Banestormed Academics

[Befuddled]

I like stories about modern people whisked to less advanced times and impressing the locals with guns, germ theory and rock-and-roll. A setting idea that's been gestating in the back of my mind is taking a fictitious midwestern university and dropping them someplace on Yrth. Right now, this is all just early speculation on things that could make for an interesting game.

What I'm toying around with is having them trying to create a viable colony with a thousand students, a few hundred professors and some buildings with libraries and labs. They'd have to re-establish modern infrastructure (electricity, water, farming, etc.), deal with students suddenly gaining magic powers, and handle locals that are jealous and afraid of the newcomers.

If its relevant, I'd probably go with G: Magic for intellectual types (since that's what Banestorm uses) and toss in Powers to let the physical types do some weaker wuxia and anime type stunts.

So, any suggestions for a good place on Yrth to drop them? What kinds of difficulties would they face setting up a colony? What academic departments would be useful to have around? What sorts of useful things could be built with equipment found in a university's parking decks and storage sheds?

[combatmedic]

You'd better make it an agricultural and mechanical school if you want them to actually have a chance in hades of making a viable colony with bootstrapped tech. Even then, they will have to rely heavily on the locals for years.

This doesn't mean there can't be other departments, mind you.


I'd suggest dropping it into Al Haz. Tha Hazis aren't as keen on magic, so they might be more willing to look at higher tech solutions to problems.

[Edman]

Biologists, of course, would be vital, as would chemists. Medicine and advanced explosives would be a ridiculously powerful tool. Political science/psychologists people of the more unscrupolous kind could certainly help too, to turn fear into awe, and awe into adoration.

[Jovus]

You'll also need to modify the feel of the core setting to make sure they survive. From my reading, as written, if a college suddenly got dropped somewhere, people would get visits from the Ministry of Magic pretty quickly, and it might even scale up into a full-blown Megalan crusade.

Now, if that's what you want, drop it into Al-Haz and play with the political hijinks, because while the Al-Hazi may not want modern influences any more than Megalos, they aren't going to trust the Megalans to come fix the problem for them. However, this turns it from an Eric Flint 1632 feel to a Machiavellian hot war. (And don't forget the culture shock on both side. Any modern Western university dropped into Al-Haz is going to end up with a lot of female students in a lot of trouble.)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Befuddled

I like stories about modern people whisked to less advanced times and impressing the locals with guns, germ theory and rock-and-roll. A setting idea that's been gestating in the back of my mind is taking a fictitious midwestern university and dropping them someplace on Yrth. Right now, this is all just early speculation on things that could make for an interesting game.

What I'm toying around with is having them trying to create a viable colony with a thousand students, a few hundred professors and some buildings with libraries and labs. They'd have to re-establish modern infrastructure (electricity, water, farming, etc.), deal with students suddenly gaining magic powers, and handle locals that are jealous and afraid of the newcomers.

If its relevant, I'd probably go with G: Magic for intellectual types (since that's what Banestorm uses) and toss in Powers to let the physical types do some weaker wuxia and anime type stunts.

So, any suggestions for a good place on Yrth to drop them? What kinds of difficulties would they face setting up a colony? What academic departments would be useful to have around? What sorts of useful things could be built with equipment found in a university's parking decks and storage sheds?

I would recommend reading Stirling's Nantucket trilogy, and perhaps its one-castaway precursors, Lest Darkness Fall and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Edit: If you haven't already, of course.

Bill Stoddard

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Jovus

You'll also need to modify the feel of the core setting to make sure they survive. From my reading, as written, if a college suddenly got dropped somewhere, people would get visits from the Ministry of Magic pretty quickly, and it might even scale up into a full-blown Megalan crusade.

It's the Ministry of Serendipity and it's strongly hinted that it has secret equivalents in other Yrthian nationalities.

Look striongly at how much you're re-writing the setting. You're trying to do something that the world has a big hairy Deus Ex Machina to prevent. Yrth was built for transpanted SCA types to revel in as is rather than Conneticut Yankees to uplift.

