Editing Planescape (section)

====Elemental Planes====
[[Image:Planescape-Innerplanes_map.jpg‎|thumb|200px|You are here. You probably wish you weren't.]]
The Elemental Planes are dedicated to one particular idea of objective reality, without any philosophy.  The landscape, the inhabitants, and any native objects found there are composed of solely one substance.  This substance may be in many states, animate or inanimate, rigid or fluid, but anything found here that is not made of this substance was brought by an extraplanar visitor, and will probably be destroyed or eroded if left alone.

It goes without saying, but these are the most absolutely hostile planes in the entire multiverse to visit. Even if they aren't immediately and obviously fatal (try going to Fire or Magma without the ability to withstand immense heat, for example), there's usually some nasty little side effect to hanging around a place that keeps even most non-elemental outsiders away (for example, every day that you spend on Mineral, there's a chance you'll spontaneously turn to lifeless stone). This has made the Elemental Planes traditionally one of the less interesting parts of the Great Wheel, as a result of how much crap you need to put up with to get here and the often lackluster amount of things to do when you do make it there without dying.

=====The Primary Elemental Planes=====
The material that composes these planes are the most familiar elements, from classical alchemy: '''Air''', '''Earth''', '''Fire''' and '''Water'''.  Theoretically infinite in size, it is still possible to travel between them by mundane travel; how to reach the "borders" of such infinite planes is a mystery.  Each plane is dedicated to their material, and the sentients that inhabit these planes are called "elementals" en masse, although the term is usually used for those entities that have extremely simple forms and are summoned to the Prime Material as labour.  You will also find life that approximates Prime Material plants and animals, although Elemental Plane natives will be quick to point out that Prime Material animals are mixed copies of their purer flora and fauna.  You will also find on each of these planes a race of [[Genie|vaguely Aramaic sorcerous giants]], usually at war with those of other elemental planes (the two most familiar species are 'djinni' from the plane of Air and 'efreeti' from the plane of Fire).

Survival on any of these planes is difficult, as life from the Prime planes and many Outer Planes need a mix of elements to survive.  The plane of Air is the only source of something to breathe, although some may find the bottomless falling disorienting, and the plane of Earth is the only source of something to stand on if you count being buried alive as "standing."  The plane of Water is comfortable if you have gills and blubber, and the plane of Fire is delightfully warm for the split second before you are reduced to a cinder.

It goes without saying that the elemental planes are essentially comprised of nothing more than an infinite mass of their own elemental energy/matter spanning in all three dimensions. You can dig or swim "upward" as high as you like on the Planes of Earth and Water and you'll never reach a surface. Only the Plane of Fire has something approaching Prime Material style topography, and that's more of a matter of consensus; the Plane's flames diffuse or compress as one ascends or descends; the "sky" is made of combustible, oft-toxic fumes, fireballs and waves of heat, the "ground" is comprised of burning coal-esque flames with the consistency of water, and the "underground" is flames with the consistency of molten metal. There are pockets of elemental matter from other planes, but, for the most part, it's basically an infinite expanse of one dimension.

Each of these four elemental planes also has two Elemental Lords, one of elemental evil and one of elemental good, who have dominion over all the simple-form inhabitants of the plane and has staggering power and control over the material the plane is composed of.  These are the closest that the Inner Planes have to "Powers," although no Elemental Lord receives supplicants from other planes (all of their followers are already in their plane, and unswervingly faithful), and their influence is limited to their plane and any vortexes (portals that are locked open) that may touch the Prime Material. Elemental Lords are also collectively known as [[Archomental]]s, a reference to their status as "arch elementals".

=====The Paraelemental planes=====
If you wish to pass directly from one elemental planes to another, you must pass through the intersections between said planes.  These intersections are semi-planes of material that is a mixture of the neighboring elements. 
The paraelemental planes are:
* '''Smoke''', between Air and Fire
* '''Ice''', between Air and Water
* '''Magma''', between Earth and Fire
* '''Ooze''', between Earth and Water

There are no paraelemental planes between Air and Earth, nor Fire and Water -- unlike many Inner Planes, Air is not adjacent to Earth, nor is Fire adjacent to Water, you would need to pass through the Prime or three other Elemental planes to go from one to the other.  This also holds true for each of the Paraelemental planes.  The paraelemental planes have their own simple life-forms, and unique to them are four races of imps known as "mephits" that hopelessly aspire to be Lords of these bargain-basement elemental planes.  That is not to say however, that they lack princes of elemental good or evil, they do, but they're not that well known, except for Cryonax, who is the Prince of Evil Ice Creatures.

A side-effect of their nature as border-realms between two planes is that all Paraelemental Planes are divided into seven distinct segments, based on their proximity to one of their neighboring planes. For example, the Paraelemental Plane of Ice is divided into Core Ice (the center of the Plane), the Precipice (the surface of ice, lashed by eternal blizzards, bordering Air), the Frigid Void (empty, freezing space, bordering Vacuum), and the Stinging Storm (lashing, salt-laced hailstorms, bordering Salt) on the "top" of the plane, and the Sea of Frozen Lives (freezing cold ocean buried under the Core Ice, bordering Water), the Shimmering Drifts (mind-wiping dazzling drifts of ice crystals, bordering Lightning), and the Fog of Unyielding Frost (churning, super-chilled mists, bordering Steam) on the "bottom" of the plane.

