The realm that is six, Eringuard is the meshing of 6 different planes that represent the primal forces of the multiverse. The four elemental planes come together around the positive energy and negative energy planes. Each plane stretches for its converging point outwards into eternity, six forms of energy that collide into the center and fuse their energy to help sustain the material plane. It is this concordence of energy that some believe birthed the world of Cindaros, while others wonder if the gods draw from each plane and created the world around that energy.
Realm Spotlight
Eringuard at its core is a meshing of 6 planes together. As such, it possess no singular nature and isnt easy to define compared to other planes. Things like air, gravity, travel, and hospitality vary from plane to plane. What can be defined is that each of the 6 planes is infinite, stretching from the connecting point and outwards forever. The planes also mesh and collide in spots. Fire and Water mix to create floating islands within the plane of Water and hardened rock in the plane of Fire. Continent sized masses swirl through the plane of Air as tornadoes move through the plane of Earth. While some planes are more inhospitable than others, each can be traversed with the proper preparations and planning. The beings one may encounter though can be just as deadly and difficult to deal with.
Elemental Plane of Air
The plane of Air is an empty plane, consisting of sky above and sky below. Clouds billow up in bank after bank, swelling into grand thunderheads and dissipating into wisps like cotton candy. Of all the elemental planes, it is easiest to survive here and most habitable to creatures. Creatures able to fly or move themselves without walking can traverse the plane easily, while creatures without flight might have more difficulty. Time moves normally in the plane of air and gravity is entirely subjective, based on the direction you choose is down. Spells of the air domain perform better here while spells from earth domains have more difficulty.
Elemental creatures of air reign freely here along with creatures like Djinn and otehr flying individuals. Djinn have been known to create strongholds and other powerful locations within the city and even small communities where they enslave low intelligent creatures as servants. As well, powerful individuals such as wizards and high clerics might use the plane of Air to act as a sanctuary space. The great Archmage Ubil-Zophair holds a series of high towers on the plane and the Windward Monastery is home to one of the greatest cleric septs to Entesh in all the realms.
Elemental Plane of Fire
Everything burns on the plane of Fire, regardless if it is meant to or not. The ground is nothing more than great, evershifting plates of compressed flame. The air ripples with blistering heat and savage upswells. Firestorms burn segments of the landscape and oceans of liquid fire course around mountains. Fire survives here without need for fuel or air to burn it. Flammable objects set down will burst into flames in seconds and those materials designed to burn, burn exceedingly well here. Gravity, while normal; pulls you to the everburning landscape, making walking difficult. Yet for all this danger, the plane of Fire is one of the most heavily populated planes to exist.
Home to the City of Brass, the Efreet run city that many a outsider has called home for a time. Towers of obsidian are carved across landscapes where pyromancers have made homes to both study and master the forms of fire. While tracking across the landscape can be frought with danger, many individuals choose to make short jaunts here for unique resources that exist only on this plane. Coiled clouds of fire litter the ground and fields of obsidian can be found.
Elemental Plane of Earth
Made from solid rock, soil, and a variety of stones; the Plane of Earth is an infinite expanse of rock in all its forms. Unwary travelers can easily end up inside of some great mountain, forever entombed as a message to their folly. Despite its rough nature, the plane is varied in its consistency. Stretches of soft soil give rise to continent size veins of iron and gold. Volcanic reaches hide thin pockets of gemstones and large sandy dunes. While life on the plane is more difficult, it is not intentionally so. Gravity is heavier on the plane of Earth and little exists in the way of habitable water or regular food growth. The plane itself is not malicious, it is simply uncaring of whether life thrives upon it or not.
Few travelers spend more than a few days upon the plane, seeking to gather materials in pockets and then moving on. Mining companies and expeditions might hunt a cache of gems or a large vein of ore long enough to load wagons and packs, only to return some weeks later. What few creatures do exist on the plane are made of the earth and move with it freely. No cities or major hubs have been found, though some groups have established permanant relief camps. Places where they can enter from another plane or fall back to should an issue occur.
Elemental Plane of Water
Infinite sea, without floor or ceiling, a landscape of dimly lit floating where individuals can make out only the faintest of surroundings. Once a person can get past the need for breathing, the plane of Water is easily the best plane to live within. Varying between salt water and fresh water, blistering cold and boiling heat, gentle pulls and torrential tides; the plane of Water is as myriad as the oceans of any world. Inhabitants might hunker around a massive rock or a piece of flotsum, using a current to travel the plane quickly; or return home from a chase. Gravity here does not function, as one can simply swim up or down to their hearts fancy.
