Is this the main reason why so few people are using the Hollow World? I think it might be.
The most obvious sollution only creates more problems. Having a World Elevator around, like the one the Alphatians built on Aegos will mean others will be using it too, not just the PCs. This is likely to have a huge impact on both settings.
So, are there other ways to make it easier to involve the HW setting if your players start out in the Outer World?
One thing I was thinking about was a phenomenon of caves randomly transporting creatures between the worlds. These can appear anywhere, but wont neccesarily work the next time you try them. Heroes stuck in the wrong world will be forced to seek out other caves to find a way home again. This even provides some motivation for dungeon crawling.
What do you think? Does anyone have other/better sollutions?
Håvard
That way, you can't simply hop around as the mood takes you - you have to make serious decisions about travelling to the HW and back again.
What do you think? Does anyone have other/better sollutions?
There can be other ways to reach the HW than portals or elevators.
For example, the Shattenalfen arrived in the HW via tunnels, which may still be available for Shadow Elven, Dwarven or goblinoid explorers.
These caves may be connected to wider networks, such as Barimoor's complex or Cynidicea. These ways may be open to anyone, but are difficult to travel (plenty of monsters, secretive S.E. and the like) and difficult to navigate (maybe some burrowing monster species creates/destroys tunnels once every so often).
Maybe some government is able to chart a route, but keeps it (and the HW's existance) secret. The PC are agents, and travel in and out of the HW as demanded by their superiors.
Note also that there are two easily accessed ways to the HW -- the polar openings. Some groups, such as the Norwold Malamute Lupins, regularly travel to the Hollow World by this route. Of course, it is not known to everybody, and even if it was, not everyone would be able to travel to Hyborea (or to cross the freezing northern seas) to get to the Hollow World from the Known World.
In this module you read that the Rainbow Bridge is an Immortal creation connecting a couple of rainbows in two distant places of the world. This connection lasts for a short time, and then it is transferred to another couple of rainbows somewhere else on Mystara.
The same connection between the same points appears at regular intervals of time (some centuries, in general).
Given the fact that the Rainbow Bridge is an Immortal creation, maybe it can cross the anti magical lava shafts inside Mystara, and so it may happen that certain configurations connect a rainbow in the Outer World with a rainbow in the Hollow World.
This gives also the opportunity to do some planar-travelling for your characters...
Now, the lighthouse in my campaign is run by Ka, with other immortals having some small input too. It is a repository of information of immense value, and the scholars and information gatherers (as well as those who use the information for good) who are members need to travel back and forth between the outer world and the hollow world quite rapidly.
That can be done using a tunnel, a rather special tunnel, guarded by certain immportals. The entrance, in my campaign, is in Atraughin, and it leads to an underground river that takes you all the way to the hollow world called Styx.
Those few who have found it who weren't desired were easily defeated at the mid point by whichever immortal was on duty watching at the time.
Only members of the lighthouse know about it, and only they are admitted.
This is actually the main beaf I have with the otherwise excellent HW set. It lacks good suggestions for how to get the Hollow World easily accessible for KW PCs.
The problem with travelling through caves or through the Polar Openings is that it will require so much time to get the PCs to say Azca or Nithia! Travelling through the worlds crust without teleportation will also require *I dont know how* long.
The Rainbow bridge or other kinds or portals might work better though again if it becomes too easy to travel back and forth, whats to stop everyone to go there? Ofcourse if the Portals were protected by monsters on each side that would help, at least for a while.
On the issue of never-changing cultures, I think its better to down-play that thing. I also put a lot of emphasis on this when I ran the HWA trilogy, which frustrated my players alot, but I think the SoP should work in much more subtle ways, which wouldn't really affect PCs too much.
Håvard
This gives also the opportunity to do some planar-travelling for your characters...
That's something I've never thought about before, on which planes (OD&D/3e) does/should the Worldshield exist on?
Regards
Gary
That's something I've never thought about before, on which planes (OD&D/3e) does/should the Worldshield exist on?
I was under the impression that only Mystara had this.
Håvard
I was under the impression that only Mystara had this.
Granted, but doesn't Mystara exist on others planes besides the Prime/Material such as the Elemental Planes, Etheral etc.?
Regards
Gary
Granted, but doesn't Mystara exist on others planes besides the Prime/Material such as the Elemental Planes, Etheral etc.?
Hmmm...I had never thought of it in this way!
I have always considered the worlds parallelled to Mystara to bear little resemblance to Mystara itself, but now that I'm thinking about it, your interpretation is very interesting! How similar are Mystara's embodiments on other planes to the Prime version IYC? Do say Fire elemental cities exist in the place of Mystaran civilizations? Do even their cultures resemble their Mystaran counterparts?
Håvard
But I guess we're getting off the original thread topic. ;)
Regards
Gary
I don't know about 'man' made things such as cities excetera, but perhaps they could have the same major geographical features (or reflections of them) - hence the worldshield query.
For the Ethereal Plane it was clearly spelled out that you could see Mystara's reflection unless you go 'deep' into the Plane. So that would be the actual Mystara, though you can pass through walls and such. Not sure about the World Shield though, but it would be interesting if it worked even here.
For the elemental planes I thought they were just parallell worlds, but I like your idea. It even means we can use the same map. I'm inclined to even include major population centers, though not down to actual buidlings and such, or even borders. But I like the idea of a major city being found corresponding to Thyatis city on the Elemental Plane of Earth for instance...
But I guess we're getting off the original thread topic. ;)
Indeed!
I always liked how Tarzan's adventures in Pellucidar, both in the original version and in later TV adaptions always were shorter adventures rather than the entire Tarzan story being set there. I would like something similar with Mystara. I cant remember how Tarzan got to Pellucidar though.
