Novea

Created with Inkarnate

7 (before *Shadows of Vaask*)

6 (as of *Shadows of Vaask*)

**Novea** is an artificial plane created by Skirnon Ryu 500 years before the Mending. Life on Novea grows many times faster than typical in the Multiverse, resulting in the short lifetimes of the plane's humans, and the rapid growth of The Blight.

Novea is the setting of *Novea*, *Relidon*, and *Shadows of Vaask*, as well as being featured in *Conclusions*.

## Creation

When Skirnon discovered the plane, it appeared to be an endless void of a plane, with no land, no light, and no life. As a pre-Mending planeswalker, Skirnon had the power to right these apparent wrongs. He would find the plane was not quite a void, but full of potent mana allowing for the creation of Novea, its sun, and the avatars that would become the gods of the plane.

### Yrodu, "the Sky Lotus"

Skirnon was struck by both the 'incorrectness' of a lifeless plane and a desire to bring life to it. This conflict manifested as the avatar of the sun and Novea's white mana.

### Novea, "the Terra"

The world had been given light, but was still without a stable ground to call its own, where life could thrive, unlike the surface of his new sun. From this desire manifested the avatar of the land, and Novea's green mana.

### Rylei, "the Queen"

There was light and land, but Skirnon's creation was still without life. This attempt to create it resulted in Rylei, the Queen of the Merfolk and the avatar of the sea and Novea's red mana. Skirnon's creation proved unruly, and Rylei began striking back at her creator, flooding the lands of Novea farther than Skirnon's designs. Eventually, Skirnon would give up this fight and leave for Pguqium, leaving Rylei and the Terra fight each other for control of the landmass for years.

### Aerolius, "the Eyes"

Skirnon returned after many years, seeking to finally complete this project of his. In his absence, the avatars had learned to create life of their own, filling the seas with merfolk, the forests with elementals, and the plains with sun-worshipping nymphs. Skirnon's need to know everything about this world gave birth to Aerolius, the avatar of the air and Novea's blue mana. Her sylphs scattered across the plane, learning all they could. While Rylei and her subjects fought against the newcomers, they eventually retreated beneath the sea permanently.

### Mother Night

Filled with fear at his creations and their distrust of him, Skirnon attempted to destroy the plane with the same spells that had put it together. As he did, the avatar of fear took form and finally chased the planeswalker away from the plane for good. She would go on to create the Gorrans, a wilder facsimile of the planeswalker she had driven away.

## Races

### Sun nymphs

In the plains of Novea live the sundancers, nearly immortal nymphs of the sun avatar that frolic in the daylight and hide in terror during the night. Exposure to moonlight mutates the sun nymphs to appear more monstrous, and those twisted enough by the moonlight may be cast out entirely. This most often occurs in sunchasers, nymphs who attempt to follow the sun as it moves across the sky, and wind up far afield of their home.

### Sylphs

While no longer reporting to their planeswalker creator, the air spirits still surround the plane, keeping their eyes on everything.

### The Gorru

The Gorru are the short-lived humans of the plane, who only live for around 15-20 years due to Novea's growth causing them to mature much faster than most planes. Because of their quickened lifespans, the Gorru population grows quite quickly, and knowledge is easily lost between generations.

### Naiads

The merfolk of Novea, which largely keep to themselves at the bottom of the plane's ocean, but occasionally cause trouble through the rivers of the mainland.

### Dryads and the Elementals

In the forests of Novea, the line between flora and fauna blurs. The elementals are creatures that are hybrids of animal and plant or landscape, such as elk with tree antlers and walking bear-cliffs. Dryads help tend to these creatures and ensure they don't cause too much trouble on the rest of Novea.

### Monkeys

While not as big or strong as the other creatures of Novea, the monkeys are a clever and hardy race that live throughout Novea's forests and swamps. In some respects they seem even smarter than the humans of the plane, even though their society is even less developed, choosing to live a more carefree and wild life.

