brainstorming a urban cyber-fantasy setting

[drsid]

Since I have starting to read the HERO SYSTEM, I am more and more impressed and thrilled to have found something so damnably cool! I have a friend who frowned at me even mentioning Hero until he realized it was on the 6th iteration and saw the book. Apparently, he had bailed on the system back in 4th edition.

 

Anyway, my plan was to initially use Shadowrun completely as it is and simply replace the rule system for HERO; however, given the breadth and depth of HERO, I am tempted to completely scrap that idea and just design my own campaign setting.

 

I want to merge some concepts, which are likely to be contrived and cliched at this point but ... ah well.

 

Anyway, some of my thoughts are as follows, all of which is completely open to revision.

 

 

The core premise of the setting starts from the relatively contrite and cliched notion that an alien space craft crashes on earth,allowing the presence of various races on the planet without the need for RIFT-esque parallel worlds or a Shadowrun-esque “awakening.”

 

 

 

The arrival of the aliens and the resulting cataclysm of having a gigantic-ship crashing on the earth is both a catastrophe and an opportunity. Their arrival certainly creates an apocalypse wherever they crash, setting of a chain reaction of events that have geopolitical and ecological consequences. The crash occurs in 2012 to play of the Mayan calendar myths and such.

 

 

The plan is to have the ship be a sort of last-ditch “ark” for a space-faring civilization with approximately 200,000 to 400,000 sentient inhabitants spread across 2-3 species/races and numerous non-sentient species that slowly escape after the crash and spread throughout earth. Thus, allowing for the presence of alternative races and “monsters.”

 

 

The sentient species will generally be benign to humanity, but the expected conflicts should afford plenty of interesting interactions. In essence, the new arrivals are not here to conquer or pillage the earth by any means. In fact, to mitigate as much damage as possible to the inhabited earth, they actually crash land their craft in a relatively unpopulated area, perhaps Australia’s Outback, the Sahara desert, or even Antarctica. In exchange for our “hospitality” they share their advanced biotechnology.

 

 

The campaign takes place a hundred or so years after the event, in order to allow for things to settle down and for the first generation of humans to make contact to have died. The current population has, to some extent, taken the newcomers for granted as they have grown up with them there.

 

 

The races considered for inclusion, so far are space-variants of elves, dwarves, and an Ogre/Troll/Ork. I am even thinking making the O/T/O race six limbed and the elves a shade of blue to play into Hindu mythology. First, this allows for some degree of familiarity so that the races are not completely divergent from the expected,and, I just like those three races (grin). Second, the aliens can, perhaps be the source of humanity's older myths and folklore, perhaps having visits before and such.

 

 

With regard to cyber- and bio-ware, the notion is that humanity was already on track to do these things, but the arrival of the aliens and their technology simply speeds up the process. In addition, their arrival and engineering skills with DNA help awake psychic/magic powers in humanity.

 

 

One concern is that I am mixing up too many genres into one. Perhaps it would be best to leave it a post-apocalyptic setting or a cyberpunkish setting with different races. On the other hand, I really like the blending of science fiction and fantasy that is Shadowrun, so want some way of incorporating psionics/magic into the setting.

 

 

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? Past experiences?

[Ranxerox]

Re: brainstorming a urban cyber-fantasy setting

 

This sounds like a great setting! I'm sure you and your players will have a wonderful time exploring it.

 

I do have a couple questions, though. Is the campaign set in 2247 AD or 2112 (one hundred years after the event)? If the aliens went out of their way to avoid populations centers when they landed and a hundred (or two-hundred) years have passed since then, where is the post-apocalyptic element?

 

As for suggestions and past experience, I recommend that you start small and instead of figuring out your entire world just work on building one city or even one neighborhood. If you plant a number of adventure hooks setting you can keep your players busy and give yourself time to figure out what parts of this campaign appeal the most to you and your players. Then as you flesh out more of your world you can expand on those elements and downplay parts of the setting that either you or your players didn't find interesting.

[Basil]

Re: brainstorming a urban cyber-fantasy setting

 

re. "contrite" - - - "I do not think that word means what you think it means."

 

contrite adj. grieving and penitent for sin or shortcoming.

 

Ordinarily I let errors in word choise go unremarked upon, but in this case I can't even guess what you mean, so I must ask.

 

I join Ranxerox in asking "where is the apocalypse this is post?" As well, if you come up with an apocalypse you will not have cyber-space; the infrastructure needed for such would never survive an apocalypse.

 

Other than those points, an interesting idea.

