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View Full Version : DM Help What Could Cause a City to be Duplicated on Another Plane?



Kadzar
2018-09-24, 10:10 PM
So I'm planning on running Waterdeep Dragonheist, and rather than having it take place in the Forgotten Realms, I want to put in my group's homebrew setting. But I'd rather not just, "Oh, what a coincidence that this city and these characters and (possibly, if I use them) factions are exactly the same as this iconic Forgotten Realms city and characters and factions," but, at the same time, I'd rather not go through all the work and effort of replacing them all (and even if I was, I also just really want to use them).

To that end, I want to come up with an explanation of how and why Waterdeep and many of its inhabitants came to be copied on another plane. Even if the players never find out, I'd like an answer, if only to settle my neuroses. What, do you think, could cause such a phenomenon?

oudeis
2018-09-24, 11:46 PM
Waterdeep is a nexus point for all the planes, or the axle around which the multiverse rotates.

Waterdeep is a cosmos city (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city).

Every reality has a version of Waterdeep. No one knows if they are all real, or if there is only one true Waterdeep and the rest are copies or echoes spawned by some grand magic beyond mortal comprehension.

The players are shifted to the world of Faerun by a mysterious traveler who sits down at their campfire one night and takes offense when one of them questions his/her tales of all the worlds his wanderings have taken her/him.

Millstone85
2018-09-25, 03:23 AM
According to the 5e DMG p52, there is a city in the Shadowfell called Evernight, which mirrors the city of Neverwinter on Toril, but is also rumored to mirror a city on every world.

Waterdeep could have a similar echo in the Shadowfell or the Feywild, through which it would be duplicated on other worlds.

But I would ask if your homebrew setting acknowledges the existence of Toril at all. If it doesn't, there is little need for justification.

SunderedWorldDM
2018-09-25, 07:26 AM
For a more comical route, Manshoon, to make finding the vault easier, could have tried to isolate Waterdeep by tossing the whole gosh-dang city onto the Astral Plane. His ritual failed, and instead of pulling Waterdeep into the Astral Plane, he pulled it straight into another dimension. Hopefully no one notices...

After the events of Dragon Heist, a further adventure could be a return to Manshoon's castle and having to delve underneath and reverse his ritual, which had started spewing planar creatures into the dungeon below. Or the inhabitants of Waterdeep could collectively shrug and integrate themselves into this strange but familiar new world!

legomaster00156
2018-09-25, 08:31 AM
Pathfinder the Infernal City of Dis, which is enormous and well-mapped. However, if anyone takes a map of Dis back to a settlement on another plane, such a settlement inevitable begins to expand and morph into a near-copy of the Infernal City. I thought that was pretty clever. :smallbiggrin:

Beneath
2018-09-25, 03:25 PM
Honestly, what couldn't? Your other Waterdeep could be an echo or a mirror or a shadow of the original, reflected through some kind of planar glass, or perhaps a traveler to the original brought it back in a dream, which then became manifest and then inhabited by people from outside o the dream (so by now it's all real people). A wizard could have reconstructed it exactly, to the point of creating simulacra and rewriting people's memories, as a magical lab. A god could have decreed that it would exist. The template for the city could be etched into the human ancestral memory and getting enough humans together in a place that fits geographically causes them to build an identical city.

oudeis
2018-09-25, 03:55 PM
The template for the city could be etched into the human ancestral memory and getting enough humans together in a place that fits geographically causes them to build an identical city.DAMN, that's good.

Mastikator
2018-09-25, 03:56 PM
That's what the shadow plane is right? A shadowy mirror of the prime material plane.

FabulousFizban
2018-09-25, 04:49 PM
Magic, duh.

Rule #1 of Dungeoncraft: Never create more than you have to.

If forced to, pick a school of magic. Is the city an illusion? Conjured from another world? Is it a necropolis?

Mr Beer
2018-09-26, 12:02 AM
The city is itself a sentient entity with its own motives and powers. It cloned itself because of reasons.

Kami2awa
2018-09-26, 02:02 AM
There are lot of "dark city" duplicates in fiction.

Neverwhere has a mirror city of London, with features based on taking the names on the London Underground map literally (e.g. there's an actual angel called Islington).

The BBC series Undone uses essentially the same idea, also for London.

Silent Hill has good and bad duplicates of the town, switching between them when the siren goes off.

The Plane of Shadow in D&D is supposed to do this.

Another possibility is that the two cities are the same city at different points in time.

Darth Ultron
2018-09-26, 01:30 PM
Really it is not so much trouble to ''file off the Forgotten Realms". After all, you just need to change the names. It's like five minutes with a name generator. You can then make the city ''fit" in your homebrewed world.

If you are just going to say to the players ''ok, this is duplicate Waterdeep", but not use your homebrew world.....then why not just have the group go to the ''real" Waterdeep for the adventure?

Kadzar
2018-09-27, 12:02 AM
Really it is not so much trouble to ''file off the Forgotten Realms". After all, you just need to change the names. It's like five minutes with a name generator. You can then make the city ''fit" in your homebrewed world.

If you are just going to say to the players ''ok, this is duplicate Waterdeep", but not use your homebrew world.....then why not just have the group go to the ''real" Waterdeep for the adventure?

I mean, yeah, the whole point of this idea is that we can incorporate aspects of our homebrew world into the adventure (such as referencing locations and characters) and use things from the adventure in our world. Otherwise, I would just run it in the Forgotten Realms, which I am considering if I can't make this idea work.

Yakk
2018-09-27, 10:16 AM
First question, do your players know Waterdeep?

If they don't, then, replace a few highly famous names (like maybe only the city name) and just use it whole hog.

In your universe there is no Forgotten Realms. But there is a city much like Waterdeep with similar factions. Because it is your universe.

Just steal it.