The New Planet
Initial Notes, Modern Vehicle Combat, Plot Device, Race List,
Adventures
New World Notes
This is a very ancient world. The time in which the characters will
appear is in terms of technology about 2050, but where the earliest
civilation of Earth is about 8000 years ago, there is arechological
evidance of civilizations on this planet 80000 years ago! This is a lot
of time for varient
evolution and for the rise and fall of 5 major peaks of accomplishment
(so far!). I have described the other civilizations this planet will
have below, so all of this information applys to the time where the
characters will first appear.
All evidance of evolution was erased by earlier civilizations who
sought to "preserve" them only to have them destroyed when the
civilization that gathered them together was destroyed. There are many
theories accounting for the origin of species (and particularly to the
sentient species) but an almost total derth of proof for any theory.
This world is Earth normal in everything except weather. It has a more
pronounce
axial tilt (35.3%) and thus a greater range of tempratures through a
given year. It also causes more frequent windy activity. This is
further
accentuated by the constant pumping of heat energy into the weather
system by the southern volcanos. The result is a stormy planet with
common extremes of weather. The most noticable result of this is the
solidity of the buildings on the main continants.
The year is 364 days long. The months and weeks are all of equil
length; 7 days a week and 4 weeks to a month. The moons orbits no
longer figure into these divisions of time since it was fractured into
2 pieces 40K years ago durring the 3rd Civilization.
2 Moons - Used to be one, but a comet hit is and knocked it into 2
peices and a debris field. The 3 are in very different orbits. The
debris field intersects the planet orbit and the orbit of the larger
moon. These times are known as bad omen times.
The Tree of knowledge is a plot device that will answer some of the
thorny logistical problems faced by the DM.
The Tree of Knowledge is a device of unknown origin that exists in the
legends and teaching of evey culture on the planet. There are more than
2 of them, but the exact number is not know. The are the great teachers
of civilation. The fact they are shaped just like the obolisk of 2001
is just cooincedance!
The other major plot device are the Tunnels of Time or Time Tunnels.
These are caves that will propel a group of people to any time or
place. There are a great many of these. There is a lot of arguments
regarding the source and purpose of these fantastic places among the
minority who beleve they exist. The vast majority of the population of
all times and cultures is that they do not exist.
Heres how the Time Tunnels work.
There are none above ground and are always found in natural caverns
although many caverns have been extensivly modified by religious and
technological parties. Some folks worship them, some are trying to
discover their secrets, some guard them as tribal "JuJu".
They are very, very high tech. The mechanism exists outside of time and
can't be touched in any way. They can malfunction, but have a self
correcting mechanism that will fix problems given enough time (it may
take milleniums).
When a party enters into an Time Tunnel area underground, the
Artificial Intellegence programs become active. Sensors determine the
number, race, armaments and so on. Defensive systems become active
although there is no outward sign. The laser blasters are hidden in the
rock and require a spot at a DC 32 to find. The visible part looks like
a tiny round piece of glass. Laser BAB 20, slash damage 3d8
The room is always large and have room for from 6 to 20 (depending on
the size) tunnels.
The party will ask what the tunnels are for and the AI will tell them
how it works.
If they leave the Area, they are not a threat. If they stay they will
die. The AI has no control over the times available. Questions about
who does get the "I am not authorized ". The AI doesn't even know what
time or place they lead to. This is another security feature. Only
those who have a way of knowing where they go on their own have a real
use for these devices!
If this was the only thing going on with the Time Tunnels it would be
really stupid. How can you talk any sensable party into going on a
random journey more than once?
PLOT DEVICE:
Although the technology of the Time Tunnels is far beyond anything this
world will ever be capable of (and is unique in the known galaxy of
Traveller), attempts to find a practical use for it have been going on
since the first civilization. Only in the future of the party has some
advances in the technology been discovered.
Here is one possible way the characters could be introduced to the
situation.
Somehow, the party is directed to a ancient site burried in the
mountains. The legends of the place go far back in time and it is
sassumed that the clues lead to either greate treasure of possible to
great knowledge. They are hired (or decided to follow the leades
themselves) and delve into the mountain where they find some rocky
tunnels. They lead to a chamber of rock that looks like a dead end.
