Beyond Countless Doorways offers a wide range of planes, and thus a wide range of experiences for players. It has elemental planes, hellish realms full of demons, worlds different but probably not too different from your regular campaign world, and more.

As I saw all the wonderful planes come in from the other authors, and had already outlined a number of my own (some from ideas I'd used in my home game, some from ideas that have been percolating since the time I worked on Planescape), I realized that the book still needed a really weird plane. A plane that could only be called, as Beyond Countless Doorways puts it, an "alien realm."

The trick to designing a setting that is really bizarre is figuring out how to make it seem very alien and strange, yet keep it manageable. If the setting changes too many aspects of play, particularly if they are changed in minor ways, the DM can never keep them all straight (let alone the players).

The other thing I have found after designing a lot of planes over the years is that the differences should not just be different, they should be fun as well. The unique qualities of a planar locale should provide an interesting environment to interact with, or alter the way a character can (or cannot) complete an action, in an entertaining manner.

Now, the biggest thing on the DM's side when it comes to planar adventures is the knowledge that the PCs probably aren't going to be in the new and strange environment very long. Maybe one, maybe two game sessions, most likely. So you can take something as simple and straightforward as movement and play around with it, make it different (hopefully in a fun way), and don't worry that if the changes or restrictions were permanent, they would get really old, because the PCs won't have to deal with them that long.

No Gravity

Thus, in my alien realm - which I called the Violet -- there is no gravity. There's no up or down. There is a "ground," but the plane exists on the inside of a relatively small sphere, so the "ground" curves up from any vantage. With no gravity, though, the "ground" is actually irrelevant. Knowing that the PCs would want to play with the gravity-less environment and would spend a lot of time in the "sky" (which is actually in the middle of the spherical plane), I added a number of miles-long, incredibly sturdy vines that grow "up" from the ground toward the center of the plane. These vines accomplish a couple different things. Now, as the PCs float through the air, they have a type of terrain to interact with (and hide within, or rest upon, or whatever). They can also use the vines to help them control their movements. They can even facilitate encounters, with foes crawling along the vines to get to each other, or pushing off from one vine to the next to attack.

The plane contains all the rules the DM and players need to adventure in a gravity-less environment, which aren't as complicated as you might think. And, of course, I wrote up the rules for using a fly spell and other magical effects here. But then I got to thinking. Having no gravity is interesting, but it's not all that unique. The Violet needed more. (And by the way, it's called the Violet because the light there is inherently purple, giving everything a violet hue.) So I looked at those rules for handling different spells and magical effects in a gravity-less environment, and I deleted them.

Suppressed Magic

I decided that in the Violet, magic was suppressed. Now, having no magic at all can be okay, but it gets to be a drag, particularly if you're playing a spellcasting character. So, magic isn't negated here. Low-level magic (0- and 1st-level spells) and very minor magic items (+1 weapons, etc.) still work. Thus, a high-level wizard can trade out her higher-level spells and reprepare all her slots for 0- and 1st-level spells. That's still plenty of magic missiles and shields and so on. And the cleric can do the same (or he can switch out all his higher-level spells for cure light wounds), so magical healing is still available. In fact, unlike every other spell level, 0- to 1st-level spells are designed so that, if they are all you can cast, you still have a full gamut of options (because for 1st- and 2nd-level characters, that's all you can cast). In the Violet, medium- and high-level casters can use this minor magic all day long. There's something for those characters to do every round of an encounter -- they'll still have fun. That's the important thing. (Although they might complain a bit.) Moreover, it's not like every single spell has a different effect here, or the plane changes only spells of certain schools, or anything like that. If a spell (or item effect) is 2nd level or higher, it doesn't work. If it's 1st level or lower, it does. It's easy to remember.

But then one has to wonder, what are the ramifications of a plane where magic doesn't work well? Suddenly, I understood the Violet's "place" in the cosmology. This is where planar-savvy people imprison powerful creatures with magical abilities, or where they store (or hide) powerful magical artifacts with dangerous side effects. No powerful divinations can penetrate the Violet to find something or someone hidden away. No creature can use its inherent teleportation or plane-shifting powers to escape a prison here. No simple passwall can get through a vault door.

So many of the important locations of the plane are vaults and prisons, and many of the adventure seeds involve getting something out of the plane or putting something in.

