D&D General Favourite Outer Plane?

[Yaarel]

When traveling the Astral Sea, I view the alignment planes to be floating islands reachable by a spelljammer. The respective islands look moreorless like the following following map, drifting within the nebulous mists. Because an island is larger on the inside than it is on the outside, there is often a spacial distortion when approaching it. For example, in the Outlands, if trying to approach Sigil directly, the direction skews veering either toward the base of the spire or away from the island. Similarly, in Mount Celestia it is impossible to reach the upper terraces directly. While only some access points are reachable by a spelljammer, one can from a distance still get a visual impression of what an alignment plane is about, including a suggestion of the many separate dominions that together comprise an alignment plane. There can also be exclave dominions floating separately elsewhere but still part of the Astral concept of alignment. The dominions that share an alignment interconnect via whirlpools, and some whirlpools port to locals of neighboring alignmens.

 

[Epic Meepo]

Ok, that's fair. My question was more about adventures in Mt Celestia rather than LG adventures generally, in my mind the presence of Paladins already primed for smiting bad guys keeps PCs a bit sidelined.

If you want an adventure hook that involves a specific feature of Mount Celestia, place something the PCs must retrieve on one of the higher layers of the plane. One can only reach a higher layer by traveling through all lower layers in sequence, and each passage between layers requires a traveler to complete a task related to a chosen path of enlightenment (which might involve going on a pilgrimage, completing a vigil, learning a piece of information, etc).

Resident paladins can easily keep the PCs on Mount Celestia safe from evil creatures and other external threats, but the paladins can't directly help the PCs reach higher layers of the plane. If the PCs need to ascend planar layers to achieve their goals, at least one of them will need to complete a certain task on their own merits for each layer ascended.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I do think your critique of Elysium is spot-on. It's just not that visually distinct. (Despite that, I'm fond of the way travel works on that plane: as long as you have no interest in performing good deeds, you never reach your destination. It's the most humane defense mechanism of any Upper Plane. An army of demons could invade, and they'd just get lost in the wilderness for the rest of eternity.)

You do have to wonder if that mechanism works in reverse for particularly evil creatures like demons - the more evil they do, the further they get from their destination. Eventually, after wrecking a bunch of trees and killing whatever creatures they find in that forest, they end up so far from their destination they get dumped into the Outlands or something...

 

[SkidAce]

When traveling the Astral Sea, I view the alignment planes to be floating islands reachable by a spelljammer. The respective islands look moreorless like the following following map, drifting within the nebulous mists. Because an island is larger on the inside than it is on the outside, there is often a spacial distortion when approaching it. For example, in the Outlands, if trying to approach Sigil directly, the direction skews veering either toward the base of the spire or away from the island. Similarly, in Mount Celestia it is impossible to reach the upper terraces directly. While only some access points are reachable by a spelljammer, one can from a distance still get a visual impression of what an alignment plane is about, including a suggestion of the many separate dominions that together comprise an alignment plane. There can also be exclave dominions floating separately elsewhere but still part of the Astral concept of alignment. The dominions that share an alignment interconnect via whirlpools, and some whirlpools port to locals of neighboring alignmens.

Great rational for the Wheel.

If I hadnt already decided many years ago that most of the Outer Planes are actual worlds infused with divine power floating in space, I would definitely use this/your concept.

It almost makes me regret (this is a compliment).

 

[Yaarel]

Great rational for the Wheel.

In a schematic map configured by alignment relationships, the alignment planes look like a Wheel of islands. But when traveling by spelljammer each of the islands might be anywhere.

The Astral Plane is a realm of thought. Spacial relationships depend on concept. So concepts that associate with each other closely have islands that are nearby each other. Unrelated concepts are far away from each other. Also, by organizing the concepts by different a different criterion in a different context, means the apparent locations of the islands are in different locations. Astral islands arent always in the same place. Traveling the Astral Plane is more like traveling the stream of consciousness of a person. (The DM can have fun with this.)

The magic of the spelljammer helm helps automate the navigation the strange distances of the Astral Plane, whose mappings would change fluidly. But I still give players a sense of how things work in the Astral realm of ideals.

