I recently started playing baldurs gate 3 and got into conversation with my dad (huge dnd nerd) about the mind flayers. When he tried to explain the astral plane it confused me a bit so later on I did some research and ended up with 24 tabs open trying to connect an astral time warp with clockwork machines and demons fighting devils and my head was spinning, This video helped me understand everything haha thank you for the in depth yet simple explanation!
This is literally the best video on the planes and the D&D cosmology, I have ever watched. You explained everything so well, I finally have a grasp on how everything is supposed to look. I'm actually so happy that this video popped up in my recommendations...Thank you TH-cam!
1000% what this guy posted above. This is by far the greatest video of the planes of existence on TH-cam. Thanks so much for your hard work. This video is incredible.
I am DMing myself. This Video is the ,,go to" for me. My Campaign is runing since 8months now and my BBEG is a Great Wyrm (1up on ancient Dragon) that tries to combines all his egos from other planes, this helps me a LOT. To counter the BBEG my players are trying to get in contact with his other egos, that are spread over different Material and Outer Planes. So travel between planes became a big thing now. Kind of derailed since at first i did never intended to leave the material plane for this campaign. On the otherside i am happy with what they chose, i can trow a crappton of fun stuff at them and my worldcreation goes bonkkers atm. This video gave me a lot more options for travel than just Portals. Climbing Mount Olympia, traveling with a boat along Styx, or an adventure on Ygdrassil. Great Work👍
I personally find Pandemonium to be the most interesting. Being the plane of madness & confusion, there's something so intriguing about how little is concretely known about it. I like to think that the winds are the remains of destroyed souls,. Rapid conflicting emotions thoughts, ideas, and beliefs churning about into an uncontrollable energy. Sort of like the Warp from Warhammer 40k.
For my cosmology, I renamed it to Behemoth, and made the plane a literal breathing corpse of a colossal beast named Behemoth. Its body is now used as the foundation in the World Tree's birth and eventual growth, and the River Styx (River of Blood) originates from Behemoth's mouth, drooling out as a river. Residents of Behemoth created holes within its corpse, or letting massive maggots burrow into it, but this also brings the deafening and maddening wind with them.
Recently decided to make my first campaign based off the outer planes, and with this video I'll finally have solid source material that doesn't require 80 opened tabs. Big thanks for your help.
Was gifted the new planes cape set as a first campaign DM and this video has been crucial for my confidence in running the campaign I applaud you kind sir.
I'm happy to be of assistance. I've got two other planescape videos if you need more info to run your campaign (hopefully I'll have more videos on the subject soon).
@WadeAllen001 I'm on it. I will sub for updates in the future! I began preliminary planning and am shooting to start after Thanksgiving I'm a teach/coach so football season is hectic.
The last time I looked into the planes was like 15 years ago in the 3.5 Manual of the Planes. Cool to see that the lore expanded in fractal-detail. It is such a good travelogue that lights the spreads the mind across impossible cosmos. Love it, thanks for corraborating this lovingly curated lore.
Celestia or the Seven Heavens appear to be based on The Paradiso from Divine Comedy. The layer names directly or indirectly refer to the layers in the Paradiso, which are Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Something similar could be said for Baator or the Nine Hells.
@@WadeAllen001Yeah, at 19:26 this layer is where we get the idea of devils carrying pitchforks. In Dante's story the circle of Malebolge is where they use their forks to cook souls in boiling oil forever.
I can’t thank you enough! Making a plane shifting campaign and having to try and pick which ones are most suitable for my players was tough. Having this breakdown really helps make sense of everything and which ones would be best to “visit” without just outright dying once they make it there
I only ever played Planescape Torment and looked up lore stuff on the internet because I could never find a GM or players to try this setting for myself. That being said, I have rose-tinted glasses for Sigil because, to me, it was a city where the weird is normal and they leant into the unfamiliar and alien. The body horror, the dustmen, the portals, the factions, the inhabitants, the slang. Planescape, for all the heavy inspiration it took from real world mythology, always was the most imaginative of the settings to me.
Loved this video. Revitalized my side-backstory for a character in my game who's an amnesiac monk tortle. Basically, they used to be a powerful wizard who roamed the outer planes with their friends on adventurers, but once when entering the Feywild, another powerful wizard tricked the party and cast a spell on them, turning this wizard into the tortle he is, with memory problems to inconvenience his knowledge, and his friends into different weapons and items, based on which plane they most represented. One of these friends, turned into a dragon by the party, used the Wish spell to stop the effect on herself, but is now trying to slowly remind the tortle of his past so they can work together to return to normal
All he currently knows is his name is actually Torlach, not Torkle, some of his friends became weapons, one of them is also a wish dragon named Azure, and he was once in the Nine Hells
Thank you! So hard finding a video on the specifics of Planescape! They all go on and on about AD&D history or Torment or Zeb Cook without going into WTF Planescape ACTUALLY is!
This is so helpful thanks for making this gonna use a lot! My fave quote is “the petitioners that end up here are all full of passion, always partying, fighting, singing, drinking, and presumably fucking”
Truly in the know. Thanks so much for this. I ran Planescape for some time but that was long ago and this helped refresh me so much that I think I'm much more prepared for my party to begin stretching out into the planes. I hope to see more of this amazing quality content and that much jink will come your way cutter. 👍
You should dedicate your channel to DnD seriously, I and many other crave this kind of content and despite the fact that there are some channels dedicated to this topic it was so refreshing to listen to someone else, many of the things you said are actually new to me, so please keep up this kind of content
Mechanus might be called “Nirvana” because real Nirvana is a state of absolute stability and permanence, in contrast to the ever-changing chaos perpetuating Samsara.
