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Mercer
Something that grew out of a discussion in another forum. I thought I had posted it here earlier, but I think I just alluded to it in other posts. So without further ado, or any ado of any sort:

I do generally homebrew my campaign worlds and my mini-series worlds. I enjoy puzzling out the thematic action and the political stuff that the players invariably stir up. One of my favorite modifications to an existing system/homebrewed world was my WWIISR or SR 1942 game, which was based on the idea that the Shadowrun world had "awakened" in 1911 instead of 2011, and the Man Meets Magic and Machine was played out against the backdrop of the Second World War.

Mechanically, I made a few simple changes for tone. Cyberware was non-exisitent at the start, phys ad abilities costs were doubled and Mages resisted Force Drain instead of 1/2 Force. This put an overall lower power level in the game, making it less superhero and more gritty. I renamed the Karma mechanic True Grit, and redid the skill chart to reflect the lower tech level and military nature of the game. I lowered the Power Levels of the weapons which lessened the dependency on armor (most of which was non-existent anyway). I wanted the mechanics to reflect a more grim War Movie reality rather than an Action Movie reality.

That game had everything. Vampiric Nazis. Wolfenstein Steampunk Cyberzombies. Great Dragons on the battlefields of Asia. Troll snipers using anti-tank rifles in Stalingrad. Gargoyles making night raids on Malta. Werewolf commandos. Mage Paratroopers. Shamans in the War Department. Thule Society Wizards. The Knights Templar. It was everything a setting should be. Historical figures reimagined, ficitonal characters from SR put into the pseudo-historical context (Daniel Howling Coyote was the head of the OSS Special Methods Department, Lofwyr ran the Nazi weapons factories).

Some random smatterings from the notebooks. The various special units all had cool sounding codenames, like Gravedancers and Archangels. The pc's unit, naturally, was the Shadowrunners. The OSS had Special Methods which were mainly shamans and other magic users-- the US had the most diverse magical talent pool, though not the most powerful-- and another Projects Division that handled the more technological stuff. The Brits had MI-5 and its Occult Bureau, which had a group of Irish Shamans known as the Fianna, as well as a much shadowier organization referred to as The Order, which was a hermetic group of Ordo Templi Orientis (headed up by Aleister Crowley).

The Nazis... man they were crazy. It says something about a government that they can be transplanted into a game with magic and they already have organizations to cover that. The Thule Society, Edelweiss Society, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society (headed by H.P. Blavatsky, whose life was unnaturally extended) the Order of the New Templers and the Ordo Templi Orientis, the ties to the British Order being murky to say the least. Then, even creepier, the Shutzstaffel (SS) with the Winterknight project (vampires, mainly, headed up by Max Shrek, a Nosferatu), and the Ubersoldats (big honkin's cyberzombies). There were also the Anherbe (Ancestral Heritage) people looking for artifacts of the previous age with which to make arcane superweapons, and the Donnersclag (Thunderbolt) project which I don't think I ever specified what it was, I just liked the name.

I likewise came up with an alternate timeline, of which only a hardcopy survives. I’ll include some choice entries.
QUOTE ("SR 1942 Timeline")
1915:  Chemical Weapons are used for the first time by German forces, the Allies soon follow with poison gasses of their own.  The gasses themselves are not nearly as effective militarily as their fear value is on morale to both sides, and many survivors of gas attacks report seeing terrifying creatures lumbering through the sickly mists.

1917b: Sparked by rumors of sorcery on the part of the “holy” man who advises the Czar, Revolutionists overthrow Czar Nicholas II and the Bolsheviks seize power in Russia.  The reputed sorcerer, Rasputin takes many days to be killed.  While every member of the royal line of Russia is killed by peasant mobs, rumors of a young niece being smuggled out of the country persist in the popular imagination.

1922a: A university professor in England publishes a treatise on the birth abnormalities sweeping the globe, claiming their existence was mentioned in previous ages and that evidence remains in the form of legend and folklore.  While no practical proof can be found, no better idea is offered.  The term “Tolkienized” is coined to describe those transformed by the mutating disease, and the individual terms Elf, Dwarf, Orc and Troll find their way into common usage.

