Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

To ordinary people in the Reality Bubble the geography seems continuous. Areas with no human beings would not have much influence from the Reality Bubble. For individuals with heightened or esoteric sensory abilities within the Bubble, in areas with high human populations the Bubble would be reality. For these same people standing outside of the Bubble in the Backstage the lower the population density the more the Backstage is reality. As the Reality Bubble, the Backstage, and the Umbra (this is a Mage crossover) all cover the Earth they might seem to be different layers of the same thing. However, both the Reality Bubble and the Backstage are material realities. The Outer Ones need to get to material realities with sophant beings they can parasitise. So the Umbra isn't valuable to them even though they can freely access it.


The templates that were chosen for the Reality Bubble were seriously incomplete. The social realities of the comic novels were chosen to cover wide varieties of reality ignored by pulp Sci Fi, Weird Tales, and comic books. That Cold Comfort Farm was set in the future got it noticed first. The comic/humorous literature of the 1919-1939 period was widely used. The livelier comedies of Hollywood were also freely used.

Materials from outside the period that fit well were also used. A good example would be the Comic Novels of H.G.Wells.

Authors like Dunsany, Thorne Smith, James Stephans, Branch Cabel, and Tolkien, who don't fit the general pattern and parameters of the Reality Bubble were added to the mix to cover more of what wasn't included.

This may seem self contradictory, well it is. It does weaken the Reality Bubble, but it also poisons and confuses the Outer Ones.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Thanks. My talent tends to lie not in generating my own ideas, but in finding inspiration in other's ideas. It's added a new set of villains and new twist to mull over for my favorite fantasy world as well.

I like the idea of the "Bubbles" with stretches of "Other" reality between... I may take it bit less on the 'bubble' side and more on the "patchwork" reality side, as my Shattered Lands is a Gamma Worldesque style of "multiverses have crashed into one another and the world is now a patchwork of the pieces left over". GI originally had various "other realities" on 'different filter layers' that were easily reachable, similar to White Wolf's Umbra, but i also like the idea of them being a contiguous reality that may simply exist between the boundaries of the patchwork lands.

It's sparked a lot variant ideas for my Shattered Lands world.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

I'll do more with the Editorial Committee but here's a different idea. Reading about the fate of Orcs after the destruction of the one ring it occurred to me, without Saron or a similar Dark Lord, being inherently evil isn't adaptive. Orcs are supposed to be the descendants of elves twisted and distorted by Morgoth. Orcishness is a corruption of elvishness. Orcs totally free of Morgoth or Saron would be under evolutionary pressure to be less orcish. So could the original elvish qualities return?

The adventures of a tribe of Orcs, somewhere far from Gondor (as they are totally gone by the time of THE NEW SHADOW) might be interesting as they find themselves transforming over time.

Mind you, much of Middle Earth would have a long and unhappy memory. Life would be difficult.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

The cultures that the PCs will deal with on Mars, Mercury, Venus, the Jovian moons, and asteroids very much resemble the cultures in Lovecraft's DREAMQUEST FOR UNKNOWN KADATH and Dusany's A DREAMER'S TALES. That is to say a mixture of the Arabian Nights, classical Greek fiction, and medieval romance. This is cross Hatched with the pulp Sci Fi pattern (which uses the same sources with less panash).

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Those lands outside the bubble which I've called the Backstage I'm somewhat revising. Basically I'm drawing from three main sources. The MAD MAX films, especially the first one, 1930s Warner Brothers "social problem films" especially the gangster films, and a 1980s Canadian animated film called ROCK AND RULE. All of these sources are about societies that are falling brutally apart. Violence is becoming the social norm.

However the people (and others) dwelling in these lands still have to keep the Outer Ones away. Weirdly enough pop culture and fads, the more absurd the better, confuse and repel the Outer Ones. Also living in communities, no matter how wretched, also interferes with the Outer Ones, interferes, not protects. Those living in the Backstage who lack extremely high levels of will power and outrageous stubbornness slowly deteriorate into mere automatons. This is caused by the Outer Ones draining off their individuality and identity. This leads to a society of leaders and followers, followers who no more question their leaders than a clock would.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Mages built the Bubble. It is not something that would normally be within the power of Mages. Alliances, temporary ones, were made with powerful paradox spirits and godlike umbroods. The Faeries, the Fera, the Garou, and the Wraiths all aided in the plan. But the Mad and somewhat slipshod reality was a piece of Mage desperation.

