Elemental Planes in the CU

[psyber624]

I have "The Mystic World" but it doesn't discuss elemental planes very much. Are there any specifics for the Elemental Planes in the Champions Universe? Do they have named rulers or anything of that sort? Curious about this for a character I am wanting to write up.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Elemental Planes in the CU

 

Specific "elemental planes" aren't really dealt with in CU cosmology. I think that's probably an outgrowth of how Dean Shomshak conceived of elementals when he developed this stuff for the 4E Ultimate Super Mage and Super Mage Bestiary: as spirits which mystics summoned or which entered this world by accident, and which animated elemental matter to give them physical forms here. Steve Long has mentioned such planes in some of his writings, but in passing, as a common concept in gaming worlds these days.

 

The only being mentioned in TMW who might be considered an elemental ruler would be Fuzon, a Lord of Nature who's the "dimension lord" of the Burning Sky, presumably in the plane of Netzach which is dominated by such rulers. If it were up to me, I'd put planes containing elementals either in Netzach and under the dominion of other Lords of Nature (which you'd have to name yourself), or in one of the realms of Briah, the Creative World, inhabited by beings embodying concepts.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Elemental Planes in the CU

 

And we have an opinion from the aforementioned Dean Shomshak himself, author of The Mystic World and much other occult CU goodness:

 

Good question. In brief, I saw elementals as synthetic entities created by sorcerers as needed, or occasionally generated by accident when powerful magic interacts with ambient elemental phenomena. (Say, a sorcerer blows a control/activation roll on a weather-control spell and generates an air elemental, or blows a spell of any sort out on the ocean and generates a water elemental. Makes Side Effects more interesting.) There are no "natural" elementals, but some of these spirits were created so long ago their origins are forgotten.

 

There are also Outer Planes with strong "elemental" character, and the entities that dwell on them could be called "elementals." But those entities have no connection to Earth.

 

If someone wanted to postulate elemental planes for the CU, I'd make them very abstract and arcane, like Yggdrasil or the Blood Tide -- accessible through the Lower Astral but difficult to reach and even more difficult to comprehend. Visiting the Plane of Fire would be like visiting, I don't know, the Higgs Field. Not "It looks like Earth but everything's made of fire." You want that, look in the Outer Planes.

 

Dean Shomshak

[psyber624]

Re: Elemental Planes in the CU

 

Thanks Lord L. Still working my way through all the books in the Mystic Bundle I bought a while back and was wondering about them for a character concept I was creating (Mystic Martial Artist who has different "multiforms" based upon the four elements. I was toying with the idea of his elemental powers coming from mystical sojurns from the elemental planes and was wondering how that would work in the CU.)

 

If you read this another question occured to me (as you and Dean seem to be the resident experts on all things CU Mystical) Just started reading DEMON: Servants of Darkness and was wondering if anything had been written about what happened with Luthor Black (he was supposed to die last february.......) and if this has had any effect on DEMON? Just curious, really enjoying reading about all this.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Elemental Planes in the CU

 

If you read this another question occured to me (as you and Dean seem to be the resident experts on all things CU Mystical) Just started reading DEMON: Servants of Darkness and was wondering if anything had been written about what happened with Luthor Black (he was supposed to die last february.......) and if this has had any effect on DEMON? Just curious' date=' really enjoying reading about all this.[/quote']

 

It is pretty cool, isn't it? The occult side of the Champions Universe is very well developed and pretty unique compared to most other supers settings.

 

The only developments regarding Luther Black/the Edomite that could be considered "official" have been in Champions Online, the MMORPG. In 2011 an adventure series was added to their content in which the Edomite attempted to recreate the Demonflame, and incarnate DEMON's five Kings of Edom in human hosts contained in a hell-like pocket dimension, as the tools to achieve his apotheosis. (Why Cryptic Studios chose to do this instead of running the meticulously laid-out plan which Luther has carefully followed for six decades, you'd have to ask them.)

 

Naturally superheroes thwarted Black's plot, and the Kings seized him and drew him into the Qliphoth, effectively removing him from DEMON and the game. Most of the rest of the organization seems to have survived, though. How the loss of the Edomite has affected DEMON hasn't been dealt with in the game yet AFAIK.

 

Of course if you wanted to use DEMON as published in your own campaign, it would be a simple matter to move Luther Black's birthday back four or eight years.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Elemental Planes in the CU

 

Thanks Lord L. Still working my way through all the books in the Mystic Bundle I bought a while back and was wondering about them for a character concept I was creating (Mystic Martial Artist who has different "multiforms" based upon the four elements. I was toying with the idea of his elemental powers coming from mystical sojurns from the elemental planes and was wondering how that would work in the CU.)

 

There are a few CU precedents which might give you some ideas.

