Planar Reconstruction Archive

[Tragak]

Do you have ideas for how to use the Planes in ways that nobody has used them before? Are you not satisfied with what the published materials have to say, and you want to add ideas of your own that you think make the Planes more fun than what some businessman from California came up with in the for-profit guidebooks? Or do you not have ideas for how to make a Plane more fun, and you think somebody else in the Playground might be able to help?

I offer this archive, which will revolve around the Great Wheel cosmology, as a guide for people to see - at a glance - which Planes the rest of the forum has had the most interest in improving vs. which ones have not gotten very much attention yet.

If you see a Plane on this list that you don't feel has enough attention, then feel free to start a thread with your ideas for improving the Plane, post a reply here with a link to the thread that you started - and possibly a quick blurb about how your treatment of the Plane will be different from everybody else's - and I will add the link to the OP when I get the chance.

If you would like to make a request for somebody else to start a thread about a Plane that you need ideas for using differently, then you can feel just as free to post a reply here asking for such a thread, and I will update the archive as soon as I can: first, to show when you have requested work on a Plane, and second, if and when anybody makes a thread to meet the request.

There is no rule against adding a repeat thread to a Plane that somebody else has already started their own for (although it is very quietly discouraged), nor should every single Plane get it's own thread(s) for the sake of "completing the list" unless you are specifically interested in that Plane for it's own sake.

Any questions about official, published canon should be taken to afroakuma's Questions Thread.

Also, if I make any glaring mistakes, such as classifying a particular Quasi-Para-Elemental according to the wrong components, then I would take it as a personal favor to be alerted in a PM rather than a reply. It's not that I want to appear perfect by having any and all mistakes kept secret , it's just that I want the people who subscribe to this thread to know that an update means "Somebody might be starting another Plane Thread, yay!" rather than "Oh look, Tragak made another secretarial error, bored now."

Let's get started!

Comprehensive projects spanning numerous planes:
*Zaydos, "Mundus Primordialis: Expanding the Inner Planes," May 2011 - February 2014
*Tragak, "Outer Planes analysis," June 2013
*Libertad, "Planar Revision Project," June 2012 - December 2012
*Palomides, "Planar Renovation Project," October 2010 - [website collapse]

Individual Planes:

Outer Planes:

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Good Planes:

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Mount Celestia
*PairO'Dice Lost, "The Gates of Heaven," October 2010 - December 2011
Bytopia
*Tragak, "Love's Labours - Reimagining Bytopia," January 2014 - February 2014
*Palomides, "Bytopia [planewalker.com reboot]," July 2014 -
Elysium
Beastlands
*afroakuma, selected posts from "Planar and Other Oddities Questions Thread 5"
**"Overview + Krigala," October 2014
**"Brux," October 2014
**"Karasuthra," November 2014
Arborea
*BlackDaggr, "The Hidden Layers of Arborea," March 2008 - June 2012

Neutral-ish Planes:

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Arcadia
*Tragak, "Mandate of Heaven - Re-imagining Arcadia," May 2014
Ysgard
*Eldan, "Glorious Battle - the Ysgard Project," December 2013 - April 2014
Mechanus
*afroakuma, "New Inevitables, Inexorables and Forge Elder," September 2008 - October 2008
The Outlands
Limbo
*afroakuma, "Limbo 4.0," October 2008
Acheron
*Wicke, "Acheron [planewalker.com reboot]," September 2014 -
*Tragak, "Befehl Ist Befehl - Re-imagining Acheron," Feb 2015 - active (until Apr 4th)
Pandemonium
*afroakuma, "Viae Furoris : Pandemonium IV," October 2008 - November 2008

Evil Planes:

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Baator
*Callos_DeTerran "Codex Diabolous: Nobility of Baator" December 2010 - May 2011
Gehenna
*Quickleaf, "Gehenna [planewalker.com reboot]," July 2014 -
Hades
*Tragak, "Abandoning Hope - Re-imagining Hades," March 2014 - April 2014
Carceri
*Tragak, "Lex Talionis - Re-imagining Carceri," April 2014
The Abyss
*Icewalker, "The Red Rage [Abyssal Layer]," October 2008 - December 2009
*Atemu1234, "Making a plane of the Abyss," June 2014

