Dungeoneering: Solving Problems Creatively

People often ask writers where their ideas come from. Its a difficult question to answer, as when you are creating stories, you don't often stop to think where your ideas come from. But I have noticed something important: the best ideas happen when you are trying to solve a problem.

In the past, D&D has suffered from the 'cleric problem'. Healing was vital, and the only class that could be a decent healer was the cleric, meaning that every party of adventueres had to have a cleric. Which tends to get a bit boring, especially if you have become the person who usually plays the healer. D&D solved this problem by making healing less important and also nerfing cleric healing to bining it in line with other classes. Pathfinder, on the other hand, solved this by giving us fun, viable alternatives to the cleric: the oracle and shaman. But this means there still has to be a healer in every party.

Unfortunately, the cleric in my first campaign was often absent due to work commitments, leaving the group without healing. I solved this by giving the cavalier a powerful artifact that mimicked the channeled healing of clerics and oracles. As this was a Plane Shift campaign based on Zendikar (a world from Magic: the Gathering) I called the artifact an Angelheart Vial (based on a card from MtG).

But where exactly does an Angelheart Vial come from, I wondered? This is the first important point: after you solve the problem mechanically, you need to find a storyline reason for the solution to exist. An Angelheart Vial, I decided, was the crystallised heart of a slain angel. But not just any angel, this was one on the level of the legendary angels of Zendikar – Iona and Linvala. The angel was named Numa, and was slain in battle against the mighty Eldrazi Titan known as Emrakul. There you go, a cool little tidbit, but not terribly important in the grand scheme of things.

Fast forward to a few months later, and one of my players is wanting to play a fetchling character. The problem is, fetchlings are not a thing that exists on Zendikar. These days I'd just refuse – you don't need to play a fetchling when you have access to unique Zendikar races like kor, merfolk and sphinxborn – but back then I was in my 'you must give the players what they want' phase. The main problem was that fetchlings are an outsider race linked to the Plane of Shadows. D&D and Pathfinder use a planar structure consisting of the material realm with other planes overlaying it (like ethereal and shadow) and higher planes stacked around it (like the elemental planes, heaven, hell, and so on). MtG, on the other hand, uses a multiverse model, where each plane is it's own distinct world, basically a series of unconnected material planes. In this model, the concept of a shadow plane doesn't make sense.

I had already discarded the idea of removing the traditional planes from Pathfinder. There are a number of spells that rely on the shadow plane (like Shadow Walk) or ethereal plane (like Blink) to function, and there is the concept of creatures called Outsiders, named because the come from other planes. Outsiders include everything from angels and demons to elementals of all flavours, and even include some playable races like fetchlings and tieflings. These creatures interact with spells like Summon Monster and Dismissal, with entire classes being built around the mechanics involving them. Altering all these creatures was a substantially larger undertaking than I was willing to undertake.

Which meant I had to come up with a way to include planes, but not make them actual planes. There was a possible solution for the Outsider problem, as angels and demons in MtG are currently described as 'mana constructs', beings made out of pure mana. When they 'die', their essence or mana is said to return to the lands that they were created from in the first place. Could lands and mana stand in for the idea of an overlapping Shadow Plane?

This is the second important point: When you have a bunch of semi-connected problems, what you do is smoosh them all together and make a story out of it. I didn't have the answer to everything yet, but I could come up with a solution that included black mana, demons, fetchlings and the Shadow Plane.

I know all sorts of obscure Magic lore, so I knew that the concept of a shadow plane did actually exist, back when Magic was more like D&D. Hidden away in really old stories about Leshrac are ideas hinting at the existence of a shadow realm, and that people have become trapped inside it. Though never officially explained, it is theorised that this has something to do with creatures called the soltari, a race encountered on the plane of Rath that had been abducted to populate the realm, but had somehow ended up stuck out-o-phase with the rest of the world. This is represented on the cards as a mechanic called 'shadow'. Aha! Rath is indirectly linked to Zendikar due to the fact that another race called the kor was also kidnapped to poulate Rath – and the kor were originally from Zendikar. What if, I thought, the soltari were also from Zendikar?

And so, pulling disparate threads together, I ended up with the following:

When the Archangel Numa died in battle against Emrakul, her spirit end up in the Shadowlands, a black mana realm populated by undead, demons and madmen. Being a protective deity, she took up the cause of the soltari, a group of humanoids also trapped in the shadow realm of Zendikar, who were slowly going crazy from the madness-inducing realm. Crafting a blade from her remaining light, and the shadows of her new home, she fought back the undead and darkness long enough for the soltari to build a fortified city called Solitaire. Leaving her Sword of Light & Shadow in the temple the soltari built to honour her, she vanished from mortal sight, but the people of Solitare have been under what is obviously divine protection ever since, leading many to believe she still protects the city in unseen ways.

And just like that, I have a god, a plane, a fleshed out idea of what black magic involves on Zendikar, a new city to populate with people, a powerful relic, and a great conflict between the soltari and the undead for the players to get drawn into.

You may recognise that I've taken ideas from all over the place. This is part of the third important point – you don't have to come up with it all yourself. You don't even have to come up with it all beforehand. A lot of the time I found myself making things up on the spot as players asked me questions. I intended to avoid anything to do with planar travel, but my players ended up spending a siginificant amount of time in the Shadowlands, and even gave me ideas for putting this all together (though they didn't realise it).