There's a lot of fics and challenges where the goal is to beat the bad-guys, save the day, and gain amazing powers – but what if the disaster was unavoidable? What if there was no enemy to beat, no way to stop what's about to happen? What if the challenge simply was a natural disaster about to tear apart the whole universe?
You can't fight it. You can't stop it. The only option is to move. To Evacuate Earth.
Luckily a friendly ROB decides to empower a Champion that can help them do just that.
Writing challenge: Evacuate Earth (a Champion is empowered)
There's a lot of fics and challenges where the goal is to beat the bad-guys, save the day, and gain amazing powers – but what if the disaster was unavoidable? What if there was no enemy to beat, no way to stop what's about to happen? What if the challenge simply was a natural disaster about to tear apart the whole universe?
You can't fight it. You can't stop it. The only option is to move. To Evacuate Earth.
Luckily a friendly ROB decides to empower a Champion that can help them do just that.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Thursday the 13th of XXXXX year XXXX – Earth-XXX (Because it's always a Thursday)
Life on Earth-XXX was passing as usual. Some war, some peace. Natural disasters and human disasters, all happening while the majority of humanity were just trying to get through their day. Although at this precise moment over two thirds of them were sleeping, since midday was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Everything was as it always had been.
Until it suddenly wasn't.
A strange pressure built in the mind of all sentient creatures. Animals froze or ran. Humans faltered, looking around in confusion.
Then a soundless voice rang out:
"«Oh gods, are you still here?!»"
The exclamation was delivered without language, pure meaning hammering into their minds, leaving no ambiguity about how shocking the voice found this discovery. Then every single sapient mind on the planet was pulled into a shared lucid dream – those awake falling into a waking dream.
"«Oh dear. This is bad. No good. A whole planet of people. They're all settled too... How are you here? This universe was supposed to have been evacuated half a billion years ago!»"
The Collective of Humanity managed to express confusion and a sense of *Question* over the background of fear and disbelief.
"«Why it was evacuated? Well this universe is at the convergence point between two multiverse quakes. The shock-fronts are about to meet here, which will tear the universe apart. It happens sometimes.»"
"*!!!*" Was the collective reaction to those news.
"«What did you say? Oh no, it's not an attack, just a natural phenomena. Don't worry, we makes sure to direct them towards low energy universes scarce in life, and then evacuate the place well before the quake hits. Except here you are... How in the world could we have missed a whole planet of sapient minds? Hum... Let's see – evacuation order filled and processed. We did move all the local life. Just a bunch of sub-sapient or sub-sentient simple lifeforms I see... But where did all these people come from then?»"
The voice trailed off in inaudible mutterings as the Collective of Earth tried to digest this, without much success.
"«Aha! This solar system simply slipped through the dimensional barriers from another universe passing by a couple of million years ago. Well, then. Mystery solved. But what to do about you people?»"
From the general explosion of opinions, prayers, and shouts rose the idea of *Evacuation? Us too?*, which showed that humanity did have some common sense when their existence was on the line.
"«Yes that would be the easiest solution wouldn't it? Unfortunately I don't have the authorization for something like that. I was just doing the final rounds before demolition and was at most expecting to pick up some sub-sapient stragglers – not a whole planet with billions of people and trillions of other lifeforms. The metaphysical weight of that, all the minds, spirits and souls... Anyway, I can't just pull you out of there.»"
There was a wave of fear, rage and indignation in reaction to this. It conveyed a surprisingly clear message: "*Who do you think you are? We want to talk with the manager!*"
"«Who am I? Well, in the interest of avoiding all those religious snarls, lets just call me a Random Omnipotent Being. I'm part of the Construction, Demolition, and Maintenance crew of the local multiverse. You might have heard of some of my colleges. They get bored when they're off the clock and likes to mess with people and worlds in the soft outer branches of the probability trees. ...Actually that's an idea. I don't have time to get the authorization to move the whole planet, but what if they evacuated on their own? Saving themselves, earning their future and all that. The management loves that stuff... I think I have an idea. I just need to get a bit creative with the rules...»"
A tentative sense of hope rose from the Collective.
"«Oh yes, this might work. Take one of those ridiculously powerful growing power-sets. Empower a Champion to start small but quickly build up. Make sure they gain the ability for multiverse travel, if only to the soft outer branches... That should do it.»"
The voice sounded satisfied. The Collective of Earth collectively held their breaths as the voice then took on a more formal tone:
"«Right: I will grant you a Champion gifted with Powers that will grow over time. You have XX years until the quake – that should be more than enough for them to build up and either evacuate you all, or move the whole planet to another universe,»" they declared with finality.
The voice's announcement created a great sense of relief, but also a storm of questions from all of humanity. All the thoughts or worries that had been pushed aside in favour of survival now surged forth.
"«Oh dear... This won't do. How to fix it? Oh, that would work. Since sapient of your type and stage of development tend to take these kinds of interventions badly, I will make sure everyone but the Champion forget about this conversation, at least consciously. Good luck People of Earth. I sincerely hope you will save yourself and rise to a bright future. Now I just have to find a Champion, and then this mess is done with. Let's see, I need an old soul to be strong enough to support the power...»"
Before anyone had a chance to protest, the collective dream dissolved. People's minds were returned to their bodies barely a second after they left – those sleeping woke with a start while those awake blinked in confusion. The strange pressure drained away, but everyone was left with this overwhelming feeling that they had forgotten something. Something important.
After searching their thoughts in vain most people simply shrugged and went on with their day. Except now with the subconscious knowledge that something was about to happen, that life was about to get strange.
The whole thing might have passed completely without notice, if there weren't for the recordings. Over time it would become clear that everything living -animals and people alike- had reacted to something at exactly the same moment all over the globe. It was a phenomena that would be known as 'The Twitch' – a strange mystery and the first sign of what was to come, but for now life went on as usual.
Meanwhile, the working ROB searched for a Champion and tried to decide which power to grant them – this particular ROB wasn't prone to mess with mortals, but there were a number of interesting alternatives... It was hard to choose. Maybe they should split the timeline and try several of them at once?
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
The Evacuate Earth Challenge – Goals and Rules.
🔹 This is the story of an alternative Earth in an universe about to be destroyed in XX years (choose a number between 10 and 99).
🔹 The solar system with Earth originally came from another universe. It is the only place with life in the starting universe, everything else was evacuated half a billion years ago.
🔹 The destruction of the starting universe can't be stopped.
🔹 The goal is to save as much of the people and life on Earth as possible by evacuating to one or several other universes, create a homeworld and then settle there. The challenge is not over until the original universe is destroyed and a new home has been secured for long term. It is possible to settle colonies in several different universes instead of just choosing one new home.
🔹 To make this possible a Champion is empowered with one of the multi-purpose or growing powers from fanfiction (choose Inspired Inventor, Builder, The Celestial Forge, The Gamer, a Lantern Ring, or a similar power-set). The Champion will also earn building instructions for dimension-traveling devices of rising utility as they reach certain milestones.
🔹 The downside of these deliberate portals is that every time they are used 1 to 10 random portals to other universes briefly opens up and let things through to Earth (roll the dice for the number of portals, where they appear, and what comes through). This means that the population of Earth and the Champion needs to be ready to handle the results of these random portals on top of the build-up, scouting, colonizing and evacuation.
🔹 One use of a deliberate portal counts from the moment it is opened until it closes. Leaving the portal open for extended periods only counts as one use, but that still leaves that portal open for travel by anyone or anything.
🔹 Depending on difficulty level, the author can chose to have the Random Portals either appear when the deliberate portal opens, or after it closes. The portals are slightly scattered in time to appear over a period of around two hours, and each one last for 1 to 15 minutes. The Champion might have been informed about the Random Portals ahead of time, or not. The Champion may either receive a message showing the basic portal rolls (Number, Area, and What), or be left to find out through other means.
🔹 The memory block the ROB did to make people forget the Message is not that strong. It was meant to prevent widespread panic, but over time some people will start to spontaneously break it – especially those who investigate The Twitch. The Champion will also be given or earn a number of Red Pills that will break the block if eaten.
-.-.-.-
The inspiration for this challenge
I was originally inspired by this old Stargate fic when thinking up the challenge: Stargate Reopened by: andrewjameswilliams.
In that story they actually do evacuate a whole planet through a stargate. It got me thinking about how this type of move is a very different challenge than simply saving a planet and letting life go on as usual, which then led me to making this writing challenge.
A big part of the Evacuate Earth challenge is to break the 'The Status Quo is Good' paralysis that tend to prevent any large changes to life and society when writing about an Earth inspired setting. Which is why something as drastic as the destruction of the local universe was chosen as a way to force a change.
There will be no group of heroes secretly saving the universe at the last moment, no stealthy way to slip Earth into a new universe – this will have to be a global effort to get up and move. To handle the logistic, politics, and efforts necessary for colonizing a new universe and relocating a whole planet's population.
The rules will also try to encourage the protagonist to travel all over the globe and to different universes, instead of being stuck in a tiny area.
The starting Earth is supposed to lack any of those evil organizations or other things that usually force the protagonist to keep their powers hidden for most of a fic, and the status quo is going to be tipped over anyway by the evacuation, which means that there is less need to hold back to 'not disrupt society'.
Go wild. Cure cancer, introduce new technology, awaken magic, uplift humanity, build spaceships, and terraform planets. Actually use the abilities granted by the powers on a grand scale.
Random Portals
The Random Portals that show up every time a deliberate portal is opened are meant to present a challenge for the Champion and encourage them to care about what happens on different parts of the planet. The portals will also break the Masquerade and prove to this Earth that something strange is happening.
Random Portal Rolls:
(uses a 10-sided and a 6-sided dice)
Random Portals can show up anywhere on Earth, but usually in an appropriate area for what comes through – land creatures on land, water creatures in water, and so on, but the matching is very rough. You can get a sea serpent in a pond and a buffalo herd on an atoll. A water creature showing up in a major city will usually end in a harbour or a river flowing through the city, but not always.
(Hint: Google Earth is your friend when it comes to writing about random places across the globe. Pick a place and zoom in to get a feeling for the area.)
Number of portals: roll a D10 for a number between 1 and 10.
Where do they show up: roll a D6 for each portal.
1 – Wilderness. 2 – Rural area. 3 – Village or small town. 4 – Small City. 5 – Suburbs. 6 – Major City.
Area: roll a D10 for each portal.
1 – Antarctica, (all portals end up in 'Wilderness' here). 2 – Large Island in the Ocean. 3 – Australia. 4 – Northern Asia, Siberia and the Arctic Circle. 5 – Europe. 6 – South America. 7 – Africa. 8 – East Asia. 9 – North America. 10 – Middle East and Indian subcontinent.
What comes through: roll a D10 for each portal.
