BRP Supers: The 1861 Comet Universe

The 1861 Comet Universe

This is an incomplete campaign premise for BRP using the super powers rules, inspired by Farmer’s Wold-Newton Universe. I never got this off the ground, but some day I may yet revisit the “1861 Comet Universe.”

 

Premise

   A world not unlike our own, in which superhumans (called posthumans) began to appear in the first generation of children after the comet of 1861. A later period of posthuman development followed the Tunguska, Syberia event as well.

   In this world, 1 in about 5,000 humans is a posthuman, with powers enhanced by alien nanomachines that tamper with the human genome, or a subsequent alien virus which physically restructures the human DNA and turns its victims in to genetically compatible aliens with its creator species. All superhumans in this universe are therefore products of weird alien science, although some entrepreneurial normal humans have also created gadgets and tools to aid them in working with and against posthumans. By 2020 (the present year of the campaign) scientists understand the nanomachines and the virus well enough that they can synthesize and manipulate their own in human hosts, creating new posthumans tailored as they see fit.

   In the midst of this, a privately funded scientific space exploration team has reached the distant 1861 comet and discovered that it is really an alien artifact, designed to seed the Earth with its viral nanomachines, and that its creators are beings called the Yingalath. Elsewhere, secret research on the posthuman virus have revealed that it came from the Tunguska comet, and that it was created by an entirely different alien species.

   In the midst of all of this, a secret cabal of successfully altered posthumans who are now genetically a different species have recognized their imprinted heritage from the distant STL world ship of the Kin’shigar star empire, and that they are the advance force which must prepare humanity for its imminent invasion!

Origin

   In 1861, many individuals witnessed a prominent (although not spectacular) comet, known only as the comet of 1861. It was a momentous event because it was determined by observer J.R. Hind that the Earth actually passed through the tail of the comet on June 30^th.

   Initially it was a simple astronomical curiosity, but within a few years the first generation of what would later be called posthumans began to appear. The comet, apparently, had somehow altered the genetic structure of infants prenatally. Pregnant women in this period had an alarming percentage of stillborn children, mutated children, and in a small but distinct percentage of births arrived genetically enhanced children.

   The first posthumans were misunderstood, regarded as enigmas and curiosities at first, until a broader awareness of the sheer diversity of posthumans became apparent. Soon, fear and and effort to control posthumans set in. By 1891, the first generation of posthumans had grown up. There was an average of 1 posthuman for ever thousand normal humans in any given population. Governments sought to control, suppress, or destroy them while individuals sought to exploit these miraculous people. The psothumans themselves were often given to widely diverse interpretations of their own gifts, which rarely manifested before the age of 16, usually within 1-3 years of reaching puberty, though a few posthumans manifested their powers much later or earlier.

   During this time, new messiahs appeared, and religious cults grew up around the men and women who displayed miraculous powers. Criminals who could withstand a barrage of artillery were subsequently lured with the promise of wealth and luxury to work for the military of one government or another, and some, manifesting at an early age, were recruited by secret societies, who sought to brainwash and control them. A handful of strong willed posthumans resisted outside efforts to control who and what they were, and became notorious vigilantes, renegades, and criminals.

   It would be decades before scientists began to understand what had happened, as humanity’s understanding of genetics worked to catch up to the mysterious nature of the posthumans, as well as the mutations and failed births. It would be even longer before an actual space voyage reached the distant comet in 2018 and discovered that the comet was an artifact of extraterrestrial origin.

   The Yingalath Comet of 1861, as it came to be known after the discovery by space explorers, was the product of an alien race from long ago, sent to earth to seed the planet with its budding sentient population with the necessary genetic x-factors to stimulate a singularity in evolution. Why these aliens saw fit to send such a unique artifact to earth as yet remains undetermined by humanity, although some souls speculate that it may have something to do with the second known extraterrestrial contact with Earth at the Tunguska, Siberia impact.

