The Veil
The Veil is the edge of a reality or a plane, yet is not fixed, for it is everywhere and nowhere all at once. Doors, windows, arches all have some aspect of the Veil within them, and the veil is formed by the warp and weft of the plane it surrounds, protects, and preserves. The Veil is always associated with passages. The Veil is a Liminal Space,
The Veil is the Fabric of Reality, always able to be touched by those who know how, yet never seen until it is too late. To Cross The Veil is to step beyond what we can see and hear and feel and touch, and ever so few have that ability. The Veil is the fabric of the Planes, spun and shaped and woven (some say by the Triplets) – it is both what contains and protects the Planes from each other, and from themselves.
The Veil sits between and around all the Planes, keeping them distinct. Each of the seven planes is separated from the other by the Veils, and each of the layers within each of those planes is separated from the others by the Veils.
The Pale
The Pale is part and parcel of everything that Is, that Was, and that Will Be; it suffuses everything, invisibly for the most part, and it is what makes each of the Seven Planes unique, while also acting as a kind of buffer, occupying the limitless space between the Veils, the veils themselves, and is often confused with Magic among those who have not studied cosmology. It was released from wherever it came from into the planes and filled them all at the end of the God’s War.
Imagine a vast globe within which floats seven spheres all occupying the same place at the same time but vibrating just a bit off from each other, like different frequencies, and within each of those spheres there are dimensions that do that same, all of these things bumping and jostling and shifting and moving around within the larger sphere.
Now fill that larger sphere with a liquid that also flows around and through the different ones inside, acting like a lubricant, and that after one passes through any Veil, you must now cross the Pale itself to reach another Veil, before crossing it. That fluid, liquid, intangible stuff that lies between all the Veils, is the Pale; an energy field, present within all things, living or not, everywhere, in everything. It surrounds us, and penetrates us, it binds us, and flows between us. To go beyond the Pale is to cross outside of Mortal Realms, something few can grasp, what they can know, to translate into the ineffable, to move beyond the ken of mortal kinds. Magic comes from the interaction of the Pale with each of the Planes, and how they differ, and so magic is different, yet still the same.
It is a swirling, nebulous, cloudy expanse from which one travels to the other planes, or if The Pale so wills, finds things lost. Mortals are not meant to go Beyond the Pale, and The Pale will work at it, for The Pale is sentient. The Pale is the source of all magic, and all that it is contains and shapes The Pale – it is in, of, and about everything.
That magic, in turn, comes in five “flavors”, or natures, or kinds: Arcane, Eldritch, Mystical, Divine, and Primal. Each of these five kinds of magic influences the world in a slightly different way – they vibrate at different speeds, give off different frequencies, function somehow beyond our ken in different ways.
The Pale is a division boundary between the Veils of all the Planes and Dimensions. It flows and exists as a barrier between all of them and must be crossed to travel among the planes. It is a space in between, that must be crossed to find the places to pass through the Veils that separate the assorted planes.
The Pale is also among the places the Elementals reside in fabricated spaces that some powerful and potent Elemental Lord has created for themselves and their minions and servants and subjects.
The Pale is not a static, simple place. There are vast rivers and streams, there are pocket dimensions and Demiplanes, there are people of many sorts, and Denizens moving throughout, and it can be quite a busy place – though most of us will rarely see much beyond the consistent swirling effervescence.
