The Heavens are the realms where honor is given a final rest. Its three divisions are each paradises of their own, overseen by armies of caretaker celestials. While there are many warrior angels among the ranks of the inhabitants of this plane, there is no crime. Those that call this plane their home are all honor-bound and personally selected by the Created deity
Xelin to live among the first two divisions, each according to their honor and standing in life.
The Ascended deity
Ballast makes their realm within the Standards located in the Alta Virentia, the city-heart of The Heavens, while Xelin is said to dwell within a great amphitheater at the center of the Conservatorium Dei.
Those travelers that find their way to The Heavens are permitted only into Agros Extra, and even then only into narrow sections of the plane called loci. These loci serve as buffers against the otherworldly beauty of the plane, as without them mortals that find their way to The Heavens find themselves entirely subsumed by it. While astoundingly beautiful themselves, the loci each take the idealized form of whatever the mortal most identifies with on
Enos, be it a city, countryside, port, or vast cave system.
The Celestial Divisions
There are three divisions of The Heavens, each looked over by a particular entity or group thereof. Each division serves a different purpose, but all work together towards the unified goal of espousing the virtue of honor above all else. Truth and character are valued as currency, and the correct comportment of oneself in life leads to a better result in this meritocracy.
A great shimmering and crystalline wall surrounds the outer rim of The Heavens, called the Obice Aeternum. It rises past the clouds and is always visible from every division, yet no amount of walking ever seems to get one any closer to it, and there is no written record of anyone ever touching it. The divisions are separated by similar walls, with each division existing as a concentric circle inside the division outside it, which gives the first two divisions the feeling of standing in an expansive, gently-curving hallway. Despite this, no amount of walking around the ring will ever bring one back to the same place, as The Heavens, like all the planes in the Ring of Law, are infinite.
The First - Agros Extra
The name of this division is Celestial for "the lands outside," and can be thought of literally. As the division furthest from the heart of The Heavens, Agros Extra is watched over by the solar angels Valor and Vengeance, whose radiance provides a constant light in the sky as they patrol. Vast expanses of green spaces are broken by towns of like-minded individuals, each governed according to their own customs. Forests, lakes, rivers, and entire oceans are found in this division, but each is grander and more impossible than the last. Forests of stained glass trees, rivers of heatless and molten healing gold, and deserts of hydrating sand are found in this division, each spilling naturally into the other over vast elevation changes. One could walk for months through bioluminescent jungles populated by liquid birds, only to float gently on a cinnamon breeze to islands that float atop powerful inverted waterfalls topped by villages populated entirely by elven painters.
It is this beauty that necessitates the loci, which are 'safe zones' for the still-living visitors to the plane. These walled-off areas morph and shift to meet the expectations of visitors, and it is in these enclaves where all trade with other planes happens. Each loci has a planetar that governs it, usually appearing as a mortal that greets any new arrivals. Those mortals within the loci are free to roam about as they see fit, and may transfer between the loci using the Transition, which is a vast network of golden lightbridges that pass through banks of singing, chromatic fog to connect to one another.
Those that ascend to The Heavens upon death and are placed in Agros Extra do not consider that there is more stunning beauty to be found further within. It is not that those spirits which reside in this division were not worthy of a 'better placement,' but more that their soul was best suited for the kind of incredible afterlife that can be lived here among the stunning landscapes.
The Second - Alta Virentia
Alta Virentia literally means "tall green" in Celestial, and any spirit that resides within can easily tell why. Vast garden-cities snake organically through this division, populated with towering structures covered in otherworldly-verdant ivy and moss. Green spaces, parks, and crystal-clear rivers flow through, under, and over these spaces, arching like a spider's web between the walls on either side of the division. There is no clear 'ground level' here, with arches of earth miles-wide supporting structures of impossible scale and beauty. Towers of adamantine and marble from lower arches twist and grow far into the sky, even into the undersides of other arches above, providing support. Waterfalls permeate the land, falling from above and below, and the wind beside them provides a manner to ascend or decend the infinite elevations of this division.
Marble temples of identical build are found on every arch in Alta Virentia, each housing Ballast, who personally watches over each spirit and celestial within the division. While those that end up in Alta Virentia do not have to be devout followers of Ballast, they are all in some way cherished by the Everpresent Shield, for it is by some virtue that they gain the Ascended's notice, whereupon Ballast petitions Xelin to afford them residence within the arches of this bulwark division.
The Third - Conservatorium Dei
Few details are known of Conservatorium Dei, or "the god's greenhouse." Those spirits placed here are among Xelin's most favored, and represent the most honorable souls to ever live. From their seat at Fury's Sound, Xelin can look out of their glass-walled division over the rest of The Heavens, and further still to the rest of the planes. It is said that the heat of their gaze purges corruption in an instant, and only those most pure are welcome within the division. It is for this reason that the exact appearance is unknown. No spirit or celestial that has seen it will break their oath of secrecy, except to say that there is no language that can convey the perfection and oneness that is seen and felt within.
