Now that I've got my pantheon, the names of my planes and locations on the material plane ready, all I have to do is connect the various planes to the material. I really can't think of any way to do this (I don't want to just use the astral). The planes are described like the planes in the 3e Manual of the Planes.
These are my planes:
Outer Planes
Ocean of a Thousand Twilghts:
Normal Gravity
Normal Time
Infinite Size
Divinely Morphic
No Elemental or Energy Traits
Mildly Neutral-Aligned
Normal Magic
This plane is home to the following deities: Paladine (The Divine Bahamut) - Lawful Good, Takhisis (The Divine Tiamat) - Lawful Evil, Eadro - Neutral, Wee Jas - Lawful Neutral, Illensine - Lawful Evil, Sekolah - Lawful Evil and Sahandra - Lawful Neutral.
Other notes:
The modrons and the yugoloths come from this plane. It is also the home of Demogorgon.
Shining Sunlands:
Light Gravity
Normal Time
Infinite Size
Divinely Morphic
Major Fire-Dominant
Mildly Neutral-Aligned
Impeded Magic - Spells with the [darkness] descriptor are impeded (may be succesfully cast with a 15+spell level DC spellcraft check).
The plane is home to the following deities:
Pelor - Neutral Good, Prismos - Neutral Evil, Shadira - Neutral, Fharlanghan - Neutral and Hera - Neutral.
Other notes:
The eladrin come from this plane. It is also home to Pazuzu.
Chasm of Midnight Loss:
Normal Gravity
Normal Time
Infinite Size
Divinely Morphic
No Elemental or Energy Traits
Mildly Evil-Aligned
Impeded Magic - Spells with the [good] descriptor are impeded (may be succesfully cast with a 15+spell level DC spellcraft check).
The plane is home to the following deities:
Lolth - Chaotic Evil, Nerull - Neutral Evil, Gruumsh - Chaotic Evil, Maglubiyet - Neutral Evil and Erythnul - Chaotic Evil.
Other Notes:
The devils and non-tanar'ri demons come from this plane. It is also home to Yeenoghu, Baphomet and Orcus.
Fields of Bliss:
Light Gravity
Normal Time
Infinite Size
Divinely Morphic
No Elemental Traits
Minor Positive Dominant
Mildly Good-Aligned
Impeded Magic - Spells with the [evil] descriptor are impeded (may be succesfully cast with a 15+spell level DC spellcraft check).
The plane is home to the following deities:
Yondalla - Lawful Good, Corellon Larethian - Chaotic Good, Garl Glittergold - Neutral Good, Obad-Hai - Neutral, Olidammara - Chaotic Neutral and Moradin - Lawful Good.
Other Notes:
The archons and guardinals come from this plane.
Spiral Desert:
Normal Gravity
Normal Time
Infinite Size
Divinely Morphic
No Elemental or Energy Traits
Mildly Neutral-Aligned
Normal Magic
The plane is home to the following deities:
Boccob - Neutral, Kurtulmak - Lawful Evil, Annam - Neutral and Balder - Neutral Good.
Other Notes:
The formians and slaad come from this plane. It is also home to Graz'zt and Fraz-Urb Luu
***********************************************
Other than these, there is also the astral plane (home of Aoskar - Neutral Good), the ethereal plane, the plane of faerie and the material plane (as well as a few demiplanes).
If you can give me some pointers on connecting these planes I would be much obliged. Inventing new transitive planes is always a plus.
I'm not sure if I'll include the inner planes and if I do, it'll either be as they are in 3e or as they were in 2e.
I could use some help here
I could use some help here
You can never hope to grasp the source of our power. We are forever.
I don't know if this is what you are looking for, but I'll give it a shot!
Each and every different plane is connected by The Gate Crystal. Kept and protected by a God every different year, it's location is kept quite secret. It's user is allowed to transport to any plane on touch, it merely requires the thought to travel to that plane. Within the crystal is stored essence of each different plane, trapped and forged by Moradin, it appears like a large diamond and each facet glows with different colours.
That is probably a crap idea, but it just came into my head!
Each and every different plane is connected by The Gate Crystal. Kept and protected by a God every different year, it's location is kept quite secret. It's user is allowed to transport to any plane on touch, it merely requires the thought to travel to that plane. Within the crystal is stored essence of each different plane, trapped and forged by Moradin, it appears like a large diamond and each facet glows with different colours.