1925: The first proven use of magic occurs under laboratory conditions in an American University.  Experiments are later reproduced in laboratories throughout the world, most notably in the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Heidleberg.  Magic, though so rare that most people have never experienced or witnessed any sort of phenomenon, becomes a mainstream fascination almost over night as an integral part of movies and literature.

1929a: After a sensationalized trial of a magician who murdered as many as 37 people in New York over the course of the past several years, the use of magic becomes prohibited in the United States.

1931a: Japan attacks China.  Reports of supernatural occurrences in many battles receive world-wide attention, including the appearance of great serpents accompanying the forces on both sides.  The first photographic evidence of dragons is recorded in Manchuria during “The Night of Fire”, when an entire city is reduced to ashes by dueling serpents.

1931b: By Papal decree, Pope Pius XII labels all use of supernatural phenomenon to be witchcraft, and that the manifestation of magic as a possible explanation for miracles to be heresy.

1934: Britain beings the registering of all magically-capable people in their country or colonies.  All civilized nations throughout the world follow suit.  Many governments begin experimenting with ways of depriving criminal magicians of their power.

1936a: The capture of a renegade cabal of magicians in San Francisco becomes a highly publicized example of the inability of sorcerers to live amongst the normal humans that greatly outnumber them.  The term “witch hunt” gains a positive connotation.

1942: The Axis War Machine reaches the height of its power thus far, with Germany controlling almost all of Western Europe and North Africa, and Japan dominating the Pacific from the Netherlands East Indies to the Aleutian Islands. 


The overall inspiration for the game was one part Indiana Jones, one part The Mummy, two parts Band of Brothers and two parts Return to Castle Wolfenstein for the PS2. A generous dash of Lovecraft, a sprinkling of the pulp authors of the time. Plus whatever you got from any WWII movie and horror movie you can think of, and all the WWII video games that were coming out at the time. Following that are pages and pages of research on Nazism and the Occult that I am sure got me put on many a watchlist at the local library.

The first few sessions of this was the failed raid on Dieppe in 1942, followed by the pc's may or may not having killed Rudolph Hess in a plane crash. I had checked out a book called "WWII Day by Day" or some such that had newspaper articles from every day of the war, so after each game that tied into some twisted version of a historical event, I could present my players with copies of the "official story". I had planned to run some more missions dealing with "the unpleasantness in Malta" (something to do with a spy magically inducing gargoyles to assassinate Allied officers), as well as artifact hunting in North Africa. But schedules changed, I had to work more, the group went back to D&D for awhile and I put this binder on my shelf and more or less forgot about it until another post reminded me of it about an hour ago now.

I really should put some people together and run this thing. I also had a vague idea of running some miniseries games going back every one hundred years or so, with the Awakening happening in 1811 (Shadowrunning the Civil War, very Deadlands), 1711 (War of Independence), 1511 (Conquest of the New World), 1011 (Whatever incredibly bloody thing was going on this century), 311 (The Fall of the Roman Empire), 0000 (Orcish Jesus), and then maybe a few games of Early Roman Empire, Carthage, and the Trojan War.

If I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd probably relocate to a gaming compound and run these games continually for the next ten years. I should really buy a ticket.
SL James
Make it 1910, when Halley's Comet appeared the first time in the 20th century.

QUOTE
1011 (Whatever incredibly bloody thing was going on this century)

Nothing much. Just the Battle of Hastings in 1066 (yet another tie-in to Halley's Comet as a harbinger) and the Norman conquest of England.
Jrayjoker
Wow! That sounds like a helluva good time!

