Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.
-- Proverbs 26:4-5
Everything you can imagine is real.
-- Pablo Picasso
Help yourself to my Planescape Character Generator for MS-DOS.
Gary Gygax and his friends chose the theme of Law vs. Chaos as the first metaphysic for their "D&D" role-playing universe. The introduction of the "chaotic, but very good" djinni, and the "evil, but very lawful" mind-flayers in the early books began the process in which imaginary worlds finally took on the rich variety of our own spiritual tendencies.
The Outer Planes are worlds in which living adventurers mingle with spiritual beings (including the dead) who have chosen various attitudes. The Planes of Chaos are dimensions of unreason, unpredictability, anarchy, and rugged individualism.
Where Good is equally strong, Gary Gygax described a "beautific" dimension, as opposed to the "saintly" virutes of Lawful Good. Once called "Mount Olympus", the extreme of Chaotic Good is now called Arborea, or (my choice), "Woodstock". It's an ideal that can exist only in the imagination.
The other Planes of Chaos have also been explored.
Even if you profess chaotic alignment, please respect TSR's
copyrights. To undermine the rights of individual creative artists
would make our world a far duller place.
In some Christian eschatologies, "Limbo" is the home of those
who died without either the guilt of grave sin or the saving knowledge
of Christ. It is a realm of complete natural happiness but without
the vision of God. Some say that Christ brought its inhabitants,
or some of them,
to God at the time of his resurrection.
The belief has given rise to the expression
"in Limbo", implying an uncertain, far-removed destiny.
In "Paradise Lost", John Milton describes Chaos very much
as the later AD&D writers would do -- a soup giving rise to
various substances. Satan traverses it, and enters into an
agreement with its personification ("the anarch Chaos",
along with Orcus, Demogorgon
and others) to spoil the newly-created
Lawful sphere of the solar system. Approaching the earth,
Satan discovers a realm that will become the "Limbo of Vanity".
Milton was a radical Protestant who described this as the
afterlife for all those who placed their trust in vain things --
the trappings of organized religion that he regarded as superstitious.
Soup or superstition, the AD&D Limbo is the spiritual home
of all rebels without causes, the domain of
the sullen existentialists, the grand egomaniacs, the
bombastic charlatans, and the most shiftless street losers.
Don't expect to find unselfish love here. But the ordinary loves --
family, friendship, romance -- may be much as in our own world,
if less organized.
Mottos include, "Revolution for the heck of it", "The only
eternal truth is that there is none", and "Do your thing."
In our world, some spiritual movements
emphasize each individual's special faith-path, "doing your own thing",
"finding yourself", "creating your own reality", and so forth.
You have probably seen instances in which
this takes the place
of common sense and common kindness. You have many
examples for chaotic-neutral clerics in your own community.
(There are plenty of lawful-neutral
and true-neutral
clerics, too.)
Spell alterations in
Limbo: All magician spells require an intelligence
check. If passed, the spell succeeds. If failed, the spell
fails, and a wild surge is generated on a roll of "20" on d20 on
stable terrain, and always if in the soup. Keys might help prevent this.
Alterations are very
likely to produce oddities as cited above. Divinations require a
check vs. prime requisite or the results are totally confusing. Again,
keys might help make divinations clearer.
Illusions have a 10% chance of becoming fully, permanently real. Spell
keys might prevent this.
Wild magic always produces a surge. Roll twice for level
variation and use the more extreme result. Elemental spells come
off normally, and have duration and area doubled; if
instantaneous, they last 1d6 rounds; if single-target, they have
an area 1d12 feet across.
Wizardly spell keys are
constantly changing. Check vs. prime requisite
to know the key of the moment, then vs. wisdom to create it from
chaos.
Third edition "Manual of the Planes" focuses primarily on simplifying
and encouraging individual campaign creativity. Ideas include:
I respectfully suggest that the actual effect might be
The Fourth Edition transformed the malleable Limbo into "the elemental chaos."
There is no special ideology here, but either the realms above or the realms
below might have areas where people like being rebels without causes
or prefer nonsense over sense.
Perhaps visitors would get bonuses or penalties
to intelligence, wisdom, and charisma-based skill checks
depending on how much their behavior has been in keeping with the ideals
of the locals.
In keeping with the flexibility of the third and fourth editions and the
backgrounds of many players, perhaps Limbo is essentially a world
where like-minded spirits meet. It looks and works like our own world,
except that it is
molded from moment to moment by the whims of its inhabitants.
