What Happens to Planar Travelers if the World Gets Destroyed?

[KatsOfLoathing]

This is a question I've been pondering for a while since the comic first posited it. Not sure if anyone else has brought it up before.

Too new on the site to post links yet, but several of the vampire clerics (and Hilgya) have suggested that it'd be possible to survive the Snarl and/or the gods destroying the world by being on another plane at the time of destruction. We know at the very least that the celestial and infernal realms, as well as the Astral Plane, seem to have come out of every cycle just fine, so any Plane Shift user could theoretically survive the apocalypse by being on one of those planes, outliving the cycle.

We know that the gods wipe the memories of all outsiders with each reset. There's no word on what kind of treatment the dead spirits of mortals get, but we can plausibly inference that something similar happens there. What about the living who survive, though? We've seen people Plane Shifting to Heaven and the Plane of Earth before, so it would've had to happen at some point in the nigh-infinite worlds before the Order's.

The easiest answer would be that they simply don't live long enough to see the new world being created (Thor tells Durkon and Minrah that it usually takes some time to recreate the world in their conversation about the Dark One), but I was wondering what other theories the forum might pose.

[Squire Doodad]

I imagine that the gods clean house - fire off a couple high powered spells/divine artillery cannons to get rid of excess beings that are hiding away in the various planes. Anything that survives that will probably not make it through the world being reweaved, and the new circumstances of the new world may have its own effects. This might not take place for a while after the world has been destroyed, but I doubt anything would actually survive the transition.

Realistically, Hilgya being ready to flee to a different plane is pointless if the world ends because they'll be killed off regardless. However, Durkon is about to go to the epicenter of what is possibly the most dangerous event in 70 years - meaning that Kudzu will not possibly be safe there, and the fact that Hilgya will be running around somewhere off in at least the Dwarven Lands instead of charging headstrong into the fray makes sure that Kudzu doesn't become a casualty by virtue of errant Meteor Swarms or the Mechane being under fire.

[KatsOfLoathing]

I imagine that the gods clean house - fire off a couple high powered spells/divine artillery cannons to get rid of excess beings that are hiding away in the various planes. Anything that survives that will probably not make it through the world being reweaved, and the new circumstances of the new world may have its own effects. This might not take place for a while after the world has been destroyed, but I doubt anything would actually survive the transition

That's... dark. And somewhat out of character for many of the Good-aligned gods, I'd believe, especially those who seem opposed to any degree of civilian casualties like Freya and Frigg.

The idea that the new world's metaphysics (or maybe even actual physics) are simply inhospitable to any leftovers from the previous world is an interesting concept that merits consideration, though.

[Squire Doodad]

That's... dark. And somewhat out of character for many of the Good-aligned gods, I'd believe, especially those who seem opposed to any degree of civilian casualties like Freya and Frigg.

The idea that the new world's metaphysics (or maybe even actual physics) are simply inhospitable to any leftovers from the previous world is an interesting concept that merits consideration, though.

The concept is not that the gods want to wipe out life, but rather that they feel they need to. If a Good god lets a colony of Clerics who are hanging out on the elemental plane of Water live while the Snarl is free, and they all get speared by the Snarl because it happens to wander near there, did they do a Good action? It's simpler to wipe out life on those planes and finish collecting the last of the souls, at which point their people can rest in the afterlife instead of risking them falling prey to the Snarl.

The conflicting physics probably deserves a 50 page discussion in of itself XD

[Knaight]

Given that the existence of planes at all is part of the fantasy aesthetic, and given that we know the gods have gone in different genre directions entirely, I'd assume the planes get wiped out when the world does.

[KatsOfLoathing]

Given that the existence of planes at all is part of the fantasy aesthetic, and given that we know the gods have gone in different genre directions entirely, I'd assume the planes get wiped out when the world does.

We do know from the conversations on the Astral Plane that the concept of needing worship, prayer, and souls to sustain themselves is a consistent aspect of every world's metaphysics, though, so the afterlife planes are kept around in some form. No word on the elemental planes. And again, the Astral Plane seems to have remained the same across every reboot.

[D.One]

I believe there are a bunch of Ifs, notably:

1) The long term "survivability" in the outer planes for mortals, who are designed to live in the material plane;

2) If the waiting time beetween worlds is long enough, most mortals will probably die of old age and not see the new world;


I don't really believe the gods nuke the afterlife searching for survivors (Not that I think most of them wouldn't if they felt they needed to). I think it's more in the lines of they letting survivors dying of old age and other "natural causes" in the outer planes (which aren't always safe), and mindwiping any few survivors. Besides that, I believe the souls in the outer planes probably merge with the afterlife and stop being discrete beings with memories of past lives long before the "beetween-worlds" time ends.

