[Mage: The Awakening] Oh the Places You'll Go (Part 2. Outward Travel)

((In Character (IC):

Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen

Venue: Chronicles of Darkness - Mage: The Awakening (Fallen World Chronicle)

Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler

Borrowed & Edited from Original Posting in 2014 by Dave Brookshaw of Onyx Path Publishing.))
((Out of Character (OOC) material in (())s ))

Oh the Places You’ll Go… Part II

From: The Earth-Rim Runner by Daduchos Duelmaster Gabrielle 

Outward Travel: The Realms Invisible

After looking at the odd corners of the material world, we take a run-through of the major and minor outer realms, those worlds separate to the world Sleepers know but still Fallen from the Supernal Ideal.

Fallen Reflection Realms

There is a pervasive theory among the Mysterium that when the Supernal was cut off from the Pre-Fallen World it left traces and emanations of those realms trapped on our side of the Abyss. These places aren’t like Emanations or Verges and when they were split from the Supernal they became fallen versions of the Supernal Realms and took on new and twisted versions of what truths they resonated with.  There are only a few commonly known Reflections and the map is incomplete for this theory to make sense.  If some lorekeepers know about the missing two pieces of the puzzle they aren’t telling anyone…

The Shadow – Fallen Reflection of the Primal Wilds, land of spirits.

The Underworld – Fallen Reflection of Stygia, land of the dead.

The Hedge - Fallen Reflection of the true Arcadia, land of faeries.

((Abaddon – Suspected Fallen Reflection of Pandemonium, native to Infernal Demons, Akothertoi, and the Strix))

((Empyrean – Suspected Fallen Reflection of the Aether and home to the mechanical Angels of the God-Machine))

 

The Shadow

Aliases: The Hisil, The Spirit World, The Shadow World, The Shadow Realm

Native land of Spirits and Shadow Reflections.  Resonance from the Material world interplays with the Shadow and its denizens.  The Shadow is a reflection of the Fallen World, and the Fallen World is a reflection of the Shadow.  The material and spiritual worlds play off each other constantly, and are separated by only the Gauntlet. 

Loci (Singular Locus) are places where the Gauntlet is weak, while Verges are planes where it doesn’t exist.  A Locus is a focal point in which a condition can allow spirits and other beings to pass through the Gauntlet.  These can be artificially created with Spirit magic.  There are also dead places where the Gauntlet is impenetrable and thickest, the mortal lands beyond in these Dead Spots are devote of all spiritual resonance… both worlds need each other in balance.

Werewolves call the place across the Gauntlet, the world of spirit, the Hisil.  When the world was new there was no Gauntlet and the worlds were one.  Whether or not the Gauntlet is a microcosm of the Abyssal or the result of the Sundering is something of much debate.  Supposedly Werewolves blame the separation as the result of the efforts of their spiritual progenitors Father Wolf and Mother Luna.  They say that that the Gauntlet is the scar of Father Wolf’s murder by the first wolves and rent the world in twain.

Werewolves experience the Shadow World as half-spirits – they feel its ebb and flow, the invisible currents of Essence and the cycles of predation and influence that make up its protean, living structure. Day and Night. Wind and Calm. Wilderness and City.

Mages don’t.  Unless they cast spells, a mage in the Shadow is treated like any human – a curiosity or a meal for a spirit. Spirit Mage Sight reveals slumbering or hidden spirits and gives a feeling for what’s going on, but ultimately mages aren’t natives. They can be ambassadors to the flesh, rulers of miniature fiefdoms, backers of spirit politics (using magic to generate Essence is a well-known trick), and many other roles, but they’re outsiders. Mages also lack the disgust werewolves have for Magath (hybrid spirits) or the intrusion of spirits into the material world – they’re often dangerous, but to a Thyrsus exploring the Shadow they’re no different from anything else.

The Spirit Arcanum works very differently to the powers of werewolves engage with the Shadow. They belong there. Mages treat the cycles and ecologies of Essence the way they treat the material world’s physics; a sad Fallen reflection of the Primal Wild, that they manipulate with spells.  This is an important distinction to understand.

