The Beyond: Worlds behind the Veil

If you don't eat your carrots, then comes the demon from the counterrealm and takes you.

— Heard at a dinner table somewhere in Aquira.

 

The Worlds behind the Veil

  Fortunately for those who live on Ardu, the transformation of reality through magic needs a lot of spiritual energy, in order to overcome the local reality consensus. Because shaping the Fae is so hard, reality is left in a relatively stable state, a "ground state" as arcane mages call it, which, so mages argue, makes everyday life even possible, as hidden fears or desires, vivid dreams and secret curses are prevented from reforming reality by simply wishing them into existence. Most religions and even the myths about the Ancients speak about a time when this was not the case and magic was more easy to come by, which changed when the Veil came into existence, but they also speak of this time as a times of untold horrors.   Thoughts and wishes, ideas and concepts do not simply go away however. Instead of reforming Ardu, it seems that most of what is secretly wished by those with a sense of self seeps beyond the Veil and does its work there, where thousands upon thousands of souls in the course of countless generations have formed what is called the Counterrealm. Some Arcanists and sages claim that m even the Far Realms with their countless strange inhabitants and Faeries originate from these thoughts and wishes, but this opinion is controversial at best, since those inhabitants are after all self aware on their own.   The "realm" closest to the real world, separated from it by the Veil is the counterrealm. It's a place shaped by the routines of the beings of Ardu, their sins, their guilt and their secret, never-acted-upon wishes. It lies just on the "other side" Separated from the world by an invisible Veil. And... it is a terribly dangerous place where demons Venture: Fae Beings who strive to achieve reality on Ardu.  

"So... no demon is actually real? What about the gods? Are they all just figments of our reality father?"   "You are asking the wrong questions. Even a demon has agenda hasn't he? And doesn't his agenda also shape the Fae? Or what about the Sidhe that were the forefathers of the elves? Don't Elves not also shape it? Elves can work magic too can't they?"   "Am.... i real father? Is... any of this real?"   "Now you are asking the right questions...

— Discussion in the great temple of Bayestril, between Templar of the Sage-Aspect Tholeman Thuris and one of his students.

 

The Counterrealm, also called the Near Realm

  Passing through the Veil takes you to a mirrorrealm that seems eerily similar to the real world on the first glance. This is because it has the same places, shaped into existence by the daily experience and paradigms of those, who walk these place and have walked them in the past. This is the Counterrealm.   Leaving the Counterrealm of populated places and traveling to the wilderness, the centuries of experiences that formed this realm begin to overlap, and old memories gain weight. Trees, World Trees even, which have been dead for centuries or even millennia, still exist here, and even multiple versions of the same place can exist, occupy the same place simultaneously, but, just like in a dream, be one thing in one moment, and another one in the next. Wizards call these multiple versions of one place "instances", and many a group of counterrealm travelers got separated, because one part of the group got stuck in one instance of a place, while the rest got stuck in another.   Nevertheless all places of the counterrealm (and their instances), still seem to be connected to Ardu in a way, anchored and stabilized such that, every time you pass through the veil in a certain place on Ardu, you can rely to arrive in the same place (or an instance of the place) "on the other side". For this reason it is also called the "Near Realm".   Compared to the Far realms It provides a form of "local stability" , something which other further removed Fae realms can't guarantee, since they are formed by stranger ideas and abstracta and often the ideas of their own inhabitants who, unlike Ardu, do not have a Veil that could prevent their ideas from reforming their reality. To get to these further removed realms however, one must pass through the Counterrealm first. There is no way arround it. In this way it surrounds Ardu like a shell surrounds an egg.   Non magically active beings on Ardu do not leave a strong impressions in the Fae that could form a lasting avatar in the counterrealm. They appear as mere shadowlike spectres, barely visibly and ever shifting by the shifting impressions they themselves and others have of them in the real world, their emotions too inconsistent or too weak to make them stabilize form. Where they follow a daily routine on Ardu, idealized or vilified ghostlike versions of them may exist, repeating the routines over and over. There could be for example the spectre of an outwardly pious spectral shopkeeper, who is just trying to sell goods, formed by the flawless impression he exudes towards his customers in the real world every day, while at the same time in the back of said shop a different shopkeeper "lives", monstrous, malformed by his own guilt and the memories of his children and wife, whom he beats every other day.   The spectres of magically active beings on Ardu are different. In order to cast magic, that is to use external Fae instead of the magic users personal Fae, a magic user has to learn to open his mind to the Fae. As a result of this, his secret wishes, his suppressed wants and needs and his fears have a far stronger impact on the counterrealm. The spectre that forms is a consistent Nemesis, a self conscious demon, whose very nature it is, that the magic user casts magic through it, much like a warlock or witch casts magic through the demon they closed a pact with.   The longer this bond exists, and the more magic the caster casts, the more the mind of the magic user begins to resemble the mind of the Nemesis (or vice versa...), until one day the Nemesis passes through the veil and overtakes the magic user, creating an Abomination.   To counter this, multiple strategies have evolved. Most Human cultures demand that all magic users are educated in "the Towers", magic schools where the students learn to cast magic but also to deal with their Nemesis, usually destroying it as a last test at the end of their training and continuing to do so whenever it reforms. To enforce this is a task of the Sentryand the Inquisition.   Other, more primitive, magic schools, which sometimes refer to the Nemesis as a Totem, teach how to befriend a nemesis and pacify it through strict mental control, how to help it withstand the corrupting influence of the Counterrealm by becalming the mind of the magic user. These so called druids or shamans foster a sometimes lifelong friendship with their totem, but have to be ready to destroy it still, in case it falls victim to the wish to become real anyway. This is oftentimes more tragic, due to the friendship that arose, and also considerably harder, due to the involved powerlevel of the Nemesis at that point.   Elves, Gelf , Wolven and Orcs usually follow this approach, as do Ice Giants and some remote human tribes who are not part of civilized culture.  

