If you found yourself in an unfamiliar world, a familiar but not-quite-right body, with your former memories fading fast and half-replaced by those of someone else, how would you react? If the rules that constrained everyone else in the world didn't seem to apply to you, what would you do with your new life?
World Background
Potential is set on an Earth-like planet known as Ebhen. It is, essentially, a world in the D&D universe, with all that entails - though it is not 100% identical (mainly so that rules, history and so on can be tailored for our purposes), it is close enough. The world is large and spread out across several continents. Just like Earth, it has a large variety of climates and biomes and a huge range of cultures spread out across the world. Unlike modern Earth, most of the human population of Ebhen still sustains itself by farming, and so is spread out into villages and towns rather than consolidated into huge metropolitan areas, although there are plenty of notable cities and strongholds, and several nomadic societies. Non-humans are plentiful on Ebhen, and their cultures are as varied as those of humans - and often completely unknown and alien to outsiders. Many of the other ÔÇÿhumanoidÔÇÖ races coexist mostly separately but peacefully, but there are always exceptions who choose to make their way in the Human societies, and there are just as many less-peaceful humanoids out there, as well as those considered downright warlike. There are also other sentient races who do not resemble humans in the slightest, more than can be listed or counted here, maybe even more than can be imagined, and tales of creatures not born of Ebhen itself but from the magical planes alongside it ÔÇô but most people have never seen nor heard of anything so rare. To have met a dwarf or an elf in your lifetime was nothing unusual, but in most of the small villages, those who said theyÔÇÖd had a drink with a Lizardfolk or broken bread with a Changeling were considered ÔÇÿtellers of tall talesÔÇÖ indeed.
Introduction and PC info
You are, for an unknown reason and through an unknown method, dragged into an alternate reality; essentially, the D&D world. You are knocked out or fall asleep in the 'real world' and wake up in the alternate universe, occupying a body that closely resembles your own, but is not it.
What becomes immediately clear is that someone else used to live in this body; a few moments of head-splitting pain ensue as your psyche fights for dominance and wins. It is not a complete victory: your memories seem to merge with those of your host, and the original medieval owner of your new brain managed to reject anything he or she could not comprehend before disappearing entirely. Whether or not that person is walking around confused in your body in 2015 on Earth, you do not know - but they are not with you any more. All you have is a faint understanding of who they were, glimpses of people and places they knew, and a selection of skills that you didn't have before.
Those with ÔÇÿthe PotentialÔÇÖ (the PCs) are modern day humans from Earth who have been dragged through from their reality into this one. Whatever caused this effect took people from different moments and places all across 2015 Earth, but seemed to concentrate their arrival at the same moment in two small, inconsequential villages. Each personÔÇÖs body was left behind, and their consciousness was inserted into the mind and body of an Ebhen villager, one who seemed oddly familiar to the original in some way. The effect of the merge has ÔÇÿresetÔÇÖ the PCs back to a slightly lower skill level than they might previously have been at ÔÇô while the original character may have been a PhD student, or the host may have had a long-term career, everyone begins back at Level 1 in only 3 skills to represent the fuzziness that came from being merged. When someone with 'Potential' looks at themselves, they see themselves as marginally more "real" than their surroundings, and outlined with a very faint golden glow - not enough to prevent them seeing the environment beyond, and not enough to illuminate their surroundings, but a definitely noticeable effect. They see this same effect when they see anyone else with 'Potential', and it is fairly immediately apparent that normal people don't see this.
However ÔÇô whatever brought the PCs to this world broke reality in such a way that the rules do not apply to them. None of the basic D&D rules regarding prerequisites, limits, and such are in effect: where everyone else in the world has to earn EXP, level up in one class at a time, spend their limited number of skill points, and so on, the PCs can learn almost anything, even world-altering magics or supernatural physical powers, just as they would learn something in the real world ÔÇô through good old fashioned effort and practice. And, as they will find out quite early on, even hard work isnÔÇÖt as hard as they might have expected it to be here. Just as a taster of their rule-breaking nature, and to highlight that they are now in an innately magical world, they have awoken with a couple of unusual abilities.
Group Two Starting Village Details: Coran Pass
Coran Pass was a hamlet that had grown up around a single large cattle farm, in the south-central area of one of the larger continents of Ebhen. The region had quite a mild, Mediterranean climate, comparable to central Spain, with plenty of sun year-round, dry hot summers, mild and rainy winters. There were only a few instances of snow in winter and the occasional tropical storm in summer. Off either side were the tall hills that gave Coran Pass its name; the river which had obviously carved a route through them in the past had dwindled down to a gentle stream, which ran alongside the main dirt road. The village of Coran Pass was only really an assortment of huts, houses and workers lodges built along the road, either side of a large Tavern with attached stables. The main farmhouse building was on the other side of the road, across the stream, reached by a wide and well-built bridge. The cattle farm itself operated much like a small ranch with barns and fields for grazing off behind it, sloping up the hill, all enclosed by fencing, and an area where crops for cattle (and people!) feed were grown. Past the area cultivated by the cattle farm, and behind the houses on the other side of the stream, forest covered the tops of the hills. One or two individual ÔÇ£garden farmsÔÇØ and small businesses had sprung up in the village alongside the cattle ranch, taking advantage of the occasional passing trade caravans and the greater demand for produce; the tavern also featured a small side-room which operated as a general store, with the owner purchasing few things from trade caravans and stocking them for future resale.
Group Two is:
Chuck
Spider
Gathers
Alaen
Dlover
Synch
Quarg