Traveler the Stream

This page is for the fan-made nWoD supplement, Traveler: the Stream - a Storytelling game of Temporal Displacement.

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.

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Character Creation

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