The World
The world of Midgard resembles a coin surrounded by a snake. The serpent is Veles, the Father of Serpents, who girds the edges of the earth. One face of the coin is the land most people know. The elves claim the obverse is the Bright Land, also called the Elflands, the Summer Lands, and the Fair Place. Here lies the homeland of the elves (and gnomes, and other fey), a land both more magical and wilder than the known world.
Between the two sides of this coin lies the Shadow Realm. It is a land of grays and darkness untouched by Khors’s lamp. It is a plane of long shadows and unending dusk. It is a land of nightmares, in which the unready and unprepared can be lost forever. And it is not empty. This shaded desolation was pierced by the magic of the elves, which allowed them to arrive in Midgard among the savage races living in the wreckage of Ankeshel. They wove a web of passages between their world and this one. These were the fey roads, built using the power of Ley Lines and strengthened by that magic.
The Sun, Moon, and Heavens
Midgard is geocentric, with the sun, moon, planets, and stars swiftly circling the world. Beyond that, strange other worlds link to Midgard through dark roads, both sullied heavens and golden hells.
The sun is the chariot of Khors the sun god, or of Aten the sun god, or perhaps a lamp of one of the other cults of the sun. When it disappears, it presumably shines on the other side of the flat world. As the sun passes the edge of the world, some believe that the World Serpent snaps at it, someday to consume its light and plunging the world into the eternal darkness of Fimbulwinter.
Midgard has a single, primary moon and seven lesser moons called the Mage’s Stars, used as a common symbol in arcane workings and in the coat of arms of the Magocracy of Allain. The moon is called just that, though some wizards and sages call it Ond or Selles, names in older languages also meaning “the moon.”
Midgard stars are living creatures, lesser lights to the sun god’s greater light. A young star might require someone to defend it from the dark gods who would happily devour it. On rare occasions, these stars come down from the heavens to visit people on the face of the world.
Five known planets orbit the world of Midgard, though elves insist on the existence of a sixth planet, called Idelitan or Melgros, that human eyes are too weak to see.
Asaph, the Green Planet: A planet that shines white and green, Asaph is rumored to hold powerful influence over the seas and air, and alchemists associate it with elemental air, mithral, and spirits.
Ermaon, the Jumping Planet: Fastest and strangest of the planets, small and difficult to see. Some believe it is not a planet at all, but a comet trapped in a circle, or a lost court of the far-wandering shadow fey trapped in a chaotic spiral. Alchemists associate Ermaon with silver or mercury.
Melgros, the Dark Wanderer: Not visible to the human eye, this planet is a dark and mysterious home of malevolent forces, including nightshades, demons, and devils of all sorts. Stories dating to Ankeshelian times claim it is the source of both a soul-consuming fire and all black magic. Elves refer to it as “Idelitan” or “the Archer’s Planet” because those who see it happen to be the best archers. Alchemists associate the planet with adamant.
Temperos the Giant: A yellow planet, easy to see in the night sky and commonly linked with the giants of the Haunted Lands. Those giants held it to be the home of the gods and called it Gades, the All-Father, a name still used among savants, alchemists, and citizens of Bourgund. Alchemists associate it with copper, tin, and bronze.
Tiomoutiri, the Golden Planet: This bright and shining planet is most visible around sunrise and is widely connected with Khors the sun god and with Lada the Golden. Astronomers of Nuria Natal believe it governs the health and sexual aspects of life. Priests of Khors and Lada perform their high rituals when Tiomoutiri is in the sky. Alchemists associate the planet with gold and orichalcum.
Zuhal, the Dragon: The elves claim that this red distant planet has rings. Though it is a powerful symbol in the heavens, living dragons relate it with blood and life force. Alchemists associate it with platinum, earth, and minerals, and Zuhal is widely considered the planet that controls aspects of magic and the arcane.
Planes and Hells
Most adventures occur in the mortal realm of Midgard, but sometimes devils, angels, and the heralds of the gods show themselves and offer greater horizons. These planes and hells are known to the people of Midgard.
Eleven Hells
Scholars frequently speculate about the links, if any, between Midgard and the Hells. Niemheim and old Caelmarath, the most debauched and diabolical of the magocracies, hold the highest likelihood of answers. Both nations have a history of connections to the 11 Hells,
known as the Hells of Fire, Ice, Darkness, Styx-Lethe, Insects, Plague, Acid, Cannibals, Ignorance, Lies, and Blood. The exact list is disputed: sometimes Fire is described as Sulfur, Acid is called the Abyss, and the Hell of Cannibals occasionally the Hell of Decay or Putrefaction.
Even the Hell of Blood is confused with the plane of Spears (see Geirrhöth below). These planes are the homes of devils and demonic forces, and the common people of Midgard correlate the various supernatural evils as “the Eleven.”
Evermaw, Plane of Undeath
Evermaw is confused with the Eleven Hells, since it is an afterlife of ghouls and vampires, cannibals and gluttons. A road like a lolling tongue sprawls through a waterless desert of blood dust, passing towers that sprout like crooked white teeth, until it’s swallowed by the gulletlike sinkhole that houses the city of Vulture’s Beyond, osseous capital of the Hunger God Vardesain, as well as the Eternal Palace of the dry undead lord Mot and the Crystal Necropolis of the guardian god Anu-Akma. Here ziggurats flow with the blood of daily sacrifices, liches study new necromancies of flesh and bone, and the cooks claim they can skin and butcher anything, from ghosts to gods.