That is probably a crap idea, but it just came into my head!
Perverteer Paladin
Warning: long post and quite a lot of work do to if you want to use this. It’s a crossbreed between the Wheel of Time gates (if you know them), the Infinite Staircase and some other influences all mixed together by myself. 
The Stepstone Islands, also called the Stepstones, or simply the Stones
The stepstones are surely an exotic means of travel between the planes. If one wants to travel the stepstones, one has first to locate a starting point which is not always easy as not all of them are well known. The variety of different starting points is huge, some having the rather ordinry aspect of a doorway, other being platforms of varying size, others holes in the ground or window in the sky. As variable as their shape are the materials they are made off, ranging from growing plants to drak, glittering metal. Another variability is their size, some of them being mere mouse-holes, others being ample enough to admit twenty or more people at a time.
They have one thing in common though, once you step onto them, or through them, or into them, depending on their nature, you bacome aware of a series of steps, suspended in mid-air, without any visible support and stretching seemingly endlessly towards the sky. The nature of these steps is as variable as that of the portals, some being out of metal, others with a sponge-like consistency, others yet resembling balloons of water. In any case, they are roughly oval, with a flat top, a round bottom and rounded edges and are only visible from a certain angle.
Most of the more used stepstones are just wide enough to allow two people to travel side by side, but some are much narrower, forcing adventurers to go in single line, while others are broad enough to let five walk abreast. Once the traveller then steps onto the stones, climbing higher, the world behind him begins to fade, slowly replaced with a uniform blue background, the stones still hanging suspended. Also, gravity changes slowly to normal gravity, if the initial gravity wasn’t normal.
Climbing higher, the traveller has to watch out that he does not misstep. As long as the initial plane is in view, a misstep lets him fall back towards the ground, letting him take damage depending on how far he falls. But once he is in litteraly blue, a misstep has worse consequences as when he falls, he falls down to from where he came, but as he has already left the initial plane, the passage back into that is very rough and moreover the traveller often appears miles up in the sky even though he seemingly has mounted much less steps.
Now, if the traveller avoids misstepping, eventually the air begins to thicken, a blurred consistency coming to the air. Finally, the traveller steps onto a broader island and if he turns back, he finds that he has come out of the water, without being wet. This is especially weird if he has companions because those seem to step out of the water but are totally unaware of this. Also, the last stepstone of the stair can be seen shimmering under the water.
Also, the term water is often inappropriate, as the liquid can just as well be molten lava, or sizzling acid, or even more hostile liquids. Stepping out of those liquids, for one reason or another, is harmless, but stepping back in is another matter. More than one traveller has been foolish enough to step back to where he just came from only to find himself burned or frozen to death, only to name a few examples.
This being said, a look around reveals that the island, which is securely anchored, is surrounded by many other islands, gently bobbing up and down, but most seeming stable enough to step onto. In the middle of the arriving island is built a spire, bearing many markings, giving directions to other planes and places, written in many common but also just as many exotic languages. Often, there are even more signs for the same place, pointing in different directions. If one looks into the indicated direction, another island with a spire comes into sight, sometimes very close, sometimes only to be spotted with a telescope as it is used by seamen, sometimes hidden behind the horizon, sometimes, if the traveller is particularly unluck, it’s has even disappeared with time.
Having chosen his direction, the traveller will have to travel the island lying in between. Those islands are not fixated but float freely on the liquid and are often treacherous. All are vaguely circular, seemingly made out of polished stone and are always shifting positions slowly. Thus, the path relying on spire island to the next is never the same, but a seasoned travellers can make a guess at what sort of island he will use, based on their colour. Silver ones, for example, have a tendency to emit lightning as soon as they are stepped onto. Red ones often indicate fire, white of course blizzards, or just comparatively inoffensive snow, blue ones are often unstable, sinking under the travellers weight, sandy coloured ones may indicate sand storms or moving sand, green ones often have healing virtues, refreshing weary travellers, but sometimes emit toxic gas. Multi-hued ones often combine powers, often resulting in even stranger effects, mostly more or less unrelated to the single colour’s effects. As a rule, grey stones are most looked for as they rarely have any special effects. Luckily for the adventurer they are frequent enough to avoid most of the magical stones, but not all, and following the grey stones often entails long detours.