I would play in a play by post if you ran it here. Just PM me if you decide to do it. And buy a lottery ticket for God's sake, it sounds like you need to get into the whole, "I do RPGs for a living," thing.
eidolon
Sounds pretty damn cool. Any chance of you scanning the timeline and more important bits of the notes? smile.gif
nezumi
QUOTE
the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society (headed by H.P. Blavatsky, whose life was unnaturally extended) the Order of the New Templers and the Ordo Templi Orientis,


Why do you list these are Nazi organizations? Order of the Golden Dawn was extinct by WWII, Blavatsky was Russian, if memory serves, and had more ties to England and France than Germany, the Templars (not Templers, I assumed you spelled it right in your game system) have little to do with Germant and OTO is also primarily English, since it was founded by Crowley (who, BTW, was actually kicked out of Italy by Mussolini). I cannot imagine Crowley ever having anything to do with the Nazis, since it is completely antithetical to his work.
eidolon
Um, I'll take "Alternate Science Fiction History" for a thousand, Alex.
nezumi
QUOTE (eidolon)
Um, I'll take "Alternate Science Fiction History" for a thousand, Alex.

Is this answering me? Because, as the author said, the Nazis already have a ton of their own "magical" organizations. Adding even more, especially ones which are distinctly anti-authoritarian, defeats the purpose of using them in the first place and dilutes the existing, legitimate Nazi ones.
eidolon
Neh, my only point being the author of such things chooses which affiliations stick to reality and which deviate from it.

The reader/end user can either accept and use those deviations, or change them as he sees fit.

We don't have enough information either way on how they were or weren't used in this game to be nitpicking that usage anyway.
FanGirl
I've recently had the idea of transplanting Sherlock Holmes and friends into the world of 2070's Seattle, but I think it would be great to bring SR into the world of 1890's London for some steampunky fun. If you're feeling truly adventurous, you could throw the Cthulhu Mythos into the mix: check out A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman for inspiration.
eidolon
I just finished a collection of short stories inspired by one of the Innsmouth tales (The Shadow over Innsmougth) called Shadows Over Innsmouth, and Gaiman was given the spot of last story in the collection. Having heard tons about Gaiman, I was expecting a lot.

Man was I let down. It was basically a lame werewolf shlock bit vaguely set in the era and mythos of Lovecraft. The writing was blocky and sophomoric, and the story was fairly incoherent.

I don't know. Maybe his graphic stuff is better? I still haven't gotten around to Sandman. The way my friends have talked him up though, I was expecting MUCH more. I don't know if I'll bother with his other stuff.

Mercer
QUOTE (nezumi)
Why do you list these are Nazi organizations?  Order of the Golden Dawn was extinct by WWII, Blavatsky was Russian, if memory serves, and had more ties to England and France than Germany, the Templars (not Templers, I assumed you spelled it right in your game system) have little to do with Germant and OTO is also primarily English, since it was founded by Crowley (who, BTW, was actually kicked out of Italy by Mussolini).  I cannot imagine Crowley ever having anything to do with the Nazis, since it is completely antithetical to his work.


Some of it was artistic license. Madame Blavatsky was dead for sixty years by the time WWII broke out, but I decided to have her as a player in Nazi Occultism. She would have been over 100 years old by then, she could have been a vampire or something else, I never really felt the need to specify. Its spookier when its not known.

The Templars and the OTO, this was part of the political intrigue. The adventure with Rudolf Hess delved into that a bit, as it tied into a possible connection between the British and German Templars. (One conspiracy theory posits the reason for Hess's flight to Scotland was because he believed he could get the Grail, or at least one of the three cauldrons which predate Christ that the Grail legend was based on. Another states that Hess was never captured and that the man tried at Nuremberg was an imposter.) There was even the (mad, paranoid) possibility that the entire war was being played out as a chess game by the factions within the Templars. In the context of the game, it makes for good action and intrigue. As for Crowley, maybe he's a spy, or a double agent or triple, or a madman who claims to be all three. My only interest as a GM is, "What makes the best story?"