[Anymage]

The time between worlds is huge. If you did manage to plane shift away, not only would you be dead of old age long before the next world started, but your soul would also have long ago faded into the relevant alignment plane.

As for why the gods don't just bring every living creature to other planes as soon as the snarl starts to look testy? I'm going to be making some assumptions here based largely on my memories of Planescape, but being born and raised in a non-prime environment starts to change you. Not enough that a second or even third generation person born on an outer plane would have anything more to show for it than maybe a cosmetic feature and what planes they can be Banished from, but again there's an incomprehensibly long span of time between worlds. The descendants of this colony would be elementals/outsiders/etc. long before the new world was ready.

Evacuating a world full of people is hard. Pull the plug too early, you get too little ROI on your world and just wound up making a bunch of random elementals/outsiders. Pull the plug when things start to go south, you'll have a hard time getting enough people out. So while I'm sure that there are people grab their loved ones and Plane Shift out when tentacled things start coming through cracks in reality, there aren't enough high level casters to make properly scaled evacuations possible.

[KatsOfLoathing]

I believe there are a bunch of Ifs, notably:

1) The long term "survivability" in the outer planes for mortals, who are designed to live in the material plane;

2) If the waiting time beetween worlds is long enough, most mortals will probably die of old age and not see the new world;


I don't really believe the gods nuke the afterlife searching for survivors (Not that I think most of them wouldn't if they felt they needed to). I think it's more in the lines of they letting survivors dying of old age and other "natural causes" in the outer planes (which aren't always safe), and mindwiping any few survivors. Besides that, I believe the souls in the outer planes probably merge with the afterlife and stop being discrete beings with memories of past lives long before the "beetween-worlds" time ends.

All of this was pretty much along my thought processes, yeah. Though I did forget that the souls of the afterlife eventually "fade" with enough time. I guess they lose their memories of their previous selves naturally after so long, since souls ceasing to exist as sentient beings doesn't really jibe with the explanation of the Lawful Good afterlife Roy got from his archon.

[Emanick]

I imagine that the gods clean house - fire off a couple high powered spells/divine artillery cannons to get rid of excess beings that are hiding away in the various planes. Anything that survives that will probably not make it through the world being reweaved, and the new circumstances of the new world may have its own effects. This might not take place for a while after the world has been destroyed, but I doubt anything would actually survive the transition.

Realistically, Hilgya being ready to flee to a different plane is pointless if the world ends because they'll be killed off regardless. However, Durkon is about to go to the epicenter of what is possibly the most dangerous event in 70 years - meaning that Kudzu will not possibly be safe there, and the fact that Hilgya will be running around somewhere off in at least the Dwarven Lands instead of charging headstrong into the fray makes sure that Kudzu doesn't become a casualty by virtue of errant Meteor Swarms or the Mechane being under fire.

I don't know why we would assume that the gods kill mortals who are hiding in the planes - there's no evidence of this, it doesn't benefit them in any way, and it would likely be contentious (and we know the gods try to avoid arguments among themselves). I go into more detail below about why it's so unlikely.

I think the simplest explanation is that the gods simply mind-wipe everyone after they destroy the world (or, more likely, shortly before the next one is created, once they have some idea of what they're going to create next). Outsiders and non-Outsiders alike are affected, but the assumption is that practically everyone on the Planes is an Outsider (or an Elemental, I guess), so Thor just said "Outsiders" for short. Being pedantic isn't really his style.

There's no particular reason why the gods would want to specifically exclude non-Outsiders, and it makes good sense to include them in the mind-wipe if any are still alive, since they could potentially reveal the secret to others.

The concept is not that the gods want to wipe out life, but rather that they feel they need to. If a Good god lets a colony of Clerics who are hanging out on the elemental plane of Water live while the Snarl is free, and they all get speared by the Snarl because it happens to wander near there, did they do a Good action? It's simpler to wipe out life on those planes and finish collecting the last of the souls, at which point their people can rest in the afterlife instead of risking them falling prey to the Snarl.