Furtehrmore, the adventurer would do well not to slip into the surrounding liquid as, aside from the fact that the liquid in itself is often harmfull, he risks being ground to goo by the shifting islands. Moreover, travellers are well advised not to attempt to sleep on one of the floating islands. Even if they move slowly enough, they will drift quite some distance through the night, often drifting away from the intended goal, sometimes completely disorienting their passengers. Thus, safe sleep is only guaranteed on the spired islands, as those are fixed. Well, safe at least from drifting away, because more or less hostile creatures can always appear on it by stepping onto it by using stepstones.
Once the traveller is on the next island, he again reads the spire for directions to his intended destiny, thus moving from island to island, he reaches the last one where he has to dive into the liquid to get onto the stones again. Depending on the liquid, this can be more or less harmful. As he dives down, the liquid becomes less and less solid and suddenly diappears, leaving the traveller in the blue environment again, hopefully on a stepstone if he has paid a little attention to this. Descending the stepstones, the underlying plane soon gains substance and the traveller finally reaches it by stepping onto, through or out of what ever gives access to the stepstones on that plane.
Now, if I say plane, it may very well be the same plane the traveller has departed from, but in a different location, if that are the signs he has followed. Mostly though, stepstone island travelling is used for changing between planes.
*******
I’ve just realized that this might be a tad difficult to implement and will take some work.
I think you have to determine some things, while others are random.
constants:
1) The number of usable portals on a plane, their shape and their location.
2) The spire island those portals lead to and the species of liquid surrounding them.
3) The number of spire islands necessary to travel from one plane to the next and the distance between them, measured as the raven flies.
modifiers:
Every time the directions on the spire island are read incorrectly (lore check, or something like that), one or more spire islands are added to the travelling.
variables:
1) The actual distance to travel using mostly grey stones = distance in a straight line + random number determined by dice.
2) The number of grey stones that are actually magical after all = a certain % of distance to travel
3) The number of times a magical stone has to be passed = a cerain % of distance to travel
4) The number of possible shortcuts, involving passage over a magical stone, each one diminishing the distance to travel if taken, diminishing also the number of grey magical stones and magical stones to be passed.
5) The liquid surrounding the stones.
determining magical stones:
For each magical stone, the colour and magical effect is determined by dice.
Each colour gets one associated effect, in low, middle and high range. e.g. light snow, thick snow and blizzard, plus may have a random effect.
Dice determine the colour of the stone and then its effect: low, middle, high or random. If random comes up, it may be any effect, just roll again for colour and type of effect, then use that effect for the stone.
Grey magical stones are always random.
determining liquid:
Each spire island gets one associated liquid, liquid changes halfway between islands. Spire islands leading to stepstones that may be used by travellers are mostly surrounded by harmless or only slightly harmfull liquids.
Liquid surrounding islands can be determined by dice, chosing between different possible liquids, and, for example if it’s acid, it’s level of nociveness.
The Stepstone Islands, also called the Stepstones, or simply the Stones
The stepstones are surely an exotic means of travel between the planes. If one wants to travel the stepstones, one has first to locate a starting point which is not always easy as not all of them are well known. The variety of different starting points is huge, some having the rather ordinry aspect of a doorway, other being platforms of varying size, others holes in the ground or window in the sky. As variable as their shape are the materials they are made off, ranging from growing plants to drak, glittering metal. Another variability is their size, some of them being mere mouse-holes, others being ample enough to admit twenty or more people at a time.
They have one thing in common though, once you step onto them, or through them, or into them, depending on their nature, you bacome aware of a series of steps, suspended in mid-air, without any visible support and stretching seemingly endlessly towards the sky. The nature of these steps is as variable as that of the portals, some being out of metal, others with a sponge-like consistency, others yet resembling balloons of water. In any case, they are roughly oval, with a flat top, a round bottom and rounded edges and are only visible from a certain angle.
Most of the more used stepstones are just wide enough to allow two people to travel side by side, but some are much narrower, forcing adventurers to go in single line, while others are broad enough to let five walk abreast. Once the traveller then steps onto the stones, climbing higher, the world behind him begins to fade, slowly replaced with a uniform blue background, the stones still hanging suspended. Also, gravity changes slowly to normal gravity, if the initial gravity wasn’t normal.
