## TableTalk RPG Project 2021

## Tesserae Terra / Frankenstein Earth / Void Breach

### Nebulous Shadowrun Memories

Roleplaying games were quite popular in Sweden back in the '80s and the early '90s, but then they withered and I was left with only memories. I remember feeling quite nostalgic about the Shadowrun universe, but later discovered that I had actually only seen glimpses Shadowrun at some point in my life and somehow imagined the rest! I must have blended in ideas from the Mutant roleplaying game we had here in Sweden.

Mutant was based on Gamma World and (in my play sessions) some of those elements carried over to the Tech/Cyber version Mutant 2089 which came out later. When I finally looked into Shadowrun in 2021 (the newer versions), it was really quite different from how I had imagined it. The Trolls and Orcs look kinda like humans with added teeth. There are some more exotic monster-people but these don't appear much in the art.

Anyways, I immediately started doodling on my own not-Shadowrun project, adding in some ideas from Rifts (which is another interesting TTRPG that I don't know much about but carry in my imagination). I'll have to look into Cyberpunk as well because it has some nice art.

### Tesserae Terra World Design

My primary idea for this setting was to mix a bunch of different humanoid species together, and I didn't want to use the urban fantasy trope of portals opening and magic creatures returning.

So, instead the opening scene of my setting takes place in a 1920s-like era. There's a large scale experiment using a spooky device (something like the Hadron Collider or that spinny thing in Contact). Perhaps the idea was to open a window back in time, to the Permian era. But something went wrong of course.

The same experiment took place on other parallel Earths at one time or another, which is why the experiment both worked and failed at the same time. These particular portal devices had been set to the same frequency or time point, so the experiments both amplified and interfered with each other across the multiversal spacetime.

This caused large terrain tiles measuring some 1000km 300km across to get displaced into a vortex of magic-space, along with the primitive Earth (Permian/Pangea) and forming a sort of Frankenstein Earth. The different regions on this new Earth are each inhabited by different "Earthlings", all roughly at the same tech level (because of the prerequisite of building the spooky device) and mostly of a similar physical and mental composition. The only exception are some strange jelly creatures which came from an Earth with a different atmosphere, but that atmospheric chunk was in minority and quickly got diluted, so the jellies all died.

Demons, Goblins, Ogres, Trolls, Dwarfs, Humans, Foxes, Lizards...

...and ducks. Horned green guy was originally a Troll but I went for a long-nose design instead.

There are actually no humans from our Earth (we haven't built a spooky device, right?), but all Earths share some distant past. The humans are relatively closely related and all recognise a historical figure known as the Xenophon the Philosopher King. When Xenophon's teacher was executed by the ecclesiarch for heresy, Xenophon started a movement which would eventually overthrow the government and usher in a form of governance which would change the world. Their calendars are based on the death of Xenophon at summer solstice.

I don't want to reference cultures in a strictly monolithic way (i.e. I'd avoid Maori, Mayans, or Vikings), but there might be fragmentary similarities due to coincidence. Cultural caricaturing is lazy and it wouldn't make sense considering the distant point of divergence.

A lot can happen in a few thousand years, right? People from another Earth might be very surprised to find a bunch of white and black people in North America, for some reason worshipping a middle eastern man (strangely portrayed as white). American history happened in just a few centuries, because of guy on a boat, potato fungii and such. Then there's a few hundred men conquering South America (in bad shape after a famine iirc). Anyways, some ideas for human cultures of different Earths:

#### --- Tularians ---

The new Athenian governance models were transposed to Africa and the middle east. Soon after at 80EX (265BC), the Philosopher King's young empire falls into the hands of a genocidal tyrant, and is then stricken by continual crop failure, pestilence, and various misfortunes. By the end of it Europe's population has fallen from 18 to just 4.5 million, with most of it in isolated regions locked by panicked regressive policies. Meanwhile, the African technocracy had benefited greatly from innovations in sanitation, agriculture, trade networking and education (already having the printing press of sorts, derived from pottery rollers used in central Africa). The nation, already stretching from Egypt down to Chad, expands outwards, discovering Europe's untapped natural resources around 240EX. Europe is conquered and settled by 700EX (355AD). Native populations are gradually displaced, suppressed or assimilated. Up in the north they come in contact with, and mix with descendants of Asians which had been proliferating through Russia, Sami territory, then down to Denmark, known here as Tular. The Tularians managed to build the spooky device as early as 1432EX (1087AD). Land-wise, their tesserae consists of Denmark, and a piece of Norway, and a nibble of England.

#### --- Gauls ---

The Philosopher King's influence reached the lowlands beyond the Alps, bringing unity and prosperity. At around 350EX in the Empire of Gaulia, Zahn the Great rose to power, conquering much of the known world (i.e. actually not that much). The empire collapsed when Zahn was assassinated at the age of 33, but his ambitions would last, as would the hatred for the the people who had assassinated him (quite broadly translating into everyone not Gaul-looking). His charisma and ruthless pragmatism was captured in The Book of Iron. Though it was written one and a half century after his death, it's unquestionably regarded as canon history by the Gauls. The book became so highly fetishised that every other century the Gauls would attempt to recapture their glory days. Thus the Gauls would remain in constant war as technologies evolved and stakes grew higher. By 1750EX East Asia had established mutually prosperous trade (gold and technology) with South America. Asian invaders conquered Europe in 2010EX, but only ever remained in partial control. Europe formally ceased being an Asian colony in 2220EX when the last land was relinquished. In 2323EX the Gauls rose once again, armed with gunpowder and new zeal. They conquered Europe and finally eradicated the "scheming Sarmatians" who had long been regarded as the most culpable for Zahn's death. It was not enough, and they turned their guns on the rest of the world. They were in the midst of a final atomic World War with the South American superpower when initiating the spooky space experiment (using a captured device and kidnapped scientists) in 2342EX and getting yanked. After the transmigration they continued acting villainous. Zugg Zahn! Zugg Zahn! Zugg Zahn!

