We've been here before... but that hallway was new! [Archive]

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flabort

2011-08-16, 07:11 PM

Where are you?
You are here. In this place. Where the map-maker dares not tread.
You are in the Simulation, a place created most by accident. It is a place where stuff is created more than it is destroyed, a place where physics have long been forgotten - and yet it is a place of gears and mechanics, where clockworks outnumber flesh and technology advances ever more.

Where did it come from?
In his quest for eternal life, some say, some wizard with psychic powers destroyed the world with a thousand-year clock and a golem's dreams. Others say he really created a world from the mass unconsciousnesses of several hundred constructs. But the truth is, all that was created was a simulation of a world, that which could happen but never will, from the mechanical mind of a warforged, a simulation which was composed of imperfect formulas and flaws, with what is impossible even to magic and divinity taking place at random.
Eventually, the wizard, who's fate is never mentioned, and the warforged became legend, and legend myth, when something within the simulation successfully found it's way out. The magics and improbabilities mixed, leaked, and destroyed several planes and finally the warforged within whom the simulation existed. And yet the broken physics of the simulation persisted, several minor planes and existences being consumed in the cataclysm and re-wrought. They are the Simulation as it is known, a place quite real now.

So what's it like?
Imagine yourself in a world where there is no definite north or south, up or down, or even left and right. Where gravity is subjective, where paths cross themselves even when traveling in a straight line, and where Time is the only constant.
Oh, wait. no need to imagine. Your here already.
As you can plainly see when you throw a rock, it moves. But it's energy is not guaranteed to diminish, and so it is not guaranteed to fall back down. You could tie a rope to a stone and the other end to yourself, throw it, and be dragged along behind it, until such a time as you untie yourself. Or it hits something, which is more likely.

You may also notice, if you walk through a door, and then back through, you may not always end up where you were originally. See, the plane has this tendency to expand. It rarely, if ever, consumes the other planes around it, but with the rules governing the Conservation of Energy being almost totally non existent, and energy being given but never lost, it seems there is a never ending increase in energy, which needs a place to go. And so the plane keeps expanding, with brand new hallways and rooms sometimes growing between spaces the size of a piece of paper, with doorways to rooms that existed, doorways to no-where, doorways leading back into the same room, doorways leading to themselves, and doorways that have new rooms just appearing. And the weird way that a doorway can lead to someplace entirely distant from it's location is just plain odd.

The surroundings are usually always the same though: All the walls, floors and roofs are made of packed earth, which may be of any thickness, digging through which may lead to any random room. But there is almost always light, despite there being no open skies, gleaming from half-unseeable runes that seem to disappear when you look at them, that are always there.

Sounds maddening. What kinds of people live there?
Totally sane ones. See, they've lived their whole lives with it, and so if you tried to tell them about a world where a door always led to one place, or where when you push something heavy, it stops moving when you stop pushing. There is very little contact between them and the "normal" planes, largely in part because what works in the Simulation may not work elsewhere, and vice versa, but beings of flesh and bone seem to have no actual trouble passing between.

There are population pockets of humans within the Simulation. They have vast population centers, where they live, trade, barter, and generally enjoy their existence. It is rare for a person to have a fixed abode, though. These cities, large as they are, have no doors. Instead, a building usually has three walls of canvas or fabrics, with further rooms being rare, and having open walls into the previous room. To do otherwise invites rooms to appear between those that otherwise exist, and doors to appear on walls intended to be left blank. Citizens pitch tents to prevent their homes becoming part of the next city over, and addresses change frequently. If a town or city is too large to fit in a single room, even if the room is large enough to support several thousand tents and buildings, it may end up separating and drifting apart. And so most people opt never to leave the room their tent is in.

While humans are common, and golems also rather common, Warforged are more common still, their artificial flesh being more resilient than a humans' flesh, but more reliable and less likely to fall victim to the Simulation's expansion than a golems' gears and compartments. There are elves, who have managed to cultivate tree cities within large open areas, and gnomes who live by tunneling between rooms and living vagabond lives. Dwarves exist only in legends, being remembered, but never seen in the Simulation. Something about it gives them all the creeps, and any who find themselves within it always leave at the first possible moment. Orcs and goblins may sometimes be encountered, but more often than not are unorganized.

Tell me more about Gravity, please?
It's simple: see that door in the floor? If you walk out of it, the floor is a wall, and that wall is a floor. If you step on a curve between floor and wall, they reverse being what they are, but it won't work for corners. If you land on a wall after a fall, it's the floor.
Not simple enough? OK.
Each object, person, or other thing has it's own perception of where "down" is. It's relative to how they entered the room they are in. So if you climbed up a ladder, the "wall" into which the ladder leads is the floor to you, the adjacent "walls" really are walls, and the opposite "wall" is your roof. Objects may be on those walls as if it were the floor to them, because they entered through a different door.
But your perception can change. If a floor has a gradual curve, so long as you keep walking on the curve, it remains the floor. Even if you end up 90o as to where you entered. If you get hit hard, or thrown, or otherwise travel some distance through the air, the first surface you hit is the floor to you. The surface you get put on is also down if you get picked up and set gently. Oddly enough, jumping is not like throwing, and you always come back to the floor you jumped from.

This means that a city may end up with tents and "buildings", farms and trees on all 6 surfaces, assuming it's in a cube. It may be in a cylinder, or a pyramid, or even in an irregular shape with "inside" corners. Loot may be just out of reach above you in a pit trap, a boulder may roll "up" a sloped wall to crush you from below, or roll sideways and just pass you by, and a lead balloon may really float upwards.

Where does the food come from?
If you skimmed the above, you may have missed that there are sometimes forests within a room, or farms. Most of the walls are made of packed dirt, and usually have mosses or grasses growing on them, or are muddy. And strange, inexplicable runes flash all over the surfaces of a room, never there when you look at them, but always there, giving out the light required for plants to grow, for eyes to see, for life to thrive.
Wheat, corns, and other grains are popular crops, although if a "roof" is rather low, you may end up with your vision obscured by them as the grow out of what seems to you to be the ceiling. And they can be used to make food that keeps for a long time, which is important if you get lost and separated.
Root crops, like potatoes, are not popular cultivated. You never know when the Simulations expansions may put a room between the stalk of your carefully planted crops, and the harvest. Such rooms have absolutely hugely long roots stretched across them, and sometimes have a harvest-able crop dangling from them, but the crop is usually on the far side of the room, still deep in the ground, probably with more rooms between yet. It is for this reason that such crops are not domesticated, although they are allowed to grow wild, and when someone reaches a center with wild root crops that they picked, they can sell them for a hefty profit.
Berries and vine crops grow in the wild quite easily, but with subjective gravity, it is hard to grow them on farms or orchards. Sometimes farmers find their vineyards have grown to the ceiling, rooted there, and then pulled their original roots out of the ground and out of reach when the room expanded, or that their apples are falling out of the tree to the ceiling.

Can you split the party?
If you never want to see each other again.
OK, the truth is, it's pretty hard to find each other, but not impossible. Even though expansion and room addition is pretty chaotic, and rooms may connect to rooms far, far away with no warning, they follow a pretty general pattern. If you need to find each other later, meet up at a city. while they may be hard to find, even if you just left, you should find one eventually, and there should be someone there capable of teleporting you to another city,so long as you know the name of the city you are going to.
But generally, without magical aid, you will probably never see them again.

What organizations will you find?
There are several small churches, and large ones, just like any churches in any generic setting. Some are larger, and many deities share temples, and they have monks, priests, clerics, and paladins.
Most cities have their own governments, some with kings and others just with a simple mayor. It's pretty impossible to rule the lands around a city, as at any point another city may wind up closer to those lands, but if there are enough mages capable of casting spells to transport people between cities, certain governments may form with several cities in their control, but the lands between remain lawless.
There are several demon worshiping cultists, with Baphomet the leading candidate, with their world as is resembling the layer of the abyss on which he resides to a degree.
Really, with the difficulty of holding an organization together, and endless expansion of the Simulation, there aren't any or many big ones, but you can probably find countless small ones.

How can you help?
I need tons more. I need more populations, I need major cities, I need specific groups, I need plot hooks specific to this world, and generic ones, I need monsters, I need ways to advance the theme that this all originated from a warforged long ago, I need more quirks in the physics (although not too many. We don't want to go messing in with the rules of the game too much), I need interesting ideas concerning exploits of this odd change, and I need "If-then-or maps".

"If-then-or maps"? what do I mean? I mean piles of notes and maps that I can put together to make what seems like an ever changing environment, but is really constant. I mean "If" the players do one of several things, "Then" this is the next room, "Or" if they don't, 'this' is how you decide what room they end up in and if they've been there before and how close it is.

Table of Contents:

Q/A:
#1 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11663552&postcount=5)
#2 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11668176&postcount=10)
#3 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11668632&postcount=12)
#4 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11676889&postcount=17)
#5 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11682214&postcount=22)
#6 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11691241&postcount=24)
#7 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11698468&postcount=26)
#8 (less than helpful?...) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11705266&postcount=30)
#9 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11705767&postcount=33)
#10 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11708674&postcount=35)
#11 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11710668&postcount=37)
#12 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11716138&postcount=39)
Response to #12 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11721668&postcount=42)
Anendum to #12 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11722978&postcount=43)
#13 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11736009&postcount=45)
#14 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11759834&postcount=62)
#15 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11775217&postcount=73)
#16 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11787602&postcount=85)
#17 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11793044&postcount=87)
#18 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=11873045#post11873045)
#19, by Hydroplatypus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11879067&postcount=101)
#20 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11882906&postcount=104)
#21 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11948811&postcount=118)
#22 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11948905&postcount=121)

Fluffy areas:
Kingdom of Cetchin + City of Stchatch (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11663552&postcount=5)
Finding the way (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11664595&postcount=7)
Respotle, the "Unchanging City" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11775154&postcount=71)
Amarath (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11776473&postcount=74) Viva la Government! Viva la Wealth!
Bronzed Teeth Fortress (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11784382&postcount=75), just to justify allowing a certain feat.
The Iron Caravan.
Ecariah's Garden (aka the Green Room) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11785556&postcount=78)
Akeron's Palace (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11877408&postcount=98)

Watchers of the Lost Part 1 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11757027&postcount=61)
Part 2 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11760863&postcount=63)
Anchors of Respotle Part 1 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11762987&postcount=66) (Unless a better name is found?)
Part 2 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11763060&postcount=67)

Akeron, wizard from the Prime (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11902990&postcount=106)

Plot Hooks:
#1-3 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11659166&postcount=3)
#4 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11664418&postcount=6)
#5 + 6 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11668992&postcount=13)
#6 (High level) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11674522&postcount=15)
#7 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11691241&postcount=24)
#8-11 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11721668&postcount=42)
#12 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11750876&postcount=48)
#12.5 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11750936&postcount=49)
#13-20 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11772301&postcount=68)

Crunchy Bits:
Nodal Teleport (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11705266&postcount=30)
Ranged fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11762102&postcount=65)
Akeron's spells (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11928022&postcount=108)

PbPs started:
#1, recruiting players + DM (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11754762&postcount=58)

Domriso

2011-08-17, 01:47 AM

hydroplatypus

2011-08-17, 08:33 AM

plot hooks: 1. someone has wandered away from [town party is in]. No one else wants to go find them for fear of getting lost. If only some brave adventurers could solve our problem.
2. There are some peaceful farmers in a fairly large room, but (subjectively) short room. Unfortunately there also seems to be a small group of orcs on the "roof" that are causing problems for the town. They are strong enough to throw each other onto the walls and our "floor" to raid us, while we can't do the same to them. Please brave adventurers help us.
3. A merchant has found a group of potatoes, but unfortunate there seems to be a [insert monster(s) here] in the same room. He needs someone to clear them out, and help with the harvest before the room moves.

Darkkwalker

2011-08-17, 02:35 PM

This looks like a really cool idea and I look forward to seeing more of it.
I would like to ask the question though, if I had say, a piece of wood that was gradually curved and I set it up in a corner, would I be able to walk on said piece of wood to get so that my wall is floor?

flabort

2011-08-17, 07:22 PM

Okay, I want to help. This sounds like a blast of a project, so I'll help how I can.

I'm a wee bit tired at the moment, but I'll get working on some of the odder physics of the world. I always love that stuff.

Well, I've worked out the major oddities, but anything will help. thanks, and get some rest :smalltongue:

plot hooks: 1. someone has wandered away from [town party is in]. No one else wants to go find them for fear of getting lost. If only some brave adventurers could solve our problem.

This is exactly the kind of plot hook I was thinking of. simple, potentially low level, and while you could refluff it to a forest, it's the kind that works best with this world.

2. There are some peaceful farmers in a fairly large room, but (subjectively) short room. Unfortunately there also seems to be a small group of orcs on the "roof" that are causing problems for the town. They are strong enough to throw each other onto the walls and our "floor" to raid us, while we can't do the same to them. Please brave adventurers help us.

While most farmers in such a room would usually have several of the walls as farm land, or would share a "room" with a city, this is an excellent hook. I like it.

3. A merchant has found a group of potatoes, but unfortunate there seems to be a [insert monster(s) here] in the same room. He needs someone to clear them out, and help with the harvest before the room moves.

Other wild root crops are valuable too, and if he's traveled to a city to tell them about it, and hire some hands, can he find his way back? While I liked your other hooks, this one is not so good, because if a merchant wants to hire someone to kill something, that will probably cost just a little more than a load of wild potatoes. But otherwise it works. If he found something else valuable, (too?), it would work.

This looks like a really cool idea and I look forward to seeing more of it.
I would like to ask the question though, if I had say, a piece of wood that was gradually curved and I set it up in a corner, would I be able to walk on said piece of wood to get so that my wall is floor?

Depends on how thick the wood is. I'd say yes, so long as it is at least 1/2 of a foot thick, and extended 10+ feet from each "wall". Or at least that large and capable of supporting you.

--------

Just starting to work on some specific places players MIGHT encounter, since their fairlyrelatively large.

The Kingdom of Cetchin
This small kingdom encompasses 7 cities and a few small towns. The capital city, named "Leduc", has a fairly large wizard's guild and academy, and the services the kingdom buys from them are the main reason the kingdom is as large as it is, one of the largest known in the Simulation, despite being fairly small. After the death of King Gerald the 3rd, known as the "Seeker" for his frequent explorations, this kingdom is currently under the rule of Prince Gerald the 4th, known as the "Famished" for his thin size, until his coming of age when he will become a proper King.
In each of the 7 major cities of Cetchin, there is an artifact devised by the wizard's guild, capable of transporting large groups to the locations of the other artifacts, but only once per day per destination and only so much can be transported at a time. Merchants pay a good deal of money to be in the groups heading to the other cities. These artifacts have another drawback as well: it takes almost four or five hours after disappearing from the location of one to reappear at the other. And the artifacts take up almost a 20x20 area each!
The smaller towns are held in Cetchin's rule only by the mayors of the town willing it to be so, and a resident small time wizard willing to dedicate all his time to transporting goods and people between the major cities and their own towns. Each town pledges allegiance to one of the six lords ruling over the major cities, and those lords all pledge allegiance to their sovereign leader. These small towns are fairly heavily taxed, as the major cities have run out of farming space and cannot sustain their own populations anymore, and so there are peasants quite willing to revolt if someone chooses to lead them.

