So, I was curious as to where people would like to see it go, what they wish would develop or be fleshed out, which situation would become the next plane-shuddering event.
I'll begin with my own, of course:
- The clash between the slaad race and the evil slaad that have put so many restraints on their existance, and tainted them towards evil.
- The clash between the old guard and the newcomers of Mechanus: Who will side with mechanical mascots, and who will side with self-righteous insectoids.
- Something occuring between the yugoloths, the celestials, and the rilmani, since all three groups have their lots thrown in with balance, at least at the moment.
- Developments as to the ancient history of the planes, such as the original natives of Baator and the Abyss, and some of the awakening events that occured throughout the multiverse.
- Development of that little blurb in the guide to the inner planes about 'evolution', hopefully with the inner planes proving that they're not overshadowed by the outer planes. (Which results in yet another act of balance, of course)
- Exploration faaar from the Spire: There's got to be more than the typical fiends, celestials, anarchaics, and axiomatics that we all know and love. Where are the ancient reptilian celestials, etc?
- The Rise of something Old (capitalization-worthy Old), perhaps some sort of giant serpent race that once warred with, and lost to the dragons in the battle for dominance as the top of the food chain...
- Something, ANYTHING about the chaotic and lawful yugoloths that escaped the Heart of Darkness
- Tying in the many different d20 settings from other game companies into Planescape.
Not something big, but just acknowledging their presence in a sentence or two like the old products did.
- A collection of short stories.
- Flavor, flavor, flavor, flavor and even more flavor, until flavor becomes obsessive.
Maybe each of the PW-team members could have a cameo name when they write, much as Tarsheva Longreach etc.
- Other then that: Thanks for keeping the setting alive.
-- Come out with sourcebooks detailing regions of established territory, such as Regulus and Khin-Oin. (Who wouldn't love a Regulus sourcebook?
)-- Expound on the realms of pantheons such as the Aztec gods. Ain't Queztalquotl got what it takes to rate a realm entry?
-- And most importantly: more modron material!
--long live Primus! Long live The One! NB
Originally posted by Nero's Boot
[B-- Come out with sourcebooks detailing regions of established territory, such as Regulus and Khin-Oin. (Who wouldn't love a Regulus sourcebook? [/b]
Btw, there's a poster map of Khin-Oin in the planes of conflict box set with an assortment of various levels throughout the known 44 mile length of the tower. It's pretty sweet.
I'd like to know a bit more about the origin of The Words. And a further detailing of the race of titans who supposedly lived in the planes of white dust in Pelion in Arborea.
A bit more on the possible connection of some of the old outer planar history with The Sleeping Ones hinted at in the Inner Planes.
Perhaps an idea of where some of the primal planar races went such as the supposed (speculated) existance of a guardinal creator race to mirror the Baernaloths. And where the Baernaloths all retreated to. They can't all have simply died, they had to gone somewhere.
A further expansion of the artifact found in 'Door to the Unknown' which resembled a metal staff with a bladed head. Oddly looking like the blades of The Lady. A sidebar in the module made mention that the item was 'Beyond the scope of this adventure, and any explanation or expansion on its origin or purpose will occur in future Planescape line products'
Originally posted by Nero's Boot
(snip)
-- Expound on the realms of pantheons such as the Aztec gods. Ain't Queztalquotl got what it takes to rate a realm entry?
(snip)
Why waste D&D book space on what is already quite adequately documented elsewhere (including the proper spelling of its/his name)?
http://weber.ucsd.edu/~anthclub/quetzalcoatl/quetzal.htm
eudas
I'd really like to see new upstart factions challenge the power of the old guard.
And I still have the quasi elemental and para elemental planes fully ensconced into place. The MotP just simplified (read: dumbed down) the planes for new players largely.
The differences are largely only apparent to Planescape folks, and those that do exist can easily be houseruled away. To tell the truth, I don't honestly know which way Planescape 3e is going to approach this all. I do know that we'll be using the para and quasi elemental planes though. But as far as the situation with the MotP changed the roles of the Astral and Ethereal, not sure which way we'll go with that. I'm not sure if its been discussed yet, or been decided on.