#### --- Sivarians ---

The Sivarians inhabit the Indus river tract/territory called Sindhu Varsa. The Sivarians generally had a peaceful time. Just sat there building a megacity which never fell to invaders. Other peoples, mostly directly from east and west, would eventually come to gather there too. Having experience an early enlightenment, they built their device fairly early, in 702 EX. Once the city and surrounding land got transferred to central Pangea (no coast), the river connected to a new one, backwards, causing additional confusion. They were the most numerous of the three human Earthlings but disasters and antagonists would strike soon after arriving on Pangea...

#### --- Others ---

The "anthro" humanoids such as foxes and ducks could come from a time well before or after modern humans and can obviously not interbreed. The same goes for elves, goblins, and ogres. Astronomical records could be compared so it's likely that all species have a shared sense of time. There might also be some overlap in archaeological records which could be used to establish timeline branching points. All species of course share the Permian past but would have different names for the creatures from that time.

The various tesserae are not in their proper orientation due to timings with Earth's rotation. Theoretically the same map region can even be seen twice but erosion and such would vary. The arrival and joining/stitching along the edges caused some calamity, though survivable. There were the initial quakes, wild storms, and water level changes due to mismatched altitudes and drained rivers. Quakes continue in some regions close or on top of tectonic boundaries. The atmosphere of a Permian Earth might have 23% oxygen and a very variable amount of CO2, but it probably shouldn't be above 800 for my purposes. Though the sun is different in the magic space vortex, this new Earth's average temperature is about the same at about 16 deg.C.

So, we've got variety of humanoids and cultures, but perhaps with some sort of common goal. I think they need to be forced to mix (after some conflict), because a mixed player party should seem natural. There might be some sort of super power thing happening because of magic space vortex, explaining why characters can level up and use fun abilities.

Magic space works a bit like the Imperial Vortex in Flash Gordon, hosting a variety of other mysterious planets, so space travel is easier but maybe also difficult (space dragons/monsters). The player characters could do the same thing as in Shadowrun, and there could be powerful entities (demon, fox, duck gods?) pulling strings behind the curtains.

It makes sense for the various Earthlings to have different physical biases (stats, abilities)*, but it's a bad idea to make them monocultural. Not only would it be hard to get a party together if everyone's at war, but the antagonists should be some harmful thing worth fighting and not "those uppity elves, all the same". I'm thinking initially there were been tensions and suspicions, but at present the world is a bit of a melting pot, except for certain regions, councils. That said, there might be a sub-faction of clearly evil humans.

* I wouldn't differentiate between male/female player characters stats wise (e.g. str/dex/ch). It might be a subtle effect and not one useful or fun for creation and play. The interesting granularity might come in play choosing between Troll and Goblin. How NPCs are stat'd is up to what makes sense in the scenario of course.

Some Earthlings went extinct (some after the transplant?), like the Grey and Red Goblins, Ape-humans, Yellow Lizards, Hydras, and Land Octopus.

### Fuzzy Furries

Fox and Cat-people huh? I grew up playing TTRPGs like "Mutant" and "Drakar & Demoner" where there were some reptile, cat and duck humanoids included for fun. Gamma World and Runequest apparently had served as inspiration for the designers.

Anyways, this feels like Incidental Furry to me--the humanoid animals are not the primary payload, like in some Furry RPGs. Traveller's cats and dogs and Wing Commander's Kilrathi feel like they are of this incidental type.

Another type is Horny Furry (often seen making "that face"), and there are a couple of RPGs out there for that (Other Suns - 1983, Albedo - 1988, Ironclaw - 1999). Generally they include a good variety of species more on the cute side, and support social and daily life play better than hack-n-slash games. Notably, they also degrade or completely expel elements hostile to the fantasy--such as humans (and kind of how granny-panties don't exist in my worlds).

Lastly there's the standard cartoon / slapstick / storytelling furry (Tom & Jerry) and the allegorical type with a bunch of talking animals (The Wind in the Willows, Watership Down, Animal Farm).

It could be argued that my anthros here can slide towards the horny side of the spectrum because of... the Mass Effect... effect, as now any humanoids can conceivably date each other. It stands in contrast to e.g. Star Frontiers' approach to race design where a Dralasite (blobby) dating a Vrusk (creepy insectoid) would seem rather strange and the aliens aren't really made to look appealing.

Every person and animal on my Permian Earth is an Earthling, but as evolution might have diverged far in the past for each source Earth, the animal people are not necessarily offshoots of contemporary animals like the cats and foxes from our world. The ducks might be post-apocalyptic, having discovered fossils of a self-annihilated human-ish civilisation some 14 million years prior, so they know what can go down and are a bit weary. Records of star movements could be compared and used for dating.

### Population

It'd be best if some time (25-100 years) has passed after the transmigration event, allowing the new world to mature a bit into its own thing. Perhaps not many people survived the transition and the following tumultuous years so it took a while for populations to recover. Naturally, only the very similar species would be genetically compatible with each other, like the three human groups.

On Earth in 1920, New York, London and other big cities actually had over 5 million inhabitants, so one can imagine that if big cities like those were transplanted then the starting position might have been good. A smaller city like Copenhagen might have had half a million people in 1920. A city is of course not self-sufficient and there must have been quakes, germs, hostile life forms, chaos and confusion. How many people can have survived? 250 000? Assuming the 300x300 km territory had 25% farm land actually able to grow crops under the new conditions, and that one sq.km can feed 1000 people after food waste, it could cover some 20 million people.

