Planar Renovation Project: Paraelemental Plane of Ooze
So the way that the Paraelemental Plane of Ooze is represented in the canon is that the whole place is just filled with a disgusting morass and it's inhospitable to life in the extreme. Pockets of acid and/or disease are scattered throughout the entire plane and any unlucky sods who find themselves in one of these pockets is liable to end up in the Dead Book right quick. Any native creatures or inhabitants on this plane are almost always hostile to outsiders. So, as far as establishing the overarching theme of the Inner Planes - survival - the Plane of Ooze plays to that theme quite well. As written, there's almost no reason to visit the place, which means it's ripe for renovation.
The thing is about Ooze is that it's filled with the stuff of life. All those mounds of offal and garbage and everything else under the sun that's just plain disgusting? It's everywhere in Ooze. And when that stuff all breaks down, it turns into the that that plants use to grow on. Dilute a sample of the stuff of Ooze and use it to fertilize a field of crops and you could almost watch them grow.
Given that in the Plane of Water you can find entire forests of kelp or other underwater plants or even islands of coral, there's no reason to believe that you wouldn't likewise find entire masses of ooze-adapted kelp, or colonies of fungus living in the morass. It's in and around those islands that you're going to find sentient beings who, against all odds (as per the usual standard in the Inner Planes), are able to eek out an existence in such a hostile location. I could see exotic farming communities growing immense plants that thrive on the nutrient rich environment. (Hehe...culinary delights from the Paraelemental Plane of Ooze!)
It's in that interplay between the Plane's tendency towards putrefying and decaying living materials into base components, and then resulting ooze giving way to the fertilizer that other things grow upon that's really the key to the Plane. Sort of a intra-planar Growth vs. Decay tension. At least it is in my mind.
I'd love to hear other folk's thoughts on the topic. I'll continue to pick at the idea as things occur to me.
I am late to the party! Gasp!
Well, I am certainly on board for more renovating!
One of the things I wanted to address when I was doing the Inner Planes was the conceptual notions of an element. Elements are very physical things but they also have extremely symbolic meanings to many cultures and I believe this symbolism should manifest in at least parts of the Inner Planes.
The one trouble is there is no single underlying belief that wholly encompasses a given element. Therefore, the unity is based on the concrete rather than the abstract. Points are derived from something wholly neutral rather than a belief that affects everything on that plane. So as a result, you get a smattering of different beliefs that pervade a neutral plane. That's how I perceive it.
However, I think that makes a very interesting dynamic you can't get on the Outer Planes.
I like Growth vs. Decay. It's a good line to follow for the Ooze. Also, the idea of finding beauty where it's least expected is a helpful trait. I'm going to let these ideas stew for a little bit and see what I can come up with.
I don't know why I picked Ooze to begin with, but it's certainly one of the planes that needs something done with it, and it seemed like it could be a fairly easy way to start getting a handle on how to tweak the Inner Planes.
One thing to consider is that the place is described as crawling with insects (maggots in particular) and worms. Maggots, at least in the real world, prefer to target dead flesh and leave living, healthy flesh alone. So what we perceive as being these disgusting, wriggling things that live off of dead and diseased tissue actually end up helping to prevent diseases from forming.
Worms, on the other hand, have a diet based around consuming rotting vegetation. Being familiar with gardening myself, I can always tell good soil from bad soil by paying attention to the number of worms. More worms = better soil, which means healthier plants.
Given the setting, the above wouldn't be universal of course. Corrupted maggots or worms that devour any and all living tissue they come upon could/would certainly be one of the many environmental hazards of Ooze.
As to conceptual notions and beliefs about Ooze...
Hmm...there's this association between poverty/squalor and grime of all sorts. The Hive in Sigil is described as having numerous portals that lead to Ooze, due to how dirty the entire ward is. Being dirty is association with having a lowly social status. The folks who end up living in and around Ooze might be social cast-offs. Thrown away by society in the same way that garbage is. Given that, I could see a very strong presence of the Bleakers on Ooze. Offering compassion is such an unwanted place would be right up their alley (not to mention that I bet a fair number of them end up getting pitched into a Ooze Portal after annoying some bashers in the Hive).
Ooze is a lowly place. Nobody ends up there purposely, but given the number of portals that spring up (pretty much wherever a large enough mound of garbage collects for long enough), some of the people who live in those mounds of garbage are eventually going to end up slipping through accidentally.
