Ideas Are Easy

[ericthered]

Local Guides

The inner realms are the homes of dragons, magical creatures powerful enough to create pocket universes to serve as their nests. Inside these pocket universes are skilled hunters living simple lives, for the most part. Sometimes there is drama with neighboring groups, or with youth who run away across the great portal to live in cities, strange places full of strangers, strange customs, and with far too little space, but that is the exception, not the rule.

One of those youth has come back. With him he's brought the most obnoxious and bossy city dweller anyone has ever met. The city dweller has powerful magic at his disposal, and demands that the returned youth lead him to the dragon.

What does the bossy city dweller want with the dragon? Why does the returned youth obey him that way? Do we owe anything to the youth? Is everyone going to end up dead?

And who should be feared more, the city dweller, or the dragon?

[ericthered]

Salvage of the Haunted Void

Space Travel is not for the faint of heart. There are Things living in the warp, terrors of an alien dimension where men are not predators but merely prey. In a realm where reality is weak, madness stalks the corners of the mind, nightmares may clothe themselves in flesh, and ancient creatures are drawn through the void to feast on the psychic energy of man. Most Ships complete most journeys, protected by half-understood artifacts fused with mysticism. But eventually, every ship faces its crisis, and every ship falls under the sway of the void.

And then it falls out of the void, and is available for salvage.

Space Salvage is worse than space travel. Haunted vessels floating in the void, carrying a deadly mix of ancient horrors and congealed nightmares. Its also exceptionally lucrative.

You will salvage these ships from Hell. You will drive back the demons. You will avenge mankind of its oldest foes. You will restore the precious protections. You will bring these ships back, and keep the threads that hold mankind together intact.

...Or you will die trying.

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This was inspired by the thought that monster hunters made a pretty good point level for a flattened 40k game in gurps. Then I thought about how I would stick an actual monster hunters team into a similar setting, and this idea popped out. I'm not entirely sure how much of monster hunters can be reused, but I think that about 80% of it is probably valid here.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Salvage of the Haunted Void

Are you seeing this as basically the salvagers reclaiming the ships themselves from whatever haunts them, then bringing them back to port as a prize to resell (do they keep the old name, or is that unlucky? do they keep track of how many times a particular ship has fallen victim to the Warp, and maybe the price reflects this?)? Or is it more that they reclaim the artifacts that protected the ship, and maybe salvage some of the more lucrative materials, for use in building new ships (or does the Warp tend to imbue some materials to improve them - maybe a certain fraction of the hull becomes Warp-infused, making it more resilient)?

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Are you seeing this as basically the salvagers reclaiming the ships themselves from whatever haunts them, then bringing them back to port as a prize to resell (do they keep the old name, or is that unlucky? do they keep track of how many times a particular ship has fallen victim to the Warp, and maybe the price reflects this?)? Or is it more that they reclaim the artifacts that protected the ship, and maybe salvage some of the more lucrative materials, for use in building new ships (or does the Warp tend to imbue some materials to improve them - maybe a certain fraction of the hull becomes Warp-infused, making it more resilient)?

The original thought was to salvage the whole ship... though saving just the artifacts might work as a consolation prize. Having the Warp change the nature of the ship or its materials is a fun idea. There should be powerful occult gear on the ship besides just the protection artifacts, like the ship drives and the stuff that gets you into the warp in the first place.



I'm not sure about naming ships. I do know that the artifacts themselves will have names, and will be individually quirky, and you should keep track of how each has failed in its voyages across the void, and that will effect the price (and the security forces you put on the ship in the first place).

[David Johnston2]

I have considered how nightmarish the job of ship salvage would be in Star Trek. You never know whether you'll run into a crew of Vulcans reduced to zombies, or a crew who are being drained of their cerebrospinal fluids with the vampires who want it on their way back, or a ship trapped in a negative space wedgie that causes violent psychosis, an insane AI that killed its crew, or a super-powered teenager run amuck.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I have considered how nightmarish the job of ship salvage would be in Star Trek. You never know whether you'll run into a crew of Vulcans reduced to zombies, or a crew who are being drained of their cerebrospinal fluids with the vampires who want it on their way back, or a ship trapped in a negative space wedgie that causes violent psychosis, an insane AI that killed its crew, or a super-powered teenager run amuck.

Yeah, the idea I put out has more reliability, but yeah, star trek has tremendous variability. The hardest part of that game would be coming up with all of the crazy ideas.

Don't forget hologram villages taking over the ship, random super-resiliant animals running amok, or a super-tech loner with a grudge.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I have considered how nightmarish the job of ship salvage would be in Star Trek. You never know whether you'll run into a crew of Vulcans reduced to zombies, or a crew who are being drained of their cerebrospinal fluids with the vampires who want it on their way back, or a ship trapped in a negative space wedgie that causes violent psychosis, an insane AI that killed its crew, or a super-powered teenager run amuck.

Of course, that may just be an issue if you're on the Enterprise, or it happens to be nearby to respond to your desperate last pleas. The plot of the novel Redshirts involved characters on a starship that tended to run into the same sorts of trouble one sees in Star Trek on a regular basis - but only that starship did so, the rest had much more mundane adventures. The "minor character" crewmembers (the titular Redshirts) recognize there's something bizarre going on and wind up with various superstitious behaviors (that actually work) - for example, once they've determined who the "main characters" are, they make it a point to make themselves scarce when one is walking through the halls, as being in a scene with one is often poor for one's life expectancy (and never go on an away mission with one if you can avoid it, one Redshirt always dies during such).

[David Johnston2]

Forgotten Gods

A superhero game in which each of the players is someone who used to be worshipped as a god and have returned to Earth to remind humanity that they exist. Understand you aren't the mythological big names that are still household names, no Zeus, Hercules, Coyote, Thor, or Heimdall. Instead you're the ones who have been almost entirely forgotten.

[ericthered]

Magehunt


When a mage dies, Young children in the surrounding 15 to 30 miles begin to manifest magery. The more powerful the mage, the more children are effected. Most mages don't spawn more than one or two more mages, but archmages can result in dozens of new casters. These new mages are of course precious, and taken and raised in comfort so they can study and become powerful servants and allies of their benefactors.



The archmage Marcenius just died in the streets of Felimona, and the rush to find the mages is on. The competition is especially brutal, with several high Lords, The outlaw bands, Foreign Agents, two existing circles of spell-casters, and what looks like the temple priesthood all getting involved.



There is a lot of money to be made in the chase. And a lot of kids who need protecting.

[RyanW]

The Bad Guys

A group of former super villains (all carefully vetted by psychologists) are given conditional clemency to work for a newly formed government super team.

Yes, this basic concept has been done a bajillion times. The new part is the "carefully vetted by psychologists" part. Unlike similar teams, this one is made up of people who genuinely desire redemption, working for people who want them to succeed. The growth of the "heroes" is a big part of the idea. This isn't Suicide Squad. It's Super Vocational Therapy.