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 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 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 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...
by Charles Ryan | Jan 5, 2015 | Recursions
The monster movie is a concept nearly as old as cinema itself, but the genre hit its stride in the 1930s and arguably reached its peak of popularity in the 1950s. At least, movies of that era are the source of fictional leakage that produced the Creature Feature recursion. At a glance, Creature Feature might be indistinguishable from an Earth of the 1950s–albeit an Earth almost entirely lacking in color. While it isn’t a truly black-and-white world, brilliant colors are non-existent; almost everything is painted in desaturated shades of near-gray. Dense fog or the darkness of night, often more common than it seems it should be, sometimes conceal this oddity from newly-arrived recursors. The inhabitants of Creature Feature dress, speak, and follow the cultural norms of ’50s. More accurately, they follow the norms of American society in that era–in non-American regions, cultures generally reflect a 1950s Hollywood version of themselves. Although the geography of Creature Feature is greatly condensed, its inhabitants generally believe they live on Earth. Creature Feature is ruled by the laws of Magic and Mad Science, though in a very low-key manner–so much so that their presence isn’t generally obvious. Indeed, while a researcher might labor away at a device that harnesses the power of a brain in a jar, or a creature of the night (or a lab escapee) might terrorize those it comes across, most inhabitants of Creature Feature find such occurrences as astonishing as Earth’s inhabitants would. 99.9% of day-to-day activity is completely compatible with standard physics. While the majority of Creature Feature’s inhabitants live what appears to be mundane lives, there are always expeditions setting out to...
