Far Future Campaign Setting Idea

[unseenmage]

Had this idea and was wondering if anyone else wanted to help me flesh it out.
Game is 3.x, all books and Drag/Dung mags. 3rd party allowed but likely to be rejected as I don't have most of it.

The short of it.

- Infinite planes are now finite.
- No mortal races left.
- No mortal creatures left.
- All scrolls have mishaps.
- All planes have connections to every other plane.
- Private Demiplanes and Extradimensional Spaces all now have at least one link to a "real" plane at all times.
- All Portals are randomized, to either be on or off and to random destinations.
- The Gods have lost their worshippers and new souls no longer become Petitioners/Demons/Devils/Angels.


A nigh eternity of interplanar war has wrought ruin upon the planes. All of the mortal races have died off. The things that rely on them for survival have died off. The birth rates for those few immortal souls who do remain are so low as not to matter.

The war has torn the planes asunder. Basically every random and damaging planar effect from the Manual of the Planes have cropped up all over the multiverse. The chocolate and the peanut butter are mixed in with the pickle brine and the sauerkraut. It's a mess. Private demiplanes aren't private. Extradimensional spaces aren't separate. Infinite planes have limits.

Magic is broken. All the portals everywhere are randomized. All scrolls have mishaps. All potions are mixed with other potions. Spells above 9th level are even rumored to happen. Without mortal worshippers the gods are either mortal, dead, or both.

The only races left are the immortal ones. Costructs like the Warforged and Maugs, the non-living dependant Undead.

I want this world to be fun but make sense. Be grim but have order where appropriate. The wars should still be raging in places but reason should be trying to prevail in others.

How close can we get to my dystopian vision Playground? Think Post-scarcity but with the twist that magic doesn't solve all of the needs. The remaining creatures/characters just don't have mortal needs.

[Brookshw]

Inevitables and Modrons fighting a losing battle to keep pockets of mechanus safe.

How are you dealing with outsiders? The abyss would keep spewing demons, the Slaad might be having the time of there lives. The far plane could be creeping in as a result of the planar destabilization. Petitioners could get corrupted some how.

[unseenmage]

Inevitables and Modrons fighting a losing battle to keep pockets of mechanus safe.

How are you dealing with outsiders? The abyss would keep spewing demons, the Slaad might be having the time of there lives. The far plane could be creeping in as a result of the planar destabilization. Petitioners could get corrupted some how.

Whatever infinite resources the planes may have had are cut off. Infinite planes are now finite. The souls that once fed through the Material plane to make Petitioners, and the good and evil versions of Petitioners have stopped cycling through. No new demons, devils, angels, or petitioners.

[Brookshw]

Kill off a good stack of gods, most of them, especially the racial ones. Creatures/horrors previously sealed in pandemonium/carceri etc are now free. Surviving "races" are fighting losing battles of attrition for "safe" areas.

I'm really having fun imagining a corrupted celestia with maybe the first four or five levels having lost the good alignment traits, the shining sea becoming a toxic waste dump.

Hmmm....I like this though I have no idea if what I've said is of any help.....

[Kaje]

The Vestiges made real again...

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by unseenmage
The only races left are the immortal ones. Costructs like the Warforged and Maugs, the non-living dependant Undead.

I want this world to be fun but make sense....

Your initial seed concept seemed interesting, but I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy playing in this setting, since that would depend a great deal on the races involved. Apart from the ones you've mentioned above, what others would be available?

[unseenmage]

Your initial seed concept seemed interesting, but I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy playing in this setting, since that would depend a great deal on the races involved. Apart from the ones you've mentioned above, what others would be available?

That is definitely one of the questions.

[Brookshw]

How would you feel about certain races having true mind switched with constructs or elementals? Animated object statues with the minds of elves, or earth elementals with the minds of dwarves?

[unseenmage]

How would you feel about certain races having true mind switched with constructs or elementals? Animated object statues with the minds of elves, or earth elementals with the minds of dwarves?

That definitely would make for some odd interactions culturally. Would be like the show Dollhouse there towards the end. Never knowing just whose mind is hiding in what body.

[Brookshw]

That was a good show, the actor who played victor was amazing. Shame they cancelled it.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by unseenmage
All of the mortal races have died off. The things that rely on them for survival have died off. ...The only races left are the immortal ones.

This is a real squincher. Cutting out everything but immortals removes almost everything I'd like to play.

