The Banishment

The Banishment

refers to the nearly milenia long era directly following the Zenith. At the end of the war, nine most powerful and influencial rulers were simutaneously removed from Tor. Their banishing solitified their titles as The Gods, and thrusted Tor into an age of relative peace.
Initially, The Banishment was severly misunderstood by the people of the Silent Century, as they had very little information or explanation as to what had happened. They would soon learn that an entity know as Tal had completed a ritual that not only banished the gods, but created a rigid magic system, split Tor into planes, altered the behaivor of the world around us, and ended The Zenith.

Arcans

When the gods were banished, their mortal bodies were disintegrated into their own respective essence, a deterministic magical energy that we call arcans. These imperceptible particles make up the arcasphere - an envelope of magical energy surrounding and encompassing Tor. There are nine types of arcans, one for every school of magic, each derived from their respective god. The manor in which they bond, fold, and react is the basis of magic, and the deliberate manipulation of arcans through spellcasting, enchantments, and rituals makes up the study of Arcana. Each arcan reflects the power that it's respective god held in life, making up the nine schools of magic:

1. Atar: Enchantans
2. Devana: Transmutans
3. Etyx: Evocans
4. Ghiraestont: Divinans
5. Idoneus: Chronans
6. O'tion: Necrans
7. Tal: Abjurans
8. Tharbium: Illusan
9. Vi-len'tia: Conjurans

The Planes

In addition to the banishing of the gods, the Banishment forged planes from the essences of the material plane. It can be helpful to think of the planes in terms of a deck of cards, as described in Tathgo T'syr's 161 AB essay The Playing Card's Parable.

Let us imagine a deck of playing cards; a pack right off the shelf, if you will. It's still in its original box, unopened. To our mind, it is a single object; a box of cards. Now, remove the cards from the box and fan them in your hand. Suddenly, this object has, from our perspective, become several smaller objects, all part of the same set. Like the deck of cards, The Banishment has seperated Tor into individual planes. They are all derived from the same unit, yet now they exist in seperation. The Banishment took the powers that existed within Tor already, and simply divided them into smaller chunks, like the fanned cards in our hand.

In real terms, all planes are created from the essence they are derived of. For example, the elemental planes are a direct result of the banishing of the Arch Elementals.

Until shortly after The Fracture, planar studies were purely speculative, as planar research historically struggled with the effects and restraints placed by The Banishment. First contact with the Feywilds in 255 supported T'syr's hypothesis. The ensuing research would inform the classification of planes into two types, Adjacent Planes, and Parellel Planes.

Adjacent Planes

Adjacent planes refer to extradimensional spaces that cosmologically overlap with other planes, most often the Material Plane. We can think of their position relative to Tor as coinciding with the Material Plane itself, yet still seperate. The following exerpt from Tyramn Exel's 825 journal On the Matter of Adjacent Planes provides a concise explaination.

In a beam of white light, we know all colors are present. They all exist in the same space, yet we can only percieve one at a time. Without aid, we see the light as white. However, when this light meets an object, all light is absorbed except for the color we see it as. In this example, each plane is a different frequency, yet they all exist in the same space.

Again, these planes were all created from something that existed in the material plane during the Zenith. As of the early 9th century, planar travel with all known planes was normalized, yet costly and impractical. The Feywilds was the first adjacent plane contacted. The geography of the Feywilds is strikingly similar to that of the Material Planes, as if the Material Plane had been pasted into a new plane at The Banishment, and had since diverged based on this realms difference in laws of nature. Since the late 3rd century, we believed that it was constructed of the power of the Arch Fey and the natural energy that they drew their power from. However, comparison with historical records of the Arch Fey and their domain suggests that the plane itself had fostered further exagguration of the original concept.

Since then, a few other adjacent planes had been contacted. The elemental plane of fire, earth, water, and air each are adjacent planes contructed from the banished Arch Elementals. The nine sentinel cities were each forged from the banishing of the Arch Devils. The Astral Sea was supposedly constructed from excess nuetral energy, while the Shadowfell was created with excess negative energy, balancing out the Feyrealm. (See The Rupture for more.) Nevertheless, scholars across Tor have long agreed that there are probably uncontacted planes still.

Parellel Planes

Parellel planes refer to extradimensional spaces that physically overlap and interact with other planes. The following passage illustrates the fuction of parellel planes, and is derived from Sir Agathar Guy's 848 ACOL address.

