New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

Try this one. A virus designed to unlock psi powers goes bad, very bad.

The world goes through a fairly twisted Zombie Apocalypse. The population is divided into four main groups.

Drones Or Pawns: The majority (60% of the population), low IQ weak willed, and slaves of the strongest "Red King" around. They act out whatever role fits the delusions and dreamscapes of the "Red King" they following. Slave, lover, ally, foe, mook, spearcarrier, whatever.

The Red Kings or Queens: Insane and powerful psis (2% of the population). Their delusions rule and shape reality. The rage of a Red King varies, and the strongest Red King or Queen rules. All drones and anyone else in a weakened state automatically fall in with their fantasies/delusions.

Norms: These folks are unaffected by the virus, at least in their own brains (30% of the population). They carry on fairly normal lives, given their limitations. These are the people able to rise healthy children, most others aren't aware enough of their surroundings to care for an infant.

Norms can be aware of a given Red King's dreamscape, but they don't fit in with it.

Alices or White Knights: Weaker Psis able to break out of their delusions (8% of the population) . These folks can engage with the Red Kings and protect the Norms. They can also direct the Drones.

Society has become very strange, The Norms and Alices (and the more aware and decent Red Kings, a small group indeed) try to keep humanity from going extinct. Meanwhile the landscape is shaped by the fantasies of random Red Kings. One woman's fantasy of being a cheerleader turns the town into a cross between Riverdale High and Sunnyvale High. The next guy turns the whole area into a Soviet Summer Camp.

[PTTG]

Interesting. How does it turn out for crosstimers? I presume they tend to default to Norms?

Are Norms sane? I'm not clear on that. And if a monarch thinks that a drone should act sane, does the drone act sane? Perhaps to the point of allowing a self-sustaining society that supports the monarch?

How much ability to manipulate reality do they really have?

[patchwork]

How long ago is also a huge factor - have we seen the first generation of Red Kings and Queens who never lived in non-psionic society? Because hoo boy will they be exciting. The second, on the other hand, probably not so much...lots of knowledge is going to be lost quickly, I should think. I could get a good arc out of multiple echoes that had been infected 10, 20, 50 years ago, and an unrecognizable hell world that had been infected 100 years ago...I'd also note that the temperament of Alices stops making sense pretty quickly, and would have to think about "Red Knights"....those with the ability to break out of a Red Monarch's narrative but little incentive to do so, and may actually choose to enforce it upon normals. I'd also tweak the numbers to be more apocalyptic - given the ratios you posit, normals and Alices organizing to simply wipe out the infected is highly achievable and likely.

Fun stuff. Your scenario essentially posits that the delusional have a better chance of surviving infection than the reasonable, which is totally valid (they're already accustomed to ignoring inconvenient inputs) but I'd be interested to see it otherwise, like Torg's Comaghaz (for the non-Torg among us, a virus which ties people into a telepathic hive mind but also kills most of them slowly over the course of 2-4 years...the "center" of it, the scientist who created the virus, is deeply delusional about the harm she has done; unable to face that her work is responsible for millions of deaths, she denies the virus harms its host at all, and is thus out of touch with reality pretty badly by now).

[PTTG]

On Tabular, some kind of alternate geology results in a single, flat continent. Crosstime travelers find it roughly occupies the region of the Pacific ocean.

The landscape is very flat and geologically dead. Though the soil is rich, it is only a few inches thick, and beneath it is bedrock. As a result, there are no forests of any sort, although isolated trees of homeline-normal varieties exist. Grasses grow in thick profusion wherever the rain is sufficient.

The only significant variation in the terrain are the rivers, which are wide, shallow, and slow. They are sinuous to an extreme degree, and they merge and part fairly quickly, as their beds are quite shallow. It seems that erosion works differently here; any variation above the plain soon levels out, and depressions fill with silt suspiciously quickly. But perhaps there is some rational explanation for that, too.

It appears that this worldline was only inhabited by sea life -- which is quite diverse and otherworldly -- until about ten thousand years ago, when a banestorm brought plant seeds and a few North American ungulates. When a circa 600 AD banestorm brought a few human beings from both shores of the pacific to Tabular, they found a land of horses.

Due to the vast ocean and massive deserts of Tabular, winds are extraordinary. With no cover, people have little recourse but to flee from the worst storms or else be savaged by the wind.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Interesting. How does it turn out for crosstimers? I presume they tend to default to Norms?

If crosstimers get sick with the brain fever they are on their own. It would probably get the parallel quarantined. The higher a PC's health the more likely they end up as Norms.

Are Norms sane? I'm not clear on that.

If they started sane, they probably stayed sane. However, this is a traumatic world.

And if a monarch thinks that a drone should act sane, does the drone act sane?

If a Red King/Queen's delusion allows it, a Drone can seen very normal and stable. It a good way to spring traps on PCs.

Perhaps to the point of allowing a self-sustaining society that supports the monarch?

Very few Red Kings/Queens are that connected to reality.

How much ability to manipulate reality do they really have?

