What They Don't Tell You About The Elemental Plane of Water - D&D

when a great storm arises it drives the sea madly before it many a ship has been lost to whirlpools and storm surges never to be seen again the remains of the ship missing as it vanished when tidal forces align with other sources of mystical energy they open a conduit that leads directly into a different plane of existence these channels can be quite large drawing ships sailors and sea life into their deadly moss and when inside you are transported into another reality altogether let's talk about the elemental plane of water right after our sponsor this video is brought to you by grim hollow the monster grimoire so grim hollow is coming out with a monster manual real soon it'll actually officially release on kickstarter next week and i am particularly excited to tell you guys this because i am actually making a few monsters for that monster manual that's crazy i have this really cool idea for this new type of hack that i've been working on that is insanely cool that sort of revolves around the idea of tricking players into kissing them i don't want to spoil it but i do think it is really cool i will be making a few polls in the near future to grab some of your ideas about what you guys would like to see and what type of monster you would like me to make for grim hollow's monster grimoire and then we will talk about some of those winners on a future video as well so please also stay tuned for that in any case uh it is grim holo so the monster manuals are going to be dark and gritty with amazing art all the art that i've been showing you guys here is grim hollow art by the way they are pretty amazing so check out the link in the description and on the comments section and stay tuned the kickstarter is starting next week but now on to the show the elemental plane of water alongside the elemental plane of air shares the spotlight as the most welcoming plane on the inner elemental planes that is because the only thing necessary in order to survive here is technically only water breathing and as long as you have that you are pretty solid the plane of water is described as being quite literally all and only water there is no up there is no down there is no east or west it is an infinite plane where it doesn't matter where you go there will simply just be water now its overall description was oddly changed in 5th edition which leaves me with the uncomfortable position of having to figure out exactly what is and what is not canon what do i mean by this so the inner planes specifically in this regard the plane of water was explained in second edition through the campaign setting planescape which basically explains literally everything about the inner and outer planes including the astral and the ethereal realm most of our information actually comes from this then in third edition they released a single book called the manual of the planes which basically was the entirety of planescape as a campaign setting but summarized in a single book it was obviously missing a lot of stuff but it was a great summary for everything that you needed to know about the planes this book for the most part stuck with planescape with some very minor changes here and there then fourth edition came out and they changed everything like literally just deleted everything and made their own new lore but then fifth edition came out and deleted fourth edition's revision and went back to how things were see the problem is that we actually don't have a manual of the planes for fifth edition if we want to know what the planes are and only use fifth edition content then we're forced to simply rely on what the dungeon master's guide tells us which is not much this forces me to rely on second and third edition lore which is fine since that lore is great but every once in a while there is something in the small 5th edition blurbs that completely contradicts that which has been established lore for decades i mean we have entire books that talk about the elemental plane of water that says it is one way and then suddenly a small paragraph on the fifth edition dungeon master's guide that suddenly goes and changes it all it's weird it's awkward i'm not sure if this is an intentional change for the whole of the indies lore or if this is just made to be taken as a generic version of the plane of water and not to maybe be taken seriously i don't know so what is the change the plane of water is described as being only water there is no water surface at the top or an ocean floor at the bottom there is no up or down either the reason this is the case is because it being an elemental plane of water it means that there is no air on the plane or earth or other elements other than small elemental pockets on the dungeon master's guide in the fifth edition they say quote a warm sun arcs across the sky of the plane of water seeming to rise and set from within the water at the visible edge of the horizon several times a day however the sky clouds over and releases a deluge of rain often accompanied by a spectacular show of lightning before clearing up again at night a glittering array of stars and auroras bedecs the sky then it says life flourishes in the upper reaches of the sea of worlds called the sea of light because of the sunlight filtering down into the water down here it says that the deeper extents of the plane where no sunlight reaches are called the darkened depths where horrid creatures dwell and absolute cold and crushing pressure means a swift end to