Help Me ReWrite Post-1910 History

[green slime]

There are soem very wierd understandings of 20thC European history here, but it's a game,a dn I don't have time to get into debates around them.

But I will point out that many academics regard a group called Action Française as the world's first fascist movement. It's important to make French fascism French, not Nazism with the numbers filed off. But the idea of a French fascist state has a lot of credibility.

So why make a comment like that if you don't have time? And why insist on French fascism being French yet not taking the time to explain? As if there weren't different undercurrents within various extreme right movements in France, at different times?

Or, its a game, he can have nazism with the numbers filed off if it is easier? How important is it?

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Just want to bump this, cause this idea is fantastic.

Some really basic questions, cause I'm not certain what the state of things is now after the course of this thread:

What's the magic like? I get that it works off of prior occult traditions and can have massive heavy ritual effects, but is it otherwise more or less like D20 Modern magic?

What's the most basic information on the time switch? Did the world go back to 1870 and the people who had been living there just had to adjust? Which would sort of make sense given an intelligent curse. Or was it a total time switch, where the area of land and populations from 1920 dissapeared and the people from 1870 were suddenly there again? Just need to know which of those is more or less true in the design process as of right now.

Cause if it's the latter option then this represents huge HUGE problem for a democracy. Also some very cool stuff, but...

...you would be looking at the US suddenly having to integrate a substantial population of people who had all fairly recently survived the civil war and were actively fighting in Indian wars.

And I can't imagine what the reaction of the American population in the 1920s would be like to a group of people like that. Well, I can but I'll leave it for after the response.

Here's the primary initial history post-event:

The biggest problem, in terms of later historical development, would be:

A.) Figuring out how to get aid to the people in the zone. Anyone with magic is going to have a huge advantage in doing this. In turn, magic is going to be much more popular there than in any other part of the nation.

B.) The post-event political status of that area of the nation. Texas and parts north has traditionally had an inordinate amount of influence in national politics, particularly in the middle of the twentieth century. In the wake of this event, I see that area as not simply becoming politically signigicant but also politically unique. Texas Democrats have been particularly important to all significant American political action from the thirties on till the 80s and now Texas Republicans run the nation. The high plains from Amarillo north developed America's only significant third party. What happens to America if that political acumen doesn't so much swing around as develop its own identity?

Here's a hint: the dead-zone is going to rather swiftly turn from a point of crisis to one of pride. Cowboys with guns and wands.

Audience's who don't think a preacher is worth his salt if he don't enthrall them.

Politicians who know you gotta sling a little spell the same way Texas politicians today all gotta hunt dove.

Then throw in the progressivism? And the renewed tension with Mexico?

And the lack of an oil boom. Combined with having to develop finessable technologies. Eco-socialist, Yee Hawing, jazz and polka playing, horse riding, pyramid style public works building, literal sabre rattling, power politicing, wizards.

I can't tell you how gleeful I am considering what that would be like thrown into a magical investigation style campaign. Mulder having to report to a smiling drawlin congressmen who explains that, "Aw, that chupacabra ain't no problem or mystery. You just wait right here, and me and my boys I'll bring it right back for ya." The man futzes around for a while, before brining out to matching exquistiely metalworked wands and asking, "Do you want that barbequed?" holds up one wand, "or Eddison fried?" holds up the other.

 

[WayneLigon]

Just want to bump this, cause this idea is fantastic.

What's the magic like? I get that it works off of prior occult traditions and can have massive heavy ritual effects, but is it otherwise more or less like D20 Modern magic?

What's the most basic information on the time switch?

And I can't imagine what the reaction of the American population in the 1920s would be like to a group of people like that.

A.) Figuring out how to get aid to the people in the zone. Anyone with magic is going to have a huge advantage in doing this. In turn, magic is going to be much more popular there than in any other part of the nation.

Politicians who know you gotta sling a little spell the same way Texas politicians today all gotta hunt dove.

Then throw in the progressivism? And the renewed tension with Mexico?

And the lack of an oil boom. Combined with having to develop finessable technologies. Eco-socialist, Yee Hawing, jazz and polka playing, horse riding, pyramid style public works building, literal sabre rattling, power politicing, wizards.

matching exquistiely metalworked wands and asking, "Do you want that barbequed?" holds up one wand, "or Eddison fried?" holds up the other.

