Realmspace

"There are worlds beyond worlds&mdash;cold, hot, light, dark, watery, and earthen. They all share one basic need&mdash;a need for heroes."

- Elminster Aumar

Realmspace was the term used to describe the Torilian system and its surrounding environs. To those on the surface of Toril, Realmspace was called the Sea of Night. Contained within a crystal sphere, Realmspace consisted of wildspace (empty vacuum), a sun, eight planetoids, and their satellites. Realmspace is located within the Prime Material Plane.

The Sun
A single star radiated a comfortable amount of warmth throughout Realmspace. It was particularly susceptible to solar flares, which erupted almost continually.

Anadia
One of the Dawn Heralds, this small, amber-and-green-colored planet was closest to the sun and mostly populated by halflings and umber hulks. It was covered in canyons that dwarfed the Great Rift, and the equatorial regions were unlivable because of the sun's proximity.

Coliar
Coliar was a gas giant mostly populated with avian life-forms and other flying creatures. A few "islands" of water and earth revolved around the planet's core. Elminster was said to own a resort on one of these islands. The planet was covered with clouds and appeared as a gray-white sphere from Toril. It was considered one of the Dawn Heralds.

Toril
The third planet in the system was the most populated, teeming with life, with about 60% water, with creatures living in the air, on the land, and under the water. This planet was formerly known as Abeir-Toril.

Abeir
Toril's "twin planet", existing near Toril's orbit but located within a "pocket dimension" that was out of synchrony with the rest of Realmspace. It had roughly the same characteristics of Toril.

Selûne
Selûne was Toril's only natural satellite. It orbited about 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) from Toril. Only one side of it ever faced the planet; the other side was called the "dark side", yet it was not always dark. This was where most activity took place. It was named after one of Toril's native deities. Trailing in the orbit of this satellite were the Tears of Selûne.

Karpri
The first of the Five Wanderers, Karpri, the fourth planet in the system, was an oceanic world. It was an absolutely beautiful place to behold from wildspace. From Toril it appeared as a large star but as a sapphire ball with white caps when viewed by magical means. The poles were covered in pack ice hundreds of miles thick and stalked by deadly cold-loving predators, while floating on the equator's waters could be found seaweed, which at some points could support up to five tons of weight but were also home to massive, dangerous insects. The waters of the world were inhabited by aquatic elves and predacious sea life, making this planet as dangerous as it was beautiful.

Chandos
The next of the Five Wanderers, Chandos was another oceanic world. Its seas contained lumps of rock that, when piled high enough, created highly unstable islands. Those living on these islands were the human, dwarven, and orcish descendants from a pair of spelljammers that crash-landed here long ago. Over time, they lost their technologies and developed an enmity for each other, forgetting their pasts and becoming primitive. From Toril, this planet appeared as a greenish-brown smudge, which changed over time.

Glyth
The third of the Five Wanderers was a gray planet that had a beautiful ring and three satellites observable from Toril. In truth, Glyth was a harsh, ringed planet that, as of the mid-14 century DR, had been occupied by the dreaded illithid for about a century. Plant life was continually burned by the harsh atmosphere or by the mind flayers to prevent their humanoid cattle hiding from them. A remarkably pure, edible gelatin "water" could be found in the place of seas, and while the planet still had ice caps as normal, nothing lived there. Most activity occured underground. As well as the planet's rings, Glyth was orbited by three satellites. One, known as Haven, was a hollowed out asteroid and treated as neutral ground for the different mind flayer factions. Another, Mingabwe, was a trading port for non-illithids. Orbiting Mingabwe was Polluter, an unmapped asteroid. A group of over 300 mercenaries from the Code Helm resided here conducting raids against illithids in the system.

Garden
Garden was not actually a planet. It was a series of earthy-masses connected together by a massive plant. Non-sentient life-forms created a balanced ecosystem with the many varieties of plant life growing here, but otherwise it was populated by pirates. Garden was also orbited by twelve satellites. Garden could rarely be seen from Toril, but when it was spotted, it appeared as a tiny green speck.

