Libertad's Planar Revision Project

[Libertad]

Adventures in the Upper Planes​

The Abyss is a plane of seemingly infinite layers controlled by an equally uncountable number of demon lords. It has all sorts of terrain, from steaming jungles to towering cities of evil. Acheron is in a constant state of warfare, with orcs, goblins, and living siege constructs fighting over just about every conceivable reason for battle. The Lower Planes are handily suited for extraplanar adventures and are all interesting places for your party to explore.


Not so much with the Upper Planes. As described in the Third Edition Manual of the Planes, the celestial realms seem to be lacking in comparison. This could be due to the idea of heaven being a “Utopia” and thus relatively free of conflict. Maybe it’s due to the conceit that most parties are non-evil and that the forces of Good don’t have much reason to fight each other like the various Evil factions. The purpose of this post is to find ways to create interesting adventures in the vein of Dungeons & Dragons (Explore dangerous places! Fight vicious monsters!) by adding ideas to the Upper Planes or extrapolating from existing ones.

Bytopia

Bytopia’s one of the planes in need of the most work. What we get out of it from the Manual is an idyllic, pastoral landscape of sparsely populated villages in the region of Dothian, towering hill-cities home to the Gnomish Pantheon, and the wild, rugged region of Shurrock. Here's my redesign:

An Individualist Society​

Bytopia is sort of a pseudo-Libertarian commune in the sense that the societies are organized by the ideal of “personal achievement working with social interdependence.” The agricultural industries are individually run, and shops located between habitats are beholden to no person or ideal except the “common good.” And Bytopia’s ideal of the Common Good is that individuals working towards their strengths and dreams results in a greater society for all. The idea is that individuals will form alliances and agreements with each other when in need of certain things, and the people who work the hardest and/or are the best at their trade will have the most potential to form alliances as long as their services are in demand.


This is a great deal for merchants, business owners, and people who love their job and wish to improve their craft or profession. As long as you're not of Evil alignment and don’t deprive the Plane’s inhabitants of their rights or destroy their property (no slave rings, no deliberately tainting the town’s water supply, etc), you’re pretty much left to your own devices. Of course, you won’t get free handouts, and any benefits of civilization you desire, such as supplies and security, are worked out in social contracts with the relevant parties. Many traders in planar goods and magic items have private retreats on Bytopia, doubling as a scenic landscape and tax-free haven.


This also resulted in a large influx of scientific and magical talent. The experiments of enterprising artificers and mages, unconstrained by regulation and oversight and combined with the seemingly boundless and unpredictable nature of gnomish science, often results in amazing breakthroughs as well as catastrophic lab accidents. Abandoned labs and company towns are usually located away from major population centers in the wild reaches of Shurrock, their scientific notes and untested devices scattered in the ruins and debris below flying swarms of mutated leeches and rogue war golems. Companies seeking to recover their losses or steal from the competition often pay bands of adventurers to scour these places for anything of value.

The Wilds of Shurrock​

Inhabitants of Bytopia who don’t feel that the rural towns of Dothian are independent enough often retreat to the other layer of Shurrock. The region’s terrain is inhospitable and full of hostile predators, making it a poor choice for habitation. These factors, combined with the rugged mountain passages and hidden alpines make it a haven for all sorts of privacy-seekers. They majority of Shurrock’s inhabitants are hermits, scientists seeking an isolated environment, and explorers with a thing to prove. Most settlements are temporary and almost always heavily guarded (mostly to keep out wild predators, sometimes to keep dangerous experiments in).

The Machinations of Urdlen​

Urdlen is the sole evil deity of the Gnomish pantheon. He’s a gluttonous, badger-like monster whose thirst for destruction is as great as his all-consuming hunger. He makes his home in the Abyss and doesn’t much care for worshipers; his clerics mostly hang around his tunnels and try to please their god, and sometimes he grants divine spells to evil gnomes so that they can cause death and destruction to their local communities. It’s for this reason that Urdlen doesn’t have a thriving priesthood, but the gnomes he does favor have more than proven themselves in their savagery and cunning.


Urdlen’s hill-city is all but abandoned now on Bytopia, although it’s still littered with traps, undead and construct guardians, and Abyssal portals. There’s no sizable community of followers on Bytopia or in any easily-reached locations, and that’s exactly how Urdlen prefers it. He’s the unseen threat, the lone voice that urges the misanthropic and bullied loner to plot vengeance; the voice that tells the furious husband to kill his unfaithful wife and her paramour. Urdlen’s the type of deity that can drive good folk into the depths of evil without the victim realizing it. A priesthood and holy symbol would give a face to the opposition, an easily-identifiable enemy for Glittergold and his followers to attack.


Urdlen’s followers live in Bytopia, their identities, life stories, and personalities all carefully forged to ingratiate themselves into the community. They may live as honorable and trustworthy citizens for decades before enacting some terrible deed and vanishing into the Abyss. They use Bytopia’s permissive attitude against itself, severing bonds of trust and abusing the freedom given to them to sow doubt about the gnomes’ way of life. If they can push even a small community or individual to the breaking point, they’ve done Urdlen’s work.


Adventure Hooks in Bytopia:
• A siege engineer working for an important war effort lost contact with the army/rebels. His last known location was in a science city located in the wild reaches of Shurrock. Enemy sabotage resulted in the settlement’s war golems going berserk. The PCs have a limited amount of time to retrieve the engineer and his valuable research notes before the golems and the saboteur kill him and destroy the research.
• A valuable contact the PCs need to reach went missing. In order to hide from his enemies, he fled to Shurrock. Unfortunately, the mountain territory proved too much for him to handle, and he’s now trapped in a ravine full of anti-magic. It’s a race against time as the PCs search for him before he becomes truly lost or the bad guys get to him.
• An assortment of rich merchants gathers at a scenic Bytopian villa to discuss business. A merchant known for his cutthroat policies is attending, and while the PCs have no solid evidence, it’s highly likely based on past events that he might try some dastardly scheme which will result in disastrous economic havoc and/or widespread suffering for many people (war profiteering, flooding the market and putting people out of business). How do the PCs act on this information? Do they have the right to attack, kidnap, or kill the merchant based on suspicion? Convince him to go after a worthier target (such as an Evil Empire or Yugoloth soul-traders) or appeal to his better nature? And there’s always the risk of he merchant having no evil plot, but decides to enact one out of spite for being inconvenienced by the PCs.

 

[Libertad]

Arcadia

Arcadia’s portrayed as a realm of orderly perfection where every petitioner acts in accordance with “the greater good.” Many visitors have a lot of misconceptions about Arcadia, and are often surprised to note that the society isn’t as “cold” or emotionless as Mechanus.


Arcadia’s an Upper Plane, but it isn’t infused with the essence of Good. Arcadia’s ideal society is a collective unit of individuals working in perfect tandem for the betterment of the group. While the inhabitants of Mechanus obey the prime directives of exemplars of Law for the sake of it, the Arcadians use the order derived from Law and Good to minimize suffering and result in the highest standard of living for the most people possible. This puts them closer to the Upper Planes than the Lower because their ideals are not meant to benefit the few in power at the expense of others. In order to benefit from this society, everybody needs to be on board, and too many dissident elements add in way too many unpredictable factors to keep things together. People who rock the boat are punished through ostracism, demotion, and other forms of shaming to get them back in line. Law and Goodness are enforced through the fear of shame in eyes of one’s peers and superiors, and a lot of petitioners do the “right thing” due to this instead of true altruism. This is why the plane is not Good-aligned; it’s not genuine. It’s also why the petitioners tolerate Chaotic Good and Neutral Good individuals, yet ruthlessly attack Evil ones; an invasion from Baator, or even Mechanus, is a far greater threat than Arborea or the Beastlands.


