The Material Plane

The Material Plane is, for most campaigns, the primary (and often only) setting of the party's adventures. The basic structure of the plane should be family to most adventurers.

The Material plane consists (usually) of a nigh-infinite vacuum, in which float countless galaxies made of countless suns. Many suns are orbited by planets, and some of these planets support life. The most common form of life are "demikind" like humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, and so forth alongside "beastmen" like orcs, gnolls, goblinoids, lizardfolk, and so forth.

While most solar systems are heliocentric, some are geocentric. While most planets are solid aside from underground tunnels, others are hollow and may even contain concentric shells or a miniature sun! Some planets made be composed largely of water or gases. Others may consist of a series of massive asteroids in a stable orbit, where airships are a common means of travel.

Travel between systems is accomplished through gates or flying machines. Beware! In the black void between worlds exists countless unimaginable horrors and alien threats constantly yearning to make planetfall. Possessors, phrenic scourges, formians, ravin, pirates... Thankfully, the threat is mitigated by the presence of stellar empires dedicated to enforcing their own visions of order on the cosmos. Better the devil you know...

For more detailed information on space opera and scifi horror, please refer to such works as Aether & Flux: Sailing the Traverse, Necropunk Campaign Setting, Between Chains and Starlight, Dragonstar: Starfarer's Handbook, Voidspanners, It Came From The Stars: Campaign Guide, et al.

The Material Plane is encircled by the Vault of Stars, otherwise known as the night sky. A massive surface made of an unknown black material, the Vault is the plane of moral neutrality. It is home to the star pools, fey, aeons, psychopomps and many other strange entities. For more detailed information on the Vault of Stars, please refer to Classic Play: The Book of the Planes.

The Ethereal Sea

The Ethereal Sea is the multifaceted interstitial fluid of the universe. Composed largely of innumerable islands, continents, planets and the corpses of forgotten gods suspended within an endless expanse of grey mists, silver skies and other strange weather phenomena loosely analogous to a material ocean, the basic geography consists of an arbitrary number of layers that serve different purposes. Many planes such as the Material Plane and Elemental Poles have adjacent ethereal layers known collectively as the Border Ethereal. A border layer coexists, invisible and intangible, alongside the plane it borders. Another major layer is the Deep Ethereal, often known as the Astral Plane, which connects to all border layers and to many other planes. Within the Astral exists countless varieties of demiplanes and byways through which travel to virtually anywhere in the universe is possible. Other major layers include the whimsical Plane of Dreams, where fantasy becomes reality and reality becomes fantasy, and the esoteric Akashic Record, where all knowledge may be discovered in the Libraries of Babel.

The Ethereal Sea supports an ecosystem populated with just as much life as any other plane, all with special adaptations suited to the unique nature of their home. There are many kinds of inhabitants, permanent and transient, counterparts of material creatures and wholly unique species: ghosts and other spectral undead, phase spiders, blink dogs, animate dreams, astral devas, ectoplasmics and psychoplasmics, ethereal marauders, greymalkin, corpsespinners, hypnalis, nightgaunts, possession devils, shulsaga, thought eaters, xill, aether elementals, qael, and more.