With a 5% yearly population growth (rather high and panicked), 250K x a dozen factions turns into a worldwide 35 million in 50 years, 400 million in 100 years, or 4.5 billion in 150 years. Does it need to be that high though? What feels right per faction? 5 million, like a small country? If 750K survived per faction, with a population growth of 3% over 60 years, that's 4.4 million per faction, like a densely packed Finland. Well, assuming people spread out evenly over their native 300x300 km territory, it would be 50 people per sq.km, a fifth of Luxembourg, double of Sweden, and matching Lithuania. Some island / peninsula / coast nations have the highest density (in the thousands), like Macau, Monaco, Singapore and Hong Kong.

The original tech level of these factions was around what we had in our 1920s, but reaching the cyberspace era was a slow climb due to the initial low populations, disasters and conflicts, lack of infrastructure, and interference from the space magic and exotic laws of nature. Magic, depending on how it works, could replace some technologies, like communication and transport. In xianxia stories the cultivators would have no need for guns and trucks as they're bullet proof and can fly on their swords, carrying what they need in storage rings, but I won't go this far. If the various factions were to collaborate on tech, it would likely help them a lot. Considering the regime of the Gauls, they would both self isolate and be shunned, so I can imagine their computers being a bit... Soviet era.

### Earthlings

The various Earthlings (humanoid or not) were all able to come up with and build the somewhat advanced experimental device, so they're "filtered" to be similar in many ways, like having appendages and curiosity. Some Earths were more closely related. Actually, it stands to reason that most Earthlings would be from nearly identical Earths which just diverged, but maybe those universes "continually converge" and are thus filtered into a single timeline. *handwave gesture* At any rate, the Earthlings need to be something that a human can play and not totally alien with unfathomable motivations. It would be strange if Earth only produced humanoids, but this can be deflected by including some weird stuff that went extinct, like the Hydras and records of otherworldly "Neanderthals".

- Hydras - Slime creatures which turned into goo as their Earth had a different and much denser atmosphere which was quickly diluted. Their abandoned land & loot is often contested by neighbouring regions, but is also guarded by the Sorcerer Mantises native to the Hydran Earth. These giant insects were somehow able to adapt to the new atmosphere using unknown means.
- Victim Lizards - Wiped out by the rampaging Jerks.
- Jerk Land-Octopus - Got freaked out by all the humanoids and panicked, attempting to wipe 'em all out. They were eventually defeated, with some escaping into the ocean depths, not having been seen since...
- Sort-of Humans - Apes? Wiped out by the germs which ravaged the world early on. This is just to handwave away that germs were a problem.
- Small Red Goblins - Sneaky mischievous ones long in conflict with the Green Goblins on their old world. Actually thought to have been eradicated, but they had just hid really really well. They were finally wiped out when their magic experiments backfired spectacularly on the new world.
- Grey Goblins - An unknown form of goblin (from a different goblin world), quite advanced but wiped out by super-predators from an adjacent region on the new world (the greys used a suicide bomb?).
- Black Lizards - Quite advanced. Flew off into the vortex never to be seen again.
- -------
- Humans I - From central India (Sindhu Varsa / Sivarians). Brought a mega-city with some mixed population. (I should use in-universe names for continents and countries.)
- Humans II - More humans, from Denmark (Tular / Tularians).
- Humans III - Mirror Earth humans and what it entails (evil, goatees and midriffs?). The Gauls hail from Luxembourg or thereabout (historically pureblood Gauls... or so they think). However, their spooky device was in a colonized region in Mongolia. The Gauls are surefire bad guys and thus caused a whole bunch of problems on the new Earth. Eventually a subset of the Gauls rebelled and became punk-like. Perhaps some outside force was behind this movement (it was the ducks). The reason for the Gauls' delusions, psychopathy and lack of empathy is not just cultural, but a result of persistent eugenics programs with enforced purity tests, purges and a social ranking system. Almost everything in their society is horrible and they often assume the most awful stance on issues, even if it hurts them (if it does, they just blame an outside source). For example, they don't believe in germ theory, but believe in other things that can't be seen. When it comes to international politics their stance doesn't even have to be logical or consistent as often the only motive is to sabotage. Can't work with them, only for them. I'm unsure if this faction should be designed as a main threat, or just used as an incompetent Saturday morning cartoon villain that gets bonked by a club every now and then.
- -------
- Dwarfs - Underground and overground variety. Related to humans but not genetically compatible. They lived 100 000 years before modern humans in an alternative past and settled much of the world, including Australia which is where they built their spooky device. They were contemporary with--and in steady conflict with--another sapient race (of angry gorilla-like creatures (orks)) but those had been pushed back and were mostly confined to Russia and south America.
- Green Goblins - smallish but with high endurance/stamina. They're ruled by the enigmatic wise High Goblins (a contrast of personality) whom they respect a lot, not knowing how the High Goblins act behind their holy facade.
- Ogres - Large and stolid. Not really threatened by anything. Up to something, but so is everyone else. There's also a rare type of big brute ogre,
- Demons - Powerful (comes in lesser to greater variants) and maybe from another planet in the Magical Vortex, which is quite the feat given how dangerous space travel is. They assumed positions of power, but do a lot of infighting, sometimes including pawns on Tesserae Terra?
- Trolls - A rowdy good humoured bunch. Not that numerous but essentially immortal, and patient.
- Elves - The typical fantasy elf. I like shorter elves but here I made them taller because the goblins are already short and long eared.
- Panthers - Cat-Dog-Bunny like animal-people with a bit of charm.
- Foxes - Fox-like slick animal-people.
- Ducks - Few in numbers but secretly powerful despite looking innocent, silly and unassuming. Ended up out in the ocean, but that's okay because they're ducks, and sort of secretive.
- Lizards (Green) - In a bad spot, but tenaciously persistent and adaptable (unlike their extinct kin). Guided evolution produces workers, soldiers, queens, and infiltrators/hybrids.
- ------
- Lastly, there should be a sort of shared, messy city. Yes, Ogre-land might have human residents and tourists, but some factions might not be welcoming of certain other factions. Individuals are a different thing though, and some might move to the shared city (or live in the wilderness).
- As for the Permian wilderness, it could either be a cool, chill backdrop, or extremely dangerous to the point where travel across land is a deadly adventure.

