Gods of the Fall - Gods of the [blank] part 4 - Gods of The Strange

All these worlds and more ...

Far Beyond Quickened

You've explored the strange, you've used cyphers and seen how they can effect the real world as easily as they do recursions, and now you've found that you have started to see the fundamental underlying truth. You are starting to understand how the strange is connected to the prime reality. You've started to awaken to greater power still. You're more than just quickened now. Now, you are a god of the strange.

Characters
You're going to need The Strange for this one in addition to Gods of the Fall (and probably the CSR, but you may be able to do without). The characters should start out just like any other quickened characters. For the first tier things seem "normal," or at least as normal as things would be in The Strange.

After a few sessions however things change, and the character's catch glimpses of the fundamental code of the strange in situations where that isn't to be expected. They also start to display an unusual aura, this may be a literal corona of light on Ardeyn, an effect of pheromones and bio-circuitry on Ruk, and a bearing and demeanor shift on earth. The characters are not different, yet, but at times other people can see there is more to them.

In time, after the reach tier two, they discover they can tap into the strange in powerful and subtle ways no matter where they are. They gain Strange Shifts that function throughout the prime reality, all recursions, and the strange. These shifts should probably not be on Focus abilities to minimize bookkeeping and to emphasize that their powers are beyond all these worlds. They also choose dominions which could be very traditional, or very modern (a god of computers, a god of media), and abilities that further grant them power over the realities they visit.

Setting
The setting is that of The Strange, but dialed up a bit. These are characters who can not just travel between realities and work to prevent Earth from drawing the attention of planetovores, but in time they are capable of fighting those planetovores on something approaching equal terms. Any recursion they visit will integrate them into its narrative as ever more potent and vital figures and in time these characters may be able to become gods of multiple recursions above and beyond any they may create for themselves.

Adventure Ideas
If you ever wanted to have a planetovore actually attack the Earth this might be the ideal time to run a campaign of such scale. At the apex of their powers god characters will be able to confront and hopefully defeat planetovores of level 15 and save the Earth, or damn it when they become planetovores themselves.

Story Seed - QPU1

Image Source: http://matze2001.deviantart.com/art/core-Mandelbulb3D-with-Parameter-610498827

Jean flipped open the case, "Looks different than I would expected." The glow of Morrison radiation seemed faint in the brightly lit room. "OK, so let's hear it..."

Harv coughed, "Yes ma'am, I'll have Kennedy relay the story, I was out of it."

"Yes, right, a banishment cypher. Most unfortunate. Proceed Mr. Kennedy."

The younger of the two men nodded. "As you know ma'am the Estate and the Cabal have been aggressive in countering all of our Earth and Ruk based attempts to engineer a quantum processor. Thanks to Project August however we learned of a deep indigo Estate project. They called it Heisenburg One-Zero-One. An untethered recursion deep in the strange, well outside of the shoals."

"I'm well aware of the preliminary details," Jean interrupted. "Get to the point."

"Ah, yes, sorry. The team translated to our facility in Ruk and stole a voidship. Extensive use of cyphers and artifacts enabled us to accelerate our outbound velocity to reach H101 far faster than the Estate could have accounted for if they learned of our operational parameters."

Kennedy saw a look forming on Jean's face, "We infiltrated the recursion on the ninth day or the operation. The recursion had some truly unique laws, standard physics mixed with some kind of exotic form of mad science. Whatever it was they were doing exactly as we'd expected, and piecing together a working quantum processor."

He gestured to the object in the case. "We wasted their people and grabbed the processor. The recursion still stands but the Estate won't even hear back about our operation for at least four to eight more weeks until their next voidship can make the full route back. Unless they want to risk a translation."

Jean waited, and when nothing more seemed forthcoming she nodded. "So what we have here is a golden opportunity."

Nuts & Bolts #76 - Strange Dreams

I was on the internet and saw a post on twitter from +Bruce R Cordell

Dreamed I was exploring a haunted house. Found a relic on roof. Hit by a lighting bolt. Zapped into an unknown dimension called… Awake.

— Bruce R Cordell (@BruceCordell) April 14, 2016

Which gave me a flash of inspiration regarding the nature of Bruce's game The Strange. I wondered, would The Strange work as a game of exploration within the realms of dreams? The quick answer was, of course, very much a "yes." That just led me to figure out how to make that work.

Let's start with the strange itself, that alien dark energy computer network that is unknowably vast, and possibly unknowably old. Instead of a network of dark energy that spans the universe the strange instead becomes a manifestation of the chaos of humanity's collective unconscious. The strange is a manifestation of billions of minds past and present, and their thoughts and dreams.

Within the chaos of the strange certain ideas, fictions, stories, and the like can take seed and form stable dream realm recursions much in the way that they take seed within human culture. These ideas, myths, legends, stories, and the like form small stable regions within the strange that grow larger and more stable as more people experience these things and invest their minds to them. This is little different from the game as written but for the fundamental foundation of the strange itself.

In this version of setting, Ardeyn is a game that was published and beat World of Warcraft at its own game. Becoming the biggest selling MMORPG ever it has captured a huge piece of the world's attention an imagination. Having a collective and fundamental setting suddenly receive such massive attention resulted in an explosion of the Ardeyn dream world (recursion) in size and complexity to its current day state. What most people don't realize is that the game caught on because Ardeyn had already seeded into the collective unconscious.

Ruk itself is quite a mystery. It's denizens are entirely aware of the waking world and utterly deny any origin within mankind's collective psyche.  If the strange is humanity's unconscious dreaming, then where else could Ruk have come from? Who are the people of Ruk and what part of ourselves spawned them? What does the Karum's goal of breaking Ruk free of the waking world mean for humanity and why are there other Ruk citizens fighting against that goal?

Worse still are the nightmares that have become self perpetuating. Nightmares spawned from horrific events like war, disease, and worse have spawned living beings that delight in our torture. These nightmares given consciousness and form have become the Planetovores. The planetovores seek to cross from the dream to the waking world where they will finally be free to prey on humans who will not be able to simply wake and escape.

