Does anyone else feel like Dungeon Planet and Dark Heart of the Dreamer are like peanut butter and chocolate?

28 thoughts on “Does anyone else feel like Dungeon Planet and Dark Heart of the Dreamer are like peanut butter and chocolate?”

1. Instead of the focus being the city of Dis, which is intelligent and eating the multiverse, the focus is Mars which is intelligent and wants to conquer the galaxy.

2. Interesting.

   Personally, I like Dis, but there’s lots of stuff in Dungeon Planet that I feel would be right at home in Dis. (Or at least as “at home” as any of Dis’ residents ever get.)

3. Still, hard to NOT put Mars in there somewhere…

4. The reason every Martian (or whatever planet you’re on) emperor or empress acts the same and always has the same agenda (“take over the galaxy”) is because they’re how the planetary intelligence manifests. The mind of Mars takes over the emperor so it can interact with other beings. Then, when the body wears out or the emperor’s mind starts to resit, Mars takes over a new body and assassinates the old one.

   Interestingly, that’s also why the prince or princess will always resist their parent and fall in love with the heroes: they are influenced by the small part of Mars’ “mind” that knows what it’s doing is wrong.

   The main consciousness of Mars wants to conquer. But fighting back is the small part of its mind that just wants to love and be loved.

5. Dude… That’s awesome!

6. Thanks. 🙂

7. Yeah man, Dis could be a planet instead of a plane.  I’ve been listening to a lot of Misfits lately (obviously) and there’s so much awesome science-fantasy-horror there for mining.

8. I think I’d keep Dis a city, but it’s clearly a city that spans at least one planet. Possibly more.

   I like the idea that there are many planets that all are Dis.

9. Now that I think of it, multiple planets is a must. We can’t have the “original” Dis be obvious.

10. Multiple planets is better because then you can have Dis be in competition with a rival city-life-form. Or trying to find one to mate with.

11. Anyone interested in the idea of planet-as-person or plane-as-organism should check out Exalted: The Alchemicals and the book about Autocthonia.  There is some very cool shit there, especially when Autocthonia starts trying to enter and absorb the prime material plane of the setting.

12. Hmmm… The guys I’m going to game with tonight have a bunch of Exalted books. I’ll have to take a look and see if they’ve got a copy of the Autocthonia book.

13. Anyone else feeling a Samurai Jack kind of esthetic?

14. I dunno. I’ve never really seen Samurai Jack.

    Personally, I’m feeling a New Crobuzon vibe myself.

15. You really should. It’s on Netflix. The beginning of the second episode should give you a solid idea of what I’m talking about.

    In essence, a demon as conquered the world and sent the only person who can stop him a few thousand years in the future. The series mostly take place in that future where the demon as built a galaxy-spanning empire around himself. That same demon also stars in most ads.

    Everything is black and red. The buildings are gigantic masses of twisted metal. The inhabitants are universally strange and non-human.

    The sanest thing in the second episode is a couple of dogs. Brittish archeologist talking dogs.

16. Dis is already beginning to spread across the surface of the moon. There’s no reason to think it doesn’t at least have a minor foothold on Mars.

17. It’s on AMERICAN Netflix. Unfortunately, as a Canadian, Netflix is like a deserted wasteland for me.

18. Hmmm… You know, I never considered bringing Dis to Earth, but if it’s on Mars and the Moon, it’s clearly on its way.

19. Oh, I got a DNS (also in Canada). Lemme check around on youtube if I can’t find you a clip…. samurai jack season 1 episode 2 part 1

20. Hmm… I’ve heard that you can get american content by just switching your DNS. I should probably give that a try sometime.

21. What’s Dungeon Planet?

22. Ok someone answered I think

23. Man, if you sold me a game with the pitch “Planarch’s Codex meets Samurai Jack” I would be sold so hard I wouldn’t stop to think about the dramatic thematic contrasts between the two that would need reconciling.

24. Ben Wray You should write that. I want to play it.

25. I think you could probably run it with Planarch’s Codex straight, just whenever the freebooters’ adventures take them to a distance plane, hit the contrast with Dis, and hit it hard. Show them the lonely beauty of the wilderness. Make good and evil simple and obvious things. Throw overgrown ruins and mysterious wonders everywhere.

    And then, when they find a place and are like “Why don’t we live here?”, Dis eats it. As it does.

26. Next time my regular crew hits Dis, one of the jobs is going to be hijacking a rocket or something similarly Dungeon Planet-ish. 

27. “We need you to travel to a place called the Barrier Peaks on a distant plane, and steal something.”

28. In our Dis, each parish keeps its own stars and weather…

    lightbulb

    …which makes our Dis an insanely valuable place to put a spaceport…

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