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Old 02-18-2015, 01:29 PM   #1
Crzyraccoon
 
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Default Ways for worlds/planes to visit each other

Just a post for some brainstorming on how to travel to different worlds

There is the most common way which is space travel, but this can be hard and weird to fit in into lower TL game worlds, then there is teleportation but there is a sense of no distance even if the teleportation is limited.
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Old 02-18-2015, 01:48 PM   #2
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Default Re: Ways for worlds/planes to visit each other

Fairy trods. It takes time to travel between two "real" locations by way of a strange often dangerous road.

Like many computer games, as long as you stay on the road you're safe... mostly.
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Old 02-18-2015, 01:52 PM   #3
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Default Re: Ways for worlds/planes to visit each other

There is the 'world between worlds' approach were you have to travel through a middle area to get between portals, which gives literal distance.

You can have portals that connect one spot on one world to another spot on another world without connecting the other areas of the two worlds. This makes the 'world of the fae' farther away for some people because you've got to get to europe before you can enter it.

You can have the only way to get between two worlds be through another world. This gives a number of hops. I recommend this method being combined with another rather than being used just by itself (or you will have a lot of empty or barely sketched worlds).

You can place an amount of time that is spent in transit between two worlds, or an amount of time it takes to prepare to go between those worlds. Varying that time gives an element of distance.
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Old 02-18-2015, 02:05 PM   #4
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Default Re: Ways for worlds/planes to visit each other

One idea I like for fantasy is an area in which the worlds intersect. Alternately, a place that exists in both planes, or a place where the boundaries between planes is weakened. Anyway, the point is that, given the correct (or incorrect) method, you can exit this location into either world. The fairy ring is the classic example, but in my settings, I might have volcanoes being a gate to the source realm of fires, canyons and caves to the realm of earth. This creates literal distance because you can't go from London to the fire realm without traveling to, say, Vesuvius, which might itself be distant from your eventual destination on the far side.

In fact, one idea I've experimented with is that the material world is merely the area through which all such realms intersect, which is why we are beings of both flesh and spirit. Whether that makes us complete or impure depends on who you ask.
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Old 02-18-2015, 04:48 PM   #5
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Default Re: Ways for worlds/planes to visit each other

World Gates -- there are weak points in the fabric that separates the worlds and these can be pierced in various ways. Maybe permanent magic. Maybe going to sleep in the wrong place.

Dream travel -- your body stays behind but you travel in the dream world to other places.
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Old 02-18-2015, 05:22 PM   #6
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Default Re: Ways for worlds/planes to visit each other

The inter-dimentional realm might not be entirely one way or the other. For instance, it may be sterile corridors lined with doorways to hidden passages, or it may be a vast cloudscape with rocky islets, each one containing a number of caves which in turn pass into other realms. I personally like the idea of a vast library or used book shop which connects into the backrooms and tiny alcoves in every sufficiently large collection of books.
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Old 02-18-2015, 05:49 PM   #7
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Default Re: Ways for worlds/planes to visit each other

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
There is the 'world between worlds' approach were you have to travel through a middle area to get between portals, which gives literal distance.

You can have portals that connect one spot on one world to another spot on another world without connecting the other areas of the two worlds. This makes the 'world of the fae' farther away for some people because you've got to get to europe before you can enter it.

You can have the only way to get between two worlds be through another world. This gives a number of hops. I recommend this method being combined with another rather than being used just by itself (or you will have a lot of empty or barely sketched worlds).

You can place an amount of time that is spent in transit between two worlds, or an amount of time it takes to prepare to go between those worlds. Varying that time gives an element of distance.
This can make a very interesting plot for worlds taking control of the world that connects them all, or to pass a universal law to keep it free from political powers as it could be great for the worlds' economics.
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Old 02-18-2015, 08:45 PM   #8
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Default Re: Ways for worlds/planes to visit each other

Magical fog where you get lost and when the fog clears you are elsewhere.

Places that are only here sometimes, if you are there when the time is up you are elsewhere.

You have what touted observers is a dream but you were somewhere else for a time. Maybe a more extreme being in a coma.
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Old 02-18-2015, 08:49 PM   #9
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Default Re: Ways for worlds/planes to visit each other

One idea that I like is a building that exists in both worlds. When you enter it in one world, and go down the wrong corridor, only to exit the building and end up in another world.
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Old 02-18-2015, 09:41 PM   #10
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Default Re: Ways for worlds/planes to visit each other

Quote:
Originally Posted by LoneWolf23k View Post
One idea that I like is a building that exists in both worlds. When you enter it in one world, and go down the wrong corridor, only to exit the building and end up in another world.
There's a library on the Vermont/Quebec border like that.
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