The City of Stchatch
This city is one of the more famous, and numbers amongst the largest by far. It is ruled by a trio of "Queens", Schartsa, Stchethemv, and Schaltch. Schartsa is known as a powerful Cleric of Kord, Stchthemy is known as a powerful Artificer, and Schaltch is known to be a lich, although she once was, and still is, a powerful Bard.
Their city happens to have the fortune of being in a cube, with a massive out-jutting pillar in one wall that doesn't quite reach the other edge, capable of supporting the city's entire farmland, while the outside walls hold the populations. It is also home to one of the largest warforged-forges known in the Simulation, churning out the city's population of gaurdians, raiders, and farmers. Several of these leave to join the populations of other cities, or become adventurers, though. Besides warforged, several varieties of golem are also manufactured here.
Stchatch's most famous feature, though, is it's collection of drinks and alcohols, most brewed right in the city, and many brewed within the active chassis's and bodies of the warforged who tend the expansive vineyards and barley fields, and the bartenders who sell the drinks. It is an interesting experience to order a drink and have the bartender pour it from a compartment in it's arm. Having developed several varieties of alcohol and being such a hub for technology, the city boasts a fine population of gnomes.

hydroplatypus

2011-08-17, 09:48 PM

Another plot hook I thought of

One of the teleportation artifacts that you mentioned has broken down as they lack a special part/material that is quite rare. The adventurers are contracted to find this material. The reason that they don't have it? Why that would be the local tribe of [insert level appropriate baddie tribe] that currently controls the supply. How they controlled it I am too tired too think of, will edit if I think of a viable method later. Thus the adventurers have to go and get the material back.

Can easily be varied based on play style. If players are traditional hack and slash then have them just kill everything. If they are actually interested in negotiating perhaps the people who control it are not evil, but rather just morally ambiguous. Perhaps they just found a room big enough to sustain their tribe, and so occupied the area without knowing about the resource.

Will probably post more tomorrow.

flabort

2011-08-17, 10:20 PM

cool; I'd imagine that the packed-earth walls would sometimes have un-covered veins of metals (where else would they come from? Digging is unreliable) and gems, some rare ones having magical properties.

---------

I just figured out a way to be able to make navigable routes. Paint/carve/whatever lines in the ground, color coded or whatever so you can tell where one leads, and have them pass through all the doors in a route, such as to a known supply of a rare material. When a room appears between two rooms, it will have atleast 2 doorways, each with a line visible on the other side. Simple solution, is if you find the line has been disconnected, find the other end (only rarely will it be impossible to find because there's yet another room) and reconnect them. If you can't reach it the other end, build a wooden curve, or make a curved pile of dirt or something, so that you can.
It's discourteous not to reconnect a line you're following, but since it's a known route, and leads somewhere, if you want to travel by non-magical means or get lost, just find and follow one of these lines. This means that getting lost is not as dire a situation.

Later I might make a PrC and/or organization dedicated to creating and maintaining paths and routes through the Simulation, but for now we'll just say merchants and other travelers made and maintain most of them.

---------

I'm thinking we may have to overhaul the Ranged Combat rules for this setting. First step: Get rid of maximum range increments. Shots and throws don't get weaker as they go, and can end up any distance.
While that is more of a mechanical than fluff discussion, I may point out that because of the odd physics, ranged combat is going to be much more effective? And so the Ranged Combat rules need to be un-nerfed?

Qwertystop

2011-08-18, 12:31 PM

This is awesome.

I have advice: Make some materials change size. Since any closed compartment can be considered a room, highly porous materials have a tendency to inflate enormously.

Also: Make some oddnesses in people's minds. Maybe sometimes, the runes in an area all flash purple, and everyone becomes highly suggestible (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/suggestion.htm) for a week while they try to comprehend what the strange change was. An odd flicker could mess people up a lot if it is truly omnipresent otherwise. Think of how the main character tried to understand color in The Giver, but moreso.

Domriso

2011-08-18, 12:44 PM

Now, any door can lead to somewhere completely random, yes? What about closed containers? If you have a small box, will it sometimes lead to a random hallway so you can't use it anymore? What about if the fighter carried around a door connected to a box? Would it potentially have a hallway appear in it?

These are just some of the aspects I've been thinking of while trying to wrap my brain around how life would be here.

flabort

2011-08-18, 01:27 PM

Good Questions/comments.

@ Master256:
Yes, porous materials could expand like that, I'd imagine. Obsidian or sponges could eventually fill a room as the pockets inside expand, and of course the solids would expand to keep it stable (incomplete formulas in the original simulation again), but of course the rooms their in expand too. Perhaps people tend to just not go where porous materials lie, though?

Well, the runes do have odd powers, though they only rarely manifest. Of the rare few who have the ability to look at them and see them, some say they are the lingering consciousness of the warforged whom the Simulation originated within. And so maybe rarely the runes could make someone suggestible. But not often. That would be a 8th-12th level plot-hook.
But there are rooms in which the runes do not shine, usually in great bunches, and people accept that as normal, too. That's why torches were invented. But often times, such darkened places are where people bury, or at least leave, their dead, out of superstition that dead left in the Light can get up and walk again. They usually leave the dead's fondest treasures with them, too, since they believe an angry soul can be appeased with what gave them joy in life.

@ Domriso:
While it's difficult to determine where a door will lead, it's not entirely random. The same door always leads to the same spot, until the Simulation's expansion puts another room between them. And you'll still be able to get to the spot it lead to before by going through the new room. Not completely random, but pretty difficult, yes.

Your box may suddenly sprout a room in it's middle, which is not quite what you're asking, but close. So you'll have a small door into a small-large room or hallway, and elsewhere in the same room is an equally small door with your stuff in it. It's not worth using boxes in the simulation because of this. Instead, most people opt for cloth bags.

Er... Your fighter could carry around a large slab of rock or some other solid material with a door in one side, which would always lead to a certain room, until, again, expansion slots another room in between. But yes, it could spontaneously gain a hallway "inside" it, although it would also more likely be situated elsewhere, and the doors just connected like portals.

Domriso

2011-08-18, 02:06 PM

flabort

2011-08-18, 02:29 PM

Right, right, I didn't mean to make it sound like the doors just went to random places, just that, if you have a closed container, will it eventually possibly house a hallway or small room.
Yes, yes.

Now, all I can imagine now are places that I would Nexus's. A Nexus would be a room, likely one of the smaller rooms, more like a normal room in a real-world house, or maybe a library set up, where people just collect doorways. I mean, a room filled with doors, where each one will lead to some new kind of room or hallway? What better place for a crossroads?

Well, a lot of rooms are nexus's. A room, on average, will have 2+ doors, a city may have almost 50 doors. And sometimes a room will gain a doorway it didn't have. But most rooms will only have 2-4 doors, and there are a LOT of rooms. And some rooms will have 2 or more doors to the same room, or connect to themselves. So while yes, there are nexus's, there aren't many. And trust me, no-one want's a nexus in their house. imagine all the strangers just traipsing through your house.

Now, another question. Let's say that I have a box with a lid. It one day has a room appear inside the box. Can the room be larger than the box? Is it essentially a moving portal? Does the portal disappear if I smash the box? What is the box leads to a hallway; does the hallway have another entrance on the other side, or does it just have a hallway that attaches to my box?

Yes to most of the stuff. The box will function as a moving portal. If you dig a hole, it will function as a portal. The room can be much larger than the box, it can even be the size of the city of Stchatch. Assuming your box had a space inside it before, the hallway will for sure have another entrance to that space, so you can still access it, and it may have doors or entrances to other rooms.

If you smash the box... :smalleek: You get a Paradox Door, or a "surface" with two doors. I'm glad you asked, or I'd have never thought of it. If the lid and enough of the box remain around the lid, the door functions as normal, but the Simulation makes another door somewhere, to which the OTHER SIDE OF THE LID links. If you thoroughly destroy the box, you get a Paradox Door. This is the door to which the box's lid previously linked. Walking through still leads to where the box was... but there's no way back, and there's this fuzzy tingly dusty glowy stuff around the area where the box's lid [/i]was[/i].

Also, you don't need a lid. The frame functions as a portal or doorway just fine.

I can see all sorts of fun that could be had with small boxes, especially if there were smaller races living in this place. Can you imagine a race of diminutive or fine humanoids running around, building their own tiny societies by making little doors all over the place?

Gnomes already dig around, which makes doorways to various rooms, although they just live traveler's/vagabond's lives. So, in part, yes. Yes I can imagine a race that makes doors all over the place.

-------------

I figured I'd post a link to part of the inspiration for this, if it clears anything up:
Portals as a Gameplay Mechanism. (http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Portals_as_a_gameplay_mechanism)

hydroplatypus

2011-08-18, 03:22 PM

Another plot hook idea

Someone has mistakenly entered the simulation. Them being well trained (mid level NPC) this was not a problem at first, until he realized that the chest that he was carting around (which contained a valuable object Plot hook :smalltongue:) has grown several new rooms while he was trying to figure out what happened. He tried entering himself but [level appropriate monsters] have taken up residence in the intervening rooms. He is thus hiring adventurers to help him retrieve what was formerly in the chest.

Another one

Similarly to above NPC loses somthing inside a chest blah blah blah... except that instead of level appropriate monsters the chest opens into a village. None of the villagers are hostile, but the NPC says that he say someone running away with his object. He has had no luck figuring out who has stolen this, but is hiring outside help to find his item.

Domriso

2011-08-18, 10:29 PM

Wait... a frame by itself works as a portal? So what about arches? If I build a free standing arch, does a portal to a random location pop up, each side leading somewhere new? What happens if I build a line of arches, each an inch apart, down a hallway?

Also, can these rooms that pop up ever intersect each other? As in, could it be possible to build a door frame that then subsequently develops a hallway leading out of it, then move said door frame and stick it in the hallway, using the other entrance to the hallway to smuggle it in? I mean, how would that even work? Could you line the doorway up with its own entrance? And what would happen if you stuck the wrong side up against it, so that walking through the doorway led you to the doorway, which led you to the doorway, which led you to the doorway, ad infinititum?

...Actually, in that last example, if it works that way, it could be an ingenious way to trap an invincible baddie: trapped in a doorway forever.

hydroplatypus

2011-08-19, 10:20 AM

...Actually, in that last example, if it works that way, it could be an ingenious way to trap an invincible baddie: trapped in a doorway forever.

That would be an awesome trap... High level quest idea: the tarrasque (or other suitably invincible creature) was formerly trapped in said door trap, but has recently been released by someone who accidentally moved the door. The PCs have to kill it.

Edit: Also these mobile portals could also be used to make a mass transit system if the ends can be moved separately. Think about it. A wizard has teleport, and can travel between cities using it. He finds a door leading to city A. He walks through and finds opposing door. He takes said door and moves it to city B by teleport. Voila easy transport between cities. Now this would be fairly short lived due to expansion, but if both sides of doors are separately mobile then a maintenance crew could update the passage every so often to keep it viable by moving one end, so only a few rooms (with painted lines) actually separate them again. Mabye an interesting quest is for the PCs to find the other end of a passage like this that hasn't been used in a while.

Ninjadeadbeard

2011-08-19, 12:54 PM

Since navigation would be a little more than difficult here, one would think some wizard should have invented a magic compass. It could point you towards whichever door will lead you closer to your intended destination, but it occassionally gets confused or has a set number of uses per day.

So while yes, there are nexus's, there aren't many. And trust me, no-one want's a nexus in their house. imagine all the strangers just traipsing through your house.

Hotels could make great nexus' (nexi?). Even one could have hundreds of doors, hundreds of connections with [level appropriate monsters] wandering the halls. It could make an interesting duneon at least.

flabort

2011-08-19, 03:53 PM

A note on the mobile doors thing: There has to be an enclosed space, such as a box; a thick surface, such as a wall; or one of these previously behind the door for expansion to put a new room behind it.
Basically, a doorway needs a thick enough "anchor" to work.

So if you built a decorative arch, or if all the outside edges of the arch touched a wall, a new room behind the arch or between the "halves" of the room created by an arch may form. But a free-standing arch won't form a room, unless you had a solid surface in it's center, in which case then it might form two rooms.

I've stated before that, yes, a door in a room can lead to another door in the same room. You don't even have to smuggle a portable door in for it to work. There will usually be another door, or more, in the room too, but...
Wait, sticking doorways together like that?! Well, a door-frame does have some width, but... I'd rule your front end would end up uncomfortably close to your back end, and there'd only be as much moving-room as in a tightly packed Mosh Pit. Yeah, you'd be trapped, until A) the door frame is moved, or B) the doors produce another room "between" them, giving you more space and likely another doorway to escape through.

I do see what you guys mean with the mobile doorways to keep a path short, but: unfortuneatley when you make a mobile door, and it expands into a room, the door on the other side is not mobile too. it's anchored in fairly solid ground, rather than a mobile board. Such a system would work more like this:
someone builds a frame on a solid backing (basically a large, flat box with no lid), so that it eventually links up with a door somewhere. This could be a room's walls expanding some, and "unearthing" a doorway, which connects to the portable door, or a new room spawning. If it just so happens to connect to a city, or a door in the new room connects to a city, he brings his portable door to another city. This could happen, what, 1/2^32 times someone makes their own portable door?
Great idea, but it wouldn't work.

Hotels would not make as great of Nexi as you'd think. While they may have some solid walls with doorways in them in the foyer, or just outside the hotel, to attract customers, the grand majority of the walls in such an establishment would all be made of cloth with a metal skeleton to hold it up, so that the rooms don't drift away, and that people don't use the facilities without paying.

Domriso

2011-08-19, 10:45 PM

flabort

2011-08-19, 10:53 PM

Okay, now, I'm no entirely clear on why rooms would drift away. Rooms themselves don't get bigger, right? Portals will just spawn as passageways to new rooms? So, why wouldn't a Nexus work as a sort of metaphysical crossroads?

Rooms do get bigger. I thought I stated this several times.
They'd "drift" away, because there's more/larger rooms between them.
I'm not entirely clear what the third sentence/second question means.
A Nexus would work, but it'd be confusing and avoided. Inns/hotels as nexi wouldn't, because the material their made of doesn't allow for doors (flaps in the fabric, in this case) to become portals.

Domriso

2011-08-19, 11:35 PM

You might have, but I either didn't understand or somehow missed it. I'll take the blame for this one.