   The Tunguska impact happened in a remote region of the Syberian Wilderness in 1908, and it was unnoticed outside of some curious astronomers and researchers for decades thereafter. Because of the proliferation of posthumans already created by the 1861 comet, no one suspected that the detonation of the Tunguska comet in the atmosphere also released a new posthuman virus. It would be until the 1960s that some researchers specializing in posthuman studies began to identify two distinct mechanisms for the creation of posthumans, one a gene-altering mechanism later identified as a nanomachine, believed to have been seeded from the 1861 comet, and the second a biological virus that no one suspected came from the Tunguska comet until evidence in 1989 proved beyond a doubt that the virus had to have originated from the Tunguska region.

   The Tunguska posthuman virus did not affect the unborn, rewriting their DNA, adding evolutionary leaps and bounds to the otherwise human children. Instead, it attacked adult humans, slowly rewriting their DNA, changing those humans over time in to something completely inhuman, on a genetic level, no longer related to the terrestrial animals with which man held kinship. The virus turned men in to aliens, literally. Worse yet the virus drove them mad. These posthumans were driven by a strange insanity, a problem having to do with the way the virus restructured the human brain, turning it in to a tri-lobed cerebrum which mimicked the brain structure of the alien organism that it was attempting to recreate. Worse yet, the virus, a sophisticated creation of alien geneticists in its own right, sought to impregnate that mind with the knowledge and lore of its creator species. This information created a strange sort of schizophrenia in its hosts.

   The first of the viral posthumans manifested between 1909 and 1910, just before the Great War. The viral posthumans were thought to be a new variant of posthuman, and were regarded as far more effective supersoldiers, and a great many of them were recruited and deployed in World War I. This brought many of the viral posthumans together, giving them a chance to discover a unique trait they all shared: telepathy. Viral posthumans could sense one another, and communicate by thought. They became aware of their heritage as the inheritors of a strange alien legacy. 

Gradually, a handful of viral posthumans learned to cope with the schizophrenia of their change, and the secret truth of their origin became apparent. They were the advance soldiers of a potent cosmic race which was traveling on a world ship at slower than light speeds toward Earth. They were to pave the way for colonization when the world ship arrived.

   The viral posthumans began to unite, but adopted an approach of secrecy. Those few leaders amongst their kind realized that they were still too few to deal directly with humanity of the genetic posthumans. Moreover, they suspected that the posthumans created by the 1861 comet were caused by the meddling of another alien species which intended to thwart the aims of the viral posthumans.

   By World War II, the nature of war had changed with the use of superhumans in conflict. No matter what sort of posthuman it was, they were all valued for their unique powers in the war front. By the end of World War II, after the dropping of the atomic bomb, legislation was passed which required posthumans to register themselves in the United States and the allied nations. This created a period of tension, as many posthumans did not wish to be registered. The total numbers of posthumans had been reduced due to the enormous number killed in the war. The remaining posthumans were not being replenished as rapidly by new births of their own kind, which indeed seemed to have diminished dramatically. Many posthumans went underground after the war, and only a handful registered, agreeing to lose some of their civil rights. It would be two decades before the registration act was revoked, and the civil rights of posthumans were restored by Kennedy in 1963 after he took office. The trend continued, and some posthumans who preferred the life of vigilantes and contract mercenaries were even given police powers in some states. This was also a direct response to the increasing trouble caused by rogue posthumans who sought to use their powers for personal gain or the subjugation of normal humans.

   The period from the 60’s on up through to 2020 was a period in which posthumans became readily accepted as a part of life. The face of crime, police, poltics, war, and almost every other facet of life had been affected by the presence of posthumans. The culture of the posthumans was unique, one in which it was almost natural to adopt an identity and seek out unique ways in which to exploit one’s powers for personal gain, or the greater good as many, inspired by the dedicated vigilantes and Samaritans who felt that their powers were given specifically to help mankind. The notion of the caped crusader became a prominent theme in this period, and posthumans were everywhere.

