Check my homebrew for cracks, please. [Archive] - Wizards Community

Check my homebrew for cracks, please. [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
DreadArchon
06-27-07, 09:06 PM I'm homebrewing a world setting for my second campaign (it'll be a few months before it starts, but I was in the mood). I allow my players to use pretty much anything put out by WotC, so I'd like some people more familiar with products I don't have to check over my world and tell me where I might run into trouble with PC's trying to use published fluff (e.g. by taking a fluff-heavy prestige class that might contradict with my changes).

Fluff and setting notes
ASTRAL PLANE
Much like the standard cosmology, though without the Gith or dead gods.

ETHEREAL PLANE
Coexistent (but not coterminous) with other planes (excluding the Astral and Sigil), though to get from one plane to another via the Ethereal requires either Ethereal Curtains or the Deep Ethereal, both of which tend to be more dangerous than using better-established means of transportation, such as the Astral.

INCARNUM
Incarnum is now “shaped shadowstuff” rather than “soul jelly.” The Plane of Shadow is important in this setting (see below), and this has resulted in a style of magic defined by the focused control of shadowstuff, which can be (relatively) easily manipulated to serve certain purposes without needing the material and energy commitment of magic items. Of course, one must be strong of body to avoid the corrupting influence that shadowstuff has on its surroundings, but once this is achieved the process is a safe and effective way of making one's intentions become physically manifest. Many, especially totemists, believe that shadowstuff holds the essences of those who have been consumed by the Plane of Shadow, though whether this is true is not generally relevant, as it is the morphic nature of shadowstuff itself which makes it useful.

Mages
Arcane magic wielders are looked upon with fear, suspicion, and distrust. High-magic periods of history have thus far ended horribly, and people are wary of magic. Clerics, druids, and other divine casters are not so hostilely regarded, despite that there's not really any difference in their magic [and despite that it was the divine casters who brought down both of the previous ages]. Many arcanists, especially necromancers, try to pass themselves off as divinists. Meldshapers are treated better than arcanists but worse than divinists.

mind flayers
The Illithid have not yet built their empire, and the Gith have not yet been enslaved. Mind Flayers and Gith are encountered on occasion, but nobody knows much about them (and few care, at this point).

population distribution
The “civilized” races of the Prime exist in small, fortified communities, the largest of which tend to be the result of defensible geographic positions rather than resource availability or location relative to other settlements. (For example, what might normally make an excellent port tends to be useless due to giving easy access to sea monsters.) The civilized races themselves are by no means thriving—nearly all existing families have monstrous, draconic, planar, or elemental properties in their lineage, and “lesser” races such as goblins and kobolds are as common as humans in “human lands” and cities. The ranking of sentient humanoid population sizes, in descending order, is as follows: Humans, Elves (of various sorts), Goblins, Orcs, Kobolds, Halflings, Dwarves, and (rarely) Gnomes.

Sacred Ground
Most Good- or Evil-aligned Outsiders cannot enter sacred ground due to powerful wards placed by a dying power of the second age. Loopholes in this rule are hard to come by; the site must truly be of some great and serious significance, and apparently graveyards qualify most easily, as [even in D&D] it's rather hard to die insincerely. Thus, despite the threat of undeath, burying is the most common method of body disposal in this era. Other places, such as well-used temples and a few special sites, also qualify.

SHADOW, PLANE OF
The Plane of Shadow is coterminous (but barely coexistent) with most planes, excluding Sigil and the inner planes. This lack of access does not negatively effect meldshapers as a general rule; shadowstuff brought in from the outside tends to hold its form, and shadowmeld foci (see below) usually provide enough shadowstuff to allow the reshaping of lost melds in the event that a meld is unshaped. Traveling to, from, or between the outer planes via the Plane of Shadow is prohibitively difficult, as monster-filled, dead magic “Voidlands” separate the “safe” zones between shadow planes. The rest of the Plane of Shadow is tame enough to have allowed its frequent use by refugees from the Prime during the second age (which makes it a common site for treasure hunts). Though always seen in black and white, it glows with its own faint light, shifting between “peak” and “anti-peak,” much like Sigil. Peak is little better than moonlight and anti-peak is pitch black, but with the impeded nature of light and fire here, residents and travelers are thankful for what they get as far as lighting is concerned. The Plane of Shadow is not evil, but it gradually morphs and shifts, such that anything left here begins to slowly bleed into the plane itself. Creatures wishing to live here must find some way to stabilize the plane locally. If they do not, the plane begins to slough off bits of their bodies and minds—those unprotected on the Plane of Shadow for more than 24 hours must make saves against Taint (see below).