creatures accustomed to the surface it further says that there is a surface of the sea where you can then find islands now this again literally just goes against everything that the elemental plane of water was which sort of concerns me the thing about the elemental planes is that there is no other element in there except for the element which the plane symbolizes and then of course with some very small pockets of other elements here and there that bleed out from the other planes but the key word there is small pockets nothing as major as having a literal blazing sun which is the contrasting element of water there cannot be fire there's not supposed to really be fire on the elemental plane of water philosophically it also doesn't make any sense for there to be an ocean's surface because that means that then anything that is above the ocean is air and since the plane is infinite then there should be an infinite amount of air which means it is not even the plane of water anymore it is instead the elemental plane of water and air because there is an infinite number of both the plane of water is also not supposed to have any gravity again because it is an infinite plane that doesn't have a core and without gravity you also are not supposed to have water pressure the reason the elemental plane of water is meant to not have any water pressure is because with water pressure a human or any other humanoid or similar biology can really only dive up to like 130 feet before you start dying thanks to the water pressure adding water pressure to the plane just kind of ruins it because then you literally just make the plane of water as any other normal mundane ocean i mean literally there is no difference between a big vast ocean or the elemental plane of water at that point see the point that people forget is that the inner planes are meant to be heavens at least to the creatures they represent creatures like tritons mere folk and lochtha this is where they go when they die this is supposed to be their heaven the waters from the plain are supposed to be the perfect temperature yeah you can find areas that are cold if you approach an elemental pocket of ice or hot if you find a small elemental pocket of fire but otherwise the waters are created to be the perfect temperature for you arctic sea life and tropical fishes can co-exist in the same place further salt water creatures and fresh water creatures can also exist communally together regardless of the type of water the only caveat was that air-breathing aquatic creatures were rare because finding air in the plane was rare pockets of elemental air do happen but not often and when they do appear they are then coveted by the races that find them and then they will protect them in secrecy so as you can see established lore and what the fifth edition of your master's guide tells us really just contradicts itself which makes it really really awkward for me i didn't really meant to go this deep into all of this just talking about this contradiction but i don't feel too bad since i i guess the purpose of these videos anyways is to talk about what fifth edition doesn't tell you but in any case enough of the contradictions enough of fifth edition what else don't they tell you so like i said before alongside the plane of air the elemental plane of water is the most welcoming to planet travelers because all you really need to survive in here is the ability to breathe water which all on its own is typically very easy to obtain for a group of adventurers the basic spell of water breathing as you all know is a third level spell so most experienced casters should be able to get this the spell affects up to 10 people so you only have to worry about casting it once for an entire party and more and it also lasts for a whole 24 hours so all things considered it is an extremely lenient spell that doesn't require much and so with this you're basically ready to start your own adventure in the plane of water now because this is the case the plane of water has become sort of like the entry-level plane for all planet travelers anyone who wants to start their journeys on the inner planes they would typically start here and so some of the cities that are found on this plane are very much accepting of adventures because they're used to them in this case most notably is the famous city of glass the city of glass is set on an enormous chunk of eternal eyes with a dome of magically resistant glass that forms a semicircle on the top side even though the city might not look like it there are actually two sides of the city there's an air side and then there's the water side the air side of course is pretty obvious you can see it and the water side is hard to see because it lies under the sheets of ice but this place is the biggest metropolis that the plane of water has mustered to the point where it has earned the moniker of the sigil of the elements and not just because everyone who travels to the inner plains goes here first but because they say that you can also find portals to most other places within the inner plains in here if you want to go to the city of brass you can probably find a portal here if you want to go to a genie palace in the plane of air you can also find a portal to that any and all races make their home here to the point where it is actually impossible to tell which race is the most populous the rulers of the city actually form a council of 15 creatures of which no race can have more than two members in which makes this a very welcoming and balanced