   In 2010 the entrepreneurial posthuman Richard Lourdes used the resources of his company (Skyline Corp.) to fund the first manned outer solar system expedition, called Daedalus 1. The vessel, constructed in orbit and powered by a high efficiency fusion reactor, was set officially to explore the outer solar system, but by 2018 it had pushed outward in to the region of the Kuiper Belt, where the team of 11 researchers closed in on the 1861 comet, and began their investigation. Here, they learned that it was actually a vessel, and that it had been created by the Yingalath specifically to seed Earth with the nanomachines that created the posthumans.

   By 2020 there are many who believe that humanity has been visited by aliens on multiple occasions. There is a creature (the Hammer, Texas entity) which has been encountered by some posthumans, including Nightfall, Tachyon and Silver Ray (licensed enforcers in Texas) that appeared to be a distinct alien life form. Archaeological evidence has even been unearthed suggesting that some of the oldest myths of humanity may, in fact, reflect earlier efforts by the Yingalath or other alien species to “enhance” humanity. Indeed, there is now a popular suspicion that references to the oldest gods (Annunaki, Titans, and so forth) may in fact be references to the Yingalath. Some even suspect that these arliest gods may have been actual Yingalath voyagers who traveled to Earth millennia ago.  

   In the opening campaign, characters are members of various posthuman types and groups, who may be newly awakened to their powers or old veterans. Some characters may even have the transforming viral mutation of the Tunguska comet, instead. The future lies in wait…

Character Archetypes

   Some ideas for character archetypes in this universe include the following:

D%       Result

01-20   Newly awakened posthuman (usually age 15-18)

21-30   Veteran posthuman (been around, normal age)

31-35   Elder posthuman (posthuman from as far back as 1861)

36-37   Enigma (posthuman who appears to have come from a prior era before 1861!)

38-50   Viral posthuman-unawakened (from the Tunguska comet)

51-55   Viral posthuman-awakened but rebellious (aware of nature, working against it)

55-60   Viral posthuman-servitor (embraces his or her nature and works with it)

61-70   Enhanced human through modern Science (using viral or nanite mechanisms)

71-80   Gadget-based normal human (uses weird science or gadgetry to compete)

81-95   Skilled normal human (works to achieve perfection to compete)

96-98   True alien (visitor from the stars to Earth from an FTL culture)

99-00   Other-dimensional being (mystery entity from a different quantum dimension)

Setting Rules

   The 1861 Comet campaign uses the following rules for BRP: Mutations, psionics, and powers. All characters can be one of those listed, depending upon what they want to achieve. There is no magic in this setting.

   Characters should choose skilled packages, and do not by any stretch need to be “classic superheroes.” In this setting there are plenty of otherwise normal people who happen to be posthumans. At an average (current) ratio of 1 posthuman to 5,000 normal humans, a city with a population of 1 million will have 200 native posthumans. That means a larger metropolis like New York could have as many as 1,000 posthumans!

Tech Level

   The setting of 2020 is a futurist’s interpretation of where we will be, assuming the singularity has already happened. As a universe filled with superhumans, the 1861 comet universe has achieved some stranger, indeed some very weird science as a result of the unnatural cometary phenomena that has change humankind. This may not be a “magical” universe, but it is still definitely a pulpy comic-book universe. As such, strange gadgets, high concept big-bang science gadgets, cyberware, nanites and genetic engineering are all normal here.

A Walk Through Character Generation in Magic World

While I tend to take it for granted that everyone has played or is familiar with the D100 system that powers Basic Role Playing, Magic World, Runequest, Legend, Call of Cthulhu and many other game systems, the truth is that’s not really the case. Even if you are, there are lots of little differences between various versions of the system, so a walk-through on how character generation works could be beneficial to many.

Magic World is BRP-powered but hangs off of the skeleton of the older Elric//Stormbringer 5^th edition mechanical assumptions. This makes it a bit more streamlined than Runequest, and since its focus is fantasy only it has fewer extraneous chunks than its parent game, BRP. Magic World deviates from Runequest in a few specific ways: no hit-location system, a core HP mechanic, a single unified magic system, and a reliance on the resistance table of BRP instead of two skill-based saving rolls.

