The Positive Energy Plane
“The Positive Energy Plane is the plane of life. It’s also called vim, vigor, life-energy, the soul, spirit, chi, chakra, or kundalini (and many more names as well). It’s the plane of cre- ation from which all things acquire their inherent beauty, If you're expecting a native of this plane to tell you the ins and outs, think again, berk. There’s nobody indigenous to Positive Energy to give you the chant, so you'll have to settle for me, Kansmaath Hugh, a planewalker who knows about as much of the place as anyone. I’ve actually been there, which is more than most planewalkers can say. l'Il give you the chant on the plane so you can avoid some of the dangers that just about got me lost.
But before I lann you, I gotta ask—why were you planning on going here in the first place? Are you sure you don’t want to think it over? Why do I ask? Well, let me begin....”
-Kansmaath Hugh,
The Positive Energy Plane is the plane of life. It’s also called vim, vigor, life-energy, the soul, spirit, chi, chakra, or kundalini (and many more names as well). It’s the plane of cre- ation from which all things acquire their inherent beauty, value, and very existence.
That's why planewalkers always get this plane all wrong. They don’t think they have to worry about survival in a place like this. It’s probably the most peaceful, nurturing place in all the multiverse, right? Nope. See, the plane’s filled with so much of this vibrant, energizing force that any- body coming here gets quickly overwhelmed and overloaded. Too much energy, even energy bursting and seething with life, is just as bad as none at all. The fragile phys- ical bodies of most berks just can’t handle the influx of energy and quickly explode. A body can only describe the energy of the plane as vibrant and full of life. From this plane, all life in the multiverse (there’s probably an exception, but I don’t know about it} gets its spark. When a newborn comes into the multiverse, the fragile begin- ning of life originates here. When a wizard or priest creates a magical automaton and brings it to life, he gets the power from here. The tiny germ at the center of a seed that'll grow into a mighty oak originally came from here.
Like the name implies, this entire plane's one big (that is to say, infinitely so—the mass of energy. There’s no terrain, no water, no sky—nothing but energy. There’s no ground upon which to stand or build a shelter. Even pockets of other ele- ments are blasted into tiny particles as soon as they arrive in the plane, so there're no handy spheres of air or chunks of earth to use as a resting place. The plane has no gravity, so there’s nothing to orient a basher at all.
‘Course, getting from place to place on a plane where the places don’t really matter (there really aren’t any) doesn’t mean much. Moving around’s not really a body’s main concern in the plane of Positive Energy. Survival is.
The Powerful and Mighty
Now, while a body can’t swing a dead tiefling without hit- ting a power that supposedly rules over the force of life and creation, a body won't find any of them living here. Why? Same reason I don’t live here—the energy’s just too much. Even gods can’t handle it.
Here’s an interesting piece of chant, however. The powers do visit this plane. When the gods create something living (and they’re always doing that, it seems), they come to the plane of Positive Energy to gather up the necessary power to pour it into the creature. Supposedly, they call this plane the Life Well (though any berk who claims to have gotten this from a god's barmy for sure). Some mortal bloods do the same thing to create certain magical beings—the ones a step above golems and other automatons.
Creatures & Denizens
For a plane of life, there’s not much living here. Nevertheless, life always finds a way (they say), and so a couple of creatures call the Positive Energy Plane their home. There’s chant going around that the Positive and Negative Energy Planes have elemental creatures linked with them just like the Elemental Planes. I'll let somebody else rattle their bone-box about Negative Energy, but I can tell you that the idea of a positive energy elemental’s just screed. Think about it a minute, berk. This ain't no Elemental Plane. Why’d you expect there to be elementals here? No one expects Arcadian elementals or Baatorian elementals, right?
ENERGY BEINGS
The closest thing to an elemental in this plane’s a creature called a xag-ya. It’s an energy being of unknown origins with a negative counterpart called a xeg-yi. These entities’re so foreign to the minds of most cutters that a body just can’t understand them at all—not what they do or why they do it. A planewalker's got a better chance of reasoning with a slaad than communicating with a xag-ya. Here’s some valuable advice, though: Don’t assume that because it’s a creature of life energy that it's goodnatured or helpful. These things’re so far beyond understanding that they might kill a body before they even realize he’s there.
