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Old 11-07-2013, 08:54 PM   #11
samd6
 
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

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Crossroads-1
I also have a world called Crossroads-1, but in my games the Crossroads designation is for worldlines with large, known, portals to other worldines, so part of the Secret is already out.

Red Moon-2: The Soviet lunar program worked, less then a day after Apollo 11 launched. A tense wait followed while the missions went to the moon. The iconic quote of "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" was said, as was "We do not go to the stars as men of America or Russia, but as men of earth."

The invention of the Breaker Drive (so named because it breaks Newton's third law) has led to the cold war continuing as a race for space colonies and satellite states. But spacers always help each other, regardless of what flag is painted on their hull
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Old 11-07-2013, 11:38 PM   #12
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

Asylum ?? (not sure if other worldlines have the asylum appellate)- An advanced Q3 "Quantum Sargasso" in which Thaumaturgical Computers were created in the early 21st century rather than the world having discovered the secret. Machines rose up and a war was fought, but humanity has largely produced training facilities disguised as insane asylums that they place the individuals they hope will save humanity. They used holographic projectors to produce an illusion that the building wasn't there, for outsiders, and that the war wasn't going on, nor the explosions outside happening for those institutionalized. The Asylum War has been going on for over 100 years now, and ironically humanity is much less dogmatic than they were in the years prior

Meriga ??(again, not sure if any other worldlines use the appelate)- An alternate history in which the earth's orbit and rotation speed reduced to produce shorter years (360 days, each 20 hours). Meteoric activity is responsible for the Mana Level as well as the metamorphosis of various races of Fantasy, some of which are key historical figures. The world is some 170 years or so into Christopher Columbus' rule on the continent which bears a name he still begrudges a long dead Merigo Vespucci for.
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Old 11-08-2013, 10:54 AM   #13
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

Midas-???: Alpha Centauri was a single star, and more massive than all three of the existing stars combined. It supernova'd, enriching the solar nebula with a great deal more heavy metals in proportion to others.

So far so normal, but the weird thing is that Earth not only exists, but is nearly identical, mapwise, to modern earth. Any rock from this alternate would be high-grade ore for gold, platinum, silver, tungsten, a smattering of radioactives, and iron if it were found on earth; concentrated ore seams are often practically pure metal. The atmosphere should be toxic and suffocating, but something is keeping the atmosphere marginally breathable.

You might think this is the most favored mining world in all the infinite worlds... but right now, it's top secret. Why? Because as unlikely as some alternates are, this one seems to be specifically designed by something, something powerful enough to change stellar evolution, and something that knew ahead of time what type of climates humans like. What if they're still around?

This particular world was discovered secondhand, after tracing down a team of crosstime prospectors who were bringing in loads of pure gold. The I-Cops are pretty sure they've found everybody who knows about the coordinates...

Garry-2: Someone named Garry Gygax popularized role-playing games in the 1980's. This alternate is now only a few years behind Homeline, but without the Secret, and with such a minor change, they are very similar. Space travel is slightly more advanced in Garry-2, and civil conflict is substantially worse... though there haven't been any surprising new wars compared to Homeline. Nothing seems to have come of the popularity of role-playing games in this timeline, although for some reason Infinity has banned any artifacts from the alternate that are related to something called "GURPS". Nobody knows why.
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Old 11-08-2013, 11:13 AM   #14
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

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Midas-???: Alpha Centauri was a single star, and more massive than all three of the existing stars combined. It supernova'd, enriching the solar nebula with a great deal more heavy metals in proportion to others.

.
Forget Alpha Centauri.

The supernova would have needed to be at least 4 billion years ago while the Earth was still molten. Stars move at a few miles per second relative to each other and there are enough seconds in 4 billion years for this to add up even on an astronomical scale.

As an order of magnitude guesstimate the supernova remnant in question would be at least a thousand light years from Earth.
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Old 11-08-2013, 11:42 AM   #15
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

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I also have a world called Crossroads-1, but in my games the Crossroads designation is for worldlines with large, known, portals to other worldines, so part of the Secret is already out.
Makes sense. Infinity wouldn't officially designate the world "Crossroads-1", but probably "Supers-15" or whatever their humans with powers code is. Infinity doesn't know about the anomaly, and Reich-5 thinks the ship they hit was advanced native tech. The aliens in the freezer could probably figure out something was odd about the local space-time, but they'd probably figure it as an emerging interdict zone.
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Old 11-08-2013, 03:21 PM   #16
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Roma-14: Still a work in progress, but classified off limits by both IW powers for different reasons.

