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14.2 Individual Plane Descriptions

14.2.1 Primal Planes

The Plane of Air

The Plane of Air is a a soaring landscape unencumbered by gravity or ground. The vast expanses of empty air are littered with clouds and unpredictable winds. Any inhabitants of the plane must adapt to a highly mobile lifestyle. A number of towns and structures have been built in the plane using raw materials brought from other planes. They sail through the air at the whims of the wind, and are occasionally battered by intersections with other wind streams.

The Plane of Air has the following planar traits:

The Plane of Earth

The Plane of Earth is a titanically large body of earth and stone. A labyrinthine series of mostly airless tunnels weave their way through the plane, connecting the few cities. The plane is a major source of valuable gems, diamonds, and rare metals like mithral, but the dense rock and airless environment make successful mining difficult. In addition, earthquakes periodically reshape the environment by collapsing old tunnel systems and constructing new ones. Some cities have been carved out in vast underground rooms reinforced to survive the earthquakes.

The Plane of Earth has the following planar traits:

The Plane of Fire

The Plane of Fire is an endless searing inferno. The plane’s essence is highly combustible, allowing fires to burn indefinitely without any obvious fuel. However, the intensity of flames on the plane are highly uneven, as the plane generates fuel in various locations that shift over time. Some pockets on the surface are devoid of natural fuel, allowing the construction of trading hubs where the few inhabitants of the plane who are not naturally immune to fire can survive.

The Plane of Fire has the following planar traits:

The Plane of Water

The Plane of Water is an impossibly vast ocean. Powerful currents sweep through the ocean, but much of it is calm, and many forms of aquatic life abound in the water. The Plane of Water is the most densely populated Primal Plane, both by sentient creatures and monsters. Magnificant underwater cities are carved from huge rocks that float peacefully suspended in the water. Though there is no sun, simple creatures akin to plankton form the base of the food chain by feeding directly on the plane’s essence.

The Plane of Water has the following planar traits:

14.2.2 Aligned Planes

Elysium

Elysium is beautiful and majestic. Mountains rise dramatically out of misty clouds, trees are massive and laden with delicious fruit, and buildings surpass the wildest dreams of mortal architects. A serene blue sky gives way to a night so lit by stars that it is almost as bright as the day.

The Abyss

The Abyss is a hellscape of fire, brimstone, and distant screaming. With the exception of the great palaces of demon princes, the buildings that exist are designed for defense rather than aesthetics. The terrain is typically rocky and dull, and most of the color belongs to carcasses left behind after violent battles.

All manner of nightmarish creatures stalk the Abyss. The best known of these creatures are demons and devils. Demons are formed when mortal souls are splintered by trauma. The soul splinters drift into the Astral Plane, and from there are guided to the Abyss by ancient astral currents. When they arrive in the Abyss, its planar essence envelops them in new planeforged body, much like dead souls gain new bodies in their proper afterlife.

Newly formed demons, known as demonspawn, are barely functional creatures. They are driven entirely by the primal emotion that separated the soul splinter from its original soul, such as rage, grief, or pain. This makes them functionally insane, and they are almost always driven to lash out at everything around them. Rage-born demons violently attack anything they see, pain-born demons try to lessen their pain by sharing it, and so on. When they succeed in their attacks, they can feed on the trauma they inflict, strengthening their soul. Unfortunately, this does not generally make them more sane, since they only feed on the same urges that created them.

Demonspawn instinctively avoid attacking other demonspawn, since they can find no gratification for their urges in attacking such small, broken souls. Instead, they hunt creatures with complete souls, which generally means attacking the afterlife bodies of evil-aligned creatures who went to the Abyss for their afterlife. The greatest feast, however, comes from attacking mortal souls, which are much easier to splinter. Demonic incursions into other planes are devastating but fortunately rare.

Unlike demons, devils are native to the Abyss itself. They are far more intelligent and organized than demons, but also far less numerous. Devils rule vast territories within the Abyss, using demons as their foot soldiers to protect and enlarge their territorial claims.

The only competition with devils for rulership of the Abyss comes from the evil deities and greater demons. Evil deities are fairly simple to deal with. They have absolute dominion over their own territory, so invading their lands is pointless. In addition, since their territorial limits come from their divine power rather than force of arms, they have little ability to expand or even exert significant influence outside of their own lands. As a result, devils and greater demons alike mostly ignore the deities.

Greater demons are much more troublesome. On rare occasions, demonspawn are so successful in their attacks that they claim soul splinters outside the scope of their original urges. This typically happens when demons find and break mortal souls. When this happens, the demonspawn gains a more complete soul, and becomes a little more sane. Often, this simply entices other demonspawn to attack and destroy the wayward demon. However, if the demon survives the attacks from its allies and repeats this process, it can grow in power.

Demons who have expanded their soul beyond a single soul splinter are called greater demons. Eventually, the demon can gain something resembling a complete soul from all of the splinters it has collected, making it a demon prince. Though more sane and functional than demonspawn, these more developed demons are no less evil. Both greater demons and demon princes have enough skill with splintering and manipulating souls to make pacts with votives. In addition, demon princes have the power to command armies of demonspawn and greater demons, allowing them to claim territory like devils do.

Ordus

Ordus is a masterpiece of logical organization. It is the most consistently civilized of the aligned planes, and the cities are exquisitely planned. However, laws are enforced with extreme severity. Outside of the cities, even the natural territories are cleanly and simply divided. A forest of evenly spaced trees might border a field in a sharp, clean transition along a perfectly straight line.

Discord

Discord is a wild maelstrom. Much of the plane can be freely reshaped with only minimal force of will. By working together, its inhabitants can create vast cities from thin air, though they can be destroyed with similar ease. Beyond the shaped spaces, the terrain is constantly changing. A field might grow trees that are consumed by a forest fire and then fall into chasms newly formed by an earthquake in a matter of minutes.

Nexus Planes

The Material Plane: The Material Plane is the plane that most Rise adventures begin on. The surface of the plane is a massive sphere with a radius of about 4,000 miles. It is the most familiar to most humanoid creatures.

The Material Plane has the following planar traits:

The Astral Plane: The Astral Plane is the space between the other planes. It is a necessary intermediate destination for virtually all planar journeys, as all planar rifts lead to and from the Astral Plane. Most activity on the Astral Plane occurs in a space called the Inner Astral Plane, a massive but finite region where all planar rifts on the Astral Plane appear. However, unlike all other planes, the Astral Plane has no known limits to its extent, and may in fact be infinite. The area outside the Inner Astral Plane is known as the Deep Astral Plane, and few venture into those sparsely populated realms. The Deep Astral Plane has magical turbulence that interferes with long-range communication and transportation magic, making exploration difficult.

The Astral Plane has the following planar traits:

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