Plane of Shadow -- does anyone use it?

[Kunimatyu]

In my D&D experience so far, I just haven't seen the Plane of Shadow used very often -- when it has been used, it's just a few random encounters due to a shadow walk spell or similar.

Does anyone use the Plane of Shadow extensively in their games? What stuff did you focus on?

 

[Crothian]

It isn't used extensively, but then no planes are really used extensively. But it is there.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I use it in lieu of the Ethereal Plane, its super-boring older brother. (Seriously, except for the most hardcore planar fanatics, there's nothing intrinsically more interesting about the Ethereal than the Plane of Shadow, to the extent that I can't figure why it's necessary to even have the Ethereal around.)

Whenever there's a chance to use Etherealness, I use Shadow instead. It hasn't come up much (although it has come up, even when my group was level 1), but it will, more and more, along with the Plane of Mirrors, the other cool transitive plane. (Astral is OK, but it's way behind the other two, IMO.)

 

[Psion]

Back when the Manual of Planes came out, I was so inspired by the Plane of Shadows material that I ran a little campaign segment in which the players had to travel through the plane of shadows to return home. Along the way, they ran into things like a shadow castle that was a secret fortress of a nation back in their homeland. Don't have more specifics on hand, but I might be able to dig it up.

 

[Schmoe]

I love the Plane of Shadow. My campaign doesn't feature any planes extensively, but I've used Shadow more than all others combined. The description in the Manual of the Planes is exceedingly cool and I found it a great inspiration, to the extent that I've given out a magic item that allows Shadow Walking, and I actually describe the travel during use of the spell.

 

[MerricB]

I had a big campaign arc that used material from the Gord novels, the Greyhawk setting (esp. Xan Yae and Zuoken) and the Shadowdancer prestige class to great effect.

Cheers!

 

[Shemeska]

I use it in lieu of the Ethereal Plane, its super-boring older brother. (Seriously, except for the most hardcore planar fanatics, there's nothing intrinsically more interesting about the Ethereal than the Plane of Shadow, to the extent that I can't figure why it's necessary to even have the Ethereal around.)

YIAAHPF

Trust me, they're two totally different things. 3e just doesn't do a good job detailing it as much more than 'you can use it with spells to move through walls, and ghosts are somethings there, spooky!'

The ethereal is the plane of manifest potential and probability. Dreams become manifest on its border between near and deep ethereal, welling up like glistening soap bubbles, maturing and bursting with the circadian rhythms mortal slumber. The depths of the ethereal sea is the birthplace of demiplanes and quite possibly the birthplace of -all- of the planes.

And the deeper you go, the stranger it gets with bizarre tales of things seen swimming the depths, things lost therein, ether gaps that might be holes in the structure of reality or the threshold of dead or collapsed timelines. The ethereal deep might be the unifying common link between mutually abberant realities (the Great Wheel and the Far Realm being two such), themselves just overgrown bubbles rising up from the metaphysical potential.

Edit: And for what it's worth, the 'Plane of Dreams' optional plane in the 3e MotP is largely ripped from the 2e details on manifest dreams in the ethereal from the 2e 'Ethereal Plane' book by Bruce Cordell. In fact the sample dreamscapes in the 3e MotP are virtually word for word from the 2e material.

 

[Shemeska]

That said, the further development of the Plane of Shadow in 3e is the one good thing that 3e has done for the planes.

I've used the plane of shadow to some extent in both of my planar campaigns, though more extensively in the 2nd one, where it ends up making an appearance in the 1st major plot arc (that the SH2 is current in the midst of).

However I've been more focused on the outer planes, the ethereal, astral, and select inner planes to really do much with the Plane of Shadow. But give me time and I'll have my way with it.

 

[Ripzerai]

The Ethereal Plane, as described by Bruce Cordell in A Guide to the Ethereal Plane, is indeed very interesting. But I like the Shadow Plane just as much.

 

[Dog Moon]

YIAAHPF?

Eh?

Personally, I've never really used it. Nor the Ethereal Plane or even the Astral Plane beyond what is necessary for spells like Shadow Walk, Teleport, Ethereal, etc.

I've just never been a fan of these Planes. Don't even remember why anymore.