Planescape General and Q&A

Page 8 of the 2e Planewalker's Handbook gives us the following definition:
>POWERS — whether a body worships them as gods or just thinks of them as really mighty bloods — are the high-ups of the planes. They rule over certain areas, establishing their dominion and enforcing their whims as their natures demand. They offer spells and abilities to those who worship them. Within their realms, the powers rule supreme; no mortal cutter's ever going to come close to challenging their might.

One would think that this would include archfiends, celestial paragons, animal lords, Primus, slaad lords, and the like, but pages 48-53 of 2e On Hallowed Ground defines them as "near-powers," not actual powers, even those who grant spells. This is backed up by the 3.5 Fiendish Codices I and II, which allow archfiends to grant spells to worshipers but do *not* define them as deities, hence a lack of divine rank (short of a certain optional rule which places them at divine rank 1, the lowest possible rank for a "demigod").

>Pretty much being insanely powerful because people worship you.

This is false. Worship is *not* a factor when it comes to classifying god vs. non-god. There are various examples of true gods (actually, unambiguously classified as gods) who lack worshipers.

Going by 2e On Hallowed Ground's appendix, the derro demipower Diinkarazan, the drow demipower Zinzerena, the Greek lesser powers known as the Furies, the bugbear demipower Skiggaret, the draconic greater power Io, the goblinoid demipower Stalker, the vampiric intermediate power Kanchelsis, the lich lesser power Mellifleur, the aquatic lesser power Water Lion, and the mysterious god Stillsong all have no worshipers, yet are alive and well.

Additionally, near-powers can and do have worshipers and grant spells; pages 49-50 of 2e On Hallowed Ground allows Abyssal lords to be worshiped and grant spells, and the 3.5 Fiendish Codices I and II allow archfiends in general to do the same.

Do you think the setting suffers for it's focus on developing Sigil?

>it's focus on developing Sigil?
What Sigil-centric supplements are there? The Eternal Boundary, Harbinger House, Faction War, Uncaged, In the Cage, and The Factol's Manifesto? Half of those are adventures, anyway.

No. The Planes of [Law/Chaos/Conflict] boxed sets were perhaps some of the highest-quality products in the 2e Planescape line, and they did a praiseworthy job in expanding the Outer Planes and filling them with sites of interest and adventure hooks.

The Player's Primer to the Outlands, the Guide to the Astral Plane, the Guide to the Ethereal Plane, and the Inner Planes book may have been less lovingly detailed, but they still managed to provide plenty of adventure seeds.

There is far more to the Great Wheel than Sigil and, truth be told, I generally prefer running Planescape outside of the Cage anyway. In my opinion, roughly half of the Sigilian factions are superfluous and could be jettisoned from the setting (or at least demoted to sects) without much lost; for instance, the Bleak Cabal's "nothing really matters," the Sign of One's "I am the center of the multiverse," and the Transcendent Order's "action without action" are valid philosophies, but they hardly make for good factions with causes to be fought for and adventured for. Compare them to factions with things to actually enforce, fight for, fight against, research, and/or seek out on adventures, like the Athar, the Believers of the Source, the Fraternity of Order, the Harmonium, the Mercykillers, and the Society of Sensation.

In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil, Uncaged: Faces of Sigil, and the Factol's Manifesto are the three main Sigil-focused supplements.

Sigil is exceedingly interesting, but I think most of the people who believe it was overemphasised had most of their Planescape experience in Torment.

It makes for a fantastic base/starting point for adventures, and you can justify practically any kind of hijinx with "you need a portal key". In my game I recently had a portal that required one member of the party to be wearing shackles used to legally arrest him, which was a fun challenge by itself.

Why aren't acheron, mechanus, bitopis, elysium, limbo and pandemonium considered planes of conflict?

Because they come under Law or Chaos, and Planes of Neutrality was a shit box name.

So the only difference between a power and a near power is the level of power? I thought that's how Vecna became a lesser power..

So the only difference between a power and a near power is how strong they are? I thought worship was how Vecna became a lesser power..

That... That makes a lot of sense.

Vecna became a power through absorbing Iuz's power in Die Vecna Die!. Prior to that he was merely a demigod.

To be fair, "Planes of Conflict" is a somewhat inaccurate name. While it absolutely applies to Gehenna, the Gray Waste, and Carceri, since those are the three primary battlefronts for the Blood War, it is perhaps a stretch to refer to Bytopia, Elysium, and the Beastlands as "Planes of Conflict" more so than any other plane.

