Manual of the Planes

Creatures that use positive or negative energy, such as theundead, are unaffected.A single Elemental Plane puts the elements in continualconflict on their home plane. A traveler to the ElementalPlane would have to prepare for random changesbetween the various elements.You can assign planar traits according to your needs.Let’s say portions of the Omniverse’s Elemental Plane arefire-dominant, water-dominant, air-dominant, and earthdominant.Let’s define Overheaven as mildly goodalignedand Darkunder as mildly evil-aligned. Becausethe planes are only mildly aligned, the neutral nativesthere don’t suffer.The Material Plane and the Outer Planes, the EtherealPlane, and the Plane of Shadow have normal time, whilethe Astral Plane and the Elemental Plane have the timelesstrait with regard to breathing, hunger, and sleep. The AstralPlane has no gravity, while the Elemental Plane has objectivedirectional gravity. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say thatthe Omniverse’s Transitive Planes are otherwise just liketheir counterparts in the D&D cosmology, and the otherplanes in the Omniverse have no other special planar traits.Assembling the OmniverseNow that you have the pieces, how do you fit themtogether? This is where the planar connections come in.The best plane, but not the only one, for stringingtogether the other planes is the Astral Plane, which existsprimarily to facilitate travel between planes. You can havecosmologies without the Astral Plane—the EtherealPlane and the Plane of Shadow can be used as well, butthey function differently.For the Omniverse, we’ll put all our planes within theAstral Plane. This is the great open sea that links theplanes. The Material Plane sits in the center, with theEthereal Plane and the Plane of Shadow overlapping it.Above the Material Plane we put Overheaven, and Darkundergoes beneath (though it’s just as accurate to putthem beside the Material Plane). The Elemental Planesurrounds the Material Plane and its coexistent neighborslike rings around the planet Saturn.Now that the Omniverse is arranged, we’ll link theplanes. Travel is possible from each of the planes to theAstral Plane, which is coexistent with every other plane.There are probably gates and portals from Overheavenand Darkunder to the Material Plane, but not from Overheavendirectly to Darkunder or vice versa. This makesthe Material Plane a gathering spot for creatures from theOuter Planes.Does the Elemental Plane connect to the Ethereal Planeand the Plane of Shadow? How about Darkunder andOverheaven? For this example, let’s say that the otherplanes have their own Ethereal Planes, separate from theMaterial Plane’s Ethereal. The Plane of Shadow potentiallyconnects to all other planes, though one must pass throughthe perils of the Deep Shadow to find the connections.So the connections in the Omniverse look like the diagramon the following page.With the Omniverse, you have a basic layout of planes,sufficient to use everything in the D&D core rulebooks.The cosmology reflects a strong good/evil split andmostly ignores conflict between law and chaos. The ElementalPlane is a continually warring land of conflictbetween inhuman forces. Planar travelers may visit Overheavenor Darkunder more than they travel to the ElementalPlane, but perhaps powerful mages have cut theirown deals with the various elemental lords.That’s a simple version of how to build your own cosmology.Other potential cosmologies can be found in theAppendix.CHAPTER 2:CONNECTINGTHE PLANESpqqqqrsRAISING THE CURTAIN: REVEALING YOURCOSMOLOGYOne of the advantages of creating your own cosmology is theability to customize a universe to meet the needs of yourcampaign. Accordingly, you can present as much or as little ofthat universe as you like to your players.Most established D&D players are familiar with the conceptsof Inner Planes and Outer Planes, planes arranged in a wheel,and other “standards.” In building your own cosmology, youdon’t have to keep the pieces you don’t like, and you have theadvantage of letting the characters themselves discover what isout there.Keep two points in mind when forging your own planes.• Let the players know that they don’t know. If you arecustomizing your cosmology, let your players know that youhave done so. This probably brings further questions andcuriosity, which is a good thing. It also keeps players fromgetting frustrated when their assumptions about how theuniverse works aren’t borne out.• Determine what the natives of your campaign know. Thisincludes the characters, of course. There can be two levelsof knowledge: common knowledge and arcane knowledge.For example, common knowledge may be that thesun is a chariot that the Sun Deity drives across the sky.But sages and others with Knowledge (the planes) knowthat the sun is really a vortex to the Positive Energy Plane,and a pantheon of lesser deities keeps it from swallowingthe Material Plane. It’s fair to give the players informationin keeping with their characters’ knowledge of theuniverse. It’s also fair if this information turns out to beincorrect, as long as the correct information can bediscovered or revealed.In a campaign featuring planar travel (and the high-levelindividuals who engage in that travel), there will be sages andloremasters with sufficient knowledge of the planes to lay outthe “correct” cosmology, or at least they’ll be able to addressmost of the questions raised by planar travel. In a campaignwhere such travel is uncommon, the characters may have todiscover for themselves how the planes fit together.pqqqqrs19