1 – Misplaced Megafauna, Dinosaurs, Pterosaurs, Ichthyosaurs... Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous 2 – Fantasy World, something, someone or a mixed group. 3 – Misplaced Megafauna, Age of Mammals. Palaeogene, Neogene, Ice Ages and before. 4 – Superhero Universe, something, someone or a mixed group. 5 – Misplaced Megafauna, Alternative Earth. Evolution went differently. Possibly slightly supernatural. 6 – Sci-Fi Universe, something, someone or a mixed group. 7 – Misplaced Megafauna, Magical Creatures. Griffin, Thunderbird, Naga, Sea-serpent... 8 – Environmental Hazard. Spews out of portal while it lasts. Gas, lava, water, cryogenic fluid... 9 – Misplaced Megafauna, Alien beast. Either from Earth-like world or from alien environment. 10 – Contagion Carriers. Mundane, exotic or zombie. Minor, medium or major.
Additional Details for Portal Rolls: (these are all optional)
1,3,5,7,9 – Misplaced Megafauna:roll a D6 for options.
Number: 1 – Single animal. 2 – Small pack/pride/herd/group. 3 – Mixed group. 4 – Apex predator/s and prey. 5 – Family group with young. 6 – Large group/herd/pod/flock.
Type: this is a rough guide, mixed groups can contain all of these. 1,4 – Flying, gliding, and/or high jumping. (from Air, Mountains, Trees) 2,5 – Terrestrial and/or burrowing. (from Ground, Flats, Underground) 3,6 – Aquatic, amphibian and/or semi-aquatic. (from Sea, Lakes, Rivers, Swamps)
2,4,6 – Visitors from another world: roll a D6 for options.
1 – Random civilian/s. Might bring a vehicle or riding animal. 2 – Hero, Vigilante or Adventurer. Low or medium power. 3 – Small group of soldiers. Regular or some type of special forces. 4 – B-list villain, possibly with minions. 5 – A small mixed group – can be very mixed. 6 – A seemingly civilian family or group of friends, but are they?
8 – Environmental Hazard: roll a D6 for options.
1 – Toxic atmosphere at more than one atmosphere's pressure. 2 – Lake water from 200 meters depth. 3 – Vacuum of space – unlike the others this one sucks things in. 4 – Seawater from 3000 meters depth. 5 – Lava or magma – lava flows, but magma is under incredibly pressure and gas in it explodes. 6 – Liquid Methane, Carbon-dioxide, Nitrogen or other cryogenic fluid.
10 – Contagion Carriers: roll a D6 for severity of contagion, then type
Severity: 1,2,3 – Minor. The contagion either spreads slowly, can be cured relatively easy, or is not that deadly. 4,5 – Medium. The contagion is worse but the outbreak can be handled with some effort. 6 – Major. The contagion is fast spreading and deadly. Can become a severe pandemic if not decisively fought. The contagion is not aggressive enough to create a zombie apocalypse, but could become a Bubonic Plague level of disaster if left unchecked – or become entrenched as an ongoing problem.
Type: 1 – Mundane disease. 2 – Alien Kudzu or other fast growing and spreading plant. Higher severity is carnivorous. 3 – Fungal Zombies. Giant mushrooms with toxic spores, those killed rise as shamblers. 4 – Vampires, Weres, or other spreading magical transformations. 5 – Contagious Zombies. 6 – Plague of Mindless Monster Mutation. Higher severity monsters has telepathic coordination.
My test rolls: I rolled 8 portals
1 - A small pod of aquatic Alt-Earth creatures appear in a small City in East Asia
2 - A mixed group of flying alien creatures appear in rural South America
3 - A minor outbreak of fungal zombies hits the Australian wilderness
4 - A family group of flying alien creatures appear over a Siberian village
5 - A random civilian from a superhero universe appear in the African wilderness
6 - A mixed group of people from a sci-fi universe appear in the European wilderness
7 - A large group of Pterosaurs appear over a large island in the ocean
8 - A major outbreak of contagious zombies hits the Middle Eastern wilderness
Setup – pick an Earth
This will be the planet in the starting universe that you're trying to save. You may use any Earth, Earth-analogue, or even a different planet or world if you can make it fit. Remember that you will have to interact with, or at least take in account, people from all over the globe – if you choose a non-Earth planet you want to make sure that it's one where the lore exists for more than a tiny area of the world.
While you may choose any planet, here's some suggestions:
Baseline Earth but three doors down.
Just the same as Real Life but everyone is played by a different actor. This is to make things less awkward and avoid the problems of writing about real people.
People, places, companies or other things might have different names, but fill the same roles. Buildings, roads or other structures were sometimes built in alternative configurations. Certain historical events happened slightly differently. It all evens out in the end however, and this Earth is very similar to ours despite the differences.
These minor changes from Real Life also means that the author can handwave some details and skip having to do exact research about places, people and institutions. If you want a city to have an university/hospital/military base? Now it has one – even if that's not true on our Earth.
Interesting Baseline Earth
Mostly a Baseline Earth but with slightly softer physics, more coincidences, and subtle warping of probabilities towards more interesting outcomes.
This is a world where more of the future-technology we were promised actually got off the drawing board. There's nothing earth-shattering, but they actually got some of the Cool but Impractical technology to work and be in use – and they cracked primitive fusion tech ten years ago, but is still maturing the technology before putting it in widespread use.
The most obvious difference is that space exploration didn't slow down – on the Interesting Baseline Earth the ISS is larger and has a rotating ring for gravity, there's a small scientific outpost on the Moon, and the first man recently walked on Mars. No super technology, just real life ideas that worked better than expected, or key inventions being made slightly ahead of time.
This Earth also has proved the existence of weak ESP phenomena, some cryptids actually turned out to be real, and there is a giant plateau with dinosaurs deep in the Amazon jungle (The Lost World).
Over all this Earth is just slightly more interesting and the people inhabiting it has a more flexible mindset towards the 'impossible' – which probably will make it easier to get them to accept the necessity of the evacuation.
Alt-Earth
Create an alternative Earth as your setting. Remember to not make any powered people too powerful or they wouldn't need a Champion to save them (which would go against the whole idea of this writing challenge).
Take inspiration from Alt-History stories – a world where the Cold War went on longer, or where the Natives of Australia had the right plants to start farming, or where there's a small continent in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Import a single element from a fictional universe without bringing along the greater metaphysics and conflict – like an Earth where everyone has a daemon (His Dark Materials), or an Earth where evolution went slightly differently and all the great apes -inducing humans- never lost their tail.
You can also make a hodgepodge from different fictional sources. Need a team of soldiers and their organization? Pick some from an action movie or book. Need an agency to investigate all the strange things that's happening? Well, alt-versions of Mulder and Scully (X-files) now exists on your Earth. Keep going like that to fill out the cast without having to make OC's all the time.
Big, small, do whatever change that takes your fancy – but remember that you have to keep track of what these changes means for the rest of the globe and for how people will react.
Fictional Earth
Borrow an AU version of an Earth from a fictional setting – preferably a no-power or low-power one.
If a Baseline Earth is too boring, but you don't want to create an Alt-Earth from scratch, then you might use a fictional setting instead. This way you gain some pre-made characters and lore -no need to reinvent the wheel- but since it's an AU version you can still adjust it to better fit the situation.
Most Drama, Comedy, or Crime Fiction settings can likely all be true at the same time on the same near-baseline Earth. Settings with a hidden magic world, stealthy super-science organizations, or alien visitors are trickier and might need to be adjusted to not take over as the main conflict.
Aliens are also only possible if they come from inside the solar system and therefore was brought along when Sol moved to the starting universe three million years ago. The same goes for the magical side – only things and beings that followed from the original universe now exist on starter Earth. Most gods, demons, and other higher/lower beings would have lost track of the planet when it moved to an empty low-energy universe.
If you want to put your starter Earth slightly in the future it might be possible to use a pre-contact Earth from a sci-fi franchise, but any aliens they later encountered in canon don't exist in the starter universe.
Setup – pick your Champion
The Champion (or Champions) will be the protagonist of the story. They can be inserted into the world in different ways and are time-clones split off from their original, if they're not native to the starting Earth.
Time-clones:
All non-native characters brought in will have the ROB search out one of the universes where they die in an accident due to simple bad luck (slip on ice and fall wrong, workplace accident, lightening strike, stray shooting – get creative).
The ROB will then snatch up the recently decreased person and offer them a deal. They can either go on to the afterlife as expected, or the ROB can rewind time a couple of minutes and discreetly save their younger self from the accident – but in return the time-clone (who now is from a future-that-never-was) get transported to the Earth of the starting universe and given their task.
This means that all non-native characters brought in know that they can't go back to their old life – because there's already another version of themselves living it. They might not remember this fact at once, but sooner or later the memory of their deal will return.
Optional starting bonus: all Champions and companions brought in from outside may be healed of any illness, damage or disease, and de-aged to somewhere between sixteen and twenty-five.
-.-.-.-
Anonymized Self Insert
A Self Insert is simply a version of the author (but usually slightly touched up, because of course you will do that). Since this challenge takes place on a version of Earth, any SI's will need to be changed and anonymized, or they would reveal too much about the author's real life.
Take your time to imagine up a character that's basically you – but played by a different actor, living in a different city/country and with some other major changes from your real life. Someone that's close enough to you to think the same way and have the same skills, but still is more 'inspired by' rather than 'actually you'. These changes are especially important of you choose the Native choice for arrival, but less so if you choose Drop Off.
Native Original Character
A native of the starting Earth is chosen as the Champion. They will be approached by the ROB, have their memory of the Message returned, and are then told that they're chosen as the Champion. Whether they get to choose their power, companions, or other things is up to the author.
An advantage of a native character is that this is their world – they're motivated to fight for it and already have an established life and history on the starting Earth. If you have decided to use an Earth from a fictional setting or a more exotic Alt-Earth as the starting Earth, then this OC might have some powers or exotic abilities native to the setting.
Non-Native Original Character
This is an OC, but taken from another setting and inserted in a similar way as an SI would. An unnamed (or very minor) character from a fictional universe, or a person from an Alt-Earth, get transported to the starter Earth and told that they have been chosen as the Champion to save it.
The point with this choice is that you either can have a protagonist from a more baseline Earth even if you choose an exotic Earth as the starter Earth. Or you can have someone from a setting where super powers and/or magic is known to be real, or from a sci-fi setting with higher technology – which would all give them a different outlook and skill-set than someone from a baseline Earth.
For example: Even a random person from Earth Aleph (Worm) would already have accepted the existence of superpowers – and someone from a sci-fi setting set in a future where Earth was abandoned or destroyed (Firefly and many others) will have a very different way of looking at this old and intact Earth.
Character from a fictional universe
This basically becomes a crossover fic. Choose a character from a fictional setting and make them the protagonist. Nuff said.
Remember that you can bring them from an AU or fanfic universe instead of strict Canon, and you'll have to decide how to handle any powers they possibly have.
Native AU character from a fictional universe
This is where you take a character form a fictional universe and makes an AU version that's a native of your starter Earth. That way you can have the basic characteristics of a fictional character, but without having to deal with the plot from the universe they comes from.
You could for example choose an AU Hermione Granger (Harry Potter), who grew up on an Earth with no magic. Naturally she's not a which in this AU, but she will likely still be a highly intelligent girl/woman with similar morals and fobies – and you already know how to write her.
You can easiest create these characters by asking yourself: how would character X's life be if they grew up on an Earth lacking the Big Plot of their native fiction?
