The D&D planes modification (Great wheel model). Or something like that

[MercuryAlloy]

Great Wheel is really great. It has place for any kind of adventure, it has logical structure, so you can predict what you can meet in each plane, it is huge, creative and overwhelming, but I think it is still has a few problems.

Problems

1. Many plane has lack of details. They are too empty compering to Abyss or Baator.

2. Outer planes are not philosophical enough. They are representations of ideas, so they shouldn't be just lava pools if they try to represent evil – lava is not evil!

3. Inner planes should be about fighting with indifferent elements. Not with their stable condition, but with ever-changing danger without face, the danger that makes you feel lonely and unimportant.
Like being trapped by rockfall in the narrow tunnels of Elemental plane of Earth, with only three bottles of concentrated air left, in the absolute darkness, without ability to say even a word (you have no air to spread sound, remember?) or find the way out. And you've just seen something in the darkness.

Usually you went on Inner planes only than you can ignore any harm there but it is boring, it hasn't the spirit of adventure at all.

4. The Deep Ether and Astral is too similar. You have an empty void of white mist, you can travel on another plane from there and there is some random staff here (maybe spontaneously genetic matter or maybe shadows of spells).

Ideas for solving the problems

1. Make more details! Write about Exalted lords of Upper Planes? Detail races of outsiders? What details do you think can make the Great Wheel more interesting?

2. Give the main theme for each of Outer plane, make them more deep and complicated, than separating Good and Evil by appearance, and develop this theme with each layer of plane.

3. I think of making inner planes more reachable and more mutable, not just stable fire or water. Also thinking about realism, and the consequences of absent light and air in the most of them (do you imagine the Elemental plane of Air without light? The endless dark sky, full of wind, where each city or battle with lightnings could be seen like a little star from thousands of miles?), and some equipment for traveling there.

4. Deep Ether and Astral should be combined together, putting the astral in the place of Deep Ether. That could explain what do ghosts do on Ether and how demon became etherial to posses people.

More concrete ideas

Plane	Main Theme	Native outsiders
Mechanus	Rules and laws (many and both sensitive and senseless)	Modrons and Primus
Acheron	Army, orders, subordination and war	Rakshassa (escape on Prime Material)
Baator	oppression by law, dystopians, lack of choice	Baatezu and Ancient baatorians
Gehenna	fascism, xenofobia, fear of changes	Avari (exiled by Yugoloths)
Hades	despair	Yugoloths and Baernoloths
Carceri	Betroyal	Demodands
Abbys	sword law	Tanar'ri, Obiriths and loumaras
Pandemonium	surviving, madness	Razorwings and Ancient worms
Chaos	changes and individuality, lack of any control on you	Proteans and Slaadi (de-facto created by Primus)
Yasgard	independence	Bacchae (including bariaurs and lillends)
Arborea	freedom and creativity	Eladrins
Beastland or Happy hunting ground	Love, happiness and life	Spirits of animals
Elysium	understending and help	Aasimons (angels) and Agations (guardinals)
Bytopia	family, loyalty and friendship	Kami
Celestia	justice and honor	Archons
Arcadia	duty and repose	Storm kings and formians
Outland	Compromise in everything	Rilmany and Psychopomps

So what do you think?

I'm sorry if I sound funny somewhere, my English isn't that good.

[MercuryAlloy]

Ever-changing Chaos of Limbo

Names

	Creature or incarnation	Effect	Gift
Good	Celestial	Holly	Exalted
Evil	Fiend	Unholly	Vile
Chaotic	Unbound	Anarchic	Individual
Lawful	Perfect	Axiomatic	Rightful

(There will be links later)

Nature of Limbo - Layers, hazards and philosophy

• Philosophy of Limbo
• Features of Limbo
• Danger of raw chaos
• Shaping Limbo
• Magic of Limbo
• Layers of Limbo

Creatures of Limbo - monsters and races

1. Githzerai
2. Nerrafim
3. Slaadi and their lords
4. Proteans
5. Dragons of chaos
6. Weavers
7. Chaos beasts
8. Entropic reapers
9. Bonespitters
10. Energons
11. Limbo stalkers
12. Parents of slaad
13. Chaond
14. Cinsin
15. Half-bound

Organizations of Limbo - Factions, sects and other

1. Xaotitects
2. Anarchs
3. Coverts
4. Xaoticians
5. Non-gitzerai anarchs

Places of Limbo - Cities, ruins and so on

1. Spawning stone
2. Ever-changing castle
3. Pinwheel
4. Rennbuu gallery
5. Shar'kt'lore
6. Floating city
7. Chaos spire
8. Temple of perfection
9. Ruins of modron's outpost
10. Academy of free researches
11. Hospital of lost souls
12. Wartle's Boiler

Stories of Limbo - Ideas for adventures

1. Waving history
2. Thieves of the art
3. 7th Lord
4. Hunt for a beast
5. Academy of mayhem
6. Githzerai's heresy

Magic of Limbo - spells
Trasures of Limbo - Relics and magic items
People of Limbo - Classes, skills and feats

Please correct me if I made some grammar or punctuation mistakes. Thanks.

[noob]

From which plane do the adventurers comes from if there is no plane of fire?

[MrZJunior]

What's great wheel?

[MercuryAlloy]

What's great wheel?

It is D&D multiverse. I though it is famous. It isn't?

It will be batter if I wright DnD Planes in the handling instead?

[MrZJunior]

It is D&D multiverse. I though it is famous. It isn't?

It will be batter if I wright DnD Planes in the handling instead?

It might be. I must admit that I've never looked much at the official settings for D&D.

[the_david]

What's great wheel?

It's another name for the Planescape setting, more or less. It's called the great wheel because it's presented as a two dimensional disk. The outer planes are alignment based with good opposing evil and law opposing chaos. The inner planes are the elemental planes, with a few variations on which plane goes where. In the center is the material plane where mortals live.

You're not missing out on anything.

[MercuryAlloy]

Nature of chaos

Chaos and law

Law as a multiversal power in Planscape is not about keeping some local rules or codex of Red Knights. Only law that has sense here is internal law: belief that law is above you and desire to keep it. Different people see different laws as superior, but no matter which rules are better until you put law above people and primarily you. So law in this system could be anything from you're personal code to religious axioms.

Both corrupted judge who is a part of the system and robber are on the same side of law-chaos axis since they both put their interests above law. But mafia who follow their own rules can be counted as lawful.

Planescape chaos on the other hand represents individuality, freedom of choice and idea of unnecessariness of law and rules. It represents the ideas of change. World changes, laws pretended to be absolute universal truth disappears and new laws claim themselves as an absolute truth but one day they will disappears too. So law could exist and can be useful sometimes, but since no law is sacred why should you keep it if it only makes our live only harder?

Some say that internal law is the only thing that makes people do good to each other and that's why chaos is amoral. On the other hand if law or habits is the only thing that makes you do good are you good at all? Doing good or not should be your personal choice. And only good that is chosen can consider as true good.
Moreover law can bring in world so many evil, then chaos never could produce. Do you want an examples? Slavery, Fascism, Spanish inquisition. All they was inspired and driven by law.

