[Retro] COTN 5th edition proposal

[assault]

Re: [Retro] COTN 5th edition proposal

 

It's unclear whether the Dreamtime as described in Hidden Lands was intended to be part of Faerie (which from its description it easily could be)' date='[/quote']

 

The Mystic World makes it clear that it is. I checked this morning.

 

Now, The Mystic World describes a contemporary region of Faerie known as "The Even Wilder West." Originally the domain of the Native American myths, it became "colonized" by the imaginations of the European settlers to America, particularly the influence of dime-store novels about gunslingers and frontiersmen.

 

I noticed this part this morning too. It ties in with something I've been thinking about the Dreamtime.

 

According to some of the "real world" sources, the Dreamtime contains all of the spirits that have existed or will ever exist, not just the ones that have taken material form yet. This is related to its timelessness.

 

A new set of spirits are obviously taking material form now, as part of the Dreaming of the people that have come to Australia over the last couple of hundred years. Incidentally, no doubt some aliens inhabit Australia as well. It might be possible to encounter spirits related to them in the Dreamtime too...

 

The point of all this is that the iconic Mad Max characters and imagery may have become so affecting and pervasive in people's imaginations over the past thirty years, that they have begun to transform the Australian Outback portion of Faerie to resemble scenes from the movies, and created characters to fill roles from them. Faerie also encourages or even forces visitors from Earth to conform to the stereotypes of whatever region they're in.

 

I like this. The scenario just writes itself, doesn't it?

 

The hook is easy. Pick one: Mysterious disappearances on the highway. The PCs are on a road trip. The PCs are pursuing a villain. Any other reason to be on a highway.

 

Transition: Mist, strange or otherwise. (Optional if at night). Possibly turning onto the "wrong" road - a shortcut? Optional scene involving rundown gas station (service station) with strange inhabitants.

 

Next thing it's all car chases and weirdoes.

 

Goal: beat the Bad Guys. Rescue the Good Guys. Get Home.

 

This can also be a good hidey hole for a Mad Scientist with a thing for creating sentient marsupials (or turning humans into said marsupials).

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: [Retro] COTN 5th edition proposal

 

Um... the idea of Takofanes's tomb being moved by any modern agency isn't anywhere in existing books. In fact' date=' his origin states pretty clearly that it was far underground in Oklahoma (although not as far after the intervening upheavals of the Earth as it originally was) when it was accidentally broken into by an oil drilling rig, rousing the Archlich. How could someone have moved it half way around the world, [b']without waking Takofanes[/b], then buried it again, only to leave it unguarded for oil riggers to disturb? That's gonna take a pile of justification.

 

Of course if you want to say his tomb was near New Guinea nothing's stopping you, since nothing published for Champions or the Turakian Age specifies a geographic location for it. But by the same token there's no reason for it to not have been on whatever land mass eventually became Oklahoma.

 

...But if you're trying to conserve geography so that the Valdorian and Turakian Age maps don't mean that geological science is hugely different in the CU than it is in the real world, things get a little futzy. Starting with the proposition that we can map the lands in these supplements onto modern geography also has some deliverables --not so much for the Turakian Age, but certainly for the Valdorian, since we get a ready-made antediluvian history for Australasia, whether or not you want to then tinker with Valdorian Age a bit to make it more clear that the cultures there are ancestral to Aboriginal Australia.

 

Tinkering also means fiddling with the map. The assumption I start with is that the ones in the supplements are contemporary in some sense. That is, they're the kind of very bad and poorly translated maps that we have from medieval times. For Valdorian Age, that means that it can be the geographers, and not cosmology, who have swapped the north and south poles. To make Valdoria fit the modern world more closely, you don't have to switch poles or send continents and cratons scurrying across the globe, Lemuria and Atlantis apart. You just have to turn the Valdorian map upside down. Or, rather, assume that it is Antarctica and the South Pole that is at the top of the map, not the North Pole. Who'd care except for physicists and astronomers?

 

At this point, though, you get to the point that you know where the tomb of Takofanes is: New Guinea. And then it somehow gets to Oklahoma. Assault's idea that it is a shrine, or a portal to an extradimensional prison, or some such, works fine for me. That there might be some kind of conspiracy behind Takofanes' resurrection is just gravy.

