The Outer Planes

The Abyss: The spiritual home of the most depraved, debauched, and destructive criminals. A universe of weird, hateful cults that reject everything that most people call common sense and common decency. Pits in the first layer reach an infinite variety of horror, foulness, and degeneracy.

Acheron: The spiritual home of warriors who have forgotten the good ideals for which they may once have fought. Now the armies war with each other on the faces of enormous cubes. Here, militarism is embraced for its own sake.

Arborea: Woodstock. The spiritual home of the free-living, freedom-loving happy-go-lucky souls, who do random acts of kindness. Nature here is at its most prolific. Much of the area is Greek Mythology terrain.

Arcadia: The spiritual home of the decent moralists who want to force virtue on others. Here the ideals of the social engineers come true, and everyone works for the greatest good of the greatest number. Nature itself develops as formal gardens, and even the day is divided sharply into "light" and "dark", without the moral ambiguity of "shades of gray".

The Astral: The silver void, extending from our own worlds to the alignment planes. Colored pools provide entry. On the astral float the remains of history's discarded ideals and ideologies.

Baator: The spiritual home of those who use the law for wicked purposes, and those who are highly organized in order to kill and enslave others. It is a cruel, cynical, and bureaucratic police state, filled with the most effective of aggressors. In some areas, fireballs erupt and flames dominate, while in others, heartless cold entraps those for whom ruthless efficiency took the place of love.

The Beastlands: The spiritual home of those whose lives are simple, natural, and good. Here people live as animals do in idealized depictions of nature. Every visitor will acquire bodily features of some animal with similar characteristics. Here, fantasies about "noble savages" are real.

Bytopia: The spiritual home of good, hardworking, civilized, law-abiding but not-so-strict folk. The twin layers showcase the virtues of the adventuring active life, and the stable domestic life. Free enterprise thrives on this most prosperous of worlds, and everyone has his or her dream job.

Carceri: The spiritual home of wicked souls who destroy for fun, and those who cherished grudges above all else. The dark fantasies typical of our world's career criminals are real here. The red worlds offer few chances for escape.

Elysium: The spiritual home of those who were solely concerned with doing good for others, without regard to grand ethical theories. One can reach one's intended destination only by doing good. The holy river dominates this terrain. Some call it "Oceanus", some call it "Jordan".

Gehenna: The spiritual home of the world's petty tyrants and elegant gangsters. There is no level ground. Instead, the terrain is all volcanos in various states of activity.

The Gray Waste: The spiritual home of the most cynically wicked people, where greed, hate, and heartlessness drain all vitality and color.

Limbo: The spiritual home of of all who prized freedom, creativity, and self-expression above any sense of morals or concern about others. The terrain responds to mind, and a sentient being can create objects at will from the stuff of chaos. "Do your own thing" -- here, everything is possible.

Mechanus: The spiritual home of those who sought only to know the laws of nature for knowledge's sake, and of those who loved authority and organization for its own sake. It is composed of gears and machinery, but no one knows their purposes. Law and order are supreme here. In each community, the locals live together in clearly-defined social contracts, working together without altruism or malice.

Mount Celestia: Our own world as it's supposed to be. Religion, science, industry, and commerce are all actually directed toward the good of the public. This is the safest place in the multiverse, and the hardest-working. The various spiritual paths exist here as pathways up the holy mountain.

The Outlands: The spiritual home of individuals and communities who cared little for right or wrong, for kindness or cruelty, for organization or freedom, but were content merely to exist. At the center, a spire reaches up to infinity. At the top is Sigil. This city is the source of all the interpretations that people place on the fundamental experience of suffering.

Pandemonium: The spiritual home of the lawless people who cared nothing for others. It is windy, noisy, violent, and full of insane people. The glamour is that of sheer madness. Most of the terrain is craggy tunnels.

Ysgard: The spiritual home of rowdy, generally good-natured types who party endlessly. Much of the area is Norse Mythology territory. The rainbow bridge ("Bifrost") and the world-ash tree ("Yggdrasil") can be reached here.