The Elder

As a plane (of some sorts), The Elder is bound in size only by the limits of conception. However, as a living being, it does have more finite limits- The Elder isn't limited in size by the conception and exploration of external forces, but rather by its own semi-conscious conception of its size. The Elder itself, as an entity, runs through the soil of its plane as well as tunneling extradimensionally into every being native to the plane. Its enormous size accommodates many various biomes and spaces, not to mention the spaces of its own nature that it projects to other planes. Any natural biome found on Korthos can be found on The Elder, often pushed to supernatural (or unnatural) extremes, as well as strange combinations of Korthos' biomes. In addition, the placement of parts of The Elder's surface is constantly changing, pieces of territory shifting and rearranging, making travel difficult and mapping nigh-impossible. Above, stars and moons and suns constantly change in number or even presence at all, and though the Elder does have day/night times cycling like normal, the time of day versus night changes radically and seemingly randomly.

The geography on the surface of The Elder is a child's recreation of Korthos' geography. Forests are pushed impossibly cramped with trees that tower infinitely high and green, mountains touch the sky and form impenetrable walls, and oceans are deeper than conceivable all filled with sunny pockets of life. The Elder lives in extremes. However, these extremes are rarely safe- to travelers or natives of the living plane. Pockets of safety exist- places where conditions are not so extreme that they threaten life- usually on the sharp borders of various sprawling biomes. Within the most extreme of the plane's "geography", only the most powerful and dangerous beings can survive, making these places even more inhospitable than just their conditions suggest. Stranger biomes exist on the surface of The Elder as well. Lightless fields of flowers studded with poplar trees and geothermal vents, fish-like creatures swimming through the air, or mountain peaks that are blisteringly hot and damp jungles with low oxygen in the air but oppressive humidity. The Elder's geography is experimental, a result of its nascent consciousness testing the limits of reality.

As a place of illogically rich wilderness, The Elder also has an illogically rich biosphere. However, this is in part due to its status as a bio-generative force. In The Elder, life can truly form from nothing. As its essence permeates all matter within it, layers of damp hay can spontaneously generate mice, or more often, fey like gremlins and brownies. Wherever The Elder understands life to belong, it will create it. In addition to the various types and communities of fey that inhabit it, The Elder is home to many of the same types of magical beasts found in material Korthos, but 'non-magical' animals in The Elder are often changed and warped (in size, color, shape, etc.). The particularly enormous animals refered to as "dire animals" on Korthos generally hail originally from The Elder, owing their strange size to the plane's strange powers.  

The Fey

One cannot talk about the fey without talking about The Elder. The fey are beings created from the planar biomass of The Elder, and each bears a shard of its planar essence in their bodies. Fey are created to mimic various animals or people, formed as the embodiments of concepts that The Elder detects on other planes. Although each fey creature is a sovereign being with free will, they also are all functionally organs of The Elder- they exist at least in part to propagate it. All fey have ways to spread the influence of The Elder that makes up their 'spirit', be it by making fairy deals with mortals on Korthos or acting in accordance to their profiles to spread their influence. Those directly influenced by the fey in turn are parasitized by a shred of The Elder- only rarely will this influence a living being, but upon death a "host"'s site of death may come to be surrounded by fungal growth, fairy rings of mushrooms, flowers, or some other inflorescence of static life. These tiny blossomings of life slowly draw energy from The Elder to the Material plane, propagating The Elder's life force fractionally on Korthos. Most fey are aware of this, but rarely do they actively seek to spread The Elder's influence- they care more about their own freedoms and personal agendas. Regardless, in a place highly touched by the fey, strange growths from The Elder will appear, and the region will slowly grow to resemble The Elder over generations and generations.