So, basicaly in the homebrew we are playing the Shadowfell and the Prime Material planes are intersecting. One of my players is asking these questions to a council of magic users:
how to stop the merging of the prime material plane and the shadowfell?
what happens if they do merge?
how to track someone (another player) within the shadowfell?
I'm not real familiar with the Shadowfell, and since the players are going down this unexpected rabit whole if you will, I am in need of some ideas to answer these questions. Bonus points if you can tie it into the Wheel of Time series.
Stopping the intersection of 2 planes sounds like it's firmly rooted somewhere in Spelljammer. Perhaps they need to attach a specific Spelljamming artifact into the "heart" of both planes (that's a few easy adventure hooks - getting the artefacts, finding the planes, etc) to act as magnetic repellants to keep each other at bay. Hmm....sounds familiar...maybe.....
The Sword Coast wasn't able to teach their best spelljamming archmages how to be drillers, so instead they taught their best drillers how to be spelljammers. From the studio that brought you Armageddon, coming this summer; Armageddon 2: This Time With Magic.
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Act Two of Baldur's Gate 3 gives a bit of a preview of what would happen if too much of the Shadowfell leaked onto the Material if you're looking for inspiration.
You may want to take a look at the Birthright campaign setting. It's 2e and very out of print, but there's good information on the main fansite, and it ticks your boxes.
The setting was co-designed by Rich Baker, who wrote a novel that would be published for Birthright, but was moved to the Forgotten Realms as the Birthright setting was shuttered. It introduced the first notion of the Shadowfell to the Forgotten Realms and mainstream D&D. Everything that has followed was influenced by that (but has changed).
Bonus: The first novel for Birthright included fast travel via the Shadow World (BR's Shadowfell), so it has good themes for the WoT Ways.
It's not 100% canonical, as it includes many player changes and influences from the last few decades, but it's great for inspiring your goals. This includes notes on how the two worlds overlap and can be traversed (Halflings!).
Thing is the Shadowfell (and Feywild) already do "intersect" with the Prime. Some even articulate them as "echo planes" of the Prime. Shadow Crossing and Fey Crossings are the literal intersecting points between the Prime and its shadow and fey echoes.
That said, I could see Shadow Crossings increasing and enlarging and thereby leading to more denizens of the Shadowfell encroaching into the Prime. As far as what that may look like, if you have access to Mord's Tome of Foes, there's a concise write up in it, "Scourge of Worlds" that explains what happens to a world when The Abyss invades it. You could use that as a template, reskinned for shadow and gloom, as to what would happen if the Prime was increasingly permeated by Shadow Crossings.
Further possibilities, maybe it needs to be made clear to the Shadowfell, whose population may or may not be responsible for this permeation, that without a prime, no shadow is cast so the collapsing of the prime and Shadowfell will negate the existence of both. You could also pull the Feywild into play. Perhaps the echo planes hold the prime plane stable, and something is amiss in the Feywild leading to the increased encroachment of the Shadowfell into the Prime. Or, maybe some entity within the Feywild is ultimately responsible well aware that the Shadow and Prime will cease to exist, and is doing this to either grow or somehow liberate the Feywild from the fey/prime/shadow structure.
(One last idea, I've seen in some D&D cosmologies that a third plane, the Dreamworld is an additional echo plane to the Prime. That's not in current 5e cosmology, but if you wanted to surprise folks, put another plane into play).
So, basicaly in the homebrew we are playing the Shadowfell and the Prime Material planes are intersecting. One of my players is asking these questions to a council of magic users:
how to stop the merging of the prime material plane and the shadowfell?
what happens if they do merge?
how to track someone (another player) within the shadowfell?
I'm not real familiar with the Shadowfell, and since the players are going down this unexpected rabit whole if you will, I am in need of some ideas to answer these questions. Bonus points if you can tie it into the Wheel of Time series.
Stopping the intersection of 2 planes sounds like it's firmly rooted somewhere in Spelljammer. Perhaps they need to attach a specific Spelljamming artifact into the "heart" of both planes (that's a few easy adventure hooks - getting the artefacts, finding the planes, etc) to act as magnetic repellants to keep each other at bay. Hmm....sounds familiar...maybe.....
The Sword Coast wasn't able to teach their best spelljamming archmages how to be drillers, so instead they taught their best drillers how to be spelljammers. From the studio that brought you Armageddon, coming this summer; Armageddon 2: This Time With Magic.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Sounds like it would fit Planescape as well.
Act Two of Baldur's Gate 3 gives a bit of a preview of what would happen if too much of the Shadowfell leaked onto the Material if you're looking for inspiration.
Given that Ravenloft is canonically part of the Shadowfell in Fifth Edition, it sounds like you're about to create some new Domains of Dread.
You may want to take a look at the Birthright campaign setting. It's 2e and very out of print, but there's good information on the main fansite, and it ticks your boxes.
The setting was co-designed by Rich Baker, who wrote a novel that would be published for Birthright, but was moved to the Forgotten Realms as the Birthright setting was shuttered. It introduced the first notion of the Shadowfell to the Forgotten Realms and mainstream D&D. Everything that has followed was influenced by that (but has changed).
Bonus: The first novel for Birthright included fast travel via the Shadow World (BR's Shadowfell), so it has good themes for the WoT Ways.
Here's a link to the BR wiki entry for the Shadow World on the fansite: http://www.birthright.net/forums/showwiki.php?title=Shadow_World
It's not 100% canonical, as it includes many player changes and influences from the last few decades, but it's great for inspiring your goals. This includes notes on how the two worlds overlap and can be traversed (Halflings!).
Thing is the Shadowfell (and Feywild) already do "intersect" with the Prime. Some even articulate them as "echo planes" of the Prime. Shadow Crossing and Fey Crossings are the literal intersecting points between the Prime and its shadow and fey echoes.
That said, I could see Shadow Crossings increasing and enlarging and thereby leading to more denizens of the Shadowfell encroaching into the Prime. As far as what that may look like, if you have access to Mord's Tome of Foes, there's a concise write up in it, "Scourge of Worlds" that explains what happens to a world when The Abyss invades it. You could use that as a template, reskinned for shadow and gloom, as to what would happen if the Prime was increasingly permeated by Shadow Crossings.
Further possibilities, maybe it needs to be made clear to the Shadowfell, whose population may or may not be responsible for this permeation, that without a prime, no shadow is cast so the collapsing of the prime and Shadowfell will negate the existence of both. You could also pull the Feywild into play. Perhaps the echo planes hold the prime plane stable, and something is amiss in the Feywild leading to the increased encroachment of the Shadowfell into the Prime. Or, maybe some entity within the Feywild is ultimately responsible well aware that the Shadow and Prime will cease to exist, and is doing this to either grow or somehow liberate the Feywild from the fey/prime/shadow structure.
(One last idea, I've seen in some D&D cosmologies that a third plane, the Dreamworld is an additional echo plane to the Prime. That's not in current 5e cosmology, but if you wanted to surprise folks, put another plane into play).
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.