Since this always gets a lot of discussion, it's back again! This time, however, I have an extra question to throw in.
Where do we plan to get modernised demihumans from, in significant quantities? IMO, the whole shadow thing is a little old, and more than a little overdone. So, what thoughts have we there?
I thought the point of Urban Planars was to adapt the setting to planescape. Urban Arcana gives hints that it is connected to the Planescape setting thats what makes it interesting.
Where do we plan to get modernised demihumans from, in significant quantities? IMO, the whole shadow thing is a little old, and more than a little overdone. So, what thoughts have we there?
I love the shadow Idea. There are so many possabilities to go through with it.
One Idea for this.
The shadow moves to an entirely alternate multiverse. On the other side of the shadow (The Urban Arcana side) there are the inner and outer planes & ect. but everything is mostly empty. 99 percent of all the planars just are not there, or moved there after comeing through the shadow. All primes linked from those planes are more modernized. Ranging from mostly non-magical to a mixture of middle magic and tech. The background for this is that the shadow doesn't lead to a differnt primeworld but leads to a future prime. One where the planes are emptied from some cataclysm. This also brings up the wonderful image of a lone dabus floating down the streets of sigil. Or just fell weeping in the middle of a square. When asked what happened his only responce being a rebus of the lady.
Originally the idea was what would happen if d20M and PS met. The idea originally seemed to be that they'd be equal partners, but Sigil with guns doesn't really do either idea justice.
To that end, on our old forums we seemed to be heading towards a kind of odd hybrid of Planescape and more cyberpunk-ish elements. This fits with a few other ideas I'd like to talk about Very Soon, but I'd rather not spam the forums with new threads just yet.
The whole shadow thing is something I'd rather not touch. It's both too vague and too sketchy. I really think it'd be a bit more PS-ish if some things just Happened and no-one actually had an explanation yet.
Depending on the major metropolitan cities you use as inspiration, a Sigil overrun with guns and hard-pressed law enforcement agents trying to keep the peace not only fits in with a cyberpunk style, but is similar to the problems that many major inner cities in the US experience with gun violence and vice. You can even argue that portions of London are under the same situation. A great example of a city where law enforcement can be seen under duress by the criminal element would be Hong Kong and the Russian mafia, pre- and post-Communistic collapse.
Where do we plan to get modernised demihumans from, in significant quantities? IMO, the whole shadow thing is a little old, and more than a little overdone. So, what thoughts have we there?
Modernized demihumans... do we need them? I thought that one of the ideas would be that Earth-humanity would be the most technologically advanced society... and everyone wants a piece of Terran pie.
I may be wrong. It's been a while.
Need? Perhaps not, though it'd add an interesting dimension to Earth-humanity's relations with others. It seems fitting, though, that while Earth humanity might be most technologically advanced, it follows that there may be others who are merely more technologically advanced (and, mayhap, also in the firing line of the Githyanki). It seems thematically important that the planes should affect Earth as much as Earth affects the planes, and pointy ears are easier to accept than lots of other things out there.
As for Sigil-with-guns: Status quo Sigil with a box of rifles tossed in is different to Cyberpunk Sigil with hard-pressed law enforcement and the same kind of dystopic feeling; with the dusties scraping up the latest victims of skirmishes beneath the Lady's shadow. The Cyberpunk-style availability and malleability of information perfectly follows the belief-is-power ideas of Planescape.
As for Sigil-with-guns: Status quo Sigil with a box of rifles tossed in is different to Cyberpunk Sigil with hard-pressed law enforcement and the same kind of dystopic feeling; with the dusties scraping up the latest victims of skirmishes beneath the Lady's shadow. The Cyberpunk-style availability and malleability of information perfectly follows the belief-is-power ideas of Planescape.
I really don't care for doing a dystopian Sigil. There are other alternatives to do a modern/near future Sigil that are more than status quo with guns. Cyberspace as a strange new transative plane is one way to go. A plane for communication that most spells don't affect (Exempting the modern ones that are built for it and gained through the modern classes. Also gives some benefit for being a D20 modern mage alongside their D&D counterparts.).
