Worlds Without Number+Yoon Suin Early Draft (Races)

This is a post I fucking swear I wrote and published yet just can't seem to ever find it any archive, which mean I most probably never wrote it: was it just a bad fever dream? Then again in this day and age, it seems like all of reality is a nightmare and a fever dream so what do I know? Anyway here are my firsr draft of garbled notes for 'translating' Yoon-Suin: The Purple Land into Worlds Without Numbers. This is made with the original version of Yoon-Suin in mind and is likely to change once the second edition is released.

These are outlines for the major 'races' present in Worlds Without Numbers+Yoon Suin as I attempt to reconcile the setting of both to the best of my abilities.

Playable Races: Slug-Man

Well, Slug-Person really as they are complete hermaphrodites. The so-called Slug-Men are a somewhat odd crossbreed of ancient demi-human strain and some long lost type of Outsiders, or at the very least this is what sages from beyond Yoon-Suin say on the matter. The Slug-Men consider themselves a distinct civilized race which predate modern human, descendants of great beings be they their true material ancestors or the gods. It doesn't really matter to the Slug-Men, who are the ruling caste of the Yellow City and have always been as far as they can recall.

They are thin of body and human-like in shape, with gangly limbs and a slightly flexible pseudo-skeleton which sticky slug-like flesh wrap around. Their skin is slimy and tend to hang loose, with those who are fat from opulence become massive masses of slimy folds. They are somewhat hunched, having a spine-keel as the axis of their body. Their faces are gooey and slug-like, with stubby stalks with eerily humanoid eyes at the end and their mouth-fold is a disturbing and hideous organ which function similar to both slug and humanoid anatomy. There are many other strange aspect to Slug-Men biology but these are considered somewhat impolite to discuss. While a smart and surprisingly hardy species, they are not particular known for their strength. Very few Slug-Men are Warriors due to their social Caste putting them high in any social hierarchy and they are a philosophically and intellectually inclined people who find the warrior's arts distasteful.

Level 1: Gain Connect and Know as bonus skill. Your Constitution or Intelligence modifier increases by +1 and your Dexterity modifier decreases by -1. You can see clearly in any light level above complete darkness. At the GM discretion you may take the Xenoblooded Foci, representing a Slug-Man's whose Outsider ancestry is more pronounced in their lineage.

Anakim

On most of Latter Earth, the Anakim are the dreaded hordes of primitive and savage humanoids, the twisted goblins and green skinned warriors. In the Purple Land, however, these living weapons of the Outsiders have either gone completely extinct or changed so drastically that hordes and clans of monstrous beast-like men are rather unknown. Perhaps this is due to some efficient purge long ago or perhaps it has something to do with the Yellow City's roots as some long-lost seat of Outsider power. Either way, there are very little of what we could recognize as orcs or goblins who live as war-like societies. Instead, the remaining Anakim have diverged into two distinct and fundamentally different breeds:

• The Asura and the likes of the Ogre Mages descend from a particularly potent and altered breed of Anakim, created and bred by a long lost Imperator. Transformed and empowered far beyond their base cousins, these magically potent demi-gods nonetheless still bear to this day many traits associated with the Anakim, such as a monstrous visage and unnatural skin tones. Where the Anak of old were brutish and short-lived, however, the Asura are potent beings with innate magical powers drawn from the legacy. They are known for their vicious temperament, love of combat and generally explosive demeanor. However, through enlightenment they can and must learn to control themselves and use their powers correctly less they become little more than bloodthirsty ogres with a thirst for battle. Asura are rare and their clans are always few in numbers, whereas the Anakim were once a race bred for explosive population growth.
• The other breed are the Ghost People and similar beings, sometimes also called Yeren, Ghost Ape, Goblin Apes, Ghost Beasts and more. The remaining Anak are creatures which have eschewed civilization entirely, having fled into the deepest wild either to avoid succumbing to The Hate or out of fear of mankind. These creatures are expert survivors, who have devolved into an often ape-like form and forgotten all of civilization. Now they hunt Lahag or mountain peaks, elusive ghost-like beasts who eat traveller who dare enter their territory.

Blighted

There are many kind of Blighted in the Purple Land, yet little of them is understood let alone their true nature, as the land is so old that much has faded into myths, leaving the people of the Purple Land to simply believe such creatures have always existed and have crafted a myriad fanciful myths to explain their true nature, including the belief that they are lower beings who were cursed to be reincarnated in a weakened, servile or animalistic form.

• Much like the Slug-Men, the Crab-Men are another race of demihuman-outsider crossbreed, although the Slug-Men would take offense at the idea of even being vaguely related to such horrible and lowly creatures. The Crab-Men are a form of Blighted, twisted far beyond the human form of their distant ancestors, infused with alien blood and features and now a completely distinct species.
• Tamasic Men, meanwhile, are different strains of subhuman creatures which combine the traits of Half-Men and animals. Common belief is that those who are slothful or negligent in life are reborn as a pathetic crossbreed of a miserable animal and a human being. The truth, however, is that these creatures were created in ancient times by long lost Imperator or similar beings from the population of ancient kingdoms who defied them. These dumb beasts have kept on breeding as some twisted eternal punishment.
• It is possible that other races of Yoon-Suin are, in actuality, Blighted as well but one must not assume this is always the case. Some may simply descend from people altered for different reasons, possibly willingly. Others have stabilized and developed, shaving off most of their Blight through the generations or learning to function with workarounds.

Random World Redux: The Other Monsters

Some further thoughts on the monster lore I'm reusing from the Random World.

Aberrations, The Man-Made Monsters

Pathfinder's Otyugh

The successor to the random world is fairly low on Lovecraftian inspiration, as I've long lamented that Lovecraftian concepts and ideas are somewhat overused especially when it come to the Old Ones and all manners of tentacle monsters. That said, what is a good dungeon without a horribly, slimy beast of the chthonian depths? What about hideous crossbreed abominations of nature created by wicked sorcerers for their experiments or amusement? Surely there is room for this, right? Well yes, there is!

Call them 'Aberrations' or 'Monstrosities' but it doesn't matter. These creatures are born of magic gone amok, especially magic which is used to warp flesh and combine species in ways which are just plain ungodly. There are countless evil wizards in history who experiment with some truly disgusting things in an attempt to breed a new type of minion or monster. While Orcs are a particularly stable breed, not all experiments are as successful. Those which start from warping an already-living creature in particular can produce some particularly unstable and monstrous creatures which often retain the ability to breed with their kind. As a result, some horrific experiments have bred true, at least in some limited capacity. Many of these creatures produce stillbirths or, worse, offspring's which are even more warped and foul than them.