Prior to WWII, most of the organizations has affiliations in the countries that would later be enemies. The assumption behind the game wasn't that there were British and American and German magical groups, but that there were groups that the governments were making use of. Blood-brothers of the same lodge in 1935 might be bitter enemies in 1939. And there was always the dark, fearful possibility that the things the magical organizations wanted was not what the governments they served wanted. (And how would anybody know? And if they knew, how could anybody stop them?)

I also wanted to include certain SR power players and celebrities as kind of an alt.his in-joke for the players who would recognize them. Daniel Howling Coyote in the OSS, wearing the uniform of an Army colonel with chicken bone crosses instead of medals. Lofwyr in human form as a high ranking Nazi official, making huge profits supplying the mundane arm of the Nazi war machine, in Berchtesgaden saluting the superiority of the Aryan Master Race, while no one suspects he's actually a Great Dragon. (Dragons, for the most part, were considered unintelligent. They could be compulsed through magical means to certain actions, but were seen as big, dangerous animals. From that perspective, you could see the War as a chess game played by the Dragons or even the immortal elves, something I left out of my design. Which is not to say it wasn't going on).

There was also the possibility that the War was just the War, fought for basically the same reasons the real one was fought, just using different methods. (Or, taking into account Nazi Occultism, some of the same methods, just with a higher success rate.)

I also wanted to include Insect Spirits. Like the Insects in SR they wouldn't have been on one side or the other, or cared anything for any human endeavor, but they would have made a nice wild card. I had an idea for a game where the Nazis are cleaning out the Jewish ghettos and come across a block that has been taken over by a hive... the people bereft of hope have succumbed to a Insect Shaman who has promised to free them from the cruel yoke of the Germans, and then you have Bug City: Warsaw, 1943. (Its hard to figure where the pcs would be in there, Nazis fighting bugs, bugs fighting Nazis, or Jewish freedom fighters caught in the middle... actually, that last idea has promise.)

There was also the question of what happens when the WWIISR timeline departs rapidly. Say the Japanese fleet pulls into San Francisco Bay disguised by Great Form Storm Spirits, and sections of the California coast fall to Japan. I could run that as a modified version of San Fran from the CalFree book. (In my timeline, the attack on Pearl Harbor has used Concealed planes, so its clear the Japanese were a little ahead of the curve magically. They also have a samurai-class that was predominantly physical adept.)

I've always seen the Cthulhu Mythos as having tha tacit approval of Shadowrun, from the faceless horrors that may or may not fill the vaccuum of space to the, well, the Horrors. That was going to factor in quite a bit, time and space allotting.
FanGirl
QUOTE (eidolon)
I just finished a collection of short stories inspired by one of the Innsmouth tales (The Shadow over Innsmougth) called Shadows Over Innsmouth, and Gaiman was given the spot of last story in the collection.  Having heard tons about Gaiman, I was expecting a lot.

Man was I let down.  It was basically a lame werewolf shlock bit vaguely set in the era and mythos of Lovecraft.  The writing was blocky and sophomoric, and the story was fairly incoherent.

I don't know.  Maybe his graphic stuff is better?  I still haven't gotten around to Sandman.  The way my friends have talked him up though, I was expecting MUCH more.  I don't know if I'll bother with his other stuff.

Well, if you're so strongly opposed to taking the time to read nine grueling pages of text, I'll just tell you about the story. ohplease.gif

Without getting too spoilery, the language and basic narrative of A Study in Emerald is modeled roughly after that of the first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, but as the plot unfolds, the basic assumptions one makes about the world it is set in and the characters that populate it are completely demolished. I don't think you can fully understand all the plot twists if you don't know who Professor Moriarty or Colonel Sebastian Moran are, though, so I'm providing these links for your convenience. wink.gif
eidolon
QUOTE (FanGirl)
Well, if you're so strongly opposed to taking the time to read nine grueling pages of text, I'll just tell you about the story.


There's no way to tell it's only nine pages, and I'm generally not one to chase links to things I'm already not that interested in. Also, I'd think it fairly obvious from my post that I pretty well am opposed to reading his stuff.