When the party has gathered in a spot where all the party is within the
area that will be cut off, a force field will appear. A womans voice
will say
"Security protocols enabled. Time Tunnel Alice awaiting instructions. "
The Tunnels will then come on and display whatever sceins the DM wants.
This is a chance to provide previews or imagination candy to the party.
Mose of the scenes won't be interesting. Many of the tunnels end in
areas that are completely uninhabited at the time the tunnel ends. Some
may provide hints to adventurers the DM would like to run. How to
convince the party to choose the tunnel that leads to the adventure is
left up to the DM.
The AI will not be really helpful in terms of game information. There
is a strict embargo about questions regarding the past or the future
and will be answered with "I am not authorized to provide that
information unless the Security Protocol Alpha 20 is envoked.".
Shortened this becomes "I am not authorized to answer".
The party will soon realize that they are in a trap. Someone will ask
someone what the wall of force is for. The AI says
"It is part of the system security. Unauthoried exit from this area is
strictly forbidden. Under the Time law Chapter 3, section 48, paragraph
231 entry into a Time facility is strictly forbidden. AI systems are
authorized to euthanize all animals remaining in the area for more than
48 time standard hours. You have been in the area for 63 minutes and
have 46.9 hours remaining."
Obviously, this is a Hobbes choice. Eventually the group will decide to
pass into one of the tunnels. When they do, the will encounter the
living beings that are the "ghosts in the machine".
When the characters decide to chance one of the tunnels, they will
experience what seems to be an eternity of darkness. When at last the
darkness clears, they will be presented with a wholey unexpexted scene.
They will come out of their blackness in a Hiver nest! The Hivers are
very intellegent monsters from the Travaller universe. They are the
taem of investigators who were sent from the far future to discover the
secrets of the only time travelling facility in the galexy. Theiir
objective is to discover as much as possible about the technology used
to create the Time Tunnels in hope they can be adapted for use on the
Hiver home planet to create a utopic enviornment there.
Although they have gained more knowledge of the Time Tunnels than any
other race, they will admit to being infants in the advancement.
They have grabbed the party "from the buffers" and materialized them in
the place where they are which is "out of time" i.e. not connected to
the current time line of the system. They will explain the following to
the party:
"We are not inimicablle to your race although we do not pretend to
understand your psycology. The fact that it appears you have developed
what appears to be a technology that even outstrips that of the
Ancients is proof either of your superior intellect or of your
discovery and understanding of their technology. This is far exceeding
the accomplishment of other races in this area."
This being said, they admit they are still somewhat interlopers in the
Time Tunnels which they invariably refer to as "the project":
They can use the buffers to capture parties and inject them into
specific time streams after those persons have undergone an extended
debreifing from the3 Hivers.
There are only 3 of them, but they seem to think this is enough to
direct the groups seeking to guide the civilizations of this planets to
2 ends.
End 1, the Hivers want to create a time traveling utopia for their home
planet. Ths will require a obviously clear explaination of all factors
around the time projet, how it was implemented and how that may be
extrappolated to the current "experiment".
End 2. To further end 1, they beleave that it may be that the time
device would not have been created without their interfception.;
To their mind there is nothing unusual in participating in a system
that impacts a result without clear knowledge of the intermediate
outcome.
The bottom line is that they pay groups of people real money to perform
single tasks at their direction.
The simplest task is the placement of an "Obolisk". This is most often
the first task they are sent out on and is refered to in Time Central
as "a box job". This is a delivery service where one of the Hiver
technology teaching machines is placed in an area frequented by
carefully targeted individuals. Unfortunatly, while the target name and
time is clearly known, the physical location of that pers is not know
exactly. This sometimes requires the party to find him and then drop
the obolisk off.
The obolisks come in many sizes but their dimensions are always exactly
the same they are 1x3x7 in proportion. Some are 1' thick, 3' wide and
7' high. These are teaching machines. When a person comes within 3' of
the object, the mechanism starts. First, it paralizes the person and
then begins a process of determining the mental engrams which it uses
to optimize the imprinting using natural idiom and cultural reference.
