Precursors and Progenitors

[Metaphysician]

Does your campaign include a Precursor species, ancient alien beings of nigh-godlike power who ain't around anymore? If so, what use have you put them?

[Enforcer84]

Re: Precursors and Progenitors

 

Else Earth has dozens of them.

 

mostly they leave technology/magic/psionic/cosmic artifacts around.

One race left an observatory-esque base in the core of the sun...

[Narratio]

Re: Precursors and Progenitors

 

No ancient fallen civilization, just traders, slavers, scientific surveyors all passing through leaving odd artifacts and bits & pieces of cast off junk. (Yes, Excaliber really was just part of a very large can opener).

 

My earths various powered beings came about due to a cosmic rift passing through earths orbit between 75 and 50,000 years ago.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Precursors and Progenitors

 

I've long used variations on the Champions Universe Progenitors in my modified-CU-based campaigns, going back to Fourth Edition. Besides salvageable technology, I also went with the idea from Kingdom of Champions that the Progenitors left powerful sentient machines behind to supervise their ongoing experiments with various races after their creators departed.

 

One of those was "Danu" (from KoC), which created the immortal cyborg champion Nuada of the Silver Hand. Danu continued to be a significant player during one long plotline involving the Zodiac (from The Zodiac Conspiracy). The Zodiakos Kyklos, the space station which the Zodiac used as their base, was in fact Danu (in my world). When Taurus first discovered it Danu lied to him about its origins and allowed him to use it as a base, so it could secretly use the Zodiac to gather first-hand information about Earth society and races. It gave the PCs anonymous tips about the Zodiac's activities to help the heroes thwart their more destructive schemes.

 

It turned into a rather pathos-filled scene when the immortal demigod Taurus, who had schemed and manipulated over millennia to gain control of the world, learned that he had been for centuries the pawn and dupe of an alien machine.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Precursors and Progenitors

 

BTW those interested in Precursor-type races would find much of interest in Blackwyrm Games' supplement for HERO and Mutants and Masterminds, The Algernon Files, and its sequel The Fires Of War. A number of plot developments and characters in those books result from the legacy of that setting's precursor race, the Acathii, and their ancient war with Lovecraftian extradimensional monsters called the Rha'Zha'Keth.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Precursors and Progenitors

 

Else Earth suffers from my ADD

I have four innate powers in my universe, they are the four mentioned in my first post, Technology/Magic/Cosmic Power/Psionics there's plenty of overlap in the main categories, but there is an ancient civilization for each essentially; and a couple of them didn't get along so good.

 

The Lords of Crux were the high magic Civilization. They have splintered and evolved (or devolved in some cases) into beings of good (Analogous to Angels/Celestials) and beings of Evil (yer demons and devilses)

 

The Priem were the Technological Race. They were the personification of Clarke's law. Really high tech. They battled with the Lords over slights, and power grabs (Generally on the side of Crux there). The Priem disappeared. Several of their outposts still exist in this and other dimensions. Often manned with Sentient AI's to control them and living weapons. The Priem oft played the role of Angel to many of the Crux aggressors role of Demon. They were an elegant and aesthetic people; and even their weapons and vehicles are beautiful to behold. Like sci fi metal versions of fantasy gear.

 

My Psionic master race was not nearly as active in the Earth realms as they were elsewhere in the universe. I have yet to name them.

 

The Cosmic Powered race was around more. They were of varied pursuits, kind of like Marvel's Elders of the Universe. Some terrifyingly powerful; some gardeners. Some magicians, some mentalists, some engineers.

 

The forces of my multiverse don't generally play nice but certain special individuals seamlessly blend two or more of the forces together. These beings are often very powerful.

 

There are secondary civilizations that rose from the "ashes" of the first four, and they have their littering problems as well. Scholars of the Universe can tell the difference between their artifacts and relics and those of the First races. There are rumors of even older races but those are nightmarish tales of fancy...right?

[Trebuchet]

Re: Precursors and Progenitors

 

Aliens, no. But it does feature Atlanteans, who are pretty much intertwined with normal human history and many of whom possessed abilities that got many of them labeled as gods or heroes in the myths of diverse cultures. Many others, unfortunately, were burned at the stake as sorcerers or witches (because they really were) by their frightened human neighbors.

 

Atlantis in our campaign was destroyed about 8000 BC after a vicious civil war that lasted centuries. It was located in the Black Sea near the Bosporus; and was the basis for (among other things) the Tower of Babel, the Garden of Eden, and the Great Flood.

[clsage]

Re: Precursors and Progenitors

 

Does your campaign include a Precursor species' date=' ancient alien beings of nigh-godlike power who ain't around anymore? If so, what use have you put them?[/quote']

 

I've stolen and am still developing an alien race referred to as

"The Waymakers" from a novella in...Isaac Asimovs SF Magazine,

circa May 2000...entitled (as I recall) "Merlins Gun". In the novella,

the Waymakers are a precurser race who laid out a system

of FTL tubes in 'subspace' (or equivalent). Only ships with a

long lost device are able to transition between realspace and

the subspace tunnels. Once in the tunnels/tubes, an object is

accelerated to speeds well beyond the speed of light. The handwave

description of the effect has the tunnels lined at regular, multi-

light year distances with toroidal structures that use gravity to

'pump' an object along.....or something like that. In the story,

"The Way" is the only method of FTL travel....Tho' in my

version, I intend for it to simply be a much faster (perhaps the

fastest existing) method than any other system the characters

have access to...Sadly, I don't have the text at hand (I'm at work

and it's in storage out of state) but I'd recommend giving the

original story a gander.....

 

-Carl-

[Hermit]

Re: Precursors and Progenitors

 

Yup. Since I use the Empyreans, the ancient race that altered them have definitely left their mark.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Precursors and Progenitors

 

I've recently thought that it might be cool to use a "rogue" Progenitor/Precursor as an opponent in a campaign. Such a being might have been left behind by his fellows to supervise their ongoing experiments, but has gone mad from loneliness; or was already mad and imprisoned by his peers, but has recently escaped. He might be bent on collecting/conquering/destroying his race's legacy, including any lifeforms they experimented on.