Line #20 DarthWiki/TheChroniclesOfFate


1	->''Chaos''
2
3	->''The year 2246 AD. Earth is a tomb. The corpses of Old Humanity lie buried beneath the desolate, death-haunted wastes of a world that ended in fire. In their wake—new, transhuman races—stronger, stranger, forged in the crucible of war and bloodshed on a scale never known before. For the first time since Neanderthal man shared the planet with early Homo sapiens, more than one species of humans walk the Earth. Advances in technology and changes in culture have led the sons of man down three separate evolutionary paths. Each has their own culture, their own way of life, their own technologies and their own Gods. They have become fundamentally incompatible, and they are engaged in a bitter war for survival.''
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5	->''In the skies above the Pacific Ocean, a vast continent hovers, composed of thousands of individual man-made floating islands. This is Celestia. Great Heavens. Out from it come pouring the warhosts of the Revs. The golden armor of their Chaos Paladins glistens in the sun, the psionic power of their Teleks warps reality itself with its fury. What was once Europe is now a vast tangle of cold metal towers reaching from the very bowels of the earth to nearly the heights of space and sprawling across most the entire continent, and all of it crawling with machines the size of atoms - Geneva. Within this colossal, cyclopean arcology the mortal servants of ancient evil plot and scheme; their new "legitimate" government, the GSA, claims dominion of all the world, but while the nanoborg armies of these Socs clash with their Revish foes, the church of their terrible goddess scours the earth and beyond for lost secrets to unleash dread forces.''
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7	->''Asia, North America - these are vast cosmic battlefields, moonscapes that look more like the surface of an asteroid than anything we would recognize them as. They are ever-burning now with the acrid stink of brimstone and molten earth, ozone, and the constant faint tingle of electromagnetic radiation as Socs and Revs constantly clash across them in titanic battles the least of which is more destructive than a thousand hydrogen bombs. Amongst these and other places across the wasteland Earth, small pockets of people called Garns - those who side with neither good nor evil - eke out a meager survival. They are hardy survivors with a bit of nano in their blood, a few genetic enhancements or mutations, a lot of luck on their side, and a scrappy scavenger ethic. Mostly they just want to avoid The War, or profit from its spoils. Sometimes, they fight back.''
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9	->''There is more to this War than meets the eye, however. The mortal armies, however godlike they may appear compared to us, are pieces on a chess board. Ancient and utterly alien, unknowable, eldritch things which have dueled across creations unimagined and incomprehensible since ages beyond reckoning or thought puppeteer the human forces. Primordial gods of good and evil, beyond anything the mind of any type of human could hope to comprehend without succumbing to complete madness, have fought, creating and destroying realities we could not begin to fit into sets of dimensions that our limited senses can perceive, since long, long before Man or his tiny blue-green planet were even a twinkle in Destiny's eye. Our world is but the latest theater in their Long War. It was not the first, it will not be the last.''
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11	->''Slumbering gods have awakened and turned their dreadful eyes towards the Earth. And within hides a cancer, eating away at the very heart of what survives of mankind. This is The Age of War. This is the time of Chaos. Master the limitless psionic might of a Telek, unleash energies that can move the very stars, and bend reality itself to your will. Bond with a five-hundred-foot tall Warsynth and rain down hell on the implacable Soc hordes, or go toe-to-toe with one of the Socs' own behemoth mecha, the humongous [=MWDPs=]. Fight tooth and nail on the front lines against the horriﬁc machines of the Pinnuver Hive. Seek out the malefic corruption of the insidious "Infinite Church of the One True God". Explore the dark world of the malignant Global Societalist Assembly and their unseen monstrous agents. Sift through secrets long thought lost in the hopes of finding an advantage for your God over His diabolical enemies. Swear an oath of eternal loyalty and dedication to your Cause and undergo the sacred techno-rites that will reshape you with the powers of the Chaotic Light, forever transforming you into a Paladin - divine bringer of wrath. Nowhere else will you ﬁnd a setting like this.''
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13	This is a setting about [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch]] [[ANazibyAnyOtherName Nazi]] [[SkeleBot9000 Robots]] vs. [[{{Transhuman}} Transhuman]] {{Shapeshifting}} [[ChaoticGood Chaos-Worshipping]] [[PsychicPowers Psychic]] [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Warrior]]-[[ChurchMilitant Fanatic]] [[RecycledInSpace Space]] [[TheFairFolk Faeries]]. And that's just the introduction.
