The Quasielemental Plane of Steam
(The response to this rather...unique narrator’s report in the book entitled “Faces of Evil” was so overwhelming that I felt compelled to call upon him to detail a section of this volume. Though his mannerisms are often odd, his information is always reliable.—the Editor)
Hello, mortals! It is time now for you to learn about the plane of Steam from Xanxost. Xanxost is a slaad. What is a slaad doing in the Inner Planes? No one knows. Xanxost knows! Hunting mephits! Mmmm...mephits.
After many trips to the Inner Planes, Xanxost knows all there is to know about the Inner Planes. First, there is the plane of Fire, where...wait. Xanxost is only to speak of the plane of Steam.
Steam is the Quasielemental Plane between the Elemental Plane of Water and the Positive Energy Plane. This open, airy void is filled entirely with wisps and clouds of mist and steam. Most people think that Steam is hot, but that is wrong—it is cool, like mist. Cold, clammy mist that clings to the skin of someone traveling through the plane of Steam, seeping into everything and making it damp and wet.
Xanxost has traveled all over the plane of Steam, even to where it touches other planes. Near the plane of Water, the misty air gets so thick with liquid that the plane really seems more like bubbly water. As Xanxost moved across the plane toward Positive Energy, the water droplets became smaller and smaller, forming clouds of mist, and finally just wisps. Nearest the plane of Positive Energy, the tiny droplets of water sparkle with a radiance all their own.
The Quasielemental Plane of Mineral shares a border with the plane of Steam in a region called the Shard Forest. Here, crystals float among the clammy clouds of steam and mist, ranging in size from miniscule to gargantuan. Travelers must beware the tiny crystals the most, for these can cut even a slaad’s tough hide as it passes through the “forest.” (Xanxost put quotation marks around that word because it’s not really a forest. That’s just what they call it. Don’t get confused like Xanxost was at first.)
On the other side of the plane, the boundary with Lightning forms a region that has the frightening name of the Death Cloud. This realm’s steamy banks of clouds carry electrical charges that blast a traveler as he passes through them (inflicting 3d6 points of damage, half if a saving throw vs. rod is successful).
Lastly, the Realm of Cloying Fear lies where Steam meets Ooze. It comes right up and says, “Hello, Ooze!” This nasty place offers nothing but a thick atmosphere of gag-inducing stench or a thin oily paste—a traveler can pick the descriptions, but either way, it’s bad.
One more border. The quasiplane of Steam abuts the paraplane of Ice, forming a realm called Hoarfrost where everything becomes coated in a thin layer of frozen mist (1d4 points of cold damage per round). Colder even than the rest of the chill plane of Steam, this region is the site of many battles between ice mephits and steam mephits. Mmm...mephits.
Some historians believe that the plane of Steam once stood between the planes of Water and Fire, when the Inner Planes were configured differently. This theory states that Fire and Water were once positioned so that they shared a border, which was the paraplane of Steam. This plane was hot and steamy, giving it the name— which remains today, even with the planes being switched around. Xanxost finds this confusing and pointless to think about. It’s hard enough to keep it all straight the way it is now. Who can move planes anyway? Even Xanxost can’t do that.
The Powerful and Mighty
The lords of the quasielementals keep themselves secreted away from the eyes of all others. No powers live in the plane of Steam, There is only one major player in the whole plane.
XANXOST
Xanxost is a slaad. What is a slaad doing in the Inner Planes? No one knows. Wait, that has been said. No major players.
Creatures & Denizens
Six main types of creatures live in the plane of Steam: quasielementals, klyndesi, wavefires, mist mephits, and steam mephits. Five types.
They might be others, but who really needs more?
QUASIELEMENTALS
Xanxost does not care for misty creatures. Xanxost likes foes and friends he can touch, or bash if need be. Steam quasielementals sneak amid the clouds {and who can tell them apart from these clouds?) spying on other creatures and manipulating events, They have a strange secretive order among themselves, but no one understands it. Some say their influence extends even to other planes, and they might be in leaghe with the dao, from whom they buy slaves.
