The Elemental Plane of Plastic

Something big is brewing on the elemental planes

Sculpture by nominative determinism victim Steven Gross

There exists a swath of disputed territory between the outer mud marches and the plains of the oil barons in the gooier part of the elemental plane of earth. The complexities of elemental politics have ensured that no major power lays claim on the region. A full explanation would require centuries worth of contentious elemental histories, but basically it’s been a Bir Tawil-type stalemate where either side’s use of the land would represent a de-facto agreement to an unacceptable peace treaty. As such the region has been sidestepped, ignored and unmapped since records began.  But recent reports of this supposed no-man’s land have found it not only inhabited but bustling with heretofore unknown breed of elemental: the plastics.   

Newborn plastic elemental still figuring itself out.

 

The plastics are a unique breed of elemental, their form corresponds to nothing in nature. Some take this as a reason to steer clear of the substance, since the wise makers of the worlds chose not to taint their creation with it. So while an elemental rock is much like it’s earthly counterpart, barring it’s sentience and tendency to walk around, plastics strive to imitate. In the depths of every plastic elemental’s soul they feel hunger to become a disposable water bottle or indeed a Garfield branded landline telephone.

 

Coming to a beach near you.

There’s some debate as to how this land came to be. Elementalists prefer to pretend it doesn’t exist since it doesn’t fit neatly into their perfect little maps of elemental interaction. If pressed they’ll use the bullshit term “pseudo-elemental plane” and go back to drawing venn diagrams.

Alchemists of the prime material plane suggest that the earthly fabrication of plastic, a recent innovation, has spawned a corresponding area within the elemental planes. Discourse on the matter has veered off into arguments on why pseudo-planes of gunpowder or alcohol don’t exist, or whether they do exist and simply remain undiscovered.

Naturally elementals don’t take any of these theories seriously. Djinnist’s assert that plastic is a rogue substance that arose spontaneously under the absence of governance. They have similar feelings about chalk and amber. Purists blame it on “the rampant miscegenation of degenerate phenol nobility and foreign formaldehydians” but they’re always saying shit like that.

Natives of the plane maintain that it has always existed in some capacity tucked away within the folds of the plane of earth, and their recent rise to prominence is due to the work of their pioneering leader the Plastic Princeps. The chief doctrine of their religion states that all things that in the prime material  are but imitations of that which was first molded here on the plane of plastic.

But that would just be stupid. 

Nonetheless, the plane of plastic, “pseudo” or otherwise is a growing power and may soon be making inroads into your world. To dispel misinformation about their newfound trade agreement with the Plastic Princeps the wizard council has mandated you play the following educational illuso-film on your orb.

Oh what’s that?
That doesn’t really explain much?
That seems like corporate sponsored propaganda masquerading as educational material?
Alright let's get to the bottom of things and go see the real Kingdom of Plastics.

A Tour of the Plane of Plastic

The Landfills

Approaching by way of the Sinking Swamp, visitors can find their way to the edge of the Plane of Plastic by panning for debris floating in the water that doesn’t match the region’s typical green-brown drabness. Follow these upstream (the swamp does flow ever so slowly despite appearances) until the wildlife starts to die off and the rubbish-heaps become solid enough to walk on.

Once you start seeing lots of these you know you’re close.

Here one finds the natural barrier that surrounds the Plane of Plastic. Great mountains of unrotting trash where the people of the plane bury their waste and their dead. The unsteady ground regularly bloats and collapses beneath careless footsteps and the wildlife makes every step a hazard.   
 
Plastic six-rings will snag at your feet and shopping bags attempt to suffocate you. Their larger garbage-hungry cousins will attempt to swallow you whole while you sleep. This can be mitigated by dressing in native nylons, or, if necessary, repurposing polyethylene pelts into makeshift coveralls.

After the briefest of hikes through the dreg heaps, travellers will soon understand why this plane is so seldom visited, and it will take much more than a brief hike to get past this wasteland. 

Can you spot the 12 different plastic predators hidden in this image? They’ve already spotted you.