One could make a case that Bytopia is currently being harassed by Mount Celestia's Order of the Planes-Militant (as per page 33 of Planes of Conflict: Liber Benevolentiae) and that the Beastlands exemplies animal-on-animal conflict, it is rather absurd that Acheron and Ysgard are *not* considered "Planes of Conflict" despite conflict being their defining quality.

What all near-powers, with the exception of Vlaakith (simply a very powerful githyanki lich) and the children of gods (who would just be divine rank 0 quasideities under 3.X's deity rules) share in common is that they are lords of a given plane who wield far more political and social influence than any "mere" god on that plane plane. Consider the following:

• Mount Celestia: The Hebdomad
• Elysium: The Celestial Lion and the Five Companions
• Arborea: The Court of Stars
• Arcadia: The Storm Kings
• Mechanus: Primus
• Limbo: The slaad lords
• Baator: The Lords of the Nine
• Gehenna, the Gray Waste, and Carceri: The yugoloth lords (and the altraloths)
• The Abyss: The Abyssal lords
• The elemental, paraelemental, and quasielemental planes: The archomentals

Demigods are absolutely considered true gods as per page 36 of On Hallowed Ground. In other words, he was already a true power even before Die, Vecna, Die!

Only the Pirates of Gith are dumb enough to repeatedly use plane shift on spelljamming vessels.
And they only do it to ambush people from or run away into the astral plane.

Where exactly do guys like Asmodeus and Demogorgon fit into the power rankings? Like, I get the impression that Asmodeus could take down a god if he put his mind to it, and he does grant spells/abilities when worshipped, but what does "near power" actually mean?

What's the most interesting or beautiful "scene" you've found in the setting? DiTerlizzi's art is fantastic and really helped to set the mood, but there's tons of really interesting geography and architecture in the setting too.

Demogorgon's actually a god. Asmodeus is... ruler of Baator 9 - Nessus, right? He doesn't get mentioned at all in On Hallowed Ground, because Planescape deliberately kept details on the workings of Nessus sketchy.

Demogorgon in 2e was both a near-power Abyssal lord *and* an intermediate deity as per Monster Mythology and On Hallowed Ground.

He was downgraded to "merely" the Prince of Demons in D&D 3.X. That title originally belonged to Obox-ob, then transferred to Miska the Wolf-Spider, then went to Demogorgon, as the Fiendish Codex I and Dragon Magazine #357 explain. With his true form at CR 33, Demogorgon is beastly, yet far weaker than even the most feeble of divine rank 1 demigods with the Alter Reality salient divine ability.

D&D 4e continued this trend with Demogorgon as the Prince of Demons (again, with Obox-ob and Miska the Wolf-Spider as predecessors, going by the 4e Demonomicon). As a level 34 solo monster, he is even more within the reach of maximum-level adventurers than in 3.X.

D&D 5e preserves this tradition. Demogorgon is the Prince of Demons and is engageable by max-level characters at Challenge 26 as per Out of the Abyss. This time, however, he shares that Challenge 26 with his long-time rival, Orcus.

Asmodeus is a very special case, because the D&D editions could never keep to a consistent vision for him. By the end of 2e, the Guide to Hell, declared him to be one of the creators of the multiverse, Ahriman, a greater deity.

D&D 3.0 and late-cycle 3.5 ignored the Ahriman story entirely and presented Asmodeus as a non-deific yet still mortal-defeatable threat (Demogorgon's CR 30 vs. Asmodeus's CR 32 in the 3.0 Book of Vile Darkness, and Demogorgon's CR 23 aspect vs. Asmodeus's CR 27 aspect in the Fiendish Codices). However, by the very end of the edition, Asmodeus was suggested (though not confirmed) to be on par with the *Lady of Pain* by pages 28-29 of Dragon Magazine #359.

D&D 4e went back to Asmodeus being "just" a deity, and in fact, one of the most powerful ones if The Plane Above is to be believed.

D&D 5e had Asmodeus be a non-deific entity, but one with "the powers of a lesser god" according to page 67 of the 5e Monster Manual.

In short, while Demogorgon has had a fairly stable power level (intermediate power in 2e, merely the most powerful yet mortal-defeatable demon onwards), Asmodeus has flip-flopped in power levels (greater deity and one of the creators of the multiverse in 2e, simply the most powerful yet mortal-defeatable devil in 3.X, possibly on par with the Lady of Pain by the end of 3.5, one of the strongest of deities in 4e, non-deific entity on par with a lesser god in 5e).

