FEATURES
OF ELYSIUMIt is the source of the River Ocean.
It is a place of ultimate goodness.
It is a land so pleasant you may never want to leave.
Elysium is the most strongly good-aligned plane of the Great Wheel, a place of good untrammeled by issues of law or chaos. On this plane doing well by others is more highly valued than any other ideal. The first layer of the plane is a riot of color. Visitors marvel at brilliant green meadows dotted with starburst flowers, pools as deep blue as a jay's plumage, and silver clouds drifting against a perfect sky. The plane itself seems to vibrate with its own sense of life and intensity. It is usually a peaceful place, and tranquility seems to seep into the bones and souls of those that cross it. Elysium consists of four layers strung together by the myriad courses of the River Oceanus. The first layer is most like the Material Plane, with sweet-smelling pines and flowering trees along its banks giving way to open meadows and rolling fields. The second layer is rougher and more mountainous, and rapids and falls are common along the channels of the river. The third layer is a great marsh awash with life. The deepest layer is the sea itself and the headwaters of the great river, dotted with islands where veteran heroes of good relax for eternity. The size of the River Oceanus varies from a braid of smaller side channels to a mighty flow that tops its banks and floods the surrounding area. Along the river ate islands, low gravel bars, and rocky promontories, which are often the homes of petitioners and other more powerful denizens.
Elysium has the following traits.
Normal Gravity.
Normal Time.
Infinite Size.
Divinely Morphic: Elysium is easily altered by deities. Other creatures find that their spells and physical efforts work normally here.
No Elemental Traits.
Minor Positive-Dominant: Characters on Elysium gain fast healing 2.
Strongly Good-Aligned: Non-good characters suffer a –2 penalty on all Wisdom-, Intelligence-, and Charismabased checks. As a result, neutral and evil creatures shun Elysium except in dire emergencies.
Entrapping: This is a trait unique to Elysium, although Hades has a similar entrapping trait. A nonoutsider on Elysium experiences increasing joy and satisfaction while there. Colors become brighter and more vivid than on the Material Plane, sounds more melodious and soft, and the nature of others seems more pleasant and understanding. At the conclusion of every week spent on Elysium, any nonoutsider must make a will saving throw (DC 10 + the number of consecutive weeks on Elysium). Failure indicates that the individual has fallen under the control of the plane, becoming a petitioner of Elysium. Travelers entrapped by the inherent tranquility and good of Elysium cannot leave the plane of their own volition and have no desire to do so. Memories of any previous life fade into nothingness, and it takes a wish or miracle spell to return such characters to normal.
Normal Magic.
Elysium borders the neighboring Outer Planes of Bytopia and the Beastlands. Natural portals exist between these locations, and the shifting borders between Elysium and its neighbors mean that travelers may find themselves on another good-aligned plane without realizing it. Portals from Elysium to other planes often take the form of caverns. Elysium has four layers, each with a radically different type of terrain. Inhabitants move between layers through a portal, or by following the River Oceanus—probably the easiest method. The River Oceanus originates in the deepest layer of Elysium and flows through all four layers, emptying from the first layer, Amoria, into the Beastlands. There are rapids at the border where the river crosses the boundary between layers, but no serious waterfalls or other perils. Most of the activity on Elysium takes place along the borders of the great river.
All types of good-aligned outsiders can be found on Elysium, including those of lawful or chaotic disposition and even natives of the Elemental planes such as djinn. While all types of celestials can be found here, the dominant type is the guardinal, which includes the winged avoral guardinal and the powerful leonal guardinal. The plane is also aswarm with celestial creatures and half-celestials. Celestial creatures have golden skin and silvery eyes, and they seem to shine with power and nobility. Unlike the creatures of the neighboring Beastlands, celestial creatures have the same Intelligence scores as their counterparts on the Material Plane, although they seem more empathic and understanding. Elysium is also the home of deities devoted to the cause of good. The most powerful of these deities is Pelor, the sun deity, who rules from a gold-plated fortress on the fourth layer of Elysium.
The petitioners of Elysium either venerate a particular deity of that plane, or are merely souls that naturally gravitated to the plane of ultimate goodness and peace. Petitioners appear as they did in life (goodness cares little for outward appearance), but most have a nobler and calmer demeanor as petitioners. Only when evil actions besmirch the plane do the petitioners of Elysium take up arms, and then they are more dangerous than most other petitioners. Unlike other petitioners, those who call Elysium home retain some knowledge of their past, which usually manifests itself as wistful nostalgia. Sometimes their memories are more practical: Petitioners who had character levels before they became petitioners retain up to four character levels (multiclass characters can choose levels from any classes they held in life). Petitioners of Elysium have the following special petitioner qualities:
Additional Immunities: Electricity, cold.
