Realms

The Realms.

But what are they?

The Realms are five different planes with Earth as the anchor point around which they naturally orbit. Around the central point and throughout the whole of all the realms, the Nexus keeps them moving. The Nexus protects each one from contaminating the other, though there are occasionally crossovers. To Earth, those are the mysterious things that go bump in the night, that sense of déjà vu, the storm from nowhere that destroys cities, or the forest creatures that should not exist.

The Dark Realm is as hauntingly beautiful as it is deadly. With shadows that move, and creatures that thrive in the dark, the realm is everything humans have in their nightmares.

The Storm Realm is a violent, chaotic place where storms roll through the skies daily. In the stormy seas and skies, strong and sturdy creatures make their lives, friends with the elements.

The Verdant Realm teems with life from unimaginable creatures to creatures long forgotten on Earth. Within it, sentient flowers walk, and beauty is deadly.

The Echo Realm is the stuff of mysterious thoughts and happenings, where creatures move faster than thought and feed on emotion. There are creatures barely more than a dream.

When these five pour their creatures into Earth, the world changes drastically. The stuff of nightmares becomes reality, but then, so does the stuff of dreams.

Important Note:

Information contained here may be incomplete. At any time, this information may change, and it might even be incorrect. To know what is true, you'll have to read the books and adventure alongside Alastair and Wicker to see where the actual truth lies.

Dark Realm

Where shadow is substance,
and silence has weight

When humans think of a world in the dark, they think of a barren wasteland where nothing can survive. Of course, that’s not what the Dark Realm is like at all. Dark adapted creatures roam the realm, with some living in total darkness while others live in lands of shadows overlapping. It has a subtle beauty that cannot be described in words, and no one has ever imagined some of the creatures that walk those dusk-like lands.

The features mirror earth, like all the realms, but no sun is visible. Waves of darkness wash over the land and sea, and creatures thrive.

From strange fungal creatures and creatures with moving shadows, to the some that are almost human other than their dark-adjusted eyes, the Dark Realm proves that life can thrive even in eternal twilight.

Properties

Negative Energy – The energy of the realm is “negative” in that it negates or removes from the Earth Realm. It is the reason that many of the encounters with the creatures from the dark realm leaves humans feeling as though they’ve lost something.

Lawful Style – The style of the energy indicates how it reacts and how predictable it is. A lawful style will follow rules that remain the same. If something is true once, it will be true again.

Portals

Dark Realm portals (or some call breaches) all have a similar look. They look like a rough diagonal tear in the air that constantly “bleeds” black ichor. The ichor dissipates once it touches the ground or some other surface. It glows faintly in silver light when something exits it.

Portal Locations

Australia

The largest portal is located in the middle of a large, dark forested area on the eastern coastline of what in the Earth Realm would be Australia. This forest is a new feature, and should not be able to exist where it has grown. Those who enter it claim to have nausea and dizziness and leave quickly.

Europe

In Germany, a portal of significant size lies within a natural forest, however, in the eastern area, there is a circular area of death where nothing grows. The area is blackened and covered in moving shadows, making it impossible to see if anyone enters it. Animals give the area a wide berth.

Americas

Two portals exist in the Americas. One is in Alaska, north of Ancorage. The area is dimmer than others, and the ice is blackened. The falling snow looks like falling ash, but acts like normal snow. The second is in the Amazon rain forest, however this one in in the canopy among an area of tight knit branches. The area is high in the air, and it is impossible to see into it. It looks like a blotch of darkness in the canopy.

Environment

The environment of the Dark Realm mimics Earth except that there is a constant darkness that even the sun cannot penetrate. This leads to flora and fauna developing to cope with this eternal night. Creatures have abilities to see in the dark, see in very low light, and to navigate without sight at all. Almost all creatures here have shadows that seem to act on their own. Communities are built where shadows cross each other for many sentient creatures.

