| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 22 Jan 2006 : 05:41:13
Okay, I had my players run into an elven Chronomancer a while ago, who wants to use them as agents. It occured to me that I have had this very powerful Chronomancer, Elminster, Storm, and a power Shadovar ambassador all meet with the PCs. While Elminster and Storm haven't become "regulars," they actually ended up appearing more than I had originally envisioned in the campaign.
This actually led me to a thought. The elven chronomancer is meant to be a long term, eventually epic level issue for the PCs, as she tries to get them to help her rewrite time. Eventually, her attemps to "fix" the timestream keep getting thwarted or not working out the way she wants them to, and she finds more and more references to the Dawn Cataclysm and decides to restart the whole timeline (Think Parallax, if you are familiar with the DC Universe).
While she can't do this, she can cause a lot of damage, and it occured to me that I might be able to tie in a few things here. I had already introduced that Mystra doesn't really like Chronomancy in my campaign. She hasn't fully banned it, but practitioners are watched carefully. It occured to me that Elminster and Storm are keeping an eye on one of the PCs, causally, because the detected Chronomancy about him from when the Chronomancer sent him back in time earlier in the campaign.
The Shadovar are interested in the PCs, and the Chronomancer by extention, because they consider any information on Chronomancy, and spellbooks, magic items, etc. concerned with it, rightfully Netherese, and thus theirs, by virtue of the fact that Jeriah Chronos was the Chronomancer, and it was one of his apprentices spellbooks that the elf found and studied to become a Chronomancer.
So, with all of this in place, what else can I do at lower levels to leak out some of this plot to forshadow bigger "epic" isues later? |
| 11 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 11 Feb 2006 : 02:46:39
These are essentially the "rules" for how time travel/alternate timelines, etc. work in my campaign.
/ \
___
The question marks refer to the chaos at the begining and the end of time, and the lines between each begining and ending represents the timeline. The timeline is stretched taught between the begining of its timeline and the ending of its timeline.
Major events can cause the timeline to be "tweaked" much like the string of a guitar. Under this explanation, there really aren't alternate timelines, per se, but rather a resonance that only exists for a given amount of time. This is much like the "after image" you see of the guitar string vibrating. Eventually the string quits vibrating, and the timeline is directly linear again. Note also that the timeline is much harder to "tweak" near the begining and the end of the timeline.
The reason someone that "changes" the timeline cannot return to their time is because they are on the apex of the "swing" of the line. The timeline constantly swings above and below where the characters would be lined up to go back to thier time, and by the time the line stabilizes, even the most ancient characters are usually long gone.
The point is that the farther from an event one gets, the less important the specific minutia of the event becomes. For example, in an alternate timeline, King Zaor might live for another ten years, or be assasinated ten years earlier. The major event is that King Zaor was assasinated, and the further backwards or forwards you move in the timeline, the less important the exact date is.
The longer lived and the more lives that a given individual influences, the more "presense" a being has in the timeline, thus making variations on them more difficult to acheive. In other words, Azoun IV influenced many, and Nalavara was long lived and affected many lives, and since their lives converged, the chance that their destinies can even be tweaked a little is less and less likely. In other words, in almost any alternate timeline Azoun would likely die fighting Nalavara. In the VERY few timelines where Azoun died in other manners, the alternate timeline would fade (i.e. quit vibrating or resonating) quickly and assimilate back into the main timeline.
The only way to actually create a stable, permanent alternate timeline would be to either unravel the fabric of the timeline itself, which would likely unravel reality to the point of reality falling apart, or to find a way to shorten the timeline so that the the end of reality touches the begining of time, and start to rewrite things from there, essentially, by default unmaking reality until you are the only thing left, and by default making you the first sentient being in the chaos and giving you Ao's job.
The Elven Chronomancer has seen the "vibrations" from other adventurers she has sent through time to alter the past of Myth Drannor, and she has started to see how these alternate timelines have only resonated for 100-500 years before everything seemed to be back to "normal."
As a side effect, sometimes "artifacts" from other timeline resonances remain when the timeline stablizes again, thus allowing for apparent paradoxes from time to time. For example, characters that might seemed to have died in one year, but according to official records died two years later.
A lot of this set up is influenced by Marvel's Fantastic Four Comic, specifically the issue were we meet some creatures that survived the previous universe, and the ones where they explain that Galactus was the last being in his timeline, and was by default "written" into the new universe when it took shape, and by DC Comics Crisis on Infinate Earths and Zero Hour comics. Just wanted to give credit where credit is due. |
| Hoondatha |
Posted - 28 Jan 2006 : 19:52:00
Yes, true, however time travel really lends itself to house rules, so (at least in my chronomancy campaign), that doesn't apply. |
| Iliphar1 |
Posted - 28 Jan 2006 : 15:53:17
found something in my notes:
Cormanthyr - Empire of the Elves
deals with time traveling and presents clear rules about it:
quote:
-taken from Cormanthyr - Empire of the Elves, page 6
Risks of Time Travel
As stated earlier, no magics within any timeline can prevent the return of a time-traveler to her original time after one year. However, there is one, albeit dangerous, exception to this one-year time limit in the past: the alteration of a timeline.
If anyone purposefully or accidentally alters a pivotal event in a timeline, many sages believe that the magic, that placed them out of their own time will prevent that change from occurring ans most likely cancel the trip through time.
Of course, so few folk travel in time (aside from the mundane method of one day at a time), that sages cannot gain absolute answers. Before the time-travel campain even begins, the DM needs to make a decision on the effects of changing time. for the sake of smooth game play, there are only two options: The creation of a new timeline or the retroactive end of timetravels for the PCs.
