Legendary Places G to I
The World Gates
A system of energy conduits linking worlds, aka "big black pointy thingies."
Appearance
World gates always appear as two obelisk-like structures of varying dimensions placed side by side. The largest pair ever found stand at over six hundred feet in height while the smallest at only twenty five. They are made of a virtually indestructible black stone that has been altered at a molecular level to be ultra-dense. So dense that a single piece of gate stone the size of a fist would weigh several dozen metric tons.
Weighing that much you would think subsidence and earth quakes over the years would cause the things to fall over but the neat thing is they draw their power from the core of the planet and stand in a set of fixed gravitational coordinates. Even if the ground does fall away beneath them they remain exactly where they are, hovering in the air with a glowing energy source beneath them burrowing down into the planet. To sever this energy source you would have to literally wield the kind of power of found at the planet's core. Which is probably why it has never happened. Gates last as long as the planet does.
It is rare for any kind of subsidence to happen though as substances and beings exposed to Gate radiation over a long period of time change at at molecular level too. Terrain around a gate site becomes firmer and unnatural. Beings who live next to one receive strange dreams, can go mad or even develop physical mutations. Of course this all takes a long time, maybe hundreds of years or even thousands but make no mistake - The Gates can change things.
Proximity to a gate can set your teeth on edge and make your skin crawl. There is power emanating from them, even when inactivated that can send all but the most curious scurrying into hiding. Their stone feels slightly warm and clammy to the touch, regardless of surrounding temperature and they look... alien.
Creation
Legend has it that the Gates were created a long time ago when the Multiverse was very young. Those who profess to know a lot about them for the most part believe they were created by Baphomet or by something akin to him. But where did Baphomet get the idea? Did he just make them up?
Well yes and no. In his explorations of worlds Baphomet had also stumbled across a series of gates belonging to a long forgotten Empire -
So, after studying these gates and finding them fascinating, Baphomet decided to resurrect their network and add more of his own.
Eventually though he became bored with exploration and withdrew from the gates, sealing many of them behind him. Events back in the Idiom demanded his attention as some of the other Alondians were angry at him constantly bringing other races back to live in what they saw as their land and theirs alone.
For many thousands of years the gate network remained dormant until rediscovered again by the Qual and against Orion's better judgement, resurrected. Orion, concerned by the power of the Void through which even he could not navigate or sense, sought to harness the gates and their power safely so that it might not endanger his children. He helped the Qual forge twelve rings to control the power of the gates and hundreds of special metal torques that resonated on a similar frequency to the obelisks and helped amplify his children's metafunctions. See Metafunctions and Qual Torques / Rings.
And for seven thousand years the 7 Star Races bathed in the power of the gates and ruled supreme over all other races.
That is until a certain group of humans detonated an anti-matter bomb next to the Qual's master gate causing a chain reaction that collapsed and destroyed not only the Qual's entire gate network but every world the Qual had recently visited and unlocked. *Note - Thousands of gates still remained locked by Baphomet and explored by the Qual so when the system collapsed these gates survived and so did their worlds.*
Markings
Obelisks are always covered in symbols. Three different types of symbols can appear on any particular pair of obelisks though. The language of the Galactic Empire, which denotes the oldest most original gates. The language of Baphomet and the Alondians, which is the most prevalent and finally the language of the Qualianor who adopted gate technology last.
Types of Gate
Gates are arranged in a branching structure. Every world has what is termed as a Master Gate; this being the gate that connects that world to the rest of the network. Branching out from the master gate though are usually 4 more sub gates - smaller in size and positioned equidistant to one another around the rest of the planet. Travel through a sub gate has to take to you to the Master Gate first before you can go to another sub-gate or off world.
Gates can be open, closed, locked or unlocked.
When open a gate has a shimmering curtain of light hanging between its two obelisks. Passing through you experience blackness and nothingness, then in what could be an instant or a thousand years (remember there is no time in the Void), you emerge (hopefully - assuming there's a viable gate or connection) in another place.
*Note - An incorrectly activated or unstable gate can and often will lead you to nowhere. Passing into the gate you simply cease to exist and spend the rest of eternity obliviously in the Void.*
To operate a gate you have to be able to understand the symbols on it and touch them in particular order. Trying to do it randomly could take a lifetime. The Qual managed to control gates remotely though through the use of their Gate rings.
