Planewalking 101

[Zadown]

Imagine, if you will, a pearl - perfect and shiny. It sits on a bed of black velvet, and is connected to others like it, as perfect and as shiny, by thin strings, hard to see against the dark background. That pearl is a whole universe, a world so vast the beings in it do not comprehend it having limits of any kind, the velvet the planar Void that separates these worlds from each other and the strings ... oh yes, the strings. They are the Lost Paths, roads for those who can survive in the airless, hostile Astral: angels and demons, scurrying here and there to do their master's bidding, mortal mages and priests who have learned just enough to travel past their usual boundaries but not enough to resist the temptation, the rare gods who feel it is their prerogative to meddle in the affairs of more than one plane.

 

And lastly, and most importantly, the planewalkers who claim these roads wrought with deadly perils as their home. Of no single origin, they have Ascended from mortal men, born from the unions of two immortals or through some cosmic cataclysm spewing forth new life, or risen from the rank and file of planar armies. They are the immortal heroes of the multiversum, immortal, immoral, lawless and power-hungry, their age carved into their bodies by maps of scars. Chased by the dogs of ennui, they throw themselves into various projects, some disappearing from the knowledge of even their almost omniscient peers. Most find their pleasure in the art of war, however, painting their histories with blood as they strive to gain further power and to advance the cause of whichever of the five great Alignments they have sworn allegiance to: the great three, Chaos, Balance and Law, and the lesser two, Evil and Good.

 

Thus, the Eternal War, at times burning renewed and threatening to engulf the whole multiversum with fire, at other times its embers glowing more softly but still with searing heat. These are the stories of one of the more infamous of the heroes of that war, a being most only know by the name of Lord Dreamer. Others call him the Scourge of the Planes, the Bloodclad, a Knight of the Grail, a Godslayer or even Wodzan Xe Chanima, should they know him better than most. His history, as with most of his kind, is such a convulsed, labyrinthine thing telling the abridged version of it would only serve to confuse the reader, and any one detail within it merely a drop in the ocean of his deeds and adventures. So we will have to start at the middle, like with any true story, for stories have no real endings nor beginnings.

 

And now ... it's time to lift the curtain!

Edited March 12, 2008 by Zadown