Compared to the model of running Torg Eternity with covert agencies, the Military model is a bit more restrictive. Normal military personnel don’t have the freedom of movement that a civilian agency is going to have, nor do they have the relative lack of oversight that our previously outlined FBI or CIA game is likely to operate with. Properly, everything is going to remain on task with the mission at hand, moving on towards the next deployment only in very specific circumstances.
Naturally, this is not going to work as well for a group of player characters, being that most character groups are accustomed to far less oversight than this. Properly done, this sort of game has to be a relatively short game in which certain expectations have to be set up in advance, with those ideas being subverted in the course of the game.
In terms of Torg Eternity, this would have the characters dealing with a very carefully delineated mission at the outset, only to have those parameters taken apart as the Invasion takes place.
Already we have the specter of the Delphi Council working in the background of the campaign setting, so it’s probably best to work this into the ideas of a military campaign as early as possible. In the model of the CIA or FBI setting, there were abundant conspiracies to work from, as befit a sort of game that would imply such things. Within a military setting, the conspiracies would properly tend to flow from an outside consultant whose origin was better left out of the discussion.
And well, if the GM has enough balls in the air, this would be an interesting time for a cross-campaign set of cameos, where the CIA agents from a different game would be brought in to consult. I’m not expecting that this would be a common situation, but I’ve been in games that had the opportunity.
Even with a Delphi Council operative serving as a consultant for a specialized squad of operatives (take cues from any number of Tom Clancy video games), the characters would likely be in one geographic area for the duration of the run-up to the actual Invasion of Core Earth. As such, this needs to be a specific hot zone for the actual Invasion itself. And once again, I’m assuming an American military, since that’s where my personal awareness lies.
Living Land is an interesting idea for a campaign starter, since it’s on home turf for American soldiers. Being at a duty station in the States removes some of the Delphi Council interference, but it does have the characters either in training or waiting for deployment when things go wrong. Of the options, it’s a bit weak, as it doesn’t give as much longevity to the game as other ideas might. Adding the fact that on Day One, there’s not a great deal of area taken up with the Invasion, it’s not a great option.
Tharkold, while fascinating in its possibilities, is pretty much right out. Granted, this could be waived by the GM’s personal ideas, but having an American military presence operating on Russian soil would be weird, at best. Unless the game is built with the two militaries at the ragged edge of a shooting war, even covert operatives would be unlikely to actually venture across the border.
Orrorsh is a tricky one, given its proximity to Afghanistan and Pakistan, but it’s possible. What saves it is that the Orrorshan borders on Day One are pretty expansive. With a Maelstrom Bridge in what appears to be Lahore, it’s not difficult to expand the stelae beyond what’s established into Afghanistan. This would generally require that the characters be involved in uprooting stelae before the bridge is able to drop, which would make for a sold beginning to a campaign.
Aylse and the Cyberpapacy are both solid options for characters to confront, given the number of NATO bases in Europe. These two would allow a military game to have weirdness outside of the mission, with the characters potentially having to thwart the efforts of the High Lords while on leave and travelling around the EU. This would combine well with the next idea.
The Nile Empire would be a solid adversary in this sort of game, given the past focus of the military in the Middle East. The Invasion on Day One would take some jiggering, given that Pharaoh Mobius does not expand much when the bridges initially drop, but his agents would be present within the area well before the Invasion starts. This would offer a number of weird encounters for the characters, no matter where they were stationed in the area.
Finally, the Pan-Pacific realm is a particularly interesting setting for a game like this, given the massive presence that the United States has in Asia. Given that two of the main countries affected by this Invasion are sites of numerous US Military bases – South Korea and Japan – it’s not hard to place them at the forefront of spectacular weirdness. Being that the Pan-Pacific Invasion is more subtle, going with the weird biohazard infection to soften things up, this would be a perfect opportunity for the military to provide assistance in disaster relief.
Adventure Ideas
Historical Definition of the term “SNAFU”
I see this set-up more as a long-term, campaign theme than an adventure, per se. The characters are put through their paces on in a duty station – maintenance, patrol, training, and so on. The game, for the most part, is a slice of everyday life in their branch, which would properly be in some specific zone of operations like Afghanistan or South Korea, where they might be faced with danger, depending on how the GM treats the particular diplomacy of their world. They might even be assigned to assist on some international effort, like a UN mission to a Northern African nation.
Interspersed in the everyday life of the soldiers would be creeping weirdness. If the game was leading up to a mission where they would later uproot stelae to disrupt a part of the Invasion, this would be where they start encountering scouts for the High Lords and gathering intelligence relating to the gathering storm of a Maelstrom Bridge dropping from the sky. An Orrorshan Invasion would have the soldiers dealing with weird occult murders as the scouts were distracted by their own worse natures while they were working to plant the stelae. By contrast, Pan-Pacific agents would be the very model of corporate efficiency, even as weird infections took hold in the immediate area. We already have an idea of the street preachers in the Cyberpapacy, and original Torg made a point of talking about the Viking longships and barely glimpsed Dragons in the lead-up to the Aylish Invasion. And to adequately capture the pulp aspects of the Nile Empire, the characters would likely have to deal with intrigues centering around the unearthing of ancient Core Earth relics in the desert sands.
Artifact Looting
As I said previously, Eternity Shards are one of the most important things that characters can bring to bear in their fight against the High Lords and their Darkness Devices. Unlike what would happen in an agency game, however, a military game would more properly concentrate on trying to keep scouts of the High Lords from accessing archaeological sites or looting museums in war torn regions. This sort of assignment would likely come from a Delphi Council operative requesting the unit be brought in on a case by case basis, rather than being the main focus for the game, but it could be used to relieve some tension from a larger plot.
Disaster Relief
This would be something of an endgame scenario, depending on where the game was set. The US Military has had a role of assisting in international disaster relief efforts, from helping out with the Fukushima disaster to assisting in earthquake and hurricane cleanup. In the lead-up to the events of the Core Earth Invasion, this could be complicated by the efforts of the High Lords and their agents. As was noted in the Cyberpapacy and the Nile Empire, the forward agents of the Malraux and Mobius promised relief from bad situations. It would be in character for the High Lords to create a crisis situation, only to have their scouts arrive to offer a solution to this problem. And this is the essence of the jiangshi plague that forms the foundation of the Pan-Pacific Invasion, in which the Kanawa Corporation positions itself as the last, best hope for a cure. However, since these scenarios are directly linked with the arrival of the Invaders themselves, this is going to take place right before the Maelstrom Bridges themselves fall on the world.
Uprooting Stelae
In the original Torg, there were only six Realms in the original Invasion of Core Earth, with Tharkold invading some time later. This was because of the efforts of Pan-Pacifica (then Nippon Tech) to try to destabilize the other High Lords. By sending agents to Russia, Kanawa was able to bolster the efforts of the Russian Military to help them uproot the planted Stelae. By doing so, the Maelstrom Bridge was destroyed when it tried to set down, thereby crippling Tharkold and forcing it to regroup before later invading Los Angeles.
While it’s outside of the scope of most GM’s efforts to shut down the carefully laid plans of the High Lords and remove one of the players from the field, it is entirely possible to position them to uproot an undefended stela in the days before the war ramps up. This could facilitate an evacuation of a given area or keep a vital resource from being taken by the enemy. In some cases, these gains would only be temporary, but depending on where it happened, that could be enough.
Reuben Beattie
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- Legend of the Five Rings – Beginner Game - November 15, 2018
