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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nellisir" data-source="post: 2824717" data-attributes="member: 70">Mechanically, D&D has certain assumptions built in, including extraplanar spaces, the Ethereal Plane, the Astral Plane, and the existence of elemental creatures (less so the Elemental planes themselves).  So you should figure out how the Ethereal and Astral function.My suggestions: 1 - If you haven't read the Wizard-Knight by Gene Wolfe, read it.  Now.  It describes almost exactly the sort of cosmology you have laid out, and it's awesome to read.2 - Make it easier to go down than up.  Spells cast to move deeper into the layers are at least one spell level less than the same spell cast to go up.  This has a few repercussions, not the least of which is a very real chance of getting stranded if you drop to a layer and can't cast a high enough spell to get back out of.  Alternately, or additionally, a spell's level depends on how many layers you want to skip.  Using a spell to skip 3 layers adds +3 to its level.3 - Tying in with #2...if you're going to the trouble of making this stuff up, make it matter.  Don't make the characters wait until 16th level (unless you're running a 16th level game now) to access the planes.  Drop all the plane-jumping spells down a few levels, or create new spells at lower levels.4 - Each layer can have its own Ethereal, so everything ethereal works and functions unchanged.  The Astral might be a shortcut to all layers(with access to the Astral restricted to high level characters) or it could be a gathering ground easily accessible from any layer, but exit via any layer but your own (possibly requiring a saving throw of increasing difficulty depending on how far away from your home layer your destination layer is).  I really like this second idea, actually.  What an incredible place the Astral would be!!5 - Dwarves could have migrated upwards to gain access to stronger magics, or they could be a form of corruption moving upwards - in Norse mythology Snorri describes dwarves as originating from maggots in the body of Ymir.  Dwarves native to the lower layers (not PH dwarves) could have spell resistance and/or increasing hardiness - variant duergar.6 - In that vein, I'd take away the spell-like abilities of the drow, or change them - give them chill touch, or touch of fatigue, ray of enfeeblement as a touch attack instead of a ray.7 - If you wanted to get geometrically funky, elements and ethos could work perpendicular to the layers -- in other words, elementals appear on all layers, and all layers have chaos/evil/law/good.  Higher layers would manifest elementals with greater intelligence and spell like abilities, while lower layer elementals would be stronger and have magic resistance -- maybe becoming golem-like.8 - I don't see any inherent contradiction with Melnibonean-style demons. If they're originally from a higher layer, they'll still retain their knowledge; they'll just be unable to use it.  They'll willfully pass it on to other beings in exchange for power that might let them eventually rise.</blockquote>

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