Far Realms

It is well-known that some ancient horrors, most notably Mind Flayers, are native to dark, alien places, and some eldritch secrets are said to come from ancient gods who slumber outside the reach of the Divine Presence. Arcane cosmologists have proposed that the native realms of creatures such as these must be beyond the Multiverse, and have given the name the Far Realms to these strange, alien places.

Few scholars study such places: the most famous work on the subject, the Zhâruk Akhâl, is said to drive those who dare read its secrets mad. However, most arcane cosmologists believe there are many distinct Far Realms. The ancient dwarven scholar Thardrum Deepseeker even claimed that not all of the Far Realms need be home to dangerous and evil creatures. History does not record Thardrum’s fate, but his work was rediscovered in Isingue before the Great War. Although largely dismissed by the Faculty of Metaphysics, Nicole Ardouin of the University of Tollen maintained that “good” and “evil” are not the right metrics to judge such alien realms. In her seminal work, The Exposition of the Alien Mind, she argues that some of the Far Realms are home to beings who – if only they could be communicated with – could bring much new knowledge to the world.

The fact that she never returned from a research expedition to the Marches of Enford has kept her work marginal.