u/lil-cheetah

So, I am here thinking: I kept DMing for years, placing characters from the USSR into my games;, and now I was thinking, well, heck, why not move the entire next setting into Soviet Russia?

Do you know of any ideas for formats I could use as inspiration, both for homebrew gameplay mechanics and story ideas? I am very familiar with DND 5th, have no idea if 5.5 would work; I know a few other games, Blades in the Dark and Cyberpunk, that could be somewhat adapted. But still DND feels like the most applicable to what would be a world exploration and lighthearted campaign. I mean, one idea that is popping into my head is fusing a slav-flavoured dark magic world, an impending demon apocalypse in the style of a Secret War episode from Love, Death and Robots and a general steampunk treatment of technology. With the Germans at the border, and the destiny of the Revolution in their hands, why not, right? Please criticise me, offer insights, help me out! Can the USSR flavour survive all these other elements? How do I make that one pop?

I just found out that there is a foundation, co-founded by Brian Eno (just how many things can this guy be up to?), that is building, actively, a clock designed to last 10 000 years, to precisely track the passing of time and survive any downfall of civilisation. It is designed to survive earthquakes and to be repaired with iron age tools.

I mean I don't understand why Icarium builds his stuff yet I am looking forward to either get mind-blown or more likely cry my eyes out (or both?). I'm only halfway through the books but the liveliness of the thousands of years of history of the Malazan world is one of my favourite parts of it, and thinking that we might start to think on that time scale as a civilisation is one of the greatest "ah maybe we are not all fucked" moments I had.

It is unbelivably cool to find traces of these fantasy ideas in reality and I just wanted to share this here, thought it might be interesting!