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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
 Posted - 27 May 2005 : 22:59:46
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I alluded to this in another thread, but I wanted to get the opinion of my fellow scribes, especially since several of them are avowed Spelljammer aficianados.
I have come to the conclusion that the "Crystal Sphere" set up for Spelljammer doesn't quite jive in my mind with the new cosmology, and for that matter, other worlds that once were connected have had new information come to light (without going into too much detail, Krynn, for example, obviously exists in an infinate universe, since in can be moved far away, too a place with "new" stars, and thus is not in a relatively "small" crystal sphere).
Since I still like many of the traipings of Spelljammer, and obviously there are many "cross over" items that have made it into Realmslore (such as the elven refugees in Evermeet), I really have wanted to create a 3.5 version of how things work. This is what I have come up with.
There are no crystal spheres. How large the universe is is up for debate, becuase tactical and spelljamming speed still work the way they always have, and thus it would take forever even in a spelljammer to travel to another star system within the same "galaxy."
However, usually somewhere around twice the distance of the orbit of the farthest body in a given system, there are magical disturbances, referred to as "reality storms." These storms cannot be survived without the proper magical shields or spells that allow a given ship to pass unmolested through them.
Reality Storms may be random, or relatively predictable, or even fixed, though even fixed reality storms with start to expell ships back toward their origin point if too much matter has passed through it before it can "reform" iteself.
Inside the Reality Storm is a conduit through the material known as Phlogiston, that will flow toward another reality storm somewhere else in the universe (or even into other universes).
Using this system, players may never know for sure if another planet is in their prime or not, and it is somewhat easier to limit how many ships can pass through, thus making full scale wars difficult, though not impossible.
Let me know what you think.
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36804 Posts |
Posted - 27 May 2005 : 23:29:56
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Eh... I'm a fan of the Great Wheel, so I say to hell with the new cosmology. Keeping the Wheel means I don't have to try to reconcile or figure out how to fix all the things that would otherwise have gotten broken in the shift from 2E to 3E.
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 27 May 2005 : 23:35:15
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| But Wooly, I was counting on you for an objective opinion . . . especially since . . . well, you're from . . . out there! |
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Kuje
Great Reader
USA
7915 Posts |
Posted - 27 May 2005 : 23:40:41
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Eh... I'm a fan of the Great Wheel, so I say to hell with the new cosmology. Keeping the Wheel means I don't have to try to reconcile or figure out how to fix all the things that would otherwise have gotten broken in the shift from 2E to 3E.
Echoes this. :)
But why not just make the currents of the Flow have openings between the two different Primes? Or even within the same Prime. :) |
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 27 May 2005 : 23:49:13
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I guess mainly I still wanted a barrier of sorts between the Phlogiston and Wildspace, and since it is a storm, I can always just "loose" a ship that I don't want to follow the PCs from elsewere, at least if I understand you question properly.
Oh, and there may be conduits within the same system to other parts of the system, though none of my groups have ever run into them yet. |
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Kuje
Great Reader
USA
7915 Posts |
Posted - 27 May 2005 : 23:55:45
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quote:
Originally posted by KnightErrantJR
I guess mainly I still wanted a barrier of sorts between the Phlogiston and Wildspace, and since it is a storm, I can always just "loose" a ship that I don't want to follow the PCs from elsewere, at least if I understand you question properly.
Oh, and there may be conduits within the same system to other parts of the system, though none of my groups have ever run into them yet.
So make the Flow another plane that connects just to the Prime's..... And just like 2e ya need a spell to get through it..... Shrug. :) |
For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet and excite you... Books are full of the things that you don't get in real life - wonderful, lyrical language, for instance, right off the bat. - Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 00:08:25
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| Well, you already need a spell to "shield" the ship from the storm, which would be the equivilant of opening a portal in the crystal sphere. In part I want the PCs to wonder when they go through one if another system is in their universe or another, which is the determanant factor on the cosmology and the gods that have sway, etc. |
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 00:09:37
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| Yeah, before anyone points it out, this system works like a cross between the wormhole in Deep Space Nine and hyperspace in Star Wars. |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36804 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 00:12:17
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quote:
Originally posted by KnightErrantJR
But Wooly, I was counting on you for an objective opinion . . . especially since . . . well, you're from . . . out there!
