Before stepping through any door, a body'd better have a quick lesson in cosmology - how else is a basher going to know where and what things are? First, it's important to know just what a plane is. To the serious philosopher types, a plane's a world, or a collection of worlds, that operates according to its own particular laws, including those affecting magic, gravity, and even the morals of the place. On some of these planes, the laws of "up" and "down" aren't the same; on others, evocation magic yields different results; and elsewhere, behaving even slightly out of line with the powers of the place makes for grim results.

Planes are either immense and infinite, in which case they're just called planes, or they're limited by definite borders and are called demiplanes. The exact number of planes is unknown and probably infinite, and planar travelers know of only three main categories: the Prime Material Plane, the Inner Planes, and the Outer Planes. Still, those three have more than enough space for a flaming large number of different planes.

Sigil sits at — above, really — the Spire at the center of a plane called the Outlands, or the Land. Technically, the Outlands are part of the Great Ring, but since they exist at the "center" of the Ring, nobody ever thinks to include them in it. As things count on the Outer Planes, the Outlands are realms of true neutrality, but most folks think of them as places with no alignment at all. The Outlands serve as meeting places and common ground for any berk from the Outer Planes.

Oh, the Land has its share of natives, and a good number of powers, but most folks steer clear of actual Outlander settlements except for the gate-towns (see below). The realms and towns of the plane all follow the same basic precept: The closer a body gets to the Spire, the more things cease to work. As a cutter travels spireward, spells begin to fail, psionics cease to function, and eventually even the powers' might dwindles.

The plane is organized into nine rings surrounding the Spire, and as a body passes through each ring, more magic and abilities vanish. Learning these borders isn't a valuable way to spend a body's time, however, 'cause they move and change all the sodding time. Chant is, a race of unknown creatures lives near the base of the Spire.

These mysterious gray folk remain hidden because of their isolated location. Due to obvious reasons, they don't use magic, and have some other (more neutral) force at their disposal.

The realms of the Outlands mostly belong to powers of neutrality, so most of 'em don't care one way or another about casual visitors. But other powers lair here too, and not all of them are friendly. Plenty of small Outlands towns thrive here also, some of them attached to realms, some of them standing on their own. And then, of course, there are the gate-towns, which see more traffic than most of the rest of the Outlands put together.

The gate-town of Automata leads to Mechanus. It's full of lawful, orderly, overly organized bashers who can't strap on their own boots without filling out a form. In short, watch out for the red tape. But it's the only place outside of Mechanus that a body can find the strange new clockwork weapons that've been developed on the planes of law. Crossbows that fire more than one bolt (and more accurately, too), armor with built-in dart-throwers, and even stranger things can be found here, as long as the buyer's extra-generous with the jink (and is willing to fill out all the proper forms).

Bedlam's the gate-town to Pandemonium, and it's a barmy place that doesn't look quite right to a body wandering about the streets. Don't assume anyone here's completely sane, but don't think they're all deranged sods, either. If possible, contact a bariaur here named Thrist. He's a little touched, but more lucid than most, and for a price he'll keep a sod out of the blinds.

Curst leads to Carceri, and like that plane, is full of exiles and refugees. There's said to be a slaver ring here that has ties all the way into the Inner Planes.

Ecstasy holds the gate to Elysium. The town's known as the City of Plinths for the tall stone and iron monuments that dot the burg. Here, bashers sit idly and contemplate the multiverse. Everyone else in town is equally as motivated — they do what they want, when they want, and generally enjoy life. This isn't a bad place for a planewalker to take a break but don't look for much from the local folks - they're busy with their own cares.

In Mount Celestia's gate-town, Excelsior, the streets are paved with gold-flecked brick and floating castles of paladin lords keep the perimeter safe. In fact, a body can't swing a dead vrock without hitting a paladin in Excelsior. If that's not something a basher appreciates, she should just avoid the place.

Although it looks like a ruin, Faunel is actually the gate-town to the Beastlands. This burg's been overgrown by plants and is populated by more beasts than people. Here's a fact some leatherheads can't tumble to: The place is supposed to be wild. Berks trying to fix the place up and establish a real city wind up in the dead-book. The dark is that something here lurks in the shadows, championing the wild side, killing anyone that opposes it.

Fortitude is the gate-town to Arcadia, although some bashers call it the Egg because the town's wall makes a perfect oval shape. The burg's a beautiful place, but it's an ordered beauty. The trees line the parks in neat rows, the grass is uniformly clipped, and the streets are polished to a shine. An intolerant lot of berks live here - beware showing too much individuality.

Glorium 's got two gates to Ysgard. One's on the water, big enough for ships to sail through, while the other is actually part of Yggdrasil. The town's a very small anthill and there's not much to see. Look for a blacksmith named Thurnur who makes a nasty chiv for not a lot of jink. Some say he enchants his wares, but Thurnur denies it.

Hopeless is built in a spiraling pit with the gate to the Gray Waste at the bottom. The burg's a depressing place with only one street - the one that spirals down into the pit. The Lonesome Fear inn caters to planewalkers, particularly those who've spent a lot of time on the Lower Planes and know the dark of the nether regions.

The ramshackle town of Plague-Mort leads to the Abyss. Here, might makes right, and the strongest rule the day - rather ruthlessly, too. The shacks that make up the city surround a huge, ornate iron keep where the ruler makes his case. The current chant is that the burg's ruler has a group of plane-touched enforcers called the Hounds — and they're always looking for new recruits. Tieflings beware, 'cause these folks don't take "no" for an answer.

The fortress city of Ribcage, nestled under the curving "ribs" of the Vale of the Spine mountains, protects the gate to Baator. The people are a peery bunch who work hard and keep their eyes open. Fail in either, and there'll be music too harsh to pay.

Even more of a military camp is Rigus, the gatetown to Acheron. The gate itself lays far underground, and a basher's got to get through guards and protections too numerous to catalog, but rumors say there're other, secret ways to get to it.

Sylvania (which surrounds a gate to Arborea) is a burg for the party-loving planewalker. There're more taverns than in any other gate-town, and that's nol even the beginning of the sensual delights to be found here. But beware of partying too hard, 'cause plenty of cony-catchers and cross-trading scum wait to peel and bob the unwary bubbers who fill the streets. For safer entertainment, the Sensates run the God Bar, where powerful illusions temporarily give a basher the appearance and faux abilities of a known power so that he can fight other, similarly enchanted takers in an | arena. These "god battles" are popular with the Athar (who enjoy debasing the powers), as well as the Mind's Eye, who like the idea "of being powers themselves."

The horrible town of Torch is built amid volcanic spires and surrounded by a blood-red marsh. The gate to Gehenna hovers high off the ground, making it a real challenge to get to it. Torch is full of spivs and knights of the cross-trade, many of them well-lanned about the Outlands and the Lower Planes. For information, look for the top-shelf blood Badurth in the Festhall of the Falling Coins.

Bashers hoping to get to Bytopia might try Tradegate, but the gate's real hard to use 'cause a berk's got to find a cutter named the Master Trader first. Most folks just come here to buy and sell, since this is the center of Outlands commerce.

Barmy's the best way to describe Xaos, the gate-town to Limbo. There's so much chaotic energy here that the town shifts and changes in an eyeblink. The folks here can handle it - lots of travelers can't.

The magical River Oceanus runs through a few of the Upper Planes. Its crystal waters are smooth and calm, as well as unfathomably deep. Sailing down the river is a straightforward way of traveling through and across Elysium, the Beastlands, and Arborea. What's hard for some to understand is that the river's path is neither straight nor regular. It dips in and out of the planes it passes through without warning. There's no use trying to understand it, though; most find that the river's flow takes them just where they want to go without really understanding how. Plenty of merchants use the river to transport trade goods, and many others use it for regular travel, so it's not difficult to hire a boatman to take a traveler along its course. Some folks say that certain creatures that live in the river sing a mystical song. If the music doesn't drive a sod barmy, it'll give her some secret of the multiverse.

The River Styx, on the other hand, is not as pleasant or welcoming. Its wine- (or blood-) red, dirty, and oily waters run through all of the Lower Planes in a twisted, aimless path. While its sister river, Oceanus, courses with pure, clear water, one touch of Styx's foul soup and a basher might forget his own name and whole life. Like Oceanus, the path of the Styx is never constant and always unknowable. Sometimes it takes a body straight to his destination, and other times its course meanders through a number of planes. Regardless, more than one blood has spilled the chant that it never takes more than a day to reach a desired location while moving along the Styx. Fewer folks travel by the Styx than by its upper-planar cousin, but the mysterious boatmen called marraenoloths transport anyone for a price.

