The Lost World (Without Numbers)

Yet another half baked idea. Who would have guessed? This one is a bit of an alternate take on Kevin Crawford's Worlds Without Number which use mostly similar ideas and concepts but reframe them somewhat. Rather than a Dying Earth type of setting, what if instead it was a Lost World/Hollow Earth, one slightly more inspired by pulps, where characters from regular Earth can become trapped in? This, alongside Ancient Aliens, has seen a bit of a resurgence with the release of King Kong versus Godzilla, which is why some of the elements here overlap a bit with The Monster Earth. However, in the true fashion of classic Toho monsters and science fiction movies, the truth of it all and any attempt at coherent world building between the two is unlikely. They merely share some ideas and what matters is what would be needed for a game, not an attempt at creating a truly unified setting.

Main Inspirations:

• The Lost World (duh)
• Marvel's Savage World
• Turok
• GURPS Banestorm
• Jack Kirby's works
• Robert E. Howard's works
• Edgar Rice Burrough's works

The Ancient Ones

MCU Eternals will never be
this cool. Suck it.

Call the Ancient, The Preserver, the Progenitor, Celestials or Old Ones and it doesn't really matter. Ancient, impossibly advanced alien precursor are very much a staple and no matter how overplayed it can sometimes be it remain one of my favorites and they help inject some much needed Jack Kirby ideas into this. Whereas this role is taken by impossibly advanced posthumans and/or the Outsiders in regular Worlds Without Number in the Lost World Without Numbers this role is instead given to ancient aliens. What exactly they looked like, what their society was like or if they were even a singular species is unknown and lost to time. They are simply the setting-justifying super ancient aliens and that's fine.

It is very likely that the Ancient Ones came not from space but rather another dimension. Or, if they were from a planet within our galaxy or even universe, they used space-folding technology to reach Earth as regular space ships would never be able to make it. These ancient beings may have meddled in prehistoric Earth's development but eventually they moved to a pocket universe, creating a complex simulacrum of Earth. To call it virtual would be a mistake, as it is as real and physical as you and I. This second Earth became their laboratory where they could experiment with life as they saw fit with little to no damage to Earth itself. Eventually the Ancient left, died or fled. For a time, their experiment was forgotten about and left to decay. With no species able to understand the transdimensional cosmic portal system of the Ancients, the Lost Worlds was left to its own device for a long time.

The Lost World

Dinosaurs optional, but recommended.

It is unknown when exactly the Lost World diverged from the Earth it copied and that doesn't matter. Today it is a world of monsters, more primal and dangerous than Earth could ever be. Filled with leftover genetic monstrosities, mutating retroviruses, leaking alien artifacts and abandoned proto-races left half-formed it is a dangerous place. At its most mundane, it resemble Earth but wilder. Animals are larger, stronger, faster, smarter but often more primal. Not only are primitive beasts still existing but they also evolved in their own way since the Ancients either recreated or transplanted them. Modern animals also exist, having diverged in their own way in order to adapt and survive to the rigor of the Lord World.

The Lost World is, however, one where Man has left its mark. How exactly did humans come to this world, if it was cut off from ours? In the hidden places of the world, some of the portals to the Lost World still partially function. At other times, catastrophes inside the Lost World, cascade failures of ancient godly alien devices, caused reality to break apart. In those moments, parts of our reality were swallowed and/or copied into the Lost World, leaving the survivors to fend for themselves and develop civilization in their own way. This is why many of the disparate cities and cultures of the Lost World echoes our own and why, when translated to other languages, they can be heard praying to Mithras or the Feathered Serpent. The Lost World saw many waves of involuntary migrations, as well as as voluntary ones as people exiled from their lands simply walked into these reality-quakes, lost tunnels, faeries gates or the goddamn Bermuda Triangle. Thus do some cultures of the Lost World echoes those of Earth, while others have mixed and diverged beyond recognition.

