Question about Sigil

[Sontali]

So I was reading the Manual of the Planes (3.5e) and I noticed that you could use the Plane of Shadow to get to alternate Prime Material Planes. I always thought that Sigil was the only way to do this, so does that mean that there is a Sigil for every PMP that uses a standard cosmology?

[TuggyNE]

There's only one Sigil. Strictly speaking, I believe Planescape cosmology has only one PMP, too; it's just divided up into sections that are very difficult to get between. So Toril is in one section (per Spelljammer, that would be a crystal sphere), Eberron in another, and so forth.

That's actually the reason Cage-dwellers are so dismissive of "clueless Primes"; they tend to believe that their own world is the entirety of the Prime, and thus a significant part of the multiverse, when this is very far from the truth.

[Sontali]

Hmm, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for answering so fast.

[Erik Vale]

I'm also pretty sure that you have to head into the 'centre' [wherever that is] of the shadow plane to actually be able to travel between planes using it [other than rare material/shadow portals], which is both more and less dangerous then sigil, where a portal is X feet down Y street, while Z [normally holding something], without looking at the Lady of Pain or pissing off something that can step on you, literally or figuratively, which can be damn near everything at times... And paying for said information in amounts varying from 'didn't you already know' to 'it'll cost you your soul'.

[BWR]

There's only one Sigil. Strictly speaking, I believe Planescape cosmology has only one PMP, too; it's just divided up into sections that are very difficult to get between. So Toril is in one section (per Spelljammer, that would be a crystal sphere), Eberron in another, and so forth.

That's actually the reason Cage-dwellers are so dismissive of "clueless Primes"; they tend to believe that their own world is the entirety of the Prime, and thus a significant part of the multiverse, when this is very far from the truth.

Correct. There's a reason people talk of " the Prime Material Plane" rather than "a Prime Material Plane".

Of course the need to jam all D&D settings into Planescape meant they had to some interesting mental/planar gymnastics to keep all settings true to themselves as well as follow the Great Wheel cosmology. If you don't look too closely or think too hard it works.

[Eldan]

Planescape's explanations tend to default to either "Those primes don't know what they are talking about" (e.g. the people of Krynn calling all outer planes "The Abyss") or "Weird phenomenon/it's demiplanes, not real planes" (Athas and the Grey, alternate elemental planes).

[MadGreenSon]

The thing about Planescape is that it interacts ok-ish with Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance and maybe Mystara (I do not know the Known World:smalltongue:). Ravenloft is also easily encapsulated in it's framework.

However, things get weird with Dark Sun and especially Eberron.

Athas could get explained as a part of the Prime that is strangely blocked from most access to the Astral and Ethereal Planes.

But Eberron's cosmology is a whole different beast. It is provably different from the Great Wheel of Planescape and I honestly just consider it entirely separate from the rest of the settings as far as that goes.

Eberron is provably at the center of it's planar framework with chartable "orbits" of the various planes, manifest zones, convergences, the Outsiders being different and all the rest of the odd little things.

It adds up to the setting literally being in a different multiverse than the rest of the mentioned settings.

So I run it as such. The really appealing crossover bits for everyone are Warforged, Changelings and Artificers.
If Artificers show up in other settings they need to be tweaked anyway due to the lack of Action Points, etc.
Warforged and Changelings can be either imported as-is (Changelings) or re-fluffed to be the product of some other war or big magical kerfluffle (Warforged).

Also, IMO, despite how badass they are, Planar Shepherds only really work right in Eberron with Eberron's cosmology, everywhere else they need huge amounts of work to fit.
Same with Sovereign Speakers only really fitting The Sovereign Host, too.

So I keep Sigil where it is and move the one setting that doesn't fit...elsewhere.

[Eldan]

But Eberron's cosmology is a whole different beast. It is provably different from the Great Wheel of Planescape and I honestly just consider it entirely separate from the rest of the settings as far as that goes.

Eberron is provably at the center of it's planar framework with chartable "orbits" of the various planes, manifest zones, convergences, the Outsiders being different and all the rest of the odd little things.

Actually, the quick-and-dirty fan explanation on Planewalker was that either Eberron is connected to a set of demiplanes that are mistaken for real planes by the inhabitants (but is otherwise isolated) or that they aren't planes but Eberron's moons (there is sort of a correlation there).

[BWR]

The thing about Planescape is that it interacts ok-ish with Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance and maybe Mystara (I do not know the Known World:smalltongue:). Ravenloft is also easily encapsulated in it's framework.

However, things get weird with Dark Sun and especially Eberron.

Athas could get explained as a part of the Prime that is strangely blocked from most access to the Astral and Ethereal Planes.


