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paradox42's crazy cosmology
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<blockquote data-quote="paradox42" data-source="post: 5076742" data-attributes="member: 29746"><p><strong>How the campaign ended</strong></p><p></p><p>Since I know several were curious, I'll post below an explanation of what happened in the last session of the game. Quoting from the thread where I discussed the setup:</p><p></p><p></p><p>Stats for the "parasite" are posted <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/eternity-publishing-hosted-forum/268666-3-5e-nehaschimic-dragons-4.html#post5073815" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p></p><p>Following the combat with the baby Brane Dragon (and the players did learn that name thanks to a couple party members with Psychometry), the party of 12 immediately teleported to the Ring, where they used the open portal to get to the Ritual a few (subjective) minutes before the Final Gate opened up. And open it did- once the Ritual was completed, the rock wall that had been its focus was replaced by a spherical portal leading to a locale that was brilliant white, dotted with black "stars-" the Eternal Realm.</p><p></p><p>From the other side of the open Gate stepped a Being unlike anything the PCs had ever seen before; I didn't give much description but said "if I said that it has a generally humanoid shape, and is more purple/dark blue/dark red than otherwise, it would not be completely inaccurate." The Being announced that it had come because its "CHILD" (this Being spoke in all-caps as well) was now free of the parasite. Its first action was to suggest (more to itself than anyone else) a "RESET" of the Reality. An NPC asked for the Being's name, which it gave as "MY NAME IS TOO LONG FOR YOU TO PROCESS. HOWEVER, IF YOU WISH TO USE AN ABBREVIATED VERSION OF IT, YOU MAY CALL ME SEPHIROSOPHIA." It then went on to explain that the "reset" it had just suggested would mean that "THE BASE REALITY IS BROUGHT BACK TO ITS INITIAL UNFORMED STATE, SO THAT IT CAN GROW AGAIN FROM THE BEGINNING."</p><p></p><p>This prospect, as expected, was rather unpalatable to the PCs- since it would mean that everything, including them, and everyone, except the proper Seven First Ones, would be in effect "deleted" so that the Seven could reshape the DABBATIALDABAOTH Reality over again as if there had never been a parasite. They toyed with the idea of fighting "SEPH" until one of them got Psychometry on the Being showing that it had 150,000 hit dice, each one a d1000, plus some ability giving it x10 hit points (for a grand total of 1.5 billion)- for starters. So instead, they argued with it.</p><p></p><p>And got SEPH to admit that there was another way. Even if the little events inside DABB were "TINY, AND TRITE," as SEPH said much later in the conversation, and thus essentially like the politics and lives of bacteria would be to us as Earth humans. SEPH realized, looking around, that the missing Seventh First One was in fact among the gathered entities at the Final Gate, only needing an infusion of power (for example, an infusion sheared off of SEPH's own seventh dimension) to grow to a level which would allow it to compete and prosper alongside the original Six. And of course, as SEPH noted this, it was looking squarely at the party of PCs.</p><p></p><p>So began the argument between interested players to decide which one of <strong>them</strong> would step into the place of the missing First One and assume the role, destined to become an integral and inseparable part of a properly growing and developing DABBATIALDABAOTH. It took some time to narrow down the candidates, even with the new wrinkle that was introduced next.</p><p></p><p>Because the Masters of that ancient race who had brought Urgic Magic to the homeworld of the PCs, who had first desired to cast the great Ritual of Opening and pass Beyond their Reality, now took their leave of said Reality by using the Gate they had finally succeeded in creating. One by one, they passed through and Transcended, presumably to one day become Eternals (like SEPH, and DABB) themselves. SEPHIROSOPHIA commented on their passing that "YOU ARE SMALL AND STUNTED, BUT YOU HAVE YOUR OWN STORIES TO TELL. THEY WOULD GROW AND <u>BECOME</u> IF YOU DIVORCE FROM DABBATIALDABAOTH."</p><p></p><p>This was the option that most PCs eventually took, when it was pointed out that this layer- being deep in the Far Realm- was truly outside any silly linear notion of time or causality. This single fact meant that this Final Gate was the only one that would ever touch this Reality, and that the entities gathered there to witness it were therefore the <strong>only ones</strong> out of <strong>all</strong> times and <strong>all</strong> spaces in <strong>all</strong> cosmologies (more on that in future posts in this thread) with the chance to Transcend.