Håvard
This is actually the main beaf I have with the otherwise excellent HW set. It lacks good suggestions for how to get the Hollow World easily accessible for KW PCs.
But isn't that the whole point?
The problem with travelling through caves or through the Polar Openings is that it will require so much time to get the PCs to say Azca or Nithia! Travelling through the worlds crust without teleportation will also require *I dont know how* long.
Tunnels can take as long or short a time as you like, which is why I use that kind of mechanism.
But isn't that the whole point?
Although as Bruce pointed out in Dragon #315 that may have been a mistake in separating the Hollow World and Outer World so much.
Atruaghin clans and Aeria(?) both have permanent elevators, although Aeria's got damaged in WotI.
Lots of tunnels, especially in the Broken Lands region. But that's slow.
Skyships through the polar openings. Again, slow. Also resource-intensive unless the characters have a sponsor.
I think those are the canonical pathways.
The Rainbow bridge or other kinds or portals might work better though again if it becomes too easy to travel back and forth, whats to stop everyone to go there?
That's the advantage of portals; they can be entirely controlled by the DM. Maybe only the PCs and a few people know about them; maybe they go away and reappear at hard-to-predict intervals; maybe they only open if you have a unique item that works as a key. Maybe it can only be found if someone or something (maybe the portal itself) wants to be found.
Look at The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; only a few children used that portal to get to Narnia because there weren't a lot of people rooting through closets at the Professor's house, and because the portal had an upper age limit. The device of an ancient prophecy requiring a certain party composition could work as well.
Another idea is to use the Wayback Inn from Tales of Blackmoor to travel between the Known World and the Hollow World's Blackmoor equivalent.
That's something I've never thought about before, on which planes (OD&D/3e) does/should the Worldshield exist on?
Interesting- I'd never thought of this before.
Offhand, I'd say that it probably doesn't exist on, say, the Elemental Planes, since it is only present around Mystara itself, which doesn't have any planar reflections that I'm aware of. On the Ethereal, given it's anti-magic status, I'd say it exists as a solid, impenetrable wall- thus, no traveling ethereally through into the Hollow World (except in the normal openings)- not too much of a difference, since you can't travel through solids in the Ethereal anyway. The same would/should hold true for the Astral plane (under 3rd Edition cosmology, where the Astral and Ethereal are both coexistent with the Prime).
- Another official gate is also described in PWAI: it formed after WotI and connects the Sundsvall maelstrom in the new Alphatian Sea of the Outer Worl with some place in the ruins of Sundsvall city in the Floating Continent of Alphatia. In PWAI events for the year AC1010 is described the crossing of this gate by a female adventurer who reached the floating continent after her ship sank in the maelstrom.
- If you have access to a time machine you can go back in the past before the Great Rain of Fire, and then you can try to get in the Hollow World using the ancient Northern Polar Opening which was located in the Ethengar Steppes. This opening is far smaller (which means a lesser anti-magical region), and it is far more accessible than the modern ones. You may also try to corss the opening using a technoloical aircraft of Blackmoor, which should not be affected by the anti magic aura.
You may use the time machine buried under the Serpent Peninsula (the one used by Yav), which is not very far. The magical Inn described in DA1, even if it is far nearer to the opening, has the problem that it moves the characters in time and in space, so it should not be very useful.
Of course, you will be stuck in the Hollow World past (which means less transplanted cultures), unless you take with you the time machine and travel again in the future once you are in the Hollow World.
You may also try to reach an era very very far in Mystara's past: maybe the anti magical barriers to reach the Hollow World are still less effective...
- You can get a submersible galley of Aquas, or a similar underwater vessel, and have it powered by undead or constructs (or suitable sea creatures - what about the kraken decribed in PC3?) , in order to let it work in the anti magical regions. Then you can cross the Polar Openings by means of underwater travelling. In such a way you don't have to face the freezed sea (it is known that it freezes only on the surface) , the fiery winds, the darklands and a lot of aggresions from polar monsters.
Of course you will have to face sea currents and underwater polar monsters, but, maybe, this kind of trip is less dangerous overall.
- You can hire white dragons/rocs/griffons/enduks/avariels or other suitable flying creatures in oder to pull your flying raft/ help you cross the Polar Openings. We know that these regions are subjected to fierce winds exiting from the inner world (hot air heated by the internal sun which reaches colder regions in the outer world), but there nust exist also many regions were (cold) winds enter inside the Hollow World from the openings. This should make it easier for flying creatures to cross the anti magical aura.
- You can try to persuade sprites, pixies and other similar folks to let you enter their Plane of Existance. Given the fact that - as it is described in "Sons of Azca" - these people are present also in the Hollow World, maybe their Plane of Existence doesn't have the limitations due to the Worldshield.
- You can try to reach the Dimension of Nightmares (maybe helped by some diabolis: their nearest known settlement in Mystara is in Norwold, near Regent Pass - see PWAI). As for the rules described inside the old D&D Immortals Set, the Dimension of Nightmares is not another Plane of Existance, but an extra phisical dimension (the 5th, the 4th being the "teleportation" dimension, which we know is also blocked by the Worldshield). Maybe in this dimension the Worldshield doesn't exist and so you can bypass it, returning to the ordinary 3 dimensions once you are in the Hollow World.
Anyway, for sure the 6th dimension -the Vortex - shouldn't have any Worldshield effect. But, maybe, it' too dangerous...
Although as Bruce pointed out in Dragon #315 that may have been a mistake in separating the Hollow World and Outer World so much.
From a commercial point of view I'm sure he was right. From a setting point of view, I think it works well. The whole point of the hollow world is that it's hard to get to and from, if it were easy then it wouldn't work as a place to preserve cultures and species.