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Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Starfinder RPG

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Planar Adventures / Building a Planar Campaign

Why the Planes?

Source Planar Adventures pg. 82
Okay, you’ve made the choice to take your game to the planes, but your campaign’s characters already enjoy stabbing bad guys on their home world. So why should your players risk life, limb, and the integrity of their souls to travel the planes when there are perfectly good dungeons in their own corner of the cosmic backyard? The possibilities are limitless, yet most goals fall within four categories: access, acquisition, confrontation, or rescue. Each of these can be the ultimate aim for a campaign or merely a step toward a bigger task, and an effective planar campaign uses several of these goals to create a compelling sequence of events.

Access

Source Planar Adventures pg. 82
Just as adventurers might negotiate to use a rare library, discover a sage’s secrets, or learn a forbidden technique on the Material Plane, so too might they bargain as they seek similar lore, tools, and resources on another plane. Outsiders found commonly on the planes are often ageless immortals, boasting divine connections, forms, and faculties that are far beyond those of mortal humanoids. With their superior capacity and abundant time, these beings create unparalleled workshops for crafting phenomenal artifacts, ironclad vaults that contain unspeakable mistakes, and halls for conveying the perfect nuance of every performance type.

From the PCs’ perspective, these are tools that can enable them to achieve otherwise impossible goals. A lost secret might survive only in an extraplanar library. The conditions of an evil artifact’s destruction might require travel to the heart of a divine realm. Learning an antagonist’s plans might require partaking in an extraplanar intrigue in which the PCs must survive alien politics and interview long-dead souls. Sometimes the goal is to journey to a Transitive Plane with the intention of accessing an obscure demiplane or other realm that conventional magic can’t find.

Acquisition

Source Planar Adventures pg. 82
Even the most geologically varied planet pales in comparison to the unparalleled diversity possible on just one of the nighinfinite planes. Most other planes consist of the distilled essence of an alignment or element, each of which provides an extraordinary substrate to nourish a dazzling array of organisms and propagate realities. Moreover, many planes host realms that are occupied continually by inventive creatures who spend untold eons creating countless tools, structures, and masterpieces that surpass anything a Material Plane world might produce. As the realms of the gods themselves, the planes can be home to utterly unique treasures that represent the very first or purest form of a given object.

Of course, adventurers specialize in studying and acquiring baubles, so to some, a plane’s treasures may simply be awaiting harvest by the right hands. The fabled artifact necessary to slay a demon lord might reside in Heaven— perhaps in the possession of an archon who’s not inclined to share. The reagents needed to brew a powerful potion to end a mythic curse might grow only in Abaddon’s tear-soaked soil or crystallize in the Plane of Earth’s most secluded caverns. Some travelers might seek real estate instead of treasures, skirmishing with the Astral Plane’s shulsagas to claim a newly formed demiplane as their own.

Confrontation

Source Planar Adventures pg. 82
Outsiders are among the oldest and most dangerous creatures in the multiverse, and many interfere with mortal worlds to secure devotion for their divine patrons, favorably aligned souls, more power, or any combination of the three. From their extraplanar bastions, predatory outsiders can plague other realms with near impunity, working through lesser beings and cults dedicated to enacting their patrons’ wills. If adventurers call such a being their nemesis, the only solution may be to track down the creature’s home and destroy it there.

That’s easier said than done, however. These beings often have a host of allies defending a well-fortified abode. Heroes leading the charge are unlikely to share their enemy’s alignment or subtypes, potentially exposing the attackers to hostile planar traits. The strongest outsiders can even wield the power of their home planes as a weapon, much as demon lords wield mythic power within their own realms. If adventurers can destroy such beings, they can end countless plots at once and create a power vacuum felt across the planes.

Rescue

Source Planar Adventures pg. 82
Two facts bear repeating: the planes are dangerous, and souls are valuable. Unpredictable and titanic weather events can shatter even the mightiest magical vehicles or scatter travelers. Plane-hopping magic can fail and send someone to a random destination, while the death of a spellcasting ally might mean the loss of a group’s only ticket home. Even something so mundane as a cave-in can leave otherwise able explorers stranded on another world. Rescuing allies or loved ones from such a fate may be the only way to save their lives—or failing that, might become the only way to allow their souls to reach the intended afterlife. Some of the most abrupt disappearances are those dealt by the Donjon card found in a deck of many things.

Any number of fiends and villains are all too happy to capture living prey to consume, experiment on, sacrifice, or torture. Among the most infamous abductors are the Ethereal Plane’s xills and the far-ranging devourers that prey upon live hosts and mortals’ souls, respectively. Night hags are practiced soul trappers who might trade a hero’s soul away or consume it, preventing resurrection unless intercepted. Devils’ use of infernal contracts can let them abscond with a PCs’ friend or ally under the wrong circumstances (or insidiously small print).