PS bascially uses the Greyhawk cosmology, tarted up a bit. FR, I'm a bit weak on Realmslore, but I don't think they had an explicit cosmology until 3e, when they moved away from the Great Wheel. Mystara is a bit different. The cosmology is perhaps not quite as different as Eberron's, but it does work quite a bit differently than the Great Wheel, espcially when you start bringing in Dimensions. However you canonically have Mystaran characters in Sigil (Farrow from Uncaged), and some references to Mystara show up other in other works. PS tried to explain away Eberron as the world itself shifting in and out of alignment with the various planes, which they knew by other names. Just like Krynnfolks don't know any better than to call everything outside of their world the Abyss, Eberronites only see how things appear to them from their position.
Athas was explained away in PS as having some full Astral and partial Ethereal block. (but Black Spine and the gith indicate that it connects to the greater multiverse in some way).

If you really want to mess things up in Planescape, you can have all the various cosmologies somehow exist together. Belief is a key component in PS, and if enough beings on other worlds believe the multiverse works a certain way, then for them it does, even if this is at odds with the more popular view of Sigilians. You could have two clerics of Thor who have different origin stories for their god/Immortal, ascribe different power levels, different home planes, different enemies and allies, and different personalities and somehow still worship the same being.

[MadGreenSon]

Actually, the quick-and-dirty fan explanation on Planewalker was that either Eberron is connected to a set of demiplanes that are mistaken for real planes by the inhabitants (but is otherwise isolated) or that they aren't planes but Eberron's moons (there is sort of a correlation there).

That seems pretty thin to me. Planewalkers have plenty of Prime worlds to feel superior to, Eberron is just different. It's a self contained setting. There's nothing wrong with that.

Also, lots of things about the Eberron setting work differently in very fundamental ways than they do in other settings, alignment for creatures, how planes interact with the world, the way magic seems to work, Action Points, etc.

Planars can be Clueless too, y'know. :smallbiggrin:

Not to say I have anything against Planescape as a setting, It just doesn't mesh with Eberron for me (not too well with Dark Sun either, really) and that's not a big deal.

I've had great Planescape, Eberron and Dark Sun games and will again. I just don't feel a need to jam them all in the same universe.

[BWR]

No one is disagreeing with you about the value of keeping idiosyncrasies of the settings, but the core concept of PS, apart from being about wonder and belief, is it is a crossover setting. If you want to have crossovers between two worlds with incompatible cosmologies, something has to give. And in this case, they make the non-GW cosmologies into misunderstandings about how the planes actually work. From the POV of the inhabitants, who generally aren't the most knowledgeable about these things, the sun appears to circle the earth, so to speak.
I'm not very familiar with Eberron, but is there any real information about these planes of theirs other than a few vague lines about 'realm of aberrations' and whatnot?

[Eldan]

That seems pretty thin to me. Planewalkers have plenty of Prime worlds to feel superior to, Eberron is just different. It's a self contained setting. There's nothing wrong with that.

Oh, absolutely. It's incredibly thin and flimsy and doesn't really work once examined in detail. But I think it works well enough to introduce the odd Eberron character into Planescape.

Edit: Actually going to the planes doesn't seem to play a large role in Eberron. What does, however, are three things.

First of all, the constellation of the planes. Much like comets circling a sun, the planes move metaphysically closer or more distant from Eberron, changing the properties of its prime. When their firey plane is closer, the weather gets hotter. When the plane of conflict is closer, there's more aggression, and so on.

Second, manifest zones. Eberron has special zones that have some of the properties of the plane they are linked to. THe city of Sharrn is an air-related manifest zone, so things like jumping and flying are easier, especially if done by magic, and buildings can be built to incredible heights without collapsing.

Third, invasions. Eberron has repeatedly been invaded by planar beings and their armies and creations.

[MadGreenSon]

No one is disagreeing with you about the value of keeping idiosyncrasies of the settings, but the core concept of PS, apart from being about wonder and belief, is it is a crossover setting. If you want to have crossovers between two worlds with incompatible cosmologies, something has to give.

If I were to cross Eberron and Planescape, just this once I'd have the planewalkers be wrong. If the Eberron universe is connected to the Great Wheel, it would be only through the City of Doors, and thus a true multiverse is born. I'd be ok with that.



I'm not very familiar with Eberron, but is there any real information about these planes of theirs other than a few vague lines about 'realm of aberrations' and whatnot?

For the amount of space that was available to detail the planes, they went into quite a bit of detail, especially as regards what goes on there, what the planar traits are and what the inhabitants are and what they do.
There is not as much detail as you have from the collected books that have info on the Great Wheel, but a good bit more than we have on the cosmology of 3.x Forgotten Realms.




Oh, absolutely. It's incredibly thin and flimsy and doesn't really work once examined in detail. But I think it works well enough to introduce the odd Eberron character into Planescape.

Edit: Actually going to the planes doesn't seem to play a large role in Eberron. What does, however, are three things.


Going to the planes doesn't play a big role in Eberron in the current era. They just paused a century-long war that chewed up all the best people in the setting. Considering how much even druids living in the woods know about how the planes work in the setting, planar travel has to have been more common in the past.



