Multiverser World Ideas and Development
Working on a new world concept. Thought people might want to hear about it. The world concept is basically an attempt to subvert the classical historical trope of "what terrible world would result if the Nazis won?" by making it actually turn out pretty ok - through the intervention of another power.
This is still very much a rough draft. I aim to add a lot more detail.
Achtung! Ihr Führer verlangt Gehorsam (Translation: Attention! Your Leader Demands Obedience!)
World Alignment: Alliance.
It may be surprising that this world is Alliance. This is intentional. The world is actually extremely (currently) aligned with order and goodness, and destructive magic is quite limited. During and after the end of the World War, the empire committed terrible atrocities. Entire kinds of human being were completely wiped out. However, some time after the war, the Empire's Occult Research Division opened a portal into another world, a sub-universe full of psychic incorporeal-symbiont-capable entities known as the Gaaroff. These entities poured out of their world, and merged with the population of the planet quite rapidly. Wherever a human merged with a Gaaroff, the human became psychically aware of the thoughts and emotions of the other people around them. With this continual psychic communion, war rapidly became outmoded and the world settled down into a global empire – subtly steered by the Gaaroff (for the humans' own good, of course; they must follow the will of The Furor, not by force but by enlightenment). The leaders of the Empire were seized and guided away from their evil ways, and many of them were driven from the reins of power.
The Gaaroff have steered the world towards order and away from the atrocities of the past over time. The people of the world have begun to worship the God of the Gaaroff, the Furor, He Who Provides Order. Due to a misunderstanding by humans of what these invisible psychic entities are doing to them and a generalized difficulty in contacting their alien minds (or even noticing their physical presence, especially once merged with a human), it became a common belief that The Furor is in fact an ascended human being, the former leader of the Empire from before his death, he who was once known as the Fuhrer. Therefore, a common religious saying is “The Fuhrer Protect”. Another common saying is, well, the name of the setting; a common phrase when someone is acting disorderly and against the needs of society is to say “Attention! The Fuhrer Demands Your Obedience!”. Through such harsh language, peace can often be restored without needing to resort to worse action.
Originally, before the release of the Gaaroff, this setting was Neutral and had no Ruling Power. The Ruling Power had been sealed in that subuniverse with the Gaaroff, leaving the world without Holy Guidance. Only through the use of Arcane Magic was the block removed and the Holy Powers restored.
World Body Bias: 15@10
The Gaaroff are universally practitioners of Body 15@10 Permanent Spirit Existence. Humans are still generally limited to standard Earth-like Body skills.
World Magic Bias: 3@10
Magic is currently incredibly uncommon in Achtung! Ihr Führer verlangt Gehorsam, and it is also quite weak. What magic does exist for Indigs is limited to blessings, which are the only common magic and are typically appeals to the Fuhrer, curatives, which almost always require occult artifacts to be used as part of the ritual to offset the fact that they are all arcane (The Furor does not grant curatives, he prefers object manipulatives – especially transmutation done in service of creating order or creating plentiful resources for people), and object manipulatives. Very few people outside of the (now much smaller) Occult Division of the World Government practice magic. But those that do are typically well respected, and there is now a grey market in the trade of occult artifacts from the days of the World War, to be used by magicians to practice Curatives.
The Magic Bias used to be MUCH higher. Indigs with more Magical knowledge have mostly died off since the release of The Furor. The Furor believes that communion through the mind creates peace and order, while magic creates chaos and disorder. The Furor considers most higher level magics to be too risky to allow, as they invite the Anarch powers. Considering it was exactly such powers that sealed the Furor away to begin with, this belief is...perhaps not too far from the truth.
World Psychic Bias: 10@4
Every Indig in Achtung! Ihr Führer verlangt Gehorsam α has a Psychic 1@1 Status Skill. The only effect this Skill has is that it displays the character's status to others, which is rated as the base chance of the skill to succeed, and it interacts with a limiting rule attached to every other Psychic Skill that Indigs learn on this world. As a character gains status in society, they increase the SAL of their Status Skill. As a limit on that skill, it cannot be directly trained with any training program. It can only increase autonomously as the direct result of one's true social standing. In truth, it is being raised automatically by the latent psychic energy of those viewing you. This means moving to another area of the world may actually cost you SAL in your Status Skill!
They also have a Psychic 3@0 Perceive Status Skill. The only purpose of this Skill is to let Indigs view the above Skill. Indigs tend to be Experts at this Skill unless they are very young, as they begin practicing it with typically between 6 and 18 hours a day of use at the age of 3 to 6 onward. To an Indig, looking at another person includes using Perceive Status. It's automatic, instinctive, appearing in their field of view before them.
As people gain general telepathic skills, they begin regularly viewing the Status of others, doing so essentially all day as they encounter people, rapidly increasing the SAL of this perceptive ability. Basic Telepathy, Telepathic Defenses, and psychic Detections in general are all extremely common in this world. The leaders of the world government and certain other people in the world may have more psychic potential, but no Indig has psychic potential higher than the generation of crushing physical force. Non-Indigs are immediately strange and obvious to the citizens of this world, because their Status is “hidden”. But deliberately having your Status hidden (Possible for Indigs with a Psychic 2@3 Barred Mind Defense) is illegal! Such disorderly conduct can only indicate anarch intentions...right?
World Tech Bias: 12@3
No special comments.
World Power Blocks: The ruling Power of Achtung! Ihr Führer verlangt Gehorsam α, The Furor, does not allow Telepathy Skills or other mind-altering or mind-detecting Skills to affect those of a higher social standing than oneself. This is a disorderly breach of one's social duties, and an indication of misplaced mistrust which is not tolerated. One's place in the world is to serve those around you, to create goodness and plenty for all, and those above you have truly earned that place through superior service. Those from outside the world may attempt to defy this block only by perceiving their own standing as higher, an action which requires a separate Simple Animal Magnetism Attribute check penalized by the target's Status Skill result. Success indicates a temporary intentional misperception of one's own status that lasts for a few seconds. Note that mind-affecting skills which do not have the Psychic limits of this universe that the Indigs have still function, but they simply fail if the Status requirement isn't met. And those skills don't get the bonus SM that the Indig version gets for its inherent limitation, obviously.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:03, Mon 20 June 2022.