[Gatejammer] Finality: Brainstorming

[virgil]

Endovior's got the right idea if we make grave robbing destroy Hell armor, tying it to either a respawn timer or reset; as that at least creates a predictable framework to work around, still a time limit on the cool stuff, but not one where the DM can randomly "LOLdie" in the middle of an important combat.

We've essentially got two options then

• Temporary Treasure: Grave goods are tied to their owner's corpse, and refresh every Planar Standard Day (17 hours) unless the original is removed from the corpse's possession, in which case they vanish at the refresh; making every day a chance of them up and vanishing
• Apocalyptic History: Grave goods permanently duplicated, but Illithids (or whatever) overran the Core Worlds and threw the burial tradition out of whack in their conquest; it's after the Victory of Gith, and there are still innumerable forgotten crypt vaults

[Vebyast]

In this framework, there will be a titanic premium for equipment of known provenance. If you just grab random armor off the ground, you have no idea if it'll come with you when you respawn or Astral Projection, which makes it always a little bit suspect. However, if you know that your armor is the armor of Legendary King Such-and-such from Place So-and-so and that his tomb is protected by a small army of golems, you know that it's far less likely that your armor will disappear on you later. And if you know that your armor is an actual original, it is guaranteed to go with you if you take the proper precautions. This matches up well with the supply curve - most stuff will have been buried at least once, which means the majority of the equipment is not an original.

---

Actually, that's an assumption of some kind. What happens with serial respawns? Do you have to be buried with your armor every time you die for it to keep respawning, or do you only care about the original? If the former, is there now an entire chain of tombs that you have to be maintained for you to keep your equipment, or do you only care about the most recent one and people can retrieve older sets and reuse them?

[RadiantPhoenix]

I think I like the "Apocalyptic History" version a bit better because it seems less complicated.

[virgil]

Actually, that's an assumption of some kind. What happens with serial respawns? Do you have to be buried with your armor every time you die for it to keep respawning, or do you only care about the original? If the former, is there now an entire chain of tombs that you have to be maintained for you to keep your equipment, or do you only care about the most recent one and people can retrieve older sets and reuse them?

If they were to be permanent, then it's just a whole new item that required a bake time to craft. If they're temporary, they wouldn't spawn a new item; or would only spawn in the after-afterlife. Keep in mind, we don't have to let their true nature be impossible to verify; they could be obviously made of 'soulstuff', they could require an Appraise check to verify, or they could require a spell or other semi-supernatural condition to verify.

One thing we need to make clear, petitioners and grave goods aren't going to spawn a second time except for a theoretical after-afterlife. We can have a petitioner more difficult to actually kill, like the Tome's Revenant (possibly with different restrictions).

[Ancient History]

The simple solution for Hell Armor not totally mucking up the local economy is for it to either destabilize once you get it off the outer planes, or if it's integral to the person whose grave it is - so only they can use it.

[virgil]

Last Rites

“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.”
Upon death, the deceased begin a mysterious journey, eventually reborn in a netherworld.

Psychopomps are the subject of theory, as no known force has been present during the travel and the subjects have no memory of the trip; which isn't to say that it can't be interrupted or redirected. What is known is that one does not immediately arise in their netherworld upon the cessation of life. This window permits for any number of interruptions, be it resurrection or becoming undead. Note that the physical body is a separate entity from the soul, and while animating a skeleton may spoil the body for raising purposes, the spirit remains unfazed in its journey. It takes 200 years from the time of death for a sapient to rise in the afterlife.