First of all, the constellation of the planes. Much like comets circling a sun, the planes move metaphysically closer or more distant from Eberron, changing the properties of its prime. When their firey plane is closer, the weather gets hotter. When the plane of conflict is closer, there's more aggression, and so on.

Second, manifest zones. Eberron has special zones that have some of the properties of the plane they are linked to. THe city of Sharrn is an air-related manifest zone, so things like jumping and flying are easier, especially if done by magic, and buildings can be built to incredible heights without collapsing.

Third, invasions. Eberron has repeatedly been invaded by planar beings and their armies and creations.

These things and more are why the setting doesn't mesh even as "well" as Dark Sun with Planescape. However, if there was a pressing need to have Eberron characters in Sigil, I have my ideas on how to do so, it just requires expanding the overall cosmology a bit more than what the Cagers think they know.

There is enough info available in Eberron about what their planes are like to show conclusively that it's not just them misunderstanding the Wheel, but actually being different. It could make for an interesting Planescape game actually, finding a way to access an entirely different multiverse...

[Cruiser1]

First of all, the constellation of the planes. Much like comets circling a sun, the planes move metaphysically closer or more distant from Eberron, changing the properties of its prime. When their firey plane is closer, the weather gets hotter. When the plane of conflict is closer, there's more aggression, and so on.

Second, manifest zones. Eberron has special zones that have some of the properties of the plane they are linked to. THe city of Sharrn is an air-related manifest zone, so things like jumping and flying are easier, especially if done by magic, and buildings can be built to incredible heights without collapsing.
Eberron manifest zones (like the airy region surrounding Sharn) are merely "planar breaches" (described in Planar Handbook) that cover a large area more or less permanently. Similarly, what Eberron scholars describe as the "orbits" of planes are just a regular schedule when extremely large planar breaches cover the entirely of Eberron's landmasses. Planar breaches describe them nicely, e.g. according to PH it gets hotter when a fire dominant plane breaches the material plane. Therefore there's nothing special about the Eberron cosmology that's incompatible with Planescape, other than that it's a crystal sphere featuring a bunch of static and scheduled planar breaches.

Remember, Eberron is a relatively low level world. Even in the largest city Sharn, you can't buy spellcasting above 5th level, can't get a Raise Dead without going on a quest, and nobody in the entire city can cast 7th level spells like Regeneration and Resurrection. Therefore planeswalkers are extremely rare, and Eberron scholars have an incomplete view of the multiverse. Compare it to settings like FR where even the bartender's a Chosen of Mystra and can and does cast 9th level spells. :smallwink:

That said, Eberron does seem to have a "remoteness" to it, similar to Hawaii in relation to the continental United States. Eberron's dead go to the plane "Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead". That's makes Eberron somewhat self-contained like Ravenloft, in that souls seemingly get trapped in it. Dolurrh is definitely a demiplane, because MotP says that, "If you create a cosmology... a 'land of the dead'... those locations are probably demiplanes." Remoteness can also explain why deities are unseen in Eberron, and most Clerics operate on faith.

[iceman10058]

Athas/Dark Sun is planarly locked like ravenloft is, if u run into them while searching for different primes, you could look upon them, but not approach or enter with out great risk, and you deffinately cannot get out, unless you have the powe of copyright laws lol

[Soarel]

IMHO ANY cosmology in which there are "alternate realities/timelines" is just taking it too far. Nothing feels significant then, since you're only saving one reality. The ultimate evil isn't really ultimate if there's an alternate universe where everything is more evil, for one example.

Planescape's only flaw is the Prime having different campaign settings in it. Prime should be a single world, no ifs ands or buts. Defining philosophy for my campaign settings.

The alternate reality thing is a real ass-pull anyway. It's especially bad in **ugh** 4th edition's simplified-but-not-really cosmology, in which the Demonomicon splatbook completely screws over everything that was established about the Abyss.

[TuggyNE]

IMHO ANY cosmology in which there are "alternate realities/timelines" is just taking it too far. Nothing feels significant then, since you're only saving one reality. The ultimate evil isn't really ultimate if there's an alternate universe where everything is more evil, for one example.

Planescape's only flaw is the Prime having different campaign settings in it.

Prime should be a single world, no ifs ands or buts.

In Planescape, it is entirely possible for beings to threaten more than one Prime world, or to affect more than one; for that matter, your arguing against having multiple independent realms of existence would seem to apply equally well to the Outer and Inner Planes.

