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Greetings.

I am a GM, looking for players probably in the Nottingham region.

I have been GMing for about 30 years (making me old enough to know better).

I run GURPS as my focus wanders too far for me to be willing to hold four or five systems in mind. I run

It has long been my habit to make pitches to my players over what I have in mind at the moment.

So, even before I have a table, or a 'Big Meet' place, I thought I'd post some.

badgerblue

Primarchs: Harrowed Land

The Primarchs ruled from the Sacred Cities by the will of the gods, the empire blossomed and man prospered.

Then the manaclysm happened.

Magic broke like a stormy sky and the world went mad, from animals to weather. The Harrowing came. Animals became monsters, herds died, the land went barren – and then strange, sometimes just different, and sometimes simply malign. New folk walk the land.

The empire shattered and civilisation almost died.

Now – 20 long generations later - the few survivors of the sacred cities are trying to rebuild.

Today, half the Moravon (‘Great River’) valley is rippled by the Harrowing, the river delta is a chaos of swamps and small water ways, the Satai Hills, the manufacturing heart of the empire are now Fallow and Harrow-wracked. The once-verdant prefecture of Ahlium is a drained dustbowl where more than half the life is underground. The plateau country of the Highline is splintered into squabbling tribes who cling to the honour code of their Legion forefathers. The western forests are peopled by beasts that walk like men.

The River People dive for the ruins of the old world and produce glass sintered with magic.

The Riding Peoples of the sea of grass can now get inside their animals heads.

Their ceros ceratopsians make for the core of caravans that orbit the Sea of Grass: crossing the Ahlium plain and traversing the Moravon valley to the Lakelands, then following the Estal river into the Vale of Stars and south the roof of the Ahluim and the Scarplands.

Ride your longclaw into battle with crysteel sabre and springgun at hand against the forces of the Harrowing…
Or examine the terrible dark power the Harrowing offers…
Perhaps learn the truth behind the Manaclysm and find the Primarchs.

Dark High Fantasy

''Gelar of the Red Valley people whipped her chete back to high guard and snarled a guttural curse against the foe’s ancestors. The spittle speckling her face took all beauty and made her features harsh in the flames of her fury.
Ghos Idam, Maker of the Metal Temple, felt the fear sweat congealing on his brow as the foe grew too close to flee. He spread hands and checked his powerball spell’s integrity. The steel rod in his hands started to glow as its charge grew.
Kilo Mar, native to the Fallow Hills saw the foe for what it was and took a strong guard – his shield was cracked and his corselet rent but his kinsmen had fought the foe for 20 generations. He didn’t have it in him to run.
Iaigo of the Running People glanced at his arrow bag and picked by colour. The swan fletched arrow held a white managlass pile that glittered icily as he drew the bulbous velope hornbow back to his ear
The Harrowed Men will send their ‘pets’ first, thought Pelliane, and the Walker of the Open Temple murmured wards on his friends, his oh so young friends. He looked over his shoulder, behind them cowered 40 refugees, mostly children and women.
Tonight the Band of the Hand will show their quality once more, he thought as the leprous glow of the Corpselights came through the door

Arno Bialik dropped back behind the guard-board and dropped his springgun butt to the floor; he braced the pipe against his chest and pushed the pump-lever away and downwards again and again to tension the spring. The ratchet click-clicked as it racked the boltcarrier further back. Eight steel pile quarrels, each two feet long and thick as his thumb sat in a bamboo pullrack on the guard board. Bialik noted the scratch on the pile of one, where the quarrel had hit something hard while going real fast. He wondered if it had been pried out of somebody. They would easily go through a man.
A thrum resonated overhead and another arrow from the Riding People raider snapped into existence in the back board behind him. In moments three more followed loosely spaced along where he might stand.
Bialik looked at Gino, ten feet away, lying down over his springgun with one of those arrows running through his helmetless head.
Arrows can go through a man too he thought ruefully and heard the double click of the boltcarrier locking back. He seated a bolt and hefted the spring gun… and paused to check his helmet chinstrap.''

