I've been playing with the idea of writing a Dungeons and Dragons novel. However, instead of being solely set in a fantasy world, the idea is that the Material Plane had a cataclysmic magical event that has started to weaken the hold the planes and magic have on it, and have slowly started attaching to Earth. The main focus for the first major arc is focused on a small group of American citizens in a decent-sized Midwest town, with them investigating any signs of supernatural activity while interplanar scouts start arriving to find any potential footholds they could set up on Earth. While it would obviously focus on the group's location, the effects of the planes invading Earth would definitely be wide-reaching, especially when full civilizations start immigrating to Earth.
Obviously, there's still plenty of details that I need to fine-tune, but what do you guys think of the concept?
(P.S.: Do you guys have any suggestions for any antagonists? So far, all I have planned is a beholder who's more interested in learning than conquering, some generals of the Elemental Princes who want a solid connection to the new 'nexus' plane, a githyanki raiding party who keep warping in and out of Earth, and some forgotten deities and big bads from previous versions of D&D looking to regain power on Earth.)
Maybe someone who believes that Earth cannot fit both it current inhabitants and those of the material plane, and so they want to wipe out the people of Earth and/or make the remaining population subservient to them.
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
This isn't a criticism because there are a lot of area to play with but you might want to look at things like System Apocolypse by Tao Wong and other apocalypse litRPGs. There was also another interesting series of novels that had a virus wiping out the earth and then aliens as the cause. Similar things have been done before.
I guess my primary advice here is decide on your timeframe (is it just happening or was it 5 years ago or several generations ago?), decide on your tone (boots on the ground war, political, etc?) - this will then let you figure out the bad guys.
If I was looking to do something like this I would lean on the trope of someone "eating" the planes, one by one which then lead people to flee several times until they arrived at Earth. Disparate groups of people arriving at once. Some would want to peacefully coexist. Some would want to conquer. Then you have people who want to conquer because they think it is the right thing - they need a solid powerbase to fight back against whatever is attacking.
I think that I think would be interesting if there were certain areas in the world like hot spots that are more of the other planes of existence rather than just earth.
Edit: I think it would also be location dependant. Like an area in the ocean is connected to the plane of water. Stuff like that.
I thought about that but had trouble reconciling (for example) a plane of fire near anything else. Unless (I suppose) you worked it as a point effect with a distance decay. I toyed with a gem structure rather than a round world, so each face would be a different plane, hard transitions but it felt fiddly.
Tying them to sympathetic locations is a great idea. Unfortunately some people will pan you on not having "realistic" effects and physics. For that reason a group of refugees would be easier. I do still prefer the hotspots idea. Could so something similar to the Rift game. A hot spot that slowly changes the area around it (until it is closed). In fact that could be your first story arc - the world reacting to these hotspots and trying to close them (and failing in the end) leading to the portals opening and being stable and beings start coming through en mass.
An idea that I also had was that what if the dnd world and the normal earth were connected in a way that they are trying to merge. My idea is that the places that are really similar to each other are the areas that are more likely to have hot spots.
Yeah I thought of that too. The Runeloards (David Farland) did that after the first story arc - I stopped reading about then, but the idea was that the various planes were parallel - so a "person" existed in each reality. When the realities collapsed so did the various peoples - so you had humans suddenly become 1/2 giant (they were giant in another plane) or sprout wings (they were effectively Aakoraka (spelling?) in the other plane ) etc etc. Some people didn't change because their "double" had died. A riff on that could be interesting. Certainly would be a strange and novel post apocalyptic novel if done in the modern era.
Thanks a bunch for all the feedback, everyone! You've definitely given me a lot to think about. However, I would like to address a few points:
-Timing/Flavor of Events: I did actually have a solid plan for this, though I didn't mention it in the first post as I wanted to have it remain partially a secret for the plot. However, the events that caused magic to 'break' from the 'Material Plane' happened roughly 60 years ago, while the world only realized it fifteen years ago and started looking for a new world to live in, with select groups finding Earth within the last two years.
-The Exodus Catalyst: While I don't want to say the exact details for how/why magic is leaving, for the sake of spoilers, the fact that magic is fading would instead draw more from the trope in sci-fi of humanity leaving Earth after taking so many resources from it, only in this case, it's due to magic suddenly having a 'drought' in the Material Plane that has slowly weakened the effects of enchantments and 'natural' magic. One of the exceptions, though, is mass ritual magic from so many people powering it, which is how the Material Plane travels to Earth.
-Planar Hot Spots: I do agree that hot spots definitely have their appeal, especially with how they can better connect a plane to Earth. This plays into the story's location as, while it isn't particularly aligned to any plane, it's more akin to being the center of a funnel, with it drawing in creatures from every plane, but not having a solid anchor. Or, if you want to use another example where locations are like spells, it's part of the universal school of spells.