Do what you like of course but do look at the encessary changes and their related folow-ons.

[hal]

If you want, pick up a copy of the book 1632 by Eric Flint. In it, the small town of the story finds itself suddenly whisked away from Virginia (If I recall correctly) into Europe itself in another time-line. From there, the entire community finds itself in a night mare and trying to survive the suddenly barbaric world they find themselves thrust in. The town has its own farmers, its own university, its own gas tanks under ground, tractors, etc. In addition, it has its own food supply as well as the crops came with the people.

So, if you're looking to go that route, you could probably have some fun as well.

As for where would be a good place to set the town? I'd suggest someplace that is not near ANY of the other nations, and have the people find themselves in a twilight zone like environment as they seek to discover just what exactly has happened to them. If you've not already read the book, I suggest you read the book to see just what does happen and see how much you want to model it in your Banestorm game world. Once they spot an orc, an elf, or something else entirely, the player characters or NPCs in your game world village that is transported, will realize they're no longer in Kansas (so to speak) and realize just how much life has changed for the people.

[Hugin]

Maybe set them in the middle of the Orclands? Or possibly it was a time traveling banestorm that snatches them from our present day timeline/universe and deposites them in Yrth 1100?

I've been toying with running a Banestorm game after reading GURPS Orcslayer. However, I don't yet really know how to transition from the timeline of Orcslayer(1985) to Banestorm (2005) let alone 2012!. I then came across the above article Yrth 1100, and I am now considering running a game like that.

That or maybe a game in the setting of Dies the Fire by S.M. Sterling, either in another part of the country during the change, or possibly 100 years in the future....

Decisions, decisions.

[Apache]

First off, instead of Flint's 1632 I suggest you pick up a copy of Piper's Lord Kalvan Of Otherwhen. John Carr, who had the rights now, IIRC, has written several sequals, but the original is still one of the best SF/alt universe stories ever written.

As for 'where to drop'; depending on how hard-core you make the Anti-tech Mage Conspiracy, you could drop the facility in several places. However, they should all have the same general attributes.

Number one.....they are in a remote location. If they are anywhere near a human nation, they are going to get a visit from the local nobility. Hilarity will then ensue.

Good places are the Orclands, some places in the Southern Desert, and possibly the center of the Blackwoods. Any of the small islands near Araterre is good too....Araterre is probably the only human territory that has anything resembling a 'modern' mindset, and they have a higher-than-normal tech base. While Araterre has, no doubt, large numbers of MoS agents there (to monitor the local inventors...) there is also, probably, a large Engineer underground as well. Another interesting place to drop them would be right-smack inside a Dwarf city-cavern........

Number two. Wherever you drop them, they are going to have to farm/hunt/gather to survive, unless they get 'adopted' by an Engineer enclave or a non-human group (Dwarves seem the most likely). So being dropped in the desert with nothing within 1000 miles of them is most likely a death sentence.

Number three. If they are going to make stuff, they are going to need access to the appropriate resources. 'nuff said.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Apache

First off, instead of Flint's 1632 I suggest you pick up a copy of Piper's Lord Kalvan Of Otherwhen. John Carr, who had the rights now, IIRC, has written several sequals, but the original is still one of the best SF/alt universe stories ever written.

Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen is a good story - as I still have a copy of paperback from those days. FGU (Fantasy Games Unlimited) still sells their set of rules titled DOWN STYPHON (see HERE) for $4.00 plus S&H. If nothing else, it would be useful in conjunction with GURPS MASS COMBAT ;)

Problem with Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, is that the story revolves around a world where magic doesn't work. In addition, it revolves around a single person who has been taken from the modern world and thrust into an alien timeline - unlike that of a community of people being displaced and moved to an alien timeline (or world universe).

Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen is a good yarn however, and I'd urge anyone with an interest in Sci-Fi to read this.