Another myth is that the people of Arcadia are little more than mindless drones, living for the sake of powerful outsiders and deities of Law without question. High-ranking Arcadians don’t get to shirk their duties or benefit from luxurious privileges, nor do they benefit from supreme authority; if anything, their position of importance saddles them with increasingly numerous and greater responsibilities due to their authority. Incompetence and abuses of power get knocked down with extreme prejudice. Checks and balances exist to ensure that everyone’s accountable for their actions; there’s too much at stake to let the entire system fall apart due to the folly of one.

The Mechanus Invasion​

If you thought that the inhabitants of Arcadia and Mechanus get along like peas in a pod due to their relative ideological proximity, you’d be dead wrong. Although not the primary inhabitants of Mechanus, the Formians are a major power on that plane, and their policies are an extension of it. The insects have a reputation for extreme imperialism. They colonize distant planes and worlds, building hive-cities and spreading their numbers so that they can remake as much of the multi-verse in their image as possible. The latent fears of many Arcadians turned into a reality when their third layer of Menausus got absolved into Mechanus.


The worst part about this was that the Arcadian leaders did not see the true extent of the threat, both out of arrogant denial and of fear of spreading panic. The layer and its inhabitants are still missing among the great cogs of Mechanus, seemingly gone from the Multiverse. Arcadia was especially blessed to have such a regimented society and managed to avoid war and social discord through the actions of its leaders. Remaining Formians were rounded up and forced to prove their loyalty to Arcadia or face imprisonment or deportation. Even though the Formians of Arcadia insist that they do not share their brethren’s expansionist tendencies, many Arcadians still do not trust them. If tensions continue, then the leaders will have to expel the Formians for the good of the whole.


The truth is that the Formians of Arcadia are indeed loyal to their home plane, and the Formians of Mechanus intend on absorbing the plane into Mechanus. If the second layer of Buxenus appears under the threat of absorption, Arcadia will have no choice but to defend itself. Celestia will intervene on Arcadia’s behalf, and then the idyllic fields of Arcadia will run red with the blood of the exemplars of Law and Good.

Harmonium Prison Camps​

The Harmonium is an extremely Lawful planar faction intent on achieving universal peace by converting the rest of the Multiverse to their ideology. For those who resist, they are not averse to kidnapping, coercion, and brainwashing to achieve their goals. The majority of such beings are held in “retraining camps” on the second layer of Buxenus.


The majority of people held in these facilities are of Chaotic alignment, including more than a few Outsiders. But Neutral and even Lawful-aligned beings who disagree with the Harmonium’s ends and means are also kept here. The success rate of “re-education” remains low and fraught with difficulties, yet the Harmonium’s staying the course despite their numerous failed attempts.


In addition to being highly unethical and giving Arcadia a bad name, the prisons are a major contributing factor towards the encroaching incursion of Mechanus. The threat of a prison break is also a major concern, as a horde of escaped Slaadi and Demons will do much to upset the layer’s balance. If solid evidence of the planar reaches the eyes and ears of Arcadia’s leaders, the Harmonium will be forcefully expelled. The faction will ally with Mechanus and declare Arcadia an enemy.


Adventure Hooks in Arcadia:
• An individual important to the PCs has been kidnapped by the Harmonium and tossed into one of their re-education camps. A petitioner skeptical about the faction’s methods can help the party conduct a raid against the facility, but it will be difficult and require precise planning. In addition to dimensional travel blocks, magical wards, and experienced guards, the PCs will also have to avoid the detection of passing patrols of Archons and Devas, who will prevent the PCs from carrying out their plan without solid proof of the Harmonium’s danger to Arcadia.
• A Formian spy loyal to Mechanus plans on killing the Arcadian hive-queen of Mandible and replacing her with an expansionist sympathizer. The PCs are tasked with uprooting the spy while taking care to avoid alerting other Formians of the situation. The tunnels are closed off to non-Formians, complicating matters greatly. And then there’s the matter protecting the Queen as well…
• An organized militia of petitioners found a strong lead on the whereabouts of the inhabitants of Menausus. The PCs are entrusted to help find the missing layer. Problem is that the Inevitables and Formians of Mechanus have no intention of letting the layer’s inhabitants back. If the PCs and the militia are going to get them back, it will be by fighting their way out!

 

[Libertad]

Arborea

Arborea’s known for being the homeland of the elven pantheon as well as a realm of hedonism and excess. The Manual informs us that the plane has regions of unspoiled wilderness and hints at a less than ideal scene with this line: “All three layers are places of mercurial weather, sudden attacks, and strong passions. Arborea is a plane of joy and sorrow.” Fey live here as well, and creatures infused with Chaos (the Anarchic template) can be wildly unpredictable and may strike out at travelers with little provocation. The Planescape description of Arborea tells us that it’s also home to the Greek pantheon, and that all sorts of creatures from Greek mythology live here. This interesting assortment of inhabitants gives us much potential. Here’s my re-design:

Spontaneous Harmony​

Arborea’s ideal of Good is that people should be able to do what they want if it reduces suffering and brings joy to themselves and others. Despite the preconceptions of mortal puritans, consent is of prime importance to the Plane’s inhabitants, as pleasure gained at the expense of others results in long-term harm and the spread of despair. The goal of most Arboreans is not just to spread positive emotions and encourage others to live life to the fullest, but to bring happiness and hope out of misery.


Even then, there are societal problems in Arborean society. The vast distances between habitats are so hard to traverse that most people use flight and teleportation magic to travel. These wide swaths of wilderness are home to many monsters from Greek mythology and beings borne of raw Chaos. Their idea of a good time doesn’t usually include mutual enjoyment of fun activities between strangers and good friends. There are also the wandering mobs of Bacchae, who mentally compel others to join in their revelry at the expense of personal safety; some of the more “Neutral” ones are known to violently lash out at people who attempt to put a stop to their hijinks or rescue a loved one from their parties.

Meddle Not in the Affairs of Gods​

Arborea’s home to the Elven and Greek/Roman Pantheons. The Seldarine’s faithful live in treetop cities and wooden glades, while the followers of the Olympian deities live in cities styled after Hellenistic and Roman architecture. Although the more nationalistic towns keep to themselves and brutally enforce their “no immigration” policy, there is a fair bit of overlap between the two in terms of trade and cohabitation.


Although the faithful live together in relative peace, the Gods themselves are more dysfunctional. The Greek Gods and Goddesses alternatively love and fight each other like a dysfunctional family, while the more isolationist-minded of the Elven deities clash with their more moderate kin over the presence of non-elves on the plane. The deities regularly intervene in the affairs of petitioners and planar travelers, sending them on quests to retrieve some sacred relic that belongs to a rival god, or slay some vicious monster to help some unlucky mortal be rid of a divine grudge. Adventurers on a holy quest inevitably anger somebody on Arborea, but the rewards of a god can be great indeed…

Natonalists: The Warriors of Arborea​

In addition to being a plane renowned for its ideals of art, festivals, and all the enjoyable things in life, Arborea’s also a plane of passion. And the passion of nationalism can be just as powerful as the passion of hedonism. Many entities of Evil and Law made the fatal error of mistaking Arborea for an easy conquest before meeting defeat at the hands of Elven and Olympian legions.


