Energy Planes

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The Energy Planes are part of the Inner Planes of Dungeons & Dragons, lying adjacent to the Elemental Planes and considered by some to be part of them. Like the Elemental Planes, the Energy Planes represent the fundamental forces of creation; Positive Energy and Negative Energy, or, more simply, Life and Death. This makes them amongst the most featureless and hostile planes in the entire Planescape cosmology, as the former overloads your body with energy until it disintegrates from the strain and the latter flat-out kills you. The Energy Planes meet all four Elemental Planes, creating four Positive Quasielemental Planes and four Negative Quasielemental Planes.

Planar Topography

Positive Energy Plane	Wall of Energy	Lightning	Subdued Cacophany	Air	-	Vacuum	-	Negative Energy Plane
		Dark Land	Glistening Crystal	Ice	-	-
		The Death Cloud	Hoarfrost		Stinging Storm	Flats
	Raging Mists	Steam	Islands of Water	Water	Saline Sea	Salt	Crystal Range
		Shard Forest	Realm of Cloying Fear	Ooze	Stagnant Sea	Consumption
		Misty Caverns	Sparklemire		Oasis of Filth	Consumption
	Gemfields	Mineral	Unnamed Border	Earth	Tumbling Rock	Dust	Storm of Annihilation
		Brighthome	Natural Forge	Magma	Sands	Wasting Place
		Brighthome	Glowing Dunes		Cinder Wells	Wasting Place
	The Light	Radiance	Brightflame	Fire	Sea of Frozen Flames	Ash	Empty Winter
		Bright Land	Sea of Stars	Smoke	Embers	Sparking Vast
		Bright Land	Dark Land		-	-
	Wall of Energy	Lightning	Subdued Cacophany	Air	-	Vacuum	-

Here are listed all the Border Planes between the various Quasielemental Planes and the Elemental, Paraelemental and Energy Planes. The Quasielemental Planes all have six of such borders: one each with their matching Elemental and Energy Plane, one with each of their neighbouring Quasielemental Plane and one for each Paraelemental Plane bordering their Elemental Plane. The more canny of you will notice that some of these names match while others do not: this was likely because the writers (Monte Cook and William W. Connors ran out of interesting ideas to add. Some of these even match the links given with the Paraelemental Planes.

Positive Energy Plane

The Plane of life itself. You heal at an astonishing rate here, and healing spells heal far more. You gain 2d6 hit dice in extra HP... but once you hit double your normal HP you explode into a cloud of gibblets because your body couldn't handle the energy. The blinding light will burn your eyes out if you're not protected and you can't breathe here, but any suffocation damage will heal as quickly as you suffer it. This is not a nice place to visit.

Negative Energy Plane

This place will decay and rot in seconds, and it can rip your soul out and turn you into an undead creature in mere seconds. Making your way around here is difficult and dangerous because of its lack of anything that's not soul-draining powers, which is made even more difficult by the hordes of undead in the place and the fact that you can run into goddamn Shiva, who's the only deity who drops by the place now and then. The only friendlies here are a bunch of Dustmen maintaining the Fortress of the Soul, a skull-shaped outpost maintained only barely by their combined effort. If they find a lost non-undead on the plane they'll take them in for a few days: once a week a portal to Sigil opens up inside here and the lucky sod is sent on his way.

Positive Quasielemental Planes

Lightning

Stay here long enough and you can say that you've been... THUNDERSTRUCK. IF you carry more metal on you than a dagger you'll get hit by a lightning bolt for 1d8 x 10 damage. Even if you're not, you have a flat 10% chance per round spent here. You can breathe the air (it smells of ozone) here, but it won't do you any good because of the lightning, deafening thunder and the occasional pocket of plasma which can hit you for 20d10 damage if you touch it.

Steam

A bit of an odd duck, Steam is not as hot as you'd think. It's actually quite cool, unless you walk into one of the pockets of hot vapor. This is by far the most accommodating (as in: least lethal) of the Quasielemental Planes: being here puts someone under the effect of a Slow spell because breathing is difficult, and with a simple casting of Water Breathing that problem's fixed. Moving around can be done by either falling or swimming, but the latter is more advised because the steam prevents you from seeing something you're falling towards. As such, moving around with an air ship or a local flying creature called a Fabere is advised.

Mineral

A lot of valuable rocks in this place, but the creatures living here don't like to share (nor do they like intruders). Aside from requiring the same digging as on the Plane of Earth, the big issue here is the fossilization. Once per day you'll have to save against petrification: if you fail you turn into a mineral shape of yourself, and will likely end up either being mined or eaten by some thing or another. Another problem is that all the sharp crystaline formations here can cut you up real bad if you move fast and carelessly, so do be careful.

