D&D General the elemental planes are trash

[Marandahir]

I like to use the Elemental Chaos and make it a sort of "Quantum Realm" microscale chaotic building blocks of reality, to contrast with Wildspace and the Astral Sea as the macroscale what happens as you scale up.

The idea of an Elemental Chaos Echo is interesting, though. I'd probably also include Mechanus as an Echo in that case.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Think of the Elemental planes as metaphysically being a sphere with Fire-Earth-Water-Air, so Earth and Air and Fire and Water are on opposing sides. Where each plane meets, you get a mix of the two elements in a para plane. Fire+Earth= Magma, Earth + Water =Ooze, Water + Air = Ice and Air + Fire = Smoke.

The Elemental Planes are based on the idea from many myths that the multiverse is built on the four classic elements. And the pure form of each element exists somewhere.

While some of them are very extreme places to visit, the rest just fall under 'hard'. But mostly they are no harder then anything on a normal game world. Though you will need some magic in most of them....but you would need magic to go underwater in a game world too.

And they can be great alien places to explore and adventure.

my point is the mixtures are wrong, try heating or burning air, smoke is not a common byproduct as smoke is from burning things like wood or other organic detritus.
ooze is nothing, mud is literal water mixed with literal soil but the plane of earth is more rock than soil and the plane of a damn rock is too dumb even for me.

I know what the elemental planes are based on my point is they are dull in use and dull in inhabitants and plot lines.
they are also built wrong as the plane of earth is the root version of every mineral in the prime material or the secondary materials( is there a tertiary material?) thus it is both material and embodiment of a metaphorical principle.

I don't think the elemental planes were ever anything but an attempt to justify where summoned creatures come from. All they really are are the sources of materials for the worlds that creator deities make. They are useful if you arent' going with science based worlds. go deep enough into the earth and you end up in the elemental plane of earth, fly high enough and you end up in the elemental plane of air, follow the biggest rivers on your world to thier source and you'll swim into the elemental plane of water. I mostly ignore the para-elemental planes and silly but if you like the whole creative destruction thing it's where the elements clash and their melding creates other things. I prefer to think of electricity as air and ice as water etc.

water would be acid damage as ice is defined by being cold not a particular material hence the stuff known as dry ice.

ait in 5e would be thunder damage or sonic in past editions it is the movement of energy in air, lighting is far too hot hence is past elemental systems the fusion of hot dry known as fire and the fusion of hot wet air would have to be something rather impressive and lighting is damn hot but also seen as sky fire or the gods fire making it something more separate

I see that it is just the plane of summon but that seems like a waste when they could have more influence more interesting being and be more important to certain settings it could be more

 

[Marandahir]

View attachment 369928

You can freely adventure here. They are not innately hostile like the 2e Elemental Planes. It's only if you go beyond the borders of this map that they become too hostile to survive.

What this Map doesn't show is that underneath the Material Plane and its Echoes is the Elemental Chaos, a churning maelstrom of all the elements combining, from which the Material Plane and its Echoes are forged out of the chaotic admixture.

 

[overgeeked]

What this Map doesn't show is that underneath the Material Plane and its Echoes is the Elemental Chaos, a churning maelstrom of all the elements combining, from which the Material Plane and its Echoes are forged out of the chaotic admixture.

Different cosmologies.

I think you’re thinking of this image.

 

[Tonguez]

Maybe elementals are native inhabitants of the Material Plane and their domains can be found just by exploring in a volcanic crater or a vast desert or a storm swept coastline?

 

[Marandahir]

Different cosmologies.

I think you’re thinking of this image.

View attachment 369930

No, though I love that image (big proponent of 4e Cosmology). I'm not talking about the image. I'm saying that in 5e, the Elemental Chaos is described as the place where the 4 Inner Planes meet. If the further you go out, the more hostile and monoelemental the Inner Planes get, the closer to the center the more churned up they should get, until you're in the Chaos itself.

 

[overgeeked]

Maybe elementals are native inhabitants of the Material Plane and their domains can be found just my exploring in a volcanic crater or a vast desert or a storm swept coastline?

Besides 4E's World Axis, I really love the Otherworld idea. Everything is easily accessible and just here, basically. There's naught but a thin veil separating the material world from the beyond. Step into a fairy ring and you're in the realm of the fairies. Go into the right cave and you're in hell. Sail to the right island and you're in heaven.

 

[Marandahir]

Besides 4E's World Axis, I really love the Otherworld idea. Everything is easily accessible and just here, basically. There's naught but a thin veil separating the material world from the beyond. Step into a fairy ring and you're in the realm of the fairies. Go into the right cave and you're in hell. Sail to the right island and you're in heaven.

I've used this too – where Faerieland and Shadowfell and the Inner Planes and Hell and Heaven and the Ethereal Mists and the Astral Sea are all a single echo world you can "fall" into with different Powers associated with them.

In the real world, many cultures consider the line between Faeries and Ghosts and Gods and Demons very thin if at all.

 

[overgeeked]

I've used this too – where Faerieland and Shadowfell and the Inner Planes and Hell and Heaven and the Ethereal Mists and the Astral Sea are all a single echo world you can "fall" into with different Powers associated with them.

In the real world, many cultures consider the line between Faeries and Ghosts and Gods and Demons very thin if at all.

Exactly. For me, paradoxically, it makes things feel both more grounded and real (because it's closer to how many real-world cultures view things) and also makes it more magical and unknowable (because it's not defined perfectly on a map with set lore).

On a moonless night, if you wish hard enough and go to the right spot, you just might find what you're looking for. Go back the next morning with a clear head and it's gone. Just like so many myths and fairy tales.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I may agree they aren't "playable", at least for low level PCs. I can't imagine the infinite ocean without sunlight for the algae. And what is the underwater pressure?

My idea is the "elemental realms" are astral domains by the element deities. Then the "fire" realm was infernal zones conquered and "purified" by some fire deities, for example.

I miss paraelementals and quasielementals like monster to be summoned by the PCs.

If there is a elemental wood plane, where would be the sunlight from?

And the genies are too forgotten, when they could be as interesting "faction" like the giants.

Planescape - Primalshard: other "echo" plane.

(Metal foam). Stormhive. If an Eden was created by the deities of sentient vernims. Although civilitations of sentient arthropod (insects and arachnids) are known these are really rare, but there is a place they could call their home. Its ecosystem is really unique because instead a solar...

www.enworld.org