undead
As a side effect of the practice of burial, necromancy has become a more popular art; while still looked down upon, undead in general do not engender anywhere near as much hatred and disgust as they do in other times and settings. The vast majority of the living find raising the dead to be a disgusting practice, but the added manpower is sufficiently necessary in these times that even those devoted to hunting undead are typically willing to work alongside the animate in pursuit of specific targets. Uncontrolled undead still become a problem from time to time, especially the sentients.

[I]Special setting rules
planar races
Half-planars, Planetouched, and sundry other (humanoid) Outsiders are reclassified as “Humanoid (Planar)” now, so as to make the “Outsider (Native)” type less omnipresent. Those who are the target of effects to which they would previously have been immune gain a +2 bonus to saves against such effects.

sacred ground
Outsiders with the (Good) or (Evil) subtypes who enter sacred ground must make a DC 25 Will save against banishment each round. Those who remain still take 5 points of damage per round. In addition to significant locations, such as inside of a well-used temple, the “sacred ground” designation applies to anywhere within a certain range of a graveyard [5-foot radius per grave in the graveyard, though nobody has ever measured this exact number]. Outsiders always recognize sacred ground; they are not at risk of stumbling in on accident.

Shadowmeld Foci
A Shadowmeld Focus is a small Cold Iron token, which may take any form as long as it is able to contain at least two (contiguous) cubic inches of a material. This material is compressed shadowstuff; the Focus draws in shadowstuff from unshaped shadowmelds, storing it for later use. A meldshaper who does not have a shadowmeld focus may not shape new shadowmelds in areas without access to the Plane of Shadow, such as the inner planes. Most meldshapers own one or more shadowmeld foci; the minimum cost for such an item is 50 gp.

shadow taint
A body unprotected in the Plane of Shadow begins to melt into the plane. Those in the Plane of Shadow for more than 24 hours must make daily saves (DC 15 Fortitude) against gaining 1 point each of Corruption and Depravity. This increases to 3 points each for creatures who have spent more than two hours in darklands that day.

undead
Mindless undead are True Neutral and do not detect as evil.
taradusis
06-28-07, 06:48 PM Well,I think that the civilized races will go to where the resources are and make a fortification and you seem to be suggesting the opposite.You seem to be going for a noir or dark campaign,this can also work in a civilized area with large cities as well.Perhaps you should buy lords of madness or heros of horror?RANDOM THOUGHTS.
Forfeit
06-29-07, 09:23 AM Looks like some kind of Conan setting.

Anyway, your type of setting will probabily be more of a hack and slash setting, instead of a roleplaying setting, since it looks like magic is not very common and there wont be a lot of trade or relations between cities.

Looks like something like the High Middle Ages, between the years 500 and 1000 after Christ, where most of the population used to gather around castles for protection, without a lot of trading between the feuds.
DreadArchon
06-29-07, 03:04 PM Well,I think that the civilized races will go to where the resources are and make a fortification and you seem to be suggesting the opposite.
Yes, I'm trying to set it up such that going to optimal resource areas isn't practical, so settlements have to work with less. Building a better fort to guard resources sounds good from a real life perspective, but real life doesn't have big nasty monsters to account for.

You seem to be going for a noir or dark campaign,this can also work in a civilized area with large cities as well.Perhaps you should buy lords of madness or heros of horror?
The setting is intended to be somewhat dark. Whether the PC's break that right away is up to them.

I just got Heroes of Horror, so I am working on accounting for things in that. (Good book.)

Looks like some kind of Conan setting.
Wouldn't know. I'm pretty new to the Fantasy genre, I tend more towards Sci-Fi.

