Cross-time Adventure Seeds

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

In an obscure timeline with a deeply-ingrained belief in reincarnation (and a White Star Trading factor), a message is received via local post, written in an emergency code. The author is purportedly an Infinity agent who was killed six years ago in another timeline. To make it worse, the author is identified as a five-year-old child.

The PCs are a team sent in to monitor and guard the child while the Brass tries to figure out what to do. Extracting the target is not entirely feasible, neither is eliminating him. But his mere existence indicates a previously unknown security leak that has to be analyzed, which means they need the child.

Meanwhile, the placing of a Infinity team has alerted Centrum, who has sent their own team to find out what's going on. A team of Swagmen, getting word of all this, have placed their own men to find out what's happening and whether or not a buck can be made off of it.

Swagmen succeed by avoiding Infinity not engaging with it. But elements of the Cabal would probably be interested in cross-time reincarnation and they are less shy.

[Astromancer]

The PCs have been hired by the relatives of Scott Jackson and Alonzo Walling to look into the activities of Pearl Bryan of Greencastle Indiana, in late January of 1896. In Homeline history, Pearl's headless body was found on February 1st of 1896. She was found to be five months pregnant. In a trial that didn't even pretend to be fair, Pearl's Beau, Scott Jackson and his college roommate Alonzo Walling, were convicted. The men were hanged on March 20th 1897. Another man, Will Wood, was known to be a boyfriend of Pearl's and fled town after nearly being lynched. The case went on to be the subject of hundreds of murder ballads.

Your patrons want the following. A) Prevent the murder if you can. B) Trace the activities of Bryan, Jackson, Walling, and Wood, in late January. C) Find out who else is involved.

The main complications are a) keeping the secret, b) the locals in Indiana, Kentucky (where they found the body), and Ohio, where Jackson and Walling went to college and lived) all dislike snoopers. Pearl seems to have had a taste for fast company. The kind of people who violently resent people violating their privacy.

Two parallels in Q6, both of which are echoes will past though January of 1896 in the next seven months, but after that you'll need to wait eight years. So time is limited.

Note: I'll try to post links later because Pearl, Scott, Alonzo, and Will, were all real.

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

This sounds like it will end up with everyone going to great efforts to not spook the locals, despite the fact there there aren't any locals left, everyone is an agent of someone. Or several someones.

"Flock of Wolves" as they say at TVTropes.

I'm thinking of something like the movie "What's Up Doc?" with a five-year old Barbara Streisand. :)

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

There are many films were the original print is lost.

Rock and Rule an animated feature that was it original distribution deal and got turned over to MGM who hated the fact it wasn't a kid's film. The master print was lost in a fire although the film was recreated from other matterial purists want the original.

The Magnificent Ambersons was famously butchered. Those that hated Orson Wells destroyed his edit and all matterials from which to recreate Wells' original work. Again people want the original.

Any of hundreds of early films are largely known only as titles and discriptions.

A film print is generally a guarded thing often by thugs.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

There are many films were the original print is lost.

Segueing from that, how about a scenario where a humble out-timer is making a modest living during the 30s from a strategic place in the pulp publishing industry where he can make high resolution copies of passing artwork.

Apparently he stares into the wrong abyss for too long and something crawls out and gets him. Fishmen who are worshipped by cultists in red robes who sacrifice blondes with wavy-bladed knives are a minimum possibility. It could be something far worse.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Segueing from that, how about a scenario where a humble out-timer is making a modest living during the 30s from a strategic place in the pulp publishing industry where he can make high resolution copies of passing artwork.

Apparently he stares into the wrong abyss for too long and something crawls out and gets him. Fishmen who are worshipped by cultists in red robes who sacrifice blondes with wavy-bladed knives are a minimum possibility. It could be something far worse.

Good one. And you can switch up what it is. Actual abominations, Cabalist's with a plan, being from outside our sector of the multiverse who think this is a polite hello by local standards....

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Segueing from that, how about a scenario where a humble out-timer is making a modest living during the 30s from a strategic place in the pulp publishing industry where he can make high resolution copies of passing artwork.

Apparently he stares into the wrong abyss for too long and something crawls out and gets him. Fishmen who are worshipped by cultists in red robes who sacrifice blondes with wavy-bladed knives are a minimum possibility. It could be something far worse.

How about a parallel where the artwork from the pulps is real. We have very manly men, monsters and aliens who always want to kidnap earth women for their own nefarious purposes, and strange science.

If the stories are also real (for that parallel), then things get even stranger.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

How about a parallel where the artwork from the pulps is real.

If all of it is real you have absolute chaos. There were a fantastic number of pulps being printed in their hey-dey. Just the Spider by himself would have massive (and gaudy) crises every month. Add in Doc Savage and the Shadow and the Green Llama and The Avenger and Thunder Jim Wade and....well the list goes on. It might be even worse than a comics myth-parallel from the 80s before the number of issues printed fell off so drastically.

What occurs to me is that the world I proposed becomes known as Brundage-1 after an infamous Weird Tales cover artist and it becomes the first recognized self-creating visual myth parallel. The idea is that a sufficintly vivid visual image creates reality in the timeline it is produced rather than another timeline.

After finding Brundage-1 a records search reclassifies another world as Titian-1. Nobody had grasped what the unusual number of plump ladies who liked to lounge about with no clothes on meant.

At any rate Brundage-1 is in its' local 1937 and researchers are waiting to see if Superman shows up sometime after 1938. If so, a pull-out is planned before the first appearance of the Spectre and the timeline will be quarantined then.

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

At any rate Brundage-1 is in its' local 1937 and researchers are waiting to see if Superman shows up sometime after 1938. If so, a pull-out is planned before the first appearance of the Spectre and the timeline will be quarantined then.

Who would be the worst superheros/villains for outtimers to meet. Dr. Fate, in some of his incarnations, would also be bad. Actually, most of the major assorted mages might be bad.

The Flash and Green Lantern would be problems. (Though Flash keeps getting beaten by Batman with ultrasonic sound or something.)

Though I think that a modern Lex Luthor might be one of the worst. Maybe.

[Fred Brackin]

[QUOTE=DangerousThing;2317

The Flash and Green Lantern would be problems.

The Flash might trigger quarantine to keep The Secret in 1940 even though he doesn't (usually) become a worldjumper until 1961.