Author Topic: Getting Out of Heaven  (Read 5485 times)

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Getting Out of Heaven
« on: February 11, 2018, 11:44:40 PM »
D&D 3.5

DM here, two of my PCs have ascended into Celestia via a plot device that they accepted willingly. They are low level and cannot just plane shift back. I am not looking to either be overly punitive or overly beneficial here but any thoughts or suggestions on how exactly I should allow them to return back to the prime material plane? Should there be any interesting lingering effects? Pro or con? By what method should they return to their home plane? Open to any kind of idea, even a "returning as Gandalf the white" type suggestion. More looking for something interesting than anything strongly powered. 

Thanks,
Necro   
« Last Edit: February 11, 2018, 11:48:35 PM by Necrosnoop110 »

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2018, 12:20:32 AM »
Spelljammer it, have a flying pirate ship crash land in Celestia. Find something the PCs can do to repair it and have them join in for free passage back. Once the ship takes off the captain can let them know they were attacked by a some Githyankis who are likely waiting in ambush for them, they'll have to fight their way out to return home.

Offline Skyrock

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2018, 09:37:38 AM »
Spelljammer vehicles only operate in the Material Plane and have no capability to shift into or out of the Outer Planes.

The classic Planescape solution is to find a gate and the key for it.

Trumpet Archons and all Angels can plane shift others, and might be willing to do so in exchange for a quest and/or a geas put onto the PCs to do something on the material plane once they are returned. "They're on a mission from God." :cool (Making that mission about saving a bankrupt orphanage, and involving a protection mission for a fund-raising concert is optional.)

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2018, 11:43:28 AM »
Spelljammer vehicles only operate in the Material Plane and have no capability to shift into or out of the Outer Planes.
:eh

Actually 2nd's Spelljammer ships can enter the flow using Phlogiston which allowed them to fully cross entire campaign settings, like moving from Dragonlance to Faerun. In 3.5 Paizo-published Dungeon Magazine really didn't cover any of that which is probably what you only know of. But in Stormwreck WotC printed the Cloud Kneel & Planar Helm (which only costs 62k) allowing any generic sailing ship to fly into space and teleport between the planes allowing you to mechanically duplicate most of Spelljammer's concept as part of 3rd's mindset to mash things together. Sort of like Planescape isn't a setting in 3rd either. The concept of portals, the entire city of Sigil from the setting, and even the self-masturbatory Lady of Pain, all make in appearance in the DMG and are considered to be part of the default, Grayhawk, cosmology and it's simply a location now.

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #4 on: February 12, 2018, 12:36:12 PM »
Thanks all, great suggestions.

(1) The angel/quest spell/mission/restriction makes the most sense in light of my campaign details. Any suggestions on a specific service or action or course of activity they must refrain from? 

(2) Side question, how "open" is the plane of Celestia? Is a simple plane shift all you need to get in and out? How do they stop demonic invaders or what not?   

Thanks,
Necro

Offline Skyrock

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #5 on: February 12, 2018, 02:51:06 PM »
1.) You probably have some BBEG to thwart or some threatened goody institution to save in your campaign notes that could be tied into this mission.

If you don't have, I would seek inspiration from the old German urban fantasy RPG angeli: honorabilis lex ludi where angels and their allies seek to advance God's Plan(TM) (and The Adversary and his hellish minions seek to thwart them). Let the PCs undertake a seemingly inane mission, such as saving a blind child from being run down by a carriage by day X, with that child playing a great role in the angelic plans in the future and making discovery Y in the future that will forward the schemes of the lawful good deities. Or let them make sure that the blind child gets overrun by a carriage on day X, to prevent it from growing up and giving decisive aid to the forces of the lower planes on day Y as pre-determined by its fate.

Rather than traditional loot, players could acquire angelic boons, such as access to a set number of divine phrases (that effectively emulate scrolls) such as "Amen" (a beefed up Suggestion to simply accept what has just happened and not to look any further into it), "Look up and see" (Remove Blindness/Deafness), "Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk" (Remove Paralysis)...

