The Planes: Elemental Chaos
Our next stop in The Planes series is the Elemental Chaos - a riotous realm of change.
Introduction to the Planes
Feywild, Shadowfell
Astral Plane
What is the Elemental Chaos
The Elemental Chaos is a sea of the raw materials of creation and is untouched by any stabilizing force like the domains of the divine in the Astral Sea. Here the forces of chaos sweep across it, mixing and blending the elements into a maelstrom. Here, the imprisoned primordials strike out at their prisons and chains, vowing one day to destroy the Material Plane as well as the gods.
History
The Elemental Chaos was created in 4th edition and combined the preexisting Inner Planes into a central location that featured every element and turned them into a chaotic force. This Elemental Chaos was used as the building blocks for the Material Plane and was inhabited by the powerful primordials who exhibited the same chaotic tendencies of their home. To build and then destroy, and then rebuild it again only to later have it be destroyed was integral to what the Elemental Chaos is, and the primordials found it beyond their ability to accept that the Material World could be static and never change.
The divine host of the Upper Planes, the gods and their angels, fought a long hard war, known as the Dawn War, against the primordials and their legions of archons to protect the Material Plane and the divine eventually destroyed or imprisoned the primordials. These primordials have vowed revenge and look for ways to regain their power and shake off their shackles so that they can destroy the Outer Planes and the Material World, using cultists and their archons to gather artifacts of power.
In 5th edition, the Inner Planes of the elements are returned and the Elemental Chaos is still kept, though its importance has largely been downsized and exists at the fringe edges of each of the elemental planes where they blend together into chaos.
Dungeon Master’s Guide, 2014 WotC
Because of the huge difference between these two editions, and that the Elemental Chaos was not present before 4th edition, I am going to be ignoring a lot of what is in the Elemental Chaos from 4th edition as many locales in the 4e Elemental Chaos, like the City of Brass or The Abyss, exist on their own planes or are a plane by themselves. Working within the different cosmologies, I will be presenting information on what you could only find in the Elemental Chaos, and will be creating articles for each of the Inner Planes in the future.
An Outsider’s Perspective
The Elemental Chaos is a harsh environment and one where you must always be on guard while traveling through. The ever-changing landscape hides dangers unique to a location home to all the elements at once. Bubbling seas of acid, rivers of lightning and massive ice mountains move through the chaos, all the while earthbergs crash into one another.
The plane, beyond the floating materials of creation, is largely bare. Plantlife, most likely disgorged from the Material World somehow, rarely grows and when it does it only does so in very select locations where the conditions are just right, quickly destroyed by a random collision with an earthberg or liquid fire rains down, burning away all life.
Not much here could be considered of interest to most adventurers, though some may be called to enter the chaos in search of cultists, lost artifacts of the Dawn War or the primordials themselves.
A Native’s Perspective
Nothing in the chaos stays the same, and the inhabitants mimic that. Those that call the Elemental Chaos home are largely the elementals who are formed and created by their planes, though the elementals formed in the chaos are typically created by numerous elements and maybe the only of its type. Reports of armies of archons, elementals created through a special elemental forge and grafted into armor, have escaped out of the chaos. Many say that these armies form outside of where their primordial master is imprisoned, ready for the day when the primordials break free and resume the war on the divine and their angelic host.
Manual of the Planes, 2008 WotC
The primordials locked away in the Elemental Chaos are hidden in its depths, unable to escape their prisons. Their attempts at escaping involve luring cultists to their causes and promising great power and treasures untold to those who help them escape. Among the pawns of the primordials are their titans who rule over domains in the Elemental Chaos, forcing it to change to their will, or else they move on to a location more suited for them. The titans will often have giants among their ranks who they use as their slaves and workers.
The other inhabitants of the Elemental Chaos are the genasi, many of them were once slaves but were either freed or, more likely, ran away from their masters. They have begun building settlements in the chaos, for very few elementals are willing to track down a runaway slave who might be already dead out in the chaos. The genasi do everything they can to keep their settlements going, but it is a hard life. It is even harder for them to convince traders to come out to the chaos, and they are forced to do what they have to, to survive.
Traits
The Elemental Chaos is a place of creation and riotous change. Those with enough mental power can create a place of their own, though it is a constant struggle to hold anything together. Anything that is part of the Elemental Chaos floats through the plane, as if there is no gravity for it, while those who travel or any material from outside the chaos experience gravity. This is especially worrying for anyone who tries jumping from one floating earthmote to another, only for the floating earthbergs to suddenly move far apart and you begin falling until finding solid footing hundreds or thousands of feet below.