I’m imagining a Wandering Deity, and they and their petitioners spend their eternity traveling from one outer plane to the next in a never ending march “forward,” whether because of wanderlust, curiosity, or simply because “why not”
this is such a great resource for one of the harder things i’ve had to wrap my head around when it comes to d&d lore. i mean usually when i dm i just kinda skirt past the realm stuff because it’s complicated and why would the party know anything about that this is their version of quantum physics kind of. and while that’s true and ill probably still rely on that this is so helpful!!
incredibly clear! I would love to run the Outlands (in a western - travel campaign), or Acheron (in a Dark Souls hardcore game) I would love to go to Arborea
I’ve run many Planescape campaigns and this an excellent summary. The DM and players really need to embrace the ideas of morals (Good vs Evil) and ethics (Law vs Chaos), to elevate the game, and enjoy a richer experience. Evil thinks it’s doing beneficial actions and don’t see them as wrong. Also, as I understand it, when reading the setting, Petitioners (the dead) are working to perfect their efforts to act in accordance with their planes alignment goals, and which leads them to ultimately merge with the plane.
You deserve way more subscribers for the quality of this video! I've seen channels with tens of thousands of subscribers that explain this much more poorly lol
This is an excellent video, very clear and informative. Was looking for a planar cosmology crash course to show my players before I finally get to run my favorite setting with them, and this is perfect for it!
Super thorough, thanks for making this! Currently dealing with the death of my player's non-religious elf character, struggling to figure out how to narrate his post-death experience before the party is able to resurrect him. Would love to see a video on various afterlifes of different kinds of creatures, how undeath or other forms of bodily transformation (i.e. becoming a Hag, Lycanthrope, Lich, Vampire, Ilithid, etc.) affect the soul, or what happens when a creature from the material plane dies on a different mirror/inner/outer plane.
It was nice that you touched on the Bloodwar briefly, at least to explain in outline what all the senseless fighting was over. Topic indeed for another video, but to detail the major players of the Bloodwar: Asmodeus, Mephistopheles, Demogorgon, Orcus, etc... Also the demons, devils, daemons, and other fiends that comprise the armies of the Bloodwar. Also, you may get a few Stranger Things fans in here. Explain to them that OUR Demogorgon would use their Demogorgon as a toothpick. 😆
My Homebrew Cosmology is similar to your idea of the Sphere, which some exceptions. The Positive Energy Plane is the Outermost Plane, whilst the Negative is the Innermost Plane. And the Evil Aligned "Outer Planes" break the rule in that they are actually located with the Inner Planes now ... though still connected (loosely to the Astral Plane) ... now they aren't Inner Planes in and of themselves, but rather they were forced there to contain the Evil and keep them separate from the other Outer Planes (and it worked, mostly ... like I said they are still loosely connected to the Astral Plane through some Portals, etc.). The Nine Hells are basically the uppermost levels of the Abyss, for intents and purposes, separated by Carceri, and with the Devils acting as Jailors tasked with containing the Demons (giving rise to the Blood War). The Devils themselves were active players in striking this deal, and it is one of the reasons that some of the Astral Connections were maintained. Hades connected to the Material Plane via the Plane of Shadow (which is literally like the Shadow of the Prime Material and located within, whilst the Fey Wild is like the Prime's reflection and located on the outside of the Prime); Hades also touches the Border Ethereal ... it is a realm of wandering dead, awaiting judgement, it also sits kind of "around" the top layer of Hell, which is itself not a Sphere like the main planes, but a deep pit or wound, dug through the Elemental Planes and Chaos, and again, extending down infinitely as it transitions from Hell through Carceri and into the Abyss. Limbo, Pandemonium, and Acheron are all regions within the Elemental Chaos, created by the Outer Planes being forced there. And the latter two, in particular are bloody battle grounds of the Blood Wars, not only between Devils and Demons, but given how close these Planes are to the Astral Sea, and the Other Outer Planes, this is where many of the Battles between Good and Evil are fought (as well as the Prime).
I think, that Limbo is a place when you can go full creative potential. Lost pocket worlds, dream driven locatations, creatures from other places trying to settle there. Collapses that can happen due to chaotic nature of this place. This is main advantage and main problem. Concept of freedom and breaking laws of nature, but also you may need to go from the scratch.
great video, im DMing my first campaign soon and wanted to try something with the outer planes. i might be out of my league but i think its super interesting
Such a campaign could last years and you'd still be barely scratching the surface. If you go from one PlaneScape campaign to another and you don't recognize anything, it's just that you did not travel to the exact same location, or area from any given location.
35:06 My favourite fact about the outer planes that you didn't mention is the fact that no god is able to visit Sigil, because the Lady of Pain doesn't allow entrance of any god. We barely know anything about her, and yet she is powerful enough to effortlessly resist the influence of literal gods in her domain.
I have struggled to conceptualise the planes, but when you describe the rings as spheres, it helped a lot! Thank you! I’d be interested in your thoughts on Abeir (since I intend to send my party there soon) as well as the Fey Wild and Shadowfell.
Thank you so much for making this, I could never find decent info on Carceri's layers, also Susanoo is pronounced "Soos-ah-no-oh" and is Japanese in origin
The phlogiston is not like a cosmic river, it's more like a cosmic ocean crisscrossed with currents, and dotted with countless crystal spheres. It's EXTREMELY flammable, tripling the area and effect of any fire and fire spell, but, also making them instantaneous. Also, it's not from the Planescape setting but from the SpellJammer setting. ALL layers of all of the outer planes are effectively boundless or infinite. The list of layers is the list of the KNOWN layers. Who know, there may be more, maybe a LOT more... The inner planes embody both the Rule of Three and the Unity of Rings as they effectively make three intersecting rings. You could make dozens of hour long videos about each and every layer of the outer planes.