 

The supervillain Riptide was created by a DEMON Morbane by forcibly bonding a water elemental with a runaway girl. Riptide escaped his control, but the Morbane wants her back as part of his plan to create a team of "Elemental Evils."

 

The wizards of ancient Atlantis created "spirit matrices," elaborate spells through which they could summon elemental beings from other planes (not just the four traditional elements). The Demonologist, leader of the supervillain team the Devil's Advocates, attempted to use a spirit matrix to summon an elemental earth being, but his imperfect understanding of the spell instead spawned the fearsome freewilled monster called Terrayne.

 

There are "Four Great Spirits" who have long had a connection to the Canadian North: the Land, the Sea, the Sky, and the Ice. In the modern era, these spirits have imbued various humans with great powers to serve their mysterious purposes, including Canada's mightiest hero, Celestar; Argosy, a member of Canada's premier hero team, StarForce; Borealis, the country's greatest supervillain, and his follower the Landsman.

[IndianaJoe3]

Re: Elemental Planes in the CU

 

Still working my way through all the books in the Mystic Bundle I bought a while back and was wondering about them for a character concept I was creating (Mystic Martial Artist who has different "multiforms" based upon the four elements. I was toying with the idea of his elemental powers coming from mystical sojurns from the elemental planes and was wondering how that would work in the CU.)

 

As a side note, you seem to be using the Western 4-element paradigm instead of the Eastern 5-element one. You have me wondering what the Elemental Plane of Wood would be like. (The Elemental Plane of Metal would be, metal! )

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Elemental Planes in the CU

 

As a side note' date=' you seem to be using the Western 4-element paradigm instead of the Eastern 5-element one. You have me wondering what the Elemental Plane of Wood would be like. (The Elemental Plane of Metal would be, metal! )[/quote']

 

Elemental Plane of Wood would be... X-rated.

 

But seriously, folks; Yggdrasil, the plane created out of the Astral by the collective life-force of Earth's plants, would probably count as a "wood-plane." From its brief description in TMW, it's extremely alien and nearly incomprehensible to animal life like us. Also extremely hostile -- animals are treated as fertilizer that need to be made to stop moving.

[DShomshak]

Re: Elemental Planes in the CU

 

The only being mentioned in TMW who might be considered an elemental ruler would be Fuzon, a Lord of Nature who's the "dimension lord" of the Burning Sky, presumably in the plane of Netzach which is dominated by such rulers. If it were up to me, I'd put planes containing elementals either in Netzach and under the dominion of other Lords of Nature (which you'd have to name yourself), or in one of the realms of Briah, the Creative World, inhabited by beings embodying concepts.

Fuzon comes from William Blake's poetry, just like the Four Zoas, and Blake gives a complete set of four "elemental" figures. (Only Fuzon takes part in the plot, though. Here's the account of their metaphysical genesis, from two chapters of The Book of Urizen, with Urizen's reaction to his "children." No wonder they turned against him.

 

II. 5. “First I fought with the fire, consum’d

“Inwards into a deep world within:

“A void immense, wild, dark & deep,

“Where nothing was: Nature’s wide womb;

“And self-balanc’d, stretch’d o’er the void,

“I alone, even I! The winds merciless

“Bound; but condensing in torrents

“They fall & fall; strong I repell’d

“The vast waves, & arose on the waters

“A wide world of solid obstruction.”

-----

VIII. 3. Most Urizen sicken’d to see

His eternal creations appear,

Sons & daughters of sorrow on mountains

Weeping, wailing. First Thiriel appear’d,

Astonish’d at his own existence,

Like a man from a cloud born; & Utha,

From the waters emerging, laments:

Grodna rent the deep earth, howling

Amaz’d; his heavens immense cracks

Like the ground parch’d with heat, then Fuzon

Flam’d out, first begotten, last born;

All his eternal sons in like manner;

His daughters from green herbs & cattle,

From monsters & worms of the pit.

 

4. He in darkness clos’d view’d all his race,

And his soul sicken’d! He curs’d

Both sons and daughters; for he saw

That no flesh nor spirit could keep

His iron laws one moment.

 

So you also have Thiriel as a spirit of Air, Utha as a spirit of Water, and Grodna as a spirit of Earth. As LL says, they would all rule Outer Planes, which human mystics would likely classify as Netzach dimensions. Also, undefined Daughters of Urizen born of "herbs & cattle, monsters & worms of the pit."

 

You may be wondering why these elemental lords, great spirits of Nature, would be called sons of Urizen? That's because if you see them as elementals you are imposing an abstract system upon them -- a frame of logic to explain and classify. An imposition of Order upon raw facts of Nature. But the real world always gets away from our attempts to impose logic upon it.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

Re: Elemental Planes in the CU

 

Thanks Lord L. Still working my way through all the books in the Mystic Bundle I bought a while back and was wondering about them for a character concept I was creating (Mystic Martial Artist who has different "multiforms" based upon the four elements. I was toying with the idea of his elemental powers coming from mystical sojurns from the elemental planes and was wondering how that would work in the CU.)