Undead, the Cast Off Shells

Wight from D&D 3rd edition.

Undead occupy an odd place in my head. I absolutely adore them for all the obvious horror they induce and there is no denying they are among the most simplistically gruesome monsters that exist. However, in the previous and original incarnation of the Rand World, Undead were established to have a certain level of rarity. This is because the modern conception of the Undead in fantasy has increasingly been tainted by many elements 20th century of pop culture as opposed to more proper folkloric roots. In particular, most Undead in D&D tend to have the ability to turn those they kill into another of their kind. While this does have some basis, the modern concept is heavily rooted in American cinema's modern flesh-eating zombie and in modern Vampires.

An undead is never a complete being. If they were, they wouldn't be undead. While this may bring to mind the lack of a body of a ghostly undead or lack of mind of the baseline zombie, it is a bit more complex than that or a lack of a pulse. What birth the True Undead, as opposed to the Animated Undead create by spells such as basic zombies and skeletons, must be a confluence of events. Undead are born of a particularly troubled minds and, often, either sudden or particularly tragic deaths. These creatures are generally defined by an all consuming need or desire, such as needing blood, flesh or the warmth of the living to use some basic examples. Others are controlled by the need or urge to either complete a task or prevent someone from completing a task which invariably ties into the circumstances of the Undead's death. The disturbing thing about the Undead is that what animate them isn't really, entirely the person's soul even if theological debates still rages on the matter. However, by itself a person doesn't simply have the power to transcend the veil between life and death, as such power is obviously beyond the ability of mortals. Thus while the circumstances of the creation of a True Undead is from human matters, there exist dark, unformed powers within the world and beyond it which provide the spark of unlife. While the creature was once a living human, its corpse or materialized spirit has become the vessel for a greater (well, arguably, a lower) power. Some believe that Undead which remain in the world for a long time eventually fade and become nothing but spirits, hollowed out of their original humanity and join the ranks of creatures such as goblin-spirits and demons.

Some Undead, however, were never human to begin with. Or, rather, their bodies were human but not the mind existing inside their rotting form. If most Undead are the discarded but still animate husk of humans slowly hollowed out of their true selves, some are more unfortunate. With the bodies left somewhere unhallowed or forgotten (but the mind/soul without much to be angry about and meeting its fate), the body become a vessel to darker powers which animate the corpse and warps it into some monstrous goblin-ghost or demonic ghoul with truly disturbing forms and/or powers. These creatures may attempt to fake being the person the corpse belonged to but they not. They are an alien intellect driven by some truly vile thoughts.

Dragons, the Old Serpent Beasts of Chaos

Dragonlord Kolaghan by Jaime Jones

Dragons are a particularly ancient breed of chimeric monsters born of chaos, or at least this is generally an agreed upon understanding of what they are. While there are many pseudo reptilian or serpentine beasts upon the world, the True Dragons are a particularly ancient breed of monsters spawned from primordial chaos. Common traits include great size, wings (or, sometimes, a stranger mean of flight), usually poisonous blood and/or breath and the ability to exhale chaotic energies often in the form of some elemental breath weapon. They are intelligent creatures for the most part, but they tend toward being extremely violent and destructive as well as greedy.

No one has ever seen a young dragon, at least not in the current age. It is speculated that all Dragons either were created from the same or were born into the world in some cycle. Others speculate that dragon reproductive cycle, if it exist, is extremely long and complex. Ultimate it is unknown how or if dragon breed but ancient text do refer to smaller or younger, foolhardy dragons being slain by the mythical founders of nations and similar figures. Other truly ancient text refer to ancient dragons as being young in their time, meaning they do apparently age and grow to some extent. Perhaps it is that the last generation of Dragons has already been born and no future generation can exist or ever will exist, with the youngest of dragons being already several centuries old or more with truly ancient dragons being extremely rare beings who have seen the very birth of the world and now sleep at the bottom of its ocean or in ancient caves or volcanoes. Or perhaps they are all dead safe the youngest and weakest of their kind.

When roused from their slumber, dragons are often little more than flying demons of fire and fury. Few artistic depiction of them truly convey their terrifying neither, too: the many jagged horns or crests upon their heads, their amalgam bodies with traits of a variety of beasts, covered in the scales of a snake, crocodile or shark. Their breath is so foul it can kill a man. Their stomach has enough room to swallow entire herds and, indeed, dragons can even often dislocate their jaws like a serpent to swallow large animals or even other dragons, some say. The eldest of dragons can flap their wings and call upon fire storms, acid rains, thunder and rain which tears away at cities or hailstorms in the middle of a hot summer.

Random World Redux: Once Again, Monsters

From 2018 to 2019 I worked on a setting I dubbed the Random World. It started off as a bit of a random experiment, using a randomly generated fantasy setting map and drawing inspiration from the scattering of meaningless name of locales. Over time it evolved as some more concepts were bolted on and expanded. While the so-called Random World is dead as a project, the key ideas of how monsters were to be handled, designed and presented remained in my head and to this day remain my favorite take on the classic monsters of the Monster Manual (and similar books). While definitely not the most original, it is perhaps the take I am most personally happy in terms of my own presentation of these concepts. This is a re-affirmation, expansion and refresh of these previously outlined ideas as well as some new concepts added since.

The Great Unknown and Dark

Art by Alexander Solomin

Greatly detailed setting mythologies were not what I thought about for the random world and this has not changed for any spiritual successor. This successor to the so-called Random World retain the usual flair of basic assumptions one expect of the original Dungeons & Dragons: that the world is a vast place, full of wilderness, monsters, ruins and that civilization exist as scant oasis of civilization. The presence of ruins and long lost artifacts more or less imply an almost post apocalyptic sense, that the world was once this great place which has fallen and/or decayed. Mankind's grip on the world has slipped, allowing the dark and primordial powers to slowly overtake the land.

These powers have many names and are ascribed to many mythologies and folklore but such definition does not truly matter. They are the things in the darkness, the fallen angels, the gods (false, forgotten, old or otherwise) and inscrutable fae. It is the collective host of all powers which range from indifferent to Man to completely anthetical to its nature and civilization. They are creatures of myth and legend and the monsters from beyond this world just as much as they can be restless spirits of ancestral graves and sacred sites. At best, these powers can be appeased or cajoled but never truly tamed. These are powers which Druids and Warlocks make pacts with and while they aren't inherently evil, they are still something which Man see with fear or awe. It is not the power of kind protector gods or ancestral spirits, for that is a different power, a slice of the immortal things which Man has shaped and been shaped by but it is not the same. Not completely, anyway.

