Phase 2 Continuum Index and Campaign Summation

I started posting my old Continuum RPG campaign notes two months ago. Had I realized how much fun reminiscing would prove to be, I wouldn't have done phase 1 in the painful-to-the-brain single-post format I used. I may still (at some time) break it up by days and use hyperlinks to build a functional click-through Point-Of-View timeline. It sounds like tons of work, but it would be such a fun tool to show off, it may prove worth it. In the meantime, here's a bunch of links to all my campaign notes, in order of when the PCs encountered the events...

A who's-who of the characters mentioned in the other posts can be found in this campaign-key and character-guide. The campaign was broken into two phases, Domestic and Foriegn. In retrospect, the two phases are like two radically different campaigns, but in practice the one flowed logically into the other. Today I see them as a series, or distinct original and sequel, but at the time it felt like a single contained arc.

Phase One, in which Doris gets her Oats. I mean, Phase 1: Domestic, in which Span One PCs bounce about 2006. Phase One is a decent example of a textbook Continuum campaign. The main villains are Narcissists (or suspected Narcissists) / Crashers, not Antedesertium. Players are Span Ones in the Era of their own lifetimes. Admittedly, the scenario was tougher and more complicated than most Span One adventures (probably better suited to Span Twos) but my crew grokked it enough to run with it. Kelly, one of the PCs, just kept digging deeper and deeper holes for both himself and his NPC mentor Dale. He (Kelly) was clearly the main character of the game.

Phase Two: Foreign, aka The Guided Tour. The PC's new/second mentor starts showing them around. She's less wishy-washy (and thus more effective) than Dale was, so it takes a while for everyone to warm up to her stern exterior. She does eventually take them on a trip like no other, which forms the narrative of this Phase.

Departing 6/3/2006 - USA - Piscean/Aquarian Cusp
Travel Itinerary as presented to PCs and alternate version / rough draft
6/3/2106 - Noon - USA - Piscean - Physician - Rochester Clinic
Massive biological and medical exams and sterilizations.

9/8/1643 - Noon - France - Piscean - Foxhorn - La Tour Jetee
Arrival in the French court and planned events. What happened instead and the consequences. Guest-starring Joan of Arc and Count St. Germain.

9/8/751 - Noon - France - Piscean - Mentor Corner - Soigne Demasque
5/12/751 - Noon - France - Piscean - Mentor Corner - Soigne Demasque
First stop and Second stop
This double-hop in the Itinerary was originally written in to allow Izzy to hit certain specific dates and events in history without exceeding the 1000 years she could span safely between restbreaks. As it played out, I was able to make it look like I knew the players were going to screw up in France and need an example, therefore bulwarking my verisimilitude and reinforcing the "The Continuum already knows, and has already won" theme of the setting.

Individual side-trips. Not in the original itinerary, barely getting a single scene for the whole stack of them, but a cute way to reward Izzy's star pupils.
Pam in 1643 Italy, Emily in 1500-1700 Spain, Lee in 1721 Spanish Texas, Elizabeth in 1558 Spain, Aaron in 1557 Spain, and Calvin sleeps through 400 years of Europe.
Rationale and reasoning behind all six of them.

5/12/-249 - 8am - Rome - Ariesian - Physician - Aedes Saluto
Prep work for the Roman visit, plus prep part two, and a special segment on Harpastum. Also, notes on things the players did during the session(s).

5/12/-1248 - Noon - Illium - Midwife - Ariesian - Groeg Ydy Abar A Ognise Bod 'n Lladdedig Ail A Ail
Arrival in Illium on the Cam. Celtic Troy and Homeric Narcissism. Events and Mysteries. Calvin and Kassandra. Aaron and Archery. This whole section owes a strong debt to Iman Wilkens.

5/12/-2244 - Noon - Norwegian Mountains - Tauran - Engineer Corner - Solfjellhytte
The Norwegian Spanner Hotel that didn't live up to its potential.

3/20/-3241 - 06:32 - Sumeria - Tauran - Dreamer Corner - The Womb - En Hakana, Travel Agent
Unexpected orgies and events less shocking. Reactions in- and out- of-character were hilarious.

3/20/-4238 - Noon - Pacific Northwest - Geminid - Quicker - Snomalshee Lodge
We were down far enough in time, I actually flirted with the idea of giving the PCs high-tech weaponry. Please do not poke the Middens. Sadly, Kelly just couldn't keep from shooting lasers at Inheritor Spacecraft, so I had to take most of the toys away.

3/20/-5236 - Noon - Baltic - Geminid - Mentor Corner - Vadistokli Arkun
Arrival in Vadistokli Arkun and the implementation of the Midwives Crisis. Brock / Borik shows up and is defeated.

3/20/-6231 - 20:00 - France - Cancerean - Engineers - The French Resistance
Hurgle's Merankea, it's opportunities and context, plus a bit more on Archery.

5/22/-5582 - Noon - Africa - Geminid - The high cliffs of memory, overlooking Atlantis
Back up to the Geminid Era for a famous exit, a famous battle, and the endgame. All wrapped up neat and tidy.

I hope you enjoyed the trip. Please leave me feedback and questions, if you have any.

continual context

From my last post:

5236 bc - March 20th, noon - Baltic - Geminid -
6231 bc - Cancerean - Incredibly large wooden structures pointed at the sun.
5582 bc - Geminid. Looking out over the cold majestic sea. A huge city floats upon the water

It occurs to me I didn't mention this back-tracking in any of my posts about Merankea. The divide between the Cancerean and Geminid areas is roughly 6000 BC. The plotline I ran essentially took the players into contested territory. After a covert strike in 6231, they then backtracked to the day after one of the most famous and critical battles of the Antedesertium/Societal war. That's now stated a bit more clearly than my previous posts had done.