After a few minutes, the person walks away with no memory of anything
except sometimes finding a strange shaped object. However, the new
information is there when they want it. Usually it will take years for
the person to "stumble on" the imparted information which makes it look
like independant inspiration and hide the participation of the hivers.
The obolisks are constructed of both hardware and wetware and both are
programmed to disassociate themselves when their job is complete.
The black obilisk boxes are invisible to the tunnel scanning mechanism
as long as there aren't to many going through and as long as they are
small. Any box larger or any number greater than 3 boxes at a time will
trigger the security system and they will be "deleted".
Another common task is called "a drop". It consists of taking something
from one point in time to another. Only the Hivers know what is inside
the containers and only they can open them without setting off the
boobytrap that destroys the contents of the box completely. They are
guarded by a genetic lock keyed to one of the hivers. The group is sent
to a spot and instruced where to get the box and bring it back to Time
Central. Often they are then instructed to take another box (that looks
identical) to a different time.
When the party is brought before the Hivers, they will be given a
choice.
The hivers will send them on their way to where ever they were bound
for with all the food and drink they can carry.
They will send them back to the place they came from.
They can stay on as hosts or
They can do a job for the project. The group is given a task to
perform. They are prepared for the time destination. They are given the
location of the closest Time Tunnel besides the one they come through.
They are sent to a Time Tunnel that is as close to the objective as
possible. When the task is complete, whether it was successfull or not,
they return to the Time Tunnel and are brought back to Time Central. If
they successfully perform the task, they will be given a lot of money
in what ever format is best for the time they came from and send them
back where they came from. This is always a portable form of wealth
ranging from an anonomous numbered bank account to untracable diamonds
or a small, valuable work of art. The amount should always be enough to
support each of the players for the rest of their lives. In D&D
terms this would be something like 50Kgp worth of mixed gems or for
modern day terms 1/2 a million dollars.
However, the Time Tunnels have another security system. It is selective
amnesia. To prevent cross-time contamination, the Time Tunnel device
will erase the memory of experieces or knowledge that might be damaging
to the timeline that is their destination. This editing occurs between
transport from Time Central to the destination. This knowledge may
return if the person returns to a time where the information is no
longer dangerous, but may forever deleted. As long as the players stay
in Time Central they have access to all their memories. This is a large
part of the attraction to the hosts who enjoy their memories of past
adventures.
So part of the deal is that they may have edited memories of what they
do in the field when they return to their own time.
The party will need to know where they are at any time. In order to
accuratly find the caches and their locations of the objectives, they
will have to have fairly accurate locators.
It is not possible to transport a physical object through the tunnel
without using a box, so wetware technology is used to imbed a location
system based on the location ability of birds was developed. This
requires surgery to imbed the modification into the bodies of 2 party
members. This enables those people to determine their longititud and
latitude down to minutes at any time.
Naturally the Hivers will have a contingent of human is their large out
of time facility. They refer to themselves as the "hosts". This will
include members of every sentient race and are all volintires. Most of
them are retired operatives. They will great the party, make them
comfortable, answer most of their questions and prepare them for the
introduction to the Hivers.
The facility, commonly called "Time Central" to the hosts, is about the
size of a city block. 1/4 of this is occupied by the mysterious
machines that create this space out of time and house the great
computers that do the vast computational tasks necessary for the
analisis of Time Tunnel sensors and buffer capture and insertion.
Their proof that everything is going wll is that the Time Tunnels
contine to work. This is an almost tauntalogical argument from a human
point of view, but they are convinced this is an acceptable risk for
their meddling.
When they find a party with the AI Evaluation of their physical and
mental profileindicating them to be a usefull group of
"Agents", they will
make an offer to that group. They may not disclose all the pertanant
info to the party, but they not mislead the bgroup in any way.
There are ranks among those working for the project.
Agents - low level people. Level 1 through 5
Operatives - trusted Agents with multiple tasks successfully performed.
Levels 6 through
Trouble Shooters - High level operatives with considerable autonomy.
