Post/Author/DateTime	Post
EvilVegan 02-07-08, 03:48 PM	The Sundering. . . It was amazing and terrifying to behold. Most of those who remained conscious through the ordeal have now lost all remnants of sanity as they witnessed their whole reality melt away in destruction and chaos, only to float away in pieces of debris littering the sky. The lucky ones lost consciousness or died. Congratulations, you didn't die! It has been some time since the Sundering, you have no idea how long, what with the absence of normal physics to measure time and all. You've slept several times, so you know it's been more than a "month". Whatever that means. You don't know, no one does any more. No one knows anything any more. No one knows why we're all here. No one knows what happened. No one knows where the beings, beings so bizarre and powerful that they can only be called "gods", came from. No one knows why 'they', if 'they' are gods, didn't stop it. The things we do know are few. The "gods", if that's what they are, are the source of the Bastions. Bastions are safe-houses where the remnants of thousands of worlds seem to pulled together from a hodge-podge of debris floating through the cosmos. The Earth was completely decimated, but still maintains some semblance of being a sphere with life-forms clinging to its surface. What the Earth was is gone, but the many alternate Earth's that "crazy people" theorized about seem to have been smashed into one big blob. There's a good chance that the sun was destroyed, but luckily there are numerous new sources of light, heat, and energy. One of these power sources is magic. It's everywhere. Possibly related to the "gods", but they aren't talking in the normal sense of the word. Travel outside of the Bastion's is dangerous and completely necessary for survival. First, there are the survivors. Some good, some bad, but survivors none the less. Clinging to their fragmented lives and minds, avoiding the equally devestating nil-storms, ul-storms, and the occasional demon army. There are groups that seek these survivors, looking for lost friends and family or. . . looking for new food sources. Like I said, some good, some bad. Second, there is the need for food. The Bastions are large and they swell daily with survivors. The food is there, but without reasonable seasons, growth of food is going to be a problem. The 'gods' seem to be spending all of their vast energies maintaining the Bastions. It's gonna run out. Third, there is true power to be found in the Wastelands. Many of the less powerful 'gods' make their homes in this realm, waging wars that span continents. Pitting demon against demon and angel against angel in a struggle for dominance. And in this new world, dominance and control are power. A few of the newer Bastions were created by a few of the more opportunistic 'gods' that managed to scrape up enough power to ascend. Some Bastions are better than others. It seems that the essence of the resident 'god' has a huge impact on the inhabitants and environment. The Bastion of a god known as Sol (or Ra/Pelor/Lathander/Apollo, depending on who you ask) seems to be a place of brightness and joy, countered by a horrid prison Bastion of a god known as Anath (Set/Bane/Baal). But sometimes a prison is a good alternative to the chaos of the Wastelands. Welcome to the sundered universe. Sunderverse.
EvilVegan 02-07-08, 03:49 PM	Reserved for mechanical features. Mostly this is going to be a Bottom-Up design scheme. I'm going to focus on the primary Bastion that the PCs will be in first, and any other features that need to be added will be added as needed. The universe is a collection of shards of every other universe. Prime, inner, and outer planes have all been combined. Features of note are: Many sentient creatures living under one roof. I even have plans to have a rescued group of mind-flayers functioning as a police force in a good city. They can't eat the brains of good people and they use their psionic talents to hunt down evil doers, to eat them. Yum. Nil-storms and Ul-storms. Nil-storms are exactly like the nothing. Huge destructive storms that leave absolutely nothing in their wake. Ul-storms are the exact opposite, when they pass through an area everything in it becomes something, typically something vastly different. Think of the Heart of Gold's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Gold_%28spaceship%29) Infinite Improbability Drive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Improbability_Drive) from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy). These are the Deus Ex Machina to tell the party to 'GTFO'. They cannot be stopped or altered. . . yet. I'm trying to capture an element of the Planescape setting, but instead of hopping through various contrived gates to get to other worlds, the other worlds are all omnipresent and you just have to walk/fly there. The party is going to be one of several groups (haven't asked them what they want yet, but here's what I'm gearing up for): City-watch. Standard detective-style pulp action. Pathfinders. Devotees of the newly risen god of travelers, they're creating a pseudo-Bastion along roads. Will involve travelling through the wastelands to find suitable locations to build shrines to their deity. Rescuerers. Travel into the Wastelands to find survivors/food. Deicide. Travel into the Wastelands to build up an army of followers to eventually claim your own divine spark. Probably by killing a weakened deity. Any of these would be interchangeable. The highest divine rank of any deity is 0 or maybe 1. Take all major deities, combine the redundant ones, reduce power to 0. Everything less than that gets combined as well and reduced to avatar or aspect level. Most of the races are going to be represented, but most will be highly modified. Each redundant race from each world will be combined. Some will be highly modified. For instance, there are a higher number of dwarves (dhuros) in one of the Bastions, because Moradin spent the last fragment of his divine spark to bind them to the earth. Now they resemble elemental beings of stone and sand. Their elemental toughness let more of them survive the sundering, but they're forever changed. Mechanically they're going to use modified warforged stats. Moradin survived as an aspect and is trying to become a full fledged demi-power in order to found a Bastion. He's the ruler of the Dhuros in the Bastion of ". . ." . . . well I haven't named the Bastions yet. . . The technology level is random, as each universe had it's own. Technological items still work, but powering them may be a problem. So yay, laser guns. And muskets.
