A lot of first-edition spells never made it to 3e and beyond. Some of them would be fun in a later-edition game. Let’s rehabilitate some of the forgotten mid-level wizard spells.

LEVEL 3 SPELLS

Protection from Normal Missiles: in 3e, PfNM was replaced with the generally more useful Wind Wall – and still nobody took it! Although I never saw anyone cast PfNM, I’ve seen it used in thought experiments, including one that posited that a magic-user with Fly, PfNM, and a sling could safely rout an entire army, given enough time. In fact, with 1-minute combat rounds and a magic-user’s THAC0, a wizard could kill, maybe, 20 soldiers an hour tops, at the end of which the army would have found cover, built big wooden shields, and started construction on a ballista.

In order for Protection from Normal Missiles to compete with Fly, Fireball, and other level-3 spells, it should offer some of the monk’s ability to deflect missiles back at the firer. A goblin shoots an arrow at the wizard. He points! The arrow reverses course! That’s a spell that’s (almost) worth taking.

LEVEL 4

Dig: Dig lets you excavate one 5′ cube per level. It’s the Minecraft spell. It has obvious uses for people engaged in construction – NPCs and characters building strongholds – but it also has surprisingly detailed, and powerful, combat mechanics. “Any creature at the edge (1′) of such a pit uses its dexterity score as a saving throw to avoid falling into the hole, with a score equal to or less than the dexterity meaning that a fall was avoided. Any creature moving rapidly towards a pit area will fall in unless it saves versus magic. Any creature caught in the center of a pit just dug will always fall in.”

What does it mean to use your dexterity as a saving throw? Normally, a low saving throw is good, but a high Dexterity is good. Do you roll over your Dex on a d20, maybe? This is a common houserule for making ability checks, but are there any other mechanics like this in 1e D&D?

Between Dig’s ability to let you mine your own dungeons and excavate redstone, its complex rules for shoring up tunnels, and its Lode Runner-like combat mechanics, Dig is a pretty cool spell as it is. I might take it instead of Lightning Bolt for my next first-edition wizard.

Fire Charm: Fire Charm is a very evocatively-written spell that “causes a gossamer veil of multi-hued flame to circle a fire at 5′ distance.” Anyone who views the fire might become hypnotized (if they fail a save) and vulnerable to suggestion (if they fail a second save). The problem with this spell is that it’s the same level as Charm Monster, which requires only one saving throw, and which lasts several weeks, which is way better than Fire Charm’s 2 rounds/level or whenever the victim stops staring at the fire, whichever is less. Still, I think a wizard using Fire Charm is having more fun than one who uses Charm Monster. A wizard casting Fire Charm is tricking people into staring at fires, throwing pieces of silk into the fire (that’s the material component), and composing commands of 12 words or less that all end with “while maintaining constant eye contact with the fire”. And you just know that their face is chiaroscuroed with 200% more sinister shadows.

You know what? Make Fire Charm an exotic variation of Charm Monster. There’s a single copy of this version of the spell, and it’s in the spellbook of the Grand Vizier of the djinn court. It’s just like Charm Monster, except if you manage to cast it while going through the throwing-your-handkerchief-into-a-normal-fire rigmarole, the victim gets a penalty to their saving throw.

Fumble: This spell is like “When you cast this spell, the DM can have fun making up wacky fumbles,” which is probably why it didn’t make it into 3rd Edition. Too silly, and too much improv left to the DM. As a silly improv DM myself, of course, I think it sounds great.

The only tweak I’d make: allow it to be cast on an object as well as a creature. Whoever holds the object becomes clumsy. When you fumble the object, it tends to end up in the hands of an enemy. Cast the spell on a coveted mcguffin during a big battle. Then you end up with the opening scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, with an object that changes sides multiple times during a battle.

Massmorph: Now we’re talking. Massmorph is one of the classic forgotten 1e spells. From hearing its name, you’d think it’s a mass version of Polymorph. That’s basically what it is. You can make 70+ people look like anything you can think of – as long as all you can think of is various species of trees.

