Looking for advice on describing the Wood Wide Web in an RPG context
Looking for advice on describing the Wood Wide Web in an RPG context
During a gameplay session last week my character left a message on the Wood Wide Web for some local wildfolk. I was just improvising in the game, but I love the concept and I think it'd be nice to develop the concept a bit and share to make it easier to use in games.
The concept of the Wood Wide Web is currently understood strictly as a mycorrhizal network for coordinating interactions between fungal communities and plants across forests, but within the game I'd like to establish that these existing networks are used as a backbone for sending messages across forests by humans.
I don't want to go too deep, but what should the player experience of using this be like?
In my head, I'm imagining this as an organic version of a wireless ad-hoc mesh network. One project in particular, diaster.radio, is designed to set up a system for Twitter-like microblogging that is geotagged across a decentralized mesh of nodes. I think this is a good framework. Users access the Wood-Web by plugging a small electronic spike into the dirt, and it lets them browse recent posts like you do on Mastodon, but perhaps with low character limits and no multimedia. Does that sound good? What do folks think of this interface?
Also, I'd like a basic overview of how it works. It doesn't need to be highly technical. But just as one might try to hack a network and we all understand what a WiFi router is, I'd like for there to be a basic understanding of how this is managed. I'm thinking that it's primarily based on the naturally occurring mycorrhizal networks, but with a series of low-power router nodes that allow humans to interface with it.
What do folks think? As a player, if you went into a forest and plugged in to this, what would you expect to see? How fast and far do you think messages should go? What kind of maintenance would you imagine sysadmins needing to perform? Thanks!
Trees aren't complex, so the messages shouldn't be complex. It's still a network of sorts, so it could behave much in same way a tcp/ip one would. I come up with a Morse-code for trees. You can tap in a signal anywhere so long as it's connected to a root of a tree. The message will be carried to a branch where it's received. This could be done with literal Morse code devices, or with magic by just tapping and feeling for a response. Instead of electrical impulses, maybe run with the roots/nature vibe and make it a telepathic one. Just grab a branch, and think of the branch your sending too.
Certain trees fuck with messages, or agents might do so to eavesdrop. If enough damage is done, roots may stop making contact and split the network in two. Maintenance would be replanting trees to re-establish the larger root connections, while smaller ones ( like bushes ) may do so in a temporary capacity.
don’t forget about our older communication protocols, not just email, but the likes of FTP and Usenet and Gopher and BBS and packet radio – all forms that were slow and text only, just a matter of finding the right metaphor – a fantasy setting should be familiar with something like magic scrolls, as you make your connection, an invisible pen starts scribbling across the surface …