The Implausible Geographical Society is the most recent incarnation of an ancient order of dream walkers that extends back to the earliest civilizations. Men and women who have found they possess the ability to wake within the dream and translate their consciousness from the waking world to the dream recursions at will, and even swim in the chaos of the strange itself to find other dreams long forgotten.

Meanwhile the Estate is a more modern group exploring the nature of waking dreams from a more scientific bent. Formed by Carter Morrison after an experiment with waking dreams spawned a sudden inception within the strange. The sudden creation of Ardeyn in mankind's collective unconscious risked making too many people aware of the world of dreams, and thus potentially allowing a portal between the waking and dreaming worlds. The Estate is funded by Morrison Software (makers of the Ardeyn MMO) and maintains a goal of ensuring that lucid dreaming is used responsibly.

In this version of the game Cyphers become distillations of the collective unconscious, solidified psychic energy that represents an idea and has condensed enough psychic energy to manifest even in the waking world. In a way cyphers represent humanity's ability to change the world around them.

What do you think? Could The Strange work as a game of dream worlds and exploration of humanity's collection psychic unconscious?

Nuts & Bolts #68 - Hacking the Cypher System - Recalls Past Lives (new Cypher System focus)

The genesis of this idea comes from the post-show chit-chat after this week's Cypher Live. I like to play around with rules, adapting things within games and between systems. This is no different with the Cypher System and something we were talking about triggered this idea in my head. The core mechanic of this focus is one we've seen already in The Strange in the form of the "Reach Beyond" ability that that game's types all gain at 2nd tier. In this case, it provides a great way to emulate a character who can recall past lives...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You live, you die, you're born again. An endless cycle of rebirth, or so some say. Some even believe that you can tap into that prior life, recall those memories, regain lost knowledge from a prior existence. You're one of those few who not only believes such things, but can actually do so. Through regular meditation and intense focus you can reach back to your prior lives and temporarily regain lost skills, abilities, and memories.

This focus gradually allows you to unlock past lives and some of the abilities that those past selves had. This focus can work for any Type, and has the potential to allow for characters with a great deal of depth or breadth by tapping in their past lives.

Connection: Choose or randomly determine one of the following:

1. Pick one other PC. One of your past lives was a relation of theirs. 
2. Pick one other PC. Your most recent past life was a mentor or teacher of theirs prior to your last death.
3. Pick one other PC. You recall a past life where you knew one of their past lives. 
4. Pick one other PC. You believe that this character is on a path of negative karma, and you want to help make sure that they do not slip backwards on their reincarnation cycle.

Minor Effect Suggestion: You gain a flash of insight into a past situation that can help you. Your next task gains an asset.

Major Effect Suggestion: You recall a past life memory in vivid detail. This memory provides a clue to the mysteries of your current situation.

Tier 1:

• Past Life Knowledge - You can recall the specifics of a prior incarnation of your soul with great detail. Work with your GM to establish the details and lifetime of this past life. Choose one focus that this past life had. Enabler.
• Regression (3 Intellect Points) - You focus your mind on a past life and bring to mind a skill or ability of that past version of yourself. You gain a focus ability (including abilities which grant skill training) from one of you past lives' foci (as gained through the Past Life Knowledge abilities) at your current Tier or lower, and can use the skill or ability once paying all normal costs for that ability. To use it again, you must use Regression again. Enabler.

Tier 2:

• Trained Mind - You are trained in the techniques of meditation and focus of your mind, including any tasks involving recalling memorized information. Enabler.
• Strong Soul - You constant meditation and focus on yourself and your past lives has granted you an exceptional reserve of inner strength. You gain +4 to your Intellect pool. Enabler.

Tier 3:

• Improved Regression - When you use Regression to gain a focus ability you can retain that skill or ability for 1 minute during which time you may use it freely, paying the normal costs. Enabler.
• Additional Past Life Knowledge - You have gained the knowledge of another of your past lives. As with the Tier one ability you may work with the GM to establish the details and lifetime of this past life. You may choose a focus that this life possessed and gain its skills and abilities when using Regression. Enabler.

Tier 4:

• Specialized Mind - You are now specialized in meditation techniques, mental focus, and memory recall techniques. Enabler.
• Regained Training - You have connected to one of your past lives strongly enough that you can recall portions of it freely, without need of concentration. You may choose one focus ability (including ability that provides skill training) from Tiers one through three from among your two past lives gained through this focus. You gain that ability as a permanent ability that you may use freely without need of using Regression. Enabler.

Tier 5:

• Superior Regression - When you use Regression to gain a focus ability you can retain that ability for 1 hour during which time you may use it freely, paying the normal costs. Enabler.
• Additional Past Life Knowledge - Create a third past life and choose a focus that is possessed. This life and its experiences are now available for your use with Regression. Enabler.

Tier 6:

• Additional Past Life Knowledge - You gain a fourth past life and associated focus that you may now call upon using the Regression ability. Enabler.
• Regained Mastery - Choose a skill or focus ability provided by your four past lives at any Tier level. You gain that ability as a permanent ability that you may use freely without need of using Regression. Enabler.

Story Seed - Skyward

Image Source: http://bloochikin.deviantart.com/art/Biplane-335183042

Stella whooped with joy, the engine of her bi-plane was purring like a great cat once more. It felt good to be up in the Blue. The two weeks on Terrace Steel Wing while Killian worked the Canary's engine over had been agonizing. She'd hemorrhaged funds to pay for the repairs, her room, her board, and all the while the best she could manage for work was low paying watch duty. 

Now though, the Canary was back soaring through the Blue, and Stella even had a contract. A strong box locked in her storage that needed to get to Terrace Green ASAP. Stella rolled her craft, noting that the engine didn't even seem to notice; she'd have to thank Killian again. She looked up at the Bright, and then rolled the craft onto its wing to get a look down; down into the deeps of the Blue and beyond that the Black. 

