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

[Denizen]

"As the cold hearted White Witch, Tilda Swinton sets the tempo for this bracing adventure. She is a pristine picture of evil, like the spectre of Nazism that forces the children out of London to the sanctuary of a country manor."


Blond, blue-eyed Jadis travels to the world where the Pevensies came from. There she finds a willing ally in the form of Nazi Germany. Knowing that his first name is deprived from the German word for wolf, her first gift to the Fuhrer is a stable of talking, intelligent wolves that can act as spies. Her presence causes unseasonal changes in the weather for the allies on the front, strange winters and snowstorms even in the south Pacific.

How do the Allies respond? What help could England, the country of the Lion, receive from Aslan?

If she is not stopped, then the world could potentially become another Reich world.

Any more ideas?

[quarkstomper]

Interesting idea.

The first question I'd ask is how much of the White Witch's magic works in our world. When Queen Jadis came to London in The Magicain's Nephew, she tried using the Deplorable Word, a doomsday spell to eradicate all life on the planet, but in our world it had no effect other than convince people that she was speaking gibberish. But we know from Uncle Andrews experiments in the same book that some magic works. Can Talking Beasts still speak when brought here? For the sake of the adventure, I'd say yes.

Even without any magic, the White Witch has beauty, intelligence and gobs of charisma and ambition. She'd find a way to seize whatever power she could. She'd probably assasinate Eva Braun and try to make Adolf her lap dog. But the setting would be more fun if she weilds her wintery powers as well. All of a sudden, Father Winter isn't fighting on Russia's side anymore!

Aslan will stay out of it; at least directly. On more than one occasion he's sait that he already is in our world, but that he just goes by a different name. And in both our world and Narnia, he acts more through the actions of others than through personal appearences. And from a plot point of view, Aslan is pretty much a deus ex machina. Better to leave him as a mysterious patron than an active combatant.

One possible idea. If the White Witch's presence causes a magical winter to settle over Axis-held territory, perhaps it also causes other magical creatures of legend to appear. Perhaps they were always around, just dormant because of a lack of magic and her presence awakened them. Perhaps they only existed in the imagination until the presence of magic gave them form. Perhaps they inadvertantly were drawn to our world from Narnia when she made her own crossing. These magic creatures could be allies agaist the Witch's Winterreich.

(And perhaps Aslan is responsible for these magical creatures coming here and that this is his way of working behind the scenes. Or, their presence could be an unindended consequence of the White Witch's activites which she did not forsee. Or both could be true, which would be a very Lewis-like possibility).

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by quarkstomper

Even without any magic, the White Witch has beauty, intelligence and gobs of charisma and ambition. She'd find a way to seize whatever power she could.

However, she is used to taking advantage of basically good people, and having a great deal of power of her own. This is not a mindset that will be conducive to survival, as an outsider and a woman, in the leadership circles of the Third Reich.

All of a sudden, Father Winter isn't fighting on Russia's side anymore!

The timing of this is crucial. Getting her to delay winter in 1941 would be best for the Nazis, but is probably not what she does best. If you can get her to make winter last all year in 1942, in USSR territory, then the Nazis win because the Russians run out of food. The trick is to keep it from happening in Western Europe, because that would cause Germany to starve as well.

If that kind of thing is too much for her, but she can affect weather in the winter, that can still be very valuable: knowing when the weather will be bad, and when less bad, is a huge advantage, especially in air and sea warfare.

For extra-mad gaming, have here declare that the World Ice Theory is correct, and the secret of ice magic.

[Ed the Coastie]

There are a couple of ways that you could go with this...

Remember that the Kings and Queens of Narnia were summoned when they were needed most. I think that Aslan would counter the presence of Her Frigidity by deciding that perhaps it was time to summon Britain's own legendary defender -- namely, King Arthur.

Alternately, you could have a few of the old Norse gods decide that Jadis is really a jotun sorceress, and her actions are essentially the opening salvos of the battle of Ragnarokr. Perhaps now would be a good time to send a couple of barracks worth of valiant warriors in a spoiling action against her.

My preferred response, however, depends on how effective her magic is on Earth. Without magic, Jadis is simply an extremely charismatic adversary. With small amounts of magic at her disposal, she will likely soon be in charge -- although probably behind the scenes as the puppet-mistress pulling Hitler's strings. If she has most or all of magical powers, however, then the Allies are probably going to need magic of their own in order to counter her (see GURPS WWII: Weird War II, Chapter 3 -- The Dangerous Element). My personal preference for such a campaign would be to have the PCs working for Sir Maxwell Knight and/or the Quatuor Coronati Lodge.

[Captain-Captain]

Just a note: Barbara Kellerman, who played the White Witch in the tv adaptation of the story, played a femme fatale Nazi spy in the Gregory Peck/David Niven movie "The Sea Wolves".

[quarkstomper]

I like the King Arthur idea. It would fit well with the Narnian feel.

[William]

Santa didn't seem to like her much. Perhaps Father Christmas spearheads the response by handing out items of power to chosen adversaries -- the PCs, naturally -- to combat her minions and, ultimately, Jadis herself.

[Astromancer]

To add a race against time feel to the game bring in Morgan le Fay as an ambiguous ally with vital information. (Remember Margan often allied with her brother against common foes). Have Morgan explain that no one knows/understands the correct magic for modern day Earth. Magic is just as strong as it ever was but no one really knows how to do it now.

Thus you have a background race between Margan and Jadis to figure out how to cast potent magic in the modern world. Spying on each of the Invisible Colleges would be a major feature of the game. First with real power wins!

[dcarson]

There are a lot of king/hero will return myths. Wikipedia has King in the mountain with a list. Beside Arthur you have Charlemagne, Holger Danske of Denmark, Merlin etc. Having that many you might want the PCs being their avatars so they can actually matter.

[Astromancer]

Having Henry the Fowler join the group, with sour comments on Himmler's being his fan/reincarnation, could be fun.