Alternate World (FRPG)

Alternate World was a forum-based role-playing game, which became defunct in 2008, in spite of spawning a video game adaptation in 2011. Despite being active only for a very short period of time, it had a tremenduos amount of influence on Zsolt Tóth, and as such, on Ways of Darkness as well - it could even be said that Alternate World is somewhat of a spiritual predecessor to Ways of Darkness. This was the place where he became acquited with many of his later (ex-)co-creators, such sa Ádám Kalocsai, Péter Pataki and László Dornfeld. This is where several later Ways of Darkness canon characters originally debuted as well, such as Gnarog Dougfrál, Nemezish and Morthen Orden'Áth Ildor.

A unique feature of Alternate World was that it was simultaneously a message board roleplaying game and a strategy game: players could choose between either playing as a demigod adventurer (but restricted to only one character), or playing as the leader of a country with its armies, which came with a reduced amount of character customization and an increased amount of responsibilites.

This wiki contains the archives of the Alternative World roleplaying sessions, but they are in Hungarian - they will never be translated, but English-language recaps are provided for them, in particular order: Gnarog's Arrival (AW), Ildor's Defiance (AW), Ildor's Departure (AW), Gnarog's Dream (AW) and The End of an Era (AW).

Sypnosis
The basic idea, sypnosis of the Alternate World is that the world is split into two halves, two planes of existence: the Lower Plane and the Upper Plane. The earlier is our world, our Planet Earth - the latter is a fantasy world, where entrance from the Lower Plane means being reborn, requiring "a soul strong enough". Despite this, it appears that the Upper Plane already has its fair share of indigenous non-human races (elves, orcs, dwarves, gnomes, goblins, demons, neko half-demons, harpies, fairies, amphibians, winged snakes, vulturemen, etc.), and there are several fractions directly drawing influence from real-life (Lower Plane) ideologies and historical formations (e.g. The Holy Inquisition, the Heavenly sultanate, The Vikings, the Pirates, etc.) - no explanation is given to their existence, and neither to the fact that adventurers who exist in the same time in the Upper Plane often coem from different time periods within the Lower Plane (e.g. Gnarog and Nemezish from the 21th century, Ildor from the time when the Austro-Hungarian Empire existed, Qasim Kamal from the 16th century Ottoman-occupied Hungary, etc.)

Strategy-players who decided to control a whole country isntead of an adventuring demigod also had their own private planes.

Races

 * Harpies: Bird-people.
 * Fairies: A race of small and winged humanoids with sharp ears, they are very fun-loving and constantly prank others (and each other too) - they reach adulthood under one year, and do not form romantic bonds, with male fairies typically simply seeking out a female fairy and raping her. They are very difficult to kill, as they can easily teleport anywhere.
 * Dreamwalkers: A mysterious and enigmatic race that takes control over people via visiting them and brainwashing them in their dreams first.
 * Amphibians: Effectively Sea Elves - their ancestors were Elves, who miracluously survived a flood and were transformed into a race that lives under the water. ALmost like a hybrid of Elves and Mermaids.
 * Winged Snakes: effectively identical to the Winged Cobras of Ways of Darkness, both created by Péter Pataki.
 * Goblins:A race of small-statured green-skinned humanoids who practice slavery and largely live a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle. Originally created by László Dornfeld, part of their description was copied into that of the Goblins of Ways of Darkness.
 * Elves: A race of tall and sharp-eared humanoids, nearly identical to Dwarves found in other fantasy settings, such as the ones in Ways of Darkness.
 * Neko Han'you / Neko Half-Demons
 * Gnomes: A race of technologically advanced short-statured humanoids, identical to Gnomes found in other fantasy settings, such as the ones in Ways of Darkness.
 * Dwarves: A race of short-statured humanoids, nearly identical to Dwarves found in other fantasy settings, such as the ones in Ways of Darkness.
 * The Infected / The Acursed: A race of parasites who infect living humanoids, their plague is said to spread with the undead - most people who are infected die, but those who survive become physically stronger, at the cost of mental retardation and increased aggressiveness. They also become slimy.
 * Demons: A race of red-skinned humanoids with animal horns, they have a highly hierarchial society and seek to enslave all the other races.
 * Vulturemen: Bird-people.

Fractions

 * The Vikings: A culture of polytheistic seafareing raiders and merchants.
 * The White Order: A religious order dedicated to the worship of Eozawak the White God, practicing magic and martial arts, they only accept humans, elves, amphibians, dwarves and gnomes among their ranks, deeming other races "inferior".
 * The Flaming Vipers: An organization of Winged Snakes
 * Ralph's Knights: Organized Bandits.
 * The Desert Rogues: A group of mercenary nomads who roam the deserts.
 * The Elven Volunteers: A group of Elven mercenaries with a proud past: they were once a guerrila organization fighting for Elvendim's survival against a Goblin invasion, once the threat was gone, the country's elite turned against the Elven Volunteers and had their leaders captured and executed. What remained of the Elven Volunteers degenerated into being common brigands and mercenaries, sellswords eager to sell their services to the highest bidder.
 * Elvendim: An Elven kingdom.
 * Brotherhood of True Christians: A group of Christian reform-advocates who oppose the Holy Inquisition (and their corruption, their wealth-collection, etc.), thus largely hide in the shadows. The Inquisition considers them heretics and has anyone found associating with them burned on the stake - the brotherhood's revenge is the (attempted) assassination of key members of the Inquisition.
 * The Hordes of Darkness: A group of Satan-worshippers dedicated to the practice of Black Magic and martial arts.
 * The Holy Inquisition: A group made up of mostly human males, they follow a distorted version of Roman Catholicism, collect indulgences and are known for their corruption (with key members building palaces for themselves, breeding children with their maids despite their supposed celibacy, etc.). Their infamous dogmaticism is applied inconsistently: they brand people as heretics and hunt them down when those people threaten their power (as in the case of the Brotherhood of True Christians), but can be flexible and tolerate more divergent faiths if it serves their purposes (as in the case of the Knightly Order of Virgin Mary).
 * The Heavenly Sultanate: An Islamic Kingdom in which practicioners of other religions are tolerated, so long as they pay the Jizya.
 * The Knightly Order of Virgin Mary: A human-supremacist radical Catholic militant group (following a distorted version of Christianity in which the Virgin Mary was two metres tall and killed demons with a claymore), which was once the Holy Inquisition's more militant arm, before it became its own independent fraction - the two factions are still allied to each other. Its members are rather volatile and have a tendency to suddenly get triggered and go on a killing spree, thus there is little love for them in the world, even from the Inquisition.
 * The Pirate Colonies: Pirates who cruise the seas in hopes of finding loot and booty.