Planar Renovation Project: Bytopia

To be honest, I think Bytopia's largely okay.   Regarding the conflict problem: bear in mind that the Upper Planes are not meant to be places of travail.  Bytopia is meant to be a place where someone whose greatest happiness came from achievement in craft or labor can pursue that happiness.  With that in mind, here are a few suggestions for emphasis you might find useful.

In regards to adventurers not being wanted, I would simply interpret this more in line with the theme of honest industry that runs through the plane.  Purposeless wanderers and vagrants aren't wanted; armed mercenaries seeking any soldier-of-fortune employment or monster-slaying tasks around aren't needed.  The plane doesn't have that many monsters, and doesn't encourage armed conflict -- while mercs find it economically useful to fan tensions.  The natives like to resolve things without force of arms when possible.  You're perfectly welcome to come, on the other hand, if you are hired and under employment, or pursuing a definite objective.

Emphasize this by giving the plane a travel effect somewhat similar to Elysium's traveler's travail: travel on Bytopia requires a purpose.  The clearer your purpose, the faster you will get to your destination.  People who travel without a specific destination in mind rapidly get hopelessly lost.  "Explore new territory" is a perfectly good purpose of travel, but you should know where on the map you're headed and what you plan to do with the information.

Whereas the Beastlands are eternally wild, I would recommend emphasizing the nature of Shurrock as the eternal frontier.  It's just as big as Dothion, but much more wide open: whenever any area of it becomes thickly settled or sufficiently tamed, the region switches sides and joins the pastoral splendor of Dothion, expanding it on the edges.  The area in Shurrock is replaced by uninhabited wilderness, and Shurrock expands to match the size of Dothion.  Thus, the plane itself expands when settlers successfully explore and colonize new territory.  Vice versa, if an area in Dothion becomes depopulated or backward in development, it may switch back to Dothion, replacing a large uninhabited area and shrinking both planes to match.  The natives aren't generally thrilled with this happening, and so they are carefully custodial of their open spaces, making sure they are managed rather than wild.

An important area of Bytopia is little expanded in the core books, and might give you a chance to do a great deal that adventurers would enjoy, without making almost any changes at all in the canon material:

"Golden Hills... Pastoral Splendor... yeah, I've heard of them.  They're charming.  And most bashers don't look any further than that -- that's surface dwellers for you, never bothering to look past the outside.  No wonder gnomes are so good with illusions; when you live underground, it's easy to fool people concerned with surfaces.

"See, the real Bytopia is a lot bigger than the two sides you folks see up there.  The real Bytopia: it's underground.  The gnomes know it, and they protect it.  There are dwarves there, too, deep dwarves not even other dwarves talk about so much.  I've seen an ocean warmed by volcanic vents, dark as pitch but thick with life.  I've seen an underground town of kobold petitioners what turned to good ways in their lives.  You think they're going to poke their noses above ground?  Not very often, believe me.  They know there are too many bashers that'll cut down a kobold before asking what he's doing.  But some of that leatherwork you just bought from a gnome trader might have come from the tannery of a kobold craftmaster.

"Some people think there are monsters here.  Well, there are natural animals what like the dark.  And Urdlen ain't the only deep god down here.  But the deep gods on Bytopia, see, for the petitioners they're part of the natural way of things.  Greed is there, gnawing away under the surface, to be acknowledged but transcended.  The petitioners just know how it is, and they know their state of existence protects them somehow.  I don't fully understand it, but they do.  It's you lot, mortals come traipsing around in the lands of the blessed dead, what have more to fear from the chthonic powers.  For you, them and their servants are monsters, and you ain't one of the protected souls, so if you come down here, watch yourself.

