Time. The ever-onward, eternally turning wheel. Often in games the branch of Time Magic is given a level of power unequaled by any of the other branches of magic. Time magic is one of the only schools of magic that most GMs outright ban within their games. And rightfully so, as messing with time can produce horrifying results, both in terms of the game world and gamemastering.
Once the players can manipulate time, what’s to prevent them from eliminating your prized super villain, reducing your carefully crafted campaign to a single cold-hearted adventure of time-hopping genocide? Kill the baby before he threatens the world. Better yet, kill the mother too, just in case she produces another child that turns into the Antichrist. Pretty soon your characters are starring in their own remake of Terminator, except they don’t have an Austrian accent going for them.
Plenty of games have portrayed the results of time travel, as well as a number of movies and a few t.v. shows. The common theme is the same in all of them, however: time must not be changed, or the world and future will suffer in unimaginable ways.
So, keeping in mind such wonderful movies like Terminator and The Time Machine, and video games such as Chrono Trigger and World of Warcraft, what would the general result of time travel be within your game world? Who would be able to travel the streams of time? What would they do? Would a time-watcher organization pop up to manage things?
What would your world be if time travel were possible?
Additional Ideas (2)
Chronomancy is possible in my homebrew setting, but it is completely non-existant in the game setting. The reason behind this has to do with the machinations of the gods, and the demon-gods that they usurped and replaced. Linear time is the door and lock on the prison that was made to hold the elder gods, and the use of time travel would break those bars, releasing the elder gods from their millenial imprisonment.
The first thing that would happen would be the physical destruction of Dimmault, a world roughly half the size of the host planet of Aterrizar, Ae. With the prison broken, the elder gods and their hosts of misshapen demons and devils would range outwards from that dying shell. The Celestial City would be laid to waste as the elder gods exacted their revenge from their usurping offspring. They would than turn their attention to the main planet, cross the astral sea like a black cloud, would unleash horrors not even matched by the nightmare war.
It would not be the end of the world, but a new beginning as the demons and devils replaced the mortal races, and the elder gods recast the Celestial City in their new twisted images. It would be the beginning of a new age of fire, ash, and darkness.
Time Travel in ColdforgedThroughout the lands of the Coldforged setting, time travel is a relatively unknown phenomenon, rarely heard of and rarely practiced. Magic itself is rare, but also sometimes powerful, as is the case with chronomancy, the art of manipulating the flow of time. Chronomancy is a carefully guarded secret, known only by the Secterii Cabal of Silmar, and by the Grand Wizard of the Steamwork City, also known as the Chronomage. Jealously these men and women protect the ancient secrets of time manipulation, though their manners of control are vastly different. While the Chronomage uses steam machinery and magic, with thin coils hooked into the body of the time traveler, the Cabal uses potent enchanted circles, tattooing the traveler and surrounding him with exotic items and minerals imbued with special properties. Albeit the methods used to achieve time travel are different, the outcome is pretty much the same: 1) Travel to the past Only the spirit can travel to the past, or rather to the echoes of what once was, for the past is no more. There is only the present. Still, those few who know how to do so often travel to the past as a time ghost, if only to witness important events, or to glean some insight into secrets buried by the sands of time. GM Note: While traveling to the past the traveler is in all senses and regards a ghost. The persons in the past might sense something strange, like someone is watching, but only the most powerful of mages can truly detect the presence of a watcher (and might in turn banish the presence). Traveling like this is primarily used to study ancient rituals, secrets and historically important events. 2) Travel to the future When traveling to the future, the body of the traveler will follow along, for this is a purely one way trip. The traveler simply ceases to exist in the present and will pop out in the future, when the present catches up with the future. This type of chronomancy is seldomly employed, save for some notorious warlocks of old that escaped persecution in this manner.
Yuck. Must find a replacement.