It is sodding hard to find cutter, but yeah, I know the place. That reef in the Silver Sea, the bubbling madness. It's like someone put a chunk of Pandemonium at the bottom of the Silver Sea and let the winds bubble up from there. I'd tell you more but my glass is empty and I better be getting… ah thank you cutter, another round eh? Well the place as you can guess sticks out like a big sore spot on the plane. You're sailing out on that ocean down on the first layer of Celestia, and suddenly you come to this place where the sea is bubbling like an over-shaken bottle of Champaign. The reef comes up quick there, and you can walk on it, knee deep in places. Best to have a sturdy ship or go in with a shallow hulled boat things are not that deep and neither are they even. Anyway the reef is in the shape of a ring, and in the middle of that ring the waters are boiling with streams of sediment bubbling up every now and then. I've dived down once, and can tell you I woln't again. I can't afford the resurrection costs. Inside the reef there are some nasty currents and through the bubbles and sediment you can't see very far even at the top. Lower down the dust in the water turns to pebbles and then rocks, jagged ones at that and the currents just get worse. The one thing I do know is that when you're down far enough you start hearing em, just like on Pandemonium, those winds. I dunno if it is a planar rift or just a chunk of that cursed plane stuck there but that is what the reef is made out of, bits of pandemonium that have dissolved and sedimented together.
The bubbling madness in the celestial sea
I guess that's why it's called madness.
Anyway, I like it.
Ok so I got the sea wrong. I know there is a sea on the first layer of celesia what is it called?
It is called the Silver Sea.
I like the over-shaken bottle of Champaign bit also.
I like the over-shaken bottle of Champaign bit also.
Ok I edited the first entry.
I've been thinking of a few ideas for the place further on.
First of all is its origin. There could be an active rift between the Pandemonium and Celestia at the bottom of the reef, or it could just be a chunk of Pandemonium left there. Either way, getting to the bottom of it could make for some good planewalking. Also if the rift is active then what about the other side? Is there a coorisponding soothing marsh somewhere deep in the screaming plane?
Secondly, Pandemonium is only the supposed source of the reef's matirial. It could be any of the lower planes. The only reason that the screaming plane is implicated is that some divers reported hearing screams in the deeper currents. Also in those deeper currents it is reported that the waters grow cold and are filled with jagged sharp shards swirling about in them...which might indicate another plane of origin.
In anycase the waters on the reef do not have the same properties as the rest of the Silver Sea, as they do not attack evil creatures, but will still harm evil exemplars. Deeper in it is said that the currents are mixed between normal currents of the Silver Sea, Cursed Evil currents and edies of normal water. The roiling bubbles seem to fit a chaotic influence just fine.
The reef itself is made up of sand from the bottom of the Silver Sea, and sediments that have disolved from the heart of the reef. Some explorers have reported finding artifacts and glyphs in the reef. Others report strange corals and sea creatures having been either introduced from the source of the reef's heart or been changed from the native creatures of the sea.
As for size of the place, the inner cauldron is about a mile in diameter with the reef extending for another mile or so off of that. The reef rises from the sea bed rather suddenly presenting a sheer underwater cliff ranging from several hundred feet, to a few miles as the seabed also slopes down in that area. There is signifigant coral growth on top and in with the sediments indicating that this reef has been here for a long time, several thousand years at least.
That's a good portal or planar breach idea. There are a few unanswered questions though.
1. Why would the celestials allow a portal/breach from the plane of madness to infect their pristine sea? Wouldn't they have shut it down or cordoned it off by now?
2. Pandemonium doesn't have any corresponding water bodies, so the water from the sea, if this is a two-way portal, would have submerged a large chunk of Pandemonium over the years.
3. Has no-one survived the trip to Pandemonium? Whereabouts does it open up on that plane?
1. Why would the celestials allow a portal/breach from the plane of madness to infect their pristine sea? Wouldn't they have shut it down or cordoned it off by now?
Well the sea is on an infinite plane. It also is in a fairly remote portion of that plane, presumably. The rift might have been growing slowly for a long time and by the time it was believed to be a hazard it was too large to easily stop. Or there might be a higher power or powers involved. Or attempts may have been made; a dam might have once held it back and then burst. Also bear in mind that it isn't confirmed to be from Pandemonium. It is merely believed to be from that plane by many observers. You could build a game or campaign around this question, and that is exactly the idea.
Also I view the formation of the reef itself as a natural countermeasure to the planar intrusion. The reef seals the waters of the breech keeping the disturbance localized. What is dissolving in the center may only be a fragment of a breach that has already been sealed in this way and this is the plane's healing process. In which case there would be nothing for the native celestials to do but let it be and heal. Again it might be cloaked by some darker force.
