New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Even now, at TL8, it would cause such havoc to the Northern Hemisphere that it would probably crash the civilizations, up here, and move the centers of human progress to south of Equator.
https://www.usgs.gov/media/videos/fo...-supereruption

I'd certainly be dead, in Denver.
Hopefully, were it to happen in my lifetime, I'd be schlepping through Asia or Europe, on vacation. :)

Seconded! The only difference in your scenarios is where the few thousand survivors might choose to go to ground. But even there I assume the survivors would tend to go toward the Equator.

I suppose the later the catastrophe the greater the population base and its resources, until the 21st century when that would work backwards.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

Gameboard-1

This Q6 low manna world both terrifies and attracts Homeline, Centrum, and the Cabal. Its inhabitants seem to be able to control reality quakes.

Pink and Red trees don't blend with other trees. Depending on where the trees are the midpoint is where the influence crossed over. Any two of the Green, Blue, or Yellow trees can blend influence, but only two at a time.

Due to the influence of the Blue and Purple trees the local Tech Level to Seven plus One.

England, Wales, and the Channel Islands are covered by the Green Tree areas of influence. Scotland is covered with Blue Tree influences, this has made Scotland the main workshop of the British Empire. Ireland is covered by a mix of Blue and Green Tree influence getting full benefits of both. This includes Northern Ireland/Ulster.

Most of German-occupied Europe is covered in Red Tree influence. Italy, which was conquered by the allies before the permanent stalemate is covered in Green Tree influence as are the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and Malta. The Turks have accepted Blue Trees from the USA and they have covered their nation with Blue Tree influence in order to shut both Red and Pink Tree influence out of their nation.

Egypt and Palestine are covered in Green Tree influence.

[Apollonian]

Logophobos (Minus One/R/2020.04.27)

On this world, words eat people.

Until late in the local 19th century, this was an echo of Primus (Centrum). Sometime in the late 1870s, society collapsed over the course of about two decades. Interworld Service discovered it about seven years ago; local date was 1923. After the first expedition was lost, the worldline was declared off-limits save for a single automated monitoring station near the ruins of the British Library in London, and the files sealed.

Recently, Infinity discovered the existence of the worldline from a Centrum defector, though none of the details. A few members of the Infinity Patrol are pushing for a scouting mission to the worldline, to find out what Interworld is hiding there. This would probably be a mistake.

The details of what happened are extremely fuzzy, but what happens now is pretty clear - if irrational. The written word on Logophobos is, if in readable proximity to a sapient being, very likely to animate and attack that being. (12 or less on 3d6; 15 or less if the victim is able to read the text. Check on exposure and every minute thereafter.) The attack usually takes the form of the words or characters flowing off the page and enveloping the victim, entering the body through the eyes, ears, and mouth, and either driving the victim homicidally mad or killing them in about ten or fifteen seconds. After the attack, the words remain on the victim's body in a scramble of text resembling tattoos.

The effect is universal throughout the timeline, and can be carried to other timelines - the sole survivor of the first Interworld expedition retreated to a quarantine timeline, and was then killed by the report she tried to submit. Luckily, she'd recorded and transmitted an audio report simultaneously. The effect does seem to fade over time outside of Logophobos; best guess is that words remain malignant for about a week.

The effect does not apply to numerals or mathematical symbols, or to binary or machine code. (No one knows if it affects other coding languages.) It also seems to be less prevalent with non-writing ideograms; for example, road signs or danger symbols. Why? Unknown.

Local survivors number in the low hundreds of thousands; at the time of the disaster, there were many illiterate, self-sufficient populations scattered around the world, and they developed a quick aversion to writing. So too did survivors of literate societies. Locals are universally Illiterate. Local records are solely oral or graphic - paintings and the like.

Local mana is (now) normal, but there appears to be no universal magical tradition; if any, it's probably going to follow Path (but definitely not Book) magic. The Cabal avoids this worldline at all costs. There are rumored to be terrible sorcerers who can bind words to their will, and control those driven mad by the word; these rumors lead to regular witch hunts.

In a game, Logophobos is probably best presented as a one-off horror scenario or a bit of background color; there is almost nothing of value on it that can't be acquired from other timelines, and the risk of the word plague transmitting to Homeline or Centrum is an extremely dangerous unknown. PCs could end up there by accident - Banestorm, chronozoid, or portal - or have to deal with an escaped book brought out by a Swagman or other loose cannon. Or they could be dealing with a truly mad Cabalist who's trying to find one of those rumored sorcerers in their search for Real Ultimate Power.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

Gameboard-1

This Q6 low manna world both terrifies and attracts Homeline, Centrum, and the Cabal. Its inhabitants seem to be able to control reality quakes.

The Northeast and Midwest of the USA are covered in Blue Tree influence. The American Southeast, all the way to the middle of Texas. Maryland, Virginia, Washington D.C., and West Virginia except for the northern panhandle, are areas of mixed Blue Green influence.

Canada has an area of blended influence of Green Blue covering the Maritimes, Quebec, and Ontario.

