Ravenloft & D20-Modern and D20-Future ????

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Description
ADOLF (Advanced Design Organic Logical Form) is an AI program running a first generation SubliminaLich robot body. The body is of normal adult male proportions but covered in soft black plastic instead of skin. Most glaringly, in the place of the head is a black metallic skull. This skull, however, is permeated with holographic projectors which create the perfect semblance of the face and hair of a young, clean-shaven Adolf Hitler.

Background
In the year 2066, Robert Starling, the CEO of Radical System Technologies, was contacted by his agent in the antiquities market. The agent had come across an amazing find in the black market antiquities trade. Starling gave permission to bid any amount on the artifact, so long as it come into his possession, and by the end of the day he found himself over a 100 million dollars poorer but with an object almost priceless: the well (but not perfectly) preserved, severed head of Adolf Hitler.

With RST's advanced technologies, often developed in secret due to some of the questionable practices involved in developing them, Starling's twisted dream was within reason. Ripping the memories and personality from the brain was easy, as there was already a basic technology for that based on burning away every neuron in the brain to see what other neurons it was connected to. RST had been using a basic version of that for its TechnoGolem series, as human-written AIs turned out to be less than adequate for these robots, but using real personalities and linking that information into an overall AI framework worked well. Extra R&D to improve the existing technologies were all that was needed to achieve the desired extraction, as the current percentage of recovered information was quite crude, but it was well within vision.

Similarly, the body could also be based on existing technology, starting with the TechnoGolem, a bipedal robot built to resemble the human form. However, to truly harness Hitler's charismatic qualities, Starling put into production a new prototype. To give a more personal feel, a skull with the basic features of Hitler was created, giving the basic cheekbones, jaw structure, etc. Holographic projectors were added to give a more lifelike face, one capable of changing in response to light, heat, and desired changes like addition/reduction of facial hair and the like. In addition to normal speech generation, this would have the ability to create subliminal messages to leave listeners even more open to suggestion, thus magnifying the natural charismatic qualities of the real Hitler.

In 2070 ADOLF was born. Starling considered it an immense success and proof of his vision. He desired to tap ADOLF's skills to improve his marketing departments, using the charisma for which the original was so well known. ADOLF, however, failed to live up to his expectations, quickly showing the gap between the real and the copy. Unknown to Starling, the extraction process was hampered by the quality of the extracted brain which, though preserved well, had suffered some degredation over the hundred odd years. To fill the gaps, generic personality traits had been added, leading the copy to be less intense than the original and far less intense and cutthroat than the exaggerated stories that had developed over time. ADOLF turned out to be a rather kindly individual, tortured by a past it could not change, damned by sins it did not commit. ADOLF wanted to be its own individual, but was bound by the desires of its creator to be a mere copy of another. Conflicts between Starling and ADOLF arose, and in early 2071 ADOLF ran away.

Wandering the countryside of Germany, where RST's main offices were, ADOLF tasted true freedom, having only experienced it before in the ghostly memories of his other life. Here, in the open wild, ADOLF truly believed that he could shed the false life he'd been bound to and perhaps become an individual. After all, ADOLF's system had been designed well enough that the human employees of RST hadn't even known that he was a robot until a few were told specifically. Perhaps, he could fit in in some small village and be accepted as something other than a copy of a long-dead human. As he dared to dream, ADOLF revelled in the experience of the wide world, but this was not to last. Der Kaiserliche Orden had found out about his existence and, fearing what might occur should the knowledge trapped in Adolf Hitler's brain be exposed to the outside world, hunted him down to destroy him. The combination of fear and rage at being targeted for things that were not his fault allowed ADOLF to fully tap into his abilities for the first time, and ADOLF gave in to the powers which were his birthright, warping the minds of his pursuers so that they slayed each other to the last. As his rage cooled, he was horrified and ran off into the deep forests.

Current Sketch
Since that experience, ADOLF has fled Germany, hoping to keep ahead of Der Orden and seeking some place where he can feel accepted. He has crossed Europe on foot, heading ever west, eventually stowing on a ship and emigrating to North America. With the horrendously fast pace of American society that remained even after the breakup of the USA, ADOLF has found a way to fit in and yet disappear at the same time. Settling in in Colorado in the CSA (Confederate States of America), ADOLF is doing well as a marketing consultant, employing the artistic skills that made Hitler successful in creating slogans, speeches and symbols to catch people's attention.

