Other Worlds/Planes BUT DIFFERENTLY!
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Funeris
First Post
Time: that's an easy one. Time can pass slower/longer. Also think about what time really is. Its merely a perception our mind weaves together...an order our minds enforce upon a world.
So time might perceive to move in reverse on one plane. Creatures naturally 'born' there are born full grown and elderly...graduallly growing younger until birth when they blink out of existence. This would make perception quite interesting and difficult to roleplay. The classic wizard throwing a fireball example would seem more like a wizard catching a fireball. The person with lowest initiative goes first
Time could be disjointed. People remember the future instead of the past.
It could get dangerously confusing, though. But hey, if you and your players are up with it...go for it.
I'm sure there are lots of ways you could tinker with magic. I wonder myself what was meant by tinkering with life. So, I'll just wait to hear other replies.
So time might perceive to move in reverse on one plane. Creatures naturally 'born' there are born full grown and elderly...graduallly growing younger until birth when they blink out of existence. This would make perception quite interesting and difficult to roleplay. The classic wizard throwing a fireball example would seem more like a wizard catching a fireball. The person with lowest initiative goes first
Time could be disjointed. People remember the future instead of the past.
It could get dangerously confusing, though. But hey, if you and your players are up with it...go for it.
I'm sure there are lots of ways you could tinker with magic. I wonder myself what was meant by tinkering with life. So, I'll just wait to hear other replies.
...
In my Enclave setting, the otherworld - the Farthest - impinges on the real world everywhere:
-----------
Tales of the Farthest
The Datarii call the place beyond all places "the Farthest." The long-departed Draugh, from whom the Datarii inherited myths, fragments of language and little more, called it by this and many other names.
Every place in the Enclave borders the Farthest, or so the Datarii say. Forest, field, library, inn, temple and open land all lead into the Farthest - endless, increasingly strange extensions of the border that led you there. No wizardry is needed to enter the Farthest, and the most common of folk must exercise care in their daily tasks lest they stray too far from the familiar and lose their way.
White-bearded Ammanders first wrote of the Farthest as the "Quintessential Realms," showing curiosity and understanding beyond that of the Lost Magi of the Vanished Isles. The sages hold that certain thresholds must be reached before the Farthest opens up like a rare flower to Visitor and Trespasser alike. The borders of the Farthest are most tangible in large and intricate buildings, the densest of forests, most frequently tilled fields, the busiest of marketplaces and docks.
To enter the Farthest is to notice folk becoming stranger; it is to become a Visitor in their lands, just as Visitors and Trespassers come from the Farthest into the Enclave. The farther from the familiar, the more different the Farthest becomes - and the more likely a Visitor is to lose their way. Even the near Farthest shifts and changes from day to day.
The Farthest Market is the Market of all Markets, the Quintessential, unending, eternal Market, the Market that, somewhere, contains everything that could possibly exist - as is true for the Farthest Library, the Farthest Inn, the Farthest City, the Farthest Temple, the Farthest Fields and Farthest Forest. Ammander tomes declare that all things may be found in the Quintessential Realms. The Datarii tell grand tales of wizardry won from the deepest Farthest by brave Visitors in dire need - and at great cost.
For all of the tale-telling, the border of the Farthest is often hard to distinguish. The folk are much the same, as is their merchandise. Sometimes it is only that the street leads to a different junction, or the corridor has an extra turn, or the bookshelves do not end where they should. Stray too far, however, and you might come back with whitened hair and strange tales - or not return at all.
---------
This proves to be quite fun in play.
Another of my settings, The City, the Shades, is transhumanist science fiction, but the Shades fit the role of time-shifted otherworlds; the higher the shade, the faster they go and the stranger and more powerful the AI entities found there.
Reason
Principia Infecta
In my Enclave setting, the otherworld - the Farthest - impinges on the real world everywhere:
-----------
Tales of the Farthest
The Datarii call the place beyond all places "the Farthest." The long-departed Draugh, from whom the Datarii inherited myths, fragments of language and little more, called it by this and many other names.
Every place in the Enclave borders the Farthest, or so the Datarii say. Forest, field, library, inn, temple and open land all lead into the Farthest - endless, increasingly strange extensions of the border that led you there. No wizardry is needed to enter the Farthest, and the most common of folk must exercise care in their daily tasks lest they stray too far from the familiar and lose their way.
White-bearded Ammanders first wrote of the Farthest as the "Quintessential Realms," showing curiosity and understanding beyond that of the Lost Magi of the Vanished Isles. The sages hold that certain thresholds must be reached before the Farthest opens up like a rare flower to Visitor and Trespasser alike. The borders of the Farthest are most tangible in large and intricate buildings, the densest of forests, most frequently tilled fields, the busiest of marketplaces and docks.
