New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

Try this idea. Move the introduction of Superheroes back one war. Have superheroes show up starting about 1912. The Superman equivalent could show up in Chicago (Metropolis was originally supposed to be Cleveland Ohio). Most of the DC and Quality heroes show up in the USA and Canada. Green Lantern shows up in Ireland and is in conflict with the British heroes (who are Atlas/Timely (later Marvel) and Fawcett (except for Mary Marvel who is also an Irish citizen).

This leads to an altered WWI. With figures as powerful as Green Lantern and Mary Marvel in Ireland and unwilling to allow persecution of the Irish there will be conflict. Note: I'd make Steve Rogers an Ulster Protestant that ferociously objects to the oppression of the Catholic Irish (Captain Shamrock).

The American superheroes would have to prevent a massive superheroes war from breaking out in Ireland in order to keep the attention on the main war in France and out of Ireland. The British heroes have to put up with this because they don't want to alienate the USA.

[Astromancer]

Each of the major civilizations of Eurasia went in different directions after the Black Death plagues (note China either didn't have a Bubonic Plague outbreak or simply didn't notice it, which should give you a hint of what China was like in the fourteenth century).

China became dominated by the Confucian Bureaucratic elites. India either retreated into total mysticism or was conquered by Islamic tribes men. The Islamic areas were dominated by an alliance of military dictators and religious scholars. Europe couldn't pull together. The crowns, the Church, the nobility, the elite Merchants, and the Independent cities, all fought for dominance. The constant competition forced economic and military developments across the board.

Picture a world where one of the other Eurasian civilizations similarly failed to gell into a gun powder empire. Europe, simply because of mildly more sophisticated technology and techniques, dominated the world (although the wealth of the Americas was massively useful). Picture a viable competitor.

[Astromancer]

Try this idea. A world were a supervillain conquered the world back in the late 1940s. He trapped most of the superheroes into a time stasis and held them helpless and unaware since 1948. However, a being roughly equivalent to the Specter or Starlight, the Super Wizard, showed up in 2019 and banished the supervillain from any and all nearby realities.

The society the supervillain set up is showing serious cracks. People are looking for the Stasis Traps to free the Superheroes and the preconquest books and other records that could tell people what the world was really like.

I see this world as a Q4 world, only Homeline and the Cabal can get here. The Supervillain might be an ally or member of the Cabal, or otherwise a bitter rival. Still, since this world (being a golden age comicbook world) is rich in magical resources, the Cabal wants the whiphand. Homeline wants to free the heroes and make sure a world conquering supervillain doesn't return.

[patchwork]

You know, I'd be tempted to make that into a skerry, because it could depend significantly WHICH supervillain was in charge. Pulling up a popular list of "greatest supervillains" and looking at the top 10, I see two that would be utterly postapocalyptic and two that would be cleansed of all life, leaving six world dominators: Dr. Doom, Lex Luthor, Norman Osborn, Loki, Sinestro...and Magneto. Magneto being something of an antivillain in modern times, I'd probably make that the fulcrum world; he isn't inclined to suppress information and usually isn't genocidal so his world is going to be a lot less deformed than the others, even if Osborn's and Luthor's still have something called 'America'. Heck, I'd call the superficial similarities between Luthor's world and our own one of the serious hidden dangers of the skerry for Infinity. But I'd have fun letting agents compare and contrast the different schemes of world domination, and making them compare and contrast reports on imprisoned heroes/rivals: you have Sinestro's account and Lex Luthor's account of Hal Jordan, which do you judge more accurate? And on that basis, do you release him or not?

