What might one find on the astral plane?

[Ravingdork]

Everything I can find seems to indicate there is almost nothing on the astral plane. Is the Pathfinder version of the astral plane really so empty, so void of anything?

The description of the plane has the following to say on it:
A silvery void that connects the Material and Inner Planes to the Outer Planes, the astral plane is the medium through which the souls of the departed travel to the afterlife. A traveler in the Astral Plane sees the plane as a vast empty void periodically dotted with tiny motes of physical reality calved off of the countless planes it overlaps. Powerful spellcasters utilize the Astral Plane for a tiny fraction of a second when they teleport, or they can use it to travel between planes with spells like astral projection.

What's more, there aren't any creatures from the Bestiary that are native to the plane. I can only find three creatures from the Bestiary II (astradaemon, dragon horse, and pleroma aeon), and they aren't even necessarily natives!

[spalding]

Your mom.

Though more seriously in Golarion you could find the trail of souls streaming towards the Boneyard.

[Ravingdork]

Abraham spalding wrote:

Your mom.

Though more seriously in Golarion you could find the trail of souls streaming towards the Boneyard.

Yes, but what are they to an adventurer/planar traveler? Can they even pose a threat, even interact?

[spalding]

Ravingdork wrote:

Abraham spalding wrote:

Your mom.

Though more seriously in Golarion you could find the trail of souls streaming towards the Boneyard.

Yes, but what are they to an adventurer/planar traveler? Can they even pose a threat, even interact?

I would think they might be able to interact. I mean they can be grabbed by demons and night hags (which also can be found on the astral plane) so I imagine they are more than just light passing by.

In addition there might be some dragons, angels, archons, ghaele, and anything else with spell casting ability or spell like ability to plane shift.

Since it's timeless spells that create matter would last for quite a while so you might find some vacant (or not!) castle built by some mid-level caster that thought they were big enough to make it on the astral plane.

[Echo Vining]

2e Planescape populated the plane with githyanki and the island-corpses of dead gods. Pathfinder doesn't really have either of these things. Although the old Guide to the Astral Plane was full of interesting locations and details on the Astral, if you can find a copy or hunt up some details on Planewalker.

[Jo Bird]

Ravingdork wrote:

Abraham spalding wrote:

Your mom.

Though more seriously in Golarion you could find the trail of souls streaming towards the Boneyard.

Yes, but what are they to an adventurer/planar traveler? Can they even pose a threat, even interact?

I don't know what kind of game you're running, but in my world moms are pretty important.

[Lincoln Hills]

Things to encounter in the Astral Plane?

There are portal points to virtually all other dimensions. Any that lead to an inhabited region of another plane are likely to be fortified to some degree - so zero-gravity castles built by genies, devils, celestials and more might be seen (visible for hundreds of miles around, too.)

There are also likely to be "hermitages", where mortals are using the 'timeless' quality of the plane to achieve a cheap form of immortality. These self-imposed hermits are likely to be lonesome, homesick or downright crazed... and any that have been at it for a while are likely to start attracting maruts (from Bestiary 2).

Also consider voidjammers, ships specifically constructed to allow mass cargo transit across the Astral. Imagine that two countries far across Golarion from each other both have an astral portal - so they build a ship in the Astral and shuttle valuable or perishable cargo between those two color pools. Multiply this by all the planes the Astral touches and there are likely to be quite a few 'ships' on the plane. (And, as always, where there are merchants, pirates are likely to appear...)

And fortresses, hermitages and ships alike, once wrecked or disused, become interesting ruins for PCs to explore...