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<title>Alex Schroeder: Planescape</title>
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<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:38:58 GMT</pubDate>
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<title>Alex Schroeder: Planescape</title>
<link>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki</link>
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<item>
<title>More about the Mashup</title>
<link>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/2012-10-19_More_about_the_Mashup</link>
<guid>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/2012-10-19_More_about_the_Mashup</guid>
<description>&lt;div class="right" style="float: right"&gt;&lt;p&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kensanata/8102076024/" class="url http"&gt;&lt;img class="url http" src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8474/8102076024_67c3d07001.jpg" alt="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8474/8102076024_67c3d07001.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;Today I posted about my Planescape-Spelljammer-Traveller mashup &lt;a class="url http outside" href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/112496081196492342580/posts/dmNwGwHfSjn"&gt;on Google+&lt;/a&gt; and I was asked to say more about it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Basically the players got hold of a &lt;b&gt;Spelljammer&lt;/b&gt; ship to sail the astral sea. It was one of the classic ships: a Mindflayer Nautilus class called the &lt;em&gt;Black Strangler&lt;/em&gt;. Basically the astral sea is what Planescape has as the sea at the bottom of Celestia. When I read about the astral plane, the big wheel and all that, I was confused and I figured the players would be as well. Instead I opted for something alike Marion Zimmer Bradley&amp;#x2019;s travel to Avalon: get on a boat, travel for a bit, use some magic and you can be elsewhere. I think the astral sea is how D&amp;amp;D 4E does it as well?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, so we have a &amp;#x201c;sea&amp;#x201d; and &amp;#x201c;islands&amp;#x201d; on it – or basically worlds, systems. It already starts to sound like a bit of Traveller. Many of them will have gates linking them with larger worlds – fantastic worlds inspired by Planescape: hells, elemental planes, alternative prime material worlds. A bit like Philip José Farmer&amp;#x2019;s &lt;a class="near" title="Wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Tiers"&gt;World of Tiers&lt;/a&gt;, perhaps?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One world, for example, is non-magical except for the gate that leads to the astral sea. So they built a fortress in the astral sea and discovered that magic works on the other side. Now they use it like a space station or star port to manufacture mundane stuff that requires magic to be built.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;All these small worlds, astroids and stations get an UWP and I feed it to my &lt;a class="near" title="Names" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/svg-map"&gt;Traveller Subsector Mapper&lt;/a&gt; to produce a nice map. Check out &lt;a class="url http outside" href="http://emacswiki.org/svg-map?map=Tu%20Akhra%200404%20D0602B3-1%20P%20%C2%A0As%20De%20Lo%20Lt%20R%0aSusrael%200503%20B0604A4-1%20N%20%C2%A0As%20De%20Lt%20NI%20A%0aNova%20Genova%200607%20B867686-1%20N%20%C2%A0Ag%20Ga%20Lt%20NI%20Ri%0aHinia%20Oot%200705%20E060200-1%20As%20De%20Lo%20Lt%20A%0aAffeninsel%200308%20E064105-0%20Lo%20Lt%0a;wiki=http%3a%2f%2fcampaignwiki.org%2fwiki%2fF%25c3%25bcnfWinde"&gt;the astral sea map&lt;/a&gt; and click on the systems to go to the campaign wiki pages.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think my greatest inspirations from the web where the &lt;a class="near" title="Names" href="http://campaignwiki.org/wiki/DungeonMaps/One_Page_Dungeon"&gt;One Page Dungeon&lt;/a&gt; submission &lt;a class="near" title="Names" href="http://themetalearth.blogspot.com/2011/03/opd-entry.html"&gt;The Forgotten Depths&lt;/a&gt; by the author of &lt;a class="near" title="Names" href="http://themetalearth.blogspot.ch/"&gt;The Metal Earth&lt;/a&gt; and the session reports on &lt;a class="near" title="Names" href="http://planetalgol.blogspot.com/"&gt;Planet Algol&lt;/a&gt;. Nevertheless my campaign took a while to evolve to this place. At first it was very traditional &lt;em style="text-decoration: underline; font-style: normal;"&gt;Wilderlands of High Fantasy&lt;/em&gt;. Then we explored the first few levels of &lt;em style="text-decoration: underline; font-style: normal;"&gt;Dismal Depth&lt;/em&gt;, the &lt;a class="near" title="Names" href="http://www.fightonmagazine.com/"&gt;Fight On&lt;/a&gt;! megadungeon and a bit of &lt;a class="url http outside" href="http://www.barrowmaze.com/"&gt;Barrow Maze&lt;/a&gt;. And when a player character fell into an &amp;#x201c;infinite pit&amp;#x201d; and another player character threw himself after the first one (&lt;a class="local" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/2012-06-19_Alignment%2c_Paladins"&gt;picture&lt;/a&gt;), I decided to push it to a new level.