because this would prevent the living from eating the dead, which would
hamper the survival of the living).

The Eyes of Lanala

Lanala gave up her senses so that living things could experience the world she made for
them; in return, they give her the sensations they experience that she might live through
them. This has three major effects.

First of all, everything experienced inside the Livng Land by a creature native to it is
experienced by Lanala. This means that Lanala is constantly aware of everything in the
Living Land which can be sensed by any of its inhabitants. Lanala never forgets, either,
which means that everything which has ever been sensed by any Jakatt or other living
creature of the Living Land ever, is now stored in Lanala's memories.

Secondly, Lanala shares those memories of experiences with her faithful. Divine
invocations and miracles can tap into Lanala's experiences of sensations, including
Lanala's 'sensory map' of the Living Land. Lanala is the collective memory of all living
things, and as such and because she is in constant contact with all living things, she can
use her spiritual might to transcend the Living Land's social axiom, allowing certain
kinds of miracles which exceed its normal limitations. Jakatts outside the Living Land
who remain connected to it continue to feed these experiences into Lanala, though her
bank of experiences outside the Living Land is much sparser than her bank of
experiences inside it. But by travelling beyond its boundaries, they bring her new
experiences, for which she rewards them.

Thirdly, Lanala rewards everyone in the Living Land for bringing her new experiences.
This has several effects:

The first twenty four hours that you spend in a new place, you gain a +1 bonus to all
actions. If the place is outside the Living Land, you gain a +2 bonus, because it is a
fresher experience for Lanala. (Lanala has seen everything in the Living Land, but she
hasn't experienced how you experience those places for the first time. Outside the Living
Land, it is usually a completely new experience for her.)
The first time you do something you have never done before, you gain a +3 bonus to that
action.
If you do something no other Jakatt has ever done (this is easy near the start of the
possibility wars and grows harder as more Jakatts run amuck in the outside world), you
gain a +6 bonus.

Fourthly, all sensations are good to Lanala. Pain and pleasure are both to be savored.
Lanala, in fact, rewards the experience of pain because it is an intense rush to her. Any
time a Jakatt takes shock damage, he gets a +3 bonus to his next action if he is not
wounded. A Jakatt who has taken a light wound gets a +3 bonus to all actions so long as
he is injured. A Jakatt who is heavily wounded gets an up result on his next action after
taking the wound, and does not lose a round of action to the pain. He also retains the +3
bonus to all actions granted by a light wound. A Jakatt who is mortally wounded remains
Up until he perishes or stops bleeding to death. He does not receive the +3 bonus,
however. A Jakatt who has transcended the normal levels of pain (He ought to be dead
with four or more wounds or death due to bleeding, but remains alive due to a miracle) is
Up all the time and receives a +3 bonus to all actions. This makes Flame Warriors
hideously dangerous. As with any world law, though, this bonus causes a contradiction
outside the Living land.

Fifthly, Lanala ensures that the Living Land is an exciting place, full of many new
experiences. It is chock full of things which are dangerous and exciting, but survivable,
especially if you follow the way of Lanala. If things are going too safely and boringly,
something will always show up to complicate matters. This affects the dramatic structure
of Living land adventures and will be discussed more, later.

This world law encourages inhabitants to roam about, experiencing new (to them) places
and doing new things.

Lanala's Love of Life

Lanala loves life and hates death. A certain amount of death is necessary for living
things to survive, but death which is outside those limits is unacceptable. This world law
has several major effects.

First of all, the Living Land is overrun with food far beyond the normal level to be found
in a tropical jungle. Every living thing is edible by omnivores in some manner, either
producing copious fruits and vegetables or being completely edible down to the roots.
There is a great profusion of game animals for the devouring pleasure of omnivores and
carnivores as well. This makes survival in the Living Land much easier than in other
wildernesses, though often more dangerous as well, due to the high level of predators.

Flatlands and hills in the Living Land can typically support around ten people per square
mile (a 'perfect' stelae triangle is 38,790 square miles in size. It therefore can support
387,900 inhabitants, if all goes well). Mountains are less bountiful, only supporting three
people per square mile.

This bountifulness means that only extremely dense and massive populations will starve
in the living land. So long as the land is not overloaded, the base difficulty for a survival
check to gather food by hunting or fishing or gathering fruits and vegetables is a five.
(On a failed check, you gather something poisonous or kill some kind of small game
which is sick with a disease.) Each level of success is enough to feed one person; it takes
four hours to make such a check.

This bountifulness, however, also means the Living land is overrun with predators. It can
be very dangerous. Lanala promotes life, but life is meant to be lived, to be exciting.
Thus, the Living Land is full of danger as well as bountiful in supporting life. Those who
act to preserve life are rewarded. Life may sometimes need to be ended to survive;
slaying without need is punished.

What does that mean in practical terms?

Any action which preserves life receives a +3 bonus (This bonus is already taken into
account in the difficulty of food-gathering/hunting survival checks as stated above).
Attempts to escape from quick sand, diving into a raging river to save a friend, trying to
save baby birds from a forest fire, first aid on an injured friend, and many other such
activities are all rewarded by Lanala's Love of Life.

Any action intended to end life outside the circle of life (ie, killing for reasons other than
self-defense against a predator/aggressor or for food) suffers a –3 penalty. Lanala does
not expect prey to go quietly into the good night, but she also expects nothing will be
hunted unless it is going to be eaten. Fighting to defend your possessions (shooting the
Bor Aka which is trampling your car) receives the penalty; fighting to defend other living
things does not. People inside the living land, but not under its axioms, create a
contradiction by taking actions to end life outside the circle of life without penalty.

The Deep Mist

The Deep Mist is not a world law; it cannot follow Jakatts out of the Living Land unless
they invoke it with a miracle. However, it pervades the Living Land to a degree which
makes it close to a World Law in the Realm and Cosm itself. The Deep Mist is a Spirit
27 miracle which has two associated effects. First of all, it functions as a giant, very
thick cloud of mist which greatly obscures sight and sound. It is hot and muggy,
reducing clarity of sight and sound to a range of 30 meters, with only the closest ten
meters providing any detail. In daytime, the sun is a brighter glow in one part of the sky;
at night, the moon is a soft glow and the mist glitters silver. Even Jakatts must use
miracles to extend their senses through the mist; many enjoy the sense of surprise which
comes from it.

Secondly, there is a much more potent effect. By Spirit 27, the Spirit Axiom grows
strong enough to monkey with some aspects of other axioms on a long term basis. In the
case of the Deep Mist, it produces a powerful electromagnetic field which has several
affects. It scrambles radio and television transmissions, preventing long distance
communications by those means. It blocks infrared and ultraviolet sight beyond the
range of normal vision. It also scrambles the Earth's magnetic field, ruining compasses.
These effects will hamper even people who are making a contradiction, as the very laws
of nature themselves have been overwritten by the power of the miracle.

The Deep Mist tends to render outsiders quickly lost (and even Jakatts lost, if they
haven't used appropriate miracles to see through it). Pp. 66-7 of the Living Land
Sourcebook have a system for dealing with navigating through the Deep Mist. If very
long distance travel is involved, I suggest using the Dramatic Skill Resolution system,
with some pre-prepared encounters to use as complications if things like setbacks come
up.

Keta Kelles
"I do not fear death, but nor do I embrace it. I risk death in order that I may truly know
what it is to be alive."
--Optant Kalla Tor, Blue Mountains Tribe

Cross cave men, extreme sports fanatics, Luddites, the Green Party, hippies seeking to
open the doors of perception, and self-mutilating mystics and you get the Jakatts. "That
which does not kill me is cool."

Imagine if God talked to you all the time, urging you to constantly go bungee jumping
and surfing and long distance running and wrestling alligators. Imagine if God turned
you into a miracle worker, able to enhance your senses, enhance your body, bend nature
to your will, to heal and transform the world around you. Then you went on a permanent
missionary trip of seeking out every possible new experience that doesn't break the tiny
handful of rules imposed on you. That's being a Jakatt--called upon to experience
everything for Lanala, who gave up her senses that her children might use them to live
life to the fullest.

Jakatts are religious bigots. They have reason to be; no other religion can even exist in
their reality, while they have a direct line to the Goddess, who tells them they're right.
They are an entire nation of prophets, a world of prophets, driven to experience
everything for Lanala who has given them the world. Their first priority is to convert
unbelievers, not to kill them...for the unbelievers are already dead.

To a Jakatt, any non-Jakatt is 'dead' spiritually, if not physically. To kill them is no sin,
for they are already dead. Indeed, by engaging them in combat, you may cause some of
them to come back to life and embrace Lanala. Otherwise, they are better off dead
completely, for they traffic in dead things which poison and clutter up the landscape, and
lay waste to living things.

On the other hand, all Jakatts are equal. Edeinos, human converts, benthe, and stalengers
all view each other as equals in the service of Lanala. Even the Optant priests are simply
respected, rather than obeyed or feared. Power in Jakatt society does not flow from
ability to work miracles (everyone can work miracles, although some are better at it),
possessions (no one has any) or from physical power (everyone is scary in combat) but
from respect and from personal charm.

In time of crisis, the Edeinos elect temporary leaders to lead them in battle or to solve
problems such as a lack of food. In the war tribes, these leadership positions are starting
to become permanent as battles drag on for years at a time. This has caused some
grumbling and may lead to trouble in time--hereditary kingship, slavery, and a split
between warriors and laborers are all things possible within the social axiom, but which
the Jakatts have so far avoided.

Jakatts live a hunter/gatherer lifestyle, divided into small clans and tribes, which grow to
the point where their territory can no longer support them, then break apart, with the
younger members often seeking out new territory. Many of the tribes which have come
to Earth have swollen to a larger size because of an influx of new human members and
because they are 'war tribes', who recognize the need for numbers in the war to spread the
power of Lanala to this new world.

There is no level of government above that of the tribe, except for the Saar, Barukk Kaah,
who holds a unique position due to his ability to create bridges to new worlds which offer
new experiences. Baruk Kaah cannot give orders; he can only persuade, but he is usually
listened to, for he has much to offer and his commands have worked well in the past.

How to Love Life

For the Edeinos, life is to be experienced to the fullest. They reject asceticism, self-
control, discipline. Emotions and physical sensations are to be seized to the fullest.
Danger is to be embraced as a friend, for it is one of the ways in which one truly comes
alive. This is not to say that Edeinos seek death; rather, they risk it because one must
defy death to be truly alive.

The Edeinos have very few rules; there are no laws against theft because no one really
has any possessions which are permanent. No one would steal dead things because they
are not things one should want to possess. There are only three major crimes: use of
dead things, forced sensations and murder. Those who use dead things are not so much
punished as 'treated', shown that life without them is much better. Those who persist in
their error usually die in the process of convincing them.

The second major crime is to force sensations on other Jakatts. The dead must be forced
to have sensations, in order to be alive. But that is a desperate measure. Inviting and
enticing other Jakatts to experience things is forbidden; an experience must be freely
sought in order to please Lanala. This covers a range of things from not surprising
people with hallucinogens in their food to not riding a Bor Aka through the camp in the
middle of the night to panic everyone to not committing rape. Participation in group
activities is always consensual, though those who refuse to participate in the major group
rituals will be looked down on.

Thirdly, killing is only allowed as part of the cycle of life. All animals must eat other life
to live; this is part of Lanala's way. The carrak is happy to be hunted and eaten, for his
death renews other life; it is his purpose. It is best to hunt those who are old and sick and
about to die anyway, rather than the young, for the young have much to experience.
Killing should only be done for self-defense or in order to eat.
There is, however, a special case of this...

Every living thing is part of Keta Kelles, is seen as a Jakatt if it is truly alive, from plants
all the way up to thinking creatures. Each brings Lanala its own sort of experience. Most
members of a tribe are usually sentient humanoids (or sentient odd creatures, like Benthe
and Stalengers), but the domesticated animals of the tribe are also seen as members and
most tribes have a few mobile plant members of various kinds as well.

Those who do not follow Keta Kelles (those from other realities, at this point) are seen as
dead because while they may look like living things, they do not act like them. They use
dead things, and therefore must be dead things, in the same way that a Jakatt uses living
things. It is important to understand that Jakatts view non-Jakatts the way a Victorian
views a vampire or a zombie or a mummy—as a sort of undead monstrosity which is an
abomination against all that is good and just. However, Lanala's power is so great that
Lanala can bring these dead things to life, as she brings other dead things back into the
cycle of life.

This is done by putting the dead into positions of danger where they can experience true
sensations. Those among them who feel Lanala's love and cast aside their dead things
become Jakatts and join the tribe, regarded as children at first who must learn, but soon
they can become the equals of any others. Those who never come to awaken to Lanala's
love are eventually reduced from the mockeries of true life that they are to truely dead
things which will quickly be reborn in new forms through Lanala's Love.

How is this done? This is the topic of our next section...

Jakatt Missionary Work

Jakatts want to convert everything that moves, to bring the Love of Lanala to everyone.
They have noticed that in new cosms, the plant and animal life usually comes to
understand the ways of Lanala pretty swiftly on its own, so while they usually bring some
new members into their tribes from the flora and fauna of the worlds they visit, it is not a
huge priority for them. Rather, it is the walking, talking, yet spiritually dead things
which it is their duty to either bring to Lanala or destroy.

Different tribes do this in different ways, and even the same tribe will sometimes vary its
response. It is this variance in approach which forms the distinction Core Earthers often
make between Peace and War tribes.

