The Nature of the Elusive Ordial Plane

Looli's Guide to the Ordial Plane

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The Ordial Plane. You've probably heard about it on some mimir somewhere. Actually, if you want to hear about it on a mimir, I can direct you to an essay written by a friend of mine, Magnum Opus. Where did I put that essay? Oh, here it is.You might not have believed what you read there. You thought it was all screed, didn't you? Some new plane no one's ever heard of? You thought such a thing coulnd't possibly exist. Well, you were wrong if you thought that. The Ordial Plane certainly does exist. If you cared to research it, you'd know that. Well, at least you found this place, here you can learn about the plane and its few denizens.(note: Most of the stuff you see below represents the travels of one person. Her findings are nearly always accurate, but it should be noted that no one else can verify his exact experiences here.)

Getting There

Getting to the Ordial Plane. That's a tough one. I don't really know how I got here. I thought I was in the Hinterlands, but I think I somehow got beyond them. There's a going theory in some groups that more Outlands rings are in the Hinterlands. This isn't true, not exactly. The Hinterlands are what seperated the first nine Outlands rings from the next nine. There's another Hinterlands sepearting the tenth through eightteenth rings from the nineteenth through twenty-seventh. The twenty-seventh ring is amazing. There are things there that even most 30th-level wizards can't comprehend. Magic powerful enough to bring five-, six-, or even seven-dimensional things into three-dimensional space, and have them work like normal.

But the Outer Outlands are another story for another time. The point is, beyond the twenty-seventh is a sort of horizon. When you're there, the Ordial Plane is analogous to the sky of a prime world, and the Outer Planes are like the earth. If you're standing on the edge of the Hinterlands, you can look into a fourth dimension--well, another dimension, anyway, some say the fourth is time--and percieve the Ordial plane, hanging above. Normal flying won't get you into the Ordial, though... it takes more than that. Normal flying will carry you around that part of the Hinterlands, just as normal walking on a prime planet will carry a berk around the ground, but any normal movement won't get you into the Ordial, just as any normal walking movement doesn't carry you into the sky. The Outer Planes are about belief. There are personal challenges you have to surpass to leave the Outer Planes and enter the Ordial. The first will relate to enduring pain of some kind, whether emotional, mental, or simply physical. The second will be a test of your skill, a swordfight or magical duel, or something of that nature. The third varies for everyone, but generally involves a situation that challenges your core beliefs, such as those of a faction or religion that you are devoted to.

Once you pass the three tests, you're allowed to enter and leave the Ordial whenever you feel like it. Any doorway in the Ordial plane can be turned into a portal to the Hinterlands by sheer concentration. Going through the Hinterlands isn't the only way to enter the Ordial. Because it is between belief (the Outer Planes) and substance (the Inner Planes) it is sometimes called the Plane of Proof. Some theories hold that the Ordial can be reached by proving whatever philosophy you believe in... example of this include (allegedly) the ascension of such factols as Lariset of the Guvners and various Cipher factols. Also between belief and substance is Assumption. Assumption is infinitely more common than proof, but similarly weaker. Some hold that assumption is synonymous with faith; this is still in debate.

There are also rumors that the Ordial can be reached from the Inner Planes. This sounds reasonable, but it has not been proven. The natives won't tell anyone how to get there, if they even know.

Properties of the Ordial

The Ordial Plane is a very straightforward place, when compared to its cousins, the Astral and the Ethereal. Movement is accomplished by walking on catwalk-like strips of solid matter, or by any flying or swimming method (although such things are at half-normal speed). Any being can survive here, whether it requires oxygen, water, methane, vacuum... anything. Distance in the Ordial is exactly like it appears to be. There is, however, very little actual matter here. There are a few islands in space, many miles apart from each other,. You can shape what matter there is into whatever form you choose, simply by willing it to change (unless a stronger-willed cutter is willing it to remain the same, or change into something else, or some such), but you cannot create or destroy matter in this way. The matter that is here is not real physical matter; even the beings that enter it. In addition to the matter there is an abundance of light sources, of various shapes and sizes. These things seem to be pure light, and they seem to be inanimate. They simply float about in the Ordial, providing small amounts of light.

The Ordial is a plane of spirits, like the Astral is of minds and the Ethereal is of unformed physical substance. When a new mortal is created, a spirit comes from the Ordial, passes through the Inner and Ethereal, and joins physical bodies in the Prime. Spirits return to the Ordial when a petitioner "merges with his plane." It is unknown whether an infinite number of spirits reside on the Ordial. If not, then the Doomguard are at least partially correct. When a petitioner dies off his home plane, the spirit, also called the soul by some, is eliminated. Eventually, if every spirit is eliminated, life would cease to exist.

Gods exist fully on the Ordial. This is where the god really is, as opposed to the Avatars sent out to the other planes. Manifestations of deities on the Outer Planes are certainly bigger than the minor avatars sent to the Prime, but they're still not the true core of the god. The true core of the god cannot be physically represented except on the Ordial. Mortals can come to the Ordial, but staying for prolonged periods of time can cause their physical bodies, which remain in the Hinterlands or wherever they were before, to vanish (making it impossible for them to leave the plane.)

Whenever a mortal enters the Ordial Plane, the DM should roll 1d6 and keep the result a secret. This is the number of days the mortal can safely survive. At the end of the final day, the player gets the sensation his link to his physical body is being endangered, and he must make a saving throw vs. death to keep his physical body intact. If he succeeds, the DM rolls another d6, and the mortal can stay that many more days. It is impossible to return to one's body at the last minute, after being told to save vs. death. The particular location of the traveller's physical body while he is in the Ordial is unknown at this point in time, but that body is not on the Ordial itself, nor is it in the last location the player occupied outside of the Ordial.

Magic is mostly unaffected on the Ordial, except that spells that create or destroy matter always transport it to or from a small uninhabited spirit-matter-island elsewhere in the Ordial. Magic that affects the spirit has special effects, as per specific spells. Some interfere with the spirits on the Ordial, and others may have unexpected effects on the spirit of the recipient. Divinations cast on the Ordial can reach out to the other planes, but not vice versa. Similarly, you can teleport out (if your physical body still exists), or banish objects or creatures out, but none of the reverse is true. Entering the plane is much more difficult than leaving, in most cases.

Another kind of spirit makes his home both on the Ordial and the Prime simultaneously. This was confusing at first, because if the theory of the Great Great Ring holds true, the Ordial should be opposite the Prime. I believe that The Great Great Ring is in fact The Great Great Figure Eight (pardon the doggerel, I don't particularly want to call it The Great Great Infinity Symbol...) and the Ordial and Prime almost overlap each other in the center. They are perhaps closer to each other than, say, the Prime and the Astral are, or the Inner and the Ethereal. This could explain why worshippers onthe Prime mean so much more to the gods than worshippers on the Planes. The point I started to make, however, was that another kind of spirit dwells on the Ordial and the Prime: the kind summoned by the priests called Shamans. These priests rarely operate off the Prime, and for good reason. The spirits they summon are intimately connected to a presence on the Prime, and the spirits' essence, like the gods' essence, resides on the Ordial. These spirits cannot be harmed directly, but they can be killed if the prime object they inhabit is destroyed. A spirit of a particular forest dies if the forest is burned down; the Spirit might continue its existance as a petitioner on the Outer Planes; of this I am not sure. It is hard to comprehend that one petitioner could be an entire forest. Some suggest that not all of the spirits that Shamans summon exist on the Ordial. I am certain that some do, but it's reasonable that others might exist on the Ethereal, or even the Astral Plane.