What if one or more of the antagonists come from Earth, like a dictator, corporate owner, cult leader, or terrorist (or all of the above) who gets hold of some powerful D&D items brought in by the refugees? An earth native who takes advantage of the planes merging could end up being much scarier than any D&D creature!
Ok new plan for hot spots. It is an area that the magic of the planes is escaping to. The areas are fluctuating in terms of magic in the area. The magic is like a one way gate. If you are on the dnd side then the magic is weaker, but not enough to stop from using the magic to go to the earth. The middle of the hot spot on the earth side is a place of powerful magic. But on the dnd side the middle is the place almost devoid of magic entirely. On the earth side the magic is being prevented from going back into dnd. That is another concept.
I like the concept but i think something it needs is a story for what people see when they see people interacting with the hot spots and for what people see themselves when they interact with hots spots because you can make it like a object that needs 3 crystals to open a rift but depending on which kind of crystals they use it will go maybe to different places and send them there and also that might not be the most important thing to the group like a tv show they always have to like go on about how the hero likes some girl and wants to marry her or somethign so that might also be interesting.
To nitpick - you have magic flowing in one sense (from plane to plane) but static in another sense (within the plane).
This wouldn't be a dealbreaker for me - I am fine with ignoring stuff and saying it is "magic" unless you were going to use the flowing or static aspect of magic elsewhere. ie/ if you were going to use the typical description of leylines which are flows and rivers of magic (implying movement) then I would have difficultly reconciling the static aspect on the other planes. If that isn't going to factor into the story, then no big deal.
1 suggestion - make the ritual spell require people dying. Probably more by mistake - ie/ one person who knew how to do it was happy to sacrifice himself and made sure others knew how it was done, but instead of just taking out the top level of the pyramid it took out the top 3 levels; so anyone with complete knowledge of the ritual is lost. This makes it that they are now trapped on Earth. Otherwise when times got tough why wouldn't some just bugger off looking for greener pastures?
I still like the idea of some planes/races being friendly while others aren't. I could see the planes of fire, ice and water settling in desert, arctic and ocean quite happily and people not caring much - as long as trade started up. But feywild/elves/humans/orcs etc would all be competing for the same biomes - and competition over resources leads to wars.
Ok I understand. I did not go into enough detail as I should have. Lets start from the middle of It. A point on the dnd side just formed. This point is like a transport for the magic. The magic gets sucked into this point like a black hole. After you pass through the event horizon of this point then the magic will not be able to go back if it had that choice. The magic then is transported to a similar point on the other end. This point is the one way gate from dnd to earth. You can not go into this one but it is constantly spewing the magic from dnd. Now effectively this point is a point that magic can act on its full power. But as you get farther and farther from this point then the magic like a gradient loses more and more power. Suddenly spells take more time and energy to cast. This may be taken out of a spell slot mechanic 1st level spells now may take more than 1 1st level spell slot. Now on the other end the opposite is true the closer you get to the spot on the dnd spot the harder it is to cast magic. This may also use the same spell slot mechanic. Effectively on the dnd side the closer you get the harder it is to cast magic. On the earth side the closer you get the easier it is to cast magic. An idea I have is that if you are skilled enough then if you get into one of these spots then you can use the magic of the spot to cast magic. instead of you needing to take a short or long rest for forming the magic the magic inside of yourself. I would say that your energy would be taken out for forming the magic outside of yourself. I would say that if you do this then it may have an effect on the surrounding environment. For an example if you summon water then the water is taken out of the water vapor in the air or maybe a fresh water lake nearby. I would also say that if you go closer to the earth side spot then eventually magic could be amplified. Suddenly a fireball can burn hotter or a weather spell will have a chance for weather events to happen.
I am not expecting you implement any of this in your game. I just want to see if any of this would work.
LlamaMan2 - I apologise. I read the post and didn't pay attention to who it was from. I thought it was from the OP. Your idea was fine for an idea or even for a home game etc. I was only nitpicking because if it ends up in a published work then it is going to reach a wider audience and get much more scrutiny - also you have to be careful about sequals etc not contradicting each other.
I wouldn't have made the same response had I known it was you. It was a good idea. It is a good idea.
The concept will certainly never be fool proof. I would make it out as a guide to what you could do. It can always be manipulated to fit the needs of a game.
Antagonist: a lawful evil warlock from the Material Plane set on closing the rift between the Material Plane and Earth. This would of course deprive the Earthling heroes of their supernatural power and prevent them from saving the Earth.
