The cosmology, as understood by the region the game is set in, followed by known errors/omissions the players have discovered. Many names are in the local tongue, and might be known by other names in other lands.
- Al-Duniyyah, "that which is near/lower," the realm where all mortals live. Functions much as one would expect, with seasons, eclipses, celestial bodies visible from its surface, etc. It is understood by the dominant Safiqi religion to be a place of testing, which is why it can be a dangerous and hostile place, but also a place of great beauty, hope, and love.
- Al-Akirah, "that which is far/extreme," the realm from which elemental power appears to arise. A parallel world that matches the loose, but not precise, geography of Al-Duniyyah. Long ago, the genie-rajahs left the (local) mortal world, and began living full-time in this "elemental otherworld." Jinnistan, the genie-country in Al-Akirah, is an incredibly opulent land...assuming you're among the nobility.
- Al-Barzakh, "that which separates," frequently just called "the spirit world." Very closely resembles the physical world of Al-Duniyyah, but is shaped by the concepts, behaviors, and beliefs of both sapient mortals and natural phenomena. Dead souls stay here, temporarily, before passing beyond the circles of the world. In theory, every world has its own "Al-Barzakh," but they all go by the same name.
- Al-Jana, "the heavens," meaning the celestial sphere above/outside Al-Duniyyah's atmosphere. Little is known about its specific details, as it cannot be physically reached but can be observed. Astronomers and astrologists study it regularly. Exactly why it is physically impossible to exit the atmosphere of Al-Duniyyah remains unknown.
- Jannah, "True Heaven/Paradise," claimed to exist by the Safiqi religion, but unreachable by any except those who die and pass on from Al-Barzakh. It is not possible to communicate with, observe, or call back any soul that has departed from Al-Barzakh, so evidence of Jannah is lacking, especially since celestials are not known to exist (at least by current-day mages.)
- Al-Jahim, the Underworld, a place of darkness and dangerous things. It seems to brush against the seams of reality and many strange and nasty things can come from its depths. In the deepest pits, the darkness gives way to fire that cannot be quenched--few return from any journey that goes deep enough to see it.
- Ja'hannam, "Hell/the Abyss," the place of punishment. Its denizens are either Devils or Demons, allegedly those cast out by the One, the Great Architect, long ago when they broke the divine commands of their Maker. Access to Ja'hannam is difficult at best and always dangerous because of the nature of its residents, but those residents often seek dealings with mortals for (often symbolic) power.
The above are all the planes as known to Waziri mages and Safiqi priests (with Jannah not
formally recognized by many Waziri, or only given lip service to avoid religious censure). The Kahina--shamans and druids--do not particularly care much about cosmology and therefore only really care about Al-Duniyyah and Al-Barzakh, and
maybe Al-Akirah since elementals come from there.
The party has since learned, however, of at least two planes NOT present in the above list--and the possibility that there are actually infinitely many planes. One is the artificially-constructed "perpendicular" plane of Zerzura, the White City, the Garden-City, built eons ago by the Shi, a race of very alien but incredibly beautiful elf-like beings. It was heavily damaged by the Song of Thorns, a parasitic/mimetic-virus spirit of savagery and entropy, but the party has destroyed that spirit and established a colony of (effectively) the region's first Aasimar, who are interested in repairing the plane--and, if the vision of a possible future holds true, one day the Shi will return and Zerzura will be a place of beauty and knowledge once again, but this time kinder and gentler than before.
While in Zerzura, they came upon a planetarium-like building, in which they discovered a projector that could show the geography of what appear to be
other worlds, worlds never catalogued or discovered by the Waziri. If these really exist, it would imply that the Waziri have somehow been deceived, as many, many centuries of magical and physical observation have failed to discover even a
single other plane besides the list above. Zerzura itself is obviously one exception, but its "planetarium" appears to imply the existence of hundreds, perhaps
thousands of other planes.
The other thing the party has discovered is that there
used to be a population of ancient elves living to the south of their homeland (the Tarrakhuna) in what is now called the "elf forests," who called themselves the El-Adrin. These El-Adrin were capable of wondrous and shocking feats of magic, but departed the world long ago for some pocket-plane, because of an as-yet-unknown cataclysmic event which would have prevented their civilization from continuing as it was. They left a few people behind to "begin the return" when the time was right, and those people are the ancestors of the modern elves, somehow diminished from what they were during the time of the El-Adrin. The El-Adrin apparently also had contact with actual celestial beings, including angels and couatl. All the party knows about the cataclysm the El-Adrin fled from is that it was caused by Azimech al-Saqqit, "the uplifted and fallen one," whose coming "changed the world" and would have meant the end of their civilization.
I have already spoken at length about what the party discovered about the origins of devils and demons in other threads, so I'll be brief. All three parties (mortal representatives of the One, the devils, and the demons) agree that long ago they were "servants" like what are now called celestials, but some "rebels" defied the divine commandment to never
coerce mortals into following the divine plan. This precipitated a War in Heaven which was infinitely long for those who fought in it and instantaneous to the outside universe. Three factions eventually came out: the loyal Servants, the rebellious Devils, and the anarchistic Demons. Devils believe they won a provisional victory, earning the right to
prove that their method of iron laws that cannot be defied is right. Demons believe they won the right to blow naughty word up as much as they like and to whet their unending appetites and unquenchable thirsts via the mortal world. The Servants (and thus, presumably, the One) believe they won the war, giving just and ironic punishments to the Devils (who are now coerced by law just as they wished to coerce others) and Demons (who are now ruled by the very passions they decided to indulge).
The party has also had
limited contact with an actual celestial being (a couatl named Tlacalicue, literally "Daylight-Her-Skirt"), or partially-sanctified but still fully "natural" beings (a gold dragon, masquerading as a dragonborn priest, named Tenryu Shen, "Shen" being his given name as he comes from the Asia-inspired Yuxia, far across the western sea.)