A Void Sailor's Primer: Void Storms

Perturbation of daedronic paticules via physical traversal of the Void is not the source of meteorological phenomenon (e.g. Void storms), rather it is the emission of aedronic energies (“Belief”) produced by ASSN propulsion and, to a lesser degree, the direct exposure of personages to the Void.

That there is a necessary connection between the rate of propulsion and its effect on the Void cannot be disputed - the study of Hlas Sul-Redoran aboard the NVN Martyr being the classic example. Movement via ASSN agitates daedronic energies (the “fabric of the Void” as Sul-Redoran calls it), leaving a train of disturbance, or what Nirnian sailors call a “wake.” A normal voidship moving at less than 40 VK (“void knots”) will leave a minimal wake and allow for relatively safe passage. Greater speeds or, worse, the combined speeds of a fleet of ship will create greater disturbance with exponential effects.

Cyclonic vortices (“void hurricaines”) were common in the period after Landfall, when fleets of ‘ships sought the ancient voidstations of the Reman era, or Diaspora thought to visit loved ones by travelling to Daedric plane(t)s. The chief danger here is physical damage to ship and crew and is directly proportional to the degree of perturbation. A particularly violent storm was witnessed by Sul-Redoran in 5E 844 when a fleet of pirates descended on their vessel. While they were able to escape via ASSN slipstream (“dream-sleeve jump”), Sul-Redoran witnessed a storm “the size of Coldharbour” descending upon them before the stream closed and they were transported away.

Far greater is the danger of daedronic incision, or what Sul-Redoran called “void whirlpools.” Admittedly data on these phenomenon is sparse but from the texts it appears that continual perturbation of daedronic energies can create a localized field of daedronic/aedronic conflict, resulting in a planar “tear.” Ships and crew sucked into the “whirlpool” are irretrievably lost; scholars theorize they are pulled through a trans-dimensional horizon into unknown pocket voids, but research is so dangerous that certainty may be unattainable.

We turn now to the other dangers of Oblivion: Void serpents, pirates, and the rumor of quasi-aetheric beings of unknown emergence found only in the Dark (that realm beyond the light of the stars, on outer edges of the Wheel)…