The Counterrealm, Realm of Demons

  The Counterrealm, as the only way to reach Ardu, is the realm of demons. In fact, the very definiton of a demon is a being who haunts the counterrealm in an attempt to achieve reality on Ardu.   The origin of these demons can be diverse: Maybe they are the Nemesis Fiend of a Magic user on Ardu. Maybe they are Faeries, beings who come from further removed Fae realms, who represent outerworldly and sometimes even dangerous concepts, and who have succumbed to the promise of the counterrealm to achieve "reality". Maybe they have once been Mind Travelers whose body was possessed by such a demon, which prevented their return to their own body, leaving their mind stranded in the counterrealm until it regained corporeality here. They could have also been Fae Shifters, who missed their window to return and who have forgotten now who they were originally, but who crave to return to Ardu without understanding why and what this could entail.   All these demons wait in the counterrealm for a chance to become "real", either by hijacking the entrypoint of a mind traveler, by answering the summoning of those vile enough to conjure demons to the real world, or by striking deals with those men and women who venture here, be it through dreams or conscious travel. Deals in which they promise magical prowess for servitude as a conduit to their cause, but at whose end always stands madness followed by the possession of the warlock or witch who dares striking these "bargains".   Because of the presence of these demons, the counterrealm is a very very dangerous place, and those who venture here, be it through dreams, mind travel or Fae shift, are advised caution.  

The Fae Realms also called the Far Realms

  Where the presence of Ardu loses its grip and the ideas and concepts begin to dominate, there begin the Fae realms, also called the Far Realms. as , to reach them, a Fae traveller has to pass through the counterrealm first.   In order to do so, a Fae traveller has to find a spot inside the counterrealm, where the phyical reality on Ardu supports the ideas or concepts of a certain Fae realm so vividly, that a connection can form, a place within the counterrealm which is so strongly connected to the concept of a further removed Fae realm that it is possible to pass over. These places are called "Links" or "Gates". The vernacular also calls them "fairy gates" or "fairy circles". How to pass through these gates is oftentimes a mystery though, sometimes it suffices to just walk or fly past in a certain direction, sometimes more elaborate steps have to be taken, or a certain time of the day (or the year) has to come to pass before the link opens for the Fae traveler.