[MadGreenSon]

I would like to note that I am really not trying to convince anyone of anything, I'm just expounding on my views, if I come off as being a jerk or anything, I apologize in advance



Remember, Eberron is a relatively low level world. Even in the largest city Sharn, you can't buy spellcasting above 5th level, can't get a Raise Dead without going on a quest, and nobody in the entire city can cast 7th level spells like Regeneration and Resurrection. Therefore planeswalkers are extremely rare, and Eberron scholars have an incomplete view of the multiverse. Compare it to settings like FR where even the bartender's a Chosen of Mystra and can and does cast 9th level spells. :smallwink:


1st bolded bit: Eberron is a low-level world now. It hasn't always been. Even then it's mostly just Khorvaire that's low-level, not the whole world. The Last War had all the big-bad high level and Epic types smiting each other with a fury that ended when Cyre became possibly the only place I'd want to go to less than Athas.

There's evidence all over the place of recent, powerful magic-users of all sorts the flying towers of Aundair, various bits of magitech, the Warforged, etc.

Also, Sarlona, Argonessen, and Aernal were not involved in the Last War and there's plenty of evidence of high level stuff there. Especially the dragons of Argonessen.

2nd bolded bit: Planewalkers are rare now, but two sects of Druids know techniques for traversing the planes easily and are training up to be able to do so again. Wizards, Sorcerers, Artifcers and Clerics are getting a breather from the meat-grinder to gain more power again. It's much more likely that the mapping of the cosmology has been an ongoing project spanning millenia of civilizations and handed down over time. This isn't the world of Iron Heroes, the world of Eberron has a history and a lot of it is relatively intact.
The Kingdom of Galifar reached heights of magical power second only to Nethril before it all came crashing down.

I agree about FR though, you can't swing a CG Drow Ranger there without hitting three archmages and an Epic Incantrix it seems. :smallbiggrin:



That said, Eberron does seem to have a "remoteness" to it, similar to Hawaii in relation to the continental United States. Eberron's dead go to the plane "Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead". That's makes Eberron somewhat self-contained like Ravenloft, in that souls seemingly get trapped in it. Dolurrh is definitely a demiplane, because MotP says that, "If you create a cosmology... a 'land of the dead'... those locations are probably demiplanes." Remoteness can also explain why deities are unseen in Eberron, and most Clerics operate on faith.

The thing about Dolurrh is that there is no where else for the dead to go that anyone knows of. They can't even prove all the dead go there. It's a central tenet of most faiths on Eberron that good worshipers get better than that when they die.
Also, Dolurrh is detailed for DMs as being a plane, not a demi-plane and I refuse to think that Keith Baker is not enough of a D&D fan to not know the difference when he laid down the setting.
Also, Dolurrh has unique creatures native to it that fit the theme of the plane. I think it's an actual plane.

The real question it raises is that if all the dead go there when they die, are there any gods at all? Or is divine magic just a matter of faith?

I've also always had it as my personal canon that the Doors of Sigil are not bound by any simple things like time, space or magical law and can potentially connect to anywhere. So even if Eberron is a different cosmology entirely, the Doors could still open there, if you know where to look and how.


Athas/Dark Sun is planarly locked like ravenloft is, if u run into them while searching for different primes, you could look upon them, but not approach or enter with out great risk, and you definitely cannot get out, unless you have the powe of copyright laws lol

There is exactly one instance from the Dark Sun side of someone going beyond the Grey and the Black to find other planes and gods, etc. that I know of. Dregoth did it. So I just chalk it up to whatever is going on with that area of the Prime (if it is on the Prime at all) is just a fairly unique circumstance that has always been there, no further explanation needed.

Athas is Athas. If you want an Athasian character to planewalk, go for it.

Personally, I always wanted to run a game where, before the casting down of the Dragon Kings, they discover a portal to a water and resource rich world and unite as the Champions of old to bring their greatest powers, minions and armies to bear upon this soft, weak world of "Faerun" :smallbiggrin:

It'd be an awesome fight.

[BWR]

Problem is FR has far too many high-level casters to overcome. The SKs aren't that powerful.

[MadGreenSon]

Problem is FR has far too many high-level casters to overcome. The SKs aren't that powerful.

They ruined an entire world and are epic-level Psions and Defilers with Dragony goodness on top. They probably have a few tricks up their sleeves they haven't needed to use in awhile.

Also in their advantage, I'm pretty sure that Athasian Psionics are explicitly different from magic rather than being the "min-Weaves" that are used in Faerun.
Also, the magic of Athas is explicitly not dependent on the Weave in any way, so they could make good use of dead magic zones and wild magic zones.

Remember, the Dragon Kings are multi-millenia old generals who waged global omnicidal warfare fairly successfully until they learned that their sponsor was gonna screw 'em over. Those guys are far from being pushovers.

Best practice for the DKs would be to use the natural toughness and survival instincts of their people to open hostilities in terrain that is to their advantage. The worst deserts on Toril don't hold a candle to the Tablelands.

I'm not saying they'd win, per se. but it would be a real fight because just having high level casters isn't enough. The DKs employ high level casters too, and can grant clerical magic on a whim to followers to boost the lower ranks too.

I think it would also be less of a letdown than the "Return of the Archwizards" was.

