The Elemental Plane of Water

The Elemental Plane of Water is a sea without a floor or a surface, an entirely fluid environment lit by a diffuse glow. It is one of the more hospitable of the Inner Planes once a traveler gets past the problem of breathing the local medium. The eternal oceans of this plane vary between ice cold and boiling hot, between saline and fresh. They are perpetually in motion, wracked by currents and tides.

The plane's permanent settlements form around bits of flotsam and jetsam suspended within this endless liquid. Even these settlements drift on the tides of the Elemental Plane of Water. The Coral Sanctum, the realm of Nerissa, Primarch of Water, is also perpetually floating through the plane, being transported by its tides and currents.

Vortices to the Plane of Water could often be found in the deepest parts of the seas and oceans, in clear underground lakes, or as surface whirlpools in any large body of water.

An ocean without a surface, the Plane of Elemental Water has uniform pressure in all directions and feels like being several feet below the surface of a typical body of water in a Prime Material Plane, and indeed is illuminated with the same soft light of that depth.

The salinity of the water varies depending on proximity to the Negative Energy plane—pure salt at the boundary with the quasi-elemental Plane of Salt, briny as one moves away, becoming pure and fresh in the middle, then getting warmer and more agitated as one approaches the quasi-elemental Plane of Steam.

The Elemental Plane of Water is relatively benign for an Inner plane and is home to a large number of native elementals, water-breathing outsiders, and creatures from other planes that can survive in its watery seas.

Elementals are discrete and separate manifestations of the plane itself, granted sentience and mobility from magic or natural forces. These include the water elementals summoned by spellcasters and elemental versions of Material plane creatures. Such creatures tend to be at least semiliquid and mimic seagoing beasts and monsters of the Material Plane.

Water-breathing creatures from other planes may be found on the Elemental Plane of Water. Fish, crustaceans, cephalopods and most sea-dwellers live on this plane, but not air-breathing ocean-dwellers such as whales and dolphins. The Elemental Plane of Water is hospitable to both freshwater and saltwater species, though each type has its own regions to inhabit. Monstrous aquatic creatures such as the kraken and aboleth may be found here as well.

Natives of the Elemental Plane of Water speak Aquan, a flowing, subtle language filled with double meanings and hidden puns.