Gates: Multiple Primes?

[jgbrowning]

More info please...looking for something very similar to this for a campaign I'm working on. Ever read any of the One Kingdom series by Sean Russell...if so, you'll know where I'm coming from.

Sorry to say but it's really in the idea phase right now. Thinking about the ramifications of such travel, class relationships, development of myth... etc.

I read the One Kingdom books long, long ago and remember almost nothing.

joe b.

 

[Prism]

We started out first main campaign by stumbling through Ningauble's caverns which in the Fritz Leiber Lankhmar connects all worlds at the whim of Ningauble. Passage is never guarenteed and your destination is far from sure.

A great way of allowing passage to almost any prime and plenty of adventure hooks in trying to bargain with Ningauble

Besides, the TSR Lankhmar book has to be one of the coolest cities ever

 

[nonamazing]

Here's my idea:

Have each of your players choose a campaign setting that they like and make a character from that setting. Have each of them choose a different setting, and make sure that each of them creates a character with a real background/attachment to the world that they are from. (If possible, let your players think that everyone is going to be from the same setting...it will make for an interesting suprise when the game starts).

Then you, the GM, pick another setting, one that none of the players chose. Have the characters start off in your world, confused and with no idea of how they got there. Suddenly, they are attacked! Before the battle can grow too heated, however, a mysterious wizard emerges from the shadows and calls for a retreat.

As the characters start getting used to their new world and begin asking about their assailants, they learn that the mysterious wizard type is hunting for an artifact that can open doors between the worlds--just the thing the characters need to find their way to their homes!

The campaign would involve visiting each world in turn, with the adventures in each particular setting tying into a larger meta-plot (which can be the 'mysterious wizard' thing or something more original). What's good about this campaign model is that it allows the players themselves to choose the different settings you'll be using, thus giving them something of an investment in the campaign. As the plot grows more complicated, you could have the characters repeatedly going back and forth between the different worlds, allowing for a great deal of versitility.

 

[Nightfall]

Well, I'm no new hand at the whole planar thing mind you. I've used quite a few things to move players from one world to another.

Shadow World: This is a Rolemaster setting. They have Essence storms that yank people from one world to another.

GURPS Fantasy: Their world, Yrth or something, has Banestorms. In essence, planar shifts to another world.

Rogue Mistriss: I've used this ship, an adventure from Chaosium, in several adventures.

And of course, Spelljammer, Planescape, and Ravenloft. One time the players escaped the Mists but they didn't quite return to the Forgotten Realms. "Man, it sure is hot here... What do you mean I see a halfling eating an elf? Where are we?"

Just curious Joe, do you have Beyond Countless Doorways. That has some ways to "link" worlds and realities for you without doing away with each world's cosmology.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

What will the mechanism for planar travel be? It seems to me that it could go 3 different ways...

1) PCs can travel the planes at will...

2) PCs can travel to other planes regularly, but can only do so from certain select locations....

3) PCs travel to other planes, but uncontrolably....

I've always wanted to do a campaign where the PCs had control over when they switched between worlds, but not where they went. The mode of travel could be something like an artifact that could be activated to jump between worlds (each of which could have its own planar structure, so that you wouldn't have to disallow "ordinary" planar travel spells). Deciding when to do it would be tough: stay and face the ancient dragon, or risk getting dumped into a negative-energy aligned world like the time before last?

This seems to me to strike a cool balance between empowering the players and not getting completely overwhelmed by an infinity of worlds as a DM. You could work out a hidden structure for where they went each time, or just do whatever seemed appropriate when they activate the artifact. Since there wouldn't have to be a restriction on how often they returned to a plane, you could keep bringing them back to the Iron Kingdoms or whatever other setting you liked -- and some of the enemies you'd developed in other settings could have an ability to follow them from world to world as well!

 

[grodog]

One of the things I'm looking at though, isn't using a sea based campaign. More along the lines of the Riftwar where there are some permanent openings to the different planes. I'm still trying to think through all the implications.

I've heard good things about Feist's Riftwar stuff, though I haven't read it myself. The old Midkemia Press generic D&D books are set in the same world, if you're not familiar with them, they're well-worth digging up, though they're a) pricey, and b) not terribly useful from a multiplanar point-of-view.

Another option if I did go with the sea bit, is using Freeport like the Vanishing Tower or Tanelorn, both from the various Eternal Champion series.

If you're thinking of the seas, you should also check out Moorcock's Sailor on the Seas of Fate idea, first from the Elric novel of the same title, and continued in his Count Brass series. In addition, the more recent VonBek and Elric novels (Blood, Dreamthief's Daughter, Skraeling Tree) broaden and expand Moorcock's conception of the multiverse in interesting ways: they're worth checking out for ideas if you haven't picked up a MM novel in awhile.

Lastly, you should reread Ed Greenwood's seminar article from The Dragon #37: From Dead Orc Pass to the City of Brass: the Theory and Use of Gates in D&D. It's full of wonderful ideas on ways to bridge campaigns with gates, and offers plenty of additional literary inspirational reading suggestions. It's in the Dragon CDRom, of course, as well as The Best of Dragon Volume 2.

 

[resistor]

I once worked on a poly-planar campaign, so some of these ideas might help you. I had three main ways of traversing the planes:

Government-controlled Portals - Generally expensive, but reliable. Used primarily by merchants and nobles (or their agents) who can afford the safety of using a portal.

