d20 Modern players in Sigil

[Labmonkey-XL]

So my d20 Modern group has officially planejumped. They greeted the sinister ferryman of the river styx, and got dropped off to sigil. They are currently en route to the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus to get an "Inevitable" to help them track down an NPC who killed the Player Character groups friend in a nightclub.

They were also threatened by Mafia to bring this guy back for doing a "hit" in his nightclub. So the players reeeaaallly need to find this guy.

Last session ended with the PCs hanging out in a Tavern on Sigil.

I have already planned out some encounters and side missions and random encounters for them in Sigil. I was wondering if anyone had any good plot hooks I could use. Anyone familiar with Planescape or d20 Modern.

Help is appreciated.

Thanx in Advance.

 

[Carnifex]

I truly love Planescape, but there are simply so many possibilities for what could happen that, tired as I am right now, I can't even work out where to begin for hooks... I'd recommend reading through some Planescape material to see if any neat ideas spring out at you. If you don't have any, you can download some at svgames.com for a decent price.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

How bout they have to travel through the 9 hells where they bump into Hitler or Uday and Qusay getting pinapples shoved where the sun dont shine?


or not?

 

[Anabstercorian]

Well, for starters, if they have unusually good weaponry, such as fire arms, any combat they get in to will attract a lot of attention.

Thus, get them in to a combat. See if they start ripping off automatic fire. Throw in some malevolent industrial devils who want to steal the guns and start producing them whole-sale.

Conversely, if everyone else has weapons, give them a chance to find some truly fantastic magical weaponry - That uses calibers of bullets that you simply cannot find on earth.

Meet a Celestial, and have it try and convert the 'poor clueless Primers' to a religion more civilized than (insert favored modern day religion here), such as Pelor or St. Cuthbert or Lathander.

 

[Graf]

They went to sigil and they're still worried about the Mob?
"Mess with the Lady? forgetaboutit"

 

[Nightfall]

Agreed Graf. When you go from having mob hit men chasing you to being in an entirely different world where magic REALLY works, and the Lady of Pain is involved, I'd think the mob would rank WELL below your problems of the day. Dustmen, Harmonium, or some other faction might take an interest...and then you find yourself in some REAL pickles. (I do admit to liking the idea that a devil working for Mephistopholes might want guns to help take over hell. Even though I have a feeling bullets aren't very good against a raging Pit Fiend. )

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Give some thoughts to your cosmology before you progress further. How do the planes fit into your world?

If your characters come from a "normal" modern-day setting, then you have to figure out how the two settings fit together. If there is some kind of fantasy universe next door, then why don't more people know about this? And if more people do know about this, why haven't the two worlds adapted to each other - in other words, why isn't magic and the planes common knowledge in the "Real World", and why hasn't the technology in the planes changed to keep pace with that of the modern day?

It would probably be best to treat the Outer Planes as some kind of dream world, just like H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands. This would explain a lot. Powerful dreamers throughout the ages have reached this world, which gave Earth many legends of dragons, spirits, mages, and gods - but didn't affect the real world too much. And the dream nature of the Outer Planes kept modern technology at bay - high tech just doesn't work(perhaps the tech is stuck about 500 years in the past?), and if someone somehow managed to move a piece of high-tech equipment into the Outer Planes, it soon transforms into a similar, but more low-tech item (a rifle into a crossbow, for example).

Most interaction between Earth and the Outer Planes could thus be explained away as particularily vivid dreams, mystical and spiritual experiences - or drug trips. Actual physical transportation to the Outer Planes should be extremely rare, since that requires powerful magic. In the Real World, magic should be difficult to cast - perhaps spells count as four spell levels higher, but that can be offset by higher casting times, rare ritual components, favorable locations, and so on (I hearthly recommend GURPS Cabal for plenty of ideas in that vein).

Switching back and forth between Plancescape and "mundane" adventures should be possible - sometimes you are dreaming, and sometimes you aren't. Adventures in the Real World should best be played in a Lovecraftian vein - all magic should be subtle, and the PCs should face mostly mundane opponents while trying to research the truth behind reality in ancient texts. Adventures in the Outer Planes should take on a more mythical quality, and have plenty of links to real world religion and history - including notable historical figures who died but live on in their dream selves.

At the same time, they should face the danger of being "stuck" in one of the two worlds - if they use drugs to get to the Outer Planes, maybe they need larger and larger doeses until they finally "burn out" and loose their ability to dream. On the other hand, maybe the Outer Planes become such a powerful allure that one day they won't stop dreaming and let their bodies slip into a coma...


Hope that helps.

 

[Nightfall]

Jurgen,

Some interesting points there. Myself though I prefer to treat the outer planes much like a parellel universe/dimesion. Only being able to reach into a modern setting because of various interactions of the space time continuum and also quantum stuff being involved. (Thus black holes in our universe might just the be the garbage shoot into the 9 Hells. )

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Jurgen,

Some interesting points there. Myself though I prefer to treat the outer planes much like a parellel universe/dimesion. Only being able to reach into a modern setting because of various interactions of the space time continuum and also quantum stuff being involved. (Thus black holes in our universe might just the be the garbage shoot into the 9 Hells. )

This creates all sorts of problems, however - any player with some basic training in the sciences will start to wonder why all those humans are running around the planes. Unless there is some kind of interaction between Earth and Planescape going on this might be too big to swallow for the players' suspension of disbelief.

It might work if there were some big "immigration waves" from Earth to Planescape in the past - perhaps each Pantheon of gods (and just what are the gods, exactly?) took a number of its followers there. In that case, the "trade language" wouldn't be anything resembling English, but a mixture of Celtic, ancient Egyptian, Norse, and so on - which any linguist could discover. Of course, this makes communication between the PCs and the inhabitants rather difficult - something which could be explained away by the "Dream Worlds" idea...

Some kind of permanent (if unstable) link between Earth and the Planescape setting is required, since there are too many similarities between the Planescape setting and Earth mythology. Which one came first - the mythology or the Outer Planes - is something your PCs can attempt to discover...

 

[Nightfall]

Well perhaps. But maybe the link between the two happens just the same way that strange and weird stuff happens to those people that claim to see Elvis or were abducted by aliens. Perhaps it's just some quirk of the universe much like having Old Ones float around in pocket dimensions we never knew existed. The point is while one might be different from the other, the whole ethics/morals systems in a definitive realized reality just merely proves there's more beyond that is yet to be understood by humans than can possibly be equated with any scientific accuracy.