Diaspora: Azalea

Man was taken from earth millennia ago, by a race of telepathic alien feudal lordlings with vastly advanced biological technology.
A millennium later, man was a family of races and the Masters were Living Gods.
A millennium after that, the Masters enemies returned and freed man, doing so they broke the Master’s hegemony.
A millennium after that, Man is ruling himself…
Welcome to Sivasys (that’s Siva system) 2 colonies were built on world once Mastered by House Yskosp. They were originally built by rival stellar polities with the intention to exploit the systems resources – especially the atmosphere bearing moons of the system gas-super-giant Kali. Both polities are defunct from civil war and natural disaster
Brahma, the habitable world on the inner edge of the system’s lifebelt is a large rocky world ringed with a baking hot desert. The two colonies were placed in the temperate polar regions to the north and south. Today – 900 years later, after several major wars they two colonies have splintered into 5 states in the north and 7 states in the south. They are known as the Northern Block and Southern Block.
A few independent settlements sit in the desert, where it would be too expensive to gain ground as the opposing Block would see it as an incursion.
The Belt has been flooded with expatriates from Brahma after the last war – political and economic refugees.
Now the Blocks fight their war by proxy in the moons of Kali.
The 100 or so colonies and statelets in the Moons of Kali are being compelled to choose a side: Northern Bloc or Southern Bloc. Some have, in response formed their own Block.
Now, added to the fun, the nearest Stellar polities have had a little war, and the losers need somewhere to hide…

textFirefly... kinda.

Awaits Colour Pieces

Diaspora: Servants of Devils

The Lords came and stripped man from the last world and brought him here, to the endless crisp beauty of the Azalea Cluster. 1000 systems bound together by Gates built over the Stars themselves. They brought the race to its potential; making man into many.

Serve your House in intrigues against others, to raise your Lord’s status in the House, or your House’s status in the Domination. Know your place in a static polity that has prospered for half a million years

Be Starcaste: a Houseling; and chosen by the Lords to be bred for your specific talent or attribute, or a Made and build from scratch to serve a purpose, or survive an environment that the gods made too extreme for man unaided.
Be Landcaste; born to whatever the Lords and the Houses have allowed on your world.
Or perhaps that growing morass of the Freeborn; born with any mess of talent or advantage fate allows.

Travel from the living orbital islands the Lords dwell in to the chasm cities of Narek; the kilometre tall Skyrapers of the TJanko; to Starhome.
Ride the living winds of Raiden.
Listen to with the singing fish of Guiroc
Seek council amongst the Hiver moundcities.
Jam bitec/ortec items to make you stronger; or faster; or smarter; or able to read minds; or to fly.
Sail with the cometgypsies out past the system Oort Cloud and into the Between.
Run guns to beleaguered rebels fighting House oppression.
Spy in Starhome against the Lords own seers.
Battle the wargasm infected zombies in an outbreak.
Face the enemy with sword and blaster, or wardrug gland and toxin spiracule.

Space Opera

''Naro whirled his field blade in a circle, crashing against the blades in the sim’s hands. It kicked off his leading leg and span away, taking a programmed low stance, with paired blades held apart and wide. The old scrolls called the stance ‘the picador’. The bioroid figure’s bare, featureless face was as expressionless as a doll.
Naro loosened his shoulders with a shrug-like twitch and swung the blade up to a middle guard. Two blades against one is never a happy balance… lets see how well he had been programmed. He swept forwards with a series of figure-eight whirls…

Challis struggled to keep the pinnace steady as he sought to hit the Joyous Light of Dawn’s docking web at an angle that wouldn’t smash the cargo into his cockpit. Guita Shipwife, merged with the living vessel chorused directions on the affinity band.
Behind him the armed skippers flitted back and forth as they tried to interdict his escape with stasis projectors. Their limited sensor packages had no chance to see thru a gunbirds cloak. It would be a serious surprise to them when the Dawn appeared.
“This isn’t a robbery, its a f******!” snarled the quaddie as he worked controls with all four hands…

Kilo threw himself flat on the globoard and the oh-so tiny ellipse of memory metal slipped through the gap bare decimetres above his brushy hair. He pushed the boards thrusters to plus five and heard the powerpack moan with effort as he sped onwards.
Tucked under his tunic was the datachip, but he had less than 100 beats to get from this tower cluster to Terem. To rescue Illaundra from the Moro crims that held her against his skills.
In the other tunic pocket was a loaded pulse pistol, in case he was late…

Pulse guns whined and round slapped into the transit crates with dull thuds.
Pilon and Vreel waddled along the end of a line of boxes and let the moro bandits blaze away at where they thought the two regulators had hidden. Vreels Imagos had often lent themselves to making the enemy think something other than the truth. Pilon checked chamber on his Bosco pulse pistols and set the weapons to rapid fire. The magazine lights both showed amber. He’d have enough rounds left.
Vreel’s cluster gun chunked as he cocked it over a fresh drum. He rolled a sensor ball out from behind their cover and waited a moment before taping his vambrace for the display. The holo-image of the bandits was grainy as the crappy lo-band sensors gave limited detail.
Four dogs … all facing away from them.
Four gestures and the two regulators had a plan. They crept into view behind the moros.
Pilon breathed in and filled his lungs with the polluted air this deep in Nareks chasms.
“Fill your fists you sonsa-bitches!”

