A Superheroic Theory of Time Travel

Or Time Travel on Earth-H!

The best works of time travel fiction generally have a clear and compelling structure for time travel, perhaps it is:

Linear Time, time moves in a straight line and where changing the past will change the future (such as in Poul Anderson’s Time Patrol stories or, mostly, in the Terminator movies).

Branched Time, where changing the past causes an entire new timeline to appear following the branch, but the events (and timeline) of the original version still exist as the original starting point for the time traveler who changed the past.

Parallel Timelines, infinite or limited, usually this means that travel in “time” is just traveling to a different timeline that seems identical to the past of the person traveling.  With enough Branched Time and you get close to the sme effect.

Immutable Time, the past is fixed, either you cannot change the flow of history or anything you did is alreadt accounted for in your present.  A variant of this is, you change the past but someone/thing steps into that hole and make the the future turn out pretty much the same.  Immutable time can be good for fiction but not much fun for roleplaying games.

There is also what might be termed “Monkey Paw” Time, which has been showing up in time travel stories recently.  Where any change to the past will cause increasingly disaterous alterations to the time traveler’s present (“the darkest timeline”) and further attempts to fix the timeline will just accelerate that downward trend.    Again, good for fiction, not so much for roleplaying games.

So, setting aside those last two, which form of time travel do the comics usually use? 

Time Travel in the Sea of Stars

My friend Brandes posted about Time Travel stories for RPGs on Tribality.  Which got me to thinking about Time Travel in the Sea of Stars, or, perhaps more precisely, the lack there of.

Time Travel, as it is usually thought of, is just impossible in the Sea of Stars.  People cannot travel back into the past and interact with it.  There is no way to change the past and cause changes to the present. It is quite simple, the past is past and thus immutable.  If there ever was any way to travel into the past, the acension of the Empress shut such a doorway, completely and irrevokably.  Yes, it is impossible, no loopholes, no debate, no time travel . . . into the past.

Festival – The Empress’ Birthday (RPG Blog Carnival)

The year in the Sea of Stars runs as dictated by the Empress and is universal across the entire world, the year consists of thirteen months of twenty-eight days each and one epagomenal day in the middle of summer, the Empress’ Birthday.

While the Empress does not demand or enforce celebration on this day, though naturally all of the lands she personally rules do, most communities celebrate it in one fashion or another.  It is often combined with other civic festivals, founding days, name days, all sorts of events get rolled into the big day.

Popular ways to celebrate include parades, speeches and firework displays.  Some groups have martial displays, gladiatorial combats are not unknown.  Plays, songs and other performance art celebrating (or at least acknowledging the power of the Empress) are expected not least because the Empress often visits out of the way communities on this day, sometime she is said to have visiting multiple places across vast distances but that can not be true, can it?

Over time, the plays have evolved from very formal and stately celebrations to more popular entertainment.  Many now use the plays and performances to comment on and satirize local politics and notables.  In a fashion similar to commedia dell’arte or the English Pantomime, the former usually performed by professional with the latter begin more ad hoc productions.  The Empress (and local dragons) are usually not the targets for such frivolity, as most dragons are rather thin skinned, though the Empress is occasionally (and somewhat ironically) cast in the role of deus ex machina on occasion.

How the characters could get involved:

• Attend a play or celebration.
• A wizard, or other spellcaster, could be hired to provide fireworks or illusions.  Especially at the last minute after the prepared firework got wet.
• If the characters are well known, they could be asked to perform or be drafted to act in the Panto.  Once in, they might be paid or pressured to include political commentary damaging to one of the local factions.
• Rumors say the empress has been spotted!  At our festival!

Notes:  This is in support of this month’s the RPG Blog Carnival, Adding Festivals, Holidays, and Birthdays to Your Game hosted by Full Moon Storytelling.

Image Details from “The Pantomimes of 1866”, found on Wikimedia Commons and is in the Public Domain.

Tea and Trade (A to Z)

Tea is a high value and (comparatively) light weight commodity and in demand all across the Sea of Stars, tea is widely and often drunk, many dragons are connoisseurs following the Empress’ example.  It is a sign of hospitality almost everywhere to be offered a cup of tea, though various places use various things for tea, not everyone can afford the black tea from the few places it is grown.  Other use various mixes of herbs or other materials, some of the shadow elves even using type of powdered mushrooms.

The first crop of tea from each season is raced to the Imperial Capital on sky ship, each vying for the honor of being the first tea delivered.  By tradition, the Empress buys all of the cargo of the first ship to arrive and reward the crew.  While it has been pointed out that ferrying the tea to one of the gate cities would be faster but the tradition continues.

