I've been trying to wrap my head around the plane of water for a while now. I've got a campaign in mind with my players getting lost in a storm and being taken to the Plane of Water and have to make their way back, but I can't decide if the Plane of Water should be all underwater with the occasional vast pockets of air, like I've read online, or if it should be a vast unending ocean that has a surface, like in the DMG. So, what do you guys think? Would my players, looking up when they arrive, see familiar yet alien starry sky, or would they see the bizarre sight of ocean above them, going from horizon to horizon?
Also, I know that ultimately it comes down to me how's it's done, but I'd still love to hear some opinions about this!
I often wonder ow do you move in a plane of earth? Hahaha.
But yeah I kinda imagine it like this....all the planes border each other. The closer to each border (like overlapping vindiagrams) the more they share aspects of the other.
So for the plane of fire the pure elemental plane is just plasma, like the early universe.
In the plane of earth its just solid stone.
But the closer to the fringes, like where water borders air, there is sky and expanse. Where water borders earth there is murk and rock.
Where it borders fire theres steam and heat.
Then where you have multiples bordering its volcanic....or airy and steamy...etc.
My thought has always been that there is no sky in the Elemental Plane of Water. Basically, your always deep underwater anywhere you go.
I dont disagree but that only mechanically works for water and air.
And there are many forms of fire.
And only one form of earth (not geologically speaking but absent heat all earth is solid stone).
On that note the plane of water would be an absolute zero ice block?
As you see the planes can be more pure...but essentially must interact because their extreme logical conclusions are unplayable by material characters.
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Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Further issues. Gravity. Is there any? If the elemental plane is instead rotating around a material center you can assume absent gravity it has centripetal force which keeps you oriented.
That works better than gravity which would be unmanageable in a vast plane of element assumed to have mass.
Furthermore, what about pressure? Pressure in underwater would definitely be a problem unless theres no gravity or force at all
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Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
I struggle to visualize the elemental planes so it is very interesting to see how others see them. I'm ambivalent about the plane of water. On the one hand, you could have a bottomless ocean with no surface and no floor that just gets darker and darker the further down you go (and conversely, brighter as you go up, but never reach the surface?) But on the other hand, I feel like it would be much more interesting to have the plane of water essentially be an endless ocean of differing depths with a surface as well as a sea floor with its own underwater geography, caves, ruins, cities, civilizations,etc. And on the surface, perhaps it is constant fog or just raging thunderstorms with violent churning waves crashing endlessly.
My thought has always been that there is no sky in the Elemental Plane of Water. Basically, your always deep underwater anywhere you go.
Imagine the better story though if you navigate the planes. A map that takes you along the material-like edges where the elemental planes collide. The most earthlike being where earth, water, fire, air all swirls together as a maelstrom. Unlike Earth which can be friendly to life, this place is the terrible torrent of elemental energy veying for power and mastery over each other. All balancing each other out in an orderly chaos.
On this gateway to the elements a sojourner might see some warped inner space where each plane rises above them purifying as they stretch on forever to some impossible event horizon.
Here the navigator can choose where to go, and how to get into the more pure elements to explore their depths.
There may be many entry points to these planes, but entering into the heart of a ball of plasma, or phasing into solid rock, or being in an endless wind, might land the navigator to an early conclusion of their journey.
I struggle to visualize the elemental planes so it is very interesting to see how others see them. I'm ambivalent about the plane of water. On the one hand, you could have a bottomless ocean with no surface and no floor that just gets darker and darker the further down you go (and conversely, brighter as you go up, but never reach the surface?) But on the other hand, I feel like it would be much more interesting to have the plane of water essentially be an endless ocean of differing depths with a surface as well as a sea floor with its own underwater geography, caves, ruins, cities, civilizations,etc. And on the surface, perhaps it is constant fog or just raging thunderstorms with violent churning waves crashing endlessly.
Another aspect of the elemental planes is that there MUST be a singularity which is the border to the material.
Because the material is finite and DnD states the elemental are infinite therefore infinity / finite is zero....a singularity.
