Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JellyPooga 04-15-07, 02:54 PM	Baator is the one with infinite layers right? No-one's really explored them all and all the really powerful chappies are somewhere near the top too, correct? So layer, for example, 1,456,789 is going to have, oh, I dunno, a couple of petitioners and some lesser demons, who are most likely bored out of their skulls. So, Mr.Adventurer could quite happily go to layer 1,456,789 and chop up the current inhabitants and set up shop there. If he's a Wizardly type, there's not really any reason why he couldn't make the place fairly nice to live in right? Not to mention the resources available (I imagine some of those hellish ores could sell for a pretty penny on Prime worlds) 'Cos none of the really powerful chappies are interested in what happens the further down you go, there's very little chance of them stumbling into your Planar Abode on a rampage of death. Even if they were chasing you for some reason, the phrase "needle-in-a-haystack" comes to mind (uness they can get a fix on you somehow). In short, why bother going to all the trouble of making your own demi-plane (with all the accesss problems that are entailed), when there's already a place available in hell that already has portals and such? (kind of like the difference between building your own house and looking at the listings at the estate agents)
sciborg2 04-15-07, 02:59 PM	Actually its the Abyss. And to rule an Abyssal layer means bonded with it, something I think only fiends and the occaisonal uber-badass can stomach, someone crazy and evil like Colonel Sanders. (uness they can get a fix on you somehow). They can. And they will as the Abyss itself would likely hate you unless you were Colonel Sanders level CE. Which I suspect you're not. Not every layer is going to accept every tanar'ri even, no matter how powerful they are. That said, there are mortals that are not CE that survive on the Abyss, at least according to 2e Planescape. I think they were called the Destriants or something like that, they helped people survive and leave the Abyss. Clever and lucky-enough-to-possess-secret-magic people can hide on planes of opposing alignment to them...yes there are fiends hiding out in the heavens...
JellyPooga 04-15-07, 03:14 PM	Actually its the Abyss. And to rule an Abyssal layer means bonded with it, something I think only fiends and the occaisonal uber-badass can stomach, someone crazy and evil like Colonel Sanders. Hey, I never said rule it :D Just live there. Clever and lucky-enough-to-possess-secret-magic people can hide on planes of opposing alignment to them...yes there are fiends hiding out in the heavens... Who said you were of opposing alignment? O.k. so a Good-aligned person might not want to live there, but nothing stopping a crazy neutral.
Morwen 04-15-07, 03:24 PM	So layer, for example, 1,456,789 is going to have, oh, I dunno, a couple of petitioners and some lesser demons, who are most likely bored out of their skulls. Or, it has a bunch of "we don't want anything to do with worldly matters" Ancient Baatorians who have been trying to lead a secluded life that you're now interrupting :)
JellyPooga 04-15-07, 03:30 PM	Or, it has a bunch of "we don't want anything to do with worldly matters" Ancient Baatorians who have been trying to lead a secluded life that you're now interrupting :) That could be a problem yes. :P [Adventurer steps through portal to find several Demons breathing down his neck] Adventurer: Ummm...I'll just be going now...
Mournoth 04-15-07, 03:47 PM	Who said you were of opposing alignment? O.k. so a Good-aligned person might not want to live there, but nothing stopping a crazy neutral. "COME ON DOWN TO CRAZY ZAGGOTH'S MAGIC STORE! OUR PRICES ARE SO LOW i MUST HAVE BEEN AFFECTED BY THE AMBIENT MAGIC OF THE PLANE!"*Conveniently located in the 937th layer of Abyss*
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 04-15-07, 10:24 PM	No-one's really explored them all and all the really powerful chappies are somewhere near the top too, correct? All the really powerful ones that are known. See, in order to get down really far, you're going to have to go through dozens of layers to find the right portals. Consequently, no one has gone past layer 700 or so (I forget the exact number) and lived long enough to come back. It's quite possible that there are even more horrifying things down there.
SpoonyBard 04-16-07, 11:42 PM	All the really powerful ones that are known. See, in order to get down really far, you're going to have to go through dozens of layers to find the right portals. Consequently, no one has gone past layer 700 or so (I forget the exact number) and lived long enough to come back. It's quite possible that there are even more horrifying things down there. 666. No layer is known past number 666.
