Planar Travel

[Cedric]

Our campaign hasn't gone planar yet...but it's only a matter of time. My cleric 3/wizard 3/mystic theurge 5 has an Amulet of the Planes.

It's my intention as a player to not introduce planar travel unless the GM introduces it first...or unless we get so screwed as a group that there is no other choice.

I'm really hoping to wait until the GM introduces it first though.

Our other campaign has a smattering of Planar travel though. Occassional trips to Sigil, Valhalla or the like...

Cedric

 

[Hand of Evil]

Built into my cosmos, so do a little bit. Most common is the Path of the Dead but have used one as a prison cell for an adventure.

 

[Olive]

I use a heap of extraplanar creatures, but no planar travel as of yet. I expect it will come up in the next couple of levels... the PCs did have a chance, but decided not to take it.

 

[s/LaSH]

Every so often, I throw in extraplanar elements because other planes can look cooler than the Prime. But not very often, and always mysteriously. That is to say, the PCs didn't aim to go to another plane, and often don't know which one they're on other than the fact that there's lots of fire.

 

[simmo]

Planescape campaign, so yeah, we travel a bit. Currently lost and alone in the Outlands.

First proper Planescape campaign in a long time. I intend to run some more with the current players once they have learnt more about the Planescape campaign setting. This is based on the assumption that the players are happy to keep adventuring around the planes.

Currently found and enlightened in the blessed fields of Elysium

 

[randomling]

Currently found and enlightened in the blessed fields of Elysium

Yeah... but I'm playing a Seer, man. We live a few days in the future.

By the end of tonight's session, we're likely to be lost and alone in the Outlands. If things go to what, in theory, you could call a kind of a plan.

 

[DMScott]

I usually treat planar travel as a big event. Spells to get to other planes are rituals, there's always a hint that things could go wrong and that might be very bad, etc. That's more a sense-of-wonder thing than anything else, I don't want the planes becoming just another place you go. It's also easier to paint events in my campaign world as a big deal if the planes are fairly remote.

I do have a cosmology laid out that allows planar travel, since inevitably high level characters will do that sort of thing. But it's a bit more limited than the default D&D cosmology. You can't just leave the campaign world and go live somewhere else indefinitely, because if you could the campaign world wouldn't be terribly important any more. So my planes all serve functions in relation to my campaign world, but everything important about the planes is tied to the campaign world so it's still the focus of all the extraplanar maneuvering and scheming.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Planescape - lots of planar travel.

Other campaigns - less so. Often the existence of the planes impacts the setting, but not travel to it.

 

[simmo]

Yeah... but I'm playing a Seer, man. We live a few days in the future.

By the end of tonight's session, we're likely to be lost and alone in the Outlands. If things go to what, in theory, you could call a kind of a plan.

Wow, your Seer abilities seem to be improving. It is likely that you will end up on the Outlands by the end of tonights sessions, but you will be far from alone

All of my campaigns have had some element of Planescape in it even if the PCs never actually visit the planes. The Prime worlds do not exist in isolation having border ethereal planes, connection to the Astral plane, elemental votices, connections to demi-planes and possibly potrals to the other planes.

 

[ForceUser]

I am curious about your games.

How much planar travel do you do in your campaigns?

(I will discount the spells that "briefly send you into another plane" for combat defensive purposes.)

Is it a common occurance? A rare matter? Impossible?

Do you visit multiple planes? Do you only have one you "summer" in?

Are you wondering what these planes are all about?

Enquiring minds wnat to know

The cosmology of my bi-weekly campaign is different. Generally speaking, with regard to the planes and planar denizens (angels, demons, devils), much of it is not book-standard. Stat-wise a lot is the same, I'm just not calling them solars and balors and whatnot. I call them Celestials and Netherals, or Angels and Fiends. In my campaign they are only divided by their moral axis, not their ethical one. All the good celestials - whether lawful, neutral, or chaotic - inhabit the Celestial Domains, and all the evil fiends inhabit the Nether Dominions. There is no Blood War between lawful and chaotic fiends (that's not to say they get along. They are, after all, fiends...)

The Celestial Domains (the Heavens) and the Nether Dominions (the Hells) are linear. That is, you must pass through one closer to the Prime Stratum to reach another farther away. As far as the players know there are no exceptions. Planar travel spells such as plane shift deposit you on the bottom layer of the Heavens or the top layer of the Hells; for the purposes of all planar travel spells each is considered a single realm. Each layer has a passage to the next, and each passage has a guardian. In the Heavens, the guardians guard the entrances, and must be entreated or conquered to pass. In the Hells the reverse is true: the entrances are open and easily passable, but the exits are guarded, and those guardians must be similarly bargained with or defeated to allow passage. Also, in the Hells the denizens of those realms may seek to prevent any escape. It is difficult to escape the Hells. As far as is known, both the Heavens and the Hells are infinite.

The Astral, Ethereal, and Inner Planes are much the same as D&D standard.

Then there's the Far Realm. It does not fit into the accepted cosmological paradigm. It is truly a place apart - if the term "place" even applies. The archmage Algadragor theorized it was less a place and more a state of being (or un-being...) Most cosmological scholars who have heard of the Far Realm don't believe it exists outside the wild theories of Algadragor and his predecessors. If it does it exist, it is so far Beyond the known multiverse as to be irrelevant.

There is a widely accepted theory (among wizards anyway) that there are infinite material universes, stacked sideways against each other like a roll of quarters. Each material universe is unique, but very similar to its neighbors. As the theory goes, whenever an event goes a certain way - such as a battle won or lost - a divergent event creates a new universe in which the opposite happens. For example, at the beginning of a battle there is a single universe. The battle is fought and won by kingdom A, creating universe A. However, there is also the possibility that kingdom B could have won. That possibility creates universe B. This is called an Incident of Divergence. Millions of Incidents of Divergence happen every day, spawning millions of divergent universes. Each time a divergent event occurs, the universes closest cosmologically to the Prime Stratum change. As divergent events continue to happen in each of those universes, they are pushed farther away from the Prime as the divergences spawn their own divergences. Thus are the material universes infinite. Travel between them is risky, of course, because who's to say you'll be able to find your own specific universe again once you've left it to visit another? Although wizards consider the campaign world to be the Prime Stratum, they acknowledge that "prime" is relative; no doubt the denizens of other universes consider their own realm to be the prime. It all depends on your point of view. The whole idea is ripped straight from Marvel Comics.

It may seem that I've made planar travel more difficult and uncertain. That is the intent. Travel to other realities in this campaign should not be undertaken lightly. Even with the most powerful spells, there are no guarantees of safe passage.

This is all stuff the party wizard knows, but for now planar travel is not possible for them since the average party level is 4th.