Stella righted the craft and set course for Terrance Green. She had a good few hours of flying to get there, and she really couldn't afford to waste fuel until she had a little more coin in her pockets. Leveling off Stella craned her neck and checked in all directions, as well as sparing a glance both to the Bright and the Black. She was alone in the Blue today, or at least alone for a good fifteen or twenty miles. She smiled broadly, today kept on getting better and better, back in the Blue, no pirates or enemy ships in sight, and she had a paying job; it was almost too good to be true.

Four hours later Stella saw a great black column of smoke on the horizon, a sooty line that got larger the closer she drew. After an hour it was obvious the smoke was coming from Terrace Green, and within the next half hour Stella grew more and more horrified as she approached the farming terrace. The buildings, all of them, were still burning, but worst, even more horrifying, was seeing the fields burn. Who could possibly bring themselves to burn arable land, and perfectly good produce. Terrace Green produced enough food to feed a half dozen other Terraces, and now it was burning. Stella circled, saw that the landing strips were clear and brought the Canary down.

Stella dropped down off the Canary's wing and looked around in dismay. Burned bodies were everywhere. The building were either burning or charred ruins. Nothing moved but the dancing flames and the blowing smoke. There was only death and destruction here. But why?

The low droning of heavy engines powering massive vertical lift propellers broke the funerary silence. Stella spun and saw a great airship rising from Blackward. The blood red banners with inverted black triangles made her heart quail. Pirates. The Crimson Points were well known reavers of the skies. "Give us the strong box, and we'll let you live!" thundered a menacing voice from dozens of speakers mounted on the airship.

"Yeah, right," Stella muttered. She clambered up into the cockpit of the Canary and kicked the engine over. It was going to take her best flying to escape. Whatever was in the strongbox in her hold, was enough to get an entire Terrace destroyed, and that meant it was valuable. Too valuable for these pirates to let her live. She took off and immediately dove for the Black. With a little luck the Canary could lose them in the thin air of the deep Blue. 

Nuts & Bolts #64 - Skyward, a Recursion for The Strange

Switching things up this week ...

I created this recursion as part of my Cypher Live discussion of Worlds Numberless and Strange this past weekend with +James August Walls and +Ryan Chaddock . Jim created Sea Lion Abby, and Ryan created Dead Drop End (forthcoming) as part of this exercise. We hope you enjoy our efforts, both the show and these recursions. 

And for my regular readers, the Story Seed you'd normally get today will post on Wednesday and be set in Skyward, please enjoy, and let me know if you would like to see more...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The skies are blue, the clouds are fluffy and white, and the wind carries with it the sound of diesel engines. Life in Skyward is lived in among the clouds. Airships, planes of all kinds, and grand floating platforms all struggle daily to stay afloat. Down below there is only madness and the Black. All around was the Blue, and above the Bright. None know what happens to those who fall into the Black, or those who try to find the ground, but neither are ever heard from again.

Skyward is a recursion of endless skies. Planes and airships traverse the blue moving between the Terraces, platforms of various sizes that keep themselves afloat by unknown means. If not for the Terraces humanity would long ago have died out. These ports contain the only known remnants of earth that allow for food to be grown, and are one of the few places where water can be reliably collected. The inhabitants use food, plant, and animal refuse to synthesize diesel fuel to power all manner of aircraft. The Terraces are also the only places where aircraft can be built, serviced, and launched. In Skyward control over the Terraces power.

The inhabitants of Skyward know that resources are finite, and that any lost ship or man is gone forever. Aerial combat seldom involves firearms, and only rarely do planes get shot down, for anything that falls into the Black is irrecoverable. Instead acrobatic flight and daredevil boarding procedures are the result, with men and women trying to hijack planes in mid-air, or larger ships using cabled harpoons to physically ensnare smaller planes.

Worse still is the well hidden fact that some of the Terraces are beginning to fail, and fall into the Black. Those in power are doing what they can to hide this fact from their people and their enemies, while also beginning to consider the need to capture other Terraces from their enemies. War is brewing in Skyward, a war over what little resources remain.

Hearsay in Skyward:

• Land Ho! - A pilot trader has found actual land, rising up out of the dark in some far flung part of the sky. If true this could mean potential for new resources, and for a great deal of power to those who control them. 
• From Above - Rumor has it that the Bright is becoming less so, as if something were blocking the light from above somehow. Somebody needs to fly high out of the Blue and find out what is happening. 
• Salvage Rights - The Terrace of Iron Falcon has put out a bounty on “salvaged” enemy aircraft. Of course the only way to salvage an aircraft is to board it and kill its pilot or crew. Is the risk worth the reward? 

Level: 3
Laws: Mad-Science (diesel-punk)
Playable Races: Human
Size: apparently infinite, actually several thousand square miles
Skills: Skyward Navigation
Foci: Collects Bounties, Pilots Aircraft*, Fires a Blunderbuss**, Steals, Leads, Looks for Trouble
Connections to the Strange: Fly downward long enough into the Black and you can emerge directly into the Strange … but getting back into Skyward isn’t so easy.
Connections to Earth: Occasional translation and inapposite gates open within cloud banks high in the skies.
Trait: Graceful (+1 speed pool)
Spark: 15%
Inspirations: Tailspin, Waterworld, Mad Max, Crimson Skies, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, other pulpy tales of airships

Notes on Foci:
* Pilots Aircraft is a simple reskin of the Pilots Starcraft focus from In Translation (pg 69)
** Fires a Blunderbuss is a reskin of the Fires a Blaster focus from In Translation (pg 46)

As a note, projectile weapons tend to be resource heavy because you often cannot recover the projectiles. As a result firearms in Skyward are much less advanced and common than one might expect. Characters who take the Fires a Blunderbuss focus are some of the rare few who know how to use their weapons for best effect and are willing to deal with the high cost of ammunition and fuel (blunderbusses use a special form of kerosene infused black powder), as well as the potential for sending enemy pilots spiraling down into the Black where their planes and gear cannot be salvaged.

