[bzzzt]
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Maybe teleportation (or any other magical activity) involves travelling via/tapping into some sort of plane or energy source that can be very dangerous indeed, so the more you use it (both in terms of frequency and magnitude), the greater the chance that Something that you don't particularly want to annoy will notice and take offence, which is why magic is used for relatively little things and 'safer' mundane tech for anything large scale...
What I need is various commonplace ways these sorts of things will be implemented, and why certain things would still be in use when other things could exist in their place that don't in real life.
Maybe something along the lines of ley lines being like a giant spider's web. Safe to travel as long as you don't make the lines vibrate too much, because you don't want to get the spider's attention.
Except instead of a spider it's a world-killing god-whale or something.
This would mean the portal networks would need to be fairly heavily policed and managed, which could lead to large delays - everything would need to be scheduled, organized, and arranged neatly. Not unlike flight plans and plane schedules in the real world. Whereas sailing might be more convenient for the sake of "find a ship going where you're going and cram yourself onto it".
My old DM's campaign had some irritating little dimension hopping creatures. That hunted the space between spaces so if you attempted to teleport their was always the chance of being caught by them. Half our group got caught once luckily they were able to escape while the rest of us had to use....other means of transportation....more or less by screwing with the what is and what could possibly be.
If you can stand it, Orthos, dipping into some works on Theosophy might give you an idea of how to add some contemporary occulty flavour to your setting, even if they are a) a bit hard going and b) a load of old rubbish, in my opinion.
You can get some of 'em free on Project Gutenberg
Or maybe magic could be a Royal or Church monopoly, i.e. the Divine Right of Kings is actually a real thing, and you have tension between the up and coming technologists and the old fashioned Legitimist magi (who won't allow their wonderful power source to be used for anything vulgar/anything likely to threaten their own position). You could then also have a thriving black market and additional dangers from Inquisitors (both secular and religious) for unlicenced mages...
There are a couple of countries that are theocracies or near-so that I might steal that for, but it's not as applicable for for all regions of our setting (being pretty much designed with D&D/PF in mind and thus most areas of the world being less restrictive with magic in the hands of PCs, etc.). Will have a look when I get home =)
Time for me to pick your brains, people.
My next campaign will be set in my setting's later years, nearing the latter portion of the Age of Steam but not yet quite reaching the Age of Technology. Magitek experimentation is on the rise but not yet perfected. Rudimentary modern technology - think 1800s/early 1900s era - is in use. Magic (arcane, divine, psionic, and many others) is commonplace in most areas.
What I need is various commonplace ways these sorts of things will be implemented, and why certain things would still be in use when other things could exist in their place that don't in real life. For example off the top of my head, why would anyone risk their lives on cross-seas voyages by ship when the friendly governments of two territories could just build permanent linked teleport gates and charge people reasonable prices to use them? Obviously sailing would still be required to go to areas that don't have such gates, lesser populated or less-civilized areas of the world, but for going from major population center to major population center, why go the long way? Things like that.
For a more pop-culture-relevant explanation: the technology and culture is about the same era and style as Avatar: Legend of Korra, and I want to implement magic's omnipresence in the same way bending was implemented into day-to-day life in the show. Firebenders using lightning-bending to power generators, earthbenders doing construction, that sort of thing.
Yes I plan on digging into D20 Modern for some things, but that doesn't cover the level of high magic-tech-daily life I'm looking to integrate here.
Justifying some of these things will also give me a good opportunity to work in some late-timeline worldbuilding and prepare my setting for the campaign to come next year. Let me have your best/worst, folks - I know FAWTL's got some impressive minds to it. =)
so...this is steampunk? Magipunk? Or something else?
Maybe teleportation (or any other magical activity) involves travelling via/tapping into some sort of plane or energy source that can be very dangerous indeed, so the more you use it (both in terms of frequency and magnitude), the greater the chance that Something that you don't particularly want to annoy will notice and take offence, which is why magic is used for relatively little things and 'safer' mundane tech for anything large scale...
What I need is various commonplace ways these sorts of things will be implemented, and why certain things would still be in use when other things could exist in their place that don't in real life.
Maybe something along the lines of ley lines being like a giant spider's web. Safe to travel as long as you don't make the lines vibrate too much, because you don't want to get the spider's attention.
Except instead of a spider it's a world-killing god-whale or something.
