Traveler/Introduction

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Introduction

Time. God dammit. Don't talk to me about time.

I doubt you've seen what I've seen. In fact, I'm sure. I've been places you wouldn't believe, done things you've only ever read about. I was there when Caesar was felled. I was there when the Empire rose. I was there at the invention of gunpowder, the discovery of the Daniels-Calviner Effect. I saw the moon die, like a lightbulb burns out. And now I'm sitting in a cafe, drinking coffee that tastes like you pissed in it.

I was born when the nation was still young and I grew up against a fledgling society. I was rich, young, powerful… I had friends in high places. I knew artists, circus freaks, scientists... one guy swore he was onto something, gave me a metal door bolted to the wall covered in gears and embossed script. I said what the hell, sure. I fiddled with the dial, pulled the switch. And what happened? I had this glimpse of… of-- of movement-- I was in this place like blue fire and blurs in the distance, and men who stared at me like they were snakes, not snakes, monsters shaped like men--

And I woke up and I knew what a car was. Do you understand me? I was raised before Henry Ford was a gleam in anyone's eye. I was raised in a world where the horse was it. And I woke up knowing what a car was, what a 401k was and how to manage it, what stocks were, how to work computers, phones… I had a perfectly clear memory from the year I was born, 1978, to the present date. And I had an equally clear memory of being born in 1784, yeah, that's right, seventeen-eighty-god-damned-four, and leading up to that door. And the antique doorknob, apparently a prized heirloom. So what do I do? I sit at my desk and I do taxes with sums that are completely ridiculous- huge dollar values, hundreds for a single meal- and that are reasonable and moderate. I eat food that wouldn't go to a horse. I eat takeout curry, which is what I have every Thursday night. I know that, and I know that it's dishonest heathen food, and I know those things are contradictory and I hate myself for knowing them both. For a while I thought I was going crazy.

One day I woke up and the portrait on the wall had changed. It had been a New Yorker cover. Now it was this minutely detailed little piece of parchment, cranked out meticulously by a hand press, with a political cartoon about King George. No sign of the old thing. I panicked. I almost burnt it. I reconsidered. I keep it in my pocket now.

I took the doorknob off my desk, recognized the design. The little dial on the top with a list of dates and titles- "The Creation", "The Nation's Founding", everything. I turned it back to where I had come from in the first place, turned it in the air and vanished through blackness, the sensation of falling. I went home.

What did I find? Happy strangers. Nobody knew who I was. Nobody was even remotely aware that I was gone. My position and my company had vanished. My parents had never had children. I left. For a while I just… drifted. Visited everywhere I could find in my books of Classics. Talked to a few famous figures. Saw a future, the stars up close to my face, held in my hands. And I snapped back.

I was young and rich and I owned the New World, and here I am drinking lattes in a cafe. And a year ago I didn't know what either of those words meant.

Hell. Keep the change. Yes, the coins are old stuff. Not modern quarters. Keep them anyway. Probably worth a mint.

A Game Of Temporal Displacement

Time travel is risky business. And when you time travel- when you Jump for the first time- you are fighting the Stream that is time itself. Most people burn up, pushing against the flow or moving too fast. Some manage to survive, but lose their temporal anchorage; they fall through time like the Rabbit Hole, move from era to era without comprehension or meaning and lose their senses of time and self. But some manage to hold on. Just a few little pieces- the pocket watch, the chalked runes in the dirt at the core of the device, the Tau Drive. They keep the core of their Time Machines, anchoring them to a single time and place- filling their heads with a perfect comprehension of the era of arrival, pressing them down like a lead weight on the rubber sheet of Time and distorting everything around them to fit the past. These are the Travelers.

What they learn first is almost invariably that there is no place for them back home. Second, there is no place for them whatsoever. A Traveler can never go back home- not to the home in their memories- but can't leave it behind, because it's snapping at their heels, turning an alarm clock into a pocket watch, a lightbulb into a torch, a new friend into a familiar-seeming stranger. A Traveler can move through time, but everything they do makes things worse, and in their travels Time bends and curves around them, forces them out and rips away their ability to remain. Worse, there is the Stream- Time itself, made a place of constant movement and momentum, an endless wave of temporal force constantly pointed Forward, a sea of inertia. Things live in the Stream. Things that want Time ordered and unbroken. Things that hate humanity for its capacity to ruin cause and effect, for wasting time and saving time and most of all for traveling through time.

All of time is open, and none of it wants you. What's next?

What Is A Traveller?

A Traveller is born when a person attempts time travel and succeeds- building a real, bona fide Time Machine. Maybe they unknowingly tapped into a Wellspring, or perhaps another Traveller helped them, knowingly or accidentally. However, their understanding of time is necessarily flawed; the Time Machine simply can't swim against the currents of time and invariably gets destroyed.

But the person, they can survive. Maybe she was good at piloting, or he was lucky and found a calmer patch of the Stream... but they still survived, stranded into an unfamiliar time that, yet, they know as if their own.

Soon, every Traveller finds out that they have no more place in their original time- all their existence was burned up and turned into Aion by the Time Machine to allow Time Travel. They're just another stranger in a familiar land.

A Traveller's power is measured by their Inertia: basically, it's how important they are to the Stream of Time. Every action they take is closely regarded by the forces that control the Stream, and as they grow in power Travellers find out that, for them, there's no such thing as a deed with no consequences. A low Inertia Traveller may be able to steal something or kill someone without changing the Stream too much, but as their Inertia rises forgetting to nail a horseshoe may well lead to the downfall of a great kingdom...

