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Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Starfinder RPG

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Planar Adventures / Building a Planar Campaign / Presenting the Planes

Normal Is Abnormal

Source Planar Adventures pg. 84
The planes often subvert common cultural and physical expectations. Depending on the place, the PCs might have to navigate cities designed entirely for locals who can fly, swim, or spend extensive periods of time in gaseous form. Violent thoughts might physically manifest and harass the thinker, or raw chaos might reshape objects left unattended for too long. To locals, these occurrences might be part of their everyday lives, and this nonchalance can be as alien as the phenomena.

Traveling the planes exposes the PCs to jaw-dropping creatures and traditions, and there’s no reason their presence wouldn’t have a similar effect on the destination’s citizens. Depending on the location, native creatures might find the PCs’ appearances, behaviors, and bodies to be unsettling or appalling. Such inhabitants might demonstrate intentions entirely through pheromones and color displays, have superstitions about blinking eyes, see the world in a wider range of colors, or be unable to experience certain emotions. By contrast, cosmologically cosmopolitan regions might be familiar with travelers from the PCs’ home world, and some planar metropolises boast foreign districts where offworld creatures are more welcome. An introductory encounter set in such a space has the benefit of allowing the PCs to start in a less jarring place and work their way into more bizarre regions at their own pace.

Making the abnormal normal comes with an important warning: be very careful about rewriting the laws of reality. It might seem like a grand idea to assume that physics, down to the atomic level, operates differently on another plane, but that would mean even a 20th-level wizard’s body could discorporate in an instant. For most groups, aim for a middle ground of unsettlingly odd— an exciting destination that doesn’t entirely upend the game’s mechanics. Like running an intense investigation or a horror campaign, striking the right balance for a planar adventure might involve a conversation with your players to understand everyone’s boundaries and expectations.