Story Seed - Stranded

Image Source:http://noro8.deviantart.com/art/Breather-560339472

I try to keep my breathing regular. Even. Steady. I think back to my training and concentrate on that.

I'm not really sure how I got here. For that matter I don't really know where here is. It's not anyplace I want to be, that much I do know. Ruined and worn out, this place is clearly abandoned. The paint is faded, chipped and peeling, but I can still see where once "danger" had been painted. Worse still and more troubling I can see a biohazard symbol.

I check my mask again. My gloves. The cuffs and collar of my jacket. I tighten the straps around the tops of my boots a little more. I shift uneasily on the broken cabinet that I'm sitting on.

I was with my squad. The six of us were raiding a suspected drug den. Some kind of fancy new drug. The report said it made people crazy. Gave them visions, like LSD, but also tweaked them out like some kind of methamphetamine or coke. The charges blew the doors open and we breached the place. All I remember after that was some kind of purple flash and a sound like somebody ripping a bedsheet. The light was blinding, and that sound was so loud.

I check my watch and sigh; barely five minutes have passed. This cabinet is a shitty chair. I check my weapon. Again. It's fine. I tap my comms. Static. Again. I can't help but look down at the strange floor.

I froze. Hunkered down. Waited. With some time my eyes cleared. With a little more the ringing in my ears faded. I found myself here. This strange decaying place. With its signs of danger, and its hints of biological corruption.

And then there was the floor.

There were windows in the floor. The glass was thick and clear. Below the floor there was -are?- other places. I cannot grasp what I am seeing. One window shows a deep blue sea; an octopus gliding by gives me a curious look. Another shows the kind of blackness that can only be space, broken as it is by pinpricks of cold light. A rolling meadow. A dark forest. Dozens more.

It's been an hour. I'm starting to feel strange. I remember things in bits now. The light and sound came from a hole that looked torn out of the world. It reminds me of the run down movie theater from my childhood. The screen was torn, and if you sat in the wrong place -or maybe the right one- you could see through the movie to the old backstage. Like a hole in the world.

The others aren't coming for me. Maybe they can't. I stand. The state of this place allows me to easily see my footprints. I backtrack to where I woke up. It takes some time, but I find the right window. I can see the warehouse. I can see the bodies of my squad. The drug dealers, or whatever they are. The strange machinery they are using is only an observation to me. I can't worry about that.

I have to figure out how to open this window again.

Some Poll Results and a New Poll

A couple of weeks back I put up some informal straw polls for the various Cypher System games looking to see what 3rd party support people were interested in. I thought I would post the current results here:

Cypher System

My first poll was to see what people wanted out of the Cypher System:

• 51% said Settings
• 25% said Adventures
• 18% wanted more Foci
• 3% wanted more Descriptors
• and 3% had other requests that were more specific

The day after I asked what format people wanted adventures to be in:

• 48% wanted to see the Instant Adventure format 
• 26% wanted Fully Plotted Campaigns 
• 16% wanted Adventure Seed or Ideas
• 9% wanted Fully Plotted One-Off Adventures

I also asked if people wanting settings wanted something new or something adapted:

• 62% wanted new Original Settings
• 38% wanted Adapted Settings

Based on the (almost) 2 to 1 preference for Original Settings, I created a new survey. This one is a bit more detailed in order to capture some additional thoughts on settings and what people want to see. Please CLICK HERE to respond. You'll need a Google account to reply (I did this to avoid people being able to reply multiple times).

Numenera

Since I asked what people wanted in support of Cypher System I figured I would do the same for Numenera:

• 70% wanted more Adventures
• 15% was new Descriptors and/or Visitants
• 8% wanted to see more Setting Detail
• 6% wanted new Foci
• and 2% had other requests that were more specific

The Strange

Since I asked what people wanted in support of Cypher System I figured I would do the same for The Strange:

• 79% wanted more Adventures
• 11% wanted more Recursions
• 7% wanted new Foci
• and 4% had other requests that were more specific

Nuts & Bolts #48 - On the Fringe of The Strange

Recently I binge watched Fringe via Amazon Prime. The weird cases, alternate realities, alternate timelines, and exotic creatures really make for a pretty fun show. It took the formula of the X-Files and dialed it to "11," and in the process I think it did it better. However that's all beside the point as this isn't a review of the show. Instead as I watched five seasons on a near continuous binge I was hit the thought that Fringe would make a good source of inspiration for The Strange RPG from Monte Cook Games.

Now, to be fair, Fringe is already listed in the back matter of The Strange's core book as an inspiration (alongside some other great TV shows and films). Given the default assumption that the player characters will probably be operatives of the Estate, Fringe becomes an especially good source of inspiration what with its Fringe Division, civilian contractors, and slightly mad scientists...

... but let's take a closer look shall we?

Oh, and beware spoilers ahead ...

The Fringe Incidents/Cases
The basic formula for the early seasons of the show was: weird something happens, probably somebody dies weirdly, Fringe team investigates. As story structures go this is not revolutionary, but it is fairly tried and true. It's also great for early sessions of a game focusing on Estate Operatives.

Early seasons tended to feature things like odd events (people getting stuck in amber, finding a crook stuck halfway inside a wall, etc), odd diseases or biological attacks (a virus that makes your skin grow shut, a virus that makes people crystalize, a chemical that makes bones disintegrate, etc.), and/or other weird events (serial killers with weird habits, people turning into monsters, psychic powers, etc). These events can be great inspiration for The Strange when viewed through a lens otherworldliness.

In The Strange only Cyphers can be brought from world to world via translation and retain their normal use. There are ways to bring other items over, but they are either rare (like Recursion Pods), or cause the object or creature in question to degrade under the law of the new recursion or prime world (inapposite gates and the like). This doesn't stop groups like the Karum, The OSR, and others (including the Estate) from trying to develop ways to make stuff last longer. These experiments on artifacts or technology can form the basis of events that kick off and continue a session. Likewise the use of more exotic cyphers can provide the weird fodder to kick off a game session.

