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Back to the Wyldspan

The Thousand Thousand Worlds: The Territory of the Wyldspan

In the moment when Creation shatters, vast swathes of it were lost forever. Areas far from manses and demenses slipped through the cracks as Creation expanded, consumed by Chaos in the span of moments. However, this was not to last. As the newly-formed and very different geography of the Span developed, Gaia's souls stretched and changed, imbued with the power of Journeys. Slowly, their power increased, and they reclaimed land that had been destroyed and developed new species to populate it. Finally, they slipped into quiescence, ready for the new world that awaited.

The result is that the Wyldspan is made up of hundreds of thousands of tiny worlds. The smallest of these, those that drew power from a single tiny manse or demesne, are barely a mile across, dissolving into fragmentary chaos on all sides. In more heavily Essence-laden regions, multiple manses and demesnes linked together, especially once the souls of Gaia reached out for each other one again. The largest worlds of the Span, therefore, connect eighty to a hundred regions, with a total area measuring hundreds of miles to a side. One such example is the great Sea of Wavecrest, where over two hundred miles of ocean and a single central island make up the entire world. Such vast worlds are few, however - no more than four or five dozen of them, compared to the thousands of worlds who measure perhaps forty or fifty miles on a side and the hundreds of thousands of tiny ones that dot the storms of the Wyld. Popular belief states that there are exactly one million worlds in the Span, but if this is the case, no savant has ever proven it. The great catalogues of the Scarlet Imperium list 698,136 known worlds, but it is always accepted that these are far from the only ones that dot the Span.

The skies above these worlds each have their own stars, although Sol, Luna, and the Five Maidens shine equally over all of them. Many speculate that the stars of each world represent the locations of other worlds as they wheel through the skies, as well as the gods who watch over each world's affairs.

The Wyld

The Wyld surrounds each island of Creation, weakening as it approaches the deadly walls of Shape that border each world. Every island, regardless of size, is surrounded by anywhere from three to ten Waypoints, each of which leads into a single area. Even the greatest islands have only this many waypoints, and when two islands merge, waypoints between them fade away in order to leave the number accurate. An island with a single manse or demesne will usually only have three to five, while those having up to five such features will have five to eight, and those with more than five having eight to ten. Worlds always occupy a single Waypoint, regardless of their size and number of connections to the Wyld.

All Waypoints immediately bordering Creation are either Borderlands or Middlemarches, depending on the waves of chaos surrounding them. Most regions have to be quite large to have any Borderlands, being mostly Middlemarches. Any Waypoint that connects to a Borderland, and is not already a Borderland or Middlemarch, will be the Deep Wyld. All other Waypoints are part of the formless True Chaos. This means that Chaos has between one and two Waypoints between it and Creation at any given point.

As a side effect of this, the existance of a world can often be guessed by stumbling across an area of less powerful Wyld nature where only Chaos should exist. Exploration ships often use this strategy to uncover previously undiscovered worlds.

Distance is a fluid thing in the Wyld, however; the Borderlands and Middlemarches surrounding a world always stay the same, relationally, but the Deep Wyld's Waypoints have been known to twist, shift, or even vanish without warning, and in Pure Chaos expecting a route to remain the same can be a foolish endeavor. Without an external force such as a permanent Fair Folk residency, a Wyld Beacon, or a Dragon Line, there is no guarantee that a route will stay stable, and careful navigation is required to recognize where one is going.

Geography

The Span is mapped roughly with a three-dimensional map. It spreads most along the four 'traditional' axes - north, south, east, and west. In addition, worlds spread 'up' and 'down' from the centre of the Span, Mount Meru. Worlds often occupy roughly the same location that they did when Creation was whole, but many others have travelled into far-flung locations compared to where they once were.

The centre of the Span is the Scarlet Reach. Home to the greatest worlds of the Imperium, it remains the most densely populated region of space, as well as having the fewest of the Breeds present. The Scarlet Reach is also bordering the territories of the Mountain Folk, although they keep to themselves. The Threshold Worlds spread out from the Scarlet Reach to the west, south, and north. To the East lie the River worlds, which lie under the dominion of Emperor Markian and the New Realm. The River Worlds are home to dozens of breeds, as well as Markian's fanatical Dragon Kings.

The Wyld is extremely large because of this. The two farthest currently documented worlds have over 2,500 waypoints between them; the slowest wyldfarers can literally take a year or more to cross the Span.

The Dragon Lines

The Dragon Lines of Creation still exist, sliding unseen through the depths of the Wyld. Their passage creates ways to spread the power of Creation, linking worlds. However, they are hard to trace and harder to follow, especially in the depths of Chaos. Worse, many of them seem to fade into nothing as they pass beyond the bounds of the Span, making them dangerous to track.

Every world has a number of Dragon Lines passing from it equal to the Waypoints that border it. Each travels in a single path, never branching, until it either reaches another world or fades away entirely. Unfortunately, while most Dragon Lines reach other worlds, they can cover twenty, fifty, or a hundred Waypoints to do so, making journeys along them difficult or hazardous if they are not already mapped. Close to the Scarlet Reach, nearly every Dragon Line reaches another world. The further one travels, the less reliable they become.

People of the Span

In the modern age, humanity is spread across the stars. In total, there are over six billion humans spread across the Span, along with another five hundred million of the Breed, and a few million Mountain Folk, tens of thousands each of the Dragon Kings and the Ot. A given world's population can range anywhere from a few thousand people in a single population centre, up to over twenty-five million spread across a half-dozen cities and a score of smaller towns.

Numbers have spread the Dragon-Blooded thin, and they number one for every 25,000 mortals; in the Scarlet Reach, they retain the potency of their Breeding, but those of the Threshold Worlds continue to diffuse through the populace. Still, there are close to 250,000 Dragon-Blooded in the Span, enough to almost drown out the Celestial Exalted who once mastered them. Celestial Exalts are much more rare. Only 89 Sidereals still live; 11 Shards remain unaccounted for, although the Bureau is hopeful of finding them soon. Lunars have rediscovered over 270 of their 300 shards, and the renewal of several Abyssals and fall of the Infernals in the Threefold War has left close to 180 active Solars in the Span, with another 20 or 30 yet to be found. The Prince of Shadows has discovered only 50 of his lost Abyssals, and suspects that there are at least 25 still waiting, undiscovered, in Monstrances scattered across the worlds.