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Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

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Dimensions | Inner Sphere Planes | Outer Sphere Planes | Transitive Planes

Planes

Source GM Core pg. 172 2.0
Past the world of Golarion and the void of space lie the vast planes of existence referred to as the Great Beyond. Often alien and dangerous, most of these planes embody some foundational aspect of reality—one of the chief elements that make up the rest of the multiverse or a kind of fundamental energy. Each plane is a reality unto itself, with its own laws of existence and its own native inhabitants who might visit, grant benefits to residents of, or cause havoc on the face of Golarion.

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Inner Sphere Planes

The planes of the Inner Sphere form the heart of the cosmos. They’re the home of mortal life, the focus of divine attention, the source of mortal souls, and the origin point of the great cycle of quintessence that fuels the motions and stability of reality itself. Arranged in a nested series of shells, like layers of an onion, the planes of the Inner Sphere include, from outer to inner: the elemental planes of fire, earth, metal, water, wood, and air; the mortal galaxies of the Universe; and at the very core of this cosmological ensemble, the raw forces of creation and destruction of Creation’s Forge and the Void overlap the Universe.

Creation's ForgePlane

Subjective Gravity Unbounded Vitality 
Source GM Core pg. 175 2.0
Category Inner Sphere Planes
Divinities none
Native Inhabitants jyotis, shades (enlightened)
Creation’s Forge is at once the source of life-sustaining vitality energy, the origin of all pre-incarnate mortal souls, and paradoxically the most innately hostile of all of the planes. While vitality energy is deadly to undead and beneficial to living beings, such is the intensity of the plane that unmitigated exposure ultimately incinerates any extraplanar beings without sufficient magical protection. The most apt comparison for the plane’s interior is that of the heart of a burning star. Indeed, the stars of the Universe each house natural portals to Creation’s Forge within their glowing, potent cores to foster the movement of pre-incarnate souls in their first steps in the great cycle of life and death.

Brilliant and blinding, the plane’s interior is sparsely populated, and the resident phoenix-kin jyotis are intensely xenophobic. Dwelling in glimmering, radiant crystalline cities such as Arudrellisiir, they view themselves as gardeners and guardians of souls spawned from their realm’s burning quintessence. Intensely distrustful of gods and their servitors, jyotis can nonetheless be bargained with, and they’ve frequently taken into their custodianship any number of artifacts and imprisoned beings considered too dangerous to house on any other plane.

Plane of AirPlane

Air Subjective Gravity 
Source GM Core pg. 175 2.0
Category Inner Sphere Planes
Divinities elemental lords of air
Native Inhabitants air elementals, cloud dragons, jaathooms, shades (air pneuma)
The Plane of Air, innermost of the Elemental Planes, is a vast realm of wind, storms, and skies. Illuminated by great artificial globes of flame and distant starlight from the material universe, the plane is populated by air elementals, dragons, air scamps, and a great empire of jaathoom genies. Though mostly clouds and empty skies, the plane isn’t entirely bereft of solid ground, including rock and ice created by the residents or dragged into their realm from the distant Plane of Earth or neighboring Plane of Water. The returning pockets of the Plane of Wood have let loose giant pieces of driftwood into the plane as well. Bizarre, drifting spheres of brass and iron make for the most convenient navigational aids; the former housing the cities of the vast Jaathoom Empire, the latter almost entirely abandoned and shunned by the plane’s inhabitants, who believe them cursed, entrapping forgotten, ancient enemies who once ravaged the plane.

The jaathooms rule from their shining capital city of Armun Kelisk, built atop a series of seven floating islands. Their vast trade network crisscrosses the skies and ventures to other planes, kept aloft by natural and magical flight, including great airships that allow visitors to quickly and safely traverse the skies. The jaathooms are welcoming and gracious hosts to extraplanar travelers and adventurers, a perspective not shared by Hshurha the Duchess of All Winds, one of the elemental lords of air.

Plane of EarthPlane

Earth 
Source GM Core pg. 175 2.0
Category Inner Sphere Planes
Divinities elemental lords of earth, Nivi Rhombodazzle
Native Inhabitants crystal dragons, earth elementals, jabalis, shades (earth pneuma)
A great and rocky shell situated between the Plane of Fire and Plane of Water, the Eternal Delve hosts a unique and varied ecology of creatures at home in its rocky depths. Far from an endless, solid expanse, the Plane of Earth is riddled with great caverns and cave systems, excavated artificial vaults, vast crystalline geodes, and underground oceans and springs of magma where it borders its neighboring planes. Housing untold riches in gemstones and veins of precious metals, the Plane of Earth is an attractive setting for planar travelers seeking wealth and willing to risk danger and the wrath of elementals, jabalis, and other inhabitants who resent the plunder of their home.

