Nomads’ Journey

A Jump chain Subgame

You know, there’s something not right about you.

Oh, I’m not saying it to be mean. It’s not a value judgment, that you’re an outlier.
Arguably, it isn’t even a bad thing, for you to be so wrong the way you are. But you are
wrong, deep down. Untethered from the world on such a level that it cannot, and will
not, truly accept you.
This shouldn’t be a surprise to you, really. There were always signs.
The way the world seems to pass you by, your attention always drifting. The way your
body is wrong, too long or too short, too thin or too thick, lacking in myriad ways.
The way that, deep down, you would do anything to be anywhere else.
It’s not an uncommon condition, especially these days, you know. Well, at least where
you’re from, and it’s variants. Some say that it’s something about the modern era, but
really, it’s probably just a glitch with it being purely materialistic but able to maintain
sapience.
But you’ll be in another world soon.
Where does your heart belong? A land of sword and sorcery, waiting for a champion? A
sea of stars, where you could drift forever. Maybe something like your own, but with
an edge of adventure, a beating heart of magic under its skin? Or…
Huh.
Well. I guess I misjudged you.
 The Path of the Nomad
Apologies for the confusion, your diagnosis is a lot less common, and markedly less
self resolving. Rather than the more common type of alienation induced relegation,
also known as Summoned Hero Syndrome (or Isekaitus, as a less than friendly term),
you have a rather more… severe variety. There’s been a lot less study, given how much
it comes up, but comparison I’ve heard is being hit by a truck relative to being hit by a
train. While a Summoned Hero is alienated from the world of their birth, a Nomad
cannot truly fit into any world, at least until they lose that status. It still isn’t a bad
thing.
Not inherently. There are a lot of ways to be alienated, and there are a lot of ways to
take it, like most things.
But it’s certainly a less stable thing. A less safe thing, at least cosmologically. A
reincarnated hero can knock things out of whack, but you can cross contaminate,
bring law between worlds. So, be careful alright?
Your nature may affect your journey. You gain a number of motes to purchase
Variances, depending on your nature. Innate options cost nothing, for they are
a guarantee, while the common cost a single mote. The rare ones cost a pair,
while the near unique heroic variances cost four each. You may only purchase
one unique ability.
Drifter: One not particularly notable in the grand scheme of things. You receive
0 to 9 motes, for very little is guaranteed for you. Feel free to roll for it on a
D10-1.
Walker: Oh, this isn’t for you. Maybe come back later, as a different you?
Jumper: Statistically, this really isn’t for you. It’s for the best, honestly.
 Drifter
Difficulty: The World

Average Stay: 1~3 years

The most common variety of Nomad, Drifters have just kind of fallen out of the world.
Generally, they’re fairly normal aside from that. They aren’t scions of worlds that
cannot be, or endless voids for law and power. Any power they have is less by
birthright, and more by virtue of having bumped into something on their way out.

