Torg Eternity Design Team This product was created under license from Writing and Design: , Darrell Ulisses North America. Eternity, its respective Hayhurst, Markus Plötz , Dean Gilbert, Ross logos, as well as Infiniverse, Storm Knight, Stormer, Watson Aysle, Cyberpapacy, Living Land, Orrorsh, Nile Empire, Takta Ker, Tharkold, Maelstrom Bridge, Contributors: Greg Gorden, Jim Ogle, Steve and their respective logos, are trademarks of Kenson, , George Strayton, Henry Lopez, Ulisses North America. The title and contents of Aaron Pavao, Angus Abranson, Steven Marsh, this book are protected under the copyright laws Patrick Kapera, Bill Keyes, John Terra, James of the United States of America. No part of this Knevitt, Jonathan Thompson, Andy Vetromile, publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval Joseph Wolf systems, or transmitted, in any form or by any Art Director: Aaron Acevedo means, without written consent from Ulisses North Graphic Design: Aaron Acevedo, Jason Engle America. This publication includes material that was Apex Predator Team produced by Ulisses North America and/or other Writing: Scott Schomburg authors and which is protected under applicable Graphic Design: Aaron Acevedo, Jason Engle, copyright laws. Use of such material is granted Scott Schomburg under the Community Content Agreement for the INFINIVERSE EXCHANGE. Cover: Scott Schomburg, after Daniel R. Horne All original content in this work is copyright Interior Illustrations: Scott Schomburg 2019 by Scott Schomburg and published under the Community Content Agreement for the INFINIVERSE EXCHANGE.

Torg, The Possibility Wars, and all unique characters, concepts, locations, and creatures are trademarks and / or copyrights of Ulisses North SampleAmerica. All rights reserved. file

1 APEX PREDATOR

INTRODUCTION 4 Timing and Difficulty. 17 Overview. 18 TOONVILLE 6 ACT ONE: BOMBARDMENT 18 World Laws . 6 The Law of Absurdity . 6 Scene One: The Safe House . 18 The Law of Permanence...... 7 Investigate the Crime Scene ...... 20 The Law of Funny. 7 Map Details...... 20 A Stalenger in a Strange Land. 8 Skull Icons. 20 Running a Game in Toonville. 8 First Floor...... 20 Inhabiting a Toonville character. 8 Second Floor . 23 Body Language. 8 Third Floor . 23 Funny Voices and Sound Effects ...... 9 Max. 24 Having a catch phrase. 9 The Apex Cases . 27 The Silent Type. 9 The Banana-nator. 27 A Soundtrack. 9 The Tiny Anvil...... 28 Visuals, Game Aids, and Props...... 9 Can I Interest You in Our Cyberlord?. . . . 28 Theme . 9 Bombshell Appears...... 28 Game Balance and Cosm Cards. 9 Scene Two: Catch Me If You Can...... 29 Cosm Cards . 10 Church Checkpoint...... 29 Adventure Background. 12 Gangers...... 31 The Apartment Feuille de chêne building. 31 THE ADVENTURE BEGINS 12 Scene Three: Art Show. 33 The Adventure’s Nonplayer Characters. 13 Duct Appears. 34 Duct Apex . 13 Cut Scene...... 35 Little Bunny Foo Foo ...... 13 Overview. 36 Rémy Allard, Church Police Streetbeater. 14 ACT TWO: CONFRONTATION 36 Milton . 15 The Cartoon King. 15 Scene One: Welcoming Committee. 36 Duck Apex (the older brother)...... 16 Scene Two: The Dungeon. 38 Adventure Synopsis . 16 The Cartoon King’s Dungeon . 38 Act One. 16 Scene Three: The Palace...... 39 Act Two. 16 Scene Four: Yo Ho, Yo Ho . 39 ActSample Three. 17 Overview. file 42

2 ACT THREE: REALITY CHECK 42 Inhabitants of Toonville Castle. 56 Scene One: The Machines. 42 Cartoon King’s Royal Guard. 56 The Factory Gates . 43 The Cartoon King. 56 Scene Two: Buzzsaws For Hands...... 46 Wild Bunch Gang Member. 56 The Apex Catalog. 47 Inhabitants of Pirate Cove. 56 Danger, Will Robinson!...... 49 Animated Cannonballs . 56 Factory Mayhem Chart ...... 49 Pirates . 56 Stage One...... 49 Inhabitants of Apex Factory. 56 Stage Two...... 49 Guard-bots . 56 Stage Three. 50 Milton . 57 Finding the Laboratory ...... 50 Worker-bots ...... 57 Scene Three: The Dreamer of Dreams . 51 Inhabitants of Unreality . 57 What is a Toonville/Unreality Mixed Zone?. 51 Spectral Reality Warped Pirates. 57 The Laboratory. 51 The Unreality Beast...... 57 Rémy Returns ...... 52 ADDITIONAL CONTENT 58 Milton Awakes . 52 Afterword ...... 58 Future Adventures . 53 Appendix: References . 59 CHARACTERS & CREATURES 54 Movies where the cartoon world collides with another reality...... 59 Nonplayer Characters. 54 Animation from the 1930s ...... 59 Duct Apex . 54 Contemporary animation that has just the right Little Bunny Foo Foo ...... 54 amount of zany slapstick for inspiration. . .59 Inhabitants of Le Havre, France . 54 Video Games in the same style of the 1930s Bombshell...... 54 Animation . 59 Church Police Streetbeater . 55 Some Music for a Toonville Soundtrack. . . 59 Crucifaces Gang Member ...... 55 Table Tent ...... 60 Herald. 55 Cosm Cards . 61 Rémy Allard, Church Police Streetbeater. 55 The End. 73 Sample file