What Is Aion?

Aion is the breath of the Universe, that which keeps the gears of Time turning. Everything which exist in the Linear Plane* just exudes the stuff, burning through their reserves in a self-perpetuating cycle that keeps them anchored to their time. Aion is the fuel of cause and effect, and in turn is created by them existing.

A Traveller has many ways to harvest this precious energy. He may find some each new day when Anchored, a meager payback for the life which was eaten when he came to be a Nomad. Or he may leech some off strangers with subtle acts of manipulation- gratuitous acts of pettiness or kindness may leave some Aion to be syphoned, as Time rearranges itself. Rumor has it that there is a lot to be gained from great acts of pettiness, the greatest of which is also one of the Traveller's heaviest taboo: forcibly sending one of the Settled, the non-Travellers, into the Stream. It is not discussed much, as it puts much strain on the fabric of Time, and It does not like to be toyed with.

A Traveller can also try to tap into a Wellspring- a naturally occurring conglomerate of Aion whose purpose is to allow Time to keep moving- but they shouldn't be greedy with it, or risk heavy consequences...

What Is A Crux?

When the Traveller first attempts to swim against Time, they have a fully functioning Time Machine but no knowledge of how to work it. After their disastrous maiden voyage their vessel is a wreck, good only for scraps. Except for one piece, which still works. Maybe it was a necessary piece, around which everything was built, or the Traveller just held into it, and as the currents of Time changed him so did they change it. That's the Crux.

A Crux can generally only sustain small travels- up to 30 years for Aion spent, capped by Inertia. But a Traveller can and should try to improve this tool, making it better, stronger, more capable to withstand Time.

Now they have the knowledge; can they build back their Time Machine?

Character Creation

Steps 1-4: Concept, Attributes, Skills, Specializations Ho-hum. It's nWoD; you know the drill.

Step 5: Apply Traveler Template A Traveler is no longer entirely human. Part of her- the place where she belongs, the sense of existing concretely- is stripped away by the flows of the Stream. Only her Crux and the power of Aion sustain her in a single place.

ZEITGEIST

-Satya Yuga, or the Nobility (Golden Age): Gregarious, carefree and a bit narcissistic, the Nobility come from times of luxury, wealth and culture. They pay special attention to the capacity of the Crux to support a number of people. An exaggeration of this type can be found in the Eloi. (+1 Capacity; the Nobility can support one extra person with their Crux when Jumping or in the Stream.)

-Philosophes, or Sophists (Silver Age): Intelligent, inquisitive and prideful, the Sophists come from times of intellectual advances, technology and thought. Their Cruxes are designed specifically for the sake of pushing the boundaries of knowledge; they have no need for limitations on the knowledge it grants. (At character creation, choose a Mental skill. Any Traveler who holds the Crux has their Understanding expanded, and can take 9-again on this specific mental skill.)

-Miles, or Soldiers (Bronze Age): Imperial, destructive and focused, the Soldiers are from periods wracked by destruction or war; generally, they participated in some way, and the Distortion of violence feeds into them. Their Cruxes are combat-designed: durable and capable of taking a hit or stray round. Anyone who travels back to assassinate Hitler will probably fit. (Bronze-made Cruxes receive a free point of Durability and Structure at creation.)

-Viandanti, or Seekers (Heroic Age): Obsessive, optimistic and ruthless, Seekers come from transitional periods, when humanity has found a new place or a new world to reach and are making strides toward a new world; their focus is on the world that's ahead, and they put their all into exploration... in more ways than one. Imagine a space colonist or- for that matter- Marty McFly, going somewhere he doesn't understand at all for the sake of going. Anyone who's climbed a mountain because it's there. (A Seeker-made Crux can spend Willpower in lieu of Aion when Jumping, using force of will and the Crux's capabilities to rip Aion from the environment.)

-Proles, or the Oppressed (Iron Age): Downtrodden, heartless and guarded, the Oppressed come from painful, repressive cultures- dystopias, caveman times or ages of war and lifelessness. They design their Cruxes as an escape from the world; it's certainly not intended to ever send them back... though a complete lack of a place to go weighs more heavily than one might think, and in the World of Darkness, there aren't many places that aren't painful. Think Donnie Darko, Morlocks or anyone from 1984. (An Oppressed-made Crux gives a +1 to resisting snap-backs, and extends the time one can remain by one day.)

OUTPOST The Y-splat. Essentially, groups for supporting you in whatever purpose sent you out of your timeline.

Department of Linear Enforcement (Enforcers): Time cops keeping reality from breaking. They catch those who abuse Jumping, both morally and as relates to the timeline, and punish them. They have access to Signal Chronologia for organization of their forces.

Homecoming Society (Recidivists): People trying to go back to their home times; they organize Travelers, support them in need and try to ease their lives. They have access to Reversion Chronologia, returning things back to their natural states.

The Bacchanalia Club (Dionysians): Temporal hedonists using Jumps to live it up- this club of Travelers, full of joie de vivre and desire, uses Liberation Chronologia to keep themselves free and happy.

The Organization for Temporal Samaritans (Saviors): People preventing past catastrophes- people who Jump in order to prevent catastrophes form this loose confederation. To change the past, they utilize Redaction Chronologia.

Interval Archive (Annalists): The Annalists live to understand Aion and compile facts from all of time; each endeavors to understand in his or her own way. They study Aion and the Stream directly via Horology Chronologia.

CRUX

• how to mechanically design the Crux here*