/tg/ - Traditional Games

4e's fluff was a mixed bag at best, but the Elemental Chaos is definitely the best way to do it. Basically a plane of Super Mario Galaxy levels.

The Feywild is best when basically toned down Changeling the Lost's Arcadia.

>>224185

> If you were to do the same thing on one of the outer planes, you would, at least in most of them, encounter more of the same, since their alignment forces all inhabitants to be similar.

Well, yeah. Most people in the Outer Planes are enjoying their afterlife, Heaven or even Hell are not the most interesting places in most depictions. For practical purposes, each plane is a region like any other in your D&D world, you get there, you see what it's about, do a quest, and move on.

If you want to throw it all out and toss in your own planes, figure out your gods or a theme, and work off that. Each plane is infinite because each one has to handle, in theory, EVERY follower from every prime plane that follows a god of that alignment, but you'd probably never go to a part of the plane that doesn't relate to the gods of your character's home world. The Abyss and Nine Hells are fine though, they have an entire political structure and established power struggles at all times. You can give the higher planes that same kinda conflict though, but there would be a greater chance of diplomacy if the players don't completely fuck things up.

Yeah, though, the Elemental Planes are just kinda… stuff. Planescape detailed them all a fair bit, but almost every single one of them flat out kills an unprepared party. Once you get over instantly dying a horrible death, most of the places aren't that interesting. The Astral Plane is cool as shit though, I'd love to run some adventures there.

>>224199

So aside from the race stuff, basically the Elemental Chaos.

>>224205

Kinda, except with stable bits floating in it like bubbles in soda where anything can happen and its less predictable than "you're going to the elemental plane of fire. I guess we're gonna see a lot of fire there". A trip to the planes is now a lot more unpredictable and exciting because you could run into an elemental plane of blood or a plane where two bubbles collided and you have a plane where all fire becomes immediately frozen in ice. or send the players to collapse an elemental plane of beer because the dwarven brewers were worried that would severely damage their craft.

I wanted an excuse to create whatever plane I wanted to set the tone for the adventure that night, serious or silly. I also wanted a better place to put extra planar and pocket dimension spaces. instead of creating a 'pocket dimension', wizards in my world would just take or claim a space in the elemental morass.

The elemental bubbles contain an almost infinite amount of elemental 'planes' in them swirling in the elemental morass, and they can sometimes bump into each other and merge. There's a whole adventuring guild dedicated to searching these planes and plundering them, searching for that one plane made up of precious metals or gemstones that has to be out there somewhere.

But this is just covering the planes, where my players don't go all that often, at least not yet, its still pretty early in the campaign. The real meat of it comes from the fact that the elemental planes are seeping into the prime material which can make for some great stories.

>>224213

>Kinda, except with stable bits floating in it like bubbles in soda where anything can happen and its less predictable than "you're going to the elemental plane of fire. I guess we're gonna see a lot of fire there"

That's the Elemental Chaos.

>>224214

yeah but I don't use any of the stuff Wotc wrote for it. I couldn't care less about their canon about it.

>>224185

>What are some settings where the different planes are fun and interesting?

Exalted.

>>224185

I think you're failing to understand the intent of settings like Planescape; note that this doesn't excuse lazy writing, but as always we find it's fun and easy to pick on an old system.

The idea is that players who have access to powerful magic, artifacts or locations that let them travel across the planes will give into their meta-desires and constantly do just that.

You don't set a whole campaign in the Plane of Fire; you start it in Sigil and introduce your quest, roleplay in the hive, send the PCs on a romp through Carceri until they locate the secret portal and confront the thief/BBEG/talking-macguffin deep in the personal dungeon of the Sultan at the City of Brass.

DnD is like the lowest hanging fruit. Yes, we know it's uninspired after being done-to-death for twenty years, but it's not WotC's fault you're creatively bankrupt.

>>224185

Even though you referenced Planescape, I can tell that you did not actually read the boxed sets or the books. The actual 2E Planescape material made shit interesting and exciting. Don't ask me how, but it did.

I fucking love Planescape, and tied with Dark Sun I think it's the greatest thing that ever came out of the entire history of D&D.

That being said, I agree with >>224232

Exalted has the coolest mythology and setting I've ever fucking seen. Exalted is a work of art, that is unfortunately tied to a game that in the best of circumstances you can sometimes get drunk and lie to yourself and call "barely functional."

