afroakuma's Planar And Other Oddities Questions Thread 5!

[Tzardok]

What is the elemental plane of water like physically? Is there a natural light source? - Sunlight doesn't penetrate ocean water past about 200m irl but this is D&D so...
Is it an infinite expanse of water with no top and bottom, or is there a "sea floor" and "surface"?
If you plane shifted a ship over to the elemental plane of water, would you have a really really bad time? If you knew where some elemental air was or brought some with you somehow, could you sail around on the inside of a giant air bubble?
If you're popping over to the elemental plane of water for a quick swim, would you have to find some protection from being crushed to death by the water pressure as well as from drowning or getting eaten by a kraken?

Thanks

IIRC, the plane of Water has, similar to the plane of Air, ambient light without an obvious scource. As such there is mostly everywhere the same light. The plane has neither top nor bottom, and gravity has subjectional direction, meaning, every intelligent being has its own gravity and is able to change the direction by concentrating.
Yes, if you find an air bubble big enough, you could sail on the "walls" of it.
To my knowledge, pressure, just like light, is more or less everywhere the same and therefore less of a concern or danger as for example currents.
All of those properties can change in specific places. For example the divine realm of Blipdoolpolp has an actual sea floor, and gravity and ambient light tend to become wonky near the borders to more solid planes like Ice or Salt.

[Ben Powers]

IIRC, the plane of Water has, similar to the plane of Air, ambient light without an obvious scource. As such there is mostly everywhere the same light. The plane has neither top nor bottom, and gravity has subjectional direction, meaning, every intelligent being has its own gravity and is able to change the direction by concentrating.
Yes, if you find an air bubble big enough, you could sail on the "walls" of it.
To my knowledge, pressure, just like light, is more or less everywhere the same and therefore less of a concern or danger as for example currents.
All of those properties can change in specific places. For example the divine realm of Blipdoolpolp has an actual sea floor, and gravity and ambient light tend to become wonky near the borders to more solid planes like Ice or Salt.

Thanks for your speedy reply.
Ok, so there could be a pirate god with a divine realm on the plane of water, whose realm is comprised of an ocean "surface" which they sail around on a ridiculous ship. I was thinking of this but am now leaning more towards having this deity on an oceanic layer of the abyss.

[Mr Adventurer]

You could just have him ply the Styx - the inter-planar waterway for the Lower Planes. I don't know if divine realms can be that mobile, though, or what he might have to give up to get it. There's a nice parallel there though with the General of Gehenna and the Crawling City. Is there an equivalent massive flying travelling sky-city somewhere?

[afroakuma]

In previous incarnations of this thread, you've been rather clear on the fact that (A) it's impossible for phlogiston to enter a crystal sphere, naturally or otherwise, and (B) you cannot teleport or plane shift into the phlogiston. However, I just finished the Cloakmaster Cycle, and in the last book

Oh goodee, Russ T. Howard's The Ultimate Fail returns to bother me once more. Ah well. I knew it would happen at some point. Bring it on.

rules-breaking plot contrivances

There you go. The author... wow, actually I don't think he's ever written another book. Anyway. The author was an expert at craniorectal unison, if you know what I mean. There are quite a few things in that book that are worthy of making one go "...the hell?" and that's actually low on the totem pole, all things considered.

Really? He's only been in the Great Wheel for about 5 minutes (after traveling from a cosmology which has only been connected to Shadow for about a year) and has done literally nothing yet except write down what his surroundings look like in his journal. I'm certain there are entities which are aware of his presence, even his motivation and powers, but there's no way that information could have spread quickly enough that he's a well-known entity.

Didn't say well-known. I said virtually unknown would be not a thing. If multiple major players are aware of your existence and will be paying attention to you, you're not virtually unknown. Farmer #46530171 on Random Prime World 784 is virtually unknown.

Unfortunate there aren't any details, but not surprising. Do you have any suggestions as to what artifacts Morwel or any other celestial paragons might have, specifically? Based off canon if possible, but purely made up is good too.

Don't really have time to make any up at the moment, sorry. Peruse the Book of Exalted Deeds, perhaps?

Thoughts on how I, as the DM, could differentiate the mechs I intend to introduce from these past mechs so the confusion between the two by the denizens of the Spelljammer setting is minimal?

Well, unless your mechs are gigantic undead insects, you're probably good.

What is the elemental plane of water like physically? Is there a natural light source?

The whole plane gives off a mild light, yes. Except where it does not.

Is it an infinite expanse of water with no top and bottom, or is there a "sea floor" and "surface"?

