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Old 09-04-2022, 02:17 PM   #5971
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Originally Posted by Apollonian View Post
I like that one. Makes for some good cross-time scenery.
I mean, Fallout is already a kind of fantasy setting: the world suddenly froze in one aesthetic for centuries, a Catastrophe ruined the Cool Past World, and there are "Wizards" all over the place with No Sense Of Right And Wrong who like making Dangerous $#!+ That Gets Loose and has to be Quested Against. Honestly the only thing I did was "radiation gives you powers" in a roundabout way.
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Old 09-04-2022, 04:49 PM   #5972
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Antillia

This Q6 Low Mana 70%/Normal Mana 29% world seems to be a myth parallel with a variation of the legend of Antillia, a mythical island in the Atlantic. In most Homeline versions Antillia is an island about the size of Ireland settled by Spanish Christians fleeing the Moorish conquest. However in this parallel Antillia located in the area of Homeline's Azores and is about the size of Ireland and Great Britain together and was settled by the Greeks in the 7th century BCE. Later conquered by Rome, but after the time of Justinian left in isolation.

It seems that mulberries, silkworms, and paper all got to Antillia in late antiquity. There must have been limited contact between the Arabs and the Antillians as all aspects of the Arab Agricultural Revolution are present in Antillia. But Antillia seems to have been totally isolated from then until recently.
The government of Antillia seems at first to be a throwback to the early empire, but it's more of an evolution. The Emperors are adoptive. Only childless men can be emperor. Most emperors are homosexual like Trajan. It's seen as safer. The Senate has real power and both legislative and judicial powers. The membership of the Senate comes from the economic elites. So the government isn't technically a monarchy (an important point to Romans).

The culture of Antillia is a very Hellenized form of Roman culture. The local language has so many Greek loan words that it is nearly incomprehensible to Latin speaker. (If the PCs has Latin at Native, then they have Antillian Latin at Feeble).

The Antillians excell at both the practical technologies of the Romans and the more fanciful tech of the Greeks. As new ideas flood in from Europe Antillia jumps into technological innovation with enthusiasm.

I suggest that you steal some ideas from Sir Francis Bacon's The New Atlantis . Have Antillia get the value of technological innovation early and promote it.

Also, since Antillia is a magical world, and the Classical Greeks invented Alchemy, let Antillia be good at alchemy.

Try this idea. Have Antillia seek alliance with Elizabeth's Britain. Two independent minded island nations fighting Spanish domination. After the events of the Spanish Armada the Antillians offer Elizabeth a longevity potion. It slows aging to one third of normal speed, increases the ability to heal, but it causes sterility. Elizabeth, mindful of her age, accepts the potion.

This would likely make Elizabeth survive into at least the 1620s. King James of Scotland would be deeply frustrated. Meanwhile, Prince Henry Stewart (who died young in Homeline history) would likely be the preferred heir in the eyes of the English Lords and their Antillian allies. Meanwhile, Spain would prefer Charles Stewart. Can you spell intrigue?
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Old 09-10-2022, 07:17 AM   #5973
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Zenobia

Zenobia diverges with Zenobia deciding to offer Aurelian a marriage alliance. Aurelian had to explain that Rome worked differently but Zenobia's children could be garrenteed their Palmyran inheritance. As it turned out they preferred being Roman Senators.

As a team Aurelian and Zenobia greatly strengthened Rome. Their chosen heirs managed to greatly expand the Eastern borders. Rome consistently controlled Mesopotamia for the next few centuries and achieved the conquest of Persia in the fifth century.

However, a new force is raising in Arabia. The Arab tribes, once despised, seem to be unifying behind a new faith.

Basically, this Q4 Low Mana 80%/Normal Mana 17%/ High Mana 3% world, is going through a period of endemic warfare. The White Star Trading company doesn't much care except that the magnificent textiles and handcrafts of this world bring tones of profit. Meanwhile the Cabal seeks influence and control over certain wines. These wines are profoundly useful in ritual magic of all types.

Sometimes the Cabal and White Star are rivals but mainly they leave each other alone or offer mild cooperation.