Anyway, your type of setting will probabily be more of a hack and slash setting, instead of a roleplaying setting, since it looks like magic is not very common and there wont be a lot of trade or relations between cities.
Hmmm, I'll examine that. I'm hoping to promote more of a "lack of relations between cities is bad, PC's should try to get trade lines open" sort of thing. Of course, if the PC's decide to do this by hacking through or taking over anything that gets in their way, I won't try too hard to stop them.

Looks like something like the High Middle Ages, between the years 500 and 1000 after Christ, where most of the population used to gather around castles for protection, without a lot of trading between the feuds.
That's pretty accurate for what I envisioned as the setup at the start of the campaign. (Glad it shows.)
Darth Syntax
06-29-07, 05:02 PM One place that you have a potential "crack" (in terms of fluff) concerns the Illithid and the Gith peoples. If the Illithid have not yet started their vast planar empire then the Gith peoples will not yet exist. The 'yanki and the 'zerai came about because of what the illithid did to their progenitors so unless you've got some kind of time-travel wonkyness going on (which is entirely possible with the Illithid involved) the Gith peoples (in their current forms) are out.

--

Minor technical nit-pick

the period from 500-1000 AD is considered the early middle ages. The High Middle Ages were from about 1000 to about 1348
DreadArchon
06-29-07, 09:06 PM The 'yanki and the 'zerai came about because of what the illithid did to their progenitors so unless you've got some kind of time-travel wonkyness going on (which is entirely possible with the Illithid involved) the Gith peoples (in their current forms) are out.
Do we have any info that would suggest what the original gith were like?
Darth Syntax
06-29-07, 09:16 PM There are some vague references to them being rather human-like (or possibly just human) but other than that there isn't much. I would imagine that the proto-Gith would be vastly different from their descendants as the centuries (or possibly millennia) of captivity and breeding by the Illithid would have altered them beyond easy recognition.
Rhydur Meith
06-29-07, 09:18 PM The original Gith were described somewhere as being either related to or a similar race to humans. I can't check right now, but I believe it may be in the orignal description of the races, MMI, right? If not, its from some splatbook somewhere. I never really got that, nor the Astral thing. I actually use both Gith races as somewhat oriental-flavored folk in my homebrew, with their own lands. I do have the split between the two races still be present. Of course, my campaign in general doesn't have planar travel, etc. much at all. And I like Githyanki, so I had to find some way to fit them in. I actually had a place where their is two kingdoms that were once one,before a civli war that spilt the population. One of them even rode dragons, so they became Githyanki, the other the Githzerai. I was quite pleased when the DDM Githyanki dragon knight was made!:)
Rhydur Meith
06-30-07, 06:40 PM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharagos:_The_Battleground

A link to further info about the GIth & the forerunners, as they refer to their earlier race.
DreadArchon
07-01-07, 02:30 PM Thanks, Rhydur Meith.

Guess I'll just have to do a bit of homebrewing for this...
Holy_Beholder
07-01-07, 10:57 PM Incarnum and Ectoplasm seem to be pretty similar. Your players might get a bit confused.
DreadArchon
07-03-07, 12:40 AM Incarnum and Ectoplasm seem to be pretty similar. Your players might get a bit confused.
The SRD doesn't say a lot about ectoplasm. But, from what it does say, I can see how that would be a possible issue.

My question, then, is: How do my changes to Incarnum make it more like ectoplasm than it originally was?
Holy_Beholder
07-03-07, 06:21 PM Up til now, Incarnum was soul stuff, and ectoplasm was shadowy weird astral psionic stuff that made awesome constructs of doom. Now Incarnum is shadowy(with the optional wierd asltral) stuff. See the similarities.
DreadArchon
07-03-07, 06:51 PM Up til now, Incarnum was soul stuff, and ectoplasm was shadowy weird astral psionic stuff that made awesome constructs of doom. Now Incarnum is shadowy(with the optional wierd asltral) stuff. See the similarities.
Ah, got it.
sdragon1984
07-04-07, 09:47 AM One place that you have a potential "crack" (in terms of fluff) concerns the Illithid and the Gith peoples. If the Illithid have not yet started their vast planar empire then the Gith peoples will not yet exist. The 'yanki and the 'zerai came about because of what the illithid did to their progenitors so unless you've got some kind of time-travel wonkyness going on (which is entirely possible with the Illithid involved) the Gith peoples (in their current forms) are out.