I just paged through the entire Monster Manual, and apart from what's been mentioned above, only golems and elementals seem to be available. I'm afraid that doesn't make for a very appealing environment.

: /

[Maginomicon]

Quesars are playable (from level 1) "non-living" constructs and thus immortal. They also can't die so long as there's sunlight somewhere.

[(Un)Inspired]

I think you should consider the shear number of Ghosts that could be stuck on you're prime material plane. With a war serious enough to kill off all non-immortal life you're gonna have a serious influx of incorporeal undead.

Think about all the ghost killed on other planes that belong on the material plane and would gradually drift back their, or all the non material plane ghost that died on the material plane in these wars. I'm sure the multiverse has more life born off the material plane than on it.

No only will your setting be filled to burst with ghosts but they'll be ghost from beyond your material plane. Space ghosts, coming to haunt that land that now occupied by constructs.

Billions of them packed onto one plane. Space ghosts. From Coast to Coast.

[Larkas]

I could definitely see a LN Heironeous that has gone mad due to the loss of his brother, not through his hands, but through some terrible planar cataclysm. He probably wears Hextor's hand on a necklace.

[almightycoma]

In regards to playable races could you use awakens effigies of 1hd creatures?

[unseenmage]

This is a real squincher. Cutting out everything but immortals removes almost everything I'd like to play.

I just paged through the entire Monster Manual, and apart from what's been mentioned above, only golems and elementals seem to be available. I'm afraid that doesn't make for a very appealing environment.

: /

Yeah, it does restrict the playables a lot. But that's what I'm after. A world where your options are slim and the challenge is high.

There's a Psionic race that doesn't age if I remember correctly.
Any character with the immortality feat would still be around possibly, if the DM allowed Dragon material.
Necropolitans would remain.
Warforged certainly.
Maugs.
Any Construct or Undead with a Level Adjustment who doesn't rely on living creatures for survival.
The Ghost Template from Ghostwalk, the race, not the monster.

That's all I've thought of so far. RL got in the way of research this weekend (found a new awesome gaming store to play at! :smallbiggrin:). Will research more during the weekdays next week.


In regards to playable races could you use awakens effigies of 1hd creatures?

Yeah, but you'd have to find a Level Adjust for them. Commonly Effigy is assumed to be LA +1 but that would be up to DM fiat. Guess I could work them into the setting though, alongside playable Skeletons and Zombies maybe.

[Larkas]

There's a Psionic race that doesn't age if I remember correctly.

Elan's the name.

[Kaje]

I am really interested in this idea. Keep going!

[PraxisVetli]

What about really really long lived creatures? Dragons?
Illithids? (Maybe not since diet)
Aboleths?

[unseenmage]

What about really really long lived creatures? Dragons?
Illithids? (Maybe not since diet)
Aboleths?

I had considered those. If I were to write this up as a setting I'd likely include a sidebar explaining that the setting doesn't include them but that the DM is more than encouraged to stash them away somewhere all Dinotopia style if they want to.

So no, I wouldn't include them but they could be there all the same.

[unseenmage]

Have continued to consider this idea as it fascinates me.

A friend pointed out that due to Temporal Stasis, Quintessence, etc players could still play basically whatever race they wanted thanks to the various time capsule like effects. It's the races that make up society that would be changed by the setting.

He also suggested that the gears of Mechanus could be ground down to nubs, they've stopped spinning.

The Lady of Pain would be gone, vanished. Weather she's really gone or not is always the fear. Randomized portals doesn't do too much to Sigil anyway.

Also decided that however far back the Teleport Through Time spell allows you to get, that's how far into the future we're long past. No mining the past for precious resources. :smalltongue:

The end has come. It is not nigh, it isn't to be stopped. It is here.

The fires of the Plane of Fire have gone out, it's a frozen husk.
The Plane of Water has ceased to be wet, is a Plane of dust and open air now.
The Plane of Air is still as a dry tomb sealed within the dead core of a meteorite. It somehow suffocates your lifeforce as well as your breath.
The Plane of Earth is crumbling to nothing. Vast emptiness, a "Nothing' incarnate if you will, has eaten at the entire plane.
The Plane of Positive Energy is quiescent and rotted. Negative energy pools here now, positive energy reversed. But just as often it simply ceases to be.
The Plane of Negative Energy has lost it's lustor. The undead writhe and fickler out of existence here. The resident Wraiths and Liches somehow fade from memory, then from reality.

