Plane of Water
The Elemental Plane of Water is as large as it is varied and the inhabitants of
this Plane come in many shapes and sizes. When
it was first discovered by travelling Mages in the year 260, it was thought to
be nothing more than one vast bubble of water but that was quickly discovered to
be untrue.
As far as
anyone has been able to discover, the Plane is nothing more than a gigantic drop
of water, floating in ‘nothingness’ for want of a better word and,
the closer you get to the edge of the Plane the colder the water gets.
At the very edge of the Plane, where the water ends, there is a wall of
ice that is guessed to be hundreds of miles thick.
No Mage has ever been able to travel beyond the ice or to measure it in
any way so it is very much a mystery, but one that holds a great deal of
fascination for many.
In the
centre of the Plane is a huge sun, constantly giving light and heat into the
waters of the Plane. Some think
that this Sun might actually be a Portal into the Plane of Fire or some other
Realm with such light and energy, but no one has been able to discover the exact
nature of the heat source as yet. Wherever
the heat and light come from, without them the Plane of Water would be
completely uninhabitable. It is the
sun that warms the waters to a point that allows creatures to live within them
and it is the sun that provides the energy and light for the pockets of earth
and air that are trapped within the Plane.
Aye lad, you’ve come to the right man. Old
Grannarim can tell you all you want to know about the Plane of Water.
Been exploring it since it was first discovered, way back in ’60 that
was. I was one of the first Mages
to get into it and since then I’ve spent more time here than I have back in
Shardar.
There’s just so much of this damn
place to visit, you see. So much to
discover, so much to do. I’ve
been travelling through it for the last 25 years and I still ain't seen a
fraction of it. Big? Let me tell
you about big! I’ve been right to
the Ice Barrier that holds it in, damn cold, let me tell you! And I’ve been as close as any man to that sun o’ theirs.
There just ain’t the words for how far apart those two are, there
ain’t the words.
You see, most of the humanoid types
live in a band between the two places. A
place where it ain’t too hot nor too cold.
The types that like the cold live further out and the ones that like the
hot stay closer in. Sunward and
Iceward they call the directions. I
prefer in and out m'self.
Anyway, the Warm Zone, the place
where most of them live is full of the cities of the Elementals and the merfolk.
It’s got gigantic forests of weed that go on forever, its got Whales
that swim through it for centuries on end with all sorts of people living on
their backs, an’ it’s got those few pockets of earth and air that most of
the human types live in.
Ain’t you never wondered why there
are so many people who are a lot like us scattered through the Planes?
I have, and let me tell you, I think that if you could answer that you
could answer just about any damn question you can think of.
Well, these air pockets are like
floating islands except that they’re under the water.
Some are just solid rock with no air and they’re not much good to man
nor beast, but some o’ them have got air trapped in them like a bubble. I ain’t got no idea why the air stays where it does, but it
does stay and that’s good enough for me.
I can say that I’ve found traces of Mage, strong Magic, in these
bubbles or domes. Old Magic, if you
get my meaning.
So, these bubbles is where most of
the human types live. Not that
they’re all that human really, they just look and act like us in most ways.
There’s hundreds of different bubbles and I ain’t been on half of
them. Some day I’ll see ‘em
all. Some day!
The
Elementals of this Plane come mostly in just one form.
They seem to be made up of nothing more than swirling masses of water or,
more rarely, small whirlpools within the water.
These Elementals seems to take a great delight in watching the antics of
the ‘Solid Folk’ as they call them and will happily come and talk to
any Mage that has mastered their language.
No Water Elemental has ever been heard to talk in the tongue of Shardar
but whether this is through lack of ability or lack of desire is unknown.
The
Elementals have a great deal of control over the water that forms them.
They can call currents and tides and even cause whirlpools and, in some
rare cases, heat or chill the water to great extremes of temperature.
The Elementals that look like whirlpools are the stronger of the two
types and they are often more intelligent than the other ones.
Many of them have mastered the Arts of Magic.
At the most
Iceward rim of the Warm Zone, there is an area that is inhabited just by
Elementals. It is a complex maze of
coral tunnels and seaweed forests and why the Elementals formed this is not
known. They certainly have no need
for such a dwelling place and there is nothing in it that resembles rooms or
lodgings of any kind. In fact, to
humans, it looks like nothing more than a cast, three dimensional maze.
The strongest of the Elementals that dwells there is called Sishish, in
the human tongue, and he has been known to happily talk to Mages who bring him
information about the worlds outside the Plane of Water.
Sishish,
certainly I’ve spoken to Sishish. A damn big Elemental he is and an Arch-Mage in his own right.
Him and a pile of his people stay out in that maze they call home.
Got lost in that place once, took me three days to find my way back out
again and I’m sure that the Elementals were watching me and laughing at me the
entire time.
Yeah, Sishish likes to talk but he
won’t learn to speak our language. None
of the Elementals will. I know that
they could if they wanted to, but they don’t want to.
Force us to use Magic to talk to them, they do.
They might not talk our language but there have been a few times when
I’ve been damn sure that Sishish and a few others understand it well enough.
I can’t prove anything, but I’m always real careful what I say when
I’m around them.
There’s something about Sishish
that I don’t trust. He’s up to
something he’s not telling us about and he taking a lot of interest in places
outside his own Plane. Especially
in Shardar! Maybe I’m just being
paranoid, but there’s something real suspect about him and I’d like to know
what’s going on in his watery mind.
The
water dwelling inhabitants of the Warm Zone come in many different forms, with
the most common being the merfolk. These
vaguely humanoid people have the tails of fish and can breathe only in water.
