Post by Masterbard Alyster Darkharp on Sept 1, 2008 20:16:16 GMT -5
Crossroads and Backroads
Behind the world, hidden from eyes that don’t know where
to look, mystical roads of geomagical energy crisscross the
face of Faerûn. These fairways belong to no one, though the
fey have long guarded them. Druids know their secrets, as
do some bards.
Nonfey know only about small sections of the backroads,
thoroughfares that connect two locations. For game purposes,
nonfey can only enter the backroads at a crossroads
and travel one-way to a specified destination. The travel is
instantaneous. You step onto the path, and a heartbeat later
you emerge at the backroad’s destination.
Druids have mapped the locations of some crossroads,
though an unquantifiable number of them cover the world.
Some druids have likened the backroads to folds in the world’s
fabric. These pinches bring two points together that would
normally be much more distant if measured on a flat plane.
Travelers enter and leave backroads at a crossroads.
Crossroads are invisible. They don’t correspond to real roads
or paths. Backroads and crossroads both have acquired a legendary status.
Not everyone believes in them, because they
cannot be seen or felt, traced, or tracked. They seem extraplanar
and yet they’re not. Only those of the purest fey
blood understand them completely, and the fey keep the
secret to protect the backroads from corruption.
Only druids and perhaps some fey can create new backroads,
by use of the create crossroads and backroad spell.
For that matter, only bards, druids, and fey have mastered
the ability to find backroads. They do so by learning one of
the druidic mysteries, the detect crossroads spell.
Backroads can be used for:
Communication: The user must specifically request communication
rather than travel. If the user successfully
coerces the guardian (see below), then a whisper, monologue,
or shout travels along the backroad and sounds at the
destination as if the user were standing there. If the user
moves more than 30 feet away from the crossroads, the
communication ends and the user must renew the request.
Druids have intricate meeting schedules by which they
share news and updates in this way, spreading announcements
all across Faerûn.
Travel: Backroads work similarly to portals, in that they
allow the user to travel through them, almost instantaneously,
from one crossroads to the next. When a user steps
onto a backroad, she disappears as if walking through an illusionary
wall and appears in the same way at the other end.
Surprise Travel: There are stories that a wandering
minstrel performed a magnificent piece near a crossroads,
then turned around and unwittingly walked onto the invisible
backroad. The guardian presumed, perhaps negligently,
that the bard was requesting permission to use it. She
granted the request. And the bard, by fate or manipulation,
walked unprepared onto the backroad. These stories all end
in mystery.
Backroads cannot be used for:
Spying: Backroads do not allow the user to see or gain
any bonus toward viewing its destination. A creature can
ask the guardian about the backroad’s destination, but the
guardian does not have to answer.
Shooting Through: No attacks, magical or otherwise, pass
along the backroads to a distant location. They hit locally as
if unimpeded. Magical attacks requiring a specific target fizzle
if the target steps onto the backroad before the attack hits.
The Guardian: Every crossroads has a guardian (see
Chapter 7) who decides whether an individual can use the
backroads. Such an individual must get the guardian’s permission
to use the backroads. Every druid has a preferred
method for doing so, be it a plea, a song, a poem, or an
homage to the backroads. Each individual must make her
own request, and the guardian may turn anyone down. An
individual cannot toss someone else onto a backroad unless
that individual has already received permission to pass. Fey
have free use of the backroad—whenever, wherever, without
restriction.
The guardians are created when the druid casts the create
crossroads and backroad spell. If a guardian is killed, the crossroads
the guardian warded ceases to function as a starting
point. The opposite end is still functional, since that guardian
can permit passage through, but it is now one-way.
At the crossroads, the seeker can use Charisma, Bluff,
Diplomacy, or Perform to cajole the guardian into letting
her travel the backroads. Trappings of civilization put a
guardian on the defensive, grating on its connection with
all things fey and natural.
The guardian’s initial attitude corresponds directly to the
naturalness of the setting. Like most NPCs, guardians can
be influenced with a Charisma check. (For details, see NPC
Attitudes, page 149 of the DUNGEON MASTER’s Guide.)