These border regions are usually even nastier than the core region. For example, the Glowing Dunes, the border realms between Magma and Radiance, are essentially a technically infinite desert of ''pulverized radioactive ore'', glowing with atomic energy. And it's explicitly spelled out that there's no known cure, even magical, for the radiation poisoning that afflicts anyone stupid enough to come here.

With shit like this, you can kind of see why the Inner Planes are so disregarded both inside the setting and out.

===== The Positive and Negative Energy Planes =====
These are the most Outer-like of the Inner Planes, as each is dedicated not to a coarse substance but something akin to an aspect of reality itself.  However, Outsiders may find these planes more understandable but much more hostile than any of the other Inner Planes, as you will see below.

The '''Positive Material Plane''' is a boundless, bottomless, and overwhelming source of energy.  Vital energy, motive energy, power, initiative, gumption, puissance... if wizards tap into the plane of Fire to create pyrotechnics, priests tap into this plane for their healing miracles.  Just stepping in is enough to supercharge your body to heal itself immediately, and you will feel yourself becoming more powerful, more solid, which is good because the place is so brilliant you would be struck permanently blind if your eyes weren't regenerating from the local effects.  Stay too long, and your body will become more powerful than your mere mortal (or even immortal!) frame can contain, and you will detonate.  Any witnesses to your demise will attest it was beautiful, shortly before they explode too.

The '''Negative Material Plane''' is a boundless, bottomless, and overwhelming drain on energy.  Death, entropy, void, draining cold, disintegration... every undead creature is linked to this plane, motivated to either steal life to feed the endless gnawing emptiness inside themselves, or to destroy life as it is abhorrent to the Negative Material that animates them.  There is no light here, no heat, and any substance left here will disintegrate -- not erode like a Doomspeaker's ideal entropy, but waste away into nothingness.  This includes anything material, magical or spiritual -- visiting here puts your very soul at risk!

The only life witnessed as native to these planes are the Xag-Ya and Xeg-Yi, which appear as balls of supernaturally hot or cold plasma.  They seem to be sentient, since they react to language, but do not communicate themselves.  If they meet each other, they will immediately rush to meet and mutually annihilate. 

Strangely, in a rare display of non-symmetry, only the Negative Energy Plane has anything approaching a patron Power, in the form of the Hindu deity Siva. Fortunately, he's not an evil berk, and mostly just sits there contemplating how to fulfill his pantheon's destined role for him as the annihilator who cleanses the universe and leaves behind a blank slate for it to be remade.

Yeah, this does get kind of messy when you take into account that there's a huge array of other pantheons around, from fantastical ones from worlds like [[Greyhawk]] and the [[Forgotten Realms]] to non-human racial pantheons to other real-world pantheons like the Greco-Roman Dodekatheon and the Chinese Celestial Bureaucracy. That's one of those "love it or hate it" aspects of Planescape.

Obviously, the Energy Planes are comprised of nothing but pure energy. There's not even any real solid material here, because the effects of the Planes on mere matter is totally destructive. This makes them super-hard to navigate in, although fortunately gravity's subjective, so you can just will yourself along as you see fit.

=====The Quasielemental Planes=====
Just as it's possible to travel between the primary Elemental Planes, it's also possible to travel by mundane means to the Positive or Negative material planes (why you would WANT TO is a mystery).  At the intersection of the primary elemental planes and the Pos/Neg Material planes are the Quasielemental Planes
{| border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=4
|-
| . || Air || Earth || Fire || Water
|-
| Positive || '''Lightning''' || '''Mineral''' || '''Radiance''' || '''Steam'''
|-
| Negative || '''Vacuum''' || '''Dust''' || '''Ash''' || '''Salt'''
|}

The quasi-elemental planes have little to no native flora nor fauna, and anyone claiming to be a lord would be a colonist from another plane.  It's possible that any native life that grows large or ambitious enough will gravitate towards the Pos/Neg Material planes, where they would disintegrate from getting too close.  Only the negative quasielemental planes have known princes, who are all evil.

As with the Paraelemental Planes, the Quasielemental Planes are made more distinctive by housing different terrain bands that signify proximity to one of the six other Inner Planes you can reach from that particular Quasielemental Plane. However, even if the Quasielemental Plane is linked directly to a Paraelemental Plane, the border region will be different depending on which side you're coming from. For example, the border region between Ice and Lightning on Ice's side is the Shimmering Drifts, a gentle snowstorm of hypnotically beautiful snowflakes and ice crystals that can suck the thoughts out of your head - but, coming at it from Lightning's Side, you run across the Glistening Crystal region, a realm of freezing-cold thunderstorms with luminescent icebergs floating within.