It has been called the Vim, the Vigor, the Crown of Kundalini, the Yang Plane, Chi, Xi, the Plane of Life, the Plane of Light, and the Positive Material Plane. It is the light within all that lives, the luster in the heart of gems. It is life so potent that it can kill. It can raise the dead and never-living. It is the womb from which all souls are born, though how, if I may mix metaphors, the trees that nurture them are seeded we do not know.

We have long been fascinated by it, though the danger its light represents keeps us from

From the Plane of Radiance, it is possible to enter the Kundalini by following a single color in the seeming chaos of the Rainbow Sea. For those who know how to pick up the trail, the slightest hint of blue can be pursued in greater and greater intensities. When the blue - or the green, or the red, or the white - becomes so extreme that it is unrecognizable then the pursuer is on the brink of the plane of purest light, and need merely step in.

This also possible on the Material Plane, though the secret of following colors to their ultimate source is known to very few there. First one locates an object of a certain color - then one uses a divination spell to locate one of the next level of intensity. Those who rely on divination spells (as opposed to the pure instinct of a radiance genasi) may search all across the world to find brighter and brighter hues, but ultimately a portal will open, and the traveler may cross from Radiance to the plane of ultimate light and positive energy.

It is for this reason that some mystics on the Prime sometimes identify the Positive Energy Plane with certain colors - for example, green, since they rightfully see the plane as supplying the life-force behind plants, or blue if they see the plane as the true essence of the living sea and sky.

Some prefer to enter the Yang Chi by following a specific sequence of colors, beginning most commonly with a deep violet and progressing through the spectrum to vibrant red. This spreads the effort around, requiring less stages of a given hue.

As noted above, some Prime scholars associate positive energy with the color green above all, as this is the color associated with growth and life. It has been determined that the color alone is not the only possible portal to the Plane of Life - deep forests, fey demiplanes, and ancient trees have also occasionally been used, as an ecosystem's connection to the plane grows over time. It's theorized that the most ancient of life systems will always have a vortex to the plane in their deepest hearts.

A reletively minor danger of remaining in the Yang Plane for too long is mental disorders in those races adapted to regular periods of darkness. The constant light can cause insomnia, and although this is a problem in many of the inner planes, those residing in the Source of All Light are affected more than others, sometimes becoming paranoid and prone to hallucinations within just a few days. Eight hours of sleep within an opaque shelter is usually enough to cure this affliction temporarily.

Rumors that light-madness can cause bestial physical transformations in orcs and goblin-races have not been confirmed, although their enhanced susceptibility to the Madness has. Although hobgoblins are seemingly no more touched by the malady than humans or elves, goblins, bugbears, and orcs have been known to become so violent after only a few hours of exposure that keeping them in the plane long enough to fully test out its effects on them has been impossible. Dwarves, naturally, are as resistant to this madness as much as they are all psychological disorders.

Which means they're often barmy as a slaad, as I sometimes suspect our "sturdy" Gendwor is - ed.

Some worlds are plagued with a mysterious, invisible energy that burns and blisters, creating nausea, hair loss and worse ailments. Some even claim that bizarre mutations have resulted from prolonged exposure, in both those who have been exposed and subsequent generations. This mysterious energy - which some have termed the Glow - is not from the Positive Energy Plane directly, but from a place called the Glowing Dunes, where the much-distorted energy of the Plane of Radiance reacts strangely with the igneous matter of the Plane of Magma. Why vortices from this alien region taint some material worlds and not others is uncertain. Some claim that they are actually the result of incredibly powerful weapons created by a lost civilization. It isn't hard to imagine how this hypothetical civilization became lost, with such dangerous magics at their disposal.

There are rumors of rare individuals capable of converting magical dweomers into a vivid silver flame, from which they can sculpt a variety of dramatic effects. While this is clearly a result of divine intervention, it seems logical that this Silver Fire should manifest itself near the positive energy plane, which is credited as the source of all creations and invocations.

Although many parties have been dispatched in search of a Sea of Silver Fire in the inner planes and the power it must represent, none have been successful to date.

It was the halfling Eiira Casplardaun who first discovered a vein of Blackflame, that enigmatic substance that halfling mystics have protected for over a hundred generations. Because of the secrecy surrounding it by the religious fanatics of that race, research into its properties has been slow. The wizard Esmerelda Kant captured a halfling Keeper of Blackflame who had apparently absorbed the substance into her own body. Her eyes and mouth flickered with black tongues of energy. Unfortunately, Miss Kant had little time to examine her subject. Her few notes were found frozen to her her ice-covered corpse.

