Odds and ends, ideas not used.

[Icedaemon]

I am sure most of us have a ton of ideas for campaigns, plots and house rules we have no intention of using, at least not here. Thus, why not share them?

First of all, the idea of Sigil has led to me thinking about placing a high-magic adventure on a world shaped like a Moebius strip. Since I am unlikely to do a high-magic campaign in the foreseeable future, however, I'll embellish here:

This world exists in a void, or an astral plane-like realm of some sort. Rotating at a good speed, it carries it's own atmosphere with it. However, the void outside the strip is chaotic, full of wild magic which randomly accelerates oddly-shaped asteroids. Thus, the only more-or-less safe regions of the strip are the two portions where the wide end, which is habitable, are facing inwards. The wide regions facing outwards, on the other hand, are often ablaze, marked with craters and virtually lifeless, if not airless. However, trade between the two civilized areas is something many people desire. The problem therein comes from the fact that going around the shorter end of the strip is impossible, since the same aurora which generates gravity tears up or crushes anything close to it's edge. While that may be a boon against the asteroids from the void, it is deadly for would-be travellers as well. Since only the greatest of mages can teleport that far, any travel will at the very least need one to pass through the wastelands on the portion perpendicular to the centre of the strip.

Crazy, but so alien that, if done right and well thought out (far beyond what I've typed here), it could be awesome.

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I also have an item to offer.

The often-derided bag of tricks likewise produced a thought, a memory this time. As it happens, there are fairytales about a slightly different bag in my nation's folklore. Simply called a 'bag' or a 'magical bag' is fine there, but if this is incorporated into D&D...

Bag of Hicks
Wondrous item
Aura: Faint (brown), moderate (maroon) Major (scarlet)
It appears to be an ordinary bag roughly the same size as a bag of holding, tightly tied up. When given a command, mostly some form of 'Bag, open!' in an ancient and (nearly) forgotten tongue, the knots unravel themselves and a number of diminutive men climb out. They grow to full-sized burly warriors armed with clubs by the next round, and await orders from the bag's owner.

For the brown bag: 1d6 1st level medium-sized warriors armed with ordinary clubs. No more than 12 per week.
For the maroon bag: 2d4 medium-sized 4th level warriors armed with greatcubs, no more than 16 per week.
For the scarlet bag: 3d4 large 8th level warriors armed with +2 large greatclubs with knockback effects. No more than 20 per week.

In any case, the warriors persist for five minutes.

Any warriors who 'die' simply shrink back into diminutive size and fly back inside the bag. If disarmed, their weapons shrink instantly and become useless. If anyone tries to unravel or cut the knot on the bag and succeeds, a number of warriors jump out as if there were one use of the bag spent. They instantly attack the would-be opener. If the bag is ever torn, pierced, cut or otherwise destroyed in a non-annihilating manner, the full contingent of warriors (the maximum summonable per week) escape from the tear and attack anyone in the vicinity but each other. Should they win, they simply walk away and disappear.

[Duncan Smith]

Tha bag idea sounds interestingly weird.

Jee and I were duscussing an underwater setting the other day an we came to the conclusion that wizards does not provide sufficient information on how societies servive underwater without certain amenities such as fire. An underwater setting is do able but, and pardon the pun, would be shallow in its details and we would ultimatly have to run an AT sea/ harbor setting.

Another idea/ desire I've had for regions have been the far North passed the tree line, near perpetual winter setting, and thank god, wizards made a book for that as well, Frostburn.

Essential, in following with ID's thread theme hear my "ideas" consist of changing the weather and/or region to spice up the atmosphere (made another funny lol) and take them to the extreme ad use skills/ fetas in different ways and provide even more character concepts beyound the normal seemingly perpetual sunny day greyhawk/eberron/ Realms setting we're accustom to.

As a side note there is a third setting book, that I have found, Sandstorm; consists of a desert semi egyptian or that region of the world themed setting.
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Anyone elses Bull@#$% detector just go off?

[Icedaemon]

The weather patterns could easily be inserted into the moebius setting, for starters. After all, with the void 'pushing in', the wastelands on the strip which are roughly parallel to the centre could well have perpetual wind pushing inwards, while the outer portion of the sides is wild magic and disaster taken to the limit.

There's also that perpetual maelstrom in Pathfinder.
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[Jeeeeoker]

The weather systems on this part of the moebius must be malfunctioning. Either that or its designers wanted the region to have inclement weather... (*whoosh* goes the banshee overhead as you're trying to stealth kill the sleeping little guys)



The warriors who come out of the Bag of Hicks... do they have funny accents and wear Burberry a lot?
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[Jeeeeoker]

Oh, and about the moebius strip world, wouldn't there only be one civilized area, essentially a rectangle? The inner side is disconnected only at the point where the angle of twist is 90 degrees (perpendicular to the centre, as you say). When going from one side of the twist to the other, wouldn't it be safer and shorter distance to travel along the inside of the strip, as opposed to the outside?