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I've been playing with the idea of writing a Dungeons and Dragons novel. However, instead of being solely set in a fantasy world, the idea is that the Material Plane had a cataclysmic magical event that has started to weaken the hold the planes and magic have on it, and have slowly started attaching to Earth. The main focus for the first major arc is focused on a small group of American citizens in a decent-sized Midwest town, with them investigating any signs of supernatural activity while interplanar scouts start arriving to find any potential footholds they could set up on Earth. While it would obviously focus on the group's location, the effects of the planes invading Earth would definitely be wide-reaching, especially when full civilizations start immigrating to Earth.
Obviously, there's still plenty of details that I need to fine-tune, but what do you guys think of the concept?
(P.S.: Do you guys have any suggestions for any antagonists? So far, all I have planned is a beholder who's more interested in learning than conquering, some generals of the Elemental Princes who want a solid connection to the new 'nexus' plane, a githyanki raiding party who keep warping in and out of Earth, and some forgotten deities and big bads from previous versions of D&D looking to regain power on Earth.)
Maybe someone who believes that Earth cannot fit both it current inhabitants and those of the material plane, and so they want to wipe out the people of Earth and/or make the remaining population subservient to them.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
This isn't a criticism because there are a lot of area to play with but you might want to look at things like System Apocolypse by Tao Wong and other apocalypse litRPGs. There was also another interesting series of novels that had a virus wiping out the earth and then aliens as the cause. Similar things have been done before.
I guess my primary advice here is decide on your timeframe (is it just happening or was it 5 years ago or several generations ago?), decide on your tone (boots on the ground war, political, etc?) - this will then let you figure out the bad guys.
If I was looking to do something like this I would lean on the trope of someone "eating" the planes, one by one which then lead people to flee several times until they arrived at Earth. Disparate groups of people arriving at once. Some would want to peacefully coexist. Some would want to conquer. Then you have people who want to conquer because they think it is the right thing - they need a solid powerbase to fight back against whatever is attacking.
Good luck. Stay away from anything copywritten.
I think that I think would be interesting if there were certain areas in the world like hot spots that are more of the other planes of existence rather than just earth.
Edit: I think it would also be location dependant. Like an area in the ocean is connected to the plane of water. Stuff like that.
I thought about that but had trouble reconciling (for example) a plane of fire near anything else. Unless (I suppose) you worked it as a point effect with a distance decay. I toyed with a gem structure rather than a round world, so each face would be a different plane, hard transitions but it felt fiddly.
Tying them to sympathetic locations is a great idea. Unfortunately some people will pan you on not having "realistic" effects and physics. For that reason a group of refugees would be easier. I do still prefer the hotspots idea. Could so something similar to the Rift game. A hot spot that slowly changes the area around it (until it is closed). In fact that could be your first story arc - the world reacting to these hotspots and trying to close them (and failing in the end) leading to the portals opening and being stable and beings start coming through en mass.
An idea that I also had was that what if the dnd world and the normal earth were connected in a way that they are trying to merge. My idea is that the places that are really similar to each other are the areas that are more likely to have hot spots.
Yeah I thought of that too. The Runeloards (David Farland) did that after the first story arc - I stopped reading about then, but the idea was that the various planes were parallel - so a "person" existed in each reality. When the realities collapsed so did the various peoples - so you had humans suddenly become 1/2 giant (they were giant in another plane) or sprout wings (they were effectively Aakoraka (spelling?) in the other plane ) etc etc. Some people didn't change because their "double" had died. A riff on that could be interesting.
Certainly would be a strange and novel post apocalyptic novel if done in the modern era.
Thanks a bunch for all the feedback, everyone! You've definitely given me a lot to think about. However, I would like to address a few points:
-Timing/Flavor of Events: I did actually have a solid plan for this, though I didn't mention it in the first post as I wanted to have it remain partially a secret for the plot. However, the events that caused magic to 'break' from the 'Material Plane' happened roughly 60 years ago, while the world only realized it fifteen years ago and started looking for a new world to live in, with select groups finding Earth within the last two years.
-The Exodus Catalyst: While I don't want to say the exact details for how/why magic is leaving, for the sake of spoilers, the fact that magic is fading would instead draw more from the trope in sci-fi of humanity leaving Earth after taking so many resources from it, only in this case, it's due to magic suddenly having a 'drought' in the Material Plane that has slowly weakened the effects of enchantments and 'natural' magic. One of the exceptions, though, is mass ritual magic from so many people powering it, which is how the Material Plane travels to Earth.
-Planar Hot Spots: I do agree that hot spots definitely have their appeal, especially with how they can better connect a plane to Earth. This plays into the story's location as, while it isn't particularly aligned to any plane, it's more akin to being the center of a funnel, with it drawing in creatures from every plane, but not having a solid anchor. Or, if you want to use another example where locations are like spells, it's part of the universal school of spells.