A locked gate is one that has an extra later of protection upon it. It can take ten times as long to unlock a gate as open one and without knowing the 'password' you're basically trying random combinations for a very very long time. *Note - The Qual managed to unlock dozens of gates (previously sealed by Baphomet) by using mental redaction and farsensing (surface probing for echoes) and relying on the Tanathu (the most super intelligent of the 7 Star Races to crunch algorithms and numbers). It took them a long time though but the Qual were immortal and pretty patient.*
And that's World gates. They aren't the only way of travelling in the Multiverse though. See Tone Stones, Nynsagul, Navigators, Dreamers and the Ship of Fate for other examples. And let's not forget your standard space ship.
The Hollow
A blocked drain between two worlds.
In the final hours of Eldahar the Living Dark manifested itself once again upon the Prime Realm. This time, instead of occupying the flesh of minions and converting it to negative essence, the Darkness upped its game and created a beachhead directly over Eldahar's Master gate in an attempt to block any outside help and seize the main conduit between the two Eldahars... that of the Prime and that of North's Chaos infested Alternate.
Travel through the Hollow was suicide. Anything coming in contact with it was energy drained at a rate of 3d10 power per round (10 seconds), save for 1/2. As journeying from one Eldahar to the other took a minimum of 3d10+15 rounds you can see just how foolish it was to attempt it.
To date the only being capable of passing through unscathed is Godark using his Black sword Kranatakyn. Kranatakyn uses energy identical to that in the Hollow to create a bubble shield around Godark and anyone with him.
The Hollow is a big spherical ball of anti-energy. When it first appeared a lot of powerful people tried to stop it from spreading but failed. It drained the surrounding terrain of life, tore great fissures in the astral plane and seemed unstoppable until a newly reincarnated Solomon, fresh from the other Eldahar and conjured by the sword Need, anchored it to the spot and stopped it from draining the area any further. How so? By giving it a connection to somewhere else to drain.
This seemed to work as Solomon had connected it to the collective pools of faith of Elondil and Daig (to spare the material plane for a while). These two places were in Solomon's opinion the most logical choice; they had the most power to slow the Hollow and could offer up the most resistance. Plus, Solomon figured it was the only way he could get both sides working together.
What he didn't count on however was the massive army of Voidraal that flooded from the Hollow directly into Elondil and Daig.
Beset by thousands of wraith-like creatures, Elondil and Daig were suddenly forced to put aside their differences and turn their attention to this new invader. Elondil suffered the most because many of the Gods had already been slain. In fact it wasn't long before refugees from different areas of Heaven were fleeing across into purgatory and from there, with the help of the Dragon Crown wearers, across into Heartland and thanks to Ashar (who was more than happy to oblige a few extra souls coming under his belt, Daig.
In the final hours of Eldahar as the Armageddon Clock ticks, the Hollow represents The Foe, Tharizden. It is the Void that consumed the home worlds when the gate system collapsed. It is the anti-essence of the Living Dark as wielded by Laylak. It is the beachhead of Tharizden's invasion.
The Idiom of Realities
An infinite number of alternate realities and dimensions, like reflections in a shattered mirror.
Eldahar exists within the Heart of the Multiverse; a place of raw energy powered and shaped by the imaginations of those fortunate enough to dwell within it. This energy is polarised and flows around two points, (like an infinity symbol ∞) called the Annex Animus and the Annex Anima.
An Id is a fragment / dream / mirror image / random imagining that has taken substance and some reality within the Heart. Where the World of Eldahar is a fully fleshed out and very REAL seeming world, countless thousands upon thousands of other less REAL and incomplete realities float disconnected from one another in the Heartstone's boundless inner reaches.
Imagine a whole mirror and then imagine that mirror smashed upon the ground. Each shard of that mirror reflecting much of the same as the whole mirror did, but also reflecting each and every fragment next to it and so on and so on; reflections within reflections within reflections. This is the way Eldahar's alternate realities work.
Eldahar used to have solid alternate realities but after Orion broke Baphomet's Heartstone, each reality became a fragmented reflection of itself and the others around it, know commonly known as Ids.
Ids vary in size, shape and integrity. Some represent whole lost civilizations isolated from other realities and long forgotten. Others represent lost continents, isles or indeed whole imaginary worlds / realities. There are some floating in the Heartstone's nether regions that hold ancient secrets whilst there are others that merely mimic one another, following similar timeline's but with subtle differences.