NIIIIIIIIICE
Sounds similar to how bardic magic works in Freehold. The entity that oversees what remains of divine magic can have the wool pulled over it's by bards, but you really don't want to disturb it too often.
Dear gods, I'm going to have to wait 3-5 more business days for my form to be processed, late, and it might not even be approved! I'm terrified.
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I need to barter my laborious corpse for ugly little pictures of dead rich capitalists.
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The biggest reason to have ships sailing around the world is to move cargo. So if you restrict the size or weight of the stuff you can move through teleportation, like the 50lb limit on greater teleport in 3.5 then the most efficient way to move goods will still be boats.
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The biggest reason to have ships sailing around the world is to move cargo. So if you restrict the size or weight of the stuff you can move through teleportation, like the 50lb limit on greater teleport in 3.5 then the most efficient way to move goods will still be boats.
good eye.
It also creates a need for seagoing security/reavers.
so...this is steampunk? Magipunk? Or something else?
Magitek steampunk era. Think FFVI tech, but Magic and Magitek are more commonplace, not limited to military use, and not limited to one country.
The biggest reason to have ships sailing around the world is to move cargo. So if you restrict the size or weight of the stuff you can move through teleportation, like the 50lb limit on greater teleport in 3.5 then the most efficient way to move goods will still be boats.
VERY good point, I'd forgotten about the weight limits. So teleport circles will have to be primarily for individual travel with a single carry-on and/or small cargo like a suitcase, and anything larger is going to require ship travel, or train if by land.
The biggest reason to have ships sailing around the world is to move cargo. So if you restrict the size or weight of the stuff you can move through teleportation, like the 50lb limit on greater teleport in 3.5 then the most efficient way to move goods will still be boats.
That's not greater teleport spell limit. That's the restriction of Outsider greater teleport spell-like ability, probably added to avoid using single planar binding (or even lesser planar bindinh) as a valid substitute for multiple greater teleports.
Regular and greater teleports are capable of carrying multiple persons with their equipment up to their encumbrance cap.
...
Now I have an idea...
What if in the early period of development people started using teleportation effects in industrial numbers, only to discover that the more bulk/worth is transferred the greater the chance of attracting attention of things from beyond the material plane... Like, gremlin-like creatures attracted to wealth teleported and locust-like extraplanar beings that feed on various materials attracted to bulk teleportation of said materials. Their early appearance was restricted to nibbling on the cargo itself, but as the transfers continued in great numbers, the creatures started to hitch rides and enter the material plane and spread, like invasive species of vermin did in our reality. Which forced the government to step in and restrict teleportation. And to try to undermine economy of competing government by setting a large number of unregistered one-way teleports to attract the teleport-vermin to their infrastructure.
You know... I might go back to creating that "corporate-punk" fantasy setting I once had...
By the way... Ant haul (communal) and bull's strength are a terrible combination with industrial use of teleports because they increase individual porter's carrying capacity...
EDIT: Teleport can carry caster and three persons. With ant haul cast on each of them their carrying capacity increases from 400 lbs (100 lbs of carrying capacity of Str 10 person) to 1200 lbs. The same caster can use his 2nd level spells to boost their Strength to 14, increasing carrying capacity to 175 lbs. Total cargo carried... 2100 lbs.
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Oh! What if technology disrupts the ley lines, making magic unpredictable.
If you wanted to get technical the smog and radio signals are messing with them on a global scale, making such things as large scale teleportation risky but still gives you smaller scale stuff, just off the top of my head :-)
As an addendum to this ley line theory I like the idea that as you are traveling along these lines you may encounter beings from the past caught in a "Loop" if you will, Stuck in time.
Perhaps even certain actions/events can free these beings for good or nefarious purposes.
What if in the early period of development people started using teleportation effects in industrial numbers, only to discover that the more bulk/worth is transferred the greater the chance of attracting attention of things from beyond the material plane... Like, gremlin-like creatures attracted to wealth teleported and locust-like extraplanar beings that feed on various materials attracted to bulk teleportation of said materials. Their early appearance was restricted to nibbling on the cargo itself, but as the transfers continued in great numbers, the creatures started to hitch rides and enter the material plane and spread, like invasive species of vermin did in our reality. Which forced the government to step in and restrict teleportation. And to try to undermine economy of competing government by setting a large number of unregistered one-way teleports to attract the teleport-vermin to their infrastructure.
