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Gosh... Could Aplhatia be brought back...

I wonder whether that might be the subject of an immortality quest for a whole load of people?

I don't have all of the articles and modules that lead up to the loss of Alphatia to the Hollow World, so IMC it hasn't happened, and won't unless I come across some inexpensive copies of said articles and modules.

GW

You just can't think about this in terms of rules mechanics and, besides, the whole point of immortality quests is that they're not mechanistic; the extraordinarily loose guidelines given in the original immortals rules demonstrated that quite well.

But even within that context, restoring an entire continent from the hollow world to the outer world... Wow. It's enormous, beyond the scope of a single characters quest for immortality.

If I were looking for a way to do it, I'd go the chronomancy route. Go back and wipe out the Nucleus of the Spheres; but then to get away with it and to prevent the immortals of time doing a job on you, you'd have to replace the nucleus with a similar power source that is otherwise incapable of destroying Alphatia.

Now I'm tempted to say that there are no other sources of power on Mystara that are up to the job, but perhaps the artifacts that then become Serraines engines could do it (then you have to find a replacement for Serraine!) or the core magics powering the Comeback Inn. But ultimately I think this comes down to travelling far off outer planes for the power source, researching complex and forbidden areas of chronomancy, distracting the immortals of time long enough to make your move (get out of THAT paradox ) and then making the switch. Sounds easy, but thats one hell of an immortality quest.

havard]Another problem is ofcourse that spells of transportation do not work within the Hollow World.

Ooog, good point. You'd need epic level telekinesis and a hole big enough to move Alphatia through, which I think the polar holes aren't big enough.

Though given Alphatia has a million or so wizards....hmmm.

Another problem is ofcourse that spells of transportation do not work within the Hollow World.[/quote]
Ooog, good point. You'd need epic level telekinesis and a hole big enough to move Alphatia through, which I think the polar holes aren't big enough.

Though given Alphatia has a million or so wizards....hmmm.

havard]My original idea was to use the Spell of Preservation, and somehow push that Spell so much that it would throw Alphatia back out to preserve the other Hollow World cultures. There are some suggestions in official material, that Alphatia has trouble fitting into the Hollow World. Also, the idea from the Reference Guide about Blackmoor being kicked out of the HW opens to the possibility that such a thing could happen.

If the Alphatians still have their combat magics, beginning to methodically annihilate other civilizations with their airships and combat magics might do the trick there.

(Hmm. You know, the restrictions on learning magic in the Hollow World is going to cripple Alphatian culture, as future generations, WAY LESS people will be able to learn wizard magic, since it now takes a 16 intelligence!)

The Hollow World will, itself, crumple and deform Alphatian culture, thus causing conflict with the cultural preservation impe wrote:

And thus teh spell of preservation hits a paradox, as the only way the Alphatian culture can be preserved is by lifting the restrictions on magic. The semiotics that guide teh spell thus cause the spell itself to terminate, restoring HW magic to the same strength as the outer world.

Ok, that's the transparently bogus rationale. now for the real reason.

Having a campaign world where nothing can happen regardless of what the players try is, well, dull. You remove a huge chunk from the high level campaign. Rather than having a spell of preservation to automate things, I envision a colelctive effort by titans or similar near-immortal status beings charged with preserving the status quo.

Regarding the spells that dont work in the HW, a lot of them are simply spells that are 'unbalancing' or there for a specific flavour. Easier to remove the spell from the universe entirely rather than have to deal with it only in certain areas if its that bad for the campaign fun.

The stats limit is also a bit annoying. Players will make a character with high enough stats if they want to be a spellcaster. All that the stat limit does is distort the character stats distribution upwards, and remove the barely competant mage from teh character archetypes that are playable.