Help me build a Deus Ex Machine
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Templetroll
Explorer
I did that by having the Emperor, an ancient lich who had ruled the Empire that covered most of the world with armies fully outfitted in magic gear, etc. That empire collapsed due to a drop in the level of maig in the world to "only 9th level spells" which was an idea gotten from the 1e DMG. This gave me a reason for magic items to be scattered all over the place in oddly fortified underground defense installations. 
Anyway, the Emperor had a spell that would send out a storm cloud from his ruined city and a lightning bolt would crash down and zap the character of an absent player. There would be a small pile of smoking dust left! (first time I did it, one player looked at the other and said, "Is he dead?" the reply was, "I don't know but I'll gather the ash.")
The character would appear in the throne room and the Emperor would begin to questiont them about themselves. I didn't have an ingame reason when I started this but I developed the idea that the Emperor was going to meet a group of adventurers in the future and this was his way to try and locate those foes while they were developing and try to alter his past by interfering slightly in their present and future!
A couple players started to track who was summoned and who wasn't, and they found that some folks were not even noticed by the Emperor! This was due to the players always being at the game, like my wife, but ingame was due to the character dieing without having an effect that would harm the Emperor or not yet being "that person" that would oppose the emperor in the future. My wife's character wasn't noticed until she had to be away the one day, and that was after the character had become a lycanthrope. That was why the Emperor 'noticed' the character suddenly.
Another player pointed out that the Emperor was my standin in the game. The description I used was kinda like what I looked like and he sat on a throne overseeing the world he considered his own. DM chair to the max!
Funny things that occured, there was a unicorn horn in the dinning hall at the Emperor's. He put it there so that the people he summoned could verify that the food was not poisoned. One PC took the horn and demanded to know where the unicorn was! The Emperor sent her to the dungeons where a unicorn the size of a clydesdale was chained up. The PC was in a cell across the hall was just not able to reach the horn to the wounded stump on the creature. When the pc was sent back to the party they still had the horn, and they took on the goal of trying to free that unicorn and get the horn back to it. They had a +2 spear that could detect poison in the meantime. A different character, a dwarf, asked if there was a workshop and ended up building traps for the Emperor! I let him draw up whatever he wanted to build and was going to use them if a party ever decided to try and attack the ruined Imperial Palace.
Anyway, the Emperor had a spell that would send out a storm cloud from his ruined city and a lightning bolt would crash down and zap the character of an absent player. There would be a small pile of smoking dust left! (first time I did it, one player looked at the other and said, "Is he dead?" the reply was, "I don't know but I'll gather the ash.")
The character would appear in the throne room and the Emperor would begin to questiont them about themselves. I didn't have an ingame reason when I started this but I developed the idea that the Emperor was going to meet a group of adventurers in the future and this was his way to try and locate those foes while they were developing and try to alter his past by interfering slightly in their present and future!
A couple players started to track who was summoned and who wasn't, and they found that some folks were not even noticed by the Emperor! This was due to the players always being at the game, like my wife, but ingame was due to the character dieing without having an effect that would harm the Emperor or not yet being "that person" that would oppose the emperor in the future. My wife's character wasn't noticed until she had to be away the one day, and that was after the character had become a lycanthrope. That was why the Emperor 'noticed' the character suddenly.
Another player pointed out that the Emperor was my standin in the game. The description I used was kinda like what I looked like and he sat on a throne overseeing the world he considered his own.
DM chair to the max!Funny things that occured, there was a unicorn horn in the dinning hall at the Emperor's. He put it there so that the people he summoned could verify that the food was not poisoned. One PC took the horn and demanded to know where the unicorn was! The Emperor sent her to the dungeons where a unicorn the size of a clydesdale was chained up. The PC was in a cell across the hall was just not able to reach the horn to the wounded stump on the creature. When the pc was sent back to the party they still had the horn, and they took on the goal of trying to free that unicorn and get the horn back to it. They had a +2 spear that could detect poison in the meantime.
A different character, a dwarf, asked if there was a workshop and ended up building traps for the Emperor! I let him draw up whatever he wanted to build and was going to use them if a party ever decided to try and attack the ruined Imperial Palace.
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Goddess FallenAngel
Explorer
rycanada said:
Funny enough, I played in a game once that had an item like this. The PCs didn't get rid of it because the item was originally created to imprison a very nasty wizard - which they knew because they played with the item and accidentally released everyone currently trapped in it out. They managed to get the wizard back into it (after much butt-kicking on his part), and carried it around after that (despite occasionnally being sucked into it) because they were afraid that someone would get it and release him permanently.