The trade in tea is only part of the vast trading network that extends throughout the Sea of Stars, encouraged by the Empress and Imperial policy.  The Empress provides a universal currency for those that wish to use it, the Imperial Navy is routinely deployed to combat pirates and the Imperial tax policy reward those states that open themselves to trade.  The Empress realized that true wealth comes from innovation, industry and trade, therefore she encourages all three.  After all, the wealthier her subject are, the more wealth flows into Imperial coffers.

What is less know is that the Empress has indirectly invested in many trading ventures, large and small, to open up new trade routes and locales.  There is untold wealth to be discovered in the Sea of Stars, the Empress is certain of it.

Notes: Wealth can be acquired by taking but it does not create wealth, trade and industry creates wealth.  The Empress understands this.  You could join the tea clipper race!  Also, opening new trade routes is a great adventure!

Image Willis Tea Line Clipper, by Frederick Tudgay. Oil on Canvas, found on Wikimedia Commons and is in the Public Domain.

Once Upon a Time in 1967 – What is Happening in Earth-H

Since we cannot meet to continue our Masks campaign at the moment, I thought I would put together some resources for the setting to share.  It is Fall as we begin the campaign and this is to present some context to the world around the young heroes.

Politics:

Lyndon Baines Johnson (“LBJ’) is the President of the United States, following the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963 and his victory in the 1964 election.  Hubert Humphrey is Vice President.  LBJ has tried to get more superheroes to back the US war effort in Vietnam with little success.

John Linsay is the Mayor of New York City, where are campaign is set, and who is still deciding if having New York City be the “Superhero capital of the US” is a good thing or not.

The Six-Day War in June sees Israel capture and occupy the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.

Anti-War Protests are increasingly common in major cities.  Race Riots, usually triggered by violent police actions, roll across the US causing great disruption and doubt.

Doomsdays and Dystopias of the Sea of Stars

The theme for this month’s RPG Bog Carnival is Doomsdays and Dystopias hosted over on Daemons & Deathrays.

There are two major doomsday points in the Sea of Stars:

The Fall of the Gods and the Sundering, the war between the gods and the dragons had considerable, to use the current term, collateral damage.  While the dragons did not seek to destroy any more than necessary, looting rubble is less productive, there were situations that required significant devastation especially in the cases of the gods who choose to live among their worshipers.  The combats in those cities were massively destructive to life and property.

But the damage caused by the Gods War pales by comparison to that of the Sundering which followed immediately afterward, as the world itself shattered and pulled apart.  The loss of life was immense and some area were rendered uninhabitable as rivers were diverted, lakes and oceans drained away, mountain ranges crumbled or emerged.  In less than a day, the world was irrevocably changed.

However, with the help of their new rulers, the dragons, the world was slowly rebuilt.  Some areas took longer to recover than others . . . and a few never did leaving ruins in formerly fertile areas that were now deserts or marshes or worse.

If massive environmentally disruption is your idea of a good campaign, the Sundering has everything you could imagine.

A much more focused doomsday is the Sen’Tek Revolt, the attempt by a conspiracy within the Visse servant class and Imperial bureaucracy to overthrow (and replace) the draconic overlords.  The deep conspiracy planned across decades was forced to act prematurely when it was revealed to the Empress.  While many dragons and dragonkine were killed, the plot as a whole was foiled, and many, many Visse were slain.   Though the core of the conspiracy escaped deep into the far mountains.  Even this failure caused deep disruption to draconic rule as the dragons turned upon the weakened houses and sought to benefit until the Empress stepped in and reorganized the survivors.

If you want a survival horror type scenario it could be run on either side of this: either dragonkine nobles trying to survive against servants who know their every foible and weakness or a group of Visse, possible mixed conspirators and innocents, avoiding dragons and trying to escape.

For dystopia, well, it is a world ruled by dragons after killing the gods, for many, they could not imagine a worse world.  For the dragon rulers who had to “reeducate” formerly pious societies, it was not a pretty task.  While, in general, the dragons take a claws off approach as long as they get their taxes, there are always exceptions.

So if you are looking for unhappy places, there are no shortage such as the Kingdom of Laccini and its militant knights backed by necrourgists or the Dark Star Dominion and its ruler, Ba’a’ai, the Dark Star himself.

Other dystopias must exist as well but I cannot immediately think of any more.

 

Notes: Photo “Ruined Castle” by Grant is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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Plot ideas for the Secret Society Ring

I was a little rushed getting the Secret Society Ring out, and some ideas came to me tonight, so some thought on how to use the Secret Society Ring to drive adventure:

Firstly, I was thinking that the identification sensation would vary from society to society: a spider cult would feel the sensation of spider legs along their spine, members of a celestial back conspiracy would see the other member with a halo, and so on.

So someone who is sensitive to magic emanations might still get the sensation that the ring triggers when member exchange handshakes when they touch someone wear one of the rings.  How would they react?  And what might they do to find out why that sensation was triggered?

