Planescape General and Q&A

Thread starter question: What do you think lies in Abyssal layer #666? Bear in mind that as per the Fiendish Codex I pp105-106, a layer's number is based wholly on when its discovery was noted by the Fraternity of Order; it has nothing to do with spatial position.

Discuss Planescape and the Great Wheel here, whether the original AD&D 2e version, the 3.X version, the 4e version (traces of the Great Wheel exist in 4e, down to the baernaloths, the yugoloths, the Heart of Darkness, Maeldur et Kavurik, Tenebrous, Pelion, and the Last Word all being canon as of Dragon #417), the 5e version, or your own original blend.

I am exceedingly well-lanned on planar canon under a holistic blend of 2e, 3.X, and sporadically even 4e lore. If you have any questions at all about the setting's lore, feel free to ask, and I will give you direct quotes and citations from as many primary sources as I can, unlike afroakuma. I will note when something is open to GM interpretation, and explicitly note whenever I give merely my own personal interpretation.
If you would like to ask anything under the context of a single edition and nothing more, please mention such.

>Basic setting summary: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape
>Comprehensive Planescape reference index: rilmani.org/psIndex.txt
>Planewalker.com planar encyclopedia: mimir.planewalker.com/encyclopedia/plane
>Canonfire.com planar encyclopedia: canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Outer_Planes
>Rilmani.org planar encyclopedia (contains unmarked fanon, so beware): rilmani.org/timaresh/Outer_Planes
>List of all the multiverse's gods (contains all gods mentioned in D&D products, but also has plenty of speculation and fanon for mythological deities and for powers with few details on them): mimir.planewalker.com/forum/list-dead-gods#comment-58090

Old threads with previous questions and comprehensive answers: docs.google.com/document/d/1EC4fQ7qW0dNveXRDD2UZsB2NXbyIpEm-jCtTjwBQH3I/edit

Other urls found in this thread:

drivethrurpg.com/product/183858/Nine-Hells-Adult-Coloring-Book
lomion.de/cmm/golechoc.php
gamelore.wikia.com/wiki/Banshrae
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Abyssal Layer 666 contains a bunch of edgy satanic symbology, and is entirely populated by half-fiendish/half-whatever special snowflake edgelords.

All of them are constantly searching the layer for some great figure of evil, but the torture of the plane is that they'll only ever find hints of something that doesn't actually exist.

drivethrurpg.com/product/183858/Nine-Hells-Adult-Coloring-Book

Is this coloring book what liveborn baatezu in Baator are given to hone their artistic skills? What would they use for crayons?

How do you think the half-fiends got there in the first place? Whom do you think sired them? The mother of the Abyss, Pale Night, perhaps?

The "great figure of evil" could be rumored to be the lingering fragments of the original Prince of Demons, Obox-ob. What they do not know is that as per page 21 of Dragon Magazine #357, the only surviving aspect of Obox-ob is his verminous aspect, which now lives in Abyssal layer #663 (Zionyn), thus making their search pointless.

However, it could be that their collective belief is so powerful that they really *do* manage to retcon into existence a lingering fragment of Obox-ob. This may have been Pale Night's intention all along.

Oh, I was just using it to make a joke about how such a layer would end up filled with immature edgelords looking for satanic symbology in a multiverse that has none.

It'd be a largely unimportant Plane populated by a lot of katana-wielders who occasionally have to fight off incursions from monotheistic paladins.

>looking for satanic symbology in a multiverse that has none

Page 106 of the 3.5 Fiendish Codex I mentions that:
>For numerological reasons, many scholars believe the number of “infinite” Abyssal layers to equal 666, but at the current rate of discovery it seems likely that there are many more.

Thus, there must be *some* numerological significance to the number 666 in the Outer Planes.

Literally everything has numerological symbolism - that doesn't actually mean anything.

