Outer Sphere

The Great Beyond, with the Outer Sphere depicted to the right. Click or tap this image to enlarge it for improved readability. See also Category:Images of Outer Sphere.

While the Inner Sphere of the Great Beyond contains the Elemental Planes, the Outer Sphere contains nine planes each composed of quintessence, a material strongly aligned to a particular philosophy capable of taking any form associated with its prevailing beliefs. Each Outer Plane is a stable realm within the chaotic Maelstrom.

These are the dwelling places of Golarion's gods, as well as the destination of the River of Souls and the afterlife for mortals' departed souls.

Planes

Seltyiel battles a protean in the Maelstrom.

Three planes are generally associated with neutrality and monitors:

• Axis, a city of law and order
• The Boneyard, the site of Pharasma's judgment of mortal souls, which rises from Axis
• The Maelstrom of raw quintessence, in which all other Outer Planes are contained

The three unholy planes, also called the Lower Planes, are generally associated with evil philosophies, unholiness, and fiends:

• Abaddon
• Hell
• The Outer Rifts, also known as the Abyss, which manifests as gashes in the fabric of the Outer Sphere

The three celestial planes, also called the holy planes or Upper Planes, are generally associated with goodly philosophies, holiness, and celestials:

• Elysium
• Heaven
• Nirvana

There are rare exceptions, such as the existence of Duskfathom, the fiendish, evil, and unholy divine realm of Norgorber located beneath the otherwise impartial monitor city of Axis.

Inhabitants

Valkyries fight a hekatonkheires on an Outer Plane.

This section describes monitors, fiends, and celestials as presented in Pathfinder Second Edition. These beings have no collective term in this edition. For the collective term and definition used only in First Edition, see outsider.

See also: Monitor, fiend, and celestial

Each of the Outer Planes are populated by native beings formed from the souls assigned to them by Pharasma's judgment. Such beings begin as shades, fully native prototypical beings reconstructed from the mortal soul and the plane's quintessence. Over time these shades transform into one of countless templates of beings who exemplify and promote their plane's moral and philosophical concepts.

These beings are broadly grouped by the nature of their home planes:

• Beings of Axis, the Boneyard, and the Maelstrom are called monitors, and include psychopomps, aeons, and proteans.
• Beings of the Lower Planes are called fiends, and include demons, daemons, and devils.
• Beings of the Upper Planes are called celestials, and include angels, archons, and azatas.

While they are native to their home planes and can naturally survive within the Outer Sphere, these beings often also travel or are summoned to other planes, including the Universe. A few, such as archons and qlippoths, predate even the concept of mortality or the arrival of the deities to their home planes.

Mortal influence

Mortals whose physical or spiritual natures have been influenced by the energy or parentage of a planar being, or who are merely exposed to the pure quintessence of an Outer Plane, are planar scions called nephilim. Nephilim related to celestials are broadly called empyreans, while those related to fiends are called cambions.

Death and destruction

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The Sarkoris Scar, former site of the Worldwound, is one of many sites of Sarkoris littered with persistent physical remains of demons.

Natives of the Outer Planes are effectively immortal by mortal standards, unless killed by violence or carelessness. As they lack mortal souls, what occurs to a dead outer planar native's essence and physical body after their death can vary, though in most cases some or all of it eventually dissipates and returns to its home plane.

For example, a mask of Norgorber decays as a normal corpse for a variable period of time before its quintessence returns to and is reincorporated into Norgorber's divine realm of Duskfathom. Demonic remains of blood and bone can persist in the Universe for indeterminate periods of time after a demon's death, such as the thick and large bones from demons slain in the Mendevian Crusades against the Worldwound, which still litter Sarkoris years after the Worldwound's closure.

The quintessence of a planar being can be entrapped or imprisoned without a physical body. Some creatures also specialize in the utter and permanent destruction of planar beings, such as rhevannas, who can entrap a celestial in a gemstone and destroy it, forever obliterating the celestial itself. Planar beings who betray their nature or are corrupted might have their quintessence redirected to another plane, such as corrupted psychopomps, whose quintessence can be redirected to the sahkil realm of Xibalba upon death.