And so we reach The Tower of Babel, the "Lawful Neutral " , the scrap take on Mechanus.
It as modrons too , which I didn't bother renaming. Modrons weren't listed as a brand identity for d&d last I looked, but a)likely I'm wrong b) might have changed . YET c)this is free.
TOWER OF BABEL
Travelling the Train needs a lot more fleshing out, maybe an encounter table , and a better bureaucracy system . Travelling outside the Tower (i.e falling) needs mechanics and an encounter table too.
If Grind was close to 100% , Babel is about 30%. Not quite the climax to end on , but it does take us in a complete circle.
That's a total of 10 "realms" (aka planes) , which doesn't match the 9 alignments or the 16 Outer Planes of planescape (17 if you include the Outlands ).
The Grind and Erebus are meant to be "transitional" realms , realms that are halfway from becoming a realm of their own and just being a feature in another realm.
The Infinite Library is an example of something that could become a realm at some stage, but for now is just a feature of an existing realm.
So the imbalance of realms hopefully suggests something like continental drift on a metaphysical level.
It's also because both Archeon and Limbo were too interesting to not include a version but fuck trying to make Bytopia , Arcadia, Elysium, Arborea etc distinctive adventure rich places.
In regard to the remaining planes..
So Bytopia, Arcadia, Mount Celestia , Ysgard*, were converted into Pinnacle of Virtue ,
Elysium , Arborea, Elysium, Beastlands were converted into Serene Night
Canceri and Nine Hells became Heart of It all
The Abyss and Gehenna became The Flesh Rift
Limbo, Pandemonia, Mechanus, Acheron got a 1 for 1 translation.
Outlands and Sigil had some influence on Vermin Road.
I tried to make up new stuff as much I could, yet still used core concepts that I felt were too perfect to try and redo. Like the Lawful Neutral plane being clock work , or a Void of Floating Cube of rusted weapons crashing into each other.
I didn't even try and do anything with Sigil however. There's little I would add to it ,and it feels too Planescape to just keep it.
*yeah I know it's a chaotic plane , but that's just what happened
So that's it, that's all I managed to do with before the burn out. I absolutely don't recommend doing a project of this size, not unless you can manage any project bloating tendency and/or have a clear template to work to. Otherwise the project will become vast and unwieldy and one loses the ability to hold it all in memory and you'll find yourself rewriting things , failing to connect bits , or disproportionately expanding aspects.
I guess the question is will I ever come back to this? I definitely needed to kicked out of aspect of my psyche that's responsible for nagging about projects, so basically No, but, hypothetically , what it would it need to finish it would be :
a) Looking at Grind to make a Template
b)Then use this Template to work out whats missing from other Realms , and also converting existing content to closer match Template.
c)Trim existing Content that seems unfinished , doesn't match Template , doesn't convert to Template , unless it can finished quickly
d)Add content as determined by Template
e)Go through and make sure cross references between Realms match
And most of all
f)Someone who isn't me , is a ruthless editor, is adequately professional* ,and is extremely resilient to project drift/bloat, to do steps a ,b ,c and possibly e.
g)I guess some more art to match the art already? Like a collage landscape +2-3 pieces depicting a creature from the realm? SEE IM ALREADY ADDING TO THE LIST
*the bar in DIY rpgs is incredibly low fyi. But if this sounds like your kind of hell, email me at toiletworldultra@gmail.com to discuss time frames, your rates , previous experience (if any),etc
THE USUAL LINKS
Other Realms:
