Color pool
Color pools are the chief method of transit off of the Astral Plane. These two-dimensional circles take the form of shimmering pools of color, as the name implies. Visible only from one side, color pools can lead to any of the Outer Planes, or the Prime Material Plane.
Color pools are amongst the easiest objects on the Astral to find, the travel time to one being consistently lower than to any other sort of object. This fact is used by many as evidence in favor of the multiversal-backdrop theory subscribed to by many. They seem to be a sign of damage to the Astral from a given plane, ripping a hole in that region onto the plane where the damage occured.
In traveling through the Astral, color pools to a specific plane can be sought out, or a color pool familiar to the traveler, but not color pools leading to a specific spot on a given plane. Moving through a color pool is likened by many to moving through a field of molasses; to the point of view of one on the astral, the traveler seems to be swallowed up by the substance of the pool as they pass through the pool. Transit through a pool works from either side of the pool on the Astral, though only one side of the pool is visible; more than a few astral travelers have been caught unwary by the invisible side of a color pool in their travels. Even astral bodies can pass through a color pool, making for a fairly safe way of traveling the planes. Using this method, though, any attempt at returning to the Prime is impossible. A common rumor is that the color of a pool can be used as a sign of its destination, but this has no truth to it - the colors of a color pool are completely arbitrary.
On arrival, a traveler through a pool seems to manifest out of thin air on the far end. Though the vast majority of color pools are one-way, a slight few are two-way. Even in this case, however, the far end of the pool is still invisible to sight. Without knowledge of where the pool opens, it can be a difficult task to find. Further, given that color pools are fairly random, there is no guarantee of the far end of the pool being in a convenient location; it may be deep underground, at the bottom of a lake, or hanging miles above the ground in the worst cases.
A little-known property of color pools is the ability to scry using them. When a color pool is concentrated on, the cutter doing the concentrating gains an image of the destination of the pool, just as scrying with a crystal ball or other such device. Many use this to ensure a safe arrival before travel, though this has a second use as well. With further effort, the window of scrying can be moved. It travels at the same rate as the traveler's astral movement rate, and can rise, fall, and pivot. It cannot pass through solid objects or barriers, however, making observing some areas difficult. This viewpoint can be detected by any spells that can detect a scrying point, and sufficiently powerful bloods can send the window back to its origin point with a thought. This form of scrying is quite exhausting, and can only be maintained for 10 rounds per point of Con/Fitness. The window remains in position for 1d10 hours after the attempt ends before reverting to the color pool's destination point, and after reverting, 20 hours must pass before it can be again used to scry.