There are a number of netherworlds, and which one one arrives in (or even what state) is determined by a list of factors in ascending order of precedence

• Location - Each world has an innate tie to a particular netherworld, and barring other obligations, your soul will spawn there. One's sapience will not be retained in the netherworld, and will form in soul veins, as larvae, or some other similar lowly state
• Naming - Frequently done as a birth rite, but naming ceremonies and other coming-of-age traditions fill this same role. These are low-cost practices that must be performed while the subject is alive, but require at least one other participant to perform the rite, and only the most recently performed is considered valid. One's condition in the afterlife is determined by the ceremony, but is limited to nothing greater than a petitioner of CR 1 (or less) with limited memory of their previous life.
• Funerary Rite - These have a strict window of no later than seven days from the time of death, and are more expensive. The benefits and results of this are listed later. Unlike naming ceremonies, they act on a first come - first serve basis.
• Oath - These cover things such as soul contracts, a specialized geas, and the like. One must accept the oath of their own free will, and no amount of direct coercion (magical or otherwise) will work. This is one of the few methods where a person's soul reaches their destination instantly upon death, without the 200 year time span; though usually this means in a gem as per the conditions of their oath. Once an oath is made, all further attempts to influence one's passage automatically fail, along with a manifestation indicating such

Funerary Rites
“Endings are not always bad. Most times they're just beginnings in disguise.”
Regardless of the form, which varies greatly on effects and culture, there is a minimum material cost of 100gp to perform a funerary rite. The body is commonly used, but is not required to even be present. They determine two major aspects of one's afterlife; destination and condition.
The destination is a both which netherworld and a specific 'realm', such as the Asphodel Meadows or the Hall of Odin.
The soul will spawn in the netherworld in the same physical & mental state as the point of death, with all physical ills and afflictions repaired, and all age penalties removed. Their physical appearance will be of any point in their life, as decided upon by the funerary rite, which is usually in their physical prime.

• Petitioner: Character Modifications
  Type: The character's type changes to Undead and the character's former type becomes a subtype with the "augmented" modifier. The character also gains the Dark Minded & Unliving subtype.
  Hit Dice: The character's Hit Dice, BAB, Saves, and skills are all unaffected.
  Ability Scores: The character's ability scores are unchanged.
  Alignment: The character's alignment is unaffected.
  Special Qualities: The petitioner will heal completely every Planar Standard Day (17 hours). This healing can even bring him back from destruction, but if he is slain outside of a netherworld or if his original body is destroyed, he can never come back from the 'dead' by any means. The character may gain additional benefits depending on the netherworld they manifest on, possible benefits that may include any of the following:
  • Damage Reduction 5/wood & SR 5+level
  • Damage Reduction 10/magic
  • Spell Resistance 10+level
  • Energy Resistance 20, or two at 10
  • Fast Healing 1
  Level Adjustment: +0

Grave Goods
"I guess you *can* take it with you."
The condition of the petitioner's tomb is also important. If an object is buried with the corpse as part of the funerary rite, and is undisturbed during the entire internment, it will manifest along with them in the netherworld. Such items are called grave goods, and can be separated from them or traded with others like any other piece of equipment. Grave goods cannot create a second generation grave good, though the original can be taken from the tomb to make another grave good. Intelligent items cannot be made into a grave good.
A grave good can be discerned from normal items with a simple detect magic or a successful Appraise check (DC 20).

* - When I speak of a Planar Standard Day, I intend for the closest equivalent of dawn the netherworld has in that rough time span.

[Username17]

I think I like the "Apocalyptic History" version a bit better because it seems less complicated.

One advantage of it is that "The world is emerging from a dark age following the great war, and remnants and ruins of the once mighty and wise civilization lay scattered and forgotten across the land" is generic D&D setting intro #2, right after "the era of peace was brought to a sudden end with the appearance of the Dark Lord".

Assuming that the enemies are ones which are variable such as "The Demon Lords of the Styx Watershed" or "The Council of Wyrms and their many slave worlds" rather than something one dimensional like "Beholders" or "Orcs", having a "major enemy" is fine. If it's the same thing every week, that's bad. But having major enemies who have a diverse collection of leaders and thralls is totally cool.

-Username17

[virgil]

Yes, I'm going with the permanent grave good and ancillary apocalyptic history.

