Astral Plane (Outer Plane (Transitive)

Source PRG:OA

The Astral Plane is the space between the Inner and Outer Planes, and coterminous with all of the planes. When a character moves through a portal or projects her spirit to a different plane of existence, she travels through the Astral Plane. Even spells that allow instantaneous movement across a plane briefly touch the Astral Plane. The Astral Plane is a great, endless expanse of clear silvery sky, both above and below. Occasional bits of solid matter can be found here, but most of the Astral Plane is an endless, open domain.

The Astral Plane is the great silvery sky that connects all planes to one another, the realm of pure thought and expanded consciousness. Occasional islands of solid matter float in astral space, but most of the plane is an enormous, seemingly eternal void of silver radiance.

As a gateway between the Inner and Outer Spheres, the Astral Plane teems with travelers, from entities venturing between planes to explorers searching for one of the numerous demiplanes secreted here or looking for the one of the countless marooned spirits that dwell within the expanse. Its nature as a crossroads makes the Astral Plane very dangerous. Although it’s possible to visit the plane bodily via plane shift or by using an item such as a robe of stars, most travelers prefer to play it safe by manifesting their souls in an astral body created by spells such as astral projection.

A creature’s astral body looks like a translucent version of its physical form, usually limned with a soft nimbus of blue or violet light. A slim tether of resilient incorporeal energy known as a silver cord connects a creature’s astral body to its unconscious physical body. If the astral body dies, the silver cord retracts into the physical body, returning the soul to its familiar seat (albeit at the cost of two permanent negative levels due to the resultant trauma). A silver cord resists most attempts to damage it, but if it somehow manages to break, the creature immediately dies, and the astral form housing its soul is cast adrift on the astral currents, pulled inexorably toward the enormous spire of Purgatory, which extends up into the Astral Plane from the surface of the Outer Sphere. As a realm of thought, the Astral Plane is home to entities that represent concepts, myths, and legends spawned from mortal thoughtforms. Mediums open their consciousness to these denizens of the Astral Plane, inviting them to reside in a physical form and spread their influence on the Material Plane.

Travel through the Astral Plane is a strange affair, as the plane’s subjective directional gravity means that each traveler chooses the direction of gravity’s pull. Creatures can move normally in any direction by imagining “down” near their feet and “falling” in that direction. In this way a creature “falls” 150 feet the first round and 300 feet on each successive round. Movement is straight-line only. A character can attempt a DC 16 Wisdom check to set a new direction of gravity or stop as a free action; this check can be attempted once per round. Any character who fails this Wisdom check on successive rounds receives a +6 bonus on subsequent checks until he succeeds. When moving in this manner, the traveler does not have the sensation of physical movement. Rather, the landscape of the Astral Plane (such as it is) seems to come toward, through, and past him. Scintillations of light are thrown off by the astral body as it moves along at great speed.

The untethered astral bodies of the dead flow toward Purgatory along the River of Souls. During this process, the dross of mortality is shed, leaving behind only the soul’s core self, its memories, and the refined character of its prior life. The gods of the Outer Sphere consider the River of Souls inviolate, often sending celestial and infernal outsiders to help steward wayward souls toward judgment and eventual delivery to their afterlife of reward or punishment. Soul-collecting or soul-devouring predators such as night hags and astradaemons prey on the dead of the Astral Plane, usually limiting themselves to picking off isolated incorporeal undead but all too often raiding parties of disembodied souls as they make their way toward eternity. The goddess of the dead, hates this perversion of the natural order of the multiverse, and the entities known as psychopomps often act as guides to deliver souls safely to their final destinations.

Other inhabitants of the Astral Plane include enormous astral leviathans that float through the silvery seas, sometimes with passengers or even semi-permanent settlements upon their backs; strange caulborn who harvest knowledge and psychic energy from astral travelers; formless nirmanakaya manasaputras who seek to guide Material Plane adepts through telepathy; and the lean humanoid outsiders known as the shulsaga, multiplanar hunters who ride magical disks and view intruders to their astral realm with xenophobic disdain.

TRAITS

The Astral Plane has the following planar traits:

• Subjective Directional Gravity
• Timeless: Age, hunger, thirst, afflictions (such as diseases, curses, and poisons), and natural healing don’t function in the Astral Plane, though they resume functioning when the traveler leaves the Astral Plane.
• Realm immeasurable
• Structural lasting (although there is little on this plane to alter)
• Essence mixed
• Mildly Neutral-Aligned
• Enhanced Magic: All spells and spell-like abilities used within the Astral Plane may be employed as if they were improved by the Quicken Spell or Quicken Spell-Like Ability feats. Already quickened spells and spell-like abilities are unaffected, as are spells from magic items. Spells so quickened are still prepared and cast at their unmodified level. As with the Quicken Spell feat, only one quickened spell or spell-like ability can be cast per round.