How would I go about injecting more weird into my Planescape? It's the multiverse so there shold be a great deal more weird looking things. I'm looking for less Di'Terlizzi/D&D and more Guillermo del Toro or Wayne Barlowe. My Great Bazaar should be more like souks than a great tent, populated by strange merchants and musicians like this guy (pic related)

I figured i'd start with changing how certain monsters appear as opposed to their Monster Manual art. I'm a very visual person, pictures describe more for me than words, so I figured that is the better place to start.

That would not explain why the number 666 was specifically chosen "for numerological reasons."

Unfortunately, it does not seem that the Mathematicians, who had splintered off from the Fraternity of Order, have anything to do with this; page 12 of Planes of Law: Mechanus explains that they are concerned with Mechanus first and foremost and only rarely leave it. (Then again, page 123 of Uncaged: Faces of Sigil shows us a Sigilian Mathematician who studies loopholes in the Cage's physical laws, and is so in tune with the laws of probability that he can manipulate them.)

Speaking of the Fraternity of Order, what do you think of the idea of a common Guvner field activity being "trying to force a glitch in reality"? This would resemble the process of doing so in a video game, by performing a ridiculous-looking string of actions around an environmental feature with complex "rules" to it to stress-test its boundaries until it finally snaps. Common targets of such glitching would be anything that works "mysteriously," such as portals' gate-keys, travel and large distances in the planes, the boundaries between adjacent planes and adjacent layers, and arcane planar magical conditions.

What's a souks?

And to be honest, when I add weirdness to Planescape it tends to be with mentalities and philosophies...and those inform appearances. Someone so incredibly devoted to a philosophy likely has tons of visual indicators about it - tattoos, magical items, body modifications, exotic clothing/equipment etc. Not to mention the fact that just about every single kind of weird dnd monster can be used as a "base" for that kind of change.

That isn't much help visually, but it can often reinforce the weirdness if you play up the philosophical aspects as well.

That sounds like it'd be a neat random encounter, and you could easily work it into an adventure by having them experimenting with something that the players actually need - or if they actually made progress and discovered a valuable loophole that the players would find useful.

I am afraid that is not my field of expertise, because what I do with my own Planescape games is cutesify just about everything (e.g. arcanaloths become endearing [hound/jackal/fox]-[boys/girls]).

That said, one thing you could do is pore over various monster sourcebooks from various D&D editions and use the strangest monsters you can find. The planes contain myriad and multifarious menageries of monsters majestic and/or menacing, and you could simply highlight *those* rather than the relatively normal-looking arcanaloths, pit fiends, aasimon, rilmani, and the like.

Amongst the Lower Planar fiendish exemplars alone, you have strange-looking gelugon and xerfilstyx baatezu, dergholoth and voor yugoloths, marilith and molydeus tanar'ri, and draudnu and sibriex obyriths.

For even more obscure monsters, consider bringing in tiraphegs, brainstealer dragons, windghosts, windscythes, odopi, shrieking terrors, ocularons, and trillochs for a start. I assure you that if you were to peruse even 3.5's Monster Manuals alone, you will find many a monster that looks like it could have come from a madman's fever-dreams.

Run Google image searches for the monsters mentioned above.

That said, is correct; weirdness is not just a matter of visuals, but of mentalities and personalities as well.

A souk is like another kind of marketplace, originally open-air but has since moved to urban areas.

Stalls are usually packed with goods and closely knit together. One can wander the souks all day. It's essentially the early version of strip-malls.

As for body modifications of that sort. I don't really want to go transhuman with it. I think mentality and philosophy should inform appearances, but in regards to design, rather than an in-universe sort of change. I recall from Torment an NPC who had lines for a face, that shifted with expressions. That minor NPC has stuck with me more than that blue alu-fiend that runs a shop.

That just sounds like a ...market. Seriously, I've been to markets that look exactly like that except they're filled with asian people selling weird chinese knock-offs of everything instead of rugs.

