Undeath of History: The Patchworks

This week it is time for a fluff piece on the Undeath of History with a description of the Patchworks, the intertemporal ruins that traverse time.

The Patchworks

The realm known as the Patchworks consists of architectural wreckage from all times and places: charred ruins of Nero’s Rome (as well as 17th century London, 19th century Chicago, and the New Paris that never was), toppled columns of the Acropolis (and tomorrow’s Washington D.C.), deserted wigwams from a plague ravaged America (and the skyscrapers still littered with feral undead from another America), the high-tech machine cities tainted with radiation and killer robots, and other detritus.

The architectural styles contained within span all of human history as well as the many alternate worlds that diverge from it. The structures sit, lean and molder in a pattern roughly following their historical progression. An occasional oddity jars the scheme, the result of an odd survival or alternate world. Here an ancient Greek temple nestles next to rusted beams from melted skyscrapers. Perhaps the anomaly perished in the same atomic fireball or crashed here from an alternate world where the culture of the ancient Greeks persisted far longer. Elsewhere a strange niobium structure lies melted into a Victorian neighborhood. A crashed time machine? A collision of worlds? None knows.

But a trend emerges. Older more archaic styles reveal a path back in time. Steel construction and post modern construction lead to one of many futures.

Boundaries of History

Many believe the Patchworks are infinite. Others feel that it is constrained by human history. The truth is more complicated than either.

Journey forward in time and slowly the ruins peter out, ending in radioactive hellscapes, ice clad structures or metallic piles of what were once scavenged housing. Beyond plains of gray dust extend endlessly. None has discovered what lies beyond.

Follows the path backward, past marble and unbaked clay, past decaying huts of straw and earth and again one finds the same cold gray deserts past the a few prehuman caves. Nothing lies that way, nothing for a long long way. Scatter travelers pass rumors of strange obelisks and cities of forged black glass. They whisper of something that came before humanity. A race that rose and fell before humanity left the trees. Their dead linger in those ancient ruins as little more than dust. A dust that can kill in seconds and hungers for even flickers of life present even in the Undead.

One can journey through the Patchworks to worlds where the world and humanity developed differently. Travelling horizontally in time, the structures grow strange and unfamiliar. Architectural styles foreign to our Earth emerge. Doorways built for midgets. Signs directing caste races to their respective destinations. Technology powered by thought alone. Eventually however even these relics become sparse and the desert emerges again. Worlds that differ too much are often without anything that resembles humanity. At least one that builds anything.

Journeying into the desert is dangerous. The chill winds of time blow strongly here. Make Temporal Stability tests (Difficulty 5) every scene or lose 2 Temporal Stability and a point of Vitality.

Notable Sites

The Bone Market: a vast ossuary composed of a world’s worth of dead. Here the wreckage of the multiverse can be bought and sold. Every traveller, alive or Undead, comes through at some point. All are welcome as long as they obey the rules: no violence, no lies, and all deals are final. Despite the traffic, the Bone Market remains quiet and empty. The sheer volume of dead bones dwarf the quick. Still the shared exuberance shields visitors from the winds of Time.

The Last Citadel: headquarters of the Watchers, this high-tech base was once humanity’s last stand against some unknown threat. The fortified moon base from the 91st century now perches at the far end of the Patchworks. The refurbished machines within provide every creature comfort and even reduce the chill of the Patchworks to an ever-present but harmless chill. The current inhabitants however remain cold, unable to shake the image of the Citadel’s many dead, now interred deep beneath the domed structure.

The Necropolis: A blazing orb heats and protects this maze of sandstone structures where the living and the Undead labor together under the unblinking eyes of their mummified pharaohs. Here the chill of time is banished, replaced with eternal servitude and service to overturning history. An eternal Egypt is their goal and all who oppose them will be ground under a withered and sandal clad foot.