Ginnungagap, the Yawning Void
Far beyond other planes, connected to Midgard by only the most tenuous twisting paths, is Ginnungagap, the Yawning Void, the Realm Beyond. Little can definitively be said of it, other than it harbors monsters and creatures of unspeakable evil, horrors such as nightshades, yithians, gugs, shoggoths, hideous Void dragons, spiders of Leng, hounds of Tindalos, the shining children of Caelmarath, and many more. Few wish to visit, but creatures from that distant and primordial realm seem eager to visit the mortal world. Dark gods from Addrikah to the White Goddess and from Chernobog to the Goat of the Woods seem at home in the Void, or at least draw power from it. The place does offer great power to those who swear their lives and souls to its causes, but those poor deluded beings who listen to such offers rarely live to see any promised rewards.
Klingedesh, Plane of the Marketplace
Imagine a tangled nest in the branches of the World Tree, formed of stacked shops, stalls, nooks, and crannies radiating out in all directions, connected by bridges of rope, wood, and bone. It’s a maze of commerce, friendly to all. Visitors can walk the entire way around and never see the same item twice. All things can be bought or sold here— for every faire, fete, and bazaar that ever was is a road to and from the Marketplace, and it connects to both the cities of Midgard and the festivals of the Fair Lands.
Ravatet, Plane of Rusty Gears
Every plane has its secrets, and the domain of Rava the Gear Goddess is no exception. A visitor can discover the dark side of the Mother of Industry and the Weaver while visiting her purgatories: the Desert of Rust, the Junkyard of Broken Cogs, and the Hall of Inevitable Fate. Boons and banes wait for those who dare explore the junk piles and haggle with the strange scavengers and exiles of the rusty gears. Other gods sometimes found here include Ptah, the Maker, as well as Volund and (strangely) the Hunter.
Silendora, Summer Lands of the Elves
Shining bright, the elves presumably retreated to the land of the Last Horn. Its elves hold great fairs and pay homage to kings and queens who speak with the River Lords of the Arbonesse. Their Birch Queen and Oak and Holly Kings are little more than names to mortals, but their silver halls and white horses can be glimpsed in dream or at the edge of the great forests of the world, where the fey roads are still traveled, and where the elven ambassadors sometimes come to call on the Imperatrix of the Grand Duchy of Dornig or the other elfmarked lords and ladies of the various fey courts.
Valhalla, the Storm Court, and Geirrhöth
Home to Thor, the valkyries, and mighty Wotan, the Storm Court is where the Northern gods meet. Their hall and their battleground is said to have a glorious view onto the conjoined realm of Geirrhöth (GIRE-hoeth), also called the plane of battle or place of spears. Some believe that the best way to visit the Storm Court is to fly into a raging thunderstorm; few return from that road.
Some say Geirrhöth is a punishment for those who revel in killing, though most reavers and warriors hold that it is a warrior’s heaven for the most valorous and bloodthirsty. All the triumph and tragedy of war rages here, a never-ending glory where the soldiers who die today rise again to rejoin their battle again tomorrow, watched over by archdevils, archangels, and all the gods of war, though Mavros is first and foremost. The rivers and rain run bloody, the dreadful sound of screams and war-cries echoes everywhere, and the many swords and spears scattered underfoot are the only ground to be found. When night falls, the ghosts of the slain arise to drink, feast, and restore their flesh and bone for the following day.
Yggdrasil and the World Trees
The first World Tree, Yggdrasil, is the seat of wisdom and a connecting element between Midgard, Valhalla, and all other planes. Wotan and the Northern gods hold the secrets of how to travel its twisting paths and how to evade its guardians. Yggdrasil is ancient and perhaps sentient; certain of its trails are easier to follow than others. Those who travel Yggdrasil between the worlds carry messages for the gods or bring omens and warnings from Wotan and Loki. The druids and elves agree that the Vanir elves—or Freyr and Freya themselves—planted the first seeds of Yggdrasil, which became the world and its many planes.
Elven versions of this story say that Yggdrasil rests in the Summer Lands, and its roots and branches extend to Midgard, the Hells, and elsewhere. The druids and priests of Freyr and Freya claim Yggdrasil holds up Midgard and its offshoots form sacred groves and forests in the world.
The branches of Yggdrasil that enter Midgard manifest as World Trees that connect Midgard to various realms, from the Elflands to the Plane of Spears. Climbing a World Tree means entering the planar highways, which might lead to Valhalla, the Eleven Hells, or Ravatet. Only the elves, the ravenfolk, and valkyries even pretend to understand the paths, though the strange ratatosk native to the great tree act as guides, messengers, and guardians of its many planar roads.
The World Trees display roots as large as hills, and trunks pushing miles into the sky. Each tree’s bark is wildly variable, with sections of beech-smooth bark alternating with convoluted layers of flaking material. Their leaves are enormous, yet when they fall they seem to rarely reach the ground, instead slipping though the worlds to Valhalla or Elfheim or elsewhere.
The known World Trees are all sites of pilgrimage for followers of the Northern gods, but they are revered almost everywhere they grow. Each such tree is a node of divine power and is a nemeton, a sacred grove where no birds nest and no animals dig their burrows. The leaves of each World Tree constantly shiver and whisper, even when no wind stirs the forest around them.
Druids and Northlands pantheon priests find their magic operates as if they were 1 level higher when they are within the sacred grounds of a World Tree.