Aneutralshadeofblack 02-08-08, 03:22 PM	You've got my attention, at least. All I'm waiting for is actual stuff. :P
EvilVegan 02-09-08, 02:41 PM	Well, what actual stuff would you like to know about? I'm experiencing a bit of writer's bottleneck, where I have too many ideas to get them out coherently. Also, the nature of the 'verse is kind of like a Schrödinger's cat of highly morphic traits. Now, the majority of the plane is still stable, so travel isn't automatically a problem. It's overrun with denizens of innumerable planes, but not every inch is covered. Low level adventures are going to be mostly city-based or short-range reconnaissance. Mid level is going to be long-range scouting for new stable areas, entering into the new Blood War (between all forces, not just demons/devils). High to epic level is going to be the party battling former divine entities for control of large regions, possibly uniting to form a new bastion. Endgame might be returning the universe to true stability. The more questions I get about the world, the more concrete parts of it will form. I'm also toying with the idea of a time-sundering as well, allowing for highly primitive and highly advanced regions. They may never see game time, but the possibility would be there. Also, any fictional universe could be present, as the basic premise is that all the works of fiction from our world were drawn from (or created) alternate dimensions that have now been collided.
Aneutralshadeofblack 02-12-08, 12:08 PM	I'm experiencing a bit of writer's bottleneck, where I have too many ideas to get them out coherently. Been there, done that. The cure is to get something, anything, out, and then people will hopefully start asking questions to point you in the direction of what to post next. Anyway, to answer your first question - I'm specifically interested in what influences you have in mind for your default races, how you handle the fusion of said influences and in seeing a few stock race-amalgamations and bastions. I know the setting is meant to be freeform, but methinks the project would benefit from establishing a few examples (and then asking people to collaborate). Time sundering isn't necessary for you to have primitive and advanced regions - just compare Western Europe and, say, Amazonian tribes today. A vastly different tech level is possible, and if you want to include the same region at two different points in its timeline, you can just use the many-worlds interpretation to say that it's two different parallel worlds at the same point in time, but they appear to be the same world at different points in time (no need to explain this either - it can be something that's not spoken of, or an ongoing in-world issue as scientists/magic-users try to understand how the sunderverse works).
nowiwantmydmg 02-13-08, 04:17 PM	My Question is fairly simple: How/Why did this happen?
elderdrake 02-13-08, 05:36 PM	I do like this idea and I also like how you initially present it. It COULD turn into a mega-monster of a campaign since you are basically talking about the whole universe. You asked for assistance in getting your ideas flowing. I would recommend taking a look at a couple of sources: The Deathgate Cycle by Hickman, etc. The premise is SIMILAR in that reality was sundered into its constituent parts: an Air World (with floating sky islands and thin atmosphere at the highest elevations and normal gravity), an Earth World (all underground of course BUT in a highly toxic atmosphere of poisonous volcanic gases that kill off 'lesser races' who are not magically protected), a Fire World (a jungle planet with multiple suns (?) and a "lost city of the gods" with no way to get in) and finally a Water World (with all ice save for the immediate area around the 'Sea Sun' which would melt the ice and allow life. Mortals lived in multiple bubbles of air and would follow the migration of the Sea Sun as it travelled through the world or else risk freezing to death. Oddly, the water of this world nullified all magical powers). All of these worlds were joined by the Death Gate and the Nexus. Check out the various websites and books for more details. You can also just check out the "Elemental Planes" of D&D. I also think they would fit nicely into your scheme of things with some minor adjustments. You will need to decide a number of "planar traits" for each of your Bastions including the affect of gravity (or absense thereof), the flow of time/seasons, level of technology (which you mentioned previously), overall size (what happens if someone walks off the edge?) Hope this helps get the proverbial creative juices flowing...
