I know this is opening a giant can of worms, but I am quite excited about one monster in particular from the Bestiary 4, the Time Dragon. For the first time ever in PF (and maybe 3.5 D+D) we have an ability that can allow a group of PCs to travel back in time to witness, and potentially interact with Golarion-shaking events. Starfall? The Tarrasque's rampage? Ringside seats at the fight between Aroden and Tar-Baphon? Just convince the a Great Wyrm Time Dragon to port you back! (Or forward...) In case anywone's glossed over the entry or doesn't have a copy, here it is:
Time Travel Up to three times in its life, a great wyrm time dragon can travel to any point in time, taking with it a number of willing creatures equal to its Charisma modifier.
With this in existence, all sorts of adventuring potential comes forth, from traveling back to witness an unknown key event to going for the whole, "Let's go back in time, kill (Hitler)/Tar Baphon/ Geb" so this 'x-event' never comes to pass. I could easily see the Pathfinder society funding a fortune just for the chance to see and record any number of events. Obviously, convincing the Dragon to use this power would be a quest unto itself.
Nonetheless, this begs an integral world-building question: Is Golarion on a fixed time-stream or is it mutable? Can events that are changed in the past effect and change the future, or has everything that has happened already come to pass. Obviously, there's lots of 'Butterfly Effect' possibilities if time is mutable.
1)Do any other DMs plan on integrating this ability in their campaign, and if so, how will you deal with the time-stream: static or flowing?
2) (Should be in the "Next AP idea, but whatever): Any of you Devs think about integrating this into an AP, and if so, what is your stance on Golarion's timestream? I would love a time-traveling adventure where one also has to keep the Dragon safe or do favors for it to keep adventuring. Getting to interact with a living, breathing Runelord (that didn't want to kill you) would be sweet, sweeter still if said Runelord survives Earthfall because of the future knowledge gleaned from the PCs...
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Well, I do foresee one problem with that - the Time Travel isn't two ways. So, wherever you go to, it's a one way trip. I hope you enjoy life in ancient Thassilon, because unless you can convince the great wyrm to take you back to where you started, you're stuck there. And, honestly, why would it? It can only do this three times in its incalculably long life, and by its perspective, it just got here. Sure, it will move on in a few thousand years, once its gotten to see all the important bits of history it wanted to see here, but by that time, it's all academic for the people that hitched a ride with the dragon.
Picture it this way: you've waited fifty years for the chance to eat an incredibly delicious ice cream. However, due to the fact that the makers of this inprobably delicious ice cream want to keep it special, you can only eat their ice cream three times in your life. OK, so you turn fifty, and you buy your first scoop right away. You've waited a long time for it. You've earned it. When do you eat the other two? And what do you say when a group of four to six twenty-somethings you've never met come along and ask for a taste?
Oh certainly, something with an ability that can't be duplicated with even a Wish spell would probably be extremely stingy with its use. To be fair, the Wyrm would have to have some personal stake in bringing along a group of PCs, like some problem that it couldn't handle itself. That doesn't necessarily mean that the dragon can't or wouldn't be willing to do such a thing. The fact that bringing along other willing targets doesn't cause any drawback to the dragon enables the possibility of that sort of adventuring. Despite my above examples, I don't see such a creature idly using such abilities without the utmost need or desire. Nonetheless, I have to wonder if doing so could potentially alter history or if its like being an observer in a movie?
I realize I am asking to codify something in the world that has huge implications on anything that might be printed in the future, (like other time traveling possbilites), but the question is there...
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Just find another Time Dragon whenever you travel and convince it to bring you back.
Better yet, after you have done whatever you were going to do whenever. Have your original Great Wyrm Time Dragon (are they TARDIS blue-colored?) travel back to just before you left your original time line the first time. Get the new arrived Time Dragon to stop himself from traveling in the first place and he'll have both of his time travel uses back.
Get the new arrived Time Dragon to stop himself from traveling in the first place and he'll have both of his time travel uses back.
So now there's two great wyrm time dragons running around (although they're really the same), and they just learned an awesome new trick to do whatever they want whenever they want in any time period they want?
I think the universe would need to have some type of safeguard against that kind of thing :)
Wasn't there some sort of Inevitable that guarded against incursions against Time? My 3.5 brain ejected a lot of those stat memories for the Pathfinder ones, but I could have sworn that there was one.. I take it that you guys are arguing for a mutable time stream rather than fixed?
Wasn't there some sort of Inevitable that guarded against incursions against Time? My 3.5 brain ejected a lot of those stat memories for the Pathfinder ones, but I could have sworn that there was one..