Character Advances
Experience Points are the approved way to advance characters in level.
However, this has a number of problems. First, it is not part of the
SRD and so can't be freely used. Next, it is dependant on player
attendance. Those who can't play as often are penalized and soon their
characters become untenable as they are so much lower level than the
rest of the players.
Adding to the difficulty of leveling the characters is the level cap.
The tables for d20 Modern only advance to 10th level, but I think
extending them beyond that using the same rate of progression will be
OK. At 11th level, the d20 Modern charaters will be able to add an
additional talent track. I can expand on that when the problem occurs.
The last campaign used a variety of D&D style EXP awards. When I
switched to d20, I tried to use strictly monster slaying to advance and
ran into the problem above and changed to a adventure completeion way
of level advancing. This worked just fine, so I'll be using that in the
new campaign with some modifications. EXP will not be used.
Another consideration specific to the campaign I plan on running is the
longevity of the characters. Folks seem willing to accept slower
advancement as part of the cost of running a lot of players for a long
time. This indicates a slow level progression. To keep the levels of
the group the same, everyone will go up levels at the same time
regardless of participation.
Frequent Players VS Occassional
Players.
While increasing levels for every one at the same time does penalize
charaters that play frequently, doing anything else will penalize those
who don't. They deserve some sort of reward for attendance. The other
variable that is a part of game advancement is treasure. This includes
money, equipment, control over specific party resources and personal
contacts.
To reward frequent play, the players who are regulars will have first
pick of anything they pick up in the game. In other words, frequent
participation is rewarded with more funds and equipment during the
adventure. If you miss a game where the treasure is obtained, the
players at that game will get first pick, but there will be a
percentage reserved for those who weren't there. For instance, a cache
of weapons is found. The characters being played at that time will make
their choices and the remainder will be set aside for characters who
aren't there. Characters who aren't playing when magic items are
obtained may not get one. It's possible that a frequent player will on
occasion not be playing when a treasure is discovered and thus be left
out, but this is a temporary condition as the penalty of loss will only
last as long as the adventure. Also, characters who obtained an item
that is perfect for a specific player may take that item as part of
their haul and give to the absent character later. This will be a bit
tricky for the DM as he will have to choose the treasure awards
carefully to make sure everyone gets something. Most often this will be
something like awarding something special for each player present and a
monetary award for those absent. This will require providing a cost for
the items found. This then will be used to determine how the treasure
is divided.
This can't be perfect. Let's say the party overruns the outpost of an
opponent. They find a cache of weapons and ammo which includes a
bazooka. It's value is greater than the entire rest of the haul! In
this case, the character that gets this item will not receive anthing
else in that haul and will be outside the rest of the division of
treasure. When the bazooka is discovered, there are 7 characters
playing. There are a total of 10 characters pling in the adventure (3
are absent). The party will decide who get the item with the DM
presenting it to a character if the party can not reach agreement. The
value of the remainder of the the treasure is determined. This value is
devided by 9 as the value of the large item(s) are not figured
into the group award. Then the characters present pick what they want
up to the limit of their portion including the equipment value. It will
often be that the characters who aren't there will get a strictly
monitary reward while the others will get cool stuff. Places where the
party can buy stuff will be infrequent (and commonly in the middle or
toward the end of the adventure. Those awarded moonty they can't spend
will be bummed, and that is the down side of missing an adventure.
Task Based Level Advancement
How long do I want this campaign to last? Or more accuratly, how long
do I want the characters created to be played? The last set of campaign
characters obtained 19th level and it took about 20 years. I can't
imagine the players will be able to stay together for more than 10 more
years. Peter and I are 56 and I can't imagine us still playing
regularly when we're 66! Planning for a 10 year arc for the story seems
about right as some folks will being retiring and moving away. I don't
want to ref characters higher than 12th with this campaign and d20
Modern really only supports up to 10th. This indicates a increase in
character level just a bit faster than once a year. We have been
playing about 40 or so times a year. This give me the metric I needed.
