Bycatch from Beyond: Manifestations in the Material Plane

Bycatch from Beyond: Manifestations in the Material Plane is a book uncovered through use of Study-related Inquiries.

## History

During the academic endeavours of the vedalken Andrius before relocating to the newly-founded settlement of Amber Run, the artificer spent numerous hours engaging in research across a wide range of fields. Amongst these, concepts of coterminous and remote planes and their effects on the Material Plane upon which Ahlus would command his focus for a time.

## Research

### Completed by Andrius

As any fisherman will tell you, sometimes when you cast out a net, you may draw in something you do not expect to find. Fortune hunters might hope for treasures lost to the murky depths, whereas in reality a juvenile pike may present itself in place of a carp, a crab pot might instead yield bottom-dwelling flatfish. Seabirds may dive to feast upon a catch caught within a net, and find themselves trapped too, as may turtles, cetaceans, young sharks and the like. Naturally, the wider and larger the net or pot, the greater this risk, as are those with more significant bait. From something truly mundane, it would seem that similar truths may exist when considering something amongst the truly fantastical - that is, travelling between the Planes of Existence. The vastness of the Cobalt Sea, the Allreach, the Brumal Depths can be understated, but on a cosmic scale they are insignificant, and thus, the likelihood of catching a Shimmershark in a Lemon Whelk pot is still far higher than an act of Cosmogonal Dredging, and yet the latter is not unheard of. It should be noted that these instances are distinct from the occurrence of Coterminous and Confluent Manifestations, which while may seem outwardly similar in scope, result from wildly different circumstances.

The Outer Planes, known more commonly as the Wandering Worlds, exist in a perpetual state of movement and flux, shifting between a pair of states, as defined by the Material Plane itself. The majority of time, the Planes remain in a Remote state, far divorced from a place of influence with Ahlus, and as such have little bearing on its comings and goings. By contrast, the Wandering Worlds sometimes approach the Material Plane, separated from and protected by the presence of the Elemental Sphere, but sufficiently close enough to result in the influence of the Plane to be felt superficially. In this state, the Plane is referred to as Coterminous, and its influence is referred to as a Manifestation. These Coterminous Manifestations are transient, lasting between a matter of seconds and years, frightfully challenging to predict but frequently significant nonetheless, particularly to those that manage to align their goals to their occurrence. Similar in effect but different in source are Confluent Manifestations that are thought to result from repeated usage of bridging conjuration magics, such as the *Gate* spell, which artificially binds the two locations for a time, before eventually fading. With a Manifestation of Arborea, forests may grow particularly wild, animals particularly strong and large, while Celestia might grant springs and ponds with curative powers temporarily. By contrast, it is frequently cited by scholars that the frequent wars between Codorne and Kingbourne that re-erupted near generationally - if not more frequently, were - at least in some instances - likely spurred further by a Coterminous Manifestation of Acheron, the Infinite Battlefield, and the series of earthquakes in 193AG known as the Shattering Six was most likely the same, but that of the Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo.

By contrast, Cosmogonal Dredging instead may, and I stress once more, very rarely occur when something from one Plane is transported to another, as is most commonly achieved through use of Conjuration Magics. By nature of the arrangement of the lands beyond that of the Material, something passing, for instance, from the Elemental Sphere momentarily passes through the Ethereal Sea, and something from the Wandering Worlds must traverse the Astral Sea, Elemental Sphere and then the Ethereal and as such, in theory, may bring something along with it from that which it passes through. Whether the object or creature in question is physically pulled through at frightening speed, skips and leaps from place to place like stepping stones or is transported in a purely teleportational manner remains hotly contested. Proponents of the lattermost cite the infrequency with which Cosmogonal Dredging seems to occur, and that individuals travelling through the Between and Beyond have never once reported seeing a Fire Elemental or the like travel past them at haste bound for the Material Plane, while supporters of the former ideas remark that the vastness of the Transitive Planes is such that the locational alignment necessary to observe as such is all but impossible. Regardless, its occurrence is documented, although save the occasional appearance of a mephit plucked from the Elemental Sphere when summoning a celestial steed or fiendish warrior, only one is particularly noteworthy. On the ingress of what would become the city of Aviacrest from the Plane of Air, a mote of potency from the Ethereal Plane was seeming carried with, resulting in a patch of the Material Plane henceforth in the air near the peak of Jolberry Bluff in which one could more freely slip between that of Material and Ethereal, even without use of spells such as Plane Shift and Gate. Suffice it to say, dredging creatures was deemed unusual enough, fragments of a Plane another matter - and thus the prevailing theory rests upon the idea that something of as scale as the two major earthmotes and two dozen smaller ones that made up the city cast a wide net indeed, delivering a bycatch quite unexpected indeed.