Question for Planescape aficionados

[Felon]

I got Monte Cook's Dead Gods off of RGPNow. Good stuff. I notice the adventure is laid out not unlike Eberron adventures are these days, with characters flitting from one far-flung locale to the next, though in this case the party's plane-hopping.

I was taken aback at the recommended levels--6th to 9th. How did Planescape characters at that level have the means to travel anywhere and everywhere in the cosmos? I assume Sigil and the world-tree played some part, but how does this mode of accessing the planes work exactly? Does everyone in a Planescape campaign have this capability.

EDIT--(in case it's not abundantly clear, I know very little about the Planescape setting)

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Basically, Sigil is also known as the City of Doors - and with good reasons. Every arch in Sigil could potentially be the portal to anothe place or plane. All you need to activate it is the right portal key, which could be anything - a platinium coin, a specific cheese, a short poem or phrase...

So anyone, no matter how low in level, can use Sigil's portals. And they lead where the DM wants them to.

 

[Ambrus]

The Planescape setting made heavy use of magical portals and assumed that they were readily available to PCs and NPCs alike in every plane of existance. As I recall, the Dead Gods (great adventure BTW) makes mention of all the portals necessary to reach the adventure's locations (oftentimes mentioning alternate portals and means of travel that the PCs might discover and make use of). Where all the gates come from is somewhat of a setting mystery. Some say they were manufactured by the gods, others say that magical portals are simply a natural phenomenon. Either way, portals are usually stationary and within the bounds of some type of appropriately sized frame (a doorway, a gate, a window, an archway, ect.) and simply require a "key" to be inserted/said/performed within its bounds for it to open for a few moments (an object, a word, an action, ect.) There were some spells that made finding and using gates easier, but generally there was an NPC or a clue nearby that would point to a portal and reveal its key when it was appropriate for the PCs to journey to a new location. Gate-lore is fairly omnipresent in the setting and by the time that PCs are 6th to 9th level they should have the basics of it well in hand.

 

[Sammael]

Planescape's assumption was that the party would have liberal access to portals. Finding the location of said portals and the means to use them was one of the key points of every campaign.

 

[Dakkareth]

If you can get to the Astral, you can use the Colour Pools - places of swirling colour that work like gates to specific outer planes. Through the Deep Ethereal you can reach other Prime worlds and the Inner Planes if you have enough time. If you're starting out from the Outlands, you can reach the Gatetowns on foot - and every Gatetown has a portal to its associated plane, you don't even need a key. If you are travelling the lower planes you can use the Styx - the Marraenaloths, the mysterious ferrymen of that river usually can take you anywhere that's connected to the Styx. For the right price. The Oceanus is the Upper Plane equivalent (but without Marraenaloths ). You can climb Yggdrasil. You can traverse the Infinite Staircase. You can buy items like sympathetic eggs or the eyes of certain fiends, which when swallowed let you slide up or down one layer of a plane. In many cases you can simply walk/fly/burrow from one layer to another too, if you know the lay of the land.

And of course there's Sigil, from where any place is just one step away to one, who knows the right portal and its key.

 

[Psion]

The Planescape setting made heavy use of magical portals and assumed that they were readily available to PCs and NPCs alike in every plane of existance. As I recall, the Dead Gods (great adventure BTW) makes mention of all the portals necessary to reach the adventure's locations

A good part of Dead Gods occurs on Yggdrassil, the World Ash. Yggdrassil one of a few "planar pathways" that weaves itself through several planes.

But yeah, the PS setting relies strongly on the portal concept. Sigil is known for them (which makes it a logical hub for PC activity... many early adventures begin in sigil) and other outer planes have portals at regular locations, principally connecting to "adjacent" planes and different layers.

In fact, I would say that having PCs with easy access to planar transportation magic is actively obstructive to the flow of a PS adventure, since it gives the GM less control over player mobility, and fewer chances to insert serendipitous encounters along the way (which often serve as hooks for PS adventures.)