Planescape General and Q&A
Discuss Planescape and the Great Wheel here, whether the original AD&D 2e version, the 3.X version, the 4e version (yes, it exists in 4e, down to the baernaloths, the yugoloths, the Heart of Darkness, Maeldur et Kavurik, Tenebrous, Pelion, and the Last Word all being canon as of Dragon #417), the 5e version, or your own original blend.
I am exceedingly well-lanned on Planescape canon under a holistic blend of 2e, 3.X, and sometimes even 4e lore. If you have any questions at all about the setting's lore, feel free to ask, and I will give you direct quotes and citations from as many primary sources as I can, unlike afroakuma. I will note when something is open to GM interpretation, and explicitly note whenever I give merely my own personal interpretation.
>Basic setting summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape
>Comprehensive Planescape reference index: http://www.rilmani.org/psIndex.txt
>Planewalker.com planar encyclopedia: http://mimir.planewalker.com/encyclopedia/plane
>Canonfire.com planar encyclopedia: http://canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Outer_Planes
>Rilmani.org planar encyclopedia (contains unmarked fanon, so beware): http://www.rilmani.org/timaresh/Outer_Planes
>List of all the multiverse's gods (contains all gods mentioned in D&D products, but also has plenty of speculation and fanon for mythological deities and for powers with few details on them): http://mimir.planewalker.com/forum/list-dead-gods#comment-58090
Old threads with previous questions and comprehensive answers:
https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/search/text/%22comprehensive%20planescape%22/
>>44377658
What are the most important books for playing Planescape in 2e?
>>44380278
Ironically, the core Planescape Campaign Setting boxed set is not particularly vital to playing or running Planescape. If anything, it is rather unpolished and unrefined.
The single most important book for Planescape 2e is the "Planewalker's Handbook." It is the most up-to-date summary of the entire setting, useful for both players and GMs, and everyone who intends on using the setting should read through it as much as possible.
Following up from that, you will want "In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil," "Factol's Manifesto," and "Uncaged: Faces of Sigil" for running the City of Doors.
"Planes of Law," "Planes of Chaos," "Planes of Conflict," and "A Player's Primer to the Outlands" will acquaint you with the Outer Planes.
"Inner Planes," "Guide to the Astral Plane," and "Guide to the Ethereal Plane" should cover the remaining planes.
Those are the primary books you will want. If you wish to emphasize fiends and the Blood War, you should also download "Faces of Evil: The Fiends" and "Hellbound: The Blood War." Likewise, if gods and other divinities are supposed to be a focus, "On Hallowed Ground" should serve you well.
>>44380413
Thanks, i already have the boxed set and planeswalkers handbook, just wondering which ones I should go for next, that's incredibly useful.
Does planescape cover spelljammer by any chance? Was planning on adding a spelljamming vessel so the party in a future campaign.
PDF was too big for 4chan.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/2arnvr1x5pn8cx9/polyhedron+151.pdf
>>44380689
Spelljammer is simply the meta-setting for the Prime Material Plane. In fact, page 32 of the 2e "Planewalker's Handbook" officially acknowledges Spelljammer concepts:
>A countless number of prime-material worlds float within separate vast crystal spheres, which are themselves contained in an ocean of fiery material called phlogiston.
Pages 72-74 of the 3.5 Planar Handbook contain various "planar spelljammer"-like vehicles, and page 159 of the 4e Manual of the Planes has planar spelljammers actually called "spelljammers."
>>44380834
Ok. For some reason I was under the impression they could travel to other planes as well.
would an awakened plant have a silver cord in the astral sea? How would someone even react to a talking tree or shrub?
>>44381693
Silver cords are strictly only for characters traveling via the Astral Spell or Astral Projection.
Guide to the Astral Plane p8:
>Astrally traveling [via the Astral Spell] characters project onto the plane a mental construct which is separate from, yet connected to, their physical body — which remains on their original plane. The connection takes the form of a silver cord that always visibly trails off from the midsection of the traveler (unless a body happens to be a planar). If the astral form receives a mortal wound, the traveler does not die. Instead his astral form dissipates, returning the consciousness of the traveler back to his body. If the silver cord is cut from an astrally traveling character, however, the character's astral and physical form die.
