Converting popular settings to Infinite Worlds

[tratclif]

Thought I'd revive this thread with some blockstats for existing GURPS books.

Norton-1 (GURPS Witchworld), ?

Current Affairs

The Witches of Estcarp have defeated the Kolder and Karsten, but at great cost. Around the world, barriers long held are falling.

Divergence Point

Unknown divergence in deep time or massive reality quake creates different continental outlines.

Major Civilizations

Old Ones (insular), "Human" (multipolar)

Great Powers

Arvon (oligarchy, CR4), Estcarp (oligarchy, CR4), Escore (oligarchy, CR4); High Hallack (feudal, CR4), Alizon (dictatorship, CR4), Karsten (feudal, CR0-3).

Worldline Data

TL: 3, with some higher TL gadgets Mana Level: normal
Quantum: 6 Infinity Class: z3
Centrum Zone: red

Notes: Like Yrth, allowing unrestricted parachronic access to Witchworld would blow up the setting, so like Yrth, Witchworld would probably work best as some sort of quantum sargasso. I've put it in Q6, since I can see a Centrum character working well as someone dropped into Witchworld, but since Witchworld can be accessed by the Gates that the Adepts of Witchworld scattered about the realities the quantum is arbitrary.

On "civilizations", the cultures described in the books are either those that use Power everyday, what I've called the "Old Ones" civilzations, or those cultures that largely fear Power that I've called for lack of a better term "Human".

[tratclif]

Howard-1 [GURPS Conan], ca.10,000 B.C.

Current Affairs

In the Hyborian Age, a man with a sword and a strong will can become a King.

Divergence Point

Unknown divergence in deep time or more probably reality quakes that altered continental outlines.

Major Civilizations

Hyborian (multi-polar), Khari (empire with rivals), Khari successors (mutlipolar), Black Kingdoms (multi-polar), Shemite (multi-polar).

Great Powers

Aquilonia (feudal dictatorship, CR3), Nemedia (feudal dictatorship, CR4), Koth (dictatorship, CR4); Stygia (theocracy, CR5); Hyrkania (dictatorship, CR3), Khitai (feudal dictatorships, CR3);

Worldline Data

TL: 3
Mana Level: normal with variations
Quantum: 4
Infinity Class: p3
Centrum Zone:inaccessible

Notes: Another fantasy setting that would probably blow up with unrestricted access. It might work better if Howard-1 had minuses on skills to
enter, rather than leave like Yrth. Since the Conan stories are source of many character archetypes, Howard-1 might be a good place for a character to come from. I put it in Q4, since Q4 is traditionally a quantum for weird realities.

[David Johnston]

Note that Witch World has already been invaded from a TL 8-9 line, the bald-headed guys from Time Traders. Witch World would cope with the arrival of high-tech foreigners just fine. But the existence of the Witches would probably make Centrum and Homeworld steer clear of it. They's a skeert of telepathy, and telepathy combined with the ability to create inter-universal gates makes them wet themselves. Also it seems to me that Escore has no real government, just tiny little enclaves of surviving Light and Dark followers.

[Ironhand]

Interesting idea with Howard 1. Robert Howard is one of my favorite authors and it could easily be used to explain his mental issues. Perhaps he was a dispossessed inhabitant of Howard 1 (named after him of course) and he took his stories from his own dimension. Perhaps Almuric (half finished story about a dispossessed man sent to a new planet) was a clue to his true life included as his form of a suicide note.

[transmetahuman]

Amber is the only one of the settings in this thread that I'm familiar with, so i'll limit my comments to it.

Originally Posted by William

Amber would make a very interesting overlay for the Infinite World setting; I say an "overlay" since really it threatens to rewrite the entire cosmology for the system, putting Amber and the Courts of Chaos at the poles of existence and relegating Infinity and Centrum to simple Shadow operatives.

If I were inclined to include Amber and the Courts in an Infinite Worlds setting -- and to be certain, several of the enhancements and limitations on Jumper seem designed with Amber-style Shadow-walking in mind, such as requiring motion and having a limited range per hop -- I would have the two of them be realms in Yetzirah, probably with the Courts strongly aligned with the decan of Akhouiy and Amber representing Alath. This would in turn explain the difficulty of getting high tech, such as gunpowder, to work there. The natives of these realms, sufficiently awakened by exposure to the Pattern and the Logrus, would thereafter be able to descend to the material worlds of Assiah, or as they call them, the Shadows, and walk among them from there. Both realms are isolated from most of the rest of Yetzirah, though Amber possibly has a connection to Briah (where the deeper Pattern lies). In particular, you cannot walk directly from the Courts to Amber (though Corwin manages to go from deep Amber straight to the Courts via Trump!).

