Fae Realms¶
"It is but a dark shadow of its former self." — the Cosmology Revision (S001)
Contested
This page is named in the open questions Count and names of the Fae realms (the sources say the Faerie Realms number sixteen and then list eighteen, and name two of them differently) and Netherworld: plane of souls or plane of Faerie (one 2026 account calls the Fae plane the Netherworld).
The Fae Realms are the inner plane between the elements and the world: "Here they stood in between the elements and the material and orchestrated the natural order." Built after the Primordial War as the dominion of the Titans, the plane still runs the machinery of nature where that machinery has not been bent or broken, and its breakdown is, by one theory, the reason the Rift exists at all.
Also called: the Fae Realm, the Faerie Realm, the Faerie World, the Fae Plane, the Faerie Plane, the Fey plane, the Fae Transitory Plane, and in one account the Netherworld (see Earlier accounts).
Overview¶
"The Fae Realms were created after the primordial wars and were the dominion of the Titans ... The plane still operates in this capacity to some degree, but most of the Titans are dead, driven mad or are enslaved to other powers. It is but a dark shadow of its former self and many Fae creatures have fled to the relative safety of the material plane. The machinery built by the titans to govern the natural order often still functions in many cases. In other cases, it has been bent or even outright broken, leading to cataclysmic results on the associated parts of the material plane" (S001, S013).
The Acadian notes put the plane's nature in a phrase: "The Fae is the land of Faerie ... not so much a place as a collection of places ... and a place of power for Faerie energies which are what the creator put in place to control and distribute elemental energies and their expression on the material. Fae is elemental energy + intelligence." Its intelligences "are accustomed to absolute control and domination and don't naturally fit into good or evil. A Wood Fae may 'seem' good, but has an absolute conviction about the way things should be and will do what they know is necessary to bring about correction" (S358).
In the Fifth Age the realms changed masters. "Fae Realms, whose independence and laws were once managed by the all-powerful titans, have fallen under the sway of Demons, Demi-Gods and Elemental lords. The titans have been systematically hunted and destroyed, turned or enslaved" (S014). In the Sancturi lands the realms were "bound/enslaved as sources of Rune Magic. These bindings take physical form in monoliths of stone carved with Runes to keep the Fae Spirits bound" (S132); see Rune Magic.
Layering and visitors¶
The plane is the middle link of the elemental chain: Elemental ⟷ Fae Realm ⟷ Material (S001). The Cosmology of 2022 counted it a Transitory Plane and the physical connection between the Elemental Planes and the Prime Material (S013). "Material forms can move safely to the Fae Realm in most cases, but it is a dangerous, highly volatile landscape that is home to beings with considerable elemental powers" (S001). The Faerie Plane "binds the Elemental Planes: Air, Earth, Fire and Water as well as the Energy Planes" and "has no direct connections with the Outer Planes" (S208; "indirect connections" in S279).
Denizens¶
"Faerie creatures of all sorts continue to make the Fae Realm their home, especially in the more well-maintained havens (usually controlled by a Fae Archon or sane Titan). In areas of the blight, Fae creatures have fled either to the material plane or to other more favorable areas, which has led to conflict between Fae over resources" (S001). The Fae "have mortal souls (singular spirits) with immortal forms", are "bound to a Titan and their spirit will reform there in the Fae Realms after death"; those whose Titan is destroyed must bind to a new one "or they will not be able to reform" (S018). The stages of Fae life, from flora and aphit to archon, and the primordials who "consider them usurpers", are described on the Fae page and in Fae Magic.
The eighteen realms¶
The Fae Realms are also the divisions of Fae magic, "each realm ... a combination of 2 of the 6 elemental forces (Air, Darkness, Earth, Fire, Light, Water)" (S208, S132). The sources name them as follows; which pairs produce which realm, and what each realm does, belongs to Fae Domains.
Light, Sun, Flame, Specters, Fauna (called Vigor in S279), Forge, Rock, Ruin, Acrid, Flora (called Blood in S279), Pool, Storms, Ice, Rot, Moon, Wind, Shadow and Night.
The count is unsettled in the sources themselves. The Nature of Magic says "Faerie Magic is divided into 16 realms" and two lines later "Fae Magic is divided into 18 realms", then tables eighteen (S208); the Fae Magic notes say "16 realms" and then count "18 primary domains" (S279). The Fae Magic notes also hold that there is one primordial per realm, "18 total".
Faewilds and Fae Vertexes¶
Where the boundary between the Material and the Fae thins, the Fae spill through. In the Sancturi calendar's third century, "Faewilds are documented in numerous locations around the world. Scholars believe they are a natural result of the widespread disruption of the elements and part of process of Terrun restoring the natural order." By the 300s SM they "are becoming increasingly common and problematic ... The Fae are increasingly assertive and expansionist", and in the 400s SM the conflict became the Faewild Wars (S326). The Sancturi campaign notes date a "Third Fae Resurgence" and the "first recorded instance of a Fae archon and Fae demesne" to 200 SM (S132).
Fae Vertexes are the deliberate version. The Wood Elves of Oth'Baelin "intentionally weaken the boundaries between the material and elemental planes in their lands using Fae Vertexes. This makes their Fae casters very potent in their home territory. As it turns out, places where the material is aligned closely with the elemental is not closely aligned with the Rift ... meaning they deal with fewer aberrations" (S112).
The greatest breach was accidental. On Acadia "a sanctioned experiment to create a Fae Conjunction went wrong. While attempting to amplify their powers by drawing on a more direct connection with the Fae, instead they created a great tear, breaking down the barriers between the Fae and Material planes." The Netherworm born of it "IS the tear", and "its presence is what allows fae rifts to sprout up all across Terrun" (S358); see the Fae Conjunction.
Kjartan's Fae-Mithis Opposition Theory¶
The Revision names the theory and gives its conclusion. "Some scholars believe that places in the rift are indicative of part of the material plane where its Fae governance has been destroyed, and as such they believe eventually all of the material plane will end up in the rift once the Fae Realms have completely broken down (see Kjartan's Fae-Mithis Opposition Theory)" (S001). The same reasoning appears without the name in the Cosmology of 2022 (S013). A Fifth Age observation agrees in spirit: land closely aligned with the elemental "is not closely aligned with the Rift" (S112).
Gap
Nothing else about Kjartan or the theory survives: not who Kjartan is, when the theory was written, or what "Opposition" means beyond the inference that Fae governance and the Rift exclude one another.
Earlier accounts¶
The Acadian notes identify the Fae plane with the Netherworld: "The Fae plane is also known as the Nether or Netherworld. It is the space below the Material Plane, just above the Elemental Chaos. The Abyss is a fragment of the Mithis subplane, also located here" (S358). The Revision, newer by four months, gives the name Netherworld to the plane of souls instead, so that reading is kept on the Netherworld page as a variant. The Compendium's age of Faerie has the Faeries, "some of the most powerful titans", rule "the Elemental and Material Planes" before transitioning to the Elemental plane, and does not list a Fae plane at all (S372, S384). The oldest rules speak of "Fey Magic", which "manipulates the energies of the Fey plane" (S371), and the Arcane Magic rules call the Faerie side of magic the Terrestrial realm (S304).