What if one or more of the antagonists come from Earth, like a dictator, corporate owner, cult leader, or terrorist (or all of the above) who gets hold of some powerful D&D items brought in by the refugees? An earth native who takes advantage of the planes merging could end up being much scarier than any D&D creature!
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Ok new plan for hot spots. It is an area that the magic of the planes is escaping to. The areas are fluctuating in terms of magic in the area. The magic is like a one way gate. If you are on the dnd side then the magic is weaker, but not enough to stop from using the magic to go to the earth. The middle of the hot spot on the earth side is a place of powerful magic. But on the dnd side the middle is the place almost devoid of magic entirely. On the earth side the magic is being prevented from going back into dnd. That is another concept.
I like the concept but i think something it needs is a story for what people see when they see people interacting with the hot spots and for what people see themselves when they interact with hots spots because you can make it like a object that needs 3 crystals to open a rift but depending on which kind of crystals they use it will go maybe to different places and send them there and also that might not be the most important thing to the group like a tv show they always have to like go on about how the hero likes some girl and wants to marry her or somethign so that might also be interesting.
To nitpick - you have magic flowing in one sense (from plane to plane) but static in another sense (within the plane).
This wouldn't be a dealbreaker for me - I am fine with ignoring stuff and saying it is "magic" unless you were going to use the flowing or static aspect of magic elsewhere. ie/ if you were going to use the typical description of leylines which are flows and rivers of magic (implying movement) then I would have difficultly reconciling the static aspect on the other planes. If that isn't going to factor into the story, then no big deal.
1 suggestion - make the ritual spell require people dying. Probably more by mistake - ie/ one person who knew how to do it was happy to sacrifice himself and made sure others knew how it was done, but instead of just taking out the top level of the pyramid it took out the top 3 levels; so anyone with complete knowledge of the ritual is lost. This makes it that they are now trapped on Earth. Otherwise when times got tough why wouldn't some just bugger off looking for greener pastures?
I still like the idea of some planes/races being friendly while others aren't. I could see the planes of fire, ice and water settling in desert, arctic and ocean quite happily and people not caring much - as long as trade started up. But feywild/elves/humans/orcs etc would all be competing for the same biomes - and competition over resources leads to wars.
Ok I understand. I did not go into enough detail as I should have. Lets start from the middle of It. A point on the dnd side just formed. This point is like a transport for the magic. The magic gets sucked into this point like a black hole. After you pass through the event horizon of this point then the magic will not be able to go back if it had that choice. The magic then is transported to a similar point on the other end. This point is the one way gate from dnd to earth. You can not go into this one but it is constantly spewing the magic from dnd. Now effectively this point is a point that magic can act on its full power. But as you get farther and farther from this point then the magic like a gradient loses more and more power. Suddenly spells take more time and energy to cast. This may be taken out of a spell slot mechanic 1st level spells now may take more than 1 1st level spell slot. Now on the other end the opposite is true the closer you get to the spot on the dnd spot the harder it is to cast magic. This may also use the same spell slot mechanic. Effectively on the dnd side the closer you get the harder it is to cast magic. On the earth side the closer you get the easier it is to cast magic. An idea I have is that if you are skilled enough then if you get into one of these spots then you can use the magic of the spot to cast magic. instead of you needing to take a short or long rest for forming the magic the magic inside of yourself. I would say that your energy would be taken out for forming the magic outside of yourself. I would say that if you do this then it may have an effect on the surrounding environment. For an example if you summon water then the water is taken out of the water vapor in the air or maybe a fresh water lake nearby. I would also say that if you go closer to the earth side spot then eventually magic could be amplified. Suddenly a fireball can burn hotter or a weather spell will have a chance for weather events to happen.
I am not expecting you implement any of this in your game. I just want to see if any of this would work.
Sorry that it is long I just had a lot to say.
LlamaMan2 - I apologise. I read the post and didn't pay attention to who it was from. I thought it was from the OP. Your idea was fine for an idea or even for a home game etc. I was only nitpicking because if it ends up in a published work then it is going to reach a wider audience and get much more scrutiny - also you have to be careful about sequals etc not contradicting each other.
I wouldn't have made the same response had I known it was you. It was a good idea. It is a good idea.
It is fine. It is good to have all angles of am idea so do not apologize if anything it is good to give me this kind of criticism..
The concept will certainly never be fool proof. I would make it out as a guide to what you could do. It can always be manipulated to fit the needs of a game.
Antagonist: a lawful evil warlock from the Material Plane set on closing the rift between the Material Plane and Earth. This would of course deprive the Earthling heroes of their supernatural power and prevent them from saving the Earth.