"For a basher that can keep the secrets of the underground, there are reasons to come here, sure enough.  There are portals down here to the Prime, to the planes of Earth and Mineral and Dust, and even a few to places like the Abyss and Pandemonium thanks to some of them deep gods.  If you know exactly where you're headed -- and believe me, on Bytopia you always want to know exactly where you're headed -- the Core can make a good way to get there on some of them planes, maybe skipping past the gate-towns if you've a mind, or giving the laugh to some dao.  You can even get to Shurrock -- go down far enough, and you'll find you're going up, just like climbing far enough.  For the creatures down here, Bytopia's Twin Paradises 're just the two different sides of the Core.  If you look past the surface."

That sounds like a good direction. Those were mainly my thoughts on the matter - Dothion is for the craftsman, Shurrock is for the resource-gatherers. On the surface the best internal conflict I see comes from things like guild misinteractions, arguments over mining rights, that sort of thing. I feel like there should be more, though, so if I come up with anything I'll be sure to let you know.

I like the idea of the Wilders trying to de-civilize portions of Dothion. However, I'd need to be sold more on the idea of making it a layer-spanning city. There are a couple of those already on the Planes: Sigil, for one, and Dis in Baator. Urbia and suburbia really seem more like Arcadian themes to me. Suburbia's also a fairly modern concept. So, what would make it different?

When I think of Bytopia, I think of a very American sort of plane. Shurrock has a vivid image from that timeframe: the Old West, with far-flung small towns like Dodge City, San Francisco, Tulsa, and El Paso. It's a good plane for the afterlives of nomadic and semi-nomadic cultures like pre-Islamic Bedouins, African San and !Kung, and American Plains Indians. (The Beastlands were originally named the Happy Hunting Grounds, but TSR moved away from that stereotype right quick, and well they should.)  This goes along with what was previously pointed out: folks on Shurrock would be frontiersmen.  They'd have a strong individualistic streak.  Shurrock is the West before barbed wire: cattle drives, gold rushes, wildcatters, settlers who just want some land to farm and privacy to think in, getting passed by nomadic herdsmen moving to more open spaces as the regions get settled, and fur trappers and hunters following the game.  Arborea is said to be the breadbasket of the planes, but since you can't hunt the Beastlands very well perhaps Bytopia is its dairy and its tannery, the source of the best meats, cheeses, fur, and leathers (the latter, of course, being processed into luxury items on Dothion).

Given the time frame, and Bytopia's characterization as a craft center, you have Dothion functioning like the trade cities of New York, or Boston, or Philadelphia, so I'd want to know what made those distinctive in a medieval setting. There is one element of American society of the era which would, perhaps, make a great source of tension, purpose, and adventure: the Underground Railroad. Technically, Bytopia's on the lawful side of the Great Ring, but it's a Plane of Conflict -- it's mostly interested in doing good. If a law contradicts its dearly held principles, that law is rightfully and legally null. "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." and then the laws are derived from there. The Underground Railroad broke the laws in the Old South, and it did so with pride and courage, in the service of a greater good. How about, then, if Bytopia's cities and pantheonic laws universally agreed that everywhere in their demesnes, including Tradegate, were free soil, upon which any slave that set foot was a freeman, who can earn his way with honest labor like anyone else? We plant in Bytopia a sect with a significant interest on numerous Primes, and to a lesser extent contacts and safehouses across the Outer Planes: the Freedom Road, with its members called Abolitionists. Its most deeply held belief is the right of any sentient to self-determination, and they are willing to agitate for it in the streets, ask it of Pharoah, and risk their lives town by town staying one step ahead of the dog packs.