The Elves and Olympians both fight as hard as they play, owing much to their martial cultures. Despite not being of Good alignment, Shevarash of the Seldarine and Ares of the Olympians both have a highly militarized force of warriors both ready and willing to defend their homes from extraplanar attacks (and each other, if necessary). This is a spot of contention among the followers of Artemis and the Good-aligned deities, who aren’t fond of letting people driven by hate possessing such authority. The fact that a disproportionally high amount of evil souls among each deity’s faithful led to more than a few bitter feuds.


The petitioners of Shevarash and Ares have great loyalty to their respective peoples, and they’ll defend their homeland as zealously as any Eladrin. The two deities have a greater kinship to their own kind than the forces of the Abyss, and get to make their realms in Arborea due to the shared alliance of the pantheons. Their followers know that they’d be barred entry to the plane or living as petitioners in a more hostile plane, and as such owe a great debt to the Gods for their mercy. The great love of Arborea these petitioners have for their plane has led to others calling them “nationalists.”


Unfortunately, the people most willing to defend their plane are potentially its greatest oppressors. The nationalists are upset with status quo and want the Elves and Olympians to separate and live in their own enclaves. Elven worshipers of Olympian deities, and non-elven worshipers of the Seldarine, would be segregated from their fellow devotees. The nationalists prefer this separation to be voluntary with minimum bloodshed, but this appears unlikely. Some go even farther and advocate making Arborea an Elven-only plane, or making the plane the base of an interplanar Olympian empire. Shevarash and Ares publically make attempts to reign in their more radical followers, although they privately encourage their xenophobic sentiments.

Mithardir​

The third layer of Arborea is a flat plain on white sand stretching in all directions. The sandstorms are fierce enough to rip the flesh off of one’s bones in mere minutes, while the ancient ruins and minarets contain numerous death traps and magical wards. Nobody really knows what civilization the ruins belonged to, or if Mithardir was always this desolate. Aside from the Egyptian Goddess Nepthys, the layer’s sole inhabitants are archeologists, tomb-raiding adventurers, and whatever guardian forces still lair in the ruins. Mithardir is a highly dangerous and inhospitable place, and Arborea’s petitioners strongly advise travelers to avoid the area for their own safety.


Adventure Hooks in Arborea:
• An elven artisan can craft a powerful magic item for the PCs, but the specifics of the creation require him to be in a rare glade untouched by civilization. Such a location can be found in a remote mountaintop forest in Arvandor, yet it’s full of dangerous beasts. The PCs will need to protect the artisan and his supplies from roaming monsters, freak weather, and wandering groups of Bacchae if they hope to get their magic item!
• The high war-priest of Ares has had it up to here with the rampant hedonism in a major city. While the PCs are staying or traveling through the city, he puts the settlement on lockdown and installs a military dictatorship as the ruling authority. If they hope to escape, they must overthrow the new regime!
• A patron wants to hire the PCs to retrieve a valuable artifact from the ruins of Mithardir. The patron is actually an evil Titan, and the artifact is a miniature prison his people created to use against the Gods. While exploring the treacherous dungeons, the PCs will have to deal with the powerful minions of the Olympian deities seeking to keep the artifact lost and buried, and the wrath of a Titan should they choose to turn against their patron.

 

[Libertad]

Ysgard

Through Conflict, Strength, Through Strength, Valor​

Ysgard is a realm of mighty warriors and flying landmasses suspended over a vast surface of thriving underground civilizations. Warriors from across the Great Wheel venture here to train their skills and prove their mettle for future battles. It’s also known for conflict and physical challenges in general, as though the very land itself was testing people.


Ysgard’s ideal of Good is that peoples’ ideals are best proven through conflict and challenge. Hardship can give rise to cruelty and desperation, but can also result in people proving their worthiness to the cause of Good. Courage, compassion, and other positive traits are not gained within a vacuum; there has to be something at risk for the individual in order to display the worthiness of his or her convictions.


Many people would not associate Ysgard’s ideals as being in line with Good, but they’re among the Upper Planes because the petitioners and inhabitants are training themselves so that they can better fight the forces of evil and ready themselves for unexpected future disasters. Through this, their preparation can make the Multiverse a better place. Even the Upper Planes themselves can fall prey to the machinations of Evil; the Ysgardians see no need to rest on their laurels in the afterlife.

Simulated Warfare​

Ysgard has a unique feature among the Outer Planes: people who die there are resurrected in 24 hours, their wounds and illnesses gone from their bodies. This provides the inhabitants the perfect opportunity to experience the dangers of battle with minimal risk. A warrior or thrill-seeking explorer can learn from the mistakes which lead to their deaths and resolve to do better. By experiencing death firsthand they can eventually overcome their fear of it. The average Ysgardian has lived and died so many times the sensation eventually becomes normal to him.


Ysgardians organize themselves into confederations of tribes, who can alternatively ally and declare war against each other. When a tribe desires to prove itself in battle, a third party gathers the leaders of the belligerent groups to a neutral meeting ground. The third party explains to them the parameters and rules of war as well the conditions of victory and defeat. The tribal leaders are given a set amount of time to return to their tribes and inform their citizens of the declaration. Whoever can meet the conditions first is declared the winner. Wars can last anywhere from hours to decades, combatants numbering anywhere from several hundred strong to the millions.


Not all combat is conducted this way on Ysgard, however. Many groups have often attacked and raided villages unprovoked out of anger. Oftentimes warlords would call in experienced adventurers and sellswords to throw in a random element to their battles. Many Fensir giants (Fiend Folio) attack settlements with little regard to terms or conditions of battle agreements, while the Fire Giants of Muspelheim attack intruders on sight. The dwarves and gnomes of Nidavellir are hostile to their drow neighbors and attack out of suspicion of wrong-doing.

Muspelheim​

The Fire Giants of Muspelheim are a world apart from their fellow Ysgardians, or so they’d have you think. Like their Ysgardian counterparts, the Fire Giants train, feast and celebrate, participate in simulated warfare, and enjoy contests of sportsmanship, yet their primary end is to extend the glory of their deity and defeat their Dwarven and Frost Giant enemies. They are a much more rigid and Lawful society, with most tribal leaders paying homage to their deity Surtr. Surtr is considered lord of all Fire Giants, although his enforcement is only as long as the influence of his priests and war chiefs on other planes and layers.


Most Fire Giants live in grand fortresses and citadels, and they have little tolerance for outside visitors with nothing to offer and regard unannounced travelers as enemy spies. This attitude has not earned them many friends in the plane, and Ysgardians often conduct “revenge raids” against their towns in retaliation for wrong-doings.

Nidavellir​

Below the floating islands of Ysgard and Muspelheim lies the rocky surface of Nidavellir. The underground caves are full of thriving ecosystems of underground forests and woodland creatures one might see on the surface of a Material Plane world. Glittering gemstones provide light for miles in a rainbow of colors and hues. Dozens of Dwarven and Gnomish kingdoms are scattered throughout the tunnels and caverns, while the dark elves of Svartalfheim keep to themselves and venerate their ancestors. Cave-ins, stale air, and other underground dangers are common in this realm, and a single earthquake is enough to cut off a community for months.


Nidavellir is unique in that most of its inhabitants aren’t petitioners, but mortals. The drow are mostly morally neutral, tending to their immediate families and communities; their allegiance to Lolth was lost long ago from an ideological schism. Most dwarves and gnomes do not believe them and assume the worst. These misunderstandings have led to many meaningless wars.