NPC attitudes are typically "indifferent" and this is unlikely to vary much;
perhaps there are NPC's whose attitudes are truly determined by random dice rolls.
The slaadi of Limbo are a non-human (or formerly human) race devoted to promoting the community's
ideals
among the living by encouragement and subtlety, rather than by force.
Especially figures like Ygorl and Ssendam might scheme toward the destruction
of reasonable and civilized institutions.
The dead find communities matching their own ideals and interests,
and continue to live much as they did on earth, though no longer able to visit the
Prime Plane. Instead of the "gods" of polytheism, each living chaotic-neutral divine spellcaster is
sponsored (and monitored)
by a prayer fellowship with similar interests based on Limbo.
For the fourth edition, I suggest no penalties for divine spellcasters from elsewhere. For earlier editions, I respectfully suggest that the only penalty for such a cleric
on a differently-aligned outer plane is the loss of one spell
of the highest available level for each plane removed, with the Outlands two planes from Mechanus, Elysium, Limbo, and the Gray Waste. When one level
is depleted, spells of the next highest level are lost. Thus a cleric
sponsored from Limbo would lose one spell on Ysgard or Pandemonium,
four spells on Mechanus, and six spells on Mt. Celestia or Baator. Moving to the Outlands loses two spells.
A world where the only meaning is that there is none,
and where nature itself reflects only the whims of the moment,
would be as alien and unsettling
as any rules-intensive world ever visited by adventurers.
Referees might not want players to realize that they have
entered Limbo. Depending on the site of arrival,
visitors might simply recognize a lawless world.
Fractals -- Fractals like this provided a few
views for Li Po's explorations Surrealism
Charmyn's Textures [site now down] provided a
few views of Limbo for Li Po's explorations
Gamers for Christ --
news group
Gary Gygax chose the term "Limbo" for the dimension of
untainted Chaos. Again, the choice was based on the classics.
Limbo is chaos and exuberant
creativity, where the terrain responds to mind, and disaster
results if concentration is broken. Unmodified chaos is
primordial soup, erupting from time to time into pockets of fire
(hot, very hot, smoky or not), air (still, windy, hot, cold,
temperate), water (boiling, icy, temperate, fresh, salty, still,
turbulent), earth (rock, soil, sand), and mixtures of these
(anything natural). Any "breathing" spell allows breathing of
the primordial soup. Shape chaos by checking vs. intelligence.
If intelligence is 1-4, you can generate 10 feet per point of
flat, simple meadow or the equivalent. If intelligence is 5-10,
you can generate 10 yards per point of complex terrain. If
intelligence is 11-18, you can generate 100 yards per point of
village or equivalent. If intelligence is above 18, you can
generate 1 mile per level of complex buildings and/or terrain
with animals. While concentrating, you can't cast spells, fight,
or make ability checks. An anarch survives comfortably in the
undifferentiated chaos, and can hold it in shape without having
to really concentrate, using wisdom instead of intelligence as an
attribute, and only artificial things will fade away if
concentration wavers. On first entering Limbo, a chaotic
character is allowed a wisdom check to test for the ability.
Members of the Anarch's Guild learn to use wisdom+level as
attribute, and their work doesn't fade. Even here, miniflux may
sometimes cause little things to change. Check vs. wisdom or
something you haven't used for a while won't be there. A
magician must check vs. intelligence upon casting a spell, or get
a wild magic surge instead. If on solid ground rather than in
the soup, this only happens if the number rolled is "20".
The locals -- both living and dead -- can mould the chaos into natural
things, and build them into structures. Visitors can do the
same, but must maintain concentration. Amid the chaos, there are
innumerable inhabited areas, mostly different kinds of outlaw
camps. There are huge vaults of seawater for storms, areas where
everything catches fire, and so forth. Fireballs burn
continuously for hours, while permanent magics are dispelled.
Chaos elementals (1d12 hit dice) arise from the chaos and prey
upon one another and upon visitors. There are realms where
creatures can only speak in rhymes or stupid puns, and realms
where abilities, classes, and so forth will be switched at
random. There is a realm of drunkards, who can be summoned as a
crowd into the prime plane to obstruct an adventurer's enemies.
