Post/Author/DateTime	Post
celestialkin 01-12-08, 12:39 AM	I've been reading up on the Far Realm, and I am just fascinated by it. Kinda fits my tastes perfectly for some reason. The problem is that it just seems too insane and...Illogical I guess...to be playable on. The point of it is that the very physics and laws of nature are not supposed to exist there, so how could characters get anything done there? How would battles be conducted? What good are skill checks when cause might or might not have anything to do with effect at any given moment (there is no such thing as before and after there, though). On wikipedia it mentioned that the Far Realm has it's own version of deities and/or demon lords (which I found very interesting), so I am guessing it might have been intended to be playable, but I am just not sure how. There is also the fact that I feel only a world-class top-level DM would be able to run such a game (if its possible at all). Sadly, I am confident my mind will never be capable of being so creative and abstract. I am guessing the imagination required would be spectacular. Also, there is the whole instantly going insane when you get there hurdle. So, has anyone here ever played in, or DMed a campaign dealing with the Far Realm? Did it work out? Did you enjoy it? Mind sharing a bit about your experience? Is there more information out there about it besides in the Manual of the Planes , and Dragon #330.
Taeldrin Laesrash 01-12-08, 12:41 AM	The Far Realm is probably at its best when it's used as the unknowable alien nonworld akin to its Lovecraftian inspiration, generating suspense and horror. (These days, to me, it seems like the new Abyss). However, I've never used it very much except for summoning a few monsters from it.
Shemeska the Marauder 01-12-08, 12:52 AM	I'm using it in my current campaign, though I gave hints of its presence in my previous one (detailed in this side story here (http://www.planewalker.com/entry.php?intEntryID=9675)). In the current campaign, it's tied in with a plot involving the psurlon and Esmus, the mad former Factol of the Bleak Cabal [which is ultimately a subplot to the campaign over all metaplot].
old_dm 01-12-08, 09:06 AM	The Far Realm is probably at its best when it's used as the unknowable alien nonworld akin to its Lovecraftian inspiration, generating suspense and horror. I agree with this completely. However, I love the idea behind The Far Realm, as much as I love Call of Cthulhu. It's irresistible. I mean, it's one of those things that you have to try "at least once". Even if it's a disaster, you can at least say you tried. As for myself and my group of fellows... The only encounter with The Far Realm that I have thus far allowed at my table involved a bare and meager brush with the realm that happened in conjunction with the players seeking to discover the way that leads to ancient Penumbra. I can say that to encounter it required much questing beforehand, and it also required that they all must subsequently die. Once in the proper state of "afterdead" much questing was again required (about four months worth), with game mechanics and dice rolls affected by a kind of modified probability mathematics. But I can say no more. (and if you have played in the mentioned campaign at my table, and you are also now reading this let me just say: YOU WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED HAD YOU NOT BEEN DESTROYED. Deal with it.)
CryoSilver 01-12-08, 10:44 AM	I wouldn't suggest a trip to the Far Realms until the PCs can be sure of almost always making the Will save, or at least, afford a huge stockpile of Heal spells to remove the insanity. At lower levels, maybe the Far Realms can become coterminous with the Material Plane, with areas of strong overlap, allowing a Far Realms-lite adventure. Also, have you ever noticed how every single depiction of a realm of insanity has flying eyeballs? I statted them up here: Slimy Eye Diminutive Outsider Hit Dice: 1/2d8 (hp: 4) Initiative: +3 (+3 Dex) Speed: 5 ft, Fly 20 ft (perfect) AC: 17 (+3 Dex, +4 size) Base Attack/Grapple: +0/-17 Attacks: None Full Attack: None Face/Reach: 1 ft/0 ft Special Attacks: Squeak Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 feet, Telepathy Saves: Fort +0, Ref +3, Will +1 Abilities: Str 1, Dex 16, Con 10, Int 6, Wis 12, Cha 6 Skills: Listen +3, Spot +13 Feats: Alertness Environment: any Organization: Solitary CR: 1/8 Treasure: Standard Alignment: any Advancement: None These are the ubiquitous flying eyes of the Far Realm; they are about 2 inches in diameter, with a small “tail” of what could either be tiny tentacles or optic nerves trailing behind. Combat Slimy eyes don’t fight; they run away after squeaking. Sometimes, other Far Realms creatures use them as scouts or sentries, but otherwise, they are fairly helpless in combat. Squeak (ex): once per round, a slimy eye can emit a high-pitched squeak. All those within 15 feet of it must make a DC 10 Will save or be dazed for one round. This save is Con based. Telepathy (su): a slimy eye can communicate telepathically with any creature within 50 feet; it cannot use words, only images, but it can communicate with creatures that have no language. Skills: a slimy eye has a +8 racial bonus on Spot checks.