## Locations

* The **Eradai**, the large plain between the mountains of the far north and the forested areas of the south. Primarily the home of the sun nymphs.
* **Mosecf**, the Sunseeker's Path, a worn path leading from the Eradai into the south of Novea, taken by many sunchasers.
* The **Cradle of Corruption**, a large swamp at the center of Novea, the domain of Mother Night, and the primary home of the Gorru.
* **Ralora**, an underwater city of the naiad queen, known only to the merfolk.
* The **Tangleveil**, the furthest reaches of Novea that turn more into a jungle, and the stomping ground of the Terra.

## Daybreak

After Skirnon vanished around 400 pre-Mending, the avatars of Novea experienced a dramatic loss of power and reach. With fear being inspired in even the greatest powers on the plane, Mother Night's power grew unchecked. She spread her corruption across the plane, changing the planes creatures, such as the sun nymphs being twisted into mortal harpies and the sylphs given nightmarish physical forms.

Escyf, a disgraced sunchaser, begins assembling allies to strike back against Mother Night. With the assistance of Ka Soma, another sundancer, the two travel across Novea to gain the knowledge and favor of Rylei, Aerolius, and Terra Novea. Together, they helped forge the world's first sword, replicated from the memories of dealing with Skirnon.

In the final fight against Mother Night, Ka Soma was cast into the Cradle of Corruption and left for dead. Escyf calls for the sun avatar to give her the final blessing as she strikes down Mother Night. The sword is filled with the power of the sun as it pierces her, killing both Mother Night and the redeemed Escyf.

Without Mother Night to hold them back any more, the Gorru begin growing out of control, quickly overtaking the plane and driving the nymphs and monkeys into hiding. With nothing left to fight against, and running out of room, the Gorru begin lashing out at each other, breaking into factions that begin a war that will last for centuries.

## Relidon and the Ageless War

Over the next 400 years, the Gorrans splintered into five main factions vying for control of "Relidon," the heart of Novea where civilization will be rebuilt as soon as everyone stops trying to kill themselves over it:

* The Anoran Order, living in the city of Ankor, carved into the mountains to the north,
* The Seyon Mystics, a network of spies working across the plane,
* The Gorrian Warlords, brutal warriors living in the Cradle of Corruption, living not much differently from the Gorrans of the past,
* The Felari Champions, guerilla fighters striking at random with no apparent long term goals,
* The Peridan Outcasts, people from all walks of life attempting to avoid the war by making it for themselves in Novea's forest.

In 55 PM, the pregnant planeswalker Akasha Akari finds herself on Novea after the apparent death of Marcus Felding. She quickly rises though the ranks of the Anoran Order due to her experience and relative longevity as a non-native; at only 21 years old she's still lived nearly twice as many years as everyone she's working with. After a few months, she gives birth to her daughter Arianna. No longer able to leave the plane at a moment's notice, Akasha doubles down on finding a way to end the war for her daughter's safety.

Akasha began funding the Krell Project, and orchestrated many quests across Novea in an attempt to unearth ancient relics, uncovering, among other things, Sun's Bane, the sword used to slay Mother Night, and the Blight, still contained from its creation at the end of *Novea*. Akasha became infected with the Blight, and in 59 PM, after spending a year failing to cure it, fled Novea, leaving Arianna, effectively 20 years old now due to Novea's accelerated growth, to take her place in the Order.

Arianna found herself overwhelmed, not knowing how to proceed any more than any of those before her. When the angel Xaro Tarax arrived on the plane and started uniting the other factions under his banner of warfare, she did nothing. Orria Mirrorpelt did her best to intervene on the warrior's progress, but could do little more than slow him down as his army marched for Ankor, the last bastion Xaro had not taken.

During the final siege on Ankor, the sun avatar returned to the world, and attempted to burn away all of Mother Night's children that had turned the world into this endless war. Orria, with the assistance of Saia Evigal and Marcus Felding, two planeswalkers that had been searching for Akasha, ensured that Xaro was given Sun's Bane. The angel, refusing to lose this war to anyone, killed the avatar with its own sword, as had happened to Mother Night so many years ago. Xaro, having won the war in his eyes, left Novea and began searching for Orria, who had fled while the angel faced the avatar.

Arianna capitalized on this apparent end of the war, proposing a peace, and the construction of a new city at the heart of Novea, a nearly abandoned hope of her mother's. The Krell Project was brought to light, and the constructs were set to work not for the warfare they had been designed for, but construction and policing for this new city.

