outer planes and the shadow plane [Archive] - Wizards Community

outer planes and the shadow plane [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
baltasar_basilius
08-25-07, 03:41 AM I'm just curious. Since the outer planes aren't connected to the shadow plane, would someone cast a shadow on the ground in Arcadia, bytopia, mechanus, etc.? Just curious if it is ever mentioned in a book.
Shemeska the Marauder
08-25-07, 10:05 AM Yes they would. It just wouldn't have an innate connection to the plane of shadow (which is more a representative of and manifestation of shadows as a sort of platonic truth).
baltasar_basilius
08-25-07, 12:03 PM well that isn't as cool as i had hoped.
Shemeska the Marauder
08-25-07, 12:22 PM Of course, in a bit of a paradox, you'll cast a shadow in Sigil and also powers linked to the plane of shadow will work within the City of Doors (so long as they don't involve going into or out of the city). No link to the plane of shadow, ethereal, or astral, yet things linked to them still work (sans that one exception of transit in or out).
Mula
08-25-07, 12:46 PM Well, baltasar, if you don't like it as presented by official material, just change it. :)
Gray Richardson
08-25-07, 01:21 PM There is a theory that the Shadow Plane is a product of the interaction between the Positive and Negative Energy Planes (formerly the Positive and Negative Material Planes).

I have long thought that the Shadow Plane functions like the dielectric medium in a capacitor, separating the positive and negatively charged electrodes that supply a flow of current to a circuit.

In the Great Wheel schema, this flow begins with the Positive Energy Plane which provides souls and incarnum to the material plane. These souls in turn travel through the Astral (upon their death) to the Outer planes and from there through the (postulated) Ordial Plane to the Negative Energy Plane, completing a great circuit of fate which powers the (metaphorical) engine of the Great Wheel.

I surmise that the Shadow Plane serves in some capacity as an insulator to prevent the Positive and Negative Energy Planes from merging together and shorting out the whole system.

Note that the Shadow Plane is connected to all the other infinite Material Planes and cosmologies which suggests it exists both as a part of but also outside of all cosmologies. But that would make sense if the Shadow Plane is some kind of vast, trans-cosmic substrate that lends itself to the formation of such cosmological circuits. Like a silicon wafer, or a motherboard, or, as in another metaphor, like a rich loamy soil in which a seed can grow. The Shadow Plane may be an ideal medium around which cosmologies can be built, grown, or even accrete in the same way a snow flake forms around a mote of dust or a solar system accretes around a gravity well.
Shemeska the Marauder
08-25-07, 02:05 PM I surmise that the Shadow Plane serves in some capacity as an insulator to prevent the Positive and Negative Energy Planes from merging together and shorting out the whole system.

I'm not that big a fan of the idea of Shadow having links to + and - energy, as it didn't exist for a relative eternity by comparison to the cardinal inner planes and the energy planes (and the pre-incarnate versions of the pure alignments). Ed Bonny's 2e article suggesting the link was nice, but I've been rather won over by the conception of the Shadow plane as a dark mirror of the prime material more than anything else. I'm also loathe to ascribe such a grand role to a relatively newborn plane, and even more loathe to let Shadow usurp the conceptial position of the ethereal deep in connecting alien cosmologies, but that's just me.
Taeldrin Laesrash
08-25-07, 04:17 PM To me, the Plane of Shadow is also a sort of reflection of the Ethereal plane and Material plane. It could be a sort of cycle; the cosmologies are created from the Ethereal plane, making the Material plane, and then is altered again in an insubstantial (or idealistic) format in the Plane of Shadow, and someting else from there. By that mode of thought, both make sense for being connected to other cosmologies.
Shemeska the Marauder
08-25-07, 04:30 PM Actually let me clarify one thing: I happily use the Plane of Shadow as a method of transit between different worlds on the prime material, but I only use the deep ethereal as a (hypothetical) means of transit between seperate multiverses/realities/etc.

You might use Shadow to go between Toril and Ortho or Oerth etc, but transit from the Great Wheel to say the Far Realm, the unnamed reality that spawned the Keepers, etc would require transit through the ethereal depths.

My answers here obviously vary from Grays, since I don't place a few worlds within seperated cosmologies, but preserve their historical place within a common prime. Your tastes on the matter will vary.
Gray Richardson
08-25-07, 05:32 PM I'm not that big a fan of the idea of Shadow having links to + and - energy, as it didn't exist for a relative eternity by comparison to the cardinal inner planes and the energy planes (and the pre-incarnate versions of the pure alignments).Well, the Shadow Plane is mentioned in the 1e Manual of the Planes on p.21 where it says it is constructed of equal parts positive and negative material planes.