>Essentially, the astral traveling character has "translated" himself into his astral equivalent, or rather, a special form of such.
Planewalker's Handbook p31:
>A prime using the Astral Spell (or the psionic devotion "astral projection") for planar travel has a silver cord running through the Astral that connects her with the Prime. If her astral body's killed, she'll head home in a big hurry — whether she wants to or not. But if the silver cord is severed, both her astral body and her real one die.
3.0 Manual of the Planes p49:
>Travelers may be encountered either in physical form or in astral form. In the latter case, travelers appear as ghostly, silvery images of themselves. A silver cord trails behind each one for a few feet, then disappears into the astral haze. In general, an astral form is more dangerous than a physical one, because it takes a high level of magical proficiency to cast an Astral Projection spell (as opposed to just casting Plane Shift).
If that awakened plant is the recipient of an Astral Spell or Astral Projection, then they would have a silver cord.
An awakened plant would be considered slightly unusual, since most planars are not plants, but hardly unbelievable.
I come to you for opinions this time, /tg/. I have been trying to revise faeries *for my own, personal campaigns* such that they fit better into the Planescape paradigm. As it currently stands, they have no true place in the Great Wheel, and the Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court are just another pair of pantheons with worshipers in the Prime.
First of all, let it be known that *in my own personal campaigns*, I do away with the paraelemental planes and the quasielemental planes; instead, the energies of the planes of Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Positive Energy, and Negative Energy mingle together in the Deep Ethereal to produce many different varieties of protomatter. With that out of the way, here is my revision of faeries that tries to give them a niche in the planes.
Faeries (also known as "fae," "Fair Folk" or "sidhe") are the immortal spirits of the many Borders Ethereal, just as elementals are the brood of the Inner Planes and outsiders are the children of the Outer Planes. Like elementals and outsiders, the fae are ageless, have unified body-souls, and have no need for food, drink, or sleep (although they can engage in such activities if they so desire, and often do).
The Fair Folk are born either from the energies of the various Borders Ethereal, or from sexual reproduction. They are divided into three categories:
1. The *Summer Court* (also known as the Seelie Court), mostly LN leaning towards LG, ruled by the immortal lord known as the Summer/Seelie Empress. They are tied to the Borders Ethereal of the planes of Fire, Positive Energy (this plane's border is also called the *Region of Radiance*; there is no "Plane of Radiance"), Air, and Earth. A Summer faerie's instinct is to gather up raw energies from those planes, bring them into the Deep Ethereal, and mix the fire, positive energy, air, and earth with other elements to produce various kinds of protomatter.
>>44383856
2. The *Winter Court* (also known as the Unseelie Court), mostly LN leaning towards LE, ruled by the immortal lord called the Winter/Unseelie Empress. They are linked to the Borders Ethereal of the planes of Water, Negative Energy (this plane's border is also called the *Region of Shadow*; there is no "Plane of Shadow"), Air, and Earth. A Winter faerie's instinct is to gather up raw energies from those planes, bring them into the Deep Ethereal, and mix the water, negative energy, air, and earth with other elements to produce different varieties of protomatter.
3. The *Wyldfae*, mostly CN, led by no immortal lords in particular. They are connected to the Borders Ethereal of the Prime and of the Deep Ethereal's many demiplanes. A Wyldfae's instinct is to gather up the myriad types of protomatter from the Deep Ethereal, transport it into the crystal spheres of the Prime Material Plane and into the demiplanes of the Deep Ethereal, and use the multifarious protomatter to create mountains, lakes, forests, deserts, tundras, and even mortal bodies.
The various Borders Ethereal must have a peculiar sense of humor, because the sidhe's duties are *already fully automated by the Borders Ethereal*. Energies pass from the Inner Planes into the Deep Ethereal on their own, and protomatter likewise automatically flows from the Deep Ethereal to the Prime's crystal spheres and the Deep's demiplanes, with only the occasional "logjam."