Group of Champions
Same as a single Champion, but a group or team of 2 to 7 people are chosen and empowered instead. Yes, they each get a copy of the power, but how the details of this is handled is left to the author. You can choose to give them different power-sets, but then you should chose the higher difficulties for all choices.
Setup – pick your mode of arrival
Native
In this case the Champion is a born native of the starter Earth and has never known any other life.
The Native insertion can be used by Native OC's, SI's (if the Earth is close enough to baseline), but also fictional characters if their native fictional setting is used as the starter Earth.
Reincarnation
In this case the Champion was reborn as a baby on the starter Earth and has lived a second life there. At age ten the older personality started being able to meet with their younger self in lucid dreams, and they slowly exchange memories. The younger self will not fully remember their previous life until they turn sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen, but thanks to the dream integration the merge is less jarring – more like finally waking up and remembering something you already knew, rather than suddenly having a second personality.
This second life is completely real and will have affected the person living it. They now have a new family, new friends, and memories of two childhoods.
The Champion won't get their powers and remember their task until they have reclaimed all memories of their previous life.
The Reincarnation insertion can be used by all Champions brought in from the outside – SI's, non-native OC's, and characters from fiction.
Assisted Immigration
In this alternative the Champion get dropped off on the starter Earth with a very good new identity prepared and inserted in all official records. All paper traces and records will show that the Champion is a native of the starter Earth, but if people were to go looking for anyone who actually remembers meeting them before the insertion date then they will find that no one has any memories of the Champion. A closer look like this will reveal that the identity is false, but it will hold up for a casual inspection.
The Champion is also granted a small crappy apartment to live in. The utilities for this month has just been paid and they have enough money saved for the next two months plus living expenses. Records show that they recently moved to the town/city and they haven't yet found a job. Depending on the area they might also own a small car or scooter for transport.
This insertion can be used by all Champions brought in from the outside – SI's, non-native OC's, and characters from fiction.
Drop off
In this alternative the Champion is simply dropped off in a city or town somewhere on the starter Earth with nothing but the clothes on their back and minimal equipment. They have no history, no identity, and no ties to this world.
The only thing they have are the sturdy climate appropriate clothes they're wearing, a wallet with enough money to feed themselves for a week from cheep diners or food trucks, and a backpack containing: a change of clothes, basic toiletries, a quilt/sleeping bag (depending on the local climate), several notebooks for writing and sketching, mixed pens and pencils, and finally a good set of 24 watercolor pencils.
Setup – pick your team/party/companions
The companions or teammates are generally chosen through the narrative. It is only if you decide to bring in a character from another universe that you need to choose them from the start.
Native Original Character
These characters already live on the starter Earth and the Champion can freely meet them. If the Reincarnation insertion is chosen they may already know each other at the start of the story.
Native AU character from a fictional universe
These characters already live on the starter Earth and the Champion can freely meet them. If the Reincarnation insertion is chosen they may already know each other at the start of the story.
Character from a fictional universe
This character will have to be brought in from another universe and be inserted just like non-native Champions. This alternative for companions is best used when characters from fiction becomes the Champion and wants to offer a time clone of a friend or family member to come with them to the new universe – although this could also be handled by the Group of Champions alternative.
If the Reincarnation insertion is used the Champion and non-native companions have likely grown up together during their second lives. If Assisted Immigration is used they likely share an apartment, and if Drop Off is chosen they get dropped off together. (Unless one of them is a Lantern, since those get left in orbit.)
Setup – pick your Power
There are several power-sets that can be used for this challenge. They're usually ridiculously overpowered, but starts slow and build up over time. The author may feel free to adjust the power systems to fit the type of story the want to write, but here's the recommendations:
Inspired Inventor
This is a knowledge based power that started in the Worm CYOA but later was broken out and adapted for other stories and settings. A good example for how it can be used would be this completed fic: Scientia Weaponizes the Future
-.-.-.-
In the version of Inspired Inventor adapted for this specific challenge the Champion is granted a direct link to the Akashic Records by the ROB, and said records contains all the knowledge of the multiverse.
The knowledge and skills are portioned out in small 'charges' that the Champion earn over time. Each charge can then be invested in permanently gaining a certain amount of knowledge and skills in a requested area. Everything from straight forward knowledge like 'General Engineering' or 'Human Biology' to more diffuse areas like 'Resource Management' or 'Modularity'.
The power only gives knowledge and skill, not materials or special abilities. Many types of super-technology is useless without the special material that makes them work, and most superpowers or supernatural abilities need the right genetics or bloodline, which Inspired Inventor won't provide. The Champion will need to travel to other universes to possibly gain exotic materials and abilities – or learn to synthesize the Naturally Occurring Supernatural Materials with alchemy.
A general guide for charges:
🔹 One charge gives High-school education or Journeyman level of knowledge and skills in a topic or area.
🔹 Two charges gives University education or Professional level.
🔹 Three charges is the equivalence to a cutting edge Expert in a field, a Grand Master, or a genius who revolutionizes a field.
🔹 Four charges and onwards move beyond what a single person can know and instead shifts into being the collective knowledge and skills of a whole field of experts, a whole society, and then a whole civilization of rising level of advancement.
-.-.-.-
Large and expansive topics will need many charges to cover – things like 'General Physics', 'General Engineering' or 'General Chemistry'.
Some only need one or two – like 'Language & Culture – Japanese', 'Basket weaving', or 'Rhetoric Ⅰ' and 'Rhetoric Ⅱ'.
Certain topics might also be too small for a whole charge – like asking for knowledge about just impressionistic painting instead of a general 'History of Art', or 'Painting' request.
In the later case the Champion will be prompted to expand the topic and ask for broader knowledge, while charges beyond the third for something extremely broad, like 'General Physics' will result in a prompt to narrow the scope of the request into a more defined area, like 'Physics – Astronomy Ⅰ'.
There's usually two or three levels of general knowledge that can be taken in the broad topics before there's a need to start specializing, but the Champion can also keep putting charges in general knowledge of a topic. Although in that case they will need to put in at least three extra charges before there's enough knowledge in a given area of that topic to actually make use of anything – like 'General Physics Ⅳ, Ⅴ, Ⅵ, Ⅶ, and Ⅷ', where you need to add charges up to level Ⅵ before having a proper understanding of the higher levels without any gaping holes in the knowledge.
How to gain charges:
There's several systems for how to give out charges. Since this challenge at minimum will take ten years of in-story time, the point gain should be slower than in many other fics using Inspired Inventor.
Optional starting bonus: the Champion starts the story with three charges available.
Scheduled charge gain
The Champion gain three charges each week of in-story time. This continues even 'off-camera' and during time-skips.
Pro: it's a simple and predictable system – the author just need to keep track of the in-story date, or the personal timeline for the protagonist once they start to travel to other worlds.
Con: since this challenge will lead to a story that covers many years of in-story time, the accumulated charges after a time-skip will start to build up. It comes a point where it's easier to just assume that the protagonist "has put a charge in that" for almost any area of knowledge, or at least has enough charges stored that they always can spend some to gain any knowledge needed at a given moment, which can make for boring writing.
To alleviate the problem of excessive charge gain you may lower the amount of charges gained to one charge per week after the first year – by then the Champion should have covered the basic fields and have enough to work with.
Word count based charge gain
In this system the Champion gain 1 to 3 charges for every thousand words of the story written (choose the amount depending on your writing style – wordy authors should use the lower amount while those with a sparse style should use the higher amount). It's usually best to lock the charge gain to a certain revision of the story, or the charge gain point will shift due to further edits, which has a cascade effect on everything written after.
You will also have to decide whether the charge gain only happens for the parts of the story directly involving the Champion, or if things written from other character's point of view, flashbacks, or interludes also counts.
Pro: The charge gain only happens 'on camera', and it's easy to make time-skips without having the Champion suddenly gaining huge amounts of knowledge.
Con: The author might be tempted to ramble and avoid editing that cut down on the word-count. Plus the Champion might be spinning their wheels a bit at the start of the fic.
To alleviate the problems with a slow start, the Champion may be granted a higher number of charges for the first ten charge points, and then go down to a lower number.
Inspired Inventor and superpowers:
The Inspired Inventor is a purely knowledge based power. This means that even if the Champion can put a charge in 'Magic – Harry Potter universe' and gain all the theoretical knowledge of a wizard or witch from that universe, they still won't be able to actually use it, because they're not born with magic. The same goes for metahuman powers, bloodline shifters, and other talents that depend on genetics and/or inheritance.
However, the presence of the ROB and the devices for multiverse traveling they grant the Champion has already established that this is a multiverse where magic, super-science, and the supernatural is real.
In a multiverse like that all living and sapient beings have latent talents for certain supernatural abilities, which is something the knowledge from Inspired Inventor can help develop. It will never be any spectacular and extremely powerful abilities, but still plenty useful.
-.-.-.-
Bonus protection: Enter carefully into Truth's domain. The fact that the Inspired Inventor has a power based completely on knowledge and a direct link to the Akashic Records means that a strong telepath basically could steal access to their power by invading their mind. This is not something the guardians of knowledge agree with, and the Champion gains protection against mind reading – a dangerous protection.
Anyone trying to read the Inspired Inventor's mind uninvited will first be rebuffed with rising firmness. If they persist and try to force their way in they will finally get shunted to Truth's domain, where the guardian of Truth will demand a price for their transgression. Few survive paying this price, and those who do may wish they didn't.
-.-.-.-
The latent immaterial abilities all sapients have are:
🔹 Life-force, Chi, Ki manipulation – can give increased strength, agility, durability, vitality, and healing. Life sense and animal empathy. Small burst of energy manipulation outside the body to facilitate 'nerve strikes' or other staples of martial arts manga/movies or things done by 'non-powered' superheroes. The most spectacular versions of ki manipulations (Ranma) likely depend on some bloodline predisposition and are beyond what the Champion can reach.
These abilities will however need lots of training to actually preform. Just like gaining the full knowledge of a trapeze acrobat won't let you run off and pull a triple somersault right away, chi abilities need to be trained and built up, just like muscle mass and body coordination.
🔹 Psionics, Psi – can grant empathic sense, low-level telepathy, stealth/SEP/ghosting, danger sense, battle precognition, and low-level telekinesis. Basically everything a Jedi in the first movie trilogy is shown to do, but without the Force's assistance or downsides.
In this case the direct knowledge transfer of Inspired Inventor is a huge advantage, but there will still be some training needed to work up the mental muscles and control for the abilities.
🔹 Spirit magic, magic, alchemy – most magic abilities need some inborn talent to be performed, but certain systems can be used through pure knowledge. Many types of alchemy, potion making, and rune based artifice making fall in the later category. Other talents can be kindled or awakened. For some spirit abilities just the unerring knowledge that something is real may grant someone the ability to see previous invisible spirits and beings.
The Champion is not granted any special talent, and even if their magic is kindled they would only have low or average power in most systems, but there are exceptions.
Inspired Inventors as a part of a Group of Champions
🔹 Since the Inspired Inventor is a pure knowledge based power that don't grant any direct super powers, they have the least limitations when interacting with other Champion's powers.