The conflicting physics probably deserves a 50 page discussion in of itself XD

This seems unlikely. The Snarl seems unable (or - very unlikely, but possible - unwilling) to leave the Prime Material Plane. I don't see any reason why the Good gods would want to kill a bunch of mortals on the insanely-unlikely off-chance that The Snarl not only took this particular moment in the eons-long history of the multiverse to begin planar travel, but happened to stumble upon those particular mortals while doing so.

Moreover, it doesn't make any sense to do so, because the whole point of killing mortals is to get them into the Outer Planes because The Snarl can't travel to any other planes. If The Snarl can get to the Elemental Plane of Water, it can get to Mount Celestia or Acheron or the Nine Hells. It might even be more likely to visit the latter, because it seems to have a specific animus for the gods, and they dwell in the same planes that the departed mortals do. If the Planes are unsafe, it may make more sense to keep the mortals as far away from the afterlives where the gods dwell as possible - assuming, of course, that you want to keep their souls in existence.

I guess you could theoretically argue that a mortal would be marginally safer on the Outer Planes than on the Inner Planes, because The Snarl might have to pass through the latter first, and thus the gods probably kill mortals on the Inner Planes just to be safe. But that strikes me as a very weak argument.

The time between worlds is huge. If you did manage to plane shift away, not only would you be dead of old age long before the next world started, but your soul would also have long ago faded into the relevant alignment plane.

I don't think we actually have any evidence of this. The time between worlds could easily be 5 years, it could be 20, or it could be 1,000. Who knows?

[thereaper]

All of this was pretty much along my thought processes, yeah. Though I did forget that the souls of the afterlife eventually "fade" with enough time. I guess they lose their memories of their previous selves naturally after so long, since souls ceasing to exist as sentient beings doesn't really jibe with the explanation of the Lawful Good afterlife Roy got from his archon.

Per Rich, that is indeed what happens eventually. Souls give off energy that the gods consume until they become pure planestuff. That is what the afterlife is about: letting go. That is what the top of Celestia is: finally letting go of all attachments and just becoming part of the plane.

[Squire Doodad]

I don't think we actually have any evidence of this. The time between worlds could easily be 5 years, it could be 20, or it could be 1,000. Who knows?

Something tells me gods don't die after 5 years of no worship. It's probably substantial, I'd say at least in the lower centuries.

[Emanick]

Something tells me gods don't die after 5 years of no worship. It's probably substantial, I'd say at least in the lower centuries.

Depends on the mathematics of deityhood. If it takes a lot of power to grant spells and such, almost as much as you’re getting from Dedication, Worship, etc., and you don’t start reaping the full Soul Power of your followers for centuries after they die, then you might not make it after even a few years of zero Worship and Dedication. We don’t have nearly enough information to calculate how any of this works.

I expect you’re right; my median guess would be that there’s a pause of a few decades between worlds. We don’t have any real information either way, though.

[Dr.Zero]

Haven't movie snacks characters actually been explained to have existed and so to be what remains of a precedent world destruction?
So I'd say planar travel will work, and will work just fine. And since snackworld survivors were easily killed by goblins, I guess that even medium level characters could manage to survive the destruction, as long as they are, for whatever reason, on another plane when that happens.

(About the time between the destruction and reconstruction, I've no idea, since I don't know the average lifespan of movie snack characters).

[D.One]

That is what the afterlife is about: letting go.

Soooo, it's all a big musical, right?

[KatsOfLoathing]

Per Rich, that is indeed what happens eventually. Souls give off energy that the gods consume until they become pure planestuff. That is what the afterlife is about: letting go. That is what the top of Celestia is: finally letting go of all attachments and just becoming part of the plane.

Would you mind citing this?

[D.One]

Would you mind citing this?

Here. Most of the concept is on this post, with some more ideas scattered elsewhere.

[urbanwolf]

Their are three comics that combine to make me believe that people can live if the planer travel.
The one with the movie snacks.
The one where Thor explains that one of the worlds was sentient food.
And the one with Fruitpie the Sorcerer.

Fruitpie is likely a descendant of some powerful snack that plane traveled and started a colony of some obscure plane. Like the plane of Ranch Dressing, but fruit or pie based.

[Dr.Zero]

Their are three comics that combine to make me believe that people can live if the planer travel.
The one with the movie snacks.
The one where Thor explains that one of the worlds was sentient food.
And the one with Fruitpie the Sorcerer.

Fruitpie is likely a descendant of some powerful snack that plane traveled and started a colony of some obscure plane. Like the plane of Ranch Dressing, but fruit or pie based.