Naderion 01-12-08, 11:44 AM	I think it works best with the PCs actually never going there. If they do, than only for short amount of times in locales, that still have some resemblance to reality, like a wizards floating tower.
setekh 01-12-08, 01:16 PM	I hate the official representation of the Far realms, so much room for cool monsters and what do we get? Tentacles and slime. Yawn.
CryoSilver 01-12-08, 01:19 PM	Maybe we get tenatcles and slime because those creatures are best able to survive on the Material Plane? A creature made of sentient 5-dimensional cesium is all well and good, but if it blows up when you spill a beer on it, well, that's just silly.
Naderion 01-12-08, 01:20 PM	If slime and tentacles aren't enough, maybe YOU have a couple of good ideas for even more bizare creatures. :D But yes, the slime-and-tentacle templates for normal creatures don't do it. But I think the very first published far realm creature (this spike head thingy) (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MotP/Far_Realm_Entity.jpg) was cool.
celestialkin 01-12-08, 01:34 PM	But yes, the slime-and-tentacle templates for normal creatures don't do it. But I think the very first published far realm creature (this spike head thingy) (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MotP/Far_Realm_Entity.jpg) was cool. Sauce please? Was that the demon lords/deities there? Read about them, but I have no clue where they were published.
CryoSilver 01-12-08, 01:36 PM	Epic Level Handbook.
setekh 01-12-08, 01:37 PM	I was hoping you would ask actually :D :P *Pulls out random Sci - Fi Book* Non baryonic life (That is, Dark matter) Think of it as a... "Super incorporeal" if you will, as far as I can remember it can only affect the Material world by pulling upon gravity. In the book, they have very long term goals, and work by slowly destroying stars. an Obvious BBEG to confront down the line - Stop it or the elemental plane of fire is torn apart. An entity that uses flaws in space / time to move, Perfect fly speed is an obvious. A Colony life form, dozens of separate beings all sharing the same body, each one bringing something new to the whole. A construct housing the remnants of some biological being, they hide away in these constructed bodies because of the warping influence that crossing realities causes to their true bodies / Allergic to oxygen / Whatever -it's a life support machine. Basically, in my setting the Far Realm is the dying remanents of an alternate reality, in the final stages of Entropic heat death. Because of this, everything that remains are the most highly evolved creatures imaginable, and tentacles and gribbliness don't lend themselves to a reality that is dying. Of course, my vision of the far realm differs from the standard one, so you might want to adapt it a bit. Edit: And, of course, I pulled these off the top of my head from published Science fiction (The Xeelee Sequence of books, by the ever brilliant, Stephen Baxter) and from TV (Doctor who. It's amazing, Daleks, Cybermen and Toclafane all in one description)
Naderion 01-12-08, 02:40 PM	I merged the Far Plane with the Astral and Limbo: Removed a space "outside" of a space "outside of everything else". First, astral is often pictured as to normal for my taste and second, I think the far plane is redundant when you define the Astral as "when you're not anywhere, you're in the astral". In this setting, plane-traveling is rare, but if you do it, you do it from one solid island in the cosmic chaos to another by the use of portals or spells as stable bridges. The Far Astral-Limbo is the fate that awaits those who get lost between the planes. Planes may have different phyical laws, but none of them have any meaning here, as do the concepts of time and space. It's a mosty empty space (though both words don't really aply there) but there are a lot of strange things around there and all the stuff, that is litarary "nowhere else", like plane-hoppers who got lost and the remains of imploded demi-planes, or landscapes or worlds that came in contact with astral rifts (think of Outland here ;)). It makes the Astral more attwactive, and is also a less drastic approach to the far plane, with it's impossible physics, that is more to my liking.
