Catalog of the Weird Parallels

[PTTG]

I presume that myth parallels fall under the purview of "weird" rather than reality seeds. Here's one.

Homeline finally found one: a fairly ordinary, fairly stable, low-tech normal-mana worldline. Home to Elfs, Dwarfs, Orks, and Halflers, securely out of Centrum's reach. It seemed like a perfect place to regularize manatronic science... or at least train some mages. Thus came the name: New Dawn.

Halflers are small, plains- and coastline- dwelling cousins of Elfs (forests) and Dwarfs (highlands). Orks apparently split off the humanoid family tree sometime later as a result of some kind of dark magic, and will persist everywhere, but are especially tenacious underground. By the time Homeline arrived, they were at one of their lowest points in history.

Globally, when Homeline first discovered the worldline, it peaked out at TL5 in highly urban areas and as low as TL0 in others, with segregated Ork communities tending to have lower than their neighbors. This is because Orks on New Dawn are innately tied to the evil ritual that created them; they are, each and every one, sociopaths, although most of them are cunning and manipulative enough to function as a group in order to pillage others. They are, in short, plain-old D&D Always Chaotic Evil monsters that somehow form communities.

Homeline hoped that they could sell social technologies like democracy and capitalism, but in order to do that they needed to work with disadvantaged groups to attempt to sell social revolution. They mistook the other species' shunning of Orks for the sorts of backwards thinking that was common in their own history, and sought out ways to help Orks organize and communicate over long distances.

This was a mistake.

Ork enclaves, originally scattered, worked with homeline scouts (who had posed as wandering monks) to train members in technical skills to TL-up their communities. Mainly the Ork technicians learned how to build HAM radios and other long-range communication gear. With that, they orchestrated a world-wide resurgence.

Once they no longer needed their homeline advisors, they ate them, naturally.

[Flyndaran]

A bit of Ork = epitome of Nazis? Or the "cro-mags" of Sliders.

Not necessarily a criticism as sometimes players just really want villains to kill without any ethical quandaries.

[Flyndaran]

I'm not sure that fantasy settings count as Weird. I think weird is more akin to Homeliners' confusion or refusal to accept a reality rather than anything matching myth or other "man-made" stories or allegories.

A world with dictatorships but the citizens really seem content with it all and the leaders generally aren't corrupt would be weird as heck assuming they're human.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Imagine someone that seems kind and good but works with serpent men to bring back their hell world, because his loved one only exists in that reality.

That is a classic concept in story-telling - the basically good person driven to do horrible things, to even ruin the world around him or her, out of determination to save one person.

[Astromancer]

Try this Myth parallel. Most of the events of the movies Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein occur as in the films except that in is Doctor Pretorius and not the monster who escapes.

Later, while the doctor is in Germany, Kurt Warnekros asks Pretorius for help in the case of Lili Elbe. Pretorius and Warnekros function perfectly as a team. Their joint discoveries lead to a world were the human form is totally plastic.

The local year is 1957. People change their looks, sex, whatever to whim. Death is rare among the rich.

[PTTG]

^And the poor can always hope to sell their looks or their health.

[Flyndaran]

Imagine how hard it would be to keep cross-timers out. No alien ultra tech society or spying to worry about, but all access to any body modification imaginable.
And older individuals wanting to retire there spending centuries in luxury.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

^And the poor can always hope to sell their looks or their health.

That wasn't in my idea, but it's a solid touch of creepy. Well suited to a "New world of gods and monsters!"

[Flyndaran]

Dipping toward the Eloi and Morlocks. That may or may not be what one wants.

[fchase8]

Make the Frankenstein medical science magical pseudo-science - like the Frankenstein Treatment on Gothic-2 (GURPS Worlds of Horror). Infinity is worried about its long-term mental affects - it may make the rich callous towards the poor, or that might just be the natural result of such a wealth/health difference.

Gothic-2 was being kept open to Homeline access through some sort of Homeline European conspiracy. Make this world (Gothic-3?) a new discovery on Quantum Three that Infinity wants to keep secret until further investigation is completed. I-Cops have to follow up every promise of 'eternal youth' by crosstime swagmen.



Oh, and make it that, every rare time, the treatment goes wrong and hideous creatures are created. Not initially, but some time after being treated, the body rejects it or mutates or something. The local rejuvenation businesses are keeping it secret, but there are rumors, and an active underground of super-powered freaks & the poor.

And Infinity not only knows its true, but suspects that it will eventually happen to anyone who keeps undergoing the treatments - and/or that it's more likely to happen to someone who leaves the timeline.