Many monsters of this newly conceptualized successor to the Random World are truly unique. While there are some species of monsters which breed true, a capital-M Monster is often a terrifying, semi unique being, some creature of darkness or the wilderness which lurks at the bottom of the lake or hidden in the mist. These creatures are not truly alive (but functionally and mechanically may as well be, obviously). They are twisted things, born of a mimicry of the natural world. The head of a lion, the legs of a crocodile and the wings of a bat while a human head may exist at the tip of its tale as it wail in terror, trying to lure people to it thinking it is someone in danger. Others are moss monsters or rocky terrors, elemental forces given life. These creatures are not truly alive, not truly thinking. They are akin to an interface which unknowable powers exert their will upon the world. Thus, the needs and methods of feeding of a monster might make no sense in a naturalist way of thinking. They are the chimera of myth or the bogeyman stalking in the dark. Consider them, in a sense, closer to the Japanese yokai than some of the monsters of classic Tabletop Fantasy.

Goblins

Art by Gonzalo Kenny

The 'goblin' family is one of the three major 'families' of humanoid monsters of this unnamed, conceptual world. Goblinkind consist of a myriad of strange and bizarre creatures which appear to be vaguely humanoid and akin to people, but only just barely. They embody a side of that-which-is-not-human by being creatures of deceit, trickery, magic and the dark and foul places of the world. Goblins range from spirit-like creatures incarnated in a physical form to the classical, stunted humanoid we would recognize as a traditional goblinoid. Their ranks are further bolstered by all manner of creatures, monsters, bogeymen, pixies, tricksters, witches and hags and more which may appear human or be able to fake humanity but clearly are not and never were. Their realm are deep, dark primordial forests, abandoned ruins, dark caves, giant fungus-realms and strange locations which exist aside from our world, intersecting with it but not truly of it.

Of the supernatural beings, Goblin-kind are generally the weakest in terms of raw physical power and more often than not lacking in size, even if exceptions do exist. As with other supernatural beings their form is a mimicry of the world, even if the form of humans is one which they nearly always incorporate on some level, as most if not all goblins are humanoid. Among the most mortal of goblin-kind are creatures which are almost human, but not quite: perhaps descended of some disgusting admixture of human and inhuman blood or, perhaps, descendant of ancient people who chose not civilization and humanity but rather stayed in the dark and primordial world. These creatures are what one could recognize as akin to Gnomes and Dwarves, as well as Halflings (even if these categories may not exist, they are used as an example). They are short, stunted creatures which produce offspring, age and die but not in a way truly like us human. These creatures do form communities here and there but, as a general rule, tend to dislike outsiders. These are, naturally, the forest home of strange bearded gnomes who cultivate mushrooms or the hidden under city of Dwarves, who mine ever deeper into the earth with every passing day.

Art by Christophe Young

One thing which is not known to humans except perhaps those who have lived amongst goblins or to sages is that while it initially appear that attractive goblins are better innate spellcaster it is actually the opposite: better spellcasters are simply better at reshaping their own nature to reflect their own decadence and egocentric needs to command attention. As such, many ethereal and beautiful 'fae lords' are little more than disgusting goblins under a veneer of beauty. These creatures often oversee courts of lesser goblin-creatures or even other, less understood beings. Others eschew such veneer of beauty and revel in their goblin nature, becoming grotesquely obese goblin kings or wicked hags. While they may act refine or completely insane or even stupid, these creatures are invariably gifted with great and terrible power, as well as a level of intelligence or persuasion few mortals can ever compare to. Never assume their form to be true. Never assume their words to be true. Never assume you have outsmarted 'that dumb goblin'. In fact, when it come to goblins assume very little.

Trolls

Art by Greg Rutkowski

The opposite side of the goblins are the trolls, which include the rank of all manners of hideous brutes, troll, ogres, giants and more. Where goblins are physically lacking but generally tricksters, the trolls are large and powerful but no less magical. Indeed, the magical nature of trolls manifest in the form of their boundless power, strength, durability and even, yes in some cases, regeneration. Where goblins are the shadows in the woods, the vermin in the earth and moonlit magic the trolls are an ancient, mighty and oak or an unbreakable stone. They are creatures of the raging storm and howling winter winds. Troll-kind too stride across the untamed wilderness but they are not subtle creatures. They are wild, powerful, sometimes (but not always!) dim witted and most important of all they are untamed and free. Troll-kind tend to be more solitary, with each troll claiming a territory where it just wander around breaking stuff, eating cattle or maybe just sleeping until they forget to wake up, becoming boulders until accidentally awakened.

Trolls with particularly strong magical abilities do exist and they are called Troll Wyrd. Creatures of chaos, Troll Wyrd tend to be physically bizarre even by troll standard, exhibiting bold colors or truly outrageous mutations. They can be as dumb as a rock or gifted with a truly stunning intellect but generally are plagued by being completely and utterly insane by mortal standards. The magic of troll wyrd is invariably flashy and destructive, with focus on vivid and iconic spell effects such as creating fire, lighting bolts, polymorphing others or stranger effects such as rains of explosive frogs. A few others have more subtle, but no less destructive magic as they have been known to warp fate in some spectacular ways such as making arrows bounce off their skin by sheer accident and then, somehow, spin backward and fly into the eye of whoever shot the arrow! In spite of the danger they represent, many Magic User seek out particularly infamous or gifted Troll Wyrd, as they can sometime become known as eccentric hermits which are privy to secret or bizarre forms of magic no one has ever heard of.

Art by Markus Neidel

The link between human and troll-kind are creatures one would recognize as Ogres. These creatures are flesh and blood and mortal, but they share the unnatural vitality, size and appetite of their troll ancestors. Ogres tend to be much more 'human' than goblin-kind and perhaps a little too human. Ogres have a fairly nasty tendency to exhibit the worst qualities of humanity given unnatural power and appetite to grow. They tend to be particularly greedy, always hungry, prone to intense acts of violence and generally driven by raw hedonistic desire. This can make ogres decent mercenaries, however, since they can be easily controlled by giving them food, wine or women. Of course, control usually only last as long as one is able to keep the ogre content and the creature will generally either get bored, tired or fly into a rage if one cannot give the goods. The wyrds of ogre-kind are what is known as an Ogre Mage and everything previously outlined on the matter of wyrd applies. Approach with caution and expect the worst.

Orcs

Artist Unknown

While they may outwardly resemble goblins or trolls, in truth orcs are neither. Their creation is some lost myth (or not) and whatever version may survive is likely not the complete truth. It speak of ambitious, power hungry would-be demiurges who sought to create life and conquer all realms. Through some dark pacts with forgotten entities, they acquired the knowledge to create life itself so they may raise great armies to conquer all the known world. These creatures would be soldiers and workers, born and bred only to toil or to pillage for their dark master. Through a fusion of dark magic, blood, filth and more the orcs were born, cast from a mold of mud and bile.

