About this Website

Web Standards

The layout of this page is done with XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.0. To see the full layout requires a browser which properly supports those standards. I think that's true of pretty much any modern browser. However, if you're using Internet Explorer, try a different browser. That's the one that still seems to get things wrong whenever it has the chance to. See this link for more information..

Fonts

Some of the titles on this page try to use the Planescape font; you may see them in that font if you have it installed. The web page tells your browser first to look for Exocet; if you don't have that commercial font, it then tries to use Avalon Quest, a very similar font which may be found on the net and downloaded. They work for me on Linux, although Chromium seems to ignore the instructions from CSS to use a specific font. In any event, if you don't have that font, or your browser isn't interested in using it, no biggie: everything should still be readable.

The main title at the top of each page (which reads "The Rule of Threes") and the main navigation buttons are all images, created with the Avalon Quest font. Since they're images, they'll show up in that font in any browser that loads images; for them, you don't need the font installed on your system. It's only for the occasional additional title that you would need it.

Name

The Rule of Threes is one of the three principles (or heuristics) that describe how things work on the planes. It's not really a hard and fast rule, but just something to look out for, as often things come in threes or are found in threes. If you're on the planes, especially on the outer planes, and you see two things in a set, look out for the third.

The second principle of the planes is the Unity of Rings. Many things on the planes are circular, coming back around to where the started. This is true geographically as well as philosophically. Sometimes, it may be very obscure how it happens, and only those with sufficient perspective could notice it: see the Unity of Rings Web Comic on the Wizards of the Coast site.

The third principle (remember the rule of Threes?) is the Center of the Multiverse. That, specifically, there isn't one... or, rather, wherever a basher happens to be is the center of the multiverse. Interestingly, this is one case where the rules of this fantasy world mesh with the rules of cosmology in the real world. According to standard expanding universe theory, there is no "center" of the universe, but every point in the universe acts like the center. In Planescape, this is meant philosophically just as much as it is meant in terms of multiversal geography. Lots of berks think Sigil is the center of the multiverse; not only is it apparently at the center of the Outlands, which is in turn apparaently at the center of the Great Ring on which all of the outer planes reside, it is also a crossroads where everybody from everywhere else goes. Well, sure, and to the bashers who live in Sigil or spend a lot of time there, it may well be the center of the universe. An efreet on the Elemental Plane of Fire who never bothers to muck about with the outer planes might have a different perspective....

I decided it would be a bit much to call my website "The Center of the Multiverse"; indeed, already it's a bit arrogant to pick one of the central Planescape themes for the site's name. And, there already is that comic called the Unity of Rings which may be found on the web.

Blather

I started putting this together one weekend years ago when I decided that I wanted to play around with a different look for my Planescape page. I also decided to give it a Planescape-centric "name" rather than it's previous name (which was effectively "my Planescape page"). It seems to be getting harder and harder to find Planescape pages on the web; some of the good ones still have a huge amount of great information, but have become moribound. (Some of those good ones also have a layout that is so beautiful that it's nearly impossible to figure out what is there.... Planescape seems to attract the "presentation before usability" philosophy of web design more than most gaming sites.)

I decided to start putting together my own Planescape site. Even if nearly nobody out there cares about Planescape any more, I still do, and this at least narcissitically lets me scratch my own itch. I wanted a site out there with a summary of the Planescape products available.

Years ago, when I first made this site, I had grand ideas for my Planescape Master Index. In practice, I never managed to get much data into it. Maybe sometime in the future. In the mean time you can actually find quite a lot of this sort of information by searching through planewalker.com, the offical fan page for Planescape.