Alright, settle down. Settle down. Sit down Bobbletop! The rest of you be quiet too. We are discussing science, gentlemen. This is not a game! Yes I'm looking right at you, Bobbletop. You are going to have a tough time this year. Believe it!

We are here to discuss the very dangerous aspects of planar travel through psionics! We are not at the playground! Sit down, shut up, and pay attention! Your lives depend on it!

Alright then.

clears throat

The Planes. What are they?

Put simply, the planes are material and immaterial states of existence that lie outside our normal perception, but exist in the same physical space, but at a different frequency. You follow?

<writes on chalkboard> THE PLANES

We live on the prime material plane. The prime meaning the first. It is where all our calculations begin and it is where all journeys to and from the planes originate and end.

<draws two vertical lines with a horizontal connection in the middle. Like a capital H>

<taps chalk on the horizontal line>

This is us. The Prime. Everything on the Prime vibrates at the same frequency. Your house, your texts in front of you, yes even you, Bobbletop, no, sit down! Imbecile!

takes a breath

Everything on the Prime vibrates at the same frequency. For our purposes we give a value to that frequency, and since we are the Prime, temporal mechanics have given our universe the frequency of 1.00.

<writes 1.00 next to the line>

But the planes do not have this frequency. They have their own.

<draws a horizontal line above and one below the existing line>

<taps chalk on the top line>

This is the Astral Plane. Its the border to the Outer Planes. Its frequency is 2.00

<taps chalk on the bottom line>

This is the Ethereal Plane. Its the border to the Inner Planes. Its frequency is -1.00.

<writes these values next to their respective lines>

<fills the rest of the vertical space with spaced out horizontal lines>

As you've guessed, these are the Outer Planes taps upper lines and these are the Inner Planes taps lower lines

This is the Planar Frequency Ladder and as each of you turn in your essays on these places, you will learn the frequency of the plane of your particular research as soon as you pass this class smiles.

You may be asking yourself what these frequencies mean. What is the difference between 1.00 and 2.00, or 1.00 and negative 1.00? Good question.

We experience time as a temporal stream that we can measure with great accuracy in this Age of Arcane Wonders. We know what 1 hour and 1 day feels like, and we can record it down to the second on timepieces. When your vibration changes, your experience with time changes. The higher the frequency above the Prime, the faster relative time passes. The lower the frequency, the slower.

We explore the planes as frequencies, but because our minds are the ones travelling to the new planes, our bodies experience the same frequency as the Prime. Don't look so confused, Bobbletop, and close your mouth, you look like a kuo-toa! Its very simple, ok?

If your mind spends an hour in the Ethereal Plane, your body experiences 2 hours in the Prime. If your mind spends an hour in the Astral Plane, your body experiences 30 minutes in the Prime. Every step away from the Prime frequency alters this temporal fact and experienced Plane Walkers who know the lowest frequencies and travel to the Hells regularly talk of spending years there in between bites of sandwich back on the Prime. Similarly, those who hunt the Elemental Planes often age and die back on the Prime, such is their greed for the wonders of the Inner Planes.

So what else do we know?

<draws a silhouette of a head, lines of force surrounding it>

The astral and ethereal planes are mental. Yes, you can use spellcraft and other nonsense to shift yourself there physically, but that's just propaganda from the Arcane Guilds, who have lost uncounted thousands stupid enough to travel whole through the mental planes. When you explore, your physical body is connected to your mind with a silver cord of pure energy that sings your true Name, what the poets have dubbed our unique frequencies.

Each of us has one that is a harmonic derivative of the Prime Frequency. In time, you will learn what yours is. This number has great power and should never be revealed to anyone. To do so is to turn over the key to your very essence! An enemy could unravel you like a spool of thread!

This silver cord is the source that allows the mental construct we call a Mask to exist inside of, and interact with, the planes. Psionic travel inside the planes is very dangerous. Predators can find your body by following the cord. The long you stay away the more danger you put your body in. Strange occurences that planar travelers have dubbed "weather" can sometimes affect you. The Astral Wind is a well-known phenomenon, that can blow a traveler far from their intended destination. Caution is always the watchword, hm? Yes. Now.

draws an outline of a human

The outer and inner planes are physical – you can only travel there with your body after you've found the Gate through exploration of one of the mental planes. Follow? On the mental planes you find the portal to the plane and your mind slingshots your body to the new plane, and your body on the PMP dematerializes and rematerializes a fraction of a second later on the new plane. Nifty, yes? Once you have arrived on the new plane, your sense of time does not fracture. Time is a smooth transition for the observer. But.