Not everything in the Shadow is a spirit.  There are shadowed reflections of places and things, anything with a strong emotional or psychic imprint.  The shadow doesn’t have to match what exists in the physical anymore and could be things that once existed there.  Once these things gather enough essence sometimes they will awaken and become spirits themselves.

Further into the Shadow:

The Hidden Shadow (Deep Umbra) 

The Hidden Shadow are pocket spaces within the Shadow where it’s deep enough that no physical parallel exists.  These are the nests of ancient slumbering spirits of excessive power and ability.  Deep in the Shadow are places of spiritual concepts that no longer exist, or never have existed at all.  The spirit of the Earth itself, Gaia, might exist there.  It is the abode of giants and gods, and is an incredibly dangerous place to find yourself.  Thankfully it’s almost impossible to get there by accident.

((The Celestial Sphere (Pen Umbra)))

((Even further into the deepest and most hidden, most remote places in the Shadow and you may encounter the Celestial Sphere.  The stars themselves have their spirits.  And they have quite a bit to say to each other in their grand Heavenly Courts, their strange bickering on a world quaking scale.  The Spirits of Sol and Luna are the strongest in the known cosmos.))

The Underworld

Aliases: Land of the Dead, The Great Below, The Deadlands, Ghost World,

Native land of Phychopomps, Kerberoi, Death Lords and older Chthonians.  A ghost goes to the Underworld after it loses all its Anchors and its rumored that resolving a Ghosts Anchors can send the soul to Stygia instead. It is also rumored that even if a death doesn’t create a ghost on the material plane can still create them in the Underworld.  From there the partial souls go through a slow descent through the refinement and tribulations of the Underworld to some mysterious fate at the very bottom.

Mages can enter the Great Below with Death spells to locate Avernian gates, divine the keys to those gates, force them open without the keys or even create entirely new gates. Even Moros don’t tend to linger in the land of the dead, though—it has a way of twisting the emotions of unprotected explorers, and the treasures and Mysteries of the dead are guarded by both extremely high-Rank ghosts and the Underworld’s bizarre “Cthonian” natives. Mages have a bit of a strange perspective on ghosts compared to other supernatural beings — ghosts are often poetically described as “souls”, but mages can see human souls using the right spells, and know – not believe, know – that they aren’t the same thing. What ghosts are, though, is hotly-debated by the Awakened. The “footprint” in ephemera left by a soul? The Death portion of a soul, broken off when the rest of it moves on? A related phenomenon to astral projection? They don’t know. Many mages use ghosts as tools, many try to treat them as thinking beings.  While no definitive answers are forthcoming, the dead are much more cognizant in the Underworld then when they are spooking a local haunt.

No matter how much someone wants to avoid it, they most likely will end up in the Underworld when they die.  Perhaps there used to be a perfect system for recycling souls in place, in which a soul meets redemption through traversing the trials of the Underworld in order to travel to Stygia and be reincarnated from the Supernal.  The Fall changed all that.  At least that is what I think.

Many Layers:

The Upper Reaches (Erebus or The Autocthonous Depths)

Erebus is where most travelers spend their time.  It is the layer of the Underworld closest to the world above and reflects much about the culture and conditions of the dead interred in this locality.  Much like the Shadow, the Upper Reaches are a parallel dimension with direct interaction with the material world only directly beneath it rather than overlapping spatially with it.  A Gate to the Underworld can be opened anywhere but places most resonant with the dead are the easiest, and travelers will go from that gate to the nearest parallel place in Erebus.  The Autocthonous Depths are made up of labyrinthine tunnels, crypts, catacombs, tombs and just about any other form of postmortem internment and include Dante’s Infernoesque Tableauxs and Babylonian Gates of sacrificial trials.

All in all, the Upper Reaches are cavernous and inhabited by the meandering shades of the dead.  It can be mapped, which cannot be easily said for the Lower Mysteries.  Once you cross one of the rivers (be sure to pay the ferrymen), things become quite different.