But thanks for going to the trouble.
FanGirl
You're welcome! biggrin.gif
Ophis
QUOTE (eidolon)
I just finished a collection of short stories inspired by one of the Innsmouth tales (The Shadow over Innsmougth) called Shadows Over Innsmouth, and Gaiman was given the spot of last story in the collection. Having heard tons about Gaiman, I was expecting a lot.

Man was I let down. It was basically a lame werewolf shlock bit vaguely set in the era and mythos of Lovecraft. The writing was blocky and sophomoric, and the story was fairly incoherent.

I don't know. Maybe his graphic stuff is better? I still haven't gotten around to Sandman. The way my friends have talked him up though, I was expecting MUCH more. I don't know if I'll bother with his other stuff.

The werewolf story isn't one of his better ones, like any writer some of his stuf is better than others. His actual novels are excellent as are most of his short stories. His best cthullu esk story is one called Shoggoth's Old Peculiar, which has the standard locations from Lovecraft transfered to the coast of Yorkshire and has deep ones played by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, very fine.

On topic, the british historically (real world) had support from several covens of witches (illegal at the time) doing rituals to counter act the Nazi occultist's efforts. If magic definately works thas should be added to the setting. It should be noticed Britain has no need at the time to pass laws against magic, witchcraft already being illegal at the time.
nezumi
I do like what you did with the Shadowrun characters in the world. Howling Coyote is cute, for lack of a better word (and fits in surprisingly well, given what the US was already doing with the Native Americans at the time), and Lofwyr's place just makes me laugh. VERY neat ideas. The insect shamans in the ghetto makes perfect sense. What do the Nazis care if Jews are disappearing? Their only complaint is they can't claim the gold fillings. I imagine insect spirits would have thrived in that environment, quickly making a very dangerous threat in Germany's major cities, and shifting the balance of the war unexpectedly (assuming Lofwyr doesn't spot it early and act to counter it).
Witness
Agreed. This is great stuff.
Mercer
On the flipside of the SR characters getting the alt.his treatment, there's the historical figures getting the SR treatment. My favorite is Max Shrek. The nosferatu colonel in charge of the Nazi Winterknight program. Having a npc that players can watch in an actual movie playing himself works for me.

My initial desire in running this game was to have an ork with a BAR jumping out of a plane above Normandy on D-Day, maybe while Nazi-trained gargoyles attacked. I tend not to run games with heavy metaplots-- my SR games have always avoided published plotlines (though those exist as conspiracy theories like any other), but its hard to imagine a bigger or more prevalent metaplot that the Second World War. Everything would be tied back to the war in some way, whether it was something simple and direct like squad-on-squad combat in ruined cities, or something more abstract like stealing artifacts from Nazi run archeological digs in Africa, South America or Antarctica (there's got to be something under all that ice).

You had all these great arms races in WW2, whether it was who could build the more accurate rocket, who could develop the first practical atomic bomb-- and then you add into that things like, who can field the first cybernetic supersoldier, who can best harness the power of the spirits. I see magic as being this mysterious force that almost everyone is ignorant of, but that comes to prominence in the context of the war. Prior to war, magic was something few dabbled in a fewer still understood, but as things progress it becomes clear that the army that adapts the fastest to the Sixth World is going to rule it.

I see artifacts from previous ages being a sort of "shortcut" to greater magical power. All these techniques to their creation are lost (except by the dragons and the elves, maybe, and they ain't telling), but these things still work and mages can make use of them-- though it may not be clear exactly who is exploiting whom.

And so that becomes another arms race; who can find and make use of the most powerful artifacts of the previous ages; things that have lain dormant for hundreds or thousands of years but that have Awakened along with the rest of the world. The Nazis, being natural loons, have the edge there, because they've been looking for years, in all corners of the globe. So now its up to operatives of the OSS and MI-5's Occult Bureau and the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword and the Archeology department of an unnamed Midwestern university to beat them to it.

"We have top men working on it now."
"Who?"
"Top. Men."


