Alternate History Thought Exercise: Dungeon Fantasy Earth

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

In honor of the latest issue of Pyramid: What would an Alternate History timeline look like where you could use the Dungeon Fantasy series as written? How would history have gone off the rails to produce an Earth like that?

The rule is that all the stuff in the Dungeon Fantasy series must be permissable. You can add additional rules material, but not take any away.

In order for all the stuff in Dungeon Fantasy to exist, first and foremost you need magic. The divergence point for that could be back at the Big Bang, or the advent of magic could be a much more recent, possibly local to Earth, kind of thing. However, for reasons below, it probably needs to be around for at least a couple of millennia.

Then you need to account for all the fantasy races and monsters. If they're the result of evolution, that pushes your divergence point back by millions of years, and means magic needs to be around for their evolution in the case of those with innate magical traits. Or, given the existence of magic, they can just as easily be far more recent results of magical experimentation, accidents, or other effects.

Then you need to account for the dungeons themselves. In order for them to make much sense, you need the magic and monsters to have been around for a few millennia, so that ancient cultures had time to make use of them, mine or create massive amounts of gold, silver, and precious stones, build humungous complexes (either underground to begin with or buried later), enchant huge numbers of magical items, and so on, then fall into decay and ruin, whether because of war, or disease, or magical disaster, or possibly ascension into the clerical gods of the present day.

In short, the divergence point involves there being magic, which then results in Magic Transhuman Earth, then some form of apocalypse, with the Dungeon Fantasy setting being the somewhat rebuilt post-apocalypse world where the vast majority of wealth and usable magic exists in the ruins of the old world order, making dungeon delving a worthwhile endeavor.

[robertsconley]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

In honor of the latest issue of Pyramid: What would an Alternate History timeline look like where you could use the Dungeon Fantasy series as written? How would history have gone off the rails to produce an Earth like that?

The rule is that all the stuff in the Dungeon Fantasy series must be permissable. You can add additional rules material, but not take any away.

How far back is the point of departure? Are we talking about magic being part of Earth's physic since the evolution of homo sapiens? Or something more "recent".

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by robertsconley

How far back is the point of departure? Are we talking about magic being part of Earth's physic since the evolution of homo sapiens? Or something more "recent".

That is up to you - whatever will sound semi-plausible.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by robertsconley

How far back is the point of departure? Are we talking about magic being part of Earth's physic since the evolution of homo sapiens? Or something more "recent".

A thought.

The divergence occurred at the end of the Triassic era, roughly 65 million years ago, when an asteroid smacked into the Earth (around the Gulf of Mexico, IIRC) to cause the extinction of the dinosaurs. The death and destruction caused by the event caused mana levels to skyrocket.

Several species of dinosaurs became the birds. However, one was warped by the increase in magic to become dragons. The ancient dragons meddled with magic while observing the rise of the mammals. They appreciated the megafauna at first, because it was food for them to eat. One dragon took the recently evolved Australopithecus and toyed with them using magic, creating the elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, and goblins. Other dragons messed with other forms of life, creating manticores, pegasi, gryphons, and even nastier beasties.

The dungeons of antiquity are old storehouses where the dragons performed and housed their experiments.


Over time, the main Human branch came to dominate, creating the ancient Sumerian, Egyptian, Hittite, Celtic, Harappan, Minoan, Mycenaean, and Chinese civilizations, among others.

[robertsconley]

I thought about similar issues in writing the background for my long running settings. Most importantly for this thread the questions I need to answer to come up with the details.

1) The initial situation before humanity and the other sentient races.

Since the OP is talking about Alternate History, I think the assumption that has to be that at some point in the prehistoric past there was just the natural flora and fauna including a bunch of hominids running around in Africa.

Specific to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy are the following "forces".

Holy Magic/Might (Cleric, Holy Warrior), Nature (Druid), Chi (Martial Artist), Magic (Bard, Wizard), Bard Song (Bards).


2) Circa 50,000 BC Modern humans are definitely in existence.

In a Dungeon Fantasy Earth that multiple types hominids survived into the "present day". In my mind the most plausible reason for this alternative development was the existence of divine powers. Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Orcs, etc survived because they were the favorite of various divine powers resulting a stalemate with no one type achieving total dominance in the manner of Homo Sapiens Sapiens in our time.

I would also add that the development of sentience made hominids far more interesting to many divine beings over the other animals and planets on Earth.

That after taking an interest many divine powers meddled with the development of hominids caused the creation of hybrid sentient like Cat-folks, Reptilians, and Minotaurs.

3) That technology developed on a recognizable path.

At its heart Dungeon Fantasy is Medieval Earth tech with magic. In a rigorous alternative history one starts with a single departure and everything else follows. With Dungeon Fantasy I feel that would defeat the purpose of the OP. Instead we have a "present" that we want the world to be in. We need to is construct a plausible past to get us to their point.

We start with a situation with a bunch of hunter gatherer hominids influenced by divine powers and advance that through the years to get to the point of the present with medieval tech Dungeon Fantasy.

I would propose that the relationships between the divine powers and the various hominid races is symbiotic one. That while vast the divine "gods" are not are infinite in their powers or their imagination.

Because of this the various hominids race did not wind up in a technological paradise as a result of attracting the interest of the gods. Some gods tried to provide a natural paradise within the limits of climate and geography but in the long run the natural curiosity and needs of the various hominids caused technology to continue to advance thru the neolithic.

The development of tools and art fascinated the gods. While they never needed such items they were so much more interesting than what they were used to. So some gods created and started to use tools themselves. Not because they were useful or even needed but because they were just "cool" to have. And they encouraged the races to continue to come up with some more.