Their hands have webbed fingers and they have long, ridged fins running
down the length of their backs. None
of them wear clothing of any kind but most do have a belt that they use to keep
their possessions and tools in.
The merfolk
are not a war-like people by nature, but there are many dangerous predators in
the Plane of Water and they have been forced to learn how to defend themselves
from attackers. Commonly armed with
stabbing weapons of varying kinds, they work well as a team and it is the women
who are the true warriors of the race. The
female merfolk are stronger, faster and have more stamina than the males and the
entire society is a matriarchal one.
The merfolk
have a number of large cities made of still living coral that they stay in, but
the largest and best known one is called Everden.
The city is five times the size of Camber and can and does hold many
thousands of inhabitants. From here, the merfolk farm the seaweeds that they use for
food and herd the schools of fish that provide them with meat.
The will go out to forage for shellfish that live on the floating rocks
and sometimes they will even trade with the air breathers for other commodities.
It is
impossible for the merfolk to forge metal in their underwater homes and they
will trade for this instead. This
is the main reason that the relationship between the merfolk and the air
dwellers is such a good one, trade. The
merfolk receive the metal that they need for so many thing and the air dwellers
receive in exchange many food items and the blood of the vast Whales that the
merfolk herd.
These
Whales are not like the whales of Shardar in that they are true fish, not
mammals and they are ten or twenty times the size of the largest known whale in
Shardar. These Whales provide huge
amounts of meat when they are slaughtered, enough to feed thousands of people at
a time, but their blood is their most valuable commodity.
Anyone who drinks the blood of the Whale will be able to breath and speak
clearly underwater for a period of about thirty hours.
It also allows the user to communicate with the Elementals and many other
creatures of the Plane and, for this reason alone, it is very valuable.
Many Mages of Shardar, especially those from the Academy of Ocean Gate,
will pay highly for quantities of this Magical Blood.
I
like the merfolk well enough but you’ve got to be damn careful not to insult
any of the women. And don’t be
shocked by the way that they act. Their
morals and attitudes are different from ours and they don’t care where or how
they show affection. It can be
strange to start with, especially considering their tails, but you get used to
it.
And if you get the change, you should
go to Everden, that is the most impressive place I’ve ever seen in my life and
I’ve seen a lot of places. The
coral is still alive and it’s full of fish and anemone and all sorts of
flowering plants. It’s beautiful,
just beautiful.
The Whales blood is marvelous stuff,
how do you think I’ve been able to explore the Plane? There’s
a high price to pay for it though, the merfolk only have so many Whales and they
won’t just give the blood away. Don’t
try to pay for it with the coin of Shardar, what use do these people have for
it? None, that’s what!
Metal weapons, especially spears and javelins is what they like.
It gives the merfolk the edge they need when fighting against the likes
of the sharks and the squid-people. Neither
of those two are nice people to know and you watch out for them.
The sharks of the Plane of Water are
smart, smart and evil. There’s
nothing they like more than the taste of humanoid flesh, the merfolk know this
and that’s why they kill sharks on sight.
And the squid-people are even worse.
They’re a lot like the merfolk except they’ve got squid tentacles
instead of tails and they’re ruled by the males.
The war between the merfolk and the squid-people has been going on for
ever an’ it don’t look like it’s ever going to end.
Some people trade with the
squid-people but don’t trust them! They’re
evil through and through and they hate air-dwellers as much as they hate the
merfolk.
The humanoids who dwell in the air pockets are mostly very similar to the
natives of Shardar although some of them have developed gills or webbed hands
and feet to aid them in swimming. Each
air pocket is a small world in its own right and few of them have anything to do
with the inhabitants of any of the other pockets.
The pockets
float through the Plane, circling the sun at a certain distance and slowly
spinning round so that they have a day and night cycle of varying times.
The larger the pocket, the longer the cycle and vice versa.
The
inhabitants of the pockets work, rest and act as standard humans in virtually
every way and they are as diverse in nature as the humans of Shardar are.
It is impossible to say how they will act in any given situation but it
is known that certain pockets have aligned themselves with the squid-people.
If there was an easy way to travel between the pockets this could have
led to a war but, as it is, it would be as difficult to make war across the
ocean as it would be to battle across the Planes.
Few of the
inhabitants of the pockets know anything of the existence of the Planes or of
Mages and they would be shocked, to say the least, to learn that there were such
things. There are sometimes locals
who have mastered some Magical skills in these pockets but few of them have
anything close to the power of a true Mage who has managed to travel the Planes.
In general,
the pockets are less advanced than Shardar is, but there are a few who are equal
to, or more advanced than the people of Shardar.
Usually, the pockets that circle around in the middle of the Warm Zone
are the most advanced and those that are located closer to the edges are less
advanced.
You
watch yourself in those air pockets, some of them are very, very dangerous.
I’ve been to some that were as nice and friendly as you like, really
made me feel at home, and I’ve been to others that scared the pants off me.
Some of them are so barbaric that they don’t even realise that there is
anything outside the small island that the live on. They think that everything stops at the dome of the sky and
they are the only people that live anywhere.
If I was you, I’d stay as close to
the middle of the Warm Zone as possible, that’s generally the safest.
Very few of the Plane’s predators there and the Elementals don’t
often go into that part of it. Don’t know why and the won’t say. But that’s the way it
is.
If
you’re determined to go into the Plane of Water, I wish you the best of luck.
But remember, it’s one hell of a big place and there’s a lot of it
that I’ve probably never even heard of. So
be very careful and make sure you don’t make an enemy of the wrong person.
There’s only so many places to hide in an air pocket and don’t even
think of trying to run from anything if you’re actually in the water.
That’s there element, not yours, and you’d best remember that!