An adventure that only takes 10 games to finish is a 1/4 level
advancement task. An adventure we play for a year is a 1 level task. Or
to put it another way, it will take 40 game sessions on average to
level a character. The players won't be real keen on this as they want
to play more powerful characters, but its a necessary part of a game
where the party has lots of characters and lasts a long time.
At the begining of an adventure, the DM will establish its difficulty
as a fractional value of level advancement. A quick and easy taks (like
a simple drop) could be a 1/4 level task. If four similar tasks are
successfully accomplished, the charaters will all gain a level.
Charater Changes Across Time
Perhaps the most important are to the players is how their class
abilities, skills and feats will translate when moving from one time to
another.
Appearance (weight, height, age, skin color etc.), Race, Abilities and
Senses will not change at all moving from one time to another.
Skills, Feats, Special Abilities and
Talents
All other options are strictly according to class and level. When you
are
shifting to a new time, the DM will provide a list of classes that are
used in that time/adventure. This wiull be one the most important tasks
for the ref as it will involve also reviewing all the skills and feats
to make sure they don't conflict with the time period. If a skill is
called for in a class that isn't used in the time period, the class
should not be allowed. Nothing will be transfered over. It will
be like creating a new character using the level aquired and the
ability and sense scores as rolled (naturally these are modified as
levels are increased). Multiclass and prestige classes work the same as
ever.
Religion
I have a very silophistic answer to the problem of multi-god pantheons
brought into the future. It really doesn't matter in game terms if you
worship a single god, many gods, or profess there is only 1 god. A
characters devotion to a particular sect is ultimatly irrevelent with
the exception that one church or another may be more in evedance
(popular at a specific time). There is nothing that prevents a multiple
diety pantheon even in the far future, but it won't mean much if
clerical spells aren't used. Some religions will go in and out of
fashion (the gods of good and evil for instance will be more or less
powerful in some times).
Set up a very simple pantheon and keep is throught the time line.
There are 35 domains. There should be 7 gods and 1 Monotheistic god in
all time lines. Each of them will get 5 domains from which to choose 2.
Pantheon
Twillim - God of Law - Protection, Community, Law, Nobility, Glory
Rahsee - God of Chaos - Chaos, Knowledge, Luck, Madness, Repose
Maclewar - God of Good - Charm, Good, Healing, Strength, Community
Gloomera - God of Evil - Darkness, Evil, Fire, Destruction, Trickery
Yakmarta - God of Nature - Air, Earth, Water, Weather, Animal, Death,
Plant, Healing
Fluumay - God of Artifice - Artifice, Creation, Knowledge,
Liberation, Travel
Wabah - God of Magic - Magic, Knowledge, Healing, Glory, Strength
The One God - Pick any 1 domain and any granted ability in addition.
Senses
The 5 senses house rule will be introduced. I want to use this as an
additional plus or minuses connected to race.
The planet for the adventure
6 contanents, 4 island chains
- Ecompia - Main Continant - 3 main politial and cultural groups.
Most of this continant is temperate with only the far southern area
tropical.
- Arcoma - North Smaller - The Blasted Lands - This contanent is
still contaminated with radioactivity, poisons, dangerous flora and
fauna not to mention dangerous people!
- Bricoma - Southern Smaller - The Domed land. This has a plassteel
partial globe covering the entire contanent to a distance of 3 miles
offshore. It is heavily defended.
- Notafus - North Polar - The Frozen Land. Even the sea for 2 miles
around is always frozen. A huge fresh water lake occupies 30% of the
contanents surface.
- Selat - South Polar - larger than Notafus, it's pole is a source
of constant volcanic activity that spreads in gradiet heat to the edges
of this contanent. The beachs of this place are never cooler than
70deg. The heat comes from the winds that spread from the island
center. For those not immune to high tempretures, it is unlivable.
- Fand - The Hidden Land - This is a continant hidden from all eyes
and perception from the rest of the world. A powerful illusion protects
an standard D&D culture and tech. Known by those aware of it's
existance and the Land of the Fey.
