Help with a Xill Intensive Campaign


Advice


I'm about to start running a campaign in a cyberpunk/space setting using the Pathfinder rules modified slightly with d20 modern and star wars firearms/blasters. Anyway, the idea was that after the characters go through some ordeals in which they will discover the baddies are working for the Xill, who are planning a massive onslaught on the galactic empire to expand their race. My main problem at the moment is that I planned on forgoing alternate planes of existence for the most part and treating anything related to them as a different planet, i.e. Knowledge (planes) would be knowledge of various planets and help with space travel, plane shift would bring the caster to a different planet rather than a different plane, etc.

So what I'm wondering is, should I replace the Xill's ability to plane walk between the ethereal plane and the material plane to an ability that just brings them to their home planet, should I get rid of it completely, should I change it to something else, or should I leave it be to keep the game interesting? I'm mostly concerned because I didn't really feel like delving too deeply into alternate planes of existence in a cyberpunk setting (though I know some do).


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This campaign sounds eXILLerating.


Maybe replace it with some cybermagic-y gizmo that teleports them around to designated portal-y thingys on Xill controlled planets. Like, the Xills conquer planet X, and in the capital of planet X is area Y. All Xill can use their gizmo to 'port to area Y.


The Xills' ability to scout out the material plane from comparative safety on the ethereal plane is fairly powerful. If you're going to house rule ethereal travel into planetary teleportation you should probably either give them some sort of equivalent scouting ability or lower their CR.

Liberty's Edge

Maybe replace the ability with some kind of dimension door (transporter technology) ability to keep the flavor, show they are a higher technology, but not worry about the extradimensional aspects.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Felgoroth wrote:

I'm about to start running a campaign in a cyberpunk/space setting using the Pathfinder rules modified slightly with d20 modern and star wars firearms/blasters. Anyway, the idea was that after the characters go through some ordeals in which they will discover the baddies are working for the Xill, who are planning a massive onslaught on the galactic empire to expand their race. My main problem at the moment is that I planned on forgoing alternate planes of existence for the most part and treating anything related to them as a different planet, i.e. Knowledge (planes) would be knowledge of various planets and help with space travel, plane shift would bring the caster to a different planet rather than a different plane, etc.

So what I'm wondering is, should I replace the Xill's ability to plane walk between the ethereal plane and the material plane to an ability that just brings them to their home planet, should I get rid of it completely, should I change it to something else, or should I leave it be to keep the game interesting? I'm mostly concerned because I didn't really feel like delving too deeply into alternate planes of existence in a cyberpunk setting (though I know some do).

Since you mentioned cyberpunk, what's the internet equivalent like on your world? If it allows for it, you might think of making it the equivalent of the Ethereal (and/or Astral) Planes. Like a sort of "Ethernet" as it were. And private server/secure domains could be the equivalent of demiplanes, "Ether Nodes" as it were. They talk a lot about this in the steam/etherpunk book for d20 modern "Etherscope", which I think is on sale here at paizo.com

As for the xill, they of course would be somehow naturally adept at breaking down the barrier between the physical world and the world of the Ether. They could be an only seemingly-sentient race of Ether viruses created and directed by unknown hands or even a program that's somehow achieved sentience and gone rogue.


If you want a science-y explanation of the ethereal plane you can refer to beings on it as "out of phase." This causes beings who are in such a state to become insubstantial to us and vice-versa. It may have some connection to "hyperspace" or "subspace" if your adventure uses those.

Star Trek periodically had beings that were like this. There's also "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" for inspiration. Things that have the Ghost Touch property can be given it by technology if you want.

Peet


Sounds like you could consider an alternative setup... The various planets could be reflections of Earth. This would let you use the Xill more or less intact. Of course, you would not have many spaceships, so it might not be your cup of tea.


Dreaming Psion wrote:

Since you mentioned cyberpunk, what's the internet equivalent like on your world? If it allows for it, you might think of making it the equivalent of the Ethereal (and/or Astral) Planes. Like a sort of "Ethernet" as it were. And private server/secure domains could be the equivalent of demiplanes, "Ether Nodes" as it were. They talk a lot about this in the steam/etherpunk book for d20 modern "Etherscope", which I think is on sale here at paizo.com

As for the xill, they of course would be somehow naturally adept at breaking down the barrier between the physical world and the world of the Ether. They could be an only seemingly-sentient race of Ether viruses created and directed by unknown hands or even a program that's somehow achieved sentience and gone rogue.

I actually really like this idea. It gives the game a more cyberpunk feel without some weird Matrix like aspect and still keeps it in the realm of sci-fi. I also liked the "out of phase" idea, however, I think I'm likely going to go with this "Ethernet" idea. I may not break the planes down a whole lot (mainly because right now the most magical person in the party is an Alchemist and I was kind of set on the whole planes converted to planets thing for the sake of checks similar to an Astrogate check from the Star Wars RPG), but this does seem like something that can lead to a larger BBEG controlling the Xill or something along those lines rather than them just giving them class levels to make them harder to fight and things of that nature.

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