Whats so special about the Far Realm?

[Vicar In A Tutu]

I'm not thinking about the tentacled appearence and Lovecraftian background, but rather its motivations. Usually, these are described as being unfathomable. However, very often it just boils down to "destroy the universe". This is very boring, IMHO, and it makes the star-creatures a bit too similar to demons (who are the ultimate "destroy Creation" type of entities in D&D, whereas devils seek to enslave Creation). An alternative would be that the Far Realm seeks to absorb Creation, and "devour" it, turning it into an extension of the Far Realm. (This reminds me of the Tyranids from Warhammer 40K.) BTW, I really like the idea that the stars in the default D&D world are actually malevolent, sentient entities.

Any other suggestions as to what the Far Realm's motivations are?

 

[Dice4Hire]

I've never been a fan of Lovecraft, or horror generally, so the Far Realm plays little ot no part of my game.

However, if it did, I would steer away from the destroy the universe ideal also, as that is primordial and demon territory. Instead, I would have them trying to explore this world with a view to learning and grabbing power. They have their own kind of magi and life, but they want ours too. They have probably destroyed/absorbed many worlds before and learned their secrets and this world is next.

Their main probaem is that their very presence disrupts the experiment so learning how things work here is very very hard for them.

 

[DMH]

Any other suggestions as to what the Far Realm's motivations are?

I wouldn't apply a motivation to the entire population of a plane or the plane itself. Some want to eat and find humans tastey and some want to explore (too bad their existance is harmful to prime material plane inhabitants) and some just got lost and are looking for a way home.

 

[Rechan]

I'm not thinking about the tentacled appearence and Lovecraftian background, but rather its motivations. Usually, these are described as being unfathomable.

I hear 'unfathomable" or "so intelligent mortal minds can't conceptualize it" tossed around in fluff text for everything from Gods to Demons. And usually their plots are pretty easy to Fathom.

An alternative would be that the Far Realm seeks to absorb Creation, and "devour" it, turning it into an extension of the Far Realm.

Well yes. I think that's the most common usage, rather than "DOOM". The Far Realms is like the Borg, but instead of just people, it's EVERYTHING. It could be that the Far Realms is to Unnatural what the Abyss is to Evil. Demons are basically just the Elements corrupted by pure evil and chaos. Well, the Far Realms could be the same thing, except that it's just Madness and Chaos. Physics on LSD.

Any other suggestions as to what the Far Realm's motivations are?

I've seen a lot of cool ideas on ENworld over the years, lemme sum up. Problem is, if you adopt one, it's a rather world-defining one.

1) As the above, as far as "assimilation", but it's a lot more intentional and insidious. The above makes it seem like the Far Realms is just Insanity Radiation that effects everything. But instead, think of the Far Realms as intelligent and deliberate. The Far Realms can't "breathe our atmosphere", in terms of reality, so it needs enough psychic pollution or enough unreal reality in order to be able to step into the Real World.

This is what aberrations are doing. Perhaps not even consciously aware of it, but an Aberration just doing its thing (and hell, possibly MERELY EXISTING here) is paving the way. If left to their devices, the Far Realms will soon be able to survive/enter and assimilate.

This would then relate to psionics. Because Psionics could either be "pushing back" the psychic entropy, or psionics could unwittingly be doing the same thing! So a situation where all Psionics could be reality Defilers, or they could be the Purifiers, to put it in Dark Sun terminology.

2) The Far Realms itself is a plane-sized organism. Its body is too big to comprehend. But it is in fact one entity. [i}Everything[/i] that lives in the Far Realms, therefore, is an organism of that immense body. They are the cells, the antibodies, the digestive bacteria, the enzymes, stomach acids, and parasites. They all have an instinctive role.

So the activity of the Far Realms and Aberrations isn't that there's an over-arching motivation, but it's biological. To the Far Realms, "Order" and the natural (as far as we're concerned) is a cancer. We are the cancer. And where the Far Rralms bleeds over into us, that's actually where It has a tiny wound (so to speak), and our disease is getting into it. Therefore, the influence of the Far Realms isn't offensive, but defensive; its body responds by trying to stop the cancer (or turn it into itself, to neutralize the cancer).

This immense body is, for all intents and purposes, "asleep". It's not conscious because it's not awake. If it were woke up... This also opens the door for the Campaign's epic ending being about slaying the Far Realms. Because such a task would require 30th level PCs.

3) Using the above example of reality as cancer, but let's change the analogy. Imagine the Far Realms as a continent with lots of little countries. Now, imagine that in one country, the ruling authoirty went away. No one replaced him, and the country broke down. No authority, no one in charge, it's just unchecked.

Now, imagine that anarchy is Order. Logic. Physics. Our world, basically is a pocket of Law within a vast sea of Chaos.

Finally, imagine two things. 1) The Authority (the one that left) is asleep. What happens if it starts to wake up? 2) What if the Far Realms (or other Authorities) become aware of this, and want to ride in and take over? Or even that the original Authority never left, it merely changed its dominion into the world. What if someone wanted to change the Authority's mind?

4) This fits in with #1, but works fine on its own. The Far Realms could see the Real World as an untapped, natural resource. Of course, the resources they are looking for are dreams, thoughts, emotions.