Island Chains - These are balkanized chaotic places where utopian
communities vie with Warlords to dominate each of the 4 chains. From
largest to smallest they are
- Shamala - Mostly elf, low tech, high nature, low magic
- Penadi - Mostly apes, low tech, no magic, high chaos (warlords)
- Douia'loi - Mostly Octapeds, Merfolk and Locantha - High nature,
low tech, high magic, low law
- Arlic- The Dragon Reservation - Dragons found outside of this
island chain are imprisoned on sight -High Evil, High Magic, High
Tech/High
Chaos
Sentient Races
All of the major D&D races are present (Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit, Orc,
Gnome, Human). These will have the standard effects on the characters
per D&D rules.
In addition there are, sentient apes, cats, dogs, elephants, and
Dragons. All of these are available as player characters except
elephants and dragons. Elephants as a player character are impractical
and dragon players would be a PIA.
I will steal freely from the T20 rules for the cat and dog races who
will become the Vager and the Aslan. The reptile race are called Tenic.
So the race list is:
Human, Elf, Dwarf,
Midget, Ape, Gnome, Mapinguari,
Tenic, Vargr
and Aslan.
All of the races breed 'true'. There is no possible intermingiling of
the races. They are NOT cross fertile.
They are all associated with allignments that are typical for that
race. This is a generalization that will mostly be found in NPCs.
Characters will be aware of their racial preference, but are not bound
by it. The format for this information is:
Nature-Magic-Tech-Mental-Ballance-Profit, Good-Neutral-Evil,
Law-Justice-Chaos
Player
Character
Races
Human - Any
Elf - Nature/Magic/Good/Neutral
Dwarf - Tech/Neutral/Law/Profit
Midget (as Halfling) - Magic/Ballance/Neutral/Justice
Gnome - Tech/Mental/Good/Chaos
Ape (as Orc) - Nature/Evil/Chaos/Profit
Vargr (Dog) - Law/Neutral/Ballance/Magic
Alsan ( Cat) - Chaos/Good/Artifice/Mental
Tenic (As Lizardfolk) - Magic/Good/Nature/Law
Non-Player
Sentient
Races
Locantha (Aquatic Lizard) - Justice/Neutral/Nature/Magic
Merflok - (Aquatic Humanoid) Law/Good/Nature/Mental
Octapeds - (New Amphibian) Chaos/Evil/Ballance/Technology
Mapinguari - (As a Giant Sloth) Law/Good/Ballance/Mental)
Dragon - Profit/Evil/Tech/Magic
Morgoth (Evil Underground) - Law/Evil/Artifice/Technology
Deepers (Good Underground) - Justice/Neutral/Artifice/Mental
Farie Folk - Fey Races - SATYR
- GRIG
- PIXIE
- SHAEDLING
- NYMPH
- DRYAD
(They can not exist without strong magic, restricted to the Fand)
Historic
Overview
The adventure will beginin the age of the 5th civilazation of 7
First civilation was the Farie Folk, Apes, Mapinguari, Dragons - Magic
Dominates
Second civilation Humans, Apes, Elephants, Farie, Lizards - Law
Dominates
Third civilization Humans, Apes, Lizards,
Farie - Nature Dominates
Fourth Civilization Humans, Apes, Lizards, Frogs - Mental Dominates
Fifth civilization Humans, Apes, Aslan, Vargr - Technology
Dominates
Sixth civilization Humans, Apes, Cats, Dogs, Elephants, Dragons -
Ballance Dominates
Seventh civilization Humans, Apes, Cast, Dogs, Farie - Justice
Dominates
I've been forgetting about one of the most important elements of any
campaign; the villians! These are the guys that drive adventures and
without them, history is dull.
In the case of the world I;m developing, they will change, but will
always be threatening the life on the planet.
The Hivers are neutral as regarding the inhabitants of the planet as
they only want the technology of the Time Tunnels. They do help
humaninty, but only to force them toward technology as the solution to
their research.
Early in the world's history the enemy of life was a group of aliens
with god-like powers. They are most often known as the Intruders by
their enemies and the Strong Ones by their allies. They are a fungoid?
life form that regard any life outside of their own as a waste of
space. Their fungoid nature enables them to grow creatures in any shape
they want including humans. Other than this, little is known about them
to mankind as they are secretive even with those who implement their
will. They could be called Lawful Evil, but they use Chaos as a tool to
reduce the population and try to replace it with their own kind of
life.
