Quick Note: I'm saving almost all author comments for the end. For now, I'll just say that I'm using the 3.5 system with a lot of source material (including Races of Faerun) along with a lot of information from 2nd edition sources (such as The Planwalker's Handbook, The Factol's Manifesto, Planes of Chaos box set, Planes of Law box set, The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook, etc), and, of course, many of my favorite novels. And yes, my characters love to talk, but there is action, and I expect more to follow soon.

This story has a mature rating partly for the first chapter, but mostly because from chapter 17 on I include magic, spells, and concepts from the Book of Vile Darkness. Yeah, mixing THAT with kender (including a regular kender who becomes a main character in chapter 19) was quite the balancing act…

Please note that the kender are very unusual, as explained in Chapter 2. I've also taken a lot of effort to make all the campaign settings understandable so that if you're unfamiliar with any of them, then you can hopefully still understand what's going on. Enjoy!

"You mean to tell me, that he removed your innards
and strangled you with them???"
- Human Priest to a newly resurrected Kender Sensate

"Yeah...Cool huh?"
- Smiling Kender's response (Borrowed from the Mimir, a Planescape site on the net)

CHAPTER 1: Surf's Up

Lenny of Arborea, formerly Lent Tyrm of Arcadia, loved surfing.

It had been a rough start at first. He'd come to White Sands for the Transplanar Surfing Event by the (in)famous reefs known as The Gauntlet, to show up the baatorian measure of the Harmonium that had sneered that he was too cowardly to face the chaos of Arborea. And he was glad he had. Arborea was amazing! But to get any respect around White Sands, you had to ride the waves.

So he asked around and found a local githzerai (a variant of the human species that had adapted to surviving the plane of Limbo), raised here since childhood, who got him a surfboard in exchange for his ruby. He said it was magical, enchanted to remain with the one surfing while in water ("but don't let anyone ride tandem with you," he'd warned), would keep its rider from slipping off when paddling out or riding a wave, and if in spite of that, the rider fell, was prevented from hitting him too hard when it came back to him. It was also self-cleaning and waxing. So far, the gith's word seemed true and the board was all that it had been hyped to be, though he was still obviously what some of the surf bravos (usually called "shredders") referred to as a gremlin, or gremmie. Nevertheless, he was what the locals referred to as "charged" (one gnome in multicolor trunks observed that he was "amped," which he assumed was Gnomish for "charged").

A penguin-like creature called a dohwar, also seeking to learn the sport, became friends with him, though he always seemed to be trying to sell something, and they both joined a group dedicated to helping gremmies like them learn the sport. The group was composed of a few half-elves, elves, aasimar, and plenty of humans like himself. A little later, even a kender wanting to learn bodyboarding joined them, though Lenny was confused as to whether he was supposed to be an adult or not. Other than humans, he had seen very few to none of these races before. Now he knew why: they were way too cool for Arcadia. He even saw a couple of half-satyrs and half-nymphs and was amazed that he wasn't struck dead on the spot as his father warned him would happen, if he ever laid eyes on one.

They took him to a quieter beach where several other beginners were also learning to ride. About 5 waves into his first session, a movement caught his eye and he turned to see a pair of dorsal fins pop out of the aquamarine waters. He panicked, lost his balance, and fell into the ocean, sure that he was going to be devoured by the anarchic sharks that sometimes hunted in Aquallor's deeper waters in the plane of Arborea. Then he realized it was a school of dolphins that had passed him by. He felt stupid, but also blessed, and it turned out to be a really cool experience for him.

Then a couple of waves later and the small wave he was on turned into a huge roaring 8 footer, and he wasn't able to hold on. The board flew from under him and he went under. He suddenly didn't know which way was up and again he was sure he was going to die.

And then he saw blue woman with pale blonde hair, staring at him with eyes like the ocean itself. He gasped at the sight and at her nearness. To his stunned delight, he found he was breathing underwater. She took his hand and led him to the surface, where he saw his new friends had already come out to look for him.