---

From the continuum rulebook:

5582 Atlantis' first intervention meets objective, but with serious damage; it never returns to this era

and

This is Antedessertium's Gettysburg, or Waterloo, if you will: a deep incursion into Societal spacetime with the intent to break apart our civilization from within. It fails, but we must fight to realize our victory, of course.

Alternate / Return Trip

Quoted below is an alternate early draft of the Travel Itinerary from the Continuum campaign. I believe this version was brainstormed the day I decided to introduce Izzy - that would be before the "Banana up my Ass" joke. In the very early stages, I'd also considered playing out the return trip from Atlantis with higher-span PCs. As it turned out, this was not to be, but it could make a fun sequel should I ever convince Jeremy and/or Liam to move to Seattle.

2006 - 6/3/06 - early Aquarian
1643 ad - September 8th, noon - France - Piscean - Foxhorn - Tour La Jetee
751 ad - Sept 8th, noon - France. - Piscean - Mentor Corner - Tragedians duVersielles
249 bc - May 12th, 8am - Rome - Ariesian - Antiquarian Corner - Host named Tiberius.
1248 bc - May 12th, noon - Illium on the Cam - Midwife Corner - Ariesian - Paris & Hellene
2244 bc - May 12th, noon - Norwegian Mountains - Tauran - Engineer Corner - Spanner Hotel.
3241 bc - March 19th, noon - Kish, Sumeria - Dreamer Corner - Tauran -
4238 bc - March 20th, noon - Pacific Northwest - Geminid -
5236 bc - March 20th, noon - Baltic - Geminid -
6231 bc - Cancerean - Incredibly large wooden structures pointed at the sun.
5582 bc - Geminid. Looking out over the cold majestic sea. A huge city floats upon the water - on an island too shiny to be natural. Behold, Atlantis. It begins to glow brighter, with fireworks and a laser-light show above it. It’s as if a giant bubble of air surrounding the city, suddenly transmuted from oxygen into light. No doubt this can be seen for hundreds of miles. And then the city is gone. The displacement of water is so severe, the ocean crashes into the space the city once held.
5582 bc - one day earlier. You’re in Atlantis. It’s a strange blend of cultures, languages and technologies. Most people are leaving rather than riding the city to 12969. To save several days and much energy, Izzie decides you will ride the city - it’s also safer this way.
12969 bc - the first atlantean council. See page 207 of the rulebook.
11970 bc -
10977 bc
9980 bc
8991 bc
7995 bc
6998 bc
6000 bc
5002 bc
4015 bc
3026 bc
2224 bc
1248 bc
249 bc
751 ad
1643 ad
2006 ad

Even at the early stages, it was clear I'd be unlikely to actually fit in the return voyage. As a result, the years chosen were fairly arbitrary.

Continuum End Game

The last couple sessions were highly improvised off very loosely scripted situations. As I've intimated previously, wrapping things up comes very natural for me, provided I do the legwork to weave in some believable dramatic threads in the early stages.

The final battle was basically just narration, as the forcefield that went up seconds after the PCs arrived was a source of "natural frag" that no one dare span through. I had elder selves of the PCs show up in the city (below the balcony/command post) plus a variety of NPCs from the various time frames. Joan of Arc, Izzie, Dale, and most of the PCs on one side. Brock and the Comte de St. Germaine on the other. Lee and Pam's elder selves were present as strategists, which made Rob and Sarah happy. Aaron's elder self was shooting arrows (alongside either Paris or Hurgle, I don't remember which) at the bad guys, which made Jeremy happy. Kelly's elder selves were also present, taking intially ambiguous actions, but eventually helping the good guys - I think this made everyone happy.

Heroes and Villains who'd never showed up in the game made brief appearances as well. There was a member of the intelligent dinosaur species, plus a couple of "alien greys" / inheritors floating around. I also referred to a couple of "The Seven" from from page 204 to 205 of the Continuum rulebook:

1) Two-Hornéd Worm
Span 12+ - Body 35 - Mind 30 - Quick 32
Telepathy G[randmaster]50 - Telekinesis G55 - Other Aquarian Skills G50
This scorpoid is most often seen as a vast worm or waterspout, with one or two smaller tornadoes being sucked into its head. The Worm is distinctly male, however, and is known to manifest as a mighty warrior-king, or giant, but rarely anything non-human, besides the worm-form itself.

and

7) SunRender
Span 8+ - Body 19 - Mind 20 - Quick 27
Telepathy G24 - Telekinesis G25 - Other Aquarian Skills G24
Generally considered to be the dark manipulator behind the Hunt of the Sun that consumes leveller imagination in the Cancerean and Geminid Eras. As the name implies, his main cause is to destroy the Sun before the societies can flourish beneath it.

My initial plan was to suggest that Brock was one of "The Sixteen" (that is, the Scorpoid-era bigshots and deep-cover agents) who then became one of The Seven, specifically SunRender. Instead however, my PCs fragged him out in Vadistokli Arkun, so he couldn't survive to such heady dominance. Good job, guys!

After the battle, the PCs were set loose upon Atlantis, and the city itself, with them aboard, spanned from Noon the next day to:

12969 bc - the first atlantean council. [See page 207 of the rulebook.]

There, they were trained and prepared for the battle they'd just witnessed. Don't think I actually doled out xp-clocks, but I alluded to them, and mentioned skills both mundane (athletics, combat, languages, crafts, etc) and Aquarian (psychic powers, lucid dreaming, etc) that PCs were taught by the Atlanteans. Every PC except Kelly was promoted to Span Two - this made Liam (Kelly's player) very happy indeed - he was still boasting about it months later. Dale also thanked the PCs for their part in defeating Brock and thereby saving Dale from certain death. Then Dale and Izzy hooked up - this was a direct reference to a non-gaming conversation I'd had with Sarah years before, and I was terribly pleased with myself when she caught the reference.

