D&D General Let's make the upper planes playable!

[bloodtide]

The upper planes are currently useless for gaming potential beyond "paradise invaded."
So what can be done?

There is a ton of 2E and 3E material to use. They skipped over a lot when they tossed together the 5E Planescape.

So, there are plenty of creatures to fill up the Upper Planes.

Also, unless a PC group is very good, they will find Upper Planes as hostile as the Lower Planes. And more narrow, each plane and each layer has it's own spin on good. So even if you are good, the people and creatures will be at least indifferent to you as your the 'wrong' sort of good.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Having Arcadia be dominated by ant dudes never really sparked for me. Being situated between Mechanus and Mt. Celestia, I always thought this would be the perfect place for Biblical angels, who project an aura of fear until they pronounce, "Fear not." Arcadia - plane of fearful symmetry.

 

[Corinnguard]

Having Arcadia be dominated by ant dudes never really sparked for me. Being situated between Mechanus and Mt. Celestia, I always thought this would be the perfect place for Biblical angels, who project an aura of fear until they pronounce, "Fear not." Arcadia - plane of fearful symmetry.

It's not just an aura of fear, Biblical angels looked like something only the Far Realm would love.

 

[Corinnguard]

 

[nevin]

The upper planes are currently useless for gaming potential beyond "paradise invaded."

Mount Celestia and Aboria, might be helpful if you squint, but has anybody ever used Bytopia?

So my challenge is as follows.

Let's make the upper planes somewhere enjoyable to run an adventure with a definite theme and opponents.

Stipulations.

1. Every outer plane needs its locals. Part of the problem is that they use Angels as a grab bag to fill in the whole upper planes, thus making them generic.
2. Every plane needs one unique thing that can be built on.
3. It cannot be just because it was invaded by bad guys, and you are bad enough, dude, to save the planes.
4. It still has to be built on the same overall themes. You cannot turn Bytopia into a plane of the Abyss or anything like that.

So what can be done?

So if you look at what is in the upper planes. You have less than 1% of it mapped out. Nothing says it's full of Angels who span the entire plane, (or devils, etc, etc depending on plane). you can take nearly any animal or monster out of the books and apply an appropriate template and boom there they are. No reason the planes can't have cities, towns, full of effectively normal people who died, went to the plane and are living thier afterlife. Now the big difference between the outer planes and the inner is that if you go big and do big things you'll probably get the bigger creatures and gods directly interfering. But I can see nothing in any of what is layed out that would prevent any range of games from relatively low level normalish to epic go fight Zeus. Bad guys invading the whole plane not likely unless it's an army from another plane, but in the afterlife people can politic, cross the gods, break the rules steal or break the rules for the best of reason generating all that you might need. Also could be the most dangerous thing on the outer planes is a PC who hasn't died yet, mucking up the works. In which case the "good" Pc's become outlaws, breaking the rules and laws of the outer planes just by existing there as they continue thier adventure. To say you can't run adventures there is a bad bad case of DM brain lock / writer's block.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

yeah but us mere mortals need a shorthand

exceptions are great, but we need something that allows us to hang an adventure on it quickly.

just the blood war alone gives something really awesome for the lower planes, but there really is no way to do that on the upper planes equivalent

 

[nevin]

every zone of the upper planes is full of people living the afterlife from each era. I wonder how well the Vikings get along with the English they warred with in the 13th century in the plane of CG? Lot's of shorthand there if you step back and remember the entire reason for the plane is to give places for gods to live and and afterlife for the people that belong there. And some planes like the happy hunting ground have at least in past version been given traits like everyone is reborn at the beginning of the day. So war and conflict are allowed but your enemies will always get back up the next day. That way be because you want your eternal warriors always ready to fight evil? But imaging being a PC on that plane when you aren't sure if you'll get ressurected or not and everyone chasing you is certain of it. Just pick a setting and plop it into the plane and adjust motivations and players to be from that plane. So yeah in the happy hunting grounds no LE guys but CG leaders or tribes, who hate each other works just as well.

 

[nevin]

or evil demons have infiltrated the Happy hunting grounds working thier way towards Valhall trying to steal Odin's spear to use it on Asmodeus. Hercules falls in love with a valkary and Odin and Zues go to war over who gets to keep him. basic motivations are the same out there you just lose the other extreme alignments as residents.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

every zone of the upper planes is full of people living the afterlife from each era. I wonder how well the Vikings get along with the English they warred with in the 13th century in the plane of CG? Lot's of shorthand there if you step back and remember the entire reason for the plane is to give places for gods to live and and afterlife for the people that belong there. And some planes like the happy hunting ground have at least in past version been given traits like everyone is reborn at the beginning of the day. So war and conflict are allowed but your enemies will always get back up the next day. That way be because you want your eternal warriors always ready to fight evil? But imaging being a PC on that plane when you aren't sure if you'll get ressurected or not and everyone chasing you is certain of it. Just pick a setting and plop it into the plane and adjust motivations and players to be from that plane. So yeah in the happy hunting grounds no LE guys but CG leaders or tribes, who hate each other works just as well.

I would argue that murderous warmongers and pillagers don't go to a Good-aligned afterlife. If people think that conquering humans from centuries ago were "Good", I have ocean-front property in Anauroch to sell you.

In D&D, the afterlives aren't based on cultures. It's based on the ethics and morale of the individual who died.

There would be populations from every culture in every Outer Plane. A chaotic evil "viking-style" king does not go to the D&D version of "Ysgard" when they die.

 

[nevin]

Really you think all the vikings leaving the mini ice age to get food and money for thier families were evil? Probably not. Also Odin's perspective on what's good and Zeus's perceptions on what's good and your perception on what is good is probably 3 different opinions on the subject. Valhall is on the CG plane but you just have to die in combat for the Valkaries to pick you up, or to get picked up and taken to Frigg's meadow in the after live because she got half the warriors and odin took the other half. And Zeus the CG narcissistic naughty word of all time I bet his standards are loopy as hell.