How isolated is your campaign world?

[Morandir]

A lot of the Pulp/S&S stories that influenced D&D feature characters who do, or at least can, venture to other worlds/dimensions/times - Kull and Bran Mak Morn meet at one point, Fafhrd & The Grey Mouser visit the Hellenistic period of our own world, John Cater on Mars, etc. Do any of you have campaign worlds where this is possible? Are there other worlds or planes of existence to which your players can travel? Can they venture into outer space? Have creatures from outer space ventured onto your world?

My own campaign world has no other planes of existence; demons and cthulhoid entities come from "beyond the Veil" or from "the Outer Dark" or some such, but it is never defined as a visitable place.

On the other hand, Geoffrey McKinney's Carcosa setting can be reached; the eponymous city exists in my world as well, and if the players are in it when the stars are right, Dawn will find them in a very different world.

Outer space is a very real place, and can be visited by airship - the atmosphere thins as you move away from worlds, but remains breathable. However, no one knows this: airships are incredibly rare, and those who have them generally don't do crazy things like attempt to fly to the moon. Should anyone attempt this during a game, they'll find, after many strange adventures, that Barsoom can be reached. In addition, aliens have visited Archaeis and have left some of their technology behind (chiefly ray guns).

Lastly, it is possible to reach Earth, in two different eras: the Hyborian Age, and the Hellenistic Period. Doing so requires venturing quite far into a particular cave at a particular time, and is again something quite unknown - except to a certain seven-eyed sorcerer who makes the caverns his (its?) home.

Basically, they're there so I can play around in some of my favorite fictional (and not so fictional) worlds, should the players and the dice conspire to make it so. It hasn't happened yet, but some day...

Mor

[coffee]

Y'know, D&D V. III had this to say:

OTHER WORLDS:
There should be no "natural laws" which are certain. Space could be passable
because it is filled with breathable air. On the other hand the stars could be tiny
lights only a few hundred miles away. Some areas of land could be gates into
other worlds, dimensions, times, or whatever. Mars is given in these rules, but
some other fantastic world or setting could be equally as possible. This function
is up to the referee, and what he wishes to do with it is necessarily limited by his
other campaign work. However, this factor can be gradually added, so that no sudden
burden will be placed upon the referee.

But you're the first DM I remember hearing about who has actually set that up. I think that's pretty spiffy, so I'm giving you an exalt.

(I've been in player mode for years now, with only occasional forays as ref, but I haven't done anything like that. In other words, my worlds are totally isolated. But I feel that needs to change...)

[shadowheart469]

I'm a fan of Judges Guild's Portals series. So, the first campaign I set up for my husband to run through was called the Temple of Destiny. This was a megadungeon that, amongst other surprises, had portals to Carcosa, Greyhawk, the Known Lands of Labyrinth Lord, and to a second D&D fantasy campaign I had prepared (The Brave Halfling Productions Larm and Dolm River modules ran great with OD&D rules, by the way). When that campaign died out I switched over to the other fantasy realm that I had prepared and that he had happened not to visit in his explorations.

[tavis]

I've always wanted to ride a griffon to the moon, and have told players in my White Sandbox it's possible (without working out the details in as awesome detail as you have, morandir!)

The connectivity we have put into play is that players can bring PCs developed in the local Glantri campaign into mine (and visa versa) by traveling through the Nameless City in Limbo, where a demi-urge called the Ninth Menegril trades with both realms.

So far no one has actually done so, although we do have one PC who came from an AD&D campaign the player was in years ago - the intelligence his magic swords gained by the translation into 3LBB rules has had a major impact on the plot!

[irdaranger]

Oh sure! Worlds all over!

The easiest world to reach is of course Faerie, where the Elven Court meets in the deepest woods and the Goblin Kings rule beneath the mountains. You might end up there is you fall asleep in a faerie circle during a new moon, or walk three times around a goblin door before passing through on the first day of autumn.

But there are many other worlds as well, and Gates and Doorways to many of them have been left lying about by various ancient civilizations and mad wizards. Everyone now and then slavering monsters come bursting through, from the Gru'Duk to scaled monstrosities no man has a name for. No man has ever counted all the worlds in the universe, for there are always more being discovered - and some of them are so alien that men are killed in the moment of discovery, as they breath in atmospheres heavy with cyanide or are crushed to a pulp under a dozen gravities.

In addition to created Gates, there are naturally occurring portals. At least seven portals to Luc's have been chronicled by the planar traveler Marcus Farsight (Luc's, of course, is that interdimensional tavern and meeting place (a real hive of scum and villainy) that exists outside of time and space and seems somehow to be protected from planar marauders). There are also portals to Hades, Elysium and other lands in which the Gods dwell.

Plus, Spelljammer. Oh yeah, baby.

One of the Empires of a world I created but never had a chance to run a campaign in was built up entirely around permanent Teleportation Circles. The High-Wizards of the Empire would land a Teleportation Circle right in the middle of a city the Empire would want to conquer, and through it would march the Legions - from the Imperial Garrison right into the main square, bypassing all defenses and logistical challenges. Once a few permanent circles were established linking it to "the network" the Legions would leave - but loyalty to the Emperor would remain, as the Legions could land right back in the city at any time. It was a distributed Empire with non-contiguous borders stretching across a dozen worlds - but the full might of the Empire could be ported into any of its cities on a day's notice. They only took the best cities and locations for Imperial property, leaving the marginal border kingdoms surrounding each of its "outposts" mostly alone.

[apeloverage]

irdaranger:

Kind of similar to this, but with a different technology to sea travel?

[James Maliszewski]

Travel between worlds was once commonplace in my Dwimmermount campaign's past, but it's rare nowadays, even if it's still theoretically possible. The Red Elves (or Eldritch) originated on the planet Areon, a Burroughs-ian Mars analog, and many other races were once natives of the Green Planet Kythirea. Portals to both can still be found in various out of the way places (including Dwimmermount).