This gives you a sense of direction and centeredness in the elemental planes.
Yes there is a bottomless ocean as the plane of water stretches to an infinite horizon. But there is a surface as it approaches the singularity that is the material plane.
So, hence why toward this singularity these planes border eachother and interact with each other more and more earthlike until finally becoming the material plane.
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Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Not that it is in any way canon, but if you are curious how Matt Mercer describes the Plane of Fire (specifically the City of Brass within the Plane of Fire), you can hear his description right here.
Not that it is in any way canon, but if you are curious how Matt Mercer describes the Plane of Fire (specifically the City of Brass within the Plane of Fire), you can hear his description right here.
As interested as I am in hearing it, and I will listen to it, the thing I keep harping on is gradients of purity.
For instance the "city of brass" could only exist where the elemental plane of fire meets the elemental plane of earth. While there is no "mixed planes" so it's as if the earth has crept into the fireplane and the fire plane has transmuted this into brass.
Whether Matt Mercer describes it this way or not, (I'm about to find out), I certainly will want to describe it that way because I like that story mechanic.
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Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
So I listened to Mercer, and I would simply say he's describing what I would call the gateway to the elements, it's near the singularity of the material plane. It's swirling and violent with the collision of earth, air and fire, but you have landed more in the fire plane now, furthest from water.
You stare out to the fireplane itself, the land crumbles and fissures toward an unending horizon which paradoxically seems to end and yet rise back above you in a such a way that as you follow it back to your location it seems to disappear into your own surroundings.
As you trace this unending horizon of fire, what was familiar to you, volcanoes, fissures of lava, heat shimmering in the air, that there even still is air gives you respite; these things, a world away but yet so close compared to the infinity of the horizon, seems to fall away into a vast empty void. At first like a corona of the sun during the eclipse, only its brightness is like that of the day.
Fires flow toward it, stretching from the fractured earth, columns of flames rise from it, stretching to a seemingly endless ceiling of flame above, that same ceiling which collapses on your position into visible light, and stretches back on itself to the horizon into a roiling, churning, wall of bright light.
As if all the suns of many worlds were taken and stretched out into a horizon that, as you peer into the fireplane, it surrounds you in every way you look.
But, as you take a step back from the fireplane, that 360 degree horizon of fire disappears somewhat, yielding to the other planes on whose borders you now stand.
Should you turn in any other direction moving ever so slightly, the phenomenon is always the same but with their respective elements. Water has the rocky endless shore which is ceaselessly battered by waves. Air has the endless storm front constantly boiling against the heat of the fireplane. Earth, a churching sand against a burning mountain stretched out under what looks like an everlasting earth turned inside out.
This is the most hospitable of the elemental planes to would be material adventurerers.
You thank yourself for not landing somewhere an infinitey of miles away, in an endless, burning sun, still infinitely refining any other element into the purest of fire.
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Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
The Forgotten Realms Wiki doesn't really go into detail on where in the Elemental Plane of Fire the City of Brass is located, although there are similar realms within the Elemental Plane of Water according to the same source.
You turn to the water plane and the infinite horizon is still familiar from the fire plane, but the scene is much different. The shores are constantly battered by water that flows against it in a wave that never ends. The wave curves higher and higher like a vaulted arch. It appears to crash down upon you and yet you feel none of its force. As you step out onto the beach, upon a rock jutting out into the waves, closest to you the water is thinnest and you can see a mirror reflection of the other side which appears to have its own air battling back the waves, and its own land.
You wonder if you were to swim down through the currents if you could come out the other side and explore that beach, or if it is truly just a mirrored reflection.
But the thought of the current visible in the center, pulling rock and sand into its heart, and sweep you out into an endless sea, terrifies you. Perhaps you could swim to the wave-shocked surface and come back around to where you began, but though your eyes can seem to see a dome of water rise above and fall behind you, the waves simply disappear endlessly as they rise above. It gives you the impression that even following the waves a simple degree in arc above the horizon is to view many worlds of oceans ceaselessly beating back the invading air.