It is up to you which version of Demogorgon and Asmodeus you would prefer to use. In the latter's case, one could certainly say that his deliberately self-contradictory propaganda has served to successfully shroud his true power level.

>intermediate deity
Lesser deity, DMGR4 says.

You are correct; I had misremembered.

>However, by the very end of the edition, Asmodeus was suggested (though not confirmed) to be on par with the *Lady of Pain* by pages 28-29 of Dragon Magazine #359.

holy shit, that's some powercreep

Where is Asmodeus in 2e, apart from Guide to Hell? Planes of Law, Faces of Evil, and OHG say nobody knows who rules Nessus.

The Guide to Hell was the first 2e product to revive the name "Asmodeus" from 1e. That was also the book to declare him one of the creators of the multiverse, Ahriman, now reduced to but a greater deity.

However, even before then, the ruler of Nessus was unquestionably Asmodeus. Page 51 of On Hallowed Ground mentions said baatezu possessing a ruby rod, which lines up perfectly with Asmodeus's incarnation in pages 20-21 of the 1e Monster Manual.

Literally anybody can possess a ruby rod. The ruler of Nessus could have been called Jeff for all Planescape told us.

Occam's razor.

No, it's Asmodeus. They kept it under wraps during 2e for a variety of reasons, but it definitely was him. Personally I like to believe that the Ahriman backstory is actually just a ploy by Asmodeus so that people actually believed it (and hence elevated his powerlevel).

To be perfectly honest, I don't think Asmodeus should be any more (or less) powerful than Demogorgon - at least when it comes to effective power at any rate. Demogorgon can have a bit more personal/physical strength to make up for his mental problems and more tanar'ri at his disposal (given how much less useful they are as servants), but an actual conflict between the two shouldn't have a clear and easy victor.

Of course, Demogorgon and Asmodeus are probably going to be used less often as antagonists than Orcus and Mephistopheles, despite their constant defeats and Mephistopheles' humiliating relationship with a consort who could destroy him and Asmodeus on a whim.

Here is a question from me, now. In , I mention a few of the factions I dislike for having no cause that can be feasibly fought for and adventured for. I think that the setting could drop them, and little would change.

With that in mind, what factions do you personally consider to be superfluous in Planescape? How would you improve their concept and/or execution?

The Sign of One and the Transcendent Order absolutely need to be replaced, but I'm actually pretty ok with the Bleak Cabal.

I'd also give the Chaosmen some kind of motivation to go on adventures and some kind of interesting goal, even if it is just "make really cool Chaotic things".

Off the top of my head the Xaositects and the Dustmen come to mind. I would make them beings that are formed as a result of hazards of the setting. Xaositects would be those inflicted by a mental disease that comes from to much Limbo exposure. A disease that has no consistent cure. It would give the group an interesting element for adventure. For example what if someone choose to become like that but those that care about them want them cured? Or a guvner that went to Limbo to study it became Xaositect and then decided he wanted to "share his new found understanding with his fellow guvners?

For the dustmen i'd make them what happens when someone is born in the negative energy plane or it's quasi's. A living being healed by negative energy and lacking a soul. Then i'd get rid of the "we are all dead" nonsense. It would be interesting how other groups react to living mortals that don't go anywhere when they die and are counted as undead even though they live. This would also be the source of the dead pact. Undead see them as fellow undead because in some way they are.

While it's not a popular opinion I don't like the consensual reality aspect of PS. I feel that among other things it inspires corner cutting. The factions are a perfect example it this. Rather than find interesting ways for them to form, maintain, and ultimately achieve their goals. They all have a built in win condition of "if we get enough people to agree with us we win". Which IMO undermines the need for them to earn their level of status. And that I think is a big reason why their are a good number of weak factions.

I like your idea with the xaositects, and I do think they should be fleshed out a bit more.

I honestly believe they should have some sort of social/artistic culture that gives them some amount of cachet in Sigilian society. Right now there's no actual motivation to join up - if you want to be a Godsman, you can go to the Great Foundry and get work/trials/resources etc, along with their great reputation. The Sensates are similar, and even the Doomguard/Bleak Cabal serve valuable roles in the city.

