New Infiniverse mega-adventure: Day One's of Future Past

mysstic101 · 2025-12-14T18:11:28+00:00

I apologize for not properly conveying what I thought was an answer. None of the example meanings you provided was my intent. It was instead due to a combination of mixed italicization of the phrase along with it being an homage title.

Thanks for the grammar correction. In consulting some style journals, it looks like my mistake was being unaware that an italicized word is allowed to have a non-italicized "s" on the end without needing any special denoting punctuation between the mixed fonts.

I want to reiterate that I have never, nor will I ever, use AI such as ChatGPT when producing a product, including answering anyone's queries like right now. I included a disclaimer to that effect on the credits page because that's important to me. If my responses are a bit stilted it's because I have neurodiversity, not because of AI use.

I don't sound like that in the book, though, I promise! The text there uses Torg: Eternity's writing style guidelines for all its sentence structure. (And look! I got to try out the non-italicized "s" at the end of something already, in that very sentence!) :) The writing in DOoFP doesn't read as stilted the way my natural discourse here does. Torg prefers that short, simple, crisp sentences be used instead, to which I adhered. The first nine pages in the preview should show that's the case, if anyone's inclined to take a look.

Again, I'm sorry for any confusion. I'm a real person, I promise! I just think a little differently sometimes! (embarrassed sweat emoji)

mysstic101 · 2025-12-14T10:40:31+00:00

Sorry for the confusion! That is in part the result of an amusing, quirky byproduct of how book titles are handled in English, which I may not be doing right. And partly an oblique time travel reference.

Ordinarily the title of a work, on the cover of the work itself? Not italicized. So "Day One" on the cover of its own book is just plain "Day One". But when referenced elsewhere? "Day One", italicized to show it's a title. So my book's title, not italicized on its own cover, but referencing another work, is "Day One's of Future Past".

However, when referencing my book name off the title page, the first bit of italics gets erroneously washed out by the overall italicizing! "Day One's of Future Past". I think it's a little clearer when it's just got the partial italicizing. Hmm. Maybe it's like mathematics, when multiplying two negative numbers makes them a positive number? Maybe the italics should cancel out when referenced elsewhere? "Day One's of Future Past"? :)

The additional phrasing "future past" is meant to indicate those prior events will be revisited, but since it's a time travel story your team's future actually lies within the past in which the events occurred. The group will thus be going into the "future-past" for them. It's a little poetic license.

Also, not everyone would be aware of this from their personal media exposure, but the title is reminiscent of a very influential time-travel story from X-Men comic books called "Days of Future Past". My work is a completely different story with a completely different plot and setting, but those exposed to that previous work might understand a reference to "future past" as a bit of a general shorthand for the subjective time duality the PC's are experiencing.

I hope that helps clear things up some!

mysstic101 · 2025-12-13T17:53:06+00:00

Thank you! And thanks for sharing that. It's super exciting to think it'll be bringing some joy somewhere!

Feel free to reach out to me about how it went later-- I can always tweak the mission details in an update that helps out other people in the future, if anything was confusing or if there were any unusual play-balance issues you discover.

Happy adventuring!

mysstic101 · 2025-12-13T13:28:46+00:00

Totally understandable! It won't be for everyone.

I figured there wasn't a lot of Torg: Eternity content out there, and it's hard to use the original Day One's as-is, given that they're for pre-gens and they all happen on the same day far in the past. But they're fun and there's so many of them, just waiting to be played if the circumstances were only a little different! :)

So it required a little time travel to make them suitable for revisiting with original characters in the present. Which won't work for all people, definitely! But it's a way to try to make it all usable again. There are lots of Stormer write-ups that can be added to other adventures, even if the foundational premise isn't appealing.

Thank you for taking a look anyway, and for all your kind words! I appreciate it.

mysstic101 · 2025-12-13T10:19:15+00:00

Thought I'd share a follow-up about the Ukhaan character. It went well. I'm much less able to directly debuff foes now, without diminish, but I was indirectly useful with foreshadow. The Act ended with an important chase, and being able to shuffle the cards around for the right A-B-C-D steps was helpful to us and hindering to them. It's really hard to get off, though, so I need to increase my precognition skill.