</p><p></p><p>In other words, I told the players, "count the number of versions of yourselves who are here. Those versions are the only versions of you who have this chance. As SEPHIROSOPHIA told you, you all have stories growing within you. Step through that Final Gate, the open Portal to the Eternal Realm, and those stories will grow and Become... real. They, and you, will Become Realities in their own right... but nothing other than SEPHIROSOPHIA is coming through the open Portal. If you leave, if you step through now, you will most assuredly never return to the places you once knew and loved. You will instead BECOME places you know and love, new places to be sure, but not the places you started from."</p><p></p><p>And so, the players made their choices, character by character. Being gods, they <strong>did</strong> have an option that mortals lack- namely, the option to leave an avatar behind if they Transcended, or to send an avatar through to Transcend in their place if they chose to stay. Several PCs took their real selves, and avatars along with, through the Final Gate to forever leave the DABBATIALDABAOTH Reality behind them. Most eventually chose to pass through the Final Gate themselves, but leave an avatar behind to watch over their religions and the places and people that had once been so important to them. In one character's case, he passed through the Final Gate, but given his personality, the avatar he'd meant to leave behind disobeyed after becoming its own creature and went through the Final Gate itself a few minutes later (this was all done by the player, and had nothing to do with any of the rest of us- we just laughed and agreed that it was exactly what the character could be expected to do). In the end, three PCs chose to stay behind in their real, original selves, while just sending avatars through the Final Gate to leave a mark on Eternity.</p><p></p><p>One of those three did it because she (the character; her player is actually male) was really a homebody at heart, personality-wise, and her player didn't think she'd be willing to leave her home behind forever even given the chance to make a new one. The other two stayed for an altogether more interesting reason- they were the last two who still wanted the position of Seventh First One even knowing that it would mean staying behind and giving up Transcendence. One of them made an excellent case for becoming a "Memory" First One, while the other argued that his character would make a First One of "Creation" and would be better. Neither one was willing to give it up, so I (through SEPHIROSOPHIA) resolved the conflict by commenting "BUT, YOU <u>ARE</u> THE SEVENTH. DO YOU NOT SEE IT? BOTH OF YOU ARE."</p><p></p><p>The (formerly) two characters agreed that this was a particularly elegant solution, and merged their characters into one greater being which then received the infusion of power from SEPH's own fully-grown Seventh dimension. This being, representing both Memory <strong>and</strong> Creation, needed to be its own concept, but in a moment of perfect accord, all players present (within half a minute of the question being posed) agreed that the necessary concept was in fact Evolution. I finished this up by describing it thusly: "Evolution begins the long, difficult task of fixing the connections between the other sorry Dimensions of this tired old Reality and breathing new life into them. Evolution is what COMPLETES them. Evolution is what lets them GROW and BECOME. Evolution is what will someday allow them to reach their full Potential."</p><p></p><p>And with that last task complete, the last of the entities desiring Transcendence passed through the Final Gate, and I described what happened next: "And DABBATIALDABAOTH, which awoke on all cosmoses simultaneously, hears the voice of its Parent SEPHIROSOPHIA lulling it back to sleep to heal and Become. And it does. The Age of Healing begins. In the Place of the Ritual, the few beings left behind who have not already made their choices disperse, most passing back through the Ring Portal into the central cosmos to begin new lives amid the subtly altered Reality. The Ring, no longer needed, frays and unbraids and falls apart, its power spinning away into the void and collapsing into formlessness. The great Portal it focused open collapses and closes. With it closes the Final Gate, the External Portal that is the one way to the Eternal Realm. The Silver Key, no longer needed here, is taken back into the Reality that created it- SEPHIROSOPHIA- and the body that that great Being sent through the Final Gate into your Reality is the last to pass through the closing Final Gate."</p><p></p><p>And that was essentially it, aside from giving the characters who Transcended a chance to each get an epilogue in their own new Realities- for example, one character (a War god) who was the last of his race was said to live in a new universe that was much like the old, except that the analogue of the homeworld which existed <strong>there</strong> had only one race on it (negative infinity points if you don't guess which race it was), and that race was constantly testing its might against the beings of neighboring worlds and planes.