You'd
probably say he was biased, being a fire genasi and all,
but Puras Ignitus reckons the first, and foremost,
planes in the Multiverse are the Inner Planes. As he
says: "All other planes are made from the Elements.
Without them, nothing would have substance. Philosophy's
all very well, but if the people talking it don't exist
then it ain't really relevant any more!"
Puras'
construction of the Inner Planes is a sophisticated
three-dimensional model, sphere-like in shape. Around the
meridian of the sphere are situated the True
Elements and where these overlap, the
Para-Elements.
The
Positive and Negative Energy Planes are
placed at the apex and nadir of the sphere respectively,
and where these overlap with the True Elements, the
Positive and Negative Quasi-Elemental
Planes are born.
[Voilà wishes to
point out that Puras doesn't explain why the Energy
Planes and Para-Elemental Planes do not overlap! However,
this thorny topic is dealt with by Kristias Fireflight in
his essay on the Quasiplanes]
Pictured
in this manner, the Inner Planes appear rather like a
Cage. Any cage must hold a prisoner (just ask the Lady of
Pain), and this one's no exception, cutters. In the
centre of the Inner Planes, bounded by all the elements
necessary for its own construction, lies the Prime
Material.
The
Prime, in fact, occurs as a mixture of all elements as
the Inner Planes overlap imperfectly inside the cage.
Some Prime Worlds lie closer to one component of the
cage, and therefore the world is biased towards that
aspect.
Take
Athas for example. Puras speculates that this
blasted world of burning deserts lies somewhere near the
periphery of the Prime, very close to the Planes of Fire,
Magma, Ash and Dust. That's why the place is so bloody
horrible to live in. The fact it's near the periphery
accounts for why it's so hard to get to. The mysterious
Gray Plane could be explained by the strange
properties which ether adopts near the edge of the Inner
Planes.
Ether,
you see, permeates the Inner Planes and Prime like a
solvent. It washes against all these planes, dissolving a
bit here, a chunk there, and making sure everything stays
as pure as it can. Or it could be that it's the ether
responsible for mixing up the elements to form the Prime:
Nobody's quite sure on that point.
Wide-awake
bloods have probably already wondered how all this
overlapping of planes affects their ability to travel
from Inner Plane to Inner Plane. For a start, it's
different from the Outer Planes. No matter how far you
walk on the Great Ring, you'll never be able to walk from
one plane to the next without using a portal. 'Least,
that's how the chant goes. Well, that just ain't true on
the Inner Planes, or so says Puras...
See,
if you know the dark, like Elementals and Genies do, you
can, for example, walk Firewards in the Plane of Earth.
You'll find the Earth plane gets hotter and more liquid,
till it turns into lava and gives way to the
Para-Elemental Plane of Magma. Likewise, continue
Firewards through Magma and the viscous liquid becomes
more sulphurous and hotter, eventually igniting from
nothing -- the Plane of Fire.
Thing
is, no planewalker's ever been able to find the way from
one Inner to the next without an Elemental guide or some
similar native. Why? Puras says it's all in the
dimensions of the plane. Although a prime'd think that
since the Inners must overlap therefore they couldn't be
infinite, in actual fact they are. Very infinite indeed.
The Elementals, however, are able to perceive something
that prime-born races simply can't conceive -- a fourth
spatial dimension.
Think
about it -- on the Inner Planes, you can walk left or
right (that's one dimension), up or down (that's two),
forward or back (a third). Puras says elementals can move
ana and kata (that's what he calls 'em) as
well. Apparently, this means they can move in and out of
the Border Ethereal, or from one state of matter to the
next. Any creature following them can move in these
directions too -- it's just they don't even realise
they're doing it. In theory at least, if a human could
visualise this fourth dimension he could make the trip on
his own. Puras reckons that's simply
impossible...
"Prime-born
races just ain't able to see the Fourth
[dimension]", says Puras. "Maybe they just
never evolved it, or perhaps their powers say fit not
to grant it to 'em. Maybe the powers don't see it
either, and that's why they largely stay away from the
Inner."
Why
have primes never learned to see the Fourth? I suggest
it's a matter of necessity. After all, it ain't every day
a lion or tiger lunges at you out of the fourth
dimension, so maybe the need to be able to comprehend it
never arose. Puras says that the fourth spatial dimension
does exist on the Prime, only it's very weak, and
possibly on the wane. He reckons it might be the reason
wizards can bind elementals to their will on the Prime --
they arrive confused and disorientated by the lack of the
Fourth.
According
to the oldest records, the Outer Planes have never had a
Fourth Dimension. In fact, the self-same books claim the
Third one is on the wane out there -- could be why planes
are stacked up in layers, says Puras. If this conjecture
leads you to the conclusion that maybe the Inner Planes
had a Fifth dimension, you'd concur with Puras. He can't
prove it, (and refuses to tell me more about it), but I'd
hazard that the spatial dimensions as we know them are
succumbing to entropy on a massive scale.
Maybe
the Sinkers have a point after all...
