Book of the Planes
Book of the Planes
| Author | Gareth Hanrahan |
| Series | Classic Play |
| Publisher | Mongoose Publishing |
| Publish date | 2004 |
| Pages | 256 |
| ISBN | 1XXXXXXXX |
| OGL Section 15 | cpbop |
The material below is designated as Open Game Content.
The Maw of Chaos
Description
The Maw of Chaos is opening.
For aeons, Mâl was a dead plane, a wasteland of sealed tombs and stagnant air. It was a forgotten side room of the Outer Planes, inhabited only by exiled fiends, thieves, vagabonds and anti-social wizards. They built ramshackle towers and shanty towns amid the ancient monoliths and cyclopean temples. Mâl was just another mystery of the planes, a curiosity for archaeologists and tomb robbers.
Then the graves opened, and the Mâlites came forth. Now, the Maw of Chaos is caught like a dragon with a sword in its mouth; the seething hosts of chaos are poised to swarm out of Mâl and overwhelm all the planes, but are blocked by the motley crew of squatters and smugglers. Somewhere in their encampments is the artefact that will muster all the Mâlites and open all the gates…if only they can find it.
Mâl Traits
| Gravity | 0 Normal (Subjective) |
|---|---|
| Time | Normal |
| Size | 16 Infinite but repeating |
| Morphic | 3 Slightly Morphic |
| Life | -6 Wasteland |
| Weather | +6 Dangerous |
| Water/Fire | 10 Balanced |
| Earth/Air | 10 Balanced |
| Negative/Positive | -3 Mostly dead |
| Good/Evil | +5 Mildly evil |
| Law/Chaos | -5 Mildly chaotic |
| Arcane | 0 Normal |
| Divine | -3 Impeded |
| Green | -3 Impeded |
| Accessibility | 12 Planar barrier DC 20 |
| Proximity… | |
| …to Astral | 7 Coterminous |
| …to Tarassein | 7 Coterminous |
| …to Infernum | 7 Coterminous |
| …to the Vault of Stars | 7 Coterminous |
Getting there… and Back
Mâl is rather hard to reach for a plane its size. Most of the ancient portals that lead there have long since decayed or been lost. A handful of new portals were constructed, but with the planar barrier surrounding the Maw, such portals were costly or compromised by draining the energy or magic of travellers. The planes close to Mâl are hardly hospitable – on one side lie the flames of the Inferum; on the other, the warping tides of unbridled chaos. Only the Vault of Stars offers easy access to Mâl, but no stars shine in its choked sky. No natural portal to Mâl has manifested in many ages on the material world. Be thankful for that. Reaching Mâl by spell is problematic, due to the planar barrier. While it is of a relatively low intensity and should prove little trouble to a spellcaster capable of casting plane shift in the first place, it can be an unwelcome surprise for a traveller in dire straits (a condition not uncommon in the Maw).
Survival in Mâl
The environment of the plane is unwelcoming, but not immediately hostile – until the traveller takes a step. Motion tends to trigger the beetle winds, which can tear a traveller to shreds in minutes. An antilife shell or spell of repel vermin is ideal (alchemical repellent will serve in a pinch). Other regions of the plane have their own unique dangers – see below under Hazards.
Mâl has three distinct yet equally dangerous types of terrain; the plane is either composed of dunes of coarse dry sand, briny seas or jagged mountains of broken bone.
The average temperature in the desert region is above 90ºF; the mountains average about 12,000 feet in height and are very steep (+5 DC to all Climb checks) and the seas are violent and storm-tossed. Consult SRD for rules on handing such hazards. Winds in Mâl never drop below Strong, and windstorms are common.
Features
Picture a plane-spanning city made of a foul greenish resin. Take a hammer to this city, shatter it into uncountable shards. Blindly pour a dozen desert’s worth of sand and five oceans of brackish water onto the ruin, not caring if some sections are submerged in rolling dunes, seas or plains of mud. Add bones of some tremendous horror punctuating the ruins. This is the landscape of Mâl.
The Tombs of the Mâlites
The Mâlites are a race of creatures from an earlier epoch of creation. In a time before the gods were born, there was no distinction between law and chaos, between good and evil. Everything, they whisper, was different. At some point, the rules changed, and the Mâlites could not adapt, so instead they slept.
