Editing LeviathanTempest:ChapterOne (section)

=== The Rift ===
In the absence of the Primordial Seas, the Rift is what remains. In place of permanently basking in the undiluted glory of Tiamat, the Tribe now wallows in a hollow echo, a stunted replica of what might once have been a very real physical entity which covered and contained the entirety of the world. The Rift is little comfort to the fevered mind of a Leviathan - it is dark and wracked with spasms, impossibly and terrifyingly vast while retaining an oppressive and claustrophobic atmosphere. Ultimately, the Rift represents the subconscious of the Tribe, the twisted minds of both Leviathans and their Lahmasu relatives, as well as scattered remnants of the Progenitors. In a sense, it is a museum - a place where neuroses, afflictions, and fears survive, long after their owners have died. The Rift teems with horrors both native and imported, and above all it resonates with a feeling of loss and impending violence - there is no comfort or security to be found in its depths. And yet it is the closest thing the Tribe has to an ancestral homeland. 

A Leviathan may enter the Rift through the medium of water, although alternate methods exist. The more the water resembles the sea, the better - and a sea that is wracked with the fury of a storm is better still. In any form, water is a powerful conduit for the blood of the Progenitors, and any body of water sufficient to cover most of a Leviathan's body - and that of any potential passengers - will serve as a gateway. The trip is often one-way, and the passage of the Leviathan opens the conduit to the unrelenting fury of the Tempest, tossing water into the sky or causing it to breathe forth great clouds of fog or mist. 

The Rift has layers, each one farther from the Shore (the physical world). Its increasingly inhospitable depths are host to numerous beasts both ancient and newly-forged, and in some dark corners lie lost structures, sunken in the parting of the waters, which a Leviathan might explore or take shelter in. Ultimately, though, a Leviathan reaches the core of the Rift - the gaping wound left in it by the death of Tiamat - and gazes upon the physical Tempest, a churning mass of such ferocity that no being has entered it and escaped. Rumors abound that the Tempest, should one pass through, might serve as a gateway to a deeper, purer reality - but none have returned and few would chance annihilation in that terrifying maw simply to test out a rumor. For the time being, the Tribe is cut off from the world that they lost, and might always be so.