I assumed Fruitpie was one of the survivors of Snackworld, but I like your idea more.

In that case, though, much less assumptions can be done about the time needed to imprison again the Snarl. (Namely from "less than the lifespan of a character from Snackworld" to "indefinite", which is not so much of a downgrade anyway, since we don't know the first data).

[KorvinStarmast]

What Happens to Planar Travelers if the World Gets Destroyed?


They end up in an eternal holding pattern

(I am not sure if that is the Great Wheel Limbo or not)

Yes, this is a pun on the word plane

[Squire Doodad]

Their are three comics that combine to make me believe that people can live if the planer travel.
The one with the movie snacks.
The one where Thor explains that one of the worlds was sentient food.
And the one with Fruitpie the Sorcerer.

Fruitpie is likely a descendant of some powerful snack that plane traveled and started a colony of some obscure plane. Like the plane of Ranch Dressing, but fruit or pie based.

Honestly, I'd say Fruitpie Sorcerer is either a madman's experiment with golems, or a denizen of the semi-elemental plane of Pastries.

[KorvinStarmast]

Honestly, I'd say Fruitpie Sorcerer is either a madman's experiment with golems, or a denizen of the semi-elemental plane of Pastries.

I'll go with the latter, given that we have seen a semi elemental plane of ranch dressing.

[Schroeswald]

I'll go with the latter, given that we have seen a semi elemental plane of ranch dressing.

Ranch dressing is semi-elemental, its one type of thing that you can make an entire plane out of, a pastry is just a type of food.

[HorizonWalker]

Ranch dressing is semi-elemental, its one type of thing that you can make an entire plane out of, a pastry is just a type of food.

Clearly you're not familiar with B. Clevinger's dissertation on pastrylogical cosmology.

[Schroeswald]

Clearly you're not familiar with B. Clevinger's dissertation on pastrylogical cosmology.

That would be a semi-semi elemental plane.

[HorizonWalker]

That would be a semi-semi elemental plane.

Actually, it'd be the Prime Material Plane. Just, y'know. Ruined by Chaos.

[Squire Doodad]

Clearly you're not familiar with B. Clevinger's dissertation on pastrylogical cosmology.

Hahaha, oh man I should have linked that.

Maybe Fruit Pie Sorcerer is a rogue entity that was a survivor from a few worlds ago, which was unceremoniously ended when a vile demon inexplicably decided to make it a giant muffin.

[Rynael]

The important part is that the power players in the story believe they can survive without aiding Roy's quest, making heroism a meaningful choice. That's always a problem in "save the world" plots, so the planes provide an escape hatch unique to Order of the Stick, which I doubt the story will give up any time soon. Durkon's heroism can't be contrasted against Hilgya's selfishness if they believe they're all going to die if the Order fails. Even people who haven't proposed planar travel, like the Linear Guild, Tarquin, or the Mechane's crew, all seem to assume that the world will be saved in the end, freeing them up to make decisions that are, for better or worse, truer to their characters.

Now I wouldn't rule out the audience, or even the characters, finding out near the end that yes, everyone's life is at stake, even planar travelers. But on the off chance that it does come to that, I believe that it will be late enough in the story that all of the heroes have fully committed to their positions, whether to raise the stakes or to drive the villains or less heroic characters to change their decisions. For now, I believe that the characters will, at minimum, not be given reason to believe that plane shifting away from the world's destruction isn't a viable long-term option for a while to come.

[WindStruck]

Well, I believe even the other planes are a part of the snarl's prison. The material plane was more like the "lock" or weak point on the prison, if I recall correctly.

In either case, the planes must be woven from strands of reality as well. When the world is undone, so will they be.

The astral plane is what makes me curious. I thought it was like the plane between planes. So when all the planes disappear, the astral plane will no longer be, either. Then again, the place with the monument to billions of destroyed worlds was also seen on the astral plane, so... I don't know. Perhaps the place still has some sort of location, though with the meaning of its existence different.

[factotum]

Well, I believe even the other planes are a part of the snarl's prison. The material plane was more like the "lock" or weak point on the prison, if I recall correctly.

In either case, the planes must be woven from strands of reality as well. When the world is undone, so will they be.

The Gods explicitly live on the Outer Planes, and the scribbles told us they hid there from the Snarl when it destroyed the first world, so no, the Outer Planes are not part of the Snarl's prison. The Astral Plane can't be either, because, as you point out, the monuments to all the destroyed worlds are there.