The Lower Mysteries (The Dead Dominions)

The Lower Mysteries are separated into small fiefdoms known as The Dead Dominions, each with its own set of Old Laws and byzantine rules enforced by powerful Kerberoi.  Many of the Old Laws even change the reality of the Underworld itself.  The death of Dreams, of Knowledge, of concepts that never existed, you may all find here.

Each Death Dominion is separated by Underworld Rivers.  The rivers are the very lifeblood of the dead and the leylines of this ever warping landscape.  Which Dominion borders which by what River can get very unusual very quickly, not conforming to Euclidean rules.

Somewhere in the lowest Dominions are the Death Lords.  The oldest and most powerful death gods.  I’m glad I have not met any, and I don’t know anyone who has.

Sheol

What lies beyond?  Beneath the bottom of the Underworld?  The Underworld goes constantly downward, the many rivers of the dead gently cutting the Dominions up, each of them pooling to the Ocean of Fragments.  What lies beyond the Ocean, where memories are destroyed?  What is there beyond the oblivion that awaits beyond Mictlantecuhtli’s throne?  Is it the path to Stygia, after the shades have washed away their pasts?

Some friends of mine have ventured beneath the Ocean of Lost Fragments and found ourselves at the very bottom of the Underworld.  If there was a short-cut to Stygia we missed it.  Instead we found ourselves in Sheol.  The terrifying prison of the Hellmenth, titanic annihilating worms waiting to be unleased upon the world to devour it and make it a second Underworld.  I don’t recommend visiting.

 

The Hedge

Abode to fairies, changelings, goblins, hobgoblins, hedge beasts and stranger things.  The Hedge is a maze of thorny brambles and wilderness occupied by all manner of dangerous things.  The Hedge itself seems to have a life of its own and getting lost is very easy.

A land of dark faerie tales, the Hedge is a psychotropic nightmare world that serves as the border marches between the Fallen World and Faerie.  What is known is that the Hedge – so called because of the thorns that cover it – is a world of embodied dreams, reacting to the emotions of those trapped within it.  Of all the realms of the Fallen World, it may be the most dangerous, and the realm itself is intrinsically harmful to be in. Outside of safe trods the thorns tear flesh and rip apart souls, leaving a shattered being behind. 

Through the looking glass:

Faerie (Fallen Arcadia)

Find your way through the Hedge and they say you could end up in the Supernal Realm of Arcadia.  But most likely you’ll end up in the hands of the Keepers.  While Arcadia is native to the True Fae it seems some of their cousins were left on the other side and were changed after the Fall.  These Keepers maintain their fiefdoms and kidnap children and sleepers to use as playthings and slaves, following legends of Changelings.

((Empyrean: The Greater Infrastructure & Facilities of the God-Machine))

((The God-Machine is everywhere.  It’s Infrastructure and Facilities exist hidden under and behind reality itself, even in the invisible realms themselves.  It folds space in ways a Mastigos can rarely detect, manipulates time more completely than Acanthus.  The Infrastructure forms its own pocket worlds that worm into, around, and through all the other realms.))

((How deep does the Machine go?  What is the God-Machine?  The Angels don’t know, not that they answer such questions.  Could it reach to the Heavens?  To the Aether?  Could it lead to the same place as the Principle’s Empyrean?))

((Abaddon: The Lower Depths))

((Mentioned sporadically in lore and myth, mages call any realm that doesn’t fit into the cosmology part of “the Lower Depths.” The Depths are characterized by a lack of one or more Arcana – they’re as far from the Fallen World as the Fallen is from the Supernal – and they and their denizens (called Akothertoi) have an endless hunger for whatever quality they lack. It is said that a native can destroy life with a touch.  Mages call many realms detailed in their explorations as Lower Depths but the only thing Duat, wherever it is the Strix come from, and Inferno have in common is the name. It’s a classification for thousands of worlds made of demons and nightmare, not a continuum. It is suspected that places like Annwn, the Tutor’s Realm, and the Decay are also part of the Lower Depths))

((Is this massive spectrum of places really the Fallen Reflection of Pandemonium?  Or is the Astral Plane that missing reflection and the Lower Depths something truly alien and horrid?))

One thing is for sure. Here Be Dragons...

And not the good kind...