A few hours ago, sitting by a lake and sipping on rather excessive amounts of ginger ale, I finished reading "The Great Beyond", by Todd Steward, which had been waiting in my "Read it!" queue for a while now. The book, while short, is densely packed with interesting information of the fluffy kind (for the most part, the only numbers we get to see are those at the bottom of the page), in a much welcomed and certainly expected Planescapeish way, considering it was written by the prime manifestation of Shemeska the Marauder.

Now, while I did enjoy it quite thoroughly (well, maybe the part about the Happy Lollypop Upper Planes of Unicorns and Rainbows didn't thrill me to the point of smashing beer cans on my head, but then again, the good planes are always less enthralling), it left me with quite a few wonderings and woolgatherings. So, through this exceedingly slow portable internet connection I'm using while I wait for the fish to bait (aye, that's the modern world for us now, fishing and posting on a roleplaying games board simultaneously), I'll start with a few questions.

1.- On Distance and Size: At some points the book seems to be more specific about this, but in others it left me hanging. Are the planes truly infinite in the actual sense of the word, or do they have discrete boundaries? The Outer Sphere Planes seem to be more clear about this, as they all have Maelstrom Borderlands, but then I get to the case of Hell and its superposed layers. One particular line confused me [paraphrased]: "The Maelstrom is an infinite plane that holds many other infinite planes". Which ones are infinite and which ones are discrete?

2.- From the Material to the Elementals: When I started reading about the Inner Sphere, the first thought that came to my head was the Aristotelian Cosmology, in which the Earth was on one sphere, the Moon was on another sphere and so on. The way the planes are depicted, though, makes me think they are effectively connected; it mentions the Elemental Plane of Water has a "bottom" where it touches with the Elemental Plane of Earth, so that seems to suggest that the Elemental Plane of Air is the "upper sky" of the Material Plane. Or, turned into a question, if I got a magical rocket from Absalom and went in a straight line upward, would I eventually enter the Elemental Plane of Air, then sink into Elemental Water, crash through Elemental Earth, suffer eleventh-degree burns through Elemental Fire and then blast off into the Astral Plane? Or would my magical rocket just get lost in space forever?

3.- Location of the Outer Planes: The way it is all explained, I understand that the Astral Plane is a large, yet finite, expanse filled with lots of nothingness and Rivers of Souls, which goes from the outer edge of Elemental Fire to the surface of the Maelstrom, on which the Outer Planes float/swim/fly/crawl. Since the Outer Sphere is pretty much like the inner face of a cosmic ball, this means each Outer Plane is not exactly a plane in the proper sense of the word, but instead discrete locations at measurable (in brobdignagianly absurd numbers, aye, but measurable nevertheless) distances from both one another and the Inner Sphere. My question regarding this is, do the Outer Planes remain at fixed positions, or do they move across the Maelstrom? If the former, is the organization similar to that shown on the initial drawing, or something else (since the drawing is in 2d, and the sphere would be in 3d)? If the later, do they move in such a way that some planes come closer to each other -potentially becoming coterminous once in a while-, or there is some grand, intricate equation that regulates them, as complicated as a Godmind Sudoku?

4.- Gravity, a.k.a. Which Surface Will My Players End Up Splattered On: This doubt came up after reading about Pharasma's Spire, which is explained to stand somewhere outside Axis, and also has stairs on its exterior (meaning you have to climb it, which in turn means you cannot just float to it). I would imagine that, if you reach the edge of the Boneyard, you plummet down into Axis. Therefore, my suppositions lead me to wonder about the "gravity well" of the Outer Planes. So, as I fly through the Astral Plane, how far from an Outer Plane's surface do I have to be before I get "pulled" by its objective gravity?

Those are the ones I remember right now. Is anyone able to shed light about them, or perhaps start a meaningful debate on the subject?

Thank you beforehand for the interest. And read the book! It is a good piece of planestuff (which leads me to an off-question: Any rumours/suggestions/confirmations about more "Stuff Out There, Pathfinder Edition" books?)

For starters, if you don't like my answers, completely discard them. Please toy around and play with the ideas in the book as you see fit. Secondly, if it isn't openly answered in a book in as many words, my answers are just informed speculation rather than any sort of "canon" answer. And Lord knows I discard canon fairly often in my own games. ;)

1) That's either a typo or an editing error. Only the Maelstrom is truly infinite in the same sense as the planes from classical Planescape. The other planes are (at least at the moment) finite but likely expanding realms contained within the Cerulean Void.

2) Yes. But it's an open question if the void of space in the Material plane between the stars is always euclidean. And also, the distance here is so truly, utterly vast that it might be out of the question to attempt that sort of thing outside of the bounds of a thought exercise. Though one thing that was cut from the Astral Plane chapter, a location called the Temenos Spike, was related to just such an attempt to physically travel from the Material to the Outer Sphere.

3) I would say that they wander, drifting like islands in the Maelstrom, such that the relative distance and position of some to others varies through time. The prime location in my home game (still in the planning stage) is the Maelstrom based Galisemni the City of the Celestial and the Damned, which drifts through the Maelstrom borderlands, its surrounding landscape shifting and changing as its relative distance to each of the various Outer Sphere planes waxes and wanes.

Distance in the borderlands is easily just simple 2d. Within the Maelstrom deep, away from the other planes, it transitions to full 3d.

4) I'd avoid answering that one unless it directly came up in a game, and even then I'd probably make the answer entirely situational. If I can avoid having to provide a direct answer to some questions, I will. :D

That 'gravity well' is also partially responsible for the metaphysical tidal forces that result in Astral demiplane formation.

Are the planes truly infinite in the actual sense of the word, or do they have discrete boundaries?

One particular line confused me [paraphrased]: "The Maelstrom is an infinite plane that holds many other infinite planes". Which ones are infinite and which ones are discrete?

I'll take these suggestions under discretion.

1) That's either a typo or an editing error. Only the Maelstrom is truly infinite in the same sense as the planes from classical Planescape. The other planes are (at least at the moment) finite but likely expanding realms contained within the Cerulean Void.

Thank you very much for the answers, Todd. Much enlightening.

Todd Stewart wrote:

1) That's either a typo or an editing error. Only the Maelstrom is truly infinite in the same sense as the planes from classical Planescape. The other planes are (at least at the moment) finite but likely expanding realms contained within the Cerulean Void.

It's neither, really. Even if the Abyss is fully contained within the Maelstrom, the Abyss can be infinite--a subset of an infinite area can still be infinite.

Could be both--that's not a contradiction unless you're assuming Euclidean geometry. I doubt the planes follow that geometry.

While I might be drawing far too many conclusions from just 70 pages of text, the impression I got is that the Great Beyond is not as "extra-dimensional" as it is "really, really far away", being some sort of extension of the Material plane, which leads me to see it as Euclidean, discrete and bounded (well, excepting the parts we already know to be endless, and those I have no idea about, such as the Energy Planes).

Now, another doubt I had, this being more a theoretical exercise for the thrill of it than anything else: What would be the implications of having, in addition to the actual cosmology, planes that exists as infinite, parallel universes (as per the traditional Planescape interpretation)? More specifically, how would cosmological mechanics behave? For instance, how would the Transitive Planes fit with places that are elsewhere, considering that the Astral has a specific location (and doesn't seem to go outside of its boundaries between Elemental Fire and the Maelstrom), the Ethereal seems to only exists between the Prime Material and the Plane of Shadows, and the later appearing to have more or less the same location, grand scheme-wise, than the Prime Material?

Now, another doubt I had, this being more a theoretical exercise for the thrill of it than anything else: What would be the implications of having, in addition to the actual cosmology, planes that exists as infinite, parallel universes (as per the traditional Planescape interpretation)? More specifically, how would cosmological mechanics behave? For instance, how would the Transitive Planes fit with places that are elsewhere, considering that the Astral has a specific location (and doesn't seem to go outside of its boundaries between Elemental Fire and the Maelstrom), the Ethereal seems to only exists between the Prime Material and the Plane of Shadows, and the later appearing to have more or less the same location, grand scheme-wise, than the Prime Material?

I would connect them to the Maelstrom as opposed to the Ethereal, Shadow, or Astral planes. If you wanted there to be another connected cosmology, the Maelstrom depths could turn into shallows again in a certain region that connects to the newly added planes.

The Great Beyond is not infinite, but it is so unimaginably vast that it might as well be.

After all... the Material Plane includes the entire universe. That includes Earth. And I also like to think that it includes all of the various campaign worlds that have existed as well. Golarion's universe is as large as the real universe, in other words.

But as big as that is... the entire universe itself is surrounded by the four "shells" of the elemental planes. And THAT whole construct is in turn surrounded by the Astral plane. And THAT is all contained at the center of the Outer Sphere, the inside walls of which are what the outer planes are located on.

If you lived forever, therefore, you could walk from Axis to Elysium. But in practice, the distances are so vast that the Multiverse has not been in existence long enough for ANYTHING to have physically traversed that distance.

The Maelstrom is, basically, all of the inner surface of the Outer Sphere that isn't another outer plane. Think of the Outer Planes as continents, and the Maelstrom as the oceans, I guess. And in that analogy, think of the Abyss as being the underground region of the world; it lies under the Maelstrom and the Outer Planes alike, and goes all the way down. What's on the other side? No one knows... but I suspect that's where the qlippoth came from.

What's on the other side? No one knows... but I suspect that's where the qlippoth came from

James Jacobs wrote:

What's on the other side? No one knows... but I suspect that's where the qlippoth came from

Or the Far Realms ...
Or the Dimensional Vortex ....
Or the place the gods go for Xp...

That, I suppose, and Leng. Which IS out there in the Outer Sphere, I think... or adrift in the Ethereal or the Astral.

I actually kind of like the idea that there IS no outside to the Outer Sphere... it's Abyss all the way out.

*Runs screaming from thread; driven mad by the things he has heard*

I would connect them to the Maelstrom as opposed to the Ethereal, Shadow, or Astral planes. If you wanted there to be another connected cosmology, the Maelstrom depths could turn into shallows again in a certain region that connects to the newly added planes. Those alternate cosmologies, then, could have their own versions of the transitive planes if such planes were needed in them; I could easily see another twin-core of positive and negative energy producing the same sort of material, shadow, and ethereal somewhere else out there.

If you lived forever, therefore, you could walk from Axis to Elysium. But in practice, the distances are so vast that the Multiverse has not been in existence long enough for ANYTHING to have physically traversed that distance.

-"So, I heard you like to walk around the planes"
-"Aye. In my days, I managed to do the Axis-Elysium circuit in less than 12 parsecs!"
-"Aren't parsecs a measure of distance rather than time?"
-*cast Disintegrate*

The Maelstrom is, basically, all of the inner surface of the Outer Sphere that isn't another outer plane. Think of the Outer Planes as continents, and the Maelstrom as the oceans, I guess. And in that analogy, think of the Abyss as being the underground region of the world; it lies under the Maelstrom and the Outer Planes alike, and goes all the way down. What's on the other side? No one knows... but I suspect that's where the qlippoth came from.

Something to ponder indeed. Those are the kinds of loose ends I like.

Or the place the gods go for Xp...

I actually kind of like the idea that there IS no outside to the Outer Sphere... it's Abyss all the way out.

I actually kind of like the idea that there IS no outside to the Outer Sphere... it's Abyss all the way out.

James Jacobs wrote:

I actually kind of like the idea that there IS no outside to the Outer Sphere... it's Abyss all the way out.

Seriously? How can you sleep at night?

I actually kind of like the idea that there IS no outside to the Outer Sphere... it's Abyss all the way out.

On a side note, what about parallel realities ? There is a Golarion where the Starfall never happened somewhere ? Or the Evil-Golarion where the Angel Empire of Cheliax fights the evil realms of the world, that are busy fighting the Skywound, a place where Elysium touchs the world ?

My understanding of Golarion cosmology the planes are separated by metaphysical borders. In other words a rocket blasting off from Golarion would just travel indefinitely through the darkness of outer space. Another key is needed to part the veil between the Material World and the planes beyond.

Another key is needed to part the veil between the Material World and the planes beyond.

... the "area where madness lies and the Lovecraft stuff comes from" is actually the Material Plane. The Dark Tapestry, to be precise: the black spaces between the stars.

