History question: first appearance of 'Well of Many Worlds' ?

[Jacob]

I too have investment with research on the Well of Many Worlds. I even went as far to buy the Planescape supplement Well of Worlds to see if it had any details on the matter...it didn't. Thus far, the only adventure/source I'm aware of that uses the Well of Many Worlds is the Worm That Walks scenario of Elder Evils. For something that's been around for awhile as noted here, it certainly didn't make a lot of appearances.

 

[howandwhy99]

He may not be in Appendix N, but Jack L. Chalker wrote the Well World series - a fairly popular fantasy saga in the late 70's. It's been conjectured that this is where the DMG's well of many worlds comes from.

Jack L. Chalker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Even if it isn't, the books are great reading and inspiration for the item's use.

 

[Krensky]

He may not be in Appendix N, but Jack L. Chalker wrote the Well World series - a fairly popular fantasy saga in the late 70's. It's been conjectured that this is where the DMG's well of many worlds comes from.

Jack L. Chalker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Even if it isn't, the books are great reading and inspiration for the item's use.

Um... I think you're confusing the Well World with something else. It's Sci-fi series and has more or less nothing to do with the Well of World's effect. I vaugely remember a 'random' sorter and some teleport tech, but nothing like a portable hole to elsewhere.

Frankly I always thought it came from the same place as the portable hole: Looney Tunes.

 

[Jacob]

Agreed on good reading, and there's plenty to inspire from those books alright. Will need to check on Jack Chalker's work at some point. It seems that's what I will have to do in order to understand the Well of Many Worlds a little more (if there is something round to expand on it). Seriously, the Well is fascinating. It's a good show at how something so "easily" created (CL 17 ain't easy, but whatever) can have such disastrous effects, either from the random gates it creates or the ritual described in Elder Evils. In just one example, what's to stop a military world from enslaving another world once they find the right location for the Well?

 

[Ripzerai]

Thank you (and likewise thank you too Ari and Cutter). This was what I'd assumed, and it was also what I'd sadly worried about, because it means it's rather too late to probe Gary about how he went about creating that particular item.

What, specifically, are you curious about? Perhaps we can speculate.

 

[Shemeska]

What, specifically, are you curious about? Perhaps we can speculate.

Oh I was largely just interested in the origins of the item and what if anything might have inspired its creation. This was me picking the brains of the community for any such details prior to writing the 'Well of Many Worlds' chapter in Paizo's 'Classic Treasures Revisited'. If there had been a bunch of specific stuff I would have potentially done a sidebar specific to its inspirations/origins in the game.

 

[havard]

Blackmoor has a Well of Souls, but that may be an entirely different animal...

-Havard

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What's this? A normal "item" or a true "well"? I'm already imagining an old well. You can't see the bottom. Using a rope and climbing down you start to finding holes on the well's wall. A person could enter on it... but where it leads?

Officially cooler than the (IMO lame) actual magic item.

EDIT: No offense, Shem. Didn't see your response before I posted. I'm sure you cooled it up some.

 

[FireLance]

Not exactly a well, but C. S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew (chonologically the first of his Narnia series) describes "The Wood between the Worlds", in which there are several pools each leading to a different world.

I'm not sure if Gary Gygax ever read Narnia, but if he did, it might have been one of the inspirations.

 

[KJSEvans]

This thread inspired me to go back and read through the old 1E and 2E GMG for all the cool magical items.

It's really insane, how prolific they are and how many of them I'd love to use in a campaign someday...