First steps in the Astral

How was the possibility to travel through the Astral discovered?

Quite surprisingly, the Astral travelling has been discovered by one of the smallest inhabitants of Sarnaut – the gibberlings. Well, keeping in mind their lust for adventures, this is not so surprising after all. But the most curious thing is that, like many other great discoveries, this one was an accidental one. Gibberlings have many legends about it, but here is the most popular one of them.

The history remembers the hero called Swen the Astral Fisher, or just Swen back at the time. Sometimes his friends teased him and called him Swine, because of the gibberling’s weakness for taverns and fine beer.

…Once Swen decided to go fishing. His wife, a stern and imperious lady, wouldn’t let him go, saying that he would just come home drunk and bring no fish. So she took his rods away and locked them up in the closet.

But Swen was stubborn (a trait common for all gibberlings), so he slipped out of the house anyway and went to the tavern, where he got hog-drunk as protest against his wife’s tyranny. But then he imagined what was waiting for him back at home and got terrified. He realized that the only way to avoid the forfeit was to actually get some fish and return as a winner – for it is well-known that the winners are not judged.

So he tottered down to the river, cut himself a rod, found a line, tied a rusty nail to it as a fishhook, and made a plummet out of a stone that he found at the river bottom. Then he got into the boat, cast the line, and fell asleep.

When he woke up, he discovered, much to his horror, that his boat was hanging not far from the brink of the waterfall at the edge of the allod – right in the open Astral! Amidst the nothingness! Yet he was still alive. The plummet on the line was sparkling and gleaming with majestic colors, and the rays that it radiated enfolded Swen’s boat, protecting it from the Astral.

Swen pinched himself, rubbed his eyes, but the apparition was still there. Then he clenched the stone in his hand and paddled somehow towards the shore, pulled himself over the board, and then ran home as fast as his legs could carry him, brandishing the mysterious stone in his fist.

On the next day, the whole village was prowling waist-deep in the river, trying to find more stones like that.

A week later, the axes were rattling and the saws were squealing. Boats appeared on the shore one after another, stuffed with gibberling belongings.

One more week later the village was empty.

This is how the Age of Astral Travel started.