Infinite water in all directions, but some regions and realms have solid "ground" or vast expanses of air that create a "surface," like enormous bubbles.

If you plane shifted a ship over to the elemental plane of water, would you have a really really bad time?

Not sure how you'd do that, but yes, your time would be quite bad.

If you knew where some elemental air was or brought some with you somehow, could you sail around on the inside of a giant air bubble?

You could, yes. Mind you, you also have to worry about gravity...

If you're popping over to the elemental plane of water for a quick swim, would you have to find some protection from being crushed to death by the water pressure as well as from drowning or getting eaten by a kraken?

Water pressure isn't a big deal on the Plane of Water. Some realms have more dangerous pressure than others, but most of the time it's negligible as a concern.

[Jowgen]

I've been reading a lot of BoVD and BoED recently, and it got me thinking about the whole cosmic alignment balance and the ultimate fate of everything.

To my knowledge, there is no entity that adjudicates what exactly qualifies as good/evil/chaotic/lawful. The balance simply depends upon how many souls in the cosmos subscribe to a specific alignment. The power generated by the souls of mortals flows to the planar champions of the alignments, who battle it all out. I guess you could liken the whole mechanic to a kind of "energy resonance thing", where the actions of mortals align their souls, which produces energy that in one way or another then gravitates towards the cosmic hubs of said powers. Lots and lots of tiny pieces of energy ending up on one of the 4-9 parts of the cosmic alignment scale.

Does this badly written abstraction seem right to you?

Provided it does, this brings me to my current head-scratcher, which basically boils down to whether the multiverse is endothermic, exothermic or perpetual. New mortals are born every day, their souls/energy ends up with one cosmic faction or another, and said cosmic factions then use that power to fuel the gears of their alignment wars. Baator is the most straight-forward example of this afaik.

Now where does this energy expended in the alignment wars go, and where does the energy creating unborn souls come from?

If the prior goes into the latter (i.e. Samsara), then I guess that would mean that there is a fixed amount of energy in the entire cosmos that's just in a constant self-contained state of reshuffle. As long as there can be mortals, this shuffle will continue; with the only possible end being if there can no longer be mortals for some reason, or one of the alignment sides wins and achieves its dream-state of alignment-supremacy reality (which may or may not result in no more mortals depending).

An alternative would be that alignment war energy just ceases to be, and that new-soul energy is created spontaneously. In this scenario, the cosmos could either increase in energy (towards expansion or a heat death type thing) or decrease (towards shrinking or a big freeze). I imagine all the alignment forces would want to prevent either, with probably at least one antagonist existing in the elder evils category (Atropus I think it was).

There is one thing that makes me wonder at these two semi-elegant solutions though. I recall reading that Boccob predicted a decrease in total magic in the world, which he is working to try and prevent. If magic is indeed inevitable decreasing, that has implications for the cosmos as a whole, and might throw a wrench into the above two ideas of how the D&D cosmos works. And then, of course, is the far realm, which is a big blot in the whole equation I have no idea on how to reconcile.

Do you by any chance have any theories/opinions on how this all fits together?

[Tzardok]

You could just have him ply the Styx - the inter-planar waterway for the Lower Planes. I don't know if divine realms can be that mobile, though, or what he might have to give up to get it. There's a nice parallel there though with the General of Gehenna and the Crawling City. Is there an equivalent massive flying travelling sky-city somewhere?

Well, I remember at least two mobile divine realms on the upper planes: Bahamuths palace, which is situated in a whirlwind that travels between the first four of Celestia's Heavens; and the Fairy Court, the realm of the good fey deities Oberron and Titania, which's entrance appears at random places on Aborea, Ysgard and the Beastlands.

I recall reading that Boccob predicted a decrease in total magic in the world, which he is working to try and prevent. If magic is indeed inevitable decreasing, that has implications for the cosmos as a whole, and might throw a wrench into the above two ideas of how the D&D cosmos works.

To most of your questions I have no answers, but to this one I think I have a hypothesis. You see, Boccob is a deity of Oerth, which in the original Greyhawk setting is in some way connected with four other worlds, which have names like Uerth, Ierth and EARTH. I think that this fading of magic has been given as an explanation, why Earth has no magic. It happened here, it can happen there too.
Of course, Planescape gave other explanations for the missing magic on Earth.

And then, of course, is the far realm, which is a big blot in the whole equation I have no idea on how to reconcile.

