The major planetary bodies of Flamespace have strong links to the Inner Planes. The Aztec Pantheon wields great power in the sphere, and several of the planets are said to be living embodiments of the gods themselves. According to many scholars of the Aztec pantheon, the deities do not dwell on the so-called Outer Planes, but in the material world itself. This raises the very real possibility that the manifestations of the Aztec deities in Flamespace are true embodiments of the Powers themselves. As one might guess, the power of fire is revered in Flamespace, and with good reason. Protection magic does not shield one from the powers of fire in Flamespace, and many mages and priests wield that power very strongly.
The Aztec pantheon draws much of its power from the worship of the Firelord Cult, but also draws power from the lives and deaths of the many beings which live on its planets. These planets, and the divine presences contained within them, are described below. While the identities of most of the planets are known, Lifefire itself - the only world containing human life - remains a mystery. Legends imply that the holder of Lifefire's throne does not become the world in the way that the holders of the other thrones are their worlds. The origin and meaning of this difference remains unknown.
The following list describes each planet.
The remains of the sun fireworld which harbored the aspect of the Firelord called Ometeotl and which was inhabited by azer, as well as other creatures which could tolerate the flame, before the cataclysm which sundered it. The Hearthfires are liquid magma/rock comets, asteroids and planetoids scattered throughout the sphere. Many of the Hearthfires are known to harbor gates to the Elemental Plane of Fire. It is unknown if the elements that the azer mined from Hearthfire to create the fire-immune substances known as hearthstone and hearthsteel also exist on the Hearthfires. It is equally unknown what, if any, link Ometeotl maintains with the Hearthfires and whether they are inhabited by survivors of the cataclysm and/or new immigrants from the Plane of Fire and elsewhere.
Wildfire has a central semi-solid core of rock and magma, but is mostly composed of flaming gases. It is home to many elementals and elemental creatures of fire. Neither the azer nor the efreeti have much presence on Wildfire. Wildfire is the alleged embodiment of Kossuth, and is the only sun remaining in the sphere after the beginning of Flamespace's Fifth Age of the Sun.
During the Third and Fourth Ages of the Sun, Warfire, a world of liquid fire, was the embodiment of Huitzilopachtli. Warfire was inhabited near the end of the Fourth Age by efreet, who maintained large fortresses and an alliance with the Firelord Cult. Warfire was also the source of the mineral Hatash (whose largest concentration was found beneath the primary efreeti citadel, Krak al-Hatash) with which the efreet created weapons capable of channeling the elemental fires of Warfire.
The birth of the Fifth Age of the Sun was heralded by the return of Quetzalcoutl and the destruction of Warfire. All that remains of Huitzilopachtli's world is a winding ribbon of flame, the length of a planet, which moves in a random pattern through the sphere immolating any objects unlucky enough to cross its path. Whether the Ribbon of War has a throne, and whether that throne is still held by Huitzilopachtli, is as yet unknown.
Long ago, Flamespace had stars and moons like other spheres, but when Metzli and her Stars opposed Huitzilopachtli, the Firelord bound her and the Stars into the planet of Starfire. These stars are now once more free. The stars of Flamespace are huge balls of radiant energy. Many of them harbor major vortexes to the Quasi-Plane of Radiance within their substance, and many strange radiance creatures dwell upon their surfaces. The stars now orbit in a loose shell around Lifefire. They are positioned many days away from Lifefire at normal spelljamming speeds, but it is well known that they can reposition themselves anywhere within Flamespace very quickly. Whether the stars of Flamespace are intelligent and/or Powers in their own right is unknown. Exactly what they are remains a mystery. All that is known is that they are the loyal servants of Metzli.
The Last Star, mightiest of its kind, does not dwell out in wildspace. This being, who is both intelligent and was likely a Demi-Power in its own right long before Metzli's return, took the throne and the rule of the Underworld at the center of Lifefire when its fellows were bound into Starfire. The Underworld, which began as a hiding place, became the Last Star's much-loved home.
The Last Star is loyal to Metzli, but its first loyalty is to its "children," the races who dwell in the Underworld, and whose life- forces are linked to the Last Star. Because of this link, the Last Star was unable to leave the Underworld unless some other power at least temporarily assumed its throne and the life-links. However, at the birth of the Fifth Age of the Sun, the Last Star took up the portfolio of god of fate and secrets which had been left open by the death of Camaxtli. Along with the new position, the Last Star took up a new name. The Last Star thus became Tlanatin, the Knower of Things. As a true god of Flamespace, the Last Star acquired influence beyond its Underworld home.
The four moons of Flamespace are the embodiment of Metzli, once bound together with her loyal Stars into the planet of Starfire. Now the four moons sit in close orbit around Lifefire and gaze down at mankind below, as they did during both the First and Second Ages of the Sun. The four moons are composed of a strange, faintly glowing pale blue stone that is found nowhere else in Flamespace. While there is no evidence of life of any kind on the moons, the Firelord Cult and the Snowball Alliance both have a superstitious aversion to them, and neither will consider spelljamming to any of the four moons.
