Setting

I'd like to have a home base. With the teleportation gates it's easy to do the "world-hopping" but come home. Like in Stargate ^_^

Yeah I agree, let's world-hop and keep a home base.

Some images for inspiration:

It doesn't even need to be world hopping. In a fantasy setting transportation is limited, so a teleportation circle that takes you to other parts of the world could easily save days, weeks, or even months of travel time. I imagined all the circles on the same planet, just a shortcut. Otherwise even an airship(or other magical conveyance) could take weeks to travel the same distance…longer if you have to travel on the ground.

I was mainly thinking within the same world myself. But multiple worlds will give more possibilities, but this being a fantasy world there could be plenty of fantastic locations within the world from the lava seas of Vartan to the icecapped Tsiuri moutains where the giants dwell.

Now...maybe this is a "Question" that should be answered in the next part of the process...but what if the different faerie courts have overplayed their realms onto different parts of our world? Then our missions would revolve around freeing this places from Faerie influence. Putting them back to normal so to speak. This could involve defeating the ruler of that court...aka the evil warlords of Erebus's media suggestion.

As long as the places are varied, "normal" transportation between them difficult (or just plain too long), and the cultures are different and interesting, I'm ok with both versions (world-hopping or just on the same planet).
Plus being fantasy there could be cloud-cities, underground realms, realms set partially in another dimension or like the unseelie court that can be seen and entered only at particular times, the Garden of Eden, etc.
Pretty different worlds without moving to another dimension/world. But I'm also ok with world hopping.

My Shadow Lords campaigns often involve a lot of world-hopping, sending agents to different realities to catch interdimensional criminals :D

I suggest we start with the Establish Facts phase to flesh out the world, and can decide the limits of the gates if and when they come up as questions :)

Everyone gets 2 tokens:
EldritchFire 2 tokens
Erebus 2 tokens
foolsmask 2 tokens
Furmyr 2 tokens
Locke 2 tokens

My question is: Who controls access to the teleportation gates?

PAYING 1 TOKEN

The quick answer is "The Fae Lords, who hold the keys...for now." Meaning, each gate has a key. Currently they are held by the Fae nobility (except maybe one...just to get the PCs rolling?). While a person holds the key to a specific gate they control what non-Keyholders come and go. If a person has a key they can travel through their gate to another...but the Keyholder will have to allow them to go back through the gate to get home. And one of the PCs goals is to get all the keys away form the Fae Lords.

My question: What is the nature of the looming Apocalypse and how do we know?

PAYING ONE TOKEN

NATURE OF THE APOCALYPSE
The fae Lords meddled for years with the mortals' world and magic spawned everywhere changing lands, people, cultures. That's why the gates and the keys were created, to regulate the flux of magic energies and give stability to the world.
But someone don't likes this status quo and wants to destroy the gates and open them as wounds in the tissue of reality, mixing the worlds forever in an ever changing sea of chaos, maybe undoing (or redoing) creation.

My question: who is he and who are his minions and generals (our main enemies)?

Oh, maybe that spawns also the question of who built the gates and where he is now?

PAYING 1 TOKEN
Not 'he'...they. The people who created the gate where powerful heroed trying to prevent the destruction of the world. The process to create the gates was taxing and required then to infuse some...sometimes all of their life essence into the gates. That energy is what sustains the connections and allows travel.
Now that the gates are threatened, these great heroes are being reincarnated in PCs, bound to protect the world again as they have done countless times in the past. Sometimes they remember who they are, other times they don't, but they always appear when something threatens the world. It has been ages since the last appearance of a Gate Hero, so the PCs are something special. There is even a quasi religious order that seeks out reincarnated Gate Heroes and invites them to gather and train. Some go, nsome don't. The Order of the Magi believe that they are best suited at training and preparing Gate Heroes, but they can't force the issue because Gate Heroes are to powerful. ((Note: I intend to use the "teacher/leader" definition of Magi...not the "wizard/magic user" per se.)) Gate Heroes come in all forms. Fighters, wizards, farm girls, stable hand, kings and paupers. Just because your soul used to belong to a Gate Hero doesn't mean you are immediately better off than anyone else. I'd also like there to be people who dislike the idea of Gate Heroes. They don't believe they are reincarnated heroes, but actually cause the trouble they claim they exist to fight. The people don't see any problems, then all of a sudden a Gate Hero shows up and bad stuff happens. This isn't everyone, just a large, sometimes very vocal minority.

So the short answer is "The ancient Gate Heroes, and they have returned."

Sorry if answering again so quickly was a breach of protocol, but it was the perfect setup.

Paying 1 token
A disenchanted faerie lord (primarily known as the Autarch), who grew tired of the cyclical nature of his kind's nature. He wants the power to remake reality, to free his people from their "burden" and assure their rule over the "lower" races. He recruits primarily from among the fae, though he will stoop to using the mortal races for foot soldiers and cannon fodder. Though there may be a few trusted lieutenants among the second class citizens of his army, none occupy positions of much authority. Those who are entrusted with leadership were also given the promise that they will be remade as fae when the Autarch's inevitable victory arrives.

My question: How far—and how deep—are the Autarch's agents embedded in the rest of society? Are they a passing fad, a dangerous cult, or an invisible evil?

Forgot to put my question with my last post, so here it is...

Who are the Fae Lords and what are their crimes (besides The Autarch)?

They have managed to infiltrate the highest echelons of society. It has taken several decades, but anyone could be a secret agent of the Autarch. Many of his agents are unaware that they are working for him even.

Question: What is the system of government in the world (at least the main part where the PCs start out)


EldritchFire 2 tokens
Erebus 1 tokens
foolsmask 0 tokens
Furmyr 1 tokens
Locke 1 tokens

PAYING 1 TOKEN

The main system of government is a mageocracy. Those who wield power are the ones who, well, wield power. The mages in the PCs locale are pretty fair and not full of themselves, so it's a beneficent mageocracy.

QUESTION: How populated, busy, and important is the PCs home town/base area?

Highcrest as it is named is an important center of trade being situated on the coast and at the mouth of a large river. Being a center of trade, it is a also a haven for scum and villainy, and the saying is that if you can't find it here you're just not paying enough.

Hundreds of years ago it used to be the home of the royal family in the old days, and while there hasn't been a king for a century or more, there are still remains of them now, chief among them the royal palace that sits on an island in the middle of the river.

Question: Why have the royal palace not been reused by anyone else for more than a hundred years?

EldritchFire 1 tokens
Erebus 1 tokens
foolsmask 0 tokens
Furmyr 0 tokens
Locke 1 tokens

I considered not asking a question in order to have foolsmask's question above, but having two questions is fine. In the end we'll end up with one unanswered question, but we can survive that. It may go faster if we have two questions available for people to get ideas about.

I agree. The dangling question can be used or not used at GM discretion in my opinion.

Paying 1 token
Just after the old king's downfall, the new regime attempted to take over the palace, only to be driven out by strange supernatural occurrences: food rotting spontaneously, shadows of hanged bodies appearing randomly, even full-bodied apparitions attacking the residents. Each wizard and necromancer who investigated the palace and its "ghosts" has been driven insane, and without answers or solutions, the palace has been left to decay.

Question: What happened recently to upset the local peace?

Paying my last token

Obviously this is the first sign of reality collapsing because of the mixing of the worlds.
The whole complex of royal palaces became a warpgate of sort, a chaotic rift that opens randomly to the most extreme of realities, places where demons and maybe even worse awaits.
A mysterious and for now undisclosed entity has thus taken home into the "warped halls" (new name of the palace) and is now the "king" of those halls...

Question: who he/she is and what are his/her goals?