Spire's Shadow (OOC)

Alright, I made this nifty campaign, now I want players to be subjected to it. I know it is beastly long, but read it. You'll like it. I took this from a word document I made that had important things bolded and italicised, but I'm too lazy to go through and do it again, so I guess you have to actually read it. Hehe.

In The Spire's Shadow
By David "Duckluck" Gastil

"When Infinity's sword pierces Wee Jas' wall,
The barrier will break and doom us all."
-The Hissing Prophet

The Premise:
The Hissing Prophet, whoever that is, first made this doomsday prophecy nearly forty years before the Faction War, but aside from a few lines scrawled in the Fraternity of Order's thirty volume long Book of Ambiguous but Credible Prophecies and a few lingering stories among the Doomguard, the cryptic prophecy has been totally forgotten. Or at least it had been until last month when the Fraternity of Order conclusively proved what most Outlanders already suspected: the zone of hampered magic around the Spire is growing. What most Outlanders didn't know is the more chilling revelation that the rate at which the ring of reduced magic spreads is growing. It's not just growing by a couple more inches a year either, it appears to be growing exponentially, and within a few years even the gatetowns will be magic-less.

Most Doomguard immediately rejoiced at the findings and began chanting a corrupted version of the old prophesy that substituted "Spire's shadow" for "Infinity's sword." Most other factions balked at the notion and decried the report as nothing but lies. That was until the Athar, several prominent Outlanders, and even the secretive Rilmani all admitted that they had made similar discoveries. While most planars are still struggling to grasp the implications of this, the debate among the powers that be has shifted from "Is it real?" to "What do we do now?" Some factions want to stop the spreading, others want to encourage it, and others want to wait and see what happens, but the vast majority of factions really aren't sure what to do. One of the fundamental realities of the multiverse has been changed, and most groups are still at a loss as to what it means. More and more though, the debate has turned back to what is causing this and whether this actually has anything to do with the so-called Hissing Prophet's mysterious prophecy.

Into this world of uncertainty walk the PC's. Some PC's might be Primes new to the planes who don't even understand what the fuss is about others may include Planars who have strong feelings about the whole thing. Whether these Planewalkers choose to quest to the heart of the matter or simply ignore it and go about their business, it will affect them in ways that are sometimes obvious and sometimes startling. One little thing changes, and suddenly it's a brave new world out there.

The Setting:
This campaign will be set five years after the Faction War in what the new Planescape Campaign Setting refers to as the "present day." For those of you who haven't read the new campaign setting, this means that Mercykillers are out Ring-Givers are in (among other changes in the factions. If this is all new to you, I recommend playing a Prime and familiarizing yourself with the setting). The Sigil we will spend a third of our time in is functionally identical to the one presented in Chapter 7, while the planes may be a bit different because they are being detailed in chapter 8 which hasn't been released yet. My take on the planes is that there is a little bit of good, evil, law, and chaos in everyone, even exemplars. Remember that, and you'll be fine. Also, the Quasi- and Para- elemental planes are in, as is the Ordial, although the PC's will never visit it (this, of course, means that the Astral is no longer connected to the inner planes). The Pseudo-planes (Shadow, Dream, and Time) are in and universal. The Far Realm is out there somewhere, but it's the sort of place that sane people only go to by accident.

This campaign will incorporate every cosmology from Athas to Eberron. Basically, just assume that they are all connected by the Great Ring and that most of their own cosmologies are just terribly wrong.

The Spirelight:
"Spirelight" is my own term for the zone of hampered magic around the Outlands' Infinite Spire. For those of you who don't get it, it's a pun on the word "firelight." Since this zone will play a huge role in my campaign (at least a third of the action will take place on the Outlands), I decided to invent a term for it. The word is hardly universal, however, and other terms you will see include the "Spire's shadow," "Spire's Aura," and "the mid-concordant anti-magic zone."

As my premise suggested, the Spirelight will grow throughout the course of my campaign. At the start of my campaign the Spirelight will have the 1,000 radius mentioned in the Manual of the Planes, but it will gradually, and later not-so-gradually, grow throughout the course of the campaign. After a while, it may cut off the gatetowns from the magic fueling their portals, or even begin to spread to other planes. At the start of the campaign, the PC's will be doing their own thing, and if the players want to keep doing that for a while, I don't mind, but eventually, they will be forced to confront the looming danger the Spire's aura poses, for whatever reason. The Spirelight is the basis of my entire campaign, so don't expect me to just forget about while you are starting up your hippogriff ranch.

Character Creation:
This is one thing I'm giving you guys total freedom on. If you want to play a Warforged Swordsage, you can as long as you get my approval.

Starting Level: The Starting level will be five.

