The Chronolith

[Napftor]

I'm not sure I can figure out a good reason why their faces would be on the Chronolith but hey ... it's a time-travel, time-distortion thingy. Why not?

That one's easy: because the PCs are the ones who are going to fix it. The images of their faces are transparent, a time-distorted vision of where their monument will be once they succeed in this great task.

 

[Wraith Form]

Ah, but here's why it works the way it works...

Hey, I'm just a noob here to the whole GMing gig....don't pay me no mind..! (lol)

 

[Nifft]

Wow, Nifft, you pulled out all the stops! Dividing the effects into bad/neutral/good is a great step, and allowing the PCs to learn from the effects is cool.

The way I'm going to handle this in my game is:

1/ At some point -- perhaps when the PCs walk into a temporal distortion field or whatever -- I'm going to say, "write 'TCP = 1' on your character sheet". Some time after that, one or more of them will be told to "add a TCP", again in circumstances when they know something funky is going on.

2/ Then will come a combat, against some inferior foe, but one who's likely to score a hit or two. The players will learn about Mishaps in this way, and they'll get the intuition that mishaps reduce their TCP count.

3/ Later, they'll see a critter with the template above fooling around with some time distortion field they saw (and gained a TCP from) earlier. This critter will turn around and time hop them (or something like that) and they may get the intuition that they can do cool stuff with TCPs if they try.

The important thing I think is that they realize it's DANGEROUS to have TCPs before they start thinking it might be cool to have some TCPs.

-- N

 

[Nifft]

I'm not sure I can figure out a good reason why their faces would be on the Chronolith but hey ... it's a time-travel, time-distortion thingy. Why not?

Their faces are there because they carved them... when they became Aberrant Hell Knights of Insanity! (I'm taking a page from the old Warlock comic, where a guy goes back in time to kill an evil galaxy-emperor only to become that self-same evil galaxy emperor.)

The PCs find future-history texts (written by themselves) telling of their heroic conquests. As the texts become more specific, though, they become disturbing -- "What? The corrupt kingdom we laid ruin to was ruled by Giants?!" -- using the standard EviLingo(tm) of "evil" = "strong / pure" and "good" = "weak / corrupt".

By the end of the adventure, the PCs each gain an Anti-Rune -- works like the Runes of Runechildren, but has completely different effects. Runechildren fear them and refuse to help them, but Dragons are surprisingly helpful.

For, you see, the Runes the PCs bear mark them as the forerunners to a new Tenebrian Seed -- the Seed of Four Soul Ruin. (Or Five Soul... how many PCs do you have?)

Can the PCs remain good when all good folks turn away from them, and evil folks welcome them in? Can they change history?

-- N

 

[EricNoah]

Or maybe because when they become super powerful in the future, they'll actually get to travel back to the past, in the days when the dramojh were helping construct the Chronolith. They know they can't stop the event from happening -- but they can give their past selves a clue that will bring them to the Chronolith at the right time. Or something...

But you're right -- they definitely did it themselves, at some point. It's the only thing that makes sense.

 

[Nifft]

Or maybe because when they become super powerful in the future, they'll actually get to travel back to the past, in the days when the dramojh were helping construct the Chronolith. They know they can't stop the event from happening -- but they can give their past selves a clue that will bring them to the Chronolith at the right time. Or something...

But you're right -- they definitely did it themselves, at some point. It's the only thing that makes sense.

Oooo, or to go all Bill & Ted for a minute... they will do it in the past!

See, here's the situation. The PCs are leaving a message for themselves -- how to get into the past! They will (subjective time) travel into the past (objective time) and mess with the Dramojh's plans. So, once they're back in the past, they leave themselves a "clue"... perhaps all of the PC faces have something subtle wrong with them, and by exploring the "wrong" places the PCs will find the clues they need to activate the gateway back into the past, so they can go do whatever it is they will be going to have done.

(Ah, the linguistic joy of time-travel...)

Am I making sense?

This plot also lets you re-inject them into the time stream in two (or more) years, without telling them what all has been going on in the mean while.

-- N

 

[Varianor Abroad]

This is one truly awesome idea. The whole concept is tremendous.

The only thing I thought up, which would be fun, is to write up a bunch of in-jokes. Ones that never happened. Hand them out to a couple of the players. Then at a couple predetermined moments, have them yell it out like everyone should laugh or remember it. This coincides with a crash of chronal waves around the Tower, when one of the other effects happen. A sort of "parallel universe" effect. More to be jarring and bothersome than fun.

From a DM "effect management" standpoint, what about making up cards or sheets of paper to put out every so often? Put them on the board or table to indicate the current conditions.