The 1 and the Prime
First Post
The traditional 2e (and 1e MotP) outer planes can be thought of as representing the physical space of human emotions. Specifically, I've modified Plutchik's wheel of emotion to a correct wheel of emotion and will demonstrate how it lines up pretty well with the outer planes:
Serenity/Contentment...Love....Exhilaration/Excitement
Certainty...........................X.......Uncertainty
Anger/Frustration........ Disgust..Fear/Terror
The dimensions of acceptance vs rejection and certainty vs uncertainty are the underlying structures. Serenity is knowing good stuff will happen. Exhilaration is when ok stuff is happening but then really great stuff happens sometimes. Fear is opposed to exhilaration in that ok stuff is happening, but really bad stuff sometimes happens. Anger, which Plutchik put opposite fear is actually only partly opposite, since the Angry and the Fearful both on balance don't like the stuff that is happening even though the Angry have a high degree of certainty about what is happening and the Fearful don't.
This seems like natural descriptions of the places on the planes. In addition, it seems like the spell schools match up very well with the emotions, especially in the lower planes: Fear with Illusion, Disgust with Blow-Uppy-Everything school, and Frustration with the school that sits stuff behind barriers. The reader may be interested in this thread explaining the true arrangement of the opposition table for the schools of magic:
Divination Enchantment Alteration
Conjuration.........X..........Construction
Abjuration.....Evocation...Illusion
Serenity (Heaven): This is the place of contentment. Mostly this is due to the prophesies of good things coming that The Serene are enlightened to. Harmonious environs where each piece complements the other are standard in Serenity; stillness and peace with everything being utterly correct and right in its place. Here powerful Divination magic explores the future (and the utter self assured-ness of The Serene).
Love (Elysium): The place of Love is full of, well, lovely things. Remember, this is Love and not romance, think Platonic as well as what Americans think of when that word is used. Both denote the same kind of feeling: something which drives the observer to desire utter union with the observed. Yes, the beautiful mate you desire is there. But so are the awesome posse of friends you want to hang with, and the coolest neighbors who don't complain about your late night parties, and the most awesome community with cool parties and a swimming pool, and the best weather ever, etc, etc. This is different from Serenity in that it is way more up-front and in your face about how awesome stuff is. To make a music comparison: The Background music in Serenity is unobtrusively pleasant; in Love it makes you want to dance (no actual background music permeates the planes, just an analogy).
Exhilaration (Arborea): Exhilaration is the place of the Spectacular. Everything here seems ordinary or at least plain if given a cursory glance. However, every so often a curiously spectacular display is made by objects and creatures inhabiting the plane. For example, the Phoenix Birds which roost here seem like ordinary red birds with nothing that distinguishes them from myriads of species scattered across the Prime Material Plane, that is until they seemingly spontaneously combust after being pounced on by one of the carnivorous bushes near where the Phoenix Birds hunt grubs. There are also several species of flowers here which have naturally levitating stamen.
Uncertainty (Limbo): The place of uncertainty is the edge of the Universe. This is the place where reality frays at the edges and new potential crosses over from the possible to the actual. Every imaginable environment can be found here, although the convoluted topology of the place makes navigation challenging although not impossible. There are even regions of mind-moldable chaos, although this is not the most exotic environment found here. This is also easily the largest of the places on the wheel. Indeed, while the wheel is mostly a donut, the Uncertain end of the donut would be frayed and riddled with holes, as well as stretched out, making The Universe shaped more like a comet-donut rather than a regular circular-donut. Here pours forth the creations of the Constructors as well as the new creatures coalescing out of the chaos.
Fear (The Abyss): This is the place of falseness and illusion. Here hopes are let down and terror pursues always. More to the point, here the legions of Demons perpetuate the Great Con, constantly tricking the naive into parting with the resources needed to support their illusory projections. Demon Lords are running some of the most complex con-games in The Universe. Some even suspect that the greatest prophesies of The Serene are in fact well maintained illusions of the Terrific Demon Lords (Terrific:Terror::Horrific:Horror). The Demons also have another motivation for the harvesting of soul-stuff from Uncertain creations: the Disgusted are constantly in need of ammunition for their powerful invocation magic. If the Terrific don't have souls to feed The Disgusted, the Terrific will end up on the menu!