Material Plane
Ethereal Plane
Shadow Plane
Astral Plane
Mirror Plane
Far Realms
*Realms of Chaos, "Xenotheurgy," August 2009 - February 2014
**Extra-important content starting on post #26

Inner Planes:

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Earth
Air
Fire
Water
Positive Energy
*qwertyu63, "The Plane of Life," November 2013 - January 2015
Negative Energy

Para-Elemental Planes:

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Magma (Earth/Fire)
Slime (Earth/Water)
Smoke (Air/Fire)
Ice (Air/Water)

Quasi-Elemental Planes:

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Mineral (Positive Earth)
Dust (Negative Earth)
Lightning (Positive Air)
Vacuum (Negative Air)
Radiance (Positive Fire)
Ash (Negative Fire)
Steam (Positive Water)
Salt (Negative Water)

Quasi-Para-Elemental Planes:

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Obsidian (Positive Earth/Fire)
Pumice (Negative Earth/Fire)
Clay (Positive Earth/Water)
Silt (Negative Earth/Water)
Spark (Positive Air/Fire)
Fume (Negative Air/Fire)
Crystal (Positive Air/Water)
Frost (Negative Air/Water)

[Brookshw]

Afroakuma Planar thread I

Thread II

Thread III

Libertad's Planar Revision

[Eldan]

The "Gates of Heaven" Playground Celestia Project.

[Brookshw]

The "Gates of Heaven" Playground Celestia Project.

Shame how old that thread is, I'd love to contribute.

[Tragak]

Shame how old that thread is, I'd love to contribute.

Do I smell a potential sequel thread with your name on it?

And, if so, perhaps one named after Celestia's second layer Mercuria?

[Eldan]

I'd be up for that.

Though, to be fair, I'm up for anything even remotely connected to the word "Plane". Snakes on a plane, woodworking, two-dimensional surfaces and a certain genus of crabs included.

[Brookshw]

I'd be up for that.

Though, to be fair, I'm up for anything even remotely connected to the word "Plane". Snakes on a plane, woodworking, two-dimensional surfaces and a certain genus of crabs included.

I'm game though this week is terrible for free time. Could try and through something up next week.

[Tragak]

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have reached the 1 week mark! I would like to thank everybody who has been sending links: in only a week, we already have 3 single-Plane and 2 multi-Plane threads for the archive.

Does anybody have a request for a future thread?

[Tragak]

2 weeks! I have added afroakuma's projects on Mechanus, Limbo and Pandemonium (October '08 was certainly a busy month ), and I have just started a Bytopia thread for anybody who would like to contribute.

[Tragak]

1 month update! We now have a link to an ongoing Positive Energy project, and I expect to have my own thread up in time for the 2 month update.

Arcadia, Gehenna, and Acheron are on my to-do list, but Hades and Carceri are the ones that I have the most to go on right now. Does anybody here have a preference as to which one I put up first?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

The "Gates of Heaven" Playground Celestia Project.

Shame how old that thread is, I'd love to contribute.

Do I smell a potential sequel thread with your name on it?

Speaking as the guy whose name is on the first thread, I'd love to see it get revived. It kind of ran out of steam because only a few people who said they'd contribute were actively making material and because a lot of the discussions got sidetracked, and I didn't have the free time or experience to be the iron-fisted dictator keeping everyone productive and on topic.

If enough people are interested I'd be happy to help get version 2.0 off the ground, as long as it's "helping" and not "running the whole thing."

[Slipperychicken]

Realms of Chaos made an astonishing amount of material (both fluff and crunch) for the Far Realms. Here's the whole thread "Xenothurgy", which is full of win. It starts off detailing a magic system and items based around the Far Realms, but the parts about adventuring there begins at post 26, where he puts in rules for both the plane itself and its denizens.

[Tragak]

If enough people are interested I'd be happy to help get version 2.0 off the ground, as long as it's "helping" and not "running the whole thing."

What parts do you think you'd like help with?

[Zaydos]

Mundus Primordialis: Sites/organizations/personalities for all the 2e Inner Planes (Elemental, Energy, Para-Elemental, and Quasi-Elemental).

[PairO'Dice Lost]

What parts do you think you'd like help with?

The organizational part, basically. The first time around, we had a bunch of people sign on to make stuff, a bunch of people sign on to do the flavor, and a bunch of discussion on what flavor and mechanics should be included...but there was no guarantee that the discussions were finalized or that the flavor/mechanics writers wrote the stuff that was decided upon, and one person can't really be the decision-maker and organizer for that kind of project alone.