RAVIDS
Like the xag-ya, the ravid lives in this plane and is composed entirely of positive energy. The ravid really carries this to an extreme, however, because rather than destroying matter it comes in contact with (although it can do that too), it imbues lifeless objects with life. A canny basher’ll avoid these creatures (even though they don’t seem to consciously inflict their power on the things they come across), or else his sword’ll start acting on its own and his shoes’ll go where they please.
Hazards & Phenomena
The energy that makes up the entirety of the plane is the chief hazard, though it takes some leatherheads a while to tumble to that. “Positive energy can’t be bad,” they say. Wrong. A traveler gains 2d6 hit points per round spent unprotected within the plane. For the wounded, it’s free and quick healing. Even those folks fit and fine gain the hit points as extra vigor that's added to their normal total lasts 2d10 turns if he leaves the plane. This becomes a problem when adding on the additional hp doubles the berk’s total. Then, as quick as a sword stroke, the sod’s blasted into invisible gobbets of pulverized flesh as his soul flames, overloaded with positive energy, consuming him from within. It’s not a pretty sight, believe me. Equipment and all manner of physical objects face the same fate if taken to this plane. Everything taken to this plane, unless it’s magical, must make a saving throw vs. disintegration or be dispersed into its component elements.
Fortunately, there’s protection available. A version of the spell negative plane protection called, ingeniously, positive plane protection keeps a body’s soul from being over- whelmed by the influx of energy by shielding the cutter and his belong- ings from the plane’s energy altogether.
BREATHING
Breathing in this Energy Plane, where there’s no air at all, can be a major difficulty. Now, I say “can” because sometimes it ain't. The dark of it is that an unprotected cutter, while she’s absorbing the ambient energy of the plane, doesn’t need to worry about suffocation. Even though she’s unable to breathe, the plane’s energy repairs any damage suffered by her lungs, brain, and whatnot from a lack of air. The plane’s energy’s enough to sustain her (food and water aren't really necessary, either, for the same reasons). Now, she might still feel like she can’t breathe, and that takes some get- ting used to...
While under the influence of a spell that protects a body from the energy of the plane, a blood’s suddenly got to worry about breathing. Spells based on the water breathing model (change a traveler's body so he can breathe whatever makes up the environment) or the airy water model (change whatever the environment is to something a body can breathe) don’t work here, ‘cause the energy can't be changed into anything. Thus, a traveler who likes breathing might be wise to bring along his own air or do without.
VISION AND SENSES
Once you're protected against the energy and have figured out how to breathe, now you've got to worry about the havoc the plane’s energy can play upon a visitor’s senses. The brilliant miasma of power here’ll blind a sod’s eyes instantly if they're not protected. The best way to protect your eyes is the simple, trusty blindfold. Darkness magic’s snuffed out right quick by the power of the plane. Those who can somehow still see through the blinding light or while blindfolded still can’t perceive much beyond 100 feet since the energy’s so intense. Hearing’s not affected much, but most folks tell tales of being able to sense more by touch than usual. An experienced blood can use such a heightened sense to make up for his lost vision (a Wisdom check at -6 allows a cutter to sense movement within 25 feet of him while in this plane by sense of touch alone). Unfortunately, spells inflicting sensations (like a symbol of pain) double in effectiveness in the Positive Energy Plane due to enhanced sense of touch.
COMBAT
Combat can be really interesting here. First off, the plane heals all wounds—some folks say it’s time that does that, but I know it's positive energy (that’s a joke, berk). Anyhow, it’s true that a body that gets nicked finds himself flooded with ositive energy and suddenly he’s as good as new. Now, if a blood’s got himself protected from the normal energy surge of the plane, he’ll find himself without this particular advan- tage. That’s why some canny basher figured out a way to ower the protection momentarily to let healing energy in when he got wounded. Here’s how it’s done:
A protected basher makes a Dexterity ability check. If successful, that means he’s quick enough to give it a try quickness is important, because if the protection’s down for more than just a moment, it’s gone for good). Next, he makes a Wisdom ability check to maintain control over the protec- tion while it’s down—like making sure the dam doesn’t break when the gates are temporarily opened. If both checks are successful, the sod gains 2d6 hp, doesn’t lose his protection, and the whole thing takes only a single round. If the first check fails, nothing happens at all and the time’s wasted. If the second check fails, the protection fails, overwhelmed by the onslaught of energy, and then the sod’s subject to the full power of the plane.
