The Depthel Sea

Describe a geographic location beneath the surface - what can you find lurking there?

When the sea shimmers and a galaxy of stars can be seen below the waves that's when the door to the depths is open... Pg 110 of The lost mariners tale.

Likely the only time the starry night sky can be seen even an imitation one below the waves. The Everbright casts the lands in a colorful glow, bathing the planet in an everpresent light even during the night. Which is only shadowed and blocked out by storm clouds. The stars that are seen within the light of the Everbright are false imposters of what once was. These false stars are made up of the dense solidified form of the bright and are just illusions of our past.
Stories of mariners and sailors being taken by the sea to a place beyond our world are common. And these stories are true the depths the black sea has taken many lives into its near lightless expanse. The Depthel Sea is what the inhabitants that live around it call it. It's a realm a dimension beyond ours yet connected to ours by a breach in the fabric of our dimension. This break in our reality is found in the Sea of lost stars named for the visible orphaned lights within its depths. It is home to horrors and unspeakable beings of great power. Those that we call the depthel lords. The gods and pantheon of that cold sunken realm.

It would not seem it at first but that hellish barren realm is home to sentient intelligent life. The exiled people the orphaned children of the Empire of X'amtria forced out of their realm by the gods they once worshiped. Refugees into our world, now taken in and sheltered by the governments and nations that make up the Pact. This tide of new desperate souls into our realm brought another tide one that is colored red from the blood of the innocent lives it took. The Depthel Lords followed their distant apathetic children to punish them for some obscure, unidentified, and perceived slite. Their familial conflict incorporating the western top half of the continent of Vledath and all people and nations within it. Their crossing into our world thinned the veil and barrier between our realm and theirs, having the effect of allowing other horrors to enter. Bringing with them their twisted aberrant forces the servants and slaves to their wills. Waging an unprovoked war on our world and against the mortal races. The second instance of the use of a puppet plague on the planet. A large portion of the population was being controlled, influenced, and changed by the alien and aberrant will of some unknowable gods. Family members and communities were forced to turn on each other many lives were lost and many more were broken. Having the effect of causing mass loss of life and forcing alliances and the building up of militaries. Reshaping Vledath into its modern iteration influencing the geopolitical landscape for some time, and having the effect of causing mass trauma on a scale, not even modern wartime powers could achieve.
The Depthel Lords and their forces were stopped and pushed back by Our Guiding Beacon Lady Severina Aeserninus also known as The High Beacon or just General Severina. The 13th daughter of Queen Xiomara of the Grand Immortal Empire of Icathage. General Severina led an international force through the hordes of the Depthel Lords rescuing the remaining pockets of holdouts in the Akrane States. These forces were protected from the influence of the Depthel Lords because of the imbibement of Blackwater an alchemical tonic created to protect its users from being influenced and any mutation and change of their forms. The injured were treated and transported to safety by boat while all remaining abled bodies were armed. The High Beacon led this force pushing the enemy forces back into the depths of the Sea of Lost Stars. Where a combined naval force started to opened fire shelling the shore and torpedoing and mining the depths. Resulting in the Depthel Lords and their hordes retreating back into their realm.
The Akrane states even with their lands still scarred, barren, and changed rebuilt and reformed into the Commonwealth of Eternis stronger from their trials. They built a defense against dimensional shifting protecting the Sea of Lost Stars from another invasion. The Commonwealth now acts as administrators and caretakers of the defenses including the upkeep of the coastal cannons. They have a monopoly of and control over the only entrance into the undersea. Sending researchers and explorations groups into the realm leading to the discovery of the fell stars or depthel stars. It is the only place fell stars can be harvested one of a few power sources that can compete with the essence harvesting trade. Along with the harvesting of natural essence either through the use of defiling technologies or by mining and excavation of solidified and petrified natural essence reserves. The last significant form of energy comes from harvesting and refinement of blue gold the world's ichor microorganisms that feed off the bright and producing chroma-like energies. The Pact an alliance of largely democratic nations uses fell stars for the basis of their power grid and infrastructure. The energies of the fell star generators being captured and stored creating light cells used for portable power generation.
Fell Stars despite appearing to only be a condensed dense sphere of energies is actually the infantile undeveloped consciousness or will of Depthel Lords. It is unknown how they go from their energy state to that of a physical body. Though as past incidents can contest these infantile depthel lords can still be dangerous any undersea mariner should proceed with caution and adhere to strict safety and security standards specifically when harvesting and collecting fell stars. During processing and refinement, the fell stars' early will or consciousness is replaced and erased.

