Arrival Day - February 4, 1962

[Steve]

I'm beginning work on my urban fantasy campaign's history, and I welcome any thoughts or suggestions on how history would begin altering as of Arrival Day, the day millions of desperate Fae sought to escape the Dark Lord who had enslaved their world in a mass exodus.

 

On February 4, 1962, a planetary alignment of our solar system created the perfect conditions that allowed Earth and Arcadia, a world where magic was far more common than ours, into near-synchronicity. Portals exploded open around the globe, forced open by natural pressures as a result of this alignment, allowing a ragtag horde of Sidhe and other races from that world a chance to escape the Dark Lord who would kill or enslave them.

 

Millions of them swept in, the Sidhe primarily arriving in Western Europe, Great Britain, the United States and Canada, with handfuls arriving in other places. The Middle East saw the sudden arising of the lost city of Ubar in the midst of the Arabian Desert, inhabited by nearly a million Djinn and Efreet. Asia saw its own arrival of previously mythical beings.

 

Oddly, there were no such arrivals in Eastern Europe or across the USSR. In the weeks of mad chaos after what later became known as Arrival Day, it should have been seen as an ominous warning.

 

With the Fae came a flood of strange energies through the maws of the open portals, sweeping across the Earth in mere moments, altering previously immutable physical laws into something more like those of the dying world these refugees had fled from. Mana was created on Earth by the strange energies of Arcadia. The Ley lines of Earth began flowing with it.

 

Mana proved to be incompatible with transuranic elements, causing a cascade reaction that reduced their half-lives into moments. Some scientists later speculated that the transmutation of transuranic elements into more ones was part of the process that formed Earth's mana flows. As a result, nuclear power generators went dark and nuclear weapon payloads became inert.

 

And this was only the beginning...

[TheQuestionMan]

Very cool, sounds like it should be narated by a Historian NPC.

 

What is the current date?

 

How many died of famine, plague (disease) and war?

 

Who arose as leaders among the exiles?

 

What technologies did humanity embrace to replace those that failed?

 

Who rose to Champion humanity? Or the Fae?

 

Rumors of the Dark Lord's invasion?

 

Prejudice and Civil Rights changes? (It's a bloody Troll mate! You tell him to move?

 

Cheers

 

QM

[Steve]

Very cool, sounds like it should be narated by a Historian NPC.

What is the current date?

How many died of famine, plague (disease) and war?

Who arose as leaders among the exiles?

What technologies did humanity embrace to replace those that failed?

Who rose to Champion humanity? Or the Fae?

Rumors of the Dark Lord's invasion?

Prejudice and Civil Rights changes? (It's a bloody Troll mate! You tell him to move?

Cheers

QM

Great questions, one and all.

 

The current date is early 2012, and the Fiftieth Anniversary of Arrival Day is coming up, prompting the media to look back at different events that occurred since the Fae arrived.

[Steve]

The 1960s

 

One event in 1962 was greatly altered by the arrival of the Fae. The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 14-22 never occurred. Shortly after Arrival Day, it became obvious that something fundamental had altered in the world. Soviet nuclear tests attempted that year produced duds, prompting the Kremlin to begin panicking that the "aliens" were responsible.

 

In 1963, several prominent Sidhe, having been working with civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King to gain a greater acceptance by the humans, participated in the April 12 march in Birmingham, Alabama and were arrested.

 

On November 22, 1963, Oberon (a traditional name taken by the Sidhe High King), one of the leaders of the Sidhe refugees, was riding in the Dallas motorcade at the invitation of President Kennedy, and two of Oberon's bodyguards followed the car on foot. Unknown to the Secret Service and President Kennedy, the two bodyguards had placed a magic shield over the vehicle, fearing an assassination attempt. Their paranoia saved the life of President Kennedy when two rounds fired at the car were intercepted by the shield.

[Steve]

After the second round sparked off the shield, the Secret Service sprang into action, eventually apprehending Lee Harvey Oswald as the suspected sniper. While Oswald was in custody, Jack Ruby shot and killed him and was killed in turn during a brief struggle with officers.

