The Planes: Plane of Earth
Our next stop in The Planes series is the Plane of Earth - a plane of crushing stones, hostile worlds and a vast continent-wide city.
Introduction to the Planes
Reflections: Feywild, Shadowfell
Outer Planes: Astral Plane, Mechanus, Pandemonium, Sigil
Inner Planes: Elemental Chaos, Plane of Water
What is the Plane of Earth
The Plane of Earth is located in the Inner Planes and is the home of earth elementals, Dao, crushing stones and the rarest gems, minerals, and materials found throughout the planes. This plane is the least hospitable of the Inner Planes, which many travelers may gawk at and point at the Plane of Fire as being the most dangerous. The Plane of Earth is unmoving and does little to nothing to help travelers who appear here. Many inexperienced travelers can appear inside of this plane, finding themselves encased in rock, unable to move and suffocating as they are imprisoned; even if they are able to arrive in an open space, there is no natural air to breathe.
If travelers are ill-prepared for this plane, then that is their fault.
History
Manual of the Planes, TSR Inc. 1987
The Plane of Earth was brought into the light in the 1st edition’s Manual of the Planes (1987) and introduced the concept of an infinite plane of stone, gems, and minerals. In 4th edition, it was merged into the Elemental Chaos and with the 5th edition returning it to its place in the Inner Planes. In 5th edition, it also removes the infinite expanse of stone making up this plane, but rather that the plane is made up of a mountain range that reaches high into the sky.
Inside of this plane are the creatures who move through solid stone. Elementals of this plane aren’t restricted by the stone and can pass through it as if it weren’t even there. Other travelers can sometimes luck upon empty pockets in the stone or find fissures where civilization resides.
An Outsider’s Perspective
Visiting the Plane of Earth is a dangerous proposition for any traveler, not only is there the chance that you might arrive inside of a slab of stone, but you might arrive in front of the Dao who enslave anyone they can find, or you could arrive near elementals who are often hostile to anyone from the Material Plane. Traveling the Plane of Earth is not for the weak, though there can be riches beyond imagination hidden throughout the plane for those strong enough to resist the power of stone.
Many are called to travel to this plane because of the very nature of this plane, it’s solid stone makes it a prime hiding spot for ancient relics and powerful items that can’t simply be destroyed. Wizards will come to this plane to create their towers hidden in the stone, employing the elementals to act as guards. Travelers might even stumble across these ancient relics if they are very lucky… or, they’ll find the fossilized remains of someone who traveled into the Plane of Earth but was entombed in stone.
If you can travel through stone, the plane opens up and you can explore and search for riches beyond measure. The rarest gems, stones, and minerals can be found in veins throughout the plane and many mining operations have been started to exploit these never-ending resources.
A Native’s Perspective
Living in the Plane of Earth is very different depending on who you are. The elementals drift throughout the plane with many, like the Xorns, looking for gems to devour for sustenance. Others, like the Dao, live in massive cities where they have slaves to do their biddings and to mine out precious materials so that they can trade with others across the planes. Many imbibe the values of earth, they are stubborn, resistant to change and with many valuing solitude.
For elementals, journeying through the Plane of Earth is freeing. They can move and pass through stone as if it isn’t even there, allowing them to search through the plane for travelers or hidden magical items. These elementals are uncaring at the best of times to the plights of outsiders, though they can be bribed to help out those who are stuck inside of the plane and need to be released from their stone tombs. They are always on the hunt for rare, priceless gems and many see those gems as delicacies to enjoy.
Al-Qadim: Secrets of the Lamp, 1993 TSR Inc.
The Dao are the genies of the Plane of Earth and are focused on amassing their wealth and treasures, of building their reputations and enslaving creatures as a way to grow their power. They live in the Great Dismal Delve, a continent-wide fracture in the Plane of Earth where their massive city resides, this is one of the few places in the Plane where the crushing stone is held back so that the Dao can conduct trade and entertain visitors.
Atmosphere
Because the Plane of Earth is solid stone, there are no natural sources of air and instead, travelers must either travel to a location inside of the plane that has air, like the Great Dismal Delve or be able to bring their own supply. In the earlier editions, the Plane of Earth was solid stone with small pockets that might contain air, ash, magma, lightning, water or just be a vacuum with no atmosphere. In 5th edition, the Plane of Earth becomes a twisting maze of caverns and tunnels built inside of massive mountains that reach so high up into the air that there is no air at their tops. While you can journey to the outside of the mountains, there is little to nothing out there
Traits
The Plane of Earth is one of the building blocks for the Material Plane and so the stone and other minerals that can be found on the Material Plane can be found throughout this plane, and typically in greater abundance. This plane’s stone is always in motion and passages open and closes constantly as the great stone slabs that make up this plane shift.
