Astral Transference: Best solo travel method on Rifts Earth?

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Per the title, I've recently discovered the existence of Astral Transference from the Nightbane book, Between the Shadows. I mean, I'd skimmed it before today, but I didn't realize its implications until recently.

To the point: Astral Transference can and theoretically should be obtainable by anyone who can select a super-psionic ability, regardless of the origin of your character. Since astral travel is a feature in all segments of the Megaverse at large, and Astral Transference (henceforth called AT) is just an enhanced version of regular Astral Projection, it stands to reason anybody can get it. All for a pathetic cost of 15 ISP per activation.

All that aside, and skipping over the messy details of popping into and out of the Astral realm, AT's practical application on Rifts Earth is very plain to me: it can be used as a personal private jet. A Mystic can choose AT at level 4 and gets 4 hours of 670 MPH astral-form travel on Earth.

Being a cautious type, I'd argue that you could fly up to ~50,000 feet, zip across the ~2500 mile range you can cover in 4 hours, and land, materialize, and nothing is even going to detect you, much less attack you, in that entire trip.

Where this gets interesting is at much higher levels, when magic can be combined with AT for broader functionality. Most long-range teleportation spells are limited in their success percentages by requiring that you've been to the target destination beforehand (to get maximum chance of success). This is a problem for pure mages (barring perhaps the Shifter). But the Mystic, once at a high enough level, can combine both Circle of Travel and Superior Teleportation with AT, to effectively visit anywhere on the planet so it can satisfy the 'I've seen this place in person' requirement for accurate teleportation.

This means that top-tier Mystics can create 99% reliable (or 100% in the case of Circle of Travel) global travel networks. Which suddenly makes Rifts Earth seem a lot smaller. While there are plenty of other ways to travel, AT seems to be the cheapest and safest by a wide margin.

[Grazzik]

As long as you don't mind wandering around ... au naturel

You'd need to find a friendly astral lord or astral mage to astrally reconfigure your gear so it can be worn/used in astral form.

That said, yes, master psychics with this power can literally play a globe spanning campaign. Coupled with higher level teleportation magicks, the planet becomes a very small place.

However, if you are looking to avail of a NPC's services for this, probably expect to pay a small fortune given how few NPCs may have this ability with matching magical powers in the first place.

[Aermas]

You might be able to spin ectoplasm into clothes

[Grazzik]

You might be able to spin ectoplasm into clothes

Only if one has that psychic power or something similar, as non-astral master psychics may not have selected appropriate powers. Otherwise, the first step on arrival may be stealing someone's laundry off a clothes line to protect one's modesty....

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

As long as you don't mind wandering around ... au naturel

You'd need to find a friendly astral lord or astral mage to astrally reconfigure your gear so it can be worn/used in astral form.

I did wonder about that; the rules regarding what's carried and what's not.

In theory, regular Astral Projection can satisfy the requirements of Teleportation: Superior, in that you could visit anywhere as an astral 'ghost' and thereby be familiar with a location, even if you haven't physically been there.

But only AT can allow you to make Circles of Travel with relative ease.

You might be able to spin ectoplasm into clothes

Sadly, my Mystic can't take any physical psionics. Luckily, they don't need clothing for much of anything. Both armor and offensive ability are done by magic once materialized. Could make this into a thief concept if Teleport: Lesser is used as the means of extracting items from guarded areas. No need to carry anything on my person, then.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

You might be able to spin ectoplasm into clothes

Only if one has that psychic power or something similar, as non-astral master psychics may not have selected appropriate powers. Otherwise, the first step on arrival may be stealing someone's laundry off a clothes line to protect one's modesty....

Couldn't Mask of Deceit or Metamorphosis (human or superior) be used to simulate clothing magically? After re-materializing, of course. Being naked in astral form hardly matters.

*Edit: I see after checking I'm definitely wrong about Mask of Deceit and probably wrong about Metamorph being able to simulate clothing.

However, I did find a workaround. Dimensional Pocket, level 10 spell from Palladium Fantasy. It only requires an empty sack to function. The sack could be stored, well, everyone remembers the Pulp Fiction scene about the watch, right?