Don't try. Just... don't.
To quote Afroakuma, if the Prime is what is, and the Outer Planes what could be, then the Far Realm is, what never was, never will be and never can be.
(Now I just hope I didn't make a mistake with the quote)

[inuyasha]

So other than the warring armies of orcs and goblins (I think?), as well as rust dragons (and in a sense, rust monsters), what else lives on the eternal battlegrounds of Acheron, I might be taking a campaign there soon, so it'd be very nice to know.

[Tzardok]

So many questions I can actually answer today! Hopefully Afroakuma isn't angry that I steal his thunder here.

Bladelings are an player race on planewalker.com that hails from the third layer of Archeron.
Inexorables are beings similar to inevitables, created by Afroakuma. They can be found in his homebrew under "New Inevitables".
Justicators are an angel-like species from MM3, that exist to destroy beings of chaos.
Maug are a race of intelligent constructs that seams to be self-sustaining and works as mercenaries (but never against each other). Their elders are able to create grafts from the same material they are made from. Normally they only give them to their own, but sometimes they can be persuaded to graft something to a fleshling.
Then there are those bird beings from the MM, the achaierai. I don't remember more, but that doesn't mean that there isn't more.
I hope I could help.

PS: Some people say that rakshasa originally come from Archeron, and at least a few should be there, alongside with visitors from nearby Planes like devils, yugoloths and formians, plus axiomatic (and a few fiendish) creatures.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Oh goodee, Russ T. Howard's The Ultimate Fail returns to bother me once more. Ah well. I knew it would happen at some point. Bring it on.

There you go. The author... wow, actually I don't think he's ever written another book. Anyway. The author was an expert at craniorectal unison, if you know what I mean. There are quite a few things in that book that are worthy of making one go "...the hell?" and that's actually low on the totem pole, all things considered.

Yeah, I noticed a lot more bovine excrement in the book, but those two things I thought might have had an explanation somewhere that I missed, not having read any other Spelljammer stuff, so I wanted to be sure.

If you were to come up with a non-terrible afrocanon explanation for the Broken Sphere shattering, what would it be?

[afroakuma]

I've been reading a lot of BoVD and BoED recently

Well that's unfortunate.

To my knowledge, there is no entity that adjudicates what exactly qualifies as good/evil/chaotic/lawful.

We call it the DM.

my current head-scratcher, which basically boils down to whether the multiverse is dead catgirls

Annnnd it is now outside the realm of this thread.

So other than the warring armies of orcs and goblins (I think?), as well as rust dragons (and in a sense, rust monsters), what else lives on the eternal battlegrounds of Acheron, I might be taking a campaign there soon, so it'd be very nice to know.

Achaierai, axiomatic creatures, bladelings, bonespears, chronotyryns, fhorges, hook spiders, justicators, maugs, mivilorns, observers, quills, rakshasas, reaves, rogue modrons, siege beetles, steel predators, sword spirits, xong-yong. Plus the petitioners and associated planar visitors, and excursions by neighboring imps, baatezu and scheming yugoloths.

Yeah, I noticed a lot more bovine excrement in the book, but those two things I thought might have had an explanation somewhere that I missed, not having read any other Spelljammer stuff, so I wanted to be sure.

Nope, he just didn't have a brain.

If you were to come up with a non-terrible afrocanon explanation for the Broken Sphere shattering, what would it be?

Let me work on that and get back to you.

[Clistenes]

1,-The Planescape supplements (Planes of Law, mostly) describe several cities in Mount Celestia that don't belong to any Divine Realm and are ruled by Archons; those cities have shops and businesses.

It also describes farms in Venya, out of any Divine Realm, and mining settlements in Solania, out of any Divine Domain too.

However, Mount Celestia's petitioners all become Lantern Archons, save those dwelling in Divine Realms, so, who runs all those shops, businesses, mines and farms in the Mount's settlements? Archons or Planar Mortals?

2.-I know that clerics can get spells from a philosophy, if it's popular enough (one guy worshipping Mount Celestia or Elysium won't get spells, but if thousands do it, some of them may start to get those).

But, if a guy worships a bunch of gods from different pantheons (for example, praying to all the deities of Nature together, or to all the Animal-related deities together, or to all the Lawful Good deities), because he believes that they are aspects of the same being, or because he believes that they work together as a pantheon, could that person get spells?

[afroakuma]

However, Mount Celestia's petitioners all become Lantern Archons, save those dwelling in Divine Realms, so, who runs all those shops, businesses, mines and farms in the Mount's settlements? Archons or Planar Mortals?

Archons, aasimar, immigrants, non-archon petitioners (they're not all worthy of becoming archons, you know), non-archon natives of Celestia, etc.

But, if a guy worships a bunch of gods from different pantheons (for example, praying to all the deities of Nature together, or to all the Animal-related deities together, or to all the Lawful Good deities), because he believes that they are aspects of the same being, or because he believes that they work together as a pantheon, could that person get spells?

DM's decision, but I'd lean no depending on circumstances. If he's traveling the planes, his belief won't amount to much against the cosmic noise that is the gods; either he gets the power from worshiping the concept itself and they derive no benefit from him, or his need to pay lip service to names makes it all spin out, denying him any kind of connection to anything. If he's on a Prime world, it's much easier; only the god who holds jurisdiction needs to care.

[unseenmage]

What happens to evil outsiders when they turn good and then are slain?

Where does their essence/soul/planestuff go?

[Jowgen]

Would you happen to be able to point me to anywhere that deals with the details of alignment change in 3rd ed?

I get the feeling like going evil is very fast/easy and going good is incredibly hard, while going either Lawful or Chaotic falls somewhere in the middle, but I haven't actually seen anything that backs this up (other than the pact primeval about sin outweighing good thing).

Lets say Ulkor the NE Terrible (who absolutely deserves his name) goes to jail and hits his head on the way in, which results in the realization of what a bad person he has been. He goes full born anew mode, writing books about peace, being the nicest guy ever to everyone in the joint, crying at every sunday sermon, and sending heartfelt apologies (with macaroni) pictures to everyone he's ever been mean to.

At what point does Ulkor's alignment change/aura start to detect differently/his soul get a new afterlife destination?

Or what of Timmy the CN Naughty who's been caught picking his 160th pocket, but then at his court hearing sees how much he's been hurting the community? And of course James the LG Merciful who one day decides that shooting first is the better policy when enforcing justice?

The only thing I've found to go by are the Obeisance and Evil act point systems in FCII, but those obviously don't make much of a whole picture, nevermind a good one.

[afroakuma]

What happens to evil outsiders when they turn good and then are slain?

Where does their essence/soul/planestuff go?

We're not sure, but judging by fallen celestials, it has probably transmuted enough that they would reform out of the stuff of the Upper Planes, depending on how far they've turned.

Would you happen to be able to point me to anywhere that deals with the details of alignment change in 3rd ed?

Nothing outside of the sources you already know.

At what point does Ulkor's alignment change/aura start to detect differently/his soul get a new afterlife destination?

DM's discretion. No canon or rules exist for it. With good reason; people would tear those pages out of their books.

[Naanomi]

Who decided infant souls end up on Celestia? Was it the Gods or just the planes themselves? Can a pantheon decide otherwise for souls from worlds under their primary influence?

Do the infant souls of all races end up there, or do racial gods get to claim the souls of their own dead babies? How about evil-ish races... Baby orcs go to heaven?

[afroakuma]

Who decided infant souls end up on Celestia? Was it the Gods or just the planes themselves?

Same thing that decided animals go to the Beastlands.

Can a pantheon decide otherwise for souls from worlds under their primary influence?

Unknown, but unlikely. We know childrens' souls follow their parents in Faerun, for instance, but we don't know if that applies to infants as well and I would expect it does not.

Do the infant souls of all races end up there, or do racial gods get to claim the souls of their own dead babies?

That's really the same question you just asked.

[Mr Adventurer]

Do the big immortals have an 'end game', an ultimate victory condition that they are working toward? If so, what is it for Asmodeus, the Hebdomad, etc.?

I imagine that this may not be covered in the source material and if so would also be interested to hear what you think it might be, based on your tremendous knowledge of what is known about their motivations, histories, and natures.

[enderlord99]

Since I can presumably ask any question within the board rules...

How many wrong punchlines does it take to change a lightbulb?

[TheGeckoKing]

1. Are there any divine realms in Nessus? If not, is there anything in particular from stopping them, or is it just "courtesy"?
2. Doors to the Unknown (and generally) Spoilers:

Spoiler

Show

Is the Hyper-reality of Beldaari potentially the 7th Heaven?

[Tzardok]

IIRC there are no divine realms in Baator deeper than Stygia (where the realms of Seth and Sekolah lie). As for why...
the lawful evil deities and the baatezu know exactly who has the true power in Hell.

And it ain't the deities.

[Bad Wolf]

Do the big immortals have an 'end game', an ultimate victory condition that they are working toward? If so, what is it for Asmodeus, the Hebdomad, etc.?

I imagine that this may not be covered in the source material and if so would also be interested to hear what you think it might be, based on your tremendous knowledge of what is known about their motivations, histories, and natures.

I may be able to answer this partially.

Asmodeus wants to broker a temporary truce with the demons, and storm the heavens with his armies, and heal the wounds he got in his fall. And then presumably kill the demons.

[Aliek]

Is there any artifact, magical location or something that would explain someone being split in two halves(ie: good half, evil half)?

I ask because I'll be implementing someone like that, and that'd be so much better than fiating this effect

If not, could you conjecture on where one might find a magic item like this? I'm thinking some temple of a magic deity, but I'm not sure Boccob cares about artifacts and I don't know much about Wee Jass...

[Clistenes]

Is there any artifact, magical location or something that would explain someone being split in two halves(ie: good half, evil half)?

I ask because I'll be implementing someone like that, and that'd be so much better than fiating this effect

If not, could you conjecture on where one might find a magic item like this? I'm thinking some temple of a magic deity, but I'm not sure Boccob cares about artifacts and I don't know much about Wee Jass...

That sounds like a combination of a Mirror of Opposition and a Helm of Opposite Alignment. It both affects your alignment (only that making you go from Neutral to Good, instead of going from Good to Bad or from Bad to Good) and creates a duplicate with reversed alignment.

Just combine both cursed items into one.

[Khedrac]

That sounds like a combination of a Mirror of Opposition and a Helm of Opposite Alignment. It both affects your alignment (only that making you go from Neutral to Good, instead of going from Good to Bad or from Bad to Good) and creates a duplicate with reversed alignment.

Just combine both cursed items into one.

I cannot remember the details but somewhere in Castle Greyhawk is an item that is the gateway to an opposite reality. Normally the person is swapped for their opposite (same stats, but diagonally opposite alignment), however that is not always the case. Notably in EttRoCG the party get to fight some duplicates that had been imprisoned many years earlier (so they are not anything like the current level of the people they are duplicates of).

I think the logic goes something like this:
Swapping someone for their opposite usually results in the opposite having fun in Greyhawk until swapped back.
It is possible for the original to find a way out of the opposite dimension (though very very hard) at which point both will be present on Oerth.

Now if your world has someone akin to Zagyg in its history having a device that simply pulls the opposite into your world without sending the person back becomes a real possibility. That or the last people to be swapped managed to construct an exit only usable by non-natives - same result with a slight delay.

[afroakuma]

Do the big immortals have an 'end game', an ultimate victory condition that they are working toward?

Not typically. Obviously for the major demon princes the goal du jour tends to be "become Prince of Demons," but beyond that plans are nebulous at best. Asmodeus would like to destroy the demons and tear down the heavens. The celestial paragons have no real endgames in mind. It's likely the General of Gehenna does, of course, but what it might be? Who knows.

1. Are there any divine realms in Nessus? If not, is there anything in particular from stopping them, or is it just "courtesy"?

There are no known divine realms deeper than Stygia. While it's not impossible for a god to set up in Malbolge, Maladomini, Cania or Nessus, none of them ever have that we know of. It's likely that avoiding Maladomini and Cania is a rational decision based on avoiding the politics of the two clashing Archdukes. As for Nessus, while it is theoretically possible to set up a divine realm there, a god would be... unwelcome. Given the extensive schemes of the archdevils to gather divine power, it would not be entirely unlike a hen deciding to set up shop in front of a fox's lair.

2. Doors to the Unknown (and generally) Spoilers:

No.

Is there any artifact, magical location or something that would explain someone being split in two halves(ie: good half, evil half)?

Yes, you can interface a transporter with magnetic ore from Alfa 177 and...

Wait no.

If not, could you conjecture on where one might find a magic item like this? I'm thinking some temple of a magic deity, but I'm not sure Boccob cares about artifacts and I don't know much about Wee Jass...

It's not a tremendously useful thing, you understand. Something like a mirror of opposition is much more useful as a defense. The effect of the Plane of Mirrors is similar - and similarly dangerous. But if you're looking to retread that old Trek chestnut, I can't think of anything offhand that would help you.

[Aliek]

Ah well, it was worth a shot anyways

Love the mirror of opposition and helm of opposite alignment, that should be plenty, especially with casters experimenting stuff

~Aliek

[Clistenes]

Does anybody remember a piece of lore about a Prime Material city being taken to the Planes?

[Khedrac]

Does anybody remember a piece of lore about a Prime Material city being taken to the Planes?

In the Living Greyhawk campaign the former capital of the Great Kingdom (Rauxes I think) is currently wandering the planes (one of my characters actually managed to visit it).

[Bronk]

Does anybody remember a piece of lore about a Prime Material city being taken to the Planes?

There's the City of Shade too...