And here's where you need to pay attention, Bobbletop.

The physical planes have different temporal speeds. Higher vibrations are temporally faster in relation to the PMP and lower vibrations are slower.

The mental planes are both temporally inert, meaning no time passes subjectively for the subject, but time passes normally for the body connected to the Prime. The longer you spiritwalk, the more danger you put your physical form in, both from decay and predators. Your body is asleep, in every sense of the word, and though friends can watch over your body, they can do nothing to intervene in its life or death, that, my lads, is solely up to you.

puts eyeglasses on and glances down at the lectern

Get out your books and turn to page three-thousand four-hundred seventy-nine, and begin silent reading.

---

CHAPTER 117 – THE TRANSITIVE PLANES – AN OVERVIEW

DISCOVERY – THE ETHEREAL PLANE

This plane is pitch black with no sound. When you move through the Ether, you are blind in all your physical sensations because you don't have physical sensations anymore. The construct we call a Mask is still your Name, at pitch, overlaid with a cancelling harmonic that masks your personal signature. REMEMBER YOUR TRAINING! Masked travelers work without backup. Your Mask hides your presence from other travelers as well as the psionically-heavy grounding vibrations of the wise and noble Chords, who seek to guide all who travel the Planes. This means you are alone out there. Don't ever get complacent!

With no physical sensations to rely on, you will be recreating your basic sense of sight only, as there is no other stimuli available on the Plane. The sense of sight will allow you to see the hidden colors in the Ether. All the Inner Planes resonate in harmony with the Ethereal, and the Ethereal resonates with the Prime at a higher pitch.

This means that you cannot cross directly from the Prime to one of the Inner Planes. You must use the Ethereal to reach your destination, and these Curtains into the Inner Planes all vibrate with the Ethereal in places where the harmonic is perfect, and fleeting. The Curtains open and close at random, according to whatever whim drives the Ether.

Only the Curtains have color. Nothing else can be seen. Not other ethereal travelers or predators. Only your psionic defenses will protect you against the unseen threats. Cast your probes far and keep your shields up at all times.

Colors of the Curtains

The Prime Material Plane – Turquoise

The Elemental Planes

The Prime Elemental Planes

• Air – Blue
• Earth – Brown
• Water – Green
• Fire – Red

The Para-Elemental Planes

• Smoke – Pearl
• Ice – Aquamarine
• Ooze – Chocolate
• Magma – Maroon

The Quasi-Elemental Planes

The Positive Quasi Plane

• Lightning – Violet
• Steam – Ivory
• Radiance – Shifting Rainbow Pattern
• Minerals – Milky Pink

The Negative Quasi Plane

• Vacuum – Ebony
• Salt – Tan
• Ash – Dark Grey
• Dust – Dun

The Positive Energy Plane – Pure White

The Negative Energy Plane – Pure Black (unable to be seen)

Demi-Planes (All) – Metallic Shades

Astral – Bright White with flecks of Gold and Silver

---

SURVIVAL

DID YOU KNOW?	FUN FACT!
The psionic construct known as a Mask is a pocket of energy with almost no vibration, and this state is known as being null. The interior of the pocket is what houses the traveler's consciousness and is necessary for survival!	Almost 82% of all traveler deaths occur when a panicked loss of focus causes the Mask to dissipate.

Time, the Border Ethereal, and Magic

You will sense no passage of time in the Ether. Your movement is guided by your will. Your thoughts become manifest in the Ether. Some say that your fears can too, and that thoughts are as dangerous as any unseen threat, perhaps moreso. You must swim through the dark trusting your instincts and your training. When you see a Curtain, you simply will yourself towards it and as you cross into its boundary you will shift from the Ethereal Plane to what travelers call the Border Ethereal. The Border appears as a loop, and the Plane it touches can be seen within the loop, but only in shades of grey, and time is moving at a local rate – this may cause some disorientation if the local time is magnitudes faster or slower than what the traveler remembers as "normal" temporal speed.

You can move around the Border and this shifts the perspective of the viewed Plane. In this way, a creature in the Border can move around the viewed Plane at will and choose any place to step out of the Border and into the destination Plane.

