The Bastion of Souls

There is no known means of controlling or restricting the movement of a wildsoul zone.

Encounter Level 9 Planar Touchstone Faceted crystal surfaces glow with the emerald, sapphire, and other hues of precious gems. Clear crystalline trees sprout thickly from the floor, laden with brilliant points of white light. The sound of thousands of crystal leaves constantly chiming like bells fills the air. A blaze of brilliant light shines in the center of this area.

The Bastion of Souls is one of several fonts of preincarnate souls, created before there were deities and existing without any divine infl uence. Incarnum fl ows like water through the heart of the Bastion, passing from the Bastion to the Material Plane to enter mortal fl esh. The Bastion is made of solidified positive energy— unbreakable, impenetrable to magical entry, and unresponsive to magical methods to learn about the interior. Creatures inside it cannot summon aid with calling or summoning spells. Inside the Bastion, the visual brilliance of the Positive Energy Plane is absent and gravity becomes objective (rather than subjective), but it otherwise conforms to the traits of the Positive Energy Plane. Inside the Bastion of Souls, crystalline trees sprout preincarnate souls, which appear like brilliant points of light. When “ripe,” a soul falls from the tree in a fl ash of brighter light and the preincarnate soul flies off, soon to incarnate somewhere in the multiverse. If picked before it is ripe, the preincarnate soul withers and dies within 10 rounds, dooming a creature somewhere in the multiverse to a soulless birth. At the center of the Bastion is the Node, where soulstuff coalesces from the very fabric of the Positive Energy Plane. From the Node, it is drawn to nurture the crystal trees where the souls grow, but soul energy also fl ows from the Node directly to the Material Plane in the form of incarnum.

Location: The Positive Energy Plane.

Initial Encounters: Roll on the Bastion of Souls encounter table when the characters visit the site for the fi rst time, or for the fi rst time in over a year.

Subsequent Encounters: Once the characters clear out the Bastion, on subsequent visits the chance of an encounter

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PLANAR TOUCHSTONES

Certain places in the cosmos resonate with unique forms of energy. The Bastion of Souls, described here, is one such place. The cosmological association of linked planes, demiplanes, and connective dimensional realms creates a vast network over which the energy of existence itself is channeled. Less-connected demiplanes and planes are the nodes of this network, while the most highly connected planes are the hubs, where their many linkages to other planes suffuse them with excess energy. Those able to form a linkage with a hub are rewarded with a heady charge of supernatural power. These hubs, usually places already resonant with mythic possibility, are known as planar touchstones. The Planar Touchstone feat described below (originally presented in the Planar Handbook) allows those who possess some association with a given planar location—in the form of an object native to the planar touchstone—to forge a link. A link forged with a planar touchstone provides a base ability that is always active. The link also provides characters with the possibility of supercharging their abilities by making a personal visit to a touchstone site. Such a visit allows the power inherent in the touchstone to discharge directly into the visitor, granting the character a higher-order ability that she can call upon a limited number of times before it is exhausted. Additional visits to that planar touchstone (or any other touchstone) can revitalize her charge, as needed. If she visits a touchstone other than the one she originally linked to when taking the feat, she swaps out the base ability of the old site for the new, and gains the higher-order ability of the new site (while losing any remaining higher-order uses of the old site). For those intimately familiar with planar touchstones, visiting one or more touchstones is known as “taking the touchstone tour.”

FEAT: PLANAR TOUCHSTONE

Forge a link between you and power-rich planar locations, referred to as planar touchstones.

Prerequisites: Portable object of at least 250 gp value native to any designated planar touchstone site, Knowledge (the planes) 8 ranks.

Benefit: Choose any site designated as a planar touchstone for which you also possess an object native to that location, as noted in this feat’s prerequisite. When this feat is first taken, forging a link between yourself and a chosen planar touchstone takes 24 hours of uninterrupted concentration. To forge a link, you must spend 10 experience points and expend the object described in this feat’s prerequisite. Once the link is forged, you gain the base ability described for that touchstone. If you physically visit the planar location once you’ve forged a link, you also gain a higher-order ability with a limited number of uses, as described for that planar touchstone. You can repeatedly visit the planar touchstone, each time recharging your usages of the higher-order ability. Usages of a higher-order ability do not stack, so visiting your planar touchstone prior to using up any of your higher-order usages confers no additional benefit. Once you’ve established a link with one planar touchstone site by taking this feat, you can also freely visit other planar touchstones. When you do so and fulfill the higher-order ability’s recharge condition for the alternate site, you immediately gain the base ability of the new planar touchstone site and lose the base ability of the previous site. You also lose any remaining uses of the higher-order ability of your previously selected site (if any), and instead gain the specified number of higher-order ability uses appropriate to the new site. In this way, you can “unplug” from one site and “plug in” to a new planar touchstone site as often as you desire. Thus, after expending the raw materials and experience points for making your first connection, making subsequent connections with different sites is as easy as fulfilling the higherorder recharge condition.

Special: You can take this feat more than once. Each time, you gain the base ability to retain one more planar touchstone location in addition to your previous ability. You also gain the capacity to retain uses of one more planar touchstone’s higher-order ability.