20 Deadly Planes: An Overview

Some planes can be visited. Not these. Some planes can be contacted in order to commune with alien intelligences or to summon forth various entities. Not these. Raw and inherently hostile, these are not destinations. These are not places in which to seek enlightenment, nor to beg assistance. Nothing exists to be contacted or to answer any summons. Desolate and decaying, these are broken places, unoccupied and void regions, these sidereal abysses are extremely dangerous, but they have their uses...

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Twenty Deadly Planes: An Overview
More often than not the so-called 'Twenty Deadly Planes' are referred to by way of a common symbol. The true name(s) of these planes, if they actually have any such things, are not provided in any of the primary sources which tend to make use of 'Lesser Epithets,' or obscure hieroglyphs when not employing the common symbols. Modern scholars have adopted either the Lesser Epithets or the accepted translation of the older hieroglyphs, or use a combined version that incorporates both into something a bit more poetic sounding. Tastes vary. As do results.

These planes are only ever involved in the inflicting of damage. A wide array of Currents, Bolts, Missiles and other attack forms utilizing the highly unstable energies of these planes are detailed in dozens of primers and texts. There are also a range of Defensive Wards and Protection spells that fend off the worst effects of the energy currents drawn from these planes. There are also a number of Wall and Barrier Spells that draw upon these planes. There are no summoning, no banishing, none of those sorts of spells for these planes. Most of the primary sources also tend to gloss over the risk of madness that tends to go along with utilizing these forces in one's spells.

Table One: Twenty Deadly Planes

d20	Common Symbol	Lesser Epithet	Translated Hieroglyph	Damage Type	Risk of Insanity %
1	Roughly-etched square with three yellow droplets in the lower left-hand corner.	Crumbling Ottrabar	Clinging Yellow Ichor	Corrosive Decay	5%
2	Black trapezoid of ashes.	Ashen Wastes of Black Attush	Hot Black Ashes	Heat, Rapid Acidification	10%
3	Green zig-zags, preferably etched with acid.	Smoldering Karzig	Hot Green Vastness	Toxic, Heat	3%
4	A gray puddle.	Cold Gray Seas of Zou-Dagra	Frigid Gray Alkaline Pools	Cold, Toxic, Alkali	5%
5	Mirror shards arranged in a sort of maze.	Glass Labyrinth or Laar Perda	Transparent Mineral Growths	Telepathic, Physical Destruction	25%
6	Five green dots.	Killing Rains of Jag Nesir	Hot Green Acid	Physical Destruction (Acid)	30%
7	Fractured black ovoid.	Black Empty Zillig	Hot Dark Entropic Abyss	Hot, Psychic (Empathic Collapse)	95%
8	Single amber tear.	Temoor's Tears	Cold Yellow Acid Clouds	Cold, Acid	7%
9	Blue smear.	Schor Jangul	Toxic Blue Dust	Toxic, Destroys Language/Verbal Ability	75%
10	Gray triangle.	Gray Ice of Kan-Kumy	Cold Gray Flames	Cold, Consumes Shadow	50%
11	Screaming mouth-glyph.	Screaming Botjay	White Psychic Cacophony	Psychic, Nervous System Destruction	95%
12	Three red wavy lines.	Howling Red Ler-Bica	Cold Scarlet Winds	Disorientation, Cold	3%
13	Random brown scribbles.	Dirch Brun Fal	Dry Brown Fog	Desiccation	5%
14	Amorphous blob with burned edges.	Selinoth Yr	Smoldering White Jelly	Smothering, Acid, Heat	30%
15	Half-dissolved femur.	Red Kulva	Bone-Dissolving Red Light	Physical Destruction	45%
16	Bright yellow angle, sometimes mistaken for a poorly drawn 'V.'	Wrathful Gomaq	Angular Yellow Momentum	Extreme Physical Destruction	10%
17	Violet triangle or icicle-glyph.	Grosilz Pel	Hot Violet Ice	Hot, Cold, Crushing (Ice)	3%
18	Raw vertical slash.	Tid'urm Aneff	Silent Rainbow	Terminal Stillness	80%
19	Scattering of iron nails.	Sea of Jageld	Hot Iron Tides	Hot, Crushing, Tides	5%
20	Inverted, iridescent-black three-step pyramid.	Dim Abyss of Orgythe	Devouring Void	Extreme Aging, Draining, Ultimate Destruction	99%

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Insanity: The chance that the caster goes insane from coming into temporary synchrony with one of these planes is reduced by 5% per level above the 5th. Those driven insane by their trafficking with these highly inimical planes remain that way for as many hours as they have levels. However, upon regaining their sanity, another Save is required, failure incurs a permanent penalty of -1 to all subsequent Saves versus madness and insanity effects.

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Damage Type: These are necessarily vague and incomplete, as each instance and encounter is going to have some unique qualities to it due to the variables involved. The types of damage specified in the table above are the types of effects most commonly reported or recorded in conjunction with each of these planes.

