Help me Understand Timlessness on the Astral Plane

[RUMBLETiGER]

I'm looking for official material that will help explain the following:

1) If you spend the equivolence of a year on the Astral Plane (Measured however you'd like, mechanical spring of a would timepiece, time it takes to craft items [more on that below], duration of spells, etc) and then return to the Material Plane, has a year passed?

2) Can you craft items in a timeless environment?

3) If you move to the Astral Plane indefinitely, do you stop aging?

4) How does the life cycle of the Githyanki work? Growth from fetus to adult in a timeless environment?

Some of the above questions assume you Plane Shift your actual body to the Astral Plane and not a projection.

Any answers with cited sources would be appreciated!

 

[Eligius]

Astral Plane

The Astral Plane is the plane of thought, memory, and psychic energy; it is where gods go when they die or are forgotten (or, most likely, both). It is a barren place with only rare bits of solid matter. The Astral Plane is unique in that it is infinitesimal instead of infinite; there is no space or time here, though both catch up with you when you leave. The souls of the newly dead from the Prime Material Plane pass through here on their way to the afterlife or Outer Planes.
The most common feature of the Astral Plane is the silver cords of travelers using an astral projection spell. These cords are the lifelines that keep travelers of the plane from becoming lost, stretching all the way back to the traveler's point of origin.
A god-isle is the immense petrified remains of a dead god that float on the Astral Plane, where githyanki and others often mine them for minerals and build communities on their stony surfaces. Tu'narath, the capital city of the githyanki, is built on the petrified corpse of a dead god known only as "The One in the Void." God-isles often have unusual effects on those nearby, including causing strange dreams of things that happened to the god when it was alive. God-isles are also the only locations on the Astral Plane that are known to possess gravity or normal time flows.




"there is no space or time here, though both catch up with you when you leave."
It most likely means that you exit the place at the same age you entered but then the amount of time spent there later.
OR it means you instantly age as much as you spent time on that plane... Which means you can be 20 forever, and then instantly become dust when you leave.
- please ask your DM about this first.



I do know Githyanki age, and from the text it says there are isles floating in the plane with normal timeflow. (and side-effects). This suggests aging comes to a full stop when you are not close to such an isle. It also means you can age when you are close to them.

If you bring all the tools and materials to the Astral Plane you can probably make an item, as time catches up when you leave it means that, in the end, you still spend as much time as normal.


Again, do ask your DM about all this. I am sure somewhere in the DMG is a bit about the timelessness of the Astral Plane to prevent abuse.

 

[Abraxus]

Though it is not mentioned much in 3rd ed. sources the Githyanki are mutant humans that were thrall-bred by illithids as super-warriors. One of their most marked differences is that they reproduce by egg-laying. Their eggs cannot incubate on the Astral as there is no time there. Accordingly, the githyanki maintain hatchery colonies elsewhere across the Planes, especially on Prime worlds, where their offspring grow to adulthood before returning to the Astral.
Similarly mundane healing does not occur on the Astral Plane, as this needs time to occur in.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Though it is not mentioned much in 3rd ed. sources the Githyanki are mutant humans that were thrall-bred by illithids as super-warriors. One of their most marked differences is that they reproduce by egg-laying. Their eggs cannot incubate on the Astral as there is no time there. Accordingly, the githyanki maintain hatchery colonies elsewhere across the Planes, especially on Prime worlds, where their offspring grow to adulthood before returning to the Astral.
Similarly mundane healing does not occur on the Astral Plane, as this needs time to occur in.

Nice info, could you point me to a source?

 

[Abraxus]

I am unaware of it within anything 3rd ed. and beyond, but this is definitely stated in 2nd ed. Planescape: A Guide to the Astral Plane