The Wold Newton family is a literary concept derived from a form of crossover fiction developed by the science fiction writer Philip José Farmer.
Farmer suggested in two fictional "biographies" of fictional characters (Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life), that the (real) meteorite which fell in Wold Newton, Yorkshire, England, on December 13, 1795, was radioactive and caused genetic mutations in the occupants of a passing coach.
Many of their descendants were thus endowed with extremely high intelligence and strength, as well as an exceptional capacity and drive to perform good, or, as the case may be, evil deeds.
The progeny of these travellers were purported to have been the real-life originals of fictionalised characters, both heroic and villainous, over the last few hundred years, such as Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Doc Savage, and Lord Peter Wimsey.
 |
| The Wold Newton Meteorite Monument |
Something, of course, very familiar to a lot of role-players as well who look to create a single, unified game setting for their campaigns and certainly touches on my own dreams for the Knight City Villains & Vigilantes campaign, of one day having a multitude of teams (some face-to-face games, some play-by-email) fighting crime around the fantasy Earth I'm toying with in my head.
I've used the Wold Newton Universe, as further developed by those after Farmer, as kind of a substratum for a superhero gaming setting before, myself.
ReplyDeleteI discovered it all through the Doc Savage book, which I picked up in my teens. This has always had an influence on my thinking, but I've never used the Wold Newton Universe directly - just ideas and inspirations.
ReplyDeleteHaving played in a few joint PBeM worlds - such as the Global Guardians and Uber World - I agree that it can be great fun participating in linked fantasy world. And I have always loved the whole Wold Newton Universe idea of linking literary characters together.
ReplyDeleteYep, awesome book and I especially loved that family tree that tied all the characters together.
ReplyDelete@Nimbus - must find time to check out properly, it looks incredible. Of course, that's really what we were doing back in the day with the original HeroPress PbM, with campaigns dotted around the globe - and even in space - yet all part of the same game world!
ReplyDelete@Siskoid - For me that was a hangover from my LoTR days, when my favourite part had been the appendixes with the family trees for the elves and various royal families.
Flea - apparently, until 2006 (when it closed down), the Global Guardians was "the largest and most active privately-owned shared universe PBeM on the internet in any RPG genre". It's apparently being regenerated on the Butlerverse wiki. It, like the Uber World, was incredibly complex and chock full of characters.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, not really anything to do with the Wold Newton Universe though.
Incredible, Nimbus, this appears to have actually been my HeroPress dream of the 1980's actually achieved (albeit with Champions).
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of background material now for me to read up on... and probably swipe!
Thanks for that, I'd never heard of any of this before. How long were you involved with the campaign?
With Global Guardians, not that long (by which I mean probably only 1 or 2 years). I think I had a couple of characters in one or two campaigns - for example, Bulldog in Majestic. I was active in the Uberworld universe for longer (it grew out of GG when that was beginning the wind down - so since 2005?). Technically I'm still a part of Uberworld, although I haven't posted anything for, ooh, 18 months.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing that. I still can't believe, for all my years (even peripherally) in the superhero roleplaying community that I'd never heard of these.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what else is out there (in this field, naturally) that I'm unaware of?
Hi. You might want to check out http://thedemi-monde.blogspot.com (or my blog at http://precipitationwithinsight.blogspot.com) for news on a Wold Newton Universe (or possibly Wold Newton Family) related series of novels. Cheers, Earl.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the great links, Lord Cardigan!
ReplyDelete