This idea really plays up the Bytopian concept of law as subordinate to good. There is still a theoretical legal framework involved, but it includes the idea of principles from which laws derive just force, and beliefs on when civil disobedience and even outright governmental revolution is justifiable. You could have a perfectly good paladin devoted to such a code, especially if he were given "rules of engagement" on when the code's notions were permitted to supersede unjust local laws. It would be a fine group for PCs to belong to, sometimes openly, sometimes hiding their allegiance in slave lands. Its interests would be primarily in its networks across the Prime, where the planar part of the organizations spends resources planting its ideas and recruiting local organizers to set up the escape routes and begin the process of local political change. Namers would run the safe houses and plane escapes; planar factioneers would cruise the Primes setting up chapters, troubleshooting at established roadways, and dealing with political ramifications of the sect's activities on the Planes. It would surely be on good terms with the Indeps (indeed, it could simply be a project of theirs, and perhaps originally was, long ago) and the Revolutionary League, though it would also appeal to certain viewpoints in the Fraternity of Order (the legal theories) and the Xaositects (freedom!). Not very often you see those two factions mentioned in the same breath...

Some sort of pre-industrial industrial revolution going on?  Bytopia seems like a pretty likely place for an industrial revolution to break out, actually.

It's described exactly as such in Liber Benevolentiae: "A pre-industrial industrial society," constantly on the cusp of development, at least in Dothion. 

How appropriate would it be to set up a situation where an industrial revolution is starting to gain momentum due to the influence of non-natives?  Sort of like what happened to Arcadia's third layer, but before there was any immediate threat of Dothion slipping elsewhere.  Merchants demanding more and more goods by cheaper and faster means.  Toss in an increased demand for weaponry/armor due to the Blood War, and the BW might be indirectly responsible for Dothion eventually disappearing from Bytopia.  

 Ok, maybe not with the Blood War stuff (I doubt a Bytopian would be pleased to hear that their finely crafted sword ended up being lost by a fiend in the Gray Waste), but the other points could be an interesting source of conflict. Natives would see the writing on the wall, and might potentially protest the factories or even go so far as to sabotage them.  Toss in the Wilders as mentioned above and you set up a situation where there are basically eco-terrorists trying to save Dothion and Bytopia from itself.

Could be interesting.

I like the idea of Shurrock as the eternal frontier. The landscape would be wild but not necessarily hazardous, and the climate harsch but not unfriendly. The layer could be home to many tight-knit communities that live on the land and trading their natural resources. They don't mind visitors, but they do not like people who use their hospitality for selfish needs. Due to adventurers having an occasional reputation of leeching the resources of communities they come upon often without thinking of the needs of the inhabitants the people of Shurrock are suspicious of adventurers, but warm up easily if offered trade or manpower.

A potential location on Bytopia would be a two tall spires from each layer meeting the middle. On the Dothian side the spire is full of tunnels that generations of gnomes and humans have dug out. The tunnels are home to a city that stretches from the ground level all the way up to where the layers change, with the upper levels getting less and less inhabited the closer you get to the top, and the underground tunnels stretching out below the spire being kept off-limits by the city guards.

On the Shurrock side the spire has several paths and trails that see enough use not to grow over, but the traffic is limited during most of the year. In the Spring and Fall several caravans and traders make their up the spire to the top where they sell their goods to the city before returning back down the mountain.

The city acts a sort of transportation hub between the layers, and sees a lot of traffic.

A lot of conflict could be added to that. Why are the lower tunnels closed? Why didn't the caravan from that settlement come this year? That villain has to pass through here to get to his destination on Shurrock, could you please stop him?

I don't like the idea of the layer seeming unhappy.  It's an Upper Plane.  Conflict and tension are one thing, but this is the land of the blessed dead.  It's supposed to be Paradise for a certain type of personality.  Things certainly shouldn't be getting worse.  Bytopia should be the plane where the ideals of industrial progress and bootstrap self-improvement really work, no hidden dark side.  At most, living planars might be having a more difficult time there than the petitioners for whom the plane is designed. I think it would be in-character for Bytopians to adopt a Great Project, if you want a challenge there.  Let the population of the Plane labor not just to labor, but for a great purpose, chosen societally, perhaps renewed every so often when the petitioners instinctively know it's time for a great meeting.  This temporary, occasional merchants' city would be the biggest, most amazing tent bazaar across the Planes for just a few weeks, advertised months in advance as the various towns and pantheons select representatives to gather and discuss the direction the plane's efforts should take.  To tie it in to material we've discussed previously, you'd have the fairly simple laws that govern trade and guilds generally agreed to, inter-group disputes settled, and for the last few Convenings of the Bazaar, it has been agreed that the goal of the planes will be to fight slavery.  Crafters are encouraged to produce items that will serve liberators, groups organized to collect and spend funds on the projects, and intrepid adventurers hired to perform off-plan functions where the petitioners can't go. (Tidbit of color: at each Convening, while the diplomats natter on and the merchants hawk their wares, everyone who participates seems to know at the end of someone who made the greatest (not necessarily the biggest, but the best) honest deal at the Bazaar.  It's said the plane's inhabitants honor this dealer's skills in business, and great opportunities come his way until the next Bazaar.)