Contrary to the common superstition fairy gates or fairy circles cannot be found on Ardu proper, due to the presence of the Veil, which separates the real world from the counterrealm.   Because the Veil can be "thicker" and "thinner" in certain areas however, some mages have theorized that such a place could be theoretically exist, yet, because it would also be a place to which demons would flock so they could invade the world, and because no such "demon gate" is known, it is assumed that, thankfully, the veil is a continuous border with no "cracks" yet. Nevertheless legends exists of such places of course, especially in Culmeria where the people consider themselves close to the Fae worlds.   Provided these places DO exists however, they must be both remote and localized, aka not allow demons to penetrate Ardu any further than the respective local area. Some think that the innermost places of Black Holes could be such, but since by definition no one returns who ever ventures into these places, there is no way to prove that.

  To travel to other fae realms which lie past the counterrealm, the traveler must first find such a link, which is easier if he knows the area in the real world, or its history. This is because a link to a Wyld for example could be a place where in the real world a particularly dense forest is located, a link to a realm of war could be the place of a famous and terrible battle, and a link to a realm of fire could be an active volcano in the real world.   For such a place to present a link it also helps if the respective places in the real world have not seen a conscious soul in a long time, as this diminishes the grip reality has on the place in the counterrealm and allows for an easier formation of a link. Please note that there is not just one wyld or one realm of war, but that instead there could be countless. This holds for each of the Far Realms or greater concept really. Even the so called Faewyld, a realm easily reached from the counterrealm in "uncivilized" and wild areas of Ardu is, not a homogeneous whole, but instead a realm formed by multiple wylds and even other kinds of Far Realms that flow into each other.   This means that, on the other side of a link, there could be a plethora of instances of the same reality, by which groups of Fae travellers can get separated, if they are not careful while passing through the link.  

Traveling through the Worlds behind the Veil

 

Passing the Veil

  There are three options to pass through the Veil, and they are all, in their own ways, potentially dangerous.   Regardless, which one a would-be Fae traveller takes, if it was was conscious decision or not, they all come with certain dangers whose end result may however be the same: He may become trapped in the Fae Realms, doomed to "live" as a Fae Creature, a living thought inside the Fae, which will over time, inevitably be changed by the ocean of other thoughts, desires and opinions, until the traveller becomes a true citizen of the Fae Realms, a faebeing which barely remembers its former life and, oftentimes hungers to return. The three ways of how to travel the Beyond are: Dreams, Mind Journey and Fae Shifting.  

Mind Journey

 

...hence it might be human arrogance which hinders us to resolve this issue. What if we adapted the word from them? What if we are just not as good as they are in handling it? Our closest word to their meaning of the word "Fae" is "Dream". But elves and gelf do not dream as we do, do they? Or do they only "dream" when they deliberately pass through the veil? What if dreaming with elves or gelf is a deliberate choice? Journeys through the Veil to the counterrealm are dangerous, hence, they might do so only when they really want to, whereas we humans still occassionally stumble over, because we cannot control ourselves so well in our sleep.
We praise ourselves to be better adapted to the Fae, because we can sense it and bend it to our will better. But what if that means that they are actually better adapted to the Fae than we are? That they are protected better from it's influence?

— Excerpt from the forbidden issue of the “Monster Manual, Edition of Conscious Species”, stored in the vault of black books in the Church library in High Haven.

