Deep Lore: Cosmology

Our place in the universe, its place in the multiverse, the strange planes between and beyond, as well as the various entities that inhabit them

Reality – The Plane We Call Home

Reality comprises our native universe. We see it from the limited perspective of Earth, third planet of the Sol System, in the obscure reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy. As mentioned in prior posts, reality's default state is governed by The Resting Laws—typically reliable laws of science and nature like thermodynamics, gravity, electro-magnetism, and so on. Aliens may be out there somewhere, but we'll likely never make contact with them. That said, humanity isn't alone in this dimension!

Humanity cohabits Earth with monstrum—creatures whose biology directly defies the Resting Laws. Unlike humans, whose wyrds are entirely metaphysical, monsters possess urdo-biology; magic organs that enable unique, seemingly impossible abilities. The majority of monsters are beastly animals, but monstrous plants, and intelligent creatures capable of speech also exist. The most dangerous monsters are human-passing, including various types of natural-born vampires, doppelgängers, and mysterious wytches.

Typically, a monster's means of reproduction and propagation is mysterious, making eradication impossible. Unlike normal animals, monstrum actively destabilize the ecosystems they appear in, primarily due to their torment drive—an instinctive need to inflict pain, fear, and harm on other species. They hunt needlessly and indiscriminately, seeking only power and vindictive pleasure. There are a few exceptions, especially among intelligent monstrum, and rare "noble breeds" such as gryphons, which can be domesticated and trained.

On top of monsters, normal animals possess wyrds and can perform magic. The gulf between animal magic and human magic is comparable to the gulf between human and animal speech, however. While their spells are more primitive, we can't claim to fully understand them. Just as most animals cannot use tools, few can perform contracts. Those capable of contracts (chimpanzees, octopuses, dolphins, whales, raccoons, and foxes) use them for tasks that are either completely inscrutable or hyper-specific (like prying open abalone shells, or escaping dumpsters). The primary difference between Anno Amagium and the world you are reading from is that pets can be far more obnoxious and explicit when begging for food.

Supernatural disasters exist, though the mildest transmutation storm or rain of fire is far rarer than tornados, typhoons, thousand-year-storms, and other inclement weather. Supernatural industrial accidents also exist (Gygax Grid backflows, defective anima), as do supernatural maladies. (Acrhonolepsy entails chronic temporal seizures, where the sufferer sees a premonition that lasts precisely as long as the time preceding the foretold event. Apoleia is the gradual decay of urdic control, resulting first in clumsy magic, uncontrollable magic, and then fatal etheric suffocation and physical disintegration). So yes, supernatural healthcare and its many problems are also here, and here to stay.

But there is also indulgence. Grace. Adventure. Amputees have access to protheses which react as responsively as their own limbs did, even offering a degree of touch sensitivity. Children can make rainbows dance at their fingertips in the cradle. Safe, functional highways congeal out of ether in response to traffic to alleviate congestion (in Los Angeles County, at least. It works. Kind of! Most of the time!). Airships race through New Amsterdam's multi-tiered skyline, with buildings wrought from wood, glass, and stone as well as concrete and metal. And a cache of pre-Homeric Ruins—a whole new frontier of human exploration and excitement—lies buried at the ass-end of Dalhart (our affectionate take on the middle of nowhere).

All things considered, Anno Amagium's day-to-day world is more dangerous and fantastic than our own, but it has the same rough consistency and range of extremes. An average day is just that—one like countless others. Some days are devastating. Some nights seem to last forever. The most precious moments are all too brief.

The Faed – The Ever-Shifting Realm of the Fair Folk

There is an entire other dimension of sentient life in the shadow of reality proper. A world where time passes differently, and the geography is as mercurial as the weather. And its intelligent inhabitants—Fae, Fairies, People of the Mounds, and so forth—have a close but fraught relationship with humanity.

Fae are an extension of the Faed itself, beholden to one of Five Seasonal Courts, and they are governed by cryptic strictures known as The Auld Laws. The most widely known Auld Law is that fae cannot speak outright falsehoods—They are utterly incapable of lying. Another piece of common knowledge is that fae have an agonizing weakness to worked iron, and its alchemically concentrated cousin, Black Iron, which they refer to as "The Bane." Despite this weakness, Fae are all semi-immortal. They can be slain (by exhausting their power and reducing their physical bodies to fae dust) but they will gradually reconstitute over the course of days, weeks, or months, depending on how "thoroughly" they were dispatched. A fae will recover from gunfire or a spear thrust through the heart faster than decapitation or immolation, for example. And if a fae is killed with Black Iron, they will lose all the memories of their most recent life—a grave insult that almost inevitably spurs reprisal.

Rather than wyrds, Fae have magical power commensurate with their standing in their respective court, referred to as eminence. Fae can use their eminence to perform magic both within the Faed and without, though their powers will be much more pronounced in their native realm—especially in their court's territories. In fact, Fae cannot survive in reality for long. Cut off from the Faed, all but the most powerful fae will gradually lose power and degrade into Fae dust—which, incidentally, is a common recreational hallucinogen with varying side effects depending on which fae it is derived from.