I appreciate Evil's take on Bytopia, especially the concept of corporations.  Though I have several ideas and twists to his views.  I would actually have the age of corporations and large-scale monopolies to be in Bytopia's past.  That long ago, mercantile extremists made up of say...mercane for example, came to Bytopia and lusted for Shurrock's natural wealth.  They attempted their traditional methods, mass production, strip mining, bringing with them unheard of quantities of frabricated goods and services.  Their methods allowed them to to offer the cheapest prices on everything immaginable.  But those native to Dothion would have none of it.  The very nature of the plane gives the people a certain mindset that clashes with corporations.  They would rather pay a little more for a well-made, honest piece of merchandise from a local craftsmen then to soil their lands with cheap trinkets and merchant tricks. Sort of like the backlash against Walmart in parts of America, except on a much greater scale and successful enough to rid Bytopia of the corporations.  In addition, their attempts to ravage Shurrock were met with extreme hardships as the plane did what it did best, resisted being conquered.   Over time, the corporations were forgotten and a more traditional lifestyle returned, but huge storehouses full of mercane goods and materials had been left behind, ripe to be scrounged through and reverse engineered for any number of remarkable innovations and devices made by dilligent inventors and mechanists.  This way, the people of Bytopia have it in their history that the honest hard-workers will win against a faceless corporation.  It gives them great pride in their accomplishments, and provided them with a near infinite collection of baubles and devices far more useful in part of a unique device then in a mercantile scam. This also gives Bytopia more connections to the multiverse at large, which it seemed to be almost unnoticable in before.  I can imagine Bytopia being shunned by evil merchants as the worst possible place to attempt business.  That the mercane, or whoever had corporations their long ago still hold a grudge and create all sorts of problems for natives of Bytopia found across the outer planes.  Also, it should be said that I know absolutly nothing of the Planer Trade Consortium so this might not work. As an entirely seperate point, I feel a good point of conflict between Dothion and Shurrock would be of inovation vs. stoicism.  That those on Dothion are always pushing to get new things done, to create a better way to do everything and once that works, to create a better way than that.  Natives of Shurrock prefer their tried-and-true methods that they've known for generations.  That if it doesn't work to get you over the mountain, you're not working hard enough.  That the old ways are the best ways.  It's not a violent conflict, but it's conflict nontheless.  I feel it would be particurly interesting to try to get the help of a guide in Shurrock while carrying around the latest in magical devices from Dothion.

Perhaps you could kill two birds with one stone here, and use the "we don't like adventurers" attitude as the overarching source of conflict. Certain people and groups on the plane are very suspicious of outsiders, seeing them as disruptive and potentially dangerous, while others are friendly and trusting to a fault. I think this plays nicely into the plane's location between Law and Good. The different sides could have heated debates about the fate of the adventuring PCs. Maybe some of the friendlier lot take a liking to the PCs and help to disguise them or smuggle them around. Maybe the PCs have to prove themselves to the less trusting contingent before they are allowed free reign.

It seems like the main complaint about Bytopia is that it's boring because it's not full of monsters and danger (...though I guess it is, in a sense, if you're an evil character). However, I think it presents a great opportunity for different kinds of adventures and challenges other than combat.