The Plane of Shadow is also mentioned in the Shade entry in the 1e Monster Manual II from 1982. What is notable about this mention is that the "Plane of Shadow" is mentioned several times in that entry and the word demi-plane is not mentioned at all.

So you can see that the Shadow Plane has a long and illustrious history going back to near the beginning of 1e AD&D, and that this plane does have ties to the positive and negative material planes going back to the original Manual of the Planes.

I don't know how to harmonize the lore expanding the plane from a demi-plane to a full transitive plane, except to suggest that demoting it from a demi-plane from a full-fledged plane was actually itself a retcon that happened sometime between 1982 and 1987 when the MotP came out.

Perhaps the Demi-Plane of shadow could be explained as just a bubble in the Ethereal Plane where the full-fledged Shadow Plane impinges into the Ethereal. Perhaps the Deep Ethereal also borders on the Shadow Plane, may in fact be a region of overlap between the two planes where they border on each other, sort of a terminator if you will, which may explain why the Deep Ethereal has properties that allow travel to other material worlds same as Shadow.
primemover003
08-25-07, 05:33 PM I don't know I think the Shadow Plane should have some interaction with a few places on the Great Wheel... The Beastlands 3rd layer, Karasuthra for one would be an ideal location to link a conduit to the plane of shadow. Pandemonium's 4th layer Agathion is already linked to many planes (if you can get into it's vaults) and iirc the 3rd layer Phlegethon absorbs artificial light actively... sounds pretty Shadowy to me!!!
Gray Richardson
08-25-07, 06:02 PM I think I should mention that what intrigues me about the capacitor metaphor, is that, in a capacitor (and many types of batteries in fact) you have 2 plates (or planes) one positively charged and one negatively charged that are separated by a thin film or layer of dielectric material sandwiched between the two. This thin layer keeps the positive charged plate from discharging into the negative plate. You can connect a wire from the positive end through a circuit to the negative end to create a flow of electrons which travel the long way around to get to the other plate.

Note that in a capacitor, the capacitance (a measure of the charge, or potential energy of the system) is proportional to the surface area of the plates and also the distance between the two plates (the closer the two plates without touching, the better the capacitor is able to hold the charge). This is a simple model of the Negative and Positive Energy Planes (charged plates of infinite area) with the Shadow Plane (a planar dielectric) sandwiched between them, keeping them apart. I should also point out it also fits in nicely with the Rule of Threes.

This idea of charge, or the potential energy of a system, seems intimately tied to the idea of the inner planes, and especially the Ethereal Plane, as an expression of raw power, material and moreover raw potential. In electronics and physics, the potential energy of a system is a measure of that system's ability to do work, and in electronics, circuits that do work are called motors or engines.

I love the idea of the Positive and Negative energy planes arrayed like a capacitor (or battery) as a source of souler energy (positive energy, souls, incarnum, essentia, what have you) that flows like a current into the material plane, then to the Outer planes and back to the Negative energy plane to complete the circuit, powering some grand engine which is the dynamo of the Great Wheel.

To what purpose, I have no idea. But the Great Wheel as an engine powered by souls is a metaphor that captivates me.

If this model is correct, then it implies that the Shadow Plane serves a special function in the scheme of things, and this theory intrigues me. :detect:
Taeldrin Laesrash
08-25-07, 07:34 PM Gray Richardson, where is it described that the souls would go from the Outer Planes to the Negative Energy plane? It seems that they would stop in an outer plane where they'd become a petitioner, or merge with the plane, or be taken for others purposes by fiends or necromancers. I'm just curious.

There probably are portals to the Plane of Shadow in the Outer Planes. However, given the nature of the Ordial Plane (namely, it potentially being nonexistent), they may be difficult to find.
baltasar_basilius
08-25-07, 11:55 PM Yeah, here is my follow up question then:

I may be totally incorrect about this, because i heard it a long time ago... but im sure i read someplace that fire, water, air, earth... are able to exist in the prime primarily because of the inner planes. For example, if someone had the ability to TOTALLY quench the the fire plane, then the people on the prime couldn't make fires and it would go into an extreme winter.