Disgust (Hades): This place is the ultimate resting place of all Repulsiveness in The Universe. Everything here hates and fears everything. The DM can think of everything in this plane as not knowing whether to smash the universe or run away. This is what a shrieking house-wife feels towards a mouse in the kitchen. This disgust is largely due to the more or less obvious bad outcomes that will happen to the inhabitants if The Universe continues on the current path, although they are not under the illusion that their lashing out will be effectual in averting disaster. Because of the powerful soul-draining magics unleashed by the inhabitants of this plane, it is the most barren and lifeless naturally. However, huge Tarrasque-esque creatures roam the rocky barrenness, seething with the power sucked out of hordes of Larvae consumed at the scale a hump-back whale consumes krill (well, maybe not quite that, but still a lot). These are the monstrosities of the Yugoloths. Some Yugoloths are powerful arcane invokers. Others are manifestations of the disgust in the plane. Still others are both. All, however, cower in fear of the monstrosities, which can sometimes be corralled and diverted by the power of the arcanists.
Rage/Frustration/Anger (Baator): If The Disgusted are a shrieking house-wife panicked at the sight of a mouse, Hell is the locked door she is frantically pulling on to get away from the object of her fear. Hell is the place of Frustration and Abjuration. Think of everything here as being overly-lawyered. I.e. to penetrate the outer defence of the fortress, you have to paint yourself yellow and scream out "[The Keep's Lord's Name] is ruler of all of the Hells between the Azharul mountains and The Styx." at Midnight for seven nights in a row (and then to assassinate the Keep's Lord you'll have to kill him while neither standing nor lying down and neither during the day nor at night, so you'll need to catch him sitting at sundown). Quasi-legal Abjurations entangle nearly everything touched by the Devils which inhabit the plane (necessarily thanks to the efforts of The Disgusted). The whole plane seems like a bureaucratic knot, except that where red tape or some bureaucrat on a coffee break may block movement of a legal procedure in actual bureaucracy, seemingly arbitrary force walls may block actual physical movement in Hell. Of course, the actual bureaucracies of each of the territories of the Hells are each in their own way the epitome of the adjective "Kafkaesque".
(As an aside, it could be mentioned here that while 2e Hell is unified, Hell is actually several states which all claim allegiance to the Clockwalker Bureaucracy of Mechanus, but which are sometimes openly hostile to each other as being corruptions of the will of Primus.)
Certainty (Mechanus): Mechanus is a large clock. The purpose of the spinning of its gears are to hasten the combination of objects with the opposite part of Nothingness separated from material objects by Chaos, annihilating the material. When all but Law has been so annihilated, Chaos will be eliminated (or so Primus believes -Ed.). Mechanus sprung from Chaos as a complete system. Since Mechanus will lead to the end of Chaos (in the beliefs of the Lawful -Ed.) it seems Chaos will create the end of all things, even itself. All the creatures of The Universe are in fact creations of Chaos, but not all creations of Chaos are chaotic. This is part of the unpredictability of Chaos. The Modrons were in fact created by a Constructionist to act as spies on Mechanus. To the surprise of the Constructionist in question, these constructs became perhaps the ultimate paragons of law.
Now you may say "Well that's all well and good, but what about in between planes like Archeron or Gehanna or Tartarus?" Well, they have their own sort of betweeny-emotions to go with them.
Between Certainty and Serenity is Passivity (Arcadia): a plane on which the schemes of the Certain and the Serene constantly jostle for power in games of intrigue which are extremely competitive but rarely get bloody. A power of this plane holds sacred the digit triplet of "007". Here The Serene work within the system (mostly) to create the changes which they know are correct. This is naturally resisted by the existing order mostly due to the obligation of the Blood War. On the off cycle, the powers of the Serene collude with the Certain to fortify them against the onslaughts of the lower planes in this plane.
Between Serenity and Love is Righteousness (Twin Paradises). Most of the time peaceful contemplation holds, and the Serene and Lovers aid each other in their struggles on Passivity and Beauty. However, on the off cycle this plane hosts the Righteous Debates between the Lovers and the Serene over whether it is Noble to fortify the Clockwalkers against the Lower Planes at the expense of the Spectacular (Exhilaration).
