Introduction to the Five Realms
The Five Realms, or The Realms, is defined universally as wherever your home is relative to everything else. To those who live within these Five Realms, there exist two predominantly held theories of what makes up the general nature of the world around them. The long honored established Common Classical Notion passed down through oral tradition and historical records has recently been challenged by a more studied version referred to as The Academic Concept.
The Academic Concept
The Academic Concept is a relatively recent belief that emerged out of the guilds and schools reflecting on the events of the Godswar that brought about a new age for the mortal races that challenge long-held preconceived notions. Taught throughout the world by scholars looking to meticulously define such things during the current era is that the world comprises all of the physical, spiritual and magical energy, called the Aether, contained in a singular universe divided into the Known Realm, Wild Realm, Lost Realm, Paranormal Realm and Eternal Realm. The Known Realm would include the kingdoms, nations, and regions of Afilam, Andril, Dannor, Ethigoviel, Hauth, Kaendaloth, Lungshi, Nydeis, Perracia, Rhelac, Rhigolia, Yeohan, & Yrdahn. The Wild Realm would include Aaledon, Eraussi, Ethigond, Grililath, Maugulakh, Ocean of Platicia, Sevathien, & Underholme. The Lost Realm would include the Isle of Dragons, First Empire, Underrealm, Viecan, & Wicaen. The Paranormal Realm is believed to occupy a tangental parallel space to the physical nature of the first three realms and the spiritual nature of the fifth realm and can only be reached through naturally occurring gateways in the Aether. This fourth realm is currently comprised of the Fey Realm, Spirit Realm, & Far Realm, though others are theorized to exist as well. The Eternal Realms exist outside of time and space as we know it, the current theory refers to them as thoughtforms of energy and information or just an imaginary contrivance to include the notion of an Afterlife, Primordial Planes, & Celestial Spheres in order to reassure us mortals that death is not the end.Common Classical Notion
The most widely held belief held by those outside academia remains to be taught through tradition and old stories is the Common Classical Notion of the Five Realms. To many the world is part of a sequence of creation that exists as everything we know of the material and spiritual world. If forced to describe the realms these people would say the Five Realms comprise of the Primordial, Mortal, Fey, Celestial, and Far Realms. Each of these realms of creation rests in and on the previous one and would not be possible without it. The realms of creation are dimensions contingent upon one another, complementing one other, linking together and ultimately forming a closed circuit from creation and birth to death and annihilation. Depicted throughout history as the Ouroboros in its many renditions and interpretations by many mortal races in order to convey in as elegant and simple way as possible the concept of the infinite cycles taking place all around the mortals of the world and those immortals now living beyond the world. The Primordial Realm includes all the elementary planes of existence from which combinations of matter and energy emerge. Each corresponding dimensional plane within the Primordial corresponds to the five basic universal elements of Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit stemming from the wellspring of creation, the life-giving Positive Plane and eventually returning through the consummation of annihilation, the final death of the Negative Plane. The Mortal Realm includes all of the Material Plane, a place where time, matter, energy and spirit meet and combine to build multiple permeation of the cosmos, an infinite number of universal realities called the multiverse. Within this multiverse is the world we know, the stars in the heavens and planets orbiting the sun. In short, it is the place where most mortal bodies reside. The Fey Realm exists right next to the Mortal Realm, so close that two realms have been known to kiss one another and create gateways to allow passage back and forth to each other. Sometimes referred to as the Realm of Faerie it is an echo of the Mortal Realm running parallel to it being all at once similar but separate. Like the multiverses of the Mortal Realms, the Fey Realms spread into an infinite spectrum of light and dark created during the dawn of creation. The brighter places within the Realm of Faerie is a much more natural and wild version of the regular world, full of vegetation growth, attracting elfkin and many sylvan races in the Quartus Epocha, the Fourth Age just prior to the Current Era, who adopted these places as their new home. In the dreary gloom of the darker places life struggles to survive if it even exists at all in environments full of decay, desolation, and death. The goblinkin and several underrealm creatures call this place the Shadowfell and made it their home around the same time as the sylvan races did the Realm of Faerie, but even they keep away from the deeper darker places that support no creatures, at least no living ones. The Celestial Realm is the home of the gods, the place the immortal souls of mortals goes to after they die in the world. By definition, this includes both the heavens, the hells and all those in between wherever spirits, souls, and the immortal gods choose to go. These are the final resting places of the souls throughout the multiverse and are nearly as varied in thier construction as the ideologies and philosophies of their inhabitants. Organized in groups of moral identity they have names passed down from the stories of the First Men. The Seven Heavens of absolute lawful good. The Twin Paradises of neutral & good lawfuls. The planes of Elysium of neutral good. The Happy Hunting Grounds of neutral & good chaotic. The Olympus of absolute good chaotic. Gladsheim of chaotic good & neutrals. The absolute entropy of Limbo of neutrality & chaos. The pandemonium of chaotic evil & neutrals. The 666 layers of the Abyss of absolute chaotic evil. The planes of Tartarus of evil chaotics & neutrals. The Three Glooms of Hades of absolute neutral & evil. The furnaces of Gehenna of lawful evil neutrals. The Nine Hells of absolute lawful evil. Each Celestial Realm appears as The Far Realm is a place even more terrifying than any hell or abyssal torment found in the afterlife. It somehow exists apart from the realms yet its presence remains an omnipresent undercurrent to it all. Depicted sometimes as a prison of sorts to hold back the alien terrors and utter madness that if it ever broke through would spread terrors all its own beyond the reach of even the gods to destroy all things. Other times it is viewed as the precursor source beyond the confines of creation or annihilation as the source for both. Existing on the edge of the Celestial Realm both finite and infinite, it is the home to the most important entities in all of everything. To these entities, even the most powerful immortals, the most omnipotent gods, the strongest dimensional beings in all the multiverse are but meaningless specks of dust upon a window pane. From the Far Realm flows the essence of realities, dreams, choices, destinies, life, death, creation, destruction, apathy, desires, pleasures, despair, happiness and delirium. Rumors of those who have perceived but a glimpse tell tales of minds forever lost or things so unspeakable no words exist to describe the experience. In any case from academics to traditionalists, all believe in The Five Realms as their home however they define it.
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