What's your point with that? All he needs to do is come up with some other explaination for the racial split. If I'm not mistaken, the SRD doesn't give any reason whatsoever for the elf/drow split, so would providing a setting-specific reason be bad?

My first major question regarding the setting is, where's the history? A timeline can help explain "why things are" in a clear, precise manner. If that's something you just want to wing in-game, though, that's cool too.
DreadArchon
07-04-07, 10:33 AM My first major question regarding the setting is, where's the history?
In the campaign I'm running now. :D

...Actually, that brings up a good point. Does anyone have any advice for running a setting where PC's from the previous age ascended to godhood? There's going to be a time gap between these story lines*, so I can justify the deities acting a little off, but in general I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on running previous PC's as NPC's without offending the original players.

*Here's a short version from my notes file. I didn't post it originally because it's not up for much revision, since the players are actually playing through it now:
While it's not the darkest of dark ages, it's a dark age nonetheless. It's actually the third major distinct era of the multiverse—the first was a brief golden age, where the nine original powers walked the Prime; following a god war and the merging of the Prime with the Negative, this gave way to an even shorter period during which the planes were populated and the Prime was reopened. This second age ended violently as the Yugoloths corrupted the (previously True Neutral) Demons and brought them into conflict with the (already evil) Devils—the Blood War.

