Worldbook: Nine Alternate Realities has been published on Lulu.com at
http://www.lulu.com/author/wizard/index.php?fCID=1991006&fCookie=.
It contains nine worlds in seven settings like the 1st and 2nd Book of worlds, and weighs in at just about 120,000 words.
The gather world is Starsong Systems. The parallel worlds are Gothika & Fantastique. The contingency world is Doom of the Mech Empire. Other worlds include Northgate City, Heartwar, Symbiont Academy, and Tall Tales of Mythica.
1. Starsong is founded on a question seldom asked. What if ALL the likely scientific advances occurred, what would the world be like. Starsong attempts to answer with a world of wonder where a human can become a cetacean, or a tree. With a world of turned upside down economics where working at Waffle House is big bucks, and strange taboos against ranged weapons. Its a world of great glory, and sudden terror; its a world where normal people live for centuries unless they die in a billion fold swath from a super-virus. Its a brightly sunlit place, with deep, cold shadows hiding not far beneath the surface. Its your future, if you're lucky because as scary as it can be, it could be far worse.
2. Gothika & Fantastique are Steampunk worlds which start with the funeral procession of Her Brittanic Majesties' Viceroy to the Americas, Sir Abraham Lincoln. The world begins to go wonky from there as bridges cross oceans, and dirigibles fly with a foot thick of iron armor, and physics seems to work up to a point, and then go completely bananas.
In Gothika, the satanic mills are real. This world is ruled by Ares, a bully, thug, and a coward, but a god of war all the same. In Fantastique, the bright dream of engineers is real, and while there is danger, the reigning power is Athena, goddess of crafts and wisdom and war. One world ruled by evil, and the other by good, so much alike, and yet so different.
3. Doom of the Mech Empire is probably the most intellectually challenging world I've ever created. The events on the Bronze Age alien planet, with the electroforms that ride the tall, thin, fuzzy creatures (and the hero) mirror the events, and the outcomes of what is happening on the galactic stage as alien space monsters attack the Human Star Empire.
Edward Carroll and Jesse have playtested this world, except for the contingency.
It offers a moral dilemna, for possibly the one thing that can save the innocent defenders, is also the one thing that will almost certainly doom them.
4. Northgate City has been played twice on this site (and as a gather at RPOL.net with Alexis and Misty Reynolds). Its a metropolis of heroes and villains with many unique touches, and a good explanation or two for why supers congregate here rather than spread out over the world. It offers some of the more interesting personalities for the player to interact with. These range from the schemes of the supervillain Dr. Zhorbhakian who is convinced he's a superhero, to Soliton the world's most powerful slacker, to an AI left by Michael Di Vars(r) in one of his many 'foxholes' across the Multiverse.
5. Heartwar offers the Dreamer the chance to change the world's mood by changing the Collective Unconscious. This isn't easy as wrestling with Archetypes, and Myths will strain even the verser's nerve. Worse, there are other dreamers, and not all are benevolent. Worse still, in the waking world, spy agencies from various powers want to control the dreamer because he represents too much independent power.
This has been playtested by our Jhiaxus and by others at RPOL.net as a gather world.
6. Symbiont Academy takes the player aboard an alien spaceship along with five hundred of the Earth's best and brightest to a Megascale Structure millions of times the size of Earth. There, the hope of the Earth World Government will meet with other races, and see if they can pass a test, and be permitted out into the larger galaxy. The nature of the test? Ah, the aliens aren't telling. That would be much too easy. Better study hard at the School of a Dozen Doors.
This also offers the chance to deal with alien symbiotes, and first contact situations with some unique races.
Edward Carroll, Tom Day, and RobMacD have playtested this world.
7. Tall Tales of Mythica takes you to a world where Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, and other American folk tales are the literal truth. You can try to find Big Rock Candy Mountain, or visit one of the several Grand Canyons, help Stormalong grease the sides of his ship so it can fit in the English Chanel (and thus make the cliffs of Dover even whiter), and learn skills that you probably can't learn elsewhere in the Multiverse.
Or you could simply visit the realistic Western town of Hardscrabble which is almost completely normal, and is your starting point. It has enough adventure for a bit. But eventually, you'll wander, and see a really big, really blue ox on the horizon...