Originally posted by Shemeska the Marauder
Personally I ignore the new cosmology except for Shadow being a full plane. I still play with the Astral only overlapping the prime and the outer planes; and the Ethereal overlapping the prime and the inner planes. With the presumed Ordial overlapping them all.
I'd like to see some official stuff about some of the speculated planes from the mimir. I'd say the Ordial overlaps the outer and the inner rather than all of them, though, what with the unity-of-rings.
Originally posted by narfi78
Perhaps some event that would cause the cosmology to change from what it was in 2E to what it is now. Perhaps a Doomguard experiment? Perhaps somebody did something to make everyone not notice the change, only it hasn't worked quite as well as they would have liked. Perhaps it's reversable. Perhaps it threatens to unravell the multiverse, unless stopped.
The Shadowlie!!!
rejection
"That must be an illusion or something. Baatezu don't act like that."
lie
"That Baatezu must be plotting something really convoluted to need to act like that."
truth
"That isn't a Baatezu; I wonder what it is."
Originally posted by Sildatorak
The Shadowlie is a good idea, but I would ignore the madness saves, particularly for "intelligent debate."
I agree wholeheartedly. The madness structure is awkward and not entirely true to the whole idea, but I've come short to get a mechanic to truly reflect the potential.
What I tried to convey through the madness mechanic was simply to explain the many madmen prophets out there. The people that understand something, but lack the ability to explain what they understand.
The table needs a make-over.
Introducing the Shadowlie to a campaign can really spice things up. Anyone or anything could be behind the Shadow Planes recent growth.
A problem with the whole thing is that the Shadow Plane doesn't exist other places then on the Material Plane. That means the Shadowlie can't get to the Outer Planes other then affecting belief on the material.
I tried to counter that by treating the Shadowlie more as a disease, as it infects a mind, and spreads through that mind filling in more lies to build on the first lie.
Other people could get affected and after a while the Shadow Plane spreads into the Outer Planes, but that may be unessecary.
+
Some other ideas I had. The Keepers. Their very existance belies the existance of alternate realities, or other planes in the multiverse not currently known or suspected. Considering their origin...
I've used them sparingly in my own campaign, though the PC's have not fully picked up on that particular plotline. But they're great. The prototypical MIB of conspiracy theory and UFO myth. And just so disturbingly creepy. *cackle*
Another thing as well: The origin of the hand carved tunnels of Pandemonium. Some of the lower layers, can't recall off the top of my head if its the 2nd or 3rd layer of the plane, bear the very obvious markings of being carved by hand tools. A nearly infinate expanse of passages carved into the rock, physically...
Makes you wonder who did it, and why? Did they seek to discover something buried below? Or did they burrow down fleeing something?
[going IC]
"Oh and we all want to see A'kin punched in the nose, yes? I know I do. Although seriously, who deserves it more? Him or Zadara?
I'll let you all vote. Not that anyone's opinion matters but mine truthfully. But being a rather 'friendly fiend' myself, in some ways, I'll let you feel like you're involved." :D
*paints claws with a thin polish and largely tunes everyone else out, instead wondering what shade of red or purple goes best with coppery colored fur*
Originally posted by Shemeska the Marauder
A further expansion of the artifact found in 'Door to the Unknown' which resembled a metal staff with a bladed head. Oddly looking like the blades of The Lady. A sidebar in the module made mention that the item was 'Beyond the scope of this adventure, and any explanation or expansion on its origin or purpose will occur in future Planescape line products'
Gasp! Where is this?
I flipped through "Doors to the Unknown" and didn't see it...?
Inside a hollow cube in Acheron, filled with things best forgotten by the multiverse, everything slowly turning to a mix of iron and stone.
There's among other things: A Gargoyle statue with a red gem serving as the portal key back to Sigil. Looking into the gem there's an image of The Lady of Pain, but with her face replaced by a burning red sun and the blades of her headdress replaced with the lancing rays of the sun.
At the center of the hollow cube theres a mountain of petrified junk, towering over everything else, and so old as to be worn nearly smooth. Written into the side of the mountain is a message in Dabus Rebus pertaining to the goals of the module. And firmly embedded into the very top of the mountain is a staff.
