#planeswalker's guide

The Arcane Spires

The first thing most ground-dwelling planeswalkers often notice upon arriving on Ocaelum are the branches above, and most likely soon after, the gigantic tree they belong to. While magical and giant trees aren’t all that uncommon a sight around the Multiverse, there’s something unique to one bereft of leaves, with something resembling a sun trapped right below its branches. Its light ebbs and flows as hours pass, giving the area around it an illusion of day and not-quite-night. Lifetrees like those exist all around the floor of Ocaelum, multiple dozens at least. The branches criss-cross over a sphere of air, all the way down to the ground, a passthrough membrane between them keeping the ever-present water of Ocaelum at bay, and extracting from it the life-giving air, warmth and light they provide. Most of them, except maybe for the youngest of sprouts, have a settlement established under their protection. 

From small town to city, the living spaces are generally kept closer to the trunk, while the agricultural space to feed that settlement is kept to the outskirts of the lifesphere, where there’s more surface and they’re closer to the root tunnels for trade. Those long roots are half-buried, connecting lifetrees to each other into four mostly separate networks, they call them councils, over the entire world. Over their length, small growth or fruits of sorts provides light for travelers. The waters around a lifespheres are often almost as animated as the spheres themselves with all sorts of work and leisure a marine environment allows, enchantments and equipments to live within the water for hours at a time being commonplace.

Life in the Spheres

The Coral

The Coral are simply named, but they’re one of the most unique species on Ocaelum. Made of flesh and plant alike, the closest analog is probably other planes’ dryads. They keep a close relationship with the tree they’re tied to, communing with it often in a way that isn’t as open to members of other people. They tend to be very protective of their home, tree and everyone in it, and as such are often found in the tree’s fighting force or more spiritual roles. The material that grows on their body is also occasionally used as building material, in place of wood that’s much harder to obtain. It is mostly used in homes of Coral themselves, or buildings closer to the base of the tree or along the trunk itself, but it’s not that unusual to see it elsewhere. The Coral are the only major fully-amphibious species living in the lifespheres, but generally stick close to their home, with a few wandering exceptions and diplomats sent above, below or to other spires.

People from the Old World

Other than the Coral, lifespheres are mostly populated by elves and humans, not too dissimilar from most other planes. In fact, their legends claim that they were brought to Ocaelum centuries ago to escape a cataclysm by their gods, who made the trees to protect and sustain their people in this new environment dominated by water. Of course, this raises as many questions as it answers, and if it is true, very little remains from that time. Even the oldest living elves seem to have very little information on the “other world”. It likely has some part of truth, they wouldn’t be the first civilization to be moved to another plane for their safety, but the choice of one like Ocaelum is peculiar, requiring incalculable efforts in the creation of the Spires to sustain those people and adaptation of those cultures when many other worlds would likely have been a better fit.

This shared origin and the isolated settlements they’ve lived together in for centuries made the elven and human cultures and populations mingle much more on Ocaelum than most other planes, enough that they can be discussed together, at least within the spheres. The vast majority of them show heavy respect and deference to the Spire protecting them, often similar to one that would be given to deities in other societies, though there’s also many that only see the tree as a distant but ever-present aspect of life.

Moreso than Elves, humans can also be found below ground, having made a life for themselves over the centuries alongside or among the dwarves and dragons residing in the tunnels. Those will be expanded upon later, but they appear to be from groups that split from the rest of the population when they arrived from the Old World.

Lifetrees and Lifewood

Also known as Arcane Spires, or just Spires, Lifetrees themselves have a consciousness, and are the origin of larger scale decisions. They seem to communicate amongst each other across the root network, organizing into four “Councils”. Trees from different councils have different traits, looks and seem to be constituted of slightly different wood. Organizations and policies within each lifesphere tend to be somewhat consistent between spires of the same council, though there’s plenty of variation. The four councils are known as Foji, Adun, Pylo and Nokel, which are usually appended before the name of the settlements they care for. 

Their decisions and thoughts, when they need to be, are usually communicated through Voices, clerics they can converse with, most often Coral. The number of Voices in each sphere depends on the size of it and the whims of the tree, who’s the one to choose them. Or to choose the process they’re designated by. There’s talk of some trees that are their own voices, creating avatars to interact directly within the sphere, but it’s not common nor something I was able to observe.