I really like the idea of terrain switching back and forth between the two sides of the plane depending on its use or disuse, and the general idea of an "endless frontier." It would be cool to find an old Dothian ghost town that shifted over to Shurrock after sitting abandoned for years. Now it's overgrown with weeds and the buildings are homes for spiders, but perhaps the former inhabitants left some vital clues to their disappearance scattered about. Of course, the players will have to trek through the Shurrock wilderness to find it. They'll need a guide, but the experienced hunter they meet with isn't interested in babysitting a bunch of outsiders and he seems insulted when offered money. Looks like they'll have to find another way to interest him...

Random thought - Everything made in Bytopia is top-notch and extremely durable: Tools, clothing, construction material, etc. However, they refuse to make weapons of war.

While their are plenty of role playing oppurtunities on Bytopia, actual combat during a gaming session must have some kind of cause dusted up, this being a celestial paradise kind of place and all.

Some suggestions collected from the above material and my own ideas too.

Dothion
1 PCs are hired by locals to rid their industrious little town of vagrants/theives/crinimals who have moved in and are too tough for the locals of the little burg to deal with

2 Gnomish pranksters/mad scientists gone bad.

3 agents of the deep/cthonic gods (in my milieu pandemonium is the home to the cthulhu pantheon, there seem to be some underground portals connecting there)

4 Blood war incursions of various size and severity

5 The PCs could be there to steal something precious from the locals, in which case they may come into conflict the native population.

Shurrock

1 natural animals of tremendous size and ferocity. Either along the way to get some material, or valuable for their pelts, feathers etc. It would be safer to get these things here than in the beastlands.

2 xenophobic, isolationist Aasimons

3 Other incursions, from modrons, arcadian zealots or even slaadi

I would say a good place to start is to look at the Gnomish pantheon's manifestations/powers and see if any of them can be turned into hazards or phenomena of the plane itself.

"So, with that in mind, it seems to me that the Upper Planes shouldn't be entirely absent of evil."

I would say that a better idea would be that some groups take good too far (e.g. lacking forgiveness or leniency, or make the punishments too harsh for the crime, such as a smiting for a petty theft) or, as we have seen in the Blood War, allowing evil so that good may come of it. The latter is likely to be what constitutes most of the conflict on the upper planes-- even among like-aligned deities of the same plane, there will be disagreements as to what constitutes "good". While others will take a "know when to pick one's battles" outlook and allow or even help evil to flourish in one area or in one form in order to quell it in another.
We see this with the celestials of law and chaos: they would rather that like-aligned fiends triumph in the Blood War than those of opposing alignment components.

I'm really late to this thread. While I have a lot to say , I thought I'd add a few ideas.

Appearance. One quality of Bytopia's not often remarked on is that it glows. There are no celestial bodies in the plane, of course, unless one counts the distant sight of fires on the opposing layer at night (or the occasional sun god), so the plane's daylight comes from the layers themselves. This means, more than any other upper plane, Bytopia shines. The ground itself glows with the light of Paradise. The leaves of the trees sparkle as if touched by an invisible sun. The mountains glow like benevolent gods (which they sometimes are). Even at night, when the earth's radiance dims, prominent landmarks glow like moons and stars. More even than the surreal vision of an inverted landscape above your head, the earthglow is an immediate sign that this is not the Material Plane.

