Mobius of the Shining Shore (3.5e Location)

Author: Eiji-kun (talk) Date Created: 2-2-17 Status: Complete Editing: Clarity edits only please

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Mobius of the Shining Shore

Believed to have once been the home of a long dead and forgotten god, this strange place is a land of eerie peace, haunting solitude, and subtle danger. The ruins here suggest that something is still working in the background, silently performing a task no one knows.

Planar Traits

Physical Traits

• Gravity: Objective Directional Gravity.

• Time: Timeless.

• Size: Finite Shape, but the shape of the plane wraps eventually loops around like a Mobius strip.

• Morphic: Alterable morphic and static (see text). Different areas on the strip possess different traits.

Elemental, Energy, Alignment and Magic Traits

• Elemental Dominance: No Elemental Traits (specific locations may have these traits, however).

• Energy Dominance: No Energy Traits (specific locations may have these traits, however).

• Alignment Traits: Mildly neutral-aligned.

• Magic Traits: Normal magic.

Planar Connections

Access to the Mobius of the Shining Shore can only be done on two places on the strip, the topside and underside of the "main island" known as the shining shore itself. These gateways are built into an ancient and apparently invulnerable stone ruin shaped in the form of an ankh buried into the sand along the shoreline.

Inhabitants

The Mobius of the Shining Shore is a long abandoned place, home to no natives and only rare travelers. Those who stay there for extended periods of time begin to report to presence of others and the unnerving feeling of being watched. The feeling inevitably and always drives them out, barring a very specific few creatures, and only in certain locations. The one "inhabitant" appears to be normal fauna present there which behave in strange and unnatural ways at times as if possessed by a singular hivemind. This entity has never elected to speak and merely seems pre-occupied with maintenance of the islands along the strip itself.

Movement and Combat

Barring unusual effects such as jumping off one of the Shining Roads, movement and combat is no different than that of the material plane. Those unfortunate few who get pushed into the void between the islands are sent hurtling in strange and chaotic patterns and orbits before eventually crashing in a random location along the strip itself.

Features of Mobius of the Shining Shore

The strange demiplane of Mobius of the Shining Shore is composed of a massive Mobius strip known as the Shining Road, a bridge of unknown but glittering sandstone-like material which connects a series of "islands" on discs. Each island has a top and bottom part of the island, with a total number three islands (and thus six areas). Gravity falls to the surface of the strip, with distances greater than 1 mile from the strip or on the edges of the strip subject to chaotic gravitational turbulence.

The plane gets its name from the main island, the Shining Shore, from which its main gateways are present upon and which link into the Astral Plane. The island halves and their names are as follows.

Shining Shore, The Sunbleached Beach

A tropical island sitting among a vast sea, it is a land of eternal sunlight, with warm air and cool winds, and surprisingly fresh water which seems to well up from below the crust. Though timeless, a sort of time does flow as the sun overhead seems to bob up and down never quite setting for good. The islands name comes from its white beaches which seem to interact with the water in this realm, causing it to emit a cool phosperous light. No external water causes this effect, only the native seawater, even though the seawater appears to be nothing more than normal low-salinity water. Small amounts of random flora and fauna appear in this realm, seemingly randomly generated and with no evidence of stable ecosystems in place.

The island is dotted with the long destroyed ruins of an ancient civilization, with strange stone monuments, eroded statues, and overgrown temples can be found deeper in the jungle inland and dotting the vast desert-like beachfront. Within the sandy beachfront can be found doors, sometimes connected to ruins and other times simply hanging out on their own. The doors are always intact even if the rest of the structure is not.

If one knows how to open the doors and can manage to open it in spite of the static trait on this island, one can access a mini-demiplane within the demiplane. The door still leads to the building it was once connected to in a state before its destruction. The inside of the building can be explored, but all windows and exits besides the main entrance are stuck. Any who attempt to leave are subject to turbulent gravity and inevitably ejected elsewhere in the plane outside of the building, always out of sight of the building. If one returns to the location, travelers find themselves outside of the door with the ruins of the building once more.

It is said that one can attempt to build a structure on this island. Any structures will seem to undergo unusually heavy erosion into white sand, and most buildings decay within a week leaving only an intact door. Said building can be visited from that point on, even if future constructions would otherwise overlap with previous ruins.