The staff is utterly unaffected by the petrification of the layer of Acheron. About 7 feet high, or more, thats whats aboveground. Made of a blue colored steel. Blades erupt from the sides of the staff in a pattern disturbingly familiar to that of the blades in the headdress of The Lady. At the top of the staff in a carved metal hand, vaguely feminine outstretched and holding a sphere of solid blue crystal.
If they touch the staff, it courses with electricity and 'spiky protrusions' form across the surface of the blue orb on the staff. It can't be removed, and if they persist at messing with it they eventually die from electrocution.
"The staff is a mystery that’s beyond the scope of this
adventure. Further details, if revealed at all, are left to future
PLANESCAPE products."
Thats the only remaining commentary on the staff... disturbing in the insinuations isn't it...
--it just ruins the "feel" of the setting for me NB
Though I am sort of glad that they didn't try going back there when they made it all the way to seventeenth level...magic that powerful would almost definately be able to remove the staff and pick it up. I'd have no idea what to do with it then.
Besides that, I was always hoping to see a bit more info about what the Yugoloths were after when they removed the ability to teleport without error from the Baatezu and Tanar'ri. Granted, they were after power, in that the other fiends would have to swear loyalty to them to get it back...but I'd like to have thought that the Yugoloths would demand something in return. Say... "We'll give you back the ability to teleport at will, but we'd like you to take care of a teensy problem for us. You know the Gehreleths? Get rid of them so they'll stop tearing down our tower". :insert Yugoloth grin:
Of course, that's a pretty limited course right there, but it would have been pretty fun.
I also want to know what Moloch has been doing since the Hag Countess one-upped him.
Little things really. Nothing grand like a outer vs. inner planar conflict.
Thats an issue that in my opinion is bound to have to be addressed, one way or the other. And its not likely to be a good thing as far as most except the 'loths are concerned.
Also, they might be better served by doing nothing with it at all. After all, they could have done so at any point in the past yet didn't. Why admit they have that ability, and open themselves up to more scrutiny from the Tanar'ri and Baatezu? They might be better served by biding their time, restoring the other fiends' powers of teleportation and waiting for some point in the future when they may have intended to use their position of power in the first place.
Give themselves plausable deniability as the teleportation powers miraculously return, and put out 3rd party claims that some unknown planar event caused the initial loss of the other fiend's powers. Even make up stories that the 'loths as well lost their powers for the same duration (which for a very brief time was true).
That might be one way to explore that particular plot line, and of course there's others. The 'loths are devious, and a more subtle approach would seem to strike me as better. But I'm biased. ;)
After all, in an infinite multiverse, there could be many figures who look curiously like the Lady of Pain, or Zeus, or Boba Fett.
That and the yugoloths could always have set up a false trail.
Originally posted by Incenjucar
About the 'hints of the Lady', false leads can be fun ones.
After all, in an infinite multiverse, there could be many figures who look curiously like the Lady of Pain, or Zeus, or Boba Fett.
That and the yugoloths could always have set up a false trail.
False leads, ambigious leads and the like are wonderful things.
As for the second point, I think we can all agree that there's likely been a damn high number of Loviatar worshippers that have been mazed and flayed for a minor misunderstanding while in Sigil for the first time. ;)
Why would the 'loths EVER set up a false trail? A 'loth lie?
*gasp and puts a well manicured hand over chest with an expression of surprise*
I've got a number of ideas already to handle both the emergence of the Shadow Plane (We're qualifying it as a so called pseudoplane rather than the old demiplane definition, or the MotP using it as a transitive plane. We all rather prefer the unknown and undefined and unproven Oridal as the 3rd transitive) and the 'loth teleportation/Maeldur et Kavurik issue.
However its not all dependent on my ideas alone by any stretch of the imagination. I've had a number of them shot down for various reasons in plot discussions, and others embraced at the same time. I'm not at liberty to say which in either case, but its a group decision in most every way. And we may not get to address each and every issue immediately, and god forbid we actually try and define some things. Not all questions should actually have answers. Planescape works because of the mystery, the sense of vast unanswered questions, dim history, and the ambiguity of many things. That shouldn't change.
