13.8 Spiritual Planes

The five Spiritual Planes are manifestations of the five core alignments. Elysium is good-aligned, the Abyss is evil-aligned, Concord is law-aligned, Monody is chaos-aligned, and Haven is neutral-aligned. They are made from essentia, the substance left behind when souls decompose. This makes them much more malleable than the Material Plane.

Essentia responds to the will exerted by creatures with souls. This is how deities form their divine dominions, which can have arbitrary and impossible rules and physics. Even ordinary creatures, such as the souls of mortals living out their afterlife, can create smaller changes in the world around them. As a result, individual regions within each Spiritual Plane can have widely varied traits that do not match that Spiritual Plane as a whole.

Each Spiritual Plane has roughly the same usable space as the surface of a planet, though they can have vastly different shapes.

13.8.1 Elysium

Elysium is a beautiful and majestic world. It is shaped like a shallow bowl. The concave side is significantly more populated, and it is what most people think of when they imagine Elysium. Mountains rise dramatically out of misty clouds, trees are massive and laden with delicious fruit, and buildings surpass the wildest dreams of mortal architects. A serene blue sky gives way to a night so lit by stars that it is almost as bright as the day. Because of the world’s bowl-like structure, you can see the majestic landscape spread out in every direction even from flat ground, and the view from mountains is breathtaking.

The underside of Elysium is wreathed in fog and an endless tranquil twilight. It is a place for contemplation, serenity, and isolation.

Mortal souls inhabiting Elysium are guided and assisted by the choirs. The choirs refer collectively to all of the seraphim, cherubim, angels, archangels, and other benevolent creatures native to Elysium.

Elysium has the following nonstandard realm traits:

• Gravity: Absolute directional. At any location on the plane, gravity pulls towards the bowl’s core, so creatures can walk normally on the bowl from any location. If you were exactly between the top and bottom of the bowl at any point along its breadth, you would not experience gravity. However, there are no natural tunnels that reach that deep below the surface.
• Light: Fixed and mobile sources. The "top" of the plane has a false sun that travels through the sky each day, creating day/night cycles like the Material Plane. At night, the stars so plentiful and bright that the world is almost as bright as the day. The bottom of the plane has enough stars to generate shadowy illumination.

13.8.2 The Abyss

The Abyss is a desolate and brutal plane. It consists of cliffs surrounding a deep central pit. The highest point of the cliffs, and their back faces, extend out into the Astral Expanse. The cliffs are jagged and broken, with large cliff shelves between elevation changes that are relatively flat. Divine dominions often take advantage of those areas, and some cliff shelves can hold entire countries.

New mortal souls generally arrive at the bottom of the pit. This gives them safety in numbers from demons and other threats, but conditions are crowded and unpleasant, so most mortals climb the cliffs to find better opportunities. Higher elevations are generally higher status, though some powerful creatures choose to live closer to the base of the pit.

With the exception of the great palaces of the Lords of the Abyss, most buildings that exist are designed for defense rather than aesthetics. The terrain is typically rocky and dull, and most of the color belongs to carcasses left behind after violent battles. All manner of nightmarish creatures stalk the Abyss. The best known of these creatures are demons and devils.

Demons are soulforged creatures that echo the emotions of mortal souls that enter the Abyss. They are chaotic creatures that are driven entirely by the primal emotion that birthed them. This makes them functionally insane, and they are almost always driven to lash out at everything around them. Rage-born demons violently attack anything they see, pain-born demons try to lessen their pain by sharing it, and so on. Some demons are naturally spawned in reaction to mortal souls, but others are intentionally created and directed by evil deities.

Demons generally avoid attacking other demons, since they can find no gratification for their urges in attacking soulless creatures. Instead, they hunt creatures with complete souls, which generally means attacking the afterlife bodies of evil-aligned creatures who went to the Abyss for their afterlife. If they have access to ordinary mortal, they eagerly hunt them, as they are generally easier prey. Demonic incursions into other planes are devastating but fortunately rare.

Unlike demons, devils are lawful creatures with a functioning society. Devil-run cities are isolated enclaves in the general chaos of the Abyss, and many mortal souls choose to live there. The laws there are not necessarily fair or ethical, but they are scrupulously followed. Devils are far less numerous than demons, since they cannot simply spawn accidentally like demons do. Instead, every devil must be intentionally created.