Between Love and Exhilaration is the plane of Beauty (The Beastlands). This plane hosts the Beauty Contests between the forces of Love and Excitement. Beauty contests resemble the massive scale Blood War battles occurring in the diametrically opposite place on the Wheel, except in place of fighting the participants are fornicating. On the off cycle, this plane is where Lovers send help to the Spectacular in fighting off the onslaught of the hordes of the Uncertain, and where the Spectacular give arguments to Lovers for use in the Righteous Debates.
Between Excitement and Uncertainty is Curiosity (Ysgard). In this plane the Spectacular seek out new specimens and ideas to save from the demons of the lower planes and bring to the beauty contests on Beauty. In the off cycle, this is where the hordes of Uncertainty swarm over the Spectacular and begin invading the upper planes.
Between Uncertainty and Fear is Spookiness (Pandemonium). In this plane the Terrific demons of the Abyss capture and transport (sort of, more like eat, then get eaten by progressively bigger nastier demons in a demonic ecosystem) the hordes of Uncertainty and their soul power to their "allies" in the Blood War, the powerful Invokers the Yugloths of Disgust. In the off cycle no alliance forms here, but there are less Demons (the Demon's fears are realized!) and there is less harsh capturing of uncertainty for a while.
Between Fear and Disgust is Horror (Tartarus). In this plane exists all the terrible wrong things that elicit revolting uncertainty, like a dead baby. In Horror the Terrific give soulstuff caught in Spookiness to the powerful Invokers of Disgust for use as ammunition on the front lines of the Blood War in Contempt/Resentment. Mostly this involves luring some unsuspecting prey into the path of huge Disgusting monstrosities ravaging the plane for resources to drag back to the front. This allows the Demon lords to maintain power while avoiding the direct contribution of resources (i.e. getting eaten by one of the Disgusting monstrosities). The Chaotic lower planes are all about luring and trapping larger and larger prey in a sort of con-game food web with the Disgusting Monstrosities sitting at the apex (and maybe a few Demon Lords who've been around a while and have big illusions to maintain). Sometimes this system goes arye and the Disgusting get a little ahead of themselves and eat too many Terrific, or the Terrific aren't getting enough Uncertain, either way there are too many Uncertain hording around while the Disgusting snack on the Terrific, which sets in motion the off-cycle in the upper planes.
Between Disgust and Anger is Contempt, Resentment or Hatred (Gehanna). This plane demarcates the front lines in the Blood War. Here the gargantuan Disgusting monstrosities, creatures which embody the brutal mastery of energy manipulations of the Invocation, creatures whose forms are "enhanced" and twisted by the energies pumped through them for so long, swell into enormous powerful forms which hurl energy bolts at the various armies of the Frustrated. The monstrosities are occasionally corralled by the most powerful Invokers in the Universe. Like all the planes near Disgust, the home of Soulburning, the environment is a nigh completely drained wasteland. The Terrific are rarely directly involved in skirmishes here, as they are not so effective against the raging Frustrated as their Disgusting, err, "allies" (remember, Abjuration, which corresponds to Baator, dominates Illusion magic, the favored magic of the Abyss). The tragedy of the plane is that the Frustrated are kinda right, but the Disgusted just don't care anymore, and thus it goes on. The off cycle can be set in motion here by a rout of the Disgusting from the forces of the Frustrated, causing them to eat too many Terrific, causing too many Uncertain, etc.