Physically, most orcs are shorter than human (but not as short as goblin-kind) and are invariably hideous parodies of humanity whose small stature and twisted form belies surprising physical strength. The form they take and what deformities plague them vary from orc to orc but they common features include missing body parts or over exaggerated body parts, warty or slimy skin and a mouth full of crooked teeth. Some group of orcs may display common physical traits which physically mark them as member of a specific group but some groups may consist of entirely different orcish types. They have no parent, no children and no true biological sex and are instead born in 'batches' where orcs emerge from the same flesh-pit or slime field, fully grown as adults and ready to serve their dark master. These creatures, being a parody of life and humanity, lack a true soul; while they are intelligent, orcs lack the ability to develop anything beyond a facsimile of a particularly crass, violent and/or cowardly nature. Whatever inhabit the mind of an orc is not a true soul or conscience but some twisted thing perhaps ripped from the ether and infused into a puppet of filth and violence.

Many modern orc infestations were born of the hubris of lords of old who too sought to conquer but were constantly met with the limitations of a standing army. In their desire for power, many wicked individuals turned to magic to find a solution: first perhaps employing court or battle wizard or making pacts with fae. Yet the simplest solution is simply to create soldiers. Orcs are warriors devoid of conscience. Unfortunately for the world, many of them survived the wars they waged and, worse, in some parts of the world managed to go into hiding and slowly find ways to make more of their kind. A rare few orcs manage to acquire a soul by consuming it, fusing the true powers of a soul with their alien orc un-nature. Orcish soul-eaters are monsters who stand above their peer as black knights or would-be dark lords, eager to consume the flesh and soul of particularly strong or special individuals so they are able to fill their gullet with soul-stuff, enhancing their power and intellect.

Art by Anato Finnstark

Finally, even fouler are rumors of Orc-Men. Since orcs are sexless being, it seem somewhat ridiculous to think 'half orcs' could exist. Instead, Orc-Men are vile sorcerers and warlocks who seek to extend their natural lifespan by becoming more like the near-immortal orcs, slowly replacing more and more of their flesh and nature with the stuff of orc slime vats and flesh pits. While it is true the process can greatly extend one's lifespan, the cost of such a process is too much. Damnation is inevitable as humanity is slowly peeled and rots away. While in theory many of these Orc-Men could become great lords among the orcs, many of them eventually lose their identity and nature and degenerate, becoming no different than the baseline orcs.

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!

Worlds Without Number: The Orcquest (Campaign Concept)

The 'orc' archetypes keep making rounds these days, again and again, as society goes in circle over the same lie and nonsense. These creatures, indeed all so-called Savage or Evil Humanoids are caught between two roles and concepts. One is their archetypal concept as humanoid forces of destruction, be it that of nature or a representation of humanity's animalistic and barbaric side. The other conception is the 'orc' is a misunderstood, sometimes even oppressed victim. So which one is truer to the 'orc' nature: barbaric despoiler devoid of any redeeming qualities and only fit to die at sword point or misunderstood victim?

Perhaps in Latter Earth, they are both true in a way. After all, Tolkien's orcs have a proposed origin of having once been Elves twisted by Morgoth.

The Orcquest

“What is better ? to be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort ?”     

-Paarthurnax, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Art by Markus Neidel

Game Concept: Arthurian legends quest for the Holy Grail+Warhammer's Warriors of Chaos+Orcs

You are an Anakim, a descendant of demi-human engineered by the cruel alien Outsiders to be a living weapon against the rest of humanity. Your ancestors were made stronger, faster, more vicious and filled with an intense built-in hatred for anything close to the baseline human. For generations your kind has existed, all across the fragment of Latter Earth. You were born in the Nameless Wastelands, a horrible patch of land partially transformed into an Arratu. For eons your kind has lived there. When the other beings, the human and demi-human's power waned or when they grew fat and weak your kind swarmed in to destroy and pillage their lands only to inevitably be driven back into your horrid wilderness which pass for a homeland. This is the only existence your kind has known for all of their (poorly recorded) history. That and constant strife, rivalries and genocides against each others.

Every generation there are a few like you which are either born with the curse weaker in their blood or who possess the natural strength of character to surpass the blight which affect your people. Often such individuals with a greater sense of vision and purpose rise to become great heroes, war leaders, shaman or revolutionaries. However you and your like-minded compatriots have realized this is not the way to go, as anything these Anak men and women build will invariably come undone or twisted. It is in the nature of your people to crave violence and to fear and hate everything around them. Whatever gods or demons you pray to have never answered your prayers with peace because such peace would be unnatural to your people.

You know your kind are both the monsters people say they are but also more than that, at least in potential. You have lost too many friends to bloodlust or petty emotions. Maybe you've had to kill a son, a husband or sworn friend because they could not be reasoned as they smelled the scent of demi-human flesh and ancient memetic kill codes imbedded in their genes activated. Not that you'd know what those are. Your kind simply calls it The Hate or The Curse or The Nature. Anak hate and fear all of the other things which call Latter Earth their home. You know deep down your kindred are cruel, petty, cowardly and lacking in empathy (a word you only learned from scant few interaction with purer humans).

So you and your band of warriors set out on a foolish quest which no other Anakim has ever attempted. A quest some believe to be impossible. You intended to find the birth place of your kind, where the Outsiders first molded the flesh and mind of your ancestors to become twisted creatures. You wish to find the mythical ur-blood, the flesh-cradles and the spawning pits of legend. Perhaps an Outsider still live there or perhaps it left behind secret notes on the Anak's creation. You and your band hope to find it or die trying so you may free all of your people and all their distant kindred from their twisted nature. Then and only then will your people be truly free to choose their own destiny and turn their passion and anger to a greater purpose.

Or perhaps, should you succeed, you'd only doom Latter Earth with a tide of renewed and empowered Anakim...

Worlds Without Number and the Sine Nomine Shared Universe: The Nine Immortals

A short(?) sequel post to this one, which discussed how the various Sine Nomine games could actually be a form of shared universe. This idea was one I used (in an earlier, cruder form) when running my old Godbound game, where Red Tide was made into a distant Realm to the custom one I was using.

The Nine Immortals

Art by M-Ing.

First described in Red Tide, a Labyrinth Lords supplement (and as far as I'm aware, one of the earlier Sine Nomine products), the Nine Immortals are the main deities of the Ninefold Celestial Empire and are described as nine semi-abstract beings (each tied a color and key domain) which appear to be the result of a composite of a centuries-old, if not a millennia-old ever evolving empire constantly syncretizing various beliefs into key archetypes.

