The Quasielemental Plane of Mineral

(This blunt and simplistic narrator is Gaddin Hammerhome, a prime dwarf miner who's been to the quasiplane of Mineral a number of times. It may not seem like it, but he really likes it there.—the Editor)

“The plane of Mineral is a rocky place full of precious gems and metals, right? That’s all a fellah really needs to know, but I gotta fill pages to earn my pay, so I'll go on.

Some folks call it the Treasure Trove of the Multiverse. It is that, I suppose. Every sort of valuable rock a fellah can think of lies in the plane of Mineral. There’s gold, silver, mithril, diamonds, and more. You can’t just go in and take what- ever you want, though. Most of the time, something’ll stop you.

The plane of Mineral is really big. (Infinite, of course, like the rest of the Inner Planes.—the Editor) Most of it’s completely solid. When folks go there, they dig around to move. In some places, there’s tunnels. dug already. Sometimes there’s natural caves. ”

-Gaddin Hammerhome, ,

So there are all these big planes made of pure elements, and sometimes they mix together. Where the plane of Earth and the energy from the Positive Energy Plane meet, they produce the plane of Mineral. That’s because the valuable minerals are some sort of positive aspect of the earth. Makes sense, I suppose. The way I see it, the plane of Mineral is all that’s good in the earth. It’s got the best in high-quality gemstones, plenty of rich silver and pure gold, and a whole lot of other precious minerals and metals. If there’s anything bad about the place at all, it’s that a dwarf don't hardly need to work at all to find and extract what he needs. I wouldn’t want to train young miners here—they’d get lazy.

Where the Mineral Plane touches the plane of Earth, both planes just meld right together. I sure can’t tell where one starts and the other stops. As you move through the plane of Mineral toward the Positive Energy Plane, the gemstones become even more prevalent, if that’s possible, and they glow like little stars. The closer you get, the more they glow, until the gems go away and there’s only glow. This area’s called the Gemfield by folks that feel like everything’s gotta have a name. Other folks call it Ioun, but I sure don’t know why.

There’s the Misty Caverns, where the plane borders the plane of Steam. That place’s just like what it sounds like, right?

The boundary between Mineral and the plane of Radiance is pretty much the same as the Gemfield, but it’s called Brighthome. A fair number of my people make their homes right on the edge, where the minerals take on just a bit of a glow.

There’s a spot called Diddanauch in our tongue, but some call it the Natural Forge. This place is full of precious metals, but most of them are molten ore, right? If you can survive in such heat, it’s a good place to work with those metals to fashion some fine craftwork. (The Natural Forge is where Mineral borders Magma.—the Editor)

Sparklemire’s an odd place. Seems that there’s a plane of Mud (Ooze—the Editor} between Earth and Water, and where the plane of Mineral meets up with it there’s a big underground sea of mud with crystals and sparkling gems floating in it. It’s not as great as it sounds, though, since those crystals’ll cut a fellah up if he tries to wade or swim through the mud. I sure don’t understand why the gods made such a disgusting, useless place, but it’s not for me to judge, I guess.

The Powerful and Mighty

Apparently, to hear some tell it, each Inner Plane’s got itself a king or two. Stands to reason, right? Well, there’s a fellah here in Mineral who calls himself the king factually, he claims to be an archomental—the Editor), but most folks off the plane of Mineral don’t pay him no heed.

CRYSTALLE

This powerful creature looks like one of those uasi-fellahs and maintains a huge castle defended by crysmals, quasi-ele-whatevers, and golems made of gold, silver, and even mithril. His rule’s a fairly peaceful one, and he seems to be a good and kind ruler for the most part. He loesn’t have any plans to invade the Material Plane or anything like that, as far as I know, anyway.

CREATURES & DENIZENS

Some folks might be real surprised to hear that this realm of ores and gems is so populated. It seems ail these strange planes got their own inhabitants. Stands to reason, I suppose. If we live on our plane, something's sure to live on the others, right?

QUASIELEMENTALS

Now, what kind of blasted fool would give anything a name like that? Some human, I'd wager my gold teeth. Anyhow, these folks don't take too well to folks coming to the plane of Mineral and carting off their goodies. I guess I can’t blame “em. We'd do the same thing if it were our claim, right?