All good characters begin with an idea or a core conceit. I’m going to roll some stats up first and then think about who it is I want to create. MW uses strength, constitution, size, intelligence, power, dexterity, and appearance. Humans roll 3D6 for all stats except for intelligence and size, which are 2D6+6. I’m going to roll these straight across and see what I get:

STR 8, CON 4, SIZ 17, INT 16, POW 11, DEX 8, APP 13

Holy cow….this guy is frail, sickly, enormously tall (around 6’7” and maybe as skinny as 150 lbs), very smart, a bit clumsy and despite all that he’s either fairly congenial or decent looking. Nice. With stats like that I think I shall call him Asterius Crane. I see a fellow who is excessively bookish, and who’s exotic height contrasts with his weak frame, so he overcompensates by being friendly and affable.

There are a variety of derived stats in MW. The derived “rolls” are percentile approximations of the core stats that can be used to resolve various situations that skills alone don’t cover. Each derived stat is a default of the main attribute multiplied by 5. SIZ is the only stat that doesn’t get a derived roll. When I calculate these we get:

Effort 40%, Stamina 20%, Idea 80%, Luck 55%, Agility 40%, Charisma 65%.    

So by percentage Asterius’s strength is in being an idea man and fairly charismatic.

There are several other derived stats as well:

Damage modifiers are based on strength and size. Despite being physically underwhelming, Asterius has reach and leverage due to size, so he actually qualifies for a +1D4 damage modifier to melee attacks.  He has okay hit points thanks to his size (but with a better constitution it could have been so much more); his HPs are 11 and his major wound score is 6 (the number of HPs below which bad things can happen). If I were to use the optional heroic hit point system he would have 21 hit points, instead (the total of size and constitution instead of the average) and a major wound threshold of 11. Alas, Asterius is probably destined for the world of Sarvaelen and there are no robust heroes in that land.

With a POW of 11 Asterius has 11 magic points, so he’s no hard-hitting spellcaster. If he had 16 or better in POW then he would gain 3 levels in magic just for being awesome…but he is not awesome.

Having a variable appearance provides distinctive features, which you can choose or roll for. With an APP 13, he gets 2 features on the good side. I roll and get “torso” and “bearing” options. I choose “tall” because it’s a no-brainer; because he has a good appearance score this means his height is an asset; he towers over people and maybe that’s somewhat intimidating or impressive. For bearing I choose “casual” because I am thinking Asterious is a bit laconic, and comes off with a “always in control” vibe….he doesn’t seem to panic, so this inspires those around him a bit.

I roll for his age and it turns out he is 23 years old.

Next up is culture. There are four default cultures in MW, with the option for campaign-specific cultural packages.  A culture provides guidance on choosing a profession as well as a 10% bonus to three cultural skills. The choices are band, tribe, chiefdom and state. Each culture includes a description and extensive list of real-world samples of what it is talking about, as well. As I am imagining Asterius I could see him coming from any of these, although his hope of being a bookish giant rests heavily on a more advanced culture so I pick “state.”  Specifically, since I’m putting Asterius in Sarvaelen I will assume he comes from  Aeronost, a feudal coastal culture with a handful of prominent cities.  I pick oratory, world lore and  scribe for his three cultural skills.

Next up is occupation. There are twenty core professions to chose from, and many more that could be introduced (or borrowed from other BRP books).  MW offers skill points to the skill package of each occupation, although it does so a bit differently than BRP, by allotting +60 to one occupational skill of choice, +40 to three more skills, and +20 to four others. After that you get 40 points to add to one non-occupational skill and three more non-occupational skills that get +20 each. Aside from occupational and cultural skill points characters get some points by skill category based on half of the derived attribute.

Finally, if you want to make an experienced adventurer rules and numbers are provided to start a veteran, heroic or legendary adventurer.