They were defeated in a final apocolyptic battle and for a dozen years
the planet knew peace and ultimate harmony under High Magic conditions.
Then the Intruders retributive strike hit. They directed 2 giant
asteroids at the planet. If both of them had hit, all life on the
planet would have been distroyed. In the year between when the
sootsayers of the idylic age determined the danger from the asteroids,
the high mages were able to develop a protection from one of them.
Through concerted efforts over months using specially devised magics,
they managed to change the orbit of the moon enough to intercept one of
the missles. This split the moon in two and rained small chunks down on
the surface of the planet for decades.
The asteroid that did strike devistated the world. It destroyed one
contanant turning it into a series of small islands. This started the
Long Winter. This was over 400 years of cloud cover that froze the
world. It also effectivly eliminated magic from the world by wiping out
all knowledge of it.
From this point the history of the planet was a very gradual growth of
life and a period of barbarism. During this time the secrets of magic
lay hidden deep below the debris from the moon. This started the rise
of technology.
As technology began it long climb to the stars, magic would
occassionally be "discovered", but the Hivers will do almost anything
to stop it as they need technology to continue to develop the Time
Tunnels. They know from experience that they can not direct the magical
powers so anything developed that relies on this force will not be
transportable to their world.
But in the future a new force makes itself known.
These new enemies are constructed creatures that reproduce through
construction not birth. Think cyborg Cylons. They have mental abilities
and will teach this knowledge to their allies. They are from the far
future and arrive in the system inadverdantly. Their world was on the
brink of destruction through a solar flare that would bake their world.
They did not have space travel that was practical for getting away.
Seeking a way to escape, they found a way to create time rifts that
were totally unpredictable in time or space. However it was cheap and
easy for them to build. They changed their forms to remove their
organic parts becoming sentient robots and sent everyone on the planet
to random places in time and space.
They happened to land on the largest of the moon pieces and set up
shop. They observed the planet for centuries and collected their
resources to develop a way to get to the planet below and replace the
current life with their form of life.
Mental (psionic) abilities requires an addition to the human brain. It
is the part that allows the mental energy to be collected. Without it,
no psionic abilities can be used. This requied delicate surgery that
killed 80% of those attempting to get the ability. One of the cyborgs
discovered a genetic manipulation that allowed the trait to be
regressive and bred a handfull of humans with psionic ability to be
Superbrains who trained their entire lives and acheived awesome powers.
However, despite their best efforts the gene enter the human pool and
the ability became available to an ever increasing (but never large)
percent of the populace to use them.
Sometime man greatest enemy is himself. On two occassions, they
succeeded in almost wiping out the races. An atomic war destroyed one
contanant rendering it a mutant wasteland and a plague turned another
into a baren ruin.
Classes:
Initial
Classes
Advanced
Classes
N ew Skills
Smell
Touch
Taste
For every advantage given by technology, ther is a cooresponding
spellthat can neutralize that advantage. For every advantage given by
magic, there is a corresponding technological negation possible.
For instance the spell Expend Powder causes gunpowder and dynamite to
explode and the device the Antimagic Gernade dispells all spells in the
area of the explosion.
Prot. F. Normal Missles negates bullets while the Oil of Magicial
Explosion causes all spells of a particular level to be
expended without result.
In the current age of Justice, there are groups de oted to
stamping out all extremes. There is a cult devoted to eliminating all
those who manufacture explosive weapons while a guild of Technocrats
seek to eliminate schools of magical knowledge.
There is almost no coal, petrolium or heavy metals like Uranium. The
small amouts of these materials that existed were exhausted in the tech
ages. which prevents cars, planes and neucuolar power from being widely
used. Thuse ther are no cars, planes, a locomotive is made of mostly
ceramic and natural materials are far more common. There is no plastic.
All metals are very rare and items made of metal are worth far more
than on traditional wolds.
Ceramic blade weapons are common, but break when a 1 is rolled to hit
or on a 1 or 2 when used against metal or rock creatures.
