Lovecraftian Horrors In Timelines & Alternative 2d6 Time Travel Cepheus Engine rpg Campaign Action

 This is going to pick right up here from the last blog entry as this campaign comes together.  Could the Earth have ended as time travel basically makes a mockery of physics if it goes wrong!? The answer is a resounding yes! A time apcocalyse brings to mind Michael Brown's Afterday and Cepheus Atom . Trying to escape such a reality & timeline could be the focus for an Empire of Time game unto itself. 


For most of the day I've been gone to a local car repair shop & thinking about the implications of 'Deep Time' for an upcoming Empire of Time campaign. The Earth at the beginning of its formation is going to be a place of very valuable commodities geologically speak. Ancient Earth is also going to be an incredibly alien place vastly different from anything we're used to. 

Perhaps the barbarians are not the ones that we're used to?! We know that in Empire of Time there are several species of alien on Earth even up to the time of the first life forms on Earth. But were there other alien species  that the player's PC's could encounter say around 750 million years ago?
"...the basis of the fear was a horrible elder race of half-polypous, utterly alien entities which had come through space from immeasurably distant universes and had dominated the earth and three other solar planets about 600 million years ago." HP Lovecraft 'The Shadow Out of Time' 
The Flying Polyps are some the most dangerous & underrated alien horrors that most dungeon masters wouldn't think to use out of context. The players stumbling upon the Flying Polyps black bisalt cities would be in incredible danger. Shadow Fall from Baggage Books has a really solid set of Flying Polyps stats; "Flying Polyp 100kg Killer (Carnivore), Underground, Fly, A78672, #App: 1-3 Athletics-1. Ranged Weapons (Natural)-2, Recon-0, Survival-1. Gravity 1D6, Hide-6 and see below; Speed: 6m A polyp’s gravitic attack has two effects: it pins a target in place unless it makes a Difficult STR role (Instantaneous and Repeatable) and it creates a strong wind of energy-deficient (i.e., freezing) air that causes 1D6 cold damage. Those killed by a flying polyp will freeze to death. Attacking a polyp is difficult, as their non-material nature makes them essentially immune to physical violence: any such attack must kill it in one combat round, otherwise it heals completely by the start of the next round. Energy attacks such as bombs, flamethrowers, and actual energy projectors supplied by Elder Ones or Mi-Go cause damage in the usual manner: cumulative as more successful attacks are made."

Given the nature of Deep Time is it any wonder that the alien & semi material nature of the Flying Polyps makes them a real hazard where dealing with traveling the eras around 750 million years ago. There are schools of thought in the Lovecraft fandom that think the Flying Polyps may have extreminated a number of interstellar species. There are those believe the Polyps were in point of fact seeking to settle colonies on Mars, Neptune, & Venus. To put this in perspective those colonies if they are still there could be one of the greatest dangers that the player's PC's might run into exploring the 'Deep Time' around those worlds. 

Imagine a Deep Time  mission to Mars to stop mankind from stumbling upon a sealed up well of the Flying Polyps?! We know that the Great Race of Yith's consciousness  left the Earth's 750 million year old  timeline to jump far into distant future. But the Polyps were so dangerous that they left them behind and this is a perfectly dangerous opportunity for the PC's to come across them! Because of the Empire of Time's Deep Time rules on time travel paradox & complications there's opportunity to deal a harsh blow to these Lovecraft invasive alien species. But is there really anything the PC's could do?! 

Could the PC's stumble upon an Earth timeline where physics is breaking down because of the Flying Polyps colonizing Earth as they were always meant to. These horrors have been released from their slumber by the chronal particles of time travel drives themselves?!