Also, the culture shock for both sides would be pure gold.:smallbiggrin:

[Eldan]

I
There is exactly one instance from the Dark Sun side of someone going beyond the Grey and the Black to find other planes and gods, etc. that I know of. Dregoth did it. So I just chalk it up to whatever is going on with that area of the Prime (if it is on the Prime at all) is just a fairly unique circumstance that has always been there, no further explanation needed.

Athas is Athas. If you want an Athasian character to planewalk, go for it.

I think there were a few Athasians in Planescape sources. I'd have to go dig, though. Can't remember any in Faces of Sigil, but there were probably some in other sources.

Google tells me that a former Factol of the Mercykillers was from Athas.

[MadGreenSon]

I think there were a few Athasians in Planescape sources. I'd have to go dig, though. Can't remember any in Faces of Sigil, but there were probably some in other sources.

No doubt there were. I usually prefer Planescape to focus on the Planar people, but a lot of the authors were very crossover-happy and it showed.

Well... Ok, I loved Die Vecna Die! too. :smallbiggrin:

[BWR]

Also, the culture shock for both sides would be pure gold.:smallbiggrin:

That we can agree on.
DS: "Water! Metal! MINE!"
FR: "Whu-OHGODSHELPMEHE'SEATINGMYFACE!"

I just think that however individually powerful the Athasians are, the fact that FR has a much larger population and a much larger percentage of high-level characters, especially casters, and FR would win.



Ok, I loved Die Vecna Die! too. :smallbiggrin:

This we cannot agree on.

[Alleran]

That seems pretty thin to me. Planewalkers have plenty of Prime worlds to feel superior to, Eberron is just different. It's a self contained setting. There's nothing wrong with that.

[...]

Planars can be Clueless too, y'know. :smallbiggrin:
If people really want to fit in Eberron to a GW cosmology game, then the World Serpent Inn has links to Sigil and Eberron both. I forget where the Sigil door opens out, but the Eberron door opens into a flower shop in Aundair. And, of course, the Inn can get somebody to Toril, Oerth, Athas, Krynn, or any one of many others. That's kind of the Inn's schtick.


Problem is FR has far too many high-level casters to overcome.
The vast majority of the world is supposed to skew to the standard tables in the DMG. Unfortunately, people want to hear lots and lots about Elminster and pals.

[MadGreenSon]

That we can agree on.
DS: "Water! Metal! MINE!"
FR: "Whu-OHGODSHELPMEHE'SEATINGMYFACE!"


Were you picturing an Athasian Halfling vs a Strongheart Halfling there, or was that just me? :smallbiggrin:



I just think that however individually powerful the Athasians are, the fact that FR has a much larger population and a much larger percentage of high-level characters, especially casters, and FR would win.


I see it more as number of devastating guerrilla engagements, a few large battles, after lots of ominous buildup, probably damaging lots of landscape in the process as unrestrained Defiling would do, some truly epic shenanigans on both sides, possibly ending with some of the high-end FR types driving the DKs themselves back through the portal while some plucky adventurers (possibly from both sides) slam it shut.

Then Faerun is saved and gains a new and exciting ethnic group that tends to live in the more extreme environments and few high-end FR types are stuck on the other side of the portal leaving room for PCs to step into those roles :smallbiggrin:




This we cannot agree on.

Eh, it was not so much the quality of the adventure (generally poor) as the idea that everyone from the Dark Powers of Ravenloft to the Lady of Pain got the fact that the "laws" of the universe were not absolute and that sometimes "impossible" is just "extremely difficult". However, having the PCs attaching bits of Vecna to themselves from teeth to scalp just to survive, and the railroady nature of the story. That kinda sucked. I had to really screw around with it to make it fly with my group.




The vast majority of the world is supposed to skew to the standard tables in the DMG. Unfortunately, people want to hear lots and lots about Elminster and pals.

I have noticed that in the majority of FR sources, joking aside, that other than in places like Waterdeep, it does generally conform to the DMG guidelines.

[Eldan]

Were you picturing an Athasian Halfling vs a Strongheart Halfling there, or was that just me? :smallbiggrin:


That actually happened in one of the Planescape STories. Faction War, maybe?

Not just Strongheart Halflings, though. Full on Hobbity-Halflings of AD&D. Fat, conservative, calm, hairy-footed. A group of Athasians arrived in Sigil and was sent to Curlyfoot (I think that was the name of the neighbourhood) for acclimatization. The result was cannibalism.

[BWR]

Were you picturing an Athasian Halfling vs a Strongheart Halfling there, or was that just me? :smallbiggrin:

Eh, it was not so much the quality of the adventure (generally poor) as the idea that everyone from the Dark Powers of Ravenloft to the Lady of Pain got the fact that the "laws" of the universe were not absolute and that sometimes "impossible" is just "extremely difficult". However, having the PCs attaching bits of Vecna to themselves from teeth to scalp just to survive, and the railroady nature of the story. That kinda sucked. I had to really screw around with it to make it fly with my group.