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Oh, and the Google+ post was me saying that I was working out the domain stats for the region using the rules from &lt;em style="text-decoration: underline; font-style: normal;"&gt;An Echo Resounding&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a class="url http outside" href="http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=21979"&gt;interesting comparison of An Echo Resounding and Adventure Conqueror King&lt;/a&gt;). I hope my players aren&amp;#x2019;t overwhelmed by my sneaky introduction of these domain rules. I think the two key phrases I heard last session justifying this move were &amp;#x201c;I think we&amp;#x2019;ll keep Monkey Island as our base!&amp;#x201d; and &amp;#x201c;Can we benefit somehow from reopening the mine on Monkey Island?&amp;#x201d;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tags: &lt;a class="outside tag" title="Tag" rel="tag" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki?action=tag;id=RPG"&gt;RPG&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="feed tag" title="Feed for this tag" rel="feed" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/feed/full/RPG"&gt;&lt;img src="http://alexschroeder.ch/pics/rss.png" alt="RSS" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="outside tag" title="Tag" rel="tag" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki?action=tag;id=Old%20School"&gt;Old School&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="feed tag" title="Feed for this tag" rel="feed" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/feed/full/Old%20School"&gt;&lt;img src="http://alexschroeder.ch/pics/rss.png" alt="RSS" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="outside tag" title="Tag" rel="tag" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki?action=tag;id=Spelljammer"&gt;Spelljammer&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="feed tag" title="Feed for this tag" rel="feed" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/feed/full/Spelljammer"&gt;&lt;img src="http://alexschroeder.ch/pics/rss.png" alt="RSS" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="outside tag" title="Tag" rel="tag" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki?action=tag;id=Planescape"&gt;Planescape&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="feed tag" title="Feed for this tag" rel="feed" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/feed/full/Planescape"&gt;&lt;img src="http://alexschroeder.ch/pics/rss.png" alt="RSS" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="outside tag" title="Tag" rel="tag" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki?action=tag;id=Traveller"&gt;Traveller&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="feed tag" title="Feed for this tag" rel="feed" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/feed/full/Traveller"&gt;&lt;img src="http://alexschroeder.ch/pics/rss.png" alt="RSS" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
<pubDate>Fri, 19 Oct 2012 07:38:42 GMT</pubDate>
<comments>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/Comments_on_2012-10-19_More_about_the_Mashup</comments>
<dc:contributor>AlexSchroeder</dc:contributor>
<wiki:status>new</wiki:status>
<wiki:importance>major</wiki:importance>
<wiki:version>1</wiki:version>
<wiki:history>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki?action=history;id=2012-10-19_More_about_the_Mashup</wiki:history>
<wiki:diff>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki?action=browse;diff=1;id=2012-10-19_More_about_the_Mashup</wiki:diff>
<category>RPG</category>
<category>Old School</category>
<category>Spelljammer</category>
<category>Planescape</category>
<category>Traveller</category>
</item>

<item>
<title>Traveller, Spelljammer, Planescape</title>
<link>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/2012-10-11_Traveller%2c_Spelljammer%2c_Planescape</link>
<guid>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/2012-10-11_Traveller%2c_Spelljammer%2c_Planescape</guid>
<description>&lt;div class="right" style="float: right"&gt;&lt;p&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kensanata/7698864396/" class="url http"&gt;&lt;img class="url http" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7121/7698864396_86ca1d8e91_n.jpg" alt="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7121/7698864396_86ca1d8e91_n.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;I finally decided that the &lt;em&gt;Astral Sea&lt;/em&gt; needed a map. &lt;a class="local" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/2012-06-19_Alignment%2c_Paladins"&gt;One of the player characters&lt;/a&gt; decided to pursue his quest to revive &lt;em style="font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 0.125em; padding-left: 0.125em;"&gt;Arden&lt;/em&gt;, the dead elven god. His corpse is being drained of its remaining life force by the sorcerer queen of the gray elves (&lt;a class="near" title="Wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Githyanki"&gt;Githyanki&lt;/a&gt;). His corpse is also drifting in the &lt;em&gt;Astral Sea&lt;/em&gt;. A gate was found (&lt;a class="local" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/2012-05-30_Bottomless_Pit"&gt;a bottomless