Sword & Sorcery Timelines & Alternative 2d6 Time Travel Cepheus Engine rpg Campaign Action

This is going to pick up right from this rpg blog post here. Time travel is a dangerous & expensive business, alternative Deep Time worlds with humanity or alternative humanity could be far more alien to our 2022 eyes. Reading through the Empire of Time rpg & the Barbaric rpg today there's some ideas that are rattling around my mind. Could the Barbaric rpg actually hold some real potential for truly alien human societies for your 2d6 time traveling campaigns. 

The thumb print of humanity is a very minor thing in Empires of Time, and sifting through Scandinavian Legendary Creatures for Barbaric! leads me to wonder if the player's PC's stumble upon the remains of ancient literal godforsaken ruins. And the fact that the 'monsters' might actually be ancient alien like creatures left behind by the gods of Scandinavian Legendary Creatures. Things left behind within the Deep Time of  the Empire rpg?! Things left far before the time when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the sons of Aryas?! 

The Sumerian culture of Warlords of Atlantis seems oddly familar and yet has the required undercurrent of Lovecraftian horror to it. But not the usual H.P. Lovecraft mythos  horror with a bit of tweating. Perhaps the player's PC find themselves at the end of one cycle of Ragnarok before the beginning of another phase of humanity. And this could explain the instance of Terminal spies among the societies of Warlords of Atlantis. 

Reading through Warlords of Atlantis brings up an idea with an alternative 43 AD rpg timeline. What if the Romans never actually left the whole of the U.K.?! And the very land started to turn against them?! The very land turns against the Romans & too a certain extent the Celtics as well who ally themselves with them. The 2d6 is far closer to Zenobia coupled with a d100. But the information within 43 AD rpg is invaluable. And a time travelling trading campaign in alternative timelines means that things can get very interesting very fast. 

The dangers of Deep Time also means looking into Dougal Dixon's The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution for alternative dinosaur species ideas. The book contains countless examples of alternative evolution for prehistoric dinosaurs abilities, enviromental concerns, & more. For a time travel game campaign that focus on alien weirdness Dougal Dixon's books & the prehistoric ideas within The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution helps to move things along. 

Porting into an alternative timeline can make the difference between simple survival & a successful campaign. 

OSR Commentary On The Empire of Time rpg by Paul Drye from Baggage Games As Alternative Time Travel Cepheus Engine rpg

 "The 21st century has cracked open the past and future–not historical periods, true, but really deep time. Dinosaurs are a day trip away on a fast ship and your potential stomping grounds range over billions of years. Pit yourself against a future slave-running Empire, trade between human colonies, or just explore a nearly infinite progression of Earths that get ever-more alien as you get farther away from home."

"Empire of Time is an OSR SF RPG using the free Cepheus Engine core rules (available via DriveThruRPG) or other similar game systems. Play as humans from the 21st century, or from the future, or even one of four different races evolved to intelligence long after we are gone. Includes maps and descriptions of Earth throughout geological time (past and future) based on current scientific discoveries, adventure seeds, organizations to use as patrons and villains, a bestiary of creatures from the most ancient times to hundreds of millions of years from now, and much more."

Tonight I was thumbing through an old copy of Man After Man, after looking through the Monster Brains: Dougal Dixon Man After Man  blog entry on the infamous book.  Why infamous because its worth  between $225 to 600 dollars U.S.. But what does this have to do with the Empire of Time rpg by Paul Drye from Baggage Games?! Well besides the idea of far past or future time travel ?! There are quite a bit of speculative evolutionary ideas within Empire of Time. And Empire goes deep into the best terrority of Man After Man  weirdness. Earth as we know it in deep time is incredibly dangerous from far future diseases to dangerous NPC's with their own time ships. 2d6 alternative timelines & evolutionary paths are explored. 
Man After Man By Dougal Dixon got me on the path of evolutionary though experiments because rampant genetic tampering messes with the human genome. And this is one of the factors that allows Fate to open the door to the evolutionary weirdness of Man After Man. 

Empire of Time is it's own rpg setting, campaign add on, and more. What Empire of Time  does is take the idea of speculative fictional evolution & marry it into Cepheus Engine rpg mechanics. And it does this quite brilliantly thus expanding the game fare beyond the normal Cepheus Engine campaign ideal. And it does this by bringing in the time travel aspect. Five reasons why a time travel campaign set up works is as follows:

1. The PC's have eternity quite literally across all of time & space. 
2. Those 'big boy' interstellar projects can be showcased in adventures. 
3. Theoritically any starship with a hyperspace & FTL drive could become a time machine 
4. The idea of trading in various timelines is very appealing. 
5. The entire line of the time & space continuum is open for the PC's to explore & the DM to exploit for their own campaigns. 
6. Sword of Cepheus or Barbaric! is a perfect add on to Empire of Time for those pesky reptilian barbarians or lizard knights. 

Empire of Time is a great game campaign to trot out those tech level 16 and beyond alien technologies. Why?! Because they don't matter up or down the time line in five million years in the past or future. Saving timelines and being mercenaries across space & time has a definitive slant for Empire of Time as an rpg setting.The various rpg epochs have enough flexability as to be completely separate Cepheus Engine rpg campaign settings to make the entire campaign a point crawl across time & space.