The Quarut, from 3.5's Fiend Folio
there was a old strange little 2E book called the Chronomancer. It dealt not just with a Time manipulating spellcaster but with the repercussions of time travel in a D&D setting.
Very neat book and still available as a PDF at DrivethruRPG.
beyond that Super Genius Games (or is it Rogue Genius now) had a few Time travel related classes and monster in their stuff as well that might offer some advice.
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Returning to the present isn't really the hard part. Temporal Stasis or even Flesh to Stone can help out.
I wouldn't be surprised to find some time traveling in an AP at some point. It leads to a lot of arguments, but... Rasputin Must Die.
But I think my favorite "time travel" is actually from the old adventure Dead Gods.
there was a old strange little 2E book called the Chronomancer. It dealt not just with a Time manipulating spellcaster but with the repercussions of time travel in a D&D setting.
Very neat book and still available as a PDF at DrivethruRPG.
This was my go to for time travel in 2e. I'd imagine it still works okay, although some of the spells might need to be reworked.
Cheers!
Landon
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One interesting question is how this interacts with the Age of Lost Omens.
It stands to reason that, if travel into the past works, you could tell them about their future, creating an accurate prophecy. At least, assuming they don't screw it up.
Now it's possible this used to work, until the turning of the age. Perhaps changes don't extend past the beginning of the age, representing a divergence or new timeline.
Alternately, the past up to that point could be set. Perhaps the reason prophecy is failing now is exactly because you can change the past, creating loops and paradoxes even the gods can't fully unravel.
Cheers!
Landon
That's what got me wondering about the whole time-travel mechanic on Golarion in the first place: How would this ability interact in a setting where at a certain point, no reliable knowledge of the future is present?
That gets me thinking that Golarion's timestream is mutable. If it weren't, there wouldn't be an Age of Lost Omens where nothing predicted can necessarily happen.
GM: "Your adventure centuries back in time comes to a close, finished with your task you are now unfettered to return to your normal time. But the Time Dragon who brought you into the past used up his last bit of time travel to take you here in the first place."
PC: "Wasn't the Time Dragon alive in this time? We track down the Time Dragon from the past and have him use his time powers to get him home."
GM: "Uh..."
PC: "What? We know that he had at least one use of time travel left centuries from now. We ask the stranded Time Dragon where he used to live so we can use his time travel. Hey, stranded Time Dragon can ask past Time Dragon to send him back with us!"
GM: "Nooooo! Don't let them touch!"
I figure if you mess around with time, it ends in alternate universe/branching timeline, kinda like Back to the Future and *possibly* BioShock Infinite. This is the approach I prefer. But, this means you're locked within THAT line until you create another. Returning to the original timeline is severely improbable, unless the actions committed were somehow undone and lead to the events of the original timeline.
Or throw the rules for a loop, go crazy, and do it TimeSplitters style! The universe should explode after fight alongside yourself, let alone 4 or 5 copies of yourself... But, the TS series is too much Rule of Cool for that to happen, lol.
In terms of Golarion, I've kinda wished for space/time travel as a constant theme for an AP (My pitch in the Design an AP thread was based off of that! Among other things, it included Ancient Aballon *reimagined as Terminator style apocalypse*, Ancient Golarion, King Arthur's Court, Siberia 50 years after RMD, and Cyberpunk New York!)
Something for people to keep in mind if they are using Time Dragons, is that as Outer Dragons there is no reason to assume that the younger version of the Dragon who helpfully transported you to Thassilon is even on Golarion. All of the Outer Dragons seem like the type who move around A LOT as they mature.
Agree with OP - Time Dragon is a monster with lots of potential for very interesting story. It's great design.
I'm not too good with story-based adventures but it seems like the beats would work out something like this:
There's some kind of crisis in time! It's so dangerous that a Time Dragon is willing to risk their three uses and even sacrifice their life to resolve it. The dragon travels from the past/future to recruit the PCs. It jumps them to the appropriate era (maybe the opposite of where it came from - i.e. the dragon from the future senses a time disruption in the distant past but "destiny has decreed" only the PCs in the present have the skills to solve it,or whatever), then they have their adventure. Maybe the dragon is wounded or otherwise required to be stranded there but it's willing to make the sacrifice and with its dying breath, or with a resigned sigh, it uses its final time-jump to send the PCs home.
(and then nobody believes them because it's like 2 seconds after they left. n'est-ce pas).
Time traveling forward is easy. Just put yourself somewhere safely in stasis. I'd recommend a demiplane.
