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Old 09-09-2018, 07:36 PM   #1
Dalillama
 
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Default A Procession of Paranormal Parallels

It was mentioned in the Weird Parallels thread that magic parallels aren't intrinsically 'weird', but there's also nowhere to put them. So here's a place to put them.

Canon paranormal worlds (compiled from the GURPS Wiki):
Amalle
Azoth-(all)
Lucifer-6
Mandeville
Merlin-(all)
Thaumata
Brekilien
Midgard
Frazer's World
Madland
Mandrake-1
Oz
Qabala
Taft-2
Camelot-1
Yrth
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Old 09-09-2018, 09:14 PM   #2
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Default Re: A Procession of Paranormal Parallels

I would argue that Madlands is by far one of the weirdest of the parallels known by Infinity. It is a world where the people are being terrorized by gods that resemble the characters from Winnie the Pooh.
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Old 09-09-2018, 09:26 PM   #3
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Default Re: A Procession of Paranormal Parallels

I was filtering solely for 'has some type of magic'.
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Old 09-10-2018, 07:40 AM   #4
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Default Re: A Procession of Paranormal Parallels

Ok, I think I have a folder full of these worlds.



Bel-3
This world is modeled after the bronze age, or at least the early iron age. Mighty city states are ruled by God Kings who exact tribute from lesser powers. States include Egypt, Babylon, Nineveh, Elam, and Others.


God Kings (and other immortals) are in a physically enhanced state, with greater reflexes and strength than mortals. They're also protected by fate and regenerate very quickly from wounds. They have various large-scale powers as well, from seeing afar off to controlling the weather.


Each one has a weakness. A way they can die. These include:
  • Only by a spear (sword, arrow, axe, rock, rope, chain) to the heart (head,eye,kidney,stomache, neck, limb)
  • Only through a specific method of death (drowning, burning, choking, crushing, poisoning, curses)
  • Only slain by a specific type of person (woman, child, ethnicity, animal, relative, friend)
  • Only slain at a specific time (day of the week, at night, sunrise, sunset, full moon, Heat of battle, at rest, by treachery)
  • Only slain by a specific Material (iron, wood, stone, silver, lead, hemp)
These would be very difficult to find out, except for the abundance of oracles in these kingdoms. These oracles, sages, and magic workers are what truly make the magic tick. They can provide cryptic clues to how to kill someone. They can also predict the future with a fair amount of accuracy (if with a bothersome cryptic syntax)



They can also lay curses on their foes. These generally are slow to take effect, but can be tricky to break. classics include making arrows always head towards you, making you go slowly blind, making things tend to fall on your head, afflicting you with nightmares, and the classic curse of bareness.



Magic also transforms people. Transformations are dangerous, and generally require the subject to be willing. There is a reasonable chance of dying during the transformation, but picking a subject with a lot of "Valor" lowers this a lot, so its generally given as the equivalent of a military promotion or medal. The immortality transformation is reserved for the officer class. rank and file soldiers are transformed into Griffons, dragons, beast men, Giants, and great beasts.


If infinity has to deal with this world, they generally send ISWAT. Fate is very real on this world, and if you're not a hero, things won't turn out nearly as well for you.
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Old 09-10-2018, 04:19 PM   #5
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Default Re: A Procession of Paranormal Parallels

Thera-4, 1396 BCE

One of a series of worldlines in which the eruption of the volcanic island of Thera created a significant historical divergence. This worldline appears to have been a no mana or very low mana close parallel (or even an historical echo), until the island detonated in 1553 BCE. Oddly, this resulted in a significant change in mana levels, much like the Merlin worldlines, though without a Hellstorm. The islands that were once Thera, and everything for about thirty miles around the epicentre of the eruption (including several other Aegean islands), are Very High mana. High mana extends to around 672 miles (covering the Eastern Mediterranean, northern Egypt, parts of what we would call Libya, southern Italia, all of Greece and some regions northward, and much of Asia Minor and the Levant). Normal mana extends out to somewhat more than 2400 miles, covering all of Europe (save for Iceland), most of North Africa and parts of Central Africa, Western Asia, and parts of Central Asia.