 

The Plane Proper

If you manage to make your way through landfill periminters you’ll find the plane of plastic proper. A good deal of the plane is made up of the grand nurdle dunes; great expanses of many colored plastic pellets not unlike the bottom of a cheap fish tank.

Plastic in it’s most primal form.

Here the occasional watering hole will sport flocks of colored flamingos filter-feeding for microplastics. Moving up the food-chain one can find colossal creatures, resembling, in the loosest of ways, the dinosaurs of old, who prowl the land in search of others of their kind to clumsily bash heads with.

Chinasaur
HD: 5 (25 HP)
Disposition: Violent but largely oblivious.  
Armour: As chain.
Move: Normal speed. Graceless and inflexible.
Damage: 2d6 Chew
Hard Plastic: The chinasaur is resistant to all physical damage. This effect is mitigated if the previous successful attack against it dealt fire damage.

 
To reach civilization one must navigate the christmas tree forests, cross the ball-pit lakes and totally circumnavigate the glitter glades (Yes you can shortcut through them but that stuff’s never coming out). Eventually one will reach the nylon road, A fairly safe trading route that takes travellers to the heart of the Plane. 

Civilisation

The hovel of a humble polyurethane farmer. Likely the first sign of civilization a traveller sees. 

Although hostile to life the Plane of plastic is welcoming to civilisation. A traveller can find no shortage of hospitality provided they’re familiar with local customs. The civilized denizens of the plane are known to be industrious, materialistic, conspicuous consumers and cunning merchants. Plastics take great pride in their possessions and display them openly with little concern for taste or coherence. One can reliably find shelter and company with a plastic provided one makes sure to vigorously compliment their tacky lawn ornaments.  Like most elementals they take on a familiar human shape, albeit in a slightly more uncanny fashion:

Life in plastic, it’s fantastic!
A nymph of the Princeps’ harem at the Polyvinyl Palace.

The cities of the plastics are great sprawling affairs. If canyons and mountains are the natural expressions of earth then endless rows of prefabricated houses must be the natural expression of plastic. Cities make up a larger portion of the Plane of Plastic than anywhere else on the inner planes. [barring of course the Plane of Concrete].

Although generally safe there are a few dangers prospective travellers should be wary of. The foremost is getting lost. The standardisation of plastic craftsmanship and the trend-chasing nature of the plane’s denizens gives towns a dizzying repetitive quality. In the markets of the great plastic cities one can find cheap replicas of all things imaginable but traders who come for the nylon often find themselves encumbered with all manner of kitschy knick-knacks and gizmos whose function they struggle to explain.

Pair of silicone amoeboids, one of the softer, more squeezable species of plastic. Kept as pets by well to do plastics. 

The Inflatians

Where the high plateaus and peaks of the Plane of Plastic intersect with the Plane of Air a hybrid race of elemental has emerged. The inflatians are gaseous beings living in plastic skins.

The balloons are the most common subspecies of inflatables and the most abundant aerial lifeform on the Plane of Plastic. Balloons hunt by dropping or strangling their prey and feeding on their polymers through a string-proboscis. Although trivially bested by hairpins and mild breezes, balloons are quite dangerous in large numbers.  

And their flocks can reach very large numbers. 

VERY large numbers.

The Floating Lords

Inflatables are a diverse group, and balloons are but one of many species. The great floating lords are a class of powerful demi-genies, operating as mobile commanders and administrators of the Plastic Princeps. Whenever the Princeps calls, a dutiful floating lord will cut their great bouncing castle from it’s moor and set off, full court in tow. They’re quite the sight when on parade:

Shar’ek the mighty, commander of the Princeps’ 3rd aerial legion. A feared general who takes the likeness of an earthly ogre-mage. Pictured here during the battle of Legograd.    

Injured but undeterred a wounded Ker’a-met the Illustrious is guided by his troops in a triumphal parade after a successful reconquest of the tire hills.

If you’re willing to grovel sufficiently and pay an exorbitant fee, a floating lord might permit you to ride aboard their balloon flotilla. Although nerve wracking and humiliating, it does beat wading through a mountain range of garbage.  