The Spires have more than voices, and they seem to keep very good attention to everything that happens under their care. It is said that they are able to see and hear everything and everyone their light touches. Some of that at the very least is true. A few planeswalkers recount being approached by a Voice soon after they arrived on Ocaelum for the first time inside of a lifesphere.

Lifetrees are the only trees found on Ocaelum, and as such all wood comes from them. Once dead and harvested from inert branches or roots, it acts much like any other wood, with different properties depending on the Council. Despite the size of the spires, it is still rarer than on most other planes, and is rarely used directly as building material. Though in some places, elves have devised a way to help the tree grow in ways that support buildings, making roots part of the architecture itself.

However, wood from Lifetrees doesn’t always die when separated from the rest of it. At the trees’ whims, wood cut from living parts of them can be Lifewood. Lifewood is one of the rarest resources on Ocaelum, but it is also one of the least valuable. It is more resistant than regular wood, but beyond that, it harnesses and produces its own magic, being able to sustain and activate indefinitely enchantments placed upon it, as long as they don’t need too much power. However, Lifewood can only ever be freely given. If stolen, sold or even just bartered with, it quickly dies, and becomes no different from any bit of wood across the Multiverse. How Lifewood divines when or in what context it changes hands is a mystery, but it seems no way to trick it has been found. Except maybe when it comes to the trees themselves, who seem to forego their own rules when it comes to the Family, their arrival sometimes celebrated by a “ceremonial gift exchange” which often involves Lifewood on the part of the Spire.

Tensions and the collapse

In the past few decades, tensions have been rising between the Spires and the Merfolk Empire above, as the Lifetrees have claimed more and more of Ocaelum’s grounds to house the growing populations within. The merfolks still perceive all waters on the plane to be theirs, and even if they seemed to tolerate the lifespheres as a separation between them and the dwarves, who they seem to share an ancient grudge with, they seem to dislike the possibility of losing direct access to the grounds of most of the plane. Those tensions have led to both more discussions, and more raids and excursions from “rogue merfolk agents”. 

While the lifespheres are well-protected, there’s been many people taken from the root tunnels and some caravans of the Family in this time. At one occasion, about fifteen years ago, things went beyond that, with a show of might and a coordinated assault on Adun Talandis, one of the larger Spires, that resulted in the death of the Lifetree and the subsequent flooding and destruction of the city. The few survivors were too far to know the means the Vhigg'ithu employed for killing the tree, but the empire claimed that assault, unlike the others. This massacre is remembered as the collapse of Adun Talandis, or simply the collapse, and even fifteen years later, it is still very present as a source of anger and fear in the population of the spheres. It is the only record of a Lifetree’s death so far.

The Core of the World

In and around the lifespheres, all over the world, are the glowing entrances to the expansive tunnels of the core. The glow comes from the mushrooms keeping the water out of most of the caves, by what seems like a similar process to the one used by the trees, on a smaller scale. From caverns big enough to house cities to tunnels that only serve as passage to small bugs, there’s most likely more space underground than in all of the lifespheres combined, an entire world of its own.

The lighting is dimmer than on most planes, and takes a bit of getting used to for some people, but is decent in the inhabited parts of the tunnels. The same kind of fungal life that seals the entrances was domesticated to do so, always glowing slightly, but a bit more when someone’s near. Temperatures are higher there than in most lifespheres, rising as you get down to the dwarves’ territory, deep down, to something akin to what’s found in tropical environments. But very dry. Most tunnels and caves that are regularly used have been carved and tamed, enough so that as long as you don’t veer too far off the path, you might just think you’re in a colossal, windowless building. The Core, as its inhabitants call it, is old, much older than any of the lifespheres above, and possibly older than the Vhigg’ithu empire itself.

The Elder Smiths and the Dwarves

The Elder Smiths is the name the dwarves gave the powerful dragons that oversee their people. According to their legends, the five Elder Smiths were born from the stone of Ocaelum and hatched from the sun at the center of the world, the sun below. They dug the core as they shed the fragments of the sun they took with them, leaving behind what would become all life in the caverns as they found each other and became what they now are. With the embers still clinging to them, the dragons, for the first time, created life with purpose.

Thus were made the first dwarves, the first-forged. The Smiths took their creations with them, each a few. The dragons taught, and the dragons learned. Learned to care, learned to love, learned to be loved. Learned that what they did was right, learned what they did wrong.