The Empire of Time rpg by Paul Drye from Baggage Games For The Cepheus Engine rpg Is Available Right Here 

The Night Stalker From After Man By Dougal Dixon For Cepheus Atom or Your 2d6 Science Fiction Rpg

The Night Stalker, Manambulus perhorridus, is a large, ferocious, pack-hunting, flightless leaf-nosed bat from Batavia, from After Man: A Zoology of the Future by Dougal Dixon. Once other vertebrates had established themselves on the islands, a new family of ground-dwelling predatory bats arose. These creatures walk on their front legs (on what would, in the case of a flying bat, be its wings, the site of most of its locomotors muscles). Their hind legs and feet are still used for grasping, but now fall forward to hang down below their chin. As the bats locate their prey purely by echolocation, their ears and nose flaps have developed at the expense of their eyes, which are now atrophied.

Artwork from After Man By Dougal Dixon Used Without Permission 

The largest and most fearsome of these creatures is the night stalker. One and a half meters tall, it roams screeching and screaming through the Batavian forests at night in packs. They prey indiscriminately on other mammals and reptiles, attacking them with their ferocious teeth and claws. Wasteland wizards  throughout the multiverse have imported the Night Stalker as watch beasts & antipersonel monsters.. 
The Nightstalker 

 

# Appearing 1d6  20/42, Move 10m, Armor 5, Bite (3D damage) and 2 claws (melee 1D damage each). Combat-2, Physical-2, Survival-3. Gigantism,Blindsight, Bizarre Appearance,

'Other Man' - A Thought Experiment in Campaign Creation for The 'TSAO: These Stars Are Ours!' Campaign Setting - 'The Space Dwellers'

"For decades, maybe centuries – even millennia – they have visited us. Short, thin gray beings bent on exploring – or maybe conquering and exploiting – Terra. They pilot starships that are technologically advanced beyond anything Humanity had in the 20^th and 21^st centuries"

 Earlier this month we put out a review of  UFOs From Stellagama Publishing & what's been weighing on my mind is what have the Reticulan empire  been up too. The empire has existed for centuries & they've been kidnapping & abducting humans for all of that time. This is a vital part of TSAO: These Stars Are Ours!  setting by Stellagama Publishing.  And yes mankind would throw off the shackles of the Grays. But there has to be more too it then just simple warfare. There's a lot of history between the Reticulans & humanity within the setting. 

We're given this deep dive into the background of the various aliens but what about the interstellar place of humanity itself? Would the Reticulans mold humanity to suit space?! The answer came to me as a thought experiment. There were two books that were immediately in my hands from book shelf. The first one came out in the middle  Eighties called "FUTURE MAN Brave new world or genetic nightmare?" This book proposed complete genetic changes & genetic engineering for humanity. We find the usual Chinese menu of changes for humanity adopted for space. Thickening of the skin for the vacuum of space, adjustment of the eyes, etc. It's an interesting & solid foundation. 

This sort of adapting mankind to the stars isn't new at all & goes all of the way back to  Astounding Science Fiction in April 1957 with American writer Poul Anderson's story ' Call Me Joe' considered by many of us vintage science fiction fans a classic. As a dungeon master when your dealing with aliens in science fiction especially the Greys or Reticulans your walking a fine line. What I don't wanna do is fall into the 'Star Trek Trap' that is making the Grays so human like that they become just another alien race of humanoids. The Klingon race within Star Trek have lost their masque because of this. 

But where's the marrying campaign point within a game that allows one to really hit home in a campaign setting such as 'TSAO: These Stars Are Ours!'?  Well that's where the work of Dougal Dixon comes in and specifically his book 'Man after Man'.




 Man after Man speculates about the future evolution of mankind millions of years in the future.  And the Vacuumorph race of humanity is mankind genetically engineered to survive in space completely. You can get a good slice of what's going on in 'Man after Man' from infamous Monster Brains site. Such good stuff over there. 

Let me say that anything written by Dougal Dixon is absolutely pure campaign gold & nightmare fuel. The man's work is killer idea fodder & I've been a huge fan of his for many years going back to when I first discovered him back in the early Eighties on an American television show called 'That's Incredible'. It took me the better part of 5 years to track down that television episode back in the days before the internet. 
Now back to these genetically engineered space borne humanity race. These 'space dwellers' might be a hybrid between Grey biological technologies & humanity's capabilities: 

1. They communicate with regular humanity using radio or other means such as lasers. 
2. The 'space dwellers' have been adapted to service the Grey's ships but rebelled. 
3. 'Space Dwellers' consider themselves a 'forgotten' race of humanity by normal homo sapiens 
4. Equipment, housing etc. are all specially adapted by the 'space dwellers' for their new home. 
5. This should be considered an NPC race in my mind.
6. Psionics could be a must for the 'space dwellers' but rare because of genetic tinkering by the Greys. 
7. The 'Space Dwellers' are key to understanding several unique space phenomenon that they have key knowledge of. 
8. 'Space Dwellers' as a whole don't want to return to homo sapiens status at all. They do want their own representation within the human empire however. 
9. Because of their unique status among humanity they are capable of jobs in space & interstellar commerce where they are in high demand. 
10. Their sciences & grasp of physics is unique & very much suited to their environment. The Space Dwellers are not any more advanced then normal humanity within the Cepheus Engine rpg. 

In my mind the Space Dwellers are a perfect blend of NPC & adventure potential resource. The can easily be ported over into the Cepheus Engine rpg or even the  Stars Without Numbers rpg. This is only me screwing around with some of my favorite books.