How, I was kind of surprised after watching this video how little view you have. I'll be sure to share this around with my dnd frens. Good luck bro, and keep up the high quality work
Ghenna might be my favorite "blank slate" realm since there isnt much lore built around it or its inhabitants. The volcanos are cool and the walking city is also pretty dope
My favorite aspects of the setting were (A) the historical Aoskar and his death, presumably at the hands of the Lady of Pain and (B) the Pillar of Skulls in Baator. So fun.
I hope I'm not alone in hoping that in addition to some new inspired art, WotC needs to use some Tony DiTerlizzi art from Planescape 2e. His art IS Planescape forever!
beginning of your video: Yeah I agree, in my head cannon. on a 5th dimensional scale, the inner elemental planes are "inside" the material plane, as they compose it, separated by the ethereal plane where raw elements are converted to material, and vice versa. The "Outer" planes are morality and philosophy and are separated from the physical, material plane by the astral plane, where material converts to spiritual. I am not sure if there's a difference between the "astral plane" and the "Astral sea". I know the Astral sea is the equivalent to outer space as it is the space between crystal spheres (planets).
16:27 it’s called nirvana because of the great wheel and the philosophy that goes with it. You’ve achieved nirvana by purging all else. Your no longer stuck in the process of samara. You no longer reincarnate into a new form to learn a new lesson. You’ve achieved perfect balance.
Observation: evil planes are a lot more complex than good planes. Hypothesis: surely this must have something to do with evil planes receiving more petitioners and trying to outcompete each other evilness. Test: maybe we should try to get both demons and devils declaring war on the material planes and see if they are devolving cause of the lack of petitioners and competition. Conclusion : and bit chunk of the material plan got absorbed into the evil planes, disproving the hypothesis.
What happens to Primes (visitors) that die in the outer planes? Do they automatically get reatomized in their respective moral alignment outer plane? What happens if they are already in that specific plane. If there is a sort of spawn area in these outer planes, then could a prime go there, and become a petitioner (dies) and see his own corpse? What is the physics of this process?
Yeah I'm pretty sure if a prime dies in the outer planes their body will be left behind and their soul will travel to become a petitioner on whatever plane they belong to according to their alignment and beliefs. I don't think there is a specific spawn point on any of the outer planes, although if you're the chosen of a particular god then you'd be reborn in that god's realm. But in either case, it would be possible to be reborn and then see your former body. However petitioners have no memories of their past life (or at best just hazy memories), so they wouldn't know that body is their own, though they may feel some vague sense of attachment or familiarity with it.
Ah, so the petitioner’s body is completely different from their prime’s. (Such as the petitioners in Limbo 🤦♂️) ((Does this imply that a petitioner who dies in the devil/demon war is gone forever? In contrast to the CG/NG realm?)) What about the highest layer of the LG/NG in which the petitioner is merged with the layer losing itself’s individuality. Do the paladin primes/petitioners also lose their previous body/form?
@@TruthIsToBlame yeah a petitioner's body is different, though depending on the plane you end up it could look quite similar. If you go to the beastlands you'll have the body of a beast, if you go to Baator you'll be a lemure, a larva, or perhaps a shade, if you go to Mount Celestia you'll be an archon, if you go to Bytopia you'll most likely become a gnome, but if you go to Arborea you'll look very much like your old body. When a petitioner dies on their home plane, they aren't reborn (except for on Ysgard), and their soul merges with the plane. If they die outside of their home plane then they're truly dead. Although if they die outside their home plane and didn't choose to leave that plane, like if they were summoned, then when killed they get reborn as a petitioner again.
The way I've always thought about the different cosmologys is that they're drawn so mortals can try and understand them, and it isn't really how the planes are laid out because mortal minds wouldn't be able to understand it. Like things being in higher dimensions, we just are unable to fully grasp it
That can work in some ways, but not others. Like how some cosmologies just remove things that used to exist, or add things that never existed. The Shadowfell and Feywild didn't exist before 4e, and the ethereal plane got deleted for a while and then made a reappearance. The elemental chaos is a later addition too.
@@WadeAllen001 You're making points that aren't the points being made by the original comment. They're saying that some planes are on a different dimension (like how Humans see and experience in 4D), but there are planes of existence that are beyond our comprehension (believed to be 11 planes of existence in total). Like trying to explain to someone how gravity works but they don't even understand the concept that they can't just fall off the earth because of it.
Fantastic. I've been running a PD campaign for over 25 years now and you've done an amazing job with this. Wish I knew where you got that diagram at 1:47 though, I've scoured the internet for years and have yet to find such...
@@WadeAllen001 wow. here I am going through all of your uploads now, and I didn't really expect a response. Thanks. How do i get it? Just grab a screenshot from the vid or something?
I once ended a powerful Balor Demon by Jumping on him and activating a cubic gate, set to the city of Sigil, where a Balor should not be,it ignored me as it had much greater problems than me, and back to the Prime I went .
30:02 I don't know about the norse part of D&D lore, but in *real* Norse mythology the Æsir and Vanir where not greater and lesser gods, but two equal pantheons that faught a war till they decided to make peace and sort of merge, coexisting, exchanging hostages etc.
My favorite Planescape location is Sigil, but the Concordant Plane is not my favorite plane. My favorite lower plane is Baator and my favorite upper plane is (probably) Celestia. Now that I think about it, that's kinda dumb, since I prefer chaotic characters 😅
A bit confused. The prime material plane (the plan that looks like our universe) seems to be the most inner plane on one map, but on another the element planes are most inner.
