The Planes of Existence

Incredibly vast is the cosmos, it teems with a multitude of worlds as well as myriad alternate dimensions of reality, called the Planes of Existence. It encompasses every world, all within the relatively mundane realm of the Material Plane. Beyond that plane are domains of raw elemental matter and energy, realms of pure thought and ethos, the homes of demons and angels, and the dominions of the gods.

Material Echoes

The Material Plane is a richly magical place, and its magical nature is reflected in the two planes that share its central place in the multiverse. The Feywild and the Shadowfell are parallel dimensions occupying the same cosmological space, so they are often called echo planes or mirror planes to the Material Plane. The worlds and landscapes of these planes mirror the natural world of the Material Plane but reflect those features into different forms—more marvelous and magical in the Feywild, distorted and colorless in the Shadowfell. Where a volcano stands in the Material Plane, a mountain topped with skyscraper-sized crystals that glow with internal fire towers in the Feywild, and a jagged rock outcropping resembling a skull marks the spot on the Shadowfell.

• The Feywild
• The Shadowfell

Beyond the Material

Beyond the Material Plane, the various planes of existence are realms of myth and mystery. They’re not simply other worlds, but different qualities of being, formed and governed by spiritual and elemental principles abstracted from the ordinary world.

Positive and Negative Planes

Like a dome above the other planes, the Positive Plane is the source of radiant energy and the raw life force that suffuses all living beings, from the puny to the sublime. Its dark reflection is the Negative Plane, the source of necrotic energy that destroys the living and animates the undead. The Energy Planes are pure and it is near-impossible to have anything exist in a plane for any length of time before the energy of that plane simply destroys it.

Transitive Planes

The Ethereal Plane and the Astral Plane are called the Transitive Planes. They are mostly featureless realms that serve primarily as ways to travel from one plane to another.

• Ethereal Plane
• Astral Plane

The Inner Planes

The Inner Planes surround and enfold the Material Plane and its echoes, providing the raw elemental substance from which all the worlds were made. The four Elemental Planes — Air, Earth, Fire, and Water — form a ring around the Material Plane, suspended within the churning Elemental Chaos.

• Elemental Plane of Air
• Elemental Plane of Earth
• Elemental Plane of Fire
• Elemental Plane of Water
• The Elemental Chaos

Outer Planes

If the Inner Planes are the raw matter and energy that makes up the multiverse, the Outer Planes are the direction, thought and purpose for such construction. Accordingly, many sages refer to the Outer Planes as divine planes, spiritual planes, or godly planes, for the Outer Planes are best known as the homes of deities.

• The Seven Heavens of Mount Celestia
• The Twin Paradises of Bytopia
• The Blessed Fields of Elysium
• The Wilderness of The Beastlands
• The Olympian Glades of Arborea
• The Heroic Domains of Ysgard
• The Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo
• The Windswept Depths of Pandemonium
• The Infinite Layers of The Abyss
• The Tarterian Depths of Carceri
• The Gray Waste of Hades
• The Bleak Eternity of Gehenna
• The Nine Hells of Baator
• The Infinite Battlefield of Acheron
• The Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus
• The Peaceable Kingdoms of Arcadia

The Far Realm

Well beyond the reaches of any of the planes, outside all of known existence is a place of unimaginable abstraction and madness called The Far Realm. It stretches past the borders of the known multiverse and the entities that reside there are so foreign and strange that even the gods are said to go mad trying to understand it.

Type

Multiverse