I have devoted lots
of hours (weeks, months, years, decades)
toward the Dungeons and Dragons game, right up there with jobs,
and only essential compensation having been companionship with my
fellows of the game. (There is also a distinct possibility based on
personal and family history I am somewhere on the spectrum for autism
and that D&D helped me build self-esteem and rewrite my personal
narrative, ha, so there is that too.)
The campaigns I run I attempt as best I can to all fit together in
strange and wonderful ways into a single overarching setting. This
banks time I can re-use to construct narrative background and
provides great rewards forming common existential bases for the
variety of adventuring party settings and events.
However, several
campaigns over the past 5 years have reached a point where they have
begun to approach and even wrap around an “End of Time”
event where I feel the need to at least make an observational leap to
what happens at the “End of Time” for my game.
The caveats are that
my observations must be somewhat in harmony with how the
still-developing adventuring campaigns have already “wrapped”
around the end of time. And also be as best as I can manage
philosophically consistent with the game Multiverse which in various
magic and lore has already co-signed time travel itself as a thing.
That said, I am not too much worried about specific outer plane
Gygaxian metaphysics because what I imagine is a moment where time
and space do, or at least seem to,
cease to exist – temporal movement, the Multiverse, and all
related planes are gone… or perhaps almost gone. Of
necessary the event itself is beyond experience for any planar and
extra-planar beings or spaces.
****NOTE: I have used in-game the apocalyptic description for the
“End of Time” reckoning from Star Rovers RPG, co-written
by David Hargrave, which I loosely pasted over some Judges Guild Traveller background…
For Time has begun to run out. The Hurrakku — they who would gnaw
their way through a starcluster and leave nothing in their wake —
had already starswarmed. And even though they were still more than
forty galaxies away, they were headed in the Empire’s direction.
But they were only the messengers of a great doom. What goaded the
Hurrakku onward was the fear of impending annihilation. There loomed
behind them an expanding, starless, blackness — A rift in the
Space/Time fabric grown so large that it consumed the Past, the
Present, and the Future. This was the Final Darkness that Would
Cancel Everything!
And also the description from the 3.5 supplement Lords of Madness
that Illithids existed “… at the end of time.” “Facing
annihilation,” Illithids “… traveled to the past, arriving
roughly 2000 years before the present in any given D&D campaign.”
Mind Flayers are almost always lurking in the background of my
campaigns.
Otherwise, without
so far having researched in any depth folks smarter than me on the
subject, either in a game sense or our own “real world” physics,
I am attracted to 4 possibilities that might fit given I’ve already
gamed adventuring parties whose adventures at least seem to have
wrapped beyond the end of time relative to parties prior to the “End
of Time” event.
Full Stop / “Dead
End”: The Multiverse “births” then events unfold in a singular
routine. Time travel past
and forward is unable to
change events because appearances
in the past/future have or
will have already happened or
deigned to occur. This is Robert A. Heinlein’s “The Door Into Summer” version
and
how I generally structured
time travel in my game
without having yet
added the “End of Time”
epistemological considerations. But
with
time travel another possibility arises for
perpetuating the game Multiverse...
The Loop / “Roly
Poly”: The existent “wrap” in my game may indicate time folded
back on itself as characters or beings head back in time before the
“End of Time” event, but appear early in the generation of the
Multiverse such that it only seems
new. Yet ultimately, given “The Door Into Summer” the
Multiverse unfolds exactly the same as a result of no change with the
inputs (i.e. anything that happens in the past has already happened).
A game could have new characters and delve deeper into incidents for
how this or that history actually occurred – but characters would
have no agency to change actual events that are “known,” either
in game or meta–game. That is sort of a bummer given my sanboxxy
sensitivities, which leads to my next possibility…
Re-Birth / “New
Big Bang”: Something nature to the “End of Time” event, or
perhaps some interruption or alteration or missing/hidden piece of
the Multiverse re-births into a new multiverse, sort of a new Big
Bang with new possibilities, and explains the formation of a
Multiverse some ways similar to, but not exactly same or maybe very
different than, the former Multiverse. There is also a possibility of
entities from the old multiverse to jump through time over the “end”
and “bang” events into the new Multiverse.
