Catacomb
by AshtagonCab Davidson wrote:
We know from Dragon that Limbo resides kind of proximally the Prime, as a place perhaps between Entropy and reality.And we know from the 2nd ed AD&D book Chronomancer that Temporal Prime exists alongside the Prime, its the conceptual space by which time magic works. Another reality.
So there are two spheres with their own reality underscore.
Might the assorted Spirit Realms be further exemplifications of this, linked to thought or matter? Are there underpinning realities based on the other three spheres?
Catacomb is a kind of halfway house for souls who spent their life in service to the immortals of the Sphere of Matter. The plane is entirely underground, illuminated by a combination of fluorescent moss in some places and in others by narrow shafts of light descending from impossibly tight passages in the rock ceiling overhead. Here, everything is much more "real" and permanent. The most notable planar effects are:
1) No one ever suffers from lack of sustenance. Hunger, thirst, and dehydration, are all impossible. Characters also cannot suffer from lack of fresh air (for example, in an enclosed room with no fresh air source). While characters might experience mild discomfort and be aware at an intellectual level that they haven't tended to these needs, they will not come to any actual harm from these. This also protects characters from weaponised forms of these conditions, such as magical dehydration.
2) Sleep is still required by those who would normally require it. Fatigue and exhaustion caused by excessive physical activity or lack of sleep will continue to apply, and while characters can breathe normally in "stale" air, they still require air; drowning is possible, smoke and poison gas will cause harm, and characters cannot breathe in a vacuum. Characters can always choose to eat and drink normally; potions function normally.
3) Illusion magic is suppressed. In 3.pf terms, illusion school magic is Suppressed (Concentration check DC 20 + spell level). However, rather than failing outright, the illusion is very obviously fake (visuals wavy and indistinct, sounds are wrong or varying pitch, voices are "off", tactile illusions have a spongy surface with little real solidity rather than the expected surface, and so on).
Despite the name of the plane, undead are actually quite rare. The majority of the "native population" appears to be golems, rock-based monsters (such as ropers), earth elementals, and unintelligent reptiles. Dotted here and there, small communities of once-living souls (stats similar to those in Limbo) exist. Without need for sustenance, they spend most of their time decorating and enlarging their villages, or working on ways of progressing to a "truer", more real, afterlife.