Axial Planes
Overview
Outer planes without leaning towards notions of good and evil are called Axial Planes. Often considered neutral territory by many deities, they either act as places of co-operation, or as battlegrounds. Connecting these planes is the tower-maze of the Axial Spire, separate from the usual transitive plane of the Astral Sea. It is through these planes that the souls of the dead travel to their respective afterlives, and mortals seek to carve out new domains.Astral Sea, the Plane of Dreams. "I've heard it said that our dreams and nightmares, are each their own demiplanes of the astral." Alignment: Any, All. A transitive plane, which connects each of the outer planes to the material plane, and to one another.
Timeless, without gravity, the Sea exists as an expanse of clouds, stars, and sparse rocky fragments.
Ioun graces the canvas-plane, where Dreadnoughts and Githyanki hunt travellers and wayward souls.
Cynosure, the Hall of Meeting. "A plane unbound by physicality! What I wouldn't give to experience it... my mortality, I suppose." Alignment: Unaligned. Small, vacant, and incorporeal, only Deities can access this place, used to resolve - or cause - conflict.
The appearance of this realm is unknown, though it is possibly immaterial, akin to the Ethereal Plane.
Mentioned in pre-Illumination texts, this place was used to co-ordinate overthrowing the Dawn Titans.
The Fugue Plane, of Judgement. "Communing across afterlives is common, but changing between is nigh impossible. Choose wisely." Alignment: True Neutral. Mortal souls are drawn to this plane in death, where they may petition an afterlife of their choosing.
Flat, grey, and featureless, only the City of Judgement exists to orientate oneself before reckoning.
Souls may forego an afterlife - joining the spirit wall that protects fugue souls against outsiders.
Limbo, the Ever-Changing Chaos. "Only in bedlam can one cultivate true vigilance. Adapt in every moment, or be lost to chaos." Alignment: Chaotic Neutral. A place without logic or reason, where unthinking impulse is only warded with intense discipline.
Random assortments of features from other planes, travel randomly between its five identical layers.
Slaad embody the realm, where Githzerai seek to tame it, while mortal souls are subsumed chaos.
Mechanus, the Clockwork Nirvana. "So decrees the seventeenth verse of the sequentiary: All is as it must be. The Primus is supreme." Alignment: Lawful Neutral. Perfect law, order, structure, where everything is pre-determined, and disobedience is unthinkable.
Infinite, interlocking gears constitute this plane, all rotating in unison in a sequence of seventeens.
Modrons are ruled over by the Primus, with petitioners stripped of free will to create new Modrons.
Outlands, the Concordant Opposition. "This one bids, Apocryphal, ingratiation to concordancy. Are about you any questions, perhaps? Alignment: True Neutral. A plane of portals and shifting perceptions - which inhibits magic and alignment towards its centre.
Sixteen gate-towns border the outer planes, with the alien torus-city of Sigil atop the Axial Spire.
Presided over by the Lady of Pain, gods are barred, allowing only living creatures and neutral souls.
Energy Planes: Positive, and Negative. "Knowledge of the energetic is largely deductive, based on remains from those subjected to it." Alignment: Unaligned. Infinite yet featureless expanses, containing overwhelming fundamental forces of life and death.
Though connected to the inner, elemental planes, they encompass and permeate the cosmos.
Only golems and undead can exist within the planes - each unaffected by their respective forces.
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