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Baptor
Seeker
USA
93 Posts |
 Posted - 18 Feb 2015 : 03:09:41
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Fellow scholars of the Realms,
With the Sundering well underway in my Realms game, I'm about to drop an ace card I've been holding onto since 2008. One of my old players actually became a lesser power back in the 1300s. When I heard about the Spellplague in 2008, I wrote into my history that this lesser power was able to seal himself away into a pocket plane inside the demiplane of time as a kind of divine timecapsule. I had no idea what I wanted to use it for but I felt one day a retcon or something might be in order.
Well, now that the Sundering is underway, I'd like to play my ace, and I'd like to do something pretty cool with it.
Basically my players (who have been good and faithful players for many years in the Realms) have some GREAT characters who, as far as they know, died during the 100 year time jump. When they were informed, they were sad, but took it in stride and we played on. They never complained.
What I'd like to do is rule that during the Spellplague, this lesser power snatched some of these characters up into his pocket plane to remain with him in temporal stasis until the Sundering, when they will be released back into the timeline.
No one really noted their disappearance because lots of people died or vanished during the Spellplague. It was a rough time!
Now it's my game and I'm aware I can do whatever I want, but I did want to bounce this idea off you guys since I want it to be a surprise to my players.
1. If it were you, and you had this awesome character you had presumed died needlessly in the Spellplague, would you be happy to get him back?
2. Does my story make any sense at all, or does it sound hopelessly campy?
Spoiler!!
I know Bob Salvatore pulled some pretty fancy tricks to save the Companions of the Hall. Mine can't be any worse, right?
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Jesus said, "I am the Ressurection and the Life. Anyone who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and those who live and believe in Me will never die. Do you believe this?" |
Edited by - Baptor on 18 Feb 2015 03:11:56
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hobbitfan
Learned Scribe
USA
164 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2015 : 04:23:25
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I think you should go one better and use time travel to try and change history rather than just preserve the PCs time capsule style.
What if someone, it can be a bad guy or even a misguided good guy, is trying to change history. They are from the current day (sundering +10) but the future for your PCs. Someone, it can be your demigod if you wish..figures out that the baddies need to be stopped. But because time is in flux, the future might not turn out entirely as we know it now. This gives you and your players plenty of wiggle room to make the changed present and altered future as different as you want.
You can go X-Men Days of Future Peast with it or Dragonlance Legends or Back To the Future or even Dr Who inspired.
Tons of possibilities.
I love it!
Edit: I have a villain idea for you. A Spellscarred indivual who is is immortal but doesn't want to be. They are doing all the temporal shenanigans to try and make it where they have a normal life. But the PCs don't know this....they think there is an evil conquer time type of endgame in mind and maybe the bad guy's followers do to....
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Edited by - hobbitfan on 18 Feb 2015 04:28:29 |
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Baptor
Seeker
USA
93 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2015 : 04:31:16
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quote:
Originally posted by hobbitfan
I think you should go one better and use time travel to try and change history rather than just preserve the PCs time capsule style.
What if someone, it can be a bad guy or even a misguided good guy, is trying to change history. They are from the current day (sundering +10) but the future for your PCs. Someone, it can be your demigod if you wish..figures out that the baddies need to be stopped. But because time is in flux, the future might not turn out entirely as we know it now. This gives you and your players plenty of wiggle room to make the changed present and altered future as different as you want.
You can go X-Men Days of Future Peast with it or Dragonlance Legends or Back To the Future or even Dr Who inspired.
Tons of possibilities.
I love it!
Edit: I have a villain idea for you. A Spellscarred indivual who is is immortal but doesn't want to be. They are doing all the temporal shenanigans to try and make it where they have a normal life. But the PCs don't know this....they think there is an evil conquer time type of endgame in mind and maybe the bad guy's followers do to....
Hmm, I like your ideas, just not sure I follow.
