Editing Genius The Transgression/Chapter Four:Special Rules and Systems (section)

=== Bardos: ===

While there are countless―maybe infinite―bardos in existence, a few are particularly well known and worth exploring. Each bardo is unique, and must be accessed in a unique way; it's not possible for ordinary people simply to walk into a bardo, and they are invisible from outside.

Every bardo contains one or more entrances that permit access, but bardos are not part of normal geography: they are only accessible through these two-way entryways; trying to enter from some other direction will result in passing through regular Earthly terrain. Further, a particular mode of thought is necessary to see and thus enter the bardo. For example, to reach the Martian Empire, a person must descend toward Mars while in geosynchronous orbit over an area just southwest of Olympus Mons, between 50 and 150 miles above the Red Planet, while focused on the dunes that most look like spires of brass and alien metal. Approaching from any other direction, or not focusing on those dunes, will get a person to regular Mars, but the Martian Empire will not appear. Similarly, the Hollow Earth is accessible through special entrances near the North and South Poles and from a few other select points, after which one must follow well-hidden diagrams left by previous explorers; just "digging down" won't get someone there.

In game terms, entrances to a bardo are located "near" it in physical space; a bardo located on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean can only be accessed when at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Entrances range in size from just large enough for a human to slip through to big enough to pass a planet. People and creatures within a bardo can leave through these entrances without difficulty, but one must spend a point of Mania to activate an entrance and get into a bardo. Once opened, a bardo is revealed, even to mere mortals: one can glimpse alien cityscapes, distant prehistorical animals, or strange mechanical walkways, rather than what's on the other side of the entrance in normal space. Once activated, an entrance remains active for a number of turns equal to a genius' Inspiration, and people and objects can pass in and out freely during that time. When the time is up, the entrance once again only shows (and allows access to) normal space, and the bardo is closed.

Many bardos are extraordinary places, but they are all failed dreams, and they're all frayed and tattered around the edges. Even the bardos that are conceived as places of beauty and tranquility quickly decay into pallid memories of that original fancy, as all bardos are ultimately parasitic on memory and thought. They need Mania to survive, and that need means that the most magnificent bardo, conceived in the highest and most noble dreams of humanity, either parasitizes the fully-real world or perishes.

Many bardos contain manes that function like wonders. Police officers in the Gray Plateau of Tsoska carry Apokalypsi-based spying tools, while Space Station Colossus contains plasma guns, holo-screens, and hoverbikes. Within the bardo, these wonders are self-sustaining and do not require anyone to bind Mania into them; they can simply be manufactured. A person within a bardo can spend a point of Willpower instead of any number of Mania points to activate and use native wonder-like manes, and can use them without penalty. Other manes in a Bardo are not full wonders, but instead replicate more mundane technology: the clever and ruthless Ape Empire of the Hollow Earth employs ingenious crossbows that, while not Katastrofi wonders, are nonetheless deadly, while many Martians employ "lesser" radium guns that are about as dangerous as a 19th century revolver. If taken outside a bardo, most inanimate manes simply disappear. Those that survive the transition become orphans.

Many geniuses make use of orphaned manes, using them to supplement their own abilities, and there is a brisk trade in plundered super-science from different bardos.

==== The Crystal Spheres: ====

It's obvious that the Earth can't orbit the Sun, because we would all fall off, but the universe insists on not being obvious, and almost before the Inspired existed in their recognizable modern form, geocentrism gave way to a new model of the universe where the Sun stood immobile, encircled by planets, moons, and various bits of cosmic detritus.

But don't tell that to the Christian and pagan "angels" that push the seven planets around the Earth. They have a difficult enough job, guiding the clockwork of the Crystal Spheres through its regular motions. Here, great planes of shimmering translucent glass stretch on seemingly forever, guided by strange but intelligent manes that take the form of winged beings of light. The worlds themselves aren't more than a few miles across, but they too often team with life, including intelligent manes called Micros (especially Crystal Mars, which is rarely more than a brief journey from the Martian Empire's naval base on Deimos). Dragonfly-riding Selenites and beings of living fire on the surface of the Sun crisscross the Crystal Spheres, but most of this realm is empty, bleak, and starkly beautiful.

