DnDWiki:Black Clouds, The

The Black Clouds are a dangerous phenominon found in the crystal sphere called Krynnspace. The clouds are so hot that anyone who falls into them can be boiled alive.

Appearance
No light passes out of the clouds except for the light of the stars behind them. The absolute blackness of the clouds, and the way that starlight passes them, combine to make clouds appear to be totally invisible from the outside.

This appearance is different on the inside of the clouds. Starlight can not be seen from within the clouds and this means that anything that passes completly into one of the clouds is plunged into absolute blackness.

Size of individual clouds
The minimum and maximum sizes for clouds has not been documented, however it is known that some of the clouds are larger than the planet Nehzmyth and this puts them at around 100 to 1,000 miles across.

Location of individual clouds
The clouds form a choppy ring that shares the same space as the orbit of the planet Nehzmyth. The planet Nehzmyth passes behind and through clouds when it vanishes, so some of the clouds must be exactly on its orbit, while others are slightly inside its orbit.

Travel through one of the clouds
A spelljamming ship can travel through a Black Cloud without the crew being boiled alive. However, the crew are only projected while they remain onboard.

Effects felt close to a cloud
Crews on spelljamming ships passing close to The Black Clouds have reported hearing cries of pain and terror. Other crews have reported hearing seductive whispers telling them to come closer. Other crewmen, especially good-aligned clerics, have reported feeling an oppressive force that weakens them while they remain within a few hundred miles of the clouds.

Falling overboard inside a cloud
Anyone who falls overboad and who gets boiled alive will suffer a different fate depending on whether they are good or evil. Good individuals will die, but their bodies will be left floating within the cloud. Evil and neutral individuals who die are totally absorbed by The Black Clouds and their souls become part of the clouds themselves.

Despite the heat, objects that fall overboard with the clouds are not damaged.

Amnesia inducing nature
Living creatures on spelljamming ships that successfully navigate their way through a cloud find that they have no recollection of the cloud or the fact that they have just passed through it. This effect seems to only occur when a ship actually leaves a cloud.

Main theories
There are two main theories about The Black Clouds.

Evil darkness
The few clerics who are aware of the clouds believe that the light of the stars passes through them because the stars are magical and are the souls of heroes and their light is powerful enough to penetrate the evil of the clouds. The same clerics believe that there is nothing magical or heroic about the planet Nehzmyth.

Dead humans and demihumans
The clouds contain the souls of evil humans and demi-humans who have died in wildspace. The area acts like a magnet to these souls and pulls them together. The souls were so dark that the area itself became dark.

The clouds have grown as the number of evil humans and demi-humans have died in wildspace.