Climbing higher, the traveller has to watch out that he does not misstep. As long as the initial plane is in view, a misstep lets him fall back towards the ground, letting him take damage depending on how far he falls. But once he is in litteraly blue, a misstep has worse consequences as when he falls, he falls down to from where he came, but as he has already left the initial plane, the passage back into that is very rough and moreover the traveller often appears miles up in the sky even though he seemingly has mounted much less steps.
Now, if the traveller avoids misstepping, eventually the air begins to thicken, a blurred consistency coming to the air. Finally, the traveller steps onto a broader island and if he turns back, he finds that he has come out of the water, without being wet. This is especially weird if he has companions because those seem to step out of the water but are totally unaware of this. Also, the last stepstone of the stair can be seen shimmering under the water.
Also, the term water is often inappropriate, as the liquid can just as well be molten lava, or sizzling acid, or even more hostile liquids. Stepping out of those liquids, for one reason or another, is harmless, but stepping back in is another matter. More than one traveller has been foolish enough to step back to where he just came from only to find himself burned or frozen to death, only to name a few examples.
This being said, a look around reveals that the island, which is securely anchored, is surrounded by many other islands, gently bobbing up and down, but most seeming stable enough to step onto. In the middle of the arriving island is built a spire, bearing many markings, giving directions to other planes and places, written in many common but also just as many exotic languages. Often, there are even more signs for the same place, pointing in different directions. If one looks into the indicated direction, another island with a spire comes into sight, sometimes very close, sometimes only to be spotted with a telescope as it is used by seamen, sometimes hidden behind the horizon, sometimes, if the traveller is particularly unluck, it’s has even disappeared with time.
Having chosen his direction, the traveller will have to travel the island lying in between. Those islands are not fixated but float freely on the liquid and are often treacherous. All are vaguely circular, seemingly made out of polished stone and are always shifting positions slowly. Thus, the path relying on spire island to the next is never the same, but a seasoned travellers can make a guess at what sort of island he will use, based on their colour. Silver ones, for example, have a tendency to emit lightning as soon as they are stepped onto. Red ones often indicate fire, white of course blizzards, or just comparatively inoffensive snow, blue ones are often unstable, sinking under the travellers weight, sandy coloured ones may indicate sand storms or moving sand, green ones often have healing virtues, refreshing weary travellers, but sometimes emit toxic gas. Multi-hued ones often combine powers, often resulting in even stranger effects, mostly more or less unrelated to the single colour’s effects. As a rule, grey stones are most looked for as they rarely have any special effects. Luckily for the adventurer they are frequent enough to avoid most of the magical stones, but not all, and following the grey stones often entails long detours.
Furtehrmore, the adventurer would do well not to slip into the surrounding liquid as, aside from the fact that the liquid in itself is often harmfull, he risks being ground to goo by the shifting islands. Moreover, travellers are well advised not to attempt to sleep on one of the floating islands. Even if they move slowly enough, they will drift quite some distance through the night, often drifting away from the intended goal, sometimes completely disorienting their passengers. Thus, safe sleep is only guaranteed on the spired islands, as those are fixed. Well, safe at least from drifting away, because more or less hostile creatures can always appear on it by stepping onto it by using stepstones.
Once the traveller is on the next island, he again reads the spire for directions to his intended destiny, thus moving from island to island, he reaches the last one where he has to dive into the liquid to get onto the stones again. Depending on the liquid, this can be more or less harmful. As he dives down, the liquid becomes less and less solid and suddenly diappears, leaving the traveller in the blue environment again, hopefully on a stepstone if he has paid a little attention to this. Descending the stepstones, the underlying plane soon gains substance and the traveller finally reaches it by stepping onto, through or out of what ever gives access to the stepstones on that plane.
Now, if I say plane, it may very well be the same plane the traveller has departed from, but in a different location, if that are the signs he has followed. Mostly though, stepstone island travelling is used for changing between planes.
*******
I’ve just realized that this might be a tad difficult to implement and will take some work.
I think you have to determine some things, while others are random.
constants:
1) The number of usable portals on a plane, their shape and their location.
2) The spire island those portals lead to and the species of liquid surrounding them.
3) The number of spire islands necessary to travel from one plane to the next and the distance between them, measured as the raven flies.
modifiers:
Every time the directions on the spire island are read incorrectly (lore check, or something like that), one or more spire islands are added to the travelling.
variables:
1) The actual distance to travel using mostly grey stones = distance in a straight line + random number determined by dice.