EvilVegan 02-14-08, 02:50 PM	Been there, done that. The cure is to get something, anything, out, and then people will hopefully start asking questions to point you in the direction of what to post next. Anyway, to answer your first question - I'm specifically interested in what influences you have in mind for your default races, how you handle the fusion of said influences and in seeing a few stock race-amalgamations and bastions. I know the setting is meant to be freeform, but methinks the project would benefit from establishing a few examples (and then asking people to collaborate).I had thought of several "stock-race Bastions". An elven city that was preserved by their pantheon. Corellan Larethein would be the primary power here, but I was thinking that there would be a few drow that managed to sneak in as well. Even though I really (really ^ 4) hate drow... The Bastions are too power-draining to be supported by one deity, so typically it’s going to be a few deities at once, and some of them aren’t aware of the others and not all of them are on the same page. In the above example Lloth would be supplying a portion of the Bastion’s power, granting her evil clerics spells as normal, despite the Bastion having a neutral/chaotic good slant. Basically the deities are in an unsteady, unspoken truce in order to maintain some semblance of a world that their followers can live in. Same with the Dwarven/Gnomish/(Kobold) mountain. Moradin would be living here as a powerful, but no longer divine, ruler. The Bastion would be held together by several deities including Kurtlamak (sp?) and Garl Glittergold. One of the above races is going to be a playable earth elemental. Gnomes have more mythological connection to elementals than dwarves, but dwarves have more of an elemental feel to them. Stability, “unencumberable”, Darkvision, fortitude, it all just screams “earth elemental” to me. Of course, the option for standard dwarf is available as well. A human metropolis would have been saved. The main religion is a mixture of Catholic and Pelorian doctrines. This city would be similar to a modern day New York or London. Something big and seedy. Most of the population would have vanished, leaving large sections to be home to various monsters. But it is still a Bastion. I think this is going to be the main one. So, there’s 3. Depending on my party’s wishes or questions from the audience, I’ll flesh out more. And these need serious fleshing as well. As for “Default”, I’m actually not going to state which races are “playable”. As far as I’m concerned anything is fair game. Want to be a dragon? Suit up, you’re a dragon. (A very weak, PC appropriate wyrmling, but still. . . dragon!). Mainly this is due to the fact that every Bastion is going to be home to numerous alien species. There will be a lot of interracial hatred, but hey, conflict is exciting! Side note, the limited nature of a deity’s power requires a divine caster have a special holy symbol to use any spell outside of their home Bastion, and other Bastions/Regions/Domains may have a dampening effect. Also, the sundering has also shaken the faith of most people. There may be ramifications for a holy member of a church going to another Bastion and making converts.Time sundering isn't necessary for you to have primitive and advanced regions - just compare Western Europe and, say, Amazonian tribes today. A vastly different tech level is possible, and if you want to include the same region at two different points in its timeline, you can just use the many-worlds interpretation to say that it's two different parallel worlds at the same point in time, but they appear to be the same world at different points in time (no need to explain this either - it can be something that's not spoken of, or an ongoing in-world issue as scientists/magic-users try to understand how the Sunderverse works).Good points. I know that the primary party will be involved in a time-flux, but that doesn’t have to be a universe-wide issue, just a catalyst. They’re in a campaign currently and they/I don’t like where it’s going, so I’m going to destroy the world and let them continue in a newly destroyed/created universe. My Question is fairly simple: How/Why did this happen?Well, it's a confluence of events. In one world there was a demon-god that broke the seal on the worlds, in another there was an accident involving time-travel research (a la philadelphia experiement), in another there was a group of powerful beings who intentionally dissolved the world to make a new one, and on and on. Any number of reasons, all simultaneous on different worlds To be honest the "pseudofficial" reason is based on an event in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Don't hate me! More than half of my group (including me) are avid Buffy fans. In Season 5 there's a God, Glory, trying to get home and she attempts to do so by opening a portal that will blend all worlds together. Well, in the show, Buffy stops her. But not in my 'verse. In my world, Buffy doesn't find the Dagon Sphere and can't use it to weaken the God, who kills Buffy and opens the portal. Dawn dies, Buffy dies (pointlessly this time), Tara stays crazy, Spike never becomes “good”, Willow goes insane and gives into the darkside. . . Sad really. But hey, that’s life. Anyway, that's the background for one of the worlds. In the main campaign that is running it’s going to be the fault of the current party. They're going to interrupt a time-portal research operation and it's going