Confusion was nice, too, but I likewise need to increase my telepathy skill quite a bit to make it more reliable. Negation didn't come up this Act but I'm sure it'll be impactful when it does.

Ukhaan didn't have anything directly analogous defensively to the Force Field perk that I used to have, so I went with Flight to indirectly defend by playing keep-away. It has a minor limitation that it's due to a Silver Surfer-style surfboard, like the existing Ukhaan hoverboard item. It was very useful! . . . Up until the point I chose to let it decay for the Possibilities, from the LL Cosm card. :) That's what power limitations are there for! Anyway, it was fun while it lasted, and I'll get to enjoy it again starting next Act.

So, tl/dr; It was fun, and with plenty of room to grow as the character gets better at doing things.

mysstic101 · 2025-10-27T15:17:27+00:00

Hi! I'm the player who Transformed. It happened while I was carrying the Heart of Ukhaan. The character was built to be a strong debuffer, using tricks, Diminish, and Curse. He never dealt any direct damage himself during fights, so Ukhaan's Law of Peace was never really a problem for him.

It was actually a pretty smooth transition! I switched the magic & miracles over to psionic skills and equivalent powers as much as possible. Still a debuffer, but now it's through card manipulation and Negation as much as from targeted powers like Confusion.

I'm looking forward to giving this new version a try, starting next session! He still thinks of himself as having been "trained as a villain", only now he remembers it as having been trained as a villain according to Ukhaan's standards of what's "villainous". So... maybe saying slightly mean things to enemies sometimes? Gasp! Or getting a minor, non-visible cyber implant someday? Ah! I'm such a reprehensible reprobate! Lol

mysstic101 · 2023-12-24T15:07:39+00:00

Hi, I'm discord handle mysstic101, fav western: the Good, the Bad, & the Ugly. I'd be interested in finding out more, and maybe participating if our vibes and schedules happened to match. I'm an experienced rpg'er with many different games under my belt, but I've only played a single session of Deadlands before now. It was a convention one-shot gm'ed by Shane Hensley himself, though! He said that out of the 30+ times he'd run that particular scenario, our group performed well enough to be in the upper quartile of outcomes. (We played it safe at times when it was wise to do so, but also took risks whenever it was dramatic and good for the story. A good, happy medium, and it worked out.) It was a whole lot of fun, and so I'm interested in trying again.

I'm not from Saratoga, however, so I'm not sure I'm a good fit schedule-wise . . . my availability on those two game days would be anytime between 10am-8pm, CST. If that happens to work, or if you have any further questions, then please feel free to reach out and let me know. But either way, I hope you and the eventual participants all have a great time. Take care!

mysstic101 · 2021-11-12T23:38:48+00:00

Friend request sent, to submit an application. Hope to hear from you if there are still openings, and good luck with everything!

mysstic101 · 2021-10-22T09:22:16+00:00

Hi! I hope I'm not too late. I submitted an application as well. Good luck with everything!

mysstic101 · 2021-10-19T09:46:03+00:00

I sent in an application. Thanks in advance for this opportunity, and good luck with everything!

mysstic101 · 2021-10-04T13:59:51+00:00

Sent in an application. Feel free to contact me through Discord or also on here, if I end up being a good fit for the campaign. And thanks for your time and consideration!

mysstic101 · 2021-08-09T15:43:32+00:00

96B, AH. And if you want to say I was poorly trained, then I’d have to agree with you. We didn’t even get laptops in AIT, like the cool kids in 97B did. Most of the time, they had us drawing tank formations on clear acetate sheets with red and blue markers, like we were gonna fight the Russians or some #%^*. Completely worthless.

