I’ve complained about the astral plane before: I never had a use for “a great, endless sphere of clear silvery sky” which is primarily used to get to more interesting places. However, I found myself using an astral plane in the mearls sidebar game, with one little tweak.
Your perception of the astral plane is determined by how you enter it. For instance, in the sidebar game, you dive into a pool to travel to the fairy realm. Along the way, you pass through the astral plane: since you enter it through a pool, it takes the form of a vast ocean. Elsewhere in the world, a forgotten corridor in a library might lead you into the Astral Plane. In that case, you’d experience the entire plane as an infinite, labyrinthine library.
The advantage of this change: Every time you enter the plane by a different method, the DM can describe it differently, coming up with a unique, and potentially flavorful, setting with new puzzles and challenges. An Astral spell might take you to the standard, boring silvery-sky plane. The magical rings from Magician’s Nephew take you to a forest, an “in between place” filled with portal ponds. An astral ship takes you to the 4e version of the Astral Plane, a silver sea dotted with islands. If people entered the plane by each of these methods, they might perceive the same group of githyanki raiders as simultaneously flying through the air, running through the forest, and sailing a ship through the ocean. Each perception is 100% factually correct: after all, any physicality in the Astral Plane is just an analogy clothing an ineffable spiritual ideal.
Here’s an adventure complication: you find a map of part of the astral plane. It’s a classic pirate treasure map, with islands and shoals. When you enter the plane via a library, you have to navigate the Astral Library using your map of the Astral Sea.
I always wanted to play an adventure in Borges’ Library of Babylon. This is a great way to do it!
Yeah, that was definitely in my head when I came up with that example.
I love it great idea… i’m using it!
Really good. I love the differing perception of the astral plane based on method of entry.
A very interesting take. I’m definitely going to give that a try.
Thanks for the suggestion!
I like this concept because it ties into aspects of our own world. We drive vehicles and live in houses that were designed in WWII, yet your smart phone will be a powerhouse like no other in time once 5G rolls out globally. See the tweak? Perception works both ways if we are controlled. Great ideas drive the world forward but intention steers reality. Perhaps the Githyanki want us playing D&D and thinking the astral plane is fake, when in fact it is all around us binding the multiverse together and waiting for a clever DM to stumble across that scrap of magical map. I guess a million people go missing off the globe every year without a trace according to a rough global census… I hope one of them makes it to the treasure!
Thanks for the post!
>I always wanted to play an adventure in Borges’ Library of Babylon. This is a great way to do it!
Reminds me of the “Library of Babble” that someone wrote up for the Plane of Mechanus.
https://mimir.net/mechanus/burgs.shtml