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15	''The Chronicles Of Fate'' has recently undergone a [[OddlyNamedSequel name change]] to, [[DarkAgeOfSupernames simply]], CHAOS. Throughout the rest of this wiki, it's still going to be referred to as ''The Chronicles Of Fate'', mostly because [[CreatorsApathy I just can't be bothered]] to go through and change all the names, but just be aware that's not the name anymore.
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17	Anyway, with that info out of the way...
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19	''Chaos'' (formerly ''The Chronicles Of Fate'') is a [[TabletopGames Tabletop Game]] [[{{Sourcebook}} Campaign Setting]] currently in production by Tropers/Unknown20Troper. [[DevelopmentHell In theory, it has a publisher lined up ready and willing to publish it as soon as it's done. A successful RPG publisher who's successfully published several RPG books in the past. In practice, that contract was signed a long time ago, has probably lapsed, and it remains to be seen whether the project will ever be finished anyway]]. So ''Chaos'' is currently {{Vaporware}}-- hopefully it ''won't'' advance completely to OrphanedSeries status. If RealLife didn't [[CreatorBreakdown keep getting in the author's way]], it would stand a much better chance of getting finished someday.
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21	The premise of ''Chaos'' could best be described in the JustForFun/XMeetsY style as ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'' meets ''TabletopGame/MutantChronicles'' meets ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'' meets ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' meets ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' meets ''TabletopGame/GammaWorld'' meets ''TabletopGame/CthulhuTech'' meets ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. Yeah. SerialEscalation is definitely in play here.
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23	The idea is that it's supposed to be published to be compatible with ''TabletopGame/MutantsAndMasterminds'' under their M&M Superlink License; not so much because it's exactly a SuperHero [[TheVerse world]], although it sort of is that as well, but more because it's instead some crazy SchizoTech AnachronismStew UltimateShowdownOfUltimateDestiny FantasyKitchenSink NinjaPirateZombieRobot SerialEscalation {{Troperiffic}} Fueled-Solely-By-The-RuleOfCool [[TheVerse world]] of insanity populated chiefly by [[PersonOfMassDestruction beings so powerful]] that their interactions can [[PVPBalanced only be handled by rules designed for super heroes]]. And even then, only barely.
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25	The idea is ''also'' that it's supposed to be not just the one campaign {{Sourcebook}}, which [[DevelopmentHell itself will hopefully ever be finished]], but once it is, beyond that, an entire ExpandedUniverse which will be developed to be set in the same [[TheVerse universe]]-- {{Novel}}s, [[VideoGames Computer and maybe Console Games]], maybe even {{Graphic Novel}}s or {{Manga}}, an [[AnimatedShows Animation]] or {{Anime}}, a CollectibleCardGame or even maybe a [[{{Film}} Movie]]. The hope is that some day people he's never heard of will be writing bad FanFic set in his world. Something like the Literature/WhateleyUniverse, the world of VisualNovel/FateStayNight, or even ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' itself. A troper can dream, can't he?
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27	It goes a little something like this: It's AfterTheEnd. Well, technically, it's more like DuringTheWar. WorldWarIII has broken out, leading to TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. What's left is a [[DesertPunk wasteland]], an [[EarthIsABattlefield endless battlefield]] of [[FireAndBrimstoneHell burning destruction]] where survival or annihilation are the only prizes. For those few [[TrueNeutral Garns]] who aren't tied up with one side or the other, it's a ScavengerWorld, living like frightened mice, few survived the [[ApocalypseHow Nine Days Of Fire]] unless protected behind layers of what is now LostTechnology, which is primarily the two [[OrderVersusChaos main factions]] left fighting it out over what's left of the Earth. The PlayerCharacters would typically take the roles of members of one or the other of those factions, either the [[ChaoticGood rebellious]] [[LaResistance Revs]], who believe that "society is bad" and they're fighting for freedom by overthrowing it; in [[WorldHalfEmpty this world]] they somehow manage to be the good guys-- more established than your typical LaResistance, they've actually got their very own extremely... zealous ChurchMilitant to back them up complete with it's own [[MeaningfulName Meaningfully Named]] EmperorScientist CrystalDragonJesus [[MessianicArchetype Messiah]] called [[http://www.thenazareneway.com/yeshua_jesus_real_name.htm Josh]] (who by the way is actually an ancient [[EldritchAbomination Outer God]] reborn in [[GodInHumanForm human form]] after an epic cosmic defeat) -- or the [[ObviouslyEvil evil]] [[TheEmpire Socs]]. What's left of the OneWorldOrder, CyberneticsEatYourSoul is kind of these guys' story. Not that the other guys don't sort of have [[{{Nanomachines}} Cybernetics]] too...and crazy [[MindOverMatter telekinetic powers]], but somehow it doesn't eat ''their'' souls. Well, [[KudzuPlot it's complicated]].