</p><p></p><p>Some of you are probably wondering what that Silver Key I just mentioned above might be- but that's better dealt with in a future post. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="paradox42, post: 5076742, member: 29746"] [b]How the campaign ended[/b] Since I know several were curious, I'll post below an explanation of what happened in the last session of the game. Quoting from the thread where I discussed the setup: Stats for the "parasite" are posted [URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/eternity-publishing-hosted-forum/268666-3-5e-nehaschimic-dragons-4.html#post5073815"]here[/URL]. Following the combat with the baby Brane Dragon (and the players did learn that name thanks to a couple party members with Psychometry), the party of 12 immediately teleported to the Ring, where they used the open portal to get to the Ritual a few (subjective) minutes before the Final Gate opened up. And open it did- once the Ritual was completed, the rock wall that had been its focus was replaced by a spherical portal leading to a locale that was brilliant white, dotted with black "stars-" the Eternal Realm. From the other side of the open Gate stepped a Being unlike anything the PCs had ever seen before; I didn't give much description but said "if I said that it has a generally humanoid shape, and is more purple/dark blue/dark red than otherwise, it would not be completely inaccurate." The Being announced that it had come because its "CHILD" (this Being spoke in all-caps as well) was now free of the parasite. Its first action was to suggest (more to itself than anyone else) a "RESET" of the Reality. An NPC asked for the Being's name, which it gave as "MY NAME IS TOO LONG FOR YOU TO PROCESS. HOWEVER, IF YOU WISH TO USE AN ABBREVIATED VERSION OF IT, YOU MAY CALL ME SEPHIROSOPHIA." It then went on to explain that the "reset" it had just suggested would mean that "THE BASE REALITY IS BROUGHT BACK TO ITS INITIAL UNFORMED STATE, SO THAT IT CAN GROW AGAIN FROM THE BEGINNING." This prospect, as expected, was rather unpalatable to the PCs- since it would mean that everything, including them, and everyone, except the proper Seven First Ones, would be in effect "deleted" so that the Seven could reshape the DABBATIALDABAOTH Reality over again as if there had never been a parasite. They toyed with the idea of fighting "SEPH" until one of them got Psychometry on the Being showing that it had 150,000 hit dice, each one a d1000, plus some ability giving it x10 hit points (for a grand total of 1.5 billion)- for starters. So instead, they argued with it. And got SEPH to admit that there was another way. Even if the little events inside DABB were "TINY, AND TRITE," as SEPH said much later in the conversation, and thus essentially like the politics and lives of bacteria would be to us as Earth humans. SEPH realized, looking around, that the missing Seventh First One was in fact among the gathered entities at the Final Gate, only needing an infusion of power (for example, an infusion sheared off of SEPH's own seventh dimension) to grow to a level which would allow it to compete and prosper alongside the original Six. And of course, as SEPH noted this, it was looking squarely at the party of PCs. So began the argument between interested players to decide which one of [B]them[/B] would step into the place of the missing First One and assume the role, destined to become an integral and inseparable part of a properly growing and developing DABBATIALDABAOTH. It took some time to narrow down the candidates, even with the new wrinkle that was introduced next. Because the Masters of that ancient race who had brought Urgic Magic to the homeworld of the PCs, who had first desired to cast the great Ritual of Opening and pass Beyond their Reality, now took their leave of said Reality by using the Gate they had finally succeeded in creating. One by one, they passed through and Transcended, presumably to one day become Eternals (like SEPH, and DABB) themselves. SEPHIROSOPHIA commented on their passing that "YOU ARE SMALL AND STUNTED, BUT YOU HAVE YOUR OWN STORIES TO TELL. THEY WOULD GROW AND [U]BECOME[/U] IF YOU DIVORCE FROM DABBATIALDABAOTH." This was the option that most PCs eventually took, when it was pointed out that this layer- being deep in the Far Realm- was truly outside any silly linear notion of time or causality. This single fact meant that this Final Gate was the only one that would ever touch this Reality, and that the entities gathered there to witness it were therefore the [B]only ones[/B] out of [B]all[/B] times and [B]all[/B] spaces in [B]all[/B] cosmologies (more on that in future posts in this thread) with the chance to Transcend. In other words, I told the players, "count the number of versions of yourselves who are here. Those versions are the only versions of you who have this chance. As SEPHIROSOPHIA told you, you all have stories growing within you. Step through that Final Gate, the open