And personally I think you should go with both. You don't necessarily have to go transhuman with body modification - plenty of characters in Planescape are outsiders like Gelugons and Farastus that look insanely weird anyway, and their soul and body are literally one (so you can almost always tell fallen celestials/risen fiends by sight alone if you're incredibly perceptive). If the party talks to an arcanaloth, that loth's philosophical predilections are likely easy to determine (physiognomy is actually true for outsiders).

Also, if you want to have those sorts of weird-ass creatures, Sigil's market ward works just fine. You can invent just about any creature and nobody's going to bat an eye in the cage.

Thing is I don't just want that in the Market Ward. To me, all of Sigil should be like this. Too many human-but-not things in Planescape art, and art is how I tend to understand how things look, since i'm a very visual person.

Don't get me wrong, I love Di'Terlizzi, but I'm the one who prefers the skull-faced Gith over the long-nosed asian Gith.

>their soul and body are literally one (so you can almost always tell fallen celestials/risen fiends by sight alone if you're incredibly perceptive). If the party talks to an arcanaloth, that loth's philosophical predilections are likely easy to determine (physiognomy is actually true for outsiders).
I can find no canonical precedent for outsiders' appearances shifting with their alignments and personalities simply because they have unified body-souls, but this is a reasonable inference.

>Also, if you want to have those sorts of weird-ass creatures, Sigil's market ward works just fine.
I think you mean the "Market & Guildhall Wards."

>You can invent just about any creature and nobody's going to bat an eye in the cage.
This is true. Any given monster concept probably has a canonical analogue in at least one D&D edition. Yes, even completely absurd joke monsters like chocolate easter bunny golems:
lomion.de/cmm/golechoc.php

The piper in could be a variant type of banshrae:
gamelore.wikia.com/wiki/Banshrae

Then refer to my suggestions for monsters in as a starting point.

Unfortunately, I must very soon. Let us hope that this thread is still alive by the time I awaken.

Oh, all of Sigil would be like that - I was thinking in terms of having them show up in a marketplace/ as shopkeeps.

That sort of stuff should show up all the time in Sigil, but I reccomend keeping the Di'Terlizzi stuff around anyway - those creatures will look even weirder when there are more humanish creatures around to serve as a comparison.

Thanks anons, this helps a lot.

As I leave to sleep, I leave the thread with this question:

What are some interesting ideas for inmates in the great prisons of the Outer Planes: Elysium's third layer of Belierin, the Abyss's 73rd layer of the Wells of Darkness, and the entirety of the prison-plane of Carceri?

I don't really like the other sorts of planar prisons aside from Carceri. Carceri has little enough about it, it doesn't need other places stealing it's thunder too.

To answer your question though, I'd have terrible world destroying threats to gods and people banished there. The Titans are fairly obvious, and likely the higher ups of Carceri. There's the Tarrasque somewhere in there, and the Kraken. Races that were mistakes of a god, banished there since inception. Things and beings anyone wants to imprison or sweep under the rug..

Carceri is the prison plane, so i'd model Carceri society after prison societies and gangs.

What is the purpose of the Lady of Pain? From a design perspective, I mean. She seems to prevent a lot more potential stories (anything that substantially alters Sigil that she doesnt do), than she creates (since she never talks and no one knows anything about her.

I really liked PS:T, but more in spite of the setting than anything. The aesthetic was okay if a little bland for my tastes, and I didn't find that the outer planes really grabbed my interest, I mostly wanted to know what the other material planes they alluded to were like. The Lady of Pain was something that stuck out to me as really hindering the setting from being greater.

Also, "Siggel" is the worst pronunciation I've ever heard.

She's the reason why Sigil remains the neutral ground of the multiverse, and she's also embodies the cynical nature of Planescape and the planes, beautiful, cruel, and uncaring. That's really all her purpose is. She doesn't stop Sigil from changing, because there was a huge Abyssal incursion that's fucked up part of the Hive permanently. Her reach goes no farther than Sigil, and she isn't omnipotent since there is an automatic scribe that's a backdoor for powerful things into Sigil.