pit in the Barrowmaze&lt;/a&gt;), a ship was gained (pictured on the right), and now the party is sailing the &lt;em&gt;Astral Sea&lt;/em&gt; &lt;a class="near" title="Wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelljammer"&gt;Spelljammer&lt;/a&gt; style and finding places in the &lt;a class="near" title="Wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape"&gt;Planescape&lt;/a&gt; fashion. &lt;img class="smiley" src="http://www.emacswiki.org/pics/ok.png" alt="ok" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I was wondering how many &lt;em style="font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 0.125em; padding-left: 0.125em;"&gt;random encounters&lt;/em&gt; I should be rolling for any trips from A to B. I should draw a map, I thought. I remembered my &lt;a class="url http outside" href="http://emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/svg-map"&gt;Traveller Subsector Mapper&lt;/a&gt;. All I had to do was to generate an UWP for my locations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Easy:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;pre class="real"&gt;Tu Akhra     0404 D0602B3-1  P  As De Lo Lt    R
Susrael      0503 B0604A4-1  N  As De Lt NI    A
Nova Genova  0607 B867686-1  N  Ag Ga Lt NI Ri
Hinia Oot    0705 E060200-1     As De Lo Lt    A&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;p&gt;I basically ignored the requirement for an atmosphere of 0 to generate the asteroid trade code. All these worlds have breathable air. Plugging this into the mapper:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a class="image noborder outside" href="http://campaignwiki.org/svg-map?map=Tu+Akhra+++++0404+D0602B3-1++P++As+De+Lo+Lt++++R%0D%0ASusrael++++++0503+B0604A4-1++N++As+De+Lt+NI++++A%0D%0ANova+Genova++0607+B867686-1++N++Ag+Ga+Lt+NI+Ri%0D%0AHinia+Oot++++0705+E060200-1+++++As+De+Lo+Lt++++A&amp;amp;wiki=http%3A%2F%2Fcampaignwiki.org%2Fwiki%2FNameOfYourWiki%2F&amp;amp;generate=Generate+Map&amp;amp;.cgifields=trade"&gt;&lt;img class="upload" title="Astral Sea" src="http://campaignwiki.org/svg-map?map=Tu+Akhra+++++0404+D0602B3-1++P++As+De+Lo+Lt++++R%0D%0ASusrael++++++0503+B0604A4-1++N++As+De+Lt+NI++++A%0D%0ANova+Genova++0607+B867686-1++N++Ag+Ga+Lt+NI+Ri%0D%0AHinia+Oot++++0705+E060200-1+++++As+De+Lo+Lt++++A&amp;amp;wiki=http%3A%2F%2Fcampaignwiki.org%2Fwiki%2FNameOfYourWiki%2F&amp;amp;generate=Generate+Map&amp;amp;.cgifields=trade" alt="Astral Sea" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tags: &lt;a class="outside tag" title="Tag" rel="tag" href="http://www.emacswiki.org/alex?action=tag;id=RPG"&gt;RPG&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="feed tag" title="Feed für diesen Tag" rel="feed" href="http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/feed/full/RPG"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/pics/rss.png" alt="RSS" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="outside tag" title="Tag" rel="tag" href="http://www.emacswiki.org/alex?action=tag;id=Old%20School"&gt;Old School&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="feed tag" title="Feed für diesen Tag" rel="feed" href="http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/feed/full/Old%20School"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/pics/rss.png" alt="RSS" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="outside tag" title="Tag" rel="tag" href="http://www.emacswiki.org/alex?action=tag;id=Spelljammer"&gt;Spelljammer&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="feed tag" title="Feed für diesen Tag" rel="feed" href="http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/feed/full/Spelljammer"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/pics/rss.png" alt="RSS" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="outside tag" title="Tag" rel="tag" href="http://www.emacswiki.org/alex?action=tag;id=Planescape"&gt;Planescape&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="feed tag" title="Feed für diesen Tag" rel="feed" href="http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/feed/full/Planescape"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/pics/rss.png" alt="RSS" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="outside tag" title="Tag" rel="tag" href="http://www.emacswiki.org/alex?action=tag;id=Traveller"&gt;Traveller&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="feed tag" title="Feed für diesen Tag" rel="feed" href="http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/feed/full/Traveller"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/pics/rss.png" alt="RSS" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
<pubDate>Fri, 12 Oct 2012 00:06:07 GMT</pubDate>
<comments>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/Comments_on_2012-10-11_Traveller%2c_Spelljammer%2c_Planescape</comments>
<dc:contributor>AlexSchroeder</dc:contributor>
<wiki:status>new</wiki:status>
<wiki:importance>major</wiki:importance>
<wiki:version>1</wiki:version>
<wiki:history>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki?action=history;id=2012-10-11_Traveller%2c_Spelljammer%2c_Planescape</wiki:history>
<wiki:diff>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki?action=browse;diff=1;id=2012-10-11_Traveller%2c_Spelljammer%2c_Planescape</wiki:diff>