 

[Desdichado]

This is very boring, IMHO, and it makes the star-creatures a bit too similar to demons (who are the ultimate "destroy Creation" type of entities in D&D, whereas devils seek to enslave Creation).

Of course, Lovecraft and Co. did often call their monstrosities demons, and many of the D&D demons were heavily influenced by the Lovecraftian ouevre. The fact that they resemble each other isn't necessarily bad nor even undesireable.

Personally, I think the D&D cosmology is too fragmented. The Far Realms is more overtly Lovecraftian than any other place, but it still overlaps with the old Limbo and the Abyss a lot... which in turn overlap with each other and other nasty planes too much as well.

 

[Rechan]

Personally, I think the D&D cosmology is too fragmented. The Far Realms is more overtly Lovecraftian than any other place, but it still overlaps with the old Limbo and the Abyss a lot... which in turn overlap with each other and other nasty planes too much as well.

D&D is very compartmentalized.

To give an example, think of "unnatural traits". Something weird or aberrant. Now, to the non-D&D player, you coud describe anything weird and say it's from beyond our reality. But if you put it in D&D, it very well might fall into the category of "ooze" or "Undead" or "Fey". So all that's left for Aberrations is tentacles and drippy slime to be recognizable.

The Far Realms is also just a catch-all. Insanity, reality breaking, the really weird and odd and not-normal. If it doesn't fit into any of the other conceptual D&D boxes, then it goes in the Far Realms, making the Far Realms the junk drawer of concepts.

 

[Dausuul]

I've always thought the Far Realm's sole purpose in 4E is to give aberrations a place to be from, which is a pretty poor justification for adding an entire plane to the cosmology - especially one that steps all over the toes of the Abyss and its demented, be-tentacled denizens. My world doesn't have a Far Realm; aberrations are the native races of the Underdark (waging a constant struggle with interlopers from the surface such as drow and duergar).

To me, the Far Realm has a distinct science fiction vibe, so if I were going to use it, I'd tweak the rest of the cosmology to match. Emphasize the "pure mind" aspect of the Astral Sea over the "home of the gods" aspect. Get rid of the Elemental Chaos and the Abyss, and set the Far Realm on the other side of the Astral Sea.

Then play up what remains of Vancian casting and encourage psionic and martial classes, while discouraging or even eliminating primal and divine. Flavor arcane classes as alchemist/scientist types (which might mean getting rid of the sorceror). Maybe throw in some bits of advanced technology, Blackmoor-style.

In this cosmology, alien entities from the Far Realm seek to cross the Astral Sea and colonize, conquer, or otherwise exploit our reality. The really powerful ones plan on changing it to match their own eldritch universe. The PCs must track them down and stop their incursions.

(And I agree with Rechan that "unfathomable motivations" is usually a lot of bunk. Most of the time, when a creature is described as having unfathomable motivations, the motivation is quite straightforward once you get past the Lovecraftian fluff; self-defense, reproduction, or control of scarce resources. If you want a creature whose motivations are truly unfathomable, its goals need to be totally bizarre and random, like killing all blond-haired people who were born in the three days following a solar eclipse... just because. But I suspect most players would find that hard to accept.)

 

[Desdichado]

D&D is very compartmentalized.

Yes, I know, that's what I'm specifically complaining about. I tend to simplify my cosmologies. For one thing, most of the time, the details of the cosmology are just estoteric religious doctrine that has little impact on the game itself. For another, I really like to keep things a bit simpler and easier to use if I actually want to, even in a game that features lots of outsiders.

So for my settings, I tend to have a transitory plane that's not unlike the Plane of Shadow. This is the "porch"; the gateway that separates all the many hells from the mortal world. From here, you can enter the various hellish planes, which have a more complicated geography of nesting and linkages. Sometimes you have to travel through one (or more) to get to another, "deeper" one, while others are linked directly to the "porch."

But in terms of what those hells are, I use any hostile plane layer and any hostile outsider fairly indiscriminantly. Demons, daemons, devils, oni, slaad, efreet, etc... Conceptually they're all really the same thing, it's only their mechanical, gamist properties that are really different.

 

[TerraDave]

Of course, key elements of Lovecraftian horror include:

1) the monsters are here, in this universe/dimmension/earth, and this universe is far more monstrous then we understand. (note, this does not preclude other dimmensions).

2) Its not so much about agenda's as our insignificance. Think of humans like ants, and their is this kid with a magnifying glass...

The best thing to do with the far realm might be to get rid of it...

 

[Rechan]

Of course, key elements of Lovecraftian horror include:

2) Its not so much about agenda's as our insignificance. Think of humans like ants, and their is this kid with a magnifying glass...

Of course, in a fantasy setting, where Gods can come down and poke you in the face, this does lose its edge.

But agreed. The element is also simply "We just Don't KNOW what the hell this is". It takes the people out of their comfort zones. You get a little of that with say, series where mortals are introduced to magic or vampires or something. But Lovecraftian horrors break the foundation of Reality. It's like finding out you're really living in the Matrix.

The other undercurrent is "Understanding it will break your mind because it's so awful/wrong".