Imagine the chaos on Earth that would ensue from somebody using a Gravity Inversion Grenade. Likewise a Mind-restricting Wall, could make an excellent way for a criminal to prevent pursuit or apprehension. A Slave Maker could allow a criminal to co-opt innocent civilians into doing is dirty work for him without the need for explosives and blackmail. These could all set off a session, and possibly an entire campaign.

The Creatures
Weird creatures were a big staple of the series as well. From parasites rendered large, or bio-engineered to kill, to viruses that caused people to turn into giant half man half porcupine monsters the show features a lot of biotechnology and a lot of beasties. Creatures from another recursion may not normally be able to translate, and some may not be able to survive for long on Earth or another recursion with different laws, but that doesn't mean that there aren't creatures on Ruk, Ardeyn, and other worlds that could survive on outside their home.

Likewise the use of cyphers or working artifacts on parasitical or other creatures to change them here on Earth could explain the presence of giant amoebas that consume your guts, or other such biological horrors. The best part here is that you can easily step outside the pre-existing framework of cyphers and/or artifacts. After all when the PCs finally catch the guy using "strange" tech to control giant wasps that tech could be depleted or burnt out. Cyphers don't even need to leave a burned out husk behind if you don't want.

The Tech
When biotech isn't killing people and making a mess of things it tends to be weird technology. Machines that let people walk through walls, or travel to other worlds, or teleport, or even kill people just by accessing their computer. As with the prior examples all of these can easily be the purview of an artifact or a cypher, but they can also be the result, possibly unintentional, of trying to replicate the technology of another world here on Earth. The neural interface of the All Song in Ruk might be responsible for a bunch of people going mad and committing crime, or dying when duplicated here on Earth.

Consider that whatever items from the strange and recursions you use they should behave effects that are well outside the norm if they are going to attract the attention of the Estate quickly. A weapon needs to have an odd effect or perhaps some kind of lacking trait (e.g. an "explosive" that doesn't detonate, but disintegrates leaving no "blast" radius, just an effect radius). It's also more interesting and easy to work NPCs into your games if you have victims and survivors. If some weird weapon is used leave somebody alive to tell the PCs what they saw (and how weird it was).

Observers
The Observers are the ultimate boogeymen of the series. They manipulate events apparently to ensure that their timeline stabilizes enough to begin colonizing the past in season five. They're with us from day one however, with at a minimum tiny cameos in every episode, and many times a far more prominent role. While it is almost 100% non-tenable for a GM to include an NPC "Observer" in every session, it is relevant to The Strange to have invaders from another world or time (see below).

It may also be possible to use the idea of the Observer as a surrogate for the aliens that created the strange itself. As a GM I find the idea of there being aliens who control the strange visiting Earth (which we know seems to interact differently with the strange). They may be remnants of the original builders, interstellar refugees like the citizens of Ruk (indeed, the Karum and Quiet Cabal could be repurposed for this use), or perhaps even a manifestation of the strange itself if the GM wishes to imbue the dark energy network with some form of intelligence. In this way you may want to have the characters make an Intellect roll (difficulty 4 perhaps) to recall seeing these strange visitors once they finally come face to face (or face to photo) with them and realize that events involving the strange and recursions are being watched by some other party...

The Other Side
... and now for the elephant in the room ...

The Strange is a game about other worlds; worlds seeded by fiction and beliefs or by conscious intent. These worlds are unlike our own, but familiar nonetheless. Fringe's "other side" was a more traditional mirror universe (though they thankfully dodged the "evil goatee" cliché), so while the Other Side doesn't serve to directly parallel the setting and story aspects of The Strange it can still inspire them.

Specifically the idea that the recursions that our characters visit are still very much real worlds. They have people whose lives go on when we are not there. They have groups and individuals who have ambitions and plans continue even when we are not around. Walternate didn't sit back and coast during the episodes where he was not featured, instead he was sending shapeshifters to infiltrate our world, or working on the Machine that he believed would end our world (and instead helped to fix his own).

As a GM I think it's easy to forget that these recursions keep going while we are away, and that the more we interact with them the more likely the chances are that the PCs will make enemies. However I think we owe it to ourselves and our players to let those recursions be affected by the players and in turn to have their chance to effect the characters in turn. If the characters stop Karum plans four times in a row the Karum may well decide to end the characters and eliminate a thorn in their side.

I think it's also important for us to remember that translating to other recursions changes the PCs on a fundamental level. They gain new abilities sure, but they also gain new memories, and with those changes they may (should?) also see subtle or not so subtle changes to their personality. A character who Interprets the Law on Earth who goes to Ardeyn where he is a she and has the Rages focus should not act exactly the same. This is partly for the PCs to play with, but it's also for the GM to remind them, and to prompt them by putting situations where those changes would come up into the game. That character no longer Interprets the Law, at all, they Rage; therefore if they see some injustice their reaction should not be one of working within the bounds of law but one of passion and anger.

Take a look at how Fringe portrayed its Other Side versions of the mains differently. The Olivia of universe A was reserved and intense where Fauxlivia was at ease, personable and emotional. Lincoln Lee was just as brainy on both sides but one version was practically meek and the other gregarious and self confident.

Recursions should have a major impact on the game play beyond just their ability to offer a weird locale and a new set of powers each week. They should be alive and offer ways for the characters to change on subtle levels as much as they change on gross levels. They should also be living things that react and change and provide their own ongoing evolution to the story.

Closing Thoughts
At the end of the day I find that after re-watching Fringe it really is one of the best possible sources of inspiration for a game of The Strange, which isn't to say that it couldn't inspire other games. I'd imagine that a game built using FATE and centering on the weird could work very well. Likewise I would think that Call of Cthulhu or Deadlands Noir might be able to benefit from the strange and horrifying ideas of the early series. It also opens my eyes up a little and I will probably approach other series differently when I watch them in order to try and extract ideas for use with various RPGs.