As time passed, the Smiths created more dwarves, each their own, and they offered the first-forged to be remade with the knowledge gained, into more perfect forms. Many accepted, a few remain to this day. That tradition stands. Every so often, by choice or by need, every dwarf is reforged by the dragon they follow. Into a new shape, into a new life. It is unclear if this is a form of reincarnation or just of renewal, but most of the newly reforged dwarves choose to keep the name from their previous life.

The dwarves see themselves as the cherished and perfect creations of the dragon who made them. They see themselves as belonging to the guild of their Smith, but occasionally one will change guilds during their life, and sometimes be reforged in the process. The dwarves, the guilds, and the dragons themselves, are fiercely competitive and will often have various contests at all levels, be them large annual celebrations or everyday individual rivalries. Though grudges and contests can carry on for decades or centuries, it seems like no open conflicts between the guilds has never occured over all of dwarven history.

The dwarves look similar to the ones on other planes, short and stout humanoids. Unlike the ones from most other planes, Ocaelian dwarves are significantly heavier and stronger than they look, which they attribute to the metal they were forged from, and their eyes tend to glow their color while in the dimly lit environment of the core. There’s relatively few dwarves on the plane, with them estimating their numbers in the few thousands at most over all of Ocaelum. They typically feed on the everpresent mushrooms and other plant or bug life from the core, but they eat little compared to other species.

While different guilds focus on different values, they all share the same overall set and they all function as individual societies that occasionally mix. Out of themselves and others, they value creativity, drive, perseverance, organisation and respect above all. While the dwarven society understands the concept of money, as it is used within other species’ trade, dwarves don’t want anything to do with it, preferring to barter goods, trade favors or services, or simply help and give to each other when needed. That policy extends to trades with the rest of the plane, the dwarves’ art and artifice being valued by both Spire-dwellers and the Family.

The Smiths and the Empire

The Smiths, and by extension the dwarves, are vocal in their opposition to the Vhigg’ithu empire, as well as the merfolks’ signature necromancy. The subject seems taboo, but this seems to be the result of more than differing ideologies, the merfolk empire having, far in the past, before the first seed of a Lifetree was planted, committed an act so heinous to the Smiths their hatred and disgust lasts unwavering to this day. What that act was is unclear, something to do with someone being stolen, or something being killed, or maybe the other way around. Dwarves seem either unsure or uncomfortable when asked, and given their reactions, asking an Elder Dragon directly seems more dangerous than the answer would be worth.

Their different environments and the Spires between them keep them out of armed conflicts for the most part, but the Empire is likely the main reason martial training is maintained and encouraged for dwarves, and not just to defend themselves against or hunt the larger beasts found within the Core. Occasionally the merfolks try to flood or attack through a tunnel, and there’s been more than one dwarf who felt like they ought to take revenge through a contraption and was lost into the vast ocean.

Humans of the Core

The Core is also home to many humans and a few elves, in fact, probably more than dwarves overall. Refugees from the Old World that didn’t trust the elves’ Lifetrees or wanted to go on their own, or more recent immigrants that didn’t find a home on the surface. A number of them live among dwarven society, either joining a guild or staying neutral and providing services for all. There’s even a few stories of humans being so respected as part of their guild they were reforged into a dwarf of their own.

The rest formed their own cities and societies in uninhabited parts of the Core, often closer to the surface. They tend to be hardier people than the ones living under the Spires, having to survive a harsher environment with more common and dangerous predators. Unlike the Guilds, the Empire, the Councils or even the Family, humans of the core aren’t organized in any one united structure. Each group works differently, sometimes completely, and the few laws are local at best. Their contacts with other factions on the plane is second only to the empire’s, and is generally more commercial than diplomatic. 

Humans underground tend to come in paler colorations and are much more accustomed to the core than ones from the surface, who know and expect the light of a Spire. A common tradition passed between them is to reduce the local mushrooms into a paste and apply it as paint, or even tattoos, as a way to notice and identify each other at a glance in the dark that the beasts of the core dismiss as just more of the mushrooms.

