I trust that your days in your grandfather’s villa wear easily upon your soul, for I know like me, it won’t be long before the wanderlust takes you. Still, enjoy the respite that comes with the wealth and title my son has labored so hard to secure for his kin… it is a fleeting comfort, but a comfort none the less.1
However, I have come to know a human wizard who called himself your apprentice… I encountered one Lord Lyman Wyndruin attempting to construct a makeshift sanctuary in the vicinity of a Vuulir stone near his family’s ancestral lands.23 The folly of this endeavor aside, I took the opportunity to question him as to the purpose of his inquiries, and in doing so, realized the inadequacy of Lord Lyman’s cosmological knowledge.
Were I a Master of the Council, such a performance would reflect poorly upon not only you as his mentor but upon me as your teacher.4 But the Council Mages are fools, and we both know you ought not be judged on Lord Lyman’s failure to grasp the intricacies of our teachings. Instead, I would suppose that in his humane shortsightedness, he paid little attention to any lesson that did not directly relate to the mystical production of flame or lightning. And yet, I am left with a lingering suspicion that the highly… sensitive… manner in which you were taught does not lend itself to teaching students. It is difficult to share many of our adventures together, is it not?
As such, I thought I would provide a series of treatises on the cosmology of Haylene that you might share with your apprentices. I shall excise the more arcane elements and focus on… what is the human word for it… a planewalker’s perspective.5 I will keep them clear, and in the interest of a human’s attention span, concise. I only ask that you do not attach my name to these essays. Instead, let us use the moniker by which I am more widely known, shall we?
Your loving ancestor,
The Red Witch
The Red Witch is an archmage, adventurer, and perhaps the most experienced “planewalker” Haylene has seen in recent centuries. While some scholars might surpass her in terms of lore, her working knowledge of world’s cosmology is unparalleled (one might also learn that she has also had a hand in shaping that cosmology). In a series to treatises to her apprentice, Lady Astral the Half-Elven, she can provide clear and accurate insight into Haylene’s peculiar planar structure. These treatises represent the knowledge one might recall with a DC 25 Intelligence (Arcana) check when address a particular phenomenon. Dungeon Masters are encouraged to provide them to their players, particular after they make an appropriate ability check. If desired, the information can be passed to the players with a DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check if the footnotes are redacted. Finally, the Red Witch is not without her biases, and she does make mistakes. This may lead to minor inconsistencies in her essays (but it’s probably best not to point that out to her).
1 The Red Witch is a Prydani elf, writing to her half-elven kin. He son, Astrel’s grandfather, is likely an old man, while the Red Witch remains in the prime of her life.↩
2 Astrel has recently taken to training wizards in the ways of the Four Towers… these individuals are almost all Rhysonian nobles.↩
3 Wyndruin being one of the Northern Marches, and is largely devoid of human settlement since the Great Conflagration.↩
4 The Red Witch refers to the Council of Prydain’s High Magi.↩
5 The word “Planewalker” has no direct translation into Prydani (Elvish). The concept of casually exploring other realms of existence is not something a typical Prydani would think to do.↩
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