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Message: <blockquote data-quote="E-1000" data-source="post: 9485108" data-attributes="member: 7037639">Lore dump!The two major cosmic players in the multiverse are Cosmos and Chaos (names pending), who represent and rule over good and evil respectively. It's commonly believed that the two are the personifications of those forces, ancient as existence itself. This is wrong. First, they're old to be certain, but in the grand scheme of things the current status quo just settled in. Second, and possibly more important, their forces aren't their source, they are the source of their forces. By existing they are imposing their laws onto creation, and they fight to make their rules the ones everything follows.Cosmos is essentially what you would expect from the absolute divine force of good. It cares endlessly for all beings, even the most wretched and hateful. It fights for the hope of a world where all the things it cares for will be safe and happy. It's almost surprising how genuine it is; there's no catch or hidden problem, it just loves you and wishes you the best.Chaos is a fair bit more misunderstood. It's often said that it wishes to cause everything to suffer for eternity. This is true. It's also often said that it hates you. This is false. Chaos loves you. It loves you just as much and as truly as Cosmos. There's just the small issue that Chaos expresses that love through hurting you.Chaos and Cosmos make each other uncomfortable, really. They're very much alike save that they have an exactly opposite opinion on whether it's desirable to cause suffering. They still love each other, like they love everything, but neither can deny it's unsettling when the other violates your every ideal because it really thinks it's better like that.Also, as mentioned briefly earlier, Cosmos and Chaos aren't as primordial as most people assume. They're just the latest in the line of beings who possess sufficient Authority (Which could be it's own lore dump, but the short version is it's the innate right to do something, and the more you have the more you can control) to impose their personal philosophies as multiversal constants.The first one was Novatarr, before the world even existed. In the primordial chaos she imposed the rule of Survival Of The Fittest, and she reigned as the ultimate lifeform, the monster who none could conquer. Currently doing her own thing.When she ceded the throne, the next ruler was Tharizdun. They imposed the rule of Divine Right Of Kings. They ruled as the one who was best to, and beings were organized into a hierarchy which dictated their inherent authority (small a) over one another. This worked well until Tharizdun started getting corrupt, egged on by the newborn Chaos, and eventually was corrupted into a raving monster who changed their rule to Nothing Matters, End It All. Currently sealed after shattering the First World.Cosmos is sort of Tharizdun's child. Chaos sort of is also. Cosmic force reproduction is weird. It may or may not have involved another cosmic embodiment called Sofia who Chaos killed and infested with the parasite Yaldabaoth, who's an entire other thing and simultaneously less and more malicious than Chaos depending on how you measure it. Yaldabaoth's rule would be something like Free Will Is Wrong.Currently, Cosmos and Chaos are vying for supremacy to see whether Cosmos's rule of Maximize Joy, Minimize Harm or Chaos's rule of Minimize Joy, Maximize Harm becomes the dominant one. Currently Cosmos is more dominant, because she had a head start, which is why most people tend towards good, but Chaos is doing better than most would like. Cosmos will rule with absolute benevolence, Chaos will rule with absolute benevolence that is indistinguishable from malevolence.There's also an ambitious third party in the form of one upstart mortal named Elric Archmagus, who is trying to supplant both. This would be a horrible thing, because Elric is an utterly vile psychopath who finds the idea of other people having value laughable and who doesn't care about anything but power. He is, unfortunately, competent enough that he actually threatens to pull this off eventually, and he's already part of the way there. He collaborates with Chaos, being one of the few who actually communes directly with it occasionally, and the best way to describe that whole affair is "Schrodinger's abusive relationship." Chaos knows he hates it and will betray it, and loves that for him. If he succeeds the result will be (very) arguably worse than Chaos, because Chaos's vision of the world at least involves meaning and maybe even hope, things Elric sees no use for. His rule will be I Am The Only Thing That Matters. No, Not You, Me. He will rule as an omnipotent child torturing small animals.</blockquote>

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