 

Later investigations revealed that the relief the Fae had felt after apparently escaping the Dark Lord was at an end. During the exodus from their home, the Seelie had been infiltrated by Unseelie spies. Unable to use the gates that originally brought the Sidhe to Earth en masse, they had worked behind the scenes on various schemes.

 

One of those schemes had been to stir the pot of racial unrest going on in the United States. Hoping to assassinate Oberon and President Kennedy, their oracles had pinpointed Oswald as the best man for the job, used their magic to program him with a manifesto he would declare at the proper time and supplied him with two enchanted bullets. However, Oberon's bodyguards had shielded him too well. Having Jack Ruby kill Oswald before he could be interrogated had not been foreseen, but some suspect another cell of Unseelie had masterminded the deed.

[Steve]

I've decided to call this campaign "The Aquarian Age". Since the divergence from our world had its birth in the 1960s, it seemed appropriate.

 

After re-reading Urban Fantasy Hero, I'm drawn to borrowing from "The Sixth Sun" and "Invasive Species" settings. Mine would probably be a bit more post-apocalyptic, especially if I run any campaigns in the 1960s when the Sidhe and their allies first arrived or in the chaos years shortly after the war and plague. A quarter of the world's population died in the Second Black Death initiated by Baba Yaga and the war against the Unseelie and the Dark Lord.

[DShomshak]

Folklore note: In Russian fairy tales, Baba Yaga hardly ever appears as the villain. (Only once in Afanasyev's collection, which is to Russian fairy tales what the Brothers Grimm are to German.) Instead, she functions as a "reluctant helper": Hostile, but when the hero overcomes her he obtains something that helps him or her defeat the real villain or otherwise solve the problem that got him into the story. A heroic prince might wrestle her until she promises to give him a magic sword, a steed faster than the wind, or whatever. A little girl might receive three difficult tasks to perform in a short time, but succeed through the help of animals to whom she showed kindness. OTOH the character Kastchei (or Koshchei) the Deathless is pure villain. In your world, it might be Kastchei who created the plague but Baba Yaga got blamed, or she did it but as a mercenary. PCs who venture into the Blight Zone might still need to find Baba Yaga and extort some favor from her in order to defeat Kastchei or some other agent of the Dark Lord.

[Steve]

Having Baba Yaga be morally gray was something I wasn't aware of, but I could use her as a resource for characters seeking information on Unseelie matters. My lack of knowledge on Russian folklore is showing.

 

Kastchei sounds like what I need as a true villain.

 

She and Baba Yaga would need to remain near one of the remaining rivulets of power coming from Arcadia. When the gates were sealed at the end of the war, rendering those from that world into (admittedly long-lived) mortal versions of their former Fae glory, those over 400 years old were vaporized. This is thought to have been the fate of the Dark Lord, but there are whispers that he might have survived as a bodiless phantom, remaining trapped near one of the Unseelie gates, sipping at what little power is still leaking through flaws in the sealing to stave off his final end.

 

I still haven't thought of a good name for the Dark Lord, so any suggestions for naming a Sauron-class bad guy are welcome.

[Steve]

Duplicate entry

[Steve]

Duplicate entry

[Steve]

Duplicate entry

[DShomshak]

Kastchei's male. His most famous appearance probably is in the ballet "The Firebird." There's he's rather demonic. Other descriptions suggest he's a skeleton: Perhaps "Deathless" would be better translated as "Undead"! He's less well defined than Baba Yaga, though. This is one case where the folklore gives you less guidance. The tales agree, though, that Kastchei is terribly powerful and utterly evil.

 

(In my old Champions campaign I had notes on Kastchei as one of the original vampires created by the Dragon in ancient times. Stalin dug him up in the 1950s. I never used him, though.)

 

Who or what was the Dark Lord? I can think of a few possibilities:

 

* The Dark Lord is one of the scary, powerful entities from folklore such as Kastchei, Eblis, the fomorian king Balor, or the troll-witch Angr-boda (mother of the Fenris Wolf and Midgard Serpent -- and why not a Dark Lady, hey?) Possibly the Dark Lord's regime was more of a junta, with him or her as chief.

