#realms

"Some philosophers believe there are 11 worlds like that. And some believe there are as many as 26, the last being time itself, which.." Gwyn's voice dropped to a whisper.

Time travel might happen in the acotar. Gwyn might know about it.

We find out later that Merrill believes there are 26 worlds.

The harp has 26 cords.

Koschei is definitely involved. Could he drag two couples back in time before the daglan.

“The Mountain lay dark and silent before them and ever higher above them.”

Erebor, stronghold of the King Under the Mountain!

Bonus Artwork!

Bilbo and the Snails

“A large grey stone lay in the centre of the grass and he stared moodily at it or watched the great snails.“

The universe is believed to consist of multiple spiritual dimensions, each vibrating at different frequencies. These realms house various beings, from divine entities to restless spirits. While interpretations differ among mystics, shamans, and occultists, here’s an overview of commonly recognized dimensions and their inhabitants.

The Physical Realm

What It Is: The material world where humans, animals, and nature exist. This is the realm of tangible matter and linear time.

Beings Here: Humans, animals, plants, minerals.

The Ethereal Layer

What It Is: The subtle energy field that surrounds all physical beings, often associated with auras and chi. It’s where elemental consciousness begins to take shape.

Beings Here:

• Elementals – Nature spirits like fae, gnomes, and sylphs.

• Thought-Forms – Manifestations of collective consciousness.

The Astral Plane (Lower & Higher Astral)

What It Is: The dimension where thoughts, emotions, and spiritual energies take shape. Often visited in dreams, astral projection, and deep meditative states.

Beings Here:

• Ghosts & Spirits of the Dead – Earthbound spirits or those visiting the living.

• Lower Astral Entities – Shadow beings, trickster spirits, or negative thought-forms.

• Guides & Light Beings – Benevolent spirits that help seekers.

The Realm of Time & Thought

What It Is: A fluid, transitional space where time is nonlinear, and consciousness expands. Many spirit portals lead here.

Beings Here:

• Interdimensional Travelers – Spirits, ancestors, or astral projectors.

• Djinn & Trickster Spirits – Beings that influence reality and perception.

The Realm of Higher Consciousness

What It Is: The plane of enlightenment, where beings operate outside of material duality. It is associated with divine wisdom and unity consciousness.

Beings Here:

• Ascended Masters – Souls that have evolved beyond physical reincarnation

• Celestial Beings – Divine forces or deities

The Divine Blueprint (Akashic Realm)

What It Is: The plane of cosmic records and divine architecture. Here, reality is designed before manifesting in lower realms.

Beings Here:

• Keepers of the Akashic Records – Beings who maintain the history of all souls.

• Gods & Archetypal Forces – Higher aspects of deities and universal energies.

The Realm of Pure Light

What It Is: The domain of unity and divine love, where individuality dissolves into collective consciousness. This is often seen as the bridge between form and formlessness.

Beings Here:

• Seraphim & Divine Guardians – Pure light entities.

• High Cosmic Beings – Creators of universal structures.

The Unknowable Realms

What It Is: Dimensions that transcend human comprehension, where the universe’s fundamental forces originate.

Beings Here:

• The Source – The ultimate divine consciousness.

• Abstract Energy Beings – Forces that shape galaxies, reality, and existence itself.

Each dimension serves a different function in the grand design of existence. While some beings interact with the physical world, others remain in higher realms, guiding, protecting, or shaping reality. Mystics, witches, and spiritual seekers often attempt to access these dimensions through meditation, astral travel, or deep trance work. Understanding these realms can help in spiritual evolution, magick, and personal transformation.

For the same reason, this explanation is mostly "generic" and does not take into account (although I already have an idea of how to place them) all the locations in the kingdoms. Those are basically the ground rules.

So, the situation for the geography of EAH is as follows: General Rules- Kingdoms and Realms

The main "problem" with establishing geopolitical boundaries in EAH is that in some fairy tales, multiple royal families coexist within it, most seriously the White/Queen family, but also the Beauty/Thorn family or the Swan/Von Barth family. So I thought the solution was very simple: differentiate between Kingdom and Realm.