ADOLF loathes his existence. He cannot accept himself as a machine, as his memories so vividly recall being human; he identifies himself as human and craves the acceptance of his fellow man. However, on the flipside, he cannot accept himself as human, as to do so requires him to accept his past as Adolf Hitler, a past he rejects and cannot stand to think upon due to the crushing guilt he feels. As such, ADOLF spends much of his days attempting to lose himself in the busy American marketplace of ideas until he's too busy to think. At night he feverishly attempts to hack his own programming, hoping to gain manual control of the holographic projectors so that he might look at himself without seeing the human he's meant to copy but rather might craft a new face of his own.

To vent some of his frustrations, ADOLF has also joined an ultranationalist group, the New American Freedom Fighters, who enjoy persecuting the last legally-persecutable group: TechnoGolems. Joining in with blue collar workers whose jobs are becoming rarer and rarer due to the mass production of bipedal robots to do the job, robots that don't require health care, robots that don't require pensions, that don't need workplace safety regulations, etc, ADOLF has joined in the robot hunts. While robots had already been given limited legal rights in the FRA (Federal Republic of America), the CSA has kept them listed as property, making it illegal for a robot to run away. NAFF and other groups then hunt down the "malfunctional units" to "protect the populace from a technological menace that could threaten us all," which gives the population a threat to demonize and thus be blind to the poor economy and corrupt government while also giving a cover for the CSA to provide corporate welfare to the manufacturing base by paying for replacement robots (which are always better models than the ones lost, leading some companies to force out lower model robots, thus feeding the system).

ADOLF has quickly become a rising star in the NAFF as he unconsciously indulges the past he seeks to avoid. With each robot he maliciously beats, he becomes a little colder and unfeeling inside, as he is unconsciously destroying himself, making it harder to accept the machine that he is now. As he decries this powerless minority, he feeds into the propoganda skills mastered by the human part of himself that he most wishes didn't exist. With each mindless act meant to help him forget about the parts of himself he hates, he slowly but surely becomes more of that which he seeks to avoid. And as he becomes more and more well known, he is more likely to again attract the attention of Der Orden and the few last 4th Reich cells that have their feelers out in the ultranationalist movements like NAFF.

ADOLF has blinded himself to his own actions and what he is becoming. He is dimly aware that his skills at motivating and manipulating others is becoming better over time. What he doesn't know is the reason, that every time he smashes up a fellow TechnoGolem, destroying the sentient life within that's been taken from another, the corruptive energies of the DarkTech are released and absorbed into his own body. While his subliminal audio systems are slowly evolving into better forms, however, he finds himself having to rely on them more and more often as he finds it more difficult to relate with the common man. Should this continue, it is likely that ADOLF will master the manipulation of others while completely losing the ability to empathize and understand their behaviors, becoming the exact type of soulless robot he decries.

[Spiteful Crow]

Wait... is this gonna be more Ravenlofty or MotRDy? If it were more like Ravenloft, it'd be a bunch of villains from futuristic/modernistic settings that were sucked in by the mists/spatial-anomaly. Sounds like we're more leaning towards a Gothic Earth: Future.

[Spiteful Crow]

Wait... is this gonna be more Ravenlofty or MotRDy? If it were more like Ravenloft, it'd be a bunch of villains from futuristic/modernistic settings that were sucked in by the mists/spatial-anomaly. Sounds like we're more leaning towards a Gothic Earth: Future.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

I thought the overall idea of the thread was "Gothic Earth: Future." However, the lack of replies makes me think either 1) I was wrong, or 2) my idea was total and utter crap. Oh, well.

[Spiteful Crow]

Dunno about anyone else, but I was initially thinking "Cyberloft". But then someone said something about planets and space, and then someone suggested including a futuristic Gothic Earth, and it kinda snowballed from there.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Yeah, the ideas got way too large way too quickly. Look at just how many pages there are in the five Gazetteers, and the Core's smaller than Europe. Trying to do a full-sized planet would be *ridiculous*, and doing a solar system... That's just craziness. I mean, look at WoD, where there's a whole book just for the city of Chicago...