Chaos isn't good or evil. Chaos is possibility to chose between them and editing else. Only thing that matter here is you.

There is also a wide specter of compromises between them. Here is a few examples:
- there is absolute law, but we don't know it, so your personal behavior never will keep it.
- Most laws is unimportant, but some of them are really above people
- Both movements have a bit of true, but live is more complicated so you need take best parts from both ideology
- Their conflict is irrelevant
- Choice between law and chaos is a question that still needs answer. We haven't it yet, so we can't choose.
- Law is above people, but I'm too weak to keep it
- Law is above people. Except me

This controversy could looks senseless and stupid. And there is no seems to be reason how could it led to the largest war of multiverse. But on the outer panes it is not dispute about preferences. It is dispute about fate of the universe, dispute about that it should became, and some creatures just can't live in unstable chaos or under overwhelming law. For such creatures choice between law and chaos is choice between live and death not just choice of perforations.

What is Limbo about?

"Order is for idiots, genius can handle chaos"

Limbo is about you. Planes aren't places, but basically a way of existence and a way of existence called Limbo is a way of self-caring.

Limo is endless possibilities and only decide which one to chose. You actions here restricted only by your imagination. Many of these possibilities can harm you if you don't control them. The farer you go the more dangerous become chaos and the more important become you and your control over it.

Fools say that law is better then chaos because you can't survive on Limbo without stable materials from other plans. But truth is that Limbo takes it's courant form only because you can take here anything from other plans, otherwise it'd takes another form.

This abyss of possibilities can turn weak minded and doubters on the side of chaos and freedom. Only the one of strong will and belief can keep their.

Being on Limbo (general features)

Limbo in general can be detached on two types of landscape: raw chaos and islands stabilized by creatures on them. Magic is modified on either island or chaos. Other features of Limbo usually work only in raw chaos. In addition some layers of Limbo can have more features.

No gravity

Limited visibility: streams of chaos limit your visibility by 15 ft.

Do it your own way: than your act by your own and leaded by your personal reasons (not by rules, duties, fear of punish and so on) you have +1d4 on all d20 roll made for this action. That's why slaadi fights one by one. What is personal reasons is up to DM. For example it is: preferences, desires, emotions and so on. This rules works everywhere on Limbo.

Shaping chaos: see below.

Breathing chaos
What will became the Limbo air in your lungs?

The "Planes of chaos" said that air here just dissolving then contact anybody, but it isn't chaotic in my opinion. I think you should have possibility to breath in Limbo but you won't do it because you never can say what the air became next second, so breathing it even more dangerous than just suffocation.

Breathing water spell protects against chaotic air.

And by some circumstances your characters could sooner or later make sigh or two in Chaos without protection. So:

d20	Effect
1	The air turns into pure entropy. You take 1d20 damage of Constitution points. You have a bit less working organs inside now. Limbo air in your lungs disappears. This round doesn't count as breathing, until you have stable air from the other source.
2	The air turns into the sharp adamantium dust. You takes (d4)d6 damage and dust turns in something else on your next turn. You also suffocate until you heal this damage. This round doesn't count as breathing, until you have stable air from the other source.
3	The air turns into petrifying gas. You should make Fortitude saving throw with DC 20 or you lungs turns into stone. They gain Hardness 8 (subtract 8 from all damage) and you suffocate until someone cast on you Stone to Flesh or whatever spell your redaction use instead. Next round gas turns into something else. This round doesn't count as breathing.
4	The air turns into black pudding. You take 3d8 acid damage. If you already has stone lugs you don't need to take damage from this form of air. Next round jelly turns into something else. This round doesn't count as breathing. You also can't speak this turn.
5	The air turns into the fire. You take 3d6 fire damage. You also can use breath weapon as a standard action this round. (15 ft cone, 3d6 fire damage, Reflex/Dex save = 10+yours Con mod; Half damage on success). Limbo air in your lungs disappears. This round doesn't count as breathing, until you have stable air from the other source.
6	The air turns into thunderous sound. You take 1d12 thunder/sonic damage. You are shocked by loud sound and helpless during this round. This round doesn't count as breathing, until you have stable air from the other source. Next round thunder turns into something else.
7	The air turns into frog. Nothing dangerous happens. If you try to cast spell with verbal component this round you have a 25% chance of spell failure if frog will croaked.This round doesn't count as breathing, until you have stable air from the other source. Next round frog turns into something else.
8	The air turns into wraith, that fills you. You gains all effects of 1st level barbarian rage for 1d4 rounds. This round doesn't count as breathing, until you have stable air from the other source. Limbo air disappears from your lungs.
9	The air turns into air with smell of rotting eggs. You should make Fortitude saving throw with DC 20 or you nauseous for 1 round. This round count as breathing. Next round stench turns into something else.
10	The air is still just air, but with the smell of dwarven beer/beard. This round count as breathing. Next round air turns into something else.
11	The air is still just air, but with the smell of lemon, sea salt and oat. This round count as breathing. Next round air turns into something else.
12	The air turns into pure tobacco smoke.You takes +2 on saves against fear this round. This round doesn't count as breathing. Next round smoke turns into something else.
13	The air turns into spell power. You can immediately cast any of you prepared spells of 1st level without spending spell slot or you taking 1d6 force damage. This round doesn't count as breathing, until you have stable air from the other source. Then Limbo air disappears from your lungs.
14	The air turns into radiant gas. All creatures in the 30 ft cone is dazzle for 1 around if your speak. This round count as breathing. Next round radiant gas turns into something else.
15	The air turns into little portal on Outlands. You can breath freely this round, if only your are not in the zone of antimagic. The portal exist for 1d4 rounds and then turns into something else.
16	The air turns into heroism. You gain +4 on each roll during next turn. This round doesn't count as breathing, until you have stable air from the other source. Then Limbo air disappears from your lungs.
17	You don't really know what air turns into this time, but you became incorporeal for 1 round. Notice that Limbo air is still corporal and you can fly away from it, if you will finish your turn into the stable area. It doesn't count as breathing, but you don't need to breath while you are incorporeal.
18	The air turns into the elemental source of air, that exist 1d12 hours. You able to breath in any circumstances if you lungs are working while this source is inside you. You also can't be affected by Limbo air effect, during that time.
19	The air turns into knowledge. You get +1 to one skill by DM choice (I'd recommend him Profession (cook)). This round doesn't count as breathing, until you have stable air from the other source. Then Limbo air disappears from your lungs.
20	The air became a pice of power. You understand the ways of controlling chaos. If yours alinement is chaotic you gain +5 on shaping chaos. Neutral character gain +2, and lawful only +1. Bonus on shaping chaos from Limbo air never can be more than 5. Then Limbo air disappears from your lungs.

You can achieve necessary result on this roll by shaping chaos in your lungs or prevent next transformations of air by going in a stable area. The DC is the number that you need to roll to get this result. Results on 19 and 20 can't be achieved by shaping chaos - nobody can control everything here.