>>224243

>Exalted is a work of art, that is unfortunately tied to a game that in the best of circumstances you can sometimes get drunk and lie to yourself and call "barely functional."

Fret not, my good anon. Ex3 has been here for a while, and it's a damn blast. Or at least, it's miles ahead of second edition.

How about for the positive energy plane:

Ein Sof, The Tree of Life

Ein Sof or The Tree of Life consists of ten subplanes known as Chokmah, Daat, Binah, Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod and Malkuth.

The native inhabitants of Ein Sof are the Nephilim and the Grigori. Legends say that once Ein Sof used to be ruled over by beings known as the Elohim but that due to a catastrophe the Elohim had to go away. And so, the the Nephilim, the half-breed children of the Elohim, and the Grigori, fallen members of the Elohim, were left behind to rule Ein Sof.

Chokmah is a plane of infinite creation and roaring energy. Great whirlwinds and thunderstorms rumble and crackle and all of Chokmah is lit as if inside a firestorm.

Daat is a castle that the Elohim used to inhabit from before they left. There are some sections of Daat that are well maintained (mostly the parts ruled over by Grigori) but much of Daat has fallen into ruin and decay and is inhabited by monsters.

Binah is a placid lake lit by a soft but all pervading light. If one travels far enough up from Binah one will reach Chokmah.

Chesed is a sea of milk and honey (mana) filled with verdant green islands.

Gevurah is an endless expanse of eyes. People only exist here as reflections within those eyes. To travel from eye to eye one needs to attract the attention of another eye by performing an action specific to that eye.

Tiferet is a giant apple seed that floats inside of Gevurah. The Grigori have declared Tiferet barred from entrance.

Netzach is huge and endless in expanse. To navigate to one end of Netzach to the other would require an eternity and so most inhabitants of Netzach live on small floating islands that are connected by a network of portals and interplanar bridges.

Hod is a vast expanse of space that echoes with the sounds of prayers across the planes filled with elemental metal spheres that resonate with the sounds of different prayers. Travel between the different spheres is often accomplished by prayer as specific types of prayers resonate with specific spheres and attract one to specific spheres.

Yesod is the gate and the entrance to Ein Sof. Once the gate used to be a fortified and well defended fortress but due to a series of wars between the Grigori the metal fortress has crumbled to ruin.

Malkuth is a network of endless stone bridges and towers that reach out connecting the planes to Yesod and to Ein Sof.

>>224286

Oh hey, someone else who read KULT.

>>224290

I've actually never read KULT before believe or not. Maybe I should look into it.

>dnd

>anything but a rulebook

I have always, ALWAYS homebrewed my settings. The shit in the rulebook is boring. Literally only use 5e for its crunch

>>224185

Have you tried actually looking up what the elemental planes are like? I mean, no lie, the planes are so numerous that they are frequently atrociously underdescribed and thin on content, which means they are pretty boring, especially as a plane of existence where you'd expect to be able to set an entire decent-sized campaign. But they aren't nearly as boring as you're making them out to be.

Most of the elemental auto-kill effects are "you must be this tall to ride" effects. Waterbreathing, immunity to fire, flight, etc. etc. are all things you get access to at level 8-12 or so, and thus adventuring in the elemental planes is restricted to those levels. Each plane has a society and inhabitants, although the description of that society is extremely limited. The Elemental Plane of Air, for example, is home to floating Storm and Cloud Giant castles. The Elemental Plane of Fire has the City of Brass, capital of the Efreeti Sultanate. The Elemental Plane of Water is home to the multi-planar Sahuagin Empire.

So far as outer planes are concerned, if you look at any sourcebook that delves into Baator or the Abyss, you'll find that there are in fact multiple different cultures, tribes, and all kinds of interesting shit. Well, some of it actually isn't all that interesting, because the writers of these things aren't always very good, but the variety is there. Now, the Grey Wastes of Hades (and Gehenna and Elysium and Mechanicus and so on) don't have any books like this properly fleshing them out, so while they implicitly have the same variety as Baator and the Abyss, they aren't ever really described so you have to make it all up yourself. At which point it brings up the serious question of why even have all these different outer planes when between them there is enough interesting content for like three distinct planes. And that's the real issue with the planes in D&D. It's not that they're perfectly uniform because they aren't, at all, it's that the number of planes they created drastically outweighs the amount of content they're willing to put into those planes. Fuck, if they'd even just limited themselves to one plane per alignment instead of having all these Pandemonium and Gehenna halfway places it would've been at least a little better.