Verderben 01-12-08, 06:27 PM	In an interview with Bruce Cordell, he insinuated that "Outside," commonly thought of as an alternate name for the Far Realm (as give in the 3E MotP), is in fact a boundary of the Far Realm. Although I was unsure if he meant a boundary between the normal multiverse and the Far Realm or a boundary between the Far Realm and the "Beyond the Far Realm" which is hinted at in Lords of Madness, I like to consider it as the former, and assign it the "usual" denizens and scenery (i.e. tentacles, eyes, and the Amoebic Sea). I then proceed to redesign the Far Realm (proper) as a more abstract realm of madness, with an even more incomprehensible milieu and "denizens." Although I have not fleshed this part out very much, I would visualize this as being more empty of the stereotypical Lovecraftian entities and filled more with the essence of Lovecraftian incomprehensibility as well as whatever utterly horrifying hallucinations or intrusive thoughts the subject brings with him (carried to orders of magnitude, of course). This partition of the Far Realm (general) may also be the demesne of the Elder Evils and the Lords of Outer Chaos, as well as any other entities of deific or even greater power. Beyond the Far Realm is imperceptible to mere mortals, and even entities of the Far Realm (proper) have a difficult time with it, possibly to the same extent to which they are repulsed by the reality of the normal multiverse. I have not spent much time attempting to visualize this, and my conceptions of it have ranged from incomprehensibility carried to a more complete level of incomprehensibility (with the necessary twists to distinguish it from the quality of the incomprehensibility that characterizes the other parts of the Far Realm) to our "real world" (in a moment of fourth wall breaking). Furthermore, I do entertain an idea that I found on the planewalkers forum (I think) about the Far Realm possibly being mystical salvation/enlightenment misconstrued as horrors due to the lack of understanding characterizing most mortals. I would like to add that this kind of thought was also entertained by Ken Wilber and Dr. Cornell West for the commentary of the Matrix trilogy. They posited that the Machines are not so much hostile as misunderstood and alienated spirit (allegorically speaking, of course), and that their form as golden light (as seen in Revolutions) is that spirit or consciousness truly realized. I find that this, even if a mere rumor in any given game world, adds some interesting depth to the Far Realm. Finally, to address the original question, I concur with the assessment that the Far Realm is better implemented in a campaign as a force in the distance. A brief encounter with the realm itself or entities thereof may be interesting in a campaign, if handled delicately. However, the power of the denizens of the Far Realm in general, in addition to the incomprehensibility and the insanity inducing effects therein, render a full-length adventure or relatively long-term stay in the Far Realm practically unfeasible. That being said, with the splitting of the three parts of the Far Realm as I described above, it may be possible to construct or discover a temporary pocket of relative harmlessness (as harmless as the 974th layer of the Abyss on a bad day, anyway). Long-term harmlessness or "pockets of sanity" may simply demystify or even conceptually kill the Far Realm, so discretion and individual tailoring is imperative. I apologize if this post was too long or self-indulgent, and I hope that these ideas may be of use to anyone interested in a Far Realm inclusive campaign as well as stimulate further discussion of the nature of the Far Realm and is natives.
Rohano 01-13-08, 06:52 PM	Several other threads have been brought forward with questions about the Far Realm here at the Gleemax forums. A search entry should locate them all easily. I've said it previously; adventuring in the Far Realms is impossible. Just like it's impossible for major entities from the Far Realms to come here without dooming existence. If they possess the means to exist here, their existence is going to warp our reality to the point of an apocalypse. And/or every single being in the Great Wheel goes insane and/or melts. Enter Cthulhu. Jesus saves, everyone else takes Nonexistence damage, DC Unrollable to avoid. I'm fairly certain that either Grayhawk or Forgotten Realms had some league of scholars who were researching the Far Realms and finally made a portal capable of taking them there - when they arrived, they went insane and began dying. Some minor entities approached, more of them died. A major entity noticed a strange presence and approached but by the time he got there, nothing remained of the scholars, so it boredly went back to wandering through fluidspace. Speaking of fluidspace, didn't Voyager go to fluidspace, an alternate dimension, and conquer a race of superaliens that defied the laws of physics and nearly conquered the universe? Even Star Trek has been to the Far Realm. But we can't go there. Not with D&D rules. Not with three dimensional bodies and material minds.