The angels, or the "Megas" as less theologically-minded geniuses are prone to calling them, hint obliquely at realms greater than their own, beyond the farthest Crystal Sphere. Geniuses have journeyed in vain, looking to find if anything still remains of Dante's system of the Cosmos, whether there is an icy Hell somewhere near the Hollow Earth, Purgatory's mountain in the Southern oceans, or some kind of Maniacal paradise still offering bliss and salvation beyond the Circles of the World.

==== The Gray Plateau of Tsoska: ====

Utopian bardos are everywhere: little Shangri-Las and workers' paradises and anarchocapitalist Utopias are tucked away in the world's hidden corners, hard to find and, once found, difficult for many people to leave. Some decay as Mania leaves them, some grow corrupt; a scant handful find a way to remain pure. But one thing is clear: Utopias are as numerous as the dreams that birthed them. But all the fascist dystopian shitholes humanity feared during the age of the Communist peril seem to run together and form one place: Tsoska.

Somewhere in the bleak plains of central Asia stretches a dreary empire of fear, dirt, lies, and endless surveillance. Tsoska is where Utopian dreams go to die. It first appeared as the dreams of early 20th century socialists were replaced by the brutal realities of Communist totalitarianism, and ever since the Soviet Union's collapse, it has been one of the more influential bardos, even more powerful, now, than its capitalist counterpart, Voltt City.

Tsoska is an amalgamation of every badly-run empire in human history, magnified tenfold, the result of bitterness and failed visions of brotherhood and harmony. Few buildings are over three stories in Tsoska. The cities are gray and uninspiring; the government facilities squat and brutal. The people, who generally appear to be of mixed European and Asian descent, have lined faces and cold, slow hands built for tedious manual labor. A third, or a tenth, of 1%―it's impossible to tell―are part of Oversight, the counterespionage branch of The Party, which controls all economic, social, and political activity in Tsoska. Fear is constant, and paranoia is institutionalized.

But there are bright spots in Tsoska, and that is why the geniuses come. (Mostly the geniuses come because the place is full of Igors looking for work, but the bright spots, they also help.) In Tsoska, a genius can find hidden musical subcultures that move from one almost-empty state supermarket to the next after hours, gifted scientists who never share their best work with The Party, and occult philosophical periodicals on the afterlife and psychic powers, masquerading as science to avoid State suppression, all perfect for a mad scientist's needs. And Tsoska isn't as dangerous as many other bardos: so long as a genius' paperwork is in order and he can recreate the patina of gray weariness that coats everyone who comes to Tsoska, The Party seems almost eager to show off its "accomplishments" to visiting foreigners, and a genius can learn much just by being quiet and looking as if he expects to be impressed.

==== The Grid: ====

A two-dimensional holographic grid-plane stretching out to infinity, dotted with seas of deleted and undifferentiated liquid data, roads of shimmering information, and glowing rectangular cities inhabited by humanoid programs, the Grid is one of the newest and most fascinating of the bardos, the dim echoes of science fiction's vision of the Internet, before the Internet became just another fact of life. The Grid contains physical "metaphors" for every computer connected to the Internet wirelessly or through a land line; generally, computers connected through a land line reside on the ground, while wireless contacts hover unmoving in the sky, occasionally turning transparent or evaporating as contact is lost. This makes The Grid a wonderland for computer hackers, who can visit target computers physically and rummage their secrets in the same way. Of course, this is much more dangerous than regular hacking, as secure computers manifest snarling defensive programs that can rip an intruder to shreds.

