Sailors on the River of Worlds- Update

[Psion]

One source that I didn't see mentioned was the old Fringeworthy RPG

Alas, not one I own. I don't own any of the Tri-tac games, but I remember being regaled with tales about how they track bullet paths through the body.

- the background was similar to Stargate ... a series of portals - some portals would move across time, some would move across space (to other star systems), some would go to alternate realities, some would go to other gateway complexes, and yet others would go to mini planes built by the ancient creators of the system. Only certain individuals were capable of traversing the gateways - ie the fringeworthy of the title.

Sounds cool, and some portals may work that way (Portals & Planes has a ton of ideas along these lines.)

Alot of deficiencies as a game, but a great framework and far more possibilities than the stargate idea. There was a set of tables for randomly generating new gateway destinations in each category.

Portals and Planes has a little random planes table I plugged into Namegen to make random planes. It's a little quirky, but has some interesting results.

 

[BSF]

Heh... already partway there. I did kick the spelljammer cosmology to the curb, but I did take its wallet while it was down. I've renamed pirates of gith "Gith'hadra"; that name was originally slated for a new gith variant I was making years ago, but the idea of ship-borne Gith in a seafaring/worldhopping campaign just made TOO MUCH sense to pass up. It so happens I already worked them into my random NPC generator table I worked up for this game. Sample excerpts:

Planar Bleaker Githhadra Sorcerer/Jewel Mage
Planar Fated Githhadra Kineticist
Planar Githhadra Seer/Ranger/Slayer
Planar Planewright Githhadra Telepath/Sentinel/Planewright (that's an interesting combo I'd have trouble explaining)
Planar Transendant Order Githhadra Psychic Warrior/Rogue/Faction Class
Planar Bleaker Githhadra Nomad/Faction Class



Some of my old players talked about it constantly, but I have never seen it.

Psion,
I have been watching this thread with interest since I am ripping off some of the same concepts from Portals & Planes.

I have been thinking sea-based gith just make perfect sense as well. Any particular reason you didn't just migrate the Githyanki or Githzerai and change them around a bit?

 

[JoeGKushner]

One thing I may mess with is using some Arcana Unearthed as the default magic for some of the places the characters will pass through.

At one time, to represent a low magic world, I'm thinking of using either the Slayer's Magic system with it's DC checks and subdual damage or Grim Tales and it's Spell Burn damage.

Will you just be assuming that magic works pretty much the same on all planes or going with some variants depending on the plane in question?

 

[Psion]

I have been thinking sea-based gith just make perfect sense as well. Any particular reason you didn't just migrate the Githyanki or Githzerai and change them around a bit?

I'll probably do something like that. I checked out the Gith pirates conversion on the SJ3e website, and they are written up as non-psionic creatures (rassin' frassin'), so I'll probably work something out similar to the existing psionic gith and inspired by the Gith pirate. I really need to figure out what to do with the plane shift ability. It's a bit too convenient, so I may limit it in some way, like letting them planeshift their ships only to the river of worlds, which could make them slippery customers.

 

[Nightfall]

Well for me, Psion, you'd better toss in a few Blood Sea Krakens and probably some Pisceans. I think the PCs watching a fight and then seeing the winner come after them would be cool.

 

[Psion]

Will you just be assuming that magic works pretty much the same on all planes or going with some variants depending on the plane in question?

There are a few magic variants right out of Portals and Planes. Anything more extensive than that, I had not planned.

 

[Psion]

Well for me, Psion, you'd better toss in a few Blood Sea Krakens and probably some Pisceans.

I did the "yellow sticky" thing to flag potential creatures for the campaign in CC2 the other night and pisceans made the cut.

 

[JoeGKushner]

One of the things I've been doing is making notes of where I'd like the PC's to stop and the Diamond Throne did make the cut. Mainly becuase I've had it for a while and want to use more than just the PrCs and monsters from it. I figure that would be a good place to showcase a different type of magic. I might even have the PC's find something that enables them to use a Template type feat like those in Dragon magazine. Maybe a Rod or something like the Metamagic Rods.

For Slayers and other magic systems, I'd just like to use them more than just referencing them for other little projects. I figure that there are enough planes out there that I shouldn't have any problem coming up with places that magic works differently.

Are you going to have a machine plane or anything? I know that one of the things you've mentioend about the Monsternomicon is that it's a tad difficult to use in some settings. A mini-steam plane setting might be perfect to bust out those strange creatures.

 

[Psion]

Are you going to have a machine plane or anything? I know that one of the things you've mentioend about the Monsternomicon is that it's a tad difficult to use in some settings. A mini-steam plane setting might be perfect to bust out those strange creatures.

I really dug the idea of the Great Machine idea in Portals & Planes and was casting about looking for a way to make some interesting plot hooks that revolve around that (like if the party has a construct servant.) The idea of the great machine is that it is a plane where constructs obtain sentience. The fact that they are warring against chaos also works well with my plans.

Sleeping God's Soul from Beyond Countless Doorway is also a machine plane I planned on dropping in and working in with my chaos plots (e.g., the book has a plot hook based around awaking the goddess so she can take up the fight with Chaos.)

 

[Nightfall]

Sweet!

Pisceans and the Blood Sea in a planar adventure. That so rocks. Only thing you need now is to have my favorite creation and now NPC, Eliric(sp), "The Blood Yardarm" Thesk and his Crimson Tide, attack the PCs with his Blood Sea Zombies and other stuff.

In any case good luck Psion.