D&D General Iron Gods/Expedition to the Barrier Peaks: What Sci-Fi theme would you go with?

[Voadam]

My homebrew World of Eska starts as a Mad Max/Thundarr, but I have a bunch of Star Wars influence in it. Rock gnomes ride around in their crawlers selling off warforged. The drow I've reskinned as Dathomirian Nightsisters. It also features an ancient aliens level of unkown gods called the Vril.

Eska

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Very neat ideas and cool blog. Reading over your influences I had forgotten about Blackstar but that name and the half sword stands out in my memory for some reason. There was a lot of cartoons in the 80s.

 

[Voadam]

I'd go weird and strange. Dying Earth.

From the little I've read the Science Fiction aspects are pretty subtle and backgroundy. And the Vancian magic is not really a weird twist for D&D

Wait, did one of the stories involve an ancient flying car?

 

[werecorpse]

Imo the best sci fi fantasy crossover campaign Ive seen (&run) is Evernight from savage worlds. The party starts as standard fantasy adventurer types off in a dungeon in the mountains - the ground rumbles, small earthquake. When they return to the city it has been “nuked“ and there are aliens with lasers and psionics rounding up the villagers. That’s when it starts to get weird.

 

[darjr]

From the little I've read the Science Fiction aspects are pretty subtle and backgroundy. And the Vancian magic is not really a weird twist for D&D

Wait, did one of the stories involve an ancient flying car?

I think so.

oh! Do a metamorphosis alpha, if you think your players would be OK with it.

 

[Bupp]

Very neat ideas and cool blog. Reading over your influences I had forgotten about Blackstar but that name and the half sword stands out in my memory for some reason. There was a lot of cartoons in the 80s.

I'm also adding in lore and artifacts from Magic: The Gathering. Ancient Vril items (magic items), run on powerstones. I'm starting up a new campaign right now, starting at 3rd level, and at 5th level I'm going to introduce a version of infernal war machines from Descent into Avernus, except they run on powerstones instead of souls.

 

[Voadam]

Imo the best sci fi fantasy crossover campaign Ive seen (&run) is Evernight from savage worlds. The party starts as standard fantasy adventurer types off in a dungeon in the mountains - the ground rumbles, small earthquake. When they return to the city it has been “nuked“ and there are aliens with lasers and psionics rounding up the villagers. That’s when it starts to get weird.

I got Evernight in a big charity bundle a while ago but have not delved into it. From the drivethru description I thought it was a vampire world apocalypse, not aliens. Interesting.

 

[Voadam]

oh! Do a metamorphosis alpha, if you think your players would be OK with it.

That would fit in fairly seamlessly on a conceptual level. I never played or owned any of the editions but Metamorphosis Alpha in concept was a tragedy caused a 50 mile long colony ship to go haywire with the majority of crew having died and generations later there are tons of weird aliens and mutations throughout the ship and so you play post apocalyptic sci-fi.

 

[darjr]

But one way to play is “fantasy” that the PCs don’t know they are in a ship in an apocalyptic future. Though hiding it from your players requires they trust you and are good for that kind of thing.

 

[Mannahnin]

The giant space ship immediately suggested Warhammer 40K to me which led to thoughts of D&D giants as being connected to Astartes space marines and PCs eventually recovering power armor and bolters.

Doesn't the first officially-published dungeon include a space marine in power armor? Steven the Rock?

 

[Voadam]

Doesn't the first officially-published dungeon include a space marine in power armor? Steven the Rock?

At first I thought you meant Dungeon Magazine #1, but there he is in 0e Blackmoor with power armor (and it is Stephen). The later art I remembered did not jump out at me as Warhammer though.

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Which brings up Temple of the Frog (or the d20 version) and City of the Gods (which also has a d20 version) as other classic D&D meets Sci-Fi modules where this discussion could be relevant.