Ever since Planescape was released, bringing together the D&D cosmology into a vaguely coherent model, and even before then, an adventure on the Planes has been a prospect that has wet the appetites of many players, and given many DMs hours of fun flicking through their monster manuals to find the best creatures for such a thing. Whether it’s hunting a devil through the Nine Hells, or playing politics in the Feywild or City of Brass, or desperately surviving the ever-shifting horrors of the Abyss, the possibilities are limitless. Or at least they should be.

But this doesn’t often feel like the case. A lot of the Planes seem to go underused. And this could be for any number of reasons. Some are far more developed than others – the Shadowfell and the Nine Hells both having adventures set wholly or partially in them, for instance (and, for what it’s worth, both Curse of Strahd and Descent into Avernus are top-quality outings). Some have much less conflict, and conflict is what often drives adventures. It’s usually the Upper Planes hit with this problem – Arcadia and Elysium are both delightful to live in, what are people going to complain about? Enjoying themselves too much?

Being boring isn’t restricted to the Upper Planes. Acheron, one of the Lower Planes, is, for my money, the dullest. An endless expanse of giant metal cubes crashing into one another with armies on them makes up the first layer, which isn’t good for much except endless killing, which you can do much more excitingly on Ysgard. I’d say it’s good for some battlefield politics, but a lot of the inhabitants of Acheron are Orcs, who aren’t the political sort.

And yet any Plane at all could have the potential for an adventure. A whole story arc, I’d be willing to bet. You just need to dig a little deeper. Think a little outside the box. And that’s what I’ll be doing here, giving some suggestions for how you could use these planes. My plan here isn’t to tell you what to play – although if anything on here miraculously gives you that bit of inspiration, go ahead – but to give you something to think about, for your own planar adventures.

Arcadia – The Spreading Rot

Pretty? Not for long

As far as the perfect, delightful, heavenly Upper Planes go, Arcadia is actually probably one of the more interesting, for the aesthetic if nothing else. It presents a more interesting form of perfect and heavenly than Bytopia’s Impressively Lawful Neutral Good, focusing more on the collective than the individual. It’s also more militarised than a lot of the heavenly Outer Planes, with cadres of Paladins who patrol to maintain order and see off any threats. Plus day changes to night instantly, that’s kinda cool.

But cadres of Paladins can’t overcome everything. And Arcadia’s a big place, plenty of room for things to go wrong. What if something dark, something evil, something corrupting, ended up there? Whether by accident or by design. An Unseelie Archfey, a fallen Angel, a powerful Demon. Something that could degrade the world around it by its very presence, and easily fight off any Paladin militia that attempted to destroy it. And it’s not just corrupting the world around it, it’s growing stronger. As the world rots and decays, it gains power. Glistening blue lakes turn to green sludge, the corpses of fish and swimmers lining their surfaces. Fine forests and plains soften and rot into fetid swamps. Beautiful birds turn gaunt and lose their colour, beginning to hunger for living and petitioner flesh. You get the picture. Paradise has been cursed. But your PCs – probably pretty powerful and high-level, if they’re getting this quest – are petitioned to slay the creature and end its corruption. But first, they need to travel through the corroded and decomposed husk of a beautiful land it has created.

Acheron – A Piece of Junk

Ugly? Yeah, it’ll stay like that.

Yep, we’re doing several planes I explicitly called out as being boring. My criticism of Acheron was primarily limited to its first layer – although the same applies to its third, and its fourth is pretty much instant death – because that’s the best known. But really, the only layer I’d say would particularly thrill me to run an adventure in (or play, but there may be a more creative DM than me who could make the other layers more fun) is the second. Because this one is unlike the others, in that it’s a massive junkyard, where all the lost weapons in the multiverse end up.

So, as, let’s face it, “search for this lost weapon” is a fairly popular plot hook, why not do it in the world’s biggest hay stack made almost entirely of needles? It makes thematic sense, and huge junkyards are honestly kind of cool. It also can add a bit more depth to a fairly simple plot arc, with the PCs, for instance, needing to find a way to reach Acheron, and then get back out. Furthermore, it can be a nice chance to splash a bit more magical loot for the party, given every lost magical weapon ends up there eventually (although not too many – for every Vorpal Sword, there are approximately ten trillion regular swords lost). It can also include a wide variety of enemies. Rust monsters, Fiends, other adventurers looking for other weapons (or even the same one). Hell, I’m sure a Celestial could even make the odd dip down there to search for loot, and is probably not very trusting of anyone down there.

