Because I'm Flat on Ideas
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I'm looking for some ideas for a tabletop game I'm running where players travel to alternate planes of reality. I'd love to hear some of this community's ideas on what they'd love to have.
Name of Plane:
Description of Environment:
Inhabitants:
Mood:
Quest Ideas:
Plot Ideas:
Anything Else?So an example here that is entirely tongue and cheek, I'd love serious suggestions–but like I said--I'm flat on ideas and all I have is this one due to watching too many cartoons with my daughter.
Name of Plane: Equestria
Description of Environment: Equestria is a moderate climate, the areas adventurers will explore are mostly a valley with a small agricultural village at its center, high snowy mountains circle the village with the castle of a local Queen overlooking her villagers. Some inhabitants of Equestria exist amongst the clouds as well due to their ability to fly, they've built homes and castles here.
Inhabitants: Most of Equestria's inhabitants are sentient horses, unicorns, and pegasi. Though many mythological creatures from Greek myth inhabit the region as well.
Mood: Equestria is generally a joyful and peaceful land, but many dangers lurk further from the safe valley, evil tends to take non-physical forms to ensnare the denizens of the land in feelings of greed, fear, anger, or pride (the seven deadly sins). Many dangers must be overcome through clear displays of courage, compassion, love.
Quests: Quest to gather apples to keep Equestrians fed through the winter, the orchards are guarded by terrible bees and insects. A quest to convince a dragon to leave its cave before its smokey breath overwhelms the village.
Plots: Legends around Equestria speak of a Princess of the Moon, the Queen's evil sister trapped in the moon itself. Small events begin to occur in the area suggesting that the Princess may soon escape her prison and players get involved with a mystical unicorn wizard who needs to find the Six Elements of Friendship that will defeat the Princess.
Anything Else: On this plane, emphasizing teamwork and friendship is important. Disloyalty, selfishness all open you up to manipulation by the evil spirits that try to seize and possess good beings. Stories should involve lots of cuteness, but also a subversive humor as well.
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I hear alot of DnD ideas are coming from League of Legends lately.
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Name of Plane: Tartarus
Description of Environment: A labyrinthine world of ever shifting corridors and ancient puzzles designed to prevent anyone but the Wardens who know the answers to travel freely.
Inhabitants: The grand majority of the population are the prisoners: people who cannot be killed despite their crimes, whether because someone wishes to research them, hold them hostage or because they are supernatural beings who would only escape in death. There is one Warden for every hundred prisoners, and one Head Warden for every hundred Wardens; these hulking workers wear masks of beaten metal to give them the visage of a human being, but what lies underneath is as much a mystery as Tartarus' origins.
Mood: Dark corridors gleaming with the obsidian that encompasses the entire world, lit only by lanterns carried by Wardens. Lists of rules dot the area, all of them negative (eg. Prisoners must not carry lanterns. Prisoners must not attempt to leave their cells without a Warden's permission.) Rows upon rows of cells contain all manner of people, from magical devients who occaisionally spurt unexpected spells to highborn gentry still trying to hold their heads high. Echoes travel long distances, both physically and in time, creating a maddening environment where using your ears can easily mislead you.
Quest Ideas: The puzzles that act as gates in the maze are useful for not making escape so easy as stealing a key, but at the same time they are designed to be solved. Quests in the area could involve a prisoner asking you to check if his kin/friend is still alive in solitary confinement and bring them some bread he saved from his own lunch. You would have to solve some door puzzles and sneak past Warden patrols to get in.
Plot Ideas: A group of particularly vile and loathsome prisoners are planning an escape. A prison riot. They know their way past a few of the inner doors and intend on murdering the local Head Warden and hoping he has a way out of the plane. You can help arm them, and they will let you join their plan and show you the route to the Head Warden's office; or you can try and coerce it out of them without having to release them all. Whatever the case, once the Head Warden is killed the prisoners scour his office and steal some valuables, and after seeing no escape route they rush off elsewhere (to do some evil deed like kill some prisoners they never liked, or even attack you). You find something that suggests there is one more puzzle to solve to get out, and unlike the door-puzzles elsewhere in Tartarus, this time the office itself is a puzzle (table pointed like an arrow; a painting of a lady opening a door while holding something in her hand, that sort of thing)
Anything Else:Maybe I'm thinking too much in line with FR-type planes rather than "alternate realities"?
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Its a bit alternate, but yes. My players all have access to the sourcebooks, I am hoping to actually surprise them with something they won't see coming.
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maybe mix and match a couple similar planes , and then reverse them , kinda like the orb with the elves and the dwarves in the demi plane opened by the white dragon
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Here's one I used in a recent campaign. Enjoy! I've got tons of others that I'm writing up for you as well. I love designing cities/planes/landscapes.
Name of Plane: Field of Shards (Quasi-elemental plane of glass. Major fire, minor earth properties)
Description of Environment: The entire plane is a swamp of molten glass. The small (50-ft wide max) pathways of "dry" ground that interconnect the entire place are made of sand and shards of glass (Act as caltrops. Any not wearing boots take damage per round). The sweltering heat causes damage to those not prepared (as though extreme heat environ. Endure Elements or fire resistance of any sort negates. 2d6 subdual per hour, otherwise). Two major landmarks are in this plane, the first being a massive manor house (read: castle) belonging to an exiled advance Efreeti warlock, inside of which is both a temple of Grumbar and a temple of Kossuth. The second is what the inhabitants believe to be a "volcano", a mountain continually completely covered in molten glass.Inhabitants: Salamanders, azer, and fire/salt/glass/magma mephits are the most common inhabitants with a trace population of any other fire-subtype creature.
