Planescape Factions

[EccentricCircle]

I'm working on a planescape game where an NPC Wizard has travelled back in time to mess with their own timeline, and has accidentaly (probably) erased himself from existance becoming a vestige.

I want to include the various planescape factions, as I think that that is essential in creating a game with a distinctly sigilite feel. (and it will give the players a lead as to where to start investigating). So which faction is most likely to produce someone who would want to go back in time and change their own history just to see what happens?

I was originally thinking Xaositect, but i'm wondering if the Sensites might be more apropriate?

any thoughts.

[Mystral]

Sounds more like Fated to me. Who else would take control over time itself, and screw the consequences? Or maybe a Sign of One who wants to interact with the only real being in the multiverse?

[Eldan]

I was thinking Fated too. After all, (spoilers) that is close to what the Duke ended up doing.

That entire "I take what I want, screw the laws of the multiverse" attitude, you know.

[Fearan]

just to see what happens?

Not Fated, they would do it for something more practical. Not Signer - he allready know what happens, after all, he invented this Multiverse. My bet on the Sensates

[EccentricCircle]

Thanks for the sugestions!

I don't know very much about the Sign of One as I (alas) only have access to the 3e-4e planar books, and they're not discussed much. thats the trouble with wanting to do a prefaction war game when all the resources are post faction war, but no matter i'll be making a lot of it up as I go along anyway.

The fated are an interesting one. but as Fearan says I would expect them to have more of an aim in mind than simply deciding to see what happens. I could give the character more of a motive to make him fit with the Fated ethos a bit more, such as wanting to give his past self the information he has in the present, but i'm not sure how well that would work.

[Eldan]

Ah, well, just to see what happens is a tricky bit, yes.


You could explain that with several factions.

Xaositects? "Why the hell not! It's fun!"
Bleakers? "Well, my life can't possibly be any worse than it already is."
Ciphers? "It seemed the right thing to do at the time."
Sensates? "I had to experience different boundary conditions to see the events from a different angle."
Guvners? "It was a loophole. Someone had to exploit and document it."


It's all in how you phrase it.

[NichG]

Yeah, this could be almost any faction really...

Guvners: I've just invented time travel! Now I must go and regulate it.

Harmonium: Think of all the disorder we could prevent by going back to before crimes were committed and arresting the involved parties then.

Mercykillers: You can't run, you can't hide, because we can hunt you down and kill you before you were even born.

Sensates: New experience? Count me in.

Doomguard: What better way to spread entropy than to mess up the continuity of time.

Xaositects: We love the butterfly effect.

Believers of the Source: I'm going to help myself on the path to Ascension by warning myself when I'm falling off of it.

Ciphers: It felt right

Athar: Lets go back to when this guy became a god and record it for posterity, so we can prove that the gods are just people who made a power grab and not actually 'divine'.

Fated: I invested a greenie back 900 years before Haskar 1, knowing which banks would fold and which would survive. I now own all the gold in Sigil.

etc

[Eldan]

That's a scary thought.

Pre-Crime, but run by Mercykillers.

[NichG]

Statute of limitations? No problem, we'll use the information in the posthumous memoirs of his children to catch him before it wears off. Even worse, judging the criminals of the past by the laws of the future of vice versa. Choose your era and laws.

On the other hand, you could have a fun campaign where the PCs are time travellers who try to go back and solve famous unsolved crimes.

[EccentricCircle]

On the other hand, you could have a fun campaign where the PCs are time travellers who try to go back and solve famous unsolved crimes.

that would certainly be an interesting one.
for this game i'm probably going to go with a Xaositect as thats probably the simplist option.

[Eldan]

Xaositects are easy to involve in almost anything, yeah. However, they are difficult to get right. Done right, any Planescape faction shouldn't just appear to be crazy guys in groups and maybe matching clothes. Not even the Xaositects. They have to have a philosophy that's sure to be at least interesting to the players. The kind that they either vehemently support or violently oppose.

Also, their faction powers are quite interesting. Use them.