Chinese Celestial Bureaucracy as a planar pathway
I've been rolling this idea around in my head for a while now, but I have no good thoughts on how to really develop it. I suppose I'd need to read up more on the Chinese Celestial Bureaucracy (hereafter I'll call it the CCB) to get a better idea of how it functions, and then I'd be able to have a better sense of how to develop it.
That said, I have this notion that rather than the CCB being positioned in one plane, it would be something that stretches from the heights of Celestia down to the depths of Baator and would be accessible from all planes in-between, with maybe an odd opening in a location where the sense of bureaucratic obtuseness was particularly strong.
I'll keep picking away at this and putting my thoughts down as they come to me. I welcome any thoughts or suggestions!
Mostly, I assume the realms of the Celestial Bureaucracy are connected by the portals of the Palace of Judgment in the Outlands, as well as portals in Shang-ti's Palace of Jade, but there are other portals throughout the realms. Some of these portals are major planar thoroughfares; for example, the main gate-towns from Acheron to Baator and Mechanus are in Lei Kung's realm Resounding Thunder.
An unfinished story that I serialized in the Chronicles section of this site (http://www.planewalker.com/nanowrimo2004) deals extensively with the Celestial Bureaucracy, centering around a celestial dragon who is the Bureaucracy's ambassador to the City of Brass, his allies and his wayward daughter (the characters from the Chinese novel Journey to the West also make an appearance).
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Sensates: The only people in the multiverse who will stand on their heads while drinking Infernal alcohol and trying to recite Celestial poetry.
I've used the CB as a planar patway before like this;
The palaces of the gods and spirits of the CB are their own border-burgs, connected to one another through portals an gates, usually giant archways or bridges. Some of these burgs are on the outlands, and be walked to by your average berk. Some are other places, like Gehenna or the Abyss. Some palaces, like that of the Jade Emperor, no cutter has ever pinned down. Gate keys are, almost invariably, official travel passes issued by the spirit in charge of that area.
Many palace/burgs are simultaneous on more than one plane. Long dusty roads connect many of the palace burgs (even if they're on different planes, so go figure). There are often long lines of weary petitioners on these roads, traveling to their souls' fate, or going to another court for their reincarnation hearing.