Travel to the Plane
Arriving into the Plane of Earth can be very simple, though it isn’t without consequences. By casting a spell like plane shift, where it takes you to a close to a location of your choice, you might appear inside of solid stone where you are unable to move or breathe, the ever-present pressure of the stone driving the air from your lungs where you eventually suffocate and die.
A safer option of arriving in the Plane of Earth is locating a vortex, these typically appear in the Material Plane at the roots of mountains far below in the Underdark. These vortexes appear to be a swirling mass of material funneling into a deeper cavern below them, though they lead to either the Material Plane or the Plane of Earth depending on where you enter from. They are mainly used by the Dao to conduct trade business with the inhabitants of the Underdark, like the Drow and Duergar. The Dao are mostly interested in acquiring more slaves.
Traversing the Plane
Traveling through this plane can be very complicated if you lack any magical abilities or have little strength. If you have the ability to walk through stone or morph the stone into a passage, you can explore the plane, though you must also be able to create some way for you to breathe as there is little to no natural deposits of air in this plane. If you are strong, you can mine through the layers of rock and hopefully find the Great Dismal Delve or a vortex to take you out of the plane, though you also have to worry about how much air you have available.
While the Great Dismal Delve is the largest of its kind, there are a variety of other pockets throughout the Plane of Earth where elementals and others who are trapped on this plane make their home. There can be pockets only a few feet wide to miles wide, home to Mephits to Xorns to Dao looking for more slaves. Or you might stumble across a mining operation where the workers are worked non-stop as they dig out priceless gems and precious materials.
Fossil Remains
Journeying through the stone of the Plane of Earth, you might stumble across the fossil remains of creatures who were somehow transported to the Plane of Earth and stuck inside of the stone with no way to get out. They might be adventurers, great magical creatures or anything that has no innate ability to move through stone. Some of these creatures might even still be alive if they don’t require air to live. If a creature dies while inside of the stone, they begin to fossilize due to the constant pressure of the stone pressing down on them and upon finding them, there might only be the metal equipment they wore, magic items and their bones.
Earthquakes
The Plane of Earth is made up of an infinite number of stone slabs that are constantly pushing and scraping across each other. When these slabs move against each other, they create earthquakes that can be felt as a light shake or such a massive shudder that caverns collapse and creatures are shaken to death. This plane is constantly in motion, and earthquakes are incredibly regular, forcing any who wish to keep the caverns or tunnels clear of debris constantly busy. The Plane of Earth is tireless in trying to fill in every empty space inside of the plane with stone.
Locations
There are very few bastions of civilization in the Plane of Earth as elementals are focused on solitude and avoiding others. Hidden away in pockets throughout the plane, a very lucky adventurer might stumble on to a small town of Dao, travelers, or elementals who wish to be around each other.
Great Dismal Delve
The only true city in all of the Plane of Earth is the Great Dismal Delve. This massive cavern is the size of a continent and the Dao work tirelessly to ensure that the Plane of Earth doesn’t destroy it or fill it in with stone. The Dao own hundreds of slaves each, with all the slaves working tirelessly on cleaning up debris, mining for materials and fighting back against the Plane of Earth to keep the Great Dismal Delve available for traders and travelers so that the Dao can continue to conduct their business and increase their wealth and power.
The Delve, in previous editions, wasn’t actually one huge, open space but rather a maddening twist of tunnels and mazes that marked the homes of small clans of Dao with their slaves and elementals that worked for the Dao. In 5th edition, this is changed so that the Great Dismal Delve, also known as the City of Jewels, is an open cavern with huge buildings and spires that rise up. These buildings are all decorated in lavish splendor, from precious gems that sit at the top of every spire, to precious metals worked into the buildings themselves.
Sevenfold Mazework
The Sevenfold Mazework, in some editions, is just another name for the Great Dismal Delve, like in 5th edition. In other editions, it is located inside of the Great Dismal Delve and is the home for the Great Khan of Dao. In this labyrinth is the royal court, a marketplace, and twisting mazes filled with precious gems. There are seven distinct mazes inside of this mazework and each maze can only be truly understood by the Dao as its magical nature is quick to get anyone else lost.
Most visitors and common Dao are not allowed past the first maze of interwoven arches and balconies overlooking the city, here the most common of Dao can conduct trade or bring forth petitions to the Great Khan’s functionaries. Past this section, there are 6 more with restricted access, the further you go into the mazes, the higher up you must be in Dao society, and there are only rumors what one can expect deeper into the mazes. Stone slabs with glistening gems are said to be puzzles for Dao to solve, another maze is said to be a reverse maze where you must walk through the walls at the right sections to find the home of the Great Khan’s dignitaries and another section is said to be made solely of glass and wall of force spells so that you can always see the exit but never where the walls are.
