Crossover Ideas

[LostOne]

So I was asked by a player to come up with a campaign concept of Nightbane Earth with Splicers mixed in. My initial thought was simply having three worlds: Earth, Nightlands and Splicers, each accessible by mirrors and coming up with some way for the Robots and nanobots to cross over to Earth. It would definitely be a gamechanger. And to really add to the chaos, the stuff from the Splicer world is linked at the same time as the Nightlands. So not only does Dark Day have lots of Nightbane becoming, Hounds and such crossing over, but also robots and host armors. Things would obviously not so easily go to the Nightlord's plan, but I could see them using their puppets to play off the bio-tech stuff as alien or other-dimensional invaders and rally the military against them. And the chaos that NEXUS could get up to if it infected the Internet or a super computer farm with its A.I..

Anyway, I'd be curious to hear other people's thoughts on this. Ignore game mechanics, that stuff is easy to convert. It's the politics, reactions, and society clashes that would be more important to the game.

[Alrik Vas]

Mirror's and portals, something or other.

Yeah.

I think that you might want to make earth special or something, maybe the BTS earth, someone opened up the wrong door, let the nightlands in...how splicers mixes into that, i have no idea.

[gaby]

Can RoboTech crossover with Phase world?

[Spinachcat]

I wrote a Rifts / Splicers crossover for the Rifter 0.1 project called "Seven Years on Cerebus" so I am a big fan of crossover RPG campaigns. I love the sound of a Nightbane/Splicers crossover.

First, Nexus is going to ruin the Earth nearly overnight. The machine virus is going to spread so fast and so quick, it will be painful. Totally world chaos in moments...if you use the Nexus virus RAW.

Perhaps the virus is limited on Nightbane's Earth.

[LostOne]

First, Nexus is going to ruin the Earth nearly overnight. The machine virus is going to spread so fast and so quick, it will be painful. Totally world chaos in moments...if you use the Nexus virus RAW.

Perhaps the virus is limited on Nightbane's Earth.

I'll admit it's been probably 4 or more years since I read Splicers cover to cover and I haven't had much opportunity to game with it, so correct me if I'm wrong but: The machine "virus" is actually nanobots. Depending on how much Nexus manages to shove onto Earth they might have to setup manufacturing for the nanobots (or are they self-replicating?).

In either case, I would think it would take at least a couple weeks, minimum, to saturate everything enough to really start lashing out and causing lots of problems against humanity.

[Spinachcat]

I believe the nano-bots are self-replicating. Without biotech or magic, there's not much mankind can do against Nexus.

[gaby]

I also like Robotech with Aliens Unlimited,just need to fine a way to balance the MD with s.d.
How do you think ther RT,s Human reacte on meet Aliens in a Not fight first contact and how will they view each of the Power blocks in A.U?

[Alrik Vas]

Gaby, i think it depends on which era of Robotech. Remember, in that game, earth is ALWAYS a huge mess and exintction is pretty much around the corner every time you take a breath. Most humans aren't going to like aliens much considering they've almost been wiped out by them on several occasions.

Though if you want to force politics for the sake of the game (or set it further down Robotech's timeline) then alliances and trade are hardly outlandish. Even in the current Robotech canon, though much of the old information was eliminated, there is still an alliance between several races and humans resembling the old Sentinels idea.

As far as SDC to MDC, i'd just make everything mecha and up MDC, even the alien stuff. Leave everything at the man to man level at SDC, leave most buildings (unless they're bunkers) as SDC as well. It'll take a bit of conversion, but it shouldn't be too hard to do if you understand the material and your intention with it is clear.

[Soldier of Od]

So I was asked by a player to come up with a campaign concept of Nightbane Earth with Splicers mixed in. My initial thought was simply having three worlds: Earth, Nightlands and Splicers, each accessible by mirrors and coming up with some way for the Robots and nanobots to cross over to Earth. It would definitely be a gamechanger. And to really add to the chaos, the stuff from the Splicer world is linked at the same time as the Nightlands. So not only does Dark Day have lots of Nightbane becoming, Hounds and such crossing over, but also robots and host armors. Things would obviously not so easily go to the Nightlord's plan, but I could see them using their puppets to play off the bio-tech stuff as alien or other-dimensional invaders and rally the military against them. And the chaos that NEXUS could get up to if it infected the Internet or a super computer farm with its A.I..