Somewhere there-abouts, the session (and the campaign) wrapped.

5582 BC - May 21st at 21:37:22

Last page of that Continuum notes file...

-5582 BC - May 21st at 21:37:22 - Atlantis - Geminid -
Fortress Atlantis. Playlist: Continuum

When you arrive: Warning claxons sound just seconds after you arrive on the balcony. The city streets below you are suddenly packed with people, frantically moving and spanning about. At any given time you can see dozens of twins or geminis. There’s a battle raging, and it’s impossible to tell who is on whose side. Swords, guns, crystal energy weapons, there’s even a dinosaur running wild in the carnage.

A hail of bullets ricochet off the forcefield in front of you.

If the PCs fought vs Borik:
You see Dale dueling with Count St Germaine. The count’s sword blow would have been fatal if not for Dales armored hand catching it half an inch from his neck. With cyborged muscles, Dale twists the blade loose from the counts hand. Izzie appears behind the count, striking at him with a primitive stone knife. As the count reels away from the blow he simultaneously stutter-spans about the room and fires an energy weapon at a variety of targets. Then he’s gone.

A giant thing flies overhead. A sillhoutte of some sort of enormous snake or wurm, with massive antlers.

Before you leave:

...and that's all it says.

5582 BC - May 22nd at Noon

Second-to-the-last page of my continuum GM's notes file.

-5582 BC - May 22nd at Noon - North Africa - Geminid -
Looking out over Atlantis. Playlist: Continuum

When you arrive: You are on a high bluff, overlooking the cold majestic sea. A huge city floats upon the water - on an island too shiny to be natural.

“Behold, Atlantis,” says Jeanne D’Arc, who is standing beside you. Hundreds of others line the cliffs, sharing your view of the most amazing city ever built by man.

The floating fortress begins to glow brighter, with fireworks and a laser-light show above it. It’s as if a giant bubble of air surrounding the city, suddenly transmuted from oxygen into light. No doubt this can be seen for hundreds of miles. And then the city is gone. The displacement of water is so severe, the ocean crashes into the space the city once held.

In small groups, the hundreds of onlookers begin to blink away.

If the PCs fought vs Borik: (Which as it turns out, by the time they got here, they had)
One of the last people to span away is Dale. He walks toward you with great purpose, eyes locked on Izzie. He takes her hands in his, and she looks away.

“We are not permitted to interact anywhere, save perhaps Atlantis,” she tells him.

He holds her hands with his right only, and fluid metal hand of his left gently takes hold of her chin to tilt her eyes to his. “I saw you in 12969 bc, but when I did, I forgot to tell you the most important thing. You, Isabella, are the love of my life, you are the hope that makes all the pain worth enduring.” He kisses her on the lips, and she doesn’t know how to respond. And then, with a pale flicker, he is gone.

Before you leave: Jeanne D’Arc says she will take you briefly to the day before.

Afterthought to an Archery Addendum

Later, off-camera, when all the other plotlines had resolved, Aaron would span up to England and teach Paris a thing or two about Archery. And in case anyone is curious why I chose non-combatant Aaron to be Paris's teacher, it has to do with enthusiasm. From the day Izzy showed them the Travel Itinerary, Aaron (and really, Jeremy) just took a shine to the name "Groeg ydy abar a ognise bod 'n lladdedig ail a ail."

I figured, what else could a GM do, but make the place (whose name captured his fancy) be super important in the character's life? Doing so implied a level of destiny - that Aaron loved the words because they were a huge part of his Yet, not just because Jeremy thought they were funny to say. I'm pleased with the way that worked out.

Addendum to Merankea

With no published setting or historical evidence of a society such as Merankea, I was free to improvise whatever details I desired. This will no doubt thrill Jeremy to no end - he's a stalwart believer that all the best RPG sessions occur from minimal GM prep.

Let's just not tell him that it's not really true to say there was no prep work. I'd been walking to work every morning since Sarah was in school. It was a 25-30 minute walk, often through weather that begged for distractions, so a lot of time was spent thinking about the game. I'd put the archery-thing in his Yet all the way back in Groeg Ydy Abar, so I'd had plenty of time to dream up the culture and it's incredible woven towers. In summation, the Merankeans are a conservative, mechanistic culture, secretly manipulated by Antedesertium. My hooks into the culture were big well-groomed beards, a totally sexist male-dominated society, unparalleled woodworking skills, an Archer caste, foreign slaves, and little masonic aprons. They were a prime part of the Hunt of the Sun, and a chance to play up on that Continuum sub-theme of "technologically advanced ancient cultures that vanished from the historical record." By making everything out of wood, they could have massive cities that would burn down or rot away over the 7,000 year gap before recorded history of Europe really got rolling.

Everything else could be improvised. Jeremy's attendance was at times spotty, so I didn't think it was worth ginning up a big codified version of the place and times. If he didn't show, it'd be a waste. Don't tell him I said that, either, though again I'm sure he'd be happy to know that I didn't do a bunch of extra work for him.

I went into the session knowing that I had the option of giving Jeremy his moment in the spotlight. He showed up, he read the writing on the woven walls, and his character Aaron spent a year amongst their culture. I gave him a ton of archery, and some odd madeup skills. He grew a beard and adopted a more "manly" cultural bearing. It was a very interesting bit of character development.