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29	----
30	!!This RPG provides examples of:
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32	* AGodIsYou (Josh definitely is, of the accurate assessment sort. Somewhere between PhysicalGod and AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence. So is his wife, Jen, essentially [[NatureSpirit Mother Nature]]. Their enemy, the evil Marcy, [[AncientConspiracy secret lord of the Socs]], fits this trope too, she's more in the GodInHumanForm category. All were once PowersThatBe/[[AnthropomorphicPersonification Anthropomorphic Personifications]]/{{Eldritch Abomination}}s (and they sort of still are. Like I keep saying, it's [[TheChrisCarterEffect very complicated]]), with Josh having used to have been essentially [[{{YHWH}} that God. You know the one.]] And Marcy being basically the equivalent of [[{{Satan}} the person that that person fights]]. They got [[{{Nerf}} Nerfed]]. [[spoiler:Later, in the future of the timeline, they all regain their former power.]] To make things more complicated, most regular PlayerCharacters can [[SerialEscalation become so powerful over time]] with [[StockSuperpowersIndex whatever their particular powersets happen to be]] ([[MindOverMatter telekinetic]], [[{{Nanomachines}} nanotechnological]], etc), that they can eventually come up for some version of this [[EnergyBeings upgrade]] themselves. Has an example up and down pretty much every level of the OurGodsAreDifferent scale.)
33	* AbnormalAmmo (Revs have guns that [[ElementalPowers fire lightning, that fire air, that fire fire and even water, that shake the earth]] and that project packets of [[ShownTheirWork actual energy, the real kind]], as in, "the ability to do work", (not just [[PureEnergy fancy yellow light]]) through the air, which turns into heat and force upon impact with an object, [[StuffBlowingUp blowing it the hell up]]. They have guns that fire [[SpamAttack tiny showers of metal shards that can rip anything to pieces]], [[EnergyWeapon expanding spheres of solid plasma]], [[OrganicTechnology organic weapons]] that fire deadly living projectiles, and [[ArrowsOnFire plasma-crackling Force Arrows]] that can [[{{BFG}} blow apart a fortified bunker]]. The Socs have [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill kinetic rounds that go faster and do more damage the further they travel through the air]], EM-dampening rounds that [[ArmorIsUseless can punch through Rev electromagnetic armor]], [[{{Nanomachines}} nano-filled rounds]] that start pulling a target apart atom-by-atom as soon as they hit it...the list goes on and on and on.)
34	* AbusivePrecursors ([[EldritchAbomination Marcy, the ancient god of Sin]], the [[QuirkyMinibossSquad six other evil lieutenant gods she created]] in days of old, ([[AnthropomorphicPersonification Anthropomorphic Personifications]] of Death, Decay, Deception, Rage, Malice, and Cruelty, each respectively), not to mention the entire race of [[TheHeartless Demons]] she spawned that destroyed the rest of TheMultiverse [[EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse besides Earth's universe, Prime]], and then [[ApocalypseHow scoured this universe of all life]] [[TheDarkTimes before Earth or humanity were ever even born]], [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness collectively known as The Darkness or the forces of Evil/Order]] in the [[TheVerse Chaos Verse]], should certainly qualify.)
35	* TheAestheticsOfTechnology (Both averted and played straight, by both sides. As technology has advanced in the future, it's turned out different than what people from our time expected it would. In certain respects, it's come back nearly full circle to be similar again to what it was in the past. So there are Revs with sleek, [[OrganicTechnology organic]], [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas crystalline]]-appearing technology and ones in their ChurchMilitant, The Divine Chaos, with gothic and baroque, medieval-looking armor and weapons. Everything in the Socs' world is metallic, sterile, mechanical, and [[LawfulEvil orderly]]. It's pretty much all made of {{Nanomachines}} and most of it [[MadeOfShiny flows just as smoothly and fluidly as you would expect something from the future to]]...but then the other half of it is actually pretty damn [[{{Zeerust}} boxy]]. Half of this is done by the leadership of the respective sides for psychological reasons-- all these technologies work with deadly efficacy, some just ''look'' more deadly than others.)
