ZEITGEIST A debate given form: new statted-plane handouts for Schism

[arkwright]

Reading through Schism, I immediately had a problem with the Convocation debate, one posters have had previously. No firm planes are discussed, merely 'plane with an aspect of cyclicality' or 'lawful elemental planes'. I decided to be ambitious with my own version; every faction would be able to name and define their planes.

As you can expect, I ran into problems.

• Most of the planes discussed are allusions to planes in Act 3. The process of figuring out those allusions ranges from easy to near-impossible.
• Even then, there are some new planes that need to be made up.
• Act 3 planes are Gyre planes, doomed planes. Also, some planes were clearly different before they were doomed.
• Between Acts 2 and 3, the terminology for 'traits' and 'aspects' gets muddled.
• The book contradicts itself in points- one moment Jiese has the trait of 'cunning', the next it has the trait of 'inspiration'.
• Per the Player's guide, the planes appear to have properties entirely different to their traits- like Jiese governing war and notable births.

Still I'm happy to say that, for the most part, I resolved these problems. Some planes had to be made up, some others I used as pre-Gyre versions of planes; Caeloon, Egalitrix (Keser). I managed to more or less straighten out aspects and traits. I decided that the player's guide Jiese traits are common to all fire planes, rather than being a complicated addition to Jiese in particular.

So, I present to you, my handouts.

• Present Planar Array
• Miller's Pyre
• Colossus
• Arboretum
• Watchmakers
• Panarchists
• Minor Factions
• Radical Factions
• Planes of the Obscurati

To answer a few questions; the grey icon means the plane is a moon, the world icon means the plane is (broadly speaking) habitable. The landscapes are, generally speaking, the painting portals in Brave New Worlds. Yes, many Minor Faction representatives are shamelessly weeb.

Enjoy. Let me know if you have any suggestions- I'm sure there's room for improvement.

 

[RangerWickett]

My intention was that the planes in the Gyre are not anything the Ob are aware of. Those are planes that died decades or centuries ago, so for instance, Caeloon (which you have in your Arboretum proposal) or Iratha Ket or Teykfa (in your Minor Factions) would not be things they'd know of.

You put in a ton of work here, and it looks good. I was worried in the original adventure 7 that we'd be giving too much information, and that players might balk, thinking they have to understand all the planar nuances, when really the focus is just on the factions and their goals. Then in adventure 10 they see what the new planes are and what they do, and finally in 12 they get to tinker themselves. I figured the slow involvement - wood blocks first, then Duplos, then Legos - would work better than giving the party a big box of Legos in the middle of the spying mission.

I admit to being a little confused by the anime girls in the minor factions.

 

[arkwright]

I appreciate that reasoning, though I feel you yourself might have not actually followed it at time of writing. Many of the theoretical planes discussed by the Ob map on quite well to Gyre planes. Teykfa maps quite nicely to the Long Now, for instance. My justification is handwave-y speed-of-light delay. The Ob are divining on and investigating planes which long ago moved to the Gyre- but they don't know that, as the light from those planes is only just hitting Lanjyr. This doesn't make too much sense with Teykfa as it's one of the oldest planes in the Gyre, but oh well.

Myself, I feel the factions and their goals are inevitably tied to the planar nuances, and you can't discuss one without the other. I suppose I'm inclined to feel like the party knows all the nuances because of the spots in the book where the players are supposedly able to learn everything. The Ob Researchers at Knutpara apparently detail every single plane the Ob have discovered and are considering.

Still, again, I can respect a slow-burn approach.

The minor faction anime girls make total sense for all the NPCs and definitely weren't chosen randomly while fiddling with NPC attributes at will.