[Ramidel]

This is both fantasy and alternate earth, but I don't care. :)

Zenobia-2
Divergence: 580 BC
Current date: 700 AD (Olympiad 369.4)
TL: 3^

In the days before written history, humans first entered the altered states of consciousness that allowed them to glimpse the truth of the world, and these limited glimpses allowed them to change the world by the force of their will. Tribal shamans and Babylonian astrologers alike saw the hidden truths of the world, but history only truly diverged from our own in 580 BC, when Princess Meili's mastery of the I Ching gave her brother Zhou Jian Wang victory in the Zhou-Wu Contention, restoring the central government's authority over China. In the years that followed, mystics worldwide achieved feats equalled never before, and names such as Laozi, Sushruta, Zoroaster and Pythagoras are still recited with reverence over a millennium later. The disciplines they unlocked included the ability to read and control minds, to enhance and transform one's body, to heal with a touch, and to move objects by force of will alone.

In the Western Mediterranean, the hero-tyrants of Syracuse pushed into Italy and Africa under the guidance of their Pythagorean mentors, conquering the Samnites and bringing the young city of Rome under their influence shortly after it expelled the Etruscan kings, while extracting tribute from the merchant princes of Carthage and the tribes of Mauritania and Iberia, and absorbing a number of fleeing Spartan warrior-mystics after Persia's destruction of the city. While never a strongly-unified state, the maritime empire of Magna Graecia soon came into conflict with the might of Persia when they began expanding into the East. They reclaimed Hellas and part of Anatolia, and while the Macedonian warlord Alexander fell in battle during his invasion of Persia, his invasion weakened them to the point of collapse. The Achaemenid dynasty fell and its domain was divided among a welter of satraps, dasturs, city-states and kings, and one very special kingdom.

Judea had been one of Persia's most loyal provinces under the Achaemenids, ever since Cyrus allowed the Jews to return and rebuild their Temple. The rulers of Judea were a wealthy, educated class who had studied in amity with Zoroastrian and Babylonian scholars, and Jewish magi were renowned through the Empire for their piety and power. After Persia's fall, Governor Hezekiah became Judge Hezekiah, and for centuries thereafter Judea stood independent even as Egypt came under Greek rule from the capital at Racoptis. During this period, Jewish mystics developed the name Merkavah for their practices, after their visions of the Chariot of God.

When Judea fell under Greek rule, it was to a period of rising Greek influence and sectarian strife - indeed, the Latin writer Flavius Josephus claims that the last of the Judges invited the Greek tyrant to be his heir, because no Jew could be impartial among the many rival mystic sects. (It was probably conquered through a combination of alliances and force.) Regardless of the truth of this, it didn't work, and Judea remained a troubled land under Greek rule. Many Jewish mystics moved to other lands during this time, fleeing the strife, while other Jews began assimilating into Aramaic or Greek culture. Both Rhacoptis and Babylon soon became centers of Jewish culture, learning and mysticism.

In the Third Century, Magna Graecia died in fire. A power struggle between governors under a weak tyrant soon left the tyrant dead and a revolving door of new claimants to Syracuse's poisoned throne, few lasting a year in the spot. Cities withdrew from the empire and warlords and barbarians seized control of its lands, and near the end, the only heroes who could save the Greek empire were, ironically, a Roman and an Aramaean. In the west, the Latin general Gallienus defeated Andronikos, Tyrant of Gaul, before crushing an Alemannic invasion and being acclaimed as tyrant by the boule of Syracuse. Meanwhile in the east, after the assassination of her husband, a formidable Aramaean mystic seized control of his kingdom and built a new empire in Syria, Judea and Egypt. That woman was Bat-Zabbai, better known by her Greek name, Zenobia.

The first recorded use of the word "psychic" to describe masters of the mind on Zenobia-2 was in a writer's description of Zenobia. While she was not Jewish, she had studied Merkavah under the tutelage of Origen of Rhacoptis, believed to have been a Jewish scholar (though even in those days, Gentile magi claiming Jewish ancestry were fairly common). Under Gallienus' rule, she cordially recognized him as tyrant and provided token support to Magna Graecia, and he left her alone to focus on the West. After his death in 282, Magna Graecia entered final disintegration and Zenobia declared the independence of the Palmyrene Empire. In the following years, Zenobia conquered Babylonia and eastern Anatolia from the Persians, as well as extending her influence south as far as Ethiopia and Yemen. Zenobia is also one of the few documented rulers to have extended her life through her powers. When she died at the age of 142, she still looked as young as she had been when she first took the throne, and had a two-year-old child. She was worshipped as a living goddess, and while her rule was generous to the Jews, it also marked the end of Merkavah as a distinctly Jewish practice.