At the surface, the fey woman sniffed him and ran her fingers over him, far more curious about him than he was about her--and he was very curious. One of the half-elves told him, in awed tones, that she was a noviere eladrin, one that took it upon herself to guard the lives of land dwellers new to Aquallor's oceans. After a couple of hours in which she tutored him and the other beginners in surfing, she turned into a glowing golden dolphin and swam away, singing happily.

It was very cool. And it got better.

A few waves later, he suddenly realized another surfer was on the wave with him. Startled, he fell off his enchanted board. It reared up and hit the other surfer. He was terrified he would be pummeled by the other surfer in this anarchistic land, since his family had told him to never trust a scumbag surfer, especially in Arborea. But it turned out to be a half-elven lady. She was worried that he had been hurt.

They became lovers that very night after gazing rapturously at the moonlit path on the night sea and increasingly at each other. They shared brews and smoked exotic pipe weeds by a beautiful roaring fire. They also exchanged stories, showed off, shared their hopes and dreams. She taught him mad ditties and wild songs that violated every Harmonium obscenity and blasphemy law on the books. One of them even praised rebellion against the Harmonium. At home, that song would cause mass panic and calls for the police. She was teaching him to dance, too.

It was, without a doubt, the very best day in his entire life. A life that he now knew without a doubt had been pathetic and shallow. THIS was living. All those years he'd wasted, following rules, obeying orders, doing drill marches--when he could have been living. Out here, people appreciated individuality rather than being frightened of it. And while a few were emotional and sometimes scary and unpredictable because of it, the people were far more kind than folks back home.

His dad was such a clueless sod. A hyped up Measure, that is commander, of the Harmonium, he was always going on about the need to combat chaos, and the glorious new age that the Harmonium would bring to the multiverse. Things like fun, joy, individuality were threats to be guarded against, lest they topple the universal harmony.

Yeah, right. What a screed.

If the planes were shaped by beliefs, moral and ethical alignments, and other philosophical and spiritual concepts, then he'd choose the beliefs that shaped Arborea rather than Arcadia. It scared him to think that if the Harmonium—who were attempting to control all the planes by uniting everyone under a single philosophy--succeeded in their goals to stomp out the very concept of freedom, fun, and whimsy, that Arborea would cease to exist.

If the Harmonium were to ever decide that mercy and compassion were as important as law and hierarchy, then maybe there'd be something redeemable about their vision. He knew that some of the paladins and celestials in the faction were trying to impart these values, including Faith who had become the Factol since the assassination of her husband, but had not yet succeeded. In fact, the Harmonium had even faced conflict from some of the celestials and beings of Mount Celestia, the plane where Goodness was just as important as Law (much like how Goodness was as important as Freedom in Arborea). And Lenny's own father, Measure Two Tyrm, considered the question of Good and Evil (essentially defined as to whether a being thought helping others or harming others was important in achieving self-fulfillment) was a distraction to be ignored. His only concern was Order through Harmonium Law.

Measure Three Romamman of the Harmonium, whom his dad answered to, was the one to tell him about the White Sands competitions. He was a minor baatezu called a hamatula, a large humanoid fiend a little over seven feet tall, covered in natural barbs. The baatezu themselves were a fiendish race of devils that promoted the ideas of Law and Evil, which was the exact opposite of the ideals of Freedom (called "chaos" and "anarchy" by most supporters of Law) and Good in which Arborea was founded. Factol Faith seemed determined to drive them from her faction, but that didn't seem to discourage Romamman. "Go on to Arborea then, if you think chaos is 'cool.' You'll see that your father is right." Then, seeing that Lent looked hesitant, he'd added, "Or you'd go if you weren't such a coward." He even gave him the ruby that he'd used to buy his board.

Despite the odd feeling that he was somehow being manipulated, he had gone. Now he was here and he LOVED it! He would NEVER go back to Arcadia! He'd run away with some of the bacchae spirits first! Or join the Sensates, or Children of the Vine. Arborea was so full of freedom and beauty and wonder, things his father's precious Laws couldn't compare to.