Yeah there are several different depictions of it. As a DM you could choose the one you like the best or think makes the most sense. Since the Ethereal Plane connects the Inner Planes to the Prime Material, and the Astral Plane connects the Outer Planes to the Prime Material, and because the Inner Plane constitutes the building blocks of the Prime Material, I don't think the Prime Material being the inner most plane makes the most sense.
@@WadeAllen001 Wow thabks for the reply. Great video btw! I started getting into DnD lore after getting into Baldur's Gate 3 and stumbled onto this video which explains the universe beautifully. This video has even become a sort of 'comfort video' at the end of a long day, for me.
Now I'm picturing my neutral Wizard ending up in the outlands after one failed roll too many and being mildly annoyed that she ended up in the part of the afterlife where magic doesn't work properly. Perhaps she should do some more slightly nice things to go to Ysgard instead xD
So I guess now we all know where our characters will wind up if they kick the bucket (depending on their alignment or the god they worship). I love that there's a special heaven just for goody 2 shoes Paladins xD
There's also a heaven for oath breakers, nay sayers, hypocrites, and any other form of thinking you can imagine. There may be "17 planes to represent", but each plane has layers that could further represent as well.
That is actually what I plan on doing. It'll take a while to get through them all, and I don't know if there will be quite enough to say to make them as long as this video (35 minutes), but I could probably get to 20 minutes.
I know what you said, and what Chris Perkins has said, and probably Matt Mercer has said, but I thought it was pronounced Sigil [Sidjil]. As is in signet ring, containing a crest, crest being the synonym for sigil.
A lot of people have thought this, but yeah it's pronounced differently than the sigil meaning "an inscribed or painted symbol considered to have magical power." Maybe the creators of Planescape decided to have it be pronounced with the hard g just to be goofy and different, or perhaps they wanted to avoid any confusion between it and the soft g word.
Really Cool video Bro.. get to see it a little Bit Latter but really good. Only thing i always felt little bit weird and stupid its this Mix with Real life Gods in D&D lore.. Never like it since i was Young and get to Play Table top the first time..
I wonder what happens to petitioners who perish. do they cease to exist? do they ascend/descend to some after-afterlife reality? do they just get reincarnated in the material plane?
They die for real, kind of. Their essence becomes one with the plane they inhabit, so they might still have some dim level of consciousness afterward, but it seems like they're mostly just dead. The exception is Ysgard, where petitioners are reborn each day to kill each other all over again. However, if a petitioner is killed outside of the plane they belong to, they get obliterated completely.
@@WadeAllen001 And even that seems to line up with the essence of Ysgard, as the will of the plane would have you resurrect to continue its will of ceaseless battles
@@WadeAllen001 I get it. It just tickles me because they have no more reason to think that afterlife is any more real than the outer planes. It's funny. Made me chuckle anyway, good video.
How could you leave out Bahamut when talking about Mertion the platinum heaven, the deity that Mertion’s nickname is based off? (Platinum dragon, platinum heaven)
Yeah not sure. I suppose I just didn't mention that many deities. Maybe it was that I was taking my info from Planescape books rather than general D&D books and the Planescape books might not have mentioned Bahamut?
I recently started playing baldurs gate 3 and got into conversation with my dad (huge dnd nerd) about the mind flayers. When he tried to explain the astral plane it confused me a bit so later on I did some research and ended up with 24 tabs open trying to connect an astral time warp with clockwork machines and demons fighting devils and my head was spinning, This video helped me understand everything haha thank you for the in depth yet simple explanation!
idk you or your dad but never let those convos go man you’re gonna treasure them when you’re like 80
What a cool dad!
@@NealOfTaylor44 For real, though
This is literally the best video on the planes and the D&D cosmology, I have ever watched. You explained everything so well, I finally have a grasp on how everything is supposed to look. I'm actually so happy that this video popped up in my recommendations...Thank you TH-cam!
Wow, thanks! I'm glad TH-cam suggested it to you.
1000% what this guy posted above. This is by far the greatest video of the planes of existence on TH-cam. Thanks so much for your hard work. This video is incredible.
I am DMing myself. This Video is the ,,go to" for me.
My Campaign is runing since 8months now and my BBEG is a Great Wyrm (1up on ancient Dragon) that tries to combines all his egos from other planes, this helps me a LOT.
To counter the BBEG my players are trying to get in contact with his other egos, that are spread over different Material and Outer Planes.
So travel between planes became a big thing now.
Kind of derailed since at first i did never intended to leave the material plane for this campaign.
On the otherside i am happy with what they chose, i can trow a crappton of fun stuff at them and my worldcreation goes bonkkers atm.
This video gave me a lot more options for travel than just Portals.
Climbing Mount Olympia, traveling with a boat along Styx, or an adventure on Ygdrassil.
Great Work👍
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Nice! If you want a more thorough breakdown, check out various vids on individual planes by AJPickett and MrRhexx.
I personally find Pandemonium to be the most interesting. Being the plane of madness & confusion, there's something so intriguing about how little is concretely known about it. I like to think that the winds are the remains of destroyed souls,. Rapid conflicting emotions thoughts, ideas, and beliefs churning about into an uncontrollable energy. Sort of like the Warp from Warhammer 40k.
thats a very good take
For my cosmology, I renamed it to Behemoth, and made the plane a literal breathing corpse of a colossal beast named Behemoth. Its body is now used as the foundation in the World Tree's birth and eventual growth, and the River Styx (River of Blood) originates from Behemoth's mouth, drooling out as a river. Residents of Behemoth created holes within its corpse, or letting massive maggots burrow into it, but this also brings the deafening and maddening wind with them.
IIRC Cyric has his realm here?
I'm both more enlightened on this topic than I've ever been and infinitely more confused. Thank you I hate it.