Like Dig, this is one of those spells that is clearly designed for mass combat. In fact, the level-4 spell list has a lot of spells that would be useful on the battlefield: clearly, around this level, the characters’ focus is meant to change from dungeon-robbing to wider concerns. Confusion, Fear, Fire Charm, Ice Storm, and Plant Growth all affect large areas or large numbers of targets. Dig, Wall of Ice and Wall of Fire slice up the battlefield. Hallucinatory Terrain and Massmorph allow large bodies of troops to hide in ambush or to approach enemies in secret. Malcolm’s army in Macbeth presumably had a seventh-level wizard along.

LEVEL 5

Distance Distortion: This is a very strange spell. “This spell can only be cast when the magic-user has an earth elemental conjured up.” It expends the elemental. For the expenditure of a fourth-level spell AND an elemental, what do you get? You can make 100 yards seem like 50 yards or like 200 yards. What’s it for? Making confusing dungeons? If it were permanent, yes, but it only lasts for 1 turn per level.

One change would make this into a spell worth transcribing. Make it permanent. Now a wizard can use it to build all sorts of architectural tricks and hidey holes into his or her wizard tower. A DM can use it to justify that map mistake that put four 10×10 rooms next to a 20′ length of corridor. A New Yorker can use it to make their two-bedroom apartment big enough for 2 people. Hey-o!

I’d like D&D race to have less mechanics attached. I’m perfectly happy to play a halfling thief without the Dex bonus nudging me into it. But on the other hand, I want some rules behind race: if being an elf just means writing “elf” on my character sheet, the “race” box is as irrelevant as those “weight” and “eye color” boxes that I haven’t filled out since high school.

What’s the lightest possible representation of, say, a dwarf that still feels like a dwarf? Attribute bonuses and weapon proficiencies can go: I’m going to give Bimli, my dwarven fighter, an axe and a high Strength because that’s how I picture Bimli. What about the other dwarven traits? I don’t need darkvision: dwarves carry lanterns. Dwarven resilience? Stonecunning? Sure, I’ll take those: I’d like the rules to acknowledge my hardiness and my knowledge of underground places.

At this point, I could represent a dwarven character with a 5e background. (A background gives you a single trait, a few skills, and a few other miscellaneous pieces of junk.)

Background: Dwarf
Trait: Dwarven Resilience. You have advantage on saving throws vs poison.
Skills: Athletics, Dungeoneering, History
Languages: Dwarven

Note that I’ve added Dungeoneering back to the 5e skill list, and that it’s a perfectly acceptable representation of Stonecunning.

Here are some things I like about this solution:

The Dwarf background is now mutually exclusive with other backgrounds: if your background is Dwarf, you studied mining and other dwarfy stuff, so you’re not a peasant or a jester. On the other hand, if someone wants to be a dwarven sage, they can take the Sage background. They’re mechanically the same as a human sage, except that they write “Dwarf” on the Race section of their character sheet.

It posits a world where, apart from a zany magical trait or two, “race” differences are explicitly cultural differences. This sidesteps a lot of fantasy-racism creepiness.

It removes a step from character creation: instead of race/class/background, you just choose class/background.

It makes character creation easier in other ways. You don’t have to adjust your 3d6 or 4d6-drop-lowest attributes in any way, and you don’t have to find a place to write five racial traits on your character sheet.

18 is the highest starting strength, and it’s rare!

For the first time ever, humans are reasonably balanced with other races. A dwarf character has access to exactly one more background than humans do. (And if a human character was raised by dwarves, I’d be OK with her taking the Dwarf background.)

OK, here are the 5e races as backgrounds:

Dwarf Heritage
Trait: Dwarven Resilience. You have advantage on saving throws vs poison.
Skills: Athletics, Dungeoneering, History
Languages: Dwarven

Elf Heritage
Trait: Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws vs charm effects, and you do not sleep.
Skills: Perception, Nature, Stealth.
Languages: Elvish.

Halfling Heritage
Trait: Small and Lucky. You cannot use large weapons. Reroll a natural 1 on any d20 roll.
Skills: Acrobatics, Diplomacy, Stealth
Languages: Halfling.

There is no Human Heritage background. Humans can choose any of the standard backgrounds.

The latest playtest document also includes a bunch of “unusual” races. Many of them are exceptional in that they have magic powers. You might rule that some of these races must take their racial background: for instance, a dragonborn must take the dragonborn background – otherwise where did the breath weapon go? – and no other race can opt into the dragonborn background – humans can’t breathe lightning.

Dragonborn:
Trait: You have a breath weapon, which has complicated rules spelled out in the Races document.
Skills: Athletics, Animal Handling, Intimidation.

Drow:
Trait: Infravision. You can see in the dark. You’re visibly uncomfortable when in direct sunlight.
Skills: Stealth, Perception, Intimidation.

Gnome: Just like Halfling. Let’s not split hairs here.

Half-Elf: Just like Elf. Let’s not split hairs here.

Half-Orc: Just like Drow. Let’s not split hairs here.

Kender: I’m tempted to say “just like halfling”, but the kender race description does actually suggest its own mechanics:
Trait: Little Pest. You can’t use large weapons. If you taunt an opponent, that opponent hates you the most, and the DM should have it act accordingly.
Skills: Deception, Perform, Sleight of Hand.

Tiefling:
Trait: Hellish Resistance. You are resistant to fire damage.
Skills: Perception, Religion, Intimidate.

Warforged:
Trait: Construct. You do not eat, sleep, or breathe.
Skills: Athletics, Arcana, History.

Full disclosure: I won’t play exactly this way myself: although I like backgrounds, I don’t really like skill lists. I think I’ll give players two skills: one is their class and one is their background. What that means is up to the DM and players. A fighter with the Guild Thief background will be good at climbing across rooftops, but not necessarily climbing trees. A fighter with the Elf background will be good at climbing trees, but not necessarily rooftops. This approach requires more negotiation between the DM and players, but it more closely approaches my ideal of D&D: “I lost all my books, but I found my dice. Let’s play D&D!”

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There might no Underdark. Every dungeon in the world could be above sea level: in the mountains. Every mountain could be riddled with stacks and stacks of dungeons, goblin caverns, and general mythic underworldliness.

I get the feeling that that’s the case in Tolkien’s world. The dungeons are all in mountains: Bilbo’s goblins, the mines of Mordor, the Lonely Mountain, Mount Doom. There is no chance that there’s a dungeon under the Shire or Rohan.

If you jam-packed a mountain with mythic underworld, what would its population be? As high as you needed — or higher. Manhattan is 33 square miles, and, generously, 1/3 of a mile tall from the base to the tip of the Empire State Building. Mount Everest is about 580 cubic miles. That means you could easily fit Manhattan 50 times in Mount Everest. Everest alone could fit 75 million cosmopolitan goblin residents, and up to half a billion goblins during the weekday (commuting by goblin subway from less desirable mountains).

OK, that upper limit is pretty ridiculous. But we can safely assume that, if the mountains are reasonably well-riddled with dungeons, there are many more monsters in the world than there are people.

Fantasy is, in my opinion, a conservative, maybe even Tory literary form, and a direct descendant of the British imperialist adventure format familiar to many early fantasy writers. (Sir Richard Burton was a relative of Lord Dunsany. Tolkien was born in South Africa, and mentioned H Rider Haggard as one of his favorite authors.) The premise of imperialist history/fiction is this: a handful of civilized people set out into the wilderness, and, through superior organization, defeat overwhelming numbers of native peoples. It’s usually accomplished by neutralizing barbarian leaders who could bring about the ultimate disaster: uniting the numerically-superior hordes under one banner. That’s what Aragorn and Gandalf are up to, and it’s also how the British saw their role in India, Africa and the Middle East.

The role of civilization in D&D is no different. Adventurers go out and kill goblin kings and evil necromancers before they can gather their power. (This theme is complicated by the Howardian branch of American fantasy which pits, not civilized folk, but barbarians against the wild. D&D is big enough for both strains.)

The mountains are a nice place for this imperialist war against chaos. The mountains are nicely laid out on the world map, not like subterranean Underdark which requires a separate sheet of paper underneath. They’re impassable; they’re strung together in great malignant walls; and they loom on the horizon like thunderclouds threatening to spill forth a storm of war onto the world.

With so much room for evil in the mountains, it makes me wonder what’s under the good honest dirt of the Shire and other civilized places. More dirt? Hell? Sunless seas sailed by the dead gods?

A surprising number of the spells from the First Edition Players Handbook never made it into 3e+, even though the later editions had many more pages and supplements to fill. Maybe some of these spells deserve to be left behind, but venerable spells like Massmorph, Spiritwrack, and Chariot of Sustarre are worth rehabilitating. Here are some of the spells that didn’t achieve “classic” status:

LEVEL 1 WIZARD SPELLS:

Affect Normal Fires: This is a lovable little spell, with lots of potential: it rewards paying attention to the DM’s description of the environment, and it provides interesting tools for problem-solving… almost. The problem is that it can’t compete against the many other level-1 wizard spells that more reliably produce light, fire and/or damage: Burning Hands, Dancing Lights, and Light. All that Affect Normal Fires can do is increase or decrease the light, but not the temperature, of an existing fire.

Since Affect Normal Fires is so situational, I’d like it to be potentially more dangerous than Burning Hands. Say that it can extinguish (not just dim) a normal fire, so that it can potentially blind a group dependent on a single torch; or cause a fire to flare, causing 1d6 damage to everyone within 10 feet; or make a fire smoke, forcing everyone to move away or suffer a coughing fit. A wizard* with such a spell is going to be eagerly looking for chances to cause incendiary mayhem. I love mayhem so much that I’d be tempted to make this “Improved Affect Normal Fires” an at-will cantrip for wizards who specialize in fire spells.

* or monster! Imagine PCs harried by monsters with this spell:
DM: A whisper from the dark. Your torch goes out.
PC: OK, we light two torches.
DM: Whispers from the dark. Your torches explode!

Friends: Friends has a hard time competing against the classic Charm Person. Where Charm is a Save or Win spell against a single creature, Friends is a Save or Gain 2-8 Charisma Points spell against groups. In First Edition, that’s not a big deal. It gives you a slight edge on your reaction roll and that’s it. (Going from 10 to 15 Charisma only gives you a +15% on your roll.) The real benefit of Friends is that it operates on everyone within range: 1″+1″/level radius. A level 8 caster, standing on the pitcher’s mound at Wrigley Field, could cast Friends on all 40,000 spectators at a sold-out Cubs game.

Friends has a use in any D&D game that includes mass combat, politics, and demagoguery. In other words, high-level play. If it were a higher-level spell, with a name like “Sway the Masses” that more accurately pointed to its strengths, it might have been more popular.

Push: Push is more limited than the later-edition Mage Hand, since it can only push objects away from the caster, but, unlike Mage Hand, it does have some combat use: it’s got rules for pushing enemies over or messing up their attack rolls (-1 per wizard level). I think the real problem with Push is that it looks insufficiently like Star Wars. After the 1980 release of Empire Strikes Back, everyone knew that, as a beginning wizard, you should be able to throw switches, lift rocks, and float lightsabers to your hand. In 1e D&D, you have to wait for the 5th-level Telekinesis spell for that. In my opinion, Mage Hand is a better spell than Push, and 4e’s decision to make it an at-will cantrip was inspired.

Write: Write is only used to transcribe spells you’re not high enough level to learn yet. In most circumstances, you don’t need it because you can just throw a high-level spellbook or scroll into your backpack until you gain a few levels. I guess there might be a rare circumstance where you have a limited-time chance to trade spells with a high-level caster. As written, the Write spell makes sense only in a game that’s laser-focused on wizards and their quest for new spells: in other words, OD&D as it was originally played.

If I were inventing a spell with a simple, seemingly-universal name like Write, I’d have it animate a pen, paintbrush, or other writing tool, which could write on anything in range; perfectly copy spells and text, like the third edition spell Amanuensis; and maybe take dictation; all while you’re paralyzed, restrained, or gagged. Even with all these extra perks, it might be better off as a cantrip.

LEVEL 2:

Continual Light: Continual Light still exists in 3e: it’s called Continual Flame. Ever-burning flame is more appropriate for a pseudo-medieval fantasy world, and it puts to rest a lot of questions PCs often ask about ancient dungeons (“Who lit all these candles and torches?”) but there’s something charming about the idea of adventuring in the cold, fluorescent glow of Continual Light. It’s appropriate for the weird dungeon-crawl-through-an-office-building feeling of original D&D.

Fools Gold: (Technically, Fools Gold showed up in some 3e Forgotten Realms supplement, but I don’t think that counts as becoming a classic spell.) This is an awesome spell! It makes a mockery of the monetary system and is rife for possibilities for all sorts of exploitation. At level 1, you can use it to turn $1.50 in copper into $150 for an hour (long enough for you to buy a horse and skip town). The very existence of this spell, no matter its rarity, means that pretty much every shopkeeper will have a little piece of iron to tap gold coins on. I believe that some monster should have routine access to this spell. My vote is goblins. Maybe you can only learn the spell from a goblin spellcaster.

Forget: This is a great utility spell, useful in all sorts of situations, especially if the DM rules that creatures remember being Charmed. In a non-combat-heavy game, Forget would be a go-to spell for cleaning up after the inevitable failure of the PCs’ half-assed plans. 3e has high-level spells that allow you to alter memories, but starting with this ability out of the gate really enables a certain kind of freewheeling Shadowrun-for-dummies gameplay. I’ll admit, it would not be great as a starting wizard’s only spell. (Or would it? If GP=XP, you could probably use it to shoplift your way up to level 2 pretty fast.)

Next time: mid-level wizard spells like Fire Charm and Distance Distortion!

The difference between devils and demons should be that devils look angelic.

I’m not making any claims to originality here: angelic devils are just about the next most gothy thing after vampires. But if Asmodeus, Baalzebul, bone devils, pit fiends, etc all looked like angels, it would solve a lot of specific D&D problems.

1) Right now, players treat devils and demons the same way. Is that a pit fiend or a balor? Imp or quasit? Who cares, just smite it. If it’s red and has horns, it probably has the same immunities and weaknesses. It’s an irrelevant distinction unless a player happens to have, say, a lawfully-aligned sword.

Now change it so that devils look like angels. Instead of being irrelevant, that ambiguity drives the story. In most cases, players really want to know whether they’re facing off against a devil or a good angel.

2) It’s impossible for me to care who wins the Blood War. A bunch of red goat men shooting fire at each other? Sounds like a family squabble I’d rather stay out of, and I’m not even interested in reading about. But red goat men battling the shining heavenly hosts, and both sides are evil? That’s a spectacle worth staging as part of an adventure. Because you can tell who’s who, it’s easier to players to foolishly root for one side or another, or, even more foolishly, get involved.

3) Pacts with devils are insufficiently tempting. The cool thing about devils is their cunning and persuasiveness. Their appearance doesn’t support that. Once you see a guy with horns, you don’t care how good his contract looks: you know that if you sign it, you lose.

Now imagine this: an angel visits you. The angel will help you, if you prove yourself worthy by performing a holy service. There’s no tip-off pitchfork in sight. The only way to distinguish between an angel and a devil is by using your own moral sense about whether the deed the angel requires is really a good deed – and your moral sense, naturally, might be skewed by your desire for the reward. This is a much more effective and plausible temptation than the usual deal offered by devils: “I’m gonna tell you right up front: eternal torture comes with the package.”

In fact, as far as I’m concerned the whole “sign your name in blood” thing can go. Both angels and devils can work the same way. If you do the deeds they require, and thus prove yourself “worthy”, you’ll get the appropriate afterlife reward (good or bad).

4) Demons don’t currently have their own thing. Devils have a thing: they’re manipulators. Demons’ thing is that they are red fire guys who cause destruction — just like devils and demodands. If anything, the demon’s defining characteristic is negative. Unlike devils, they’re NOT manipulators. This doesn’t even work very well, since the demons have Graz’zt and (sometimes) succubi on their team. If the demons had sole ownership of the horns, leathery wings, and brimstone, they’d at least have something.

5) Bad match with the lore. In a lot of cosmologies, devils are angels who were thrown out of the heavens. In a strange case of parallel evolution, they ended up looking just like their neighbors the demons – for some reason? Let them keep their nice heavenly robes. I think they’re more sinister that way anyway.

So if devils look like, think of themselves as, and refer to themselves as angels, what separates them from angels? Clerical magic certainly can’t reliably distinguish them, otherwise devils would never get their hands on their favorite victims: clerics, paladins, and inquisitors. But there are differences between the types.

For one thing, devils have no godly master. They serve themselves or other devils. (They still serve with the same spooky singlemindedness and self-righteousness as angels.)

Furthermore, they have some imperfection not shared by real angels. I’m leaning towards the fact that they need to eat souls to maintain their immortality – that’s why they want them so badly. They might need to eat living bodies to get the souls, which is why Faustian devils so often drag people offstage alive. When they can’t get human souls, they’ll take anything. You might turn a corner in a dungeon to find a bunch of “angels” stuffing bugs and rats into their mouths.

Here are some potential problems that might be caused by swapping all the devil art in D&D. Maybe you can help me solve them.

Tieflings. Their story is that they were corrupted by devils, and so they got horns and tails. Doesn’t make as much sense anymore.

Maybe you’re attached to some of the existing devil art, like the 1e fly-eyed Baalzebul. I can’t say I blame you, that guy is awesome. My suggestion: nothing wrong with an angel with fly eyes.

How do the angels of evil gods fit in here? How are they differentiated from devils?

Angels can be a little… well… kitschy. I mean, that might be a problem for some. It’s fine with me. I’m honestly not sure what’s spookier as a devil: the magnificent St. Michael type, or the cute harp-and-halo guardian angel.

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So I was wikipedia’ing random things, like ya do, when I discovered that cubic zirconia are made in something called a “SKULL CRUCIBLE.” Developed by the Soviets – of course it was – it uses lightning bolts (well, a radio frequency magnetic field, but let’s say lightning bolts) to heat the inside of a big block of zirconium oxide. The inside melts and turns into crystals, while the outside remains a solid white shell, like a skull.

At the end of the process, a Soviet scientist cracks the skull with a hammer (note that there’s an actual hammer in the picture below), and cubic zirconia spill out like candy out of a pinata! But instead of candy, it’s gems, and instead of a pinata, it’s a skull! Science is awesome!

This is so D&D it’s almost too D&D. I mean, how do you improve on that?

Inspired by this process, here’s a creepy any-edition D&D spell to teach your Big Bad Evil Guy:

Skull Crucible

This is a horrifying variation on the Lightning Bolt spell – same level, damage, and effects, except as noted below. It is available to any evil wizard who knows Lightning Bolt and has a Carbuncle as a familiar.

When you cast it, you can voluntarily reduce its damage by any amount, down to minimum damage of 1 HP.

Each time you hit someone with the spell, a part of their brain turns into a gemstone of random type and value. Reduce the target’s Intelligence by 1. If the target receives any form of magical healing, the gemstone is destroyed and the Intelligence is restored.

The only way to harvest the gemstones is to perform a killing blow with a bludgeoning weapon, breaking open the victim’s skull and spilling forth the gems. Any other cause of death, including reducing Int to 0 and excessive HP damage from the Skull Crucible spell, will cause the gemstones to revert to brain matter.

Chances are, the PCs will first learn of this spell when a mysterious wizard starts paying for kidnappings with handfuls of uncut gems. The smarter the kidnapping victim, the more valuable to the wizard!

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If you’re reading this blog, then somewhere around your house, you probably have a map of your own private D&D world. Take a look at it.

Now delete everything in the middle. Just leave a half-inch strip along the edges.

What’s left in that half-inch strip? Is it all ocean? That’s how mine looks. I’m starting to think that’s a problem.

I’m coming to think that maps are better when they have more seas, fewer oceans. The Mediterranean and the English Channel are interesting in a way that the Atlantic and Pacific are not.

For one thing, I think land-heavy maps just look cooler. Maybe it’s because well-defined continents are really easy to read at a glance. Winding inland seas, though, stagger the brain. A staggered brain is good. It’s one step away from Wonder.

Let’s say you eventually decide to add another big continent, culturally isolated from the starting area: Kara-Tur, say. Many D&D campaigns have Renaissance-level naval technology (the Renaissance has cooler ships), which means that oceans are not much of a barrier to trade and exploration. An impassable desert might be a more plausible barrier.

There’s also something about a water-surrounded continent that throws a net around the whole campaign world. The players, and maybe the DM, might not think of exploring beyond its boundaries. On the other hand, areas of land drifting off the map, even featureless areas like impassable mountains, frozen wastes and trackless deserts, suggest who knows what wonders on the other side?

Check out this awesome map of Earth from 1448. Although it’s basically encircled by sea, it does have lots of complex, winding inland seas. It does fill me with a sense of wonder. It takes you a while to even see that it’s Earth: you can eventually identify Europe, upside-down, but the rest of the world is pretty conjectural. And look at the details! Look how red the Red Sea is! Look at the cute little towns and castles! And look at that awesome city on the left side! Apparently that’s Paradise – right on the world map. Come to think of it, the edges of the world map is a great place to put all the Planes.