Welcome to the Zamani RPG Wiki Database
This game setting and it's tabletop rpg rules are designed to combine elements of pulp hero action/adventure, pulp horror, pulp noir, hard-boiled detective, and arcane magic in a 1930ish technology alien landscape of worlds wrapped in a space opera science fiction premise. It’s a star system in a time of turmoil and indecision, where life is fast, death is cheap, heroes are few and the common man has to watch his step to avoid angering governments, aliens, gods, mages, underworld leaders and a minefield of power seekers.
Zamani : The Stars Beyond
Zamani is one of several hundred known star systems in which a now evidently extinct alien race, known as the Sindarians, explored and established a system of star ship travel known as T-Gates some 5,000 to 15,000 years ago. In each system that they have established T-Gates they have been found in L-5 orbits of Gas Giants, from which they evidently draw hydrogen to power and create temporary artificial worm-holes thru T-space (also called Upper Continuum Space). In this method travel between star systems can be accomplished at a far faster rate than any known propulsion system.
A similar gate was found in orbit in Earth’s own star system in 2253 ECE (Earth Current Era) and first activated successfully in 2269 by humanity. They encountered alien worlds and races and were by 2355 members of the Grand Council of Diplomacy, an attempt to reduce or end the possibility of intergalactic warfare and bring harmony to the various species of the universe.
It’s now 2505 ECE and the Council has been replaced by the Harmonic Alliance, a multi-species multi-world government that maintains the peace and prevents disruption of what has been a century of peaceful exploration, trade and development. In 2475 they discovered the Quartermain T-Gate connected to the gate in the Zamani system and a Bellarian scout ship was the first to pass thru and assess the worlds here.
The worlds of Zamani are now in a state of protected technological quarantine, and inhabitants of the worlds around the star are not allowed to be transported out of their system. Contact is limited as the various species of Zamani are in a more primitive and volatile state than the advanced worlds of the Alliance, and it has been judged that over-exposure to the technology, history and culture of the other worlds could easily collapse their civilizations or lead to their demise.
In Earth historical terminology, the most advanced of their cultures seems to be at about that of 1930s ECE “Western Civilization”, though with some unusual gaps and a few advancements caused by different resource availabilities, while their most primitive would be in a bout the 1300s ECE.
Additionally Zamani is considered a potential threat to the rest of the Harmony of the Alliance, as many of the sentients of these worlds apparently have unusual abilities, which the native words for translate to ‘magic’ which seems to warp or ignore many of the accepted rules of science. It is unknown if this is the result of some unexplained phenomena in the general space-time area of the star, genetic anomalies, genetic tampering or some long forgotten Sindarin technology that has produced unusual results.
There is also the problem of the beings the locals call their Gods... who also defy nearly all known laws of space, time, energy conservation, dimensionality and in many cases logic. They appear to be some sort of beings from Upper Continuum Space who are capable of affecting Lower Continuum Space. They apparently have been present in the system since before local recorded history.
Some of their Gods have reacted in a hostile manner to the presence of the Alliance, and apparently see the Alliance as a threat to their position with the local species, or feel that the Alliance are somehow a contamination threat despite precautions taken and the limited travel access and technology exposure.
Others seem to ignore the Alliance scientists and observers, and some have made direct attempts to draw Alliance visitors to join the local religions or to assimilate with the local cultures. A few scientists have given in to this temptation, often to the detriment of the stability of small regions of the world, forcing the need to extract them, or disappearing from Alliance observation altogether.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike2.5 License.
It is copyright 2006 By Joseph Teller unquietsoul@gmail.com & Kiralee Mccauley dancingkiralee@gmail.com.
Want to become a contributor to the Zamani Project? Then drop an email to unquietsoul@gmail.com and let me know. We password control access of the Wiki to ensure quality control and keep out robot spammers but I'm interested in getting new ideas and developers involved.