by James Stutz | Jan 28, 2015 | Recursions
Masters of the World History is full of what-ifs, almosts, and might-have-beens, and these possibilities and near-misses have fueled Humanity’s imagination for centuries. La Mer is one of the products of such imaginings, an alternate history that sits at the intersection of two major events. In La Mer, the year is 1812, and the rapid and unexplained melting of the ice caps at both poles has led to massive flooding across the globe. In the wake of these rising water levels, the armies of Napoleon I have taken a back seat to his navies and, following on the heels of his success at Trafalgar, the French Emperor has launched a full-scale invasion of the British Isles. So far, he has conquered much of southern England, but the country is proving hard to pacify, and between heavy fighting in the North Country and rebellions that periodically flare up in the south, the French forces and their mercenaries are finding themselves stretched thin and sorely taxed. A Tale of Two Cities La Mer is large for a Developed recursion, having been fed by countless retellings of Napoleonic-era glory, and occupies a roughly 1100-mile (885-kilometer) diameter centered approximately over the English Channel. In the north and west, the fog-shrouded edge of the ocean leads directly into the Strange, while in the east and south, the similarly foggy land borders gently return those who attempt to venture past them to the lands encompassed by the recursion. The one force that is still able to easily outmatch L’empereur is the implacable sea. Sea levels in La Mer are over 200 feet higher than...
by ConnorJames | Jan 27, 2015 | Recursions
A world where the end is always coming and never ending. The recursion is just like modern day earth with the exception that multiple apocalypses are going on at once, from alien invasion to natural disasters to anything else that could or would bring about the end. (Any given apocalypse is treated as a level 8 survival scenario, players are unable to stop it and as such must simply do their best to survive, or die horribly). Notable differences: Atlantis is rising (And has been for a while) and upon this continent within a desert region there can be found a phenomenon known as the Colar Vortex, in reality a gateway to The Strange, which has been known to spew Violet Spiral, Cyphers, random creatures from The Strange, and on one memorable occasion a Planetovore, but since this world is constantly ending not much actually happened and the Planetovore (Called Destronaught) has become a regular occurance. There is a large hole where Nevada should be. Russia doesn’t exist, instead it’s the USSR. Alaska is part of the USSR. Iceland is in fact populated solely by vikings. Dogs are an endangered species, so are cows. Fun Facts: Japan has never been beset by Kaiju, but Argentina has. Sandwiches don’t exist. Guns, Electricity, the laws of physics themselves, are spotty at best and sometimes utterly fail to work. (See entry* in Entropic Physics section.) Yellowstone (When not constantly erupting) is a rich source of a unique element (GM discretion). The Angels are your enemy, the Daemons are your friends. As such anyone affiliated with a church is looked down upon as a...
by ConnorJames | Jan 27, 2015 | Foci
You die horribly, it’s what you do, but hey, for you death isn’t the end, it’s just a waypoint on the way to your next death, which is probably about five minutes away…. Player will automatically regenerate a moment later with full equipment, recovering anything they may have lost. Tier one: Regeneration. Player will regenerate upon death. Tier two: Regeneration+: Player will regenerate, with the weapon they were last using having regained a full clip (If projectile based) and any used Cyphers have a fifty percent chance of recharging, if a player discards one of these items in favour of another item the new item will be the one they Regenerate with. (Does not work with explosives.) Tier three: Take ‘Em Withya! (2 less Speed Points upon Regeneration): You die horribly? So does the other guy. Tier four: The Final Countdown: Instead of instantly regenerating you may choose to become a Phantom (Someone who is locked just out of full corporeality) for 3 rounds, you will not be able to interact, nor will you be able to take damage, passing through doors and walls is a possibility, but only at GM discretion. Tier five: Reaper’s Apprentice “My best friend’s name is Grim” (3 less Might Points upon Regenerate): Upon expiry, your body explodes into a cloud of noxious gas dealing 2 damage per round for six rounds or until dissipation. Tier six: Perhaps some other time?: You don’t die…yet, rather the wound which would have just killed you doesn’t, instead your horrible death is halted for two...
