Elemental Chaos

[ Elemental Chaos ] [ Mapping Infinity | Bestiary | Flora ]

The Elemental Chaos

The Fifth Dimension; the Churn; the Bottom of Ether (by etherfarers); the Great Unseen (by Inner Planars); the Nightmare Dimension (a misnomer); the Hidden Plane; the Deeper Ethereal

The World of Immortals

What’s the difference between a mortal and a god? Some say ‘power’, while others say ‘worship’. But let me tell you one thing as someone who came close enough to being a power—the answer is perception. I will not reveal my name here. My name has power, and even a nickname is enough for my foes to gain advantage over me. What you should know is that I belong to a group of creatures called Immortals. We wield power so awesome, that only creatures of mythic significance could even hope to harm us. The source of this power I will not reveal either—but know that those who desire it could reach it. They only need the knowledge. Knowledge is what you’ve asked me for, and you shall receive.

Now where was I? Ah, indeed, perception. See, mortal creatures such as you exist only in three dimensions. You have forward, backward, rightward, leftward, upward and downward. But there are other directions, those a creature such as yourself can barely even comprehend. The brightest of mortal mages dabble in the fourth dimension, with which they can create inter-dimensional spaces. Only the most inquisitive of them do so, for making use of demiplanes or Astral domains is much easier and more rewarding (if not for the inconvenience brought by planar travel). But the Elementals of the Inner Planes are much more familiar with the concept of the fourth dimension—it is all but necessary to travel within the Elemental Planes and for finding the planar borders between them. Cutters from the Outer Planes tend to have a much weaker grasp on such matters, although many planewalkers are undoubtedly aware of them. As for us, Immortals, we thrive in the fourth dimension, where the seats of our power lie. But above (metaphorically, of course) the fourth dimension, there is a fifth.

This plane, this wondrous place, is rich with echoes of divine catastrophe from the Dawn War, and for an Immortal, this is like ambrosia. While the plane is fickle and harsh for mortal planewalkers, for us, it is invigorating, endlessly fascinating, and most importantly, private. Only a select few mortals have been aware of it for the last hundred millennia. Those who were spoke of it in hushed voice, calling it the Dimension of Nightmares, for it was only known as a place from which horrible and destructive monsters came forth.

However, things changed recently, as they always do. While the planewalkers were preoccupied with their silly faction war in Sigil, the Inner Planes were graced with a flood of newcomers, who claimed to hail from the places called the Plane of Metal and the Plane of Wood. Their planes, they said, had been cut from the rest of the Multiverse for eons, until some kind of Grand Planar Conjunction re-opened the planar pathways between their realms and other Elemental Planes.

Djinni diplomats were sent to investigate and found another clue—a ship belonging to the Etherfarer Society that had been thoroughly wrecked by some strange elemental assault. The quartermaster, who had miraculously survived the encounter, sheepishly explained how his crew entered a strange ethereal curtain only to be met with an assault of flying rocks, balls of flame and waves of water coming from every direction. Such cases have recently become more common—sometimes waves of different elemental matter pour out of planar tears left by entropes or careless spellcasters. Occasionally a portal to the strange dimension of mixed-up elements has opened up in Sigil. At first, sages thought it to be a yet another quirk of Limbo, but as githzerai planewalkers who explored the place quickly found out to their peril, they were not able to shape the chaos with their minds, and that this was a whole new plane—and an Inner Plane at that. The chant quickly spread and accumulated, and this ‘new’ plane was dubbed the Elemental Chaos. The predominant theory among the graybeards is that its an ancient plane, they’d assumed was a myth—the place of the first battle between the Powers and the Primordials. Its turbulence is a continuing echo of their cataclysmic struggles all that time ago. It was sealed off deliberately, to prevent the chaos spreading to the other Inner Planes. As for why the plane has only come to light recently—there are as many theories as there are graybeards. Divine accident, ancient prophecy, planar conjunction, some pretender called Vecna, or the destructive activities of entropes—all of these reasons have been bandied around. Whatever the dark of it, it seems the Elemental Chaos is now fair game to be spoilt by planewalking meddlers too. We are lucky it’s infinitely large, I guess.

The Topological Nature of the Fifth Dimension

Unlike any other Inner Plane, it is impossible to reach the Elemental Chaos on foot, for while it surrounds all of the Inner Planes, it doesn’t seem to physically border any of them, in a traditional sense at least. It does, however, border the Ethereal Plane. Only a being able to move and think in four dimensions can hope to reach it with at least some certainty. A planewalker could search the Ethereal for many years to no avail—or stumble upon it by accident.