Step into chaos

You takes 1d6 damage of entropic energy (the same as disintegration spell deals)/per round, you are standing in a raw chaos.

Shaping chaos

You can control chaos if your are clever enough. You can stabilize chaos only by thought, but you should concentrate on its maintaining as on spell by spending standard action each round (if only you aren't anarch).
You can stabilize zone of radius up to 10 sq/Int point.
You can alter up to you Int modificatory squares/round. The more Int points you have, the more difficult alteration you can change.

Int	what you can do
1-2	simple landscape: sphere of water for aquatic creatures and flat ground with air for land ones
3-4	You can chose material of your ground - any rock, metal (except cold iron), slime, wood, water, ice and so on. You can make your "island" from 2-3 materials at ones.
5-6	You can make hills and pits. You also can alter light on your island.
7-8	You can make spikes, rocks, walls and you are unlimited in the number of materials on your island.You can makes winds on your island.
9-10	You can direct gravitation and water streaming as you wish on your island.
11-12	You can create mist, poisons gas, smoke and so on. You can create rain and grass.
13-14	You can create bushes and trees, storms (include snow- and sand-), flowers. You can open portal on a different layer.
15-16	You can create houses, castles, towers and nets and so on. You can make frost. You can open portal on Asgard, Pandemonium, Astral or Outland
17-18	You can create lightning, acid and lava. You can open portal on any outer plane.
20+	You can create simple creatures with Int of animal or less. They can't leave your Island. You can open portal on any plane. You can create your own demilayer.

Magic on Limbo

Wild magic: Each time you try to cast spell here you should make Spellcraft check (DC 20+spell level) or cast your spell with wild wave effect.

Unpredictability: No divination(even abilities of gods) can locate creature, place or object on Limbo or predict future events on these plane. Locations are permanently changing and future isn't created yet.

Privacy Divination spells casted on its plane can't give you any information about sapient creature (or sapient object), except information creature allow you to knows. For example you can define creature as good only if it consciously allow you to identify its alignment. It is not your deal which secret he hides. Divination spells are still works on mindless creatures and objects as usual.

Dream Incarnation: any illusion casted on Limbo has a 10% chance to became real. Illusion is a form and chaos can full it by material.

Awakening of elements:All Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Cold, Lightning and Acid spells last twice longer and affect twice bigger area while effect of spell exists on Limbo. Spells of these key words gain duration of 1d6 rounds instead of instantaneous and radius 1d4x5 ft instead of one target.

Pure chaos: all spells of law are not working on Limbo.

Land of freedom: no spell or effect that can dominate or control sapient creature works here. That includes mark of justices, control undead (you still can control mindless undead) and even summoned creatures.

Extreme mutability: there is a 20% chance that your transmutation spells will have appearance changes, 20% chance that they will stay under your control, but effect will be changed, and 20% chance that spell effect will be changed and spell will be out of control.

Chaos matter: you can create almost all material components for spell by shaping chaos. But any spell that use matter of chaos as component works only on Limbo and interrupts then creature or object under effect of it leaves Limbo. That includes resurrection, recovery and so on. You can't use chaos matter as material component get spell effect on other planes.

Layers of Limbo

Layer of travalers

• Pinwheel
• Prison of Limbo
• Academy of free researches
• Wartle's boiler
• Hospital of lost souls

Layer of githzerai

• Shra’Kt’Lor
• Floating sity

Layer of slaadi

• Spawning stone
• Ever-changing castle of Yorgl

End of Order

• Unbreakable curch
• Rennbuu galery
• Forge of chaos

Layer of lost gods

• Temple of perfection

Demilayers

I'll complete it later. Feel free to criticize but please do it politely.

[Lacuna Caster]

Great Wheel is really great. It has place for any kind of adventure, it has logical structure, so you can predict what you can meet in each plane, it is huge, creative and overwhelming, but I think it is still has a few problems.

I've actually been trying to work on something similar for my own homebrew project, though it's still in the early stages. I'm trying to approach it first from the perspective of character motivations and work outward from there to try and capture the broad strokes of the planar bestiary through a build-your-own-critter feat/template system.

[MercuryAlloy]

I've actually been trying to work on something similar for my own homebrew project, though it's still in the early stages. I'm trying to approach it first from the perspective of character motivations and work outward from there to try and capture the broad strokes of the planar bestiary through a build-your-own-critter feat/template system.

You mean you want to write fiends and other spirits as alternative ways of undead?

That's cool. I like your system (especially magic). May be I'll use some of its feature later if you don't mind.

[Lacuna Caster]

You mean you want to write fiends and other spirits as alternative ways of undead?

That's cool. I like your system (especially magic). May be I'll use some of its feature later if you don't mind.

Sure, glad to be of help.

The general idea is that virtually every monster (including, in a sense, animals and plants, via reincarnation) can be interpreted as a once-living soul reshaped by their time on the outer planes. And the forms those souls take on is influenced by their beliefs and attachments during life- vows of honour, animal instincts, love or hatred, etc. So that gives you some idea of how the planes are formed, the mechanism for how outsiders develop, and how law/chaos/etc. work on a basic level.

[Pronounceable]

Great Wheel is great, screw the haters. That said, haters are right that it's pretty piss poor in detail and execution.

I have kind of a solution to it in my extensively extended homebrew metasetting that can be found in the thread in my signature. I see you're doing something similar here and, while you might like a thing or two from it, the aforementioned thread is stupidly long so it's prolly best to not read the whole thing in one go.

By far the biggest problem with Planescape is that all of the good planes are the same. Like every single one of them is the same ****ing pastoral romantic bull****. One paradise of “purty flowers ‘round the cozy village” is fine, 5 of them is idiotic and shows just how goddamn urban middle class nerd grows up listening to pops saying how great **** was back at home village the guys who made all this up were. So I’m gonna do all y'all who's into this topic a favor and summarize the bits I did about upper planes (some of which doesn't come up even in the longass thread) cos I like the sound of my own keyboard.

Spoiler

Show

Outer Planes are made of alignment essences (like Material is made of the four elements), as are their inhabitants. Each plane has one major native species, the examplars, who can feed on specific metaphysical things to grow in power. Plus whole bunches of assorted outsider critters who exist as they are and can’t evolve. Examplers exemplify ideas and/or emotions, those who stray too far from the norm will fall, transforming into other types.


Arcadia is the Plane of Principled Cooperation. It's home to devas, floating geometric solid arrays covered in orderly patterns that vaguely resemble a biped. Devas feed on their own virtues and grow stronger by being patient, brave, humble, tolerant and other such goodnesses. A sufficiently virtuous deva evolves to a higher rank and an insufficiently virtuous one can degrade (all the way to a fall).

Arcadia is stability, devas are all about adhering to the Principles, the set of rules set in stone at dawn of time to maximize stability and virtuousness. The Principles is a semi infinite marble column covered in extremely small writing passing through the center of the plane, containing rules and instructions for all possible situations devas might find themselves in. All the rest of the plane is made of massive floating structures of solid light that revolve around the "Axis of Virtue" in extremely complicated patterns.

