Your campaign, or anybody else's, is not the only possible world-setting for the AD&D game. There are as many different campaigns as there are DMs. Yours may be a very conscientious medieval setting in western Europe. But what other kinds of campaigns could there be?
- A carefully researched campaign set in late-Medieval Italy where characters can meet famous rulers and artists of the age.
- One set in a world similar to the Far East, with oriental characters, creatures, and beliefs.
- A campaign set in lands similar to ancient Egypt at the height of the Bronze Age.
- A campaign in an underground world dominated by dwarves, locked into an endless war with the fecund orcs.
- A campaign set in gloomy, mysterious Eastern Europe, populated by sullen peasants, crumbling castles, and monsters both urbane and bestial, in the best traditions of old horror movies.
- A truly fantastic world filled with genii-driven steam engines, elemental airships, and spell-driven telegraphs.
- A campaign set in a tropical archipelago where travel is by canoe between islands of cannibals, giant beasts, and lost civilizations.
- A campaign world set in Africa at the height of its great empires, where powerful native kingdoms fight to resist the conquest of foreign explorers.
- A campaign based on the works of a particular author, such as Sir Thomas Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur or the sagas of Iceland.
Clearly, there are many possible settings for campaign worlds—all these and more. So, how can they all be accommodated? To allow such diversity and to provide unlimited adventure possibilities, the AD&D game world offers many planes of existence.
The planes are different areas of existence, each separate from the others, each bound by its own physical laws. The planes exist outside our normal understanding of space and dimensions. Each has properties and qualities unique to itself. While more complete information can be found in other AD&D rule books, the brief overview given here outlines the basic structure of the planes.
Since they are without form or dimension, it is not possible to draw a road-map of the planes and their relationships to each other. However, there is a structure and organization to them which can best be visualized as a series of spheres, one inside the other.
The Prime Material Planes[]
At the very center of this series of spheres are the Prime Material planes. These are the planes most familiar to AD&D game players. The prime material planes include the many Earth-like alternate worlds and campaigns that operate from the more or less the same basic realities. There may be variations from prime to prime, but most features remain the same. The inhabitants of each prime always refer to their plane as the Prime Material Plane.
The Ethereal Planes[]
Surrounding each Prime Material plane is a separate Ethereal plane. The Ethereal planes are misty realms of proto-matter. Nothing is solid on these planes.
In the Ethereal planes, there may be small pockets or islands of matter known as demi-planes. These demi-planes are sometimes the creations of extremely powerful wizards, technologists, or demi-gods.
The Inner Planes[]
Using the sphere analogy, outside of the Primes and the Ethereal planes are the inner planes, the primary building forces of the multiverse. The inner planes consist of the elemental, para-elemental, and quasi-elemental planes, and the planes of energy. The elemental planes are the building blocks of matter輸ir, Water, Fire, and Earth. Where the elemental planes touch each other there arise the para-elemental planes - smoke, Ice, Ooze, and Magma. The Energy planes are the Positive Energy plane (also called the Plane of Life) and the Negative Energy plane (the source of entropy). The quasi-elemental planes exist where the elemental planes touch the Energy planes有ightning, Steam, Minerals, and Radiance around the Positive Energy plane, and Salt, Vacuum, Ash, and Dust around the Negative Energy plane. Many of the planes have their own creatures and rulers who are sometimes summoned to one of the primes through spells or magical items.
The Astral Plane[]
Beyond the inner planes (continuing with the spheres) is the Astral plane. Like the Ethereal planes, this plane serves as a connector between the different realities. It links the various Primes to each other (one travels from one Prime to another by crossing the Astral plane, not the Ethereals) and connects each Prime to the outer planes.
The Astral plane is a barren place with only rare bits of solid matter. Indeed, the most common feature is the silver cords of travelers in the plane. These cords are the lifelines that keep travelers of the Plane from becoming lost, stretching all the way back to the traveler's point of origin.
The Outer Planes[]
Finally, outside all else are the Outer Planes, also called the Planes of Power. There are 17 known Outer Planes—there may be more. These planes can be reached only by powerful spells or by crossing the Astral plane.
Each outer plane is unique. Some seem quite similar to the primes; others have terrain and physical laws wildly different from that to which the characters may be accustomed. Magic functions differently on each plane as do many other common assumptions of reality.
Powerful beings (self-proclaimed gods, goddesses, and demi-gods) inhabit these planes along with a full range of other life forms. The outer planes are the final resting place of the spirits of intelligent life forms of the Prime Material planes.
The known outer planes have been named by humans. Some of these names are:
- Mechanus
- Arcadia
- Mount Celestia
- Bytopia
- Elysium
- Beastlands
- Olympus
- Ysgard
- Limbo
- Pandemonium
- The Abyss
- Carceri
- Gray Waste
- Gehenna
- Baator
- Acheron
- The Outlands
These names are not necessarily consistent from world to world or Prime Material Plane to Prime Material Plane. Indeed, since the planes are without dimension and form, it is possible for different lands in the same campaign world to have entirely different pictures of planar structure and order.
For example, an oriental-type world might see the Outer Planes not as a series of separate regions, but as a single mass throughout which are scattered different agencies of the Celestial Bureaucracy. The Celestial Emperor might reside on one plane, while his Minister of State operated from another.
A Nordic land would see the plane of Ysgard as dominant over all others, in accordance with the importance they ascribe the powers there. These things are left to your discretion, as the DM. The planes can be molded to meet the needs of your campaign.