'Build & Go' - Alternative Timelines & 2d6 Time Travel Campaign Session Report Update.

 The PC's made their way across the ruined landscape. No sun rose, nor did the sound of a single person reach their ears, and all around them was ruin. Yet their target trugged on. This blog post is going to pick up from here. 
So its been a rather busy day & I got together with one of my players & long time friends today. And we started talking about his old Cepheus Engine rpg PC. And we spoke at length about his PC poking around the time quake. And the other party following his historian/historical anthropologist through time. The other party got lost in the mix within the local time space continuum's break down. 

The party was separated & ended up in two different time periods on the same Earth's line. But it took days for one time line to catch up with the other. So while the player's PC's were occupying the same space they were not in the same time. The party's psychics were reading that all of the PC's were in the same location but not the same time line. 

The party finally got the idea that they had to leave as the time line deteroirated around them. As they left Earth they found a single hyperspace bouy pointing towards Io. 
Around Io they found a Trade Empire-class Commercial Transport  a massive 4500 tonne superfreighter in low orbit. As if the starship had been there for years it was coated with a massive waft of sulfur and other atmosphere dust coating its outer hull. 
The party's sensors could not detect the contents of the Trade Empire ship! The crew of PC's  was forced to go aboard. And once aboard to find out that there were the prefabbed buildings,food,  & supplies for building several colonies on board! 

And there was also a time drive in place aboard this ship. The PC's activated the drive and where whisked into the middle of a huge fire fight around Mars! And the ships were targeted by several 2nd men starships! They immediately left the area & stablized the starship! But now the 2nd men are aware of the party! They left the Trade Empire in a stable orbit and everything on board intact. The party copied the ship's computer drives and one of the places that the nav computer mentioned was 

Turquoise Valley. 

Drinking some whiskey in the saloon in New Liberty is a historian whose recording some of the local legends. We'll pick it up next game coming up! 

The Future Martian War of Ten Million Years & Lovecraftian Extinction Events In Alternative Timelines & 2d6 Time Travel Campaigns

 “But Ransom, as time wore on, became aware of another and more spiritual cause for his progressive lightening and exultation of heart. A nightmare, long engendered in the modern mind by the mythology that follows in the wake of science, was falling off him. He had read of 'Space': at the back of his thinking for years had lurked the dismal fancy of the black, cold vacuity, the utter deadness, which was supposed to separate the worlds. He had not known how much it affected him till now-now that the very name 'Space' seemed a blasphemous libel for this empyrean ocean of radiance in which they swam. He could not call it 'dead'; he felt life pouring into him from it every moment. How indeed should it be otherwise, since out of this ocean all the worlds and all their life had come? He had thought it barren: he now saw that it was the womb of worlds, whose blazing and innumerable offspring looked down nightly even upon the earth with so many eyes-and here, with how many more! No: Space was the wrong name.”

― C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet"

Let's pick this up right from here on the blog.  If Mars is the destiny of mankind then in several million years are we going to be the Martians or have we already been so according to those famous ancient astronaut theorists!? The struggle to colonize Mars might be more then we realize. Now let's backtrack here for a moment. If the Yithians have gone uptime then it stands to reason that we're looking at epochs of time for other human species to evolve. And this is where the   real nasties are  so to speak. Let's flash forward ten million years after Zozer Games Outpost Mars. 

Let's say that in ten million years from now a terraformed Mars is home to a race of Martians that were once mankind. And by this same token a highly evolved race of humanity takes umbridge with these Martians & covet Mars as their own?! Such is a very small part of the plot of the Science Fiction classic  W. Olaf Stapleton's 'Last & First Men' 1930.  W.Olaf Stapleton's 'Last & First Men' isn't in the public domain at all. But it's one of those Appendix Science Fiction classics. 

According to the 'Last & First Men' wiki entry; "Stapledon's conception of history follows a repetitive cycle with many varied civilisations rising from and descending back into savagery over millions of years, as the later civilisations rise to far greater heights than the first. The book anticipates the science of genetic engineering, and is an early example of the fictional supermind; a consciousness composed of many telepathically linked individuals."