Well, my point is that I don't see a need for a new system. The old system worked just fine, until Wizards decided to screw everything up... I think that crystal spheres were a particularly elegant solution.
Looking at your ideas, though... Why reality storms? What causes them? What are they comprised of?
And why the limiting factor? With the high coast of spelljamming helms, a nation has to be incredibly wealthy to be able to outfit a fleet. That, to me, is enough of a limit to prevent a lot of interstellar wars. |
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 00:19:11
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(Pulling out my english to sci fi technobabble Star Trek dictionary) . . . the storms are composed of raw transdimentional energy, and as such, they tend to destroy anything not shielded from their ravages, since they are literally a manifestation of the breakdown of reality from one place to another.
While I always thought that cost and manpower would be a deterrant to, say, Cormyr having too many ships and waging war across the stars, I have to say that a lot of the SJ supplements started to look like the Scro could start amassing a fleet again, and that the Elven Armada had quite a few ships arrayed and as such I had to start wondering why more wars didn't break out and envelop worlds as well.
The infinate space idea also gives you some barren worlds or even some sparcely populated ones that conceivably are in the same "universe" that might serve as battle grounds without worrying about Toril (or Oerth, or whathave you) getting pulled in. |
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 00:25:54
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As to what causes them, most sages that have studied the occurances have come up with the following:
The more matter that comes from an alternate universe and manifests in the current universe, the more "static" potentiality is built up, which usually drifts out a safe distance from the regions that the gods generally keep stable, thus it forms reality storms far out from the furthest orbit of bodies in a given system.
The more matter that crosses between worlds the more storms occur, and the more storms occur, the more stable the older storms are. Thus, Toril's system has a great many "stable" storm in its outer ring, Oerth as a good amount, though not as many. Krynn had very few, and currently has even fewer given its new position in the cosmos, though the fact that the entire planet was moved may have generated a few more or less stable storms.
Since different worlds are in different primes, that also accounts for the fact that the three main worlds of 2e that were in synch time wise are now out of synch, since reality storms do not always sych up temporally. |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36804 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 03:35:06
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| I dunno... Having the storms serve as the barriers is almost the same thing as having the spheres... That's essentially what they are, only they're comprised of something different. |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31774 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 03:37:04
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quote:
Originally posted by Kuje
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Eh... I'm a fan of the Great Wheel, so I say to hell with the new cosmology. Keeping the Wheel means I don't have to try to reconcile or figure out how to fix all the things that would otherwise have gotten broken in the shift from 2E to 3E.
Echoes this. :)
But why not just make the currents of the Flow have openings between the two different Primes? Or even within the same Prime. :)
I concur with both Wooly and Kuje. I'm happiest with the older SJ system and the older cosmology. Like Wooly said, the crystal sphere was an elegant solution -- I will add though, that the conception of the crystal sphere added such a degree "arcane-ness" to the whole concept that it worked very well to support the more mysterious nature of the relationship between Wildspace, the Flow, and SJing.
As an aside though, you may find this interesting:- http://shatteredfractine.com/house/phlogiston3e.html
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Edited by - The Sage on 28 May 2005 03:52:03 |
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Gray Richardson
Master of Realmslore
USA
1291 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 03:51:05
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Eh... I'm a fan of the Great Wheel, so I say to hell with the new cosmology.
Don't be silly! How could you fit such a grand and large cosmology into a tiny little plane like Hell? It wouldn't fit! 
Not to mention that the cosmology contains Hell. So if you were inside the cosmology and went to Hell, and found the cosmology, you could enter it and then go to Hell, and find the cosmology and so on... the paradox boggles the mind!  |
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Gray Richardson
Master of Realmslore
USA
1291 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 03:57:32
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By the way, I like the takes that www.Spelljammer.org and www.shatteredfractine.com have on 3e spelljamming.
I particularly like shatteredfractine's take on using the phlogiston as a transitive plane.