Edit: The Darkbad

*Snort*
*Choke*
*Fall over*

*Snort*
*Choke*
*Fall over*

Oh, I recover quickly from madness. It's an occupational necessity.

On a side note, what about parallel realities ? There is a Golarion where the Starfall never happened somewhere ? Or the Evil-Golarion where the Angel Empire of Cheliax fights the evil realms of the world, that are busy fighting the Skywound, a place where Elysium touchs the world ?

My understanding of Golarion cosmology the planes are separated by metaphysical borders. In other words a rocket blasting off from Golarion would just travel indefinitely through the darkness of outer space. Another key is needed to part the veil between the Material World and the planes beyond.

That's what plane shift and similar spells do to help. They're basically SUPER teleport spells that let you move such great distances in the blink of an eye.

Or the Evil-Golarion where the Angel Empire of Cheliax fights the evil realms of the world, that are busy fighting the Skywound, a place where Elysium touchs the world?

Also, still chuckling from the comment upthread about 'turtles all the way down.' :)

Also, still chuckling from the comment upthread about 'turtles all the way down.' :)

...and those rockets could be built out of Alkenstar using imported Numerian technology.

Why are you glaring at me, James? One more minute and your face will freeze like that. Stop it.

:P

Although the "Far Realms" don't officially exist in the Great Beyond (because they're WotC's intellectual property)... the "area where madness lies and the Lovecraft stuff comes from" is actually the Material Plane. The Dark Tapestry, to be precise: the black spaces between the stars.

A rocket fired from Golarion COULD eventually reach the elemental planes, then the astral, and then one of the outer planes. The distances are so vast, though, that even if that rocket had been fired when the whole Multiverse were created and it had been traveling outward since that point... it's unlikely that it would have physically traveled to the first elemental plane anyway. The universe is so big (and the multiverse that contains it so much bigger) that it hasn't been in existence long enough for something to physically travel its length.

To turn my elegant discourse into a mechanical argument, greater teleport has no range limitation, but cannot be used for "interplanar" travel. What is it that makes the Outer Sphere mysteriously off-limits for the spell?

I'm not saying you're wrong (I'm not sure that you can be "wrong", when it comes to describing your world), I'm just interested in your input on the subject. It seems kind of like a dodgy set-up to me.

Greater teleport cannot be used for interplanetary travel, in fact. At least, in Golarion. In the core rules that might be different. But in Golarion, Greater Teleport lets you go anywhere on a planetary scale, not beyond that scale to other planets or other planes.

The point is for the planes, though, that they're not infinite. But they're so huge that, to a human's mind (and to a teleport spell), they might as well be.

For a small scale version, look at Earth. Compare any land point to any deep underwater point. Those two points are VASTLY different, with different rules and realities. The same can apply to the multiverse, where magic is not a constant; you can have places where there's very little or no magic at all and have a place like Earth, or a place where magic is VERY potent and have a place like Hell or Heaven.

Something like the Ethereal is, in my view, more accurately termed a "dimension" than a plane. But that's also more or less just semantics.

I was pondering the exact same thing Jonathon said: Golarion's planes are not really planes, but far away places. Spells that move you across the planes here are actually long-range teleportations instead of plane-shifts; souls don't actually transcend, but instead fly to another location within the same world; the Great Beyond is not actually "beyond", but instead "over there".

I don't see this as a bad thing; I think it is an interesting different take. While my personal preference goes more along the lines of worlds that lie beyond the veil of the universe (it is mostly a stomach feeling, the notion that the planes have to be not only far away, but at completely different frequencies of existence. Probably nostalgia from my Planescape days), Golarion's version puts a new light to the matter (besides, as Todd mentioned, one can play around with the canon, and it's not really hard to say that the Great Beyond is actually composed of distinct planes rather than far away locations if one really wants to).

But this seemingly small detail actually can have a lot of implications, since most of the stuff related to planes in the game was originally created assuming a transient kind of existence for the "places out there". For instance, since the planes are discrete and physically bounded with each other (hence not exactly planes but locations within the same plane), this means I can reach the edge between two "planes"; how would a spell that has a plane-wide limitation work here, such as Greater Teleportation? So I can teleport 1,000 miles in one direction, but only a few feet in the other because I would be doing interplanar travel?

