Structure of the Multiverse

The multiverse consists of separate universes known as Reality Spheres. Each is a self-contained cosmic system containing its own physical universe together with the planes, realms, and metaphysical structures associated with it.

Eldareth's Reality Sphere includes its physical cosmos, the Material Plane, Echo Planes, Elemental and Energy Planes, Transitive and Outer Planes, and several less conventional realms. Other Reality Spheres may follow very different cosmological structures, physical laws, and planar relationships.

Reality Spheres are separated from one another by Driftspace.

Reality Spheres

Each Reality Sphere is a distinct universe whose physical cosmos and associated planes belong to that sphere alone. The Astral and Ethereal Planes remain part of the cosmology in which they formed, so ordinary travel between Eldareth and its surrounding planes never leaves its Reality Sphere.

Reaching another Reality Sphere requires crossing beyond that entire cosmic system and entering Driftspace.

The boundary of a Reality Sphere cannot be reached simply by travelling far enough through ordinary physical space. A vessel could cross galaxies without approaching it, since passage beyond the sphere requires crossing the relationships that define the reality itself.

From Driftspace, Reality Spheres can present markedly different appearances. Some seem bounded by geometric or crystalline structures, while others resemble luminous depths, layered forms, or vast clouded expanses. Scholars generally interpret these appearances as expressions of each sphere's underlying cosmology rather than physical shells surrounding its stars.

Experienced dimensional navigators can often distinguish Reality Spheres by these features and other measurable characteristics, though such observations reveal little about the individual worlds and planes contained within.

Fringe Realms

Some realms within a Reality Sphere fall outside the conventional planar categories and are collectively described as Fringe Realms.

The term groups them by their unusual cosmological relationships rather than any shared origin or location. Val'Syra and the Far Realm are among the best-known examples within Eldareth's Reality Sphere, while certain demiplanes and other anomalous realms may receive the same classification.

The category remains broad by necessity. Some Fringe Realms have been studied for centuries, while others are known only through rare crossings, indirect observations, or fragmentary records.

The Far Realm

The Far Realm exists within Eldareth's Reality Sphere while remaining outside its conventional planar arrangement and separate from Driftspace.

It contains environments, ecosystems, settlements, and civilizations governed by physical and perceptual conditions that can differ sharply from those found elsewhere in the sphere.

Access does not occur through the ordinary Astral or Ethereal transit networks. Specialized planar magic, established crossings, and breaches provide the known means of reaching it.

Large breaches can also impose Far Realm conditions on the surrounding plane, allowing altered gravity, distorted distance, psychic interference, or foreign organisms to spread beyond the opening while it remains active.

Driftspace

Driftspace is the expanse separating one Reality Sphere from another.

It belongs to no single universe. A traveler entering it has left the normal physical and planar structure of their Reality Sphere, and many familiar methods of navigation cease to provide useful points of reference.

Accounts describe vast dark reaches crossed by unstable dimensional currents and distant distortions. Ruined vessels, abandoned structures, and fragments believed to originate from damaged or collapsed realities have accumulated along some older routes, while other regions remain almost empty across extraordinary distances.

Spatial relationships can shift dramatically. An object that appears nearby may remain unreachable for a prolonged period, while something apparently distant can approach rapidly as the surrounding geometry changes.

Survival alone is therefore insufficient for dimensional travel. A vessel must also be capable of determining where another Reality Sphere lies and maintaining a reliable course toward it.

Driftways and Relays

The safest known routes through Driftspace are called Driftways.

A Driftway is a region where distance, direction, and movement follow a stable and repeatable course through the surrounding dimensional environment. Their visible appearance varies, but recurring spatial patterns and other stable relationships provide navigators with reliable reference points.

Ancient structures known as Relays are associated with many surviving Driftways. Functioning Relays can help dimensional vessels locate, enter, or maintain routes that would otherwise be difficult to find.

The builders of the oldest known Driftways and Relays have never been conclusively identified. Naerid records indicate that much of this infrastructure was already ancient when their people first encountered it, with some routes still functional and others collapsed, disconnected, or leading into regions considered unsafe.

Modern scholars have studied only fragments of the surviving network, and no civilization currently known to Eldarethian scholarship has constructed a new Driftway or Relay.

Travelling Through Driftspace

Entering a stable Driftway changes the practical character of travel through Driftspace. The surrounding geometry becomes more consistent, and fixed relationships provide a meaningful sense of direction and progress.

Travelers describe these routes in different ways. Some perceive persistent spatial alignments or fixed distant points, while others detect patterns visible only through specialized navigational systems. Most Driftways have no physical walls or sharply defined edges, but their internal consistency distinguishes them from the surrounding expanse.

Leaving an established route greatly increases the risk of losing orientation or becoming unable to determine whether a vessel is making meaningful progress. Safe dimensional travel therefore depends on navigation systems and route knowledge as much as on a vessel's ability to endure Driftspace itself.

Approaching another Reality Sphere requires a further dimensional crossing. Once the vessel enters the new sphere, travel resumes according to that reality's own physical and planar structure.

Entry does not necessarily place a vessel near a desired world. Considerable spacefaring or planesfaring travel may still be required after the crossing.

Forms of Travel

Travel through the known cosmos is generally divided into three broad forms: spacefaring, planesfaring, and multiversal travel. The distinction depends on the boundaries being crossed rather than the distance travelled.

