But why are the races so lame? I mean whats wrong with elves, dwarves and the lot? Love the demon or divine touched races. Elemental races, love em! but the other 10 races? Whats the point of a bladeling?
The only thing I would change in my campaign other than that would be that the material plane. Its a nice gesture to include the other campaign settings, but you know the other campaign settings don't really make an effort to include Planescape, so I don't know why I should add them. Planescape is large and rich enough without any outside help. So my Material plane would be the accually hub of the cosmos. The only place in the planes that is not dedicated to one thing. The only completely neutral plane.
So do any of you Plane Scape users just go by the original, or is there any variants you commonly use?
(And the only true neutral place would be the outlands :P )
And for the point of the oher races, what's the point of a dwarf?
Or an elf?
They just happen to live on some place and as such are part of the setting.
(Even boring beings with no special abilities, like humans are possible)
As far as differences to the normal settings go, my players never liked Sigil and so spent no time there.
And outside of sigil you can safely ignore the factions too.
Its a nice gesture to include the other campaign settings, but you know the other campaign settings don't really make an effort to include Planescape, so I don't know why I should add them.
Other settings do reference Planescape even if they don't name anything from Planescape.
The Prime Material worlds or "other campaign settings" are just the places where we live before dying. When a prime dies, he ends up on the planes. Of course, you don't have to die to end up on a plane. Anytime a god is mentioned in another setting, that god lives in the Planescape setting. Even Athas from Dark Sun can have a role in Planescape despite the Gray.
I like the last posters remark about the races. He's right, how are dwarves & elves any different than other races? They might have more published background information on them but the other races have just as much of a role as the core races. There's usually more info about their existance if you read about the planes they originate from. Besides, there's so many options in Planescape that you'll probably only cover a fraction of the major planar races in your campaign
So just pick the races you like the most and focus on those guys!And outside of sigil you can safely ignore the factions too.
Uhm... The Harmonium in Arcadia? Mercykillers (in their day) on Acheron? Heck, even Doomguard on the Inner Planes where their citadels stand or Indeps on the Outlands... And so on.
Granted: the KriegsTanz (or whatever succeeded it after the Faction War) isn't in fulll swing in any of those places, since the choice locals make is usually between either the "dominant" faction/sect or none of them, the Abyss possibly aside), unlike how it is/used to be in Sigil. But I would not go so far as saying that, within boundaries of canon, the factions are non-entities outside of the city. In fact, with the Faction War driving a great deal many of the ideologues out of Sigil and onto their "home fields", a fair argument may be made for the factions having *increased* their local profile in many places.
'course, any campaign may still work entirely without the factions. But as far as that goes, you don't even need them in Sgil, so... :P
It's not even the usual Planescape answer of "Yeah, it's there. Because everything in D&D is there." The core races are all perfectly normal choices in a Planescape campaign. Humans are the main population of Sigil. At the same time, the factol of the Bleak Cabal was an half-orc (back in 2e, when they were unheard of!), the factol of the Fraternity of Order was a dwarf, and the factol of the Believers of the Source was a half-elf. The Ciphers and the Mercykillers had tiefling factols (myself included), but the rest were all humans. So, you see, there is still plenty of core race representation in Planescape.
If you're looking in the Planewalker.com campaign setting, in the Races chapter and notice that it's really a bunch of planetouched, realize that these races represent a very small amount of the planar populace. Most of them are planetouched, not even a real race unto themselves. The planetouched are small in the population, but are disproportionately represented as adventurers because they effectively get superpowers and are thereby well-suited to do special things. If you want to know about the core races in Planescape, look at the beginning (?) of the chapter and it will tell you how they fit in. Most have large civilizations in the realm of their racial deities, but they can be found anywhere in the company of their fellow mortals.
For a bit of history, the original Planescape campaign setting boxed set introduced the four genasi, aasimar, and tiefling as planetouched races suitable for PCs, as well as githzerai and rogue modrons. These, plus the races from the Players Handbook, were what a Planescape player used. Creatures like bladelings, nathri, and githyanki filled out the setting as NPCs, and villains more often than not. The races that were most popular over the years were picked to get PC-appropriate status in the 3rd edition conversion. But that doesn't mean that they're everywhere. They're like multiclassed Rogue/Monks with three templates, dual-wielding Monkey Gripped exotic weapons. Just because they're in your adventuring party doesn't mean they're at all commonplace.