  The "easier" (but somewhat restricted) way to travel through the Veil is the so called mind journey, which goes by a lot of other names too. Arcansists and mages educated in the Towers refer to it as "Astral Projection", whereas elvish or gelf druids prefer a term that must be translated as "Dreaming". Wolven shamans and Gaeodes named it "Spirit journey" and for orcs and goblins it is the "Soulwandering". And those are just the most common names.   Regardless of the name, the technique remains the same. The prospective Fae-traveler meditates, and, once he reaches deep meditation and a state of lucid dreaming, he begins to separate his thoughts from his body by actively "forgetting" its earthly bonds. This however is easier said than done and takes years upon years of training to be performed consciously. For unknown reasons it seems to be easier for faeborn species like Elves, Gelf and Orcs, while Wolven and Humans need multiple years of training by another Fae traveler like a shaman or mage.   This allows the traveler to pass through the Veil and arrive in those part of the counterrealm, which corresponds to the place of his body in the real world.   Although it sounds arcane and even magic, this technique could theoretically be mastered by anyone, were it not so difficult and mentally taxing. For humans and wolven, who subconsciously tap into the Beyond by dreams sometimes, it takes several years to finally master it, is harder even than for faeborn species who seem to have a greater control about this and almost never venture into the Beyond in their dreams, except they wish to.   For any magic wielder as of a certain powerlevel however, it is a necessary requirement to learn, in order to be able to take care of the Nemesis Fiend, either in the rather ultimate and final way that the Sentry and the Inquisition propose, or in the druidic or shamanistic way that many Faeborn species seem to prefer.   The appearance of a mind travelers can be fundamentally different from what it was in the real world, hugely depending on the picture the traveler has of himself. A wolven-dominant Halfwolven for example could appear as an especially strong and big wolven, or as a small and frail one if his confidence is lacking. Another traveller could be much older or younger than his physical self, entirely depending on his self perception. Clothes could change as can weapons, except if they are Fae artifacts, where the Fae that was infused in them keeps them in their original shape, and, more important probably, available in the counterealm. A trait normal weapons, or other things, do not always share, especially if they are new.   The famous childrens story, "The emperors new clothes" for example tells about a king that wanted to impress the (self proclaimed) queen of the fairies, and ordered the creation of the best clothes his money could buy. Appearing on the other side of the veil, he was completely naked. Which wouldn't bother faeries, but it is a human story.   Just learning to mind travel is a dangerous path however. Mind travel leaves the body behind, and open for the possession by Fae creatures. To do this they just have to find the spot in the counterrealm where the traveler entered. Because the connection between the mind traveler and his body remains intact during mind travel, this spot represents a gate, through which a demonic fae creature can cross over, to possess the body and sever the remaining connection between body and travelling soul by simply waking up, finally taking claim over the new body while leaving the mind traveller stranded with no way home. The resulting conglomeration of mortal body and demonic spirit then create a plaguefiend abomination and up to this very day it is unclear why this happens.

Mind travelers have few options to defend against this. Just as a spirit in the real world is only partially "there", so are mind travelers in the Fae realm, at least as long as their connection to their body still persists. This limits their options to manipulate the environment. Just pushing someting over in the Fae realm takes mental effort, and hitting something hurts it more by intention rather than interaction.

Effective manipulation and defense thus can happen only through magical means... which means spells or fae imbued weapons. Therefore, if the Faetraveler is no mage himself, he better owns some magical artifacts which can pass through the Veil with him. This makes a mind travel for non spellcasters a very bad idea. People attempt it anyway.

For mages on the other hand, the ability to mind travel IS vitally important, as it allows them to face and banish their Nemesis fiend in the counterrealm, before it is too late, and they are taken over by it. Therefore, in order to prevent accidental mind travels which pose a danger in themselves, the respective meditation technique, although practiced in dry runs already long before the end of a mages training, is only properly taught as it's last step, just before he has to face his Nemesis Fiend for the first time.

If a non-spellcaster does not want risk being possessed by creatures from the counterrealm, but has to travel anyway, he could attempt to become part of a Fae shift, which comes with its own dangers. But it definitely needs an experienced mage to cast this ritual.  

Dreaming

  Reaching the Beyond through dreams is closely related to Mind Traveling, however where a mind journey is a consciously planned act, arriving in the Counterrealm through dreams happens involuntarily and usually in places where the Veil between real world and counterrealm is thin anyway. This is because the subconscious of a sleeper opens to the Fae. The involved dangers however are the same as they are with a conscious mind journey, which is why places with a thin Veil can be so dangerous. It is also something which only happens to Humans or, rarely even , wolven, who both have less control about their dreams than faeborn species.   One of the first thing a human mage learns, who are often educated in places which by their nature have a thin veil, is therefor to distinguish a "Fae dream" from a normal nightmare and to consciously wake up from it. This is also one of the first techniques of lucid dreaming which makes the conscious mind journey even possible.  