>>224286

How about for the negative energy plane:

Sheol, The Plane of Hunger

Sheol or The Plane of Hunger is a plane of endless night and empty desert wastelands. There is no native life in Sheol but that of the the strange undead Rephaim; shades of that which has gone away, that which will never be and that which is impossible.

It is said that Sheol contains all lost desires. Perhaps you could find your dead son. Maybe you could find your marriage from before the divorce. Certainly you can find treasure beyond your wildest dreams; there is much gold that has been lost forever and whose echoes make their way to Sheol.

There are three main layers to Sheol: the sky which is a black void dotted with sparks of light that are natural portals to other planes, the desert which is an endless grey wasteland and the dark earth which is full of many secrets, too much gold and sleeping gods.

In the skies the merchant Gold Rephaim have built great white bubble merchant cities around the natural portals that occur there. These sky cities are tied to the ground by massive black elevator towers that bring down slaves and corpses and bring up gold and other wealth mined from the dark earth of Sheol.

Down in the desert at the base of these elevator towers countless slaves and countless more undead endlessly toil to mine into the dark earth of Sheol for gold and treasure.

>>224243

> I can tell that you did not actually read the boxed sets or the books.

Of course he hasn't, that would require effort.

That, and this is a bait thread by the same faggot who keeps making the "why do we play tabletop games again?" threads.

>tfw your players still want to play D&D when there is Adeptus Evangelion, Dark Heresy, Savage Worlds, and really just about anything else to play

Well, since this seems to be the thread, I wonder if anyone here remembers the Gith Incursion that was covered by Paizo back in the early 2000's. I was going to hit up Dungeon and Dragon (I think each magazine had at least 1 issue dedicated to the topic) and thought I might throw in the Kaorti and Thoon Mindflayers while I'm at it. Any other good materials to add for a campaign where the Far Realm is coming to play in the Material Realm? Did any other issues of Dragon/Dungeon cover the Far Realm? I think the Kaorti got a bestiary entry, which is cool.

>>224963

Either pilfer the Pathfinder books for Cthulhu Mythos shit or drop Atropus from Elder Evils on them. There just isn't all that much on the Far Realm in 3e.

>>224353

>gold

>slaves

>merchants

Man, Sheol is supposed to be Jewish hell, not Jewish heaven.

>>224991

The best part is that I also have in my setting Rex Mundi (aka Yahweh) as one of the Rephaim Impossibles and one of the main gods of Sheol.

>>224185

>>224185

The plane of air is stuffed with flying islands and floating cities and genies. The plane of earth has huge caverns bursting with precious metals, rare gemstone, and ancient and immense beasts. The plane of water is as varried as the actual ocean, and has several warring civilizations. The plane of fire has a series of cities full of creatures who were old before the prime material plane was created.

Yes, yes, the planes of positive and negative energy are mostly used by wizards to hide stuff.

But if you look at the elemental planes, full of alien creatures and primordial entities who are as alien to us as they are fundamental to the functioning of the universe, as dull, I don't really know what to tell you. It's like complaining that Star Trek is dull because, "You can't breathe in space." Sure, space ships make up a really small percentage of space, but they still manage to have adventures every week.

>>224963

Dragon 300 had some far realm stuff, I plan on using that in either my next campaign, or in the next character I make.

>>225150

I think you meant Dragon #330.

In my setting, the far realm is actually a cosmic door stopper which enforces a loophole in H.P lovecraftverse logic in that It acts as Anti-dream, thus Pseudo reality (I think, therefore I am - I am real and not a dream as a contridiction to Yog-Sothoth and azathoth which travel amongst all this is as a dream renderign it invisible Or right at the back of it's super brain cranium thing).

Because of this, all of the stuff in D&D is actually invisible to Yog-Sothoth, and Azathoth by extension (if one were to abbreviate this in terms of how this looks on the universes nucleus of the brain, then the D&D universe would possibly be in the safe zone when Azathoth wakes up, simply receding back into the sleeping gods consciousness, and would not be forgotten, unlike any other universe the "gate" reaches into by awareness, it doesn't mean it's out of his power, but it means even if he did know it, he wouldn't be able to feed into it for long in any significant reality raping form that recognizes the universal bubble on a greater scale as a part ofthe "Map".

Contrast to the mirorworld of Pathfinder which truly has no far realm and is already subject to the end of the dream, rather than that of a pause triggered by we all know who waking up to trigger the end.