The Solar Quartet rule devas and their main job is updating and upgrading the Principles as time goes on. They also craft new devas out of Law (and a bit of Good) essence when necessary, as it was when the *******s over in Celestia engineered a whole bunch of devas to fall in the Abyss and transform to archons.


Celestia is the Plane of Perfect Note. It’s home to archons, blue/green skinned pretty humanoids with wings and eyes made of light. Archons can gift their own power/essence to other archons to make them better, wounding and weakening themselves. Such wounds heal until they’re back up to the minimum while they’re in Celestia. They also grow stronger when in groups with shared goals, with no known limit to how powerful their resonance effect can get in sufficiently large groups.
Celestia is for perfection, which includes perfection of self and society. Which is why all archons gifted all of their essence short of destroying themselves to the Hebdomad at dawn of time to create the perfectly powerful and wise rulers, who then set up the perfect society and regifted each archon exactly enough power they need to function perfectly in their assigned roles. Celestia is an endless mountain that symbolizes the search for perfection and any personal flaws will prevent a being from moving higher at some point until they’re overcome. Nobody can actually reach the top, even the Hebdomad.
(Except for King of the Heavens Moradin, who built the Great Wheel by arranging the mess of outer planes drifting around the Astral and sometimes apocalyptically smashing into each other as the wheel, marking the official end of the “primordial era”; and then settled atop Celestia to built his court there)
Archons are extremely musical creatures and are in fact made of music performed by the Choirs (as their castes are named), which is where the name of their plane comes from.

Bytopia is the Plane of Equitable Industry. It’s home to kami, floating translucent heads that sprout as many arms as they need at any moment. Kami feed on industriousness and hard work for the benefit of others, and they channel this generated power into Bytopia itself instead of becoming personally stronger. And since all kami are pacifists and would rather be destroyed than defend themselves (or be defended by others), they don’t need any increase in personal power anyway.

Bytopia is for equality. All kami are equal in power and stature, everything is decided by voting. Although democracy is the best possible method of governance, they’re not stupid enough to let any nonkami vote on kami affairs because democracy only works so long as everyone involved acts in good faith. Equality doesn’t mean equality for all, especially in a multiverse that’s got an infinite number of fiendish creatures literally made of evil.

Bytopia is two infinite lands of parallel plains dotted by cities and towns and fields and orchards and roads and factories and mines and all sorts of other tamed nature separated by a great height. Both lands teem with endlessly industrious kami who pump out infinite amounts of manufactured goods and fantastic raw materials for free to other denizens of good outer planes. It gets regularly attacked by all sorts of evils and gets large swathes ruined, reparations of which is just more food for kami.


Elysium is the Plane of Freedom. It’s home to angels, clumps of soft light that can take any shape or color they wish. Angels feed on happiness and freedom of others. They are selfless, loving, kind and friendly and will support and serve anyone and everyone of not blatant evil nature who come to visit Elysium, much like mortal parents do for their young children. Angels channel the newly generated good essence from their actions into their plane, which allows them to drain as much power as they want from the collective power of pure goodness that’s Elysium whenever they might feel like they need it for something important.

Elysium is for peace. Angels are extremely welcoming to visitors but loath to leave their home, for the multiverse outside is full of various ungood things and they’ll feel the urge to correct such things if they see them. It would be an unacceptable course of action as that would violate the freedoms of the perpetrators of ungood things; an angel could easily impose its will upon the multiverse at large with the power of Elysium at its whateveritfeltlikemakingaththemomenttips, but then it’d be no better than the crusading jackasses of Celestia or unhinged psychopaths of the Abyss. So they stay on the cloud and don't think too hard about what's going on outside.

Elysium looks like the classical fluffy cloud heaven and is full of happy beings doing their best to share their happiness, which is considered the plane of useless hedonists by other good examplars.


Beastlands is the Plane of Tooth and Claw. It’s home to guardinals, the furry fetisbipedal animals with impressively big muscles and claws and teeth. Guardinals feed on the violence of fighting (what they consider) evil. Guardinals act like cowboy cops at all times and there’s nothing even remotely resembling a chief to demand them to turn in their fur and teeth when they’re out of line. They regularly form into warbands and raid other planes to gain xp just like murderhobos.

Beastlands is an infinite jungle under twilight full of extremely dangerous beasts and natural hazards and the “law of the jungle” applies. Though guardinals don’t grow stronger by fighting fellow guardinals, they still do it anyway for training purposes, for the regular outsider creatures of the jungle and souls of dead mortals are no challenge.
But the thing that makes guardinals most fearsome is their ability grow stronger the longer a battle goes, guaranteeing a victory in the long run if they don’t get vanquished quick enough.

Mortals name them by the closest animals that resembles them such as bear guardinals, horse guardinals or lion guardinals, which they despise as they’re nothing like the dumb and feeble mortal things that have all sorts of requirements just to keep living. Unlike all other good examplars, Beastlanders refuse to spend any time helping repair the damage once fighting evil is over. So their immense dislike of mortals is reciprocated in full and they’re considered little better than the fiends they fight.

Beastlands is for bravery (which is actually not all that good a thing when you think about it). Guardinals may be the least “good” among good examplars but their berserker zeal to fight evil since time immemorial had convinced King of the Heavens to give them a place in the “upper” wheel. While he’s made it clear he regrets this now, the order of the planes can’t be disturbed anymore without great catastrophy and no other plane would really fit there alignment wise.


Arborea is the Plane of Friendship. It’s the most misleadingly named plane and is home to eladrins, who are humanlike creatures with rapidly and chaotically changing pastel colors all over their body. They can cause epileptic seizure in mortals by just standing around. Eladrins feed on all strong passions, both of themselves and others. There are no ranks or organization among them (except the queen) and it’s impossible to tell how strong an eladrin might be or exactly what it gets off on.

They’re also the ultimate underdogs, and grow stronger the more outnumbered, disbelieved, unsupported, hurt and desperate they are. The irreconcilable metaphysical divide between them and archons has led to an enmity that dwarfs the hatred between their fiendish counterparts, which plays out in the worlds of mortals to spread their alignments by politics and samaritanisms instead of going to war out in the planes and risk weakening the good as a whole.

Eladrins used to be vicious and powerful warriors, equal to demons who they used to be neighbors with in the primordial times. Once the Great Wheel was formed and the Abyss separated from Elysium, Queen Morwel of eladrins decreed that her subjects will seek passion outside of savagery and also maybe find a good cause at some point. Which they later did, in atheism. Eladrins never liked Moradin and his relatives bossing everyone else around anyway, and once the mortals were created and their thoughts and beliefs started to spawn the massive astral parasites they foolishly also call gods, Morwel decided the poor mortals had to be saved from the ruthless manipulations of their “gods” to wring every last bit of faith from them. And so eladrins became evangelists, able to hold their own against all the gods and their toadies in both debate and war (thanks to their ability to simply feed on their opponents’ zeal to overcome them).

