Silicon Shadows
When a character enters the datasphere, whether their body is converted or they leave it behind, an Avatar is created for them. This digital persona reflects who they are in the real world, as part of any insertion process is to convert the things they encounter into a sensory experience their minds and bodies can process, understand, and react to. The first time a character enters a datasphere zone there is a basic imprinting done on their personality. The character's type is converted to its equivalent from the Strange (glaive to vector, nano to paradox, jack to spinner). Their stats, tier, experience, and advancement choices remain unchanged, however. Further advancement is simply layered on to this template (and converts back to the real world). Equipment from the physical world, including cyphers and artifacts, only translate into the datasphere if they were brought through a matter conversion portal or other similar accommodations were made.
Regardless of their means of entry to the datasphere, as each character arrives they step from that a shimmering gate that appears only to that individual. These gates remain in the same location and active so long as the path back remains open. An individual who looks through these gates sees the view from the other side. Often this means they see out their own physical eyes. Stepping through these gates places the individual back in their body, activates the device that will reconstitute a body that experienced mass/energy conversion, or uses whatever other method is appropriate to reverse their entry to the datasphere.
There are various risks simply posed by the act of this initial translation. The primary risk is the closure of an individuals' access gate prematurely. For those who are still connected to their physical body, and have no protection against this eventuality, this is a massive trauma; the result is that all three pools immediately drop to 0. Those who entered the datasphere via mass/energy conversion simply find themselves trapped as mass/energy gates can only reconstitute an amount of mass equal to those that entered through it during its current activation. Another risk is rare beings and methods that are capable of revealing such portals and either closing them or using them, usurping a physical body or being converted into matter.
Virtually every time a character arrives in the datasphere they will arrive in a zone which has been patterned in some way. This formatting may have been intentionally imposed by their creators or might be an emergent feature from data in the system leaking. Such context may even be an illusion resulting from the algorithms used to translate interactions between the human mind and datasphere. Like so much in the Ninth World, the reason a particular virtual space exists in the form it does is generally lost to time. Regardless, their descriptor, focus, and equipment change to be appropriate for the zone they arrive in. Those few artifacts which arrive from the real world should be specially marked because they translate through the datasphere and back into the world more freely than many artifacts from individual virtual worlds.
I find more than a little irony and amusement that, having discussed converting the Strange's character options to Numenera, I've now built a rule set that lets a Numenera character/campaign translate itself into being part of the Strange ruleset. I still feel that it's the most elegant method, though.
When a character enters the datasphere, whether their body is converted or they leave it behind, an Avatar is created for them. This digital persona reflects who they are in the real world, as part of any insertion process is to convert the things they encounter into a sensory experience their minds and bodies can process, understand, and react to. The first time a character enters a datasphere zone there is a basic imprinting done on their personality. The character's type is converted to its equivalent from the Strange (glaive to vector, nano to paradox, jack to spinner). Their stats, tier, experience, and advancement choices remain unchanged, however. Further advancement is simply layered on to this template (and converts back to the real world). Equipment from the physical world, including cyphers and artifacts, only translate into the datasphere if they were brought through a matter conversion portal or other similar accommodations were made.
Regardless of their means of entry to the datasphere, as each character arrives they step from that a shimmering gate that appears only to that individual. These gates remain in the same location and active so long as the path back remains open. An individual who looks through these gates sees the view from the other side. Often this means they see out their own physical eyes. Stepping through these gates places the individual back in their body, activates the device that will reconstitute a body that experienced mass/energy conversion, or uses whatever other method is appropriate to reverse their entry to the datasphere.
There are various risks simply posed by the act of this initial translation. The primary risk is the closure of an individuals' access gate prematurely. For those who are still connected to their physical body, and have no protection against this eventuality, this is a massive trauma; the result is that all three pools immediately drop to 0. Those who entered the datasphere via mass/energy conversion simply find themselves trapped as mass/energy gates can only reconstitute an amount of mass equal to those that entered through it during its current activation. Another risk is rare beings and methods that are capable of revealing such portals and either closing them or using them, usurping a physical body or being converted into matter.
Virtually every time a character arrives in the datasphere they will arrive in a zone which has been patterned in some way. This formatting may have been intentionally imposed by their creators or might be an emergent feature from data in the system leaking. Such context may even be an illusion resulting from the algorithms used to translate interactions between the human mind and datasphere. Like so much in the Ninth World, the reason a particular virtual space exists in the form it does is generally lost to time. Regardless, their descriptor, focus, and equipment change to be appropriate for the zone they arrive in. Those few artifacts which arrive from the real world should be specially marked because they translate through the datasphere and back into the world more freely than many artifacts from individual virtual worlds.
