Not all Roads lead to Sigil [ Index | Mount Olympus | Oceanus | The Staircase | The Styx | Yggdrasil | FAQs ] [ Crossroads | Ar-en-Gereh | Via Romana | New Paths | Planar Waterways | Miscellaneous ] Bifrost the Rainbow Bridge Being a plane-spanning bridge called forth by the Norse Powers The Herd Being a migration of beasts from one plane to the next Jormundgandr Being a sea wyrm so large it crosses infinite seas The Labyrinth of Loss Being a maze of lost souls and lost lives The Seventh Sea Being an ocean across time and space The Steep Ascent Being a mountainous climb from Hell to Heaven The World Serpent Inn Being a plane-shifting tavern without rhyme or reason The Wormholes Being a secret back entrance to all manner of places Planar Waterways Being a survey of several planar rivers which may be used as pathways Bifrost the Rainbow Bridge (by Jon Winter) An occasional pathway at best, Bifrost is a magical plane-spanning rainbow of infinite length that can be called down at will by the Norse powers (and, some whisper, by powerful mortal magics) to bridge the void between any point on Ysgard and the Prime Material Plane. Travel down the bridge is somewhat like descending a multi-hued staircase, only the steps are invisible to the climber, and climbers are invisible to creatures on both the Astral (through which the rainbow slices on its primewards route) and the prime...beings stepping off the bridge appear as if stepping out of heavy mists. The real darks of the bridge are unknown, and it's an infrequent path to take at best, because most bashers are fearful or the wrath of the Norse powers who apparently own the bridge. Given sufficient garnish, however, the shamen of the trollish fensir people have been known to conjure the bridge themselves and allow planewalkers passage to any prime where the Norse powers are worshipped (which is a lot of 'em!) A pathway to be used judiciously, perhaps!

The Herd (by Jon Winter) When rutting season comes to the Beastlands, countless hordes of migrating creatures regularly make the crossover between the plains of Krigala and Arborea. Graybeards reckon that the passionate mindset of the creatures alone is enough to shift tracts of land from one plane to the next, for up to several weeks at a time, and it's this effect that some travellers make use of to jump from one plane to the next at certain times of the Planar Year. If a cutter's capable of running with the herds and avoiding predators like leomarh and manticore, he can make the jump too. While the herds are gone, it gives the Beastlands a chance to catch its breath and the pastures to regrow, unfettered by the nibbling teeth of countless hungry mouths, so it's all a natural part of the planar cycle. Some planewalkers also claim to have followed herds from the Beastlands to the Outlands during the Outlands month of the Flocking. Jormundgandr (by Alex Roberts) A living planar pathway? Surely not. Jormundgandr the World Serpent is a familiar figure from Norse myth, and is associated with Nidhogg, the serpent which gnaws Yggdrasil. Jormundgandr runs through almost all the oceans of the planes: Stygia, Thalasia, Ossa, Demogorgon's realm, Elemental Water, The Annwn Sea and others. It does not touch the Silver Sea of Mt. Celestia, note. Also, despite its obvious Nordic roots, it seldom if ever surfaces in Ysgard, partly due to the scarcity of water there and partly because Thor goes hunting for the creature whenever it surfaces. Canny cutters with the ability to track the Midgard Serpent can use it as a pathway linking all the planes it dwells on. But they should beware, because smaller linnorms, perhaps only as big as small countries, can be found here and there along its length. The location of the head is unknown, but most bets are on the Annwn Sea. It probably moves, of course. The Labyrinth of Loss (by Jon Winter) The Labyrinth of Loss (so-called because of the number of planewalkers who enter it never to be seen again!) is a vast maze crossing planar boundaries apparently at whim. The many exits (hard to find though they may be) lead out into the realms of Greek powers, and powers of secrecy, puzzles or mysteries. The labyrinth itself isn't all catacombs and tunnels, on Arborea it appears as interlocking and impenetrable hedges, on Carceri it is walls of black brick, or in its most horrible incarnation, living petitioners cemented into stone. Better believe the Carcerian portions of the