My home campaign has returned to the war between Veluna and Ket. A prophecy given by the High Priestess of St Cuthbert has revealed that the key to stopping the conflict is somewhere on the Elemental Plane of Air, so that’s where the adventures have headed.

The adventurers are about 9^th level and don’t have the spells required to get there and back. So, they’ve taken a magical sceptre that can open a portal to get them back. They’re unsure of its other powers.

The High Priestess opened a portal to send them to the Elemental Plane. We better hope they don’t lose the sceptre!

It’s full of blue!

For the Elemental Plane of Air, I’m primarily using the AD&D Manual of the Planes as my guide to how things work there. You’ve got an infinite plane of air, in which you can find motes of other elements. Think of islands floating in this eternal plane, often of earth, but also you have eternal fires or small lakes suspended in the infinite sky.

According to the Manual, vision is out to 1,000 yards – that’s 3,000 feet – and so the players can see much of interest. That is, they can see it when there is something to see! There’s a lot of sky!

How do you get around the sky? Well, you fly. Don’t you know how to fly? Then you may have a problem. It’s something the players considered before getting there, and so they appeared in the middle of the sky – and started falling.

Here’s something very enjoyable: Gravity is optional. If you expect gravity to exist, it does. And the direction is entirely arbitrary. The players figured this out quickly as one character fell “upwards” while everyone fell downwards on their arrival.

We spent 40 minutes of play as the players tried to work out how to use “falling” as their method of movement. Inertia is a thing, so if you turn on gravity for a moment, then turn it off, you speed up and start moving in one direction. If you rope everyone together, one person can start moving and the party speeds up at a reduced rate.

I forgot for a moment that AD&D rounds are 1 minute, and so I stated that everyone moved at the terminal velocity of 1,000 feet per six seconds, before we realised that was crazy! 100 feet per 5E round!

An unfriendly greeting

In 5E lore, invisible stalkers are air elementals twisted by magic into unnatural killers. So, I imagine they don’t much like humans and elves from Greyhawk turning up on their home plane.

Once a pair of stalkers realised that the party were present, they attacked. The group by this time had some idea of how to move, but not very well. The party had roped themselves together. So, the stalkers were able to attack very effectively.

I realise in retrospect that the stalkers could have moved up, attacked, then retreated out of range. However, that would have exposed them to more fireballs rather than if they were amongst the party. It worked out.

The most amusing interaction of the fight was when the barbarian went to throw a javelin at the elemental – and then realised what would happen if he missed. Could he ever retrieve the javelin?

Are there residents of the Elemental Plane of Air that have died from projectiles let loose hundreds of miles away? Do projectiles just keep going in the endless sky until they find a target?

The para-elemental mote

Under AD&D lore, there are six elemental planes (air, earth, fire, water, positive energy and negative energy). Four additional para-elemental planes exist on the borders of the classical elemental planes. And, and eight quasi-elemental planes from an elemental plane intersecting with an energy plane. The elemental motes have broken off from these planes.

Many months ago, the cleric gained a magic suit of armour that could detect if a dragon was within three miles (from Sly Flourish’s Fantastic Adventures). As he’s rarely moved out of the area of Veluna where our campaign is, it hasn’t come up. However, remembering he has it, he asked again. I made a roll. Yes! There was one!

White dragons are, of course, not native to the elemental plane of air, but I expect that you could find them on the para-elemental plane of Ice (on the border of Air and Water).

So, the characters travelled (fell) in that direction, keeping an eye out. After a couple of hours of falling through the sky, they discovered a massive iceberg looming in the distance.

The landing was tricky. You have to adjust gravity just the right way. The characters made intelligence checks. Some failed and took falling damage.

Spiders made of ice swarmed the party, but fire spells and swords cleared them away. The mage considered shatter, then realised it would alert the dragon.

Do you let sleeping dragons lie?

As you may have noticed, I incorporate much material from the older editions into my Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition game. Upon considering the options for the type of dragon, an adult white dragon was the best choice. However, it had a Challenge rating of 13. I had a party of three characters about level nine, and two characters of level three. The dragon would be too much for them in a straight-up fight.

However, in AD&D, there was a chance that a dragon was sleeping when encountered. It was highest for white dragons – a massive 60% chance.

The players, to their credit, were quite prepared to talk to the dragon. They wanted to seek its aid, but the party were prepared for combat.

I made the roll. The dragon was sleeping. And so, the party were able to sneak up to it and attack.

It could have been a deadly fight. It was still challenging. The dragon awoke but the party had bloodied it by the time its turn finally came. The party were scattered so it couldn’t use its breath weapon. It engaged its fear and attacked the barbarian. The third-level barbarian.

He was raging, though, and although it reduced him to 0 hit points, that was the last chance it got. After several fireball spells, plus weapon attacks and other magics, it fell dead.

A dragon’s treasure

It had a lot of gold and platinum, plus a few choice items of jewellery.

But the treasure that the adventurers found of real interest? Magic items! And the hoard had two powerful items.

An intelligent lawful good longsword, nine lives stealer that could detect evil within 30 feet.

And a +2 shield made by dwarves, that protected the wielder from environmental extremes and could detect depth underground.

Thanks to the AD&D and 5E DMGs for the quirks and properties that made those items more intriguing. We need to come up with names for both!

How much had I prepared?

I improvised most of this session. I knew the ultimate goal of the party, and I’d studied the Manual of the Planes to discover what the environment was like.

The first part of the session learning how to move, I expected, but I didn’t foresee how entertaining that would be. The invisible stalker attack was planned.

However, the ice spiders, dragon and iceberg mote? Those I made up on the spot. I have the rulebooks on my iPad, so it was easy to look up details.

Next session should be interesting. I need to design a settlement of djinn – which is the party’s ultimate destination! How do the chaotic good djinn view humans, who always seem to be binding them into rings and bottles? We’ll find out!