Adventure Hooks for Ysgard:
• A PC who needs to undergo training (such as for a feat or martially-inclined prestige class) travels to Ysgard as part of the test. There, he, along with his companions, must undertake a series of deathly dangerous obstacles. He might need to wrestle a giant, expose himself to the elements of Muspelheim, or bring down a floating island full of vicious dragons. Feel free to come up with your own tests of might and bravery.
• Party at Olidammara’s House! The PCs are invited to take part in the festivities at the Den of Olidammara, god of rogues and pranksters. The deity will be disguised as one of the patrons, and whoever can locate him first and convince the others will be rewarded with a grand prize.
• The PCs are entrusted with solving a dispute between a clan of dwarves and drow in Nidavellir. The drow live in close proximity to the dwarves, and have no intention of leaving their home. If the PCs can prove that the drow are of no threat, an extremist group will attempt to cause a cave-in to kill the drow, turning the skirmish into an all-out war.

 

[Libertad]

Celestia

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility​

Celestia is a realm of holiness infused with order and mercy. Archons, lawfully-aligned angels, and exemplars of Law and Good formulate rules and encourage others to follow their path. Celestia’s ideal of Good is multi-faceted, yet has predominant views: society’s rules and conduct must promote a high standard of living for as many people as possible; self-sacrifice of the individual in order to benefit others and promote altruism; a restorative form of justice which focuses on the needs of the victims, offenders, and involved communities; and increased accountability and duties for those in power.
Celestia is a lot like Arcadia in the sense that it uses the influence of society and rules to promote their ideals, although they realize that not everyone can live up to such high standards. Thus the need for numerous tests and trials; the plane has seven layers, all but the lowest barred from the general public. In order to ascend, travelers must dedicate themselves to the virtues of Law and Good. They undergo numerous tests, oftentimes without their knowledge, which measure their willingness to live a life of altruism, restorative justice, self-sacrifice, and good works.
People who pass a test receive blessings from the Gods and Celestials, but these powers are not meant as a reward in and of itself: those who stray from the path are in danger of losing them, much like the Paladin and his duties. The more tests one completes, the greater the blessings and restrictions. Goodness is just as much a burden as it is a reward: this separates the true altruists from those who pursue Good for selfish reasons or out of fear of punishment. Ironically this means that most people in Multiverse cannot meet Celestia’s high standards, but it’s perfectly in line with the plane’s ideology of power through accountability and sacrifice.

The Tests​

Ascending Celestia’s layers is not only a matter of physical and extraplanar travel, it’s a spiritual one as well. People who wish to travel upwards are pointed to winding mountain pathways, the doors of holy citadels, monasteries of ascetics, and other areas associated with enlightenment and self-improvement. The reality is that the petitioners and inhabitants of the plane direct the travelers to the testing areas, with archon and angel observers posing in more subtle forms. From here on out, the travelers will confront numerous obstacles to test their moral character, inconvenient hurdles to test their patience, and sometimes the announcement that all their efforts were in vain! This last part is a vital part of tests in the upper layers, for it determines if the seeker’s intent was truly focused on moral self-improvement and not on more selfish motives.
The tests are both high in number and varied in application to prevent easy ascertainment for seekers to know when they’re tested. Sometimes the tests carry on outside of Celestia or when the travelers complete their duties, or are even administered to unwitting people who’ve never visited the plane at all! This last part is especially common when it comes to potential Paladins on Material Plane worlds.
Tests can be either a short series of encounters or adventures in and of themselves. Adventurers in need of Celestial assistance, a sacred artifact, or entry into a vaunted Prestige Class may need to pass these tests in order to receive their object of desire. The tests should also have the appearance of danger and conflict, even if located within the Plane itself: the illusions are so expertly crafted that they can fool mortal forms of divination and detection magic, and summoned creatures are actually in on it (creatures with the form of chaotic/evil creatures are specially-trained archons in disguise, and their “dark magic” only has the illusion of Evil). This is the perfect opportunity to introduce rampaging demons, vicious warlords, and other enemies in a Celestial adventure.

The Power of Redemption​

Celestia’s emphasis on restorative justice means that the Archons do everything in their power to ensure that as many people seeking to abandon a life of Evil are successful in their efforts and become better people as a result (Castle Mahlhevik is a good example of this in the Manual). Doubting and guilt-ridden evil creatures (and reluctant supporters of evil powers) who come to Celestia are brought to a citadel in Lunia known as the Restoration Center (informally known as the “Gray Light”). Evil creatures that are sincere in their attempts to improve go through a series of programs, the end result hopefully being conversion to the side of Good healing the wounds of past atrocities.
Patients of the Restoration Center receive magical treatment intended to wean them off of any supernatural influence encouraging or compelling them to do evil. Those dependent on Evil sources of power for survival receive gold bracelets which provide an alternate source of sustenance. People such as Ogres and Drow who were raised in evil societies and know no other way of life undergo therapeutic procedures akin to “exit counseling” in our own world for people leaving cults and similar groups.
The Restoration Center’s most notable program involves the procedure of evil beings to repair the harm they’ve done to specific individuals and communities, usually through apologies, financial restitution of crimes committed, and good works. The being is encouraged to communicate with his victims and help minimize their suffering; an archon usually accompanies the being and provides guidance on how he or she can do the most good to the people wronged. Even if the being doesn’t receive forgiveness, he’s still encouraged to lend a helping hand if asked.
The Center receives a lot of controversy from outside Celestia; more paranoid elements of the Upper Planes insist that the program is open to abuse and treachery, while fiendish lords and evil deities hate the thought of losing their number to the enemy. Despite numerous attacks and sabotage efforts, the Restoration Center stays open and continues to redeem evil entities with a surprisingly high rate of success.

Loopholes in the System​

There are ways of ascending the layers without getting through the tests. Bahamut’s Palace can travel freely between the first four layers, although only trusted allies of his can make use of this privilege. The other way is much more dangerous and requires traversing a network of shady go-betweens, mazes of planar portals in the back allies of Sigil, and cash paid upfront to the guides. The people most interested in bypassing the tests are usually arrogant mortals who failed the tests and feel denied, greedy merchants hoping to steal rare objects of value for the black market, and Lower Planes spies. The reliable guides go on a reputation-based system, and many newcomers fall prey to charlatans and thieves posing as the genuine article. Ideally, passage to Celestia is quicker this way, but the chances of getting trapped in a dimensional soul prison or ambushed by planar highwaymen is much higher.


Adventure Hooks in Celestia:
• The PCs need to reach the fifth layer of Celestia in order to gain access to the healing fountains of Empyrea City. In order to ascend the layer, they must either pass a multitude of tests or find an alternate path through guides in Sigil. Either way, the adventurer’s skills are put to the test against numerous enemies and unreliable passageways.
• Bahamut’s practice of decorating his interior palace with the bones of would-be thieves and spies earns lots of condemnation. Family members of the deceased and people against corpse desecration endlessly petition the Archons to take action, but Bahamut’s word is law in his domain. The PCs are given the task of retrieving the bones of Bahamut’s victims for a proper burial. They can either appeal to the Platinum Dragon’s worshipers, or risk their own lives and steal the remains.
• Due to a common exception in the pantheon system, Abbathor, an evil deity of avarice, is headquartered in the dwarven heaven of Erackinor. Although Moradin and the other deities do their best to keep tabs on his behavior and worshipers, there’s a rumor going around that one his clerics plans on selling the location of Celestia’s hidden planar portals to the highest bidder. The PCs must verify the rumors, locate the secret auction, and block/destroy the portals before a Lower Planes invasion force learns of them.