 

On a vaguely related tangent, one of my PCs, Steel Phoenix, practiced the Metal substyle of five Element Kung Fu, the world's second-most powerful martial arts style. (Most powerful? Infinite Dao Kung Fu, the martial art practiced by Pangu the Creator.) He hoped eventually to learn other substyles -- but his grandfather warns that you must learn the substyles in the correct order, following the constructive cycle of elements. Steel Phoenix's father was impatient and broke the proper order, and is now a supervillain.

 

(No elemental planes involved, though, just proper cultivation of Qi.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Elemental Planes in the CU

 

So you also have Thiriel as a spirit of Air' date=' Utha as a spirit of Water, and Grodna as a spirit of Earth. As LL says, they would all rule Outer Planes, which human mystics would likely classify as Netzach dimensions.[/quote']

 

The Mystic World p. 64 recommends basing Fuzon on the Champions villain Firewing (most recently appearing for Sixth Edition in Champions Villains Vol. 3), with an additional VPP for dimensional travel and other minor "divine" effects, and an elemental summoning slot in his Multipower. Extending that precedent to other powerful elemental villains from CV 3, Grodna could be based on either Terrayne or Geothermal (or a combination of both). Zephyr is the strongest air-based villain, but you'd want to remove her other minor elemental powers, while perhaps adapting some of the weather-control abilities of Stormfront. Riptide is the only water-elemental villain in the book, but her powers are much weaker than the others cited here. You could increase the Active Points in her abilities, or use Zephyr's character sheet while changing the Special Effects of her Powers from air to water, changing Flight to Swimming, etc. You could also adapt some of the abilities of two other aquatic villains from CV 3, Leviathan and Mantara.

[psyber624]

Re: Elemental Planes in the CU

 

It is pretty cool, isn't it? The occult side of the Champions Universe is very well developed and pretty unique compared to most other supers settings.

 

The only developments regarding Luther Black/the Edomite that could be considered "official" have been in Champions Online, the MMORPG. In 2011 an adventure series was added to their content in which the Edomite attempted to recreate the Demonflame, and incarnate DEMON's five Kings of Edom in human hosts contained in a hell-like pocket dimension, as the tools to achieve his apotheosis. (Why Cryptic Studios chose to do this instead of running the meticulously laid-out plan which Luther has carefully followed for six decades, you'd have to ask them.)

 

Naturally superheroes thwarted Black's plot, and the Kings seized him and drew him into the Qliphoth, effectively removing him from DEMON and the game. Most of the rest of the organization seems to have survived, though. How the loss of the Edomite has affected DEMON hasn't been dealt with in the game yet AFAIK.

 

Of course if you wanted to use DEMON as published in your own campaign, it would be a simple matter to move Luther Black's birthday back four or eight years.

 

Yes, Very Very cool, and now I want the Viper book as it is mentioned in here several times. Also, I have no trouble believing that the loss of The Edomite would have little to no immediate effect on DEMON, the way it is structured it could take a decade or more for any real effect to be felt (as various Morbanes and members of the Inner Circle realize they are not under the same level of scrutiny that they once were).

 

I was afraid CO-MMORPG would be involved, I swear I need to get back to playing it but I really didn't enjoy that game as much as CoH.

 

And give me some credit... I can think of FAR FAR better plans for Luther Black than moving his birthday back four to eight years. The fact that his death was supposed to occur in the same year as the whole Mayan Apocalypse did not escape my notice and diabolical thoughts have been percolating along these lines in my head since I first read about him. Especially when you realize that "death" in a comic book sense of the word, is really a relative thing. I was considering going all Obi-Wan with him as well....

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Elemental Planes in the CU

 

The Mystic World p. 64 recommends basing Fuzon on the Champions villain Firewing (most recently appearing for Sixth Edition in Champions Villains Vol. 3)' date=' with an additional VPP for dimensional travel and other minor "divine" effects, and an elemental summoning slot in his Multipower. Extending that precedent to other powerful elemental villains from CV 3, Grodna could be based on either Terrayne or Geothermal (or a combination of both). Zephyr is the strongest air-based villain, but you'd want to remove her other minor elemental powers, while perhaps adapting some of the weather-control abilities of Stormfront. Riptide is the only water-elemental villain in the book, but her powers are much weaker than the others cited here. You could increase the Active Points in her abilities, or use Zephyr's character sheet while changing the Special Effects of her Powers from air to water, changing Flight to Swimming, etc. You could also adapt some of the abilities of two other aquatic villains from CV 3, Leviathan and Mantara.[/quote']

 

There are also the elemental writeups in the Bestiary. Gyeroy Vedun, the Russian supermage published in Champions Worldwide can summon Bestiary elementals, so they must be "real!" In terms of powersets, you could just increase their active points to represent elemental princes. Now that I think of it, the same book has A'asifa Rumilia, an extremely powerful "personification of the Arabian Desert;" a desert elemental; Ifrit, a character bonded to a being from "the Land of Fire" by a powerful magic ring; and Ogun, a Nigerian superhero who is avatar to the Ibo god of smiths (metal).