For local PCs the Romano-Persian Imperium is a lively adventure setting blend real 7th century history freely with the Alexander Romances, John Mandeville, and the Arabian Nights.
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Old 09-12-2022, 01:20 PM   #5974
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Fildes worlds (named for the British microbiologist) are worlds marked by unusually sophisticated biological warfare. All (but Fildes-2) have access strictly controlled by Infinity for fear of further outbreaks.

On Fildes-1 (current year 1919), in 1915 German intelligence selected an unusually effective strain of Burkholderia mallei to infect Russian, American and French horses. The zoonotic disease soon made the jump to humans and proceeded to burn through the trench lines. World War I was on hold in 1916, with Britain closing its ports to even their own soldiers and the collapse of most European governments. As of 1919, most of Europe is occupied by British, Italian, & Spanish forces, under the auspices of the Union of Nations, with American and Japanese support on the way. The glanders outbreak has forced the Americans to reevaluate their policy on isolationism. The Constitutionalist regime in Mexico fell when disease reached Mexico City. Most of those responsible for the attack have been tried and executed. Despite the first act of the Union of Nations to ban the use of bioweapons, all great powers have been developing their own biowarfare capacity to some degree or another.

On Fildes-2 (current year 622), the Assyrian practice of poisoning wells with Ergot proved especially effective, to the point that that the practice (and the fungus) spread across the Mediterranean. Experimentation has led to unusually advanced pharmacology.

On Fildes-3 (current year 1767), an Borgu medicine man found and developed a virulent disease into a weapon of war in the 13th century. The disease grew less effective as other peoples of West Africa developed inoculations and natural resistance to the disease. In 1764, a slave ship bound for Spanish America incidentally became a plague ship as one of the slaves had an asymptomatic variant of the disease. As of 1767, the spread of disease has savaged the non-African population of the Americas and proved a reliable counter to armies sent to slave uprisings.

On Fildes-4 (current year 2016), Einstein died in an accident at the Swiss patent office in 1904, severely hampering theoretical physics. Between the lack of theoretical background and bombshell reporting of the activities of Japanese Unit 731, it was no surprise that Americans initiated their own project in the 1930s. During WW2, biological warfare was limited to the Chinese, Pacific & American Theaters of the war, with island hopping operations usually being preempted a week in advance with a plague attack. The war against Japan continued into 1946, a brutal affair that saw Bubonic Plague attacks on San Diego (Operation PX), the occupation of Kyushu, and anthrax attacks on Honshu.

During the ensuing cold war, the Soviet Union and the United States spent enormous sums on the development of bioweapons, and on the expansion of public health programs (now considered a matter of national security). Investments in genetic engineering created increasingly more virulent and horrific weapons by the dueling superpowers. The fears of an enemy first strike through use of embedded agents staging an attack as a biohazard outbreak led to the erosion of civil liberties throughout the West. During the brush fire wars of the period, less sophisticated weapons were used by insurgents (as terror weapons) and governments (usually to deny sanctuary) alike. Towards the end of the twentieth century, genetically engineered animals were first commercialized, and fears of genetically engineered humans gained a sharper focus.

In June of 1996, an explosion at a bioweapons laboratory near Moscow led to the mass outbreak of over a dozen diseases. Soviet agents in the United States and the West assumed the outbreaks were the result of an American attack and deployed their weapons without a care of capture. American agents responded by deploying their weapons throughout the Eastern bloc and Asia. Over a hundred million were dead before the tanks began to move. By 2003, when the war and the plagues were well and truly over, 80% of the population of Eurasia and 73% of the world's population was dead, reduced to about 1.6 billion people worldwide. North America was affected the least, with just over 36% of the region's population dead.

The post-war decade was primarily focused on the rebuilding of most of the world under the leadership of the United States. The cold war era restraints on civil liberties gradually slackened. There were a highly improbable series of advancements in areas all areas of technology, especially automation and robotics. It was a new golden age.

This did not last. In March of 2015, following a plane crash near Newark, amongst the wreckage was the shattered remains of android. The android was years beyond anything publicly available at the time, and worse, the android apparently replaced a previously living person. With a living flesh skin, the android menace has reawakened the cold war era paranoia. No one knows where they are from, why they're here, or what they are going to do.

