The Splinterlands
Called the Cordant Planes by some
Location: Outlands / Hinterlands / The Fraying Edge
Right at the edges of the never-ending Hinterlands, things start to get really weird. The fabric of the Outlands itself starts to break down, like icebergs at the edge of a glacier, as the philosophical tides wear away at its shores. Here, the seeds of Yggdrasil wash in from the Astral plane and occasionally lodge—or get planted—in fertile, well prepared ground.
What happens next is hard to explain to mortals. As parts of the Hinterlands are submerged by the fluid philosophies of the Great Ring, as the seeds of Yggdrasil germinate and grow, as the energy of belief gathers and pools, new half-worlds emerge. Some of these wither and die quite quickly; others are stolen away by powers, archmages or outsiders; yet more escape to become demiplanes buffetted by the Astral Sea; and once in a millennium one will be nurtured by enough belief to blossom into an infinite expanse. This is one of the ways new planes and planar layers are born.
The Cordant Planes, long rumoured to exist and speculated upon by certain open-minded explorers as being “between” the Outlands and the Great Ring, are examples of these burgeoning planelettes. Nestled at the edges of the Outlands, suckling like newborn babes—or lecherous parasites—these places are not quite planes, but also more than demiplanes. Each is influenced by the neutrality of the Outlands, and the ethos of the part of the Great Ring it is growing in. The Yggdrani nurture these planelettes, many of which have already been populated by powers eager to stake their claims on new lands.
Perhaps in time these seedlings will become fully fledged planes and jostle their way into the Great Ring. Or perhaps the prevailing beliefs of their powerful inhabitants will cause the planelette to coalesce into an existing plane and become a new layer. Only time will tell.
The Planelettes of the Splinterlands
- Avalon (the plane of courtly love)
- Discordia (the plane of chance)
- K’un Lun (the plane of honour)
- Nether (the plane of ruin)
- Pangaea (the plane of savage nature)
- Perdition (the plane of gratification)
- Purgatory (the plane of labour)
- Sheol (the plane of patriotism)
- The Yggdrani (the plane-tenders)
Source: Jon Winter-Holt. Canonwatch: All of the Planes of Cordance and the concept of the Splinterlands are homebrew and non-canonical. From Greg’s original conception of the Planes of Cordance as full planes between the Outlands and the Great Ring in the 1990s, I’ve toned this down a little making them planelettes budding at the edge of the Outlands, which (a) explains why they are so little known, and (b) makes them easier to ignore if you don’t want to use them.
