Planescape Help with Planescape minutia

[jabelincoln]

Hey all,

So I'm planning on running my first 5e game, and I'll be going back to my favorite setting of Planescape. The first part of the game will end up focusing heavily on a conflict between Baator and Mount Celestia, the player's will end up spending significant amounts of time in the latter.

So here's the rub: I need good ways for my player's to more easily be able to access the layers above Lunia, the first layer. I like the original flavor that all gates and portals end only on the first layer and a berk's gotta think and scrape himself into a better man to ascend bit by bit, that's integral to how the plane functions. However, I don't want my players to necessarily have to follow that rule, I'm just looking for some semi-believable suggestions.

It's not unprecedented. The books talk about large scale devil armies somehow climbing up the mountain and modron marches crashing through the 5th (iirc) layer. I just need something that ties it all together, preferably without having to have a major power notice the characters too early into their careers, I want them to earn that.

Cheers.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Hey all,

So I'm planning on running my first 5e game, and I'll be going back to my favorite setting of Planescape. The first part of the game will end up focusing heavily on a conflict between Baator and Mount Celestia, the player's will end up spending significant amounts of time in the latter.

So here's the rub: I need good ways for my player's to more easily be able to access the layers above Lunia, the first layer. I like the original flavor that all gates and portals end only on the first layer and a berk's gotta think and scrape himself into a better man to ascend bit by bit, that's integral to how the plane functions. However, I don't want my players to necessarily have to follow that rule, I'm just looking for some semi-believable suggestions.

It's not unprecedented. The books talk about large scale devil armies somehow climbing up the mountain and modron marches crashing through the 5th (iirc) layer. I just need something that ties it all together, preferably without having to have a major power notice the characters too early into their careers, I want them to earn that.

Cheers.

One of the themes of PS is that good is not always good, and evil is not always evil. So what about an angel who sympathizes with the PC's opening up a portal for them? It's not that all portals end only on the first layer, it's just that the ones that don't are heavily guarded by celestials, who aren't keen to let just anyone abscond up the slopes, but one of the celestials in control of a few of the gates is not necessarily above corruption, or can see some wisdom in the approach...or who has something to hide the PC's threaten to expose, or who actually doesn't believe in the purity culture of Celestial at large...lets them up?

If you want to keep the "no portals" thing, one option might be to have the party somehow get steeds that perform altruistic acts, and who allow the party to ascend up the slopes on their back. Any manner of LG beast-things (Shedu!) might work, or you might have an awakened animal or even just a troupe of really loyal and good servants who carry the party around on a sedan chair while doing good themselves to get where they're going.

Another "shortcut": maybe the party can gain temporary access to the higher realms without necessarily having to walk the whole path. Maybe even say it is something they give up: if they take this shortcut and witness this glory, Celestia will ban their dead soul from ever attaining this high mount. Might be something non-LG characters are like "whatever, fine, lets do it" and LG characters being "uuuuuhhh....."

Inspiration from fiction: get a guide. What let Dante ascend to heaven was his love for Beatrice, maybe what gets your party to ascend to Celestia is their love of something pure as well. It would need to be dead...already present in Celestia...but they could get a momentary meeting with this creature, if they follow certain strict rules.

 

[Remathilis]

It's not unprecedented. The books talk about large scale devil armies somehow climbing up the mountain and modron marches crashing through the 5th (iirc) layer. I just need something that ties it all together, preferably without having to have a major power notice the characters too early into their careers, I want them to earn that.

If I recall my PS lore, Bahamut's palace is on the second and third layers and many a canny planeswalker has used it as a shortcut (since Bahamut doesn't seem to care unless you're Capital E Evil). So a group could use that to get to third layer without ever having met Big B.

 

[jabelincoln]

Thanks! I especially liked the idea about a guide, and then that got me thinking about how well a secretly corrupt angel would work for this story, and then that got me thinking about . . . Any way, you see where this is going. 'Preciate everything.


Cheers