Hurricanes stretch out along this alien sea, some seem so vast and yet they appear as the most distant puff of cloud somewhere slightly above eye level. You raise your head as if to look for a moon and notice this sea was not merely whitecapped waves, but pocked with countless hurricanes, each must have an ocean between them.
You consider that sailing such a sea would be impossible, as impossible as plumbing the depths were you to instead swim toward the horizon, rather than sail along the arcing surface.
In your despair, you wonder whatever could make this abyssal depth its home.
The Forgotten Realms Wiki doesn't really go into detail on where in the Elemental Plane of Fire the City of Brass is located, although there are similar realms within the Elemental Plane of Water according to the same source.
Understood, I've more or less invented my own to match my views of logic and create a better visual from it. I actually created a lot of the visuals just now, in response to our conversation. So, I hope you like them.
I'm starting with the principle that on the border of the planes you have something earthlike, and the more infinitely you go out into the plane the more pure in that element.
Hence why as long as you are close to the border it appears mixed with other elements, hence the arc like descriptions. But as you move further away from the center along the "Water" axis, the deeper the water gets, infinitely.
And the further you move out into the Fire axis, the deeper, more pure, and hotter the fire gets until it's just a primordial plasma, or maybe a completely disassociated raw energy.
The further you move out into the Earth axis, the deeper into the ground, but absent heat (which is fire).
The further you move out into the Air axis, the more it's just a vast empty haze, illuminated by the fire plane's light. Increasingly distant, though infinite, the light appears to dim, but not really.
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Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Since this realm has 4 axes it would be 4th dimensional and that's a cool thought, a box would literally be a tesseract here. Since a material being here would also be interacting in 4 dimensions, so you could avoid weird paradoxes like "3 dimensions is as sharp to 4th dimension as paper is to the 3rd."
Please don't think that I'm trying to contradict you or tell you you are wrong. The fact of the matter is that things like elemental planes are on the periphery of the Dungeons and Dragons cosmology and I believe that they are, by design, whatever you want them to be.
Please don't think that I'm trying to contradict you or tell you you are wrong. The fact of the matter is that things like elemental planes are on the periphery of the Dungeons and Dragons cosmology and I believe that they are, by design, whatever you want them to be.
I agree with this too and don't think you are correcting me or telling me I'm wrong.
But in response to your line of reasoning and examples, I've created my own descriptions (just now) of this wondrous phenomenon, for others to use it as they see fit.
I'm rather enjoying my own descriptions. I feel it creates more wonders and immerses in the alien-ness of the dimension better, so I'll probably steal it for my own story. Where Simeon Tor searches to enter the fire plane on a quest to become the most powerful Wizard.
My stories were once loosely D&D inspired but they are quickly becoming their own world.
It is like space. Dark, gravityless, and filled with "stars" (bioluminesence flora and fauna). Think space pirates but underwater, gravity only exist when you meet another element. Their is no up or down. It just is water. At its "center" is absalute zero, a hudge submmerged iceberg with a city built into it. Smaller towns rotate around it, ocasional crashes are dangerous but resault in incredible upside down cities. Rulers live in the center of these icebergs in complex and beautiful underground castles. These towns are VERY cold, and arcitexture and fasion is similar to Russian style. Most metal is bog iron, which is cool.
The brightest and hottest portion of the plane is where it reaches the fire plane. Steam forms the very farthest end of the water plane. Before it fades into a area of warm water similar to littoral habitats. Between these two areas their is fog/water that is so thick that you can choak on it.
Between the two. A eternal huricane. At it's center, a small hot spring with moist air and an eternal fire lighting it.
Air. At the air elemental their is a true starry sky, and in the water it is like floating on the red sea and you can float in both air and water at the edge. The "stars" are both peaks into other portals and fire elementals.
Between the two. The best part, a huge beach. Tritons run a huge summer hotel. It has shingel beachs, bone beaches, sand beaches, every beach you can think of!
Earth. A cave that, eventualy, becomes a underwater lake, and then is the mine-like earth plane. Crystals, florecent rocks, strange metal glowworms are the only light.