The bursting lava flowed over the ruined city as the orbiting Dreadnaughts effectors tore at the landscape with gigantic, all too tangible, EM hands.
Teela and Vasco shied nervously as the splashes of molten rock landed closer and closer. The two Ironcaste bodyguards wore flexarmour and field generators. They would be ok unless they actually fell into the lava… or a pyroclastic flow swept them down. Lord Iriual wore only robes and a day body that would certainly die.
The Ironcaste scanned for more of the Pyrrian Regulators that had killed the other 8 members of the sibko security detachment. Both held their pulse rifles tightly. The lava grew closer.
‘Hmm’ murmured Lord Iriual.
“Master?” said Teela, thinking he spoke to her.
The latest surge blew lava half a kilometre into the air and the pyroclastic flow began.
Vasco’s eyes were huge as he turned to Teela.
Lord Iriual nodded and replied to his guards implied question.
The lava flow accelerated as the effectors kept it from cooling. Teela’s sensor band clocked it at 80Km/h.
“I am safe, I have Spoken to a Ship” Lord Iriual intoned.
Teela and Vasco’s tension lowered. Teela dragged the Lord away from the direct flow of the lava and he smiled indulgently and let her lead him.
“When I am installed in another body, I will have you placed in a new one too, Teela, I find your persona most pleasing.”
Teela blanched – Iriual had uploaded himself to a shipheart and let them all die.
Vasco hadn’t heard… she looked at her little brother and checked her rifle. I can at least give him some relief…''

Fantasy WW1: Pandoria

The Elves have ruled the centre of Pandoria for millennia, and ruled man for much of that time. But Dwarven technology has brought man a way to face magic and most of the coastal regions have prospered and risen past they fears to new heights of enlightenment. Many of their daughter states are ruled by elves and see ties to the empire.

Travels to new lands lead to empire, but empires mostly fell as squabbling at home and the ever-present threat of the Empire thundered away.

Then the Empire conquered the Orc Horde…

The Kurgan states and the mechanical heart land of the Durmveldt fell in a few weeks. In a generation the Empire went from steam to oil and on to a new phase of expansion. The coastal states and the islander realms squabble over what to do
The Western Alliance is forming slowly, lead by half-feared Albion and noble Aquitaine and backed by the United States of Columbia. For the first time steam and magic battle each other in the machine city of Karlingrad to save the last of the Kurgan kingdoms for the empire and perhaps stop a global war.

So as a volunteer: come fight the orc stormtroopers and their master race officers; with rifle and bayonet; with new-fangled reciprocator; as a steam-hoplite rider; or as crewman of a leviathan.

Or perhaps with magic in your heart and a trusty sabre at your hip – to show the younger races that not all Alfaren are malign.

Steampunk Fantasy

''“Over the Hills and far away” sung the soldiers in green with the long Bradfield rifles on their shoulders, as they marched up the gangplank onto the Airliner ‘Terpsichore’
Captain Lord Isadore MaCullah, 2nd Company, 3rd Marines division eyed them somewhat derisively. Virgins, new minted squaddies set for the front. He hefted his briefcase and nodded to his man, Guido. The goblin turned his eye patch on his officer and tapped his cap.
“After you, m’lord”
“Are the Lads embarked?” Isadore’s soft voice belied the strength the gentleman could wield it with.
“Oh yes sir!” said Guido with a snaggle-toothed grin. No matter how hard he tried to straighten up the floppy goblin would always look sloppy. But since Lord Isadore brought him back from the siege of Radua, the floppy goblin with the ridiculously fake name ‘Guido’ had been his shadow.
Isadore tucked his wand into its frog on his belt next to his Dwarven reciprocator pistol and went up the gangplank.
The lads he spoke of were officially ‘Forwards Operations Analysis Group No.3’ a less likely looking group of code analysts you’d never see – from Sergeant Nail Taylor, whose ogre blood showed in every line of his hulking body, to Corporal Peter Jamison with the very unofficial pump-action trenchgun and bandolier of shells, to Pvts 2nd Class G. Ennis and J. Hook – a more murderous pair of cutthroats you’d never think to see. Not to mention the pale robed figure of Alia, or the dwarf mechanician Standard Garek and indeed, Guido.