Okay, so the physical rooms themselves do actually get larger over time. So, a Nexus wouldn't be terribly useful, because... why? I'm still not understanding. Let me try to explain what I'm picturing here.

You have a 20x20x20 foot room. It's not terribly big, but big enough. It has one doorway leading to it, which comes out in the center of the room. Now, Alspar, a Gnome, decides he wants a Nexus, so he builds another door on each wall. Above each door, on the frame, he labels them in a complicated numbering system that will assure he has a large base to work with. He also keeps a notebook which details where each doorway leads, once a portal pops up.

Now, these doorways might not go anywhere especially helpful, but they do go somewhere, and thus can be used as directions. Alspar spends a long period of time trying to make sure that he keeps his doors in pristine condition.

Then, the unthinkable happens. The room housing his doors expands. Suddenly, one morning, it is 100x50x50 feet, being much larger, and especially much taller. Alspar, seeing so much room, and realizing his original doors are now floating halfway up the wall, builds a ladder system leading to each doorway. However, since he also now has a lot more room, he creates several new doors, six on each wall (two next to each other, two above that, two above that), building out ladders and platforms for access. He even, after much difficulty, makes a platform system, so you can walk across the floors. He labels each door, finds where they go, and continues to keep track of the doors and where they go.

Finally, one of the doors suddenly leads to a city. Excited, he makes his door recognizable, and he gets some helpers. With their help, they make the doors in the Nexus even more appeasing, and easier to get to. As the room keeps expanding, they keep building new doors, and revising their maps, so that people can use the Nexus as easily as possible.

Is there something wrong with that notion? Do the rooms expand all at once, or slowly over time, or a little of both (growth spurts?)?

As for my second question in the last post you didn't understand, what I was asking was, when you build a new portal, it will magically develop a room or hallway on the opposite side, right? Or, in other words, if you build a portal, it will eventually lead somewhere, correct?

I'm sorry if I come off as rude (or annoying); I'm just trying to understand what I'm working with, so I can try to make things which are interesting and useful.

hydroplatypus

2011-08-20, 06:41 AM

You might have, but I either didn't understand or somehow missed it. I'll take the blame for this one.

Okay, so the physical rooms themselves do actually get larger over time. So, a Nexus wouldn't be terribly useful, because... why? I'm still not understanding. Let me try to explain what I'm picturing here.

You have a 20x20x20 foot room. It's not terribly big, but big enough. It has one doorway leading to it, which comes out in the center of the room. Now, Alspar, a Gnome, decides he wants a Nexus, so he builds another door on each wall. Above each door, on the frame, he labels them in a complicated numbering system that will assure he has a large base to work with. He also keeps a notebook which details where each doorway leads, once a portal pops up.

Now, these doorways might not go anywhere especially helpful, but they do go somewhere, and thus can be used as directions. Alspar spends a long period of time trying to make sure that he keeps his doors in pristine condition.

Then, the unthinkable happens. The room housing his doors expands. Suddenly, one morning, it is 100x50x50 feet, being much larger, and especially much taller. Alspar, seeing so much room, and realizing his original doors are now floating halfway up the wall, builds a ladder system leading to each doorway. However, since he also now has a lot more room, he creates several new doors, six on each wall (two next to each other, two above that, two above that), building out ladders and platforms for access. He even, after much difficulty, makes a platform system, so you can walk across the floors. He labels each door, finds where they go, and continues to keep track of the doors and where they go.

Finally, one of the doors suddenly leads to a city. Excited, he makes his door recognizable, and he gets some helpers. With their help, they make the doors in the Nexus even more appeasing, and easier to get to. As the room keeps expanding, they keep building new doors, and revising their maps, so that people can use the Nexus as easily as possible.

Combined with OPs idea of using painted lines to maintain routes this nexus might be quite useful. If a nexus maker can connect 2 cities by chance, or mabye by finding an already painted path then his nexus just became useful, as a passage between cities. Granted this might not be too likely as cities will be far apart, but mabye he connects a city with surrounding villages, which provide trade goods to the city and vise versa. I assume there are many villages in this world, and as such the chances of a nexus eventually running into a painted path (or village) is greatly increased.

flabort

2011-08-20, 01:25 PM

There is nothing wrong with what you described. Nexi are just inefficient because it's so hard to keep track of where they go. There may be some near an inn in the off chance someone wanders into it, but while a group of people could keep track of the Nexi, and where it leads, you do need a group of people.

Rooms grow slowly, but with growth spurts some times, yes. Not that drastic, and when it grows usually doors stay adjacent to their "floor". But by constructing platforms, sometimes a door will appear on or beside the platform.

Remember, doors can also show up on any wall in the room, so your gnome may end up with a door in the floor, or doors on the bottom of his platform system.

When you build a doorway, it does have to have a wall in/behind it, but it will probably, eventually form a room/hallway, or link to a door in a room that already existed. So yes, it will eventually lead somewhere.

You don't come off as annoying or rude, don't worry. Those questions are necessary to ask, or no-one would come up with the answers, and people would always be confused as to those matters. Clarifying and explaining now will make it so that the DM has less work to do when explaining it later. :smallsmile:

hydroplatypus

2011-08-20, 08:07 PM

Some questions about room expansion. First: do rooms expand only when no one is looking, or do they occasionally expand with people still in them? If you were in a room with the relevant door open when it expanded what would it look like? (probably a plot hook in here somewhere, but I can't find it:smallsigh:). Also what would happen if someone was passing through a door while a room was created? would half of them be in one room and half in another... Obviously insta-killing a PC wouldn't work, but mabye doing it to an NPC to spark a quest? Probably more Questions to come but this is it for now.

flabort

2011-08-21, 09:45 PM

Oooh, love your questions. I'll do my best to answer.

Some questions about room expansion. First: do rooms expand only when no one is looking, or do they occasionally expand with people still in them?
Well, it's always expanding, so it does when people are looking. But, maybe at an inch every hour or six? Growth spurts never happen when someone's looking, and they can grow at about 5 feet/.5 hour?

If you were in a room with the relevant door open when it expanded what would it look like?
The room on the other side grows... fuzzy, momentarilly, and the boundary between seems to "stretch" and turn black, and fall away (Outwards, to form the shape of the room). Color returns into the material, revealing the new room. The far room, the one that was there before, may have "turned" when the walls were "falling away", and be out of sight, but if it still is, it refocuses.

(probably a plot hook in here somewhere, but I can't find it:smallsigh:).
Wizard wants to find out why a room never experiences a growth spurt when someone's looking. Sends party to investigate with various scrying devices. Party discovers evil plot by <insert BBEG> while using them to find out. Party never observes growth spurt in action, results are inconclusive.

Also what would happen if someone was passing through a door while a room was created? would half of them be in one room and half in another... Obviously insta-killing a PC wouldn't work, but mabye doing it to an NPC to spark a quest? Probably more Questions to come but this is it for now.

I was asking myself the same question when reading your other ones. You'd end up very... stretched. You would look like a puddle of skin stretched between two rooms with powdered bones and muscle leaking out, and no recognizable features at any point. The forces keeping most of one half of you in one, and most of the other half in another would stretch your skin so far, it would squish everything inside of it into a complete pulp.

No, I wouldn't use it to spark a quest. You could, if it were an especially horror/gore themed campain, but I wouldn't recommend adding a room while one of your Players' character is standing in a door, or while an NPC is either.
If a player states "I stand in the doorway indefinitely to see what happens", try to convince him otherwise, to avoid describing the above, but if he insists, say the world's creator said to tell him/her that his character would come out deformed for the act. If he insists, kill him (I mean his character! put that knife down! :smalltongue:).

ForzaFiori

2011-08-21, 11:53 PM

Alright, some thoughts. Also, if this gets big enough to have a campaign, I'd love to be a player.

1) on Nexi: While they may be useful for a small while, I doubt many doors would stay useful long. Something like the following might happen.

Gnomey the Gnome has a 20' square room. He came in through the door in the "north" wall, which is two rooms away from a city. Amazingly, the "west" wall has another door, to another city. He sets up a nexus, carefully labeling where each door goes, and trying to encourage other doors to set up.

A week later, he opens the door to the second city to find a new room! that's ok though, he redraws his line to the city that's now a room away, and life goes another. 2 days later, the other city moves a room away, so now it's 3 rooms away.

In a month, the first city is 10 rooms away, the other 6, and there are much faster routes between the two. Gnomey goes out of business (unless a town sprung up in is [now probably larger] room)

2: On doors: Not sure how the infinite trap would work. See the spoiler for details.
Side A of door one leads to side B. Side B of door two [the one that you can see in the room where you can see side B of door 1] leads to Side C (each room is labeled for the door that it is VISIBLE in, so the doors would be as follows. The rooms are in brackets, doors abbreviated to D[door number]S[side letter, and the dashes between room sides show you going form one side to another without anything between them, either because they are next to each other, or part of the same door:

[roomA]D1SA-D1SB[roomB]D2SB-D2SC[roomC].

You move Door 1 so that its side A is against door 2's side C, and you have the following:
D2SB-D2SC-D1SA-D1SB[roomB]D2SB-D2SC-D1SA-D1SB, repeat. Since there is a room in the loop, there will be another door spawning eventually, therefor it's not an eternal trap.

If you put D1SB against D2SC, you get:
[roomA]D1SA-D1SB-D2SC-D2SB[RoomB] and then I'm not sure what happens, since the other door in this room isn't there. However, you'd be at side where door 2 originally was.

If you put D1SA against D2SB, you get the same as above, except room C is locked in, and the door to A is missing.

If you put D1SB against D2SB, all you do is delete room B.

I hope that made sense.

3) this is REALLY epic.

flabort

2011-08-22, 09:27 PM

1) Yes. I have said that while a Nexus would be possible, it would be inefficient, for that very reason.

2) Took me a while to puzzle out what you were saying.
D1SA is in Room A, and D1SB is in room B, right? and therefor D2SB is in room B and D2SC is in room C? Let me reword your... examples? for my own benefit.

If D1SA was portable, putting it against D2SC would result in, when someone walks through D1SB they go into D2SC, and out of D2SB; Resulting in ending up elsewhere in the same room. [roomB]D1SB-D1SA[Gap betweeen doors]D2SC-D2SB[RoomB]
Putting D1SA against D2SB instead means that when you walk in D1SB, you come out D2SC; Resulting in heading to the same room (C from B) from a different door. [Room B]D1SB-D1SA[Gap between doors]D2SB-D2SC[RoomC]
If D1SB was portable and put against D2SB... You would effectively remove room B from the path from room A to room C, but room B still exists. Any other doors inside the room still lead into it.

Now for an answer:

Putting D1SA against D1SB is the "infinite door trap" that was mentioned. The space between the doors ([SpaceBetween]D1SA-D1SB[SameSpaceBetween]D1SA-D1SB[Still the same space between], etc.) is where the tarrasque is effectively trapped.

Unfortunately, the dash in D1SA-D1SB is where a new room may form, resulting in Room D, turning it into D1SA-D1SD, and D3SD-D3SB. If the doors were together, the result would be [Space]D1SA-D1SD[Room D]D3SD-D3SB[Space], where the tarrasque could exit from door 4, which formed inside Room D when it appeared.

3)Thank you :smallsmile: I do intend for this to be big enough to make a campaign in it, and if any DM is willing to run a game in this world, as un-fleshed-out as it is, and write a campaign journal logging any locations and people they described, or posted a link to the PbP (If their that kind of DM), I'd probably/maybe take a lot/some of the stuff they put in and add it to canon. Stuff like minor/major cities and minor organizations.
But until we re-vamp a couple mechanics to work for the altered physics of the world, it might not be very easy.

Lady Serpentine

2011-08-23, 09:02 AM

Hm. So, would a nexus be more effective if one were to use a room with a single doored wall, and the rest cloth?

hydroplatypus

2011-08-23, 07:00 PM

I would say that if maintained (say by a group of 20 people) a nexus would still be useful. Due to the changing nature of the simulation people would rarely explore, making every identified route between cities very important. A nexus (if constructed) would likely have routes to several cities. (If it connects 3 or fewer it isn't really a nexus as I imagine it, so for discussion say a nexus connects 4+ population centers).

Now as the simulation expands the distance that exists between rooms would likely expand, but if the painted lines connecting the cities are maintained then the nexus will be useful for a long time, as the routes exist and are marked. Now there probably exist shorter routes between the cities after a few days/weeks/months/whatever, but the chances of people actually knowing these routes is very low. Think about it, if you can already travel through the nexus to City B then why would you go out and look for a shorter route. Even in a months old nexus the routes will not be to long assuming the growth spurts are rare. Please provide info on frequency of spurts.

Nexus route expiration explanation.

flabort posted that usual rate of growth is 1 inch every hour or 6. Assume average growth is 1 inch/hour outside of spurts,and spurts are too rare to factor into average calculations (or are canceled out by 1inch/6hours growth periods).

This gives 2feet/day/room from normal growth. Assume that there is one room between cities and nexus to begin with, and a room has to be 20 feet by 20 feet before creating an intervening room. (yes it might create a room prior to that, but there is also a chance that this room is a side passage, and doesn't lengthen the passage. Thus I am arbitrarily taking this to be average room size when it spawns another.). These further intervening rooms would also be problematic in that they also grow, and therefore we have a situation of exponential growth on our hands:smalleek:...

These assumptions give 10 days for a room to grow before spawning another room. basically distance between cities doubles every 10 days with a starting length of 20 feet. This comes out to about 15.5 miles after 4 months. This is still easily traversable if well maintained, as it only takes a little over a day at 15feet/round, which is lowest realistic move speed. After this the original route becomes more unusable as time goes on due to the effects of exponential growth (wow that kicks in quick:smallbiggrin:). That being said 4 months (give or take) of time for a traversable route is still pretty good.

This gives a route about 4 months of usable time. Short, but a smart nexusmaker could easily remedy that. Those explorers that occasionally go out to search for routes, what are they more likely to find? a completely new route between the same 2 places, or a route between his city and a place somewhere along one of the nexus' paths? In this way shorter paths that (usually) connect the nexus to the cities are constantly being found, which if the nexus maker hires enough explorers will easily outpace growth of the passages. This is even greater if the rooms and how they link follows any pattern at all, as smart explorers will find these shorter routes even faster. In this manner a nexus will be useful for a long time, until the cities cannot find enough new passages to keep the nexus functional. This would likely take a long time, allowing a nexus to be useful, and thus exist... At least in my opinion.

Also I just realized that regular teleport will not be too useful in the simulation. 100miiles/caster level isn't too far in this environment. suppose there is a 9th level wizard who can cast teleport to go 900 miles. I have calculated (using spoilered assumptions) that after 179 days he will be unable to teleport to somthing that formerly had 1 room seperating them. an 18th level wizard will have double the standard teleport distance and will therefore have 189 days before standard teleport doesn't work. Curse you exponential growth.

