Introduction

Centuries ago The Delta was a system of 9 isolated planets on an isolated plane. Chance planar tears at certain times of the year would sporadically connect The Delta to The Feywild, or The Astral Sea, strange magic and creatures bleeding through like shards of sand blown across an ocean. Dragons were legends, goblins and eladrin, fairy tales. Life on other planets could only be guessed at across vast distances, islands in a dead sea.

Until, one night, the night sky on every planet lit up with color in motion. A vast, complex system of shifting space rivers suddenly connected The Delta like beads on a tangled ribbon. These rivers are known as Styx (or Styxes).

The Styx also connects The Delta to The Astral Sea and the Fey Wild at two nexus points. They flow towards The Feywild during the Wet Season and the Astral Sea during the Dry. During the height of the Season these points of connection resemble, on one end, streams tumbling down from a mountaintop, and at the other, a roiling whirlpool.

During Season's change, the Styx slows to a crawl and eventually stops completely before changing direction. During this period of stillness, those chance planar tears become more prevalent and more stable, large Astral bodies from the Astral Sea tearing through in surprise meteor showers, whole kingdoms teleported to the Fey Wild in a creeping fog.

News of people claiming they were from other planets started becoming more common, popping up with tales of getting stranded in a sea of comets and dragons, or becoming lost in a forest where the seasons never changed. Or even stranger, having sailed across the Styx themselves. Travel along the Styx did not become commonplace until somewhat recently, within the past 500 years, after an event known in some places as The Advent of Dragons. Dragons were able to traverse the Styx themselves, and their power was unmatched almost everywhere they went. But not all who came with the dragons agreed with this conquest, and a collaborative effort culminated in the creation of Warforged. Using souls from the fallen to create ageless humanoids, these Warforged were able to traverse not just Styxes, but the space between them, a chaotic stormy void that rapidly ages all life inside it, known as The Doldrums. With more mobility, this newborn army was able to counter the dragons where it mattered most.

The manipulation of souls was a double edged sword. As the war dragged on, the connection between the planets of the Delta became more and more erratic, Styx became unstable, seasons irregular. It seemed The Delta was tearing apart at the seams.

Reaching a treaty on Boros, leaders of The Delta brokered a truce with the leaders of Dragons. The planet of Boros would be given over to Dragon rule, and extraplanetray conquest would cease, and warforged would cease to be created en masse.

Today, The Delta is the most interconnected it has ever been. Whole industries and religious domains are supported by niche interactions between planets and planes - be it through commerce, combat, communication, or just commuting from place to place. There are more Gods today than ever before.

But for every Bastion of Healing or Guardian of Nature there is an Insatiable Industry or Plague Reveler to contend with. Gods require a certain throughput of magic and souls to maintain their domain in the Elemental Chaos, or else said domain will Fall From Grace, disappearing from the Elemental Chaos and reappearing in Shadowfell, where it will slowly decay into the primal forces that fuel the universe.