The Seventh Sea
Many planes have seas, but if a cutter sails far enough they may sometimes find themselves completely lost. This, in fact, is the Seventh Sea planar pathway; a state of being so far from land in any direction that any way is effectively the same. Remember, cutter, that the Outer Planes (bar a couple) don’t have stars or compass points to direct a lost sailor.
When you’re this lost, it’s the hopes and expectations of the ship’s crew that guide the vessel through the Seventh Sea of the Astral (which ain’t real water as much as the condensed dreams of a billion sleeping primes), and to the destination the crew most want to reach.
There are a number of planar seas that can be reached in the manner; the following destinations are currently known, and it’s likely there may be more. The Silver Sea of Mount Celestia is connected (but only when fog banks or silvery spray obscure the infinite mountain), the Blood Oceans of the Abyss, the Ice Floes of Baator, the Brave Ocean on Ysgard, Thalasia on Elysium, the largest lakes of Arborea and the layer of Aquallor, Tir fo Thuinn and the sea of Glorium in the Outlands, and certain prime worlds when the planes are aligned in the right conjunction…
Source: Jon Winter-Holt, mimir.net
I haven’t even finished my first Planescape campaign, nor thought out my second one, but now I want to run or play sailor-themed campaign set in the Seventh Sea. I imagine it having early 20th century vibes with things like infernal baatezu battleships or archon vs demon air battles
I hope someday it gets more lore (even though I completely understand the titanic labour you already took upon yourself). Planar Pathways can be cool as a setting (I mean, Sigil itself is a planar pathway)
Would the Seventh Sea touch the Outlandish sea next to Glorium? (Man, there are a lot of planar oceans)
It does now 😉 and thanks! The Seventh Sea was just something that came to me as I was writing up other planar pathways, I’m glad it inspired something fun. Let me know if you have any more ideas to build on it, I’d be happy to add to the page or create more.
So I thought about it, but my only idea was about having naval combat between various forces (since there’s not a lot of places for it on the planes, and there’s not a lot of planar pathways that are the also the battleground), but there’s a big problem with the Seventh Sea being characterized as the untamed ocean and only being accessible to someone who’s truly lost – it kinda prevents the armies of devils and archons from just sailing over to this sea.
However, I really like the aesthetic of an open ocean, something that is almost barren of life and invokes thalassophobia, but also absolutely free and beautiful despite being what amounts to be a desert, but with too much water. I remember the plot from the Disney show “Elena of Avalor”, where main characters encounter the ship populated with immortal crewmen, who actually chose to live forever on their ship, enjoying their freedom. So that’s the concept for the some kind of Seventh Sea petitioners. Also, paladins of the Oath of the Open Sea from Critical Role books can be tied with it
Another interesting mythological thing is the idea of the primodial ocean, found in many cultures. At this point the only semi-interesting idea I could come up with is Cipactli from the Aztec mythology floating in the Seventh Sea as a kinda-corpse
Maybe also gaint world-holding whales, although I think that if we’re going with the open ocean vibe the Seventh Sea shouldn’t have island (at least not larger than 30 feet wide). Astral sargassum is okay tho
But if we need some sapient creatures to inhabit the sea, I would suggest istiophorals – sailfish-guardinals, originating from Thalassia