Research About Planar Connections

The subject of planar connections – the various ways in which the multiverse is connected together, allowing power, influence, material, and creatures to travel between planes – have been the subject of extensive scholarly work and debate since the earliest recorded works of scholarship.

Types of Planar Connections

Two kinds of planar connections are uncontroversial in the scholarly literature. The clearest and simplest form of planar connection are portals, doorways that lead directly from one plane to another. By far the most common of these are Feywild portals (e.g., as catalogued in The Lore of the Feywild), but it is widely acknowledged that portals to other planes can also exist. Portals are rarely simple in practice: many feywild portals only function at specific times of day or under specific circumstances, for example. However, from a metaphysical point of view, they are straightforward doorways between worlds that transport anything that passes through them to a fixed point on a different plane.

The second widely acknowledged form of planar connection are Extraplanar Weak Points. Unlike portals, these do not allow the passage of material from one plane to another. They do, however, allow influence to leak from one plane to another, and often influence magic. Gaius Devarro metaphorically described them as “places in our physical world where the walls between planes are thin and you can hear the shouting of the worlds next door if you listen.”

More controversial are a third type of planar connection, described as planar upwellings by Emyr of Tafolwern, and sometimes referred to as elemental vortexes (as in the works of Ishara Venn). This type of connection is neither a fixed door nor a mere closeness; it is said to be a bleeding or flowing or intermixing, of the essence of one plane into another. As described by Ishara, these are primarily elemental in nature: the connection that is sometimes forged at the heart of a great storm with the Elemental Plane of Air, for example. Emyr, however, argued that they were far more complicated this, and represented a large class of phenomena of uncontrolled extraplanar influence, typically sharing three properties: (i) a temporary or unpredictable nature, (ii) a material connection allowing the passage of creatures or objects, sometimes unwittingly, between planes, and (iii) poorly defined or unstable boundaries reflected by degrees of influence of the extraplanar source on the material realm.

Emyr was largely concerned with the Feywild, and his work, On Hidden Doors, was dismissed by many cosmologists as excessively fey-oriented. Nonetheless, Harbek Ferrystone built on Emry’s theories to propose that the Plaguelands were, at least in part, the result of a longstanding planar upwelling from Limbo created at the moment of Cha’mutte’s death.

Indeed, after careful study, Seeker strongly believes that the concept of planar upwellings best captures the nature of extraplanar wound at Isingue. Thus, it is likely that in the area around Isingue, it is possible for the unwitting to find themselves in the chaos of Limbo, potentially without any obvious means of escape. While many such accidental travelers would likely quickly die, the strong-minded could imagine into being a sanctuary for themselves here, and remain. Thus, despite the lack of native creatures of Limbo, it would be prudent to be prepared for anything. Who knows how long-term existence in Limbo might change someone.

Creation and Destruction of Planar Connections

Unfortunately, while there is extensive scholarship on the creation and destruction of extraplanar gates, and some scholarship on the creation and destruction of extraplanar weak points, there is virtually no reliable work on planar upwellings. What scattered references do exist are contradictory and confusing, suggesting either that planar upwellings cannot be closed intentionally and must be outlasted, that they can be reversed by an equal and opposite upwelling from an opposed plane, or even that remain only as long as the Material Plane carries the echoes of the plane in question.

Fortunately, the Philosopher’s Information Concerning Extraplanar Wounds outlines more reliable information than has previously been obtainable from normal scholarship.