Planar Renovation Project - the Beastlands

Good stuff. At the moment I don't have much:

I see the Beastlands as representing Innocence, tying into the pure state you were talking about. Part of this Innocence, and why it takes the form of the animal predator-prey cycle, is there are times when innocents are drawn into conflicts. Child soldiers, people raised by racist parents, etc.

To some extent these people are responsible for their actions at least when they become adults, but there is a certain amount of innocence there IMO.

There is also the reality that even in a Good Multiverse, there will be heartbreak and anger and confusion that comes from free will. There are also honorable combat and ceremonial conflicts that could result in death and suffering.

The unintentional, unavoidable, and done-without-malice harm I associate with the Beastlands.

I like your description of the three layers. I do think for some people - not necessarily those from tribal cultures - the Beastlands is the perfect paradise. Some people do enjoy the struggle against odds - why we also have Bytopia. Celestials here could actually play games with petitioners and willing PCs, contests where angels hunt them down for sport.

Naturally, no one should be permanently killed by this game.

I'm hesitant to consider the Beastlands more lawful than Arborea or Ysgard, which are, after all, populated by human cultures with organized laws and things like languages and counting. A substantial "renovation" might be to place the Beastlands as the Good plane nearest Limbo, moving the democracy-founding, mathematics-inventing Greeks to the plane nearest Elysium (more closely aligning Olympus with the Greek-derived Elysium/Hades axis, after all) and putting Ysgard at the CG pole (along with the elves, since the alfar derive from Norse myth after all). This is easy to justify: the Beastlands are the most primitive place of unspoiled nature, the perfect wilderness with the least intrusion by humankind. Instead of "The Happy Hunting Grounds," its alternate names would be Eden, Paradise, or other names for the unfallen world that existed before sin, in religions that have such concepts. It is Creation as the Creator(s) meant it to be, arising from the Good side of Limbo.

Such a plane would be boundlessly fertile and creative, with an abundance of good foods and waters for all kinds of natural creatures. It might be rich with manna, even in the form of prey creatures that submit meekly to being eaten, with every native soul instinctively able to recognize what is "real" food and what would not be good to hunt (other souls not satisfying hunger). (This makes interlopers a worrisome arrival, since they're likely to tromp around harming natives rather than eating the manna-creatures!) Alternatively -- or perhaps in different areas, corresponding to religions that have a different concept of paradise -- the lion lays down with the lamb and neither experience hunger, only play and love and other such instinctive pleasures.

Many religions -- and Believers of the Source -- often think of animals as beings in a stage of reincarnations earlier or lower than humans. In regions where this state holds, animals would expect to eventually pass through some sort of death, whether by being hunted or otherwise, so that they could return to life in a new form. Animals here might remember being in multiple forms, even previous human lives, albeit vaguely.

Seasons and day/night cycles don't bother me terribly on a very chaotic plane. In Paradise, it might just be whatever season or time of day most of the animals nearby want it to be.

It's possible that such a plane would hold various versions of different worlds' Garden of Eden inside it, which would be a very holy place of significance to major religions. Manna constructs could be valuable. This might also be the place to go for special familiars. Occasionally, incursions from Limbo might cause trouble for which offworlders could be of use. In addition to serving as the afterlife of animals, the plane might yield to an explorer some notions of animal and plant kinds that have yet to arise on the mortal worlds.

These spirits are called genius loci in Greek, or lares in Latin. I think they would make a great addition to a planewalking game in general. The genius loci is an epic SRD monster which has nothing to do with the real-world historical concept, however, so the Latin name might be preferable, though of course personified places and terrain features have been deified all over the world, from Anuket to Fujiyama. I wrote up a version of the concept for the Dark Roads & Golden Hells supplement and a summoner-style mage class to interact with them, but it didn't make the cut (turns out much simpler lares were already in an earlier supplement), so perhaps I'll post it here.

I'd double check with Wolfgang. I'm still unclear on who owns the material on the cutting room floor, though my understanding was we couldn't post it in public.

You may also want to see if you can get it posted on the KQ website. Wolfgang did say he was interested in more planar stuff for the web articles.

I'd imagine that most fiends who end up on the Beastlands end up transforming into nasty predators, as per the plane's shtick of handing out animal features to visitors. It's probably one of the ways the plane defends itself: just fold any hostiles into the natural balance of the plane.

Exploring that drive for each plane may actually be worth an entire thread by itself.

As for what occupies the people of the Beastlands...a question occurs to me: Are the petitioners of the Beastlands strictly just the animals, or are there communities of non-animal petitioners? I mean, animals are going to be doing animal things, which usually isn't a whole lot beyond eating, sleeping and pursuing mates. So by itself, the animal-petitioner paradigm doesn't really lend itself to much interest.