Questions:
1. how often do spurts happen?
2. how many wizards capable of casting greater teleport (including those that can cast it through items, summons etc.) exist? This will have a great effect on transportation networks, due to expansion. Also important as the limitations of standard teleport are discussed above.

ForzaFiori

2011-08-23, 07:09 PM

An additional thing to consider that would probably make the nexus useful for longer is that since it would become a transport hub, towns are likely to grow on it's routes. So while town A might be really far away, town B sprouted up in between the two, making the Nexus still useful.

flabort

2011-08-23, 08:21 PM

Well... Your estimations/calculations are pretty accurate, especially considering the lack of data to work with. This extra data may throw them off, though.

Yes, growth spurts are rare... But, say, once every month, for 5-15 feet. This means that in four rooms, one of them will on average have a spurt each week. In 30/31 rooms, one of them is probably having a growth spurt on any given day.

When a room "spawns", it goes through an initial "growth spurt" that puts it between 5x5x10 and 30x30x30. An intervening room on the path would probably spawn when a room grows by 15x15x05 or more, so I'd say the average room size of 20x20 that you estimated is pretty accurate.

Wizards capable of Greater Teleport... Usually 1 or 2 /Major city (Not Tippyverse, but rather high magic), and each village or small city may have a wizard capable of Teleport, or maybe greater. But they have an extra spell, one that requires a "node" to be set up (By multiple casters at once), that lets them 'port to that node. Teleport is 5th, Greater is 7th, but their "Node" 'port is only 4th. This means that if the caster has been to the city in which the node was set up, and knows it as the target's destination, they can send that person there. It has a longer range than Teleport, but it's not limitless.

Here's a rough write up of the spell and required spell:
Create Teleportation Node
Conjuration (Teleportation)
Sor/Wiz 6
Components: V, S
Casting time: 15 minutes
Range: Touch (Objects only)
Duration: Instantaneouse
Saving throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

This spell creates a node at the location of the touched object for use with Nodal Teleport, a permanent fixture to which any caster capable of casting Nodal Teleport that has viewed and memorized the composition of it can return to by casting such a spell. Casting this spell requires multiple casters to cast it at once on the same target. No caster involved in the casting retains the spell slot in which they cast this, unless they do not use spell slots.

The target distance of the Nodal Teleport spell is affected by how many casters are involved in the casting of this spell. It has an effective range of 50 miles per caster level per caster (For example, if 2 10th level casters and a 13th level caster created a node with this spell, casters up to 1,650 miles away could teleport to this node)

Nodal Teleport
Conjuration (Teleportation)
Sor/Wiz 4

This spell functions as Teleport, except that teleported creatures or objects may only travel to nodes created by Create Teleportation Node that the caster has studied for half an hour or more, and has a maximum distance determined by the Node.

Eledragon

2011-08-23, 08:55 PM

hmm....how would this all look to people standing outside of this existence? say the gods (who horribly messed creation up, and can't even enter it now) watch the rooms forming from the outside of the rooms? is there some sort of primordial soup? is it the warforged that instigated this world in legend? is it just some endless void that is always expanding due to the rooms? and how do the rooms themselves look? are they just cubes/prism's that are not connected to anything at all, but portals just make connections to other floating cubes or make new floating cubes?

and how do the rooms look on the inside? assuming they aren't dirt, y'know. I was imagining them as this pristine white (seeing as how the flavor text suggests that a robot made this reality), or could they easily be made out of anything, ranging from dirt to adamantine? are there any effects to a room, if any, when dug outside predetermined depth due to growth? what happens when you build a building too high, and it hits the ceiling when a spire is slammed into place? does the whole thing come crashing up?

wow, lots o' questions. I like this idea. :smallbiggrin:

hydroplatypus

2011-08-23, 08:56 PM

Yes, growth spurts are rare... But, say, once every month, for 5-15 feet. This means that in four rooms, one of them will on average have a spurt each week. In 30/31 rooms, one of them is probably having a growth spurt on any given day.

OK these spirts change average rate of increase to 2.5 feet/day/room, not counting initial spirt. Will calculate and post in a bit.

When a room "spawns", it goes through an initial "growth spurt" that puts it between 5x5x10 and 30x30x30. An intervening room on the path would probably spawn when a room grows by 15x15x05 or more, so I'd say the average room size of 20x20 that you estimated is pretty accurate.

I see a problem with this. If a room has an initial spirt that takes it to above 20x20, which is fairly common by the above #s then rooms start spawning ridiculously fast. A new room would be created every 2 hours unless the initial spurt stops. This makes any form of navigation between rooms impossibble, so you may want to either make the initial spurt stop sooner, or make the size where an intervening room is created larger. We need a state of small, almost non-existant expansion so people can move around. Imagine adventuring at level 3 and being away for a day. now imagine that on average 2^12 rooms stand between you and your start point... at that point the rooms expand faster than you can walk so it is actually impossible to get back.

Wizards capable of Greater Teleport... Usually 1 or 2 /Major city (Not Tippyverse, but rather high magic), and each village or small city may have a wizard capable of Teleport, or maybe greater. But they have an extra spell, one that requires a "node" to be set up (By multiple casters at once), that lets them 'port to that node. Teleport is 5th, Greater is 7th, but their "Node" 'port is only 4th. This means that if the caster has been to the city in which the node was set up, and knows it as the target's destination, they can send that person there. It has a longer range than Teleport, but it's not limitless.

Here's a rough write up of the spell and required spell:
Create Teleportation Node
Conjuration (Teleportation)
Sor/Wiz 6
Components: V, S
Casting time: 15 minutes
Range: Touch (Objects only)
Duration: Instantaneouse
Saving throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

This spell creates a node at the location of the touched object for use with Nodal Teleport, a permanent fixture to which any caster capable of casting Nodal Teleport that has viewed and memorized the composition of it can return to by casting such a spell. Casting this spell requires multiple casters to cast it at once on the same target. No caster involved in the casting retains the spell slot in which they cast this, unless they do not use spell slots.

The target distance of the Nodal Teleport spell is affected by how many casters are involved in the casting of this spell. It has an effective range of 50 miles per caster level per caster (For example, if 2 10th level casters and a 13th level caster created a node with this spell, casters up to 1,650 miles away could teleport to this node)

Nodal Teleport
Conjuration (Teleportation)
Sor/Wiz 4

This spell functions as Teleport, except that teleported creatures or objects may only travel to nodes created by Create Teleportation Node that the caster has studied for half an hour or more, and has a maximum distance determined by the Node.

OK wiz with greater teleport are going to enable transport as well as high value item trade between cities. Good for high level adventure, or as plot starters. Nodal teleport is useful, but in here it suffers same limitations as teleport. By my original (outdated, will revise later) equations even when supplied by 10 level 20 casters the nodes are useful for only 210 days, or 7 months, give or take. The additional info only seems to speed up expansion, making it even less useful.

I have recently however come up with 2 possible methods of fixing this transportation mess.

Method 1: slow down expansion. Basically keep bursts, but make them rarer, and slow down default rate of expansion. Would make adventuring easier, transportation viable for longer, and generally make the world useful.

Method 2: The simulation is a higher dimensional construct. Basically the space that the rooms expand into doesn't expand the simulation in the traditional sense. Basically the rooms function kinda like bags of holding, without the drawbacks. The distances, and therefore teleport distances remain constant, but new areas are constantly being created. As long as someone has a mage it doesn't really matter how fast expansion actually happens, as they can still teleport back. Basically it makes all my equations irrelevent to teleportation.

I prefer a combination of both methods. Of course if you disaprove feel free to ignore these suggestions.

Edit: New equation

New equation

0.00378 x 2^([1/6]t) = d
6 x [log(d/0.00378)/log(2)] = t

0.00378 is 20 feet converted into miles. this is assuming an initial seperation of 1 20x20x20 room.

[1/6]t is the time in days that the simulation has been running from initial start of equation. The assumptions made for this is initial burst stops at 5x5x5, and that the room has to expand 15 more feet before another room pops up. at 2.5 feet/day it takes 6 days to cover this, so t will be the # of days the equation has been running.

d is the walking distance between them if the initial path is the one being followed. Shorter distances may have popped up but they are ignored, only the one path is examined. As it stands d is also distance for determining teleportation, correct me if this is wrong... Hey mabye telepot is based on shortest possible distance, so if a shorter path appears it allows teleportation, even if the initial path doesn't.

Using said equation (and assuming method 2 not used)

assuming 9th level caster he can teleport between cities A and B for
107.2 days

Assuming node set up with 10 lvl 20 casters
128.0 days

These numbers seem to short for making a good setting. I would reccommend making teleportation valid for years (ideally large # of years), in order for this setting to work.

flabort

2011-08-23, 09:33 PM

My clarifications seem to have... un-clarified things.
Sorry, durring the initial spurt durring which a room is created, it doesn't spawn any rooms. And then it takes the time you had previously mentioned ( this is what I meant by "the average of 20x20 you mentioned") to spawn another room from the first (10 days).

Also, the Simulation already is a.... somewhat higher dimmensioned construct. Say you had these rooms ("#"=wall, "."=floor):

###.###
#.A...#
#.....#
##.##.#
#.....#
..B...#
#.....#
##.####
A room could spawn between them, making the distance from A-B through one door further, but through the other door between them the distance doesn't change. The new room is between them (and if there are, say, potato roots growing into the wall beside the door that created the new room, they'd be stretched out across the new room), but going through the other door doesn't take any extra space. Looking at the world from the outside... you'd see rooms of various sizes overlapping and distorted, definetly not the same shape (if you could see all the rooms from another plane) as they are from the inside.

@What rooms look like: Packed dirt, with grasses/mosses, addressed in the OP. But sometimes certain walls will contain metals, veins of minerals, and very, very occasionally some gears will be moving in a space visible through a wall (usually this is a portal into a golem's insides).

More questions are being raised than I can answer now. I'll keep answering as fast as I can, but I'll prioritize answers that I feel are more important. If you see a question already answered, please feel free to point out to others where.

hydroplatypus

2011-08-24, 10:45 AM

Ah your latest response clarifies things a bit. Also the higher dimensional nature of the simulation effectivly solves the teleport problem. Simply calculate teleport distance by the shortest possible distance between 2 spaces. As new routes will keep joining distant rooms, teleport will basically function indefinitely between 2 places. Granted normal movement will be difficult, but we established that long ago. This also makes nodal teleport worthwhile, yay.

Also based on my calculations of how long a nexus works, and how routes could be replaced, will any exist?

flabort

2011-08-24, 11:25 AM

Not any labeled nexi. A gnome or maybe some wizard or someone trying to run one and asking the Party's help could be a plot hook, but if you come across a nexus, odds are it's out of use and whoever set it up (if it was of that sort) gave up trying to maintain the routes.

Because you asked when I linked to this from elsewhere, I'll state it here, too:
3/5 NPCs are warforged commoners.
To clarify, while most NPCs who live in towns are of the towns main population base (Human or Elf, generally), there are Warforged Forges all over, in various towns, or "floating" around. Most of the warforged created either become servants, farmers, guards, or head out to wander and become merchants.
While you're out "exploring", odds are if you encounter someone, it will be a mindless construct, a Warforged (PC class or commoner, doesn't matter), or gnome. So while in a city fleshy races outnumber warforged 3:1 (warforged make up 1/4) generally, over all warforged out number fleshy races 3:2 (warforged make up 3/5).

----------

Getting back to eledragon, when you Dig in a room, you'll break a barrier between it an a "nearby" room. So you could only dig between 1-3 feet before "breaking through" to the other room, thereby creating a portal.

When you build a building, you either usually either build one story high and keep it well away from the roof, or build the frame touching both the "roof" and "floor". The walls/floors, whether you make them of tightly stretched thick cloth or anything else, will be suspended in the frame, which will be half pulled to the "roof" and half to the "floor". When the room expands along that axis, the building's frame is usually made of hollow pipes designed to separate in such an occasion, and the builders just add more between the separated area.
Such buildings, though, are extremely rare because of the engineering required to build such a thing, and because of the cost of the frame and materials, which may break from the weight of standing on it. Usually only a "capital city" sized city may have such a building, and usually only one.
Single story Tent-buildings are by far the most common.

TheStillWind

2011-08-24, 02:39 PM

flabort

2011-08-24, 04:40 PM

I think that an interesting method of travel is Tree stride. You mention that root veggies have roots that stretch and go through rooms. Consider a fictional type of tree that has a tap root or a carrot plant large enough the qualify for tree. I can can tree stride, enter a tree and step out at any location on the tree most notably the end of the root . This allows me to use trees as solid and consistent "high ways" from one room to another because o matter how many new rooms appear between the two original rooms the root just stretches to accommodate. This would make the nexus idea viable. Just add trees....

Forestlord Elves would a dominant race...

I... never even considered Tree Stride. Maybe because I didn't know about it, but whatever.
Yes, this would mean that if a tree were planted (and they are common in elvish settlements), if it's roots were wide enough and entered another room... Wow, that would be a permanent route to all... 9th level druids or 14th rangers.
This would mean that Elven kingdoms would be stronger for their ease of transport (due to their high number of trees), but: I wouldn't say elves would be a dominant race. Consider how frequently humans reproduce compared to elves, and also consider that I've already stated constructs out number living creatures. Yes, the elven nations would probably easily overcome a human nation, but consider how many human nations there are by comparison.

Also, who would nurture a carrot long enough for it to grow that big? Who would follow it's roots and defend it from herbivores who would eat it when it's small? But imagining such a carrot plant... :smallbiggrin: people would probably worship it for it's sustenance and worthiness as a transport system.

I do see one major flaw: The fact that the roots are actually stretched out when a room intersects them. Therefore they would get thinner and thinner as more rooms appeared along your "tap-root-highway", until it got too thin to travel through at one point, and cuts your route short. And what happens if some massive root-eating creature cuts the root in half?
Wait... I just realized the pun in "route" and "root" here. I'm a bit slow...
Awesome idea, if you look past the flaws.

B!shop

2011-08-25, 06:10 AM

flabort

2011-08-25, 12:12 PM

First of all, this is an EPIC idea, and I like it!

Some questions (and related possible hooks):

Rooms can only grow or they can also shrink?
If they can only grow, so the first rooms should be larger than the newest one, making possible to track down the first room.

Is there a starting room? Is it known? Is it inhabited, guarded or something similar?

Also, what about water? You said in your first post there's food growing, light from runes and muddy soil all around, but what about lakes, rivers and similar body of water?

They only grow... Or, that is, they do shrink, but their growth is so much higher that you never, ever, actually find a room that's shrinking. The shrinking is negligible.

The "root room" is a myth. Some people hold that there is a "root room" which contains "The seed", from which all growth comes, and great treasures, but it's only a myth, with no grounding in reality. So some people quest to find it... But of course never do find it.