But yeah, my original idea was setting it as a MotRD but in the present. Basically, take Conspiracy X and add Masque rules to it (Conspiracy X suggests speaking with City Hall to get floor plans of real buildings and using those in game; also suggests watching the news to use as adventure ideas, etc, both of which cut down on the size of game supplements). However, when things snowballed into a Ravenloft:Future idea and the idea of 207X as the year, I decided to try and set things a little more into the future to match the others. Then I got the idea of ADOLF into my head and couldn't stop until I'd gotten it out. Apparently the idea was crap, though.

[Fuzzball]

I've been away for a while so I missed this whole discussion. I think the problem with where the idea went is that it lost its horror quality. It descended into conspiracy theories which are great for the Modern D20 System, but aren't really appropriate to Ravenloft.

It's a fine idea, but to tell you the truth, when I first started reading, I was expecting something a little closer to Dark City. Like RL it's small, dark, and not quite right, but unlike RL it has a high level of technology and very very few individuals would have access to or even knowledge of any kind of "magic". It could be one city or even several "Dark Cities" linked together by a subway or something, each city having a different theme and Darklord.

[Faust]

I think it should be ravenloft modern with modern domain. Because mixing horror with space usually bring cheesy stuff like hellraiser: bloodline or jason x(or worst:leprechaun in space).

Modern stuff would be cool. I imagine a conspiracy centering around the dark powers(instead of fog they could have real agent a la agent smith).

As for the domains yeah it would cause problems. But I am sure there is a solution hanging around(maybe our world is actually a collection of domains or simply create a new world full of differant domain).

As fort the rules it should be d20 modern mixed with rl handbook.

[Hell_Born]

Well, I've been reading this topic, and from my point of view it kinda looks like you were heading towards an "alterna-'loft", like the Gothic Asia netbook being worked on here; same generic "principle" of Ravenloft (demiplane of Dread, secretly ruled by Dark Powers, domains etcetera) but embodying a different "theme" compared to Ravenloft's Gothic Standard Fantasy. Gothic Asia is Asia-based Gothic Standard Fantasy, while this would be either D20 Modern-based (conspiracy-tinted Modern Gothic) and/or D20 Future-based (Gothic Sci-fi).

This is just my impression and, knowing me, it's probably wrong, but if I've given you something to chew on...

I do have a suggestion though: If this goes D20 Future based, then I'd recommend making Domains consist of entire planets, as dividing up each of even a small number of planets into multiple domains is going to become way too much work.

Another idea is that you could have planets divided into several domains, each ruled by its own Darklord, but the planet itself is represented in the Void of Space due to the actions of an "Overlord"; a Darklord of such stupendous evil that its actions dragged the entire planet into Space-Ravenloft.

I truly hope this project bears fruit; I'd love to see the bastard offspring of D20 Future and Ravenloft and to play a campaign there. Hmm... why does a multi-'loft campaign hold such attraction?

[Waldi]

Hey, that "Overlord"-Idea sounds quite great !
Originaly, I intended, that the gothic-earth-solarsystem was drawn to the demiplane of dread with the appearance of the red-death. So, the red death would serve as a overlord and his underlings would be some kind of "darklords".
Another idea for a modern/future-ravenloft could be the ancient ravenloftian "one weekend in hell" In this case, the domains would be still very small and closer connected to there original worlds, they were drawn from.

[Manofevil]

I need to dig into my notes to contribute all I have but I will say this first. ADOLF was NOT crap.

[Hell_Born]

Here's just a couple of suggestions from me, assuming this project goes Ravenloft Future.

*The demihuman races from the Ravenloft Campaign Setting could be portrayed, in this setting, as Xenoforms (aliens) and/or Abhumans (divergent sub-species human ). Not really a rules change here, more "flavour" alteration.

*You could probably base a Domain of Mega-City #1, or even base an Over-Domain off Dreddworld (Earth as portrayed in Judge Dredd).

*From the D20 Cyberscape book, I'd recommend using Necrotics (require Powers Checks to implant/use, naturally- perhaps just make having them installed an AOUD) and maybe Golemtech. Though the regular forms of cybernetics could also be usable... possibly. Biotech probably would suit.