Game Concept/Campaign Setting — Metamorphosis Gamma

This is an idea in flux, as I hop between making a quick and easy custom ttRPG system for it, or applying campaign hacks I have already done extensive work on to make it a Starfinder-compatible setting. But for now, here’s part one of the core concept for it.

(Art by liuzishan)

Metamorphosis Gamma (Part One)

The Stellar Ark is vast, and has traveled for centuries. No one knows exactly how long, as historical notes (no matter how they are kept, with the sole exception of those scribed on the living flesh of sapient creatues) degrade with shocking speed (rarely outlasting the historians that create them). Nor does anyone know the true extent of its size it is, as the interior is broken into Zones, and each Zone is firewalled from all others by the Bulwarks which cannot be breached by any technology or power available to those inside. The creators, purpose, location, and destination of the Stellar Ark are similarly lost to time, if they were ever known to the inhabitants.

Further, each Zone has a Baseline, an established norm of that specific Zone, which includes a standard aesthetic, language, level of technology, and level of psionic energy. The System, which is never seen and not understood, rebuilds things to better match a zone’s Baseline (normally, but not always, a slow and gradual process). Thus histories, theories, philosophies, and even knowledge of the Stellar Ark’s existence are all molded to match the Baseline of the Zones within which they are developed or kept. Word of mouth can work around such Baselines, but of course is subject to the “game of telephone” effect as ideas are repeated over-and-over by different people.

Many dwellers within the Ark don’t even realize they are in a massive vessel hurtling at relativistic speeds through the void of space, especially those in Zones with low technological Baselines. Many think themselves in cavern systems established to survive an apocalypse on the surface of their homeworld, others that the gods folded the world inside out and the right chant of appeasement or sacrifice will again reveal the sky. And, of course, some residents of the Ark create their own stories not to seek or preserve the truth, but to craft narratives that justify their own actions and quests for power.

Between the invisible hand of the System and the impenetrable borders of the Bulwarks, most Zones exist in a state of large-scale stability. Skirmishes and political strife and the Baseline threats of a Zone may make life for those within it nasty, brutish, or short, but the culture of a Zone itself is generally resistant to change. But according to vague oral histories, three times over the centuries a Bulwark has opened… or fallen, as though to some massive glitch. These are the three great moments of Metamorphosis, when two or more Zones have come into contact. The first Metamorphosis was so long ago, no one knows exactly what happened. Even Metamorphosis Beta is far enough back no living creature has ever spoken to a creature that was present for it – grandmother’s grandmothers say it was before their time. But the most recent opening of a Bulwark, the Metamorphosis Gamma? It was just 10 years ago, and led to the Gamma War, which has faded into a cold detante, at least for now.

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