[Creative Exercise] Worlds in a word, planes in a paragraph

awayfarer

First Post
The House of Pitch:
Information about this plane is sketchy at best. There is no natural light and light sources brought from off-world simply die. The one known inhabitant is the Grey Lady, a woman holding some kind of everburning candle that glows with an eery blue light. Reports suggest that the plane is really a house hundreds of miles wide, but no one knows for sure, as those who step out of the light of the Grey Lady's candle, very rarely return.

The Para-Elemental Plane of Blood:
Sort of a holy grail of vampires. It has been suggested by some that at least one ancient vamp has managted to create a Decanter of Endless Water... only with a link to this plane rather than the elemental plane of water. Icky, but if the plane were confirmed to exist, could help vamps stop that nasty habit of biting.

The Plane of Scribing:
All writing throughout the multiverse can be found on this freakishly large plane. Every surface has words written upon it. Animated pens continue to scratch away at the walls, adding to it's surface each and every second. If it said that if a book is destroyed it's contents will still remain here, finding them though....
 

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Dark Seraph

First Post
ARTHYSIEN: This plane / world is a living entity. Vein and artery like tunnels course beneath the surface in a complex network carrying arcane energies which may be harnessed by certain intelligent races that thrive here, but only with extreme caution and proficiency. The atmosphere is made up of the gases exhaled and inhaled by this entity and its skin is the earth upon which all living matter and beings thrive upon, most ignorant of the true nature of the world they live upon. Druids are the guardians of this secret, harnessing these ley lines to do their work and serve as the shepards of sentient life form.

DS.
 

Yearle- world of black magic
Yearle is a world defined by its dysfunctional deities, and the high quality of life provided by its ubiquitous use of black magic. On Yearle, powerful magical devices are ubiquitous, but they are dependent on the blood of sapient beings to function. Magical beasts are sacrificed in tremendous quantities to power the world's devices, and their blood pumped into special taps in every building in the civilized world. Yearle's two main deities are Mother Whiptail, the reptilian earth goddess, and Pater Nosferat, the vampire god whose rising brings the winter. In ancient times these deities were a couple and the seasons were mild, but they broke up in an epic fight that knocked the planet off its axis, and condemned Pater Nosferat to feed on the world's life-energy, and be destroyed every spring by the returning light of the sun; in spring his followers haul his coffin through the underworld to his palace on the opposite pole.

The Dream Fortress
An enormous fortress on the plane of dreams built following dream logic. It is entirely larger than it needs to be and its layout is mazelike, nonsensical, and inconsistent. Many rooms are distorted versions of locations from the "real" game world. There are many unnecessary rooms, and also many rooms that are 'off' in some way, such as an armory for swordsmen that contains only bows, or a guard post that is also a busy restaurant, or a person's sleeping quarters with a finished basement that does not otherwise connect to the rest of the building.

Dictatoria
An isolated dieselpunk Ravenloft domain styled after early 20th century dystopian literature and early 20th century dictatorships. A city-state whose paranoid leader relentlessly monitors, censors, oppresses, and disappears the populace, searching for a rebels and spies. The land is ringed with walls, trenches, sandbags, and barbed wire, but it's external enemies, whom the country eternally wars against, don't seem to actually exist. When the leader's paranoia flares up, bombs and mortars rain onto the outskirts of the domain, hitting anyone trying to cross the border with high accuracy, but careful investigation will reveal that the bombs apparently originate from nowhere (supernatural border closure).

Dystopialis
A modern Ravenloft domain. A representative democracy with frequent elections, but a very poor choice of candidates. The elections there are always tight races between the No Smiling Party (whose platform involves executing anybody {other than party elite} who does not live a life of self-denial and military discipline), and the No Frowning Party (whose platform involves forcibly euthanizing anyone {other than party elite} who seems unhappy or unfriendly). The occupant of their government's highest office appears to change, but is in fact always held by the domain's darklord, who has a split personality

Thalassonoma
Thalassonoma is a planet plagued by sea-level rise resulting from the overuse of waterwheels powered by decanters of endless water. Now the entire surface is flooded, but since it's already flooded anyway they still use the waterwheels, which are now on floats (as is everything else that's left)

The Problematic Prism
This abyssal realm is full of huge shiny crystals. Many of the crystals have prismatic spray spells trapped inside them, which are released if the crystal is damaged. All spells that fire rays or manipulate light and color have a chance to be diverted off target from where they were meant to go. The layer is inhabited by incorporeal energy beings made of light.


The Sandstorm Plains
In this desert land it rains sand instead of water. The fall of new sand is slow but constant, and makes long-term settlements impossible, as any structures would quickly be buried by the sand. Anyone there needs to keep moving or be buried.

Drankalotaliikaa
The island of Drankalotaliikaa is not a geological formation, but rather a god who got drunk and passed out in the ocean. There is a volcano at one end of the island whose eruptions are the god vomiting. When this happens the priests of Drankalotaliikaa must journey to the volcano and throw in hangover cures.

The Hall of Broken Mirrors
The Hall of Broken Mirrors is an abyssal layer which takes the form of an enormous mirror maze whose mirrors are all cracked. Looking at one's reflection in the cracked mirrors inflicts lacerations matching the pattern of that mirror's cracks. The entire layer emits an aura of bad luck, making actions more likely to fail, and making freak accidents and unfortunate coincidences more likely to occur. The Hall of Broken Mirrors is the haunt of several demon lords presiding over misfortune, including Korath the Thirteenth Son, and Lobolotodon the Bone Breaker

Carcinopolis
Carcinopolis is a party town located in one of the less severe areas of the negative energy plane. It is dedicated to all the things that normally would cause obesity or cancer. The natural wasting and slow healing in negative energy plane cancels these things out.

