Post/Author/DateTime	Post
sciborg2 05-22-07, 12:28 AM	which one would it be? Why? Sometimes I think Mechanus should be interconnecting pipes instead of gears.
guru7892 05-22-07, 01:19 AM	which one would it be? Why? Sometimes I think Mechanus should be interconnecting pipes instead of gears. sorry that just got me thinking of some mad twist between mario bros and pipe dream. anyway I would probably recreate some of the upper planes to be more intresting. simply they have no real conflicts even in the most beneign of senses. i would much like to see a conflict between a republic and a communist/feudal state occure on ideaological terms. simply a large philosphical battle for the creation of a utopian society. i would also try to make sure that Oceanus was more exciting, making it larger prehaps, or maybe connecting it to the silver sea or something. simply there isnt enough adventure in the upper planes.
Nat_20 05-22-07, 01:40 AM	BURN CELESTIA TO THE GROUND!!!!!! put up some lovely curtains in the abyss plant some daisies in the 9 Hells Throw a casual Friday party in the plane of shadow or add some night lights and throw a plugged-in toaster into the Elemental plane of water thats just me
Toran_A_Sunder 05-22-07, 01:46 AM	Beastlands wouldnt be good aligned. It would be all natural, all neutral, all nature, all the time.
Fireclave 05-22-07, 02:22 AM	Sometimes I think Mechanus should be interconnecting pipes instead of gears. Don't be a conformist, man! Prove them wrong. Make it a big truck. Fight the power :D
Naderion 05-22-07, 05:28 AM	I would take out Mechanus completely and replace it with a plane that actually makes any sense. Clockwork machninery is artificial and can't really be one of the fundamental basics of the multiverse.
Deacon Liadon 05-22-07, 07:37 AM	*Jots down a memo about Xaositects with pots of paint being seen in th Grey Wastes*
TRCEttin 05-22-07, 08:38 AM	Sometimes I think Mechanus should be interconnecting pipes instead of gears. I replaced it with Tetra, where the building blocks of the multiverse drift in calm solitude. Sometimes they join up into bigger blocks, but inhabitants of Tetra have to be careful because sometimes lines of the blocks disappear.
Tarascon 05-22-07, 04:49 PM	Sometimes I think Mechanus should be interconnecting pipes instead of gears. So we'd be turning Mechanus into the internet? Sorry, couldn't resist.
jamvid 05-22-07, 05:41 PM	I would fill Hades with floral prints. sure its a place so horribly depressing and entrapping of evil and despair that it's dificult to even get out, but that doesn't mean it can't be pretty.
Shemeska the Marauder 05-22-07, 06:10 PM	Bytopia. It needs more of a hook than the common perception of it being "gnome heaven".
Yanagita Kunio 05-22-07, 06:18 PM	Mechanus--mix the gears up with other technological devices that have the same (or similar) symbolic function: to represent the interconnected and orderly nature of the plane. Aquaducts and hydraulic works, chemistry-set glassware, and arcologies dot the landscape--sometimes mounted on the gears; sometimes apparently free-standing; sometimes being dismantled and turn into gear-works by monodrones. Arborea--make the plane even more responsive to passion and emotion than described--pushing toward an impressionist/expressionist cusp. I like the place to feel a little "more than real" in the way a Van Gogh, Chagall, or Boccioni painting can. Within a narrow radius of the traveller(s), the season and weather froth and churn in response to their emotions, laying bare one's internal state on the palette of the environment...even the colors scheme reflects this (creating odd contrasts when the opposite microclimates/dispositions collide). Big emotions can behave like pocket cataclysms. This effect is reduced in large settlements by the gestalt of the populations' mood, but collectives sharing a common passion in turn effect a larger radius around them. And drop any reference to the eladrin as elf-like or fey-like. PS. Yeah--Bytopia needs help. I'm just not sure where to start.
guru7892 05-23-07, 02:49 AM	Bytopia. It needs more of a hook than the common perception of it being "gnome heaven". you serriously don't know the gnomes I know. (btw the pointy hats are the s***) I replaced it with Tetra, where the building blocks of the multiverse drift in calm solitude. Sometimes they join up into bigger blocks, but inhabitants of Tetra have to be careful because sometimes lines of the blocks disappear. acually i think they should have disks of varring terrain that are launched arn't eachother and when 3 of the same terrain come togather, pop! Don't be a conformist, man! Prove them wrong. Make it a big truck. Fight the power :D well mario is communist (serriously, take a look at mario, then stalin. Then realize he destroys the koopa king to 'liberate the people'. oh and he wears red.)