KNOWN CROSSROADS
Invisible and difficult to notice by detect magic, crossroads
may exist in any location. A few of the more famous ones
are listed here. Druids and bards have spread knowledge of
these crossroads among their fellows.
Arnrock Crossroads (N4): Located on the volcanic isle of
Arnrock in the middle of the Lake of Steam, this crossroads
leads to one in Herkemon’s Hub.
Cantlowe Crossroads (N2): This crossroads is in a secured
room in the Cantlowe Library Archives. The library curator
lets people into the room, but warns the characters that
no one has ever returned from beyond the crossroads in the
thirty-five years she has worked at the university.
Herkemon’s Hub (N1): Three dolmens (a dolmen is two
vertical stones topped by one horizontal stone) mark a
crossroads where three known backroads converge. The
thresholds stand within 30 feet of each other on the rocky,
western shore of the Lake of Steam. The backroads lead to
the Wastes, Nykkara, and Arnrock.
Hermit Heights Crossroads (N5): On a peak in the
Orsraun Range, this crossroads is located inside a split in the
mountain face. The immense, cavelike split also contains a
one-room hut made from rough wood found only in Thornwood.
Druids and bards visit for the view and solitude. The
temperature rarely rises above freezing, though someone
keeps the firewood stocked. It connects to Thornwood.
Knightswood Nine Crossroads (N3): In a hollow, ancient
tree, this crossroads stands in the King’s Forest in Cormyr,
near the Knightswood Nine druidic circle, and leads to
Waterdeep.
Nykkara Crossroads (N1): Nykkara, the Isle of Memory,
the funereal center for Calimshan, has a crossroads upon its
shores, with a backroad to Herkemon’s Hub.
Thornwood Crossroads (N3): A crossroads sits east of a
druidic grove located in the heart of Thornwood. It connects
to Hermit Heights.
Wastes Crossroads (N5): This crossroads is located somewhere
in the Teshyllal Wastes of the Calim Desert. It connects
to Herkemon’s Hub.
Waterdeep Crossroads (N1): Located in Waterdeep, Sea
Ward, in the Heroes’ Garden, Waterdeep’s only public garden
outside the City of the Dead, this crossroads connects to the
Knightswood Nine.
From Magic of Faerun
Behind the world, hidden from eyes that don’t know where
to look, mystical roads of geomagical energy crisscross the
face of Faerûn. These fairways belong to no one, though the
fey have long guarded them. Druids know their secrets, as
do some bards.
Nonfey know only about small sections of the backroads,
thoroughfares that connect two locations. For game purposes,
nonfey can only enter the backroads at a crossroads
and travel one-way to a specified destination. The travel is
instantaneous. You step onto the path, and a heartbeat later
you emerge at the backroad’s destination.
Druids have mapped the locations of some crossroads,
though an unquantifiable number of them cover the world.
Some druids have likened the backroads to folds in the world’s
fabric. These pinches bring two points together that would
normally be much more distant if measured on a flat plane.
Travelers enter and leave backroads at a crossroads.
Crossroads are invisible. They don’t correspond to real roads
or paths. Backroads and crossroads both have acquired a legendary status.
Not everyone believes in them, because they
cannot be seen or felt, traced, or tracked. They seem extraplanar
and yet they’re not. Only those of the purest fey
blood understand them completely, and the fey keep the
secret to protect the backroads from corruption.
Only druids and perhaps some fey can create new backroads,
by use of the create crossroads and backroad spell.
For that matter, only bards, druids, and fey have mastered
the ability to find backroads. They do so by learning one of
the druidic mysteries, the detect crossroads spell.
Backroads can be used for:
Communication: The user must specifically request communication
rather than travel. If the user successfully
coerces the guardian (see below), then a whisper, monologue,
or shout travels along the backroad and sounds at the
destination as if the user were standing there. If the user
moves more than 30 feet away from the crossroads, the
communication ends and the user must renew the request.
Druids have intricate meeting schedules by which they
share news and updates in this way, spreading announcements
all across Faerûn.
Travel: Backroads work similarly to portals, in that they
allow the user to travel through them, almost instantaneously,
from one crossroads to the next. When a user steps
onto a backroad, she disappears as if walking through an illusionary
wall and appears in the same way at the other end.
