Rules of the road
As I said, Reader, I don't quite know what I am doing, but figuring it out as I go while looking at how others do it.
I like the concept of Invisible Light bringing things to life in a setting where everything’s in stasis. I could see a few benefits.
It gives players some control over what’s in their world. The setting slowly opens up to the players, unlocked by their presence.
It explains why things are just waiting in rooms for them in dungeons.
It makes the players important, but not necessarily powerful in the setting. They don’t get any better at not dying, but they’re now an important force in the setting.
Mechanically, I absolutely love the idea of encounter tables being built by player action. Every location they unlock adds options to the encounter tables.
But Reader, let’s stop for a second because I can already tell I am making some assumptions about the setting. May as well write them down.
The landscape is large, underground, in a dome.
The party is trapped in this space until some condition in met.
The dome prevents scrying, teleportation, and interplanar gates.
There are camps where people live, and installations where they built their art experiences.
There are tourists, artists, and partiers.
There is no money here, only gifts, barter, and favors.
At least one of the camps has access to enough food to feed everyone if needed.
All camps have enough food to last a few more days.
Looking at all that… so the ship crashed. The ship put everyone in stasis to protect them. When rescue arrives, they are endowed with invisible light to save people slowly and in priority order. However, something’s gone wrong. The party’s been deemed the rescue, but they cannot control the invisible light.