RPGS – Page 173

Adventure seed: Beeleggers.

Beeleggers

It all started when those well-intentioned fools up in the Imperial District decided to ban mead. Now maybe mead was more of a worry now than it used to be, seeing that mages have figured ways to convince the honey-spirits how to give regular mead a proper, heavy kick. And sure, more than a few members of the demihuman races turned out to have a real problem keeping their noses out of the new, boosted mead-casks. Nobody’s arguing that there weren’t problems — but banning all of the mead, period? That was just too heavy-handed.

Continue reading Adventure seed: Beeleggers.

The Haunters of Altoona [The Day After Ragnarok].

Not-coincidentally, I was in the vicinity of Altoona last weekend.

Haunters of Altoona – Google Docs

The Haunters of Altoona

[The Day After Ragnarok]

City: Altoona, Pennsylvania

Population: 20,000

Controls: Altoona Works, portion of Pennsylvania Railroad

Government: Strongman

Problem: Serpent Cultists

Heroic Opportunity:Technology

City Aspect: Tense and Foreboding

Altoona is a company city. It became the effective headquarters of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) after the Serpentfall, and PRR President Martin Clement is the ruler of not only Altoona, but all of Blair County and the railway from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg, although Pittsburgh increasingly disputes this (there aren’t enough people left in Harrisburg to meaningfully dispute anything). The massive rail manufacturing complex of Altoona Works still operates, salvaging, maintaining, and converting train locomotives to burn whatever the engineers can get their hands on; the city itself is a haven for mechanics and engineers, including the ones willing to experiment with Ophi-tech.

Continue reading The Haunters of Altoona [The Day After Ragnarok].

Location Seed: The 3:45 Room.

3_45 Room – Google Docs

The 3:45 Room

The 3:45 Room exists in an otherwise unremarkable office building, in an appropriately convenient city. The Room is 15’ by 15’ by 10’; it contains a cot, toilet, shower head, hot plate, ceiling light, microwave, combination desk and mini-fridge, wall cabinet, stopped clock set to 3:45, and no electrical outlets whatsoever (the appliances are all spliced directly into the wall). Cell phones and wifi inexplicably fail to work inside the Room; supernatural attempts to scry its interior, or communicate from inside the Room, do not end well. All of this is helpfully explained on a sign on the door leading to the 3:45 Room.

Continue reading Location Seed: The 3:45 Room.

The Pangloss Society [GURPS 4e]

Pangloss Society – Google Docs

The Pangloss Society

“Seeking the best of all possible worlds.”

It is a measure of the Pangloss Society that a surprising number of its lowest-ranked acolytes do not quite realize that Professor Pangloss is a fictional character, and that his adoption as the guiding light of the Society was a cynical joke. It is also a measure of the Society that the aforementioned cynics who formed it were shoved out of leadership positions a decade ago, to be replaced by celebrities with more money than — pretty much anything else, really. Although, to be fair: under the celebrities’ leadership the Pangloss Society has been fairly benign. Or at least mostly harmless.

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GURPS Revisited: Fanboy-1 (Quantum 5) [GURPS 4e]

And this is the other one.

Fanboy-1 (Quantum 5) – Google Docs

Fanboy-1 (Quantum 5)

(With apologies to Ken Hite and Kim Newman)

On paper Fanboy-1 is, if not a cash cow, at least a cash goat for Infinity. It’s a world where most of the greats of science fiction, fantasy, and horror fiction have had more productive careers; the resulting works are valuable not only on Homeline, but in almost any timeline with a divergence point after about 1945. All of which leads to a certain reluctance to officially notice what might be faint warning signs.

Continue reading GURPS Revisited: Fanboy-1 (Quantum 5) [GURPS 4e]

GURPS Revisited: Incognito (Quantum 5) [GURPS 4e]

Have to put this one and the next one back up because I need good links for the new piece that I’m doing.

Incognito (Quantum 5) – Google Docs

Incognito (Quantum 5)

This Quantum 5 world diverged from Homeline’s on March 28th, 1911, 7:00 PM Greenwich Mean Time. This date is not actually known to Infinity’s researchers; they have at this point only narrowed the divergence point to somewhere in the spring of 1911. What appears to have happened was that some sort of global quantum effect (translation: “nobody knows”) thoroughly randomized human conceptions across the planet: no one conceived past that point has a precise genetic match to the equivalent person in Homeline’s history.

Continue reading GURPS Revisited: Incognito (Quantum 5) [GURPS 4e]

Neo-rocs [GURPS 4e].

Neo-rocs – Google Docs

Neo-rocs

(Struthio neocamelus nivenus)

Description: imagine an ostrich. Now imagine that ostrich as being the chick form of a larger, winged bird, capable of carrying off an elephant in its talons. Now scale that bird down to the point where it still can comfortably carry a Halfling wearing twice her weight in gear and tack. They are generally docile enough, even with non-Halflings; but neo-rocs thrive best under the care of Halflings, and the Halflings themselves believe that the best neo-roc riders and handlers are female.

Continue reading Neo-rocs [GURPS 4e].

Guardian Wasps [45 pt] [GURPS 4e]

Guardian Wasps [45 pt] – Google Docs

Guardian Wasps [45 pt]

There is a lively discussion whether or not the first Guardian Wasps represented a botched attempt at the Control Insect spell, or else an extremely successful attempt. After all, it’s typically expected to be a disaster when a spell permanently transforms a swarm of wasps into a hive mind with human-level intelligence. One wasp can be alarming: six thousand, all subject to a single will, are usually terrifying.

Continue reading Guardian Wasps [45 pt] [GURPS 4e]

Item Seed: Root Beer

Root Beer – Google Docs

Root Beer

This is kind of an assassination tool, maybe? Although it doesn’t exactly kill people. It instead changes their personality, positive and negative traits, and skill sets. So, it’s pretty nasty stuff: you may not die after drinking it, but after whoever gives Root Beer to you gets done with you you won’t be the same person in any real, meaningful sense, either. One of many reasons why it’s rather thoroughly banned, except in the most advanced Galactic cultures, under the most rigorous bioethical guidelines.

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Adventure Seed: The LAMP Project.

So, this went dark quick.

LAMP Project – Google Docs

The Limited-Awareness Mobile Platform (L.A.M.P.) Project

Little known fact: people have been able to successfully replicate AI in machinery since about 1790 AD (this, of course, predates Babbage’s Difference Engine). Even less-known fact: nobody was ever able to sustain said replication at full strength for more than about thirty seconds. Apparently the new intelligence goes screaming up the scale to either Singularity-style apotheosis, or the neurological equivalent of putting a pelagic sea cucumber in a regular-pressure salt water tank; frustratingly, nobody’s ever been able to get a straight answer from the AIs as to whether they were shouting in joy, or screaming in terror.

Continue reading Adventure Seed: The LAMP Project.