This being the first of my blogs on pulling stuff from the World Axis into Planescape, I think it is also an appropriate inauguration, since this is really a possibility of what can be done. That said, it will be a possibility that I will be making use of.
Central to the World Axis cosmology are the two planes of Feywild and Shadowfell, which overlap with the Material Plane. In the context of the WA, they play a crucial role, they are easily accessible planes that can be used to introduce a party based in the Prime to planewalking without being too "extreme", ie. they aren't something like the Abyss or Baator. This is all well and good, but when transposed to Planescape we are presented with the dual issues of the two planes having no place in the cosmology and the fact that they are inherently connected to the Prime, making them more remote form both the Outer and Inner planes where Planescape's core is. I think this is pity since I there is a great deal of potential for both planes, particularly in finding some Planescapy goodness in Feywild. Fortunately, the Great Wheel provides us with ways to reconcile these with the rest of the Wheel.
In second edition, there were two transitive planes, the Astral and the Ethereal, each connecting the Material Plane to the rest of the Wheel. This led to fan speculation, especially on Mimir, that there was a third transitive plane out there, both to fulfill the Rule of Three and to connect the Inner and Outer Planes. They dubbed it the Ordial, and many theories arose as to what it would be like. The third edition dosed the idea of an Ordial Plane but upgrading the demiplane of Shadow to a full fledged transitive plane, which has translated into the Shadowfell in 4th Edition. I also noticed that the Astral was general just the one layer and the Ethereal had it's deep and close aspects, which were like separate layers as well since they have different relations to the Prime. What if the third plane had three "layers" even if they weren't really layers in the Outer Plane sense. Feywild could serve as one, Shadowfell as another and an unknown layer as the third. Together, the lot of them are the Ordial plane.
That would solve the metaphysical arrangement an location of the two new planes for Planescape, and if they are Transitive Planes, that should connect them to the Outer and Inner Planes, making them accessible to Planewalkers somehow. It does, however, leave us with the question of what exactly do these planes connect together. Both new planes are focused on the Prime, while the Ordial connects both the Inner and Outer. Connecting all three together everywhere seems rather superfluous to me, but both Feywild and the Shadowfell are supposed to connect to important sites on the material like great mountains and major cities. What if all three parts of the plane connect to all major sites across all planes? They could be accessed from anywhere in theory, but practicality most planers and primes can only reach them at the points where the connection is strongest. One of favorite interpretations of the Ordial has always been that it is a plane of Dreams, which I feel both Feywild and Shadowfell fit into since they represent an idealized and a terrifying reflection of reality, like heroic dreams and nightmares. Personally, I would suggest that the third layer be one of abstract dreams.
Ik’kio Nakama
[A Nezumi hailing from the Grey Wastes, Ik’kio joined the Fraternity of Order at a young age and now wanders the planes cataloging phenomenon and spacial relationships. He is considered by many of his peers to be one of the top scholars on the Transitive Planes...if one can find him.]
“We all know of the Rule of the Threes, do we not cutters? Three of everything, like that barmy Gith. Especially the three types of planes, the Outer, the Inner and the Transitive. While we can’t expect all of the planes to abide by this rule all of the time, but in the course of my own research I have found the fact there are only two transitive planes to be very curious. I now believe, like others, that there is a third transitive plane which connects the Planes of Belief and the Planes of the Elements. Most scholars refer to this place as the ‘Ordial’.
Now, many Clueless come to the Planes and speak of two obscure Planes, the Feywild and the Shadowfell, which connect important locations on the Prime. In our arrogance, we planers tend to ignore them and brush them both off as minor demiplanes, suspended in some dark part of the Deep Ethereal, with no real connection to ourselves. How ignorant and arrogant we are. I now this is not something easy to believe, but there is a connection, a connection I have seen first hand. A time ago, a prime and I visit the Grand Caliph in the City of Brass. Long story short, my friend offend one of the Caliph’s wives by letting his eyes linger on her daughter, which resulted in us be chased by Eunuchs. In a panic, he used a scroll of planeshift to whisk us away to the safest place he could think of. Soon we standing is a remarkably similar, yet oddly different city. Flames and magma were still everywhere, but there were also great swaths of clear land and towering mountains and volcanos cover in red and green forests.
