Danger and possibility collide noisily in the primordial soup known as the Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo. Raw elements pulled from across the Inner Planes bubble, transform, and shift through the raw expressions of chance and chaos. It isn’t evil, it isn’t good, it’s just untamed chaos, churning forever.

It’s not just the physical properties of Limbo that exhibit the traits of pure chaos. Opportunity and chance play as much of a role in the plane’s makeup, a surprising fact that is lost on many travelers. The odds of running into another traveler in an infinite plane like Limbo are normally astronomical, but there, visitors can expect to encounter other creatures more than half the time. Items malfunction only to fix themselves amidst the swirling soup spontaneously.

Soup is the best word to describe Limbo's physical properties. It has no gravity, though pockets of elemental power move about like ingredients in a stew: thick in some areas, thin in others. The broth is a swirling kaleidoscope of muted colors and sensations, wet and thick and dry and oozy at the same time. Everything in Limbo moves naturally according to an unknown whim, including sentient creatures. Regular physical movement against the primordial soup is near impossible.

But the will of creatures can be imposed on the area around them, stabilizing matter and pushing back the soup. The effect is similar to that of the Astral Plane, where a creature's mind affects how fast and far they move, but in Limbo, it’s taken to an extreme. Movement without mental command is impossible against the unbending will of pure chaos.

Monsters of a wide variety swim through Limbo, most adapting spontaneously to the changes around them. Kleeltarns are massive octopi-like behemoths that absorb the chaotic energy and transmute it through their many arms, while flavabeeks have wings, webbed feet, scales, and a fish tail they use to snap up unsuspecting prey. The proto-ooze is the purest expression of chaos amongst Limbo's creatures.

Limbo is known for its two primary inhabitants, however. The first are the slaadi, great toad-like monsters that exist only to feed. They scavenge across Limbo in nomadic bands, owing allegiance to none and expecting none in return, though their defined hierarchy sorts out power and ability by color. They are ruthless creatures capable of savage acts of barbarism, but some can be trusted. Deciding which and when can be difficult, however.

The githzerai are the other species closely associated with Limbo. Unlike the slaadi, githzerai are not natives to the plane, instead having been transplanted from their original homes during the uprising against the mind flayers that held them as slaves. When they broke free under the leadership of Gith, two factions split off along ideologically different lines. The savage and bloodthirsty githyanki retreated to the Astral Plane, while the contemplative and pacifist githzerai found solace in Limbo. Great monasteries have been built to honor the most powerful teachers of the githzerai, and they all strive to stop the machinations of their evil cousins on the Astral Plane and mind flayers everywhere.

Along with its dangerous or just bizarre inhabitants, Limbo offers many fascinating sights and treasures to lure planar travelers across the multiverse. The halls of the College of Chance run by the Seekers of Xaos hold great volumes of lore and legend, while the Font of Reckless Magic is said to be the source of wild magic across the multiverse. The disembodied Trass Tarr floats in his mindcylinder while slaadi protect their eternal Spawning Stone from intruders.

Getting There

More than any other plane in the multiverse, portals and gates to Limbo appear randomly and are rarely reliable. Sometimes, the portals simply cease to function, or the key that worked to open it previously no longer functions.

Traveling Around

Physical movement in the gravityless plane of Limbo is a mental act. A creature can move up to its walking speed in any direction by merely thinking of the desired direction of travel, imposing its will upon the plane to move them. Native creatures of Limbo, such as flavabeeks, flux wurms, and primal elementals, can use whatever form of movement they choose – swimming, flying, or walking – to move about the plane.

Chaos storms, elemental collisions, and random transmutations are constant and unpredictable threats within Limbo. The chances of luck and fate are greatly extended in the chaotic plane, so the odds of running into another creature are much higher than one would assume for an infinite plane of primordial soup.

Vision in Limbo is limited to 500 feet, which is usually lit by the dim radiance of the proto-matter floating around. There are no permanent landmarks and all things shift, swim, and float about, never staying in one place. The githzerai have found a way around this through the use of black stone obelisks in their fortress cities and monasteries, which allow archons and other powerful denizens to attune to the obelisks location and then travel to the desired site.

Distances between sites are incredibly variable, as everything moves about on its own accord. The only exception to that rule is the Spawning Stone and the githzerai fortress city of Shra’ktl’or. These two locations are never less than 1,000 miles away from each other, and usually much further than that.

Lay of the Land

Limbo has no defined layers; instead, it spontaneously grows them as its chaotic whim demands. There is up and down, no north and south, which makes maps less than useless and directions pointless. Nonetheless, planar scholars have endeavored to classify Limbo over the centuries, and to that end, many have settled on the concept of splitting the plane into three vaguely defined “layers” – the Storm Eternal, the Sea Infinite, and the Elsewhere, defined largely by their primary inhabitants.

Functionally, however, there is no difference between these “layers" and they exist solely as academic classifications. There are no borders between the three regions, and no creature or native inhabitant refers to their names, though it can be helpful when speaking with other travelers and scholars to use the terms as common reference points.

The Storm Eternal and Sea Infinite are both defined by their central features, and in other planes, these would be simply referred to as domains or regions. Limbo has no rules around such classifications, but the relative stabilizing effect of the githzerai fortresses and the Spawning Stone of the slaadi offers some measure of distinction.

Storm Eternal

The Storm Eternal is the region of Limbo planar scholars define largely by housing the githzerai and their various monasteries and fortress cities. The wild unpredictable landscape is marked by more than a few stable regions, usually the home of the githzerai or other powerful creatures that have imposed their will upon the primordial soup.

Shra’kt’lor, greatest and most prominent of the githzerai fortress cities, forms the stabilizing center of the Storm Eternal. Other monasteries and sites lay scattered about, floating in the proto-sea of elemental power and pure chaos, but the mentally powerful githzerai keep a psychic link open between all of the sites to maintain communication lines in the face of dangers and threats.

Sea Infinite

“Below” and “above” are terms that don't apply in Limbo, but if they did, the Sea Infinite would be below the Storm Eternal. This churning, seething cauldron of primordial protomatter is marked mainly as the birthplace of the slaadi. The Spawning Stone’s presence defines the Sea Infinite in the same way the githzerai fortresses define the Storm Eternal.

The Spawning Stone itself forms the hub of slaadi life, as the creatures are drawn to it at least once in their lifetime to continue the species outside of the chest-egg laying procedure they inflict on non-slaadi. The stone itself is massive and riddled with tunnels, within which are said to dwell the Slaad Lords. Few in the multiverse have dealt with these powerful agents of chaos, who are said to be unlike normal slaadi.

Elsewhere

Everywhere in Limbo that isn't near the githzerai or slaadi territories is considered Elsewhere by planar scholars. It moves, churns, flows, falls, flies, slumps, and every other word for movement, changing from one to another quickly and without warning. Monsters of all kinds prowl Elsewhere, which includes slaadi and githzerai, and chance and randomness collide as often as the fragments of elemental matter.