Helion Cryptum
Helion Cryptum is a system whose sun god has been usurped by a god of the undead. Now its sun sheds a grey light that empowers the undead rather than repelling them. The sun itself is inhabited by a race of reverse vampires who draw power from its light and live beneath its surface.

Planets At War
Abyssal layer #7716 is a starsystem consisting of a black hole orbited by a small star as well as several planets and dwarf planets. The planets, which exhibit some level of control over their orbits, are sentient and all hate each other and endevor to smash each other into slag or knock each other into the black hole or the the sun. This, naturally, is bad for both planets' inhabitants (who also all hate each other), and also contributes to both the sun and the black hole periodically disgorging hordes of incorporeal undead. The system never runs out of planets because new planets occasionally appear through various odd means such as binary fission, being spat out of the sun, and spontaneous pair production.

The Fiendish Forum
Abyssal layer 41315 is a fractally repeating Roman forum. There the demons debate philosophy with each other using the various roman style weapons strewn around. Occasionally the forum is punctuated by some other type of town square and this area will often have appropriately different weapons available.

The Forest of Weapon Trees
The 896th layer of the abyss is an endless forest where all sorts of weapons grow on trees and vines. Mostly of these are edged or piercing weapons that sprout new weapon trees with disturbing speed when left in the corpses of their victims, but there are also blunt weapons and even grenade fruits that explode when thrown, dispersing their seeds.
 
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The Mists Hotel
A small ravenloft domain. Takes the form of a seaside hotel built on stilts (as many buildings near water are) and shrouded in fog. When the borders are closed the fog thickens and the distance to the ground, which is usually about 10 feet, becomes infinite. One could descend the stairs or even jump off them and never reach the beach below (at least not until the border is reopened). The fog does not thicken sufficiently to bring a traveler into the inter-domain mists however. The darklord of the domain is the hotel itself, which is sentient and sadistic like the Overlook from The Shining
 

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator
Staff member
Supporter
That’s kinda fresh! Do you have any ideas how the hut’s evil would manifest? I mean, The Shining is awesome, but I’m struggling with how you’d make it work in an RPG adventure other than a 1-shot.
 

Nellisir

Hero
The Mists Hotel
A small ravenloft domain. Takes the form of a seaside hotel built on stilts (as many buildings near water are) and shrouded in fog. When the borders are closed the fog thickens and the distance to the ground, which is usually about 10 feet, becomes infinite. One could descend the stairs or even jump off them and never reach the beach below (at least not until the border is reopened). The fog does not thicken sufficiently to bring a traveler into the inter-domain mists however. The darklord of the domain is the hotel itself, which is sentient and sadistic like the Overlook from The Shining
Excellent/cool! I picture it on a cliff or bluff overlooking the beach, though, with switchback stairs descending down. When the borders are closed the stairs simply bring you back to the hotel.
 


That’s kinda fresh! Do you have any ideas how the hut’s evil would manifest? I mean, The Shining is awesome, but I’m struggling with how you’d make it work in an RPG adventure other than a 1-shot.

As an inn, it could easily be a one shot in a larger campaign it could be encountered on the way from one place to another when the party are in need of rest.


anyway, on a different note

Hell Upside Down

Abyssal layer 7734 is hell upside down. Specifically it is a duplicate of the infernal city of Dis built upside down and inhabited by demons rather than devils. Instead of being built up from the ground, the towers and skyscrapers hang down from the layer's vast rocky ceiling over a bottomless pit and anything dropped out of a window or door will fall forever into the void. The only way to safely cross from one building to another is to jump, fly, or to tunnel into the ceiling.
 


Cyan Wisp

Explorer
What a great read! Well done, folks. This unbridled imagination is why I love D&D and, in particular, Planescape, so much. I have to say, though, there is a dark quality to most of these! Nothing wrong with that, by the way, I love me some Grim. I'm going to attempt some lighter, marshmallowier planes. I would have thought of cool names, but I loved the idea of “Wall”, so…


Stars: In an octarine void, bathed in a marinade of gentle melodies and soaring alien symphonies, float the Stars – two-dimensional pentacles of light, some ridden by wide-eyed spectrum-washed beings agape with ecstasy. The mere touch of a pentacle surpasses all mortal joy, and when the stars align, in pulsing spherical megastructures, the riders experience fractal eternities of bliss in every passing second, too much to contain in serenity. Their voices, like screams of pain, are visible, phosphorescent exhalations of nirvana.

Cerebrum: A literal brain of who-knows-what, with neurons the size of cities joined by periodic lightning bridges. Crossing from one to another requires riding the lightning bridges on rubber dinghies. Travellers experience inspiration and unfurled secrets every time they cross new bridges, and some have been tracing the pathways for millennia, gathering unparalleled knowledge, though the thirst for more keeps them from ever escaping this wonder and putting it to any practical use. Bards, warlocks and wizards are particularly drawn to Cerebrum.

Union: A tumultuous, yet beautiful earth-like realm in which the native inhabitants, and any visitors, are not limited to their own space. By mutual consent, beings merge and share, comfort and support, becoming nurturing conglomerates; some ultra-benign communities inhabit the volume of a single body, but are thousands strong mentally and spiritually. Loners are rare and the thought of their isolation can bring the Merged to tears. The collective wisdom of these merged beings is sometimes sought by outsiders.
 

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