This was a helpful thread to go through, as I'll be utilizing the Elemental Planes in my campaign. Some ideas I've seen expressed are also ones I've been utilizing, and others I might steal. Since it's a homebrew setting, I am taking liberties. Just to put it out there, here's what I've been thinking:
First of all, the "infinity" of the elemental planes is represented as elemental chaos. Pure representations of the elements colliding with each other with such titanic force that only the original Primordials can withstand.
As this infinite expanse approaches the inner planes, specifically the fae plane (Feywild+Shadowfell as the same plane) that surrounds the material, the chaos becomes more diluted and stable. At some point, it will appear like an alien reflection of the material plane. Within these stable regions does elemental life and civilization thrive, and each elements' stable regions are still vast enough to contain whole worlds within.
The Earth Plane is mountainous and perpetually moonlit. It is filled with volcanic and tectonic activity, though these are not cataclysmic events but welcomed by its inhabitants. Though this plane is in eternal night, it is nonetheless dimly lit by the bright moonlight scattering across gemstone and crystalline structures that give off their own phosphorescent ambient light. The surface is but a fraction of the Earth Plane, as its extensive cave networks carve wide and deep. Though life exists upon the surface, including civilized life, almost all of life's diversity and extent can be seen underground. I have yet to populate the Earth Plane with its distinctive forms of life.
The Water Plane is a vast, unending ocean with an ocean floor of varying depths. Though the ocean is unending, it nevertheless sees a constant rise and fall of islands, atolls and archipelagos. Similar to the Earth Plane, the vast majority of life's diversity and extent are beneath the surface. Three great civilized races dominate the Water Plane, beyond the mighty elemental titans and beasts. The Sea Elves are a maritime people, often found claiming the islands for their own and wandering across the ocean expanse in great flotillas. Their ships can quickly interconnect and separate, making a day's work the only difference between their floating cities and a fleet of ships. The Tritons are a race that keep to the shallows, the tops of their architecture often rising above the waves as mysterious atolls. They often trade with the Sea Elves and keep good relations, though conflict has arisen at times throughout history. With the Sea Elves on the surface and the Tritons in the shallows, deep within the dark depths are the Sahuagin. This nomadic race live in tribal units that can vary wildly in size, from an extended family unit to a horde-like gathering. I'm going with a Greco-Roman feel for the civilized races of the Water Plane. The Sea Elves are more traditionally Ancient Greek in culture and tradition, while their architectural style can be found among the underwater Triton cities. The Sahuagin represent the barbaric hordes of the later Roman empire, as seen in the eyes of Romans.
The Water Plane is the more developed because I intend to use the Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure module to explore it, and i'm getting prepared. The Earth Plane I've been working on because of an earth genasi PC, whose mother is a powerful entity on that plane.
The Air and Fire Planes are my less developed ones. I know I'll be doing something with the Aarokocra, but since the aarokocra PC has died and been replaced with a Warforged, I'd paused development.
I often wonder ow do you move in a plane of earth? Hahaha.
But yeah I kinda imagine it like this....all the planes border each other. The closer to each border (like overlapping vindiagrams) the more they share aspects of the other.
So for the plane of fire the pure elemental plane is just plasma, like the early universe.
In the plane of earth its just solid stone.
But the closer to the fringes, like where water borders air, there is sky and expanse. Where water borders earth there is murk and rock.
Where it borders fire theres steam and heat.
Then where you have multiples bordering its volcanic....or airy and steamy...etc.
This is the approach I've taken here's my description I wrote for my version of the plane of Elemental water
"Much like the plane of Earth the plane of Water can be divided into layers. The uppermost layer is the least explored as it is in a constant boiling state inimical to all but the massive Leviathan like creatures that dwell there. Whatever source that is hot enough to boil the surface of an entire plane also gives off enough radiance to light all but the darkest depths.
As the light filters down through the water the currents become cooler allowing life to flourish, while the the Prime Material Plane can boast a wide variety of life it is nothing compared to the trillions upon trillions of life forms that dwell in the Elemental Plane of Water.
