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I Had A Game Idea


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This is a D&D and Forgotten Realms idea but if you are not familiar with either it's no big deal.

Now as we all know in the beginning Io came from seemingly nowhere and banished the chaos and darkness of 'blah' so he could set about creating Toril and that stuff, right? Anyone who is a fan of Forgotten Realms knows that seemingly biblical story.

I was thinking of taking it one step further. What if the primordial darkness and chaos of non-existence was an entity in and of itself. Whatever you want to call it just simply was an entity that not even Io could destroy or banish completely. It's eternal because everything eventually ends, even gods.

Currently we’re playing a D&D campaign that set using recycled characters. Old PCs that grew really powerful but did it way to quickly, so we decided to drop them to level 1, slow the game down and replay them from the beginning. Since the game was heavily focused on role playing and not hack ‘n slash we don’t mind. We’ve got:

This time however nothing is the same, I’ve changed everything but the names of the people they encountered. NPCs who were villains before might be allies now leaving the PCs to wonder who is the actual enemy this time around. Eventually these characters will square off against the force that defined their careers and ended the campaign (which in the last game was a final battle against Gruumsh, the God of Orcs).

What if this time through is was that dark entity that Io banished all those eons ago. A creature who is eternal, immortal, and bitter as fuck for Io coming along and putting Toril right smack dab in the middle of his non-existence. It can be defeated, but not destroyed… at least not yet.

So with that back-story here comes the rest of the idea…

Assuming at least one of the characters survives the battle against Eternity we start a new game, giving D&D a rest for a while. Again we can use the same characters but this time we start up an Modern d20 Urban Arcana game some several thousands of years later using Toril as the world we play in… lots of fun, jokes, role playing… same people all given different roles yet again.

Slowly but surely the plot weaves the heroes back into the folds of Eternity’s plot to destroy everything Io created and the characters learn or perhaps discover that once long ago great heroes had to rise up to challenge Eternity before… shit hits the fan, the heroes realize their destiny and take on Eternity yet again.

Rinse repeat into a d20 Future Urban Arcana game some several thousands of years later where the heroes once again find themselves in the folds of destiny but now they finally learn why they, being reincarnated heroes of the past, are called upon once every X amount of generations to challenge Eternity and keep darkness from snuffing out all existence.

So, that’s my idea. A three stage d20 game that spans several eras of play all using the same characters.

You may be asking: “Why use the same PCs?” Well, you ever played a character and said “I wonder what would have happened if I went this route or if I’d done that with him/her.” It’s like that. The name of the character is the same, everything else pretty much changes to a new format. It makes it fun to play the same guy with just a different twist. For example:

D&D: Dread Delgath (whose real name is Whittleby), is a great swordsman without equal. He shakes off wounds (DR) and regenerates (Fast Healing) and knows no fear on the battlefield. He’s also a prick and rude, slovenly drunkard who can’t get his life straight. He's respected because he is powerful and feared.

Urban Arcana: Dread Delgath, a rich dilettante who has more money than Io. Owns a large corporation and fires people because he’s an asshole and doesn’t like the color of their tie. He’s called ‘Dread’ because the people that work for him dread his presence because they never know if they’ll have a job ten minutes from now. He is respected and feared because he has power.

Sounds kinda like the same guy… one strong the other just rich. Now…

Future Urban Arcana: Dread Delgath… a fuck up if ever there was one. Clumsy, cowardly, and often given the shit work because he’s not man enough to stand up for himself. Called ‘Dread’ because those who know him dread his arrival because it heralds the inevitable moment where he'll fuck something up. "Trust me, dread Delgath. When he shows, something's about to go wrong."

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of what impact finally destroying Eternity once and for all would have however. Aside from that I’m pretty geeked about this idea I think I’ll try making it work.

Just thought I'd share, since conversation seems to be in short supply lately.

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It's Ao isn't it? And if memory serves, he didn't make the Realms...he's just the overseer, kinda. None of that invalidates the premise though...and in fact, it makes a lot of sense. Why would the multiverse -need- an overseer if there wasn't some kind of eternal menace like that (and to keep the godlets in their places of course :)).

Your description of the anti-existence reminds me a bit of Tharizdun, who originates in another setting, but would easily be portable...especially as portrayed in the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Tharizdun is portrayed as an entity embodying annihilation, nothingness and oblivion.

The game premise, of following a handful of "eternal warriors" who are tasked through multiple incarnations to keep the anti-existence at bay is really cool.

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Yeah, it's Ao. My bad, Io is the god of dragons. Wow, I can't believe I messed that up for every reference I made to him. Heh, I must be getting old.

Ao did actually create the Realms, at least that's what my book says. Afterwards though he created the gods to look after it and refused to intervene at all. He's broken that refusal a few times, like banishing all the gods to live upon Faerun in human form during the Time of Troubles, etc.

Once I sat down and gave it more thought and scribbled a few ideas out I was reminded of a few themes. I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with it but the old Phantasy Star series had a creature called Dark Force that was a boss in all the games. He was basically eternal and terrorized the star system for eons. Every 1,000 years he'd awaken and raise all sorts of hell.

We got started this week making notes of events and characters that can be 'rehashed' for later use, and even designed our Modern d20 Characters for when it comes time to use them.

I thought maybe that Eternity would be a an almost divine force that perhaps created the Plane of Shadow when Ao brought light and order to it's domain of the cosmos as sort an antithesis of what Ao created. Eternity's way of mocking the gods by making a carbon copy of their world from darkness and denying them any power over it.

Slowly but surely it's spent it's time plotting and gathering strength for some sort of invasion or war that will snuff light from Prime Material and return everything back to darkness. His plan will of course take countless millenia to complete but Eternity is nothing if not patient.

That's what I have so far, I haven't incorporated it into the D&D game, I'm saving it for later plot lines, a few clues here and there that lead to a greater whole.

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Hmm! But I thought Chauntea and Selune and Shar were the ones that sort of made everything...

Then again, I guess it's more accurate that everything is sort of made OUT of them. So yeah, I think I see where you're going with that...

Even so, I'm pretty sure I recall that Ao was not by any means the greatest of the elder powers. There are other trans-deity entities out there in the Forgotten Realms. Plenty of room for one more. smile

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