After looking at the occupations available, I think Asterius Crane would make a great physician, apocethary or scribe. Each occupation is presented from the context of a “you learned to be this, but now, for various reasons, you are adventuring” sort of approach. Kinda cool. I think I’ll go with scribe.

As a scribe Asterius can pick from several skills. I choose the following: Scribe (+60), World Lore (+40), Evaluate (+20), Insight (+40), Nature (+20), and I’ll pick another language (Emoniae, from Sarvaelen) at +20 as well. He can have a skill as a personal specialty, so I pick Potions with +40. Asterius is something of an exotic brewer and apothecary on the side, it seems. Finally, his occupation awards him 200 bronzes to spend.

Aside from his occupational skills Asterius can allot extra points into “other” as well. Those points end up in Dodge (+40), Navigate (+20), Listen (+20), and…because this is a guy who will face danger, lets put the last +20 into short sword, with which he’s had some minor training. Being experienced with the short sword means Asterius’s practice with the weapon will also improve familiarity with everything in weapon class 2 (broadswords, cutlasses, falchions, rapiers, scimitars, and short swords). One thing I could not find clarification on (yet) was if weapon skills received the physical skill modifier. I am assuming they do here.

Finally we come to Allegiance. Old fans of Elric/Stormbringer will recognize this as derived from the old order/chaos system of allegiance. It is now a division between light, shadow and balance. Adventurers start play with 25 allegiance points in one, 15 in a second and 5 in a third. I think Asterius is fairly neutral, so I split it like this:

Light 15, Balance 25, Shadow 5

Being aligned with balance grants some perks (as do the others). For those aligned with balance they can attempt to call on inner reserves of strength, which can grant 1/5 of their HP total in recovery. Allegiance can be strained when calling upon abilities, as well as when acting contrary to one’s aligned nature. Neat stuff, lots of role-play potential.

After a bit of spending to equip Asterius with some leather armor and a short sword (he started with a grand total of 401 bronzes), the poor fellow is ready to get killed adventuring. So what does Asterius Crane look like right now? Here he is:

Asterius Crane

Human male, 6’7” tall, 150 lbs., Age 23

Occupation: scholar; Culture: State; Distinctive Features: tall and casual

STR 8, CON 4, SIZ 17, INT 16, POW 11, DEX 8, APP 13; Hit Points 11, MW 6, Magic Points 11

Effort 40%, Stamina 20%, Idea 80%, Luck 55%, Agility 40%, Charisma 65%.    

Skill Category Modifiers: Physical +4, Communication +6, Knowledge +8, Manipulation +4, Perception +2

Damage Modifier +1D4

Allegiance: Light 15, Balance 25, Shadow 5

Occupational Skills: Scribe 74%, World Lore 73%, Evaluate 43%, Insight 57%, Nature 53%, Language (Aeronistic, native) 88%, Language (Emoniae) 28%, Potions 48%, Oratory 21%

Additional Skills: Dodge 60%, Navigate 53%, Listen 37%, Shortsword 43%

Weapon: Shortsword:  Attack 43%, Damage 1D6+1+1D4, weapon class 2

Armor: soft leather: 1D4-1 APs, light burden

Remaining Bronzes: 101

Asterius is now ready to go adventuring!

A few more notes:

Character generation is pretty quick the way MW does it because it gives the player a set number of discrete skill point packages to apply instead of a lump total number of skill points. MW does insure that a starting character has a decent set of starting skills in this fashion.

For those not familiar with BRP, note that a character can attempt any skill pretty much that has a starting base value of 1 or better…so a skill like oratory, which has a base chance of 5%, can be tried by pretty much anyone even if the chance of success is tiny. The skills above only reflect those in which Asterius got training, however.

The flavor text in MW is rife. It’s aimed at helping the player to imagine who his or her character is as they roll the PC up, so you can start blind with char gen (as I did) and end up with a character that you can “see.”

There are no point-buy rules provided in MW (BRP does offer this however in its core). The game is focused on a starting core of random char gen.

