World The Sea-of-Worlds Mythos

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World The Sea-of-Worlds Mythos

Akaso

Lord of Shards
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「The Great Empty」

"All worlds are forged from the infinite empty beyond thought. Dreams are a place inbetween."

"Those touched by the sea of worlds gaze into its iridescent waters in their dreams. In its depths some see despair, others hope. The brave dive into the blinding abyss. Some awaken changed, greater. Others never do."

"Those who are touched by it live in perpetual ignorance, for to comprehend the secrets of the universe is to be burned away by the great empty."


Otherwise known as the Inbetween, the Un-world, and the Void.

The Great Empty is in effect the "empty space" between everything that exists, has existed, can exist, will exist, and cannot exist. It is commonly compared to an endless ocean with no surface or bottom, wherein every -verse is a miniscule bubble.

It doesn't have any defined size or tier - it simply contains everything and nothing, separate from itself, but still contained within, and by definition always infinitely lesser than it in scope. As new things come into being, the Void expands exponentially - not because it is stretched by the addition of new realities, but because there is more metaphysical "empty space", which is what the Void is.

As all verses are bubbles within the Void, the Void and its energies are what keeps these realities the way they "should" be. In effect, it functions as an absolute force of nature, maintaining the laws of verses within it.

However, Void Energy cannot permeate any verse thoroughly enough to prevent the active disruption of its base laws by things such as reality warpers - if it ever did, the bubble of reality would burst and the verse in question would simply become another part of the Void.

「The Allmother」

The Allmother once existed partially within the Alpha Verse, serving as a proxy for the Void and a creator for all that lived. She was simultaneously real and unreal, born in a time when the Alpha Verse was still forming.

She granted unto the first species the gift of thought so that they could witness the world through eyes that could comprehend and marvel at Her gifts, so that they could build and act as shepherds for lesser forms of life.

She granted unto them the power of the Dimensional Coupler, tiny fragments of Her being, altered by the Watcher. They existed on the precipice between the Great Empty and reality just as she did, and thus served as gates into that un-place. Many implanted themselves with these shards, becoming living, thinking figments of the Void in realspace.

When they inevitably learned of how their world worked, harnessed electricity, split the atom, and eventually turned to the Void itself as a source of boundless energy to fuel their empire of glass and steel, She grew bitter and jealous.

She betrayed her beloved children, splitting huge parts of her being into trillions of pieces which would relentlessly hunt and devour all sapient thought, entirely deprived of it themselves. These shards would be ruled over by a small number of shards large enough to have thoughts of their own. This species of thought-eaters would become the Subdimensional Imperium, residing in the ruins of the Alpha Verse, as only there the Allmother could sustain them and protect them from the Void for extended periods of time.

Many of those implanted with her Dimensional Couplers transformed into Subdimensionals themselves, most becoming entirely mindless in the process, while others retained a semblance of sapience. The former rarely lived for long and could not survive without consuming sapients like their lesser brethren, while the latter roamed without purpose, consuming sapients wherever they could be found as the Allmother attempted to erode what was left of their minds.

The Subdimensional Imperium would dispatch massive armadas to other verses whenever a new sapient civilization was on the cusp of obtaining the power of the Void, and remained unopposed until a version of Mankind from an extraordinarily stable verse enchained even their evolution in shackles of science and industry, destroying their home-world and fleeing into the stars on a massive Voidship in the form of uploaded minds. They later became the Novahumans.

Now the Allmother lives in a perpetual state of mindless rage as an ultimate act of hatred against those she once cherished. All Void Energy pulled into realspace through her Dimensional Couplers is influenced by her boundless rage, becoming a deep crimson in colour and taking on inherently destructive properties. This is Vermilion Void Energy.

「The Watcher」

As the Allmother created, He learned of all that was.

As the Allmother gifted unto Her children, He aided Her.

As the Allmother ruled, He learned of all that could be.

As the Allmother grew bitter, He learned of all that could not be, that should not be.

As the Allmother turned on her own creations, He gave all her instruments of destruction names. Names he wrote upon the Void itself, for the namer has mastery over the named.

He watched, learned, named, but never acted. Never until the Allmother turned on those blessed by thought.

When she did, he acted - the first and last time he would do so. In that single act, the Sea-of-Worlds was born, and the Void became anathema to all those who would encroach on the world of the thinking.

The namer has mastery over the named. When He Who Watches becomes He Who Acts, there is nothing in all of existence or nonexistence that can stop him.

Not even myself.

「The Sea-of-Worlds」

A strange, blinding beacon within the emptiness of the Great Empty, where an infinitely infinite number of un-verses exists, all bubbles filled with the waters of the Void - a paradox, something that should not be.