Queen Morwel grants the power of infinite creation to all within her plane, which is normally something only the primordial elder gods have and nobody really knows how she hands it out like candy. So Arborea appears as a plane of night sky full of stars, where each star turns out to be a tiny world up close, created by its sole owner as a personal paradise (though nothing created with Morwel’s power can be taken outside Arborea, which her opponents [aka literally everyone else] decry as chains under guise of luxury). It’s certainly a valid alternative reward compared to anything any gods promise to mortals and eladrins have had much success in converting many mortals (dead or alive), so long as you’re a good little chaotic good.

Arborea is really not for friendship, it's more for art (and potentially hedonism). The name of the plane comes from the queen’s insistence that she doesn’t let anyone create living creatures with the power she grants because friendship must be earned and worked for, not created with a snap of fingers. Nobody really believes it but it’s her plane in a way no other examplar leader’s is and she can name it whatever she wants.


Asgard is the Plane of Challenge. It’s home to einherjar who look exactly like humanoids or giants but somehow more *epic*. They feed on competition and grow stronger the more they struggle against opponents. While any kind of contest will feed them, asgardians’ tendency to get carried away with talking **** and hair trigger tempers mean things will almost always boil down to a fight. Unlike guardinals who see themselves as vanquishers of evil, einherjar don’t care who they fight or if they can even win (although they almost always can). They throw themselves at any opponent that’s not obviously trivial and due to their ability to fight endlessly so long as they think they can eventually win, einherjar victories tend to become self fulfilling prophecies unless they seriously misjudged their opponent and get wrecked hard enough and fast enough to convince them they can never win this fight. Einherjar are a grave danger to order and peace and nobody likes them, which is exactly what they want to be.

Asgard is the snow level of the multiverse and nobody ever managed to get a foothold inside thanks to a combination of einherjar themselves, horribly powerful snow/winter/viking themed monsters randomly appearing out of nowhere (that’s normally for einherjar to fight) and the unpredictable ground and weather.

Yes, this is a summary. Really. You can see that all 7 are sufficiently different and only one is the same old pastoral romanticism.

Second biggest goddamn problem is the Abyss. When you say this one evil plane has infinite layers, each of which is radically different with no rhyme or reason whatsoever (cos lolchaos), then why the hell do the other 6 even exist? You could put literally everything in lower planes as more layers of the Abyss and it'd work just as well. Your basic Abyss needs to go if the Great Wheel is to be good. You gotta find a theme to the Abyss and its demons, then stick with it. Otherwise you get this crap where there's like 50 layers of Abyss+"Baator" have been described over the years and it's all demons all the goddamn time in books/campaigns/whatever, while there's 5 more evil planes that are just "a thing".

My solution to this problem will be summarized even more, cos look at the size of this post:

Spoiler

Show

Abyss looks like a staircase spiraling downward into infinity, where steps are alternating giant plains and deadly cliffs. It's also a cancer in existence. Unlike all other lower planes who're just content to chill and be evil in their own little ways, it's always deepening and trying to consume/infect the other planes. Demons must be constantly destroyed to keep the infection from spreading, hence Blood War.

Every other issue with Great Wheel is minor compared to these two gaping wounds. If you fix these in some way (not necessarily my way, tho it's clearly awesome), you're good to go.

[MercuryAlloy]

Great Wheel is great, screw the haters. That said, haters are right that it's pretty piss poor in detail and execution.

I have kind of a solution to it in my extensively extended homebrew metasetting that can be found in the thread in my signature. I see you're doing something similar here and, while you might like a thing or two from it, the aforementioned thread is stupidly long so it's prolly best to not read the whole thing in one go.

By far the biggest problem with Planescape is that all of the good planes are the same. Like every single one of them is the same ****ing pastoral romantic bull****. One paradise of “purty flowers ‘round the cozy village” is fine, 5 of them is idiotic and shows just how goddamn urban middle class nerd grows up listening to pops saying how great **** was back at home village the guys who made all this up were. So I’m gonna do all y'all who's into this topic a favor and summarize the bits I did about upper planes (some of which doesn't come up even in the longass thread) cos I like the sound of my own keyboard.

Spoiler

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Outer Planes are made of alignment essences (like Material is made of the four elements), as are their inhabitants. Each plane has one major native species, the examplars, who can feed on specific metaphysical things to grow in power. Plus whole bunches of assorted outsider critters who exist as they are and can’t evolve. Examplers exemplify ideas and/or emotions, those who stray too far from the norm will fall, transforming into other types.


Arcadia is the Plane of Principled Cooperation. It's home to devas, floating geometric solid arrays covered in orderly patterns that vaguely resemble a biped. Devas feed on their own virtues and grow stronger by being patient, brave, humble, tolerant and other such goodnesses. A sufficiently virtuous deva evolves to a higher rank and an insufficiently virtuous one can degrade (all the way to a fall).

Arcadia is stability, devas are all about adhering to the Principles, the set of rules set in stone at dawn of time to maximize stability and virtuousness. The Principles is a semi infinite marble column covered in extremely small writing passing through the center of the plane, containing rules and instructions for all possible situations devas might find themselves in. All the rest of the plane is made of massive floating structures of solid light that revolve around the "Axis of Virtue" in extremely complicated patterns.

The Solar Quartet rule devas and their main job is updating and upgrading the Principles as time goes on. They also craft new devas out of Law (and a bit of Good) essence when necessary, as it was when the *******s over in Celestia engineered a whole bunch of devas to fall in the Abyss and transform to archons.


Celestia is the Plane of Perfect Note. It’s home to archons, blue/green skinned pretty humanoids with wings and eyes made of light. Archons can gift their own power/essence to other archons to make them better, wounding and weakening themselves. Such wounds heal until they’re back up to the minimum while they’re in Celestia. They also grow stronger when in groups with shared goals, with no known limit to how powerful their resonance effect can get in sufficiently large groups.
Celestia is for perfection, which includes perfection of self and society. Which is why all archons gifted all of their essence short of destroying themselves to the Hebdomad at dawn of time to create the perfectly powerful and wise rulers, who then set up the perfect society and regifted each archon exactly enough power they need to function perfectly in their assigned roles. Celestia is an endless mountain that symbolizes the search for perfection and any personal flaws will prevent a being from moving higher at some point until they’re overcome. Nobody can actually reach the top, even the Hebdomad.
(Except for King of the Heavens Moradin, who built the Great Wheel by arranging the mess of outer planes drifting around the Astral and sometimes apocalyptically smashing into each other as the wheel, marking the official end of the “primordial era”; and then settled atop Celestia to built his court there)
Archons are extremely musical creatures and are in fact made of music performed by the Choirs (as their castes are named), which is where the name of their plane comes from.

Bytopia is the Plane of Equitable Industry. It’s home to kami, floating translucent heads that sprout as many arms as they need at any moment. Kami feed on industriousness and hard work for the benefit of others, and they channel this generated power into Bytopia itself instead of becoming personally stronger. And since all kami are pacifists and would rather be destroyed than defend themselves (or be defended by others), they don’t need any increase in personal power anyway.