🔹 If several Champions have the Inspired Inventor power they each gain their own link to the Akashic Records and can freely chose what to spend their charges on – basically making their own 'build'. They all have to use the same system for charge gain though.
🔹 Inspired Inventors can use Lantern rings and join a party with a Gamer just like everyone else.
Builder
All over the multiverse there are buildings and monument that on closer inspection doesn't fit in, that shouldn't have been possible to build by the local civilizations.
Ziggurats in jungle swamps where there never have lived more than stone age hunters and gatherers. Labyrinthine dungeons full of traps and treasure that should have taken thousands of people centuries to build, and yet they remain a secret to the surrounding people above ground. Giant castles clinging to mountain tops in areas that never were close to any strategic location, or an underwater city forming the abandoned capital of a civilization no one has ever heard of anywhere but in this single place.
These are all the results of the Builders – a strange race of powerful beings that wanders the multiverse, takes contracts, and then builds things. Things far beyond the local people's abilities. Places of wonder, places of horror – some Builders don't care much for which one it is, because a Builder's goal is simply to create. To build and construct new things.
Getting paid is usually a secondary consideration, but they do prefer to get some money, since their ability has the odd limitation that they only can build on land they have claim to – either by owning it, having taken a contract for building on it from the owner, or simply by claiming land no one owns.
-.-.-.-
For more details about Builders see these documents:
The idea of a Builder was originally made up for this Builder Challenge in the BtWS fandom.
The challenge page include links to fics that answered it, some of which are NSFW.
Builders as part of a Group of Champions:
🔹 Having several Builders is useful, since they can cooperate and work together to build things that would be too big for a single Builder.
🔹 Builders can't get blueprints from the ROB granted Power Batteries, Lantern rings, or their copies, since those are given fiat backed black-boxing.
🔹 Builders can't build permanent structures in a Gamer created dungeon, since the dungeon just is a temporary spirit-world. They might be able to build small hand-held objects in there however – basically anything that can be picked up and moved.
🔹 Builders can't copy the fiat granted effects or powers of a Celestial Forge user and their creations. Builders can get blueprints off things built by CF users, but those might be useless or only partially correct if the devices are dependent on a perk or fiat granted power to work.
The Celestial Forge
The Celestial Forge is a growing power-set that contain the secrets of crafting from a thousand worlds and more. It gives the ability to craft wonders, construct almost anything, and build artifacts the gods themselves would envy.
-.-.-.-
Or more prosaically: it's a list of crafting perks from hundreds of fictional settings (and some fanfictions) that have been combined in a list divided in a number of domains. This list is then used as the base for a ridiculously overpowered but randomly growing crafting power. Originally all the perks were taken from different jump-docks, which is how they gained CP point values, but later versions of the Celestial Forge has been filled up with some perks written specifically for the forge.
Since the perks were taken from jump-docks they weren't meant to be gifted alone, which means that they're often quirky and badly optimized as solo powers. This is part of the charm with this system – the scramble and improvisations necessary for trying to use a power where materials or complementing powers might be missing.
How the Celestial Forge is used to roll a perk can be done in several ways. Chose one that works for you.
Using the full Celestial Forge
The easiest way to use the whole Forge is to simply roll for a domain first – they are numbered 1-37 in CF-v2 and 1-38 in CF-v3.
Look how many perks are under the domain you hit, and then roll to decide which one of those to attempt a buy on.
If you have enough points, buy the perk, otherwise it's a miss and the points get left in the pool for the next roll occasion.
-.-.-.-
As an example: I decide to use v3 of the Forge.
- It has 37 domains, so I roll a random number between 1 and 37.
- I get 21, which is the 'Skills, Alchemy' domain, and it has 49 perks.
- I now roll for a random number between 1 and 49.
- I get 26 – which is a 400cp perk called 'Alchemist' from 'The Mighty Boosh'. (Which is a setting I've honestly never heard of before now...)
- If I have 400 points or more I buy this perk. If I have less the roll is a miss and the points are left to build up until the next roll occasion.
-.-.-.-
This is the simplest way, but it also quite neatly demonstrates the biggest problem with using the full Forge – it's so big and contain perks from so many sources that you'll need to do lots of research to understand a perk.
On the other hand, some people might actually like the challenge and complete randomness of gaining powers from settings they know nothing about. It's either a perk or bug depending on the writer's mindset and goals.
-.-.-.-
Another way of using the full Forge would be to first roll a domain, then a sub-domain, and finally a perk by using these diagrams instead:
Now, the number of perks in the full Celestial Forge is rather unmanageable, and the amount of source fiction you need to be familiar with (or be willing to research) to understand a perk is huge. The domains are also not always divided the best way – especially the first domain: 'Assistants' is problematic, since it will bring in a new character into the fic every time it is rolled. Many writers instead roll for an Assistant once and include them as a starting bonus, but then never use the Assistant domain again.
It might be easier for an author to make their own smaller version of the Celestial Forge tailor-made for just their story. That way they can pick perks they are at least are vaguely familiar with, or ones that has a good description in the perk text. They can also adjust the domains according to a system that works for them and their story.
How to make your own Celestial Forge:
1 – Decide on which domains you want to use, and number them.
2 – Make a new document/tab for each of these domains
3 – Fill the domains with perks of different sizes picked and copied from the Celestial Forge documents. Be sure to number them.
4 – Once you have a good amount of perks in each domain you can start rolling for perks.
5 – First roll for a domain. Then roll for perk in that domain and buy it if you have enough points. If you don't have enough points it's a miss. If you hit a number that's already been brought, roll again.
6 – You can add more perks to the domains as you become familiar with more of the source materials, or feel that you can use just the perk text and minimal research.
7 – Housekeeping – if you have rolled a lot of perks in a domain and starts to hit already brought perks too often, make a new document/tab, move over the unused perks and renumber them.
How to gain points:
A key feature of the Celestial Forge as a power is that it grows over time. This growth is facilitated by the forge user earning points that then are used to roll and buy perks. The way the points are earned and when the rolls are made can be done several ways. The author will have to chose one.
Optional starting bonus:A Scrappy Beginning
The Celestial Forge contain many powers that has to do with building things from scrap, using substandard materials, or efficiently recycling materials. These scrap powers are incredibly useful in the beginning, but then quickly gets overshadowed by more advanced technology and production methods, which is a shame.
However, if you chose Scrappy Beginning you can give these powers a chance to shine and grant the Champion a push to get through the slow start – especially if you've chosen to use one of the more slow point gain systems.
Simply pick 3 to 5 scrap based powers from the forge and put them in the front of the line. The Champion will now earn these powers first, before the random power rolls starts.
-.-.-.-
Word count based point gain
This is the method most Celestial Forge fics use.
In this system the Champion gain 100 points for every 1 000 or 2 000 words of the story written (choose the amount depending on your writing style – wordy authors should use the higher number of words while those with a sparse style should use the lower number). It's usually best to lock the points gain to a certain revision of the story, or the point gain place will shift due to further edits, which has a cascade effect on everything written after.
You will also have to decide whether the point gain only happens for the parts of the story directly involving the Champion, or if things written from other character's point of view, flashbacks, or interludes also counts.
Pro: The point gain only happens 'on camera', and it's easy to make time-skips without having the Champion suddenly gaining huge amounts of skills.
Con: The author might be tempted to ramble and avoid editing that cut down on the word-count. Plus the Champion might be spinning their wheels a bit at the start of the fic.
To alleviate the problems with a slow start, the Champion can be given the Scrappy Beginning Bonus, and/or earn twice the amount of points for the first 10 000 words of the story.
Scheduled point gain
A point gain system that has a less steep power escalation than what word count based point gain might create.
The Champion gain 100 points every third day of in-story time during the first year, and then goes down to earn 100 points per week after that. This continues even 'off-camera' and during time-skips. The speed of point gain can be adjusted depending on the author's taste and writing style.
Pro: it's a simple and predictable system – the author just need to keep track of the in-story date, or the personal timeline for the protagonist once they start to travel to other worlds. The fact that there is several days at minimum between each new perk means that the Champion actually has time to do something with each new power before it possibly get overtaken by the next one.
Con: since this challenge will lead to a story that covers many years of in-story time, the accumulated points after a time-skip will start to build up, and if you have chosen to have automatic rolls there should have been some perks earned during a longer time-skip. It might be necessary to stop and write about each perk gain, since they change what the Champion is able to do, which means that there will be no time-skips longer than six weeks or so.
If manually triggered rolls are chosen, then longer time-skips are possible – as long as the Champion is said to have banked and saved up their points over this time. Which means that the period after a time-skip would include the Champion rolling for several new perks.
This point gain rate is deliberately quite slow, since this will be a story that stretches over many years in-story. Unfortunately that means that the Champion will have a very slow start, and if random rolls for powers are used right from the beginning they might be stuck with powers they can't do much with for a good while.
To alleviate this problem the Scrappy Beginning bonus should be chosen, since it guarantee that the Champion get some powers they can use right away.
When to roll for perks:
This decide when the roll for perks is done, which also means that it's when the Champion gain a perk. Some perk has huge effect on the user, which means that when a perk might show up greatly affect the story.
Instant roll
Each time the Champion earn 100 points a roll for perks is automatically triggered, no matter where the Champion are or what they are doing. If you have chosen scheduled point gain the roll happens whenever you have put as the time for the point gain.
Morning roll
Each morning when the Champion wakes up there is a roll attempted. May be adjusted to happen more rarely – like every third day.
Manual roll
The Champion get a mental button that can be pushed and trigger one roll every 24-hours. The Champion can chose when and if the roll should be done, which makes it easy to save up for a chance at a bigger perk if they want.
Cosmic Warehouse, Workshop and Starting Hub:
As part of the Celestial Forge the Champion gain access to a Personal Reality, or Cosmic Warehouse, just like a Jumpchain participant.
🔹 They start with a key leading into an extradimensional starting hub room.
🔹 The entrance hub comes in the form of a featureless white cube with slate gray floor. It is five meters (16 ft) to a side and has ambient light and temperature – the light is similar to what you get outside during a thick fog and the temperature is on the cool side of room temperature. Future workshops, warehouses, and other spaces granted by the Forge will be connected to this hub.
🔹 The key can be inserted in any existing door with a lock and open a door to the hub. The opening into the entrance hub is always as large as the door creating it.
🔹 The key is fiat backed and essentially can't be lost for more than a couple of minutes, or be permanently destroyed.
🔹 As long as the Champion is somewhere inside the Personal Reality the door can't be fully closed.
🔹 The Champion/s can only simultaneously open as many doors as they have Personal Reality keys, but only one of the doors need to remain open while they're inside. (This rule is most relevant if several people in a Group of Champions have the Celestial Forge as their power)
-.-.-.- Optional Starting Bonus: The Champion start with the 'Workshop (Personal Reality Supplement v1.3)' perk already brought once. This workshop connects to the hub.
Each purchase of this adds to your Personal Reality, a Workshop needed to perform a specific type of craft, which is to be specified when purchase is made. It comes with a basic set of tools and supplies. Good for fixing or creating all sorts of things, although any complex parts or nonstandard supplies will have to be brought in from outside.