These quasi-folk don’t even much like the xorn or the khargra who come here from the plane of Earth. These crea- tures eat minerals, so they're not too popular among the whatchacallit-mentals that try to defend the place. They’re organized like a military, and real tough in a fight.

ANIMALS AND MONSTERS

Now, if you ask me, an animal is a squirrel or a bird or something like that. Anything else is a monster, right? That, they tell me, makes me a “clueless berk.” Well, they can stick it right up their own “berks!” Folks on the planes got their weird ways of talking and strange ways of thinking—goes to show that when a fellah’s done with the planes he ought to go home to his kith and kin and forget all that “planewalk- ing” business. Ain’t healthy.

This plane is lousy with critters that'll eat you as soon as look at you. Crysmals, xorn, khargra, and even a thoqqua or two lair here. Don’t go to the Mineral plane without a good, sharp axe, I say.

OTHER RACES

There’s some native creatures in Mineral that you'll never see anywhere else. I’ve sure never seen their like. One kind go by the name tassingg or some blasted thing (tsnng—the Editor). These folks look like they’re made right out of crys- tals, right? They’re not friendly to miners and they really like magic, so there’s two strikes against them right there.

Mineral mephits are some strange little critters, I must say. Selfish, greedy, and self-important, they not only hate those that try to take valuable materials from the plane of Mineral, but they demand that a fellah give them whatever he might have brought with them as well. Like I said, a good axe...

The dao from Earth come here from time to time, and I've seen pech too, by the gods. Neither’s friendly to dwarves, so I don’t have much good to say about them nei- ther. The dao worked out a pact with the quasi-whosits, so they’re free to go where they please and take what they want. Blasted genies!

Hazards & Phenomena

Things here are pretty much like they'd be underground, if you’re familiar with mining at all. If you're not, what in perdition are you thinking going to the plane of Mineral for? Durn fools.

BREATHING AND SENSES

With the exception of scattered pockets of air, mist, and such, there isn’t any air to breathe in the plane of Mineral, right? This means most miners have to use some blasted magical means of respiration. Myself, I stick to the natural air pockets and tunnels made by other creatures. There’s no need to get greedy, I say. That’s a good way to get yourself dead.

Further, there’s no light here, except near the planes of Radiance or Positive Energy, so it's hard to see unless a miner brings his own light to help him while he digs.

Sound travels very well through the plane of Mineral. The average fellah can even. hear the passing of ethereal or phased creatures, right? They produce a hissing sound that can be heard at a distance of 60 feet. For those with keen hearing (including folks with the hear noise ability) this range is increased to 90 feet. Any dwarf'll tell ya that when you’re mining, sound’s more important than sight.

FOSSILIZATION

It tums out it ain’t too safe to spend much time here, which’s what keeps folks from coming to this plane and mining it clean. Anyone not from the plane must make a saving throw vs. petrification each day or slowly grind to a halt and turn to stone.

That means some of the minerals that a fellah finds might have once been living creatures, right? Who wants to mine their friends, or see them get worked into jewelry or whatnot? Not me. Don’t let anyone who’s not real sturdy and stalwart tag along.

Mysterious Sites & Treasures

There’s plenty of important sites in Mineral, most of them defined by the type of ore that a fellah can find there. Veins of ore run through this place the way forests run across the sur- face of a normal world. (“Normal” meaning “Prime,” of course.—the Editor)

The quasi-creatures maintain a number of fortress- cities in the plane, and Crystalle’s got a mighty castle. There’s some secret dwarven mines too, but I ain't gonna tell you where they are, right? Anyway, you should definitely know about a place called the Tower of Lead.

THE TOWER OF LEAD

This place is a real mystery. It’s a big, gray tower that juts up right out of the ground in the region they call the Gem- field. I’ve heard tell it’s some sort of special link to the Pos- itive Energy Plane, right?

The thing is, inside the tower lies about the best forge a dwarf’s ever seen short of Moradin’s own. Nobody knows who built it originally, but those that have worked it say that the work done here is twice as good as anyplace else. There’s a catch, though, right? Nobody knows how or why, but folks that spend much time here disappear. I figure that they get drawn into the Positive Plane, but I don’t know how. I guess the trick is to come here when you got something real special to work on, and then get out while the getting’s good.

