Prime Material Plane
Published March 31st, 2008 in UncategorizedThe Prime Material Plane (also called the Material Plane or the Prime) is the central plane of existence in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The Prime is the plane most similar to Earth, with the same basic physical laws and features, and has no direct connection with any other planes except via magic portals or spells. The Prime Material Plane is the primary location of most Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings, with the exceptions of Ravenloft and Planescape.
The inhabitants of each Material Plane always refer to their own plane as the Prime Material Plane.
In the cosmology shared by the Planescape and Spelljammer settings, there is only one Prime Material Plane, which contains many different worlds. In other cosmologes, such as that used by the Manual of the Planes, there are numerous different Material Planes. (The Third Edition Manual of the Planes refers exclusively to the “Material Plane” rather than the “Prime Material Plane”.)
In the Planescape campaign setting, those persons coming to the extraplanar city of Sigil from the Prime are referred to as “primes” themselves. “Primes” are often treated as clueless inferiors by the planar elitists who dwell in Sigil and other planes.
Some Prime Material Planes include:
- Athas (Dark Sun)
- Aebrynis (Birthright)
- Eberron
- Toril (Forgotten Realms, Kara-Tur, Al-Qadim, Maztica)
- Krynn (Dragonlance)
- “The Known World” (Mystara, The Savage Coast, Hollow World)
- Oerth (Greyhawk)
- Nehwon (Lankhmar)
- Ningen-do (AKA: The physical world) (Oriental Adventures)
- The “world”: (Council of Wyrms)
- Rokugan (Third Edition Oriental Adventures)
- Earth, from most d20 Modern Settings. Despite the fact d20 Modern is a separate game from Dungeons and Dragons, two of the settings (Shadow Chasers and Urban Arcana) reference it being connected to the other planes via The Plane of Shadow, resulting in races and items from other settings appearing.
References
- Grubb, Jeff. Manual of the Planes (TSR, 1987).
- Grubb, Jeff, David Noonan, and Bruce Cordell. Manual of the Planes (Wizards of the Coast, 2001).
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