In truth, the Nine Immortals (under this version of a shared 'verse) are not simply an accumulation of beliefs, although this does describe them perfectly at the same time. The Immortals began as part of a subsystem or alteration to the Legacy by ancient posthumans seeking to achieve a perfect system which would encompass all aspect of human nature and society, perfectly organized and maintained and they share many common roots with the ancestors of the Ren people found in Godbound. These systems for a perfect and virtuous society began as disturbing totalitarian systems which counted various aspects of people's very lives and nature and while there were indeed malicious roots to it, in time this system would break and reform. Ancient space colony algorithm which calculated the ideal way of life, ideal routine and more of people aggregated into more complex systems of artificial intelligence. Yet as much as these systems were cold, callous artifices which sought to control every single aspect of near posthuman life they also began to subtly change. The exact history and trajectory of these ancient systems are quite unclear and lost to time but some rare sages of Latter Earth believe that these social systems became so all-encompassing in their attempt to simply measure human lives and souls that these very concepts it sought to regulate in turn contaminated the system. From revolution to bloody coup to attempt at peace to more totalitarian rules to more bloody coup, the leftover of these all encompassing systems became more human-like. Human imperfections, archetypes and beliefs infected what was once mere synthetic thought control.

The next evolution of the system came from the concept of Made Gods and Arrayed Godbound, which became icons and eidolon, representing various concepts and social ideals. Great thinker, philosopher kings and also horrific tyrants emerged from this era but they too tapped into the same leftover synthetic systems which had connected society and evolved from a purely electronic form to something more complex as what would become the Legacy truly developed. The Nine Immortals are born of the synthetic patterns combined with human belief. They themselves aren't really self-aware beings but rather exist as thought-form or massive Iterum-spanning idea-spheres as egregores. They are recurring archetypes combined with a broken social control system which has evolved into myth-made-reality. Anywhere that has the influence of these proto-Ren people often tap into this system of archetypes and ideas, which has real power. Generations of Godbound, Legate and Imperator have subsumed themselves (often accidentally) into these 'power grids', which empower Clerics of the Nine Immortals across many worlds. What began as a cold system to crush human will and subordinate it has been taken over by human thoughts, emotions and ideas. It rules over them as God(s), but it is a set of Gods which are entirely controlled by humans. This create a rich tapestry of belief, ideas, heroes and gods which is ever-living and evolving.

Lands of Mirhne: The Sorcerers, Part 2

For some on Mirhne, the term 'Sorcerer' conjure up the image of evil foreign wizards. They are foul men indebted to even fouler gods with 'unnatural' features to the Men of Mirhne. The isolation of Mirhne's culture has bred a certain level of xenophobia. To some extent this is to be expected or even healthy, as in their barbaric world anything which is foreign is a potential enemy or rival. One Sorcerer has exploited this stereotype willingly and openly, marking himself as a strange and vile exotic threat, preying on the superstition of the Men of Mirhne.

Arash Adraj, the 'Man of the South' (The Trickster)

Art by Duy An Doh.

The sorcerer who call himself Arash Adraj is the archetypal evil sorcerer from foreign lands. His features are either swarthy and hideous or strangely thin and sallow. His clothing, whichever form it take, is always strange and exotic and colorful compared to the more drab colors of the Men of Mirhne. He is either bald with busy eyebrows or sporting a magnificent beard which is style in odd and foreign ways. Whenever he does appear, he conjure the image of all which is alien and exotic. The men of Mirhne fear him as the evil foreigner with inscrutable goals, who speak in forbidden tongues and worship evil foreign gods.

In truth, this is (mostly) an act. For he is The Trickster.

A master of disguise and illusions, the man who goes by the current identity of 'Arash Adraj' has had many names thanks to his extended life span and unnatural powers, the only things the Sorcerers share among each others. He is the weakest of the Sorcerers and the only one which has likely been born in past centuries, to some isolated island folks to the deepest south of Mirhne. Ethnically and culturally distinct as they might have been they were still cousins to the men of Mirhne and not evil, devils-worshiping barbarians. Should one dig into the past of Arash Adraj they would, perhaps, be able to discover that he is the most recent of the Sorcerers and began his life as a mortal man (whether he still is a human being is debatable) in these now mostly extinct folks before learning his craft at the hand of one or more Sorcerer, enacting foul rituals and sacrificing people to eldritch powers. Of the Sorcerers he is among the most active in recent history and yet the hardest to ascertain. The man calling himself 'Arash Adraj' is a master of disguises, both magical and mundane. He has learned to speak hundred of languages and even invented some languages and accents whole cloth to further play along his disguise as strange foreign travelers. Simple trickery and manipulation come naturally to him and he can accomplish much without any hint of true eldritch powers.

His current identity as Arash Adraj is a relatively recent creation. After claiming one or more remote locations, he used his powers and manual labor to construct crude palaces which were then coated in layers of illusion to appear far larger and more grandiose than they really are. From these bases of operation he has created the identity of 'Arash Adraj'. an evil foreigner with inscrutable motives enthralled to evil gods, a slayer of kings and the supposed envoy of an evil empire from the other side of the world. Of the Sorcerers he is the most motivated by material wealth and pleasure but, given his nature as a trickster nobody can ever ascertain what his real, eldritch goals, might be.

• The Trickster/'Arash Adraj' is the most approachable of the Sorcerers and the one most suited to be a patron...yet is also quite dangerous and a liability. His person as a mad, exotic wizard or some evil exiled emperor might be quite amusing but they are enforced cruelly. Many of his slaves die in terrible display of violence ever so often if only so he can make grandiose declarations akin to "You have failed me for the last time!".
• The Trickster has a harem in his 'Arash Adraj' and he is not above kidnapping beautiful young maiden. The truth is that he isn't as vile as the stories claim and his many wives do live a rather lavish wife. Of course, the Trickster is not above sacrificing a few of them once in a while to power eldritch rituals or if he suspect one of them is trying to usurp him. He also has a second harem of men but those he keep for other identities and disguises...
• Any possible adventure could lead into the Trickster being the real 'man behind the man'. As the weakest Sorcerer he can make a good antagonist, since any mighty thewed barbarian hero has a chance to take him on in a fight. Whether or not the killing blow was a real killing blow and not an illusion, however, well that will remain to be seen...

Lands of Mirhne: The Sorcerers, Part 1

This is a repeat and expansion of the information which exist on the Sorcerers, as previously outlined in this post.

