Are they overlapping over ours? (Like the Upsideown from Stranger Things) Are they seperate realities or worlds? I've only done homebrew stuff so I'm curious how other settings handle them.
Are they overlapping over ours? (Like the Upsideown from Stranger Things) Are they seperate realities or worlds? I've only done homebrew stuff so I'm curious how other settings handle them.
A few planes (like the Shadowfell and the Ethereal) overlap ours, but most do not. Alternate Worlds/Campaign settings are called alternate Material Planes. The most commonly referenced planes are the Outer Planes, which are basically forms of afterlifes where the gods live (and, along with the Astral plane, are viewed more as planes of thought than matter).
The Outer Planes seem to be isolated environments - isolated from the Material Plane and from each other if divided by alignment. (Though, the Hells and the Abyss are often invading each other somehow - usually the Abyss trying to invade the Hells.) They're self-contained.
The innermost Inner Planes seem to act like the Upside Down - overlapping. The Feywild and Shadowfell have places that can resemble some place on the Material Plane - and where such places exists, a means of crossing over is more likely to exist.
What I don't get are the Elemental Planes - the outer Inner Planes. They're uninhabitable far away from the Material Plane - pure element, have habitable features when closer to the Material Plane, and interact with their neighboring planes at their borders. Go even further from the Material Plane and you get just "Elemental Chaos".
How are they physically related if one can be close or distant from the Material Plane and yet not interact with the Material Plane?
Do they overlap somehow and one shifts around a spectrum wheel with each point it's own variant from the mixing of elements and influence of the Material Plane? So, where is the City of Brass? Is it actually situated with the Cinder Wastes on one side and the Sea of Fire on another? So that would mean someone could simply walk from one Elemental Plane to the next, but still somehow not walk to the Material Plane?
My head hurts.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I generally treat the Elemental Planes as having overlapping regions within the inner planes. For example, in my homebrew game there's this ship that was engineered to be able to warp through into the elemental plane of water (where speedy currents and whatnot can allow for much faster travel) in order to cut across areas of the material plane much like a spaceship cuts through hyperspace in sci-fi.
While this ship doesn't enter the elemental plane of water proper-- it couldn't because it would be all water with no surface to sail on-- it does warp to an outlying region of the elemental planes that intersects with the elemental plane of air (hence there's a surface and breathable atmosphere to sail on/in, as well as wind to propel the sails), and seemingly over the horizon there appears to be one long blazing sunset that goes the length of the horizon, that is in fact where the planes distantly overlap with the elemental plane of fire (hence there is also light and heat), and if they traveled straight down through the wild seas impossibly long and impossibly deep, they'd probably find dirt from where it intersects with the plane of earth.
The elemental planes don’t overlap IIRC they are like the Outer Planes, completely separated environments, but closer to the Material Plane and it’s easier to find portals (Ex: a portal to the elemental plane of water in the middle of a swirl, reach the Plane Of Air though a hurricane etc...) Obviously, in your game you can do how you want.
Where air and water planes meet is supposed to be the Frostfell - endless ice.
The Plane of Fire can't be only fire as we know it. Fire as we know it needs fuels to create the reaction that produces flame and a medium within which to exist (or else it will just be a harmless blue aura in a vacuum). Instead, we have some magical Plane of Fire that has air and solid surfaces as well as molten surfaces and also areas where massive tall flames seem to emanate from a bottomless void. I guess it's more a Fire-themed Plane than a Plane made only of Fire.
By that, each Elemental Plane in 5e is themed upon an element (which in turn are themed upon 4 states of matter - solid earth, liquid water, gaseous air, and fire energy).
The Plane of Water is an endless ocean and not solid water. The Plane of Earth is an endless range of barren mountains and not one, infinite block of rock.
...but I'm still stuck on how they have borders that mix their themes: Air->Mistral Reach->Frostfell->Sea of Ice->Water->Silt Flats->Swamp of Oblivion->Mud Hills->Earth->The Furnaces->The Fountains of Creation->Fire->The Great Conflagration->Sirocco Straits->back to Air
The regions don't seem all that well defined as if the environment changes gradually when moving between planes as if all the Elemental Planes are connected directly. ...and with that, the mixing of the Material Plane to the Elemental Planes. Everything seems to point to a ring configuration with the Material Plane in the middle and Elemental Chaos around, but everything also seems to point to the Material Plane being directly inaccessible from the Elemental Planes.
As a person travels toward the Material Plane, what happens? At what point does it stop? One cannot just walk out of an Elemental Plane, and at some point, an Elemental Plane is no longer an Elemental Plane but the Material Plane.
..and it makes my head hurt.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
The elemental planes connect, but they do NOT connect to the material plane. You can walk from fire to earth to air to water and back to fire, but you can never walk to the Material Plane. Technically this really means that their is only one single Elemental plane with 4 different sections, but that is semantics.
Different Universes/books have different explanations of the planes. But every single one I have heard requires extra dimensions.
