in discussion Forum discussion / NAC Gaming » Alternate Confederacies/Crossovers
I found some stuff I wrote up a couple of years ago, some of which duplicates what I wrote above.
Confederacy Crossovers
Fantasy/Magic: There are two ways of going about this. One is to add magic into the Confederacy. In 120 A.L., North American scientist Nikola Tesla attempts to invent what he calls a "magnetic clock", which keeps its time based on a master clock, and in so doing discovers the science of goetics. Magic is loose in the world! The other way is to confederate your fantasy world. A continent under colonial bondage to another breaks free and sets up its own government, which turns out to be corrupt; it breaks free of this and replaces it with… nothing. Sources: Operation Chaos and Operation Luna by Poul Anderson; Magic, Inc. by Robert A. Heinlein; The Case of the Toxic Spelldump by Harry Turtledove
Wild Cards: Tisianne brant Ts'ara sek Halima sek Ragnar sek Omian of the house of Ilkazam lands outside of Roswell, NAC, chasing down his family members who have created the Wild Card virus. Manfred von Richtofen finds the virus and releases it in a _Thirty Minutes Over Laporte_ scenario. The session could involve the PCs attempting to stop the release of the virus (alternately, trying and failing to do so, but killing Richtofen anyway), or it could involve the aftermath. By 170 A.L., Confederate bioscience is almost the equal of the Takisians', and with Baby's tachyon drive to study the P'wheet-Thorens broach is never discovered. On the other hand, it is possible a North American gains the power to dimension travel…. Note that North Americans in general have much less internal psychological conflict and self loathing than United States of Americans, so it's possible that, in a Confederate Wild Card event, the death and ace rates would be reversed! Sources: Wild Cards, edited by George R.R. Martin.
Old West: The Confederacy had its own Old West, complete with cattle rustlers and stagecoach robbers. Trains were much less important than stagecoaches in the Confederacy of the first century A.L., and so cities along stagecoach routes tended to grow faster (witness Laporte vs. St. Charles and Auraria). Sources: Too many to count!
Confederacy Plots:
These are barebones plot outlines, intended for further fleshing out, that do not involve Hamiltonian conspiracies.
- Time, space, or interworld travellers take a wrong turn and end up in the Confederacy. Option: They are being pursued by good guys. Option: They are being pursued by bad guys. Option: They are being pursued by both. Option: They are a criminal in their own culture but not in the Confederacy, or vice versa.
- A McGuffin falls into the PCs' hands. People are trying to get it back and are willing to kill to do so. Option: It is, or contains, an embarrassing secret. Option: It contains information that must not fall into the wrong hands. Option: They all have a valid claim on it.
- A thing has been stolen. The PCs are hired to get it back. Option: The thing is a high tech device, and the inventors want it back so they can suppress it. (Why?) Option: Others want it and are willing to kill for it. Option: The person who hired the PCs is not the rightful owner.
- A person has been kidnapped. The PCs are hired to find them. Option: They went willingly and don't want to come back. Option: They are a friend, loved one, relative, etc., of one of the PCs.
- A piece of land has suddenly become very valuable. The landowner has been fending off a steady stream of bidders, but would like to know why the sudden interest. He hires the PCs to find out.
- Forbidden lovers. A cross-species couple wishes to have children together. Given Confederate medical technology, this is merely difficult rather than impossible. The PCs are hired to deliver medical talent, equipment, genetic material, or even one of the members of the couple from point A to point B. Even in the Confederacy, there are people who feel this is unnatural; of these there is a subset who feel it must be stopped by any means up to and including violence.
- He said/she said. Two parties have differing opinions over whether each has met the conditions of an agreement they have entered into. One or both parties are refusing to be reasonable, and the situation seems to be inevitably escalating to a duel. One or more of the PCs is involved somehow (perhaps one or both parties are friends, relatives, loved ones, dependents, etc. of one or more of the PCs).
Types of characters:
Militia members, sports professionals, actors, judges, private investigators, healers, journalists, scientists, inventors, academics, entrepreneurs, tradesmen (which includes both blue- and white-collar), security professionals, idle rich, busybodies, international explorers, asteroid miners, lunar colonists (probably fitting into one of the other categories as well), …