"Still Waters run Deep" from Rick Wakeman's 90s "Return to the Center of the Earth" album.
One advantage of embracing the Jack Vance and Gene Wolfe paradigm (1) is that a "Fantasy World" of the Far-Future can deal with many things a real "In the mythic past" or "Alternative world" (even if IN a basement universe!) simply could not.
"Heroic Adventurers" are tolerated as long as they don't turn to banditry, robbery or killing non-monsters without legit cause because mankind realises that there always will be people who can not stand nor will fit in their station and must seek more. It's a rare thing which most envy as children but thank the Increate it was not their fate as an adult. Likewise though the Children of Adam still fill the Green Hills of Earth with their tragedies and triumphs, laughter and tears they understand the "Long cycle" history is in and though they mostly live in a late Renissance or Pre-Industrial time there is no hurry on progress for they somehow know they've done this many times now.
Also - and this is one of the best parts - you can put in a character from almost ANY campaign... (2)
Gunslinger? They know about guns, some use muskets. He'd better save bullets and know how to self-load cartridges and find metals to cast them and likely need to adventure to find materials to make them - notably the high quality steel as most of the planet has been mined deep. But if he's civil. and polite might get offered a guard job and would be welcome at most farms or ranches.
Space-Man? As he's wondering how "Boned" he is looking over his crashed ship a local farmer will ride up and invite him in for dinner, likely forgiving him as charity if his ship landed in part of his field. He'd know about Man's children amongst the stars in neat blcok printed "Wonder Tales" books tucked away in a small bookshelf - those are bizarrely distorted tales that loosely resemble 40s to late 80s sci-fi and fantasy. The farmer will point to the moon and talk about how it's green now with shallow oceans and its shimmering atmosphere and how man used to sail on the moon. This won't "Change the World" - the local Boyar will try to help him get started (3) finding some parts to repair his ship. Yes, he's found "Mankind's lost homeworld...!" but when he gets back officials from his society will quietly lecture him not to rave about it because they are NOT going to fight a "Galactic War" over an ancient world that's been mined to the core along with most of the Solar System stripped for a populace of "Primitives". Also there are some odd defenses put up with near Level 4 tech...they'll shut themselves up and go "Uh, classified"... Then they'll finish it by saying "This is Mankind's backup plan. IF we get wiped out we'll emerge from this world every few ten thousand years. If we need genetic legacy or to find some history, it's there."
Frozen person? Unpack and thaw and ready to be mind-F*cked! (4) There are TONS of Frozen people who pop into place. They wander around and usually by charity of fellow men, especially through the Agnost Church they are placed. Their stories of their past life often help them work with their new family group and sometimes make fodder for new "Wonder Tales". A few can become "Adventurers".
Dimensional shift or exile? Maybe the science experiment went wrong. Maybe they were some space overlord dictator who froze himself to escape the legacy of his crimes - launching himself into space or burying himself in the tallest mountains.... Perhaps they are a gentle exile of a society based on reason but their philisophical views while too advanced for most were just slightly off and created such a disturbance they had to be put into a time field. These are like (and often are) the "Frozen Persons" except those deliberately exiled were done so as a good reason - from crimes of being a world conquerer who eventually lost the battle for domination to gentle philisophical exiles - they are sent Aeons into space and time and end up on Earth. These rarely are able to acclimate like "Normal" people from another time. Many do try to start where they left off as Warlords or great thinkers of new ages now long past - but the oppression of the long hand of time wears their ambitions down. Most conquerors find themselves mere "Boyars" and more than satisfied while many great thinkers join the Agnost Church as a Scribe to spend their lives reading the vast weight of history.
Adventurers - Getting to this - yes you can bring your older or current "Murder Hobos" to this game.
Maybe they stepped through a portal or a Dimension Door spell went awry. Maybe they died and got re-incarnated? Maybe they died long ago but somehow were re-created as if they were still alive by devices hidden in the deadliest Entropic Ruins called "Flesh Looms"? Or perhaps they visited the Chronal Shrine or a strange house on the borderlands or found an odd Lighthouse on the edge of a desert...
It's a Late Renissance or Pre-Industrial feeling world - NOT "Mideval" like functional D&D basically is - just the far future. If your characters from any baseline RPG world they can adapt and thrive. Unlike the REAL far past there's not the high level of Xenophobia of really anyone outside town or nation regardless of racial issues that'd make a standard RPG town crawl into a gruesome public execution in a heartbeat. They can still have that happen to them if they go "Murder Hobo" such as killing a shopkeeper who tells them to leave after being rude but if they treat people with basic respect they'll get it in return and only have negative consequence if they are disruptive. Most 'common' people will like to hear traveller's tales and the nobility will just make sure they aren't a threat then perhaps hire them if need be. The same with Magic or odd cultures - these get more attention but not instant hostility without good reason. This is something near unthinkable if set in a real past era.
Again, this is a tribute to Vance, Wolfe and others - (1) - in great thanks. This is not "Science Fiction" though it is - rather it's what a far future might be. One both unrecognizable from today and at the same time familiar. Magic of tranditional #ttrpgs works as such - but the people while looking pseudo mideval are not they'd be more compatable with a 'modern' person beyond the surface.
Far Tomorrows / Orange Sun will of course have much more details and some fun tables for suggestions and mechanics for these transitions. A complete cross of all RPGS is quite impossible but to any experienced player the guidelines should be easy.
Notes -
1 - and Clark Ashton Smith, William Hope Hodgeson,
2 - Well Kaijiru characters might end up hunted by NPC adventurers as "Monsters" with local authorities placing a bounty by reaction... AI beings might be confined to the bottom of VERY dangerous "Entropic Ruins" with already existing and far more advanced AI (think "In the year One Hundred thousand twenty five twenty five...") that are ancient and nearly transcendent in ability in their decaying but active ruins of some far future now far past civilization...
3 - Via the "Murder Hobos" or the Player Characters!
4 - Disclaimer - IF cyrogenics becomes a legit option do NOT freeze yourself for many thousands of years - you'll die. I mean if you can get the resources for a freezer tube that will last that long, make a chamber where you can wake up for a while and have food, drink, stretch out and exercise lightly for a few weeks then go back in if whatever you are seeking hasn't come yet... Natural radioactive breakdown in your own body will kill you unless you thaw out for a few weeks every thousand years or so. Hopefully this will be corrected. Since this world is set in the very far future we'll assume it has somehow. Most of us accept a "Transporter" concept thanks to Trek, this would be less difficult save the long times needed to keep active.
5 - Fantasy, Wild West, 70s Era Science fiction feel, Post Apocalypse, super spy