Mysterious Sites & Treasures
Why would non-natives visit the Plane of Fire? To plunder its treasures and secrets of course! Countless millennia of inhabitants and civilizations have created many legends of lost magic to lure the greedy or foolish to an early grave.
The Fortress of Life
There’s only one site here, but the fact that one exists at all is really something in and of itself, if you think about it. I’ve really gotta admire the tenacity of a cutter named Feadal Didam-Hurus (Pl/? human/C10/ Transcendent Order/N), who finally finished her citadel, the Fortress of Life, here in the plane of Positive Energy.
Feadal used powerful spells and magical items gathered from the farthest corners of the planes to keep her fortress intact against the onrush of positive energy. Anyone within this structure, which includes three towers and a central keep, gains protection from all aspects of the plane. Even normal vision is possible and safe within its walls, although most visitors still find the place overwhelmingly bright.
In the Fortress of Life, Feadal keeps the lifepearis she’s gathered. To hear her tell the tale, there’re places within the plane where the chakra energy gathers more closely than in other spots. In these far-flung locales, positive energy com- presses into concentrated a focal point like sand and grit in an oyster compress into a pearl. She calls these round, translucent bits of concentrated life energy lifepearis.
Lifepearls can be taken off the plane and used to heal the hurt and sick and even restore the dead. Each has the powers of a staff of curing and a rod of resurrection with 4d 10 charges (but the lifepearl shatters in a 5d6 fireball upon the expenditure of all its “charges”}. Feadal believes them to be much more than simple healing trinkets, and instead the seeds from which entire races, species, worlds, and even possibly planes are born. She likes to call them “concentrated creation.” Thus, Feadal believes them to be the most potent objects in all the multiverse, and she guards them well. Chant has it that both the xag-ya and the ravids appear to value the lifepearls as well.
Lay of the Land
The plane of Positive Energy is said to be the mother of all life. That's because the radiation of this bright realm gives animation to all living things. Despite this service to the multiverse, however, Positive Energy is an empty void. Physical matter has no place here.
There are few bashers strong enough to survive in this plane. The natural life-giving properties of positive energy can quickly overwhelm any creature, destroying it utterly. Many graybeards speculate that creatures annihilated in this fashion are actually elevated to a new status of being, but there’s no easy way to test that theory—at least, not safely.
Cycle of Time
Time exists here but it isn't marked by solar activity.
Surviving
As far as spellcasting goes, spells that cause damage of any type cause the minimum amount possible. No spell key can rectify this, simply because mages haven’t spent enough time on the plane to create one!
If a body needs great healing or a magical item recharged (usually, magical items involving healing), he can come to the Positive Energy Plane—as long as it’s a real short trip. Even then, coming here's a big risk and there’s probably a better means of accomplishing the task somewhere else (it’s a big multiverse).
Getting There
Getting to this plane’s probably about the hardest thing a body’! ever do. Oh, a cutter reads now and again about some place that doesn’t have many portals or paths lead- ing to it, but the real dark is that they don’t have a thing on the plane of Positive Energy. There just aren’t many ways to get here. No one’s going to intentionally set up a means to come to the plane (there's not much reason to, a body’s got to admit), and those who find a “natural” portal leading here probably won't consider it valu- able enough to even make note of it.
Lots of top-shelf planewalkers don’t know this, but most plane-traveling magical items like cubic gates, staves of the magi, amulets of the planes, and whatnot have specific fail-safes built in that make it impossible to wind up in this plane (and probably the Negative Energy Plane as well).
The only real way to reach this plane is by a spell such as plane shift or by the really hard way— traveling all the way through one of the positive quasiplanes until a body hits the border—and who knows how long that could take?
Traveling Around
The only way to move around is to literally “swim” through the energy, which doesn’t let a body get anywhere very fast (half normal swimming movement rate). The real way to get anywhere is to just think of a location. That’s it. Just think of a location in the plane and before he knows it, a basher's there. Instant teleportation. Walls and whatnot don’t mean much in this plane.
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