Nomadic groups provide for more interest, since they'll actually have some sort of culture to interact with. They'd also be involved in the hunt, whether small groups pursuing game or gathering food from the local plant-life, or larger groups that track and follow the migration of herd animals. They'd likely split their time between the hunt/foraging during the daylight hours, and drum/dance circles, group storytelling or even just stargazing during the nighttime hours.

The avariel (winged elves) are also natives of the plane iirc, so that gives us another native race to consider. I don't know much about them other than their love of flying. Also including a race like the Adu'ja would also provide something more for any visitors to interact with.

Another question I find myself asking is, why would anybody go to the Beastlands beyond the desire to hunt? The best answer I've come up with, and it touches on sciborg2's spirit journey comment: The Beastlands is the plane of omens. That ability to read the environment for cues about what the future holds. The sighting of a raven signaling trouble. A flight of doves signifying a positive event. An inopportune rainfall signifying the downfall of a great leader. I could easily see a reclusive hermit/holy person living in the thick of the plane, interpreting the signs and gaining an understanding into the goings on of the multiverse. That by itself, the pursuit of insight or information into something that might otherwise remain dark, would make the Beastlands a worthwhile place to visit.

Also, the more I consider it, the more I suspect that the seasons and the day/night cycle are malleable based on whatever mental/spiritual state a person or group is in. Winters and summers would be as mild or as bitter/hot as an individual's spiritual natures dictated. Tribal groups pursuing the hunt and whose lives are closely tied to the seasons would find they would continue moving in sync with the seasons and day/night. Animal petitioners would likely find themselves living in perpetual daylight or night, depending on their nature. Somebody in an altered state spiritual journey would find the environment changing according to whatever they and their beliefs dictated.

I don't think the plane would be specifically savage. I think it would come down to the individuals, like I mentioned above. Those who go in to the plane expecting savagery will likely find savagery. Those who go in expecting gentleness, will find gentleness. Those who go in with no expectations will likely get a full range of experiences. And, if you know what you're doing, you can interpret what you come across and maybe gain some insight into something that you've been seeking.

Fiends going into the plane might be there to pursue that insight, but expect the plane to resist their efforts. In holding that expectation though, they actually create it. And the plane is more than willing/happy to indulge them. They would find a steady stream of petitioners, animal or otherwise, looking for a fight or a way of testing themselves. There are tales of individuals on a spiritual journeys to the other world that encounter fiendish creatures and end up taking them down in some glorious spiritual metaphor. That sort of thing probably happens semi-regularly on the Beastlands.

I actually was trying to get across something that might be sorta out there:

That the Outer Planes are Platonic representations for spiritual states (which in this case is a struggle) and/or incarnations of such states occurring in the Multiverse. So the Beastlands is an incarnation of the struggle for virtue, as is Bytopia. But the latter is about the struggle toward the good via societies whereas the Beastlands represents that struggle in varied individuals. Hence it's being tinged with a bit of Chaos.

This is why an Upper Plane can be so wild and dangerous. It isn't a Paradise, or a "Heaven", but the Goodness of it allows it and the other Upper Planes to be considered as such.

That said, I'm a bit wary of tying in Innocence to remaining, for an easy term, "human". I do think that evil beings should perhaps feel consumed, possibly transformed, and thrown into perilous situations, but these tribulations should ideally - in conjunction with the excellent subjective foreshadowing and omen ideas - provide a picaresque that ideally changes an evil being's soul.

What about the Beastland Sky and Underdark? Not to mention it's oceans, and potential landscape of things like giant mushroom forests and massive honeycombs.

There should, IMO, also be a fey presence as well as some understanding about how the celestial races work with the animal lords and possibly even the mortai.

Mortai, after all, could be collections of souls that work in concert.

I’ve always had kind of a problem with how the chaotic Upper Planes are organized. Of the three, the Beastlands, Arborea, and Ysgard, which is the most chaotic, and which is the most good? I’d say Arborea and Ysgard are both equally chaotic, and depending on how one wants to argue, the Beastlands might be even more chaotic (no cities, no laws), or not chaotic at all (acting on instinct is true neutral). None of the three seems especially good-- I mean, they’re not evil, but they’re not capital-G Good in the way that the other Upper Planes are good, or good to the degree which the Lower Planes are evil. I like Arborea and Ysgard, and I like the concept of the Beastlands, but I feel like all three were kind of shoehorned into the Great Wheel.

Which might be rather appropriate, actually.

When I think of Sylvania, I think of taverns and gardens, parks and manors, orchards and barns, all sprawling through the woods, rambling along the roads of the Outlands, running through, to use the popular jargon, unincorporated townships and satellite farming communities-- little villages that think of themselves as just another neighbourhood in Greater Sylvania. Faunel’s a ruin, and Glorium’s barely more than a lighthouse for the ships bound to and from Ysgard-- they’re places for people passing through, or places for people who want to stop living like people. The lands around are fertile and populous, and no one worries about borders drawn on a map, about sitting on the shiniest throne in the tallest tower with the sturdiest walls.