CryoSilver 01-13-08, 06:59 PM	I think the Far Realm would require it's own special pretige classes and spells to make adventuring there feasible. Something that stabilizes an area, possibly based on experiments done in Limbo (which is in a constant state of flux, for different reasons).
Bloodsoul 01-20-08, 04:21 PM	So one can't simply travel to the Far Realms and open up a Starbucks? That's dissapointing...
Taeldrin Laesrash 01-20-08, 04:30 PM	So one can't simply travel to the Far Realms and open up a Starbucks? That's dissapointing... Nah...Starbucks also defies the laws of physics.
CryoSilver 01-20-08, 04:35 PM	"I'd like a vente mocha frappuccino with a shot of absolute truth and some whipped maddening insight, please." "That'll be one soul, and 36 cents. Have a nice eternity."
sciborg3 01-20-08, 07:00 PM	Apparently accepting souls for coffee hasn't aided Starbucks' stock prices...
Grod_The_Giant 01-20-08, 07:33 PM	if you want a touch of the Far Realms, pick up the MM 5 and look at the Mind Flayers of Thoom. Cool stuff.
E'tii'stil Shadowsil 01-20-08, 08:01 PM	Apparently accepting souls for coffee hasn't aided Starbucks' stock prices... Well they are employing illithids with mass cloud mind and influence consumer choice... I like the Far Realms. I see the Far Realms as the Void Between the Stars. It's the darkness that gaps between the pinpoints of light twinkling in the night sky. It's the hungry maw that swallows the light and leaves only ever-present darkness. It's the abyss that gazes into the soul and what it finds is pleasing. It's the emptiness that brushes the mind and leaves behind a gibbering drooling wreck. It's beyond the realities we are aware of, it's beyond even the outer planes. It exists beyond the boundaries yet always is present within the holes in the walls. It overlaps our worlds and yet is separate. It is pure undiluted horror, but not in the conventional sense; Far Realmsians are beyond alignment. Angel: "By Rao's hallowed name, man...woman...thing, have you looked in the mirror lately..." Far Realmsian: *sniffles then tears up* Angel: "Did I hurt your feelings?...my sincerest apologies" Far Realmsian: *bursts into peals of laughter then starts cackling* "I'm the sensitive new age Far Realmer...in more ways than one. And hey, you can't spell slaughter without laughter..."
Belkar 01-21-08, 01:36 PM	Maybe my idea of the Far Realms is just skewed... but when you consider the whole "ultimate alien" aspect of it... I can't see a PC doing much there. The laws of reality aren't even stable... DM: "What do you guys do? The giant floating eyball with yogurt dripping from it's purple sweater is sashaying towards you!" Fighter: "I pull out my greatsword and attack it!" DM: "Your greatsword laughs hysterically as you pull it out... now give me your attack roll... you roll... Blue! That misses. But your sword melts into a pile of sand dollars!"
AntiDjinn 01-21-08, 01:57 PM	Is it usable? Sure. Lots of truly bizarre alien creatures could come from the Realm. Lovecraftian horrors capable of threatening the very existence of the campaign world could come from the Realms. It is a great place for things to be from, not so good as a destination except for very brief trips or accidental glimpses. Even brief contact should risk a PC's sanity. If they can just go there like it is any other plane, then it looses its mystique. A character from a more structured reality has more in common with algae and Asmodeus than they do with the denizens of the Far Realms. If by usable for a campaign you mean as a setting, then I would say not. Have a first level Far Realms bard, fighter, cleric, and mage meet up at the tavern beyond time and space and plan a first level adventure while sipping the ale man was not meant to imbibe? That would be missing the point of making it beyond human ken in the first place.