This part of the island has the static trait, but alterable morphic inside any buildings and with the sand itself.

Shining Shore, The Pale Twilight

On the underside of the shining shore, the sun never rises. At most it forms a bright twilight, but it never reaches over the horizon. Like the topside of the island, it is an island floating in the middle of a sea, but unlike the topside the sea here is as salty as any ocean. Temperatures are considerably lower, but still warm, and the area is lit with an eternal bright full moon and the glow of seawater glowing along the shores. While the other island is a jungle, this side is a vast desert which is dry and cool and dotted with distant but intact ancient towers which resemble the designs used in the Burning Canyon. No phantom buildings and portal doors are present, but the existence of several mirror-based architectures within these abandoned towers may have indicated that this place once saw the touch of sunlight, and what little engraved images remain seem to suggest some loss or apocalyptic event.

Underneath the sand, some of the towers dig into and are connected to a vast underground labyrinth of uncertain purpose. Within the winding walls stalk dangerous monsters that seem to spawn from nowhere, the only real life present on this side of the island. Fortunately they never seem to leave the labyrinth. Unfortunately, they can prove to be quite dangerous. No one is certain what lies at the bottom of this underground dungeon, but it may very well be the secret to the lack of sun on this part of the strip.

This part of the island has the static trait, but alterable morphic inside any buildings and with the sand itself.

Frozen Forest, The Silent Vale

Across the Shining Shore yet not quite to the Burning Canyon sits the Frozen Forest, a perpetually still snow covered tundra and forest relatively rich in wildlife compared to the other islands, with various deer, moose, and wolves wandering the wilds. There is no sign of civilization on this island, with the landscape being dominated by vast roots extending from supernaturally large trees that curve into the sky. A particularly large specimen dominates the center of this cold landscape. Care must be taken here, for creatures who travel here do not feel the cold as intensely as they should. It is not unlike the feeling of being under endure elements. However, no such protection actually exists and clouds of freezing mist are known to drop the ambient temperature significantly without obvious health risk until it is far too late, and hypothermia has set in.

The realm is eerily quiet, and this is due to the fact that sounds are muffled in this area. Sound beyond 20 ft of its source is snuffed as per silence, and audible sounds always sounds several decibels too soft. The predators of this land know this, and ambushes are very possible to the unwary traveler. Day and night also flow in spite of being a timeless plane, seeming to rapidly shift to new times at random every few hours, moving from bright winter daylight to the frozen darkness of a moonlit night. Yet in spite of all of these dangers, the forest is peaceful and its non-predatory inhabitants kind. One could potentially set up a home here, yet none has. Perhaps the threat of wolves is too great, for it is known that sometimes the animals and indeed the forest seems to awaken with alien intellect.

This part of the island has the alterable morphic trait. Sonic effects are terminated to a maximum range of 20 ft from its point of origin. Cold effects are automatically Extended, while Fire effects are inhibited.

Frozen Forest, The River of Clouds

While the topside is a series of valleys rimmed with high mountains and tall trees, the reverse of this island is a mountain range of steep slopes, snow banks, avalanches, and high altitudes. At the snow-barren peaks air is thin but clear, with the sky turning dark as it reaches above the atmosphere. Lower down the slopes, vast cloud formations of deep mist form and spill down, blanketing the base in rivers of clouds. Going within the cloud layer is dangerous, as not only are some of the mists composed of freezing fog (as the Silent Vale) instead of normal cold vapor, but visibility is nearly impossible and the terrain below is sharp, rocky, and jagged. The entire system of steams and rivers pool into a center lake, where the fog is so dense that the lower half is able to support boats as if it were liquid. Here the vapor continues to become more dense without becoming a liquid, finally sinking into a great hidden storm at the center of the lake, and a terrible whirlpool that drags its victims down into howling rock and liquefying fog. None are known to have made the trip down into the whirlpool successfully. Its said that there is a vast underground lake, or perhaps a hidden civilization within, but it seems doubtful.

Fauna is scarce, largely in the form of rare birds sailing high within the middle altitudes. Some say at high altitudes they also witness strange aurora-like energy beings sometimes rippling across the sky like snakes, and that these things are no mere natural phenomena but a creature into itself, its biology and behavior yet to be discovered.