Mount Olympus, a mountain realm on the plane of Arborea, holds a good number of planar pathways. Caverns within the mountain lead to Gehenna, the Gray Waste, and Carceri, while climbing along its slopes can take a traveler to any number of Prime worlds. As the paths shift into a new plane, a traveler sees a round, colored portal. To see where the path goes, a basher's got to go through the portal. Luckily most, if not all, of the portals are two-way.

Similar paths can be found on Yggdrasil, the World Ash — a gigantic plane-spanning tree. Its source lies in the first layer of Ysgard, but the branches and roots spread throughout many planes, layers, and realms — so many that no blood has ever been able to trace them all. The roots and branches are big enough to walk on or climb, and some branches even stretch to prime-material worlds. Yggdrasil seems to far exceed the reach of Mount Olympus, and its paths are more frequently used. Nevertheless, if a body wants to use the World Ash, it's best to have a guide or be ready to do some exploring.

No plane, rightly or wrongly, inspires as much fear as the Abyss. This plane is the seat of ultimate chaos tainted by the darkest evil. Its virtually endless layers spiral deep down into the bowels of true vileness. No one knows whether the Abyss truly has infinite layers, but well over 600 have been catalogued.

All of the Abyssal layers have their own unique yet horrific environments. No unifying theme persists other than their harsh, inhospitable nature. A planewalker'll find lakes of caustic acid, clouds of noxious fumes, caverns of razorsharp spikes, and landscapes of boiling rocks — and those're some of the tamer dangers! Rusty, jagged pieces of metal cover one particularly harsh layer, some big enough to build a city upon, others so small that they blow in the driving winds to lodge in a basher's flesh, mouth, and eyes. Other layers have more hidden dangers, such as the layer that slowly changes a body's alignment towards chaos and evil, or the one that infects a sod with an incurable wasting plague. Nevertheless, a few particular layers have interest to planewalkers, and it's best to head to those destinations directly; "exploring" the Abyss or wandering into uncharted regions is a good way to get killed fast (at best).

The Abyss is the home of the tanar'ri, creatures devoted to death and destruction. A tanar'ri on its home plane is likely to slay a planewalker or force him into serving in the Blood War or some other horrid duty. The best thing (for a traveler) about the tanar'ri is that they have no sense of responsibility, honor, or loyalty. They'll gladly accept a little garnish to look the other way — if the mood strikes them. Their behavior is always unpredictable. It's important to remember, too, that what's deadly to a human or a githzerai may literally be harmless to a tanar'ri. Just because they dwell safely in an area doesn't mean that it's safe for other planars. In fact, a number of layers of the Abyss are so terrible that nontanar'ri who enter them get put in the deadbook immediately. Therefore, even the toughest bloods need to be peery about shuffling about these layers.

The Abyss is the abode of a number of other monsters, including eyewings, fetches, fire shadows, undead of all types, retrievers, bebiliths, and worse. It's also home to a number of powers, particularly those worshiped by chaotic monsters like bugbears, beholders, lizard men, and drow elves. Most of these powers have their own layer or layers directly under their control.

Crucial to planar travelers is the uppermost layer of the Abyss, the Plain of Infinite Portals. Aside from being the easiest ingress and egress to the Astral, Carceri, and Pandemonium, crevice/gates here lead down into the other layers of the Abyss. Anyone passing through this layer should stop at Broken Reach, a fortress town run by a succubus (a type of female tanar'ri) named Red Shroud. Her rule is harsh and absolute, but it's not a bad place to find food, rest, and safety. Don't cross her, and she'll probably leave a basher unscathed - which is about the best a body can hope for in the Abyss.

The tanar'ri lord Graz'zt rules three Abyssal layers, at least one of which is filled with trees with poisonous snakes for branches. Despite the danger, though, Graz'zt is one of the few Abyssal lords who allows unhindered travel into and out of his realm. A planewalker willing to chance it can make a hefty bit of jink bringing goods to the market here. Besides, chant's that a powerful mage died among those viper trees, and that his decomposing bones still hold an artifact that renders a cutter immune to the harsh environs of the Abyss itself.

There's also said to be a layer where time moves backward in regard to aging. This could be used to a body's advantage to restore lost youth. However, it is also said that the reverse aging moves at random speeds, and it's likely that a basher who stays too long will revert to an infant, or be aged back out of existence altogether.

Planewalkers should take note of a network of planars dwelling in the Abyss to help those poor sods who end up here (for whatever reason) and want to leave. These cutters, known as the Desderain, use spells of illusion and other magical aids to allow them to remain and survive, in the Abyss. The trick is finding these people when a body needs them. It mostly depends on luck, since they obviously can't be everywhere, or even on every layer. This altruistic group of tanar'ri-haters knows that it's barmy to think that a body, or even a group, could significantly deal the tanar'ri a blow. There's just too blasted many of them. Instead, they have chosen to help the potential victims of the tanar'ri. Not surprisingly, Desderain members are immediately killed by tanar'ri once they're identified.

Battle. That's all there is on Acheron - conflict, war, strife, and struggle. For more than one reason, many planewalkers associate this plane with the clang and clash of metal against metal. Partially, this comes from the eternal striking of sword against shield, and blade against blade. It also comes from the sound of two of the gigantic iron cubes that make up this plane smashing against each other.

Each of Acheron's four layers consists of these cubes, which float through an infinite, air-filled void. Some of the cubes are small, but others are huge enough to hold whole cities and kingdoms. Each face of a cube is habitable, and gravity is always directed toward the center of a cube. (Not all of the cubes are actually cube-shaped — some are plates and other geometric shapes, but since most are cubes they're all called by the same name.)

Worse, the cubes constantly move and occasionally collide, ringing a toll of disaster for anyone standing on one of the clashing cubefaces. The cubes are also riddled with tunnels and caverns, providing more space to marshall forces and fight battles. Travel between cubes is possible through use of special gates and spells.

Acheron is the home of the goblin and ore deities, as well as similar evilly militaristic types. These powers send their petitioners into continual battles for dominance. An Acheron petitioner cares little for form, only function. The beauty of a weapon matters little - what counts is only how badly it wounds a foe that it strikes. While skill isn't completely overlooked, in the end, brute force is king.

The first layer of the plane, Avalas, is the most heavily populated, but it's also where most of the fighting goes on. Yugoloths, baatezu, modrons, dwarven einheriar, petitioners (folks who died in unglorious battle), and planar mercenaries do battle with the aforementioned humanoids as well as with each other. There're towns and fortresses throughout, but mostly it's a layer of battlefields.

The second layer of Acheron, Thuldanin, is of more interest to canny planewalkers. It's the final resting place for more weapons and more types of weapons than a single cutter is ever going to know of or see. Machines and devices of war from endless conflicts throughout all the planes, including the Prime, end up here. Scavenging for intact weapons can be a valuable undertaking, since many of great quality, fantastic power, and intriguing mechanisms can still be found and used, or at least copied. A word of warning, however - the dark of this layer is that anything (including equipment, weapons, and flesh) staying too long turns to stone.

Tintibulus and Ocanthus, the third and fourth layers of Acheron, aren't much visited. Folks who frequent such places aren't the types to rattle their bone-boxes without some significant garnish, so the chant remains dark. A few say that a huge city on Ocanthus is home to a powerful, isolated race, but this has never been confirmed.

Arborea scoffs at any basher who thinks he knows the dark of chaos. This chaotic plane isn't a realm of destruction and disharmony or a maelstrom of energy and cacophony, but a place of personal freedom, independence, and individuality. It's a place of goodness as much as chaos.

Arborea's a plane of extremes, whether one's talking about the landscape or the people. It's a land of huge trees, impossibly deep chasms, unimaginably dense forests, and mountains taller than any prime could comprehend. Everything's big. The passionate inhabitants play hard, fight hard, live hard, and love hard. If these bashers hate a body, she's really in trouble, but if Arboreans take a shine to her, she's got it made.

Not surprisingly, with terrain features like those mentioned above, travel's not easy on Arborea. Magic's the best way to get around, although if a berk's got access to a flying mount or other means of taking to the air, that's not a bad way to go.

