Classic Play the Book of the Planes Gareth Hanrahan
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Classic Play The Book of the Planes Gareth Hanrahan Contents Credits Introduction 2 Planar Traits 4 Travelling the Planes 26 Editor & Developer Fellow Travellers 36 Richard Neale Magic of the Planes 50 The Ethereal Plane 61 The Astral Plane 68 Studio Manager The Plane of Shadow 82 Ian Barstow The Plane of Dreams 89 The Elemental Plane of Earth 93 The Elemental Plane of Air 101 Cover Art The Elemental Plane of Fire 108 The Elemental Plane of Water 115 Vincent Hie The Plane of Positive Energy 121 The Plane of Negative Energy 127 The Vault of Stars 132 Interior Illustrations Tarassein 137 Joey Stone, Danilo Moreti, David Esbri Mâl 142 Infernum 148 Molinas, Tony Parker, Phil Renne, Carlos Chasm 153 Henry, Marcio Fiorito Jesus Barony, Gillian The Halls of Order 159 Pearce, Reynato Guides & Nathan Webb The Afterworld 164 The Firmament 171 The Questing Grounds 177 Production Manager Nexus Planes 183 The Grand Orrery of All Reflected Heavens 184 Alexander Fennell The Wandering Inn of the Glorious Toad 197 Dunmorgause Castle 207 Lesser Planes 216 Proofreading Building the Cosmos 222 Fred Herman and Mark Quinnell Planecrafting 234 Designer’s Notes 247 Random Plane Table 248 Index 250 Open Game Content & Copyright Information Classic Play - The Book of the Planes©2004 Mongoose Publishing. All rights reserved. Reproduction of non-Open Game Content of this work by any means without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden. Classic Play - The Book of the Planes is presented under the Open Game and D20 Licences. See page 256 for the text of the Open Game Licence. All text paragraphs and tables containing game mechanics and statistics derivative of Open Game Content and the System Reference Document are considered to be Open Game Content. All other significant characters, names, places, items, art and text herein are copyrighted by Mongoose Publishing. All rights reserved. If you have questions about the Open Game Content status of any material herein, please contact Mongoose Publishing for clarification. ‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are Trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. and are used according to the terms of the d20 System Licence version 5.0. A copy of this Licence can be found at www.wizards.com/d20. The mention of or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright concerned. Dungeons & Dragons® and Wizards of the Coast® are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. in the United States and other countries and are used with Permission. Printed in China. Mongoose Publishing Mongoose Publishing, PO Box 1018, Swindon, SN3 1DG, United Kingdom [email protected] Visit the Mongoose Publishing website at www.mongoosepublishing.com for additional rules and news 1 INTRODUCTION Including rules for each of these planes, according Introduction to a set of magical traits, along with the secrets of o beyond the fields we know, into the the art of Planecrafting, this book allows characters realms of high fantasy and legend. The to shape their own home planes or wreak havoc by Gplanes are a far grander stage for adventure changing the laws of reality. than the mundane wilderness and dungeons of the world. Out there, the characters can walk with the Travellers do not walk the planes alone, however; gods themselves, delve into the foundations of the there are all sorts of fellow travellers out there, cosmos or quest in the lands of the dead or be the including reality-spanning organisations with their deciding factor in the great wars of Good and Evil. own agendas and conspiracies. Along with advice and new magic for travelling the planes, the wise This is truly a place for heroes. traveller will consider using one of the Nexus planes: pocket worlds that share borders with a The Book of the Planes describes the myriad planes multitude of other planes. of existence in exacting detail, offering encounters, hazards and adventures in dozens of alternative The Classic Play Series worlds. Beginning with the elemental planes of Classic Play is a series of books from Mongoose Earth, Air, Fire and Water, travel outwards through Publishing, each examining an element of fantasy the transitive Ethereal, Shadow and Dream Planes gaming in glorious detail. Each book contains to the wild planes of Positive and Negative Energy. new rules, new ideas and insightful essays to Beyond them, the wide gulf of the Astral Plane and bring a particular aspect of the game to life in your the vast Outer Planes. campaign. Presented herein are ten entirely new outer planes, along with suggestions for how to arrange and integrate them into your campaign cosmology. † The Vault of Stars, where travellers walk amid the shining pools on the far side of the night. † Tarassein, a shifting land of pure chaos. † The dark realm known as Mâl, where ancient horrors are awakening. † The hellish Infernum. † The great Chasm where condemned souls fall. † The cold Halls of Order. † The Afterworld, the estates of the faithful dead. † The bright Firmament, the high heaven. † The Questing Grounds, the realm of living stories. 