2.) Planes of opposite alignment are very painful for invaders and come with severe penalties on all rolls. 2E Planescape had some even harsher setting rules and especially punished clerics by reducing their effective cleric level the further they strayed from the home plane of their deity.

Actually 2nd's Spelljammer ships can enter the flow using Phlogiston which allowed them to fully cross entire campaign settings, like moving from Dragonlance to Faerun.
I was thinking of 2E here, when the three featured campaign settings Faerun, Krynn and Oerth were planets within the Material Plane, and the Material Plane also consisted of the space, the phlogiston and the celestial bodies between these planets.

Offline snakeman830

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #6 on: February 12, 2018, 04:44:06 PM »
When deciding what service an angel or archon would want for planeshifting them home, such creatures are likely to choose a task that is within their capabilities (or at least close to it) to perform.  They don't delight in making bad deals with mortals.
"When life gives you lemons, fire them back at high velocity."

Offline nijineko

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #7 on: February 12, 2018, 09:02:54 PM »
Sort of like Planescape isn't a setting in 3rd either.

Like Dark Sun was co-owned by Athas.org for 3rd ed, Planescape had a co-owner as well:

http://www.planewalker.com/

All considered 1st party due to co-ownership clause.

YMMV

Offline kitep

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #8 on: February 15, 2018, 01:57:28 AM »
If you want a more humorous reason, consider the entry under "Half-Celestial"
Quote
To carry out their responsibilities, celestials sometimes spend
great amounts of time in mortal realms. Being devoted and kind,
they occasionally fall in love with mortals: humans, elves, unicorns,
and similar creatures. The objects of celestial affection are
never evil and are always intelligent. They always return the love
of their immortal paramour and willingly conceive the child, usually
caring for it since the celestial has other duties.

In exchange for a plane-shift back to the material plane, the PCs are charged with baby-sitting.
The PCs watch the kids 5 days a week, and have weekends off.  Or the PCs can do what they want, but have to be ready to respond when the celestial calls.

Offline nijineko

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #9 on: February 15, 2018, 03:20:41 PM »
If you want a more humorous reason, consider the entry under "Half-Celestial"
Quote
To carry out their responsibilities, celestials sometimes spend
great amounts of time in mortal realms. Being devoted and kind,
they occasionally fall in love with mortals: humans, elves, unicorns,
and similar creatures. The objects of celestial affection are
never evil and are always intelligent. They always return the love
of their immortal paramour and willingly conceive the child, usually
caring for it since the celestial has other duties.

In exchange for a plane-shift back to the material plane, the PCs are charged with baby-sitting.
The PCs watch the kids 5 days a week, and have weekends off.  Or the PCs can do what they want, but have to be ready to respond when the celestial calls.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaCjLOe55UY

...aaaaannd the PC's are in for something like this as a result. fun idea!

Offline Braininthejar

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #10 on: February 26, 2018, 11:54:03 AM »
Thanks all, great suggestions.

(1) The angel/quest spell/mission/restriction makes the most sense in light of my campaign details. Any suggestions on a specific service or action or course of activity they must refrain from? 

(2) Side question, how "open" is the plane of Celestia? Is a simple plane shift all you need to get in and out? How do they stop demonic invaders or what not?   

Thanks,
Necro

Unless you have enough power to aim for a specific place, most modes of transportation default to the edges of the mountain, which is surrounded by celestial sea. Most fiends don't appreciate being dumped into holy water on arrival.

Offline nijineko

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #11 on: March 25, 2018, 10:37:19 PM »
I think it calls for blue's brothers references. maybe mortal music is a thing in the afterlife, they could do a travelling gig around the great wheel in exchange for bus fare back to the prime.

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #12 on: March 26, 2018, 12:17:32 AM »
I kind of forgot about this thread.
Actually 2nd's Spelljammer ships can enter the flow using Phlogiston which allowed them to fully cross entire campaign settings, like moving from Dragonlance to Faerun.
I was thinking of 2E here, when the three featured campaign settings Faerun, Krynn and Oerth were planets within the Material Plane, and the Material Plane also consisted of the space, the phlogiston and the celestial bodies between these planets.
Spelljammer's setting is pretty much fifth dimensional traveling explained in three dimensional terms for simplicity. Claiming Faerun, Krynn, and Oreth all float inside the same Material Plane isn't very accurate.