Although I would suggest that phlogiston need not be a separate plane at all. Rather, my own take is that phlogiston could actually be Deep Shadow, which takes on the properties of phlogiston beyond the edges of the crystal sphere while having the regular properties of the shadow plane inside a crystal sphere where it is coterminous with the boundaries of a prime material plane. |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31774 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 04:03:14
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quote:
Originally posted by Gray Richardson
Although I would suggest that phlogiston need not be a separate plane at all. Rather, my own take is that phlogiston could actually be Deep Shadow, which takes on the properties of phlogiston beyond the edges of the crystal sphere while having the regular properties of the shadow plane inside a crystal sphere where it is coterminous with the boundaries of a prime material plane.
That's a rather neat little package. It keeps the 3e cosmology basis for the Shadow Plane, and ties in the concept of the crystal sphere. I like it.
My own take was to still use the Deep Ethereal with alterations to the Border edges that touched each Prime Material Plane, but with the 3e changes to the transitive planes, the Shadow Plane is a better method to use.
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 04:35:20
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Hm . . . okay, let me point out though that the storms do not take up the entire outer perimiter. Unless you are looking for one or stumble upon one you could keep travelling on infinately. Each storm is a conduit to a different flow of Phlogiston, much like the channeled Astral plane of the Realms cosmology.
I guess, and it may be strange that this has so much bearing on my personal view of the Realms, but since a plane that was once explained as having a crystal sphere (i.e. the prime material of Krynn) is now explained as existing in space that is much more like what we on Earth know (i.e. multiple systems, galaxies, etc) it seemed that the other planes might exist in that manner as well, unless Krynn is such an odd ball.
I guess this also stems from my own issue with Crystal Spheres and one of the basic concepts of the Realms, which is that the Realms even have conduits to Earth, our world, which means if every D&D world operates the same way, with crystal spheres, then our universe must have a REALLY weird crystal sphere that actually is exceptionally large for the size of our system.
Still, of all the arguements about the new cosmology and doing relatively little to change how spelljamming works, I really do like Gary's explanation. |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31774 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 06:01:32
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quote:
Originally posted by KnightErrantJR
I guess, and it may be strange that this has so much bearing on my personal view of the Realms, but since a plane that was once explained as having a crystal sphere (i.e. the prime material of Krynn) is now explained as existing in space that is much more like what we on Earth know (i.e. multiple systems, galaxies, etc) it seemed that the other planes might exist in that manner as well, unless Krynn is such an odd ball.
Krynn is an "odd-ball" example, now.
The current position and placement of Krynnspace is not something that has been completely defined. We know it now exists in a new area of "space"... a new crystal sphere, but where that sphere is, is any sage's guess.
That is why retaining the concept of the crystal sphere is always going to be more interesting than the 3e interpretation of separate cosmologies. Spatial aspects like this are easier to explain and understand, and they also provide the DM with greater campaign flexibility by allowing intriguing elements into their adventures like, for example, sealing of a crystal sphere (much like Athasspace).
How do you represent that with the new cosmology without bringing the whole concept of SJing and crystal spheres into the discussion? I have my own theories, but so far, there's been little speculation on this. Even the 3e athas.org project have debated this point to no significant end...
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Edited by - The Sage on 28 May 2005 06:06:47 |
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khorne
Master of Realmslore
Finland
1073 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 09:53:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Eh... I'm a fan of the Great Wheel, so I say to hell with the new cosmology. Keeping the Wheel means I don't have to try to reconcile or figure out how to fix all the things that would otherwise have gotten broken in the shift from 2E to 3E.
My thoughts exactly. |
If I were a ranger, I would pick NDA for my favorite enemy |
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Bookwyrm
Great Reader
USA
4740 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 10:35:34
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I've never been a fan of the crystal spheres, something the Sage has been disappointed with for a while.
Actually, this sounds a lot like the FTL method I made for an SF story I was writing a while back. I mostly write fantasy, but I was liking that particular story. Unfortunately, I was stuck on some details.
However, the system worked on two levels. First, a ship travels through portals of rather chaotic energy, called the slipstream, which were difficult to navigate and dangerous to stay in. The slipstream portals then lead to an area called foldspace. This is an area where gravity, folding space in multiple dimentions, has created something like a pocket universe. Foldspaces have been recorded with as few as two and as many as seven portals that lead off of them. They all lead to stars; none open into interstellar or intergalactic space. On the real-space side, the portals are invisible unless you have equipment that happens to be, for lack of a better term, tuned to the right frequency; in foldspace, the portals are obvious.