Recently decided to make my first campaign based off the outer planes, and with this video I'll finally have solid source material that doesn't require 80 opened tabs. Big thanks for your help.
Nice. I'm sure it'll be an awesome campaign.
Arcadia sounds like that Gated Community that Squidward briefly moved into in that one episode until it drove him bananas xD
Was gifted the new planes cape set as a first campaign DM and this video has been crucial for my confidence in running the campaign I applaud you kind sir.
I'm happy to be of assistance. I've got two other planescape videos if you need more info to run your campaign (hopefully I'll have more videos on the subject soon).
@WadeAllen001 I'm on it. I will sub for updates in the future! I began preliminary planning and am shooting to start after Thanksgiving I'm a teach/coach so football season is hectic.
The last time I looked into the planes was like 15 years ago in the 3.5 Manual of the Planes. Cool to see that the lore expanded in fractal-detail. It is such a good travelogue that lights the spreads the mind across impossible cosmos. Love it, thanks for corraborating this lovingly curated lore.
Celestia or the Seven Heavens appear to be based on The Paradiso from Divine Comedy. The layer names directly or indirectly refer to the layers in the Paradiso, which are Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Something similar could be said for Baator or the Nine Hells.
That would've been an interesting thing to cover in the video: what real-world mythology each of the planes is based off of.
@@WadeAllen001Yeah, at 19:26 this layer is where we get the idea of devils carrying pitchforks. In Dante's story the circle of Malebolge is where they use their forks to cook souls in boiling oil forever.
The Divine Comedy but for the Planescape and you're our Virgil.
I can’t thank you enough! Making a plane shifting campaign and having to try and pick which ones are most suitable for my players was tough. Having this breakdown really helps make sense of everything and which ones would be best to “visit” without just outright dying once they make it there
This video is BY FAR the best of its kind . It makes me sleep and dream
I only ever played Planescape Torment and looked up lore stuff on the internet because I could never find a GM or players to try this setting for myself. That being said, I have rose-tinted glasses for Sigil because, to me, it was a city where the weird is normal and they leant into the unfamiliar and alien. The body horror, the dustmen, the portals, the factions, the inhabitants, the slang. Planescape, for all the heavy inspiration it took from real world mythology, always was the most imaginative of the settings to me.
This video was really good! The planes are one of my favorite things about D&D, and you explained them all very well!
Glad you liked it!
Loved this video. Revitalized my side-backstory for a character in my game who's an amnesiac monk tortle. Basically, they used to be a powerful wizard who roamed the outer planes with their friends on adventurers, but once when entering the Feywild, another powerful wizard tricked the party and cast a spell on them, turning this wizard into the tortle he is, with memory problems to inconvenience his knowledge, and his friends into different weapons and items, based on which plane they most represented. One of these friends, turned into a dragon by the party, used the Wish spell to stop the effect on herself, but is now trying to slowly remind the tortle of his past so they can work together to return to normal
All he currently knows is his name is actually Torlach, not Torkle, some of his friends became weapons, one of them is also a wish dragon named Azure, and he was once in the Nine Hells
Thank you! So hard finding a video on the specifics of Planescape! They all go on and on about AD&D history or Torment or Zeb Cook without going into WTF Planescape ACTUALLY is!
This is so helpful thanks for making this gonna use a lot! My fave quote is “the petitioners that end up here are all full of passion, always partying, fighting, singing, drinking, and presumably fucking”
Truly in the know. Thanks so much for this. I ran Planescape for some time but that was long ago and this helped refresh me so much that I think I'm much more prepared for my party to begin stretching out into the planes.
I hope to see more of this amazing quality content and that much jink will come your way cutter. 👍
You should dedicate your channel to DnD seriously, I and many other crave this kind of content and despite the fact that there are some channels dedicated to this topic it was so refreshing to listen to someone else, many of the things you said are actually new to me, so please keep up this kind of content
This is literally the holy grail of planescape *^*
Mechanus might be called “Nirvana” because real Nirvana is a state of absolute stability and permanence, in contrast to the ever-changing chaos perpetuating Samsara.
I’m imagining a Wandering Deity, and they and their petitioners spend their eternity traveling from one outer plane to the next in a never ending march “forward,” whether because of wanderlust, curiosity, or simply because “why not”
this is such a great resource for one of the harder things i’ve had to wrap my head around when it comes to d&d lore. i mean usually when i dm i just kinda skirt past the realm stuff because it’s complicated and why would the party know anything about that this is their version of quantum physics kind of. and while that’s true and ill probably still rely on that this is so helpful!!
Banger of a video. This is SO complicated, but you do a good job of explaining it (in a soothing tone of voice, no less)
Thanks!
incredibly clear!
I would love to run the Outlands (in a western - travel campaign), or Acheron (in a Dark Souls hardcore game)
I would love to go to Arborea
Absolutely incredible explanation! This prepped me perfectly for reading the new 5e Planescape supplement
I wish that wotc would have done a book as amazing as this video! A book with all this done so well! This is a perfect video!
Thanks for the kind words!
this is my go to falling asleep at night playlist
I’ve run many Planescape campaigns and this an excellent summary. The DM and players really need to embrace the ideas of morals (Good vs Evil) and ethics (Law vs Chaos), to elevate the game, and enjoy a richer experience. Evil thinks it’s doing beneficial actions and don’t see them as wrong. Also, as I understand it, when reading the setting, Petitioners (the dead) are working to perfect their efforts to act in accordance with their planes alignment goals, and which leads them to ultimately merge with the plane.
I don't think evil creatures in D&D think what they're doing is beneficial (to anyone but themselves anyway).
@@WadeAllen001 Everything is beneficial to someone or something. Just look at kopi luwak (coffee based on partial digested beans).
