Manual of the Planes

APPENDIX:VARIANT PLANES& COSMOLOGIES214given plane, “nearby” planes are coexistent in the sameway the standard Material Plane is coexistent with theEthereal Plane. In the Myriad Planes cosmology, planesare serially coexistent.Each plane can be thought of as a soap bubble in acloud of similar bubbles. Any given bubble simultaneouslytouches at least one other bubble, but usuallytouches about five simultaneously. Using this model, agiven plane can touch (be coexistent with) five otherplanes. If a traveler moves from the starting plane to oneof the coexistent planes, she finds that the new plane alsohas several coexistent planes. Some also connect to theplane where the journey started, but other connectionslead elsewhere.The bubbles slowly swirl and move through the cloud,so over the course of hundreds of years, planes that werecoexistent become separate and new coexistent planestake their place. Perhaps the movement of the planes israndom, or maybe it follows a complex planar circuit.In the Myriad Planes cosmology, every plane is finite.Inhabited planes slowly grow, and abandoned planesslowly evaporate to nothingness. Sometimes two planesmerge into one larger plane, mixing and averaging thetraits of both planes. Planes with strikingly opposite traitsare unlikely to merge in this fashion.Natives of a given plane are aware of the coexistentplanes, just as creatures in the D&D cosmology areaware of the Ethereal Plane. But while a traveler in theD&D cosmology finds the Ethereal Plane to be aghostly realm, a traveler in the Myriad Planes cosmologydiscovers that once the barrier is pierced, the planenext door seems every bit as real as the home plane.Phase spiders, ethereal filchers, and a wide assortmentof similar monsters exist across the Myriad Planes.Rather than retreating to the Ethereal Plane, these creaturesretreat to one of many coexistent planes theymight call home.Deities have their place in the Myriad Planes cosmology.But a deity lives on its own plane coexistent with theplane where its worshipers live, instead of being relegatedto the Outer Planes. In the slow roil of the planes’relative position, certain deities may move farther andfarther away from their worshipers’ plane until finallythey fade from memory over the millennia. And deitiesdon’t necessarily have a plane to themselves: A pantheonmight share a larger plane, or enemy deities may belocked in constant struggle on a war-torn plane.Likewise, there is no single Elemental Plane of Fire,but rather many slightly different fire planes. The othermajor elements also have multiple planes, as do nonclassicalelements such as wood, iron, blood, and others. Iftwo or more Elemental Planes of the same type are coexistent,they sometimes merge. If two or more ElementalPlanes of antagonistic types ever move into coexistence,they may birth a new plane along their boundaries.In planes coexistent for millennia, it is not uncommonfor many features of landscape and culture to develop inparallel. A mighty hero of legend may be the same acrossseveral coexistent planes, though the details of historymay vary from plane to plane. It’s also possible that a heroon one coexistent plane is a figure of horror in the next.MYRIAD PLANES TRAITSMany of the myriad planes share features with the MaterialPlane of the D&D cosmology. However, all planes arefinite in size, though some may be inestimably large.Alternatively, some planes are more like Inner Planes orlayers of an Outer Plane, with abnormal gravity, time,shape, morphic traits, magical impediments, elementaland energy traits, or alignment traits.MYRIAD PLANES LINKSPortals may link points on the same plane, but portalsbetween planes that are not already coexistent are rareif not altogether absent. Moving between planesrequires the use of the Myriad Planes cosmology’s versionof ethereal jaunt or etherealness. Spells such as astralprojection are nonexistent because there is no AstralPlane in this cosmology, though there may be a verylarge plane coexistent with many other planes in themanner of the Astral Plane. Instant planar transportspells such as plane shift are likewise not available orseverely restricted.FEATURES OF THE MYRIAD PLANESBecause the Myriad Planes cosmology is really just a differentparadigm for a multiplanar universe, specificplanar locations, cultures, and even individuals are just aslikely in this variant cosmology as in the D&D cosmology.The only difference is how these features interactwith each other.Magic Planes: Though not mandatory for this cosmology,it is possible that certain planes are sources of magic.When magic planes are nearby (not necessary coexistent,but no more than a few planes distant), nearby planes arecharged with magic, allowing spells and magical creaturesof every type to exist at full power. But if a magicplane drifts too far away, magic on these other planes mayslowly weaken. Creatures that rely on magic for theirexistence (magical beasts, constructs, and undead) mayalso weaken and eventually disappear.Taken a step further, perhaps each school of magichas a magic plane. As some of these planes drift too faraway from some other plane, others might drift closer.On closest approach, a magic plane gives spellcastersthe power to cast spells of up to 9th level. However, as amagic plane drifts too far afield, it is possible that only8th-, 7th-, or even just 1st-level spells are available. Asthe school-specific magic planes drift farther away as agroup, the maximum HD of magical creatures alsoslowly decreases.There could be planes that were once awash in magic.But over the eons, all the magic planes drifted too far away,and now spells and dragons are only legends. These wouldbe very interesting places to live if the long-missing magicplanes ever drifted closer again.