But the Grid isn't all business: here, geniuses mingle with a dizzying variety of net-life and localized programs in an atmosphere of digital chrome and gleaming neon, where the needs of the flesh fade away and different beings can meet mind-to-mind. These server-cities provide havens for data smuggling, rumor-mongering, and simple camaraderie, while outside some of them lurk deadly viral swarms and forgotten treasures from an earlier age of digital imagination.

''Rules for the Grid:

Entering the Grid requires a computer with access to the Internet, a point of Mania, and (unlike with accessing most other bardos) an Intelligence + Computer check. Leaving The Grid can be accomplished by touching an "egress terminal," which are common in any inhabited area. A person can also leave instantly by spending a dot of Willpower. While in the Grid, anyone with a physical body leaves his physical body behind, comatose and clinging to the computer. Disconnecting a person from the computer snaps him back to his body and drains a dot of Willpower.

Duplicates of anything in the character's possession appear with the character in the Grid, including mundane items and wonders that can be carried or worn. However, it's a one-way process: nothing in a character's possession when she leaves the Grid transfers into the real world. A genius can create wonders while in the Grid, though these wonders cannot be taken out of the Grid. 

Damage is handled normally in The Grid, which generally conforms to the normal laws of physics. A person killed in the Grid dies in reality. Once a person leaves the Grid, all damage received in the Grid is converted to Bashing damage, which heals normally.

The Computer Skill gives anyone in the Grid an unusual advantage. A character can substitute her dots in the Computer Skill for any Physical or Social Attribute while in the Grid.''

The Hollow Earth:
The Hollow Earth can be found about ten miles below the Earth's crust, and is best accessed via the North or South Poles. Within the Hollow Earth, gravity attracts objects to the concave surface, while a strange false sun hangs in the Earth's center, providing eternal daylight. Enormous mountains, far larger than anything possible on the surface, rise up (or "inwardly") toward the inner sun, producing vast three-dimensional mazes of twisting, utterly dark rocky passages inhabited by strange albino creatures and enormous vermin.

Those lands of the Hollow Earth drenched in pseudosunlight are drawn from every age of the Earth above. Here, dinosaurs stride side-by-side with the earliest lungfish, while primitive humans live savage lives of violence and passion, never rising far above barbarism. Thick jungles, jagged mountains, and sun-bleached deserts offer an environment far harsher than anything found on the surface. 

Many geniuses have wondered how the Hollow Earth, which is the largest bardo apart from the comparatively barren Crystal Spheres, maintains its existence: the idea was never seriously considered by science, and it does not attract the attention of pseudoscientists and science fiction writers like the Red Planet does. The answer, many Inspired think, is found in the peculiar "errors" found in many flora and fauna of the Hollow Earth: a genius might pass a "brontosaurus" with the wrong head, or meet a group of primitive humans menaced by Piltdown Man. The Hollow Earth, say these geniuses, is a kind of clearinghouse for every archaeological and paleontological misstep ever made by human science.

==== Lemuria: ====

Once upon a time, no one thought that the continents could move. This posed the world's scientists with a serious quandary: how did animals scatter all over the globe in the patterns that are seen today? For example, how did the lemur (the little monkey-like animal) get to Madagascar? The answer seemed clear: land bridges had helped them across, then fallen back beneath the sea. These land bridges could rise up over the ages and disappear again, all the time. The land bridge that got lemurs to Madagascar was called Lemuria. 

By the time evidence appeared to support continental drift and then plate tectonics, Lemuria had moved from a convenient explanation to an ancient wonderland full of psychics and spiritual techno-beings, similar to the stories of Atlantis and Mu, due to the imagination of Theosophists and other 19th century mystics and spiritualists. And when it turned out that there had been no Lemuria, the manes there disagreed...violently. Their time-traveling hijinks are recounted in further detail elsewhere; basically, if they are to be believed, their work created our current timeline.