DENIZENS

For most, the Astral Plane is merely a Transitive Planes—a means of reaching more desirable destinations, be it via teleportation or traveling through the Silver Sea. However, those who call this realm home live and die here, all the while contesting with the plane’s timeless quality; while these species never hunger or age, neither do they heal naturally or truly grow in ways familiar to those from other realms.

• Aeons The multiverse may sustain itself through the cycle of souls, yet there are so many moving parts that could fall out of alignment that the system as a whole requires constant maintenance. The inscrutable aeons serve this role; the Astral Plane is not only their highway for reaching the far corners of the cosmos, but also where they originate. Just as astral material can aggregate to form demiplanes, so too do stray thoughts broadcast from other planes sometimes coalesce on this plane. As diametrically opposite ideas grind against one another, they form energized drifts that flash with momentary bursts of emotional auras and crackle in metaphysical debates. Referred to as aeonic nebulae, these colorful fields eventually reach a critical mass, whereupon the clashing concepts’ eddies take permanent form as new aeons, each often embodying the same dichotomy as the nebula from which it was born. From there, most aeons disperse to wherever they’re needed in the multiverse; the Astral Plane’s relatively high concentration of aeons is due almost exclusively to their creation here and to their use of the realm for transportation. The only aeons who are otherwise regularly found on the plane are bythos, guardians of time and planar travel. These cloud-like beings vigilantly patrol the Astral Plane, watching for those who would exploit the plane’s timeless quality and connectivity to distort the flow of time elsewhere or to unite two realms best kept separate—at least according to their silent judgment.
• Astral Dragons Much as mortal legends can imprint themselves on the Astral Plane as legendary spirits, so too did dragonkind brand itself upon this timeless sea. Astral dragons are descendants of several especially powerful draconic echoes that awoke within the Astral Plane and began acting autonomously. The astral dragons of today strive for excellence, much as their progenitors did, continuing to clash with one another to carry on conflicts both new and impossibly old. Astral dragons exist in a timeless realm and do not age in the same way true dragons do. Astral dragons’ contests, experiences, and inspirations refine each individual’s psychic potential, granting it a greater presence on the Astral Plane and allowing it to grow gradually in size and power. Those astral dragons that travel to other planes can age several categories spontaneously as both the passage of time and accrued self-confidence trigger an explosive growth spurt in a matter of seconds—which is particularly troubling if a dragon suddenly becomes too large to fit back through the portal from which it came.
• Astral Leviathans The Astral Plane’s greatest wanderers are astral leviathans, massive whalelike beings with asymmetrical eyes, a multitude of overlapping jaws, and warped, skinless muscles. Astral leviathans require little sustenance—even without the plane’s timeless trait—but prioritize variety in their diet. This drives them to open rifts, where food particles or even hapless creatures might fall into the Silver Sea. Like elephants seeking water, astral leviathans have an unerring sense of where they’ve been before and what they can find there—a quality that the nomadic shulsagas value when they befriend and recruit leviathans as traveling companions. The immense beasts in turn appreciate shulsagas’ companionship and ability to sense nearby planar breaches where the leviathans might sample some new cuisine or culture. Other species tend to be more forceful in their dealings with astral leviathans, trapping or enchanting them and rigging them with cargo harnesses to carry freight across the plane.
• Danavas Like most titans, danavas trace their origins to the earliest days of creation when they served as peacekeepers of reality. The same titan wars that saw their evil kin banished to the Outer Planes also resulted in danavas’ imprisonment, for their methods of policing the cosmos were deemed too severe. Although they are sealed across a variety of planes, most reside in perpetual captivity in a handful of cities that float through the Astral Plane. From there, they scry upon distant worlds, agonize over the ways in which mortals unbalance existence, and convene to discuss how best to restore cosmic order.
• Devourers Those fiends and evil spellcasters who find a break in the Astral Plane and escape beyond the Outer Sphere sometimes return, twisted and transformed into devourers. Many of these undead linger on the Astral Plane, where they compete with night hags and astradaemons in plucking victims from the River of Souls. But other outsiders vigilantly guard the river, so devourers often wander to other realms or traverse the Astral Plane in search of easier prey.
• Elohim The powerful elohim are virtually silent about their own origins, yet they are the source of life on countless worlds. The prevailing hypothesis is that the gods crafted elohim as impartial servitors who would then create mortal forms to help populate reality’s initial draft in the Fey World, only to cast elohim aside when the gods moved on with the Material Plane’s creation. No matter their original purpose, elohim today predominantly inhabit the Astral Plane. There they build new demiplanes seeded with never-before-seen species and possibilities before departing to begin the process again elsewhere. For all their powers of creation, elohim seem incapable of reproducing, and most shulsagas believe that elohim created them as a form of proxy children. While many shulsagas have since spurned their creators, others believe that by attaining a truly enlightened state, a shulsaga can transcend its simple form and metamorphose into a new elohim. Enduring shulsaga tales of their paragons support this idea; however, elohim’s dwindling numbers suggest otherwise—that elohim are on the path to extinction.
• Ouroboroses The cycles of divine creation and destruction that created the multiverse echo eternally through the Astral Plane, slowed by neither time nor matter. This never-ending process has coagulated into serpentine beasts known as ouroboroses, forever left to consume themselves and be reborn in an unending loop.
• Psychementals Just as souls can cross planar boundaries, so too can powerful thoughts echo outward like ripples in the astral sea. Particularly exuberant, passionate, or traumatic thoughts can gather quintessence as they travel, gradually developing sentience as they collide with other ideas and memories. From these clashes develop psychementals, intellects formed from hundreds of consciences that lack the context they knew in life. These fragmented personalities can war with one another for centuries before coming to an uneasy consensus, and although the collective can behave as a unified whole, surprises can shock the entire system into a fury of unpredictable internal squabbling and even violence.
• Shining Children The accretion of metaphysical material not only begets demiplanes, but also emits intense pulses of light and energy. Quintessence adheres to the brightest of these sparks, creating life in a painful process that forever imprints itself on the anthropomorphic creature that results: a shining child. Born out of cosmic trauma, these beings seethe with spite, and their telepathic communications echo with the furious roar of their birth. Every demiplane leaves a different imprint on its “offspring,” who seem capable of identifying others of their own cohort by some sixth sense. Not every demiplane spawns shining children, but the greatest demiplanes can create cohorts that are scores strong. Forever trapped in apparently adolescent bodies, these children dedicate themselves to scholarship in a futile effort to understand their role in the multiverse and the burning injustice of their births.
• Shulsagas Although the spindly shulsagas are among the more anthropomorphically relatable species native to the Astral Plane, they rarely welcome visitors. Their isolationist preferences aren’t just for their own peace, but more importantly for the sake of their charges: the nascent demiplanes that they guard. Just as formative demiplanes can absorb the influences of nearby Outer Planes, so too can stray moral influences, power-hungry manipulators, and other forms of meddling (accidental or otherwise) contaminate a new world. Casual travelers often describe shulsagas as hunters, though as outsiders on a timeless plane, these creatures have virtually no need for conventional sustenance. Instead, their tracking, territorial behavior, and ability to sense planar rifts ensure that their adopted nurseries remain sacrosanct. Shulsaga tribes act as planar shepherds, departing each demiplane in their care once they’re certain it has coalesced completely and isn’t at immediate risk from stray philosophies. Shulsagas take it upon themselves to practice moral moderation so that they do not corrupt their charges themselves. Those who demonstrate discernible alignment extremes are often cast out to fend for themselves, ideally using their travels to rediscover a neutral outlook and return to the tribe. Rarely, shulsagas decide to cultivate a particular planar trait or ethical foundation for a demiplane, and when they do, their envoys travel far across the Astral Plane in search of strong-willed individuals (often adventurers) who become honored guests of the tribe and serve as mental templates to shape a new realm. Likewise, shulsagas sometimes reach out to strangers to help them fend off a confirmed threat, whether that means destroying shining children spawned by a demiplane or discouraging an errant elohim’s unsolicited attempt to populate a demiplane. The only creatures that shulsagas implicitly trust are aeons, whom they view as divine messengers. When an aeon expresses its desire to impose change on something in the shulsagas’ territory, shulsagas typically stand aside or even shift their priorities to aid the aeon—even if that seems to reverse the tribe’s previously held beliefs. It is this mutability that can cause a previously friendly tribe of suddenly seem xenophobic or hostile.

