I've always thought a time travel campaign would be cool to do. So, I thought to myself, why not combine two really cool things (Eberron and Time travel) into one lot of awesomness.
Here's the outline of the idea I came up with.
Characters are for some reason in the mornland, sifting through the ruins of fallen cyre escorting some wizard when they suddenly come across a strange circle of glowing stones and arcane symbols. Before they know it, they've been transported backwards in time to cyre, a month before the day of mourning. The adventure then revolves around them entering whitehearth, and preventing the events of that day. I thought that House cannith came up with a magical equivilant to the atom bomb which they would sell to the highest bidder during the last war. However, the the current time line their tinkerings set off an unforseen uncontrolled chain reaction which set off other prototypes, obliterated much of the facility and destroyed cyre (Yep, this is one powerful bomb, especially when not controlled). However, when the adventurers stop this happening, the room swirls and they black out (like in making history by stephen fry if you've read it. Really good! v. funny/interesting) and awaken in a strange half ruined city with the sound of intense battle going on nearby. It turns out that by preventing the day of mourning, they allowed another secret project of house cannith to survive, one of creating constructs that acted with a collective intelligence. This later on, escaped, overran the facility, and took the now many refined versions of the superweapon. Months later, massive magical explosions shook the major cities of Khorvaire, killing thousands (though they weren't as devastating as the day of mourning as they were more refined and controlled) and creating an apocalyptic, magically polluted wasteland. There is now a war of resistance against the constructs in which the remaining humans and the monsters of droaam have put aside their differences and have united for the greater good, mostly forming areas of resistance in the former cities as the surrounding countryside bore the brunt of the magical fall out, the cities being just physically devastated. Rebel groups of both humans, monsters and warforged roam the lands, looting ruined settlements etc. Sarlona has gone quite, with no word from them since the disaster as has stormreach in Xen'drik. The adventurers now have to try and help save humanity while simultaneously working out a way to return to the past and prevent what they did.
All i'm wondering about is whether to use clockwork horrors for the constructs or to create a new creature like the borg from startrek to fill the role (House cannith was trying to improve the warforged design by making it a full synthesis of organic material and construct technology, but as with all things when humans try to play like gods, it went wrong.)
Thoughts anyone?
And before anyone starts complaining that this doesn't fit into standard theories of time travel, just have a reality check, its fantasy!!!! Normal world physics don't apply.
Also, I know people can get quite jumpy once anyone starts mentioning explainations for the day of mourning. Just remember this is just a thought, not solid golden truth.
Warmage 101
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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It sounds like a really interesting idea. I'm not sure what I could say to improve upon it or anything, but if your players are into crazy plot twists and messing with history, I say go for it.
I caution you, though, this plotline sounds like a blatant ripoff of the Terminator movies' backstory.
House Cannith = Cyberdine
Collective Intelligence = SkyNet
Constructs merged with organic tissue = Terminators
Just my observations.
Having thought about it, it is really quite similar to the terminator films but hey, whats wrong with a homage to them (only to T2 though the others weren't great)
Thanks for the reply, I was beginning to wonder whether my posts were visible only to me...
Warmage 101
I caution you, though, this plotline sounds like a blatant ripoff of...
All the best plots are :)
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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Having thought about it, it is really quite similar to the terminator films but hey, whats wrong with a homage to them (only to T2 though the others weren't great)
Personally, I liked them all, but that's not the point.
It sounds like a fine plan, I just wanted to bring it to your attention so that if one of your players brought it up you wouldn't stammer and be all "...well... damn, you're right." That happened to a friend of mine who subconsciously ripped off Chrono Trigger without meaning to. When we pointed it out, he got all upset at the fact that he thought he was being original when he wasn't and he stopped running the campaign because of it.
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Having thought about it, it is really quite similar to the terminator films but hey, whats wrong with a homage to them (only to T2 though the others weren't great)
Warmage 101
How can you say the others weren't that great! The original especially was fantastic, though I have to agree with you in that I think T2 was the best...
Anyway, to your original post, I like the idea too, I love time travel stories, and the idea that trying to fix a mistake in the past has dire consequences for the future. I have no problem with your take on how time travel works. Do you think your players will take exception to it? If so, it might be worth explaining to them (either in game or out) your take on how things work .... or maybe not, as it may take away a lot of the impact of your planned story, but maybe just try to scope out what their feelings on the matter are.
Also, your campaign idea hinges on them trying (And succeeding) in stopping the disaster that destroys Cyre - what if they don't? It seems likely they would, but sometimes players do unpredictable things. Maybe work in some extra back story or something to give some or all of the characters some extra motivation to do so (of course, having one or more of the characters originating from Cyre would probably be enough).
