Plane of Shadow -- does anyone use it?

[Glyfair]

I borrowed the general shadow plane concept from Birthright for my homebrew campaign. I was focusing a lot of the plot line on it, when I folded it.

The early "meta-plot" for the campaign was that the non-human races had withdrawn after a large war. I gradually was introducing players to where they were hidden, with the plan being for events to gradually draw them out of seclusion.

The halflings had withdrawn to the shadow plane, since that's where they originated (the origin of the term halflings, ala Birthright). The players stumbled on a portal their and had started interacting with a halfling that followed them back searching for a lost Tome.

If I had continued further, it would likely have played a bigger role since halflings had the innate ability to travel there (in the right conditions).

 

[jester47]

I plan on using the wilderlands concept of axeing the ethereal in favor of the shadow.

Before I even read the wilderlands CS I never liked the ethereal.

The way I would do it now: plane of shadow and the ethereal are the same place. Its where ghosts live and where you are when you are ethereal. But shades and shadows live there too. In essence ethereal is a descriptor of the shadow because the things on the plane appear to be made of lesser stuff on the prime. Ethereal jaunt is another way of travelling through shadow...

The astral is simply outer space IMCs. Its where the Githyanki and Mindflayers live. The spells still work the same way, no need to change the astral protection and the silver cord stuff. Just everything is not 2D.

 

[Psion]

Toss the Shadow template on some monster, describe it as scary and strange, and you're good to go.

After watching Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, I have a new image of shadow creatures. I dig the visual effect where they sort of coalesce from clouds of darkness.

 

[Evilhalfling]

I use the shadow plane extensivley IMC.
My cosmology uses the Plane of shadows and the Plane of Dreams (mostly etheral) as transitive planes.
the Plane of shadow as a specific place in my cosmology:
[sblock] the mortal world was split into two worlds, one with magic and one without. The world with magic had no sun and was the home of monsters, demi-humans and humanoids. After a thousand years of seperation the magical world begain to decay, and the residents returned to the humans world. The shadow world is only a vestige of the mortal world now, where spirits of the dead linger and the Shadar-kai (those elves left behind). This return ravaged human culture and left most of it destroyed. [/sblock]

The first adventure I ran thier emphised the spirits of people who died when they were between two states, in this uncertainty thier shades linger on trapped in the shadow realm. 1. Floating shadow fetus, 2. pack of preteens running wild in the streets (shadow stats) one of whom was befriended by the party thief, and eventually became his shadowdancer companion. 3. wedding couple, forever dancing (I think I used stats a cloakers ) but the party avoided them.
4. A older married couple who welcomed them into thier home, as returning childeren but would not let them leave.

On other journies they encounterd the paranoid and reclusive Shadar-Kai, the Shadow of a a crown prince (greater shadow) and confronted a BBEG known as the six fingered man (priness bride ref, he had 10 fingers) who was soul-locked (could only be killed by the fathers sword)

At the moment a PC elven druid is trying to figure out how to raise trees from a land without sun in the mortal world (this will end badly if she continues) They have several allies left among the Shadar-Kai and know of the Grandmaster of Shadowdancers and a Big Shadow dragon, but have had nomore than a brush with either of them.

They have also heard of a elven wizard who cut off his own shadow and infused it with demonic energy, so that it could act as his advisor. Eventually they turned on each other, and only one survived, but in a weakened shadowy contition. This creature is said to have been contracted to come to the mortal plane to interrupt a wedding (see sig).
Its an advaned Shadow demon from BoVD.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Toss the Shadow template on some monster, describe it as scary and strange, and you're good to go.

I like that template, actually But it's still a random encounter, not a planned one.

 

[Wraith Form]

Bump. Bump? Bump!

 

[Nifft]

IMC, Conjuration uses the Astral plane (teleport and the like), while Illusion uses the Shadow plane (shadow walk), and Necromancy uses the Ethereal.


Dead souls go into the Ether. The Hateful Unborn Void comes from Shadow. The Far Realms wait just beyond the Astral.


Ether is short-distance travel only (within one world), or astral projection (which is really Ethereal, but don't tell anyone). Petrified dead gods? Pure Ether.