Since most devils do not have souls, this requires the intervention of creatures with souls. This generally means that devils must make deals with mortals or deities. They do that when they can, since the more servants a devil has, the greater their power. The greatest prize for a devil is to gain mastery over a mortal soul. They can use its ability to manipulate essentia to create powerful servants or reshape their home in the Abyss to their liking. This makes powerful devils common soulkeepers, and they seek out votives wherever possible.

Some powerful devils leave the devil-run cities to establish their own territory. This generally requires that they must already have control of multiple mortal souls, or their territory could be reshaped by any passing mortal. A devil that can establish its own territory gains the title of Lord of the Abyss, and it is a title that almost all devils desperately crave.

The Abyss has the following nonstandard realm traits:

• Gravity: Fixed directional. Gravity pulls towards the side of the plane with the deep pit.
• Light: Fixed. A blood-red orb hovers directly over the central pit above the highest cliffs, casting bright illumination throughout the plane.

13.8.3 Concord

Concord is a hollow cube that is divided into a myriad of different levels and rooms. The cube is made from hardened essentia that functions like pure adamantine, except that it is self-healing when damaged and cannot be removed from the plane. Although it can bend to exceptionally strong-willed souls, it returns to its original shape and structure when not actively controlled. The boundaries of the cube are precisely aligned with the extent of the plane itself, so anything standing on the outside of the cube would be in the Astral Expanse. Each level and room is organized in a consistent way, making navigation easy once you understand the system. The center of each level is a transit hub containing stairs, mechanical lifts, and magical portals to make travel easier.

Each level has its own rules, which are clearly explained in every language at that level’s transit hub. Individual rooms often have their own additional rules, which may or may not be clearly communicated. They can be as large as countries or as small as closets. Large rooms often contain natural elements, such as forests or lakes, with ecosystems that are carefully kept in balance. Corridors run through the levels to facilitate travel between rooms, except for rooms which are intentionally isolated. Although Concord itself has no intrinsic light source, its corridors are generally well-lit by magical lights, and rooms often have their own lighting.

Concord is administered and inhabited by the moirai, who are soulforged native to that plane. Each moirai is an impartial arbiter and embodiment of a specific concept, directive, or material fact. Lesser moirai represent extremely specific or obscure concepts, while greater moirai represent universal truths or fundamental forces. Constructs called telos enforce the decisions of moirai and the rules of Concord.

Concord has the following nonstandard realm traits:

• Gravity: Fixed directional. Gravity pulls towards the bottom of the cube.

13.8.4 Monody

Monody is a constantly shifting plane. Even its core shape contorts and changes over time. It could be a hollow sphere where everyone lives on the inside, a torus twisting around itself, a collection of small spheres, or anything else.

The essentia comprising all Spiritual Planes is malleable to some degree, but Monody is the easiest to control. Even relatively weak-willed mortals can still bend the landscape around them to suit their desires. The real challenge is in making your changes permanent. Beyond actively shaped spaces, the terrain is constantly changing. In a matter of hours, a field might grow trees that are consumed by a forest fire before vast chasms open up and consume their charred remains.

The native inhabitants of Monody are called proteans. They are amorphous creatures that can freely reshape their bodies. Individual proteans tend to have forms they prefer to use. Proteans can feel mortals attempting to change them in the same way that mortals can shape inanimate essentia, though they can ignore those commands. Sometimes proteans choose to act like terrain for a while as part of their own games.

Fae are not native to Monody, but it is not uncommon to find them there. They enjoy its malleable nature, and its constant change helps fight their tendency to become bored.

Monody has the following nonstandard realm traits:

• Gravity: Subjective. The difficulty value to change your gravity on Monody is 0 instead of the normal 10.
• Light: Mobile source. The number of lights, and their color and direction, are highly variable. They usually provide bright illumination, and less commonly provide shadowy or brilliant illumination.

13.8.5 Haven

Haven is a stable spherical planet. Its basic structure resembles Nexus, though it is smaller and has no moon. It has a wide variety of biomes, and is generally peaceful and has a place for anyone.

Unlike the other Spiritual Planes, Haven has no native inhabitants. However, it has more mortal souls than any other Spiritual Plane, so there are still cities for those who prefer the company of others.

Haven has the following nonstandard realm traits:

• Light: Mobile source. A glowing orb orbits the planet, mimicking the sun as viewed from Haven.