Editing Outer Plane (section)

==Publication history==
The Outer Planes were presented for the first time in Volume 1, Number 8 of ''[[Dragon (magazine)|The Dragon]]'', released July 1977 as part of the Great Wheel of Planes.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|last=Appelcline|first=Shannon|title=Manual of the Planes (1e) {{!}} Product History|url=https://www.dmsguild.com/product/17009/Manual-of-the-Planes-1e|access-date=September 8, 2021|website=Dungeon Masters Guild|language=en}}</ref> In the article "Planes: The Concepts of Spatial, Temporal and Physical Relationships in D&D", [[Gary Gygax]] mentions that there are 16 Outer Planes and describes the Seven Heavens, the Twin Paradises, and Elysium as "Typical higher planes", Nirvana as the "plane of ultimate Law" and Limbo as the "plane of ultimate Chaos (entropy)", and the Nine Hells, Hades' three glooms, and the 666 layers of the Abyss as "Typical lower planes". Other Outer Planes mentioned by name in the article include the Happy Hunting Grounds, Olympus, Gladsheim, Pandemonium, Tarterus, Gehenna, Acheron, and Arcadia.<ref name="Dragon8">{{cite magazine |last=Gygax |first=Gary  |author-link=Gary Gygax |date=July 1977 |title=Planes: The Concepts of Spatial, Temporal and Physical Relationships in D&D |magazine=[[Dragon (magazine)|The Dragon]] |publisher=[[TSR, Inc.|TSR]] |volume=I |issue=8 |page=4}}</ref>

The Outer Planes were further "refined in the [[Player's Handbook#Advanced Dungeons & Dragons|''Players Handbook'']] (1978) and ''[[Deities & Demigods]]'' (1980)".<ref name=":3" /> The appendix of the ''Player's Handbook'' included an abstract diagram of the planes, and mentioned the same 16 Outer Planes: the Seven Heavens of absolute lawful good, the Twin Paradises of neutral good lawfuls, the planes of Elysium of absolute neutral good, the Happy Hunting Grounds of neutral good chaotics, the planes of Olympus of good chaotics, the planes of Gladsheim (Asgard, Valhalla, Vanaheim, etc.) of chaotic good neutrals, the planes of Limbo of neutral (absolute) chaos (entropy), the Planes of Pandemonium of chaotic evil neutrals, the 666 layers of the Abyss of absolute chaotic evil, the planes of Tarterus of evil chaotic neutrals, Hades' "Three Glooms" of absolute (neutral) evil, the furnaces of Gehenna of lawful evil neutrals, the Nine Hells of absolute lawful evil, the nether planes of Acheron of lawful evil neutrals, Nirvana of absolute (neutral) lawfuls, and the planes of Arcadia of neutral good lawfuls.<ref name="PHB78">{{cite book |last=Gygax |first=Gary |author-link=Gary Gygax |year=1978 |title=[[Player's Handbook|Players Handbook]] |edition=1st |publisher=TSR |isbn=0-935696-01-6}}</ref> Shannon Appelcline, the author of ''Designers & Dragons'', highlighted that throughout the early 1980s ''Dragon'' magazine would continue to detail "some of the planes in more depth", however, "there was no overarching plan for the planes of D&D other than a few increasingly old drawings".<ref name=":3" />

Both Appelcline<ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite web|last=Appelcline|first=Shannon|title=OP1 Tales of the Outer Planes (1e) {{!}} Product History|url=https://www.dmsguild.com/product/17055/OP1-Tales-of-the-Outer-Planes-1e|access-date=September 8, 2021|website=Dungeon Masters Guild|language=en}}</ref> and Curtis D. Carbonell, in his book the ''Dread Trident: Tabletop Role-Playing Games and the Modern Fantastic'', highlighted that information on the planes and the shared cosmology was codified in the ''[[Manual of the Planes]]'' (1987) and ''[[Tales of the Outer Planes]]'' (1988).<ref name=":2" /> Carbonell wrote that project leader and designer [[Jeff Grubb]] detailed "the schematization of the planes' requisite five area: the Prime Material, the Ethereal, the Astral, the Inner, and the Outer planes. This basic structure is still used in 5e, with some changes that provide minor rearrangements and clarifications [...]. Grubb's approach demonstrated a need to codify, while still remaining flexible, that has remained as a primary aim of the latest edition".<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Carbonell|first=Curtis D.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1129971339|title=Dread Trident: Tabletop Role-Playing Games and the Modern Fantastic|date=2019|isbn=978-1-78962-468-7|location=Liverpool|oclc=1129971339}}</ref>{{rp|93}}

