One of the problems you run into with the Great Wheel cosmology is that there's kind of a clear answer to what plane is best and worst. Definitionally, Elysium is the best plane. And Hades is the worst. See, I'd wondered for a long time about how you reconcile the relative goodness of planes. Is Mount Celestia not as good-aligned as Elysium because it splits its values to also, equally, embrace Law?
In other words, is it a Great Wheel or a Great Square? See, if it's a Wheel, then Mount Celestia needs to sacrifice some of its goodness in order to value law. Likewise, the Nine Hells become not quite as evil as Gehenna because its adherence to Law diverts it away from pure evil.
If it's a Square, then, we only see the "in-between" planes forced to compromise on one of its values. It means that the Nine Hells, Acheron, Mechanus, Arcadia, and Mount Celestia are all equally Lawful, but on a spectrum of good to evil, with Mount Celestia perfectly good and the Nine Hells perfect evil.
And... I think that the Great Square fits the way that these planes are portrayed in most prime material-focused campaigns. The Abyss is certainly a realm of unmitigated evil, right?
Granted, in Planescape, the implication seems to be that these different values can dilute one another. The Order of Planes-Militant is a Sect (similar to a Faction but with no major presence in Sigil) based in Mount Celestia that seeks to expand the plane by incorporating parts of neighboring planes into it. As the name implies, there's a zeal to their work, and while they primarily try to accomplish this via campaigning and persuasion, they're still trying to basically rip away parts of neighboring (also good-aligned) planes to add to the Seven Heavens.
Notably, as well, Powers (the term used by Planars to refer to what Primes call Gods - probably as a response to the Satanic Panic but it's something I like about the setting, like how Devils were renamed Baatezu and demons Tanar'ri, and Daemons to Yugoloths, the latter of which stuck) don't have to match the alignment of a plane to have their realm within it. Gruumsh is typically portrayed as Chaotic Evil, but his realm of Nishrek is on Acheron, a Lawful Neutral/Lawful Evil plane.
And for this reason, I had an idea of how one might portray the planes in a different way. While we tend to arrange them in a wheel (and some means of traversal, like the River Styx, seem to reflect this,) there are also ways in which the planes seem more free-floating and not really physically existing in relation to one another.
And so, this alternative makes each a plane that focuses on a singular value.
Here's my initial list:
Elysium: Selflessness
The Beastlands: Instinct
Arboria: Passion
Ysgard: Glory
Limbo: Mutability
Pandemonium: Madness
The Abyss: Hatred
Carceri: Betrayal
Hades: Despair
Gehenna: Greed
The Nine Hells: Ambition
Acheron: Discipline
Mechanus: Logic
Arcadia: Harmony
Mount Celestia: Perfection
Bytopia: Industriousness
Admittedly, some of these might be more of a stretch than others. Carceri is given Betrayal because the way that it traps people seems to drive them toward back-stabbing. The Abyss could easily be rage or anger, but I think Hatred does seem to drive a lot of what the inhabitants do there, and allows for more calculated by still chaos-driven expressions of evil. Mount Celestia's value is perfection, because the inhabitants believe their goal is to ascend and refine themselves to become ever-better.
What I think re-imagining the planes in this way does is that you open the door for more nuance. Elysium is no longer the ultimate good, but it's one expression of goodness. For certain sometimes selflessness does not achieve the best good outcome, but Elysium's whole vibe is that the plane encourages it - you'll get to your destination on a road there faster if you stop to help someone in need.
It also creates these weird little nuances that really fit with the Planescape factions. Hades is the plane of despair, and that's usually portrayed as the ultimate evil - and evil that doesn't even seek to accomplish anything except drag everything else down into its bleak darkness. But if you're a good-aligned member of the Bleak Cabal, you might see a kind of freedom in despair: by accepting the darkness of the cosmos and recognizing that it's never going to get better, you can live better in the moment and see things for how they are rather than how you wish they would be. Hades might be a place that reminds you of the need to find that compassion within, rather than without.
Alignment is one of the biggest cultural legacies of D&D, but I think that using it as a jumping off point, rather than an endpoint, can make for some far more interesting stories.
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