So this is a campaign idea I had a while back that I was interested in fleshing out some more. It's a simple concept that I think could lead to a long form campaign with something of everything.
Basically, the players find themselves scooped out of their plane of origin by some powerful interdimensional being to participate in a race around the planar system. This includes the feywild, shadowfell, elemental planes, the Abyss, the 9 hells, mechanus, and the celestial planes, maybe even some alternate reality material planes for fun, ending in Sigil.
The premise being that interplanar travel is DIFFICULT, so this race is not going to be a formula 1 affair, more like around the world in 80 days, ralley car kind of thing.
I'm thinking every plane will have its own local situations, politics, and drama for the party to get tangled up in while gathering resources or researching travel methods for their next leap, making alliances with powerful figures who might aid them, maybe even at times finding themselves at odds with one of the other parties in the race who've aligned themselves opposite the party.
I'm also thinking about including a rule that the racers need to perform "a great act" in each plane they visit before they can move on, but that great act can be anything. One party might decide that the lord of the Fey Court of Winter is a tyrant and they'll depose him and free the land, while another might plunder a long-forgotten ruin and tell spread the tale of their adventure, becoming celebrities among the people. The players get to be creative, and in the end the "host" of the race can rank the deeds of all the parties to help determine the winner.
Inter-planar travel won't just be as simple as casting a spell either. In cases where a character might get access to such a spell, I would want to include all kinds of risks and variables of things that could go wrong in the casting from all the "planar interference" or some bs. Otherwise, the actual travel will have to be a goal for them to work towards as much as the great act. In one pane they may have to employ some expert craftsmen to help assemble a device from an ancient blueprint they found in a ziggurat and tune it to the specific planar energies...(sufficient technobabble), while in another plane they may have to ingratiate themselves with the ruling family who controls access to a portal beneath their palace, while in another they may have to board an experimental vessel from a society making their own first steps in interdimensional travel, etc, you get the idea.
As for the racers themselves, I'm thinking individual players might have friends or rivals on other teams that they'll occasionally run into. Some parties might represent different extremes of the alignment chart (like a chaotic evil party who just kills their way across the multiverse regardless of victim, as long as they're important enough to be considered a great act), while another mostly neutral one will act however they need to in the moment but with no regard for the long term fallout of their actions, etc. Some parties will be bigger threats than others, some might take each other out of the equation stranding them in some cutoff demiplane (the rules would maybe prevent racers from killing each other), etc.
Every racer would be willing to put their all into the race for some fabulous prize at the end that's maybe tailored to the character's backstory (specifically the PC's). So they can think about what that would be for them, backstory-wise (does a character from a war-torn alternate material plane want a safe fortress for their family?) and have fun thinking what the one thing their character would do anything for would be?
This idea is partially inspired by Doctor Who, as I love the idea of just stepping into a new world and letting it whisk you away for a while till you have to leave again, which among other things is just a great mechanic for telling a variety of different stories. More specifically I thought it could be like the race from the Doctor Who episode The Ghost Monument, which is just a great episode and the race is a cool concept.
So that was a lot, so thanks for reading. What do you think? Any suggestions?
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So this is a campaign idea I had a while back that I was interested in fleshing out some more. It's a simple concept that I think could lead to a long form campaign with something of everything.
Basically, the players find themselves scooped out of their plane of origin by some powerful interdimensional being to participate in a race around the planar system. This includes the feywild, shadowfell, elemental planes, the Abyss, the 9 hells, mechanus, and the celestial planes, maybe even some alternate reality material planes for fun, ending in Sigil.
The premise being that interplanar travel is DIFFICULT, so this race is not going to be a formula 1 affair, more like around the world in 80 days, ralley car kind of thing.
I'm thinking every plane will have its own local situations, politics, and drama for the party to get tangled up in while gathering resources or researching travel methods for their next leap, making alliances with powerful figures who might aid them, maybe even at times finding themselves at odds with one of the other parties in the race who've aligned themselves opposite the party.
I'm also thinking about including a rule that the racers need to perform "a great act" in each plane they visit before they can move on, but that great act can be anything. One party might decide that the lord of the Fey Court of Winter is a tyrant and they'll depose him and free the land, while another might plunder a long-forgotten ruin and tell spread the tale of their adventure, becoming celebrities among the people. The players get to be creative, and in the end the "host" of the race can rank the deeds of all the parties to help determine the winner.
Inter-planar travel won't just be as simple as casting a spell either. In cases where a character might get access to such a spell, I would want to include all kinds of risks and variables of things that could go wrong in the casting from all the "planar interference" or some bs. Otherwise, the actual travel will have to be a goal for them to work towards as much as the great act. In one pane they may have to employ some expert craftsmen to help assemble a device from an ancient blueprint they found in a ziggurat and tune it to the specific planar energies...(sufficient technobabble), while in another plane they may have to ingratiate themselves with the ruling family who controls access to a portal beneath their palace, while in another they may have to board an experimental vessel from a society making their own first steps in interdimensional travel, etc, you get the idea.
As for the racers themselves, I'm thinking individual players might have friends or rivals on other teams that they'll occasionally run into. Some parties might represent different extremes of the alignment chart (like a chaotic evil party who just kills their way across the multiverse regardless of victim, as long as they're important enough to be considered a great act), while another mostly neutral one will act however they need to in the moment but with no regard for the long term fallout of their actions, etc. Some parties will be bigger threats than others, some might take each other out of the equation stranding them in some cutoff demiplane (the rules would maybe prevent racers from killing each other), etc.
Every racer would be willing to put their all into the race for some fabulous prize at the end that's maybe tailored to the character's backstory (specifically the PC's). So they can think about what that would be for them, backstory-wise (does a character from a war-torn alternate material plane want a safe fortress for their family?) and have fun thinking what the one thing their character would do anything for would be?
This idea is partially inspired by Doctor Who, as I love the idea of just stepping into a new world and letting it whisk you away for a while till you have to leave again, which among other things is just a great mechanic for telling a variety of different stories. More specifically I thought it could be like the race from the Doctor Who episode The Ghost Monument, which is just a great episode and the race is a cool concept.
So that was a lot, so thanks for reading. What do you think? Any suggestions?