Game Concept

[Mike Curtis]

British writer Michael Moorcock set many of his fantasy adventures in a multiverse in which he detailed the epic struggle between Law and Chaos. He brought to life jealous Gods, Planes of Existence, ancient empires, world-weary heroes and villains, and various incarnations of the Champion Eternal.

Vision

Multiverse is inspired by the chronicles of Elric, Hawkmoon, Ereköse, Corum, and will be dark high fantasy, set during a time of turmoil. Against the backdrop of the eternal struggle between Chaos and Law, players will find themselves drawn into mysterious events and challenging scenarios that have wide-reaching implications.

Players would align with either Law or Chaos. Both poles would have factions, rivalry and in-fighting so the tensions would not only be between Law vs Chaos, but faction vs faction. Many of the factions will be patronised by a god, who will often make requests/strike bargains with their adherents.

Action will be centred on mythical Tanelorn, a home to interplanar adventurers of all kinds. Tanelorn moves throughout the multiverse, settling near interplanar nodes. Adventurers will set forth to investigate the local planes and interact with nearby cultures.

Features

* Players may choose to play as Humans (Hawkmoon, Ereköse), Vadagh (Corum), Melnibonéan (Elric), Daemonspawn and others.

* There will be a skill development paradigm that includes magik. It is likely that skills will have different costs.

* The magik system will be different to the one employed in Mordavia, and will likely inlude ritualistic magik in addition to spell-based magik.

* The design of the income and equipment system will allow characters to persist some of their equipment and money between games.

* There will be magik items that provide players with skills, or assist them to achieve their goals.

Concept

The overall approach will be similar to that employed in Mordavia. There will be players and crew and the GMs will adopt the player-led plot development process that was successfully pioneered by Mordavia.

Crew will be able accumulate experience points so they can develop their own characters (NPC or PC).

Tanelorn shifts from node to node, sometimes more than once per day. Characters (both PC and NPC) may have an interest in where it goes, and there be ways to influence this.

Multiverse can be run as both weekend and daygames.

[Ryan Paddy]

If there was one Moorcock book you'd recommend people to read to get a feel for the setting, which would it be?

[Mike Curtis]

Any of the following Michael Moorcock books would make excellent background reading:

Elric of Melniboné, a novel concerning Elric.
The Jewel in the Skull a novel concerning Hawkmoon
The Knight of the Swords a novel concerning Corum
The Eternal Champion a novel concerning John Daker a.k.a. Erekosë

The above four books introduce the most significant incarnations of the Champion Eternal.

[Ryan Paddy]

Which gives the best overview of the Multiverse setting, including Tanelorn?

[Rhiannon]

I have only read the stories of Elric, but some of the others appear in them as different incarnations of the Champion Eternal, and there is a fair amount about Tanelorn, general travels, and the bonuses and stigmas associated with being a Chaos follower. I would definitely recommend Elric.

Maybe someone can recommend a Law follower for a counterbalance?

[Mike Curtis]

For Moorcock characters that counterbalance Elric, I'd recommend both Corum and Hawkmoon, starting with either The Knight of Swords (Corum) or The Jewel in the Skull (Hawkmoon).

Both series strongly influenced the development of Multiverse, and would provide good background reading (although, as GM, I reserve the right to make things a bit different from the books due to practical considerations - not to mention the repercussions of player actions ).

[Jarak]

I don't remember specific titles, but when I was in Evergreen Books (a secondhand bookstore) in Devonport last week, I noticed they seemed to have quite a number of Moorcock books for sale. Just in case that is of any use/interest to anyone