The Astral Plane

The Astral Plane, also known as the Astral Sea, is the transitive plane connecting the Prime Material Plane to the Outer Planes within the same Reality Sphere.

It is an open expanse of deep silvery-blue light with no conventional ground or horizon. Distant points of light, immense cloudlike formations, drifting matter, and luminous color pools provide the few landmarks by which travelers can orient themselves.

The Eternal Archive, shared divine realm of Io and Ao, exists within the Astral Plane. The Mythal can also become perceptible there as travelers approach the planar boundary surrounding Eldareth.

Structure and Environment

The Astral Plane has no conventional surface. Silvery-blue light extends in every direction, crossed by immense clouds and luminous formations that drift slowly through the surrounding expanse.

Fragments of solid matter also move through the plane. Some are little more than isolated debris, while larger masses can support structures, outposts, or permanent settlements.

Gravity is absent throughout most of the Astral. Objects retain mass and momentum without naturally falling in any particular direction, leaving no universal distinction between above and below.

Movement is closely tied to thought. Intent and mental focus allow creatures to direct themselves through the plane without conventional ground, wings, or natural currents.

Movement and Travel

Travelers move through the Astral by concentrating on a direction and propelling themselves through thought. With experience, they can alter speed and course through changes in focus alone.

Physical objects still obey momentum and continue along their existing path until another force acts upon them. This makes thrown objects, drifting debris, and moving vessels behave differently from creatures directing themselves consciously through the plane.

Distance can be difficult to judge in the open expanse. A visible structure may remain far away despite appearing close, and familiar measurements from the Material Plane do not always provide a useful sense of travel time.

Experienced travelers navigate by color pools, permanent structures, established routes, and magical guidance. Ships and other vessels also cross the Astral Sea, especially when transporting groups, cargo, or travelers unable to navigate reliably through thought alone.

Connections to Other Planes

The Astral Plane provides the principal transitive route between the Prime Material Plane and the Outer Planes.

Its natural network of color pools and planar conduits connects destinations within the same Reality Sphere, including all nine Outer Planes. The Elemental Planes, Feywild, and Shadowfell are primarily reached through the Ethereal Plane.

The Positive and Negative Energy Planes belong to neither ordinary transitive network and are usually reached through direct planar magic, established portals, or other controlled crossings. Powerful magic can also create passages that bypass the normal Astral routes.

Astral travel remains confined to the Reality Sphere in which it begins. Reaching another universe requires leaving that sphere and crossing Driftspace through methods capable of surviving and navigating it.

The Mythal

The Mythal is the divine barrier established at the end of the Age of Divinity following the Last War of the Gods.

Created by Ao after the Prime Deities agreed that the greatest divine powers should no longer manifest freely within Eldareth, it extends across the planar boundary surrounding the mortal world. From the Astral, the barrier becomes most apparent as travelers approach that boundary.

Accounts of its appearance vary. Some describe immense lattices or arches of divine energy, while others report overlapping geometric patterns that seem to disregard ordinary distance and direction.

Most travelers cross the Mythal without difficulty. Its resistance increases with divine power, preventing Greater Deities from passing through and manifesting fully within Eldareth. Concentrating comparable divine power within an incarnation or vessel does not circumvent the restriction.

Demigods remain below this threshold and can cross normally. Feonar is the sole known Greater Deity exempt from the barrier, an exception written into the Mythal from its creation.

Divine influence continues to cross the boundary even when full manifestation is blocked. Prayer, divine magic, dreams, visions, omens, and communication with mortal servants remain possible.

The Mythal fractured during the Upheaval but did not collapse, and its principal restriction remains functional. The same event destabilized Eldareth's wider planar boundaries and contributed to the phenomenon now known as the Planar Drift.

Time

Time continues to pass within the Astral Plane, while many biological effects associated with it are suspended.

Creatures wholly within the Astral do not normally age and have no ordinary need to eat, drink, or breathe. Events still occur normally, and travelers can move, converse, fight, study, or spend years within the plane while their bodies remain physically unchanged.

