What you want in planar books?

[CorvusMask]

And which's plane you want featured first?

...This isn't because I realized I forgot to include planes in all the obscure setting material, its because I was once again missing gigas... I really want planar giants to come back, I don't care how redundant they would be, they were still among coolest monsters in the 1e x'D They had this really powerful primordial feel to them that I don't think even titans have(despite them being stronger)

[keftiu]

I don't mean this rudely: a reason to care.

I've always struggled with the planes in d20 fantasy, because they've always felt so completely separate from the meat of the settings that I love and come here for. Compared to the intrigues of nations, the eternal cosmic war between Law and Chaos or the schemes of the Efreet have always seemed to be impossibly distant in scope. More connections between the world I know and adore and these infinite otherworlds beyond them would go a long way towards helping things; factions linking across them, interlinked histories, groups worth rooting for (rather than just impersonal embodiments of concepts), and the like.

Eberron's "manifest zones," areas where one plane bleeds into the Material, are absolutely worth stealing - a setting where the eternal night of Mabar shadows the necromantic monastery-city of Atur, while Sharn's connection to Syrania (Eberron's plane of air) enables impossibly tall buildings and flying taxis. Regions where the planes make themselves known on Golarion are much more useful than knowing about a specific landmark in the the Nine Hells. The Worldwound was this for the Abyss, the Isle of Terror is linked to the Negative Energy Plane (iirc?), Holomog has supernatural ties to the three celestial planes... more of that, please.

Lastly, I want planar locales that can feel like home. I've never felt compelled to send my players across the endless volcanism of the Plane of Fire or to march through the relentless dusk of the Shadow Plane. Compared to the storied lands of the Material Plane, these have always felt like hostile alien worlds to briefly land on for an episode or arc - something I'd enjoy more, if there was a local anchor! Basrakal is about the only planar locale I can name in Pathfinder's cosmology, because it's a place where interesting people live weird everyday lives. Most of the fun of Planescape was seeing the humanity amid its gonzo cosmic glory, and I'm currently lacking a lot of options for that here. Where will my planar PCs call home?

[CorvusMask]

There is definitely problem with writers treating planes as "high level only locales because obviously low level characters would die if they went out of city" which to some extend makes sense (like THE VOID and fire plane) but mostly its bit like... Well, let's take extreme example of abyss. Sure there are super high level demons, but there are also super high level monsters on material plane. Does that mean instant you step out of Absalom you will run into super high level monsters that randomly gank you? Of course that doesn't mean living in abyss wouldn't be super deadly (like hordes of demons being common and balors mingling in any settlement and picking up street fights), but there are still small numbers low level humans existing on plane even if they have been abducted.

Heaven's Shore, Sayashto from Axis, Shadow Absalom have fairly nice benefits of clearly being connected to mortal realms somehow :D Like Heaven's Shore is where planar visitors go to, Sayashto has people who immigrated from material plane and Shadow Absalom seems have visitors crossing over to Absalom lot of times.

Elemental plane metropolises/capitals have embassies but they have mostly been presented as "that place high level characters go to do shopping!" in 1e rather than as location characters are from :'D Planar Adventures lists other similarly massive cities in other planes, but I think starting to think planes as adventuring locations like any other material plane country rather than high level character shopping centers and endless amount of high level monsters would be good place to start in.

[keftiu]

Sayashto is very cool! I hadn't heard of it before now.

[CorvusMask]

One of great things War for the Crown did was clarifying that Axis isn't "clockwork plane" its "Utopian city design where bureaucracy actually works" plane as well x'D War for the Crown is mostly urban adventures in various cities, so it was fun trip to have urban adventure in plane full of cities.

I mean just look at the art of city, its very pretty. Even map is pretty, bet most people wouldn't expect idyllic farmlands on Axis

[SOLDIER-1st]

For similar reasons as keftiu, I am really only interested in the Ethereal and Shadow planes, as they directly overlap the Material. I super love the trope of parallel but invisible worlds. So for me the thing I'd want most is more info on overlapping locations (e.g. Absalom and Shadow Absalom).

[Morhek]

Tying into the Golden Road thread, one of the things I've long thought was interesting but very scarcely dealt with is that both Ancient Osirion and Kelesh have strong ties to other planes. Osirion bound genies and elementals long before Qadira existed, and there are entrances to the elemental planes and various demiplanes scattered across the desert; and one of the reasons Kelesh didn't stop Qadira annexing Osirion was because its legions were busy aiding their allies on the Plane of Fire. A human, mortal nation sent armies to the friggin' Plane of Fire, to aid whatever allies they had made there in some war. And I know nothing about it.

Going to the various fiendish or celestial planes have built-in intrigue, but the elemental planes have always struck me as something I wouldn't know what to do with for a story, or how to tie it into one that starts in the material plane. But reinforcing those trans-planar ties seems like a cool way to invest players and DMs in how to work them in. Even Oprak uses the Plane of Earth to connect to Kaoling, which seems ripe for adventure if Paizo keep fleshing out Tian Xia.

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Scale, and complexity.