Spacefaring

Spacefaring is travel through the physical universe of a single Reality Sphere.

Advanced civilizations use many different methods of propulsion and navigation according to the principles and resources available to them.

Eldarethian artificers have increasingly incorporated Galarium into sophisticated systems for propulsion, power regulation, and navigation because of its ability to receive, retain, conduct, and regulate magical energy.

Galarium remains closely tied to Eldareth's own magical environment and is not known to have been used by the Naerids. Its properties have encouraged research into more advanced applications, but no Eldarethian-built Galarium vessel has yet crossed a planar or dimensional boundary through its own propulsion or navigation systems.

A spacefaring vessel therefore remains within the physical cosmos of its Reality Sphere unless it possesses a separate means of leaving it.

Planesfaring

Planesfaring is travel between the planes and realms contained within a single Reality Sphere.

Spells, stable portals, and established planar routes provide the most familiar means of crossing these boundaries, while some advanced civilizations have constructed vessels capable of planar travel.

Travel from Eldareth to the Astral Plane, an Elemental Plane, an Outer Plane, or another accessible realm within the same Reality Sphere is planesfaring regardless of the distance involved.

The Astral and Ethereal Planes remain part of Eldareth's own cosmology and do not naturally extend into another Reality Sphere. The difficulty of planesfaring depends heavily on the destination and the routes available to reach it.

Multiversal Travel

Multiversal travel is movement from one Reality Sphere to another through Driftspace.

Vessels capable of making such crossings are generally described as trans-dimensional vessels, or dimensional ships. Their systems manipulate dimensional relationships and may incorporate magic, psionics, engineering, or other principles according to the civilization that created them.

Reliable journeys require more than a vessel capable of entering Driftspace. Established Driftways, functioning Relays, detailed route information, or equivalent dimensional navigation are normally needed to locate another Reality Sphere and maintain a course toward it.

Without such support, a dimensional ship may lose its route or become unable to locate either its destination or the Reality Sphere it left behind.

Very few civilizations known to Eldarethian scholarship have demonstrated reliable multiversal travel.

The Naerids

The clearest surviving evidence of large-scale dimensional travel comes from the Naerids.

Their vessels travelled between distant worlds and planes before eventually becoming capable of crossing between Reality Spheres. Naerid dimensional ships combined advanced engineering with powerful psionic systems, while their navigators relied heavily on generations of accumulated route knowledge.

The ancient Driftways and Relays they used predated them. Their records describe encountering this infrastructure already old, and their own vessels remained distinct from the network they learned to navigate.

One of the most important artifacts associated with this history is the crystalline structure now preserved at Rimecliff Monastery. In Eldareth it is commonly known as the Celestine Obelisk, while Venthari scholars preserve the Naerid name Athrakan and some older translated records call it the Axis Shard.

The Naerids discovered the artifact among the ruins of an unidentified ancient civilization. Generations of study allowed them to use portions of its functions for dimensional navigation, detecting spatial disturbances, stabilizing difficult crossings, and interacting with parts of the ancient Relay network, though their understanding remained incomplete.

The Athrakan Obelisk stores information through geometric relationships, dimensional models, and patterns embedded throughout the structure. Some respond to psionic contact or become apparent only under particular conditions, while others appear incomplete when examined in isolation.

The Venthari inherited Naerid records and part of their psionic aptitude, but centuries of study have revealed only fragments of the Obelisk's contents.

Among those fragments is the recurring term Koryphai. Venthari scholars generally believe it refers to a people or culture connected to the wider Obelisk network, though no reliable homeland, chronology, history, or description has yet been recovered.

Knowledge in Eldareth

Most people in Eldareth possess little understanding of the larger multiverse.

The existence of other planes is widely accepted among scholars, priests, mages, and others familiar with planar magic. Understanding that those planes belong to a bounded Reality Sphere is considerably less common, while knowledge of separate Reality Spheres beyond Driftspace remains highly specialized.

Most reliable Eldarethian knowledge of multiversal travel comes from Naerid records preserved by the Venthari, study of Ithis Veyra, surviving accounts of Driftspace, and research into the Celestine Obelisk.

These sources demonstrate that dimensional travel predates surviving Naerid history and that a much older network of Driftways, Relays, and related structures once existed. Their builders and full extent remain unknown.

Even scholars specializing in planar travel may therefore understand Eldareth's own Reality Sphere well while possessing only fragmentary knowledge of the regions and civilizations beyond it.

Hazards of Driftspace

Driftspace remains dangerous even along routes once used successfully by dimensional civilizations.

Unstable dimensional currents can force vessels away from established Driftways, while shifting geometry complicates attempts to recover a lost course. Old routes may also deteriorate as Relays fail, charts become obsolete, or wreckage and fragments of ruined realities accumulate along once-stable passages.

Harvester vessels have been reported along remote routes and near regions containing unusual resources, living specimens, or other material of apparent interest. These immense hive-ships collect whatever draws their attention, though little reliable information exists concerning their origin or wider purpose.

Becoming lost remains the most persistent danger. Beyond a dependable route, travelers may have no familiar stars, planes, or fixed landmarks from which to determine position.

Without a functioning Relay, reliable route data, or another sufficiently advanced dimensional reference system, a vessel may be unable to locate another Reality Sphere or find its way back to the one it left.