To enter the Farthest is to notice folk becoming stranger; it is to become a Visitor in their lands, just as Visitors and Trespassers come from the Farthest into the Enclave. The farther from the familiar, the more different the Farthest becomes - and the more likely a Visitor is to lose their way. Even the near Farthest shifts and changes from day to day.
The Farthest Market is the Market of all Markets, the Quintessential, unending, eternal Market, the Market that, somewhere, contains everything that could possibly exist - as is true for the Farthest Library, the Farthest Inn, the Farthest City, the Farthest Temple, the Farthest Fields and Farthest Forest. Ammander tomes declare that all things may be found in the Quintessential Realms. The Datarii tell grand tales of wizardry won from the deepest Farthest by brave Visitors in dire need - and at great cost.
For all of the tale-telling, the border of the Farthest is often hard to distinguish. The folk are much the same, as is their merchandise. Sometimes it is only that the street leads to a different junction, or the corridor has an extra turn, or the bookshelves do not end where they should. Stray too far, however, and you might come back with whitened hair and strange tales - or not return at all.
---------
This proves to be quite fun in play.
Another of my settings, The City, the Shades, is transhumanist science fiction, but the Shades fit the role of time-shifted otherworlds; the higher the shade, the faster they go and the stranger and more powerful the AI entities found there.
Reason
Principia Infecta
Funeris said:Time: that's an easy one. Time can pass slower/longer. Also think about what time really is. Its merely a perception our mind weaves together...an order our minds enforce upon a world.
So time might perceive to move in reverse on one plane. Creatures naturally 'born' there are born full grown and elderly...graduallly growing younger until birth when they blink out of existence. This would make perception quite interesting and difficult to roleplay. The classic wizard throwing a fireball example would seem more like a wizard catching a fireball. The person with lowest initiative goes first
Time could be disjointed. People remember the future instead of the past.
It could get dangerously confusing, though. But hey, if you and your players are up with it...go for it.
Hehe, this sounds like fun.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Yeah, I am also wondering about how tinkering with life could be accomplished.
Doctor Bomb
First Post
Roman said:
Sure, that's REALLY fun. In the Positive Energy Plane, you gain HP as time goes by, and eventually, when you have double your normal hit points, you basically go nova.
In the Negative Energy Plane, you are drained of HP at a pretty rapid rate, and you eventually die, usually to become one of the really sick undead living there.
It takes a little prep work, but all you have to do is create a plane where the character gains the Undead type upon entering to REALLY mess with their heads - especially if everything appears otherwise normal. Then they realize they are not hungry, they are not sleepy - hey, they even aren't breathing! It's especially fun to do that to clerics and paladins, as you can allow their magic to work normally, but their party members, if turned, get banished back to home plane.
LOL. And of course, the really nasty native wildlife has positive energy based attacks, and can't be turned.
Poor lonely cleric.
Gez
First Post
Another thing I do for alternate dimensions and planar travel is to make the weirdest ones require magic items.
Borrowed from Shimrod's visit to Irerly in Jack Vance's Lyonesse books. To adapt your own, alien physionomy to the weirdness of other planes, you need to carry on yourself special effectors that will transimile perceptions, and let you exist as yourself despite being in a place where you cannot be yourself.
In other words, if you go to the elemental plane of fire without the correct effectors, you'll be there are the fire parts of you -- an incorporeal blob of bodily heat. In this form, you'll be totally safe from the elemental hazards, but you will otherwise be quite limited in your actions...
Borrowed from Shimrod's visit to Irerly in Jack Vance's Lyonesse books. To adapt your own, alien physionomy to the weirdness of other planes, you need to carry on yourself special effectors that will transimile perceptions, and let you exist as yourself despite being in a place where you cannot be yourself.
In other words, if you go to the elemental plane of fire without the correct effectors, you'll be there are the fire parts of you -- an incorporeal blob of bodily heat. In this form, you'll be totally safe from the elemental hazards, but you will otherwise be quite limited in your actions...
WmRAllen67
First Post
Gez, I'm yoinking that mechanic of yours-- it supplies the added piece of the puzzle to fit an alternate concept of Hell I've been kicking around into my campaign design.
Hell is quite different from the "Circles" or "Layers" writers usually envision-- it's much closer to the world we see around us...
In fact, it's right next door. The Infernal realm is essentially an analogue to Earth-- each tree, each stone, each building has it's double in Hell. A map of Hell, if one could be viewed, would look much like a map of the world... though you wouldn't want to travel there.
