I just sent off a couple of new
PDFs to Mark; Anthros of Endara and Expanded Races: Cityborn. They both
should be up soon- Anthros of Endara especially should be tons of fun- a great
homage to the old He-Man toon but with its own heart and soul, not to mention
some great art and a first look at what’s going to be a fun campaign setting.
Expanded Races: Cityborn dramatically expands an already cool race, and is one
of the favorite things I’ve done for Psi-Watch. Also, it’s got great art by
John Picot.
Anyway, ER: Cityborn continues a
tradition I began when I first started working on Psi-Watch- including lots of
links, some obvious, some hidden connecting the Psi-Watch and Otherverse
America campaign worlds, and by extension, connecting the entire Otherverse
Games multiverse. I figured I’d talk a little bit about some of my favorite
links between worlds. This, of course, only applies to actual character and
story crossover- all the mechanical elements, all the races, classes and feats
are equally usable in any world, and don’t really bear mention unless the
mechanical links are especially significant. Consider this the footnotes on the
entire Otherverse Games cosmology.
Metamorphosis North
As I
mentioned in Psi-Watch Unlimited Edition, this advanced military
technology mega-corp straddles both the Psi-Watch and Otherverse America
reality. In OA, Metamorphosis North
is a morally neutral arms dealer- in Psi-Watch, the megacorp is a major threat,
and its CEO Elizabeth Vose is slowly
growing into a major nemesis for at least three different settings.
Metamorphosis
North regularly smuggles Lifer war criminals and terrorists from their home
reality to Psi-Watch as indentured mercenaries and assassins. The Lifer Refugee
starting occupation, unique to Psi-Watch, allows you to quickly build one of
these dimensional expatriates to kick some ass in the Psi-Watch campaign.
Elizabeth Vose
Vose got turned into a horrific zombie
in the Marvel Zombies inspired
sourcebook, Vector of Infection. I followed up on this in a relatively
obscure Pathfinder RPG sourcebook, The Dragonbound Core Class. Anyway,
since that book was all about dragon riding heroes and villains, I wanted to
include a riff on the Githyanki Lich Queen, from classic D&D, whose most
elite knights rode into battle on the back of red dragons. I evolved the zombie
version of Elizabeth Vose into Vose the Lich Queen, a feral goddess of ghouls
and undead. I also mentioned Jormungand,
the Midgard Serpent from Norse Mythology in this PDF (which for all its
obscurity, has a fairly important place in my overall meta-plot) for the first
time, but we’ll get back to him.
Anyway,
expect Vose (both the mortal and zombie-versions of her) to pop up in other
Psi-Watch products, and continue to stir shit up.
The Culture
From their
first appearance in the Psi-Watch Campaign Setting V1 I hinted that the Culture, an arrogant race of
evolved human space-imperialists, are the ultimate evolution of Otherverse America’s Bastian faction. I figure that
thousands of years into OA’s future, the Bastians went completely post human,
then crossed dimensions, appearing millions of years in Psi-Watch’s past, where
they carved out a massive and constantly expanding empire. As I mentioned in One Planet, One Power, the Phade, a race
of ghostly spies, work on both sides of the dimensional gulf to undermine both
the Culture and their distant ancestors, the Bastians. Because Otherverse America’s
Bastians are unaware of their destiny as the Culture, they have no idea why the
Phade have a beef with them.
The Culture
represents one of those concepts I really want to do more with. Expect a future
splatbook or techbook on these guys sooner or later, and I’ll likely
incorporate them into future Galaxy Command products as a dangerous new power,
stealing territory both from Galaxy Command itself and WARSTAR.
Yahn Crystal
Yahn Crystal pops up in Psi-Watch,
Galaxy Command and in some PFRPG fantasy stuff I’ve done. It’s a pale purple
crystal used in the construction of dimensional gates, warp drives and
planes-crossing magic devices. Yahn crystal is good, generic ‘sci-fi’ mineral.
They are somehow related to Ioun Stones (Yahn is the raw form; Ioun stones are
the refined, cut form), which were originally invented by the Culture as a techno-magical set of
utilitarian gadgets. Whenever I need a device with weird properties that breaks
the laws of physics, I can just hand wave it by saying the device is powered by
Yahn crystals.
The coolest
thing I did with Yahn was to tie it to the reproduction of the Noble Succubi race (from the self
titled PDF). Noble Succubi build artificial wombs out of pure Yahn to create
new members of their race. The Noble Succubi PDF was pretty cool, as far
as Easter Eggs go. I briefly introduced a character, the planeswalking warrior Hope, who had been a part of Otherverse
America
from its earliest drafts (Hope by the way, also made a few appearances in my
older Rifts campaigns, which means not only has she crossed dimensions, she’s
crossed game systems as well). And again, Metamorphosis North plays the
villain…..
By the way,
the Valentine star system, which is home to a huge Noble Succubus population,
appeared in the Adorable Avenger Advanced Class for Galaxy Command. I
mentioned that Noble Succubi created the Adorable Avenger class, further
linking the two concepts.
Cassie Andra Feneris
Cassie is one of the iconic characters in Otherverse America. Her
experiences formed a major part of the fiction in both the Otherverse
America Campaign Setting and Frontlines of Choice. She’s vastly
powerful, and I’m planning on fully statting her out in my upcoming Lifechained
Powers book (which I mentioned last post).
A younger, less powerful and less confident version of
the same person, Lt. Cassandra Feneris, is a minor supporting character in
Psi-Watch, an officer in the titular organization. The Otherverse America
version of the character worked for her reality’s version of Metamorphosis
North after college, before founding her own company. I’ll probably follow up
on that thread sooner or later. And as I do more with Galaxy Command, I plan to
include a version of Cassie Andra there too, likely as a badass starship
captain, in the vein of Honor Harrington.
