How would you navigate in Hell

[Warshield73]

I am running a few Rifts games at a convention in February set in what amounts to a Hell dimension with no magnetic north and the sky is just rolling clouds with no sun, moon or stars. There are no large bodies of water just large areas of sandy deserts surrounded by mountains.

My question if you were a player dropped into this, in any game, how would you try to navigate? What magic or devices would you use to try and navigate?

As this is only a 4 hour game I am trying to anticipate what the players will do so I can speed it along.

[Nekira Sudacne]

I am running a few Rifts games at a convention in February set in what amounts to a Hell dimension with no magnetic north and the sky is just rolling clouds with no sun, moon or stars. There are no large bodies of water just large areas of sandy deserts surrounded by mountains.

My question if you were a player dropped into this, in any game, how would you try to navigate? What magic or devices would you use to try and navigate?

As this is only a 4 hour game I am trying to anticipate what the players will do so I can speed it along.

Navagating without a point of reference is mathematically impossible.

Land navagation is navagation by landmarks, however, so assuming they know how to recognize certain moutians in relation to their destination, land nav is used for that.

A Cosmo Knight's Cosmic Direction Sense allows them to navagate in any environment by sensing their absolute cosmological point. If you allow one

[Warshield73]

Navagating without a point of reference is mathematically impossible.

Yes, like I said I just want to get out ahead of any ideas players might have to try and save time. The people who live in this dimension use visual navigation, usually computerized, but I especially wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything magical.

Land navagation is navagation by landmarks, however, so assuming they know how to recognize certain moutians in relation to their destination, land nav is used for that.

Since none of the PCs will know where they are so most of the concerns with navigation are just going to be about how they search for a way out.

A Cosmo Knight's Cosmic Direction Sense allows them to navagate in any environment by sensing their absolute cosmological point. If you allow one

No Cosmo-knight in this but I am pretty sure this only works in the Three Galaxies or at least it's dimension.

Thanks for the input, appreciate the help.

[Grazzik]

Highly unlikely scenario might be that they come to possess a Dimensional Continuum Measurement Device from Transdimensional TMNT (pg 54) and rig it up to be highly fine tuned. Had a PC once that was a scientist who theorized that 'dimensional harmonics' would be different for each spatial point in a given dimension if they built a device sensitive enough. That would allow them to jump to a desired point, even if they had never visited it before. Never got to the stage of implementing the idea, they simply used preset coordinates and cross-dimensional signal beacons.

[darthauthor]

What would I do as a player?

Poof. I am in a land I don't recognize. I traveled through a rift and here I am. I know I am in another dimension. I assume I have never been "here" before. Talk to the rest of the Party. Unless we are "here" to find something we have to hide. Take inventory of our water, food and supplies. Check the compass in one's survival knift. No go. Then we have no orientation. We need to survive until we can collect enough information to make an escape home or find what we came to this dimension for. I assume we don't have a map or any contact in the dimensional world.
So I start making them.

101. Dowsing for water, gathering for food, and hunting for game. Set traps. Make shelter.
Set ambush for those who would hunt "us" as prey.
Any sign of intelligent life and "if" i'm a good guy I use my mental affinity and try to make an introduction. Share water and food. Food is the universal morale and social ice breaker. These people might like something from another world. Assuming a spell for translation or they are supernatural and can understand the party we exchange information. If its like a video game I have to do a side quest for them for information like directions to towns or dangerous places and beings to avoid and the direction they are in. If it doesn't work out the party can tail them or track them.
Rinse wash and repeat until some kind of town is found and a basic map is made.
2nd
Ask about a "way out" Rifts or a ley line (assuming there are any; hopefully a nexus). Because a Rift will eventually open up at a nexus. The only "other" idea i can think of is to recruit the services of a magic user. Hopefully, a Shifter. If not in the dimension I'm in then to get a message to them. They summon demons and such. A message could be relayed. But it would require role-playing, making connections in a world where credits may be worthless. Trade is in favors, services and side-quests. Plus the dilemma of trust. Deals can be made with dyvels and demons. Just ask a Shifter. But there has to be "something" in it for the demon. They have weaknesses too. Gambling. Drinking. They can be bluffed, bullied, conned, drugged, and pitted against each other. The characters could brew drinks, tailor clothes, create art in their image, make them weapons, repair their machines (if they have them), things they haven't the patience and skills to do themselves. IF I was a demon and some adventures were trying to get my help I ask what was in it for me and if they could get me out too. I would use them to rob my rivals and perhaps destroy them. Even if I couldn't get the adventures anything they needed I would lie to them to get what I wanted out of them.