Geography

The Deep Abyss (Under Sea) is a dark realm of stone and sea. Within this realm is a large mostly unexplored ocean dotted with many rocky islands and giant Stalagmites. To those of the Prime dimension, the Deep Abyss is an empty inhospitable place. The light belts which are island chains illuminated by depthel stars are the only seemingly hospitable areas. These areas are marked by increase biodiversity and life.
The realm is theorized to resemble an infinite cavern as of now no edge or end has been found even through weeks of travel in one direction. The realm is likely shaped and influenced by the powerful wills of the rulers of the realm. The subconsciouses of these lords altering the geography in a dreamlike state, between their willful and purposeful reshaping of the realm. It's for these reasons the realm is unmappable and truly unknowing. It has been put forth and theorized that a powerful enough will/consciousness from a marionette unit or otherwise could force order on the realm. It may even be able to be shaped to fit our desired view of the realm.

Ecosystem

Almost all the organisms in the realm are semiaquatic due to the vast amount of ocean. Some form of aquatic locomotion is key for the transportation of the lifeforms. The ocean likely acting as a spawning or birthing area for the many different creatures of the dimension. The ocean's depths and the many caverns and caves within these depths acting as safe zones for the infant creatures, before reaching adulthood where they would leave the water's safety and calling the rock pillars or the many islands home. Though it is truly unknown what horrors reside below the surface of the waves.

Fauna & Flora

The realm is split into two halves of distinctive ecosystems. The bottom half is that of the black sea a huge seemingly endless expanse of the black cold sea the water only interrupted by the uneven dispersal of huge stone/rock structures columns or spires. Many different lifeforms carve out a niche and living on these pillars. Islands also dot the sea and are home to many different ecologies. Much of the fauna and some of the flora of the Black sea are predatory being opportunist hunters and scavengers. A subsection of these lifeforms developed some form of bioluminescence largely using it to scare off or distract predators or to lure mates or prey.
The light belts are island chains illuminated by fell stars and are often home to the realm's apex predators. Normally large extremely dangerous alien creatures. No researcher has been able to get close enough to the area for study.

The top half of the realm is the illuminated stone, rock, earthen ceiling. The Fell stars illuminate the rocky ceiling and act as hotspots for life to gather. Most of the realm's light comes from the fell stars embedded in the roof or ceiling of the realm. The fell stars with their many different colored lights create the effects of looking like a galaxy. This is believed to actually be what is seen when a rift opens and connects our two worlds. Though being miles above the dark cold waters below not much research or observations have been conducted. Most of the fell stars are collected from within the depths of the ocean or from the lower, middle parts of the huge pillars that stick up from the sea and that are connected to the ceiling. These pillars or columns act as bridges in which the realms lifeforms use to traverse between the two worlds.

Natural Resources

Being rich in natural ores, gems, crystals, and many more rare earthen resources the sea is a treasure trove for any that can reach it. More importantly, it's the only area in which depthel/fell stars can be found and collected. Being that the Depthal sea is extremely dangerous and often fatal only criminals and felons are sent to the depths with the promise of their sentences being commuted and their records expunged.

Alternative Name(s)

The Under Sea, The Deep Abyss, The Black Sea.

Type

Dimensional plane