It’s been quiet but do not be deceived… Germany is about to roll into Poland.
In Sept 1939, the Third Reich created a pretext for war and invaded Poland, starting the chain of events that would become the Second World War. Enthusiastic young Germans, excited after the easy victories of Austria and Czechoslovakia, were ready to serve the Fuhrer and take the land that had been disputed through most of medieval and modern history. The Panzers rolled out… and the infantry followed. Yet, what lurks in the forests and mountains, cities and fields of Poland?
“Dark Reich” is a setting screaming to be played, so we’re beavering away to put our first adventure into the field. As we want to get playing, we’ve pulled off the shelf a copy of the HERO System and started working on getting a small team of Wehrmacht soldiers ready for action in the wilds of Poland.
Our first adventure aims to introduce the raw realities of soldiering in a world just about awakening to the Dark Tide. Our small band of brothers, soldiers of the Wehrmacht, will be confronted by a sobering reality. Perhaps the Polish Army is in for a tough time against the Reich’s assault… but then there are things that protect the land… and those things are not to be taken lightly by invaders.
I would look into the feeling of ‘spirits’ – Like in the original WFRP game – natural spirits that need to be prayed to, with offers of goods, to keep them at peace, but if woken, they become destroyers – Snow Storms, Earthquakes, Tempests, or attacks from wild animals.
I like the idea of ‘The Keep’. A horror about Germans located in a old keep, with something hunting them – awoken in the depths. Always makes me think of a patrol stationed in the wilds, coming under attack by unnatural forces, defending the land against the evil Jackboot of the SS!
I’m coming in on the end of all the chat, so I’ll post my thoughts here:
Internal factions within Nazi Germany striving for hold on power?
Muscle of arms/Army
Magick
Daemons/Angels/Religious extremists
Eugenics/Bio-engineering science
(At expense of overall Nazi power or just for control within nazi power?)
Abwehr
Wehrmacht
Where does Hitler fit in the grand scheme now?
What extra elements do Japanese offer that Germans cannot access alone?
Dragon cults
Alternate Magick
Hi-tech weaponry/mech development?
Resistance factions?
British
French
Soviet/Russian
China
Other individual nation resistance
Combined anti-nazi
Teams that were set up during rise of new Nazi powers that are still operational despite fall of nations. These could be focus groups assembled to counter specific Nazi threats, eg magick / occult / religious / etc..
Problems Magick users may face:
There is always the idea that magick is powerful but dangerous to those who wield it, (like a gobbo shaman eatin too many magic mushrooms)
Since you’ve been carefully unspecific as to the nature of magick it could affect in many ways:
Disfigurement/Ageing/skin taint – eg Starwars emperor
Instability
Lack of control – ie user tapped into 1 form in particular and now he/she cannot control when that power is used (becomes random / occurs when user is asleep/distracted/annoyed)
Magick/Daemon host – magick takes over user completely
User becomes blackhole/portal to magick realm/source
Sensitive to light/other stimulae (could be relative to which type of magick they’ve been using)
Polish unknowns:
Lycanthropes / other were-creatures?
A natural magic that is tied to the land, the dark tide emanates from a source here, either spread across the wilder untouched places or cocentrated in 1 or a few spots where magick users can access more raw power than they could dream of, or even control.
The real reason why germans don’t trust the polish – they’re all latent magick users which gives them weak powers which they almost don’t realise they have. (it makes other nervous or itch when around them) They could have a better control or use of magick than other populations in europe and the secret shame as the germans realise that the only reason some of their number have developed talents in magick is due to cross-breeding with their enemy.
Germans feel the need to use concentration camps to kill the magick in the polish so that only they control it.
The land is sentient and will subtely attempt to resist invaders, through ‘natural’ phenomenon, sometimes subtle like timely/unexpected mists to make soldiers lost in woods and go rnd in circles or more obvious like landslides, localised earthquakes etc as GreenOsprey suggested.
Very intriguing scenario
Looking 4ward to more.