Splinters
So what is a Splinter? A Splinter self-contained isolated stretch of ground bound on all sides by a nebulous force known as the Pael.
The Splinters themselves are as varied as any geography that can be imagined. Some are rocky wastelands, tendrils of the Pael creeping in and spiraling around collapsed natural pillars and into caves. Some contain villages, full castles, or even kingdoms. Entire forests, even stretches of ocean, have been found within a single Splinter. A Splinter might even be the inside of a volcano, consisting only of molten lava.
Size and shape of each Splinter is also quite variable. The largest known splinter is the entirety of the Saldragon Princedom, a massive landscape thousands of miles across. The smallest splinters could only be a few feet (although it would probably be extremely dangerous to Reach something so small)!
Life in the Splinters
The people of Altan’ruhl can be quite distinct from one Splinter to the next. Many people were displaced from all social classes when the Pael ripped kingdoms and sometimes even castles apart. Mobility for those with access to a Reach has certainly improved, but for the majority of the population, the Splinter they live in has become a sort of prison, comfortable or otherwise.
There is also a large divide in outlooks for individuals around age that tends to persist across Splinters. People who were adults before the Splintering have strong memories of the world before. They know that transportation between kingdoms may have been tedious, but was certainly possible. The Pael may feel like an obstacle that if you can just figure out how to get through it, life could “get back to normal.” In contrast, children born after the Splintering, many now becoming adults in their own right, have no concept of a world without Splinters, a world where the Pael wasn’t a part of everyday life. To them, the Pael is a wall as solid as stone. Those who were children during the Splintering may suffer nightmares from times when new Splinters were forming constantly, and kingdoms began to descend on one another in an attempt to secure Reaches.
Read more about Splinters.
The Pael
The Pael is the heart of magic within Altan’ruhl. For thousands of years, the Pael was an unseen force, something hidden beneath reality that learned individuals known as Magen influenced in order to create incredible (and often dangerous) effects.
Common people could neither see it nor interact with it. That changed twenty years ago when the Splintering began. Instead of existing beyond sight, the Pael surged into everything, creating gray walls of discordance.
The Pael is easy to discern. It’s as though reality as you know it stops and another begins, creating a sharp contrast between the world as you expect it, and a strange faded version of it seamed to . The Pael would be far less dangerous if this juxtaposition was inaccessible, but unfortunately people can walk directly into it, disappearing the moment they cross the threshold. People who step into the Pael directly have returned, but not often, and almost never where they went in or even where they would have expected to come out.
Within the Pael
The Pael itself appears as a washed-out, drained jumble of our world. The same objects you might find here can be found in the Pael, although they are often combined together in unusual ways (the roof of a house may be upside down, or flowers might be growing out of drawers in a dresser).
There are living creatures within the Pael. Most do not seem to even be aware of a world beyond the Pael. They go about their business, although once again they do not do this in a method that may make sense in a way the typical mortal mind might comprehend. For example, a traveler looking into the Pael may see a cow walk into a house, move right up to the dining room table and begin consuming a pile of gears.
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The Pael
Reaches
The Reaches are what bring adventure to the otherwise disjointed world of Splinters. They connect the various Splinters together in sometimes unpredictable ways. These days Reaches are not often left in a Splinter to be used by any traveler passing through. Instead, they are treasured as valuable artifacts and often carried by specific individuals, granting the power of travel to specific people as opposed to being a way out of specific areas. Some were taken by mistake, but far more were taken with selfish intent.
Merchants and traders found the owning of a Reach a competitive edge. Trading between locales that had historically been on opposite sides of the world is made so much sweeter when you don’t have to work through local governments. Warlords and Kings alike saw the value in owning one or more of these devices, a means of control.
This has resulted in most Reaches no longer existing in their Splinter of origin.
Like Cyphers, every Reach looks and behaves a little different, and there appears no rhyme or reason why each is so different from the next. Some Reaches look like lumpy rocks and can fit into your pocket, affecting only a single person. Others are platforms a mile across and can be used to transport entire armies.
In the beginning, the Reaches operated completely consistent to one another, but as time has gone on, they have begun to diverge from one another. Whether this is due to moving them from their original Splinter or just a property of age in the mortal realm, even the most learned scholars on the subject disagree. Regardless of the reasons, some Reaches have become very temperamental and only go to a single place… Or they only operate under certain conditions… or at a limited frequency. This makes their use that much more precious.
Despite this gap in understanding, after 20 years Reaches are now viewed more as artifacts of the realm as opposed to something celestial or arcane. Some are even traded or sold, although each might be worth the ransom of an entire kingdom (and literally could be used for that purpose!)
Reaching
The ability to use the Pael to travel is a new development in history; some even say it was created by the current Sorcerer and is what caused the Pael to invade reality as it is. It involves twisting the Pael and the mortal realm together, creating a mortal path through the Pael itself. This travel method has taken to being called “Reaching.”
Once a Reach is activated, the participant finds herself within the Pael itself. The surroundings do not have to match the place from where the traveler departed (and seldom does). It likewise needs not bear resemblance to where the traveler is going. Within the Pael, the traveler stands on a single path rich in color and vibrancy in an otherwise washed out locale. As it is followed, this path may take many strange and unusual turns, but if the traveler stays on it to the end, she will emerge at the final destination in the mortal realm.
Reaching is only as dangerous as the traveler’s curiosity. The path is easily identifiable within the Pael ensuring that travelers stay on with no difficulty.
Time does not flow as expected in the Pael. A person may activate a Reach, travel for two hours, and then emerge as though no time has passed. The opposite could also be true. The journey on the path may take only a few minutes, but a person could find she was gone for several days.
Despite this variation, most Reaches typically take about 20 minutes of time to walk, and the traveler is gone from the mortal Realm for less than an hour.
Read more about Reaches.
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