We were in the Feywild, a feat that would not be possible with the Planeshift spell if the Plane had not been connected to the Plane of Fire. Never willing to miss an opportunity to explore, we signed on as mercenaries for a caravan heading for the Triple City. This proved to be very informative, as the merchants traveled both the Feywild and the Shadowfell, and were accurately able the similarities between the two planes, which leads me to believe they are actually two layers of the same plane, sharing the same connections to the same planes on both the Prime and the Material Planes. Once we reached the Triple City, we planeshifted back... landing right in the center of Zelatar. I’ll admit I should have seen that coming, but our little jaunt to the Abyss showed that the Outer Planes were also connected to the Ordial. I have since returned to both know layers of the Ordial and conducted further research, which brings me back to the Rule of Three. I am convinced that there is a third layer to the Ordial. Given that the Feywild seems to represent a heroic version of the greatest locations across the planes and the Shadowfell depicts a nightmare world, the third plane must be something else connected to dreams, perhaps an abstract or metaphorical presentation of the world. Alas, this remains speculative for now. I hope this work of scholarship has be presented clearly and was enlightening for you.
As always, in humility,
Ik’kio
If you're counting the Shadowfell and the Feywild as two layers of the same plane, I think you have to count the mortal world as the third layer. Not just because of the Rule of Threes (although that's certainly relevant here), but because all the qualities that make the Shadowfell and the Feywild parallels of one another are shared by the Material Plane as well.
For example, if a twisted, half-abandoned city of shadows and feral cats is located on the Shadowfell, and a massive stone circle on the Feywild fits the same dimensions, then the decadent metropolis next to a ring of weathered monoliths on the equivalent location in the Prime is just as much a parallel as the other two.
I believe it's simply bias that one would discount the Prime's role here. From the point of view of someone in the Feywild, the Material Plane and the Shadowfell are the two parallels, for example, and that's as valid a viewpoint as the Prime view that the Shadowfell and Feywild are parallels of their own plane. Remember the Center of All precept: the multiverse has no center. Every vantage point is equally valid.
The attraction of the Ordial Plane concept to me has always been its status as an unknown, a location beyond the maps of the known multiverse, a signpost that says "Terra Obscura." Keeping it undetailed and, with current planar knowledge, inaccessible means the multiverse is always a little more complex and mysterious than common theories about the multiverse are able to account for. It signifies that not everything in the multiverse can fit into a neat little box, and there are still places that can't yet be mapped. Of course, this gives the PCs a potential trail to blaze, but if the Ordial turns out to be the relatively familiar Feywild and Shadowfell (and/or Region of Dreams), that avenue is lost. Naturally, there are other potential ways to introduce these themes into the game: the OD&D/Mystaran/Immortal's Set cosmology had the Vortex Dimension, for example, an eternal storm even beings of godlike status couldn't cross.
In this spirit, there is an official mention of a similar plane in the Planescape Monstrous Compendium Volume III. The chososion is a being that exists in the known multiverse only as a ghost (and only seen in the Ethereal and Inner Planes), the majority of its being on an unknown plane that seems to border those regions. I'd definitely associate this plane (called the Macrocosm in the PSMCIII) with the Ordial. It doesn't make any sense as the Feywild or Shadowfell, though, since the point of it is that it's a bizarre external plane that only chososions are known to peek through from. The Feywild and Shadowfell are far too commonplace and straightforward to access.
I don't mind (in fact, I like) there being connections to the Astral and Elemental Planes in the Feywild and Shadowfell (if they are as equally central to the multiverse as the Prime, it would make sense), but I don't agree that a plane needs to be connected directly to those planes in order to be prominent in a Planescape campaign. After all, Sigil's portals can touch the Feywild or even obscure demiplanes like Neth or Inphirblau - or, for that matter, parallel timelines and alternate cosmologies, the past or future or anything you can dream up - just as easily and directly as Arborea or the Elemental Plane of Fire. And there can be similar portals set up by wizards or long-dead races of titans or what have you anywhere there needs to be. A portal between Arvandor and the Feywild could be just as easy for the PCs to access as the portal between Tradegate and Bytopia. Planescape is a campaign that potentially spans any number of planes, and need not be centered in the Outer Planes or any other stratum of existence.
At any rate, I'd break the cosmos down this way:
Three layers of the material world: Prime, Shadowfell, Feywild.
Three transitive planes: Ethereal, Astral, and the enigmatic Ordial/Macrocosm.
Three levels of existence: Elemental, Material, Astral.
And then, of course, extra things that add chaos to the perfect nine-sided order: the Far Realm, the "other side" of the Outlands' disk, the Hinterlands, the Ordial Plane, Deep Shadow, evil parallel multiverses with a chaotic good Asmodeus who doesn't have a goatee, cosmologies where completely alien concepts rule, fragmented loops in time, half-worlds. Things that don't fit into the cosmology because sometimes it's good for things not to fit into the cosmology.