Throughout history, the Academy’s sages have put forth
differing theories to explain the order of the cosmos.
These include bizarre concepts such as the “great wheel,”
the “world axis,” the “conjunction of the spheres,” and “planar
orbits” to explain magical phenomena and catastrophes. There is
no consensus; every theorist is quick to point out the glaring flaws
and logical inconsistencies in competing theories.
Planar Travel
Most mortal knowledge of the planes comes from contact with
extraplanar creatures via summoning magic or divination spells
such as contact other plane. While there are countless ley lines
and thin places where the unwary might slip between worlds,
deliberate planar travel by mortals is the stuff of legends.
The knowledge and material components for the plane shift
spell are jealously guarded by the highest-ranking members
of the Amethyst Academy and the Faith of the Sacred Flame.
Unfortunately, the means to create the tuning forks needed for
the spell were lost during the fall of the Arcane Empire. Since
then, powerful mortal spellcasters have devoted their lives to
discovering a new method for creating tuning forks without
successes. A potential breakthrough may come from promising
experiments with Delirium recovered from Drakkenheim.
The form these tuning forks take is described in the entry for
each plane below.
Mortal World
The mortal world is a sphere of rock orbiting a fiery sun. Several
other moons and planets join this cosmic dance, all suspended in an
endless Astral Void. Far away, the sparkling stars are other suns.
Only a single tuning fork attuned to the Mortal Plane is
known to exist, and today it is lost in the Inscrutable Tower of
Drakkenheim. As such, while it is possible to use the plane shift
spell to travel to other planes, the spell is rarely used to return to
the mortal world. For those who wander into other worlds, the
journey home is an adventure in itself.
Siderealms
These worlds are metaphysically close to the Mortal World,
such that some creatures can pass through the Ethereal Plane
into the Mortal World, and rarely vice-versa. These Siderealms
imperfectly reflect the geography of the Mortal World, but altered in ways appropriate to that plane. A castle in the Mortal
World might be an overgrown faerie palace in the Otherworld,
a haunted ruin in the Shadowlands, filled with whimsical
fantasies in Dreamland, and composed of fire or ice in the
Elemental Planes.
Ethereal Plane
A truly liminal space, the Ethereal Plane lies on the metaphysical
“borderland” of the Siderealms.
Dreamland
This strange realm is the mortal unconscious made manifest.
It is a world of thoughts, dreams, and nightmares, inhabited by
nightmarish creatures. Dreamland is effectively the Astral Plane
of the world of Drakkenheim; spells such as astral projection
allow characters to travel here.
Mortals who physically enter Dreamland find the experience
not unlike a lucid dream, and they can exert a subconscious
influence on the plane itself. Often, this causes apparitions,
visions, and imagined creatures or places to appear or disappear.
Upon returning to the waking world, mortal travelers recall
their experiences in Dreamland in the same manner as they
do dreams, thus their memories of such experiences quickly
become hazy and difficult to remember.
There are several copies of a children’s book called Carol’s Adventures in Dreamland which work as tuning forks for Dreamland.
Faerie Otherworlds
The realm of fey is sometimes called by other names, such as Tír
na nÓg, the Feywild, Wonderland, Avalon, Elfhame, and the
Elusive Realm. It is uncertain whether or not these names refer to
regions within the realm or are in fact distinct worlds entirely
Of all the planes, there are more tuning forks which lead to
the Otherworld than any other plane, and more Thin Places
which allow travel between the mortal world and faery realms.
They often take the form of trinkets and keepsakes. As such,
mortal travelers have visited these planes more frequently, and
even occasionally returned with their lives and sanity intact.
Shadowlands
A dark reflection of the mortal world held in perpetual gloom.
The souls of the departed pass into the Shadowlands on their
way to the afterworlds, others wander here eternally.
A tuning fork connected to the Shadowlands takes the form
of a heavy midnight-black blindfold. However, venturing into
the Shadowlands is considered exceptionally risky and even
downright foolish: mortals age and decay rapidly here. Myths
tell of travelers who avoided this curse by performing a funeral
rite upon themselves, then journeying in the shadowlands
wearing a burial shroud and keeping tokens typically given to
the dead, such as coins upon their eyes or within their mouths.
Elemental Plane
A primordial place of raw energy and unbridled potential, the
individual planes of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water are found within
the churning storms and burning seas of the Elemental Plane.
The Amethyst Academy possesses one for each of the known
elemental planes. However, it is possible there are many more
lost in ancient dungeons and temples to elemental entities.
Each is made of the associated element. Travel to these places,
however, is almost always fatal for mortals without powerful
protective magic: less one be burned alive in the planes of fire,
crushed or drowned in the planes of earth and water, or fall
forever within the plane of air.
Space Between Worlds
The Space Between Worlds is a roiling non-place of unbridled
magical potential. The churning landscape is filled with strange
crystalline obelisks with corners that meet at impossible angles.
The sun is a square circle which sets beneath an impossible
horizon that never meets the psychedelic octarine sky. Logic
and reason have no meaning here; in the Space Between Worlds,
all which would be absurd, contradictory, or paradoxical occur.
Chaos is order, and order chaos.
The Space Between Worlds is thought to be the source of
all arcane magic, and metaphysically connected to every other
dimension, plane, timeline, and reality. The raw magic is so
intense in this plane that it manifests as unrestrained eldritch
contamination which transforms matter and energy into
everything beyond imagination.
The sights of the Space Between Worlds are so incorrigible
and incomprehensible that few mortal minds can withstand
beholding them. Those who physically enter the space between
worlds via portals, plane shift, or gate must save as if targeted by
a feeblemind spell (spell save DC 20).
The inscrutable inhabitants of the plane include sphinxes,
gemstone dragons, and all manner of aberrations, but there is
no meaningful concept of time in the Space Between Worlds
beyond the perception of mortal creatures. Traveling through
this place is a journey of aeons which can unfold in mere
minutes within the Mortal World.
There are only three known tuning forks which allow one to
venture into the Space Between Worlds via plane shift. One
is a tesseract, another a mobius strip, and the other a melting
pocket watch.
Thin Places
These are spots where the borders between worlds are especially
weak. In particular, Thin Places often mark the places where
creatures from Dreamland, the Shadowlands, and the worlds
beyond step into the mortal world. Powerful planar magic can
be harnessed here; Thin Places are characterized by a subtle
influence of the corresponding plane.
Thin Places can wax and wane over time. An object such
as a doorway, arch, stone circle, bridge, wardrobe, or lookingglass can act as a fulcrum for a thin place, even spontaneously
form a planar portal. Animal burrows, lakes, and even trees can
act in the same manner, becoming places where mortals and
extraplanar creatures can slip between worlds.
When Thin Places wane, it can leave planar travelers trapped
in another dimension, unable to return home. Academy
scholars claim this is how goblins and many anthropomorphic
peoples came to the Mortal World, but also monsters such as
lycanthropes, trolls, and worse.
Afterworlds
Eternity, the sacred celestial afterworld where angels dwell.
Followers of the Old Gods sometimes refer to this place as
Valhalla, and know the angels there as Nuada’s valkyries.
Interchangeably referred to as Hell or the Abyss, the fiendish
afterworld is home to both demons and devils. When they are
not waging endless war on each other, demons and devils plot
mayhem and conspiracy against mortals.
There are no known tuning forks for the Afterworlds, nor any
Thin Places associated with them. The only means by which
mortals can enter these realms is through a long and dangerous
journey through the Shadowlands, or via the gate spell.
Worlds Beyond
Beyond these fundamental planes, countless other worlds are
known to exist. Whether these are actual planes or planets is a
matter of debate.
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