Are you saying through these time traveling methods I could create a future where these old characters are still alive? That's the primary goal, to restore the lost characters. |
Jesus said, "I am the Ressurection and the Life. Anyone who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and those who live and believe in Me will never die. Do you believe this?" |
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hobbitfan
Learned Scribe
USA
164 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2015 : 04:37:36
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yep exactly....my way it's not so obvious that the end game is keeping them around. By making it seem like they are saving reality, their survival seems like a fringe benefit.
Or you could spin it another way and make their survival vital to the saving of time and reality.
Or you could pull them out of time to fix things and then relate that they can't be returned to the past because it would change the new restored history. The newly rewritten past has them disappearing...So the only way for them to come back to the Realms would be to the new present (their future). |
Edited by - hobbitfan on 18 Feb 2015 04:41:09 |
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Baptor
Seeker
USA
93 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2015 : 04:40:23
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quote:
Originally posted by hobbitfan
yep exactly....my way it's not so obvious that the end game is keeping them around. By making it seem like they are saving reality, their survival seems like a fringe benefit.
Or you could spin it another way and make their survival vital to the saving of time and reality.
The latter is how I was swinging it. Basically the demigod snatched up certain people (not all of them are old characters) from the timeline because they are needed to secure the new one. There's a bit of Donnie Darko thinking in this. |
Jesus said, "I am the Ressurection and the Life. Anyone who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and those who live and believe in Me will never die. Do you believe this?" |
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hobbitfan
Learned Scribe
USA
164 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2015 : 04:42:31
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oh ok..sounds like you have that part figured out then.
Edit: I did have another thought on the big bad. They are a warlock, a massively powerful one since they are immortal now, that has a pact with an otherworldly evil that wants to destroy the Realms in all time. So the bad guy just wants to do this so they can finally see their cursed existance end..they are so messed up that they don't care that all the rest of reality will suffer.
I would utilize a cleric of a god/goddess killed/depowered/merged in the Spellplague as an ally of your players in the Dark Future. They would be able to guide the players about that future but be willing to change history to bring their patron back. You might even write things where the god that dies and they need to bring back is the player character demigod.
Or...the big bad might be followers of either Shar or Larloch, assuming the Dark future is a result of the events of the Heralds (i.e. Ed Greenwood's Sundering book)'s last few chapters turning out differently. |
Edited by - hobbitfan on 18 Feb 2015 04:58:19 |
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Baptor
Seeker
USA
93 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2015 : 04:52:07
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quote:
Originally posted by hobbitfan
oh ok..sounds like you have that part figures out then.
Not really! I like your ideas and I will definitely think about ways I can make this better.
I don't want it to seem like I saved their characters just because. If I do that I think they will think its cheesy and dislike it.
But if I can find a way to weave it into the storyline, make it seem like "hey, this was the only way to save the world!" Then they will love it.
Once I started to see the Realms as less like Tolkien's LOTR and more like Marvel comic books, I started to understand the wild twists and turns the setting has taken.
Rule of thumb in the Realms: take it too seriously, and it'll destroy your heart. |
Jesus said, "I am the Ressurection and the Life. Anyone who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and those who live and believe in Me will never die. Do you believe this?" |
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hobbitfan
Learned Scribe
USA
164 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2015 : 05:14:34
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| The cool thing about your time travel idea is that you get to have both. You get to tell a wacky Marvel type story that ends up with the Realms being turned more Middle-Earth like in tone at the end. |
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Eltheron
Senior Scribe
740 Posts |
Posted - 21 Feb 2015 : 07:47:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Baptor
1. If it were you, and you had this awesome character you had presumed died needlessly in the Spellplague, would you be happy to get him back?
2. Does my story make any sense at all, or does it sound hopelessly campy?
Spoiler!!
I know Bob Salvatore pulled some pretty fancy tricks to save the Companions of the Hall. Mine can't be any worse, right?
It's an interesting idea with a lot of potential, but it does also share some similarities with the story of Mystra's return and the "blue flame ghosts" not too long ago.
Also, I'd say it's a little cheesy, but certainly no cheesier than anything that's happened in the published Realms so go for it.
So you have a basic plan, time to flesh it out.