French Resistance in 6231 BC

More continuum notes. I'm actually quite surprised this one only filled one page of the file, considering how much happened there. Things were rolling pretty fast at this point, and rapidly approaching the wrap-up, so I worried less about the details and more about providing a satisfying conclusion.

-6231 BC - March 20th at 8:00pm - Southern France - Cancerean -
Engineer Corner named “The French Resistance”. Playlist: Continuum

The culture is known as Merankea.

When you arrive: It’s very dark out. You are inside a large structure. Lighting is poor, you cannot see the cieling, and what you can make out of the walls seems woven from thin strips of wood.

A man with a thick but expertly cared for beard stands before you. Two others stand just inside the exit. There clothing is furs and skins, with ornate wooden jewelry.

There is a large wooden table behind the man, and the table is covered with short curved pieces of wood, each looking to be lacquered and made composite layers. You can’t imagine this level of woodworking being normal for 6231 bc. He picks up a long gently curved piece of wood, and sets it upon the ground.

This is a test of spatial relations and cleverness. The pieces on the table allow for the Cancerean Age symbol to be made by only one specific arrangement of curves.
Any engineering, repair, or art skill can be used to solve the puzzle. It’s a Master-level difficulty roll.

The woodworker with the beard is named Hurgle.

By The Light Of Day: You are inside a large wooden structure of amazing engineering. Interlocking poles twist in a helical pattern around you. The walls are sort of woven from treebranches, and they culminate in a point above you, suggesting that the building is sort of teepee shaped, but it must be 50 feet tall.

Fun things to do in Merankea:

1. Marvel at the architecture. Giant woven wooden structures, most hollow, and some nearly 200 feet tall. Tusk shaped, pointing skyward. Several are aligned towards the sun currently. An apprentice-level roll of art, engineering, or architecture will show you that the one you spanned into is woven clockwise, the rest are woven counter-clockwise. There is also a wooden sculpture that rotates. It’s shaped like a helix, and manned by 30 slaves who turn it in ceaseless motion. Slaves work in 3-hour shifts, whereby 10 are replaced every hour.
2. Manly Culture. People here are hardened and stoic. Woodworking and wrestling are the two biggest passtimes. Hunting is done via wooden implements, archery and traps. Their bowcraft is not surpassed for more than 7,000 years. But eventually, the destruction of this culture is so complete that nothing of it remains for archaeologists to discover. But you will be careful, for Hurgle believes there may be Antedessertium spies active within the culture.
3. Strike a blow for The Continuum. Hurgle is certain that the point of this culture’s woodworking is to push forward the agenda known as the Hunt of the Sun. If it succeeds, it will wipe out all life up from this time. If you could find a way to destroy one while Hurgle was somewhere public with an alibi, it would be appreciated. If the rotating helix was what you destroyed, the continuum would remember you as heroes.

Before you leave: If you destroyed a Hunt device, he gifts each of you with a longbow and a lacquered wooden medalion. The shape of the medallion symbolizes your bravery. The pieces interlock like a puzzle, to symbolize your cunning. It has a hollow capable of concealing small objects, to symbolize the secret that no one will know what you have done.

Sweep Two - Isolate vs Brock

GM's notes from a fight in my Continuum Campaign over a year ago. The battle was a true time combat, with Frag, physical attacks, and even a Gemini Flush. Borik and company went down in like 2 or 3 sweeps, though it looks like the physical sweep involved 16 bouts. Time Combats are hard to grok, and very difficult to relate the narrative of after-the-fact. Here's my notes taken at the time, plus a few italicized comments to explain them...

Frag: 1 + 2 + 7 Pretty sure this is how much Frag the PCs did to Brock/Borik. 10 is ugly. At 7 you get amnesia, at 8 you become a ghost. The chart doesn't go to 10.
Kail: Frag 2
Emily: 1
Lee: Frag These list how much Frag each PC took. Mostly from each other.
Kelly: 1

Successes: Not sure what exactly this is. Successes, sure, but on what? Are the numbers bouts?
1- Kelly -
4 - Kail -
5 - Pam -
6 - Lee -
7 - Aaron -
8 - Emily -
9 - Critical Success - Izzy Funny the one crit of the whole fight is rolled by NPC mentor...
12 - Kelly - 3
13 - Lee - 2
16 - Kail - 2

Failure: The beehive explains it to me. These are failures on the fragging rolls. The first number is the bout (like combat rounds) number. The second is the indication of what sweep it was for that PC, I think. If so, then the same is true for the previous chart.
2- Kelly - 2
3 - Crit Failure - Sean ...and the one crit failure is by the NPC sidekick
10 - Calvin
11 - Elizabeth
14 - Beehive (this penalty affects Lee and Izzy)
15 - Izzy - 2


Amy has sharp sticks
Kail puts logs across path
I love those notes. Hard to say why they were so important.

Successes - So these would be attack rolls that succeeded. IP is impairment, effectively damage.
2 - bullets - 7IP, 5IP- then gun jammed Oh, Kelly must have crit-failed too. 3 shots? autogun?
4 - deadfall
5 - circle & rubble - physics
6 - bullets - 8 IP
7 - thorns in way
9 - laser - 5 hits, 2 crits
12 - bullet - 8IP
13 - pegged the beehive
15 - laser - 2 hits
the whole block is damn cool. laser vs thorns. pegged the beehive. :) what an awesome game

Failures -
1 - flashbang That's Kelly. IIRC, he fragged himself too.
3 - thrownspears
8 - deadfall
10 - he sleeps past him That's Calvin, the Corner's narcoleptic archaeologist
11 - gun jam
16 - kail’s martial arts believe that Brock fragged out before he could attack

Sweep One - Pinpoint vs Borik

Now that I've put it into context (here and here) I can share with you the following pages from my GM's notes for Continuum.