The Second Men of 'Last & First Men' evolved out of the remains of mankind; "

Second Men. (Chapters 7– 9) The Second Men came into existence ten million years after the fall of the First Men. "Their heads, indeed, were large even for their bodies, and their necks massive. Their hands were huge, but finely moulded...their legs were stouter...their feet had lost their separate toes...blonde hirsute appearance...Their eyes were large, and often jade green, their features firm as carved granite, yet mobile and lucent. ...not till they were fifty did they reach maturity. At about 190 their powers began to fail..." Unlike our species, egotism is virtually unknown to them. At the acme of their highly advanced civilization, just as they are about to create a superior human species by genetic engineering, a protracted war with the Martians finally ends with the Martians extinct and the Second Men gone into eclipse." This genocide creates the perfect cover for the flying polyps to set off a series of extinction events against both the second men & the Martians. What impact does this have for an Empire of Time campaign?!  Quite a bit actually. The Empire of Time rpg PC's have the option to interfere in the Martian genocide. 

If you get into variations & alternative time lines of the events of the Martian genocide then the PC's might find themselves face to face with a very nasty technologal level 9-11 civiliazation in the form of the second men! 
And this brings up the fact that  British writer and lay theologian C.S. Lewis not only objected to W. Olaf Stapleton's 'Last & First Men' 1930.

C.S.Lewis objected strongly to ' Last & First Men' with the following coming out; "C. S. Lewis in his own preface to That Hideous Strength, notes: "I believe that one of the central ideas of this tale came into my head from conversations I had with a scientific colleague, some time before I met a rather similar suggestion in the works of Mr. Olaf Stapledon. If I am mistaken in this, Mr. Stapledon is so rich in invention that he can afford to lend, and I admire his invention (though not his philosophy) so much that I should feel no shame to borrow".

The reference to objecting to Stapledon's philosophy was no accident. In particular, the Christian Lewis objected to Stapledon's idea, as expressed in the present book, that mankind could escape from an outworn planet and establish itself on another one; this Lewis regarded as no less than a Satanic idea – especially, but not only, because it involved genocide of the original inhabitants of the target planet. Professor Weston, the chief villain of Lewis's Space Trilogy, is an outspoken proponent of this idea, and in Out of the Silent Planet, Lewis opposes to it the depiction of the virtuous and stoic Martians/Malacandrians who choose to die with their dying planet, even though they possessed the technology to cross space and colonise Earth."

So the last human descendants die out or do they?! In deep time we've got many alternatives to this except for the fixed point of the flying polyps awakening. Adding in  the virtuous and stoic Martians/Malacandrians to a time travelling crew in Empire of Time is an option. Mars may or may not be able to be saved but it can add a twist or two.
 Could far future corporations actually be the ones developing the 2nd men sealing our own fate?! The 2nd men could be far more important then they seem & it could be them who actually awaken the flying polyps! 
The tangling of timelines could kick off a time quake that destroys the barriers between history & dimensions kicking off an apocalypse that leads to a post apocalypse wasteland kicking off the events of Afterday rpg. 

This might be the far future of Shadowfall as time breaks down as history unravels. There is far more to this then at first it seems. We'll get into this next time. 

The Horror In Time - Timelines & Alternative 2d6 Time Travel Cepheus Engine rpg Campaign Action

 ".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. „
 ~ HPL , The Shadow Out Of Time

This blog post is going to pick right up from here. We know that the flying polyps caused the mass extinction of a huge number of species at various early stages in  time on Earth. This is  according to HP Lovecraft's The Shadow Out of Time. The flying polyps those Lovecraftian horrors finished off anything that crossed their paths in past epochs. According to the H.P. Lovecraft wiki; "Around 70 million years ago (during the Cretaceous era), the Polyps rose from their subterranean haunts to exact revenge by exterminating the Yithians in one fell swoop." They lost because the Yithian's minds had alreay jumped ahead in time according to the novella. 
But this leaves quite a few more  questions then answers. Dire questions of mass extinction events going back to the formation of the Earth. Everyone thinks that Cthulhu & it's ilk are the worst. But the flying polyps may be the real home grown alien  horrors that lurk on the fringes of Earth's solar system. 
In the 2d6 time travel rpg Empire of Time there are a number of alien life forms from the very early stages of Earth. These races know fear through the very thought of the polyp monsters lurking just below Earth's surface. 