I’m rambling, but the idea which is occurring to me is that the chaotic good planes might actually be well on their way to uniting. The borders have always been blurry-- some of the old maps take it for granted that a party will walk from Arvandor through Tir Na nOg onto Brux and then back into Arborea, because that’s the shortest route. Maybe, some say, the borders never used to exist at all, and it’s the imposition of Law that created these divisions, long ago. As the planes begin to overlap, perhaps it’s a sign that freedom and equality are gaining ground across the multiverse.

Of course, fundamentally altering the nature of the Great Wheel was never going to sit well with everyone, particularly the powers of Law. It’s bad enough that Ysgard is already riddled with conduits to the Inner Planes, that you can dive off earthmotes in certain parts of the plane and splash into the mire of Limbo. It’s probably always annoyed the archons, the way that the elves, the eladrin, have freely mingled among the mortals of the Prime. More unsettling, however, is the recent manner in which the Beastlands’ border with Elysium has started to….relax. Ferocious wild beasts roaming the land of eternal rest? The powers and their petitioners are not pleased. So far, it’s only been a few isolated incidents. So far.

The guardinals, naturally, are up in arms. Not least out of concern that their secrets on Elysium’s sealed bottom layer of Belierin might be discovered.

…

Speaking of guardinals, as a planar race for the Beastlands, the animal-headed celestials might work well as a stopgap measure. They’re not native, and they don’t really fit the plane’s ethos… which is just the kind of awkward fit that I feel is characteristic of Planescape. Besides, the Beastlands have a unique petitioner ‘race’, as do Ysgard and Acheron. Although admittedly Ysgard also has einheriar, the giants, and (to a degree) bariaurs, and Acheron has goblins, orcs, and bladelings. Still, hengeyokai and shifters are a good start.

Anyway, the guardinals could still be an interesting addition. They might claim that they’re present on Beastlands to protect it. The local petitioners didn’t ask for Elysium’s help, and they don’t want it. The guardinals contend that they aren’t colonizing or occupying the Beastlands, that they don’t want to alter its character or make it more like Elysium-- that they are only concerned that someone else will. They’re here to observe, to keep watch, nothing more.

There’d be a rumour making the rounds in Sigil, that the guardinals are trying to gain a foothold in another plane, pursuing power and territory in order to achieve a level of symmetry in their ideological cold war with the yugoloths. Many people assume out of hand that this rumour was started by the yugoloths, but no one is really sure.

This is a relatively minor conflict, but importantly, it’s an interplanar conflict, and that’s something I think was missing from most of the planes that were in need of renovation. It’s also a conflict between good and good, and in this case neutral good and neutral good. We don’t really see enough of those. There are reasons why the archons and the eladrin don’t get along. Mythologically speaking, asuras and devas absolutely despise each other. Guardinals should be something more than just animal-people with good intentions, but like their diametric opposition the yugoloths, I feel like their approach to promoting good should be indirect. If the yugoloths are unctuous facilitators who are thoroughly untrustworthy, the guardinals are overbearing meddlers who can be relied upon absolutely. They’ll do the right thing, and they’ll get you to do the right thing, whether you want to or not. And that’s probably the comfort zone for a lot of Beastlands petitioners. They’ll do the right thing… eventually. Given extensive prodding. Or the right push.

Guardinal scouts and spies might be the early warning system that gets outsiders (adventurers, archons, et cetera) involved in matters that might not otherwise concern them, or remote squabbles on distant parts of the planes that they’d otherwise have no way of knowing about.

…

That’s a lot of talk about other planes for a thread that’s about the Beastlands, isn’t it? But I feel like that’s where a lot of the planes’ definition comes from, in terms of what they oppose, what they stand against. Baator is evocative owing to the sheer weight of lore it can draw upon, but it’s also interesting as an inverted column of fallen angels, led by the best of them, now staffing a war machine with the damned to hold back an endless tide of chaos. Elysium holds all that is good in the world; the Gray Waste withers for the lack of it. Mechanus and Limbo are so foreign to one another that they can barely interact. But what about the Beastlands? Gehenna might be an appalling, unlivable wasteland, and maybe an industrialized yugoloth army (the Crawling City, anyone?) could provide a good counterpoint to life as nature intended it. But I really feel like it could be the Abyss that is most threatening to all that the Beastlands stand for.

The Abyss could draw more substantially on real-world demon lore than it does, but I think as written it goes out of its way to show how anything can be corrupted, to show evil and chaos endless in its variety, creatures which eschew morals and lack even an instinctive knowledge of the natural order. A demon can’t be sated. It doesn’t fight for territory or a mate. Indeed, what it hungers for is the fight itself, and it takes mates and conquers territory to fight, and ultimately destroy all that it can possess.