1. Or anyone meeting an Athasian halfling, really.

2. That's why I hated DVD. Ignoring that the module was poorly written and railroady as hell, I absolutely detested how it blatantly broke lots of rules of Planescape with bull**** 'loopholes' (no there weren't any loopholes, they just invented some for Vecna because Vecna). In all the years with real gods, really powerful ones playing around, only Vecna managed to blatantly break some of the fundemental laws of the setting (no one gets into or out of Sigil without the Lady's permission, and only through Her portals or Mazes). I liked the art and Tovag Baragu, but the rest was ****. It's such a shame because Cordell usually does pretty good work.

[Yuki Akuma]

Also, Dolurrh has unique creatures native to it that fit the theme of the plane. I think it's an actual plane.

Demiplanes are allowed to have their own unique creatures native to it - just look at the (previously titled) Demiplane of Shadow.

[MadGreenSon]

1. Or anyone meeting an Athasian halfling, really.


Good point.



2. That's why I hated DVD. Ignoring that the module was poorly written and railroady as hell, I absolutely detested how it blatantly broke lots of rules of Planescape with bull**** 'loopholes' (no there weren't any loopholes, they just invented some for Vecna because Vecna). In all the years with real gods, really powerful ones playing around, only Vecna managed to blatantly break some of the fundemental laws of the setting (no one gets into or out of Sigil without the Lady's permission, and only through Her portals or Mazes). I liked the art and Tovag Baragu, but the rest was ****. It's such a shame because Cordell usually does pretty good work.

That's actually one of the things I changed with the adventure, I made it so that Vecna exploited a double paradox to flummox the laws of the universe. He escaped from an inescapable place, using that to break into a place that cannot be broken into. He used a portal into Sigil as the focus of the energies released by his tapping of Iuz to blow the door open and accomplish two impossible things at once. It wouldn't have worked if there hadn't been two gods in Ravenloft.
This also was not Vecna's plan from the start or anything, it was more him playing Xanatos Speed Chess to use what he had available.

I also did not require the PCs to don the scalp, pinky and/or the foot of Vecna to remain effective.

But they did get to stab Vecna in the face with the Sword of Kas. :smalltongue:

[Alleran]

Were you picturing an Athasian Halfling vs a Strongheart Halfling there, or was that just me? :smallbiggrin:
You could actually meet Athasian halflings in one of the Baldur's Gate II locations - the Planar Sphere. I remember them being very irritating to kill. Especially the one who had a Spell Trap running. So I introduced them to Keldorn and Carsomyr.


I see it more as number of devastating guerrilla engagements, a few large battles, after lots of ominous buildup, probably damaging lots of landscape in the process as unrestrained Defiling would do, some truly epic shenanigans on both sides, possibly ending with some of the high-end FR types driving the DKs themselves back through the portal while some plucky adventurers (possibly from both sides) slam it shut.
I don't know if the magic would work the same. Technically, once you're in Realmspace you're under Mystra's jurisdiction, and Defiling, assuming it works, is absolutely going to damage the Weave/natural world, which means Mystra would be perfectly justified in saying "lolno" to a Defiler. And if it does work, then it's also going to draw powers like Larloch away from their projects to deal with the incursion, which is like going and breaking all the seals on the Lords of Dust in Eberron.

I would like to see a showdown between the Lords of Dust and the Dragon Kings of Athas.


I have noticed that in the majority of FR sources, joking aside, that other than in places like Waterdeep, it does generally conform to the DMG guidelines.
Waterdeep has had so much written about it across so many editions and sourcebooks that it was kind of inevitable that it vastly outpaced the rest of the setting. It having a giant adventurers-come-hither dungeon beneath the streets in the form of Undermountain doesn't help.

[iceman10058]

Dregoth is effectively an epic level caster, and did his planar travels when none of the other lich kings thought you could leave athas and go anywhere other than the grey.i read somewhere explaining how he did it, but it escapes me.

[MadGreenSon]

Dregoth is effectively an epic level caster, and did his planar travels when none of the other lich kings thought you could leave athas and go anywhere other than the grey.i read somewhere explaining how he did it, but it escapes me.

If I remember correctly, he found a portal or other device from the Blue Age that allowed him to escape Athas's general planar isolation. (It was in City by the Silt Sea, I don't have it handy either)

I really have to wonder if Athas is fully "in" the Prime or if it's halfway into the Inner Planes somehow. I dunno, maybe some kind of catastrophe during one of the many historical apocalypses that happened on that world?



I don't know if the magic would work the same. Technically, once you're in Realmspace you're under Mystra's jurisdiction, and Defiling, assuming it works, is absolutely going to damage the Weave/natural world, which means Mystra would be perfectly justified in saying "lolno" to a Defiler. And if it does work, then it's also going to draw powers like Larloch away from their projects to deal with the incursion, which is like going and breaking all the seals on the Lords of Dust in Eberron.


