The Moon in the Shadow Plane

[Briton]

So for an idea in a campaign I'm designing for my players, I do have a sorcerer who has figured out a way to both drastically and subtly control the moon itself and all of its magical power. He's been causing effects such as more people have been going insane, werewolves are increasingly common, lunar oracles have been popping up everywhere (and able to 'hear' the sorcerer even), and other side effects.

However, no one has noticed these effects yet, and the sorceror has been trying to keep it that way. In order to do so, he has tried to set up the shadow plane and the material plane against each other. One way is that he has supercharged himself with the moon to start randomly turn people into their shadow counterparts (humans to fetchlings, gnomes to wayangs, etc.) so that way the material plane begin to think they are under attack.

So heres the question: What kind of magical effects could happen in the shadow plane because of a sorcerer who has complete control over the moon? Does the Shadow plane even have a moon? If not, what would happen if the sorceror did something to make that a moon did appear?

[FreddyNoNose]

30 some years ago, in a new game, there was a situation that had occurred some number of years before the group came together that the was the plane of ice crossing into this world. There was an area including a castle covered in ice. It made for longer winters and a gradual shift in overall temperature which just so happened to be noticed around the time the group got together.

Now near the castle, the temp was cold. And the way the party had to reach the castle was through tunnels which occasionally had monsters including some from the elemental plane of ice encounters. But that was only very close to it. I didn't want them running all over the world in a heavy handed approach. But it was enough for traveling characters to notice it was colder the nearer they traveled to the castle. There was a town with a castle where they had to travel to resolve some RP stuff not far from the castle.


So, if I were in your shoes, I would look at what you believe the shadow plane is about and how it would affect things. Now, your approach is BIG BIG BIG, which I wouldn't do but your world so... What do you think it would do?

[DrMotives]

The Shadow Plane has a moon because the Material Plane does. In fact, you can use Shadow Plane travel to walk from the ground to the moon of you world, another moon around your same star, or the moon of an alternate Material Plane. This trip appears by starting at a Shadow-analog of your start, and ends at a Shadow-analog of your destination, with any number of unrelated Shadow Plane areas inbetween. I think you might get some good inspiration from Lovecraft's "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath", it features travels through a plane of dreams that works much like the Shadow Plane does in D&D. And it involves going to a dream-analog of the moon, which is full of things that look like half-illithid slaadi that at are at war with the cats of earth.

[Gildedragon]

Shadow plane has not just one moon, but all possible moons.

At times there's no moon, but a ring of shattered rocks, remnants of the moon destroyed... at others the moon is wholly gone, beyond the gravitational pull of the earth...

The plane of shadow is a mirror of things that are or could have been.

[Psyren]

Wouldn't the Gnome counterparts be Svirfneblin? That would free up your Wayangs to be nega-Halflings.

[Briton]

So, if I were in your shoes, I would look at what you believe the shadow plane is about and how it would affect things. Now, your approach is BIG BIG BIG, which I wouldn't do but your world so... What do you think it would do?

The one thing I do have in this campaign is that the shadow plane is somewhat common knowledge and inhabited. People do trade with people from the shadow plane a lot, though people fear the shadow plane as well. I guess the best way to describe the shadow plane's role is that it is some strange nation that is not fully understood by the masses.

DrMotives: Definitely will look into that.

Psyren: Good point, I may use that.

So heres another question: If a sorcerer has complete control over the material plane moon, how would that affect the shadow plane? Is it logical that the sorcerer could have some effects on the shadow plane's various 'possible' moons themselves?

[Bucky]

That depends entirely on whether the sorcerer's methods work on moons in general, or just that one specific moon.