The Strange: Worlds Numberless and Strange

226 Pages·2015·18.138 MB·English

by  Monte Cook Games

W O R L D S N U M B E R L E S S
A N D S T R A N G E
CREDITS
Writers/Designers Bruce R. Cordell and Monte Cook
Developer Monte Cook
Creative Director Shanna Germain
Editor/Proofreader Ray Vallese
Cover Artist Matt Stawicki
Graphic Designer Bear Weiter
Artists Marius Andrei, Jacob Atienza, chrom, Nicholas Cloister, Sam Cullum, Dreamstime.com, Jason Engle, Erebus,
David Hueso, Baldi Konijn, Guido Kuip, Brandon Leach, Eric Lofgren, Patrick McEvoy, Brynn Metheney, Grzegorz Pedrycz,
Mike Perry, John Petersen, Michael Phillippi, Roberto Pitturru, Eric Quigley, Nick Russell, Joe Slucher, Lee Smith,
Matt Stawicki, Cyril Terpent, Cory Trego-Erdner, Tiffany Turrill, Chris Waller, Cathy Wilkins, Ben Wootten, Kieran Yanner
Cartographer Hugo Solis
Monte Cook Games Editorial Board Scott C. Bourgeois, David Wilson Brown, Eric Coates,
Gareth Hodges, Mila Irek, Jeremy Land, Laura Wilkinson, Marina Wold, George Ziets
Recursion Codex Contributor Darren White (Lost Lands)
Dedicated to the memories of Leonard Nimoy, Sam Simon, and Terry Pratchett,
who showed us how to build beautiful worlds
© 2015 Monte Cook Games, LLC. THE STRANGE and its logo are
trademarks of Monte Cook Games, LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries.
All Monte Cook Games characters and character names, and the
distinctive likenesses thereof, are trademarks of Monte Cook Games, LLC.
Printed in Canada
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART 1: EXPLORE • CREATE • DEFEND 5
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 6
Chapter 2: EXPLORING FICTIONS 7
Chapter 3: IMPORTING FICTIONS AND GAME WORLDS 13
PART 2: WORLDS NUMBERLESS 15
Chapter 4: ARDEYN AND RUK EXPANDED 16
Chapter 5: RECURSIONS 34
Chapter 6: RECURSION SEEDS 168
PART 3: WORLDS STRANGE 195
Chapter 7: CHARACTER OPTIONS 196
Chapter 8: CREATURES 209
PART 4: BACK MATTER 219
RESOURCES AND INSPIRATION 220
INDEX 222

