With all the interest Joshua is creating with his alternate history, I figured I would ride the wave and get any feedback on my own idea.
Das Fenster
The course of world history changed at 17:31 hours GMT August 3, 1940. A German outpost stationed in Corte, Corsica investigated a strange seismic anomaly 5 miles north of Monte Cintu. The German military had discovered the wreckage of an extra-terrestrial craft.
Six months later the Germans had constructed a self-contained facility at the crash site. Deep underground, German scientists and physicists where stripping down the wreckage and learning it’s secrets. While the Germans were able to salvage incredible technology – energy weapons, advanced propulsion, alien metallurgy, it was “Das Fenster” or “The Window” that changed the world.
On August 3, 1941, exactly one year after the crash discovery, Hauptmann Grosse Von Stern became the first human to break the boundaries of time. “Das Fenster” was the name given to the device by the German scientists. It was a portal, a device that allowed biological matter to travel forward or backward in time. The Germans had no way of knowing if Von Stern would go forward or backward through time. His journey took him forward 50 years.
To those on this side of the Window, he was gone only few minutes. For Von Stern, his tenure in the future lasted 344 days. His orders came form the Fuhrer himself. He was to obtain whatever intelligence he could to help further the Reich. He was to return to the exact geographical locus 344 days, to the minute, from his arrival. He was to encode the data and transmit it as a radio signal through the gate and then pass through himself.
Von Stern and the scientists learned first hand of the limitations inherent in the alien technology. Das Fenster allowed temporal transport but only in one direction. It would seem that a particular biological mass could only pass through a given portal once. While the radio transmission was unaffected, Von Stern did not fare so well. He returned to his proper time and place a steaming mass of tissue and quite dead.
While the loss of Von Stern was a set back, the information he obtained was more than even Hitler had imagined. Von Stern had managed to acquire the information necessary to construct a nuclear device, not just any device but a hydrogen bomb.
On December 4th 1942 the United States of America surrendered unconditionally to the Third Reich. While British, American and even German scientists and physicist worked feverishly to accelerate the Manhattan Project, it was too little too late. The US was unable to defend its boarders. The entire eastern seaboard became a ravaged nuclear wasteland.
Three months earlier, the United Kingdom had been reduced to a glowing pile of dirt and the war in Europe disappeared. The Soviet Union lasted only a few weeks longer. The Orient surrendered peacefully shortly thereafter.
Adolf Hitler declared himself Emperor and world ruler on January 1st 1943.
The year is now 2007. With the exception of small pockets of resistance, the Kingdom of a Thousand Years rules the world. As far as our records indicate, roughly 500,000,000 people died by the end of WWII. Another 300,000,000 perished in the frozen post-nuclear hell that followed the war. It took another 10 years but the Jewish race was made extinct. The continent of Africa was made one large concentration camp. Today, all minorities are either enslaved or killed, as are any sympathizers.
With the artifacts obtained from the crash site, the Reich has made great strides technologically. And while the Reich has gone to great lengths to find others like the dead residents of the crashed space vehicle, there has been no contact with any extraterrestrial life.
Today we fight the good fight. We fight for mankind and freedom. And it would seem that the gods have smiled upon us. Group Asia, our rebel cell in Moscow, has managed to get their hands on one of the Reich’s temporal prototypes. It would seem that after the Von Stern accident, the Germans were never able to get Das Fenster operational again. Multiple attempts destroyed the original artifact. For the last 50 years German scientist have tried desperately to duplicate the alien technology and have failed.
By the grace of God, sheer luck and stolen German technology, our boys in Asia have made an operational prototype. There are whispers of hope and renewed determination in the wake of this fantastic news.
There is a call out for volunteers, people who are willing to take on the greatest threat to mankind. People who are willing to grant humanity an escape from the hell forced upon us, to right history and avenge the deaths of so many innocent souls.
Do you have what it takes to traverse time and vanquish the Reich?
The idea is to have our heroes go back in time to occupied France and keep the Germans from the alien tech. I wrote this originally as a small one or two game idea but I was wondering if it would work as a campaign setting either in the past, trying to get back home or set in the future living with the changes, positive or negitive, from the choices made to the past.
Thoughts?
Joshua and those posting on his thread have put together a very detailed history and with Joshua's permission I would like to borrow from his work. What I would like here is less nitty-gritty detail and more flare/creativity/flash. I need to sell this idea to a group of hardcore D&D players not interested in killing evil Nazis.
