White Witch Jadis goes to 1940s Europe and allies with the Nazis, A Narnia RPG Idea.

[tHEhERETIC]

Reported Seifyinty in two other threads, tagging here as well.

I hate spammers.

[Astromancer]

What really hurts is I was hoping for more stuff on this thread. (SIGH)

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

What really hurts is I was hoping for more stuff on this thread. (SIGH)

We could develop it more if we had more constraints. Sounds silly, but WWII is so big and complex that "the whole thing" is somewhat intractable.

The first question is "Is there an occult element to this WWII already, or does she start that?" and the next couple are when does Jadis arrive?" and "how much power and what kind(s) does she have?"

As examples, consider these three WWII-with-magic/powers campaigns:

Their Finest Hour had covert magic already present, on all sides. It's limited in time and scale to the Battle of Britain. If Jadis can do reasonably fine-grained weather control, in summer, she can have tremendous influence on the battle, and may enable it to be won by the Naazis and an invalion of thye British Isles to follow.

In the Godlike campaign, she is a Talent, and likely a vastly more powerful one than most. Using her as a front-line combatant would seem silly, but she may well be being used to immobilise this section of the Eastern Front to order while the German Army envelops it and captures another half-million Soviet troops.

In Irresponsible and Right, her relationship to the (at least) three German magical factions that already existed at the start of the war would be crucial. As someone from outside the world, she'd complicate the metaphysics greatly.

So the kind of game she's brought into is important. My suggestion up-thread that in a war with no previous magic, she can simply destroy Soviet food production and win the war that way is not heroic, but it's really effective.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by johndallman

So the kind of game she's brought into is important. My suggestion up-thread that in a war with no previous magic, she can simply destroy Soviet food production and win the war that way is not heroic, but it's really effective.

I never saw Jadis as caring about heroism. Starvation would meet her ideas just fine.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I never saw Jadis as caring about heroism. Starvation would meet her ideas just fine.

Yup. At some point she will be assassinated by some Nazi faction, because she will get on the wrong end of some political play, or for treating "good aryans" the same as anyone else.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Yup. At some point she will be assassinated by some Nazi faction, because she will get on the wrong end of some political play, or for treating "good aryans" the same as anyone else.

Which is why she'll need a little bit of magic.

It also makes Morgan le Fay useful to the senario. If Jadis can come up with the big magics, they'll see her as necessary. If King Arthur's sister, also a scary powerful wizardess, is proudly working for the Brits, Jadis is even more necessary.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Which is why she'll need a little bit of magic.

It also makes Morgan le Fay useful to the senario. If Jadis can come up with the big magics, they'll see her as necessary. If King Arthur's sister, also a scary powerful wizardess, is proudly working for the Brits, Jadis is even more necessary.

Bear with me a bit, because there's something that happens if Jadis isn't stopped. If she defeats the Soviets with winter magic, she'll want to start imposing winter in Europe in general. The interesting thing is that she'll get support from some Nazi factions for this. There was a lot of rhetoric about how "our ancestors grew amid snow and ice, and were made strong by the cold." Nazism was impractically romantic anyway, and while there will be plenty of Germans who will see that eternal winter is disastrous, what will actually matter is how it gets spun to Hitler, and what decision he takes. And if Jadis has had the sense to use magic to influence him ...

(I find it much more interesting to work out how the plot goes if the PCs (or other heroes) don't take action, rather than assuming that they will succeed at a point I design into the situation, with no idea of what would have happened after that.)

... then Germany becomes a state truly dedicated to making war - which is what Nazism was heading for anyway - with subject states to the south whose job is to supply food. When the freeze reaches the Mediterranean coast, North Africa should be becoming temperate. Jadis, of course, doesn't care about Germans starving and freezing, so after a while, some Nazi factions will realise they have to stop her, no matter what.

Now, Morgana is unlikely to show her full hand until it's clear to the British they really need her, which makes it summer 1943, with Russia frozen out of the war, and Fortress Europa looking unconquerable with all of the army that would have been in (or lost in) Russia rested, refitted, and ready to repel invasion. Global cooling is getting worrying, although plenty of people are saying it's just natural variation, or a new Ice Age brought on by (variety of contradictory explanations).

Now Morgana turns up in Whitehall, totally convincing about what needs doing, and with a list of the people who are destined to do it.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Now Morgana turns up in Whitehall, totally convincing about what needs doing, and with a list of the people who are destined to do it.

Cool plot idea! If you go that way, have Morgan explain that this isn't England's worst hour, so Arthur can't come. She came to make up for past mistakes, and to nurture a better future. Give her a touch of the Russet Coated Captains. A repentant sinner with a misson.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Cool plot idea! If you go that way, have Morgan explain that this isn't England's worst hour ...

I very much doubt I will ever run this; I was just trying to make a somewhat interesting idea more practical as a plot.

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Bear with me a bit, because there's something that happens if Jadis isn't stopped. If she defeats the Soviets with winter magic, she'll want to start imposing winter in Europe in general. The interesting thing is that she'll get support from some Nazi factions for this. There was a lot of rhetoric about how "our ancestors grew amid snow and ice, and were made strong by the cold." Nazism was impractically romantic anyway, and while there will be plenty of Germans who will see that eternal winter is disastrous, what will actually matter is how it gets spun to Hitler, and what decision he takes. And if Jadis has had the sense to use magic to influence him ...

There's romantic impracticality and there's disaster-causing impracticality. Unless Jadis' magic can make crops grow in winter, she'll run out of willing minions fast, and any minions and subjects at all fairly soon after that.

PS. In case it wasn't clear, I'm talking about people either leaving her realm or starving to death.

PPS. This is something Lewis conveniently forgot to address. I suppose the White Witch could have been conjuring up vittles for all the Narnians in the same way that she conjured up Turkish Delight for Edmund, but there's something so pragmatically down-to-earth about the vision of the Witch conjuring up waggon-loads of smoked hams and potted meat and strawberry jam and whatnot, and her minions distributing them, that I find slightly ludicrous.

Hans