Bradfield forestock cracked against the Imperial rifle butt, knocking it aside as Lance Cpl Bains, Wm. crashed into the Stormtrooper and blocked his blow. With the response conditioned from hours of shouting he drew the rifle back and thrust hard with the bayonet. Wool and leather parted and the orc bellowed as more than a foot of steel slid into his stomach.
Pvt. West, N. worked his bolt and chambered another round as three orcs rushed them from the end of the trench, running over the fourth member of their squad.
Pvt Jones, T. fired and missed then brought his bayoneted Bradfield down to a guard.
Sgt. Black, A. struggled with the mechanism of his reciprocating carbine with an urgent curse.
Cpt Harrison, Q. lowered his revolver to his lap as his strength finally went out through the bullet wound in his stomach.
And Major Beauchamps, P. swept his sabre down to meet the Imperial Strike Kommondant’s blade and cut fast at his head.
The two elf officers fenced amid the gunfight, confident that no bullet would hit one of them while their magic held. And equally confident that the sword either held would cut thru any wards prepared by their opponents.

The side of the Leviathan was still warm to the touch as Standard Huron examined where the imperial anti-armour rocket had hit.
He stood in the shadow of the metal monster, where the hull was turned against the enemy position. He could hear the steam powered multi-barrel machinegun’s canvas tear from the sponson turret on the other flank. Its mate on this side bobbed from side to side as the gunner strove to cover the dwarf’s inspection.
Thirty yards away a Steamknight lay on its back, one leg, backwards jointed like a dog, stuck up in the air, the foot blown off perhaps by a rocket or cannon, but Huron felt a mine was more likely.
Very agile, Steamknights, but not so tough when hurt. Not like his baby!
He patted the flank of the leviathan and fingered the scar where the penetrator had ripped along the side of the armour.
The entire crew had gone deaf for several moments as the plate rang with the impact, so it fell to Huron to check, but the track was unharmed and the nearest road wheel undamaged. Huron slung his wrench and pepperbox shotgun and trotted to the ladder.
Inside he sealed the hatch and grabbed the speaking tube.
One hard blow and ‘Captain – Huron: all clear; go, go, go!’
The squeaky voice of Captain Ian Coleridge, 1st Albion Armoured Cavalry echoed back with the burr of his Hibernian accent
‘Confirmed Mr Huron, Bridge out!’
With a hiss and a welter of steam the Land Leviathan Mk.IX, ‘Mr Sandman’ to its crew, moved out.''

Drowned London

After a Cometary Impact in 2046 the world crumbled. The hopes of the future were at once both destroyed and released from restrictions. The sea level rose 5m globally. Many coastal cities were prepared and made radical water defences in the form of walls, berms of engineered coral and lagoons.
After Splash Day the die-off was stunning for the first world. A two year winter swept the world after three months of rain. The human population dropped from nine billion in 2045 to an estimated four billion by 2055. While the majority of this was due to destruction effects and famine, many regions suffered far ranging wars. Most polities have changed shape as the old-world governments failed to successfully deal with the needs of the people in the Splash Years.
The game starts in 2096, and is set in the London of this time.
This London is a Corporate Charter City and is no-longer part of England. England is no longer the shape it was as the Republic of Yorkshire and Northumberland struggles to hold the north. Wales is still wild. Scotland is a Communist Republic that struggles with enemies on all sides. The Irish Republic is dealing with a new religious war between Catholics and Wiccans
The European Union struggles on – as the European Alliance of Nation states (EURAN) - but after the Treaty of Vienna 2070, its member’s now number sixty-nine, varying from single city-states to entire regions. Of the old nations, only Switzerland remains in its modern form.
After terrorism collapsed the L’Orruchi Wall much of northern Italy was laid waste by flooding.
War ravaged Berlin, Birmingham, Bristol, Cairo, Lisbon, Nice, Paris, Oslo, Rouen, and .
Ajaccio, Belfast, Dundee, Hamburg, Lyon, Manchester, Milan, Moscow, Sofia, Tel Aviv, Tripoli and Warsaw all vanished in nuclear fireballs during the Splash years.
London is made of four parts – Northside, the boroughs protected by North Wall; Southwark, the boroughs and Arcologies protected by the South Wall; London Island, which we know as Docklands; and London/Venice, the floating shanties built between the walls on ruined buildings are parked refugee Arks.
Minifacturing saved the world – single job factories of robotic machine tools that fit into shipping containers from autoCAD terminal to output hoppers. All you need is a datacard loaded with the program to describe the item you want and the right amount of the needed materials and you can get anything.
Technology is a perverse mixture of 1900-2100.
And Man is no longer alone, between genetically modified animals, tank grown speciality humanoids and the wonders of AI; it’s becoming a crowded world once more.

Post-Cyberpunk adventure.