Homeline dropped into Europe and found their 14th version of the Roman Empire or something close to it. Constantinople is actually the capital but Rome is the location of the core university for a scarily organized and prolific mages' guild that doubles in a great many areas as law/ contract enforcement.

Somehow the 'Romans' have found a way to identify people with Magery at a glance all across the Empire and anyone found with it is immediately drafted into the Academy. Empire TL3 and stable for over 2,000 years... Homeline *really* wants to know how they pulled this off. Militant in the extreme but strangely not expansionistic.


Centrum found the world by way of a natural world jumper who arrived in South America and found the natives TL1 and peaceful but strangely paranoid and superstitious about the sky. A Conveyor pod with an evaluation team was promptly dispatched but within hours of their arrival a sudden dark cloud heralded the arrival (they came out of the cloud) of something that, for lack of a better descriptive, looked like a swarm of Aztec Jaguar warriors wearing partial Ultra Tech Battle Armor (think the bad guys in Stargate). The 'Aztecs' homed in on the arrival site and commenced to taking every last person they found in the area captive. The evaluation team was forced to detonate the pod and themselves with a suicide charge or they would have been captured as well.

World classified off limits to anyone using technological means of transport. Research by natural jumpers discovered the Americas dominated by a variant of the Aztec Empire that raids more or less at will anywhere they feel like for slaves. Areas that put up a good fight let off easier than pacifist areas, connection to some sort of Aztec war cult suspected.
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Old 11-08-2013, 06:18 PM   #17
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

I've already posted Maya-10 and Maya-12, with the latter giving overviews of the other Maya-XX timelines. Plus, my .sig has a link for my Ranoc muskets-and-magery setting, which has a sidebox for "... In the Infinite Worlds".

However, one that I've GMed and played in a few times is designated "Earth-313", a supers world where the comic books of the Marvel and DC lines were mostly real... until 2000 when things went bottoms-up, one of the "heroes" became so powerful he took over the world (keeping the then-current infrastructures intact; as Ivan Ooze said, "Taking over the world is one thing. Finding good help to run it for you; that's the killer.") Then in 2010, a new crop of supers started emerging. With some twisting, this could easily be an IST-oriented world.
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Old 11-08-2013, 09:00 PM   #18
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

Crossroads-4a through -4e (named by samd6, above), as seen in my Five Earths, All in a Row thread: a skerry in which portals between the various Earths hang in open space, showing each of them that the others exist.

Crossroads-4a is a Steampunk world in the year 1878, at TL(5+2)^ when the timeline starts. Victoria rules an empire on which the sun never sets, Prince Albert still lives, and men have walked on the Moon with the power of SCIENCE! (and a little magic). The divergence point seems to have been in 1823, when a man by the name of James Haversham began selling a patent medicine that genuinely did, and does, enhance the mind (as well as adding a bit of enchantment to any craftwork the imbiber makes). The world has moderate historical inertia.

Crossroads-4b is a Clockpunk Earth in the year 1555 at timeline start, transitioning from TL(4+1)^ to TL(4+2)^. Elizabeth I is already Queen, following a civil war between her supporters, and those of Queen Mary I. Rodrigo Borgia of Aragon is Pope Leo X, son and former cardinal-nephew to Pope Joan II, Lucrezia Borgia. The point of divergence seems to have been in 1457, when a comet passed too close to this Earth, and broke up into a colourful ring in a stable orbit, along with other bits that fell into the atmosphere. This seems to be the cause of alchemy beginning to work 'far better', along with other forms of magic. While alchemy and magical engineering are generally accepted in Europe (as long as you don't hint that either might be magical), clear witchcraft is not, though it's less unacceptable in some nations than others - power is power, after all, and several Protestant nations have found ways to justify sorcery as something other than the Devil's Work. GURPS Locations: Worminghall will probably be adapted for this setting, once I have a copy, as the descriptions fit fairly well. The world had moderate to high historical inertia in the past, but that seems to have been weakening, even before the other Earths appeared.

Crossroads-4c is sometimes called Infopunk Earth. The TL is 8, the year at timeline start is 2012, and up until December 21, 2012, it was identical to our Earth (including the publication of all GURPS books and official articles before then, and most of them since) - on that date, four other Earths appeared in the sky. From Homeline's perspective, the point of divergence would be rather earlier, as Paul Van Zandt seems never to have existed, or at least, never to have become famous, and if parachronic travel has been invented at all (apart from just going up into space and traveling through the portals), it's very, very secret. Several countries are at war with the Axis powers on Crossroads-4e, below. Historical inertia level, if any, is unclear.