I think you could easily find a way to make Chaos useful, though. Maybe they could provide magical services, using the power of chaos to somehow break the usual rules of magic and hence create new spells/unique magical items with much more success/frequency than others. If the Xaositects were some sort of hyper-active and hyper-productive source of interesting and unique ideas (this doesn't necessarily mean efficient - they'd obviously make plenty of inefficient or worthless innovations, but they'd also come up with some that offer interesting trade-offs - similar to the Powder Kegs if you ever played Bloodborne) then people would feel a lot better about keeping them in the city.

Of course, that isn't to say your idea about it being something you can "catch" isn't good, and if they have some sort of influence over society/provide something interesting then that makes issues like someone trying to become a xaositect a bit more understandable.

Chaotic inventors not unlike a even more chaotic tinker gnomes would be a nice niche for them.

But what I was referring to was eliminating them as a faction outright. That was the problem with factions based on consensual reality in order to make them all "have a point". PS was rather inconsistent in terms of making factions with proper agency. And instead used "everybody is potentially right" as a way to give them agency without the reason or strength of presence to justify that status.

To go back to the Xaositects. Using them as a disease instead of a faction means you no longer have to justify their presence in Sigil. They don't have to "stay competitive" with the factions on even ground. This means you can even have members of factions be infected with xaositect.

And by making the level of xaositect be variable from totally insane to just really eccentric. You could even have interesting reasons for members of factions to want to catch it. Perhaps being Xaositect gives you a higher compatibility with the "oneness" the transcendent order seeks. Or even gives a Limbo strength version of synesthesia the Sensates would desire. Of course chaos being chaos there would be no guarantee you'd get the version of xaositect you'd want.

In short less factions, more "groups" based on weird interactions between the planes and the mortals that have no business being out there.

Why is that dumb?

I'd also like to see this.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this, but what about the free league? I'm be to the setting, so maybe I just don't know what they are, but there seems to be little, if any, difference between them and the unaffiliated.

I'd actually forgotten about that. The indeps really are worthless when you can just not join a faction instead.

I don't really think that eliminating them outright is a good idea, given that the guvners exist. And I think they still need a reason to be in Sigil, because "infectious diseases that can spread to everything intelligent/sapient" are the sort of thing the Lady would crack down on hard, and the rest of the factions/city if not her.

I'm absolutely down with people having weird interactions with the Planes though. I actually had an example of that in mind for the xaositects (might be why I'm a bit resistant to your idea) where people go to Limbo because they love the ability to constantly reinvent themselves/create new and interesting stimuli. I just really like the idea of someone going to Limbo to experiment with raw chaos and getting addicted to it, slowly replacing more and more of their body with raw chaos matter so that they have more control over it until they end up as little more than a disembodied will (that can create and inhabit a variety of disposable bodies whenever convenient) that requires constant novel stimuli to avoid dissipating and merging with the Plane as a whole.

The biggest reason that jumps out at me is that Plane Shift isn't perfect - you end up within 5 miles of your destination, and that can place ships/vessels/large vehicles in exceedingly inconvenient locations.

The ships can fly though, so it should be fine, with a few exceptions. The ocean of fire comes to mind.

Flying doesn't help when you're stuck inside a building/cavern/hurricane etc.

>destroy Asmodeus on a whim
I know Baalphegor is an ancient baatorian, but I don't know that I would go that far. The ancient baatorians as a group, perhaps, but Baalphegor is just one.

I think that circumstances that are dangerous for them would be more rare than circumstances that are not. That' especially true when they are coming back to the astral plane.

>>I don't really think that eliminating them outright is a good idea, given that the guvners exist.

I think this touches on another thing I find dubious. Needless symmetry in the factions. It's one thing to have that with the great wheel giving it's built around that. But IMO there doesn't need to be counter factions of chaos just because their is factions for law. The chaos factions in general tend to be pretty weak because they seem to exist for no other reason than to "represent" chaos or oppose/stand outside the "traditional" faction system. The anarchists are the faction I think is the best of them and it should be less a faction than a persistent anti-faction movement. One that can never really be fully eliminated rather than a faction proper.

And when I speak of xaositect as a disease I don't necessarily mean an epidemic that is consistent and virulent in it's spreading. But rather one that is just a persistent hazard of the planes that also happens to be a disease. Some could visit Limbo their entire life and never catch it, others may catch it the first time they go. Such is the nature of chaos.

It also opens up potential conflict between the Githzeri and other groups. If the Githzeri were to be resistant or immune other groups may capture and experiment on them for a vaccine/cure. Pulling them into faction and planar politics.