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--- cosmology [2024/01/14 19:01] – nmorse
+++ cosmology [2025/05/20 23:20] (current) – [Adjacent Planes] nmorse
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 This category of being covers a wide range of entities that are supernatural forces of great power, but not part of the original 108.  Divine servants, the ultra-high end Elemental Beings that adept class shamans invoke, a few of the most revered Emperors of the Mandarinate, and the First Ancestors of the Fang Empire fall into this category.  Unlike the gods, it is possible to get a conversation with these, even if it only amounts to "Die mortal worm!"
+It is important to note that while the 108 original gods could (and did) manifest in multiple places simultaneously, the Lesser (awake) gods appear to only manage to be in one place at a time.
+With the exception of Belkwynith Stormcrow, of course.
 ====The Darkness====
 The stuff the Jewel drove back at the beginning.  Depending on your lore book, it is either another plane of existence, or out beyond the stars, or between them.  It is where demons, devils, and the Outer Masters dwell.  The first two groups seem focused on screwing up the Jewel's territory, and corrupting souls to bring back home with them.  The  Outer Masters don't seem to care, and give the other natives of the Darkness the willies.
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 ====Fate and Destiny====
 First the good news: free will exists, there is no predestination //by default//.  Ignoring the known plot point that the First Sorcerer's War will be happening in the next several generations, there is no grand tapestry of fate directing the lives of mortals.  With 107 active major gods, you have to ask, "How would that even work?"  That said, there are hordes of fortune tellers, diviners, and prophets all trying to catch a glimpse of the future, or make coin convincing others that they can.  Which feeds into the most terrifying and powerful force in Lunistria: **Mortal Belief**.\\
-One enough people believe an event is going to happen, it almost invariably //does//.  The old granny says your son was born under a lucky star, and will Do Great Things?  Thanks to the subconscious support of your village, he's headed for an adventuring career.  Get a dry summer causing everyone to worry about a drought?  Time to hire a weather mage lest the winter be frighteningly arid.  And if that old fool on the edge of town rants about the mountain kami's anger, best invest in long term housing elsewhere.\\
+Once enough people believe an event is going to happen, it almost invariably //does//.  The old granny says your son was born under a lucky star, and will Do Great Things?  Thanks to the subconscious support of your village, he's headed for an adventuring career.  Get a dry summer causing everyone to worry about a drought?  Time to hire a weather mage lest the winter be frighteningly arid.  And if that old fool on the edge of town rants about the mountain kami's anger, best invest in long term housing elsewhere.\\
 And this doesn't even //begin// to take into account the interference of Belkwynith Stormcrow, Greater Dragon of Time, Demigod of meddling.  Somewhere between Gandalf and the Doctor in his operations, he thankfully couches his predictions as deductive reasoning.  "If **these** unfortunate events are allowed to play out, then **this** really bad situation will follow."
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 Each of the ten (twelve?) elements has its own, less adjacent plane of conceptual embodiment.  A popular method of reaching them is though the Spiritplane, but anyone who claims to have entered one is probably lying or mistaken.  Each of the Elemental Planes has a marginally survivable buffer zone between it an the Spiritplane, probably created through the limitations of mortal understanding and the terrifying power of mortal belief.  Most of the elemental planes also have buffer zones between each other.  It is entirely impossible to map the interconnections between the elemental planes in three dimensions.  Most of the arcanologists who master the four-dimensional math techniques to do so usually end up being masters of spatial magics.
+Which brings us to the **Other Realms**.  In the boundaries of the Dream and Spirit planes, eddies and currents are formed as the power of mortal dreaming creativity mixes with the malleable and unpredictable essence of spiritual substance.  And in some of the calmer margins of this maelstrom, islands of stability form.  It is best to treat them as pocket dimensions (or World of Darkness //Horizon Realms//), and they range in size from a small closet to moderate sized nations.  The Hidden Kingdom of the Swanmai, Mount Hourai of the Greater Kitsune, the Questing Realm of the Tikume, and the Eternal Battlefield of the War God are all examples.