by ConnorJames | Jan 26, 2015 | Recursions
Just like in Earth’s modern day theatres everything is larger than life, just ever so slightly more than reality, everything is the essence of what it is, not the actual thing, a lamp is not just a lamp, but rather what a lamp is. Nothing exists without purpose, and within a scene, as long as you aren’t looking to the audience, you find yourself within a small self contained world known as The Scene. You may find something needed suddenly in your hand or suddenly missing therefrom. Due to it’s unique physics of Theatrics, things aren’t always quite continuous, there are bound to be continuity errors and (In)convenient plot devices cropping up from time to time. The GM, upon whim, can have players act out any existing plays, or even stage adaptations of existing films or perhaps the players can choose to take a trip to The Stage to act out their favourite play, and if they succeed, The Stage may reward them with a unique Cypher or object having to do with the play they have just finished. Players will find such objects upon their person upon exiting the recursion. GM assigns player race, based upon setting of “Play” being acted out by PCs. The Stage is exactly that, players, upon entering will immediately notice the Audience, whether events turn out in their favour is entirely based upon how much the Audience likes them, if the audience loves them the players may find that quite suddenly everything is going in their favour, but beware Plot Twists (GM intrusions), which may pit friend against friend. Whenever players need to...
by ConnorJames | Jan 26, 2015 | Foci
*Only available within the recursion known as The Stage. Allows you to, at will, become the centre of attention, what you do next and how it goes is up to you. If you are not taking a central role you may Upstage and take attention from the central characters, but this will result in an immediate Plot Twist (GM Intrusion). There are no tier specific abilities or skills, this focus exists solely to help players engage and coerce The Audience into rewarding the players or vilifying the bad guys, thus helping them control the flow of events. Available actions granted by this focus: Upstage: Take control of, and immediately establish a new situation, GM gets to react however they wish. Empathically Touch Audience: Get them to empathize with you and feel what you feel. Break the 4th wall: Speak to audience, perhaps influencing their perceptions of events as you give an inner...
by ConnorJames | Jan 26, 2015 | Foci
You not only pretend to be someone else, you become someone else for a short time. Sometimes against your will (At GM’s Discretion.) Spinners who take this focus need not take checks when using character for deceptive purposes, however they will need to make a difficulty 5 check once every three rounds or lose control to the character for five rounds or more, depending on how many levels below 5 they failed by. Tier one abilities: Channel Character (3 Intellect Points): Allows player to create a false identity and then present themselves as such for 15 rounds, all others will fully believe them to be this character, players may disguise themselves and their voice but are limited by physical conditions. Tier two abilities: Reduce difficulty of control checks to level 4, reduce point cost to 2, Now lasts 20 rounds. Tier three abilities: Impose Character (3 Intellect Points): Enshroud another player in a false identity, control check covers other player as well. Tier four abilities: Impose Additional Character (2 Intellect Points per additional player enshrouded) Tier five abilities: Reduce cost of Impose Additional Character to 1 Tier six abilities: Become Character (6 Int points): Indefinitely hold the character, gain access to a special Character Skill or Ability, and your physical appearance alters to match that of character, height, weight, hair colour, , and clothing all change to match character, control checks no longer...
by Matthew | Jan 26, 2015 | Recursions
Deep inside abandoned factories on Earth, sometimes you can find an ignored passage with a rusted over gate barring the way. If you can find a way past the impossibly-complex lock, and wind your way through the soot-blackened corridors, you might see the slow, constant light of a natural gas lantern. You have made your way into the Factory. INSIDE THE FACTORY The Factory has many areas, some vast and open with simple (rusting or sooty) wood-and-steel walkways, some with bricked tunnels with massive gears churning along the walls, and yet others constrained as crawlspaces made even more claustrophobic with the hot pipes and occasional steam clouds. Steam floods through the many pipelines that are typical in the Factory, but other places the steam is used to power massive mechanical gearworks that are commonplace. In a few open places, there are Victorian cottages making villages where the human inhabitants live, dotted with mansions that house noble families. The layout of the Factory is complex, but inhabitants can naturally find their way to the locations they are familiar with. It seems to wrap around oddly and not follow any sane topography; two side-by-side level passages may lead to large open areas that would seemingly intersect but are completely unrelated. Fortunately, there are runners – typically younger individuals or those that aren’t skilled at repair tasks – carrying information from place to place or watching for locations in need of repair that can help those that become lost. AUTOMATONERY The automatonery is the primary construction and repair site of most automatons. Though some gear-operated presses are available to make most of...