<category>RPG</category>
<category>Old School</category>
<category>Spelljammer</category>
<category>Planescape</category>
<category>Traveller</category>
</item>

<item>
<title>Countless Doorways</title>
<link>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/2007-11-23_Countless_Doorways</link>
<guid>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/2007-11-23_Countless_Doorways</guid>
<description>&lt;p&gt;I received &lt;a class="book" href="http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;oe=UTF-8&amp;amp;q=Countless+Doorways+Monte+Cook+Wolfgang+Baur+Colin+McComb+Ray+Vallese"&gt;&lt;cite&gt;Countless Doorways&lt;/cite&gt; by &lt;cite&gt;Monte Cook, Wolfgang Baur, Colin McComb, and Ray Vallese&lt;/cite&gt;&lt;/a&gt; today. Adrian – one of my players – recommended the book about two weeks ago (&amp;#x2192; &lt;a class="local" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/Comments_on_2007-11-08_New_Books"&gt;Comments on 2007-11-08 New Books&lt;/a&gt;). Since my &lt;a class="edit" title="Click to edit this page" rel="nofollow" href="http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki?action=edit;id=MondayGroup"&gt;MondayGroup&lt;/a&gt; game moved into the planes, I hope to make good use of this book. Basically I&amp;#x2019;m trying to get a crazy mix of Planescape attitude, Great Wheel cosmology, and D&amp;amp;D 3.0 and 3.5 rule books.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a class="near" title="Wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manual%20of%20the%20Planes"&gt;Manual of the Planes&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;a class="near" title="Wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planar%20Handbook"&gt;Planar Handbook&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a class="near" title="Wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords%20of%20Madness"&gt;Lords of Madness&lt;/a&gt; are my D&amp;amp;D 3rd ed. starting points. I think the monster manuals by various publishers provide enough updated critters for this game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The AD&amp;amp;D 2nd ed. &lt;a class="near" title="Wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape"&gt;Planescape&lt;/a&gt; boxed sets (Campaign Setting, Planes of Law, Planes of Chaos, Planes of Conflict) and a few adventures (Eternal Boundary, Deva Spark, Harbinger House) are supposed to provide some of that Planescape flavor.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a class="url http outside" href="http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&amp;amp;reviewid=3750200"&gt;City of Brass&lt;/a&gt; is supposed to provide a little 3rd party inspiration.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;So I have critters, I have setting, I have plot inspiration. I even built a secret wiki somewhere on the net where I&amp;#x2019;m keeping notes for this campaign.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think the only thing that I&amp;#x2019;m lacking is NPCs and intrigue. Perhaps I should find a copy of &lt;a class="url http outside" href="http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/ps/ps-uncaged.htm"&gt;Uncaged: Faces of Sigil&lt;/a&gt;. Unfortunately it&amp;#x2019;s quite expensive, and my players haven&amp;#x2019;t reached &lt;a class="inter Wikipedia outside" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigil_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29"&gt;Sigil&lt;/a&gt; yet. Perhaps I&amp;#x2019;ll think of enough cool NPCs to populate my campaign wiki.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But first, while I take a break between doing the laundry, packaging stuff, and the disassembly of our bed, I&amp;#x2019;m reading &lt;a class="url http outside" href="http://www.ptolus.com/mpress_Doors.html"&gt;Beyond Countless Doorways&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tags: &lt;a class="outside tag" title="Tag" rel="tag" href="http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/alex?action=browse;tag=1;id=RPG"&gt;RPG&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="outside tag" title="Tag" rel="tag" href="http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/alex?action=browse;tag=1;id=Planescape"&gt;Planescape&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a class="outside tag" title="Tag" rel="tag" href="http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/alex?action=browse;tag=1;id=Planes"&gt;Planes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
<pubDate>Sat, 24 Nov 2007 00:01:45 GMT</pubDate>
<comments>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/Comments_on_2007-11-23_Countless_Doorways</comments>
<dc:contributor>AlexSchroeder</dc:contributor>
<wiki:status>new</wiki:status>
<wiki:importance>major</wiki:importance>
<wiki:version>1</wiki:version>
<wiki:history>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki?action=history;id=2007-11-23_Countless_Doorways</wiki:history>
<wiki:diff>http://alexschroeder.ch/wiki?action=browse;diff=1;id=2007-11-23_Countless_Doorways</wiki:diff>
<category>RPG</category>
<category>Planescape</category>
<category>Planes</category>
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