Tuesday Tools #3 - The Strange Custom Character Sheet

Anybody who has played The Strange knows that you can quickly rack up a significant number of pages of character sheet. Each recursion you visit results in a new sheet to "dock" onto your base sheet, and after visiting a half dozen or more recursions you have a rather thick sheaf of paper.

I don't have a solution to that problem ... just sayin'.

However I do have a fix to a more minor issue I have had. Every time I need to create a new recursion sheet I have to redact the abilities and bonuses from one of the prior sheets to arrive at my character's "core",  their descriptor and type only stats.  So I decided that I would try to make my own character sheet for The Strange that included space for "core" stats and also reclaim some of the space lost to the large Cypher box and such.

My sheet can be found here. It's three pages, 2 for the front & back of the "home" recursion (usually Earth) plus a Recursion sheet that can be folded and docked to the main sheet. It's meant for 8.5x11 paper and the weird offset of the main page accounts for the margin of the docking sheet.

Please let me know if you like this and find it useful. Or if you see ways I could improve upon it. I'm especially interested in hearing if the the font is OK. A poker chip compatible version will be dependent entirely on my ability to squeeze more space out of things to make room for the larger circles needed.

CypherCaster Magazine Issue 2 - Out Now!

The second issue of the best fan magazine devoted to the Cypher System is out now. There's a bunch of awesome in here including an excerpt from the first Numenera novel, more Holstenwall for The Strange, the first part of a serialized fiction for Numenera, and more; 52 pages for just $4. If you like the Cypher System games there is almost certainly something in there for you. And if you do buy it and like it please let us know. Post a review on DriveThruRPG or your blog or whatever, tell your friends, and get the word out. The better the magazine does the and the more feedback we get the better we can make future issues.

Also, if you still haven't looked at Issue #1 now is the time! Our inaugural issue is now half off on DriveThruRPG; 44 pages of material for Cypher System for only $2!

Note: As a contributor to the CypherCaster I have a vested interest in its success. That said, it's still awesome.

Tuesday Tools #2 - NPC Records

So like a lot of people (I hope) my memory isn't exactly iron clad under the best of circumstances.  Usually when I throw together an NPC on the fly I'm lucky if I can keep them consistent within the same scene let alone during the entire session or over multiple sessions. As a result I built up a couple of records for use during campaigns.

The first is a generic NPC record. I use this for things like gang members, town guards, soldiers, and the like. Any time that the PCs are meeting one of a group that is pretty much going to be a bunch of cookie cutter goons (and yes, even friendly NPCs can be goons).

The second is a Named NPC Record.  I use this for ... named NPCs ... *ugh* ... Anyways, this sheet is useful for the guys important enough to get names AND who are not under the threat of immediate death. Player contacts, NPC antagonists with a more long term presence, town leaders, generals of armies, gang or guild leaders and the like.

Both of these forms were designed around the standard template for NPCs in the Cypher system but are open and generic enough for use with just about any RPG system.

Nuts & Bolts #35 - Review: Broken Immersion

Want if? Buy it!

Vitals

Published By: Ryan Chaddock Games • 59 pages • $5.00 (currently $3.00) • Full Color PDF

I'm a little behind in my reviews, both in those solicited and unsolicited, but the only way to do better is to make an effort to clear my plate.

What's In It

Broken Immersion is a supplement for The Strange that adds additional detail to the recursion of Ardeyn. Specifically it looks at Ardeyn's origins as an incomplete MMORPG that was uploaded to the strange as a means of plugging or blocking the "hole" (for lack of a better term) allowing the strange to connect directly to Earth.

The first portion of the product looks at character options. This gets a bit meta since it posits that occasionally a character translates in such a way as to gain access to the "character creation screen" of the recursion, a portion of leftover code from the recursion's initial seed. Discussion on options such as gender, race, and "class" (as a window on foci) follows. This elaboration provides a gateway to the meat of the chapter: new character options.

The first portion provides a handful of new racial options which are neither Descriptor nor Foci and provide Advancement options for players to invest in with experience. It's an interesting approach, but has the potential to get awkward when a player translates away (Do they lose access to that Advancement? Do they take a new one appropriate to the new recursion?). Likewise this does not suggest a similar Advancement option for Quephilim and golem characters. It's a nice addition for an Ardeyn based game, but may not work in a more travel prone campaign.

Following that are five new foci filling traditional MMORPG roles like tanking, support, and DPS. These foci are generally good, though as a person who doesn't play any MMOs I may not be the best judge of their match to those kinds of gameplay experiences.

Chapter two looks at the nature of the "base code" of Ardeyn, and how characters may gain foci that can tap directly into that code and manipulate the recursion fundamentally. This is a really interesting take on the recursion and reminds me much of the nature of the strange itself as an alien computer network itself. Four foci are offered to dive into this concept, much like Manipulates Strange Energy does for the strange itself. Of these four one requires the use of new "code cyphers" introduced later in this book. Another, Alters the Landscape, falls a bit flat in my opinion as the ability to actually change the landscape of the game, by adding removing, or moving features like walls, hills, and the like, isn't granted until 6th tier. The lower level abilities are good, but are based more on sensory abilities and object relationships. It's a good focus, but it could have been "advertised" better.

Chapter four introduces "code" cyphers and some new artifacts to the game. If regular cyphers are bits of the program of the strange network itself, then code cyphers are little bits of the program underlying the formation of Ardeyn. Named after video game console commands these cyphers have effects that mimic or are inspired by game effects like friending, going AFK, and the like. The artifacts are mostly a mix of "game gear" like weapons and armor, but there is an interesting "code based" artifact which deploys an invisible (untextured) wall.

The third chapter contains three examples of sub-recursions that are attached to Ardeyn in the form of "quest areas". These are fully detailed and can be run as an adventure session. I'm not certain if I will even gain the chance to use these (or possibly play them) so I left this chapter unread, and merely flipped through it quickly.