>>44383872
Consequently, the faeries are free to pursue their other driving instinct: *having fun*. The Summer and Winter Court fae have fun with their whimsical and fanciful politics and intrigue under the laws of their empresses, while the Wyldfae live capricious and carefree lives. Only rarely must the Fair Folk organize themselves to troubleshoot a "logjam" by manually ferrying energies and protomatter. Some graybeards posit that it was not always this way; these scholars say that after the vaati-obyrith war died down, the sidhe convinced themselves that they could afford to slack off, and that their collective belief reshaped the Borders Ethereal to accommodate this desire to pursue more leisurely activities instead.
Fae can come into conflict with planewalking adventurers in the same ways faeries do in just about every other setting: entanglement in otherworldly political gambits in the case of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, or extremely intense flights of mischief and curiosity for the Wyldfae. Of course, the Great Wheel loves setting up conflict between its many peoples, and there are many sidhe-related clashes that adventurers might be dragged into or willingly participate in:
>>44383896
1. The Summer Court believes that whenever there is a "logjam" related to the planes of Air and Earth, it is their job to resolve it, because the Borders Ethereal of both planes spawn Seelie faeries. The Winter Court believes that it is their own job to do the exact same thing, because the planes of Air and Earth also give birth to Unseelie fae. Since the Age before Ages, these two courts have butted heads in the "War of Air and Earth," which is sometimes a literal war with armies and grand battles, and sometimes a more nuanced and subtle conflict with cutthroat negotiations in lavish ballrooms. The Fair Folk sink a considerable amount of resources into this clash, yet unlike the Blood War, the sidhe of both courts still consider one another to be friends and coworkers to be respected, for each side knows that its counterpart still plays a role in the flow of the elements.
2. The archomentals, genies, energons, mephits, and other natives of the Inner Planes posit that *they* were originally the ones in charge of safeguarding and troubleshooting the flow of elemental energies. They assert that the faeries had somehow usurped this role, and that the fae, as non-elementals, have no business interfering with the Inner Planes and the Borders Ethereal. The fae consider such allegations to be preposterous screed, and are deeply offended by this libel. So it comes to pass that the two sides are locked in a war with one another even when they really should be on the same side. A level-headed person might consider the Summer and Winter courts foolish for warring both with themselves and with the elemental denizens of the Inner Planes, but the fact that they have kept up for so long while still having more than enough time to have fun with their own politics and intrigue is a testament to sidhe resourcefulness.
>>44383919
3. Some crystal spheres of the Prime are crafted by gods. Certain demiplanes of the Deep Ethereal are woven by powerful spellcasters. The Wyldfae are a stubborn lot; they believe that whenever a "logjam" related to crystal spheres or demiplanes occurs, it is *their* job to resolve it and to shape protomatter into environments and mortal bodies... even in deity-wrought crystal spheres and spellcaster-created demiplanes. While some divinities and spellcasters appreciate the help, there are those who take offense to a third party "playing god" in their own dominion, effectively loosening the original creator's own hold on that crystal sphere and demiplane. That is why divine powers and demiplane-making spellcasters sometimes come into conflict with the Wyldfae, in what the faeries call "Wars of Genesis." In the case of gods, the Divine Compact prevents deities from directly slinging mojo upon such lowly creatures, so divinities fight with proxies and servitors instead.
As a final note, the chant holds that the Seelie Court has a mobile vacation-fortress-realm that shifts between the Outer Planes of the Beastlands, Arborea, and Ysgard. That same chant posits that the Unseelie Court likewise has a vacation-fortress-realm in the third layer of Pandemonium, Phlegethon. These match up with the respective courts on the good-evil axis, but why would such lawful faerie courtiers be comfortable in planes aligned with chaos? No other basher has set off to investigate these realms and returned; could you be the first?
>>44383856
>>44383872
>>44383896
>>44383919
>>44383964
How does all of this add up in terms of usability in a campaign?
