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I am quasi-obsessed, after 35 years of playing and running Champions, with creating a sprawling multiversal setting to run and play games in.  I call it the "457".  The various universes, planes, cosmopolises, dimensions, realms, homelands, afterlife realms, etc are laid out as coordinate points on and inside a giant metaphysical sphere, with the "prime" universe at the center of it.  I haven't written up 457 different dimensions(yet! lol) but I have bounced around various ideas.  My inspirations are varied: Marvel's Exiles, the DC Multiverse, What If? comics, Planescape/Manual of the Planes, old Twilight Zone and Star Trek episodes, the Man in the High Castle/Wolfenstein, Champions in 3D and my own previous campaign settings.  While I work on it I figured I'd open a thread to discuss other folks' ideas for different dimensions/timelines, and to present my own dimensions as I write them up.  

One of the planes is definitely going to be Babylon, the City of Cities, as described in Mystic Hero/Ultimate Supermage.  It's a dimension that's basically one giant metropolis, containing an amalgam of every major city from fiction, real history etc.  Presumably some alien cities as well.  It's likely to be a major nexus point among the dimensions of the 457.  
 

 

 

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Zombieworld. A world where the dead don't actually stay still. Can have multiple flavors. The one, where zombies are walking dead corpses who eat the living. The second, they are just as intelligent and emotional as humans, typically don't eat humans (they like squid and chicken more than man meat), and some are even idols (think Zombie Land Saga, but the zombies are out in the open).

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Right now the Bierce stories I write have five Earths touching each other at a school. One is the Main line where Jack Dragon, The Leaguer, Johnny Shield, the Strangers, the Aces, and the Aces among other operate. Then the twin line is where the history is reversed where Jack Dragon is a super scientist instead of a magician, and so forth. But changes have been made like the Dialer is still alive from the Twin dimension while he is dead on the main line. Then a third earth has heroes who have nothing in common with the main or twin line. This was the home of the Visage, who died saving the world. A fourth has no magic or heroes. The US government created power suits during WW2, but the war was stopped when an alien plant invaded and everyone had to work together. Most of Europe and parts of other continents were devastated. The last Earth is the home of Alchemy based science where the Royal Family have ruled for decades as superhuman forces for good.

CES        

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Strife is a Nexus Point(a key dimension on one of the end points of the cosmic axes(there are 6)) dimension which is essentially a Battle Arena, both for individual fights and battles between cosmic armies.  It was discovered that large-scale invasions and wars between different dimensions tend to weaken the cosmic axis, and so Strife is used as a proxy battleground, with an arbiter, The Balancer, regulating/refereeing disputes and the occasional wager.  Unless the rules stipulate it, death on the fields of Strife is impermanent.  One can see armies of angels battling hordes of demons, gods battling titans, Nazis fighting Elementals and so forth.  

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Reichssphäre is the "capital" dimension/plane of the Infinite Reich(Undendliches Reich), an empire of time-and-dimension hopping Nazis led by the Unendlichesfuhrer, formerly Infinite Hitler. The Reich Sphere is an unfinished Dyson Sphere which is a composite from the numerous Earths and related planets/realms conquered and assimilated into the Reich. The Infinite Reich is one of, if not the greatest threat to the multiverse, particularly the Prime Universe, which the Reich sees as crucial to its ultimate domination of existence. Though the new Unendlichesfuhrer, Aloisia Heidler, appears to have turned over a new leaf and speaks of peace and harmony with the rest of existence, few are eager to take her at her word. The Reich has conquered and assimilated other adjacent dimensions in a bid to strengthen their position and diversify their ranks, and the former leader, Infinite Hitler, now resides in exile with his loyal supporters in another dimension, home of the purported Alt(e) Reich.

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There is the world of Animu. A world where deeds of ki manipulation and martial arts are as common as guns are here. And much of the Earth one can see a much more Asian influence in the world.

 

Rumor has it that a secret enclave exists in Animu which are developing giant mecha in order to take over the world. And while their first creations were ripped apart much like they were made of paper, it looks like they are working on it.

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I have one dimension, the Wonderverse(c),  which I jokingly call the Copyright Dimension, which contains characters who are basically analogues of famous comic book characters.  So there's a "Gotham City", a "Metropolis" and a Marvel-style NYC.  In the prime universe there's a Wonder Comics company, and the Wonderverse is basically Wonder Comics made real.  

