Characters with Swift Transition

[Wanderer]

Another power I might be interested in is Swift Transition. What it means to be able to shift in and out of the Nevernever at will? I tried looking at PP for some Nevernever reference, but the first part of that book is written in such a fashion it is largely useless to me as a setting source, I just use the second part with the crunchy bits.

[Sanctaphrax]

It means you can go to a bizarre and dangerous fantasy-land whenever you feel like it. You may be able to use this to travel great distances very quickly, if you know the ways. You can pretty reliably get out of dangerous situations, although often doing so will put you in another dangerous situation.

The details of the Nevernever are never really nailed down in canon, so a lot of it is up the GM. Way I run it, the place is divided into more or less discrete domains that have basically normal internal geometry. The connections between domains, and between any given domain and the real world, are fairly arbitrary and don't respect the rules of three-dimensional space. Each domain has its own thematics, its own creatures, and to some extent its own laws of physics; normally, the beings in one domain stick to that domain. You can see some example domains on the wiki.

[Wanderer]

Hmm, so the Nevernever is not really different from parallel magical dimensions in other urban fantasy games, as I guessed. If so, the price of Swift Transition is a real bargain, since you can use it for swift travel and escaping present dangers at will (by running into all kinds of dangerous supernatural predators and hapzard magical terrain, but everything has a price), and you cannot be imprisoned or warded outside of an environment short of elaborate magical preparations. I need to check the books about how wards deal with escapes into or intrusions from the Nevernever, but I seem to remember that wards do block transitions to the Nevernever as well.

[Mr. Death]

Also as a note, what's on the Nevernever tends to mirror or at least be related to what's in the real world in the same place. Harry, for instance, has been warned against going into the Nevernever from anywhere on his private evil island lair. If you try to escape a villain's torture chamber, you might well be dropping yourself into someplace worse. You could try to use it as a quick escape and find out you just jumped into a domain filled with acid mists.

Or you could jump in, move a handful of yards, jump out again and find yourself half-way across the world with no reliable way back. Or jump in, stay five minutes, and find out a month has passed in the real world.

The Nevernever is filled with all kinds of fae and other creatures who would love to pounce on and consume an unwitting practitioner. The most prominent Nevernever traveler we've heard of in canon has the title "La Fay" at least partly because "Fay" means "crazy," as in, "You're exploring the Nevernever? You're freaking crazy."

So it can be handy, but know that you're really rolling the dice if you hop into the Nevernever blind.

Wards can more or less block whatever the practitioner creating them intends them to, given enough time, power and resources.

[Wanderer]

Also as a note, what's on the Nevernever tends to mirror or at least be related to what's in the real world in the same place. Harry, for instance, has been warned against going into the Nevernever from anywhere on his private evil island lair. If you try to escape a villain's torture chamber, you might well be dropping yourself into someplace worse. You could try to use it as a quick escape and find out you just jumped into a domain filled with acid mists.

Or you could jump in, move a handful of yards, jump out again and find yourself half-way across the world with no reliable way back. Or jump in, stay five minutes, and find out a month has passed in the real world.

The Nevernever is filled with all kinds of fae and other creatures who would love to pounce on and consume an unwitting practitioner. The most prominent Nevernever traveler we've heard of in canon has the title "La Fay" at least partly because "Fay" means "crazy," as in, "You're exploring the Nevernever? You're freaking crazy."

So it can be handy, but know that you're really rolling the dice if you hop into the Nevernever blind.

Wards can more or less block whatever the practitioner creating them intends them to, given enough time, power and resources.

Yes, all of this registers rather familiar to me from my experience with supernatural characters in other urban fantasy games (I refuse to treat them as horror games since the horror genre and its themes register as boring and incomprehensible to me, nor the people I played with cared to do any differently) with magical parallel dimensions, such as shapeshifters, mages, or faeries in the WoD (by the way, another major case of fine games in most aspects with overbearing and obnoxious morality systems I fiercely hated and essentially houseruled out of existence). The alternate dimensions with plenty of dangerous, predatory natives, the often bizarre and harmful dream-logic environments, the eerie mirror effect between the mundane and magical worlds, the Escher-like spatial and temporal distortions, oh the memories of interesting times (all too often in the Chinese sense).

Yea, as you point out, it is a travel, infiltration, or escape strategy that often has its serious drawbacks (although somewhat less so once the characters grow in power and become more capable to deal with other-dimensional critters and environmental hazards). Yet it has more than enough all-around usefulness that I surely deem it a rather useful power to have, if your concept would allow for it (including such cases as the rules for magic as powers in PP). All the more so since unlike those other games, DFRPG and the Dresdenverse seem to lack real alternative methods for magical quick travel.