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Elemental Planes in the CU

 

There are also the elemental writeups in the Bestiary. Gyeroy Vedun' date=' the Russian supermage published in [i']Champions Worldwide [/i]can summon Bestiary elementals, so they must be "real!" In terms of powersets, you could just increase their active points to represent elemental princes.

 

In Champions Earth terms they're undoubtedly real; but they could just be artificial magical creations, as Dean Shomshak defined them above. But you could certainly take any of their character sheets and "pump up" their stats to the desired level. That said, the Bestiary elementals are more simplistic in their builds than the previously-cited supervillains.

 

Now that I think of it' date=' the same book has A'asifa Rumilia, an extremely powerful "personification of the Arabian Desert;" a desert elemental; Ifrit, a character bonded to a being from "the Land of Fire" by a powerful magic ring; and Ogun, a Nigerian superhero who is avatar to the Ibo god of smiths (metal).[/quote']

 

All of these are valid models to use. I was just keeping to 6E sources for simplicity's sake.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Elemental Planes in the CU

 

I happened to be reading through a non-Champions Hero Games book, The Valdorian Age by Allen Thomas, and came across something quite interesting and potentially relevant to this topic. For those who are unaware, the Champions Universe of the present-day era is officially part of a much longer timeline, the "Hero Universe," spanning many millennia and ages of civilization, from the prehistoric past to the far future. The Atlanteans, Lemurians, VIPER's patron Nama, the Archlich Takofanes and the Crowns of Krim, all have their origins in these past ages. The Valdorian Age is Hero's "sword and sorcery" setting, evocative of the fantasy fiction of Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, or Michael Moorcock.

 

Part of the VA sourcebook describes the sorcery of summoning and controlling elementals, and presents an interesting conception of the Elemental Realms. Note that this is only as Earthly sorcerors of this era understood cosmology, and it's perceived through the lens of creation-myths of the day. That day was also more than 40,000 years in the past, so even on other planes the conditions might have changed:

 

"The god Pythos created the world, but like any craftsman, he only shaped it -- the materials for his work came from elsewhere. The source of these materials were the Elemental Realms, the first source of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, where the Primal Lords rule: the Scorched Lands (fire), ruled by the Kiss of Flame; the Howling Void (air), ruled by the Voice of Wind; the Infinite Depths (water), ruled by the Roar of Waves; and the Vaulted Warrens (earth), ruled by the Groan of Stone. The priests say Pythos struck bargains with the Primal Lords to obtain the materials; others say Pythos tricked and swindled the Primal Lords out of the materials.

 

... Unlike demons, elementals are not separate entities (at least according to most sorcerors) -- an entire Elemental Realm is an entity unto itself, with its Primal Lord as its "mind." The elementals are simply parts of a "body" -- facets of a composite being. While individual elementals are intelligent, their mentality is wholly alien to mankind. They view flora and fauna like a man would view a cancerous growth, mines and tunnels as deep cuts and stabs into a man's flesh, water in a cup or bowl as a man in a cage, trapping the wind in a sail as a man in chains, smelting ore as maiming, alloying metals as rape. The concept of property baffles them, for in the Elemental Realms everything is part of the whole -- can a man's right hand own his left?"

 

- The Valdorian Age p. 131

[Lord Liaden]

There's another passage from the VA page I quoted above relating to elementals and how they would view our world, which suggests a unique and interesting potential motivation for a "supervillain" or villain team:

 

"... when a sorceror causes an elemental to manifest, it violently struggles to break free from the sorceror's constraints and rage across the world. It pleads with the sorceror to allow it into the world unchecked so it can free the substances trapped in the forms and shapes that comprise the world -- forms and shapes the elemental considers a corruption of elemental purity."

 

Imagine a powerful elemental, or a group of them, with this mindset, loose on Earth. They would level buildings, smash machinery, tear up roads and railways, shatter dams, cave-in mines; but also uproot forests, ravage farmers' fields, slaughter domestic and wild animals. To humans these beings would seem like total nihilists, or insane berserkers, but from their perspective they would be fighting to heal the wounds of violence, and purge the infections and parasites, that are destroying this world.

 

Trying to communicate with these creatures, and reach an understanding, could make for a fun roleplaying challenge.