I mean played through the events that lead to Alphatia being transported to the Hollow World, but then brought it back to the outer world again?
How could this occur if at all?
Håvard
I wonder whether that might be the subject of an immortality quest for a whole load of people?
Gosh... Could Aplhatia be brought back...
I wonder whether that might be the subject of an immortality quest for a whole load of people?
My idea is that it could be part of Terari's quest. He would certainly need help though!
Håvard
GW
Using the Epic spell rules from the Epic Level Handbook:
Transport will move 1000 pounds anywhere, using the Astral Plane as a conduit. This requires making a DC 27 Spellcraft check. You can add +2 for every 50 extra pounds you want to move.
There are 5 million Alphatians in the Hollow World. Let's assume for simplicity that each, with their personal possessions, weighs 200 pounds. So we need to move 1 billion pounds worth of stuff, not counting the weight of the land mass, which I can't begin to guess, but which I know is HUGE.
We end up adding 39999960 to 27, for a total of DC 39,999,987.
Increasing Cast time to 100 days and 10 minutes, lowers it by -220 to 39999767. Ritual casting by Epic level spell casters would reduce it by -19 per Epic spellcaster. So with 2,105,250 epic level spell casters, we could knock it down to a very easy DC.
I shudder to think about trying to move the physical island...
But even within that context, restoring an entire continent from the hollow world to the outer world... Wow. It's enormous, beyond the scope of a single characters quest for immortality.
If I were looking for a way to do it, I'd go the chronomancy route. Go back and wipe out the Nucleus of the Spheres; but then to get away with it and to prevent the immortals of time doing a job on you, you'd have to replace the nucleus with a similar power source that is otherwise incapable of destroying Alphatia.
Now I'm tempted to say that there are no other sources of power on Mystara that are up to the job, but perhaps the artifacts that then become Serraines engines could do it (then you have to find a replacement for Serraine!) or the core magics powering the Comeback Inn. But ultimately I think this comes down to travelling far off outer planes for the power source, researching complex and forbidden areas of chronomancy, distracting the immortals of time long enough to make your move (get out of THAT paradox
) and then making the switch. Sounds easy, but thats one hell of an immortality quest.Good idea about making use of the Alphatian wizards John, I hadn't even thought about that.
Cab has a point that Immortality Quests are beyond the scope of the rules, but even so such speculations are interesting.
Cab, you present some good suggestions for how one could go about doing that. Unfortunately, they all have quite dramatic consequences for other parts of the world as well, not just Alphatia and the OW Alphatian Sea region.
My original idea was to use the Spell of Preservation, and somehow push that Spell so much that it would throw Alphatia back out to preserve the other Hollow World cultures. There are some suggestions in official material, that Alphatia has trouble fitting into the Hollow World. Also, the idea from the Reference Guide about Blackmoor being kicked out of the HW opens to the possibility that such a thing could happen.
Master Terari is ofcourse on the Path of the Dynast. On that Path to Immortality, he is supposed to overcome three major threats to his Dynasty. Alphatia being moved into the Hollow World could indeed be one of these threats...
What do you think?
Håvard
Another problem is ofcourse that spells of transportation do not work within the Hollow World.
Ooog, good point. You'd need epic level telekinesis and a hole big enough to move Alphatia through, which I think the polar holes aren't big enough.
Though given Alphatia has a million or so wizards....hmmm.
My original idea was to use the Spell of Preservation, and somehow push that Spell so much that it would throw Alphatia back out to preserve the other Hollow World cultures. There are some suggestions in official material, that Alphatia has trouble fitting into the Hollow World. Also, the idea from the Reference Guide about Blackmoor being kicked out of the HW opens to the possibility that such a thing could happen.
If the Alphatians still have their combat magics, beginning to methodically annihilate other civilizations with their airships and combat magics might do the trick there.
(Hmm. You know, the restrictions on learning magic in the Hollow World is going to cripple Alphatian culture, as future generations, WAY LESS people will be able to learn wizard magic, since it now takes a 16 intelligence!)
The Hollow World will, itself, crumple and deform Alphatian culture, thus causing conflict with the cultural preservation imperative.
(Hmm. You know, the restrictions on learning magic in the Hollow World is going to cripple Alphatian culture, as future generations, WAY LESS people will be able to learn wizard magic, since it now takes a 16 intelligence!)
There's a thought. With the requirement of needing 16 in a stat to cast spells in Hollow World and, also, in a 3.x campaign were you need a stat of 10 + spell level to cast spells, would a HW 3.x campaign require 16 + spell level? Ok with the stat increases every 4 levels it's doable but you're going to need Int 25 to cast 9th level arcane spells. Any comments?
Regards
Gary
Ok, that's the transparently bogus rationale. now for the real reason.
Having a campaign world where nothing can happen regardless of what the players try is, well, dull. You remove a huge chunk from the high level campaign. Rather than having a spell of preservation to automate things, I envision a colelctive effort by titans or similar near-immortal status beings charged with preserving the status quo.
Regarding the spells that dont work in the HW, a lot of them are simply spells that are 'unbalancing' or there for a specific flavour. Easier to remove the spell from the universe entirely rather than have to deal with it only in certain areas if its that bad for the campaign fun.
The stats limit is also a bit annoying. Players will make a character with high enough stats if they want to be a spellcaster. All that the stat limit does is distort the character stats distribution upwards, and remove the barely competant mage from teh character archetypes that are playable.
Cab, you present some good suggestions for how one could go about doing that. Unfortunately, they all have quite dramatic consequences for other parts of the world as well, not just Alphatia and the OW Alphatian Sea region.