Between Anger and Certainty is Belligerence/Boredom (Acheron). Belligerence/Boredom is a place where the Clockwalker's Bureaucracy of Mechanus is most oppressive and binding. A place where intolerance roils constantly under the oppressive surface and boils over into full blown riots (riots both against the current regime and riots in favor of the regime against supposed enemies of the state) frequently. This is due to the pressures of the Blood War on the plane. The CwBM is constantly at war with some of the variety of Hellish states which make up the border of Belligerence and Boredom, and playing the rest of the Hell states against the openly hostile Hell states. Though all of the overlords of Hell claim allegiance to the Clockwalkers Bureaucracy, this is far from the case in practice, with several states openly stealing resources from the boundary areas, albeit usually to aid in the Blood War efforts. Here is where the dictum of the Bureaucracy breaks down through the interpretations at the farthest reaches of the hierarchy. As opposed to traditional depictions of Acheron, where it was a plane of constant internal division while Hell was a strict hierarchy, here Belligerence/Boredom is a plane of hierarchy while Frustration is divided into several polities. Each of the Hells has a slightly different take on the dictums of order, and in a way each of them could possibly be correct if it wasn't for the others messing it up (not to mention the Disgusting). In Belligerence/Boredom, there is a unified state like in Passivity, just here it is violently fascist. Here in Belligerence/Boredom, normally the forces of the Hells are supplied by the Bureaucracy and played off each other and eventually against the Disgusting in order to maintain a balance in the Blood War and prevent the advance of Chaos. However, if the armies of the Hells become too powerful, they will turn on their supposed master's in their greed for power, and the off cycle will be set in motion. During the off cycle, truly monumental battles are waged here between the Devils and the forces of Serenity (Celestia) and Certainty (Mechanus).
The Fey: An Example of a Ripple Through the Wheel
The Fey were originally an evil tinged creation of Chaos (or some unknown Constructor) rapidly falling towards Demonic existence due to there initial predilection for tricking mortals. However, soon the scouts of The Spectacular took the most delicate and symmetrical fey-things to the contests on Beauty, where the fey did very well.
As the Lovers became increasingly convinced of the rightness of fey beauty, they began to debate the Serene on including feys in the armies of Law to uphold the best parts of order. However, the Devils would have none of it, having some abjurations against fey (fey-gits they call them) still active from more ancient times. This made the Clockwalking Bureaucracy resistant to the inclusion of feys.
Primus only recently (easily within an orcish lifetime) revealed the current "Don't ask Don't Tell" policy of the CwBM to deal with the problem, after the machinations of The Serene forced the issue. Currently a further incorporation of fey is making its way through the processes of Passivity into the policy of the CwBM. Ultimately, the fey participants on the side of Law in the Blood War may suffer under the heavy hand of martial bureaucracy and become disgruntled and disgusted with Law in general, turning them into the most powerful kind of enemy: a former ally.
This is just an example of how ideas and events can ripple across the wheel, traveling through and across the various conflicts and alliances.
Serenity/Contentment...Love....Exhilaration/Excitement
Certainty...........................X.......Uncertainty
Anger/Frustration........ Disgust..Fear/Terror
The dimensions of acceptance vs rejection and certainty vs uncertainty are the underlying structures. Serenity is knowing good stuff will happen. Exhilaration is when ok stuff is happening but then really great stuff happens sometimes. Fear is opposed to exhilaration in that ok stuff is happening, but really bad stuff sometimes happens. Anger, which Plutchik put opposite fear is actually only partly opposite, since the Angry and the Fearful both on balance don't like the stuff that is happening even though the Angry have a high degree of certainty about what is happening and the Fearful don't.
This seems like natural descriptions of the places on the planes. In addition, it seems like the spell schools match up very well with the emotions, especially in the lower planes: Fear with Illusion, Disgust with Blow-Uppy-Everything school, and Frustration with the school that sits stuff behind barriers. The reader may be interested in this thread explaining the true arrangement of the opposition table for the schools of magic:
Divination Enchantment Alteration
Conjuration.........X..........Construction
Abjuration.....Evocation...Illusion
Serenity (Heaven): This is the place of contentment. Mostly this is due to the prophesies of good things coming that The Serene are enlightened to. Harmonious environs where each piece complements the other are standard in Serenity; stillness and peace with everything being utterly correct and right in its place. Here powerful Divination magic explores the future (and the utter self assured-ness of The Serene).
Love (Elysium): The place of Love is full of, well, lovely things. Remember, this is Love and not romance, think Platonic as well as what Americans think of when that word is used. Both denote the same kind of feeling: something which drives the observer to desire utter union with the observed. Yes, the beautiful mate you desire is there. But so are the awesome posse of friends you want to hang with, and the coolest neighbors who don't complain about your late night parties, and the most awesome community with cool parties and a swimming pool, and the best weather ever, etc, etc. This is different from Serenity in that it is way more up-front and in your face about how awesome stuff is. To make a music comparison: The Background music in Serenity is unobtrusively pleasant; in Love it makes you want to dance (no actual background music permeates the planes, just an analogy).
