I reached out to a group of people on Discord but I wanted to reach out even further to get as many opinions as possible. I am running a story in my Conan game that will be leading to the entire party ending up in Infinity’s world for what will probably be a short mini-campaign. They are exploring a puzzle circling around the Zodiac (the expanded 14). I have already decided that the source of the puzzle is an individual who is out of place. He comes from the Infinity universe and he’s using this puzzle to help himself get home. The party will be drug along once they solve it.
All that being said what I’m looking for is factions that are likely to be messing with things that would cause something like this. Suggestions on character builds (I want to have each PC have a character that is their character but transferred fully into Infinity as I’m not trying to run an fish out of water campaign). And the race/archtype that would be a good option for the person who is out of space and time (He’s one of several big bads in my story).
Regarding the characters:
There is a Female archer who for all intents and purposes is Mongolian, a secretive sorcerer who shape changes into animals, a noble barbarian berserker, a skald (read bard), and an assassin with a tendency to get himself in trouble.
Thanks for any advice and help. I’ll be updating this topic as things progress and asking questions as they come up.
Well, that Mongolian archer could translate nicely into a Yu Jing sniper?
There are the Hassasin of Haqqislam for the assassin (although all of the factions do have their own murder-death-kill specialists, so it might depend on your assassin’s mindset, as the Hassassin are quite specific).
Secretive sorcerer sounds like some kind of espionage type, possibly a hacker (wielding strange invisible powers, after all).
The bard could be an investigative reporter, or possibly some other media personality of some kind.
And for the barbarian berserker, you could always take ‘berserker’ literally, and go full Ariadnan Dog-Face. [grin]
As for the big bad, perhaps an embodied AI fragment, now disconnected from the networks, and experimenting with an alternative to the Minotaur Drive, which is what’s got it where it’s ended up. Which might make it some kind of resident on Bakunin?
Thank you very much for the input! That helps narrow my research a lot since there is so much lore out there that I’m not familiar with. I’m going to dig into your suggestions this week and hopefully come back in the next couple days with more questions
I’ve been reading into the Nomad faction a lot and I definitely want to involve them somehow. I hadn’t considered make them the big bad… I’ll have to look into that!
Thank you for the suggestion on the sorcerer. What is a TAG? How would that reflect his shape changing? I’ll have to do some research on this but any explanation would be welcome!
TAG = Tactical Armoured Gear - the heavy powered armour in the Infinity setting. Some of them have pilots inside them - others are remote-operated drones, which could be an analogue for elementals or golems. “I am merely weak and feeble, and no threat to you. However … [whirr-clank-buzzzzz] … my large friend here …”
Given the fragmented nature of the Nomads, I don’t think they would be the big bad as such - more that the big bad is hiding amongst them, because they’re pretty darned accepting - especially of anyone opposed to the status quo. If they think that said big bad is a threat to them, though, they can pull out a whole load of interesting cans of whup-butt. (No-one said Pupnik, right?)
Ah! That’s something I can totally see the player who plays the sorcerer completely loving that. I’m definitely going to have to dig into and consider that as a real option.
As far as the big bad, that was kind of my thought to begin with. He’s kind of a rogue who was searching into things he shouldn’t have been and got stuck.
The ALEPH sourcebook contains some interesting stuff for generating rogue AIs, including those of unknown origin - if the rogue found some kind of ritual in the original setting that transferred his consciousness into a dispersed AI state … which would also mean that he could then control ‘human’ Lhosts or remote-operate drones or TAGs as opposition, too.
Oh, now this is actually something that I’ve been struggling to work into the lore of the game. How the NPC bbeg got stuck in the far flung past and how I will explain how the pcs end up in comparable but not the same bodies. I don’t want to drop Conan characters directly into Infinity (the systems are similar enough but honestly Conan characters would be so lost with all the tech they wouldn’t stand a chance) so I need a way to explain how they end up in new bodies. Something like this might actually be just what I am looking for in that regard.
Well, your PCs are unlikely to all end up as AIs themselves (would both be substantial culture shock, and would be more disconnection from the actual Conan concepts), so some other way to do the dislocation will probably be required. Hmmm. [scratches head … gets splinter]
(I presume your players will be OK with this genre shift? I know a number of fantasy players who really hate SF settings, and only ever play fantasy as a result, and, having been the victim of a DM who forced a character change from that I’d created without consultation or warning, I wasn’t especially well-disposed to the resulting game.)
Yes, they’ll be ok with it. Most have been asking about me running an Infinity one shot for months now. I wouldn’t just force them into something else like that without letting them know. It’s more of a way to let them play something different for a short time before we go back to our pulp action game.
If I was looking to make a permanent shift I’d do it different and just end the other campaign. I do appreciate the thought and your concern though
In which case, sounds like it’ll go down really well! And a good idea of a way to link the stories, too. [raises glass] (I guessed you’d probably have sounded them out, from the fact that you were weighing up different ideas, but I just have a tendency towards caution!)
Absolutely, there are too many GMs out there that forget that they are just another player at the table. It’s all for fun and meant to be cooperative in every way. I completely understand your concern.
Back with an even more firm base for my ideas. As my plans shape up I am realizing more and more I’m going to be taking a couple minor liberties with core Infinity lore to make this work but… I’m looking for suggestions on race/archtype/build equivalents for a handful of Norse gods. Gods are as follows:
Thor, Loki, Freyja Baldr and Hermoor.
For anyone who isn’t sure they are the gods of (as I am utilizing them):
Thor: God of Thunder, storms, strength and protection
Loki: Trickster god, mischief
Frejya: war, death, sex, beauty
Baldr: Light, joy, purity
Hermoor: Messengers, brotherhood
It bears note that the npcs I am creating to reflect these gods are going to be mortal and 100% founded in Infinity. They are usurpers who have displaced the real deities. There were two others (Odin and Eir) but both of these are dead through accidental actions of the players involving a creature that blends the god Hel, some Lovecraftian lore and the digester nano machines that the Tahoo(?) had a hand in creating/unleashing on the universe.
To explain your pc’s change of body: genetic memory, assassin’s creed style. The infinity characters are descendants participating in a experiment supposed to make them relive the past life of ancestors, and end up being imprinted? Could be the same for the BBEG.
Now that is something I hadn’t thought of. I was thinking maybe the portal between worlds forcibly melds them with another being but that’s a fun thought too