[Plane]

Dream travel could possible be even faster since you just hop into your dream pool, stream into the adjacent pool of someone you know well, and hop out of theirs.

Direct dream-transference is limited to certain classes but you can use Astral Projection to enter someone's dream pool so I imagine Astral Transerence could be used the same way to do dream shortcuts.

That's useful in cases where you don't know exactly where to fly to find someone - 670mph mach speeds probably won't help you too much with a lot of tree cover or in a busy city, after all. Moving fast doesn't mean you process what you see in any useful detail.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Dream travel could possible be even faster since you just hop into your dream pool, stream into the adjacent pool of someone you know well, and hop out of theirs.

Isn't the caveat of having to know someone well, a massive impediment to global travel to places you've never been? Serious question. I haven't read up much on the Dream section yet. If you can't use anyone's dream across the planet (without being a special class, anyway), then it's not of much practical value.

[Aermas]

You'd leave the bag behind no matter where it was stored.

So the only options would be invent a spell to make illusionary clothes, astrally reconfigured G-string, use ectoplasm, or learn other dimensional spells that don't require a physical object as a focus.

[Aermas]

I think I have a solution.

Cast Astral Hole.
Toss clothing in.
Cast Astral Transference
Then Astrally while holding your clothes on the Astral Plane
Get to destination.
Drop clothes.
End Astral Transference.
Cast Astral Hole.
Pull out clothes

[Plane]

Isn't the caveat of having to know someone well, a massive impediment to global travel to places you've never been? Serious question. I haven't read up much on the Dream section yet. If you can't use anyone's dream across the planet (without being a special class, anyway), then it's not of much practical value.

You can in theory reach anywhere but distance is relative to connection, so your worst enemies and most loved people (emotional connection bad or good) determines distance. The problem is it doesn't really go into a lot of specifics about travel time and so on, so it could be incredibly short (my buddy 100 miles away is 10 steps away) or maybe longer.

It's kind of up to the GM, much like "I phase through the walls of Chi-Town at Mach 1 trying to find which of 10,000 condo condos my enemy is hiding in" would probably require some GM hand-waiving too since we don't have a realistic way to estimate what that would take either.

Page 83 talks about making perception checks to recognize a dream pool, but it still doesn't tell you how often you would be making those perception checks, or how to get close enough to make them in the first place.

Pg 117 of BTS under Dreamdance Minor mentions "The search for a specific Dream Pool may take minutes or hours" which is concerning for an ability which only lasts 5min/level - there is a Dreamdancer (Major) super-psi too which like Astral Transference lasts an hour per level.

The semantics are odd though - it seems safe enough to end at a thought if you're in danger there:

• "At the end of the power's duration, or whenever the character decides to return to the waking world, the Dream Dancer will reappear at the physical location he originally left."

and yet...

• "the dream traveler is not able to escape the Dreamstream by waking up."

all I can figure is what this means is you can't escape unless you escape ALTOGETHER by ending the power - it's probably referencing how going from stream>pool or pool>stream requires savings throws to pass through dream membranes.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

You'd leave the bag behind no matter where it was stored.

Legitimate question: is this explicitly stated anywhere? Because I find it pretty hard to believe. Where would the line be drawn, in terms of what's deemed artificial and not astrally transferred with your body?

Let's say you have an old injury with pins or some kind of device replacing or supporting an old broken bone or ruined joint (knee, hip, whatever). How about a pacemaker or a subcutaneous glucose monitor? Shouldn't all of these things be left behind as well?

Anything under the skin or embedded in the body should be exempt. I get why there are rules in place to prevent abuse; but expecting people to go around perpetually naked after astral transference or Metamorphosis: Mist, is rather absurd when a spell exists for every eventuality.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

I think I have a solution.

Cast Astral Hole.
Toss clothing in.

Astral Hole doesn't create a pocket dimension, it's just a passage/door. So you'd be tossing your clothing into nothing. Why would the clothes become astrally attuned just by going in the Astral Hole? Doesn't that require the special reconfiguration ability from the Astral Lord?