Thievery in the Great Dismal Delve
With the vast amount of wealth on display in the Great Dismal Delve and in the Sevenfold Mazework, the Dao have taken special precautions and everything of value, from the tiniest of jewels to the largest slab of gold, is coated in magic. Each precious material has a sigil written into it that alerts every Dao in the Great Dismal Delve if it is ever taken by another creature, the punishment for stealing is typically enslavement for the rest of your life or a painful death at the hands of the cruel Dao.
Factions & People
Dao
Monster Manual, 2014 WotC
The Dao are malicious and cruel with no thought towards other creatures except for what they can gain in power, wealth, and slaves. They never help or give charity to others unless they are offered a suitable bribe or payment, and even then they can’t always be trusted to continue to help unless they are continually offered treasure. The Dao have very few trading partners, with the Efreets of the Plane of Fire being the only genie that they will even consider trading with. After the Efreets, they use the vortexes to travel to the Material Plane where they trade with the creatures of the Underdark, offering precious gems and stone for slaves, worked metals, and other valuables.
They enslave any creature they can, this includes the elementals of the Plane of Earth, humanoids from the Material Plane, and anyone else they can control. ?They are especially interested in the finest of slaves and are willing to trade huge hoards of wealth to get the best slave as a status symbol. Most of these slaves are used to dig out veins of precious materials, keep the Great Dismal Delve open from the constant earthquakes in the plane, or as servants to run their houses, others are used as entertainment or status symbols to be shown off.
The Dao are very upfront about bribes and bribery is expected as a matter of politics. Discussing openly the amount of a bribe is expected and any who refuse to take part, or don't offer enough, rarely get far in their society.
Elementals
The elemental spirits that reside in the Plane of Earth take on the personality of the plane. Stubbornness, resistant to change and solitary creatures that avoid visitors to this plane, and especially the Dao who would enslave them. Elemental spirits, a wild spirit of elemental force, has no body on the Plane of Earth, but rather moves across the plane as a force of nature, only when they are bound do they inhabit and take form in stone, clay, flesh, iron or other materials.
Apart from the elemental spirits, there are also Mephits, Galeb Duhr, Xorn and a few others that move across the plane. The Mephits are little more than pests, the Xorn can travel in small packs in search of precious gemstones to devour and the Galeb Duhr can be bound and used as protectors for places of importance by druids.
Encounters
Fossil - While journeying through the plane, you stumble across the fossilized remains of a dead tiefling. In its hands is an old journal giving vague details of the location of hidden treasures in the Plane of Earth.
Xorn Demands - An Xorn steps out of the wall in front of you and is demanding payment in gems. If you refuse or are too stingy in payment, it is threatening to collapse the tunnel on you. If attacked, it has more of its kind hiding beneath the feet of the party, waiting to strike.
Earthquake - An earthquake is sweeping across the Plane of Earth, causing cave-ins and tunnel collapses. The party must either outrun the collapsing tunnel behind them or find some way to survive being buried alive.
Enslavement - The Dao are insisting you have trespassed on their lands and you are to now repay this infraction by being slaves for the next 10 years. They are open to being bribed, though they will take a low bribe as an insult and add another 10 years to the sentence.
Rat Problem - While in the Great Dismal Delve, the innkeeper has hired you to deal with a ‘rat’ problem in the basement. Mephits have taken up residence in the basement and are destroying and eating everything they can find.
Thief - Someone in your group has stolen a jewel near the outskirts of the Great Dismal Delve and Dao from all over are bearing down on you, their large stone mauls raised high as they give out commands in their deep voices. Everyone in the group will be killed as a demonstration for the next group of adventurers who wish to steal from the Dao.
Resources & Further Reading
Manual of the Planes (1st edition)
For more information on random encounters in the Plane of Earth.
Al-Qadim: Secrets of the Lamp (2nd Edition)
For more information on the mazes of the Sevenfold Mazework and the culture of the Dao.
Manual of the Planes (3rd edition)
For more information on creatures and locales in the Plane of Earth.
Dungeon Master’s Guide (5th edition)
For more information on how the Plane of Earth functions as a mountain range.
Monster Manual (5th edition)
For more information on Dao, Elementals, Mephits, and Xorn.
Deep Dive - The Xorn
For an in-depth look at the Xorn through the various editions of Dungeons & Dragons.
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