Additional purchases can add different types of Workshops to your Personal Reality or expand existing ones. Anything built in one of those workshops is fiat backed to be restored to its original condition within 48 hours if damaged or destroyed
Grants fiat backing to anything constructed within
-.-.-.-
Evacuate Earth challenge bonus: Since this challenge encourages the Champion to travel they earn a Warehouse attachment to their Personal Reality as soon as they gain the instructions for the first set of dimension-traveling devices (the Portal Wardrobe). The Warehouse comes in the form of another white cube with slate gray floor and ambient lighting, but this one is 60 meters (200 ft) to a side.
Celestial Forge users as part of a Group of Champions
🔹 If several Champions have the CF as their power they all share one Celestial Forge. They all get a key, but the keys all open doors into the same hub and Personal Reality. The CF using Champions earn points, rolls for perks and buy perks at the same time – and all of them gain the sameperks. (It's difficult enough to keep track of which powers one Forge user has, tracking several that all has different powers would be too much).
🔹 A Celestial Forge user can't be made into a Builder or Gamer.
🔹 Builders can't copy the fiat granted effects or powers of a Celestial Forge user and their creations. Builders can get blueprints off things built by CF users, but those may be useless or only partially correct if the devices are dependent on a perk or fiat granted power to work.
🔹 Celestial Forge users can't copy a Builder's method for gaining blueprints or building straight from mana. They might develop their own version that's similar by studying how the Builders do it, but no straight up copying.
🔹 They can wield a Lantern ring and be part of a Gamer party just like anyone else.
🔹 A Celestial Forge user's avatar in a Gamer dungeon is brought back to their base state and has to level up and train like everyone else while inside a dungeon. Since a Gamer dungeon is a temporary spirit-world which the players' original body never actually enter, the avatar lack all the modifications and Forge granted abilities of the CF user's real body.
Fiat granted abilities and powers are disabled. Only purely knowledge based abilities – like knowledge of martial arts, engineering, and tactics, are brought over to the avatar. The exact details has to be decided on case by case basis, but the point of it is that CF users will have to play the game like anybody else – without cheats.
The Gamer
The Gamer is a power that allow the user to live like they were a RPG video game character. The power was originally invented for a LitRPG webcomic named just 'The Gamer', but the power-set has since become its own LitRPG genera.
Characteristic for a Gamer is the ability to treat the world like a video game, rise in strength and abilities by allocating Stat Points and leveling up, and fight dungeon generated monsters for loot and powers.
There has been many fics written with this power and every writer is free to invent their own rules, using all kinds of RPG games as inspiration, so it might be best to leave the details up to their imagination.
-.-.-.-
(Hint: remember that Less is More when it comes to visible number crunching in a Gamer fic. The author should keep track of the characters' stats and skills, and possibly show them at the end of each chapter – but once the initial part of the story -the part where the protagonist learns the system and is low enough in power that each stat point and skill makes a difference- is over, then the amount of exact numbers should drop drastically in favor of narrative and plot, or the story tend to die.)
-.-.-.-
I was mainly inspired by this old Gamer fics when writing the Gamer part: 'Scooby Gamers' by: MistofRainbows over at tthfanfic.org (I'll not link directly since it's slightly NSFW) It's a long fic that has several interesting ideas for Gamer mechanics, but it also has its weaknesses.
Rough guide to Stats usually used:
Strength – This stat is quite straightforward. It regulates physical strength, but also durability, and resistance to physical damage. The stat is usually a part in how HP is calculated.
Agility – This stat regulates agility, flexibility, speed, coordination, and balance. It influence how good the gamer is at hitting a target and to dodge attacks. The stat is usually a part in how HP is calculated.
Vitality – This stat regulates how fast the gamer heal, how much HP they had in the first place, and how resistant they are to environmental effects and disease. It usually has a direct connection to HP and HP-regeneration.
Intelligence – This stat represents the gamer's raw intelligence and calculation ability. How fast and well they retain information and how good they are at multitasking. A high Int stat may be a requirement for certain skills – especially ones involving mental arts, advanced knowledge, or shadow-clones that retain their memories. The skill is also important for resisting mental attacks and effects. It is usually connected to how Mana and Mana-regeneration is calculated.
Wisdom – This stat represent the gamer's ability to reason and connect disparage facts. Their intuition, problem solving and understanding of not only if they can but should do something. The stat is also important for resisting magical attacks and effects. It usually has a direct connection to how Mana and Mana-regeneration is calculated.
Luck – This stat mostly affect drops in dungeons and games of chance, unless you have a very low Luck stat and starts to experience bad luck. 10 is the average Luck stat for humans, and a gamer should raise their stat to at least this to avoid misfortune.
(Charisma is a Skill not a stat in this system, because it gets creepy and bordering on mind-control to have everyone like and agree with someone with a high enough Charisma stat.)
Rules and abilities for a Gamer taking up the Evacuate Earth Challenge:
Party
The Gamer can invite people into forming a party with them. The Gamer can have several party groups, and people can be member of more than one party. That way the Gamer can have one permanent party for their friends and teammates, a second for family members, and a third for temporary party members being trained and gifted power by the Gamer before leaving the party – or any other combination.
There are two type of party members: Permanent and Regular. All party members gain access to basic Gamer powers, an inventory, and an instant messenger function to communicate with the members of their party (and only their party). Beyond that there's some differences.
Permanent party members:
These are the people the Gamer trust the most, and they are just permanent. They get access to all Gamer powers – including the ability to generate dungeons and inviting Regular (but only Regular) party members to a new or existing party. The only real difference from the Gamer is that they need to stay in the party with the Gamer to keep the specific Gamer style powers -like generating a dungeon- and those powers would disappear if the Gamer died.
Permanent party members can only leave the party by informed choice, or if the rest of the party unanimously vote to kick them out.
Gamer Ascension: very rarely a dungeon may drop a gem of Gamer Ascension. This gem can only be used by Permanent party members and would ascend them to full Gamer status. The downside is that the new Gamer is returned to their starting stats and level. All their advancements and leveling will be lost, and they will have to start over again – but they're no longer dependent on the original Gamer for their powers.
Regular party members:
Regular party members gain the basic Gamer powers of raising their stats by training and leveling, healing perfectly by sleeping, the ability to learn through Skill Books, and get access to a limited inventory – but after that the Gamer can choose what abilities they will be granted. The most common tweak would be to limit the power of the 'Observe' skill to only show aliases instead of real names, which would allow the Gamer to keep their anonymity even when lending their powers to groups of Regular party members for training purposes, or extend temporary memberships for a dungeon crawl.
Skill Books
Skill Books are books that instantly teaches either a skill, imparts raw knowledge, or a combination there of, to any Gamer or Party member that use it. The book is consumed when used, but it might be possible to copy them with some type of Scribe or Copying skill or spell.
Certain types of regular books will turn out to be Skill Books when looked at by a Gamer. The Gamer will get asked whether they want to use the Skill Book or not every time they handle it. Only physical books can be Skill Books. A printed out e-book counts as a book, (even if several pages have been fitted on one paper and the text is tiny) but an e-book on a device, like an e-reader, doesn't count (or a Skill Book use will eat the device – it's a tossup).
The real high quality and spectacular Skill Books can however be found and dropped as loot in dungeons. The best ones are basically the equivalence of an Inspired Inventor charge in an area, and this is the method a Gamer can use to gain the skills, abilities, and knowledge needed to save the starter Earth.
The books that are dropped in dungeons follow the theme of the dungeon, but can have a supernatural twist and/or represent slightly higher level of knowledge and technology than the area the dungeon is based on.
Crafting
Skills to craft, build, and create with supernatural speed and precision can be gained through the Gamer power. By putting together the right set of skills and leveling them up, using temporary mana-tools together with real tools and materials, plus collecting the right information and blueprints – all put together it will approach an off-brand Builder power with some work.
Dungeons
Dungeons are temporary spirit-worlds generated by the Gamer power and populated by temporarily embodied minor spirits that works as monsters and fight the Gamer and their Party members. Once killed the opponents dissolve back to their base state and drop loot. Sometimes larger spirits get embodied in a dungeon, either as special and more intelligent monsters, or as NPC's who gives out quests or oversee mini-games.
It's also possible to find loot just lying around or in treasure chests as a dungeon is explored – but beware, dungeons also have static traps as well as mobile monsters. (Hint: take inspiration from Dungeon Core stories for design)
Dungeon creation is the most powerful ability granted by this ROB modified Gamer power. There are no generic zombie dungeons for grinding, no empty Instant Dungeons. In this system all dungeons are generated to follow a theme matching the area they are based on, and most importantly, drop loot that match the theme.
This means that if a Gamer is looking for a specific type of Skill Books, material, or blueprints they should look for an area that can generate a dungeon likely to hold what they want – which means that this Gamer will need to travel to find the right places. No staying in a single town or city in this story.
Generating a dungeon from an area does not damage the original site, and new dungeons can be generated from the same area as many times as the Gamer want. The monsters and loot in a given dungeon usually doesn't respawn, but if the Gamer exit and then generates a new dungeon from the same area, then it will once more be filled with monsters and loot. Said dungeon will always be slightly different then the previous one, but follow the same theme.
The theme of a dungeon decide what's inside:
A dungeon generated from a high-school with a library is guaranteed to give some Skill Books covering common school subjects up to high-school level, and possibly some rare ones going into university level. A mechanics workshop should create a dungeon where Skill Books for basic mechanics or engineering skills may drop, but only of the level used/represented by the workshop and slightly higher.
This patterns continues through all dungeons – they drop loot of similar level or slightly higher than the area the dungeon is based from. If you want higher levels of engineering, you need to look for a more advanced workshop. Higher education will come from an university library, and for cutting-edge and beyond you'll need to travel to a research laboratory or high-tech installation to generate a dungeon that can give what you want.
For example: the CERN laboratory in Switzerland will likely generate one of the largest and most high level technology and physics dungeons on the planet – and by the time the Gamer has leveled up enough to make the journey over there the masquerade has likely fallen enough that they can recruit the scientists working there as part of a raid party assaulting the dungeon.
(Because who doesn't want to write about former stately scientists now using their new mage or barbarian build to assault the Monsters of Ignorance with battle axes and fireballs? All of them eagerly striving to earn Skill Books containing the Secrets of the Quantum Universe - FOR SCIENCE!!!
...ahem. Right, back to the regular schedule.)
Anyway, dungeons also tend to be more supernatural than the real world. A dungeon that's generated from an abandoned building rumoured to be haunted will create a dungeon that is haunted. A shop with new-age trinkets and Tarot cards will likely turn into a place with real magic. An archaeological site with graves and remains from old buildings will create a classic abandoned-ruin or tomb dungeon, and so on.
Simple and low level Elemental spells and skills can be gained from general dungeons – like a frost spell or minor frost spirit from a hockey rink or industrial freeze storage, but to gain a higher level freeze spell or an ice elemental you need to either generate a Nature Dungeon during a snowy winter, or travel somewhere where there is snow. Real high power Elemental abilities and spells would need a trip to a volcano, glacier, a large waterfall, the middle of a huge forest, far out on the ocean, and/or up among the clouds, to generate a dungeon.