Quick explanation:
0 dimensions is a point: .
1 dimension is an endless (perhaps curved in a 2nd dimension into a circle) line, that looks like an endless series of points piled on top of each other.
2 dimensions is an endless flat sheet, perhaps curved in a 3rd dimension into a sphere, that looks like an endless series of lines piled on top of each other.
3 dimensions is the universe as you understand it, perhaps curved in a 4th dimension into a hyper-sphere that looks like an endless series of sheets piled on top of each other.
4th dimensions is a further extension along the same method is the multi-verse, which looks like an endless series of UNIVERSES piled on top of each other.
This can actually go on endlessly, having 5th, 6th, 7th, etc. dimensions. But that is not needed.
Just as a you could have several balloons (2 dimensional universes) next to each other but not touching, you can have several full material planes next to each other but not touching.
But it is possible to have a balloon (2 dim universe) wrap entirely around another balloon. Such a thing is weird, but possible. Those could be planes that touch other planes everywhere, or could simply not touch each plane everywhere. Examples of planes that surround and touch are the ethereal plane, fey wilde, and shadowfell planes. Th
It is also possible to have a plane surround but not touch, that would be 'The Elemental Plane(s)'.
Finally the most common situation are the separate planes that neither surround or touch each other.
It's the shape of the wings. The wings create an airfold so that the air moving over the top of them is faster than the air that moves under them, because the air is "getting stuck" under the wing but still trying to push forward, it instead pushes up and creates lift. But it also causes drag which slows the plane down which is why planes need powerful engines to keep pushing them forwards. The faster the plane moves, the more lift and drag are created.
Oh-- wrong sort of planes...
Hmm... Generally I treat them as super abstract and generally there is something about the environments of pure planes that make exact navigation of them pretty much impossible. Whether they are planets of their own or infinite stretches of water, fire, dark fog, etc-- how would one ever know?
But in the case of different D&D settings-- sometimes I might consider them to be like different planets that might be circling different stars in the same galaxy and the reason they are so similar in many aspects is because a lot of the same gods were involved in their creation (thus explaining why a lot of gods appear in entirely different campaign worlds in the same roles).
Or maybe they are in a multiverse-- different possibilities of how the world could have been. Actually-- the fact that every time a DM runs a campaign in a given campaign world, whatever they do isn't necessarily considered to have taken place in any other so-- the multiverse part kind of has to be slightly true. But Eberron and Faerun and Mystara and such could also be different planets in the same galaxy too.
Are they overlapping over ours? (Like the Upsideown from Stranger Things) Are they seperate realities or worlds? I've only done homebrew stuff so I'm curious how other settings handle them.
A few planes (like the Shadowfell and the Ethereal) overlap ours, but most do not. Alternate Worlds/Campaign settings are called alternate Material Planes. The most commonly referenced planes are the Outer Planes, which are basically forms of afterlifes where the gods live (and, along with the Astral plane, are viewed more as planes of thought than matter).
The Outer Planes seem to be isolated environments - isolated from the Material Plane and from each other if divided by alignment. (Though, the Hells and the Abyss are often invading each other somehow - usually the Abyss trying to invade the Hells.) They're self-contained.
The innermost Inner Planes seem to act like the Upside Down - overlapping. The Feywild and Shadowfell have places that can resemble some place on the Material Plane - and where such places exists, a means of crossing over is more likely to exist.
What I don't get are the Elemental Planes - the outer Inner Planes. They're uninhabitable far away from the Material Plane - pure element, have habitable features when closer to the Material Plane, and interact with their neighboring planes at their borders. Go even further from the Material Plane and you get just "Elemental Chaos".
How are they physically related if one can be close or distant from the Material Plane and yet not interact with the Material Plane?
Do they overlap somehow and one shifts around a spectrum wheel with each point it's own variant from the mixing of elements and influence of the Material Plane? So, where is the City of Brass? Is it actually situated with the Cinder Wastes on one side and the Sea of Fire on another? So that would mean someone could simply walk from one Elemental Plane to the next, but still somehow not walk to the Material Plane?
My head hurts.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I generally treat the Elemental Planes as having overlapping regions within the inner planes. For example, in my homebrew game there's this ship that was engineered to be able to warp through into the elemental plane of water (where speedy currents and whatnot can allow for much faster travel) in order to cut across areas of the material plane much like a spaceship cuts through hyperspace in sci-fi.
While this ship doesn't enter the elemental plane of water proper-- it couldn't because it would be all water with no surface to sail on-- it does warp to an outlying region of the elemental planes that intersects with the elemental plane of air (hence there's a surface and breathable atmosphere to sail on/in, as well as wind to propel the sails), and seemingly over the horizon there appears to be one long blazing sunset that goes the length of the horizon, that is in fact where the planes distantly overlap with the elemental plane of fire (hence there is also light and heat), and if they traveled straight down through the wild seas impossibly long and impossibly deep, they'd probably find dirt from where it intersects with the plane of earth.
