Void Dimension

The Void is the single true other dimension this world touches. It is not darkness, not hell, not endless empty space. It is a reality outside reality — incomplete, and wrong in ways the mind keeps discovering.

Inside the Void: sound lags or never forms; time does not flow straight; objects do not fully exist; distance cannot be trusted; a person can forget their own name; card effects turn unstable; and the creatures do not follow the rules of the real world.

Survival there is nearly impossible. Yet some people have survived, some have returned, and some who returned were never the same person again. Those three groups are not as separate as the living would like.

There is one known way back. When an Orvath — the great creature of the deep Void — is gravely wounded, a Void Gate opens for a short time and allows a single person to pass through into the real world. Every documented return rests on that rule, which is another way of saying that every one of the Returned once stood over a wounded Orvath, or was standing beside someone who did.