Labyrinth are sodding difficult to navigate, berk! The Baatorian segment of the maze is carved deep beneath the surface of the plane with the occasional trapdoor leading to the surface...or the lair of some deadly beast, and the Bytopian portions are vertical in nature, apparently filling the spires between the two halves of the plane! Unlucky cutters have also found the maze leads to the Abyss. According to some, you can also gain access to Mechanus' Labyrinthine Portal from the Labyrinth of Loss -- and hence to any part of the Plane of Gears if the cryptic codes governing its use can be cracked. Shekinester's Outlands realm is also linked in some manner, and the very darkest whispers say some mist-shrouded passages penetrate deep into the Ethereal Plane, where they offer a secret means of access to the Lady of Pain's own Mazes. It's a hazardous pathway to travel for sure, but it also leads to some locations that simply aren't accessible by other means... The River Hister (by Joshua Jarvis) The loss of the River Hister is a great disaster for the upper planes. It's this river (along with the Oceanus) that once connected the lawful and chaotic upper planes. The Hister flowed from Nemausus in Arcadia (flowing up hill and up waterfalls instead of down them) through Mt. Celestia (where it remained a distinct current within the great ocean at the base of that plane) through Bytopia and into the Oceanus. Some even said it remained a distinctive current within the Oceanus until it hit a portal and flowed into Ysgard but this is most likely screed. The River Hister is no longer there, for when the Harmonium set up their re-education camps along its mouth and Nemausus shifted to Mechanus, the river went with it. Now the Hister flows out of Mechanus, down through the tumbling cubes of Acheron, and into Baator. After that no one knows. Some says the harmonium changed it's nature making it seek out baatezu re-education camps, others say it flows into the Styx, still others say that it dries out in Avernus. But what is known is that the River Hister crosses other rivers without its flow being diluted or its waters mixing. For all we know it may be carving out a riverbed again hopelessly seeking the Oceanus so that their waters may mingle again. The Seventh Sea (by Jon Winter) Many planes have seas, but if a cutter sails far enough he may sometimes find himself completely lost. This, in fact, is the Seventh Sea planar pathway; a state of being so far from land in any direction that any way is effectively the same. Remember, cutter, that the Outer Planes (bar a couple) don't have stars or compass points to direct a lost sailor. When you're this lost, it's the hopes and expectations of the ship's crew that guide the vessel through the Seventh Sea of the Astral (which ain't real water as much as the condensed dreams of a billion sleeping primes), and to the destination the crew most want to reach. There are a number of planar seas that can be reached in the manner; seven destinations are currently known, and it's likely there may be more. The Silver Sea of Mount Celestia is connected (but only when fog banks or silvery spray obscure the infinite mountain), the Blood Oceans of the Abyss, the Ice Floes of Baator, the Brave Ocean on Ysgard, Thalasia on Elysium, the largest lakes of Arborea, and certain prime worlds when the planes are aligned in the right conjunction... The Steep Ascent By Clarion the Guardian reports on a long and mountainous climb from the Hells to the Heavens (by Alex Roberts ) A new planar pathway has come to my attention. Known as the Rugged Path, or the Steep Ascent, it links a group of planes together whose organisation fits a certain mindset possessed by bloods such as the Archonites. The Rugged Path always appears as a rocky and winding path leading both up and down. Depending on where you find the path, special keys (real keys, made of certain metals) may be needed to proceed one way or the other. Don't ask how the barriers vanish when you're travelling the other way, because I don't know. The Steep Ascent may be found in Baator, where the way up, out of the plane, is barred by iron gates requiring green steel keys. It touches every layer except for Stygia and Cania, although it is seldom seen in Nessus. It touches all layers of Gehenna, and here there are no gates, but the path is frequently crossed by acidic streams and lava flows. On the Cordant Plane of Purgatory (if