Planescape General and Q&A
Thread starter question: Do you prefer the 2e layout of the Inner Planes, the 3.X layout, the 4e Elemental Chaos, or the 5e layout that merges the 3.X layout and 4e's Elemental Chaos?
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/
>>44530418
>Do you prefer the 2e layout of the Inner Planes,
Great Wheel/Multiverse all the way, guvner.
Though I prefer the classic AD&D Manual of the Planes names for the planes. The Seven Heavens instead of Celestia, etc.
>>44530418
>I am exceedingly well-lanned on Planescape canon
What is Shemeska's master plan?
>>44534363
I always liked to use both. "The Seven Heavens of Mt Celestia" is a perfectly good way to refer to the LG Plane, and if you use either term people will generally understand what you mean.
>>44534519
To make the fire of pure evil rise up from the bottom of the Great Wheel, turning the philosophical underpinnings of the multiverse over so that all differences in philosophy are merely gradations and flavours of evil. As Sigil turns, so too does the rest of the multiverse - and good would die throughout every world in every Plane. Shemeshka herself just wants to get ahead personally, but when the time comes for the yugoloths to make their big move she'll play a part (though with plenty of protections in place to make sure she doesn't get put in the dead book if the plan fails).
Well, that's my headcanon at any rate, and I don't think the game's authors ever definitively solved that question.
>>44534519
For your sake, I have refreshed myself on all details of Shemeshka I could uncover from 2e's In the Cage, Uncaged, Faction War, and Hellbound; 3.5's Planar Handbook and the "Diplomacy" adventure in Dungeon Magazine #144; and the six-page article on Shemeshka in 4e Dungeon Magazine #205, which is surprisingly faithful to 2e Great Wheel lore.
To my understanding, Shemeshka has no master plan other than "get rich, get influential, get powerful,and be Todd Stewart's literal fox-fursona." She is the platonic ideal of a crime lord who does what she does simply for her own worldly, mercenary, selfish gain. This fox is a perfect model of the Gehennan philosophy.
Sometimes, she winds up helping the yugoloths (see the "Diplomacy" adventure in Dungeon Magazine #144) because that is what helps her get ahead. Sometimes, she works against yugoloth rivals (4e Dungeon #205) if that stands to benefit her more. In the end, she is not much different from any other yugoloth, though she certainly is less "nerdy" than other arcanaloths.
She could be viewed as a "grounding force" of a sort. In a setting where people wage war over philosophical ideals, Shemeshka sets aside philosophy and gets ahead simply by doing whatever gets her jink and leverage.
What changes did 5e actually make to the Planes? I had a look through the monster manual, but I'm more interested in the changes made to the cosmology.
>>44535337
I have covered this in a previous thread:
https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/42966029/#42969877
That said, one change that I had missed in that thread was a mangling of the lore of the Wind Dukes of Aaqa (also known as the vaati), found in page 53 of the 4e Dungeon Master's Guide:
>One such realm [in the Elemental Plane of Air] is fabled Aaqa, a shining domain of silver spires and verdant gardens atop a fertile earth mote. The Wind Dukes of Aaqa are dedicated to law and good, and they maintain a vigilant watch against the depredations of elemental evil and the encroachment of the Elemental Chaos. They are served by aarakocra and a little-known race called the vaati.
The Wind Dukes are apparently Lawful Good now (as opposed to Lawful Neutral), and they are *not* vaati. Instead, the vaati are some sort of servitor race.
>>44535044
>As Sigil turns, so too does the rest of the multiverse - and good would die throughout every world in every Plane.
OK, but why would only Good die, and not Evil, if Sigil is destroyed? And what is the source of pure, undivided Evil?
>>44535173
>crime lord
Disappointingly prosaic, I like your earlier musings better.
>>44535337
Mostly a reversion to 2e lore, plus the addition of a few locales from 3e and 4e. Which is good!
>>44535516
They wouldn't be destroying Sigil - they'd be turning it. Sigil is the nexus of the centre of the multiverse and what holds it together (Vecna fucking with it is the canonical, in-universe explanation for the change to 3e). I didn't say the 'loths would be destroying good - I said they'd be making it another aspect of evil.
As for the source of evil...that's a good question, and presumably it'd be one of the powers that created the multiverse.
>>44535573
>they'd be turning it
Don't understand what this means.
>>44535623
Changing it. It'd involve a lot of philosophical mumbo jumbo and arcane/mystical power, the sort that gives pesky adventurers plenty of time to realise what's happening and try to put a stop to it.
>>44535694
But specifically how? The Lady is in charge of Sigil and tolerates the Factions, who command the ideologies of Sigil's inhabitants. How do the loths plan to change it to pure evil?
>>44535516
>Disappointingly prosaic, I like your earlier musings better.
If anything, in a setting where people wage war over lofty philosophical beliefs, having someone *just* be a crime lord yet extremely influential despite that is surprisingly out-of-the-ordinary.
The first ultroloth that is the General of Gehenna listens to the primordial clan of Baern and steers the struggle of law and chaos that is the Blood War. The "old guard" of the ultroloths in the Gray Waste clash with one another in the Siege Malicious, all for the dubious honor of being the master of the ancestral home of the yugoloths and all the disease-dripping, pustulent privileges that come with the title of "Oinoloth." Both champion the cosmic force of evil, that it might spin around the Great Wheel and wash away all other alignment-based forces.
And then we have the decidedly more worldly and, as you say, prosaic Shemeshka, whose utterly mundane desires of wealth and influence have made her the single most politically powerful person in Sigil aside from the Lady of Pain.
It adds a grounded touch to the setting if you ask me.
>>44535812
To look at it another way, Shemeshka could be viewed as a paragon of "real world" evil. Such evil is not about actively championing a nebulous "force of evil" or waxing over law and chaos, but simply placing oneself over others in order to fulfill one's own selfish desires.
Shemeshka rounds out a trifecta of "three shades of Neutral Evil" along with the General of Gehenna and the Oinoloth.
>>44535759
When I was going to run this for a group, I had them work for a long time developing a philosophical underpinning that made people believe their claims. Along with a few subtle enchantments and bits of subterfuge, they'd spread their doctrine and have it move through Sigil, as well as offering free fiendish services to spellcasters on the various Primes who agree to read and distribute it. They'd try and make everyone believe that what they wanted was already true, thus changing the multiverse.
>>44530418
How do some planes work? Like the heavens, if it's a big Mountain the it ought to be just one plane, for you can just climb it to get to the next layer without using portals. I have similar issues with things like hell , bytopia etc.
>>44538683
>Climb it to get to the next layer
I've got bad news for you, son. You can climb upwards forever and still be on the 1st layer of celestia if you haven't also moved towards enlightenment.
>>44538683
Each Outer Plane has different methods of traversing its layers, although all involve a physical component to the travel, and only a scant few (e.g. Gehenna) are dependent on intraplanar portals for layer-to-layer travel.
Mount Celestia demands trials from those ascending the seven-peaked mount. Elysium requires good deeds to get from point A to point B. Mechanus forces one to traverse the mental construct that is the Labyrinthine Portal, or else cross from gear to gear. The Gray Waste allows passage across its locales only to those who do *not* care about reaching any given destination.