Especially if the tech is somewhat new the idea of the shadow and incorperating modern concepts and tech into Sigil opens up several interesting themes and plot points to explore.
You could for example have Modrons and belivers in Law be confounded at the things in Cyberspace, a domain that seems to strictly operate under code and information bound to absolute mechanical laws but is so utterly chaotic at times.
Besides the good world makes the evil seem all the more horrible.
I *really* like the idea of a cyberspace transitive plane - perhaps it's a split off (or evolution of?) the Astral - the traditional plane of thought?
In a manner it could be a sort of inverse astral. The people with the most power are those connecting from the outside. Deckers and programers overseeing the physical matrix, mainframes and computers that form the plane, but the plane has its own life to it that is distrubuted, having become more than the sum of its parts. So while a decker or programmer would have high power in their own domain (Ie the area of cyberspace where they control the physical equipment) away from that they are subject to the whims of others. thus their cord connecting them can serve as a buffer and protect them. Unlike the silver cords of the astral that are the traveler's weak spot.
I like the idea of Cyberspace being more closely related to the Ordial Plane than the Astral Plane for a few reasons.
First, it's one thing to redesign the planes for d20 Modern, it's a whole OTHER can-of-beans to completely rework how the Great Wheel works entirely. Second, Linda and I were already discussing that the Cyberplane would not be a plane that you could actually enter physically, it would be more of a theoretical existence.
Hm - that works for me as well... the 'non physical' aspect. 
I don't think anyone quite understood what I was saying. Sigil in many ways represents a major metropolis. The Hive is as close to urban combat zones you can get in a fantasy setting if you applied Cyberpunk 2020's definitions to a modernized Planescape. The Market Ward is as close to downtown as you can get and the Lady's Ward is obiously the Corporate Sector.
Far from being a status quo-with-guns feel, an armed populace in Sigil feels closer to any major American city than a distopian world. Due to advances in social reforms brought about by technology, certain factions would be considered to operate outside the law. There are modern-day groups who are considered to be terrorist or criminal organizations who have political arms. Players could create a character that could work for one or the other arm of such factions.
I don't think anyone quite understood what I was saying.
No I understood what you were saying. I was just disagreeing with you. I don't like the idea of a completly distopian planar landscape. I feel it is too simplistic and putting things on the basis of oneside or the other. Planescape cannot be painted in black and white. The setting in my opinion is so much bigger. It examines the contextual grey.
On the subject of the Astral War, I had an idea about that. PW accepts the events of Incursion as canon - Vlaakith is dead. Why don't we work with that? The lich-queen dead, the race begins to fragment... and suddenly warnings come in, as the magical engineers maintaining the Prime blockades report that the barriers are failing. Within a few days, modern humans breach the Astral, and easily overrun the splintered githyanki.
Maybe it is. Maybe it's a whole new transitive, maybe it's what the ordial really looks like and maybe it's a fun new layer of the outlands. All that's certain is that it's there, it was discovered at about the same time as Mechanus rebooted itself, and you can't physically enter it.
Back to Sigil, though. 'Dystopic' was probably the wrong word, though it'd certainly be suitable for the Hive. There's far more important questions to be answered - what'll happen when anarchist cells start using explosives? Could they really run a subway system through Undersigil? Which way does the city expand when it needs to?
For bonus points, we're working on a way around the differences between D&D and Modern mages.
For bonus points, we're working on a way around the differences between D&D and Modern mages.
Fitting a subway through undersigil, You bet they could! If they can do it for Rome and Paris. Just dig down deep enough and make the tunnel flexable enough.
The lady might get pissy with explosives, but not overly so. Big ones yes. WMDs in sigil will warent a flaying. But wepons of normal destruction like c4 ect would be just fine. What do you think a fireball is?