DIVINITIES

Although the Astral Plane is often traveled by divinities (particularly demigods in astral form) or used as a neutral meeting ground.

Petitioners untethered (astrally projected versions of past lives sans silver cord)

Qualities incorporeal subtype, fly speed 20 ft. (perfect)

INFUSIONS

Basic You gain a +2 bonus on saves against curses, diseases, and poisons. You also gain a +4 bonus on Wisdom checks to maneuver in subjective directional gravity.

Improved You always succeed at Wisdom checks to maneuver in subjective directional gravity. Increase your maximum lifespan and the number of years you must age to reach each age category by 10%. You can act under the effects of haste as a free action for 1 round; you can activate this ability a number of times per day equal to your Hit Dice divided by 4 (minimum of 1 round per day). These rounds need not be consecutive.

Greater Select one of the following afflictions: curses, diseases, or poisons. You become immune to the effects of that affliction. Increase your maximum lifespan and the number of years you must age to reach each age category by an additional 10% (20% total when combined with the improved infusion above), and you do not retroactively age or hunger when departing a plane with the timeless planar trait. You gain a fly speed of 60 feet (perfect) on the Astral Plane.

The Outer Sphere revolves around the Inner Sphere, gliding upon a matrix of metaphysical material known as the Astral Plane, much as tectonic plates coast upon a planet’s liquid mantle. This plane may seem to be an empty expanse of faint, shimmering, silvery clouds, yet astral space is a diffuse realm of colliding philosophies, eternally echoing thoughts, quintessential detritus, and undreamt ideas. Dispersed, these particles are barely perceptible. However, the Plane of Fire at the Astral Plane’s heart churns this silvery sea with its physical and metaphysical heat, sending roiling currents coiling outward to eventually brush against the Outer Planes in a form of cosmic convection. As these currents collide, so too do concepts, legends, and raw quintessence, drawing in more and more material to form new islands of solidity or even entire demiplanes. Those new locales birthed near an Outer Planes often absorb that realm’s ideals, whereas those spawned far from other planes can manifest the unspoken principles of nearby creatures.

Cosmic convection by the Plane of Fire is not the only force to stir the Astral Plane. The River of Souls courses through this sea in a spiraling whorl imperceptible to most, yet the movement of souls is as powerful as any oceanic current for those with the tools to harness it. Likewise, the Antipodal Flow cascades back to the Inner Sphere in an opposing spiral, carrying the pulverized quintessence of the Outer Planes back to the Positive Energy Plane to fuel the cycle of souls. Both metaphysical waterways attract the attention of opportunists, be they daemons and night hags hoping to snatch stray souls or enterprising wizards and cosmic filter feeders harvesting the Antipode’s limitless potential—ultimately consuming mere drops from a deluge.

d%	Encounter	Avg. CR
1–8	1 othaos	5
9–18	2d6 untethered petitioners	6
19–23	2d6 paracletus	7
24–43	2d4 shulsagas	8
44–45	1 juvenile astral dragon	9
46–49	1d4 theletos	9
50–53	Silver squall	10
54–60	1d6 psychementals	11
61–62	1 devourer	11
63–65	1d4 moon dogs	11
66–67	1d4 yithians	11
68–72	1d3 night hags on nightmares	12
73	1 adult astral dragon	13
74–75	1 astral deva	14
76–78	1d6 akhanas	15
79	1 ancient astral dragon	18
80–81	1d4 bythos	18
82–86	1d6 whyrlishes	18
87–90	1d4 astradaemons	18
91–92	1 astral leviathan	18
93–94	1 pleroma	20
95	1 ouroboros	21
96	1 elohim	23
97	1 danava	24
98–100	Roll on Boneyard Encounters table	Varies

Exploration

The Astral Plane is a disorienting realm with directional subjective gravity, allowing each creature to “fall” at great speed in the direction of its choice.

No day-night cycle exists on the Astral Plane. The light of the Plane of Fire surrounding the Inner Sphere, along with the flow of souls from life to death (or the flow of recycled quintessence back to the Positive Energy Plane) can aid in navigation if these energies can be detected, but no truly workable analog to north exists on the Astral Plane.

Magic on the Astral Plane

All spells and spell-like abilities used within the Astral Plane can be employed as if they were improved by the Quicken Spell or Quicken Spell-Like Ability feats, though this has no effect on spells and abilities that have already been quickened or on spells from magic items. Spells thus quickened are prepared and cast at their unmodified level. As with the Quicken Spell feat, only one quickened spell or ability can be cast per round.

Silver Squalls (CR 10) Weather is virtually nonexistent on the Astral Plane, but drifts of aggregating thoughts can turn violent when sparked by competing ideas. These trigger chain reactions known as silver squalls, which erupt into clouds of obfuscating chatter punctuated by arcing bolts of psychic energy. A silver squall’s effects target all creatures in the area and vary by the debate the squall represents, dealing 2d6 points of ability damage to Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma (depending on the nature of the debate), causing the confused condition for 1d10 rounds, or striking victims permanently blind, deaf, or mute. A silver squall generally fills a 300-foot-diameter sphere and lasts for 2d6 rounds. Each round a creature is exposed to a silver squall, it must succeed at a DC 20 Will save to resist the squall’s effect; once a creature has been affected by a particular squall, it cannot be affected by that same squall again. Sentient beings caught within a squall can calm the storm as a full-round action by discerning its constituent ideas (typically with a successful DC 30 Knowledge [planes] check) to dismantle the controversy. Larger squalls exist that can last for days; quelling these storms can require complex arguments better represented by the verbal duels system. Silver squalls are mind-affecting effects.