You deserve way more subscribers for the quality of this video! I've seen channels with tens of thousands of subscribers that explain this much more poorly lol
Thanks for saying so!
This is an excellent video, very clear and informative. Was looking for a planar cosmology crash course to show my players before I finally get to run my favorite setting with them, and this is perfect for it!
Glad to hear it!
Super thorough, thanks for making this! Currently dealing with the death of my player's non-religious elf character, struggling to figure out how to narrate his post-death experience before the party is able to resurrect him.
Would love to see a video on various afterlifes of different kinds of creatures, how undeath or other forms of bodily transformation (i.e. becoming a Hag, Lycanthrope, Lich, Vampire, Ilithid, etc.) affect the soul, or what happens when a creature from the material plane dies on a different mirror/inner/outer plane.
Those are good ideas for sure. Crazy that TH-cam showed you my video!
It was nice that you touched on the Bloodwar briefly, at least to explain in outline what all the senseless fighting was over. Topic indeed for another video, but to detail the major players of the Bloodwar: Asmodeus, Mephistopheles, Demogorgon, Orcus, etc... Also the demons, devils, daemons, and other fiends that comprise the armies of the Bloodwar.
Also, you may get a few Stranger Things fans in here. Explain to them that OUR Demogorgon would use their Demogorgon as a toothpick. 😆
Wonderfully informative, thank you.
My Homebrew Cosmology is similar to your idea of the Sphere, which some exceptions.
The Positive Energy Plane is the Outermost Plane, whilst the Negative is the Innermost Plane.
And the Evil Aligned "Outer Planes" break the rule in that they are actually located with the Inner Planes now ... though still connected (loosely to the Astral Plane) ... now they aren't Inner Planes in and of themselves, but rather they were forced there to contain the Evil and keep them separate from the other Outer Planes (and it worked, mostly ... like I said they are still loosely connected to the Astral Plane through some Portals, etc.).
The Nine Hells are basically the uppermost levels of the Abyss, for intents and purposes, separated by Carceri, and with the Devils acting as Jailors tasked with containing the Demons (giving rise to the Blood War). The Devils themselves were active players in striking this deal, and it is one of the reasons that some of the Astral Connections were maintained.
Hades connected to the Material Plane via the Plane of Shadow (which is literally like the Shadow of the Prime Material and located within, whilst the Fey Wild is like the Prime's reflection and located on the outside of the Prime); Hades also touches the Border Ethereal ... it is a realm of wandering dead, awaiting judgement, it also sits kind of "around" the top layer of Hell, which is itself not a Sphere like the main planes, but a deep pit or wound, dug through the Elemental Planes and Chaos, and again, extending down infinitely as it transitions from Hell through Carceri and into the Abyss.
Limbo, Pandemonium, and Acheron are all regions within the Elemental Chaos, created by the Outer Planes being forced there. And the latter two, in particular are bloody battle grounds of the Blood Wars, not only between Devils and Demons, but given how close these Planes are to the Astral Sea, and the Other Outer Planes, this is where many of the Battles between Good and Evil are fought (as well as the Prime).
I think the most ambitious thing as DM you could do is make a campaign traveling all these planes
This is an absolutely excellent resource! Thank you!
I think, that Limbo is a place when you can go full creative potential. Lost pocket worlds, dream driven locatations, creatures from other places trying to settle there. Collapses that can happen due to chaotic nature of this place.
This is main advantage and main problem. Concept of freedom and breaking laws of nature, but also you may need to go from the scratch.
great video, im DMing my first campaign soon and wanted to try something with the outer planes. i might be out of my league but i think its super interesting
It would be so cool to have an entire campaign about traversing the planes of existance
That's what epic level campaigns are for
Such a campaign could last years and you'd still be barely scratching the surface.
If you go from one PlaneScape campaign to another and you don't recognize anything, it's just that you did not travel to the exact same location, or area from any given location.
cocytus is Ko-Ky-Tus
thanks for this, I study a ton of mythology so this is really interesting
35:06 My favourite fact about the outer planes that you didn't mention is the fact that no god is able to visit Sigil, because the Lady of Pain doesn't allow entrance of any god. We barely know anything about her, and yet she is powerful enough to effortlessly resist the influence of literal gods in her domain.
4:14 I love your pronunciation of Baator. You‘re a real Baator master.
I have struggled to conceptualise the planes, but when you describe the rings as spheres, it helped a lot! Thank you! I’d be interested in your thoughts on Abeir (since I intend to send my party there soon) as well as the Fey Wild and Shadowfell.
looking forward to the guide to the inner planes :P
This video was really well put together and informative. Thanks so much!
28:11 thanks for mentioning my home :D
Thank you so much for making this, I could never find decent info on Carceri's layers, also Susanoo is pronounced "Soos-ah-no-oh" and is Japanese in origin
wow ty for this. best planes explanation i've ever seen
That means a lot!
What a great video. Its crazy how Gehenna is totally based off of Islamic hell in the same way Baator is based off of Christian hell.
This is a great video bud! Thanks for making this!!
The phlogiston is not like a cosmic river, it's more like a cosmic ocean crisscrossed with currents, and dotted with countless crystal spheres. It's EXTREMELY flammable, tripling the area and effect of any fire and fire spell, but, also making them instantaneous. Also, it's not from the Planescape setting but from the SpellJammer setting.
ALL layers of all of the outer planes are effectively boundless or infinite. The list of layers is the list of the KNOWN layers. Who know, there may be more, maybe a LOT more...
The inner planes embody both the Rule of Three and the Unity of Rings as they effectively make three intersecting rings.
You could make dozens of hour long videos about each and every layer of the outer planes.