I may roll up a mage next so you can see what the sorcery looks like. Until next time….!

System vs. System: Character Building in 4E vs. BRP

I was messing around for the first time in a good while with actually writing game material, and got inspired to make a character using the Heroes of Elemental Chaos book for 4E, and compare it to an equivalent character build in BRP. I'm seriously entertaining the idea of going all BRP all the time right now, but one selling point is to make sure that the system can and will support the many weird fantasy archetypes that I love in my games, and which are already supported by a wealth of info in D&D and Pathfinder.

So for this experiment I first made a genasai stormsoul who is a hexblade with the windlord theme. She's a blue skinned, crystal haired woman with a perpetually shocking quality to her. The short version of her character write-up is like so: she's bound to an elemental pact, which grants her a blade of chaos, through which she can channel devastating blows. She has the traditional eldritch blast, can occasionally fly in the air and strike foes as she does, moves fluidly through rough terrain, and can conjure up some powerful armor that damages foes around it. Her 4E character sheet looks like this:

Okay! So lots of text. This is a sample of how I stat out 4E characters for home use, just for reference; I try to condense the necessary info on one page or as close as possible. I use short hand like "uteoynt" and such for "until the end of your next turn" and so forth. Anything that ended up requiring thumb-flipping through the books would be a Bad Thing in terms of game pace. I don't like the 4E Character Builder PC records, either; they're okay, but if I don't have a hands-on design, then I tend to lose touch with what and why my character is doing what it does mechanically.

So anyway, enough of that. Good functional planetouched warlock hexblade stormlord adventure. This is one of the things I like about 4E: it has a lot of stuff you can cram onto even a 1st level character, in terms of thematics and flavor. One of my players (who is not a 4E fan) however once mused that the problem he has with 4E was fairly simple: never did he play a character who felt so godlike in description but in actual play was relatively pathetic. How true this can be.

So designing an equivalent character at level 1 in Pathfinder is nigh impossible, but you could probably get something that simulates the power range and effects by maybe 3rd to 5th level. BRP is a different beast entirely, however. It's not level based at all, for one, and it doesn't specifically have genasai and such, but you can fake it a bit and make one anyway.

For BRP, I picked "heroic" to start her for character generation, as  heroic feels comfortably at the same power level as low level 4E characters. I made her a wizard specializing in sorcery with the option to spend her bonus skill points on general magery if she so desired. I am calling her a genasai planetouched on the sheet, but did not bother to work out any special genasai stats; we're going to let the sorcery do all that work for us. In the end, I generated this:

 Not bad, eh? I even added a few extras in that she had the points for (heal, moonrise....two things her 4E counterpart can't do) to make up for one omission involving her armor spell. She has Sorcerer's Armor, which protects her, but it doesn't also deal damage, unfortunately; there may be spells that would do this, which could be linked, but I was going for quick and easy. Likewise, Sorcerer's Razor simulates the blade of chaos element (to which I provided her a broadsword she can enhance for damage), and wings of the sky provides some of the elemental knockdown effect for her. She learned two basic magician's spells: blast (to simulate eldritch blast) and lift (for flight).

Anyway, the BRP version of Atalasia injects the flavor (albeit with some player caveat toward what she is) but with better overall functionality; this character can do a lot more than just fly 30 feet and then spin someone off 5 feet with a quick sword thrust. About the only thing I didn't get right was the armor that damages with intense cold....will have to play around with BRP's sorcery a bit (or look in the BRP Magic Book) and see if there's a way to do it.

(EDIT: it did just occur to me that with giving her the ability to summon an elemental, then maybe what's really going on here is she's summoning a cold elemental that she binds to her armor, which in turn generates cold damage through its attacks against those who come too close....so, problem solved!)

2221 - After the Nemesis Cataclysm: A BRP Post-Apocalypse Sci Fi Setting

This campaign actually played out in its first form using GURPS 4th edition, but I subsequently revised it for use with BRP, which was an easier set of mechanics to introduce players to. Either way, it may offer some inspirational ideas for your own future Apocalypse Campaigns!

