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Old 08-10-2019, 09:58 AM   #1531
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

Humans myths are just as likely to reverse the actual history. Perhaps they believe the world used to be all water and the gods raised the islands above the oceans turning some of the fishes into men and beasts.

Finding a reason for Homeline, and more importantly the players, to care about a parallel seems the hardest part of any weirdness. Most weirdness is of the "huh, that's strange. Well off to the real adventure."
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Old 08-10-2019, 10:07 AM   #1532
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

Anyone done any reversed myth parallels?

I was imagining a Robin Hood one where he's liked by some of the populace but in the way of Jessie James and not in any objective sense a good guy. While the Sheriff is an honorable man trying to catch a ruthless criminal.

(I know there's a 3rd ed. supplement on Robin Hood, but I don't have it. So if I'm repeating something already suggested and I'm sure said better, my apologies.)
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Old 08-10-2019, 11:24 AM   #1533
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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Finding a reason for Homeline, and more importantly the players, to care about a parallel seems the hardest part of any weirdness. Most weirdness is of the "huh, that's strange. Well off to the real adventure."
Honestly it's a problem motivating any sort of adventure in a modern setting.

Many traditional types of adventure are motivated by something like "make a fortune". In the past with a combination of hard work and not-too-improbable luck you *could* hope to make a fortune from a chunk of new farmland or a mineral vein you could work yourself, or the animals you could hunt in a virgin forest, or a monopoly on trade with a new tribe, or the amount you could loot in a war. At least you could reasonably hope for better than starving to death in your homeland.

These days none of those are going to make you *really* rich, even with fairly remarkable luck, and its much harder to genuinely starve. I should risk death for the possibility of returns nearly as great as those I could get supplementing my welfare check as an off the books day laborer for less hard work?
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Old 08-10-2019, 11:33 AM   #1534
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Anyone done any reversed myth parallels?
)
I had a fantasy version of Robin Hood where his reputation of "stealing from the rich and giving to the poor" was entirely based on the fact that he gave his men their slice and they all had family members in the community who benefited. But he only stole from the rich because they were the ones with the money. Also also the stand-in for Friar Tuck dabbled in demon summoning.
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Old 08-10-2019, 11:46 AM   #1535
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I've mentioned the idea of a God's War before...so...

The Seven courts rule. Africa south of the Deserts the Orishas rule. Deep into Libya, Almost to Carthage, and East to the furthest deserts of Persia Egypt's gods hold sway. Or the vast lands West of the Atlantic the Aztec gods rule in a bloody grip. The vast ocean waters between the Aztec realm and Asia, and all Asian lands east the the Himalayas are ruled by the Celestial Bureaucracy and the Mandate of Heaven. Taking the vast middle ground and the Himalayas as well are the Devas. Holding the frozen North in a vise like grip the [url https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Germanic_deities]Ęsir[/url] rule.

Challenging the enslavement of mankind to unfeeling Gods and Alliance of the Olympians and the Tuatha de Dannan stand allied. But they rule small lands and few. Still, Bast, [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor], Krishna, Quetzalocoatl, Guanyin, Oshun, as well as many others, join them in fighting for humanity.

This parallel tends to pull world-jumpers and transtemporal transport in regularly. Generally, you can't leave until you've done a god a "favor."
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Old 08-13-2019, 01:17 AM   #1536
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Armature looks like an echo of 1820... but it is peopled with crude mechanical contrivances resembling the people of the era. They ignore outtimers and natural conditions that disrupt things, but otherwise go on with their historical lives. For instance, the first scout observed a leader speaking from a lectern when a wind came up and blew the notes away. The speaker continued to refer to the now-scattered notes for several minutes before concluding the speech as though nothing had happened.

There is no animal life; domesticated animals are replaced with similar contrivances. Human children younger than 18 are boxes of mechanical components such that they occupy about as much space. These things trundle about on small wheels and represent the largest divergence from homeline history. When they can't go someplace that their human equivalent went, they just go around, with the mechanical figures speaking to the "child" as though it was present.

fuel is taken on and self-maintenance performed as the historical being would eat and sleep, respectively.

No sign of crosstime activity has yet been detected.

Last edited by PTTG; 08-14-2019 at 12:27 PM.
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Old 08-13-2019, 03:34 AM   #1537
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Lassiter is named after a World-Jumper from Homeline, Erasmus Lassiter, who is a wanted criminal in Homeline for interference with a parallel world's history. At the same time, he is the most prominent person on his new world. And many people really don't want to bring him back.

This world diverged from Homeline in 312 AD. When Constantine heard the Voice proclaim "By this Sign Ye Shall Conquer" and he looked up, he did not see a cross. Instead he saw a mystic sigil. Using that sigil, he summoned supernatural aid and conquered first Rome then the world with demonic empowerment and black magic.

The year is now 1650 and Rome rules the world, but has evolved culturally far from it's roots. The TL is late 5/early 6 with slave-powered industries. A feudal order, with assorted local flavorings, dominates the entire planet except for Australia. Nobles have demonic traits and knowledge of Path/Book Magic. Royalty of various nations are full-fledged demons (although some may have once been human) and wield powers of Sorcery.

The sky is perpetually overcast, the climate is in early glaciation. In Rome, Peiping, and Tenochtitlan are gaping hellmouths where human sacrfices are thrown in with a machine-like regularity. And appearing wherever he wants it to is the Imperial Palace, within which is the Great Basalt Throne on which, served by Dark Sorceror-Priests and Mad Cultists, sits the fifty-foot-high form of Constantine the Immortal, Demon Emperor of Man.