Crossroads-4d is a Fantasy Earth transitioning from TL2^ to TL3^, in the year 1267 ab urbe condita (514CE) when the timeline began, and the other Earths appeared in the sky. The point of divergence is uncertain, but clearly very early, as Neanderthal-descended hominids exist, in the form of orcs, ogres, goblins, hobgoblins, and arguably kobolds (no-one is completely sure of the origin of the blue folk, though they can be found mostly in the Highlands of what we would call Scotland and Ireland), as do elves, dragons, and many other fantasy races and beasts (most of which are spirits, including the aforementioned elves and dragons). King Arthur, more widely known as Ambrosius Aurelianus the Younger, or Ambrosius Aurelianus Romanorum ('of Roman fame', or 'Conqueror of Rome') rules as Emperor of what remains of the Western Roman Empire, mainly limited to Britannia, Armorica, Italia, and some bits of Gallia between Italia and Armorica. Historical inertia seems to have been high until 312 CE (1065 auc), when Emperor Constantine was killed at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, having been struck by lightning. Since then, it has been low to moderate - the Eastern Roman Empire was still formed, but a bit later, and Byzantium was never renamed Constantinople. The succession of Emperors following Maxentius I has been quite divergent, with the last Western Roman Emperor before Arthur being Lucius Tiberius (neither Romulus Augustulus nor Odoacer seem to have existed).

Crossroads-4e is a Dieselpunk world at the beginning of Weird War II. The year is 1940 when the timeline starts, and the tech level is (6+1)^. There is no clear divergence point, but superheroes and supervillains exist (mostly at fairly low power levels, save for a few high-power beings like Superman or Namor, the Sub-Mariner). Apart from a higher tech level (including both Britain and Germany having jets and war-rockets already), WWII went about as in our history until late December, 1940, when the other Earths appeared, and after some false starts (and people on Crossroads-4c finding the old radio frequencies and such), communication was opened - which quickly lead to Israel and Nazi Germany declaring war on each other, followed by various other nations. Historical inertia is quite high, though this may be changing - for one thing, it's unlikely that WWII will last quite so long.


All these worlds share the same physical laws, and the same psi-based magic system, though local conditions and skills do vary. Any parachronic transition into or out of these worldlines produces a characteristic spray of particles, detectable from a few light-seconds away (not as far as the other Earths are from each other, but enough for scientists and government personnel to detect sprays on or near their own Earths), though only Crossroads-4c currently has the technology to detect those particles, and Infinity might not become aware of this before arriving on Crossroads-4c.
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Last edited by Prince Charon; 11-08-2013 at 09:03 PM.
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Old 11-08-2013, 09:41 PM   #19
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

I've mentioned on another thread some time ago my Hoover timeline. Shortly after the start of the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover is assasinated by a disgruntled anarchist, setting off a massive Red Scare which results in a massive totalitarian crackdown. The current president is a figurehead with J. Edgar Hoover and the F.B.I. running things as a police state.

I used this timeline in an Infinity campaign I ran several years ago. The team's mission was to break Franklin Roosevelt out of Levenworth, where he was imprisoned after being arrested for making anti-Hoover radio broadcasts.

Later in that same campaign, there was a plot to start a war with Canada by flying an airplane with Canadian markings into a dirigible over the Statue of Liberty. The team got to save Oliver Warbucks and his auburn-haired ward in that adventure.

One timeline I would have liked to have expanded on was set during the American Revolution in a world where magic existed as a branch of Natural Philosophy, and Benjamin Franklin had smuggled some important magic tomes out of England to America. Now agents of the Cabal have accompanied the British forces, ostensibly to provide sorcerous back-up in putting down the rebellion, but with the addition charge of getting Franklin and recovering the secrets he stole.
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Old 11-08-2013, 11:06 PM   #20
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

Then there are my superhero universes:

Ferrous: TL 9 Only uses technology power sources like electronic and nano. Vaguely cyberpunk with major corporations fighting plausibly deniable covert wars and rogue AIs striking out on their own.

Mystic: TL 7 Only uses the magic power source and nobody officially knows the heros and monsters exist.

Darwin: TL 8 Uses mutant and technology power sources, And mutant is definitely a social stigma.

Radical: TL 8 Uses Bio and technology power sources. Massive conspiracies and secret government agencies engineer superhumans to fight on behalf of their ideologies.

Myth: TL 8 Uses Magic, Divine and Cosmic power sources. All superheroes and villains are the offspring of mythological gods and other such beings, or have been granted powers by gods.
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