This part of the island has the alterable morphic trait. Most of the non-mist covered areas lies in high altitude.

Burning Canyon, The Iron Towers

The last of the islands if a crimson desert stuck in eternal sunset. The sun lies red and massive on the horizon, and the colorful sand and bare sandstone rock is painted even more extreme colors of red, purples, oranges, and golds. The temperature is moderate, even a bit chilly at the surface but around the vast canyon-like cracks that cross this realm the temperature warms considerably. Great thermal vents have broken this landscape apart, and canyons running with molten lava await deep below illuminating the otherwise sun-shielded surfaces of the canyon walls in baleful red hues. The place is highly tetonically active, and eruptions or earthquakes are common as the land violently reorients itself.

The main feature of this island is its massive iron towers, the most technologically savvy of all the ancient ruins discovered upon this plane. These iron fortresses often extend upon impossibly thin stilts rising from the pools of lava below, or are half-buried and bent in sandstone and igneous rock near occasional surface-formed volcanoes. They have enhancements upon them and are well guarded, but many of the secrets within have been looted, aged away, or otherwise removed while the ancient mechanical guardians of the land continue their lonely duty protecting a dead people. The towers are connected by a series of complex gateways and teleporters that lead all over the plane. In the center, a large black fortress of burning iron sits half-submerged in a great caldera. None have entered it and returned, and so whatever secrets lay inside have simply been lost.

Fire based animals and birds can be found here, as well as a disturbing sight. A species of harpy seems to have made home within the canyon walls, riding the great thermals that ascend from the heat below. But though they appear humanoid, they have no signs of intelligence or sapience. They are little more than animals, their faces distorted and animalistic and their bodies apparently in a state of ever-starving (though they seem to have no need to actually eat).

This part of the island has the alterable morphic trait. Fire effects are automatically Extended, while Cold and Water effects are inhibited.

Burning Canyon, The Ashen Ridge

While the topside of this island is active, the ashen ridge appears to have gone into a state of cooling. It is dominated by a ring of volcanoes which passively and constantly spew clouds of toxic gas and heavy ash, which blankets the sky and blocks out the sun which would otherwise hang eternally at noon over the land. It snows a constant dusting of ash which buries any structure which tries to be built here in a manner of weeks, and breathing is difficult. Vision extends out no more than 120 ft, with partial concealment out further than that and never quite reaching total concealment without the more heavy downpours of ash.

Its said there are things buried deep in the ash here, which eventually hardens into a brittle and poisonous rock known as ashstone. Rumor persists that vast riches and wondrous lore awaits those that dig deep enough, but few can tolerate this inhospitable terrain here and some say that the things they find below are still... occupied.

This part of the island has the alterable morphic trait. Curiously, both Fire and Water effects are inhibited.

The Shining Road

Not an island unto itself, the shining road passes through all of the three islands. Composed of glittering shining stone, perpetually clean no matter the environment, it twists and turns through the landscape eventually leaving out the other side and providing the only safe passage from island to island. It is quite wide, with large ornate fences marking the sides of the path and keeping others from casually falling off the edge. It also loops around in a Mobius strip formation as to pass through all six realms and coming back to its point of origin.

It is known that each island seems to have its own sun and/or moon, but these objects are not seen from the road. When one leaves an island, they do so through caves, mist, or many other obstacles which inhibit sight of the sky. When they come out on the other side on the road in transit between islands, the only thing visible of the islands is a vague crystal shell which surrounds all three realms and no sun or moon, simply a constant dim glow as appropriate for the realm in question. The void between islands is a softly illuminated haze not unlike the Astral Plane, soft clouds of color drifting this way in that in a chaotic dance.

It is known that sometimes rare travelers meet each other upon the shining road. What occurs then depends on the travelers themselves, and their propensity for diplomacy, or violence.

Encounters

There are few encounters on this barren plane, with others usually appearing in the form of other adventuring teams which may or may not be hostile.

Using Mobius of the Shining Shore

As this realm does not fit into the traditional cosmology in the first place, and with the lore of possibly being the home of a dead god (to which the Astral is already known for), this plane can easily be used as a former base of operations for any number of deities, or perhaps planar travelers. The apparently awakened natural fauna which is present on this world, and its many ruins and structures of civilizations come and gone may indicate that this is a world of nature reclaiming the land.

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