How, I was kind of surprised after watching this video how little view you have. I'll be sure to share this around with my dnd frens. Good luck bro, and keep up the high quality work
Awesome, I really appreciate it if you do share it around.
Ghenna might be my favorite "blank slate" realm since there isnt much lore built around it or its inhabitants. The volcanos are cool and the walking city is also pretty dope
My favorite aspects of the setting were (A) the historical Aoskar and his death, presumably at the hands of the Lady of Pain and (B) the Pillar of Skulls in Baator. So fun.
I hope I'm not alone in hoping that in addition to some new inspired art, WotC needs to use some Tony DiTerlizzi art from Planescape 2e. His art IS Planescape forever!
beginning of your video: Yeah I agree, in my head cannon. on a 5th dimensional scale, the inner elemental planes are "inside" the material plane, as they compose it, separated by the ethereal plane where raw elements are converted to material, and vice versa. The "Outer" planes are morality and philosophy and are separated from the physical, material plane by the astral plane, where material converts to spiritual. I am not sure if there's a difference between the "astral plane" and the "Astral sea". I know the Astral sea is the equivalent to outer space as it is the space between crystal spheres (planets).
"I'm sorry if i pronounce words incorrectly"
Me: chill bro, expecting everyone can read everything is stupid
"SAS-sunū"(susanoo)
Me: calm down me!
"Dis is the second layer" actually made me laugh the first time I watched this
Lol. Somehow that was actually unintended. I didn't even realize as I wrote the script that there was a second way to take that sentence
16:27 it’s called nirvana because of the great wheel and the philosophy that goes with it. You’ve achieved nirvana by purging all else. Your no longer stuck in the process of samara. You no longer reincarnate into a new form to learn a new lesson. You’ve achieved perfect balance.
Observation: evil planes are a lot more complex than good planes. Hypothesis: surely this must have something to do with evil planes receiving more petitioners and trying to outcompete each other evilness. Test: maybe we should try to get both demons and devils declaring war on the material planes and see if they are devolving cause of the lack of petitioners and competition. Conclusion : and bit chunk of the material plan got absorbed into the evil planes, disproving the hypothesis.
Thank you for your work, the video was very useful!
What happens to Primes (visitors) that die in the outer planes? Do they automatically get reatomized in their respective moral alignment outer plane? What happens if they are already in that specific plane. If there is a sort of spawn area in these outer planes, then could a prime go there, and become a petitioner (dies) and see his own corpse? What is the physics of this process?
Yeah I'm pretty sure if a prime dies in the outer planes their body will be left behind and their soul will travel to become a petitioner on whatever plane they belong to according to their alignment and beliefs. I don't think there is a specific spawn point on any of the outer planes, although if you're the chosen of a particular god then you'd be reborn in that god's realm. But in either case, it would be possible to be reborn and then see your former body. However petitioners have no memories of their past life (or at best just hazy memories), so they wouldn't know that body is their own, though they may feel some vague sense of attachment or familiarity with it.
Ah, so the petitioner’s body is completely different from their prime’s. (Such as the petitioners in Limbo 🤦♂️) ((Does this imply that a petitioner who dies in the devil/demon war is gone forever? In contrast to the CG/NG realm?)) What about the highest layer of the LG/NG in which the petitioner is merged with the layer losing itself’s individuality. Do the paladin primes/petitioners also lose their previous body/form?
@@TruthIsToBlame yeah a petitioner's body is different, though depending on the plane you end up it could look quite similar. If you go to the beastlands you'll have the body of a beast, if you go to Baator you'll be a lemure, a larva, or perhaps a shade, if you go to Mount Celestia you'll be an archon, if you go to Bytopia you'll most likely become a gnome, but if you go to Arborea you'll look very much like your old body.
When a petitioner dies on their home plane, they aren't reborn (except for on Ysgard), and their soul merges with the plane. If they die outside of their home plane then they're truly dead. Although if they die outside their home plane and didn't choose to leave that plane, like if they were summoned, then when killed they get reborn as a petitioner again.
Should definitely do a part 3 with the gate towns, Planescape races and other details.
That's a good idea.
My personal favorite is Ooze. Ooh ooh, let’s go explore Ooze!😂
The way I've always thought about the different cosmologys is that they're drawn so mortals can try and understand them, and it isn't really how the planes are laid out because mortal minds wouldn't be able to understand it. Like things being in higher dimensions, we just are unable to fully grasp it
That can work in some ways, but not others. Like how some cosmologies just remove things that used to exist, or add things that never existed. The Shadowfell and Feywild didn't exist before 4e, and the ethereal plane got deleted for a while and then made a reappearance. The elemental chaos is a later addition too.
@@WadeAllen001 You're making points that aren't the points being made by the original comment. They're saying that some planes are on a different dimension (like how Humans see and experience in 4D), but there are planes of existence that are beyond our comprehension (believed to be 11 planes of existence in total). Like trying to explain to someone how gravity works but they don't even understand the concept that they can't just fall off the earth because of it.
Fantastic. I've been running a PD campaign for over 25 years now and you've done an amazing job with this. Wish I knew where you got that diagram at 1:47 though, I've scoured the internet for years and have yet to find such...
I made that diagram in keynote. Feel free to use it though. 25 years of one campaign is amazing!
@@WadeAllen001 wow. here I am going through all of your uploads now, and I didn't really expect a response. Thanks. How do i get it? Just grab a screenshot from the vid or something?
@@steved1135 yeah you could do that. Otherwise I could email it to you
Arborea sounds heavenly.