The Upper Depths

As one rises in the water, the ambient light fades, cold seeps in, and soon even the shining beacons of the lifespheres below disappear from view as the oppressing waters of the upper depths start, and continue seemingly without end. Few things live up here, or maybe many more than you can see. Those waters, all of them, all around the plane, are under the dominion and rule of the merfolks that were born in it, the Vhigg’ithu empire.

The Vhigg’Ithu

Ocealian merfolks value information and knowledge much higher than most people, and as such are very private and secretive people. Among them, just being told one’s name is a token of an established friendship. They’re generally quieter than most people, telling only as much as they need to. Between their secrecy and the darkness they live in, there might be much more about the empire than is written in these lines. The empire is old, over a millenia old, and possibly multiple times that.

The Vhigg’ithu -sometimes called Viggs outside of the empire- are tailed merfolks (or at least legless, there are a few that move through tentacles or other means) and predators of a wide range of subspecies, shapes and builds, the extent and limits of each being too nebulous to clearly define as more than an aggregate, though the merfolk society itself might have better distinctions. They’re for the most part very sensitive to light, or blind, relying on other senses to perceive their surroundings. The Lifetrees are luminous enough that they’re harmful for merfolks who can see to look at directly without protection, raiders and traders going to the ground will often wear specialized goggles to avoid being blinded, or include darkening spells in the ones that maintain a bubble of water around them when they do go inside lifespheres or the core. The spells they use come in as many variants as the water-breathing ones other species use, ranging from something that sticks to their body to a round bubble they can freely swim anywhere and effectively fly.

The Empire and the Shiver of Kings

The Empire isn’t a monolithic entity, far from it. It is ruled by five powerful monarchs, collectively referred to as the Shiver of Kings despite containing a couple queens. There is no emperor or central authority figure. What exactly fits under each king and queen’s rule is hard to say, they govern specific currents and people in a manner that changes as time passes, trades are arranged and wars are waged. The relationship between them is antagonistic to say the least, and even if they all look down more than literally on the other inhabitants of Ocaelum, the empire seldom present a united front. Should it, its military power would almost assuredly surpass that of any other faction on the plane by far. But whatever goal the monarchs pursue below is only second to protecting themselves from each other and organizing their attacks and counter-attacks.

This system does not sound sustainable, but the Empire has held under these conditions for over a thousand years, beyond what any Spire’s archives has records of. The same five rulers, or ones with the same names, keeping each other in check, at a virtual standstill, for centuries and centuries. Occasionally, alliances form or one is in a dominant position, but inevitably one betrays the other or the others band against the dominant one.

The rulers keep to their capitals, the only confirmed examples of merfolk cities, though others are assumed to likely exist within the depths. The capitals are built on the body of gargantuan creatures, wading through the waters, always moving, if slowly, taking with them an unfathomable mass of buildings and other living beings, creating currents sweeping bringing along everything close in their wake. These monsters and the cities upon them share a name with their ruler, though a more talkative merfolk stated that all of those are one and the same. That the Shiver are those colossal beasts, ruling through a small extension of themselves. That thought is chilling, but thankfully these beasts or kings have never been seen anywhere close to the ground.

The five monarchs are named Ihmir, Satena, Ysyn, Lowdos and Ulphion and the leviathans they live on are as different as they are, from Satena’s tentacled self to Ulphion’s shell harboring most of its population. They do not seem to eat, or ever stop moving. Merfolks simply swim along, on and off the currents it creates.

Life, Undeath and Unlife

Due to the size of the Empire and relatively low population in comparison to it, the Shiver’s rules tend to be relatively lax, and allow a lot of individual freedoms to their merfolk citizens. As long as the population obeys when the monarchs do issue orders.

That freedom isn’t afforded to everyone, though, slavery being a common punishment in Vhigg’ithu society. It is generally temporary for citizens, a result of debt or crime, but is often much more permanent when it comes to prisoners taken in a raid or from other rulers’ dominion. It is widespread enough that a large bulk of public tasks and menial private tasks are performed by slaves. However, slaves are kept out of simpler, more tedious or dangerous work, they’re too valuable for that, those are reserved to the undead workforce.

Necromancy is an integral part of Vhigg’ithu society. The next step after life ends is undeath or unlife, and this is an accepted truth. Leaving the dead to float away and get eaten would be wasteful when they could be of use. As such, any salvageable corpse is requisitioned, reanimated and put to work, at least if the person didn’t have prior necromantic arrangements. If a corpse is too damaged to be reanimated as such, it still will have its uses, though such an end is seen as more than death, it is called oblivion.