Obviously, i heard this a long time ago- so i might be wrong. Anyway, if i did hear correctly- then why do these things exist in the prime BECAUSE they are connected, but those elements exist on the outer planes in SPITE of their lack of connection? Maybe i'm just really uninformed about all this, but I just can't see the purpose of the inner planes if they aren't connected to the whole multiverse. If a plane with normal water, normal air, normal ground, and normal fire does fine without them, why are they needed in the first place?
Gray Richardson
08-26-07, 02:20 AM Gray Richardson, where is it described that the souls would go from the Outer Planes to the Negative Energy plane?It doesn't say it anywhere. Not explicitly.

But we can infer it given a few facts:
1) we know that the positive energy plane is the source for souls. (mentioned in Bastion of Broken Souls)
2) we know that petitioners do not live forever, but eventually, at some point, merge with their deity or into the plane itself. Where do the souls go from there?
3) if the Ordial exists, then it must serve some purpose. What does the transitive plane linking the Outer Planes to the Inner Planes conduct?
4) if the Negative Energy Plane is the negative end of a circuit, then the circuit must connect to it somehow and something must flow all the way through the circuit from one electrode to the other.

I figure that the incarnum, or essentia inherent in souls is used by gods or the outer planes to do "work" and the spent essence passes into and through the Ordial to travel to the Negative Energy Plane. End of cycle.

The "work" might be all the ways that gods manifest divine power, such as granting spells, using SDA's, performing miracles, etc. Or it might be all the physical phenomena manifested by the planes themselves (rain, sunlight, wind, etc.) or whatever it is that planes "do" in the way of activity.

Alternatively, I suppose you could postulate that if Incarnum cycles from the Positive Energy Plane to the Outer Planes, you could have Negative Energy Traveling backwards through the circle in equal and opposite amounts in order to provide an equilibrium. I once remember my physics teacher discussing a theory of "electron holes", which were the hypothetical opposite of electrons, not a particle, but the lack of an electron, or an open slot for an electron to move into. The idea (if I recall correctly) was that the electron holes moved backwards through a circuit as the electrons moved around a circuit in the other direction.