ANIMALS AND MONSTERS
The plane of Steam provides a home for creatures called the fabere. These gigantic gas-filled, balloonlike creatures inhale steam and exhale it again to propel themselves through the endless clammy clouds. Xanxost tried to propel himself that way, but inhaling that much steam just made Xanxost sneeze.
Javoose are spiky octopoidal insectivores that float through the plane. Calden and other insects serve as their primary source of food. Calden are flying, six-inch long bugs with flat roundish bodies.
Although Xanxost does not believe it to be an animal, Xanxost múst not forget to mention the feggis. Feggis is a mold or a’ moss (Xanxost does not know which—nor does Xanxost care) that grows over virtually everything in this damp, cool climate. This bluish growth covers any nonliving object within one or two days and even living creatures sport patches of it after a similar time if they don’t wash themselves. Feggis tastes very bad.
Aside from the quasielementals, there are only four kinds of Steam monsters, klyndesi and wavefires. Two kinds.
The klyndesi are solitary, misty creatures that hunt fabere (and nonnative travelers) for food, coming without warning out of the mist to attack.
Wavefires are strange creatures that roam the plane looking for dry air to consume. These beings ignore most of the plane’s other natives.
Neither type of creature is good to eat.
OTHER RACES
There are three kinds of mephits that live in this plane: steam mephits and mist mephits. Two kinds. Xanxost is hungry again.
Mist and steam mephits do not get along. This rivalry and on-again, off-again war has existed for millennia, or perhaps even since these races were created from their pri- mordial elemental essences.
Mephits are best uncooked.
Sometimes, the marids from the plane of Water come to the plane of Steam in order to explore and hunt. Some say that they seek out klyndes to conscript as assassins and guardians. They also seek to thwart the alliance between the steam quasielementals and the dao, often coming into direct conflict with one or the other or both.
Hazards & Phenomena
Fire burns, water drowns, smoke chokes, but steam doesn’t hurt anyone. The thick moisture in the atmosphere does slow breathing beings down a little (as a slow spell). A water breathing spell removes even this limitation. Simple!
Seeing through the clouds in this plane presents a much greater obstacle. Positive Range of sight in this plane varies from 10 Energy to 100 feet, but never more. Sometimes, even such vision is only a shape moving through the steam, with no details other than size and general shape revealed until whatever it is comes very close. This is a hunter's paradise.
SEAM POCKETS
Most people think that Steam is hot, but that is wrong—it is cool, like mist. Cold, clammy mist that clings to the skin of someone traveling—
That has been said. But oho! A few areas of hot vapor hide among the chilling mists. These tricky pockets of heated steam inflict 2d6 points of damage upon anyone not immune to heat (saving throw vs. rod reduces this damage by half}. An area of scalding steam is the same size as elemental pockets in other planes. Xanxost does not have pockets. Do you?
Mysterious Sites & Treasures
The Quasielemental Plane of Steam is nothing but a big cloud. Except for the fact that there’s more to it than that. It’s not just a big cloud. There are important sites. Xanxost knows.
ADRIFT
Adrift is a city in the plane of Steam, created by people from other places. So the city’s population is about half nonna- tives (humans, genasi, bariaur, tieflings, elves, and other things) and half mephits. Are there such things as half- mephits? Xanxost does not know. The two groups get along surprisingly well—better than the two types of mephits get along with each other. Thus, the nonnatives in Adrift keep the peace among the mephits. They might even keep the mephits in pieces. That is a joke, mortal!
This city, shaped like a great ring with a diameter of a mile, spins endlessly. Most visitors can find needed food, supplies, and information here.
At the center of the city’s ring are the Floating Statues. These huge stone sculptures of human men and women once apparently stood at least 1,000 feet tall. Now they float in pieces, but their parts remain in a vague semblance of their original arrangement. A few are relatively intact, with only a broken arm or head floating nearby. Others float in many fragments, all covered with feggis.
Xanxost has two—no, one—last thing to say about Adrift. For some reason, slaadi are not too welcome there. Xanxost didn’t eat that many mephits.