Timeline splits with intermediate forms (ancestors).

### Timeline Tree

All Earths share the same timeline between Precambrian, through Permian, and up to Cretaceous where the lizard ancestors appear. In their timeline, a certain doomsday asteroid instead grazed the atmosphere, broke up and gave the lizards a chance. Because of this the Lizards were the earliest civilization, predating Xenophon by 32 million years, though humans would of course never come to be in the Lizard timeline.

While not much is known about the mysterious Hydras, recovered Hydran documents suggest that the asteroid impact must have been much more severe in their case, ending nearly all forms of life on the planet, with the few surviving life forms changing its atmosphere. In contrast to the Lizards, the Hydran civilization only emerged some 160 million years after the impact--the latest of all known.

All of the other species from here on come from an Earth which experienced the normal extinction event. The Foxes and Panthers come from different timelines but share a common ancestor from the carnivora order that emerged a few million years after the asteroid impact. They both evolved into their humanoid form some 19 million years ago.

Ape-men, Ogres and Dwarfs are more closely related to humans, but evolved from a more chonky hominid. The Ape-men and Dwarfs perhaps experienced a number of fortuitous events in their respective timelines, accelerating their development compared to humans. They built their spooky devices some 100 000 years ago. The Ogres were a bit slower, building theirs 20 000 years ago.

The Goblins, Elves and Trolls similarly share a common hominid ancestor, but a more slender, nearly hairless one with sharp features, probably a wader. The Goblins reached civilization one million years ago, and the Elves 800 000 years ago. The trolls on the other hand spent a lot of time not doing anything in particular and come from 6 million years into the future.

The Ducks are descendants of ducks, and come from a post-apocalyptic Earth, reaching their current form some 13 million years into the future (after Xenophon). They evolved into a flightless, amphibian variant following a prolonged cold period, then rapidly evolved into their humanoid form. In fact, their evolution was so rapid some researchers suspect they might have been tampered with.

I need to come up with a way to present this information more coherently and with an appropriate voice. I think timelines and lists should have summaries and expanded sections. It's tough to read timelines which are mostly exposition and events with no explanation or obvious connection, but they can also be helpful and evocative. I'm not a writer, but I think a good hook is to make the reader wonder and speculate about what's up next, then surprising them a little. A TTRPG book is more interactive than a novel. The reader is probably darting between different sections, like a smorgasbord/buffet, so it can't be presented like a linear story. Each section should stir up imagination, make sense independently, but also have leads going elsewhere. It might be nice to scatter in micro-stories, short and easy to read.

Hardware thoughts and super-predators. And additional Permian synapsids... which may or may not be getting some kind of level-boost depending on how magic space works. It's unclear what kind of skin some of these animals had... lizardy, knobby, short furred, mohawked? Patterning one might be able to guess from their role and habitat.

### Super-Predators

Each transmigrated region had their own flora and fauna. Some Earths had dangerous predators and bugs, and some of these turned into super-predators, a few of which can even use magic. The Sorcerer Mantis is not only the size of a dinosaur--it's also a powerful magician, able to hypnotise its prey and throw up shields capable of shrugging off cannon fire. If provoked it will use a plethora of deadly attack spells.

The crocrats, while only about the size of a boot and not individually threatening, are all connected to a hivemind network allowing them to act in unison and coordinate planet-wide. They can easily avoid poison or quickly breed resistance against it. It's easy for them to scout out safe locations, so they're never in danger of being wiped out. They're often among the first to find vulnerable prey and food sources. In short, this hivemind network makes them very resource efficient compared to other animal species, the only exception being humanoids with global communication devices. It's fortunate that they are somewhat cowardly and lacking in ambition.

### Tech and Language

I think hyper-advanced "cyber" hardware might be a bit difficult to envision and roleplay, so I had some idea of using mid-90s tech. Because magic space is a bit weird, traditional computers are a bit unstable. For example, a normal high density magnetic floppy disk would lose its data, so instead they use something a bit more sturdy called a low density flux disk (LDFD) which can retain data for 50 years. The processors are quite slow (shaped like cubes), but like us they compensate by adding cores, so there might be a four-core 20MHz processor or two-core 40MHz one. Cache might exists, but only as e.g. half a meg CPU adjacent memory in the cubic CPU packaging.

There is a common language--the equivalence of English or Esperanto--that most people can speak (often badly). It reads top to bottom in columns and right to left. Sentences generally start with the punctuation, so the reader knows right a way if it's a question or exclamation. The second character can be used to set inflection, e.g. "snarky tone", "whiny", "formal". The glyphs are either pictures like in chinese/kanji, or syllables like in hiragana/devanagari.