Steel-2 (current year 2026) shares a similar background to Steel-1 (see Reign of Steel). That's where the similarities appear to end, however. The plagues began in 2006, four years before the Manila Overmind supposedly awakened on Steel-1. Many of the awakened AIs share the same computer systems as their counterparts on Steel-1, but few of their behavioral traits. None are misanthropes for example. Despite years of mass death, often made worse by wars, civil disorder and looting, the AIs did not follow up with their own military operations against humanity. In all but few places, they occupy functions ranging from mere advisor to paternalistic dictator. Some simply don’t care what happens to the remaining 10% of humanity.

All of these differences stem from the fact that the plagues were not started by the AIs in this timeline. In the 1970s, the American government of Fildes-4 captured a conveyor used by Centrum as part of their interwave experiments. Reverse engineering proceeded slowly due to their weaker background in physics, but by 1996 they had four conveyors and had discovered Steel-2. They had hoped they could use the conveyors as a last resort evacuation mechanism. Instead, they produced a far darker use; they would unleash the same diseases upon the parallel world and steal their solutions. Some hoped the inhabitants of Steel-2 would weather the plagues better than their own world, others were more motivated by eliminating a perceived threat or lining their own pockets pilfering technologies for “invention”.

In 2019, agents from Fildes-4 were captured at the Luanda hyperfac by a keen-eyed operator. Their conveyor was tracked down and captured by responding robotic units, and the agents were interrogated, leading to the discovery the plagues were caused by those from Fildes-4. The revelation of the interference of the outworld operatives from Fildes-4 led to the “Parallel Worlds” crisis, which made even AI apathetic to the fate of humanity anxious. If outworlders would do that to their own kind, what would they do to robots? The decision was made to suppress this information, so the outworlders would not know they knew, and to avoid mass panic by the remaining humans. They then proceeded to break down the conveyor technology, to send specially designed infiltration robots to Fildes-4, to determine what their motivations were, and who is to be punished.

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Old 09-12-2022, 05:27 PM   #5975
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Well, TGLS, you have certainly hit one of the Nightmare Scenarios for Infinity and Centrum, beyond just the Secret getting out.
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Old 09-13-2022, 10:34 AM   #5976
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Slick: in 1970, Tricia Nixon invited her fellow Finch College alumni to the White House, among them Grace Slick. Grace decided to go, and bring enough LSD to permafry an elephant herd; Grace believed that if she could just dose President Nixon he'd see the error of his ways and end Vietnam. Her mistake was bringing Abbie Hoffman as her plus one; Hoffman was recognized by the Secret Service and the couple were denied entry. On Slick, Grace selected a much more unobtrusive date, and achieved her aim.

LSD is indeed a psychologically transforming experience for Richard Nixon, and he abruptly resigns to pursue global consciousness elevation in the private sector. The bribery evidence comes out, President Agnew insists that as President he is unindictable but it's enough to make him lose in '72 to McGovern. Time marches on and American society unravels. Nixon is no hippie, he's more of an Elon Musk/Peter Thiel cryptobro type, but smart. The war on drugs never really gets off the ground, with Nixon determinedly against it. The EPA was never created, but many states have a comparable state office (the California Air Quality Board, for example) and some of them have fangs; chemical plant managers tend to get shot while resisting arrest in Oregon. Relations with China were never normalized.

I'd pick a current year of 1988; politically, GHWBush has had his two terms and there's a disturbingly open field on both sides to replace him. Nixonians, Agnewites and Bushites hate each other bitterly on one side; McGovern's non-drug/non-criminal liberals can't cooperate with an enormous, continuing drug-fueled hippie movement that wins downballot elections on the other. There's probably some Wallace-type racists and free evangelicals wandering the landscape too. Nobody commands more than about 20% popular support and it's looking stabby. The USA and USSR may both collapse simultaneously. In all this, Nixon's libertarian techno-utopians are coming up with psychotech that's both intriguing and, well, unbelievable. Some people at Infinity fear that Slick Tricky Dick has an outtime sponsor. Even if not, they want a look at his mind expansion devices. For added fun, include Reich-5, rubbing its hands at the thought that both of its enemies are collapsing here, and laying groundwork for when they do. Actually, I'd probably make that the game - Reich-5 incursion secretly wrapped up by Nixonians, and now Nixon is reverse-engineering their gear while seeing time-traveling Nazis in every hedgerow.

