Different Take on Elemental Planes
by Cab DavidsonReplacing elements with states of matter.
Solid. Liquid. Gas. Plasma.
That could work - if planes are in part perceptual rather than only physical, it could work well. The fundamental nature of them is that of a state of matter, the way humans, demi-humans etc. perceive them is through their shared cultural framework which for most Mystarans might be Earth, Air, Fire and Water.
And of course thats the starting point. What if this is the nature of things on the lower dimensions, that which is perceived by those who see dimensions 1, 2 and 3 (normal universe creatures) and those who see dimensions 5, 4 and 3 (Nightmare dimensions) but through the Dimensional Vortex perhaps things are... Different? A Muntiverse of degenerate matter, fermionic condensates and supersolids. The Dimensional Vortex, the barrier between the shared reality of Mortals and Immortals, perhaps it is the dividing line between states of matter? The dimensions that exist beyond occasionally leaking through into strange, hard to understand phenomena.
The Old Ones, should they even exist, are entities of such bewildering strangeness as to not be constructed from solids, liquids, gases and plasmas, nor are they beings constrained by corresponding matter, time, thought or energy. And it is the Immortals incapacity to master those exotic states of matter that constrains them...
I like it. Its a fascinating way of thinking about the cosmology of classic (or any) D&D. With quite profound implications.
And I wonder... Entropy. The Void. The absence of matter, the vacuum of ideas, the zero energy state and cessation of time. Its not just about opposing the positive, about being antithetical to life, what if Entropy and The Void is really about what came before the Multiverse? Entropy opposes not just life, but creation. The Void exists beyond the Dimensional Vortex, it flows freely between all realities, and it is ironically the vaccuum that binds all existence together. Do the most powerful of the entropics know this? Do they have a way through the Vortex using the flow The Void? And is it this freedom, is it their own independence from the states of matter and crossing of The Vortex that created the imbalanced conditions necessary for Creation itself? Is all that Entropy needs to do to destroy all reality, is the one thing they have not grasped, that all their final victory over the Positive Spheres might be accomplished if they simply stop?