'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?! 

Review & Commentary on Baggage Games Shadowfall by Paul Drye For Cepheus Engine Rpg or Original Traveller rpg

 "The cultists had it all wrong. What if the stars came right and no-one even noticed? Shadowfall takes you to a 1984 where the governments of the world reached an accomodation with some of the universe's horrors and set a watch for the rest, at the cost of giving up what was once best about humanity. Freedom, pity, tolerance -- they've all been traded for security and paranoia, and the powers-that-be admire and even emulate their amoral allies. Intelligence and military ops run amuck and it is not at all a good time to stand out,"


Baggage Books is one of those outfits that recently came to our attention through being in the middle of the Cepheus Engine Rpg community. So what is Shadowfall? Its basically the meet point between Cepheus Engine & H.P. Lovecraft's mythos in a modern dark alley of club X Files. The Cthlhu mythos have not been quiet in the modern world of 2021. Instead they've been very busy putting themselves into the modern world. Your PC's are the agents, fighters, supernatural surivors trying to deal with the modern problems of the Lovecraftian races, gods, etc. on Earth. The cults of these horrors have not been idle folks. They've been on the move full force &  Shadowfall feels like a mounting war campaign setting for the  Cepheus Engine rpg. Clocking in at 92 pages there's more then enough here to kick off such a campaign. The advantage here is the added benefit of Cepheus Engine rpg extensive system background. The layout & page design is standard Cepheus Engine rpg supplemental book stuff. The font is servicable, the layout solidly done for  Shadowfall. This is both an investigative or straight to the point Lovecraftian Mythos horror campagin setting in the making. 

Shadowfall as a straight up Lovecraftian Mythos horror campagin setting is dark & brutal. The shadowy masters are there but they have their own hidden agendas. The Lovecraftian material is well done, hits the high notes, and brings home some its own feel within Shadowfall. Carrer paths are solidly done. Shadowfall could easily stand completely & utterly on its own as a Cepheus Engine rpg horror setting with its own Lovecraftian spin. 

Shadowfall has its own internal take on the mythos, its histories, the conspiracy theory like shadowy Lovecraftian alien races,cults, etc. slightly different then say the venerable Call of Cthlhu rpg.Shadowfall is a modern game setting with some highly dangerous forces just waiting to snuff out PC's. And what's really enjoyable is that its a self contained alternative Nineteen Eighty Four campaign setting. And yes there's mention of Ronald Ragan, Margret Thatcher, all of the usual suspects. But here the Mythos looms large in the background colouring everything with its Lovecraftian taint. 
Shadowfall is a queer beast because it fills a niche within the Cepheus Engine rpg genre that being cosmic horror with its own spin the usual Lovecraftian stories, & material. That's really nicely done making Shadowfall valuable for that reason alone. Now add in the interstellar expansiveness of the Cepheus Engine rpg or original Traveller rpg. Suddenly the interstellar scene becomes very interesting indeed. 

Shadowfall in point of fact could be used with other Cepheus Engine products such as Micheal Brown's Dossier series of adventures, careers,etc. and whole new campaign vistas open up for the DM to exploit. 

Shadowfall has lots of adventure generation potential for the Cepheus Engine rpg. Paul Drye does an excllent job with his writing bring out the best in some of his adventure seeds, giving possible campaign hooks, and bring the Eighties awesomeness into focus in Shadowfall. For a fiver I think Shadowfall is a real bargain with lots of potential. 
Side note Shadowfall makes an excellent Dark Conspiracy rpg addition book as a supplement to add in the Lovecraftian mythos to the DC game universe with no problem at all. Five outta of five for a solid campaign setting book.