Verdant Realm

Where life grows faster than time,
and the wild is never truly still

The Verdant Realm teems with infinite amounts of life. Where on earth, which the landscape reflects, creatures and humans coexist in spaces of life and barrenness, this realm has unrestrained life throughout the world. Life has adapted to the incredible location. Flowers bloom in cycles, allowing time to grow. Trees spring up and die within years, for even in the Verdant Realm, there is death. The cycle is honored, and there are many creatures to honor it, both predators and prey.

In the brightly lit land where even night shows incredible life, creatures live on the rules of life being the way of their lives. From the deadly and beautiful to the quiet and contemplative, this land also hosts many sentient beings. Creatures of the earth past mix with creatures of impossibility.

This realm is beautiful and ever-growing and changing in mere days, making it a place humans cannot even fathom.

Properties

Positive Energy – The energy of the realm is additive, meaning it adds to the Earth Realm. Unlike negative energy, those encountering positive energy may be healed or feel energized.

Lawful Style – The style of the energy indicates how it reacts and how predictable it is. A lawful style will follow rules that remain the same. If something is true once, it will be true again.

Portals

Portal Locations all look like a horizontal tear in the sky with vines and green ichor dripping out of it toward the ground. Wherever the ichor touches, various plants group. The area around this growth also grows wild with life. The portal draws creatures to it and they are healed if injured. Animals who are injured seem to know that the portal heals them. The other effect is utter calm on all creatures, so predators and pray can be in the same place without any issues between them. Coming close to it, humans get disorientated and lose sense of direction until they are out of the radius of effect.

Portal Locations

Europe

The Verdant Realm’s largest portal is located in one of the densest forests on the European continent in what is France on Earth. This forest started out as a small one, but once the portal appeared, the area became grown up so thick and dense that it is impossible to enter. If any of the foliage is cut, it bleeds green ichor that spawns another plant immediately when it touches the ground, and the original plant heals itself.

Americas

Two portals are on North America. One is in Nova Scotia in Canada. It is in an area that is populated and appeared next to a house with a garden. The garden now grows immense vegetables and plants, and everyone comes from miles around to see it. The area around the breach is covered in green clovers the size of a hand. The second one is in California over the ocean. This one has created a circular zone of life around it. Sea creatures are drawn to it, and there is a massive coral reef below it teeming with life.

Environment

The verdant realm is covered in foliage and growth. There is no section of the realm that does not have something living, either flora or fauna. The seas are teeming with life, and they never lack sustenance. The energy of life runs thick through the realm, and there are rarely any injuries to creatures that do not heal. Just being in the realm cures any ailment or injury. The world has “safe spots” where there are overwhelming amounts of energy which calm animals to the point they won’t attach each other. Otherwise, predator and prey relationships are similar to that of eath. The sentient beings in the Verdant Realm see this as necessary to the cycle of life, knowing death must come if life exists. Nothing lives forever.

Storm Realm

Where chaos is law,
and the sky never rests

The Storm Realm is a place where motion never ends. Lightning arcs endlessly across the shies, and clouds heavy with water block the light. The land may have once mirrored earth, but it has been cracked, broken, and reshaped by the eternal storms. Land floats in the sky, rising above the clouds for creatures to survive without constant rain and storm.

Chaos is rule, and creatures thrive on unpredictability, and ironically learn to predict the unpredictable. From elementals of all types and their kin to the various creatures that exist on storms alone, the realm has incredibly resilient life forms. Some are sentient, others are animals, but all have senses that surpass anything humans can imagine.

It is violent and chaotic, yet for these creatures, it is home.

Properties

Wild Energy – Wild Energy means that the energy is inherently difficult to control. It takes a lot of mental power and a lot of will to use this type of energy.

Chaotic Style – The style of the energy means that it is unpredictable. What “rule” works one time, may not work another. This requires a lot of recalculations when using this type of energy.

Portals

Portals to the storm realm are tears through the sky that are horizontal and high above the ground. The tear pulses with electricity, and there is always a sound of rolling thunder coming from it. Now and then, lighting strikes the ground below it from the opening. If anything is in the radius of its effect that creature is affected as if struck by a regular bolt of lightning. For a space of a hundred meters, there are low storm clouds that form storms regularly. Most creatures stay clear of the areas, and will not approach the area of effect.