Uhm... The Harmonium in Arcadia? Mercykillers (in their day) on Acheron? Heck, even Doomguard on the Inner Planes where their citadels stand or Indeps on the Outlands... And so on....
Yes, they exist outside of sigil, but one faction citadel on an infinite plane doesn't count much, unless you are adventuring near it.
While in Sigil it was practicly impossible to avoid them altogether.
(Of course players are weird, they even get ideas like building their headquarter in the Abyss)
Yes, they exist outside of sigil, but one faction citadel on an infinite plane doesn't count much, unless you are adventuring near it.
While in Sigil it was practicly impossible to avoid them altogether.
(Of course players are weird, they even get ideas like building their headquarter in the Abyss)
To nitpick, my point was that: yes, while Sigil is the place where factions are all but destined to involve themselves in adventurers' doings, in some cases there is indeed more to a faction's presence on a plane (sometimes not even its "home field") than a single citadel. More specifically I'd note:
The Abyss: Plenty of factions and sects, with at least the Doomguard and Dustmen seeming to have "home field"-like presences on some layers.
Acheron: The Mercykillers' armies are surely only some among many, but they seem to be at an unusual advantage in that they are not constrained by the mandated futility and Malthusian troop levels of the petitioners.
Arcadia: Explanation redundant.
The Beastlands: The Signers (whose presence made tortured sense at best) are in fact not a factor to consider here, but the Vile Hunt and the Wylders sniping on one another (and the former on the petitioners while the latter on those meddling with the Natural Order) might well make them of significance if a party stays for any longer period of time on the plane.
Bytopia: The Order of the Planes-Militant have managed to establish themselves solidly in several communities. With the Free League having some kind of loosely defined "HQ" in Tradegate, and the local attitude not entirerly dissimilar to the less Evil-oriented versions of the Fated's philosophy, I always figured those two groups were going to be found as well (not least with their business-oriented bent).
The Gray Waste: Not the most obtrusive of presences, but with all the Death Gods and the like, the Dustmen are a little too suited to the environs to not be noticed, more Bleakers than is common probably should be found as well.
Mechanus: The Guvners seem to get to play some kind of "junior partner" role to the Modrons in keeping an eye on the place, and they are present in sufficient numbers to have produced at least two small offshots.
Mount Celstia: Again, the Order of the Planes-Militant. In some ways, it may be that they are *less* able to meddle here than in Bytopia (too many toes to step on too close to home, and less reason to do so in the first place). But with their having the backing of the Archons and no other philosophy seeming to hold any significant ground at all, they are still a medium fish in a pond "less" infinite than most.
The Negative Quasi-Elemental Planes: A special case. While probably not holding much political or social influence (there's little to be had for non-natives, after all), the Entrope alone shows that they are (with effort) able to meddle with quite basic things, not least so because there are few others around to stop them.
The Outlands: The Indeps are spread out over much of the place. While hardly the faction most inclined to make others do their bidding, neither are their sensibilities wisely ignored in that situation. Several of the gate towns to "home field" planes likely hold large concentrations of faction members as well.
The Prime: The Harmonium. Several worlds under their control, possibly some kind of spelljammer fleet as well.
Ysgard: Another special case. Between Takers, Ragers, Ring-givers and who knows what else, there does seem to be a greater-than-usual likelihood of meeting people who implement their beliefs in regards to others on an individual level.
All this aside from such things as the Lawful factions (almost by definition the biggest control freaks, as should be clear from above) duplicating (or exceeding) their civic roles in Sigil in other communities (much as other faction members may do the same in regards to the practices closest to their ideals), the Godsmen (and Indeps, Anarchists, possibly Fated) networking across much of the planes, Athar outposts, Sensates traipsing across the planes in search of experiences and Ciphers showing up as dictated by the Cadence, and so on. Again, the point of this isn't to show that anywhere rivals Sigil in terms of factions (rather than a faction) defining the local situation (it is, as has been noted, a little strange that they manage to hold any significance beyond the city), or to argue that their presence cannot be circumvented, but rather that the "beyond Sigil, there are a few citadels and nothing else"-characterization is somewhat misleading in regards to what could reasonably be inferred from the source material.