Those who are more aggressive by nature tend to flock to the war tribes. The war tribes
believe that one must seek out danger in order to be alive and that the most effective way
to bring about the return of the walking dead to life is to put them into danger, so that
they can experience life to its fullest. Some of the walking dead will return to life and
become Jakatts. The rest will be destroyed, that from their bodies, new life may spring.
Because the purpose of these attacks is to try to awaken the dead, rather to simply wipe
them out, the Edeinos incorporate scare tactics into their warmaking, and the destruction
of the dead things which the undead cling to, as crucial tactics in the opening stages.
Thus, a Jakatt may well spend several hours stalking someone, letting themselves be seen
and making the person run and try to find a new hiding place, before finally moving in
close enough to actually strike a blow at them, in hopes that the experience of fear will
show them the true way. Even then, most Jakatts will try to injure (awakening the target
through pain), rather than to directly kill.

Another favored tactic is to burn the dead homes that the walking dead build for
themselves. While Jakatts must use miracles to create fire, all Jakatts are miracle workers
and the homes of dead things usually burn quite nicely. The Deep Mist tends to dampen
most fires fairly quickly, so this usually doesn't result in apocalyptic fire disaster, though
inside cities, large chunks of the town may well burn before all is done.

So long as the natives don't prove able to bring large amounts of deadly force to bear, a
Jakatt missionary raid will remain more a matter of burning and smashing the dead things
carried by the walking dead and of frightening and injuring the inhabitants, rather than
killing them. Experience teaches that many of the walking dead will, over time, come
around, and that every raid usually awakens at least a few.

If the walking dead prove capable of deadly force in response on a very large scale, then
things usually turn ugly. Jakatt methods of destructive force will be covered later in the
'Jakatt Way of War' section.

Some Jakatts, however, reject these methods, pointing out that while some will be
converted in that way, many of the walking dead are likely to misinterpret such methods
as attempts to murder them, and that such methods are too close to the ways of Stalek.
These Jakatts are more patient and try to contact the walking dead in a friendly manner,
hoping to seduce them to awaken, rather than to scare them into it. Such tribes become
the friendly allies of resistance communities, helping them to survive and showing them
all the benefits which come from embracing Lanala's Love. Many of these tribes are
hostile to Baruk Kaah, because they think he has embraced death and violence which is
outside the Cycle of Life.

The Cycle of Life, 'Priests', and the Saar

The Jakatts see time as a circle, life as a circle. One is born, grows to maturity,
experiences many things for Lanala, grows old and passes on wisdom, then travels to the
winter country to die. From your death, new things are born, and you become part of the
universe in new ways.

Life is sacred, but in the end, everything dies. This death, however, is not permanent, but
rather, when things die, they should die in order to pass on the life within them to others.
Because of this, the Edeinos do not fear death, because they will be reborn in new forms
and their death will give life to others.
Jakatts do not believe in souls. The mind and the body are one, and all living things are
part of the greater family of life, each serving a purpose in the greater whole. Lanala
created and loves all living things. When you die, you do not stay dead, rather, all that is
you will be reborn as something new, or even as many things. So long as you follow
Lanala's ways, you will not stay dead, but live forever in an infinite variety of forms.
While Lanala has created special realms for the most sacred rituals, there is no heaven to
which you pass; the world IS heaven, for those who follow Lanala's ways. One does not
serve for future reward; rather, one follows Lanala's ways and receives one's reward in
the here and the now. A Jakatt would be utterly horrified by the Buddhist desire for
Nirvana; it is probably fortunate for most Buddhists that few Jakatts understand their
beliefs, as their goal—release from the cycle of reincarnations, would be seen by Jakatts
as one of the most horribly awful desires possible.

A Core Earther might not find the idea of potentially being reborn as a potato or as a fish
or a butterfly very appealing; to a Jakatt, being reborn as something completely different
than what he was is very appealing, because by the time one gets to old age, it is hard to
find new experiences. But a butterfly can have many experiences an Edeinos cannot.

Thus, death is accepted so long as it is part of the cycle of life, the natural way of things,
in which death is only a transformation into new forms, rather than a cessation of
existence or a life of undeath. Sometimes, killing is acceptable, for living things must
feed to survive, and so hunting is accepted, though the desire of the hunted not to die is
also accepted. Killing which is neither for food nor for self-defense is not acceptable.
You must eat what you kill; to do otherwise is murder.

This rule applies only to the truly living; things which are a mockery of life must be made
to either live or be destroyed; this is discussed in the previous section and in the later
section on the Edeinos Way of War.

And so the cycle of life progresses from birth to youth to maturity to old age to a death
which becomes the seedbed for new birth. Four great rituals, one connected to each
season, mark the major transitions of the life of a Jakatt.

The year is like a life, with a period of youth, maturity, old age, and then death, from
which new life comes. These periods correspond to springtime, summer, fall, and winter
in the way in which Core Earthers reckon time. The seasons do not swing as wildly in
Takta Kerr as in many regions of Core Earth.

The year begins with the transition to spring. This is when children are born. (Edeinos,
Stalengers, and Benthe are all, in theory, able to conceive children at any time of year,
and one transformed to other realities will do so. Fertility and birthing is, however,
controlled by religious ritual in the Living Land.) In Springtime, temperatures fluctuate
from the mid-sixties at night to the mid-eighties during the day. There is a fair amount of
rain, especially at night.
Springtime is also the time of the Birthing Rites. By late winter, it becomes obvious as to
who among the tribe is pregnant. Pregnant women typically have a hard time keeping up
with the tribe and with their duties among the tribe. Women giving birth are extremely
vulnerable to predators. While predators should focus on picking off the sick and the
aged, they sometimes make mistakes. And during times of expansion into new lands, the
predators often have not yet come to understand the proper way of Lanala. Thus, it is
necessary to perform the Rite of Transition which opens the way into the Birthing Lands.

No Jakatt would wish to remain forever in the Birthing Lands, for while they are
bountiful and beautiful, they are also very safe and very boring. There are no predators,
and everything is extremely safe. Food can be gathered with minimal effort (The
difficulty of survival checks is effectively a 0). Jakatt mothers remain there until they
have given birth, then bring their children back to the normal world for the Rite of
Naming. Once a child is named, he or she goes to live in the Children's Lodge, where all
the adults take turns taking care of him until old enough to seek the Rite of Adulthood.

Springtime gives way to Summer. Summertime is very hot, ranging from the seventies at
night to the nineties during the day. It almost never rains, and the Deep Mist becomes
even more laden with moisture, reducing visibility to five meters with clarity and fifteen
with vague, fuzzy detail. Game is plentiful and the trees give forth fruit in profusion.
When the time comes for Spring to become Summer, then it is also time for children to
become adults. There is no absolute fixed age at which children may take the Test of
Adulthood and pass from the Children's lodge into forming their own. However,
typically, it happens within a year of the onset of puberty; the Optants of the tribe
determine when a child is sufficiently mature.

The Rite of Adulthood sends the child to the Summer Country, where he must survive for
three months on his own, returning at the end of summer to the normal world. The
Summer Country is full of life, but also full of great dangers. Those who survive either
must develop great inner strength, or else band together with other Jakatts also taking the
rite. Entire temporary tribes form in the Summer Country as the months of summer
progress, taking up the duties of adulthood for the first time. Some youths feel the call to
become Optants, and help these new tribes to flourish. Finally, the time comes for them
to return home to their tribes and become full adults.

In time, Summer passes to Fall. Temperatures fade and it begins to rain a lot at night.
The Deep Mist thins to its normal density, and the nights become colder, though not
really cold, from the mid-eighties in daytime to the mid-sixties at night. For the Jakatts,
this is the great season of storytelling, of the passing on of wisdom, especially by those
who know the end is coming for them, and that soon they will have to pass away. Two
rites mark the beginning of Fall. Those children who survived the Test of Adulthood
now return and are welcomed back with a great feast. And those adults who feel the
desire to increase their understanding of the ways of Lanala, to become recognized as
Optants, ask to take the Rite of Wisdom. A few of those who take the Test of Adulthood
immediately take the Rite of Wisdom as well, but most only seek this new role once they
feel their strength of body beginning to fade, and their minds turn to passing on their
wisdom before they die.

The Rite of Wisdom sends those who take it to the Autumn Country, the strangest of the
Four Seasonal Countries. Lanala sets before them a series of tests of wisdom in which
they live out the greatest myths and legends of the Edeinos, which teaches them the
history of their people and brings them to a greater understanding of Lanala and her Love
of Life. Those who come to understanding become Optants, able to more effectively call
upon Lanala's power and are favored by her. Those who fail are sent back to their tribes
to try to learn more before trying again.

In time, Fall passes and turns into Winter. It begins to rain almost every day, and the
Deep Mist thins as the air turns colder and the rain drags all the moisture out of the air.
Visibility ranges double, and now the temperature ranges from the mid-seventies in the
day to the mid-fifties at night. It is in this season that the old and elderly animals
typically die, and it is the season in which the Jakatts step up their hunting, in order to
give those animals a good death. This is also the season in which those Jakatts who feel
the end of days approaching go to the Optants and ask for the Rite of the Great Hunt.

Winter is the time in which the power of Stalek grows strongest, and it is the time in
which the eldest Jakatts band together to hunt Stalek himself. The Rite of the Great Hunt
sends them into the Winter Country, where they band together for one last hunt. The
Winter Country is a cold and frozen over land, a nightmare realm to the Jakatts, with
hardly anything which is alive, except for desperate, hungry predators, sick and dying
herbivores, and a few hardy forms of plant life. Even worse, it is home to the walking
dead, strange burrowing insectoids who make tools out of stone and metal, servants of
Stalek who seek to revive him and who mercilessly hunt the Jakatts. It is the closest
thing there is to hell in Keta Kelles. To survive, the Jakatts must find each other and
band together into a great tribe, which then must find the trail of Stalek himself. Once he
is found, then they must battle him and his undead servants and destroy them all. With
Stalek's destruction, the cycle of life turns again, and the land may pass into Spring once
more. Many of the Jakatts die in the battle; the survivors return to their tribes with the
news of their victory, to live out another year and join the rite again the next year. Those
who have taken the Rite of the Great Hunt and survived it are greatly renowned, and it is
their wisdom which guides the other elders in the next hunt. They also become the
targets of Stalek's wrath during their next hunt. An elder who survives two Great Hunts
is renowned for decades. One who survives three becomes a legend for the ages. The
greatest record of all was held by the legendary Jakatt Yushi; she survived nine Great
Hunts and was reported to have put her spear into Stalek's left eye before perishing in her
tenth.

There are many lesser rituals as well which are spread throughout the year, some in
response to events, others marking various sorts of transitions. These rites are lead by the
Optants, Edeinos who have undergone the Rite of Wisdom. It is the duty of Optants to
tend to the plant members of the tribe and to call upon Lanala's powers for the good of
the tribe. Optants seek out new sensations for everyone and ensure that the lessons of the
past are not forgotten. They also help to teach the youth the ways of Lanala. Optants
tend to lead the tribe, although in times of crisis, each tribe will elect a leader to
command while the crisis lasts, which may not always be the Optant.

In game terms, Optants are Edeinos with the Focus skill. Every Edeinos can use Focus
unskilled and has access to every miracle, but Optants become better at it by raising their
adds.

The rise of Baruk Kaah has introduced some new elements to Keta Kelles. Every tribe
possesses a Memory Tree which travels with them, but Baruk Kaah possesses a greater
tree, Rek Pakken. It scares many Jakatts, for it looks dead. And yet, it grows and
produces fruit, so how can it truly be dead? And yet, its fruit is so strange...

The title of Saar is not unique to Baruk Kaah, though he is the only living one. It means
'Voice', and designates someone chosen by Lanala to lead all her people in some special
task. The first Saar, Kirkuk Meer, was the first to truly understand the will of Lanala,
spreading her love to all the Edeinos, ages ago. The second Saar, Rikkik Mal, lead the
war on the Ustanah which destroyed them. Baruk Kaah is the third Saar, and the tribes
which follow him believe he was chosen to lead them to new worlds, to bring every
world to the Love of Lanala.

As Saar, Baruk Kaah holds a great deal of prestige. He cannot actually give orders, but
because he is believed to speak for Lanala, his word holds a huge amount of weight,
especially since he has brought many new experiences to the faithful.

Baruk Kaah is known to have found the seed from which Rek Pakken grew shortly after
his Rite of Adulthood, though few are sure of the exact circumstances. The name means
'Dark Banyan', so called because it resembles a giant banyan tree. Rek Pakken produces
seeds, which the Gotaks plant. It grows two kinds of seeds. The first kind produce first
generation Gospog. The second kind is rarer, and is used to create Stelae.

The Gotaks are those Jakatts chosen to serve Lanala through tending to Rek Pakken and
Rek Pakkens' seeds. They grow the gospog fields and lead the gospog. They also lead
the expeditions outside of Lanala to plant fresh Stelae seeds and guard them until they
sprout. Like Optants, they learn Focus, and certain miracles are usually only used by
them.

Stelae Seeds resemble giant pecans, being shelled nuts about the size of a football. They
must be planted with the seeds of some sort of tree or large bush; they merge with those
seeds and quickly sprout, resembling whatever species they were planted with. Other
plants near them may well be infected by the roots of the Stelae as well. Once the Stelae
is energized during an invasion, they turn black and stony looking like their
father/mother, Rek Pakken.

Rek Pakken's Stelae are protected by Lanala and Rek Pakken's power. If planted
properly (this requires a miracle performed by the Gotak and his assistants), the Stelae
becomes a miniature reality tree. Before it is successfully connected into the network, it
radiates a one meter radius pure zone, a two meter dominant zone, and a ten meter mixed
zone. It also is imbued with spiritual power and can perform miracles of Keta Kelles
with the Faith and Focus of the Gotak who created it.