It expands DOWN. Or the lady makes the ring larger or flays people. The city itself I see as several times the area of NYC (The entire city not just manhatten) so room shouldn't be that much of a problem. It is at a premium, but remember the lady has taken away entire towers and blocks of city before. Some of those might re-appear.
AFAIK, Rome and Paris don't have Things that try to eat their subway infratructure. Keeping it all working would be a full-time job, really.
A fireball is an instantaneous ball of magical fire that exerts negligible pressure, and is shaped by whatever non-flammable area it's used in up to the full area of effect (4/3(pi*r^3), for r=20ft, approx. 33,000 ft^3). It's not really fair to compare it to a highly explosive compound, 90% of which is the high explosive RDX.
And... down? Relative to where, exactly?
I don't think anyone quite understood what I was saying.
No I understood what you were saying. I was just disagreeing with you. I don't like the idea of a completly distopian planar landscape. I feel it is too simplistic and putting things on the basis of oneside or the other. Planescape cannot be painted in black and white. The setting in my opinion is so much bigger. It examines the contextual grey.
Really? So, because I use modern American metropolises as examples of what Sigil-with-guns would be like it's distopian? Yeah, you understand EVERYTHING that I post. :roll:
Xan. I just said in this case I don't agree with you. I understand what you've been saying and I STILL don't agree. Agreement is not required for understanding.
another intresting facet will be the factions in Sigil. Do the Guvners or the mathematicians gain greater precedence now that technology plays such a high role? What do modern weapons do against supernatural DR? Faction propoganda and pop-up ads, I shudder at the possibilities for Harmonium manipulation. And DoomGuard=Fight Club w/magic, yes? Can anyone remember that movie about secret medical testing on the homeless, that has Sigil written all over it. Can rockets take you to the top of the spire, probably not, but this is an anything's possible multiverse. Maybe if you go up faster then the Spire can grow you escape the multiverse entirely.
But I digress, this threads about demi-humans right? Keep the extra-planar one's and loose the elves & dwarves, but thats just my opinion.
It sounds to me like you're being argumentative just for the sake of being so.
It sounds to me like you're being argumentative just for the sake of being so.
Can we avoid spreading bickering over into the Urban Planar board? We all have plenty of space elsewhere to fight.
Hey, that's fine by me, I'm not the one trying to negate someone in the forums and in the comments on new articles...
Probably, and probably not... though I'd love it if the hardheads were pushing Linux.
My guess would be the same thing as normal weapons, unless you're using munitions that circumvent the resistance - magic bullets and the like.
Physics says that if you can go upwards faster than an infinite spire can seem to get bigger, then you become a petitioner. Send the angry letters to Einstein
Not quite. The demihuman thing was just another question. Sweeping 'em under the carpet seems fine for now; they can always be worked in if needed.
bah
Probably, and probably not... though I'd love it if the hardheads were pushing Linux.
Nah. They'd go with Unix or Windows. I'd say windows as they'd want a single standard ideally.
Physics says that if you can go upwards faster than an infinite spire can seem to get bigger, then you become a petitioner. Send the angry letters to Einstein
Einstien was a punk. Besides, the spire has always been that tall it doesn't grow just because you noticed more of it than you had before. Mortals, sheesh...
Not quite. The demihuman thing was just another question. Sweeping 'em under the carpet seems fine for now; they can always be worked in if needed.
Hey! What about the Drow?? How would you have drow gangers if not for all the wonderful demihuman species? AND WOLN'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE KOBALDS?!?!
LOL Obsessed with the kobolds eh? 
Although yeah - there's a certain flar and flavor to drow gangers that *must* be had...
The trouble with demihumans is that they're an all-or-nothing kind of affair, and I've yet to see much towards managing 'all' plausibly...
A good explanation may well be rewarded with a gang of drow. Hiver drow.
An alternate view on MODERN portal travel...
