STORMBRINGER
GURPS and the MULTIVERSE

Let me tell you how it all began, if I can. I should begin at the beginning, but as you read on you will soon come to find why this is such an impossible task. I would love to ease your fears and say it all began with a ‘Big Bang’ or that we all ascended from primates, but I cannot confirm or deny either of these theories; In essence, both or neither may be true.

Before I continue, allow me to introduce myself to you, I am Jerry Cornelius, Time Traveler, Rogue, Assassin, Lover, and I have been both Champion and Companion, I am eternal, in short I am all things and I am...immortal. Wait, before you discount my words as that of a raving lunatic, here them, and then judge me if you still must.

The Multiverse is an amalgam of all Universes and realities, both possible and impossible. There is no true beginning as time is cyclic, not linear, and it merely rolls back on to itself, constantly, with no true ending either. There are many among you who have learned to tap into the timestream, and even a few who have mastered it. The large majority of people deny that there is anything intelligent living beyond or within their tiny realms. These people are the constants in an inconsistent world; They strive to make sense of the ever changing, ever evolving (or de-evolving as it were!), swarming mass of chaos that envelopes us all. It is for their benefit that those daring souls who travel the timestream leave no trace of their passage. If the unbelieving populace suddenly realized that their existence was futile, they would either give in to despair or destroy the cosmos attempting to control a force that cannot be controlled, only successfully manipulated by the skilled and quite lucky traveler.

You see, within each reality there are a multitude of alternate, possible, and improbable realities. There are many an adventurer that has attempted to change history, only to find himself in a completely different history of another planet or race! Take for instance, one of the more famous temporal heroes, Michael Kane. Michael was a scientist on an Earth in the mid 1970s, attempting to create a teleportation machine. Like all great scientists, his passion replaced his reason, and in an effort to test his transport machines on a human subject, he volunteered himself. The machine worked, in a way, but instead of traveling across the room, he was thrown into the timestream and ended up on a planet known as Vashu. Even more astounding to his human mind, was that Vashu was what we know as Mars and that was close to a million years in the past, when Negula, the Vashu word for Earth, was but a primitive planet completely devoid of human life! Michael still travels back and forth, pulled away from the planet he has grown to love, pulled by what is known by some as ‘the Morphail effect’. The Morphail Effect, is simply put, the theory that time is indeed cyclic and fickle, once a time traveler, always a time traveler. The Multiverse gives only what it wishes and takes even more. I will explain Professor Morphail and his theory in detail later.

In this feeble document, I will attempt to enlighten you as to some of the personalities and worlds I have encountered. I cannot tell you how long I have been a member of the guild, nor how long I have been at this particular time, and even more sad, how long I will be here. My only hope is that the Morphail Effect will grace me a few moments more as your humble scribe. The guild I mentioned is what many of us would-be travelers belong to, the ‘Guild of Temporal Adventurers’ or the GTA for short. There is a good probability that one of my colleagues has learned of my writing this manuscript and is racing back in time in an effort to find it before you do, I do hope they fail.

I grow weary of traveling, I feel I have lost my sanity, or am but moments away, hah, moments...funny I would use such a meaningless word. I can’t help but be reminded of song lyrics “Time is fleeting, madness...takes its toll”...it just seems fitting. I do apologize, I digress.

I will attempt to explain to you each of the realms I have visited, describe their inhabitants, and hope upon hope, that I can open your eyes to the powers beyond control and comprehension. The easiest way to begin is with the Principles and the creation of the Golden Bridges.

It was on one of your Earths, the exact does not matter, the year was believed to be around the late 20th Century, but no one really knew for sure. There was a small organization led by another passionate scientist, Professor Faustaff. His group knew of the alternate worlds and that there had been many of them and that time had, in regards to technological advancement, had ceased to progress on all but one of these worlds. Each one had stopped at a particular time period, the 1950s, the 1960s, and some had no technology whatsoever. They had named each Earth in a numerical sequence and were doing their best to thwart the Demolition Squads (D-Squaders), that were systematically destroying each Earth with seemingly natural disasters of epic proportions. It was in the midst of this chaos that old Fausty found out who was actually behind it all, at least those beings that thought they were in charge! Each of the Earths was being destroyed, quickly and efficiently by the D-Squaders and the agents of the beings known only as the Principles. These Principles were giant humanoids who explained to Fausty that all of the Earths were simply an experiment in which they were attempting to recreate the exact moment in time that they, the Principles, had evolved beyond normal mortal comprehension. Why they wanted to return is unknown, they say that they wanted to enlighten all beings so that they could be as the Principles were. They explained all of this calmly and serenely as they showed him his home world ‘Earth One’ destroying itself with Nuclear War. Faustaff argued this logic, or illogic if you will, and laughed at the irony the Principles had made of themselves. In essence, if they did not create all worlds, and were constantly striving to recreate that which was lost, their own history, their very identities, then they were in fact not the creators at all and were most likely acting upon the programming of other beings vastly more powerful than themselves. They thought on this, and after contemplation decided that they would cease their experiment and would create great golden bridges between the thirteen remaining Earths so each could learn from the other. So that caveman could discover modern man instead of the opposite possibility. They believed that they had thwarted any being who may be ‘pulling their strings’ and that they had proven their own imagination, initiative, and finally sense of humor. Professor Faustaff let them believe this and with a great laugh, this giant of a man was drawn into the timestream, leaving the Principles behind to ponder their own mortality and futility. Herr Steiffelmeiss, an agent of the principles was also claimed by the Morphail Effect and Fausty became a founding member of the GTA, of course that is only one such possibility.

I will tell you of many others, the fantastic, dark realm of Elric of Menibone’, the bizarre world of Prince Corum that was overcome by barbarians who worshipped the same Lord of Chaos that Elric served. I will tell you of the doomed scientific/medieval alternate Earth realm of the Beast Mask culture of Dorian Hawkmoon. I will briefly relay to you an alternate version of the beginning of Christianity in which Karl Glugauer becomes the fabled son of God. Together we will traverse the frozen wastelands of Ulric Skarsoul and the Silver Warriors. Perhaps I will have time to tell you of the sentient, floating, lost space ship and it’s Black Corridors or we can have Breakfast in the Ruins. The last when I will explain is the End of Time. I must rest now, I only hope that when I awake I am still here and able to continue my tale.

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