Why have the slave trading time traveling empire woven their agents throughout history into every organization, guild, club, etc. they can?! Simply to empire build across the time & space contiuum? No, that's wasteful or have they done it out of sheer desparation?! They know of a few fixed points in time where the polyps have done their dirty work but not all. The Yithians may have kept exacting records but they didn't leave backdoors so that the polyps could find them. Our slave traders may have found a few answers & their not sharing with the rest of the time travelers. But the Yithians are the masters of time travel & deep time, their not the nicest of the alien races that Lovecraft created. And even their scared of the flying polyps. The Yithians abandoned thier own timeline to the polyps after holding them at bay for millions of years. 
Imagine that time travel drives are invented & this event triggers the reawakening of the flying polyps. Why?! Because of the fact that the Yithians machinations of time travel may have attracted the flying polyps in the first place. And things went from bad to worse. So do the PC's stand any chance against these horrors?! In the short term yes & in the long term no. They can destroy the polyps with electrical weaponry ala Yithians. We're talking about an alien species that can sleep for millions of years, whose numbers are unknown, and whose agenda we don't really even understand. 
The fact is that if the flying polyps have colonies & cities below the sands of Mars. A time traveling mission maybe to save the time colonists on Mars before the polyps wake up! Outpost Mars may become more then a casual rpg template. The real horror begins to awaken.

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?! 

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 

Commentary on The Darktek book for Dark Conspiracy rpg & Its Uses In Cepheus Engine Rpg campaigns

"Behind the shadows of our world, the Dark Ones lurk, plotting humanity's ruin. Their Dark Minions stalk us, armed with horrific devices, the products strange and hideous sciences. Human agents capture what they can, hoping for weapons that will aid them in their fight. And in some secret strongholds, individual ETs who have escaped the darkness labor side by side with human scientists, creating items to hold the Dark Ones off.

Meanwhile the megacorporate sector pursues technologies that pander to the wealthy. For many, HiTek is the truest symbol of high status. Worn like a coat of arms, it distinguishes the movers and shakers from the increasingly disenfranchised hordes of 'commoners' below.

In this volume, you will find items ranging from the gruesome biologic weapons of the Dark Minions, to the futuristic constructs of the ETs, to the most advanced in human technology. But all belong to the world of Dark Conspiracy, a world that is itself ever more a product of DarkTek. "

Darktek is a missed opportunity in the Dark Conspiracy rpg. A raging hole in the Dark Conspiracy rpg line of books. And on & on & on go the reviews of  the Darktek  book published in 1991 by Games Designers Workshop  that have cropped up over the years. This is true of of this  review  from Marcus Bone.  Which none of the Drivethrurpg Dark Tek reviews seem to agree with at all. Why?! Because of the fact that oh sure there's the usual  rpg equipment geek stuff like weapons, melee weapons, camping equipment, etc.. But Dark Tek  also has  a ton of retro technology that seems to be more in place of some alternative Thirties or Nineties  style sci fi Earth. So in other words Darktek fits  the world of  Dark Conspiracy itself.  But what does Darktek have to do with Cepheus Engine?! Quite a bit actually. 

The real difference between most equipment books & Darktek? Is the fact that Darktek is orient not only towards the PC's but mostly towards the dark forces & their minions. And their occultech style technologies have a high cost factor  indeed to the PC's humanity as well as their sanity. For Cepheus Engine Darktek is a perfectly designed PC/enemy book in one. Why?! Well because Bagagge Books Empire of Time offers alternative time period settings where Darktek could be very useful indeed.
"It’s been 20 years since time travel was invented and the here-and-now, the good old 21st century, is in the middle of a revolution. You switched your major in university because of it and it’s paid off: you’re heading up-time, on a mission to the Chovu Imoi, an intelligent species that won’t even evolve for another 600 million years. It’ll be three weeks’ journey on the old model Hyundai time ship the expedition has bought second-hand from the University of Victoria, but you’ve tried to pack light. " 


Want to find out who & what are really in control of a vast empire of alternative time periods?! Empire of Time is a perfect fit for this coupled with Darktek. Here you can have agents of time putting the hurt on the dark minions across space & time. 

The reason for this is very simple, Charles E. Gannon the author of Darktek was very active in the fandom of Traveller 2300 AD and in fact is a contributor to Stygian Fox's Colonial Times fanzine. 

And so the reader of Darktek who happens to be an old school Traveller rpg player recognizes the vac suits. The full on space equipment and much more this opens up all kinds of possibilities for gaming on alternative timelines & Earths. 
And it also means that the forces of darkness have also been busy exploiting these alternative historical time lines. This is just the sort of weirdness that would see in Michael Brown's Among The Stars Silent Screaming .. 

For the Hostile Rpg Darktek offers some very strong possibilities as an alternative equipment book for the bad guys. Imagine your marines facing down colonial terrorists armed with ancient occult pact technologies that can offer a real challenge to the party. Or a Zaibatsu gang armed by an ancient Oni ready to take down a whole corporation. The possibilities are endless. 

Is Darktek completely perfect? Hell no. But it does suit my purposes for my current Cepheus Engine rpg campaign that's ongoing.