The Broken World

A Beast World native takes a lot for granted. Grass grows in the spring. One sun rises every morning. The ground is below you. But what if a world gradually forgot its own rules?

Air in the Broken World is often toxic, or freezing, or absent. The horizon is a jagged line showing the uncertainty of nature itself. Finding a place to stand where everything behaves normally is exceedingly rare. Everywhere else is rife with the dangers of a world wailing its own death knell.

Yet, there’s beauty and treasure to be found in the turmoil. The transformation of the landscape has created spectacular accidents, such as walls of inky black that bisect a row of repeated suns or fields of undulating brambles that stretch hundreds of miles. Within this aberrant nature lie mysterious treasures from a world that lived here before. The question is: can an explorer keep from being spaghettified long enough to claim them?

Traveling to the Broken World

Access to a Crossworld Well is the first item of business for delvers looking to scavenge the Broken World. This round cauldron is cast from scavenged crossworld iron and facilitates travel from the Beast World. It’s 3 feet in diameter and weighs over 1,000 pounds, making it too large for a standard bag of holding. The cumbersome size facilitates (somewhat) reliable transport to the unstable destination. Most large cities have at least one Crossworld Well, and arcane universities have installed them in recent years to facilitate experiments in the Broken World. Some delvers drive wagons fitted with Crossworld Wells and make decent side money by renting them for a single use.

Crossworld Well Ritual

Ingredients: To attune the Well to the Broken World and open a physical portal, one must cast the inciting spell. A list of fresh ingredients is also required, including:• Oil of vitriol, 40 liters• Stabilizing powder, 10 sachets• Lilac blossoms, fresh, 1 bushel• Viktor’s catalyst blend• Chert powder, solar-virginal, 1 sachet• (Optional) Ashes or powder from destination, 1 milliliter• Blood, crossworld, 1 milliliter
Viktor’s catalyst blend is a mix of crystals and powdered alchemical ingredients available in any well-stocked apothecary. While the initial investment is expensive, users can scrub the blend from the cauldron and reuse it. The chert powder must carry no sunlight in its alchemical memory or the ritual will fail. Remember: “if your chert sees the sun, you need new chert, hon.” Crossworld blood is also a necessary part of the trip. This ingredient is inexpensive to obtain and can also be drawn from any brethren born in the Broken World.
The principal base of the ritual is a 40-liter solution of oil of vitriol and stabilizing powder. Raise the temperature steadily over the course of 8 hours, adding the lilac blossom reagent as the base is heated. The target destination’s ashes or powder are also added during this step, if attempting to access a specific location in the Broken World. As the temperature increases, a hissing black ichor forms in the bottom of the cauldron.
Warnings: Do not add water to the mixture. Take care to store the oil of vitriol in a dry place. A stabilizing powder is included in the ingredients, but water will defeat this safeguard and cause the mixture to eat the cauldron itself. Perform the ritual in a well-ventilated area, to prevent sickness from smoke exuded during preparation, and to mitigate the sudden change in temperature at its conclusion. Without a gyro-stable cabin, a wagon must remain stationary while the ritual is performed or else risk a corrosive failure that would destroy the cauldron (and the wagon).
When the mixture reaches 210 degrees, the chert and catalyst blend are added. If performed correctly, the contents will become luminous, spin counterclockwise, and quickly clear of imperfections. The resulting whirlpool of transparent acid is ready for the final ingredient.
Drop the blood into the cauldron all at once by inverting an open container. The sample may appear to “crawl” up the side of the vial just before adding it. This is normal. On contact, the mixture will instantly stop spinning, and the temperature will drop to -120 degrees. A layer of ice will form across the top of the cauldron colloquially known as “crust.” This is where the term “cracking crust” originates, popular among crossworld travel enthusiasts.
Breaking this layer of ice will reveal the portal. It is not understood why the portal opens at a random angle on the far side, but the catalyst blend ensures a door into open air. It remains open for 10 minutes, until the acid is depleted.