 

* There was no Dark Lord. He was a figurehead created by the junta of his supposed lieutenants, who'd formed an Unseelie Axis to conquer everyone else and divide Earth and Faerie into spheres of influence. They still keep the secret because they have their own ambitious underlings: It's useful, especially with their power reduced on Earth, to hint that they still have extra powers granted by the Dark Lord.

 

* The Dark Lord was formerly a minor figure -- create your own or pick some mythic villain you think is cool, regardless of power -- who obtained a power-up that let him push around badasses like Kastchei and Eblis. Maybe he found one of the great talismans of Ultimate Power such as the Rhinegold, the Tablet of Destinies or the Book of Thoth. Everyone who knows about the true source of the Dark Lord's power searches for the talisman, if only to keep it away from enemies and rivals.

 

* Or some other form of power-up. For instance, Hindu mythology has several asuras who somehow become powerful enough to threaten even the gods... but always with one flaw in their omnipotence or invulnerability. Ravana performing austerities for 10,000 years to extort a boon from Shiva is probably the most famous example.

 

* The Dark Lord was an entity from a plane even "higher" or more powerful than Faerie -- an actual Evil God, which is why he can force other powerful, evil and ambitious entities to work together.

 

What you choose should probably illustrate the themes of your campaign. Like, if you want to emphasize conflict between Fae who want to assimilate into human society and the aristocrats who want to retain the authority they had in Faerie, you might go for the "Fake Figurehead" option.

 

There's no need for the PCs and players to know the truth, though. At least not at first. Whatever you choose, you can introduce other options as rumors or hoaxes.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Steve]

Those are some interesting options, and they each have intriguing possibilities. I like the Fake Figurehead option.

 

I've been rethinking things concerning the arrival of the Unseelie.

 

When the Sidhe arrived in 1962, the Unseelie arrived as well, but they were more furtive in their arrival as they were far fewer in number. The gates they had available to them were in Russia, forced open by Kastchei and Baba Yaga, intent upon pursuing the Seelie but unable to use the same gates. The Russian gates were more unstable, with long intervals between openings and very short windows of time to use them.

 

Utilizing glamour and other, even less savory abilities, they began a systematic infiltration and subversion, insinuating themselves into the power structures of the Kremlin and the various puppet governments they controlled. It began with lower-level functionaries, killing and replacing them and moving up the chain of command.

 

The takeover was complete within two years, going mostly unnoticed by other world powers. The Unseelie worked behind the scenes for the most part, utilizing human puppets mentally dominated to maintain the pretense that it was business as usual.

 

Once Russia and its satellite states were under control, China became the next target.

[TheQuestionMan]

No Radioactive Waste - No Cherynoble.

Greater demand for fossil fuels.

Resorce Wars.

Hmmm... Necromatic Power Generation

See GURPS Technomancy.

QM

[Steve]

On the surface, the Cold War went on much as it did in our world. Leonid Brezhnev came to rule the USSR in late 1964, but he had a cadre of special advisors around him, Unseelie advisors wearing the guises of people they had replaced.

 

By the late 1960s, the "Russian Miracle" had begun. Potions in the food and water and subtle spells wove contentment into the psyches of the populace. Instead of the millions of little decisions that drive capitalism, the Unseelie used divination to guide the economy of the Soviet Union, aided by millions of charmed workers producing just what was needed to make the economy thrive.

 

Since their arrival, the Unseelie also learned how enjoyable it was to feed upon the dreams and creativity of humans, a pleasure they had forgotten in the centuries since a few of them had last visited Earth. Russians were charmed to be happy with their lot in life, even as the Unseelie drained vast swaths of them of their creative energies and vampires began multiplying in the dark streets of Moscow and other cities behind the Iron Curtain. A number of vampires began emigrating outside the USSR, seeking unclaimed hunting grounds.

 

The beginnings of the Unseelie War started in China, a region that had proven more resistant to control. The subtleties of the culture proved to be difficult to master by those more used to blunter Russians. A plague meant to punish one small region of China flared beyond control into a second Black Death, and before too long ten million Chinese were dying each week.