Das Fenster
The course of world history changed at 17:31 hours GMT August 3, 1940. A German outpost stationed in Corte, Corsica investigated a strange seismic anomaly 5 miles north of Monte Cintu. The German military had discovered the wreckage of an extra-terrestrial craft.
Six months later the Germans had constructed a self-contained facility at the crash site. Deep underground, German scientists and physicists where stripping down the wreckage and learning it’s secrets. While the Germans were able to salvage incredible technology – energy weapons, advanced propulsion, alien metallurgy, it was “Das Fenster” or “The Window” that changed the world.
On August 3, 1941, exactly one year after the crash discovery, Hauptmann Grosse Von Stern became the first human to break the boundaries of time. “Das Fenster” was the name given to the device by the German scientists. It was a portal, a device that allowed biological matter to travel forward or backward in time. The Germans had no way of knowing if Von Stern would go forward or backward through time. His journey took him forward 50 years.
To those on this side of the Window, he was gone only few minutes. For Von Stern, his tenure in the future lasted 344 days. His orders came form the Fuhrer himself. He was to obtain whatever intelligence he could to help further the Reich. He was to return to the exact geographical locus 344 days, to the minute, from his arrival. He was to encode the data and transmit it as a radio signal through the gate and then pass through himself.
Von Stern and the scientists learned first hand of the limitations inherent in the alien technology. Das Fenster allowed temporal transport but only in one direction. It would seem that a particular biological mass could only pass through a given portal once. While the radio transmission was unaffected, Von Stern did not fare so well. He returned to his proper time and place a steaming mass of tissue and quite dead.
While the loss of Von Stern was a set back, the information he obtained was more than even Hitler had imagined. Von Stern had managed to acquire the information necessary to construct a nuclear device, not just any device but a hydrogen bomb.
On December 4th 1942 the United States of America surrendered unconditionally to the Third Reich. While British, American and even German scientists and physicist worked feverishly to accelerate the Manhattan Project, it was too little too late. The US was unable to defend its boarders. The entire eastern seaboard became a ravaged nuclear wasteland.
Three months earlier, the United Kingdom had been reduced to a glowing pile of dirt and the war in Europe disappeared. The Soviet Union lasted only a few weeks longer. The Orient surrendered peacefully shortly thereafter.
Adolf Hitler declared himself Emperor and world ruler on January 1st 1943.
The year is now 2007. With the exception of small pockets of resistance, the Kingdom of a Thousand Years rules the world. As far as our records indicate, roughly 500,000,000 people died by the end of WWII. Another 300,000,000 perished in the frozen post-nuclear hell that followed the war. It took another 10 years but the Jewish race was made extinct. The continent of Africa was made one large concentration camp. Today, all minorities are either enslaved or killed, as are any sympathizers.
With the artifacts obtained from the crash site, the Reich has made great strides technologically. And while the Reich has gone to great lengths to find others like the dead residents of the crashed space vehicle, there has been no contact with any extraterrestrial life.
Today we fight the good fight. We fight for mankind and freedom. And it would seem that the gods have smiled upon us. Group Asia, our rebel cell in Moscow, has managed to get their hands on one of the Reich’s temporal prototypes. It would seem that after the Von Stern accident, the Germans were never able to get Das Fenster operational again. Multiple attempts destroyed the original artifact. For the last 50 years German scientist have tried desperately to duplicate the alien technology and have failed.
By the grace of God, sheer luck and stolen German technology, our boys in Asia have made an operational prototype. There are whispers of hope and renewed determination in the wake of this fantastic news.
There is a call out for volunteers, people who are willing to take on the greatest threat to mankind. People who are willing to grant humanity an escape from the hell forced upon us, to right history and avenge the deaths of so many innocent souls.
Do you have what it takes to traverse time and vanquish the Reich?
The idea is to have our heroes go back in time to occupied France and keep the Germans from the alien tech. I wrote this originally as a small one or two game idea but I was wondering if it would work as a campaign setting either in the past, trying to get back home or set in the future living with the changes, positive or negitive, from the choices made to the past.
Thoughts?
Joshua and those posting on his thread have put together a very detailed history and with Joshua's permission I would like to borrow from his work. What I would like here is less nitty-gritty detail and more flare/creativity/flash. I need to sell this idea to a group of hardcore D&D players not interested in killing evil Nazis.