Zenobia died in battle in 382 AD, fighting against the Shahanshah Shapur II - also a powerful mystic warrior. Shapur himself reconquered Babylonia but died only two years later, legend claiming it to have been Zenobia's dying curse. With Zenobia's death, the succession was uncertain, as she had over a hundred living descendants - and many of them were, due to severe inbreeding, not up for much at all. After some brief infighting and a dozen mysterious deaths, the Palmyrene council stepped in as regent for her youngest son, and after his death ten years later, did not name a new King of Kings. Instead, Palmyra became an oligarchic republic, and soon after that, a magocracy governed by an increasingly-monolithic psionic elite.

Since then, Palmyra's power has waned from the days of Zenobia, but it is not a weak realm by any means. It still rules from Syria to Cyrenaica, and exerts influence over the Alan lords of Anatolia, while being a constant presence in the minds of the Germanic-Greek kingdoms of Western Europe, the Arab tribes and the Persian Empire. They briefly allied with Persia half a century ago to defeat the invasion of the Mohammedans from Arabia, and since then the two empires have been at peace.

The rest of the world
TBA

World Info and Mechanics
The mystic abilities available on Zenobia-2 are psi powers. The words "mystic," "psychic" and "magus" are all used to describe psionic individuals, and calling the powers "magic" is perfectly normal. Nonetheless, they use the Psi modifier. The basic modifier is -5%, as no psychotronics exist in this setting, but it is normal for psi abilities to have a Pact modifier related to a Discipline of Faith - most commonly Contemplation, Mysticism, Monasticism or Asceticism, depending on the sect and the psychic's level of devotion, but some practices employ Ritualism (this is the norm for Zoroastrian magi). Psychic ability and psi talents are usually developed through initiation and teaching (which is where the Pact modifier is adopted) though a rare few develop psi abilities naturally (and are seen as touched or chosen by God/the gods). Teaching usually involves joining a monastic community or mystery cult that unlocks the power of the mind through years of meditation and training; Patrons, Duties and Enemies can easily result from this. Psychic Healing is split into Biokinesis ("Healing") and Psychometabolism; the latter discipline creates mystic warriors of superhuman ability.

Heroic Archer, Trained By A Master and Weapon Master are available with the Psi modifier, and the skills Body Control and Mental Strength are available to any psychic. Esoteric Medicine (Galenic, Ayurvedic and Taoist) all count as Physician/TL3, plus anaesthesia and the equivalent of antibiotics, in this setting. Unlike Chinese medical practitioners, Galenists are very much okay with surgical interventions (though many psychic healers don't bother), and a surgeon with Esoteric Medicine does not suffer the penalty to non-trauma surgery without Physician skill. (This applies to Chinese surgeons as well - but again, Chinese medical practice discourages surgical methods.)

[David Johnston2]

A good place for Cabal worlds to send their psionic members to train.

Cromwell-4: Cromwell worlds are ones where the monarchy was never re-established after the English Civil War but in Cromwell-4's case the Puritans managed to make their religion the new state religion of Britain after a second Civil War, subsequently almost entirely withdrawing from contact with the outside world for the next couple of centuries. This England was in no position to muscle the Netherlanders out of New Amsterdam. Instead the Netherlands managed to purchase the American colonies, almost entirely inhabited by opponents of the Holy Republic of England in a deal that satisfied everyone except the French.

