Astral Plane

The Astral Plane is the connective tissue between the multiverse, a place both within and outside most of it. For most Material Plane natives, the Astral Plane is little more than a conduit that is used to access the rest of the planes, and even then it may not register as a place worth visiting. But as a realm of powerful thought and pure belief, it can hold wonders and treasures from bygone times and eras just waiting to be discovered.
Those wonders are guarded by some fierce monsters, including creatures such as the githyanki, perhaps the most famous of the Astral Plane residents. The curious thing about them is that they are not natives – they were refugees from some other place, where they escaped bonds of servitude at the hands of illithids. They’ve gone on to colonize portions of the Astral Plane, and have learned to harness their impressive mental capabilities to power great ships that sail the Silver Void as quickly as worldly ships travel an ocean.
And while at first glance the Silver Void earns its name as being empty, travelers that go long enough and far enough can find islands of material from across the multiverse. Great physical masses float tranquilly through the Astral Plane, the husk-like remnants of gods the multiverse forgot about or were defeated by others. Islands of earth, clouds of water, and more have been pushed or pulled into the Astral Plane by a host of events, accidental and deliberate, from a multitude of other planar destinations.
Adventure seekers drawn into the Astral Plane may find the githyanki city of Tu’narath, explore the vast Field of Stars, search for the legendary Colorless Pool, or mine for rare astral diamonds within the Silver Mountain. These places and more lay scattered about the Astral Plane, just waiting for explorers to uncover.

Geography

"It is the space between everything. It is the road that goes everywhere. It is where you are when you aren't anywhere else." Manual of the Planes

The Astral Plane is a vast realm of eternal silver twilight, with no discernible direction or regional break across the entire plane. Planewalkers call the plane the Silver Void for a good reason, and upon first contact it presents an empty silvery sea, devoid of any substance. But it is not empty, and the plane operates on thoughts and willpower more than the elemental building blocks of the multiverse. This basis creates a lot of strange situations that can understandably confuse new travelers.

And, contrary to this first impressions, the Astral Plane is not even empty of locations and phenomena. The most commonly encountered feature are color pools - two-dimensional circles of varying color that allow easy transportation to other planes in the multiverse. As one of the most frequently traveled planes across the multiverse, it’s also not uncommon to run into other planar travelers, usually on their way to somewhere, but the sheer size of the Astral Plane makes such encounters rare.

How big is the Astral Plane? Planar scholars have debated this question for ages, and the most common answer is “forever.” There is no end to the Silver Void, where time and direction are meaningless, and the nature of the plane means that finding places to go requires expending mental energy and having a clear vision rather than knowing a specific path or route.

Besides color pools and the detritus of the multiverse, travelers on the Astral Plane are likely to see astral conduits – ribbons and tubes of various color that wind through the Silver Void. These conduits are sealed portals linking the planes of the multiverse, and are used normally by the souls of the dead moving from their place of death to their final resting place. On other planes, astral conduit openings are difficult to find and often have unusual means of accessing them.

Localized Phenomena

Cycle of Time

On the Astral Plane, time does not pass the same as it does across the rest of the multiverse, so there is no measure of time that is useful or meaningful. This means that a creature on the Astral Plane does not age for as long as they remain on the Astral Plane, and they also do not feel hunger or thirst. Travelers still “feel” the passage of time – a minute that passes feels like a minute anywhere else, and this time distortion doesn’t affect spells or other time-based effects.

Fauna & Flora

On this plane of thought, the existence of true natives was doubtful. The githyanki, however, had been a dominating presence for long ages, ruled from their great city of Tu'narath but mostly spread about innumerable fortresses.
Astral searchers, astral streakers, astral whales, the mighty astral dragons, and the tiny kodragons inhabit the Silver Void. The dreaded astral dreadnoughts are believed by some to be a manifestation of the Astral Plane itself, while others point to their indefinetly long tails as indicator for an origin elsewhere.
Brain collectors, dhour, and foo creatures all can be found in some numbers here.
All manner of fiends, celestials, slaadi, and other planars used the Astral as short-cuts to their business elsewhere, but both astral devas and shedu patrolled the plane regularly to keep evil in check. Despite their connection to the Abyss, bebilith were thought to be at home on the Astral plane.
Spectral hounds are usually found with githyanki communities as guard animals.

History

The Astral Plane is an anomaly. Even thinking about it as a plane is technically wrong, as it is simply the space between the planes, but the nomenclature can be made to work if it is thought of as transitive space. Between the Material Plane and the Inner Planes, and between the Inner Planes and the Outer Planes, the Silver Void of the Astral sits, facilitating not just travel but life itself. Or at least intelligent life, which likely draws cognitive essence from the Astral in some way not yet understood. However, whatever its original intention, it has become a place of breathtaking wonder and limitless danger. _{Lillandri the Moon Mage}

Tourism

Getting There

The simplest way to enter the Astral Plane is through the use of the astral projection spell. Using this spell, travelers into the Silver Void have their spirit forms transported only, leaving their material bodies behind. A special connection called a silver cord links the spirit form to the physical body, allowing the targets to traverse the Astral Plane at will. If the traveler’s spirit form is reduced to 0 hit points, the silver cord simply pulls back the person back to their physical body. Unfortunately, one of the most frequently encountered hostile creatures on the Astral Plane – the githyanki – have special weapons that allow them to cut a silver cord, severing the tie and killing the target immediately.

Gates exist across the multiverse linking the various planes to the Astral Plane as well, but these are generally hidden and require a key of some sort to activate. The key for such a portal does not need to be a physical object, it can possibly be a gesture or series of actions instead. Volumes of gate lore are recorded by planar scholars across the multiverse; the most extensive catalogue belongs to the library of Arx Infinitus, home to the Codex Keepers in the Ethereal Plane.

Once a traveler has reached the Astral Plane, finding a way out is very straightforward. Floating portals exist in the Silver Void called color pools which link to other gates in other planes. The colors of these pools reflect their destination – ruby for the Nine Hells, emerald green for the Beastlands, jet black for Limbo, and so on. This makes the Astral Plane an ideal stopping point for finding a portal to another plane, as it is the only place where such gates are easily identifiable and discovered.

Traveling Around

As a realm of thought, moving around in the Astral Plane is not so much a physical act as a mental one. Creatures on the Astral Plane have a flying speed equal to 3 x its Intelligence score while traveling on the plane. Physical movement is possible as well, but it’s clumsy, so a creature relying on its walking speed has a flying speed equal to half its walking speed. Creatures that can swim or fly can move normally, choosing to use their Intelligence, swimming, or flying speed to move around.

Distance is a very abstract concept on the Astral Plane as well. While the plane is theoretically infinite, reaching a specific destination relies more on willpower and a clear mental picture than anything else. Traveling to a location on the Astral Plane requires a number of hours based on how familiar the traveler is with their destination. Use the following chart as a guide.

Astral Plane Travel Times

Familiarity	Travel Time
Very familiar	2d6 hours
Studied carefully	1d4 x 8 hours
Seen casually	2d4 x 8 hours
Viewed once	1d6 x 16 hours
Description only	2d6 x 16 hours

Alternative Name(s)

Astral Sea, the Silver Void

Type

Dimensional plane

Included Locations

• Field of Swords

Characters in Location

• God of Order: Beleth
• The All Seeing Eye

Inhabiting Species

• Astral dreadnoughts

Related Professions

• Warlock