Navigation ought to be done by observing the "angle of twist", and moving in the direction that reduces it (0 degrees being a flat plane where up is towards the centre of the ring, and 180 degrees being one where up is away from the centre of the ring). So people would only ever want to travel in the space between +90 and -90. Whatever nation controls the region at 0 twist can control all trade between plus and minus (The Plustern Heartlands and The Unapproachable Minus?), in the same way control of the middle east meant control of the world before sailing ships were invented.

I mean, it's possible to circumvent their heavily taxed routes on the outside of the strip, but that would be like trying to use a galley to ship product around Africa on the Atlantic side. You'll spend many times longer and suffer losses many times greater than what you'd be paying in taxes to use the established routes.

If the outside is airless, does that suggest gravity is simulated by spin on the ring? Centrifugal force (or tangential velocity, if you want to get Newtonian on me) holds things on the inside towards the strip, while causing things on the outside to fly away from the strip, in an effect opposite to gravity (which should be weak for a world of such small mass compared to a planet). The greater the angle of twist, the weaker the simulated gravity, and the more one feels pulled toward a "downward slope", as it would be experienced.
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[Icedaemon]

I considered it as a moebius strip which has two opposite ends perpendicular to the centre, since this would mean two large civilized areas, which would be very distinct form each other. I mean, a moebius strip does not have to do only consist of one twist - this form is more certainly balanced.
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[Jeeeeoker]

If there's more than one twist, it's not a moebius strip, as far as I understand. Can you draw a picture of the shape you're talking about?
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[Icedaemon]

As I understand, if it has only one side (not counting the edge, which here likewise is impassable) it can be considered a moebius strip.

Edit: Gah! I just understood, a moebius strip must certainly have an uneven number of sides facing inwards. Bugger it.
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[Jeeeeoker]

I suppose it could have three twists, then...
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[Icedaemon]

Another idea I've had bouncing around in my head is a cosmology where (some of) the planes, other than the prime material locations, are worlds of specific concepts, the realms of ideal. These ideal effectively replace deities - a person derives magical energy from the ideals closest to his or her preferences.

The stronger a person's will and the more attuned one is to an ideal, the more power he or she has. Those who have wholly embraced a singular ideal become paragons of this concept, effectively transcending mortality. A paragon can name honorary paragons, who are in line to becoming true paragons, but are not yet on the path. A being can only be a paragon of one concept, but can be honorary paragons of several. However, becoming a paragon is a dangerous business in all cases - paragons of more powerful, overwhelming ideals such as hate, sadism and love typically gain great power, but are a danger to others (and often themselves), whereas becoming a true paragon of an ideal such as balance is not only very rare and difficult, but also yields less immediately obvious power.

An ideal's power depends on the people who believe in it, even if they strive for different ideals (thus, individuals striving for freedom typically also increase the might of the concepts of slavery, tyranny and such).

The point here is that there should be no one good and certain option to take - every path has it's downsides and benefits. A paragon of kindness might have an aura which causes anyone short of the most deranged of murderers to cringe and weep whenever she could be in harm's way, but likewise feels that even the said murderers need to be shown kindness in hopes of 'redeeming' them. One who wholly gives into the concept of justice will throw his life away to save a complete monster who happens to be falsely accused, or hunt down a slave who committed a petty crime that nonetheless carries a death penalty for the lowest castes. Yet a person who remains distant from the pursuit of any one concept is powerless compared to a paragon, a plaything for such demigods.

[Jeeeeoker]

It sounds unstable. In most things one needs to balance multiple ideals, adhering to the one that applies best to any given situation. Someone who always follows a single ideal will quickly find themselves in a situation where it's inappropriate, where following that ideal gives them nothing but problems.

The way I see it, ideals are not things you strive for, they're things you use to influence the behaviour of large groups. And they only really work if a large group adopts a set of complementary ideals. Or is that the message you're trying to get across with this setting?
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[Icedaemon]

That's the point, or a point, at least. A paragon has a hard time doing anything with no contact with the ideal that he or she follows. However, one can be close to paragon in relation to several ideals. And yes, complementary ideals are needed if a party is to include casters, more likely than not.


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[Rejakor]

There are already rules that support that. Clerics can believe in an ideal or a cause and get their spells/day. Write a couple of new classes, 'Idealistic Paragon', 'Arcane Paragon' etc, and you're in business.