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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31774 Posts |
 Posted - 30 May 2005 : 03:00:55
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Realmslore
I have no issues with considering the Phlogiston a transitive plane,
I do. It has no contact with any other planes. You cannot planarly travel to or from the Flow, nor can you even access extradimensional spaces. If it's anything having to do with crossing planar boundaries, you can't do it from the Flow.
To me, the Flow is more like some sort of null-space than a plane. It's not a plane, it's somehow between or beyond planes.
Although I'm not entirely sold on the idea of the Flow as a transitive plane (for the reasons Wooly stated as well as a few of my own), if it could be allowed, DMs wouldn't need to worry about allowing the Phlogiston to have direct contact with a plane or crystal sphere because we know that the Phlogiston cannot be brought into the bounds of a plane or crystal sphere -- which is exactly what would occur if the Flow had direct contact with the insides of crystal spheres and planes.
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Gray Richardson
Master of Realmslore
USA
1291 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2005 : 05:03:48
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Realmslore
I have no issues with considering the Phlogiston a transitive plane,
I do. It has no contact with any other planes. You cannot planarly travel to or from the Flow, nor can you even access extradimensional spaces. If it's anything having to do with crossing planar boundaries, you can't do it from the Flow.
To me, the Flow is more like some sort of null-space than a plane. It's not a plane, it's somehow between or beyond planes.
Well, I certainly understand your balking at that explanation Wooly. However, if spelljamming is to be rehabilitated to fit with th 3.5 cosmologies, some changes have to be allowed.
In 2e the phlogiston could be a non-planar phenomenon because all crystal spheres inhabited the same material plane. The phlogiston filled the interstitial spaces between those spheres.
In 3e all those spheres are now in alternate material universes. If phlogiston is going to be the medium of transit between them, then in 3e it must have some sort of trans-planar properties.
I think the phlogiston being part of Shadow is an elegant solution since Shadow is already known to connect the alternate universes.
Alternatively I like Realmslore's version perhaps of using the plane of radiance as a transitive plane, sort of the anti-shadow plane. I believe there is some precedence for this as Dragon Magazine did an article on using the Plane of Radiance as an alternate transitive plane.
Lastly I am also fond of Shattered Fractine's idea of using Phlogiston as a transitive plane in its own right.
Surely there is some mechanic that could be adapted to using the Phlogiston and Spelljamming in a 3.5 context. It is too good a system to lose.  |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36804 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2005 : 06:15:15
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quote:
Originally posted by Gray Richardson
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Realmslore
I have no issues with considering the Phlogiston a transitive plane,
I do. It has no contact with any other planes. You cannot planarly travel to or from the Flow, nor can you even access extradimensional spaces. If it's anything having to do with crossing planar boundaries, you can't do it from the Flow.
To me, the Flow is more like some sort of null-space than a plane. It's not a plane, it's somehow between or beyond planes.
Well, I certainly understand your balking at that explanation Wooly. However, if spelljamming is to be rehabilitated to fit with th 3.5 cosmologies, some changes have to be allowed.
In 2e the phlogiston could be a non-planar phenomenon because all crystal spheres inhabited the same material plane. The phlogiston filled the interstitial spaces between those spheres.
In 3e all those spheres are now in alternate material universes. If phlogiston is going to be the medium of transit between them, then in 3e it must have some sort of trans-planar properties.
I think the phlogiston being part of Shadow is an elegant solution since Shadow is already known to connect the alternate universes.
Alternatively I like Realmslore's version perhaps of using the plane of radiance as a transitive plane, sort of the anti-shadow plane. I believe there is some precedence for this as Dragon Magazine did an article on using the Plane of Radiance as an alternate transitive plane.
Lastly I am also fond of Shattered Fractine's idea of using Phlogiston as a transitive plane in its own right.
Surely there is some mechanic that could be adapted to using the Phlogiston and Spelljamming in a 3.5 context. It is too good a system to lose.
But making it a plane invalidates all of its non-planar-ness. If you acknowledge that it is not a plane, then it remains something that is either between or beyond planes. As such, I don't see why it can't still work for connecting alternate Primes. |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31774 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2005 : 06:40:23
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That is true. But if we want this idea to work, we need to determine how the Phlogiston, as a transitive plane, can allow access to each of the separate material universes. Basing it in the Shadow has the advantage of already having connections to alternate Primes.
A theory I had was to base the Phlogiston in a type of "Astral sub-layer", playing upon the Astral's ability to connect worlds and outer planes. This sub-layer is an ancient primordial section of the Astral -- perhaps what the Astral plane was before its current state. This sub-layer allows both mental and physical objects to pass across it -- essentially a Phlogiston-like plane in substance. In essence, I saw this Astrally-based Phlogiston as the primal form of a "complete" element, which eventually separated into the four base elements that would come be the inner planes.
In this instance, the Phlogiston doesn't compare with any of the now known elements because it is a complete element itself -- it was what all the now currently existing elements came from. It cannot be only one of them, because it is all of them.
The Astral/Phlogiston connection is based upon that premise that the Astral was once the only transitive plane that connected the early planes after the formation of the Great Wheel. As time progressed, the Astral became more refined, and evolved due to the increasing contact with mortal minds. Eventually, a new Astral subsumed the old one, burying the sub-layer but not eliminating it. This sub-layer, would become the Phlogiston.
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36804 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2005 : 15:19:05
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quote:
Originally posted by The Sage
That is true. But if we want this idea to work, we need to determine how the Phlogiston, as a transitive plane, can allow access to each of the separate material universes. Basing it in the Shadow has the advantage of already having connections to alternate Primes.
I guess what I'm not seeing is why it has to be a plane to connect to other planes... I'm thinking of it as a place between planes, kind of like some concepts of hyperspace.
Besides... If you make it a plane, how do you then deal with its planar isolation? If you use it as a plane designed to connect to other planes, you either have to drop the isolation part of it, or explain how it's a plane that both does and does not connect to other planes. But if you go with the latter, then why would it connect to some planes and not others?
No, to me the simplest thing is to leave it as a non-planar space between planes. That keeps all the established lore valid (and in fact explains the isolation nicely), and could function as your way to get to alternate Primes: you have to go to this slipspace betweeen planes, first, to go to another Prime. |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31774 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2005 : 15:25:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
I guess what I'm not seeing is why it has to be a plane to connect to other planes... I'm thinking of it as a place between planes, kind of like some concepts of hyperspace.
I had assumed you were looking at it in that way... almost like the realm of Hyperspace in B5 -- a dimension completely separate from normal space that connects with everything else.
quote:
No, to me the simplest thing is to leave it as a non-planar space between planes. That keeps all the established lore valid (and in fact explains the isolation nicely), and could function as your way to get to alternate Primes: you have to go to this slipspace betweeen planes, first, to go to another Prime.
In retrospect, I think I'm happiest with this interpretation. I'd keep the Phlogiston as the place of pathways between what exists outside and beyond the alternate material primes. As I see it, the Phlogiston is almost like a "framework" that the rest of the multiverse has been built upon... something that supports the entire structure, but can never actually be a part of it.
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Spelljamming alternate system