I want places that are alien. Not meaning to come across contrarian for the sake of it, but nearby planes that are like the Material Plane or connect closely to it are the least interesting bits of the wider multiverse to me because they add relatively little to the things that can already be done on the Material Plane, and the bits that would add to that have by and large not had a huge amount of focus; there were implications in some of the 1e lore about potential really large-scale conflict going on between xill and phase spiders in the Ether, for example, but apart from one encounter in Kingmaker I can't recall anything in an AP or module touching on that.

I want places that feel big and alien enough that players and PCs alike will feel awed, where veteran adventurers will not just be either big fish in small ponds or hurtling towards the career-climax triumph of facing the BBEG of that particular campaign. I don't think that has to preclude either places that are complex and grounded enough to feel lived-in, or the in-locale equivalent of a Sandpoint or an Otari where low-level locals can have their first adventures, though the thing that would be most to my taste would be environs where beyond-20th level play was supported without the level of rendering the setting unrecognisable that could easily come from 30th-level characters wandering around Golarion. (I love Golarion unreservedly on the scale at which it works, I'd just like options to go bigger when adventurers get to the end of what the current system supports, and within the scope of Pathfinder rather than, say. scratching that itch by playing Exalted.)

I expect that my preferences here are a fairly small niche, but I was really impressed with The Reaper's Right Hand as a step in the directions of both high-level, and compellingly detail-dense, extraplanar content, so it can happen. And while D&D 4e is not a game that appeals to me in the slightest, I did read the entire Scales of War AP for that system because of its high-level planar content, and uneven though it is that feels like another worthwhile example that the kind of thing I am wishing for can be and has been done.

[keftiu]

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:

And while D&D 4e is not a game that appeals to me in the slightest, I did read the entire Scales of War AP for that system because of its high-level planar content, and uneven though it is that feels like another worthwhile example that the kind of thing I am wishing for can be and has been done.

One of the smartest things 4e did was chunk player characters into three tiers of play (1-10 Heroic, 11-20 Paragon, 21-30 Epic) and build their settings around that expectation, with their fey and shadow planes being assumed to mostly be Paragon settings, while the divine and elemental planes were largely the domain of Epic storylines. You could certainly do a full 1-30 on the Material or any plane of your choosing, but that broad intent helped give each of them a use and identity.

I know you're not a fan of the system, but the 4e setting books on planar content - Manual of the Planes, The Plane Above, The Plane Below, and Underdark (which details the underdark of the Feywild and Shadowfell!) - are still probably the finest planar fantasy supplements I've ever read, barring 2e Planescape's more Sigil-centric stuff.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

I've started to build my own cosmos using largely parts of the Great Beyond that especially appeal to me, such as the aforementioned Basrakal and that floating city in the astral plane where the shulsaga invented star surfing. One thing I think would be neat is if you could use the planes as a way to have a space fantasy type adventure, flying from one alien locale to another on a boat that can travel the astral plane.

On the other hand, I do somewhat struggle to find a niche between making the great beyond feel suitably... Great (considering it is functionally the collective afterlife for potentially millions or billions of inhabited planets) but also keeping things familiar enough that you could actually see the soul of a peasant en route to their final reward or punishment without making things seem overly mundane. Does this series of contradictory wants even make sense?

In any case, while I was very upset when 4e came out about many of the changes it made to the 3.5 cosmos I had learned, I'm getting the sense that I could do worse for raking inspiration for planar cosmology than look up those books keftiu just mentioned and seeing what they have. I always did love the feywild vs shadow as a concept

[Morhek]

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

One thing I think would be neat is if you could use the planes as a way to have a space fantasy type adventure, flying from one alien locale to another on a boat that can travel the astral plane.

Well, 5e just released a Spelljammer book. I've heard it hasn't been well recieved, which possibly leaves room for Paizo to one-up WotC.

[Amber_Stewart]

keftiu wrote:

I don't mean this rudely: a reason to care.

*collides with keftiu and explodes in a shower of gamma rays*

[Amber_Stewart]

A book of planar cities, with connections to other planes and planar trade routes, and reasons and rationale for PCs of various levels of power and ability to be there or want to go there: that's what I would love to see at some point. Give us a book on the most prominent planar trade cities like Galisemni, Shadow Absalom, Awaiting-Consumption, High Ninshabur, Vialesk, etc.

I'd also love to write it.

I'd also love to write any book about any of the Pathfinder planes.

:D

[keftiu]

Amber_Stewart wrote:

keftiu wrote:

I don't mean this rudely: a reason to care.

*collides with keftiu and explodes in a shower of gamma rays*

I'm not a hater, I swear! I just want the planes to feel more a part of the setting I already love; cool cities and trade routes would both help a ton with that.

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

keftiu wrote:

I know you're not a fan of the system, but the 4e setting books on planar content - Manual of the Planes, The Plane Above, The Plane Below, and Underdark (which details the underdark of the Feywild and Shadowfell!) - are still probably the finest planar fantasy supplements I've ever read, barring 2e Planescape's more Sigil-centric stuff.

Thank you for the recommendation, I shall put those on the list to look up at some point.