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View Full Version : DM Help How best to introduce time travel to this campaign and to this PC?



MonkeySage
2015-04-22, 10:21 AM
Behind the scenes: The Div Lord Ahriman despises life in all forms, even hates his own creations, the div. His ultimate goal is utter oblivion, and he believes he has a means to this end.
Throughout history, Saint Stones were created from the blood of those who epitomized the values of their deities.
Ex. An elven magus who may as well have been Corellon Larethian incarnate, dies by the sword defending his people. The bloodshed from his death crystalized into something as small as a marble, but with incredible power.
In the hands of the faithful, these stones represent the power and presence of the deity on Estion. When these stones are corrupted however, they transform the user into a horrible monster, with powers derived from the Saint in question.
Ahriman cannot manifest himself fully on the material plane, but he can appear in an incorporeal form, corrupt and twist the minds of mortals to his own ends. He believes by having mortals hunt down these stones, he can taint the stones with some of his own power, and ultimately use them to undo creation.
The stones are scattered, both spatially and temporally, so Ahriman is in it for the long haul. No single mortal could possibly keep pace with him, not without help.

In the present, Ahriman has managed to corrupt a copper dragon. The dragon is commanding kobold minions to hunt down a stone hidden in an old yuanti ruin, guarded by a relic of the past; a sapient golem from a sort of elven precursor kingdom, and in the process they're taking prisoners.

In comes Surene, a half elven sorceress of yuanti blood. She is running from her own past; she accidentally envenomed and killed a human bully. The halfling caravan she's travelling with is attacked by kobolds on its way to a town that Surene heard was home to someone exactly like her.
She manages to escape, but now has the guilt of abandoning her halfling companions weighing on her as well. As she makes it into town, she meets a 13 year old sorceress named Seth, who sure enough is exactly like her; yuanti descent. Seth teaches her some tricks, and has her pay a visit to an old abandoned yuanti temple, to learn more about her heritage. Surene is attacked as she enters the ruin, and is rescued by a strange creature that superficially resembles an elf, but does not speak any language she's familiar with, instead speaking a sort of proto-elven tongue.

In Surene's dream, she is confronted by an apparition that looks like an old man in armor. The man asks her to open a box that her savior is hiding, and tells her that she can keep whatever is inside; he just wants her to open the box. When she, understandably, refuses, he taunts her, bringing up how she murdered a child, before vanishing.


Later, as surene is heading back to town, she debriefs seth on what's happened so far, and seth tells her to speak to a highly knowledgeable dwarven wizard in a nearby town...


Last note: This setting has a God of Time and Knowledge, Rionis, whose secondary task is to make sure all things are running smoothly. He is the only being in this setting capable of facilitating time travel, so far, and only allows time travel for others in extremely rare and desperate circumstances. Rionis is Neutral.

Whew... Sorry, that was a bit long, but I wanted you guys to know where we were in the campaign so far. I sort of want this to be a time traveling adventure, but I wanted to know how best to introduce that aspect of it. As of now, Surene is no where near capable of taking on a copper dragon by herself, and this one is an adult.

Maglubiyet
2015-04-22, 11:59 AM
So...you want Surene to discover time travel and go...when exactly? If the stone is now in the ruins, why does she need to go into the past? Or am I missing something...?

No, I'm definitely missing something. Who is the old man in the dream -- Rionis? And what does a dwarf wizard have to do with any of this -- is he just a mouthpiece for the quest?

MonkeySage
2015-04-22, 12:11 PM
The old man who appeared in her dream is Ahriman.

The stones aren't all in the same time period, Ahriman has been hunting them down for thousands of years.

Ahriman's plans will come to a head very soon, by the standards of an outsider. Surene isn't directly affected by the end goal, since she'll probably die of old age before it happens... but she and the people she cares about could be considered collateral.

Since Rionis sees Ahriman as a threat to creation, he'll want to support anyone interested in fighting Ahriman.

The dwarf knows about the ruin that surene went to, but also knows about the dragon and vaguely recalls something about stones. The dwarf will have a bigger role to play once I figure out where I'm going with this.

Maglubiyet
2015-04-22, 01:55 PM
Sorry, a lot of questions because it's not entirely clear from the narrative.

Ahriman is also trying to corrupt Surene? Why does he need her if he has the dragon and kobolds already getting the next stone?

Rionis wants to help Surene prevent Ahriman from getting the stone? How does time travel help that goal?

What is the effect of time travel -- will it just be a different "dungeon" setting unrelated to anything else, or are you trying to set up the potential for paradoxes, meeting one's younger self, etc.?

MonkeySage
2015-04-22, 04:10 PM
It's a work in progress, so there are still a lot of things that I need to consider. I almost never start a game with a plot in mind, I try to get to know the PCs and then the plot sort of develops later, and that's the case here too. I originally had no intention of bringing time travel into this. Since I decided to turn this into a time travel adventure(and already let the player know this is what I was doing), I thought I'd grab some ideas from you guys.

Ahriman is an opportunist; the android managed to kill all of the kobolds that came for her stone, but allowed Surene to get close to her. Ahriman tried to persuade Surene, for whom the android dropped her guard, to open the box and retrieve the stone. He could then corrupt Surene, and consequently the stone, and work to unravel a piece of creation by doing so. Any time a corrupt individual gets their hands on one of these things, it's a catastrophe.

Ahriman's influence spans throughout time, he's ancient and persistent. Whenever a new stone crops up, it's a new opportunity for him. The time travel would be largely out of the player's hands, since each portal would lead to time period that Ahriman's influence was strong in. I had the idea that one of the time periods Surene visits is in the distant future, where she can see for herself the damage that Ahriman has done to the world.

I just figured, time travel is almost never used in a d&d game because a lot of gms consider it a headache, I see it as an opportunity to create some unique challenges for the character, choices they have to make.
One rule that I'm standing hard on is that the same exact time cannot be visited more than once. A portal that leads to monday at 1pm the first time you go through it will never again lead to that time, but to some time after. Therefore any mistakes made in the past will stick unless you can rectify them while in the past.

Time travel might provide an opportunity to tie things up: isn't it funny that Surene went to some random town in the desert, in the middle of a foreign country, and managed to find a sorcerer with the same lineage as her? Neither Seth nor Surene has ever met their fathers. There are also some paradoxes that I in particular enjoy, such as the bootstrap paradox... Why was the android there to save her in the first place? Did she know Surene would be there to need saving?

Earthwalker
2015-04-23, 02:37 AM
The best way to introduce time travel into any story is simple.

The PC has a problem (Currently it seems to be working out what to do next. Or finding out information on the box) a future version of themselves shows up. Solves the problem for them, maybe pointing out how stuck they were on that. Then tells them what they need to do next.

You see someone looking just like yourself, maybe a few years older (depending on how long the campaign goes on for) This version of you seems badly beaten and has thier left arm in a sling. The figure looks around manically before fixing thier gaze on you.
"Ahh I made it, I have to be quick there isnt much time. The box contains (plot information) you still need to go speak to the dwarf in nowhereville he can explain things better than me. After that you should know the temple of Rionis is in the swamp of despair, its ruined but still has some power. Here take this"
The figure hands you over some odd magical do-dad
"It should help with the temporal buffering. Finally and this is most important..."

With that there is a loud pop and the figure vanishes.