I once ended a powerful Balor Demon by Jumping on him and activating a cubic gate, set to the city of Sigil, where a Balor should not be,it ignored me as it had much greater problems than me, and back to the Prime I went .
thank you so much for this actually
This is great! Thank you
Planescape introduced tieflings so yeah. Tiefling fans should know about it.
30:02
I don't know about the norse part of D&D lore, but in *real* Norse mythology the Æsir and Vanir where not greater and lesser gods, but two equal pantheons that faught a war till they decided to make peace and sort of merge, coexisting, exchanging hostages etc.
I was not prepared for '... And presumably, fucking.'
My favorite Planescape location is Sigil, but the Concordant Plane is not my favorite plane. My favorite lower plane is Baator and my favorite upper plane is (probably) Celestia. Now that I think about it, that's kinda dumb, since I prefer chaotic characters 😅
A bit confused. The prime material plane (the plan that looks like our universe) seems to be the most inner plane on one map, but on another the element planes are most inner.
Yeah there are several different depictions of it. As a DM you could choose the one you like the best or think makes the most sense. Since the Ethereal Plane connects the Inner Planes to the Prime Material, and the Astral Plane connects the Outer Planes to the Prime Material, and because the Inner Plane constitutes the building blocks of the Prime Material, I don't think the Prime Material being the inner most plane makes the most sense.
@@WadeAllen001 Wow thabks for the reply. Great video btw! I started getting into DnD lore after getting into Baldur's Gate 3 and stumbled onto this video which explains the universe beautifully. This video has even become a sort of 'comfort video' at the end of a long day, for me.
Phenomenal Job, 10/10
Excellent! Thank you!
Thanks for watching, I'm glad you liked it!
The crystal spheres are detailed in Spelljammer and yes are all in the Prime Material plane...
Now I'm picturing my neutral Wizard ending up in the outlands after one failed roll too many and being mildly annoyed that she ended up in the part of the afterlife where magic doesn't work properly. Perhaps she should do some more slightly nice things to go to Ysgard instead xD
incredible video loved it
Thanks!
So I guess now we all know where our characters will wind up if they kick the bucket (depending on their alignment or the god they worship). I love that there's a special heaven just for goody 2 shoes Paladins xD
There's also a heaven for oath breakers, nay sayers, hypocrites, and any other form of thinking you can imagine. There may be "17 planes to represent", but each plane has layers that could further represent as well.
Do videos of each plane of the same length going into depth. I would pay for it
That is actually what I plan on doing. It'll take a while to get through them all, and I don't know if there will be quite enough to say to make them as long as this video (35 minutes), but I could probably get to 20 minutes.
If an individual from Baator becomes a master of some work or craft, are they a master of Baator? 🤔
I'm imagine the planes all are moons of the have the same mass of the planet
Malbolge comes from Dante's Inferno. Pronounce it in the Italian style (mal-BOL-jay).
Carceri has the same root as incarceration.
Mal-BOL-jay sounds a lot better than mal-bulge.
I know what you said, and what Chris Perkins has said, and probably Matt Mercer has said, but I thought it was pronounced Sigil [Sidjil]. As is in signet ring, containing a crest, crest being the synonym for sigil.
A lot of people have thought this, but yeah it's pronounced differently than the sigil meaning "an inscribed or painted symbol considered to have magical power." Maybe the creators of Planescape decided to have it be pronounced with the hard g just to be goofy and different, or perhaps they wanted to avoid any confusion between it and the soft g word.
I'm trying to run a campaign in Agathys(careseri) if you could do a video like this one about that would be great.
This is so much for my brain
A free pup for attending a wedding is the best!
Really Cool video Bro.. get to see it a little Bit Latter but really good.
Only thing i always felt little bit weird and stupid its this Mix with Real life Gods in D&D lore..
Never like it since i was Young and get to Play Table top the first time..
Yeah I can see that it's a bit weird for Zeus to exist in D&D right alongside other D&D specific gods like Lolth.
A cutter knows how to stop rattling his bone box.
So... you're telling me its all just an onion?
You know what else has layers? Parfaits. And cake.
26:32 those petitioners wish they could be like skarbrand
The scale on the outlands has an error. They mixed up radius and diameter.
Also, the diagram that shows up 40 seconds in didn't label mineral.
Holy shit a fellow Wade
Hello there
You’ve got a sub
I wonder what happens to petitioners who perish.
do they cease to exist? do they ascend/descend to some after-afterlife reality? do they just get reincarnated in the material plane?
They die for real, kind of. Their essence becomes one with the plane they inhabit, so they might still have some dim level of consciousness afterward, but it seems like they're mostly just dead. The exception is Ysgard, where petitioners are reborn each day to kill each other all over again. However, if a petitioner is killed outside of the plane they belong to, they get obliterated completely.
@@WadeAllen001 I'd like to have a word with whichever higher being decided that was how the afterlife should work.
@@christopherbravo1813 That would be David Cook. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cook_(game_designer)
@@WadeAllen001 ....wait what
@@WadeAllen001 And even that seems to line up with the essence of Ysgard, as the will of the plane would have you resurrect to continue its will of ceaseless battles
lol. “Real”afterlife. That’s a good one.
I didn't say "real afterlife." I said "in the real world, people who imagine the afterlife to exist..." and "real-world conceptions of the afterlife."
@@WadeAllen001 I get it. It just tickles me because they have no more reason to think that afterlife is any more real than the outer planes. It's funny. Made me chuckle anyway, good video.
I gotcha. I feel the same way.
How could you leave out Bahamut when talking about Mertion the platinum heaven, the deity that Mertion’s nickname is based off? (Platinum dragon, platinum heaven)
Yeah not sure. I suppose I just didn't mention that many deities. Maybe it was that I was taking my info from Planescape books rather than general D&D books and the Planescape books might not have mentioned Bahamut?