Closing Thoughts

Overall Broken Immersion is a pretty good product. There are a number of very good ideas and interesting implementations of the recursion as MMORPG concept. A few of the entries seem to lack a good connection between idea an execution, and the races will require some additional thought before they can be implemented into a standard game of The Strange. For a game set exclusively on Ardeyn there is a lot of material to mine here.

Score: 80% - A lot of great ideas, though some will be less useful than others to different groups.

Author's note: A complimentary review copy of this product was provided for the purposes of this review.

Announcement and Giveaway!

Hello all! You have all hopefully already heard about the release of the first issue of the CypherCaster Magazine, a fan-made e-'zine for Numenera and The Strange (and really all Cypher System Products). That's a shot of the cover right there by the immensely talented +Jeff Brown (aint it awesome).

What you may not know is that I contributed several pages of material based on and expanding on my Story Seed The Tree from earlier this year (the text of The Tree is included as well). These pages are an additional series of field reports regarding the related recursion cluster inspired by Norse myth and presented on Estate letterhead suitable for printing and using as player handouts in your game in addition to their value as inspiration.

To celebrate my first published work and the first issue of the CypherCaster I would like to give a copy away. If you'd like to win a copy of the magazine please send an email to inspstrikes[at]gmail[dot]com (with the [at] and the [dot] replaced with an @ and a . respectively), with the subject "CypherCaster Celebration Contest". Entry deadline is 11:59pm (23:59) on Tuesday 26 May 2015. I'll randomly determine a winner from the entries and have a code for a free copy sent out to you next week.

Story Seed - Rogue Planet

Image Source: http://chimeraartz.deviantart.com/art/Nebula-Practice-8-Paintover-By-Cosmicspark-517283808

The truth is that Ruk, while certainly novel, is not unique. Ruk is but one such world. Other races, other peoples have found the strange and then found too late that they had also found their doom. Among those other races a scant few have been able to seed a recursion and grow it to a size and capability to detach from their prime world and escape.

According to some on Ruk, there is one such world deep in the strange, beyond Earth's shoals. A lonesome sphere that is adrift in the ebbs and whorls of the Malachite Expanse. They say that it is without power or propulsion, though none can say for none have found means to enter. According to these rumors and legends its surface is encrusted with crystallized fundament, and pockmarked with the ruins of long destroyed recursions.

Those that speak of it claim that it is a treasure hunter's paradise where cyphers are plenty and strange artifacts are almost commonplace. Yet, when pressed, no captain of a chaos skiff will admit to knowing its location, and none will hire on for an expedition to find it. With effort, and offers of substances both legal and illicit, one might soon learn that none who have sought this rogue planet have returned.

Some believe that it is mere myth and those who search for it are doomed to the madness of alienation and death. Others say that it is folly to believe that such a world, if it did exist, would remain unclaimed and uninhabited. They say that those who find it are not able to leave because those who have claimed that recursion refuse to allow the truth of it to spread.

And then there are the darker rumors. Rumors that deep in that emerald cloud there is something neither craft nor recursion nor planetovore. Something older and more powerful than any of those. And  that something does not wish to be found.

Story Seed - The Tree

Story Seed - Edge of Reality

Image Source: http://tohad.deviantart.com/art/Kuiper-Belt-508375940

Kathryn stood on the outcropping gulping air. The atmosphere seemed thin here, like it would at some great elevation. It was warm here though, not the cold of a high mountaintop, but the warmth of a summer afternoon.  Her skin felt prickly, and no matter how she settled the pack on her shoulders it felt lighter than it ought. Ever her body seemed less substantial somehow.

Ahead and above there was a chaos of storm, fire, and stone roiling in the air like some kind of grand maelstrom from before time itself. Beyond the storm she could see glimpses of something else. It looked like the bright green of fields and the dark green of forests, the light color of whitewashed stone, and the clay red of tile roofs. It was like peering down on the world from above.

Truly what the visitors had said must be true, this world was not all of what existed. Here at the edge of reality she could see the riotous and ragged end of her world, and beyond that another place entirely; another world that seemed no farther than the horizon, and yet immeasurably distant. They had called her home a recursion, and though she still did not know that word's meaning she understood what they had meant.

Story Seed - Key

Image Source: http://artofjokinen.deviantart.com/art/Entrance-500765645

Kyle came to half buried in snow. Everything hurt, but nothing especially so, against any kind of reasonable odds he appeared to have survived the fall without anything being broken. High above the jagged opening of broken ice he had fallen through was little more than a distant mote. "Hello! Hey, Dave, I'm alive! Dave?" Only his voice, echoing against the ice, answered him.

He sat up with a grunt, and set about making sure that his limbs all moved and that he really hadn't been seriously hurt.  He was cold, but clearly hadn't bee unconscious for long,  Aside from that and a tender lump on the back of his head, he was actually unhurt. "Some kind of miracle," he muttered to himself as he got his feet under him and stood.

Dusting snow and ice from his clothing he verified that he still had his pack, and his gear. He grabbed his radio but got no response from Dave. A thought occurred to him and he finally really looked around him.  The area was covered in broken ice and fallen snow, but a half dozen yards away he saw a lump under the snow that suddenly made him anxious.  "Oh no, no no no ..." he covered the distance quickly and started clearing snow away, confirming that Dave had also fallen into the crevasse. The other man was clearly dead, his neck bent at an angle that wasn't natural.

Kyle rocked back onto his heels as sudden sadness and anxiety flooded over him. His best friend was dead, and his lifeline to the surface with him. He wanted to weep, but if he gave in and gave up he would end up dead like Dave, and neither of them would ever be found. Kyle buried his grief and his worry and focused on the situation and how to survive it. He reached out and closed Dave's eyes, and then planted a bright red flag next to his body to make it easier to find later.  Later, when he came back to retrieve his friend.  Later, when he had gotten out of here alive.