All this was learned through study of the great Tombs of the Mâlites. These tombs are everywhere in the sandy deserts of Mâl; massive, ugly organic edifices made of shaped green resin. Originally, the sages thought that the grotesque faces and monsters on the tombs were nothing but decorative gargoyles, but they are long-dead Mâlite slaves. Strangely, these trapped corpses are the only bodies in the tombs. The Mâlites are outside, in the desert. The grains of sand are Mâlite ‘mind-eggs’, and the tombs are in truth organic engines for remaking flesh and bone into new bodies for the Mâlites. These mind-eggs prevent the Mâlite soul from moving on or dissipating; instead, they wait bodiless and undimensioned for aeons. The vast mountains of bone (the remains of the first Mâlites were to be the raw material for these engines, but they feed even more eagerly on travellers).
The tombs do contain certain ancient artefacts and treasures of the Mâlites, as well as all sorts of guardian monsters, constructs and traps designed to liquefy and reprocess invaders and trespassers.
Spawning Pools
These pools only occur where the four dominant features of Mâl – the briny seas, the cyclopean tombs, the sands and raw material such as the bone mountains – come together. The spawning pool is a lake of vile slime exuded by a tomb, from which new Mâlites crawl. Most of the Mâlite towns lie on the shores of these pools.
The Rising Tide
The tainted ocean of Mâl is distilled from formless chaos, and has a much higher Morphic trait than the rest of the plane (+2d8 Morphic), and the seas are rising. As the Maw of Chaos awakens, the briny waters will run throughout the rest of the plane, increasing the Morphic trait as the Mâlites leave their sleep to invade the other planes.
Most of the outsider settlements on Mâl have dug canals through the sand and tapped the ocean to give the area around the settlement the Alterable Morphic (Morphic 5) trait.
Hazards
Mâl is possibly the most innately hostile of the Outer Planes; the Infernum or Tarassein may be more dangerous, but Mâl is a realm of hate and alien horrors.
Beetle Winds (CR6 + special)
The sands of Mâl are in truth eggs, as noted above. Any vibration can cause these eggs to hatch into tiny green beetles with four pincers and any number of legs. The beetles form into choking swarms that descend on whatever woke them, tearing at flesh and bone. The little fragments of gore stolen by the beetles are later fed into a tomb, to produce a new Mâlite body. One of the Mâlite souls attached to a beetle inhabits this new body.
Any character walking on the sands of Mâl must make a Balance or Move Silently check at DC 15 each round. If this check is failed, a beetle wind forms. One beetle wind swarm arises for every check that was failed in any round. A beetle wind has the same statistics as a locust swarm (see SRD). If any character is killed by the damage from this swarm, a Mâlite with a CR equal to the level or Hit Dice of the slain creature is born nearby within 1d10 rounds. Mâlite movement does not cause beetle winds to rise.
When the stripped and ruined carcasses of the slain travellers fall into the sands, most beetles usually become sand again, but some fly up and join the constantly howling beetle winds of the upper atmosphere.
Resin Showers (CR10)
The skies of Mâl are thick with oily green-black clouds. Sometimes, a rain of liquid resin pelts down on the tortured landscape. Any creature caught out in the rain takes 1d6 points of acid damage per round. Furthermore, every point of acid damage (whether it actually damages the character or not) forms a glob of sticky resin weighing five pounds. After a few minutes of exposure to the resin shower, most characters will be severely overloaded and may even be entirely encased in resin (a character whose movement has been reduced to five feet per round due to the weight of resin being more than twice his maximum load will be unable to breathe unless someone else breaks a breathing hole in his resinous shell). The resin has a hardness of four and 10 hit points per inch of thickness. Any character encased in resin is assumed to have a two inch thick shell of resin.
Once, these resin showers were under the control of the Mâlites, who caused their fortresses and tombcities to rain out of the heavens wherever they walked. The current resin showers are accidents, and therefore must be recycled.
1d10 rounds after the rain stops, any areas covered with resin are struck by lightning bolts from the sky. These bolts deal 6d6 damage per bolt, and keep blasting until all the resin has been reduced to dust (1d10 rounds later), which is sucked back up into the clouds. Characters struck by these bolts may make a Reflex save (DC 15) to take half damage, and any damage is dealt to the resin sticking to a character first.
Mâlites are immune to the resin showers. Resin showers do not cause beetle winds.
Locations
There are no roads in Mâl, no clear paths. Little of the plane has been mapped other than a few square miles around each active portal.