Art by Ken Nguyen

Many of the ruins scattered through the Lost World are strangely advanced, filled with advanced techno-magical devices. The people of the Lost World are usually at a technological level that is quite low compared to 21st century Earth but they often have some strange gifts or technological tools. This is because the concept of The Legacy and the magical rules it create exist mostly unchanged under this concept: the only difference is that these are artifacts of the ancient powers left behind by the progenitor aliens then used by early arrival of humans who harnessed it and semi accidentally advanced to a much higher technological level only for them to fall back into barbarism as the Lost World's laws of nature decayed. Nothing is changed truly in the lore here, merely recontextualized.

Entering the Lost World is easy, but leaving is hard. Those who enter become infused with the strange physics-defying powers of the Legacy but this bind them to the Lost World. Those who spend too much time in the Lost World find themselves unable to leave, same with those born there. Any and all possible concept and clichés of 'lost civilizations' can and likely does exist in the Lost World as does all the material presented in Worlds Without Number but they are refluffed to fit the theme of a Lost World setting.

What to do with the Lord World?

So what is the truly different ingredient to a Lost World setting compared to WWNs Dying Earth vibe? The key different is that the real world can and does play a part in it. A game could be set anywhere within human history and have the players start the campaign by discovering (and being trapped) inside the Lost World. They could be people from the Age of Exploration out to find El Dorado and discovering a different kind of wonder or they could be people from the 1930 out in Africa to stop the Nazis from finding mystic artifacts only for they and the Germans to be sucked into the Lost World. Alternatively a Nazi or Communist conquest of the Lost World and the sudden influx of post-industrial revolution humans on such a world could be a major focus of a campaign. As long as its suitably cheesy, pulp-ey and exciting it doesn't matter!

Non-Oldschool Game Concept: The Monster Earth

Primarily this has been a very OSR-influenced blog when it come to the RPG content but OSR and OSR-derived/inspired games aren't my only area of interest. There are game concepts where, frankly, that game ecosystem, mindset and concepts just don't really work. This is one such example, although I do still plan to make use of some amount of sandboxing tools to help myself should I get to run this.

The Monster Earth

"History shows again and again/How nature points out the folly of men"

-Blue Oyster Cult, Godzilla

Sometimes it may not seem like it given how much material on this blog is influenced by Western works but as many post have hinted or openly stated I'm actually quite the weaboo. Its just that influence from Japan has its time and place. The daikaiju (Giant Monster) genre is something I've been a fan for years even if I rarely get to gush about. That said, the genre has seen quite the nice resurgence in the mid-to-late 2010, with Legendary Picture's 'Monster Verse' and the Pacific Rim franchise while on the other side of the ocean, Toho resurrected Godzilla in their own way with the controversial re-imaging Shin Godzilla and the highly disappointing Godzilla animated movies trilogy. These last few years have really given the anemic and forgotten genre of giant monsters the kick it need and, just like Godzilla himself, this ancient behemoth has risen from the depths and triumphantly roared, declaring it will not be easily put down.

King of the Monsters concept art(?)

The Monster Earth joins my other ongoing settings as I flesh out a world for future games, if maybe one day the world is ever so slightly less shitty and dystopian. This seems unlikely but the looming sense of dread and powerlessness of this year has certainly got me thinking about the apocalyptic nature of kaiju. The 'kaiju' is a giant monster yes, but it is also more than that. It is also often a true monster in the mythical and symbolic sense, a primordial beast of chaos from mythology reborn in the public consciousness. It is the primordial monster like Tiamat, often reptilian or serpentine and emerging from the dark depths of the world. Yet at the same time it is also a creature born of mankind's folly and corruption and how we often unleash in the world forces which remind us how small and insignificant we can sometimes be. The kaiju is a fusion of primordial monster and science fiction's dire warning about things we cannot control. Its, also, a giant fucking monster that often breathe fire or spit acid and there is an undeniable cool factor to it. The greatness of kaiju is that evoke all these things (mythical terror, eldritch forces, looming dread) while also being completely at ease with engaging in the simple fun of seeing giant monsters fight and break stuff.