Floating Lord
HD: 10 (45 HP)
Disposition: Proud, haughty, full of hot air. Cares for it’s dignity and status above all else.  
Armor: As Leather. Resistant to non-magical damage.
Move: Levitates at normal speed.

Inflatian Nature: Immune to bludgeoning damage. Upon receiving piercing or slashing melee damage the attacker must save or be pushed back  20’ by escaping air.  
 

Attacks:
Bounce: Melee Attack. 1d8 bludgeoning damage and 1d8 X 5’ of knockback.
Static Strike: 100' line, 2d10 lightning damage, save to dodge. Automatically hits creatures in metal armour.
Inflate: Single target,  50’ range. Target’s body doubles in size, but not weight. Dexterous activities become difficult. After this is cast 3 times on the same target, save or pop.  

Other minor inflatians include the following: 

Large predatory inflatables like these are why one should never venture into the astroturf plains without suitable spiked armor.

Here a raftling ferries some dwarven diplomats across the border marshes. Beings such as these make up the bulk of the Princeps’ fledgling navy.

Not all are so friendly. Here a floating ring-beast carries off it’s victim in it’s inescapable grip.

Here an air dancer performs the wild and graceful dance of her people.

The inflatians have their own species of nymph. Beware her alluring charms.

There are many more species of this elemental, far more than I can list here. (You can learn more by typing inflation into google images though.) But the time has come to discuss more important matters: the governance of the Plastic Plane and the true reason for it’s expansion.

Government

Former Princeps Poly-Ethyl the IV adorned with the least valuable crown in all the elemental planes. 

Ostensibly the Plane of Plastic is a kingdom, ruled absolutely by a being of great power known as the Plastic Princeps. This is a misleading oversimplification. The Plane of Plastic has a government system unique even in the elemental planes.

At the behest of a vote of no confidence by a parliament of major power holders (Think of this less as a body of elected representatives and more as a shareholder boardroom), the Plastic Princeps’ government can be dissolved. Not just in the figurative sense. An unsuitable Princeps is ceremonially melted down and reformed into a new mold matching the needs of the state. The Princeps has at various times been a finely-sculpted princess, a fearsome demon-tyrant, and a sagely philosopher king. This is, perhaps, hard to explain to a non-elemental but know that both solids and liquids find this practice utterly repulsive.

This plastocratic system governs every organisation of notable size in the plane. Everything from the glitterer’s guilds to the dollhouse homeowners association has a customised injection-molded CEO built to their exact specifications.

This isn't a trump analogy. Stretch Armstrong just looks like that. 

This is the current Plastic Princeps. He looks more human than his predecessors, having been molded with the intent of opening up trade routes with the prime material. He’s also been made considerably more soft and flexible in the hopes of charming his way into a favourable marriage alliance. [Elementals have a loose grasp of how sex works and are completely ignorant of biological reproduction]. His flexibility has also proved very helpful in adapting to the changeable day-to-day politics of the modern age.

This may have been a mistake.

The Princeps is afraid. Which is particularly worrying since he was built to be fearless. While his forbearers could accept their inevitable fate this one can’t bear the thought of remolding. So he works tirelessly to keep his masters happy. He’s made promises. Big promises. Growth, prosperity, conquest, expansion. Plastics will cover the earth, plastics will rule the waves, plastics will fill their blood. Just keep me in office for another term and it’s all yours.

Every day the plane’s reach extends a little further. It’s trinkets are filling store shelves in the Bazaars of the Brass City, it’s glitter has been seen sparkling on the paraplane of dust, great garbage islands have flowed their way into the plane of water and just last week a concert in the perfumed court of Alto the Stratesque was interrupted by a plastic bag striking his lordship’s face. This has all become very worrying.

Most worrying of all is the thought that the Princeps’ actually fulfills his promises. That he might string victory after victory until he succeeds where Cryonax failed and plastic becomes recognised as the fifth element.

Then we’ll never be rid of the stuff.