You Don’t Have To Leave Wolfy Behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' Your Companions Level Up With You!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8506377" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Perhaps Odrheim? From Wikipedia: "The Old Norse theonym Óðr derives from an identical noun, meaning 'mind, wit, soul, sense' but also 'song, poetry', which in turn stems from Proto-Germanic *wōðaz, a substantive of an adjective meaning 'possessed, inspired, delirious, raging'." It is the plane of the soul, but also the plane of song, poetry, and sagas.[HR][/HR]For my own part, I agree with most of it, but think there's still worth in separating the Hells from the Abyss--or at least in distinguishing them as two really important subsets of a singular Lower Plane. "Paradise" is unified despite its differences; Good aids Good even when they don't always get along. "Pandaemonium" is divided despite its similarities, so Evil attacks Evil even when they share common goals. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that it would be pretty cool to have both Hell and the Abyss because the two sides fought so hard, they tore their plane in half. There used to be a singular Lower Plane (call it Pandaemonium for fun), but the Blood War became so devastating, so severe, that it literally clove the two sides in twain. This also opens the door for some great prophetic shenanigans, where the prospect of a reunited Pandaemonium would mean very, very dire things for mortals, particularly if Heaven is currently incapable of fully mustering its forces (e.g. the differences are weighing heavily right now and it'd take a swift kick in the rear to get things back in shape.)Personally, I feel even making the Shadowfell the "plane of law" is a bit much, since...well, it kinda makes law strongly associated with evil and destruction, given the nature of undeath and such. Perhaps that could be how some cultures view the Shadowfell, but I wouldn't personally stress "Shadowfell = Law, Feywild = Chaos" as an explicit cosmological link. As an example, the Feywild is also the place most strongly associated with arcane magic...which is stereotypically associated with Wizards, who are usually Lawful because of the demands of their discipline. Meanwhile, entropy is one of those lovely ambiguous things that can be either Law or Chaos depending on how you frame it (natural law forces greater entropy....but entropy is a measurement of the disorder of things!) So if you're really set on this, perhaps give it an almost literal taijitu/"yin-yang" element, where there's Chaos hidden within the Law and Law hidden within the Chaos or the like.Beyond that...I mean, if you really like the elemental planes being almost entirely featureless inaccessible nothing, alright. I never really saw the point. If you're already inserting rocks into the purity of the elemental air and inserting pockets of air into the purity of elemental earth, I don't much see the point of insisting that there's this transfinite chunk of inaccessible whatever out there, since (by definition) it's inaccessible and featureless. Or, to put it another way: From the perspective of people who actually visit these planes, what's the difference between these two things?<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">the fundamental nature of the elemental planes is literally, actually infinite stretches of pure, unadulterated elements, and we visit the vanishingly-small margins where it's 95% fire (or whatever)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">the fundamental nature of the elemental planes heavily biases them to one element, but the planes are so vast, you can easily find nigh-infinite stretches of pure, unadulterated elements if you go looking.</li> </ul>Because from where I'm sitting...there isn't one in practice. Neither in a Doylistic sense (we know where people are going to adventure, and it isn't going to be "infinite stretches of pure elements") nor in a Watsonian one (there's literally nothing there, so there's no motive to visit these actually-infinite stretches that couldn't be served by large-but-finite ones.) But there is a difference in how it cashes out, whether for Doyle or Watson: It explains why there's anything to be seen there at all, rather than the Plane of Fire being literally a featureless infinite expanse of fire and truly, absolutely nothing else.</blockquote>

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