The only way around this problem--with zero possibility for argument from a GM--is Temporal Magic's Dimensional Envelope, level 12. No physical element is required to retrieve stuff from it.

Unfortunately, then the problem becomes 'how could a Mystic learn Temporal Magic?'

That's why I'd rather stuff a bag up my ass. Seriously. I feel like it'd be a much easier argument to make rather than trying to get a GM to give my Mystic access to a level 12 Temporal spell.

all I can figure is what this means is you can't escape unless you escape ALTOGETHER by ending the power - it's probably referencing how going from stream>pool or pool>stream requires savings throws to pass through dream membranes.

Thanks for explaining, but it looks like there's not enough rule structure to work with to use it reliably. Every time you wanted to use it, it'd be up to GM interpretation. Whereas at least Astral Transference is a straightforward 'you travel 670 mph for X hours' when using astral form in a coexistent manner.

[Aermas]

The bag up your ass won't travel with you, & Astral Hole opens a hole to the astral plane. Either way, just learn the Create Clothes spell in Rifter 9

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

The bag up your ass won't travel with you, & Astral Hole opens a hole to the astral plane. Either way, just learn the Create Clothes spell in Rifter 9

Creating clothes isn't everything. Not being able to travel with even the simplest of implements is prohibitive.

I still don't see anything written anywhere that flatly says what's left behind and what goes along.

[Plane]

Not being able to travel with even the simplest of implements is prohibitive.

I still don't see anything written anywhere that flatly says what's left behind and what goes along.

pg 50 the Astral Lord description of the power
"the character's body (but not any clothing or equipment that has not been specially reconfigured; see below) is transformed into an astral equivalent"

Domains 'same as Earth' are an exception on 57 though:
"any objects brought through portals into the Earth-like environment can exist here without having to be reconfigured"

The basic problem is this disclaimer was left out of pg 113's descrition of the inferior super psi version of it, they prob just assumed you read the Lord/Mage PCC powers

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Not being able to travel with even the simplest of implements is prohibitive.

I still don't see anything written anywhere that flatly says what's left behind and what goes along.

pg 50 the Astral Lord description of the power
"the character's body (but not any clothing or equipment that has not been specially reconfigured; see below) is transformed into an astral equivalent"

That's the only reference I can find as well.

To me, that line says nothing beyond making it clear they don't want your armor and weapons to be usable in astral form.

It doesn't say that all the stuff you're carrying is dropped in a pile. It doesn't say you're naked when you re-materialize.

Look at the spell, Metamorphosis: Mist. That explicitly says it leaves you naked when it's over. Very, very few spells/abilities leave you naked after you use them. And the ones that do, tell you they do.

As far as I'm concerned, if Astral Transference doesn't say you're left naked after using it, then you're not naked. You just can't take stuff into the astral plane and use it there, or use stuff you're carrying while in coexistent astral form on Earth. Only Astral Lords can do that.

But not being able to use items/armor in astral form, is not the same thing as saying you're stripped of everything. Two totally different concepts, two totally different rules.

I see it like this: you have a pen in your pocket when you enter AT. While in astral form, that pen won't write. Not on Earth, not in the astral plane. But when you re-materialize, you still have clothes, and that pen's still in your pocket.

When you're an Astral Lord, you can make that pen work even while in astral form.

That's the difference.

We could also look at the Psi-Ghost as an example of a character that becomes intangible and yet doesn't lose clothing/gear.

[Aermas]

Page 50 of Between the Shadows makes it clear that no equipment follows the person using Astral Transference & says you arrive buck naked
Page 20 of Rifter 9 makes it clear that no equipment follows the person using Astral Transference & says you arrive buck naked
The only thing that allows it to follow is Astral Reconfiguration & that's why it's so important to astrally reconfigure your equipment as an Astral Lord/Mage. It's also why Rifter 9 included the clothes spell.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Page 50 of Between the Shadows makes it clear that no equipment follows the person using Astral Transference & says you arrive buck naked

No, it doesn't. The word 'naked' doesn't exist on page 50. I just read the whole page.