Verderben 01-21-08, 05:56 PM	In my earlier post, I described a conceptual division of the Far Realm. In light of many posts in this thread which emphasize the utter incomprehensibility of the Far Realm in its totality, I am wondering if any such conceptual division does the Far Realm justice or if it subtracts from the mystique and evocative power of the Far Realm. What do you think?
Moosh Nailo 01-21-08, 06:52 PM	Its great for character fluff, too. Lords of Madness has a lot of stuff that can help to create a far-realm feel, along with the half-daelkyr stuff and Impure Prince PrC from Magic of Eberron. My favourite character that I've created at least all year, if not ever, is Squid, who is very much influenced by the far realm. Human Crusader 4/Ranger 1/Archivist 1/Impure Prince 1, he has been "touched" by Mok Thuum Ngatha (Far realm denizen/god described in LoM). With his tentacles from the Deepspawn feat, a symbiont from MoE, and a broken mind, he is becoming Mok Thuum Ngatha's avatar/disciple (no idea whether he is endorsed or not, and too messed in the head to doubt, or even care) on the material plane. Story so far is that when a part of Mok Thuum Ngatha's consciousness/being looked through a gate into the material, Squid was unlucky enough to be looking back. Big changes for Squid after that. I agree with previous posters on the subject of actual travel to the Far Realm. Not such a good idea. But the whole coterminous-plane thing, along the lines of Eberron's planar conjunctions and manifest zones, could be very cool. I see far realm being better as a style more than specific crunch. Flavouring, like what you'd do for a horror campaign. Have pseudonatural rats (twilight princess, the squiggly black things in the dungeon when you're first in wolf form) run around from day 1. Things continue to get (or be revealed as) being stranger and weirder as the PCs go on.
faghter_hero 01-24-08, 02:42 PM	Ever considered using the Far Realm as a campaign setting? The PCs can start off insane and have to work their way towards sanity to escape from a nightmare world. Of course, even if they make it out intact, how can they be sure they're not still trapped? It might be an illusion of reality brought about by the characters' own madness. And what of the malevolent entities that can follow in the PCs' wake if they make it to the Material Plane?
Naderion 01-25-08, 01:43 PM	I don't think the far plane works well for more than a couple of hours. It's defining element is it's complete lack of physical laws as we know it and you're getting insane from simply being there, because you're senses are constantly sending information to your brain, that simply could not be in a natural world, and it's also completely chaotic, or at least filled with patterns mortals can't grasp. I think it can be fun to have the PCs in an area of controlled space, but after some time you start to forget about the freaky chaos all around you and the far plane becomes just another mundane lower plane. And I think then it makes the far plane lose everything that makes it special.
sciborg3 01-25-08, 01:51 PM	Ever considered using the Far Realm as a campaign setting? The PCs can start off insane and have to work their way towards sanity to escape from a nightmare world. Of course, even if they make it out intact, how can they be sure they're not still trapped? It might be an illusion of reality brought about by the characters' own madness. And what of the malevolent entities that can follow in the PCs' wake if they make it to the Material Plane? Hot damn that's a good idea.
Keenath 01-25-08, 02:36 PM	Just to toss in my few cents... First, the Manual of the Planes has a few things about adventuring in the Far Realm, but it's kind of a mess really, with constant will saves against insanity. My preference would be to start using Sanity rules while in the Realms, as from Call of Cthulhu. The system essentially says you start with 5*wisdom sanity, and when your wisdom changes, you gain or lose 5 sanity for each point of change. Whenever you encounter a creature or event that might be maddening, you roll percentile against sanity -- and try to roll low. If your roll exceeds your sanity score, you lose a number of sanity points determine by the horribleness of the subject (a horrific monster might be 1d6 points, while staring down Cthulhu deals d% sanity damage). Some things are so terrible that they deal sanity damage even if you save against it -- this is usually expressed with a slash, so you take the damage before the slash on a failed save, and after it on a success. For example, a certain monster might have a sanity damage code of "2d6/1d4" -- if you roll over your sanity, you take 2d6, and if you roll under it, you take 1d3 instead. Now, my preference is to deal with the far realms by creating weird but consistent "domains" within it. You swim through the amoebic sea, and then penetrate a layer and find yourself on the edge of a neuron the size of an office building, with a nation-sized brain sprawled out above you (gravity being towards the surface of the nearest neuron). This might be the Prime Elder Brain of the illithids, or just something bizarre. Leaving that zone, you float until you find a new domain where an atropal floats, surrounded by a field of twinkling stars, which are acutually fist-sized sparks that flow along undefinable currents and deal fire damage to anyone they hit. But all this is only what you find where reality has leaked into the far realms. The true nature of the far realms is infinite potential, and PCs who penetrate too far will find themselves mentally twisting and physically dissolving, with possibility overwhelming reality until nothing exists but a 'maybe'. The biggest creatures of the Realms can't stand even a little reality. They are too huge, too "potential" to experience reality. They find it painful and sad to be only one thing at a time... Anyway, that's one theory.