The Sea-of-Worlds calls to all those touched by the Void in their dreams, manifesting their knowledge and meaning, their thought, into symbols and aspects, giving rise to the Void Arts. Those who delve into the Sea-of-Worlds in their dreams often do not return, but those who do, do so with the power to channel Dimensional Energy.

It is the origin of all Dimensional Energy, a crucible where new verses emerge and where the Watcher records his knowledge of everything that is, was, can be, and cannot be.
 
The Void and Void Energy - A metaphysical plane of nonexistence which contains all realities that exist, can exist, and can not exist, including itself. It consists almost entirely of something called Void Energy.

While the mechanics of free-floating Void Energy within realspace are somewhat complex, here's the simple explanation.

It's space magic. That's it.

Bodies that contain human-like minds can get 'infected' by it, and the hosts over time develop a natural ability to pull a certain minimum amount of Void Energy into realspace and manipulate it using focus and willpower.

The more you do it, the better you get. If your body can't handle the power (your durability is lower than the power output, basically), you can suffer partial or even total crystallization - transformation of body parts to solidified Void Energy. While crystallized body parts are actually functional and in fact don't decay, crystallization beyond about 60% body mass universally cascades into total crystallization, followed by loss of structural integrity. As in, you turn into very pretty magic sand.

Void Energy is the "water" inside a cosmic ocean in which every reality is a "bubble". It keeps the bubbles round, while creatures that break the laws of reality or manipulate them contort the bubble into different shapes.

Void Energy can't stop it on a smaller scale from the outside, since that would burst the bubble and destroy the reality in question.

However, if brought inside as reality by a void conduit - a void mage if you will - it will create a field of localized super-stable reality where nothing that explicitly breaks reality can take place. This includes things such as stopping time, warping space, creating singularities, willing new matter into existence, or willing matter out of existence.

There is a surprising amount of things that won't trigger as reaction. Strangely enough, the minds of void-infected sentients become reflected within the Void, resulting in slight changes to thought processes. More importantly perhaps, void infection universally results in immunity to attempts at direct mental manipulation.

This also alters the effects of intoxicants, and generally alters the body's metabolism in eldritch ways.

Void Shroud - Free-floating Void Energy polarized to a very specific frequency, whether it be an individual user of the Void Arts or a machine specially designed to produce a Void Shroud. They often serve as defensive shielding, however when a Void Shroud's defensive capability is broken (its durability is drained, basically) it doesn't go away, it just loses its charge.

To simplify this: A Void Shroud doesn't go away when its defensive shielding is broken, and it does not lose its reality anchoring properties. A city-sized Void Shroud, once broken through, only needs to be re-polarized for it to return to its full durability.

Mechafract
- An archaic term for nanomachines.

Novahome - the name of the planet upon which the Novahuman civilization resides.

Hyperbeast, Dimensional Beast, Subdimensional
- Different in-universe names for the same thing. A higher dimensional life form that originates from a certain place in my setting. Capable of reality warping, rely on it to survive in their realm.

Subdimensionals is a term for the species as a whole, while hyperbeast is a slang term for greater subdimensionals that have minds of their own.

Alkahest is a mythical universal solvent capable of dissolving anything, and is also the name given to a specific subdimensional by Akaso.

The Breaker of Dawn - The reliquary ship upon which the Novahuman artificial species arrived to Novahome.

The Exodus - an in universe term used in reference to the half-millennium journey from Earth to Novahome.

Biogel, Perfected Biogel - A nanite-based form of "programmable tissue", can theoretically serve the purpose of any organic tissue. Perfected Biogel is… what the name says. It's just the finished thing without glaring downsides. It does have exceptional heat resistance because it was originally designed to serve as a layer of fake skin for Akaso.

Novahumans - A self-referential term used by the bioengineered successors of humankind created to lack many of the flaws and primitive traits of original Homo Sapiens while retaining humanity.

Their foremost trait was the fact they were designed to be modified both before and immediately after birth to introduce necessary elements of their bodily anatomy that natural gestation can't replicate. While a human would reject an implant, a Novahuman's synthetic immune system will integrate it further, if the implant in question had the correct markings.

Void Arts - Esoteric, arcane practices surrounding the alternative application of Void Energy. They are to modern Voidtech as magic is to Magitech. The barrier for entry is far higher, they're far less practical, and they have immense potential within the correct hands and circumstances.

The most expensive, custom-made items from weaponry to body modifications tend to be involved with expert users of the Void Arts, known as Runesmiths. The Void Arts are used through a language of symbols and meaning, one that's entirely unique to each Runesmith.

The power and properties of a Void Circuit are entirely dependent on the investment of its creator.
 
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