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The cosmology of your homebrew campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Jack Daniel" data-source="post: 8492162" data-attributes="member: 694"><p>My settings' cosmology is analogous to a layered onion, with the "centermost" plane of existence being a static realm of pure Law, and the outermost void a churning sea of Chaotic everything-and-nothing-all-at-once. The planar "layers," from innermost to outermost, are:</p><p></p><p>The Empyrean Center of All Being</p><p>The Platonic Astral Sea</p><p>The Inner Etheric Plane (which gradually becomes the Realm of Faerie as one approaches the Material Plane)</p><p>The Prime Material Plane (itself a multiverse containing all extant physical universes)</p><p>The Outer Etheric Plane (which starts with the Veil of Shadow, which is the realm of the dead, and then gradually fades into…)</p><p>The Surface of Limbo</p><p>The Void of Chaos</p><p></p><p>An idea held by some sages — none know whether it's true or not — is that all reality was once <em>one</em> single physical universe, spawned out of the Void by a random quantum fluctuation that became the first Big Bang. Within this universe, some intelligent life-forms evolved and eventually (over countless eons) mastered physics and even transcended mortal limits, only to discover that their vast universe really was nothing more than a tiny, unstable droplet of reality floating in a howling Void of unreality that could perhaps swallow the universe back up in an instant if the proverbial dice ever happened to fall that way. (Think, false vacuum decay.) And so these ascended mortals began to work "outwards" from their fragile reality, creating layer upon layer of stable existence in order to act as a "buffer" between their original universe and the Void — thereby preserving themselves and their original plane of existence. Thus did these transcendent beings, long ago descended from ordinary evolved mortals, become the Creator-Gods of Law.</p><p></p><p>But as reality became more stable, Chaos began to fight back, and to spontaneously spawn intelligent entities of its own — demons and Chaos Gods, which are essentially <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain" target="_blank">Boltzmann Brains</a> (possible because they come from a realm not bound by space, time, or anything vaguely resembling thermodynamics). These entities are wholly dedicated to destruction and entropy, and they encroach constantly on Lawful reality, always trying to help the Void of Chaos swallow existence back up again.</p><p></p><p>Side note: just for yuks, the planes between the Center and the Void are "shaped" like higher-dimensional platonic solids. The Astral Sea is a hypertetrahedron, the Inner Etheric is a hypercube, the Physical Multiverse is a hyperoctahedron, the Outer Etheric is a hyperdodecahedron, and Limbo is a hypericosahedron — perhaps because some fundamental law of reality <em>required</em> the Gods of Order to build the planes that way in order to keep them stable. <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="Jack Daniel, post: 8492162, member: 694"] My settings' cosmology is analogous to a layered onion, with the "centermost" plane of existence being a static realm of pure Law, and the outermost void a churning sea of Chaotic everything-and-nothing-all-at-once. The planar "layers," from innermost to outermost, are: The Empyrean Center of All Being The Platonic Astral Sea The Inner Etheric Plane (which gradually becomes the Realm of Faerie as one approaches the Material Plane) The Prime Material Plane (itself a multiverse containing all extant physical universes) The Outer Etheric Plane (which starts with the Veil of Shadow, which is the realm of the dead, and then gradually fades into…) The Surface of Limbo The Void of Chaos An idea held by some sages — none know whether it's true or not — is that all reality was once [I]one[/I] single physical universe, spawned out of the Void by a random quantum fluctuation that became the first Big Bang. Within this universe, some intelligent life-forms evolved and eventually (over countless eons) mastered physics and even transcended mortal limits, only to discover that their vast universe really was nothing more than a tiny, unstable droplet of reality floating in a howling Void of unreality that could perhaps swallow the universe back up in an instant if the proverbial dice ever happened to fall that way. (Think, false vacuum decay.) And so these ascended mortals began to work "outwards" from their fragile reality, creating layer upon layer of stable existence in order to act as a "buffer" between their original universe and the Void — thereby preserving themselves and their original plane of existence. Thus did these transcendent beings, long ago descended from ordinary evolved mortals, become the Creator-Gods of Law. But as reality became more stable, Chaos began to fight back, and to spontaneously spawn intelligent entities of its own — demons and Chaos Gods, which are essentially [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain']Boltzmann Brains[/URL] (possible because they come from a realm not bound by space, time, or anything vaguely resembling thermodynamics). These entities are wholly dedicated to destruction and entropy, and they encroach constantly on Lawful reality, always trying to help the Void of Chaos swallow existence back up again. Side note: just for yuks, the planes between the Center and the Void are "shaped" like higher-dimensional platonic solids. The Astral Sea is a hypertetrahedron, the Inner Etheric is a hypercube, the Physical Multiverse is a hyperoctahedron, the Outer Etheric is a hyperdodecahedron, and Limbo is a hypericosahedron — perhaps because some fundamental law of reality [I]required[/I] the Gods of Order to build the planes that way in order to keep them stable. :) [/QUOTE]
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