The Crossover Points
Type: Planar Nexus / Mythic Neutral Ground
Function: Cross-planar hub for divine champions, emissaries, trials, duels, and diplomacy.
✦ Overview
Nestled in a fold between realms where time frays and stars stand still, the Cradle of Worlds is the only place where gods may meet without warring, and mortals may cross between planes without the toll of divine blood. Shaped like a broken ring suspended over an endless aurora, it holds fragments of every major plane — a shifting mosaic of stone from Olympus, sand from Duat, frost from Yggdrasil’s roots, cloud-silk from Tianji, and more.
At its center rises the Pillar of Accord, a prismatic tower grown from astral crystal and planar bone, where records of every pact, duel, or divine audience are inscribed.
🌀 Notable Features
The Veilstep Gates — Twelve rotating portals, each leading to a major mythic realm, shifting position as divine alignments change. Only one may open per visitor — and never twice in the same place.
The Arbiter’s Roost — A floating dais where no blade may be drawn. Here, emissaries plead cases before god-fragments, demigods parley, and oaths are brokered under watch of neutral arbiters.
The Crucible Spiral — An open arena carved from shattered constellations. Champions of different planes may duel without consequence of death, instead returning to their home realm if defeated.
The Memory Vaults — Time-stilled chambers beneath the Cradle, housing echoes of significant cross-planar events, myths, and outcomes. Can be visited in trance, or used to prepare for interplanar missions.
The Infinite Taphouse — Run by planar-neutral beings (you could even move the Cracked Lantern here!), this is where tales are told, rivals drink before duels, and emissaries broker rumors.
🧭 Navigating the Cradle
Time slows in the Cradle. A day here may be a moment in a divine realm or a month in the mortal world. This makes it ideal for planning, prophecy, or secret meetings.
No realm may dominate. Magic, blessings, or curses from divine parents do not work in full strength here. All champions are on equal footing until they step back through their realm’s gate.
The Crucible of Wrath
Pantheon: Multiversal (Open combat among gods)
Realm Type: Outer Divine Plane | Infinite Battleground | Conflict-Driven Nexus
Presiding Power: Ares, God of War (with incursions from other martial deities: Tyr, Set, Susanoo, etc.)
Cosmic Placement: Exists on the shifting edge of all battle-planes — a warp in the multiverse where the concept of conflict anchors reality.
Overview
The Crucible of Wrath is a realm forged by the accumulated rage, rivalry, and honor-bound violence of a thousand worlds. It is not a prison, nor a hell — it is purpose distilled through combat, where battle itself is the sacred truth.
Ares rules not as tyrant, but as champion — his banner flies highest because no other has yet struck him down. Gods, avatars, war-born mortals, forgotten titans, and plane-crossing mercenaries all make pilgrimage to the Crucible to prove, avenge, or ascend.
This is not a balanced battlefield. The landscape itself rewards strength. Mountains shift when challenged. Storms obey the bold. Every duel writes a new law in blood and steel.
No soul remains unchanged.
Core Regions
The Bloodsand Expanse
Rust-red dunes that drink spilled ichor.
Home to eternal skirmishes and arena-like dune pits.
Sandstorms sometimes form the shapes of ancient champions.
Ironhowl Vale
A canyon where weapon echoes never stop — the sound of every strike ever made here still resounds.
Runes along the canyon walls record every kill name, in every language.
Forge-priests of Ares dwell in the cliffs, crafting arms for the most honored.
The Broken Banner Fields
Vast plains littered with shattered standards and abandoned war machines.
Each banner tells a story — touch one, and you see its last bearer’s death.
Ideal for finding lost relics or fallen heroes.
The Red Spire
A fortress-arena where champions battle before divine judges.
The victor ascends one floor each triumph; at the peak is Ares’s seat — only occupied when challenged.
No one has reached the top.
The Skies of Glory Undone
Above the battlefield, spectral armies re-fight ancient wars.
Sometimes these echoes fall — becoming real for a time.
Rare artifacts drift here, caught between memory and matter.
Denizens
The Glorybound — warriors who die in other realms’ battlefields may awaken here instead of any afterlife.
Ares’s Chosen — former mortals who proved themselves and now fight endlessly, each marked with his burning brand.
Forge-Priests — war-smiths who hammer reality into weapons and shields; they speak only in bellows.
Heralds of Wrath — winged beings that descend to summon new combatants from across worlds.
Strangers of the Unyielding Path — mythic wanderers from other pantheons who challenge Ares’s claim.