Because of the read order, computer GUIs can be said to be rotated 90 degrees, with the window bar on the right and filenames in columns under the icons. On older DOS-like systems a smaller selection of glyphs at 16 pixels wide and 8 tall, but this includes several pixels of column spacing. CRTs render the picture in the native text read order, starting top right.

### The Magic Vortex & The Collector

The vortex is a region of space somewhere, sometime. It's about 1AU in diameter and is host to a small yellow star and numerous clusters of planets. These do not orbit the star but instead hang at fixed positions, merely spinning on their axis. Between the planets is empty space, miscellaneous planetary debris of various size, streaks of mysterious gas, and space monsters. These make space travel very dangerous, though nearby planets can be explored by naked eye, and more remote ones have been studied by telescope, except those stationed behind the sun.

The sun is not well understood. Some call it The Collector, believing the sun to be a living entity which collects planets by locking onto the beacon signals incidentally generated by the experimental spooky devices built by creatures such as the Earthlings. Others believe that planet collecting is a natural magical law of the vortex, or that the rarely seen greater Demons are somehow involved in the process, or that some monster out there is gathering planets up to eat as a snack, spitting out gas and unpalatable bits.

I suppose a substitute moon might be needed for tides. But would there be tidal forces between planets? While planets spin, they are also held in locked positions. Not the moons though? Well, I suppose it all depends on just how they are held... by sheer force, or by nullifying gravity in space. Would radio or laser communication be possible between planets if any others are currently inhabited? I think other worlds should remain mostly mysterious, though city lights would be visible if they have those. An alternative system could be a "necklace around the sun" setup, where all planets are kept perfectly balanced in a semi-natural orbit. This would require them to be of a very similar mass which might be boring.

Is magic in the vortex of the fantasy magic type or psychic powers type, or based on some sort of system? I think a supernatural component should be somewhat limited and rigid, but it could be used to do all sort of fun stuff with the Permian animals, making them quite powerful.

Kushians and Permian life. Face painting is a tradition that goes quite far back in countries east of India.

Because the terrain regions that got transplanted were limited in size they wouldn't be representative of their native Earth as a whole in terms of diversity. Tularia (lower parts of Scandinavia and sunken Doggerland) doesn't have any palm trees or rain forest creatures aside from rare imported exceptions. For transplanted inland regions no ocean was included at all. There might not be a sustainable population of whales and deep sea creatures. Creatures sensitive to water temperature and PH could get in trouble. Lakes and rivers could get drained if abruptly chopped.

The divergence point for the human Earths goes back thousands of years so it wouldn't make sense to try and represent the diversity our world. Rather, the setting should be its own thing. There would be different (and overall fewer) ethnical groups, though there would likely have existed minority populations and tourists/travellers even within the cities at the point of displacement (victorian era). My Tularians are a mix of "Mongolian" usurpers moving through Scandinavia, meeting with people from Kush, so they're quite diverse and different looking. The Sivarians (India) could've had some influx from both the west (Arabia I suppose) and east (south Asia). The evil "mirrorverse" humans are more homogeneous (but unlikely purebloods like in their fantasies).

As for picking the Permian period and Synapsids it's because Triassic/Jurassic dinosaurs has been done a lot elsewhere and feels rather kitsch. The regional terrain transplants would bring along plants (such as grass and fancy flowers), germs, parasites and egg thieves which were not a thing on the Permian Earth, causing displacement and extinctions. I wonder how Synapsids would react to grassy fields?

As for pollinators, they (e.g. Mesopsychidae) may have existed back in the late Permian era in some form. The consensus is that flowers as we know them came later, unless there was some pseudo-flower thing going on with naked-seed plants.

Early Permian trees carried over from the Carboniferous era. Some were trunk-like, shedding leaves as they grew taller, which left the lower trunk barren and dotted with scars. These were displaced during the Permian but I'll include them for the visual. I recall there was some issue with dying plants not being broken down by microbes and bugs the same way they are now, but that was perhaps in the Carboniferous period.

Modern animals probably hold some advantages over Permian ones, like having more complex ears, better temperature regulation and digestive systems... uh, flight capability, and better adaptation to predators and pests. However, modern life forms are fit for a modern Earth and Permian ones fit for a Permian Earth, so modern life forms wouldn't necessarily be better. I can somewhat dodge this issue by selecting a few creatures that I don't like and say they went extinct.

The Permian period lasted for quite some time (50 million years) and had a few extinction events, so it doesn't quite make sense to mix animals from the entire period, but I suppose they could've been somehow "sampled" by some mechanism too. I could add a few ruins and craters to suggest meddling, or say that the lizardmen came from the late Permian era (barely escaping the whole volcano ordeal), incidentally bringing late Permian life along with them. Or, if the base was an early-mid Permian Earth, perhaps it was left alone for 30 million years, and any similarity to our late Permian life is the result of convergent evolution (any discrepancies perhaps observed by paleontologists on this new Earth). So, in this timeline some of the early Permian life still survived because of different conditions in magic space, explaining how e.g. the Dimetrodon (mid Permian, dry region) can coexist with the Inostrancevia (late Permian, near polar?)... well, I don't know. I'm not going to use our names for the flora and fauna anyways. Maybe sailbacks just survived into the late Permian and we never found any fossils. Several species from that time even survived until this day so who knows. Actually, sailbacks from the early Triassic (somewhat right after the extinction event) have been found, namely the Ctenosauriscus.

Pangea, 255 mya, just before the extinction event. China has surfaced and might be swamp-like. There's a rust desert in the rain shadow of the eroded central mountains. Seasonal mega-monsoons come in from the Tethys bay. Days are 22 hours long. The Carbon dioxide levels during the Permian era were occasionally low (e.g. 300-400 like today) but spiked massively into the thousands a few times, especially when the volcanos went off triggering the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event. Our sun increases in luminosity over time, which means back in the Permian days it was slightly dimmer.

