Inner Planar Alliances

Alliances aren't so much between planes as they are between individual races. Famous examples include the Jinn + Marid (and presumably the Qorrash as well to a lesser extent. Their alignment differences would cause friction, but they would be united in their hatred for the Efreet), and the Dao + Efreet.

Bear in mind that the wars in the inner planes represent the struggle for elemental domination by many groups.
On the other hand (As evidenced by Sanctimonius the Ice Mephit in the Inner Planes book), there are also those who hold philosophies that the planes must all be in balance, or that the current alignment must not be disturbed.
Even the Elementals are likely to have their own religious beliefs (though they would differ from the religious practices of mortals, and would likely be more philosophy-based and fatalistic. I eventually intend to flesh out the religion of elementals while still keeping an air of mystery to it. Of course, as always is the case with the materials I present, it is entirely up to the DM as to how much should be revealed to the players. I tend to cut out a lot of the mystery however, so as to make NPC and monster roleplaying easier for the DM.) (The elemental myths involve the Sleeping Ones heavily, but contradict the mythology of both the Kuo-Toa and the Illithid, in that they claim the awakening of the Sleeping Ones will bring about armageddon, whereas the Kuo-Toa claim that the awakening of the Sleeping Ones will bring about the 2nd paradise *the final phase of many mythologies such as the Abrahamic religions and Norse paganism in which a perfect world precedes the current world's destruction*, and the Illithid claim that armageddon will be caused by Multiversal entropy. Also key to the mythology of elementals is that they believe in a cyclical rather than linear multiversal history-- that is to say, the multiverse has been created and destroyed multiple times, and this is also key to their beliefs about the Sleeping Ones-- they claim that in the previous multiverse, the Sleeping Ones ruled, and that a few were leftover in the primordial void before the creation of the current one.)

In general, there appears to be a loose alliance between creatures of Fire and Earth.

Also, bear in mind that even among the same creature types (e.g. elementals, mephits), their base nature varies depending on element. For instance, the mephits and Paraelementals of ice coexist peacefully in mixed tows/villages/cities, while the mephits and elementals of other planes hate one another.

Also, as a general rule, creatures of coterminous planes are more likely to get along than those of opposing planes, and creatures of paraelements and elements don't get along with those of the equivalent quasielement.

Here are the likely and possible alliances of creatures by plane (bear in mind that alignment of the races involved also plays a role)

--Fire, Magma, Earth
--Air, Ice, Water
--Fire, Smoke
--Ash, Ice
--Ooze, Earth

The following element combinations tend NOT to get along with one another. I'm not going to bother with elemental opposites as those are a given. Bear in mind that paraelementals also don't get along with elementals of their opposite (e.g. ice + fire, smoke + water, etc.)

--Ice, Salt
--Mist, Salt
--Ooze, Water
--Air, Smoke (some air creatures get along okay with smoke creatures, but most do not.)
--Earth, Mineral (earth creatures always trespass into Mineral to eat bits of it, which the natives hate)
--Vacuum, all other elements, paraelements, and POSSIBLY quasielements (not sure about dust and ash, but definitely salt. Dust is the lack of and destruction of matter while Ash is the lack of and destruction of energy. I'm not sure how the two would handle their opposites.)

And again, the relationships between races varies. In the 1E Manual of the Planes, it states that the elementals hate the Efreet and (especially) the Dao, because those two tend to treat all other races like crap (the Efreet less so if you encounter them in the City of Brass, but outside of that they tend to be pretty war-like and imperialistic towards any other species)
Whereas they tend to get along better with the Djinn and (to a much lesser extent) the Marid.
In the 2E manual of the planes, the mephits and elementals coexist on Ice and Mineral (in Mineral this is more due to the common goal of keeping outsiders out of their plane). In other planes (IIRC smoke is one of them), they hate and are at war with one another.

""That may well be true, but it would depend, in part at least, on what themes and plots you wanted to explore. Loose alliances between like-minded inner planars are certainly bound to come up from time to time. Racial differences/tensions may well play a role in what shape such an alliance takes, but I see no reason why, say, an ambitious mephit might not try to form a planar wide, mephit-oriented alliance if that was something that you wished to explore in-game. In light of such an alliance (and dependent on word getting back out of course), gaining favor with such an alliance would have large implications on one's travels throughout the inner planes.""
No, the Inner Planes book is quite clear that elemental creatures (mephits, genies, elementals, etc.) despise those of the opposite element. The only exception is the Good Archomentals and their followers.