I want to have your children.

OK, maybe not, but excellent points

The magic is standard d20 Modern/Urban Arcana magic, plus the incantations section. There might be a few Sixth Level spells around but they would be secret projects, think-tank-level first generation applications. I still have yet to really decide this. Other traditions exist but most use the same mechanics with different spell focus stuff, etc.

The most basic info seems to be this: that the entire area was 'rolled back to 1870. ie, the people and animals and places that were there in 1870 are now here once more. Obviously, historians have gone nuts.

What really happened to the people that were there? No-one knows, though it's assumed they are dead. They are in the eyes of the law, at least. No-one has been able to contact the ghost of anyone that lived in the area at the time, though, so many theories still exist as to what might have happened. Some still harbor hope that the spell is reversable.

The reaction was varied, though an unfortunate side effect has been that people of Native American heritage are even more persecuted than ever.

I love the description of the area, since one character is definatly coming from that area. Yes, we've already realized that the people in the area are going to have some powerful and well-trained wizards. Any suggestions as to where to place a good thaumaturgy school?

 

[mythusmage]

St. Louis has a moderate position because of the Arch...

What Arch? The St. Louis Arch is very post 1908, and 1870 technology was not capable of erecting it. So no St. Louis Arch.

As for the Texas oil fields. Oil production in the U.S. goes back to the 1840s and the Pennsylvania oil fields. Quaker State was founded at that time and got its name from the fact its wells were in the Quaker State. The technology was there in 1870 to drill, pump, store, and transport the oil. Not as efficient as the technology would later become, but still there.

Now, except for asphalt, axle grease, and oil lamps the Dead Zone wouldn't have much use for it, but it would still be useful outside the DZ. Then there is the potential use as material components. Say, a pinch of tar or a drop of kerosene in a Fireball. So, yes, you can have the Texas Oil Boom.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

Yeah, losing Hitler and the Spear of Longinus, etc is a big blow. The idea of a mystical madman lies right in line with creating hideous abberations that still plague Europe, Argentina Nazis, etc.

Regardless of how WWI turns out, Hitler can still rise to power.
As a young man he learns a few spells, but can't really manage much in the way of real power. He uses his only assets, his charisma and his limited magical knowledge to mentally dominate certain important governmental figures. By the time anyone is the wiser it's too late to stop his rise to power. Now he's in charge of Germany and is trying to create a golden age for the country where genetic and magical superiority are everything.

With a little magic on his side, Hitler can rise to power without the benefit of "the right political climate" and other factors that led to his gaining power IRL. He then sets about realising the fruition of his own personal agendas (whatever they may be).

No doubt he'd have a secret police force under him with magic users filling out the ranks, specially trained to hunt, capture and/or kill enemy spellcasters. Magical breeding experiments might result in demihuman races, or if demihumans already exist, they might be forced to take part in such programs; they might also end up in camps where they are the subject of experiments which seek to divine the source of their inherent "magical nature". His fascination with the occult goes well with this sort of campaign. His agents would be everywhere trying to secure religious relics and supposed magical artifacts. His scientists would probably be working with the spellcasters to create magi-tech superweapons, or aberrant nightmarish creatures.
Hitler himself would acually be a second rate magic user. After all, in real life he didn't even come close to representing the ideal race he put so much stock in.

 

[Stormborn]

Going back to the issue of setting...St. Louis may have an Arch...one built as a huge piece of ritual technology to disrupt the dead zone. Worked to, well kinda, only problem is it cost a great deal of money and time and effort, and its effects were sorely limited.

 

[Izer]

I hate, hate, hate, the tech-dead zone as described, since there can be no mechanism for it other than "a large number of invisibile faries zap everything not on their invented-before-1870 list" An area where much tech works poorly is an okay idea but please pick another mechanism than an abritary cut-off date. "magnetic fields of any significant strength attract demons" or "Electric currents with a voltage above 4.45 volts leak to the elemental plane of lighting" or something would sabotage lots of stuff and not immidiately cause peoples brains to dribble out of their ears if they think about it too much. It also makes it much simpler for you as the DM to determine what works and what does not.

