* Restricted Information: visitors to the Wall only

The Wall at the Edge of the World

The Wall at the Edge of the World marks the boundary between the Overworld and Underworld, and runs all around the edge of both.  The only place it is not visible to a traveller approaching the Edge of the World is where the Sea of CASPIS (Kayani Big Water) flows over the Edge between its Overworld and Underworld parts.  Here the Wall still exists, but is submerged beneath the surface, running along the seabed.  There are also places in the Icelands where the Ice Cap reaches almost to the top of the Wall, and occasionally (especially in Winter) the glaciers flow across the top of the Wall, submerging it in ice.  However they never wear it down.

The Wall appears from a distance like a black edge to the horizon, beyond which is the night sky thick with stars.  When you reach it (whether from the Overworld or Underworld), you find it stretches ahead of you, apparently flat on the ground, for exactly one mile.  It is made throughout of a shiny black rock, known as StarJet, but very little dust settles on it beyond the nearest edge.  As you approach and try and walk upon it, you realise that Gravity tips through 90 degrees at its edge, so that it is in fact a one mile high vertical wall.  It has a sheer, smooth, vertical surface, so is DL15 for the purpose of Thievish Climb Walls.  It is also so hard as to be almost impossible to drill a hole for a piton.  If you do manage to climb, or fly, up it, you will find it has a level top one tenth of a mile wide, where Gravity is still at 90 degrees to the surface of the Overworld and Underworld, so you can stand upright on the top, and indeed walk along it.  There is a story that the Gods and Demigods sometimes hold chariot races upon it.

Above the Wall are the Stars, pure Chaos, so close that it is said you can reach up and touch them.  There is a bubble of air around the Wall, but Chaos being so close here, it tends to vary in height, and exactly how close various Stars might be at any one time therefore varies.  The great bowl of the Overworld Sky descends at its edges so that it is close to the top of the Wall (or the edge of the Sea of CASPIS).  In the Underworld the border between Anarea and Chaos (as can be seen by observing the Stars) extends much further outwards in a great sphere, but the boundary of Gravity (the Gravity Line) is a flat plane from base of Wall in the Underworld across to base of Wall on the other side of the bowl of the Underworld.  The Air in the Underworld fills a volume equal to that beneath the Gravity Line, but bulges out in the centre (above the Fires of Hell) in a zero-G area known as "the Bubble".  In between the Bubble and the Wall, the Air thins noticeably towards the Gravity Line, to the extent that halfway there is no Air immediately beneath the Gravity Line.  Around the Wall itself there is a pocket of Gravity and Air (of variable height, as has been described) that enables the Wall to be safely traversed.

There is no direct line of sight to the Sun from most of the Wall.  Its perihelion in the Overworld should be exactly upon the horizon from its base and so visible directly beneath you when looking over the edge from its top, but in most places the undulations of the ground towards the Edge of the World block a direct line of sight.  As in nearly all the Underworld outside Hell there is no direct line of sight from the Wall or its top to the Sun Pit at the bottom of the great crater of Hell.  However the close proximity of the Stars provides some light, and the Light Intensity at the Wall is as follows:

The Night time values may be modified if MIRIMI or RAYLIT are in the vicinity (and the Wall is said to be a favourite haunt of both).

In a few places along the Wall the locals have constructed permanent (or semi-permanent) crossings.  The most famous of these is the Ladder of the Orcs at 131^o SE, on the much fought-over road between the Great Orcish Empire in the Underworld and the Lands of the Goblins in the Overworld.  The Ladder is usually manned as a frontier post by the Empire, but from time to time falls into the hands of the Goblins (who tend to destroy the Underworld side).  There is also an impressive structure of ramps on both sides on the Elf Road to Gurdor at 262^o W, which enable elves to cross the Wall mounted on horseback.  These are guarded by the Ninquiroqueni (White Riders) of the Calaquendi.  The Ice Palace of HASSAK at 0^o and The Palace of CASPIS (location not generally known) are also sited on the Wall, and are said to include crossings by tunnels beneath the top.  Possibly these are by Planist means, as the Wall is jealously protected against mining by Earth Elementals, and is said also to extend for a mile beneath the ground.

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