>>44383977
It gives players more of a reason to care about interacting with the fey, gives them a more solid connection to the setting and gives a few neat locations/encounter setups.
Expand each of those points into a chapter and you'd have a decent-enough splatbook for the setting.
>>44384064
One thing I am worried about is that the "Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Positive, Negative"-only setup is a 3.X conceit, and that the original 2e Planescape uses the full suite of paraelemental and quasielemental planes.
The conflict point about the "War of Air and Earth" would be substantially lessened when the Winter Court has an undisputed claim on the Border Ethereal of Water, and the Paraelemental Plane of Ice is the intersection between Air and Water, thereby making the Unseelie claim to the Border Ethereal of Air that much stronger.
>>44384193
How many paralemental plane/regions are there that have been brought up, and surely you can just create your own?
I'm sure there must be a fire/air plane, and a fire/earth plane that doubles up the Summer Court's rights?
>>44384796
Air + Fire = Smoke
Air + Water = Ice
Earth + Fire = Magma
Earth + Water = Ooze
Positive + Air = Lightning
Positive + Earth = Mineral
Positive + Fire = Radiance
Positive + Water = Steam
Negative + Air = Vacuum
Negative + Earth = Dust
Negative + Fire = Ash
Negative + Water = Salt
It is not entirely intuitive, and I disagree with many of the choices here. That said, the Borders Ethereal of Air and Earth are, in my vision of the Fair Folk, supposed to be *contested* territories.
If Air and Cold go to Winter and Earth and Magma go to Summer, then there is little to fight over.
>>44384925
The resources of air and earth, if denied to the paralemental regions, would cause them to retract, and shrink - thus in order to maintain the size - and thus the balance of power - conflict is introduced.
How does that sound for reasoning?
>>44385014
I am not quite sure what you are trying to communicate here.
In any event, perhaps a better setup would be...
Summer claims the Borders Ethereal of Earth, Fire, Positive, and the Borders Ethereal of the planes that connect them (Magma, Mineral, Radiance).
Winter claims the Borders Ethereal of Air, Water, Negative, and the Borders Ethereal of the planes that connect them (Cold, Vacuum, Salt).
That leaves every other Elemental Plane's Border Ethereal as contested territory, because they bridge preexisting territories. That means Smoke, Ooze, Lightning, Steam, Dust, and Ash are all contested.
>>44383919
>>44383964
Also, it occurs to me that I have a name for the Summer-Winter war and the Wyld-god/spellcaster war.
What could the faerie-elemental war be called?
>>44386315
The ether wars? The Inner War?
>>44385120
Well, if you want to have "contested" territories, then you need a contest. To maintain the balance of power of Summer and Winter, both of them need to control various amounts of raw energies (which is fun and somewhat dangerous an activity as is), to draw it to the deep ethereal and then bring it back to mix it with other stuffs to make the various forms of protomatter.
>>44386315
That's not a proper war, just a series of brushfires. And brushwaters. And brushearths and brushairs and brushpositives and brushnegatives.
>>44387599
Genies are hardcore as fuck senpaifam.
>>44387829
>If you want a picture of the elemental war, imagine teeny fae bootsies stamping on an indifferent genie's head — forever.
>>44388062
That's a pretty amusing picture of the war. The fae and genies simply not caring about the objectives of the other and having a war that has remarkably little actual conflict in it.
And the idea of fey commando units is hilarious.
>>44385120
I belive he was saying that, should either side win, they'd reduce the energy flow to paraelemental regions. The winter court, if victorious, would disrupt the balance as them taking over the Earth and Air borders would limit such interactions with the border of ethereal fire, thus also hurting the paraelemental planes of smoke and magma.
I'm not sure how big this would be, but you can argue it'd be a significant shift regardless, so the conflict isn't entirelly out of having monopoly on dealing with "logjam"s but on both sides noticing it's necessary to preserve the balance of those elements.
That's what I got from his post, correct me if I'm wrong.
