Physical Conditions - Mineral (TIP)

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The whole place is underground. There's no 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.
==Getting Here==
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 Out/ands-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.
==Hazards==
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? Oum 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 dwarfll tell ya that when you're mining, sound's more important than sight.
===Fossilization===
It turns 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 tum 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.
==Moving About==
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 	MINIMUM STRENGTH
1 	Packed Soil 	15
2-3 	Very Soft Rock	17
4-6 	Soft Rock 	19
7-8 	Hard Rock 	21
9-10 	Very 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 1 d4 hit points of damage. Each +1 of magical protection the traveler carries reduces this damage by 1 point (in increments of 1d3, ld2, and 1 [minimum)).