If I'm standing just a couple of feet away from the edge between Elemental Air and Elemental Water and I try to use Scrying to check on a person who is also a few feet away from the edge, but on the other side (so that the total distance between the two is, say, 10 feet), would he get a +5 bonus to his Will save?

Et cetera.

I'm pretty sure one can come up with convincing answers to those problems (such as saying that, while physically coterminous, planes are in fact distinct dimensional entities divided by invisible boundaries of Maelstrom-stuff), but I was wondering if there is any official version on that. There are many game elements that suggest a parallel-universe type of cosmology, but the Great Beyond doesn't seem to work like that (I mean, there is even a demiplane within the planet's core, which is basically a very deep cave, but catalogued as a distinct planar entity).

Technically you would walk between the truly infinite outer planes of classical Planescape. But that's not really the primary point I wanted to raise.

Ok, so in theory you could fly from Golarion to the outer sphere, given such a timescale to make it almost pointless, but you could. But what if you cant? Imagine if you will, that any attempt to bridge the very real physical distance from the Material to the Inner Sphere through the Astral and to the Outer Sphere ultimately invoked something akin to a Zeno's Paradox. The distance is finite, but no attempt to physically traverse that distance is possible do to some quirk of the planes.

Within the Astral this can easily be played upon by saying that the essence of souls, indeed soulstuff in general, allows some manner of circumnavigation of this crushing universal stopsign on mortal attempts to reach the heavens.

This is an excerpt from the draft of The Great Beyond, something that connects to the current topic of conversation. :) And for anyone keeping tabs, it's not published and not canon. There's -alot- of stuff cut from that manuscript (my own damn fault for being a wee bit enthusiastic on the topic).

The Temenos Spike:

"The Spike looms out of the glowing expanse of the Astral as a drifting object composed of an unidentified gold and green substance with the rough feel and appearance of dense glass or crystal. Fully twelve miles in length, and almost five miles across, the spike’s surface is pockmarked and dented, scoured by flames, blunt impact trauma, and even the appearance of freeze-fracturing. Battered but intact, nearly a mile of one side carries a small mountain of burning, still cooling basaltic lava, leaving a ghostly tail of burning tektites in its wake. At some point in its history, the Spike would appear to have punctured through a truly monstrous wake of lava or volcanic mountain, and if its trajectory through the void is mapped back –combined with its bizarre damage- it may have done just that.

Of unknown origin, Jzerigoth’s Dagger appears to have been a mortal attempt to reach the heavens – an attempt to physically reach beyond the stars, beyond the spheres of the elements, and breach the very vault of the gods themselves. It might not have been a spiritual quest of benevolent nature – it might have been intended as the final dying curse against the divine by a forsaken race, hurling their hatred to the outer spheres with the intention of cracking them asunder. The only clue to this however comes from the psychometric perceptions of psions who –having touched the Spike’s surface- report feeling “intense conviction” from the interior, or perhaps the object itself.

Others speculate it was never occupied by living beings, but instead, like the pyramid tombs of Osirion’s god-king rulers, it was an attempt by a dying alien ruler to reach across the breadth of the universe and deliver his body and soul to the divine, uncorrupt and unified, and untouched by Abbadon’s predators. Whatever the contents of the Spike, it seems to draw the attention of astradaemons like blood in the surf to mortal sharks, but despite their normal ethereal nature, they remain just as blunted in their search for entry as anyone else.

The Spike appears unguided and without any active propulsion, but even as it cartwheels across the void like a storm-tossed ghost ship, it remains a poignant and disturbing fact that it very well may one day reach its original destination. It might take a hundred thousand years, but if undisturbed, the vessel and its cargo or occupants will find whatever distant shore they set out for so very long ago, there finding the target of their hopes or their hatred."

This is an excerpt from the draft of The Great Beyond, something that connects to the current topic of conversation. :) And for anyone keeping tabs, it's not published and not canon. There's -alot- of stuff cut from that manuscript (my own damn fault for being a wee bit enthusiastic on the topic).

Funny, I ran into this thread after just seeing something that helped put the whole idea of "non-infinite" plans in perspective.

Go here:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/525347
and zoom all the way out. Off to the side is where I figure the Outer Planes (and so much more) exist(s).