Portal to the Eternal Realm, and those stories will grow and Become... real. They, and you, will Become Realities in their own right... but nothing other than SEPHIROSOPHIA is coming through the open Portal. If you leave, if you step through now, you will most assuredly never return to the places you once knew and loved. You will instead BECOME places you know and love, new places to be sure, but not the places you started from." And so, the players made their choices, character by character. Being gods, they [B]did[/B] have an option that mortals lack- namely, the option to leave an avatar behind if they Transcended, or to send an avatar through to Transcend in their place if they chose to stay. Several PCs took their real selves, and avatars along with, through the Final Gate to forever leave the DABBATIALDABAOTH Reality behind them. Most eventually chose to pass through the Final Gate themselves, but leave an avatar behind to watch over their religions and the places and people that had once been so important to them. In one character's case, he passed through the Final Gate, but given his personality, the avatar he'd meant to leave behind disobeyed after becoming its own creature and went through the Final Gate itself a few minutes later (this was all done by the player, and had nothing to do with any of the rest of us- we just laughed and agreed that it was exactly what the character could be expected to do). In the end, three PCs chose to stay behind in their real, original selves, while just sending avatars through the Final Gate to leave a mark on Eternity. One of those three did it because she (the character; her player is actually male) was really a homebody at heart, personality-wise, and her player didn't think she'd be willing to leave her home behind forever even given the chance to make a new one. The other two stayed for an altogether more interesting reason- they were the last two who still wanted the position of Seventh First One even knowing that it would mean staying behind and giving up Transcendence. One of them made an excellent case for becoming a "Memory" First One, while the other argued that his character would make a First One of "Creation" and would be better. Neither one was willing to give it up, so I (through SEPHIROSOPHIA) resolved the conflict by commenting "BUT, YOU [U]ARE[/U] THE SEVENTH. DO YOU NOT SEE IT? BOTH OF YOU ARE." The (formerly) two characters agreed that this was a particularly elegant solution, and merged their characters into one greater being which then received the infusion of power from SEPH's own fully-grown Seventh dimension. This being, representing both Memory [B]and[/B] Creation, needed to be its own concept, but in a moment of perfect accord, all players present (within half a minute of the question being posed) agreed that the necessary concept was in fact Evolution. I finished this up by describing it thusly: "Evolution begins the long, difficult task of fixing the connections between the other sorry Dimensions of this tired old Reality and breathing new life into them. Evolution is what COMPLETES them. Evolution is what lets them GROW and BECOME. Evolution is what will someday allow them to reach their full Potential." And with that last task complete, the last of the entities desiring Transcendence passed through the Final Gate, and I described what happened next: "And DABBATIALDABAOTH, which awoke on all cosmoses simultaneously, hears the voice of its Parent SEPHIROSOPHIA lulling it back to sleep to heal and Become. And it does. The Age of Healing begins. In the Place of the Ritual, the few beings left behind who have not already made their choices disperse, most passing back through the Ring Portal into the central cosmos to begin new lives amid the subtly altered Reality. The Ring, no longer needed, frays and unbraids and falls apart, its power spinning away into the void and collapsing into formlessness. The great Portal it focused open collapses and closes. With it closes the Final Gate, the External Portal that is the one way to the Eternal Realm. The Silver Key, no longer needed here, is taken back into the Reality that created it- SEPHIROSOPHIA- and the body that that great Being sent through the Final Gate into your Reality is the last to pass through the closing Final Gate." And that was essentially it, aside from giving the characters who Transcended a chance to each get an epilogue in their own new Realities- for example, one character (a War god) who was the last of his race was said to live in a new universe that was much like the old, except that the analogue of the homeworld which existed [B]there[/B] had only one race on it (negative infinity points if you don't guess which race it was), and that race was constantly testing its might against the beings of neighboring worlds and planes. Some of you are probably wondering what that Silver Key I just mentioned above might be- but that's better dealt with in a future post. :) [/QUOTE]
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