Sea of Thought

The Sea of Thought is a realm beyond the physical world. It's a limitless and dynamic place composed entirely of imagination and memory — terrifyingly full of possibilities. You visit the Sea of Thought when you dream. When you think. When you reminisce. When you invent. When you cast spells. The Sea of Thought is known by many names. The "astral plane." The "dream world." The "realm of the mind." The "higher consciousness." Some minds are better suited at navigating these waters than others.

Mana

All mana comes from the Sea of Thought. When a mage sleeps, he dreams, so he drinks from the water and replenishes his own well of mana. When a mage casts a spell, he focuses his mind on the outcome and surrenders some amount of mana. Bound by the laws of the universe, an elemental manifests to collect the mana, siphon power from the Sea of Thought, and activate the effects of the spell.

The mana one finds in physical form throughout the Mortal World is in actuality tiny amounts of pure elements from the Sea of Thought that have leaked through into our reality. Crystalline mana is a hunk of earth, ice, or metal. Liquid mana is a swig of water or slime. Gaseous mana is a wisp of fire, air, or electricity. A mage with solid, liquid, or gaseous mana in hand can replenish his own well without making the trip.

Elementals

Elementals themselves hail from the Sea of Thought. An elemental exists as a sentient consciousness, capable of thought, reason, and free will just like any humanoid, but without a physical body or an eternal spirit. They can manifest in the Mortal World under one of three scenarios.

• First, they can be summoned temporarily by a mage.
• Second, they can be tasked by one of the Immortals to carry out some mission.
• Third, they can be drawn toward a high concentration of their associated element to guard, observe, or assist it.

Since elementals maintain a connection to the Sea of Thought, those who manifest in the Mortal World can cast spells at will without the use of mana.

Wandering

The minds of sentient creatures in the Mortal World border the Sea of Thought — even animals dream. However, a truly sapient creature is capable of projecting its own mind into the Sea of Thought and leaving its home world for a spell. Over the course of history, countless mages, mystics, psychics, oracles, sages, and scholars have utilized the Sea of Thought as a meeting place, a sanctuary, a prison, and a library. Those who sail this sea are called wanderers.

A wanderer first establishes a link to the Sea of Thought and projects an avatar of his mind there. This connection to limitless magical power sustains his physical body and places it in a state of suspended animation. In game terms, he becomes immune to lethal Stamina Drain, poison, and disease, but cannot regenerate HP. When he rejoins the Mortal World, he will be just as hungry, thirsty, injured, sick, and tired as when he left. If fatal harm befalls the wanderer's body while he's navigating the Sea of Thought, his mind is yanked back to the Mortal World to greet death. Whether your voyage lasts minutes or millennia, it's foolish to wander and leave your body unguarded.

Once the wanderer detaches his consciousness from the Mortal World, he opens the doorway into the Sea of Thought. He steps through into a quiet and foggy place called the vestibule. Here the wanderer confronts an image of his own body in perfect stasis surrounded by muted impressions of the environment he previously occupied. The vestibule is a figment of the imagination that represents the way home. Only within the vestibule can the wanderer communicate with anyone near his body in the Mortal World. Each wanderer enters and exists the Sea of Thought through their own private vestibule, which grants passage only to the wanderer to whom it belongs.

As he leaves the safety of the vestibule, the wanderer arrives in his own personal island in the Sea of Thought. These islands are where dreams occur and where memories reside. Every mind is arranged differently, so one island may house a massive library filled with books containing meticulously-organized memories, whereas another island may contain a sprawling marketplace where merchants hawk recollections. An island is shaped by its owner's experiences and dreams, but wanderers can purposefully reshape their own domains. They need not even appear as literal islands — wanderers have crafted cities floating in the clouds, echoing caverns beneath the earth, and asteroid fields adrift in space. Architecture, vegetation, inhabitants, landscape, weather, and even gravity are mutable with a thought. Anything the wanderer desires can be summoned within the confines of their island.

Geography

The Sea of Thought comprises three regions: Zenith, Horizon, and Nadir.

At the center is Horizon, although some prefer to call this place "the surface" or "the skyline." It is the realm of dreams and memory, where the islands of wanderers can be found and where elementals spend most of their time. This region is also home to waysides, which are permanent settlements imagined by a collective of minds working in tandem. Wanderers can visit waysides to exchange ideas and share information with others, although not all inhabitants share such altruistic motivations. Islands and waysides can exist in Horizon as long as minds reside there or live to remember them. Once the memories of a place in Horizon are lost, it sinks to Nadir.

Below Horizon lies the bottomless void of Nadir. Wanderers might also refer to this place as "the depths" or "oblivion." It is empty, lifeless, and oppressive. The crushing depths are teeming with forgotten knowledge, sunken waysides, and deceased elementals. A daring explorer of the Sea of Thought might be able to recover one of these, but tread carefully. Wanderers who spend too long in Nadir risk losing their way back.

The vaulting expanse above Horizon is known as Zenith. Some know it as "the firmament" or "enlightenment." It is the domain of inspiration, where new ideas are created and elementals are spawned.

The twelve elements that combine to form the Mortal World are also part of the Sea of Thought, except they are much more concentrated and pure there. Light and verdance emanate from above, where an infinite space of radiance and energy dwells. Dark and ruin emanate from below, where an empty, lifeless, and bottomless hole lies. These four elemental forces influence all the others which reside in the center. Bordered below by darkness and decay, a vast ocean of water angrily churns and roils. Above this sea flies a spacious expanse of air that streams whimsically under a crown of illumination and life. In the vaulting heavens far above the clouds, ideas are created, elementals are spawned, and inspiration originates. Sprawling islands and continents rest steadfastly on the surface of the ocean, stretching into its shallows and towering into the sky. This is the realm where memories linger. Air, water, and earth are continually pressing against each other, so the vicinity around these borders are places of constant activity and home to other elements. Slime is found in the water, especially near land. Ice is found where water borders air, especially since the sky eternally steals from the ocean to form clouds — its favorite playthings. Bereft of its water, the ocean repeatedly angers and retrieves it in violent fashion. The battle between them incites electricity to dance through the sky and rivers to flow across the earth. Fires ignite and volcanoes erupt along the border of earth and air, just as metal is found where fire and lava touch the earth. The heavens and the depths both exert their power on the air, water, and earth.

Combat and Magic

Sensory input within the Sea of Thought seems authentic enough, but wanderers are invulnerable to many of the conditions which threaten our mortal coils.

There are countless types of elementals, and each one may manifest with or without a body in the Material World. Those without a body gain the incorporeal condition while manifested.