Roleplay Ramblings: Cosmology part 2
So last time we looked at Inner Planes, which seem to focus on pale reflections of material reality, or to be the source of a certain fundamental property that makes up the material plane. Now, we look out further, to what are commonly called the Outer Planes.
These are places of spiritstuff and living morality, wellsprings of power from which the majority of outsiders come from, their specific philosophy not only on their lips and on their minds, but running through every fiber of their being. As such, they defy many of the needs associated with mortal creatures, being self-sustained avatars of belief. Of course, as with all things, oftentimes even these beings defy such simple explanations.
The outer planes are often called such not only because of their metaphorical and literal distance from the material world, but also in that they can seem utterly alien to mortal visitors. Yes an outer plane may have grass and ground and even animal life that resembles mortal counterparts, but a closer look can reveal how strange they really are, being made from matter entirely different than what is found on the material or even the elemental planes.
The exact number of these esoteric planes varies by cosmology, but traditionally there is at least one for every alignment combination. Additionally, unlike most inner planes outer planes often have “layers” or something like sub-planes that might be visible from each other, or seemingly separate, but accessible from each other through the right channels. These layers may have very different planar properties compared to each other, or their division might be esoteric and formal more than anything else, but separated nontheless
Typically Lawful Good is depicted as some combination of Abrahamic heaven and Mount Olympus, being an impossibly massive mountain whose slope is divided into 7 layers, the 6th usually being the peak, and the 7th being some mythical place in the upper atmosphere of the plane, some secret garden that few are ever allowed into.
Neutral Good, on the other hand is typically a pastorial place where the spirits of goodly mortals, and their agathion guardians, live in relative peace, cooperating as need be, but otherwise leaving well enough alone.
Chaotic good, of course, is even more wild, and certainly more disorganized, and those within simply cooperate when need be, but otherwise do as they will without harming others.
Lawful neutral tends to follow one of two concepts, either a colossal central city surrounded by perfectly ordered nature beyond its walls, or else a void filled with planet-sized cogs, shafts, and other evidence of machinery, where civilizations spring up on the constantly rotating gears, dimly aware of the true purpose of their home component world in the impossible machine of perfect order.
True neutral has been both a concordant place that is at once disconnected from, but also at the center of all other outer planes, or else a place of quiet death, a last stopping-off point on the journey of souls before being judged and moving on to their final reward.
The Chaotic neutral plane is difficult to describe in any words other than cacophony, discord, and disorder. Some might mistake the plane for an elemental plane, that is until the truly strange things happen in the ever-changing void. Planetoids form and discorporate, matter transmutes into other forms and even energy freely, and so on, subject to random chance or the will of powerful entities.
The lawful evil realm typically resembles the Hell of Dante’s Inferno, a great pit nine layers deep, each with its own methods of causing suffering.
The neutral evil plane has occasionally been a place devoid of all life and love, sucking the vitality of visiting mortals if the denizens don’t kill them first. Alternately, it is a place of hungry death, built to consume all that enter it.
The chaotic evil plane is truly erratic, with supposedly infinite demon-infested layers, each one with unique features of harshness and suffering. Skies that rain acid, black seas with unknowable horrors lurking below, harsh deserts that dessicate the unprepared unnaturally fast, and so on.
There may be more or less outer planes than those listed here, but we’ll talk about that later this week. Tune in next week for thoughts on past multiversal arrangements of planes!
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