city as far as races are concerned the crystal that forms the dome of air can actually be broken if enough force is applied to it it is not indestructible something that has happened before in the past when group of adventurers end up fighting in the city but because there is no gravity or water pressure the air for the most part stays inside and prevents the water from the outside from simply breaking in probably not for long though but fixing the glass appears to be quite easy they have done it in the past so it is no issue oh and also it is the city of glass where you could find magical scrolls or magical items that then would allow you to breathe fire or breathe earth things that you would need if you would want to go into the plane of fire or earth remember that there is no air on either the plane of fire or earth so for the plane of earth you literally have to breathe in the dust and the dirt and then magically turn that into oxygen for you it's wild alright so you have made it into the city of glass you have prepared yourself you have your scrolls you set out into the plane of water you leave the dome and you start simply just swimming outwards what do you find now i really like the descriptions from describe and i use them a lot so here quote the sea has no bottom and no surface it is infinite looming above below and all around an endless expanse of ocean its currents broken only by massive reefs and sprawls of sea grasses you feel weightless aimless unsure which way is up or which is down the dim light seems to emanate from the water itself and from the luminescent plankton floating like drifting clouds through its depths end quote if you guys want to check out describe make sure to use my link in the description or go to describe.com rex they have great boxed text descriptions for dungeons and dragons locations spells and monsters and well they helped me out a lot with making the scripts for this video so uh check them out of course anyways as far as creatures are concerned there is not much that i have to explain it is actually quite straightforward like i said before salt and fresh water aquatic creatures are found here so any kind of fish that you can imagine will happily live here except for those that need air to breathe like whales and dolphins because those are very rare and you will probably not see them by far the biggest and most populous rays on the plane of water are the water elementals as you can imagine though they can sometimes be very difficult to notice because well they are made of the very thing which exists everywhere in the water water elementals can be close to invisible to those who have no experience in the plane much like the fire elementals in the plane of fire water elementals in this plane are much more intelligent than what you're used to they have societies they have cultures marriages rights of passage i mean anything that any society would have they have they vary greatly in size power and wisdom and the most powerful of them rule over vast kingdoms the biggest of which is estitia the ruler of all neutral water elementals his kingdom basically stretches throughout the entirety of the plane of water but because the kingdom is so stretched out everywhere and not concentrated on a single area most people actually consider all hydra's kingdom to be more powerful since her kingdom is more focused and united all hydra is the ruler of evil water elementals who constantly fights ben hadar the ruler of good elementals these two basically have been fighting for eons without a clear winner though it is funny that the lord describes ben hadar as barely good he is described as rude boorish has a terrible personality and doesn't actually care about the cause of good but he does fight all hydra who is bad and so i guess that technically makes him good all the actually good elemental princesses from the other elemental planes actually hate him now it is interesting too that the lore says that elementals have a particular dislike of non-elemental creatures to the point where the best way to tell whether or not you have entered a water elemental kingdom is by the noticeable lack of fishes water elementals do not let anything bigger than a small minnow to enter their kingdoms else they attack it so be very wary of them basically now as you can imagine the other big rays worth talking about here are the merits or merits i'm not sure how to browse them the water genies see turns out the merits are actually the strongest genies out of all of them from a singular unit of power a merit can beat any other type of elemental genie see i bet you didn't see that one coming they are considered to be the strongest however they are terribly organized what makes the afriti so strong is that they have a single leader that rules over all of the afriti they have a big strong capital and their armies are well regimented and trained the merits on the other hand don't really have a strong union since every single married sees themselves individually as the only one worthy of being the leader they are arrogant they're pompous full of themselves prideful and with enormous egos so what you find on the plane of water for them would be separated and segregated citadels that small groups of marriage would own and individually protect though if there was such a thing as the capital of the marriott it would then be the place called the citadel of ten thousand pearls quote the splendid palace of the married padisha is built atop a circular free-floating coral reef that spreads