Setting help (Homebrewed System)

[Hangwind]

I am creating a setting for a campaign in a homebrew system for a friend. The basic setting is a tower that is set outside the normal universe. This tower is impossible to escape from normally, but has any number of ways to get in scattered across realities.

What I intend is for each story of the tower to be different and unique. I need ideas. Basically anything you can come up with that seems cool. The only rule is that it has to be survivable. In other words, a story full of lava that burns them to a crisp the moment they open the door? Bad. A story with a lake of lava? Good! Also, not all of the ideas have to be dangerous, just fun. I already have an idea for a garden that fairies have colonized as one of the floors.

Thank you in advance!

[Silverbit]

Try this eternal tower thread for ideas, which was the first thread on Gitp that I ever read.

[GybeMark]

I'm not sure how "different" from established settings you want to go, but some ideas that pop to mind:
- prehistoric world ruled by intelligent dinosaurs (maybe along with cave-people, cave-elves, cave-dwarves)
- world where everyone has gills, and must spend a few hours each day under water to stay alive (likely sleeping hours, but...)
- broken magic -- a world where the gods' powers (or arcane powers) don't quite work as advertised -- maybe each spell cast has a 1d4 chance of casting one of the characters other prepared spells instead or something
- forbidden zones -- certain areas (a park in a city, a grove in the forest, maybe even an entire border area between two kingdoms) instantly disappear anyone who passes through. Thus, town executions are performed by throwing the condemned into the park, or army's must march around otherwise impassible terrain, etc
- reincarnation-land -- everyone who dies in an area has their soul reborn into a new body -- with their memorys intact.
- mountains maze -- the world is an infinite (for practical purposes) plan of impossibly tall mountains, with only a few known valley passes connecting cities carved from the rock

[inexorabletruth]

Go here and be a"mazed".

Whether your players get the reference or not it will still be a heck of a ride.

[Hangwind]

Okay, I'm going to answer in reverse order.

@inexorabletruth
Yeah, I have been reading Goblins for a LONG time. In fact, it was one of the things that got me into D&D... Nice to see a fellow fan though

@GybeMark
Remember, each is only a floor of the tower, so I have to be careful how big I make each floor.

-Dinosaurs? Hmm, it might be interesting to put them near a floor with Dragons...
-Gills might be a way of making a very strong race that hasn't conquered large portions of the tower. That would make one floor very difficult while giving a reason for the rest of the floors not to be.
-This one I like. The gods are going to be essentially absent, so that would be very thematic.
-Ah, this is one of the more common ways to get into the tower. Not really going to work inside since I want them stuck there. Nice idea though
-I would have to make it a one time thing, but maybe. My players would exploit it otherwise.
-Maybe an idea for an open world, but travel is already restricted by the walls.

@Silverbit
Sorry, but that is one really long thread! I'm still working on it!

[GybeMark]

Remember, each is only a floor of the tower, so I have to be careful how big I make each floor.

My bad -- I interpreted "each story of the tower" as "each adventure that is launched from the tower" rather than "each physical level" and envisioned a scenario where the PCs travel all over this multiverse held together by a tower lynchpin... and now I'm itching to start a Planescape campaign