Torg readthrough: The Living Land

Having made our start on the hyper-90s roleplaying game of Torg here, let us embark on the first of its many supplements! It is the worldbook for the first of the six (later eight) cosms that are competing with boring ol’ Earth for the right to define reality: the Living Land, world of dinosaurs, giant bugs, and AUTHENTIC!!!! experience.

For those who don’t remember, the premise of Torg is that the Earth has been invaded by six hostile parallel realities that transform parts of the world into a different genre, all in the service of their tyrannical High Lord and his quest for the possibility energy that Earth is rich in. The Living Land is the “lost world” cosm, based on the sort of Tarzan-style pulp novels of mysterious hidden valleys and wildernesses full of primordial beasts. It is populated by three sentient races: edeinos (lizard men), stalengers (flying jellyfish) and benthes (emotion-manipulation slug things). Humans never evolved, so all humans in the Living Land realm are Core Earth natives who have either switched over or are trying very hard not to. The Living Land is also animated by the power of the nature deity Lanala, whose believers can perform miracles.

We start with a fiction piece about a Storm Knight who drives into the now-overgrown town he used to live in, looking for his daughter. He ends up fighting some edeinos and gets taken captive, and it turns out that his daughter has joined the tribe and now wants him to do the same. He refuses and gets painfully killed. It’s all kind of chilling and really brings home the fact that just because you’re a Storm Knight it doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed a happy ending.

There’s a fairly detailed description of the cosm of Takta Ker (which just means “the Living Land,” but they’ll still use that name for the cosm and “the Living Land” for its realm on Earth), which is basically one big warm, misty jungle. It used to be home to both the edeinos and a sentient insect species that were developing a civilisation, but the edeinos found civilisation to be an abomination unto Lanala and so wiped them out.

Later, an edeinos named Baruk Kaah found a stone seed that had fallen from the sky, and when he planted it it grew to a great big petrified forest called Rec Pakken. Rec Pakken is a Darkness Device, one of the infernal contraptions that roam the cosmverse and bond with people to turn them into High Lords. So Baruk Kaah became the High Lord of Takta Ker and conquered the whole thing, declared himself Saar of the Edeinos, then went on to conquer a few more cosms for good measure, including those of the stalengers and benthes. Everyone was either converted to Keta Kalles, the worship of Lanala, or wiped out. Baruk Kaah plans to become Torg, a sort of super-High Lord, and become the mate and equal of Lanala. This is, of course, the blackest heresy by the teachings of Keta Kalles, so he has hidden his ambitions from all his followers.

The next chapter is on Keta Kalles itself. It teachers that Lanala created the universe to experience it, but the effort wore her out so much that she became insansate. So with her last strength, she created living beings to experience it for her. Thus, the purpose of life is to experience as intensely as possible so that Lanala can share your sensations. Jakatts (followers of Keta Kalles, of whatever species) disdain all things crafted or manufactured, because crafted things are smooth and utilitarian, and that means that they have been robbed of all personality. On the other hand, a Jakatt will sit and stare at a tree moving in the wind for hours, relishing its organic unevenness.

Death exists because Lanala saw that some creatures did not want to truly live, and therefore it was better for them to die. Therefore, Jakatts will look at anyone complaining or cowering and decide that they find life to be a burden, and so should be killed. It’s horrifying, but it makes a kind of twisted sense.

There are two kinds of priests of Keta Kalles – optants, the priests of Life, and gotaks, the priests of Death. Optants worship Lanala in the straightforward way, for good or ill. Gotaks, on the other hand, are a perversion of the religion by Baruk Kaah. Gotaks exist to deal with all the things that can’t be spun as life-affirming, but which need to be done in order to carry out Baruk Kaah’s eternal inter-cosmic war. For instance, they can handle “dead things” like mechanical weapons, and perform dark rites to draw on the power of Rec Pakken (which, as a petrified but still-growing forest, is itself a perversion of what Keta Kalles is meant to stand for).

Like all High Lords, Baruk Kaah expands his realm by planting “stelae,” objects created by his Darkness Device that mark the boundaries of the realm. Rec Pakken’s stelae take the form of dried bones wrapped in vines that get buried in the ground.

Jakatts can perform miracles of Lanala through a combination of intense experience and a sort of invocation of Lanala promising her more of the same if only she grants some power. Lanala is neither male or female, but is always the opposite of the person speaking of her. This is because she is first and foremost a lover, and to worship her is to court her.