Rohano 01-27-08, 02:25 PM	My preference would be to start using Sanity rules while in the Realms, as from Call of Cthulhu. The system you described was adapted to D20 by Wizards in Unearthed Arcana. I used the system for a recent campaign wherein the players (oppressed peasants, basically) were confronted with mind-boggling discoveries and led to individual craziness. The system includes the basic rules, tables of effects for when you've broken the limits of your mind (there is temporary insanity and long-term insanity, both tables can really foul you up). It also branches out into Lovecraftian lore by outlining a system of Forbidden Lore, based on learning secrets of existence, taking sanity damage as a result, but gaining various effects (for instance, pick up a forgotten tome, read it, go a little insane, but get several new spells). Also this (http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/flowing/) is a very good representation of the Far Realms. Good luck putting that into D20, humans. :coolcthul
Moosh Nailo 01-27-08, 09:01 PM	Wowthatsawesome
ghostfrog 01-30-08, 05:24 PM	Sometimes I think the Far Realm is too "evil" in that everything that comes out of it is negatively aligned and a horrible monster. Has anyone ever written up a good aligned or beneficial far realmer or at least just alien and not malicious?
Kiioro 02-06-08, 06:31 PM	Another way you can put the Far Realm in your campaign is by slicing the boundary between the material plane and the Far Realm. You can alter as many laws as you can imagine, put it as incredibly strange, but still with a "comprehensible" tone because it still has something of the plane. This could be the result of the wizard that lives in the material plane that wants to achieve the fusion of both planes. The name of the elven wizard is one I can't recall, but I remember that his brain is crawling with spiders in a very literal sense. The quest would be to stop this intrusion (when they find out about this realm and that it's intentional), before they are eaten / overrun with alien creatures. I like the Far Realm, but for some reason, I am even more interested in the elemental plane of Blood.
faghter_hero 02-10-08, 10:36 PM	Sometimes I think the Far Realm is too "evil" in that everything that comes out of it is negatively aligned and a horrible monster. Has anyone ever written up a good aligned or beneficial far realmer or at least just alien and not malicious? I really think that comes from the Far Realm being so different from reality, anything that comes out of there ends up being horrifically inimical to life no matter what it does. "Evil" is a D&D approximation in that sense (it comes from being ugly and destructive by nature), not an indication of deliberate malevolence, so already they are like that. Even the presence of a healer being from the Far Realm might just turn everything into one big tumor, without even realizing it had done anything wrong. Perhaps a campaign could be resolved by figuring out how to communicate with the thing and explain the damage it is doing, not to mention the monumental task of teaching it to relate to others, but it's still going to take an Evil subtype as far as spells are concerned IMO.
Kain_Darkwind 02-17-08, 06:53 AM	Perhaps a campaign could be resolved by figuring out how to communicate with the thing and explain the damage it is doing, not to mention the monumental task of teaching it to relate to others, but it's still going to take an Evil subtype as far as spells are concerned IMO. Because that's what the Evil subtype is for. Creatures that don't realize they are destructive. Like angry elephants {Huge Animal (Evil)} or the tarrasque. If blood sucking vampires and brain sucking illithids don't have the Evil subtype, I fail to see the rationale for Far Realms entities doing so.
Drackthor 02-20-08, 10:32 PM	Sauce please? Oh dear god. What a fool I was to think I could hide from it! The end has come, and we shall surely perish. 4chan has come to WoTC Forums.