 

It was then that the Seelie realized their enemies had followed them.

[Steve]

Divinations cast by the Seelie and the few mortal spellcasters with sufficient power to do so managed to penetrate the glamours protecting Russia from remote spying. Although they were never able to see him directly. the presence of the Dark Lord, a powerful Unseelie known only as Ba'al, could be felt throughout the lands. By then, his vassals had insinuated themselves too well into the power structure to be easily removed.

 

China was rapidly becoming an apocalyptic nightmare, the Blight spreading inexorably. The Chinese government instituted harsh measures to keep it from spreading, even including the few witches and warlocks they had, but they could only slow its advance. Discovery of the Unseelie in their midst incited the Chinese government to accusations that the West had done this using the Seelie, who looked much like Unseelie Fae.

 

Russia used this distraction to attack Europe and American forces in Asia, supporting Chinese military actions against other countries in the region. The chaos engulfed most of Asia and began touching Africa as well.

 

In America, President Kennedy, re-elected to a second term in office, pledged American forces to aid its beleaguered allies in Europe and Asia. The Seelie offered their aid as well.

 

The Unseelie War lasted for several grueling years before its conclusion with the sealing of the gates back to the Fae's home, a calculated risk taken by the Seelie. Earth's heightened mana levels plummeted, no longer sustained by the influxes of power flowing in like mighty rivers.

[Steve]

After severing the links, Earth's Fae immediately suffered flu-like symptoms, many collapsing where they stood, their bodies beginning a metamorphosis into a more mortal state. The constructs created by the Seelie and Unseelie, along with many unnatural races such as ogres and trolls, calcified and crumbled to dust in many parts of the world. The Sidhe and a handful of other types of Fae quickly discovered they had been reduced in ability to something more akin to humanity. Some historians later termed it The Fall.

 

The same could not be said of the Unseelie in Russia and much of China. While their gates only leaked a fraction of the power they once had, it was enough to stave off the descent into full mortality and force an even greater division between the Seelie and Unseelie than had ever existed before. The Seelie had become mortal, but their enemies had become something not-quite-mortal but also not-quite-Fae.

 

The Unseelie discovered they were able to sustain a measure of their pre-Fall state by continuing to feed upon the essences of the mortals around them. Instead of gaining sustenance from food, water and air, they fed on the dreams, creativity and will of humans. Before they had found such feeding to be merely a pleasurable diversion, sustaining themselves upon the flows of energy coming in through the gates, but now it was a matter of survival. Unable to return home, driven to becoming parasites upon humanity, the Unseelie became even more incensed against the Seelie in the years following the war.

[Chris Goodwin]

What's the worldwide mana level like as of 2012?  Assuming it's almost but not quite nonexistent, what does this do to spellcasters?  

 

Is there any hysteria around the possibility of apocalypse on December 21, 2012?  

 

What happened to the transuranic elements when the gates closed?  Did the mana cause them all to decay?  Did it extend to underground deposits?  What about, potentially, the possibility of radioactive deposits on Mars, Venus, the asteroids?  I'm not even sure what real world data show for those -- probably doubtful on Mars, unknown on Venus, probably as yet undetected in the asteroids.  

 

Edit:  Another question.  Now that what's going on behind the Iron Curtain is coming out, are there any Fae pushing to reopen the gates?  Were Seelie and Unseelie gates alike closed?  The leakage of power from the gate sites seems to be enough to sustain some magic, correct?  

[Steve]

As of 2012, mana levels have remained very stable since the plummet at the end of the war. Power levels are less than what is seen in the Urban Fantasy Hero setting "The Sixth Sun" but are greater than a swords & sorcery "Valdorian Age" feeling. Alchemy is perhaps the most prevalent form of magic due to its ability to be mass produced.

 

Magic usage has permeated societies around the globe even though only a small percentage of people can actually cast spells. I haven't settled on point values for magic yet. I'm still working on the setting feel.