There is however a limit to how advanced the technology, knowledge, and magic from dungeons generated on a low-magic near-baseline Earth can get. Sooner or later the Gamer won't be able to find the next level of Physics, Engineering, or Enchanting they need. Not on the starter Earth anyway.
But luckily they should have a handy blueprint for crafting a wardrobe taking them to different universes by then – this version of the Gamer will travel to different worlds in search of exotic locations to generate dungeons from, beyond the normal drive for exploration.
How the dungeons works:
Since dungeons are temporarily spirit-worlds generated by the Gamer power, the real body of a player is never actually entering the dungeon. Instead their body is shunted into a magical pocket dimension for storage (like a teleporter buffer) while their mind and consciousness is put in control of an avatar inside the dungeon.
Said avatar is identical to the material body, and all things gained by the avatar is later transferred to the real body when the players exit the dungeon. This system of avatars is why it is possible for the Gamer and party members to die and then easily revive inside a dungeon, but not in the real world.
When someone enters a dungeon (almost) no time pass in the material world. The player is just quickly shunted inside the storage dimension and out again so fast that it looks like a small glitch in reality. Blink and you miss it – literally.
The system of dungeons that drop loot granted to the Gamer is actually a heavily modified effort-for-boon system, magically speaking. The player sacrifice something – in this case a lot of effort and both mental and emotional energy, to get the 'boons' in form of loot. This magic foundation is why the dungeons are resistant to having outside powers being used to make a dungeon run too easy. You are meant to mainly use Gamer powers to gain things in dungeons. The system is flexible and rather forgiving – but try to cheat it too badly and it will start punishing you.
Death in a dungeon:
Every time a player enter a dungeon they get three extra lives. If they die in the dungeon their avatar and gear dissolve, then they reform and revive at the edge of the dungeon – there's usually a special area designated as Lazarus ground.
This cheep death and resurrection is only possible since it's an avatar and not the player's real body that dies. Gamers and party members do not have extra lives in the material world – not unless they have gained an extra life as a drop in a dungeon (these are very rare and can only be used by Gamers and party members).
Death and resurrection in a dungeon might be cheap, but it is not easy. Dying is painful, traumatic, and exhausting. It is not something a player just shrug off. This is a deliberate design, meant to make sure the players avoid dying as much as possible and never becomes used to making suicide plays.
The extra lives are meant to be a safety net in the deadly dungeons, where a single mistake can mean death, not an invitation to be reckless.
Using a dungeon as bootleg teleportation:
This version of the Gamer powers doesn't have any empty Instant Dungeons that can be used for travel, but the dungeons that are generated from any area can be used instead – the player just have to fight their way through monsters and traps on the way.
There's two ways to exit a dungeon – the default way that put a player back just where they started, or the Drop Out method.
The layout of a dungeon generally match the area the dungeon is made from, but with some parts stretched and warped. This means that it's possible to get a rough idea of which area of the material world each part of the dungeon corresponds to – and if a player use the Drop Out exit in that area, that's where they get dropped off in the material world.
From the outside this looks like an instant teleportation, but from the players POV they had to actually travel the distance, find the area they wanted to reach, compensate for any spatial warping in the dungeon, and then drop out.
Gamers as a part of a Group of Champions
🔹 Gamers can use Lantern rings just like anyone else, but they might have trouble with anything but green rings, since Gamer's Mind calms their emotions.
🔹 Builders and Gamers sometimes have odd power synergies since their powers both have a 'real life computer game' theme.
🔹 Ring users can gain powers from being in a party with a Gamer, just like anyone else, but the rings don't work inside a dungeon.
🔹 A Celestial Forge user's avatar in a Gamer dungeon is brought back to their base state and has to level up and train like everyone else while inside a dungeon. Since a Gamer dungeon is a temporary spirit-world which the players' original body never actually enter, the avatar lack all the modifications and Forge granted abilities of the CF user's real body.
Fiat granted abilities and powers are disabled. Only purely knowledge based abilities – like knowledge of martial arts, engineering, and tactics, are brought over to the avatar. The exact details have to be decided on case by case basis, but the point of it is that CF users will have to play the game like anybody else - without cheats.
🔹 Builders can't build permanent structures in a Gamer created dungeon, since the dungeon is just a temporary spirit-world. They might be able to build small hand-held objects in there however – basically anything that can be picked up and moved.
Green Lantern Ring
The Champion is gifted a Lantern Ring as their power. The rings are powerful weapons, but even more useful as multi-tools. Only your imagination set the limits, and exploring across a planet is child's play for a Lantern - who easily commute across galaxies.
This power might not give any direct construction capabilities (unless you get clever) but once you have a dimensional travelling device you can look elsewhere for technology and skill. The multiverse is open and you just need to go looking to find what you need.
🔹 The Champion wakes up floating in high orbit over Earth wearing a Green Lantern ring, with a matching power battery in their subspace pocket. (Yes, the Champion is granted a power battery – because otherwise the story would have to include a trip to the DC universe, which is predictable and unimaginative.)
🔹 A green ring is the default, but you may chose a ring of a different colour.
🔹 The ring has a fully functional AI, instructions and a tutorial for how to use the ring, a database of the Champion's native language, a recording of the Message from the ROB, plus their task, and a countdown timer to the starter universe's destruction – otherwise the ring's memory is empty.
🔹 The original Lantern ring is able to create two permanent copies of itself, but those rings are unable to make any further permanent rings. However, they can all make temporary deputy rings that lasts for 24 hours.
🔹 On easier difficulty the power battery has unlimited charges, while on harder difficulty it's limited to two charges during every 24-hour period.
Optional Bonus: Durability and repair. The Champion's Lantern ring and Power Battery will be repaired and returned to the Champion after 24-hours if one or both of them are destroyed or lost.
Obligatory drawback for Lanterns:
Every Hero Needs a Challenge
Since the Lantern/s will need something to challenge them until they can earn the first dimension-traveling device, the Random Portal rolls will happen automatically two times per week from the moment the Champion appear over the starter Earth.
Roll two D7 dices each week to decide which days the portals appear. There are only two periods of Random Portals per week due to this drawback and if both of them falls on a Monday, then the rest of the week is guaranteed to be portal free.
Once the Champion starts dimension-traveling they can open two deliberate portals per week without any extra Random Portals appearing, but use more deliberate portals then that and more Random Portal rolls are made.
Lanterns as a part of a Group of Champions
🔹 If the Group of Champions alternative is used to give several people Lantern powers, then each Champion get a ring and battery of their own, and the rings can be of different colors.
🔹 Any time a Lantern is part of a Group of Champions the 'Every Hero Needs a Challenge' drawback is active.
🔹 Ring users can gain powers from being in a party with a Gamer, just like anyone else, but the rings don't work inside a dungeon.
🔹 The ROB granted rings and batteries (and their copies) have fiat backed black-boxing and can't be reverse engineered by Builders, Inspired Inventors or Celestial Forge users – but the AI may produce copies of themselves, share any information authorized by the bearer, and some form of hard light technology might be reverse engineered by studying the constructs.
Setup – equipment
This is the extra equipment the ROB grants the Champion specifically for this challenge. Some is given out at the start, but the rest has to be earned by reaching Milestones.
Extra lore to make it easier integrating knowledge and technology from different universes:
The many special materials found only in certain universes (like Eezo, Mithril, Vibranium, Nth-metal, Naquadah, and many others) are actually Naturally Occurring Supernatural Materials – which means that they're mundane material infused or alloyed with immaterial/supernatural/magical energies or even pure immaterial energies crystallized in solid form.
This explains why they have such exotic characteristics, and why they only occur naturally in certain universes, but are completely absent from others. The NOSM's may have fully predictable and stable characteristics (which makes it possible to base technology on them) and they do occur naturally in certain universes (which makes them a natural part of those universes) but they're still magical materials masquerading as mundane ones.
Most importantly, this means that they can be synthesized through alchemic processes, which is something most of the power-sets granted to the Champion can teach.
Countdown Clock
The Champion is given some way to keep track of how long it is until the quake convergence hits and destroy the starting universe. It may be a mental display that show up when they say: "Command: Show Countdown Clock", or a fiat backed mechanical or digital clock that always appear on a shelf in their home or bedroom. The clock is not intrusive and can be put away or broken, but it will always return after a week or so.
Red Pill
This is simply a red pill that remove the memory block that keep people from remembering the Message given by the ROB if eaten.
The Champion is given a pillbox with two of these pills from the start and more will appear over time. Anyone with a Gamer power will gain them as loot, others get them in other ways, and in some cases the original pillbox may simply refill without any explanation.
Portal Wardrobe
This is the first device for interdimensional travel granted to the Champion. It consists of building instructions for magic wardrobes, cabinets, chest, and boxes that are gateways to other worlds (the shape is optional, but it needs a rigid frame, an inside large enough to close the door after you, and a door). Each wardrobe will become locked to a single world and time, since there's always a 'resting' portal linking the two places, but it is possible to shift where the other side of the portal opens up.
From the wardrobe side the portal looks like a blurry pane of glass, but from the other side it's almost invisible – just a slightly fuzzy area hanging in the air while the portal is resting, and blurry glass when the portal's active.
If you close the door after you when walking inside the wardrobe and through the portal, no time passes in the original world until you return, and if you close the door after you when getting back no time will pass in the other world until you open up the portal again. This doesn't actually manipulate time, but instead demonstrates that the wardrobe always open the active portal to the place and time where it last closed it.
The wardrobes has to be built mainly from materials that once were alive – wood, paper, leather, bone, horn, or coral (plastic is too far removed from the oil's living stage to work), and it takes some decent carpentry skill to build them and carve the runes. The construction also need some relatively common ingredients and a Focus Object/s for the portal opening ritual, which opens the first portal and locks the wardrobe to a destination.
You can re-purpose an already built wardrobe or cabinet, but you may need to pull it apart, carve the runes and apply reagents, before reassembling it – an IKEA style flatpack wardrobe would work great.
The destination of the portal can either be decided by using an object from the target world as the Focus Object, or use a couple of objects from your current world as Focus and open a portal at random. The random portals can be influenced by these native Focus Objects and finds a world that resonate with the ideas the objects represents – but this aiming method is more an art than a science.
Unless specifically aimed with a Focus Object from the target world, the wardrobe portals are predisposed to open up to worlds with: taking animals, animal people, anthropomorphic animals, beast-kin, shifters, weres, uplifted animals, humans spliced with animals, or genetically engineered races that blend animals with the local sapient humanoids.
Slider Device
This is the second device for interdimensional travel granted to the Champion. It consists of building instructions for a technological device that can open temporary portals to alternative Earths. On easier difficulty the ROB may grant the Champion a finished device in addition to the blueprints.
The slider portals are shot out from the device as a small glowing seed that then grow into a circular portal-rift large enough to drive a car or truck through. The portal is hanging in the air and allow free view between worlds, while the edges glow blue and are wreathed with flashing lightening. The lightening increase in intensity the longer the portal is left open, and after ten minutes the bolts starts to get dangerous for humans.