Exhilaration (Arborea): Exhilaration is the place of the Spectacular. Everything here seems ordinary or at least plain if given a cursory glance. However, every so often a curiously spectacular display is made by objects and creatures inhabiting the plane. For example, the Phoenix Birds which roost here seem like ordinary red birds with nothing that distinguishes them from myriads of species scattered across the Prime Material Plane, that is until they seemingly spontaneously combust after being pounced on by one of the carnivorous bushes near where the Phoenix Birds hunt grubs. There are also several species of flowers here which have naturally levitating stamen.
Uncertainty (Limbo): The place of uncertainty is the edge of the Universe. This is the place where reality frays at the edges and new potential crosses over from the possible to the actual. Every imaginable environment can be found here, although the convoluted topology of the place makes navigation challenging although not impossible. There are even regions of mind-moldable chaos, although this is not the most exotic environment found here. This is also easily the largest of the places on the wheel. Indeed, while the wheel is mostly a donut, the Uncertain end of the donut would be frayed and riddled with holes, as well as stretched out, making The Universe shaped more like a comet-donut rather than a regular circular-donut. Here pours forth the creations of the Constructors as well as the new creatures coalescing out of the chaos.
Fear (The Abyss): This is the place of falseness and illusion. Here hopes are let down and terror pursues always. More to the point, here the legions of Demons perpetuate the Great Con, constantly tricking the naive into parting with the resources needed to support their illusory projections. Demon Lords are running some of the most complex con-games in The Universe. Some even suspect that the greatest prophesies of The Serene are in fact well maintained illusions of the Terrific Demon Lords (Terrific:Terror::Horrific:Horror). The Demons also have another motivation for the harvesting of soul-stuff from Uncertain creations: the Disgusted are constantly in need of ammunition for their powerful invocation magic. If the Terrific don't have souls to feed The Disgusted, the Terrific will end up on the menu!
Disgust (Hades): This place is the ultimate resting place of all Repulsiveness in The Universe. Everything here hates and fears everything. The DM can think of everything in this plane as not knowing whether to smash the universe or run away. This is what a shrieking house-wife feels towards a mouse in the kitchen. This disgust is largely due to the more or less obvious bad outcomes that will happen to the inhabitants if The Universe continues on the current path, although they are not under the illusion that their lashing out will be effectual in averting disaster. Because of the powerful soul-draining magics unleashed by the inhabitants of this plane, it is the most barren and lifeless naturally. However, huge Tarrasque-esque creatures roam the rocky barrenness, seething with the power sucked out of hordes of Larvae consumed at the scale a hump-back whale consumes krill (well, maybe not quite that, but still a lot). These are the monstrosities of the Yugoloths. Some Yugoloths are powerful arcane invokers. Others are manifestations of the disgust in the plane. Still others are both. All, however, cower in fear of the monstrosities, which can sometimes be corralled and diverted by the power of the arcanists.
Rage/Frustration/Anger (Baator): If The Disgusted are a shrieking house-wife panicked at the sight of a mouse, Hell is the locked door she is frantically pulling on to get away from the object of her fear. Hell is the place of Frustration and Abjuration. Think of everything here as being overly-lawyered. I.e. to penetrate the outer defence of the fortress, you have to paint yourself yellow and scream out "[The Keep's Lord's Name] is ruler of all of the Hells between the Azharul mountains and The Styx." at Midnight for seven nights in a row (and then to assassinate the Keep's Lord you'll have to kill him while neither standing nor lying down and neither during the day nor at night, so you'll need to catch him sitting at sundown). Quasi-legal Abjurations entangle nearly everything touched by the Devils which inhabit the plane (necessarily thanks to the efforts of The Disgusted). The whole plane seems like a bureaucratic knot, except that where red tape or some bureaucrat on a coffee break may block movement of a legal procedure in actual bureaucracy, seemingly arbitrary force walls may block actual physical movement in Hell. Of course, the actual bureaucracies of each of the territories of the Hells are each in their own way the epitome of the adjective "Kafkaesque".