I don't care what your interpretation of the passage is; that's entirely beside the point. The point is that it nowhere does it explicitly say you're naked, and that was why I brought up Metamorphosis: Mist. Because the latter does say you're naked.

Being naked or leaving all possessions behind is also not mentioned in the description for the Astral Self talent, which is worded differently and not a copy/paste.

It's an extremely critical point to leave unspecified, since it dramatically changes the practical applications of the ability.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

So, there are 2 ways to circumvent this debate in a manner that should satisfy even the strictest GM.

1) Time Hole. It's listed as an alternate dimension unto itself, and you're said to teleport to it. Since it exists outside of the rules of normal time and space, the following sequence might be possible:

Start in Rifts England. Cast Time Hole. Put stuff into it. Leave it (critical question: can you freely enter and leave for its duration, or does it disappear when left unoccupied?). Engage Astral Transference. Fly to Rifts Japan. Re-materialize. Teleport back into the Time Hole. Retrieve stuff. Leave Time Hole.

Since it's explicitly mentioned that Time Hole is teleported to/from, I don't believe it should be tied to any geographic location. It lasts 4 hours of real time, per level, which at high levels is plenty long enough to use it from two different locations across the planet.

2) Don't bother with RUE Mystic OCC, instead try this concept with either a Nightbane Sorcerer/Mystic or a Shadow Warlock. All get access to spells and talents that could bypass potential issues.

For example, the talents Astral Self and Shadow Pockets could be selected, which are unassailable in their combined functionality.

Either way, problem solved.

[Plane]

Nakedness may not be explicitly stated but I think it's strongly implied in situations where equipment isn't considered part of you.

Dragon teleportation is similar - only adult dragons are given a weight of equipemnt they can bring in teleports, hatchlings have no extra weight so it's implied nothing (not even clothing) can come along with a teleport.

There are Nightbane who have clothing as part of their morphus for example, I think it's reasonable to assume that goes along, but not artificial clothing worn to hide a morphus.

It raises an interesting question about cybernetic implants, something Nightbane doesn't really have to deal with. There might be super power guidelines on how to deal with that in HU but I'm not sure.

I'd wager the Cyber-Knight's armor might come along since it's magically alive and part of them but not sure about other normal bionics.

[Curbludgeon]

Shadow Pocket(lvl7) or Shadow Envelope would work(lvl11), keyed to a shadow of the naked caster. For Envelope the shadow has to be the size of a door, so a little positioning can matter. Shadow is a rarer type of magic than Temporal, but the effects are lower level.

[Aermas]

Even if you do some creative interpretation of what is clearly defined across multiple sources on the the matter of clothing, how exactly does Astral Hole NOT work for your purposes when it comes to carrying a duffle bag?

[Marcethus]

Cybernetics are considered a part of the person they are implanted into. I think that's in the Bionics Sourcebook.

In regards to the Astral Transference to globe hop. It's not as safe as you think. There are astral creatures that hunt in both the Astral Plane itself and in the Astral Space surrounding the planet. I use Between the Shadows as a Megaversal resource so if a psionic player takes Astral Transference, which IIRC requires Astral Projection as a prerequisite, I will warn them about such things, if they are an inexperience player or have never played much in the way of astral classes. Though if I am in an Evil GM mood I may just spring an appropriate Astral Creature on them especially if they are abusing the power.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Even if you do some creative interpretation of what is clearly defined across multiple sources on the the matter of clothing, how exactly does Astral Hole NOT work for your purposes when it comes to carrying a duffle bag?

The way you explained it, you'd use Astral Hole to throw clothes into the astral plane, then pick them up after activating Astral Transference.

Why would unmodified clothing go into the astral plane? Isn't that the entire purpose of the Astral Lord's reconfiguration ability; to make it possible for material stuff to enter the astral plane?

Also, if you just throw random stuff into the astral plane via AH, what guarantee is there you'd be able to find it back again? You're not sending things to a specific domain; you're just throwing it into the white mist.

I don't see how it helps at all.

By contrast, Time Hole has nothing to do with the astral plane, and is stated as being its own limbo dimension. Makes a lot more sense for that to be a neutral holding area.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Nakedness may not be explicitly stated but I think it's strongly implied in situations where equipment isn't considered part of you.

