Quote:
Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2
It's a minor difference, but a amusing one ...
For centuries the sword was the very essence of warfare. Then gunpowder weapons took over pride-of-place in mental images of warfare. The Blade Worlds are realities where the sword has undergone a renaissance of popularity.
Blade -1, the first such world discovered, is also a world with that little drip of something extra.
SNIP COOL STUFF
The present year is 2000, the TL is TL 8, and the supra-national organization of the Free Nations Alliance dominates the world and keeps the peace from the Fascist Commonwealth of Britain and the North Chinese Republic. Most governments are remarkably free of corruption, although there are still dictatorships and corrupt nations. many nations (including Russia, Germany, Italy, and others) are still monarchies.
In almost every city there are salons and dojos where swordsmanship is taught, and a smaller number where exotic skills are taught by Old Masters. Sword duels are not uncommon, but rigidly controlled, and sword tournaments are professional sporting events.
And there are a few hundred Swords of Power, some in the hands of national leaders, others in the hands of cults, and many drifting from one champion to another or kept as family treasures. And a very few remaining blacksmiths who can create new Swords of Power, working at hidden forges, figures of legend.
This world is in both Infinity and Centrum's zone of control. Getting special agents trained in the exotic arts is a priority. Attempts to infiltrate government have had mixed results. Attempts to acquire Swords of Power have been conditional failures. (Usually only someone who can wield a Sword can get ahold of one, and those agents are quickly swept up in the drama of the Sword's epic narrative and are lost to the outworld organizations.)
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HMMPH .The spear in the essence of warfare . ;) Seriously though this is a very cool setting since it gives swords a practical raison d'etre at TL8 .
I like it.
I could see a Blade-2 which would be a high historical inertia variant, basically our world with your Swords of Power.
As an aside, History Channel's "Forged in Fire" would be quite interesting sub rosa in those worlds and might well be how new smiths capable of making Swords of Power were found.
Low magic like minor psi would fit in here too if one wanted it.