Of course, it could
be that “The Door Into Summer” set history is not
the nature of the Multiverse, leading into the 4th possibility I
consider…
Temporal
Branches / “Time-Stems”: This is a William Gibson-esque infinite multitude of potential universal timestreams where time
travel does not change the source Multiverse, but rather produces an
alternate branch of time. While it is not possible to physically pop
over from one time-branch to another, characters would still meet
beings from their origin Multiverse altered only in the sense of
their contact with different branches. Potentially an infinite number
of Multiverses from which, as a result of cross contamination through
time travel, it would be virtually impossible to discern which is the
“real” Multiverse, or even if that really matters.
Anyhow, that is a long explanation being the good news is that I do not need to answer any of these questions quite yet. I can preserve a timeline of my campaigns to date (below) to set some parameters, then just see what direction where go the present campaigns.
I have 2 campaigns
on hiatus that both are approaching near the “End of Time” event
that some of the players are encouraging me to run “tournament
style” and the remaining campaigns I feel
are post-”End of Time” event, so possibilities 1 & 2 seem
to be excluded and I am
leaning into
possibility 3.
CAMPAIGNS TIMELINE
The years are 1st
Year 0 relative to the High Fantasy campaign (where the time stuff began to loosely cohere), 2nd the Wilderlands
Balozkinar’s Corrected Commoners Calendar (“BCCC”), and 3rd
Greyhawks Common Year calendar (“CY” and “BCY”). Note that many dates are approximations.
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-47,733
/ -43300 / -47,158: Uttermost War comes to an
end.
|
|
|
-35,000 / -30567 / -34,423: During
Century Wars of Domination Agent Smith arrives from early 21st Century Earth and
is transformed into cybernetic unit 718552.
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|
|
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-2,000
/ 2433 / -423: Future Illithids arrive in past.
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-200
/ 4233 / 376: Githyanki uprising, future Illithids disappear from
past & Astral Plane.
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0 / 4433 / 576: High Fantasy Campaign begins in
the Wilderlands,
Blipping #2 Campaign begins in Sigil, Wilderlands of the Torment
Nexus Campaign begins in the
Wilderlands and a cursed scroll from the ancient Markab ruins in Ashenshaft and found in the library of the Wizard Korpauntarl transported the adventurers through time and dimensions in space to Cube World.
|
1 / 4434 / 577: Blipping Campaign begins in Arduin. High Fantasy thermonuclear-like explosion resulting from Tharzadu'un traversing portal escaping to Arduin - Artaban/Codex of the Infinite Planes intervenese saving party; throws Blipping Campaign to be "unstuck" in the Multiverse.
|
2 / 4435 / 578: Baron Uther of Blackmoor
activates the “secret weapon”
from City of Gods in Valley
of the Ancients, unwittingly
a massive terraforming device, and the planet Ghenrek IV is forcibly tilted from its axis.
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4,000 / 8433 / 4,576: Blipping Campaign #2
arrives in future Comeback
Inn.
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|
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16,345 / 20778 / 16,921: Blipping Campaign #2 arrives in late 20th Century Earth.
|
16,355 / 20788
/ 16,931: Blipping Campaign
arrives in late 20th
Century Earth.
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16,565 / 20998
/ 17,141: Blipping Campaign #2
arrives in late 22nd Century Demonic Earth.
|
|
20,000 / 24433
/ 20,576: Space/Time Rift
approaches Imperium, Blipping #2 Campaign arrives
in future Ghenrek IV/Ghostring to discover Illithid Spelljammer which
carries them to Illithid origin disc-world “Penumbra.” New Old Weird World Campaign adventurers also end up on Penumbra after visiting future Sigil and future Illithids depart the future to the past.
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Out of Time and Wrapped Campaigns
- New Old Weird World Campaign: A flat disc planet (on the back of a turtle?) on pocket plane (post “End of Time” event) but passes through a far future Sigil to Penumbra prior to Illithids fleeing (pre-"End of Time" event)
- Wilderlands of the Torment Nexus: Wilderlands of High Fantasy on Prime Material Plane (Pre-"End of Time" event), sent to Cube World on pocket plane (Post “End of Time” event)
- Psychedelic Deadlands / Dreamer of Dreams Campaign: On Outlands and Prime Material Plane (Post “End of Time” event)
- Wilderlands 5th Iteration: Wilderlands of High Fantasy on Prime Material Plane (Post "End of Time" event and pre-"End of Time" event???)