[Killer Cyborg]

I am running a few Rifts games at a convention in February set in what amounts to a Hell dimension with no magnetic north and the sky is just rolling clouds with no sun, moon or stars. There are no large bodies of water just large areas of sandy deserts surrounded by mountains.

My question if you were a player dropped into this, in any game, how would you try to navigate? What magic or devices would you use to try and navigate?

As this is only a 4 hour game I am trying to anticipate what the players will do so I can speed it along.

As a player, I'd take stock of my resources.
If all I have is what you said there, then I'd pick the most identifiable mountain I could see, and try to use that as a landmark to track my relative position.

Beyond that, it's entirely dependent on circumstance.

IF there's local wildlife that qualifies as "animal," and IF I'm playing a caster with the spell Metamorphosis: Animal, I'd try changing into various animals. Many forms of earth life have biological means of navigation by sensing our magnetic North and such, and there could well be a local equivalent in local wildlife, IF there is local wildlife. Only, you know, not based on magnetic North, but some other local detectable presence, like a powerful source of magic, evil, good, psionic energy, light, sound, etc., electromagnetic energy, or whatever. Perhaps even smell, where animals there have such a keen sense of smell they can navigate based on sulfur pits miles away or something.

IF I'm a caster with the spell Second Sight, and there's another party member with telescopic vision, and if we're willing to split the party in order for me to navigate to a specific spot in such a way that I'd need outside eyes on my position, then that person could stay in on spot watching me, and I could check in on where I'm at from their point of view here or there using Second Sight.
Range is 5 miles per level, so it also depends on where I'm trying to go, and what level everybody is.
Perhaps if we're both casters, they could later fly or teleport to my location.

IF there are local Spirits/Entities, which seems entirely possible in a Hell dimension, one could attempt Commune With Spirits in order to get directions.

Of course, there's the spell Locate, with a range of 15 miles per level of experience.
One could either seek to Locate one's destination or an person/object there, or one could drop an item on the ground, and periodically Locate it in order to get a relative position, using that object as a kind of magnetic North, at least when within range, and IF the GM interprets the spell to give directional gists.

Oracle could be used in a "what if we go in THIS direction" sort of way. Not exactly navigation, but a potential way to avoid hazards and/or help find useful features like whatever passes for an Oasis.

Beat Insurmountable Odds might just let one navigate as if there is a magnetic North, even though there isn't one, at GM discretion.

Control & Enslave Entity might provide a guide, if entities are present.

Illusory Forest could create a landmark one could use as a navigation point as long as it's in sight. The spell doesn't seem to have any range of effect that I've noticed (though I haven't pored over this one to tell for certain), so in theory as long as it's in binocular range and line of sight, one could use it as a reference point.
If one has binoculars and such.
For that matter, the spell can be cast as far as 500' away from the caster, and I notice no restriction that requires the spell to be cast on the ground.
So one could create an illusory forest 500' straight up in the air. More, if one can fly.
Since the forest covers 3k' x 3k' per level of the caster, this could be visible for quite some distance even with the naked eye.
A 10th level caster could cover... wait, like 2,000 acres....?
Can that be right?
Somebody help me math this.


Summon Shadow Beast... well, Shadow Beasts have Land Navigation at 60%, and it's hard to imagine them using maps and a compass to utilize this skill. Perhaps they have some kind of navigational senses that would work in this other dimension? Hard to believe they're all skilled with utilizing Earth's magnetic North, and solely that.

Anti-Magic Cloud creates a cloud that seems to be stationary over the place it was cast.
Which could be used as a landmark. Or rather airmark.

Illusory Terrain could be used the same way as Illusory forest.
There's no mentioned limit on the height of the terrain conjured, so one could make an illusory mountain to use as a navigation point.
Or for that matter, something just as tall but even more unique, like a volcano, geyser, millennium tree, or whatever.
For that matter, I don't recall a height limit for Illusory Forest. Maybe one could make 10k tall trees or something.