The dominions of an alignment can appear as islands that are separate from each other. For example, the Chaotic Good plane of Arborea might have the summit of Mount Olympus as a free-floating island, but the elven forest of Arvandor is entirely somewhere else in the Astral Sea. Arvandor might be in a cluster of Astral Sea islands relating to Elves, Fairies, and other Fey themes. But somewhere else, Mount Olympus is part of a cluster of islands relating to the ancient Greek-speaking world between the fantasy versions of the rise of Alexander the Great and the rise of the Roman Empire, with Egyptian-esque alchemists and theurgists along the way. Even so, whirlpools will show up to other Astral locations because of concepts that two places share in common, including a whirlpool forming somewhere to link Mount Olympus and Arvandor together because they share the concept of Chaotic Good ethics in common.

The map of the Astral Sea islands looks like results of a search engine query. Each island has a number of "tags" relating to its prominent concepts, paradigms and ideals. A cluster of islands can appear together that share a particular tag in common. The actual locations of islands change depending on which search criterion one employs.

Later at a different time, it is also possible to find a cluster of the alignment islands organizing together by the criterion of alignment, so all the Good islands locate above and all the Evil islands locate below. Then it actually does look like a Great Wheel, very much like the way the schematic drawing map depicts them.


Notably, different campaign settings − Eberron, World Axis, Dragonlance, Ravnica, and so on − can experience the Astral Sea differently. Because different worldview assumptions are in play, different islands appear. The Astral Plane for one culture can be completely different from the Astral Plane of an other culture. So reallife cultural sensitivities are easy for the DM to finetune − and navigate literally. Also, players can travel from one campaign setting like Ravnica to an other campaign setting like Dragonlance by means of the Astral Sea by finding islands with thematically associated whirlpools to the alternate locale, or by finding the wildspaces of those locales.

If I hadnt already decided many years ago that most of the Outer Planes are actual worlds infused with divine power floating in space, I would definitely use this/your concept.

It almost makes me regret (this is a compliment).

You can do both. Your conceptual locales exist somewhere scattered across the outer space of the Material Plane. When traveling the Astral Sea by spelljammer, players can encounter these locales as large and small "wild spaces" rather than as islands. There can be an Astral cluster of both islands and wild spaces together locating next to each other thematically.

 

[Yaarel]

I'd say Arcadia is very alien. The sun is a rotating, hemispherical spotlight that never sets, and rivers inexplicably make perfect 90-degree turns. Plus, it's the only Outer Plane that's being slowly devoured by one of its neighbors, as hives of ant-people slowly drag it into Mechanus from below.

For me, Arcadia in the sense of architectural "arcades" is an alternate universe that is entirely made out of shopping malls. Everything is storefronts and dramatic architecture and fountains. It is a "heaven" for neatly organized capitalist consumerism, with a "perfect" economy. New arcade passage ways open up as if a virtual reality of online internet shopping. It is the economic laws writ large and slightly benign in the sense of all the prices are fair. It deserves its Lawful by Lawful Good alignment.

I do think your critique of Elysium is spot-on. It's just not that visually distinct. (Despite that, I'm fond of the way travel works on that plane: as long as you have no interest in performing good deeds, you never reach your destination. It's the most humane defense mechanism of any Upper Plane. An army of demons could invade, and they'd just get lost in the wilderness for the rest of eternity.)

I love this − travel progress thru the True Good alignment plane by means of the way doing good deeds opens up opportunities and access to further locations.

Elysium can be visually distinct by emphasizing its civilizations. I have it be about 50% technological civilization and 50% untouched wilderness − blending seemlessly together with buffer zones in between where towns exist spaciously and harmoniously with natural wildlife. The civilizations are magitech or supertech depending on the culture of the locale. All places visualize some kind of utopian concept. I have as one of the locales a benign version of Brave New World by Huxley, inspired by the television series that I love. Elysium is especially Human, and both technologically advanced and eco-friendly.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I totally thought the question was what Plane I would like to visit. So, I chose Arborea because it sounds pleasant.

I've been to Pandemonium. It's was fun. We got to use our minds to stabilize and/or control the landscape.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I totally thought the question was what Plane I would like to visit. So, I chose Arborea because it sounds pleasant.

I've been to Pandemonium. It's was fun. We got to use our minds to stabilize and/or control the landscape.

I thought that was Limbo. Pandemonium just makes you crazy from the noise I believe.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Is Limbo where the slaadi live?

 

[TravDoc42]

Is Limbo where the slaadi live?

Yup! And the githzerai!