Currently in the 19th century North America is a much more fragmented place since neither the Netherlands nor France had the same drive to occupy more land that the British and the American shad and an over-extended Spain still lost its New World colonies to rebellions. Rather than doing much direct fighting, France and the Netherlands after a war in the 18th century settled down to proxy conflicts between their respective native allies in North America and India. The Holy Republic has recently come out of it's shell and is beginning to return to its mercantile ways.

The industrial revolution was retarded by a couple of generations but is developing rapidly. Perhaps too rapidly since the Holy Republic is now clearly the most technologically advanced nation in the world despite the insularity that should have held it back.

Yup. It's Centrum.

[Ramidel]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

A good place for Cabal worlds to send their psionic members to train.

Or those who want to become psionic. Anyone can learn the mystical disciplines of this world if they're willing to put in the work.

...once this world becomes known, Infinity, Centrum, and especially Reich-5 are all going to need a change of pants.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Cromwell-4: Cromwell worlds are ones where the monarchy was never re-established after the English Civil War but in Cromwell-4's case the Puritans managed to make their religion the new state religion of Britain after a second Civil War, subsequently almost entirely withdrawing from contact with the outside world for the next couple of centuries. This England was in no position to muscle the Netherlanders out of New Amsterdam. Instead the Netherlands managed to purchase the American colonies, almost entirely inhabited by opponents of the Holy Republic of England in a deal that satisfied everyone except the French.

Currently in the 19th century North America is a much more fragmented place since neither the Netherlands nor France had the same drive to occupy more land that the British and the American shad and an over-extended Spain still lost its New World colonies to rebellions. Rather than doing much direct fighting, France and the Netherlands after a war in the 18th century settled down to proxy conflicts between their respective native allies in North America and India. The Holy Republic has recently come out of it's shell and is beginning to return to its mercantile ways.

The industrial revolution was retarded by a couple of generations but is developing rapidly. Perhaps too rapidly since the Holy Republic is now clearly the most technologically advanced nation in the world despite the insularity that should have held it back.

Yup. It's Centrum.

Hmm. I wonder if there's been a lot of religious fanatic leaders in the Republic who've suddenly had mysterious accidents and been replaced with more moderate leaders.

[Astromancer]

Historically, the Puritans could be very pragmatic. They often rejected the more violent extremists like the "Fifth Monarchy Men." It would be less likely that Centrum would be culling the Puritan elites and more likely that Centrum would encourage Purtan tendencies to shame religious "enthusiasm" which to the Puritans meant vanity expressed as mystical religious nonsense.

Example: Witch Trials did happen in Puritan times, but in areas of Royalist reaction. Salem involved a land dispute and a corrupt minister stirring the pot. Look at Grace Sherwood "the Virginia Witch" for a more typical American Witch trial.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Historically, the Puritans could be very pragmatic. They often rejected the more violent extremists like the "Fifth Monarchy Men." It would be less likely that Centrum would be culling the Puritan elites and more likely that Centrum would encourage Purtan tendencies to shame religious "enthusiasm" which to the Puritans meant vanity expressed as mystical religious nonsense.

Example: Witch Trials did happen in Puritan times, but in areas of Royalist reaction. Salem involved a land dispute and a corrupt minister stirring the pot. Look at Grace Sherwood "the Virginia Witch" for a more typical American Witch trial.

On Cromwell they were initially somewhat more extreme but it's been a couple of hundred years for that to fade

[Astromancer]

In the early 19th century, when many details of the interior of North America weren't well known in Western Europe or the United States, both US explorers and British ones looked for the "Mississippi of the West." The great river that would open the interior of Western North America up the way the Mississippi opened up the center of North America. In folklore this mythical river was called the "San Bonna Ventura."

Picture an alternate interior for North America where a river that empties into San Francisco Bay is a navigatable river that drains a large part of Western North America. This would lead to radically different political pressures and outcomes. The Mexican War would be different. France and Britain, both of whom wanted California in our world's history might interfere in either the Mexican War or the American Civil War to get a prize like that.

The Alternate political outcomes could shape world history.