The Great Fall, as it was called for the dozen or so years that anyone other than the 'Loths and the goddess Dancer remembered it, shook every corner of the multiverse. The Tanar'ri were the greatest of craftsman, and their devices were in use everywhere. Before the Tanar'ri turned openly, they managed to booby-trap their wares—many of them retroactively, via magic—and the resulting chaos left the multiverse barren. Though there were sufficiently many survivors (including deities) to start things up again, the vast majority of the multiverse currently holds beings who believe that the multiverse is ancient. The survivors, interested in preventing the rediscovery of what may remain of the old Tanar'ri megaweapons, have not corrected this idea; the Yugoloths alone may have the ability to wield such power, but Dancer has kept it from them.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
DreadArchon 06-27-07, 09:06 PM	I'm homebrewing a world setting for my second campaign (it'll be a few months before it starts, but I was in the mood). I allow my players to use pretty much anything put out by WotC, so I'd like some people more familiar with products I don't have to check over my world and tell me where I might run into trouble with PC's trying to use published fluff (e.g. by taking a fluff-heavy prestige class that might contradict with my changes). Fluff and setting notes ASTRAL PLANE Much like the standard cosmology, though without the Gith or dead gods. ETHEREAL PLANE Coexistent (but not coterminous) with other planes (excluding the Astral and Sigil), though to get from one plane to another via the Ethereal requires either Ethereal Curtains or the Deep Ethereal, both of which tend to be more dangerous than using better-established means of transportation, such as the Astral. INCARNUM Incarnum is now “shaped shadowstuff” rather than “soul jelly.” The Plane of Shadow is important in this setting (see below), and this has resulted in a style of magic defined by the focused control of shadowstuff, which can be (relatively) easily manipulated to serve certain purposes without needing the material and energy commitment of magic items. Of course, one must be strong of body to avoid the corrupting influence that shadowstuff has on its surroundings, but once this is achieved the process is a safe and effective way of making one's intentions become physically manifest. Many, especially totemists, believe that shadowstuff holds the essences of those who have been consumed by the Plane of Shadow, though whether this is true is not generally relevant, as it is the morphic nature of shadowstuff itself which makes it useful. Mages Arcane magic wielders are looked upon with fear, suspicion, and distrust. High-magic periods of history have thus far ended horribly, and people are wary of magic. Clerics, druids, and other divine casters are not so hostilely regarded, despite that there's not really any difference in their magic [and despite that it was the divine casters who brought down both of the previous ages]. Many arcanists, especially necromancers, try to pass themselves off as divinists. Meldshapers are treated better than arcanists but worse than divinists. mind flayers The Illithid have not yet built their empire, and the Gith have not yet been enslaved. Mind Flayers and Gith are encountered on occasion, but nobody knows much about them (and few care, at this point). population distribution The “civilized” races of the Prime exist in small, fortified communities, the largest of which tend to be the result of defensible geographic positions rather than resource availability or location relative to other settlements. (For example, what might normally make an excellent port tends to be useless due to giving easy access to sea monsters.) The civilized races themselves are by no means thriving—nearly all existing families have monstrous, draconic, planar, or elemental properties in their lineage, and “lesser” races such as goblins and kobolds are as common as humans in “human lands” and cities. The ranking of sentient humanoid population sizes, in descending order, is as follows: Humans, Elves (of various sorts), Goblins, Orcs, Kobolds, Halflings, Dwarves, and (rarely) Gnomes. Sacred Ground Most Good- or Evil-aligned Outsiders cannot enter sacred ground due to powerful wards placed by a dying power of the second age. Loopholes in this rule are hard to come by; the site must truly be of some great and serious significance, and apparently graveyards qualify most easily, as [even in D&D] it's rather hard to die insincerely. Thus, despite the threat of undeath, burying is the most common method of body disposal in this era. Other places, such as well-used temples and a few special sites, also qualify. SHADOW, PLANE OF The Plane of Shadow is coterminous (but barely coexistent) with most planes, excluding Sigil and the inner planes. This lack of access does not negatively effect meldshapers as a general rule; shadowstuff brought in from the outside tends to hold its form, and shadowmeld foci (see below) usually provide enough shadowstuff to allow the reshaping of lost melds in the event that a meld is unshaped. Traveling to, from, or between the outer planes via the Plane of Shadow is prohibitively difficult, as monster-filled, dead magic “Voidlands” separate the “safe” zones between shadow planes. The rest of the Plane of Shadow is tame enough to have allowed its frequent use by refugees from the Prime during the second age (which makes it a common site for treasure hunts). Though always seen in black and white, it glows with its own faint light, shifting between “peak” and “anti-peak,” much like Sigil. Peak is little better than moonlight and anti-peak is pitch black, but with the impeded nature of light and fire here, residents and travelers are thankful for what they get as far as lighting is concerned. The Plane of Shadow is not evil, but it gradually morphs and shifts, such that anything left here begins to slowly