Other than that,, Hmm. If Shadow-kin are persecuted/treated like unwelcome immigrants in many places they will inevitably try to flee to those countries that either welcome them out of generel prinicple or are so utterly disorganised and weak that they cannot effectively oppress them.

Which means you get both snootily superior french elves and third world countries which have effectivly been taken over by yhea old forces of darkness.
Campaign idea: French (very) foreign legion squad gets sent in to.. Ahh "Assist the local autorities" in former french colonies with "Maintaning order"

 

[WayneLigon]

What Arch? The St. Louis Arch is very post 1908, and 1870 technology was not capable of erecting it. So no St. Louis Arch.

Yeah, that is a problem. St Louis was once the top contender but it's on the wrong side of the Mississippi. I hate laying down a law then making an exception to it; you get Star Trek instead of Buffy by going down that path. BUT since we don't know the exact reasonings behind the how and why of the Black Lodge's failure, there is some wiggle room here.

See, again I got whacked by my general ignorance until I did some research on the arch. I thought it had been built quite some time ago (as in, 1920's), but it was put up from '61 to '66. I had no idea it was that recent. Now, the mystical association of the Arch with the expansion of the America westward would have been enough to create a 'bubble' when the Dead Zone was first formed. This goes back to some of my earlier ideas about sacred architecture.

It's too late for the Arch, though it's NOT too late for some other things that work almost as good.

This is the place where the Mississippi and Missouri meet; since water stops the barrier in two places, the extra association here could create a 'bubble'.

• St. Louis is home to the oldest Catholic Church west of the Mississippi, the Basilica of St. Louis.
• The Shrine of St. Joseph is reportedly the site of a genuine miracle in 1866
• The Old Water Tower (again the association with the taming of waters) erected in 1871 is the largest perfect Corinthian column in existance.
• The water works plant has a large statue in front of it symbolizing the Union of the Waters, the Mississippi and Missouri.

There is a massive fountain called Meeting of the Waters (the name was suppossed to be Wedding of the Rivers), featuring statues representing the Mississippi and Missouri, plus a whole lot of water spirits. This was - unfortunately for my purposes - built in the 1940s but it could have been initiated by someone who suspected the relationship and created it as a 'buffer' in case the water towers were ever razed.

You also have pink nuns but that's neither here not there.

Sooooo, there's enough (especially water-related) stuff there to create a large bubble in the fabric of the Dead Zone if I wish to go that route. I could make St. Louis a Chicago-sized metropolis, the literal gateway to the west (esp if I push the DZ year to 1874 to make St. Louis the only endpoint to the only cross country railroad) and a major center of thaumaturgical study.

Still thinking about it.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Now, except for asphalt, axle grease, and oil lamps the Dead Zone wouldn't have much use for it, but it would still be useful outside the DZ. Then there is the potential use as material components. Say, a pinch of tar or a drop of kerosene in a Fireball. So, yes, you can have the Texas Oil Boom.

I was thinking the oil boom would be difficult without the internal combustion engine being around to help transport, but I suppose you'd just run railroads around. Really difficult, but possible. Could they do pipelines in 1870?

Magical oil production?

A lot more expensive to get out of the ground anyway you look at it.

I was thinking, for a city, oddly enough, of Galveston. 'Cause no 1900 means no Galveston hurricane.

I don't know how familiar everyone is with that city, but the reason you aren't and the reason we have Houston is that in 1900, in America's greatest natural disaster, 6000 people and much of the city's property was destroyed.

As a result, the city that had been predicted to become the other great Southern port had its role usurped by Houston. A city that otherwise makes very little sense.

1870 means no Houston, and Galveston is mostly located on an island so it probably gets shielded from much of the dead zone. I figure it makes the logical base for most of the relief efforts, increasing its importance to the region, and while portions of it might sometimes get integrated into the zone that more or less makes it perfect for research that uses the zone's effects.

Plus Galveston already and has always had a pretty crazy cultural scene picking up a fair amount of Dixie, Mexico, and Carribean stuff. Very very cool city. Very cool city to deal with an influx of magic. Sean Stewart has a book called Galveston on that very theme.

