Red Mist Ripping At Reality & Spears of the Stars - Thoughts on Worlds Without Number, Spears of the Dawn, & Cepheus Engine rpg

 

Stepping back into the Red Mists once again tonight on the blog we pick right up from where we left off from on the blog here.  The idea of a Latter Earth of the far future surviving the break down of the Celestial Engines of the Godbound Rpg. This isn't necessarily the world we know but instead an amalgam world made up of equal parts ancient Earth & perhaps the far future. All of this could be down to using Latter Earth as a stop gap for humanity to save the species. Reading through Red Tide, Worlds Without Number, & Stars Without Numbers Revised, & the  Godbound Rpg  several questions started to race through my mind. As the red mists squeeze & change their world could they actually send refugees & colonists to the shores of the three lands of Spears of The Dawn rpg. 

Let's talk about the fact that the magick of the three lands might be far more primal & able to keep the energies of the red mist at bay. Because the three lands magick might be able to repair some of the damage to celestial engines. But its only going to be the eternals of the three lands who knew some of these secrets. Their secrets have connections to the House of Bone & Amber adventure. 

Locations once connected by hyperspace gates and starcraft have been cut off from one another for hundreds of years. This all ties into the Latter Earth which once served as the seat of  the Million Stars Empire of Godstar. The royals of the Million Stars once took the best & brightest of the three lands aboard the starships of the gods. Ancient treaties between the peoples of the three lands & the Million Stars empire served to create bridges of marriage, trade, and talent. But these exchanges became mired in mythology & legend. 

There could be scattered across the lands dungeons, former star ports, etc. all coming in from  Sixteen Stars: Creating Places of Perilous Adventure to create these adventure locations. How does this relate to Zozer Games Godstar?! Could the godstar actually be a divinity that escaped the events of the Godbound rpg and still retains its power?! And could this mysterious divine star actually be a god A.I. dolling out its power to a world completely unaware of its true nature?! Aurelia is a world that fits Stars Without Number quite nicely & the baroque nature of its starcraft, society, etc. all fit the idea that latter Earth is a world straight out of myth. 
Ancient worlds that are drowning in ruins of their own pasts. The red mist laps at the edges of reality as demons and mutants tear at the edges of civilization. The godstar might be the only entity who actually knows the secrets of the ancient byways. 
And this goes back to my mind with the ancient nexus gates of Arduin. The ancient divinity of godstar might know the hows & whys of these ancient gateways. Gateways that lead to the last wrecks of ancient baroque spacecrafts. 

Ancient wrecks that are protected by Arduin monsters & horrors! Arduin has these types of ruins & wrecks woven into its history. My players are chomping at the bit to grab such a wreck to reproduce it as a working starcraft. But they've got a long road to get there. 

Red Tide & Spears of the Stars - - Thoughts on Worlds Without Number, Spears of the Dawn, & Cepheus Engine rpg

 So once again we dive back into Worlds Without Number & Stars Without Number Revised but this time through the back door settings. 

Anyone that knows me knows that I take risks with players & campaigns. This blog post is going to continue right after here. Now over the past couple of years I've had Sine Nomine's Red Tide OSR rpg setting for  Labyrinth Lord sitting on my hard drive. Now doing some deep research by going through Dreams In The Lich House's review of Red Tide. Reading through Red Tide, Worlds Without Number, & Stars Without Numbers Revised, & the  Godbound Rpg  several questions started to race through my mind. One is the Red Tide setting actually one of Godbound's Celestial Engine universes where said Celestial Engine is breaking down?! Are the red tides actually Celestial Engine energies leaking into the setting & causing many of the mutations & horrors?! 

How does this relate to the Latter Earth of Worlds Without Number?! The islands of the red tide could well be isles with the Latter Earth that have vanished behind the horrors & energies of the red tide. And these observations could be true within my own campaign. 
And this got me thinking about Spears of the Dawn rpg which is an African-inspired game built on the Stars Without Number rpg engine. Spears of the Dawn could well be another continent setting for Worlds Without Number. The adventurers don't have to be colonists at all but adventurers stumbling into a Bronze age world that they have no idea about. These settings might not be easily reached because of the breakdown of the Celestial engines. 

What if parts of the gateways from Spears of the Dawn contect directly into the Million Stars Empire of Godstar?! And yet the technologically superior races of Godstar actually respect the technological drag of these Pan African cultures because of treaties that were created thousands of years go. And if we go back to  Sixteen Stars: Creating Places of Perilous Adventure. Then its easy to insert in deserted space ports, ruins of outposts, and more into Spears of the Dawn. What if only the best & brightest of Spears of the Dawn setting can serve aboard one of the ancient starships of the Godstar setting. Or captain one. 

Could there be far more going on with the Godstar then one might think?! Could the godstar actually be a divinity that escaped the events of the Godbound rpg and still retains its power?! 
Could the godstar's ancient knowledge extend over to the Nexus Gates of Arduin as well?! The mind boggles at the possibilities. Think about it an ancient and mysterious divinity that may know the old hyperspace routes through the back edges of the planes. 

So where does this leave the average instellar trader?! Here's the thing. There are treachous passages through the underbelly of the universe that extend across the planes. And there are aliens that know these ancient byways of hyperpsace. There are fortunes to be made & dungeons to explore but also some very dangerous things that lurk in the darkness.