3 n April, 1992 Infiniverse Volume 1, number 22 was published. Inside was the write up for The I Cartoon Cosm, an April Fool’s joke that deserved a single page, but ran on for several more.* Although the content was mostly in jest, it sparked my imagination and for over twenty five years I’ve asked myself “What if there had been a genuine cartoon cosm?” I have tried to answer that question in this adventure. I had two goals putting this together. First was just to get this crazy idea down on paper. Some of these ideas have rattled around in my head for years and needed to get out. I had an unnatural desire to bring the cartoon cosm into the new Torg setting in some way. With the creation of the Infiniverse Exchange I had the perfect place to share this content with other Torg fans. My second goal was to test the waters for this cosm theme and excite other creators. I wish I had the time and talent to pen an entire book for a cartoon cosm, but that is a grand task for someone more talented. By sharing this adventure with other players, like- minded fans hopefully pick up the torch and run with it. I encourage anyone who is inspired by this setting to take these ideas and make them yours. Write up the entire history of the cosm, add more Cosm cards, or write another adventure and get them on the Infiniverse Exchange. I don’t want to have to do all the work myself. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration. — Scott

*For those who do not have access to the original run of Infinivese newsletters, in 1993 the cartoon cosm content was reprinted in Infiniverse Campaign SampleGame Update, Volume II , pagesfile 81-85. This time the

INTRODUCTION joke had a piece of art to accompany it!

4 Most of this adventure is set in a new reality, the cartoon cosm of Toonville. Before you jump RELIGION IN A GAME into the adventure itself, a brief introduction to Toonville is in order. If you prefer to skip ahead to This adventure includes fictional religions the adventure proper, it starts on page 12. as they exist and operate in the fictional setting of the Torg Eternity game. It is in If you are looking for a summary of the adventure no way intended to portray a real religion see page 16, Adventure Synopsis. operating in the real world. This adventure is scaled for an “Alpha“ Clearance Level group of Storm Knights. The group’s Clearance Level helps the Game Master determine challenges or insert published adventures into the campaign.

Sample file

5 MAGIC SOCIAL SPIRIT TECH 29 16 5 17

he cartoon cosm of Toonville is a mashup have little interest in the Possibility Wars happening of vintage to classic animation. It pulls on Earth. Their cosm has a history of disinterest T plots and tropes from the classic animation in the schemes of High Lords and their reality- of the 1970s and blends it with the visual style of spanning search for Possibilities. Past incursions golden age of animation from the 1930s. So even into their own cosm by other invaders quickly though the visuals are straight from the inkblot ended when the intruders realized they had bit off cartoon style, characters are just as likely to pull more than they could chew. Eventually, Toonville Warner Brothers shenanigans like dropping an citizens decided they would remain neutral in anvil on an adversary or running them over with cosmic battles, including the Possibility Wars of a steamroller. Early animation was pretty light on Earth. They closed their borders ceremoniously the plot; often the setting and story were little more and forbade travel to the war zones. than a reason to dance and sing. Adventures set in Recently a Toonville wizard and scientific genius Toonville can be as complex as you like, but the broke through the cosmic barriers and made contact source material doesn’t inspire complex adventure with Core Earth, specifically with Ebenuscrux, the unless you string several animated shorts together Darkness Device of the Cyberpapacy. It saw an into a larger narrative. opportunity to exploit the greedy Toonville wizard Toonville is an absurd magical land of singing and has been facilitating cross-cosm arms deals to trees and talking animals. The world is full of aid the Cyberpapal war effort. bright colors and hilarious physical humor. The inhabitants have such a high affinity for magic, they don’t even realize they are using it most of WORLD LAWS the time. Using magic is as effortless as breathing. Everyone can fit an infinite amount of household The Law of Absurdity items in their slacks, and no one ever dies. The This is an insane, chaotic, and illogical world. streets are filled with every imaginable creature Anything can happen and the events usually end and shining down on this crazy world is a sun and in a crescendo of cartoon violence and crimes moon who not only can set their own schedule against the laws of physics. This is the day-to-day of setting and rising, but have faces and converse existence of a cartoon character, but to a Storm with the inhabitants and eat pancakes. Knight from another realm, all appears as madness TheSample cartoon cosm of Toonville is a non-aligned of the highest order. The morefile absurd things are, dimension. There isn’t a High Lord. There is no Darkness Device. As a whole, the inhabitants there