The Sorcerers are each unique individuals and they been woven through the history and myth of Mirhne. They are immortal and in the shape of men and women but beyond that who or what they are is unclear. They are said to possess unique powers, can speak all languages, curse the land, summon dead gods and travel all corners of the earth even beyond Mirhne. Sometimes the stories say they were the chosen servants of the Gods of old while others claim they are the last survivors of an older race of men, one closer to the powers of the gods. Others make them out to be evil and jealous individuals who have taken into themselves dark powers which no mortal should ever bear inside their flesh and soul. Some say they are all as old of Mirhne itself and were there when the land was young while others claim they are evil, foreign people with foreign magic and foreign gods to be feared and reviled by 'all good folks' (as the people of Mirhne often fear strangers from faraway lands). Their exact nature is unclear but so are their numbers, with an estimate around nine and twelve, assuming some names which pop up in myths are alternate names or conflation of different sorcerers.

The Sorcerers are as close as the Lands of Mirhne get to a classical spellcaster and even then, these beings are not a mere playable class. They are each a unique yet optional NPC, potential patron or even major antagonist. Much of their nature is mere hearsay and speculation and it is very likely that whatever is true of one sorcerer is untrue of another. Perhaps the only thing they do share in common is that each is a more/less-than-human, semi immortal being with powers to truly bend reality. While seemingly human in form they are alien and aloof in their goals.

The Night Witch

Art by Gal Or

Aloof and painfully beautifully, the Night Witch is the archetypal lady of dark magic, straddling the line between near mortal spellcaster and goddess of wrath. She is both the most physically and mentally human of the Sorcerers  and also one of the more alien and ill understood. She is a recurring figure in history. Kings and heroes have been driven mad by their desire to claim her as a lover and ancient tales speak in equal measure of her fruitful romances as much as it speak of dreadful curses and love affairs which end in bloodbaths. Some believe she is able to change form (all of them beautiful and terrible) while others believe there have been more than one Night Witch, as some stories do speak of her being (somehow) tricked and killed by a jealous rival or having passed the mantle from mother to daughter.

In truth, while the Night Witch is certainly desirable and gifted with a perfect, ever youthful body she is not as much of a sexual being as people believe her to be, although past incarnations/mantle bearer may indeed perhaps indulged far too much in their power over weak willed men (and women!). Perhaps it is due to this reputation of inciting desire and creating these painful tales of love, lust and revenge that the Night Witch has faded more and more in history, as making herself the center of attention has perhaps ended poorly several times. It is also possible that she has grown tired of mortal companionship, seeing lovers die one after the other. If this is true then perhaps her eternal youth is somehow limited to only herself or, at the very least, whoever hold the mantle of the Night Witch.

The Night Witch is a mistress of many arts beyond the gift of her ageless body, which makes her physically potent. Her title come from her powers of shadows and the night, although this is not directly the creation of physical darkness: the Night Witch can obscure or reveal certain facts, acquire long lost knowledge or curse people to forgetfulness. She can appear and disappear and maybe extend such gifts to others. Mists, clouds and even dust storms can obscure her domain as much as a metaphorical fog of forgetfulness. She is said to be a mistress of the arts of healing too but it appears she cannot give true immortality to men.

• For some players, actually attempting to court the Night Witch may be a valid goal.  Beyond the mere physical desires she may entice, many believe her to be the ideal queen or guardian mother of a people, as old tales do speak of her (or one of her predecessors) to have one time ruled a kingdom. In those days she was beloved by her people and feared by her enemies and many believe that winning her heart could establish the greatest kingdom on Mirhne.
• Alternatively, a female player character may seek the patronage of the Night Witch in a bid to further cement her power and influence through fear, as the Night Witch may very well be among the most powerful women in Mirhne. Of course that's assuming she's actually human.
• As one with powers to hide or reveal, it may be that the Night Witch knows some piece of information which no one else on Mirhne knows.
• Finally her medical knowledge may be the only way to restore one's crippled body without selling out oneself to truly eldritch powers.

Lands of Mirhne: The Darklands

Art by Hans Park

A recurring pattern which emerges across the various Lands of Mirhne posts are repeated mentions of the 'deepest and darkest wilderness' in some shape or form, hinting that Mirhne has corners of its wild which are considered terrifying and deeply unsettling even to its hardy people, as well as considering them to be completely and utterly beyond the reach of civilization and mankind. One can travel there, one can explore it and, if they are lucky, maybe survive it. But they won't conquer it. These places are beyond the reach of civilization.

For most of these, it is simply a matter of environments. These are inhospitable lands filled with dangerous animals and whatever less dangerous regions of Mirhne exist have only slowly been taken over by humanity's presence through centuries. Others are home to greater terrors and are truly monster-infested. They are the den of degenerate Low Men, who have split from their much more peaceful kin or been exiled due to their vile worship of dark powers or due to sickness or the den of Teratoma Beasts. Other still, however, are different: stories claim they are lands-between-the-worlds, places which are the 'cracks in the world'. Myths and folklore call them wounds or pox marks upon the stretched surface of Mirhne, from which not only unholy things have crawled but, more often than not, things have fallen into. These are similar to the concept of Kelipot from Silent Legion. Or perhaps, more strangely, Mirhne itself is a form of Kelipot.

The Darklands

The Darklands are comparable to the places such as the Underdark or Feywild of D&D. They are otherworldly and dangerous places but they are not as completely removed from the 'normal' world as another, more alien plane of existence would be. The Darklands are pockets of the odd places of the world, the cracks in reality (assuming Mirhne itself isn't just a bigger crack?). They take a variety of form but most are fairly shadowed places, hidden cave networks and valleys deep within mountain ranges with slightly impossible geometry. There isn't much else to add to the Darklands themselves are conceptually they are nothing new to tabletop fantasy settings and they aren't anything that strive to reinvent the wheel.

Rather, its their inhabitants and content which I wish to slightly flesh out:

• The Darklands, as mentioned, are a good location for a full blown 'monster lair'. While Mirhne tries to often be ambiguous, sometimes a monster lair is a monster lair. There are creatures which are vile, twisted and/or ancient and wholly taken by supernatural forces or twisted and corrupted beyond their natural forms. Hidden away from the world they can fester in the dark.
• There are many exotic beasts which exist in the Darklands, some of them which may appear quite monstrous but are technically nothing more than animals. Some believe them to be mundane creatures which became lost between worlds and have wondered into the Darklands from far away places. Some appear as unusual variations of known beasts while others are wholly alien (as in possibly extra terrestrial, perhaps?) animals.
• Strange, thin and troglodyte half-men exist in the Darklands. They are pale, thin creatures with often hairless heads and impossibly slight stature. While the Mirhnian term for them could be translated in English as analogous to 'elf' or 'fairy' these strange beings can be quite dangerous. Legends say they eat not only the flesh and bones of men but their very memories. Some obscure folklore tales say that in ancient times, Priests fed them the bodies of dead kings and poets so that their knowledge would survive in these beings. That their caves are decorated with strange, impossible runes and painting which seemingly describe events and stories deep into the past hint at this being true.
• Some say sorcerers travel down to the Darklands to speak with the petrified bodies of dead God-Kings and that ancient temples made of stone and/or bone exist deep within the earth, where mad men gather in the depths of giant's ribcages to chant dreadful dirges and enact dark rituals which make the very earth shake and summon misfortune and disasters.

