Hell and fey-step : friday session!

[Primitive Screwhead]

Hello all!

I don't have 'Planes Above', as I generally don't run adventures outside of the Prime Material. However my players have chosen to chase a devil into hell in order to retrieve an artifact he stole {WoBS campaign and he took the Torch!}

I have a couple of questions that I hope someone can help with before the session this coming friday.

1) are there 'planar traits' for Baator/Avernus similar to 3x that changes how some aspects work?

2) Does Baator have a feywild and shadowfell counterpart?
- which means does feystep and other abilities get altered/nerfed?

3) how proactive is Tiamat about incursions on her turf?



{that last is really for any of my players that poked there head in this thread }

 

[Siberys]

As long as you define them and allow a method for the PCs to find them out (read: knowledge checks), you should be good with whatever works for you.

By the fluff, no, Baator doesn't have its own shadowfell/feywild. There was never any defined rule against certain types of planar travel depending on where you were, though; not like previous editions where, say, Ethereal travel wouldn't work on the elemental planes. (That was one of the restrictions, aye? It's been a while.)

Personally, I wouldn't completely block teleporting, but I might tack a psuedo-beneficial penalty to it. For example, teleports inflict level-appropriate ongoing fire damage to the user, but deal 5/10/15 fire damage to each creature adjacent to the user at the end of the teleport, or something like that. Allow an Arcana check before any teleports are made to identify the effect before it happens, and you're done. 'Course, I remember something from WotBS about teleports and fire, so you may want to avoid that particular effect, but you get my point, I'm sure.

 

[Unwise]

Just from memory, so take this with a grain of salt, but be aware that Planes Above did change a fair bit of the lore about which gods reside where. Most of the info online is not from 4th edition cosmology. For instance, I don't believe Tiamut resides in the hells anymore, even though she did earlier and even in some WotC adventure paths.

The inhabitants of the Demonweb seem to change on a daily basis too, it seems Lloth no longer even lives in her own domain.

 

[the Jester]

Yeah, the First Hell has been ruled by Bel since 2e (although Tiamat retook control in my campaign during the 3.5 era).

By the RAW there are no problems connecting any two given planes (with the specific exceptions of things like Sigil, Carceri, etc), so fey step etc. should work fine; however, you could certainly do a little tweaking like Siberys suggested without hurting anything.

A few things from the 4e planar books that might help you out a bit:

Plummet to Avernus: Creatures who fall through the dominion's color veil anywhere other than the storm clouds above the Lake of Despond take 5d10 falling damage, are knocked prone and take ongoing 10 fire damage (save ends)....

Fire Affinity (Avernus, Dis, Phlegethos and Nessus only): Attacks with the fire keyword gain a +1 bonus to the attack roll, and attacks with the cold keyword deal half damage (ongoing cold damage is not affected).

Using Bel in the Game: Bel is a consummate generatl- cunning, calculating, and impossible to surprise. He is also a shrewd negotiator- one who keeps his promises to the letter and cares more about the letter than the spirit of the law. He is evil but not necessarily malevolent, enjoying inflicting pain but preferring to do his duty first and foremost. Nothing the characters do is likely to catch Bel off guard; if he has one weakness, however, it is his mistrust of and contempt for magic. Bel prefers the way of the sword and spear.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Thanks Jester! That is the info I was looking for. Keith Baker happened to have an 'eyes on eberron' released this week about how Hell fits into the planescape of Eberron.. so I am good on the legends and lore.

I think I am going to have both Feywild and Shadowfell be the prime material slightly out of focus regardless of where it is.. so any 'world' will have the three parts.

In Eberron the Feywild is verdant and overflowing with life and the Shadowfell is a dark and mysterious land.

In Hell, the Feywild is dead.. and taking a page from Nausicaa, a miasma overwhlems the land. When someone fey-steps through, they return with an aura of the miasma.

The Shadowfell, on the other hand, is living in a different way. The material itself is alive and wants to escape. People who shadowstep come through with slices of Shadow attached to them



Thanks for the help!