You may have heard them refered to as parellel planes, these feilds that exist everywhere around us. They interact with the material plane and all others at all times. For instance, the speaker spontaneously ignites a small flame above his outstretched hand a simple evocation such as this, is the product of the manipulation of an invisible field of matter that we call The Arcan Plane, which in turn affects the Material Plane. It is a mutual causation... In the same way that we blow the air to extinguish a candle, these planes interact with our world.

Like adjacent planes, parellel planes were supossedly created from some source of energy of some concept that was present during The Zenith, though there is less evidence to support this theory. The nous plane interacts with the minds of all living creatures. The ethereal plane, or the aether, interacts with souls and intangible-life forces. The gravitic plane imbues the tangible with mass. And of course, the aforementioned arcan plane is the field which effects and spells take place.

Aegises

Previously known as The Parting Gifts, each god left behind an Aegis amongst their belongings. This word was coined in Tyramn Exel's 749 AB study named simply "Aegis". When their bodies were destroyed, their souls were bond to one of their belongings, granting it fuction as an Aegis. Each Aegis held two distinct functions. The first is the production of compounds that make up the banishment. Exclusively created by the Aegises, these compounds have mostly abstract functional behaivors that lay a foundation for Tor's laws of physics. These compounds are always one arcan bound to three abjurans.

1. Atar: Enchantment Triabjuride (EA₃)
2. Devana: Transmutation Triabjuride (TA₃)
3. Etyx: Evocation Triabjuride (EvA₃)
4. Ghiraestont: Divination Triabjuride (DA₃)
5. Idoneus: Chronomancy Triabjuride (ChA₃)
6. O'tion: Necromancy Triabjuride (NA₃)
7. Tharbium: Illusion Triabjuride (IA₃)
8. Vi-len'tia: Conjuration Triabjuride (CA₃)

The second function is the unique boon. These boons were some of the only magics that worked outside the known magics of the Banishment, functioning in a manor more similar to the whimsical and flimsy magic of the Pre-Banishment era.

As the story goes, scholarly comprehension of the Aegises was only achieved in an attempt to protect these items from an imminent attack. Due to the nature of the Aegises, only a few have truly been studied, these being Devana's Blindfold and Idoneus' Phuecmor Heart. In the cases of Ghiraestont's Crown of Thorns, Vi-len'tia's Hypogeus Pit and O'tion's Golden Compass, the effects have been deduced by the sequencial events following their destruction.

Ghiraestont's Crown of Thorns

• This bramble headpiece controls Ghiraestont's Birdbath, a large springfed lake in the Domina Mountains of Plusktone. Every summer, the Birdbath erupts with fresh water, flooding the plains below. This annual inundation leaves The Opal Coast's land fertile and ripe for farming.
• The Crown was also responsible for the creation of DA3. This compound binds to the soul within a creature, connecting them to the nous. The Errantry of The Bastion have proposed this compound grants souls with consciousness.

Idoneus' Phuecmor Heart

• This helmet-sized white crystal powered and controlled The Decayer's Shrine of Malmerth. In short, this clocktower machine was responsible for protecting against time discrepencies between planes. However, the articifers of Malmerth adapted the Aegis for functions crucial to Malmerth´s novelty, culture, and longevity.
• Famously, the events of The Fracture involved the integrity of The Banishment. For centuries, the assailants of The Fracture were believed to been casting a ritual that would have destroyed the banishment, and it was supposedly stunted before it's effects were fully realized. Now, we know that their "ritual" was the destruction of Malmerth's Aegis, nearly 600 years before the scholarly circles understood their importance. This also means that the goal of The Fracture was infact reached.
• The Phuecmor Heart produced ChA₃. For the first 252 years after the banishment, this compound ensured that the planes stayed seperate. If a creature was to enter another plane, this compound would pull a creature back to it's plane of origin.

O'tion's Golden Compass

• This gilded navigation tool causes the Dawnstained Sea's notorious tradewinds. The tempestruous consistency of the Dawnstained Sea is a major contributor to the economic prowess of Southeastern Le'plor.
• This Aegis creates NA₃. NA₃ ensures that practices and use of things that cause immesurable suffering is damaging to the user. These things can be anything from weapons to enviormentally damaging practices. This compound ensured that firearm technology was virtually unusable until The Fall of Xoria, when O'tion's Aegis fell.