Headcanons about your favorite settings

[AsenRG]

I'm still partial to the fan theory that Firefly is based on Whedon's Traveller campaign, and that several of the characters are actually based off characters from that campaign.

• Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washbourne are ex-army adventurers, maybe rolled up with Book 4.
• Wash is a pilot who never rolled any combat skills.
• Simon Tam is a doctor with a high social standing, as one tends to roll in Supplement 4.
• Jayne is a career criminal rolled up as an other or rogue
• Kaylee Frye was rolled with a low education but had really high mechanical or engineering skills.

I suspect this ain't "headcanon", but "canon the creator doesn't want known"!

This is actually canon.

Demon: The Fallen and Werewolf: The Apocalypse take place in the same world.

And both Demons and Werewolves absolutely know the other side to be completely insane.

Yet both are right.

...how is that "headcanon" and not "in-game reality"?

To clarify, if I don't specify a setting, I referring to about a dozen or so published Mythos/fantasy/sci-fi settings that are part of my combined universe. It would be tedious to mention each of them in every post.

• The Nightmares Underneath setting exists in Lovecraft's Dreamlands
• Millions of years ago, the star-spanning empire of the snake-men collapsed almost overnight after unleashing cosmic forces beyond their control. They terraformed planets to suit their reptilian physiology (hot and dry, hot and humid) and used man and his shambling, ape-like cousins as subjects for sorcerous experimentation. Much like lab rats who escaped captivity and live on after nuclear war, humans remain on many of these planets although most have degenerated into barbarism or worse (ape-men, ogres, morlocks, mutants, etc).

I like those two a whole lot...the first because it explains stuff about the setting in a better way than what I had come up with, and the latter because it's basically what I had used in a S&S setting!

I've always wanted to see a story that frames Bruce Wayne as a sociopathic Billionaire that masquerades as Batman to terrorize the poor and downtrodden. Commenting on how he could be spending his time and money funding Gotham PD or setting up social programs that would deprive the supervillains of their rank and file thugs.

Well, make it harder to obtain those thugs is more like it...
But yeah, I've commented in this sense as well!

 

[CT_Phipps]

[SG-1 and Star Trek]

In the Star Trek universe, the Tok'Ra defeated the Gould and became the Trill before encountering humanity.

The parasites in "Conspiracy" were the last of the G'ould in the Trek universe.

 

[Stumpydave]

Klingons aren't a race, they're a religious/cultural group formed from different branches of Klingonity.
Much like if Earth was made up of Neanderthals, Denisovians and Cromagnons.

That explains the different types of Klingon from TOS, TNG and Disco.

 

[Simon Hogwood]

[SG-1 and Star Trek]

In the Star Trek universe, the Tok'Ra defeated the Gould and became the Trill before encountering humanity.

The parasites in "Conspiracy" were the last of the G'ould in the Trek universe.

The G'ould's attempt to conquer the Klingons didn't go very well, either.

 

[CT_Phipps]

I note the Klingons killed the God of Sha Ka Ree.

 

[Brock Savage]

My head-canon for Castle Xyntillan sets it in Clark Ashton Smith's Averoigne along with Castle Amber.

 

[Dyrnwyn]

In the Lord of the Rings, I like to think that Tom Bombadil is really just an avatar of Nyarlathotep. It really puts a different spin on things.

 

[CT_Phipps]

Batman

+ Bruce Wayne is actually generally considered a bit more respectable than you might think due to the fact his charity efforts have approached Bill Gates levels. He's also considered to be a Right Wing boogeyman due to his anti-gun lobbying. He constantly lobbies for funding for the police, though, despite it being largely wasted by the corrupt inefficient Gotham PD.

+ Gotham City's other billionaires have been looting the city dry for decades, though.

+ Under Commissioner Gordon, only half of the Gotham City police are corrupt, incompetent, and excessively brutal. This is a major improvement from when it was ninety percent.

+ Gotham City has benefited from Batman and Bruce Wayne that it might have otherwise been like Detroit or a failed Rust Belt city but instead has become more like Chicago.

