by Fred Wolke | Feb 14, 2015 | Recursions
Bonus Focus: Shapes Living Things Why come to Thunia? A mysterious wizard, fleeing equally mysterious pursuers, comes to Earth and contacts the PC’s looking for protection. Before she can meet up with them, however, she disappears. But she leaves behind a portal key leading to the realm that has kidnapped her. Geography Thunia is an octahedron of fundament that was settled and engineered in ages long past. Its faces are largely flat, covered mostly with farmland and small towns, with a centrally located city. Each face has its own gravity, oriented perpendicular to the surface. The edges have sharp peaks of fundament stretching miles above the surface, creating barren mountain ranges that are very difficult to cross. Gravity can shift over short stretches and storms are commonplace. The city-states expend considerable effort pin keeping trade routes open under these barriers, resorting to tunnels rather than attempting to traverse the dangerous surface. At the six points where these edges meet, huge spires of fundament project miles above the mountains. Gravity near a spire is oriented toward the spire’s shaft, allowing structures to be built along its length. Traversing further out on the spire, gravity becomes weaker and weaker, until one can simply drift off into the Strange. Thunia spins on its axis once every thirty-two hours. It receives warmth and light from a construct that hangs in the sky a few thousand miles away, an icosahedron of glowing fundament that is believed to have been created at some point in the distant past. Time Each region has a thirty-two hour day. “Night” is when the Thunian “sun” is not visible...
by Lee Sims | Feb 14, 2015 | Recursions
Formed by fictional leakage from the various accounts and legends of the life of Alexander the Great of Macedon, Alexandria is a mature Recursion locked in the late Iron Age time that inspired it. On our Earth, Alexander conquered the largest empire the world had yet seen over a span of 15 years, only to die young at the age of 33. During his life, he lost no battles and was worshiped as a god, and it was said of him that when his empire reached its full extent, he wept that there were no more worlds to conquer. On Alexandria, Alexander is a god, immortal and invincible, and his army has been on the march now for 300 years. Alexandria is unique in that it does not have a fixed geography; instead, it consists only of the 100 miles or so surrounding the Macedonian army. As the army conquers, it moves on and the conquered regions cease to exist, replaced by new foes for Alexander to subdue; truly, there are now infinite worlds for him to conquer. The peoples of Alexandria are thus divided into two categories: the Macedonian army and their unconquered foes. The Macedonian army is led by Alexander the God and a dozen subordinate leaders who are also immortal demigods. The junior officers, common soldiers, and camp followers are all normal mortal humans, comprising around 20% of Alexandria’s population at any time; around 25% of these people have the Spark. Soldiers who are too wounded or too old to continue on campaign are settled in new cities, which are almost invariably named “Alexandria.” ...
by Marcus Ilgner | Feb 13, 2015 | Recursions
With a growing number of kids and adults dreaming of becoming famous, through fictional leakage, Fame was created. Here, you are adored by the masses and can perform on a scale that only a handful on Earth can. In its center you find Paradise City, an amalgation of Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Filled with concert halls, theaters, movie studios as well as record and music stores, there is always something to see. They also have their own version of the Walk Of Fame where one may find the names of visiting recursors along others known from Earth. In the suburbs and outskirts of the city, you can find the estates of the well to-do artists. The few roads leading out of town are mostly empty: who would want to leave the city where everything that matters is made? While Entertains is the most common focus for recursors on Fame, there are also famous fighters (like wrestlers) who Look for Trouble and others who work behind the scenes: directors who Lead and occasionally even famous detectives or reporters who Solve Mysteries or Work Undercover. A special role are talent scouts, agents and promotors who Work The System. They are responsible for someone not only making it to the top but also staying there. Because one thing is obvious in Fame: fading into obscurity is just as bad as death. Those who don’t manage to keep their adoring audiences captured with their work lose their powers. In rule terms, this means that every full week without actively working towards your craft will reduce your intelligence pool by 1. Successfully performing...