The border between the Deep Ethereal and the Elemental Chaos appears as a rainbow ethereal curtain of swirling colours. Unlike other ether curtains though, this one is endless and can’t be manoeuvred around—more akin to the bottom of an infinite sea. Upon passing through the curtain, the explorer instantly finds themselves in the thick of the Chaos—there’s no Border Ethereal here. This of course poses many questions, and suggests even more answers. Some acolytes of the planes believe that the Deep Ethereal itself is a distilled version of the Elemental Chaos, the part of it where all the elements have ground each other down and mixed into the proto-matter. These graybeards call the Elemental Chaos the Deeper Ethereal. Others argue that it’s really the reverse—the demiplanes of the Ethereal slowly decay and their proto-matter coalesces here in its lowest point. Both groups are immensely interested in the barrier between the two planes. Certain entities that prowl that barrier are way too strange to be natural. It is also possible to reach the Elemental Chaos through more mundane means, although portals there are rare and tuning forks are almost non-existent. Finally, while there seem to be no vortices leading to the Chaos, damage caused by entropes can leave a planar tear that connects the Elemental Chaos with some other Inner Plane, one which pulls matter from the Inner Plane into the Chaos.

Conditions

Space and Movement: All of the Inner Planes have strange and aberrant spatial dimensions, but in the Elemental Chaos this is especially apparent. Objects frequently seem to appear and vanish, but in fact they are just travelling through the fourth and fifth dimensions. Even elementals and immortals can become disoriented in this place, since they still can’t see into the fifth dimension. For any non-native creature, travel speed is halved. Meanwhile, natives, especially the diaboli, can navigate the plane well enough. According to them, there are plenty of places outsiders just can’t reach due to them running parallel to the perceived reality.

Gravity: Generally, the Elemental Chaos has no gravity. Any creature can travel around with their mind just like on the Ethereal Plane. Especially large objects may sometimes generate a gravitational field, which overrides the gravity from anything smaller. Such localised gravity can manifest in a plane (for example a flat platform where you can walk about on top, then flip over the edge and walk ‘upside down’ underneath), or as a sphere (for example a planet or tunnel which you can walk around completely, returning to your original position).

Matter and Energy: In simple terms, the Elemental Chaos can be described as an Inner Plane that is made up solely from fragments or pockets of other elements. It isn’t clear whether such pockets came from the Elemental Planes themselves or have coalesced from ether, but this barely matters to an average planewalker. The important part is that these pockets are chunks of matter that often tumble at a great speed, collide, mix and match, and overall pose a great danger to visitors. The Churn at least has an atmosphere of air, although in many places it is mixed with smoke, steam, fire or dust. In most places it is turbulent and could be described as hurricane-like. Large blobs of water or magma roll in on the wind, while boulders of earth, ice or salt fly like meteors, crushing everything in their path—except for the white and black spheres of positive and negative energy respectively. Any of these elements can combine to form an airy, bubbling or freezing mud that is constantly shaken by lightning and explosions. We Immortals aren’t bothered by the elements of any kind, but your fragile mortal bodies must be equipped with protection from everything—crushing, slashing, flame, frost, acid, alkali, poisons, lightning, thunder, vacuum, positive and negative energy—anything short of enveloping yourself in a cocoon of force and carrying a case of bottled breath is a likely to be an eventual death sentence. This is why only Immortals and fools come to the Dimension of Nightmares.

Inhabitants of the Elemental Chaos

• A Bestiary of the Elemental Chaos

Demi-Elemental Planes

• Mapping the Elemental Chaos, including details on the following demi-elemental planes:
  • Metal
  • Wood
  • Elemental Energy Planes
    • Emanation, Gravity, Magnesia
  • Positive Quasi-Elemental Exotica
    • Blossom, Bullion, Clay, Crystal, Obsidian, Sparks
  • Negative Quasi-Elemental Exotica
    • Frost, Fumes, Pumice, Rot, Rust, Silt
  • The Gray / the Mists
    • Blood, Fog, Grave, Pyre, Rain, Sun
  • Planar Husks
    • Rainbow, Shadow, Steam