There's all sorts of directions to go with it. War movie, horror movie. War/horror movie. Pulp adventure. Pulp Cthulhu. (Sounds like a drink, "Cthulhu, with Pulp!") There's no shortage of mystic crossovers with World War II, there's plenty of movies and books and comic books that were made into movies. But as far a roleplaying games go, SR is the only one that can handle the mysticism and the autofire. Nameless horrors and light machine guns, no other system can do both.
FanGirl
QUOTE (Mercer)
...So now its up to operatives of the OSS and MI-5's Occult Bureau and the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword and the Archeology department of an unnamed Midwestern university....

Would this unnamed Midwestern university be the University of Chicago? And would one of the "operatives" from this institution be Dr. Henry Jones? biggrin.gif

If you're working the U. of C. into your setting, you can always ask me if you need input about the area. I happen to live in Chicago, and I know a thing or two about the Hyde Park neighborhood. For example, did you know that the first controlled nuclear reaction occurred under the stands of Stagg Field in 1942? You could probably work that in. smile.gif
hyzmarca
QUOTE (eidolon @ Jul 17 2006, 07:55 PM)
I just finished a collection of short stories inspired by one of the Innsmouth tales (The Shadow over Innsmougth) called Shadows Over Innsmouth, and Gaiman was given the spot of last story in the collection.  Having heard tons about Gaiman, I was expecting a lot.

Man was I let down.  It was basically a lame werewolf shlock bit vaguely set in the era and mythos of Lovecraft.  The writing was blocky and sophomoric, and the story was fairly incoherent.

I don't know.  Maybe his graphic stuff is better?  I still haven't gotten around to Sandman.  The way my friends have talked him up though, I was expecting MUCH more.  I don't know if I'll bother with his other stuff.

Try American Gods. It kicks ass.


I don't think any Shadowrun WWII story would be complete without a fixer who runs a spy network that
doesn't actually exist..

The setting has a great deal of potential flavor ranging from subtle espionage to ancient high magic to loud diesel-powered troll cyberzombies.

Of course, if you change the setting with something as drastic as The Awakening you must consider the possibility that Japan never attacks Pearl Harbor and the United States stays out of the war. You must also account for the possibility that the Axis' losses would not be so complete and thir surrenders would not be unconditional.

It is a good excuse to rearrange Alliances and redraw maps. You could, for example, have the radical anti-metahuman/anti-magic sentiments reshape the political landscape so that FDR looses the election of 1932 and the person who does win is driven to ally with Germany and Japan due to threats of invasion from Haiti, which has been taken over by Vodou priests who are propped up by a million-zombie strong undead army.

Imagine German and US infantry fighting Haitian zombies in a steamy South American jungle while the American Shamanic Sergeant and the German Hermetic Colonel bicker about the nature of of spirit works and the Ork machine gunner blasts away at invisible things in the foliage.
Mercer
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
Of course, if you change the setting with something as drastic as The Awakening you must consider the possibility that Japan never attacks Pearl Harbor and the United States stays out of the war. You must also account for the possibility that the Axis' losses would not be so complete and thir surrenders would not be unconditional.

For the original concept of the game, it was more a question of how closely I could keep the real and alternate timelines, and to let the scenarios play out against a backdrop that was both familiar but fundamentally changed. That's not to say that it doesn't make a good leaping off point for any type of alt.his scenario, only the one I was looking at was staying pretty close to historical timeline, at least to start.

One way to do it would be mini-series style, with the players taking on the roles of Jewish freedom fighters in Warsaw for one game, and say Russian snipers in Stalingrad in another. There were certain "set-piece" style games that would have involved playing radically different groups of characters; they could play US Marines island hopping in the Pacific, and later play British commandos sabotaging dams in Holland. There's really no reason they couldn't play a squad of Japanese holding out on Okinawa, or German soldiers fighting a losing battle on the Eastern Front.