Fae Shift

 

The most important thing to remember when doing a Fae shift, is your own identity.

— Proverb written above a doorway arch in the Tower of Eridu

  A much more elaborate technique to go through the Veil is the Fae shift, sometimes also called planar shift by some mages. The only thing it requires is the complete dissolution of the physical form, and it's reconstruction as a Fae form in the counterrealm.   ... yup.... what could go wrong?....   Well... first of all, it requires a lot of mental energy to perform the ritual. Most spellcasters never even come close to the kind of prowess needed to pull it off. Even harder is the return path though, the recreation of oneself as a physical being on Ardu based on nothing more than what the Fae Shifter's memories of himself. And this is what makes this technique so dangerous.

As a "true" fae creature, the Fae Shifter (often only called Shifter) will be equipped with all weapons he had when shifting through the Veil, and for all purposes they are now reality in the counterrealm. But so is the Traveler, and hence not resistant anymore against anything that dwells in the counterrealm and beyond. On top of that the shifter also faces the constant corruption of his own form and mind, which he submitted himself to by coming here.

In contrast to the mind travel, shifting bears no risk that a demon might find a way into the travelers body, as the body does not exist anymore. The shifter however, and anyone who came with him, is in danger of becoming a demon himself. Without the "anchor" that his body represents, his self is threatened to be changed by the Fae, and so does his mind. The longer he remains in the Faerealms, in this form, the more his self perception and thus identity becomes corrupted by the conglomerate of thoughts, opinions, desires and wishes that are the fabric out of which the realms beyond the Veil are made.

Once this change reaches his mind, such that he cannot recall properly who he was before coming here, the way back is blocked. This is the reason why Fae Shifters, although they could do differently, watch out to keep the exact form they had in "reality" when they "shift", as a reminder who they really were. While not technically necessary, it definitely helps the fae shifter recall what he was before he came here. This effect does not only affect travelers from Ardu, but other Fae beings too. Any Fae being who passes through a link from another Fae realm slowly but inevitably loses the memory that it came from elsewhere, while its body and form adapts to the new reality, if necessary, until the fae being does not recall anymore that it came from somewhere else.

Contrary to the mind journey, the Fae shifter is truly physically present in the counterrealm, and can interact with it, just as he was able to interact with the real world. He can push things, fight things, even take things, although bringing them back through the veil by shifting again could change his identity slightly, such that it makes the attempt to return harder. And there is only one attempt. Many cautionary tales tell about greedy mages who stole from the court of the Sidhe Queen, only to become trapped in her realm by the very thing they stole.

If the traveler fails to remember correctly who they were, the Fae Shift to return from the counterrealm will not work, and he will become a proper, likely demonic, fae creature. Once this happens he or she can only be saved by powerful restorative magic.
 

Traveling through the Beyond

 

Traveling as a Mind traveler / Dreamer

Traveling as, sort of, a spectral entity through the counterrealm and the Fae realms has severe advantages in regard to travel speed. First of all, the mind traveler cannot become tired and he can exploit this by continuously traveling at top speed for indefinite time. As a being without proper substance in the Fae realms, he can also fly, which is what mind travelers usually decide to do in order to take a direct path.  

Traveling as a Fae Shifter

Fae shifters are bound to a physical reality. As "physical" representations of what they were in the real world, they can cover as much ground in the Fae world, as they would in the real world. They get tired and they have to make pauses. And if they couldn't fly in the real world,they can't fly here.   The counterrealm and the real world are "isometric", which means the physical distance that has to be traveled in the real world is exactly the same which has to be traveled in the counterrealm. No exceptions. What can differ is the terrain, if things are too new or unknown to the common consciousness to have it imprinted into the counterrealm yet, or if a certain change had a strong psychic and / or emotional impact in the real world. If the mud avalanche that blocked a path in the real world happened only yesterday for example, the way through the counterrealm might still be clear. This changes once enough people witnessed the new obstacle, or if enough people were appropriately terrified by the avalanche when it happened. On the other hand a blocked path might still remain in the counterrealm, while it has long been cleared in the real world, if not enough people bother to take it.  