Realm Laws
Combat is Consent — engaging someone in battle is a divine contract. No surrender unless witnessed.
Victory Has Weight — defeat a stronger foe, and you may claim part of their power, title, or memory.
Cowardice Brands the Soul — those who flee or betray their combatants are marked by the Plane and hunted.
Duels Write Reality — repeated victories shape terrain, spawn new laws, and open access to deeper plane layers.
Narrative Hooks
Tournament of Pantheons: A once-in-an-eon convergence where each pantheon sends their greatest to fight under divine watch.
Ascension Path: PCs may earn titles, relics, or minor divinity through combat rituals.
Gods at Odds: Factions of rival deities spill into Hellenara — who will your party side with?
Battle-locked Relic: A weapon or artifact bound to a champion’s soul may require defeating them — or their war-spirit echo — in this realm.
The Celestial Conclave — Throne of the High Gods
Plane Lore:
Pantheon: Multiversal (Only supreme deities)
Realm Type: Outer Divine Plane | Cosmic Nexus | Diplomatic & Reality-Weaving Plane
Presiding Powers: Zeus, Hades, Poseidon (Hellenara) + Odin (Norse), Ra (Egyptian), Tian-Di (Celestial)
Cosmic Placement: Inaccessible to mortals, this realm is suspended outside the Great Cycle — visible only in divine omens or moments of mythic convergence.
Overview
The Celestial Conclave is not a place, but a cosmic axis — a sanctum where only the highest gods may gather, parley, decree, or bind the fates of worlds. Formed at the convergence point of all divine reality-streams, it is where storm meets sun, judgment meets war, prophecy meets death.
It is here that the laws of reality are debated.
It is here that pacts of planar balance are etched into starlight.
And it is here — if ever — the gods might war beyond mortal sight.
The Conclave has no “leader.” Its presiders are those whose names shape pantheons — the three Hellenaran brothers (Zeus, Hades, Poseidon), alongside Odin the All-Father, Ra the Solar Architect, and Tian-Di, the Celestial Emperor. Others may be invited, but only if unanimous consent is given.
Realm Description
The Conclave manifests as a ringed arena of floating thrones, each carved from myth-stone and celestial metal.
Below the thrones spins a Sphere of Echoes — an orb showing real-time ripples from across the multiverse.
A Timewell marks the center — a suspended hourglass of infinite grains. When a god speaks, the Timewell slows.
The outer rim is ringed by Sentinels of Accord — towering statues that animate only if divine blood is spilled.
No one walks to the Conclave.
No one flies.
You are summoned, or you do not come.
Rules of the Realm
No Deceit — All statements within the Conclave are cosmically bound to truth.
No Force — No divine may strike another here; those who do are unmade by the Sentinels.
Equal Voice — Every presiding god has one voice, one vote, one name.
The Circle Must Be Whole — No major decree may pass unless every throne is filled.
Key Features
The Throne-Circle: Thrones shift subtly in size depending on the cosmic weight of their occupant. A god in decline sees their seat dim.
The Concord Flame: A blue fire burning at the center, said to ignite only when divine will aligns.
The Book of Beginnings: A cosmic ledger that writes itself with every ruling made. Its first line is blank.
The Empty Throne: One seat remains ever unclaimed — awaiting a god who has yet to be born.
Narrative Hooks
Worldbreaking Omen: A player receives a vision from the Sphere of Echoes — a decree is coming that will alter Hellenara.
The Conclave Splinters: A divine war may erupt if consensus cannot be reached. Mortal realms will feel the backlash.
The Empty Throne Stirred: Prophecy stirs — perhaps a new deity, demigod, or ascendant mortal is nearing apotheosis.
Trial of the Herald: A mortal champion may be called to speak on behalf of a god — the first time in recorded myth.
Bleed into Hellenara
Comets and eclipses signal that the Conclave has convened.
Oracles hear fractured echoes of divine argument.
Some temples house broken shards of a Conclave vision — too powerful for mortal minds.
Bleed into Hellenara
Ares’s temples tremble when the Crucible stirs.
Ancient portals carved in Arekthon bear the brand of the Spire.
Dream-visions of the Bloodsand come to warriors on the brink of death.
🌌 Pantheon Interaction Guidelines
To keep them distinct but flavorful:
Gods cannot enter another’s plane directly without cosmic cost.
Champions can cross
Artifacts act as keys — like a sun-barque medallion for Duat, or a Wyrd-knot for Yggdrasil’s Edge.
Divine bleed may alter mortal fates. A prophecy meant for Hellenara may come in Old Norse runes.