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Where the Flames Go to Die
The border region of Fire and Ash
Planewalkers travelling nothingwards from Elemental Fire towards the Negative Quasi-Elemental Plane of Ash will have to slog through several dramatic changes in environment, and especially temperature. As the fires are slowed, quelled and poisoned by negative energy, the searing flames die down and the detritus and pollution from all that merry burning builds up.
The Cinder Wastes
While the graybeards and efreet can argue over whether the Cinder Wastes are technically a region of Fire or whether you’ve already crossed over into Ash (the efreet are all for keeping Fire pure, see), for the poor planewalker stranded here, it matters less. Here the incessant flames have started to flicker and die, leaving behind cooling embers that give rise to swirling desert of glowing soot and clinker.
Here temperatures rapidly drop to around 200-300 degrees—still easily enough to burn a sod, but not enough to melt precious metals, let alone steel. The burning gases in this place are constantly smothered by the presence of ashes—the place smoulders more than burns, with constant gray-black ‘snow’ falling down and settling as fine twinkling particles. These sparking cinders lay over the surface of the blazing sea as dark dunes, that become cooler still if you continue towards Ash. The cinder dunes can be treacherously thin, leading to many a careless planewalker fall through the quicksand-like cinders and plunge into the liquid fire that lies just beneath the crust.
This image has made many clueless who find themselves here wrongfully assume that the entire Plane of Fire is somehow a desert. Many fire-born creatures find the Cinder Wastes uncomfortably cold, but this place still has its share of inhabitants. For example, cinderbrutes, hulking creatures of fire and compressed ash, seem to be native to the Cinder Wastes and well adapted to life here.
Instead of Fire’s atmosphere of flammable and toxic gases, the ‘air’ here is thick with soot and ash, meaning breathing is impossible without magical assistance. Vision is limited depending on the weather—at best a couple of hundred feet, but in an cinder storm you might be able to see only ten feet around you.
More chant on the Cinder Wastes here [coming soon]
The Sea of Frozen Flames
Travel further nothingwards and you’ll eventually reach a point where the ashes overpower the flames, and there is no liquid fire left. Welcome to the Sea of Frozen Flames. Here the fire is frozen solid, forming crystalline structures that protrude from the desert and glister with internal light. The Fraternity of Order categorise this place as the start of the plane of Ash in their Codex of the Planes, on account of the surreal lack of heat. While the frozen flames don’t produce any warmth, they will somehow still burn a careless berk who touches them—and the usual protections from fire won’t help you here.
Better then to stick to the passageways and tunnels that wind their way through the place, where the frozen flames are smaller, further apart, or have been crushed down to sparkling soot by centuries of occasional travellers. Initially these are pathways that wind between huge clusters of flame crystal, but as the soot thickens, you’ll find gently glowing tunnels that delve into the ash. If you can survive the harsh, arid environs here, you’ll find this place as beautiful as anywhere. My Sensate friends, it’s well worth a visit.
More chant on the Sea of Frozen Flames here [coming soon]
The Gray Wall
Venture ever more nothingwards and you’ll eventually end up against the Gray Wall. It’s a sheer crumbling mass of powdery ash, like a cliff that forgot how to be solid. This is unarguably the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Ash proper—so-called Core Ash—so where a cutter calls the boundary of Fire and Ash is somewhere between here and Core Fire, depending on their biases.
You’ll know it from its all-consuming chill. Natural flames simply cannot ignite here, as the environment actively absorbs heat. The graybeards call it ‘cold dominant’, and while it’s no plane of Ice, it will still finish off planewalkers who come here without protection from the cold. But don’t feel too hard-done-by, because its even more dangerous for fire-based creatures. Breathing here is impossible without magical aid, spells like airy ash will help. Your vision will be limited to whatever pocket you’re standing in, because the rest of the plane is barely-solid soot. Infravision is also foiled here, as any residual heat from creatures is snuffed out by the unearthly chill of the plane.
Unless you can find a tunnel, cavern or elemental pocket, you’ll need to burrow through the ashes yourself if you want to move around here. At its most dense, the ash is the consistency of soil—easy enough to dig through slowly but difficult to shore up to prevent a tunnel collapsing. In its thinner pockets, the ash is more like a thick cloud which limits vision to ten feet but can be navigated like a thick smog in the Lower Ward. The closer you get to the Negative Material Plane, the darker and more sparse the ash becomes…
More chant on Core Ash here [coming soon]
Canonical Sources: Inner Planes [2e]
Other Sources: Margarita, Jon Winter-Holt