### Permian Geology and Climate

A map of Pangea is of course a bit speculatory, but at a planetary scale certain laws help us to guess where forests and deserts existed. My first impulse when doing a fantasy map is to place deserts all along the equator, then temperate forests above and then polar caps, but climate is a bit more complex than that. If one looks at Africa, there's greenery (and thus rainfall) at the equator. The Sahara desert actually sits above the equator. What's going on? Isn't the equator generally hotter?

Well, the ocean might be, and apparently warm ocean currents are what cause rainfall. Looking at ocean current maps, there's a cold ocean current going down Sahara's west coast, but two warm ones licking Africa's waist. Below, south Africa's west coast looks a bit barren, and what do you know--there's indeed a cold ocean current driving by there.

Now, a super-continent like Pangea would block ocean currents and weather patterns in a very different way than our currently scattered continents. We'd need to run some kind of fluid and weather simulation perhaps. Judging by the work that has been done already, it appears like the warm, equatorial ocean currents would have created monsoons that helped turning coastal equatorial land green. However, we have seen that when rain clouds come in over land, elevation forces them to dump the water. This means regions far inland or behind mountains would have been dry, and since Pangea was so large it's unlikely the central regions got much rain. One can imagine that the seasonal monsoon rains carved massive rivers that were left to diminish or dry out before the next rainfall. Life must have been able to adapt to these unstable conditions. It has to be noted that a forested area has a cooling effect compared to e.g. barren black asphalt, so even though the equatorial region might have been rather hot, life... found a way. Equatorial (and some coastal) trees were likely broad-leafed whilst polar ones were needle leafed. "Grassy" and shrubby (steppe?) regions sat between.

What do we know of Pangea's mountains? We know that mountains form when continental chunks collide, and that they erode over time. The Pangean mountain ranges were different from our modern ones because the whole "bumping" situation was different. Pangea's most notable mountain range formed between Laurasia and Gondwana, which are the names for the northern and southern super chunks. North of this dividing mountain range there was a sort of hot, rusty wasteland. The scattered remnants of the Pangean mountains are one of the things which help us to guess how things were once connected. Fossil distributions are another big clue. At the time of the late Permian era Pangea had already been hanging together for long enough to significantly erode mountains from the early Permian era. Perhaps most of the tectonic activity was up north in Siberia where the whole volcano thing happened, ending the fun. Speaking of, pretty much everyone must be aware of the impeding disaster about to repeat... "soon".

Going for some more exotic looking mechanical designs here.

All Terrain Vehicles. Also, beetles appeared during the Permian. The wing cover shell is actually the front pair of wings that hardened (elytron). It's quite noticeable on fossils since traces of the wing texture can be seen. Some modern beetles of ancient blood seem to sport a sort of lattice structure as well. On crane flies and other flies something else interesting happened--the front wings became dominant and the rear wings changed into small "clubs" called halteres, used to sense changes in orientation (I guess a bit like how if you twist your body with your arms held out, they'll "lag" behind due to mass and you can sense that in your shoulder joints.)

Baddies and high level synapsids.

Recently I've been trying to resist making the badguys cool in a desirable way (e.g. Storm Troopers, Jin-Roh), so for the Gauls here I tried to go for some dorky elements, like... those high pants Kylo Ren wore in Star Wars. Those pants could have a deep cultural meaning to the Gauls because their historical idol wore them (according to a mistranslated ancient text). Other factions can sometimes be heard saying something along the lines of "Great... here comes the Red Pants!".

Also, instead of a cool battle armour they get a boring tacticool vest, strapped onto the pair of suspenders. Do they get a cool helmet? No- they get a bucket, which they think is cool because it echoes the days of the old great helms. It has a gasmask though, which one might think is cool, but not if it has an baby pacifier-like outlet valve in piss yellow. Their standard issue handheld weapon is based on the old Steyr automatic rifle which I never liked the look of ever since I first saw it in Dogs of War (an old Amiga game). They also have a heavier rifle they use for poaching. Their vehicles are quite ordinary looking, with some Soviet/East Germany influence. If they have cars they probably look like the old Lada. Because no one likes dealing with the Gauls, they are quite isolated and only able to badly clone captured technology.

The tanks / APCs for the Dwarfs are a bit more interesting looking. Had some old French fortress style inter-war era tanks in mind.

If the Permian synapsids can level up, it could be fun if they grew in size and became bullet proof/sponges (somewhat warranting all the guns and shootin'). It does perhaps sour the kind of "scientific Permian era" aspect of the setting though.

Character design for a story, with a bit of Wendy Williams punk outfit DNA. Also a sailback. I thought these went extinct early-mid Permian with Dimetrodon. Afaik they lived along Pangea's central mountain range, which changed so I thought they lost their habitats. But then I remembered that some dinosaurs (existing much later) had sails. And there was even one right after the Permian extinction (drawn)... not sure if closely related to Dimetrodon though. No, different clade yeah? Convergent evolution?

A redesign of the Czech ZB 47.

Alepecognathus.

Edaphosaurus.

Flags in a different vertical format. Some have a little symbolism. The Tularians started as a mix of Asians moving westward over Asia's burnished steppes and down though Scandinavia, and perhaps they did so in three journeys / pushes. So, Mongols ride horses on the steppe, China had 3 kingdoms and Sweden has 3 crowns. As for the creatures, I've added a flying pterasaur-like thing which must be from the lizard timeline (where the asteroid impact was a bit of a half-miss). I don't think I'll include any typical dinosaurs from that world, just to keep the Permian focus, so maybe the lizards lived on a small island without any big dinos. Also did a fat seal variant of whatsitcalled. The Blush Bird is an offshoot of the Giant Moa which went extinct just a few hundred years ago. My version is from a different timeline though. As fun as they might be to ride, I imagine that they're absolute bastards with beady little eyes.