bleed into the plane itself. Creatures wishing to live here must find some way to stabilize the plane locally. If they do not, the plane begins to slough off bits of their bodies and minds—those unprotected on the Plane of Shadow for more than 24 hours must make saves against Taint (see below). undead As a side effect of the practice of burial, necromancy has become a more popular art; while still looked down upon, undead in general do not engender anywhere near as much hatred and disgust as they do in other times and settings. The vast majority of the living find raising the dead to be a disgusting practice, but the added manpower is sufficiently necessary in these times that even those devoted to hunting undead are typically willing to work alongside the animate in pursuit of specific targets. Uncontrolled undead still become a problem from time to time, especially the sentients. [I]Special setting rules planar races Half-planars, Planetouched, and sundry other (humanoid) Outsiders are reclassified as “Humanoid (Planar)” now, so as to make the “Outsider (Native)” type less omnipresent. Those who are the target of effects to which they would previously have been immune gain a +2 bonus to saves against such effects. sacred ground Outsiders with the (Good) or (Evil) subtypes who enter sacred ground must make a DC 25 Will save against banishment each round. Those who remain still take 5 points of damage per round. In addition to significant locations, such as inside of a well-used temple, the “sacred ground” designation applies to anywhere within a certain range of a graveyard [5-foot radius per grave in the graveyard, though nobody has ever measured this exact number]. Outsiders always recognize sacred ground; they are not at risk of stumbling in on accident. Shadowmeld Foci A Shadowmeld Focus is a small Cold Iron token, which may take any form as long as it is able to contain at least two (contiguous) cubic inches of a material. This material is compressed shadowstuff; the Focus draws in shadowstuff from unshaped shadowmelds, storing it for later use. A meldshaper who does not have a shadowmeld focus may not shape new shadowmelds in areas without access to the Plane of Shadow, such as the inner planes. Most meldshapers own one or more shadowmeld foci; the minimum cost for such an item is 50 gp. shadow taint A body unprotected in the Plane of Shadow begins to melt into the plane. Those in the Plane of Shadow for more than 24 hours must make daily saves (DC 15 Fortitude) against gaining 1 point each of Corruption and Depravity. This increases to 3 points each for creatures who have spent more than two hours in darklands that day. undead Mindless undead are True Neutral and do not detect as evil.
taradusis 06-28-07, 06:48 PM	Well,I think that the civilized races will go to where the resources are and make a fortification and you seem to be suggesting the opposite.You seem to be going for a noir or dark campaign,this can also work in a civilized area with large cities as well.Perhaps you should buy lords of madness or heros of horror?RANDOM THOUGHTS.
Forfeit 06-29-07, 09:23 AM	Looks like some kind of Conan setting. Anyway, your type of setting will probabily be more of a hack and slash setting, instead of a roleplaying setting, since it looks like magic is not very common and there wont be a lot of trade or relations between cities. Looks like something like the High Middle Ages, between the years 500 and 1000 after Christ, where most of the population used to gather around castles for protection, without a lot of trading between the feuds.
DreadArchon 06-29-07, 03:04 PM	Well,I think that the civilized races will go to where the resources are and make a fortification and you seem to be suggesting the opposite. Yes, I'm trying to set it up such that going to optimal resource areas isn't practical, so settlements have to work with less. Building a better fort to guard resources sounds good from a real life perspective, but real life doesn't have big nasty monsters to account for. You seem to be going for a noir or dark campaign,this can also work in a civilized area with large cities as well.Perhaps you should buy lords of madness or heros of horror? The setting is intended to be somewhat dark. Whether the PC's break that right away is up to them. I just got Heroes of Horror, so I am working on accounting for things in that. (Good book.) Looks like some kind of Conan setting. Wouldn't know. I'm pretty new to the Fantasy genre, I tend more towards Sci-Fi. Anyway, your type of setting will probabily be more of a hack and slash setting, instead of a roleplaying setting, since it looks like magic is not very common and there wont be a lot of trade or relations between cities. Hmmm, I'll examine that. I'm hoping to promote more of a "lack of relations between cities is bad, PC's should try to get trade lines open" sort of thing. Of course, if the PC's decide to do this by hacking through or taking over anything that gets in their way, I won't try too hard to stop them. Looks like something like the High Middle Ages, between the years 500 and 1000 after Christ, where most of the population used to gather around castles for protection, without a lot of trading between the feuds. That's pretty accurate for what I envisioned as the setup at the start of the campaign. (Glad it shows.)
Darth Syntax 06-29-07, 05:02 PM	One place that you have a potential "crack" (in terms of fluff) concerns the Illithid and the Gith peoples. If the Illithid have not yet started their vast planar empire then the Gith peoples will not yet exist. The 'yanki and the 'zerai came about because of what the illithid did to their progenitors so unless you've got some kind of time-travel wonkyness going on (which is entirely possible with the Illithid involved) the Gith peoples (in their current forms) are out. -- Minor technical nit-pick the period from 500-1000 AD is considered the early middle ages. The High Middle Ages were from about 1000 to about 1348
