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I have some Planescape PDFs; I'll email them to you once I get my laptop back from the repair guys.
Thanks dude, but I don't want to embroil you in any pdf piracy. If there's anything that anyone thinks is a must have, I'll track it down and buy it. More, I'm just trying to get a general vibe rather than specifics, stuff to spice up and flesh out what could essentially be ‘you travel for a few days, have x random encounters get to the town. Once inside you find a marketplace and begin asking around for the location of the gate.’
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wikipedia on the outlands; it's kinda sparse.
Thanks man, I checked that out.
Hadn't even thought that Glorium would be a viking town on a sea coast, but makes perfect sense. I can work with that vibe.
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I think the Outlands is kind of difficult to make ‘outer-plansey’ without stepping on the toes of the other planes. Its neutral, and doesn’t seem to have any real defining features (apart from the gate towns, the distance distortion and the spire) to set it apart from a Prime world. You don’t want to make it ‘different’ by throwing in a whole bunch of different and crazy things (too much like one of the chaotic planes). How do you reflect ‘neutrality’ as a defining trait? Maybe you make the place resemble Switzerland ...
I am thinking little differences; it could be a Prime world, but some things jar. I guess there’s no sun – light comes from the spire, or the ‘top’ of the spire. So shadows would always be really long, pointing away from the spire. Maybe there’s no stars at night, or maybe there are, but they are a series of random and slowly changing constellations. Too chaotic? Maybe the ‘stars’ are clouds of fireflies high up in the sky, or luminous organs of giant, distant, sky-going whales.
Trees and plants are of odd, unfamiliar species, recognizably trees, but a little odd. Strangely shaped leaves, slightly odd colours. Maybe all the trees tend to lean inwards towards the spire?
Same thing with animals, rather than being mostly bizarre organisms, most are similar to terrestrial animals and insects and stuff, but just look a bit different. So rather than flying jellyfish and tentacled wolves and talking two-headed rabbits and really bizarre stuff, you have ants that are blue and have eight legs, things that look like rabbits but have short horns and are carnivorous, giraffes with red stripes instead of black spots, stuff like that. Or should I go the more bizarre stuff?
The natural laws should work pretty much as expected. Maybe near the gate towns things start to change, the rules of the universe, the local terrain and vegetation start taking on traits of the nearby gates. But I’d want to keep this pretty localised, I don;t want to portray the Outlands as (for example) a poor man’s Ysgard or Abyss or whatever.
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Stuff in the Outlands:
Tir Na Og= the land of the young of the Celtic Gods
The Norns at the roots of Yggdrasil
Dwarven Mountain
Semuanya's Bog (lizardman petitioners)
The Palace of Judgment (chinese afterlife....judicial branch)
Outlands petitioners....they help you and your enemy....they try to maintain the balance.
If you ask for directions to Plague Mort, you're cool.
If you SAVE somebody from Plague Mort with an Outlander's help, well he's got to raise the alarm on you to strike the balance.
It's a neutral realm so any.....thing from anywhere can go there; they just can't arbitrarily start tearing stuff up cos there ARE gods there, and they'll come down hard on troublemakers. So a pit fiend walking around there would have to keep it low key.
It's not about "true neutrality" it's about maintaining "balance."
Yin/Yang. The maintaining implies action which wipes the boring aspect of neutrality away.
That's the outlands.
It says the lay of the land kinda mimics the gate town it's near....
Glorium has rolling hills, green meadows, and forests.
Near Mechanus,....the trees are in rows like a farm; the meadows are square.
Weather is always temperate; not too hot in summer, not too cold in winter.
Toward the Lower Planes, though, i.e. Semuanya's bog is chilly;
dusty plains surround Ribcage,
"sad late autumn" near Plague-Mort, the lay of the land is bleaker.
It says the Outlands are highly varied geographically, I guess the weather is just pretty mellow.
I was wrong; Glorium's not on an ocean but the River Oceanus is nearby.
Xaos/Axos/Sxoa/Oasx/Xsoa
Place crazy a is.