over several dozen miles the buildings of the city are a collection of domes most of which have scalloped roofs and resemble great clamshells others curl in lines that look very much like elegant snail shells air fountains curtains and carpets of kelp and carefully selected schools of fish all serve as decoration in the citadel creating a multicolored rhapsody of movement and fluidity the entire citadel is brightly lit by strings of glowing orbs some 12 inches across these gleaming spheres as well as the bountiful beds of giant oysters give the citadel of 10 000 pearls its name end quote the place is described as being incredible the thing is only a few hundred merits actually end up living here contrasted with say the city of brass where millions of africa live and see this is what i'm talking about they are just not very well organized and the most powerful and most well-known of merits can seemingly only gather up to a few hundred to actually follow them and this is why merits even though they are individually the most powerful out of all of the genies are not quite as much a danger now other than these guys the most pronounced members of the plane would be the tritons the haggins amir folks and the exceptionals which are kind of demonic manta rays they appeared in out of the abyss as far as the environment and the dangers that you might find out here are concerned most of it has to do with the different currents of the plane as one can imagine there are always water currents that are active and they pass through most places on the plane for a non-native they are fairly difficult to see and sense which is rough because they can severely impact your ability to travel if anyone has seen finding nemo you guys know the power of water currents if you're traveling in a particular direction and you don't notice that you have entered a water current and you might be getting pushed to a direction without even noticing it now that is a silly problem granted not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things but what is a big deal is when those currents bring with them other things see one of the greatest threats that travelers can find in the plane of water is what locals call red tides see just how outside of the plane one can find all kinds of molds and slimes that infest dungeons there are parasites and bacteria that infect the plane of water these parasites they travel and reproduce by using the currents in the water moving at high speeds throughout the entirety of the plane and typically these currents are easy to tell apart from others as the concentration of the seas will take on a very particular reddish color which is where the name comes from the deadliness of this currents is so well known too in the plane that it is in fact a a very popular tactic in warfare to use this current against enemies say using magic to redirect the flow of currents to send these red tides over to an enemy fortress another dangerous threat in the plane is what locals call burn water not because the water is hot but because it is acidic the nature of the plane is such that over time elemental pockets of earth can form on the plane and the water will naturally dissolve such pockets when those pockets are more than just earth and contain say certain minerals or oozes they can increase the ph of the water on that area to such levels that it makes the water acidic to the point of causing major burns to those that swim through it and typically these locations are scattered out and elemental guides can tell you obviously where not to go or where to go to avoid them but yeah other than dangerous water elementals and haughty merits or dangerous acidic or disease written water currents things are actually pretty chill on the plane like we described it before the water feels great it is nice it's warm if you were to taste it it would taste sweet and the entirety of the plane is well illuminated thanks to an ever-present prescient soft light a rippling blue-green glow that infuses the whole plane nobody actually knows where the light comes from but it does illuminate the entirety of the plane so dark vision is not necessary in here and what's really cool about this mysterious glow too is that it provides sustenance to plants under the water the plane is not just filled with fishes but also with plant life things like plankton and seaweed which rely on photosynthesis can thrive thanks to this glow all surfaces that you will come across on the plane will be free floating in the water since again there is no bottom so typically what happens is that a coral reef will grow to the point where they can form large surfaces and then creatures will build their homes or kingdoms on top of those surfaces sometimes you will find the powerful wizards who will find enormous coral reefs or entire pockets of elemental earth they will hollow those things with magic and then seal them and fill them with air and then live inside of them like floating homes and people do what they can in this fashion doing their best and floating surfaces are highly coveted for this reason the only exception to this trend only comes from gods since gods are all powerful and have the ability to change the rules of the plane to suit them you can find many of them actually tend to not have want for surfaces since they typically have everything they need by just making them happen in fact the lore states that the god of the kuwatoa whatever i can't i can't i can't has a realm in the plane of water called the murky depths the god