All in all, the Heart of the Multiverse is like any normal imagination - endless. Any number of beings or lands can exist within it and invariably do.
Navigation and Laws of Reality
With Orion's cracking of Baphomet's Heartstone Eldahar's Ids became even more fragmented and unstable. Plunged into chaos and torn asunder by the power of Orion's mind, the realities began collapsing and crumbling as the bridges interconnecting them shattered. Navigation through the Ids became impossible as for every one reality that existed, another hundred thousand sprang up.
As Ids are by their very nature, more malleable than Eldahar Prime, it stands to reason that the physical, spiritual and magical laws governing them are also more malleable.
It is possible to enter an Id and suddenly find yourself gifted with magical powers based upon your heightened understanding of reality and how Ids work. It is also just as likely that you step into an Id and find yourself suddenly occupying your "twin's" reality / body, living out an alternate life where you chose to go left instead of right etc. If this weren't enough, reality could end up so twisted and different that you arrive on an Id and undergo a complete physical and mental change from male to female, human to elf or dwarf to horse. The possibilities are endless but generally, the further you travel away from a stable anchor like Eldahar Prime the more likely and drastically reality will warp. From a parallel Eldahar where psychic ducks rule over humans to a world where everyone knows who is telling the truth.
Travellers within the Ids
Many characters in the Eldahar campaign have journeyed into the Ids. Some have become lost while others have wandered for many years until finding their way back. One or two have even been fortunate enough to travel between the Anima and the Animus, experiencing both primal forces and gaining great power and wisdom by doing so.
For examples of such characters, see Wan, Godark, the sword Kranatakyn, The Titans, The Nexus etc.
The Journeys of Adunathel and Ragnek
In the campaign of 2600, Adunathel, Ashar, K'Dina, Ankha Khazarad and Goruan Eshan all enter Eldahar's Ids, albeit only briefly.
Later in 2617, Ragnek Stormcrow and his companions begin learning more and more about the Ids and what they mean to Eldahar. But not quickly enough. First he unwittingly causes a temporal shock wave by plunging one of the Daggers of Life into the Sun Crown (see Crowns of Power), causing Eldahar Prime to suddenly and abruptly grind to a halt. As the Prime freezes in Time and space a tremendous strain is suddenly placed on all the adjacent realities with many experiencing planal collapse or erasure. (The shock of crashing to a halt like a car hitting a wall at 100 miles per hour.) Of course such an event does not go unnoticed in the Idiom. Many of the Ancients dwelling beyond the Prime sense it and begin their own investigations; after all, it isn't every day that another reality directly impacts on your own.
The second major Idiom impacting event of 2617 happens when Ragnek foolishly involves himself with Time again by casually walking into Kand's Hollow. Expecting to be immune to its temporal effects he unknowingly takes several thousand years to walk 85% of the way across the room. Luckily for him though, but unluckily for the Ids, Ragnek is wearing the Crown of Night and through it the whole of Eldahar is also slowed in Time.
The Legend of the Prime
As a side effect of Ragnek's brief spell in Kand's Hollow, for many of the Ids the Prime becomes a place of legend and myth. The battles waged there shape whole civilisations and the people fighting them become revered as Gods. Others mock the existence of the Prime and disbelieve the legends - How can such a place exist? Surely it's just all made up?
The Journey of Goruan Eshan
In 2601 Goruan Eshan steps through an ancient Titan created portal and begins a journey through the Ids that eventually leads to his death. Very little is known about his journey but what has been pieced together from various sources is recorded elsewhere on this site as a warning to those who might feel tempted to wander from the straight and narrow path of substance into the stuff of dreams. Yes, Goruan Eshan died, but the ancient relics of extinct civilisations and races maintained his body through magical and artificial means, making him a formidable being even after his heart stopped. See Godark.
The Journey of Arden of Elarin
In 2617, Arden, Chosen Mystic of the Order of Seekers, arrives at the Edge of the World and enters Eldahar Prime via the dream plane. She meets up with Ragnek Stormcrow (aka Thenox - Overlord of Hell) and Tomorrow (aka The Prince of Planes). Carrying the sword "Heart Seeker," (Fayn Sûl), a piece of Baphomet's spirit, Arden continues her quest for the One Thought (Baphomet) in the hope of averting a terrible plague that is ravaging her home World. D to F J to M