So... one of the PCs in my 1E game has become a shade (long story) and started using his shadow walk ability, forcing me to work out details of the Demi-Plane of Shadow. Canonically per the 1E Manual of the Planes, it’s a finite demi-plane within the Ethereal. That limitation feels aligned with Gary’s description of the place in City of Hawks. Shadowland is its own place with its own terrain and inhabitants.
In later editions, the Plane of Shadow is an infinite plane coterminous with the Prime. A character entering the Shadowfell sees a shadowy version of the place he left, with similar (but not identical) topography and landmarks. If you cross over from the Celadon Forest, you find yourself in a shadowy forest.
What I’m struggling to understand is how shadow walk functions when the Demi-Plane of Shadow is finite. Using Shadowland to transit from, say, Nellix to Rel Mord in hours instead of weeks is one thing, but the demi-plane can’t be unique to Oerth. How would an illusionist on Toril shadow walk? That’s where the infinite plane of later editions makes more sense to me.
It’s a shame we never got to see Gary’s notes for the Shadowland module. Since shadow walk was (presumably) his spell, I expect he understood how he meant it to work. Has anyone else done their own development to reconcile the multiple versions of the (Demi-)Plane of Shadow?
Just like there are an infinite number of Prime Material Planes, each one corresponding to an individual DM's game, there are the same number of Shadow planes, each one corresponding to the matching Prime plane. It just seems like there's only one because vanishingly few beings who have visited multiple Prime planes AND used Shadow Walk or similar magic in them, that can make any comparison between the various shadow planes. And those infinite number of planes all intersect at one place, where the Shadow Lord (or whatever he's called; been many a year since I read City of Hawks) has his citadel.
Just like there are an infinite number of Prime Material Planes, each one corresponding to an individual DM's game, there are the same number of Shadow planes, each one corresponding to the matching Prime plane. It just seems like there's only one because vanishingly few beings who have visited multiple Prime planes AND used Shadow Walk or similar magic in them, that can make any comparison between the various shadow planes. And those infinite number of planes all intersect at one place, where the Shadow Lord (or whatever he's called; been many a year since I read City of Hawks) has his citadel.
I think I’m leaning toward something like this. When an illusionist shadow walks, he’s at the border between the Prime and the Demi-Plane of Shadow. There he sees a shadowy, Upside Down–like version of his Prime. He uses this outermost region for rapid travel. If he chooses to go deeper into Shadowland, the topography becomes more and more different from the Prime until he reaches the region described in City of Hawks and ultimately the curtain to the Ethereal Plane.
Personally, I differentiate the Shadow Plane from the Shadowfell. The Shadowfell (4th and 5th edition) is a gloomy version of Oerth (containing for example the Domains of Dread). The Shadow demiplane was initially between the Positive Plane and the Negative Plane (I can't find the article).
Otherwise a nice article of Oerth's Plane of Shadow (map)
Post by ripvanwormer » Wed Aug 01, 2018 2:39 am
It’s a shame we never got to see Gary’s notes for the Shadowland module. Since shadow walk was (presumably) his spell, I expect he understood how he meant it to work.
It's a good question. I went back to Peter Aronson's original Illusion class articles from SR#4 and TD#1, and shadow walk is not among the spells he created. It also doesn't appear to be one of the ones added by Peter in his later revisions to the class (see https://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-complete-od-illusionist.html for Jon Peterson's analysis)
So it first appears in the PHB, seemingly. That doesn't mean it's from Gary's pen, though: Lenard Lakofka added many spells to the OD&D lists (both from before OD&D to the ones from Chainmail, and from the conversion from OD&D to AD&D). That said, I don't think that shadow door or shadow walk feels sufficiently complex to be one of Lenard's spells (like Find Familiar and Identify, for example).
DMPrata wrote:
Has anyone else done their own development to reconcile the multiple versions of the (Demi-)Plane of Shadow?
To some degree, I have. Your questions about the infinite nature of the plane are relevant to it being classified as a demi-plane vs. a regular plane.
Note that the Plane of Shadow was first defined in the D&DG version of the Great Wheel (it's not in Gary's TD#8 article, nor in the PHB or DMG or modules prior to D&DG). In DD&G it's a plane, and the UA shadow walk spell follows this designation (as does the original write-up in Dragon #66, which appears at a quick glance to maintain the same wording as the article).
In addition, Gary had this memo put together with Steve Marsh while working up the planar architecture during the late '70s and early 1980s (when Steve was an intern at TSR):
grodog on Dragonsfoot wrote:
According to an internal TSR memo between Gary and Steve Marsh, dated 3 June 1980, these are the definitions that they were working from as they defined the AD&D planar cosmology:
Gary Gygax in Internal TSR Memo wrote:
Partial Plane - A space of under 100 square miles which connects directly to a normal plane.
Demi-Plane - A space of under 50 square miles which is not directly connected to any plane other than the Astral and/or Ethreal.
Semi-Plane - A space of 50 to 10,000 square miles which is otherwise similar to a Demi-Plane.
Plane - A space of 10,000 or more square miles unconnected to one or more regular planes as well as the Astral and/or Ethreal Planes.
Pocket Universe - A space of 10,000 or more square miles which is not directly connected to any plane whatsoever, existing in non-dimensional space and reachable only by extraordinary means.
It was only after MotP was published in 1987 that the Plane of Shadow was demoted to demi-plane status (although I think that Gary also described it as such in his Gord novels too??: Krista's site confirms this at https://greyhawkonline.com/gordmain/inner/#shadow FWIW).
Reading the shadow walk spell description again, the emphasis of being on "the edge of the Prime Material Plane where it borders the Plane of Shadow" seems to imply that the proximit of the two planes together is the key, in my mind.
I'll reply more later :D
Allan. _________________ Allan Grohe<br />https://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html<br />https://grodog.blogspot.com/
So... one of the PCs in my 1E game has become a shade (long story)
FWIW, one of the long-standing NPCs in one of my concurrent college campaigns was an olven bardic shade; his druidical abilities had been replaced by shadow magics, and it was this that prompted me to build upon and design the spells I first published in White Wolf #11 (inspired in part by Stewart Wieck's work in WW#8), and later reprinted in Relics & Rituals and in Knockspell #6: https://grodog.blogspot.com/2017/05/knockspell-magazine-master-index.html#issue6
Allan. _________________ Allan Grohe<br />https://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html<br />https://grodog.blogspot.com/
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
Canonfire! is a production of the Thursday Group in assocation with GREYtalk and Canonfire! Enterprises