A flawed ring, one that just requires that it be worn for a day to align it to the wearer, and that wearer would suddenly be treated as a friend and ally by people they had never before met.  How long can they keep up the charade?  What about when other member of the conspiracy start asking them for help and expected that it will be given, what then?

What is the group found a stash of these rings and the ritual to activate them?  What would they use them for?  And if they do use them, how will they react when they start encountering other people who have activated rings of the same type?

How would you use the rings to spark adventure?

Image “Ring” by Celtic via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

Beginning of the End, the Gods War and Sundering as the End of the World

So the RPG Blog Carnival theme for May is At World’s End dealing with the end of campaigns as well as end of the world scenarios (Rising Phoenix Games is hosting the Blog Carnival this time around).

It occurred to me that the Gods War that sees the dragons triumph over and kill the majority of the gods and the Sundering that follows, shattering the world, could very easily be read as the end of the world.  The old order is cast down and destroyed, all that was once worshiped has been shown to be powerless before the might of the dragons and the very world itself has been torn apart.  You do not get much more apocalyptic than that!

But it is not the end of the Sea of Stars but the beginning, all of this forms the deep background of the campaign world (though I have run a few short stories set in the immediate aftermath) but there is no reason that it could not be center stage.  Either with people joining in the (doomed) fight against the dragons or just trying to survive in the aftermath adjusting to a radically different world.

Imagine just being out for a stroll in the city square and suddenly screams erupt as the bodies of charred angels and mangled dragons start falling from the sky, crashing into the building and trading stalls.  Looking up, the sky is split by rifts of light and shadow and flashes indicate that something is happening but it is too far away to see . . . until another body plunges down to earth.

Or, you are in your village up in the mountains when the light from the sun, at midday, goes red and the earth shakes.  Everything just seems wrong, the animals are terrified and running all over the place.  Then, for a moment, every seems to return to normal, the sun is again bright . . . and the earth splits, tearing mountains away from mountains and the crack is heading straight for the village!

There is a lot of possibility for drama and action with fights against dragons or the elements (or both) at the end of one world and the beginning of the next.

Art is the Great Day of His Wrath by John Martin and held in the Tate Gallery and the image is in the Public Domain.

War (A to Z Challenge, W)

War is rare in the Sea of Stars but not unknown; the problem with being an expansionist power is that ultimately, everything is owned by a dragon so by declaring war and trying to seize a piece of land, you are also declaring it upon that land’s owner.  Now some dragons are happy to let such conflicts play out on a purely mortal against mortal level, confining themselves to either high strategy or simply observers but a few dragons seek a more active role.

Some dragons expect their charges to be able to defend themselves without aid from their ruler, the weak should not be coddled after all.  As one draconic saying has it “the weak are meat the strong eat.”  These dragons are sure to make sure that the people in their lands understand that they are on their own if attacked and most who adhere to this philosophy promote militarism in the states they oversee.  These states by their nature oft times look for chances to test their mettle and expand.

Other dragons relish the opportunity to test their strength against entire armies or the dragons that command them.  When dragons appear on the battlefield they usually negotiate rules of engagement to ensure that they are unlikely to be killed.  Being wounded is acceptable, even expected, but being slain bu mere mortals would set a bad precedent.  Though even such rules do not prevent the occasional draconic death in battle as warfare is unpredictable (and few can resist the chance to slay a dragon when it is presented to them).

However, generally such conflicts between states and dragons are kept small scale, skirmishes and raids, maneuvers and feints, only very rarely escalating to full scale invasion, the difficulty of transporting an army from island to island may be part of that.  But wars still happen on occasion and when they do, things can change very rapidly.

Notes: Dragons like conflict but wars, wars are uncontrollable once unleashed so the majority of dragons try to avoid them.

Photo by Paul Kitchener used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Tuesday Magic Item – Heart Nail

Voddick cleaned his sword and frowned.  “It that a nail in the chest of that unliving corpse we just put down?”

Gollaon looked from where his was cleaning the wound to his forearm.  “I think you are right.”

“Bugger,” said Voddick, pulling a dagger from his belt.  He stepped over to the corpse, knelt down and dug the nail out of the body with his dagger.

“Messy work,” commented his friend.

“Some of the dead brought back with nails like this do not stay dead.  Lost two members of a patrol to a nailed corpse once.  Not again.”

“I am glad you recognized that.  I have not encountered such before.”

Heart Nail

These nails are at least as long as a grown man’s hand and the metal used to make them is often pitted and scarred.  They seem heavier than they should be and they are as cold as ice when inactive and as warm as blood when they have been prepared.  Made from the metal of weapons that had been used to kill, the fires used to forge the nail must be stoked with bones and the finished nail quenched in fresh blood.