Immortals frequently develop their planes by opening gates to elemental planes, and draw-ing raw material from them for later use in construction. Elemental fire becomes a star, and elemental earth becomes an asteroid, moon, or planet. Elemental water and air will disperse unless kept within a gravity trap (i.e.
on a sizeable mass of earth).
The gate to an elemental plane cannot be opened unless the elemental ruler of the plane or portion of the plane gives its permission.
Because of the distance involved between the Outer and Inner Planes, elemental material cannot simply be stolen.
The Campaign
Moving a Plane
The many Outer Planes lie within a frame of reference called the Astral Plane. Their posi-tions may be stable, or the planes may drift in the Astral sea, or they may be deliberately moved to hide their existence or to add to the size of the plane.
If a plane contains an Immortal life force, it is "anchored" in the Astral Plane, and can-not be moved. Infinite planes are also immo-bile. Any other plane can be moved, and even a Home Plane can be moved if the Immortal departs from it completely, leaving not even an avatar behind.
The cost of moving a plane of existence corresponds to its dimensional size, as given on the following table. The cost is a tempo-rary Power expenditure, not a permanent one. The cost may be shared by several Immortals working simultaneously.
The expenditure of Power imparts a very slow movement rate on the entire plane, rela-tive to the Astral Plane. From the Astral, the rate in feet per hour appears equal to the PP expenditure. The rate does not change once created, but may be increased. The same expenditure is needed to stop the movement.
If a plane in motion collides with another plane, the result depends on the anchoring of that plane. If any Immortal life force is present within the plane that is struck, the plane in motion comes to a stop. Otherwise, the plane struck is pushed ahead by the other, both moving at a proportionately lesser rate varying by the size of the planes involved. No creature can resist the movement of an entire plane, but the impact inflicts no damage.
If a plane in motion stops because of a colli-sion, it instantly and automatically loses one of its dimensions. For example, a tetraspace would suddenly become a trispace. This may have drastic effects on the material and life forms within the plane, all of which are lim-ited by its dimensions. The contents are physically unaffected if they have the same number or fewer dimensions than the new limit, but may otherwise be suddenly com-pressed. Such a compression never inflicts damage per se, but will cause confusion and may cause insanity in intelligent creatures.
Magic use is another matter, as it requires one dimension more than those of the crea-tures using it. A sudden and total plane-wide disappearance of all magical objects and powers is a unique characteristic of planar collision. A lost dimension may be regained by expending permanent PP equal to 10% of the cost to move the plane.
The act of moving a plane invariably causes dimensional aberrations within the
plane, but the waves of aberration are tran-sient and may stop by themselves after a per-iod of time. Severe and recurrent aberrations may be stopped by direct action, but this usu-ally requires permanent PP expenditures.
If a plane in motion is stopped exactly adja-cent to another plane, the collision is averted, and a non-magical connection can be opened between the two.
Costs of Moving a Plane Size Cost in PP Attoplane 10 Femtoplane 20 Picoplane 40 Nanoplane 80 Microplane 160 Milliplane,
Centiplane,
or Deciplane 320 Standard plane,
Dekaplane, or
Hectoplane 640 Kiloplane 1,280 Megaplane 2,560 Gigaplane 5,120 Teraplane 10,240 Major Changes
The Immortal ruler of an Outer Plane may, through permanent PP expenditures, cause major changes to his Home Plane's charac-teristics. The PP cost of any such change is 10% of the cost given for moving the plane (q.v.), which depends on the size of the dimensions within it. A major change can only be made by the ruler of a plane, not by any other creature. Planes of infinite size can-not be affected, but any Outer Plane that is not a Home Plane for an Immortal also may be affected by any creature who knows how to make the change.
The most common major change involves dimensional travel. An Immortal may pre-vent the use of teleport, dimension door, and similar effects. This is often an effective secu-rity device, for invaders unable to teleport within a plane may, depending on their point of entry, be unable to attack the Immortal or his projects without first traveling across vast distances, possibly for many years. It has its drawbacks, since everyone (including the Immortal ruler) is affected.
A planar boundary may be locked, and cannot thereafter be passed by the usual mag-ical plane travel. It can be unlocked by any Immortal who expends the same amount of Power used to lock it (again a permanent
expenditure).
Dimensional aberrations can be intro-duced to a plane. The cost applies per dimen-sion affected, and only produces a transient wave that automatically vanishes when it reaches the dimensional endpoint of the plane. Players may t h i n k of other changes or limits they may wish to apply.
A major change can be reversed or removed at the same permanent PP cost required to create it. Once again, this can only be performed by a Home Plane's Immortal ruler, if any, or if none, by any creature who knows how.
Planar Access
The apparent size of an Outer Plane, when seen from the Astral Plane, corresponds only to its accessibility from the Astral Plane. The actual number of access points is equal to the number of square inches of apparent surface area. In other words, an astral Immortal who wants to enter an Outer Plane must touch the planar boundary. The square inch of area touched corresponds to one specific volume within that plane. If a visitor always touches the same point on the surface, the visitor will always appear in the same approximate loca-tion within that plane. The requisite magical aid, plane travel, must be used in each case.
The sole exception is when two Outer Planes are adjacent and a non-magical opening has been created.
Access points are fixed and evenly spaced if the plane's dimensions are stable. If the plane is affected by dimensional aberrations, the access points may be irregularly spaced, and may change.
An Immortal may change a plane so that it has either more or fewer access points. The visual effect in the Astral Plane is that the sil-very sphere of the planar boundary gets larger or smaller. A Home Plane can only be modified in this way by its Immortal ruler.
Outer Planes that are not Home Planes can be modified by any Immortal of the Sphere corresponding to the dominant Sphere of the plane.
The cost of decreasing or increasing the size of a planar boundary is 1 PP per square inch added or removed. Each change must be made separately; a large PP expense cannot be made all at once. The time required to add or destroy one square inch of planar bound-ary is 10 hours. The PP expenditure is per-manent.
It is certainly possible to decrease the num-ber of Astral access points to zero. Before the last step, the planar boundary appears as a tiny sphere with only 1 square inch of area.
During the final change, it simply shrinks and vanishes. The notable hazard involved is that an Outer Plane with no Astral access is utterly inaccessible from then on, unless some other access has been provided. If the Immortal ruler is within the plane when this occurs, he or she may still increase the access size from zero to one square inch (and possi-bly more thereafter) when desired. Some Immortals have desired privacy to such an extent that they now reside within such
"missing" planes, completely out of contact.
An Outer Plane that can only be reached from another Outer Plane and has no point of access from the Astral Plane, cannot be reached via a gate.
Most Hierarchs and many other powerful Immortals have limited access to their Home Planes by shrinking the planar boundary.
The most common situation is to move the plane to connect it to some other Outer Plane for access, and then to decrease the number of Astral access points to zero. Some few Outer planes can only be reached by way of several other planes, but not by way of the Astral Plane.
This method is also not without hazard.
The access points to any Outer Plane must be permanent but magical gates. Any magical effect can be dispelled, and if the last remain-ing access points are destroyed thereby, the plane v a n i s h e s , inaccessible. Thus, any Immortal who eliminates Astral access to his or her Home Plane always leaves an avatar w i t h i n the plane, so that whatever happens, his or her life force is within the plane and able to reopen the access. To do otherwise risks the loss of the Home Plane, and total destruction of the Immortal becomes a fairly easy matter of reducing the character to zero PP, hp, and ability scores.
A plane with no Astral access cannot be detected from the Astral Plane by any means, including truesight, wish, or otherwise. It is simply not there!