The Rift¶
"When it comes to the Rift, you can't find anything that hasn't already been found." — a saying of the Rift (S017)
The Rift is the youngest plane. "A 5th age phenomenon created from the decaying Mithis Astral Shard. The decay has caused the shard-space to merge with the Shadow Realm and punctured holes directly through to the Material, allowing for Rift-gates directly from the Material to the Rift" (S001). It is a place of drifting islands in a heavy, stale air, each island a shadow of some piece of the world, lit by the lightning of fissures opening and closing. Its islands, chains and settlements are a region of Geography, Places of the Rift; this page is the plane.
Also called: the Astral Folds, the Folds.
What the Rift is¶
"Since the Mithis Astral Shard once acted as the Gate to the Abyss, it now acts a primary transit point for Demons trying to escape the Abyss. The rift contains many old fragments of the Prime Material and Astral Planes: detritus and fallout remaining from the disintegration of the Mithis Plane. Things and places strongly tied to Mithis were more likely than not to end up in the rift after the end of the Hollowing Period (this was the 500 year time period during which the transitions took place)" (S001). The Fifth Age magic notes call it the echo of the Mithis Plane and its "bridges to Astral Shards" (S014).
The post-Sancturi account makes the Rift an act of a god. The Redemption "destroyed all Hollows and removed Mithis from the world. The Mithis Plane has been fully extracted from the material, making it its own physical place known in common parlance simply as the Rift (an often unstable and shifting place). Scholars call this the Mithis Fracture. Divine Priests call it Perdition." Since then "Monsters and Aberrations are more common. They seem to simply spawn around Rift anomalies ... When dissected all of these creatures are determined to have come from the Rift, as they contain Mithis. However, in reality, the Rift leaks Corrupted Mithis in small bursts which is attracted to weakened souls due to demonic influences" (S112). Fae scholars offer a third reading, that the Rift marks where "Fae governance has been destroyed"; see Kjartan's Fae-Mithis Opposition Theory.
In the layering of the planes the Rift sits with the Netherworld and the Abyss between the Shadow Realm and the Astral Plane (S001).
Folds and the Void¶
"The Rift is separated into Folds. Each fold is its own subplane that cannot be navigated to except through fissures (and powerful Rift-Gates). Folds are an area of Rift-space surrounded by the Void. Venturing too far away from the Fold leads into the Void where there is no air, no gravity and extreme cold (death to all but Void creatures). Flying into the Void is a one-way endeavor ... most things are not capable of flight in the Void, which means they just drift away till they freeze, suffocate or starve. Most rift flight navigators use line-of-sight to navigate between islands as it is not always obvious when you are passing into the Void. No Rift-islands exist in the Void" (S017). The Void itself is on its own page.
The saying at the head of this page has two meanings: "you cannot find a new fold from within the Rift. The only way to gain entrance to a 'new' fold is from the material plane when a natural fissure opens. Once inside, however, gates between known folds can be created", and the Rift "has been picked clean and thoroughly explored over the past two centuries and most things of value have been spoken for/claimed/removed" (S017).
The Illuri Fold and the Astral Ring¶
The Illuri Fold "contains some old parts of the Astral Shard of Orandos." It is a "desert biome with yellow sand ... this fold is bright ... not from a single light source, but the entire fold has a strong ambient light." It holds "one of the prisons of Ambusthene, Sovereign of Searing Refulgence (one of the Six Sovereign Fire Primordials)", in an outbuilding of an Orandos complex called the Tethers of Ambusthene, and in the Fifth Age it was overrun by the elemental cultists of the Primal Union of Ter'Gaia. The cult's spies found "very little info, limited exploration ... few inhabitants", and concluded that "the fold appears to be part of the Astral Ring" (S010). Of the Astral Ring nothing more is said. The fold's story is told under Into the Rift and Orandos.
Other folds have their own light. Two clusters in the south-west are "bathed in an unusual amount of light, making it seem like eternal daylight here. The islands here seem to be in conjunction with the deep earth and feature some underdark ruins" (S066).