2 INTRODUCTION When all you have is a sword that cuts holes in the fabric of reality, everything begins to look like a door. The inherent problems with such a device are legion, but two present particular difficulties. Firstly, the weapon calls itself Gyedding and claims to be the executioner’s blade for condemned worlds, and does not like my possession of it at all. Secondly, and this is the more pressing problem, is that it really does not do much to these abhorei, or ancient horrors from beyond the known places, for those who do not speak the elvish tongue. One cut and they are torn apart by the opening portal, certainly, but they seem to contain multitudes of themselves. Every time I chop one up, another half-dozen form from its death throes in a singularly obscene fashion. We are very close to being catastrophically outnumbered and overwhelmed. We, by the way, consists of myself, you and Fiac. I do not count the sword because I have grown to hate the damned thing. Fiac is a planewright who really should cast a spell about now. I should perhaps explain who you are. You are my spell, the spell that I’m composing in my head. Do not think I am some muscle-bound oaf just because I wield Gyedding around with élan. You are to be a very special spell, because you are going to survive this. The abhorei can track me if I plane shift, and they could doubtless track a sending. Anyone I contact will soon be beset by this host of horrors following you to their doorstep. So, and here is the clever bit, I am going to impress you onto the magical weave, and you will burst into the brains of sorcerers and seers across the worlds. You will not do much, but you will carry word of the abhorei. Assuming, that is, I do not get eaten before I finish designing you, and assuming the abhorei do not have the numbers to simultaneously hunt down every target throughout reality – and even if they do, then that will warn people just as well as you might. Fiac’s spell goes off. This little demi plane of ours shuts up tighter than a dwarf’s purse – nothing can get in or out. It also begins to unravel the threads that keep the plane together. In a few moments, this whole world will boil away to nothing. The abhorei here are going to boil away to nothing too. They are not especially pleased by this and attempt to make me bleed. My sword would go snicker-snack if it was vorpal, but it just opens more portals to nowhere as it chops through abhorei. It sounds sort of like thuk-FWOOM. ‘You know,’ says Fiac casually over a telepathic bond, ‘there will be a moment just as this demiplane dissolves that it will be open again. If we could open a portal then, we would go…somewhere; and somewhere is better than nowhere.’ ‘Do you have a plane shift left?’ I ask rhetorically. I know he does not. I know he is going to ask me to ask Gyedding to open a portal at that precise moment. I know Gyedding is going to demand that it be allowed to fulfil its purpose and force me to execute a world – and not a tawdry little demi plane like this one. Thousands of deaths by my hand, another great black blot in the records of the Grey Judges. Choices, always choices. I will cast you first, I think. Then…there is a hell of a good plane next door. And is not that always that way? 3 PLANAR TRAITS Coterminous, where they touch at particular points, Planar or Coexistent where they overlap completely. For example, the Material Plane is usually coterminous with each of the elemental planes, linked to the Plane Traits of Fire in the heart of volcanoes and to the Plane of irstly, some definitions. The Games Master Water in the depths of the ocean. It is coexistent with should use this information with the discussion the Ethereal Plane, as the Ethereal can be accessed Fof the planes in Core Rulebook II. from anywhere on the Material Plane. Finally, the Material Plane is separate from the Infernum as the A Plane is a space (of any size, from minuscule vast gulf of the Astral Plane lies between them. to infinite) with its own unique physical and metaphysical laws.