Ninefold System

The Ninefold System of Ealdremen is layered upon itself, stratified with planets in different demiplanes of existence, sometimes occupying the same location in space yet never seeing each other; in normal circumstances, it is impossible for these planes to be crossed, except by passing through specific gate points located in the most hidden and esoteric of places that change and shift throughout the passage of time. Each "fold" within the Ninefold System is more dangerous than the last, for it is said that the namesake Ninefold was implemented by unknowable powers to seal away Ealdremen's greatest dangers to mortalkind. By making the folds treacherous, Ealdremen would be protected, its enemies set against one another in a narrow space between dimensions, and kept in such a far and twisted prison that mortals would rarely, if ever, see what was sealed away.
Virtually all of the Ninefold System's inhabitants dwell within the first and mortal fold of existence, which is uniquely infused with divination-charged Chrono; it is common for the Ninefold System's people to have odd premonitions in their dreams or even as a disruption to their day-to-day lives that demands an answer. Such premonitions can be all-consuming if not solved, haunting waking moments. As such, the Ninefold System produces scholars in untold amounts, many of them desperate to seek answers to the Ninefold System's mysteries in other solar systems throughout Ealdremen through distant observation, but it also produces a great many wayward travelers that take on the burden of others' questions and premonitions to solve them. These travelers, sometimes called the riddlebound, find themselves passing through the Ninefold System's planes of existence in pursuit of the unknowable, their most powerfully curious hoping to perhaps someday find the truth of the ninth and final fold that no one has ever seen.
Category:Ealdremen
Category:Ninefold System