Water... the question of water has haunted me since the first post.
I mean, you can't dig a well, because it will only be a portal, but water has to come from somewhere. So, the same ambient, ever present source of light becomes the source of water: Those runes, that disappear when you look at them, sometimes appear in thicker clusters, and form concentric circles around certain points. In fact, there is a large enough concentration of them that even mundane eyes can see them when looking directly at them.
Just under the surface at these points, if a person digs into them, they'll find a spring of water that bursts forth to create a bit of a pond. depending on the size of the room, and just how many runes cluster there, this pond may range from 5x5 feet across an a foot thick, to 40x40 feet and 20 feet deep.
Usually a major city will have two ponds and maybe a few un-sprung springs, a minor town or village will have one spring (whether it's sprung or not doesn't matter), and one in every 15 rooms in the wild will have a spring (usually un-sprung). If a spring hasn't been sprung yet, it will usually have damp ground around it, giving it away if the runes aren't enough to tell you.

hydroplatypus

2011-08-25, 12:56 PM

Tree stride is a great idea, although the stretching would be a problem. From what I understand though tree stride can go from any tree within range to any tree within range. Why not just plant a tree in the target room and a different tree in the origin room, and calculate distances like we seem to be doing with teleport: shortest possible route (so if you can use spell now, you can basically always use it).

In addition to tree stride there is a higher level druid spell called transport via plants. Less likely to be available as it is higher level, but it has an unlimited range. A high level druid can visit literally ANY elven city (or any city with a large tree) with a spell.

Also useful is a cleric/druid/bard spell called find the path. It finds and tells caster the shortest possible path to a location. Given the way the simulation works, this would make anyone able to cast this able to easily travel where they want to go.

Also it would seem that the travel domain would be very common among clerics in the simulation, as it has find path, teleport, greater teleport, dimension door (for closer rooms, or nearby adventures), locate object (useful if somthing gets lost) among others.

For communication between cities, what if once a (designated time period[week?]) 2 wizards (one in each of 2 cities) cast scrying on each other, and voluntarily failed their saves. They would both be able to see and hear each other regardless of distance.

On the topic of useful spells, what would a wizard see if he casts detect magic? would everything appear to be magical?

TheStillWind

2011-08-25, 01:42 PM

I mention forest lord elves as dominant because they are a elven sub race from dragon magic that can use a limited range tree stride once/day. limited range doesn't matter if you stay in the same plant.

B!shop

2011-08-26, 03:42 AM

Reading what you wrote on the water I had an idea that you can use or discard.

Sometimes the Simulation spawns rooms filled with water: rooms totally flooded with fresh (or sometimes salted?) water, optimal enviroment for acquatic plants and creatures.
These rooms are used by the simulation's inhabitants as water tanks, rearing ponds, and digs wells from the rooms next to them.
Smaller doors/portal opens in dry rooms creating ponds and creeks, larger portal will feed larger lakes in the major rooms.
Also, some of these "underwater rooms" are called home from acquatics sentient races, who dwell in them.

Rooms gravity won't be a problem: when the room is full of water, there's no up or down, and when someone dig or open a door/portal to the room the gravity will keep water low on the floor/wall, making possible to dig wells for drinking water, fountains and lake's tanks.
Maybe sometimes a new door to one of these water rooms, when opened, will appear similar to an activated Stargate (the TV series I mean), and a floor opening will appear as a spring, splashing water around.
So towns and communities will look for these rooms to get a reliable source of water.

With this water-mechanics plot hooks abound:
- A major town needs a new water source and hire explorers to find a suitable water room
- A new, huge water room is discovered, but it is inhabited by a shy underwater race that sabotate every attempt to tap the resource.
- Water wars from near town to gain the control of a water room
- Poisoned water rooms: who or what poison them, and why?

flabort

2011-08-26, 10:23 AM

That's actually a great idea.
And to modify what I had written, the runes don't cluster around springs, but points which would lead to a water room if you dug into it.
Only 1/50 rooms is filled with water this way, but there's a 75% chance that when a door in a water room creates a new room, this new room is also a water room.

Luean

2011-08-28, 01:41 PM

First, I'd like to apologize - english is only a secondary language for me.

It was a bit hard for me to understand (as I'm tired and full of meds because of the flu), but this looks really great.

A few questions: Wouldn't be a long range "sniper" class be really strong?
Couldn't they even stand on the other side (wall, roof, etc.) of a real big room and rain down arrows on whoever they want to attack?

What would happen, if someone has something like the following item (i know, this is very special and only hypothetical):
An indestructible ball of never ending wool.
You tie one end of the wool to something in the room you start and then you go wherever you want to go and take the ball with you. It would help you to find your way back, without any problems.
In reality, there are, of course, a few problems. What would happen if a new room appears and doors you went through don't connect to each other anymore?
A normal string would probably tear, but what about our special item here?

flabort

2011-08-28, 02:02 PM

A few questions: Wouldn't be a long range "sniper" class be really strong?
Couldn't they even stand on the other side (wall, roof, etc.) of a real big room and rain down arrows on whoever they want to attack?

Yes. The ranged attack system will need a little work to modify it for this, but yes.

What would happen, if someone has something like the following item (i know, this is very special and only hypothetical):
An indestructible ball of never ending wool.
You tie one end of the wool to something in the room you start and then you go wherever you want to go and take the ball with you. It would help you to find your way back, without any problems.
In reality, there are, of course, a few problems. What would happen if a new room appears and doors you went through don't connect to each other anymore?
A normal string would probably tear, but what about our special item here?

Er.... umm...
How would the doors not connect to each other? Do you mean when a new room appears, one side of the door goes into it, but the other doesn't?
Because when a new room appears, both sides of the previously existing door now lead into that new room, just maybe at different points.
So your wool/yarn/thing would stretch, and end up just going across the room, until it reached the other door, where it lead originally.

ForzaFiori

2011-08-28, 06:49 PM

An indestructible ball of never ending wool.

I think we just figured out one of the most important items in the world. Everyone who travels would want one.

flabort

2011-08-30, 04:46 PM

Quick! somebody find out what spells we need to make one! And figure out the price! :smalltongue:

And while you're at it, get me an ice cream bar :smallbiggrin: :smalltongue:

But yes, I can see that it would be extremely valuable to have, worth more than it's... actually worth by market price. If you Don't have your ball of tarasque-proof-yarn, you may as well be pant-less. Which would be pointless. Unless you have VoP. and even then, you don't go that far... :smalleek:

Eledragon

2011-08-30, 05:19 PM

hmm...I'd say, [Animate Rope], [Rope Trick :smalltongue:], Minor Creation, and Permanency.

[] are things that are unnecessary or a stretch.

ooh, just got a plot hook. somebody left a Decanter of Endless Water set to geyser in a room and now it's flooding rooms due to the pressure breaking walls and opening portals. swim through the rooms and find the decanter. meanwhile, aquatic monsters have moved in. afterwards, you have to find out who did it.

flabort

2011-08-30, 05:29 PM

Eledragon

2011-08-30, 05:31 PM

...

I would totally run a character in that campaign.

now if only we could get a DM for it. :smallbiggrin:

Qwertystop

2011-08-30, 05:40 PM

Added twist: The Decanter happens to be a cursed item, made out of adamantium alloy weave, and a sentient item, resulting from a series of experiments trying to:
A) Separate a psicrystal from it's psion, without crippling either.
B) Melt a psicrystal down and mix it with metals to create an uber-alloy without losing it's properties.
C) Magically enchant a psicrystal with additional properties.
D) Make an adamantium alloy that could be woven into a water tight cloth.
...The experiments worked, sort of. The wizard doing them got a little mixed up. This nigh indestructible decanter resulted. :smallamused: It's now a BBEG.

I want to play in a campaign involving that. This campaign world or any other. Especially if I could be an intelligent item as well. I've been considering a Rod of Wonder with Geometer levels (spellbook of spaghetti!), a Portable Hole, some sort of everlasting bottle of Quick Potion-ed water, a Psychoactive Skin, or maybe a pair of Ring Gates.

PLEEEEASE RUN THIS, SOMEONE!

Eledragon

2011-08-30, 05:46 PM

if you put up an advert for a DM in recruitment, I'll join as a player. :smallcool:

just remember to put a link here, too :smallwink:

hydroplatypus

2011-08-30, 09:42 PM

An indestructible ball of never ending wool.

a useful item no doubt, but it has some limitations and problems. exponential expansion of routes limits its usefulness. Basically you eventually reach a point where the route the wool covers is expanding to fast to be traversable. At this point there are likely faster routes from point A to point B, but the wool doesn't use those routes. This has the added problem of stringing wool everywhere. imagine entering a large room, and finding wool strung through every door, and clogging up the room. Hey maybe a quest hook could be trying to find the source of the magic wool, and somehow [disgunction?, dispel?, another magic item?] destroy it, to stop it from clogging up so many routes. Also Playing in this world would be awesome:smallbiggrin:.

ForzaFiori

2011-08-30, 10:11 PM

hydroplatypus

2011-08-31, 07:04 AM

if you label the wool (it'd have to be thick to be able to rapidly expand when new rooms are created, too thin and it'd break) it would provide another way to ease transport. If you hit a yarn, see what it's labeled and maybe you've found a route to your city.

Yes you have found a route to the city you want to go, but that doesn't make it a useful route. If the wool's route has had the wool for longer than 6 or 7 months, than there is no realistic way that the yarn's route is traversable anymore, as exponential growth has made it too long to be useful. At 5 months the journey is a day (give or take) for the PCs if they walk at 15 feet/round. This doubles very quickly. If I remember my earlier calculations it takes 10 days to double. After 6 or 7 months the route just becomes too long. In fact at walking speeds it expands faster than PC walking speeds eventually making it actually impossible to follow. In this case you just end up stringing yarn everywhere, unless someone cleans it up.

Eledragon

2011-08-31, 08:40 AM

hmm...if nobody objects, I might put up an ad for a DM for this setting. I'll wait a few hours, then I'll put it up.

B!shop

2011-08-31, 08:49 AM

hmm...if nobody objects, I might put up an ad for a DM for this setting. I'll wait a few hours, then I'll put it up.

If you'll DM this setting, I'd like to play it!

Eledragon

2011-08-31, 09:14 AM

alas, I woulden't. I will, however, seeing as this seems a popular idea, make a recruitment thread for a DM. people who come from this thread (Hydroplatypus,B!shop, Flabort (of course :smallcool:), and Qwertystop get in first. please come to the thread and say you don't want to play if you don't. I'll edit the link into here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=11754811#post11754811)

Qwertystop

2011-08-31, 09:40 AM

Can you put the "certain people get in first" on the recruitment thread so the DM knows?

Eledragon

2011-08-31, 09:59 AM

edited. and can you go identify yourself over there please?

hydroplatypus

2011-08-31, 03:15 PM

thanks for setting up the recruitment thread.

Back to setting construction:

I had an idea for a minor organization that the setting could have. Perhaps there is an organization that exists to look for those who have become lost in the simulation. Seems noble, so maybe it has paladin membership. As they need transportation they need someone with teleport in each search team, so wiz/sorceror/travel domain cleric. Or an item that lets them teleport (UMB rogue?). I imagine them as generally good people who try to locate those who have become lost, solely because they care about them. They would receive the support, and likely funding from the city they use as a base, as they benefit the community. Or perhaps their membership works as volunteers, and devotes maybe 2 weeks a year to the organization, but works for free. Anyone like this idea? If so please suggest a name for the organization, as I suck at naming things.

Questions:

1. Where do people get metals? There is little possibility of having a stable mine for longer than a few months. Do some rooms just spontaneously appear filled with ores, or possibly even refined metals?

2. Flabort, I believe you said that Warforged outnumber others 3:2. You have also stated that in cities warforged number less then fleshy races. Why is this? do warforged not like cities? do they have separate cities?

flabort

2011-08-31, 09:52 PM

On the organization: "Watchers of the Lost". I like the idea.
"Visit your local chapter to volunteer, get a free ball of yarn!"

On the questions:
1) Some rooms do spontaneously appear with ores exposed, yes. Not refined, unless they open up into a case or compartment made of them (such as into a golem's chest).

2) Warforged are the minority in cities... because they can't get jobs within the cities they are created in. Some are forced to become servants... But those are posh jobs for wealthy people, anyways. Some are hired as farmers... But while the forges are never shut down, and they keep producing more, there's more Warforged than jobs available to them, and so they just wander away, to see if they can find wealth anywhere else. Usually they then get lost, from insufficient preparation.

B!shop

2011-09-01, 02:13 AM

Back to setting construction:

I had an idea for a minor organization that the setting could have. Perhaps there is an organization that exists to look for those who have become lost in the simulation. Seems noble, so maybe it has paladin membership. As they need transportation they need someone with teleport in each search team, so wiz/sorceror/travel domain cleric. Or an item that lets them teleport (UMB rogue?). I imagine them as generally good people who try to locate those who have become lost, solely because they care about them. They would receive the support, and likely funding from the city they use as a base, as they benefit the community. Or perhaps their membership works as volunteers, and devotes maybe 2 weeks a year to the organization, but works for free. Anyone like this idea? If so please suggest a name for the organization, as I suck at naming things.

I like this organization idea!
They look for lost people, leave in "wild rooms" prepared camps (supplies caches, wood, tents/shelters), clear the most traveled rooms from dangers and maintain the roads.

It could be formed by a full time group of "Watchers", who are like a clergy (maybe they are all devotees to the Simulator, and they consider it a deity), involved in all the organization's activities, and by a larger volunteers force.

hydroplatypus

2011-09-01, 07:13 AM

I like this organization idea!
It could be formed by a full time group of "Watchers", who are like a clergy (maybe they are all devotees to the Simulator, and they consider it a deity), involved in all the organization's activities, and by a larger volunteers force.

combining full time, and volunteer members sounds like a great idea. Also thanks flabort for the name and slogan, I like it.

flabort

2011-09-01, 10:16 AM

Quertystop was kind enough to provide the perfect Fix to ranged weaponry for the setting in the recruitment thread.

All it would be is:
No maximum range on ranged weapons, but you still take the same stacking penalties for range increments. Also, double all range increments to reflect that now, the only reason its harder to hit at range is that its harder to see the target.

It works perfectly, and when you consider a lot of foes will be out of reach, this makes ranged weaponry much more viable an option in this setting.

hydroplatypus

2011-09-01, 01:26 PM

Had an idea for another organization. Again I am bad at names, so suggestions are welcome.

Basically there is a group of wizards are attempting to figure out how to anchor rooms together, so there is no expansion. Naturally they don't/haven't/will never succeed as it would ruin the setting, but these wizards can be great givers of side quests. One thing to note is that most of the older wizards have been at this task for a LONG time, and their repeated failure has led them to try just about anything to anchor rooms. And I mean ANYTHING. The more insane ones do things such as tie frogs to doors to see if it helps... Basically the organization is chaotic neutral/chaotic stupid in its quest, and intended as fun side quest material.