The idea from this grew out of Mike Monaco's Bestiary of Spirits and In-Betweeners for the GURPS Voodoo setting (http://gurpsnet.sjgames.com/Archive/Magic/Rituals/Besti.htm), where he listed Hutgin as Hell's ambassador to Italy, and Mammon as the ambassador to England, &c. I pictured Mammon sitting in a buiding akin to the Tower of London, and so forth, and it grew from there...
The Astral Plane is the only plane regularly accessed IMC, and then only in an out-of-body way-- physical travel between planes is not possible.
At least, as far as anyone knows...
Hell is quite different from the "Circles" or "Layers" writers usually envision-- it's much closer to the world we see around us...
In fact, it's right next door. The Infernal realm is essentially an analogue to Earth-- each tree, each stone, each building has it's double in Hell. A map of Hell, if one could be viewed, would look much like a map of the world... though you wouldn't want to travel there.
The idea from this grew out of Mike Monaco's Bestiary of Spirits and In-Betweeners for the GURPS Voodoo setting (http://gurpsnet.sjgames.com/Archive/Magic/Rituals/Besti.htm), where he listed Hutgin as Hell's ambassador to Italy, and Mammon as the ambassador to England, &c. I pictured Mammon sitting in a buiding akin to the Tower of London, and so forth, and it grew from there...
The Astral Plane is the only plane regularly accessed IMC, and then only in an out-of-body way-- physical travel between planes is not possible.
At least, as far as anyone knows...
painandgreed
First Post
Funeris said:
Which sounds like for what the parent is looking for is to run a completely different game. To really get an alien feel, I'd make conversion rules for the characters and then switch to the other game system. Perhaps their magic doesn't work the same way and the wizards are completly useless. Convert the characters into something like GURPS, WW, or Shadowrun and make them play that game for a seesion. If they didn't know the rules it would be even better because their characters wouldn't understand the new laws of the universe. Imagine a D&D party being dumped into a game like Hol, Bunnies & Burrows, or Toon for a session as they tried to recover something or something. Perhaps chasing a dimension traveller that does understand the new worlds and their rules.
Li Shenron
Legend
Roman said:
Well, the time-tinkering
is somewhat suggested in Manual of the Planes. If you have different planes advance slower or faster in time (with the PCs when they're there), creating a "shift" between them, you can have interesting consequences on adventures.E.g. the characters may use a "fast" plane to go and rest a whole day (getting spells and healing) while only an hour passes in their world. Or they may banish a powerful foe into a "slow" plane so that when he comes back, 20 years have passed for them (but 20 days for him) and they are much higher level now
Nonetheless, these are dangerous things to do, as abuse of this sort of trick can easily disrupt a campaign, not to mention if there are "reverse-timed" planes which could allow the group to go back in time! I personally like these ideas but I've never used them because of these dangers.
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The life-tinkering I was thinking about is simply the "rules of life" about creatures native to different planes, which sometimes could be inherent to the plane instead of to the creatures.
Mortals (creatures of material planes) are born, grow up, eat/drink/breathe/reproduce/etc, and die. You can set details about non-mortals in different ways. Two examples I usually follow:
I tend to play Elementals so that they form spontaneously from their plane or from a "pool" of that element on another plane, with a currently strong connection with the original elemental plane. When slain or simply after some time, these creatures merge with their element again and "dissipate". They aren't after all really separate from the element as a whole. While they are temporarily individuals, these creatures may for instance grow if "fed" with their own element, and some of them may mimicked mortal life forms and "simulate" even a sort of breeding: you may see fire tigers mate and make offspring, but it's just a mockery. This I explain with the fact that, while elemental planes "power" the material planes with energy, they are "feedback-ed" shapes from those material planes which they try to mimick.
Just to make it different, shadow creatures are quite similar in the sense that they aren't really separate from the plane of shadows, but the "feedback" is much stronger: for every creature in the material plane there is exactly one correspondent shadow creature in the plane of shadows (undead shadows are more complicated however...). Other than the 1:1 rate, there's no other link between the two: the shadow of an elf is not necessarily a shadow-elf, it could be anything. If the material creature dies, the shadow creature merges with shadow. If you kill a shadow creature, no problem, another one forms somewhere else to keep the rate (no harm to the "correspondent" material creature).
What is interesting is that every time a material creature goes to the plane of shadow, the current correspondent shadow may come out of it and wreck havoc in the material world; the scholars who believe in this theory strongly advocate never to use Shadow walk or similar spells. (this whole idea would work great with a Plane of Mirror if you use it)
Then there's different life rules on some planes. The famous example is Ysgard, a place where it is almost impossible to die because next die you automatically resurrect. IIRC you are also constantly healed of wounds. The consequence is that Ysgard is the "warrior's heaven" where everyone who loved battle can keep hacking each others without actually hurting anyone.