DreadArchon 06-29-07, 09:06 PM	The 'yanki and the 'zerai came about because of what the illithid did to their progenitors so unless you've got some kind of time-travel wonkyness going on (which is entirely possible with the Illithid involved) the Gith peoples (in their current forms) are out. Do we have any info that would suggest what the original gith were like?
Darth Syntax 06-29-07, 09:16 PM	There are some vague references to them being rather human-like (or possibly just human) but other than that there isn't much. I would imagine that the proto-Gith would be vastly different from their descendants as the centuries (or possibly millennia) of captivity and breeding by the Illithid would have altered them beyond easy recognition.
Rhydur Meith 06-29-07, 09:18 PM	The original Gith were described somewhere as being either related to or a similar race to humans. I can't check right now, but I believe it may be in the orignal description of the races, MMI, right? If not, its from some splatbook somewhere. I never really got that, nor the Astral thing. I actually use both Gith races as somewhat oriental-flavored folk in my homebrew, with their own lands. I do have the split between the two races still be present. Of course, my campaign in general doesn't have planar travel, etc. much at all. And I like Githyanki, so I had to find some way to fit them in. I actually had a place where their is two kingdoms that were once one,before a civli war that spilt the population. One of them even rode dragons, so they became Githyanki, the other the Githzerai. I was quite pleased when the DDM Githyanki dragon knight was made!:)
Rhydur Meith 06-30-07, 06:40 PM	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharagos:_The_Battleground A link to further info about the GIth & the forerunners, as they refer to their earlier race.
DreadArchon 07-01-07, 02:30 PM	Thanks, Rhydur Meith. Guess I'll just have to do a bit of homebrewing for this...
Holy_Beholder 07-01-07, 10:57 PM	Incarnum and Ectoplasm seem to be pretty similar. Your players might get a bit confused.
DreadArchon 07-03-07, 12:40 AM	Incarnum and Ectoplasm seem to be pretty similar. Your players might get a bit confused. The SRD doesn't say a lot about ectoplasm. But, from what it does say, I can see how that would be a possible issue. My question, then, is: How do my changes to Incarnum make it more like ectoplasm than it originally was?
Holy_Beholder 07-03-07, 06:21 PM	Up til now, Incarnum was soul stuff, and ectoplasm was shadowy weird astral psionic stuff that made awesome constructs of doom. Now Incarnum is shadowy(with the optional wierd asltral) stuff. See the similarities.
DreadArchon 07-03-07, 06:51 PM	Up til now, Incarnum was soul stuff, and ectoplasm was shadowy weird astral psionic stuff that made awesome constructs of doom. Now Incarnum is shadowy(with the optional wierd asltral) stuff. See the similarities. Ah, got it.
sdragon1984 07-04-07, 09:47 AM	One place that you have a potential "crack" (in terms of fluff) concerns the Illithid and the Gith peoples. If the Illithid have not yet started their vast planar empire then the Gith peoples will not yet exist. The 'yanki and the 'zerai came about because of what the illithid did to their progenitors so unless you've got some kind of time-travel wonkyness going on (which is entirely possible with the Illithid involved) the Gith peoples (in their current forms) are out. What's your point with that? All he needs to do is come up with some other explaination for the racial split. If I'm not mistaken, the SRD doesn't give any reason whatsoever for the elf/drow split, so would providing a setting-specific reason be bad? My first major question regarding the setting is, where's the history? A timeline can help explain "why things are" in a clear, precise manner. If that's something you just want to wing in-game, though, that's cool too.
DreadArchon 07-04-07, 10:33 AM	My first major question regarding the setting is, where's the history? In the campaign I'm running now. :D ...Actually, that brings up a good point. Does anyone have any advice for running a setting where PC's from the previous age ascended to godhood? There's going to be a time gap between these story lines, so I can justify the deities acting a little off, but in general I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on running previous PC's as NPC's without offending the original players. Here's a short version from my notes file. I didn't post it originally because it's not up for much revision, since the players are actually playing through it now: While it's not the darkest of dark ages, it's a dark age nonetheless. It's actually the third major distinct era of the multiverse—the first was a brief golden age, where the nine original powers walked the Prime; following a god war and the merging of the Prime with the Negative, this gave way to an even shorter period during which the planes were populated and the Prime was reopened. This second age ended violently as the Yugoloths corrupted the (previously True Neutral) Demons and brought them into conflict with the (already evil) Devils—the Blood War. The Great Fall, as it was called for the dozen or so years that anyone other than the 'Loths and the goddess Dancer remembered it, shook every corner of the multiverse. The Tanar'ri were the greatest of craftsman, and their devices were in use everywhere. Before the Tanar'ri turned openly, they managed to booby-trap their wares—many of them retroactively, via magic—and the resulting chaos left the multiverse barren. Though there were sufficiently many survivors (including deities) to start things up again, the vast majority of the multiverse currently holds beings who believe that the multiverse is ancient. The survivors, interested in preventing the rediscovery of what may remain of the old Tanar'ri megaweapons, have not corrected this idea; the Yugoloths alone may have the ability to wield such power, but Dancer has kept it from them.