Since the slider portals always opens to alternative Earths, or incredibly similar planets, the device can use Terran longitude and latitude coordinates to control where the portal opens. The elevation of the portal is more random, but if part of it is in contact with the ground or a water surface it will automatically match the ground or water level on the other side.
To build a slider device you need access to late 20th-century electronics, a decent workshop, and some good skills in electrical engineering. The slider device on it's own could be built into something the size of a large and heavy TV-remote, but it's more practical to integrate the technology in an arm-brace, leg-brace, or thick belt – the ROB granted slider device is an arm-brace.
The default battery design for the device only has enough energy to open two ten-minute portals, or four one-minute portals (the initial breach takes more energy than holding the portal open). Better technology may increase this, and it's possible to build it with swappable battery packs, but a solar powered recharger should be standard equipment for any slider who don't want to get stranded.
Interdimensional Stargate
This is the third device for interdimensional travel granted to the Champion. It consists of building instructions for an extremely high-technological circular device that can create two-way wormholes that cross the dimensional barriers. On easier difficulty the ROB may grant the Champion a finished interdimensional stargate and dialing device in addition to the blueprints.
Unlike standard stargates the interdimensional wormhole looks like a silvery reflective water surface that glows white when in use. The other side of the portal is greatly predisposed to latching on to existing stargates in the target universe, but can sometimes attach itself to other similarly shaped openings.
The interdimensional stargate can dial a specific world and place if given the right coordinates, but also has an exploration mode where it preforms a cross-dimensional search according to some given parameters, until it finds a place to latch on and opens a wormhole. Once contact has established the coordinates are saved and the gate can redial the place whenever needed.
The wormhole can be left open for twelve hours before the interdimensional turbulence starts making it unstable and the gate automatically shuts it down. Since these wormholes are two-way -unlike standard stargates- people can freely walk back and forth as long as it is open, but a new wormhole can only be opened from the gate's side. To get home a traveler needs to either wait for someone to open up the wormhole again, build an interdimensional stargate in that universe, or use some other method to get home.
The ROB granted stargate is made from naquadah (which is a Naturally Occurring Supernatural Material in the Stargate universes) and robust enough to last for millions of years of constant use without deterioration. The blueprints granted to the Champion does on the other hand come in several versions – including a far less durable gate that use 21th-century materials. Several of the materials needs to be changed or enhanced through an alchemical process, but it is all possible to do with the resources available on an early 21th-century Earth.
You will however need very high-tech and expensive production capabilities to build the gate. Capabilities which include: a laboratory for producing alchemic reagents and growing magical crystals (yes, the data crystals and power crystals actually need immaterial energies to form), facilities for smelting metals and infusing them with the reagents, machinery for shaping the metal parts, and a facility for assembling and then housing it all in.
There's advanced and expensive electronics that has to be designed, assembled and programmed. A power source either has to be built, or the gate facility given an extremely power hungry link to the regular electric grid. All in all it's not something you build in your basement – unless you have the production capabilities of the Celestial Forge, a Builder, or an Inspired Inventor who has had time to ramp up.
The fact that these machines are predisposed to finding universes with stargates in them is less limiting than it might seem, and might actually be more of a feature than a bug when looking for places to colonize.
This is because many of the AU Alteran civilizations* (also known as the Gatebuilders or the Ancients) started exploring and colonizing the mutiverse instead of their own universe, since the threat of the Ori left them limited to staying in the Milky Way galaxy in their original universe.
They naturally created small stargate networks in any universe they explored, which leaves lots of stargates scattered across the multiverse. Plus the Alteran attitude to terraforming planets was also: 'better to have them and not need them, than need them and not have them' – which means that they often terraformed far more worlds than they needed and then just left them to grow wild in wait for possible future settlement. Terraformed planets are also like wine – they get better after some aging, and continuously creating new living worlds for future generations was a sensible strategy for a civilization lasting over 40 million years.
These habits are of course a great advantage for the Champion and the starter Earth, since it means that there might be a large number of uninhabited Earth-standard planets left around ready for colonization without anyone there to contest a claim.
(*these AU Alteran civilizations are not canon and I don't think it's ever actually stated that the Ancients terraformed a lot of planets in the Stargate Milky Way, but I think it's a plausible headcanon given the huge amount of suspiciously Earth-like planets in that galaxy.)
Portal Arch
This is the forth device for interdimensional travel granted to the Champion. This is building instructions for a freestanding arch of magic-infused stone inscribed with metal runes. This arch can link to an identical one placed in another universe and then open up a permanent portal between them. The initial breach need a huge burst of magic, but once the portal is open the arch can draw power from the contained tear in the dimensional barriers and sustain the portal indefinitely.
The inside of the arch is a smooth load-bearing curve, while the outside is a pointed arch. In the triangular area created between the pointed top and the inner arch there's a number of large magical crystals that acts as a focus for the energy collection. The arch actually has a bottom, making it completely encircle the portal, but the lower part is usually hidden below ground or underwater.
The most impressive detail about the arches are that they can be scaled up enormously. They can be made wide enough to draw a six file highway through with ample room to spare, and tall enough to let a floating oil-rig be towed through without problem. The portal is also double sided (enter the front of arch-A and you'll exit the back of arch-B, but enter the back of arch-A and you'll exit the front of arch-B) which double their transportation capacity.
Taken together these facts means that a number of arches actually could be used for evacuating all of Earth over a couple of years time.
The downside of the portal arches is that they must have a twin in the other universe to open a portal – which means that they can't be used for finding new universes and exploring. The initial breech also need a big burst of magical energy, which is the biggest limiting factor for how large the arches can be made – because the energy needed increases proportionally to the surface area of the portal membrane covering the opening.
This flexible membrane looks like the skin of a soap bubble, being transparent with swirling rainbow patterns, but it is strong enough to stop the air and water of the sea and atmosphere from passing through, yet selective enough to let anything that enters with purpose pass.
Interdimensional Area Transporter
This is the fifth device for interdimensional travel granted to the Champion. It is building instructions and blueprints for a swarm based hyper-tech machine that can switch two equally sized spherical volumes between universes – starting at the size needed for moving a city, and ending at the scale needed for moving a whole solar system.
The machine consists of two swarms of edge-defining portal-units that englobe the volume that should be switched in each of the universes. The units form the corners of a spherical polyhedron and are connected to each other by straight energy beams. These beams both send power through the whole swarm, define the edges, and make sure each unit stays in the right position.
The swarms then need to be powered. For a city-size sphere two powerful conventional power sources can be used (one in each universe) but for planet- to system-wide spheres the instructions include blueprints for hyper-advanced solar based power-stations that are meant to be placed in close orbit around the sun and then beam power to the swarms – which will energize them over time, until the swarms have enough power to make the switch.
The technology is optimized for switching whole solar systems, and depending on the number of power-stations built it takes weeks to months to energize the swarms for a switch. The energy beams glow with rising intensity as the energy increases, and a system wide sphere powering up could easily be seen from Earth with the right telescopes.
However, the solar wind interfere with the beams for energy transfer over longer distances, which means that the distance between units need to be shorter the closer they are to the sun, but the effect steadily decreases further away from the star, until it is negligent somewhere around the inner edge of Oorts cloud. This means that the number of units needed for switching everything inside Pluto's orbit only is twice as many as for switching just the inner system, instead of being an exponential increase as the sphere grows.
To build this machine you need advanced space based capabilities, plus highly automated mining and construction facilities far beyond 21th-century tech. This is the type of hyper-tech that usually only an established interstellar civilization can muster.
If you actually have the capabilities, then it might be smart to build the factories and refineries in a neighbouring star system and ferry over the completed units to Sol. That way you avoid depleting Earth's system. The starter universe does have a whole universe's worth of raw materials that soon will be destroyed after all. Strip-mining it for resources on your way out is just common sense.
Setup – Decide your Milestones
Milestones are places in the narrative or achievements that show that progress has been made, and they're used for giving out new equipment or blueprints by the ROB.
Due to the large number of powers, worlds, and protagonists that can be used for this challenge it's difficult to decide on any universal Milestones – instead it is up to the author to set up some goals and decide on which places they feel would fit as Milestones in the story.
There is just one universal milestone that has to be reached before the ROB gives the Champion their first dimension-traveling device:
No Hermit Cultivator Bullshit
(Obligatory Milestone).
To avoid this story ending up with a protagonist that spends all their time hiding in a pocket dimension and never interacting with the natives, the ROB (and the readers) demand that the Champion recruit at least two native characters to their team (which includes revealing that the Champion has powers and giving them a Red Pill to make them remember the Message) before giving the Champion any device for dimension-traveling.
These natives don't have to be part of any fighting or exploration teams, and can be left as support characters – but the size of the cast that's in on the secret should definitely be larger than one. The starter Earth does after all not have a near omniscient evil kaiju ready to swoop down and brainwash the protagonist at the slightest provocation (Worm).
Setup – Drawbacks
You want things to be more difficult than evacuating and settling about 6 000 000 000 to 10 000 000 000 (6-10 billion) people in a different universe in less than a century? Alright. Have it. Choose one or more drawbacks.
Every Hero Needs a Challenge
Give every type of Champion the same drawback as the Lanterns get: (no, they don't stack)
Random Portal rolls will happen automatically two times per week from the moment the Champion appear on the starter Earth, or get their power.
Roll two D7 dices each week to decide which days the portals appear. There are only two periods of Random Portals per week due to this drawback and if both of them falls on a Monday, then the rest of the week is guaranteed to be portal free.
Once the Champion starts dimension-traveling they can open two deliberate portals per week without any extra Random Portals appearing, but use more deliberate portals than that and more Random Portal rolls are made.
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This may be a bit too unfair for those Champions with long start-up periods. There's no way someone with a slower power will be able to do anything about the Random Portals that appear during the first months they have powers, and it only takes one severe contagion going out of control for this story to turn very dark. Let's make a minor change:
Modification for power-sets with long start-up time:
The weekly Random Portal rolls don't start until the first deliberate portal is opened. After that they go on according to the two rolls per week schedule, and two deliberate portals per week can still be opened without any extra Random Portals appearing.
This drawback might actually be better for the Champion's peace of mind. The opening of the first portal might have been something of a Pandora's box, but the steady schedule of two portal rolls no matter what after that (as long as they only open two deliberate portals during a week) will let them use portals to explore without unnecessary angst and brooding.
Zombies, monsters, contagions – they spread
Alright, this is a no brainer: the Random Portals sometimes bring in contagion carriers. Most of the time the contagion is quickly dealt with or die off because of the environment, but sooner or later one of them will latch on and spread.
This drawback simply means that one of the contagion rolls brings in something that get a foothold and spreads enough to be a serious disaster – something large enough that the Champion has to get involved.
Villains – they're a pain
One of the Random Portals will sooner or later bring in a B-list Villain with minions as one of the 'Visitors from other Worlds' rolls. This drawback ensure that one of them actually is competent or powerful enough to be a threat.
The Champion will either have to personally deal with them, or recruit a team of heroes to do it for them.
(Bonus points if it's a villain that's a Large Ham and does grand speeches on live television and similar stuff.)
When you said Large Group...
Most of the time the Random Portal roll bring in small groups of Misplaced Megafauna, and even the Large Group roll means something like at most a hundred animals, due to the small size of the portals and the short time they're open. Not this time.