---

Erebus

A sunless place of everlasting mist, which is the world of the dead. Any light in Erebus covers twice the normal radius. The River Acheron slows intensely, its flow taking a full three Planar Standard Days before emerging out of the crater of Cumae in the wastes of Clangor. Snow covers the ground for all but four months each year, during which, the trees and plants experience a supernatural bounty that remain pallid and ghostly. Large caverns are scattered throughout this world.
Petitioners All petitioners have Cold Resistance 10, darkvision 90', and DR 10/wood. Those without the benefit of a funerary rite universally take the form of a human commoner with the petitioner template.
Erebus is a watershed hub, as the River Phlegethon and River Styx also pass through elsewhere on this voidwise world, but they are separated by continents.

• Necromanteion The capitol of Tartarus, its ziggurats flanking the river and ruled by the Triumvirate; the Lord of Mazes, the Lord of Swarms, and the Lord of Justice. The primary natives are giants, lillend, and naga; petitioners are afforded no rights, and are in fact the primary currency of Necromanteion. Agriculture is a very close second, and used to be the most important export to the economy during the Age of Mists. There is also a thriving informant market of using beggar petitioners in the halls and alleys of the ziggurats for their commune power.
  Asphodel Meadows A small state with numerous fields of ever-blooming flowers, this is where all of the drugs of Tartarus are harvested and processed in a dedicated cavern before being shipped to Necromanteion for its share in the agricultural business. Here live drug-hazed petitioner laborers, dryads, treants, and similar entities.
  Fortunate Isles An incredibly deep cavern system, with an entire ocean and its own island network and white flames burn at the tips of stalactites to provide illumination through the complex. This, and others like it, is where the dead subject to funerary rites awaken. Each island is in eternal spring and ladened with fruit-bearing trees and small game to hunt, and visitors must tread cautiously, for these are the homes of heroes who feel they deserve the retirement.

[Username17]

I have to say that the Ravenloft Dark Powers would be about the worst possible example of a group to have pulled an apocalypse on the Core Worlds. Their problems are numerous for use in this capacity.

• They don't have any names. The Dark Powers don't have faces or names. While they have realm lords that people care about (Strahd, for example), those are mid-level adventures to fight mini-bosses. The top end are faceless and not statted and no one knows or cares who or what they are. There is no final boss or even third-from-final boss.
• There's no Second Act. In the post-apocalyptic liberation campaign, you go around the wilderness finding the isolated "points of light" style settlements that are filled with besieged and fearful peasants huddling around candles in the darkness while the villain's monsters rampage outside. Then you go to the home worlds of the invaders and fight them there for the second act. But the Dread Worlds constellation is... you go around the wilderness finding isolated "points of light" style settlements that are filled with besieged and fearful peasants huddling around candles in the darkness while the villain's monsters rampage outside. That's just like not having a second act at all.
• You can't fight The Mists. The primary weapon of the Dark Powers is The Mists. And D&D characters specifically can't do anything about that. It has no hit points, it has no stats, it doesn't respond to any magic or character ability. It just sits there or moves, fucks with you or leaves you alone, and gives you something to do or not based entirely on the MC's whim.
• There's no way to interact with the rise or fall. Because the Mists aren't like an army or even a magic ritual, both the conquest and the liberation happen "for no reason". and that means that players can't play in different eras, and that is fucked.

Compare how that looks with the main enemy being "Demon Lords", "Arch Devils", "Vecna", or "The Council of Wyrms":

• The Stygian Watershed's invasion was an act of ferocity beyond what the people of the Core Worlds had imagined as even being possible. For a hundred years, the armies of Tanar'ri and their demonic minions and depraved cultists rampaged unchecked. They ruled the land with terror and bled the lands dry without ever giving anything back. They built nothing, and in the years that followed the greatest cities of the greatest empires of the Core Worlds collapsed into ruin. But without a true opponent, the Demon Lords quickly turned on each other. Cults of Orcus and Demogorgon were at each other's throats and amid the squabbling lights began to appear in the age of darkness. The people of the Core Worlds were able to start anew and soon cities and nations rose up that could challenge the might of the fractious demonic forces.