Part 1:
EXPLORE • CREATE • DEFEND
Chapter 1: Introduction 6
Chapter 2: Exploring Fictions 7
Chapter 3: Importing Fictions and Game Worlds 13
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
You know what excites me? New things, unfamiliar places, and opportunities to explore them.
If you’re reading this, the same is probably true for you. And that means you probably also
remember the opening for the popular science fiction television show Star Trek, which invited
Throughout this
viewers “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go
book, you’ll see
where no man has gone before!”
page references
to various items The first time I saw the original series (on a black-and-white television), I was six or seven years
accompanied old. What I saw enthralled me: people wandered through crazy ruins, which were dominated by
by this symbol. a “time gate” that talked. When the people jumped through the gate, it was to a different world. I
These are page didn’t know then that it was actually to a different time; all I knew was that it was amazing and I
references to The
wanted to go there.
Strange corebook,
I couldn’t, of course. As wonderful as it was, Star Trek required the viewer to imagine being
where you can find
in the far future where spaceships routinely bypassed the lightspeed barrier. This conceit was
additional details
about that item, required in order for the crew to discover worlds populated by humanoids close enough to
place, creature, humans for meaningful stories to unfold. Don’t get me wrong—that was great! I’ve been a science
or concept. It fiction fan ever since.
isn’t necessary But what if you didn’t have to wait for the future to arrive? What if those worlds were close
to look up the
enough to touch, if you just knew how? That’s what The Strange offers. Reaching strange new
referenced items
worlds doesn’t require a starship. Thousands of limited worlds called recursions lie just across
in the corebook,
a dimensional divide separating the universe of normal matter from worlds seeded by human
but doing so will
provide useful imagination, where fictions become realities. When you explore, you can find recursions where
information for dragons rule empires, spaceships ply the star lanes, talking rabbits live beneath grass-covered
character creation downs, anime characters battle unimaginable threats, investigators seek to quell Lovecraftian
and gameplay. horrors, evil demigods search for the lost artifact that will grant them domination, and so much
more. Maybe even recursions created by you.
Worlds Numberless and Strange offers detailed glimpses into
dozens of recursions, giving the game master all she needs
to send her PCs for a brief visit to any one of them,
for NPCs to slip from them to visit the characters
on some other recursion or on Earth, or for the GM
to use them as the basis for more in-depth setting
material of her own creation.
So go forth, explore these strange new recursions,
seek out what lies within them, and physically go
where only fiction has gone before!
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1
EXPLORING FICTIONS
CHAPTER 2
EXPLORING FICTIONS
“Maybe one day I’ll stumble into a recursion where I became a famous movie star, not
a has-been child actor. Or does it not work that way?”
~L. G. Babcock III
Recursions are unique but limited worlds leakage are a few created by conscious design,
hosted in the dark energy network of the including the sorcerous land of Ardeyn and Ardeyn, page 160
Strange. They are not parallel worlds. The the shipwrecked recursion of Ruk. All told,
Ruk, page 190
concept of parallel worlds was popularized thousands of recursions speckle the dark
by the “Many Histories” or “Many Worlds” energy web around Earth. They are places of
interpretation of quantum theory. The wonder, adventure, danger, and opportunity for
limited alternate worlds of the game, called those who can travel to them, explore them, or
recursions, are created by fiction, not branching create them.
possibilities. Novels, myths, movies, and
even urban legends seed themselves into the NO MULTIPLE PARALLEL WORLDS
Strange, and implausible new locations are Generally speaking, an explorer won’t find
born. alternate versions of herself. Nor would she
discover multiple similar worlds spinning
RECURSIONS FROM FICTIONS
off from historical “inflection points.” So an
Many recursions were seeded into the network explorer shouldn’t have to deal with befriending
by the creative resonance of pure imagination (or deciding to murder) another version of
(called “fictional leakage”). Because recursions herself—at least, not as a natural consequence
are seeded from fiction, someone able to of how recursions work. This also means
explore these realms can find Oz, Pellucidar, that the semblance of time travel, where an
limited worlds where Nazis won World War explorer might try to go back in time to kill
II, several worlds based on popular anime, her grandmother, doesn’t actually split off a
“Zed Omega” recursions experiencing zombie new timeline, as popularized in movies like
apocalypses, “Supers” worlds based on comics, Back to the Future. In The Strange, time travel
worlds derived from iconic fantasy trilogies, isn’t generally possible. (That said, certain
recursions seeded from popular science recursions seeded from time-travel fiction
fiction movies, and regions born from long- might grant the illusion of time travel.)
standing myths from every present and past
society. In some recursions, fairy creatures NARRATIVELY CLOSED RECURSIONS
hang the stars at night; in others, monstrous Some recursions are quite true to their source
evil sleeps beneath the waves; while in others, and do not vary. In these recursions, explorers
pagan gods of prehistoric people still wander. might say that “the narrative is closed.” In such
Among the many recursions created by fictional places, most natives go through their existence
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without varying from the roles first imagined a recursion that is far richer in possibility. Thus,
for them in the fiction that created them. Such natives of such recursions are more likely to
Spark, page 22 inhabitants do not have the spark of self- possess the spark or gain it over time. This
awareness that might allow them to realize that is both amazing and potentially amazingly
Moriarty, page 307
their world is limited or to imagine traveling dangerous, which has proved to be the case
Quickened, page 22 beyond the borders of the story that seeded for Moriarty, who also is quickened and able to
their recursion. travel to multiple recursions.
Sometimes the recursions seeded from
FUSED AND NARRATIVELY OPEN multiple stories, where at least 10 percent of
RECURSIONS the population has the spark, generate entirely
Some recursions are not defined or described new events over time. These recursions drift
by any one narrative, but instead are created farther and farther away from the original
by a mixture of several different but related narrative. An explorer (also called a recursor)
stories in the same genre. For instance, all the who visits such a recursion may find a
various books, plays, movies, and campfire limited world where events vary widely from
stories about Alice in Wonderland have created the original fictional source. In some cases,
a recursion where not all the individuals (such an event can snap the recursion back to
as the Red Queen, the Mad Hatter, and the something closer to the original narrative.
White Rabbit) are drawn from the exact same Such events might be the completion of a
narrative. This collision of fictions can lead key quest, the murder of a key individual, or
to situations not accounted for in the stories the apparent destruction of the recursion
that seeded the recursion. For example, a Red itself. That’s possible in recursions where the
Queen who is not merely barking mad but a spark is still under 30 percent or so. But once
devious schemer with long-range plans informs the spark climbs much higher than that, it’s
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