New Canon

Here's my take on it:

Firstly, we must decide where to place those parts which are chosen to be included into the Planewalker (aka Planescape 3.5e) canon. I personally think that a periodical like the Lady's Shaper Eye should be the sole repository of our official lore.

As for what should be included:

1) Official WotC 3.5e statistics as long as they make sense. Those that do not make sense in the Planescape universe, for example the pathetically weak Ultroloths and Death Slaad, and those that aren't adequately covered, such as the effects on the Quasielemental Planes, should be decided upon and made official.
2) All new monsters should be akgnowledged as long as they do not contradict some older 2e canon. Those that do should be either rewritten lore-wise or given a similarly fitting reason for their contradiction (Maruts being a good example of this).
3) New or changed planes should be, for the most part, treated as clueless ramblings unless there a fitting reason can be invented for their contradiction. This should be done particularly sparingly as planes don't go around changing all that much. The only possible one I can think of is the Plane of Shadow, and I would cast my vote against it becoming a transitive just yet (maybe during an adventure module, though).
4) Lore changes, such as Bel, should also only be kept if a decent reason is written out first, preferably in the form of a short story or adventure module. Obyriths, for instance, can be easily written in, with a few changes to their 'official' WotC lore. Bel's sudden climb to power would take some more work and particular expertise in Baatorian politics.
5) Particularly awesome fan stories (I'm looking at Shemmy's Baern series here in particular) should be checked for any possible contradictions and included as canon.
6) Any decisions, be they from WotC or fans, regarding the nature of powerful and enigmatic enteties or planar histories (e.g. Who is Asmodeus, Why is the Lady so powerful, How was the multiverse formed, What came first the chicken or the egg) should be regarded solely as theory and no one should be any more official than another.

Tell me if I missed anything.

Granted everyone has a right to their own opinion; but how can you possibly like having the greatest of the Yugoloth castes not having the greatest amount of power and being considerably weaker than Pit Fiends and Balors?

Take it to a tangent thread if you would boys
I don't mind the talk, just make it neat and orderly and *dumdumdum...* 'lawful'.

Re: Iavas and 'canon' Planewalker: Some of this has actually already been decided upon. Allow me to clarify what the purpose of the LSE is, and canon in it's role on Planewalker and it's downloads.

Recall that the PSCS is the place where we put the material that we hold under the strictest interpretations of 'canon'. That means in essence "sensible, fitting to prior versions of the setting, non-harmful to the setting as a whole, and coherant with other forms of canon". That already serves the purpose of what you were saying you wanted to see in the LSE (or at least what I think you're saying in regards to stats, planar writeups etc.) If that sort of figuring out the details is what you're looking for - that's where you want to put your efforts. We have a number of modules being developed already in light of changes to the githyanki heirarchy - we can also do some for Bel and others as well, again to bridge that gap - I'm all for that. Just get cracking in the PSCS forum. (Which I need to go over and review the current brainstorming threads over there too come to think of it.)

The LSE however is a fully *in* character newsrag - so things like stats and the like shouldn't even be mentioned - these are in game, in character sort of stories. Take a read through the last issue and you'll see what I mean. The 'canon' requirements are looser because there's an assumed editorial and authorial bias - but regardless it's *not* a good place to put things like stats or rewrites of planes because characters in the setting wouldn't really be aware of such things. There's only one 'stat' characters in Planescape have a good excuse for knowing: alignment.

The webpage is under even less strict canon requirements. The webpage hosts canon and non-canon 'what if' information. It's there to provide an outlet for submissions that just don't fit with other things and the like. There's some things that are perfectly sensible but just aren't good directions to combine with other perfectly sensible submissions, and there's somethings that are just oddball yet *good* - that's why the webpage exists, to allow all of that material to be hosted someplace. Some things - like Shemmy's storyhour go here. Why? Because there are some *serious* modifications to standard Planescape in there - and my super-powers as coding-goddess tell me that ... (ok - so I'm one of his players) the storyhour will take further liberties with the arrangement of powers, characters, and planes as the game continues making it rather ineligable for canon consideration.

Therefore in regards to canon in the LSE (back to the matter at hand) - since we're looking at it from an in character point of view, approaching new material should also be from an in character point of view. We may - out of game - mock the poor stats for certain creatures. And there's plenty of places for that - just not in the LSE. In game - in a well run game at least - the average street-tough reporter for SIGIS probably doesn't even notice. It's a non-issue, and probably not worthwhile for a story. However something that affects the *setting* - like Bel's rise? Now *that* just about screams for an investigative report. Does that make more sense now that you know that point of view for the LSE?

AAAhhhh ok. Now I see what you mean - yes, that's pretty sensible there.