While elementals have little organized society, the jabali genies’ Peerless Empire rules much of the plane from its capital, the Opaline Vault—a rainbow-lit city within a 30-mile-wide geode cavern. They brook little dissent, and their rule can be harsh. They’re downright welcoming, however, compared to Ayrzul the Fossilized King, the hated elemental lord of earth who rules a great expanse of rock from his radiation-poisoned domain, the Blistering Labyrinth.

Plane of FirePlane

Fire 
Source GM Core pg. 176 2.0
Category Inner Sphere Planes
Divinities elemental lords of fire, Feronia
Native Inhabitants fire elementals, ifrits, magma dragons, munsahirs, shades (fire pneuma)
Like a great, gleaming ball of flame situated at the heart of the Astral Plane, the Plane of Fire is the outermost plane of the Inner Sphere. A perpetual ocean of fire with skies of smoke, storms of raining cinders, and lakes and rivers of magma flowing along its border with the Elemental Plane of Earth, the plane is incredibly hostile to those unprepared for its natural hazards. Yet, it houses one of the most well-known and traversed cities in all the planes: Medina Mudii’a, capital of the Dominion of Flame. Floating above a sea of fire upon a great hemisphere of magical brass, Medina Mudii’a is a monument both to ifrits’ cosmopolitan grandeur and tyranny, the latter embodied by the grand sultana of the ifrits. Outside of the mercantile districts and the palaces and temples of the fire genies, the city houses a vast oppressed underclass, including creatures from other planes.

The ifrit domain isn’t absolute, and elsewhere in the plane are nations of fire scamps and the remains of an ancient munsahir empire. While they don’t form any cohesive, organized nations, the plane’s fire elementals are ruled over by the plane’s most powerful entity, Ymeri the Queen of the Inferno, the warlike elemental lord of fire whose reign has gone unquestioned since the imprisonment of her rival Atreia eons ago.

Plane of MetalPlane

Metal 
Source GM Core pg. 176 2.0
Category Inner Sphere Planes
Divinities elemental lords of metal
Native Inhabitants metal elementals, shades (metal pneuma), taloses, zuhras
After being cut off since prehistory, the Plane of Metal recently returned to the planar cosmology. Still resuming its ancient form, it wedges between the Plane of Earth and Plane of Water, vast in scope but still expanding. Metal of every kind (liquid and solid), decaying cityscapes, and intense magnetic fields make up the chaotic structure of the plane. Creatures reflect the jumble of forces that make their home. Many have fluid forms of flowing metal or inhabit clouds of rust. The genies of the plane, zuhras, put on bold performances keyed into the plane’s dissonance.

The elemental lords of metal embody the slow disintegration of their home. After an invasion by forces from the Plane of Earth before their plane was sealed off, the lords were dispirited and offered no clear vision for what their plane could be in the absence of the other planes of the Inner Sphere. Laudinmio, the Sovereign of Alchemy, remains in slumber, while Ferrumnestra, the Lady of Rust, treads under the weight of deep despair.

Plane of WaterPlane

Water 
Source GM Core pg. 176 2.0
Category Inner Sphere Planes
Divinities elemental lords of water
Native Inhabitants brine dragons, faydhaans, shades (water pneuma), water elementals
Beyond the skies of the Plane of Air, the roots of the newly regrown Plane of Wood are nurtured by the vast, spherical, liquid shell of the Plane of Water. Its nearly limitless stretches of saline, fresh, and brackish seas teem with all manner of oceanic life, lit by submerged suns and bioluminescence before descending into the black, benthic depths where the plane borders the Plane of Earth. While it’s perfectly amenable to water-breathing creatures, air-breathing travelers must provide their own supply of air or magical means to breathe while on the plane. Bubbles of breathable atmosphere are relatively rare and securely guarded, anchored over places of trade and commerce with outsiders, such as the great city of Vialesk, founded by immigrant undines. The plane’s oceans, dotted by vast forests of kelp, magical currents, and strange phenomena, play host to empires of merfolk, predatory and expansionist sea devils, and the holdings of the plane’s great brine dragons.

