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Monday Mashup #40: Planet of the Apes

Nuadha says I should mashup Planet of the Apes. I have no fear of the damn dirty apes! We all know the basic plot, right? Statues of Liberty are optional.

Start your engines for this, our fortieth mashup.

I’m going to use Greyhawk once more, as it’s the archetypical D&D setting. One of the things about Greyhawk is that there are plenty of stray dimensions lying around; there’s always an alternate Prime Material Plane available when you need one. The setup to this adventure is the archetypical greybeard wizard who sends the PCs across dimensions “to set a horrible situation to rights.”

They arrive in a Greyhawk in which kobolds are the dominant race, acting just like humans, and humans are the fodder for low-level adventurers.

Really! Castle Greylizard. The Spear Coast. Shamans instead of clerics. All that stuff. And you have humans who are bossed around by mean ogres and so on, and the humans are reviled and scorned for good reason. They simply aren’t that bright. People talk about the sage named Tucker who posited intelligent, clever humans — but nobody takes him seriously. The PCs are a huge aberration.

Dwarves are like orcs, I suppose. Elves… occupy the hobgoblin ecological slot? Gnomes are like goblins, and halflings are — I’m out of small humanoid races. Halflings are like goblins too. It doesn’t really matter which race corresponds to which, as long as humans are on the absolute bottom.

The big reveal is exactly the same as in the original movie. At the end of daring adventures, freeing slaves, and so forth, the PCs discover something — probably a record of one of their adventures back “home” — which makes it utterly clear that they are in the future and not another dimension at all. No going home, but at least they set their fellow humans free.

7 Comments

  1. jeffwik jeffwik

    I’ve given it a shot. Kinda.

  2. Chris Chris

    I ran this at Arisia a couple of years ago when Terra Primate first came out. It’s kind of sort of a mashup with Stargate, but since I’ve only seen a handful of episodes it’s really only the veneer of SG-1.

    A top-secret military project has discovered a strange circular device covered with undecipherable inscriptions. Early attempts to send probes through fail as the gate’s field disrupts electronics. Sending through small animals results in messy squished small animals, but larger creatures are able to survive the stress. Part of the Secret Govt project is a psi project, and there is one particularly talented agent who has developed a deep bond with a highly intelligent genetically enhanced gorilla. Despite her objections about the danger of the mision, the higher ups decide to send the gorilla through the Gate, as the psi link *may* function through the Gate. If all else fails, the gorilla knows sign language, and maybe they can get some good info back.

    The predictable happens. Gorilla goes through the gate. Gate spins, flashes, world disolves in white light. When the PCs come to, gorillas in military uniforms are running into the room to see what’s going on.

    The Stargate is fused and ruined, and cannot be used to reverse this. But the PCs know where the Gate was found on their world – at the bottom of the ocean. Since apes can’t swim, it hasn’t been found in this world yet. PCs must go find Gate, get back home. And when they do, they see the strange inscriptions over the gate are this time written in English!

  3. It’s a madhouse!!! A madhouse!! -Taylor, the amazing talking human The most recent mashup is one of my favorite movies of all time, Planet of the Apes. This is, of course, why I suggested it. For my Ape-world, I will…

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