-5236 - March 20th at 12:00 noon - Central Europe - Geminid - Vadistokli Arkun
Mentor corner in the european lowlands at the foot of the Russian Steppe. midst of the Midwives crisis - all leveller mothers birth twins. Playlist: Fantasy Exciting

About the twins: This is the time of the Midwives Crisis. There’s an entire century where, for unknown reasons, every leveller child born is a twin. Antedessertium is suspected, but we don’t know to what ends. It does lead to starvation and genetic bottlenecking in some areas.

About the hands: A couple times per year they are attacked by “the hand-takers”, fierce nomadic horsemen who kidnap villagers. Their leader, named Borik, removes a hand from each captive, cauterizes and bandages the stump, and then sets them loose near the village. Ervyin doesn’t understand why. Borik appears to be a spanner, as some of the handless ones have witnessed him span.

In the middle of the night, you are awoken by sound of horses and screaming. There are horsemen attacking, carrying torches and axes. Many have mummified hands on leather thongs around thier necks. An apprentice observation roll (can’t be done without skill) notes Borik is Brock.

Izzie will leave it up to the pcs whether or not to fight, but if they do, she will coordinate the attack as an Isolate vs Borik as he rides to the village in the dark.

The PCs chose to fight. Here's prep notes relevant to it:

series of thatched-roof huts on a hillside with palisade around them.

riders on horses assaulting, throwing torches over the walls.

izzy: “Quick, we need to act before we know much about them - and before they can breach the walls. Everybody span level, to the place in the middle of the pallisade maze where we first met the local corner.”

Once there: “You’re choice - our options are we can fight or we can flee.
Brock probably doesn’t know we’re here, or his first action would have been to frag us all. We have the element of surprise, and I can coordinate our efforts. If we plan to battle him, now seems a very strong opportunity.
On the other hand, his being unaware of us gives us a window to escape without his ever knowing we were here.

If we’re going to fight Brock, we need to frag him hard to drive him away. And we need to do it while he still doesn’t know we’re here. A single decisive strike. We want the frag to hit him right about the time we spanned out from.”

Jobs to be fulfilled:

1. Scout the next morning for horse tracks, general direction they came from. ("Pinpoint" tactic based on survival or observation, difficulty is just novice)
2. Gather resources and weapons, possibly assemble booby-traps. Pick an outdoors place from your life, but go there in the level time. Tell no one where you’re going, and return here once you’ve armed yourself and are ready for the fight. (Survival and acumen rolls)
3. Span down to an hour before we arrived - find our host, and ask him for further info on the hand-takers: where they come from, territory covered, time frame they attack during, their rough overall numbers, anything more he can tell us about Brock, find out if they know Dale, etc. Span back here when you’ve pinpointed that data, or if he won’t give you the info without a self-fragging gemini. Don’t reveal our immediate danger - tell him we’re coming back from Atlantis, and wish to solve his dilema before we return to our own time. He was obviously not expecting an attack when we first met him, if we let on what’s happening now, we’ll frag him and ourselves. (Pinpoint via some social skill).
4. “Remember - one span away, one span back, nothing in between. We need to keep us all in the same sweep so if we get fragged we’ll all feel it at once and be able to deal with it as a group.”

Turns out it was a good decision.

The Midwives Crisis

The Continuum RPG has a GM's section, which covers "known history" of the setting, from the founding of Antedesertium (17,997 bce) to the wild Interregnum where mankind is nearly driven extinct (13,557 to 12,969 bce) to Joan of Arc's attacks on enemy weapon depots at the end of the Hunt of the Sun (4316bce) to the release of the Continuum RPG (in 1999 ce) to the elimination of childhood (2218 ce) and beyond into inheritor time-space. As you can see, this timeline has some pretty odd entries on it. One of my favorites reads as follows:

5762 [bc] Midwives' Crisis: All leveller mothers begin birthing twins

That's it. No cause. No motive. No explanation. No details. No end date given. "Further information is not available here." Further Information (the book by that name, it's a Continuum Supplement I don't have) may tell more, but I don't have it so I don't know.

I'd noted this odd cryptic entry when first considering what I'd do if I ever ran a Continuum game. I definitely wanted to touch on supercool concepts like the Macro Computer (part of "The Hunt of the Sun", the plot to convert the sun into a time machine and thereby destroy the future) and the inhuman nature of The High Kings of Antedesertium. I wanted to involve the battles between St. Germaine and Joan d'Arc. I wanted to include Inheritor spaceships and alien Greys, and Atlantis. I had all these awesome huge epic plans, but no way to condense them into the scope I'd have time for, especially not with PCs being Span One.

That's where the idea of Izzy's Tour came in. I could briefly flirt with all the big secrets of the setting. I didn't have to focus on any one of them, or make solving such things the point of the narrative. If I was going to do that, I could name-drop like crazy, and even spend a session or two on kooky little red herrings like the Midwive's Crisis. What fun!

As if on cue, Amy and Kevin asked if they could join our Continuum game. Kevin's character concept was a little odd. His PC, Kail, was a mirror twin. It's a rare real-world condition, where otherwise-identical twins are born as mirror opposites, with reflected assymytries of the face, moles on opposite limbs, etc. In folklore, this means there's a good twin and a bad twin.
His backstory involved the murder of his twin, and him taking that Twin's place. I didn't want to work that in too deeply to my scenario, 'cause I knew they'd be moving soon, and I didn't want to derail things. Conveniently, I was able to get the party to the time of the Midwive's Crisis on the last session that Kevin was able to play in. In my campaign, the line read more like:

5236 bc - height of the Midwives' crisis - due to antedesertium magic/meddling, all leveller mothers birth mirror twins, and Brock (the background villain who chopped off Dale's hand) is somehow taking advantage of it.