>>44389572
No, that was about it. Also all sorts of silly competitions about moving elemental stuffs. The amount, quality, what you use it for - you could make a blizzard the worlds have never seen before, intricate and divine, or whatnot.
The war provides endless merriment, too allowing for tales of daring and wonders and star crossed lovers and so on and so on. Mostly in lightheartedness.
I really need to get around to doing a FATE or Dramasystem hack for Planescape.
D&D is probably the worst possible ruleset for a game about cosmological philosophy.
How connected are Athas and the Domains of Dread to the wider Planescape setting?
Are the Egyptian gods in Planescape, or am I misremembering that?
Can you play an Athar cleric?
Could you elaborate on the "Belief shapes reality" talking point I sometimes find regarding Planescape? I'm halfway through the Planescape boxed set and the only thing I remember related to that is how you can influence Gate Towns to change planes. That seems relatively minor compared to what that statement implies.
>>44391172
At least in PS:T, if you lie about your name enough times (you introduce yourself as Adahn), a dude named Adahn with no memory appears and is very confused.
If you explain it, he goes back to not existing.
>>44391226
Elaborating a bit more, just you saying that or thinking doesn't exactly make it true, however, if enough beings share the same beliefs minor things like this guy coming to be may happen. They thought Adahn existed, but knew nothing of him, so he simply came to be with no knownledge as well.
If I remember correctly, I think the biggest example of this could be the shift of one of Arcadia's layers to Mechanus, given the presence of the majority of its populations beliefs, but I'm not sure if it's the same sort of law that was being applied in both cases, or if there was some other reason behind it.
>>44391226
Could you manipulate belief to change an already existing creature? Doesn't matter if mentally or physically.
>>44388406
>>44389572
>>44390783
It should be noted that it is actually somewhat ambiguous as to what the Borders Ethereal of the Inner Planes actually *do*. The Guide to the Ethereal Plane makes a great deal of the Borders Ethereal of the Prime's crystal spheres and of the Deep's demiplanes, but never does it touch upon the Inner Planes' Borders Ethereal that obviously exist.
Such an empty design space is why I think the Fair Folk would fit there; I would think it thematic for them to be slotted into a "parallel faerieland"-type dimension. For instance, while the Elemental Plane of Fire could be a realm of pure... fire, its Border Ethereal could be a more glamorous-lookingnot-so-bambooforest in flames. The Border Ethereal of the Elemental Plane of Earth is a magnificent garden of cthonic trees, flowers, and mushrooms that challenge the sky.
>>44390797
This is by far the most comprehensive hack for Fate Planescape you will ever find:
http://www.certain-death.com/fatescape.pdf
>>44390824
>How connected are Athas and the Domains of Dread to the wider Planescape setting?
They are absolutely, indisputably connected to Planescape.
Pages 11 and 13 of the Planescape Campaign Setting boxed set's A Player's Guide to the Planes contain provisions for Athasian characters, pages 138-139 of Dead Gods contain an Athasian NPC who had accidentally made it to Sigil, and page 90 of the Factol's Manifesto makes it clear that the Harmonium is often compared to the Champions of Rajaat.
Page 23 of the Planescape Campaign Setting boxed set's A DM's Guide to the Planes mentions the Demiplane of Dread, various pages of the Guide to the Ethereal Plane bring it up as well, and page 160 of On Hallowed Ground briefly touches on the "dark powers."
There are many more mentions of Athas and the Demiplane of Dread that you can reference with a quick Ctrl+F search here:
http://www.rilmani.org/psIndex.txt
>>44391172
>>44392374
>>44393433
The long and short of it is that singular creatures can apply *very* minor shifts to reality through their beliefs. This works more or less exactly like fate points from Fate, down to gaining points for getting into trouble because of your beliefs. For more information, refer to pages 142-147 of the Planewalker's Handbook.
Larger shifts in reality can be accomplished by massive quantities of people believing in a single thing. This is how gods work, as pages 34-43 of On Hallowed Ground vaguely touches upon, and how the Arcadian layer of Nemausus had slipped into Mechanus as per page 99 of the Factol's Manifesto alludes to.