[DShomshak]

Re: [Retro] COTN 5th edition proposal

 

I'm with LL on the Four Great Spirits: They seem too inhuman and, well, "cosmic," to be among the gods of Earth. Upper Planes, for sure.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

Re: [Retro] COTN 5th edition proposal

 

...But if you're trying to conserve geography so that the Valdorian and Turakian Age maps don't mean that geological science is hugely different in the CU than it is in the real world' date=' things get a little futzy. [/quote']

 

I sympathize with your desire to do this. I'm just saying that with all the precedents in the official timeline -- and all the other fundamental differences between the CU and the real world -- this is a choice one can make for personal preference, but which the setting itself does not demand. And given those precedents, saying that the tomb of Takofanes must have been somewhere other than Oklahoma during the historical period isn't really supportable.

 

I also have to point out you're assuming the heroes who finally defeated Takofanes entombed him somewhere in Turakia. There's no documentation to indicate whether the location was even anywhere on the map of Ambrethel, which of course doesn't cover the whole of the globe.

[TheQuestionMan]

Bump! Come on Scott you can do it!

 

Hurrah!

 

QM

 

[DShomshak]

For some reason, the forum only shows me the first page of anything: Only the first page of threads, and the first 30 posts within a thread. Doesn't seem to be a button to click to reach later pages. (It's probably 'cause my software's obsolete. Oh, well.)

 

Anyway, this concern's Assault's Aussie Champions project. NOVA has been showing a series of programs on Australia's geological and biological history. Apart from scenery porn (gotta put a super's base in the spectacular sandstone cliffs of Sydney Harbor), I particularly noticed the big Mesozoic meteor crater deep in the Outback, and the opalized fossils dug up at Coober Pedy.

 

Story Seed: The Devil's Advocates use the meteor crater as a giant summoning circle in a spell to return Australia to Jurassic conditions. Opal fossils are among the ritual components. Suddenly, the country's all jungle and sarming with dinosaurs. Seismosaurs in Sydney! Therapods in Canberra! That should shake things up a bit!

 

Thing is, would the Aussies want to break the spell and return the continent to its contemporary condition? I mean, the current plan for dealing with the giant saltwater crocodiles is Croc Awareness classes: The beasts eat people, sure, but they also bring in tourists. An insouciant people, Australians. Dinos wouldn't be too big a step.

 

Dean Shomshak

[GhostDancer]

Playing with the filter button gives access to all pages.

 

Forceknight's battlesuit was the equal of anyone else in the world -this could be an understatement, given Scott's statement that tech and techs from the Avro Arrow were responsible for it. Love the Arrow reference, Scott, and the book proposal in general.

 

With it fly-by-wire system, internal weapons carriage concept, and Iroquois engine, the Arrow [long-range supersonic fighter-interceptor] was easily 25 years ahead of its time, if not more. -Storms of Controversy by Palmiro Campagna, p.160

[assault]

For some reason, the forum only shows me the first page of anything: Only the first page of threads, and the first 30 posts within a thread. Doesn't seem to be a button to click to reach later pages. (It's probably 'cause my software's obsolete. Oh, well.)

 

Anyway, this concern's Assault's Aussie Champions project. NOVA has been showing a series of programs on Australia's geological and biological history. Apart from scenery porn (gotta put a super's base in the spectacular sandstone cliffs of Sydney Harbor), I particularly noticed the big Mesozoic meteor crater deep in the Outback, and the opalized fossils dug up at Coober Pedy.

 

Story Seed: The Devil's Advocates use the meteor crater as a giant summoning circle in a spell to return Australia to Jurassic conditions. Opal fossils are among the ritual components. Suddenly, the country's all jungle and sarming with dinosaurs. Seismosaurs in Sydney! Therapods in Canberra! That should shake things up a bit!

 

Thing is, would the Aussies want to break the spell and return the continent to its contemporary condition? I mean, the current plan for dealing with the giant saltwater crocodiles is Croc Awareness classes: The beasts eat people, sure, but they also bring in tourists. An insouciant people, Australians. Dinos wouldn't be too big a step.

 

Dean Shomshak

Alas, Australia's economy is far too dependent on grazing and agriculture. Still I'm pretty sure if *some* dinosaurs could be kept, they would be.

 

Some links: Clive Palmer unveils plans for life-size dinosaur park

 

Winton - Dinosaur Capital of Australia. I'm not sure why Australian dinosaurs need a capital, but apparently it's Winton.