Soul Wells - The various religions in this world maintained a Soul Well in every major temple, which they believed provided a link to their god. The Soul Wells, regardless of whether or not they are linked to the gods, also function as a network of portals. One must simply focus on the temple you want to emerge in, enter the pool, and you will be taken there. Of course, using the Soul Wells thus is considered sacreligious, so only those with a lot of clout or a lot of money can use them.

Infernal Stairs - Winding through all the planes is a little mountain pass. It seems like an indescript path that leads nowhere, but in fact any traveller that happens upon has unlocked the key of interplanar travel. The location of the stairs has never been recorded, though, for the stairs also hide a secret: while they pass through all the planes, they also pass through the space between the planes... the realm of the fiends. And the fiends don't take kindly to passers-by...

 

[William Ronald]

There are a number of techniques that could be used to get characters from one world to another. Here are a few.

The Ship that Sails the Seas of Fate: Lifted directly from Michael Moorcock's The Eternal Champion series, this vessel sails between worlds, including worlds where time flows differently.

The Cosmic Mountain or the World Ash Tree: Many past and some current belief systems have a "focal point" for existence. This is often viewed as a central sacred mountain or a great tree. Such a place may connect to all realities. A take on this is to have local versions of this place which are connected to the true focal point. Thus, a sacred mountain in one world may connect to THE SACRED MOUNTAIN somewhere else, either being part of it or a reflection of it.

When the stars are right: In certain cultures, it was believed that the boundaries between various "worlds" were very thin at certain times of the years. In the British Isles, Beltane (May 1st) and Samhain (November 1st) were viewed as times when the supernatural touched the mundane world, allowing visitors and travel. Eberron uses a concept of planes being coterminous and remote at different times, as well as areas where the boundaries are always thin (manifest zones).

Ancient ruins: In one of Charles DeLint's fantasy novels, access to different worlds could occur either in some ancient ruins or from pieces of an earlier world that was destroyed. In the Forgotten Realms setting, many of the deities and even several races are described as coming from other worlds. So, there may be some ancient ruins that allow access to different worlds. Possibly menhirs (standing stones such as Stonehenge) might actually allow a knowledgeable person to cross from one world to another. It may even take a traveller to a place that looks like another menhir.

Sympathetic magic : There is an old principle of like attracting like. In a previous thread, Gez mentioned a product where planar travel between two locations was made easier as they became increasingly similar. The same or similar features may exist in different worlds, and may allow travel under some conditions.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I own the GURPS 4th Edition Slipcase limited edition. It looks nice on my bookshelf.

Don't make me jealous.

However, they really didn't go into a lot of detail with the Infinite Worlds bit. That's getting it's own setting book isn't it?

Yup, probably in December or January - and written by no less than Ken Hite, so you know it's going to be good. The setting was also explored in some detail in the old GURPS Time Travel (where it first appeared), and some of the parallel worlds are explored in GURPS Alternate Earths 1 & 2 (five "parallel Earths" each - including Reich-5 in the first book), the old GURPS Fantasy (which detailed the world of Yrth, which will be reintroduced in GURPS Banestorm next year), and GURPS Reign of Steel (the world where the AIs have taken over the world and killing off humanity...). The Cabal mentioned in GURPS 4E also has a full writeup in GURPS Cabal (of course) - and it is written by Ken Hite, too, so its brilliance is obvious.

But you could use the "Infinite Worlds" setting as it is if you have the new edition of GURPS. Just let the PCs find some sort of planar pathway and explore a few worlds - which are getting increasingly Earthlike, so that the players can gradually get used to "an Earth" being out there without blowing their suspension of disbelief (which is what would happen if they faced humans with guns from a futuristic Earth right away...). Then you can let them encounter the machinations of Homeline, Centrum, the psionic Nazis from Reich-5, the Cabal, or, if you are feeling particularly nasty, an invasion force sent by the Brisbane AI from Steel (which does all sorts of research into "weird science" and might just stumble across other dimensions...)!

And just what are the entities Professor William Headley fought in his world's WWII, and which he believes are responsible for the destruction of Taft-7? Well, "that which is not dead, but may eternal lie..."

 

[JoeGKushner]

Ah, good old Midkiemia Press. I own Carse and Tulan, but was never able to find Jonril. They have a PDF on their website too about some of the cities. Wish they'd come out with a d20 version of the game already! If you haven't visited their website, go on ahead and do so now.

As far as what I'm planning to do... hard to say. I have a group of characters in play right now, all about 10th level. I'm sure that the player's don't want to give them up. Right now they've just killed a lot of monsters that the Red Wizards put into one of the lakes of Rashemi.

I was thinking more along the lines of some type of 'thing' that they have to do that requires them to go to different worlds. Something where they have to get the purest jade from Rogukan, or something that like. I don't want to just dump the characters in for a single episode, perhaps half a season though might do it. I want to actually be able to use some of the books and get some mileage out of them.

One of the things I'm tinkering with is the Mage Hunters from the Iron Kingdoms setting. They believe that the human use of magic is putting their God in danger so they hunt down mages and kill them. If that's bad, what about a mage who travels the planes? Have that mage hunter be following after them, sometimes ahead of them, sometimes behind.

One method I was thinking of is the Nameless Legion. Perhaps the characters are kidnapped and forced to serve for an adventure or two before they realize who they are and that they're not meant to be there and have to work for a powerful benefactor for a while.

Ken Hite on the GURPS stuff is good but I've gotten rid of most of my old 4th edition materail. Ran out of space, which is kinda of stupid when you think that I bought the new edition. Ah well.