New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Paulon

On similar lines would be the Darkangel books by Meredith Anne Pierce.

I think those are the books. Having looked it up they are the books! Thank you! I forgot the name.

[Astromancer]

I'm rereading The Lord of the Rings over the holiday and it struck me that Bree makes a good model for scattered areas of settlement on Golden Age Sci Fi colony/settlement worlds. Bree is an isolated cluster of villages isolated in some ways, but not in all ways. Bree is at a crossroads of two main roads, one of the roads is now largely abandoned. Still, on a colony world well away from the spaceport you could easily have a small town with nearby villages. Like Bree, an isolated island of settlement and cultivation in a vast wilderness.

These can be great places for PCs to come from, or, like Bree in the novel, it could be a place were outsiders bring intrigue or danger.

[Astromancer]

To give a worked version of my idea...

"The First settlers named the town Bree, it's from a book in the Library, the name of the river, "The Withywindle," came from the same book. Must not have gotten that far into the book, both names come from near the front. And that river in the book wasn't even near the town of Bree neither.

Still, the river is a better road than the road they built through here and got them to place the town here. Guess we can start calling the road "The Greenway" like the north/south road in the book. Or we could if grass grew in the desert over beyond the River."

A busy crossroads is always a good spot for a town. A place where a main road crosses a navigable river is always a good place for town or city. Especially if there is fertile land around. In my example, the terraforming of a very Earthlike planet has created a river. On one side of the river are foothills with fertile land. The plains on the other side were always a desert and like many areas in southwestern California, Arizona, or New Mexico. In many ways, the town of "Bree" I've set up is a classic break of bulk point. It is also a good place to rest after or before crossing the desert. In a largely empty continent, we're relatively early in the settlement of this world, this crossroad is a vital place for a settlement.

"There are some other towns around here. Windfarm is up in the hills. The name says it all. The wind never really stops up there and they have, build, and maintain windmills. Sweetwater is a village in the middle of the desert, about ten miles southwest of here. The local microclimate lets them grow citrus fruit, avocados, pomegranates, and anything else that can't take frost. Moria is also a name from the book, it is a mining town, they also have foundries and similar things. Helvetica seems to be named for a typeface, I think they tried to name it for Switzerland, a place on the Homeworld. Unicorners got its name from a rock that was supposed to look like a unicorn. I don't see it.

Smaller towns would grow up around the main town creating an island of small towns around the main settlement.

[Astromancer]

This idea is based on a novel I read in the 1970s. It was a post-apocalyptic novel, and fairly grim, but really funny. The humor elements were mainly character comedy and snark, but one of the main elements of the novel would make a good campaign.

The novel takes place after a pandemic kills 90% of humanity. There is evidence that a second round of the plague, which would kill 99% of the survivors is coming. Problem, technophobia, and anti-intellectualism were rampant before the plague hit, and religious hysteria set in among the survivors. Anti-science and technology memes are virulent and strong. So research to both create a vaccine and to train doctors to use the vaccine are often violently attacked.

PCs are part of an underground movement trying to preserve learning, science, and technology.

The Tech Level before the plague seems to have been an early TL9. The present Tech Level seems to be a mid-19th century TL5 and falling. Literacy is not the default outside of enclaves of education. Semi-Leteracy is the default. Most nations have collapsed in the novel. The trip the lead characters make from California (which has a Duke) to Chicago is through a patchwork of disorganized mini-states and independent towns. Xenophobia is the norm.

In one of the subplots, New York is striving to preserve knowledge but has become rigid and fears to allow the extension of knowledge or too much sharing of knowledge. This suggests that even those committed to the preservation of knowledge and fighting the plague could be deadly enemies.

[Astromancer]

Try this variant on the THS setting. Theosophy believes in something called Root Races it involves a system of spiritual evolution. But Madam Blavatsky was a strange figure whose writings are a mishmash of random learning and scraps of insight and blather. Just because she said she was guided by noble pure-hearted spirits of light why should we take her at her word? Moreover, even if she spoke to spirits she and the spirits themselves saw as virtuous and pure, how do we know the spirits' ideas of "good" and "virtue" are anything like ours. The Nazis, who also believed in mystical race theories, would have proclaimed their virtue and they did so.