Bubbles! When rotting things decay, the stuff that's causing the decay gives off gas. These little bubbles of gas gather into large bubbles. Large bubbles + the potentially infinite size of a Plane = Large cavernous bubbles. It's hard for me to imagine any kind of sludge, ooze, muck or mire without also seeing bubbles of gas escaping from it, so it seems like it would be a natural feature of Ooze.
I see bubbles in Ooze acting in a similar manner to how air pockets and caverns behave in Earth, Salt or Mineral. They're places where interesting things tend to gather. They're also places that are fought over. While many bubbles are likely to contain toxic gasses, others are likely to contain breathable air (if somewhat smelly). Also, because Ooze's nature isn't immediately hostile to plant life, I could see a number of these bubbles filling up with their own peculiar eco-systems. Insect infested swamps, forests of fungi being tended by planar mycanids, jungles filled with ooze monkeys who hurl...well, you get the picture.
Entering or leaving a bubble always risks upsetting it's surface tension. Travellers who aren't careful might suddenly find that the bubble they've been making kip in for the past few days is leaking out all that precious air leaking out. Magical protections would probably be in place for some of the larger bubbles that support a decent population.
I'll keep plugging away at this, but already I'm seeing possibilities for how to do adventures in Ooze.
There's a particular phenomenon in briny, northern latitude swamps which results in a submerged corpse being mummified. Searching through swamps (usually after peat), any number of bodies have been recovered. Oddly, it's usually just skin and tissue that's left. Bones end up being dissolved by the acidicness of the swamp. Given that, I could see an entire region of Ooze being filled with these floating, mummified corpses (possibly closer to the border with Salt). Maybe call it The Graveyard.
Doesn't The Lady use a conduit from Sigil to Ooze as a latrine?
This is interesting. I've just been planning an adventure in the plane of Ooze (2nd edit/house). So far I just did a search of the monster database for all the oozes, slimes, jellies, molds, puddings and fungi and similar creatures so I could populate the place and also any monster that has any kind of slime, mold or ooze attack form so I could create "Animental" forms of them - EG Paraelemental Aboleths and so on. And maybe a paraelemental Tannar'ri prince as the plane's ruler.
But this stuff is good. I also liek Pathguy's ideas.
~
Yeah, Sigil's sewage regularly gets dumped into Ooze. I'm not sure that The Lady herself has ever been known to actually use a latrine though. Heheh...
In considering Ooze, remember that you can have more than just the oozes, jellies, slimes and such. It's entirely possible that you'll encounter muck dwelling fish and other bottom feeders. Likewise, you might find snails and other insects that clean. Heck, I could imagine an entire town living in a particularly large snail shell.
Really, I have to fight the urge to make Ooze overabundent with different sorts of life. In canon, the place is littered with pockets of all sorts of unpleasant substances and that doesn't really give with there being too much life around. It certainly seems like it should have more than as described in canon though, given the sheer amount of planar waste that ends up in the place.
And hey, if anybody has any ideas about what stuff to add that might not have been touched on yet, please speak up! I'm sure I'm being addle-coved about some of this stuff, and I much prefer the stuff that come out of the dynamic tension of a conversation, rather than stuff that I come up with on my own. So correct me and/or interject ideas of your own! 
I don't think an abundance of life is a bad thing for Ooze. Even pits of biological waste are teeming with some kind of life. Perhaps not an overabundance like you said, but an abundance is definitely worthwhile.
Also remember that Ooze isn't just waste and nasty. It also contains things like plain mud, silt, and so forth. Some of it may actually be very fertile, if very runny. There could be some odd farms and villages that actually make a reasonable living in some particularly nutrient-rich areas of Ooze.
A few ideas:
- Giant single-celled creatures swimming through the primordial goo and waste matter. These creatures are like dangerous oozes, only even less sentient and very dangerous.
- Dense forests and jungles of plants and/or fungi thriving on the waste patches or the healthy, nutritious soil.
- The Pearl Bed: A place where the friction of the ooze frequently coalesces into smooth pearls of various colors. The pearls are highly valuable, but fiercely guarded by some race of keepers (perhaps a new race? could be interesting). The Bed is also hard to find, either because of magic or by its location on the plane (supposedly it's near the border with Water). Still, a basher canny enough to find it and get away can make a good pile of jink selling the pearls.
Chant has it though that the keepers of the Pearl Bed imprison trespassers in the pearls. Nobody's ever been able to prove it but a lot of berks that run off looking for the Pearl Bed never come back. And a couple barmy sods claim they hear the pearls cry out sometimes.
