Planescape (2015)

Planescape Nights
"What can change the nature of a nerd?"
Status	Ended
Genre/Theme	Planescape
System	Hackmaster
Began	December 16, 2015 (2015-12-16)
Ended	July 13, 2016 (2016-07-13)
Time active	7 months
Game Master	Sage
Players	Andrew, Jamie, Luke, Rob

Planescape Nights - The Planescape campaign setting with Hackmaster 4th ed bolted onto it. GMed by Sage.

Our players wander the Planes in search of adventure, treasure, or to fulfill their own private ambitions.

As we play, this page and other pages will fill in with information that the players learn in the game; specific locations, people met, and so on. All the pages related to this campaign can be found on this page, which will automatically update as more pages are added. You will also find that link at the bottom of every page related to this campaign.

Characters

• Grodd - Andrew
  • Steve - Protege
• Hikari - Jamie
• Jaxson - Luke
  • Zevine - Protege
• Marby Fizzlesprocket - Rob
  • Larissa Karras - Protege

General Information

It is good to be cautious of unknown portals.

• The current year is 3440. This is not extremely important, but someone asked. Time can be weird on the planes.
• Refer to Sage's house rules, especially Sage's Hackmaster House Rules. Some of the 3.5 rules will also apply under Hackmaster as well (especially the section on The Planes, this is the Planescape setting after all).
• I reserve the right to change the rules basically whenever, but I promise it will be for good reasons, and to account properly for any changes this makes to the mechanical operation of anyone's character.

Portals

Portals are connections between the planes. Portals may be open to anyone passing by, or they may be locked without the proper key, which could be almost anything. For example; a physical object, a word or words spoken, a tune whistled or hummed, or a thought or emotion in the mind could all be portal keys. Portals take you from here to there without having to depend on a busy and/or short-tempered wizard with the rare combination of knowledge, power, time, and willingness to be your taxi service.

Portals can be also be transient, moving from place to place or only being active at certain times. They may change in a recognizable pattern or may be completely random. They are like the rest of the planes in this way, really.

Factions

The Factions of Sigil run the city at the Lady's pleasure. You are free to join factions once you learn about them and find a contact, but be aware the they don't all get along. You probably won't be able to join a faction opposed to a faction that one of your associates is an active member of, and you can inherit enemies from your faction choices!

Locations

The Planes.

Sigil and the Planes at large. Wherever the story or your own hearts' desires take you.

Material Planes

There are a multitude of earthlike or similar worlds of various levels of habitability by humanoids. Most humanoids are from one of these worlds, and are referred to as "primes" by people who live on the planes.

Worlds of Note

• Datha - Home plane to Jaxson, Grodd, and Marby.
• Hombarien - Somewhat less developed than some other worlds. There is known to be a dwarven society which is beset by undead from marshes to the north.
• Unknown plane - Sits below the Wandering Temple of Celestian.
  • The Wandering Temple of Celestian - A temple set on floating islands high above a plane below. The islands float through the sky just fast enough to be in an eternal night. On the island is at least one observatory temple, with a dome of enchanted glass which magnifies the night sky.

Inner Planes

Planes based on the elements and materials of the multiverse. The major ones are: Earth, Fire, Water, Air, Positive, and Negative.

Outer Planes

The Outlands, with Gate-towns and connected planes listed.

Planes based on the ideals, philosophies, and gods of the multiverse.

• The Outlands - The neutral plane. Sigil sits atop the great spire in the center. Arrayed around the spire are the Gate-towns, which tend toward the manner of the outer plane whose permanent gate they surround.

• The Beastlands is a plane of nature and animals, and is also known as the Happy Hunting Grounds. Peaceful alpine forests and groves of giant mushrooms can be found here. A varied climate exists across the plane, providing a suitable environment for many species of animals and plants. The number of traditional settlements is very small, with most inhabitants living beneath the trees out in the wilderness. The mortal souls that come to this plane after death take on animal traits soon after they arrive, developing pelts of fur and growing horns or pointed ears or other such features. Over the course of centuries they continue to slowly change, becoming celestial beasts.

• Arborea - The chaotic good plane. Arborea is a peaceful plane of natural beauty with a multitude of thriving environments. Much of the plane is dominated by vast tall forests, but also includes glades of wildflowers and fields of grain. As a plane that also embodies chaos, it has a wild and often sudden nature. The weather can change drastically at short notice, changing from warm sunshine to raging winds and back again in just a few minutes.