There are actually three Living Land realms on Earth, one in Canada (the Northern Land), one on the American west coast (the Western Living Land) and one of the American east coast (the Eastern Living Land). Baruk Kaah has expanded quickly, flipping more and more areas to the Living Land’s axioms, and then easily defeating modern armies whose weapons and vehicles won’t work under those axioms. He’s only slowing down after three months because he’s run out of stockpiled stealea, so now he can just take new areas as quickly as he can manufacture new ones. He’s also had a setback in failing to take Silicon Valley, since it’s a Core Earth hardpoint, a place that can maintain its own axioms even when in the middle of the realm of a different cosm. Prying the high-tech toys out of the hands of nerds takes more than just godlike cosmic power, I guess.

Baruk Kaah keeps sending covert groups of gotaks sneaking into Core Earth territory to plant more stelae (and a sort of magic land mines called “pain sacks,” to discourage people from digging for stealae). He distracts the US military by launching frontal assaults, making use of expendable gospog shock troops. The real action is in the covert ops to plant stealae, because Baruk Kaah can’t win against modern weapons where Core Earth axioms hold sway, and humans can’t win against dinosaur stampedes where Living Land axioms rule. Which does rather conveniently mean that the war will be determined by small-group actions of the sort that the player characters can take part in.

Gospogs are plant-zombie soldiers grown from fields of corpses. Baruk Kaah has his armed with looted modern weapons and driven at the enemy by gotaks. So yes, Swamp Things with machine guns are a thing in this game. I just want to make that clear. Anyway, gospogs are another one of those things that are abominations unto Lanala but that gotaks have special dispensation to interact with because Baruk Kaah says so. Some Jakatts have gotten thoroughly fed up with Baruk Kaah’s self-serving exceptions to the rules and have turned rebel.

Baruk Kaah and Doctor Mobius of the Nile Empire are surprisingly chummy, mostly because both of them really hate Cyperpope Jean Malraux of the Cyberpapacy and resent the way he keeps offering to protect Core Earth people from the two of them (not that anyone ever seems to take him up on it, mind you). Baruk Kaah also used to get along with Angrad Uthorion of Aysle, but since Uthorion lost his Darkness Device and civil war erupted in Aysle, Baruk Kaah is inclined to ignore him.

Of the three Living Land realms, the Eastern Land is fully under Baruk Kaah’s control and has the most forward momentum. The Western Land is home to those Jakatt rebels and the site of Baruk Kaah’s humiliating defeat at Silicon Valley, so things there are a lot more messy and complicated all around. It’s also where the most Core Earth humans decided to throw off their clothes and run naked into the woods to become Jakatts, because, y’know, California. The Northern Land isn’t actually intended to expand, but just serves as partly a diversion keeping Canada from coming to the US’ aid, and partly a place for the gotaks to experiment with dark shamanism that normal, Lanala-fearing Jakatts would be offended by.

New York is part of the Eastern Land and is ruled mainly by gangs, including one called the Links who are former computer geeks who act like they’re in a video game. There is a holdout zone ruled over by the mayor where things are kept as civilised as possible, though. Also, a lot of museums had Eternity Shards (cultural artifacts that are loaded with possibility energy, and can thus grant various powers to Storm Knights) that have since been looted and are now in the possession of various gangs. Oh, and the Statue of Liberty is rubble, because what’s an alien invasion without some destroyed landmarks?

Philadelphia is a Core Earth hardpoint and are under constant attack by Jakatts. Getting supplies in to feed the refugee population is a constant problem. The Living Land also contains “resistance communities” who are characterised as noble, square-jawed pioneer types who refuse to be driven off their land by “survivalists” who are characterised as knuckle-dragging macho-men who like guns to an unhealthy extent. See what I mean about the whole game having somewhat of a black and white morality?

The Northern Land is home to two major dark evil rituals. One of them creates a sort of giant being of water that is controlled by a gotak. Those water beings are dead things infused with artificial life, thus abominations unto Lanala. Another infuses a Jakatt with an inner fire that makes them powerful, but which eventually kills them – effectively, it requires a Jakatt to commit slow suicide, which is also an abomination unto Lanala. Baruk Kaah has spread some convenient lies and rationalisations to make it seem like he’s still toeing the line, but a lot of Jakatts would be very upset if they ever learned the full story of what is happening in the Northern Land.