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Old 09-13-2022, 06:21 PM   #5977
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The EPA was never created, but many states have a comparable state office (the California Air Quality Board, for example) and some of them have fangs; chemical plant managers tend to get shot while resisting arrest in Oregon.
Whoa, far out. I'd expect that to significantly reduce the numbers of chemical plants in Oregon, though (which is probably 'just as planned').

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For added fun, include Reich-5, rubbing its hands at the thought that both of its enemies are collapsing here, and laying groundwork for when they do. Actually, I'd probably make that the game - Reich-5 incursion secretly wrapped up by Nixonians, and now Nixon is reverse-engineering their gear while seeing time-traveling Nazis in every hedgerow.
Trippy, man. Could be an interesting setting, but real trippy.
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Old 09-16-2022, 07:07 PM   #5978
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Cossack-2

The Cossack worlds are worlds were revolts against the Russian Crown are far more successful. In Cossack-2 late 19th century revolts have brought down the monarchy and reduced Russia to chaos. The European powers are trying to restore order, but they don't agree with each other as to what that order should be.

Meanwhile, large sections of the territory ruled by the Russian Crown have formed their own governments. Finland being the most successful.But the Caucasus is full of new states based around ancient peoples and bitter territorial disputes that make the Balkans seem placid in comparison.

Basically, this is an alternative WWI with wildly altered premises. The alliance system is messed up and unstable. No one is firmly allied to anyone else and yet the European powers are technically working together. No front lasts. Shifting alliances and the vast open spaces of Russia, the Ukraine, and Siberia, defeat anything like a front. Objectives shift and crumble. Armies capture vast territories and then have to let them go.

Centrum wants Britain to conquer this Q7 world. Homeline wants to guile Centrum into wasting resources on a quagmire.
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Old 09-18-2022, 11:44 AM   #5979
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Cossack-1

This Q6 Low Mana parallel diverges with the Stepan Razin revolt. Yuri Baryatinsky fell off his horse early in the battles of Sviyaga. Razin managed to rout Baryatinsky and consolidate his power for a time. This led to a new time of the troubles. When Charles XII moved to conquer Russia in 1700 the unstable government of the new Tsar (ironically named Peter) collapsed. Over the next few decades Charles consolidated his hold on vast territories as far east as the Urals and as far South as the Black Sea.

The Swedes in the late 18th century seeing practical advantages in an alliance with Napoleon have seen off both their Austrian and Prussian rivals. Sweden is indifferent to whether Britain or France wins the struggle between them. They plan to carefully play the long game. Both France and Britain see the threat, but neither can risk having the other two allied against them.

It's a trickier Napoleonic War. Britain must decide if France or Sweden is the greater danger. If you can play it in a Napoleonic setting, it works here. Plus the Cossacks are still around and dangerous.

Centrum wants to get France and Sweden to go to war with each other. Homeline prefers a stalemate. The Cabal wants to invest the minimum resources needed to keep the other two busy and out of their hair.

Various crosstime crooks like the Ottoman slave markets. Homeline is focused on catching them.
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Old 09-21-2022, 10:15 PM   #5980
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In the significant backlog of worldlines that diverged amid WWII, this one hasn't been categorized yet beyond noting the present date as fall of 1942. The initial scout report, only a few weeks back, indicates that the first noted divergence is the inexplicable effectiveness of US subs at this point in the war. Not being an expert in naval history, it would be unlikely the scout would recognize that the US' chief of naval ordinance followed a slightly different career path and became convinced of the necessity of submarine warfare since well before '41.

As a result, the US' nearly comically faulty sub-launched torpedoes (more effective at circling around and striking the sub that launched them than at sinking the enemy) were thoroughly tested and several problems fixed. This enabled the early US sub efforts to be somewhat more effective than otherwise. The US's one adversary who was most especially dependent on sea trade was undoubtedly Japan, leading to a US effort in the Pacific which was increasingly focused on the effective use of subs. In homeline, there were several early opportunities for US subs to sink Imperial aircraft carriers which failed due to faulty torpedoes.

The worldline at the moment is caught right at the moment that Japan reorients its strategy against submarines. A single note on the file by an overworked historian notes speculatively that a US that neglects carriers in preference of subs would have far less force projection. Perhaps this was intentional to weaken the US' hegemony in some roundabout way? Or maybe someone's trying to expand underwater settlements for some reason.
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