afroakuma's Planar Questions Thread! (You ask, I'll answer)

[afroakuma]

Which gods' followers are typically more active // populous in the prime material planes?

Depends on the world; consult your local campaign setting.

[Chilingsworth]

Seriously, 10 XP? Where did you get that figure from?

BOVD. Pg 33, under "Souls as Power."

[afroakuma]

Yeah, someone else mentioned it. Don't know how I overlooked it in the table of contents, as that's the book I went for immediately.

[Arcanist]

Can you get me the citation on this? I'm mining the two conventional timelines I have on hand for this and can't seem to turn it up. I know they went to the Demiplane of Nightmares and mutated there, but the source I have for their journey to the Demiplane of Imprisonment doesn't suggest any mutations - just horrible, horrible death.

Ah you're right. They ventured into the Demiplane of Imprisonment and died horribly. What would you say killed them?

[afroakuma]

Ah you're right. They ventured into the Demiplane of Imprisonment and died horribly. What would you say killed them?

The wards, starvation, madness, or most likely Tharizdun himself. (If you were trying to obliquely ask what's inside, it's Tharizdun).

[Coidzor]

Can you get me the citation on this? I'm mining the two conventional timelines I have on hand for this and can't seem to turn it up. I know they went to the Demiplane of Nightmares and mutated there, but the source I have for their journey to the Demiplane of Imprisonment doesn't suggest any mutations - just horrible, horrible death.

What is the Demiplane of Nightmares and did they mutate into anything in particular or more like they had thumbs start growing in their brains or lost the ability to breath because their lungs turned into spiders and suffocated to death?

[afroakuma]

What is the Demiplane of Nightmares

Pretty much what it says on the tin. Horrible place. May have formed from contact between the Region of Dreams and the Negative Energy Plane; who knows, though.

did they mutate into anything in particular or more like they had thumbs start growing in their brains or lost the ability to breath because their lungs turned into spiders and suffocated to death?

Oh yes. Many, many, many types of horrible and bizarre beings. Unlike the natives, though, they couldn't reproduce naturally, so they eventually began staging incursions back into Faerun to procure children. These occurrences are reflected in Faerunian urban legends of the Night Parade.

[Coidzor]

Has there ever been an official take on, say, Alternate Material Planes or tangential(?) planes that are like the Prime Material Plane but missing or greatly reduced in the influence of one of the Inner Planes or dominated by the influence of one of the Inner Planes to almost the exclusion of the others? Have you ever done a personal spin on such or seen interesting homebrew on the subject?

Like say, a plane with Earth, Air, and water as well as Positive and Negative energy but no Fire or a plane where all of the elements are present but it's sort of metaphysically closer to the plane of fire so everything's really warm and flame-themed without actively being a hellscape or sort of similar to how the current incarnation of Athas is all dry and barren but not actually devoid of life.

[afroakuma]

Has there ever been an official take on, say, Alternate Material Planes or tangential(?) planes that are like the Prime Material Plane but missing or greatly reduced in the influence of one of the Inner Planes or dominated by the influence of one of the Inner Planes to almost the exclusion of the others? Have you ever done a personal spin on such or seen interesting homebrew on the subject?

Like say, a plane with Earth, Air, and water as well as Positive and Negative energy but no Fire or a plane where all of the elements are present but it's sort of metaphysically closer to the plane of fire so everything's really warm and flame-themed without actively being a hellscape or sort of similar to how the current incarnation of Athas is all dry and barren but not actually devoid of life.

Im getting too sleepy to cover this one tonight; I'll take a shorter or easier question before I go though

[erikun]

Speculative Planes

Semi-Elemental Planes
• Semi-Elemental Plane of Clay
• Semi-Elemental Plane of Crystals
• Semi-Elemental Plane of Frost
• Semi-Elemental Plane of Fumes
• Semi-Elemental Plane of Obsidian
• Semi-Elemental Plane of Pumice
• Semi-Elemental Plane of Silt
• Semi-Elemental Plane of Sparks

Could you provide more information about these semi-elemental planes, or where I could find more information about them? This is the first time that I've heard of semi-elemental planes.

[afroakuma]

Could you provide more information about these semi-elemental planes, or where I could find more information about them? This is the first time that I've heard of semi-elemental planes.