I do have the Dark Song, one part music of the outer realities and one part Lovecraftian nightmare, which have been well established in our setting as existing between realities and congregating around ley nexuses to feed on their power. It'd make sense that they'd be drawn to larger or more potent passers-by on such travels and follow them through the lines - using the soul of the living humanoid/whatever as a beacon to navigate by rather than being swept up by the ley line current and pulled wherever it goes. I could definitely see them being a danger to a teleportation network, especially if it's built up using the ley web.
Oh! What if technology disrupts the ley lines, making magic unpredictable.
If you wanted to get technical the smog and radio signals are messing with them on a global scale, making such things as large scale teleportation risky but still gives you smaller scale stuff, just off the top of my head :-)
As an addendum to this ley line theory I like the idea that as you are traveling along these lines you may encounter beings from the past caught in a "Loop" if you will, Stuck in time.
Perhaps even certain actions/events can free these beings for good or nefarious purposes.
Definitely some plot threads there, yeah. =)
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The Merchant Guild might publicly claim that the Dark Song is merely an unfounded superstition promoted by druids who use it as a excuse to ban the free trade and push the world back into less advanced era.
Yay!
I contributed :-)
The Merchant Guild might publicly claim that the Dark Song is merely an unfounded superstition promoted by druids who use it as a excuse to ban the free trade and push the world back into less advanced era.
I like it!
The Merchant Guild might publicly claim that the Dark Song is merely an unfounded superstition promoted by druids who use it as a excuse to ban the free trade and push the world back into less advanced era.I like it!
I can definitely see that, since the Song tend to avoid highly-populated areas and emerge mostly in wilderness regions or otherwise less densely inhabited territories with strong ley presence and/or powerful native or wild magic. Heavily urbanized areas have ley lines that are better "tended" by frequent use and less likely to have Song popping out of them as a result, while "wild" lines and nexuses are more likely to attract them.
I can definitely see that, since the Song tend to avoid highly-populated areas and emerge mostly in wilderness areas with strong ley presence and/or powerful native or wild magic. Heavily urbanized areas have ley lines that are better "tended" by frequent use and less likely to have Song popping out of them as a result, while "wild" lines and nexuses are more likely to attract them.The Merchant Guild might publicly claim that the Dark Song is merely an unfounded superstition promoted by druids who use it as a excuse to ban the free trade and push the world back into less advanced era.I like it!
At the same time intense use of ley lines for teleportation might lead to much greater intrusions in the urban area. How intelligent/organized Dark Song is? Could it create a specific minion type to spearhead such infiltration? I imagined swarms of tiny black (or maybe a rainbow-hued when exposed to intense light) quicksilver-like blobs occasionally slithering from portals and spreading in warehouse or factory districts.
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Big guilds in place of corporations that held governments by their... Purses.
Druid ecoterrorists who reject "modern" values (I just finished... Dealing with druid sects in Pillars Of Eternity.).
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How does Guildpunk sounds?
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At the same time intense use of ley lines for teleportation might lead to much greater intrusions in the urban area. How intelligent/organized Dark Song is? Could it create a specific minion type to spearhead such infiltration? I imagined swarms of tiny black (or maybe a rainbow-hued when exposed to intense light) quicksilver-like blobs occasionally slithering from portals and spreading in warehouse or factory districts.I can definitely see that, since the Song tend to avoid highly-populated areas and emerge mostly in wilderness areas with strong ley presence and/or powerful native or wild magic. Heavily urbanized areas have ley lines that are better "tended" by frequent use and less likely to have Song popping out of them as a result, while "wild" lines and nexuses are more likely to attract them.The Merchant Guild might publicly claim that the Dark Song is merely an unfounded superstition promoted by druids who use it as a excuse to ban the free trade and push the world back into less advanced era.I like it!
The least Songspawn are Oozes and either black or transparent with a silvery sheen, and basically look like floating/flying oozy tadpoles with wavy tails and no eyes/mouth/etc, just balls of viscous semi-solid fluid. The fewer tails and the lighter their hue, the stronger they are. Basically, they're living musical notes. All black with steadily-decreasing tendril-tails until the half-note, when they become transparent, then the whole-note loses the tail. Those are your basic infiltrators, and yeah they ooze in from the lines and seep into places.
