Elysia
Smile down on us sun, show your rays
when things come undone.
All animals lead us to light
when we can't see.
Stars, saturn and moon, glow for those
who cannot get through.
Rain fall and voice sound for those of whom
still are not found.
Gentle moon, find them soon.
Gentle moon, find them.
Black sky and black sea, lighten up
when we can't breathe.
All dreams escape fire, over worlds
fly but won't tire.
Slow down on us wind, hold us still
when everything spins.
All secrets and lies, let them out.
Dreams escape fire, they won't tire.
Dreams escape fire, they won't tire.
Gentle moon, find them soon.
Gentle moon, find them soon.
- "Gentle Moon," by Sun Kil Moon
Elysia is beauty, peace, and well-deserved rest.
It is hope.
It is the heart's longing.
The plane is three landscapes singing silver with moon glow and stars at night, yawning gold by day: Amoria's pastoral calm, Eronia's wild beauty, Thalasia's azure seas. Once there was a fourth but it is gone now, hidden or stolen. Elysia was described as the heaven of colors atop the tree of life, when there was a tree of life.
Yet of all the planes Elysia has changed the least. The longing it embodies is eternal. Some of the houses are more modern in style, but others are deliberately kept as they've been for centuries. They all tend to merge with the landscape, shining where it shines.
The constant between all three layers is the Celestial River Jordan, cool and fresh running clear as sky or coffee-brown with silt in the deltas, bigger than any ocean from its source in Thalasia to its destination in the magnificent Seven Seas of the Land of Stories many planes faraway.
The original inhabitants, the guardinals, are changed; the great chimerical beast-headed men or women were ill-suited for the present day, and they've devolved into pure animal shapes. Only the most ancient still have voices. They are, for the most part, silent companions who urge on their charges with gestures and brush of feather, fur and wet cold nose. Mortals believe their favorite pets will meet them in Elysia when they reach it as souls.
Elysia touches the busy mills and factories of Bytopia and the raped and hollow remnants of what were the Beastlands but remains untouched itself, unwearied by time's flight.
Hmm…
What are the Beastlands now? If they have fallen to overhunting, then the devolution of the guardinals would signify Elysia taking up the new mantle of an animal afterlife. But what purpose do the Beastlands now serve?
The fourth layer was regularly subject to Lower Planar incursion, and it was known that something dark was imprisoned within, so it makes sense that it would have disappeared, either to prevent whatever was in it from escaping or because it had escaped, and brought the layer down with it.
Angels are now the primary outsider protectors of Elysia, correct? The Companions of Talisid are now weakened, and perhaps only they among the guardinals remember their former strength? I'm just hypothesizing.