And maybe that’s why the tanar’ri are the worst threat to the Beastlands. The Beastlands don’t have anything that the baatezu or yugoloth particularly want, and to most of other planes, they’re virtually uninhabited, but to the tanar’ri, they’re just a well-stocked pantry.

It could be that the Beastlands lack any natural defense against creatures from the Abyss. I have this pet theory that, while incursions from the Far Realm are so abominable that reality itself rebels against them and expels/repels the invaders, demons are not, per se, unnatural. Rather, they are living creatures, twisted in mind and body by magic and simple suffering. They are supernaturally evil, yes, but they are still flesh and spirit bound together, without the flicker of fallen divinity that marks most other fiends (except yugoloths, but they probably bear some traces of necromancy and arcane artifice around their husks).

Demons are not so readily banished on a plane where primal magic, rather than divine, rules the day. For that matter, if summoning spells only summon creatures from elsewhere on the Beastlands, maybe demons are only banished elsewhere on the plane as well. And I could see how turning a demon into Somebody Else’s Problem wouldn’t really be acceptable to the plane’s goodhearted petitioners.

So when a demon rampages through the wilderness of the Beastlands, it’s a matter of grave significance, and frequently many animal petitioners’ lives will be spent in slaying the threat, unless it should happen to stray into the realm of a god.

Yes, this is partly inspired by Princess Mononoke. Admittedly, possession by liquefied demodands is closer to the source, as you've said, but I feel like the demodands themselves are motivated by a certain pettiness. The demons are closer to nature, and because of that, a greater perversion of it.

…

Part of me feels like humanoids don’t really belong in the Beastlands. Those that live here might live as hermits, or at most as couples or small family groups, never anything big enough to constitute a tribe, not all in one place. I know some already exist, canonically (Signpost, Triberove), but in the grand scheme of the Beastlands, these are passing oddities. I do like the idea of talking plants, however. Not treants, although there could be some of those, but trees and stones and clouds and waves, given voice by the plane itself. There are no real cities on the Beastlands (just small towns, and damn few, including the realms of the Beastland powers), but it can be one of the most crowded of planes, once provoked.

The sites listed in Planes of Conflict seem like they could have been on any plane. I’d kind of like to see some more sites and characters who could only really exist in the Beastlands. I’m still pondering right now, although in the interests of generating further conflicts for the Beastlands, I had an idea for a wolf petitioner who’s assembling an empire of wolves, a Pack of Packs, in the northern tundra. No weapons, no fortifications, just numbers and chutzpah, using the same charisma and tactical genius that served him in life. This really rubs some of the Animal Lords the wrong way. The Wolf Emperor isn’t doing anything outright evil, but he’s not acting like a wolf.

Is there a description of Coyote and Raven’s realms anywhere?

I've never really found a third axis for the Outer Planes that I really liked. All the good ones seem to be handled: law-chaos-good-evil in the Outer Planes, life-death-and-the-four-elements in the Inner Planes, and the Prime Material sandwiched between the two to act as an axis for mind-matter-synthesis.

Anyway, the rest of this post is going to contain some screwy, academically unsound conjecture, based purely on what I think makes for a good story. Disclaimer over.

There’s some parallel mythology at work with the trickster spirits of the Beastlands which I find especially interesting. In a tale of Coyote, the trickster impersonates the creator, and makes mankind out of clay. One story of Raven has him stealing fire from the gods and giving it to mortals. The theft of fire and the creation of man are of course the famous accomplishments attributed to Prometheus, the friendly titan-- who, it is not well-known, had a brother called Epimetheus (“afterthought”, literally ‘after-thinker’). Bear with me, now. Prometheus (“foresight”) was supposedly a great genius; Epimetheus was a fool. Meanwhile, both Raven and Coyote can be enormously clever-- and at the same time, their own schemes often get the better of them. As befitting of benefactors to mankind, they are fallible, capable of good and evil.

I’m not saying that the titans and the tricksters are one and the same-- not exactly. That’s for you and your campaign to decide. It could very well be the case. What I *am* saying is that cycles and archetypes are the building blocks of the Outer Planes, and as the Rule of Three dictates, if it can happen once, it might happen again, but if it happens twice, everyone needs to be on the lookout for the third time. I suppose we’re also talking about the Unity of Rings, now, as well.

Maybe Raven and Coyote predate the cosmos as we know it, and the titan siblings were merely unwittingly playing out their version of the legend. Maybe Raven and Coyote stole Prometheus’s thunder (and fire), independently or in cahoots, on burgeoning prime worlds outside the original titans’ influence. It’s almost impossible to say, because on the Outer Planes, time is relative and belief informs reality, and everything is subject to the gods’ whims. History really is written by the victors, not to mention the Dungeon Master. For my own part, I like the idea of different beliefs creating different gods, even molding new avatars out of the Elder, so to speak.