Other consequences: violence on Ysgard isn't seen as a crime; destroying someone's stuff, house or equipment is a capital offense (since objects aren't "resurrected").
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Tinkering with magic means to alter how spellcasting works. The possibilities are near-endless... you can hamper or prohibit some types of spells, empower other types, grant inborn magic abilities to any native or even to the visitors.
For example, IMC I planned to have Arcadia as an alternate material plane infused with magic: everyone who's lived long enough there could freely cast a cantrip or two (randomly determined), creation magic and other arcane spells find themselves improved.
In this place, towns and cities are quickly rebuilt or simply readjusted by the people when they're tired by their house's setup, and destroying someone's property only causes the annoyance of spending a few minutes/hours to build it back.
OTOH divine spellcasting isn't improved and so life threats are seriously taken here.
Finally, you can add randomness to magic. That is usually more complicated to run, and tends to make players more careful, often resulting in them casting more rarely.
just__al
First Post
In a nutshell....
The Earthly Realm
This is what's normal and real. The place where people live. If it's called anything, people call it the Earthly Realm.
The Astral Realm
The Astral Realm borders the Earthly Realm and serves as a barrier to entry for members of the Infernal Realm and the Havens.
The Spirit World
The sprit world borders the Earthly Realm. It is home to malovelent spirts as well as the spirtis of those who have died and either declined to go to the Havens or weren't bad enough to go to the Infernal Realm.
The Shadow Realm
The Shadow Realm borders both the Earthly Realm and the Spirit world. It plays host to all manner and kind of hideous twisted creatures as well as those of the substance of shadow.
The Elemental Realm
The Elemental Realm doesn't exactly border the Earthly Realm as pour onto it. The Elemental Realm is made of vast expanses of pure fire, air, water, and earth as well as places where they combine into odd combinations of two or three elements. Where they eventually combine into all 4 is where they start spilling onto the Earthly Realm and making the stuff of creation.
The Havens
When you die, if you are good, you go to the Havens for your just reward. If you were real good, your god or gods might even allow you to serve them as a Ghale or Avoral. This is where the good and most of the not-evil gods reside. Travel to the Havens by mortals is typically managed by traversing the Astral Realm and retaining their mortal coil to be able to return to the Earthly Realm. Mortals bold enough to use magic to travel there directly generally find themselves unwilling to return to the Earthly Realm.
The Infernal Realm
When you die, if you are bad, you go to the Infernal Realm for punishment. An eternity of punishment awaits you at the hand of fiends and their twisted desire to torment you. This is where the evil gods reside along side the most chaotic of beings and deities. Travel to the Infernal Realm by mortals is typically managed by traversing the Astral Realm and retaining their mortal coil to be able to return to the Earthly Realm. Mortals bold enough to use magic to travel there directly generally find themselves unable to return to the Earthly Realm.
The Earthly Realm
This is what's normal and real. The place where people live. If it's called anything, people call it the Earthly Realm.
The Astral Realm
The Astral Realm borders the Earthly Realm and serves as a barrier to entry for members of the Infernal Realm and the Havens.
The Spirit World
The sprit world borders the Earthly Realm. It is home to malovelent spirts as well as the spirtis of those who have died and either declined to go to the Havens or weren't bad enough to go to the Infernal Realm.
The Shadow Realm
The Shadow Realm borders both the Earthly Realm and the Spirit world. It plays host to all manner and kind of hideous twisted creatures as well as those of the substance of shadow.
The Elemental Realm
The Elemental Realm doesn't exactly border the Earthly Realm as pour onto it. The Elemental Realm is made of vast expanses of pure fire, air, water, and earth as well as places where they combine into odd combinations of two or three elements. Where they eventually combine into all 4 is where they start spilling onto the Earthly Realm and making the stuff of creation.
The Havens
When you die, if you are good, you go to the Havens for your just reward. If you were real good, your god or gods might even allow you to serve them as a Ghale or Avoral. This is where the good and most of the not-evil gods reside. Travel to the Havens by mortals is typically managed by traversing the Astral Realm and retaining their mortal coil to be able to return to the Earthly Realm. Mortals bold enough to use magic to travel there directly generally find themselves unwilling to return to the Earthly Realm.
The Infernal Realm
When you die, if you are bad, you go to the Infernal Realm for punishment. An eternity of punishment awaits you at the hand of fiends and their twisted desire to torment you. This is where the evil gods reside along side the most chaotic of beings and deities. Travel to the Infernal Realm by mortals is typically managed by traversing the Astral Realm and retaining their mortal coil to be able to return to the Earthly Realm. Mortals bold enough to use magic to travel there directly generally find themselves unable to return to the Earthly Realm.
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