2221 – After the Nemesis Cataclysm


The End of Earth: The Earther’s View

The end of the world happened about 100 years ago, although almost no pocket of civilization left keeps records anymore, so there is some debate about exactly when it happened. Best guesses from the organization called the Recorders is that it began sometime in 2121. This is the first time that records from the Old World speak of the entity known today as Nemesis.

Not much is known about Nemesis in the present, although it is thought to have been a great and terrible being from the sky, which passed near the world of man and wreaked terrible destruction upon the vast civilization of humanity. To the men of the current era it is seen as a quasi-mystical event, a grand cleansing that unraveled the civilization of old, from which a handful of worthy souls rose anew. The name, Nemesis, has come to hold terrifying connotations of reverence, awe, and fear. It is, to many, a terrifying god of darkness.

Not much else is known of this time, though the small handful of scholars called the recorders do seek to remember or salvage what little they can of the lost lore. It is known that Nemesis was heralded by several archons of the sky, which descended to wreak terrible destruction upon the world, in honor of their dark master. Wherever you see vast craters and scars upon the earth, you are looking at the tread marks of these archons. The cradle of the West, near the free city of Fenx, owes much of its life to the vast footfall of the archons, which itself filled with life-bringing water.

The most devastating effect of the great cataclysm was the arrival of the so-called Progenitor. Very little is known about what the Progenitor was, but it is known that the mysterious object was nick-named Thanatos by the ancients, who appear not to have understood what it was.

It was only after the great footfalls of the archons and the searing heat of the skies cast by Nemesis that the Progenitor came to Earth, and began to seed. Thousands upon thousands of what could only be described as pods, many of which are still plainly visible across the wilderlands, crashed to earth and exploded open, spewing forth mysterious gasses, spores they were called, which implanted themselves in everything, be it the soil or living creatures, and began to grow. Men and animals who inhaled the spores went mad, become ravenous beings driven to hunger and violence. From the soil, new plant life grew, strange and terrible life that was much more dangerous than normal plants. Soon, the first animals of the Progenitor appeared; some simple creatures, other terrifying giant therapods with six eyes, four jaw-like tentacles, two legs and long, prehensile tails. These creatures were immediately hostile to man and animal alike. Survival during this early period was harsh.

Over the years, it has been a long struggle for man and his devastated environment, working to survive against the new life brought by Thanatos, a form of life which survives by virtue of the devastation caused by Nemesis and the Archons. There are pockets of humanity which survive, and some claim that there are men in the sky who still survive, waiting for the day when they will come down to bring humanity’s surviving descendants to the mysterious safety of the starry heavens.

This is the future now of 2221.



The End of Earth: The Solar Colonial View

The world came to an end in a few short months. It began when the ISA Deep Space Array, a manned research and scientific outpost near Pluto in the vicinity of the Kuiper Belt detected a rapid approaching object that radiated a low level of heat but appeared to be immense in size. The object was dubbed Nemesis, after recollections of the very old but discarded hypothesis of the Nemesis star, once used to suggest that a large stellar object traversing the solar system might have gravitationally dislodged asteroids and comets, sending them hurling in to the solar system to lead to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Here, whether it was a fluke or not, was a massive object, a brown dwarf, which was about to pass dangerously close to both the Sun and the planets of the solar system.

Nemesis took a trajectory through the solar system which brought it alarmingly close to Earth. Space colonies had been established on Titan and several other Jovian moons, as well as extensive colonies on Mars, the Moon, and even research stations over Venus and Mercury. While most of the colonies were relatively safe, it became painfully evident that Earth would suffer a catastrophic near-miss.