In this way, "real" distance becomes meaningless. Distance becomes a matter of how fast a ship can travel through the pocket space as well as across solar systems. Territory held by one interstellar government might be scattered about the galaxy on a real-space map, but connected in a "foldspace cluster" when looked at in terms of foldspace.
I always liked the concept. I'll probably never write it through, though.  |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31774 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 10:43:39
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quote:
Originally posted by Bookwyrm
I've never been a fan of the crystal spheres, something the Sage has been disappointed with for a while.
True .
But your original ideas about the slipstream that you outlined for me last year was an intriguing enough possibility for me to try and work out an interpretation for myself. I'd attempted to combine the better parts of both methods of travel, in the hopes of deriving an entirely new way of looking at interplanetary travel in D&D.
Eventually however, that particular work-up was relegated to my 'd20 Future' campaign where the individual ideas of the theory worked better with the elements of the 'Future' ruleset.
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Edited by - The Sage on 28 May 2005 10:44:18 |
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Bookwyrm
Great Reader
USA
4740 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 10:49:52
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You'll have to send me a private scroll on the subject, then.  |
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Thauramarth
Senior Scribe
United Kingdom
729 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 11:26:10
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Personally, I've adapted the Crystal Spheres somewhat. On the Prime Material Plane, they're no longer physically present. There's just Wildspace, which can stretch on for infinity, with multiple star systems, and even galaxies. The distances between the systems are too great to be crossed at normal Wildspace spelljamming speeds. To travel between systems, ships have to cross over to the Phlogiston, for which they need to open a portal (a "jump point"). The physics of the Prime Material Plane (such as they are) dictate that no jump point can be opened before a ship has traversed a distance from the system's prime body equal to twice the distance between the outermost body of the system and its primary (which corresponds to the size of Crystal Spheres).
On the Phlogiston side of the portals, the crystal spheres are visible entities. The Phlogiston can be used as a conduit between locations on the same prime material plane, but can also be used to travel to alternate prime material planes, and even to prime material planes in alternate multiverses, with alternate cosmologies. Initially, I've used this system to make crossovers between "regular" AD&D and Mystara, which had the D&D Cosmology. I've treated the "Far Realm" (sometimes mentioned in Bruce Cordell's work) as an alternative multiverse.
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Bookwyrm
Great Reader
USA
4740 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 11:37:54
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| I seem to recall that was suggested on these boards a while back, by one of the long-standing members. |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31774 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2005 : 15:35:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Thauramarth
Initially, I've used this system to make crossovers between "regular" AD&D and Mystara, which had the D&D Cosmology.
If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to hear a little more about this?
quote:
I've treated the "Far Realm" (sometimes mentioned in Bruce Cordell's work) as an alternative multiverse.
How do you explain planar access to the Far Realm from our multiverse?
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Thauramarth
Senior Scribe
United Kingdom
729 Posts |
Posted - 29 May 2005 : 09:13:33
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quote:
Originally posted by The Sage
quote:
Originally posted by Thauramarth
Initially, I've used this system to make crossovers between "regular" AD&D and Mystara, which had the D&D Cosmology.
If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to hear a little more about this?
There is not a whole lot to tell. First off, this dates back to the Olden days of Second Edition . I liked Mystara, and I thought that "back then", when I was running a Spelljammer campaign, it would be nice to visit the place. Of course, Mystara had a completely different cosmology (For everyone's information: Mystara did not follow the "Great Ring" cosmology, but had a system of five Spheres: time, matter, energy, thought, and entropy, with the immortals of Entropy generally being the bad guys. The Gods were known as Immortals, and each of them used to be a mortal who performed a number of epic deeds, the nature depending on the Sphere in which the mortal wished to graduate). The "classic" outer planes were not involved. Still, I liked the idea of these immortals, but this was incompatible with established AD&D cosmology (which I wanted to preserve, simply because it was the system by default, and all planar references were based on the Great Circle model), if only because some of the Gods of the established AD&D pantheons were immortals, with a history specific to Mystara. We quote almost all of the Norse and Greek pantheons, and someone named Orcus...
The whole idea of parallel prime material planes was integrated in Mystara's setup, as one of the MSE (Mystara Shattering Events  ) was the crash of a high-tech spaceship in Blackmoor, where it blew its reactor, and created an alternative source of magic (another "weave", if you like).
