The Outer Planes Appendix (1991) was my jam, man. When D&D 2E came out, the extraplanar monsters, particularly the devils and demons, were removed. This was in response to headaches caused by Satanic Panic ding-dongs; TSR during this time was keen to not make the mothers of their increasingly younger player base angry. Devils and demons wouldn’t stay gone forever though! It only took two years for them to reappear, albeit with silly fantasy names like Baatezu and Tanar’ri instead of devil and demon. Whatever, they had horns and pitchforks and were cool as hell. I feel like I had this folder of monsters in my bag for most of eighth grade. No wonder I was such a sucker for Planescape when it came out a couple years later.
Tom Baxa did all the interiors. So many cool monster illustrations. That cambion is tops. I dig his Githyanki and Githzerai a lot too. Lemure, Piscoloth, Slaadi, Larvae. I really like how he does the “school photo inset” for the bar-lgura and the babau. Baxa’s…unusual sense of physiology serves him well drawing this outsiders.
This is one of my very favorite Easley Compendium covers (maybe only rivaled by Ravenloft II, which I don’t currently have the folder for, argh). I like the selection of monsters — they’re out there without being devils or demons, which speaks to the wider range the planes have to offer. That’s the voporighu of Gehenna, a maelephant and a bebilith.
“We are friends, come join us.”
Your journey went as well as ours? Good, good. At the very least, you have gained a larger understanding of the mainstream political groups that dwell within the so-called Good Kingdom, Wyld Realms and many other a name. Regardless of what they courts may call themselves in that moment, they still hold sway and much command. Do not let their chaotic forces fool…
I've stitched all the planes of d&d into one setting
I love the One World cosmology, and thanks to this incredible rendering of the Great Wheel, I'm finally getting started putting together a game setting where all the planes exist in the same dimension, and you can travel between them by normal means like walking and sailing.
No portals or high-level spells required! They're just like, other countries. Weird, magical, shape-changing countries, but countries nontheless.
I call my version of this cosmology the Crossroad Realms, and I'm putting it together on WorldAnvil, check it out! I'd be delighted if you tried running this idea, so if you do, let me know how it went!
A traditional map with consistent scale and landmarks is not possible in the Crossroad Realms. Their borders and sizes blur and blend with o
fan art of mechanus the clockwork nirvana is so nice that (as a chaotic good) i often forget i’d probably hate it there, what with it being the plane of absolute law
@mindosaalmun @nordir @hargraf @suddenwildmagic (people who liked my previous post on the topic)
Ok, so my reimagining the Outer Planes project. I’ll be drawing on elements from the Great Ring cosmology and Planescape, but I’ll be building the planes differently - starting with the underlying concept of the Alignment, and building up from there. I like Pantheons having whole realms in given planes, rather than gods being scattered among the planes by Alignment, but at the same time real world pantheons aren’t worth the cosmological problems they bring to the table (where does Ra’s sun barge cross daily? What underworld does he cross every night?). So I’ll build loose concepts for pantheons as I create the planes and flll them in with original gods later.
In most basic terms, here’s the overarching theme of each Aligned plane:
Lawful Good: Justice
Neutral Good: Compassion
Chaotic Good: Freedom
Lawful Neutral: Determinism
True Neutral: ???
Chaotic Neutral: Absurdism (in the existential sense)
Lawful Evil: Power
Neutral Evil: Selfishness
Chaotic Evil: Destruction
I’m having a hard time defining True Neutral. There are different ideas that blend into the other alignments, and maybe that’s something I can focus on. Apathy blends into Selfishness (NE). Nature [as exemplified in D&D by True Neutral Druids] blends into Freedom (CG) [ala the Beastlands]. Conflict between differing aligned forces blends into Destruction [CE]. Heartless mercenary capitalism blends into Power [LE]. Harmonious balance between aligned forces blends into Justice [LG]. Enlightened Transcendence blends into Compassion [NG]. Not sure yet on LN & CN.
For what its worth, I’m making the Astral Plane a more hopping place by combining it with the idea of a Demiplane of Dreams. Dreamscapes are manifest and are bridges of transit through the Astral, as are the rivers of souls of the dead on their way to the Outer Planes or to be reborn in the Prime Material.
And here we go, we have the final dual-land! I can’t believe we’ve reached this point, and so soon too. Izzet decks will always have a lace in my heart, and anything red-blue will probably remain my favorite part of Magic for years to come, so I hope I’ve done some justice for this land.
The area known only as the Volcanic Island is a beautiful, but highly dangerous place, filled with greenery and abundant with life, it is also subject to frequent and unexpected volcanic eruptions, capable of devastating large swathes of the island with only a moment’s notice. Trapped between the Elemental Planes of Water and Fire, and sitting uncomfortably close to the Positive Energy Plane, the Volcanic Island is unlike any other known elemental demiplane.
As its name suggests, the Volcanic Island is dominated by one singular plot of land, spanning hundreds of square miles, with several smaller outlying islands, and a single central volcano so large that its peak breaks the clouds above. While this volcano is known for its frequent “eruptions”, what actually happens is that many smaller vents which sit on the sides of the mountain are known to unexpectedly and violently spew forth magma, often catching the population of the island entirely unaware. The island itself always recovers fairly quickly from these miniature eruptions, with the energy of the Positive Energy plane fueling quick growth by the plants surrounding the scorched edges once the magma cools. In all the records which exist that speak of the Volcanic Island, only a few mention the central caldera of the island ever eruption. These eruptions were supposedly marked by long stretches of time in which no smaller eruptions occurred, before all at once the island itself exploded, leading to such intense devastation that even the furthest outlying island weren’t safe from the mass of magma and lava which spewed forth.
When these major eruptions occur, entire societies are buried in minutes, and each eruption often marks the start of an entirely new era on the Volcanic Island. Thousands of creatures are fossilized at once, the only evidence that creatures once lived on the island previously, and totally new plants and animals eventually cover the island in the span of a decade or two. The cause of these sudden eruptions has yet to be determined, meaning there is no way to accurately predict them before they happen. Some theorize this is because of the random chaos apparently inherent in the fabric of the demiplane. Casting spells on the Volcanic Island occasionally leads to unforeseen and potentially disastrous results, with spells causing entirely different effects than what was expected. Most of these unusual changes seem to center around heat or fire, theorized to be a result of the connection the Volcanic Island has to both the Plane of Fire and the Positive Energy Plane. But such explanations avoid entirely the fact that the demiplane sits closely to the Plane of Water as well, which seems to have almost no effect on the magical weave of the island.