Plane shift requires that you actually be going to a different plane -- no prime-to-prime travel.

Travel between Prime worlds (Earth, Barsoom, Perlandria, Kithark, etc.) can be most easily accomplished by shadow walk.


So:
- Safe travel at high levels = Necromancy = Ethereal
- Easy access to Primes and Inner planes = Illusion = Shadow
- Most general travel = Conjuration = Astral


-- N

 

[Jurble]

I am building my campaign world and giving my own slant to the plane of shadows in it.

In my world the plane is the "shadow" mirror of the normal plane, but a long time ago a being was pushed into it by a great magical event after being completed saturated with negative energy. He then turned the shadow people (our shadow selves) into vampires, creating the start of the vampire race.

Hence after hundreds of years the entire shadow plane is a huge vampire kingdom and after attempting a huge assault on the normal plane, it was shut (by heros and ancient dragons, helped by the gods) so that vampires cannot cross anymore. So now on the material plane, vampires are a small minority sometimes workingin the shadows like vampire the masquerade, sometimes as parasitic creatures and sometimes like liches, but they are quite rare, while their kin are trapped on the shadow plane unable to cross into our plane.

At least thats my idea to use the shadow plane

M

 

[fusangite]

I created a campaign with a modified Nahua (Aztec) cosmology. Needless to say, the Plane of Shadow was incredibly important. There ended up being two planes coterminous with the Prime Material: Shadow and Spirit. The Astral, Ethereal, elemental and outer planes were basically junked. My planar scheme looked something like this:

1. Walled Garden
2. Tree of Beulah
3. Tree of Generation
4. Female Skeleton
5. Stars
6. Sun
7. Moon
8. Sky World
9. Earth/Shadow/Spirit worlds
10. Male Skeleton
11. Obsidian Mountains
12. Wild Beasts
13. Silent Place

As you can see, there are some inspirations from outside standard Nahua thought. But the game worked pretty well.

Shadow was a power pretty consistently used by the bad guys; one could reach the plane of spirit through spells or through highly skilled dreaming.

Within the main world, the four cardinal directions were very important with different deities taking different Tezcatlipoca (Red, Black, Blue, White) roles depending on the progression through a 6-age system:

Direction Animal-Winter Animal-Type Animal-Ideal Letter Age Power Colour
1 West Wolf Canine Wolf K Ice Ice White
2 South Mammoth Elephantine Elephant N Wood ? Green
3 Up N/a Serpentine Dragon V Breath/Smoke ? Yellow
4 North Snowy Owl Avian Eagle Sh Cloud Thunder Grey
5 Down N/a Marine mammal Whale P Water Water Blue
6 East Polar Bear Ursine Grizzly Bear G Blood ? Red

Anyway, not to stray too far from topic, all I meant to say is that when you junk the Great Wheel system and develop something that really fits your campaign, the Plane of Shadow can be a blast.

 

[godawful]

Plane of Shadow...

In my D&D experience so far, I just haven't seen the Plane of Shadow used very often -- when it has been used, it's just a few random encounters due to a shadow walk spell or similar.

Does anyone use the Plane of Shadow extensively in their games? What stuff did you focus on?

i got great ideas for using the plane of shadow from playing SOULREAVER 2 for playstation2. that game is just freekin awesome. Raziel (if i remember his name correctly) had to solve puzzles in 2 realities. in the description for the plane of shadow, there is a reference to how it looks like our plane, just... twisted or different kinda.

Raziel has to, let's say, enter an ancient crypt where he knows he needs to continue but there is no exit. so you planeshift him into the shadow realm and a door or stairway that isn't there in the prime material plane becomes obvious. along with a few nasty things to kill. then you go through that for a while, until you hit a new dead end, and try swapping back to the prime and see if there's anything different.

plus, towns are different. some structures will be there, some won't. some will exist in the shadow realm which don't exist normally. same with persons/creatures.

just to keep it interesting, give the party a limited use item where they really have to think to know if they are in the spot needed to shift according to the clues they have found.

or force the shift when they enter a room or some baddie does it to them to be mean.

anyway, not sure if i was some amazing help, but i have used it, and i liked it a lot.