Worlds Without Number: Creatures and Critters of Latter Earth

The last WWN post in a while, this one is a collection of random and weird creatures to populate Latter Earth, as first extrapolated in this post. Not every fantastical or bizarre creature needs to be a 'monster', some are perfectly ordinary animals give or take centuries of human and Outsider experimentation to produce the right type of critters for their needs.

Sheeps (Fluffers, Beaked Sheeps, Hairy Hen)

Like this, but way bigger. (wVw)

No, not the sheep we know of. Their name is usually 'sheep' in whatever local language because the creature has a role similar to woolly sheep. Not every animal found on Latter Earth is terrifying abomination, some are cute, adorable and cuddly in their own way. The Hairy Hen or Wooled Hen to use a number of names are ancient descendants of genetically engineered Silkie Hen which can grow to the size of cattle. Unlike the regular type, they are much larger and covered in a coat of something very much closer to actual wool. This fluffy coat can be sheared and made into avian wool, which is one of the reason these creatures are raised.

The second reason is that, unlike a sheep, they lay eggs which include fertile and non fertile eggs. A single 'sheep' can lay a giant egg which is good source of food. It is clear these creatures were engineered to optimized farming as the animal is multi purpose: they can be sheared for wool, their eggs and flesh are edible and they are larger enough to cart around wagons, even if they aren't exactly the best beasts of burden by any stretch. While generally kind creatures, they are omnivorous and their beak are lined with teeth which they use to eat grass, small animals and just about anything. An angered and suitably frightened sheep is no fighter but the creature is still capable of biting off a man's hand if suitably frightened.

Blind Hounds (Pale Hound, Pale Beasts, Deep Wolves)

Art by Simon Guillory-Seguin

While quite hideous in form, Blind Hounds aren't monsters. They might smell bad, have slimy skin and a slavering maw filled with teeth for rending flesh but they aren't monstrous. They have no monstrous urge and are simply an engineered life form. Seemingly grown in the Depths from a fusion of canine, moles and underground creatures which may include worms, the Blind Hounds are large quadrupedal blind creatures with a mentality similar to a loyal hound or a vicious attack dog which they were indeed bred to be.

In an reversal of the changes from wolves to dogs, the original Blind Hounds were much smaller creatures, with a slimmer build to squeeze through tunnels and their paws were designed to grab on to ceilings and walls of the Dephs. The modern, surface-dwelling breeds are freed from the constraint of the Depths and have been bred to ever larger size, with increased intelligence and ferocity. As with their genetically engineered ancestors, they are still blind but can detect smells and vibrations through their skin to an almost preternatural degree. Blind Hounds aren't particularly popular on the surface as guard beast now that humans and demihumans have 'real' hounds but these creatures retain a use among folks who live a semi-subterranean existence or among those whose environment is a bit more cramped. Another use of the Blind Hounds is that they can detect things which sight alone cannot, since they can sense pure movement, rending invisibility completely useless against them at short range.

Worlds Without Number and the Sine Nomine Shared Universe

In an era of franchises and 'cinematic universes', having a large shared universe is all the rage for companies. The wider and larger a universe is, the more one can produce additional movies, books, comics, videogames and more. While Worlds Without Number isn't out in its full form yet, there's plenty of material found in its pages which hint at an interesting prospect which may or may not be expanded by Kevin Crawford. Namely, that most (or perhaps all?) Sine Nomine games share a universe or at the very least a multiverse. Now perhaps this is just theories. Maybe its me digging too much into the pre established lore of his games, the myriad sandbox tables and, of course, all the repeating themes and ideas. Maybe Kevin Crawford never intended for these games to be connected and is merely recycling ideas that work as his personal tastes, likes and dislike create a tapestry of repeating and reused concepts.

Or perhaps it IS all connected after all.

The root of this connection lies in the beginning and the 'end'. They start with two games, one of which got an updated version: these are Stars Without Numbers, which is the 'central' and most popular Sine Nomine title and the setting for Labyrinth Lord called Red Tide. At a glance these two settings could not be more different, even if both are mostly mechanically compatible. One is mostly hard Scifi set in the future and the other is set in a fantasy world with Elves and Dwarves. However, given what we know of the latest Sine Nomine game, Worlds Without Number, we can see the two share an extremely suspicious amount of lore. We know the setting of Worlds Without Number to be the impossibly deep future of the Stars Without Numbers universe, which itself included that game and Other Dust. Combine the information we know from the Alpha of WWN with various Sine Nomine games and supplements and a clearer understanding of that multiverse emerge. These games are:

• Stars Without Numbers and Stars Without Numbers Revised
• Other Dust
• Red Tide
• Godbound
• Worlds Without Number

In addition there are two other Sine Nomine settings whose position within that universe is a bit harder to ascertain, which would be Spears of the Dawn and Silent Legion. It is likely they fit in, but the exact details are a bit more blurry due to having a bit less lore. One could very much treat Spears of the Dawn as a specific realm/continent/Iterum, but Silent Legion is a bit weirder. It could be that Silent Legion is a prequel to all this and that 'Meta Dimensional' concepts were never truly rooted in mostly modern soft science fiction but, rather, Lovecraftian madness. This can be up to interpretation.

Mankind's Expansion To The Stars

Art by Col Price

As established in Stars Without Numbers, humanity expand into the void of space. This may seem like an odd or even mundane place to start for a multiverse which will span alien realities and mechanical gods but big things often have small beginning. SWN gives us a date and general series of events, including The Scream. Around the 2100 humanity leave its homeworld to colonize the stars using the Spike Drive technology and humanity splinters into countless budding cultures and religious movements while Earth forms the Terran Mandate to oversee and control colonies, afraid of letting their resources and power slip through their grasp. Humanity make contact with aliens and Psychics first emerge from humans who were exposed to the Metadimensional Energies of the Spike drive and similar technology. This is the Golden Age of Man and it last until 2665. The Scream damages warp gates and humanity become one of isolated space sectors. This is the setting of Stars Without Numbers while the events which occur on the post apocalyptic Earth are covered in the game Other Dust. This era last for an unknown amount of time before leading into further, ill defined and ill explored eras. Both before and after this era, massive technological leaps are made, which sometimes depend on the 'Meta-Dimensional Climate'. Which I'll get into in a moment. In some forgotten corners of space, various branches of humanity began to diverge in form greatly from their cousins, including in some locations the ability to transfer or even duplicate minds. The details on this posthuman lifestyle can be found in the Deluxe version of SWN Revised.