Mind you not all the "gods' were thrilled at this. Particularly when hominids became the most effective hunters on the planets due to their sentience and tools. And after the wipeout of some megafauna some became the enemy of the races.

In addition difference hominid races developed on different paths. While humans were the most common type, the elves, dwarves, etc developed their own methods, some similar some different.

The big revolution came between 8,000 BC to 4,000 BC. The discovery agriculture allowed for a big increase in population and was encouraged by some gods as it helped their favorites not die off due to climate changes. With an increase in population allowed human imagination to run wild and they started building megalithic structures to honor their patrons. Tribal shamans became high priests leading a small army of devoted worshipers. Many "gods" loved this attention and enjoyed the pageantry and started encouraging their favorites.

Again the diversity of races meant that this was developed in many ways.

The increased organization to build and maintain these first temples along with agriculture lead to the first civilizations.

I hope folks find a lot of useful material in here to make a plausible Dungeon Fantasy Earth.

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

A thought.

The divergence occurred at the end of the Triassic era, roughly 65 million years ago, when an asteroid smacked into the Earth (around the Gulf of Mexico, IIRC) to cause the extinction of the dinosaurs. The death and destruction caused by the event caused mana levels to skyrocket.

Several species of dinosaurs became the birds. However, one was warped by the increase in magic to become dragons. The ancient dragons meddled with magic while observing the rise of the mammals. They appreciated the megafauna at first, because it was food for them to eat. One dragon took the recently evolved Australopithecus and toyed with them using magic, creating the elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, and goblins. Other dragons messed with other forms of life, creating manticores, pegasi, gryphons, and even nastier beasties.

The dungeons of antiquity are old storehouses where the dragons performed and housed their experiments.


Over time, the main Human branch came to dominate, creating the ancient Sumerian, Egyptian, Hittite, Celtic, Harappan, Minoan, Mycenaean, and Chinese civilizations, among others.

Since dragons as magical dinosaur descendants has some appeal, one could posit a number of different precursor civilizations, all of them with their own unique style of dungeons left behind:

Dragon Age

Lizard/Serpent Men Age (dinosaurs or reptiles modified by dragons as servants rebelled and created their own civilization) (these two could be reversed)

Proto-human Age

Giant/Titan Age (gigantism as one form of transhuman modification performed on proto-humans by dragons or themselves)

Elven Age

Human Ages (several different ones, each ending in a different apocalypse - the Summoning Wars, the Deathstorm of the Lich Lords, the Second Reign of the Dragons, the Golem Uprising, etc.)

Modern Cultures - developed and rebuilt in a landscape already dotted with ruins from all of the above.

[Nosforontu]

A good starting source for this might just be reskinning Earthdawn to DF. Earthdawn takes place several thousand years ago on earth and postulates that Earth goes through magical cycles when the mana level gets to high Horrors (demons/farspawn) can invade the world feeding on either negative emotions or the physical harm that they inflict on the living.

During the last rise of Magic the Therans (decadent roman/Atlantantean wizards) figure this out and trade the knowledge of Kaers (dungeon cities designed to survive the Scourge) for slaves, territory, and raw resources. The scourge hits several Kaers are breached turning the magic cities into trap filled dungeons of DOOM that Horrors like to live because they tend to provide a more stable link for them on this world.

However this time instead of magic going away like it was supposed to it paused essentially on Normal Mana Levels, which prevents certain levels of truly epic scale magic but still allows adventuring magic.

[David Johnston2]

Once, the most powerful empire in the world was that of Reme. Magic had allowed it to spread far beyond what would have been it's bounds to dominate most of North America and to crush the resistance of the Teutons while sheer numbers let it triumph over the Parthians. The rulers of great Reme reshaped their slaves into forms specialized for mining, warfare, amusement and agriculture. They bred great monsters as well. The only realm that could rival them was the far-off land of Khitai.

And then it all went wrong. First there was a civil war in which monster fought against monster and both sides preyed upon hapless civilians. For protection, earth was shaped to create protective underground complexes. There were too many flying weapons for mere walls to offer protection. Then the subject races, humanity included, for the rulers of Reme and it's eastern rival Troia had long acquired immortality by enchanting themselves into various states of undeath and had thus become a race apart rose up in rebellion against their overlords, and the greatest and most advanced realm the world had ever seen shattered. The surviving former rulers fled into hiding breeding new monsters to take their revenge from lairs deep within the earth.


The underground complexes that once were humanity's refuge from aerial attack were now largely abandoned by them as they became more dangerous than the surface as the overlord's creatures constantly burrowed, creating an endless network of tunnels and chambers. Only the former slaves who had been created to mine held their ground, sturdy as the stone they worked.

[b-dog]

I use a Mythic Earth where all of the myths are true in their own area. Dwarves, elves and trolls came into the Nordic world through their supernatural cosmology, centaurs, fauns, nymphs, and dryads came into the Greek world through their cosmology and so on. Eventually these supernatural beings migrated around the world but they tend to be more concentrated in areas of their own supernatural cosmology. Thus there are more trolls in Mythic Thule than orcs and ogres.

I would say use GURPS Middle Ages, Vikings, Greece, and so on to give cultural flavor to the gaming world.

If someone wrote a book about how to dungeon delve in a pseudohistorical middle age I would happily buy it. Hint, hint.

[VulpesFulva]

So, "Dungeon Fantasy #TBD: Telluria"

Perhaps as a hexcrawl supplement?