Basically the organization is intended as a giver of sidequests, or mabye as a villanous organization (also likely sidequest) if the current scheme is crazy enough...Potential to be a very fun organization, as the insanity present lets the DM do whatever he wants.

This organization makes sense in the setting, as the expansion of rooms is very problematic. Started by a wizard who was originally from a different plane, he told people about his plane, and how locations were fixed there. Most would have thought this a cool story, and moved on with their lives, but one insane wizard decided to see if he could fix locations here. He then created the organization to help him.

flabort

2011-09-01, 01:43 PM

...:smallconfused:...:smalleek:...:smallsmile:... :smallamused: :smallbiggrin:...:smallcool:
Meesa Likey.

Perhaps they've met with a small fraction of success in some corners... The city of Respotle could have actual walls and buildings instead of tents, because they've enchanted the rooms to stop expanding. Any attached rooms not enchanted (such as outside the city limits) still expand, and the doors between the enchanted and unenchanted rooms still expand, but this city is an island of "success". It only works, however, because the wizard who did the enchanting was 31st level, and the Simulation came uncomfortably close to intersecting another plane in that area; Say, the Far Realms. He succeeded in stopping expansion in that city, by anchoring it to the other planes. And so Respotle shows much corruption from the ilithids and chthulunoids who visit regularly.
And that wizard who did it is dead now, had his brain eaten. The spell he used is lost with him.

But for the most part, yeah, their a bunch of crack-pots, who think that an infusion of a potato from the Prime Material in the blood of a three eyed toad painted on a door will prevent another room from forming.
They think their legit, but their only as legit as "layer" in preschool. You think that four year old's claims will stand up in court?

Yes, it makes sense. Lots of sense. Especially in context. And would be great for side quests.

hydroplatypus

2011-09-02, 09:29 PM

A few quest hooks for the 2 organizations

Watchers

1. someone gets lost, go find them. Entire purpose of the organization, so I won't go into more detail.
2. After finding several people that the local warlord wanted lost the Watchers have been banned from the town the warlord rules. As the watchers are banned from the town, they can't try to convince the warlord to relent. They hire the adventurers to negotiate their return to the warlord's town. Probably involves killing something for the warlord, but can be adapted for just about any actual quest.
3. Several watcher went looking for [random dude 1], and have gone missing. This can't be a coincidence, something must be killing them. The local watchers branch (small town/village) is mainly volunteer and low level, and must contract outside help to solve this problem.
4. The local branch of watchers doesn't seem to be doing a good job, and the local king wants to figure out why. It turns out the leader of the group is corrupt, and cares more about making money then finding people.

Insane wizards organization

First lets name them for future reference. hmmm... The Anchors of Respotle :smallconfused: ? everyone like it?

1. A wizard want to try some experiments to try and fix a room. To do so he needs [plot appropriate material]. The party realizes he is insane, but hey his money is still good.
2. A more evil member of the Anchors has decided that the simulation needs to be pleased with blood, and has thus started kidnapping villagers for this purpose. Stop him before he completes his ritual. Darker then most of my quest hooks, but it still works.
3. A group of the Anchors is trying to establish a nexus between two cities. NPCs may point out the impracticality of this but as the wizards believe they can fix routes in place they don't care (also their insane:smalltongue:). The PCs have been contracted to clear the route of dangers.
4. One of the more sane (this is a relative term) wizards realizes that one of his peers schemes is insane and doomed to failure. He could put that bucket of toad mucus to much better use:smallbiggrin:. Steal it from him.

EDIT: also thanks flabort for the table of contents.

flabort

2011-09-03, 11:14 AM

Updated Table of Contents.
I like the plot hooks. :smallsmile:

hydroplatypus

2011-09-03, 12:47 PM

Now that you have briefly mentioned the city of Respotle, mabye we should expand the description/explaination we give of it. At the moment I don't have any ideas, but think this should be done.

flabort

2011-09-03, 01:33 PM

And more cities, too.

Ok, here we are, the city of Respotle, the "Unchanging city".
Respotle
The only known city in the Simulation to forgo the standard tent-city theme, and use real walls and roofs, the city itself is highly enchanted, to prevent it from expanding, or producing new rooms at every door. A few rooms just outside of the city retain a measure of sympathetic enchantment, as well, and many farmers live in small huts or shacks.
The city is one that outsiders (Such as Prime Planers, Elementals, or celestials/devils/demons) are fond of, and contains several immigrants to the Simulation. Not including the farmers living on it's borders, or constructs, Respotle contains approximately 1,500 natives to the Simulation, and almost 2,000 immigrants. Including the resident constructs, it boasts almost a 4,500 population, rather a small city, but definitely not a town or village.
Despite all these attractive features, though, the enchantments that allow it to be involved anchoring that section of the Simulation to the Far Realms, the places of Madness. A good quarter of Respotle's population have tentacles, or other aberrant qualities, either from coming from there, or being influenced by the maddening grasps. Those that hail from the city are often a few branches short of a bush, not entirely insane, but their logic seems to be missing a logical element, and their ideas are often disregarded, or kept as a "last resort".
The city is governed by a table of "elders", each "elder" being allowed to appoint his successor, but only being allowed to vote upon the issues discussed and sit at the Table for a month at a time, although they may be re-elected as soon as half a year later. Despite having the title Elder, an elder only has to be 30+ years of age to be appointed.
The city's founders are long dead, including the wizard who cast the spells to keep it from expanding, but the founding fathers were said to be saviors of several towns, and were probably all adventurers. It is well known they were close friends, at least. Several of the frequently re-elected Elders are descendants of two or more of these Founders.
The city happens to hold the headquarters and main stronghold belonging to the Anchors of Respotle, the group of rather insane wizards trying to repeat the achievement of the founding wizard, trying to prevent the Simulation's growth and expansion in areas. Much of the ground area around the building designated as "Theirs" is charred glass, permanently frozen, or bubbling up green slime.

Okizruin

2011-09-03, 01:38 PM

Will the Simulation cease to exist if the construct ever awakens?

flabort

2011-09-03, 01:43 PM

Will the Simulation cease to exist if the construct ever awakens?

No. The construct itself was destroyed long ago, when the Simulation asserted itself, and consumed several planes of existence, and became real, physically real.
So it technically can't even awaken. :smallwink:

hydroplatypus

2011-09-03, 04:49 PM

As I invented this town for my character's back story I will try to expand it a bit, and make it interesting.

Amarath

Most notable for its warforge and metals industry Amarath is much wealthier then most towns its size. Since it's founding it has been ruled by a council of 11 members, each chosen by their predecessor. Originally the council was benign, and helped the people under its rule, however as members died and were replaced the council cared less about those it ruled, as the caring members were all dead.

Originally established for its farmland and forge, the town existed for a time as a farming town, using the warforged for labor. It existed like this for several generations, and was moderately successful, if unremarkable. As the council began to care less about its people the council members looked for ways to expand their wealth. They decided that they would change the town into an industrial town, that finds and refines metals. A change like this entailed great risk, as metalic ores needed to be found, which nesessitated sending out search parties. Due to the changing nature of the simulation these search parties often go missing, and due to the rarity of metalic ores these search parties often ended up fighting with those who also wanted the metals. Although the council viewed its citizens (especially the warforged, which can be mass produced at the forge) as expendable, they knew the townspeople would not accept the risk, unless something prompted them to. They then arranged a small war with a nearby village they knew had found a large metal deposit. When they won and claimed the deposit the town thrived from the wealth. Once the supply ran out however the townspeople had grown used to the wealth, and were willing to take greater risks to keep it, including searching for more ores.

This satisfied the council for a time, but they eventually wanted even more wealth. To this end they kept watch over the nearby "savage" races (goblins etc.) in the area in case they find metallic deposits. The council knows that the townspeople see goblins as evil, and thus will believe the council when it says that goblins are trying to steal their deposit. What is actually happening is the reverse. The goblins (and other savage races) find a deposit, and promptly have it stolen by the "reclamation" force that Amarath sends to the deposit. This greatly increased the number of deposits that Amarath has access to, making it very wealthy for a town of its size.

Throughout this period of raiding the "savage" races the townspeople remained ignorant of the actual situation until papers proving what was actually happening came into the hands of the general public. It is still unknown to most who actually released these papers, however the result was clear. After a few months the townspeople tried to stage a revolution. The fighting lasted for a week, before the rebellion was stopped. After this the former rebels started supplying the "savages" that Amarath was stealing from, in the hope that this would weaken the government enough to collapse it. Although this weakened the government it did not collapse, and 6 years later the remaining rebels were either captured and executed, or forced to flee. It has been several years since the rebels were finally destroyed, and the town has largely recovered from the rebellion, and although many citizens dislike the government, none are willing to oppose them for fear of punishment.

Notes: Amarath has a teleportation node, that has a range of 1950 miles.

flabort

2011-09-04, 10:46 PM

Bronzed Teeth Fortress
This is a massive "city", if it can be called that, composed of orcs, goblins, and other savage races. It has extremely tough defenses composed of many strong warriors and walls of steel links, mesh walls impervious to the Simulation's expanding effects, and highly resistant to attacks.
It is ruled by a tribal chief, the only prerequisite to becoming the chief being to kill the old one. While the "savage" races consider themselves to be totally honorable, their "honor" can range from a one-on-one deathmatch amidst jeering cries, to silently slicing the chief's throat during his sleep. The current chief is a small little goblin rogue who may as well be a wee little pile of daggers and throwing knives.
The Fortress's pride and joy is the central Construct Forge, constructed from hodge-podge parts stolen from human cities during their raids. The smarter orcs and half-orcs have made what they consider to be "improvements" to the forge, and the resulting warforged are a bit more vicious (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55831) than normal...

(Note: This is solely so I can move that feat linked in the description from it's original setting to this one. I am not shamed in the least. Props to Krimm Blackleaf for making the feat for his/her own setting)

Qwertystop

2011-09-04, 10:50 PM

...bit more viscous (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55831) than normal...

Viscous? When I saw that, I thought "Half-Ooze Warforged! Yayz!"

flabort

2011-09-04, 10:51 PM

*Face palm*
Stupid reliance on Spellcheck/auto-correct....

B!shop

2011-09-05, 04:38 AM

Ok, I had some ideas during the weekend.
Feel free to add/modify/comment whatever you want about them.

The Iron Caravan
The Iron Caravan is a nomadic tribe made up primarily of warforged who travels the simulation, living on gathering of raw materials and scavenging lost and abandoned sites, trading their findings with most of the cities and settlements in the simulation.
Most of the tribe members are warforged, with the occasional exceptions from other races (mostly orphans taken by a tribe member or outcasts accepted in the tribe). They are a small group (under 100 members), friendly with strangers but aloof and secretive about their tribe.
The Iron Caravan travels through the Simulation's rooms, camping with their strange forge-tents wherever they find enough space and resources.
These forge-tents are portable one-room-houses made of wood and iron. When packed they have the size of a backpack, but when one of them is placed on the ground and the cover is opened, it unwraps, grows to the size of a ten-foot wide cube and anchor itself to the ground.
Every Forge-Tent has a door and two windows, a hole on the roof for the fireplace's smoke and a button(?) near the door to activate the packing process.
The Iron Caravan owns about 50 of these forge-tents, and they keep secret the process of building. Every time there are only 3 of the tribe elders who knows how to buld the forge-tents: when one of them die the other two pass their knowledge only to one of the most trusted members of the tribe. Since the birth of the Iron Caravan only warforged are chosen to be Keepers of Tents.

Ecariah's Garden (aka the Green Room)
Ecariah was a wizard who wants to master the arts of botany and alchemy.
Already skilled in both arts, he and his group of warforged servants settled this room and filled it with greenhouses, gardens and fields of herbs to study and breed new plants for his alchemy experiments.
Ecariah died long time ago, leaving the room and its facilities to his apprentice, a warforged wizard called Olus.
Since the death of his teacher Olus, assisted by a small group of warforged experts farmers (most of them the original Ecariah's servants), continued Ecariah's studies expanding the room facilities and gardens and working on experiments in interbreeding plants and using them to make potions and alchemical substances.

Ecariah's Garden is a large, cylindrical room filled with fields of herbs, plantations and greenhouses.
The main entrance is on one the flat sides of the room, with two other entrances (both to water rooms) that feed a small lake and mosts of the irrigation canals.
The most noticeable building is Ecariah's Home, a two story stone building group of interconnected tents near the main entrance to the room. This building includes Ecariah's laboratories and a library specializing in botany and alchemy. Most of the other buildings are one floor high and made of wood and plaster small tents and canopies, and are used as houses for the farmers, storehouses and depots. Greenhouses are made of a special glass developed by Olus that is flexible and durable.

Qwertystop

2011-09-05, 07:04 AM

The tents, the "two story stone building", the farmers' houses, and the greenhouses would all not work in the Simulation.

B!shop

2011-09-05, 07:40 AM

The tents, the "two story stone building", the farmers' houses, and the greenhouses would all not work in the Simulation.

Why they wouldn't work?

Qwertystop

2011-09-05, 07:49 AM

Why they wouldn't work?

They'd keep growing and stretching infinitely, and sprout new doorways on walls, ceiling, and floor to other rooms.

Solid-walled buildings are near-nonexistent in the Simulation, excepting that one city with an un-replicate-able spell on it.

B!shop

2011-09-05, 07:59 AM

They'd keep growing and stretching infinitely, and sprout new doorways on walls, ceiling, and floor to other rooms.

Solid-walled buildings are near-nonexistent in the Simulation, excepting that one city with an un-replicate-able spell on it.

So, no permanent buildings is ok (even if I understood rooms are growing on their side, not stretching).

For tents, as a temporary buildings I don't see any problem with the room growth.
And for greenhouses and farmers home, maybe they are modular, or just placed on the ground not anchored to the soil?

Eledragon

2011-09-05, 08:27 AM

tents don't grow, as they're cloth.

greenhouses probably are made of cloth as well with dancing lights inside them. can't have a door opening into a water room in your greenhouse!

Qwertystop

2011-09-05, 10:35 AM

So, no permanent buildings is ok (even if I understood rooms are growing on their side, not stretching).

For tents, as a temporary buildings I don't see any problem with the room growth.
And for greenhouses and farmers home, maybe they are modular, or just placed on the ground not anchored to the soil?
1: they also stretch slowly, with occasional growth spurts.
2: Anchored-ness doesn't matter. If it is an enclosed structure with solid walls (not cloth or similarly flexible material), the interior space will grow and sprout doors.

tents don't grow, as they're cloth.

greenhouses probably are made of cloth as well with dancing lights inside them. can't have a door opening into a water room in your greenhouse!
If you read his post, you'd see that his "tents" are "portable one-room houses made of wood and iron" that shrink small enough to carry around, and the greenhouse is glass.

flabort

2011-09-05, 01:41 PM

Ok, time for a Q/A!