36	* AfterTheEnd (It is. A [[WorldWarIII big ole' war]] has broken out. With all sorts of [[WeaponOfMassDestruction decidedly nasty bombs and weapons]]. [[NukeEm Nuclear bombs]], and [[{{Nanomachines}} nano-bombs]] that disassemble landscapes on the atomic scale, and [[BlackMagic Negadyne Bombs]] that [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything unzip matter like the back of a lady of the evening's shirt]]. What's left, except for Rev and Soc bases which were [[FloatingContinent in the sky]] and [[DeflectorShields protected by Barrier Shields]], respectively, is [[DesertPunk mostly a big grey wasteland of scorched, glassy lava rock desert and not much else]].)
37	* AIIsACrapshoot (Oddly, averted. AIs exist...the only problem is that almost everyone is actually [[HalfHumanHybrid part machine and part biological]], Revs and Socs alike (although they each have very different ''kinds'' of "machine" components), so no one would even know which side of a RobotWar to be on. Both Socs and Revs are basically [[VoluntaryShapeshifting voluntary shapeshifting nanomorphs]], their bodies a mix of {{Nanomachines}} and living cells. For Revs, those {{Nanomachines}} are [[OrganicTechnology bio-like]] ''nanites'', for Socs, they're purely mechanical atomic machines. It gets more complicated when you add in the fact that there are some people who are all [[AIs AI]] and are born with [[{{Cyberspace}} no physical body at all]]-- they're called Presences, but their minds are exactly the same as the people who ''do'' have permanent bodies, and of course a regular person could always become a Presence and vice versa. Not that that stops the Socs from treating their Presences, who they just call [=AIs=], like [[EthnicMenialLabor slaves]]; that is to say, [[KickTheDog even worse than they treat most of their people]], which tends to push many of them into trying to escape and convert to Revdom if they can.)
38	** Gets even more complicated when you notice the [[ArtificialHuman Synths]], the Revs' adorable and loyal [[LoyalAnimalCompanion companion creatures]]. You might expect there to be some kind of [[StoryArc arc]] there about them [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters rebelling]]. Umm...there isn't. [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation Unless a GM wants there to be.....]]
39	* AirJousting (90% or more of the combat in this series is this. Teleks use their [[MindOverMatter telekinetic powers]] to fly around, obviously, Soc [[FlyingBrick nanotechnicians]] are propelled through the air aloft on [[AppliedPhlebotinum propulsive nanoclouds]]. When they get to the actual battlefield where their primarily flying armies clash, humongous, incredibly long and brutal sequences of AwesomeButImpractical AirJousting commence, complete with lots of [[strike:[[KiManipulation Ki]]]] [[KiManipulation Telekinetic and Nanotech]] KamehameHadoken BeamSpam, [[ElementalRockPaperScissors matter being transformed into other elements for the purposes of destroying the enemy, created and destroyed to try to damage eachother]], and [[HealingFactor characters constantly healing, soaking up and inflicting more horrendous damage]], not to mention [[ApocalypseHow massive damage to the environment]] until enough warriors are finally [[FromASingleCell completelly melted down to the subatomic scale]].)
40	* AlienGeometries (Many of the things that are directly tied to the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s who are running things [[TheMasquerade behind the scenes]] in this setting. Sure, the mundane [[PathOfInspiration churches]] of [[BigBad Marcy]] just seem [[LawfulEvil evil]], and the common [[ChurchMilitant Wordtemples]] of [[CrystalDragonJesus Josh]] just seem goldeny ChaoticGood, but, if you get to the actual cores of where these entities are [[PhysicalGod interacting with our world]], they are....well, still not the actual EldritchAbomination [[PowersThatBe Gods]] that they really are, but merely the tips of those icebergs, very powerful physical manifestations in our little world of beings that are just too ''big'' to [[MindRape even fit one-tenth of their dimensions in our universe]]. Nontheless, there are some [[ArtifactOfDoom artifacts]], places, things, and ancient [[TomeOfEldritchLore books]] related to their true forms, yes, if one knows where to look, all [[BrownNote will destroy your sanity]] [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow to try to look at or percieve]]. So be grateful for the {{Masquerade}}s.)