Arborea has three layers: Olympus, Ossa, and Pelion. Olympus is named for the main feature of the terrain, the well-known Mount Olympus, which not only serves as a home for the Greek powers but also connects a number of other planes in a vast planar pathway. The rowdy Greeks form a powerful pantheon, closer to its worshipers than most. 'Course, the attention of powers — particularly tempestuous and chaotic ones such as these — isn't always something to be desired.

This layer also holds the elven realm of Arvandor. The elven powers are a particularly reclusive lot, so wigwagging with the elves isn't a realistic goal. These bashers seem more interested in the affairs of their brethren on the Prime Material Plane than on planar happenings anyway. The Greek powers and the elves don't associate much, and the realms are separated from each other by endless miles of extreme wilderness. All manner of nature spirits, sylphs, satyrs, cyclopes, giants, titans, and other creatures often regarded as legendary on the Prime also populate this layer.

The second layer, Ossa, is a huge but shallow sea, called Aquallor by the elves. It's the endpoint of the River Oceanus, which begins in the watery layer of Thalasia in Elysium. It's said that water funnels draw water (and unwary leatherheads) back to Thalasia to flow down through the river once again in its never-ending cycle. Sea elves and all manner of aquatic creatures dwell here.

Pelion blows white with sand and snow. It's called Mithardir by the elves, who tell visitors that the name means "white dust." Chant's that this was once a very different place — a home to a group of long-gone powers whose disappearance caused the layer to fall into eternal disintegration. Curious planewalkers might want to explore this place looking for clues and possibly even treasures left by the departed powers.

Whereas Arborea flourishes with wild forests and beautiful scenery, Arcadia thrives with orchards of perfectly lined trees, straight-flowing streams, and orderly, pristine fields. If Arborea is a realm of individuality and emotion, Arcadia is based around the common good, conformity, and temperance.

Because of the importance of conformity, Arcadia's not a realm for bashers who ain't lawful good. The inhabitants tolerate chaotic and neutral good folks, but they escort true neutrals to the nearest portal and attack evil berks outright. To make matters more difficult, most if not all of the petitioners on this plane can tell a body's moral and ethical outlook just by looking him up and down. Unless a nongood planewalker can hide his alignment with magic, it might be best to just stay away.

Magic's difficult on Arcadia. All spells take twice as long to cast. Some spells won't work unless they're cast to benefit the common good. The natives of the plane, including the petitioners, can see right through illusions and phantasms created by wizards. As an aside, a planewalker would do well to obtain an Arcadian watchdog, due to this immunity to illusions.

Travel, however, is fairly easy. Arcadia has the most straightforward and organized system of roads on all the planes, although chaotic types have a little difficulty traversing these orderly pathways.

Only the first layer of Arcadia is commonly traveled, although certainly more layers exist beyond the first. It's not a mystery because no one knows — it's a mystery because no one's telling. The einheriar militia (upper-planar warrior spirits) and Harmonium patrols don't let anyone get far enough into Arcadia to ever find out. Why they're keeping everyone out is the subject of much speculation.

The known layer is home to such realms as the city of Marduk, which is also the name of the greater power who makes his case here. Mount Clangeddin is another Arcadian realm, this one brimming with dwarves and their halls, forges, and armories. The dwarves here are organized in a strict military structure, and quite effectively, too. These dwarves occasionally march into Acheron to do battle with the evil forces there, and can even be hired as stalwart mercenaries for a hefty pile of jink.

A few refuges offer an escape from the harsh strictures of this plane's inhabitants, though most are hidden and temporary, constantly on the move and running from the einheriar patrols. One permanent settlement is called the Ghetto, hidden between two mountains and (so the chant goes) under the protection of Meriadar, the patron deity of humanoids that have given up their evil ways. This burg's a place of constant transition as different folks take up short term residences. Still, it's a haven for trading, and a refuge from the regimented life of the plane.

Here's another place every smart planewalker wants to avoid — but sometimes a body has to go places and do things he doesn't want to in order to get by. This plane is known to clueless berks as the Nine Hells. Clueless as they are, it's usually the first plane they want to visit.

It's true that the place has nine layers, but that's about all the Clueless have right. The native baatezu ain't a bunch of stupid fiends, waiting passively for do-gooders to come and "clean out" the place. No, a fouler and cannier bunch of creatures a blood won't find anywhere — even in the Abyss. These fiends disguise their dark hearts with a foundation of order, which at first might sound encouraging. Instead, it makes the plane one of rigid and unyielding law, a realm filled with struggles for absolute, total domination far worse than any Prime world's most terrible totalitarian rule.

A cutter's got to know about two groups of beastly folk when talking about Baator. First, there's the Dark Eight - eight powerful pit fiends who control large armies of baatezu and other creatures. These eight direct the baatezu forces of the Blood War. The other group comprises the fearsome beings known as the Lords of the Nine. Each of these rules a layer of Baator, hovering in status somewhere between the greatest of pit fiends and actual powers themselves. Much is unknown regarding these beings (including most of their names), but that may be for the best — a planewalker's better off not even referring to the Lords at all.

Each of Baator's nine layers has its own unique environment, but they're all inhospitable and deadly. The first layer's known as Avernus, a blasted plain with a red sky and explosive energies coursing through it. A host of baatezu fills this layer, lead by the pit fiend Bel. Tiamat, dragonqueen of darkness, guards the passage to the next layer. Planewalkers would do well to avoid her, and rumor has it that a conduit to the second layer can also be found near a monstrous landmark known as the Pillar of Skulls — but considering that Bel's troops have an iron grip on the layer, it's probably guarded.

The next layer is Dis, also the name of the iron city at its heart. It's a realm of endless toil and hardship for the petitioners found here, and the place's evil ruler, Dispater, is merciless in the extreme. A rogue pit fiend is said to be secretly marshalling forces to challenge Dispater's rule.

Minauros is the name of the third layer, a horrible place (by now a body should begin to sense a theme) of acid rain and flesh-slicing hail. An immensely huge stone city, Minauros the Sinking, rests here, forever descending into the foul bog that fills the layer. The ruins underneath Minauros are said to contain vast riches — some say that the city under the city was not originally of Baator, but of the Outlands (though none know how or why it ended up where it is). Another city, Jangling Hiter, is made entirely of chains and suspended from unknown supports over the marshy landscape. If a basher needs chains of quality, Jangling Hiter makes the best in the multiverse.

Phlegethos, a layer of fire and pain, is more akin to the Elemental Plane of Fire than any other place on the Great Ring. The city of Abriymoch, built within an nearly extinct volcano, is said to lie on the spot where a power died, and the pit fiend that rules the burg does nothing to quell such tales. If a planewalker has the misfortune of finding himself in Abriymoch, he should look for a place marked by a simple sign with the word "Greth." This mysterious little sign is a front for a hidden magic shop, where the proprietor (Greth?) sells items of surprising power right under the noses of the baatezu who run the town. Presumably, the shopkeeper has some magical item or spell that keeps the fiends from scragging him and customers from pulling a peel.

The River Styx flows sluggishly through the frozen wasteland of Stygia, the fifth layer's cold chilling its fetid waters. Occasionally, icy swamps form in warmer areas where rugged plants manage to survive the harsh climate. The City of Ice, also known as Tantlin, is plagued with warfare among various gangs of baatezu and planars who fight for control of the city. Despite this, the city remains an important trading point on the Styx. Merchants (and their caravans) travel to and from Tantlin with goods from the other Lower Planes. The chant is that the lord of this layer is forever frozen within an ice floe, but even so, continues to rule his domain in such a state.

Deeper into the pits is Malbolge, an endless rocky slope. Cascades of boulders roll down the slope, crushing anything in their path. Not surprisingly, no cities survive here, unless one believes the rumors of the ancient places built underneath the slope, where monsters older than even the baatezu supposedly dwell. One thing is for certain — the surface is dotted with copper citadels filled with fiends whose main occupation is keeping the boulders from crushing them.

Ruined cities dot the seventh layer of Maladomini. Servants of Maladomini's lord constantly tear apart the blasted landscape for minerals with which to build ever-greater cities. As each is finished, however, the dark lord's dissatisfaction forces his subjects to begin anew. It's said that the ruins around and under the newest city of Malagard swarm with all sorts of terrible creatures.