Mood: The mood is that of the main inhabitants: Salamanders and Azer. All who have settled on the small patches large enough to build have adopted an industrious sense of being. Producing, plane shifting, trading for good to produce more (excelling in glassware, obviously). The inhabitants are extremely wary of the volcano, though none will tell you why if they even know.
Quest Ideas: "Explore the Volcano": After hearing no end of unfounded horror stories about the volcano, the party becomes over-adventurous and seeks it out.
"Magmin mania": A group of magmin (led by an advanced magmin rogue or bard) has been harassing the merchants for some time, now but they have finally crossed the line. They have stolen the sacred gemstones of the holy temples. Grumbar's heart (a diamond as large as your fist) and Kossuth's soul (an unidentified red gem, larger than most people's heads). Upon tracking them down, the party finds the magmin under assault from elementals of all kinds, down to the last one greedily clinging to the gems. It is not the magmin that are to be the foe, it is the holy earth and fire elementals sent to "recover" them (though the party may not be able to speak the appropriate languages to realize this)Plot Ideas: Inside the "mountain" is actually a trapped demigod (or insert powerful creature a la advanced mindflayer, solar, advanced aboleth, or advanced Couatl) that is slowly eating away at the mind of the Efreet ruler of the plane, driving him to madness and uncharacteristic violence towards the inhabitants of the plane. Only the party has the ability to defeat the Sultan… or the choice to aid him... or the foresight to see what is truly going on.
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Name of Plane: Spiral
Description of Environment: Very Large drill like structures inside a desert. The drill structures are inhabited and effectively super cities. They also constantly and slowly spin in the ground(playing havok with divinations and telepotation magic amongst other things). The desert is mostly empty and flat.
Inhabitants: Sentient contructs that take the form of humanoids and are hard to tell apart from real humanoids, through there emotions tend to be stunted. The plane also has many humanoids present, mostly kidnapped from the material.
Mood: Very oppressive. The contructs believe free will is a sin and and a curse, and try to bring "order" to "life" by giving them duties within the great drills after kidnapping them.
Quest Ideas: The hero's find them-self inside one of the great drills after some plannar travel goes wrong. Confused and bewilder by Spirral, they first must figure out were there are, then escape to the surface while avoiding the constructs (who could be anyone!)
Plot Ideas: The hero's kill a villain and find much to there surprise that he's a construct! They then must uncover and defeat a Spiralen conspiracy to bring "order" to the material by replacing key persons with construct doppelgangers.
Anything Else? The plane a way to play with robots playing human sort of plots. Its also a way to have the pc's on edge and not sure who to trust. :wink: -
Name of Plane: Sanctuary
Description of Environment: Varies from greenlands to desert climate to jungles and snowy mountains and eventually "Hell."
Inhabitants: Any variety of demons you can think of, very terrified human citizens
Mood: Despair
Quest Ideas: Destroy all demons
Plot Ideas: Destroy all demon lords
Anything Else: It worked for Blizzard -
This is a plane the DM used in our last campaign. He's fond of the weird and dark stuff. He killed my character with dreams once.
Name of Plane: Domain of the Demented
Description of Environment: Its a tiny world (two or three human nations) that steals the inhabitants of other planes by spontaneously opening one-way portals. It's purpose is to fill the armies of the Demented, an ancient demonic abomination. It looks and behaves like a horrible twilight zone-like perversion of the prime material. Spirits manipulate the political leaders to start wars over nothing, vampires massacre people in the night, dead animals hunt people for sport, and death is generally easy to find. Everyone who dies rises as undead creatures serving the Demented.
There is also a palace of sorts, where the head honcho sits experimenting with new and inventive ways to ruin your day, surrounded by his weird retainers. There was a ghost using thousands of zombies to build a flesh colossus, an enormous worm made of peoples bones, and one time we saw a herd of undead oxen.
Inhabitants: Terrified people trying desperately to stay alive, and lots of undead of every shape and size.
Mood: Constant terror
Quest Ideas: The biggest concern is getting out. The portals can only get you in, and teleportation-type magic doesn't work. To get out the Demented or one of his agents have to actively let you out, unless you're really creative. The players could come willingly if they're looking for something on the plane, trying to rescue someone who was stolen into the plane or following an enemy who fled there.
Plot Ideas: Kill the Demented or foil his plans somehow. He could be part of some grand scheme you cook up, or be replaced by any undead-loving villain, provided it is powerful enough.
Anything Else? This plane was originally intended for epic-level play, but could work for any high-level group. Won't really fit if the players are too low level, but if they are they shouldn't be able to run around the planes anyway. Also, if your party has a sneak attack based rogue, he will hate this place. -
Name of Plane: Prison of Waukeen
Description of Environment: The Prison was built by the Demon Prince Graz’zt to house Waukeen during her imprisonment. It is a sprawling cityscape where the laws of commerce are more or less reversed. The aristocracy live as ascetic paupers in the gutter, while the downtrodden masses inhabit opulent manor houses. The common working class is somewhere in between. Stealing is severely punished, but so is giving anything away – and every day, the Demons come to torture and execute the wealthiest person on the plane. Inhabitants: Imprisoned inhabitants from all manner of planes populate the Prison. Demonic assessors constantly track the wealth of everyone present, and the only law of the land is barter, with everyone desperately trying to unload their goods to someone else at a loss.
Mood: Frenetic yet sinister.
Quest ideas: You could get very rich here, very quickly!
Plot ideas: Although Waukeen has been freed from her prison, Graz’zt has seemingly chosen to keep this place up and running. Why?
Anything Else: Substitute appropriate deities or devils if this isn’t FR.