2) The number of grey stones that are actually magical after all = a certain % of distance to travel
3) The number of times a magical stone has to be passed = a cerain % of distance to travel
4) The number of possible shortcuts, involving passage over a magical stone, each one diminishing the distance to travel if taken, diminishing also the number of grey magical stones and magical stones to be passed.
5) The liquid surrounding the stones.
determining magical stones:
For each magical stone, the colour and magical effect is determined by dice.
Each colour gets one associated effect, in low, middle and high range. e.g. light snow, thick snow and blizzard, plus may have a random effect.
Dice determine the colour of the stone and then its effect: low, middle, high or random. If random comes up, it may be any effect, just roll again for colour and type of effect, then use that effect for the stone.
Grey magical stones are always random.
determining liquid:
Each spire island gets one associated liquid, liquid changes halfway between islands. Spire islands leading to stepstones that may be used by travellers are mostly surrounded by harmless or only slightly harmfull liquids.
Liquid surrounding islands can be determined by dice, chosing between different possible liquids, and, for example if it’s acid, it’s level of nociveness.
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."
always a pleasure
It's just what I feared, that it's a bit too complex to implement ... but once I had written it down, I didn't want to just throw it away.
Just now, no more ideas, no.
You can always use it for some background feeling
It's just what I feared, that it's a bit too complex to implement ... but once I had written it down, I didn't want to just throw it away.
Just now, no more ideas, no.
You can always use it for some background feeling
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."
this should be easier to do...
The Plane Hoppers
The Plane Hoppers are a wide-spread organization offering a relatively safe means of plane-travelling to anybody willing to pay their fees. They are a bunch of very different people, adventurous types that nevertheless prefer a regular job to the hazards of pure adventuring. Indeed, their very job is already an adventure for the common mortal, for their means of plane travelling is through using the Pr'logg. What a Pr'logg is? Well, they resemble giant snakes with wings and the head of a small dragon. Some say that they are related to the dragonkind, others think that they were bred between the planes. In any case, the Plane Hoppers have tamed them, though these creatures are remain still more or less dangerous and more than one Plane Hopper has been attacked by his own steed. For this is what the Pr'logg are, steeds to the Plane Hoppers, carrying them and their passengers from plane to plane.
If one wishes to plane-travel, one goes to the Plane Hoppers and, after paying their travelling fee, takes place with one's guide on the back of a Pr'logg, where one is safely secured. The huge beast then spreads its wings, soaring into the sky, climbing higher and higher. Once it is several miles from the ground, it veers downward, folding his wings tightly along his body, picking up speed as it plunges towards the ground. At one moment then, its speed surpasses that of sound enabling it to make the jump between planes, the traveller only becoming aware of this once the beast catches itself barely before ramming into the ground of the intended plane. The traveller is then brought to the local Plane Hopper ground where he disembarks, often still a bit shaky on his legs, and may then go on with his travels on this new plane.
The Plane Hoppers
The Plane Hoppers are a wide-spread organization offering a relatively safe means of plane-travelling to anybody willing to pay their fees. They are a bunch of very different people, adventurous types that nevertheless prefer a regular job to the hazards of pure adventuring. Indeed, their very job is already an adventure for the common mortal, for their means of plane travelling is through using the Pr'logg. What a Pr'logg is? Well, they resemble giant snakes with wings and the head of a small dragon. Some say that they are related to the dragonkind, others think that they were bred between the planes. In any case, the Plane Hoppers have tamed them, though these creatures are remain still more or less dangerous and more than one Plane Hopper has been attacked by his own steed. For this is what the Pr'logg are, steeds to the Plane Hoppers, carrying them and their passengers from plane to plane.
If one wishes to plane-travel, one goes to the Plane Hoppers and, after paying their travelling fee, takes place with one's guide on the back of a Pr'logg, where one is safely secured. The huge beast then spreads its wings, soaring into the sky, climbing higher and higher. Once it is several miles from the ground, it veers downward, folding his wings tightly along his body, picking up speed as it plunges towards the ground. At one moment then, its speed surpasses that of sound enabling it to make the jump between planes, the traveller only becoming aware of this once the beast catches itself barely before ramming into the ground of the intended plane. The traveller is then brought to the local Plane Hopper ground where he disembarks, often still a bit shaky on his legs, and may then go on with his travels on this new plane.
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."