The First World

The First World is often described as the original creation of the gods or cosmic forces, a boundless realm of raw potential where the foundations of existence were first tested. It was said to be fluid and unbounded, not yet defined by the rigid laws that govern the Material Plane. Time, space, and form were mutable. Mountains could wander. Trees could sing. The boundary between thought and reality was thin.

Many traditions claim that the gods created and destroyed countless versions of the First World, experimenting with life, death, and magic before settling on the balanced structure of the current multiverse. The Material Plane was forged from the First World’s ashes—or shaped as a more stable mirror of it—while the Feywild and Shadowfell are thought to be reflections or echoes of its extremes: vibrant life and haunted decay.

The First World is often associated with the primordial fey, the archfey, and the first dragons. Many of these beings, especially in the oldest myths, are said to have been born in the First World, where the barriers between dreams and substance were nonexistent. Their incredible power stems from having been formed in a time before the division of planes, when raw creation still surged untempered.

Magic in the First World was instinctual and vast, a natural force woven into the environment. Sorcery—especially wild magic and fey-blooded spells—is often said to trace its origin to this realm, making the First World a sacred mystery for some arcane scholars and fey-worshiping druids.

Some believe the First World was destroyed, others that it was locked away, or that it evolved into the planes we know today. Still, its ruins may linger—in forgotten corners of the Feywild, in the dreams of slumbering gods, or in ancient mythic locations where reality is thin and primal forces still whisper.

These places might include:

• The Cradle Gardens — dreamlike groves where evolution runs wild.
• Echoing Reaches — distant borderlands of the Feywild where reality bends as it once did in the First World.
• The Old Roots — tunnels under creation, where echoes of the First World still pulse with raw, unfiltered life.

To some theologians and cosmologists, the First World is not truly gone. It is remembered not in books, but in instincts, in dreams, in the wildness of magic and the unpredictability of nature. It is the memory of creation—eternally yearning, perhaps, to return.

In this view, the First World is less a place than a truth:
A reminder that the multiverse was once free, fluid, and filled with wonder.