The Temporal Energy plane is, as befits time, continually in motion. It is a gray windstorm with neither a base nor a top that buffets and overturns travelers who venture within. Everything that enters the plane is tossed and ground against itself until all that remains is more dust-the sands of time carried by the winds to erode new items.
The Temporal Energy Plane, also called the Plane of Time, is a vast expanse similar to the Elemental Plane of Air. However, the Temporal Energy plane is in constant motion, storming and churning like a sirocco. The stormy nature of the Temporal Energy Plane poses a physical problem, but the greater danger is in the nature of time itself. Those within the sandstorm can be carried months or years into the future, effectively exiling them from their native plane. Several Material Plane civilizations saw this plane as a convenient prison for unpopular malefactors. But some cultures survived long enough to regret it when their exiles returned centuries after their departure—and had aged only a few days.
Traits
- Subjective Directional Gravity: Travelers choose their own down just as they would on the Elemental Plane of Air, although this does little good when caught in a sandstorm.
- Erratic Time and Timeless: The Temporal Energy Plane is timeless with regard to such mundane matters such as hunger, thirst, and sleep. It has the erratic time trait compared to the Material Plane, however.
- Infinite Size.
- Alterable Morphic.
- No Elemental or Energy Traits: The Temporal Energy Plane is neither positive nor negative dominant. However, parts of its eternal windstorm may have either the minor positive-dominant or minor negative-dominant trait.
- Enhanced Magic: Spells and spell-like abilities that have time-based effects, including such spells as Haste and Time Stop, are extended (as the Extend Spell feat). Spells and spell-like abilities that are already extended are unaffected by this trait. A Time Stop spell is particularly useful on the Temporal Energy Plane because it creates a bubble around the user that protects against the effects of the dust-laden winds. Such a bubble then drifts across the plane.
- Limited Magic: Spells that affect wind and weather do not affect the winds on the Temporal Energy Plane. These winds are moved not by natural causes, but by the relentless advance of entropy through the cosmos.
Inhabitants
The Energy Planes lack the traditional elemental forms of the other Inner Planes, or, if they have them. they are so unlike life on the Material plane that they don't interact with travelers.
Even by the standards of an Energy Plane, the Plane of Time is particularly empty of living things, whether visitors or natives. Most of the creatures there seem to be trapped by some magical mishap or a failed attempt to capture time's power for themselves.
Metallic constructs similar to golems and inevitables are liable to be found on the Temporal Energy Plane. Many of them are ancient creatures, their shells sandblasted to a shining gleam. These creatures, originally sent here by spellcasters of bygone ages, have been trapped here ever since. Many constructs attempt to “mercifully” destroy new interlopers to save them from the eternal madness of the storm
Features
- The greatest immediate danger on the Temporal Energy Plane is the eternal wind that sweeps through it, billowing with the dust that used to be worlds, structures, and other travelers leveled by the power of time.
- There is an atmosphere of sorts in the Temporal Energy plane: bits of matter ground so fine as to be as light as air. The dust can suffocate unprotected characters. Characters caught unprepared can hold their breath for a number of rounds equal to twice their Constitution score, and those with a scarf or other protection over their mouth and nose can last a number of rounds equal to ten times their Constitution score. Creatures that don't breathe (such as undead and constructs) are unaffected by this hazard.
- The storms of the Temporal Energy Plane are more dangerous than even a great duststorm on the Material Plane because this dust is corrosive, flailing away at the flesh itself with bits of temporal energy. The dust deals 1d6 points of non-lethal damage for every round a character spends on the plane.
- The dust obscures vision, including darkvision, beyond 5 feet. Objects 10 feet away are dim shapes (total concealment), and nothing beyond 10 feet is visible. The howling of the wind imposes a –8 penalty on Listen checks.
Temporal Whirlpools
Within the storm are whirlpools, swirling basins of dust. Those caught in the eddies take 1d12 points of damage (lethal damage) for 1d10 rounds before the whirlpool ejects them back into the storm. A portal to a random plane sits at the base of such a maelstrom 60% of the time.
Time Loops
Pieces of other planes occasionally bob and weave through the storm, impervious to the effects of the winds of time. These are time loops, pieces of various planes that have become separated from their original realms. Time loops appear much as they did on their original planes, except their inhabitants take the same actions again and again, repeating themselves endlessly. A time loop is rarely larger than a few hundred square feet in area.
On the Plane of Temporal Energy, time loops can be a refuge for those battered by the storm—and a possible way of exiting the Plane of Time. Should a newcomer to a time loop manage to interrupt the sequence of events significantly or complete a task that the time loop's inhabitants have never finished, the time loop returns to its original plane. This can be a blessing or a curse for the original inhabitants of the time loop, who have been living on a plane with the erratic time trait for years if not centuries.