The planets Sirion, Reorx, Chislev, Zivilyn, Krynn, and sixteen different moons float in wildspace (aka space) and they are all enclosed in a crystal sphere known as Krynnspace that floats in a sea of phlogiston. You can physically travel to each of those planets, like a Beholder's levitation allows him to float clear out of Krynn's atmosphere and he can slowly float to another planet, but there are only five ways to leave the crystal sphere.

Assuming you can open a portal through a crystal sphere you'd enter the phlogiston (also called the flow), an extremely flammable and incomprehensibly huge fluid-like area, where density of the rainbow ocean varies but unlike wildspace it isn't an empty vacuum. It's possible to travel to another crystal sphere known as Realmspace. This crystal sphere contains several planets including Anadia, Colair, Karpri, Glyth, Chandos, Garden, H'Catha, and Toril which is the home planet of Forgotten Realms. And Oerth, aka Greyhawk, is instead another crystal sphere known as Grayspace with a dozen other planets I'm too lazy to type in.

The Flow has a number of rule changes tied to it but the short gist is divine magic fails (DMs may allow 1st~2nd level spells through), you cannot use anything that calls another creature or anything that requires another Plane, anything fire based tries to blow up in your face, and pretty much every teleportation effect cannot be used to travel from one crystal sphere to another and they simply fail in the flow but some specific teleportation-based Spells can be used to open portals allowing you to physically travel through a crystal sphere barrier. All of this is because phlogiston exists outside of any campaign setting's cosmology and even outside the reach of it's deities.

Think of it like in 3.5's default cosmology the Astral Plane is the space between the planes and every Extra-Dimensional space, Outer, Inner, Transitive, and Material Plane floats in the Astral Plane's infinite area. In Spelljammer, The Flow is the space between entire cosmologies and every campaign setting, it's Planes, and it's planets floating in space are housed in a single easily identified sphere that floats in the phlogiston's infinite area.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2018, 10:13:34 PM by SorO_Lost »

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #13 on: March 28, 2018, 01:23:47 PM »
Thanks all for the great suggestions and interesting information.

I had them agree to a mini-quest. They must go to a certain city (which they were going to already) and make sure that a blind student enters the magic school there. The student was born without eyes. The magic school typically rejects blind students. Any interesting ideas on how I should handle this?

Thanks,
Necro   

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #14 on: March 28, 2018, 01:24:54 PM »
I think it calls for blue's brothers references. maybe mortal music is a thing in the afterlife, they could do a travelling gig around the great wheel in exchange for bus fare back to the prime.
What about celestial Nazis?

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #15 on: March 29, 2018, 06:11:03 PM »
Planescape had a thing, where there's a "Path" of ~belief that leads from the 1st level, on up to each 1's respective higher level.

Kinda a stairway to A heaven, and with differing forms of resistance to going the Wrong way.

A lesser Slaad Lord got flung onto the 1st level and polluted everything around it, and the local midlevel toughs couldn't get near it or they'd lose their LG-ness and they didn't want to do that, so they hired the PCs to go un-pollute that area.  Same thing could happen on one of the stairways above.  HELP people can't go all the way up now SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING !!!  I've got extra devotions I have to do from just talking to you to get you to do something I ~can't = Ugh!
Your codpiece is a mimic.

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: Getting Out of Heaven
« Reply #16 on: May 30, 2018, 04:14:39 PM »
Planescape had a thing, where there's a "Path" of ~belief that leads from the 1st level, on up to each 1's respective higher level.

Kinda a stairway to A heaven, and with differing forms of resistance to going the Wrong way.

A lesser Slaad Lord got flung onto the 1st level and polluted everything around it, and the local midlevel toughs couldn't get near it or they'd lose their LG-ness and they didn't want to do that, so they hired the PCs to go un-pollute that area.  Same thing could happen on one of the stairways above.  HELP people can't go all the way up now SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING !!!  I've got extra devotions I have to do from just talking to you to get you to do something I ~can't = Ugh!
Interesting. Got a source? Book? Page? Link?