Crossovers & Culture Clashes
Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2023 9:38 pm
Firstly, the obligatory: I know that the idea of crossing over between Gothic Earth and the wider D&D multiverse isn't popular (that's more Ravenloft's thing), but there is no malice here.
Anyway, the idea has been percolating in my head for a while of a British qabal that is basically the Victorian government's first fumbling attempt to put together some kind of anti-supernatural investigation task force - sort of a prototype to Marvel's SHIELD (or specifically its subdivisions ARMOR, STAKE and WAND). I don't know if I should use the British Society for Paranormal Research from the Book of Sorrows or a homebrew qabal. Anyway! The point is, a mysterious meteorite strike brings this qabal into the "remote countryside" (as much as that term applies to Britain in the 1890s), only for them to discover that the "shooting star" that fell to (Gothic) Earth isn't a chunk of space rock... it's a wrecked spelljammer. And its crew, a party of high level (13-15) veteran planeswalkers and spelljammers, is still alive. Now, the foreign adventurers aren't hostile or inherently malicious - they just want to repair their ship and leave. But that doesn't make them any less strange to the natives - and vice-versa.
So... what are some possible cultural clashes and confusions that could arise from this meeting, presuming the qabalites don't just immediately start shooting at the sight of movement within the ship? Any ideas?
Heck, let's go beyond that; what are some possible interesting cultural confrontations that could arise from any convergence that sees a character from elsewhere in the D&D multiverse ending up in Gothic Earth?
Anyway, the idea has been percolating in my head for a while of a British qabal that is basically the Victorian government's first fumbling attempt to put together some kind of anti-supernatural investigation task force - sort of a prototype to Marvel's SHIELD (or specifically its subdivisions ARMOR, STAKE and WAND). I don't know if I should use the British Society for Paranormal Research from the Book of Sorrows or a homebrew qabal. Anyway! The point is, a mysterious meteorite strike brings this qabal into the "remote countryside" (as much as that term applies to Britain in the 1890s), only for them to discover that the "shooting star" that fell to (Gothic) Earth isn't a chunk of space rock... it's a wrecked spelljammer. And its crew, a party of high level (13-15) veteran planeswalkers and spelljammers, is still alive. Now, the foreign adventurers aren't hostile or inherently malicious - they just want to repair their ship and leave. But that doesn't make them any less strange to the natives - and vice-versa.
So... what are some possible cultural clashes and confusions that could arise from this meeting, presuming the qabalites don't just immediately start shooting at the sight of movement within the ship? Any ideas?
Heck, let's go beyond that; what are some possible interesting cultural confrontations that could arise from any convergence that sees a character from elsewhere in the D&D multiverse ending up in Gothic Earth?