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 04-17-07, 12:18 AM	666. No layer is known past number 666. That was a retcon in FCI. Prior to that quite a few were known past that.
SpoonyBard 04-17-07, 12:27 AM	That was a retcon in FCI. Prior to that quite a few were known past that. Not quite. Manual of the Planes (a 3.0 book) places the abyss at 666 layers.
Shemeska the Marauder 04-17-07, 07:35 AM	Not quite. Manual of the Planes (a 3.0 book) places the abyss at 666 layers. Not quite. The Abyss hasn't been limited to 666 layers since 1e. The MotP does toss the 1e crowd a bone with a mention that "conventional wisdom" claims the Abyss has 666 layers, but it then bluntly states that the Abyss completely flaunts conventional wisdom and may be far larger. Then the next page over it unambiguously states that the Abyss has an infinite number of layers. Indeed the formal 3e name of the plane itself "Infinite Layers of the Abyss" only reinforces this. I think Raymond wasn't so much saying that the Abyss is infinite (which it has been for two editions and going on 20 years now) but that the formal listings of layers included layers numbered past 666 prior to FC:I. We'd known it was infinite already before those layers were named, and indeed the formal count by mortals was above 700. But having a layer named that was >666 destroys in no uncertain terms the validity of any assertation of that old 1e lore. That in mind, not wanting to totally trash players who still clung to the 1e limit of 666, the authors of FC:I revised the specifically named post 666 layers to be higher. The Abyss is still as infinite as it ever was, but the door isn't totally slammed shut if you want to go back to a limited Abyss.
Shemeska the Marauder 04-17-07, 07:37 AM	FWIW I tried to sneak a post 666 layer into something for Dragon. Lost to the editing process however. Drat. ;) IIRC it would have been layer 958 the Amber Inferno.
SpoonyBard 04-17-07, 05:19 PM	Shemaska, I bow to your superior authority. I was under the impression that while their probably WERE over 666 layers, it had never been proven. Then again, have layers 1-666 all been chronicled? Can't layers dissapear and reform between layers, thus making numbers shift? IT BOGGLES THE MIND!
Shemeska the Marauder 04-17-07, 05:46 PM	Shemaska, I bow to your superior authority. I was under the impression that while their probably WERE over 666 layers, it had never been proven. Then again, have layers 1-666 all been chronicled? Can't layers dissapear and reform between layers, thus making numbers shift? IT BOGGLES THE MIND! The numbering scheme is a bit of an arbitrary thing. Outside of the Plane of Infinite Portals being the "top" layer of the Abyss, all of the other layers don't necessarily exist in any way lower or beneath one another in a spacial sense, rather they're numbered according the order in which they were discovered and described by non-natives of the Abyss. Zionyn, layer 663 might have multiple connections with layer 512, layer 66, layer 319, and others while not being accessable from the Plane of Infinite Portals or from layer 662 and 664 which if they layers were stacked like pancakes it would be 'adjacent' to. The order of layers is purely a naming scheme rather than something that imparts any true information on connections or "depth" in the Abyss. In-game the current numbering of the layers is something instituted by the members of the Fraternity of Order in Sigil and Mechanus. They nominally have names and descriptions of each of the 700 odd layers that they've cataloged over time, but out-of-game we haven't come close to seeing all of the layers up to that point described and named. The list in the back of FC:I, and before it the poster from the Planes of Chaos box set, are the closest that we have to anything approaching all of the layers. FC:I is the most comprehensive, though as mentioned earlier, it does renumber a pair of post 666 layers. And yes, layers can in theory be destroyed, merge, split, etc. If destroyed presumably the layer number is retained for archival purposes and not reused, but if layers split or merge, each "new" layer would likely be granted a new number in the sequence. With most layers being infinite in size, it's also plausible that a handful of layers might conceivably be different regions of the same layer, though the Fraternity of Order is nuts about organizing things, so they're unlikely to have formally granted a layer of name if they weren't certain that it wasn't part of another already named layer.