Surprise Travel: There are stories that a wandering
minstrel performed a magnificent piece near a crossroads,
then turned around and unwittingly walked onto the invisible
backroad. The guardian presumed, perhaps negligently,
that the bard was requesting permission to use it. She
granted the request. And the bard, by fate or manipulation,
walked unprepared onto the backroad. These stories all end
in mystery.
Backroads cannot be used for:
Spying: Backroads do not allow the user to see or gain
any bonus toward viewing its destination. A creature can
ask the guardian about the backroad’s destination, but the
guardian does not have to answer.
Shooting Through: No attacks, magical or otherwise, pass
along the backroads to a distant location. They hit locally as
if unimpeded. Magical attacks requiring a specific target fizzle
if the target steps onto the backroad before the attack hits.
The Guardian: Every crossroads has a guardian (see
Chapter 7) who decides whether an individual can use the
backroads. Such an individual must get the guardian’s permission
to use the backroads. Every druid has a preferred
method for doing so, be it a plea, a song, a poem, or an
homage to the backroads. Each individual must make her
own request, and the guardian may turn anyone down. An
individual cannot toss someone else onto a backroad unless
that individual has already received permission to pass. Fey
have free use of the backroad—whenever, wherever, without
restriction.
The guardians are created when the druid casts the create
crossroads and backroad spell. If a guardian is killed, the crossroads
the guardian warded ceases to function as a starting
point. The opposite end is still functional, since that guardian
can permit passage through, but it is now one-way.
At the crossroads, the seeker can use Charisma, Bluff,
Diplomacy, or Perform to cajole the guardian into letting
her travel the backroads. Trappings of civilization put a
guardian on the defensive, grating on its connection with
all things fey and natural.
The guardian’s initial attitude corresponds directly to the
naturalness of the setting. Like most NPCs, guardians can
be influenced with a Charisma check. (For details, see NPC
Attitudes, page 149 of the DUNGEON MASTER’s Guide.)
KNOWN CROSSROADS
Invisible and difficult to notice by detect magic, crossroads
may exist in any location. A few of the more famous ones
are listed here. Druids and bards have spread knowledge of
these crossroads among their fellows.
Arnrock Crossroads (N4): Located on the volcanic isle of
Arnrock in the middle of the Lake of Steam, this crossroads
leads to one in Herkemon’s Hub.
Cantlowe Crossroads (N2): This crossroads is in a secured
room in the Cantlowe Library Archives. The library curator
lets people into the room, but warns the characters that
no one has ever returned from beyond the crossroads in the
thirty-five years she has worked at the university.
Herkemon’s Hub (N1): Three dolmens (a dolmen is two
vertical stones topped by one horizontal stone) mark a
crossroads where three known backroads converge. The
thresholds stand within 30 feet of each other on the rocky,
western shore of the Lake of Steam. The backroads lead to
the Wastes, Nykkara, and Arnrock.
Hermit Heights Crossroads (N5): On a peak in the
Orsraun Range, this crossroads is located inside a split in the
mountain face. The immense, cavelike split also contains a
one-room hut made from rough wood found only in Thornwood.
Druids and bards visit for the view and solitude. The
temperature rarely rises above freezing, though someone
keeps the firewood stocked. It connects to Thornwood.
Knightswood Nine Crossroads (N3): In a hollow, ancient
tree, this crossroads stands in the King’s Forest in Cormyr,
near the Knightswood Nine druidic circle, and leads to
Waterdeep.
Nykkara Crossroads (N1): Nykkara, the Isle of Memory,
the funereal center for Calimshan, has a crossroads upon its
shores, with a backroad to Herkemon’s Hub.
Thornwood Crossroads (N3): A crossroads sits east of a
druidic grove located in the heart of Thornwood. It connects
to Hermit Heights.
Wastes Crossroads (N5): This crossroads is located somewhere
in the Teshyllal Wastes of the Calim Desert. It connects
to Herkemon’s Hub.
Waterdeep Crossroads (N1): Located in Waterdeep, Sea
Ward, in the Heroes’ Garden, Waterdeep’s only public garden
outside the City of the Dead, this crossroads connects to the
Knightswood Nine.
From Magic of Faerun