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!