Changeling* Weird Science-Fantasy Roleplaying Game Installment #1: Genre & Milieu *************** Excerpted portions: *************** The Changeling* Weird Science-Fantasy Roleplaying Game is an independent genre module which is a part of the Dangerous Journeys* Multi-genre Roleplaying Game System. It draws the majority of its rules and systems from the Mythus* Fantasy Roleplaying Game and Mythus Magic* book, and from the Unhallowed* Supernatural Roleplaying Game. You will need these volumes to play this game. *************** The game is set in a universe parallel to our own, with a solar system pretty much duplicating our own as well. The center of the milieu is likewise a parallel place, a world called earth by its people. To avoid confusion, we must call it Urth. The world of Urth is more advanced than our own, though. This is dealt with in more detail in the Backstory that follows. When we venture to the universe of Urth we must not only travel across the dimension of probability but go up in time's dimension so as to arrive in the future and the Urth cosmos. The milieu of the Changeling game is not confined to Urth. It includes the solar system and possibly reaches beyond. In addition to the homeworld there is a ring of great satellites around Urth, and the labyrinthine Luna (moon) base, the colony planets Marz and Venuz, and more. All of this will be detailed in a little while; first the history of this milieu must be explained. *************** From the "Time Line": 1997 First work begins on a ring of what will eventually be 36 great satellite stations, a massive project for solar energy collection and transmission to Urth 2017 Androids produced 2025 Manned Marz base established 2060 Complete terraforming engineering of Marz undertaken; Marzian civilian colony established. Energy converted to matter, and matter transformed into atmospheric gases and water, makes the planet habitable within five years. 2088 Manned colonist space craft lands on and begins final terraforming of Venuz 2121 A flood of returning colonists causes Urth's government to ban all travel to the planet 2125 Bloody riots on Urth against re-immigrants; several ships of colonists are vaporized after refusing to turn back; Marz and Venus colonies declare War against homeworld Urth. 2138 The Cataclysm Some 250 years have passed since that last terrible event, and it is now 2394 CE on Urth. But before we can enter the milieu as it now exists, we need to know what happened during those two and a half lost centuries... *************** So now Urth is a very strange place indeed. There are Reserves for "civilization" on the six continents, and some broader areas for "natural" humanity to "roam freely". There are android and robot "humans" to keep order. Here and there are underground bases and, in the non-reserve areas, open ones where Computer Prime's servants go about the business of maintaining the perfect world for their charge, "Humanity as it was at its best." Hidden away are little cells of resisters, able to survive only because of the anomalies in the electronic masters of mankind which the computers are now incapable of detecting. NEXT ISSUE: Milieu Worlds & Adventure Areas: Urth, Orbital Satellites, Luna Base, Venuz, Marz, Asteroid Belt With notes for each setting on Conflicts, Environment, Magick, People, Technology, Weirdness... and the Chrysalis of the Void. * Trademark, all rights reserved (see statement in Table of Contents)