In the THS setting another group of parahumans is no big deal, normally. The idea that an old mystical/occult group would design parahumans according to their ideals isn't new or even extraordinary in setting either. Thus the arrival of The Sixth Subrace of the Ayran Rootrace will only be mildly annoying. Parahumans named in very bad taste. It will only be later that the PCs think they're stuck in a Village of the Damned remake! ;-)

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

The ship misjumped while heading for Tau Ceti. They figured out two things about the misjump, first, they jumped about 2,500 lyrs further than they meant to, second, they had jumped backwards in time. How far back wasn't known.

Lucky for the passengers and crew of the ship the cargo and passengers were mainly for colonization projects. An even wilder piece of luck was a planet more suitable for terraformation than Mars. With an equatorial circumference of 21,000 miles and surface water and only very primitive lifeforms, the planet was a godsend.

The lottery to name the planet was won by a Quaker group and they choose the name Bethesda after the biblical pool associated with healing. The name was accepted and the planet settled.

Now, 800 years later starships with mainly human crews have found the planet Bethesda.

During the struggle to terraform Bethesda the government started on the ship first fragmented and then grew repressive. Then as the government grew more repressive it grew rigid and collapsed. The Ship had come from a TL10^ world, but by the time they're found, the planet Bethesda is at TL6 in the cities, rural areas are generally at TL5. Some enclaves are more advanced, some up an early TL9.

There are few nations, some confederations or empires are large, but effective control rarely extends very far. Local strongmen and warlords are a commonplace misery.

The explorers come from a multi-species Federation which has strongly democratic values. They're TL12^ and fascinated by this isolated world for one reason, the locals have made breakthroughs in Psionics. The explores come from a society were Telepathy and ESP are understood and not rare. On the planet Bethesda they have a wider range of abilities.

The PCs are either off-world explorers seeking to understand this strange isolated world or it Psionic lore or locals seeking ways to bring democracy and freedom to their backwards world.

[jason taylor]

I don't know if I have done this before:

Trade artifacts from a mysterious civilization that everyone talks of but only exists in tales have reached the market of a starport on the edge of known space. Your colony is planing to send an expedition.

All the factions are intriguing for a part of the expedition. Who will be captain? Who will the board of directors of the company sponsoring the expedition be. So on.

The first phase will be a political game about getting a share in the expedition. The second about the expedition itself.

[David Johnston2]

Infinite Worlds In Space. I'm aware of the reasons why the Infinity setting avoids settings with interstellar travel but a lot of the problems are solved if instead of instead of being a universe hopping campaign with some space travel instead you are an interstellar campaign with some universe hopping. You know like Star Trek. You just have to say that universes are only accessible in places where the historical changes make a difference.

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Infinite Worlds In Space. I'm aware of the reasons why the Infinity setting avoids settings with interstellar travel but a lot of the problems are solved if instead of instead of being a universe hopping campaign with some space travel instead you are an interstellar campaign with some universe hopping. You know like Star Trek. You just have to say that universes are only accessible in places where the historical changes make a difference.

Or maybe Infinity is <Starfleet>'s* liaison organization for the Guardian of Forever. Tweak it a little so they can go through the portal to different dimensions but they're anchored to their own timeline; any changes they produce create a new (and not necessarily stable) timeline. Play involves negotiating with the Guardian and testing the limits of what they can do, and of course things going wrong every so often and some villain, innocent, or monster ends up in mainline spacetime and has to be dealt with.

Then they discover that the Klingons have access to a Guardian or the Mirror Universe Empire is making moves through their version, and it's all phasers, torn shirts, and technobabble.

* Sub in your organization/universe of choice. What does Darth Vader do with the Guardian equivalent? How about the Bene Gesserit? Princess Aura? The Guardians of the Galaxy?

Alternately, it might be fun if the dimensional portals are big ship-sized ones and anchored, like your classic hyperspace gateway - the one on this side of the solar system takes you to Alpha Centauri, but the one on THAT side puts you in a Sol system where Third Rome rules the quadrant with an iron fist and is looking to expand. Part of the fun might be discovering new gates and figuring out if they're dimensional or just hyperspace. Or if there's a difference.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

I don't know if I have done this before:

Trade artifacts from a mysterious civilization that everyone talks of but only exists in tales have reached the market of a starport on the edge of known space. Your colony is planing to send an expedition.

All the factions are intriguing for a part of the expedition. Who will be captain? Who will the board of directors of the company sponsoring the expedition be. So on.

The first phase will be a political game about getting a share in the expedition. The second about the expedition itself.

I don't remember you offering this before. Let me praise you for this idea. It's a highly flexible frame that can be dropped into so many sci fi and fantasy settings. Your idea is simple brilliance.