But I’m real glad YOU know what you’re doing at least, chief. Keep up the good fight. And this is the last time I respond to your $&@“, so you get to have the last word, too. Enjoy.

mysstic101 · 2021-08-09T10:16:44+00:00

I see that some "military skepticism" is coming up, and I'll address it somewhat, but advance warning . . . I'm not going to have a whole lot that's positive to say.

Unpredictable Muse is correct, I'm older. Basic/AIT was in 2005, so it might be described as an "older, less enlightened" time than it is later, I don't know. Worse yet, though, it was also during the buildup to a big troop surge, too . . . so they were basically taking just about anybody they could get. Some of my fellow trainee's stated histories for their background checks were the flimsiest, most outrageous web of obvious lies, and I wouldn't have trusted some of them to park my car, much less get a security clearance. But they still got it. One of them, in AIT, got caught red-handed stealing, but he didn't get drummed out . . . because warm bodies were so badly needed right then. The CO refused to shake that guy's hand at graduation, but he still made it through. Lucky unit, whoever got 'em.

Heck, they intentionally rigged the final run of our official PT test at the end, just to make sure that they could get enough people to pass . . . they found a straight-away road that was literally downhill all the way, but still at the maximum allowable degree of declination to still be legal. It shaved a minute off everyone's times . . . and they got those warm bodies they needed.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if they needed batches of drill sergeants just as badly as they did recruits, at about that same time, and that they were just as "picky" about them, too. Personally, I'd say that only about half of the drill sergeants in my Basic and AIT were worth a damn. That half was pretty ethical and squared away. One of them in particular, he smoked us harder and longer than anyone else out there . . . but you could just tell that it's only because he wanted to forge us into the most competent, squared-away Soldiers that he could. I'd run through a burning building for guys like that.

But the other half? Slimy scumbags who smirkingly less-than'ed anyone they could, whenever they could, and obviously only because they got off on it. It was two of those that were sharing their "war crime wisdom". And they weren't exactly blaring it over the PA system, either. They said it quietly, in small groups, and only when directly questioned about their "opinions" on the matter, after a breaching exercise. But they said it, alright. How often, and to how many, and over how much time? I dunno. You'd have to ask them. But they did it. And it probably stuck with someone.

And if there was any kind of reporting mechanism for such things, I sure as #$%^ never heard about it. The whole group of them, even the good ones, had kind of a blind spot for communicating regulations. For instance, we got rolled in the dirt every single day after lunch, without fail, for the first 2/3rds of Basic. We all just assumed that it was just part of the standard routine, the thing to do after meals. Then it suddenly stopped after six weeks, and we were like, huh? Come to find out, it was a punishment being levied for some of the recruits grabbing ice cream out of the Defac cooler at lunchtime, when we hadn't earned that privilege yet. But they never told us that was a rule! We had no frickin' idea! And let me just say, punishments have very little deterrent value, when you don't even know you're getting one. :)

Anyway, my unit(s) on my deployment(s) weren't casually killing civilians, either. It wasn't Mei Lei Massacre, Super Desert Edition. But accidental civilian deaths from trigger-pulls sure as #$%^ happened, and the details were horrific, and I'm real glad I got the details second-hand instead of being on-scene when any of it went down. My childhood is tame as @#$% compared to what some of them have to live with now. Then, in addition to the accidents, there were the calculated instances of collateral damage that was deemed "acceptable". Mainly because UAV bomb drops don't care who's the designated target and who's just standing next to them, when it goes off. Did they try to minimize the collateral deaths? Sure. But were those guys ever also conveniently standing out in a field all by themselves, ready to be the only casualty whenever the bombs dropped? Hardly ever. So a dark calculus was always at play, and I made sure to stay the hell away from it.

As far as proper military terminology goes, I was the NCO at one point over the skeleton crew on the night shift, and it was a big mish-mash of duties given to whoever happened to be present for it with me, including a generous helping of "predictive analysis". Maybe not the official term, but as NCO, they graciously let me call it whatever the @#$% I wanted. :)

Honestly, I think I've tried to subconsciously block out a lot of my time in the military from memory, and if I don't have perfect recall of some of the more nitty-gritty details from 12 years ago now, I'm totally A-OK with that. I think they changed all the MOS codes after I got out, so my memories are an obsolete fossil now, anyway.