There is a casino where an adventurer may gamble compulsively for
bits of his or her soul. There are areas where one's own
equipment attacks. There are areas where casual remarks have
potent effects. There are realms full of gateways, which appear
as geometric solids waiting to be touched. Slaad and Githzerai
have their lairs on this plane. The Githzerai are folk who took
up residency here long ago, and whose lairs resemble the prime
material plane. Their largest city is Shra'kt'lor, good for
shopping. Their religious center is the Floating City. Slaadi
prefer to inhabit unmodified chaos. These creatures seem to lack
feeling, respect power, and never cooperate. Ssendam (spell
its name backwards) rules a
realm of utter insanity. Ygorl is lord of the Land of Lost
Meanings, and visitors must be able to justify their existence in
order to escape. Spawning Stone is the slaad mating center.
"Pinwheel" is a 150-mile stable island, heavily forested and
populated by monsters, where Yggdrasil crosses the plane.
"Fennimar" is a terrain of elf anarchists, a huge and lonely
forest with hermits. The weather here is extremely chaotic.
Barnstable is a halfling village from the prime plane that was
sucked into Limbo and is being maintained. "Mirage" is a world
where all thoughts become visible. This can be embarrassing to
those who harbor sexual or violent ideas. Faith communities
exist here, but without hierarchy -- everyone is equal, and
invited to "do his/her own thing."
Somewhere is the
Temple of Unfulfillable Desires. From Li Po's world,
the Cynics (philosophic nihilists) have their
headquarters here.
So do the Mad Clerics, and the Free Spirits
(sixties-types naive anarchists) The mottos
of these sects are popular across the plane. The Xaositects, who
love chaos, have their headquarters here. A few cults of
meaninglessness are based here as well. The locals are
incomprehensible. They will often know about episodes in
which the party has dones things that made no sense,
and they will try to persuade visiting
adventurers that they belong here.
Primitives will seek calm spots amidst the
tumult. Public portals between the layers and to remote planes
appear as gaping whirlpools in the stuff of chaos. Most of these
are fairly stable. Black pools to the astral
appear randomly as blobs in the
chaos or elsewhere, and can be moved easily. Portals to the Outlands, Ysgard
or Pandemonium are often archways in unresponsive chaos, into
which the would-be traveller must leap without knowing the
destination. There are probably many universes here.
-1 on all intelligence, wisdom, and charisma checks for all non-lawful, non-chaotic creatures
-2 on all intelligence, wisdom, and charisma checks for all lawful creatures
Good-based spells (non-lawful) are unaffected.
Evil-based spells (non-lawful) are unaffected.
Law-based spells simply fail.
Chaos-based spells work as if caster were 4 levels higher.
Pure psychic automatism, by means of which
one tries to express, verbally, in writing or in any other way, the real
functioning of thought. It is a dictation of thought,
without the regulating intervention of reason, devoid of all
aesthetic or moral considerations.
-- Andre Breton
Unity of the Rings -- comic book art
Acheron -- Lawful, Evil Tendencies
Arborea -- Chaotic Good
Arcadia -- Lawful, Good Tendencies
Baator -- Lawful Evil
The Beastlands -- Good, Chaotic Tendencies
Bytopia -- Good, Lawful Tendencies
Carceri -- Evil, Chaotic Tendencies
Elysium -- Neutral Good
Gehenna -- Evil, Lawful Tendencies
The Gray Waste -- Neutral Evil
Limbo -- Chaotic Neutral
Mechanus -- Lawful Neutral
Mount Celestia -- Lawful Good
The Outlands -- True Neutral
Pandemonium -- Chaotic, Evil Tendencies
Ysgard -- Chaotic, Good Tendencies
The Inner Planes
What "Planescape" could be
AD&D and the Religious Right
Li Po's Hermitage (character generators, more)
Background by Ed
Ed's character generators:
More good
More law
Less good
Fourth Edition
Third edition: DD3.5, d20 Modern, Dragonlance, Eberron, Forgotten Realms, lots more.
AD&D2 Generic Character Generator for MS-DOS.
AD&D2 for very limited machines for MS-DOS.
Alternity Science Fiction Character Generator for MS-DOS.
Birthright Character Generator for MS-DOS.
Dark Sun 2 Character Generator and
documentation for MS-DOS.
Jakandor Character Generator
Lankhmar Character Generator
Planescape Character Generator for MS-DOS.
Psionics Character Generator for MS-DOS.
Red Death Character Generator for MS-DOS.
Skills & Powers Character Generator for MS-DOS.
![[Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly]](holywar.gif)