Dunamin 05-23-07, 03:03 AM	I actually rather like the visual aspects of Bytopia the way they are, but I agree that it has been way too gnomofied. I would probably do something about the concepts revolving the Beastlands. While I like the idea of the natives being willing inhabitants of the natural cycle of prey and predator, I don't think the most important theme is evident enough: that this is supposed to be a plane of good with a hint of chaos. Sometime in the past I wrote this up, as a suggestion for modifying the hunting aspect of the Beastlands: For flavourful illustration of the natural laws of the Beastlands, namely that all wildlife is willing participants in the natural cycle of predator and prey, I considered visualizing it more literally. Picture a group of hidden clueless PCs observing a scene, where a fox and a rabbit exchange pleasantries and discuss the terms of the upcoming hunt between them, before parting ways. Even if they can’t make out the Celestial being spoken, a simple elegant nod made between the animals could send a good message to the players about what’s going on. If they are able to continue their observation unnoticed, they could watch as the predator gives the prey a decent head start, possibly even counting down to itself in Celestial. If they are able to listen in on the discussion, they might overhear the following: The length of the hunt before the prey is considered to have successfully evaded the predator. Possibly limiting the hunting grounds to a certain locale (perhaps the predator has an injury that would make it a poor swimmer, so the prey promises not to cross the nearby river in aiding its escape). Rumours on what’s going on in the local layer or environment. Inquiries into the well-being of siblings. Ironic, I know, but still – the predator might commend the rabbit, that it’s brother took up the challenge to evade a famous hunter, even if the rabbit’s brother was unsuccessful. Acceptance of the predator not to hunt the prey for today, simply because the prey has had a very bad day, or because it has already been hunted once today (or any other suitable length of time). And so on… This should all be very loose and based on respect of the participants' concerns, and not stubborn negotitation of course, so as to not deemphasize the Chaotic aspect of the Beastlands. This could also help to alleviate some of the initial reactions of first-time visiting players, if they are prone to question the good nature of this plane (as might be implied by the question on the Deities and the Planes FAQ: “Why are the Beastlands good?”).
RavinRay 05-23-07, 05:03 AM	Acheron. Where's the order in iron cubes and ice blades smashing into one another? And since it is more lawful than evil, it's inhabitants should be more regimented than the devils of Baator. Maybe it should have a layer of metallic "vegetation" and rock formations, rusty sand, and iron streets. As Acheron is the name of one of the four prominent rivers in Greek mythology, it ought to have a watery layer. i would also try to make sure that Oceanus was more exciting, making it larger prehaps, or maybe connecting it to the silver sea or something. Make Oceanus flow through all the Upper Planes, not just from Elysium to Arbo rea. Heck, Celestia's got Lunia and Oceanus does flow through there. The Styx flows through all the Lower Planes.
sciborg2 05-24-07, 12:16 AM	Mechanus--mix the gears up with other technological devices that have the same (or similar) symbolic function: to represent the interconnected and orderly nature of the plane. Great idea - I think I got the pipes idea from you in the first place. Arborea--make the plane even more responsive to passion and emotion than described-- Excellent, will try to use that somehow. Have you seen What Dreams May Come...definitely smaltzy but the visuals were good. And drop any reference to the eladrin as elf-like or fey-like. Why? :confused:
sciborg2 05-24-07, 12:17 AM	Picture a group of hidden clueless PCs observing a scene, where a fox and a rabbit exchange pleasantries and discuss the terms of the upcoming hunt between them, before parting ways. I like this as an introduction to the Beastlands. But for all its violence, I think of the Beastlands as Eden, in the sense that animals are innocent.