""Ooh! Another aspect that just now occurred to me is: Would the alliances that form have any impact on the actual structure arrangement of the inner planes?""
Not sure. You're really talking about a "chicken or the egg" scenario, here.

""In the Guide to the Inner Planes, there's a passing comment made about Steam forming when Fire and Water were close to one another, when the inner planes were configured differently, so such an idea certainly isn't outside the realm of possibility.""

Yes. It should be mentioned however that this is an allusion to Gary Gygax's earlier plans for the inner planes. Originally he had a somewhat different inner cosmology, and there are several references to this in the 1E MoTP and 2E Planescape books (including 2E MotP).

Anyway, thanks for humoring me! I'm trying to come up with an inner planar campaign and all of these ideas are starting to bubble up. Figure I'd air them and see if anybody else can find some use in them!

Have you read my Ice Project topic? I also have an Inner Planes topic. I'll bump them for you. I apologize, but they're very disorganized (eventually I plan to encorporate them into articles, but those topics are mostly just a sourcebook reference guide and rough drafts/brainstorming)

I probably won't get much done for awhile, as I'm still trying to figure out ways to make Frigidora (Cryonax's herald) decent in terms of monster stats. There's a lot more detail given in hers and Cryonax's writeups (compared to what you would usually see in Planescape or 3x sourcebooks) as part of my goal is to give the DM as much info as possible on them for the purposes of roleplaying (very little of that info is meant to be picked up by the players)
Future projects however involve fleshing out the culture and society of the Qorrashi (ice genies from Frostburn) and the Glacier Dwarves (from the same supplement; significant colonies of them have taken permanent residence on Ice)

As for my idea of Elemental 'religion': Like with many other races, it comes in various forms. Most elementals do not worship powers in the same way that mortals and some genies do, and more often it takes the form of more of a reverence towards a power.
Another common manifestation however is a belief that the elemental plane itself is a sentient being of sorts and a provider (similar to how Gaiaists view the earth). Most such elementals wish to follow the "will" of their plane, and view at least one power or demipower (most often the elemental lords-- Kossuth, Grumbar, Akadi, and Istishia) as a physical embodiment of the plane's will. Most elementals who revere the elemental lords do not join wars of conquest unless they believe that a part of another plane was previously stolen from theirs (unfortunately, there are a lot of elementals who claim such things, so most of them do indeed engage in wars of conquest). A majority (but certainly not all) of the elemental lords' followers believe more in maintaining balance rather than expanding the power of their element.
Of course, this also means that they wish to maintain the balance and purity of their own element, and therefore are less likely to be friendly to outsiders, and will surely be hostile to creatures of their opposing element who dare enter their realm.
Others believe that one of the archomentals are the true embodiment/manifestation of the plane's will. Others still revere some other elemental-type power with influence on the Inner Planes. Some of these powers, as well as the evil archomentals, believe in expanding the power of their element.
Mephits hold prettymuch identical religious practices, except that a minority belong to cults dedicated to the mephit lords such as BwimbII and Chilimba. Most mephits however simply view them as their ruler or as an inspiration (I doubt too many magma mephits willingly accept Chilimba as their ruler, considering how cruel he is)

Also, something I have developed (haven't mentioned it here yet, it would only actually appear in my story of Frigidora should I ever get it underway) is that a lot of elementals and elemental creatures use words for their opposing element as profanities and curses, often as a substitute for "hell" (e.g. "Damn you to fire!" and "may you burn to death...!" by creatures of Ice)
Most elemental outposts have banned non-mundane forms of the opposing element. For instance, bringing a +3 flaming sword to a village or town of paraelementals on Ice is probably a good way to get killed. They are less likely to be concerned about non-magical forms of their opposing element (after all, being magical creatures, they can snuff it out quite easily, assuming it's something in a quantity small enough to be carried. Of course, they might act with hostility if someone teleports an entire lake to Fire, for instance.)

Not in the entire setting, just the Outer Planes. The Outer Planes are the only areas in which belief is meant to be such a powerful force, because they're literally made out of belief. There is no real matter in the Outer Planes, just a consensual reality formed by what people believe should be. The Inner Planes, meanwhile, are meant to be the complete opposite. They're the planes of matter and energy, of things that are solid (in concept, if not in material phase). And the Prime itself is the conjunction of the two, the place where matter meets belief, where that which solidly exists meets the potential of what could be. That's one reason why gods are so much more common on the Outer Planes than the Inner, among other things.