So I came up with this whole mess, which was, alas, not all encompassing and perfect  , as shown below:
quote:
I've treated the "Far Realm" (sometimes mentioned in Bruce Cordell's work) as an alternative multiverse.
How do you explain planar access to the Far Realm from our multiverse?
Easy. I don't .
Seriously, when I established this system (well, winged it, more likely), the Far Realm existed only as a few mentions in Modules and sourcebooks written by Bruce Cordell (The Gates of Firestorm Peak, the Illithiad, and the illithid trilogy of modules). It struck me as being very much inspired by Cthulhu, which I also liked. The Cthulhu pantheon did not really fit in in one specific place in the Great Wheel (well, I guess they could very well fit in the Abyss) and established cosmology, so I decided that they'd be in the Far Realm. Which, back then, was very undefined, just "some place where neither mortals nor gods have dared to thread". Nowadays, the Far Realm has become part of established cosmology, so thhis throws my whole setup a bit off-kilter, but still...
THe whole return of the Great Old Ones (both Cthulhu and Mystara versions) was used as a recurring theme in most campaigns I used to run. Mostly this has been "deep background", most of it written up to satisfy my own desire to fit a lot of things from various sources together (Moorcock's Meniboneans, using B5's Shadow ships (because they look so evilly cool  ), including the "Demons" series from Mayfair Games and the "Realms of Infernus" by Justin Winters - still one of best private projects I've ever come across on the net). Which basically means that the players never found out most of it... After all, what do they know? |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31774 Posts |
Posted - 29 May 2005 : 10:17:12
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quote:
Originally posted by Thauramarth
It struck me as being very much inspired by Cthulhu, which I also liked. The Cthulhu pantheon did not really fit in in one specific place in the Great Wheel (well, I guess they could very well fit in the Abyss) and established cosmology, so I decided that they'd be in the Far Realm. Which, back then, was very undefined, just "some place where neither mortals nor gods have dared to thread". Nowadays, the Far Realm has become part of established cosmology, so thhis throws my whole setup a bit off-kilter, but still...
You would probably do well to check out Paradigm Concept's Unveiled Masters tome. It provides a very Cthulhu-like grounding for the mind flayers, building on some of the earlier themes that Cordell used to characterise the Far Realm in some of his first gaming products for TSR.
Although the Far Realm isn't specifically mentioned in this third-party product, you are presented with a detailed and alternate interpretation of the plane of insanity that promotes the mind flayers in all their Lovecraft-like tentacle-ness...
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 29 May 2005 : 16:51:25
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Hm . . . that just gave me a really evil idea about a ship using an uncharted Reality Storm that would cut through the Far Realm instead of the Phlogiston . . .
It could be like Event Horizon . . . but good . . . |
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Brian R. James
Forgotten Realms Game Designer
USA
1098 Posts |
Posted - 29 May 2005 : 17:30:02
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| I have no issues with considering the Phlogiston a transitive plane, but it absolutely cannot be part of Shadow. Recall that the Phlo is a brilliant multi-color ocean of goo. I'd suggest that the Phlogiston is actually the opposite of Shadow. Like the border ethereal, perhaps the flow is a border region of the Plane of Radiance. |
Brian R. James - Freelance Game Designer
Follow me on Twitter @brianrjames |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36804 Posts |
Posted - 29 May 2005 : 19:51:04
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quote:
Originally posted by Realmslore
I have no issues with considering the Phlogiston a transitive plane,
I do. It has no contact with any other planes. You cannot planarly travel to or from the Flow, nor can you even access extradimensional spaces. If it's anything having to do with crossing planar boundaries, you can't do it from the Flow.
To me, the Flow is more like some sort of null-space than a plane. It's not a plane, it's somehow between or beyond planes. |
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Brian R. James
Forgotten Realms Game Designer
USA
1098 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2005 : 02:36:43
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| Good point Wooly. Personally, I don't use the new cosmology, so I don't need to reconcile/shoe-horn the phlogiston into the new system. These discussions are fascinating nonetheless. |
Brian R. James - Freelance Game Designer
Follow me on Twitter @brianrjames |
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Spelljamming alternate system