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I am thinking little differences; it could be a Prime world, but some things jar. I guess there’s no sun – light comes from the spire, or the ‘top’ of the spire. So shadows would always be really long, pointing away from the spire. Maybe there’s no stars at night, or maybe there are, but they are a series of random and slowly changing constellations. Too chaotic? Maybe the ‘stars’ are clouds of fireflies high up in the sky, or luminous organs of giant, distant, sky-going whales.
I like the changing constellations, but what if they work as a hint to where you are? Thus, the constellations become more fluid and malleable if the PCs are near a gte to a chaotic plane and more structured and 'normal' if they are near a lawful gate. The flora and fauna would vary similarly - not enough to look like a lawful or chaotic plane, but picking up a few traits.
Oh, and what would Outland petitioners look like? I reckon they’d all be quite boring, being true neutral. Probably get a lot of former druids.
Normal people are Neutral. Outlandish petitioners should thus be mostly like people from home. The 'normality' of the plane could actually get a little creepy, especially when the PCs pick up on the odd little details.
IDK; for me another take on neutral is
"I don't care about good or evil. I just want to get mine. Money, Poon Tang, beer, good food,....all I care about is my own comfort. My own well being. The broader questions of good and evil don't matter to me unless they disrupt MY status quo."
I'm animalistically inclined. All I am is an extremely sophisticated mammal, taking care of my own basic needs and hedonistic desires.
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I went to the library today and borrowed some Charles Stross novels. I think I'll start with Accelerando before getting into the Laundry novels.
Quite a good story, although took me a little while to get into. Spans a loooong period of time, and the various technological and geographical leaps, as well as the changes in narrative styles can take a bit of getting your head around; I would advise you try to read it through without any breaks of more than a couple of days if you can; I put it down about halfway through to read a few other things, when I got back to it about two weeks later I found it very hard to get into again, but once I did I enjoyed the second half.
+1 on the Accelerando. Great collection of linked short stories that originally appeared in various SF mags.
On the Outlands: A couple of things to remember. Like Sigil, there is no sun or moon or stars (Unless the god running a realm there wishes there to be). The sky is blue and there is a regular day cycle, but the light just increases from everywhere.
The Outlands' weather is clement, for the most part. The central hub is very mountainous, and several dwarven powers (and mind flayer and beholder) have realms there. Travel is elastic: It usually takes 3-18 days to get anywhere. Most petitioners (souls living in their god's realms) are very big on balance: If they helped someone recently they might decide to hinder the PCs and vice versa. There are a lot of portals in the plane, and there are a lot of different groups from every plane using it as a highway to other places (basically you can encounter almost ANYTHING in your travels).
Heathy gave a good accounting of the gate towns. If you have to go to the Abyss, Plaguemort is the place. The Arch Lector hold sway there, and there are several factions that plot his removal at all times. The Illuminated, an embryonic faction led by an evil wizard named Green Marvent also keeps kip in the town. They are good foils to either help or hinder PCs. The Hounds are the 'city guard', in actuality the Arch-Lector's Praetorian Guard.
The city itself is half ruin, half fortified camp. There is a lot of razorvine and a strong demonic presence. Every so often the whole town goes too far into Chaotic Evil and it slides over into the Abyss proper. Then the survivors start rebuilding.
Hooray, hooray, it's Erik Mona Day!
IDK; for me another take on neutral is
"I don't care about good or evil. I just want to get mine. Money, Poon Tang, beer, good food,....all I care about is my own comfort. My own well being. The broader questions of good and evil don't matter to me unless they disrupt MY status quo."
I'm animalistically inclined. All I am is an extremely sophisticated mammal, taking care of my own basic needs and hedonistic desires.
And how lovely to see the old phrase Poon Tang still in use on these fine boards.
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And how lovely to see the old phrase Poon Tang still in use on these fine boards.IDK; for me another take on neutral is
"I don't care about good or evil. I just want to get mine. Money, Poon Tang, beer, good food,....all I care about is my own comfort. My own well being. The broader questions of good and evil don't matter to me unless they disrupt MY status quo."
I'm animalistically inclined. All I am is an extremely sophisticated mammal, taking care of my own basic needs and hedonistic desires.
With us lot, did you expect any different?
Thanks Pat.
Who, if anyone, controls the portal in Plaguemort?