There is a brief mention of the Land Below, which is a sort of subterranean realm that seems to have been created through interaction between the Living Land and the Nile Empire – think Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

The US is reeling from losing a third of its territory and dealing with hordes of refugees because of it. It has also been secretly taken over by the Delphi Council, who are a bunch of cynical politicians and military officers. They have special forces called Spartans who roam around doing shady things for the supposed greater good. For one thing, they don’t like resistance communities (since every person living in one constantly bleeds possibility energy for Baruk Kaah to soak up) and keep trying to forcibly relocate them, or kill them all when that’s not possible. They also don’t believe that some Jakatts have turned on Baruk Kaah but consider all Jakatts to be the enemy, and consider humans who have become Jakatts to be traitors. You get the idea, they are hardasses who hate all compromise.

Los Angeles has been all but abandoned since the Living Land is getting perilously close, so the movie industry has mostly moved to Florida. Movies about daring explorers venturing into the Living Land to fight edeinos are becoming popular, some of them shot on site by enterprising Storm Knights. There is also a lot of academic interest in exploring the Living Land and cataloguing the dizzying ecological diversity that has sprung up there, so biologists tend to launch expeditions into darkest Pensylvania.

Canada is trying to remain unruffled, and have at least politically weathered the changes better than the US. The Cyberpope is making overtures and promising Quebec his protection, but no one is listening to him very much because he’s a loser and everyone hates him.

Laws of the realm! The Living Land has absolutely no magic, very little social organisation, and even less technology. Things like currency and time keeping are impossible to even think about without creating a contradiction, and machinery simply will not work there for anyone who isn’t a Storm Knight. It’s got a very high spiritual axiom, though, making very powerful miracles possible (though only Lanala’s, since she’s the one true god of the Living Land). Lanalan miracles revolve mainly around granting strength, speed and heightened senses, as well as dealing with animals and surviving in the wilds.

The Living Land is also covered in a mist that gradually decomposes all dead things (canned goods stay fresh while sealed, but you need to eat the contents very fast once you open them), and compasses simply fail to work in there, even for Storm Knights. Both are adjustments Baruk Kaah has made to make the place as inhospitable as possible for invaders. A Jakatt can use a miracle to see through the mist without problem.

We get a section on creatures, of which there is obviously a considerable number. Most Living Land creature are either great big lizards, great big insects, or great big amoebas. There are spiders so large that when they stand still their bodies are shrouded by the mists above you and their legs can be mistaken for tree trunks. You may scream now.

There is a section of adventure design, starting with the oft-repeated claim that the Possibility Wars can’t be won through military means or through the hard-men-making-hard-choices shenanigans of the Delphi Council but only by true heroes doing good and heroic things. The stated reason for that is that you need to spread tales of heroism to re-energise the people in a realm before you can remove the stealae without killing them, but, er… I kind of feel like you could in fact win the war by yanking stelae left and right and writing the deaths off as “unavoidable collateral damage”? I mean, that’s very bleak and clearly not the tone the game designers wanted to go for, and fair enough, but I would have liked something a bit more solid. Like, maybe you cannot yank stelae if too many people within its zone have given up hope, because it feeds on their desperation? Something like that might work.

There are a bunch of adventure ideas, like escorting convoys through the Living Land, searching for Eternity Shards (which are sometimes living creatures in the Living Land), sabotaging a gotek site of human sacrifice that strengths Rec Pakken, and exposing a conspiracy by the Delphi Council to exterminate an edeinos tribe who’s rebelling against Baruk Kaah and are therefore potential allies. All good stuff.

Finally, there are a bunch of character templates, including (as I mentioned in the post about the main game) both human converts to Keta Kalles, edeinos and stalenger converts to Core Earths’ axioms, edeinos and stalenger Jakatts who oppose Baruk Kaah for his religious hypocrisy, and Core Earth humans who hold to their own axioms in the face of the Living Land. Which is still pretty cool.

All in all, I really liked this book. The Living Land was, I understand, not very popular with the fanbase, who preferred to go off to the Nile Empire and have pulp adventures. I guess I can see why, but it’s a shame. This was the first book released for the line and the one that dealt most closely with the writers’ own home country, and you can see that a lot of love and care went into really expanding on every detail of it and stuffing it shock full of plot hooks, characters, and political and social complexities. It honestly feels like you could make a whole campaign without ever leaving this part of the setting, running any number of stories verging between post-apocalyptic survival and mystical-wilderness exploration, with some gritty political intrigue at the home front for salt.

Oh well. History has spoken, and the lost world of Torg, appropriately enough, got left behind.