The Shatterdeep Expanse
Geography
The Shatterdeep Expanse stretches like a wound across the heart of Elaris, marking the scar where the ancient supercontinent of Myriath first fractured during the Great Sundering. This volatile region lies at the intersection of the five modern continents, Aetheron, Selendral, Umbrenor, Drakora, and Solaris, but belongs to none of them. From above, the Expanse resembles a vast spiral of stone and void, a jagged basin whose cracked terrain spirals toward a shifting central chasm.
At its center stands the Unweaving Spire, the only known structure to survive from Myriath’s age, looming motionless as reality warps around it. The surrounding land features collapsed mountains, hovering landmasses held in stasis, and rivers that reverse direction under the influence of deep temporal tides.
Ecosystem
Life in the Shatterdeep clings to the very fabric of instability. Biomes shift like moods, fluctuating between vibrant and barren within the same season. At the Expanse’s edges, hardy shrubs, spiral-rooted trees, and migrating wind-birds live in perpetual adaptation, but as one approaches the inner spiral, life becomes stranger, less biological, and more arcane in nature.
Ghost flora pulses in and out of phase with the material world, and creatures like the Shardlurks and Fracture Hounds roam freely, unaffected by time and space. Most of the ecosystem is caught in a perpetual state of flux, as if Elaris itself is undecided on what should live or die here.
Ecosystem Cycles
The Expanse defies traditional seasonal patterns. Instead of standard seasons, it undergoes Sundering Phases—four unpredictable periods known as Unraveling, Weaving, Restitching, and Threadbare. Each phase affects not only flora and fauna but also the very laws of nature.
During Unraveling, gravity weakens, and colors shift. In Weaving, terrain repairs itself and phantom flora blooms. Restitching brings violent storms of light and sound, while Threadbare leaves the land dry, flat, and echoingly still. These phases are not annual or predictable; they occur as a reaction to metaphysical imbalance across Elaris, particularly when outsiders linger too long.
Localized Phenomena
No place in Elaris produces more metaphysical instability than the Shatterdeep Expanse. It is home to:
- The Spiral Wake – a whirlpool of sky above the Spire, where constellations fracture and rearrange nightly.
- Mirror Haze – a phenomenon where one's reflection can separate and wander independently.
- Ancestral Eddies – moments where time loops or forgotten voices speak from thin air.
- The Silent Toll – an unplaceable ringing heard only when standing on the cracked earth, said to match the frequency of Myriath’s last heartbeat.
Climate
The Shatterdeep has no stable climate. Temperatures may swing from blistering heat to glacial cold within the span of an hour. Winds carry not just air but whispers, sometimes known to drive listeners into fits of sobbing, screaming, or sudden revelation. Rain falls upward during Weaving, and in Restitching, fogs descend so thick they can muffle sound and swallow light.
Lightning behaves more like serpents than streaks, and fire refuses to burn in the traditional sense, instead freezing or crawling depending on phase. The Expanse’s chaos is its climate.
Fauna & Flora
Only the hardiest or most unusual life survives here. Some include:
- Knotvine – a plant that rewrites its own genetic structure depending on magical interference.
- Flickerbulbs – mushrooms that appear during Unraveling and vanish in Restitching.
- Shardlurks – eyeless predators that drift across the ground like shadows.
- Loombeasts – semi-spectral creatures said to be failed experiments from the age of Myriath.
Natural Resources
Despite its dangers, the Expanse is rich in powerful and enigmatic materials. Among the rarest are:
- Sunderglass – a shimmering mineral created from the compression of raw magic and time.
- Threadiron – metal veins that vibrate when touched, used in powerful magical foci.
- Weavestone – unstable crystal nodes that mimic magical patterns when embedded into objects.
History
The Shatterdeep is the epicenter of the Great Sundering, the event that destroyed the supercontinent of Myriath and reshaped the world into its current form. Mythology and historical accounts agree: the first rip in the world formed here, centered at the Unweaving Spire. It is also believed to be the actual origin point of the Thalrani diaspora, whose homeland was swallowed in the fracturing.
In the centuries since, several expeditions have attempted to settle or reclaim parts of the Expanse. All have failed catastrophically. The most infamous of these was The Severance War, during which the attempted resettlement by a rogue Thalrani faction triggered a continental crisis and ultimately led to the creation of the Banishment Edict, which forbade all permanent presence in the Shatterdeep.
Tourism
Despite the danger and perhaps because of it, the Shatterdeep attracts the bold, the foolish, and the devout. Pilgrims often try to glimpse the Spire from afar, and thrill-seekers occasionally attempt unsanctioned expeditions into its outer rings.
All tourism is tightly regulated. The city of Virelin’s Step lies on the border, and its Council strictly prohibits entry into the Expanse beyond the Silver Causeway, except during the Festival of Threads, and even then, only for a symbolic crossing.
Many who go further do not return. Those who do often carry with them strange mutations, memories they never lived, or visions they cannot explain. Some are said to become Threaded, forever tied to the Shatterdeep in ways they cannot sever.
"The world split here, and waits to split again."
Type
Expanse
Comments