+ Arkham Asylum is essentially a joke and the state keeps sending supervillains there because they are bribed or afraid of sending them into general prison. No one seriously takes the medical diagnoses of the supervillains seriously except, ironically, maybe Batman.

+ The Joker does, in fact, actually employ doubles and imposters as well as have numerous serial killing copycats. He's not lying when he says his past is Multiple Choice since the "Joker" is a franchise.

+ The original died decades ago and was, notably, not really all that funny.

+ Harley has notably dated three separate Jokers and has the same "condition" as the rest of them.

+ The Joker oddly believes Krusty the Clown is a send up of him and strangely will NOT attack Fox studios because he thinks they got his essence. Oddly, the Simpsons never caught on in Gotham City and they instead run a local branch of Unsolved Mysteries. Which DID get them attacked by the Joker.

+ Batman doesn't like to talk about it but he does in fact employ a lot of space age science like Wonder Woman's Purple Healing Ray and Thanagarian anti-grav engines in his technology. This actually prevented Bruce from having to retire a decade ago (he's approaching but never quite reaching 50). He's used it to treat criminals he might have otherwise crippled too, though he'd love to introduce it to the world, he's just not that good at anything other than crime fighting.

+ Amusingly, in the DCU, Bruce Wayne is not accused of failing to use his money properly--he's actually accused of misusing his mind since both Lex Luthor [who figured out Batman's identity quickly but doesn't care] and Ted Kord note that he could be a super-scientist on par with them if he wasn't so monofocused on his nightly activities.

 

[Armchair Gamer]

In the Lord of the Rings, I like to think that Tom Bombadil is really just an avatar of Nyarlathotep. It really puts a different spin on things.

Meanwhile, I'm beginning to think Azathoth is what you get when you catch a glimpse of Lucifer a la Dante and mistake it for God.

 

[Sloth_in_a_bowl]

Fantasy games
One thing that I have used in a couple of games is that there is only one God per race. The human god of darkness and stealth, that's the god of the goblins. The human god of nature and growth, that's the god of the elves.

The worshipers may not be aware that they are all supporting the same pantheon, just in different guises, but the gods are.

WH40K
Real mechanical tech is limited to mid 20th century, there are no computers. What does this mean?
Well all those high tech items are actually magic. The tech priests are trapping spirits in machines and the buttons and levers on those machines bring together sigils that force the spirits into certain actions.
This is why an old device is preferred to a new device, the spirit has learned and got stronger in time. The 500 year old leman Russ tank that stops before a minefield and refuses to go forwards, that's the mark of an old spirit in the machine.

 

[Brock Savage]

WH40K
Real mechanical tech is limited to mid 20th century, there are no computers. What does this mean?
Well all those high tech items are actually magic. The tech priests are trapping spirits in machines and the buttons and levers on those machines bring together sigils that force the spirits into certain actions.
This is why an old device is preferred to a new device, the spirit has learned and got stronger in time. The 500 year old leman Russ tank that stops before a minefield and refuses to go forwards, that's the mark of an old spirit in the machine.

My 40k headcanon is the same as yours if you replace "magic" and "spirits" with "brains". The Age of Strife gave humanity an atavistic fear of AI so cybernetically modified human brains have replaced them.

 

[CT_Phipps]

Firefly headcanon

* This is non-canon but how I prefer it, the Firefly-verse actually takes place in the Sol system. Earth has been destroyed but terraforming technology advanced that artificial planetoids were able to be created during its heyday.

* That super-gravitonic technology is now mostly gone due to the fact that, well, it was based from technology on Earth (that was).

* The conflict over the Browncoats and Alliance isn't as black and white as Mal believes. The Browncoats actually had been motivated by a rich plantation class that had plans to loot the less-developed terraformed worlds for themselves. It was sold as a war for freedom, though.

* When the Browncoats lost, said plantation class immediately swore allegiance to the Alliance. Atherton Wing is an example of these sorts of individuals that basically weathered the war with no issues.

* Slavery is legal in the Verse due to the labor shortage but is wage slavery and the fact corporations can hold generational debt over families.

* There's actually numerous indigenous settlements in the Firefly-verse. Needless to say, they have their own issues.

* While the WIld West is in the Rim territories, plenty of other genres are available on the other planets up to and including cyberpunk as well as Hong Kong cinema.

