A Traveller's Guide to Traversing the Border-Fey
"A Traveller's Guide to Traversing the Border-Fey" (hereafter known as "The Guide") is a travel guide and safety manual for crossing through or into the Border-Fey. It is considered essential reading for anyone that chooses to travel into the Border-Fey.
Purpose
The Guide serves as a travel guide and set of safety measures for travel within the Border-Fey. As the Barrier Realm is tumultuous and mutable in nature, the Guide has been crafted and rewritten multiple times over the millennia as perils become more or less prominent.
Document Structure
Publication Status
The Guide is widely publicly available, with most prominence in bookshops and libraries near Border-Crossings. The most recent edition of the Guide was published in 1482, featuring new illustrations from popular Zeratalian artist, Lilianna Malyar.
Contents
Welcome Traveller
You are here presumably to learn more of the tricks and perils associated with travel in the Border-Fey. It would do you well to heed the advice and warnings within these pages, for the Realm of Danu's Sacrifice is fickle and ever-changing; never truly mapped, and unlikely to ever be wholly understood.
The Border-Fey is not a place to be taken lightly. While it is inhabited by a variety of familiar Sapient entities and beasts, it is also home to unique creatures and cultures that rarely make their presence known within the Material Plane.
About the Border-Fey
The Border-Fey (Talamh an Bhacainn in Border Sylvan, Tìr a' Bhacaidh in Fey Sylvan, both meaning "Land of the Barrier") is a Barrier Realm that exists between the Material Plane and Tìr na Sìthe. Known also as the Golden Veil because of the unusual golden colouration of the mists within, the realm is also known as Danu's Sacrifice, as it was created from the sacrifice of the essence of an Ancient, Danu, in order to prevent the complete annihilation of the Lateral and Material Planes. Danu presumably perished, and the entire Barrier Realm is filled with tumultuous magics and places touched by the hallowed power of the Ancients.
The Border-Fey is easy enough to enter; simply step through a designated Crossing. However, it is not so easy to traverse, and many an unprepared adventurer has lost their way within the Barrier Realm. While travelling the Border-Fey inevitably takes longer than using a Gate between the Material World and Tìr na Sìthe, it requires less power and cost to traverse, and is less likely to strand you in a random place if an element of Chaos strikes the journey. Parts of the Border-Fey, such as the “cities”, have been mapped, though much of it is mutable, and therefore unmappable. Despite this, travelling through certain areas will always get you to certain locations.
Traversing the Realm
Non-natives are recommended to cross the Border-Fey in the presence of a Mistwalker Guide. These Guides are natives or seasoned dwellers of the Border-Fey with several years of experience navigating the intricacies of the Border-Fey's landscape. Mistwalker Guides are not commonly seen within the Material Plane, and the cost of their services is often steep, however, travelling without a Guide is often more perilous and therefore worth the cost.
The Border-Fey is highly mutable in nature; few locations within remain in a static location, with many in fact being categorised as Ever-Shifting Loci. Because of this, a journey between two locations can take a single day one week, then several weeks when departing a mere three days later than previously. Some locations can be predicted, while others appear merely as apparent happenstance.
A well-trained Mistwalker Guide is capable of predicting and navigating these fluid paths; mitigating the dangers and ensuring that travellers do not fall foul of the magics and creatures that dwell within the ever-shrouding mists. To hire a Mistwalker Guide, simply place an advertisement on the job board of any settlement or Waystation/Coaching House within the Border-Fey. If hiring one before entering the Barrier Realm, travellers should place a request on the job board of the Waystation/Coaching House closest to the Barrier Crossing.
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