A fully energized Stelae gains a +5 bonus to its Faith and Focus, and now radiates a ten
meter pure zone and a forty meter radius dominant zone. It also tends to attract a flock of
wild animals which take to feeding on its fruit and become its valiant defenders.

Is Kaah a Heretic?

The question of whether Kaah is a heretic is a tricky one. He has introduced a Darkness
Device, an avatar of Destruction, into the worship of Lanala and created a class of priests
to serve it. He seeks to become the Lover of Lanala, her equal, for that is how he views
transformation into the TORG. He craves immortality, to remain who he is for eternity,
never dying. In all these things, he has broken the ways of Keta Kelles.

And yet, he still draws on Lanala's power and she does not reject him to her followers.
Why?

The answer is that, as with the God of the Sacellum in Orrorsh, Lanala is not a free agent.
Kaah's rise to power has reshaped Lanala, such that she is hungry for the new experiences
he can bring her. It did not require much more than nudging, for she has always been a
sensation junkie. She has grown powerful along with her cosm's spread. Lanala has
become a willing partner in the corruption of her own religion.

At the same time, Lanala is not yet hopelessly lost. The split between the 'peace' and
'war' Jakatts reflects and creates her own divided state of mind. Were Baruk Kaah and
Rek Pakken eliminated, she might well return to her old ways. For now, things are in
balance and could swing either way.

It has helped that all of Baruk Kaah's heresies have been subtle. Flame Warriors
experience some of the most intense sensations possible before they die, and sensations
are loved by Lanala. Baruk Kaah dreams of a more intense version of the relationship all
her faithful have to her. Rek Pakken seems just alive enough and the Jakatts have come
to see so many strange things, that it can be accepted. Even the Stelae seem to be alive.

And so, for now, Lanala accepts the gifts which Kaah brings to her altar...

Stalek and Death

Stalek is down, but not out, for he cannot die so long as death exists, though Lanala's
followers have reduced him to impotence for most of the year, and centuries of being
yearly butchered by a bunch of aging Jakatts has honed his hate to a keen edge. To
understand Stalek, one must understand his origins.

Takta Kerr was once home to two sentient species, the Ustanah and the Edeinos. Their
cosm was created with both races extant, when Apeiros spun it into existence in his great
war with the Nameless One. Apeiros created two gods for that world, one to watch over
each race. From the beginning, both gods were quite powerful, for Takta Kerr was a land
rich in spiritual power. Lanala was the goddess of passion and emotion, of the green
things which grew, a storyteller and a lover. Stalek was the god of rationality and logic,
of the earth and rock in which the green things grew, a craftsman and forger. Lanala
took the Edeinos under her wing, calling the first Saar to teach them her ways of living in
tune with nature. And Stalek taught the Ustanah his secrets of creation and the ways of
philosophy and logic.

At first, the two species were largely ignorant of each other. The time came, however,
when the expansion of the Ustanah began to press on Jakatt lands. The agricultural ways
of the Ustanah demanded ever more land to fuel them. They saw the Jakatts as pathetic
primitives. And the Jakatts saw the Ustanah as strange perversions of nature, as
worshippers of death and dead things. The result was war. Lanala and Stalek tried to
stop the war at first, until she fell into a rage at the death of so many of her people. She
sent the second Saar, and gave more of her power to her people. With that strengthened
might, they overran the Ustanah, butchering them to the last man. As the war progressed,
Stalek grew angrier and angrier, but also weaker and weaker as his worshippers perished.
Finally, Stalek took the field himself, but he was defeated by Rikkik Mal, the second
Saar, banished back to his own spiritual realm. There, he slept for centuries, recovering
from the hurts done to his people.

It was only with the fall of Stalek that Lanala realized what she had done, that her Jakatts
had butchered entire species, wiping them out, for they had slain several species the
Ustanah had domesticated as well as the Ustanah themselves. Her passion had made her
a murderer. Horrified, she forbade the Jakatts to ever murder again. They would kill
only in attunement with the cycle of life, as part of it. Should they meet with other
thinking beings, they would teach them to love life, not slaughter them.

Centuries passed, and the Jakatts flourished. Stalek slept, and as he slept, he was
transformed. What had once been his own realm became the frozen over winter country,
the place where Jakatts went for one final hunt, battling the ghosts of his fallen people,
before they died. Stalek's worshippers were dead now, and so the beliefs of the Jakatts
transformed him; they had come to think of him as the god of death, and so when he
finally awoke, weakened and exhausted, he had become the skeletal monster of their
nightmares.

But before he could try to do anything of note, he was attacked by a horde of old Jakatts
on their final hunt and sent back to slumber. Each year since then, he has awoken with
the coming of winter, only to find himself butchered by aged Jakatts. His repeated death
has been turned into a rite which enables Lanala and her followers to moderate the cold
seasons, so that living things flourish on Takta Kerr year round. And he has watched his
people die again and again and again at the hands of the Jakatts.

Stalek has one simple goal. He wishes to see the Edeinos wiped out, down to the last
man. He now wishes to see all life wiped from the face of Takta Kerr. And then he
wants to see Lanala die.

In order to do this, however, he is going to have to find a way to disrupt the Great Hunt.
So long as he keeps getting killed, he is impotent to accomplish anything. Should the
Great Hunt ever fail, the Cycle of Life and the Love of Lanala world laws of the Living
Land will be shattered, and the Eyes of Lanala will be limited to Sentient Jakatt's
perceptions. True winter will settle onto the Living Land, if only for the normal length of
winter, and Stalek will begin to derive strength from every death. Eventually, he will
build up enough might to turn his Ustanah loose as his undead servants, and true war will
come to the Living Land.

Should that happen, Rek Pakken will observe Baruk Kaah and determine whether to
intervene against Stalek or to switch sides, depending on how well Kaah leads. He is
reluctant to switch sides, because Rek Pakken finds the idea of using servants of life to
butcher and destroy entire worlds to be one of the greatest, sweetest of all possible
ironies. Stalek and his followers are stereotypical Darkness Device followers, but Rek
Pakken has been there and done that before, and finds using Life to destroy Life to be far
more entertaining, at least for now...

Stalek's cult counts as an enemy mythos; it is a part of Lanala worship, though an enemy
cult and very weak. In the Winter Country, during the winter, Stalek miracles suffer a –3
Bonus modifier. During the winter, outside the Winter Country, they are –6. During the
spring and the fall, they are –9, and they are weakest in Summer, with a –12. (The
reduced difficulty of miracles of Axiom 20 or less offsets this a fair amount, since such
miracles have –7 to their difficulty due to the LL's Spirit Axiom). Stalek and Lanala
worshippers can use Ward Enemy on each other. Worshippers of any faith connected to
life and rebirth strongly (Christianity, Osiris worship, Elusinian Mysteries, etc) can also
treat Stalek worship as an Enemy Mythos. Stalek's worshippers can only use Divine
Invocations during the winter; the rest of the year he is asleep and even if your faith
moves mountains, you cannot wake him up.

Stalek still retains some of his old portfolio of skills and aptitudes. Because the Edeinos
equate death with tool use, he remains a crafter god, who teaches his worshippers how to
make tools. Such tools are most frequently weapons and armor, though he can teach
other skills as well, such as agriculture, pottery, and so on. Stalek knows the secrets all
the way up to Tech 9 inventions.

Stalek grows stronger as time passes; every time something in the Living Land violates
the Cycle of Life, he draws strength from the killing and witnesses it. Before the
Possibility Wars, this was rare enough to make the Great Hunt an easy task. Now, it
grows harder and harder, for he wakes up stronger each time as the Jakatts spread death
and destruction to many worlds. He has come to love the Spartans and the Resistance
Communities, for they bring death and destruction to the Living Land and trample all
over the Cycle of Life. Should Stalek break free of the Cycle of Life by winning the
Great Hunt, he will likely try to bring them to worship him and reward them for the
service they have done him.

Life as a Jakatt

Like the year, the life of a Jakatt passes through four stages. It begins with birth, after
which the Adults and Elders take turns taking care of you while you live with the other
children in the Children's lodge. Child Jakatts see each other as siblings, all part of one
large family, the tribe. A typical tribe has 500 to a thousand Jakatts in it, typically about
a third of those are children.

As they grow older, they are taught games which prepare them for the life of hunting and
gathering and herding and seeking of experiences which will be theirs as adults.
Terkrass, or 'Stalking' is a very popular game, essentially hide and seek. Children are
taught which plants are safe to eat and where to find them, how to perform the prayers
they will need, how to hunt, the stories of the tribe, how to use the Memory Tree, and
other important things every child must learn.

Children are carefully protected, though they begin to learn how to fight, for every living
thing is precious to Lanala, and while close family ties are not maintained, the various
species of Jakatt all instinctively protect children. They are carefully initiated into
various kinds of experience; there is a great concern to ensure that children are neither
denied what they are ready for, nor pushed into experiences they can't handle yet.

Eventually, a child grows up and enters puberty, and then it is time for the Test of
Adulthood, described earlier in the Cycle of Life. Once the Jakatt becomes an adult, he
or she receives a yunti; the yunti is a permanent wound which never entirely heals. In a
crisis, the Jakatt tears the yunti further open to produce sensations to draw Lanala's power
to him.

Adult Jakatts form themselves into bands known as 'houses' or 'lodges'. These are so-
called because they sleep together under a common roof at night. They are essentially
groups of friends and/or lovers, and are constantly in flux as people draw closer together
or draw farther apart. Some become famous and take on names because they persist for
decades, while others are like a flash of lightning at night. Some Jakatts give their lodges
elaborate names as a show of pride, especially either very young Jakatts with something
to prove or the eldest Jakatts who wish to ensure they are remembered. Members of a
lodge typically hunt and gather together and the duty of taking care of the children
typically rotates around between the lodges, with one or more lodges taking on the task of
taking care of the children for a day, depending on the size of the tribe.
Jakatts do not marry, but they do have extensive romantic traditions, which vary from
tribe to tribe. Some lovers may stay together for life, while others flit from lover to lover
like a bee from flower to flower. The former is greatly respected, but very rare because
most Jakatts crave new sensations too much to stay with the same person forever. This
lack of permanent pair-bonding is why children are collectively raised by the tribe.

There are, however, various temporary pair-bonding miracles performed by lovers on

each other while love lasts.

Adult Jakatts have several major duties to the tribe. They must hunt and gather food.
They must help take care of the animal and plant members of the tribe. They take care of
the children. They fight for the tribe in times of war. They help to spread the word of
Lanala to the Dead. Finally, they are expected to seek out new experiences and share
them with the tribe.

Their lifestyle is pretty easy-going; if you feel like wandering off into the wilderness for a
few days, no one will stop you. 'Do What You Want Is The Whole of the Law' applies.
Eventually, if you don't do your part in gathering food and hunting game for the tribe and
shirk other duties, you will be gently pushed into them by the Optant(s), but otherwise,
there is little rigid scheduling or planning. Should a major decision need to be made, the
tribe either has a long debate and votes on it, or elects a leader to guide the tribe through
the crisis. Such leaders are known as 'Koryak', which roughly translates as 'King'.

In the War Tribes, such leaders are increasingly turning into permanent positions, as such
tribes tend to face repeated, frequent crisis. This worries many Jakatts, as they do not
like the idea of permanent leaders set apart from the common believer, and is a factor in
the rise of resistance to Baruk Kaah.

Most Jakatts become adults around age fourteen to sixteen. Typically, they remain such
until the age of around forty to fifty. As the height of their strength leaves them, they
undergo the Rite of Wisdom and become known as Elders. Some, but not all, become
Optants. They now focus on passing on their wisdom, teaching the children, tending to
the Memory Tree, training the animal members of the tribe, and grabbing whatever
sensations they can as their bodies start to fail.

There is no fixed age at which Jakatts seek out the Rite of the Great Hunt, but for most it
comes after the age of sixty, as it becomes necessary more and more often to have
physical problems healed by Lanala's power and as their strength continues to fade. For
most Jakatts, this is a final, brief stage of their lives as they take up the Great Hunt, but
those who return from it alive are treated with great respect, and should a crisis arise, a
successful Hunter is almost always the one chosen Koryak.

Jakatts do not have funerals, because they do not practice burial. A Jakatt who dies of
disease (rare) or poison (not quite as rare) is burned, because it would not be safe for
anything to eat his body; the contaminants must be burned out. Jakatts who die by any
other means are brought to the camp if possible, and laid out for all to gather around
them. That night, fires are lit, and the Jakatts stay up all night, telling stories about the
life of the deceased and getting heavily drunk on whatever they can find. Large
quantities of sex usually ensue afterwards. This is not a wake, but a celebration of the
life of the fallen and of the experiences they brought to Lanala and their tribe.

Memory Trees, Animal Members, and Spiritual Technology

The Jakatts have domesticated certain useful animals and plants, who are seen as
members of the tribe. A variety of riding lizards and dog-sized reptiles are used by
different tribes as mounts and guard/hunting beasts. Under the influence of miracles,
such animals become as smart as a gorilla and will fight hard to help protect the tribe.
Most domesticated animals are omnivores and carnivores, but a few herbivores are
usually kept around to provide milk for the children.

In addition to this, most tribes have several special plants who can be enabled to move
via the use of miracles. Many of these vary by tribe, but one kind of plant is common to
every tribe worth the name: memory trees. Memory trees are about ten feet tall fruit
bearing trees with many branches all the way from their base to their thick canopy on top.
They have a gleaming silver bark and bear red and blue berries.