The next day was even better. Especially as he saw morning and night being born in dawn and dusk. Arcadia did not have this strange, beautiful event. In Arcadia, a thing was or was not. And with that belief shaping reality, it was either day or night, with nothing in between. Thus, no dawn or dusk existed on Arcadia. But they did exist on Arborea, and it was beautiful.

On their beach that day, they were blessed with beautiful, clean, sunny conditions and perfect waves about 4 to 6 feet high. Yet the majesty and awesomeness of the ocean was evident even if that power was gentle and welcoming now. With dried salt caked to his lips, sun beating down on his back, his muscles alert for the slightest change in the waves, he and his honey cheering each other on, he felt the freedom of the plane and an exhilaration that he imagined the mewing seagulls above him felt.

He was on his own, and he loved the freedom of it. He loved his honey, he loved this ocean, he loved his board, and--for the first time in his life--he loved himself. His life had been empty but he hadn't realized it until White Sands filled that emptiness within him. And for the first time, he realized that his life was his own, not something that belonged to his parents and instructors. Those worries were on another plane and he intended to never worry about them again. Like the sea he rode upon, he was free, and no one owned him but himself. He'd abandoned his duty to his family and the Harmonium and now lived for himself, his honey, and surfing.

The third day was better still. Stretched naked on the white sand, the sun warm on his skin, his lady stretched beside him, a crowd of unclad members of many races around them, he remembered his first morning at the beach and laughed. He hadn't been able to find the courage to take even his shirt off, although he could see that many of the local and visiting folk did so without even blinking. Now he could take it all off. And instead of putting him in irons, he was cheered on by his new friends (assuming they even noticed that he flouted common morals and decency), who themselves lived a life that was full of what at home would have been called daily law breaking. Even capital offenses.

Oh, how he loved it here. Just as his father loved war and "maintaining order." These had been the best days of his life. He'd never imagined life could be this good, this joyous!

And though he was new to surfing and bodyboarding, he had picked up on it really fast. He was sure it wasn't just the magic board. His family liked to say that a carefully considered plan beats spontaneous action every time. Maybe that was true in Arcadia, given how belief shaped the planes and those that believed that tended to live in Arcadia and not Arborea, but here in Arborea he found the exact opposite was true (just as the locals believed). He felt joy in trusting his luck and defying death as he rode the huge waves over the Gauntlet, a bunch of jagged reefs that had killed more than a few surfers and bodyboarders during the odd Transplanar Surfing events hosted by the Sensates. He wondered if this was the joy his father felt as he put more berks to the sword. He pitied his father.

There was also the odd marid, sea hydra, chaos shark, and sea lion--in this realm, a half seal, half lion creature, large and very fierce-- that occasionally took out someone who dared to ride the waves, too. But the tritons, sea elves, sea sprites, and dolphins kept these attacks to a minimum. It was said that some of the reefs further out formed the palace of celestial storm giants that were the unofficial rulers beneath the waves, if one could be said to rule out here.

The rules were weird, beyond anything he had ever experienced in the Planes of Law. He had thought Arborea had its own rulers. And while some parts did, ruled over by gods and such, most places existed only under rulers that the locals had put in for themselves, dissolving the governments when they felt it no longer served their best interest, or had no rulers to speak of at all. His new friends said that a good ruler around these parts was invisible. Here, in opposition to Arcadia, government--when it even existed--was ruled by the people instead of the other way around. Governments were ordered and dissolved--or ignored-- by individuals, and existed to protect and serve the individual, which was the Arcadian system turned on its head. More often than not, the leaders even had to gain the permission of those they ruled before they were allowed to act as a leader in the first place!

Furthermore, about any religious, philosophical, or political entity existed to serve individuals rather than demand individuals sacrifice themselves for The Cause. People sacrificed themselves for others, but the sacrifice could only be earned and inspired, not demanded as an obligation or duty. In fact, here in Arborea, it was expected that if ANYONE was to sacrifice their own lives for their people, it was whoever was in charge! That was something that still awed him beyond words.