One possible role for the Beastlands is as a storehouse for archetypes-- not just the Animal Lords, but the definitive article (self-proclaimed, anyway) of everything that can be found in nature, using the premise of the Beastlands as the First World. Some simply have less power, because while all animals instinctively emulate their Animal Lord patron (cats for the Cat Lord, corvids for Raven-- skulls for the skull throne…), sapient creatures are much more fractious. A Dwarf Lord or Elf Lord is almost possible, and indeed, Moradin and Corellon might have arisen as just that; a Human Lord or Tiefling Lord is a concept not easily imagined, not consistently.

Those who suspect the truth, that the Beastlands are the mold for countless worlds, would be understandably protective of it. I would be inclined to move Gaia here from the Outlands (I tend to view the Outlands as the ultimate crossroads, a place whose neutrality is tension in all directions, a place that exists out of the needs of others rather than being the source of anything). And if the Beastlands are a living thing, I might simply have them be Gaia herself, with conflict arising from the presence of all her children squabbling around and on top of her, even as she suffers constant entreaties and interruptions from distant relations seeking her wisdom.

...
 
More free-association based on multiple interpretations of different myths:

Raven stole fire from the Sky-Father; Prometheus stole fire from Zeus. Admittedly, Prometheus did it out of concern for the people he’d created, while Raven gave fire to the world more or less by accident. But what if the Sky-Father Raven stole fire from is Uranus, or some other primordial sky-being who fathered multiple subsequent pantheons? Uranus was the father of the Titans, and was usurped by his son Cronus; likewise, Cronus’s son overthrows his father, only to withhold fire from the world, like Uranus before him.

One possible moral to take away from this: there are certain things which cannot be owned-- they belong to everybody. That might be a theme of the Beastlands, and part of what makes them more chaotic: the idea that while there is a natural order, a right thing to do, ownership is a lie, or maybe just a sin. You can possess a thing, you can inhabit a place, but they have a spirit of their own. If you don’t need something, you shouldn’t hold onto it. There’s altruism, up to a point, but there’s also a desire to be left alone. Creatures don’t come into this world owing anybody anything.

…

In another case of parallel mythology (you might have to squint a little), Zeus gave Pandora her famous box, and sent her down to meet all the little people Prometheus had created. In some tellings, it was Epimetheus who decided that they should open the box, in spite of knowing who sent it, and over his brother’s protests.

Elsewhere, way back when, the Great Spirit handed out gifts to all the First People in cedar boxes, each of which contained the makings of a world: water, mountains, wind, seeds. The First People were archetypal animals (the first Animal Lords?), and a covetous Seagull kept his box, which held all the light in the world, all to himself. The world lay in darkness until Raven was asked to intervene, in his own special way. Raven, unable to cajole, flatter, or bluff Seagull into giving up the box, wished for a thorn to appear in the other bird’s path. It did. Then, in the guise of offering to help remove the thorn, Raven took the opportunity to push the thorn deeper and deeper into Seagull’s foot until, crying out in pain, Seagull dropped the box, and out popped the moon and sun.

So Raven, acting out of his own interests, gives the world light. Epimetheus, with the best of intentions, unleashes darkness on the multiverse. The multiverse is full of little ironies. The moral I leave up to you.

If the Beastlands were the First World, then there could well be a lot of history here that not many people know, or which they try to hide. Maybe sun gods like Ra, Pelor, and Amaunator like to claim that history and existence emanate out from them, but it’s actually a failing, and they simply refuse to believe in a state of existence without time or light or life; without the sun gods themselves, in other words.

And maybe the story of Pandora’s box is a cyclical tale about the release of evil into the world. There could have been another cedar box, this one containing famine and pestilence and war-- the first daemons, the yugoloths. They might have been invisible spirits then, the first disease, or they might have been a cloud of locusts, the first vermin. Whatever they were, the Beastlands would be that part of the First World which was preserved against the spread of the original evil-- the first quarantine. Perhaps the box of evil was a box that was never intended to be opened, or else a trick played by the baernoloths, creation’s first biological weapon. Or, and I rather like this idea, the joke was on the baernoloths as well: back before good and evil, when there was only order and chaos, there was a box, metaphorical or otherwise, left over from a previous creation. The race that would become the baernoloths discovered it, and were infected by evil. To a race which had no concept of evil, the spread of evil might act very much like a disease.

We’re getting into chicken-and-egg territory, again. Ah, the unity of rings…

Mine was Static versus Active: I never used it in a game, but I suggested it a couple of different ways on the boards here. You still have good, evil, law and chaos, but the inhabitants differ on whether these goals are to be pursued through vigorous activity, or merely exemplified as part of their inevitability.

You could split some of the interstitial planes by layers. For instance, Pandemonium splits into Chaotic Neutral Active and Chaotic Neutral Static, with the upper two windy layers becoming Active and the lower two labyrinthine and imprisonment layers becoming Static; the upper two are madness as howling wildness, while the lower two are chaos as formless entropy and absence of purpose. Acheron splits into Lawful Evil Active (first and third layers), representing imperial aggression in its most violent form, and Lawful Evil Static (second and fourth), representing tyranny at its most iron-fisted absolute. Et cetera around the planes.

