"World War One" Cosm.

[skeloric]

This is a bunch of disjointed notes culled from the WEG forums and given a new life of sorts here.
Each "--" marks a break in thought and a new post.
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Tharkold could be placed at Tech 20 and take upon itself a strange WW1 atmosphere.
WW1 barnstorming vs. Demons that are much faster and more agile in the air.
Holding a "Maginot Line" against Race-Slave enemies that have been promised all sorts of gifts that an owner would offer their pet:
good food, mates, etc. just to kill a "FreeMan" on the far side of that line.
High Command of the Race would plan impossible charges and worry about soldiers deserting back to the Slave-Pens in order to get a good hot meal.
Indeed, this could be part of the History of Tharkold.
Back, before the Spasm.
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A specific Cosm I envisioned ages ago -- based in part upon the idea of Tharkold -- was a horrific "World War One" Cosm.
Tech 20 and the war waged eternally upon multiple Cosms as the two sides in the conflict are trapped in a stalemate forever.
The Cosm ruled by a single High Lord and DD who earnestly believes himself to be TWO people, the "High Commander" of each force.
A Cosm in which the soldiers dream of going home but never will, as home hasn't existed for hundreds of years.

Unlike Tharkold, This place would be low Spirit and LOWER Magic, the Social would be at about 20 so as to handle the complex bureaucracy of the war...

All in all, a desperate and awful place.
A World Law that dictates that ALL are combatants -- either enemy or ally.
There are no innocents in this war.
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Another Cosm i like is a WW1 angled Tharkold.
Maybe there wouldn't even be Techno-Demons.
Just the monstrous and dehumanizing backdrop of World War One.
An entire generation of men came back from that war shattered and disfigured from the Hubris of Nations (if they made it back home at all).
There are areas of Europe where the mud can still suddenly dislodge an almost 100 year lost skeleton of a service-man who served his nation but was served up BY his nation as a sacrifice to the Altar of Victory that they felt demanded his death.
Imagine a Cosm where such a war has gone on so long that even the records of the original conflict are lost.
Maybe the Cosm itself is fractured beyond repair.
The High Lord himself is a fractured being, leading each half toward "victory" but being unable to ever achieve that victory.
Each half is served by one-half of the Darkness Device-- it having been driven mad by the nature of the Cosm and the chosen High Lord.
Each new invaded Cosm is another, new, battlefield in an "endless" war that, TRULY, can NEVER end.
How can the PC SKs deal with a Cosm where the very act of "Heroism" is a contradiction?
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Riffing off of this, where does everyone see this Cosm going?

[Greg M.]

Moving Tharkold down to a (generally) 1910-1920 Tech level addresses both the excessive power factor of Tharkold characters and the criticism that TORG doesn't need two "cyberpunk" realms (three if you count Nippon Tech). You can still have occultech-powered cyberware, but it's bulkier and more fragile, in step with the machinery of the times (think exposed pistons, steam valves, big sheets of boilerplate steel) -- maybe it requires regular oiling and adjustment to function properly. Et voila, you also have the "steampunk" cosm a lot of people have been asking for. I don't think that it would be a good fit for L.A. thus altered, though -- I'd move it back to Russia. Make the Race analogous to the Bolsheviks of the 'Teens and 'Twenties, with a vicious secret police force that's ironically justified in its purges and witch hunts -- because the enemies of the state aren't human.

Of course, once you move the "techno-horror" cosm down to an Edwardian level of "techno" you start treading on Orrorsh's toes. Would the game really lose a lot by moving Tharkold's Tech down, Orrorsh's up, and consolidating the two into a single "steamhorror" realm? It's hard to get everything balanced just right in these theoretical exercises . . . not to mention coming up with something that hasn't been done before (CoC Twenties and Deadlands given a few decades would look pretty similar).

[skeloric]

WW1 Cosm is Tech 20 to Orrorsh's Tech 19 but that isn't all that they disagree on.

I'd drop the Magic Axiom down a well to start with -- 3 to 4 at best. Maybe 5. Higher than Nippontech but lower than Core Earth.

Spirit would hang around 7 to 8 in my mind, the chaplain is there but it isn't for miracles.

Social at 20 with no "cute tricks" of it being "12" or "13" according to some World Law.

And I'd scuttle the Techno Demons as well, as I noted.

World Laws are iffy as yet but would be more dehumanizing in an "endless war" motif.

First would be, "No Atheists in Foxholes" -- it essentially confers Faith+1 and Focus+1 in some battlefield superstition/Faith substitute and a few miracles surrounding taboos and pre-battle personal rituals -- such as field stripping one's weapon to invoke the "No jamming" miracle (Whatever that would do) or perhaps checking and polishing the metal encased "holy book" which then allows for one wound level to removed at next wounding event (book catches the bullet, etc.)
Miracles can be coincidentally powerful but only work for and upon the invoker.