certain explorers are to be believed) the ways up are barred, but the keys are readily available to anyone who shows himself honest and law-abiding. The gates here are wood and the keys cast iron. On Mount Celestia, the Path enters the plane by a causeway submerged some three feet beneath the Silver Sea, to a distance of a mile out. The gates here lead down, and are barred with silver gates requiring gold keys. The Path only extends to the fourth layer of Mount Celestia, and the petitioners gain nothing from using it. Nevertheless, the archons love their section of the Path and it is mentioned in many Archonite and Planes-Militant hymns. The four planes touching the Pathway can all be reached from the nominal centre of the path, the Concordant Crossroads, which appears to be in the Outlands, although the rest of the Land cannot be accessed from the Crossroads. The World Serpent Inn (by Jon Winter) A famous tavern apparently from the Prime, the World Serpent Inn is a curious planar pathway indeed, as it shifts location from Prime to Outer Planes, and even Inner Planes seemingly at will. Reputed never to remain in the same place for more than one day at a time, it can also be a hard place to find! Canny planewalkers (mainly those with Guvner friends who seem fascinated by cataloguing the almost unfathomable meanderings of the tavern through the planes) learn to predict the World Serpent's path, entering the place when it appears, and remaining inside for exactly the right amount of time (once inside, one hour is equal to one day outside, so in one apparent day of travelling the Inn actually visits twenty four different locations). Nobody knows who built the place, nor why it seems unfettered by the rules of normal time and space, but shift it does, and many travellers are thankful for that. The current owner and bartender is the distinctly bizarre Zhora (Prime / female adult mercury dragon / HD 13 / Cipher / LN), a good-natured and affable, if secretive, creature who spends all of her time in one humanoid form or other, usually that of a comely tiefling. A travelling companion (if you will) of hers is the fallen aasimon Altrico (Planar / male movanic deva / HD 8 / Fated / N), a slightly cynical but otherwise likeable celestial prone to fits of maudlin and self-indulgent poetry concerning his fall from grace. Altrico deals with the financial side of the business, fortunetely for Zhora, who overly generous with her treasure horde in the aasimon's opinion. The Wormholes (by Jon Winter) Deep beneath the surface of many of the planes winds a network of tunnels and caverns. Somewhat analogous to the Underdark of the Prime -- and indeed, the two networks do occasionally overlap -- the Wormholes are a vast sprawling mass of passages branching out from Pandemonium where the exiles live, and tracing currents of secrecy, scurrilousness and underhanded double-dealing right across the Lower Planes. Pandemonium, the Abyss, Carceri, the Gray Wastes, Gehenna, Baator and Acheron are all said to have connections to the Wormholes, and the tunnels dig into the Outlands as well. Rather more worrying, perhaps, are the tales of secret passages that snake and sneak all the way to the Upper Planes, emerging on windswept Bytopian mountainsides, the crystalline caverns of Mount Celestia and deep wooded groves of Arborea. If locals of these planes find a connection to the Wormholes, woe betide anyone beneath the surface, because like as not the tunnel will be forcibly collapsed at the first opportunity. Used by smugglers, bandits, fiends, assassins and knights of the cross trade alike (mainly to slip things that they shouldn't to the Upper Planes), the most dangerous feature of the Wormholes are the other travellers you might meet, who're more likely to slice your throat than stop to greet you. Should you be fortunate enough to avoid their nefarious advances, you ought to keep watch on the passage rooves, not just for lurkers above, but also rockfalls and cave-ins. The chant goes that the Wormholes are passages left behind by giant planeshifting worms who tunnel between planes in search of food. Whether food includes humanoids is unclear, but nobody's ever seen one of the creatures, so it could be that they're long-dead. That wouldn't explain why new tunnels appear all the time to replace ones that've collapsed though. Copyright 1998 by Jon Winter and respective authors, artwork by Jeremiah Golden and Jon Winter