The Darkened Depths
The Darkened Depths are the remote, lightless abysses of the Elemental Plane of Water—a vast and ancient realm where pressure crushes, silence reigns, and sunlight has never reached. Far below the bright coral cities and shimmering currents of the upper waters, the plane descends into a chilling, eternal twilight, where alien forces dwell and even water itself feels heavy with secrecy.
The Darkened Depths are seen by most marids and other aquatic dwellers as a realm of superstition and taboo. It is rarely explored, and when it is, the return is not guaranteed. Yet some brave or desperate souls seek its secrets—lost relics of sunken empires, pearls that hold the memories of dead gods, or currents that lead to other planes entirely.
Scholars, adventurers, and outcasts who return speak of time feeling different there, of haunting dreams, of voices in the water that were not carried by sound but by pressure and thought. It is a place where reality bends—not dead, but dreaming, as though the plane itself waits for something to awaken.
The Darkened Depths are the eldritch heart of the Elemental Plane of Water—a realm of pressure, darkness, and the unknown. They embody the ocean’s oldest truths: that the deeper one goes, the more one finds not absence, but ancient, hidden presence. In the crushing silence of the deep, mysteries slumber, watching with sightless eyes—and those who disturb them must be ready to pay the price in sanity, soul, or silence.
Climate
In the Darkened Depths, the water grows colder, denser, and darker with every league descended. Visibility is almost nonexistent without magical aid, as bioluminescent creatures and structures are few and far between. The pressure is immense, powerful enough to pulverize unprotected flesh and crack ships or constructs not designed for the crushing deep.
The currents are slow and ponderous here, as if the plane itself resists movement. Strange mineral formations—subaqueous trenches, spire-like vents, and endless kelp forests of black, leathery fronds—define the alien terrain. The water is unnervingly still at times, broken only by the occasional groan of tectonic movement or the distant, echoing calls of things too massive to fully comprehend.
Fauna & Flora
The Darkened Depths are home to eldritch lifeforms and forgotten beings, including vast, ancient creatures that slumber in ruins older than mortal civilization. Abyssal leviathans, translucent predatory beasts, and semi-sapient jellyfish the size of towers drift silently through the gloom, feeding on anything smaller or slower than themselves.
Here dwell elemental horrors, creatures made not of vibrant seafoam but of silt, bone, and pressure, often hostile to surface-dwelling life. Entire communities of sentient beings—some marid offshoots, deepwater elementals, or strange extraplanar exiles—have adapted to life in the dark, developing forms and cultures unlike anything found in the upper layers.
Many whisper of slumbering gods or ancient powers, bound or forgotten, resting in the deepest trenches—some worshipped, some feared, and some ignored at peril. These beings may be primordial water spirits, drowned deities, or entities of alien mind and purpose, exerting strange influences on the minds of those who dwell too long in the dark.
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