Most Red King's/Queen's are awesomely powerful Telepaths, ESPers, and Psi Vampires. A minority have Probability Alteration. However, it's mainly the perception of reality the Red Kings/Queens alter. They and the Drones live in delusions. This often leads to violence and confusion.

The Alices and White Knights can have any Psi power allowed by the GM, but at far lower levels.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by patchwork

How long ago is also a huge factor - have we seen the first generation of Red Kings and Queens who never lived in non-psionic society?

The plague is recent. Most Red Kings/Queens aren't able to care for infants.

Because hoo boy will they be exciting. The second, on the other hand, probably not so much...lots of knowledge is going to be lost quickly, I should think. I could get a good arc out of multiple echoes that had been infected 10, 20, 50 years ago, and an unrecognizable hell world that had been infected 100 years ago..

Drones and Red Kings/Queens will be rare in a generation. But the ones raised totally disconnected from reality will be Strange!

.I'd also note that the temperament of Alices stops making sense pretty quickly, and would have to think about "Red Knights"....those with the ability to break out of a Red Monarch's narrative but little incentive to do so, and may actually choose to enforce it upon normals. I'd also tweak the numbers to be more apocalyptic - given the ratios you posit, normals and Alices organizing to simply wipe out the infected is highly achievable and likely.

Red Knights, people who consciously choose madness make an interesting add in. Oh, in your game, make the ratios what you like.

Fun stuff. Your scenario essentially posits that the delusional have a better chance of surviving infection than the reasonable, which is totally valid (they're already accustomed to ignoring inconvenient inputs) but I'd be interested to see it otherwise, like Torg's Comaghaz (for the non-Torg among us, a virus which ties people into a telepathic hive mind but also kills most of them slowly over the course of 2-4 years...the "center" of it, the scientist who created the virus, is deeply delusional about the harm she has done; unable to face that her work is responsible for millions of deaths, she denies the virus harms its host at all, and is thus out of touch with reality pretty badly by now).

I'm glad you like the idea.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

On Tabular, some kind of alternate geology results in a single, flat continent. Crosstime travelers find it roughly occupies the region of the Pacific ocean.

The landscape is very flat and geologically dead. Though the soil is rich, it is only a few inches thick, and beneath it is bedrock. As a result, there are no forests of any sort, although isolated trees of homeline-normal varieties exist. Grasses grow in thick profusion wherever the rain is sufficient.

The only significant variation in the terrain are the rivers, which are wide, shallow, and slow. They are sinuous to an extreme degree, and they merge and part fairly quickly, as their beds are quite shallow. It seems that erosion works differently here; any variation above the plain soon levels out, and depressions fill with silt suspiciously quickly. But perhaps there is some rational explanation for that, too.

It appears that this worldline was only inhabited by sea life -- which is quite diverse and otherworldly -- until about ten thousand years ago, when a banestorm brought plant seeds and a few North American ungulates. When a circa 600 AD banestorm brought a few human beings from both shores of the pacific to Tabular, they found a land of horses.

Due to the vast ocean and massive deserts of Tabular, winds are extraordinary. With no cover, people have little recourse but to flee from the worst storms or else be savaged by the wind.

Do they weave huts out of the living grasses like some tribes on the Earth?

Do they build sod houses and/or Earth Mounds?

[PTTG]

The water table is very high, and the soil is stony under the thin layer of silt. That, together with the weirdly powerful erosive effects on this worldline, make earthen construction possible but labor-intensive and temporary. I like the idea of the grass huts.

Also, saber-toothed tigers are here, and they prey on the wild herds. Animal life on land is not very diverse here; aside from insects and a few amphibious sea dwellers, there are humans, horses, saber-tooths, hawks, and sparrows. If other life has been banestormed here, it hasn't persisted.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Also, saber-toothed tigers are here, and they prey on the wild herds. Animal life on land is not very diverse here; aside from insects and a few amphibious sea dwellers, there are humans, horses, saber-tooths, hawks, and sparrows. If other life has been banestormed here, it hasn't persisted.

In all probability, this requires a second layer of magic beyond the erosive forces. That's not a balanced ecology. Depending on how the magic erosive forces work maybe not even for the oceans - a lot of ocean chemistry is dependent on minerals eroded off the continents, and recycled from the sea bottom by geological uplift or volcanism forward of subduction zones. Though perhaps they are supplied by whatever produces the "silt" despite the absence of anything much it could be eroding from.

Also, given you've established native insects and amphibious organisms, what were they eating before the grass arrived? It'd be really weird for grass to have displaced all the native plants everywhere.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

The water table is very high, and the soil is stony under the thin layer of silt. That, together with the weirdly powerful erosive effects on this worldline, make earthen construction possible but labor-intensive and temporary. I like the idea of the grass huts.

Also, saber-toothed tigers are here, and they prey on the wild herds. Animal life on land is not very diverse here; aside from insects and a few amphibious sea dwellers, there are humans, horses, saber-tooths, hawks, and sparrows. If other life has been banestormed here, it hasn't persisted.

On Homeline Sabertooth Cats seem to have been ambush predators. In the environment you describe they would starve. African Lions would be much more deathly. Hyenas would also be a nightmare.