The rest of this worldline is mainly low mana, save for a few small regions, mostly but not exclusively associated with volcanoes and earthquake zones, that have higher mana levels.

The most advanced civilizations of this Earth are of course centered around the High Mana zone, having reached what might be described as TL(1+2)^, using magic (both rituals and alchemy) to substitute for technologies that would have been developed later. Alchemy in particular has spread far and wide, as it works about as well in low mana as in high, and indeed is safer in low mana (use the standard Alchemy rules from GURPS Magic pp210-222; the Alchemical Charms rules from 220 could be fairly helpful, though you may need to invent new elixirs). The primary forms of magic-use in the Americas are varieties of Herb-Lore, and in some cases, Alchemy - generally, nomads and rural areas use Herb-Lore, which while cheaper tends to be less consistent and of lower power, while the few cities (which often do not to match known settlements of the era on Homeline) tend to use alchemy, and are TL(0+1)^.

Ritual magic in this worldline falls within the Path/Book Magic rules from Thaumatology, specifically Effect Shaping. Most styles are Book styles, with the Books being associated with specific gods. A few civilizations are developing Path styles which are not directly associated with the gods, while China has begun using a form of Symbol-Drawing magic.

So far, no Path style the Cabal is aware of on this worldline has the Path of Gadgets, though several have the Path of Form. While no Path Style appears to have a Path of the Elements, several have separate Elemental Paths, divided as that culture views them (so, some have Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, but they might also have Wood, Metal, or Void, sometimes replacing one of the others, sometime just added in).

This worldline is of great interest to both the Cabal, and certain researchers from Infinity, but being on Quantum 5 (and thus more easily visited from Homeline without permission), is a serious headache for the I-Cops.
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Last edited by Prince Charon; 02-07-2019 at 05:28 PM.
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Old 02-07-2019, 08:55 AM   #6
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Default Re: A Procession of Paranormal Parallels

I said I have an entire folder of these things. I seem to have forgotten my goal to post them regularly.


The Maximus Skerry


The Maximus Skerry is named for the title of its immortal God-King, who spends most of history sleeping in status but awakens in time of great need. Maximus is responsible for inventing divine architecture. Massive stone structures allow mystical manipulation of bodies and minds, and reaching other places with the senses and with the body.



Peace is held in the empire and its borders expanded by four races of beast soldiers created by Maximus during his initial ascension to power: Serpent, Bear, Hawk, and Leopard. When these warrior castes are not sufficient, a cadre of immortal heroes are awakened from their tombs of the not-quite death.



The Priests of the Monuments double as technicians. The monuments of distance were initially built as tools to spy on the empire's enemies, but their main purpose is now transportation, connecting five realms via portals.



The monuments of healing once offered the only path to health, and were only accessible to the very wealthy and the honored heroes of the empire. Thousands of them were built all over the realms, and particularly on Arthus, the first realm.



Maximus is a passable general, an excellent statesman, and a genius architect. Its only recently that his methods of revealing new worlds and building new organisms are beginning to be understood. He seems to at least care for the praise of the people he rules, and if he's not a benevolent ruler, he's at least a stable one. He's fairly hands off at this point, only intervening with emergencies or deep problems. Outside of those, he lets his sub-officers handle things. It's been at least 900 years since he ascended, and his awakenings are becoming more regular than the sporadic schedule of his 6th through 8th centuries. This is possibly because of the rapid technological changes sweeping through the five realms. Maximus seems interested in these developments, and has even awarded the highest honor of the empire on some inventors: a tomb with the immortal heroes.