Not much effort is generally spent on common zombies, the ones made of the vast majority of the population, being little more than mindless drones useful for following simple commands and instructions. Being brought back in such a way is referred to as undeath, both undead and unliving are sometimes referred to as undead. A single Necromaster, which is the title given to the ones handling and organizing a group of undead towards a goal, is able to keep control over dozens of zombies at once. For the most powerful ones, that number could be in the hundreds or even thousands.

Besides those simple zombies, necromancy has other benefits to the empire. For some, it brings unlife, a new life after death in which the reanimated gets to keep more than their basic identity, but also their memories, personality and higher thought. Elite unliving troops are a tool each monarch has at their disposal, without the need to breathe in tunnels or lifespheres and with a clarity of purpose that only comes after death. Noble, powerful and rich merfolks prefer the eternal unlife of a lich to the cold undeath of service, but the right to undergo the process is reserved to the Shiver and its individual monarchs to grant... This simple act and its enforcement better than any show of force keeps many merfolk mostly subservient to the Shiver in life and in unlife, afraid of having their time ended abruptly by the oblivion that’s punishment for transgressing the law of unlife. Though not all of the affluent merfolks are keen on this balance of power.

The Free Exchange Society

An undercurrent of the Empire, the Free Exchange Society is a group of merfolks trying to reach out to each other under the monarchs’ rule and to other people of Ocaelum in opposition to the more aggressive stance their governments usually take towards diplomacy. Some are in it out of curiosity for the rest of the plane, others are searching for a profit, some want the Shiver dethroned out of spite or ambition, and some have more personal reasons. It’s hard to know when the Society was first established as such, but records of contacts with it in the Spires go back at least a century. Membership is generally kept a secret and anonymous meetings are the norm. While being a part of it is technically not illegal under most of the Shiver, most see it as both private and dangerous to talk about.

The Free Exchange Society has, over the years, exchanged, sold and at a few occasions even given information, slaves or help obtained from the Depths. They’ve been in contact with the Family, the Spires, humans of the core and they’ve even reached out to the dwarves, unsuccessfully so far.

The Family

From the ground waters to the core, from the Spires to the lower parts of the depths, the Family (sometimes called World Family to avoid confusion with the more mundane kind) is a disparate amphibian people who travel in caravans all around Ocaelum. How each species first joined the Family varies, but it formed after the Spires were already established, joining many smaller cultures. Some of them were formerly subjects of the Empire, but most were small, independent tribes living around specific entrances to the core, suddenly faced with a much larger world.

That variety translates to their caravans. Some have the bulk of it stay in the water at all time, using whales or other animals to transport their living and cargo that aren’t quite as adaptable as they are, unloading into lifespheres or the core as needed. Others use grounded animals and travel the core and the Spires. A decent number of caravans are a single, larger vessel the size of a small town, machines of Dwarven origin that were modified and appropriated so much by their users over decades that they are barely recognizable as such.  A number opt for chelonian beasts of burden, giant turtles that can swim and wade on the ground alike. Most of them have a small living space built atop their back, and cargo to their sides. Each caravan generally has a few spaces that are enchanted to always stay full of water, and the equivalent for air. Some of what they transport only lasts in one of the two environments, and some species of the Family aren’t fully amphibians until later in life.

The Family’s culture is rich and diverse, mostly kept as an oral tradition remembered by the elders of each caravan, who lead and take decisions for it. Elders are typically shamans and druids, not necessarily as old as the title would imply. Occasionally, an elder leaves their apprenticeship before their twentieth year of life, much younger than most adults in their caravan. Elders seem to keep each other informed regularly, able to communicate between each other through magical means from one side of Ocaelum to the other.

Caravans themselves act as family units, with children being raised communally, and adults in general seeing each other as close relatives, akin to siblings for most cultures. Each has a name that their members use as a family name. People from different caravans still see each other as part of the same extended family, and “cousin” is a term they often use to describe that relationship, or even when talking to strangers outside of the Family.