6 the more at home the cartoon world inhabitants combat encounters. Having a foe return during a are. battle once is funny, but you want to avoid having Concepts like time or natural phenomena like never ending fights that drag out the adventure. gravity aren’t bound by cartoon law as they might One facet of this law is that sentience is granted in be in other cosms. Characters can walk out a door a very haphazard way. You are just as likely to see and shift into another time in history, or walk off life granted to objects like vehicles, buildings, your the edge of a cliff and not submit to gravity. sandwich, or the moon, as you are to the expected Wackiness rules. living creatures. Cars, trees, and even your house keys can spring to life, talk, or dance around. The Law of Permanence Cartoon cosm characters cannot die. They are The Law of Funny immortal and can endure physical punishments If the results of an action would be incredibly beyond understanding. Rolled over by a runaway funny, it is allowed. This is the most powerful of steamroller, fine. Blown up by a truckload of the World Laws and supersedes the other World dynamite, no problem. This law prevents any Laws of the realm. character from ceasing to exist for more than a few If this last sentence is making you sweat a little as minutes. Incredibly destructive powers can force the Gamemaster, please consult the section below a Toonville native into sitting on the sidelines for titled “Game Balance and Cosm cards.” It is up a couple minutes, but they pop back in the action to each game group to decide what makes them soon enough. laugh. Jokes and humor can be very subjective Mechanically, characters making a Defeat test can and as Gamemaster you should encourage the never fail. No matter what they roll, the lowest players to enjoy themselves. Generally the world of success they can get is Standard. Game masters cartoons is full of slapstick and ineffectual murder. must be careful not to abuse this power during If your group’s humor leans a different direction,

SampleA Toonville file Cosm card deck and Cosm table tent are included in this adventure.

7 embrace it. At the end of the adventure it is more apply to everyone within them regardless of their about having a great time than rigidly adhering to home cosm. As the Storm Knights are in Toonville the tropes of the cartoon world or a specific era of for Acts Two and Three of the adventure, they are animation. unable to die thanks to the Law of Permanence. It is probably in the Gamemaster’s best interest to not point this out and let the players discover it for themselves. IT’S MAGIC Regarding living and unliving things for Toonville has a ridiculously high Magic disconnection rules, everything with a face in Axiom. Although many of the other axioms Toonville is considered living. And in Toonville, are at respectable levels, the inhabitants are everything can have a face: cars, musical far more likely to magically create what instruments, trees, and the sun are all considered they need instead of relying on the other alive for such purposes. axioms. Most of the manufacturing in their world could be supported by the Social and Tech Axioms, but denizens would rather RUNNING A GAME effortlessly create an item they need on the spot. For example, a cartoon character can IN TOONVILLE magically create a giant hammer and pull it The second and third acts of this adventure are set out of their back pocket instead of going into in Toonville. To prepare yourself and your players, a store to purchase it. There are exceptions, the following section has suggestions on how to set such as when residents mail order items they the tone and bring Toonville to life. The cartoon need from Apex global fulfilment service, cosm is quite different from the other realms. but generally inhabitants use magic without a second thought. INHABITING A TOONVILLE CHARACTER As Gamemaster you are playing a lot of a cartoon characters from Toonville and it is imperative that A STALENGER IN A you bring those characters to life. These notes are primarily for the Gamemaster, but if players in STRANGE LAND your group choose to play a Storm Knight from Toonville is a reality unto itself. It isn’t a High Toonville, this information would be required Lord’s conquest and as such the native reality reading. behaves much like Core Earth’s did before the invasion. A majority of the dimension is a Body Language Dominant Zone of the Toonville reality. There are There is no better way to describe the animated a few special places where the Toonville reality style of the 1930s other than to watch some vintage pools up in concentrated bubbles, and those areas cartoons. There are several references in the are Pure zones of Toonville reality. These areas appendix at the end of this adventure. The early can shift and slide as they aren’t rigidly defined by cartoon characters often repeated their motions stelae. Storm Knights are fortunate that Toonville multiple times to save on animation. If you can do a has higher than average axioms, except for Spirit. little of this repetitive motion by waving your arms Storm Knights with Spirit-based abilities have or ducking your head while you deliver cartoon to be careful when using those abilities to avoid disconnection. AsSample in all cosms, the World Laws of Toonville file function only within its actual realm, and they