The Rift environment¶
Each island is a piece of the world gone grey. "Each island in the rift is attached to a contiguous part of the prime material. Adjacent islands are not adjacent in the prime material." "Things in the rift age much more slowly, rust slowly, decay slowly, burn slowly. The air feels heavy and stale and smells of constant decay. Stagnant mist is commonplace on the islands, and is oftentimes heavy ... but never seen in the void between islands. Elemental Magic is weakened. There is little dynamism, perhaps a slow drip of water or a slight breeze while on the material it would be a waterfall and a gale." The temperature "is often the same year-round ... usually just an average of nighttime (sunless) temperatures on the material for the biome." Islands "drift through the Rift ... at different speeds, but most drift so slowly as to be barely noticeable. Perhaps two islands will move 10 feet further apart (or closer) over the course of a year" (S017; the same primer in S002).
Rift islands take after the land beneath them: ocean gives "damp and wet barren stone, with filled pools of dark water"; forest "dead wood, earth and dirt"; mountains "jagged rocks, dirty snow and ice, dead pines"; plains "flat earth, rolling, dead grasses and the occasional dead tree"; the Underdark "jagged rock, caves, mushrooms"; and towns and cities "suspended dim-fires in mid-air" (S017). A session guide divides the space into "Rift Rock/Islands - the islands floating within the rift. These have normal gravity" and the "Rift Sea - the space between rocks where gravity is reduced to about 20%" (S045).
Light comes from the fissures: "near constant small bursts of dim lightning (small fissures opening and closing quickly). Twisting fissures are longer-lived fissures that provide considerable light even at a distance and can last hours or days. Very rarely stable fissures provide a constant and stable source of light. These fissures are almost without exception owned by some locally powerful group. Fissures can be created and maintained by powerful Warlocks and Demons" (S017). From inside, "the rift is dark and lit only by distant twisting purple energies and the occasional red flash of distant lightning"; chasing a twisting fissure "is a fool's errand ... chasing a rainbow. It fizzles long before they can reach it", and a stable blue one in the distance is sure to be claimed (S006). "There is no way to know where the fissure will put you", and "fissures disassociate on contact with the 'earth' in the Rift" (S006).
Living things¶
"Most living things don't do well in the rift: digestion does not work properly (the slow of decay/dissolving leads ultimately to vomiting) and nutrient uptake doesn't happen ... meaning you will starve to death if you stay long enough in the rift. Primarily it is environmental (elemental) reactions that are affected. Cellular and mystical reactions appear to operate normally" (S017). The campaign calls this Rift Sickness and gives the remedy: Temporal Stabilizers "allow normal people to live in the Rift", so long as they spend most of each day within one; the stabilizers fail near an active Rift-Gate, and the heavy gravity around them grounds the Rift's airships (S045). A potion of the Rift, Gutblock, delays the sickness at the cost of every other potion's effect (S045).
The Rift has its own flora, "magical plants that have adapted to life in the rift": the Floatleaf Vine with "ethereal, translucent leaves that hover and sway gracefully in the low gravity"; Crystaline Fronds that "act as conductors of magical energy"; the Driftroot Tree whose "roots ... hang loosely in the air" and whose "golden leaves shimmer and tinkle like tiny wind chimes when touched"; the Stardust Blossom that "blooms only during celestial events"; and darker growths, the Shadestrike Vine "that feeds off the shadows", the Soulspire Ivy "that feeds on the residual essence of departed souls", the Corpse Lily, the Cursed Willow "that seem to weep black tears", and the Sorrowvine "that thrives on despair and sorrow" (S045). The ruins on the chains "are inhabited by rift beasts, elementals, demons or spirits" (S066), and prospectors still take "gold, silver and some Mithis metals" from the rocks (S066).
The Riftborn, "a sub-species of demon/human" made "hundreds of years ago by warlocks to help deal with Aberrations", "can naturally move across the Rift easily" (S112).
