Legends of Tolria The Galactic Game

Environments · Regional environment

Ash Column

A sustained eruption puts a column of ash and gas miles into the atmosphere and spreads it downwind for hundreds of miles. The ash is powdered rock, so it abrades, does not dissolve and destroys any engine that ingests it. Static in the column generates its own lightning, and the sky under the fall zone is black by day.

Regional environment Aerial (air)
Atmospheric Lowland

Crossing it

Navigate
DC 18
Forage
DC 20
Notice
DC 18

No air-breathing engine survives a flight through it, and the fall zone blocks sight.

Exposure

  • Contaminated Atmosphere

    Air that can be breathed and should not be: spore, ash, chlorine, coolant or fallout.

    CON save, DC 12. End of each minute. The Poisoned condition until an hour after leaving the atmosphere.

    • Filtration

      A rebreather or sealed suit removes the check. A filter mask gives advantage on it.

    • Visibility

      Ash and dense spore make the area heavily obscured beyond Close range, in addition to their other effects.

    • Radiological

      Where the contaminant is radiological, a failed save also inflicts a level of exhaustion that a long rest will not clear. It is removed by a Medicine check against the same DC, a restorative spell or a course of antiradiation drugs.

    • Conversion

      A failure in Bloom atmosphere also counts as one day of exposure toward conversion.

  • Extreme Heat

    Temperatures above about 100 degrees Fahrenheit in shade, or anywhere near a working vent.

    CON save, DC 10, rising by 1 for each hour after the first. End of each hour. One level of exhaustion.

    • Sealed and armored

      A creature in medium or heavy armor, or in a sealed suit without active cooling, has disadvantage on the save.

    • Water

      A creature with its full water ration has advantage on the save. One without any fails automatically.

    • Cooled

      Active cooling, a Rift effect naming heat, or Resistance to fire damage removes the save.

In play

  • Engines fail

    Any air-breathing engine flown through ash fall fails completely in 1d4 rounds.

  • Abrasive

    Unfiltered breathing causes 1 level of exhaustion per hour. Each hour a creature also makes a DC 13 Constitution save or is Blinded until the ash is washed out.

  • Darkness

    Under the fall zone the region is heavily obscured and remains so until the eruption stops.

  • Column lightning

    The column generates its own storm. Anything flying within a mile of it takes 6d6 lightning damage on a failed DC 15 Dexterity save, once per minute.

Variations

  • The column

    Directly above the vent, where heat and velocity make every approach fatal.

  • Fall zone

    Downwind, for hundreds of miles. Ash accumulates deep enough to collapse a roof.

Worlds it occurs on

  • Foundry World A world converted end to end into industrial plant, with an exhaust atmosphere and a day set by shifts.
  • Magmatic A world with an unsettled surface: tidally heated, newly formed, or orbiting too close to its star.
  • Terran (Barren) Rock and wasteland with a thin atmosphere or none, habitable but sparsely settled.
  • Terran (Verdant) A rocky world with liquid water, breathable air and a magnetic field to protect them, rare and the cause of most wars.

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