to get out of control, sucking in the whole multiverse. They'll be safe, most of the rest of their world won't. So, it happens for any number of reasons. I'm not going to tell the party about the Buffy connection, but as I said, any fictional world is open for reinterpretation in this verse. And really there isn’t an official answer. Also, using this background I get at least 3 villains right off the bat. An ascended Glory, a fallen Willow seeking revenge against Glory, and Spike. As cheesy as it sounds, I think my group will appreciate it. Also, they’re spaced out pretty well in power levels. And they may never enter the campaign at all.I do like this idea and I also like how you initially present it. It COULD turn into a mega-monster of a campaign since you are basically talking about the whole universe. You asked for assistance in getting your ideas flowing. I would recommend taking a look at a couple of sources: The Deathgate Cycle by Hickman, etc. The premise is SIMILAR in that reality was sundered into its constituent parts: an Air World (with floating sky islands and thin atmosphere at the highest elevations and normal gravity), an Earth World (all underground of course BUT in a highly toxic atmosphere of poisonous volcanic gases that kill off 'lesser races' who are not magically protected), a Fire World (a jungle planet with multiple suns (?) and a "lost city of the gods" with no way to get in) and finally a Water World (with all ice save for the immediate area around the 'Sea Sun' which would melt the ice and allow life. Mortals lived in multiple bubbles of air and would follow the migration of the Sea Sun as it travelled through the world or else risk freezing to death. Oddly, the water of this world nullified all magical powers). All of these worlds were joined by the Death Gate and the Nexus. Check out the various websites and books for more details.Actually, the Chelestran mortals lived on living islands called durnai. :D Zifnab will definitely be wandering around somewhere. He may be part of the Judeo-Pelorian Bastion, but he’s powerful enough to be a wandering stable zone on his own... Basically, one alternative to the above options is the result of the Sartan/Patryn war, sundering except that something interrupted the recreation process, leaving the world in the sundered state. The Labyrinth and Nexus were going to be a possible epic level area. The 7th Gate would probably be “lost” and also quite necessary to the Unsundering, if it ever goes that way…You can also just check out the "Elemental Planes" of D&D. I also think they would fit nicely into your scheme of things with some minor adjustments. You will need to decide a number of "planar traits" for each of your Bastions including the affect of gravity (or absense thereof), the flow of time/seasons, level of technology (which you mentioned previously), overall size (what happens if someone walks off the edge?)Each plane wouldn’t necessarily be it’s own ‘Bastion’ (which is more for survivors of Prime worlds), but rather a “region”, which would just be a large chunk of said dimension that overlaps the prime. In this region the prime takes on the traits of the dominant plane, like Eberronian manifest zones on crack. The main thing is that the world is starting off messed up, and storms of chaotic destruction, and re-creation are taking on planetary proportions. So you wander into a fire region, full of fissures, obsidian and flowing lava, and then the storms pass, creating gaping chasms of and alien landscapes with new physics that don’t quite mesh with the existing ones, leading to things that I can’t quite comprehend. Something tentacley probably. Basically, the far-realms are competing with The Nothing to see how messed up they can make things. Only beings with extremely strong wills can divert these forces, hence the bastions being around gods, with smaller domains around lesser powers and high-powered mortals (ones that would be able to solo CR 21+ encounters).Hope this helps get the proverbial creative juices flowing...It certainly did. I always have Death Gate on the brain, but hadn’t formulated the above info. So, to put everything in perspective ‘Stable Zones’, exist around anyone with a strong will. Measured in feet, probably close, medium, or long spell range. Stable doesn't mean immune to the storms and morphic qualities of planar areas around them, just partially resistant. ‘Domains’ are for strong willed beings that have begun to accumulate a stable source of power and typically have numerous forces rallied under them, such as demon and angel lords. Similar to Bastions, but small and controlled by an individual. ‘Bastions’ are cities held together literally by divine mandate of multiple deities. The deities are so taxed with this task that they are completely unable to directly interfere with mundane tasks. They typically divert some of their excess power into emissaries (divine casters/"Called") that they send out to find other people. Technically the Gods have been weakened because almost all of their followers were killed in the Sundering, but that’s not known by anyone. This means that the deity with the most followers has the best/largest Bastions, hence the ramifications of finding survivors and winning religious converts. ‘Regions’ are large swaths of prime material plane that has been completely converted into planar material (inner or outer). They have no static form and are the most frequent location of survivors, salvage, and Nil- and Ul- storms.