Vast pockets of gasses slowly drift upwards released from volcanic fissures below, drifitnf above mountains of coral and stone and eventually dissapating in the planes uperu layer. Forests of kelp and other aquatic flora give shelter to both predators and prey while schools of fish with numbers greater than many cities dart through the water trying to avoid the cavernous maws of great predators.
The lowest reaches are the darkest and coldest of the plane as well as home to some of its stranger denizens. Invisible predators lure prey using the light of their own bodies while blind monstrocities crawl through the darkness to feed on decaying corpses fallen from the world above."
In the end your description is up to you, I knew someone who took inspiration from Interstellar where the plane was affected by massive tide systems so when the tide was out the land was dry or very low but then when the tide came back epically massive tidal wave would rush back in. The sky is no different, in mine obviously no one knows what the sky is like because no one's been able to get there
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I've been trying to wrap my head around the plane of water for a while now. I've got a campaign in mind with my players getting lost in a storm and being taken to the Plane of Water and have to make their way back, but I can't decide if the Plane of Water should be all underwater with the occasional vast pockets of air, like I've read online, or if it should be a vast unending ocean that has a surface, like in the DMG. So, what do you guys think? Would my players, looking up when they arrive, see familiar yet alien starry sky, or would they see the bizarre sight of ocean above them, going from horizon to horizon?
Also, I know that ultimately it comes down to me how's it's done, but I'd still love to hear some opinions about this!
I often wonder ow do you move in a plane of earth? Hahaha.
But yeah I kinda imagine it like this....all the planes border each other. The closer to each border (like overlapping vindiagrams) the more they share aspects of the other.
So for the plane of fire the pure elemental plane is just plasma, like the early universe.
In the plane of earth its just solid stone.
But the closer to the fringes, like where water borders air, there is sky and expanse. Where water borders earth there is murk and rock.
Where it borders fire theres steam and heat.
Then where you have multiples bordering its volcanic....or airy and steamy...etc.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
My thought has always been that there is no sky in the Elemental Plane of Water. Basically, your always deep underwater anywhere you go.
I dont disagree but that only mechanically works for water and air.
And there are many forms of fire.
And only one form of earth (not geologically speaking but absent heat all earth is solid stone).
On that note the plane of water would be an absolute zero ice block?
As you see the planes can be more pure...but essentially must interact because their extreme logical conclusions are unplayable by material characters.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
Further issues. Gravity. Is there any? If the elemental plane is instead rotating around a material center you can assume absent gravity it has centripetal force which keeps you oriented.
That works better than gravity which would be unmanageable in a vast plane of element assumed to have mass.
Furthermore, what about pressure? Pressure in underwater would definitely be a problem unless theres no gravity or force at all
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
I struggle to visualize the elemental planes so it is very interesting to see how others see them. I'm ambivalent about the plane of water. On the one hand, you could have a bottomless ocean with no surface and no floor that just gets darker and darker the further down you go (and conversely, brighter as you go up, but never reach the surface?) But on the other hand, I feel like it would be much more interesting to have the plane of water essentially be an endless ocean of differing depths with a surface as well as a sea floor with its own underwater geography, caves, ruins, cities, civilizations,etc. And on the surface, perhaps it is constant fog or just raging thunderstorms with violent churning waves crashing endlessly.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Imagine the better story though if you navigate the planes. A map that takes you along the material-like edges where the elemental planes collide. The most earthlike being where earth, water, fire, air all swirls together as a maelstrom. Unlike Earth which can be friendly to life, this place is the terrible torrent of elemental energy veying for power and mastery over each other. All balancing each other out in an orderly chaos.
On this gateway to the elements a sojourner might see some warped inner space where each plane rises above them purifying as they stretch on forever to some impossible event horizon.
Here the navigator can choose where to go, and how to get into the more pure elements to explore their depths.
There may be many entry points to these planes, but entering into the heart of a ball of plasma, or phasing into solid rock, or being in an endless wind, might land the navigator to an early conclusion of their journey.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
Another aspect of the elemental planes is that there MUST be a singularity which is the border to the material.
