Bending the World

[Accelerator]

Records of the Great Calamity are vague and contradictory. Some say heaven itself was torn from the sky and slammed into the face of the world. Regardless, the ancient magic binding the five pillars of reality together came loose. Each elemental pole collapsed in on itself as the boundless chaos outside reality rushed in, forming five new worlds.

The centre, Earth, is the most hospitable, retaining a balance of the elements to produce a varied climate that supports a range of ecosystems.

The world of Wood is an endless jungle planet teeming with life and vitality, but a little perilous due to the great beasts that will make a quick meal of unwary travellers.

Water is a sea-covered world peppered with islands, where adventurers and pirates roam.

Fire is a desert world. Those who seek a life here must huddle around what few precious oases persist.

Air is a snowball planet home to great woolly beasts. Travellers must face near-constant blizzards.

In all this, what became of the exalted? Who can say? Perhaps their shards are lost, unable to find their way home in the endless expanse the universe has become.

Maybe, after thousands of years, some have finally found their way back.

Wait. What about the pole of fire as the sun?

[Elfive]

I considered that but decided I liked Tatooine better.

[The Wizard of Oz]

Don't suppose you've ever read the Death Gate Cycle, Elfive?

[Elfive]

I have not.

[The Wizard of Oz]

It's one of the early sets of novels done by Weiss and Hickman in the early 90s.
There are four worlds, which exist in alternate dimensions to each other:
1) An endless jungle planet teeming with life and vitality, but a little perilous due to the great beasts and giants that will make a quick meal of unwary travellers.
2) A sea-covered world peppered with islands, where sea drakes roam.
3) An underground world.
4) A realm (I wouldn't say world, because there's no planet) of flying islands surrounded by eternal air.
There's also a small inner world of perpetual twilight, but which otherwise is quite nice and balanced.

It turns out that in fact these worlds were made after a great cataclysm split the original world up along elemental lines.

[Naz]

After eons of fighting the Wyld, a Solar or Sidereal manages to wrap Creation around the Wyld, trapping it beneath and within the physical form-enforced world. Creation is made even less for it, but more secure. Over time, this still does not prevent some denizens and/or influence of the Wyld from seeping out into the new sphere.