 

[CT_Phipps]

Prequels

+ The Separatists basically were designed by Palpatine to be the perfect media villains. The reason they had a massive droid army was so that Palpatine could shut it off at will. He also chose the slimiest, nastiest, and most disgusting people imaginable to be his designated villains. Yes, corporate leaders.

+ The original Separatist movement under Dooku was actually designed to get rid of Palpatine's legal challenges in the Senate. After all, once all of the anti-centralized Republic Senators are gone, there's no one opposing the centralization of the Empire.

* The Separatists committed countless atrocities to justify the Republic's massive war spending. Despite this, they still had massive numbers of apologists who would last well into the Galactic Civil War.

+ The Separatists, despite Count Dooku, were primarily alien in nature and helped create the xenophobia that Palpatine relied on.

+ The Separatists were never actually more than about 10% the size of the Republic and were always going to lose due to the difference in the size of their industrial as well as financial basis. Their leadership was well aware of this, though, and had been promised vast power and riches as a result.

Original Trilogy

* The Empire basically functions on funneling massive amounts of wealth from alien and Outer Rim territory worlds to the Core Worlds. All of the slavery, strip mining, and so on is designed to prop up the "base" of the Empire's support and make it feel like they've sold all of the Core World's problems.

* The Empire's High Human Culture thing is actually not as overtly racist as you might think. Aliens are strongly discouraged from the Empire's higher ups and wealth than overtly legislated against (except for slave races) and its propaganda is a lot more subtle about all the awful "savage" races like Tuskens and the "sex obsessed" Twileks. A lot of the movies worst stereotypes is due to the Empire.

* Darth Vader as the only publicly remaining Jedi was actually the subject of numerous novels and publicity works. All of these failed miserably and he was rapidly someone that the galaxy viewed as the "real" evil of the Empire and a source of its corruption.

* Palpatine is believed to have gone senile by the time of ANH and the galaxy believed he wasn't in charge versus the horrible evil ADVISORS and the Moffs. Even some of the Rebellion leadership believed this and that he was a puppet imprisoned in the palace. Leia, who met him as a child, sensed that he was palpable pure evil.

* Palpatine actually groomed the Rebellion for awhile prior to ANH because he hoped it would be an excellent way to drum up support for the Empire's military expansion as well as eventually allow the Senate to be dissolved. While the latter worked, he was greatly annoyed the Rebellion didn't engage in large scale terrorism like he wanted. They had specifically learned from the Separatists.

* The Empire's collapse pretty much happened with Alderaan versus Endor as it was the equivalent of nuking Chicago as far as the galaxy was concerned. It resulted in destroying decades of propaganda and work as well as galactic apathy. Worse, it didn't have the Death Star to instill the fear they expected.

New Trilogy

* The "public" First Order consisted of only eight Sectors and basically was considered the galaxy's equivalent of North Korea. It was considered a "sick man of the galaxy" and basically no one paid it much attention but Leia who sounded insane that it was an existential threat to the Republic.

* Luke's Temple was burned and the students killed by Kylo Ren but his graduated students before did not die and played a role in the Resistance as undercover agents as well as saboteurs.

* Luke's self-hatred and blaming the Force came directly from the fact he felt the force was telling him to kill Kylo Ren. An act he was disgusted by. The thing was, if Luke HADN'T drawn his lightsaber, Kylo Ren would have slaughtered the school anyway as he'd already made plans to join the First Order with Snoke.

* Luke's disdain for his father's lightsaber is directly due to having discovered that his father used it to slaughter children from Ahsoka. It helped make the whole action by Rey feel all the more ridiculous.

* The New Republic failed to rally due to the fact that virtually the entirety of the federal government was on Hosnian Prime at the time. As such, there was no continuity of government that allowed it to be rallied.

* The First Order's catastrophic loss of Starkiller Base and Snoke's flagship meant that it probably would have lost if not for the Emperor's unexpected message. Kylo Ren needed those ships as he'd utterly failed to conquer the galaxy.

 

[Stumpydave]

40k

The Primaris marines are the Adeptus Astartes. They've been kicking around for centuries. The stuff about lost tech is bollocks.

