Interplanar Travel Idea
One of the neat things about planning a home-brew fantasy RPG setting is the opportunity to take pseudoscience or mystical mumbo-jumbo from our world and make it real in mine. One of my goals for the players in my library D&D campaign is to get them travelling between the Feywild, the Shadowfell, and the material plane of their world. I think I will borrow ideas from several of Stephen R. Lawhead's books that in turn use the idea of standing stones and ley lines as plot elements. After all, the world which my players inhabit is old. It has ruins and monuments from forgotten civilizations. It is also filled with desolate wastelands and more recent ruins as a consequence of more recent world history.
![standing-stone-4317325_1280.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmNoJE9udu4uDTwDiZDyyURDG3Lbt9DvJf9fanmd7ts1md/standing-stone-4317325_1280.jpg)
Image credit
I think the lore will be as follows:
There are standing stones and archways in forgotten corners of the world. These mark places where the boundaries between the planes are weak, and those with the proper equipment or unfortunate timing can cross through. A standing stone must be circled on foot until the tone from the chosen instrument falls silent. The view through an archway opening warps and twists, revealing glimpses of the other plane, and the way can be traversed until the tone dies. Without the right instrument, the process is hit-or-miss to say the least, and a success may result in an interplanar split party or other adverse consequences.
To reach the Shadowfell, the stone or arch must be struck with the Fork of Horripilation* as the day gives way to night, and twilight envelops the land. This artefact looks like a twisted wrought iron tuning fork, and it retains an unnatural cold even when thrust into a flaming furnace.
To reach the Feywild, the marker must be similarly struck with the Bell of Auroras, a copper handbell with a wooden handle that sprouts tiny vines and flowers along its length every spring. This bell has no clapper inside.
Obvious pitfalls for the player characters:
- The number and locations of these artefacts is unknown.
- The locations of the arches and standing stones are unknown.
- How to get back from these other planes is unknown.
I plan for these to be one-way keys, but the players and their characters may not know that.If they have both, they can move between the Shadowfell and the Feywild should they find appropriate markers on those planes, but they will need a third key to reach the material plane again. Can you think of other complications I can throw into the path of my players even after they start learning about the planes and the artefacts to traverse them? I have a green hag willing to offer partial truths, red herrings, or (for a price) useful prophesies already established in the game. I would also welcome ideas for the third planar gate key appearance and function. It needs to be similar to the fork and the bell, but distinct and somehow capable of exuding a sense of home for the players.
*Do you know what inspired the name of this artefact? Comment below!
You can always take a clue from the helm of teleportation and roll every time they use the portals (artifacts)
If it fails they could be split across the planes.
Or
The portal could explode trapping them
Or
It could send them to a new realm, pocket dimensions etc...
That is where I would start.
I ran a playbypost rpg last year here on Steem at #steemquest
I used portals with keys that only worked one way. You could browse the old posts to see how we did it.
Hope that helps get your creative juices flowing
Delighted to discover another Lawhead fan... The first three books in his Arthurian retelling are among my favorite literature of a lifetime.
Never been much of a fantasy role-playing gamer, but if I had unlimited time I would give it a go. Did "Adventure" as a text game on computers back in the day...
😄😇😉
![@creatr](https://steemitimages.com/DQmWvzuqZ51DoiSjXXf8bukb7JeeVV1eAJJhGBkDiYc8ajj/creatr_ap.gif)
Everyone loves a potentially helpful green hag!!!
This is much closer to real science than the stuff the spew in modern materialistic science books.
How the heck is this in any way "real science"? It can't be tested. It isn't falsifiable or verifiable. It is blatantly fictional.
When people start teleporting, then you will have your evidence.
It is that "Einstein science" that isn't testable.
We have to rely on the word of a large govern-cement test as proof.
But, since the govern-cement did them, and wrote the science books, everyone believes it.
Even when there are tons of little disproofs.
but, if you want to look for evidence, then you have to look into things that "Crack pots" are doing with quantum entanglement and such.
Special relativity has been widely tested, and the predictions of the theory have been verified on numeous occasions.
Yes, governments lie, but that does not mean everything anyone with government funding says 100% false.
If there are "disproofs," cite them. That is how science works. And how does modern quantun entanglement relate to ancient standing stones and ley line theory?
I have found this discussion thread fascinating... and so I am going to post this reply twice, once to @builderofcastles and once to @jacobtothe so that both of you notice this...
So, @builderofcastles, I have for years been seeking any repeatable designs for actually working tech that implements this. I've read about this from many sources, and would love to build a transceiver so I could keep in touch with my friends globally even in the event of an internet disruption...
I am no fan of govern-cement myself, and tend to believe Tesla rather then Einstein, but I would like to have the tech in hand in order to move the last 5% of my belief system into the Tesla corner...
Looking forward to any leads you may be able to supply. :D
This information is all over the internet, you are just copying
To the best of my knowledge, this is an original game mechanic and artefact set for a D&D campaign, and you're mad because I downvoted your blatant copy/paste laziness. If someone else has developed a similar idea, you could provide a link or otherwise support your claim. In gacy, that would be appreciated because it would mean less work for me in building a world for my players.