Primary Inner Realms

PRIMARY Inner Realms

        The Primary and Secondary Inner Realms are reached throught he Near Umbra or the Spires, as per normal rules. The Primary Inner Realms are those that are commonly known, basic to the education of every world-walker. They are the Zones, the Elemental Towers, the Courts of Chaos, Order, and Entropy, the greatest and most obvious on the lower and middle reaches of the Astral Spires. Some of these Realms can be reached from the Primal Umbra as well as the Astral, such as the Triatic Realms and the Zones.
        The Secondary Inner Realms are those that are less widely-known, more specific to certain cultures or beliefs...the Nordic Worlds of the Aesir, the Faerie Kingdoms, the Seasonal Realms, Castle Doissetep in Cal-Ladeim...the Secondary Realms are here.
        The Outer Realms are ridiculously high on the Spires, being far more complex and abstract, and can be reached either at the heights of the Spires or sometimes from the Void. The Outer Realms are here.

S K I P T O : The TRIATIC REALMS (SHENTI) (Wyld / Flux / Radiance / Dynamism) (Weaver / Autochthonia / Nirvana / Pattern) (Wyrm / Malfeas / Entropy) The ZONES (Null) (Mirror) (Dream) (Virtual Reality/Qaf) The ELEMENTAL COURTS / TOWERS The ASTRAL COURTS (Western) (Eastern) (Egyptian) (Lodge of the Sky) YGGDRASIL THE ASTRAL RIVERS

The Triatic Realms

NIRVANA
also called Stasis and theWeaver, now dominated by Autochthonia

FLUX
Also called Dynamism, Wyld, Limbo, the Radiance (BoW p.65)

MALFEAS
also called the Chasm, Oblivion(?). linked to Sheol, the Lands of the Dead, Barathrum, (BoW p.56)

Zones

THE MIRROR ZONE
other realities, parallel dimensions

THE DREAM ZONE
The Dream Zone is a misnomer for a Border Umbra most mages don't understand. For the most part, only the shamans and a few others know that within "the Maya", as the magi call this Otherworld, there are many layers and locales. Not simply a Zone, the Dreaming has a Penumbra-like area near the earth, called The Dreaming; it has a deeper area reached by dream-paths, called the Maya, in which float the Dream-Realms, actual Realms made up of the dreams of humans and any other sentients on the earth; and finally there is the Deep Dreaming, where float the bizarre and often nightmarish Realms known as the Chimare, which are made up of Dream-Realms stitched together before they could expire by the Dream-Lords (Oneira).
The Dream-Lords, and the Chimarae, and the Dreaming in general, are ruled by a being known as Dream of the Eternal (Morpheus, Chimera) and the less-powerful beings known as Oneira (the Dream Lords). (BoW p.77-89; U:VS p.110-114; C:tD 2nd Ed.; Dreams & Nightmares,)

THE DREAMING

THE NULL ZONE
linked to almost everywhere... Oblivion / the Abyss and the Dead Lands, also to Midgard/Yggdrasil

The Elemental Towers
Also called the Watchtowers, the Enochian Sub-Aethyrs, the Elemental Courts. Alien realms filled with ideal and inhuman beings, extending into the outer Astral -- the High Spires, or Epiphamies.
(BoW p.32)

"It doesn't matter what you say to her, Tim. She won't understand you. She can't. There are alot of towers, but...it's hard to explain. Part of belonging to one is not being able to see the others. She can't even imagine there could be towers other than hers. That's why it's so mega-dangerous, hanging out with elementals...whatever they're about, they think that's what the world is about. That and nothing else."
-- Leah to Tim, from Books of Magic #31

THE BRIGHT: Tower of Suns

THE VAST: Tower of Wind THE DARK: Tower of Stone THE DEEP: Tower of the Moon

"In...to the Deep of the Tower...to the moon. The Deep will not take your words away from you. But it will not hear them either. Words. You are always words...with yourselves, with each other...you would rather drown in them than understand. Do not ask the Deep to show you 'Leah'. Your 'Leah' is a word...and words are nothing in the Deep. What is felt has power here...what is sensed, and what is known. Those who cannot feel and know must swim alone here...without Tide, and soon without Breath...."

-- The Keeper of the Tower of the Moon, Books of Magic #31

The Deep is the watery, Neptunian realm surrounding the Tower of the Moon. It is astrally very close to the Moon and to Shard Neptune. This realm is a vast, endless-seeming ocean, the only light pale and silvery, from an ever-phasing moon above that reflects in the many bubbles and wavers in the tides. The waters range in color from shades of deepest blues, to turquoises and aquas, to greens and even grays...the colors indicate what portion of the Deep you are entering.

"The Tower of the Moon gives strength to its Keepers. But no sustenance..."