Note-type (Ooze) Songspawn can combine with each other to become stronger versions of themselves - as notes can be tied together to make longer notes - and can also bond with one another, melding together into solid Aberrations with various shapes, designs, powers, and talents. Combine enough to get the stronger variants - starting around CR 8-10 - and they start gaining sapience, innate psionics, and other advanced talents. These Dark Song are named and designed after musical terms; for example an Allegro Songspawn is fast and agile, a Largo Songspawn is slow and pondering, a Piano Songspawn is quiet and subtle, a Forte Songspawn is brash, loud, and powerful, and so forth.
All Songspawn share a pan-universal hivemind - "The Melody and the Harmony" - and are controlled by powerful Song nexuses called Maestros.
So yeah, it's perfectly possible for an infiltrating group of note-type Ooze Songspawn to seep into an area, combine into solid Aberration form, and wreak some havoc.
Songspawn are basically living sound - in liquid form as Oozes, then solidified as Aberrations. They're highly vulnerable to Silence spells and similar effects (barring some exceptions) and use a lot of Sonic effects.
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Not to stray off topic...
...are we done laughing now... No, okay get it all out....
Anyway, received my book, which is my first ever subscription that's not National Geographic, so yay!
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How does Guildpunk sounds?
I like it. I think I'm going to rewrite the Thieves' Guild parts of Savage Tide's first chapter to be more in this sort of vein.
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I might use that in Starfall for my Iron Gods campaign :-)
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Talk about ley line coincidence, I got done with the dishes at the same time the afternoon coffee was done and the mail lady dropped off my book, like all literally within a minute of each other :-)
My knee-jerk reaction was "too cold during winter" but then I remembered where you normally live.
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I was gonna live in Portland, once.
Then I found out it's Madison's Florida, by that I mean all the old Madison people retire there. We saw entirely too many people we knew when we checked out a farmer's market:-)
We chose Seattle instead, which is Minnesota's Florida :-)
My Tammy the Lich plan is going better than anticipated :-)
I should probably find something better to do with my time...
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I did it! It worked! Like way way better then I ever could've believed possible, a link will follow in a moment, just as soon as Steven Universe is over :-)
I GOT JAMES JACOBS TO MAKE A LICH NAMED TAMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i cannot express how awesome i feel right now, tears of joy! those are tears of joy!
Big guilds in place of corporations that held governments by their... Purses.
Druid ecoterrorists who reject "modern" values (I just finished... Dealing with druid sects in Pillars Of Eternity.).
sounds like shadowrun to me
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Headed home.
Why don't I live in Portland, again?
it's far away from me...
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sounds like shadowrun to meBig guilds in place of corporations that held governments by their... Purses.
Druid ecoterrorists who reject "modern" values (I just finished... Dealing with druid sects in Pillars Of Eternity.).
I do not consider this a bad thing.
Let's see... The Rain, No Cthulhu bar, No Bon-Chon, No Freehold and you will be near Kobold CleaverHeaded home.
Why don't I live in Portland, again?
rain? With no snow? Sounds hellish.
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Rereading my massive post above, I figure some explaining on the Songspawn might be in order.
The Dark Song is Lawful Evil in alignment and has one singular goal - to complete its ultimate, final song. To do this, it incorporates any living creatures it can into its hivemind, corrupting them and transforming them into new Songspawn. Tainted creatures retain their original shape and nature for a time, gaining the Dissonant creature template (Ignore the CN or CE requirement in there, this has since been revised - LN or LE now) instead, but Dissonants that remain so without being killed or cured for long enough will eventually become true Songspawn and join the choir in full.
There's a bit more detail to this process, as well as the overall goal of the Song as a whole, but it's rather irrelevant at the moment. Suffice to say for now, the Dark Song are kind of like The Blob meets The Borg, with some Cthulhu stirred in.
sounds like shadowrun to meBig guilds in place of corporations that held governments by their... Purses.
Druid ecoterrorists who reject "modern" values (I just finished... Dealing with druid sects in Pillars Of Eternity.).
Except it's not our world, the nunhuman races were always here and part of community, and there is no modern technology as such, only magitech subtitutes. So there is as much of Eberron there as Shadowrun.