Another way to go is simply to rearrange planes; have the Beastlands be Good Neutral Static, nature unformed and pristine, the edenic paradise, while Bytopia becomes Good Neutral Active, the plane of purpose and craftsmanship, etc. This way requires two new planes; you could either promote the Positive and Negative to the status of moral planes at the Active and Static poles, or you could produce new planes of Yin and Yang, or the Primum Mobile and Nirvana.

Re Guardinals... its probably worth keeping in mind that the Beastlands Guardinals are quite different from the ones on the Blessed Fields. The Book of Exalted Deeds establishes that Guardinals here are characteristically much more primal and animalistic, both in form and behavior.
Beastlands Guardinals are mostly quadrupedal (except obviously the Avorals there), and are seemingly more like intelligent Celestial animals with magic powers.

So yeah, pretty much what Sciborg said. I think there could be some entities, like Gaia, the Sky-Father, and the Animal Lords, who aren’t powers but are instead primeval archetypes. They don’t require belief to exist, and they can’t be permanently destroyed. They aren’t necessarily the creators themselves, but it’s in their image that the creatures of the multiverse were created.

Archetypes could be among the few beings that exist a priori, before creation, and in some cases before light, time, or the earth itself are supposed to have existed. In the Raven creation myths, he’s always finding things or stealing them, never making them. The Great Spirit doesn’t come down and make the world, but rather gives out boxes containing things that will be used to fill the world, but clearly there are already spirits dwelling in it already.

An idea I like is that the first god of the sun (cranky old Amaunator, giver of light, keeper of law, who I conflate with Amun/Aten/Ra), assuming in his arrogance that he was the first power to exist, demanded beginnings and endings to beings which had previously had none. He thus created mortality, old age, and linear time (none of which would apply to him), and then distanced himself from the ‘lesser beings’. He would later arrive in the part of the Outer Planes which would become Arcadia, where the extremely lawful Egyptian Pantheon sprung up around him, founding the great planar city of Heliopolis.

But what Ra might like us to forget is that he actually started out as Khepri, the Scarab Lord-- making him just a glorified dung beetle, in other words.

Or not. Not everyone will share my irreverence for Amaunator (poor Lathander…). Still, I like the idea of the Beastlands being this place where a lot of pantheons don’t talk about and don’t go-- since they usually haven’t in the published books, why not run with that and have there be a long-standing reason why?

Certainly there’s been ample awkwardness between the Olympians and the Beastlands. Gaia loves all her children, and can’t forgive Zeus for imprisoning the titans-- even after Cronus did the same to her other children. Athena is not well-liked by Anansi after what happened between the goddess and Arachne. Coyote has offended Artemis repeatedly with his lasciviousness. In fact, the majority of pantheons are too civilized for the Beastlands just by virtue of being pantheons, and the Olympians really put civilization on a pedestal. The only Greek power who might be welcome on the Beastlands at all is probably Pan.

...

So we could have multiple versions of the tricksters, trying to find a different one for each of the Native American Nations, but I kind of prefer the idea that the stories are all true, for a given definition of true, and the tricksters are just that flawed and changeable. Whether they are perceived as good or evil, clever or stupid, it’s all just perspective. So here’s my take on it:

The realms of the immortal tricksters tend to follow them as they wander. Raven and Coyote are forever trying to one-up each other, and their ongoing prank war has had thousands of years to escalate. Their tricks can be deadly, to outsiders as well as themselves, though neither one ever stays dead for long. Outsiders who happen to stray into the crossfire are usually not so lucky-- though the adventurers may find themselves brought back to life by a curious Raven or a plotting Coyote. Fortunately their rivalry largely occupies them on the various layers of the Beastlands, usually only one during any given decade or so.

Raven (N). A powerful shapeshifter, Raven nonetheless spends most of his time in the form of an ordinary, solitary black raven. In human form, even though he can look like anyone he likes, he rarely puts any effort into disguising himself, and he is often encountered in the shape of a small man who appears to be forever standing in shadows. On closer inspection, however, his clothes, his skin, his eyes, and even his teeth and tongue are simply black-- not an impressive, consuming black, either, but a drab, somewhat dirty black. As an animal lord, Raven doesn’t actively cultivate worship. He doesn’t have anyone to impress.

Despite his rather childish temperament, Raven actually possesses an intellect that is the envy of many gods, yet he is driven to only one end: a cure for boredom. Raven masters arcane magic with the greatest of ease, but soon forgets whatever spells he learns out of a lack of interest. Constantly stealing and conniving others out of however much or little they might possess, Raven has left a collection of magic items to rival the vaults of Baator, left scattered about the Beastlands in hollow logs and holes in the ground. He may know countless secrets of portals, planes, and powers, but cajoling him into remembering anything is another matter entirely.