Starting Wealth: 9,000 gp (900 pp)

Hit Dice: Max at first level. After that, take the average and round up (a second level rogue would get 4 HP, for instance).

32 Point buy: (Racial ability bonuses will be really common in this game, so don't sweat it.)

Races: Races are wide open. I'll let you play everything from Races of Eberron to the Planescape Campaign Setting (although, many races will be tweaked by me, usually for the better, before I let you play them, and I have my own version of Planetouched). Keep in mind though, that there are a lot of books I don't have, and most of the Second Edition books are among them, so if you want to play a weird race like a Mul, I have to be able to find the stats for it. Also, converting an outdated race to 3.0/3.5 is a pain in the ass, and even if the end result is quite balanced, it will cost you a Munch point (basically, these are an experimental form of power-gaming currency. Way more on them later) the same as if you were playing an approved custom race. I normally don't let people play custom races at all, but if you can get me a version that looks balanced and makes sense (and isn't too similar to an established race), I may let you play it as I said before though, it will always cost you a Munch point. This includes races that come from non-WotC sources or that are "balanced" variants of WotC races.

Planetouched are the exception. I have created and included alternate versions of all the planetouched (including Para-elemental, Quasi-elemental, and Energy Genasi) These alternate Planetouched are better balanced with each other, are templates that can be applied to any humanoid. If you've always wanted to play a Halfling Tiefling, now you can.

Also, this may sound stupid at first, but I hate most sub-races. If your race is "just like a regular elf but it lives in the woods," or "just like a regular gnome but it lives in the jungle" then just play a regular elf or gnome! I'm saying this for two reasons. One, a desert elf really is a high elf that lives in the desert, and two, terrain-based sub-races tend to be really over-powered. If you're playing something that has a flavor all its own, like a Drow, or has radically different abilities, like a Duergar, I'll allow it, but otherwise don't press your luck. As a good rule of thumb, if it has its own name (like Avariel) rather than just [regional variant] elf (like "desert elf"), it should be fine. Otherwise, I probably won't allow it. The exceptions, of course, are races that may lack a little flavor but are a key part of a setting. Some of these I may fold into the generic race. Others I'll let you play unaltered but it'll probably cost you a Munch point.

High CR races like Khaasta and Bugbears will almost certainly be tweaked by me before I let you play them. This is usually a good thing, as I'll mostly just be whittling down Level adjustments, and the like.

Alignments: Let’s face it, traditional alignments are a gross over-simplification, and in a roleplay game, they just get in the way. I can’t just cut alignments from Planescape, however, because that would be akin to re-writing the laws of the multiverse. So here’s what I’m doing: Instead of an alignment, put the plane you’ll wind up on when you die. This could be the plane of your philosophical beliefs or jus the plane your patron deity lives on. If you are unsure of how this works, ask me. Detect Law/Chaos/Good/Evil will detect the alignment of that plane, and Smite X and similar affects will work the same way. All alignment restrictions on classes have been dropped, but it should be obvious who can and can’t be a Paladin.

Classes: Play whatever you want excepting custom classes, which I may not let you play no matter how many Munch points you throw at me. All I ask is that you tell me what book it's in. If I think a class is horrendously underpowered, I'll recommend you pick a new, If it's really over-powered, I'll do a bit more. Beyond that, it's up to you to coordinate with the rest of the party so that we don't wind up with seven Swashbuckler/Rogues (or whatever class combination is in vogue right now).

Equipment: I'm letting you buy your own stuff at the start of the campaign, so buy whatever you want or need within reason. All custom items must be cleared through me. In the interest of preserving my sanity, I'm house-ruling that all magic items provide Enhancement bonuses. I'm sorry if you want your hat, belt, necklace, rings cloak and every other item slot to provide you a strength bonus without them overlapping, but that's your problem, not mine.

Skills: Add Psicraft from the SRD. (Yes I'm allowing psionics), and Control and Planar Expertise from the PSCS to your character sheets. Remove Open Locks, Forgery, and Decipher Script. Forgery and Decipher Script will become Literacy. Literacy combines both skills (if you would make a Forgery or Decipher Script check make Literacy check instead). Like both skills, Literacy uses your Intelligence modifier, and is effectively just the same two skills pushed together so that people will actually take one of them occasionally. Note that Literacy also includes your general reading and writing proficiency. If class as Forgery or Decipher Script on its skill list, replace it with literacy. Literacy can be used untrained as long as the character is literate. Open Locks is now covered by Disable Device. Basically, just pretend the skill never existed. I will be willing to merge a few more of the lesser skills, but only if a number of players ask me. One more thing: Cross-class skills only take one skill point to increase. This way, no one winds up throwing their skill points into a bottomless void just to qualify for prestige classes and whatnot. Your maximum number of ranks remains the same.