Not necessarily. If it where a two way rift, the rock from Pandemonium might be jutting up through the rift holding the water back. Given the porous nature of that plane there should be some seepage, but then again how much of Pandemonium has really been explored? Its layers are infinite. Who's to say there isn't an underwater portion of pandemonium? Howler-fish anyone?
Not in my mind no. No one has survived going through this rift to Pandemonium. There might not be enough space for a large amount of the ocean to get into the howling plane let alone a planewalker. Also, drilling through might be a tremendously bad idea...perhaps something for the PC's to try.
The third layer has water (I think, I have only read my Planes of Chaos box once so far since I won it on eBay about a month ago). It's not a giant ocean, but you could say the rift is responsible for this or somethign like that.
I like the idea of it being a one way portal from pandemonium though.
The Glass Tarn.
It is an icy water lake resting in a bowl-shaped depression on Venya.
Zeboim is an ocean goddess of Krynn that lives on Pandemonium. No one's detailed her realm before, but I imagine it's pretty watery. Maybe that's where the leak is from?
Umm, Fell? I think he meant the third layer of Pandemonium. I thought it was the second layer, but I could be wrong. :shrug:
Anyway, if Zeboim's realm is in Pandemonium, that could be a great place for the rift to come out. Hey, it might even open in Erythnul's place and give it a much-needed washing-out occasionally.
Just my two greens.
Or maybe it is a chuck of Pandemonium that slid to Celestia due to a very strong Lawful Good event/presence?
Maybe an insane paladin slew an evil deity, and when he got the divine power, he made it his realm there, but it slid to Celestia due to his Lawful Good nature?
Maybe an insane paladin slew an evil deity, and when he got the divine power, he made it his realm there, but it slid to Celestia due to his Lawful Good nature?
I like to think of Pandemonium as the decaying corpse of the first modron.
Maybe an insane paladin slew an evil deity, and when he got the divine power, he made it his realm there, but it slid to Celestia due to his Lawful Good nature?
I like to think of Pandemonium as the decaying corpse of the first modron.
Intriguing. Care to elaborate Gerzel?
In the old supplement Tales from the Outer Planes, there was an adventure that involved a Slaad Lord named Wartle. He had lost out in a conflict with Ssendam and was imprisoned or transformed into a big rock and hurled into the plane of Celestia. He fell from the sky of Lunia as a meteor and crashed into the Silver Sea. Later he was imprisoned by the archons on a big island in the Silver Sea. But his madness and chaos emanations began to corrupt the island and the archons who lived there...
When the adventure was all over, the slaad lord was hopefully contained by the adventurers and his fate is unrevealed, but suggested that he might have been taken up to Chronias or returned to Limbo.
I am thinking that maybe the impact of Wartle's crash was maybe what opened the rift, or left residual chaos radiation, or that Wartle bled some of his blood into the sea, or cast an epic spell to corrupt the archons that in part leaked into the sea, or infected local coral, or perhaps the corrupted archons were slain and burried at sea. All potential plot hooks to explain the existence of a boiling mass of chaos in the Silver Sea, with links to established canon events. 
We know that most other slaad lords looked down upon him because of his "lesser" status, so as I saw it, Wartle was more than happy to remain on Lunia and continue subverting the local area to chaos -- in this instance he's not a "lesser" to anyone. This, of course, also tells us that the adventurers failed to contain him. It also resulted in some of the effects you've just described... but it's his continued presence rather than his blood that is causing the expansion of raw chaos to infect the surrounding environment. His influence over the Silver Sea however, merely exploited a deeper and more fundamental problem in Lunia... the source being an original and slightly more diluted form of chaos to seep out from Pandemonium through the Astral and into Lunia. What caused this seepage is still a matter of conjecture (perhaps the result of a rip into Pandemonium by a particuarly finicky astral dreadnaught with a taste for chaos stuff). What is known is that his presence is causing an increase in activity from the Silver Sea. In fact, he's done so well that other lesser slaadi have taken a liking to him and are making moves to join him in Lunia.
BTW, it's good to see you here Gray 
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I take it an old friend? In that case: Welcome aboard, Gray.
Gray's a regular over at WotC... and occasionally popped up at the previous Pits.
And I especially know he's pretty active over at Candlekeep as well 
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::snicker::
The River Oceanus isn't supposed to reach Celestia; it's supposed to only flow from Elysium to Arborea (and occasionally the Gates of the Moon in Ysgard, depending on the state of the tides).
I guess that's why it's called madness.
Anyway, I like it.