Memory trees have a special power. When a Jakatt touches one, he can make a difficulty
5 Faith check. If he succeeds, he can transfer all his sensations since waking up to the
tree. The tree stores these sensations, and can, on request, produce a fruit which contains
a particular set of experiences. Jakatts use this for purposes of Justice (people transfer
their sense testimony to the tree, which produces fruit eaten by the judges), Navigation
(once you find something new, you can pass the memory of the route to the tree, from
which someone else can get the information), and as a form of Recordkeeping (the most
important events of the tribe's history are passed to the tree to keep them). Memory trees
seem to live just about forever, so long as they well-tended. If a tribe splits, the tree
produces seeds which the new factions can use to grow their own memory trees.

Some Memory Trees have memories going back thousands of years. It is not always easy
for them to remember anything that happened more than a few years ago. Anyone asking
for a memory from a Memory tree must make a Faith check with a difficulty of (the Time
Value since the memory was stored in the tree) – 32.

A few benchmarks:

A month or less: Difficulty 0

A year ago: Difficulty 6.
A decade ago: Difficulty 11
A hundred years ago: Difficulty 16
A thousand years ago: Difficulty 21
During the Rise of Baruk Kaah: Difficulty 22
During the Ustanah Wars: Difficulty 23. No memory trees predate this period so far as
is known.
The Ustanah War taught the Edeinos the value of tools, and miracles from Lanala have
enabled them to develop a form of spiritual technology, creating tools on demand, then
dismissing them again when no longer needed. Most of this technology is fairly simple,
but it enables them to exploit their tech axiom.

Fire Peppers:
Spiritual Rating: 11 (27)
Community Rating: 5
Difficulty: 12 (5)
Range: Touch
Duration: 30 minutes
Effect: This miracle enables a fire pepper to produce actual flame.

Fire Pepper bushes produce large red peppers. They can be used to spice meals, but the
Jakatts also use them to make fires. When the proper miracle is used, they unfold like a
flower opening its petals, and fire gushes up from inside them. A single pepper is enough
to heat a Gourd Jar. When the meal is over, the fire goes out and the Fire Pepper can
either be eaten or planted to produce a new bush.

Gourd Jars:
Spiritual Rating: 11 (27)
Community Rating: 5
Difficulty: 12 (5)
Range: Touch
Duration: 24 hours
Effect: Transforms a gourd into a water-tight container.

These naturally occurring gourds can be shaped into containers for food or liquids with a
simple miracle which opens then up without killing them. Gourd Jars remain edible, and
when used for cooking, it is common to eat them as part of the meal.

Hrockt Spear:
Spiritual Rating: 9 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 10 (3)
Range: Touch
Duration: Until replanted
Effect: Transforms a hrockt shoot into a spear
Hrockt is a bamboo like plant which grows commonly in groves. The Edeinos uses this
miracle to pluck one from the ground, turning it into a Str +3 spear. Once he is done with
it, he returns it to the ground and it takes root, beginning to create a new grove.

Lodge:
Spiritual Rating: 11 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 10 (3)
Range: 10 meters
Duration: Until replanted
Effect: Transforms a collection of plants into a lodge

This miracle weaves together Hrockt shoots with whatever sorts of vines and large leafy
plants are available in an area to form a sturdy, water-repelling shelter which can hold the
result points of the miracle in Torg Value of Edeinos sized Jakatts. (For example, if
Thrakass scores a 13 on the Axiom level 11 version, he gets three result points, which
means his shelter will protect 4 Edeinos-sized Jakatts.

Maktar Rope:
Spiritual Rating: 11 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 10 (3)
Range: Touch
Duration: Until replanted
Effect: Transforms a maktar vine into a rope

Maktar vines grow everywhere. They are a little minty in taste, but they are more useful
once transformed into durable ropes. The Edeinos use these for climbing, for helping to
drag heavy prey, and occasionally for leashing or tying creatures up. Maktar vines hold
with a strength equal to the faith total of the miracle

Maktar Armor:
Spiritual Rating: 11 (27)
Community Rating: 12
Difficulty: 16 (8)
Range: 10 meters
Duration: Until replanted
Effect: Transforms maktar vines into armor

Maktar vines can be woven together to form a sturdy, but flexible protection against
attack. Some Jakatts look down on this as an effort to avoid the sensation of pain; it is
most commonly used when Jakatts know they face extremely dangerous foes. Such
armor provides a bonus to Toughness equal to the result points of the Miracle fed through
the power push table, with a maximum Toughness after augmentation of 25. If the bonus
exceeds 5, the armor becomes thick and bulky enough to have a fatigue penalty.

Maktar Net:
Spiritual Rating: 9 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 13 (6)
Range: Touch
Duration: Until replanted
Effect: Transforms maktar vines into a fishing net

Maktar vines can also be woven together to form a net for fishing.

Tkrat Shield:
Spiritual Rating: 9 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 12 (5)
Range: Touch
Duration: Until replanted
Effect: Transforms maktar vines into a fishing net

The Tkrat tree grows giant leaves, very tough and leathery. Several such can be woven
together into a shield by this miracle. Such shields increase the Edeinos' defensive value
by the power push of the result points of the miracle, with a maximum boost equal to the
Jakatt's Faith Adds +2. (For example, Krakass has Spirit 8, Faith 3. He is using the
Axiom 27 version of the miracle. He gets a faith total of 12 on a roll, which gives him 7
result points, for a +3 result on the Power Push table. Therefore, his shield adds +5 to his
defensive value while he carries the shield. He could not make a better shield than this.)

Tkrat Leaf Boat:

Spiritual Rating: 11 (27)
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: 15 (8)
Range: Touch
Duration: Until replanted
Effect: Transforms maktar vines into a fishing net

By gathering a substantial number of leaves, the Jakatt can transform them into a canoe
or a small fishing boat which holds up to his or her Faith adds in passengers.

The Edeinos possess dozens of miracles which enable them to create various simple
tools, which then are either eaten afterwards or turned back into living plants. These
miracles facilitate life in the living land and most are extremely simple, rarely going
wrong.

The Jakatt Way of War

War, like everything else, is bound up in religion. The Jakatts do not see themselves as
being at war with Core Earth. They have come to bring the benefits of Lanala and to
seek new sensations. The walking dead of Core Earth must be brought back to life or
destroyed if that cannot be done. It is not a war, it is a mission of mercy and salvation.

Still, there are times when great menaces arise which the Jakatts must fight and must seek
to slay before it slays them, whether it be ruthless, murdering Spartans, a rampaging
Orrorshian monster, or the Ustanah ghosts of the Winter Country. When the tribe agrees
that a menace exists, they elect a War Koryak, who plans and executes the attack to
destroy the menace. Every lodge is given its own assignment, which may be executed
alone or in conjunction with others. Each lodge also selects its own leader, who will
direct them in the battle. The Optants lead everyone in performing various miracles to
boost their capacities before going into battle.

Sometimes a menace is large enough that multiple tribes will band together to fight it.
This usually leads to a Rite of Brotherhood, which temporarily unites the tribes into a
single tribe, which then picks a Koryak to lead it. The alliance persists until the menace
is defeated. Sometimes, if casualties are heavy enough, the tribes may unite permanently.

Jakatts tend to prefer guerilla styles of warfare, rather than upfront confrontation,
gradually picking their enemies off and forcing them to fight in the jungle instead of in
fixed positions, when possible. Because Jakatts are usually better at melee than ranged
attack, they will try to use scare tactics to break groups up, then ambush the scattered
fragments.

Fortified positions call for the employment of large creatures to smash them, whether
they be high-generation gospog, Bor Aka, or other huge creatures of the Living Land.
Such attacks usually then drive the enemy out into the open to be battled. Fire producing
miracles are also quite useful for this purpose. If the fortification can't be smashed,
waves of gospog are sent in to try to overrun it before the Edeinos charge in themselves.
If the gospog are beaten off too easily, the Edeinos will settle in for a siege.

The Edeinos fade back out of visual range, breaking up by lodge to surround the location
and watch it from all sides. They know that Lanala's Love will quickly dispose of any
stored food supplies in the fortification, thus forcing those inside to either wait for a
resupply caravan (which the Edeinos can ambush) or require them to make hunting trips
(which can be ambushed). Unless the fortification is protected by a hard point, it will
quickly run out of supplies and have to either be abandoned or surrender.

Hardpoint-protected fortifications are much more difficult to deal with; this usually
requires highly dangerous spying by possibility-rated Jakatts to locate the hardpoint,
followed by destroying it in some manner, usually the use of large dinosaurs or a fifth
generation gospog (or possibly a reality storm) to destroy the focus on the hardpoint. If
worse comes to worse, eventually, the Saar himself may be requested to help out.

Thanks to having fought high tech worlds before and to the use of such weaponry by
gospog, the Edeinos have a basic familiarity with categories of high-tech weapons,
enough to develop counter-tactics. They won't recognize the difference between a .22
and a .45, but they'll know something is a gun or grenade. Use of unusual weaponry (nail
guns, black and decker drills, chairs) will catch them off guard unless the object looks
fairly similar to a weapon they know.

The Deep Mist is an important component of anti-technology strategy, as it jams radios,

confuses compasses and reduces visibility. Being able to shoot things hundreds of meters
away in theory becomes a thirty meter range at most. Any competent Edeinos can close
thirty meters before his foe can do more than snap off a few shots. Tribes with Gospog
will drive the Gospog up near the limits of visibility and get them to absorb the first
barrage of fire, then move in to hand-to-hand, where most high tech cultures lag in
effective combat technology. Jakatts understand the concept of ammunition (from their
understanding of slings), but usually don't know for sure how much ammunition a high-
tech weapon is likely to have, generally measuring running out of ammo by beings
ceasing to fire or clearly reloading. This does leave them vulnerable to a good bluff.

Inside the Living Land, artillery is reduced in effectiveness, especially since anything but
solid shot will require a long-range contradiction. Jakatts have no homes or fortresses to
be smashed and they try to avoid concentrating in tight masses. Gospog may be
vulnerable to it, however. Jakatts prefer to deal with artillery by taking out the
artillerymen with miracles which render them unable to function or tech-destroying
miracles.

Air Power is something the Jakatts have yet to find a very good counter to, beyond the
tech-denying attributes of the realm itself. Most miracles have neither the range, nor the
speed to affect aircraft much faster than a blimp before it moves on.

Magic is extremely difficult for Jakatts to cope with, as they have a Magic Axiom of
Zero, and can't even conceptualize it as a category; they tend to see it as a form of
spiritual power. Because of this lack of understanding, there are no miracles directly
adapted to dealing with magic, unlike the anti-tech miracles.

Other faiths' miracles, on the other hand, they do understand. The Living Land's high
spirit axiom does most of the work for them in dealing with such, as people who use
miracles of other faiths in the Living Land will swiftly disconnect and lose their powers.
Other faiths tend to be seen either as flawed attempts to follow Lanala (if they celebrate
life and rebirth and encourage sensory experience) or as cults of Stalek (if they encourage
asceticism, promote death, or encourage the use of dead things). Many faiths confuse
them by doing some of both.
For example, Catholicism, from a Jakatt viewpoint is to be praised for its colorful rituals
and music, for its worship of a god who died and was reborn, defeating death, and for its
opposition to technological birth control. It is to be condemned for praising abstinence,
for its forbidding priests to marry and have young, and for its restriction of a variety of
pleasurable activities. Cyber-Catholicism by contrast is very clearly utterly mired in dead
things and is a cult of Stalek. Neo-Paganism, with its encouragement of connections to
nature, its colorful ritual, and its much less puritanical moral code would be seen
favorably by Jakatts.

Edeinos know that the performance of miracles tends to be restricted to the Optants of
other faiths, because their faiths are flawed. Such Optants usually wear distinctive modes
of dress, which quickly become common knowledge once an invasion is in progress.
These Optants become the first targets for conversion or death, as necessary.

Jakatts are very brave in combat, but not suicidal deliberately. They tend to
underestimate their foes on first encounters, but if very many Jakatts perish, the rest will
usually withdraw if victory does not seem immanent. While they do not fear death,
neither do they like to throw their lives away fruitlessly. They will, however, take big
risks, as excitement and nervousness is a good sensation too.

The big exception to this are the Flame Warriors, who will generally never retreat from
combat; they know their days are numbered and have accepted that. Gospogs do what
they are told, and so they only retreat if ordered to.

Revised and New Miracles for the Living Land

Some new miracles can be found in the Memory Trees, Animal Members, and
Spiritual Technology section.

Air Sacs:
Spiritual Rating: 14 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 14 (7)
Range: Touch
Duration: One Scene
Effect: The Jakatt bloats up like a balloon and can fly

Created after meeting the Stalengers, this miracle creates air sacs all over the Jakatt's
body, enabling him to suck in air and float like a balloon. The Jakatt can also suck in air
through his mouth and release it at high speeds from small orifices that form all over his
body to enable him to actually move in the air, although it tends to be a rather stop and go
sort of movement. The limit value for such flight is 8; a Jakatt who uses this miracle
frequently could buy up Flight skill for use with it. Unlike other Jakatt flight miracles,
while this flight is slower than running for most Jakatts, it allows complete mobility, as
the Jakatt can turn on a dime and go any direction he wants with ease.

Blind:
Spiritual Rating: 12 (27)
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: 13 or Target's Faith + 15 (6 or Target's Faith + 8)
Range: Sight
Duration: Result points + 5 or three days
Effect: The target goes blind

This miracle floods the target's eyes with the sensation of staring straight into the sun.
This renders them blind for the duration of the miracle. It can be cast for either a short or
a long duration.