by John Clayton | Feb 12, 2015 | Recursions
Welcome, traveller, to the city of delights, the city of a thousand and one pleasures, the city of Baghdad. And yes, noble visitor, all the stories you have heard are true. This is not the war-torn Baghdad of the present day but the Baghdad of the Arabian Nights, the Baghdad of stories. Under the reign of the wise and munificent Sultan Haroun al Rashief, the city is a haven of art, culture, science and learning. Genies, magic carpets, lamps, rings, 40 thieves, sailors… The tales immortalised in the Thousand Nights and One Night are almost as old as civilisation itself. And they are all here in the City in a Bottle. Over *there*, the docks where Sindbad is preparing to set sail for another voyage. *There*, the tailor who was present at Aladdin’s wedding in far-off China. *There*, a barber who will tell you the most wonderful tale while trimming your beard – it’s not a problem that’s he’s completely blind, is it? This is a land formed by stories, shaped by the tales told. The tale truly has grown in the telling… Play along with the story and things *will* work out – go against the tale and you may just attract the Evil Eye. [In game mechanics terms, any action that flows *against* the narrative logic of the story being told suffers a -1 penalty, with any roll ending up a 1 due to this counting as a natural 1 for the purposes of triggering a GM Intrusion]. In Baghdad, the stories will find you. When you translate in you may choose to take the form of...
by Jesse Lehto | Feb 12, 2015 | Recursions
“Behold! Giant nuclear powered robots, the last hope of the humanity! Protecting humanity from evil giant killer robots, alien invaders and giant monsters! On Neo-Manhattan, the last bastion of humanity, people work hard to survive! Contact to outside world has been last, oceans have turned blood red and warring factions of evil robots, aliens and giant oceanic monsters emergence to attack the city! What will you do? Well, fight them with nuclear powered robots, of course!” -Text on the gates that take the form of “Neo-Manhattan” posters. Neo-Manhattan recursion was created from fictional leakage from various giant robot battle show tropes. In the recursion, parts of New York surrounding Manhattan borough have fallen into the ocean. Some areas haven’t been completely swallowed by the red sea, ruined skyscrapers can be seen in the distance. Curiously, the center of Neo-Manhattan were rich and powerful live is partially identical to modern Tokyo. People of the city believe they might be last surviving members of the humanity. The outside world is believed to be a battleground between mysterious invading aliens, giant monsters who arrive from the deeps of the now blood red sea and giant warmachines controlled by the artificial intelligent calling itself Deus. Once a week, a giant monster from one of these three factions arrives and threatens the city with destruction. Recursors translate as members of city’s defense forces who pilot giant robots, or mechas. Mechas are controlled directly by human mind and each pilot is “plugged” into them. As such, personal combat ability of the recursor will be robot’s fighting style as well, e.g. wields two weapon foci means...
by Mikkel Berget | Feb 11, 2015 | Recursions
The Trenches is basically a long narrow muddy battlefield stretching on for miles. The battlefield consists of a no man’s land with a labyrinth of trenches dug in the mud.on either side. Two seemingly identical armies looks to have fought each other over this land for years but have now dissappeared. The trenches are dotted with machine gun nests, mortar positions, radio positions, shelters and small dugouts reserved mainly for the senior officers. All weapons are functional and everything looks like it was abandoned just the day before. No man’s land is riddled with barbed wire, grenade holes and mine fields making traversing the mud very slow and dangerous. At the middle and in very back of each trench lies each armys head quarters. Each is a large building filled with maps, simple radio rooms, sick bays, crude surgical theaters and quarters for generals and similar higher ups. Large fields of beautiful pristine red poppies line the far outskirts of the recursion and provide the only vivid color in the recursion.. Singular poppies may appear in the middle of no man’s land and it is said that if these can be found and harvested they have almost miraculous abilities. Weather is constantly poor and cold keeping the mud wet and clammy. You can never clearly see the Sun as it is always obscured by rain or thick cold wet fog. Sometimes the fog brings with it green toxic gas rolling in slowly, injuring or killing anyone caught without gas masks. Some of the trenches are haunted by the ghosts of the dead, roaming around with some unknown...