 

[Libertad]

Elysium

You’ll Understand When You Join Us​

Elysium is a low-key realm of satisfaction and contentment. The petitioners here are mostly happy with their lot in the afterlife and overall get along with each other. They also lack visible levels of anger, resentment, and many of the more negative qualities prevalent in sapient life across the Multiverse. These feelings still exist; they’re just so muted that they almost never come to the surface.
Elysium’s ideal of Good is not just the absence of Evil, but the absence of sorrow, vengeance, and other emotions which give rise to suffering and further acts of Evil. Additionally, the ideal includes the fostering of peace, love, and goodwill towards others on a universal level. But Elysium’s means of achieving this is altering the nature of petitioners and visitors to this mentality. Allowing people the choice to do Evil is a net loss for Good. Thus it is a moral imperative on the part of Elysium to reduce the numbers of people who do Evil and increase the numbers of people who do Good. Killing the minions of Evil is not enough; petitioners are eternal and can continue to do Evil or Good in the Multiverse. This is a major reason for the widespread transformation of visitors into Elysium petitioners.
Although the other Upper Planes have similar ends and encourage the proliferation of altruistic works, their means put them at odds with the Elysians: Arborea believes in individual choice (provided those choices don’t oppress others); Celestia believes that genuine Goodness comes through voluntary self-sacrifice; Ysgard believes that lack of conflict causes people’s skills and nature to atrophy. Elysium’s nature is a very controversial issue due to the issues it raises regarding free will and genuine Goodness on the part of the individual.

The Trackers​

In addition to moral and philosophical arguments, the “entrapment” of visitors on the Plane has given rise to another controversy. The Elysium Trackers are a guild based in the city of Sigil, whose sole duty is to find entrapped people and remove them from the Plane. The organization disagrees with Elysium’s ideals, insisting that the heartache and sorrow caused by friends and loved ones of the entrapped outweighs any personal happiness engendered by the Plane’s nature. Many Trackers also object to the involuntary nature of the entrapment, arguing that it violates the rights of people to choose where they live and free control over their own minds. Since most entrapped people and petitioners regard forced removal as a form of kidnapping, the Trackers are treated as a criminal order on the Plane and attacked by angels and guardinals if their presence is discovered.
The Trackers possess a secret means of changing petitioners back into their former selves; it involves powerful planar magic akin to the Miracle spell, and the time and resources necessary cause the Trackers to carefully plan out their incursions into Elysium. The reception former petitioners have to the Trackers is mixed: many of them, especially those from unhappy backgrounds, resent the Trackers for “robbing” them of happiness. Others are grateful to the Trackers and try to go back to their old lives.

Belierin’s Secret​

The third layer of Elysium is perhaps the most isolated and well-defended. The guardinals are on a constant war footing, and the layer’s not accessible to the general public or travelers. Even though it’s far away from the Lower Planes, many demons, devils, and yugoloths continually infiltrate the layer. They’re all searching for something, the specifics of which are unknown to them and the angelic guardians of the layer. Many people theorized that some evil entity or artifact of great power is imprisoned on the layer. Others theorize that the guardinals are building a magical ritual to spread their Plane’s influence across the entire Multiverse.
The fiends aren’t the only folks interested in the guardinal’s secret. Organizations and deities devoted to knowledge, secrets, and information have a vested interest in this layer and often hire adventurers to infiltrate the Plane and report back any unusual activity. Even other good-aligned factions, fearful of the possibility of the Plane’s entrapment spreading, have a stake in the espionage game.
The true nature of Belierin is deliberately left up to the Dungeon Master for the needs of his campaign. Regardless of the choice, it should be something that the guardinals don’t want others to know about and something the fiends are desperate to possess or destroy.


Adventure Hooks for Elysium:
• A famous Paladin got stranded on Eronia through a freak windstorm. He’s now transitioned into a petitioner and lost knowledge of most of his abilities and Paladin powers. An archon from Celestia is currently in Talisid’s Court, arguing for the return of the Paladin. The PCs need the Paladin to help stop a great evil on another plane, and the Guardinals are unwilling to return him. Even if they take him off the plane, they’ll need a Wish or Miracle spell or the help of the Trackers to restore the holy warrior to his former self.
• A Druid successfully grew a type of plant which can hold off the entrapment of Elysium. Grown in the soil of Hades and infused with negative emotions, the flora has the side-effect of causing nearby people to grow bitter and hateful. Many factions are now hunting the Druid and her herbal secrets: the fiends want to use it to spread the cause of Evil, the Elysians want to destroy the plants to maintain the status quo and minimize the damage they’ll cause, and planar merchants want to gain control of the herbal supply and make major inroads on Elysium.
• While in an open town on the layer of Belierin, a strike force of Devils pours through a portal and starts ravaging the town. While searching for the source, the PCs will find a red jewel in the boathouse of a local petitioner. It is an extraplanar scrying beacon in disguise, and the petitioner insists that he had no knowledge of the jewel’s true properties. The guardinals place the town under lockdown until they find out the cause of the problem. The process will take more than a week, and the PCs will become wanted fugitives if they try to escape. If they don’t want to become entrapped by the plane or live on the lam, the PCs will need to solve the mystery and find the spy.

 

[Libertad]

So far, the ideals of Good are:


Arcadia: Morality by social contract, collective action, and punishment/shaming for non-conformity.


Celestia: Morality by self-sacrifice, restorative justice, and proving one's worth to hold responsibilities.


Bytopia: Morality by encouraging innovation and personal drive, allowing individuals to voluntarily form associations with each other.


Elysium: Morality by he elimination of negative emotions and actions and encouraging positive ones, by forced assimilation if necessary.


The Beastlands: Morality by frugality of resources, not overextending oneself or one's resources, and all life working together for mutual benefits.


Arborea: Morality by encouraging individualism, erasing sorrows and encouraging joy and living life to the fullest.


Ysgard: Morality through hardship and obstacles as tests, training to fight Evil, improving upon one's past failures and resolving to do better.


I'm certain that these ideals are different enough to cause arguments, tension, and even conflict among the Upper Planes. However, the Planes don't really fit on a gradual pathway of differences. Arborea is as different from Ysgard as it is from Celestia. I personally don't have a problem with it, but I think that many players associate adjacent and nearby planes as being very similar. In fact, it doesn't really map out well on the alignment axis, especially if one associates Law with collectivism and Chaos with individualism. Elysium's defiance of free will may cause many to associate it strongly with Law. But that's more of a problem with inconsistency in the alignment system itself.

 

[Libertad]

The Beastlands

An Abridged History of the Celestial Wilds​

The Beastlands’ location in the Upper Planes is a subject of great debate. In their former lives, animals, plants, and verminous creatures were morally neutral due to lack of reasoning and higher mental faculties. Barring magical interference, the vast majority of life on Material Plane worlds is non-sapient. So why do almost all animal spirits depart to a good-aligned plane instead of the Outlands?


The truth is that the Beastlands wasn’t always among the Upper Planes. It was originally a part of the Outlands, and Obad-hai directed the spirits to this realm. The Good and Evil deities of nature were unhappy with this plan, arguing that the animal companions linked to their Druids deserved to live on with their allies. Obad-hai could not send morally neutral creatures to the other planes, so he created a compromise. He split the Beastlands into three layers: Krigala, Brux, and Karasuthra. Krigala, the land of day, had portals to the Upper Planes, while Karasuthra, the land of night, had portals to the Lower Planes. The territory would be neutral ground, and no deity would use it as a battleground for their vendettas. All sides agreed that this was satisfactory.