Although synonymous, Kingdoms and Realms here are distinct. The kingdom is defined by a particular geographical boundary, while the realms are the domains, similar to how the communes functioned in medieval Italy.

Essentially, therefore, I thought the world of EAH followed the same pattern as the Italy of the communes. Context: Italy was geographically more or less the same as it is now, but within it there were various regional dominations of the various noble families.

So I imagine the situation is: The world of EAH (meaning the place our protagonists come from. Other continents certainly exist, but Grimm has blocked access to them.) is the equivalent of the European continent.

The kingdoms are the equivalent of countries (like Italy, France, Spain, etc.).

-> Within the kingdoms, there are various realms headed by noble families (the Whites, the Beautys, the Queens, etc.) who command their own portion of the territory.

-> Within each realm, there are various grand duchies, counties, villages, etc., headed by nobles and/or a mayor/governor, who nevertheless still control the royal family to which they belong.

So, for example, with a fairy-tale kingdom that canonically has multiple nobilities: Wonderland (which, for the sake of the example, let's pretend for a moment operates according to standard laws): Wonderland is the kingdom, and within the kingdom there are three realms- that of the Queen of Hearts, that of the White Queen, and that of the Red Queen. Within each realm, there are obviously various cities, which have their own nobilities/governors, such as the Ugly Duchess,which despite its noble status still answers to its queen.

So this paradigm applies to all the kingdoms in the world of EAH. Especially because it allows for the coexistence of the White/Queen kingdom, or the presence of multiple Charmings in places that don't need them (in fact, I'm convinced that Nottingham is headed by the Lionhearts, and that its Charmings are a lower noble fraction here).

Exceptions:

Location of EAH: Ever After High is located in the Ever After Kingdom, which is a sort of "neutral kingdom/lobby" within and central to the rest of the continent. It functions a bit like Magix in the Winx Club and is the "index" from which one then travels through the various fairytale kingdoms. It is extremely small, like Vatican City or San Marino, and contains BookEnds, the Enchanted Forest, and the other locations we see during the story. Furthermore, in addition to EAH, it also contains the other specialized schools for the heirs, such as kindergarten, elementary school, and middle school.

Fairy Kingdoms: The paradigm it's slightly different for the fairy nobility, whose kingdoms are within the forests of other major kingdoms. For example: The Beauty realm is divided into two realms: the Sleeping Realm and the Beast Realm. The Thorn Realm is located in the Sleeping Realm's forest. (I imagine the same thing for the Swan/VonBarth realms.)

Opening my notifications to find this gargantuan gold mine was a ride and a half haha!

The idea of Ever After High being a neutral and protected domain akin to the Vatican is actually such a perfect way to put it! It’s served so many generations of fairy tale destinies and has influenced future politics for so long it’s essentially hallowed ground! That’s fantastic!

I’m also very intrigued about that map of yours

The idea of the Italian communes also completely makes sense to me, if the domains have no allies they only have enemies. Like a guaranteed side effect of the sleeping curse for the Sleeping Beauty story is that the briars essentially act as a defence to keep people out, it cannot be invaded, and in the older stories the royalty are friends with most all the fairies, which implies in my head that when awake they protect the fairies in turn.

The Charmings not actually having much ruling power also makes sense to me by holt hell are there a LOT of them, and they’re married into almost every single royal and noble family in all the realms, if they had more power they’d be having an entire monopoly on all domains which would be way too much overt control.

I do have thoughts however that the Charmings do have a lot of covert power that ensures their sheer number of relatives remain in power and have incentives to do such. Well, we even see in the books Princess Charmings have to be very careful, even Darling cannot be outside on a balcony for too long or else she might get snatched by a dragon. Having a natural magnet for things that puts you in peril would be a good motivator for almost all Princess Charmings to just follow the basic script to avoid awful circumstances.