Perhaps this is why Bodaks, undead and other negative energy powered creatures spring up in such great numbers on the lower planes. Perhaps there is a a link from the Negative Energy Plane to the lower planes by way of the Ordial, allowing fiends and dark gods to create and manipulate undead and wield negative energy.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
baltasar_basilius 08-25-07, 03:41 AM	I'm just curious. Since the outer planes aren't connected to the shadow plane, would someone cast a shadow on the ground in Arcadia, bytopia, mechanus, etc.? Just curious if it is ever mentioned in a book.
Shemeska the Marauder 08-25-07, 10:05 AM	Yes they would. It just wouldn't have an innate connection to the plane of shadow (which is more a representative of and manifestation of shadows as a sort of platonic truth).
baltasar_basilius 08-25-07, 12:03 PM	well that isn't as cool as i had hoped.
Shemeska the Marauder 08-25-07, 12:22 PM	Of course, in a bit of a paradox, you'll cast a shadow in Sigil and also powers linked to the plane of shadow will work within the City of Doors (so long as they don't involve going into or out of the city). No link to the plane of shadow, ethereal, or astral, yet things linked to them still work (sans that one exception of transit in or out).
Mula 08-25-07, 12:46 PM	Well, baltasar, if you don't like it as presented by official material, just change it. :)
Gray Richardson 08-25-07, 01:21 PM	There is a theory that the Shadow Plane is a product of the interaction between the Positive and Negative Energy Planes (formerly the Positive and Negative Material Planes). I have long thought that the Shadow Plane functions like the dielectric medium in a capacitor, separating the positive and negatively charged electrodes that supply a flow of current to a circuit. In the Great Wheel schema, this flow begins with the Positive Energy Plane which provides souls and incarnum to the material plane. These souls in turn travel through the Astral (upon their death) to the Outer planes and from there through the (postulated) Ordial Plane to the Negative Energy Plane, completing a great circuit of fate which powers the (metaphorical) engine of the Great Wheel. I surmise that the Shadow Plane serves in some capacity as an insulator to prevent the Positive and Negative Energy Planes from merging together and shorting out the whole system. Note that the Shadow Plane is connected to all the other infinite Material Planes and cosmologies which suggests it exists both as a part of but also outside of all cosmologies. But that would make sense if the Shadow Plane is some kind of vast, trans-cosmic substrate that lends itself to the formation of such cosmological circuits. Like a silicon wafer, or a motherboard, or, as in another metaphor, like a rich loamy soil in which a seed can grow. The Shadow Plane may be an ideal medium around which cosmologies can be built, grown, or even accrete in the same way a snow flake forms around a mote of dust or a solar system accretes around a gravity well.
Shemeska the Marauder 08-25-07, 02:05 PM	I surmise that the Shadow Plane serves in some capacity as an insulator to prevent the Positive and Negative Energy Planes from merging together and shorting out the whole system. I'm not that big a fan of the idea of Shadow having links to + and - energy, as it didn't exist for a relative eternity by comparison to the cardinal inner planes and the energy planes (and the pre-incarnate versions of the pure alignments). Ed Bonny's 2e article suggesting the link was nice, but I've been rather won over by the conception of the Shadow plane as a dark mirror of the prime material more than anything else. I'm also loathe to ascribe such a grand role to a relatively newborn plane, and even more loathe to let Shadow usurp the conceptial position of the ethereal deep in connecting alien cosmologies, but that's just me.
Taeldrin Laesrash 08-25-07, 04:17 PM	To me, the Plane of Shadow is also a sort of reflection of the Ethereal plane and Material plane. It could be a sort of cycle; the cosmologies are created from the Ethereal plane, making the Material plane, and then is altered again in an insubstantial (or idealistic) format in the Plane of Shadow, and someting else from there. By that mode of thought, both make sense for being connected to other cosmologies.
Shemeska the Marauder 08-25-07, 04:30 PM	Actually let me clarify one thing: I happily use the Plane of Shadow as a method of transit between different worlds on the prime material, but I only use the deep ethereal as a (hypothetical) means of transit between seperate multiverses/realities/etc. You might use Shadow to go between Toril and Ortho or Oerth etc, but transit from the Great Wheel to say the Far Realm, the unnamed reality that spawned the Keepers, etc would require transit through the ethereal depths. My answers here obviously vary from Grays, since I don't place a few worlds within seperated cosmologies, but preserve their historical place within a common prime. Your tastes on the matter will vary.
Gray Richardson 08-25-07, 05:32 PM	I'm not that big a fan of the idea of Shadow having links to + and - energy, as it didn't exist for a relative eternity by comparison to the cardinal inner planes and the energy planes (and the pre-incarnate versions of the pure alignments).Well, the Shadow Plane is mentioned in the 1e Manual of the Planes on p.21 where it says it is constructed of equal parts positive and negative material planes. The Plane of Shadow is also mentioned in the Shade entry in the 1e Monster Manual II from 1982. What is notable about this mention is that the "Plane of Shadow" is mentioned several times in that entry and the word demi-plane is not mentioned at all. So you can see that the Shadow Plane has a long and illustrious history going back to near the beginning of 1e AD&D, and that this plane does have ties to the positive and negative material planes going back to the original Manual of the Planes. I don't know how to harmonize the lore expanding the plane from a demi-plane to a full transitive plane, except to suggest that demoting it from a demi-plane from a full-fledged plane was actually itself a retcon that happened sometime between 1982 and 1987 when the MotP came out. Perhaps the Demi-Plane of shadow could be explained as just a bubble in the Ethereal Plane where the full-fledged Shadow Plane impinges into the Ethereal. Perhaps the Deep Ethereal also borders on the Shadow Plane, may in fact be a region of overlap between the two planes where they border on each other, sort of a terminator if you will, which may explain why the Deep Ethereal has properties that allow travel to other material worlds same as Shadow.