Someone in this topic suggested a new big event... why not the something related to the Blood War? I just love it
------
The actual nature of the planes is intimately connected with the unity of rings and the rule of threes.
There are three kinds of planes...those of belief, those of substance, and those of travel. And each categories locks within the others like three links of a chain, each connected to both others.
The outer planes and inner planes are rightly regarded as the primary zones of belief and substance, and the prime is the primary plane of travel, but each category has three sets of planes within it and brushes against its neighbors.
The astral, for example, is a plane of belief and travel (after all you use the power of your mind to move about there), but not one of substance, as is evidenced by the vast emptyness of it. The ethereal is substance and travel, you can ply your ways through its infinite seas of mist and fog. The prime is easily traveled in a consistent and reliable manner, but belief and substance still hold some sway (if you doubt the minimal influence of substance, try breathing in wildspace). I could draw these examples for outer and inner, too but I'm running out of time.
*glances over shoulder*
The ordial is a plane of substance and belief...that is why it is unexplored; traveling there is about as easy as finding a piece of soil native to the astral. It is a frightful place, too. A place where your dreams are just as real as your waking experience. If you think belief has power in the outer planes, cutter, you had best be wary of the Ordial...there belief has power and substance.
Alas, I cannot prove a word.
Ao = overpower of Toril, with no power outside of Toril. He's insignificant in the politics and struggles across the planes. For all his power on Toril, he's a gigantic nobody outside of that sphere.
That said... speculation is fun. And speculation where things make some matter of sense when viewed through one lens or another is even more fun. Especially when you cannot prove a word of it.
Here's the juicy little bit o' dark: Shemeska and A'kin are one and the same. 'Loths, you see, are able to alter their sex at will; it's a known fact. Generally they don't, but Shemeska'kin finds it convenient to do so to keep up the charade. Her hatred of the "other 'loth" is just a cover so that there is never any reason for them to be seen together. Plus, if she really loathed him that much, you'd think that by now she would have used her connections to scribe him.
Still don't believe me? What about the "coincidence" that a guard overheard this little conversation and the next day my neighbor got the grin from some new berk on the wing? What about me, you ask? A wizard of my caliber is not about to be done in by a barmy with a dirk, even if it does bear the sort of odd enchantments one would expect from a magical arms dealer.
Faction books.
I want a book, a thick hardcover, to really dig into the factions. Deeper than religions got in Dieties & Demigods...give me 20 pages plus per faction, and I'll buy it for sure. Feats, faction-based prestige classes, stats of the factols, maps of famous places(MORTUARY!!), give me something I can sink my teeth into, with the same general feel as the splatbooks...(Tome & Blood, etc...)
Give me the meat in the factions, and I'll sit and dine for years.
Then give me a plate...Give me a Sigil city book to make Ghostwalk cower and run. Show me something hardcore, streetmaps, statblocks for famous Cagers, I want to know the price a balor pays to get a tankard of arsenic to drink in a bar.
In other words, I'll eat the price of books if I GET DETAILS!
Secondly, the Sigil chapter for Planewalker is being edited as we speak *brownoses editor* and it's long and its verbose. I could have doubled the length of it had the need been there, and I may yet actually go back and do so for DM, rather than player material. Seriously, you could have ten people writing on it and never run out of material to add. There's so much to cover, and so much flavor thats there. But lets see the Sigil guide released and torn to bloody chunks by you guys before we talk about what all extra to add or address. ;)
The Plane of Shadow doesn't, at least to me, fully fit the qualifications of a transitive plane. It overlaps the prime and thats about it. The ideas of it being used to access potential alternate material planes, or alternate realities can already be fulfulled by the Ethereal plane. *shrugs*
I can't honestly say what the plans for the Ordial are at this point, if any. It's not come up in any of the ideas I've presented, or have seen presented. And at present we're trying to tie those all in together to present when we start putting out modules.
The Shadow does stay a full plane however in the cosmology thats been worked up. I'd need to go back and look it up though to see the specifics. Maybe Moogle could answer that one if he wanders through the forum here.
