Need help with a plot issue/storyline for D&D

[Beowulfthehunter]

I am currently starting up my D&D champaign again. I am taking plot points from one of the City of Doors podcasts and having a time travel storyline. With all of my encounters I am having two paths (one of they fail, and one of they succeed) but all of the paths will snake back along the path to form a cohesive storyline.

 

The characters start the adventure mid combat against some of the reoccuring characters. They either defeat them or fail and this leads to a skill challege. Either way the characters find out that there was a temporal shift caused by the destruction of one of the campaign macguffins. They must confront the big bad and stop him, then turn back time to just before they burned down the town/started the combat, they also find out that he is working for an even larger boss, a fallen god, Cronos, the god of time. If they characters loose the combat they wake up in Crono's lair and must escape.

 

Here lies my issue. I plan for the characters to either find the realm eventully or escape. I have no idea how get them out or in. What would the entrance/exit of a time realm look like? I have already visualized it as some MC Escher type world where opposite actions are the norm. Attacks heal, being at full HP means you are unconcious, falling prone makes you jump. Wierd stuff like that. How should the palyers find out about this place.

 

Any ideas would help.

[Arkhein]

As for an entrance to a 'realm of time,' how about . . .

 

A big whirling sand vortex in the middle of the desert. Just jump in (and survive) and you fall through what is actually a gigantic hour glass that deposits you in that realm. How to exit? Simple - just reverse time and get sucked up into the vortex.

 

:)

 

Ark

[Rastl]

Go for the irresistible "shiny red candy-like button" on one side. No one can resist pushing the shiny red candy-like button.

 

The other side could be some grease-encrusted lever in the middle of a complex set of pipes and unidentifiable items. Just the thing you DON'T want to pull. Or to really mess with the reversal theme have another shiny red candy-like button on the other side. "But that can't be it - everything is different here! It has to be .."

 

Just because it bends space and time it doesn't need to be fancy.

[Inarah]

Rumors of a long lost mad wizard's laboratory... deep in a cavern underground (populated with your typical underground nasties) lies a chamber wherein is a magical device which opens a gate...

[WizardOne]

. . . Here lies my issue. I plan for the characters to either find the realm eventully or escape. I have no idea how get them out or in. . .

 

[1] What would the entrance/exit of a time realm look like?

[2] I have already visualized it . . . Weird stuff like that.

[3] How should the players find out about this place? . . .

 

1) I suppose you mean the portal from a normal plane of existence to this Time/Realm? How about two tall rock pillars with enough space between for mounts, conveyances, etc. The one on the left is slowly but perceptibly crumbling and aging. The one on the right if watched closely, shows cracks shrinking, age stains dissappearing, etc. Periodically, the space between them fills with mist ( 'Mists of Time' . . . . . . couldn't resist.) This process reverses at each midnight. Thus the pillars never crumble away.

 

The rock pillars could be megaliths, or stone columns, or statues or sometimes the supports of an ancient gateway. With several disguises the portal could appear wherever it needed to in the normal realm.

 

The locals would have a different yet poetic name for it in every place it had appeared: The Pillars of Time, The MistGate, The Timeless Stones, etc.

 

You walk through at just the right 'time' in order to move to the other realm. Perhaps when the mists are at their thickest.

 

 

2) I don't quite get the everything is opposite, black is white, theme. That's a different theme IMHO. In the realm of time there are twelve moons at night. None of them are green cheese. But all of them are clock faces, in fact, each showing a different but sequential hour. Fogs and mists might cause aging, or its opposite, . . . beware the Mists of Time.

 

 

3) If they are trapped in the time realm give them encounters with other adventurers who braved the "The Pillars of Time, The MistGate, The Timeless Stones" and are now wandering trapped in the Time Realm. These other NPCs can explain. If they are on the normal side and sages, bards, old scrolls, plus the other usual suspects don't suffice to convey the info let a bandit crew steal something from them and ride through the portal to escape . . . . . . time bandits. (somebody stop me...)

[Anne]

My first thought was to have the realm at the heart of a labyrinth. Just a thought. Also perhaps something that will help is to think of how time is measured or marked in different civilizations. Astronomy, study of celestial objects and events, recording of anomalies (comets, meteor showers etc) played a huge part in the ancient world. Maybe there is a temple or ruin or structure created for that purpose that houses the time realm? Or maybe a magic monument was built in a certain spot where certain energies lined up that also are affected in a particular way by the passing of time, (leyline or something). Or perhaps your setting is near an ocean and time is measured by the locals by the tide, and the realm is located or connected somehow to the ebb and flow of the tides, or the abnormal flow as it were. Maybe the entrance is located at the bottom heart of a maelstrom. Or the entrance could be a transient opening, only open under certain conditions, like that scene in 'The Raiders of the Lost Ark'. Of course in that case then your party will need a sought after magic item to help open the door at the right time. Just some ideas, hope they are of a help

[Beowulfthehunter]

Thanks for the ideas. I am going with some cliches for this one. The entrance is going to be in a clock shop in Waterdeep. There will be various entrances all accessable using parts of the first clock which was enchanted and destroyed. To get them out I plan on having them catch a glimse of someone and follow them out. This will be a skill challenge.