Ancient Alliance

The Family was first formed out of two tribes and species banding together, quickly joined by a third. The Lutrives, Axoltians and Anurans. Lutrives are small otter-like people, but unlike their beastly kin can survive and thrive perfectly well without ever breathing air should they need to. Axoltians are tailed people that show a stunning array of colors, their name derived from the Axolotls found on some other planes, but sharing much less characteristics with them than Lutrives with more common otters. Anurans is the Ocealian name for Burrogs found on some other plane, closer to frogs than to any other species. Those three species together represent a majority of the Family, but there’s much more, some rarer, some represented in small numbers in many caravans.

From the original alliance, axoltians were meant to be the voice of the Family, the ones that bargained and discussed, and Lutrives their shield and arm in those negotiations. When Anurans joined, they brought in their magical and spiritual traditions, strengthening the Family. While nowadays the Family moved from those restrictions and centuries of communal upbringing have made sure every traveler has access to the same education should they wish it, there are still remains of those trends passed down through tradition and pride in their heritage.

Among the other species of the Family, one can find Homarids, crustaceans with surprising dexterity considering their claws, Ghavaleks, crocodilian giants that tend to be at the forefront of the defense of the rare caravans they travel with, amphins, a species that share many traits with Axlotians but tend to be darker in colors and larger in build, even the occasional merfolk as some joined the Family or seeked asylum among them at points in time. Those are equipped with necessary knowledge and items to follow the caravan on land when need be. Similarly, exceedingly rarely, a human or elf is adopted into the Family. There's more, and the Family's traditions and tribes could certainly fill an entire other guide of its own, it's a subject as complex as navigating Vhigg'ithu society or avoiding to unknowingly enter a contest against a dwarf.

Many change caravans during the course of their life. From disagreement or for love found in another, from grief or from bonds. Babies and eggs are sometimes also exchanged or “sold” to another caravan to strengthen the bonds between the two or if the parent caravan think the other could take better care of the child. The transaction is more of a ritual custom than a sale. It is exceedingly rare that all the caravans meet, an event that can only be called in by agreement between elders from all of them and that has only occurred three times since the Family was founded, but it is very frequent that more than one caravan meet in a lifesphere, in the currents or in a tunnel of the core, which is where such exchanges typically occur. 

The Spirit Kindred

As an amalgam of so many traditions, the Family’s mythology is similarly fragmented. While most other factions defer to powerful entities that directly affect their world, the Family’s spiritualism is more personal and varied. There are hundreds of gods, elementals and concepts members of the Family worship, with overlapping domains, stories borrowing elements to each other, aliases for the same one and complex relationships with each other. They’re collectively known as Spirits, or as the Spirit Kindred. It is up to each member of the Family which few they dedicate themselves to, if any, though there tends to be some amount of consistency within the same caravan. 

If those spirits have any physical presence on Ocaelum is unknown, but their influence and the magic derived from them is undeniable. They’re the source of many superstitions in the Family, and some of those spread to other parts of Ocaelum. Most Spirits are loved but the respect towards some of them is also tinged with fear or apprehension. At the end of the day, though, the Spirit Kindred are called such because they’re understood to be members of the Family just like any other. They may oversee the entire wildlife of the plane, but they’re still a cousin or an aunt, and have as many responsibilities and bonds to people that worship them as anyone else travelling with them. 

The Family in the World

In just a few centuries, the Family has become an integral part of Ocaelum’s power structure. While they tend to stay neutral and don’t have any standing military other than the defense of each individual caravan, their services are invaluable enough that being excluded from them, or asked higher prices, is something even the Empire has learned to avoid. For the most part, they still occasionally try to enforce a “tax” on the Family, to disastrous results for both parties.

Collectively, their trade gives them better access to resources from the Core to the depths than any other faction, and that access is something they can provide to others. From selling unique oceanic materials to the Dwarves to being a supply of wood for the Empire, they can also easily travel between Spires from different Councils. Their most valuable service is probably in trading information, either carrying messages (physically or between elders) or speaking of what they’ve seen of the world. Much of the information gathered here is courtesy of their knowledge, cross-referenced with personal observations and discussions when possible.

A World to Explore

With that, the time to write this guide comes to an end. Hopefully, it should contain enough information for you to navigate your way through the many facets of Ocaelum, be you land-dweller or able to enjoy the expanse of Ocaelum’s waters. You’ll be able to discover more of this majestic and unique world by yourself, better than any of my words could do it justice. To close out, I’ll borrow a common blessing from the Family: