The elemental planes have dumb names.

[the_david]

I just realized something. The elemental planes all have terribly uncreative names. Don't believe me? I'll show you.

"The outer plane of lawful evil, but leaning slightly more to lawful than towards evil."

Silly right? The Infinite Battlefield of Acheron sounds so much better.
For those who don't know much about the inner and outer planes: The inner planes are the material building blocks of the universe. Everything is build from the 4 elements. (And sometimes positive and negative energy.) The outer planes function similar, except that they represent the alignments. Now the outer planes all have cool names, while the elemental planes are just named after their element. The Infinite Layers of the Abyss are filled with demons, the Elemental Plane of Fire has fire elementals.

And that's pretty much it. Just an observation. I'll have to think it over a bit more before I can come up with something, but feel free to add some suggestions.

I probably won't stick to any traditional interpretation of the inner planes, but you can use whatever you prefer. Be creative!

[Millstone85]

"The outer plane of lawful evil, but leaning slightly more to lawful than towards evil."

Silly right? The Infernal Battlefield of Acheron sounds so much better.

Right. On the other hand, I think that "the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus" and "the Plane of Law" are both things someone in Sigil could say without sounding stupid. Same with the Plane of Fire.

[Razade]

In my games I keep the elemental theme but tend towards things like

The Halls of Woven Flame, The Vault of Cascading Waves etc etc.

To be fair however, it's not just "The Plane of Fire". It's The Elemental Plane of Fire.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I give my elemental planes (which include mixed-element planes) descriptive names (technically that only describe part of them, but these are the interesting parts):

Mud (water + earth, water dominant): The Endless Mire/the Baths
Clay (water + earth, earth dominant): The Street of Joy--populated by dopplegangers, oozes, and other such beings that mimic human shapes. Known for its brothels that will serve any desire.
Stone (earth dominant): The All-Things Bazaar
Coal (fire + earth, earth dominant): The Utility Market/Neversleep
Lava (fire + earth, fire dominant): The Inexorable Advance/Law Triumphant/The Grand Court of Law
Flame (fire dominant): Font of Fiery Renewal
Lightning (fire + air, fire dominant): The Eternal Storm
Smoke (fire + air, air dominant): The Dream Circus
Wind (air dominant): (not figured out yet)
Cloud (water + air, air dominant): (not figured out yet)
Ice (water + air, water dominant: The Frozen Museum
Ocean (water dominant): The Living Library of Song

[Millstone85]

Clay (water + earth, earth dominant): The Street of Joy--populated by dopplegangers, oozes, and other such beings that mimic human shapes. Known for its brothels that will serve any desire.

Internet has ruined me. You made a red-light-district dimension, and the thing that shocks me is that you wanted more para-elemental planes.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Internet has ruined me. You made a red-light-district dimension, and the thing that shocks me is that you wanted more para-elemental planes.

It's actually only part of the dimension, but it's the part anyone from the outside cares about. The whole plane of Clay

And I've got this number theme going on--I needed 12 elemental planes to match the 12 months of the year, so that the seasons line up with the orbit of the planet through the (fixed-in-space) influence of the elemental planes. Spring (and the year) starts with the planet moving from the influence of Mud to that of Clay. Incidentally, the Spring festivals are also the most licentious and "free". Summer => Fire, Autumn => Air, and Winter => Water (which is associated with memory). It ended up working out really well as my mental model of the world.

They're not technically separate, infinite planes. Both because none of my planes (elemental or otherwise) are infinite, and because they're more like border regions. You could (assuming you had protection and gear to survive) make a complete orbit around the sun, passing through all the elemental/para-elemental planes on the way. So Clay and Mud are neighbors, and bleed into each other. Coal and Lava are neighbors. Generally there's a "ruler" for each of the whole Fire/Earth/Air/Water planar-complex, but no one really cares. They pay attention to who (or what) has power in their local slice.

As a note, I also invert the "close = more normal" idea of the standard planes--the areas closest to the star are in the excited state, and really only elementals live there. Because the sun is the source of energetic anima, which then disperses. As you reach the outside of the pocket universe (about the size of the Inner Solar System), it gets darker and colder and more diffuse. So you might say the "Positive Energy Plane" is in the sun and the "Negative Energy Plane" is (sort of) at the edge, but they're more source/sink than sources of two types of energy.

[sktarq]

....

"The outer plane of lawful evil, but leaning slightly more to lawful than towards evil."

Silly right? The Infernal Battlefield of Acheron sounds so much better.

Honestly I rather disagree...

I always had issues with the alignment planes in part because they were so - honestly same-y they were. It didn't matter if you were in Kara Tur, A ship in wildspace, a green wyrming in Io Blood Isles, or whatever - th Lawful good plane was all the same to you. They used the same names same imagery etc etc...Where as the Elemental Plane of Fire being general way better at reflecting what THAT campaign world would benefit by in terms of the plane. And can easily be written off as each was just interested in various parts of the place....

and also the Elemental (plus para and quasi elemental) Planes always struck me as less...sentient focused and names are sentient thing. Alignment is about people and feelings....The elemental planes just don't care, there are from a time before thought, before names, they just are.

[the_david]

It's actually only part of the dimension, but it's the part anyone from the outside cares about. The whole plane of Clay

And I've got this number theme going on--I needed 12 elemental planes to match the 12 months of the year, so that the seasons line up with the orbit of the planet through the (fixed-in-space) influence of the elemental planes. Spring (and the year) starts with the planet moving from the influence of Mud to that of Clay. Incidentally, the Spring festivals are also the most licentious and "free". Summer => Fire, Autumn => Air, and Winter => Water (which is associated with memory). It ended up working out really well as my mental model of the world.

They're not technically separate, infinite planes. Both because none of my planes (elemental or otherwise) are infinite, and because they're more like border regions. You could (assuming you had protection and gear to survive) make a complete orbit around the sun, passing through all the elemental/para-elemental planes on the way. So Clay and Mud are neighbors, and bleed into each other. Coal and Lava are neighbors. Generally there's a "ruler" for each of the whole Fire/Earth/Air/Water planar-complex, but no one really cares. They pay attention to who (or what) has power in their local slice.

As a note, I also invert the "close = more normal" idea of the standard planes--the areas closest to the star are in the excited state, and really only elementals live there. Because the sun is the source of energetic anima, which then disperses. As you reach the outside of the pocket universe (about the size of the Inner Solar System), it gets darker and colder and more diffuse. So you might say the "Positive Energy Plane" is in the sun and the "Negative Energy Plane" is (sort of) at the edge, but they're more source/sink than sources of two types of energy.

Now I'm curious about the orbital mechanics of the planet. You see, on Earth, the axial tilt is responsible for the seasons. When it's summer on one hemisphere, it's winter on the other hemisphere. Obviously, that won't work for your planet. So, does it have an axial tilt of 0°? Do the days and nights always have the same length? How does it work?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Now I'm curious about the orbital mechanics of the planet. You see, on Earth, the axial tilt is responsible for the seasons. When it's summer on one hemisphere, it's winter on the other hemisphere. Obviously, that won't work for your planet. So, does it have an axial tilt of 0°? Do the days and nights always have the same length? How does it work?

I'm working from a non-"modern science" viewpoint. No atoms, no molecules, no "water cycle", no plate tectonics, no oxygen cycle. All of those things are provided by influx (and outflux) of matter/energy from/to the various elemental planes, through Shadow. Essentially, there's an anima[1] cycle that covers everything.

* Anima is created/released by mortal beings living, growing, and dying.
* Diffuse, "neutral" anima passes through Shadow [1] into the Astral [1.5] under the influence of the Great Mechanism[1.75], where it is distributed to the various functions of the planes, including the elemental planes.
* Anima allocated to the elemental planes gets aspected by that plane in varying amounts, converting into what we think of as "elemental energy/matter". Some gets condensed (physical matter), other parts stay free (energy).
* Elemental-aspected anima flows back through Shadow into the Mortal[2] plane and elemental beings make sure it goes to the right places (replenishing the air, heating things, etc).

So axial tilt = 0, axial wobble = 0, eccentricity = 0. All orbits are perfect circles. The Creator had an obsession with symmetry and order. Days and nights have fixed lengths and each season is exactly 3 months, starting on the same day, but the relative intensities of the elemental forces varies over the year based on elemental influence. Light (illumination) and heat are not directly connected (like they are on earth)--one is an aspect of being able to see, the other is related to fire-aspected anima.

So during the summer, for instance, the Fire aspect is dominant. Summer starts as the planet orbits from the dominant influence of Earth (spring) into Fire, passing from Coal into Lava. Increased Fire influence heats up the planet (yes, the whole thing) and diminishes the Water aspect[3], producing hot dry seasons...roughly. There are lots of localized areas with differing, pre-existing elemental dominance, so this external signal acts as a carrier that gets modulated (sometimes in large manners) by the local influence.

Overall, you get macro weather and climate patterns roughly similar to those on Earth for a given terrain, etc., but for very different reasons "under the hood", so to speak. This lets me do things like cracking a continent in half within a few decades without killing everyone on the planet, having a region be dominated by (unnatural) ice and snow, etc.

[1] my liminal plane, taking the roles of Ethereal, part of the Astral, the Shadowfell, the Feywild, and a chunk of the afterlives.
[1.5] Much more "Astral Sea" than 3e Astral Plane, home of gods/demigods/non-god Powers and devils, but not demons.
[1.75] The impersonal thing that keeps the universe running, made from the body/bloodstream/nerve system of the Creator/Dreamer...as much as such a being could be considered to have such things.
[2] What most call the Material, but there's matter everywhere, so I don't like the old name.
[3] Fire and Water being opposites; Water controls winter.