Thats why you'd have to replace the Nucleus with something else equally powerful in some respects, but which is in itself incapable of destroying Alphatia. So you'd have to find an alien culture with the capacity to make something like that, bring it to Mystara, take it back in time and replace the Nucleus with it. You'd need to make it so that Glantri still came about, that the new artifact still drained magic from the Prime so that the war happens, but that the war could not end with the destruction of Alphatia. No small task, and one worthy of immortality.
The spell of preservation flipping Alphatia back into the outer world is interesting, but to re-site Alphatia where it was would still cost MASSES of power from the immortals, just like transporting it to the hollow world did.
Here are some other ideas:
Suppose that Alphatian scholars were to discover the true nature of Serraines engines. By use of something like the Comeback Inn, they travel to Blackmoor and work out how to recostruct the engines. Then Alphatia, under a slightly potty empreror decide that they're going outside...
By constructing new tunnels and elevators in the hollow world, corresponding to where Bellisaria is in the outer world, suppose a new Alphatian empire is constructed, with the new seat of power on the outer world being Bellisaria, which is re-modeled rather like mainland Alphatia. Alphatia itself settles over the openings in the hollow world, thus creating mirror empires in both...
By causing a massive series of earthquakes, a set of Alphatian mages manage to raise Alphatia (or land that is where Alphatia was) out of the sea. Opposed by forces from Thyatis and Heldann, they start off on the long road towards rebuilding the Empire and bringing the Alphatians out of the hollow world...
The stats limit is also a bit annoying. Players will make a character with high enough stats if they want to be a spellcaster. All that the stat limit does is distort the character stats distribution upwards, and remove the barely competant mage from teh character archetypes that are playable.
Not to mention those classes were spell casting isn't the primary ability. Bards, paladins etc would be lucky to be able to cast 0 level spells never mind anything more powerful.
Regards
Gary
(Hmm. You know, the restrictions on learning magic in the Hollow World is going to cripple Alphatian culture, as future generations, WAY LESS people will be able to learn wizard magic, since it now takes a 16 intelligence!)
The Hollow World will, itself, crumple and deform Alphatian culture, thus causing conflict with the cultural preservation imperative.
Not necessarily. The Spell will probably be able to find a workaround, or the Immortal Council that oversees the HW will interfere to restore the status quo.
Probably, Alphatian M-U with less than 16 Int/Wis will only be able to cast spells while on the floating continent -- or will suffer other, appropriately crippling, restrictions, making them not willing to leave the continent.
There's a thought. With the requirement of needing 16 in a stat to cast spells in Hollow World and, also, in a 3.x campaign were you need a stat of 10 + spell level to cast spells, would a HW 3.x campaign require 16 + spell level? Ok with the stat increases every 4 levels it's doable but you're going to need Int 25 to cast 9th level arcane spells. Any comments?
Regards
Gary
In the interests of further causing thread digression... my personal ruling would be to treat caster stats as 3 points lower than usual for all purposes, rather than 6 points lower than usual for spell level known. This means that an Int of 22 is required to cast 9th-level spells (start with 18, get four stat increases, have a natural 22 at Level 17 is just barely possible), and that there isn't the bizarre dictonomy wherein someone who's barely capable of understanding cantrips nontheless can cast them well enough to impose a +3 to the save DC.
My 2 copper pieces, in any case. =)
Maybe the Spell will finally break- as it attempts to follow its initial "programming" of disallowing certain magic from work, while still attempting to accomodate Alphatia's "culture" of magic-use. "Does not compute, does not compute." Ka-Blooey!! ;)
How about this:
The placement of Alphatia within the Hollow World did indeed represent a contradiction to the Spell of Preservation. However, this was solved by Alphatia (the Immortal) and her allies by creating an artifact that allows the preservation of the Alphatian Way of Life on the floating continent, though the effects are limited to that area, just like technology is limited to the Blacklore Valley.
This makes Terari's job easier. Once he has found out that Alphatia exists and learned the truth about the SoP and the Alphatian Artifact (the real difficult job), all he has to do is find a way to destroy the artifact. With the artifact destroyed, the SoP will be forced to restore Alphatia the way it was in the Outer World. Ofcourse, destroying an artifact is not an easy thing to do, but this is a quest for immortality after all. Now, the real question becomes; did Alphatia plan this all along to help Terari on his quest?
Håvard
Borrowing Ideas From All Sorts of Places........
Eriadna the Wise on her Path to Paragon, succeeds in Bringing ALphatia Back to the Surface world. SHe uses the Birth of her Latest Child To Work the Spell At the Tail end of the Day without Magic that occurs every Year.
The Reasoning, Magic is at it's weakest Point allowing Eiradna to create a Breach in the Shield that stops Teleportation/Gate/Tansportation Magics From working in the Hollow World. This event took the Help of 8 Mages (The ones she Defeated on her way to paragon) the Sacrificing of a Few Artifacts, In essence using up their power points permanently.
The New Child Becomes The new Empress of Alphatia, Effectively ending the Claim of anyone who survived on the Outer World, Like her Daughter, Ericall Of Norwold... Etc. from Sizing the Imperial Throne. The 8 Defeated Mages Became a Council of Regents, Holding the Keys to the Empire until the Child Becomes of Age. ANd since each of these 8 Greatest mages of Alphatia are working together, it is near impossible for any one of them to Claim the Throne as well.
Alphatia Returns, And since the War never Technically Ended......
Well That is For Individual DM's to Decide.
In My Campaign, (Year AC 1040) the Empress Valentina Flat out Refuses to Go to War.