Because blackflame is apparently normal fire in reverse - emitting darkness instead of light, cold instead of heat - some have classified it as a negative energy phenomenon. This couldn't be further from the truth. Blackflame is actually anentropic - ashes, smoke and soot fed into it are transformed by the substance into the whole items they once were. Sometimes they are even improved, imperfections burnt clean. Supposedly, a charred bit of wood thrust into a crucible of blackflame came out as a green branch covered in leaves, and a pile of ash came out as a leather-bound tome which rapidly began to stink within a few days, as the animal hide was now raw and uncured. When the tome was placed again within the fire, the rot was reversed and the book was preserved (albeit covered in frost) as long as it remained within. Blackflame preserves organic substances and it transforms inorganic stuff into living matter. Minerals that were never alive, like iron, slowly become brittle crystal. Water freezes, fire is snuffed out, and air becomes fresh and pleasant to breathe. As long as it has fuel, blackflame keeps on burning.

That blackflame is a form of positive energy cannot be doubted, though whether it is inner planar in origin or somehow transformed by the Outer Planes is unclear. Some deity, possibly Yondalla, seems to be obscuring all attempts to find out.

The tendency of mineral elements to crystallize is always present in the Vim. In the plane itself, this is normally countered by the energy of the plane itself, which rapidly converts most forms of matter to pure energy. However, magics that protect travelers from the Bursting do nothing to prevent the minerals in their bodies from slowly growing into complex crystalline forms. Visitors too caught in the Bliss may not notice until they find themselves immobile, their limbs encased in brightly colored mineral growths. Or they may notice blood leaking from their mouths and other orifices as the crystals begin to tear their internal organs. Surgery can be an effective remedy, but of course normal curative magics do nothing, being based on the very forces which created the malady in the first place. Baneful magics based on negative energy are likewise useless since they only attack the life-force of the patient, although extremely precise applications of disintegration magics have been known to work.

Few are the sages who know anything in detail of the mighty domes of night that surround the stars of the material planes. While some have theorized that they grow directly from the substance of outer chaos, turned into alien crystal by mighty blasts of positive energy directed by the gods and demiurges of the planes, this cannot be proven. Healing spells and the like seem to have no effect on the Flow outside the worlds, and greater amounts of positive energy have proven impractical, since planar connections are impossible outside of ordered space.

Although it has been confirmed that the stars in the heavens are bodies of elemental fire, fire alone does not explain the effect intense sunlight has on the undead and other creatures of negative energy. Some have proposed a fifth element named Quintessence to explain this (the term has come to refer to a solid form of ether, however), but it's clear to me that every star contains a heart made of pure positive energy. This means they're alive in a sense, which should not be surprising to those who have heard their songs. Perhaps they are the source of the positive energy that animates every world.

Much as ancient trees and forests are thought to form vortexes to the Plane of Life, so extremely ancient stars are thought to do the same thing. Doomguard researchers have found while studying the deaths of heavenly bodies that small to medium-sized stars tend to collapse into small, dim objects they offensively call "White Dwarfs." Still, some of these have been known to belch out regular pulses of energy, indicating they retain some connection to the Positive Plane. Larger stars, on the other hand, gather enough positive energy within their hearts that they actually expand, swallowing neighboring planets in their bloated red flames. The delighted Doomguard term these "Red Giants."

Far rarer than either of these, perhaps even unique in the multiverse, is the mysterious "White Hole" found in the sphere called Cloud of Green-Bound Silver. This seems to have been a star that has been completely consumed by the pure life-energy within it, becoming a portal to the Vim as massive as a sun.

Refraction

Condensation

Ionization

Psionics

Magic (Evocation, Spellfire, Transmutation, Conjuration (and Healing), Abjuration, Enchantment, White Necromancy, Illusion, (Force))

The Force

The Source

Planar Energy

Belief

Souls

The origin of souls

Fonts of Preincarnate Souls

Energons

Gk'lok-lok

Soulseeds

Blessed Children

What do I want?

You take away my freedom. You chain me to a cold stone wall in this harsh world of gravity, far from the clean void of the Astral or the envigorating sea of ether. You rip out my child from my belly, leaving me cold and empty inside. A shell, a spent cartridge. Terribly alone, in a way my people were never meant to be alone.

And you ask me what I want.

I must admit, your approach is novel. Most would have had the decency to simply end my existence and be done with it.

Oh, you threaten me? With your little toy, your little fairy wand sprinkling me with life? Do you think I will shrivel up in pain? Do you really think I can suffer more than I am already, with this gaping hole in my abdomen?

How little you understand me.

Very well, I will tell you what I want, if it will stop your constant yammering. Soulbags should not yammer.

First, you must understand something about the worlds.

Reality has two poles, a top and a bottom. You call them the positive and negative planes, although you have little understanding of what a "plane" is. In between is the migration of souls.

The beginning of souls, as far back as we know them by that name, is in the plane of positive energy. They begin as dim seeds on the crystalline trees that are given names such as the Source or the fonts of preincarnate souls. Eventually they hatch into pod people called Blessed Children, who drive off in mystical Vespas. They come in six flavors: red, white, cashmere, and silk.

"He's losing it," warned one of the interrogators.

"Keep him talking," said his superior.