THE STRAITS OF VARRIGON
Amid the clouds and banks of mist and steam, there is a valley of clear air called the Straits of Varrigon. Varrigon is a funny name, especially because Xanxost first thought the valley was full of varrangoin (Abyssal bats, which our nar- rator also no doubt finds very tasty—the Editor). This clear path stretches for miles and miles and has become an impor- tant area to control, at least for those nonnatives whose vis- ibility is limited by the steam. It serves as a wonderful place to sail steamships very fast, or fly in a more conventional means (swimming in this open area is impossible).
So this commonly used passage provides the setting for occasional enemies that want to prevent others from using it, or for pirates and brigands to waylay travelers.
THE TOWER OF ICE
What Xanxost has heard is that this mysterious structure has existed for longer than even the quasielementals can remem- ber. It stands near the border with the Positive Energy Plane, but at the same time near the region called Hoarfrost.
The tower is made entirely of ice. Xanxost knew that from the name! Those who can gain entry (there's a trick, and no one will tell Xanxost what it is) find that creation of certain substances, like potions and poisons, becomes much easier in the arcane laboratories within.
Lay of the Land
Xanxost will now tell you all you need to know about the plane of Steam, so that you can visit it even if you aren't a slaad.
At the juncture of Water and Positive Energy, a cutter finds himself swept up in the rolling white mists of the quasi- plane of Steam. These vapors are the stuff of clouds and fog. They can be breathed safely and feel refreshing against the skin.
As always, though, a body’s got to take care. It’s not that Steam has more dangerous creatures than any other plane, but simply that a visitor seldom knows what's lurking behind the next bank of clouds.
Cycle of Time
Time exists here but it isn't marked by solar activity.
Surviving
Mephits are also good steamed, although here it is hard to tell when they’re done.
Many planewalkers come to Steam, since it presents little in the way of danger and it’s a little easier to get around than in the plane of Air (but the weather's not as nice).
Some planewalkers come to this plane to work on the cloud farms. These places literally seed the clouds of steam with various plants that hover in the mist, finding purchase there. The plants take root and grow in the clouds, until flying steamships called harvesters come along and collect the crops and gather them into bins. This work can be dan- gerous with the klyndesi and wavefires about, so most of the farmhands and harvester crews are secretly well-armed war- riors and mages. Additionally, since the crops are so valu- able (these rare plants grow no where else), raiders and bandits plague the workers.
SPELL KEYS AND OTHER NECESSITIES
Xanxost thinks it’s funny that sometimes wizards’ spells don’t work. For some reason, however, the wizards usually don’t laugh. The spell keys that enable a wizard to cast his spells normally in the plane of Steam are gurgling sounds made in the throat of the caster, adding verbal components to each spell (if they didn’t have that component already). These com- plex sounds add a casting time of 1 per spell level to each spell. Casting times of more than 10 become one full round.
Getting There
There are many ways to reach the plane of Steam. If there weren’t, how could Xanxost get here? Portals lead from Sigil, the Outlands, and even Limbo, Xanxost’s home. Ah, home.
Limbo is a wonderful place, where everything—
Portals to the plane of Steam. One portal lies in caverns deep below the surface of the first of Gehenna’s furnaces. The Cloudy Path is an always open, two-way portal that the quasielementals of this plane and some of the fiends of Gehenna use to remain in contact with each other. Oho! Perhaps the fiends use the steam creatures as spies. That would be just like the baatezu. The cursed lawful baatezu. The hated—
Vortices connecting the Prime and the plane of Steam resemble geysers, cloudbanks, and other naturally occurring masses of steam or mist. These, Xanxost has heard, are among the rarer of the vortices that lead to the Inner Planes. If someone hopes to travel to another plane by exploring mists, he might just end up in someplace called the Demiplane of Dread, and even Xanxost wouldn't like that.
Traveling Around
Moving about in this plane is very similar to moving in the plane of Air, except that anyone can swim through the mists—a traveler doesn’t have to fall. He can if he wants to, though.
Many nonnatives use a form of transport called a steamship. These are airshiplike vehicles with gas-filled bal- loons suspending a carriage of some sort. Steamships employ steam mephits to fill the balloon and then expel some of the gas to propel them at great speeds through the air. Sometimes, living fabere (see below—the Editor} are used instead, trained to carry the attached carriage where commanded.
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