The Waking City
This is the largest known stronghold of the Mâlites (although travellers have reported seeing far greater resinous castles out in the seas), and the only one where they tolerate the presence of outsiders. The Waking City is a bizarre, incomprehensible pile of resin towers and twisted buildings, an urban viscera of winding corridors and living rooms. The Mâlites permit outsiders to live and even dwell in the city, but only in certain sections – and the laws and borders governing these sections change without notice. An outsider who has lived for six months in one chamber might return home to find an host of Mâlites waiting to evict him violently if necessary. The Mâlites are believed to be studying outsiders, especially their magic.
Life in the Waking City drives most outsiders insane. The Mâlites stalk the streets, engaged in strange rites and seemingly meaningless acts. The geography of the city changes with every rainstorm. The buzz of the swarming beetle winds is a constant nightmare hymn, occasionally broken by crackling fields of lightning that hang between the coiling towers for days at a time. Still, the city is safer than the deserts outside, and some of the lesser Mâlites will trade their wares for goods from other planes.
The Waking City (Large City): AL CE; 15,000 gp limit; Assets 11,250,000 gp; Pop 15,000; Isolated (96% Mâlites, 4% others). Power Centres: The mortal power centres are the August Embassy from Hell (NE) and the Trader’s Guide (LN). The structure of the Mâlite rulership is unknown.
Tortuga
Before the Mâlites awoke, Mâl was a backwater, inhabited only by thieves and treasure hunters who wanted a place to hide. The pirate city of Tortuga is located near several active portals (leading to the Orrery, the Plane of Air, Esqogalt on the edge of Chasm and numerous other places). Tortuga is a ramshackle arrangement; huge nets and tattered sails protect the city from beetle winds and resin storms (although the insects still infest the city, though in lesser numbers, and acidic resin drips constantly from holes in the sails). The chief virtue of Tortuga is that it is a godless city – literally. Due to some quirk of Mâlite magic, the whole of Tortuga has a divine trait of zero; divine spells cannot function here. This has made the city popular among those who have offended a deity, and feared by servants of gods both good and evil. Clerics are disliked and are distrusted by most inhabitants of Tortuga – they may enter the city, but are forced to wear distinctive black hats on pain of death.
Almost anything is for sale in Tortuga, although most of the commerce these days is in Mâlite tools and weapons.
Tortuga (Large Town): AL CN; 3,000 gp limit; Assets 750,000 gp; Pop 5,000; Mixed (Pretty Much Anyone 96%, Mâlites 4%). Power Centres: The King of Tortuga, a 15th level rogue (CN), Cult of Bedlam (CN), Embassy of Hell (NE).
The Gatechain
The Gatechain is a rusted set of linked metal hoops, each one big enough for a great wyrm dragon to fly though wings outstretched and not strike the rim. Seven hoops emerge from the sands, although at least another four lie buried nearby. A different rune in the Mâlic tongue is engraved atop each hoop.
Each ring is a portal of ancient design. When all the grains of sand in the desert have been converted into Mâlite warriors, when all the seas have turned to blood and the mountains recycled into flesh, when there is nothing here but cities swarming with uncountable hosts of Mâlites – then the Gatechain will float free of the desert, and all its thousand links will open to all the planes of creation, and the Mâlites will go forth and conquer.
Until that fateful day, the Gatechain lies forgotten and broken in the sand. A door spell can be used to open any of its links, so it can be a method of travel off Mâl without meddling with its Planar Barrier.
Denizens
The only denizens of Mâl are the Mâlites and the handful of creatures who have come here from other planes. The Mâlites are creatures of chaos; not fiends, not outsiders, but something entirely other. They have apparently little attachment to their own physical form, so a Mâlite soul might be removed from one body and inserted into another as circumstances require. They find the current arrangement of the planes…distasteful, and intend to use planecraft to return the universe to a more chaotic, lifeless and artistic state.
The Mâlites date from a time before the current conception of arcane magic. They cannot use arcane magic especially well, but are resistant to it. Many of their own spells no longer function (the weave of magic in the planes has moved on, and their incantations cannot influence it), so the Mâlites are desperately trying to learn new dweomers and spells. Wizards and tomes of arcane lore are a primary target for Mâlite raiding parties.
Currently, the majority of the Mâlite race is still bodiless in the Maw of Chaos. Of the incarnate portion of the race, some are involved in reactivating all the tombs to build new bodies for their kin, while the rest are exploring the planes – reconnaissance for the time when all the Mâlites swarm out and the Maw devours all.
