The Veil

In Avaleen the Veil is the colloquial term for the boundary woven by the deities to separate the different realms (Material, Faerie, Shade, Elemental, Nyxora, Astral and the Outer Planes) from each other. It is so entirely connected to Ayursha's Weave that the two are almost indistinguishable. Once strong and elegant, the Veil is now weathered, fraying at the seams like an old silk stretched too thin.   It is not a physical thing, yet those who are attuned to the realms can feel it like they can feel the wind. It's like a pressure, a hum or a dissonance in the air. It reacts like a living thing, keeping the unreal from entering the real and the realms from bleeding into each other. Only realmwalkers, Guardians and others with the Gift can sense it, interact with it. It connects the whole of Avaleen like the fascia in your human body.   The Portals were created as gates for the realmwalkers and Guardians to physically pass through. They are opened and closed by realmwalkers across Avaleen to allow trade and fast travel. But realmwalkers and Guardians in particular can also travel the Veil, and by extension the Weave, without passing through a Portal but by using an Orb as a tuning device. The technique of traveling this way is as much spiritual as it is arcane and it separates one's mind from one's body completely, much like astral projection.   It is a strict secret, but realmwalkers and rift hunters are finding that rips in the Veil no longer heal as they used to before the Second Sundering which saw Agartha and Japhaia torn from their realms, hurtling into the doomed Ghor Minthra in Avaleen. This caused massive tears in the Veil, which rippled and heaved. Since the Sundering the Veil is thinner in places where magic is most erratic. Some places are noisier as the sounds of the realms drift from one to the other.   Rifts were rare once upon a time, but now they appear far more often, bursting like blisters. Sometimes nothing happens, just strange magic and flora. Other times creatures spill through which leads to death and chaos. The Veil once protected the balance of the realms, but not it's more like a battlefield which lies quiet and unseen yet lethal. To travel between the realms is to risk everything, but for the Guardians--once they are chosen once more--it is a duty from the gods.   For if the Veil collapses entirely, all realms will merge and bleed into one and none will survive that fusion whole.