More Permian animals. While the Permian era (aprox. 300-250 mya) ended in a massive extinction event*, some lifeforms from this time is still around in some similar form, like sharks, chimaera, ferns, clubmoss and quillwort.

* The "Siberian" region of Pangea apparently developed volcanos that huffed and puffed for millions of years.

Furry Pantylus. Speaking of. Also, Ophiacodon.

#### Direction

I'm not quite sure yet how to style this setting, but here are some ideas:

Cyberpunk. Now, cyberpunk isn't just about aesthetics, cool mechanical arms and a bit of abstract hacking. A more utopian setting can feature those elements, but it would just be cyber. To make it "punk" one has to more closely understand punk--perhaps especially the second wave of the early 80s which was when certain seminal cyberpunk works also came out. I kind of feel like this direction might actually overshadow the whole Permian wildlife thing I've got going, because doubtless, nature would have been already have been destroyed if a cyberpunk-style regime was in power. Unless nature was strong enough to fight back, putting people in even more of a squeeze.

Rifts-like. Everything is bonkers powerful and ferocious. Lots of other worlds to visit too. Anything can happen.

Traditional adventure. Fairly standard RPG, with wilderness, monsters, ruins, different factions, small settlements, guilds. More primitive tech, perhaps. Possibly a cultivation world instead of level based.

Chillax and atmospheric. Would probably work better in a novel, with the characters meeting more characters and cultures as they explore the new world, unraveling some mystery and having moments. I kind of like this angle because it feels wrong to treat the Permian wildlife as monsters to be shot (smells of poaching), and different factions as racial enemies, also to be shot. Now, there might have to be some shootin', but it should be at some deserving aggressor.

### Thoughts on Rules

I used the term "TableTalk RPG" at the top of this page. It's a term used in Japan, and for me it better encapsulates the game than "Tabletop" does as my group never played with miniatures. Our sessions* were more about directing the mind's eye ("Theatre of the Mind" might be the term) and less about the physical eye being locked onto stuff on the table surface. The burden of running the simulation fell on the GM and less on squares and systems with constraints. Hidden rolls, improvisation and lack of meta gaming during play, promotes immersion and reduces rule arguments and consultation, I think. With this style of play, it's best to avoid complex maps such as mazes (not fun to play anyways), and good to encourage colourful descriptions and landmarks for each area. Combat could use a zone (range bracket) system.

Detailed rules can become an obstacle. Ultimately the GM arbitrarily decides the fate so moving complexities onto the player doesn't make the game more fair or realistic. To me (and especially nowadays with CRPGs), the strength of the medium lies in the richness of human responses. Yes it's fun play pure hack and slash dungeons and watch numbers go up, but richness and improvisational interest can exist in this type of play too. "TableTalk" doesn't have to mean "in-character" awkward voice acting. It can mean "unusual actions and outcomes that you'll never see in a video game".

I ask what the password to the safe is.
The mafia guy in body armour scoffs at your dinky pistol and doesn't seem threatened.
Hmmm, is there an explosive video game barrel in the room?
There's in fact an explosive barrel right next to the bad guy.
Then I point my dinky pistol at the barrel.
He gives you the password.

* We called RPGs "Rollspel" in Sweden (spel meaning both play and game) and it worked great until CRPGs intruded on the territory even though they are just games with a buncha more stats than usual and have about as much roleplaying as Super Mario Bros. That said, TTRPGs too can be played purely for action, I suppose.

Nowadays I don't much like realistic simulation rules, though if the rules are too light and flimsy the game might feel arbitrary. Rolling dice is empowering as fate is seemingly decided by an impartial third party--luck. I do think the rule system should be quite plain and understandable, with modifiers and special rules being improvised by the GM behind the scenes. Nowadays I actually much prefer D100 percentile TTRPG systems over D20 and mixed dice ones. Using +- % for difficulty mods doesn't feel quite right at the extremes however (you might get like 23% - 30 or 85% + 20). Maybe an additional roll for difficulty could work?

First you try to roll under the relevant Skill, e.g. Lockpicking 50%. Normally that's all you need to worry about (along with degrees of success), but sometimes the challenge is "Easy". Then you could always succeed on a separate roll under e.g. a constant of 33%. This means a third of the failures are actually successes. If the task is "Hard" then you must pass the Skill roll AND a Hard roll, e.g. a constant 67%. This reduces 50% to 33%. Even if the Skill is very low, like 5%, there's always a chance to succeed.

Some games have something like Desperation Points which can be used for rerolls (or roll mods). It empowers the player whilst being simple to use. Certain things might need to be abstracted to a few rolls, like skills which would normally break up a party (scouting/sneaking ahead, or entering cyberspace). I like the idea of degrees of success/failure, as seen in e.g. Rogue Trader. I like the idea of using stacking (collecting) skills to level them up ("Nerve Strike" doing more damage and perhaps allowing for more complex use. It would be used in conjunction with say throwing, grappling, martial arts skill, creating synergies).

