Traits

Travel to the Plane

Getting to this plane is much like any other plane and simply requires finding an appropriate portal to get you here or be glorified warrior and in death, you will travel here as a petitioner. Portals link this plane to Sigil, the Astral Plane, Arborea, and Limbo; they take on the form of a well and require someone to climb in and out of them to use them. Many of the wells are marked with runes to signify where they will take you, though a few of them will deposit you into a random spot in Arborea or Limbo.

Yggdrasil, the World Ash

The other way of arriving on this plane is by climbing the great tree known as Yggdrasil. This tree rises on the first layer of Ysgard and it’s branches and roots touch many of the other Outer Planes as well as touching the Material Planes that worship the Norse pantheon. These twisting branches and roots can be climbed from one plane to the next, taking you from the roots, which are touching the Grey Wastes and Pandemonium, and rising up to the Upper Planes where the branches stretch out into Elysium, the Beastlands, Limbo, and Ysgard.

At each branching path on the tree, a climber can see a shimmering portal of light that will take them to another plane, the only way to know which plane is by stepping into it. Most of these portals are two-way and to return to climbing Yggrasil from whatever plane you stepped on to, you simply need to climb back up the tree you entered the plane on. Climbing up Yggdrasil is exhausting and if you were to climb from the very bottom of the roots to the top of its branches, most say it will take 100 days. No one has been able to accomplish that as great birds, dragons, and other creatures make their home on the World Ash. And if the inhabitants don’t eat you, you’ll likely fall off the tree while climbing up and pass through a random portal to one of the Lower Planes.

Traversing the Plane

Walking across the plane is just as easy as walking across the Material Plane, though certain levels are more dangerous to do so. The first layer, Ysgard, is the most hospitable and welcoming of the layers, and a traveler can easily walk through the thick forests. Smoking battlefields and great fortified cities inhabitant much of the first layer, along with soaring mountains and deep fjords. The second layer is on fire and made up of twisting and sharp volcanic rock, any who arrive on this plane must contend with catching on fire and finding water and food. The third layer is made up of dark tunnels with plenty of food and water available, though the inhabitants dislike visitors.

To travel from one layer to the next can be as simple as falling from one floating earthberg. Muspelheim exists far below the top layer, and many who are shaken off of an earthberg plummet to their death down. If you fall off of Muspelheim into the endless caverns, you can easily end up Nidavellir. Another option is to climb the Infinite Staircase as it has landings at each layer of the plane or find a well-portal, similar to the ones that take you in and out of this plane, that will take you to the other layers.

Rivers of Earthbergs

Every layer is made up of massive rivers of floating earthbergs. These earthbergs range in size from small boulders to massive continent-sized masses. The top two layers rarely have very many collisions, and when they do mountains soar into the sky where they impact each other, fjords are carved across the land and the waterways experience tidal waves from the shockwave. Any creature on either earthberg can feel this impact and are thrown off their feet, luckily the wooden structures are built to withstand such impacts and very few people die during these impacts.

The bottom layer is made up almost entirely of earthbergs crashing and grinding into each other, which is where all the tunnels are formed and why the layer feels and looks as if it is underground. In reality, it is so densely packed with floating earthbergs, that is blocks all light and there is no view of the sky. The rining of the constant collisions on this layer echo across the entire plane, allowing the creatures on the first layer to hear just as well as those on the third layer.

Locations

Ysgard