Except it's not our world, the nunhuman races were always here and part of community, and there is no modern technology as such, only magitech subtitutes. So there is as much of Eberron there as Shadowrun.sounds like shadowrun to meBig guilds in place of corporations that held governments by their... Purses.
Druid ecoterrorists who reject "modern" values (I just finished... Dealing with druid sects in Pillars Of Eternity.).
ok.
Earthdawn then.
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Actual thought that ran through my head:
"Wow I'm glad I discovered that milk makes me non-dangerously physically ill; that might come in handy someday"
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Green Compromise: A sect of benevolent (or at least less bloodthirsty, might-makes-right, eat-or-be-eaten, you-are-either-hunter-or-prey mentality) druids, coming to conclusion that further development and expansion of civilization is impossible to stop without resorting to cataclysmic solutions which they wanted to avoid for various reasons (ranging from compassion for other living beings that would be annihilated, through the simply fact that it might be beyond their means, to the fact that they might perish in the process themselves), decided to influence the civilization development. They noted that the horizontal and numeric spread of civilization is primarily driven by need for agricultural lands, and at the same time new agricultural lands lead to further increase in population which drives further territorial expansion. This lead them to conclusion, that the territorial spread could be reduced by either preventing or at least reducing population growth or by increasing efficiency of food production. One of the factions decided that preventing population growth is not feasible solution so they choose the second solution: they harnessed their earth, water, weather, and plant magic to increase soil fertility, provide water and sun in right proportions, enhanced the plants, and multiplied the crops by orders of magnitude. As intended, this slowed but not completely stopped cultivation of new lands for farming, allowing to sustain much bigger urban populations without need for corresponding increase in rural population.
Their assistance came at certain conditions, giving the druids political voice in settlements, important advisory role in matters related to necessary expansion, a degree of sovereignty over wilderness, and some degree of control over population growth.
The Green Compromise is not without its drawbacks. Many forces subtly or not so subtly work to undermine it-both on the side of the wilderness and the civilized lands. Various druidic factions view it with suspicion, contempt, or outright hatred. Magical colleges are slowly developing their own alternatives to druidic magic, slowly replacing village druids with agricultural magicians. Growing population increases demand for mineral resources...
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NIIIIIIIIICE
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When I went shopping I started thinking about the ways to have a fantasy setting with modern rural to urban population ratio while keeping majority of the landscape wild instead of being used for agriculture and that was one of the solutions. It is related to my older idea of elves as advanced hunter-gatherers that use nature magic to increase the natural bounty by orders of magnitude and hasten the replenishment of harvested food sources, thus allowing creation of permanent settlements with sustainable population of thousands instead of migrating families of dozens.
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You avatar just reminded me my recent idea of introducing Zon-Kuthon to Forgotten Realms games. He would be a pre-fall drow deity, quite possibly brother of Eilistraee, who went through breakdown and exiled onself from the elven pantheon during/after Crownwars, disillusioned by the failure of Seldarine to stop the bloodshed, and broken by the drow fall. Somewhere during the exile he would cross his moral Event Horizon, possibly by meeting something eldritch, possibly by becoming guest/prisoner/slave (in the BDSM sense) of kytons. He would return only now, seeking to share his dark enlightenment with the world of his origins.
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He seems to be more interesting than Loviatar, at least until I manage to find more about her. Their competition for portfolio of pain could be an interesting plot point but completely not fitting my current campaign and current party...
You avatar just reminded me my recent idea of introducing Zon-Kuthon to Forgotten Realms games. He would be a pre-fall drow deity, quite possibly brother of Eilistraee, who went through breakdown and exiled onself from the elven pantheon during/after Crownwars, disillusioned by the failure of Seldarine to stop the bloodshed, and broken by the drow fall. Somewhere during the exile he would cross his moral Event Horizon, possibly by meeting something eldritch, possibly by becoming guest/prisoner/slave (in the BDSM sense) of kytons. He would return only now, seeking to share his dark enlightenment with the world of his origins.
This will probably also include lots of re-imagining and re-dogmatizing him. Pathfinder Wiki does not say much about his dogma so I will draw more on kytons probably.
Also. He might end looking as a beautiful drow boy that might or might not be inspired by pictures of Fenris from Dragon Age 2. With scars. At least until he will reveal that under his bang (English calls that haircut how?!) he has no eyes. He has no need for them where he is taking you anyway.