[drsid]

Re: brainstorming a urban cyber-fantasy setting

 

whoops. the story takes place in 2112. The 2247 AD was an erroneous cut and paste. With regard to the post-apoc element, I am still deciding whether to implement that or not. I calculated the notion of an apocalypse based on the size of the crashing space ship. Something relatively small would not have a great impact, but something equivalent in size to the meteor that is supposed to have wipe out the dinosaurs would have a greater ecological impact. The idea would be that the technological advantages of the 21st century and the desire of the aliens to avoid population centers mitigated the damage. I don't want the entire population wiped out; but it had enough of an impact to create ecological and climate changes.

 

As time has passed, the impact has been further mitigated.

 

With regard to city, my plan was to base everything in a future San Francisco. Being from California, I know the geography well enough and I had some plans for the NA geopolitical situation. I just need to figure out how that came about. Essentially, Aztlan is reborn and the southwest of the US is their dominion, except SanFran, which remains a corporate city-state. Borrowing elements of Shadowrun, the US and Canada have merged, and the southern states have seceded and united with the Caribbean nations. On element for a post-apoc, I was considering, and again this is where I wonder if its too much crammed together, was that the crash triggered an earthquake that essentially flooded and destroyed the Los Angeles Basin and greater San Diego areas, creating a number of mini islands and underwater landscape used by pirates and smugglers into Aztlan.

[drsid]

Re: brainstorming a urban cyber-fantasy setting

 

contrite ... whoops. a typo. I meant contrived.

 

I am starting to agree with you with regard to blending the apocalypse and cyber setting. I think I will stick with a more cyber setting.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: brainstorming a urban cyber-fantasy setting

 

In addition' date=' their arrival and engineering skills with DNA help awake psychic/magic powers in humanity.[/quote']

 

If you would like to continue to use post-apocalyptic themes, perhaps the interstellar drive of the alien spacecraft could unleash a "probability-altering wave" when it crashes that sweeps across the Earth, arousing the psionic and magical potential in people (and perhaps other things) all at once. The resulting sudden empowerment of millions or even billions of unprepared, untrained subjects would wreak havoc on the world's social structures and probably its environment as well. By the time folks got a handle on their new abilities (perhaps with the help of the stranded aliens), the planet could be substantially changed, in almost any way you desire.

[drsid]

Re: brainstorming a urban cyber-fantasy setting

 

damn, I love these forums. Thanks, Lord Liaden. That's perfect!

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: brainstorming a urban cyber-fantasy setting

 

The first thing to occur to many people / groups / organizations / governments right after the crash would probably have been containment / quarantine. Or at least try, while things got even more out of hand than they already were.

 

So, I suggest the Sahara as the splashdown point for the alien vessel. Politically, it is very divided (therefore impossible for any single "interest" to monopolize things) and the new arrivals could disperse into Africa, Europe and Asia with minimal effort. Containment would be futile, because there are just so many different ways for the aliens to run.

 

Comparitively speaking, Australia and Antarctica are much more isolated and probably easier to contain / quarantine.

[drsid]

Re: brainstorming a urban cyber-fantasy setting

 

good point, Ian. Thanks! That also gives me thinks to think about with regard to the implications on religion and such with the arrival of aliens.

[Susano]

Re: brainstorming a urban cyber-fantasy setting

 

If you would like to continue to use post-apocalyptic themes' date=' perhaps the interstellar drive of the alien spacecraft could unleash a "probability-altering wave" when it crashes that sweeps across the Earth, arousing the psionic and magical potential in people (and perhaps other things) all at once. The resulting sudden empowerment of millions or even billions of unprepared, untrained subjects would wreak havoc on the world's social structures and probably its environment as well. By the time folks got a handle on their new abilities (perhaps with the help of the stranded aliens), the planet could be substantially changed, in almost any way you desire.[/quote']

 

Psionic potential you say? Hmm... isn't there a cyberpunkish sourcebook coming out that includes material on psionic powers?

[Old Man]

Re: brainstorming a urban cyber-fantasy setting

 

If you would like to continue to use post-apocalyptic themes' date=' perhaps the interstellar drive of the alien spacecraft could unleash a "probability-altering wave" when it crashes that sweeps across the Earth, arousing the psionic and magical potential in people (and perhaps other things) all at once. The resulting sudden empowerment of millions or even billions of unprepared, untrained subjects would wreak havoc on the world's social structures and probably its environment as well. By the time folks got a handle on their new abilities (perhaps with the help of the stranded aliens), the planet could be substantially changed, in almost any way you desire.[/quote']

 

This idea also lends itself to the creation of mutants and other monsters.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: brainstorming a urban cyber-fantasy setting

 

good point' date=' Ian. Thanks! That also gives me thinks to think about with regard to the implications on religion and such with the arrival of aliens.[/quote']

 

You're welcome.

 

Yeah, given the proximity to the Middle East, easy to imagine a lot of aliens would end up there, even if accidentally. Very easy to imagine that there could be some especially strange outcomes from this.