Right there you have events that the players can actually interact with. And a series of mini and major bosses to contend with. And a place to go for the second act where things look and feel different. And it can be taken in a bunch of different directions, because the cultic lands of Yeenoghu are filled with filth covered, plague ridden Gnolls and Ghouls while the cultic lands of Alrunes have corrupted Dryads and Evil Trees.

And if you sub-in Tiamat, or Asmodeus, or Vecna for Demogorgon as the final big bad, that works just as well. Because they have lieutenants who do different sorts of stuff and have clear events that you can interact with, and final bosses that you can stab in the face (or in Tiamat's case: all five faces).

D&D has lots of villains that can be used as the big bad when producing new folklore. And the Dark Powers of Ravenloft are basically the worst choice you could possibly make.

-Username17

[virgil]

Fine, it's removed.

[Ancient History]

The Dark Powers are like gravity, but more capricious. If you want something similar - something you can't exactly fight and kill but can maybe use and predict to an extant - then you might include the ideas of "shift zones" or something similar on the edges of Finality; dimensionally unstable areas where certain planes phase in and out of contact on a regular or semi-predictable schedule according to some cosmological cycle. These could range from "Okay, Mechanus is going to be back in phase in six point three cycles" to "I hear tell of Shag-her La, the magical island-city of lesbians that only appears for one night every ten years."

[Username17]

Having unpredictable events that yank characters across the multiverse is really useful from a narrative standpoint. The fact that The Mists can gather a random group of people from way the heck far away from the Dread Worlds Cluster for a one-shot adventure is priceless. It lets a guest to the table bring in a character from a different campaign for a one shot or lets a guest MC run a one shot with the table's regular characters without interacting with any of the normal MC's characters. There should probably actually be more things that work like The Mists and haul people across the multiverse for one-shot adventures.

-Username17

[Vebyast]

Gatestorms

Complex stellar arrangements, Shift Zones moving around, portal overuse, huge magical events, random chance, what have you, occasionally something weird happens and the gatestorms start. They take different forms on different worlds, sometimes terrifying and dangerous, sometimes so subtle that the victims barely notice they've been moved, but the effects are pretty much the same: anybody caught in a gatestorm is transported to another plane exactly as if they'd walked through a portal.

Some gatestorms are more predictable than others. The most common gatestorms near the Dread Worlds Cluster, for example, take the form of mists that invariably transport people into a nightmarish situation on Ravenloft. On the other end of the extreme, the deepest reaches of the Astral are swept by the most random gatestorms known, constantly moving travellers around both within the Astral, as little as that means, and to other worlds with seemingly little pattern or restriction. There are even theories that the less well-delineated trans-planar terrains are nothing more than gatestorms which have for some reason attached themselves to particular geography and stabilized, but this interpretation is disputed.

[virgil]

Because I obviously svck at choosing end-times for the setting. Here's three more with the hopes of the broken clock principle letting me have a good idea; unless the Demon Lords one of Frank's is better, then use that.

Astromundi Proclamation

Many tomes have been written on potential origins of the mind flayers. All that is known for certain is that they came from the pseudonatural realms of the Deep Void, riding weapons of terrible technology. This empire, paved with the arts of fleshcrafting and horrors, built on a foundation of slavery and domination over the races of the Core Worlds, dwarfed everything that has come since. At some point, certain enslaved races developed a degree of resistance to the psychic shackles of the illithids. When they had gathered sufficient power, the slaves revolted and toppled their masters.

Council of Wyrms

Io followed the example of all dragons, and slept. While she slept, Tiamat & Garyx awoke the Sleeping Deep Dragons, and commanded the Council of Wyrms to take flight. The suns of the Core Worlds were blotted out from the wings of the draconic horde, and civilization burned. Treasures of civilizations beyond counting were torn from them and piled in hoards.
As the hoards of dragons grew, so did the dragons' paranoia and jealousy, and in this moment of weakness heroes arose. Dragonslayers went forth and relinquished the hoards to rebuild society, fighting back the might of scale and flame.

