D&D 4E Planar Adventures and the New 4e Cosmology

[Najo]

I was reading through Worlds and Monsters, and the developers mention how the new planes are designed to make planar adventuring easier and more exciting to do. I wanted to see how the new 4e cosmology is inspiring my fellow ENworlders.

Please share adventure ideas or hooks and your plans for using the new 4e vision of the planes.

 

[kennew142]

I will be using jaunts into the feywild and the shadowfell from the lower levels of the heroic tier. The new take on fey is more mythic and more interesting than we've had in D&D before. Many old eladrin sites in my campaign will exist alternately on the mundane plane and in the feywild.

The shadowfell will see a lot of use in my upcoming plane. The ancient scathova came from the sahdowfell and many of their ancient ruins can lead directly into it. There is also the shadow labyrinth, a strangely organic dungeon that seems to grow into the world from the shadowfell, although its heart may lay even further in the far realms. Most known entrances to the shadowfell were sealed thousands of years ago, but the wards have begun to fail.

 

[FreeXenon]

There is so much there in Worlds and Monsters (W&M) that is inspiring.

Both the Shadowfell and the FeyWild are the first tier of planar traveling. I think their first adventure (Keep on the ShadowFell) will have the PC's traveling there.

Trips to the Feywild could be like this:

• Bargain for the release of a captive of a nobleman's son from capricious fey who happens to by the spoiled child of Fey nobility of some sort.
  
• A Nobleman, is seeking the hand of an Eladrin Princess that he keeps seeing in his dreams and has never met sends the PC's there to win her hand with a gift.
  
• A rift in the planar boundaries has been opened and Fomorian servants are pouring through to raid the prime and this needs to be stopped.
  
• A Wizards Guild or a prominent Wizard needs a specific flower that is only found in the Feywild, and it is needed for a ritual to save his wife from a horrible affliction. A planar junction is forming that will give them 12 hours to get it and get back or be trapped there.
  
• A small village is being raided by creatures during the night. The local save says that on the outside of town is a ruin to where a portal to the Feywild can be found. A group of fey were banished from this are many moons ago by an evil cabal of wizards and the sage has found a way to break the banishment. The PC's are sent there to bring the fey back in hopes that their presence will help to stop or slow the raiding. Perhaps the banished fey are specifically enemies of the raiding creatures.
  
• A key is needed to enter a crypt where the McGuffin is and the key, as well as the small village (which is now in ruin), was absorbed and transported to the Feywild, for some strange reason, and is now watched over by capricious or evil fey of sorts.
  
• En elder Eladrin is coming to the end of his years and wishes to return to his home in the Feywild. He knows of a portal that will be opening up soon with the full moon and needs to be escorted to his family's home there only to find his homelands in ruins. The family has been captured by a Cabal of Wizards on the prime who worship powers on the Shadowfell. The surviving family members are now slaves to powers in the Shadowfell. One of the family members has been turned into a mindless shadowy guardian creature. Along the way they will find out who and why this has happened to them. An ancient grudge from a enemy he earned during his active adventuring days?

Its not much but it is something.

 

[Cadfan]

I intend to stick with the so-called "close" planes: the shadowfell and feywild. I like the idea of alternative, creepy versions of normal reality. My shadowfell and feywild will have the same geography as the regular universe, except altered in some fashion. For example, a large city in the real world might leave a reflection in the shadowfell as an extensive series of ruins. Analogously, my feywild will reflect what the world looked like before the rise of man. (Ok, read that, man + elves + dwarves + whatever, you get the idea.)

This way I can make plotlines that revolve around switching between these various analogous versions of reality, and having events which occur in the real world spread like ripples into the others. I can make rules like "planar shifting to the feywild only works if you're in the wilderness, far from large concentrations of iron," or "shifting to the shadowfell works best in areas like graveyards." It also gives me reasons for graveyards to be sanctified, and for peasants to ward their homes and barns with iron: these acts maintain the barriers between worlds.

I've got a couple of brainstormed ideas.

I might run a campaign based around a rising necromancer. His base of operations involves going into the shadowfell for short periods of time in order to complete his Evil Plan. So, the PCs fight him mostly in the real world, with short ventures into the Shadowfell. Eventually, they are too late to stop him, and he unleases a Zombie Apocalypse! Oh no! The real world becomes too hazardous to live within, and the PCs are forced to flee to the Shadowfell for safety, emerging from it to raid and seek items necessary to stop the zombie plague from spreading to other lands.

Stuff like that.

I probably won't use the larger cosmology much. I find that the game works better for me when I focus in detail on a small area, rather than try to encompass a great many things at once. If I DO use the larger cosmology, it will be after a campaign in which the players have become accustomed to the shadowfell and feywild as being sister planes to the real world. That way, venturing out into the elemental vortex or whatnot will feel like going really far away.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The Necromancer-King has plunged his entire kingdom into the Shadowfell. Next, he seeks your kingdom.

The Dungeon of Stars exists under a hill. It exists only as long as there is a moon in the sky. When the New Moon comes, it disappears. Those who are in it when it fades from view don't return for hundreds of years, but when they do, they've only aged one.

An elementalist servant of the Primordials seeks to eradicate the temple of the Great Church. The PC's must descend into the Elemental Chaos and recruit the Slaadi to fight against the Primordials.

A soul is trapped on the lowest layer of the Nine Hells. The PC's must go there and free it. Of course, when they do, they realize it might not have been a good idea...

A group of hideous, tentacled demons is spreading over the southern continent. Investigation shows that the Far Realm has opened into the Abyss, mutating those there. Save the Abyss, and earn loyalty from the Demons you redeem.

Probably more where that came from.

 

[vagabundo]

I'm taking as much as I can of the 4e cosmos into my current FR, Daggerdale, game. I'm going to gut the adventure locations for cormyr:tearing of the weave and let my 10-13lv guys at it in a set of ruins near Daggerdale.

I'm going to play up the shadowfell a little, get the PCs interested in what is living there, and show that it is a corrupted verson of their world.

In all my gaming (15+yrs) Ive never bothered with the planes, the closest my PCs got was a bag of holding.

EDIT: Just noticed that there is a Will-o-The-Wisp in one of the encounters and it is an abheration, they are from the Far Realms now, hmmmmmm....

 

[Kwalish Kid]

In my first campaign, I plan to use the DMG town. One of the intrigues about the town will be that there is an Eladrin city in the Feywild with a gate nearby. The city will be using the town for supplies, but in secret. The PCs will be eventually notice the supplies leaving town and find the city. I figure that they can get involved in the city before level 5.

 

[GreatLemur]

While travelling--perhaps unintentionally--through the Feywild, a PC breaks some seemingly-arbitrary (but apparently very important) law of the local fey. The party is captured, and the offending PC is put on trial. The kicker is that the fey judicial system might as well be a game of Calvinball, at least to outsiders.

The secret to saving the PC might be just to try and make crap up as fast and as entertainingly as the fey do . . . or it might be to stop acting like a Star Trek away team and just bust the hell out of there. Or, maybe they can just play along and let the PC take his punishment, which could turn out to be as insignificant and nonsensical as his crime.

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

my starting location will probably be a Seaport, near it there will be a Shifting Eladrin city that will come once a year for a moon or less for commerce and the like....

 

[Shemeska]

EDIT: Just noticed that there is a Will-o-The-Wisp in one of the encounters and it is an abheration, they are from the Far Realms now, hmmmmmm....

Might I suggest looking at "The Barrens" by F. Paul Wilson then. Will-o-The-Wisps used within a distinctly lovecraftian environment. Plus, he's an awesome writer.