The Well
Raw Arcana
Will of the Gods
The contents of The Well are said to be the remnants of The Creator after they made Aphara and Gods that ruled it. The Gods had direct access to it, allowing them to perform the divine acts that set them apart from the lesser beings that inhabited the world. With the Well's energy they could shape the world, restore life, and smite their foes. The Well is essentially the material needed to bend reality to one's own whim. The material within the Well is known as Raw Arcana, a viscous bright blue liquid that encompasses the entirety of the plane. This liquid serves as the basis of all spells everywhere. No matter the plane when a spellcaster casts a spell, they must tap into the Well and use the Raw Arcana present there to make their will reality. Since direct contact with Raw Arcana is dangerous, it must be filtered through the Abyss first. This process dilutes the Arcana and turns it into Refined Arcana that can be used for spellcasting. The process of turning Raw Arcana into Refined Arcana is exhausting however, making spellcasting a practice that must be approached carefully to ensure there are no long lasting injuries as a result of it. Obviously the more powerful the spellcaster, the more Raw Arcana they can refine, which is a nice incentive to keep up the practice.Raw Arcana
The presence of Raw Arcana makes the Well physically inaccessible to all creatures, while some exploratory attempts have been made to survive within the Well, they have always ended in catastrophe. This gives the Well a rather unique place among the other planes. It's seen mostly as an abstract resource, rather than an actual place one can visit. The most some have been able to accomplish is taking Raw Arcana out of the Well and containing it within specially designed containers. The main benefit of doing this is to allow spellcasters to cast more potent spells, as the Raw Arcana isn't filtered through the Abyss before powering their spells. This also leads to the unintended consequence of slowing the rate at which the Abyss grows, as no Arcane Slag is produced in the spellcasting process. The spells one can cast with Raw Arcana at their disposal easily dwarf the types of spells they would normally be able to cast. In the hands of a powerful spellcaster, the possibilities are endless, as Raw Arcana could be used to breathe a new level of spell the world has yet to see. Raw Arcana doesn't come without its dangers however, exposure to it leads almost immediately to Arcane Rot. This disease spreads rapidly through one's body, wracking them with pain, nausea, insanity and more. Arcane Rot isn't a disease that has been able to be studied extensively, given the fast pace of patient death (roughly 24 hours). And of course the possibility of contracting it is fairly low, considering that you would need to come into contact with Raw Arcana in the first place. This is the main reason why Raw Arcana has only been brought outside of the Well a handful of times. Even then, no secure method has been found to store Raw Arcana safely, only short term methods have been found. It's likely that Raw Arcana will remain unworkable for the foreseeable future.Madness Springs
The Well became accessible to mortalkind due to Adderine's will. After the Divine War, and the creation of Evenia, Adderine shared the secret of refining Raw Arcana with mortals before erecting the barrier that prevents Ascendant Beings from interacting with mortals directly. After the secret became known to mortals, they began to use it to their advantage, claiming a part of divinity for themselves in a way. This naturally a decisive topic for mortals, as some see spellcasting as an affront to the Gods, something that mortalkind was never meant to do. The fact that Adderine "The Mad God" was the one to share the secret only made it worse in their eyes. Magic has always been fairly rare among certain mortal populations because of this. And after the secret got out, it spread quickly, now there are spellcasters in every single plane of existence. Regardless of the stance one takes in regards to magic, it seems to be here to stay.
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Dimensional plane
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