Of course, then you could wonder if there's two more similar 'undertone planes'... perhaps the spirit plane for the outer planes... but what could possibly underly the inner planes? Time? Being? Change?
Originally posted by Sildatorak
There are three kinds of planes...those of belief, those of substance, and those of travel. And each categories locks within the others like three links of a chain, each connected to both others.
[/i]
Actually, you'd probably say the Outer Planes are planes of philosophy: morality and ethics. In the end, the entire multiverse is affected by belief.
Hrmn.. a general thing I think that needs to be done, is to increase the information about generally-neglected (read: un-sexy) parts of the planes.
Bytopia is a good example of a plane that could use some more 'oomph'. Give it something more than the play of earth and air (gnomes and those flying fish thingies). Maybe go further out, and throw in some large bodies of water, maybe a mountain that's so huge, it's basically a pillar... or maybe make it a volcano, so that there's an island slowly forming between two gravities... so many interesting possibilities.
While personally, I'd love to work with the lower planes, specifically the planes of conflict, there's some of the inner planes and the transitives that could be really fun to work on as well. We'll be hitting them all eventually.
Radiance, Lightning, Ash and Dust... those would be fun...
[edited out Silt and replaced it with Dust, because thats what happens when you look at Darksun books before posting... *rolls eyes at self for being a dufus*]
It's that blatant, un-subtle dynamism that some of the planes of conflict seem to lack (subtle, of course, is the yummiest). The axis planes are, simply, too easy to define. The planes with tendancies, on the other hands, are vague, and hard to pin down. Which makes things so much less predictable, and gives them soooo much potential, especially the planes that are vague on their moral axis, and not their ethic axis.
Mmn, well, there is that city with the rulers "Black and White"... those various towers... and the fact that most planars have yet to explore the quasi-planes in general... ANYTHING could be lying there in wait.... Ash, especially, has potential ties to Shadow, if you consider the connection between fire and light. ...And.. Silt...? I assume you mean Dust...? *smirks* Been in your Dark Sun books lately, eh?
Originally posted by Incenjucar
...And.. Silt...? I assume you mean Dust...? *smirks* Been in your Dark Sun books lately, eh?
Yes actually... and looking at the inner planes in general. Dang, I don't know why I mixed that up there. Oh well, thanks for catching me on that.
I generally don't read Dark Sun stuff much, but I'd been writing some stuff on the Ethereal deep the other day, and wanted to see how Athas might look when viewed from the ethereal deep/border ethereal. And knowing little to nothing about the setting, except that it was sealed off in many ways from the planes, I was reading up on the Dark Sun concepts of the 'Black' and the 'Gray'.
Possibly more material for a story. I've been writing a number of them recently, but most of them in the lower planes. All of which have been posted up on the realmsofevil.net Planescape boards, and two of them on the WotC 'Once upon a time' boards.
But getting people to read and reply to stuff on the WotC fiction boards is like pulling teeth. Seriously, its like a gaggle of popular highschool girls. If you're not one of the 'in crowd' you get fewer views, and few or no comments, regardless of how good the writing is. Yet if you write cruddy poetry you get gushed over. *shrugs* Thus I probably won't bother posting the stuff over there anymore. *shrugs* Not to say my own fiction is awesome, I've certainly got my own issues I need to address, but irregardless.
I wonder if its considered kosher to post such stuff here on the Planescape board, if its based in the setting. Wiz-Os care to answer that question?
Sometimes I wonder if they should have little 'demiboards' for the groups of people who wander on here... Planescape+Manual of the Planes sorts... Epic+Deities sorts... but then, I suppose, it starts turning in to segregation and wastes a lot of space. Alas, alas.
Maybe they should just have an off-topic sub-board for the 'unsupported worlds' boards that are truly active.
As for Dark Sun, I love the fact that, while they're still cut off from the rest of the planes like they're trying to do with FR and such, it's because of a LOCALIZED CONDITION, and not "Oh, I'm sorry, wrong multiverse"
I mean, cripes, even DC and Marvel require less garbage to crossover.
In that vein, it would be interesting to see a few examples of worlds like Athas, that have unique relationships with the Planes.