Q: Can a collapsible building made of solid materials grow?
A: It depends on how close the folds are, how thick the pieces of wood/iron are, and if there are gaps in the walls when fully expanded. If the room inside is normally 10x10x10, and it folds into a back-pack sized object, the matierials are obviously suffitiently small enough that I would rule them valid. And since only three warforged know how to make them at a time, the forge-tents are valid.

Q: Are glass walls OK?
A: While no-body actually asked this, they would stretch, slowly, but would not produce rooms, even at a door, nor would they experience growth spurts. If a normal wall grows at a rate of X/day, a glass wall will only grow at a rate of X/month. So if the green-houses were made of glass walls, they would grow slower than the room around them, and never risk pushing up against each other and shattering. The greenhouses are valid.

Q: Can I have a modular house-thing not anchored?
A: Only if it's made of cloth or glass, or is otherwise sufficiently tent-like. Solid walls are a no-go. The stone house and farmer's huts are not valid.

(I'll add your locations to the Table of Contents once the stone house + wooden shacks are edited and replaced. Good ideas, otherwise, though)

B!shop

2011-09-06, 05:08 AM

I've edited what needed (switching to tents :smallwink: ), but now I have another question: what happens to covered carts? :smalltongue:

flabort

2011-09-06, 09:40 AM

I've edited what needed (switching to tents :smallwink: ), but now I have another question: what happens to covered carts? :smalltongue:

Depends what their covered by, and what the cart itself happens to be made of.

Most carts in the simulation, if you even own or have even seen such a thing, happen to be made of a metal frame, like a tent, with a sturdy cloth or leather to support and passengers/goods.
Since most cloths are easily torn, wagons therefor have to either be enchanted, or made out of a VERY strong material.

Elemental

2011-09-07, 12:24 AM

So, just as a question, it would in theory be possible to construct a city out of glass? Because if glass doesn't spawn new rooms like other materials, you wouldn't face that problem, merely the expansion of your shiny glass buildings.

Okizruin

2011-09-07, 09:48 AM

Elemental

2011-09-08, 04:54 AM

True, glass is very brittle, unless you use tempered glass or reinforce it with wires embedded in the glass. And there's dirt everywhere? Simply wet the dirt, transmute it to rock with the Transmute Mud to Rock spell, and then grind that down, and you should end up with sand.
It's a bit of work, but it could be done.

hydroplatypus

2011-09-18, 02:26 PM

Hey Flabort, I had an idea for a location, but need a few questions answered first, to make sure it works.

1. do just the walls of the room expand, or does anything in the interior expanded as well? this is not normally relavent, but I am thinking about using a large amount of immobile rods so I need to know if they would remain stationary if held together.

2. how strong a cloth can be economically procured in bulk in the simulation? Strong enough to be used as a floor (aka. holds human weight)? strong enough to hold heavy metallic objects? The answer to this isn't a deal breaker either way, but will change how I build the location. On a similar note: how tear resistant is said cloth?

3. in a large room how far does the light reach from the runes? will it illuminate an indefinitely large room, or only parts of it?

4. How economical are artificial light sources strong enough to grow crops with?

5. Is a node a physical object, or just a location? if it is a physical object how much does it weigh?

maybe more questions to follow, but this is all for now.

flabort

2011-09-18, 08:33 PM

1. Well, if you have a room without any "Inside corners", such as an L shape would have, it never comes up.
But if you do have "Inside curves/corners", such as illustrated:

#### #####
#..# #...#
#..# #...#
#..X###X...#
#.V.V......#
#..........#
############
Where X's are the "Inside corners", those walls do expand outwards, towards the other walls. But not as fast as the other walls expand away.
So after a while, it could look like this:

####### ######
#.....# #....#
#.....# #....#
#.....# #....#
#.....# #....#
#.....X#####X....#
#.V...V..........#
#................#
#................#
##################
You'll notice some unexplained "V"s there. Those are objects left on the floor. Say, immobile rods.
As a room expands, it will stay near the nearest point on the floor, based on it's relative gravity. So, if they all have the same relative gravity, your multiple rods will drift away anyways. The rods themselves would not expand. Sorry.

2. Depends on the fibers, just like most settings. however, because it became necessary to have tougher cloths, methods to weave tighter, stronger cloths were developed. While not enough on their own to support a good sized human, the strongest cloths easily massed produced (enough to make a building out of) are capable of holding up a small goblin or kobold. By reinforcing it with sufficient metal bars/cables, which can get costly, though, most types of cloth, even weak types, could hold up a good sized human.
But such cloth would be pretty easy to tear; claws, knives, whatever. making something like chainmail would be what you do for defense (Chain link walls). If it were to stretch out from the supports stretching from expansion, most cloths would tear, after a while, so walls of cloth are built slack, and patched/replaced every few months.

3. Well, light comes from all the walls. If you are far enough from all walls (say, you're in a cloth structure several stories high, or flying) that the light can't reach you, that is a HUGE room. You'd probably think you got plane-shifted for a moment. While some rooms are dark, without light, though, no room is half-lit.

4. Light for growing plants comes from below the plants, AND above. Artificial light would only be required in Dark Rooms, which are usually not entered as a matter of superstition. If you were to grow crops in there, you'd probably be growing Yellow Musk Creeper.
Artificial light to grow crops would therefor not be economical.

5. Nodes are physical objects. You can turn any object into a node, and appear beside it when you 'port to it. Most nodes are specifically molded statues, that were made specifically to turn into a node, so that you can identify it as such.

Elemental

2011-09-18, 10:49 PM

Azandria, the Glass City

Azandria is a city composed of translucent glass buildings, built and shaped by magic. Through magic, the city's wizards strengthened the buildings and kept them from expanding. However, the enchantments that maintain the city must themselves be maintained daily at significant cost. If the wizards fail to reinforce the enchantments for more than three days in a row, the city would begin to fracture, and eventually shatter.

Azandria has three distinct districts: The Citadel, The Lower City, and The Bazaar.
-The Citadel is the oldest section of the city, and is the centre of the government and the seat of magical learning. The spells that maintain the city are cast from a domed chamber at the heart of the Citadel. The Citadel towers above the rest of the city, and is surrounded by a high wall. Within, there is a library of arcane texts, a collection of magical artifacts, a chapel for the wizards, and various chambers for study and experimentation. The wizards do not live in the Citadel, they just work there.
-The Lower City comprises most of the rest of the city, and is surrounded on all sides by grand fortifications. The city is famous for it's gardens and beautifully decorated houses. Within the city, there is a university of non-magical learning, a number of temples, public baths and a hospital for anyone who needs it.
-The Bazaar lies just inside the City's main gate, and is a large open area filled with tents and caravans of people who have come to the city to trade. It is a noisy place always filled with people and stalls where you can find almost anything.

Azandria exports grain, fruit, vegetable, meat, horses, silk, linen, wool and craft-goods. However, they have to import many of the components required for the City's maintenance, making Azandria reliant upon trade.

There are three castes within Azandrian society: the Namuri, Artisans and Commoners.
-The Namuri are all those descended from the original tribe that settled the city. The Namuri are the rulers of the city, and the only ones allowed to stand for election. Their number consists almost entirely of Wizards. Anyone who studies wizardry is inducted into the Namuri for life, but their descendants are not. The Namuri are aware of the Anchors of Respotle and view them as a group of crazed lunatics who have inhaled too many toxic fumes.
-The Artisans are all those who follow a skilled craft, trade or proffession. They are essentially Commoners, but they are taxed differently and can be chosen as magistrates.
-The Commoners consist of the common people. They farm the land and do the work. However, there is no law preventing them from becoming Artisans.
Both Commoners and Artisans are allowed to study wizardry.

The government of Azandria is essentially a caste-based democratic magocracy. The only governing body is the Council, and only members of the Namuri are allowed to stand for election. The Council makes all the laws and appoints magistrates to judge legal matters. Both Artisans and Commoners can vote.

Azandria's history can be traced back to the Namuri, a tribe of travelling wizards. The Namuri travelled through the simulation, making their living trading magical goods and services for supplies and materials. For centuries they prospered through their art, but eventually they grew tired of their nomadic way of life. They resolved they would forge themselves a permanent home and a new identity.
One day they came across an enormous chamber; a perfect cube several miles across with plenty of access to water and fertile soil. They founded their city in the centre of one of the sides of the room, and named it Azandria, for the founder of their tribe.
After establishing their farms and orchards, the Namuri soon grew tired of living in tents. For the next two hundred years, they experimented with dozens of different materials, ceramics, metals, woods of all kind, before settling on glass. Within a few short years, they had built the Citadel, and soon the entire city was ready, fortifications and all.
Soon, they began letting other people settle in their city, giving them land to farm and houses to live in. And in several centuries, the city had a firm, but mobile caste structure.

I probably wrote too much, so feel free to poke holes in it.

Qwertystop

2011-09-19, 07:07 AM

Well, to start, Word of God is already that only once city has been stopped from expanding.

flabort

2011-09-19, 10:10 AM

"Word of God" can be errata'd. :smalltongue: Not right now, though.

I did say only one city had been stopped, yes. But it appears this city has not stopped; rather, the glass structures within have been stopped, temporarily.

And depending on how costly the daily rituals are... No. Still no, only Respotle has been successfully stopped so far.

OK, not approved. yet.
I'm going to have to say you have to replace the spells to keep it from expanding with something else. Say, all the buildings/floors/upper stories are build from modular blocks of hollow glass, which fit together at the doors/openings with pegs, so that if the room expands, the glass building(s) don't fracture, and more rooms can be inserted.
Or something.

Then I'll add the location to the Table of Contents.

Qwertystop

2011-09-19, 10:38 AM

Yeah, my point was that the only reason Repostle is special is that no other room has been stopped.

Wait, if the glass blocks are hollow, wouldn't it still stretch and fail? Probably best to make solid glass blocks, and if they drift add more in between.

flabort

2011-09-19, 11:15 AM

I'd meant large enough blocks, made of glass plates, to walk in. And while the glass may stretch, and possibly fall between other plates/blocks, it won't crack from being stretched, unless it's too firmly anchored to the ground.

hydroplatypus

2011-09-19, 03:19 PM

Okay, here is the location idea that I asked about earlier.
(also will post a bio on Akeron later, but this will focus mainly on the location)

Akeron's Palace

Can't a wizard get any privacy? I come all the way here to a different plane and still I get you ruffians, you "adventurers" coming to bother me! I mean I actually built a floating palace so you would leave me alone, but no you had to find a way in! - Akeron

Not much is known about Akeron, save that he likes privacy, and he is from somewhere that he calls "the Prime Material Plane". Due to the strange rules his plane of origin few simulation natives have bothered to go there, and the few that have have had better things to do then figure out who Akeron really is.

When Akeron came to the simulation he wanted to find somewhere private to do his research. He tried to find out of the way rooms, but despite their remoteness he kept getting people barging into his laboratory. Eventually he wandered into a very large room, and decided that he would make a laboratory here. Naturally people still ventured into the room occasionally, but Akeron had figured out by then how to keep them from interrupting his work.

Over a few months Akeron had acquired a large amount of immobile rods. Using a fly spell he placed them around the chamber to form fixed locations that would serve as a base for his palace. being in the simulation these rods would naturally move away from each other, but with the room being very large, the palace would only occasionally require maintenance, as the rooms expansion was negligible compared to its size. Once the rods were in place Akeron used ropes and cables tied between the rods as support for his palace, weaving them such that they would support the weight of multiple humans in the same room. He did this for all sides of his palace, so that he could enter from any angle he chose, and not worry about subjective gravity.

After covering all of his palace in cloth, he proceeded to conduct his research in his palace, placing new rods and cloth whenever the room expanded enough that it threatened to destroy his palace.

The end result of his work was a floating palace at roughly the center of a large room. A fairly large building it contains about 20 rooms, including a laboratory, as research was his entire purpose of building this.

Most adventuring parties, or monsters that walked into the room had no method of accessing the palace, and as such left Akeron alone. Still occasionally an adventuring party finds a way up, and bothers Akeron, about which he is annoyed. Despite this he will usually ask these parties to do a job for him, usually relating to his research, as he feels that he might as well use them if they won't give him privacy.

flabort

2011-09-19, 03:37 PM

I like that one. He could also just "Un-immobilize" rods when they drift too far away, and move them closer again.

I'm too... *Yawn*... lazy to update the Table of Contents with it quite yet, but I'll add it later. :smallwink:

jojolagger

2011-09-19, 07:02 PM

hydroplatypus

2011-09-19, 07:28 PM

Haven't read much into it, but already had an idea for a fairly major organization.

The Order of the Path.
The order of the path is an elite group of casters who are attempting to map out the entirety of the simulation. They use a large force of lesser constructs to act as trailblazers, and would likely have a special magic item that projects a map, which would likely be linked to a central map-core, which is constantly being updated. They'd likely put a simple mark on any "found" rooms (likely an id number), offer bounties for "unfound" rooms, and make most of their money buy getting payed to find people and guide travelers.

They would only know a relatively small number of the actually rooms, but they would likely have easy routes from city to city, and would know less and less the further removed you get from population centers.

General idea is good, however there are several points I would like to bring up.
1. an organization that finds people already exists, and does so at no cost with a mainly volunteer force. Therefore there is no good reason to actually pay someone to go find people as the Watchers already will do it for cheaper. Perhaps they make money by selling maps of short routes to merchants too poor to afford a teleport.

2. offering bounties for unfound rooms is impractical. There are so many rooms that doing so would cause them to pay out too much money.

My general thought are that this organization should either be folded into the watchers, or preferably be a separate organization that focuses on mapping, and not on helping people. If the latter is chosen they would still have very close ties with the watcher.

Elemental

2011-09-20, 03:48 AM

jojolagger

2011-09-20, 10:17 AM

General idea is good, however there are several points I would like to bring up.
1. an organization that finds people already exists, and does so at no cost with a mainly volunteer force. Therefore there is no good reason to actually pay someone to go find people as the Watchers already will do it for cheaper. Perhaps they make money by selling maps of short routes to merchants too poor to afford a teleport.

2. offering bounties for unfound rooms is impractical. There are so many rooms that doing so would cause them to pay out too much money.

My general thought are that this organization should either be folded into the watchers, or preferably be a separate organization that focuses on mapping, and not on helping people. If the latter is chosen they would still have very close ties with the watcher.
good points. Perhaps bounties for new and useful routes.
the guide merchants to other places for a fee still works, and keeps a monopoly on maps.
Also, if they are roled into the watchers there could be 2 sub-factions.
The watchers focus on saving people from the maze, while the pathfinders constantly work on mapping the place. However they still work together, watchers updating what they can of the map, with the pathfinders guide lost souls to "nexus points" the watchers check often.

flabort

2011-09-20, 12:05 PM

Okay, I need some clarification. I'm still finding this quite confusing.

