To boldly go

April is almost here, and I’m very proud to host one more time the RPG Blog Carnival. I’m writing this article as the welcoming entry and topic presentation, but also as a challenge to you, reader, if you have a blog or vlog to participate: Just grab your ideas and write an article or make a video about the same topic and leave a link in the comments below. Feel free to use the RPG Blog Carnival logo in your entry!

April is also when the «Blogging from A to Z» Challenge starts each year. I’m joining that one too with this entry and if you feel brave enough, I’d love all you reading this to join in such a rewarding endeavour as it is to write 26 entries in your blog for one month (you can rest on Sundays!). If you think it requires too much preparation in order to join, mark your calendars for next year, but feel free to read and get some inspiration from out there. Of course, if you want to join for only one article about the topic, you’re more than welcome to do so.

Without further ado, it’s time to reveal and explain the theme for April’s RPG Blog Carnival. Let those drumrolls begin…

The Multiverse: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the legendary ship Spelljammer. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before!

The Spelljammer doesn’t have a captain, I know, but Jean-Luc Picard’s words seemed fitting when paraphrased accordingly. You see, as they rise up in level and power, the mundane threats of the Material Plane are no challenge to some heroes. Fortunately for us, there is always something else… beyond.

As our players discover other planes of existenc, we the DMs need to tailor our group’s expectations and ours also in order to create the best campaign we can provide. Have you taken your story to the multiverse? Are you planning to? Do you have a favorite plane or planar location? May you share some tips to balance the difficulty of traveling to other worlds?

This month, I want you to tell us your stories about the planes. Tell us about that time when you first sent your adventurers to another world, how you slightly changed its features, what monsters you created… Tell us about your creative process, your reasons and calculations… Tell us about your players’ reactions, insights, and feedback… Tell us all about how you became a Planar Master. If you are a player, tell us about your planar character, his adventures and magic items… tell us about what you expected and appreciate your DM when he subverted such expectations… tell us about where do you want to go next!

Here at Codex Anathema, I’ll dedicate the whole month (except Sundays!) to introduce some elements to many different planes from many different settings. You may recognize many of them as M:tG settings, but you’ll also find some Eberron and Planescape ones in the list. This is gonna be a ride! We’ll be updating the links to our entries here, so this will also be a handy index of sorts.