Anyway, I'd be curious to hear other people's thoughts on this. Ignore game mechanics, that stuff is easy to convert. It's the politics, reactions, and society clashes that would be more important to the game.

Sounds like a fun idea! Here’s my take on it.

So I guess you could have it that Dark Day was later on in the development of the Earth (where we had already invented all those robots and such), because Splicers is a very low-magic world and the Nightlords found it more difficult to complete their ritual. The Splicers Nightlands would have become more crowded with doppelgangers and with more city states as the Earthly population was much higher in Splicers world than now. The extra P.P.E. from the higher population enabled the ritual to finally be completed. Dark Day helped to bring magic back to the world so that the penalties on page 167 of Splicers no longer apply. However, because of the previous low magic issues, there were no mages, psychics etc. on Earth previously (with the possible exception of a few latent psychics or very low powered mages throughout the ages). There are no Nightbane at all because the spirts of the Formless Ones (or whatever) could not gain a hold on Earth due to the low magic.

Taking over a whole world is much easier if the world is already led by a central government such as the United World Congress and the NEXUS machine. So the Nightlords, upon secretly taking control of the World Congress, saw all the humans’ robots and mega-damage weapons as a possible threat and attempted to remove it from the equation by encouraging the NEXUS to develop a Nano-bot Plague.

However, the Nightlords thought it would only effect complicated machines, not all metal items, and as the Nightlords’ armies and weapons are also made of metal (Dark Metal), the virus infected them as well, turning millions of Hounds and Hunters into robotic servants of the NEXUS machine, totally screwing up their invasion of Earth and causing even more chaos in the Nightlands. Minions across both worlds found themselves attacked and killed by their own dark metal armour and weapons.

Retreating from Earth to defend their homeland from their own mutated soldiers, the Nightlords and their avatars eventually managed to rebuild their armies by using their matter conversion abilities, transforming their Darkmetal into another substance, a mega-damage ceramic called Darkstone. All of their new Hounds, Hunters, etc. are now made of this material. Being non-human, these minions can also come into contact with metal without setting off the nano-bots. But the Nightlords have lost much of their previous power.

The war is now fought on three fronts: the Nightlords using their magic and minions to claw back power, the humans with their new genesplicing technology, and the machines attempting to wipe out all of them. The machine now employs several types of dark metal robots based on previous Nightlord minions. Doppelgangers infiltrate the human Houses to manipulate them into doing the Nightlords’ work for them. Namtar build Hollow Men and other creations using a combination of magic and bio-engineering stolen from the humans. Humans have begun to discover the Nightlords’ magic and are attempting to use it themselves in the war.

Note that anyone facing a Nightlord avatar could have anything on their person turned into metal and therefore becoming immediately infected with the nano-virus! Great tactic!

AND/OR – perhaps there is an equivalent to the NEXUS machine in the Nightlands – a Cybermancy device utilising seven living human (or Nightlord) components (equivalent to the seven personalities of the machine). Moloch, Lilith and Magog etc. could all be components of the Night Nexus.

Optional: since dark day and the return of magic, the spirits of the Formless Ones are now able to from life on Earth, but not to the point that they can generate true ‘Nightbane’ (however that is done!). However, when combined with the human’s bio-engineering, it is possible for a new type of Engineer, versed in magic lore, to grow magical ‘Technobane’ (the bane of technology) or 'Night-Splicers', spontaneously emerging from the gene-pools, their appearance randomly generated depending on the inhabiting spirit. These creatures are like host armour or mounts, but without the need for a human partner or simple AI programming, as the bane has a mind of its own. However, the majority of the humans do not approve of or trust this use of ‘magic’.

Just a few ideas! Thoughts?

[Glistam]

That seems like a pretty solid way to combine them - I like it!

[LostOne]

Sounds good, I'd love to see that fleshed out as a Rifter article.

[Soldier of Od]

Thanks fellas!