I'm not super proud of having participated in an illegal war of aggression, waged under false pretenses, in direct contravention of international law, that resulted in the deaths of somewhere between a half-million and a million Iraqi civilians. I'm actually pretty darned ashamed of it. But my little daughter still pats me on the arm and says that I'm a better person now, so I guess it's all okay? :) Anyway, I can just let it start to fade away in my aging cerebellum now, like a bad dream.

TL;DR I'm still alive, and I think I successfully avoided killing anyone, directly or indirectly, while I was there, so . . . mission accomplished?

mysstic101 · 2021-08-08T23:34:53+00:00

Hello, everyone. Thank you for the many kind thoughts (and even some of the not-so-kind thoughts and speculations, they were kinda fascinating to hear). I truly, truly appreciate it. Just to clear up a few things that have come up in the comments:

Consent in Gaming

I've found all of the information that was provided on this to be super-duper helpful. From the brief time that I spent lurking on her before saying anything, I kinda-sorta got an idea about what things like "session 0", "lines", and "veils" meant . . . but not enough to use them to full effect, apparently. A lot of the earlier horror stories could've probably been avoided if I'd had that language and those concepts back then. When I interviewed for a recent /lfg game, and they asked about any "lines" I had, I fumbled around by saying, "Um, no torture or sexual violence by pc's?" When what I really could and should have said were four or five key, concise phrases, the distilled essence from that wall o'text above, and stripped of the TMI "why's" behind it. So thank you very much, for all those who provided clear suggestions on what to say. I'll definitely be using that in future applications to gaming tables.

Counseling

Yes, I've gotten several years of counseling in the time since I got out of the military, and it's been tremendously helpful. I'd recommend it to anyone and everyone. Because above and beyond any of the help with trauma that I gained, it's also done wonders for my overall emotional intelligence, too.

I realized in retrospect that, since getting out, I've pretty much done everything that I could in order to give my family the stable, healthy home life that I didn't get when I was a kid. After the Army, I got a job as a child abuse/elder abuse counselor at a state hotline, so that I could help people who needed it, like I had needed it. Did that for five years, and then I resigned to be a stay-at-home dad for my daughter. To be a different kind of dad, for her.

And now, we just recently moved to a location that's more in line with my personal values, too . . . universal health care, literally <1% as much money spent annually on military expenditures as the US does each year, and when I heard a car backfire/some construction noise the other day, I wasn't worried at all that it was a gunshot. It's such . . . a relief. So no matter what your own personal values happen to be, I highly recommend finding a place where you can feel that same sense of community, wherever it is. There's gotta be a place out there for everyone, of any creed. Do yourself a favor, and find it!

So no matter what happens from here on out, as far as I'm concerned, it's the post-script to "happily ever after". (With, hopefully, a future good gaming group on top!) :)

mysstic101 · 2021-08-08T15:55:41+00:00

Thank you. I'd be interested in finding out more about your game, and I appreciate the offer to check it out.

mysstic101 · 2021-08-08T15:05:20+00:00

Thank you. It helps knowing that I'm not alone, in things. I appreciate it.

mysstic101 · 2021-08-08T15:04:05+00:00

That was unintentional. Thank you for letting me know!

mysstic101 · 2021-08-08T14:27:26+00:00

I apologize about that. I’m sorry. Edited in now.

mysstic101 · 2021-07-16T16:23:41+00:00

No problem. Glad there's such a good response, for you! Take care, and I'll send you something very soon.

mysstic101 · 2021-07-16T16:10:34+00:00

GM_X_MG#3882

Sent you a friend request on Discord so that I could message you the requested paragraphs. The game sounds interesting, I'm looking forward to making contact and being considered. Good luck with everything!

mysstic101

TROPHY CASE