In Arcadia, he was due to enter the military as part of compulsory service. But here in Arborea, drafting into the military was unknown, except for in a few Greek settlements. Freedom here was the rule, not the exception. Yet many communities apparently had active citizen militias. They didn't go after evildoers in the same way as the law folks did on Arcadia, though they did at times pursue some rogue entity that preyed upon the community. These "citizen militias" looked for lost children, put out fires, kept an eye out for the troubles brought about by the environment and other sentients that had a bad reputation or demonstrated ill will toward others.

Citizens, even those not in the militia, normally had weapons that were normally restricted to the law folks and soldiers on Arcadia, and yet people didn't fear one another here, at least no more than on Arcadia. While individual establishments might bar obvious weapons, most were able to get all the weapons they had the ability and desire to have, even without gaining permission or even registering them with the local authorities. Instead of being seen as a danger, neighbors seemed comforted that their friends and neighbors could come to their aid with arms if necessary. It was what his teachers had described as "chaos," except that life was joyful and passionate instead of brutish and short. Sure, accidents, bad luck, and evil deeds intruded upon people here, but that was just as true of Arcadia, and even Mount Celestia, too.

And then there were places like White Sands. As far as he could tell, there was no ruler at all here. He heard about the celestial storm giants beneath the waves, but he saw no sign of them, no proxies or police. He heard that the local celestials--primarily angelic devas, elvish eladrins (like the one that allowed him to breath water for a few hours as he first learned to surf), celestial marids, and winged snakewomen of rainbow colors called lillend--were pretty good about stomping on anyone who committed brazenly evil acts or tried imposing law on the locals. But there was nothing imposing or frightening about them. They were beautiful to look at, and they seemed to enjoy being admired. There was no sign of rank or hierarchy that he could discern.

Here in Arborea, people respected your reputation, not some meaningless badge. And yet most people got along, and were even faster to help (and rarely to hurt) since they didn't need an order or permit before they did a good deed. Indeed, good deeds won you friends and respect here, while evil deeds meant you had few, if any, friends, you paid more for goods and services, and couldn't count on the goodwill of your neighbors the way the good people of Arborea generally could. People were expected to be able to act as adults, rather than children forever in need of permission of some bureaucratic state. To someone from Arcadia, this was sheer anarchy.

There was a school of duelists on one of the neighboring islands and they sorta patrolled White Sands and the surrounding land communities, acting similar in some ways to patrolmen in Arcadia. They helped people in trouble (guiding the lost, helping pets out of trees, helping the injured, that sort of thing), but they were highly individualistic and answered to no one but themselves and their own code of honor. They had loosely defined beliefs in the right of property, self-defense, honor, and self-determination. To them there was no difference between a king and a peasant. Each was judged by his or her own merits and treated according to the reputations as they earned for themselves. And rather than conformity and military discipline, they were swashbucklers with a shared esprit de corps.

While they prominently displayed weapons, he'd never saw them draw them on anyone other than each other. Except that one incident.

Last night he had seen several pirates come into the tavern where he and some friends were celebrating the joy of being alive. They bothered no one, despite being loud, and he had already learned to ignore them. And then one of the women dancing on stage was grabbed and pulled off by two pirates. The human bouncer hired by the Sensate running the tavern was over matched by the pirates who banded together in support of the two who'd grabbed the dancer, and it looked as though they would have their way.

Then three of those duelists challenged the pirates and met them blade for blade. Finally, one of them challenged the apparent pirate captain to a duel. After first blood, the captain admitted defeat and the pirates left. No jail, no arrest, no nothing. Had the pirates pushed the issue, they likely would've been killed, but that was it. Unless you counted that they would have few friends here for the immediate future (and probably friends and sympathizers of those they harmed wanting vengeance), which would mean higher prices (assuming anyone would do business with them) and no one to help them in an emergency.

It was bizarre. The local swashbuckling duelists reminded him of the Young Rangers organization that he and friends of his had belonged to as children, only they were adults that carried rapiers instead of uniformed children that carried knives. And the duelists wore clothes that appealed to their vanity and sported mementos of their adventures and achievements rather than uniforms that demonstrated their rank. The reason for this was apparent, too: they judged each other by their individual deeds instead of by rank. Their highly individualistic and signature styles of dress proudly advertised who they were, and thus the reputations they boasted, rather than some meaningless rank of authority that most people simply didn't even care about.