While the original individual names of the moons are long lost, the people of Lifefire do remember the common name for them as a group. The Four Ghosts.
This small planet was once the sun of the Second Age of the Sun, and the home of Quetzalcoutl. After the end of the Second Age, Metzli's Four Ghosts and the Stars where bound around the rocky core of the quenched sun to form the planet of Starfire. Now that Starfire is no more, the rocky core of Quetzalcoutl's world is all that remains. Since Quetzalcoutl assumed the throne of Lifefire upon his return, the Cold Sun remains a dark, barren rock with no signs of life.
The embodiment of Tezcatlipoca, the planet of Deathfire was as dark as Starfire was bright. It contained major vortexes to both the Quasi-Plane of Ash and the Para-Elemental Plane of Smoke. It was a dark, grey blotch against the sky, visible as a black sphere even during Three-Sun from the surface of Lifefire.
When Hearthfire impacted Deathfire, both worlds flew to pieces. The pieces of Deathfire are called the Hands of Death. These comets, asteroids and planetoids are composed of the same substances of was Deathfire, and many hide vortexes to Ash and Smoke, as well.
Not surprisingly, many dark creatures of Ash and Smoke live upon the Hands. Rumors of undead abound. However, many of the Hands mixed with the substance of Hearthfire when they were formed. These magma pockets within the Hands, many containing their own vortexes, are cancers slowly destroying the Hands they infect. Each of the Hands containing some of Hearthfire are at war with themselves. On some Hands the Hearthfire's purifying flame is winning, on others it is losing. Rarest of all are a few Hands with none of the substance of Hearthfire attacking them. Even the Firelord Cult fears these places so much that Cult members would rather slay themselves than land on one.
Deathfire's remains are still worshipped by the Cult of Smoke (Also called the Cult of the Panther, the Cult of the Black Jaguar and the Dark Mirror Cult). The Cult of Smoke is notorious for its brutality and utter lack of inhibitions in using poisons and assassination. Even the Firelord Cult has outlawed and persecuted it with a heavy hand. Opposition of the Cult of Smoke is perhaps the only issue on which the Firelord Cult and the Snowball Alliance agree. Since the recent cataclysms were blamed on Deathfire, persecution of the Cult has increased, but so, perversely, has its membership, as the destruction wrought by Tezcatlipoca convinced many evil men and women of his power.
During the Third and Fourth Ages, twice a year all three suns of the Firelord ducked beneath the horizon of Lifefire, and Deathfire loomed high in the sky. Those days were known as the Hours of Death, and the people hid within their houses while hoodlums wreaked havoc and fell things wandered the streets. During this time, the Cult of Smoke gathered many unwilling sacrifices and offered them up to Tezcatlipoca in rituals that made even Huitzilopachtli's priests shudder. Deathfire's destruction seems to have brought this type of planetary conjunction to an end.
Although there is indication that forests and waters once covered large areas of the planet, and civilization once flourished, Lifefire has been reduced to a burnt husk of a world. Fully six- sevenths of the world's surface is desert - flat desert, mountainous desert, sandy desert, etc. Hot winds tear across the surface at speeds exceeding one hundred miles an hour in some places, and temperatures reach a hundred and twenty degrees for most of the day.
The last seventh of the world is occupied by a rapidly shrinking ocean called the Sea of Ice, and a strip of arable coastline of two hundred or so miles in width. It is here that the remnants of civilization eek out a barely tenable existence. The humans of the region typically congregate into powerful city states which war over the best areas of farming land (and occasionally reduce the land to blasted fields in the process). The most powerful city states worship the Firelord, though they pay particular attention to his Warlike aspect. The others have banded together in defense to form the Snowball Alliance, and instead worship the peaceful gods of love and art. In the very middle of the Sea of Ice is the Isle of Enoreth, which does not fit at all into the mythic history of Flamespace and makes one wonder whether that history might be missing a few key pieces. The region of the Sea of Ice is presented separately.
The gods of Flamespace are represented by specialty priests of the Aztec and non-human pantheons. While non-human priests follow Monstrous Mythology statistics, Aztec specialty priests are enhanced to a Toril-equivalent level of power. Even the three aspects of the Firelord have always had small groups of specialty priests which individually served them.
While the largest and most powerful group of priests in the sphere during the Fourth Age of the Sun were the priests of the Firelord as a whole, since the destruction of Hearthfire and Warfire, the unified "Firelord" religion has begun to separate into its three component faiths. Despite the strengthening of the three individual religions, however, a core group of Firelord purists remain committed to the "true path of flame."
Priests of the Firelord are standard PHB clerics with major
access to the Spheres of Elemental Fire, War, and Wards, and minor
access to the Sphere of Law.