If you wanted to include the other layers, there are ways. For instance, they might only be able to access the first layer, and need to find a way down. This could involve some negotiating with a side that controls access to it, or lead to an entertaining ‘hold the line’ section as the party attempt to hold off the Plane’s denizens long enough for the way down to be accessed. Or, going further down, wicked Wizards often make their lairs on the third layer, because it’s less populated. Maybe one of those has stolen the weapon, and the PCs only find out after fighting their way through the junkyard. You could even expand this to include other planes. Magic items are usually immune to rust and the sort, but I imagine potentially thousands of years in the cosmos’s junkyard might not do them wonders. They could need taking to some of the best weaponsmiths in the multiverse to give them their shine back – which happen to be on Bytopia (another paradise Plane). But there’s plenty of meat here, should you wish to go to Acheron of all the Lower Planes.

Carceri – There’s No Way Out of Here

And that sky is the least-scary part.

Speaking of Lower Planes nobody ever wants to go to, here’s one that is actually my favourite of all of them. I don’t know quite why I like Carceri quite so much, I just do. A lot of people consider it to be a knock-off Nine Hells (which, kind of valid), and that it’s very difficult to run anything short-term in there, due to its nature (again, definitely valid). But something about it being the perfect prison, for some of the most contemptible people in the cosmos just appeals to me. And what details have been given about it (it seems to be one of those planes that’s more set dressing than expected to be played in) are all cool. There’s a ship that provides one of the few refuges from the horrors of the plane, and so is often packed with the wicked and the damned. But it also contains a hundred stone coffins that nobody knows the contents of, and anytime they’re opened, the ship is found deserted. There’s a garden that is sentient and all one being, and appears to be trying to expand to cover the entire plane. The Titans of Othrys offer shelter to people on their layer if they have something to bargain with, but murder people who have the chance to escape in an envious rage. In short, there’s a lot of cool stuff to play with.

But this isn’t just a travel brochure for Carceri (that’d be one hell of a holiday), it’s reassuring you that you can totally play there. And you can. Now, I will admit, that unless you’re very high level, it probably won’t just be one adventure. Due to its nature – namely, that you can’t escape it without a Wish spell or through using one of the very rare and dangerous natural escapes – it probably suits a story arc more. But it could be one hell of a unique story arc, being trapped in a plane of perfect torment and seeking a way out. There are plenty of ways they could end up there. A mishap in the Astral Plane, sending them through a portal to this hellscape. A hiccup with a plane-shifting artifact. Or, for some more spice, what if they really need something or somebody on Carceri. They need to approach it knowing the risk, the horror, but they do it anyway. Because that’s what heroes do.

And, like Acheron, it has ways to link to other Planes. One of the precious few ways to escape is through accepting the offers of the Blood War recruiters who sometimes pass through to see who is desperate enough to accept their offers. If the PCs took that offer, that’s a whole other story arc you’ve got there. Another way is to follow the River Styx, braving its dangers and going on a veritable tour of the Lower Planes. There’s plenty of ways a story can go from Carceri, and more to do than the relatively sparse lore it has would suggest. And I just love the Plane in general. More respect for Carceri, please.

The Water Plane – On Stranger Tides

Yo ho, me hearties. Yo ho.

A lot of the Inner Planes get a bum rap. The Feywild and Shadowfell are for the most part liked and played in, the Astral Plane has Githyanki and Astral Dreadnoughts, two of the cooler extraplanar terrors, and the Ethereal Plane is….ghosts or something. But the Elemental Planes tend to get a bad reputation, and I think this is primarily due to how they were portrayed in older editions. Namely, as entirely made up of their element. The Plane of Fire was made up entirely of fire. The floor was thick, dense lava, the air was consumed with flames, and the atmosphere was ash and the sorts of gases volcanoes expel. The Plane of Water was just endless water. Water with things under it, sure, but no land or air. Both of which adventurers tend to be pretty fond of. Theoretically adventurable in, sure, but with a lot of difficulties that threatened to make it un-fun for adventuring.

Fifth Edition makes them a little more reasonable, and a lot more fun. They’re now primarily made up of that element, getting more and more made up of it as you move deeper into them, and further from the Prime Material. So now the Plane of Air has a high density of floating islands (with potentially cool waterfalls to nowhere) at the ‘start’, if you will, but they get further and further away the more you travel. The Plane of Water is similar. From the sides, it fades into a place where the frigid ice of the Frostfell (my actual favourite Elemental Plane, but I’m saving the Borders for another post) and the dank swamp of the Ooze Plane coalesce into something resembling land, with plenty of islands galore. But the Borders get further apart as you travel, and that land gets less and less, until you’re left with just water. Hope you have a boat, or are a strong swimmer.