I've also heard tell that there’s tools inside that no one knows how to use or what they're for. It’s as though the place was equipped to work materials we don’t even know about. And I don’t know why these or any of the other tools have never been stolen out of the tower, but there must be a reason.

Lay of the Land

The whole place is underground. There’s rio surface here, right? That means no sun to blind you and no wind to chill your bones on your way home from a night’s work in the mine—so that’s fine by me. But most of the rock around as you tunnel isn’t granite or limestone, though—it’s all good usable ore. Like I said before, a miner's likely to get lazy here real fast.

Where the Elemental Plane of Earth is saturated by the radiance of the Positive Energy Plane, the quasiplane of Mineral is born. This is the multiverse’s treasure trove, filled with jewels, gems, and all manner of valuable crystals.

Many leatherheads think they can pack some big bags, set sail for the quasiplane of Mineral, and strike it rich. What they forget, though, is that the realm’s inhabited by some very nasty creatures who don’t like a lot of claim-jumpers and cross-traders showing up and trying to cart off the very essence of their home.

Cycle of Time

Time exists here but it isn't marked by solar activity.

Surviving

I ain’t no “planewalker.” Just a humble miner from the house of Hammerhome, right? Still, I first went to the plane of Mineral for the obvious reason—to get rich! Once I realized that it wasn’t as easy as I'd heard tell, I still came back, but always with a particular goal in mind. For example, there’s some healing loams to be found in the Glittermire that I went to fetch when a disease threatened to wipe out my clan. Another time, I went to Mineral because I heard that some of the dwarves that live here full-time were looking for guards and military men to help protect against attacks from the natives (minders, they called us).

Speaking of which, those travelers here ought to visit to a place called Durast, where a number of dwarves have established a well-defended homestead. Our priests have even blessed it so that nobody inside petrifies due to the plane’s power. The only thing that you'll have to remember (other than being on your best behavior—they don’t abide any foolishness) is to keep the location a secret. Remember, plenty of the plane’s natives want to see anyone else killed or driven off.

SPELL KEYS AND OTHER NECESSITIES

What in the Hells’ a spell key?

(The spell keys for the plane of Mineral, it turns out, are particular sounds produced by vibrating crystals. The tssng have mastered these and have even shared some of the secrets with those able to use magical means to communicate with them.—the Editor)

Getting There

Getting to another plane’s always difficult. Those real familiar with planar travel know about all sorts of doorways that take a traveler from plane to plane, and they call them portals. I only know about the doorway that I used, which took me from a cavern deep in the Underdark to the plane of Concordant Opposition (the Outlands—the Editor). From there, I met up with a bunch of level-headed goat men, who showed me a portal to the plane of Mineral in a deep chasm called the Gemgate. They used a jewel as a sort of key to open up the door that looked like a cave to me, right?

I've heard, but never seen, that places on the Prime Material with a real thick concentration of valuable ores can sometimes form a natural doorway called a vortex that'll take a fellah—willing or not—to the plane of Mineral if he steps into it.

Traveling Around

To move about, you've gotta dig, unless you find an existing tunnel or a natural fissure. I hear tell that these natural caverns are more common here than in the plane of Earth, and that most are filled with breathable air, so in that way things are easier here. On the other hand, the stone’s real hard to dig through, right? It’s great to find hard gemstones and metal ore, but they’re tough to move through.

The following table determines the type of rock comprising a given region of the plane of Mineral. To keep it simple, the table gives general descriptions instead of specific types of stone and minerals. (The rate of movement is otherwise as-in the plane of Earth.—the Editor)

1d10 Roll	Type of Earth	Minimal Strength
1	Packed Soil	15
2-3	Very Soft Rock	17
4-6	Soft Rock	19
7-8	Hard Rock	21
9-10	VFery hard Rock	23

But don’t dig too fast! The crystalline formations and mineral deposits tend to extend sharp edges and wicked points from their jagged unworked surfaces. These can cut through a clumsy traveler real quick, right? Each round a fellah moves through a narrow, gem-encrusted area in this plane, he suffers 1d4 hit points of damage. Each +1 of mag- ical protection the traveler carries reduces this damage by 1 point (in increments of 1d3, 142, and 1 [minimum]).