The Elemental Planes

Cosmography

The Inner Planes were the manifestation of central aspects of physical reality. As a result of this intense concentration of reality, everything in the Inner Planes, including its inhabitants, felt more vivid and intense, while at the same time more indifferent.

There were a total of 18 Inner Planes, which were subdivided into two main groups: six major planes and twelve minor, also called lesser, planes.

The six major Inner Planes included the elemental planes, which contained the four basic types of matter that constituted the materials of every other plane, and the energy planes, which consisted of the two main types of energy that governed life and death.

The twelve minor Inner Planes were located at the intersection between major planes. They could be divided into two main groups: the para-elemental planes, or "paraplanes", which were located at the intersection between elemental planes; and the quasi-elemental planes, or "quasiplanes", which intersected an elemental plane and an energy plane.

Inhabithants

The regions of the Inner Planes that were, in a cosmic sense, closer to the Prime Material Plane were inhabited by creatures that either originated in the Prime or could survive well there, such as aarakocra, azers, dragon turtles, gargoyles, genies, mephits, salamanders, and xorn. The more distant regions, which were dominated by the raw forces of each plane, were increasingly hostile and were only inhabited by elementals and spirits that bore less and less resemblance with creatures found in the Material Plane.

As a result of the raw elemental intensity of the Inner Planes, many of their inhabitants spent most of their time focused on survival, not caring much for philosophical or metaphysical discussions about their nature and the nature of their homes. Moreover, since each Inner Plane strongly opposed all others, inhabitants of one plane were constantly at odds with the inhabitants of any other plane.

Some inhabitants specialized in guiding travelers within and between Inner Planes. The most competent elemental guides could lead a group to a bordering plane from anywhere within their home plane in less than four days, and were capable of guiding a group to any location within the plane in just over a month or less. The need for these services resulted from the the infinite size of the Inner Planes, which could result in unaided travelers traveling forever without reaching anywhere. The prices practiced by the guides, however, were extremely high. They often charged exotic items instead of currency.