Currently its unclear what system I'd use for the Monster Earth, although a mecha-related system is possible. Giant robots and giant monsters go together like peanut butter and chocolate and its generally accepted that creating a giant, man-made mechanical monster is the logical coolest conclusion when it come to mankind defending itself. As Pacific Rim said, 'we created monsters of our own'. It is also possible that human mind-linked to Kaiju could be an option but right now nothing is certain when it come to mechanics.

The Birth of the Monster Earth

Let no blame lie at the innocents/
Who have prayed

Unsurprisingly given the Godzilla roots of the setting, the Monster Earth properly begin with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even if technically previous atom splitting had occurred. Still, the nuclear tests and explosions from WW2 and then the Cold War are what truly began mankind's downward spiral and the awakening of monsters, even if the monsters had always been with us all along. In the Monster Earth setting, 'radiation' doesn't work as realistic radiation does but rather function in a retro futuristic fashion, often creating monsters and mutants or at the very least accelerating their growth. From the 1940 onward, humanity had started to split the atom in earnest and it seemed like nuclear power would be the way of the future for whatever side of the Cold War could truly harness its full potential.

In the Monster Earth setting, giant monsters had been spotted and recognized by science before the 1950 but these had been flukes or long lost specimen. In the 1920 and 1930, explorers had found things such as rare exotic beasts living on isolated islands where specimen grew to prodigious size. Sea monsters had also been spotted yet in most cases these were one off mutations or rare specimen limited to a single area. The 1950 and 1960 saw a drastic increase in monster attacks as nuclear testing created monstrous mutations which grew in size and aggression. The birth of these creatures only spurred the development of stranger, more dangerous sciences as the world's greatest minds struggled to find new and inventive ways to quickly destroy these beasts.

Super science & Ultra-terrestrials

Megalon is cruelly underrated.

In the Monster Earth timeline, human scientific development takes a different direction from ours, both due to the change of events and a chance of fundamental physics. For example, radiation-related technologies flourish in new and bizarre ways, allowing for the glorious 'atomic age' of old science fiction while also creating ever increasing pollution which birth monsters. However, in turn, this does create entire new scientific fields dedicated to the restoration and decontamination of Earth. Energy weapons (such as Maser) are developed and tested to repel giant monsters, even if at that point they are crude, primitive and only able to be mounted as bulky weapons carried by large vehicles. At that stage they are only useful against massive, lumbering targets such as kaiju.

It is around this time which humanity uncovers that it is neither alone in the universe or on Earth. As space exploration escalate, ruins are found on the moon by Soviet explorers who attempt to visit the moon's 'dark side' to claim it against the Americans. Instead what they find are alien ruins and their visit awakens the Selenian, a race of human-like aliens who declare war on humanity. Around the same time, impossibly old ruins are found on Earth and confirmed to be of a civilization older and more advanced than any other recorded in history. The undersea kingdom of Atlantis and later the Subterrnean Lands and lords of mole men and morlocks both at various points fight against the surface-dwelling humans, unleashing and/or controlling monsters of their own. What is later gleaned from the history of these people through more peaceful contact is shocking: they claim Human (or, as they call them, the Young Race or the Unworthy among many other epithet) share a common ancestor with their people, some ancient and primordial 'root race'. The humans spread over the surface after some great cataclysm and the end of an era of 'Gods and Monsters'. Human super science and their rapid advancement (and their wars) brought back to the world a level of radiation which had not been seen in eons.

In time, not even deeper space was safe. Humanity's rapid ascent and defiance of monsters attracted the attention of the scheming Xorinth and other alien factions. There are dark powers, hiding in the depths of space. Would be alien overlords, manipulative cabals, planetary looters and, of course, giant monsters with a vicious streak a mile long. As monsters from Earth and space fought there were no winners, only losers. It is from these short lived wars between species that humanity developed its next generation of weapons.

Creating Monsters?

If I die in this world/Who will know
something of me?