Because the material is finite and DnD states the elemental are infinite therefore infinity / finite is zero....a singularity.
This gives you a sense of direction and centeredness in the elemental planes.
Yes there is a bottomless ocean as the plane of water stretches to an infinite horizon. But there is a surface as it approaches the singularity that is the material plane.
So, hence why toward this singularity these planes border eachother and interact with each other more and more earthlike until finally becoming the material plane.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
Not that it is in any way canon, but if you are curious how Matt Mercer describes the Plane of Fire (specifically the City of Brass within the Plane of Fire), you can hear his description right here.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
As interested as I am in hearing it, and I will listen to it, the thing I keep harping on is gradients of purity.
For instance the "city of brass" could only exist where the elemental plane of fire meets the elemental plane of earth. While there is no "mixed planes" so it's as if the earth has crept into the fireplane and the fire plane has transmuted this into brass.
Whether Matt Mercer describes it this way or not, (I'm about to find out), I certainly will want to describe it that way because I like that story mechanic.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
So I listened to Mercer, and I would simply say he's describing what I would call the gateway to the elements, it's near the singularity of the material plane. It's swirling and violent with the collision of earth, air and fire, but you have landed more in the fire plane now, furthest from water.
You stare out to the fireplane itself, the land crumbles and fissures toward an unending horizon which paradoxically seems to end and yet rise back above you in a such a way that as you follow it back to your location it seems to disappear into your own surroundings.
As you trace this unending horizon of fire, what was familiar to you, volcanoes, fissures of lava, heat shimmering in the air, that there even still is air gives you respite; these things, a world away but yet so close compared to the infinity of the horizon, seems to fall away into a vast empty void. At first like a corona of the sun during the eclipse, only its brightness is like that of the day.
Fires flow toward it, stretching from the fractured earth, columns of flames rise from it, stretching to a seemingly endless ceiling of flame above, that same ceiling which collapses on your position into visible light, and stretches back on itself to the horizon into a roiling, churning, wall of bright light.
As if all the suns of many worlds were taken and stretched out into a horizon that, as you peer into the fireplane, it surrounds you in every way you look.
But, as you take a step back from the fireplane, that 360 degree horizon of fire disappears somewhat, yielding to the other planes on whose borders you now stand.
Should you turn in any other direction moving ever so slightly, the phenomenon is always the same but with their respective elements. Water has the rocky endless shore which is ceaselessly battered by waves. Air has the endless storm front constantly boiling against the heat of the fireplane. Earth, a churching sand against a burning mountain stretched out under what looks like an everlasting earth turned inside out.
This is the most hospitable of the elemental planes to would be material adventurerers.
You thank yourself for not landing somewhere an infinitey of miles away, in an endless, burning sun, still infinitely refining any other element into the purest of fire.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
The Forgotten Realms Wiki doesn't really go into detail on where in the Elemental Plane of Fire the City of Brass is located, although there are similar realms within the Elemental Plane of Water according to the same source.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
You turn to the water plane and the infinite horizon is still familiar from the fire plane, but the scene is much different. The shores are constantly battered by water that flows against it in a wave that never ends. The wave curves higher and higher like a vaulted arch. It appears to crash down upon you and yet you feel none of its force. As you step out onto the beach, upon a rock jutting out into the waves, closest to you the water is thinnest and you can see a mirror reflection of the other side which appears to have its own air battling back the waves, and its own land.
You wonder if you were to swim down through the currents if you could come out the other side and explore that beach, or if it is truly just a mirrored reflection.
But the thought of the current visible in the center, pulling rock and sand into its heart, and sweep you out into an endless sea, terrifies you. Perhaps you could swim to the wave-shocked surface and come back around to where you began, but though your eyes can seem to see a dome of water rise above and fall behind you, the waves simply disappear endlessly as they rise above. It gives you the impression that even following the waves a simple degree in arc above the horizon is to view many worlds of oceans ceaselessly beating back the invading air.