Mâlite Properties
All Mâlites have the following properties:
† Spell Resistance of 11 + their Hit Dice, against arcane spells only. Furthermore, this resistance is reduced by one point for 24 hours after a spell has been cast (successfully or unsuccessfully) on a Mâlite. Also, if the Mâlite prepares any arcane spells, his resistance is reduced by one per spell.
† Displacement Field (Su): A Mâlite can project a displacement field, which gives attacks against it a 25% miss chance unless the attacker can perceive the creature by some method other than sight. It also has a +4 racial bonus to Hide checks thanks to this displacement field. True seeing penetrates this defence.
† Immunity to acid.
† Telepathy (Su): Range 100 feet. Furthermore, all Mâlites are considered to be constantly mind blanked.
† Mâlites only speak their own language. They can learn other languages, but it is exceedingly difficult for them (treat another language as a skill that the Mâlite must take ranks in and make skill checks
to convey an idea).
† Mâlite souls are not tied to their bodies; they cannot be raised, nor are they subject to death effects such as slay living. Only a spell like trap the soul can keep a given Mâlite from one day being reinstalled in a new shell.
Mâlite Warrior
Medium Aberration (Extraplanar, Mâlite)
Hit Dice: 4d8+4 (18 hp)
Initiative: +1 (Dex)
Speed: 30-ft., Climb 20-ft.
Armour Class: 21 (+1 Dex, +10 resin armour),
touch 11, flat-footed 20
Base Attack Bonus/Grapple: +3/+5
Attack: +6 melee (1d12+3 or 1d8+3, resinblade) or +4 ranged touch (2d4, acid jet)
Full Attack: +6 melee (1d12+3 or 1d8 +3, resinblade) or +4 ranged touch (2d4, acid jet)
Space/Reach: 5-ft. /10-ft.
Special Attacks: Resin blade, acid jet
Special Qualities: Mâlite traits, psychic waves
Saves: Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +4
Abilities: Str 14, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 12
Skills: Hide +9*, Listen +9, Move Silently +4, Spot +9
Feats: Dodge, Weapon Focus (resinblade)
Climate/Terrain: Mâl
Organisation: Solitary or hunting party (2-6)
Challenge Rating: 2
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Always chaotic evil
Advancement: By character class
Level Adjustment: +4
The figure skittering towards you is roughly humanoid, but it stretches that definition to its limit. Four limbs carry a form armoured in green chitin towards you, and organs that might be some sort of eyes glitter at the end of facial cilia. A bladed spine coils and twists hungrily along the creature’s length.
These Mâlite bodies were based on the appearance of the settlers at Tortuga. They have four limbs like a human, but the limbs shift depending on the creature’s needs. It has no discernable face. The Mâlite warriors are scouts and foot troops, armed with the infamous resin-blade. This device is somewhere between a whip and a sword, and is often coated with acid or poison.
Combat
Mâlites have little need for self-preservation, so they are fearless warriors. They are cruel and cunning, and have come to understand the importance others place on the life of the weak, so a Mâlite warrior will often target children, familiars and other non-combatants to demoralise his foes.
Resin blade (Ex): The resin blade is a two-handed slashing weapon that can be used as a whip with reach, or a blade with no reach. It does 1d8 damage in whip mode, and 1d12 in sword form; changing between the two is a free action. Non-Mâlites cannot normally wield a resin sword.
Acid Jet (Ex): As an attack action, a Mâlite can spit a jet of acid up to 60 feet. It must make a ranged touch attack to hit with the jet, which deals 2d4 points of acid damage.
Psychic Waves (Su): Mâlite warriors produce psychic waves that weaken and disorientate their foes. Anyone struck in melee combat by a Mâlite warrior must make a Will save (DC 13) or be sickened for one round. The save for this ability is Charisma-based.
Mâlite Custodian
Huge Aberration (Extraplanar, Mâlite)
Hit Dice: 14d8+70 (133 hp)
Initiative: +1 (Dex)
Speed: 30-ft.
Armour Class: 27 (+1 Dex, -2 size, +18 resin armour), touch 9, flat-footed 26
Base Attack Bonus/Grapple: +10/+23
Attack: +13 melee (claw, 1d8+5)
Full Attack: Two claws +13 melee (claw, 1d8+5)
Space/Reach: 15-ft. /10-ft.
