Time Paradox

X Worldbuilders:

GM James R

About

Quelmar is no stranger to temporal anomalies. Different planes work on different rates of time, and plane jumping can cause severe displacement. While most of the population of the Realm would laugh at the idea of time travel, the highest ranking explorers in the world have first hand experience with its dangers. The multi-universal nature of Quelmar (including it's parallel planes and edditionals) mean that when the flow of time is messed with, several problems can arise, below are a list of the most common Quelmar paradoxes and their instances within campaigns.

List of Paradoxes

Bootstrap Paradox

The Bootstrap Paradox is a cyclical turn of events, which cause themselves to occur. This is considered a 'safe' paradox as it allows time to flow smoothly and uninterrupted, and is often caused by time-itself repairing an unknown damage.

• Zugs McFlair picking up a firearm from under a grate, and then later returning to that grate years earlier to place the same gun---which will in turn be picked up years later by Zugs McFlair
• Snow being sent back in time to create his own race of Warforged by studying his own body---a race which will eventually be propagated around the realm and lead to Snow's construction.

Grandfather Paradox

The Grandfather Paradox occurs when the events that caused the time traveling in the first place to never occur. This is an 'unsafe' paradox, and often forces time to repair itself by reforming events and altering memories. If the damage is irreparable, a temporal fissure occurs at the source of the change. This splits the timeline into parallels (pictured right), wipes the memory of the event from witnesses, and removes the traveler (and other relevant entities) from the parallel timeline.

• Callum killing himself in the past
• Charne killing his parents' murderer before the murderer can kill his parents (Pictured Right)

Butterfly Effect

The Butterfly Effect occurs when time repairs itself after events are changed in the past. Quelmar timelines have proven to be particularly sturdy, and most events will occur even if facts of the past are altered. This is the result of grandfather paradoxes occurring in such a way that the following history can still occur normally.

• Anema E Core being born another race (after a divine wish) caused time to repair events both before and after his birth, but still allowed all of the events that occurred to happen in a timely fashion (though Quelmar citizens who had encountered Anema before now held memories of him as his new race).