Dragon teleportation is similar - only adult dragons are given a weight of equipemnt they can bring in teleports, hatchlings have no extra weight so it's implied nothing (not even clothing) can come along with a teleport.

I agree that it's implied, but without direct reference I think a GM could find it in their heart to ignore the implication. The letter of the rules would still be followed, in that only Astral Lords can actually use material stuff in the astral realm.

If you want to split hairs even finer, you could argue that all I really want is to be able to keep my clothes/personal effects while using Astral Transference ONLY in the coexistent state (i.e, on Earth, without ever entering the astral plane).

I'd be fine with saying that entering the astral plane strips you.

Shadow Pocket(lvl7) or Shadow Envelope would work(lvl11), keyed to a shadow of the naked caster. For Envelope the shadow has to be the size of a door, so a little positioning can matter. Shadow is a rarer type of magic than Temporal, but the effects are lower level.

Yeah, I'd still rather avoid using exotic magic. I do feel like Time Hole solves the problem for regular Mystics, and barring that, using the Nightbane Mystic is a reasonable alternative. The NB Mystic can use talents in lieu of Shadow or Temporal magic. I like to have all my bases covered, as far as rules lawyering goes.

In regards to the Astral Transference to globe hop. It's not as safe as you think. There are astral creatures that hunt in both the Astral Plane itself and in the Astral Space surrounding the planet.

Just to be clear, I wouldn't be using AT to enter the astral plane. I'd be using the in-between astral form on Earth. While I agree it's possible that astral entities could be hanging around anywhere, I think it's pretty unlikely they'll be 'guarding' the empty air thousands of feet above Earth, since nobody has any reason to go there, and there's no emotions or anything else to feed off of.

[Plane]

Given that I think it's pretty clearly implied you can't just get free clothes while in astral form there are some workarounds which come to mind:

1) page 117 of Between the Shadows has a sensitive power called Ethereal Mirage which targets what anyone in range sees, so you could create an illusion of clothing. It only works in Dreamstream or Astral Plane but I think a generous GM could declare that coexisting in the material plane still counts as the astral plane and allow you to use it for modesty so that psychic sensitives and children don't get an eyeful of whatever is normally shown. The master psi "Psychic Mirage" could also do this.

2) the physical power of Ectoplasm could probably also do this to hide parts of yourself using the astral arms, though it wouldn't be as elegant or pretty as an ethereal mirage is capable of. I could see a GM allowing you to use Astral Bolts this way too - though it does specify drawing on "ambient ectoplasm" of the astral plane so maybe it should only be allowed when coexisting around other sources of ectoplasm?

3) I think Psyscape introduced a "Commune with Spirits" sensitive power, maybe that or Telepathy coudl be used to negotiate with entities for them to kinda hover around in front of an astral traveler's pelvis to block sightlines?

If you want to split hairs even finer, you could argue that all I really want is to be able to keep my clothes/personal effects while using Astral Transference ONLY in the coexistent state (i.e, on Earth, without ever entering the astral plane).

I'd be fine with saying that entering the astral plane strips you.

Astral Transference is supposed to work like Astral Projection so I'd be curious to check the fluff accounts or artwork related to it to see if clothing is ever implied to be a norm in this situation.

Lazlo's account says "I realized Vish-taal was floating next to me" but doesn't say one way or another whether he's nude or clothed.

As they move skyward (I guess one tends to move high in the air before opening astral portals) passing through 3 floors and the roof of their building Lazlo notes "the sparkling body of my astral guide" and then in more detail:

"our astral bodies are were aglow with a bright translucent, blue-white light with countless tiny flashes of white, yellow, and blue light like a thousand microscopic strobe lights set for a slow pulse."

This is all PRIOR to entering the astral portal, while coexisting.

So I think the implication here is that while you are nude, there's a bunch of rainbow glare which would obscure fine details about the body so you wouldn't be focusing on the nudity, kinda like with the Star Children in Rifts England.

Sorta like how in battles w/ vampires vs MD weapons they're probably all naked but you probably wouldn't ntoice w/ all the mud and smoke and ash and blood that probably distracts you from their exposed bits.