As far as I can remember, the Hounds have a 'toll' at the gate, where they do a shakedown of anyone wishing to travel through it. I cannot recall what the key to the portal was, but if I find it I'll post. The Arch-Lector is named Byrri Yarmoril, and is rumored to be quite insane.
Here's a list of some canonical places:
- The Bell and Whistle: The tavern where the Illuminated hang out in Plaguemort.
- The Golden Griffon: The Hounds' local watering hole, Not a good place to go drinking ...
- The Eye of the Dragon: A good tavern for travelers and transients, as long as they don't act up.
- Sweet Larissa's Sausages: Selling the best-tasting sausages you will find in Plaguemort. Just don't inquire too deeply as to the ingrediants ..
- The Poisoner's Phial: A shop for all things alchemical, specializing in poisons and rare drugs.
Hooray, hooray, it's Erik Mona Day!
Happy EMD!
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And how lovely to see the old phrase Poon Tang still in use on these fine boards.IDK; for me another take on neutral is
"I don't care about good or evil. I just want to get mine. Money, Poon Tang, beer, good food,....all I care about is my own comfort. My own well being. The broader questions of good and evil don't matter to me unless they disrupt MY status quo."
I'm animalistically inclined. All I am is an extremely sophisticated mammal, taking care of my own basic needs and hedonistic desires.
Oops....I meant "Pan Tang." Even though it has nothing to do with the subject.
Yeah. I can play this off....|
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And how lovely to see the old phrase Poon Tang still in use on these fine boards.IDK; for me another take on neutral is
"I don't care about good or evil. I just want to get mine. Money, Poon Tang, beer, good food,....all I care about is my own comfort. My own well being. The broader questions of good and evil don't matter to me unless they disrupt MY status quo."
I'm animalistically inclined. All I am is an extremely sophisticated mammal, taking care of my own basic needs and hedonistic desires.Oops....I meant "Pan Tang." Even though it has nothing to do with the subject.
Yeah. I can play this off....
I was talking about extra-planar stuff, you brought in an Elric reference. That's it.
You got 'em fooled man.
I think another important concept for Planescape is this: you CANNOT kill or try to hack your way through every encounter.
Succubus.....IT'S EVIL!!! KILL IT!!!
that mentality doesn't work in Sigil, man.
You're going to attract attention doing it that way.
Same for the succubus though....the enemy has to be subtle as well.
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And how lovely to see the old phrase Poon Tang still in use on these fine boards.Oops....I meant "Pan Tang." Even though it has nothing to do with the subject.
Yeah. I can play this off....I was talking about extra-planar stuff, you brought in an Elric reference. That's it.
You got 'em fooled man.
There was a rather undistinguished British metal band in the 1980s called Tygers Of Pan Tang. So I think Heathy was talkin' music, myself.
heh heh....
I know her!
Ack!
Come ON guys, I waste ENOUGH time in front of the PC as it is!
You have GOT to stop showing me MORE things that I can watch/do/check out on the PC! ;P
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Bwahahaha! Whole episodes here, uploaded in convenient 10-minute chunks by some saintly Brit. This one has a particularly excellent panel, including Sean Lock (the guy in the blue shirt), who has one of the weirdest accent I've ever run across. He's perfectly understandable, he just sounds... odd. Enjoy!
Tomorrow night's my wedding anniversary; as such I prolly won't be on until the day after that.
Happy Anniversary Heathy!
May I ask how long she's put up with you?
Er, I mean, How long you've been married!??
;)
Happy Anniversary!
Hey mon.....
Eldritch Shiny is pbpless, and I remember him being a trip during the DarkSun game;
wot say ye?
Do you guys remember the point buy? Was it 25?
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We are 32-point 3.5 characters who then got the "+2 to the relevant stat" PF boost. I think that ended up as a 25-point PF character; I'll check out Nevyn's character in the RotL campaign to confirm it.
EDIT: According to Nevyn, the RotL characters were 24-point PF characters. However, those were 30-point 3.5 PCs, so 25-point PF builds sounds right. In addition to that, Shiny's PC will need to add +3 stat points for level gains. Reverse engineering our PCs will be trickier, as we all have stat-boosting items, so I'd say go with his estimate.