Planar Travel

Planar Travel involves the piercing of a plane's boundary, usually by magical means. Planar travel is often categorized as one of two types. Intraplanar Travel and Interplanar Travel.
=== Intraplanar Travel ===
Intraplanar Travel, usually simply called “Teleportation” involves the breaching of the local plane's boundary but to stay proximate to the home plane. Naturally, this is much safer than interplanar travel. Both because less time is spent in the interplanar medium but also because the regions near planes, particularly the material ones, tend to be less chaotic and dangerous.
Despite this it still involves some risk and teleportation magic is considered much more complex than most other types of magic. A caster must careful craft their incantation to be powerful enough to breach the plane's boundary while being able to exercise enough control over the magic to steer it during the turbulent tumble through interplanar medium.
Longer journeys involve longer stays in the interplanar medum and greater room for error. Thus, while short range teleportation is relatively accessible even to relatively amateur mages, long distance teleportation often requires highly skilled individuals or infrastructure.
Teleportation Circles or other magic contraptions like it, create a window and anchor, making intraplanar travel much easier and safer. They require constant upkeep, both in energy and repairs and thus usually reserved for the influential or wealthy. While generally safe, overuse or overly powerful teleportation circles can sometimes act as beacons for the lost monsters that may lurk in the interplanar medium.
=== Interplanar Travel ===
Interplanar Travel involves the breaching of the local plane's boundary and long travel through the interplanar medium to eventually arrive at a target plane. Interplanar travel is far more difficult and dangerous than intraplanar travel. The inherent chaotic, high-dimensional and non-linear nature of the interplanar medium makes it easy to get disoriented or thrown off course. The presence of the Stormrift only enhances this danger, and interplanar travel, even for the skilled, is almost certain suicide without the help of powerful Planar Waystones.
The biggest initial challenge for interplanar travel is that the traveller must have some familiarity with the target plane to ensure safe arrival. Experience that is difficult to get without already being able to go on interplanar travel. Due to this, planar travellers usually entertain a master-apprentice system, almost always travelling in a pair or a group, both for safety and to help aspiring travellers gather experience.
While the idea to extend teleportation circles for interplanar travel was raised several times by several societies, in modern times the sheer complexity and energy requirement for such arcane wonders is beyond that what most societies can provide. Though there are rumours that some of these so-called planar circles were constructed during the golden age of interplanar travel, no such site is currently public knowledge.
== History ==
The history of planar travel can be grouped into three ages: The pre-stormfall Early Age and Golden Age and the post-stormfall Ruined Age.
=== The Early Age ===
The early age consisted of the first tentative steps towards planar travel. Powerful mages began to probe the boundaries of the planes. Usually, such experiments were viewed with fear by the less curious. Lacking the theoretical tools and concepts developed during the golden age, each small teleportation was a bespoke large ritual involving expensive reagents and a lot of preparatory work. Though very few ever achieved planar travel, the discoveries, and theories developed in the early age created the foundation on which the golden age would later rely on.
=== The Golden Age ===
The beginning of the golden age was marked by a change in the perception of planar magic. It went from being viewed with fear and suspicion to becoming a source of wonder, trade, and discovery for the societies who had the knowhow to enjoy its fruits. Planar magics went from being suppressed or outlawed to being encouraged and funded and the rate of both intra- and interplanar travel rose exponentially.
Though relatively little population exchange took place during the golden age, massive trade conglomerates such as the R.R.P.P.W, made unimaginable profits transporting and trading rare materials, items, or information from one plane to another. These conglomerates and the governments and societies at the time invested heavily into the construction of teleportation circles and, if the rumours are to be believed, some planar circles too.
=== The Ruined Age ===
With the appearance of the Stormrift, interplanar travel became incredibly difficult and dangerous. Almost overnight, the complex network of interplanar trade collapsed into nothingness and even today the rate of travel through the interplanar medium is closer to that of the early age than that of the golden age.
Most of the planar conglomerates collapsed or went bankrupt as most of their traders, and arguably more importantly their cargo, were lost during tranist. Some managed to survive and either reformatted into more traditional trading companies or became highly skilled experts transporting highly valuable goods and people. Crucial to their survival are the Planar Waystones. Items found or created during the golden age that allows their users to more easily navigate the interplanar medium.