Hurricanes stretch out along this alien sea, some seem so vast and yet they appear as the most distant puff of cloud somewhere slightly above eye level. You raise your head as if to look for a moon and notice this sea was not merely whitecapped waves, but pocked with countless hurricanes, each must have an ocean between them.
You consider that sailing such a sea would be impossible, as impossible as plumbing the depths were you to instead swim toward the horizon, rather than sail along the arcing surface.
In your despair, you wonder whatever could make this abyssal depth its home.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
Understood, I've more or less invented my own to match my views of logic and create a better visual from it. I actually created a lot of the visuals just now, in response to our conversation. So, I hope you like them.
I'm starting with the principle that on the border of the planes you have something earthlike, and the more infinitely you go out into the plane the more pure in that element.
Hence why as long as you are close to the border it appears mixed with other elements, hence the arc like descriptions. But as you move further away from the center along the "Water" axis, the deeper the water gets, infinitely.
And the further you move out into the Fire axis, the deeper, more pure, and hotter the fire gets until it's just a primordial plasma, or maybe a completely disassociated raw energy.
The further you move out into the Earth axis, the deeper into the ground, but absent heat (which is fire).
The further you move out into the Air axis, the more it's just a vast empty haze, illuminated by the fire plane's light. Increasingly distant, though infinite, the light appears to dim, but not really.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
Since this realm has 4 axes it would be 4th dimensional and that's a cool thought, a box would literally be a tesseract here. Since a material being here would also be interacting in 4 dimensions, so you could avoid weird paradoxes like "3 dimensions is as sharp to 4th dimension as paper is to the 3rd."
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
Please don't think that I'm trying to contradict you or tell you you are wrong. The fact of the matter is that things like elemental planes are on the periphery of the Dungeons and Dragons cosmology and I believe that they are, by design, whatever you want them to be.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I agree with this too and don't think you are correcting me or telling me I'm wrong.
But in response to your line of reasoning and examples, I've created my own descriptions (just now) of this wondrous phenomenon, for others to use it as they see fit.
I'm rather enjoying my own descriptions. I feel it creates more wonders and immerses in the alien-ness of the dimension better, so I'll probably steal it for my own story. Where Simeon Tor searches to enter the fire plane on a quest to become the most powerful Wizard.
My stories were once loosely D&D inspired but they are quickly becoming their own world.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
It is like space. Dark, gravityless, and filled with "stars" (bioluminesence flora and fauna). Think space pirates but underwater, gravity only exist when you meet another element. Their is no up or down. It just is water. At its "center" is absalute zero, a hudge submmerged iceberg with a city built into it. Smaller towns rotate around it, ocasional crashes are dangerous but resault in incredible upside down cities. Rulers live in the center of these icebergs in complex and beautiful underground castles. These towns are VERY cold, and arcitexture and fasion is similar to Russian style. Most metal is bog iron, which is cool.
The brightest and hottest portion of the plane is where it reaches the fire plane. Steam forms the very farthest end of the water plane. Before it fades into a area of warm water similar to littoral habitats. Between these two areas their is fog/water that is so thick that you can choak on it.
Between the two. A eternal huricane. At it's center, a small hot spring with moist air and an eternal fire lighting it.
Air. At the air elemental their is a true starry sky, and in the water it is like floating on the red sea and you can float in both air and water at the edge. The "stars" are both peaks into other portals and fire elementals.
Between the two. The best part, a huge beach. Tritons run a huge summer hotel. It has shingel beachs, bone beaches, sand beaches, every beach you can think of!
Earth. A cave that, eventualy, becomes a underwater lake, and then is the mine-like earth plane. Crystals, florecent rocks, strange metal glowworms are the only light.
Between earth and fire? Under water volcano.
This was a helpful thread to go through, as I'll be utilizing the Elemental Planes in my campaign. Some ideas I've seen expressed are also ones I've been utilizing, and others I might steal. Since it's a homebrew setting, I am taking liberties. Just to put it out there, here's what I've been thinking:
First of all, the "infinity" of the elemental planes is represented as elemental chaos. Pure representations of the elements colliding with each other with such titanic force that only the original Primordials can withstand.
