How to Explore the Planes
The multiverse is a huge place filled with unknown treasures, distant lands, and more oddities than you can cram into a Bag of Holding. Leaving the Material Plane, like the Forgotten Realms or Eberron, can seem a bit daunting. The Material Plane is known, comfortable, and familiar. But it holds nothing to the wider planes and multiverse.
However, for those who are new to the planes, the multiverse, and traveling beyond, it can be difficult to know how exactly you are supposed to get your party out there and exploring these unique realms.
Here are the best ways of exploring the multiverse, along with a few adventure ideas to incorporate into your campaign!
Player’s Handbook, 2014 Wizards of the Coast
Portals
One of the simplest and fastest ways to get into the planes, is simply to take a portal. Portals can be temporary, one-way, or have unique conditions tied to how they can be opened (even on just one side).
Dungeon Master’s Guide, 2014 Wizards of the Coast
They are often found in locations where their destination reverberates the strongest, like a portal to the Feywild might appear in a glade deep in the forest, only appearing on warm summer days when the flowers bloom and form the portal. However, they might also just appear randomly in the world, like a portal to Limbo (the plane of chaos) jumping across the worlds with no discernable pattern.
For more detailed information on portals, check out our post on How To Use Portals.
Adventure Ideas
Jumping through the planes, the party must chase after a villain that has corrupted multiple planes with its foul influence. Creatures of evil and hatred are destroying the careful balance of the planes, and the party must put an end to these creatures and defeat the boss on each plane, slowly catching up to the BBEG.
Its the Great Modron March and people from all over the planes are following their progress, curious as to why the modrons are even marching. The party joins the march across the planes, helping the modrons defend themselves, seeing incredible new sights, and learn about the inner workings of the multiverse.
A cult dedicated to the primordials is attempting to break them free in the elemental planes, forcing the party to explore the elemental chaos, negotiate with genies, and brave the dangers of the negative energy plane.
Spelljammers
If you don’t want to explore the planes, but still want to visit different worlds, this is the setting for you. These ships, known as spelljammers, shoot through space, known as wildspace (or the phlogiston, depending on where you are), and travel at incredible speeds so you can see new worlds in a matter of weeks or months (instead of thousands or millions of years).
These ships must be piloted by someone gifted with magic, taking control over the helm and activating the magic within it. With this powerful vehicle, the party can travel not just solar system their world resides in, but also to other worlds, like Toril in the Forgotten Realms, Eberron in the Eberron setting, and so many more out there. Perhaps, they might even find the fabled world of Flax, where the entire population is made up of tarrasque-like creatures.
To learn how to create your own Wildspace system, check out our post on Creating a Wildspace System.
Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, 1989 TSR / David O Miller
Adventure Ideas
The party stumble across a crashed spelljammer. Perhaps they witnessed a shooting star the previous night, followed by an explosion not too far away from them. They find the wreckage, and the spelljammer helm is still in good condition, but they must find a new vehicle for the helm to be mounted on (like a sailing ship).
Neogi spelljammers descend on the planet, capturing and enslaving the population. The neogi are likely to devour many as foodstock, but will also trade the prisoners to beholders, other neogi, and to evil creatures across the wildspace. The party will have to break their way out of their prison and take hold of their spelljammer, adrift somewhere in the wildspace when they do finally break free.
A merchant has stopped at the party’s world, looking to trade, gather much needed food supplies, and even take on a few adventurers as protection as they make their way into a dangerous part of wildspace for a lucrative trade deal. They’ll take the party to the stars, help the party learn how to navigate wildspace, and even to talk to about getting their own spelljammer helm if they want one.
Magic (Spells & Magic Items)
In the books of great wizards and the prayers of the most potent clerics are powerful spells that can help an adventuring party to explore the world, distant worlds, and the multiverse at large. With spells like Plane Shift, Teleport, and Gate, the multiverse opens up to the party.
And if they don’t have those spells, you can always throw them magic items that can replicate those spells. These magic items could grant them Etherealness so that they might explore the Ethereal Plane or help them find portals if you don’t want them jumping around the planes with no limit to where they can go.
Dungeon Master’s Guide, 2014 Wizards of the Coast
If you want official magic items for traveling the planes, you have several like Amulet of the Planes, Candle of Invocation, Cubic Gate, and the Well of Many Worlds. The Amulet of the Planes offers the greatest freedom, letting the wielder freely travel the planes and pick where they want to go. While they must make a check, the penalty is very slight as you can simply repeat the check the next turn and arrive at your destination six seconds later than you originally attended.
On the other end of the spectrum is the Cubic Gate and the Well of Many Worlds. The Cubic Gate is tied to six specific planes, and one of them must be the Material Plane. This allows your party to explore specific planes that you decide on, granting them freedom in a limited manner. The Well of Many Worlds, however, functions like the Tardis from Doctor Who. It opens up portals to planes of the GM’s choice, and once used, can’t be used for 1d8 hours. This provides plenty of time for the players to get into trouble, help random people they meet, and have a fun romp across the planes.
Of course, there are also ‘nuclear’ options when it comes to reaching the planes. If the party stuffs two Bags of Holding into each other, they have just uprooted your plans are cast into the Astral Plane.
Adventure Ideas
The party has been given a Well of Many Worlds on the one condition that they use it to help people. Traveling the planes, the party get into all sorts of adventures, jumping into quest after quest, perhaps with an overarching villain causing the issues they must fix.
The party has long been a problem for the BBEG, and the BBEG knows that they lack the power to kill them. Instead, they decide on something drastic. They have set up a trap that uses two Bags of Holding to remove the party from the Material Plane, and send them somewhere out into the Astral Plane. Hopefully they’ll be eaten by an astral dreadnought.
A powerful wizard needs a job done somewhere out in the planes, but doesn’t have the time to handle it themselves personally. Instead, they hire the party, plane shift them to the right plane, and then abandon them to finish the task. Hopefully the wizard remembers to come back and bring the party back to their world.
Exploring the Multiverse
There is much to see in the multiverse. From the burning sea of fire on the Plane of Fire to the glistening silver seas on the first layer of Mount Celestia, there is adventure out there, and it doesn’t need to be confined to just a single world. We hope you’ll take party to these distant realms and create unforgettable memories at the table!
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