This holds true for any material brought into the chaos, if an arrow from the Material World is shot out into the Elemental Chaos, it acts as if there is gravity. If you, somehow, make and fire an arrow made of the materials in the Elemental Chaos, it will continue flying in whatever direction it was shot in, no gravity slowing or halting its progress.
Travel to the Plane
Traveling to the Elemental Chaos is considered incredibly difficult. It is at the very outer edges of the Inner Planes, where they bleed together and create the chaos. Luckily for any who wish to travel to the chaos are the teleportation and planar gates that are created by the Elemental Chaos. No one is quite sure how they form, but it is theorized that because the Elemental Chaos is pure chaos and magic, it was bound to happen.
These gate coordinates can be found in ancient tomes of knowledge, stumbled across while exploring the Elemental Chaos or told to the faithful followers of a primordial. Many only function some of the time or under very specific circumstances. It could be that a gate only works once a month for 3 days, while another gate may only work one way. Small settlements will often be set up outside of more active gates as many traders aren’t willing to travel very far from a known gate as the Elemental Chaos is constantly moving and shifting. The gates can take on a variety of appearances such as symbols floating in the air made of flames, pure gold blocks set in a glacier, or captured lightning arranged in complex patterns.
Traversing the Plane
Adventurers will find this plane to be chaotic and ever-changing, making it incredibly difficult to really know where you are and, unlike in the Astral Plane, an adventurer can’t just will themselves to whatever destination they are looking for. The Elemental Chaos is an actual plane that is infinite in all directions, and it is constantly shifting.
Traveling by foot is incredibly foolhardy, and many who attempt it are never heard from again. Floating earthmotes range in size from a few inches to the size of continents, and the space in between the earthmotes could be so vast that even those that can fly would be too tired to make the journey before falling from exhaustion. The other problem is that earthmotes float in random directions and constantly are smashing into each other, though some say that the efreet of the Plane of Fire can determine where an earthmote is heading through their mysterious divination magics known as al-buraj.
The Plane Below - Secrets of the Elemental Chaos, 2012 WotC
A faster method of traveling the plane is utilizing the chaos gliders that are able to fly utilizing the invisible chaos currents that swirl through the plane, traveling thousands of miles in an instant, though it is a constant fight to stay on course while riding chaos currents. Or, you can utilize a lightning skiff that literally rides the crackling rivers of lightning, though you can only ever travel with the lightning and are restricted as to where you can travel too. If there are no lightning storms where you want to go, you are unable to reach it.
Airships are also an option as well as using a planar dromond or spelljammer, though they may become damaged by the harsh environment and they must be properly prepared in case you travel through a huge gas cloud of ooze, or tumultuous whirlwinds of ice descend on you.
Morphic & Fluid
Because the Elemental Chaos is of constant change, it can be morphed by those with a powerful enough mind. Creatures can calm the chaos around them, stopping hazards from exploding or causing their earthmote to move in a direction of their choosing. The larger the area that a creature wishes to control, the harder it is for them to control it.
Powerful creatures, like the primordials' titan children, will attempt to control their lands and morph them to fit their desires, though some find it easier to just move their domains throughout the chaos rather than fight the chaos constantly.
Hazards
Throughout the Elemental Chaos are materials mixing in strange and new ways. While it may be obvious to ignore the bubbling sea of ooze, it may not be as easy to see which parts of an earthmote might explode out in fire, or that the crust of the earthmote is incredibly thin and just below the surface is quicksand made out of lightning and mud. The hazards of the Elemental Chaos are as varied as the materials that make it up, and they are constantly shifting through a myriad of different forms.
Locations
Due to the chaotic nature of this plane, there are very few set locations inside the Elemental Chaos, and many of those locations are constantly under threat of being destroyed by an errant continent-sized earthmote or a new river of liquid fire channeled through it. The locations that last in the Elemental Chaos are always changing in different ways, and the inhabitants must make their peace with that.
Brazen Bazaar
The Plane Below - Secrets of the Elemental Chaos, 2012 WotC
The Brazen Bazaar is a great traveling marketplace and carnival that hails originally from the City of Brass and is run by a group of elite efreets known as the Golden Hearth. This wheeled wagon caravan travels across a bridge of smoke that originates under their wagons and guides them safely across the Elemental Chaos.
The bazaar travels across the various planes, trading magic items, news, and secrets. If a rare magical item or piece of information can be found, the Brazen Bazaar should be the first place to be checked - if you can find it. The bazaar travels where it wants, and only stops in important locations where the full 1,000 plus wagon caravan can set up safely and, more importantly, profitably. Shops and inns are located inside of the wagons where the insides are far larger than their humble outside appearance would suggest.