~~*~~
I find more than a little irony and amusement that, having discussed converting the Strange's character options to Numenera, I've now built a rule set that lets a Numenera character/campaign translate itself into being part of the Strange ruleset. I still feel that it's the most elegant method, though.
Obviously most of what I'm going to do for the next stretch is a re-skin of the Strange rules. In fact, the When Worlds Collide supplement for translation explicitly suggests using the Strange as an uploadable dimension in a specific artifact. I've just chosen to generalize, using the variability of the Strange to map against the myriad weirdness of the datasphere. Regardless, using this will require the Strange core book, at a minimum. The rules here will mostly be modifications to highlight the main limitation that a trip through the datasphere experiences versus a default Strange game; returning to a prime world is not the same as moving to a different datasphere zone (recursion).
For most intents and purposes, adventuring through the datasphere is identical to a game of the Strange. For example, if the characters do find their way from one zone to another their interface goes through a process of recontextualization; their descriptor, their focus, and their equipment change to be appropriate for the new zone. It is worth remembering that, as a character can only translate to locations they have previously visited, new visitors to the datasphere are going to be heavily reliant on gates and other methods of finding their way into locations other than the zone they arrive in.
Within the datasphere recursions are datasphere zones, terms which may be used interchangeably, and the varying physical laws of these different zones reflect the differing nature and interpretations of the systems visited.
Beyond this, much of the changes to the Strange are social, with the implications that carries. There's generally not the same sort of worldwide social structures supporting datasphere exploration as there is in the strange. A particular aldeia which has a set of access pods may have a local tradition similar to the Quiet Cabal or the Estate. Perhaps a faction of Aeon Priests serve a similar function, using their ability to translate to link together a few aldeias and outposts. However, the splintered nature of the Ninth World limits the size and cohesion of such groups. Though, traveling from one recursion to another inside the datasphere is easier than accessing it from the outside.
Unlike running a normal game of the Strange, the GM may well want to keep the revelations about how the datasphere works and reel them out as with a group of naive characters who have just Quickened. If the GM wants to provide the characters an opportunity to have a little more knowledge skill with Datasphere Navigation would be a natural place to get that from. A trained person is probably familiar with certain aspects of the datasphere already, including at least an awareness of different datasphere zones, what the spark is and means (Strange p22), and their own peculiar abilities of translation. A character specialized in Datasphere Navigation understands the nature and relationship of Recursions, including the "unformatted" space that exists beyond the edges of these virtual worlds itself called the Strange (Strange p212), the difference between quickened and non-quickened inhabitants (Strange p22), and may have even had a previous visit to a recursion such as Ardeyn or Ruk through use by groups in the Ninth World that do traffic in the datasphere regularly.
Context; the Strange p 136
Within the datasphere recursions are datasphere zones, terms which may be used interchangeably, and the varying physical laws of these different zones reflect the differing nature and interpretations of the systems visited.
Beyond this, much of the changes to the Strange are social, with the implications that carries. There's generally not the same sort of worldwide social structures supporting datasphere exploration as there is in the strange. A particular aldeia which has a set of access pods may have a local tradition similar to the Quiet Cabal or the Estate. Perhaps a faction of Aeon Priests serve a similar function, using their ability to translate to link together a few aldeias and outposts. However, the splintered nature of the Ninth World limits the size and cohesion of such groups. Though, traveling from one recursion to another inside the datasphere is easier than accessing it from the outside.
Unlike running a normal game of the Strange, the GM may well want to keep the revelations about how the datasphere works and reel them out as with a group of naive characters who have just Quickened. If the GM wants to provide the characters an opportunity to have a little more knowledge skill with Datasphere Navigation would be a natural place to get that from. A trained person is probably familiar with certain aspects of the datasphere already, including at least an awareness of different datasphere zones, what the spark is and means (Strange p22), and their own peculiar abilities of translation. A character specialized in Datasphere Navigation understands the nature and relationship of Recursions, including the "unformatted" space that exists beyond the edges of these virtual worlds itself called the Strange (Strange p212), the difference between quickened and non-quickened inhabitants (Strange p22), and may have even had a previous visit to a recursion such as Ardeyn or Ruk through use by groups in the Ninth World that do traffic in the datasphere regularly.
Context; the Strange p 136
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