It was, I admit, a little dirty to do this. Poor Kevin must have felt like he was moving away from a campaign that was on the verge of being all about his character. I'm a horrible, terrible, evil GM, and that's why you all love me.

Vadistokli Arkun (in 5236 BC)

Returning to my series of continuum campaign notes. Clever readers will notice a few things odd about this place. Players from my campaign will remember a lot more happened here. Experienced Continuum GMs will recognize the Midwives' Crisis. That will all have to wait for a future post...

-5236 - March 20th at 12:00 noon - Central Europe - Geminid - Vadistokli Arkun
Mentor corner in the european lowlands at the foot of the Russian Steppe. Playlist: Fantasy Exciting

When you arrive: You are standing in a large bowl-like impression in the earth, surrounded by a wooden pallisade. Half a dozen other people are there, sitting, standing, or leaning against the palisade. All are dressed in primitive furs and leathers. All but one of them is missing a hand.
Have you beamed into a prison?
All the people stand up, that’s when you notice that two of them are twins. Everyone says in unison with very broken english. “Hell-Oh. Whot Tyme Iz It?”

Their leader is Ervyin. He’s a span 3, and is not missing a hand. This is his corner, where he trains those he’s saved from the hand-stealers. The main village is several hours walk from here. This is a bowl-like depression with a spiraling pallisade wrapping 3 times around it. You can’t physically walk from outside to inner bowl. But you can enter the spiral, getting out of sight of levellers, and then span to the middle.

Travel to the village takes you past multiple megalith stones.

The village is a collection of mud huts surrounded by a ditch and wooden pallisade with geminid symbol carved into poles. It only takes a few moments observation to notice two main points: Firstly, at least 30 of the 100+ inhabitants are missing one or both hands. Secondly, nearly everyone under the age of 30 has a twin.

About the hands: A couple times per year they are attacked by “the hand-takers”, fierce nomadic horsemen who kidnap villagers. Their leader, named Borik, removes a hand from each captive, cauterizes and bandages the stump, and then sets them loose near the village. Ervyin doesn’t understand why. Borik appears to be a spanner, as some of the handless ones have witnessed him span.

Fun things to do with primitive people, in primitive times.

• Hunting & Wrestling
• Toppling megaliths with Ervyin’s corner. Working against the hunt of the sun.
• Music or pottery. Clay whistles. rock & wood percussion.

Before you leave: Clothing and woodworking tools will be waiting for you in the pallisaded bowl.

4238 BC in the Pacific Northwest

More notes from Continuum Campaign. Not a lot to say on this one: mostly a diversion, plus a red herring. This lead to another UFO sighting, and lots of improvisation.

-4238 BC - March 20th at 12:00 noon - Pacific Northwest - Geminid -
Quicker Corner atop very rugged cliffs overlooking the ocean. Playlist: Raining

When you arrive: You are in a wood-and-mud round lodge, just barely large enough to hold the group of you. The roof is scant inches above your heads.

Izzy says “Claustrophobic, huh? Luckily the fire isn’t up for the sweatlodge, or we’d be even more uncomfortable. Anyhow, were’ in 4238 bc, which is so far back not even the Egyptians can name an event that happened this year. Levellers haven’t discovered the calendar yet. Miracles are common in this era, but levellers still are ignorant of spanning. We’ve got a little more leeway than usual, and it’ll just keep getting better in that regard as we move futher down.”

An old man lives in the area, away from his tribe. His name is “Speaks With The Wind”. He speaks with spirits the PCs can’t see. He greets them in a foriegn tongue, and draws in the dirt. Izzy completes it for the geminid era.

Down below these high bluffs you’ll find a rugged stretch of coastline.
There’s a few totem poles visible, and really tall middens - heaps of oyster shells.

Fun things to do in the Pacific Northwest:
1. Talk philosophy with Speaks With The Wind
2. Rock climbing

If the PCs check out the Middens:
You eventually see someone span in, and set down a bundle next to a midden. Then they span to the other side, suddenly holding a long pole with antlers on the end, and push the midden over so that it collapses onto and covers the bundle.
If the pcs go to the trouble of finding what the bundle holds, the answer is it’s a big leather tarp stitched closed and sealed with wax. It’s wrapped around a variety of weapons of different eras. There’s a 9mm submachinegun with 1 clip, a flintlock pistol with a powderhorn and 15 shot, a variety of swords, daggers and and javelins and some kind of rifle that looks like it came out of star trek.

Who left the weapons? Could be a loyal spanner, prepping for a later battle. Could be a narcissicist trying to frag an archaeologist. Could be an antedessertium scout rebuilding one of the weapon depots that Jeanne d’Arc destroyed in 4316 bc.

Before you leave: Speaks With The Wind gives you each a set of very neutral leathers with little to no adornment to suggest any particular culture.

I ended up portraying "Speaks With The Wind" as if a slightly senile aged version of Thomas from Smoke Signals. It was humorous and cute, but probably a poor choice for portraying a Span Two.

things to do in Sumeria when you span

More continuum notes from Sumeria in the Tauran age.