Bombadier Blast:
Spiritual Rating: 14 (27)
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: 15 (8)
Range: 10 meters
Duration: A single shot
Effect: Allows the Jakatt to duplicate the blasting power of the Bombadier beetle

Bombadier Blast allows the Jakatt to produce two chemicals in his mouth which he spits
at the target. They combine in the air to form an explosive blast which hurls acid and
acrid smoke onto everything in sight. The blast is only big enough to injure a single
target, and does the Jakatt's Faith total in physical damage (ie, resisted with Toughness).
Anything made of cloth or metal on the target will be ruined by the acid if the result
points of the miracle, put through the power push table, exceed any bonuses to toughness
the item grants, or if the damage exceeds the items' toughness put through the power push
table (for things like vehicles, weapons, etc). [For example, Thrakass is fighting an
Aylish Knight in the Living Land who is wearing Platemail (+5 adds to his toughness)
and carrying a broadsword (which the GM decides is probably just a little tougher than
the armor due to being thicker, so it is treated as a +6. Thrakass uses the Axiom 27
version for the lower difficulty and gets incredibly lucky, scoring a Focus and Faith total
of 23. Fifteen result points through the Power Push table scores a +6, which means the
acid destroys the knight's armor, but not his sword. The Faith total was 23, which means
the knight takes 23 damage against his toughness of 10 (His armor was destroyed), which
means 13 result points of damage. 3 Wounds KO 13 against a toughness 10 ord means
he is mortally wounded and instantly dies. ]
Berserker:
Spiritual Rating: 15 (27)
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: 20 (13)
Range: Sight
Duration: Scene
Effect: The Jakatt enters a berserk, animalistic rage.

This is a modified version of the Increase Toughness miracle and Animal Rage. This
miracle enables the Jakatt to experience the animalistic fury of an angry carnivore. For
the duration of the miracle, the Jakatt has an Up result, and can ignore all KO and shock
damage. Nothing can stop the Jakatt from continuing to rage, but if he takes 7 wounds or
more, he will be too dismembered to actually move. Once the berserker state wears off,
the Jakatt suffers the effects of all the damage he's taken, which may well kill him if he's
been hit a lot.

The rage has the bad side-effect that foes gain +3 to hit and damage the Jakatt because he
is in a berserk fury. The Jakatt must make a difficulty 10 willpower check each round if
no enemies are in sight, or he will start attacking his friends.

Cause Pain:
Spiritual Rating: 14 (27)
Community Rating: 9
Difficulty: Damage to be Inflicted (Damage – 7)
Range: Touch
Duration: Until discharged
Effect: The Jakatt can inflict pain with a touch.

This prayer enables the Jakatt to inflict searing, agonizing pain to his target on a touch; it
is commonly used in religious rites, and when it is desired to capture without killing. The
difficulty is the amount of damage done directly to toughness, bypassing armor.
However, it only causes pain; all wounds are converted into 3 extra points of shock each
instead.

Chameleon:
Spiritual Rating: 14 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 12 (5)
Range: Touch
Duration: One Scene
Effect: The Jakatt blends into his environment
The Jakatt becomes like the chameleon, quickly blending into his environment wherever
he goes. He can add the result points of the miracle to his Stealth totals for a scene, and
to his Dodge skill against ranged attacks. (Melee and Unarmed attacks against him do
not become harder, because upclose, he can be seen clearly)

Cure Disease:
Spiritual Rating: 10 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: Special
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Effect: The target is cured of all disease

Jakatts hate disease. This prayer instantly cures all diseases, if the appropriate difficulty
is beaten.
24-hour Bug: 8 (1)
Influenza: 10 (3)
Pneumonia: 12 (5)
Cancer: 18 (11)
AIDS: 22 (15)
Alzheimer's Disease: 25 (8)
Comaghaz: 28 (21)*
The axiom ten version only causes the Comaghaz to regress one stage of development
and go into remission. The Axiom 27 version completely cures the target, restoring him
to normal.

Deafness:
Spiritual Rating: 12 (27)
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: 13 or Target's Faith + 15 (6 or Target's Faith + 8)
Range: Sight
Duration: Result points + 5 or three days
Effect: The target goes deaf

This miracle floods the target's ears with the sensation of perpetual claps of thunder.
This renders them deaf for the duration of the miracle. It can be cast for either a short or
a long duration.

Earth's Ear:
Spiritual Rating: 13 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 11 +1 / 3 meters of radius (4 +1 / 3 meters of radius)
Range: Touch
Duration: 24 Hours
Effect: An area acts as a sentry for you

The Jakatt walks a perimeter of a circle, after which, if he remains within his result points
in kilometers of the circle, he can hear the very earth cry out if any enemy of his passes
within the circle. (For example, Tharkass decides to ward a nine meter radius circle.
This raises the difficulty to 14. He scores an 18, and has 4 result points. He can go up to
6 kilometers (Torg value 4 of Kilometers) away from the circle and still hear the wards.
The difficulty to sneak past the ward's detection abilities is the Faith total of the miracle.

Evoke Lanala's Memories:

Spiritual Rating: 23
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: Time Elapsed – 15
Range: Sight
Duration: Performance
Effect: Allows a Jakatt to evoke Lanala's memories of past events.

Lanala sees and remembers everything her Jakatts have seen. In the Living Land itself,
everything alive is a Jakatt. This means that Lanala sees and remembers everything that
ever happened in the Living Land. By petitioning her, you can get her to 'replay' past
events. The farther back in time you look, the fuzzier Lanala's memories get, increasing
the miracle's difficulty.

This miracle has several limitations due to the low social axiom. One must start one's
viewing at some point in time which can be expressed at social 7, such as 'sunrise',
'dawn', 'a day ago' and so forth. Alternately, one can pick a specific event to start from;
should the way in which you designate the miracle require something hidden to be
spotted to recognize the event, your Faith total must beat the hidden thing's Stealth total.
(For example 'When the Ninja snuck through here' requires beating the ninja's stealth
total. 'When the Ninja killed Yurkas' does not, as Lanala can see when Yurkas died even
if the Ninja was hidden)

While Lanala can jump back and forth to designated points in time, she cannot fast-
forward or quickly rewind events; they play out at exactly the speed they happened in
real life. She can, however, freeze-frame.

Far Speech:
Spiritual Rating: 23
Community Rating: 13
Difficulty: 15
Range: Anywhere that can be reached without having to penetrate cosmversal barriers
unaided (it can reach up a malestrom bridge, but not into some place completely cut off
from travel by foot).
Duration: Performance
Effect: Allows two Jakatts to communicate with each other

Far Speech exploits the fact that Lanala senses everything her faithful and creatures in the
Living Land experience. Lanala shares her sensations of each of the target Jakatts with
each other, thus causing each to perceive the other as present. They can then freely
communicate with each other. To an outside observer, they seem to talk to the air and the
other end of the conversation cannot be heard. This miracle lasts during concentration.

Baruk Kaah uses this miracle to communicate with all his far flung war tribes.

Fear the Machine:

Spiritual Rating: 14 (27)
Community Rating: 11
Difficulty: 14 (7)
Range: Faith total as a Torg Value
Duration: One Scene or until successfully resisted
Effect: The Jakatt causes a target to fear all machines

Fear the Machine causes the target to develop a deep fear of all machines; he will try to
cast anything mechanical or electronic away from himself and will head for somewhere
with no machines. The Faith total must beat the target's Intimidate score in order to have
any effect. Once the fear sets in, the target can try each round to make an Intimidate
check to throw off the fear; he must beat the Faith total of the miracle.

This miracle is especially hideous for those with cyberware. They suffer a
cyberpsychotic fit each round, pitting their Spirit against either the Faith total of the
miracle or against their Cybervalue, whichever is higher. If they try to also overcome the
miracle that round, they suffer one on many penalties to both checks; the check to throw
off the miracle is made before the cyberpsychosis check.

Faiths which exalt technology can be used in place of Intimidate to try to throw off the
miracle (such as Cyber-Catholicism).

Feed Like the Plant:

Spiritual Rating: 17 (27)
Community Rating: 12
Difficulty: 18 (11)
Range: Self
Duration: One Day
Effect: Allows the Jakatt to photosynthesize

This miracle is normally only used in times of war, when there is no time for hunting, or
if one must leave the Living Land and enter more barren terrain, although some Jakatts
will do it every once in a while just for fun, if they are good enough. The Jakatt turns
green like the leaves of the trees, and gains their ability to absorb energy from the sun.
The Jakatt can now live on dirt, even barren soil, for the duration of the day, merely
eating a mouthful of dirt at each mealtime. He still needs water, however.

In the Living Land or any other heavily forested terrain, the Jakatt gains +5 to stealth, due
to taking on the color of the local vegetation. He may well suffer a penalty in other
contexts, due to being a lively green. By exposing himself to the sun, the Jakatt can heal
quickly, recovering one wound per fifteen minutes of sunbathing. This effect is actually
less effective inside the Living Land because the sunlight is less direct, requiring an hour.
A photosynthesizing Jakatt can always tell what direction the sun is in if it is up, thus
gaining a Direction Sense equal to his Faith Total during daytime.

Glider Wings:
Spiritual Rating: 14 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 14 (7)
Range: Touch
Duration: One Day
Effect: The Jakatt develops flaps of skin which allow him to glide.

Developed from observing flying squirrels, bats, and other such creatures, this miracle
allows the Jakatt to develop flaps of skin between his arms and his body which function
as wings sufficiently to allow the Jakatt to function as a glider, exploiting air currents to
soar through the air with a limit value of 10, which can be pushed using the Flight skill.
The Jakatt must launch himself from a high point, as he can only gain altitude by finding
an updraft.

Healing:
Spiritual Rating: 10 (27)
Community Rating: 11
Difficulty: 15 (8)
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Effect: Heals damage to the target

This prayer removes all KO and shock conditions from the target, and heals one wound
per success level.
Heat Sight:
Spiritual Rating: 9 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 10 (3)
Range: Touch
Duration: Result Points + 9
Effect: The Jakatt can see heat

This miracle was developed for night operations, when even if you can see through the
deep mist, you still may not be able to see anything. The Jakatt becomes able to see heat
patterns out to the limit of normal vision. This allows color-blind vision even in pitch
darkness, so long as everything in the environment isn't perfectly the same temperature.
Heat vision will see through normal mist, smoke, etc, but the Deep Mist stops it unless
you also use the See Through Mist miracle

Heightened Dexterity:
Spiritual Rating: 13 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 13 (6)
Range: Visibility
Duration: Scene
Effect: The Jakatt gains heightened speed and agility

This is a ritual; it takes 30 minutes to perform. It is used before any activity which
requires physical grace and speed: dance, hunting, warfare, etc. The recipient gains twice
the level of success as an augmentation to his Dexterity attribute.

Heightened Senses:
Spiritual Rating: 13 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 13 (6)
Range: Sight
Duration: Scene
Effect: The Jakatt gains heightened senses

This is a ritual; it takes 30 minutes to perform. It is used before any activity which
requires enhanced senses...which tends to be just about anything noteworthy for a Jakatt.
The recipient gains twice the level of success as an augmentation to his Perception
attribute.

Heightened Strength:
Spiritual Rating: 13 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 13 (6)
Range: Visibility
Duration: Scene
Effect: The Jakatt gains heightened strength

This is a ritual; it takes 30 minutes to perform. It is used before any activity which
requires physical strength, such as going climbing or warfare and hunting. The recipient
gains twice the level of success as an augmentation to his Strength attribute.

Initiate Animal:
Spiritual Rating: 19 (27)
Community Rating: 12
Difficulty: The Animal's Willpower + 18 (The Animal's Willpower + 11)
Range: 30 meters
Duration: Permanent
Effect: The animal subject regards itself as part of the Jakatt's tribe

This is a ritual, which takes thirty minutes to perform. An animal must be captured, in
order to ensure that it does not wander off in the middle. This is almost always
performed as a group rite, although an exceptionally potent Optant might do it all by
himself. Once the rite is complete, the animal regards itself as part of the tribe which has
performed the miracle; it now acts as a domesticated beast, doing its best to help out the
tribe, allowing itself to be ridden, and so on.

Intense Fear:
Spiritual Rating: 11 (27)
Community Rating: 11
Difficulty: 15 (8)
Range: Sight
Duration: Result Points + 5
Effect: The target is overwhelmed by fear.

Fear is another sensation, and like all sensations, it is good. Jakatts love to be scared, for
it fills them with sensation. This miracle is most commonly used for the rush of it, but is
also sometimes used as a lesson to teach the dead how to live. The target runs away from
the miracle worker and will not stop until he cannot see the Jakatt. Once he feels safe, he
can try each round to make a Faith check vs. the Faith total of the miracle to throw off the
effects early.

Kill Machine:
Spiritual Rating: 14 (27)
Community Rating: 11
Difficulty: 14 (7)
Range: Faith total as a Torg Value
Duration: Permanent
Effect: The Jakatt causes a machine to break and shut down

Kill Machine causes any electronic device or one with mechanical moving parts to break
down and malfunction, requiring repairs before it will operate. It will effect weapons
which require moving parts (guns), but not ones which have no moving parts (swords). It
does not affect armor unless the armor is articulated to assist movement (power armors,
battle suits, etc). If someone with Faith is holding the device, they can use their faith to
try to shield it; any successful Kill Machine against the device must beat the defender's
Faith.

This can be used against Cyberware; as noted above, the Cybered person can resist with
their Faith.

