The Dresden Files > DFRPG
Altared States
Storykeeper:
--- Quote from: Harlan Quinn on February 11, 2009, 03:23:14 AM ---How does one get to the NeverNever? I know there are rituals and doorways, but how will it be handled in the game?
And few other questions: ;)
How does topography match up? Example: If I leave an area of plains in the Prime Material, will it be plains on the other side? (Yeah, I know it's magic and they can end up anywhere, but generally speaking...)
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How many different dimensions are there? If each religion/philosophy has a metaphysical afterlife or state of being, you could have numerous destinations. Not to mention, how to "fit" them all in, is the Prime Material a focal point with all the other dimensions dividing it? And what about a "cosmic pecking order"? Which dimension would trump what dimension? (Not asking for a ranking, but more an idea of how the power/space is shared and mapped out.)
--- End quote ---
If I recall, locations are connected by points that have significance to each other (see the analogy to a deck of cards.) That's partly why (to my understanding) openings between the normal world and teh nevernever are so hard to find, because they simply don't sink up very often. For instance, an opening to some location important to the Summer Court might only be accessible during the longest day of Summer during dusk and twilight (the in-between times, i.e. the times when thing are more mutable and less defined.)
If you've read the books, think about how the terrain changed whenever Harry has crossed into the nevernever. He also gives some explanations of how it all works together in a couple of books. As for the number of planes/afterlives/whatever, all of them are there. I don't think one 'trumps' the other, although some may be larger than others. I believe that the nevernever follows the idea that some locations are connected metaphysically. A morbid after life area might tie to a ghost's demesne because they're both linked to death. The ghost had a thing for teddbears, so teddybear factor has a portal to the nevernever if you crawl under a conveyor belt from the correct side.
Am I making myslef clear, or is that all still jumbled?
talktotheHand:
I would love to hear from Jim or one of the bunch at evil hat about the Topography / NN relationship. after reading small favor and re reading the series again I could never quite draw the connection myself.
TheMouse:
This is going to start out sounding like I'm not talking on subject. Stay with me for a second.
Books and gaming are different media, with different strengths and weaknesses. Creating them serves different needs and has different power dynamics. While there is some overlap in what works well in both, there are times when stuff that's brilliant in one quite simply doesn't work in the other.
An author is trying to tell a story. To do that he needs to create and justify all the actions which comprise that story. We need Harry to get into the Nevernever, so there will happen to be a way to get there; it will generally be dangerous or complicated, but that's all part of the creating a story thing. Here's a key concept: With a book you go back and rewrite stuff, and you need not fully flesh out some aspect of the thing.
Okay, how's this relate to what we're talking about?
Well, games don't quite work that way. For one thing, everyone sitting around the table contributes; the power is more diffused around the group. There's actually a thing in the FATE system which allows players who aren't the GM to say things like, "This gate into the Nevernever is sensitive to blood magic," and be right (if they make their roll, of course). So the story draws from the imaginations of everyone sitting around the table, and it happens in real time; you don't generally get the chance to edit a role playing game.
Now, to draw this a little tighter onto topic.
A lot of the particulars about the Nevernever is likely to be at least somewhat different from the books. As a group, you and the other folks around the table will all contribute aspects to it, and you'll all decide how to use it to make your game more fun. Also, we don't know if the Nevernever in Chicago behaves the same way as it does in, say, Boston.
I guess that basically this was all a rambling way to say that the Nevernever is just a tool to help your gaming group have a good time. Because role playing gaming has different strengths and responds to different pressures, the way you use that tool will be a little different from how Jim uses it in his novels.
Harlan Quinn:
That's one of the things I'm curious about:Is the Nevernever the same in Boston as it is in Chicago? Or Paris, London, Moscow..etc? How much does the local "flavor" of a city change the Nevernever and vice versa?
Rel Fexive:
Faerie is always being described as that part of the Nevernever that is nearest to the normal world, and everything we've seen of it so far looks nothing like the part of Chicago they enter it from or leave into. The supposed other parts that are "further away" probably look even less like the mortal world.
But the Nevernever doesn't seem to work like, for example, the Umbra in the old World Of Darkness. You don't go there and see a strange magical and spirit-filled reflection of the real world. Except... when Harry and Michael cross over into the demesne of Agatha Hagglethorn. Then it looks very different and does reflect, after a fashion, Chicago - albeit a twisted remembrance of it. This would suggest that some parts of the Nevernever are subject to alteration by a particularly potent spirit or ghost or (possibly) real world event.
So I would think that most of the Nevernever that you might visit in a game would be the usual faerie realm, but that some parts of it could be shaped by the ghosts, spirits, monsters and events that are present in the real world, imposing some of the character of a real world location on the area of the Nevernever "nearest" to it, and those areas would represent places of extreme correspondance with the spirit world, allowing all kinds of things to cross over both ways.
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