The Moon tells the desire of your life. When you "know what you mean but can't say it", it is the Moon-self that knows it and the Sun-self that can't say it. The wordless ecstasy, the mute sorrow, the secret dream, the esoteric picture of yourself that you can't get across to the world, or that the world doesn't comprehend or value -- these are the products of the Moon. When you are misunderstood, it is your Moon nature, imperfectly expressed through Solar ways, that feels betrayed. Things you know without thought -- intuitions, hunches, instincts -- are the products of the Moon. Modes of expression that you feel truly reflect your deepest self belong to the Moon: art, letters, creative work of any kind; sometimes love, sometimes business. Whatever you feel is most deeply yourself is the product of the Moon.

THE ASTRAL COURTS (WESTERN)         Ruled by the Greco-Roman Pantheon, under the Celestine Jupiter (also known as Zeus, or the Daghda). Other Celestines include Apollo, the civilized and cultured sun-god and healer; Dionysus, the wild god of wine and revelry; Aphrodite, the goddess of love and lust; Aries, the god of war; Poseidon, moody god of the ocean; and Hades, dread lord of the Underworld. These Celestines take great interest also in the Realm known as Tarterus -- alternatively labeled a Hell, a Heaven, and a Faerie Realm -- where they claim to have, eons ago, imprisoned the monstrous Titans, including Zeus' father Cronos, and Cronos' father Ouranus (though Cronos may have imprisoned Ouranus even longer ago).
THE ASTRAL COURTS (EASTERN)         Populated with Chinese Celestines and Japanese heroes (Incarna) from the myths and legends of Asia
THE ASTRAL COURTS (EGYPTIAN)         Ruled by the Celestine Ra, god of the sun. There are also other Celestines such as Osiris, son of Ra and a lord of the Underworld, and Osiris' wife Isis, who was once a mortal sorceress; there is the jackal-headed god Anubis, who guides souls to Osiris' domain; the jealous Set (or Sutekh) who has long hated Osiris, and has fostered a brood of malevolent vampires and mummies to make war on the world of light; Horus the sky-god, the falcon-headed son of Osiris; Bast, the cat-headed goddess of sensuality and fertility...and many others. This is one of the most enigmatic of the Astral Courts. THE LODGE OF THE SKY

(Book of Madness pg.124)

Yggdrasil, the World Tree
Also called the Alder Bole, Tree of Life, Tree of Knowledge, Sacred Tree. Its roots reach into the Shadowlands and Niflheim, the frosty land of the dead, where they are gnawed by the Incarna-wyrm that is called Jormungandr, Niddhogg, and also Typhon; its branches stretch into the brightest of paradises and Astral Realms, it Sacred Fruit guarded by the great raptor known by many names, among them Phoenix, Falcon, Osiris, and the Protean Hawk. The Realm is surrounded by a vast "rainbow wall", from which four Astral Rivers (Oceanus, Alph, Xanadu, and Styx) flow out in the cardinal directions. Three powerful beings known as the Three Sisters (maid, mother, and crone) are always present at the base of the World Tree, as is Forethought (or Prometheus), a huge man crucified painfully and torn at periodically by the great bird from above. (BoW p.125, "Midrealm")
The mid-level, or ground-level of the Midrealm inwhich Yggdrasil stands is linked to Eden/Avalon, the Astral Rivers, the Digital Web and the fabled Batini Moutain Qaf, earth and the Shard Realms, and the Primal Umbra in general. Wormholes in the bark all over the tree lead to the Dreaming, and to Faerie, and to the Mirror Zone. The branches reach high into the Astral World and its planes, and are linked to the Wyld (also known as Flux and the Radiance), and to many of the Astral Heavens. The tunnels that lead underground and twine amid the roots are an aspect of the Null Zone, and are linked to the Shadowlands and Niflheim, and also to Shard Pluto and the Shade Realm of Entropy as one leaves Midrealm and nears the Void, which is also called Oblivion here.

The Great Astral Rivers

LETHE
River of Forgetfulness

PHLEGETHOS
Wyrm-infested nature; sometimes considered a Hell in itself. Populated by the Barbazu, or barbed devils. This oily, filthy river is often on fire, and there are often "earthquakes" that shake the very Astral and Umbral firmaments. The Demon Prince Belial claims to rule the rivers Phlegethos from his city Abriymoch in one of Hell's hollowed-out volcanoes.

STYX
The icy Dark Umbral river; runs from the Astral Hells, through the Umbra, into the Lands of the Dead. Ferrymen, creatures who resemble old men and women, conduct business on the river, and accept payment in many forms of coin. Once a bargain is struck, the ferryman takes his passengers to one destination. This river, like its twin Phlegethos, is often considered purely infernal in origin, to the point of it being a Hell of its own. Between Perdition and the Gates of the Shadow of Death in the Nine Pits of Sheol, where the fiery Phlegethos and the icy Styx pass near each other, there is a land of glaciers and ice, where stands the infernal castle Tantlin

PHISON
River of Honey, flows through Jerusalem in Zebhul, and through the orchards of Eden; joins the Euphrates on earth (Assiah, Heled)

GEON
River of Oil, flows through Jerusalem in Zebhul, and through the orchards of Eden; joins the Tigris on earth (Assiah, Heled)

OCEANUS
The Astral River, flows into the Endless Ocean in Shamayim, the 1st Heaven

ALPH

SACRED RIVER OF XANADU