Infinity allows a team of researchers on this world, studying the architecture. So far no one has figured out how to reproduce the effects, but only one person on Maximus knows how to build the structures in the first place. The Five Realms are each different timelines, and they don't seem to have mana, which makes Infinity afraid that Maximus could arise from his tomb some day and launch an invasion throughout the quanta. On the other hand, killing him is a recipe for plunging five worlds into a bloody civil conflict, and no one wants that much blood on their hands. So infinity tries to strengthen local government and figure out how the portals work.


---------------------


The exact tech level of the world is left unspecified. The original writeup has it at TL9 minus nuclear fission, but TL 6 or even 5 works just as well or perhaps better. The goal is the juxtaposition of an ancient empire with mystic tools and the changes made by technology.



The scenario this setting was designed for involved a conspiracy mystically altering the mind of the emperor by altering his tomb, and the resulting neglect and callousness causing a civil war.
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Old 02-07-2019, 03:43 PM   #7
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Default Re: A Procession of Paranormal Parallels

I once created a set of superhero realities based on the idea that the X-Men seem to only half exist in the same reality as the rest of the Marvel universe. So I came up with the idea of dimension hopping heroes running into variants of their own universe but in each of them only one or two of the power sources in their kitchen sink universe were available to the locals. So:

Ferrous: (Iron Man) A TL 9 universe where every superhero and villain either wears powered armour or is an AI.

Mythic: (Thor) A TL 8 universe where all mythologies are true and every superhero/villain is either the descendant of a mythological entity, or has been gifted with power by one of them.

Darwin: (X-Men) A TL 8/9 universe where superheroes and villains are mutants, or people using technologies developed by using and studying mutant powers.

Mystic: (Doctor Strange) A TL 7 universe where superheroes and villains are witches and sorcerers or people and creatures summoned and altered by magic and there's general agreement that the public at large should not be made aware of their existence and battles.

Flatscan: (Watchmen) A TL 6/7 universe where superheroes and villains don't have superpowers but have cinematic skill levels, technology and luck.

Wuxia: A TL 5 universe where superheroes and villains have chi powers.
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Old 02-07-2019, 04:17 PM   #8
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Default Re: A Procession of Paranormal Parallels

One could make those realities the shard worlds of a kitchen sink setting... after being punched by Superboy Prime or One Punch Man... or less campishly, a massive reality quake.
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Old 02-07-2019, 04:28 PM   #9
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Default Re: A Procession of Paranormal Parallels

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
I once created a set of superhero realities based on the idea that the X-Men seem to only half exist in the same reality as the rest of the Marvel universe. So I came up with the idea of dimension hopping heroes running into variants of their own universe but in each of them only one or two of the power sources in their kitchen sink universe were available to the locals. So:

Ferrous: (Iron Man) A TL 9 universe where every superhero and villain either wears powered armour or is an AI.

Mythic: (Thor) A TL 8 universe where all mythologies are true and every superhero/villain is either the descendant of a mythological entity, or has been gifted with power by one of them.

Darwin: (X-Men) A TL 8/9 universe where superheroes and villains are mutants, or people using technologies developed by using and studying mutant powers.

Mystic: (Doctor Strange) A TL 7 universe where superheroes and villains are witches and sorcerers or people and creatures summoned and altered by magic and there's general agreement that the public at large should not be made aware of their existence and battles.

Flatscan: (Watchmen) A TL 6/7 universe where superheroes and villains don't have superpowers but have cinematic skill levels, technology and luck.

Wuxia: A TL 5 universe where superheroes and villains have chi powers.
I like that. I'd change Ferrous to be a supertech thing to allow for cyborgs and the like as well as AI/power armor, but I like it.
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Old 02-08-2019, 07:31 PM   #10
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Default Re: A Procession of Paranormal Parallels

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
One could make those realities the shard worlds of a kitchen sink setting... after being punched by Superboy Prime or One Punch Man... or less campishly, a massive reality quake.
Yeah I considered something like that, that all these worlds came into existence after one of those infinite crisis thingies broke a supers universe.
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