has created what looks like a massive sandy bottom that for all intents and purposes feels and looks like an ocean bottom that stretches for several hundred miles though once again the sandy bottom is a creation of the god and an exception to the rules of the plane on the last video i asked you guys to give us 10 000 likes and if you did that i would make videos for some of the cool gods on the inner planes and well you guys pulled through currently we have over 11 000 likes so we will be making those videos of course specifically i'll be making one for koseth because he is one of the few actual elemental gods actually represented in the fifth edition pantheon we will also probably cover the elemental princesses like emix and all hydra and the others as well if the demand is great so keep leaving me those comments keep liking the videos let me know if you guys want to see them i'll keep making videos obviously on all these topics of course but you guys do have the power to direct me to where you all want me to go so so keep letting me know anyways because we might make individual videos for some of these guys i don't want to go too deep in here for them but the gods that are on this plane are ben haddar al-hydra and aesthesia which are respectively the elemental princesses of good evil and neutral elementals we have that guy who is the god of kotowas which we already talked about then we have idro which is the god of mirefolk and lokita which makes his realm on the kingdom of shilluria described as a bountiful and pleasant place again this is their heaven so those that have died and come here they live as spirits who take on the shape of multicolored beautiful rainbow fishes that swim in happiness in the kingdom the spirits radiate colors and fill the place with a natural sense of peace and tranquility the last god on the plane is persona known as the god of tritons persona is known as a master sculptor and is in fact believed to have constructed every single wonder found on a plane of water including the masterfully made citadel of 10 000 pearls for the longest time he was a nomad god traveling and constructing wonders everywhere until now where he allegedly resides in cheluria the kingdom of idro the lore says that iadro has gone missing and might possibly be dead and so persona was summoned to shalouria to rule in his stead now there is a thing that is no god or location or a natural hazard yet it is also all of these things i am of course talking about the avenger somewhere in the plane of water there is a colossal mechanized manta ray-shaped ship that sails the infinite seas of the plane it is 90 feet from nose to the beginning of the tail and 180 feet from wing tip to wingtip and it has the ability to discharge electric spells from its enormous stingtail with the potency of a max level sorcerer the avenger is something of an enik mass and nobody actually knows anything about it it is clearly not a natural creature since he has mechanized pieces all over it and it swims via a form of turbine on its sides it's something that it might actually be a vehicle with people inside while others believe that it is a construct of a god but what everyone knows is that those that meddle with it end up dead and nobody has been able to see inside now as big as the avenger is it is by no means the biggest creature on the plane the vast depths of the plane of water is said to hide all manner of colossal creatures the lore describes it that thanks to the lack of gravity and water pressure fishes and aquatic creatures have been able to just grow on this plane to unimaginable sizes i'm not talking about creatures hundreds of feet big by the way no i'm talking thousands of feet in size oh don't believe me i'll literally quote it for you quote for many reasons the absence of gravity among them the bottomless deep has spawned more than a share of giant sea creatures these range from normal animals like large squid to oversized titans like the giant nautilus with all the room offered to its inhabitants unlike the finite seas of other planes there is little limit on how big some of these creatures can grow chant has it that there are sharks in octopi to name just two that reach hundreds if not thousands of feet in length and as you marvel at that the true magnitude of this fact must be reinforced with one simple statement the vast majority of all fish even giant ones are carnivores and quote alright that's it guys thank you so much for watching i would like to personally thank my patreon supporters 5e magic shop barry maskind morgan johnson rusty rayne biotechnofrag doc feeder walker motley the great kodini terry kolp omega scales ozol alex kuczyn benjamin bosters falkey951 or doric prince daylight morning crown sabin kurchap solarensis thomas hunt chad aiga stephen bushido burrito nathan mccomb soulless writer werewolves games lost crusader mr salty dahlia jd green olaf clap treb909 tony arcy fatman 52 george fortland sovereign mind trevor hess drag lugia 5 who stuart zirin king michael walker the living guild pack streeble herbert johnson and describe for supporting me on patreon at the 25 dollar level if you would like to support me as well then please head on over to patreon.com to support whenever i do these long videos my throat starts killing me man anyways thank you guys for being here thank you guys for watching and i'll see you all next time

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Length: 27min 31sec (1651 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 13 2021