Gloamnull
The Plane Below - Secrets of the Elemental Chaos, 2012 WotC
Gloamnull, the city of rain, is one of the cities being settled by the genasi. It is constantly subjected to the rain, and the earthmote it rests on is constantly overflowing with the rain. While the genasi appear kind to weary travelers, the inhabitants hold a dark secret close. Many among them worship Dagon, an Elder Evil who saved them from the near-constant attacks from archons and giants. In exchange, they give sacrifices to Dagon, killing the unfaithful among them or travelers if they happen to be there at the wrong time.
Filling the rivers and caverns that dot their earthmote are strange fish with tentacles around their mouths, presumably sent by Dagon. The inhabitants rely on those strange fish for their main source of food and utilize trade to help supplement their meals. The settlement is slowly growing, and more escaped genasi arrive daily.
Pillars of Creation
Holding up the Elemental Chaos are the massive Pillars of Creation, each formed from different elements. They are said to stretch from the very bottom of the Elemental Chaos to the very top of it, holding it all together. Though the fact that the plane is infinite in size has done very little to discourage travelers from trying to reach the very top or bottom of the pillars, and there have never been any reports that someone has succeeded in the task. The pillars all range in thickness from a few hundred yards around to miles wide, and each have elemental creatures that prowl across their surfaces.
There are only a handful of known pillars, like the Obelisk of Ice which is made of pure ice with runes etched across its surfaces, the Raging Storm which is made of cloudlike matter stacked on itself and storm creature crawl all around the surface, or the Torrent of Magma which has a flowing surface of magma and air while islands float around it.
Factions & People
Elementals
While most adventurers would assume that the main inhabitants of the Elemental Chaos would be the elementals, many prefer to exist in their native planes where they aren’t exposed to the different elements that they aren't made up of. The elementals that do exist in the chaos take on the form of a wide variety of elements and maybe the only one of their kind. There have been rare sightings of strange and new elementals in the chaos, though none have been able to capture them or study them in great detail.
Archons
Archons are elementals that have been put through a process where they are forge and bound into armor using the powerful foundries that the primordials created during the Dawn War. They are forced to serve and are only interested in combat. They hate all celestials with a burning passion and care little for their own life if it means they could kill one. It is said that there are great armies of archons preparing for their primordial commander, eagerly awaiting the day that their master is free and they can strike out at the divine powers.
Genasi
The genasi are typically born between elementals and the inhabitants of the Material World, though they may have human parents who were just exposed to the Elemental Chaos and were twisted while in the womb. The genasi are not quite suited for living in the Elemental Chaos, though they have little choice as the inhabitants of the Inner Planes would want to enslave them and, even on the Material World, they are treated with distrust and sometimes violence.
They do what they have to do in the chaos, and have begun setting up settlements, hoping that they can create genasi cities where they are free to live with their own kind.
Primordials
During the Dawn War, the primordials rose up against the divine host. The gods wanted to protect the Material World from the destruction of the primordials who see the static Material World as a slight against them. By the end of the war, primordials and gods alike were killed in the wake, though the divine were able to ultimately win. They imprisoned several of the primordials and cast their prisons into the deep reaches of the Elemental Chaos, they hope for good.
As time passes by, the primordials are growing their power and, while many of them are imprisoned, a handful was able to escape that fate and they still rage across the Elemental Chaos slowly growing their armies for the day the others escape their prisons.
Balcoth, the Groaning King
Balcoth is one of the imprisoned primordials, though he experiences more freedom than several of the others. His body freely roams through the Elemental Chaos, though it is in constant search for its head, which is locked away in a prison on the Material World. The body blindly wanders the chaos, hoping to find a way to save itself from the eternal torture the gods are putting it through.
Titans
The titans of the primordials, also known as archomentals, are often mistaken for the primordials. They were created to be the generals and mighty champions of the primordials, and continue on the mission to destroy the Material World. The likes of Yan-C-Bin, the evil prince of air, and Olhydra, the evil prince of water, are using their influence, even while imprisoned, to create cults in their name and to cause devastation where they can.
Resources & Further Reading
Manual of the Planes (4th edition)
For more information on the 4th edition’s Elemental Chaos.
The Plane Below: Secrets of the Elemental Chaos (4th edition)
For more information on creatures and locales in the Elemental Chaos.
Player’s Option - Heroes of the Elemental Chaos (4th edition)
For more information on the Primordials and their titans.
Dungeon Master’s Guide (5th edition)
For more information on how the Inner Planes function alongside the Elemental Chaos.
Princes of the Apocalypse (5th edition)
For more information on the cultists of Primordials and their titans.
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