While faydhaans once claimed nearly absolute dominion over the plane of their origin, their empire long ago fell into deterioration and disunity. Their ravaged cities sank into the depths, and their present-day holdings remain a shadow of their former grandeur. Kelizandri the Brackish Emperor, the prideful elemental lord of water and cause of the genies’ ruin, rules the dark, saline depths, feasting on all rivals and hoarding the vast, stolen wealth of the fallen faydhaan cities—but the return of his counterpart Lysianassa, Empress of the Torrent, now threatens his hold on the plane. Unlike other subjective gravity planes, on the Plane of Water, a creature moves based on its swim Speed and must use actions to Swim if it doesn’t have one.

Plane of WoodPlane

Subjective Gravity Wood 
Source GM Core pg. 176 2.0
Category Inner Sphere Planes
Divinities elemental lords of wood
Native Inhabitants ardandes, forest dragons, kizidhars, kodama, shades (wood pneuma), wood elementals
The Plane of Wood recently returned to the planar cosmology after an absence of eons. Still rebuilding to its ancient splendor, it climbs between the Plane of Water and Plane of Air. Fractal tree growth, eternally tended and shaped by the plane’s inhabitants, stretches across the plane with dizzying symmetry. Creatures either enforce and augment this ordered growth or exist as a byproduct thereof. Some drop from the trees as discarded seeds given fresh life, while others chisel or cultivate creatures’ natural beauty to suit their aesthetic tastes. The genies of the plane, kizidhars, are artisans in this field.

The elemental lords of wood embody the often-paradoxical rigidity and pliancy of their element. When other planes of the Inner Sphere came under threat, the lords acted swiftly to seal off their home, protecting the plane and its residents—yet even in this, they’re said to have disagreed, and the two haven’t spoken in millennia. Shumunue, the Carved Lady of Mimicry, desperately searches for a cure for her great ailment, while Verilorn, Custodian of Oak and Ash, worries that ending the plane’s long isolation will lead to its ruin.

The UniversePlane


Source GM Core pg. 174 2.0
Category Inner Sphere Planes
Divinities Dominion of the Black, Gozreh
Native Inhabitants dwarves, elves, halflings, humans, gnomes, goblins, and countless other ancestries
The Universe is the prosaic realm and the home of mortal life. Innumerable galaxies play host to countless stars and their planets, each housing unique settings for any campaign, with Golarion as the classic example. Other worlds of note like Castrovel, Akiton, Triaxus, and Eox exist within Golarion’s own solar system, and then beyond this, orbiting other distant stars or in other galaxies still, worlds such as Androffa and even Earth swirl within the Universe’s vast and silent void.

Yet, for all the profound wonder and diversity of life that the Universe houses, in the dark places between the stars known as the Dark Tapestry, lurk the sinister collective of gods called the Dominion of the Black.

The Universe serves as the destination for pre-incarnate souls, each mortal life born, living, and dying before sending its spirit toward the planes of the Outer Sphere for judgment. The Universe is likewise the focus of the gods, each of whom is invested in fostering their own particular portfolio among mortal worshippers and the material world at large.

The VoidPlane

Subjective Gravity Unbounded Void 
Source GM Core pg. 175 2.0
Category Inner Sphere Planes
Divinities none
Native Inhabitants sceaduinars, wraiths, and other undead
The vast nothingness of the Void is a merciless, lightless expanse of manifest destruction and nihilism. Sapping and consuming the life force of any living creature exposed to its energies, it corrodes and disintegrates material objects to rubble, then dust, and then nothing at all, yet the Void contains its own form of anti-life. At their densest concentration, the plane’s energies aggregate into bizarre, black crystalline snowflake structures. These irregularities spontaneously generate the plane’s resident sceaduinars. Dwelling in beautiful, deadly cities drifting in the vacuous darkness, these so-called void raptors are incapable of true creation and blame this flaw on some ancient betrayal by their rivals in Creation's Forge. Sceaduinars react violently not only toward creatures sustained by vitality energy, but also toward undead, whom they view as unnatural parasites unworthy of their plane’s energies.

The black depths swarm with undead, creatures doomed to a mockery of life by the interaction of their souls with the plane’s entropic energy. For all the horrors posed by the Void’s environment, inhabitants, and undead victims, its depths nevertheless hide rare refuges for planar travelers. Malikar's Keep offers shelter, for a price, to those willing to bargain with its titular lich master. Elsewhere, the depths hide entire lost worlds, such as Fallen Duromak, and deadly mysteries like the planet-sized, undead-entrapping glass sphere, Eternity's Doorstep.