Summon Fog works up to 10 miles away per level of experience, covering a 1 mile area per level of the caster.
So cast the fog someplace you want to go, then just keep heading toward the fog.
Or cast it just behind you, and keep looking back to see where you are relative to the fog.
Again, you might be able to cast it up in the air, making a sort of stationary cloud you could refer to as a landmark.

On to Psionics...
Astral Projection could be potentially used to scout around, assuming it works in the Hell dimension the same way it works on Earth. Getting to fly at mach 1 could help quite a bit in getting one's bearings, even if one has to return to their body shortly.

Clairvoyance could be used to detect hazards or beneficial features ahead of you, which isn't exactly navigation, but could still be useful in travel.

Commune with Spirits would work or fail much as the spell.

There are a number of of psychic sensory powers (Sense Dimensional Anomaly, Sense Magic, Sense Evil, etc) which would NOT be very useful as described in official stats, but which might be worth a try anyway just in case the GM decides there's something so powerful or unusual that psychics can sense it from much, much further than the normal range limits.
Not by-the-book, but it seems like the kind of thing that Palladium might allow or right into an adventure, especially given stuff like the visions various psychics had about the Mechanoids and other dangers, visions which have no basis in listed psychic powers or abilities but rather fall under external forces that affect psychics.
Come to think of it, this same logic could apply to various sensory spells.

Psychic Omni-Sight is such a catch-all of sensing things that it might be useful in finding some local patterns or energies or anything that might help navigate.
It lets you "literally see any movement, even the wind!" so maybe there are unusual air currents that can be tracked, or weird local versions of ley lines, or something similar.

And that's pretty much all I've got without getting into esoteric abilities, powers, and so forth.

The same kinds of things I've listed here could sometimes be shifted over to tech as well, I suppose. Maybe an Operator could use a drone for aerial recon, or make a tethered blimp/balloon for a landmark, and could certainly use telescopic vision to look for landmarks, as well as infrared, heat vision, and so forth to look for navigational tools that normal senses can't detect.
And of course there's radar.

[ShadowLogan]

I am running a few Rifts games at a convention in February set in what amounts to a Hell dimension with no magnetic north and the sky is just rolling clouds with no sun, moon or stars. There are no large bodies of water just large areas of sandy deserts surrounded by mountains.

My question if you were a player dropped into this, in any game, how would you try to navigate? What magic or devices would you use to try and navigate?

As this is only a 4 hour game I am trying to anticipate what the players will do so I can speed it along.

Well clouds are transparent to microwaves and radio waves, so if you have a vision system in theory you could navigate similar to celestial-based navigation, though probably not as effective without knowing the local celestial information. This is likely a tech solution as I can't think of any race that could see this way.

Inertial Navigation (tech) is an option, but it would require that you be able to determine where you are in Hell first and have map(s) of Hell.

You could also use a radio see if there is an emitter (natural or artificial) you can use as a reference point. With a bit of trig and two (or more) detector stations you could determine you position relative to this, which means if you know where your destination is relative to the radio source you could navigate. Alternatively, you could also setup a radio emitter yourself to act as a (temporary) beacon and start mapping from there.
Magic Pigeon might also be useful as a guide. Send it to a person you know is here (or maybe even a place to deliver a message to the first person it sees there.

If the clouds roll in one direction, that could be used to point East (or whatever arbitrary direction you want).

If there are Ley Lines, a LLW could read one (or more) to get a sense of direction.

[darthauthor]

They is always the helpful random NPC.

Perhaps a trade caravan can come along or just a random NPC who is indispensible because they are the only one who knows which direction to walk. So no killing. IF mistreated, the NPC leads them into a trap. Good way to reward social skills and role-playing over combat and threat making.

[Grazzik]

They is always the helpful random NPC.

Perhaps a trade caravan can come along or just a random NPC who is indispensible because they are the only one who knows which direction to walk. So no killing. IF mistreated, the NPC leads them into a trap. Good way to reward social skills and role-playing over combat and threat making.

Perhaps the NPC only says they will guide the PCs, but in fact intends to trade the PCs as slaves/food at the next stop. It is Hell after all...

[darthauthor]

Grazzik,

I like that