Fae come in countless flavors of sentient fantasy races. Graceful elves, tiny pixies, muscular dwarves, crafty gnomes, subtle halflings, feisty goblins, nomadic orcs, ravenous ogres, and avaricious trolls are all common. Faen humanoids with animal features known as kith exist (lite furries), as do fully anthropomorphized animal-kin (full furries), and living plant people known as Florem. The list goes on endlessly and varies substantially depending on the current season, and the location in reality that a person enters the Faed from.

The overwhelming majority of sentient faen species are capable of interbreeding with humans. Half-fae are the sterile offspring of humans and fae. Unlike their fully faen parent, half-fae are capable of lying… though it requires comparable will to manually breaking your own bones and it is even more painful. This makes half-fae extremely reliable and valuable witnesses. Most half-fae have features reminiscent of their faen parent which range from very subtle (pointed ears, stout or slender stature, unusual eye colors) to extremely prominent (unusual skin colors, scales, wings, tails, horns, grass in place of hair, etc.). As such, it is common for half-fae to face severe prejudice.

The Faed itself is a perilous realm that consists of magical geography (towering mushroom forests, gravity defying oceans, and geometric mountain ranges), and faen civilizations which are even more fantastic (glass villages, sprawling cities held aloft by wings or airships, metropolises of carefully structured trees or hollowed bones, seemingly endless subterranean vaults structured like the gears of a colossal clock). Furthermore, time passes at an uneven and inconsistent rate between the Faed and Reality. An hour in the Faed could equate to day in Reality, or a person may experience a week's worth of events and return to find only an afternoon has passed.

The Veil – The Abstract Membrane Between Worlds

An abstract, metaphysical plane of existence lies between our stable Reality and the marvelous wonderland of the Faed. It is known as the Veil, and it houses the world's collective unconscious. It is where ideas live and dreams play out. Egregoric entities such as demons, angels, and the gods that govern them are believed to primarily dwell in the Veil. Errant pocket dimensions, temporary planar bubbles with physical form, float through this ocean of abstraction.

Most people who have ventured into the Veil liken the experience through passing through a body of water. In Soft Spots and Liminal Spaces, where dimensional barriers are thin, this water is typically calm and thin, at times even vaporous. But in places where the Resting Laws are particularly strong, the waters may be as thick as glacial ice. Excessive magic use in reality or the Faed will often make the barrier's "waters" fraught and deep. Punching through the Veil to reach another plane typically requires powerful magic, special drugs, careful preparation, or some combination of the three. (There are some humans who are afflicted with/blessed by a rare condition called Akrasia which grants their wyrd the ability to phase through the Veil with relatively trivial effort. But akrasiacs also suffer from periodic dimensional seizures, which can strand them in pocket dimensions, or shoot them straight into dangerous areas of the Faed.)

Just as Fae rely on eminence and purely biological creatures rely on wyrds, egregoric magic is fueled by collective belief. With sufficient infamy (or reverence), an egregore can either possess or manifest a physical body in reality. Possession is more common among religious entities (angels, demons, and so forth), while incarnation is typical for "lesser egregores," such as urban legends and stubborn local myths of small consequence.

Other Planes – Worlds Beyond and Stranger Places Still

Anno Amagium's Earth has many unique properties that make it significant to the various powers that be, but at the end of the day, it is merely one reality among many. The existence of other worlds is a common topic of public speculation, and a closely guarded secret confirmed by the leadership of the Third Amagium. Amagia know that egregores (particularly religious entities) can "touch" multiple realities simultaneously, but the cosmological implications of this dimensional super-position are still unclear. (Have any other entities successfully traveled from other worlds to this one? That's for Fate Masters to determine!)

Apart from plural realities, other planes have been detected through arcane experiments, but what they contain, and how they can be accessed, is still a matter of speculation subject to hushed but heated debate. Some scholars assume that these planes are extensions of egregoric entities—the various heavens, hells, and other afterlives associated with organized religion. Others suspect that there are planes of power that serve as the origin point of different kinds of ether; magical wellsprings powering the rest of existence.

Erebus – The Caustic Non-Being Between Creation

Rather than a distinct realm, Erebus is best understood as cracks of corruption, reaching through the whole of existence. It is an all-consuming negative space, anathema to change, progress, and growth.

Entities with the ability to influence Erebus are known as Strangers. While the Third Amagium has confidentially confirmed their existence, they defy simple categorization. The most popular theory is that they represent "inverted egregores," avatars that represent irreparable deficits or gulf of sentient perspective. Strangers (and the forces of Erebus as a whole) cannot freely intrude on planes of existence. A living entity within such a plane must agree to act as a Stranger's herald, spreading their influence and gradually laying the groundwork for their intrusion.

Unlike other forms of magic, which rewrite, suspend, distort, or embellish the Resting Laws, erebyssal magic, or xenomancy, effects change by actively erasing the etheric runes that underpin existence. Consequently, xenomancy cannot be sensed or combatted through normal supernatural means. If you ever wondered what witchcraft and superstition looked like in a world of magic, xenomancy is the answer.