Xeccamund, the Tears Beyond Reality

Credits to Wang Jie from Artstation for the amazing cover art!

When Yamma and Alindr created Ipacia, the Realm of Stars, they discovered that there were a great many things within the primordial chaos left after the Obsidian War that simply couldn't be ordered. Whether it was the foundations of the chaos itself, elder evils hidden across the cosmos, or ancient, alien races that were too widespread to be wiped out, the two gods decided to create a plane beyond the borders of Ipacia: Xeccamund. Dubbed -- rightfully -- the Tears Beyond Reality, Xeccamund was to be both prison and playground for those unknowable evils that were both too integral to be destroyed and too powerful to be left free. Being both infinite and limited, stretching to unimaginable distances past the borders of Ipacia, Xeccamund could give these elder evils the great stretches of cosmic territory they craved while also keeping them out of the Realm of Stars -- and thus, out of Yophas' primary planes.
What exactly lies out in the great darkness of Xeccamund is unknown. Theories vary greatly: some believe that it is truly the Tears Beyond Reality, a plane of infinite smaller planes that are dominated by innumerable entities and alien minds. Others think that it is another multiverse unto itself, that space beyond the infinite bubble that is Ipacia. And other theories get crazier still, thinking Xeccamund is everything from an experiment plane where the Obsidian Lords tortured and created the horrible creatures and machines of the Reckoning to it being the "true multiverse," the truth behind the false reality constructed by the gods. All that is known is that it is as infinite as Ipacia but much, much more dangerous, and that Ipacia and Xeccamund's borders regularly shift and change, for the very plane of Xeccamund itself attempts to infiltrate and corrupt regions of the Realm of Stars.

Inhabitants

The inhabitants of Xeccamund are as unknown and mysterious as the realm itself. Countless Elder Evils call the plane their home, and any attempt to innumerate them or their followers would be folly. The illithid are known to be natives of the Tears Beyond Reality, as are many other aberrant spawn that seek harm to Yophas and its inhabitants.

As a DM, you can take almost any Elder Evil, eldritch god, or ancient alien and place it in Xeccamund, and it'll feel right at home. The Obsidian Lords might have had countless machinations hidden away in the infinite space of this realm; perhaps they even hid a portion of their divine essence, or a nascent avatar waiting to be reawakened and unleashed on the godless planes of Yophas? Perhaps Cthulhu himself has found his way into Xeccamund, and works to find a way to breach the multiverse through the shifting borders between Ipacia and this realm. Below is a list of Elder Evils you may wish to have in Xeccamund. Whether they dominate intergalactic empires across the infinite stars of Xeccamund or hide away in a pocket of the void, scheming and waiting, all of these entities would be cozy in the Tears Beyond Reality.

Elder Evils

• Xael, the Witherer
• Cthulhu, the Sleeper of Ry'leh
• Tharizdun, the Chained God
• Ityak-Ortheel, the Elf Eater
• Heliestheos, the Reshaper
• Bolothamogg, Him Who Watches Beyond the Stars
• Holashner, the Hunger Below
• And many, many, many more.

Travel

Travel to Xeccamund is harder to do intentionally than Ipacia, but much, much easier to do accidentally. To purposefully reach the Tears Beyond Reality, one must either: discover the runes and incantations needed to channel sufficiently powerful planar magic to teleport there, travel through the vast expanses of Ipacia until a boundary is found, or find a planar rift to Xeccamund. And while the last of those three is much more frequent than, say, rifts to Akkinata or Laithna, the problem arises when someone tries to purposefully find a portal. Xeccamund itself is a malignant, malevolent plane. Rifts will open relatively frequently to capture unsuspecting creatures in Xaecreotis, Atithis, or Accorion, but if someone is intentionally searching for a rift, they will discover it is nearly impossible. Rifts to Xeccamund, much like its shifting borders with Ipacia, are ever-changing and never constant, and they happen almost exclusively in the planes listed above.

Type

Dimensional plane