Browsers can create the possibility of travelling to an actual location across planar space (in this case, a *kind* of virtual space) where the location first viewed on the browser exists. This planar/virtual location in *hyperspace* is referred to as a node, or gateway. The process of virtual travel between gateways is called planewalking.
Each node would have an unique URL. Perhaps HYPERTEXT features could be *loaded* into the digital portalways and can be accessed by the traveller as he/she progresses through the virtual conduit.
I think old-style portals should be more the thing for physical movement. I'm rather liking the idea of a cyberspace plane which simply cannot be physically entered or used as a conduit.
Of course, anything that lacks a physical form could theoretically slip through quite happily.
I'm not familar enough with the previous works - why is it that elves and dwarves are being marked off the 'good for this' list? I've seen elves and dwarves work beautifully in a post-modern setting before (Shadowrun).
Ummmm - *GRIN* Ever play Earthdawn? The plot of the world continues from Earthdawn (a fully fantasy setting) - including having some of the same big characters in it. There were/are immortal elves in Shadowrun that date *from* the previous setting. So they aren't so much the deformed offspring - as humans are the well - result of an elf (dwarf etc) born without magic to trigger the correct genetics. A certain percentage of humans are deformed *others*.
Can you tell what my second love aside from Planescape is?
I'm not really clear on why we can't have demihumans. It seems logical to keep them off of Earth, but why not in the rest of the planes? They were already there when we broke through the blockade, right?
What blockade?
The first thing that needs to be done is a summery needs to be posted on just what has already been set up.
Can you tell what my second love aside from Planescape is?
Touche
Demihumanity isn't so much the issue, for me, as modernised demihumanity. I imagine the setting would be better for it (though others are almost certain to disagree), even if they don't stray far from their own specialties - much like the xDnD model of 'humans are kinda good at everything, demihumans are more specialised'.
And if we can upset William Gibson just like Shadowrun does, so much the better. :twisted:
Well, dwarven construction seems to me to be a no-brainer in terms of quality and reliablity. Kinda like the Swiss, only smaller.
I thought the Swiss were already small. Gnomes of Zurich anyone?
The Swiss are into precision. That doesn't strike me as gnomish.
Ok. *Competant* gnomes. Darwin's effect on the gnome population over time?
Oh, right, sorry. The basic idea is that modern Earth had no contact with the planes because the githyanki set up an astral blockade around our crystal sphere. Well, eventually we somehow break through (I suggest the confusion sure to abound from the events of Incursion as a good reason for the barrier to have weakened), and meet the githyanki on their home plane. Enter the Astral War, which we win, and begin setting up the city of Foothold on a series of god-isles.
But I digress, this threads about demi-humans right? Keep the extra-planar one's and loose the elves & dwarves, but thats just my opinion.
"Everythings changing, everythings evolving, everythings falling apart"
"On a long enough timeline, everybodies chances for survival drop to zero."
"We are all part of the same compost heap. We are the all-singing all-dancing crap of the world."
Hell yeah.
"This is your life. Good to the last drop."
*ahem* Annnnyways...
Uh... Did someone just seriously suggest to do away with demihumans? Whoa. Wasn't the entire point of the Urban Planes to modernize Planescape? How'd we explain the sudden lack of elves?
I *think* the approach of the UP plaroject was from the other end of things. Taking the d20 system - earth, humans only, and moving Them into planescape. Admittedly it looks like demi-humans (elves etc) have such a strong backing that I don't think they'll be dropped...
Ah, okay. Just wondering(frankly, I don't know what I'd do without my elven snipers).
It makes sense to me to simply state that this particular prime has no demihumans. Their presence on the Planar scene in general would be unaffected by the sudden re-emergence of the Shadow Prime, and doing away with them for the purposes of the setting as a whole seems an unnecessarily large move.
The general idea was that there are no demihumans only on Earth, but they're just as common as they always were everywhere else. Even Foothold has a small demihuman population.
Why do you have to use the shadow aspect of Urban Arcana when all you're doing is adapting d20 Modern's technology to Planescape?