Celestial exiles. "Celestian" is the proper adjective for beings from Mount Celestia, but unfortunately shares the name of a deity. Mount Celestia is infinitely merciful and infinitely good, but it is also infinitely lawful, and therefore must punish crimes against its nature. Being as merciful as it is orderly, it does not commonly invoke the death penalty except in dire need. Rather, both crimes against Good and crimes against Law are often punished with exile from paradise, the convicted being denied the glories of the plane until such a time as they can repent and atone for their sins. Those archons who sin against goodness often, tragically, end up drifting inexorably toward Baator, where the devils welcome them and sew them new flesh, lovingly adorning their new friends with accouterments of horn and scale. Those archons who sin against law are transformed into asuras, where they are welcomed instead by the shining hosts in their eternal, obsessive campaigns against evil. Asuras are creatures at war with evil, but also at war with themselves, longing for their home planes but too wild to fit in there. They burn, wreathed in fires of celestial penance. This is not painful, but having one's soul physically on fire is something one can never get used to, and it means that unlike the archons they once were they are no longer immortal. They burn so bright, with such vibrant need, that eventually they will burn themselves out. Bytopia is the first plane most asuras see, and though they roam the Upper Planes far and wide, many of them dwell there, attracted by benevolent gods of war such as Kiri-Jolith, the solar gods of the Vedic pantheon, and the gods of the Land of Fate.

Not all exiles from Mount Celestia are archons, however, and law-criminals of other races end up exiled to Bytopia as well. These aren't burning creatures of prophecy and battle, but ordinary beings of various shapes and forms, united by their shared longing for the taste of ambrosia, the heavenly choirs, the presence of their just gods, and the purity of the radiance of the exalted peaks (Bytopia has its own radiance, but to them it seems somehow contaminated, dirty, reminding themselves of their own fallen nature). So they join together in ghettos throughout the plane, not because Bytopia's natives don't welcome them but because they enjoy the company of those with a similar past. Some follow asuras as if they were living gods, the greatest remaining evidence of the glory they once knew (whether the asuras like it or not; instances have been reported of freedom-loving asuras being captured and physically bound to hidden shrines so that Celestian exiles, like desperate junkies, can bask in their flames). Some concentrate on atoning for their sins, acting as sentinels of intolerant purity and law in Bytopia's communities or concentrating instead on self-denial and flagellation, cutting and burning themselves in response to every impure thought. Some of the most enthusiastic of the Order of the Planes-Militant, which makes no secrets of its desire to drag pieces of Bytopia into the glories of the Mount, are exiles and the children of exiles who are just looking for a way back home.

There are Elysian exiles as well, but Elysium casts no one out. Rather, those exiled from Elysium are those who came too close to its ecstasies and were nearly trapped there, pulled out just in time. They desire nothing more than to return, and - unlike the Celestians - they could return, whenever they wanted. But they dare not. Like recovering drug addicts, the only thing keeping them from relapsing is force of will. Unlike the Celestians, they tend not to congregate together, instead doing their best to integrate into Bytopia's population and forget.

Twins. The theme of dualities and opposites is obvious in Bytopia. The plane itself is a pair of twins, one wild and one tamed like Enkidu and Gilgamesh of legend, or Prometheus and Epimetheus, or Kiri-Jolith and Habbakuk, or Jascar and Phaulkon, or Zilchus and Kurell. It should come as no surprise, then, that Bytopia's natives are often born as twins, and not always from the same womb. Rather, it is said that every inhabitant of Dothion has a double somewhere on Shurrock, a person exactly like them but wild instead of tamed. And unfortunately, because even in the Upper Planes the multiverse is in a fallen state, sometimes these doubles are not happy with their conditions.

Other instances of twins include chimerical creatures like two-faced angels, their faces on the backs of their heads or emblazoned on their chests.

The dvati, a race of twins found in Dragon #271 and the Dragon Magazine Compendium, Volume 1 would be appropriate for Bytopia as well.

Perhaps keeping with the "doubles" theme: when a person tells a lie on Bytopia, one hears the liar and then hears a ghostly voice repeat the truth that should have been said.
[Not married to this idea, just throwing it out there]

Illusions and deception have to be possible in Bytopia. It's where the gnome gods live, after all, including the gnomish gods of deception and illusion. I wouldn't make honesty a theme of the plane at all. In fact, I had the idea that gnomes have a shadow heaven, a paradise of illusion that petitioners have to see through before they earn their way to their true afterlife.