The Astral Reach Setting

Astral Reach is a custom setting that was born in the summer of 2018. It is loosely inspired by many sources, and multiple friends of mine have assisted in its creation.

Like in most D&D campaigns, your characters will be living in a world that contains heavens, hells, places of turmoil and chaos, and places that are safe and secure. The unique thing about this setting is that there is not a traditional "Planescape" - that is to say, there aren't the same sort of 4th-dimensional boundaries between different planes of existence.

The planes of this world are scattered, all floating in a 4-dimensional space known as the Astral Reach, or the Astral Sea. Imagine a model of a solar system: a central star, with many planets orbiting at different distances. Some of these planets have moons, and some smaller moons or rocks orbit the star itself, independent of the planets. This is a good model to picture the Reach and the movement of its components. However, the planets, moons, central star, and even the space between them aren't like our own reality in most ways.

* **The Astral Sea.** What would, for us, be the empty vacuum of outer space is instead a nebulous and magical void. The Astral Sea has no measurable air, but air- and water-breathing creatures seem to be able to breathe normally. Currents of magic, visible only through specialized instruments, run through the void in patterns unaffected by orbital mechanics. The Sea has a form of weather - astral storms and winds - which appear like swirling and slightly luminous mist that can shimmer in different colors. Strange creatures can be sighted too, natives of the Reach, feeding on the mist or the magical streams or on other living creatures. Gravity functions as it would in our own reality, so ships traversing the Reach are usually equipped with enchantments to simulate gravity.
* **The Sun / The Void Gate.** In the center of the 'solar system' there is a lightless void, much like a black hole. No matter what angle it is viewed from, this void is always surrounded by an enormous ring of blazing light. This has always been known as the "sun", though religious groups and some scholars call it "the Void Gate" instead. It exerts enough gravitational pull to keep the system orbiting in its current state, but it does not burn with heat. Many ships have attempted to explore it, and none have returned.
* **Planes.** The 'planets' in our model appear from a distance to be spherical bodies of water or glass, shimmering brightly with light cast from the sun. This sphere is the "sphere of influence". When venturing closer, or when viewed from a telescope, these bodies seem more like large marbles or lenses, showing a distorted image of a landmass as if looking through the eyes of a seabird flying in towards the coast. The closer one gets, the clearer and less distorted this image becomes, until you pass through the sphere of influence and into the sky above the landmass. Flying turns to gentle falling, and the void below you becomes the sea. Magial analysis confirms that each 'marble' is essentially a plane of its own, separate from the Astral Sea. Some scholars have been using the term "planet" to refer to them, but the term is shunned by the majority of sentient creatures and academics.
* **Moons / Islands.** Every plane has at least one moon orbiting it. These appear to behave just like any plane in the Reach, in terms of traveling in and out of their spheres of influence. They are also known as "demiplanes". The landmass/landmasses within a moon's sphere usually appear like islands surrounded by ocean, making "island" a popular name for them also.
* **Islet** refers to an island that isn't orbiting a planet, but instead orbits the sun. These vary in size, and sometimes interact in strange ways with astral storms.

## The Conflagration

There are many unexplored planes and islets in the sea, and the recorded history of the Reach is relatively short (spanning about a millenium). The modern era began with a terrible raid known as the Conflagration, where monsters and skyships descended upon the inhabited planes with fire and magic, and just as quickly vanished without a trace. Since that dark day, the people of the Material Planes have been researching and inventing, venturing out to the Astral Sea to explore and grow stronger, lest they be caught unprepared again.

## Technology

Perhaps, say some, the Conflagration was a blessing in disguise. Technology has flourished since that day, and modern conveniences make city life safe and easy. Each plane has developed skyships of their own, and the smartest of the inventors of the realms have built huge starports that orbit one plane's sphere or another. Research into permanent inter-planar teleportation magic is in full swing.

Steam and clockwork machines, invented by gnomes and other brilliant minds, provide constant energy that can heat water, create light, dig tunnels, and lift payloads without the use of magic. Clockwork cannons, rifles, and pistols are employed by any ship traveling the Reach that cannot afford the more expensive (but more effective) experimental Fireball cannons. New advances in Golemancy use magic and clockwork combined to create animated constructs that can perform simple tasks, interpret humanoid speech, and even give simple replies. Artificers and Mechromancers are in high demand throughout the material planes.

Technology of this sort is omnipresent in trade cities throughout the realms, but rural and remote settings still have not fully embraced the modern wonders - whether by choice, or because they simply don't have the wealth or the need for large infrastructure development.

Perhaps the most useful invention is the ***scry-glass***, also known as a "magic mirror". These come in varying shapes and sizes, but all feature a glass pane seeming to be filled with murky, swirling smoke. A creature looking into a scry-glass can contact the holder of another glass, provided that they have met their target or know the arcane symbol sequence identifying their target's glass. Each glass then shows the other holder's head and shoulders, allowing for face-to-face conversation. There are not yet public scry-glasses available in any realm, but many scry-glass messaging services exist which can convey messages in a sort of postal system across the Reach, for a small fee.

## The Dangers of the World

Despite all the technological progress, most of the land within each realm remains untamed. The broken realm of Seiyance in particular is a testament to this; civilization may carve out its place in the world, but it will be a very very long time before the wilderness poses no significant threat to it. All major cities in the realms are extremely defensible, and outside of the civilized portions travelers can expect to encounter monstrosities and beasts that can kill in a single blow.

The ocean may be safer than the wilds, especially near the coast, but even that has its dangers. The waters that surround most realms have no defined borders that separate them from the starry void. Many aberrations are rumored to lurk within the water, creatures that were born there in the borderlands, coming in towards shore to seize prey in the dead of night.

Even the Astral Reach itself is not safe, for great creatures the size of islets roam the stars - dreadnoughts, titans, krakens, and the like. Few ships have brought back tales of anything of the sort, but that only means (say the sailors in the taverns) that once you can see those beasts, it is already too late.

## The Balance

The wilderness-dwellers of the realms, in particular those in Vander, believe that the technological revolution is cause for concern. The delicate balance of the magical forces of the planes is being disrupted by mining, building, destruction of forests, killing of animals, and binding of elemental magics to golems and other magical constructs. No civilization concerns them more than the Vandrin Empire, for they are at the forefront of the revolution.