drakir_nosslin 02-18-08, 10:26 AM	‘Stable Zones’, exist around anyone with a strong will. Measured in feet, probably close, medium, or long spell range. Stable doesn't mean immune to the storms and morphic qualities of planar areas around them, just partially resistant. That reminded me of this (http://planewalker.com/downloads/products/files/chapter4_Plain.pdf). It's a link to the planewalker site, and one of their pdf documents, there you can find a new skill called control plane, it gives the user the ability to control the area around them in morphic areas. Also, this is a great idea for a campaign, both in terms of sheer size and potential to become a fun game. Though, I'm not that much of a buffy fan, but if you need any help to design more bastions or areas, just PM me and I'll do my best to contribute, if you wish to have that kind of help, of course ;) Anyway, *subscribe*, and I'll keep my eye on this one.
baelzemon_2200 02-20-08, 05:12 PM	I love the idea of this campaign. While I am in the process of making my campaign world (Kaleda) I was wondering if it would be possible for me to use your campaign world? I can provide feedback for how I handle things, and for what the PCs get up to. This may help you for your campaign, heh. I already have a sheer number of ideas.
EvilVegan 02-21-08, 12:20 PM	The more the merrier! The nature of the world is very mutable. I'd love feedback, especially actual play-testing. And with so much in one place and very little actual history (completely separate histories for every single Bastion) the possibilities are entirely endless.
Orloff 02-21-08, 03:01 PM	I like the idea that any being that has ever been worshiped for a certain quantity of time is able to be one of the 'gods' in your 'verse. For some of your more minor 'gods' (the ones warring in the Wasteland), consider all of the strange people and objects that have been worshiped. The Rastafari movement, for example, worships Haile Selassie, the former President of Ethiopia. How might these minor gods ally themselves to gain the most power? Also, if different groups worship the same god, but see him slightly differently (for example, the various Christian denominations) does that make multiple copies of that 'god' wandering around the Sunderverse? Could be interesting... As for actually getting this all down on paper, one of the glories of this system is that it doesn't have to be all that internally consistent. The world can always grow and change as you see fit. I'd focus on fleshing out the starting Bastion first, and work outwards from there as the occasion arises. At any rate, interesting concept. I will be keeping my eye on this thread.
baelzemon_2200 02-21-08, 04:18 PM	I just thought, I have alot of different mapping programs and vector drawing programs (Illustrator, CAD, ect) so if you are interested I might be able to get a map of the starting bastion done. Nothing too professional, you know, just a basic map
EvilVegan 02-21-08, 04:32 PM	To be honest I was just going to do a google map of Detroit. :D Rename some regions, pop down some "hot spots", viola. Did I mention I'm lazy? Also, this brings up an excellent point. Ever have a problem with introducing a portion of a new splat book, like Cityscape's random cities? That isn't much of a problem in sunderverse. New cities spring up all the time, often exactly when needed for a good story. Those in the story don't realize the coincidental convenience of it all though.
baelzemon_2200 02-21-08, 05:19 PM	I have not read through cityscape and dungeonscape much to be honest, but with the starting bastion it might not be such a good idea to use a real world map. For one, the culmination of advanced and primitive societies in a bastion that is nothing more then a modern day city can cause some havoc. It is also more realistic (if such a thing is possible considering the setting) if bits and pieces of a city appear joined, but from different eras. Although, the bastion is held together by a group of powerful beings, so considering this it might make more sense if you have totally unrelated pieces. Eh, just a couple of thoughts
EvilVegan 02-22-08, 11:38 AM	It wasn't going to be an exact copy. I was just going to use the streets and buildings as a base, and destroy about 75% of it, but it would give me a start. There would also be fantastic elements of other detroits, like castles and towers etc. . .
Patrick Draken-Korin 03-30-08, 08:37 PM	How similar are the alternate earths and earth-like world that joined the sunderverse? Would there be people meeting themselves? You could include d20 modern data, specifically people from the various organizations in Urban Arcana; the dude with the brief case or a half dozen agents from department 13. You could include a duplicate that worked at a boring desk job. I can't blame you using a Buffy tie in; If I were to run a game based on something of this type, such a mixed up mess, I'd throw in characters from a dozen webcomics (Bob and George, Dominic Deegan, Mansion of E and the others in my sig, just to start). Then I'd thrown in characters from video games and starwars. Are you throwing anything from dragonlance into this cauldron? Kender. Another cause for the difficulties; the greygem was split again. Have you access to the Monster manual V? What if everyone that survive held some quintessence (either the cause of or a side effect due to their survival). One group of mindflayers might be acting as police, and other might be hunting people down, a third could be people modified due to the Ul-storms and want to be undead again. Limited edition rewards; consider offering odd treasure on occasion, such as plasmids (bioshock) or phoenix down (final fantasy). So reality is !@#$ed up? Look on the bright side; you might get a chance to kill such annoying characters as [take your pick].