Maybe do something like that for backstory, so the PCs have a reason to carry it around? Also, why describe the demi-plane at all? Say they are in suspended animation or something. That's what we did... we didn't remember anything from the time we were in the statue, nor did we age while in it.
jdrakeh
Front Range Warlock
First, I just wanted to say that I really like your idea and will shamelessly be plundering it for my own campaign when January rolls around and I get back to playing 
Here's a thought -- what if there isn't a plane. What if the stone itself is sentient and the heroes are projected impressions of real heroes who have handled the stone in the past -- memories given life via the stone? If you go this route, when a hero disappears, they don't return to a demi-plane but, rather, cease to exist temporarily, retracted by the stone for its own mysterious reasons.
No -- but there is a Villain Stone
Give the stones proper names of some kind, though no voices to go with them -- they communciate their will via the heroes or villains that they project.
Set the campaign up so that the stone acts as a kind of silent patron, racing against time to stop the villain stone from doing Really Bad Thing X. The heroes, so far as they're concerned, are real, living, beings -- they don't know that they cease to exist when they disappear, they merely can't recollect what has happened to them when they're not being projected into the physical world.
The key here is that the player's actions dictate the will of the hero stone. Don't try to force some pre-scripted weirdness on them. Let the larger campaign unfold according to their actions. That said, you can influence events by way of the villain stone, as you (being the DM) have total control over its will and how it manifests in the campaign.
So far as the players are initially concerned, they may merely be adventurers doing their thing -- but every now and again, the villains that they come up against should be manifestations of the villain stone, providing a plot hook for the larger story arc and the players' eventual discovery of the secret war that they are part of.
[Note: Incidentally, this also sets up the PCs to be the equivalent of Iconic NPCs in most campaigns. They may occasionally be recognized by people as the heroes of legend that they are modeled on, though the PCs are merely convinced that people are mistaking them for somebody else (remember, PCs have no idea that they are projections of the hero stone modeled on epic heroes who had come into contact with the stone in aeons passed).
Here's a thought -- what if there isn't a plane. What if the stone itself is sentient and the heroes are projected impressions of real heroes who have handled the stone in the past -- memories given life via the stone? If you go this route, when a hero disappears, they don't return to a demi-plane but, rather, cease to exist temporarily, retracted by the stone for its own mysterious reasons.
No -- but there is a Villain Stone
Give the stones proper names of some kind, though no voices to go with them -- they communciate their will via the heroes or villains that they project.
Set the campaign up so that the stone acts as a kind of silent patron, racing against time to stop the villain stone from doing Really Bad Thing X. The heroes, so far as they're concerned, are real, living, beings -- they don't know that they cease to exist when they disappear, they merely can't recollect what has happened to them when they're not being projected into the physical world.
The key here is that the player's actions dictate the will of the hero stone. Don't try to force some pre-scripted weirdness on them. Let the larger campaign unfold according to their actions. That said, you can influence events by way of the villain stone, as you (being the DM) have total control over its will and how it manifests in the campaign.
So far as the players are initially concerned, they may merely be adventurers doing their thing -- but every now and again, the villains that they come up against should be manifestations of the villain stone, providing a plot hook for the larger story arc and the players' eventual discovery of the secret war that they are part of.
[Note: Incidentally, this also sets up the PCs to be the equivalent of Iconic NPCs in most campaigns. They may occasionally be recognized by people as the heroes of legend that they are modeled on, though the PCs are merely convinced that people are mistaking them for somebody else (remember, PCs have no idea that they are projections of the hero stone modeled on epic heroes who had come into contact with the stone in aeons passed).
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jdrakeh
Front Range Warlock
Nightfall said:Those are some very excellent ideas jd.
Thanks
He said that he wanted a shameless deus-ex device which, to me, meant "Pull out all of the stops and go for broke!" -- I think the only thing that I might add if I use this in my own campaign is the 'memory blindspot' suggested by a previous poster.
Whenever a projection disappears, the remaining projections simply forget that he or she ever existed until (and if) he or she reappears. They're all extensions of the hero stone, after all, so this makes such a blindspot feasible (it may be some kind of mneumonic fail safe employed by the stone to 'keep things straight' in the physical world).
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