Fun things to do in Kish:

1. Agriculture and Husbandry. Life is simple, cows are rare and sacred. Plowing, raking and manuring. Barley & Onions are the main crops. Packs of wild Jackasses roam the countryside, and they’re really mean-tempered. Maybe this one’s not so “fun”.
2. Pottery & Science. Mud & Clay Brick. Clay so hard it can be used to make knives and nails. Cuneiform tablets. Business Contracts are made using clay figurines sealed in a clay ball. Breaking open the ball invalidates the contract it contains.
3. Get drunk. Beer is a big deal here. Only women can be brewers or bartenders, which are both high-paying jobs. Food is not so great. Most everyone eats nothing but bread & onions, and maybe some barley soup. Musicians at a bar will play the lyre and the Auloi (double-clarinet), plus some percussion.

And after the apology, but before you leave: En Hakana gives each of you your choice of furs and skins. She says there is no culture older than hers, and the same ragged primitive dress will serve you in all previous eras. She says the days grow colder as you travel down, so overdress. She arms you with weapons of stone and wood. She gifts each of you a skin of beer and a bag of barley, which will be of great value to the primitives you will interact with.

It was even clearer in the game then in this bit of notes: En Hakana is very predjudiced. She feels strongly that her culture is both the birthplace and the height of civilization.

Unexpected Orgy

More notes from the Short-Bus-Spanners Continuum campaign. This was certainly the most "adult" (read: juvenile) session of the campaign, but it was well received by the play group. I have fond memories of the synchronized head-turning.

-3241 BC - March 20th at 6:32 am - Kish, Sumeria - Tauran -
Dreamer Corner atop a ziggurat. Playlist: Middle Eastern

When you arrive: Span onto the roof of the tallest building in a large city. It’s the top of a huge stepped pyramid - a ziggurat. Bronze poles in each corner of the roof suspend a heavy white tarp above your heads as a sunshield. Even with it providing shade, the sun is painfully bright up here.

An uncomfortable looking glazed bed sits in the middle of the roof. A sexual act is taking place upon it. Music and moaning can be heard below.

Ooops! Izzy’s a little ticked off. This timing on the morning of the Equinox, proposed by En Hakana, made Izzy a little suspicious, and now she’s going to be in a little conflict with her host.
“Pam, be a dear and Span up to noon on the 21st. I’ll make sure it’s safe when you get then. Anyone else who’s not so keen on surprise Sumerian Crop orgies, feel free to span with her. I’ll stay here and try to explain to our host that this is rude where you guys come from.”

The party's hostess will of course be atop the ziggurat, where she makes love to all three of her husbands in ritualistic succession. The Tauran symbol is painted on her forehead.
Izzy knows her from dreams. The woman’s name is En Hakana, the high priestess of the Goddess Innana. En Hakana has three husbands, named Kahlil, Gilgamesh, and Nippuren. And no, it’s not THAT Gilgamesh.

There's a very good reason for this big orgy. We’re at the end of The Hunt Of The Sun, where Antedessertium attempts mystical earthworks to turn the planet into a sort of reactor. The bad guy’s idea is to cause the sun to collapse into a tippler cylinder, destroying the future. The Sumerians have the technological advancement to build the massive components of the macrocomputer and drop them on the Chi points & Leylines of mesopotamia. The continuum’s only found one good way to keep them controlled and distracted: sex worship. This morning is one of the big orgies.

Before you leave: En Hakana apologizes. She’s never been to the Piscean Age physically, only by Dream Projection - and people’s dreamlife in the your time is every bit as sexual as here. Orgy dreams are less common than individual encounters, she should have inferred from that.
She genuinely thought you’d be honored to be included - timing your arrival this way was intended to make you the guests of honor in the most important celebration of the year.
The continuum’s only found one good way to keep them controlled and distracted: sex worship.

The players had a lot of fun with this - either playing out there shock and disgust, or their curiosity. When in Rome... er, Kish...

Solfjellhytte was lackluster

In retrospect, this was my least favorite stop on in Phase II of the "Short-Bus Spanners" Continuum campaign.

The point of this stop was to create a place where long spanning travelers could have some modern comforts and get away from the stressful catch-as-catch-can of prehistory. I'd considered doing a hidden gallery of all the best works of art that were "lost to the mists of time" but chose a ski-lodge instead. And looking back, I can't imagine why I made the decision to go with this far less compelling location - nothing in the surviving GM's notes explains that decision. I guess it was because my Timelines of History reference book indicates skis date back to 2500 BC in Scandinavia.

I vaguely recall improving a couple of cool things here, but inflicted some lameness as well. A recording of Phantom Menace was in their entertainment system, with a note saying something to the effect of "Warning: Preventing this from being made would Frag us all". I'll let you decide whether that falls in the cool column or the lame one. I think there was also Episodes VII, VIII and IX.

The one good thing I have to say about Solfjellhytte was that it gave me a chance to make each PCs "One Big Score" actually impact the game. We'd had massive differences in PC savings - a few dozen thousand vs over 100 million. Generally, the campaign hadn't involved enough shopping opportunities to make that difference noticeable. But here, being able to drop credit on a few luxuries let the big rollers feel like their money roll mattered.

Solfjellhytte at 2244 BC

More continuum GM's notes...

-2244 BC - May 12th at 12:00 noon - Norway - Tauran -
Solfjellhytte. Engineers Corner high in the mountains of Norway. Playlist: Fantasy Soothing

When you arrive: You’re in the inner room of a round wooden structure. It’s cold outside, but a central hearth and solar-powered space heaters keep this room warm.
Extensive woodcarving and tapestries on the dark wooden walls give the place the overall feel of Edoras from The Two Towers.
Benches along the walls are covered with furs and 20th century winter gear, snowshoes and skis of both primitive and very modern construction. There are also bottles and skins of liquor.
There’s a chalkboard on the wall, with greetings on it in English, Spanish, and two Scandinavian languages. The Tauran symbol is upon the chalkboard as well.
There’s rope to ring a bell.
Turns out this place is sort of a spanner hotel or safe house.

