Hey there adventurers!
We know you love Unearthed Arcana.
And of course you loved Planescape.
And though we had some internal meetings that encouraged us to make a return to Planescape as balanced and as nuanced as possible, we had a lot of IDEAS.
And ideas are like fast food: so hot and exciting that you need to shove them in your consumer-holes before they’ve had time to cool off and “become safe-ish.”
So, at the risk of ruining Dungeons and Dragons forever and tainting the goodwill of D&D Beyond readers with what might be “satire,” we hereby present some new planes of existence for you to explore.
Warning: All of these planes are probably a terrible idea, and should only be mentioned during your campaign as an amusing threat from a Dungeon Master, as in “if you guys aren’t more careful, I’m going to transport all of you to a plane like…”
Freezundiuous
A plane that seems exactly like the run-of-the-mill Prime Material Plane that players are used to, with one exception.
Every 24 hours your undergarments become filled with jagged ice crystals.
Players can make a DC 20 Dexterity saving throw to wriggle around. If they don't make it, they take a whopping 12d4 cold damage. A rogue that uses Uncanny Dodge can use it to avoid some of the damage, but it means that they're instantly not wearing clothes.
Creatures who are already not wearing undergarments will have this occur with their regular clothing. Creatures not wearing any clothing at all are kind of weird and will be judged as such by the denizens of Freezundiuous and probably also the other players at the table, if we’re being honest..
Players who die here are returned to the Prime Material plane with full hit points, but their undergarments are now cold and wet.
If this sounds gross and unpleasant to visit, that’s because it is. But it’s now in your head forever as a place you can go.
The Near Realm
Exactly like the Far Realm in content and scope, only the gate is half a mile outside of Neverwinter and about 8 feet up in the sky.
Bahamut’s Butt
It’s Bahamut’s vast butt.
Froggy Town
A swampy realm that is relatively placid, only players will encounter a froghemoth in place of all humanoid citizens.
These froghemoths speak Common, wear humanoid-style clothing, live in large humanoid-style homes, and are all proficient in playing the banjo.
They are also generally warm and inviting in their demeanor, but will try to swallow players whenever they are hungry. It’s nothing personal, but come on. You would too if you were a giant frog monster and a bunch of warm talking things that fit through in your mouth started running around.
Player characters who die in Froggy Town transform into froghemoths. This includes player characters who die in the belly of a froghemoth, only these are reborn in froghemoth eggs.
Gehenno
Everything in this plane is at a 45 degree angle. Sometimes 25 degrees. Sometimes 90. Sometimes it quickly shifts again. You’re basically in a never-ending snowglobe. No check in the world will stop creatures from being hopelessly tossed around, forced to flail around until the dungeon master decides you’ve collided with enough debris that is also flying around.
Also there’s acid pools everywhere and the currency is old Aladdin’s Castle tokens from the defunct arcade chain.
The residents are nice though.
Oops, All Crunchberries
This plane is exactly what you think it is.
Valley of Stench Beef
A terrifying hellscape, not dissimilar from the twisting and roiling pits of the Nine Hells.
It has fiends, devils, demons, you know, all that Avernus stuff you love. Just a few differences you will barely notice—unless you are an experienced tabletop gamer with a keen intellect.
Differences include:
- The only food available is well-done stench kow beef.
- The economy involves stench kows and stench kow meat instead of soul coins.
- People have a lot of football viewing parties with a lot of barbecues, because of the insufferable amount of ground stench kow just lying around everywhere.
- Generally speaking there are just constant barbecues so there’s not a lot of deception or torture going on.
- Everyone is always talking about the new Beyond Stench vegetable protein and how stupid it is.
The Pit of Ding Dong
The entire plane is the inside of an impossibly gigantic Hostess Ding Dong.
Okay, that’s probably enough new planes for now! We will probably add more if and when we feel like it, and against the counsel of literally all the people we ran it past. And by “we” we mean the singular author of this piece, who is very strange.
Dan Telfer is the Dungeons Humorist aka Comedy Archmage for D&D Beyond (a fun way they are letting him say "writer"), dungeon master for the Nerd Poker podcast, a stand-up comedian, a TV writer who also helped win some Emmys over at Comedy Central, and a former editor of MAD Magazine and The Onion. He can be found riding his bike around Los Angeles from gig to gig to gaming store, though the best way to find out what he's up to is to follow him on Twitter via @dantelfer.
The Pit of Ding Dong (an in-world description)
No one knows why it is called this as there is never the sound of bells to be heard (and the plane itself seems to muffle sound somewhat), but this plane is essentially an unfathomably large, dark cavern. The soil consists of a strange, spongy, sweet-tasting material, though the pasty white denizens will consider you very strange for eating dirt (also, it's unclean because everyone walks on it). They will also not take kindly to you licking or biting them, despite them tasting sweet too. Beings from the Prime Material plane will suffer 1 CON damage for each hour they spend in this domain, as their waistline (or appropriate equivalent) balloons from the ambient caloric content of this plane.
That's brilliant! I'll have to not forget this article in the future. Now I can't help but remember this one article I found one time while Googling what color Twinkies burn. Also, I'd say "great work" to Dan, but in this particular context it would be slightly strange, as I am technically replying to someone else, but I don't feel like making two posts.
Froggy town eh?
Choice.
I don't even know what a Hostess Ding Dong is
Be enlightened!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_Dong
I am very tempted to use some form of Froggy Town.
"Creatures not wearing any clothing at all are kind of weird and will be judged as such"
Dan, come on, how *else* am I supposed to play a Barbarian?!
Also, amidst all these new planes I have to ask: *is* there a Cow Level?
Love Dan's nonsense, and I will be sure to use some of these to torture my ever distracted players!
Why?
Ok, sounds good
epitome of lazy writing... boo...i spent more brain cells reading and commenting on this article than the author did typing it out...
*Does massive line of cocaine*"GuYS, i hAVe A GReaT ideA FOr aN aRTiCle!
I enjoyed thoroughly
I think the Near Realm is probably the funniest.
you know, some of these are preferable to the plane of worms. Just an infinite sea of living works. It actually existed.
I’m totally making the
This has inspired me to make the Valley of Stench Beef the Cow Level from Diablo.
Oh man, so this is what it looks like when somebody forgets they have a deadline on DnDbeyond!
Big fan of countless dimensions in my games. Randomonium, plane of dice people and the Elemental Plane of Sugar are two favorites.
Which plane has dancing skeletons that play music on their own rib cages like xylophones and only play Dem Bones incessantly?
Ha ha. Ha.
Yeah, chill--a human person wrote this article. Be kind.