Pg 76 of BTS has the tale of Gordon astrally projecting when kidnapped by Torturians but similarly makes no notes of whether he's nude or clothed.

Torturians are seemingly dressed in leather and they are human psychics who were kidnapped and modified by Nightlords but they're not actually wearing, pg 79 says "Body Armor: None; their leather armor is a part of their bodies." and it's not even given stats.

The Dreamstream is very explicit about how it works:
"Visitors in the Dreamstream appear like their own selves, in full color, and dressed with their most common or favorite set of clothes"

I can't recall seeing anything like that in Astral Projection, though I imagine astral projectors who visit the Dreamstream woudl enjoy that benefit up until they left it.

The way even the Astral Lord and Astral Mage go out of their way to say their abilities (considered the best of the best) can't transfigure clothing implies to me that this is never assumed to be true for the lower forms of astral travel.

While I agree it's possible that astral entities could be hanging around anywhere, I think it's pretty unlikely they'll be 'guarding' the empty air thousands of feet above Earth, since nobody has any reason to go there, and there's no emotions or anything else to feed off of.

Assuming there is a natural population of astral projecting flying around thousands of feet up, someone will naturally take notice of this and wonder about ways to exploit it.

It's entirely possible for a nefarious shifter who just hates people to summon entities and go "hey, kill whoever you can up there, especially over my airspace" and set them loose to do that - they don't really care if the entity dies, after all, they can just summon more of them, and they're not as much of a threat to non-astral creatures if they manage to break free of control.

Heck - they might voluntarily abdicate control, just say "go up in the air 10 miles and you are free to do what you want" and then hope the entity is too stupid to find its way back to earth and will just wander around up there pissed off.

The more psychics able to use those airways up there, the more of a natural feeding ground it would become to induce entity-patrols to be sent up there.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

The Dreamstream is very explicit about how it works:
"Visitors in the Dreamstream appear like their own selves, in full color, and dressed with their most common or favorite set of clothes"

I can't recall seeing anything like that in Astral Projection, though I imagine astral projectors who visit the Dreamstream woudl enjoy that benefit up until they left it.

The way even the Astral Lord and Astral Mage go out of their way to say their abilities (considered the best of the best) can't transfigure clothing implies to me that this is never assumed to be true for the lower forms of astral travel.

Game mechanics aside, and just speaking from a generic paranormal perspective: I consider astral projection to be very similar to ghostly hauntings, in that the psyche is projecting an image of itself. It's a psychic snapshot of a person, frozen in time. This is presumably why ghosts are typically described as wearing period-appropriate clothes. Does anyone (in real life) ever mention seeing naked ghosts? I've never heard of it.

So, if any kind of logic can be applied, I'd argue that if ghosts don't drift around naked, then neither does your astral projection.

It's entirely possible for a nefarious shifter who just hates people to summon entities and go "hey, kill whoever you can up there, especially over my airspace" and set them loose to do that - they don't really care if the entity dies, after all, they can just summon more of them, and they're not as much of a threat to non-astral creatures if they manage to break free of control.

At that point, I'd just assume my GM is being a dick.

[Plane]

I'm confident we can find IRL stories of naked ghosts though they could be unusual.

Ghosts in Palladium are different than IRL concepts they involve entities mimicking echoes of past events/memories and are unique from astral projection.

I forgot to mention but there's also a power called Ectoplasmic Disguise which like Ethereal Mirage I think could serve the purpose of creating modesty while in one's nude astral form.

It's very explicit under Astral Lord that you can't bring along clothing you don't configure, at best nudity is just less noticable due to all the flashing rainbow lights that Victor Lazlo describes.

There's some decent artwork conveying this too - see page 54 of BTS for example, a 1994 drawing by R.K. Post, you can see a bare-chested man but there's flashing lights like lightning obscuring his lower body.

One of the main problems is basically the whole permanent PPE for permanent items but no temporary things. Rifter 9 acknowledged that by doing some optional spells which created temporary items including clothing, to fulfill that need. I think they work fine but even sticking to canon-only it's possible to fudge that using the Ectoplasm well enough or just leaning on the whole account of Lazlo's glittering lights.