Dunamin 05-24-07, 01:09 AM	And drop any reference to the eladrin as elf-like or fey-like. Why? :confused: I would think it's probably because there already are so many creatures revolving the elf-like visual appearance, so it might seem a bit redundant (elves, eladrin, leshay, some fey, etc). The elf similarity can somewhat be explained by the eladrins being the main inspiration for Corellon Larethian, when the elves were created. However, it also seems a bit unimaginative to me, especially since eladrins are incarnates of Chaos. Ironically, archons appear in much more diverse forms, even though they are beings of Law. I’m definitely not going as far as dropping it all together, but in my games I deemphasize the elf-like aspect and emphasize the alternate form aspect, as shapechanging fits perfectly with a race exemplifying Chaos as well as Good. With the whirlwind form of the bralani as prime example, I change the flavour for all eladrin alternate forms to resemble varying forms, colours and subunits of shifting sparkling particles. Thus, I have the globe forms of ghaele and tulani resemble a sparkling spherical cloud, the noviere form a dolphin-shaped cloud, the firre a pillar-shaped cloud (with mostly the same properties as fire but visually a bit different), etc. The coure, as the bottom tier eladrin, is simply not developed enough as a “true eladrin”, to display such an alternate true form. This gives the eladrins a unifying visual concept other than the elf-like one, and I find a form-shifting mass of glittering light to embrace Chaos a bit more thematically than your casual elf (however more noble it may seem). I have my eladrins spend about equal time in either shape, and often have them briefly “shift” between the two forms when they feel very passionate about a subject at hand. Picture a ghaele laughing heartedly at a grand joke and for a split-second seem to smoothly blend into a glittering humanoid-shaped form, before reverting back - if you had been distracted you might have missed it, only catching a glimmer out of the corner of your eye while you were looking the other way. Another minor feature I generally use to present anarchic creatures, is that I have their hair move slightly on its own, and their colours slowly change shades (more so when getting agitated).
Yanagita Kunio 05-24-07, 01:24 AM	Why? :confused: Eh. To eat my own words--not "all references." I was just grumpy after rereading MoP, which does the "like elves, but only moreso" bit. I've hit trope-overload on pointy ears and stapled-on wings. I prefer the eladrin to be a bit more--dynamic--in their use of humanoid form. While an individual eladrin might retain largely the same features when they assume humanoid form, they make little cosmetic changes--sometimes a form of self-expression, sometimes on a whim or as an experiment. The how and how-often of such things are themselves a kind of insight into the personality of the eladrin. I also describe them as experiencing a bit of bleed-over from their alternate form to the humanoid form they assume, particularly when agitated: patches of incorporeality, visual or auditory reminders of the elemental/supernatural properties of the incorporeal form. Anyway, on topic-- Ysgard--I understand why they put stuff on discrete earth-bergs, but I like to describe the plane as a single surface of earth and water, where the 'bergs act like tectonic plates--shifting, rearranging, and sometime sinking/surfacing. Even the underground regions seem to have this modular property. The geography is mythopoetic--the bigger the legend that surrounds a place, the more it literally expands in both scale and grandeur. Navigation on the plane requires a grasp of kenning rather than cartography--changes of landscape and scale occur just often enough to stumble maps, but if you grasp of sense of the "lore" of each place, you can move about relatively easily. A hinted-at aspect of the plane is that petitioners that embody the nature of Ysgard--its focus on accomplishment, challenge, and individualism--not only merge with the plane, but essentially become new and imposing features of the landscape, there to challenge newcomers. Oh--and there's the mysterious sounds of drums that heralds the appearance of new islands out in Ysgard's bodies of water. Mechanus is still my favorite playground (though I haven't had much time to expand/expound on it recently).
Dunamin 05-24-07, 01:59 AM	The coure, as the bottom tier eladrin, is simply not developed enough as a “true eladrin”, to display such an alternate true form. Oops, forget about this part. I misremembered the coure - they do have alternate forms, just like every other eladrin.