New Fantasy Setting Seeds.

[Astromancer]

The Opener of the Way

How does this plan work?

Ask, "How has it been working?"

Okay, how has it been working? And since you say it's ongoing, how long has it been working?

The second first, since 1914. That when the Outer Space Boy Scout landed.

That long?

These things take time. People opened their minds and hearts when they saw him, dressed in gaudy colors, flying through the sky. As they did for the thunderbolt twins.

Twins?

Brother and Sister twins. Like I was saying, the thunderbolt twins, the Outer Space Boy Scout, the Warrior Woman, the Dective and the lad who works with him, Mister Red, White, and Blue, Mister Flying Fish, the Speedster, the Blue and Gold Wizard, and the rest of that midnight crew.

And how are the Capes and Masks set going to end the world?

That's the clever bit. They don't end the world, it's their enemies. Every hero has a cluster of foes. As the heroes grow stronger their foes become more powerful and greater in number.
Eventually the enemies of the beloved heroes end the world.

Basically, Lovecraftian supers. The heroes are virtuous and noble, well most of them, the 90's were strange. Nyarlathotep created pure heroes so that people would love them. That love allows Nyarlathotep to send shadows of the heroes to darken the world, supervillains. Eventually there will be enough villains to destroy the heroes and maybe the world itself.

However, not all heroes have strange powers and gaudy clothing. The PCs have learned of Nyarlathotep's plan. The only way to thwart the plan is to get rid of the superheroes. Things haven't gotten far enough for the supervillains to exist without the heroes. Eliminate the heroes and erase the supervillains from existence.

[jason taylor]

Lilith's Daughter:

In this seed Lilith is the mother of fey as Eve is the mother of humans. Fey are good or bad depending on choice like humans. Lilith's daughter however is obsessed with revenge and takes it out by preying on humans. She likes to seek out tyrants and ensnare them in her seductions making her the mother of vampires. The greatest and most colorful tyrants in history were her slaves but they accepted for the terrible powers she gave and found themselves deceived. As Morgan LeFey she was the mistress of Sir Mordred. She was also the mistress of such notables as the Mad Baron Ungern-Sternberg (he does seem the proper candidate for that sort of thing). And of course Voivode Vlad of Wallachia her most famous slave.

She has taken a prince prisoner and keeps him in a castle guarded by monsters. It is the PC's job to find this castle, searching in Tomes of Eldritch Lore, and then to rescue that prince. When they get their they find out whether he is resisting and should be treated as an ally, or has sold his soul to her and is a very powerful enemy.

[Astromancer]

Angelic Conversations

In this world John Dee actually managed to talk to angels (they got him to ditch Kelly fast). Dee introduced basic training in Magic into Elizabethan England. One of the consequences was Elizabeth living to be 125. King Henry of Scotland became Henry IX.

It's now the year 1690. Britain is the center of European commerce, science, and technology. Every spy in Europe and the Arab lands wants England's secrets.

Basically, this is a swashbuckling espionage campaign with Alchemical magic and techo-magic technology. The Tech Level is 4+2^ in Britain and TL4+1^ in Europe. The Arab lands and Russia are at TL4.

[Astromancer]

"Echoes fade and Memories Die..."

What was this?

Long ago those were even and strong, they were a road for large wagons. They had an "engine" up front. It changed heat into movement using steam. Some of these "engines" are still around.

So an "in-jan" pulled a cart on iron ribbons?

An "engine" pulled a hundred carts at a time fast as a horse could run for hours.

That was big magic!

They didn't use magic at all.

Now you're lying.

More later I must run.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

That's the clever bit. They don't end the world, it's their enemies. Every hero has a cluster of foes. As the heroes grow stronger their foes become more powerful and greater in number.
Eventually the enemies of the beloved heroes end the world. [/I].

Someone's been reading PS238...

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

Someone's been reading PS238...

Actually, the basic idea came up on the old Pyramid boards. Ford, Ken Hite, and Bill Stoddard came up with most of the ideas. Although the bit about the love for the heroes making it possible to bring monsters into our reality was my idea.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

"Echoes fade and Memories Die..."

What was this?

Long ago those were even and strong, they were a road for large wagons. They had an "engine" up front. It changed heat into movement using steam. Some of these "engines" are still around.

So an "in-jan" pulled a cart on iron ribbons?

An "engine" pulled a hundred carts at a time fast as a horse could run for hours.

That was big magic!

They didn't use magic at all.

Now you're lying.

More later I must run.

The plague killed about two-fifths of the people in most countries. Of the survivors, two in three were sterile. The plague came back, new visitations every few years. At first people thought it was biowarfare, but everyone suffered.

At first people thought that the massive surge in the reports of Ghosts, cryptids, UFOs, and other weirdness, was simple stress from the plagues. Later parapsychologists began to get repeatable results. ESP, precognition, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, all showed up. Then, this was insane, magic began to work.

One scholar suggested that the plagues were a form of selective breeding. People who were gifted never caught any form of the plague. People who had genetic markers or psi and/or magery were highly resistant to the plague.