Crossworld Well

4th-level Conjuration
Casting Time: 8 hoursRange: touchComponents: V, S, M (acid and reagents worth 200 gp, and a sample of blood from someone born in the Broken World, which the spell consumes, a cauldron made of cast iron from the Broken World, and a blend of catalysts worth 250 gp)Duration: 10 minutesClasses: Ranger, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
After combining the ingredients in the cauldron and heating the mixture, a portal to the Broken World opens around its rim for the duration. The portal works one way, and is invisible on the far side. The Ghost God can prevent portals created by this spell from appearing.
The portal normally leads to a random location. You can specify a target destination by adding ashes or some other powdered substance to the cauldron, gathered from the desired destination in the Broken World. This doesn’t guarantee that the destination’s region will follow the same physical rules.
If the target destination is the space granted by a Ghost God warlock’s Space One’s Own feature, as a reaction to the portal opening, the warlock can immediately close it. In such cases, the warlock is aware the portal is opening even if they are elsewhere.

Lawless Nature

The natural laws of the Broken World are decaying at an ever-increasing rate. Stability is scarce, and a visit is unpredictable in the extreme.

The following section outlines some examples of how a region of the Broken World might function. A region’s size is just as unpredictable—it might be the inside of a single building or a landscape spanning a thousand miles. Regions rarely remain static in space; visitors should always assume they will be the last creature to see their surroundings. The borders are sometimes visible, but other times rounding a corner can transport a visitor to a place with entirely different rules.

New Condition: Exposed

Many of the Broken World’s physical dangers only affect creatures with some part of their body exposed. The effect of the exposed condition depends on natural laws in the region, as outlined in the following tables. Creatures are always exposed, unless an item or effect explicitly prevents the condition.

What Lurks in a Dead World?

Broken and warped nature has extinguished most of the world’s native fauna. If any species were still alive, it would have learned to survive in its unpredictable conditions and become incredibly dangerous through this adaptation. Some scavengers report seeing large, amorphous shadows stalking the horizon. It’s possible that something resembling a living thing dwells amidst the ruins, but no survivors have described such a firsthand encounter.

Surviving in the Broken World

The danger of the Broken World is random, lethal, and penetrates conventional abjurations and magic wards. Clever protective spells can mitigate some risk, but when the laws of physics are inconsistent, some special tools are recommended.

When the Shamans arrived in the Beast World, they immediately set to work developing a way to survive the deteriorating conditions of their former home. That project was funded with donations from every homeland, and three brethren gave their lives to the project during the testing phase. The resulting invention allows a prepared scavenger to walk the Broken World with a reasonable expectation of survival: bubble armor.

Bubble Armor

Armor (light, medium, or heavy), rare (requires attunement)
By capturing a small part of a safer world around itself, bubble armor allows its wearer to survive some of the Broken World’s more dangerous regions. As an action, you can expend a vial of bubble soap to activate the armor’s protective effects. An iridescent bubble forms from the armor’s collar and surrounds your head with breathable, comfortable air. For the next 10 minutes, you are no longer exposed. If you take damage, the bubble bursts and the property ceases to function until the end of your next turn.

Bubble Soap

Wondrous item, uncommon, 200 gp per 10-minute vial
This glass vial is filled with a soap-like fluid that magically captures the basic physical nature of the world in which it’s created. Bubble armor requires this item to function.

Neckwear of Nativeness

Wondrous item, rare, requires attunement
This leather or fabric collar allows a creature to return home. You can use an action to speak the collar’s command word. At the end of your next turn after doing so, the collar casts the banishment spell on you, which you can choose to fail the saving throw to resist. A Tiny object embedded in the collar containing a ghost is left behind in your space to concentrate on the spell, such as a steel ring or bead. The object has AC 19 and 30 hit points. It automatically passes Constitution checks to maintain concentration on the spell, unless it is reduced to 0 hit points and destroyed. If you are attuned to a suit of bubble armor, neckwear of nativeness doesn’t count against the number of magic items you can be attuned to.