[g33k]

Unless you either:

• are following a known, pre-established route
• have a reliable guide
• have something extra helping with navigation

the Nevernever is NOT a reliable shortcut between 2 real-world locations.  A straight line here is not a straight line there; nor are routes necessarily contiguous.  Finding the "right" spot in the Nevernever to step back across to a "known" spot in the mundane world is extraordinarily difficult.

[Wanderer]

Unless you either:

• are following a known, pre-established route
• have a reliable guide
• have something extra helping with navigation

the Nevernever is NOT a reliable shortcut between 2 real-world locations.  A straight line here is not a straight line there; nor are routes necessarily contiguous.  Finding the "right" spot in the Nevernever to step back across to a "known" spot in the mundane world is extraordinarily difficult.

Understood. But free transit into the Nevernever would still be rather useful to get out of imprisonment or troublesome situations in the mundane world. As it concerns navigation in the Nevernever, in other games it is usually feasible to navigate similar alternate dimensions that have this kind of association with the mundane world by means of dream logic, conceptual associations, and mystical correspondences, even if the same kind of problems you state apply. I suppose the same would be possible with the Nevernever, especially as it concerns to travel between places that have sufficiently important (e.g. going from New York to Rome) or broad (e.g. traveling between Egypt and Australia) conceptual imprints in the collective consciousness.

[Taran]

There was one character in the entire series who was rumoured to be able to almost reliably travel through the Nevernever and that character reputedly got into serious debt with powerful Sidh nobles.   But that reliable travel was on secret and established routes.  Showing up in the middle of nowhere would still be a challenge.

In any case, Reliable transport through the Nevernever usually comes at a price.  Which makes for good story telling so you should make sure you use that opportunity.  Even at high refresh, your debts could be with some equally powerful beings. 

[potestas]

i use it for quick transit. a good lore roll pretty much keeps you on the right path and the white council used it to fight there war with the red court as they have no other means of reliable transportation. So it isn't all bad. And it can be used by the knowledgeable  (read the white council and its members) as fast transportation though not instant. I see no reason to disallow this justto make things harder on players.

[Taran]

i use it for quick transit. a good lore roll pretty much keeps you on the right path and the white council used it to fight there war with the red court as they have no other means of reliable transportation. So it isn't all bad. And it can be used by the knowledgeable  (read the white council and its members) as fast transportation though not instant. I see no reason to disallow this justto make things harder on players.

The white council used pre-established routes and also had a treaty with Winter.

[Quantus]

The white council used pre-established routes and also had a treaty with Winter.

I also got the overall impression that the Sidhe regions of the NN are more stable in general than other more fluid areas, areas defined by more mercurial things than spirits so linked to the Natural Order. 

[potestas]

Its not even a hard ritual to cast, any wizard can do it and with the right knowledge-read lore. They will be able to connect where they are to where they want to be more reliably. The mechanics of the game make it so. The theme of the game makes it difficult or i should say wants it to be difficult but it isn't mechanically and the players know this and any attempt to make it other will appear hamfisted. So use it for travel have a few quick stories to remind players it can be dangerous. its the closest thing dresdenverse gets to teleportation

 I really love the idea of a story based on world travel. AH the work might be way too involved but man would it be fun.

[Wanderer]

The character I'm currently developing is supposed to be an half-Sidhe changeling and a wizard with a few important ties to Faerie and Heaven/Hell, including access to Seelie/Unseelie Magic and Soulfire/Hellfire. Would such ties help in navigating the Nevernever?

[Quantus]

The character I'm currently developing is supposed to be an half-Sidhe changeling and a wizard with a few important ties to Faerie and Heaven/Hell, including access to Seelie/Unseelie Magic and Soulfire/Hellfire. Would such ties help in navigating the Nevernever?

Individually within their realms, I dont see why not.  And the Argument could be made that the Sidhe side could be extra good at All Ways travel (not just their territory) since Fae natively straddle the NN and the Mortal World (uniquely among NN beings).  Meanwhile, I could see the argument that Hellfire might be used to supercharge a Way spell being extra good at destruction and "tearing down" boundaries, or burning a hole in Reality Itself (a Red Lantern did it once).  Similarly I could argue that Soulfire might be used to Create a stronger, more lasting Doorway. 

/shrug/  that level of thing inevitable comes down to a conversation between player and storyteller.