I'm actually not convinced that Defiling or Preserving would interact with the Weave at all. The way magic is described as having been invented and they way it's described as being used is just so completely different from other settings that I believe it would damage the natural world, but not effect any version of the Weave at all. It may take a little calibration for Weave based Detect Magic to read it properly, it'd likely all look like some weird form of necromancy at first.

Nature gods and their various representatives would be furious though.

And yeah, it's be a real Ultimate Showdown and a truly epic thing to have happening once such an invasion got rolling, it would change the status quo and it would be fun. I mentioned I was very disappointed by Return of the Archwizards, didn't I?




I would like to see a showdown between the Lords of Dust and the Dragon Kings of Athas.


Heh. No matter who wins, we lose. :smallbiggrin:

[holywhippet]

I'm actually not convinced that Defiling or Preserving would interact with the Weave at all. The way magic is described as having been invented and they way it's described as being used is just so completely different from other settings that I believe it would damage the natural world, but not effect any version of the Weave at all. It may take a little calibration for Weave based Detect Magic to read it properly, it'd likely all look like some weird form of necromancy at first.
:

A better question would be what happens if powerful defilers start trying to drain the realms dry. Athas has been mostly sucked dry already so defiling has it's limits there. But Toril is presumably as fresh as Athas used to be so they'd have a lot more to draw up. I suspect they'd get curb stomped though as just about everyone who isn't undead would strongly object to it. Athas has no Gods (or doesn't anymore, one of the PC games suggested they used to have some but they left in disgust) and they might not be ready for all the deities who'd object to their presence. The dragons in Athas are powerful sorcerers who've drained enough power to turn themselves into a dragon. The dragons in Toril are exactly that, dragons and there are a lot of them. I doubt they'd be happy with a Athas invasion either.

On Krynn, I seem to recall the 2nd edition guidebook saying there are people who've arrived there from other worlds. The seekers from the early novels were supposed have originally been from another world IIRC.

[HunterOfJello]

So I was reading the Manual of the Planes (3.5e) and I noticed that you could use the Plane of Shadow to get to alternate Prime Material Planes. I always thought that Sigil was the only way to do this, so does that mean that there is a Sigil for every PMP that uses a standard cosmology?

Sigil isn't a way to get to anywhere outside of the current multiverse that a character exists in. Sigil is also merely one place within the Outlands, which contains portals to all the other planes.

There are rumors that the Shadow Plane could be used to travel to other Prime Material Planes or to planes of existence outside of the known cosmology.

The Ordial Plane may give someone access to such things, but is a far stranger and more obscure place than all the rest.

You're best off checking into one of afroakuma's Planar Questions Thread! (You ask, I'll answer) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?265884-afroakuma-s-Planar-Questions-Thread!-(You-ask-I-ll-answer)) threads to find out more about all the planes. They're very complex and most people don't have enough experience from all the editions of all the books to accurately answer any questions a berk would normally have about em.

[iceman10058]

I really have to wonder if Athas is fully "in" the Prime or if it's halfway into the Inner Planes somehow. I dunno, maybe some kind of catastrophe during one of the many historical apocalypses that happened on that world?
:smallbiggrin:

it was caused by the lick kings over defiling to gain more control over magic, then by them warring with eachother. it is a prime plane, but its kinda far off and hard to enter and nearly impossible to get out. clerics will have a hard time there cause there are no dietys on athas, just conduits for divine magic maintained by the lich kings.

[Devils_Advocate]

Okay, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but... I was under the impression that "the Prime Material Plane" was always meant to be how the mighty and learned, yet mortal, spellcasters of D&D referred to their own space-time continuum whatchamahoozitz, so as to distinguish it from other Material Planes. So, there being only one Prime Material Plane doesn't mean that other Material Planes don't exist; but talk of different Prime Material Planes is nonsense, because the Prime is one Material Plane in particular!

There seems to be some confusion on this point. Perhaps I'm the one who's confused. I get the impression that the concept of non-Prime Material Planes has been applied to rather different things over time, from alternate worlds (http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Earth#Alternate_Oerths)to at least some of the Inner Planes. (The Positive Energy Plane and Negative Energy Plane were called the Positive Material Plane and the Negative Material Plane in 1st Edition, it seems.)

Of course, if some of the other Material Planes are "parallel universes" that essentially mirror the Prime, then it makes a certain sense to call them "alternate Primes", like calling transdimensional copies of our own world "alternate Earths". In which case I guess there's a distinction to be made between the Prime Material Plane, alternate Prime Material Planes, and non-Prime Material Planes. (Of course, the residents of other Prime Materials would doubtless call their own home planes "the", but ain't nothin' unusual 'bout the definite article bein' contextual like that.)