He stood back up, still pushing down all those feelings that wouldn't help keep him alive. Instead he looked around, really looked for the first time. They had fallen into a deep crevasse, but it was far wider down here than he expected, and at the far end he could see the darkness of rock behind the ice. He started forward, figuring that if this was a long buried cave he might be able to make his way out, otherwise he would have to try and climb up and out, which would be dangerous given that the ice had given out and dropped them in here in there first place.

Kyle's boots crunched through stiff snow drifts as he neared the narrowing end of the ice. He smiled, he'd been right, there was rock here, and an opening. He grabbed the small collapsible shovel from his pack and dug the opening out, widening it until he would be able to crawl through.  Beyond the opening was another cave of ice and stone, lit from above by blue-tinged light from the sun filtering through ice. Kyle stowed his shovel and wriggled through. The passage opened into a narrow pass that wound away to his left, it was filled with snow and icicles as thick as his arm but he could pick his way through.

The passage sloped gently downward and Kyle tried his best to keep his mind on the depth and his position relative to the crevasse. Anything to help him survive. Anything to help him keep his mind off his dead friend. The folks at McMurdo wouldn't miss them for another several hours, and even if they found the snowmobiles, finding the crevasse was unlikely as he and Dave had been on foot for a quarter mile on the unstable ice. Still he was fairly certain he was moving toward the south, and thus away from the ocean, the rock suggested as much.

Lost in thought Kyle missed his footing as the tunnel suddenly grew steep, and he tumbled, sliding down the ice into a new chamber.  "Twice in one day Kyle? Really?" he chided himself.  He stood up and just stopped. There was a door, twenty feet high, set into a stone wall, across the chamber from him. A door that bore graven symbols and an intricate locking mechanism, parts of which were clearly visible, doubling as decoration.  It was surprisingly free of ice, despite the cavern floor before it being heaped with snow and ice, like it refused to allow ice to form on its surface.

He approached slowly, eyes barely leaving the door.  It had a look of something ancient, but looked like nothing he had seen before.  Briefly, Kyle wondered if all of those kooks who said that Antarctica had been home to some lost civilization were right. The idea was as preposterous as the idea of a door buried under the ice, and yet unless he was delirious he was staring at some convincing evidence.  Up close the door felt slightly warm, though not nearly enough to lend meaningful heat to the chamber, it did explain the lack of ice on the thing itself.

What he had thought of as a single door was also clearly a pair of narrow doors joined in the middle by a complex mechanism of gears.  Kyle reached out and pushed on the doors, they yielded no more than he expected. He banged on them with his gloved fists and his ice hammer with little effect aside from a dull echo in the chamber. Exhausted and cold he slumped against the door trying to take in any of its heat that he could. He felt a sharp pain in his cheek and reeled back.  There was blood on the door where his face had touched it, and the doors' mechanisms began to turn.

Story Seed - Anomoly

Image Source: http://bwiti.deviantart.com/art/the-dead-zone-497272571

"What've we got?" Blackwell asked, thumbing through the manila folder's contents.

Jenkins pushed his glasses up his nose, a futile gesture, as they began to slide down again nearly immediately. "It's an anomoly sir," he began.

"No shit, cut to the chase."

"Yes, sir.  It's a cube, exactly eighteen inches on a side. Material unknown as we have been unable to harvest a sample for testing and it has proven immune to any testing in the field. The object is fixed one point three meters above the ground in rural Pennsylvania. The field team couldn't budge it with a tow rope and a tow truck."

The director swore under his breath, "OK, what do we do about it? Do we risk using a cypher, or attempting to bring in an expert via the Philadelphia matter gate?"

Jenkins frowned, "No sir, I don't think we should risk any material assets on this. We don't know what it is, or how it could react. We could contact our allies in Ruk, and ask for assistance, but I don't know if they will be able to help."

Blackwell gave Jenkins a level look, "What is your recommendation then?"

"Quarantine, sir.  Put one of the junior teams on it.  We watch, we wait, we record all observances of the object and the area and collect as much data as possible."

"And we hope that this thing isn't some kind of reality bomb?" Blackwell asked, not entirely amused.

"Yes, sir."

Story Seed - Old Town

Image Source: http://denstarsk8.deviantart.com/art/Street-498420167

I stepped off the stoop into the filthy rain. This world was some kind of version of old London, complete with coal smog that would make the worst metropolitan air seem clean by comparison. I didn't have an umbrella but at least the hat on my head would keep some of the rain off, and the long coat I was wearing was well oiled and repelled much of the wet. A carriage trundled by as I took in my bearings.

I looked to my left, making sure nobody was watching me, before heading right, a strange feeling of deja vu guiding me as I made my way toward the outskirts. I didn't bother looking where I was going. I was guided by instinct and familiarity with the real world. What little light was coming from the sky faded as I swiftly walked through the rain. At first gas lamps were spaced frequently enough to push the darkness back, but as I went the working lights become less frequent until soon they formed isolated pools of light and falling stars in the night.

The streets began to narrow as I hurried on, becoming crowded between the rough buildings, and narrow alleys, rivers of darkness untouched by the lamps, became more frequent. I was already walking briskly, but a glance at the watch in my pocket told me I needed to hurry. I broke into a full run, splashing through the puddles, and stumbling on uneven cobbles. Ahead in the night I heard a scream, bloodcurdling in the darkness, that then cut off. I was too late.

The scream had come from ahead of me, only a short distance, if I was quick I might be able to catch the man responsible and complete my mission.  I redoubled my speed, and skidded around a corner. The narrow way between buildings was nearly pitch black, only the opposite end was lit, a rectangle of light into which the shadow of a man fled. I cursed even as I jumped over the Ripper's latest victim. My feet pounding in the filth as I strove for the light.

~~~~~~~~~~~

It was raining. I stepped off the stoop into the filthy rain. This world was some kind of version of old London, complete with coal smog that would make the worst metropolitan air seem clean by comparison. I needed to catch the Ripper and take his blade. Deja vu gripped me, this all felt so familiar. I tugged my hat down a bit and turned right ...