Probably just a lot of screed. Who knows if there really is a Pearl Bed or if some addle-cove just made it up as part of a peel.
As I think on this more and more, I could almost see Ooze reaching the same sort of cultural breadth of one of the primary elemental planes. For the most part, a cutter can move around with the same sort of ease as you would find in Water (although at a slower pace), as well as having to deal with making sure you can breathe. Outside of the breathing issue, there's no reason why you wouldn't find thriving, agricultural, Ooze-adapted communities. Heck, I could see planar mycanids and other "plant" people enjoying the heck out of the entire plane.
I see the main hazard of Ooze shifting away from finding cysts of acid or rampant disease, and more towards making sure something doesn't try to eat or decompose you. Also, given relatively high number of unwanted or destitute berks who end up on the plane, I could see the Dao maintaining a strong slaving presence here (even if the place does go against their usually lavish sensibilities).
Definitely. There's no reason any of the Inner Planes (even Vacuum) can't have varied and exciting ecosystems and cultural development. These places are wholly infinite. It's all a matter of finding the right creatures and humanoids to put into the planes. Air is usually considered the most hospitable because the setting is written from a basically human perspective. To us, Air would definitely be the best, and Steam (another woefully underused plane) would probably be the second best. But Ooze, Magma, Ash, etc., are all perfectly capable of hosting a tremendous depth of life and civilization.
Okay, now I'm getting excited and I want to write up sites. Let's see if I can find the time to write up some sites and kingdoms and so on
Here's a place:
Spore
- Inhabited mostly by planar mycanids, though a handful of non-mycanids call Spore their home. The name Spore comes from the grey-green haze of fungal spores that permeate the air.
- A number of fungal mounds rise up throughout this particular bubble, growing out of a chunk of bark from some colossal tree. Each mound is large enough to be carved into a number of individual dwellings or into other needed buildings.
- A small clearing towards the center of the town hosts a number of buildings that have been carved out to function as an economic center. An inn, a tavern, a shop or two. These places cater towards travelers through Ooze, rather than the natives.
- Spread out beyond the edges of town, fields of mushrooms and other edible fungi can be found. While each harvest slowly eats away at the chunk of wood the town sits on, the mycanids are careful to make sure their home lasts for as long as possible.
- Ooze mephitis make great sport out of sneaking into the fields and eating as much as they can before dashing away. As a result, a number of sentries stand guard around the perimeter.
- Dark: A number of refugees who have been dumped into Ooze have taken up residence in Spore. There’s some resentment towards the mycanids, as they dole out only enough food to keep the people from starving. Recently, a human cutter named Rehnquist has been working the others refugees up, saying that the mushroom fields should be expanded to accommodate all comers. He’s ignorant of the delicate balance the mycanids are trying to maintain.
And an inspirational picture:
In trying to come up with structures and locations for Ooze, I'm really finding that most of the places that I come up with aren't permanent, as most places that end up in Ooze tend towards decaying. The village I outlined above will probably last a few more years at best and then everybody living there will have to relocate. There's a definite feeling of the non-Ooze natives living a semi-nomadic lifestyle. As a result, I'm seeing the potential for adventurers being hired to scout out new spots for a tribe/town trying relocate.
Anyway, here's one more location from me (it's rough, but I think it fits):
The Vine Webs
- The Vine Webs are an especially dense series of vines and vine-like plants that stretch out and cover many miles.
- New growths in the Webs typically grow in only one direction. These areas are known as the Snares, as they’re prone to catching and snaring anything which happens to be passing by, living or not. Ooze mephitis like hang around the Snares and feast on anything they gets caught in this manner.
- Further back into the older growth sections of the Webs, the vines grow thicker and denser, some even getting to be large enough to contain full fledged structures. Ambitious cutters sometimes even try to make kip is these areas.
- The oldest areas contain some of the thickest vine growths that are rotting through. As a result, large chunks of decaying plant matter clog the entire area, making it difficult to navigate through. It also makes for numerous hiding spots for potential predators.
With that, is there anything else that needs to be discussed? Is anything being overlooked that we need to address? Or can we turn our attention to one of the other planes? I'm really enjoying the creative process here and it looks like I'm finally going to be able to use some of these ideas in an actual game soon (finally)!
~
This stuff is great! You don't mind if I pinch it for my campaign? I love the Snail City idea and, yes, I was going to include molluscs among the para-animentals. And Mud Men, Moss men etc. There's a large number of suitable creatures (apart from oozes, jellies etc) such as those with a swamp terrain and various prime aquatic creatures like jellyfish.