Bytopia is for equality. All kami are equal in power and stature, everything is decided by voting. Although democracy is the best possible method of governance, they’re not stupid enough to let any nonkami vote on kami affairs because democracy only works so long as everyone involved acts in good faith. Equality doesn’t mean equality for all, especially in a multiverse that’s got an infinite number of fiendish creatures literally made of evil.

Bytopia is two infinite lands of parallel plains dotted by cities and towns and fields and orchards and roads and factories and mines and all sorts of other tamed nature separated by a great height. Both lands teem with endlessly industrious kami who pump out infinite amounts of manufactured goods and fantastic raw materials for free to other denizens of good outer planes. It gets regularly attacked by all sorts of evils and gets large swathes ruined, reparations of which is just more food for kami.


Elysium is the Plane of Freedom. It’s home to angels, clumps of soft light that can take any shape or color they wish. Angels feed on happiness and freedom of others. They are selfless, loving, kind and friendly and will support and serve anyone and everyone of not blatant evil nature who come to visit Elysium, much like mortal parents do for their young children. Angels channel the newly generated good essence from their actions into their plane, which allows them to drain as much power as they want from the collective power of pure goodness that’s Elysium whenever they might feel like they need it for something important.

Elysium is for peace. Angels are extremely welcoming to visitors but loath to leave their home, for the multiverse outside is full of various ungood things and they’ll feel the urge to correct such things if they see them. It would be an unacceptable course of action as that would violate the freedoms of the perpetrators of ungood things; an angel could easily impose its will upon the multiverse at large with the power of Elysium at its whateveritfeltlikemakingaththemomenttips, but then it’d be no better than the crusading jackasses of Celestia or unhinged psychopaths of the Abyss. So they stay on the cloud and don't think too hard about what's going on outside.

Elysium looks like the classical fluffy cloud heaven and is full of happy beings doing their best to share their happiness, which is considered the plane of useless hedonists by other good examplars.


Beastlands is the Plane of Tooth and Claw. It’s home to guardinals, the furry fetisbipedal animals with impressively big muscles and claws and teeth. Guardinals feed on the violence of fighting (what they consider) evil. Guardinals act like cowboy cops at all times and there’s nothing even remotely resembling a chief to demand them to turn in their fur and teeth when they’re out of line. They regularly form into warbands and raid other planes to gain xp just like murderhobos.

Beastlands is an infinite jungle under twilight full of extremely dangerous beasts and natural hazards and the “law of the jungle” applies. Though guardinals don’t grow stronger by fighting fellow guardinals, they still do it anyway for training purposes, for the regular outsider creatures of the jungle and souls of dead mortals are no challenge.
But the thing that makes guardinals most fearsome is their ability grow stronger the longer a battle goes, guaranteeing a victory in the long run if they don’t get vanquished quick enough.

Mortals name them by the closest animals that resembles them such as bear guardinals, horse guardinals or lion guardinals, which they despise as they’re nothing like the dumb and feeble mortal things that have all sorts of requirements just to keep living. Unlike all other good examplars, Beastlanders refuse to spend any time helping repair the damage once fighting evil is over. So their immense dislike of mortals is reciprocated in full and they’re considered little better than the fiends they fight.

Beastlands is for bravery (which is actually not all that good a thing when you think about it). Guardinals may be the least “good” among good examplars but their berserker zeal to fight evil since time immemorial had convinced King of the Heavens to give them a place in the “upper” wheel. While he’s made it clear he regrets this now, the order of the planes can’t be disturbed anymore without great catastrophy and no other plane would really fit there alignment wise.


Arborea is the Plane of Friendship. It’s the most misleadingly named plane and is home to eladrins, who are humanlike creatures with rapidly and chaotically changing pastel colors all over their body. They can cause epileptic seizure in mortals by just standing around. Eladrins feed on all strong passions, both of themselves and others. There are no ranks or organization among them (except the queen) and it’s impossible to tell how strong an eladrin might be or exactly what it gets off on.

They’re also the ultimate underdogs, and grow stronger the more outnumbered, disbelieved, unsupported, hurt and desperate they are. The irreconcilable metaphysical divide between them and archons has led to an enmity that dwarfs the hatred between their fiendish counterparts, which plays out in the worlds of mortals to spread their alignments by politics and samaritanisms instead of going to war out in the planes and risk weakening the good as a whole.

Eladrins used to be vicious and powerful warriors, equal to demons who they used to be neighbors with in the primordial times. Once the Great Wheel was formed and the Abyss separated from Elysium, Queen Morwel of eladrins decreed that her subjects will seek passion outside of savagery and also maybe find a good cause at some point. Which they later did, in atheism. Eladrins never liked Moradin and his relatives bossing everyone else around anyway, and once the mortals were created and their thoughts and beliefs started to spawn the massive astral parasites they foolishly also call gods, Morwel decided the poor mortals had to be saved from the ruthless manipulations of their “gods” to wring every last bit of faith from them. And so eladrins became evangelists, able to hold their own against all the gods and their toadies in both debate and war (thanks to their ability to simply feed on their opponents’ zeal to overcome them).

Queen Morwel grants the power of infinite creation to all within her plane, which is normally something only the primordial elder gods have and nobody really knows how she hands it out like candy. So Arborea appears as a plane of night sky full of stars, where each star turns out to be a tiny world up close, created by its sole owner as a personal paradise (though nothing created with Morwel’s power can be taken outside Arborea, which her opponents [aka literally everyone else] decry as chains under guise of luxury). It’s certainly a valid alternative reward compared to anything any gods promise to mortals and eladrins have had much success in converting many mortals (dead or alive), so long as you’re a good little chaotic good.

Arborea is really not for friendship, it's more for art (and potentially hedonism). The name of the plane comes from the queen’s insistence that she doesn’t let anyone create living creatures with the power she grants because friendship must be earned and worked for, not created with a snap of fingers. Nobody really believes it but it’s her plane in a way no other examplar leader’s is and she can name it whatever she wants.


Asgard is the Plane of Challenge. It’s home to einherjar who look exactly like humanoids or giants but somehow more *epic*. They feed on competition and grow stronger the more they struggle against opponents. While any kind of contest will feed them, asgardians’ tendency to get carried away with talking **** and hair trigger tempers mean things will almost always boil down to a fight. Unlike guardinals who see themselves as vanquishers of evil, einherjar don’t care who they fight or if they can even win (although they almost always can). They throw themselves at any opponent that’s not obviously trivial and due to their ability to fight endlessly so long as they think they can eventually win, einherjar victories tend to become self fulfilling prophecies unless they seriously misjudged their opponent and get wrecked hard enough and fast enough to convince them they can never win this fight. Einherjar are a grave danger to order and peace and nobody likes them, which is exactly what they want to be.

Asgard is the snow level of the multiverse and nobody ever managed to get a foothold inside thanks to a combination of einherjar themselves, horribly powerful snow/winter/viking themed monsters randomly appearing out of nowhere (that’s normally for einherjar to fight) and the unpredictable ground and weather.

