D&D 5E Time Travel and forced time paradoxes

[MichaelArkAngel]

I am running an adventure that has a group adventurers travellng back in time to a few different time periods (stone age, bronze age, etc...)

During these time periods, considering the equipment and magic the players wielded they were considered "almost godlike" in not only appearance but in battle as well, because of their advanced skills/weaponry. As they moved from timeline to timeline, the records of their actions have been noted in stories and other lore of the time,though NOT BY NAME. (titles as:The Legendary Heroes" "The Warriors in White Bronze","Lords of Wood and Fire" have been written about them.)

Here's my question to all you DM's out there!!!


A couple people in the party (fighter and Paladin) have been trying to start their own order/following by recruiting people and telling them about their order, handing out flyers, kissing babies,etc... to make sure their name gets out there, possibly convert some unsure in their lives during these multiple timelines. They are leaving behind information,knowledge and some training of themselves throughout these times intentionally, in hopes that when they get back to their time, they would have a mass of followers waiting for them.

If you were to run this, would these brief encounters really add up to much, if anything? I could possibly see upsetting a god or gods that may have lost possible followers in their order due to their actions.

What do you guys/gals think?

 

[fjw70]

So whatever would be most fun for you and the rest of the group, and don't worry about how realistic this.

One idea would be to have this group of followers evolve into a cult that is doing many bad things in the current era, and the PCs have to try to defeat or thwart the cult. Maybe some charismatic leader has taken over and convinced everyone else that he know the "true" intentions of the founders and the PCs are imposters.

 

[ammulder]

If I were to run this, it would not add up to much. But it wouldn't be nothing, either -- the reward should be proportional to the effort. For a series of "brief encounters," I would probably turn it into comic relief: Have a baby vomit on the Paladin, and a thousand years later, the PCs can discover the Order Of The Soiled Surcoat.

As another option, they could find references to a long-lost movement they started, but which was quickly driven underground by a hostile leader and nothing more was heard of it. Then if they continue to pour effort (in the present day) into uncovering the outcome of their historical movement, I might make something more of it. But if they let it go, I'd let it go too.

 

[marcelvdpol]

Actually, you could indeed introduce two new Gods in your pantheon with names that losely resemble those of the Paladin and Barbarian. Since language changes a LOT over time, the names need have only a so-so resemblance to their actual names. There might be temples dedicated to those gods, with their own Heroes of note.

Furthermore, while the ideals of the characters might be transferred to the civilization, the actual handing down of ideals, stories and influence of the characters will not be "exact" and what the civilization remembers over time will change as new interpretations of the stories will pop up throughout history. This is especially true over a longer time frame (several thousand years for example). Perhaps some religious wars have been fought over the "correct" interpretation with the "wrong" interpretation winning the war and corrupting their original ideals.

Also, perhaps the Characters will have their own Zodiac Signs in the heavens named after them (or at least after their class), such as "The Berserker" and "The Shining One" for Barbarian and Paladin respectively.

In any case, how exactly are those characters going to "prove" that they are actually the heroes in the stories? Proof is hard to come by. You could use this to create a corrupted new religion in the world which actually recognizes them as those heroes but that religion has completely changed and corrupted the stories and ideals of the characters. Even if the religion recognizes them, its going to be hard to explain to the worshipers that they got the stories and ideals completely wrong. It could even be the case that the characters will have to decide to "wipe out" the religion due to its evil nature even though they started it.

 

[Jer]

I think it depends entirely on how much you like messing with your players and how much it plays into your group's idea of what makes a good story for the campaign.

If you like to mess with your players, they have handed you a golden opportunity. Their meddling in the timestream has created an opportunity for a whole lot of hijinks. Maybe a demon/devil/evil god/immortal wizard/whathaveyou decides to co-opt their movement and turn it into a cult that on the outside looks like a noble movement but secretly is trying to takeover/destroy the empire/kingdom/world/multiverse. Maybe their meddling has created a movement that led to a horrible war and when they get back to the present everything is different. Or they could get home and discover that their movement turned into an apocalyptic death cult and they now they have a legion of brainwashed assassins out to kill them because the heads of the cult know the truth and want to make sure no one else finds out.

Or maybe they get home and it works as planned - they have an entire religion devoted to their memories and now they have a huge group of followers who expect them to fix all of their problems for them. Be careful with this one though - turning the game into "hey you have five thousand mouths to feed and there's a drought going on right now" will definitely change the game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A nice Twilight Zoney time-travel tale can go one of two ways when you mess with the past:

1) Immutable Fate. Your intervention created exactly the world you left, since it already happened. When they get back, they find all the same religions that existed before, but if they look into the inner mysteries of some of them, they find they were built up around or incorporated the seeds the characters had sown in the past. For a darker twist, the followers they recruited were purged as heretics, the event written out of history - but for the warning of their return, upon which, they are all tried for heresy.

2) Butterfly Effect. You slightest intervention has ramifications that snowball, creating a different present. The cults they started expanded, conquered the world, turned on eachother, and brought about an apocalypse, for instance, would be a mild example. Or maybe they return to a world ruled by mind flayers.


Coincidentally, I just ran a time-loop 'paradox,' but the time-travel was the denouement. The party recovered a time-travel artifact that had been hidden away, it took them back in time to the moment it was hidden and they were incorporated, in temporal stasis, into the trap/puzzle they had to solve to get it. Of course, once the item disappeared into the past (with them), they were all released from stasis.

 

[Bigsta]

When the PCs return they find that the cult exists, but it is currently being run by the father of one of the PCs (because the father looked just like the PC of legend so mistakes were made). Further, because of the temporal shenanigans, the father left the PC's mother and married one (or more) of the cult members and sired a half-brother to the PC. It turns out, the father has chosen the half-brother as the cult's future leader.

 

[GMMichael]

Since language changes a LOT over time. . .

Does it? OP didn't mention the PCs needing to use Comprehend Languages everywhere they went. Or Tongues.

PCs going politicking wouldn't add up to much. PCs who have god-like features going politicking wouldn't add up to much. PCs who have god-like features who go politicking who also save a village, slay a dragon, or make off with the emperor's wife, well, THAT would carry on over the years.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Does it?

Over enough time, it does.

OP didn't mention the PCs needing to use Comprehend Languages everywhere they went. Or Tongues.

Maybe the DM didn't think of it, or it was implicit in the time-travel method, like in Dr. Who?

PCs who have god-like features who go politicking who also save a village, slay a dragon, or make off with the emperor's wife, well, THAT would carry on over the years.

Absolutely. But it might merge with other stories, or a new King or ascendant religion might get jiggy with the proper nouns to insert an ancestor or saint or something into one of the PC's spots in the story...

Of course, that's more a post-modern way to look at history & legends.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

A couple people in the party (fighter and Paladin) have been trying to start their own order/following by recruiting people and telling them about their order, handing out flyers, kissing babies,etc... to make sure their name gets out there, possibly convert some unsure in their lives during these multiple timelines. They are leaving behind information,knowledge and some training of themselves throughout these times intentionally, in hopes that when they get back to their time, they would have a mass of followers waiting for them.

Well was the paladin a member of a long existing order in the time where he came from ?

If so when he returns to his original time and becomes more important within his order he might be allouwed in on the secrets of the order, and discovering the order was funded becouse of the things they did in the past.
So the mass of folowers he hoped for is there in a way, just that it is the order he was already a part of.

Basicly try to loop things, so things they did in the past led to the world being the way it was when they left.