D&D Beyond’s July Drop casts a spotlight on one of my favorite parts of the D&D cosmos, the Para-Elemental Planes.
D&D’s cosmology is full of opposing energies. You’ve got Order and Chaos. Good and Evil. Life and Death. Even elemental energies seem to oppose one another. Fire and Water. Air and Earth. But what’s interesting to the adventurer is that these aren’t just energies. They’re also represented by places.
You can go to, say, the Beastlands and explore a realm of good. Or you can travel to the Shadowfell and bask in the deathly energies that make up that place. Even the Elemental Planes of, like, Water and Air have places in them. And today, as you’ll see, it’s not just that they’re places (with cities and everything), but they also occupy a weird sort of space, and where they butt up against each other, whole other realms come into being: the Para-Elemental Planes.
Para-Elemental Planes – Metaphysical Neighbors Made Manifest
The first thing you have to understand about D&D’s Cosmos is that it’s often represented with the different “planes of reality” sort of being arranged on or about each other. This is where the ‘Great Wheel’ comes into play. Only it’s not really a wheel because you can’t literally walk from, say, Arcadia down the road a bit and end up in Mechanus.
You have to find portals, or some kind of interplanar feature, like the River Styx. And it’s all very metaphysical. But the Elemental Planes, where their energies collide, do also neighbor each other in the cosmos, and that’s where you get Para-Elemental Planes.
There are four, all in all. Where Air and Fire meet, you get the Para-Elemental Plane of Ash. At the intersection of Air and Water, the Para-Elemental Plane of Ice blossoms, full of crystalline spires and frozen beauty. Water and Earth collide together, forming the Para-Elemental Plane of Ooze, a place of secrets and slime. While Earth and Fire make up the Para-Elemental Plane of Magma.
Each has its own mix of inhabitants, Para-Elementals, and more. Let’s take a look at some of the places you might go when traveling the cosmos.
On the Plane of Ash, also called the Great Conflagration, howling winds from the Plane of Air mix with the cinder storms and lava of the Sea of Fire. This plane is an endless storm of flames, smoke, and ash. The thick ash obscures sight beyond a few dozen feet, and the battering winds make travel difficult. Here and there, ash clusters into floating realms where outlaws and fugitives take shelter.
Here and there on the Plane of Ooze (also called the Swamp of Oblivion), stagnant lakes and pools play host to thickets of weeds and monstrous swarms of mosquitoes. The few settlements here consist of wooden structures suspended above the muck on platforms between trees. Visitors to the plane have sometimes tried elevating houses on poles stuck in the mud, but since no solid earth underlies the muck, even such structures eventually sink.
The Plane of Magma, also called the Fountains of Creation, is home to azers, fire giants, and red dragons, as well as creatures from the neighboring planes. Lava flows down the slopes of these mountains toward the Plane of Fire.
The Plane of Ice, also called the Frostfell, forms the border between the Plane of Air and the Plane of Water. This plane is a seemingly endless glacier swept by constant, raging blizzards. Frozen caverns twist through the Plane of Ice, home to yetis, remorhazes, white dragons, and other creatures of cold. The inhabitants of the plane engage in a never-ending battle to prove their strength and ensure their survival.
Para-Elemental Planes are only the beginning, there’s Quasi-Elemental Planes and more to explore!
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Source: Bell of Lost Souls