3rd Edition seems to have abandoned this terminology entirely, referring simply to "the Material Plane". But that's no excuse to put "Prime" in front of any usage of "Material Plane", all willy nilly. Personally, I think that it should be used specifically to refer to the concept of a single Material Plane that contains most, if not all, campaign settings*; the broader setting of Spelljammer, essentially.

*Obviously it doesn't include extraplanar settings like Sigil and the Demiplane of Dread. Whether it contains Eberron, for example... well, depends on whether or not Eberron exists in the Prime Material Plane. ;)


So I was reading the Manual of the Planes (3.5e) and I noticed that you could use the Plane of Shadow to get to alternate Prime Material Planes. I always thought that Sigil was the only way to do this, so does that mean that there is a Sigil for every PMP that uses a standard cosmology?
Sigil is part of the Great Wheel cosmology. It floats atop the infinitely high Spire in the Outlands; you can even see it from the ground on a clear day. (Distances do not work normally in the Outlands. If I recall correctly, travel far out from the Spire is measured in time: If it's three days' journey from one settlement to another, then it'll take you three days to get there -- regardless of speed. Especially in the Hinterlands, out past the Gate Towns, travel back towards the Spire tends to be much faster than the journey outwards. It's probably best not to think about it all too hard.)

So it depends on what you mean by "a standard cosmology". I'm not sure I understand; I think that this question has an unstated assumption or two that I can't quite put my finger on underlying it. But... if a setting has its own distinct copy of the Great Wheel, maybe a version of it where everyone has goatees or something, then presumably it has its own copy of Sigil as part of that. Does that answer your question?


Dolurrh is definitely a demiplane, because MotP says that, "If you create a cosmology... a 'land of the dead'... those locations are probably demiplanes."
The words "definitely" and "probably" are not synonyms.

Furthermore, the Manual of the Planes also states that "characters cannot use plane shift or similar spells to travel to or from a demiplane". The Eberron Campaign Setting states that "it is impossible to reach Dolurrh by means of plane shift" when Dolurrh is remote, but that just goes to show that it is accessible via plane shift normally, as otherwise it would make no sense to specify that; a straightforward case of the exception proving the rule. And, indeed, outside of that case, there's nothing to override plane shift's spell description ("From the Material Plane, you can reach any other plane").

Therefore Dolurrh is not a demiplane. None of Eberron's planes are. Eberron has its own cosmology, as is standard in 3rd Edition. Of course, that's going by what the setting sourcebooks say. It's entirely possible to disregard however much of that you please.


If you want to have crossovers between two worlds with incompatible cosmologies, something has to give.
They're not incompatible if they're separate, though. The Plane of Shadow can serve as a bridge between settings with different cosmologies. The Phlogiston in Spelljammer, too; my understanding is that it's cut off from the Astral, so it works just fine with the assumption that each crystal sphere has its own Astral Plane.


IMHO ANY cosmology in which there are "alternate realities/timelines" is just taking it too far. Nothing feels significant then, since you're only saving one reality.
I don't follow. If space aliens showed up and announced that they're going to demolish Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass, would you say "Well, we can infer from this that there are probably millions of worlds with intelligent life, many of them far more advanced than ours, so our personal planet really is redundant at best, if you think about it"? Because I suspect that that would be a minority view.


The ultimate evil isn't really ultimate if there's an alternate universe where everything is more evil, for one example.
So what? Why does anything need to be the most evil thing that exists? Why does anything need to threaten everything that exists?

If you want a big threat that can be taken seriously, wouldn't it make more sense to run a relatively low-level campaign in which the player characters' country is being invaded or something along those lines? Something less formulaically, contrivedly overblown than "THE ULTIMATE EVIL IS THREATENING TO DESTROY THE UNIVERSE!!!111!!!"

And, heck... If you DO want the biggest possible threat, then doesn't that pretty much demand that you say "The greatest possible villain is in the process of retroactively obliterating all possible and all impossible beings, worlds, and universes, replacing them with an infinity of infinities of eternal torment, such that that is all that has ever been! Only you, the chosen heroes of destiny, can stop this, preferably by piloting a galaxy-sized robot that breaks all known laws of physics, but really, that's up to you"?

I mean, anything less is just half-assing it.


Planescape's only flaw is the Prime having different campaign settings in it. Prime should be a single world, no ifs ands or buts. Defining philosophy for my campaign settings.
Why? What does that accomplish?


If Artificers show up in other settings they need to be tweaked anyway due to the lack of Action Points
People say that, but are Artificers really especially dependent on action points? I think that they rely on them to hasten infusions, but I don't get the impression that hastening infusions is a necessary component of their overall functioning. Do they actually become underpowered if they just can't do that?

Besides, if you're allowing Eberron material, I'm pretty sure there are feats and Prestige Classes that grant extra action points, even to characters who otherwise wouldn't get them. (NPCs who normally wouldn't get action points can wind up with them this way, if I remember right.)


Planar Shepherds only really work right in Eberron with Eberron's cosmology
... You'd describe Planar Shepherds as "working right"? ;P