""I personally like the idea strong and growing ties between two planes actually causing a shift in planar orientation, but it's something that quickly breaks with canon and causes all sorts of other issues (like if it was one of the big four, what happens to the para- and quasielemental planes that formed around the moved plane?). In any case, such a change, if it's going to happen at all, should follow the direction of the game being played rather than imposed from the outside.""

Your idea works well with some of the Paraelemental Planes, but not all.
1E and 2E have established that there are strong alliances between Earth + Fire and Water + Air, but this is primarily due to the genies. Plus, in 2E, it's established that the genies use portals to jump from plane to plane to visit one another rather than cross the Paraelemental Planes (I STRONGLY suggest getting your hands on Al Qadim: Secrets of the Lamp if you can. In addition to the Planescape Inner Planes book, this details a lot about the politics of the planes; the genies are a major, major political force there, probably the 3rd most prominent force on the Elemental planes behind the Archomentals and the actual powers themselves. In fact, on some planes *Primarily Air*, the genies have far greater and more sweeping power than the Archomentals, but that's primarily due to the non-assertive natures of Chan and Yan-C-Bin *Neither one cares about their armies, and Yan-C-Bin in most sources is by far the least imposing of the Princes of Elemental Evil. Aside from killing absolutely anything that enters his realm without exceptions, he doesn't generally impose himself on other natives, or even most Planewalkers for that matter; he's just too flighty. Aside from the Cyclonic Ravagers in MM5, which contradict his nature given in other sources, the only way Yanny is likely to interfere with other creatures is if he thinks they have valuable, rare information and finds they aren't willing to part with it.)
Yet, it doesn't seem like Water + Earth and especially Fire + Air get along too well (again, this seems to be due largely to the genies. Marid and Dao don't like each other, and the Efreet and Djinn are at constant war)

Actually, on a similar subject, I've noticed that aside from Cryonax, all four of the Archomentals seem to suffer from rather debilitating quirks. Yan-C-Bin seems to suffer from ADHD/wanderlust and impatience, and maybe obssessive compulsive disorder, Ogremoch suffers from bloodlust (stonelust?), Imix is overly passionate (emotions are too strong), paranoid, and arrogant, and Olhydra suffers from obssessive compulsive disorder to the extreme and I think has anger management issues like Imix (the books really don't focus much on Olhydra's personality, not even Dragon Magazine 347, beyond that she obsesses over her hatred of Imix, and it seems like she embodies the rage of a stormy sea.) Whereas Cryonax is cold, careful, and calculating, and has a blunted emotional affect. It seems to put the other archomentals at a disadvantage compared to Cryonax, but on the other hand, it also makes them far more "interesting" characters.
This is probably due mainly to assigning them personality traits related to folk and pop-culture (wind= freedom, fire= passion/emotion, ice= numbness and cruelty, etc.)
(It is the wind= freedom aspect that is behind Yanny's and Chan's disdain for personal armies and direct combat)
Despite all I've done to flesh Cryonax out, I don't think he can ever be made quite as interesting as the other four (were they to be similarly fleshed out). I think his relationship with Frigidora (and to a much lesser extent the other genetic 'oddities' in his collection) is the only aspect I've assigned him that makes him all that interesting, since it seems slightly contradictory to his nature as a creature motivated purely by logic and utility.
I've also thought about trying to flesh out Yanny to some extent, but this, I think, might be too difficult for me as I have (due partly to a lack of the same obsession I have in regards to Cryonax) more difficulty getting into Yan-C-Bin's character. Plus, his characteristics in the canon are so contradictory (which makes for a VERY interesting character, but one which is very difficult to flesh out). On one hand, Yanny is supposed to have a logical bent and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.
On the other hand, he suffers from compulsions and flightiness (well, actually, the flightiness is his compulsion. Granted, we are talking about compulsions, which entail something that is a bit beyond self-control.)

I wouldn't make them too immune to belief, just immune on a grander scale. That is, where an Outer Planar layer can completely shift planes, you wouldn't find that on the Inner Planes. However, I'd allow for belief to still be a powerful force. After all, on planes like Air, down is where you believe it to be at any given moment.

One example, based on that. My friend and I have been designing a djinni-ruled city called Aremshah on Air. Given the subjective nature of gravity, we decided that the citizens have a collective belief or agreement on which way is down. This idea of down (possibly augmented by djinn magic) creates a sort of bubble around Aremshah that affects everything that enters it. Ships, objects, even the great waterfall in the center of Aremshah are all forcibly affected by the bubble's gravity once they enter it.