The evil deities eventually grew unsatisfied with this bargain, and sought ways to bypass it. They used their druidic minions and their animal companions to create fiendish creatures to supply both sides of the Blood War in exchange for power and favors. After they had enough fiends indebted to them, the deities schemed to bring the entire Beastlands under their heel. Legions of demonic and diabolic forces poured into Karasuthra, laying waste to all in their path before turning on each other. Ehlonna, Skerrit, and Obad-hai managed to drive back the hordes and destroy the Lower Planes portals, but not before countless lives were lost. Filled with rage, these three deities banished the evil ones and their servants from the Beastlands. Obad-hai split the plane off from the Outlands and placed it within the Upper Planes, both to minimize future acts of retaliation and to reward Ehlonna and Skerrit, the deities who never abused their oath.


Even after countless ages had passed, the layer of Karasuthra is still home to dangerous areas scarred by fiendish magic and hidden traps for unwary explorers. Celestial animals and their angelic allies manage to keep the layer mostly safe, although surprise attacks still manage to overcome them. The numerous hiding places and shadowed regions means that the forces of Good have much work to do.

The Circle of Life​

The Beastlands’ ideal of Good is in line with the more benevolent nature deities: have respect for your surroundings, for even minor actions have an impact on the surrounding life. Do not be wasteful or needless: overhunting, rapid industrialization, and over breeding all lead to increased rates of starvation, pollution, and near-irreversible long-term damage. Another aspect of the ideal is to not reach beyond your limits and recognize your strengths and weaknesses: some animals work better in packs, while others function best while solitary or in small groups.
But the most important aspect of the ideal is the nature of sustenance: living beings consume others in order to live. Many do not wish for death or to bring it upon others, but it is a part of life. The best option is to recognize this fact and be grateful to the spirits of animals and plants who gave their lives to nourish you. Eventually, you too will perish, and your body will provide sustenance to another.


Most petitioners are celestial animals, plants, and vermin capable of higher thinking. Almost every entity in the Beastlands is aware of this ideal to some extent, and as such worked out a mutually beneficial social contract. Petitioners which are old, sick, or weak voluntarily give themselves up for consumption, while it's expected that predators will consume prey. The consumed then merges with the consumer, becoming part of the land as excreted byproduct or forming into the offspring of the consumer. All but the newest petitioners had the opportunity to live as animal and plant, predator and prey, giving a greater understanding of life and empathy for others. Additionally, the Celestial conversion of life to sapience on the plane also diminishes the less pleasant behaviors among the animal kingdom: felines don’t toy with dying rodents; bear fathers don’t try to kill their offspring to induce the female into heat. The higher mental faculties and Good alignment of the animals results in greater respect for the dignity and welfare of others.


This results in a very collectivist society. The system works best in a closed loop: thrill-seeking hunters and industrialists looking to take away life from the Beastlands results in a united front against the invaders. The petitioners have a very good thing going on and they’re not fond of the thought of sitting in a cage in some dank apartment in Pandemonium for several dozen years. The thought of merging with an evil consumer or one departing for a foreign plane is intensely frightening, and the land itself often appears to be working against travelers by withholding food and game.

Merging with Nature​

Despite this xenophobia, many travelers, Sensates seeking a new experience, and druids frequently travel to the plane to merge with nature and derive some deeper understanding of life, the Multiverse, or some other esoteric concept. Merging with the life of the Beastlands has the tendency to grant greater natural awareness to the enterprising pilgrim.


Consuming life on the Beastlands allows the souls of one or more petitioners to enter the consumer’s body. The consumer gains a +2 sacred bonus on Handle Animal and Survival checks as the consumed petitioner imparts knowledge. Additionally, the consumer has a constant speak with animals or speak with plants ability, but only in regards to the creatures he consumed. These benefits last for 8 hours, and can have no more than 3 additional souls in his body.


Being consumed is another affair entirely. If a character dies in the Beastlands and is consumed by the native animal or plant life, his soul merges with the petitioner’s body. The person is considered to be under the effects of Wild Shape, except that it lasts as long as his soul remains within the body, the soul can “speak through” the petitioner’s body, and that he can only have the form of the current petitioner.
If a person remains in this state long enough, he can gain incredible insight into the workings of the life of the Multiverse. If he remains in the Beastlands (either as a petitioner or as part of a petitioner) for a week, he can use Speak With Animals and Speak With Plants three times per day each as spell-like abilities. If he remains for a month, he can use these spell-like abilities at will. If a soul remains in the Beastlands for a year, he gains the Wild Shape ability as a 5th-level Druid (or one additional use of Wild Shape, if he’s already a Druid). A consumed creature regains his original form via a resurrection spell, and he can “hijack” control of a body with an opposed Charisma check (this is usually done when the petitioner and consumed have conflicting goals).


Particularly powerful beings riding along as souls are often called upon by Ehlonna, Obad-hai, or other powerful entities of Nature to do some task or undertake a quest that can only be accomplished with the minds of both men and beast. This is the perfect opportunity to send your PCs on adventures as talking animals for a fun change of pace, or for providing an interesting back-story for an awakened animal PC.


Adventure Hooks for the Beastlands:
• The PCs are entrusted with the task of patrolling a dangerous region of Karasuthra to investigate the disappearance of several petitioners. A gluttonous Hezrou demon is consuming the petitioners in a mad attempt to gain dominion over the layer. He’s located in a hidden fortress full of fiendish survivors and Blood War constructs. If the Hezrou’s stronghold is located, an army of animals will assault the base to give the PCs time to infiltrate its defenses, kill the Hezrou, and free the captured petitioners.
• While searching for ways to vanquish a powerful foe, the PCs are led to the Beastlands. There, they meet several powerful Beasts of Legend. The animals explain the cycle of life of the Beastlands, offering to merge together and use their combined might and tactics to win. While training as part of the beasts, a powerful Blighter assaults the region with a powerful army of undead animals. The PCs must defend the beasts’ home from this new threat, both to prove their worth and effectiveness together and to avoid enslavement at the hands of a powerful evil!
• A powerful magic item the PCs are looking for is located in a marsh-covered region of the layer of Brux. The item is in possession of the Lord of All Alligators, an entity who has no intention of freely parting with his new treasure: it will make him look weak to his servants and other Animal Lords. The PCs must either perform a task for the Lord, trade it for another powerful item, or steal it and risk battling the reptilian forces of his swampy domain.

 

[Libertad]

I just realized that Bytopia is more individualist, yet closer to Law on the Great Wheel, while the Beastlands are more collectivist, yet closer to Chaos. They're both technically Neutral Good, though, so it's not a big problem (unless you group in Law with collectivism and Chaos with individualism).


Some loose ends:

The Pantheon Exemption Clause​

An astute reader of divine pantheons may notice that the ones located on the Celestial planes have members of Neutral or even Evil alignment. This is particularly strange, considering the fact that evil creatures are usually attacked on sight in most Upper Planes. So why the exception?


It has to do with the natures of the deities. The Gods and Goddesses of the pantheons have self-governing territories in many planes. The divinely morphic nature of the planes gives most deities easy access to land and resources to carve out a splendid domain for their followers. It's commonly assumed that the deities of a pantheon police the affairs of their fellows, and the pantheon needs a common meeting ground to discuss matters relating their created people. In most cases, the deities of Good alignment outnumber the Evil ones, and an Upper Plane is chosen as the headquarters through majority rule. In the case of a Good head deity, the decision may be entirely up to the leader of the pantheon.


