The Concord

The Concord

All beings live under The Concord, and all are victims to it's rules and bindings, but not all know, or notice, it. The Concord is the name given to the natural law of the universe which outlines the effects and consequences of beings traveling between planes. The Concord is not fully understood, not by anyone, or at least anyone known to anyone, but some creatures have a more well-rounded view and education about The Concord. Throughout the universe, most people only know that extraplanar travel is a dangerous thing, but they are woefully unaware of the possible consequences of their actions. In different parts of the universe The Concord is viewed differently, and it is largely dependent on the level of risk extraplanar travel holds for said plane, but most importantly to stories told, is of course the material plane. On the Material Plane, most people are unaware of The Concord, this is because it has been intentionally hidden away or covered up by the Prime Dieties, as they fear this knowledge would transform them from creatures without equal, into merely the newest royals of the universe.  

Background

According to the most well-versed on the subject of The Concord, it is an understanding between the leading figures of most planes, where it is agreed that travel between unstable planes should be prohibited. The reaon this accord was put in place is because of what is known as Total Planar Meltdowns. Total Planar Meltdowns are universe changing events that should preferebly never happen. The true scale of Total Planar Meltdowns are unknown to all except a select few divine or divine-like beings in this universe. What is known, is that it is what happens when a plane's fundamental structure begins to crack. The one and only Total Planar Meltdown known about by the divines, and their likes, is that of the fifth element. Though the divines, and their likes, keep this information hidden from all beings, and never dare speak of it, they are aware that there was once a fifth elemental plane. What element it held is impossible for them to know, as the elemental planes are not just places, they are also representative of their element. As such, it is said that when this fifth elemental plane experienced a Total Planar Meltdown, all instances of the element ceised to exist, leaving behind extreme desctruction in the foundation of reality. Since this Total Planar Meltdown happened long before the memory of nearly every existing being, it has been completely forgotten by all mortals, as well as nearly all those with immortal life. The current prime dieties have also decided to hunt down and destroy the few existing creatures with knowledge of this, with the exception of themselves of course.             What is known about the one known instance of Total Planar Meltdown is that it was caused because of excessive extraplanar travel to and from the plane over an extensive time period. Since this, the divine have made extensive attempts to uncover if this event could occur in other planes, and where it is likeliest to occur, as well as how different things effect the chances. A number of things have been found out because of this research:

• Certain planes are more voulnrable to the effects of extraplanar travel then others, among them the most notable being The Material Plane
• The creature who performs the extraplanar travelling, and it's level of competence or power determines the level of impact
• On planes more voulnrable side effects of extraplanar travel are clear and commonplace

  Because of these reasons, the divines have made many efforts to avoid extraplanar travel, especially on the voulnrable planes, and most especially on The Material Plane. If any of the prime dieties would ever visit in person, there would be extreme outrage, and most likely a civil war among the gods would erupt. This is how the Forsaken Ones came to be, after a bloody civil war among the divines of the world. It ended in victory for The Divine Sovereigns, as most other divine beings were slain. This conflict is known to the Divine Sovereigns as the "Divine Betrayal", but to those who reject the Sovereigns it is known as "The Hunt of Divinity". After this conflict most divines avoid extraplanar travel as it risks starting up the conflict once more, and none dare to come to The Material Plane, as that would surely cause an all out war once more. This all means that the divine can not activly prevent mortals from tampering with the planes, and they must instead have their followers or servents perform tasks, spread ideas, and generally just push their agenda. As such, all churches and temples following the Prime Dieties strictly forbid planar travel, most with different reasonings however. In societies where they hold more sway, it is also common to find the practice outlawed throughout all of the realm.   As for the side effects of extraplanar travel, they can vary wildly, but they are usually not clear from the start. They can be as simple as nature dying around the location of landing, or as devestating as the warping of a whole mountain. It is generally believed that more powerful creatures who travel the planes stand as the culprits for many natural disasters, especially when they choose to travel between the most unstable of the planes, the elemental ones. This has also caused summoning magic to be looked down upon in many places, though temples of the prime dieties usually have a more leniant policy towards them, as these effects are temporary, and believed to only portray an image of a thing from another plane, instead of truly bringing it there.   The mere existence of Planeshifters is also known to sometimes cause effects upon the plane it inhabits. The combination also matters deeply, as a creature born of two voulnrable planes is far more likely to cause widespread chaos by just being. They are, in some ways, like living natural disasters in some cases.