There's an answer towards this in the FAQ, but I don't think folks check that out much. The PSCS is the canon - so everything in that pdf download. The webpage in general is a catch as you can sort of place.

Makes sense.

Generally I'd like to have those in the PSCS - and technically the page there *can* host articles. But for various reasons that project has lagged behind. We do have a lack of focus and writers for a goodly section of the work - as much my fault as the other editor at this point (I really need to reserve writing time for it). I want to get the basic PSCS out and then encourage side projects and modules and the very sort of updating material that you're talking about. If only I didn't have that pesky need for sleep. :-/

Probably not too mean really. Those sections do have managers - or used to - but many of our managers have slipped away to their own projects or real life. Much of the more contradictory information you're seeing is actualyl left over from the previous incarnation of the site - and there's a *LOT* of it. To the point where I was sorta hoping that some of our managers would be able to take it over and start clipping out the dead wood and growing their sections up again. I don't think any of them have the time for that so I'm currently looking at ways to do some of that myself and providing a quicker way to allow others to help with that. Watch the meta-planewalker board in the next few weeks/months - as I'm going to have a fairly large number of code changes going through to clean up the dead wood in the site and make it all a little easier to deal with. So - put this aspect of the problem on the back burner for a little bit - trust me - it's nagging at me too, so it *will* get addressed.

I should point out that my Baernaloth stories have some self-contradictions sprinkled throughout. While I've developed a loose network of mythology about the various members of the Demented, not all of it meshes with itself as a coherent canon, much like Lovecraft's mythos across his various stories and those by other folks in his circle of writers.

For instance I allude to a Ghoresh Ibn Shartalan as a third Ibn Shartalan 'sibling', but in other work I refer to Chorzin Ibn Shartalan (the Thrice Damned) as filling that spot.

Hopefully in those stories (and I still have several to finish), I can spawn ideas and plot hooks and such for others to work with as I reveal their individual personalities and bits of their history, rather than pin down the Demented in too much detail.

Also, my stories (and the pre-history of my campaign that they're loosely touching upon) were all written before the creation of the Obyriths, and Mona's detailing of the prehistory of the Abyss and such, and so contradictions are going to spring up in a few places. My notions on Pale Night and the origins of the Tanar'ri are considerably different from those of the Fiendish Codex I, though some of my ideas in the story of the Flesh Sculptor did apparently work their way into the WotC book in the notions of Pale Night as the mother of the Tanar'ri according to James and Erik.

Had I written my work after FC:I was out, I'd have done my best to integrate their work with my own (since I really like the Obyriths), so keep in mind in my stories that my early Abyss is going to be different from WotCs at this stage of the game.

They are - if the folks managing those projects can pull something coherent enough together to undergo scrutiny by the PSCS editors/me Or just - you know - something. Unfortunately like many internet projects - without an anal obsessive compulsive sitting atop them - they don't hatch quickly.

My wife wanted me to post that this is one of the best quotes she has heard on the subject of Planescape canon. "My Planescape" is a perfect way to think of it because of the power of belief inherent in the setting. Someone at TSR was doing something right when they came up with Planescape.

-420

Yes, yes, yes... all you 'old' people and your indifference to canon. I'm anal about it comparatively, I know .

In my defense, I agree with the fact that Planescape is one of the most adaptable settings for a DM to individualize. Still, even in 2e some basic groundwork was laid down. Granted, it could all be changed at the behest of the DM, but so could all settings. This one was just slightly easier to do so. I guess what I'm trying to get at is, if we're planning on continuing PS into the 3.5e with some officiality, there's going to be a need for some new canon around which DM's can later base their campaigns, including however much of it they desire. Without it, Planescape just becomes a sandbox. Believe me, I'm not suggesting writing up detailed history for every denizen of the planes, even if that were possible. Rather, I'm saying deciding which parts of WotC screed we would accept as truth while still having the setting feel like it did during 2e, which is basically what we're all so giddy about anyway. Also, given time, talent, and inspiration, it would be prudent to establish certain post Faction War events that would be considered canonical for 3.5e, which DM's could again refer to and change at their whims.

As I posted here TSR/WotC's position has always been that there is no "official canon", it is up to the DM to decide what material to use and not use.

-420

*nod* That's the intent with the Encyclopedia - as much as possible it contains published, cite referenced material. It's meant as a tool for people to use to research their games and other works. I've had at least one author send me an email thanking us for it too - he went to look up something because he didn't have the books on hand and found a lot of cross-references that he wasn't aware of throughout other books.

There's a little counter on the bottom of each entry that records how many people have looked at it since it was last edited. The popular entries have seen at least a few hundred page views.