So, I am running a campaign based on the China of legends and movies. Part of the cosmological underpinnings of that is a belief in a five element system, earth, wood, fire, metal, and water. I have the 3rd edition Manual of the Planes, but their elemental wood plane is... rather lacking. The Paizo book, Ultimate Magic has a brief mention wood as an element, but I need to expand that into a fully integrated part of the universe: elemental plane, spells for all classes, elementals - everything. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
If you are planning to flesh out the Elemental Plane of Wood then I would chack the following info.
Elemental Plane of Wood
1) Plane Description/Qualities: Look at PF's decription and writeup of the elemental plane of earth and make adjustments according to your 3E Manual of the Planes, and adapt what you can on your own. Also check out the alignment planes, I'm sure one has a description as a plane with vast woodlands etc. Adapt that too. Check the Plane of Elysium (CG).
*See Planes d20PFSRD
2) Spells: Check out the Wizard's Elemental School of Wood, and what its opposition school is. That will help you determine the Plane's Dominance (Plant-Dominant), Enhanced Magic (anything on the Wood School's list), and Impeded Magic (Opposition elemental school spells).
Elemental Schools:
*Be sure to read through everything in the Wood and Metal school entries.
3) Creatures: Check the d20PFSRD Bestiary.
Specifically check these according to type.
A) Construct: Golem (Wood), Wyrwood
B) Fey: Dryad, Faun, Oakman, Satyr, Twigjack, Woodswose
C) Humanoid: Giant (Forest), Giant (Wood)
D) Magical Beast: Dweomer Cat
E) Outsider: Kami (Fukujin, Jinushigami, Kodama, )
F) Plant: All
*No Wood Elementals, but you could certainly create your own, likely using Earth Elemental as a base, and Treant, maybe Leshy (Leaf) as some inspiration.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
When I was younger I read the book The Integral Trees by Larry Niven. When I created an elemental wood plane playing AD&D, I based it on the the idea that the plants grew on their own.
In my cosmology, each plane was slowly and ceaselessly devouring the plane it opposed. In this case the wood broke up the earth plane. Plants petrified when they reached a certain age and gathered (usually naturally, sometimes not) at the edge of the metal plane and used therein. But that was only within the conquest cycle.
In the natural cylce, the wood fed on the water plane and was in turn devoured by the fire. Water existed within the wood plane as a light mist or sometimes as mud balls (from ground torn free from the earth plane). Creatures from the fire plane would venture forth to gather wood as fuel (prefering Grand Trees, sometimes thousands of feet long and hundreds of feet wide) to use in their war with the metal plane.
You may also want to consider whether or not the plane of wood also acts as a transient plane. Tree stride is one example of how it could manifest in that capacity, but it need not be the only one.
If you also use the World Tree, the plane of wood could act like a kind of ethereal plane as well: extending beyond the Prime, just out of sight, there's an endless forest. This forest could have ground (elemental plane of earth), some rivers and lakes (elemental plane of water), and a light source (elemental plane of fire). If you are going to include the elemental plane of air somehow, it makes sense for there to be breathable air in the woodland realm - perhaps even weather too. Since metal tends to oppose wood, there could be no manifestations of that plane there - or very few.
Folks that can create demiplanes could do so by creating a clearing in the wood. In this case, it could be that plants come with the demiplane too. If you want, there could be animals living within the ethereal woodland - some that could be quite large or have odd, plant-like qualities. As Kazaan pointed out, this area would lend itself very well to fey - or to various types of oni if you want the more oriental flavor.
If it encroaches on the Prime, it could create areas of dangerous wild woodlands where the boarders are thin. Folks could be on a well-known path in the Prime woods one minute, and then find themselves lost in an endless forest the next.