So what is it that birth a kaiju? What are the phenomena which transform an animal into a being of phenomenal size and power? Not all kaiju are ancient beings, many of the lesser kaiju were born in the modern age and are the byproduct of human science or at the very least saw accidental exposure to nuclear waste, chemicals and other pollutant as the catalyst for their mutation. Many kaiju are unique monstrosities with little in common with each others. Some are blotched, misshapen and bug-eyed creatures which thrash around in pain while others breed true, sometimes by themselves. 

Kaiju only vaguely display related traits, which are generally called the K-Factor which is also a scale, with an incomplete rating being a small mutation or species which display only partial Kaiju traits, such as larger-than-average size or primal traits while full rating indicate all common kaiju traits of increased size, near immortality, enhanced regeneration and partial or complete ability to resist or metabolize one or more form of radiation. Even high rating mean the creature exhibit one or more of these traits on a level beyond the traits of first generation kaiju. The scale has indeed been broken more than once. The most common factors in kaiju birth/metamorphosis are as follow, bearing in mind that most are completely unique organisms:

• As previously mentioned, in the Monster Earth's world, radiation can cause massive mutations. What, in our world, would cause cancer creates unnatural growth in many 'lesser' life forms. When combined with the other factors in this list, the increased levels of radiation in the Monster Earth creates an environment where radiation become like monster steroids.
• Under kaiju film logic, more primitive=bigger and stronger. Atavistic mutations produce bigger, stronger and meaner animals and creatures which undergo such mutations from exposure to toxin and pollutants often find themselves displaying primitive traits and increased aggression, going as far as to display traits which appear reptilian. Since all mammals descend from reptilian creatures, this make many kaiju display traits from both.
• Many creatures descend from older, more primordial creatures developed/mutated/engineered by the 'Root Race' in Earth's prehistory. These creatures were engineered for a different, wilder world. It is also believed that prehistoric retroviruses, which preyed upon truly ancient organism, maybe have been awakened and released in the modern world and are mutating animals.
• Earth may very well be alive and its been noted that as the more humanity encroached on nature the faster the rate of kaiju mutations, as if the planet itself was accelerating the transformation.
• Some kaiju, as mentioned, were simply born/created as kaiju, back when the creatures were part of the ecosystem which the so-called Root Race shaped. These creatures diverged from the evolutionary tree possibly before the dinosaurs. Any traits they share with modern animals has a chance to have evolved independently through evolutionary convergence.
• Kaiju of previous categories exist inside their own 'pocket dimensions' if isolated islands and cave networks. Science learned from Selenian, Atlanteans and Subterranean shows that an ancient cataclysm bathed the Earth in unique cosmic energies which 'splintered' reality. Separated from our time/space continuum, creatures either naturally evolved or survived from the Root Race's era.
• Ironically, many attempts at cleaning the planet created kaiju. Every research, every byproduct of it or experimental process which clean the planet or experimental weapons which kills kaiju has a chance to eventually itself produce a situation which birth a new mutation.
• Some kaiju aren't fully native to Earth and have become mutated by exposure to alien effects, be it extra dimensional energies or the leftovers of alien technology. This and the presence of aliens, however, is a story for another time.
• Finally many Kaiju are very clearly man made and not in an accidental way. As the creatures appeared more and more, the twin sides of the Cold War first tried to control, then weaponize and finally flat out create monsters. Even with the end of the Cold War, this has not stopped. In the modern era, many eco-terrorist have taken it upon themselves to illegally acquire kaiju body parts to dump in the wilderness. This can also happen accidentally when a kaiju dies at sea and its body become food for other animals.
• Strangely enough, humans have shown a shocking degree of resistance to being mutated into Kaijus. While human DNA can be (and has been!) used in various mad science projects there haven't been any successful projects where a human has been mutated into a giant, city-crushing monster. This isn't to say that humans haven't reacted weirdly to their changing world: odd psychic powers and radiation-induced deformities creating mutant tribes have occurred. Yet the odd 'K-Factor' which transform a being into a kaiju has never manifested inside humans. It has been theorized that this is due to the possible link modern humans have with the Root Race.