H'Catha
The last of Toril's Five Wanderers, H'Catha, appeared as a crystalline glimmer of white. Consisting of a flat disc of 300-mile thick water with a single mountain in the center, close-up, this world looked like a giant wagon wheel, with the Spindle (the mountain) always pointing directly at the sun. Near the base of the mountain, six ports, each owned by a different type of beholder accepted spelljamming traffic from other beholders, (not ones who lived on H'Catha, as that would provoke a war,) and a mysterious humanoid race. Other species were only allowed to land if they had goods to trade and left as soon as they were done. The world was orbited by two satellites, Turnbetl and Lumbe.

Additional Astronomical Bodies

 * Comet K'Thoutek
 * Skull of the Void
 * Caer Windlauer
 * Galleon Nebula
 * Color Spray Nebula
 * King-Killer Star

Far Realm-infested Stars
At some point before 1396 DR, and as consequence of the actions of the Abolethic Sovereignty, some entities from the Far Realm invaded Realmspace and took a place among the stars. Although the these beings looked liked stars, in truth these beings were elder evils.


 * Acamar
 * Caiphon
 * Delban
 * Gibbeth
 * Hadar
 * Khirad
 * Nihal
 * Zhudun

The Crystal Shell
The crystal shell of Realmspace had a radius of 3.2 billion miles (5.15 billion km). Like all crystal spheres of this size, it appeared to be perfectly flat from the inside or from the outside. The shell was immune to damage of any kind and prevented the phlogiston from entering its wildspace interior.

The Realmspace crystal shell had a unique feature: its interior was lined by cryptic glyphs and wards, printed in illegible characters that were several hundred miles tall. Any attempt to magically read one of those writings, if successful, triggered the ward, which released a spell hundreds of times larger and more destructive than normal. No two writings were alike and they could all be activated an infinite number of times. It was believed that those writings had been placed on the sphere as a means of protection, but their exact origin was unknown.

The dashes, dots, and tildes in the writings produced openings to the quasi-elemental plane of Radiance that ranged between a few yards and hundreds of miles in diameter. These brilliant portals, thousands of miles apart from each other on the sphere's surface, were seen from its inhabitants as stars and constellations.

Although the Radiance plane was highly destructive to creatures and ships that dared enter it, portals through the sphere could be safely created on top of a star-opening, temporarily superseding it. For an inhabitant on one of the planets, that particular star would seem to disappear for a few minutes and then reappear.

The inner surface of the sphere was also inhabited by a group of hundreds of thousands of creatures belonging to all the sentient species that inhabited Realmspace, their hands all bearing the mark of Torm. This group, known as the Wanderers, continuously marched side by side on the sphere in a north-south direction, with no need to breathe, silently moving their mouths and hands as if casting spells.

It was said that the Wanderers were the souls of extremely evil individuals that had died within Realmspace. Their placement on the crystal shell was the reason portals in and out of the sphere were possible. They were not indestructible, however, and if they were to be wiped out, no portal would open until another evil creature died within the sphere. About once every five years, one sufficiently evil person would be selected upon death to join the ranks of the Wanderers, doomed to walk the sphere and perform its chant forever.

Constellations
Realmspace held a number of constellations, arrangement of stars as viewed in the night sky.
 * The Centaur
 * The Woman Warrior
 * Amaunator's belt
 * Correlian
 * A crown
 * The Harp
 * The Sword and Dagger
 * The Lady of Mystery
 * The Dragon of Dawn
 * The Firbolg

History
The wildspace of the Realmspace crystal sphere was unusually warm compared to others. This led sages to speculate that the sun and Realmspace itself were the oldest among the generally known crystal spheres.

During the Time of Troubles, the chanting of the Wanderers had temporarily ceased due to the fall of Realmspace's powers. For the duration of this period, no portals could be opened through the crystal sphere.

Appearances

 * Computer Games:
 * Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace


 * Novels:
 * Into the Void

Connections
Realmspace