Raven does have a soft spot for humans, particularly those descended from certain tribes, which he is able to sense upon meeting a person. He considers himself their patron, of sorts, having discovered them on the inside of a clamshell and a kyton (the mollusk, not the fiend) on the beach in the primordial epoch. They piqued his interest sufficiently that he eventually decided not to simply put them back in their respective shells, and have since colonized the multiverse. Raven likes to take credit for all that they’ve achieved since then.

Coyote (CN). Coyote has many forms, though not so many as Raven. But where Coyote lacks the formidable magic of his rival, he makes up for it in an impressive physicality. His nose can scent through illusions, and his reflexes border on the precognitive. He is sneaky enough to hide in plain sight, or to vanish when one isn’t looking, and reappear in a place where he could not possibly be. Usually appearing as a dusty brown coyote, a strappingly handsome human man, or something between the two, vain Coyote likes to cut a dashing figure. Raven is quite cosmopolitan and may be seen outside the Beastlands. He dresses flatteringly, and pays attention to local fashions. While in human form, he often neglects to change his eyes, ears, and tail.

Charming, capricious, dramatic, fickle, and moody, Coyote is a study in contradictions. Everything is a joke to Coyote, but his comedy rarely translates well, skewing toward bizarre, abstract, vulgar, and occasionally gruesome subject matter. He can be sentimental and kind, even heroic when sufficiently moved by another’s plight. He can also be callous and cruel, sometimes without meaning to be, as he is single-minded in getting what he wants-- which changes constantly. He may burst out laughing at grievous insults, but react violently to imagined slights. He flirts outrageously, and declares his eternal love at the drop of a hat. He can be generous, but he also simply takes anything he wants. He offends the gods with his irreverence, but is incensed when others, mortal and immortal alike, do not show him the proper respect, and is subsequently annoyed when they are too formal.

Coyote doesn’t want followers to emulate him. He wants to be unique. He likes being the centre of attention, and he likes an appreciative audience who showers him with praise and presents, and who are maybe a little afraid of him. His blessing is sought by rogues, rangers, bards, and anyone else who relies on stealth or luck to succeed, as well as those who simply believe it is better to be on the safe side, and that it’s better to have Coyote on their side than the alternative.

That sounds like the Aztec creation myth of the Five Suns: Each of the five worlds was created by the four Tezcatlipocas, sons of the all-encompassing creator god Ometeotl, a god of opposites who was both male and female, light and darkness, evil and good, and so on. (I like the concept of Ometeotl-- I feel like there's some planar race dedicated to this kind of duality somewhere in D&D, but I can't remember what they are.)

In the course of creating each world, a god (not necessarily one of the principal four) must be sacrificed to become the sun. As they are gods (or archetypal beings), they are not destroyed by the sacrifice, but transformed, transcended, which fits in with the whole storehouse-of-archetypes concept (as well as the Beastlands as a beginning point for cycles, if we go with that).

Inevitably, each world was destroyed by cataclysm, and the four gods create a new one. Supposedly, the world we live in is the Fifth and final Sun: one sun for each of the cardinal directions, and a fifth for the sacred Centre.

As a side note, before there was a sun, the gods united to war against the Earth Crocodile, Cipactli, a beast the size of a continent with a gaping maw at each of her joints. When she was killed (or at least subdued), she became the land, floating in the primordial waters. One thinks that this Earth Crocodile might be an archomental/primordial, animal lord, or both. I'm not sure if this made it into D&D elsewhere, but I have this image of great gaping craters scattered throughout the Prime which are really the maws of the half-slumbering Cipactli.

The Aztecs equated the hungry earth with destruction and the grave. Earth gods in Aztec mythology tend to be among the most violent and bloodthirsty.

At any rate, here are the five Suns:

Jaguar Sun- An age of giants, whose Sun was the Black Tezcatlipoca (known simply as Tezcatlipoca), god of the North, of earth, night, and strife. This world was incomplete, an empty age of cold and darkness, either because of Tezcatlipoca's status as god of night or because he had lost a foot in the battle against the Earth Crocodile.

The Jaguar Sun ended after Quetzalcoatl, the White Tezcatlipoca, god of the West and of light and mercy, forcibly removed his brother from the sun, which plunged the world into utter darkness. Enraged, the Black took on the form of a great jaguar and destroyed the world-- or possibly commanded all the jaguars of the world to destroy it for him, depending on the telling.

Wind Sun- The Sun of this age was the White Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, also a god of wind and sorcery. It is described as an age in which the people grew distant from the gods and regressed to savagery. But it seems like there's room for a Tower of Babel story, here-- I seem to remember some mention of legendary cities lost to time in Aztec lore. So using Quetzalcoatl' gifts of sorcery, a mighty civilization rose, but in their hubris, the people grew to venerate reason, science, and arcane sorcery over the divine, all culminating in the destruction of their civilization and a brutal, postapocalyptic regression-- maybe sufficiently advanced magic/science along the lines of Oerth's Invoked Devastation and Rain of Colourless Fire, Expedition to Barrier Peaks, or maybe the fall of Atlantis.