This drawback means that sometimes when the 'Large Group of Misplaced Megafauna' is rolled the portal is unusually large and long lasting – and it opens right in the path of one of the types of animals that live in gigantic groups. Forget a hundred animals, this time at least a thousand of them comes through.
Good news: if the animals or beasts turns out to be even slightly useful, you now have enough of them for a stable breeding population.
Bad news: there's enough of them for a stable breeding population – if they decide they like the climate and food they might be here to stay. Oh, and you got a heard/pod/flock of a thousand foreign animals running, flying, or swimming around and making a mess. Have fun dealing with those!
Settlement Setback
So, you're a bit further into the game. A couple of new planets have been successfully scouted, found to be habitable and uninhabited, and the first colonies are being set up. Things looks good. You're actually getting somewhere.
Then one of the settlements suffer a major setback.
This drawback means that one of the planets you have started settling turns out to have an unexpected downside. A cyclic natural disaster, a hostile biosphere waking up, or the neighbouring star system being home to an aggressive star-faring race that's likely to attack your colony as soon as they find them.
It's a disaster. The planet is not a good place to colonize after all. Luckily you're relatively early in the settlement process, but now you have to pull everyone back. You might be able to leave a small outpost if it's just a cyclical natural disaster that's the problem, but otherwise you're better off abandoning the planet completely.
Setup Complete!
Now you can start writing your story – get creative and don't be afraid to change stuff.
Some final words on theme. I imagine that fics written for this challenge will have several distinct stages.
(Spoilered for those who want to imagine up their own story without bias.)
The Personal Adventure stage.
This is the initial part where the Champion get their feet under themselves, grow in power, and gather a team. A time for personal growth and adventures involving just the Champion/s and their closest group.
Then there's the initial forays into other universes in search of more technology, information, and/or magic, also done by small groups with the Champion – which in turn starts the Random Portal rolls.
The Superhero Adventure stage.
These portals prompt the need for some type of international task-force handling the portal effects on the starter Earth.
Maybe one of the visitors from a superhero universe decides to start a superhero team and recruit several others of the portal displaced? The Champion might be in a good position to be the secret backer supplying such a team with the technology to quickly reach all over the planet and yet remain independent from any country or state.
Plus a superhero team would make for great scouts or rapid-response teams entering new universes.
The Colonization Adventure stage.
Once the Interdimensional Stargate has been earned and built it might be time to seriously scout for places to colonize, and then start the first small settlements on other planets. This is also the point when the story switch to really involve large groups of people – possibly creating side-stories following some colonists.
The small colonies will have to grow over several years. Getting established and learning how to live on just that specific planet. There's likely many hard lessons to learn, several setbacks and surprises, but by the time the Portal Arches are earned there should be a couple of candidates ready for being settled by large populations – the true evacuation of Earth can start.
The Civilization Adventure stage.
This part moves into space opera and civilization building territory when the Earth diaspora get turned into an interstellar and interdimensional civilization going through a rapid technology uplift. There's likely lots of chaos and intrigue here.
Finally the Interdimensional Area Transporter swarm is earned and plans to bring Earth along to another universe can be made, but by then several planets have already been permanently settled – which is good for Earth since it lower the population pressure and gives the environment a chance to recover.
The final stages of the fic would be the move of Earth and the wait for the destruction of the starter universe.
Of course, this synopsis ignore all the intrigue, disasters, hostile encounters, alliances, fights and/or wars with people or beings from other universes, plus so much more...
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Have fun with this challenge, and drop a link in the Thread for any story if you decide to take it up. I will try to list them here for people to find and read. Or if you just want to have a general discussion about the challenge. Feedback is welcome.
So, I've started looking into taking up this writing challenge myself and had to think some more about how to properly use each power and how they would interact. I thought I should write things down here so that other people could use the ideas for their own fics – either ones answering this specific challenge or just fics in general.
Using a single Champion is easy, but I'm actually more interested in the Group of Champions alternative. These types of fics usually have a single protagonist who gets all the powers, so having several Champions instead creates a different dynamic. I'm leaning towards either using a friend group of OC's, or some AU fictional characters picked from several settings, which would turn the story into a type of crossover fic.
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OC's from a more exotic setting, one where powers of some type are common knowledge, being transported to a close-to-baseline Earth would make for some interesting perspectives.
Something like a small group of teenagers from the DC comics universe. These OC's would be non-powered civilians, but they would have grown up in a world where superheroes and planet wide threats are an accepted part of life. Writing their reactions to a mundane baseline Earth would be fun, plus their problem solving plans would be quite different from those thought up by teenagers from a baseline Earth.
Like, their first reaction when finding out that there's a planet destroying universe spanning threat would be: 'This is where we call the Justice League', because that's the kind of problems they deal with – except then they realize that there are no JL, or any other cape team of heroes in the universe they have ended up in. No one with the powers to do anything. No one but the freshly empowered Champions... I think that would be an interesting way to start a story.
-.-.-.-
Anyway, the different powers themselves also work more or less well together. I've been weighing the pros and cons of the different combinations to see what would work and have reached some conclusions:
-.-.-.-
Lanterns.
The lantern power is good for travelling and instantly having a planet wide reach and easily travel to other stars and planets. The light constructs are a raw power and weapon that makes exploring different universes safer, and they let the Lanterns handle the things arriving through the Random Portals with more ease than any of the other powers.
The AI in the rings and their scanning equipment also makes the Lanterns good at information gathering and processing, but they lack any instant production or construction powers. They can emulate advanced technology through their constructs, but I'm unsure of how good they would be at building real permanent machines and technology – it would likely depend on the individual Lantern's skills and the colour of their ring.
If you have a single Lantern, Green or Blue rings are likely the best choice – Green as the balanced alternative capable of being a fantastic multi-tool, or Blue since the light of hope can heal and create outright miracles under the right conditions. A combination of Blue and Green Lanterns works even better, but the other colours are more tricky – perhaps if they are part of a larger group.
A Lantern combined with another Champion with a different power works for all the other power alternatives. The Lanterns would mainly provide mobility and instant force projecting capability, which complements the other powers.
An Inspired Inventor and a Lantern form a great team. The Inventor providing knowledge and in time production capabilities, while the Lantern provides raw power and mobility. The fact that the Lantern can make two copies of their ring means that there in practice will be at least two Lanterns dealing with each crisis – but the fact that there's only one power battery -which is limited to two charges per 24 hours on harder difficulty- makes these new ring users dependent on the original one for charging their rings, and said charges needs to be rationed since they only get two per day.
A Lantern and a Gamer also works well. The Gamer power takes time to grow and is most powerful in dungeons, but the party system means that they will be empowering the Lantern at the same rate as themselves as they all grow their stats and skills over time. The Lantern on the other had can deal with material world problems and threats right from the start, and can transport the Gamer around to find the right places for them to create a dungeons from to get the information they need. That way the powers balance each other quite well.
A Lantern and a Builder starts with a great synergy – the Lantern's high mobility complimenting the Builder's more stationary power, but in time the power balance will shift. The Builder/s will grow in power and have an army of minions, which makes the Lantern less and less important – possibly relegating them to the support cast after a while.
The combination of a Lantern and a Celestial Forge user also works well in the beginning, but the CF user will then rapidly outpace the Lantern in terms of power and utility. In this combination a writer should probably see the Celestial Forge user as the main character and the Lantern as a powered companion and secondary character.
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Inspired Inventors.
Several people with the Inspired Inventor power working together would make for an interesting Group of Champions. The amount of charges each one of them get would need to be lowered so that they're forces to start specializing and prioritizing different areas. That way you would end up with a team that helps and enhances each others rather than several Champions competing while having the same capabilities.
As mentioned before: Inspired Inventors and Lanterns working together is a dream team that compliment each other without any side necessarily taking over.
An Inspired Inventor and a Gamer can work well with some small adjustments. A big part of this challenge's tweaked Gamer power is the need to find skill books in dungeons, since they basically fill the same function as Inspired Inventor charges, and if you have an Inventor on the team this goal becomes redundant.
The solution would be to greatly lower the amount of charges the Inspired Inventor gets – that way they will be motivated to try and find basic knowledge and skills in dungeons, while saving the charges for high level knowledge that isn't available on the Earth or worlds they have access to. In exchange for this nerfing of the Inspired Inventor power they instead get the instant and personal power-ups that being in a Party with a Gamer provides.
Combining an Inspired Inventor with either a Builder or Celestial Forge user doesn't work that well. The Inventor will soon be made redundant by the other powers and the Inventor relegated to being support cast or a walking database. You can work around this, but most of the alternatives sort of ruins the point of the Inspired Inventor power. It's just a bad combination to mix it with any of the two overpowered building and constructing powers.
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The Gamer
Having several Gamers in a group is in practice little different from having one Gamer and several Permanent Party members. They work well together, but it's rather unnecessary to give everyone a copy of the Gamer power. Plus there's a missed chance for some good drama if they find a Gamer Ascension jewel, since one of the Party members then would have to weight the benefits of having their own Gamer power verses the downside of having all their stats and level returned to what they were when they first joined the Party and then having to level up again.
A Gamer and a Lantern works great together, and Inspired Inventor also mixes well if the necessary adjustments are done.
Combining a gamer and a Builder could either go well or be a disaster. Both powers share the 'computer game made real' theme and there are some big overlaps there. A writer would probably need to really sit down and work out how the two systems interacts with each other. It could be great if you tweak the powers and allow for interesting power interactions, but simply smushing a Gamer and Builder together would be less ideal. It's a combination with potential, but needs lots of work to pull off.
A Gamer and a Celestial Forge user is not a good combination. Both powers turns characters into overpowered Jack-of-all-trades, and having both powers at once is basically too much of a good thing. The CF is so powerful that it quickly makes all other powers redundant, unless it's seriously nerfed.
You could make it work, if you makes the CF user gain powers very slowly – basically making the Gamer ability the main power, which is then shared with the rest of the Party, and the CF only sporadically adding in random perks to the mix as an extra chaos factor more than a main power.
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Builder
A group of several Builders would be a good combo, since they can work together to build things too large for a single Builder, but combining the power with any of the others are likely to fall flat. As previously mentioned, the Gamer power could work, with lots of tweaking, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort.
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Celestial Forge
This power is honestly so overpowered that it works best as a solo power. You could add a Lantern as more of a: companion-that-gets-a-lantern-ring, than a fellow Champion, or drastically nerf the CF and combine it with a Gamer, but otherwise it's likely best to just leave it alone.
Having several people with the CF would on the other hand be interesting. Since they all share a connection to the same Celestial Forge they would always earn the same powers at the same time (which makes the story easier to write) but that still opens up for more interactions.
There would be a lot less need for internal monologues to explain each power, since each Forge user would have another CF user to discuss the details of the perk they just gained with.
Over all the fic would have more talking instead of thinking when it comes to the perks – and lots of commiserating with people who know exactly what they are going through when the Forge dumps some crazy power in their mind. Plus the shared Personal Reality is just made to be abused as a transportation hub by opening more than one door into it at the same time.
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