8 character’s dialogue it goes a long way to bringing roleplaying. Another great source for this genre the characters to life. of music is the “Cuphead Original Soundtrack” from the popular video game. As that game is Funny Voices and Sound Effects heavily inspired by the golden age of animation Audio can bring a lot to the table when you are the soundtrack is a fantastic one for pen and paper bringing these wacky characters to life. Creating gaming as well. a soundboard of cartoon sound effects on your If you prefer something a little more modern mobile device isn’t too much trouble. It is handy to check out soundtracks to some of the more recent have the sounds of pots crashing or cartoon bombs films mentioned in the appendix. exploding at your fingertips. If digital tools aren’t your thing, a simple slide whistle can suffice for a VISUALS, GAME AIDS, few crazy, cartoon sounds. AND PROPS Giving each character a truly distinct and funny voice is probably the best way to bring the cartoon No need for a giant hammer that squeaks when world into reality; the crazier the better for this you bop people (but let’s be honest, that would be dimension. Characters can speak at radically perfect), but having some props around for each different speeds, some slow and some fast. Animal game brings the world of Toonville to life. Cartoon character speak the same language as the Storm gags rely a lot on visuals and the more you can Knights, but can have “animal accents.” A rooster provide, the better. Keep a dry erase marker board character can cluck between sentences or crow handy for sketching, or bring props like silly string, every time he catches the sun out of the corner of slinky glasses, and bubble pipes for use during the his eye. game. This adventure has several handout and props for the players so be sure to have copies of Having a catch phrase those when you run the adventure. Give your cartoon characters signature lines of dialogue. Cartoon characters all have at least one THEME go-to catch phrase they are known for. Here are What are your players doing in Toonville? some popular examples: Adventures here are a shift from standard Torg • What’s up doc? Eternity. Many of the cosms are some flavor • Beep beep of action-adventure with a side dish of horror, fantasy, or intrigue. Think of the cosm themes as • Boop-Oop-A-Doop a spectrum. In the center are the action-adventure- based cosms. At the far-left end there is the pure The Silent Type horror realm of Orrorsh: serious, scary, and dark. Another cartoon gimmick is a character who Toonville is situated on the far-right side, the communicates through holding up signs or word opposite of the horror realm. Toonville adventure balloons that appear above their head. While themes are fun, light, often very low stakes, and delivering their dialogue for these characters just wacky slapstick. This particular adventure raises scribble their words on scrap paper or have a dry the stakes a little bit, but it can be hard to maintain erase board handy while you play. the standard dramatic tension if no one can die. Gamemasters have to ensure Toonville adventures A SOUNDTRACK are an entertaining ride, not a serious destination. The visual style of Toonville is pulled from the golden age of animation. The cartoons in the GAME BALANCE AND 1930s often had a jazz soundtrack. That music COSM CARDS complimentsSample the frantic action of the characters in As a gamemaster, you mightfile be worried about early animation and makes a great soundtrack for how all this is going to really work. You have been

9 Milton and some of his robot creations

playing Torg Eternity a while and just can’t see how environment of the cartoon cosm and give the to maintain the dramatic tension in an environment players some agency to shape that insanity. where player’s wishes come true and no one ever Each of the fifty cards is unique but if you have a dies. Well the good news is that playing in the large player group, you can print the deck two or Toonville realm is a thematic shift and it takes three times, so you have plenty of cards for each some additional creativity to stay ahead of your act. Multiples of a card in play can lead to funnier players. The theme here is to have some laughs, situations so don’t worry that you have overdone surprise one another with diabolically clever ways it. There is also a time to stack the deck and to temporarily murder your antagonists, and then remove cards that won’t fit with your adventure. blow something up. This realm is all about one- For example, if you want to maroon the players upping your opponent to astronomically ridiculous in prehistoric Toonville for a while then you best heights while telling a funny story. If your players remove any Cosm cards that let them time travel. are having trouble adapting, help them out. It isn’t every day their opponents spring back from defeat The cards don’t work like the other Cosm cards again and again. Remind them this adventure is as described in the Torg Eternity core rules. Players about telling a wacky story and progress isn’t going have a hand of five cards at the start of each act to be measured by their body count or loot pile. in the Toonville cosm and refill their hands to five cards every time they play a card. Players are encouraged to play the cards often and weave Cosm Cards The Cosm cards, presented at the end of this them into the narrative. Cards are played anytime adventure are a tool to get you and your players with no limit (unless stated on the card) and they into the spirit of just how ridiculous adventuring stack with other players’ cards played at the same in this dimension is. Like all the Cosm cards in time. Recycle the deck as much as you need. SampleEncourage players to use theirfile cards each scene, the game, their main goal is to introduce the cosm flavor. They represent the chaotic, illogical as they cannot be saved. Smaller groups can deal

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