This sounds cool. Unless everybody's going to become an undead, I'm not sure where the dead who don't would end up. Probably on the Ethereal or Shadow plane?
If so, what type are these souls?
There might be major problems caused by a lack of access to the inner planes. Do things burn with no plane of fire? Can you get new life or undeath without the energy planes?
I wouldn't recommend shutting everything down right away unless this is for a temporary scenario, but having everything slowly run out could make a great campaign-level threat if you want the PCs to restore the old order of things.
It's worth considering whether druid and spells come from other planes or not. I don't know if Golarion has a ruling on that, but I always saw them as being the magic of the prime material.
Next on the list is new souls. Where do they come from? If they're sourced in the inner or outer planes, new life might be born dead, undead, or unable to wake. Worth considering, I think.
You might want to read up on Dark Sun, which did something similar to this.
Also: extradimensional items all tap into the Astral Plane - they will also cease to operate or their contents will be scattered and effectively permanently lost depending on how the disaster's 'physics' works. (The contents could also be barfed atop the square they are in at the moment of the Kaput.)
Disembodied souls from everyone floating around? You might want to call the ghostbusters.
Turin: do you have a reference for that? It sounds plausible and I like the idea, but still.
Hrm ... interestingly enough, the only reference I can find is the interaction between bags of holding and portable holes - which of course won't work without the astral plane.
Interestingly, removing the astral plane leaves several extraplanar movement modes open: shadow walk and the ethereal spells.
An idea: when water can no flonger flow along its accustomed channels, what happens? ;)
Something to look at for reference (if you can find a copy) is the old Iron Kingdoms RPG from Privateer Press. The D20 version. It modified a number of spells because of the lack of different planes.
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Beyond departed souls and divine spell-casting, you might want to delve into the psychological effects on the living. What happens to people when they're severed from the spiritual world? The Golden Compass comes to mind (the novel, not the crappy movie), but there are a lot of other possibilities.
Also, with the absence of Outer Planar gods, maybe something from the Inner Planes tries to horn in on the religion business.
A few thoughts from what I've read so far:
1. Spells like teleport rely on a quick stop in the astral plane. They would cease to work.
3. Souls could not travel to the afterlife...
In combination of 1 and 3; summoning spells would cease to function and if the connection terminates abruptly, summoned creatures would either be unable to depart or dematerialize instantaneously.
Also: extradimensional items all tap into the Astral Plane - they will also cease to operate or their contents will be scattered and effectively permanently lost depending on how the disaster's 'physics' works. (The contents could also be barfed atop the square they are in at the moment of the Kaput.)
I'm not sure to what extent Golarion's cosmology if different from pre-4 ed D&D, but didn't items like portable holes, bags of holding and spells like secret chess and magnificent mansion tap into the ethereal rather than the astral?
This also lead me to believe that without an astral world to transit from, spell caster would look seriously into ethereal solutions. Which makes me wonder, could summon monster call an elemental creature even with transiting by the astral?
Also: extradimensional items all tap into the Astral Plane - they will also cease to operate or their contents will be scattered and effectively permanently lost depending on how the disaster's 'physics' works. (The contents could also be barfed atop the square they are in at the moment of the Kaput.)I'm not sure to what extent Golarion's cosmology if different from pre-4 ed D&D, but didn't items like portable holes, bags of holding and spells like secret chess and magnificent mansion tap into the ethereal rather than the astral?
This also lead me to believe that without an astral world to transit from, spell caster would look seriously into ethereal solutions. Which makes me wonder, could summon monster call an elemental creature even with transiting by the astral?
I think you are correct about extradimensional storage - to take it a bit further, I think/guess they are stabilized demiplanes in miniature. Which dovetails nicely in with secret chest as the primary spell used to construct most extradimensional storage items.
Elementals in some cosmosologies would transit the Ethereal instead of the Astral (with the Inner/Elemental Planes connected to the Ethereal instead of the Astral). I would think that the transitional time is vastly slower though. summoning spells wouldn't work, but with research to modify them calling spells could potentially be made to work - provided that they call creatures that have some ability to transition between planes on their own accord. Interesting ...
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There could be a couple of exceptions. At least one god, perhaps others has a direct connection to the world - Rovagug is trapped within a pocket connected to the heart of Golarion. So his priests should still receive spells.
There's also Desna, the Outer Gods, and the Great Old Ones making their homes on the Material Plane.
Another interesting question would be: What of those dieties that where formally mortal? Iomedae, Cayden Cailean, Norgorber, Irori, Uragothoa, and Nethys where all mortal, or rumored to be mortal, before their divine ascension. It could be interesting if this former connection spared these deities from trouble after the astral was destroyed. Or if your running home-brew deities you could have deities with the same connection be spared as well.
This would actually be interesting as you would still allow for clerics of any alignment and Paladins of Irori and Iomedae (as well as Anti-Paladins of Rovagug, Urgathoa, and Norgorber) while still allowing for a large amount of other clerics and Paladins to suddenly lose their power and still be incredible rare.
Would also be interesting to see if minor deifies from the inner planes would try to seize power in the resulting calamity.
I think evocation spells do get screwed, yes.
First Worlder and Shadow Caller summoners should be fine, since they have no need of any planes further afield than the First World or Plane of Shadow.
Summoners for all practical purposes cease to function.
A gate does not transit the Astral Plane. So a major question to answer is going to be what happens when the Major Servants of the Gods open gates and step through to find out what is going on? When Pharasma/ the god(dess) of the afterlife notices that souls are no longer coming in, they're going to investigate.
Although if they're getting ambushed and snacked upon by Things Man Was Not Meant to Know it would be pretty humorous.
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Check out Midnight RPG This would be a good place to look for what happens when a world is cut off from external planes.
Oh the whole tone of the campaign is "It has been 100 years since the Shadow fell'. I guess the idea is that "frodo" failed to destroy the ring....what happens next?