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Then there is Melodramia. The realm of Melodrama is much like Earth in the Victorian era, but the world seems more... melodramatic. It is a daily fact that young women (usually from 16-24) are routinely abducted, tied up, and placed in danger, only to be saved in the nick of time by there boyfriends. This is considered a right of passage for young women in this world.

 

A side effect of this place is, the longer the visitors stay here, the more they start acting like stereotypical heroes, damsels, and villains of a Victorian melodrama play.

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There are Elemental planes, one for Air/Wind, Earth/Rock, Fire/Magma, Water/Ice, Wood, Metal, Aether and Void, plus Zenith, the capital of the Elemental Empire.  Elementals and related beings, such as Water Nymphs, Djinn and Ifrit dwell in these planes.  They are not inherently fatal to humans, but there are certainly very dangerous regions of these planes where one could burn, drown, etc.  The Elemental Empire is not as aggressive as other empires such as the Infinite Reich, but it is a bad idea to antagonize them.  Each plane has a monarch, and they are ruled by a god-emperor who has control over all of the elements. Minor and paraelemental planes also exist but are not part of the Elemental Empire.

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Two came through what passes for my mind while I slept.  In both, the government of the United States mirrors that of the United Kingdom.

 

In one, the United States is a member of the British Commonwealth.  Donald Trump is Prime Minister.  His residence is One Observatory Circle.  John Kerry is Governor General.  His residence is The White House.

 

In the second, the United States is a constitutional monarchy.  Donald Trump is Prime Minister.  His residence is One Observatory Circle.  Queen Caroline I is the Monarch.  Her residence is the palace at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

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Babylon, the City of Man and Art, is incredibly cool, but it seems to me to change with the hands set to it. I just can't make my Babylon as weird and wonderful as Dean Shomshak's version, so here's mine. (Or, rather, the road to Babylon.)

 

The teenage runaway sits, huddled in the booth at the interstate truck stop, nursing one more coffee than is good for his rail-thin frame, wondering where he's going from here. It turns out that truckers aren't happy to give a pimpled, gangly kid in not-at-all-fashionably distressed clothes a ride to the big city. His eyes slowly focus on the man in the next booth, who is enjoying a heart attack on a plate. Their eyes meet, hold. For some reason, the trucker doesn't react for a long moment. 

 

Then he sighs, beckons the boy over. "I heard that you want a ride to the city, kid."

 

The boy nods. "I can see from your face that you need out of where you're coming from, but this is a stupid way of going about it, you don't mind me saying. But you shouldn't have seen me at all, so there's that. Get your stuff, get cleaned up, take a dump, meet me in twenty minutes at my truck." He gives the kid a parking lot number. When the kid gets there, he finds a double rig blazoned with a company name: Piper & Norton. He's never heard of it.

 

A half hour later, they're rumbling down the Interstate, next stop coming up one of those towns in Ohio that start with a "C." The kid guessed that the lights and the local exchanges would start just on the other side of a lonely knot of woods just up ahead. Not what the kid had in mind, but it'd do better than home. That's when the trucker nudged over to the outside line and began to line up for an exit that wasn't there. For a moment, the kid's heart is in his throat as he waits to plunge off the road and die in a burst of flame, just like a car accident on TV. But, instead, they're suddenly on that exit that doesn't exist. 

 

The truck curves around a bend, and they're in the middle of the knot of trees, and the pavement ends, quick as the truck can brake to meet the surface. Soon, they're picking their way over a washed out gravel road.

 

"This is the part where I'd turn out to be a serial killer in most versions of this story," the trucker points out, as the road suddenly acquires asphalt again, and the scenery . . . changes. They're on an Interstate on ramp now. Oh, and it's night, because clocks are boring.

 

Or. . . not an interstate. Because the route sign is orange, not green, and round, and not the badge shape of an Interstate sign at all, and it says, "Via 5," and the distances are marked to Watershed Pass, 1 Mile, and Babylon, 25 miles. The kid is surprised, but not completely, because he reads science fiction, and the world's got superheroes and aliens, and after that, he's ready to believe in weirder things. 

 

The driver looks over at him. "I don't know how well you know the Interstate system. . . "

 

"We're in an alternate dimension, aren't we?"

 

"Kids today," the driver mutters. He shifts up, just a bit. It's obviously quite a climb, the last mile to the summit, and then they're at the top, and looking down at a valley stretching towards ever-thicker clusters of light leading down to a blaze of city lights. "That's Babylon, City of Man and Art," he says.  "Chews up kids like you and spits you out, don't mind me saying. But maybe you're meant to go there. If you get cold feet, we're going to hit  Marilyn Monroe High down at the foot of the hill. I can let you off a half mile from campus. If you wait at the door, there'll be an outreach worker  in the morning. Those middle class communities lose enough of their kids to the Babylon streets. Maybe they'll help." The kid shakes his head.