Page 9 of Psyscape has an interesting phrase under 'Some words from Kornmann'
"Hold on to your naked souls for they are your most valued treasure."

Surely the Astral Body is innately a nude body! It is "a whitish, semitransparent, ghostly image of the character's physical form"

Victor Lazlo was explicitly wearing a wristwatch when he APd:
>The experience seemed to last several hours.
>I would hazard to guess eight or nine.
>Yet the wall clock confirmed with my wristwatch that less than six minutes had actually elapsed

There's no mention of him having his wristwatch (arguably a form of clothing, certainly an accessory) along for the trip with him. Even if it stopped working, surely he would've noted it like "for hours I stared at my frozen wristwatch, confused"

Since that's absent I think the implication is he and Vish-taal took their naked bodies, but he simply didnt emphasize it because it really was boring in comparison to the new dimension they explored together:
>Everything seemed to sweep by me, stealing my full attention for that moment, giving away to the next sensation and the next
>the sparkling body of my astral guide caught my attention.
>For the first time, I noticed that our astral bodies were aglow with a bright, translucent, blue-white light

I don't know about you but normally I would notice RIGHT AWAY if my body (or my buddy's body) started glowing with blue light! That just goes to show what a distracting experience astral projection is, you wouldn't even notice your own or another's nudity because it's so amazing, and even when you do look at your bro he's glowing blue so you aren't going to pay attention to his pelvic exposure.


Miguel Santos (Living Lightning) is probably a good example of what this looks may look like:
https://cdn.marvel.com/content/1x/livin ... g-card.jpg
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/marve ... _8_001.jpg

There are similar concerns with APS powers in HU, I thin the implication is any energy that gives off enough of an aura to destroy your clothes is also going to give you a little bit of modesty via its glow/surrounding.

You can see that for example with Black Lightning (Jefferson Pierce) here when he goes full electric: https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/File:Jeffers ... e_0001.jpg

Even if a GM wants to make it more obvious, recent depictions of Doc Manhattan in DC shows there's plenty of ways to use camera angles and interposing objects for convenient censorship. When Wally confronts him for example the nudity isn't a focus since there's more important stuff on the line to think about: https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp- ... ock-10.jpg

I am a bit perplexed as to where it is the Astral Cord is supposed to attach though. Nightbane page 70 doesn't seem to explain that. Maybe there's some artwor that does and I forgot about it?

The torturian story about Gordon mentions "whip was buried in his back, just below his silver cord" so my best bet is that the whip struck him in the lower back (lumbar spine) and the cord probably connects to the upper back (thoracic spine) probably in the center of mass just behind the heart?

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Surely the Astral Body is innately a nude body! It is "a whitish, semitransparent, ghostly image of the character's physical form"

'Physical form' is a rather obtuse way of saying 'naked body.' Or just 'body.'

I'm not arguing the point anymore, I just find it weird, of all the countless opportunities they have to say your astral form is naked, both in lore and in spell/ability descriptions, and they still don't say so as plainly as they do for other spells that leave you naked.

Given the intentional vagueness of the descriptions, I must conclude that the body isn't visible in any detail; it's just a glowing outline of a body. More than likely, the face isn't even recognizable.

[Plane]

I just find it weird, of all the countless opportunities they have to say your astral form is naked, both in lore and in spell/ability descriptions, and they still don't say so as plainly as they do for other spells that leave you naked.

Given the intentional vagueness of the descriptions, I must conclude that the body isn't visible in any detail; it's just a glowing outline of a body. More than likely, the face isn't even recognizable.

"translucent, blue-white light" means it's partially see-through - if you could completely see through it then Lazlo would write 'transparent'

It's definitely not completely opaque though, you haev to be able to make out SOME details or Lazlo wouldn't have recognized the face of his companion.

So basically the translucent glowing light works as clothing in terms of modesty (it's like a blur-censor) but not in terms of "hey I have pockets to put stuff in" or "this will keep me warm" or "this prevents touch-contact effects"