The Ghosts of Babies Past
Meanwhile, the eighth Ghost of Babies Past, a fearsome
Lifer terrorist, was introduced in Cassie’s storyline, crossed over into Julie
Riddle’s, and was greatly elaborated on in Ghosts & Promises: The Kodiak
Island Sourcebook. I also set up a minor mystery in G&P. What happened
to Ghost 8’s sidekick, Ghost 6, the Neverborn known only as Tommy? He just
disappears from the historical record sometime after War’s End. I figure local
gamemasters might follow up on that thread on their own, but if they don’t want
to, or if they missed the plothook, I’ll let everybody know that I solve (at
least partially) in the upcoming ER:
Cityborn.
Ygrassydl/The Phallus
Ygrassdyl, the Great Universal Tree is basically the axis
upon which the Multiverse turns. It is mentioned in The Dragonbound Core
Class, Ley Lines, and Races of the Tatakama, among other sources.
I’ve always imagined Ygrassydl and
the Phallus of Otherverse America’s
cosmology are one and the same, different ways of describing the same concept-
the big damn house of God itself. As I do more with the plot threads I began in
Guide to the Known Galaxy, I’ll put more depth and bite into the Phallus
and the Necklace of worlds surrounding the universal mega-structure.
The war between the Singular’s two sons: The Genesis and The Nemesis has featured as a background plots in several books,
beginning with the fiction of GTKG. Expect more and more on that. The Genesis
plays a major role in the origin of the Cityborn race, as you’ll see in ER:
Cityborn. Meanwhile, The Nemesis makes an appearance as one of the deities
of the Black Else, appearing in Spells and Gods of the Tatakama as Amanojaku. I chose to weld the Nemesis
to that particular myth because Amanojaku is a kind of
tempter/trickster/Satan-figure and because Urotsukodoji
corrupted the name of the same god for its (rather boneheaded) protagonist.
As I mentioned in Spells & Gods, Nemesis, as
Amanojaku, has access to a draconic minion, known in the Tatakama as Yamata-no-Orochi. This all consuming,
voraciously hungry, animalistic WMD
is probably the same thing as Jormungand,
mentioned in Dragonborn. There, the creature is mentioned as ‘gnawing endlessly
on the roots of Ygrassydl’…basically, for whatever reason, the Nemesis has a
pet monster under his control that works to undermine the physical structure of
the Multiverse. Should be a fun storyline if and when that fucker slips its
chain.
Of course, since so much of my cosmic plans for
Otherverse America
map nicely to Norse mythology, expect some interesting surprises when I finally
get around to doing a faction splat for OA’s Asatru Choicer faction.
The Ubume Empress/Ellen Dacoveney
I first mentioned the Ubume Empress in Black Tokyo II:
Chastity & Depravity, and hinted that after her suicide in Otherverse America, on the
last day of the War, Ellen Dacoveney’s
soul crossed planes and ended up in some particularly nasty corner of the Black
Else. There, rather than spiritual annihilation, she somehow clawed herself out
of the muck and became the god-level Ubume Empress. That, right there is a
huge, and suitably badass link between Otherverse America and Black Tokyo. I haven’t
done too much with this plot-thread yet, but it’s already become a major
element in the upcoming Black Tokyo Unlimited Edition. Likewise, expect
a couple of hidden connections between the Neverborn and the new POETICA race
that you probably won’t expect.
The Paint
The Paint is
an underground fighting league for superhumans. It first appeared in a
work-for-hire PDF for Mutants & Masterminds 2E, published by Misfit Studios years and years ago. It
got fully explored in its own self titled PDF, and also popped up again in Psi-Watch
Unlimited Edition. Erik the Red,
the cyborg fight promoter who started the league was based on a friend’s Rifts
PC, while Dead Blue Fish, the half
Japanese nano-sculptor who is the brains behind the operation, is an old PC of
mine from a cyberpunk game. A version of Dead Blue Fish will likely pop up in Black
Tokyo Unlimited, just because I like the character, but I’m not sure in
what context yet.
Schendenwatt
I’ve mentioned the
fictional city of Schendenwatt in dozens of PFRPG fantasy
PDFs, including lots of work for hire stuff I did for Skotched Urf Studios back in the day. Schendenwatt popped up any
time I needed a big, cosmopolitan fantasy metropolis with a vaguely
pseudo-Germanic flavor. It appeared several times in various Adventurer’s
Essentials PDFs, as well as a more substantial mention in Campaign
Overlay: Fantasy Firearms. If you look at the world map in the upcoming Anthros
of Endara, you’ll see Schendenwatt. Expect a full readout on what the
city’s like in the campaign guide…..meanwhile I’ve also included another
version of Schendenwatt in my Pirates of the Bronze Sky draft, though
who knows when that one’ll see the light of day.
Campaign Overlay: Fantasy Firearms also introduced the Armigers faction, a group of
pan-dimensional, magi-tech arms dealers. These sociopathic, soulless merchant
princes are a major villain in the Fantasy Firearms storyline, and they’ll pop
up again, in slightly linguistically mutated form as the mysterious Armigeru, in Black Tokyo’s Unlimited Edition. Likewise Black
Tokyo’s Eyrines Sisterhood gets a
brief cameo in Fantasy Firearms.
Anyway, that’s all I can think of for right now. I’m sure
I’ve missed a few connections, and there were a few that are too minor to
mention. As you can see, Black Tokyo Unlimited is going to get a lot of love in
the coming months, and whenever it suits me, expect Easter Eggs linking the
upcoming Endara setting to my other game worlds.
Blessed Be,
CHRIS
