Looking for some feedback on plane travel ideas
Dec 10, 2013 12:15:41 GMT -8
Post by guitarspider on Dec 10, 2013 12:15:41 GMT -8
I'm currently running a pseudo-Plancescape game with Dungeon World and the Planarch Codex supplement. I'm building up a reservoir of plane "sketches" so I can drop some into the game if needed and I'm looking for some feedback on my ideas. Some of these are already adapted to fit my game, others are just ideas. Throw in some of your own if you feel like it.^^
Some background if you're interested: The group started the game having to act as go-betweens between a pirate and a monk. The deal was abducted holy statue vs money. The group dropped the statue on their way back from the pirate and discovered a secret message within the statue, revealing a plot to take over parts of Dis (which kind of is Sigil, except it is actively devouring other planes over time). Luckily, our adventurers have two more days to fix this mess before they have to meet the monk. Yes, TWO...ahem. This, by the way, was all established by question and answer with the players. <3 DW. The players are now hunting down a traitor officer of the pirate captain, so the captain will tell them where he got the statue.
So the plane travel ideas:
1) The pirate, Captain Firebeard, isn't actually a pirate himself anymore. He does his business by sending his crew into a planar portal to where ever he wants to plunder. The portal is a miniature ship in a bottle (I adapted this idea from somewhere, don't remember where I saw it...). You enter by sticking your finger into the bottleneck, you determine location by adjusting a planar compass on the ship with complicated miniature instruments. When the players meet the traitor officer, they'll learn he's quit because Firebeard doesn't treat his crew too well and they can choose sides. Either way they get the location of the statue robbery and possibly an exceedingly handy pirate ship. If they keep it without investigating, they're going to have a pirate crew popping out of it sometime soonish.
2) At the edges of Dis a strange new portal has opened over the sea of fire. It appears to be a mirage and there's not much left of the plane beyond. All that's left are the ruins of a gigantic city built in the middle of a desert. Ghosts, genies and illusions everywhere. Also, a library which appears to be strangely intact... and who knows how long this mirage portal will stay open?
3) The traitor officer is hiding in a city accessible via portal in the sea of fire. Dis has started eating away at the city, and while nobody cared much when it ate the slums, the merchants are next and they are so not going to stay. Were it not for Knight Adil ruling the city, who'll hunt anyone who leaves to death, and his new adviser Mr. Officer, things would have already fallen apart. Mr. Officer has also framed Firebeard, who has raided the nearby coast a few times, for the expansion, because the endless greed of Dis and its freebooters/merchants is clearly responsible for the missing slum. Guests from Dis? Not currently welcome.
4) The Slum Slug, a local tavern near the players' rented room in the Ditchwater Slums of Dis, has more than one specialty. There are, of course, its green slugs of unknown provenance, which might tell you funny stories, scandalous secrets or just make you high if you lick them just right* But there's also shadow honey. You smoke it in a pipe, together with someone's piece of clothing and you're transported to a pocket plane... of their dreams. I'm sure there's political intrigues and espionage enough to make this useful.
* One of my players already tried btw, and it turns out those slugs are hilarious I intend this to be a cooler and somewhat risky way to get work - if you know someone needs help before they officially go seek it, big professional advantage... or maybe it's just dangerous, but either way is cool for me.
That's it for the moment, any feedback would be great.
Some background if you're interested: The group started the game having to act as go-betweens between a pirate and a monk. The deal was abducted holy statue vs money. The group dropped the statue on their way back from the pirate and discovered a secret message within the statue, revealing a plot to take over parts of Dis (which kind of is Sigil, except it is actively devouring other planes over time). Luckily, our adventurers have two more days to fix this mess before they have to meet the monk. Yes, TWO...ahem. This, by the way, was all established by question and answer with the players. <3 DW. The players are now hunting down a traitor officer of the pirate captain, so the captain will tell them where he got the statue.
So the plane travel ideas:
1) The pirate, Captain Firebeard, isn't actually a pirate himself anymore. He does his business by sending his crew into a planar portal to where ever he wants to plunder. The portal is a miniature ship in a bottle (I adapted this idea from somewhere, don't remember where I saw it...). You enter by sticking your finger into the bottleneck, you determine location by adjusting a planar compass on the ship with complicated miniature instruments. When the players meet the traitor officer, they'll learn he's quit because Firebeard doesn't treat his crew too well and they can choose sides. Either way they get the location of the statue robbery and possibly an exceedingly handy pirate ship. If they keep it without investigating, they're going to have a pirate crew popping out of it sometime soonish.
2) At the edges of Dis a strange new portal has opened over the sea of fire. It appears to be a mirage and there's not much left of the plane beyond. All that's left are the ruins of a gigantic city built in the middle of a desert. Ghosts, genies and illusions everywhere. Also, a library which appears to be strangely intact... and who knows how long this mirage portal will stay open?
3) The traitor officer is hiding in a city accessible via portal in the sea of fire. Dis has started eating away at the city, and while nobody cared much when it ate the slums, the merchants are next and they are so not going to stay. Were it not for Knight Adil ruling the city, who'll hunt anyone who leaves to death, and his new adviser Mr. Officer, things would have already fallen apart. Mr. Officer has also framed Firebeard, who has raided the nearby coast a few times, for the expansion, because the endless greed of Dis and its freebooters/merchants is clearly responsible for the missing slum. Guests from Dis? Not currently welcome.
4) The Slum Slug, a local tavern near the players' rented room in the Ditchwater Slums of Dis, has more than one specialty. There are, of course, its green slugs of unknown provenance, which might tell you funny stories, scandalous secrets or just make you high if you lick them just right* But there's also shadow honey. You smoke it in a pipe, together with someone's piece of clothing and you're transported to a pocket plane... of their dreams. I'm sure there's political intrigues and espionage enough to make this useful.
* One of my players already tried btw, and it turns out those slugs are hilarious I intend this to be a cooler and somewhat risky way to get work - if you know someone needs help before they officially go seek it, big professional advantage... or maybe it's just dangerous, but either way is cool for me.
That's it for the moment, any feedback would be great.