Now It Gets Weird

Okay, no gravity, and the plane plays havoc with magic. I've seen a lot of planes over the years and while the Violet was shaping up nicely, it still wasn't as "weird" as I wanted it to be. I was happy that everyone had an applicable change -- physical characters had to deal with the rules for moving around, and spellcasters had to deal with using only 0- and 1st-level spells. I didn't want to upset the balance any further. I wanted to institute something that would affect everyone.

So I got to thinking about time. I had, since the beginning of my work on the project, wanted to create a plane where time worked differently. Having played around with such things in Planescape (A Guide to the Astral Plane), though, I knew that it was a dangerous apple cart to overturn. If you create a plane where time moves faster than elsewhere, you have characters wanting to go there to heal, rest, and prepare spells "faster" than the rules suggest they should. If you create a plane where time moves more slowly, characters do the same, but in reverse (using other planes as the "faster" planes). That can be all right, but it's not what I wanted.

Instead, what I did was create "broken time" in the Violet. Sometimes, time just backs up a few rounds in the Violet, undoing events (even the death of a character) and forcing everyone to replay their actions. The thing is, the PCs and NPCs remember what happened before -- they remember the actions that have been undone. They can learn from what didn't work, and they can try different courses of action. Of course, they never know when broken time is going to happen. This is another example of something weird that can be a really fun change of pace (although you wouldn't want it to work that way all the time).
Now, I'm not a fan of weirdness for weirdness' sake. I knew that I wanted even a strange place like the Violet to make sense, at least in a planar sort of way. So I created a backstory and an internal logic that ties all the strangeness together. I won't spoil it here, though. You can read the book. I think you might like how well this plane can tie into something you may already have or have had in your existing campaign, though.

Lastly, I needed to give the plane some native inhabitants. Who would live in a gravity-less plane? Well, fortunately, that was easy. The MM is full of creatures that would seem to thrive in such a place: rasts, ravids, darkmantles, cloakers, and so on. I allowed for these things to have adapted to the plane (so that even with the magic suppression, they still could fly), but not entirely (their other supernatural and spell-like abilities remain suppressed).

The end result is a plane in which everything seems alien, yet the changes to game play are slight enough that the DM can keep them all straight. Hopefully, a trip to the Violet will be a very memorable one.

And a plug: If you like the idea of really strange alien realms, watch for an exclusive bonus plane in issue 55 (September) of Game Trade Magazine (ask your retailer for it if you haven't seen it). The plane, called Xiun, is even stranger than the Violet. It's also the spellcaster's revenge plane. While spells and spellcasting are diminished in the Violet, spellcasters have the upper hand in Xiun.

 

DESIGN DIARY PAST ENTRIES

* The Movements of the Planes -- June 3, 2004
"You can look back at the first Planescape product I wrote alone and see that I've long been interested in devising a cosmology where the planes were not static ..."

* Designing a Cosmology -- May 20, 2004
"First off, let me say that there's nothing wrong with the Core Cosmology, or, what we used to call the Great Wheel...."

* Keyed Spell Items in Book of Hallowed Might II -- April 15, 2004
"Mike and I did some work recently on Book of Hallowed Might II: Portents and Visions. The Book of Eldritch/Hallowed Might series has been great to me...."

* Legacy of the Dragons: A Monstrous Challenge -- February 26, 2004
"I love new monster books so much, I pretty much never pass one up, no matter what. I wanted Legacy of the Dragons to be friendly to the folks out there who are like me."

* Legacy of the Dragons: Bestiaries I Have Known -- February 19, 2004
"My first professional game design ever was a book of monsters. Creatures and Treasures II came out in 1989 from Iron Crown Enterprises for Rolemaster..."

* Legacy of the Dragons: Context -- January 22, 2004
"Legacy of the Dragons is the product I'm working on now. Just finishing it up, actually. It's a bestiary to go along with Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed...."

* Chaositech Playtesting -- December 11, 2003
"Chaositech is one of those products that came directly out of my campaign. The concept was not meant originally to have anything to do with a product...."

* Campaign Paradigms -- October 30, 2003
"An important thing for all DMs to keep in mind is that once a campaign is up and running, the basic flavor -- the underpinnings of the whole campaign structure -- usually should not change...."

