Sunday, April 20, 2014

Send in the Clones

Orphan Black returned for it's second season last night, and I watched a few episodes of the Netflix-only final season of Clone Wars, so I have clones on my mind. Here are a couple of clone-related campaign ideas:

Art by Julie Baroh
Clones Underground
Dungeon exploration is dangerous business, but lucrative. Some wealthy land, ruled by a wizard (or wizards) might contrive to save on the risk (and potential challengers to their rule) by raising alchemical clones of themselves and their own companions to deliver the treasures to them. Using clones easily allows for replacement of dead characters, and the wizard serves as both patron--and perhaps future adversary.

Dupes
As in "duplicates". Maybe. Mashup the Bourne Identity and Orphan Black and throw it into Night's Black Agents and you've got sleeper clone agents created by an occult conspiracy. The characters must unravel the mystery of their own identity while staying ahead of there pursuers.

Of course, any speculation about vampiric "soul clones" (as put forward by Chuck Loridans, inspired by the events of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires) is left the GM to indulge in at their own discretion.

8 comments:

Jack Guignol said...

Shymalan twist ending: the adventures get to the end of the dungeon, only to discover that they're clones of the evil geniuses who created and stocked the dungeon in the first place.

It turns out that the original party created the dungeon and sent their own clones through it because they're so jaded the only thing they can enjoy is watching themselves succeed at daring deeds of exploration.

Once the clones learn of this at the end of the dungeon, the cycle begins anew; they are given the means to clone themselves and create yet another dungeon to create. Now they have become the watchers in the shadows.

Trey said...

Good one, Jack. That's put a whole different endgame on D&D.

Chris C. said...

Very cool concept.
Very cool concept.
Very cool concept.

Ok, seriously though, it is. :)

The Angry Lurker said...

A good concept used in many movies from the sad Multiplicity to Resident Evil.......

Gothridge Manor said...

You could also through Moon in the mix. I like Jack's concept.

It would be interesting to play with. hmm

Trey said...

@Fran & Tim - Other good sources of information. There really are a lot of clone movies!

Tallgeese said...

For further enjoyment, the fantasy clone game could be a replication of Eclipse Phase. Maybe the Dungeon was where people used to live. It's a useful place to raid for relics of the time before everything went sideways. "People get lost in the Deep-Deeps there, young clone, and go if you go far enough, you might meet an older copy of yourself."

Kaiju said...

Good stuff. I especially like the idea for Dupes. Maybe using them for NPCs: "But... I saw him die!"