Australia is undiscovered by Rome, but is the location of several secret refugee-cities where old religions are still worshipped and spirt-based magic singing is cultivated. They are weak in every respect and can only remain free as long as the Demon Emperor's minions don't discover their Hidden Continent.

Then came Lassiter; his Holy Axe slung across his back.

He saw the horrors of Demonic Rome. He heard the songs in the Australian Outback.

And his electric guitar flooded with Power, and lo did he play ....

And now in leather duster and dragon-boots, His Holy Ax strumming harsh and sweet, Lassiter strides the world, making his way to the hellmouths, the demonic powers giving way before the Power of Heavy Metal.
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Old 08-13-2019, 09:55 PM   #1538
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deja vu is a skerry of otherwise unremarkable echoes of the early 21st century. The cluster of five known worldlines had very light Cabal activity -- mainly recruiting duplicates of psions -- enabled due to the ease of traveling from worldline to worldline. However, at local years 2010, 2012, 2015, 2016, and 2018, the whole skerry slipped through a range of ozmic turbulence causing a dramatic upswing in banestorm activity.

For the past two years, banestorms have rippled through the worlds with terrible frequency. In any given place, there's about a 50% chance of a banestorm passing through in any given month; when it does, any given person in the area has a 20% chance of being sent to one of the other worldlines. These are all averages, of course; people in bunkers or who flee generally escape transferal, while those who stand openly in the winds tend to have higher chances...

Terror in the face of mass missing persons cases and the appearance of strange clones gave way to utter confusion with the signs of past or future knowledge, and soon to triage and reorganization, and, at last, commercialization.

The first banestorm occurred on February 10th, 2010 through to October 22ed, 2018, and various dates in between. Its location was the South Kalimantan province of Indonesia. The rich mixture of people from an eight-year swath of recent and future history was at first a medical wonder (What could cause hallucinations and mass amnesia like this?), and more broadly considered viral marketing for a movie.

When, four months later, a second banestorm struck near Krasnodar, Russia, fortean investigators from the world over were on scene within days. A third banestorm in coastal Spain only a few weeks later, combined with the relatively clear information in most of the five worldlines, lead to the first outbreaks of international panic.

As Banestorms became a constant phenomenon, however, organized efforts to quantify the displaced people emerged. Efforts to use future knowledge to game the market failed immediately, as the markets were fully chaotic by that point (and generally falling). Nonetheless, efforts to identify and relocate people proceeded, and this in turn lead to some understanding of how many other eras there were. Soon, attempts were made to organize communications between each worldline by sending people into active banestorms. This immediately ran into the issue

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Old 08-21-2019, 02:07 PM   #1539
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Cowbird worlds are subtle terrors and, in some sense, ticking time bombs.

They are defined as apparent echoes that in fact are home to an entity with dramatically different psychology from humans that is nonetheless able to infiltrate human societies by appearing to be one.

Cowbird-1 is a normal-mana worldline that nonetheless followed homeline history in broad strokes, with the current year being 1742. Everyone with Magery is, in fact, a shape-shifted reptilian raised as human. This was discovered accidentally, as cameras and night vision capture their true form. They apparently have some goal they are directing their infiltration for, though what exactly that is, is as of yet unknown.

Cowbird-2 at first appeared to be a 1969 parallel with increased conspiracy theory activity. However, a determined investigator followed up on some leads and found that there were indeed doppleganger sleeper agents from a secret NAZI facility in Argentina throughout the world. The sleeper agents have IQ8 and Hidebound, among other things, but compensate with Mimicry and high levels of skill in the technique of Acting as their target. When this was discovered, this and Cowbird-1 were sealed off as effectively vanish worldlines.

Cowbird-3 is an example of a mature worldline of this type. The current date is 1190, and apparently-human bodies lie scattered across the planet. AI report these bodies as fungal masses about 12cm wide, capable of moving up to a few meters an hour. Humans, however, cannot perceive the entities as anything other than humans. Perhaps the only way for a human to know their true form is if a non-human intelligence draws a picture of the lumps of fungus from memory.

This worldline has only been visited by remote probe, and discrepancies between the terrain the vehicle drove over and the visual appearance of the camera feed caused a great deal of confusion.

Homeline doesn't know this, but the humanoid projections of the fungus can be puppeted and even cause psychosomatic harm to people. They are capable of fully emulating humans, but they only have one motivation: reproduce. Without humans to interfere with or stimulate them, they just let the projections lie there.
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Old 08-22-2019, 06:58 AM   #1540
maximara
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Anyone done any reversed myth parallels?

I was imagining a Robin Hood one where he's liked by some of the populace but in the way of Jessie James and not in any objective sense a good guy. While the Sheriff is an honorable man trying to catch a ruthless criminal.

(I know there's a 3rd ed. supplement on Robin Hood, but I don't have it. So if I'm repeating something already suggested and I'm sure said better, my apologies.)
As "The Outlaw" episode of Terry Jones Medieval Lives shows a reverse myth of Robin Hood would be very close to historical reality. The stock and trade of these groups were assault, robbery. kidnapping, extortion, and murder. In addition to the Folville, Chetulton, Middleton, and Leyburn gangs you had what were known as free companies (groups of landless knights) marauding around the countryside.

Given all this you have to wonder 'how did the Robin Hood image came about'? Well a common tactic of English Kings was to pardon outlaws in return for military service for the simple reason there were no standing armies and hereditary knighthood was not a common as in Europe. And you would want to portray these mercenaries in the best light possible.

Last edited by maximara; 08-22-2019 at 07:09 AM.
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