Portal Locations

Himalayas

The portal is on the top of Makalu in the Himalayas. This portal causes constant snow to fall at rapid rates, making the mountain extremely dangerous because of large snow drifts, and avalanches. The only creatures that come through here are cold resistant creatures.

Italy

This portal is located on the rim of Mount Etna on the island of Sicily. The portal is just over the edge of the volcano and causes firestorms to light up the top of the mount. The creatures that exit here are fire resistant creatures.

Americas

Located in the New Mexico desert, the portal here is a major change from the normal environment, bringing excessive storms including rain and causes flooding in the area. As such, the area’s environment is slowly being changed to become greener, and the desert creatures are fleeing to further reaches of the desert. Any creature can enter through this portal.

Environment

The Storm Realm is made of floating island with constant storms of various kinds. The seas below them are constantly churning and changing. There are few calms within the constant storms, however they do exist. For some beings, they make their home above the clouds on higher floating land masses.

Echo Realm

Where thought has shape,
and memory leaves footprints

Resonance. Thought. Sound. Emotion. These things comprise the Echo Realm. The world looks alien, no longer something humans can recognize. Sound creates shapes, and emotion builds form. Echoes are sacred and mean more than one can imagine in the cultures.

Despite the alien landscape, it still mirrors Earth in many ways. However, beings live there. From the creatures that thrive on memories and emotion to the wonderous that live through the use of sound, there are many creatures well beyond imagining.

The creatures call the place home, and while a human would find it disorientating, they would also call it hauntingly beautiful. It is a place where memory, thought, and emotion mix, and sometimes cannot be told apart.

Properties

Tame Energy – Tame energy basically means the energy is easy to control. Harnessing the energy of the Echo Realm takes little training and can be easily done.

Chaotic Style – The style of the energy means that it is unpredictable. What “rule” works one time, may not work another. This requires a lot of recalculations when using this type of energy.

Portals

An Echo realm portal is a shimmering, almost invisible tear in the sky or the ground. It shimmers and pulses now and again. When it pulses, the tear becomes visible and a fine mist sprays from it. Any that this mist lands on have intense psychic visions for twenty-four hours, completely unable to interact with the rest of the world until the time has passed. Those that enter the radius become dizzy and lose track of time and space. There are some who try to get to the portal so they might be affected by the psychic substances. Few have managed to do so.

Portal Locations

Americas

The Echo Realm’s most prominant portal is located in what is Earth’s Hawaii. It is a small island that had little inhabiting it; however, because many of the echo realm’s creatures are incorporeal and travel their world, it is easily accessible to any of them. The portal has affected all living creatures on the island, causing death of many of them. Outside the radius of the effect, bones of various creatures shine in the warm sun.

New Zealand

Out in the middle of a sheep herder’s field, one of the Echo Relm’s portals appeared. Like in Hawaii, creatures in the radius died and decayed quickly. Since then, the sheep herder and his family have found the edges of the portal’s radius and placed a fence around it to keep creatures from stumbling into it. Some people, though, have attempted to scale the fence to be affected by the psychic spray. None have succeeded.

Greenland

In an icy, uninhabited area in the north of Iceland, a small portal tore through the ground. Since this one does not exist in the air, it acts more like a geyser, spraying the psychic mist in the air above it. The wind, however, can force the spray outside the raidus, affecting those viewing it. Several humans have made the dangerous trek to get to the portal to be affected by the spray, some succeeding, and others leaving disappointed after camping in the cold for days.

Environment

The echo realm appears barren, however in that barren feature, you can see shifting colors and images playing off and on. The illusions come and go and make it difficult to navigate. Creatures live in colonies and there really aren’t permanent structures other than psychic illusions that the creatures make. Most sentient beings are nomadic, taking their homes made of various skins of the few physical animals that inhabit the realm. The skins are treated with specially treated water to make them stay in corporeal form.