If we had a "ruling council" of a few people with assigned roles (for instance, a flavor lead to make final flavor decisions, a mechanics lead to make final mechanics decisions, a scheduling/coordination lead to figure out who works on what when, and an editor to go through and keep everything consistent), I think it would be a lot easier to get things done.

[TrueJordan]

Are there any threads talking about the Plane of Dreams, the Realm of Madness (Far Realms) or anything like that?

[123456789blaaa]

Personally, I think it would be best to focus our efforts on one plane at a time. So we finish up the thread for one plane (or decide to put it on pause for the time being) and then create a new thread and move on to a new plane. It seems to me that we don't have enough planar aficionados on here to keep multiple threads going strong at the same time. The exception would be if someone like Afro or Zaydos or RoC created the thread and was doing practically all the work themselves (instead of us all collaborating to build it piece by piece).

Also, the Xenotheurgy "magic" system is fantastic but it would be a shame for someone to miss the adventuring and monsters bits of the thread. Could you add "the parts about adventuring there begins at post 26, where he puts in rules for both the plane itself and its denizens." next to the link?

Are there any threads talking about the Plane of Dreams, the Realm of Madness (Far Realms) or anything like that?

Any questions about official, published canon should be taken to afroakuma's Questions Thread.

Far Realms
*Realms of Chaos, "Xenotheurgy," August 2009 - September 2012

[Tragak]

Personally, I think it would be best to focus our efforts on one plane at a time. So we finish up the thread for one plane (or decide to put it on pause for the time being) and then create a new thread and move on to a new plane. It seems to me that we don't have enough planar aficionados on here to keep multiple threads going strong at the same time. The exception would be if someone like Afro or Zaydos or RoC created the thread and was doing practically all the work themselves (instead of us all collaborating to build it piece by piece).

Makes sense to me. What do the rest of you think?

Also, the Xenotheurgy "magic" system is fantastic but it would be a shame for someone to miss the adventuring and monsters bits of the thread. Could you add "the parts about adventuring there begins at post 26, where he puts in rules for both the plane itself and its denizens." next to the link?

Very good point, thanks.

[Tragak]

2 month update, everybody!

Eldan's Ysgard thread (the thread that inspired this archive in the first place, I might add), came this close to passing the 45-day mark of "Inactive threads," but no, somebody had to go and show some interest all over again. Seriously, what are the odds of that, bringing a Ysgard thread back from the brink of death

Also, I have just started a Hades project that some of the people here might be interested in, and I was wondering if anybody has ideas that they would like to add (or any feedback on what I already have).

[Tragak]

3 month update!

I have just started a Carceri thread, for which Vedhin's fluff has been absolutely amazing so far, and it is one of 4 threads currently active (my Hades and Carceri, Eldan's Ysgard, and qwertyu's Positive Energy).

I am thinking about either Arcadia, Acheron, or Gehenna for the 4 month update, does anybody have a recommendation one way or the other?

Thank you everyone!

[Tragak]

4 month update!

I have just started an Arcadia thread, and it is now one of 4 currently active: Arcadia, Ysgard, Hades, and Carceri.

Personal change of plans, for anybody interested: I was originally hoping for my 5 month update to feature an announcement about my starting a thread for either Acheron or Gehenna. However, I haven't found good information about how the layers of each plane are different from each other (probably because I don't have access to nearly as many of the published materials as I would like ) and so far I've been trying to focus on homebrew explanations for the foundations that everybody is already familiar with - and then adding new details on top of those familiar foundations - instead of homebrewing entirely new foundations.

Arcadia and Bytopia were extremely easy in that regard (each had two layers, so I decided to talk about one from each as "the Lawful Good layer" vs. "the Neutral layer"), and even Hades and Carceri ended up working pretty well despite being less "symmetrical," but Acheron and Gehenna look like I would have to re-write the layers basically from scratch in order to make the differences any kind of meaningful.

If anybody here feels they have enough ideas to start a thread about one or the other, then I would be happy to contribute what little I can, but for my own projects, I will probably be focusing on the Outlands next.

[Eldan]

I'm not so sure, off-hand, about Gehenna, but the layers of Acheron are extremely different. Different magic, different environments, different inhabitants, different tone. What's the problem with them, exactly?

