Alternate Versions of Inifinite Worlds

[Starship777]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

I thought the core concept of Infinite Worlds was all the different timelines/weird worlds, not Homeline.

I'll take that challenge. My setting creation process is to start at the end and work backwards. I try to imagine what I want an average game session to look like then figure out how to make it happen.

Night Hunters
Characters are the local guardians of a present day city. Through being chosen or some other process they have made it their mission to protect people. At night when the PCs go to sleep they are mentally projected to the Astral Plane. Here they watch over their fellow citizens on the lookout for Darkness. Darkness is a kind of spiritual sickness. A malaise of the soul. Once they find a victim they dive into that persons soul. Each persons soul contains an entire world.

Sometimes the worlds are very much like our own. Sometimes they are vastly different. Historical worlds, fantasy worlds, sci-fi worlds, they are all unique to each individual person. These are not dream worlds like Inception or something. They are real and everyone living in them is real. When the characters first enter the world they materialize an appropriate body and equipment. Then they get to work. Somewhere nearby is a monster that is the cause of the Darkness. Either with detective work, magic, or psi they track down the monster and try to kill it.

In the morning they wake up back in their own bodies. If the mission was successful the Darkness infecting the victim is gone. The PCs find themselves in the possession of a Crystal Shard. Sages know how to use these gems to make the Hunters more powerful. If they failed, either by being defeated, giving up, or running out of time that victim soon grows worse. The victim manifests mental or sometimes physical illnesses. In the worst cases they could die. Diving into the victims Soul World again gives the PCs a second chance but the monsters are now stronger and/or more numerous.

This is an episodic Monster Hunters game with a rapidly changing backdrop. Each mission starts similar to a IW scouting mission as the characters try to get their bearings in an unfamiliar parallel world. Because MH is cinematic I would hand-wave some stuff like languages. I would try to make each game session last one in-game night. There are a few reasons for the separation between worlds.

• While some groups like free wheeling wanderer games I prefer ones that have a home base for the characters to return to.
• I can wring some drama out when an NPC the characters personally know is infected. Will they be able to save them? What happens if a PC is infected by Darkness?
• No cross world contamination. Getting rich by looting treasures and tech isn't an option. The Monster Hunters have one job: hunt monsters.