Possible Variances
• Untethered (Innate): A drifter is alienated from the multiverse, and thus falls out
of the world they’re in after a while.
• Posse (Innate): You aren’t necessarily alone in the multiverse. Sometimes, there
are those alienated enough to follow you throughout the worlds. If you can get
someone to agree to follow you, and mix your blood with theirs, you may have them
follow you. This can cover up to four people, though figures substantially stronger
than you may have the ritual fail if it is attempted with them.
• Cross Conta mination
(Innate): Not the bad kind,
don’t worry. This ensures that
magical abilities and items will
work, to some degree, in later
worlds. Abilities which use an
ambient energy will function
as if in an area with an
average amount, while devices
which operate on alternative
physics can be used and
reproduced as long as you do
it in a pocket space of some
sort.
• Networking (Free, Optiona l):
While being a Nomad can be
stressful, it isn’t always lonely.
With this option, you may
connect to one of the Nomad chats. This is always mechanically useless. The main
one is Travlink.
• Bindle (Common): By putting themselves between a surface and enough cloth to
cover them, the Drifter may transport themselves into a 2ft by 2 ft room (in which
things cannot be placed) connected to a storage unit ranging from 2 by 2 to 10 by
30.
• Educa tion (Common): Upon entering a world, you receive a small collection of
survival, language, and tourism guides full of relevant content to it, with the
purchases being held to the highest quality standards. These can be either guides
published on baseline earth, or ones widely published in the current world.
• Rosetta (Common): An aptitude for
linguistics. They still need to study, but
they end up with a workable grasp of the
language in astounding. Four hours of
study a day for a month is enough to be
conversational, assuming the presence of
a cross language dictionary or teacher.
• Sa nita tion (Common): The grand
ability to always be sterile and free from
sickness. This is notably useful for not
bringing the 2020 form of Influenza to
Feudal Japan. Also cleans your storage
unit and posse, if you have them.
• Hea lthy (Common): Moving through
worlds is heavy work. As you left the world, your body was modified to suit your
mind. This is a one time change on a level where, even if all other powers were to
fade, you would still have those granted. Access to original body mod. I won’t
particularly care if you go for others, this option just provides original by
default.
• Intelligent Design (Common): You know, I’d ask why I’m the one explaining this
to you, but I’m a metanarrative device to convey options to the player in a passive
voice which implies very little
about your chain aside from
the basics. So, I’ll explain that
your travels are less a cosmic
mistake, and more part of the
agenda or entertainment of a
Voyager, a Nomad who
inverted their nature to
become accepted in every
world. What this actually
means for you is that you
have the randomness of your
leaps is somewhat reduced,
and can occasionally offer
advice in regards to handling
Nomad specific issues, though
their nature prevents any
direct intervention. You can
have a sponsor without this
variance, but they’ll be
effectively useless.
• Property Sisters
(Common): A common
problem among the Nomads
who make choices for their
powersets is, surprisingly,
property. So enthusiastic to
own real estate, they do not
realize that it will be their
downfall. Generally,
economically, but occasionally
through the decay of the
house leads to them falling
through the floor or breathing in black mould. Usually, however, it is because of
the disparity between their means and their estate, their taxes crippling them
economically. With this, this will not will be an issue! Any fees related to your
properties, from rent to taxes, will be paid through undisclosed but entirely legal
means, and any maintenance to keep it in its initial quality can be handled
through calling a number provided to call workers in for free.
• Pa ssport (Common): Your paperwork! No, this does not actually work for any
mortal government This is your Nomad Licence, a small piece of plastic with your
face and name that fits in any wallet. It can be presented to give a rough idea of
what you are, and how your powerset affects the natural order of the world. It gives
no guarantees that they won’t smite you, particularly if you are an existential
threat, but at least your out of context abilities will be accurately judged by the
very scary spirit.
• Sa ved by The Bell (Ra re): Upon entering a new world, you are filled with a strange
extradimensional vitality. Through this, remaining injuries and maladies are
healed, from cancer to amputation, while your biological age resets to 20. This does
leave scarring in strange Lichtenberg patterns, which fade over the course of a
year.
• Scratches (Rare): Hmm. Maybe with different luck, you would have been a
jumper? As it is, you seem to pick up the basic metaphysical traits for a world,
making you the equivalent of a completely normal citizen. This does not give
education, and only accounts for
baseline citizens. You won’t be a
wizard in Harry Potter, but you
will have a very average amount
of Chakra in Naruto, or more
magic resistance than a stone in
settings where it exists.
• Gla mping (Rare): Upon
entering a world, you obtain a
box containing roughly $30,000
CAD worth of non-informational
goods from any sports, camping
or hiking store on modern earth,
which would be roughly to your
specifications, or those
recommended by the
Educational texts if you possess
them. This can be deposited in your bindle, or land at your feet if you lack one.
• Sta rry Eyed (Rare):
Huh. They’re rather
pretty, you know.
That isn’t what’s
important about your
eyes. It doesn’t even
really need to be your
eyes, but it usually is.
It’s where, when you
first fell between the
worlds, something
nestled. It’s fairly
mundane, as far as
extradimensional
aspects of the self go.
They simply render
your eyes more
sensitive to other things outside of the world, whether it be from other planes or
parallel worlds, making them appear speckled with impossible colors roughly
corresponding with their origin. This can be tuned out easily enough, and if you
just kind of cross your eyes for a few second it can be turned off for a few hours.
• Out of Context (Ra re): Between all Nomads powersets, there is a unifying factor.
They are all, like their users, not within the the world they’re in, at least eventually.
There a lot of ways for this to resolve, but with this variance your heart steers it
towards certain
outcomes. Namely,
becoming an Outside
Context Problem. Your
powers and devices
cause interference in
regards to any form of
methods of gathering
information, much more
than they really should.
Seeing your soul brings
up a vague haze, while
supernaturally
predicting your actions
only factors in what you
could do with your in-
universe resources. This
scales with how divorced
from the world your
powers are, and may be
disabled or regained
through meditating on
how you relate to the
world.
• A New Context (Ra re):
Well, I suppose there are
two things uniting that
which you keep between
worlds. That they’re held
by you. No matter what
they are, no matter what
they do, they are held by
you, The Nomad. You’re
one in six hundred
seventy-eight million, four hundred and twenty-three thousand, nine hundred and
forty-two, and gosh darn it you’re special. Much like its counterpart, this variance
allows your heart to influence interactions between things, but in this case it’s
more of an internal resonance than some external dissonance. A talent for making
abilities slot together in interesting ways, less combining them and more finding
and reifying the overlap until it becomes something unique. An example might be
tuning the mix of a strengthening spell and a Ki technique to harden the body in a
way that’s a bit more effective or efficient than the two combined, due to removing
the overlaps and redundancies. It could probably be done with study and training,
but this makes it passive, and something you never need to think about.
• Sca b (Unique): An ability similar to the
wounded hearts of jumpers, albeit greatly
toned down. After untethering from their
home world, many drifters take on aspects
from their first one, much in the way a
reincarnated hero would, leading to a longer
stay and, more importantly in the grand
scheme of things, gaining cheat skills. Due to
being a less than perfect fit, this is usually
less crushing than a standard cheat skill, but
there are no constants except inconsistency
in this bitch of a multiverse.
In more blunt terms, this gives you one
build in a jump of your choice. Please use
common sense for what seems
appropriate.
• Porta l Fanta sy (Unique): No, this is not the
ability to open portals. Have you read a lot of
isekai fiction, or 20th century western-
fantasy-literature? While many have the
protagonist gain fantastical powers and
abilities from their transition, there is another
way to find power in another world. And it’s
by finding power in your home, albeit
amplified by an unknown force. Those
memories, whether they be what made you
happy, what made you money, or what
ultimately banished you from the world, are
your greatest asset. Whatever you were most
interested, talented, or skilled at is made into

a skill of singular importance, to a

supernatural degree. An interest in
history becomes military genius
and a peerless ability to learn
about the politics and story of a
world. Spending all your time
gaming will allow you to succeed in
anything that could notionally be
considered a game, or grant an
incredible knowledge base from
having played so many. In general,
this boost is comparable to the
kind of ability which makes one the
champion of a world, at least in
terms of potential.