But a ship is what opens the endless possibilities. The Plane of Water, in its current state in 5e with air and other minor things, is a chance to live out your Pirates of the Caribbean fantasies. And we all have those, it’s a good movie. You can swashbuckle your way across islands inhabited by undead crews whose spirits cannot rest in the Plane of Water. You can sail full speed ahead away from Krakens as your guns desperately pelt it to try and get it to back off. You can dive to shipwrecks in a bottomless sea (pressure, thankfully, is not something Fifth Edition pretends to simulate) to recover fabled artifacts.

So it requires a certain type of group, and a certain type of DM, but if you’re looking for a zany, fantastical, swashbuckling romp, the Plane of Water can take it to the next level once you’re done with the oceans of the Prime Material.

The Outlands – Red Dead Neutrality

Just imagine the cowboy is a Modron. Trust us.

Now, it might be technically cheating to include the Outlands on here. By all reports, it’s one of the most reasonable planes in Planescape. It’s inhabited by literally all sorts of folks and wildlife, it’s made up of the same sort of combinations of everything as the Prime Material. Furthermore, lots of adventures are run here. But the reason I’ve included it is because these adventures focus very much on one feature: Sigil, the City of Doors, at the centre of the multiverse, and the setting of the excellent game Planescape: Torment. And while Sigil is truly a fantastic setting for even a whole campaign, the rest of the Outlands tends to get left by the wayside.

Which is a shame because, by the lore given for it in 5e, the Outlands is basically the American frontier – in Planescape. It’s the ultimate kitchen sink (besides Sigil), because nearly anything can end up in the Outlands, minus the overwhelming civilisation Sigil has. The main bastions of civilisation are the seventeen Portal towns, one for each other Outer Plane. These each somewhat resemble their home Plane (so the Abyss one might not be too nice, for instance), but are inhabited by nearly anything. The Abyss Portal Town could well be home to the souls of mortals who couldn’t reach their god’s plane, retired Githyanki pirate captain on the run from the law who will regale you with a story for a shot of whiskey, a Devil Blood War captain who is all but begging for a fight with the local Demons, a grumpy Celestial there to hash out the details of an agreement with a Modron on ground they both hate equally, and pretty much any other Wild West trope you can think of, but with a Planescape bent.

Outside these Portal Towns, there are probably smaller towns, but they’re weaker, smaller, less able to defend themselves from local predations (which could be anything from bandits to manticores to Nothics, and far more besides). Much like the real frontier, where towns were weaker the further away from big cities they were. So the further you go, the more wild and unsafe the land gets. Another interesting feature is that, if you go inwards from the Portal Towns, rather than outwards (and it’s a circle, so going inwards gets you places quicker), your magic stops to function. Starting at first level slots, and, the closer you get to Sigil, higher and higher level slots, until at the base of the city, you can’t cast your ninth level spells. Which can add a fun (and by ‘fun’ I do mean ‘horrifying’) dynamic for your party’s spellcasters.

And the sheer variety of things you could do in the Outlands is dizzying. Anything you could do in Planescape and anything else you could do in the Wild West, all for the taking. Bodyguarding an Archfey as they take a drink in a town filled with their enemies? Check. Running mail between Portal Towns, ready to fight off the thieves or Modrons or Demons that want to steal it (and debating losing some spellcasting to shave off journey times)? Check. Hunting down a criminal gang containing members from six different planes who’ve been robbing across the multiverse? Check.

The sheer anything-ness of the Outlands combined with its almost frontier setting are its biggest strengths, and I think it’s honestly a shame it isn’t used more often.

So this has been five Planes that are often overlooked, but we promise you can run adventures on, seriously. And while the Nine Hells and the Feywild are cool, maybe give these ones a look-in when you’re planning your next planar jaunt. If you’ve enjoyed this article, please like it, comment below, and share it on social media. We’re hoping to bring you more D&D discussions soon.

If you’ve enjoyed this article, perhaps you’d like this one, on Four Types of Adventure you can run in 5e: https://artificialtwenty.home.blog/2019/06/04/four-types-of-adventure/

Or maybe this one, on settings that aren’t the Forgotten Realms: https://artificialtwenty.home.blog/2019/06/10/four-great-dd-settings-that-arent-forgotten-realms/