D&D 5E Speculation on the missing quasielemental planes

[Dausuul]

Time does not meet those other four planes.

A logical answer, well-grounded in D&D lore. But also an exceptionally boring one.

I'd much rather see everybody's wild ideas for temporelemental planes, and anybody who wants to use them can find a way to shoehorn them in.

 

[the Jester]

Time does not meet those other four planes.

The only reason we had the quasi-elemental planes in the first place was because of the idea that the four elemental planes and the positive and negative energy planes were a "sphere" that surrounded the prime material plane.

Actually, the model that debuted the quasi-elemental planes came after the sphere model to which you refer; it's more of a cubic model.

In any case, bear in mind that any picture we've had of the planes is one created by mortal scholars to impose a sense of structure on them. I don't take it as given that the model actually represents the arrangement of the planes in anything but the most approximate sense- especially since we've seen multiple different changing models over the years and editions. So I would posit that arrangement of the planes is not simply three-dimensional, as implied by the sphere/cube models, especially as each plane is literally infinite. Instead, I'll offer the idea that the plane of Temporal Energy is at 'right angles' to the elemental planes in yet a different direction than the Positive and Negative Energy Planes are. In other words, I'm happy to make the assumption that the planar arrangement is in four or more dimensions, rather than being one we can fully visualize.

And thus only where each of the six planes that touched one another on the sphere got a para or quasi plane identified. But note that we never got para/quasi planes that were a combination of opposing sides of the sphere-- there was no water/fire para-elemental plane, no earth/air para-elemental plane, and no positive/negative quasi-elemental plane. So that shows us that this sphere was special, specific, and did not allow for additional metaphysical "connections"

This is only true if you discard the notion that there are more ways to be connected than we can visualize in three dimensions.

And this sphere only had those six specific planes in it, and only in that specific plane placement. The other special "inner planes"... like the plane of shadow, the temporal plane... those were unconnected to this sphere and did not touch any of them.

During the era of the sphere model, both of those were considered to be demiplanes, so I don't think the analogy holds. Sure, there's no plane of shadow + earth- and even with the post-3e Shadowfell, they don't connect- but shadow isn't a plane of energy. Time is (at least, using the model I have chosen).

 

[DEFCON 1]

Well, if you're going to invent quasi planes between all the inner planes, make sure you come up with the water/fire and earth/air para-elemental planes, and the positive/negative quasi-elemental plane while you're at it. If you're going to do it, you gotta go all-in.

 

[jmartkdr2]

What the heck is time?

A R&B/Funk band fronted by Morris day.

The Time (band) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[dave2008]

Time is a human fabrication. It is simply the observation of the distance between (the measure) all things relative to all other things (a point in time), what position they were in previously (the past), and what position they will be in (the future).

Not sure how the helps make temporal elemental planes, but I like @Dausuul's answer the best so far.

 

[Quickleaf]

This thing all things devours: birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
gnaws iron, bites steel; grinds hard stones to meal;
slays king, ruins town, and beats high mountain down.

Depends on the needs and tone of your campaign, but there's an argument to be made for equating Time with Entropy. In other words, that the Temporal Energy Plane is the Negative Energy Plane.

 

[Samloyal23]

What the heck is time?

Time is the sequential consequence of cause and effect. One damned thing after another...

 

[Li Shenron]

Time is the sequential consequence of cause and effect. One damned thing after another...

So how exactly is a Plane of Time different from all the others? Are things MORE sequential in the plane of time?

 

[wingsandsword]

Help, Planescape people! Shemeska and any others!

All right, so to preface- in 1e and 2e, the quasi-elemental planes are at the points where the Positive and Negative Energy Planes meet up with the elemental planes. So where Positive meets Earth, you have Mineral; where Negative meets Air, you have Vacuum; and so on.

Now, in 3e's Manual of the Planes, one of the options is to treat the Plane of Time as the Temporal Energy Plane. So it seems logical that, where Time meets the Elemental Planes, there would be temporal quasi-elemental planes. So my question is, what the heck are these planes?

As a longtime planar aficionado, and someone who has also been interested in the idea of chronomancy, I'd just ignore the suggestion of the Plane of Time as an energy plane.

A lot of the changes to the planar cosmology between editions have been rationalized as people misinterpreting the nature of of planes. . .like how the Demiplane of Shadow became the Plane of Shadow (later known as the Shadowfell). I'd treat that suggestion as just the musings of a planar sage, one that is NOT a chronomancer, trying to understand the nature of the Plane of Time.

Going by the AD&D 2e suppliment Chronomancer from 1995, I'd treat the Plane of Time as a transitive plane, but with each plane of existence (and each crystal sphere) having their own discrete Plane of Time coterminous to it and not being able to transit between them from within the Plane of Time.

 

[Khelon Testudo]

I don't have any conclusions, but I do know in D&D lore time moves differently in some planes, for example the Feywild and the Astral plane.