The Astral Sea is the realm of thought and dream, where visitors travel as disembodied souls to reach the Outer Planes. It is a great silvery sea, the same above and below, with swirling wisps of white and gray streaking among motes of light like distant stars. Most of the Astral Sea is a vast, empty expanse. Visitors occasionally stumble upon the petrified corpse of a dead god or other chunks of rock drifting forever in the silvery void. Much more commonplace are color pools—magical pools of colored light that flicker like radiant, spinning coins.
Creatures in the Astral Sea don’t age or suffer from hunger or thirst. For this reason, humanoids that live on the Astral Sea (such as the githyanki) establish outposts on other planes, often the Material Plane, so their children can grow to maturity.
A traveler in the Astral Plane can move by simply thinking about moving, but distance has little meaning. In combat, though, a creature’s walking speed (in feet) is equal to 3 × its Intelligence score. The smarter a creature is, the easier it can control its movement by act of will.
Astral Projection
Traveling through the Astral Sea by means of the
astral projection spell involves projecting one’s consciousness there, usually in search of a gateway to an Outer Plane to visit. Since the Outer Planes are as much spiritual states of being as they are physical places, this allows a character to manifest in an Outer Plane as if he or she had physically traveled there, but as in a dream. A character’s death—either in the Astral Sea or on the destination plane—causes no actual harm. Only the severing of a character’s silver cord while on the Astral Plane (or the death of his or her helpless physical body on the Material Plane) can result in the character’s true death. Thus, high-level characters sometimes travel to the Outer Planes by way of
astral projection rather than seek out a portal or use a more direct spell.
Only a few things can sever a traveler’s silver cord, the most common being a psychic wind. The legendary silver swords of the githyanki also have this ability. A character who travels bodily to the Astral Sea (by means of the
plane shift spell or one of the rare portals that leads directly there) has no silver cord.
Color Pools
Gateways leading from the Astral Sea to other planes appear as two-dimensional pools of rippling colors, 1d6 × 10 feet in diameter. Traveling to another plane requires locating a color pool that leads to the desired plane. These gateways to other planes can be identified by color, as shown on the Astral Color Pools table. Finding the right color pool is a matter of chance: locating the correct one takes 1d4 × 10 hours of travel.
| d20 |
Plane |
Pool Color |
| 1 |
Ysgard |
Indigo |
| 2 |
Limbo |
Jet black |
| 3 |
Pandemonium |
Magenta |
| 4 |
The Abyss |
Amethyst |
| 5 |
Carceri |
Olive |
| 6 |
Hades |
Rust |
| 7 |
Gehenna |
Russet |
| 8 |
The Nine Hells |
Ruby |
| 9 |
Acheron |
Flame red |
| 10 |
Mechanus |
Diamond blue |
| 11 |
Arcadia |
Saffron |
| 12 |
Mount Celestia |
Gold |
| 13 |
Bytopia |
Amber |
| 14 |
Elysium |
Orange |
| 15 |
The Beastlands |
Emerald green |
| 16 |
Arborea |
Sapphire blue |
| 17 |
The Outlands |
Leather brown |
| 18 |
Ethereal Plane |
Spiraling white |
| 19-20 |
Exandria |
Silver |
Psychic Wind
A psychic wind isn’t a physical wind like that found on Exandria, but a storm of thought that batters travelers’ minds rather than their bodies. A psychic wind is made up of lost memories, forgotten ideas, minor musings, and subconscious fears that went astray in the Astral Plane and conglomerated into this powerful force.
A psychic wind is first sensed as a rapid darkening of the silver-gray sky. After a few rounds, the area becomes as dark as a moonless night. As the sky darkens, the traveler feels buffeting and shaking, as if the plane itself was rebelling against the storm. As quickly as it comes, the psychic wind passes, and the sky returns to normal in a few rounds.
The psychic wind has two kinds of effects: a location effect and a mental effect. A group of travelers journeying together suffers the same location effect. Each traveler affected by the wind must also make a DC 15 Intelligence saving throw. On a failed save, the traveler suffers the mental effect as well. Roll a d20 twice and consult the Psychic Wind Effects table to determine the location and mental effects.