What very little we know of the Spellplague and the Sundering suggest that the gods themselves felt that they and their portfolios were in danger. It makes sense for any deity to try and save themselves in such a turbulent time, so your Lesser Power hiding inside a fold of Time is possible. Snatching up a few powerful heroes also makes sense in case something happened where he needed them to ensure his own survival and that of his portfolio. (Or her?)
What you need is a "danger" hook that is prompting the Lesser Power to do this. You need to answer the question of "why these heroes, and why now?"
Part of the danger could simply be that Mystra is rising again and starting to monitor time. Your lesser power has a tiny window left in which to meet his goals- one of which might be escaping the pocket plane - sure, it was good protection, but the warp and weft of planar structure was altered with the Spellplague and it's being altered yet again with the Sundering as the worlds of Abeir and Toril are being pulled apart.
Mystra herself becomes a danger as she regains her power: although she's a good goddess, her edict on protecting time is one of her most important portfolio.
So the heroes need to do -something- in the world that will help him fully escape from the pocket plane and it has to be done before the completion of the Sundering. Perhaps they need powerful items or long-forgotten temporal magics that can only be retrieved while the planar boundaries are out of phase during the Sundering.
Perhaps there are some truly ancient magics they need to retrieve from hidden places - some could be related to the old Netherese Chronomancer, others could have been created in the time of pre-Netheril Mystryl (Kingdom of Thaeravel arcana) when she watched over time more carefully, and perhaps others could be related to the long-forgotten (and presumed dead) deity Chronos of the pre-Cormyr Kingdom of Orva. Labelas Enoreth might get peripherally involved, since one of his portfolios involves time. Maybe even one of the goals of the Lesser Power is to gain power over the Time portfolio by absorbing some remnant of Chronos or a near-dead lost Chosen or artifact of Mystryl or Labelas.
Once the players re-enter the world, communication with the Lesser Power becomes erratic - because he is outside of time and they are not. You could have some interesting paradoxes like the players asking him for information or guidance, but one day they're talking to him before the 100-year gap and another day they could talk to him as he is dying within the shrinking pocket plane. Yet another could involve seeing the Lesser Power morph temporally from one moment to another, as the pocket plane folds and twists upon itself like a Moebius loop. Many weird things are possible.
To make things interesting, you could also have the Lesser Power save one or two old enemies of the players' characters, pulled out of timestreams just seconds before they died, or even slightly alternate reality versions of those enemies. Maybe they help the players, maybe they don't, but they have assignments from the Lesser Power as well. Maybe they do what the Lesser Power wants, maybe they don't. The Lesser Power is gambling, like most of the gods during this time, and he wants to escape this pocket plane which may very quickly become a permanent prison.
You could even have one of the people the Lesser Power saved be a younger version of himself. Confused and out of sorts, it could be a mortal, weak avatar (who couldn't escape completely) or perhaps a younger, non-god alternate reality version of the being that ascended. Maybe it goes insane, or perhaps it reforges its connection as an avatar of the Lesser Power once it gains access to sufficient power.
Or perhaps the pocket plane itself is a huge threat to Faerun. It might be acting like a cosmic anchor, or start growing out of control like a planar cyst, leading to "shredding" of reality that worsens the longer it exists. Because it exists, the Sundering cannot complete itself without massive damage to local timespace. So the endgame becomes getting the Lesser Power out of it, then destroying it before time and different planes start to leak into the present. Perhaps you could have one of the saved enemies die a horrible death by being "shredded" by time-winds.
Anyway, just some random ideas.
Could be a really epic, fun campaign.
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"The very best possible post-fourteenth-century Realms lets down those who love the specific, detailed social, political and magical situation, with its thousands of characters, developed over forty years, and want to learn more about it; and those who'd be open to a new one with equal depth, which there just isn't time to re-produce; and those repelled, some past the point of no return, by the bad-taste-and-plausibility gap of things done to the world when its guardianship was less careful."
--Faraer |
Edited by - Eltheron on 21 Feb 2015 08:16:40 |
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Time Travel?
