...
For reference, this is how I put the planes.
The elemental planes are like a box, holding paper. The sheets of paper are various prime material planes (I always preferred the "thin" model -- that there were few planes rather than infinite iterations of the same thing) with the ethereal being the "space" between the planes. Go out to the "edges" and you encounter the elemental planes, "up" or "down" and you journey between various alternate realities. Reaching through the prime material plane is the astral plane, which carries positive and negative planar energy with it. Where it scatters out from the prime into the ethereal, it creates shadows, but it is the substance and energy behind the near dream realms and the far dream realms, which eventually lead to the higher and lower planes.
Everyone has seen my "ideals" up, "decays" down both reaching into the positive and negative planes, with the standard higher planes somewhat like donuts and the place of concordat opposition being at the end of dream and the gateway to the higher planes.
I've included a diagram, below:
The area of near dream is very fluid, a place of insubstaniality and illusions. Elves exist to make it more solid and "real." Deep dream is formed of the dreams of men, reflected through elves and the higher planes. It is where those who can, linger, before passing further on.
Nightmare is the negative side of dreaming, interwoven in the dreaming realms, a place of wraiths and wights, ghasts and ghouls and other creatures tied to the negative dreams and energy of the lower planes.
...
The party had left the near dream realms of the elves and passed into deep dream.
In the jungles of Kled they encountered great toads, large jungle cats, large and giant spiders, poisonous serpents, nightflyers and ghasts. Then, one day, Alzen seemed caught in open dreaming and slipped away into the jungle. The Wolf followed him, with the others in pursuit, to keep him safe and reclaim him. They almost caught him when he came to ruins and as he climbed them, towards a plinth at the top, krakal spider queens fell from the darkening sky and attacked the party.
The battle was sharp and deadly. Then, suddenly, when Alzen reached the plinth, the shadows binding him fell away. He was she, and one of the great ones, the gods of the dreamlands, indwelling. Somehow she had been stripped of memory and powers and bound, only freed by happenstance and fate drawing him to her place of power. Once she was revealed, the karakal were reclaimed and cast off the blight of Upharsin, returning to her service rather than attacking the party.
She could not leave the plinth, but she sent several servators to lead the party to the port of Hlanith, where they picked up the trail again, tracking the missing dreamer to the Saffron Manticore, where in the rubble and destruction Jan left, they find that she has fled to Celphais.
The party hired a ship and are on the way in pursuit, only days behind.