 

The driver sighs. "Just as well. There are people who go to that high school who don't go down to Babylon when they graduate, but I'm not sure how real they are ."

 

They drive down the mountain slope, occasional, rudimentary exchanges leading on to places marked as "Loon Lake, 4 miles," and the like. The driver gestures. "Babylon's full of rich people who like to get away to a cabin by the lake for the weekend. I'm not telling you to go try a B&E, maybe make it through the winter cabin surfing, but. . . " The kid shakes his head.

 

They hit the flat, and soon the school is well behind. The kid sighs. He's not exactly running away from do-gooding school counsellors who will do anything except actually help, but he figures he knows their kind well enough.

 

The next notable exit is at the top of a rise, so that the kid can look down into a hollow valley where lights spill around tiny, rectangular lots stuck too close together. A mobile home park, the kid realises. 

 

"More your kind of place?" The driver asks. "They've cleaned up good since the last flood. Or was it a tornado? I can drop you." His hands tense on the wheel, but he does not turn it. The kid shakes his head, and the driver exhales in relief. 

 

Next it's a suburban shopping mall, probably an hour from closing, the kid figures. From experience, he knows that a lot of store security will be gone. Good shoplifting. The driver looks over at him, but the kid shakes his head. Reason he'd been in the stop in the first place was, he wanted something better.

 

And then, as though they'd passed some kind of barrier, they were in the city full stop. Lights, buildings, cheapass-looking apartment buildings, warehouses. "You can come to the City in a wagon train, you know," the driver says. "If you do, there's a wall around it. It doesn't go over the Vias, don't ask me why, but you can see the divide. Drink it in, by the way, because we're about to. . "

 

The entire highway goes under a massive concrete structure straight out of the urban maps of Lego Racers, and the entire multi-lane freeway is underground . . . "Enter the Understates. From here we're headed straight for the Piper & Norton campus. Last stop, kid, no more sightseeing. There's a 7-11 just outside the gate. Only place in Babylon where you can buy a map that shows you where you need to go. You're on your own from there." He thrusts out his hand, offering something. The kid takes it. "One Babylon sovereign," the driver says. "Worth twenty bucks, give or take. Try not to do either 'till you've got the lay of the land." 

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Zone R63F is a dimension where a mysterious force turned all males into females, including the heroic and villainous counterparts to the prime universe.  The zone is under quarantine because there is a significant risk that any male who ventures into the dimension may wind up permanently transformed.

 

But even with all that, it's still safer than Zone R34...

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i did when I first started teaching myself to write I had the Van Helsing Brothers and their Dad's weird house. One of the rooms was a warehouse with a ton of cars, boats, airplanes, and other things. A portal door let them pilot one of the vehicles out. The inspiration was the house from the Mystic Masters and the tardis. 

CES    

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18 hours ago, Lawnmower Boy said:

Babylon, the City of Man and Art, is incredibly cool, but it seems to me to change with the hands set to it. I just can't make my Babylon as weird and wonderful as Dean Shomshak's version, so here's mine. (Or, rather, the road to Babylon.)

<snip>

Oh, I think you're doing pretty well.

 

Dean Shomshak

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Subdimensions

 

Subdimensions are oddities.  For some reason they are worlds that don't quite gel fully.  They usually crowd around a "full" dimension; most full dimensions have their own versions or equivalents.  Very rarely will one subdimension meld with its counterpart around another, but it's not impossible.  The most common of these are the realms of pure mind (i.e. the Astral Plane, the Dream Realm) and the realms of the dead (the various heavens and hells).  Others include abstract representations of physical properties (like the Speed Zone), incomplete reflections (Timestop, the Nanoverse), or "empty" spaces (Hammerspace).  

 

Cyberspace

 

As a dimension develops computer technology, it will eventually generate a cyberspace.  In appearance, cyberspaces tend toward glowing edges, geometric forms, and grid lines.  Some cyberspaces allow perception only, though they can be manipulated via the world's computer network.  Some cyberspaces act as realms of pure mind, with their own forms of pseudomatter made of bound energy.  Some cyberspaces gel enough to allow full bodily entry, though this is usually through a portal of some kind.  Super powers, magic, etc., can sometimes interact unpredictably with a cyberspace, though it's more likely that the cyberspace will accommodate them in some way (usually applying its own distinct aesthetic).  

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