The 'firstborn' models are normal humans in Astartes-style power armour, relying on the reputation of the real space marines to do half of their job for them.

Sisters of Battle are female space marines - same gene tech, different genders.

Orks, grots and squigs are a brainboy weapon to fight the Tyranids. They want biomass? We'll give 'em biomass!

Imperial Guard are typically made up of the worst of the worst, anyone the local planet defs and governors don't want cluttering up their planet.

 

[Eternal Chump]

Warhammer 40K:
The Imperium covers a really large chunk of the galaxy, but it's not all the way out to the Eastern Fringe yet. The Great Crusade is still ongoing, but massively bogged down due to the Horus Heresy. The Emperor is still running around, and he's a psychic gestalt made of a bunch of different people, which means that his personality can be erratic. Primarchs are just the leaders of the space marine legions, and they're not much different to a normal marine. Space Marines are hypno-indoctrinated criminals for the most part, more Sardukar less space knight. Daemons and stuff exist but they're really uncommon and warp storms don't "eat" planets without help from chaos cultists. Chaos is a lot less regimented into only 4 types. Outside Imperial Space, any kind of human civilisation might exist, though most have either had the crap knocked out of them during Old Night or have had to adapt somehow and might be weird in various ways.
Orks are more like Rogue Trader Orks, they are a bioengineered warrior race whose creators died out, but they pretty much know that and exist without angst. They like fighting and serve often as mercenaries, but they're also troublemakers and sometimes unite into huge Waaaghs, but that's not the norm. So you could see Orc mercs working in lots of areas of space alongside humans. The stuff about Ork tech only working because they believe in it is a myth because Tech Priests don't understand Mekboy tech. The ork psychic field is massively toned down.
Eldar are mostly like Dark Eldar. Old Night and the warp catastrophe is their fault, but they don't feel guilty about it at all. They're piratical hedonistic raiders with hyper advanced tech, in terminal decline. There might be a craftword or two of more tightly controlled Eldar out there, but when most people think of Eldar they think of Dark Eldar raiders.
Tyranids are currently invading the galaxy. Their threat level is toned down a bit, their assimilations take a lot longer to carry out, but they're there, slowly eating their way through the galaxy.
Necrons are an ancient AI race that possess intelligent machines. The basic warriors are actually Imperial androids that they've commandeered. The Canoptech stuff is ancient stuff from either their original civilisation or some other civilisation they took over in the past. The existence of the Necrons is why there's a taboo against AI in the setting.
Tau are similar to the base setting, but the pheromone control stuff with the Ethereals is not true. The Ethereals might be a sinister cabal, but the Tau are not all brainwashed. They're just a multi-species coalition trying to make their way in a hostile universe. Kroot and Vespid exist as in the base setting.
Demiurg are space miners like in the base setting. They're a bit like Volus from Mass Effect in that their planets have high gravity and therefore extremely high pressure, so they need to wear pressure suits on human friendly planets or burst like Blobfish brought to the surface of the ocean. Some Demiurg Leagues are allied with the Tau, others are independent or trade with humans.
Minor Xenos exist and you could find all kinds of weird and wacky minor xenos species apart from the main ones.

That's my version, which I think is a lot better for RPG sandbox play. You can start on a non-Imperial human world and meet the Imperium as a potential antagonist or ally later on in the game depending on your outlook, and the various alien races allow for more interesting interactions than "Kill on sight". I was trying to get back to something more like Rogue Trader, while still being able to use all the cool minis and stuff.

 

[chuckdee]

but I am told madness lies down that path.

It's a beautiful madness though.

The Horus Heresy is three pages of story that appeared in Realms of Chaos stretched out into over a hundred novels. If you are so into 40K that you want sixteen chapters on what Magnus decided to order from a restuarant menu two weeks before the Emprah died, then it''s for you.

There's some really good backstory and such in there, so I'll have to disagree.

 

[chuckdee]

The story becomes very different if they'd all gone in with flamethrowers and torched the hive from the beginning.

That wouldn't have happened because the expedition was funded by the company. They didn't want the aliens wiped out. They wanted them verified and contained for their uses.