Travel: Rift-Gates and Rift-Stones¶
"Moving between the rift islands is difficult. Given the static and stodgy nature of the air, flying is considerably easier than on the material. Guhvils and some other technologists make heavy use of dirigibles (that would not fly on the material). Warlocks, Demons and Riftborne use magic (rift-gates or rift-stones) or flight to move between islands" (S017).
- Rift-Gate: "a fully operational and powered gate that anyone can use. It is point to point. There were more of these, but many have been destroyed ... leaving them as Rift-Stones. Some Rift-Gates have been 'locked' with wards, making them one-directional to those that cannot pass the wards" (S017). A Rift-Gate is also "a stable portal between the rift and other planes" (S045). The gates of Urdhar once joined it to "a Wood Elven realm in the far east", and when the elves beyond were destroyed the town of Orchard died with them; Edgemark's far gate was destroyed to stop the enemy coming through, and "taking the gate" there is "a one-way trip" (S045). Other gates led to Per'Nolien and Psarikon before those fell (S066).
- Rift-Stones: "either the remains of Rift-Gates or a cheap and lazy version of a gate, Rift-Stones require power and knowledge to operate. They are also point to point and the stones must have been attuned together at some point. Moving them considerably away from their original creation locations will make their link no longer operate (its internal coordinates will be off)" (S017). A demon carried one into the Illuri Fold "to establish an alternate gate to this fold" (S010).
- Jumpstones and Jumpers: within a single rift, "an enchanted fixed object (usually a large stone), which can be activated to jump to another fixed location", and Guhvil-made bracers that grant short blinks; both exact a toll on whatever uses them, and "jumping near a full rift-gate will suck you in" (S045).
"Using a Rift-Stone or a Rift-Gate can be dangerous if you are not already familiar with it, as many gates lead essentially to prisons or other inescapable or deadly situations" (S017). The gates and stones as objects are on Rift-Gates. Trade routes "through the rift have had some limited success" between the Kalari realms but were "cut off by resurgent Guhvil attacks" (S076); the city of Proturas is the "trade hub for trade with Proturas from across the fold" (S066). The Warlocks of the Blue Rift, "experts in navigating the Rift", are whispered to keep their headquarters inside it (S112).
Well of Souls¶
Somewhere in the Rift lies the Well of Souls. "It is rumored to be the place where Kalar created the souls of all the greatest beings: Primal Dragons, the Archwizards, the Eldritch." The Araxian high general sought it to give Seth-Arax a soul, since the Elder God "is still repelled from the mortal plane by its lack of a soul." One draft of the plot had Bhaal reveal its location in exchange for his freedom, and wondered whether Bhaal "was partly responsible for the diminishment of Kalar by stealing the Well and leaving him vulnerable and unable to replenish his own soul" (S076). The Well is kin to the Comet of Origination on the Astral Plane, where Kalar forged the mortal races.
Earlier accounts¶
The Cosmology of 2022 classes the Rift differently: "The rift is a hybrid between a transitory plane and a material one. It is ultimately categorized as a Material Plane due to it being able to be colonized by many of the other inhabitants of the material planes and due to its relative stability (transitory planes are inherently unstable places)" (S013). The Revision moves it into the inner layers on the astral side. The Cosmology of 2022 also has the Mithis Plane "destroyed" rather than decaying, and the Astral Folds forming "in its place" (S013).
In Play¶
A newcomer arrives by fissure and has no say where. Expect dark, thin light from distant fissures, a tower on a crag, and the slow nausea of a body that cannot digest (S006, S017). Dirigibles and Rift-Gates move the experienced; stabilizers keep the towns alive; and everything worth taking has, by repute, been taken.
Gap
No source explains the Astral Ring beyond the one phrase, gives the number or names of the folds, or says where the Well of Souls lies. The "Hollowing Period" of five hundred years is dated only by its name. The mechanics of Rift Sickness, Molecular Disorder and the Jumpers are rules in the session notes and are left to Mechanics.