After the Last Invisible War, Lemuria was reduced to a smoldering wasteland: nothing remains today but a few scorched fingers of land rising out of the waters of the Pacific Ocean, and whatever remains beneath the waves. The intelligent inhabitants, a mix of serpent-people and apparently normal humans, are mostly dead or scattered, though the remains of Lemuria are dangerous even without their xenophobic and devious natives. Strange monsters dwell beneath the surface, emerging at night, while the remnants of ancient Lemurian war-machines and cogitators still possess flickers of life and can awaken at any time to destroy an unwary traveler. Only recently have geniuses (often mixed groups from the Peerage and Lemuria) begun to return to Lemuria to explore it in numbers.

==== The Martian Empire: ====
Sometimes called Cydonia or Barsoom, the Martian Empire is located, naturally, on Mars, but not the frozen, almost airless wasteland that we know. Supported by a sea of ever-shifting Mania, the Martian Empire's air is breathable, if thin, and there walk the strange beings called Martians. Divided into three known castes (the brain-on-a-stalk Overlords, the spindly Technikers, and the brutal but humanoid egg-laying Throgs), the Martians threatened to conquer Earth less than half a century ago, and they still eye our world with cold avarice.

This avarice is tempered, now, with the knowledge that Earth stomped them in the last war: even were it not for Inspired super-science, Earth science has advanced far since Percival Lowell read of Martian canali and decided that the canals channeled water from the icy poles to a dying civilization. Mars is not exactly safe, but the Martians are more interested, now, in what a genius knows and what knowledge she is willing to trade, than in destroying her as a threat to their plans.

And Mars is an extraordinary place, its dusty streets full of haggling merchants and exotic alien spices, its people enlightened masters of sciences humans have never imagined, and its libraries possessed of arcane and super-scientific wisdom. Even if the genius does not wish simply to grow rich on Martian sapphires by filling her rocketship with fresh water (worth more than gold to the dry world), a lifetime can be spent wandering the million-year-old universities and speaking with the incredible beings there.

Mad scientists who reach Mars are encouraged not to wander too far from the city, where the Mania can sustain humanoid life, and are advised to have an escape plan ready at all times in case the warlike factions of the Martian government take over and once again launch an all-out assault on the Blue Planet.

==== Space Station Colossus: ====

The last of the great Space Age dreams, a vision drawn from Clarke, Heinlein, and thousands of other writers during the Golden Age of science fiction, Space Station Colossus is an enormous O'Neill cylinder floating between the Earth and the Moon near the L4 point. It flickered to life in 1984, when science fiction had largely abandoned its starfaring dreams. When it first appeared, Space Station Colossus was a glittering jewel in the heavens, ten miles long and containing fifteen separate counter-rotating sections. Today it is a run-down hole in the sky full of unemployed mane dock workers, bitter Atomists trying to create one Utopia or another, and failing mechanical systems. The air is stale, the lights flicker, and the "futuristic inventions" that litter its interior―vid phones, hover bikes, charming robotic assistants―never work right.

Despite its many faults, and despite its control by Lemurians with rather strange plans, Space Station Colossus is a sight to behold. Not only is it one of the best recruiting-grounds for beholden in the known universe, Colossus is a trading-post where Larvae, manes, and stranger things from the distant corners of reality can be found. The "aboveground" markets are bustling and well-run, and if a genius cannot find what she needs there, the deeper levels, close to the station's outer hull, are hives of criminality where anything can be found for the right price.

==== Autocthon, Vulcan, Planet X, and Nemesis: ====

These elusive worlds did not last long enough in the scientific eye to generate enough Mania to exist fully, but occasionally they flicker into existence. Little is known about them, as every time they appear, they seem subtly or completely different. Autocthon (the alternate Earth on the far side of the Sun), Vulcan (the world closer to the Sun than Mercury), Planet X (a possibly rogue planet beyond the asteroid belt), and Nemesis (a world―sometimes a brown dwarf or black hole―at the edge of the solar system trailed by deadly comets) flicker into existence just long enough, usually, to capture a passing rocketship and seek to drain it of its Mania. Should one of these worlds succeed, it might become fully solid.