Yes, this is a summary. Really. You can see that all 7 are sufficiently different and only one is the same old pastoral romanticism.

Second biggest goddamn problem is the Abyss. When you say this one evil plane has infinite layers, each of which is radically different with no rhyme or reason whatsoever (cos lolchaos), then why the hell do the other 6 even exist? You could put literally everything in lower planes as more layers of the Abyss and it'd work just as well. Your basic Abyss needs to go if the Great Wheel is to be good. You gotta find a theme to the Abyss and its demons, then stick with it. Otherwise you get this crap where there's like 50 layers of Abyss+"Baator" have been described over the years and it's all demons all the goddamn time in books/campaigns/whatever, while there's 5 more evil planes that are just "a thing".

My solution to this problem will be summarized even more, cos look at the size of this post:

Spoiler

Show

Abyss looks like a staircase spiraling downward into infinity, where steps are alternating giant plains and deadly cliffs. It's also a cancer in existence. Unlike all other lower planes who're just content to chill and be evil in their own little ways, it's always deepening and trying to consume/infect the other planes. Demons must be constantly destroyed to keep the infection from spreading, hence Blood War.

Every other issue with Great Wheel is minor compared to these two gaping wounds. If you fix these in some way (not necessarily my way, tho it's clearly awesome), you're good to go.

It's interesting to see that not only I think that Bytopian natives should be kami. I absolutely agree with your first statement, but I don't think that 666 layers of Abyss is a main problem for lower planes. I think the layers of abyss just should be smaller, about 100 km in diameter, and be different in visual thematic inside same philosophy: pure anarchy and rule of strong one. The same way other planes may have hundreds of different landscapes just on the same layer.

And thanks, I may be use some of your ideas. especially then I'll start wright about gods.

[noob]

The big problem I see with planescape is that the normal adventurers(the player characters) that goes and do horrible things to tons of people(directly or indirectly or by setting them on fire) have all their efforts spoiled due to a rule that says that when bad stuff happens an equal amount of good stuff necessarily happens somewhere.
So If the adventurers manage to set the whole multiverse on fire and torture everything at once then necessarily in this multiverse an equal amount of good stuff must happen and so somehow most people suddenly are happy while being tortured and on fire(How does it works? It is a mystery)
On the other hand adventurers that are actually good have absolutely no justification for their behavior that does not helps on a global scale.

[Eldan]

The big problem I see with planescape is that the normal adventurers(the player characters) that goes and do horrible things to tons of people(directly or indirectly or by setting them on fire) have all their efforts spoiled due to a rule that says that when bad stuff happens an equal amount of good stuff necessarily happens somewhere.
So If the adventurers manage to set the whole multiverse on fire and torture everything at once then necessarily in this multiverse an equal amount of good stuff must happen and so somehow most people suddenly are happy while being tortured and on fire(How does it works? It is a mystery)
On the other hand adventurers that are actually good have absolutely no justification for their behavior that does not helps on a global scale.

Where does it say that? I very much think that Planescape never says that. The Multiverse absolutely can be unbalanced by too much belief in one ideology. It almost happened to Sigil, it was only saved by a mysteriously very selective plague.

[Lacuna Caster]

Great Wheel is great, screw the haters. That said, haters are right that it's pretty piss poor in detail and execution.

I have kind of a solution to it in my extensively extended homebrew metasetting that can be found in the thread in my signature...

That thread seems to be mostly concerned with redefining various deities, though? Is there any kind of central repository?

Every other issue with Great Wheel is minor compared to these two gaping wounds. If you fix these in some way (not necessarily my way, tho it's clearly awesome), you're good to go.

My personal inclination has been to just say that chaos-aligned planes in general are more mutable and psychically responsive, but unstable, so the various layers of the abyss are personal dream-realms for powerful demons and will disappear when/if they're displaced, which happens with significant frequency. The CG-planes are just dream-realms for more pleasant people.

Also... why are your Kami creatures of perfectly equality? They're close to being the Japanese equivalent to dryads, satyrs, and other nature spirits, merging with ancestor worship and shinto pantheon. Or has the standard D&D listing transmogrified them into something entirely different?

Where does it say that? I very much think that Planescape never says that. The Multiverse absolutely can be unbalanced by too much belief in one ideology. It almost happened to Sigil, it was only saved by a mysteriously very selective plague.

Yeah, but in that case it becomes a moral imperative to curb 'too much good' in the universe, which also sucks in it's own way.

[Pronounceable]

...a rule that says that when bad stuff happens an equal amount of good stuff necessarily happens somewhere

Nope.

That thread seems to be mostly concerned with redefining various deities, though?

It redefines everything once easily targeted gods are done. That takes a while though and there's no rhyme or reason to the progress.

why are your Kami creatures of perfectly equality?

Because that's what Bytopia is for. It was either that or gnomes and **** gnomes.

Yeah, but in that case it becomes a moral imperative to curb 'too much good' in the universe

Only if you're evil. In which case that's your ground state anyway.

[Lacuna Caster]

Because that's what Bytopia is for. It was either that or gnomes and **** gnomes.

But why would you call these creatures Kami, is what I'm getting at?

Only if you're evil. In which case that's your ground state anyway.

Well, hang on a second. The impression I'm getting from Eldan is that the great wheel is set up in such a way that if you ever succeeded in actually cleansing the nine hells or turned hades into a verdant paradise, the whole place would for some reason collapse. (Or at least that Sigil had to be 'saved' from a similar outcome.) Or am I getting this wrong?

[Max_Killjoy]

The big problem I see with planescape is that the normal adventurers(the player characters) that goes and do horrible things to tons of people(directly or indirectly or by setting them on fire) have all their efforts spoiled due to a rule that says that when bad stuff happens an equal amount of good stuff necessarily happens somewhere.
So If the adventurers manage to set the whole multiverse on fire and torture everything at once then necessarily in this multiverse an equal amount of good stuff must happen and so somehow most people suddenly are happy while being tortured and on fire(How does it works? It is a mystery)
On the other hand adventurers that are actually good have absolutely no justification for their behavior that does not helps on a global scale.

Where does it say that? I very much think that Planescape never says that. The Multiverse absolutely can be unbalanced by too much belief in one ideology. It almost happened to Sigil, it was only saved by a mysteriously very selective plague.

Either of which would seem to imply that in that setting, the universe "demands" or "requires" a "balance" of good and evil.

Sounds like excellent fodder for telling stories of despair and hopelessness in a cosmic horror setting.

[Eldan]

Either of which would seem to imply that in that setting, the universe "demands" or "requires" a "balance" of good and evil.

Sounds like excellent fodder for telling stories of despair and hopelessness in a cosmic horror setting.

That wasn't the universe. The story was that due to a faction war breaking out, the Lady limited the number of factions to 15, so the remaining factions immediately started murdering each other. Until someone had the bright idea to make the Free League, the faction that allows anyone to join and allows any philosophy. And as a result, the Free League suddenly had way more members than all the other 14 factions combined. But since their overall philosophy was very free-spirited, Sigil started shifting towards ideas of Freedom. And just as that happened, a magical plague began wiping out only Leaguers. It was strongly implied that the Lady was doing this.