Dark Suns

Escaping the Hollow, the mad Rajaat reasserts command over his Champions and breaks Athas's isolation from the Core Worlds. And so begins a conquest of environmental desolation and genocide across the stars, the surviving civilizations held in city-states under warlords that swear fealty to the True Dragon-King. Eventually, the Champions secret enough free will to begin a series of events where heroes rise to vanquish them and ultimately put a stop to Rajaat's terror. Civilization in the Core Worlds is free to rebuild anew.

[Ancient History]

I think a version of the Astromundi Proclamation would work. After a century-long incursion from the Far Realm, the Illithid empire has collapsed and the remaining mindflayer colonies have signed the treaties, all gates to that Far Realm have been closed, and the interim government forged to carry on the fight in Finality begins the transition to peace-time.

[Username17]

An advantage of the Astromundi Proclamation is that most of the key points are mapped out. Gith's revolt cut the Mind Lords off from their voidwise supply and the Declaration of Two Skies created two nations out of the Voidwise Slave Worlds with capitals at Tu'narath and Shr'akt'lor. The remaining Mind Lords were overthrown quickly on the surface of the Core Worlds, though some of them successfully retreated to and still control the underground cities of Oryndoll and Dra-Mur-Shou.

It also has the advantage that you have a lot of source material to draw upon for worlds that the Illithid still control, such as Falx and Glyth. And you can draw upon any amount of Lovecraftian stuff, since the difference between a Star Spawn and an Illithid is that WotC owns the copyright on the word "Illithid". And you have nice mini-bosses of Brain Pools, and major bosses like Cthulhu and the Neh-Thalggu. Rather than providing a 2 Act scenario of exploring the liberated world and then invading the world of the old oppressors, it actually suggests a 3 Act scenario: Act I explores the surface, Act II fights the Illithid holdouts underground and ends with the destruction of the Elder Brain Pool, and Act III has the players invade the Far Realm and punch Cthulhu in the face.

The problem of course, is that the Illithid have gotten a lot of stupid shit written about them over the years. Brain Golems, Brainstealer Dragons, Daelkyr, and many others. Fuck, the entire Illithiliad is so full of stupid crazy bullshit that Ancient History and I should do a drunken tag team review of that book. It has Bruce Cordell doing what he does best: crapping on settings by writing shit that makes no fucking sense and splurging about his latest shitty idea for special snowflake psionics mechanics. So you'd need to prune lots of stuff.

-Username17

[Chamomile]

Fuck, the entire Illithiliad is so full of stupid crazy bullshit that Ancient History and I should do a drunken tag team review of that book.

I am strongly in favor of this. The last one turned out both hilarious and illuminating, and pinpointing all of the myriad flaws with previous executions of Planescape made it pretty easy to lay a groundwork for what we're doing now (which ended up being as much Spelljammer as Planescape, but whatever).

[Darth Rabbitt]

I would also like to see an Illithiad review; should this discussion be moved to the OSSR request thread?

[virgil]

So we're apparently using fractional reserve accounting with the Bank of Finality. What is the common economic scene in Finality in general? Who assesses trade goods, collects fees and taxes, etc? What's the common scene like on the other side of any portal in Finality?

[Username17]

So we're apparently using fractional reserve accounting with the Bank of Finality. What is the common economic scene in Finality in general? Who assesses trade goods, collects fees and taxes, etc? What's the common scene like on the other side of any portal in Finality?

There is an Inspector General's Office. They have officers who are in charge of inspections, assessments, and tax collections. Obviously they lack the personnel to go through every box that goes in and out of the gates. That's a hundred million tonnes a year, and they just can't. Now first of all, there are a few gates on private property - like the Whirlpool. Those are essentially unobserved. The Inspectors simply estimate an amount of commerce that the gates are performing and assess the owners a fee at the end of the year. But most gates just operate on a "Trust but Verify" system, where you declare your cargo and the taxes on it are light, but they do occasional spot inspections and if you were lying on your declaration forms the penalties are a lot higher than if you'd just paid the fucking taxes.