(As an aside, it could be mentioned here that while 2e Hell is unified, Hell is actually several states which all claim allegiance to the Clockwalker Bureaucracy of Mechanus, but which are sometimes openly hostile to each other as being corruptions of the will of Primus.)
Certainty (Mechanus): Mechanus is a large clock. The purpose of the spinning of its gears are to hasten the combination of objects with the opposite part of Nothingness separated from material objects by Chaos, annihilating the material. When all but Law has been so annihilated, Chaos will be eliminated (or so Primus believes -Ed.). Mechanus sprung from Chaos as a complete system. Since Mechanus will lead to the end of Chaos (in the beliefs of the Lawful -Ed.) it seems Chaos will create the end of all things, even itself. All the creatures of The Universe are in fact creations of Chaos, but not all creations of Chaos are chaotic. This is part of the unpredictability of Chaos. The Modrons were in fact created by a Constructionist to act as spies on Mechanus. To the surprise of the Constructionist in question, these constructs became perhaps the ultimate paragons of law.
Now you may say "Well that's all well and good, but what about in between planes like Archeron or Gehanna or Tartarus?" Well, they have their own sort of betweeny-emotions to go with them.
Between Certainty and Serenity is Passivity (Arcadia): a plane on which the schemes of the Certain and the Serene constantly jostle for power in games of intrigue which are extremely competitive but rarely get bloody. A power of this plane holds sacred the digit triplet of "007". Here The Serene work within the system (mostly) to create the changes which they know are correct. This is naturally resisted by the existing order mostly due to the obligation of the Blood War. On the off cycle, the powers of the Serene collude with the Certain to fortify them against the onslaughts of the lower planes in this plane.
Between Serenity and Love is Righteousness (Twin Paradises). Most of the time peaceful contemplation holds, and the Serene and Lovers aid each other in their struggles on Passivity and Beauty. However, on the off cycle this plane hosts the Righteous Debates between the Lovers and the Serene over whether it is Noble to fortify the Clockwalkers against the Lower Planes at the expense of the Spectacular (Exhilaration).
Between Love and Exhilaration is the plane of Beauty (The Beastlands). This plane hosts the Beauty Contests between the forces of Love and Excitement. Beauty contests resemble the massive scale Blood War battles occurring in the diametrically opposite place on the Wheel, except in place of fighting the participants are fornicating. On the off cycle, this plane is where Lovers send help to the Spectacular in fighting off the onslaught of the hordes of the Uncertain, and where the Spectacular give arguments to Lovers for use in the Righteous Debates.
Between Excitement and Uncertainty is Curiosity (Ysgard). In this plane the Spectacular seek out new specimens and ideas to save from the demons of the lower planes and bring to the beauty contests on Beauty. In the off cycle, this is where the hordes of Uncertainty swarm over the Spectacular and begin invading the upper planes.
Between Uncertainty and Fear is Spookiness (Pandemonium). In this plane the Terrific demons of the Abyss capture and transport (sort of, more like eat, then get eaten by progressively bigger nastier demons in a demonic ecosystem) the hordes of Uncertainty and their soul power to their "allies" in the Blood War, the powerful Invokers the Yugloths of Disgust. In the off cycle no alliance forms here, but there are less Demons (the Demon's fears are realized!) and there is less harsh capturing of uncertainty for a while.
Between Fear and Disgust is Horror (Tartarus). In this plane exists all the terrible wrong things that elicit revolting uncertainty, like a dead baby. In Horror the Terrific give soulstuff caught in Spookiness to the powerful Invokers of Disgust for use as ammunition on the front lines of the Blood War in Contempt/Resentment. Mostly this involves luring some unsuspecting prey into the path of huge Disgusting monstrosities ravaging the plane for resources to drag back to the front. This allows the Demon lords to maintain power while avoiding the direct contribution of resources (i.e. getting eaten by one of the Disgusting monstrosities). The Chaotic lower planes are all about luring and trapping larger and larger prey in a sort of con-game food web with the Disgusting Monstrosities sitting at the apex (and maybe a few Demon Lords who've been around a while and have big illusions to maintain). Sometimes this system goes arye and the Disgusting get a little ahead of themselves and eat too many Terrific, or the Terrific aren't getting enough Uncertain, either way there are too many Uncertain hording around while the Disgusting snack on the Terrific, which sets in motion the off-cycle in the upper planes.