I think the bubble idea is a definite runner. Many of them would contain methane or other noxious gases. Perhaps large bubbles may coalesce and create an explosion hazard to any settlements. The force of an explosion is amplified in water, so in Ooze it could be catastrophic. Forests of para-elemental kelp could produce oxygen, of course. This could even be harvested by any primes who have escaped their Imprisonment or otherwise ended up there.
The decaying, disease-ridden morass of filth giving way to clean, nutrifying humus or soil is great. This disease/decay versus fertility/growth duality suggests a transition between the energy planes to me. There may even be demi-planes of plants or pockets of forest or jungle the Druids would be proud of. Rooted in the ooze, taking up the water and minerals, giving out the gas. Burning with life!
Convection currents and eddies would flow, perhaps creating plane-wide "weather systems" or causing various forms of the element to collect together. Perhaps something as major as the Gulf Stream Drift or Atlantic Conveyer moving across the entire plane, from Negative to Positive. Stratified thermoclines or layers of different density? Minor but fairly stable drifts which can be used as rivers?
Perhaps some areas of more solid material are fed by these drifts and then begin to create their own gravity and attract more of the semi-rocky material to form islands or "planetoids", like the formation of accretion discs after the Big Bang?
As the inner planes are infinite, are they always a continuum, like Water being one gargantuan ocean with no sea bed or surface, or could there be planets with "Ooze space" between them?
There's a lot of stuff out there about humanoid characters, whether from the Prime or the Outer Planes, living as ex-patriot visitors or exiles in settlements of the inner planes, but what about the sentient natives? Are there para-elemental humanoid types with farms and villages? Is there even a "ground" with a sky of thinner, breathable (for them) Ooze? What magic would prime travellers need, apart from Airy Water or Water Breathing? Something to filter out the muck from the "atmosphere"?
Cheers
Pinch away! I'm always thinking about stuff like this, kinda as a hobby, kinda as a distraction and a dash or two of actually wanting to make use of it myself. I enjoy the creative process and I enjoy standing back and looking at the fruits of my labors afterwards.
Hmm...native humanoids? Well, the only two listed as being native in canon are ooze sprites and mephits. Ooze sprites, as they're described in the PS MC 3, are actually a pretty potent race able to mind control others, but since they don't see nor consider any race other than themselves to be intelligent, there's a bit of a limit to how in-depth you could get with them.
As I mentioned up above, I see fungal and plant races as being somewhat important to the plane. They kinda highlight the main tension that's coming about in Ooze currently, with fungal-folk being representative of Decay and the plant-people representative of Growth. I could almost see a symbiotic type of relationship between the two.
Insect races that are oriented towards Ooze might also be appropriate. Maybe something like a worm with a cranium rat thing going on. The more of them that gather together, the smarter it gets. Maybe not, as that's better for some sort of monster.
Lastly, I could see certain varieties of lizard-folk being at home in Ooze. Troglodytes (or something equivalent), for instance, would probably not even be put off by most of the horrors that the plane puts forth.
As far as different landscapes in Ooze, your best bet for finding interesting areas is in the transitional zones. I see the Choking Gale area leading towards Steam as being a wide open, misty sea covered in all sorts of...unidentifiable materials. The Slag Marshes towards Mineral I see as opening up into literal marshes and swampland (complete with its own peculiar ecosystem).
The Choking Gates! Yes, I really need to read that 2E Inner Planes book. All I have is the 1E MoP, the Torment PC game and the various Planescape MC releases. I've toyed around with "peri-planes" and wondreed where Nuclear energy, Gravity and Magnetism would be and always though Ice ought to be a quasi-plane (steam is the opposite phase) with Mist between Air and Water, but don't want to mess with the canon too much. I'd have no where to put Salt!
Cheers
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When the baatezu and tanar'ri make peace and end the blood war.
In addition to a strong theme of Growth vs Decay present, I could see another undercurrent of Ugliness vs Beauty emerging from the plane. In the section about Ooze in the Guide to the Inner Planes (p. 85), it mentions that in certain deep pockets in the plane, pressures create pearl-like gems (quiila) that fetch a high price elsewhere. These are gems that just can't be found elsewhere in the multiverse.
I'm not quite sure how you'd go about expanding that idea elsewhere in Ooze though. But I thought I should capture the idea before it slipped away.