In another part of Maladomini stands a burg of greater interest to planewalkers. The policies of Grenpoli, the City of Diplomacy, prohibit weapons or offensive spells and utterly forbid strife and conflict. That might make the place seem like a paradise of peace, and in some ways it's just what it appears to be, but there's more here than meets the eye. (There always is on Baator, friend.) The city thrives on politics and political intrigue rather than on combat and destruction. Trickery and deceit reach the level of art, wielded with uncanny finesse to become more dangerous than any physical weapon. For the right price, the Political School will teach a basher about maneuvering and deception, as well as propaganda, legal loopholes, and other tricks and manipulations. Supposedly, the school also keeps the dark of every gate in and out of Baator and other knowledge unique to the baatezu, though a mortal basher shouldn't count on learning those secrets.

The eighth and ninth layers remain mostly undescribed; not too many cutters have returned to tell tales of things this deep in Baator. Caina, the eighth, is a frozen realm, much colder than Stygia. And the largest and most horrible fortress on all the planes is said to rest in the lowest pit, Nessus.

A harmless place filled with cute little furry animals, right? Berks with that attitude won't last long here. Yes, the Beastlands abound with animals — but they're as deadly and as cunning as animals can be. Remember, dinosaurs are "just animals." No spell or training can tame the beasts here, either. Animals brought here from other planes go wild as soon as they arrive. Even planewalkers need to beware the influence this plane can have over a body's "wild side."

Beast lords and special guardians watch over the animals to make sure that the ecosystem remains balanced and that sodding leatherheads don't get it into their brain-boxes that the Beastlands' creatures are pushovers. There're also such animal-related monsters as lycanthropes, lizard men, centaurs, and more. All petitioners on the Beastlands take the forms of animals or animal- related creatures, like centaurs or wemics. The mortai, mighty cloudlike beings, fill the skies of the Beastlands, presiding over the entire plane, and in particular its skies and weather. Lastly, some aasimon and powers make their homes here as well.

This is the plane of Nature incarnate; everything about the Beastlands is wild and untamed. The only society is the hierarchy of predator and prey, the natural order of the animals. The few intelligent beings here live in relative seclusion or in very small, rugged frontier towns.

The three layers of the Beastlands reflect the dominion of the sun and moon over nature. The first layer, Krigala, bakes under an eternal sunny noon. The second layer of Brux glows with the rosy reds of a perpetual dawn or twilight (depending on whether a berk's predisposed to see the proverbial glass as half empty or half full). The third layer is Karasuthra, the layer of night. Each layer is inhabited by beasts suited for the environment.

Bytopia's home to hardworking, ethical, moral sorts. Those who favor this plane are the types referred to as the "salt of the earth," and the "backbone of society." Folks here generally keep to themselves, but help a neighbor when there's need.

Not as wild as the Beastlands, but not as ordered as Arcadia, either, Bytopia's two layers are sprinkled with towns and villages, which seem randomly dropped among beautiful forests, babbling brooks, and elegant mountains. Most bashers will find something beautiful about the plane.

But not everything is peaceful and easy on Bytopia. First, the place is industrious. If a body doesn't like work, then this ain't the place for him. Folks here don't take to berks who don't pull their own weight. This means that they don't care for spivs who make their way by "adventuring."

On Bytopia, "adventurer" is synonymous with "someone trying to avoid an honest job." But real dangers exist here, one being the problem of simply getting from one layer to the other. Few gates or conduits exist here, cutter. On Bytopia, a body gets to the next layer the hard way — he climbs.

See, the twin layers of this plane - Dothion and Shurrock — hover over one another, like a sandwich with no middle. A cutter can look up and see the other layer, just as though she were looking down at it from above. At certain places, tall mountains from each layer meet and merge to form columns joining the two layers. This enables a basher to climb up one mountain and down the other to get from layer to layer. It's not all that easy, though, for a body's got to be prepared when the gravity of one layer shifts over to the other. One minute, a climber is going up; the next, she's going down. The reorientation can be dangerous, especially to rubes who've never experienced it before.

Worse, flying beasts that aren't subject to gravity's pull hover about such areas, waiting for berks to hit the changeover point. Canny planewalkers keep a peery eye out for such dangers, 'cause it doesn't take much for an already off-balance sod to get pushed off a column altogether.

The usual list of upper-planar critters can be found on Bytopia as well — hollyphants, baku, treants, and even an aasimon or two. Bytopia is also the home of a small handful of good-aligned powers, but they're even more reclusive than the people and petitioners of the plane.

A note to discriminating bloods: If a body needs quality manufactured goods, Bytopia's the place to shop — specifically in a burg called Yeoman. Great veins of metals and minerals, as well as fine woods, provide the local folks (mostly petitioner gnomes) with ample materials for their skillful crafts. Don't try to cheat them, though. These mercantile people are wise to such peels and react harshly to scragged thieves.

Here's the dark of Carceri, cutter - nobody's here that wants to be. The exiled, the shunned, and the defeated are sent here. It's the prison plane - the universe's biggest birdcage. The plane's residents plot and scheme to leave Carceri and find their way back to their homes and positions. A smart planewalker notices that while a lot of gates lead to Carceri, blessed few leave — and berks who've been banished here can't even use those.

Carceri's got six layers, each nested within the one before it. Worse, each layer is made up of a series of orbs, a little like the worlds of the Prime Material Plane, although not as far apart. A traveler can fly from orb to orb in the same layer, assuming he's got the means. Chant is that horrible things lay imprisoned in the spaces between the orbs, which sometimes call out seductively to planewalkers making the trip between them. Most experienced cutters say that's just screed.

The only true native intelligent creatures of Carceri are the gehreleths, a disgusting bunch of fiends that're thankfully found in small numbers, and infrequently at that. Prisoners of Carceri include the Titans, a group of near-powerstatus beings imprisoned here long ago by the powers of Mount Olympus. All of the petitioners on this plane are prisoners, unable to leave even if they wanted to. Each petitioner is sent to a different layer depending on why and on whom he turned stag during his previous life. Other residents of the plane include evil giants, cruel hunters serving the power Malar, horrible jungle creatures called vaath, and the stoic desert-dwelling gautiere.

Planewalkers shouldn't plan a trip to Carceri without making sure that they know how to get back home — or at least off the plane — first. If a cutter's assured of that, she might want to visit the Bastion of Last Hope, a fortress in the control of the Revolutionary League. Here a planewalker can obtain all manner of forged documents, surgical alterations to aid disguise, and various other nefarious enterprises. It's a good place to hire assassins, thieves, and other characters of ill repute.

The plane of Peaceful Rest. The best night's sleep a berk's going to get. The Big Nothing. Various planewalkers have given Elysium these names, dependent on their outlook. Good bashers find this plane of harmony and peace a fitting rest to a life's work well done. Less altruistic berks find the place dreary and dull, with little excitement. The funny thing is, they're both a little right and a little wrong.

The great River Oceanus joins Elysium's four layers. Inhabitants commonly use the riverway as transport, and build burgs right upon its shores. Yggdrasil also connects with all four layers, making travel back and forth between layers easier than on most planes. Getting around on the plane, however, can still be difficult. A magical effect called the traveler's way (or the traveler's travail) prevents folks of evil alignment or intent from getting anywhere on Elysium. They can walk, run, fly, or whatever they want, but they never really get anywhere. Good beings can get wherever they want pretty quickly - they don't even have to know how to get there. Just think about it and go. Stopping to perform good deeds gets a body there even quicker. It don't have to make sense — that's just the way it is.

Magic's affected in much the same way. In general, spells cast to promote goodness are enhanced, while evil magic is diminished, canceled, and sometimes even reflected back upon the caster. The very plane itself is the strongest opponent of evil that there is, so good folks always know they can rest easy here.

If that isn't enough might in the face of darkness, a body can always rely on the guardinals. As the native beings of Elysium, the guardinals embody the essence of the plane. Like fiends, they serve no power but rather the greater force that governs their home. In the guardinals' case, that force is goodness, and they serve with might and steadfastness.

The petitioners of Elysium live their lives in peace and relaxation, more or less as they want - though nowhere on the plane is there anarchy or disharmony. The petitioners remain happy and secure at no one's expense. These bashers are pleasant and content, so much so that a nonnative might as well not even try to affect them. Even magic like charm or hold spells won't make an Elysian petitioner do anything she doesn't want to.

The Fourfold Furnaces, the Fires of Perdition . . . these names don't begin to describe the horrors of Gehenna, where there's no escape from pain, no free will, and no mercy.