This meant that only people with a genetic tendency towards magic and paranormal experience got to breed. So each following generation was more magical. And more brutal plagues came to eliminate more non-Mages from the gene pool. A bizarre and brutal genocide for eugenic purposes.

More later...

[PTTG]

I like alternate forms of mana. Here's some ideas:

Deep Mana: The surface world is No Mana. Descending deeper into the earth, one encounters ever-higher Mana levels. A whole underworld inhabited by trogoldites, goblins, darklings, and any number of cave-adapted beings thrives in the High Mana Depths, while dreadfully powerful beings dwell even deeper. The surface dwellers spend nights hiding in fear of being taken into the underworld.

Geomancy: Mana here is flowing, quickly grounding itself and hard to contain. Generally, things are Very Low Mana. However, careful construction of solid stone walls, channels, and courtyards collect and concentrate mana. A small shrine-like structure about 5x5m in footprint brings mana up to Low, while a sizable temple-like structure of several hundred square meters brings it up to medium at the altar and low elsewhere on the grounds.

The largest such structures are practically small cities with labyrinthine passages; the grounds are low, the central foci normally Medium, and the altar is High. The structures often have powerstones worked into the entire building, a reserve that can be accessed from the altar. The mage at the altar who channels such power can sense any other caster who is within the grounds of the mana-collector.

Electromana: An electromagnetic field raises the mana level. This is typically a no-mana world, but from the mid 1800s on, the use of mundane power sources to lead to islands of Normal Mana in laboratories and, eventually, households. This magic cannot be used to create more energy than the dynamo supplies, but has all the versatility of other forms of magic. And conversely, magical energy sources can be used to create electricity.

Soul Magic: Humans here have an innate mana level, but the world itself is no mana. The field extends only a few centimeters from the body - enough to conjure things in the hand or protect one's clothing, little more than that. To cast magic upon someone, one must be practically close enough to touch.

Necromana: Human remains generate a faint amount of mana. One body is nothing, but a graveyard has Low mana. A mausoleum has Normal. People here keep skulls as part of the critical magical infrastructure of any settlement.

The Mana Must Flow: This is a High mana world. However, humans from this realm cannot use mana directly. Only one thing - a silvery squid found in treacherous waters - produces a consumable extract which powers magic. It is trade in this good which causes empires to rise and fall.

Astral Magic: More a feature to add to any other setting: Meteorites are naturally-occurring Powerstones, and good ones, too. They retain that power when worked, even when alloyed.

[SRoach]

TL:DR (yet)
Hope I'm not duplicating someone's idea...

Magic had recently come back to the world... A few thousand individuals, one for every million worldwide, but heavily skewed towards those who were individualist and anti-authoritan, were collected together by unknown entities and granted enormous powers, in something that became known as "the investature". Most came away with magic, some came away practically gods.

Then, they started doing things that gods do. They meddled.
Over a period of a week, they made their presence known, by "correcting" things they felt were wrong with the world. Some lauded them. Some cursed their name. The unknown entities, or others like them, took action. They separated these "new gods", along with their communities, and cast them into other areas and worlds, where they could no longer meddle. You know of at least one, who wiped out encrypted files being held until technology made it feasible to decrypt, who was shipped off to Camelot. Another, who faced down government, and destroyed controversial records that the government kept on the populace, was sent to Sherwood Forest.
You and everyone else in your county, including the very powerful "god" you called a neighbor, were teleported to the moon. And made to stay there.

Things are only just settled. After months of living under a miles-wide "Force Dome", that had to be renewed daily, and hitting your head on the bedroom ceiling nearly every morning, you have a more permanent dome, familiar gravity again, and you're finally able to take off the N95 mask that kept you from inhaling sharp-edged lunar dust with every breath. (The county wasn't round. The dome, holding air in and radiation out, is.)

However, the wizard can't teleport you, or anyone, home; he's blocked.
But NASA started sending Artemis years early. Not to recover anyone, but because they fully intend to take maximum advantage of this little spot of America in Mare Tranquillitatis.
Not to be outdone, so did the Russians, the Chinese, and even the EU.

You're basically in Casablanca. On the moon.

[SRoach]

Still TL:DR (will, though)

Yesterday was boring. After school, you spent all day either playing on your phone, inside, or selling popcorn at the 8-plex. You wish you could go back to boring. You wish you could go outside again.

This morning, when you opened the front door to go to school, you found that your house's front door opened directly into one of the fire exits of your school. Your back door led to the movie theater where you work. None of the windows will open, or break, and there's nothing to see but darkness beyond the glass. You've done a little poking around with some other kids you know, and all the doors to the school connect to one of their homes, and all of the exterior doors of their homes lead to somewhere else. Some place each of them was connected to in some way.
You haven't gotten much more exploring done, however. There's something ELSE in these connected places with you. You caught a glimpse of it, but just the one. You can't describe it, except, it's hungry. Naturally, you ran.