The Helfen-Thel system contains nine worlds orbiting the orange-red sun Ombrut. Its predominant people are the maggedli: stony-skinned humanoids about 3 feet tall whose civilization is built on magic rather than advanced technology. Though maggedli never developed true spaceflight beyond rudimentary enchanted rockets, they settled all nine worlds through an immense teleportation infrastructure of far-step arches. On Helfen, their home world, natural geological arches aligned to ley lines enabled stable long-range gates early on; on other worlds, explorers initially traveled one-way and spent generations growing suitable stone arches to complete two-way transit. Today, thousands of far-step arches knit the system together so tightly that routine daily travel can span multiple planets. During expansion, maggedli encountered halaths on the ice world Thel: friendly, ram-headed quadrupeds and master ice-shapers who preserved their warming world through advanced cryomagic and geologic control. Halaths are unaffected by teleportation and cannot use far-step arches, so while politically influential in the Ninefold Council, they remain physically constrained by Thel's ecology and infrastructure. Recently, troubling gate anomalies have emerged: travelers appearing aged by weeks or months, others returning bloodless and dead, and some vanishing entirely. The Ninefold Council is suppressing details to prevent panic across this arch-dependent civilization.