The GM often selects which skills and base stats are relevant for a roll/test. The player just selects which action to take. By including the base stat, one avoids having to re-bake it into the skills when it changes. I like the idea of being able to change stats slowly, so I think number ranges need to be a bit larger. I think the system should be able to handle large scale differences so there's no upper or lower cap. Opposing rolls are nice because... say 2D12(player) vs 2D12(gm) produces a bell curve where one can fumble and/or the other crit. For dead obstacles it feels a bit off though, and it might slow down the game. Conceivably, a firefight could be resolved using opposing dice plus modifiers such as weapons, cover, then degree of success determines # bullet hits (which can be translated into fewer precision hits).

When it comes to character creation, I think the meta is kind of interesting as it's a form of solo game you can engage with for fun. If the player is given complete freedom to tailor the character, it might result in min-maxing ideal/solved "builds". If it's completely random then it's not very engaging and a bummer for players rolling poorly. I like the idea of rolling, say 3 races, then pick one. Same for skills, gear. Stats get a reroll and points for tweaking (maybe half of old rerolled stat... do you pick a high or low one?). There might be limits to how many tweak points can go into a single stat. The player who rolls the lowest might get Pity Points. Starting level could be Normal(15), Rookie(10), and Pro(20). I'm wholly against classes as they only create design problems, like who can be what, wear what, multiclassing (trying to not have classes now?), balance issues, etc. Creating synergies from a random hand of cards is more interesting. It's a new landscape each time, and usually not a solved game. Modern boardgames do this well.

As for cyberspace... is it really that interesting nowadays? Maybe it needs to be be abstracted under a few skills which are used at consoles. Rather than making it futuristic, one could latch onto nostalgia and make it mid-'90s web. "It will take 5 turns for the modem to connect. *ccchhheeeioooorp*. You are now ONLINE, with Netspace Navigator 2.0. The YouScape homepage loads. I need you to make a roll to find Meow123's profile and contact link as it's hidden in a custom weird layout they made. Ah! You find the contact info hidden in an animated GIF frame." Programmers can spend time writing and improving custom software (up to programming skill max), which is a thematic downtime activity. Custom software suites can give additional bonuses to hacking rolls. Being successful here could result in improvement points / experience which perhaps can go into the programming skill.

Tech could also be mid-90s, like phone boxes, lack of smart phones. Cybernetics could be partly magic (Magic-Point powered artificial muscles/motors/actuators, or mind controlled at least), solving some of the issues tech can't.

If the rules are pretty light, NPC helpers would be fun. Sort of like mascot characters, and also usable as sacrificial red shirts to save the PCs. A more wild idea is to do what Tunnels and Trolls did. A player plays multiple characters and expect some of them to die. It would require rule simplification beyond what might be fun, but I can see a few advantages with this method: It's fun to make characters. Loot which might not be useful to your main character can be used by another. Death is less of a bummer, and there's a greater sense of danger as the GM can play hardball.

Ransoms and bounties for both enemies and PCs might add some variation to encounters. The GM can save PCs by having them get caught (including a daring escape later), and the PCs get to perhaps make plans for catching crooks alive somehow.

I don't like the big heavy hardcover books with gloss print, so I'd split the main game into stapled (not glued) soft cover booklets (comic book 6.625×10.25" (6×9" safe) ). One for lore ("General Knowledge"?), one for character generation and gear/shops, one for rules, then adventures. Perhaps adventures could start in the shop PCs visits after char gen?

#### Rough Stats

    Kind	Str	Agl	Tgh	Men	Mag	Int	Cha	Mass

    Human	o	o	o	o	o	o	o	o
    Dwarf	+	o	--	++	---	o	--	-
    Elf..	-	++	-	-	++	o	++	+

    Troll	++	-	+++	o	-	o	o	++	-gear&edu
    Ogre	+++	--	++	o	---	o	o	+++
    Liz..	-	+	o	o	-	o	o	--

    Duck	---	o	--	o	o	+++	o	---	+gear&edu&intel
    Fox..	o	++	-	o	-	o	o	+
    Panth	o	+++	+	o	o	o	++	o

    Goblin	-	o	+	--	+	o	o	--
    H.Gob	o	+	+	o	++	+	+	+	+intel
    L.Dmn	+++	++	++	++	++	o	++	+
    G.Dmn	+5	++	+++	+++	+++	++	+++	+++

    o = 8 + D4 = 10.5 + backstory buffs/nerfs
    - = -2
    +++ = + 6

What would've happened if Gandalf hadn't taken The One Ring and instantly teleporting it into Mt.Doom with his new powers? What if... say, the Frodo character had taken it on a stealth mission, perhaps intending to walk all the way to Mt.Doom, but then died, ambushed by a goblin in a rice paddy 1250 meters outside The Shire?

Hmmm. I'd say that a... uh, crane could've picked up the ring and flown to Rivendell, but got shot down by a rogue elf, perhaps even Legolas. So Legolas puts on the ring, becomes invisible and no one can find him! Then everyone are like, Where are you Legolas? Where are u? He takes it off, surprising Elrond.

Give me that junk I wanna try, says Elrond. Okay says Legolas I don't really care about it anyways. Now Elrond is invisible! Elrond pranks the beautiful elf lady. What's that? You've found a magical ring? she asks. No, Legolas found it Elrond says. Oh Legolas found it? Ye he did.

Well that's enough of that. She takes the ring. She puts it away in a dusty pot full of trinkets and useless fancy gifts from old kings she never bothered to even learn the names of. Little did she know the ring had a family living in that pot, and was finally back home! The End.

Epilogue.

Dinner table. So where did Legolas find the ring? A crane had it but I shot it. Oh okay. Elrond fidgets in his seat. Are we going away on the boats soon? Well- Her answer is cut short by Legolas throwing his cutlery. This isn't dwarf! You promised dwarf meat today!!!

Art by Arne Niklas Jansson

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