Alien Dice Master Set
The Alien Dice Master series was developed by the ADC when several of their wealthy sponsors grew bored with the regular Alien Dice Game and wanted something with more challenge. In response, they developed a game that uses dice that bonds to sentient beings.
The new version is only a few years old and of course.. there are purists (like Damian) who hate the new version and won't participate.
All of the participants in the main game were signed over to guardians *The ADC.* Who then signed for them contracts with the ADC, which essentially signs away all their rights until they win their game. They are forbidden from speaking out against it and without the ones actually participating being able to speak,... and the general perception that they choose to play this way,.. and a lot of under the table money into the right hands,.... only someone who wins and completes the initial contract can actually speak out and tell everything they know and only one of them can put an end to it because galactic law requires that there be a witness as in a being who experiences what went on. Since they all die... well, you see where the problem is. Others can and do speak out against it, but they have limited power until someone actually wins... and the ADC will do anything they possibly can to prevent that from happening.. including sabotage, but they still have to keep it challenging to the other players.
There is an underground. They know about Lexx. You'll find that most of the masters are hinging their own freedom ON Lexx.
The most promising students are bonded with a special master dice that affects sentients to be sent into the game. (Lexx's bonded dice was experimental, he got a prototype,... and is the only one who will and ever will have it. They set him loose on the field thinking that he'd probably be out within a few weeks and then they could study the effects of the tweaked technology. *There were actually a LOT more who had the prototypes, he was in the first 'batch' that got it, but through several batches, he's the only one who actually survived the initial bonding. They expected him, based on the others dying/breaking down, to not last very long, then they could research him and use that information to figure out how to improve upon the experimental dice. Unfortunately, he's a bit out of hand since it was overly successful. His levels are comparatively stronger than anyone else's at his same level. The higher he gets the more 'unstable' he gets mentally and emotionally. This particular dice, completely rewrote his DNA in areas and has screwed up a lot. Tampering with it could cause more harm than good. It's like a running program, if you do something to interefere with how it runs, it could crash and take Lexx with it.)
Master Dice instead of being bound to one element, have each of their levels represent an element or type. Thus, they are more powerful than all of the 'old style' dice.
Alien Dice players are registered and each one is given a total set of 50 dice, although they are not all used from the start. These dice are recylable up to three times, thereby, you can start over and build them up more three times. The third wave is usually the strongest and the best method is to get all of them up to their highest levels before recasting them on a new world.
For the first set of dice, they get to start with three basics, (Lexx chose Zeta, Stealth, and Fly). The second time it's two (Stealth and Zeta), while the third time it's one (Zeta).
They're competing against other players. There are several hundred planets set up to play the game on, and that it's allowed on, so they're spread out very well, although there's six or seven to most planets at any given time and a few to the fringe worlds. Earth is a fringe world.
The winner, is the one who can actually complete the game at all. Sometimes, dice are lost if you take too long, sometimes, others, like challengers, interefere.
It would be breaking the rules to capture another player's dice to prevent completion of a set. They would be heavily fined and disqualified from ever playing the game again. Those kinds of things are VERY serious.
There are no battles in space, they're usually waged on planets or space staions since one hit and your ship is most likely going to be totalled. Think about it.. if you get hit, you're dead even if you survive most likely. The only exception is if they run from a challenge, then they are allowed to attack the ship.
Anyone can join the game as long as they have a dice to fight with. There are regular arena battles as well.
A challenge is a one on one battle, if the challenger loses they must then leave and cannot challenge again for that set, although the challenged can challenge back.
Normal people can CHOOSE to be bonded to a dice and take part in the battles themselves.
The regular dice are the property of the Master Dice, if the owner is captured or killed, the regular dice will be wiped and recycled, or destroyed, unless someone claims responsibility for them. The ADC has special forces trained for hunting down and retrieving unclaimed dice.
Once they complete a set they're knocked back 10 levels and then randomly reset (in Lexx's case, this ended up with him starting the third set 15 levels lower - having been level 20, his maximum starting level would have been 10).
When a sentient dice wins, they retain all their dice abilities (and nanites).
If a master dice is disqualified for breaking the rules, they have to start all over again from the very first set.
Being traded is fairly common. Sicali Riane was among the first to be put into the game as part of the master set and as some people quit the game, they might pass on their old dice to someone else. IT is forbidden to purposely kill your master dice. You can sell them, trade them do whatever you want with them. There are no other rules. Someone with a lot of money can buy their winning masters. Being a player or not doesn't matter. Sometimes the dice can be 'shown' like one would a prized dog or horse, their records displayed. Sometimes, they become pets and guard animals. The game masters don't really care much about the dice themselves, they'd be destroyed, but the ship they want back.
The only rules in the treatment of dice is that you do not kill them on purpose if they are part of the master set. You do not torture them. There is a group that does deal in cruelty investigations on normal dice, but none for the Master set, because the Master set are supposed to be WORKING for the ADC and have volunteered for the game and signed a contract to do what it states. Yeah, the rules are strange, ... considering after a point it is slavery, but MOST of them will treat their dice really well and since the dice can't complain... and are usually kept happy until they're useless so it doesn't matter to anyone. Most of them are 'offed' at some point when they become useless, but since all anyone sees is that they lived well, nobody cares. They have constant feed on many of them per the contract. And as for the diced up cow... nobody wants to 'eat' the dice since they're filled with nanites and such stuff,.. well,.. sane people don't and wouldn't dream of it, but yes, there IS a sex trade as well for popular dice, but that is another rule. A dice cannot be forced, no matter who owns it, to do what it does not want to other than fight. That's the ONLY thing a dice is contracted to do, but they are often bribed, drugged, etc into submission.
Anyone owning a dice can will them to whomever they want,.. or give them their freedom. They never become free players again, they can only be traded or released since they already lost once. Nobody reclaims them and nobody can erase them. The dice would die if that is done to it, kind of like how if you knock a master dice unconscious,... and they revert to dice form they will be effectively dead and useless.
Buying a dice would be tricky. The only ones you'll most likely find are black market dice, which are that way because they are flawed. They were thrown away. Only desperate people agree to be bonded to these dice. There's no way of telling what the flaws are ahead of time.