Again, it doesn't mean it won't all be reduced to 0 at the end, but it means there's a small chance of some remanant, no matter how small remaining.

There is possiblity that D&D edition changes are the universe changing as a result of Azathoth stirring, save for the events when it's been fuckshitted by its own laws being fucked with due to the arcane reching conceptual fuckwitshit, and also because of Lovecraftian entities being utterly subverted from their original M.O and purpose through the laws of the universe/ astral and physical bodies that compensate for them in place via Geometrics- I.E Shoggoths are known to nigh none, and are throught to be the product of deities, and the realm of the deep being greatly affected by -not Dagon's- mere existence.

The greatest threat to this status quo is the existence of Dagon, whatever few, if any shoggoths, the Illithid, Thoon, Beholders, any form of alienist and magic, though on priority are Any remnants of the H.Pverse so Shoggoths, the Aboleths (especially there elder) Dagon, the Illithid, Thoon, then lastly beholders, With Alienists bein a tier of their own

Dagon, because his existence is too close to that of the other, and because of his nature as a demon, apothesis into a true demon (Demon who's state of origin is switched/moves to that of the unknown, thus eldritch, change, incomprehnsiblity, and eventual change towards law violation thorugh solitutde similar to an alienist transformation, but it too is not achived through specific, or sometimes even unknown or aware means)

Shoggoths, because they eventually get too smart for their own good, or in most cases gleam the discovery of the great ones via their origins on icy lands.

Aboleths, as they may very well be able to travel between this world and Pathfinder, many hold eldritch knowledge of the dark tapestry and simply put, through geometrics allow for mull bullshit that wants to into yogg-soggy bullshit (always the risk of promoting a backdoor into D&D which the gate may aceess far realm or not)

The illithid, as they exist over a multitude of formats as possible fission spawn of Those lesser versions of Cthulu I can't quite remember the names of, and even operate with existing (thankfuly dwindling) eldritch knowledge of great ones (and hopefuly not) Outer gods, given by their elder brains or whatever knowledge they have left of their once great empire, and of course, their new deity also may reach an intellectual level capable of gleaming geometric usage, theorum, Alienist practice and far realm research to become knowledgable to reach out to that which lies beyond and fuck everyone over.

Thoon, because it may very well be at great one status or of a similar nature.

Beholders may very well be related to Yog-sototh (fission?) apperance betrays the purpose of their form if seen from a greater scale, hold a very similar nature to that of Yog-sototh in the fact that they orbs with eye stalks that outstretch to a multitude of powers, levitate and have relentless seizure attack patterns (yog sothoth has a thing for going danmaku on someone's ass when he's brought forth without reason or to smite bitch if you've watched stuff like that one film he shows up in, and the beholder cousins (eyestalkers or something) belate a similar nature to Yog-sothoth's alleged enjoyment of travel deiscovery etc…

Alienists are on their own because they can be used to ruin everyone's day (Enough of them could unmake the far realm), because they can effectively become Great ones, or at least reach the larval stage to such a position, and because I give them the leniance of how their powers for summoning work, whcih is basiclly where anything they summon is not what they summon but merely a creature residieng in the farm realm suitored to fit the form of what they intend to summon, (So the bigger the form of the intended summon, the more significant a creature is drawn to suitor it.)

This means that in theory, if an Alienist were to SUMMON FUCKING DAGON or at least have any hand in the construction of summoning circles or rituals for greater creatures of the planes, a creature is made to suitor a replacement of these beings, (or worse, make a combination of both).

So what the fucking shit do you summon when you summon a Demon lord or an Archfiend, or Dagon, who already leans on (nearly unknown to all) or that one Demon mother mist thing?

Yeah, whilst it just means Apply pseudonatural template gamewise, I thnk there's a limit to this sort of thing when you consider what the fucking shit happens if you try to summon something that required preparation at least, you won;t just be getting a follower with some perks, if you know what I'm saying, You summon DAGON as an alienist, and you get his far realm equivanlent, and I think that sure as shit makes sense.

I'm also pretty sure it damages the Far gate too, hence the danger Alienists that go the extra mile pose, never mind how fucked shit will get if there's any multiclassing into to Druid (Shubbery Niggerbitch Coon-Young) Oozemaster(YOUR ARMY IS IRRELEVANT, I SHALL FLOOD YOU IN SHOGGOTH TEKILI TEKILI MOTHERFUCKER)