41	* TheAlliance (This [[TheVerse setting]] has an [[TheAlliance alliance]] of sorts, but it's an [[EvilCounterpart evil one]]. Well, not strictly evil ''per se'', leave that actual [[CharacterAlignment alignment]] to the [[TheEmpire Viral Confederation]] to whom it rightly belongs in the future time period, but it is unpleasant and generally ''bad''. The Dusters, as they call themselves, are a roughly affiliated [[TheAlliance alliance]] of {{Barbarian Tribe}}s, SpacePirates, [[TheSyndicate Criminal Syndicates]], [[AristocratsAreEvil Nobles and Royalty Of Questionable Morality]], and other various [[FeudalFuture medievalish type people IN SPACE!!!]] They inhabit a vast yet relatively sparsely-populated region called The Dustlands, an area filled with galaxies (Allands, in-setting) that are filled with planets (Lands) and Suns that are surrounded, indeed, swarmed with [[AsteroidThicket far more meteors, asteroids, and cosmic dust floating around everywhere]] than ordinary regions. The story goes that their ancestors, the Garns of [[EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse Terra]], actually ''towed all that debris out there'' to make it easier for them to hide amongst it - The Dustlands is a colossal hollow sphere of space which surrounds the vast and expanding [[TheFederation Union]] (which is what the Revs have become and you may notice is somewhat [[ShoutOut similar]] to a certain [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Imperium of Man]]) and is itself surrounded by [[TheEmpire The Viral Confederation]] and finds itself wedged between two colossal, warring cosmic powers who they both want to stay independent of and steal from/try to sell their services to - think big, multi-layered egg. Or onion. Septillions upon septillions of light-years across.)
42	* AllThereInTheManual (The hope is that if the [[{{Sourcebook}} core book]] ever actually ''does'' [[DevelopmentHell get finished]], published, and takes off, there will be a lot of other world expansions, characters, rules updates, supplemental sourcebooks, novels, maybe even a monthly magazine, spinoffs, comics, manga, fiction, and who knows what else, all of which will expand upon and continue the story of the Chaos universe beyond just what is contained in the [[{{Sourcebook}} core book]] and all of which you will have to read to completely get the full story of the [[TheVerse Chaos Verse]]!)
43	* AlternateCharacterInterpretation (So many different ones are possible. The Revs: Are they the BigDamnHeroes? [[{{Utopia}} Guardians of all that is good and bright and true in the world, keepers of the flame, paragons of freedom and liberty]], LaResistance who are going to beat the bad guys, [[SoOnceAgainTheDayIsSaved save the day]], [[SavingTheWorld rescue the universe from certain annihilation]], and lead humanity into a shiny new golden age? Or really just a bunch of psychotic mass-murdering terrorists on a scale the [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis could never dream of]], chaos-worshipping psychopaths led by a [[EldritchAbomination mad god]] to [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt drag the world down the path of destruction]]? The Socs: Utterly, irredeemably evil [[TheEmpire Empire]] of [[{{Dystopia}} soulless machines, military cogs, unthinking drones, bleak, omnicidal, demon-worshipping fundamentalist collectivists with no place for individuality]], who in fact are either knowingly (for the higher-ups) serving a force that is using them as soldiers to bring about [[ApocalypseHow The Apocalypse]], or are slaves to said force, knowing or not? Or [[TheGoodCaptain legitimate authority]] who has only been [[BreakTheCutie forced to turn into such a tyrannical state as a result of their enemies' actions]], thus opening themselves up for [[TheCorruption Marcy to take control of them]]. And while we're at it, Marcy's worshippers: [[ReligionOfEvil evil mad cultists]] who willingly worship an EldritchAbomination knowing it will bring [[ApocalypseHow their own destruction and that of all existence]], or [[UsefulNotes/{{Buddhism}} Buddhist-like peacefuls]] who are trying to [[HappyPlace free themselves and the world from the endless cycle of suffering]] by [[TheNothingAfterDeath finally bringing about a peaceful state of oblivion]]? Synths: [[SlidingScaleOfRobotIntelligence mindless]] [[ArtificialHuman bioroid slaves]], or [[LoyalAnimalCompanion willingly]] [[BondCreatures loyal pets]] to Revkind who, [[CanineCompanion like dogs]], might [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters turn vicious]] if they [[KickTheDog don't like how they're treated]]. The list goes on and on.)
44	* AlwaysChaoticEvil ([[TheEmpire The Socs]], [[OurDemonsAreDifferent The Demons]], [[GodOfEvil The Evil Demon Gods Of The Darkness]], [[TheEmpire The Viral Confederation]], and [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Doomshadows]] all fit the spirit of this trope, despite actually being [[LawfulEvil Always Lawful Evil]].)
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Context DarthWiki / TheChroniclesOfFate