* Developing a New Subsystem -- October 2, 2003
"Probably one of the biggest challenges that faces a designer when working on a book like Chaositech is the delicate way that you have to institute a whole new subsystem...."

* On the Horizon: Chaositech -- September 11, 2003
"If you'll indulge me, I'm going to divert the Design Diary's contents to what I'm working on now: a book called Chaositech...."

* Magic Items in The Diamond Throne -- August 28, 2003
"Magic items in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed and in The Diamond Throne sometimes require a little bit of thought on the DM's part. Using them isn't a problem..."

* A Look at the Land -- August 15, 2003
"This week I've prepared an excerpt from The Diamond Throne. As I've said previously, it was my design choice to spend most of the gazetteer portion of the book on the general aspects of the world..."

* Designing a World -- August 7, 2003
"I have mixed feelings about campaign settings. On one hand -- speaking as designer -- it's fun, challenging, and rewarding to create a whole world that's all your own...."

* Weapons and Armor -- July 17, 2003
"I absolutely love the introduction of exotic weapons into D&D. It's one of my favorite things about 3rd Edition. In Arcana Unearthed, I wanted to make sure that the exotic weapons were worth the feat required to use them...."

* Greenbond Notes -- June 26, 2003
"Last week's preview of the greenbond class gives a nice glimpse of a lot of Arcana Unearthed issues. First off, the greenbond is no druid...."

* Spell Templates -- June 12, 2003
"This week I thought I'd discuss an idea that I'm really very happy with. The idea is spell templates..."

* Playtesting -- June 5, 2003
"Playtesting is extremely important to me. When we developed 3rd Edition, we did more playtesting than perhaps any other RPG product, ever...."

* High Magic -- May 29, 2003
"I referred to the Diamond Throne as a high-magic setting. I should clarify..."

* The Diamond Throne -- May 23, 2003
"So it's about time I start talking about the Diamond Throne. The Diamond Throne is a campaign setting for Arcana Unearthed -- the default setting, like Greyhawk for D&D, I suppose...."

* Death's Door -- May 8 , 2003
" I like the D&D death's door rules. I like that at 0 hp, you're still up and can take a limited action, but then you exhaust yourself...."

* Hero Points -- May 1, 2003
"A roleplaying campaign can be like putting up wallpaper...."

* Truenames -- April 18, 2003
"Truenames are common in many fantasy settings. I think I first became aware of the concept in Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy..."

* Go, Go, Go! -- April 10, 2003
"Short entry this time. I hate spells with 1 minute/level durations...."

* Ceremony -- April 3, 2003
"I think I've already mentioned that one of the goals I set for myself with Arcana Unearthed was to make things a little less generic...."

* Things That Rules Take Away -- March 21, 2003
"There are aspects of fantasy roleplaying that rules, inadvertently, can actually take away...."

* Still Talking Classes -- March 13, 2003
"I've saved some of the best classes for last. Let's talk about the runethane, the mage blade, and the witch...."

* More Classes -- February 27, 2003
"This time, I want to tell you about some of the other classes: akashics, magisters, and greenbonds...."

* Build a Better Fighter -- February 23, 2003
"The title this week is facetious. It really should be 'build a different fighter'...."

* The Magic Balancing Act -- February 13, 2003
"In Arcana Unearthed I'm introducing a new method of magic item pricing. First, I streamlined the item creation feats..."

* More Magic -- January 23, 2003
"This week, I thought I'd talk more about the new magic system in Arcana Unearthed."

* Magic -- January 17, 2003
"As a designer, magic in Arcana Unearthed posed a huge challenge. I knew that I wanted to ditch the Vancian system...."

* Design Decisions, Part Two -- December 24, 2002
"Here's a bit more discussion of some of the general issues I faced as I began designing Arcana Unearthed...."

* Design Decisions, Part One -- December 19, 2002
"Before jumping into another big area of Arcana Unearthed's design, like classes or the magic system, I thought I'd discuss some of the general issues I faced as a designer starting the book...."

* Arcana Unearthed Races -- December 5, 2002
"I started with the races. While I knew that the game needed humans as a basis, I wanted all the other races to be new. I didn't want to just create dwarf and elf analogs with different names...."