The City of Glass is one of the many illustrious spots on the plane of water. One of the few places where air bubbles allow individuals to enter and prepare for their treck inwards, it is a beautiful city within a glass dome. Marids, triton, and other water based creatures call this plane home and may launch from the plane of Water to hunt targets in other planes from their ocean depths.
Positive Energy Plane
A bountiful forge of creation, the Positive Energy Plane is an infinite explosion of positive energy and a star of production. Here energy explodes outwards, powering and invigorating all in its path. Like the plane of Air, gravity is non-existent here and travel can easily be done with a thought. However, unlike other realms survive here is exceedingly easy as life energy floods all within the area. Only at the very edges of these radiant bursts can a person find a sense of normality.
Citadels and other structures are often built at these edge zones, places where individuals can harness this infinite furnace of creation and study the powers of positive energy. Those moving closer into the plane may experience bursts of positive energy where they can be healed and restored to peak condition. As well, the Positive Energy Plane is often used as a prison area for evil creatures, zapping them of any power they may have and holding them close to the fountains of this creation.
Negative Energy Plane
Voidless, barren, empty, the Negative Energy Plane is a place where everything goes to die. It hungers always for more, draws on anything within it, and those few beings that remain are just as ravenous and hungry as the plane itself. Like the plane of air, gravity does not exist here in the traditional sense and beings may move in any direction they wish. Of all the planes in existence, the Negative Energy Plane is the most hostile and most dangerous to be on.
Small areas called Doldrums exist, pockets where the negative energy is less severe and pervasive. It is here that creatures dwell. Outside of these locations, negative energy zaps and pulls at a person till there is nothing left. Like the Shadowfell, the Negative Energy Plane contains mostly undead, as they are the only creatures who can heal from negative energy. Many a necromancer has made the pilgramige to Death Heart, the dark undead metropolis of the plane. As well, many a celestial or good aligned creature has been imprisoned on the plane, held here to prevent escape.
Traveling to Eringuard
While Eringuard as a whole exists in its own realm, traveling to the plane is not a simple matter. One could travel here through a portal in the Outlands or an elemental rift on the material plane. Additionally, places like the Shadowfell and Feywild can connect to the Negative and Positive planes. However, to travel to a direct elemental plane one requires a tuning fork corresponding to that elemental plane and knowledge of a habitable location on the plane. One could not simply appear in the infinite ocean of the Elemental Plane of Water, they must find a place where they can appear without displacing said water.
Upon finding a location like this, travel to an elemental plane or energy plane becomes much easier. For many, they choose an elemental city such as the City of Brass on the plane of Fire or appearing in the Windward Monastery on the plane of Air. These locations have become hubs of planar travel, though still present their own unique dangers. The Efreeti who run the City of Brass are not to be taken lightly.
Realm of the Great Serpent
Sitting just off the six point collision of energies in Eringuard exists a small pocket location as large as a moon. This demi-plane is home to Snnerac, the Ever Hungered Serpent. Once god to the Yaun-Ti and other snake like people, he spends his time in isolation plotting the day he will wrest the world from its mourings and retake his rightful place. Little is known of the Yaun-Ti history or of Snnerac. Some refuse to even acknowledge him as a god, believing he is simply a lesser being of power. Yet, his influence exerts ever still and his home plane is a monument to his power. Vestiges of an ancient snake empire still reign supreme here and he delights in the manner of offerings he can receive. Sending raiding parties to the other realms, Snnerac delights in the offerings that return to him.
For those beings that enter Snnerac's realm, they find a tropical paradise dedicated in all ways to the elevation of their snake god. Massive ziggarats and bristling temples dot a massive landscape to the singular god. While not large enough to be a world, the entire realm is dedicated to only one creature and worship of any deity (even other evil gods) is strictly forbidden. For those within the realm, Snnerac is all, the beginning and the end.
Binding of the Tempest
Not all gods get to choose the plane they make their own. For Garnega, his intombment within the perpetual storm of the Plane of Air is punishment for betrayal. Once, Garnega attempted to subvert Amaeus Tuval and the other Profane deities, to place himself as the chief evil deity and draw all worship to him. In failure, the other evil gods knew they could not simply allow him to remain upon the worlds or within his former palace on Limbo. Drawing several of their powers together, they pulled from Garnega's own power to surround him in a perpetual storm. This storm moves across the Plane of Air, destroying anything in its wake. Some say they can hear the fierce screems of the great god for freedom, though none would dare try to do so.
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