As this infinite expanse approaches the inner planes, specifically the fae plane (Feywild+Shadowfell as the same plane) that surrounds the material, the chaos becomes more diluted and stable. At some point, it will appear like an alien reflection of the material plane. Within these stable regions does elemental life and civilization thrive, and each elements' stable regions are still vast enough to contain whole worlds within.
The Earth Plane is mountainous and perpetually moonlit. It is filled with volcanic and tectonic activity, though these are not cataclysmic events but welcomed by its inhabitants. Though this plane is in eternal night, it is nonetheless dimly lit by the bright moonlight scattering across gemstone and crystalline structures that give off their own phosphorescent ambient light. The surface is but a fraction of the Earth Plane, as its extensive cave networks carve wide and deep. Though life exists upon the surface, including civilized life, almost all of life's diversity and extent can be seen underground. I have yet to populate the Earth Plane with its distinctive forms of life.
The Water Plane is a vast, unending ocean with an ocean floor of varying depths. Though the ocean is unending, it nevertheless sees a constant rise and fall of islands, atolls and archipelagos. Similar to the Earth Plane, the vast majority of life's diversity and extent are beneath the surface. Three great civilized races dominate the Water Plane, beyond the mighty elemental titans and beasts. The Sea Elves are a maritime people, often found claiming the islands for their own and wandering across the ocean expanse in great flotillas. Their ships can quickly interconnect and separate, making a day's work the only difference between their floating cities and a fleet of ships. The Tritons are a race that keep to the shallows, the tops of their architecture often rising above the waves as mysterious atolls. They often trade with the Sea Elves and keep good relations, though conflict has arisen at times throughout history. With the Sea Elves on the surface and the Tritons in the shallows, deep within the dark depths are the Sahuagin. This nomadic race live in tribal units that can vary wildly in size, from an extended family unit to a horde-like gathering. I'm going with a Greco-Roman feel for the civilized races of the Water Plane. The Sea Elves are more traditionally Ancient Greek in culture and tradition, while their architectural style can be found among the underwater Triton cities. The Sahuagin represent the barbaric hordes of the later Roman empire, as seen in the eyes of Romans.
The Water Plane is the more developed because I intend to use the Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure module to explore it, and i'm getting prepared. The Earth Plane I've been working on because of an earth genasi PC, whose mother is a powerful entity on that plane.
The Air and Fire Planes are my less developed ones. I know I'll be doing something with the Aarokocra, but since the aarokocra PC has died and been replaced with a Warforged, I'd paused development.
This is the approach I've taken here's my description I wrote for my version of the plane of Elemental water
"Much like the plane of Earth the plane of Water can be divided into layers. The uppermost layer is the least explored as it is in a constant boiling state inimical to all but the massive Leviathan like creatures that dwell there. Whatever source that is hot enough to boil the surface of an entire plane also gives off enough radiance to light all but the darkest depths.
As the light filters down through the water the currents become cooler allowing life to flourish, while the the Prime Material Plane can boast a wide variety of life it is nothing compared to the trillions upon trillions of life forms that dwell in the Elemental Plane of Water.
Vast pockets of gasses slowly drift upwards released from volcanic fissures below, drifitnf above mountains of coral and stone and eventually dissapating in the planes uperu layer. Forests of kelp and other aquatic flora give shelter to both predators and prey while schools of fish with numbers greater than many cities dart through the water trying to avoid the cavernous maws of great predators.
The lowest reaches are the darkest and coldest of the plane as well as home to some of its stranger denizens. Invisible predators lure prey using the light of their own bodies while blind monstrocities crawl through the darkness to feed on decaying corpses fallen from the world above."
In the end your description is up to you, I knew someone who took inspiration from Interstellar where the plane was affected by massive tide systems so when the tide was out the land was dry or very low but then when the tide came back epically massive tidal wave would rush back in. The sky is no different, in mine obviously no one knows what the sky is like because no one's been able to get there