Each of Gehenna's four layers resembles a volcano floating freely in space, with a peak at both top and bottom. The volcanoes are literally hundreds of thousands of miles tall. As one proceeds from layer to layer away from the Astral Plane, the volcanoes start out fiery and tempestuous, but grow cold and dead by the fourth. No level ground exists on any of the layers, each (seemingly deliberately) as inhospitable as possible. Travelers to this plane've got to watch out for lava flows, gaseous explosions, burning grounds on the hot furnaces, and acidic snow and bitter cold on the cooling or cold ones. The yugoloths live on Gehenna, although some claim the Gray Waste was their original case.

The yugoloths remain neutral in the Blood War, but that doesn't mean they're not involved. They hire themselves as mercenaries to either side, profiting greatly from the baatezu and tanar'ri war. In fact, it's rumored they had more to do with the beginning of the Blood War than the baatezu and tanar'ri themselves.

A planewalker won't find much here but pain. One exception is the orb-town of Nimicri, which floats above the second layer. Its surprisingly organized and unified people run a fairly well-stocked bazaar, something not too common on the Lower Planes. Even better is the Teardrop Palace, the realm of Sung Chiang; anything stolen is likely to be found here. On the other hand, the Tower of the Arcanaloths holds great lore but also a messy death — chant is these yugoloths don't take to visitors kindly, and thieves less so. One mercenary company claims to have been there once, having escaped with a completely new and different type of magic. Most of these bashers have since disappeared, but it's said that the dark of this new wizardry is not necessarily completely lost.

If any plane defines the nature of true evil, this is it. The three layers — or "glooms" — of the Waste are permeated with an apathetic, uncaring malevolence that crushes the spirit. Color leaches out of everything, leaving a dull gray wash. The petitioners here suffer without hope, knowing only quiet despair and eternal loss. Even visitors feel the plane slowly sapping their will and draining their memories.

Ironically, this is one of the easiest planes to reach, given that three of the great paths — Yggdrasil, Mount Olympus, and the River Styx — all give access to the plane.

The Gray Waste, in particular the first layer of Oinos, is a plane ravaged by war. For reasons too many and too confusing to explain here, this is the central battlefield of the Blood War. Fiends, their warrior-slaves, trained beasts, and hired mercenaries gather here to wage horrific battles on an epic scale. These battles despoil the already-bleak terrain, giving even the most addle-coved berk a clue as to why it's called the Gray Waste.

Travelers here find larvae, night hags, hordlings, diakka, nightmares, yugoloths (as well as other fiends), and even more monsters and threats. The night hags seem to be the high-ups over the larvae (which they gather and sell), hordlings, diakka, and nightmares (which they dominate). Moreover, the Waste is full of disease and infestation.

Khin-Oin, the Wasting Tower, is a huge fortress built eons ago by the yugoloths. It looks like a spinal column miles high, and the chant is that's exactly what it is. Some even say that it's the backbone of a power slain by the yugoloths. While the Wasting Tower is open to travelers seeking knowledge, it's not a recommended stop; the yugoloths treat visitors as lab animals at best, and at worst — well, suffice to say it's just safer to avoid Khin-Oin altogether.

Instead, look for a tiny town on the second layer called Death of Innocence. It may be one of the few bastions against the utter loss of hopelessness. Hurry, though, 'cause the chant is that a power called Hel is sending trolls to attack the place — she doesn't want such a refuge to exist

It's one thing to have to contend with evil, malicious fiends who want to deceive or even skewer a body at the end of a lance, fiery pits that consume all who come near, and icy realms that reach into a chilling eternity. It's another thing to visit a place where hot and cold become meaningless, where the senses become unreliable, and where even a basher's body dissolves into nothingness. Energy and matter combine into a single, seething mass of everything. This is Limbo, and until a cutter learns the dark of it, its sheer chaotic randomness'll make her wish she was on the Lower Planes facing a horde of fiends instead.

Once a body figures Limbo out, it's survivable. It almost makes a sort of sense in its lack of any logic or pattern . A planewalker has to learn to force Limbo to be what he wants it to be. Left alone, Limbo is everything at once — flame, wave, wind, rock, life, death, noise, silence - nothing and all-encompassing. Through conscious effort, intelligent visitors can stabilize a tiny section of Limbo's maelstrom around them, forming a cocoon of sanity that travels with them through the plane. Some folks - called anarchs - are innately better at this than other sods. These bloods have even formed a guild to promote their services in stabilizing Limbo's reality.

Limbo's inhabitants have two methods of dealing with the soup: Some become adept at mastering the chaos (like the transplanted githzerai), while others reject the need for any stabilized reality at all (like the native slaadi).

The githzerai have a number of cities in Limbo, built on stabilized ground. Within one of these cities, Shra'kt'lor (the largest of the githzerai towns, with over two million inhabitants), a githyanki mage operates a black market of sorts, supplied by his thefts of githzerai military goods. This perpetually disguised wizard offers fantastic weapons and items for very little jink. He's in it more to hurt his racial enemies, the githzerai, than to get rich. Those who don't mind stolen property can obtain completely barmy bargains here — if they can find the mage.

The slaadi homeland, called the Spawning Stone by some, lies deep within the chaos-stuff. Chant is a cutter who knows the dark can use the unique properties of the place to achieve immortality here. 'Course, that just could be the screed of some addle-cove rattling his bone-box.

As a canny cutter might suspect, Limbo's soup plays havoc with spellcasting. Bashers familiar with wild magic recognize this place as its true home — fact is, all magic is wild here. Magical effects are always unpredictable, and sometimes bizarre backlashes, or wild surges, result. It takes a brave soul to travel to Limbo, and a braver one yet to cast spells here.

Deep within Limbo, the site of Pinwheel remains fairly stable without effort from some intelligent mind. Pinwheel's named for the way it spins through the chaotic energies of the plane with strands of jumbled matter whipping about its edges. This heavily forested "island" is filled with dangerous and powerful beasts. Nevertheless, Pinwheel remains an important spot to planewalkers, useful when a body's tired of stabilizing the chaos on her own and needs a bit of solid ground. Also, the roots of Yggdrasil reach into Limbo here, connecting the plane to the grand pathway of the World Ash.

Once a cutter's learned the dark of Limbo, he should forget everything he's learned and head for Mechanus. This is the home of law, order, and clockwork precision. It's also the home of the modrons, native beings that maintain and guard the plane and its workings.

The place needs such monitors, for the entire plane consists of a series of endless gears, forever turning and driving . . . something. Some say the entire multiverse is driven by the gears; some say the cogs accomplish nothing. Someday a planewalker may discover the dark, but for now the gears simply turn.

The inhabitants of Mechanus make their homes on the very cogs that make up the plane. The gears don't normally have vegetation or native wildlife, but plenty of life thrives amid the machinery. The modrons control a place they call Regulus, which is home to the supreme modron, a high-up called Primus. It may be that Regulus is a layer unto itself, or just a realm. See, on Mechanus it's impossible to tell. It's one constantly turning clockwork, and the boundaries between layers (if any layers exist) and realms aren't always clear.

The modrons, as a canny basher might surmise, maintain a strict hierarchy. They're divided into well-organized ranks, each modron rank more intelligent and powerful (but fewer in number) than the last. Despite the modrons, the Guvners like to feel that they run the show on Mechanus.

A planewalker needs to know one more thing about the modrons, and that's the Great March. Approximately every 289 years as they measure them in Sigil (or 17 cycles on Mechanus), the modrons marshall a great host and leave their case to march around the Great Ring. No one knows why they march, especially since so few of 'em live to see the end of the trip. Many planewalkers follow the march, however, since interesting things always happen as the Great March makes its way through the planes, realms, and gate-towns.

Surprisingly, within this realm of perfect law, a place or two exists for less orderly types. One such place is Haven, and while it's not a wild, chaotic town to most folks' eyes, on Mechanus it's an anarchic cacophony of disruption and lawlessness. The city appears to be a huge cube, walled on all sides, including above and below. In order to keep the neutral and chaotic visitors in town in check, they must have a sponsor from among the lawful permanent residents of the city. It's a good place for a planewalker to take refuge, if she can convince a sponsor to let her into the burg.

This plane embodies the ideals of ultimate lawful goodness. Some berks call it the Seven Heavens, but these are usually only primes with a certain world view. To some folks, this place is anything but heaven.

The mountain is home to many creatures of good, such as shedu, noctrals, lammasu, and all types of aasimon. The primary residents, the archons, are to Mount Celestia what the baatezu are to Baator or the tanar'ri are to the Abyss — natives of the plane and purveyors of its ideals.