Special Attacks: Swallow Whole, Swarm Attack
Special Qualities: Mâlite traits, Create Mâlites
Saves: Fort +9, Ref +5, Will +12
Abilities: Str 20, Dex 13, Con 20, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 12
Skills: Balance +10, Climb +5, Knowledge (arcana) +9, Listen +20, Spot +20, Search +19
Feats: Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Lightning Reflexes, Power Attack
Climate/Terrain: Mâl
Organisation: Solitary or hunting party (One
custodian plus 5-10 warriors)
Challenge Rating: 11
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Always chaotic evil
Advancement: 15-20 HD (Huge)
Level Adjustment: -
This green horror is four-legged and bigger than a horse, but it moves like a hybrid of feline and equine. Four bulbous organs like wasp nests sprout from its shoulders and haunches. It has no distinct mouth, but a seam appears to run the entire length of its body, opening and closing at various points. A ghostly blue haze of shifting energy patterns floats between the four hive-like growths.
Custodians are a variety of Mâlite used to create more warriors in areas where tombs are no longer functioning, or on other planes. They are essentially walking factories for producing more of their kin. The four hives contain mind-seeds, and the blue energy is the psychic communication of all the Mâlite souls anchored to these seeds.
The main goal of a custodian is to produce more Mâlite warrior bodies for the minds it carries.
Combat
While a custodian is a powerful combatant with its resinous claws, it has no intention of merely rending its enemies apart – after all, their bodies can be used to spawn new Mâlites.
Swarm Attack (Ex): A custodian contains eight swarms of Mâlite beetles. Treat these swarms as locust swarms (see SRD). Releasing a swarm is a free action for a custodian, but it can only do so once per turn. These swarms can attack normally, but they can also attempt to control anyone injured by the custodian’s claw attacks by flying into the wounds. Anyone targeted by this attack must make a Will save each round (DC 14 + 2d6) or fall under the control of the swarm. If the wound caused by the custodian’s claws is healed, the control is broken. Characters under the control of the swarm must move as the swarm dictates (usually, towards the custodian). They are otherwise considered to be stunned. Bolts of blue energy leap from the haze above the custodian meaning while the victim is under the swarm’s control.
Swallow Whole (Ex): A custodian can swallow a creature whole if it pins the creature with a grapple attack. If the target is unresisting (such as the victim of a swarm attack), the custodian can automatically swallow him. A swallowed victim takes 2d8 points of acid damage per round. He may cut his way free by dealing at least 30 points of damage to the inside of the custodian with a light slashing or piercing weapon (the gizzard has an AC of 16). If the victim is killed while inside the custodian, he is transformed into a Mâlite warrior within 1d4 rounds. A custodian can hold one Large, four Medium, or eight Small creatures in its stomach at any one time.
Create Mâlite (Su): A custodian can create Mâlite warriors, as described under the Swallow Whole ability.
Adventure Seeds
Mâl is the wild card plane – there is a potential new threat to overturn the neat balance of Law and Chaos, Good and Evil. If the Mâlites do leave the Maw of Chaos, all the planes could be engulfed in war. Even if this never happens in your game, the repercussions and uncertainty of new players in the great war of the planes could fuel all sorts of adventures. Mâl is also a great place to hide unusual monsters or adventures – it is unfriendly and dangerous, a world of challenges and ancient dungeons.
† The characters are hired by a mysterious benefactor to track down a spellbook. As they search, they discover that their benefactor intends to trade the book to the Mâlites. The book contains several powerful spells; do they risk drawing the wrath of chaos by tampering with or destroying the book?
† An ancient portal is discovered, leading to Mâl. Investigations reveal that there is an ancient Mâlite city located beyond the portal. The characters are offered the chance to loot the city; all they need to do is hold the portal, build a canal to increase the area’s Morphic trait, dig into the living sands and drive off the Mâlite hordes.
† The powers of the Infernum declare that due to the threat of Mâl on their doorstep, they are offering a truce to the Firmament. Evil is endlessly deceitful, so this simply cannot be true – what are the fiends up to?
† The Mâlites have not ignored the poor shanty towns like Tortuga out of mercy, but because of a single young girl, a sorceress who lives in the alleyways of the thieves’ city. At the moment of her birth, her soul became enmeshed in the mind-seed of the Mâlite godqueen. The child is unaware of her authority over the Mâlites, and is only barely clinging to sanity due to the alien presence in her mind. As she grows, so too does her power. She might give in to the Mâlites, freeing them to ravage, or fall under the influence of some lord who uses her to control the Maw of Chaos – or she might fall in with the characters, who can help her close the Maw once more. Given the chaos of Tortuga and its trade with other planes, that child could have passed through a dozen portals and grown up unaware of the circumstances of her birth. She could even be one of the player characters…