In theory it would be possible to change Aremshah's gravity, but it would require really convincing hundreds of thousands of people that their down is a lie. It would also possibly require circumventing the djinn magic.

To me that's mincing semantics a bit. Convincing oneself that a direction is down is not all that different from believing a direction is down. I realize the different terminology was probably used to show the difference between Inner Planar belief and Outer Planar belief but to me it's still vaguely a form of belief that coincides well with the Planescape-wide focus on belief.

That being said, I see your point. I do recall reading somewhere a quote along the lines of "Still think belief doesn't affect anything on the Inner Planes, berk?" I cannot remember for the life of me where I read it but I have a very vivid memory of a quote along that line. I'll have to rummage around and see what the context was before I shove my foot in my mouth

And steal away! We're actually fleshing out the city little by little and I'll probably start posting bits and pieces as blog entries on the Metamorphosis site once a week or so.

Uh, I don't think the Dao could form a permanent alliance with anything other than Efreet, and that's only because slaving and war are two peas in a pod, and because Efreet are also genies.

Here's a short list of some of the alliances and enemies of the Elemental Planes. I'm not going to list the Dao and Yakmen since that can barely be considered an alliance at all. I also won't list elemental opposites since those are a given.

ALLIES
--Efreeti and Dao
--Ice mephits and Ice paraelementals
--Lightning mephits, Lightning Quasielementals, and Shockers
--Efreet and Salamanders
I know there are others, but those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

ENEMIES
--Djinn and Efreet
--Qorrashi and Efreet
--Efreet and damned near everything else on fire (save evil elementals, salamanders, and a few other evil-aligned natives)
--Dao and everything else (save Efreeti)
--Marid and Efreet
--Djinn and Dao
--Marid and Dao
--Qorrashi and Dao
--Steam Mephits and Ice, Lightning, Mist, & Smoke mephits
--Lightning Mephits and Smoke Mephits
--Lava/Magma mephits and everyone else
--Belkers and everything else
--Facets and anything from Ice or Water
--Mineral natives and Earth natives
--Smoke creatures and Fire & Air creatures
--Menglis and anything organic or paraelemental (Menglis will be particularly hated on the Paraelemental Planes)
--Entropes and everything
--Necroelementals and everything not undead

Aberrations may be tolerated even less than Primes and outer-planar beings depending on the beliefs of the particular inner planar community/nomads/what have you. The extreme deficiency of aberrations in any of the Elemental planes (particularly in comparison to their frequency on the Outer planes) save air and to a lesser extent, water, suggests to me that these beings simply aren't tolerated by the natives, as opposed to aberrations taking zero interest in the Elemental Planes.
I guess this makes sense to some degree; there are much higher levels and much larger percentages of the lands of the Outer Planes are covered in civilization, and it also appears as though trade and travel between the Outer Planes is far more frequent than travel between Elemental planes. With increased civilization and um... planeshift traffic? comes increased dissemination of exotic and invasive species such as razorvines and cranium rats, and yes, aberrations.
In addition to that, some of the minions and even lords of the Lower Planes seem to be stupid enough to think it's a good idea to fiddle around with Farrealm lifeforms and energies (in reality Far Realm corruptions are every bit as dangerous to the fiends and their homeworlds as it is to say-- the Prime, or even Mt. Celestia and Mechanus).
The evil powers and minions of the Inner Planes thankfully don't appear to be stupid enough (except probably Blibdoolpoolp, as the Far Realm creatures are viewed in a positive light in Kuo-Toan mythology) to mess around with the stuff. The natives of Ice have even more to fear if the legends about the Sleeping Ones are true (don't want to take the risk that the presence of aberrations might awaken them)

Or they could be the sites of gate-towns used for trade and diplomacy. Elementals probably wouldn't have much use for trade with other planes, but other races, like genasi, humans, genies, azer (who need metals from other planes), dwarves, gnomes, phoelarchs, ruvoka, ormyrr, giants, and others would probably eagerly use these sites for building. Many might be built over old fortresses where some inner planar warlord formerly kept out all intruders; with time, old territorial disputes are forgotten and newer inhabitants decide they'd rather make money than war. Commercial interests might override military interests except in times of great conflict, where the gate-towns might be besieged and conquered by invading armies.