Carbonell also highlighted that the 1989 [[Spelljammer]] campaign setting added cosmology that "allowed travel between the different settings" such as ''[[Dragonlance]]'', ''Greyhawk'', and the ''[[Forgotten Realms]]''.<ref name=":2" />{{rp|97}} However, campaign settings such as ''[[Dark Sun]]'' and ''[[Ravenloft]]'' were inaccessible in this cosmology. Then in 1993, TSR wanted to do a series of books about the Outer Planes. Zeb Cook, creator of the [[Planescape]] universe, describes it this way: <blockquote>So there was this huge collection of over ten years of stuff that was just kind of quietly ignored with no sense of logic to it, and we figured that 'Oh, we don't need to explain it—it's enough to say "It came from The Outer Planes.{{"'}} So [one of the TSR designers] said, 'Let's do this series of books, one about each Plane,' which would have been about 10 million books, so TSR said, 'Well, that's a good idea, but 10&nbsp;million books is not such a great idea. We'd rather create a campaign world that's set in the Outer Planes,' because they had figured out by that point that worlds sold. And so they came to me, the senior designer with a huge gaping hole in my schedule, and wanted me to take this idea and execute it. 'Make us a campaign world that's completely different from all of the ones we have....'<ref>{{cite web |date=6 August 2003 |title=Planescape Torment Preview |url=http://www.cdmag.com/articles/014/052/planescape_preview.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030806200948/http://www.cdmag.com/articles/014/052/planescape_preview.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=6 August 2003 }}</ref></blockquote>Carbonell called the 1994 Planescape campaign setting "the most complex example of the multiverse created during the varieties of 2e's AD&D settings" and wrote: "A more nuanced and sophisticated attempt at harmonization, Planescape provided an alternate way to travel between the planes than Spelljammer's science-fantasy-oriented approach".<ref name=":2" />{{rp|98}} The 3rd edition ''Manual of the Planes'' (2001) detailed both the inner and outer planes. Kevin Kulp, for [[Dungeon Masters Guild|DMs Guild]], wrote that "the authors used an approach that said 'here's how it's been done in the past, and here are other ways you can do it,' which allowed the book to avoid setting planar mechanics in stone. Instead it gave DMs a modular approach by presenting Options, a flexible strategy that pleased both 1e and Planescape fans. Vast amounts of new ideas and new locations were presented, dovetailing nicely with canon from earlier editions".<ref name=":6">{{Cite web|last=Kulp|first=Kevin|title=Manual of the Planes (3e) {{!}} Product History|url=https://www.dmsguild.com/product/25109/Manual-of-the-Planes-3e|access-date=September 8, 2021|website=Dungeon Masters Guild|language=en}}</ref>

The 4th edition ''Manual of the Planes'' (2008) shifted the locations of the various Outer Planes to fit the new World Axis cosmology.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web|last=Appelcline|first=Shannon|title=Manual of the Planes (4e) {{!}} Product History|url=https://www.dmsguild.com/product/58822/Manual-of-the-Planes-4e|access-date=September 8, 2021|website=www.dmsguild.com|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite web|last=Appelcline|first=Shannon|date=April 23, 2015|title=An Elementary Look at the Planes|url=https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/elementary-look-planes|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150426175133/http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/elementary-look-planes|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 26, 2015|access-date=September 8, 2021|website=[[Wizards of the Coast]]}}</ref> However, the 5th edition ''Player's Handbook'' (2014) and ''Dungeon Master's Guide'' (2014) shifted most of the cosmology of the planes back to the Great Wheel model with some aspects of the World Axis model retained in the descriptions of the inner planes.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":4" />