Xaositech's Guide to the Planes

Aahj! Sigil berk siglet! Cannot think past the planes without the city that's plain as day round the spire! First: acquire yourself one of them talking skulls and let it talk you through to the city. Quite important that, since if you don't get there first you can't visit the place.

Next - and this is a big one - actually go to the city. See, if you don't get there first, you can't see any of the sites.

Next - and this is probably important - don't trust anybody there. There are berks who'll peel you as soon as they wouldn't. The Hive got mixed up with the Lady's Ward and then they both went up to the Lower Ward and had a dalliance, then they had to go to the Clerk's Ward to

Next - go sightseeing! There's lots lost there and it's always getting overrun by those damn leatherheads banging and pounding with their symbol-speak and if you mess with them you'll be up a creek with the Lady.

Ooh! Lady's shadow! Don't go into her shadow or you'll have a bad time.

Umm...demons and devas and devils walk by. Can't go anywhere without witnessing some un-holy interaction. Well, you can put your eyes out. Could recommend some make it official. Then they had to go to the Marketplace to get a wedding gift. Of course, all you have to do is walk around the city three times - gotta follow the rules, you sodding addlecove! - and it's all offical, no matter what the scrivners scriv with their scrivvery.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the city!

Downbelow, low down there, where the planes grow sharp. Go looking a-field and a-cry for hearing the darkgreen, when the bloodspill reaches the forests of the Abyss. Bleary sun and sour harp-sounds, a plain of open wounds, open to depths unpumbled. A succubus caught in a scandal. A nightmare-nighttime stalker, seeks out a careless planeswalker, a juicy morsel for a monster. Rock steady oceans of blackest shades, toothful bitings things full up.

And if you listen to the Abyss depths...Gnashing wailing courage failing, heroes falling, heroes flailing, barbs a-flaying skin from bone, darkness sits upon a throne. Heroes are all alone in those many places of endless night. Ahh yes, The Abyss, where dark souls delight in endless fright. And if you're lucky, you just might be dead before the natives find you.

Frankly, anything west of the Grey Waste is a waste of time. Those leatherheads don't know what a real plane is. Take Acheromance or Arblazia. You do either of those things there and you'd think you were breaking the law or something. No time for love in war, and no brightening up those damn dark nights that drop like an axe on a chopping block.

And the Seven Hells or the Nine Hells are either too hoity-toity or depraved - and not depraved in all the good ways neither! - to be much fun. Having fun there just get you hit. And the Twin Lameadices are all "Work work work!". All craft, no passion, unless you think well made crafts are passionate, which I suppose some of them gnomes are passionate for. But they ain't passionate in the right ways y'know?

But the worst of all is that gearworks spell of a plane. Mechanus? Mechanot! Mecharotten to the core! You want painted hell, all gold and gone shiny? You want spirits crafted out of pure...logic. You can have your greybeard, thank you very much. I refuse to acknowledge the place.

What's a portal you say? What isn't! Why, just look around you! This whole thing is one giant portal, isn't it? The Great Wheel! And what's sitting at the center of it all? A cage with the keymaster locked inside. My Fair Lady. I would sing her praises if that thought didn't scare me so much.

And what does a Lady do when she's sitting around tending things? She opens doors to let some fresh air in. But doors are locked, so you need a key.

Of golden air and fair breeze,
the keys are gentle and bright.
Of fetid air and foul breath,
the keys are found in death

That there is just a thumb of rules, of course. Not like the big Three Rules, but more of a thing to keep in mind when searching them out. The rest is forwards enough. Door, key, lock, click, open, which it should do if you've done your homework. Or you've cheated.

Don't cheat.

Astral, astral, astral. Unreal yield, Githyannikikianna and her sharp silver and slivers deep. And silver cord slit crossways towards bad end crow-call eye-peck crying-from-loved-ones perhaps. You and you and I and they should watch where them are believe-floating across nothing, yes? Otherways, path-cross and sheen-silver of sword-sing sword-swing and bleed across acres of the should-be-absent-yet-not. All said, all told and all done, this warning this one presented: They of the holders of the Red Wing Flame-Fury riders by contract with she of the Five Heads-Prismatic should at all ends, all ends, be avoided should one wish to seek across the silver-nothing graveyard of the Absent-of-Belief Dead.

Traverse by thinking, for legs, of strength, of stride and of stamina mean little to those of absent body. Keen minds and sharp eyes count for more when the body leaves us behind in that void of moonlight-absent-moon-absent-light. Flight across miles with a mere thought of motion? Find yourself there, astral-ways, and you will find it easier to do so than it is to breathe.

And on breath? Where nothing is, nothing is needed. Air nor breath nor food-life nor water. Neither time is needed, for all time spent in absence is free to those of this void. Dreamers awaken and find that sleep has fled from them in the night. Not that one should ever be afraid to wake, but piercing the unknown with the callous-frigid and pensive could spill out. If one wasn't careful?

There is more, but I need to rest more than not.