Radiance

What do you get when you take fire and remove the fire, but keep the warmth and light? You get Radiance. This place will light you up good in more ways than one. Aside from being able to set you on fire like the Plane of Fire. On top of that, the brilliant light of this place is beautiful but it can also blind you in seconds. Moving around here is like navigating the Plane of Air, except you'll need a blindfold and a way to protect yourself from the heat.

Negative Quasielemental Planes

Vacuum

The Plane of Vacuum is the plane of nothing. There is nothing here. Well, not entirely. Like outer space the Vacuum is dark and empty, but unlike space it does have temperatre and pressure. Sure, they're both low, but it's not going to outright kill you. As long as you have access to air to breathe (gaseous creatures will suffer 1 HD of damage per round) and a light source that doesn't need air (like fire) you're good to go like you were in a dark version of the Plane of Air. What does carry over from regular space is vacuum welding. To keep it simple: the lack of air to get between moving parts means that parts will get stuck together and can't be moved while on the Plane of Vacuum. There's a few creatures out here who can survive in the vast nothing, but those are all rare and exceedingly tough.

The Plane of Vacuum doesn't have Border Planes (what, do you want different types of nothingness?). Any pocket planes it would have are torn apart by the vacuum, so there's nothing to see here.

Salt

The plane of those who are still waiting for a 5e supplement for Planescape, the Plane of Salt is what happens when you remove all the water and life from the ocean: you'll end up with nothing but salt. An endless block of alkaline matter, the Plane of Salt thirsts for your fluids. Merely being here without magical protection deals 2d6 damage per round, and aquatic creatures suffer 1 Hit Die of damage instead. This'll leave even the toughest of planeswalkers mummified corpses in seconds. As a large body of matter one has to dig to make their way through and bring their own light and air. The second lethal feature of the Plane of Salt is the sharp crystal veins: if you fall into an area that has them you have to save VS breath weapon. Even if you make the save you can suffer up to 2d8 damage, and if you fail you'll either lose a limb or get bisected or even beheaded. So watch your step around here!

Dust

When rock is ground down to its smallest possible particles you'll get dust. This is a place of darkness and the decay of things. This can also include you: every hour spent on the Plane of Dust will have you roll a save VS breath weapon. Failure is a 2d6 damage hit. And if you hit 0, you disintegrate. Healing spells don't work here, unless you also cast something like Restoration or Negative Plane Protection. Vision is all but impossible because of all the dust. The lack of oxygen means that breathing is impossible and fire will peter out in moments. Sometimes the dust will cling together into strands that can capture a creature and start to drain their attributes, levels or even a decade of their life. The only way to deal with these strands is via a Disintegration spell. On top of that, the dust will frequently kick up into dust devils that can disintegrate matter in the blink of an eye and the nigh-invisible pockets of negative energy can drain you of your Hit Dice. Overall, the Plane of Dust is not a very nice place.

Ash

You know how at the end of Dark Souls 1 and 3 you wade through those blasted ashen hellscapes? The Plane of Ash is kinda like that, except this time it sucks the heat right out of you. 2d6 damage per turn, and 1 HD of damage if you're from the Plane of Fire, Magma, Smoke or are otherwise used to extreme heat. Magic can prevent this, but mundane sources of heat cannot. The clouds of ash make seeing and breathing difficult, and sometimes the ash eats magic. If you're dumb enough to get large patches of ash wet you end up with a mix of quicksand and quick-dry cement. Step into a puddle of ashen sludge and it hardes immediately, getting your ass stuck for good unless someone can save you. And that's discounting the pockets of negative energy that'll drain your Hit Dice if you step into them. Moving around is rather easy: you'll have to dig but the digging is light work. The Plane of Ash is the former site of Cavitius, the citadel of the lich Vecna. Crashing his place is a bad idea, and not just because of all the incorporeal undead roaming the place.

Inhabitants

Despite their inhospitality the Energy and Quasielemental Planes hold quite a bit of life. A fair number of them can also be found on the Elemental Planes, like the omnipresent Mephit and Elementals. Another kind of creature that can be found everywhere on the Inner Planes (but rarely in larger numbers) are the Ruvkova, a series of tall and skinny but fiercely powerful humanoids who live in tribes. They made them their homes, and are rumored to be the descendents of a large group of powerful druids from the Prime Material (especially Athas).