Between Disgust and Anger is Contempt, Resentment or Hatred (Gehanna). This plane demarcates the front lines in the Blood War. Here the gargantuan Disgusting monstrosities, creatures which embody the brutal mastery of energy manipulations of the Invocation, creatures whose forms are "enhanced" and twisted by the energies pumped through them for so long, swell into enormous powerful forms which hurl energy bolts at the various armies of the Frustrated. The monstrosities are occasionally corralled by the most powerful Invokers in the Universe. Like all the planes near Disgust, the home of Soulburning, the environment is a nigh completely drained wasteland. The Terrific are rarely directly involved in skirmishes here, as they are not so effective against the raging Frustrated as their Disgusting, err, "allies" (remember, Abjuration, which corresponds to Baator, dominates Illusion magic, the favored magic of the Abyss). The tragedy of the plane is that the Frustrated are kinda right, but the Disgusted just don't care anymore, and thus it goes on. The off cycle can be set in motion here by a rout of the Disgusting from the forces of the Frustrated, causing them to eat too many Terrific, causing too many Uncertain, etc.
Between Anger and Certainty is Belligerence/Boredom (Acheron). Belligerence/Boredom is a place where the Clockwalker's Bureaucracy of Mechanus is most oppressive and binding. A place where intolerance roils constantly under the oppressive surface and boils over into full blown riots (riots both against the current regime and riots in favor of the regime against supposed enemies of the state) frequently. This is due to the pressures of the Blood War on the plane. The CwBM is constantly at war with some of the variety of Hellish states which make up the border of Belligerence and Boredom, and playing the rest of the Hell states against the openly hostile Hell states. Though all of the overlords of Hell claim allegiance to the Clockwalkers Bureaucracy, this is far from the case in practice, with several states openly stealing resources from the boundary areas, albeit usually to aid in the Blood War efforts. Here is where the dictum of the Bureaucracy breaks down through the interpretations at the farthest reaches of the hierarchy. As opposed to traditional depictions of Acheron, where it was a plane of constant internal division while Hell was a strict hierarchy, here Belligerence/Boredom is a plane of hierarchy while Frustration is divided into several polities. Each of the Hells has a slightly different take on the dictums of order, and in a way each of them could possibly be correct if it wasn't for the others messing it up (not to mention the Disgusting). In Belligerence/Boredom, there is a unified state like in Passivity, just here it is violently fascist. Here in Belligerence/Boredom, normally the forces of the Hells are supplied by the Bureaucracy and played off each other and eventually against the Disgusting in order to maintain a balance in the Blood War and prevent the advance of Chaos. However, if the armies of the Hells become too powerful, they will turn on their supposed master's in their greed for power, and the off cycle will be set in motion. During the off cycle, truly monumental battles are waged here between the Devils and the forces of Serenity (Celestia) and Certainty (Mechanus).
The Fey: An Example of a Ripple Through the Wheel
The Fey were originally an evil tinged creation of Chaos (or some unknown Constructor) rapidly falling towards Demonic existence due to there initial predilection for tricking mortals. However, soon the scouts of The Spectacular took the most delicate and symmetrical fey-things to the contests on Beauty, where the fey did very well.
As the Lovers became increasingly convinced of the rightness of fey beauty, they began to debate the Serene on including feys in the armies of Law to uphold the best parts of order. However, the Devils would have none of it, having some abjurations against fey (fey-gits they call them) still active from more ancient times. This made the Clockwalking Bureaucracy resistant to the inclusion of feys.
Primus only recently (easily within an orcish lifetime) revealed the current "Don't ask Don't Tell" policy of the CwBM to deal with the problem, after the machinations of The Serene forced the issue. Currently a further incorporation of fey is making its way through the processes of Passivity into the policy of the CwBM. Ultimately, the fey participants on the side of Law in the Blood War may suffer under the heavy hand of martial bureaucracy and become disgruntled and disgusted with Law in general, turning them into the most powerful kind of enemy: a former ally.
This is just an example of how ideas and events can ripple across the wheel, traveling through and across the various conflicts and alliances.
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