Eventually a woman named Ullabrit appears, think of her as the Engineer’s concierge:
“Make yourselves comfortable. Private rooms are One Small Favor or $10,000 US per day, in bills dated prior to 2001. Skiing instruction is included. The slopes are good even during the off season for most other places. We are high above the level population.This room is safe to span to when you think you’ve skied far enough down the slope for one run. The closest building to the exit houses hot springs. Feel free to have all the Mead and oxygen you’d like. Our chef will provide lunch within the hour and dinner at 7 pm.”

Fun things to do in the Mountains:

1. Ski-ing. Snow’s only on the upper peaks. One week grants Novice. Each day scores you a clock. That’s assuming you access their instructors. Otherwise it’s 60/20 like normal for Athletics.
2. Hot springs. Outlying buildings house multiple hot springs. Scandinavian tradition is to relax and chat in the springs, then jump out and dive into the snow. Roll around, then get back in the springs to prevent hypothermia.
3. Eat & Drink. Relaxing night with lots of mead. Imported food from a variety of times, but the Chef brings whatever he wants - you have no choice what 5-star delicacy he’ll bring, but you may submit dietary restrictions and special needs before the meal.
4. Sleep. Modern beds in a few of the private rooms. Solar-powered space heaters are available. Each room has a stocked wardrobe - winter jackets, swimsuits for the hot springs, several varieties of long underwear, slippers, pajamas, etc.
5. Study. Extensive language and culture databases for every major culture in 3,000 BC to 1,000 BC. Two weeks will grant Novice in any language that makes sense for that era. Each week thereafter will grant a clock. Etiquette for any such culture may be learned at the rate of 1 clock per week, 1 week to gain Novice. Again, like with skiing, this all assumes you make full use of the facilities, resources, and instructors.

Before you leave: Ullabrit takes your measurements to prepare clothing for all your other stops, even the ones that have already happened. She then presents you with a few choices of clothes for Kish. Let the PCs look at the sections in Chronicle of Western Fashion for Persia, Assyria, Babylon and Crete.

Why Calvin?

Calvin was played by Eddie. Eddie is an old friend who I used to game with when I lived in Seattle. Eddie was a bit unreliable as a gamer. You'd never know if he'd show up or not.

He has a vivid imagination, a very active sense of humor, and he likes to play very quirky characters. So, when he's there, you really notice him. It changes the course and tone of your game. Often the change is for the better, but it's always unpredictable.

I gradually learned that it was a good idea to have some tangent prepared anytime I thought Eddie was likely to show up. Something related to the plot, but kinda odd, so he'd focus on it instead of derailing everyone with his own craziness. That's why I decided to do the Kassandra thing. I chose the training aspect because his spotty appearances had left him far behind the group in clocks (aka experience). It also provided an opportunity for characters to develop in different directions and have their own stories despite the group-travel dynamic that Phase II had forced upon them.

As it happens, it worked pretty well. He got to act out failing to fend-off Kassandra. We role-played just a tiny bit of her hauling him off, then I dropped character and asked him how long he wanted to spend with her. He chose a year, and I handed him the list of clocks to mark down. I returned him to the group a scene or two later, and he had his tangent to talk about: "How you guys doing? Haven't seen you in months! Did you know this place is about to be invaded?"

Later (or earlier, depending on whether you speak of narrative or leveller time), I did the same thing for Aaron/Jeremy, though for entirely different reasons.

Calvin & Kassandra

More continuum GM's prep/notes. This involves Eddie's character, Calvin, and the famous Kassandra of Troy.

Calvin & Kassandra:
Kassandra had a dream in which she meets Calvin the night before something horrible begins. In the dream they are together for several months at the start of the catastrophe, teaching each other.

If Eddie is present, put him into that dilemma.
Does he stay with Kassandra, possibly against Izzy’s wishes?
Does he leave Kassandra, causing her to doubt her own abilities.
If he leaves her, she’ll start trying to reach him in dreams. And wouldn’t it be fun if she’s a bit obsessive?

The next day Kassandra’s parents lock her up. (Her parents are King Priam and Queen Hecuba. This means she’s a sister of Paris.) She’s kept away from the people, in a tower atop one of the hills of gog magog.

Calvin can learn a lot by spending time with her. If Calvin stays with Kassandra: (include all benefits of earlier ones)

30 days:
Language (ProtoCeltic): Novice, based on Mind
Clairvoyance: +1 clock
Anthropology: +1 clock
Locality Knowledge (Trojan War): Novice, based on Mind
Occult (Celtic): Novice, based on Mind

90 days:
Language (ProtoCeltic): +2 clocks
Clairvoyance, +1 clock more
Anthropology: +3 clocks more
Locality Knowledge (Trojan War): +1 clock more
Occult (Celtic): +2 clocks
Dreaming: Novice, based on Quick

1 year:
Language (ProtoCeltic): +9 clocks more
Clairvoyance, +3 clocks more
History (Bronze Age) : Novice, based on Mind
Anthropology: +8 clocks more
Locality Knowledge (Trojan War): +9 clocks more
Occult (Celtic): +10 clocks more
Dreaming: +3 clocks
per year thereafter (8 more years at maximum):
Language (ProtoCeltic): +12 clocks more
Clairvoyance, +5 clocks more
Locality Knowledge (Trojan War): +12 clocks more
Dreaming: +4 clocks more
Occult (Celtic): +6 clocks more

Kassandra refused the amorous advances of Apollo, and was cursed by him. His snakes licked her ears, which made her able to hear the future on the wind. But the curse made it such that no one will ever believe her.

Even I don't know what that last paragraph meant in the context of Continuum.