Rules of the Game:
Because combat causes Play by Post games to grind to a halt, This game will be light on combat, but heavy on roleplay. That said, I am committed to making combat as fair and enjoyable as possible. To that end, I have instituted a number of house rules including my personal baby:

Munch Points: Munch points (or Munchkin points) are like Action Points, except instead of allowing you to do random and often broken things that can irritate the DM to no end, Munch points let you do random and often broken things without irritating the DM to no end. By the time I'm done with you, you will be hoarding your Munch points like there's no tomorrow. You get three Munch points at the start of character creation, and one for each level (including first). They do not go away when you go up a level, and the only new ones you only get the one per level.

Munch points can be used any time you want to do something that is "freaking sweet," but isn't allowed by the rules. This includes things like playing an unusual race (I hope at least one of you asks to play a petitioner, just so I can test how versatile this system is), taking a custom Feat (Blink Dog Riding, for instance), or taking variant class that isn't clearly allowed for by the rules (this includes most of the ones in Unearthed Arcana).

Munch points also can be used by me as an incentive to not do anything obviously stupid and broken. If you do something stupid like summon an Efreet and Wish for a staff of Wish, I'll ask for a Munch point. Since there is no way to replace lost Munch points, and a Munchkin point is freaking awesome, you will be begging me to just permanently level drain you and have your stuff stolen, and you still probably won't get to keep the Staff of Wishes. Lesser abuses will probably be allowed to stand, but I'll still ask for a Munch point if I feel what you did was against the spirit of the game. If I'm regularly confiscating your Munch points in this manner, I'd recommend either curbing your munchkinly appetites or finding another game.

In addition Munch points have the following defined uses:

Reducing a Level Adjustment: Forget what it says in Unearthed Arcana, the easiest way to slay the dreaded Level Adjustment is to throw Munch points at it. For every three Munch points you spend, you can reduce a level adjustment by one. This is easily one of the best uses for Munch points, so if you have a Level Adjustment and three Munch points, you should focus on paying down the LA.

Increasing Abilities: You can spend a Munch point to increase one of your abilities (Strength, Dexterity, etc.) by one (that is, the actual number, not the modifier). You may put no more than two munch points into a given ability. I may increase this number later in the campaign.

Replicating an Action point: A Munch point can do anything an Unearthed Arcana action point can, so if you are in a bind and you really need a particular feat, or you’re at -9 and you really don’t want to die, you can sacrifice a Munch point to the gaming gods and save your character. This is probably the least powerful use of a Munch point there is, but when it’s this or a total party death, you won’t care.

Keeping the DM Happy pays Off: I am the light of your world, and if you get on my bad side, my wrath will be terrible indeed. The best way to use Munch points to keep me happy is to not spend them, because every time you do it means more work for me. At the end of the campaign, just before the final confrontation, I will ask the players to tally up and spend all their remaining Munch points (probably on things that are better than what you could spend them on before). I’m doing this because I don’t want players to realize the campaign is over and they still have a dozen munch points unspent, and I want to know exactly what the PC’s are capable of so I can more effectively send them to their deaths. When I do this Munch point liquidation, the player who has the most Munch points will get a super-ultra-mega-special bonus prize (think Demiplane full of fudge good). This does not mean you should hoard your Munch points endlessly, however. The game will be more enjoyable if you can keep up with your fellows in terms of power.

A Million Other Uses: Munch points will be able to do whatever I think is appropriate, and at times I may seem quite arbitrary. Try not to get upset, I’ll always have the best wishes of the game at heart. If you want to do something, and you are willing to spend enough Munchers on it, I’ll probably let you. Of course, “enough” is a subjective term.

Other Rules:
• Alter Self now uses the errata’d version that doesn’t grant ability modifiers. Polymorph is effectively cut from the game. I’ll figure out what to replace it with when the time comes.
• All Summoned creatures, Wildshape forms, Animal Companions, and Familiars must be approved by me. The Fleshraker is right out, and you know it.
• I don’t give out XP penalties for multi-classing. Favored Classes are solely for flavor.
• Various other spells and feats may need to be tweaked by me. As always, get my approval before doing anything, and this won’t catch you by surprise.
• I may add to this later, but that’s it for now.

Who Can play: Anyone with enough English skills to make it this far, is capable of posting at least once a day (preferably far more often, but I understand you have lives), I will do nearly all my weekday posting between about 2:30 pm and 1:30 am Pacific Standard Time (GMT -8). If you would like to play in this game, and can't reliably post within that eleven-hour window, you should let me know.