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Chimera245
2011-05-06, 07:24 PM
I need some ideas for other planes of existence in a campaign setting I'm making up.

Right now, I'm having the most trouble thinking up some good Alignment-based planes. "Outer Planes" as the Great Wheel labels them.

I need one for each of the nine alignments, including TN, and I'm having huge writer's block.

Unlike the Outer Planes in the Great Wheel, the gods of this world aren't particularly drawn to these planes over others, and they're pretty evenly spread over all the planes of existence.

Anyone got any good ideas to get me started?

Also, if it matters, the general level of technology is about that of the wild west.

Bobby Archer
2011-05-06, 07:46 PM
A good place to start might be to consider what role you want these planes to be serving in the game. You've said they aren't necessarily the domains of the gods (although some gods will likely be there, if they spread themselves out more or less equally). The planes should serve some purpose, either within the cosmology and history of the world, or for you, as the one creating it and DMing in it.

Planes can be places for summoned extraplanar beings to come from, sources of magical power, places of rest for the dead, manifestations of certain concepts, or just cool places for the PCs to adventure through. Different planes can serve different purposes or all the planes could serve the same purpose, manifested differently. For instance, each of the nine planes could be the afterlife for creatures of that alignment.

dsmiles
2011-05-06, 07:52 PM
Now is the theme "Wild West," or just the technology level?

Chimera245
2011-05-06, 08:06 PM
The general putposes I need the planes to serve (and roughly in order of priority),

1. A cool place to go adventuring.
2. A place that personifies (location-ifies?) its corresponding alignment.
3. A place for angels, demons, slaad, and whatever else to come from.

I'm not sure if I want deceased souls going there, as I have three material planes, and only one is attatched to these planes. (Another one gets all the elemental planes instead. The third one...I'm still working on.)

I might have dead souls just all go to the astral plane or something, or maybe no one knows where you go when you die, and it's still a mystery. Or maybe dead souls go to the planes that surround their Material Plane, whatever those planes might be. (souls going to the Elemental planes is something I don't think I've seen before...)

I generally know what I need the planes to do, I just need help thinking up what it looks like if you go there.

As far as the Wild West thing, I haven't decided yet. I think at least one of the worlds will have the theme, but I haven't decided if they all do or not, or even which one it would be.

Grytorm
2011-05-06, 08:14 PM
One place you might look to for inspiration would be the worlds of the Medium in Homestuck. You can find descriptions on the MS Paint Adventures Wiki.

mathemagician
2011-05-06, 08:18 PM
For the neutrals, you could play off of balance:

You could imagine the neutral plane sitting atop a pointed structure, with a massive chain binding the general sides of good and evil hanging off it, in balance. The structures in the plane itself should reflect this too: perhaps all buildings are built using half light and half dark materials...perhaps neutral good has more light stones than dark, while neutral evil has the other way around. Law and Chaos can be easily represented in this architecture too...lawful aligned buildings have their stones in regular patterns, perhaps all light to one side, all dark to the other, or stripes, whereas chaotic buildings are...chaotic. True Neutral might sit at the center of mass, and not play on the light/dark side of things, perhaps its all gray?

dsmiles
2011-05-06, 08:19 PM
If you're not sure about the theme, a general fantasy theme might be good. You could look to one of my favorite series' for inspiration: The Deathgate Cycle.

Chimera245
2011-05-06, 08:42 PM
I actually chose Wild West, because a while back I realized you could advance the pseudo-historical basis that far with very little impact on the rules of the game besides adding in the weakest of guns out of the DMG.

And I specifically wanted a setting that was as far removed from the norm as possible.

(And I actually have read the Deatgate Cycle. It was awesome. The only thing I would have changed would be to give the other three worlds more screentime. The Air world got a lot more focus than the others...)

I like that idea for the True Neutral plane. It doesn't feel like "a smaller Material plane with some funny quirks" the way the Outlands did to me.

As far as the MS Paint thing, I have no idea what that is, and I'm about to go check it out.

Aron Times
2011-05-06, 08:48 PM
1. Convert all mention of "plane" to "planet."
2. Get a spelljammer or someone who can cast Planar Planetary Portal.
3. ???
4. Profit!

Chimera245
2011-05-06, 09:15 PM
That Homestuck stuff is exactly the kinda weird otherworldy stuff I need right now.

(As an avid Transformers fan, I can't help but notice that Alternia looks a lot like Cybertron, right down to having two moons...)

Noedig
2011-05-06, 10:57 PM
For Chaotic Neutral, make a completely untamed wilderness that (violently) adapts to outsiders, sort of like a deathworld.

dsmiles
2011-05-07, 06:31 AM
For Chaotic Neutral, make a completely untamed wilderness that (violently) adapts to outsiders, sort of like a deathworld.Call it...um...The Badlands. (I know, I know, it's kind of cliched. But it fits.)

Bobby Archer
2011-05-07, 03:53 PM
Call it...um...The Badlands. (I know, I know, it's kind of cliched. But it fits.)

Actually, badlands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badlands) refer to arid landscapes with little vegetation and enough loose footing and steep slopes that crossing them is difficult at best.