Absolutely. You can find the original theory hereabouts.

In brief: the Semi-Elemental Planes are to the Para-Elemental Planes what the Quasi-Elemental Planes are to the Elemental Planes. That wasn't brief at all, really.

Ice made positive yields Crystals beyond only frozen water; on the negative side, it collapses into Frost, a dark, fragile and killing cold embodied as an endless blizzard.

Magma yields crumbling Pumice, a desolate grey realm of abrasive and fragile rock sponge; on the Positive side, it is Obsidian, a hot, glassy realm that could easily pass for a layer of Hell or the Abyss.

Ooze provides Clay on the positive side, a realm containing disturbing vistas and little else. Its counterpart, Silt, is an endless pit of misery.

Smoke gone negative results in Fumes, one of the most unpleasant places in the multiverse; its caustic, toxic and noxious vapors crawl through every part of you if left to do so. The flipside, Sparks, is like Radiance only more aggressive. Like being in the heart of a massive fireworks display, and just as dangerous.

[Mystra]

Why is it that the corpses of gods seem to end up, inevitably, on the Astral Plane?

This is a mystery.

First off, the Astral Plane is not a plane. It's ''something else''. It should not exist, and sort of does not exist as there is just about nothing there. But there is no word for ''non-plane'', so everyone just says it's a plane.

Next, gods are not meant to ''die''. As gods are the greatest powers of the multiverse, then they should exist forever. But gods do die. So where does the corpse of an impossible being that is impossibly killed go? The Astral should not exist non plane.

But the 'why' is a mystery.

[willpell]

Okay, so, we have:

One thing that arguably falls under 'shadow creatures' (I don't know if it's just a statted-out use of the template) but probably deserves explicit mention: the Shadow Dragon from Monsters of Faerun.

Their belief is mistaken. The original adventure featuring the Far Realm made exactly this point: that persons of sufficient power, foresight and knowledge were wrong. It's a Lovecraftian notion: the mortal mind cannot reasonably contend with what lies beyond the great rift. Presuming to is dangerous arrogance, and electing to seek out a place beyond the natural order of things is idiocy on either side of the veil.

Bluuur...ths is one of the cases where I disagree with Lovecraft. The man had a genius way with words, but he was also a neurotic coward; I for one do not believe that all human minds are as fragile as his apparently was, nor that it's terribly fair to enforce that level of frailty on the entire world with cosmic powers, when there aren't equally significant cosmic powers that enforce, say, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's unquenchable belief in the human spirit, or Nikola Tesla's determined inventive genius. (Anyone who agrees with me on this point, feel free to check out the Whiteleaf campaign setting in my sig, as it is built according to my preferences.)

Semi- and Quasi-elemental planes

The Mapping the Infinite site which describes all this...is it canonical or a fan work? Are there published sources for any of these? (I could believe there's a published source for one or more, and then fans completed the set.)

First off, the Astral Plane is not a plane. It's ''something else''. It should not exist, and sort of does not exist as there is just about nothing there. But there is no word for ''non-plane'', so everyone just says it's a plane.

Next, gods are not meant to ''die''. As gods are the greatest powers of the multiverse, then they should exist forever. But gods do die. So where does the corpse of an impossible being that is impossibly killed go? The Astral should not exist non plane.

I love this.

[afroakuma]

One thing that arguably falls under 'shadow creatures' (I don't know if it's just a statted-out use of the template) but probably deserves explicit mention: the Shadow Dragon from Monsters of Faerun.

Not from the Shadow Plane. Does have ties with the plane, though. Whatever.

Bluuur...ths is one of the cases where I disagree with Lovecraft.

Not relevant. The Far Realm does cause minds to crack - pretty much anyone will go insane within 24 hours and they'll never be 100% right in the head again. Fairness is irrelevant - the Far Realms aren't the Elemental Plane of Crazy, to be balanced out by counterparts for more pleasant mental states; they're inchoate antireality, massively segregated from the multiverse for some very good reasons. If you're just going to turn this into an opinion piece, I'll let you know right now that I don't care.

The Mapping the Infinite site which describes all this...is it canonical or a fan work? Are there published sources for any of these? (I could believe there's a published source for one or more, and then fans completed the set.)