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Notes
Attempting to Contact these planes (as per the Cleric spell Contact Other Plane, Labyrinth Lord, p. 29, or by way of one of the alternative Contact Plane spells) will require the caster to Save. Success causes 1d4 damage and a temporary loss of one spell-slot for 1d4 days. Failure causes 1d4 damage per level of the caster as well as requiring a second Save to avoid temporary insanity. Failing the second Save, roll the d% indicated, the insanity persists for 1d4 days, after which they will certainly have gained a valuable insight into the nature of these planes, as well as gaining a +1 to all subsequent Saves against incurring temporary insanity on the Risk of Insanity table above. In this specialized instance, no questions are asked or answered, instead the caster gains the ability to incorporate the contacted plane's damage type as a secondary effect of their spells for 1d4 days. If they are conversant with the Lower Forms, they can now empower one of those spells with the energies of the contacted plane. they can now consider moving on to forming a Link, but there are no known methods that have proven effective for attuning to these planes. At least not currently available within the published literature or usual sources. There are rumors of strange sects and bizarre undead entities that have mastered the intricacies of attuning themselves to these planes, but that is all unsubstantiated rumor and hearsay at the moment.

First Contact with any of these twenty planes results in an outburst of the corresponding energies, causing 4d6 damage (Plus 1d4 per level of caster involved) within a 10' radius sphere. It is very unlikely that anyone could form a reliable Link from the initial contact attempt. But it is possible. Let's say there's a 1% chance. Oh and they still need to Save or roll % to see if they are driven insane. These are Deadly Planes. Meddling with these sorts of forces are dangerous and not for the weak or muddled.

Subsequent Exposure and Making a Connection: Each subsequent attempt to contact one of these planes has a spill-over effect that causes 1d4 damage per level of the caster within a 10' radius. The % chance of establishing a connection to the plane improves by 5% (plus the caster's Prime Ability Modifier). They must make a Save during each such attempt. Failing the Save requires the caster to roll a d% and consulting the Risk of Insanity Column in Table One above. Rolling the amount listed or below results in temporary insanity.

Attempting to Attune to any of these planes results in 3d6 damage per level of the caster erupting out across a 30' radius and forcing the caster to Save at -4. Failing to Save results in the caster suffering triple damage and everyone else within the 30' radius of effect suffering full damage even if they made their personal Save.

Creating an open or unbound Link to one of these planes inflicts 1d6 damage upon everything within a 20' radius and require a Save. Failing the Save requires the caster to roll a d% and consulting the Risk of Insanity Column in Table One above. Rolling the amount listed or below results in temporary insanity. Also, those planes listed with multiple damage types inflict 1d6 of each damage type. Such a Link tends to only last for a few seconds, unless the caster fails their Save, in which case such an unbound Link may persist for 1d4 Turns, causing damage each Turn, until the Link collapses. Most sources agree on using Squares to bind such Links, so long as the Link is intended to be embedded into a Lens or similar item. The more reputable manuals and mentors will warn that the use of Triangles will cause the very agitated Link to inflict triple normal damage, with a chance (equal to the Insanity %) of forming a lingering Vortex (triple normal duration). Once a Link has been successfully formed, it can be re-formed at will at a cost of 1 hit point for every 1d4 damage caused through the link. There are quite a number of ways to incorporate Links into spells, rites, items or workings. It is considered one of the fundamentals of effective sorcery, and a prerequisite for what comes next.

Vortices formed from the energies of these planes are highly unstable and will only persist if constantly reinforced or replenished. These Vortices cannot be rendered static, nor anchored. They traverse a random course for their duration and can sometimes turn back on the originating caster. These Vortices tend to last 1 Turn per level of the caster.

Tapping these planes is far more difficult than forming a temporary Link and is best left to those with great confidence in their abilities and knowledge. Planar Taps keyed to these planes are extremely dangerous, highly unstable and have a tendency to collapse in spectacular explosions on par with fireball and lightning bolt spells. The current, prevailing trend of thought is to first establish a Link, then expand it into a full Tap once it is already mostly embedded in the designated matrix-object, most often a Lens. Attempts to embed a Tap into a melee weapon are mostly discouraged as there is no effective means available for shielding the wielder from the effects of the current of planar force flowing through the Tap.

Attempting to erect a Portal to any of these planes results in 6d6 damage for everything caught within 30' radius of the attempted portal site. Re-roll for each separate damage type listed. This effect will persist for 1 Turn per level of the caster. The Caster is required to Save at -4 or take triple damage. Those casters slain in this manner are non-recoverable. There are too many variables to take into consideration, however it is very likely that this sort of incident would indeed form one or more Vortices.

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20 Deadly Planes I: Overview   |   20 Deadly Planes II: Excerpts from a Banned Manual
20 Deadly Planes III: 20 Sample Spells   |   20 Deadly Planar Lenses

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The most common object or item making use of these energies are Planar Lenses, with Wands being a close second. Several examples of these will be detailed at the blog fairly soonish. Bujilli recently gained a wand that works off of this system in Episode 70. He just doesn't know it yet...

A Grimoire of spells and such derived from the Twenty Deadly Planes is forthcoming.