Demiplanes: Comfort, Confinement and Concealing

Demiplanes: Comfort, Confinement and Concealing is a book discovered in the ruins of the Guild of the Lilac Vine.

## Description

One of many fields of particular research for the Guild of the Lilac Vine, usage of demiplanes for all manner of purposes has long interested arcane scholars. This tome seems to details some of their more conventional uses, with reference to their limitations and scope, albeit in a manner that seems to serve as advertisement for the services of the Guild of the Lilac Vine.

## Reading

### Completed by Rinn Zelnolar

Ever since individuals have had the want and will to build and construct, there has been a demand for all manner of configurations for all manner of purposes. How many castles and keeps feature a tower maintained by a single individual for sake of personal affairs, study, research? How many manors and manses have a private solar for entertaining a few guests at a time, or somewhere in which the ruler of the household can retire when they require a moment of respite? These places have proven satisfactory for now, but now surely the limitations of such solid structures has been made plain - they are constructs of stone, wood and metal, and cannot be moved, nor easily reconfigured. Any plucky individual with a climbing hook and rope can clamber in through an exposed window, whereas the door is only as secure as the resolve of the servants designated to them. There is, by contrast, something far better, with a greater promise of opulence - a retreat quite literally at your fingertips.

Creating a demiplane is no easy feat, requiring years, if not decades or centuries of training to achieve - and then besides only those particularly capable in the mastery of Conjuration-magic achieve the level of nuanced control to create anything more than blank rooms devoid of interesting features. Compared to other similar spells - particularly so that of the attractively sounding *Magnificent Mansion* - the *Demiplane* spell persists, offering a greater deal of versatility and reliability, always accessible in its same form, changes made continuous until otherwise manipulated into another form. In its most basic form, a demiplane usually manifests as a simple and unadorned room existing within an extradimensional space - most of which manifest somewhere tethered to a spot in the Astral Sea - little more than 30 feet in any given direction. For many purposes, this may prove more than sufficient, being more than enough space for a quiet library in which to enjoy a cultivated collection, quarters in which rest is all but guaranteed given the impossibility of interruption, or simply a private place in which to stow a project until its completion. It has been remarked by some that the isolation of the room from any surrounding external sound is enlightening, allowing the mind to work away undistracted, undisturbed. Some individuals have instead filled these demiplanes with all manner of wonder, and configurations have been made to include steaming baths of perfumed water, practice rooms filled with musical instruments, a room in which the walls are made of canvas and thus freely useable for the creation of art, but most commonly in the configurations intended for luxury, an opulent sitting room filled with comfortable and aristocratic furnishings seems particularly popular.

Such magic has been elsewise utilised however, for purposes besides the whimsy of the rich and powerful. On infrequent occasions, demiplanes have been utilised to confine individuals of particular note, binding them and elsewise trapping them away from their belongings - particularly so that of spellcasting focuses - and those that would seek to find them. Without prior knowledge of the specifics of a demiplane, usually that of their form, contents, and often too their creator, it is exceptionally challenging to access said demiplanes, and thus can be used as a novel form of incarceration. The most notable use of this was with regard to the sorcerer Zieggatt Cobblegazer, whose spree of murders shocked the continent and required a dramatic and coordinated response to deal with. Upon their capture, they were trapped within a demiplane for a time out of fear that their zealots would make true of their promise to level any city that held them. More commonly, however, demiplanes are utilised to sequester away objects of great wealth, the owners fearful that such prizes would fall into hands of their rivals, foes, or other vagabonds simply aiming to make themselves rich. The truest and most secure of these demiplanes come when the contents are not as expected, for reasons previously mentioned - understanding the exact nature of the contents makes their location easier to find - and thus special effort is often made by those weaving the spell to hide the purpose of planar space. With additional features, traits and contents that stretch beyond the scope of what is conventionally possible by the limits of the spell, said spellcasters must find ways to channel more and more magical might to fulfil these requirements, and many over the years have aspired too greatly, or thought too much of their own power, seeking to create demiplanes far beyond the scope of mortal means. That is not to say that demiplanes of such scope and scale do not exist however, for instead they tend to be the domains of deities and other creatures of equivalent scope and power, so much so that those residing within may not be aware of the arcanely artificial nature of their surroundings.