For a bit of history, the original Planescape campaign setting boxed set introduced the four genasi, aasimar, and tiefling as planetouched races suitable for PCs, as well as githzerai and rogue modrons.
No, it didn't. The original boxed set just had humans, tieflings, bariaurs, and githzerai.
Aasimar, genasi, and rogue modrons were introduced as PC races in The Planewalker's Handbook several years later.
To nitpick, my point was that: yes, while Sigil is the place where factions are all but destined to involve themselves in adventurers' doings, in some cases there is indeed more to a faction's presence on a plane (sometimes not even its "home field") than a single citadel. ....
Ah, but even if there are present in every plane, outside of sigil they are at least outnumbered a billion to 1 by people who don't belong to any faction.
(And on those planes with an infinite size by defenition infinite to 1.)
Sure there is a high chance that you will have a faction "nearby" when you use a portal from sigil.
But if you avoid Sigil, chances are you won't use portals from that city either.
Which reduces factions to the same importance they have in every other campaign.
Ah, but even if there are present in every plane, outside of sigil they are at least outnumbered a billion to 1 by people who don't belong to any faction.
(And on those planes with an infinite size by defenition infinite to 1.)
Sure there is a high chance that you will have a faction "nearby" when you use a portal from sigil.
But if you avoid Sigil, chances are you won't use portals from that city either.
Which reduces factions to the same importance they have in every other campaign.
Where do you get the "billion to one"-figure from? I always pictured the Planes as not having *all* that much of a mortal population. Going by the population numbers for the gate towns (250 000 people, all in all), and Sigil itself (1 000 000, I believe?), we are not talking massive settlement here, even if we start factoring in that a vast majority may live in some kind of countryside or the like. Quite possibly the total number is not more than, say, 10 000 000 000 people all in all on all the Outer planes, petitioners included. With demihumans and close equivalents swelling it to, making a totally random guess here: 50 000 000 000 or so (and these would still be quite high numbers: even 1 000 000 000 takes a lot of effort to infer from the above population figures). And the "infinite planes have infinite populations"-argument doesn't hold water: *all* planar mortals (and those are the ones of interest here) are the descendants of Prime settlers who decisively *were* finite. And the number of petitioners is correspondant to that of currently dead primes that have not been slain/absorbed into their plane/other, so a finite number again (and one with a lot of bearing on the population number for some of the examplars).
So there are relatively few actual people on the planes to adventure around (and again, they have to cluster relatively close to be able to reach one enough for functioning societies and economies to occur: inter- or intra-planar portals in places other than Sigil aren't that common). And, with factions gaining membership outside of Sigil, and by and large being more driven and resource strong than most others, chances are good that they indeed have quite the long reach.
The factions are not like massive static settlements or citadels who sit in any one predetermined location and never leave it. They are dynamic social organizations who will go where there are people, not only to spread their philosophies but to attain a multitude of other aims.
The outer planes are filled with petitioners from all prime worlds, and not just the lot that died last year but of centuries.
(I don't dare to speak of millenia as petitioners do tend to merge with the plane at some point.)
Even if the prime worlds have low inhabitation we speak of 500 million to 1 billion people per world.
We have a few dozen published campaign worlds and there is strong indication that there are millions of other worlds.
With the normal death rate a outer plane (that is every one of them) gets 292000 petitioners per year from every prime world.
Even if we only account a dozen world that would be 3.5 million newcomers per year.
Petitioners have no memory of their former life, so they don't belong to factions.
If we assume an average lifespan of 200 years per petitioner that alone makes 700 million non faction members per plane.
Now we know that not all people who live on the planes are petitioners, so it's easy to get into billions.