The Wind Sun ended when the Black turned the faithless people of the world into monkeys (de-evolved them, maybe, if that's not getting too sci-fi). Quetzalcoatl, perhaps still fond of the flawed people even as they had turned away from him, sent his winds to scour the age clean-- whether out of disgust or pity, it's not necessarily clear.

Being turned into monkeys is loosely reminiscent of the survivors of Babel losing the ability to understand each other, too, which I like.

Incidentally, the other two Tezcatlipocas are Huitzilopochtli, the warlike Blue god of the South, and Xipe Totec, the Red god of death, rebirth, and the East. Huitzilopochtli is sometimes said to be the Fifth Sun, but it's not consistent.

Fire Sun- The next Sun was Tlaloc, a powerful god of rain, fertility, and storms. He was seemingly a good choice, until the Black Tezcatlipoca stole and seduced his wife, the goddess of flowers. Shattered by grief, Tlaloc withheld his blessings from the world, resulting in an age of drought and famine. Tlaloc refuses to answer the people's prayers. None of the other gods, it seems, saw fit to intervene.

The Fire Sun ended when Tlaloc gave the people the rain they were clamouring for-- a rain of fire which reduced the world to a cinder. As Tlaloc was a god of storms, this might be as much a torrential downpour and series of lightning strikes that ignited wildfires throughout the parched earth. The few survivors of this world become birds-- perhaps sheltering in cities high in the upper atmosphere, built among clouds which are never allowed to rain.

The next age began when Tlaloc found a new wife, so perhaps the destruction of this sad, neglected world came about out of the inattentiveness of new love. Who knows?

Water Sun- Tlaloc's new wife, Chalchiuhtlicue, a mother goddess, becomes the new Sun. With a loving sun to watch over the world, this should be an age of peace and plenty. Unfortunately, it doesn't last. This is the world that ends in flood, as Chalchiuhtlicue is driven to tears, though the cause is uncertain: whether it was a wedge driven between her and Tlaloc, or some armour-piercing question posed by Tezcatlipoca, Chalchiuhtlicue weeps continuously throughout the age. The world fills with tears stained with the goddess's blood.

I'm picturing a world of shrinking islands, as the seas grow deeper and deeper over hundreds of years. The people of this world grow to see it as a prison, and consider it a blessing when they are transformed into fish when the Water Sun finally ends.

Fifth Sun- The Earthquake Sun, and the present age. The Sun is humble, infirm god Nanahuatzin, while the Moon is Tlaloc and Chalchiuhtlicue's son Teccizetatl, who was not brave enough to enter the fires of sacrifice until Nanahuatzin led the way. The people of this age were created from the bones of the dead, stolen by Quetzalcoatl from the underworld of Mictlan-- possibly analogous to the current interchange of souls to and from the Outer Planes and the Prime Material.

It is foretold that this age is the last, and will end in earthquakes-- possibly as Cipactli wakes up, or maybe in vengeance from Mictlantecuhtli for Quetzalcoatl's theft of the dead. Meanwhile, the Aztecs' sacrifices of blood are intended to feed the sun with blood, as the sun's light is the only thing which can keep the end of the world at bay. War and sacrifice are a necessity, in service of a noble cause.

...

I think the idea that the Aztec Pantheon discarded its experiments in the Beastlands is highly fitting. Creatures who venerated the gods, but were later abandoned, through no fault of their own? What better heaven than a pristine world where you were accepted, with no demands placed on you but to live humbly and well?

Also, does anyone else think the chichimec is a creature that really looks like something you'd fight on the Beastlands? Or during the Fire Sun. Interestingly, in an alternate version of the myth, Quetzalcoatl is born to Coatlicue after a ball of feathers 'falls on her' while she is sweeping out a temple. She subsequently gives birth to the Feathered Serpent. Later, when her elder daughter (the sorceress Coyolxauhqui) and sons ('the Four Hundred Stars/Southerners') become suspicious, they attempt to murder Coatlicue-- at which point she gives birth to Huitzilopochtli, who springs forth fully formed and in full armour (a la Athena), and kills them all.

If that wasn't awesome enough, Coatlicue also lives on after having her head cut off (or possibly just in half), whereupon the wound heals into two serpents.

...

The idea of the flower wars, whether or not they were historical fact, are awesome fodder for Planescape. The idea that the Aztecs refrained from conquering enemy nations just so that they could continue fighting them and sacrificing them? Sounds very Acheronian to me. Imagine jaguar-headed rakshasa, leading legions petitioners in endless battle, worshipping Huitzilopochtli on a huge stone cube covered in stepped pyramids...