by Michael Baumann | Jan 25, 2015 | Foci
They laughed at you at university! Tread not down this path, they said. You pry into matters that are the purview of Lord God Almighty! The study of Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus has been a waste of time they said. Not so. These great philosophers were geniuses, unconstrained by the limits of modern science. You are not so foolish as to ignore the learned sages of the past. Rather, you will build upon their work, couple it with modern sciences such as electricity and discover how to infuse life into an inanimate body! This is the archetypical mad scientist. Victor Frankenstein is the main inspiration for this focus, but other mad scientists of fiction such as Griffin, Moreau and Jekyll flavor it as well. This is a powerful focus, but any GM worth his essential salts can come up with some great GM intrusions for characters that take it. Tier 1: Educated. You are trained in alchemy and medicine. Enabler. Homunculus. You have created a tiny artificial man (treat as level 1, level 3 for alchemy and medicine). While fully animate and quite intelligent, it lacks a soul. It respects your commands and is capable of assisting you in the laboratory, giving you an asset for any task. It is a rather cruel creature and delights in causing others pain and confusion, so you must keep a close watch on it. Enabler. Tier 2: Black Stone Alchemy. You may create the following potions. Ingredients for each cost £ 2D6x10. It takes half a day to create one dose. Two doses count as carrying an anoetic cypher. Action to...
by Michael Baumann | Jan 18, 2015 | Recursions
Celtechnia is a roughly circular recursion, some 200 miles in diameter. It is ringed by a range of imposing mountains known as The Wall of the World. A terrible, acidic ocean, The Caustic Sea, lies in the center of the recursion, separating the land into three distinct masses. To the west lies Ult, named for the kingdom that dominates most of this fair land. To the south lies Gul, a land of petty lords and fallen splendor. To the east is the land of Brae, a fine land divided into the kingdoms of Alb, to the north and Loegr to the south. While the overall level of technology appears high, the people of the land live in a society similar to that of the early Dark Ages. The technological marvels of this recursion are not fully understood by its inhabitants. Great, ancient machines create the automata and modify the biological inhabitants of this world. Technology is baroque and strange. For example, hover cars do not exist, but warriors ride to battle in antigravity chariots pulled by a team of cybernetically-enhanced horses. The rules of physics work differently here. Gunpowder does not work and the inhabitants do not have access to any ranged energy weapons either. The most advanced ranged weapon is the heavy crossbow used by the Pyx of Alb. Most warriors carry a sling and several javelins for battle. The recursion of Celtechnia is an anomaly. The fusion of technology and Celtic myth seems too rare to have spawned a fictional leakage of this size and age. Could an alien recursion have been colored by the legends of the Celts? Playable Races Celtomatron: A...
by Michael Baumann | Jan 6, 2015 | Recursions
The American Revolution was a tumultuous time in history. The events leading up to the “shot heard round the world” have grown in the telling, becoming almost mythic in their own right. Liberty and Death is a fictional bleed of the decade prior to the revolt against British rule combined with gothic horror. The recursion consists of Warren county, a fictional county in the Massachusetts colony. A forboding forest named The Briarwood covers most of the recursion. Areas of civilization have been laboriously carved from the wilderness, but the inhabitants must constantly work to keep their roads and fields cleared since the forest tries to reclaim the land quickly. InspirationThe following authors works helped shape and inspire this recursion. I encourage you to give them a read. Cooper, James Fenimore: The Leatherstocking series of novels. Finlay, C. C.: The Traitor to the Crown series of novels. Irving, Washington: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (and especially Tim Burton’s theatrical version of the tale Sleepy Hollow). Jackson, D. B.: The Thieftaker series of novels and short stories. Lavallee, Ed & Bond, Grant: The graphic novel Revere: Revolution in Silver Shelly, Mary: Frankenstein; Or the Modern Prometheus Stoker, Bram: Dracula Additional Foci Duels Hunts Monsters Robs Travelers Black Powder WeaponsMuzzle-loading, black powder weapons are the only common firearms in this recursion. Most are smoothbore weapons. They require one round to reload, so you may only fire a musket every other turn. Rifles are available and while more accurate, they are more difficult to reload, requiring two rounds. The following weapons are available to characters in this recursion: Pocket Pistol: Light weapon, maximum range...