One you step out of the Border you transition back into your living body on the new plane immediately and your body dematerializes on the plane is was just on.

Magic does not function in the Ether. Magic items are equally inert. Only psionic disciplines and bio-objects will operate reliably. Some artefacts will operate in the Ether, most notably the Apparatus of Kwalish and the Staff of the Magi (or so the legends go).

LOCALS

Native predators in the Ether are few, thankfully, but the ones that exist here are extremely dangerous and caution must be taken not to become savaged by them and perhaps even taken as live prey, where your consciousness will languish in captivity while your mortal body withers and dies from lack of food and water.

There are 3 known ethereal species. These exist only on the ethereal plane and have senses beyond what humanoids have been able to replicate, which makes them sensitive to movement in the featureless Ether.

• Aoa Droplets and Spheres: These amorphous beings are drawn towards psionic activity in all forms. The energy released is devoured by the droplets and as they feed, they grow larger and can merge and become spheres. These large creatures are able to sever the connection between the mind and the body, trapping the victim in the Ether, to be devoured at will. The very act of being in the Ether will draw droplets almost immediately unless strong defenses are erected beforehand, to dampen the signature of your individual harmonic.
• Ethereal Oozes – Mindless as the Aoa, and no less predatory, the oozes lay in ambush near the Planar Gates. They attack individually, no ooze would tolerate another on the same victim. Their attacks are weak psionically speaking, but the more they stay attached to a victim, the stronger their attacks become and the weaker their victims become as the ooze siphons energy away from the host. They can be killed with strong attack modes, but you must strike quickly and with overwhelming force.
• Ethergaunts – This race of alien creatures are the biggest threat to travelers. They are able to capture (and kill) any Mask in the Ether and chain that consciousness into bondage while the host body withers and dies. Once freed of the body, the Ethergaunts use the energy of the disembodied mind to some end that no one has been able to discover. The fact of snatched travelers is real, however, and great pains should be taken to protect all groups who travel together – remember your modes and disciplines!

---

MYSTERIES

We on the Prime are not the only ones who exploit the Ethereal Plane for our usage. Beings from all the Planes use it and many of them are hostile to any other beings they may run across.

Random Encounters

1. Fiends (Demons/Devils) – Usually on their way to the Prime, unfortunately.
2. Aberrations – See above
3. Spirit-bound Undead (most are trapped in the Ether and manifest on the Prime)
4. Elementals and Para-Elementals (not surprising, but most are being summoned and are unable to stop and hassle strangers)
5. Couatl – These protectors often use the Ether to travel, and sometimes stop to help those in trouble.
6. Dragons – Usually here, waiting, because some predator forced them to. Shadow Dragons sometimes hang out here to eat Ethergaunt and other unwary travelers, however, so take caution.
7. Phase Spiders: Native to the Prime, these horrid predators use the Ethereal to move around the Prime unseen and then strike the unwary.
8. Thought Eaters: Native to the Astral Plane, these weird predators often hunt in the Ether when the prey is hard to find on its home plane. They are very dangerous, especially to spellcasters, as they can siphon memorized spells away, and other vital information in general.
9. Spirit Trolls often walk the Ether when madness and pain overtakes them. They are hostile to all travelers, regardless of power.
10. Other Ethereal Travelers, usually psions, but idiot mages are often encountered.

---

TOOLKIT

Physical Decay – While in the Ether, the traveler's body is effectively comatose. No amount of stimulus will rouse it and it can be damaged normally. For every hour that the mind is spent travelling in the Ether, the body experiences 2 hours of subjective time. After 24 hours of subjective time without food or water, the body gains a level of Fatigue. The mind will experience these same effects as the drain to maintain the Mask will sap the ability of the mind to cope. Every subsequent 24 hours without food or water will increase the fatigue level by 1.

The Silver Cord – The body is connected to the mind through an energy link of psionic vibration that appears in the Ethereal Plane as a thin silver cord snaking through the darkness and into the colored gate for the plane that the traveler's body currently occupies. This cord resonates and can be detected by Ethereal creatures. The cord has some meta-values. Its AC is considered equal to 28 and its Hardness is 10. It has roughly 100 HP. If the cord ever takes damage that reduces its HP to 0, it will break, instantly killing the travelers body and dissolving the psionic Mask – leaving the disembodied mind trapped and helpless in the vast emptiness of the Ether.

---

Write Your Own Atlas Entry!