Initial Notes
The Dungeons and Dragons Campaign has grown in levels beyond the point
where a reasonable adventure can be constructed to challenge a group
the size and level of the Local 509. The time has come to retire that
campaign and use it as a pickup campaign with the action centering
around the House of Stone and not going any further with the Quest of
the Fifteen. It is with great reluctance and regret that I make this
decision, but after my Evil Tree taking almost 1800HP of damage in a
single minute, I feel am forced to!
For about 18 months I've been working on combining the d20 rule vaients
(D&D, Modern, Future, Past, Arcana, FX, Menace) to form a cohesive
system that can be formed into a new game. Also, I've always wanted to
ref a time travel game where all these varients can be used. I've
thought about a single planet with different conetnents being on
different time streams, different planets where each is at a seperate
point in it's development (a la Traveller d20) and so on. Here are some
of the decision points:
It a large party and this make intimate games that rely heavily on role
playing are impractical.
Time travel where they start in one time period presents
realism/practical problems as the skill set of the characters (and
their race) will be initially limited to that time period. When they go
to a new time, how do they learn the skills necessary to that period? A
solvable problem, but a consideration.
With different planets you run into the Dr. Who problem of language,
customs and such. A difficult but not impossible problem to solve.
At this point I think the best bet is to keep them on a new, alien (not
Earth) planet where they can travel (but not alwys at their will!)
through time.
The planet should have a wide a selection of climates, terrains and
other features as possible.
A simple way of controling game balance is to limit knowedge to
specific classes making advancing in a class beyond a certain point
impossible. Travelling to a different time may change this and I'll
wait until the problem arises as to wether you get to keep levels you
gain in one time when you go to a more restricted time!
An interesting thought for an approach to this new campaign is to use
the "mini game" concept. A specific varient or extension to the d20
rules are used to support a particular kind of adventure. The first
example is extending the vehicle combat rules to support an adventure
taking place in a "Mad Max" like post apochliptic landscape.
The adventures would be short (target around 10 or 15 game sessions)
with little or no emphasis on role playing or in depth local color, but
heavy in cinematic action and new wrinkles on familiar game elements
and rules.
On one Saturday night, I cheated the crew into helping me with this
effort instead of doing the regular game. It was really handy as they
gave me a lot of ideas and things that need to be worked on before I
presnt the rules to a larger audience. It was great!
One important thing was the means I would use to compensate character
classes with special abiloities (like clerics and wizards) with
corresponding feats or skills.
Although the party will be travelling through time, you have to start
somewhere! I've called out the ages of the planet that are suggestions
of
a consistant succession of moral and philophical periods. The time I'm
starting the players in is ... still somewhat in the air. I originally
wanted to start in the near future, but I may not to cushion the
transition from the old campaign for the players.
If I don't start the characters in the future, I will somehow get them
to that period I want to
target the the technology of the first adventure for about 2050 our
time. The time period is The
Sixth Age of this world (see below) Balance rules and the various
factions of the battle for powrer is in a period of detante. The
culture however is very different than ours.
For starters, there are many different races instead of just humans
that are senteint.
Yesterday, I looked into the kind of planning and detail I would need
to kick the campaign off. Everywhere I looked I found detailed middle
age cities but I couldn't find a single detailed modern city. I'm sure
they are out there somewhere, but their absence made me wonder why.
I came up with an interesting theory. Most D&D campaigns have a
considerable amount interaction and have a fairly stable location with
the characters interacting with the same merchants many times. Modern
campaigns are much more mobile in nature and de-emphasize role playing
in favor of rapid action. Added to this is the
complexity of the modern city and the rapid transportation. Creating a
modern city is a daunting task. However, I think I can overcome most of
these problems and create modern cities with the detail of medevil
cities.
In modern cities, an overview of the terrain, a display of the city
layout by district and details of main streets in the district will be
all that is needed outside of any special plot driven locations.
Each of the districts should have shopping malls, strip malls and some
small mom and pop locations. Beyond that, the flavor will be given by
the details of the shops and not their location beyond their district.
Make a page of tables describing the effects of modern drugs including
battle drugs.