Time God Brainstorming

[The Amazing Dingo]

Heya all,

One video game that I've come to love is Soul Reaver. One aspect they really play up in the series is the aspect of time, fate, and destiny.

Anyway, the campaign I'll be running is in the mid-levels where I think the PCs ought to really begin to interact with some of the higher powers (though certainly not to any great extent, but at least start to get a taste). As such, I wanted to introduce a former god of time. I'm not sure who it was over in one of Henry's threads (the one to brainstorm a last room for a extradimensial wizard's keep) but someone mentioned a god from a former "time" (namely one that existed before the last big bang). That idea latched into my mind and has slowly been growing.

So that is what I'd like to run with in my campaign. I think a former god of time would fit well with being able to survive after the universe implodes upon itself (since time would continue to go in some weird metaphysical fashion).

In the campaign, a mountain in the far north recently suffered a magical explosion. One of the results was to send large shards of rock into a magically levitated state that have been drifting apart. I was thinking such an event would be a perfect way to introduce this formerly dead (or at least hibernating and now alive again) god. Perhaps he was buried beneath the mountain and is now exposed? Perhaps his body was adrift on the Astral Plane and the magical explosion was enough to draw his body to the Prime? Perhaps something/someone tagged along with him to the Prime in his/its transition?

Anyway, I was wondering if the collective power of Enworld might once again aid me. Any thoughts on what I've stated above? Also, any randoms ideas - perhaps interesting time traits that might inhabit the area or weird phenomena that might occur?

Thank you!

PS - I do not intend to do any time traveling, despite Soul Reaver. I think that is a can of rabid, carnivorous, human eating worms...at least for the moment. Given some more time and consideration maybe, but only on a limited type of thing.

Thanks again.

PSS - I have read WizarDru and PirateCat's Story Hours. Their use of such a creature was masterfully done and I'm hoping to at least come somewhere close to such.

 

[WizarDru]

Why, thank you.


You can take this one in a couple of different directions.

One idea would be to draw on Neil Gaiman's 'Sandman' series, and use 'Destruction' as a model. Perhaps the deity resigned and just 'dropped-out'. He's too powerful to replace or remove, but he's refused to do his duties, and now the universe is beginning to feel the strain. Or maybe he did pass his powers on to another, and it's had terrible consequences. The PCs might have to hunt him down, and then convince him to resume his mantle, or tell them how to stop his replacement.

Another tack would be to focus on the god being inadvertantly released or exposed to the prime. Maybe he was contained in a prison in the distant past, and then that prison was buried on the prime. Now he wakens, and threatens the fabric of time. Imagine if old enemies from the past and new enemies from the future were to start appearing and disappearing, alternately amusing and threatening the players. Villians they have no knowledge of or connection to suddenly appear and demand revenge...for something that hasn't happened yet.

Other ideas: the Githyanki have discovered the body of the forgotten god in the Astral, but their tampering has thrown their new-built city right onto the prime. Most of the githyanki are killed when the god shrugs his shoulders, but the new ones on the prime begin a war of conquest...or do they merely wish to return home? Could the Lich Queen seek his power, or perhaps the forces of more sinister beings are at work? Perhaps an evil god has decided to try and re-awaken or re-involve the old god, to distract everyone while he makes a play for something else entirely?

I got a million of 'em, here.

 

[Shadow145]

Penumbra had an adventure, it was called Tide of Years, that dealt with a lot of Temperal Issues.

I never ran it, but a friend of mine had it and I read through it. It may be helpful.

http://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG3203.html

 

[Roudi]

The last time I made a God of Time, I modeled him after Paul Atredies in Children of Dune: basically, all of time was open to his sight. The past, present, and future were all visible to him at all times, effectively temporally omniscient. This, of course, recognized that the future was set in stone, and very often the future appeared to him as several distinct possibilities that coalesced into more solid pictures as it came closer to the present. He didn't have much else in the way of godly power beyond that... but still, one can imagine how significant such a power might be (also gives a VERY convincing reason for such a god to have stepped down - the burden of eternal foreknowledge combined with effective helplessness to do anything about it.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

My feeling is that it is a bit of a waste to have a god of time without permitting some kind of time travel. Even if it is only the god itself that can perform it.

1) The explosion heraleded the god's arrival in the current timeline. He has thrown himself billions of years ahad into the "future" in order to have a grand view of what is to come and how he can alter it to further his own ends. However, he did not anticipate the death of his own universe and the birth of a new one. He finds his powers greatly reduced in this new time frame and he is utterly alone.

2) The god of time is, in truth, very young. He is from the distant future and this was his first attempt to travel into the past. Unfortunately, he has dicovered that he can only travel in to the past in leaps of thousands of years and his only hope is to go through the eons naturally until he gets to a point where he can convince himself not to make the inital jump. This would re-write "history" (the PCs future) and thus make the god of time a nice neutrally-aligned foil for the PCs.