primemover003 08-25-07, 05:33 PM	I don't know I think the Shadow Plane should have some interaction with a few places on the Great Wheel... The Beastlands 3rd layer, Karasuthra for one would be an ideal location to link a conduit to the plane of shadow. Pandemonium's 4th layer Agathion is already linked to many planes (if you can get into it's vaults) and iirc the 3rd layer Phlegethon absorbs artificial light actively... sounds pretty Shadowy to me!!!
Gray Richardson 08-25-07, 06:02 PM	I think I should mention that what intrigues me about the capacitor metaphor, is that, in a capacitor (and many types of batteries in fact) you have 2 plates (or planes) one positively charged and one negatively charged that are separated by a thin film or layer of dielectric material sandwiched between the two. This thin layer keeps the positive charged plate from discharging into the negative plate. You can connect a wire from the positive end through a circuit to the negative end to create a flow of electrons which travel the long way around to get to the other plate. Note that in a capacitor, the capacitance (a measure of the charge, or potential energy of the system) is proportional to the surface area of the plates and also the distance between the two plates (the closer the two plates without touching, the better the capacitor is able to hold the charge). This is a simple model of the Negative and Positive Energy Planes (charged plates of infinite area) with the Shadow Plane (a planar dielectric) sandwiched between them, keeping them apart. I should also point out it also fits in nicely with the Rule of Threes. This idea of charge, or the potential energy of a system, seems intimately tied to the idea of the inner planes, and especially the Ethereal Plane, as an expression of raw power, material and moreover raw potential. In electronics and physics, the potential energy of a system is a measure of that system's ability to do work, and in electronics, circuits that do work are called motors or engines. I love the idea of the Positive and Negative energy planes arrayed like a capacitor (or battery) as a source of souler energy (positive energy, souls, incarnum, essentia, what have you) that flows like a current into the material plane, then to the Outer planes and back to the Negative energy plane to complete the circuit, powering some grand engine which is the dynamo of the Great Wheel. To what purpose, I have no idea. But the Great Wheel as an engine powered by souls is a metaphor that captivates me. If this model is correct, then it implies that the Shadow Plane serves a special function in the scheme of things, and this theory intrigues me. :detect:
Taeldrin Laesrash 08-25-07, 07:34 PM	Gray Richardson, where is it described that the souls would go from the Outer Planes to the Negative Energy plane? It seems that they would stop in an outer plane where they'd become a petitioner, or merge with the plane, or be taken for others purposes by fiends or necromancers. I'm just curious. There probably are portals to the Plane of Shadow in the Outer Planes. However, given the nature of the Ordial Plane (namely, it potentially being nonexistent), they may be difficult to find.
baltasar_basilius 08-25-07, 11:55 PM	Yeah, here is my follow up question then: I may be totally incorrect about this, because i heard it a long time ago... but im sure i read someplace that fire, water, air, earth... are able to exist in the prime primarily because of the inner planes. For example, if someone had the ability to TOTALLY quench the the fire plane, then the people on the prime couldn't make fires and it would go into an extreme winter. Obviously, i heard this a long time ago- so i might be wrong. Anyway, if i did hear correctly- then why do these things exist in the prime BECAUSE they are connected, but those elements exist on the outer planes in SPITE of their lack of connection? Maybe i'm just really uninformed about all this, but I just can't see the purpose of the inner planes if they aren't connected to the whole multiverse. If a plane with normal water, normal air, normal ground, and normal fire does fine without them, why are they needed in the first place?
Gray Richardson 08-26-07, 02:20 AM	Gray Richardson, where is it described that the souls would go from the Outer Planes to the Negative Energy plane?It doesn't say it anywhere. Not explicitly. But we can infer it given a few facts: 1) we know that the positive energy plane is the source for souls. (mentioned in Bastion of Broken Souls) 2) we know that petitioners do not live forever, but eventually, at some point, merge with their deity or into the plane itself. Where do the souls go from there? 3) if the Ordial exists, then it must serve some purpose. What does the transitive plane linking the Outer Planes to the Inner Planes conduct? 4) if the Negative Energy Plane is the negative end of a circuit, then the circuit must connect to it somehow and something must flow all the way through the circuit from one electrode to the other. I figure that the incarnum, or essentia inherent in souls is used by gods or the outer planes to do "work" and the spent essence passes into and through the Ordial to travel to the Negative Energy Plane. End of cycle. The "work" might be all the ways that gods manifest divine power, such as granting spells, using SDA's, performing miracles, etc. Or it might be all the physical phenomena manifested by the planes themselves (rain, sunlight, wind, etc.) or whatever it is that planes "do" in the way of activity. Alternatively, I suppose you could postulate that if Incarnum cycles from the Positive Energy Plane to the Outer Planes, you could have Negative Energy Traveling backwards through the circle in equal and opposite amounts in order to provide an equilibrium. I once remember my physics teacher discussing a theory of "electron holes", which were the hypothetical opposite of electrons, not a particle, but the lack of an electron, or an open slot for an electron to move into. The idea (if I recall correctly) was that the electron holes moved backwards through a circuit as the electrons moved around a circuit in the other direction. Perhaps this is why Bodaks, undead and other negative energy powered creatures spring up in such great numbers on the lower planes. Perhaps there is a a link from the Negative Energy Plane to the lower planes by way of the Ordial, allowing fiends and dark gods to create and manipulate undead and wield negative energy.