One idea I would consider running for mature players would be a one or two shot game with the players taking on the role of German guards in a prison camp that goes toxic, similar to The Keep. It would be difficult to do without being tasteless or exploitive, but there's something intriguing about running a game for players morally repulsed by their own characters.

Another option would be the more traditional campaign route, with the players making characters designed to fill roles on a OSS or MI-5 commando team that does various combat and espionage missions across the globe over the course of the war. This would be the easist way to weave in the slowly diverging timeline, for as the pc's battles go, so goes the course of the war. A mission might determine which force has the advantage in a pivotal battle, say D-Day, and if the pc's fail the Allied forces are repulsed. You could alternate between the "regular" campaign with the OSS Special Unit the Shadowrunners with one-shot games set in various other theatres, perhaps with these one-shot games determining far reaching events like the fall of Stalingrad. (Or you could combine these games further, having the A group being the main focus, with a b group of Russian snipers for when some of the players can't make it, with the occasional one-shot game that highlights a radically different part of the war.)
AJCarrington
For interest sake, you might want to check out Dust by Paolo Parente:

Dust Game

Merit International (Distributor)

Not too "Shadowrun", but definitely good alt. history WWII fun!!

AJC
Snow_Fox
This actually sounds pretty cool. The differnece I'd make is set it in 1925.
If you set it in 1942 you've just got a war and that pretty much colors your world. In the 1920's you have ruins left over from WW1 and lots of vets with weapons skills but the world is not focused on a goal. You've got Adventures-like the Mummy or Indiana Jones, burgeoning media industry as movies and wireless radio become major social motivators. Air travel by zeppelin or early airplanes.

development in transpascific travel meant the development of small air stations along the way for luxury travels. Islands with names like Midway, Wake, Tinian would in the 1940's take on a new meaning, but at this time htey were just being found.

In RL there was a surge in an interest in the occult as people tried to come to terms with the mass death of the battlefield and influenza outbreaks, and a lack of faith in traditional religons that "allowed" such suffering.- Alister Crowley and Alexander Saunders were gathing their follwers, Dion Fortune was gaining her experiences and HP Lovecraft was starting his trade.

Heavy industry was trying to get around the trustbusting limits of Roosevelt and Taft. perfect for running.

And you've got gangs- bank robbers like Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde etc were thriving and it was the golden age for the mafia-It was the time of people like Frank Nitty and of course the original "scarface" Al Capone.
Snow_Fox
To touch on Nazi occultism. Hitler was not, dispite rumors, big into that. Himmler was. In fact Hitler used the occultist as a communication point early in his political career, sucking up to them they had a pan-German network that allowed communication the police were not likely to monitor.

(And if that osunds odd, look at all of us here, in this forum now.)
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Snow_Fox)
To touch on Nazi occultism. Hitler was not, dispite rumors, big into that. Himmler was. In fact Hitler used the occultist as a communication point early in his political career, sucking up to them they had a pan-German network that allowed communication the police were not likely to monitor.

(And if that osunds odd, look at all of us here, in this forum now.)

Are you suggesting that the police don't moniter DSF?

Come on, which the number of keywords we throw up here every day they must have half of the board red-flagged.

Guns, crimes, bombs, and Allah - Wave to the nice NSA agents grinbig.gif

Austere Emancipator
Of all Dumpshock content, I'd think they'd be most interested in the CAR BOMBING OF THE POTUS.
nezumi
Come on guys, kids read this forum. Don't write about your potus here.
Mercer
The beauty of it-- geting back to the point of the topic, and not people's infected potus-- is that history is just a guidline. Hitler may not have been that much into the occult, but in a world where magic was demonstrably real and taught at universities, he might have had more incentive to learn (or at least, manipulate those with talent). Or you could go the other way and make the persecution of the magically capable by the nazis a theme in the game, making it more of a technology vs mysticism vibe.

Heck, in one of the early Wolfenstein games, Hitler had power armor and miniguns for arms. I'm nto saying thats the best way to go, or the most interesting from a story perspective, but the system can certainly handle it.
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