3) The absence of the god of time is what caused the current universe's big bang. He jumped forward, unwittingly destroyed his own universe, and the shock has driven him into slumber. Now he awakes. He can not time travel without destorying the current universe (and thus just causing the same problem all over again) but he wishes to re-create his former home. Again, this would be a nice foil for the PCs.

Just some thoughts.

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

Wow...a lot of great ideas here. Thank you kindly everyone. I've got a lot to chew on here and mull over.

Biggus, I should reword myself. I'm not into the idea of having the PC's jumping around and trying to change the past. Too many troubles arise I think. Of course, this is just what I'm saying now. Its still early and plenty of time for things to unravel. I might very well change my mind and I wouldn't be against the God being able to time jump.

I do kind of like the idea of the God of Time stepping down. I can only imagine what this would have done to the time continuim and what catastrophe might have occured from there. Since time must always continue, he might be effectively forced to be anchored to the Prime (since his very presence is time). To remove him from the Prime might be to bring Armageddon. Of course he would have defenses in place against such a threat (perhaps even forced upon him by the other gods for fear of him being shifted elsewhere...or they might not even know what would happen, but they don't want to find out).

I'm contemplating him having stepped down and left the prime, which effectively created Armageddon and killed many of the gods. Those that escaped managed to track him down and drag him back into the Prime and were forced to recreate everything from scratch. In order to ensure he stayed, they buried him deep and imprisoned him in a type of stasis.

Now, with the explosion, he's been released. Of course, without worshippers or followers, he's lacking a great deal of his power but he is still a God of Time...and he's a little pissed at the new "God" of Time. Indeed, while the new God might have that portfolio, he is not the "Source" of time.

I can only picture how pissed the old God might be that the new God has been tapping into his essence...

Have to work on this a bit more but Thank You very much all! If you have more or have commentary about what I'm thinking over, please keep it coming!

 

[Roudi]

Glad to have helped.

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

Hey Roudi,

I just got back from walking my dogs and was pondering the whole Time God and his ability to see the future. I like it and had planned to go with it. One thing I wanted to add to that mix was that he cannot see what influence *his* actions will have on the future. I think it might make for a neat character when he can see the possible futures of others but is fairly uncertain about how his own actions might effect the future. Think that would make a somewhat uncertain God? It might be a form of punishment inflicted when the other gods drug him back.

Also, I am going to go with the idea that he's been woken by the BBEG as a distraction. Suddenly, the gods are looking around for this woken God (who, thanks to several amazing spells, is effectively under a Nondetection spell) who could destroy existance if he is removed from the plane.

One question though...A God is usually influencial in many, many planes. Does it make sense that this one God and one Plane are connected? The more I think about it the more it is simply not holding up. Any suggestions on this one? Anyone else think it just doesn't hold water?

 

[WizarDru]

One question though...A God is usually influencial in many, many planes. Does it make sense that this one God and one Plane are connected? The more I think about it the more it is simply not holding up. Any suggestions on this one? Anyone else think it just doesn't hold water?

Depends on your cosmology. To use Greyhawk as an example, Iuz and Vecna are gods of the Prime. They clawed their way up, attaining the status of demi-gods through sheer determination. The same is true of two of the nature deities as well, I think.

For the concept of a god of time, it may be that he may not be limited to the prime, but his essence is born of it, and he is inextricably linked to it. The outer planes are, in some respects, timeless. Time travels at different speeds (or as in the case of the Astral, not at all) and has varying effects. But not on the prime, EVER. No being is powerful enough to make time mutable across the whole of the prime (although even mortal wizards can affect a localized area). I would say that you could make a case that while he touches most planes in some capacity, only on the prime does he truly have total sway. Perhaps that's why mortal spellcasters can do things like time stop and haste and so forth...because the god of time originates on the prime, and imbues it's residents with such potential.

Or, you know, not.

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

Wiz,

I rather like that. I have definately liked the GH concept of Prime Gods that are native to the world. I even saved and printed out the analogy in your game of the gods' interference in the Prime being akin to trying to rip the wings off a fly. Its a theory that has a great deal of potential and possibility.

I'd like to think that the former universe had several Prime gods, including Time. When he left it was like dropping a mountain into the middle of a creek - the flow of time was terribly disrupted. But the river kept flowing and eventually found its way around the mountain and began to flow normally. Eventually, the gods brought him back, subdued and unconcious and locked him away for thousands of years...

...until now.

One other thing I'd like to steal is PC's idea of the memories of a dead god...I was thinking of having the Time God's dreams from his sleep now inhabitting some of those floating islands. Not sure what I'll drop up there as of yet, but I'm sure there must be some interesting things from a previous universe that could inhabit a floating island.