As Nemesis came closer, it became evident that the situation was worse than could be imagined, for the heavy gravitational pull of the brown dwarf was dragging a large mass of asteroids and planetoids with it. Worse yet, it was dislodging cometary debris from the Kuiper Belt and beyond. Over a matter of weeks, thousands of planet-killer sized objects were detected heading inward toward the solar system, creating a devastating barrage of objects, any one of which hitting Earth could lead to catastrophe. The largest of these objects appears to be in a tidally-locked orbital pattern around Nemesis, and was labeled Thanatos.

Humanity’s preparations for the end of time included an effort to export as many carefully selected people as possible to the Solar Collective, as the colonies came to be called. Efforts at deterring planet-killer size objects were undertaken, but with limited success, for there was no amount of time and effort that could possibly deflect the number of incoming objects toward Earth.

After four months, the first of a series of asteroids and cometary debris struck Earth and the moon, followed by more than a dozen more strikes. The largest single impact object was a mile in diameter, but that was more than enough. Eleven successive strikes took almost the entire ecosystem, let alone the civilizations of man, out in a matter of hours. Only a few well-placed or lucky installations and cities survived for any length of time, and even then the wave of regression, followed by the nuclear winter and the devastation on both climate and food resources left 99.9% of all humanity dead.

The Solar Colonies watched in horror, unable to do much more than plan for future efforts to return and re-colonize their home world. That was when the Thanatos Object appeared to launch thousands of objects, like seed pods, at Earth and Mars, pelting both planets with a rain of steady asteroids for a period of weeks. On Mars it was immediately evident that the seed pods contained strange life, which seemed to have been genetically tailored to the unique environment and slight atmosphere of Mars. Because of Mars’s slight atmosphere, however, the vast majority of life spawned from the pods was microbial, with a handful of larger creatures that appeared to be remarkably efficient at converting and producing a meaningful atmosphere. It instantly transformed what was a millennial terraforming project initiated by humans for the last six decades in to an event that would take only a century or two.

It wasn’t until a year later that spacecraft observing Earth revealed that the objects on Earth were also seed pods, which had seeded the earth with the spores, bacteria, eggs and seeds of an entire alien ecosystem. Unlike on Mars, it appeared that the pods on Earth had less work to do, and so began to hatch all sorts of beasts, both foul and friendly. The severely weakened ecosystem of Earth was being attacked by alien invaders. Amazingly, it appeared that in the wake of Nemesis, an effort at alien colonization was underway.

Within three years, a project was launched by the Mars colony to pursue Nemesis and investigate all they could learn about the Thanatos object. It was evident now that what was previously believed to be a close orbital body to Nemesis was, in fact, a slower-than-light colony world, using Nemesis as a means of transportation and expansion. It would be decades before the project returned, using the fusion-powered Starbringer spacecraft, with firm evidence that Thanatos was a relic, ancient, controlled by an unknown artificial intelligence, seeding any potential world that Nemesis passed by. The object itself was some sort of immense processor and seeder, managed by curious self-replicating biomechanical robots reminiscent of Von Neumann machines.

Of all the alien creatures observed to date on both Mars and Earth, no evidence of true intelligence has manifested. This has led to a great deal of speculation about the real purpose of Thanatos, and where its intelligent creators have gone. Speculation ranges from suspicion that the artifact is a relic, long abandoned but still functional, to the fear that sister objects containing STL world ships of the intelligence behind this impressive terra-forming project may be on the way. For now, it remains a mystery.

A century after the event, the Solar Collective is an organized and efficient society of humans, with a strong presence on Mars, where they have made great headway in genetic engineering while learning to control and manipulate the alien environment introduced by Thanatos. The Jovian moon colonies are strong, and new colonies on the Moon of Earth have been built to replace those wiped out in the cataclysm. Recently, direct evidence from observatories on the Moon has shown that mankind survived the great extinction, and now holds its own in small colonies throughout the world.

The Collective is lead by the Colonial Director, a woman named Samaris Yingada, who has decided that the time is now ripe for the first tentative efforts at re-colonization must begin. Ten thousand men and women have volunteered. The Lunar Base has become the staging point for the re-colonization, and a brave new era of exploration and rediscovery is almost underway.

Next: Character Generation