If one were to construct a building out of glass, in what way would the building expand?

Would it simply grow in size? Eventually leading to giant houses?

Or would only its interior grow? Leading to something Tardis like?

With glass and other see-though or brittle or similar materials, it would simply grow in size, leading to giant houses.

with other materials, a building would mostly only grow on the inside, leading to something like the Tardis, but the outside walls would grow too, just slowly, slower than the rest of the walls. So that the building would be larger on the inside.

Elemental

2011-09-21, 01:04 AM

Well, then another solution to the issue is to merely shrink the city at the same rate it grows in size, which is what I meant, but I didn't actually say so when I posted the description of Azandria. Very poor wording on my part.

However, I've come to realise that that poses its own problems. They'd have to shrink each building individually. They would get further apart from one another and the foundations would get pulled at by room expansion.

Hmmm... If they interconnected all the buildings, they would be a single structure, and could be shrunk together, simultaneously. And in order to deal with the foundation issue, they don't actually need them. They could build the city so that it rests on the ground, leaving the ground and city to move independently.

That's a slightly complicated solution, and would probably not work at all.

hydroplatypus

2011-09-23, 01:43 PM

Well I promised to post Akeron's Bio so here it is.

Akeron
Akeron was originally born on the prime material plane. The youngest child of a powerful noble, he knew that he wouldn’t inherit much, and when he was older he sought a way to make his own place in the world. Being intelligent, and with his father paying his enterance fees Akeron began training at a wizard’s academy. He loved the way that transmutation could make the world change for him, and as such decided to further study it. To free up the time required to study transmutation Akeron stopped studying Necromancy and Enchantment. This was not a big loss for him, as he was disgusted by necromancy, and considered mid controlling people to be immoral. In addition to studying transmutation he also spent spare time learning about the planes, as a hobby of his. As he got older he rose in prominence in the university until he became a professor. He then started doing research on transmutation. A few years after he started researching he heard about the simulation, a plane where physics worked differently. Akeron realized that the simulation would likely utilize transmutation magic (or something similar enough to copy with magic) to expand, and as such would be a great environment for research. He also liked it because he would get to indulge his passion in learning of other planes. He decided to take an indeterminate leave of absence from the university, and go to the simulation in order to study it. When he got there, and got used to the weird rules it used he found an empty room and started to research. He was very angry when he came back from gathering resources only to find an adventuring party in the process of sacking his lab. After cleaning up the gooey mess that used to be the adventurers he realized that he would have to find a more remote location for his lab. He tried from some time, however adventurers, monsters and lost individuals kept interrupting him. Eventually he decided to build Akeron’s Palace, so that he could finally have a location that would be inacessable enough for his research to continue in peace. After constructing his Palace he was actually able to get some research done. Occasionally he takes a vacation to the Prime Material, where he visits his old friends, and gives the academy his research for their archives. Early research included the average frequency of growth spurts, and the speed of growth, as at the time these measurements weren’t known in the prime material. Later research included what happens to objects left in a doorway, as well as studies of how teleportation distances work in the simulation. He also has been trying to use the simulation to inspire new transmutation spells, and has met with some success (see Akeron’s custom spells). For the moment he hasn’t gotten around to teaching anyone else these, and as such he is the only one who knows them. In the decade that has passed since his palace has been constructed he has realized that his hatred of adventurers is somewhat irrational. Despite the fact that some are evil, he realized that most are good/neutral on the whole. As such he is occasionally willing to hire adventurers to help with his research, or to guard his palace while he is on vacation. That being said he doesn’t exactly like them, he sees them mainly as useful, but annoying.

Akeron’s custom spells
As he has been researching for about 10 years he should have a few custom spells, however I can’t think of any at the moment. Will accept ideas, and edit in more as I come up with them. I was thinking 2 or 3 customs, ideally something related to the simulation in some way. Might make a good quest reward for a wiz.

jojolagger

2011-09-23, 06:31 PM

Akeron’s custom spells
As he has been researching for about 10 years he should have a few custom spells, however I can’t think of any at the moment. Will accept ideas, and edit in more as I come up with them. I was thinking 2 or 3 customs, ideally something related to the simulation in some way. Might make a good quest reward for a wiz.
Probably a few unusual spells from other sources (I strongly recommend Nybor's Joyful voyage, if that's the right name), in addition to a few simulation based spells.
Some idea's
Wall Jump (1st)- For the duration of the spell, the subject my jump to different walls as if throw to them, allowing the target to change which way is down.
Find the Route (3rd?)- Shows the next X (CL?, 2xCL?) rooms in the path to get to a known room.

hydroplatypus

2011-09-27, 08:07 PM

I don't have too many sourcebooks so that won't be too helpful. That said I like the spell ideas you gave. I wrote them up to the best of my ability.

Akeron's Wall Jump

Wall Jump
Level: Wiz 1, transmutation
Components: V,S
Casting time: standard action
Range: Touch
Effect: allows user to easily jump from wall to wall, changing subjective gravity as they do this
Duration: 1min/level or until dismissed
Saving throw: None
Spell resistance: yes (harmless)

Wall jump allows the user to jump from wall to wall, with whatever wall they land on being considered the floor for purposes of gravity. This allows the user to run up walls, onto ceilings and anything else that the user can think of.
Recipient of spell can dismiss this effect whenever they choose, permanently ending the effect unless the spell is recast.

Find the route

Find the Route
Level: Wiz 3, divination
Components: V,S
Casting Time: full round action
Effect: Upon casting the caster knows the next few rooms of the shortest possible route to the intended destination
Duration: instantaneous
Saving throw: None
Spell resistance: No

After the casting is completed the caster knows the next CR rooms that are along the shortest possible route towards his target destination.

Qwertystop

2011-09-27, 08:53 PM

Spell Compendium has something like Wall Jump in just about every way. It gives the target subjective gravity, so they fall toward whichever direction they want to. Pretty much the same thing Wall Jump does, but you can change the direction as much as you want for the duration of the spell, even in midair. Make sure this one is lower level than it, as it is strictly worse.

hydroplatypus

2011-09-28, 11:10 AM

Spell Compendium has ...

I don't have spell compendium

flabort

2011-09-28, 11:20 AM

I'd make the first spell 2nd level, or personal. If you make it personal, make a second version that's 2nd level, that does effect other people. But at a higher range than touch. Like, ranged touch, or something.

More ideas:
Akeron's direct portal (8th, 9th, or "10"th (epic), creates a door with 1 or less rooms between it and a target room, although after time there will be more rooms anyways)
Akeron's untearable fibers (creates a string/yarn or cloth that can't be torn, no matter how far the Simulation stretches it, even if it's in a door)

Qwertystop

2011-09-28, 02:41 PM

I don't have spell compendium

False Gravity:
Transmutation
Level: Sorcerer/wizard 3
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: 1 minute/level
Saving Throw: Will negates
(harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

Effectively, the target can change which way is "down" 1/round as a free action.

The material components are non-expensive.

Lady Serpentine

2011-09-28, 04:56 PM

What? I know I subscribed to this thread a month or so ago. And yet, I haven't gotten a single update since.

Blargh.

Not only did I miss several pages of discussion, I lost a chance to get into the campaign. :smallfrown:

Lady Serpentine

2011-09-30, 11:37 PM

Flabort, I don't think you ever answered my question about what would happen if you made a room with the ceiling, three walls, and the floor, made of cloth, and one wall the normal wall-stuff of wherever you are.

(Also, Eledragon, I'm a bit annoyed that, in the post where you said that people from this thread would get in first, despite the fact that I posted on the first page, before you or several of the other people you mentioned, you seem to have left me out of the list, since I was never told about the campaign.)

Eledragon

2011-10-01, 10:15 AM

(Also, Eledragon...

I'm sowwy, but I totally didn't remember you :smallfrown:.

you could try asking the DM if you can be let in, because it looks like he's seriously struggling with a plot...

Qwertystop

2011-10-01, 10:19 AM

If you get let in, try to put a plot hook in your backstory.

Lady Serpentine

2011-10-01, 10:20 AM

flabort

2011-10-01, 10:41 AM

Flabort, I don't think you ever answered my question about what would happen if you made a room with the ceiling, three walls, and the floor, made of cloth, and one wall the normal wall-stuff of wherever you are.

You mean when you're sideways in a tent? :smalltongue: Sorry I didn't answer before, it's just one of.... those kinds of questions you tend to miss.

That happens to be a tent, with a different gravity than you. No door will appear on the floordifferent wall, unless you build another wall that's not cloth.
The cloth walls will not expand, but the other one will, because it's part of a larger wall that's expanding. But, since the tent walls are usually only some-what secured, enough to stay still, but little enough that the legs won't get pulled so far apart the tent rips, should you have gravity to stand on a tent wall, you'll rip the tent off the wall, and start falling towards whichever wall you have gravity, with the tent.

flabort

2011-10-01, 10:45 AM

I think I will. Thanks for the tip!

(It's not all your fault, either. I missed it because, due to a forum error, I didn't actually get subscribed to this.)

Edit: Sure. Sounds good. If I get in, there will be a plot hook.

Ah. Not to push you in any direction, but I just want to note there's no constructs in our party, in a construct dominated setting. :smallwink:

I'm sorry about the Forum error (They make me :smallfurious: all the time), I've never seen that one. I've seen the human Click-subscribe,-don't-click-add-subscription-on-the-next-page error, though. Not trying to say you did that, though.
I need to compile a list of errors I've seen (only around 2~3 so far).

Lady Serpentine

2011-10-01, 10:51 AM

That raises another question - do you have to reset your tent every day, due to the stretching?

Also, what if you make a tent with no floor, and only three walls?

So you have something like this:

#---------------#
#.....................#
#.....................#
#.....................#
#.....................#
#.....................#
#.....................#
######D#####

With --- being a normal wall, and ... being normal floor.

Edit: Also, since one of my favorite characters is a Clockwork Horse that's technically just my Eidolon, I have no problem with playing a construct.

flabort

2011-10-01, 11:02 AM

No, the legs are usually not anchored so tightly that you need to reset your tent. They.... "skitter" inwards when the growth gets too much for them. Akeron's Palace is an exception, because he built it with immovable rods, not loose tent poles.

If you set your tent up in a corner like that, it wouldn't be much different. You'd run the risk of a door showing up in one corner of your tent now, but since it slides out from the other wall when it shows up, you'd probably have time to move your sleeping bag.
If the walls expand too much, you may (not likely, if it's tightly in the corner) end up with this:
------------------
.........................
.........................
#.....................#
#.....................#
#.....................#
#.....................#
#.....................#
#.....................#
######D#####

Lady Serpentine

2011-10-01, 11:07 AM

Now I really want to set up something like that, with extra rolls of cloth on the sides of the tent.

When the walls expand, you just unroll the cloth.

Next question: Why, if everything can be a floor or a wall, don't doors form in the floor of most tents/cities?

flabort

2011-10-01, 11:13 AM

because technically, according to the Magic and twisted physics that rule the Simulation, cloth walls aren't walls.
And doors only form at places where walls meet, or where you dig a hole or leave large enough of an imprint.

Lady Serpentine

2011-10-01, 11:16 AM

So, if you build a wall on a Wall of Force in midair, does that count as two walls meeting?

And could it form in the Wall of Force? If so, what happens if you dispel it?

hydroplatypus

2011-10-05, 09:03 PM

Looking over the thread we have basic physics stuff, locations, a few organization, but no real major NPCs except Akeron. (by major I mean have more that like 2 lines devoted to them, not their actual political significance)
Does anyone have any ideas? We should ideally have several high levels (like Akeron) and some mid levels. If anyone wants to make a low level that would be good, but they aren't really necessary (I probly will if I get bored)..

Also Flabort could you update table of contents for Akeron's palace?
Thanks

flabort

2011-10-06, 10:09 AM

Boom! ToC updated.

Lady Serpentine

2011-10-06, 10:14 AM

So, to rephrase my earlier question: Does a Wall of Force count as a wall? And if so, what happens to a door that's formed in it if it's dispelled?

flabort

2011-10-06, 10:22 AM

Walls of force are temporary magical effects. OK, so they last a pretty long time, but they are created purely by magic, and according to the forces that cause the Simulation to expand, are not walls, but simply blocks of force.

And so no it doesn't count as a wall, and doors can't form in it, so it can't be dispelled while there's a door in it.

Lady Serpentine

2011-10-06, 10:28 AM

So, how about a wall created using a Miracle or Wish? Or one where all of the bricks were made with Create Minor Item and assembled with Prestidigitation?

Also, how does Permanency affect this?

hydroplatypus

2011-10-14, 08:40 PM

MJC doesn't seem to be posting at all anymore in our PbP game. Was wondering if anyone wanted to take over. C'nor, you expressed dissapointment at not being able to play, mabye you would be interested? If not that's okay. Eventually someone should put something up in recruitment, but thought to ask here first. Also anyone is welcome, I onlly mentioned C'nor because he explicitly expressed interest

Edit: this is a request for a DM not a request for a player. Thanks for noticing I didn't put that qwertystop.

Qwertystop

2011-10-14, 08:56 PM

Lady Serpentine

2011-10-14, 10:35 PM

I'm afraid that's a no on DMing. partly because I can't commit to making good stuff for anything else at the moment, and partly because I've never DMed.

hydroplatypus

2011-10-22, 10:38 AM

DM recruitment thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=219800)

I finally put up a thread looking for a DM for this game.

hydroplatypus

2011-10-23, 08:42 AM

New idea for a location in the simulation. the general idea is easily copy pasted to other small areas.

Ildur

Ildur is a small simulation settlement of about 130 people. Originally an attempt at the colonization of a promising room, it was carried away by the simulation's expansion before it had its teleportation node set up. Quickly forgotten by the major cities as Ildur had no spell-casters powerful enough to teleport, Ildur became isolated, with no contact with non-residents. Over time the cleric and wizard that lived in the village died, without leaving apprentices. Due to the lack of outside contact the villagers lost their understanding of what magic was, and how it actually worked. As time passed the villagers became more superstitious and came to tell tales of powerful wizards, with the tales being used to scare children. As time passed the perceptions of these villagers was colored due to the fact that tales about fearsome villains were more interesting than tales about peaceful magic users. The people of Ildur came to regard magic as evil, and something that needed to be destroyed, something that they did quite readily when a lost wizard stumbled into their town.

OK a summary of the important points is below
1. these people have had no casters in their village for a few centuries.
2. They fear all magic users, and will try to kill them

Intended to be a low level area, as once the casters become reasonably powerful they could just slaughter the whole village.