The only way to reach Mount Celestia is by entering from the Silver Sea that surrounds the lowest layer, Lunia. Very, very few gates, portals or conduits ever lead to anywhere on the plane but directly over the Silver Sea. Canny planewalkers prepare to get wet when they use a portal to this plane. Creatures called zoveri aid travelers who've fallen into the water and keep them from drowning. Knowledgeable planewalkers can always spot a fiend who's taken theplunge into these holy waters and survived, for the very imprint of the waves is still etched into its flesh.

Mount Celestia's seven layers ascend, one atop another, in the form of a mountain that rises from the endless silvery sea. It should be possible to see the layers above the one a cutter's currently in — except that a bank of luminescent fog separates each layer. Only by climbing the mountain can a body attain the next level.

The trick to this is that each layer has a path leading up to the next layer, but the path can be found only by those who've been enlightened and have found some truth regarding law and goodness. (These paths mysteriously take a cutter from one layer to another - and some say they contain actual gates guarded by warden archons, the gate keys being various levels of purity.) Therefore, as a body climbs to the top, she becomes more and more pure until she reaches the pinnacle, where all evil is washed away and she becomes a perfect being in accordance with the alignment of the plane. That's the chant, anyway, but no one knows for sure, since those who reach the top never return to confirm or deny it.

So what does this mean to a planewalker who just wants to conduct some business here and be on his way? What if a berk doesn't want to take years and years to purify himself in spirit just so he can get to the next layer? There're a few short-cuts, but they aren't easy. The best one is the palace of Bahamut, the power that presides over good dragons. Word is, somehow his home traverses the first few (some say three, some say four) layers of the Mount. If a traveler's willing to pay some top-shelf music, the dragon-god allows him to use the palace as a short cut.

Pandemonium represents the barmy side of chaos, the chaos of the mind — insanity. Howling winds and horrible darkness await a planewalker here. The fierce winds make it difficult to perform any action, let alone something as delicate as spellcasting. Worse, after a while, the noise that the winds make — whether it's a low whine or the deafening roar of a gale — drives a body insane. The lucky ones go deaf first.

There's also no natural light on Pandemonium, and the winds blow out torches and lanterns, so the only hope a berk has of seeing is by magical light. These limitations on light mean that a planewalker never sees much of Pandemonium at once. Only small areas are illuminated, with the rest always remaining a shadowy mystery - and folks swear those shadows move when glimpsed out of the corner of an eye. The folks who live on Pandemonium, for the most part, have been exiled here; at least, no one admits to being a native. As a general rule, the plane's population is insane. It's simply a condition of life on the plane, and not every resident is a screaming, drooling barmy. Some seem stable and normal (at first, anyway), but a planewalker has to assume they're all touched in some way by the wind madness.

Pandemonium's four layers are a network of caverns and tunnels bored through solid rock. Gravity is always oriented to the ground under one's feet, so a body can stand on all sides of the passages and caverns. In general, as a traveler goes deeper into the plane, the passages get smaller and less accessible with each layer. The last layer is made up of caverns within the stone without connecting passages. It's rumored that some of these isolated bubbles have both treasures and prisoners stored within them, placed there by powers hoping that the caverns would be forever inaccessible and secret.

In Phlegethon, the third layer of Pandemonium, stands a town called Windglum. Like most islands of civilization on the plane, Windglum's characterized by an aura of suspicion. Everyone's peery of strangers, and at least a little touched. The only reason to visit is the Scaly Dog Inn, where a planewalker can get a decent mug of bub and talk to others of her profession, since many planewalkers use the Scaly Dog as a meeting place. It's a good place to gather mercenaries, become well-lanned, or seek employment.

The latest chant regards a site called the Harmonica in the second layer of Cocytus. In this place, which was obviously intentionally created long ago, the winds whip through a huge cavern with holes and tubes cut into various rock columns, creating a noise worse than anywhere else on the plane. Somewhere within this horror of noise and wind, it is said, lies the secret to true planewalking — traveling the planes without need of a gate or portal of any kind. This is, in all likelihood, just the screed of some addle-cove who spent too much time on the plane of madness.

Some basher once pointed out that the planes seem to be oriented toward warfare. Acheron's one big battle, the Lower Planes rage with conflict from the Blood War, and a number of the other planes are sealed up tight like infinite fortresses - witness Arcadia. Ysgard follows that pattern. It's a place of heroes and the glories of battle and valor. The folks who call kip on this plane are as bloodthirsty as any fiend, in their own way.

When a planewalker first gets to Ysgard, he might not be able to distinguish it from Arborea. Tall mountains, deep gorges, mighty rivers, and thick forests make up the terrain. Arborea's got more of a good-natured attitude, however, and once a body meets the people, the differences become clear. The martial folk of Ysgard are more driven; celeb rating's fine, but only after the battle's won. Glory's the thing - death means nothing.

Ysgard's three layers show fewer signs of civilization than Arborea, too. The populace, petitioners and planars alike, live in camps and rugged settlements with rough and wild conditions. The first layer (also called Ysgard) is by far the most heavily populated. One of the primary realms here, Asgard (these berks are more interested in honing their battle skills than coming up with original names, it would seem), is the home of the Norse pantheon of powers. Another realm, Alfheim, is an elven case. Travelers should be real peery about this place, as visitors here sometimes disappear. Chant is, some spell charms them into becoming permanent residents (that is, servants) of the place. Giants, bariaur, and fensir all call Ysgard their home as well. Snake-women and a number of werebeasts guard the Gates of the Moon, a realm which holds a planar pathway called the Infinite Staircase.

The second layer, Muspelheim, is the abode of giantkind, and is a fiery, inhospitable place. The last of the three layers, Nidavellir, is a lightless place where dwarves and elves of darkness (but not necessarily evil hearts) dwell.

The elements form the building blocks of the universe. They make up all that is, creating a foundation for all matter and energy. The Elemental Planes represent form and essence, but hold little thought and no ideology or high concepts. No philosophies bind these planes, and unlike the Outer Planes, they represent no aspects of morality or ethics. They simply are, representing the materials that comprise the Prime.

Surviving on the Inner Planes is usually more of a challenge than on most of the Outer Planes, but certain means (usually magical) make it possible. There's nothing hospitable about a plane formed only of fire, but at least it's predictable — a body knows what to expect on the Inner Planes. Since civilization in any form is rarer here than on the Outer Planes, a planewalker should make sure she brings everything she needs with her.

Each Elemental Plane is made up almost entirely of its base element. The key here, 'course, is almost. Some folks call it slippage, some call it seepage, but the fact is that sometimes bits and bubbles of one element make their way onto the plane of another. For whatever reason, the Inner Planes're full of leaks. Once they enter another plane, these elemental bits - or pockets - are subject to the conditions of that plane. This means that water seeping onto the plane of Fire becomes steam, and fire pockets on the plane of Water simply create hot water. Pockets of earth and air are harder to consume, and so create convenient places for planewalkers to breathe and rest. The Paraelemental and Quasielemental Planes also leak into each other as well as the four base planes. The Inner Planes don't have layers, but each is infinite in size and scope in its own right. Nevertheless, it is possible to physically travel from one Elemental Plane to another. How? Don't ask. A graybeard'll give an earful of explanations and a body still won't know — mostly 'cause the graybeard really doesn't know either. He's bluffing. Some say that no mortal can really understand how the planes work, and nobody's ever proved them wrong. The point is, these infinite planes really do have physical borders that a body can cross over. Interestingly, this isn't where the aforementioned leaks are, since most of the time, the elemental pockets are not comprised of elements from bordering planes.

These border areas can be almost impossible to find without a native guide or magic. (The elemental rift spell does the job nicely, although it's not limited to taking a basher to only bordering planes.) A canny cutter'll notice that as she travels through one plane toward another, the elemental material of the first plane begins to subtly change to the element of the second. For example, a traveler journeying from the plane of Earth to the plane of Ooze (assuming she's got a guide or knows where to go) notices that the earth and stone begin to get more fluid and more slimy as she heads in that direction. If a berk's on her own, though, trying to get from one Inner Plane to another, her best bet's to look for one of the extremely rare inter-elemental vortices that'll pop her right into another plane.

Picture an endless, air-filled void, the eternal sky disturbed only by flying creatures that make their home here and by random pockets of other elemental stuff that float forever through the air. Among all the Inner Planes, this plane is the most hospitable to nonnative life.