Creating New Timelines
Should anything occur within a campaign that alters the extant Forgotten Realms timeline, the time-travel magic's at play on the characters's end. However, the time traveling characters are not pulled formward in time to where and when they came from - They remain in this past... for the rest of their lifetimes By altering events in the past, the Characters have created an alternate timeline, that differs from their home timeline, and this forces them to remain in that altered time forever, no matter their wishes.
ok that says everything: Alterations should not be possible at all! |
| Iliphar1 |
Posted - 28 Jan 2006 : 15:40:09
I think I would allow timetravel, but like in the short story" A Sound of Thunder" (I think Bradbury) or even the "Back to the Future" movies, the simplest deed could drastically chance the universe - to the bad!
I would allow my PC to chance something in the past but with dear consequences - like Zhentil Keep ruling over the Dalelands, or the Obarskyr's murdered and Cormyr turned into a dictatorship.
In the End the PC would do everything possible to undo their changes, but that would be a rather epic quest the PC won't likely to forget anytime soon. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 23 Jan 2006 : 22:24:11
interesting idea. I've only played with Chronomancy in a story that I wrote up about how Sleyvas eventually recovered his wife from the past. His idea was that he needed to trick himself in the past. In the past he "knew" that his wife, Melarra, had died when a paladin hunting down a thief accidentally skewered her with his sword. Sleyvas then made it his life's goal to seek vengeance for the death of Melarra. He took up magic in order to be able to find the paladin, and this over time led to his status as an archmage. Therefore, if he were to send someone into the past and stop her death, he would have had no impetus to become a mage... and thus when they returned he would lose all of his magical ability (and thus have never been able to have sent the person back in time.... somewhat paradoxical). His idea was to send someone back to fake her death.
So, perhaps something similar happened with your PC's? The chronomancer went back in time and tricked them into thinking X but really he had performed Y. Then the PC finds out the truth in the future that Y had happened. He doesn't understand why someone would make him think X, and it upsets him greatly and he wants to know who did that to him. He eventually tracks it to the chronomancer and confronts him about it. |
| Fletcher |
Posted - 23 Jan 2006 : 16:53:09
Five quick thoughts add a little foreshadowing of chronomantic things to come...
1. Have them run across a prophecy warning about a cataclysm.
2. Odd dreams for anyone who is psychic.
3. Have the PC’s run into someone else who has tried and failed to stop the chronomancer.
4. Have the chronomancer make a few verbal hints now and then. Subtle at first and more obvious as time draws nearer. You know things like:
“The past is the source of all of the current issues in the world”
“Damned Lathander and his meddling, if only he knew what would befall the world”
“I have longed for a return of the golden age of the elven nations. Since it doesn’t exist today, the only way I can enjoy it is to go back to that time myself.”
5. Have the chronomancer leave his diary out on the coffee table and have someone read a passage or two while the she is off looking/cooking up something for the party.
|
| Hoondatha |
Posted - 22 Jan 2006 : 22:38:08
KEJR, I like that idea of figuring out exactly what needs to be changed by seeing what doesn't change through a number of iterations. That's a really neat take on it. My players are much more of the hands-on type, so that kind of alteration scheme has never come up. But since she's sending them back instead of going herself, she can send multiple groups to the same time, getting around the lifeline-doubling problems (something I did away with entirely in my campaign). |
| Vvornth |
Posted - 22 Jan 2006 : 21:39:29
Funny, I'm currently running a campaign myself were the PCs employer is a diviner that dabbles in chronomancy, I am one of the people that wish to keep chronomancy incredibly rare and to come at great costs in however. So the way this wizard (Gideon) has achieved this level of power is with the help of the artifact The Timepiece of Klorr (nicked from the Ravenloft setting, and given a Far Realm origin in my campaign). An item that gives away secret of mastery over time, but is a most vile and foul object that requires its wielder to pay in blood for the powers it grants.
The twist I give it is that while this timepiece gives awesome powers it has a way of tainting the outcome and mocking its victim's/user's. For instance when Gideon first glimsed the future thanks to its magic his first vision was of his own future death. As a result he is now trying to change that possible future (which is were the PCs come in among other things), but to do so he needs the powers of the timepiece even more which corrupts him even further.
Maybe not exactly what you had in mind for your campaign but I like themes like were the players have to question their convictions and that blur the line between good/evil.
|
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 22 Jan 2006 : 20:43:32
I know what you are saying about the temporal alterations . . . for example, if you stop assasin X from killing king Y, then assasin Z does it instead, and for the most part, the time stream has altered very little. This of course is the problem that she is having, which is leading her to think that the more she does, the more eventually she will see what she really needs to change. So in other words, she may affect some peoples personal lives, the but big history events don't change any. Make any sense? |
| Hoondatha |
Posted - 22 Jan 2006 : 16:54:20
As I remember the chronomancy book, time *can* be altered, it's just really hard, and time will often warp in strange ways to avoid being altered. But with enough persistence, knowledge, and luck, it can be done.
I can't help much, even though I'm currently running a chronomancy campaign. My version is influenced a lot by Back to the Future, and while it uses the Chronomancy book as a base, I've tweaked it extensively. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 22 Jan 2006 : 07:13:26
Well, if time can be altered (and as I recall from the Chronomancer rules, it can't be), then you can lift an idea from the Legends trilogy from Dragginglance: The PCs get their hands on a history book from a different timeline. There's enough factual stuff in there to convince them it's legit, but some things that they know happened one way are listed as having happened a different way in the book... |
|
|