(And if we use common sense and speak of more than 12 prime worlds, or some with a population closer to earths the numbers swell dramatically)
Then we have the inner planes. Even if those are just planet sized they would have billions of more people. (And nothing indicates that the planes would be that small)
But we should here also factor in that not all petitioners become (demi/)human(/oid) mortal-like types (all those larvae alone take care of most of the evil folks, and the animals of the Beastlands, the Archons, and Limbo's petitioners are other examples of petitioners who get removed from planar society. Pandemonium's native petitioners, the Gray Waste's gloombugs and and possibly Acheron's armies can probably be mostly safely discounted as well. Sure, there may be lots of them, and likely none have faction allegiances but that does not mean they have a huge impact on planar life at large), and I am fairly certain that some petitioners *do* belong to factions (just because they are "clean slates" doesn't mean they don't have convictions, and while they are famously singleminded such memebership may well be an expression of such, especially if they are not assigned to any particular power), and furthermore the parochial nature of several realms (petitioners don't want to leave, and the local power(s) might not want to let people out, or the place is simply too specific or out of the way) further decreases how much petitioner presence outweighs faction significance for planar society. The most relevant realms are those with some kind of habitable civilization open to outsiders (by no means all), and in those places faction members are going to settle, and the factions will be able to snake out their tendrils.
As for the Inner Planes: judging by the material the factions don't hold much groudn there, but neither does mortal civilization at large in most places (in the Energy, para-, and quasielemental planes such settlements are quite the rarities, and even in the four main Elements only Air really seems all that hospitable or welcoming). Societies are made up of the natives instead.
From this, one might infer that when nearing societies of exemplars anywhere on the planes, factions and faciton membership will be a lot less common, and one would likely be correct, but adventurers usully do not interact with such societies primarily: it is the mortal planar population that seems to be the more persistent enviroment for them.
No, it didn't. The original boxed set just had humans, tieflings, bariaurs, and githzerai.
Aasimar, genasi, and rogue modrons were introduced as PC races in The Planewalker's Handbook several years later.
As always, rip is correct. The Planewalker's Handbook was the first Planescape book I owned, and the only one for years. It was the entire setting for me. So, when I think of the core setting, it's that book. Mistake on my part. My statement got the book wrong, as well as shamefully omitting bariaur on the list of Planescape races.
Meanwhile, let's discuss something that the original post was about, shall we? Like variations to the setting that we use in our games. I've modified the standard races plenty, making planetouched humanoids, for example, because I didn't like the way that the racial abilities seemed to fail in accounting for their impact in a verisimilitudinous fantasy society.
It was the entire setting for me.
That's really all you need.
I see your point about the races. There not unusually common, but easy enough to find if you wanted to use them in your campaign if you wish.
The thing I love about the original races is the ability to make awsome charicters without the help of that +4 strenth some other obsure verson of the dwarf. To many players play monster charicters because it beefs up there charicter. I tend to limit races in that prospect. if you find a group of dwarves living deep underground, they are going to have the same stats as the surface dwarves, but way diffrent culture.
So my point is, I'm reluctant to introduce dozens of new races to my PC, who will make rediculiss charicters. Like a Bladling ftr2/rgr1/mnk1/psw2/wiz3.
How about those variants?
I allow a lot of races too, but no one ever picks anything different mainly because of the Level Adjustments. Here's the list I let them choose from along with the core races:
Gold Dwarf
Gray Dwarf
Shield Dwarf
Moon Elf
Sun Elf
Wild Elf
Wood Elf
Rock Gnome
Ghostwise Halfling
Lightfoot Halfling
Strongheart Halfling
Air Genasi
Earth Genasi
Fire Genasi
Water Genasi
Tiefling
Githzerai
Aasimar
Bariaur
Buomman
Air Mephling
Earth Mephling
Fire Mephling
Water Mephling
Neraphim
Shadowswyft
Spiker
Tiefling
Wildren
Mul
Half-Giant
Thri-Kreen
Kender
Personally, as a DM, I allow my players to choose virtually any race they like. I throw them a Races of Faerún, an Oriental Adventures, some Monster Manuals, the Eberron CS, the Dragonlance CS, some old Dragon Magazines, and let them do some research. Heck, I even through some homebrew races. Most players have a hard time choosing, but the characters that come out of this process are usually really really cool. :D
As a player I tend to enjoy the Planetouched races the most, whether I play Planescape or other Campaign Settings.
alright, almost forgot.
How about those variants?
I'll post them later when I have time.
styg