Anything listed as speculative or theoretical is just that. The Quasi-Elemental Planes are not speculative; they are fully canonical, all eight of them, and have their own denizens, to boot.

[willpell]

If you're just going to turn this into an opinion piece, I'll let you know right now that I don't care.

Fair enough; I said my piece, I'm satisfied.

The Quasi-Elemental Planes are not speculative; they are fully canonical, all eight of them, and have their own denizens, to boot.

Where are these described originally?

[afroakuma]

Fair enough; I said my piece, I'm satisfied.

Please refrain from bringing more opinions in on what's supposed to be question-and-answer. I'm finding it disruptive.

Where are these described originally?

Originally? AD&D's Manual of the Planes. Later, Planescape materials.

[silverwolfer]

Would you consider the far realm to be the anti thesis to the main wheel/ crystal sphere's in the same way anti matter is to regular matter ala sci fi?

[afroakuma]

No, since they don't go boom (and since I would not recommend creating an engine powered in any way on Far Realm fuel).

[silverwolfer]

:*( no Cthulhu engine

[Kane0]

Aside from the Lady of Pain, what is stopping Sigil from being thrown into Civil War or a battlefield for the Blood War (or any other Planar conflict for that matter)?

[Chilingsworth]

Aside from the Lady of Pain, what is stopping Sigil from being thrown into Civil War or a battlefield for the Blood War (or any other Planar conflict for that matter)?

You mean the Lady isn't enough of an explination on her own?

[willpell]

You mean the Lady isn't enough of an explination on her own?

Depends. Is she capable of paying attention to everything that happens in Sigil all at the same instant, and dealing with all those situations without ever being distracted or thwarted by the need to act in multiple theaters at once?

[Eldan]

Apart from the Lady? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Pretty much everyone on the Planes wants to control Sigil. He who controls the City, controls the multiverse, and all that.

The Lady either can't pay attention to everything in Sigil all the time, or she doesn't quite care about every transgression. Ever so often, someone gets away with something. There's still cultists of Aoskar, her personal arch-enemy, around, after all.

There have been some spill-overs from the blood war into Sigil. There's entire districts that are wastelands with roaming monsters and leftover arcane weaponry and supplies. Good looting, if a blood is sharp enough

There has also been more than one civil war, though she usually stops them after a time. The Upheaval is probably the most famous one before the Faction War, and she started that one.

See, since everyone wants to have Sigil, but the powerful players can't go there personally, it's full of mortal philosophers and immortal agents. Used to be there were about as many factions as people in Sigil. That went a bit too far, so the Lady decreed that people now had a forthnight to organize themselves into exactly 15 factions, or she'd wipe them all out. Cue massive civil war, some factions merging, some going extinct.

[willpell]

There's still cultists of Aoskar, her personal arch-enemy, around, after all.

Wait a minute....Aoskar? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

[Chilingsworth]

Wait a minute....Aoskar? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

[Larkas]

Wait a minute....Aoskar? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

IIRC, overdeities only care about their single Crystal Sphere.

[Eldan]

Wait a minute....Aoskar? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Aoskar is very clearly dead. There's faction buildings on top of him now.

[afroakuma]

Aside from the Lady of Pain, what is stopping Sigil from being thrown into Civil War or a battlefield for the Blood War (or any other Planar conflict for that matter)?

Sigil's had civil wars before; they had to escalate quite a bit to annoy her, though. Frankly, Cagers and factions would also have something to say about a war trying to make its way into Sigil - for all that they're a disjointed bunch, few factions would let someone else's philosophy gain absolute rule over the City of Doors, and many of the City's inhabitants are freaks, outcasts, refugees, exiles and other dispossessed. The kind of people who can set aside their differences and band together if some outsider dares to cause trouble, then go right back to fighting one another once the danger has passed.

That said...

Depends. Is she capable of paying attention to everything that happens in Sigil all at the same instant, and dealing with all those situations without ever being distracted or thwarted by the need to act in multiple theaters at once?

Yes. Only question is what will she bother with?

[Arcanist]

What would be the best method, in your opinion to take over sigil? I understand this is asking a lot, accounting for the lady, but assuming you found a way to distract her, how would you go about doing this? ...also how would you go about distracting her?

[Sgt. Cookie]

Aside from the dead, which plane is the most inhabited by Prime Material natives?