Wind is the major danger here, as a gentle breeze can become a hurricane-strength gale in no time. The most danger-ous maelstroms grab objects and carry them away forever. Even the strongest beings are hard-pressed to escape the clutches of these storms, once caught in the whirling winds.

Belief equals power on the planes, and the plane of Air goes a long way towards proving that. Here, if a bunch of bashers agree that a certain direction is down, then that's down — at least for them. It's not the same for everyone, nor does it need to be. The natives — air elementals, aerial servants, djinni, mephits, sylphs, and wind walkers (to name a few) — have no need for up or down, but the numerous extraplanars who have taken up residence here prefer to have some sort of orientation. Unfortunately, if there's a down, a berk can fall toward it. Those sods fall in the direction they believe to be down until they hit something. Sometimes a leatherhead figures out how to reorient his belief in down, but that'll only start him falling in a new direction.

Inanimate objects aren't subject to this form of philosophical direction, and so never "fall." This means that if someone throws a stone here, it flies straight through the air until its momentum runs out. Once a cutter gets used to this, she'll find that it's easier to be accurate with missile weapons and any kind of hurled object.

Nonnatives are more common on the plane of Air than on the other Inner Planes. Many folks have adopted this plane as their own, thinking its endless blue skies and majestic cloud masses beautiful. They've built huge floating cities and fortresses, and have even filled the skies with beautiful birds, transplanted from prime-material worlds and other planes. The djinni have similar palaces, the greatest of which is the Citadel of Ice and Steel.

The number of extraplanar transplants gives rise to a high number of half-elemental wind dukes, who are far more numerous than other elemental scions. (See the "Races and Archetypes" chapter for more on the wind dukes, or air genasi.) Though they're regarded with disdain by the natives, the wind dukes have the respect and admiration of many of the nonnatives dwelling on the plane of Air.

Nonnatives without the ability to fly ride hippogriffs, griffons, rocs, and other flying beasts. They also use huge flying ships constructed mainly of large gas-bags of heated air. A wind duke named Haalifith commands a fleet of these ships and the current chant is that he's attempting to conquer huge sections of the plane. So far, no one's made moves to oppose him, as his forces haven't yet claimed an area of major habitation.

A solid mass of rock and dirt, that's all a berk'll find here — at least on first glance. But to a dwarf or a stone prince, it's the multiverse's greatest treasure-trove. All existing types of stone — granite, graphite, flint, chalk, and marble, to name a very few — can be found here. Within the rock itself run veins of valuable ores and metals, from the strongest iron to the darkest ebony and the brightest sapphires and diamonds. The plane of Mineral has a much higher concentration of valuable stones, but the plane of Earth is far richer in every variety of sand, dirt, clay, gravel, sediment, loamy soil, and dry dust.

A planewalker faces multitudinous challenges here: Without magic, breathing, seeing, and simply moving through the rock become major trials. Thankfully, pockets of air and water grant a planewalker refuge from the surrounding mass, and plenty of spells and magical items create spaces in which a body can move around. Relating to the natives can be another ordeal. In general, beings from the plane of Earth are slow movers and slow thinkers. They're not stupid, just ponderous.

Despite the hazards, there're a handful of established realms and sites scattered about the plane. Bashers willing to search for a while might look for the Black Palace, a fortress buried deep within a vein of obsidian. Supposedly created by a priest from the prime-material world of Oerth, the chant says that the crazy old coot rewards any cutter canny enough to find the palace, figure out how to get in, and make his way through the magical barriers surrounding the center.

On the other hand, a shrewd blood would do well to avoid the Great Dismal Delve. The ruler of the dao, an evil slaver king, resides in this series of caverns. It's said that the dao travel the Inner Planes as well as the Prime looking for slaves to sell to various fiends through a githyanki contact on the Astral. This bunch of ruthless bashers is better left alone.

Hungrily consuming all it touches, fire rules supreme here. If a thing can burn, it burns immediately upon entering the plane. Even some things that normally can't burn do so on the Elemental Plane of Fire. Sods traveling here unprotected suffer damage just by being on the plane. Worse, travelers have to figure out some way to breathe fire or they'll suffocate faster than they'll burn to death.

Unlike the other three main Elemental Planes, Fire's got a definite up and down. Most of the plane is a huge ocean of flame, but occasionally one finds islands of burning, scorched earth that have not yet been rendered into magma, or hard chunks of obsidian that resist the flames altogether. In such places, a planewalker encounters efreeti, hell hounds, and the settlements of flame lords. In the depths of the flame itself live fire mephits, elementals, fire minions, fire snakes, harginn, and salamanders, to name a few. The plane of Fire gives rise to more numerous and varied creatures than many of the other Elemental Planes.

Of all the Inner Planes, this is the plane that berks fear most. Maybe it's because of the monsters here, but it's probably 'cause every sodding rube knows what fire is, and how dangerous it can be. Not everyone knows what to expect if they're headed for the Negative Energy Plane (a far more dangerous place than the plane of Fire), but anybody can imagine a place where everything's aflame. For these reasons, the plane of Fire is often thought of as an evil plane — but a canny planewalker knows that all the Inner Planes are beyond (or maybe beneath) alignments and similar high concepts. Fire just is, but that makes it no less dangerous or destructive.

The most famous spot on this plane is the City of Brass, the realm of the efreeti. The efreeti have a spell that renders a being immune to flame and heat as long as he remains in the city. They use this magic upon their numerous captured slaves (and it keeps escape attempts to a minimum). Planewalker merchants keep a steady trade with the efreeti, bringing in goods (protected from fire) and taking away wonderfully forged metals and items crafted of a special material the efreeti call white iron.

Other fiery sites include the Molten Tower of Kossuth, the tyrant-king of all fire elementals, where intruders are burned alive in fires so hot that they scorch even fire-based beings. Chant is that this is the hottest portion of the plane, a place virtually unlivable to any but actual fire elementals.

Once a body comes up with a way to breathe, the plane of Water is fairly survivable. Most folks have been underwater, and can imagine what it'd be like on this Elemental Plane. There's no gravity, so a body doesn't have to worry about the pressure increasing as he dives deeper. In fact, deep isn't really a concept on a plane where the water has no surface and the ocean has no floor. It's all deep here.

Currents pose a major danger, capable of sweeping travelers far away before they can escape the powerful tides. Water temperature can vary wildly, particularly near the crossover points to the planes of Ice or Steam. The water in the plane supports both fresh- and salt water creatures in a way not fully understood, but doesn't become noticeably salty until one nears the border with the plane of Salt.

'Course, there're pockets of air (some filled with airbreathers or surrounded by sea creatures normally associated with ocean surfaces) and earth (covered with aquatic plants and various forms of life such as eels and crustaceans) as well as steamy, scalding areas that originated as pockets of flame. Other pockets include streams of ooze, briny pockets of salt, and lumps of cooled, hardened magma. Not uncommon are the vast structures of coral that extend for miles in every direction, built upon the skeletons of unimaginably huge beasts. The

Citadel of Ten Thousand Pearls is one such coral reef, housing the palaces of many noble marids. Not surprisingly, pearls are common here, and within huge clams one can find pearls of unbelievable size. The marids don't take kindly to visitors robbing them of their treasures, however.

The planes of Smoke, Magma, Ooze, and Ice lie between the main Elemental Planes. They are realms of duality, in which two forces have combined to make one. Less known and less traveled than the main four planes, they also hold fewer native inhabitants.

Where Air and Fire meet, they produce Smoke. The plane of Smoke is similar to the plane of Air, except that (of course) it's filled with foul smoke instead of pure air. A body can't breathe here without magical assistance — the hot, sooty atmosphere is completely saturated with choking clouds and noxious fumes. Like on the plane of Air, down is relative and beings have to fly in order to get around. Earth pockets are few and far between, so if some barmy's going to build a home here, it'll probably have to be on a large cinder floating in from the plane of Ash. There's little native life here to do any building, except at a place called the Choking Palace, where Ehkahk the Smoldering Duke rules over smoke mephits and other fume-based beasts.

Fire and Earth combine to form a plane even more inhospitable than the plane of Fire. Imagine the plane of Fire with an unstable, semi-liquid surface underneath, constantly churning and shifting — that's the plane of Magma. The efreeti and dao meet here to trade, and a few other creatures of earth and fire dwell on this plane rather than their own.Otherwise, lava mephits are all one's going to Find here. A basher named Chilimba claims dominance over the entire plane, and nobody cares enough to challenge his rule.