Resistances: Cold 20, fire 20.
Other Special Qualities: Retain up to four character levels acquired prior to becoming a petitioner. Planar travelers are common on the shores of the River Oceanus, and merchants ply their wares up and down the river between towns inhabited by petitioners and halfcelestials. Evil and morally neutral creatures tend to become lost along the riverbanks, unable to cope with the goodness that infuses the landscape. This makes such interlopers prime targets for avoral scouts. If the scouts face determined evil foes, they'll call on the more august leonals to join the battle; evil creatures are slain on Elysium. Morally neutral visitors are often questioned closely by the avorals, who determine their intentions and then either aid or expel them. Aid or expulsion is accompanied by a gentle (but long) lecture.
The Great River Oceanus and its side channels dominate much of the plane, so boat traffic is common. The Oceanus current is normally 3 miles per hour and flows from the deepest layer, Thalasia, through Belierin and Eronia to Amoria. Celestial animals haul rafts and keelboats upstream, and all manner of mundane and fantastic seagoing vessels stray into deeper waters. In places, the Oceanus widens to a great, calm lake or fen with no appreciable current, while in others, the river splits and tumbles through sharprocked rapids, particularly on the mountainous second layer.
Elysium does not present any inherent benefit or penalty to combat. There is very little tolerance for evil, and most of the celestial natives have the ability to smite evil. Fights tend to last longer and be less often fatal due to the positive energy that infuses the entire plane.
FEATURES
OF ELYSIUMThe top layer of Elysium is Amoria; it is more like the Material Plane than the other levels. Upstream on the Oceanus, the land becomes rougher and more mountainous until the traveler reaches the cascades of Eronia, the second layer. Here, steep valleys flank the river, which surges through narrow passages. Eventually the mountains diminish and the river spreads into a great marsh alive with insects and reptiles. This is Belierin. Finally the bottom of the marsh deepens and the traveler passes into the fourth layer of the plane, Thalasia, the headwaters of the Oceanus among the Isles of the Blessed. While the Oceanus flows between the layers of the plane, it is not a straight journey. The great river splits into myriad smaller flows, recombines, and splits again. Occasionally an offshoot of the river curls around and reenters the layer it just left. Vision on Elysium is just as on the Material Plane at that particular time of day. Elysium shares a day and night cycle with the Material Plane and has similar (if gentler) weather. The days are warm and calm, the nights cool and comfortable. The nights are also alive with small lights. Not only is there a river of stars overhead in imitation of the River Oceanus, but fireflies dance among the trees and fields, and luminous jellyfish swim beneath the surface of the Oceanus.
Amoria is the topmost layer of Elysium and one of the most hospitable places on the Outer Planes—if you ignore the plane's tendency to convert long-term visitors to fulltime petitioners. Small towns dot the banks of the River Oceanus, and islands of rolling hills rise from the river itself. Boat travel is common, and the bulk of the population of Elysium lives on this layer. Amoria is a relatively peaceful place, but it also a place where those who live have ample opportunities to aid others and demonstrate goodness. There is still misfortune on Elysium, but it seems to exist only to show the collective power of goodness. Calamities here, such as a village fire or a capsized boat, test and identify those who are from other planes. Travelers to Amoria are besieged by small errands and tasks, but if they complete them, they find powerful allies at their side. Amoria has seasons, though they are so timid that visitors from the Material Plane hardly notice them. It is neither too hot in summer nor too cold in winter, and it rarely rains without a rainbow appearing immediately afterward. The guardinals often upbraid storm giant druids and other creatures who can control weather for causing sudden rainstorms, even if they had a good reason to do so. The rulers of the guardinals also live on Amoria. These supremely powerful guardinals are as powerful as the archdukes of the Nine Hells or the demon princes of the Abyss. First among their number is Prince Talisid, the wisest and most powerful of leonals. Talisid's lieutenants are known as the Five Companions: the lupine Duke Lucan, the bearlike Duchess Callisto, the winged Duke Windheir, the equine Lord Hwyn, and the antlered Lord Rhanok. Together they organize the efforts of the guardinals, sending them on missions against evil and even striking into the lower planes to recover those captured by the forces of evil.