So here's how I picture it: There's Galveston proper with the Island and Shore elements. Those areas have adapted to a mix of zone and non-zone tech and cultures. Off shore you have oil rigs, but you also have tech platforms. The necessity of developing oil drilling outside of the zone and the particular sensibilities of its inhabitants has resulted in very sophisticated and underregulated artificial islands on which the most highly sophisticated, uncontrolled, and secret tech work is done. Everything from data havens to cloning labs. All of it fairly confident in the knowledge that they can do limited harm as the zone will take apart any of their work, including non-1870 pollutants, that finds its way to shore.

Galveston itself contains one of the few populations of 1920ers left after the incident. People who had the unsettling experience of meeting their ancestors. That combined with the flood of relief workers means that the city is simultaneously among the most influential in zone politics and the most federalized. Tourism starts from there, military aid goes into it, and among the offshore facilities is the last reliable American naval base before Mexican waters.

Divided between jurisidictions both political and magical Galveston often serves as the American free city. Shipping, crime, and intrigue from the Carribean stops and starts here. Every world power has an embassy. Including several Indian nations, primarily as a result of the academic researchers and foriegn researchers who entered the area anxious to reclaim previously lost cultures.

Think of it as a Dixie version of Miami Vice.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Now, except for asphalt, axle grease, and oil lamps the Dead Zone wouldn't have much use for it, but it would still be useful outside the DZ. Then there is the potential use as material components. Say, a pinch of tar or a drop of kerosene in a Fireball. So, yes, you can have the Texas Oil Boom.

I was thinking the oil boom would be difficult without the internal combustion engine being around to help transport, but I suppose you'd just run railroads around. Really difficult, but possible. Could they do pipelines in 1870?

Magical oil production?

A lot more expensive to get out of the ground anyway you look at it.

I was thinking, for a city, oddly enough, of Galveston. 'Cause no 1900 means no Galveston hurricane.

I don't know how familiar everyone is with that city, but the reason you aren't and the reason we have Houston is that in 1900, in America's greatest natural disaster, 6000 people and much of the city's property was destroyed.

As a result, the city that had been predicted to become the other great Southern port had its role usurped by Houston. A city that otherwise makes very little sense.

1870 means no Houston, and Galveston is mostly located on an island so it probably gets shielded from much of the dead zone. I figure it makes the logical base for most of the relief efforts, increasing its importance to the region, and while portions of it might sometimes get integrated into the zone that more or less makes it perfect for research that uses the zone's effects.

Plus Galveston already and has always had a pretty crazy cultural scene picking up a fair amount of Dixie, Mexico, and Carribean stuff. Very very cool city. Very cool city to deal with an influx of magic. Sean Stewart has a book called Galveston on that very theme.

So here's how I picture it: There's Galveston proper with the Island and Shore elements. Those areas have adapted to a mix of zone and non-zone tech and cultures. Off shore you have oil rigs, but you also have tech platforms. The necessity of developing oil drilling outside of the zone and the particular sensibilities of its inhabitants has resulted in very sophisticated and underregulated artificial islands on which the most highly sophisticated, uncontrolled, and secret tech work is done. Everything from data havens to cloning labs. All of it fairly confident in the knowledge that they can do limited harm as the zone will take apart any of their work, including non-1870 pollutants, that finds its way to shore.

Galveston itself contains one of the few populations of 1920ers left after the incident. People who had the unsettling experience of meeting their ancestors. That combined with the flood of relief workers means that the city is simultaneously among the most influential in zone politics and the most federalized. Tourism starts from there, military aid goes into it, and among the offshore facilities is the last reliable American naval base before Mexican waters.

Divided between jurisidictions both political and magical Galveston often serves as the American free city. Shipping, crime, and intrigue from the Carribean stops and starts here. Every world power has an embassy. Including several Indian nations, primarily as a result of the academic researchers and foriegn researchers who entered the area anxious to reclaim previously lost cultures.

Think of it as a Dixie version of Miami Vice.

Actually, in the wake of the event I see the third coast, or south coast, as becoming far more poltically significant.

Miami is actually going to be less cool, primarily since a prosperous and free Havanna steals most of its thunder.

New Orleans and Galveston are very big. Alongside various European ports and Haiti and Cuba who joined various Latin American alliances.