The Great Planar Thread

[RPGPundit]

Ok, how do we do the Planes?

What do you do with them?

What sort of neat ideas can one think up, to apply to a campaign that uses planar travel? Wierd kinds of planes, wierd kinds of gates, methods of travel?

What sort of planar campaigns have you run?
What sort would you like to run?

RPGPundit

[Settembrini]

I love the Bloodwar. Chaos vs Order is much more primeordeal than evil vs good.

I can`t wrap my head around Sigil though (What do those factions really do all day? How are they making their living?), and the elemental planes are a bit fuzzy for me too. What does brass have to do with fire?

[David R]

I was never really fired up about the Planes as a possible campaign setting until Planescape. A lot of folks like the old Planes, but I just didn't get it. Now, when Planescape came out, I liked it alot - Sigil, the factions, some of the planes - but I just didn't want to set a campaign there.

I think of the Planes as a large constellation of alien planets and creatures to loot from for my own homebrews. Hell, my ultimate D&D campaign is really the bastard child of Spelljammer and Planescape (Surprisingly there are some interesting sites on this topic - my version is a little more vague than the ones out there though)

So, I would never really run a planar campaign, but I'll sure as hell loot from it. The thing I like about the planes, is the nuggets of weird stuff you find in the setting - Modrons, chaostech, cults, the city of Sigil, the Dabus etc)

Regards,
David R

[Sosthenes]

What does brass have to do with fire?

If I remember correctly, that's a tale from the Arabian Nights. I don't remember efreeti (or actually anyone) living in there, but the desert city/efreet/fire connection is probably all you get, the rest is history...

I always liked the astral plane as presented in the Dr. Strange comics. Weird, wild stuff...

[Settembrini]

I see, city of brass. Will have to inspect that more deeply.

[RPGPundit]

My most recent planar jaunt was in the Blacksand campaign, where Port Blacksand was on the coastline of the Sea of Worlds, a vast interplanar ocean from which one could travel to different material planes as well as some of the outer planes (if one knew how to navigate the sea; otherwise one could simply become hopelessly lost).  There were also tons of "shadow trails" in the wilderness around blacksand that led to other planes.

I don't dig cosmologies; essentially, I was using the "great wheel" but there were also an infinity of material planes and pocket planes/demiplanes around.   The PCs were often forced to travel to one plane or another to deal with some issue.

Eventually, the planes came to them when the Mind Flayers invaded and conquered Port Blacksand, setting off a vast war between the mind flayers and their drow and beholder allies, Lord Azzur (who served a different god of chaos than the Flayers did, and wanted to reconquer his city), another guy who was a champion of Law and ex-captain of the guard to Azzur who went off to fight against Iuz in Greyhawk as pretense to raising up a vast army to reconquer Blacksand, the Gith, and the  thieves guild within Blacksand itself.
Elric of Melnibone showed up briefly too, but he really didn't do anything other than brood to the PCs about his life, kill a couple of drow, and then skip town without paying his hotel bill.

The whole campaign ended in a cataclysmic battle that wrecked huge chunks of the city. The Law guy came out on top, but the PCs who survived ended up in control of the Crime syndicate in the city; leaving things set up for all-new conflicts in the future.

RPGPundit

[JongWK]

I see, city of brass. Will have to inspect that more deeply.

Magic: the Gathering had its own Arabian-themed set. Here's one of the cards, reprinted in a newer edition:

[ColonelHardisson]

I've always loved the concept of other planes of existence. Zelazny's "Amber" books, Moorcock's "Eternal Champion" cycle, from Elric to Hawkmoon to Corum to all the others, Star Trek's "Mirror, Mirror," and many, many other sources were read and watched by me as a kid. D&D had a lot of interesting thoughts about the planes, from the Demonweb Pits with its side-trips onto other planes to Manual of the Planes. The reason I like TORG is specifically because of all the alternate planes involved. Alternate Earths and, especially, Infinite Worlds (both for GURPS) are some of my favorite RPG books.

Hated Planescape and the Blood War bullshit, though. Sigil and the irritating cant that went with it just made the planes - an infinity of infinities - seem small and provincial to me. The 3e version of Manual of the Planes helped remedy this, and Fiendish Codex kicked all kinds of ass.

But boil it all down, and my perception of the planes is much like that of Amber. An infinite variety of layers of existence upon which anything and everything can be found. It just opens everything up, and makes the game seem limitless. That's why I like the idea of "generic" or "universal" systems like GURPS or Tri-Stat or d20 or FUDGE - they can cover just about any contingency if I decide to have the PCs go plane-hopping.

In the past, my group always loved hopping around from plane to plane. It let us have a lot of fun as we sought out characters from myth and fiction, or let us run into things that wouldn't be found in the "real world" of our campaign worlds.

[Caesar Slaad]

How do I use the planes.

I love planar travel. It's almost the essence of fantasy to me. Visiting different worlds, different places. It also is convenient to someone like me, whose first love was SF... bringing the feel of many worlds to the table.

My current D&D campaign is called Sailors on the River of Worlds. It's based on a concept in the book Portals & Planes by Mike Mearls. The idea is that there is a primordial and infinite body of water, the "river of worlds". Through it, you can sail to any world with a body of water, through portals that appear on the river.

I make use of old Planescape stuff, new Manual of the Planes stuff and great third party products like Book of the Planes. The campaign has a feel somewhat like a mix between Sinbad, Elric, Greek Hero-myth, and Dante's inferno, with a bit of the "world hopping" feel of ST:TOS or Farscape.

I love it.

[Spike]

Regarding the City of Brass in mytho-historic gobblygook... I mean terms.

It must be recalled that Brass has a high melting point and is very hard. To primative man, if you have a place that is all fire, then having your city built entirely of brass is both a display of incredible power (metal being rare and hard to make in quantity) AND sensible, as Brass would 'not melt'... in theory.


Or, you know, maybe the pretty golden yellow looks like fire to some people.


Anyway, I have heard of Dis being the name of a mythic City of Brass, but could not begin to name where I heard it first.

[Mcrow]

Never really used that much. Most of the games I have GMed the players were really into exploring my setting and only a few times when the players took it that way did we use the planes.

So I guess it was more that my player didn't have much interest in them for the most part.