The phrase "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" is the primary incentive for this arrangement. People located on the same plane have an easier time of scrying upon and communicating with each other through magical means. Sure, having the Dwarven God of Greed in Celestia may put the Archons and other Gods on edge, but they can easily find out what he's up to than if he were located in the Nine Hells. This also grants the advantage by cutting off Lower Planes contact with the Evil deities and forcing them to rely on less convenient means of communication or cooperation with the rest of the pantheon. Some of the Evil deities find this a satisfactory arrangement (less competition in the Upper Planes, a less dangerous region, higher standard of living for worshipers, etc). Sometimes an evil deity may defy this arrangement and cut off all ties with the pantheon and relocate (such as in the case of Urdlen).

The River Oceanus​

There's plenty of underwater civilizations in Oceanus, from Merfolk kingdoms in Elysium to Bronze Dragon coves in Arcadia and Celestia. Planar tradesmen use the River to ply trade, and it's less dangerous than Styx. However, certain planar layers are "cut off" from the river via artificial dams. A good example is Elysium's third layer of Belierin.


The river on Arcadia is oddly artificial, flowing in straight lines and curving at right angles. Harbor towns have regular patrols of inevitables and archons, and inter-planar tariffs on trade discourage all but the most affluent merchants.


The river in Celestia empties out into an ocean surrounding the mountain. The water takes on holy properties, making the plane a prime location for people seeking this valuable water. Celestia allows the water to be taken freely by all, due to its high supply. Many people make a living journeying to Celestia, taking holy water, then selling it at a premium elsewhere. Many celestials disapprove of this practice, and rely upon their free supply and trustworthy nature to encourage people to seek them out instead.


The river in Bytopia goes through the layer of Dothion. The rivers on Shurrock are rapid mountain streams and thus seldom used. The enterprising petitioners often claim ownership of land the river passes through, often charging rates for others to "use" their property. Passage through Bytopia often becomes a puzzling course of avoiding cutthroat tollkeepers and plotting out the cheapest routes.


Oceanus pours through all four layers of Elysium before exiting into the oceans of Thalasia. Trade thrives on the fourth layer, and many devout pilgrims of Pelor travel en masse on ships to visit the Citadel of the Sun. Many people sail between the islands of Thalasia on longboats and sea-going vessels; more than a few ships are capable of submerging beneath the waves with unique magic.


The rivers of the Beastlands appears one of the least-traveled byways of Oceanus, second beneath Ysgard. The place is scarcely traveled, with almost no docks or harbor towns. The fact that the river turns into rapids upon transition to a nearby planar portal does make it a frequent passage for riverboats. In reality, the rivers are highly congested, as many aquatic petitioners use Oceanus as their primary means of maneuvering the plane.


Due to numerous floating islands in Ysgard, the river is more of a massive series of waterfalls. Tradesmen use floating airships as the most common means of travels. The more settled islands often have massive gates at the head of the waterfalls to catch any wayward ships, but most towns cannot afford these structures.

The Beastlands: Strength in Numbers​

The Beastlands is unique among the Upper Planes is that it has more petitioners than all the others combined. They’re literally everywhere; every flower in the field, every ant in the colony has its own soul. The Beastlands contains the souls of every non-sapient animal, plant, and vermin that has ever lived on the Material Plane.


To get a sense of scale, imagine a number of the total number of life forms on your own world. Now imagine the number of humans living today: around six billion. In regards to species of animals, there are over 10 million different kinds still alive (and we didn’t even get to the plants). Now stretch that number you have in your head over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. And imagine that amount all living in one plane, all of them with the Celestial template and a bare minimum Intelligence score of 3.


This is why the laws of consumption exist in the Beastlands: valuable space is saved by having multiple souls share a single body in a kind of hive-mind state. It’s also why Elysium has not made any inroads over assimilating its neighbors: any significant form of aggression would be met with endless waves of animal petitioners crashing over the Guardinals like a stormy sea. Add some Eladrin reinforcements, unicorns, magical beasts, and druids, and you’ve literally got an unconquerable plane.


The management of such a vast number of souls is incredibly taxing, even for the nature deities. This is where the Animal Lords come in. A Lord is responsible for the task of managing the affairs of petitioners of his species. The Lords have geographic boundaries and common residences, although this can vary in the case of animals known to migrate. The style and system of governance is as varied as the forms of government in the Material Plane, ranging from autocratic rulers to “do your own thing” societal minimalism. There are Plant Lords, and even Ooze Lords, but the name “Animal Lord” is most common because they’re the leaders most visitors meet.


Political maneuvering between the Lords is fierce, as the leaders barter, trick, threaten, and ally with each other over territory, food, and power. Lords of more violent species often have to prove their “Alpha” status by fighting off challengers and not appearing weak to their subordinates. Many Lords have much in the ways of magic items and nature magic, and enterprising adventurers can benefit from this by doing quests and tasks on behalf of the Lord’s species.

 

[Libertad]

Limbo

Image designed by MystikAngel of Deviantart.​

No aspect of Dungeons & Dragons is more prone to argument than the alignment system, especially the Law-Chaos axis. Many people have explained it and debated it more than I have, but the personality traits associated with one particular alignment can also be applied to another: Lawful Good characters “speak out against social injustice,” yet Chaotic Good characters “hate it when people try to intimidate others and tell them what to do.” A Chaotic Neutral character can “be free from a society’s restrictions,” while a Lawful Neutral character can be directed by a “personal code” defined by one’s self. Basically the common personality traits of opposing Law-Chaos alignments are not mutually exclusive, meaning that behavior by an individual can be logically argued to be either lawful or chaotic.
If one were to look over the decades of D&D history, Chaotic alignment has been associated with unpredictability, randomness, anarchism, mental instability, social progressivism, and individualism. Since a lot of these things don’t go well together, I’m going to keep the terrain of Limbo mostly the same, yet have the petitioners and Slaadi be Chaotic in the sense of self-autonomy.

Colonization​

Despite the highly morphic and volatile nature of the Plane, a large amount of people are drawn to Limbo to create their own societies. The average person can alter the area’s elemental nature to his own personal whims. Stronger-willed individuals, or those with Planar Replicators, can accomplish greater feats of change. Many enterprising souls rightly view this as an amazing planar trait, full of potential for the creation of worlds. All sorts of people come to Limbo to escape from the flawed societies of other planes to start anew in an isolated environment. Just about any kind of community can be found on Limbo, from sheltered cultist compounds surrounded by a shield of boiling water, to a floating ball of earth inhabited by an order of druids. The Githzerai hold the longest record of continuously inhabited visitors to the plane, and their settlements are both the largest and most prominent. Githzerai cities differ from the isolated monasteries of their more contemplative peers in that they’re highly militarized and ruled by a single authority figure or a council of martial spellcasters known as Gish.


Travel between the habitats is usually accomplished by travel in spherical objects known as “Globes.” Globes are powered by small Planar Replicators and typically made of transparent solid or liquid material. All globes contain all four elements: the typical Globe made for humanoid habitation looks like a circular rock with windows at the piloting seat. It uses air for locomotion and breathing space, fire for heating and self-defense, earth for a solid framework, and water for sanitation and sustenance. Combat between enemy globes is usually accomplished by using the Replicator as a weapon, throwing elemental energy at the enemy Globe to cancel out its elements and disable the vehicle. Pirates and raiders hunker down in remote outposts between major settlements and attack passing vessels this way.