Inhabitants of the Worlds behind the Veil

Faeries

The name which most cultures on Ardu, at least those who once were part of the Ring empire, have adapted for the beings beyond the Veil is Faerie (pronounced Fairy in Culmeria and parts of Aesgard).   A common, but understandable, misconception is the distinction between demons and faeries as entirely different entities. A faerie is any inhabitant of the Beyond. A demon is a faerie who strives to achieve reality on Ardu and which dwells inside the counterrealm.  

Faeries differ from mortals in so far that they cannot easily be killed, at least not in the Beyond, because they represent a concept, an idea. Sometimes this metaphor is easy to understand and even visible by their appearance, like with many elemental Faeries. Sometimes it is hard to understand like a faerie of Depression, as they can be found in the Swamps of Sadness for example, which come in the appearance of hurt and lost but otherwise mundane children

   

Faerie as a name for Elves and Gelf

Sometimes culmerians, aesgardians, caldavians and aquirans also use the term "faerie" (or "fairy") to refer to Elves and Gelf.   This is, because they believe that both descend from Fae creatures that once decided to come to Ardu, but who got stuck here after the creation of the Veil. This is a common belief among humans all around the Inner Sea, as it was the prevalent teaching of the Church about the origin of Elves and Gelf during the Ring empire, and one which is still propagated by the Church of the Creator and the The Faith of the Seven alike.   Be that as it may be, the tradition to call Elves and Gelf Faeries, hasn't found much resonance in other regions of the world, and has started to vanish even in those regions where it is still in use (except in Culmeria where it is the official term for elves and gelf in the culmerian language).   In Caldaven and Aquira for example, it has remained in use merely as a derogatory term for elves still, because the Norn, with whom both countries fought a terrible war as of late, take it as a slight. They believe that they were the original inhabitants of Ardu, while it were the humans who invaded, and that the humans try to use their religion to control them.

 

Demons

"But... if its our thoughts and wishes which create them, why don't we have power over them?"

"First off.. do you have power over what you wish for or desire...? You don't. Have you?. However that is not the real question is it?"

"... i mean... it kinda is... but how are we even sure it is our wishes who create them? Could it not also be the Fae which creates them through us... i mean.. if we do not know where wishes and thoughts come from?"

"Now that... that is the question!... This is why we steel our mind, and allow only those of us to meddle with the Fae, who have been trained rigorously and tested profusely. To make sure it forms to how we want it, and not to form according to how it wants us ourselves..."

— Discussion in the great temple of Bayestril, between Templar of the Sage-Aspect Tholeman Thuris and one of his students

Not technically living in the counterrealm, but rather lurking, are the Demons, which is the technical term for all Fae creatures who haunt the counterrealm, regardless from which Fae realm they originate. As representatives of human concepts, they are not all "evil" per se, but all hungering for a way to achieve substantiality on the other side of the veil. They want to pass through it and reform reality on Ardu in their image, such that they may persist here eternally by common consensus, regardless if this means that they have to become a so called plaguefiend.

This agenda alone makes them dangerous, as they often represent unbalanced concepts, which, taken out of context, can be very harmful (although don't have to be). Having gained conscience and identity they also have names, true ones, by which they can, allegedly, be summoned, but also common ones, by which they are known and refered too.   All of them however were lured into the counterrealm by the promise of "becoming real" if they just manage to do one of three things:
 

1. Hijack the body of a mind traveler through the entrypoint of his mind journey,
2. find a demonologist who will conjure them into the body of a poor victim, in exchange for "demonic services", or
3. become a patron to a conscious being on Ardu and forge pacts with these so called warlocks or witches, offering them power to make them further the demons concept. Over time this power slowly changes the mind and personality of these warlocks and makes them better accommodate the respective demon, until one day, when the warlock or witch calls upon his or her master, it passes through the veil and overtake their body, crushing the mind of their victim or casting it out into the counterrealm where it becomes another demon.

  For more Information in regard to Faeries and Demons, see