Long-term residence therefore produces unusual conditions for communities. Children do not mature normally while they remain within the Astral, and adults cease aging until they spend time on a plane where ordinary biological processes resume.

Astral Projection

Astral projection allows a creature to enter the Astral Plane without physically transporting its body there. The physical body remains behind in suspended animation while an astral form travels through the plane, connected to it by a silver cord.

The cord is extraordinarily difficult to damage and resists most ordinary weapons and environmental hazards. Only unusual magical effects or exceptionally powerful forces are known to threaten it, and severing the cord breaks the connection between the astral form and the physical body.

Astral travelers can move through the plane and use its color pools to reach connected destinations. Creatures can also enter the Astral physically through planar magic or other crossings, bringing their actual bodies with them and possessing no silver cord. Any injuries suffered in that state affect the traveler directly.

Color Pools

Color pools are among the most important features of Astral travel.

They appear as broad nebulae of colored light suspended within the Astral Sea, often spreading across immense distances. Their outer edges may be diffuse, with color and luminosity becoming increasingly concentrated toward the planar passage at the center.

Different destinations produce distinct colors, patterns, and other visual qualities, allowing experienced travelers to recognize many established routes before entering them.

Crossing a color pool involves moving deeper into its luminous interior until the Astral gradually gives way to the connected plane. Some stable pools reveal indistinct signs of their destination before the crossing is complete.

Color pools vary considerably in stability. Some persist for centuries, while others shift, expand, contract, fade, or disappear.

The Planar Drift has made a number of established pools increasingly unreliable. Routes toward some Outer Planes have broadened or become easier to locate, while others have weakened or become more difficult to reach. These changes reflect instability in the relationship between planes rather than literal movement through the Astral Sea.

Other planar conduits also exist, including passages that connect fixed locations more directly. Such routes may be artificial, guarded, unstable, or difficult to locate.

Inhabitants

The Astral Plane supports native creatures alongside large numbers of travelers and long-term residents from elsewhere.

Astral whales are among its largest known native beings, while astral dragons and dreadnoughts are also encountered across the open expanse. Other forms of life have adapted to the plane's lack of gravity and thought-directed movement, though much of this ecology remains poorly documented.

Celestials, fiends, mortals, and other planar peoples frequently cross or inhabit the Astral. Ships, outposts, and permanent settlements may therefore belong to civilizations whose true origins lie elsewhere in the Reality Sphere.

Residence within the Astral does not by itself indicate Astral origin.

Natural Hazards

Navigation is one of the greatest risks in the Astral Plane. The open environment offers few reliable landmarks, and travelers unfamiliar with established routes can drift far from useful color pools or settlements.

Psychic disturbances can disrupt concentration and interfere with thought-directed movement, sometimes scattering groups or forcing travelers away from their intended course. Predators such as astral dreadnoughts present a more direct threat, while drifting ruins and wreckage may conceal hostile creatures or unstable magic.

Unfamiliar color pools can also lead into dangerous territory or environments requiring immediate protection. Routes near regions where the Mythal's fracture is especially apparent are less predictable, reflecting the broader planar instability that followed the Upheaval.

Survival

The Astral Plane places relatively few biological demands on travelers. Those wholly within it do not normally require air, food, or water and cease aging for the duration of their stay.

The principal challenge is navigation. Travelers need reliable control over thought-directed movement, recognizable landmarks, and accurate knowledge of the color pools or conduits leading toward their destination.

Permanent settlements therefore tend to develop around stable structures, dependable routes, and other landmarks that provide reliable reference points within the open expanse.

The Eternal Archive

The Eternal Archive is the shared divine realm of Io and Ao and serves as their principal seat beyond Eldareth.

Its collections concern history, magic, planar structure, and the observation of events across time and space, reflecting the domains and responsibilities of the two deities who maintain it. Io and Ao are also credited together with the creation of the Weave.

The Archive occupies an important position within the Astral network, though access depends on established routes, divine guidance, or magic capable of locating the realm.

Ao's connection to the Mythal has also made the Eternal Archive an important source of knowledge concerning the barrier and Eldareth's planar boundaries. The extent of what it preserves about the Mythal's present condition remains uncertain.