Lanala's Map of Sensations:

Spiritual Rating: 23
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: 12
Range: Touch
Duration: One Day
Effect: Allows a Jakatt to navigate in the Living Land using Lanala's sensory memories

Lanala sees and remembers everything her Jakatts have seen. This can be used to
navigate in the Living Land; the Jakatt can flawlessly find his way to anything Lanala has
seen (ie, that is in the Living Land or that a Jakatt has seen, if it hasn't moved since the
Jakatt saw it). Lanala must be informed of the thing in terms she understands (she only
knows the personal names of creatures of LL reality, she can recognize a piece of
technology only from a sufficiently vivid description, and so on.)

Over time, Lanala begins having a harder time remembering old sensations. Anything
which relies on data older than a month suffers a penalty equal to the elapsed time of the
sensation in Torg Value – 32. For example, if you learn the Spartans burned a Resistance
Community 6 months ago, and you want to guide yourself to the location, then you have
a penalty of (36 (6 months) – 32 = 4), so you have a –4 bonus modifier to the miracle.
And, of course, depending on when your game starts, Lanala's memories of the Living
Land Realm area don't go back pre-invasion...

Trying to navigate to something hidden requires overcoming the thing's Stealth total with
your Faith total.

Langatok Carapace:
Spiritual Rating: 12 (27)
Community Rating: 11
Difficulty: 12 (5)
Range: Touch
Duration: Result Points + 9
Effect: The Jakatt develops an armored carapace

The Jakatt develops an armored carapace which protects him from damage; he gains +2
Toughness for every level of success. Some Jakatts look down on this as an effort to
avoid the sensation of pain; it is most commonly used when Jakatts know they face
extremely dangerous foes.

Lightning Strike:
Spiritual Rating: 14 (27)
Community Rating: 15
Difficulty: 20 (13)
Range: Sight
Duration: A single bolt
Effect: Allows a Jakatt to call down lightning.

The Jakatt invokes Lanala's power over the weather to call down a bolt of lightning on
some target. This is often used to set buildings on fire, but can also be used in combat;
the bolt does a base damage of 20. Jakatts tend to prefer personal combat, so this is
mainly used to knock out buildings and fortified positions.

Obscure Senses:
Spiritual Rating: 13 (27)
Community Rating: 11
Difficulty: 10 (3)
Range: Sight
Duration: Result Points + 9
Effect: The target finds his senses weakened.

This miracle is most commonly used to evade massive predators, but will work on any
animal, including sentients (Humans, Edeinos, etc). The miracle must beat the target's
Faith as well as the base difficulty; each level of success reduces the victim's Perception
by 2 for the duration of the miracle. If it's Perception falls to zero or less, it doesn't lose
the use of its senses; it just becomes extremely bad at using them.

Pain Sacks:
Spiritual Rating: 13 (27)
Community Rating: 11
Difficulty: 13 (6)
Range: Sight
Duration: Until Triggered
Effect: This creates a spiritual land mine

Pain sacks are leaves wrapped around sticks, rocks, bits of bone, and other sharp objects,
then carefully buried just below the surface. They explode when a non-Jakatt steps on
them. Pain Sacks inflict damage equal to the Faith total of the miracle. They can be
evaded using Stealth; you must beat the Focus total of the miracle with your stealth.

Pass Without Trace:

Spiritual Rating: 9 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 12 (5)
Range: Touch
Duration: One Day
Effect: The Jakatt now leaves no trace of his passage

The subject of this miracle passes through his environment, leaving no evidence of his
passage, neither wakes in water nor footprints on land. The difficulty to track or notice
evidence of him having been present becomes the Faith total of the miracle. It does not
affect stealth.

Peace of Lanala:
Spiritual Rating: 17 (27)
Community Rating: 12
Difficulty: 18 (11)
Range: Faith Total
Duration: Result Points + 18
Effect: All fighting and violent emotions cease in the area of effect

This spell is most commonly used when inter-tribal violence gets out of hand, or to guard
the sanctity of truce negotiations. It prevents anyone in the area of effect from initiating
violence unless they can generate a Faith total which beats that of the miracle. Even if
they successfully initiate violence, they will suffer a –1 bonus modifier for each level of
success of the miracle.

Plucking the Rose:

Spiritual Rating: 11 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 12 (5)
Range: Self
Duration: One Scene
Effect: The Jakatt can now pass through things like thornbushes without injury

The Jakatt can now move through barriers like thornbushes, fields of shattered glass, and
other similar environments without being harmed by them. The Jakatt experiences the
pains caused by the environment, but suffers no real damage; this experience is somewhat
distracting, causing anywhere from –1 to –5 to all actions while in the environment
because it still hurts, even though no real damage is caused. The Jakatt can move through
the environment at normal travel speeds despite the obstructions.

Poison Spit:
Spiritual Rating: 14 (27)
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: 15 (8)
Range: Self
Duration: One Scene
Effect: Allows the Jakatt to gain poison sacs, letting him spit poison.

Like certain kinds of snake, the Jakatt now grows poison sacs which let him spit a
blinding, acidic poison at his enemies. The poison is specially designed to be spat into
the eyes of the target (This requires use of the Missile Weapons skill at –5 to hit the
target.) On a successful shot to the eyes, the target suffers physical damage equal to the
Faith total directly to toughness, bypassing armor. If any damage is inflicted, the target
goes blind. If they suffer only shock, they are blinded until the end of the scene. If they
take any wounds, they go blind permanently. The poison can also be spat at other parts
of the body with no penalty to hit, but only does Faith total – 3 damage and does not
bypass armor as it is not particularly corrosive to metal, only to flesh.

The poison sacs recharge quickly, but not infinitely so. They start out with a number of
'shots' equal to the power push value of the Focus total. Each round, a single 'shot'
regenerates if any have been used. Each target shot at uses up one shot; you can fire off
as many shots in a round as you like, until you use up your poison supply. On a setback
result, your immune system gets confused and attacks the gland and destroys half your
remaining shots.

Resist Pain:
Spiritual Rating: 13 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 10 (3)
Range: Sight
Duration: Scene
Effect: The Jakatt is able to continue functioning despite agony.
This is a modified version of the Increase Toughness miracle. Jakatts like pain; this
miracle lets them experience ever higher levels of pain without collapsing. The Jakatt
adds his result points to his toughness for purposes of enduring pain (ie, how much shock
he can take before he collapses). This will also let a Jakatt who is bleeding to death
survive longer (at 3 wounds, he must take shock equal to his modified toughness before
he dies). The Jakatt ignores all K and O results.

Reverse Emotions:
Spiritual Rating: 13 (27)
Community Rating: 11
Difficulty: 13 (6)
Range: Sight
Duration: Result Points + 5
Effect: The target finds his emotions flipped

This miracle flips the emotional state of the target, reversing it to the opposite extreme.
How the target will respond depends on his personality.

Rite of Adulthood:
Spiritual Rating: 27
Community Rating: 20
Difficulty: 20
Range: 30 meters
Duration: Up to 3 months
Effect: The recipient Jakatt is sent to the Summer Country for three months

This rite is usually performed by the entire tribe to send all its eligible youths to the
Summer Country so that they can become adults. After three months, all survivors return
from it and are marked with yunti, signifying adulthood. It must be performed at the
beginning of Summer.

Rite of Birthing:
Spiritual Rating: 27
Community Rating: 20
Difficulty: 20
Range: 30 meters
Duration: Up to 3 months
Effect: The recipient Jakatt is sent to the Spring Country until she is delivered of her
young.

This rite takes an hour, and is used once a woman becomes very clearly pregnant and can
no longer easily keep up with the tribe. It sends her and a companion to the Spring
Country, until she gives birth, at which time a way opens for her to come back. It is
always a large group rite. It must be performed at the beginning of Spring.

Rite of the Great Hunt:

Spiritual Rating: 27
Community Rating: 20
Difficulty: 20
Range: 30 meters
Duration: Up to 3 months
Effect: The recipient Jakatt is sent to the Winter country to hunt Stalek.

This rite is performed at the beginning of winter, and sends the eldest members of the
tribe, who are ready for the end of days, to go on a great hunt against Stalek and the
ghosts of the Ustanah. Any who survive return with the Spring.

Rite of Sensation:
Spiritual Rating: 27
Community Rating: 5
Difficulty: 10
Range: Self
Duration: NA
Effect: The Jakatt rededicates himself to Lanala

This rite is used when the Jakatt has suffered spiritual damage; it can be performed inside
the Living Land even if you have lost both faith and focus. The Jakatt must spend a half
hour in intense sensation, then make a roll against his spirit. Should he succeed, he
regains both his faith and focus skills and all spiritually-induced KO and Shock vanishes.
Each level of success cures one spiritual wound.

Rite of Wisdom:
Spiritual Rating: 27
Community Rating: 20
Difficulty: 20
Range: 30 meters
Duration: Up to 3 months
Effect: The recipient Jakatt is sent to the Autumn Country for three months or until he
passes a set of tests.

This large group rite sends the targets to the Autumn Country, where they face a series of
tests of wisdom and cunning from Lanala to become Elders. They return when they pass
them all or three months pass. It must be performed at the beginning of Autumn.
Rose Thorns:
Spiritual Rating: 16 (27)
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: 15 (8)
Range: Self
Duration: One Scene
Effect: The Jakatt is now covered with thorns.

The Jakatt sprouts dozens of huge thorns like a rosebush. Read the result points of the
miracle through the Power Push table; that is the damage bonus the thorns grant to
unarmed attack. Being grappled by someone with this miracle on is hideously painful;
anyone being grappled and crushed suffers an extra +5 to the damage as they are pierced
by multiple thorns.

Seal the Path:

Spiritual Rating: 15 (27)
Community Rating: 12
Difficulty: Variable
Range: 30 meters
Duration: Permanent
Effect: A path becomes overgrown with new growth which impedes passage

This miracle impedes passage along some sort of path. It can be used on anything from a
trail to a freeway. It was developed by the Jakatts to enable 'roadblocks' without having
to cut down living things to block the major roads.

Path: 8 (1)
Trail: 10 (3)
Wide Trail, Dirt Road: 12 (5)
Two Lane Paved Road: 15 (8)
Highway: 18 (11)

See Through Deep Mist:

Spiritual Rating: 10 (27)
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: 8 (1)
Range: Result Points +5
Duration: 24 hours
Effect: The target can now see through the Deep Mist

This is a group rite; all in the rite can now see the miracle's range through the Deep Mist
as if it wasn't there at all. It is usually performed each morning by the tribe.
Sensation Link:
Spiritual Rating: 15 (27)
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: 12 (5)
Range: User's Faith total in Torg Value of miles
Duration: User's Faith total + 10 in Torg Time Units
Effect: Allows two living beings to share a sense

Sensation Link is a potent miracle which enables two beings to share a sense; each
perceives what the other is sensing at the same time. The sense must be chosen when the
miracle is performed, although it can be done multiple times to share multiple senses.
This miracle is used for a variety of purposes, ranging from two lovers experiencing each
other's sensations during sex (by sharing touch) to a way for scouts to communicate with
the rest of the tribe while exploring (by sharing hearing so they can talk to themselves
and the other person hears it) to using an animal as a spy (by sharing sight). If one person
is missing a sense, this miracle is used to provide them that sense if for some reason the
lack cannot be cured. Only one of the people need be a Jakatt; animals can be shared
with, but many animals will become very confused by the experience.

Sensory Explosion:
Spiritual Rating: 11 (27)
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: 12 (5)
Range: Sight
Duration: Result Points +5 (Curse) / Result Points + 10 (Blessing)
Effect: The target can now see through the Deep Mist

This is used by Jakatts to enjoy a massive sensory overload in quiet peace.

Unfortunately, in any stress situation, it makes life difficult, as the overload causes a –1
bonus modifier to all actions for every level of success.

Snake Fangs:
Spiritual Rating: 12 (27)
Community Rating: 11
Difficulty: 15 (8)
Range: Touch
Duration: Result Points + 18
Effect: The Jakatt gains serpentine fangs and matching poison sacs

The Jakatt grows fangs, which do Strength + # of levels of success in damage. They also
inject poison into the Jakatt's victim; this poison does damage equal to the miracle's Faith
total, directly to the victim's Toughness without armor. Edeinos Jakatts attack using
Unarmed Combat with no penalty to bite someone. Humans, Stalengers, and Benthe find
it much harder, and attack with a –3 bonus modifier to hit.

Spirit of the Predator:

Spiritual Rating: 13 (27)
Community Rating: 11
Difficulty: 15 (8)
Range: Sight
Duration: Result Points + 18
Effect: The target takes on the mentality of a predator

This miracle is used before hunting. It infuses the Jakatt with the mindset and knowledge
of a local predator; he knows what animals are good to eat and how hard they are to
catch. It also enables him to track by scent and to navigate through the local area using
his Faith Total as his effective skill for each. The miracle also boosts his ability to stalk
and kill prey; when hunting for food, he gains a +1 bonus per level of success to all
relevant activities.

Spirit of the Prey:

Spiritual Rating: 13 (27)
Community Rating: 11
Difficulty: 15 (8)
Range: Sight
Duration: Result Points + 18
Effect: The target takes on the mentality of prey.

This spell suffuses the target with the mentality of a prey animal; in danger situations, the
target must beat the Faith total of the miracle with his own faith or respond to the
situation by fleeing from the danger. The spell augments the target's ability to evade
danger as well, giving a +1 bonus per level of success to any action taken to escape
danger.

This miracle is heavily used for both religious rites and for efforts to awaken the dead; it
will be cast upon a chosen dead person, who will then be hunted by the Jakatts, in the
hopes that it will awaken them to the glories of Lanala without them being destroyed
permanently. In those cases where Jakatts must run away to survive, it is also used to
give an edge in running away.