## The City of Vaask

As all things on Novea, this new city of Vaask grew at an impossible rate, quickened further by the factions now working in unity. In 25 years, what had been a war-ravaged landscape now boasted towers and developments into fusion reactors. The city sprawled out further and higher with every passing year, encroaching on the edges of the Eradai desert and Peridan forest as more of the plane was cleared to make way for Vaask.

But the progress of Vaask could not last forever. While the city grew, a small group plotted its downfall. In 85 PM they made their move, deploying a virus that reactivated the Krell's wartime programming. The robots that had acted as construction and peacekeepers would very suddenly snap into violence across the city, treating civilians as enemy combatants. Within days, the majority of Vaask's population would fall victim to either the robots, damage that they inflicted on the city, or the hands of other desperate citizens trying to survive themselves. The survivors scattered into the Eradai and Peridan, where the Krell would not follow.

But even escaping the city would not prove safe. In the chaos, the containment system Arianna had established for The Blight was finally breached, unleashing the parasite upon the world as Mother Night had attempted nearly 500 years prior. The bulk of the zombie-like Blighted would remain near the city's limits, but the illness would regularly find its way to the settlements outside the city and wreak havoc.

In 91 PM, Arc Atencio would investigate the plane during Shadows of Vaask, finding the scattered remnants of society trying to cling to their various forms of life. Survivors scour the Eradai, searching for the lost city of Ankor, hoping it will lead them to the legendary Akasha or Xaro who had saved them in the past. Some known as Edgewalkers brave re-entering Vaask, using their wits and strength to avoid the still patrolling Krell and the Blighted while scavenging the abandoned city. Automated machinery in the city still runs, endlessly producing poisonous gasses and refined aether in a mutagenic, glowing cloud known as Radiance which spills over Vaask and into the Peridan forest. Life that does not flee from the Radiance becomes irrevocably warped by the exposure.

Eos Akari, a descendant of Akasha and Arianna Akari, is one such Edgewalker, investigating the city in a desperate hope to find some way to cure the disease, or find any path to immunity for the illness that seems to have a mind of its own. He is eventually joined by Trea Anir, who has found her way back home to Novea without realizing it, and begins to form the first viable counter-force for fighting the other Krell. The Eradai survivors finally find their hope, unearthing a spell to summon Akasha back to the plane, and cast it.

But returning to Novea causes Akasha's infection to advance to the final stage, and the now fully Blighted Akasha begins to attack the very people that had hoped she'd save them. Worse, the spell had not only caught Akasha's attention, but that of Yjehuar from Xazerial and Xaro Tarax. Yjehuar would arrive first, hanging high in the plane's sky and appearing harmless, while in actuality it was beginning to feed on the plane's excess of mana. Given enough time, Yjehuar would strip this plane of energy, and use it to move to less defenseless planes.

When Xaro finally returned to Novea, it would prove too little, too late. While the angel thrived in warfare, he found he could not fight a parasite with swords. The Blight quickly overtook Xaro, with the hivemind's focus taking over the body rather than letting it die. The Multiverse now at its fingertips, the Blight now planeswalked to Ophorio, believing the mirrored nature of the plane would allow it to spread twice as fast.

Terrified with this development, Arc deployed a temporary enchantment to ensure none of the other horrors of Vaask would be able to do the same, at least for a short time. She returned to Laptew before the spell locked into place, and destroyed the planar portal linking Laptew and Novea, leaving Novea to fend for itself as she used her few precious days to muster a resistance force for the escaped Blight and soon-to-be escaping Yjehuar and blighted Akasha.

## Recovery

Yjehuar would leave the plane soon after this, confronting Arc and her team in Commander: Legends of Laptew. With the focus of the Blight's hivemind now off plane, the disease became much less virulent on Novea. While the plane's situation is still dire, it has been given enough room to breathe that recovery may be possible, with Eos Akari working on ways to reclaim the city and Yuno Moonchaser reaching out for the interplanar help that had previously been denied.

## Notable people

### Natives

* Orria Mirrorpelt
* Trea Anir
* The Blight
* Yuno Moonchaser
* Holly

### Others

* Skirnon Ryu
* Akasha Akari