Which wouldn't be a bad setting for one of these planes. Depending on how you present it, it could be fit into a number of different alignments. On the Lawful side, it could be a testing ground, an infinite badland with a city at the center. A Chaotic plane could exemplify personal or individual survival separate from order or society - any gathering or structure beyond the smallest sort is suddenly washed away in an avalanche or freak rainstorm. An Evil plane could typify the barbarism that such a place could drive beings to, while a Good plane could use this environment to draw out the best in its inhabitants, giving them something besides each other to struggle against.

Chimera245
2011-05-07, 05:45 PM
I kinda wanted to stay away from naturally occuring Material Plane landscape on the other planes as much as possible, partly because i want them to feel as different and otherworldly as possible, and partly because I'm just sick of the trees... in the Great Wheel, every good-aligned plane except for the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia is TREES! FLOATING LANDMASSES FULL OF TREES!

mint
2011-05-08, 05:03 AM
Have you read The half-made world?
It plays out in lands between civilization and a place called the unformed lands, a sea of churning chaos. The world is forming out of this sea.
The land is wild and untamed mostly, small towns. Wild west essentially.
There are two forces at work here.
Line and gun. Line is the railroad. Gun is the gunslinger.
Line spreads across the outback, subsuming towns and bringing industry. Gun tries to halt and slow Line but they are much fewer and only ever slow Line down. Neither are good.

I like the idea of a TN plane where chaos and order clash in this way.

Mercenary Pen
2011-05-08, 07:19 AM
Maybe you could try planes for non-alignment specific concepts where the various alignments are constantly fighting for supremacy

Planes of Darkness, Light and other neutral concepts that can be portrayed as good or evil, lawful or chaotic... You could even have alignment-dominance of these planes affect the prime in how you describe these particular elements...

For example, assuming Lawful Good supremacy on the plane of light, you might describe things as:

As sure as the turn of the seasons, the sun rose with the coming dawn, shining down with refreshing, invigorating light that seemed to immerse you in tranquility.

Whereas, if Lawful Evil had control of the plane of light, you might instead use this:

With the imminent dawn, the harsh light of the sun burst in, viciously torturing your eyes as they struggled to adjust from the solace of the night that had passed before...

With Chaos (which I haven't used here), you might play up an element of unexpectedness- for example places being lighter than you expect them to be, dawn coming at times when it shouldn't, that sort of thing.


Basically, you might use this as an opportunity to take alignment-neutral elements and make them more real and tangible, force your players to be scared of nothing but light for a moment, or to take comfort from a moment in darkness.

Ravens_cry
2011-05-08, 07:13 PM
I would make the Plane of Fire hot, eternally combusting, plasma. The Plane of Fire in D&D default cosmology is more the Plane of Magma in my opinion, and that always bugged me more then a little.

onthetown
2011-05-08, 07:38 PM
What about having the Lawful Neutral plane being basically a gigantic court of law and offices and whatnot? The city exists in the different wings of the buildings, all with their own communities and laws to be followed and the central feature of each "wing" being the court?

I'm thinking along the lines of Vivec from Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Except instead of a few different districts separated by water or whatever, you've got an eternity full of those districts all working nicely and meshed together.

Eldan
2011-05-09, 03:29 AM
I would make the Plane of Fire hot, eternally combusting, plasma. The Plane of Fire in D&D default cosmology is more the Plane of Magma in my opinion, and that always bugged me more then a little.

Depends on where you are, really. Towards the radiance or smoke ends, I'd expect plasma, mostly. Towards the magma end, it's almost certainly entirely lava. It just seems they went for the magma end more on illustrations. Probably because the City of Brass seems to be there, and it's the only really convenient adventuring location.

potatocubed
2011-05-09, 07:12 AM
I kinda wanted to stay away from naturally occuring Material Plane landscape on the other planes as much as possible, partly because i want them to feel as different and otherworldly as possible, and partly because I'm just sick of the trees... in the Great Wheel, every good-aligned plane except for the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia is TREES! FLOATING LANDMASSES FULL OF TREES!

That's because in AD&D nature was explicitly good-aligned. You had to be good to be a ranger, for example.

And Mount Celestia also has trees. The wood from them is used to make the sticks up paladins' asses. :smalltongue:

Eldan
2011-05-09, 09:21 AM
Well, so does Hades. And the Abyss. And Carceri.

Sure, they are eeeeeeevil trees, but trees nonetheless. I'm betting the upper planes have goooooooood (that just doesn't sound as nice) trees too.

Yora
2011-05-09, 01:32 PM
I'm using a rather minimaltic cosmology in my campaign, having a neutral aligned spirit world, that got completely ripped of by the Feywild in 4E (why did wizards steal all my good ideas?), that has lots of regions that are element dominant and home to elemental outsiders. The single outer plane is mostly an Astral Plane with an infinite number of heavenly and hellish demiplanes. Then there's a Plane of Shadow, and that's it.

The Astral demiplanes sometimes can have trees, when the unique outsider that created them wants them to have them. But each demiplane is an artificial construct by a very powerful outsider. It's a lot like the Abyss, but not just for Chaotic Evil outsiders.

Notreallyhere77
2011-05-09, 04:48 PM
Read H. P. Lovecraft's The White Ship. It details a few fantastic planes, and a transitive plane to link them, and comes in convenient short-story length.