| d20 |
Location Effect |
| 1-8 |
Diverted; add 1d6 hours to travel time |
| 9-12 |
Blown off course; add 3d10 hours to travel time |
| 13-16 |
Lost; at the end of the travel time, characters arrive at a location other than the intended destination |
| 17-20 |
Sent through color pool to a random plane (roll on the Astral Color Pools table) |
| d20 |
Mental Effect |
| 1-8 |
Stunned for 1 minute; you can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of your turns to end the effect on yourself |
| 9-10 |
Short-term madness |
| 11-12 |
11 (2d10) psychic damage |
| 13-16 |
22 (4d10) psychic damage |
| 17-18 |
Long-term madness |
| 19-20 |
Unconscious for 5 (1d10) minutes; the effect on you ends if you take damage or if another creature uses an action to shake you awake |
Astral Sea Encounters
Planar travelers and refugees from other planes wander the expanses of the Astral Sea. The most prominent denizens of the Astral Plane are the githyanki, an outcast race of reavers that sail sleek astral ships, slaughter astral travelers, and raid planes touched by the Astral. Their city, Tu’narath, floats through the Astral Sea on a chunk of rock that is actually the body of a dead god.
Celestials, fiends, and mortal explorers often scour the Astral Plane for color pools leading to desired destinations. Characters who linger for too long in the Astral Sea might have an encounter with one or more wandering angels, demons, devils, night hags, yugoloths, or other planar travelers.
Cognouza
Cognouza was a ward of the city of
Aeor. It now drifts through the Astral Sea.
Description
In the Astral Sea, Cognouza appears both beautiful and ominous, as a huge mass of rock surrounded by smaller fragments of landmasses and thin sinew-like tendrils, topped by many tall towers befitting a remnant from the Age of Arcanum. As the city expanded in the Astral Sea, it began to replicate parts of itself and absorb surrounding elements, forming fractal-like patterns of neighborhoods and streets in its sprawl. At first glance, the city appears to be completely empty, with no signs of life in its streets. Upon being telepathically welcomed, however, the streets shift to become fully populated by humanoids, mostly human and elven, in Aeorian dress, seemingly acting out scenes of daily life.
Buildings in the city appear to be a strange combination of stonework and flesh, with veins, teeth, and bulging flesh occasionally appearing as parts of archways and streets. Buildings' interiors contain elements of moving, living tissue as well, though some retain more stone and metal structures.
History
The Cognouza Ward was once a part of the city of Aeor during the Age of Arcanum, where it was led by a group called the Somnovem. The Somnovem orchestrated Cognouza's escape from the destruction of Aeor during the Calamity. They betrayed Aeor to ensure their survival. In doing so, the ward of the city was transported to the Astral Sea. According to Lucien, the people of the Cognouza Ward were shortly thereafter hit by a "psychic storm" that "racked every mind and spirit and shattered them, until they became one with their own city." Their leaders, the Somnovem, remained, and when their nine consciousnesses joined together in the Somnovem Omega to speak as one, the minds of the inhabitants combined consciousness with them in a nexus of the minds of all those who once lived in the Cognouza Ward.
The tome found by Lucien described the ward as originally "a region organized by nine philosophers who were dedicated to the ideas of manifestation through dream and imagination with the conduit of arcana, increasingly obsessed with the astral plane, and many of its denizens being able to forge matter from sheer will and idea alone. They were rumored to have been plotting a secession from the convocation—to abscond from the city to their ‘beloved plane of dreams and ash,’ as it said in some of the notes of other Aeorian denizens that seemed to be ‘speaking down’ on these philosophers."
Within the ruins of the Genesis Ward, the
Mighty Nein found a report that spoke of the Somnovem having defied programs, breaking approved protocols and research and experimentation and hoarding their findings. As such, studies had been halted within the Cognouza Ward and members of the Somnovem collective were not to be allowed within the Genesis Ward, floors B-3 through B-6, until further notice.
After its transition to the Astral Sea, the now seemingly living city pursued the morkoth Vokodo, who managed to escape by breaking through the boundaries of the planes and landing on the island of Rumblecusp. It was through Vokodo's dying visions, which the Mighty Nein shared, that they first became aware of Cognouza.
The Nein followed Lucien and Cree to the city in the Astral Plane, where Lucien set off multiple intuit charges in the Aether Crux (the location where the Somnovem's minds gathered to join together), heavily wounding them before drawing them into himself and becoming the embodiment of the Somnovem Omega. When the Mighty Nein eventually defeated him, they heard thousands of whispered voices thanking them as the souls of the inhabitants of the city were released and dissipated.
Kingsley Tealeaf's dreams of his confinement and escape from Lucien included memories of strange black chains that invisibly wove through Cognouza, now broken, the sound of them shattering between worlds, and the angry, unknowable, primal, ancient cry that he could never forget, possibly suggesting a now-broken shackle binding the ancient god Tharizdun.
Comments