Meanwhile, the SWN Revised supplement Codex of the Black Sun offers some optional material to add magic to a space science fiction game, as well as expanding on how such concept could work within the canon of Stars Without Number. There is a lot of technobabble involved but the long story short is that the Metadimensional Energies which created Psychics could be studied, harnessed, modified and used through a variety of interfaces and mental pathways to create what was functionally Magic. This is where the SWN universe radically diverges and cut ties with harder science fiction and goes fully into fantasy. One can surmise that, should humanity one day be reunited after the Scream and the following Silence that would include an incredibly varied array of subspecies, some of which have radically diverged through their use of Meta Dimensional energies and how they developed their arcane sciences. Ultimately the time scale of these successive eras is difficult to ascertain.

Art by Jeff Brown

The Outsiders of Worlds Without Numbers may have in part appeared in this era. While it is true some might be aliens, it is possible at least some of them are human-derived in some capacity, from posthuman who developed and re-engineered their bodies to adapt to impossible environments to alien crossbreed or even 'uplifted' alien animals. How and why such beings would one day attempt a takeover of Earth and enslave humanity is unclear but presumably it may involve some deep seated grudge against mankind, either completely justified or the result of xeno politics far beyond our understanding. It could simply be that two or more vastly different branches of mankind met and, not understanding their common root (and the Outsiders being too divergent to interface with the Legacy, having splintered off far before) they fought.

The Far Future and Latter Earth

Art by Jeff Brown

There's a lot that happen in between Stars Without Numbers/Other Dust and Worlds Without Numbers. Mankind advances to a level as to basically be Gods. Key to this is The Legacy which goes far beyond the primitive nanotech and psychic powers of the SWN era. The Legacy is all encompassing and is the term which is used describe the very reality-rewriting which mankind once integrated into both the world itself, humanity and all life. How far it goes and how long this perfect era last....is unclear. The central interface of the Legacy itself is housed in a meta-dimensional realm, which forms the underlying mechanism of creation itself. These are the Celestial Engines as described in Godbound, with the central processor of all reality being the Throne of Heaven.

Where exactly in the timeline of WWN that Godbound fit is difficult, if not impossible to ascertain. It does require one to somewhat 'retcon' that the Throne of Heaven tale is partially allegorical and that fighting for God's throne may have meant fighting for the control of the Legacy and its interfaces. The beings described in WWN lore as Imperators could have been the greatest Theurge as well as Made Gods of this era, each a God-King in its own right, fighting over an ever splintering reality. The Realm described in Godbound's core book, Arcem, makes no mention of beings which could be comparable to the Outsiders but it could simply be that the lands which Arcem was part of did not suffer their invasion and repelled them. It could also be that the era of Outsider rule of mankind predates what is called the Former Empires, which are post-Outsider rule. The splintered nature of time and realities make things extremely difficult to properly pinpoint.

Both WWN and Godbound's humanity are rather similar: they live in a broken world where the natural laws have degraded and become unstable, making advanced technology difficult to maintain. They both feature advanced magical-technological modifications of the human form, which have degraded and become lost, leaving behind often dangerous splinter groups of beings which are difficult to envision as truly human. It is likely these worlds are part of a shared multiverse/realm system (which WWN call 'Iterum') and are merely the same worlds from the point of view of mortal versus the point of view of Imperator-level beings. Any slight difference in setting material is quite easy to explain, as in-universe information is quite shattered, incomplete and has been subject to thousand and thousand of years of  information drift and the changes in language.This is also true of other Sine Nomine games or, at the very least, of Red Tide (and Scarlet Heroes which use the same setting):

• Dwarves claim that, in their history, their ancestors were humans enslaved by an evil goddess called the Mother Below. In truth, she was probably one of many Outsider overseers and would-be gods. The Dwarves described in Red Tide are clearly a major cultural group within the created race of living Legacy Interfaces which are known as Dwarves.
• Elves in both Red Tide and Worlds Without Numbers share many traits, including the fact they reincarnate. It is possible the Elves described in Red Tide are a splinter group which attempted to ascend to godhood through the Legacy and 'merely'  managed to install their souls in the decayed system of reincarnation or it could be that the Elven origin myth is only partially true. Either way both types of elves are clearly beings of a near identical nature.
• The Shou of Red Tide and the Anakim of WWN, however, are NOT the same type of being. While on the surface both are aggressive, engineered 'savage humanoids' they share completely different origins, with the former also being a form of living Legacy Interfaces similar to Dwarves while the latter are bio-engineered living weapons. If Spears of the Dawn is connected to all this, then the Night Men are a form of Anakim.
• The Red Tide and the Uncreated Night are similar and related expressions of either massive decay to the Legacy/Celestial Engines. Both 'unmake' worlds and both produce abominations which disrupt reality.
• If all Sine Nomine games are connected, then a recurring theme of Hell appear. Red Tide/Scarlet Heroes has one, as does Godbound and Wolves of God should it somehow be connected. It is likely Hell was once some sort of mechanism for souls and identities to be recycled by the Legacy but it has since become perverted and exploited.

The Missing Games?

Art by Igor Kirdeika

As mentioned, there are other Sine Nomine games whose place within the timeline is unclear. Spears of the Dawn is most probably a specific realm within Latter Earth. However, this still leave a few others without a clear location within the shared 'verse'. It is possible, as mentioned, that Silent Legions is a prequel and that the SWN universe was always one of Lovecraftian madness lurking below the surface. A strange universe which, in utter defiance to its themes, mankind would conquer and then prosper in. The Kelipot and other weird arcane secrets would all likely be harnessed and form the basis of SWN-era magic which would one day form the complex workings of the Legacy.

Alternatively, Silent Legions could take place inside an Iterum where one or more Imperator has reset history and is studying humanity in its pre-FTL days. Unfortunately, the simulation has broken down and allowed many different Outsiders and other strange beings to 'leak' into it. Under this theory, Wolves of God could also be in a similar situation. If that's the case, then it is going to be immensely depressing to its people to find out that God doesn't really exist as they understand it. Spears of the Dawn could also have been such a simulation, albeit one which had enough time to decay and diverge into more fantastical things or it could simply be its own Realm and not have been engineered as a simulation.