When he asked why the duelists didn't just go around robbing, raping, and looting like those pirates had seemed ready to do, he just got confused looks, as if the question made no sense. Finally, a new friend answered, "Because they're decent people, not governors. Besides, we'd hunt them down like the rabid beasts they were if they did that."

That answer brought about an epiphany. Well, not an epiphany, but a realization: Arborea was nothing like Arcadia, and he loved it as much as he hated Arcadia. And while this land seemed to have no rulers, it was not without order. He felt safer walking alone here on the white sands of a coastal Aquallor island than he did among the heavily armed guardsmen in Arcadia that eyed him, looking for a chance to fine, arrest, and rehabilitate him. And while there were dangers and potential disasters that existed in Arborea, such things also afflicted those in Arcadia just as often.

But the biggest and most important distinction to Lenny between Arcadia and Aborea was that home had nothing like the priestesses of goddesses like Aphrodite, Sune, Freya, and Sharess. Or of the gods Pan, Dionysus, or Olidammara. Or the one many elves and half-elves revered, Hanali Celanil. He had promised himself as a devotee to Aphrodite as this was the patron goddess of his half-elf girlfriend, but he really saw no point in only one (his girlfriend also revered Pan herself, the god being a power near the sylvan hamlet of stunning natural beauty that she said she lived in). He really enjoyed her explaining how fornication and intoxicants were the only way to handle the idiots that tried governing the multiverse, too.

Though contrary to Arcadian rumor, plenty of people here were not obsessed with sex and intoxicants. A few didn't seem to care for these things at all. And that was okay with everyone else. For another thing, people on this plane saw differences as interesting, not threatening. They were proud of their nonconformity rather than ashamed or persecuted for it. If a person didn't like the personal choices and tastes of another to the point of being offended, then generally they just avoided each other. They didn't declare war over it. If that was anarchy, then the baatezu and Harmonium could go sit on their swords, because he came, he surfed, he loved, and he was staying.

And so it was that he decided that he, too, would surf in the Gauntlet. The ocean here was perfect Mother Nature, so incredible, miraculous, and even a little terrifying. It was much like the freedom of the plane itself manifesting itself through its nature. Fun, glorious and wonderful, yet it could destroy you almost whimsically, like an ant it didn't bear worthy of notice. He rode, knees wobbling slightly, upon the thickest waves he'd ever seen in his life and wouldn't have dared without an enchanted board. It was like the entire ocean was folding upon the reefs below, and he realized that with his new found liberty, he was responsible for himself, and he had to know his own limits. No one else would set them for him anymore.

There's no way he could be like the champions this time, but many others were new to the sport like he was, and so he didn't look all that bad. And besides, surfing was a test of character. The lazy and weak-willed gave it up because they weren't good instantly. But the brave and determined stuck it out and were destined for greatness. And even now his half elven honey cheered him on as if he were already the greatest shredder Arborea had ever seen in the final heats.

Intoxicated with the sheer power of the ocean beneath his board, the freedom of the plane and the intense love in his heart that Arborea intensified, he was surprised when a wave instantly swelled to a gargantuan size and he wiped out in surprise, cutting his arm on one of the reefs below. But he didn't panic until a clammy hand grabbed his arm and pulled him through the waves. He twisted his arm and broke the grip to swim upward to the surface.

He got only a breath before a blue-scaled man broke the surface beside him, glaring hatred at him from fish eyes. It swam at him with surprising speed. He swam away, hoping one of the eladrin or devas would help him, as he was a long ways out and he knew this creature meant to kill him. He swam only a few meters when a clammy hand wrapped around his ankle. He kicked and felt scales beneath his foot and was released. But moments later, a webbed hand covered his face. Just before he went under, he heard its gurgling voice say, "Die, baatorian spy!"

He never got a chance to say how much he hated the baatezu. He never heard the anguished screams from the shore of the half-elf that had already fallen in love with him.