The Traditions are running the ongoing project that is slowly overwriting the old reality with this new old. Some of the Technocratic Union and the Desparates are working with the Trads, with different levels of enthusiasm. The Void Engineers are delighted, the Hollow Ones grumble but admit there is some romance. For very different reasons both the New World Order and the Al-batini are furious. But both see themselves stuck, for now.

The Nephandi are the biggest threat as far as the Mages see it. And, as the Nephandi are joyfully allied with the Outer Ones, they see it correctly.

More later.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

The Faeries are betwixt and between about the situation. Banality is low in this setting and Glamour is high. However, Changelings are known to exist. Most Changelings (it's the default) have some level of Slipped Seeming. Seeming's Blessing is very common too (a far lower cost advantage). The public accepts Changelings as humans that display Atlantian heritage, and that the FAERIES of folklore were survivors of Atlantis that eventually married in to humanity.

This additude to Changelings is a mixed bag. When parents know that their kids are fey blooded it means that they kids get a certain understanding but also greater supervision. A young satyr walking down the street is understood to be somewhat outrageous. But if they get a greater freedom, they also have trouble being taken seriously.

The Changelings help maintain the Bubble that protects Humanity. They are very closely allied with the Mages and get the job of communicating between the Mages, the Beast Courts, and the Wraiths.

More details later.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Wraiths are confused. The shadow lands look into both the Bubble and the Backstage. In fact the barriers between the Shadowlands and the Backstage are weak. The Fog is inactive in the Backstage. Wraiths are known to be real in the Backstage. Wraith Arcani work quite well in the Backstage.

The flipside of this is that those Wraiths to near to the Backstage are easily perceived by the Outer Ones. With scary consequences. A Wraith can be stripped of their Pathos fairly easily by the Outer Ones.

Specters can reach into the Backstage far more easily than they ever could reach the Skinlands before this disaster. The Outer Ones seem to be able to control and drain Specters fairly easily. Specters hate this.

Risen seem to be invisible and immune to the Outer Ones. How this works and how reliable it is is unknown.

More later...

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

I'm not sure about any of the following.

This would probably use a 'Bubble' or 'Stability' or something number to show how much the Backstage or the Bubble predominated, like 'Mana' or 'Sanctity' ratings.

I don't follow what the process of stabilising the Bubble is supposed to consist of in practice. Is it done by casting spells? Or by going into a place and doing things suitable to that genre? Or by convincing a lot of people that things work a certain way, Mage: the Ascension 'Paradigm'-style? Or something else? Or maybe that's something that's supposed to be left to GMs to pick according to what kind of game they and their players want.

Lot of irony in the fact that it's mostly fantasy creatures - wizards, fairies, werewolves, ghosts, etc. - who are constructing this new world that hides the fantasy :-D

Sounds interesting. So (currently, at least) you're thinking of a setting where Backstage has a critical shortage of imagination or ideas about what to do, because the Outer Ones eat them? The pop culture thing makes sense - that's ideas, but it's not the kind of ideas the premise has the Outer Ones being adapted to eating (fantasy or, failing that, realism) and the premise has them not being able to change direction very easily, so the place becomes full of ideas they can't digest.

This might lead to a scenario where they'd be very ready to follow any ideas that the PCs put to them - unless they already had one of those strong-willed leaders giving them orders, in which case you'd have a mob to deal with unless you could beat or convince the leader.

What's biting the New World Order? I'd have thought that the era the mages were using was a big time for that kind of sinisterly-organised, technocratic stuff. Mind you, in practice, pulp science-fiction stories tend to be on the lawless-frontier side or if there's a technocratic rulership they tend to be the bad guys who the heroes defeat, so it might not work out too well from that angle.

Re: New Fantasy Setting Seeds.
 

Then change it all and make it your own.

A solid idea. Such ratings are in most of the White Wolf/Onyx Path games and could GURPS up nicely.

As I see it it's Paradigm manipulation. But figuring out what your players truly want and giving them that is always wise.

Yes. But making sure that wonder and magic make it into the paradigm, while leaving the Outer Ones out, is a major goal.

Basically, the Collective Conscious works differently than the Collective Unconscious. The Outer Ones need the depth of the latter and perceive the former as noise.

Yes. Also watch A PIECE OF THE ACTION from ST:tOS. Beating them at their own game can be powerful too.

The NWO isn't in the driver's seat. Priorities they hate are important. And Reality is being redefined on the fly. Their utopia is much further away and their allies might prefer what the Traditions are offering.