[Tragak]

I'm not so sure, off-hand, about Gehenna, but the layers of Acheron are extremely different. Different magic, different environments, different inhabitants, different tone. What's the problem with them, exactly?

Mostly, the connection between the environments and the people.

I like to focus on WHAT each plane looks like, WHO goes to each, and WHY the "who" and the "what" go together.

And I try to do the same for any different layers of a single plane.

Carceri and Hades each had a lot of information about WHO goes to one layer instead of another, WHAT each layer looks like, and so I had a fairly easy time coming up with a reason WHY the two combined in each layer.

Bytopia and Arcadia had a lot of information about WHAT each layer looks like, and when I came up with reasons WHY each layer looked the way it did, those WHYs led pretty well into an idea for WHO was making each layer look the way it does.

Acheron and Gehenna have a lot of information about WHAT each layer, and that's all I've got. If I start with reasons WHY each layer looks different, then I would still need to make WHYs compatible with whatever I come up with later for WHOs, and vice versa.

[Eldan]

Have you got the themes down? I mean, I can give a short idea of how I see them, more when I can get back at my book toreferesh my memories.

Avalas: War. Especially pointless war. The cubes are dense and constantly colliding. Armies of petitioners, mostly orcs and goblins, fight over possession of the cubes, only to be crushed when the cubes collide. There are fortresses everywhere, but they never last, as earthquakes, collisions and sieges tear them down.

Thuldanin: Stasis, death, faded memories, forgotten honour. This is a plane of corpses leftovers. The dead warriors aren't praised, they are turned to stone and left in pits. Once mighty warmachines from all over the planes are piled in heaps. Even items and artefacts of unimaginable power are simply turning to rust and stone alongside everything else. Thigns are turned to stone, which means they keep their shape forever and are never forgotten, but they are also made worthless and unuseable.

Tintibulus: No idea. It's the emptiest of the layers. Covered in dust, a certain magical theme. Forgotten knowledge? Intellectualism twisted to violent ends? Difficult.

Ocanthus: Death and utter destruction. The air kills you. The ground kills you. It's an eternal storm of blades and every blade is made of styx water. You will not only lose your flesh and bones, but also memory and your soul. A literal meatgrinder. Utter darkness that covers a theorized deeper layer.

[Tragak]

5 months, 1 week, 4 days update. Oops.

In case my off-kilter opening didn't tip everybody off, I have ended up needing more time to prepare for summer classes than I thought, and have ended up slipping in my internet "schedules."

However, there are no active threads to my knowledge, and I have received no PMs from people asking me where I've been, so fortunately I don't seem to have become important enough for my absence to bother anybody











… I will go join the laws of physics now.

[Plerumque]

I don't know if this project is still active, but it seemed like it might be the right place to ask. Does anyone know if anyone has made an expanded 'random plane' table, either published in a sourcebook somewhere (Planescape, maybe), or homebrew, that might include the para- and quasi-elemental planes as well as maybe the Mirror or Temporal planes and some of the more interesting demiplanes? I'm sure I could do the work, but I thought I'd ask around first. Or would this question be more suitable for a different thread anyway?

[Network]

I was planning to make a rewrite of my Planar Mage class, which is about using SLA by drawing energy from the planes themselves. I was also going to make two other classes that use the same mechanics, one for the outer planes and one for the transitive planes, so I probably need to post that ASAP (for the most part, it's all about table conversion, new formulas and writing of the new classes).

I'll post the link here when it is done.

Edit: Link's here.

[Eldan]

I don't know if this project is still active, but it seemed like it might be the right place to ask. Does anyone know if anyone has made an expanded 'random plane' table, either published in a sourcebook somewhere (Planescape, maybe), or homebrew, that might include the para- and quasi-elemental planes as well as maybe the Mirror or Temporal planes and some of the more interesting demiplanes? I'm sure I could do the work, but I thought I'd ask around first. Or would this question be more suitable for a different thread anyway?

Shouldn't be too hard, I think... I'll get on it.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...CmU/edit#gid=0

There. I'm sure there's a lot more demiplanes to add.

[Network]

Shouldn't be too hard, I think... I'll get on it.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...CmU/edit#gid=0

There. I'm sure there's a lot more demiplanes to add.

The link doesn't work. It requires permission.

[Eldan]

'tis public now.