But similar things have happened in other places. SOme gate towns fall to their planes regularly. The Harmonium accidentally dropped an entire layer of Arcadia into Mechanus. This introduced the Formians to Mechanus, who immediately began taking over the plane, even going so far as to wage war on the Modrons. It has considerably weakened Law in the multiverse. And so on.

[Eldan]

But why would you call these creatures Kami, is what I'm getting at?


Well, hang on a second. The impression I'm getting from Eldan is that the great wheel is set up in such a way that if you ever succeeded in actually cleansing the nine hells or turned hades into a verdant paradise, the whole place would for some reason collapse. (Or at least that Sigil had to be 'saved' from a similar outcome.) Or am I getting this wrong?

Nonono. What i meant by "Unbalanced" was "different from what it is like now, with several similarly strong alignment factions". Now, the thing is, most of this is absolute conjecture. Planescape is pretty good about not giving definite answers. But I think we never actually see any evidence for anything catastrophic happening when one alignment dominates over the other. Apart from the general mayhem that would happen if evil overwhelmed good.

[Eldan]

Can I ask why you are turning the angels from divine servants into exemplars? I must admit that always has been a bit of a pet peeve of mine, I found them more interesting as divine servants and it allowed them more diversity.

[MercuryAlloy]

Can I ask why you are turning the angels from divine servants into exemplars? I must admit that always has been a bit of a pet peeve of mine, I found them more interesting as divine servants and it allowed them more diversity.

I'll think to make them the opposite of baernoloths, not just exemplar of good, but its incarnation and source, something like Elder Good. They are well-known, but a bit flat and not really mysterious at first glance.

And in my opinion any exemplar can be servant of gods. Gods in Abyss should have bigger armies of demons because they are more powerful then demon lords and strength is the only that matters in Abyss. Because of his divine abilities Morodin is better organizer then Seven paragons, so he is probably more likely leader for archons then Zaphkael, and so on.

[Eldan]

Making Exemplars servants of the gods cheapens them, in my opinion. Original Planescape made it very clear that exemplars are servants of an entire plane, with their own hierarchies. In many ways, they are avatars of the plane, even. When they die, their essence merges back into the plane they came from. Gods, on the other hand, get their power explicitely by worship, and they are a lot more political as a result. Exemplars can work with a god, if their interests align, but serving two masters like that seems unlikely to me, from beings that embody devotion in such a way.

[MercuryAlloy]

Making Exemplars servants of the gods cheapens them, in my opinion. Original Planescape made it very clear that exemplars are servants of an entire plane, with their own hierarchies. In many ways, they are avatars of the plane, even. When they die, their essence merges back into the plane they came from. Gods, on the other hand, get their power explicitely by worship, and they are a lot more political as a result. Exemplars can work with a god, if their interests align, but serving two masters like that seems unlikely to me, from beings that embody devotion in such a way.

1. Gods gains their power not only from worship: Tarizdun for exemplar has very little worshipers and he is still intermediate deity. Yeenoghu on the other hand worshiped by entire race (and it is more numerous race then troglodytes), but he still isn't deity.

2. Exemplars are servants of ideas, that incarnates incarnate in a form of plane. Gods have ideology too, and depending on it, they choose (or chooses by) plane of existence as way too live. Some deities even was outsiders before. They have more affection on the world and with their religion they provides other ideas - justice, freedom and so on. So they spread ideas of the plane the same way, it do exemplars. They also are main protectors of their plane, and even if they don't understand ideas of plane on same level as exemplars most deities are clever to have one or too advisor near them.

[Eldan]

Many gods keep themselves almost entirely apart from the plane they happen to be on, though. Some have domains on planes that don't even match their alignment. And they keep their petitioners, instead of allowing them to merge with the plane.

[MercuryAlloy]

Many gods keep themselves almost entirely apart from the plane they happen to be on, though. Some have domains on planes that don't even match their alignment. And they keep their petitioners, instead of allowing them to merge with the plane.

Many, but not all. And the rest of them could be leaders for exemplars.

[Lacuna Caster]

Either of which would seem to imply that in that setting, the universe "demands" or "requires" a "balance" of good and evil.

Sounds like excellent fodder for telling stories of despair and hopelessness in a cosmic horror setting.

Well, as the good book tells us, there are pros and cons-

...if the great game between Good and Evil is an inherently pointless game, that can make the story of your characters seem pretty banal. It's a line that can be hard to walk. It's just plain difficult to simultaneously have any individual attempt to destroy the world be important while having it be built into the contract that there will be another one tomorrow.

Nonono. What i meant by "Unbalanced" was "different from what it is like now, with several similarly strong alignment factions". Now, the thing is, most of this is absolute conjecture. Planescape is pretty good about not giving definite answers. But I think we never actually see any evidence for anything catastrophic happening when one alignment dominates over the other. Apart from the general mayhem that would happen if evil overwhelmed good.

Ah. So the effect of cleaning up a whole layer of the abyss would be to... make it merge into pandaemonium?

What are the standard D&D mechanics for petitioners and outsiders dying, by the way?

[Eldan]

Petitioners just vanish, I think. Been a while since I looked into that, probably varies by edition. Most often, outsiders respawn on their home plane if killed away from it, and die permanently if killed on it.

Thing is "cleaning up" a layer of the Abyss would be tremendous work. It's not just killing every demon on it and banishing every evil magic. It's not even just that and then filling the plane with goodness. The Abyss is some degree of sentient and would fight you.

And to make an actual change in the balance of alignment, well, that would require an entirely different approach. THe thing is this. Killing demons? Cosmically speaking probably makes the Abyss stronger. Because it means you are using violence to solve your problems and you believe in violence. Demons thrive on that belief. Of course, being "good" to them won't solve things either, because mortals wouldn't believe that actually works.

No, the way to actually end the Abyss would be to convince mortals, as a whole, to be good and, what's more, to believe that there is no such thing as evil.

[noob]

Petitioners just vanish, I think. Been a while since I looked into that, probably varies by edition. Most often, outsiders respawn on their home plane if killed away from it, and die permanently if killed on it.

Thing is "cleaning up" a layer of the Abyss would be tremendous work. It's not just killing every demon on it and banishing every evil magic. It's not even just that and then filling the plane with goodness. The Abyss is some degree of sentient and would fight you.

And to make an actual change in the balance of alignment, well, that would require an entirely different approach. THe thing is this. Killing demons? Cosmically speaking probably makes the Abyss stronger. Because it means you are using violence to solve your problems and you believe in violence. Demons thrive on that belief. Of course, being "good" to them won't solve things either, because mortals wouldn't believe that actually works.

No, the way to actually end the Abyss would be to convince mortals, as a whole, to be good and, what's more, to believe that there is no such thing as evil.

What if you go and redeem each demon?
What would happen?