Planar Replicators​

Traditional stabilization and world-building is too slow, dangerous, and limited for all but the smallest of micro-environments. The secret to successful creation on a large scale involves the use of Planar Replicators. Made of rare materials and Raw Chaos found only on Limbo, a Planar Replicator draws upon the elemental traits of multiple nearby sections of Limbo and stores them as energy. The energy can then be altered to another elemental trait or used in the process of matter creation.


Planar Replicators take the shape of small metal rods suspending a glowing ball of multi-colored energy above itself. Neither solid, liquid, or gas, the energy has a unique state of matter analogous to plasma. The Replicator can store only a finite amount of elemental energy, although this limit is dependent upon the caster level of the creator and the amount of resources used to create the item. The possibility of an overload is unlikely except in cases of negligence or abandonment. The Replicator can be altered to only store energy instead of collecting it, and most communities use the continuing energy supply to create and sustain magical auras, food, water, and raw materials. The average Planar Replicator can create enough land and resources for a self-sustaining community of 100 humans, while the largest and most powerful Replicators can provide for nearly a million people.


Since a person can use a Replicator to essentially produce materials with minimum loss in profit, the items are never sold for raw gold pieces or non-magical trade materials in legitimate markets. The black market and Lower Plane bazaars sell them, but only the lower-powered ones and only to travelers who appear totally unprepared to handle Limbo (most of these dealers get rid of used and broken Replicators this way for a quick profit). They’re specially attuned to the energies of Limbo and cannot work on other planes (they can work in a dimensional breach, although their power is significantly reduced).

The Slaadi​

The Slaadi are the oldest known inhabitants of Limbo and the “face” of Chaos. Tales of their societies, capabilities, and behavior are numerous, yet most are full of misconceptions and few people truly understand them. Almost all Slaadi are individualists in the sense of placing the self higher than that of the group, but even this is a broad generalization. Many Slaadi have competing ideas of “freedom” and “individualism,” often resulting in more confusion to outsiders.


Chaotic Neutral Slaadi often live solitary lives. When they deign to be among others of their kind, they gather in groups that are organized in a non-hierarchal, voluntary association. Every Slaad is considered to have autonomy over its own body and soul, and forced coercion of others is viewed as the domain of oppression and Law. It is considered acceptable to use force in the case of self-defense, although the line between “self-defense” and “violating another’s freedom” is quite blurry and arbitrary even to the Slaadi. Additionally, the individual power of a Slaadi is not seen as a privilege; a green Slaad may be capable of out-thinking and out-fighting a red Slaad, but this does not give it the “right” to enslave and oppress weaker Slaadi. Such Slaadi are also opposed to the use of imposing mind-affecting magic on the unwilling; to them it’s one of the worst violations of individual autonomy.


Chaotic Evil Slaadi follow a mindset closest to that of Egoist Anarchism. Basically, such a Slaad believes that it has the right to live out its own existence as it wishes, with no regard to the rights or dignity of others, Slaadi and non-Slaadi alike. They care only for their own freedoms and nobody else’s. These Slaadi are far more likely to be solitary and the more powerful among their kind; weaker Slaadi of this mentality usually get destroyed by more powerful ones or live a life of banditry, attacking those too weak to defend themselves.


Chaotic Good Slaadi share much in common with their Neutral counterparts, except that they are more proactive in extraplanar affairs and take a “threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” mentality. They spend the most time off-plane, railing against the soul trade of Lower Planes fiends and the forced assimilation policies of Elysium. These Slaadi believe that no law, organization, or individual has the right to deprive others of freedom, the pursuit of happiness, or dignity. To them, the “right” to own and abuse slaves or bully others into obedience is no right at all. They also continuously engage in battle against the Chaotic Evil Slaadi as both groups’ ideologies are at extreme ends.

Ssendam and Ygorl​

The term “Slaad Lord” is a misnomer in that the Slaadi do not have a proper societal hierarchy and are not beholden to any member of their species beyond “hey, let’s work together for a short while.” Since most visitors associate power with authority, and Ssendam and Ygorl are the two most powerful known Slaadi, they became known on the other Planes as the “Lords of Slaadi.”


Ssendam doesn’t really much care for the affairs of his people beyond how it personally affects him, but Ygorl’s a bully who views all other Slaadi as pawns to be used for his own leisure. This has led Ygorl to have a more prominent presence on other planes and in the affairs of others, even coming into conflict with other Slaadi. He was the one who altered the Spawning Stone and put limits on the mutability of his own race. He hoped that no Slaadi can eclipse his power through accident of birth so that he remains among the strongest.


This action earned Ygorl a lot of enemies who want to see him dead or stripped of all influence. Many Slaadi have even accused him of being a Slaad in name only, an agent of Law sent to bring destruction to Limbo. But Ygorl didn’t get to where he was by being stupid; he’s got a lot of favors and magical protection, and his citadel’s full of traps, planar bound entities, controlled undead, and contingency spells for all manner of doomsday scenarios. Adventurers who go against him can expect to contend with Slaadi promised power by Ygorl, minions of a demonic prince who owes him favors, and sympathetic Xaositects (Chaotic Planescape faction).

Slaadi Alternative: Ascension​

Favored petitioners, Clerics of Chaotic deities, and people who've championed the principles of freedom and individuality are granted the opportunity to become a Slaad. The Slaad implants a circular object into the host; it's not an "egg" in the biological sense, but a fragment of the Slaadi's form and a powerful receptacle for Chaos. If the host stays on Limbo or exposed to Chaos for a long enough period of time, he'll change into a Slaadi. The process slows down slightly on mildly-Chaotic Planes, a significant amount on Neutral-aligned Planes, and stops on Lawfully-aligned Planes. Secondary exposure to Chaos via something other than planar energy is possible, although the process is as slow as it is on a mildly-Chaotic Plane.


This makes the creation process a cause for celebration among the Slaadi. The "parent," along with friendly Slaadi, hosts a festival for the newest member of their race. The Slaadi use their their powers to manipulate the energy of Limbo and create stunning spectacles of elemental artwork. A flaming geyser of fire which transforms into a sea of liquid bubbles; a glittering transparent rock with pockets of air containing miniature forests; all of these represent the raw beauty of Chaos and help new Slaadi understand the nature of the Plane.


Adventure Hooks in Limbo:
• A monk, spellcaster, or martial adept character has to undergo a trial on the plane of Limbo in order to attain a higher state of being/master a magical discipline/progress among the Sublime Way. They must seek out the Monastery of Zerth’Ad’Iun and enter into a strict training regimen under the head Sensei. They will be exposed to the elements of the plane, tasked with creating life out of controlling the planar essence, and through ritualized combat against superior opponents. Is your PC ready for the Training Regimen from Hell?
• The PCs need to deliver a new Planar Replicator to a settlement before the ball of earth collapses under an elemental onslaught. A raiding party of evil Slaadi assault the habitat, intent on destroying both Replicators. The PCs must drive them off or kill the Slaadi, otherwise they’ll be stranded on a crumbling rock and exposed to the churning chaos of the plane.
• Ygorl has gone too far; his latest necromantic experiment involved the imprisonment of an entire community of Slaadi souls, and he’s building a portal to the Negative Energy Plane to overflow Limbo! If he’s not stopped, countless more Slaadi, petitioners, and colonists will turn into undead creations under his control. The PCs must break into his citadel and destroy the portal before it’s too late!