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Domains: Alignment: Symbols: Colors: Worshipers: Avatar: Other Names: |
True Neutral
Flute, Opal, Bow
White, Cloud Blue
Lapix, Elves
None
The Four Winds, The Queen of Storms
Jovia, also referred to as the astral heavens or the Endless Sky, was once the home realm of the goddess Cira. Travellers will find themselves drifting through a vast blue void filled with panoramic cloudscapes and no true sun to illuminate what otherwise appears to be an infinite noonday sky. Without any solid mass to create gravity, winds run wild and cloud formations take on a variety of strange shapes. Only those who can somehow master Jovia's winds are capable of effective travel here. The air is comfortably warm and quite dry, for the most part, with occasional hot or cold weather patterns and unusual lightning storms. These can be especially deadly to travellers carrying or wearing metallic items, being that they are just about the only available targets in an otherwise empty sky. A certain lack of stable landmarks and a complete three-dimensional environment also make it easy to get lost.
Like the other elemental realms, Jovia is dying. Cira's demise has turned the once-splendorous astral heavens into a barren sky-desert, and the magical beasts which once dwelt among the vast cloudscapes are long gone. So too are the drifting platform cities of the djinn, which once filled the endless sky with magnificent fan ships and sculpted cloudscapes, now little more than tilted, broken hulks tossed about by the wind. Most were ravaged by mechanical invaders during the Twilight War, and the signs of battle remain to this day, untouched by wear or weathering.
As the fabric of the elemental realm fades away, so too does the magic drawn from it. The planar essence is far weaker than it once was, and may in time fade away entirely, rendering all air magic forever dead. What little is left has become trivial weather-influencing rituals used by the Arcanar guild as a source of profit. Plenty of people will pay for the right weather, espcially if their crops or weddings depend on it.
The City of Fans
This ruined city was once the heart of the astral heavens, the capital of Cira's followers and high priests. Hundreds of glittering quartz platforms are interlinked by magnificent bridges of silver and glass, all drifting aimlessly now without the priests to keep it stable. True to its namesake, the city was powered entirely by the wind, with thousands of metallic-hued fans to drive everything from water pumps to stone grinders. Great silk flags and penants now hang in fluttering tatters, the streets lined with slain Machines and delicate avian bones. Most of the platforms contain burned-out buildings of white quartz and alabaster, with a smaller number dedicated to fountain parks and groves of alien proto-palms that have long-since withered away. Some of the platforms have broken off over the centuries, coliding with others to create large gaps of drifting debris in places; the gravity-generating runes that once held the city together have begun to fail. Visitors only weigh half of what they would on Rym, allowing for tremendous leaps and bounds.
At the hub of the platform city is Cira's ruined palace, the former home of her draconic avatar. Three thousand years ago, the mechanical legions sent to Jovia by the City Mind swarmed its alabaster halls and slew all who hadn't yet taken their lives in the wake of their goddess' demise. The Altar of the Four Winds was smashed, and the celestial realm dealt a mortal blow from which it would never recover. The city now tumbles out of control, end over end, through the infinite astral sky, causing a bizarre sense of vertigo to visitors who alight upon its crumbling surface. The tumbling motion only seems slow when the city is viewed from a distance. In time, the stresses involved will tear the once-great city to pieces, and Jovia will be reduced to nothing more than a cloudy void dotted by fragments of debris.
Primordial Air
The clean, oxygen-rich substance of the planar sphere is the source of air, wind, and weather magics. These are often ranked among the more dangerous branches of elemental spellcasting, falling just short of fire magic. Such spells can be used to manipulate wind currents, atmorspheric phenomena such as lightning and clouds, and various types of airborne gas. Its instability and aethereal qualities make it a difficult school to master, but the results are quite impressive, with powerful practicioners able to conjure storms or deflect projectiles with subtle gestures and softspoken words. Air magic is more common among humans, elves, and cepn, though many of the shamanic tribes assimilate it into a broad elemental arsenal. Air magic is most powerful in the months of Autumn, when powerful winds wind through the upper atmosphere and stretch the clouds into great, sky-spanning bands.
Combined with the divine energy, quintessance, air manifests itself in the form of elementals, or 'wind beasts'. Like all elementals, these are extensions of either a caster's life force, or the planet's own. Air elementals conjured by mortals are wily and unpredicatable, and rarely of any significant power. Greater wind beasts take the form of great storms, hurricanes, and tornados, summoned by the planet as caretakers of the sky. Without Cira to lead them, however, they are random and chaotic, like the winds, invisible and largely immune to mortal aggression. Likeways, they generally ignore the mortal world, unless they're in the mood to storm and toss lightning bolts down on the unsuspecting. Air elementals attack by using wind currents to fling their foes against hard objects, or hard objects against their foes. They are blindingly fast and equally agile, able to persue almost any target with ease, though they lack a certain commitment to task, and are easily distracted or misled from would-be duties. The most powerful of these elementals can destroy entire towns in an hour or so.
PLANAR SKY
Once filled will all manner of elemental life, the skies of Jovia have quieted over the centuries. One by one, the magnificent cloudscapes have faded away, leaving an open blue void often referred to as 'sky desert'. This type of terrain is made dangerous by its utter lack of features, and its extra dimension, which makes it very, very easy to get lost. Coupled with the plane's vast nature, this can pose a problem for anyone who can't sustain themselves in some artificial way.
CLOUDSCAPE
This is the 'terrain' of Jovia, seemingly insubstantial to visitors. Clouds are dense enough for most air creatures to walk upon, and provide cover for large Jovian predators that would otherwise be spotted miles away. Cloudscapes are much like airborne reefs in this regard, though they pose a serious danger when charged with lightning, which arcs to any solid substance that passes too close. Djinn have been known to hide their fabulous cities in cloudscapes.