As for the constructs ... well, with Clockwork Horrors your work is done for you ... but I don't know, I like the idea of an advanced form of Warforged better personally. It may be that Clockwork Horrors have lost their edge for my players since a few somewhat botched 2nd edition Spelljammer encounters which weren't nearly as hard or scary as I had hoped they would be... Having them as a type of Warforged may have a more personal impact on the characters (especially if any of them are Warforged), and it also gives you an opportunity for some nasty tricks like the meta-warforged infiltrating the resistance by posing as normal warforged etc (yes, Terminator again). There may have also been a back-lash against the normal warforged, or they might be enslaved by the meta-warforged, or have been completely superceded by them.
Thanks for the reply.
I was thinking about clockwork horrors (seeing as Dragon 350 has the ecology of the clockwork horror, magical pollution/corrupted creatures and cronomancy) but i was also thinking about something like the borg, semi organic constructs which turn people into them (scary!). It would make the war of attrition all the more terrifying as your best friend could become the enemy. Not sure what they'd be like though... Probably some advanced warforged prototype that went wrong.
Warmage 101
Yes, you really need a backup plan, if your players decide: "Hey, we will not mess with the flow of history, we all know how this ends..."
So you should put them under some Geas (they could agree to it willingly as they are asked by a LG organisation to set right "some great evil, which will come", and then later they see what they stumbled into).
Or have some backup NPCs, who will succeed, because of the PCs tampering, in preventing the plot by themselves.
That is a good idea. A RPG you will want to look into is RIFTS. It has a lot of how to brng multiple RPG's together and sounds like it would be a huge help to you.
That is a good idea. A RPG you will want to look into is RIFTS. It has a lot of how to brng multiple RPG's together and sounds like it would be a huge help to you.
Agreed - you can get a good summation of the Rifts Multiverse on Wikipedia.
I myself am not intensely familiar with the Eberron Setting, but I was thinking. If the other houses discover what Cyre was doing, wouldn't they do something? I know if I found out that my opponents made a bomb that would destroy an entire city (in theory) I wouldn't stop fighting. Forget a resistance, now the last war is still going on.
I myself am not intensely familiar with the Eberron Setting, but I was thinking. If the other houses discover what Cyre was doing, wouldn't they do something? I know if I found out that my opponents made a bomb that would destroy an entire city (in theory) I wouldn't stop fighting. Forget a resistance, now the last war is still going on.
If your saying what I think your saying then I think you've misunderstood. Firstly, it's not cyre developing the superweapon but house cannith, which had its headquarters in cyre before the day of mourning in the proper timeline. Secondly, the resistance war mentioned is in the alternate timeline against the strange constructs which start to overrun Khorvaire. The resistance isn't underground, its a war of attrition, for survival against the machines (Yes, terminator, I know...)
Also, the other dragonmarked houses might not necessarily intervene. The only ones likely to know of what cannith is doing would be Thuranni and/or Philarian. Also, remember that in the real timeline house Philarian is thought to have already known about what was going to happen, as it withdrew its major family member from cyre just before the event, yet they didn't intervene. Politics and ambitions are never clear cut with the dragonmarked houses, there is always a secondary motive, especially with Philarian
Many thanks to everyone for the feedback. Rifts looks like a good resource.
Warmage 101
I was thinking maybe someone meeting their past self touches off the blast wave.
Another possibility is for an infinite power soarce someone opened a gate to an antimatter universe and couldn't control the result. Temporal backcurrents may have resulted.
The power could have resulted in creating multiple stable timelines.
Note that the Lord of Blades may be guiding the characters to get them to create warforged world.
Look into Half-Golems. Consider implants from Gamma World and other SF games.
Maybe a new form of undead is a creature reanimated via implants. Take out all the now useless organs and put in warforged brain, power pack, and the equivalent of a hat of disguise (to make it look alive).
Another solid gaming resource you might consider is GURPS Time Travel. It won an Origins Award for Best RPG Supplement (albeit over a decade ago). The book describes the various competing time-travel architectures (like, going back and changing one event spins off alternate time threads, or everything has already happened so there's no real "change" possible, or there's some force that "protects" history by blending changes back into on coherent time thread, etc.). It faces all of the hard questions about paradoxes (and shows how difficult running a time-travel campaign can be). It helped me anticipate and prepare for several paradox problems that arose in a time-traveling D&D adventure I ran. I'd even recommend the book as a resource for anyone writing short stories involving time travel. It's quite thought-provoking.
(If memory serves, Steve Jackson Games replaced GURPS Time Travel with a newer take on time travel some years ago, but the replacement opts for a single Time-Cop style architecture rather than discussing all of the options broadly.)