Movers and Shakers

• Balcoth the Groaning King (primordial)
  • Dungeon Magazine #178 [4e] p87
• Bazim-Gorag (primordial)
  • Dungeon Magazine #101; Creature Codex has a PF1e version here
• Bowolg the Cosmic Rot (primordial)
  • Turn of Fortune’s Wheel [5e], p81
• Chaos (Greek protogenoi)
• Iktha-Lau, the Ever Empty (primordial, predominantly found in Vacuum)
  • The Plane Below—Secrets of the Elemental Chaos [4e] p65,129,153
• Mual-Tar, the Thunder Serpent (primordial)
  • Manual of the Planes [4e] p70
• Solkara, the Crushing Wave (primordial)
  • The Plane Below—Secrets of the Elemental Chaos [4e] p152
• Tziphal, the Mountain-Builder (primordial)
  • The Plane Below—Secrets of the Elemental Chaos [4e] p100
• Vezzuvu the Burning Mountain (primordial)
  • Manual of the Planes [4e] p70-72

Locations of the Elemental Chaos

• Body Luminous, the (site)
  • The Plane Below—Secrets of the Elemental Chaos [4e] p94
• Castanamir Island (prison of Castanamir) ‡
• Glacier of the Drowned God (prison of the primodial Solkara) ‡
• Great Red Tempest (giant chaos storm)
  • The Plane Below—Secrets of the Elemental Chaos [4e] p63
• Hak Karlum (site)
  • The Plane Below—Secrets of the Elemental Chaos [4e] p88
• Irdoc Morda (region)
  • The Plane Below—Secrets of the Elemental Chaos [4e] p76
• Moteswarm, the (region)
  • Corehold (githzerai monastery)
  • Zahazrian (site)
  • The Plane Below—Secrets of the Elemental Chaos [4e] p78
• Mountain Builder’s Barrow (prison of the primordial Tziphal)
  • The Plane Below—Secrets of the Elemental Chaos [4e] p100-105
• Pandemonium Stone (giant spire which exists transiently)
  • Abode of the Watchers of Tomorrow (site)
  • Trackless House (site)
  • The Plane Below—Secrets of the Elemental Chaos [4e] p80
• Pillars of Creation (infinite towers which support the Prime)
  • Obelisk of Ice (site)
  • Raging Storm (site)
    • Cloudfield (site)
    • Stormheart (site)
  • Torrent of Magma (site)
  • The Plane Below—Secrets of the Elemental Chaos [4e] p82
• Red Shoals of Dkar (site)
  • Abmelech Island (site)
  • Dragon Island (site)
  • Ellasar Island (site)
  • Farkus Island (site)
  • Jade Gyre (site)
  • Maze of Dkar (site)
  • Dungeon Magazine #178 [4e] p81-89
• Rilmani Fortresses
• Riverweb (planar pathway)
  • Castle Torrent (site)
  • Decktown (burg)
  • Landing, the (site)
  • Rheilvalt (burg)
  • The Plane Below—Secrets of the Elemental Chaos [4e] p84
• Root Hold (realm of the archomental Grumbar) ‡
• Threshold (genasi burg)
  • The Plane Below—Secrets of the Elemental Chaos [4e] p57
• Thunder Temple (the prison of Mual-Tar)
  • Dragon Magazine #370 [4e] p25-34
• Vortex, the (the forbidden door to some other dimension where Old Ones dwell)

Sources: The Plane Below: Secrets of the Elemental Chaos [4e]; The Alternative Elemental Planes of Athas here; Dragon Magazine #321, p64 (Demiplane of Radiance, renamed and reshuffled here into the plane of Glimmer); Player’s Guide to Immortals and DM’s Guide to Immortals (Immortals, diaboli, Nightmare Dimension and the Vortex); this post.

Other Sources: Margarita, Jon Winter-Holt. Canonwatch: The Elemental Chaos wasn’t introduced to the canon until D&D 4e, where it was a mash-up of Elemental and Lower Planes. D&D 5e reverted planar cosmology back to the Planescape 2e setup, except it killed off the Quasi-Elemental Planes and rebranded them as Elemental Chaos instead. That seems a huge shame, as the structure of the 2e Inner Planes was elegant. Given the canon has little respect for the Inner Planes, we thought we’d reimagine the Elemental Chaos again, in a a way that adds to the 2e Planescape canon rather than throwing it out. Drawing from the original BECMI D&D lore, we’ve brought in the Immortals and some of their nemeses from the Immortal Rulebooks. Pathfinder 2 canon, since the Rage of Elements, has six main elements—bringing in Wood and Metal which Chinese Wuxing elementalism lists as two of its five elements, alongside Earth, Water and Fire. Pathfinder presents Wood and Metal as recently ‘returning’ to the Inner Sphere—but returning from where? And how to incorporate all the other alternate ‘elemental’ planes from Dark Sun, Ravenloft and so on into the cosmology? We propose the Elemental Chaos as something outside, but somehow also surrounding, the Inner Planes, where the pure elements bleed into each other and mix, new elements condense and evaporate. Let us know what you think!