 

12/21/12 is a topic of concern. There is worry that the Unseelie might be plan in something, perhaps even re-opening the portals and flooding Earth with higher levels of mana again.

 

The closing of the gates did cause a change in transuranic and formerly transuranic elements present on Earth. They experienced an alchemical change into a substance that the magic-using community called orichalcum. It was this material that allowed the creation of Magitech.

[Steve]

There are some who would like to see the gates re-opened, but most feel that would benefit the Unseelie most of all. The naturally formed gates caused by the planetary alignment were the ones closed at the end of the war.

 

Unseelie gates have remained active, but their usage has become even more unreliable. It is thought that this might be how the Unseelie are replenishing their numbers after they defeat, since it is thought they cannot reproduce naturally like the Seelie can.

 

Despite their longer lifespans, the Seelie are roughly as fertile as humans, and Sidhe women are able to have 1-2 children per year. Multiple births are considered to be auspicious, and it is a bit more common among the Sidhe than humans. Some quite large families have emerged as a result of this.

[Steve]

Vampires and Succubi are exceptions to the general feeding requirements of other Unseelie and have been able to obtain a place in normal society, if they obey the law. Unlike other Unseelie, they are also able to reproduce with others of their kind or human partners.

 

Vampires, instead of draining the vital energies of humans, only require fresh blood in order to survive, the fresher the better. So long as they do not feed too regularly upon one person, their human prey eventually recovers their vitality. Over the past several decades, clubs and other organizations have emerged that allow vampires to feed off of willing prey. As the act incites a powerfully euphoric feeling, some humans are addicted to the sensation.

 

Succubi can kill, but the vital energies they obtain through different forms of sexual contact recovers as well over a relatively short time (usually within a few days). Like vampires, they can sexually reproduce, but they cannot make others of their kind by passing along their condition. Only females are ever born from such matings. Like vampires, such offspring appear as normal humans until puberty causes their abilities to emerge.

 

The vital energies drained by other Unseelie types to enable their survival do not recover nearly as quickly. Eventually, human (and sometimes even Fae) prey is reduced to an emotionless husk. The bodies of their prey can still remain vital and healthy, but the will and emotions are gone from within. Left alone, such unfortunates will quietly starve to death.

[Steve]

There are also a few types of therianthropes in the world, but their abilities do not extend into taking on an actual four-legged animal shape. They look like normal humans until unleashing their inner animal natures, then their bodies transform into more bestial humanoid forms.

[TheQuestionMan]

Therianthropy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therianthropy  

 

 

Cheers

 

 

QM

[Steve]

In this world, therianthropy is more limited due to the current mana levels, more like what is seen in the TV show "Grimm" than other examples in the media. During the higher period of mana before the sealing of the gates, transformation into animal shapes was possible.

[Steve]

Unknown to those on Earth at the time, the rest of the Solar System was not unaffected by the changes that occurred there. However, those changes would not be realized until decades later, after the devastation of the war and time spent rebuilding. Whereas Earth had portals open up, relatively small fissures in the membrane of Malkuth reality, other worlds experienced profound changes as well.

 

Mars: A moment or two before the first portals opened up on Earth, the Red Planet experienced a fissure in space large enough to engulf that entire world. Passing through it as it swung about the sun in its normal orbit, in the twinkling of an eye what was once previously a dead world was exchanged with another version from Yesod, the higher reality that the Fae came from. Mars became a world of swords and sorcery, dying but not yet dead, populated by a patchwork of city-states. At its frigid poles, cruel and malicious intelligences eagerly studied the new reality they found themselves in, eyeing the warm and inviting Earth. Meanwhile, the human-like beings who shared their world, populating the city states in warmer climes were unaware of the fundamental change in their reality that had occurred. The brutal savages that prowled the wastelands of Mars were even less concerned.

 

Venus: Several minutes after the first portals opened up on Earth, Venus passed through a fissure as well. Its acidic, deadly, hellish environment was replaced with a steaming, lush jungle under perpetual clouds, its greenery filled with prehistoric beasts that had not been seen on our world since the Jurassic Age. No signs of intelligent life were apparent.