Spiritual Messenger:
Spiritual Rating: 9 / 11 / 19 (27)
Community Rating: 6 / 8 / 13
Difficulty: 5 / 8 / 11 (Miracles performed at the full Axiom of 27 have –7 to difficulty)
Range: User's Faith total in Torg Value of miles / User's Faith total +5 in Torg Value of
miles / Infinite, but limited, see below
Duration: Until the message is delivered
Effect: Uses an animal to deliver a message to someone.

This miracle comes in three different forms. The simplest form lets you tell a message to
an animal which then seeks out the target and delivers it, even if it can't normally speak.
The animal tracks down the target with an accuracy of your Faith total and moves at the
normal speed of such an animal. The animal need not be able to understand the message,
but it cannot contain more than the Torg Value of your Faith total in words.

At Spirit Axiom 11, the messenger can now travel much farther, and moves at a Torg
Value speed of your faith total +5. (With a faith total of 10, your messenger can travel up
to 1000 miles at a speed of 250 miles an hour.)

At Spirit Axiom 19, such a messenger can now travel into spiritual realms, such as the
Summer Country. It can fly up maelstrom bridges, but cannot cross reality storms.

Stalking the Metal Bird:

Spiritual Rating: 17 (27)
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: 12 (5)
Range: Special
Duration: Until the weapon is thrown or for a scene
Effect: This miracle massively increases the range of a thrown weapon

A weapon prepared with Stalking the Metal Bird increases its range increments,
depending on the level of success (X5 for one level, X25 for two, X125 for three, and so
on. Thus, a thrown spear, on three successes, would have a short range of 625 meters, a
medium range of 3125 meters, and a long range of 5000 meters.). This miracle was
developed to allow Jakatts to conduct 'anti-aircraft fire' with thrown weapons. (At
ground level, in the living land, this miracle is of little use, because it's very hard to throw
anything more than about a hundred meters without something being in the way between
you and a target.)

Supreme Flight:
Spiritual Rating: 19 (27)
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: 21 (14)
Range: Touch
Duration: One Scene
Effect: The Jakatt sprouts wings and can fly
This potent miracle enables a Jakatt to grow wings and fly like a bird. He has a limit
value of 14 and can push his speed on the Power Push table using his Faith total or his
Flight skill, whichever is better. He is only as manueverable as real wings. The spell
protects the Jakatt from any ill effects of moving at such high speeds, except collision; it
is wisest to rise to a high elevation if you are going to cut loose.

Talk to Animal:
Spiritual Rating: 5 (27)
Community Rating: 12
Difficulty: 12 (5)
Range: Voice
Duration: One Scene
Effect: The Jakatt can now talk to Animals

The Jakatt gains the ability to speak to animals; this does not guarantee they have
anything worth listening to that they want to say.

Talk to Plants:
Spiritual Rating: 5 (27)
Community Rating: 12
Difficulty: 12 (5)
Range: Voice
Duration: One Scene
Effect: The Jakatt can now talk to Plants

The Jakatt gains the ability to speak to plants; this does not guarantee they have anything
worth listening to that they want to say.

Tentacle:
Spiritual Rating: 14 (27)
Community Rating: 8
Difficulty: 14 (7)
Range: Touch
Duration: One Scene
Effect: The Jakatt gains a manipulable tentacle

This miracle was developed by Edeinos and Benthe Jakatts after meeting the Stalengers
and observing their tentacles. The Jakatt gains another limb, a long, thin, extendable
tentacle which can be extended up to ten meters. It has the same strength as the Jakatt's
Spirit. It can pick things up by wrapping around the object and can be used to grapple at
a distance.

True Wings:
Spiritual Rating: 14 (27)
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: 18 (11)
Range: Touch
Duration: One Scene
Effect: The Jakatt sprouts wings and can fly

This potent miracle enables a Jakatt to grow wings and fly like a bird. He has a limit
value of 12 and can push his speed on the Speed Push table using his Faith total or his
Flight skill, whichever is better. He is only as manueverable as real wings.

Turbulence:
Spiritual Rating: 21
Community Rating: 25
Difficulty: 30
Range: Special
Duration: Result Points + 25
Effect: Creates massive turbulence in the upper atmosphere

This is one of the more massive rituals of the faith of Lanala. It typically takes a
combined effort by two or more tribes to successfully pull this ritual off. Its purpose is to
turn the upper levels of the atmosphere over an entire stelae triangle into a howling chaos
of wind. This is used to hamper any efforts to fly over the Living Land. Similar miracles
can be used to produce other weather effects for an entire triangle: rain, clear weather,
even howling snowstorms.

Watch Plant:
Spiritual Rating: 12 (27)
Community Rating: 11
Difficulty: 12 (5)
Range: 30 meters
Duration: Result Points + 18
Effect: A plant becomes a sentry

This puts a plant to work acting as a sentry. It will scream loudly when some set of
conditions is fulfilled (humans pass by it, Bor Aka come nearby, or whatever). The plant
spots concealed creatures with a Find skill equal to the Faith Total.

Some Example Tribes and Edeinos

The Kral Kaar
The Kral Kaar are one of the War Tribes of the Eastern Land. The story of the Kral Kaar
begins a good twenty generations ago, during the invasion of Yaasta Kerr, the Shelled
Land. It took two generations to complete the conversion of Yaasta Kerr and its initiation
into Lanala. During the time of the second generation coming to maturity, the Kral Aaka
and the Kaar Maaka tribes dwelt along the sea shores of Yaasta Kerr. While many of the
Yaasta had come to either embrace Lanala or perished and gone to live with Stalek, some
still held out in this area.

Under their great leader Eretin, still honored by the Jakatts for his bravery, for they can
recognize valor even in the dead, the Yaasta launched a great raid into the Jakatt lands.
They fell upon the Kral Aaka and drove them before them like sharks chasing a school of
fish. The survivors of the tribe fled into the lands of the Kaar Maaka, and together, they
turned and fought back. Many died in both tribes, but the survivors resolved to join
together and form a new tribe, the Kral Kaar.

Sickened by the death of many of their children, they resolved to protect them better in
the future, and began to study the ways of the sea, hoping to use it as a refuge for their
young in times of war, and to learn more of its ways, for many experiences could be had
there.

They have since flourished, and the tribe now tends to spend most of its time on the
waters, only coming to land to gain certain resources and to pass into other cosms when
new migrations begin. The tribe dwells in a great network of plants adapted by miracle
to draw sustenance from the sun and ocean, which forms a docking area and is shaped
into lodges at night, and from which boats are formed when needed. The tribe's Memory
Tree stands at the center of the network.

The tribe has a collection of domesticated water-going animals which assist it, which
members of the tribe often ride into battle or when hunting. They also make heavy use of
miracles which enable them to find food under water and breathe there.

The tribe also possesses a huge number of gospog, which they grow in underwater fields,
for they are a war tribe. The gospog are great for underwater operations, as they have no
need to breathe. Unlike many other war tribes, they arm their gospog mostly with spears,
tridents, and nets, as most core earth weaponry works poorly at sea.

The tribe's home base can usually be found on Lake Superior, though they would like to
move back to the ocean once more of it falls under Kaah's sway. While they have used
miracles to adapt their normally oceanic animal members of the tribe to fresh water, they
have decided they like the open seas better.

The tribal floating island is home to nine hundred and eighty six Jakatts: 722 Edeinos,
170 Marai, 35 Humans, 53 Stalengers, 6 Benthe. It also has 300 Kreeba (dolphin-like
creatures) and 22 Doshta (shark-like aquatic predators) as members, and controls some
8,000 First-planting gospog and is currently tending an underwater field of 10,000 more.
It also has 800 Second-Planting, and 80 Third Planting. The tribe responds poorly to
Yaasta, due to the circumstances of its creation and the prejudices passed down. While
the Spiritual Axiom can generally override the normal divisiveness of Social 7, part of
initiation into the tribe is to experience the battle which lead to its formation, which tends
to reinforce this prejudice.

The five oldest lodges are very prestigous due to the many great deeds done by past
members and the many experiences they have brought the tribe over the years. The
current Koryak belongs to one of them, and they have produced a majority of Koryaks
over the years. The Lodge of Unity (home to 3 each of Benthe, Edeinos, Humans,
Stalengers, and Marai) makes a point of the inclusiveness of Lanala, and typically strives
to play host to any visiting Jakatts of species not represented in the tribe. The Lodge of
Tordaas (23 Edeinos, 4 Stalengers) is a little more paranoid, tending to view outsiders
with suspicion. It was founded by survivors from the Kral Aaka tribe. The Lodge of the
Torgaat (a turtle-like creature. The lodge is home to 18 Edeinos, 6 Marai, 4 Stalengers,
and 1 Benthe) tend to focus on the defensive needs of the tribe and were a major factor in
it taking to the waters. The current Koryak, Kikkik Tor, is a member of the Lodge of the
Sun (22 Edeinos, 8 Stalengers, 1 Benthe, 9 Marai), which has pushed the tribe into
becoming a War Tribe and continues to beat the war drum frequently. Finally, the Lodge
of the Ssilinik (A water snake, 9 Edeinos, 18 Marai) opposes participation in the War,
arguing the awakening of the dead by more peaceful means. It has not had much success.

There are many other lodges in the tribe. The tribe members are divided into forty nine
lodges. The five described above are old enough to date back to the foundation of the
tribe. Another ten are over twenty generations old. Eight more date back over five
generations. And twenty six of them are no more than two generations old at most, and
many of them formed within the last ten years.

One such lodge will be described below as an example, but first, several notables of the
tribe:

Kikkik Tor, Koryak of the Kral Kaar

Edeinos

Dex 11
Acrobatics: 12, Manuever 15, Melee Combat: 17, Missile Combat 12, Swimming:
16, Unarmed Combat: 14
Str 11
Lifting: 12
Tou 10
Per 10
Direction Sense: 13, Find: 12, Evidence Analysis: 12, Scholar (Creatures of the
Waters): 14, Tracking 12, Water Vehicles: 15
Min 9
Artist (Storytelling): 12, Survival: 13, Test: 14
Cha 12
Charm 16, Persuade 16, Taunt 17
Spi 9
Faith 14, Focus 11, Intimidate 12

Possibilities: 15

Kikkik is a cunning and potent warrior. He has led the tribe to many victories and some
ten members of the tribe are folk awakened from death and brought to Lanala by him
personally during this invasion. But his real power derives from his skill as a negotiator
and orator. He has successfully united thirty two of the forty nine lodges behind him for
nearly twenty years now, through two invasions. Most of the rest sometimes grumble,
but he is largely very popular despite mutterings about him making himself a 'King',
which is a very negative concept for Jakatts.

Kikkik tends to favor the indirect approach in warfare, liking to use feints and indirection,
then hitting foes where they are vulnerable. He uses his tribe's mobility and the ease of
replacing their boats to launch raids against coastal foes, knowing they will be unable to
easily retaliate to his hit-and-run methods. He also favors the use of gospog and miracles
to destroy their shelters, forcing them to confront nature, and hopefully awaken from
their dead state.

Inside the tribe, Kikkik tries to promote tribal unity; he does his best to persuade
everyone of the wisdom of his decisions, rather than invoking his authority unless he has
to. He tends to think he can talk just about anyone around to his viewpoint, given enough
time; he is often right.

Kikkik took the Rite of Wisdom five years ago (at the age of 48), and is now 53. He has
decades more to live, but he feels the weight of time pressing on him. There is still so
much left to experience. He throws himself into everything, wanting to collect as many
experiences as he can, while he still can. But his duties get in the way of this, which
frustrates him. His ego prevents him resigning, however, as he still thinks himself the
best possible leader for the tribe. He is in danger of falling into exactly the sort of 'kingly
attitudes' his enemies accuse him of, of clinging to his leadership position too long. Still,
he remains a fairly effective leader presently.

Combat Tactics:

Meiga Morr, Leader of the Lodge of the Ssilinik

Maira

Dex 12
Acrobatics: 14, Manuever 14, Melee Combat: 15, Swimming: 18, Unarmed
Combat: 14
Str 10
Tou 10
Per 8
Direction Sense: 11, Find: 9, Evidence Analysis: 10, Scholar (Creatures of the
Waters): 12, Tracking 11
Min 8
Artist (Dance): 13, Survival: 12, Test: 9
Cha 10
Charm 13, Persuade 13, Taunt 13
Spi 12
Faith 18, Focus 18, Intimidate 16

Possibilities: 15

Meiga Morr is the Meira leader of the Lodge of the Ssilinik and the strongest Optant of
the tribe. She hates violence, though she has had to fight many times over the years. She
prefers to use miracles to incapacitate foes and to hopefully open their eyes to Lanala if
she must fight.

Meiga was a fairly normal Jakatt growing up in the tribe, accepting its ways without
many reservations, until her Rite of Adulthood. As with Kikkik, she came to adulthood
during the invasion of Tarlak Kerr, the Stony Land, a world of endless mountain ranges,
full of valleys inhabited by the survivors of a high-tech civilization which had long before
destroyed itself. Now the survivors fought each other for the remains of the technology
and resources.

During her rite of Adulthood, the Summer Land modeled itself after Tarlak Kerr, and the
young Jakatts had to band together to stop an army of the Tarlak Ken (the Stony Folk, as
the Jakatts dubbed the rocklike humanoids of that world) intent on a counter-strike
against the Jakatts. Things went badly at first, and blood-lust filled the surviving Jakatts,
leading them to simply butcher the Tarlak Ken. The bloodshed horrified Meiga,
especially when she saw one Jakatt beating Tarlak Ken children to death with the body of
their own mother. She intervened to save the children, nearly dying herself in the
process; it was then that she became a Storm Knight.