Due to an attempt to poison the Blue Trees with Red Tree influence, that got thwarted by the local equivalents of Wonder Woman, Hawkwoman, Dr. Strange, and Starman, a new type of Tree was bred, Purple Trees.

Purple Trees are a lot like the Blue Trees except the vibe is not Pulp Weird Science, it's Captain Future/The Lensmen. A vast area of North America from Juneau and Anchorage all the way down to Mexico City. Extending from the Pacific as far inland as Winnipeg, Denver, El Passo, and the Atlantic coast of Mexico,

[AlexanderHowl]

Nightmare-1

One of the first closed worlds discovered by Infinity, Nightmare-1 is a Q5 timeline that lives up to its name. In this timeline, the nightmares of anyone untrained in the Dreaming skill become real, as can the dreams of people trained in the Dreaming skill. Since the first probes were incapable of dreaming, the first in scouts were the ones to discover the horrific truth when one of their members had a nightmare concerning her service in the US Army and the group was attacked by mortars.

The entities of Nightmare-1, animal and human, are born the Dreaming skill, so they are capable of using their dreams defensively and offensively in real life. The effect seems to be inherent to the timeline, as visitors with the Dreaming skill are capable of exploiting the same features, though no other supernatural abilities seem to work (for example, dream abilities may mimic magic, but they do not depend on mana). Dominance and power depends on the Dreaming skill of an entity, though animals and humans base any Dreaming rolls on the greater of ST or Will.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

On a Q6 Low Manna world (with rare small areas of High Manna most common in Ireland, Wales, Egypt, Tibet, the mountains of Southern California and Arizona, the Yucatan, New Zealand, and scattered areas of sub-Saharan Africa. ) the Cabal has been interfering in WWII.

Agents of the Cabal have arranged the "accidental" deaths Lev Mekhlis (a massive millstone around the neck of the Red Army) and Stalin himself. The Cabal also caused the Russians to break diplomatic relations with Japan. Which forces a quick death to the illusion that the Russians would help them secure favorable surrender terms from the USA. The Cabal has also caused the deaths or disgrace of several figures among the Western Allies the most prominent being Joseph McCarthy (dead in a traffic accident), and Anthony Eden(dead by what is assumed to be food poisoning).

The ICOPs want to understand what the goal is and why no Axis figures have been hit. Mekhlis, Stalin, and McCarthy were all bad for the West generally, but why kill Eden? It's clear that in forcing the Japanese to give up the illusion of Russian aid will shorten the war. Mekhlis' death will save many Russian lives. But what's the end goal?

Basically a cross between detective work and espionage.

[TGLS]

Common Sense
This Quantum 3 fantasy world was of little interest to Infinity; Time Tours had little interest in a world where their tourists would have to see loads of oppression. This all changed when a few thousand heavily armed TL8 revolutionaries showed up to free slaves, shoot aristos and give women rights.

[fchase8]

A while back on this thread, I posted my GURPS Infinite Worlds write-up for the world of Conspiracy X, dubbed 'Conspiracy'.

Now I have one for the World of Darkness, named 'Gothic-4'. It's derived from the GURPS version and books.

[fchase8]

Gothic-4, 1996

Current Affairs: China begins to challenge American supremacy post-Cold War, as Europe slowly unifies.
Divergence Point: 1990s; a non-existent Paul Van Zandt does not discover parachronics.
Major Civilizations: Western (empire with rivals), Chinese (empire), Orthodox (empire), Indic (empire)
Great Powers: United States of America (representative democracy, CR3), European Union (feudal league of democracies, CR3), People’s Republic of China (dictatorship, CR5), Russian Federation (oligarchy, CR4), India (representative democracy, CR3)
Worldline Data:
TL: 7 (advanced TL seems secretly present)
Quantum: 3 Mana Level: Varies
Infinite Class: Z2 Centrum Zone: Inaccessible

At first glance, this world is similar to the many close parallels without Paul Van Zandt or parachronics. The Soviet Union has collapsed, U.S. President Bill Clinton faces an opposing Congress, while the European Union launches and China is rising.

[fchase8]

(Gothic-4, continued)

World of Darkness
But from the moment an I-Scout came to this world, it felt wrong. It began with architecture that never went Bauhaus glass-and-steel, but instead stone gothic skyscrapers (including gargoyles). Goth music, cyberpunk literature, and other ‘dark SF’ is more important here than ever was on Homeline.
The first I-Scouts faced everything from nihilist gangs to grey bureaucracies. Then three I-Scouts disappeared. One was found in an alley drained of blood, another ripped to shreds in the countryside. And one left behind just ashes.
Sheldrake Section determined the mana level depends on an area’s people & tech, and psionics work, but it feels like they’re just the tip of the iceberg here.

Outtime Operations
Currently, Infinity only observes this world through drones, which report nothing unusual, including the world’s politics proceeding as they do on other close non-parachronic parallel.
Yet everything seems worse here. There are serial killings and apocalyptic cults that never existed anywhere else. The famous figures might be the same, but who is in the background of news reports (and old paintings)? How come outlandish supermarket tabloids are so popular – and realistic looking? And why are there so many names here for the end of the world?