The elemental planes don’t overlap IIRC they are like the Outer Planes, completely separated environments, but closer to the Material Plane and it’s easier to find portals (Ex: a portal to the elemental plane of water in the middle of a swirl, reach the Plane Of Air though a hurricane etc...) Obviously, in your game you can do how you want.
Yeah I just found it more interesting that way
Where air and water planes meet is supposed to be the Frostfell - endless ice.
The Plane of Fire can't be only fire as we know it. Fire as we know it needs fuels to create the reaction that produces flame and a medium within which to exist (or else it will just be a harmless blue aura in a vacuum). Instead, we have some magical Plane of Fire that has air and solid surfaces as well as molten surfaces and also areas where massive tall flames seem to emanate from a bottomless void. I guess it's more a Fire-themed Plane than a Plane made only of Fire.
By that, each Elemental Plane in 5e is themed upon an element (which in turn are themed upon 4 states of matter - solid earth, liquid water, gaseous air, and fire energy).
The Plane of Water is an endless ocean and not solid water. The Plane of Earth is an endless range of barren mountains and not one, infinite block of rock.
...but I'm still stuck on how they have borders that mix their themes:
Air->Mistral Reach->Frostfell->Sea of Ice->Water->Silt Flats->Swamp of Oblivion->Mud Hills->Earth->The Furnaces->The Fountains of Creation->Fire->The Great Conflagration->Sirocco Straits->back to Air
The regions don't seem all that well defined as if the environment changes gradually when moving between planes as if all the Elemental Planes are connected directly. ...and with that, the mixing of the Material Plane to the Elemental Planes. Everything seems to point to a ring configuration with the Material Plane in the middle and Elemental Chaos around, but everything also seems to point to the Material Plane being directly inaccessible from the Elemental Planes.
As a person travels toward the Material Plane, what happens? At what point does it stop? One cannot just walk out of an Elemental Plane, and at some point, an Elemental Plane is no longer an Elemental Plane but the Material Plane.
..and it makes my head hurt.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
The elemental planes connect, but they do NOT connect to the material plane. You can walk from fire to earth to air to water and back to fire, but you can never walk to the Material Plane. Technically this really means that their is only one single Elemental plane with 4 different sections, but that is semantics.
Different Universes/books have different explanations of the planes. But every single one I have heard requires extra dimensions.
Quick explanation:
0 dimensions is a point: .
1 dimension is an endless (perhaps curved in a 2nd dimension into a circle) line, that looks like an endless series of points piled on top of each other.
2 dimensions is an endless flat sheet, perhaps curved in a 3rd dimension into a sphere, that looks like an endless series of lines piled on top of each other.
3 dimensions is the universe as you understand it, perhaps curved in a 4th dimension into a hyper-sphere that looks like an endless series of sheets piled on top of each other.
4th dimensions is a further extension along the same method is the multi-verse, which looks like an endless series of UNIVERSES piled on top of each other.
This can actually go on endlessly, having 5th, 6th, 7th, etc. dimensions. But that is not needed.
Just as a you could have several balloons (2 dimensional universes) next to each other but not touching, you can have several full material planes next to each other but not touching.
But it is possible to have a balloon (2 dim universe) wrap entirely around another balloon. Such a thing is weird, but possible. Those could be planes that touch other planes everywhere, or could simply not touch each plane everywhere. Examples of planes that surround and touch are the ethereal plane, fey wilde, and shadowfell planes. Th
It is also possible to have a plane surround but not touch, that would be 'The Elemental Plane(s)'.
Finally the most common situation are the separate planes that neither surround or touch each other.
The back cover of the original AD&D DMG had an excellent picture of the plane of fire (including the City of Brass)
It's the shape of the wings. The wings create an airfold so that the air moving over the top of them is faster than the air that moves under them, because the air is "getting stuck" under the wing but still trying to push forward, it instead pushes up and creates lift. But it also causes drag which slows the plane down which is why planes need powerful engines to keep pushing them forwards. The faster the plane moves, the more lift and drag are created.
Oh-- wrong sort of planes...
Hmm... Generally I treat them as super abstract and generally there is something about the environments of pure planes that make exact navigation of them pretty much impossible. Whether they are planets of their own or infinite stretches of water, fire, dark fog, etc-- how would one ever know?
But in the case of different D&D settings-- sometimes I might consider them to be like different planets that might be circling different stars in the same galaxy and the reason they are so similar in many aspects is because a lot of the same gods were involved in their creation (thus explaining why a lot of gods appear in entirely different campaign worlds in the same roles).
Or maybe they are in a multiverse-- different possibilities of how the world could have been. Actually-- the fact that every time a DM runs a campaign in a given campaign world, whatever they do isn't necessarily considered to have taken place in any other so-- the multiverse part kind of has to be slightly true. But Eberron and Faerun and Mystara and such could also be different planets in the same galaxy too.