The other sides of the gates are not empty, but they are generally villages rather than suburb. The fact that it takes an entire planar standard day before you can travel again after you take a gate means that people don't really commute to work across those gates. Further, the Preservative trait only applies in Finality, so people want to arrange to have as much of their warehousing done in Finality as possible. Nevertheless, gates that are near to other gates are still left with people needing to kill many hours and get a meal or two before they can jump again. So there's a definite truck stop atmosphere in most of the gate towns - just a place people have to lay over for a few hours so they might as well get a bottomless cup of coffee and a slice of pie at the diner that never closes.

Some of the busier gates will have additional customs staff on the gate town side. So if you're stuck waiting for the gate countdown, you can get an inspection mark and pay your taxes while you wait. Then you can sail through customs on the Finality side by handing over your inspection mark. But that's always optional, because they know that merchants would usually rather have their goods waiting for an inspection to happen inside the city because that way the Preservative trait will kick in and their tomatoes (or whatever) won't spoil. If you insist on going through the gate right away without waiting to get an inspection mark on the gate town side, no one will think that's weird.

-Username17

[virgil]

Just to verify, you intend for the Preservative trait of Finality to work on a purely biological level as far as pausing decomposition, or would it work on the level of a continuous gentle repose spell?

[fectin]

Those gate villages probably aren't exactly rural; they're probably more like mill towns or the area around a military base.

[virgil]

There is an Inspector General's Office. They have officers who are in charge of inspections, assessments, and tax collections. Obviously they lack the personnel to go through every box that goes in and out of the gates.

I'd imagine the standard customs duty would be on the order of 2-5% for trade goods. I can't imagine what magic item market would look like, and I'd be surprised if it could see any level of regulation by Finality when dealers are as violently sociopathic as adventurers.

[Username17]

There is an Inspector General's Office. They have officers who are in charge of inspections, assessments, and tax collections. Obviously they lack the personnel to go through every box that goes in and out of the gates.

I'd imagine the standard customs duty would be on the order of 2-5% for trade goods. I can't imagine what magic item market would look like, and I'd be surprised if it could see any level of regulation by Finality when dealers are as violently sociopathic as adventurers.

It's unfortunately almost certain to not be something easy like a percentage of value. The Inspectors are really going to have no idea what the value of Nutripods, Amusoballs, or Tandelouvian Happy Juice "actually" is. Heck, the traders coming in to the city probably don't really know either. They are probably coming in with a load of something that is reasonably common in their area and hoping to come back with a load of something that is desirable but unknown on their planet.

From a practical standpoint, thus, the tariffs are going to look incredibly stupid and regressive to modern eyes. Cargo is probably assigned to extremely vague categories like "foodstuffs" and "textiles" and then fees are charged based on size or weight or something. So if you want to walk in to the city bristling with magic rings or something crazy like that, you can probably just do that. And you only have to pay the fee for one person walking in on foot, which is probably close to nothing.

I just don't see how they could have something more coherent set up. The reality is that if you tried to do a cargo value percentage you'd have constant situations where a merchant would come in from some far distant world with a cargo full of Blue Ale or Harmony Stones and neither the customs inspector nor the merchant would have any real idea as to what that stuff would sell for in the markets. The only place a percentage take would or even could come in is the general rule that if you don't have precious metals or bank credits to pay your taxes in, the customs inspectors will take a percentage of your actual cargo and then try to get something for it on the back end. And that's probably stiffer, like 10% or something, because it's nominally a penalty for non-payment of fees.

-Username17

[Vebyast]

In addition to taxing size or weight, tax magic. Cast Detect Magic, charge based on how much you detect. Anybody wearing around piles of magical items can be assumed to be sufficiently wealthy that mundane taxes don't bother them much, and anybody shipping wagons full of potions probably has just as much money floating around.