This makes Amber and the Courts a source of parachronozoids that can roam the entire Infinite Worlds setting. The Broken Patterns in Shadow, areas in the material world strongly tangent to Amber but possibly tainted by the Abyss ("it becomes like a dark well from which you draw power," as Jasra describes it), could be a nice site for a PC to pick up Jumper abilities and magical or super powers. Amber and the Courts can still quite legitimately regard themselves as bracketing existence, even with Homeline and Centrum being anchor timelines.

Nice mingling of Cabal with Amber, but some of the implications don't fit with some of my preferences. I always figured if I ever used the Amber books in a game, I'd ignore everything after the first five books. The Pattern is the center of metareality, Chaos is just the far fringes of the sphere of Order imposed by it, and there is no Logrus. All respect to Zelazny, one of my all-time favorite writers, but I think he made a mistake with the second series - the original set-up was much more mythically resonant. I like David Johnston's idea of Amber being Quantum 1, but I'd probably put it more like "Quantum 0", with the nearby Golden Circle type worlds (I know it was just a political/trading term; I mean the most nearby worlds) as Quantum 1. Or possibly have the GC lands actually be on the same Q1 physical planet as Amber, with the Pattern imposing a field over the nearby region that effectively makes its region Q0.

The Cabal's view of reality would then probably be a limitation of the mindset that they require in order to learn the plane shift spells they use. Or simply a completely different frame of reference, with Atziluth being the spiritual center of the cosmos and Amber being the physical center. I'm trying to get away from having two centers, though, so I'd probably just make the whole Hermetic cosmology a mistake, if I used Amber at all.

Gotta think some more about this. Then again, I'm probably the only person around here prone to using Amber without the later books, so I doubt anyone will be all that interested in what I come up with.

[tratclif]

Originally Posted by Ironhand

Interesting idea with Howard 1.

"There are myth parallels closely resembling the works of Robert E. Howard, Robert McLees, Terry Pratchett, and Andre Norton, for exam-
ple." -- Infinite Worlds p. 151.

Like most of my interesting ideas, I stole it from Ken Hite.

[tratclif]

Originally Posted by David Johnston

Note that Witch World has already been invaded from a TL 8-9 line, the bald-headed guys from Time Traders. Witch World would cope with the arrival of high-tech foreigners just fine. But the existence of the Witches would probably make Centrum and Homeworld steer clear of it. They's a skeert of telepathy, and telepathy combined with the ability to create inter-universal gates makes them wet themselves.

It's more a matter of tone. Norton would never have written a comic story of bumbling Time Tourists. She did write "Time Traders" stories but there's very little about trade in them. For those GMs that want to preserve the tone but still have Infinity pop in occasionally, setting up Witchworld as a sargasso is a quick way to do that.

A couple of things about the Kolder: first, they were a very small group of refugees without resupply. Second, there's a strong element of Narrative Causality (to steal the term from Terry Pratchett) working in Witchworld. The next person to arrive in Witchworld after the Kolder just happened to be a WWII spec ops expert and the first man with the Power in Estcarp in ages. If I were setting up a Witchworld-in-Infinite-Worlds campaign, I'd emphasize that more.

Originally Posted by David Johnston

Also it seems to me that Escore has no real government, just tiny little enclaves of surviving Light and Dark followers.

That depends on when you set the campaign. Early on, yes, there's a few peoples separated by Dark places and wilderness. But in later times the Dark is driven back and large parts of Escore reinhabited.

[David Johnston]

Then you'd probably have to ignore everything after the first 4 books since it was the fifth one that established The Courts as being a "chaotic" mirror image of Amber. Which isn't entirely a bad idea. Then the invading chaotic forces simply become monster/barbarians moving in through the "road" created by the smudging of the Pattern and/or Corwin's curse.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by tratclif

Thought I'd revive this thread with some blockstats for existing GURPS books.

Norton-1 (GURPS Witchworld), ?

I never did finish the series (I think I stopped after Three Against...). I'll have to dig the sourcebook out, and see if I can round up some of the stories.

Thanks, T!

[transmetahuman]

Originally Posted by David Johnston

Then you'd probably have to ignore everything after the first 4 books since it was the fifth one that established The Courts as being a "chaotic" mirror image of Amber. Which isn't entirely a bad idea. Then the invading chaotic forces simply become monster/barbarians moving in through the "road" created by the smudging of the Pattern and/or Corwin's curse.

I don't have the books to hand, but are you sure? Socially, yes, the Amberites considered the Courts to be equals, but I don't remember the Logrus or any other metaphysical indications that would preclude the Courts just being another pocket of Chaos with historical (and geneological) ties to the Amberites. The way I see it, Chaos churned away, created the Courts - which would soon have passed, unstable as anything of Chaos. Before that happened, though, Dworkin ran across the Unicorn (another random throw of Chaos' dice) and drew the Pattern, which stabilized things all the way out to the Courts. Just the way I see it, and of course I could Make It So in my game, but it'd be neater if none of that was contradicted by anything in the first 5 books.