• Limbo - The chaotic neutral plane. Limbo is a place of pure chaos where everything is in constant motion and change, especially the landscape, which can shift unpredictably and randomly rolls over upon itself like liquid. Very few places in Limbo are stable enough for normal travel.

NPCs

Friends, foes, and other characters met along the way.

• On Datha
• In Sigil

Misc

• Priestess Nahira - Githzerai priestess and seer met in the Wandering Temple of Celestian.
• Norendal - Dwarf/Planetouched Ranger, mentor to Hikari. He is often found wandering the Outlands between Tradegate and Faunel, or making journeys into Bytopia or the Beastlands from these Gate-towns.
• Ko'nahn the Barbarian - Barbarian found in the Cobalt Forest on Datha after accidentally falling through a portal. After a friendly fist-fight, Grodd took him to the now stabilized portal, and he returned to The Beastlands.

Special Items

• The Portal Device - A magical device about a foot long and flanged at either end. It has several small gemstones of various colors that light up. It can be used to study a portal and open some portals without their specific key. It is also being used right now by the party to help triangulate the material plane that Jaxson, Marby, and Grodd are from.

• Vaeril's Structure of the Planes Vol. I - Volume one of a set of books written by a wizard approximately 100 years ago about how the planes work. This volume mostly concerns portals and the connections between planes. The tome is written in Axiomatic, the language of Law.

His unorthodox, and frankly evil, research methods have tainted the work for many. Finding that the books were enchanted against many methods of destruction, some groups have sought to hide the books because they either don't support his research methods, or believe the results to be offensive to the Lady in some way. They may have a point, since Vaeril was ultimately Mazed when he used an artifact to mind control thousands of Hive dwellers and focus their belief on changing Sigil for his experiments.

It is suspected that up to 5 or 6 volumes were produced by Vaeril, but only volumes II and III were copied and distributed until Vol I was located recently by an adventuring party. Other volumes are entirely unknown.

• The Stone Egg - This item was dropped in front of the party by a Tiefling who was fleeing the Mercykillers. It did not break when dropped on cobblestone. It has an appearance of joined plates and is about 7 inches long. It is a dark grey color. It is just barely warm to the touch.

Lily, an assistant to Joran, stated to Marby that it may be the egg of some magical creature (not one she recognized) or a nonstandard magical item. She recommended showing it to someone more knowledgeable on those topics.

Quest Log

Things your characters said they want to do or were assigned to do by an NPC.

The Group:

Main:

• Find and punish the army which marched through Ezethae and Fairmond and attacked their people.
  • Word is that the horde has marched west of Fairmond, into the Sunburnt Sea.

Side:

• What was that shifty group in the Plane Crazy tavern up to?
• What is this Stone Egg thing?
• Shaamikh, proprietor of an upscale travelling magical item shop, has offered payment in exchange for information.
  • A solid lead on the (fake?) hidden riches of Lady Winfrith.
  • A copy, preferably the original, of Vaeril's Structure of Sigil.
• The party located a site of historical, religious, and magical significance on Datha: The Shrine of Saint Dabius. Here is interred the evil sorcerer Marin the Faceless, defeated and sealed by Dabius, a figure of note in the mythic history of the church of Ajahn.

Completed!

The Group:

• Pacify the bear and assist Hikari and Larissa in getting home.
• Return to the Elf outside the crypt and give him closure on the invasion of his wife's burial site.
• Find a way for the Datha folk to return to their home plane. (with Joran's assistance)
• Take Joran on a tour of Ezethae.
• Assist the Realm of Ezethea.
  • The royal family +servants has been cured and are all recovering.
  • Abbot Norry directed the peasant farmers of the midlands of the country to return the farmlands and work with the monastery to ready the village and fields for planting season.
  • Rector Aldis has headed up an effort to beef up the guards/soldiers of Ezethae.

Hikari:

• Return the portal device to Joran in the Civic Festhall.
  • Find a way to return home.
• Track down whoever cut down trees from the Wise Oaks Grove.
  • Abbot Norry mentioned he purchased the wood from merchants operating out of Fairmond.

Marby:

• Collect samples from the Cobalt Forest and return them to Tabi in Silvermist.

The Story So Far

See the journal.