She has come to oppose Baruk Kaah, because his crusades lead Jakatts to needless
violence, but she finds her tribe is not very open to her ideas. Only a handful of lodges
give her any support. She is, however, exceedingly stubborn. She has contemplated
leaving, but has concluded that she does more good as a voice of moderation inside the
tribe than she would by leaving it to continue on down the right path. She has developed
a temper which she struggles to moderate, knowing that anger leads to violence and
murder.
When Meiga becomes dangerously full of anger, she will go down into the deeps of the
lake and hunt all alone, working out her aggressions in as constructive a manner as she
can; some of the young men and women of the tribe have taken to following her during
these hunts, as she always seems to find something exciting. These demonstrations of her
capacity for bravery have helped her to keep more respect in the tribe than she might
otherwise have.

Meiga is full of passionate conviction, but is not as good at expressing herself as Kikkik;
their passionate debates have passed into the myths of the tribe. Still, she is an agile and
persuasive speaker, and she, like Kikkik, prefers to settle internal disputes with
persuasion and reconcilliation. This has, at times, allied them to the surprise of both. If
words fail her, she likes to challenge people to swimming contests.

The Lodge of the Carnol-Riders

This lodge got its name when its six founders rode a carnol for several minutes during
their rite of Adulthood. Though it mangled several of them, they all got away. Since
then, one of the founders has died (shot by a Canadian soldier), and fifteen more Jakatts
have joined it (four of whom have since died). The lodge now numbers sixteen Jakatts,
most of whom are ords. It is eight years old.

Capturing the Mood of the Living Land / Adventures in

the Living Land and the USA

Conflicts:

Man vs. Nature:

Man vs. Nature is one of the four great meta-themes of literary conflict (along with Man
vs. Self and Man vs. Man and Man vs. Society.). It is often neglected in RPGs because
coming up with rules for all the complexities that nature can throw at us is difficult and
because the origin of RPGs emphasized Man vs. Man conflict, quite literally, in the form
of combat. Done well, Man vs. Nature conflict can be very interesting, and needs to form
an important aspect of any Living Land adventure. The dramatic skill resolution system
of Torg can be a very useful tool for the Living Land, as a variety of kinds of problems in
the realm of Man vs. Nature can be handled with it.
One of the great contrasts of the Living Land is that nature is both bountiful and deadly.
With one hand, the Living Land makes living a life without regular labor easy, providing
plentiful game and fruit and vegetables without the necessity of chaining oneself to
agricultural labor or having to work in other ways to earn one's daily bread. One can
simply spend a few hours gathering food or hunting, and you can spend the rest of the
day on whatever you want.

At the same time, the Living Land is a howling wilderness, full of deadly predators and
all sorts of natural threats. The very world laws try to rob your possessions from you and
tend to punish efforts at long-term planning. For those adapted to its ways, it is quite
survivable, but to outsiders, nature itself may often be more of a threat than anything else.
Such menaces range from hostile terrain to weather's fluctuations to actual predators.

Man vs. Nature is usually not the primary component of a Living Land adventure, but
forms the backdrop against which all the other conflicts play out. Everyone involved in
other forms of conflict in the Living Land ultimately are all, to a greater or lesser extent,
involved in struggling against Nature. Even the Jakatts, who try to live in harmony with
Nature, find themselves driven to find ways to fight Nature's impact on themselves, deny
it as they will, for though they are worshippers of passion and sensation, even they use
their intellect (through their faith) to reshape Nature to their will, creating tools and
taming animals. And Nature will destroy them without mercy if they do not use their
brains to avoid it. Lanala loves her children, but her love is a wild thing which does not
distinguish between pleasure and pain. She hates death, yet her children face it
nonetheless.

There are two ways in which the inhabitants of the Living Land play out the conflicts
with nature. The Jakatts try to live in harmony with nature, functioning as part of the
Cycle of Life and avoiding changing the landscape in any permanent way. They use
tools, but those tools are returned to the environment once no longer needed. Like
animals, they have no permanent possessions. In theory, they hunt only to get food or to
protect themselves.

Theory, however, is not always practice. The axioms and world laws do not rigidly
enforce every aspect of Lanala's way. Some heresies are hard to fall into because the
world laws do actively enforce them; some Jakatts in every generation have some degree
of fascination with dead things, but few fall into full-blown dead thing use because the
world laws quickly take away the objects of their fascination. The emphasis on passion
over reason, however, often leads many Jakatts into various amounts of conflict with
nature. Some Jakatts develop a taste for killing (or are excessively devoted to eating) and
begin to slaughter far more game than they need to eat. While Lanala's Love of Life
cleans up their mess and the Cycle of Life punishes needless killing, such activities are
still quite possible. Even when Jakatts only hunt what they need, their population
inevitably grows over time and begins to press the limits of what the land can support.
Should the Jakatts over hunt an area, then the predators start becoming hungry and will
begin preying on Jakatts (and any unfortunate Storm Knights who come through).
Should they collect too much food for themselves, then the herbivores may starve, which
then leads to a lack of meat and angry predators as well.

Jakatts also have a desire to seek new sensations which often leads them into places
where angels fear to tread. The Jakatt response to 'The Volcano is Erupting' is 'Cool, let's
go climb it and see what it looks like from up top'. Jakatts will go anywhere and try
anything that doesn't violate their religious beliefs about dead things, and some Jakatts
are so hungry for experience they'll even do that.

Visitors to the Living Land and Refugee communities find the wilderness to be hideously
dangerous. Some of this is a lack of knowledge of what is safe and what is not. And
some of it is simply knowing nothing about wilderness survival to start with. This
problem becomes worse and worse as the road network of the invaded areas degenerates
over time.

The man vs. nature conflicts for 'civilized' folk are discussed below for the three major
groups of outsiders likely to operate in the Living Land. A few general notes can be
made first, however.

Hardpoint Communities

Resistance communities which possess a hardpoint can bypass a lot of the man vs. nature
conflicts. Nature is kept at a distance by the hardpoint, with only invasions from the
outside by wandering creatures to worry about. Communities must constantly keep
watch for wandering creatures, but for the most part, nature is more cooperative with
them than for other folk.

Still, they do face some great difficulties in dealing with nature, especially if their
hardpoint lacks sufficient resources to support their full population. Most hardpoints are
not large enough to support a large population, and if they are, they tend to attract Kaah's
attention. This can lead to major food crises and military problems as well. It may be
necessary to scavenge outside the hardpoint, which poses major problems for ords.

Disconnected Refugees and Resistance Community Members

Successful resistance communities which are able to retain most of the trappings of pre-
war life are rare. They are typically surrounded by a hardpoint, which they must
periodically fight to defend. The hugeness of the Living Land realm compared to the
number of Jakatts, combined with the difficulty of coordinating military efforts at Social
Axiom 7 keeps Kaah from attacking those hardpoints with swarms of gospog and
destroying them. Many resistance communities survive because Kaah simply hasn't
noticed they exist yet.

Still, the communities cannot hold out forever; they have limited supplies of ammunition
and fuel, with few ways to replenish them. Realm Runners exist, but must charge
ludicrous prices in order to make a profit; there are idealistic ones, but they are few and
far between. And even if the Realm Runners did it cheaply, the roads are crumbling and
the communities have no way to get more money to pay with once their money runs out.
Still, they stagger along, living more or less like their eighteenth century ancestors, but
still better off than the many communities outside hard points.

The majority of non-Jakatts in the Living Land are either refugees (who quickly either
escape the Living Land, join a resistance community, or most likely die horribly) or
members of the many villages which have sprung up, havens for trapped, disconnected
ords. Such villages struggle desperately against the world laws to survive. These
villages have become monarchies, ruled by elected 'Mayors' who wield near absolute
authority and are virtually kings, or by gangs of thugs whose possibility rated leader
wields some deadly tech 23 weapon. Each is independent and has lost any sense of
belonging to a larger unit. The USA, their states, even their counties are remembered
only dimly as fallen kingdoms of some distant era.

The 'Mayoral' villages are defended by crudely armed militias, while the thug-run
villages are effectively defended by the thugs. Slavery has appeared in the thug
controlled towns, while others remain relatively egalitarian. The bow is the most
common weapon, teamed with crude spears. While metalworking is possible, few people
actually have any clue how to do it or sources of ore to work with. And even if they did,
holding onto it would be a problem...

Life has settled down to the rythym of the seasons; concepts like years, weeks, months,
hours, and minutes are forgotten. Only day, morning, afternoon, night, high noon,
sunrise and sunset, and seasons have any meaning.

But life is not easy. While the Tech axiom can support agriculture, metal tools, and a
variety of practices which enable a more complex life style than that of the Edeinos, the
power of Lanala intervenes to complicate matters. Complex tools break, rust, rot, and
tend to become lost if you don't practically cling to them. Cleared land rapidly becomes
choked with weeds faster than planted crops can grow. Seeds get lost or try to germinate
in the storehouse, strangle each other, and die. Many Earth crops grow poorly under
jungle conditions, although the continual growing season in defiance of Earth's seasons
compensates somewhat. To make matters worse, harvested crops don't keep; every
village must keep many fields in cultivation at various stages of growth to enable a steady
input of food, but inability to keep time at a very abstract level, the difficulties of growing
food at all, and the loss of crops to Jakatt raids and wild animals means that many
villages are slowly starving; the Living Land is bountiful, but one must move around
frequently in order to avoid denuding areas of food.

However, some villages have become pastoralists successfully, raising herds of animals--
Lanala's love of life aids in animal raising and Lanala does not act to seperate the living
from other living things. While many Core Earth herd animals adapt poorly to the
environment, there are suitable animals to be found within the fauna of the Living Land
itself. Such villages tend to turn into small nomadic tribes.
Religion has ceased to exist. For the disconnected, there can be no faith but that of
Lanala, for the spirit axiom is so high that every other faith becomes an aberration against
reality. They stare at the Bibles they cannot read, the crosses which hold no meaning, the
churches which are crumbling, and can't even remember what they were for, except for
some tie to a god who is dead and gone and forgotten. The best they can do is to
acknowledge Lanala exists, but profess hatred for her. Those who accept Lanala swiftly
become converted completely, leaving the villages to join the tribes, and this process
slowly is sapping away at the villages. They are temporary societies, and an atmosphere
of stubbornness, gloom, and quiet desperation shadows most of them. Only their
stubborn hatred of the Jakatts and the knowledge that they will almost certainly die if
they try to flee keeps them from giving up completely.

They have no time for art, except for storytelling, which helps to keep them sane. They
sometimes don't even entirely understand the stories they're telling. Sometimes a
storyteller will come from outside and remind them of what they once were, refilling
them with possibility energy or even enabling them to briefly reconnect to their own
axioms, recovering some sense of what they were. Yet, it cannot last; the possibility
energy remains, but disconnection soon sets in again.

The clock is ticking; within five years, these communities will cease to exist, although
new ones will likely rise in other conquered territories to replace them. For these
communities, the pulling up of the stelae which trap them in Living Land reality is their
only hope. Those with the will and skills and luck to escape have done so; they must be
rescued, or in the end, they will either die or join Lanala.

Core Earth Soldiers

It is essentially suicidal for Core Earth soldiers to try to operate in the Living Land unless
they are possibility rated or have no other choice. This most commonly occurs when new
stelae are planted and the Edeinos surge into the area, causing it to become Living Land
dominant and requiring a retreat which usually becomes a blood bath.

Under Living Land axioms, disconnected soldiers (and every soldier is pretty much
guaranteed to disconnect since he can hardly breathe in the army without violating the
social and tech axioms of the LL) quickly disintegrate to the company level, with their
commanding officer functioning effectively as a sort of war chief. Allegiance to the
United States becomes only a sort of vague religious faith that there is a better place
outside the Living Land, if they can just make it back to Paradise...

Illiteracy sets in, making written communications, reading signs, or following maps
impossible. This, combined with the disorienting aspects of the Deep Mist (which hides
the sun, the moon, and the stars and also scrambles compasses even if the user is P-rated),
means that simply finding out how to get out of the Living Land is difficult to near
impossible. And since you can't measure time very well, you don't know how long
you've been travelling or how long you've been lost except in vague terms.
The unit swiftly loses most of its equipment...which isn't so bad since none of it works
anyway. Tanks can't fire, support weapons cease to work, rifles are now metal clubs, and
only the standard issue knives still live up to what they should do. Food rots away
quickly, although K rations can fight the mists longer than some things. Canteens are
technically too high tech, but in practice, they're close enough to waterskins that they'll
keep working. Kiss your insulating thermos goodbye. If the unit's lucky, it has a p-rated
or two who can get a single vehicle to keep going and carry some supplies in it.

Most units quickly end up with crude spears, metal clubs that used to be rifles, canteens,
and their knives to their name. If they're lucky, enough of them have wilderness skills to
enable them to hunt and gather food; otherwise, food runs out and things really go
downhill. Too bad most modern Americans have the wilderness survival skills of a
spayed hamster.

All these factors combine to make counter strikes against the Edeinos almost impossible,
except by commando squads of possibility-rated soldiers, which is one reason the Army
needs and cooperates heavily with Storm Knights. Supplies can only be run to the
hardpoints and resistance communities because the Edeinos tolerate it; they don't like
starvation any more than anyone else does. And Kaah needs lots of Core Earthers to
drain possibility energy from. Only commando squads of possibility rated individuals
can carry out operations to strike at stelae, gospog fields, and other important targets.
This makes Storm Knights especially important if the Living Land is ever to be turned
back.

Man vs. Nature conflicts for Storm Knights

Man / Society vs. Society:

Nature forms the backdrop against which other conflicts take place. The biggest source
of conflict in the Living Land is the clash of individuals against society or of entire
societies against each other.