Eronia is a rising land of steep hills, sharp-toothed mountains, and white granite valleys, which divert the river again and again. Rugged foothills coil at the bases of these mountains, high bluffs, plateaus, and mesas. Communities tend to congregate on the plateaus or in small towns hunched between the mountains and the River Oceanus. The weather is fierce on Eroniai great windstorms and snowfalls with lightning are common. The summers are honer and the winters more bitter than on the Material Plane. Eronia is for the good souls who still want to be challenged in their afterlife. Those who live here do so at the whim of the mountains themselves. Often parts of great hills slide into the river, blocking it in some locations and forcing it into new channels in others. Eronia is a place of rugged peace, its mountains lost in luminous clouds above and a challenge to any climber. Here the wind whips around mightily, and even the winged avoral guardinals have some difficulty flying. All creatures with a fly speed have their maneuverability reduced to the next lower category (perfect to good, good to average, average to poor, poor to clumsy). Clumsy fliers remain clumsy.
Belierin is a land of misty swamps and fog-bound marshes, quite the opposite of what one might expect in a plane of ultimate goodness. Here the river is no more than a tangled braid of slow-moving water through uncountable channels, with low, flooded sandbars and tangles of mangrove rising from it. Still, the positive nature of Elysium shines through this desolate place. The fog itself seems to spread light with each wispy tendril, surrounding every torch and lantern with a luminous nimbus. The few communities that exist on Belierin rise from rocky spurs that jut from the swamp. These small towns are usually built around a cathedrallike lighthouse whose beacon pierces the mildly luminous fog, bringing travelers to dock safely. Belierin is the prison of some deadly creature or creatures. Some tales say the prisoner of Belierin is a powerful monster along the lines of the tarrasque or monster of legend. Others say that it is a deadly archduke of the lower planes, a deposed elemental prince, or even a wounded deity. The indisputable fact is that evil creatures are sometimes caught lurking here, and the native guardinals are constantly fighting back attacks against this layer. The true nature of the prisoner of Belierin depends on your cosmology and your campaign. The layer does make a dangerous prison and is a perilous region to cross.
This layer is the headwaters of the River Oceanus, the start of the great river that flows through the layers of Elysium, dodges the sun-dappled trees of the Beastlands, and plunges into Arborea. Thalasia is dotred with islands and sprinkled with small communities. These islands are variously known as the Isles of the Holy Dead, the Isles of the Blessed, the Hills of Avalon, the Islands beyond the world, and the Heroic Isles. Here the best of the good-aligned petitioners make their homes, retaining some knowledge and perhaps some power from their previous lives. Here hero-kings wait for the day when their nations need them again, and religious scholars research great mysteries in huge libraries. Often these great petitioners made the journey to Thalasia while still alive but approaching death, whether from age or from wounds taken in noble battle. Elysium then slowly converted them to powerful petitioners, and they scarcely felt the pang of death. In Thalasia they retain their powers and memories but are at peace with themselves and with others, the ultimate reward for good. The purpose of Thalasia may be to provide a good and just reward. It may also be to produce recruits to become guardinals, to create wardens for whatever is locked up in Belierin, or to muster an army of goodness for an eventual last battle against the forces of evil.
The Fortress of the Sun: Once known as Light's Blessing, this stronghold is the domain of the deity Pelor, also known as the Sun Father and the Shining One. This greater deity is the master of sun, light, strength, and healing. Pelor's realm, once a vast manor surrounded by orchards, vineyards, and farmland for miles, is now a goldplated citadel that forms a beacon atop Krigala, the largest island in Thalasia. The Fortress of the Sun dominates the land for a hundred miles around and is clearly visible from the shores of the Oceanus. It glows like a beacon day and night, providing continual daylight for a hundred miles in every direction. Creatures are affected as if in full daylighr within Pelor's realm, regardless of where they hide. Pelor sits in a great audience chamber at the highest spire, where he confers with guardinals, planetars, and solars, dispatching them to deal with the forces of evil. Because Pelor is one of the most powerful deities on the Great Wheel, he has correspondingly more control over Elysium's morphic nature. Everywhere his golden light reaches has the light gravity trait. Within the same range, the enhanced magic trait maximizes (as the Maximize Spell feat) all spells of the Sun domain and those with the light descriptor. The impeded magic trait affects all illusions of the figment, pattern, or glamer subschools. Pelor has the power to make additional changes in the magic trait if he wishes.
Use Table 7–8: Heavenly Encounters and Table 7–9: Beatific Encounters (alternate between them) for random encounters on Elysium.