Earth and Water merge to form the Paraelemental Plane of Ooze, a place as bad as it sounds — mud and slime fill an ocean with no end in any direction. Conditions aren't unlike those on the plane of Water, but the substance here is opaque and thick. Creatures drawn here through vortices drown in the sludge — virtually nothing can survive in the muck save ooze mephits. No known cities or palaces exist, even in the few pockets of clear water or fresh air. The only "use" of this place comes from its function as a prison. If a wizard's got a mean streak, she's likely to dump her enemies here. If she's really cruel, she'll send 'em here with some magic allowing them to breathe but without anything to eat or drink. Such banishments have lead to this plane's pseudonym, the House of Chambered Madness. The current chant is that there's a secret way into Sigil from this plane — one even the Lady of Pain doesn't know about.

Water and Air form the plane of Ice, which has a navigable surface and breathable air — and nothing else but ice and snow. Endless glaciers, ice flows, snow fields, and frozen seas make up the landscape, and digging down into the ice won't reveal anything more underneath. Occasional pockets of air or earth mar the landscape, but mostly the ice just goes on forever. At the heart of the plane, Cyronax rules over all ice elementals and mephits, hoping to extend his influence even onto other planes. Rumors abound, however, of a race of powerful beings that even Cyronax knows nothing about, frozen forever under tons of ice, waiting to be released from their cold prison.

The raw elements intersect with the pure energies of the Positive or Negative Energy Planes to form the eight Quasielemental Planes, or quasiplanes. Air, Earth, Fire, and Water and positive energy mix to create the planes of Lightning, Mineral, Radiance, and Steam, respectively. Similarly, Air, Earth, Fire, and Water combine with negative energy to form the planes of Vacuum, Dust, Ash, and Salt. Some are beautiful, some are horrible, and others are just deadly. All are dangerous in one way or another to visitors. They're also not commonly frequented by planar travelers, although the Doomguard have built fortresses within each of the quasiplanes influenced by the Negative Energy Plane. Likewise, mysterious towers stand on all four of the positive quasiplanes, but their unknown builders have apparently long gone.

The plane of Lightning is often called the plane of Storms or the Vengeful Land by planewalkers and poets. It's like the plane of Air in every way, except that there's always an electrical storm crashing down upon a body's head. (Rain rarely accompanies the storms.) All visitors and objects have crackling glows about them, and metal automatically attracts lightning bolts, accompanied by terrible thunder. The mysterious Tower of Storms is the only known structure here, but not even the native lightning mephits and shockers know who lives inside.

Planewalkers sometimes refer to the plane of Mineral as the treasure-trove of the multiverse, but only to clueless rubes who don't know the dark of it. Sure, the plane's filled with gems, gold, silver, and other treasures waiting to be mined, but the place is extremely dangerous and well guarded. Native creatures like xorn, pech, and dao don't like leatherheads pouring onto their plane and carting off the elemental stuff it comprises. Getting through and around it poses the same challenges as does the plane of Earth, except everything has sharp edges that cut like knives. Much worse, however, is that everything here fossilizes at an incredible rate, and sods remaining here too long turn to stone. Although the stone's valuable, that's small consolation to a petrified berk. Finally, Mineral hosts another of those enigmatic fortresses; it's said that forging done at the Tower of Lead is far superior to that performed anywhere else on the planes.

Cascading light, brilliant color, and mind-numbing illumination fill the plane of Radiance. Without protection, a traveler will go blind, and quickly too. It's both beautiful and horrible at once. Radiance is as empty as the plane of Air, but as hot as the plane of Fire; only radiant mephits live on this plane of heat, light, and color. Near the edge of the Positive Energy Plane stands the blue-lit palace called the Heart of Light, where great healings are possible.

Much cooler is the Quasielemental Plane of Steam, a chilly, misty place so thick with clammy vapor that a body runs the risk of drowning in it. Many bashers compare this plane to the plane of Air for its relative emptiness — other than the mist and the steam mephits, there's little of interest except for the Tower of Ice, which has some sort of magical effect over potions and other mixtures blended here.

Vacuum is essentially a void of absolute nothingness — nothing to breathe, nothing to stand on, nothing to swim or fly through. Nothing. At its edge, the Doomguard's Citadel Exhalus, the Portal of the Last Breath, drifts anchored by a thread between Vacuum and Negative Energy. If a cutter can come up with a way to stay warm and do without breath(since there's nothing here to convert to breathable atmosphere),he can travel by sheer force of will, his mind taking him where he wants to go. Rumors say that beings of pure thought, without mass or energy, dwell here, and possibly travel out onto the other planes. No one knows for sure —how could they?

Travelers on the plane of Dust find themselves slowly disintegrating, their very forms breaking up into the dust of this place. Despite this, Dust has a number of native inhabitants: dune stalkers, dust mephits, sandlings, and sandmen. Here the Doomguard have built their most popular tower, Citadel Alluvius, its magic protecting those within from the harshest aspects of the plane. The barmiest (or most fanatic) of those addle-coves head out into the plane deliberately to disintegrate into nothingness. Maybe it's their idea of the perfect entropic death.

The plane of Ash has fewer inhabitants than Dust and is as bad as Fire, for a traveler can't breathe here, and the cinders drain a body's warmth at every turn. Not many come here, for who's going to swim through an endless sea of cinder and ash on purpose? Well, the Doomguard maintain the Crumbling Citadel - the fortress and the surrounding plane suit their moods and philosophies. Similarly, a powerful lich named Vecna "lives" in a huge stronghold here. Chant is that once-living prisoners of Vecna are transformed into horrible undead aberrations unlike those found anywhere else, their new forms a result of the fortress's proximity to the Negative Energy Plane.

The plane of Salt is an oft-forgotten place of dry, moisture- leeching crystalline crust. Portions of the place are more liquid than others, but much of the plane of Salt is dry and parched, causing a body to shrivel and desiccate. Except for salt mephits, nothing can live here. A fortress carved of salt itself, Citadel Sealt (yet another Doomguard palace), can be found in a hollowed-out place within the most solid crystalline portion of the plane.

If the Elemental Planes are the cornerstones of all that makes up the physical universe, then it's the Positive and Negative Energy Planes that breathe life into (or take it away from) them. These are the planes of life and death. No truer opposites exist in all the multiverse.

These planes aren't the basis of energy in the sense of light or heat — that's the purview of the planes of Fire, Radiance, Lightning, and so on. The Positive and Negative Energy Planes are the planes of life force. All living things draw their energy from the Positive plane, while creatures of undeath draw from the Negative. Likewise, spells, magical items, and similar things based onpromoting or taking life tie directly to these two planes.

The Positive Energy Plane is still a dangerous, terrible place to visit, however, despite its life-promoting nature. Its energy is simply too strong. Visitors find this plane even more brilliant than the plane of Radiance, with nothing but powerful white light. Its energies seep into bashers entering the plane until their bodies can no longer contain the energy, literally burning the poor sods out. However, if a traveler is injured, the energies heal the wounds — and quickly. If a planewalker can work out some sort of system to transport wounded folks to the Positive Energy Plane for just a few moments and then retrieve them, she'll have created an infallible healing system.

On the other hand, there's nothing useful to a planewalker about the Negative Energy Plane. Further, there's really no reason a basher'd ever want to come here. This place's got a lot of names — the Black Barrier, the Great Void, the Cold Land, or just Death. This plane steals energy and destroys the spirit. It is a black, formless plane of all-consuming hunger, feeding upon life energy. Addle-coves who come here without magical protection not only die, but their spirits are consumed forever, irrevocably — they're never coming back.

Some sodding idiots have actually made it possible to visit this plane. The Dustmen know of secret portals to a citadel that they maintain here, called the Fortress of the Soul. Great expense and magic has gone into making this place livable.

Surprisingly, there's life, or at least inhabitants, on both of the Energy Planes. The xeg-ya is a creature of positive energy, and the xeg-yi one of negative. Further, undead such as spectres, wights, and wraiths (and who knows what else) hover forever on the brink of the Negative plane, waiting to be loosed upon other planes where they can drain the energy of the living.

The Astral and Ethereal form the great highways of the planes, the infinite paths that connect all other planes. Essentially, they're the spaces in between. Most planewalkers don't think of either plane as much more than a path to be traveled to get where they're going. If a body stopped to look around, though, he'd discover much more to these planes than that.