The multiverse of elemental and alignment Planes seem to have run dry. They almost flipped and reversed oneanothers roles but then that process was interrupted by a ceasing. An ending. A nothingness that pervaded these Planes and made naught of the multiverse's attempts to heal itself.

The oldest elder creatures speak of a time when heavens became hells and fires became ice and healing became harm. But not even that lasted.


The oldest creatures, those who claim to have existed since before the current cosmos are stirring.
The Elder Evils have run rampant for so long that they just are now. Those that survived.
The gods are gone. They just began to die, first the racial deities. Then those who throve on the infinite aspects of the multiverse. Deities of fire and water and energy. The Nature deities held out the longest. As did those dedicated to death or entropy. But eventually even their power sources flickered and gave out.

This hasn't been the natural ending of the worlds. Though that end was close enough at hand. Something sped this along. The few surviving beings can feel the weight of the multiverse on their shoulders as more and more of them succumb to the rigors of ending.

This is the end. The world, all worlds, are dying or dead. Magic itself is frayed and shattered. The core pillars of the multiverse, good evil law chaos fire water earth air, have eroded to almost nothing. This is the end.

But all is not lost, not quite yet. Some races survive, some even thrive. It is a different multiverse now, obviously, but not so strange either. Old enmities still drive war, resources still drive trade. Mongrelfolk, the mutant mixed offspring race, a blend of all races really, litter the Prime Material. Warforged and Elan empires stand on dusty continents. Necropolitans and Ghosts are become common citizenry.
What's more, time capsules from the past bring bright eyed, naive adventurers and mages from the distant past. Sometimes whole valleys or caverns encased in stasis jut out from the timestream. Whole peoples appear from a war torn high-magic past having stored themselves away hoping for a brighter future only to find their end is nigh and they are food for a hungry new world of Undead, or worse inconsequential to a world of Constructs.

Can heroes matter at the end of all things? Can salvation be found when good and evil are broken and all but gone?
There's only one way to find out; by exploring the Far Future Campaign Setting.

[Doc_Maynot]

Uh... Teleport Through Time has no limit. It just becomes more dangerous to cast as you approach 1,000+ Years

Still, like the idea though.

[unseenmage]

Uh... Teleport Through Time has no limit. It just becomes more dangerous to cast as you approach 1,000+ Years

Still, like the idea though.

One wonders, does it ever become lethally dangerous? Is there an arbitrarily large number of years you can throw at it to make it implausible/impossible?

[Doc_Maynot]

"Mishaps result in the spell failing and the character taking 1 point of Intelligence damage for every 10 years of expected time travel due to the mental bombardment that time travel brings with it. Thus, a character trying to transport through 100 years would take 10 points of Intelligence damage. Intelligence can be reduced to 0 through this damage (but not lower)."

That plus the max mishap chance being 25% at 1,000+ years, I'd say a wizard probably wouldn't do it unless there was a contingent restoration on him, or just someone that could cast it in the same room.

[unseenmage]

"Mishaps result in the spell failing and the character taking 1 point of Intelligence damage for every 10 years of expected time travel due to the mental bombardment that time travel brings with it. Thus, a character trying to transport through 100 years would take 10 points of Intelligence damage. Intelligence can be reduced to 0 through this damage (but not lower)."

That plus the max mishap chance being 25% at 1,000+ years, I'd say a wizard probably wouldn't do it unless there was a contingent restoration on him, or just someone that could cast it in the same room.

Ugh, that means that in my dystopian future primarily populated by Undead and Constructs who are immune to ability damage/drain farming the past is still an option... hmmm. I might have to impose a CL based limit to keep my dystopian future as a setting instead of a distant threat which attacks the past for it's precious resources.

Then again, what better way to end the universe than to have the future kill its own past.
I must ruminate on this further.

[Dr.Gara]

Ugh, that means that in my dystopian future primarily populated by Undead and Constructs who are immune to ability damage/drain farming the past is still an option... hmmm. I might have to impose a CL based limit to keep my dystopian future as a setting instead of a distant threat which attacks the past for it's precious resources.

Then again, what better way to end the universe than to have the future kill its own past.
I must ruminate on this further.

That, or just not have those spells exist anymore. With every universe falling apart, losing a spell or two is far from unreasonable.