Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Infinite Worlds, Cabal Cosmology, and Things Man Was Not Meant To Know

William · 02-07-2013, 08:18 AM

IW mentions that Homeline officers have been to (what appeared to be) Briah, and it seemed like just another world to them, if extremely weird. So that's possibly a point in support of your proposal. However, those reports seem to be quite limited, and that could simply have been an issue of limited perception on the materialist I-Cops' part. Personally, I figure an infinite Briah will have regions corresponding relatively well to regions of the worlds, so a near-Homeline Briah would be a relatively straightforward Iconic Realm with much less of interest in plain view than those near Cabal areas.

If I understand the philosophy behind your question here, you're wondering about how to set up a cross-planar threat in a multi-world cosmology. Much like the concept of anchor timelines, this is doable (IMO) by having unique threats inhabit or be connected to worlds with some unique features. In a magical game, this is easier, since any world with access to the Plane Shift spell is not limited by quantum, and all such worlds can have access to and from a specific world; likewise, parachronozoids will be reasonably able to access it, including parachronozoid threats.

For instance, suppose Cabal decanic theory to be reasonably accurate magical "physics." Then a large cross-worldline threat could indeed originate from a plane of Briah, or from the Abyss, or from the sphere of Mars within Geburah. When I wrote up my Divided Land setting for Pyramid, I proposed that an elemental plane of Earth has reasonably strongly unique magical features that would make it a natural meeting point for planehopping adventurers from numerous magical worlds. TMWNMTK could be qlippoth, esentially making both the Cabal and Infinity wrong about at least some aspects of reality.

Finally in this vein, perhaps Infinity is perfectly correct about worldline physics, but it just so happens that Quantum Zero contains only a single world, and that one is of some root importance compared to the others -- furthermore, your TMWNMTK are fully aware of the concept of anchor timelines, and there aren't terribly many of them. Perhaps there's some way to affect all anchor timelines at once by working on some common feature they have that radiates throughout the lattice of worldlines. That's enough to affect almost all of an IW setting.

One last idea: perhaps the TMWNMTK has doubles like any other entity, but all of its doubles are aware of and linked to the others. Then for all practical purposes it's a single entity existing cross-timeline, and its threat potential could be indefinitely great.

02-07-2013, 08:18 AM	#2
William Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Upper Peninsula of Michigan	Re: Infinite Worlds, Cabal Cosmology, and Things Man Was Not Meant To Know IW mentions that Homeline officers have been to (what appeared to be) Briah, and it seemed like just another world to them, if extremely weird. So that's possibly a point in support of your proposal. However, those reports seem to be quite limited, and that could simply have been an issue of limited perception on the materialist I-Cops' part. Personally, I figure an infinite Briah will have regions corresponding relatively well to regions of the worlds, so a near-Homeline Briah would be a relatively straightforward Iconic Realm with much less of interest in plain view than those near Cabal areas. If I understand the philosophy behind your question here, you're wondering about how to set up a cross-planar threat in a multi-world cosmology. Much like the concept of anchor timelines, this is doable (IMO) by having unique threats inhabit or be connected to worlds with some unique features. In a magical game, this is easier, since any world with access to the Plane Shift spell is not limited by quantum, and all such worlds can have access to and from a specific world; likewise, parachronozoids will be reasonably able to access it, including parachronozoid threats. For instance, suppose Cabal decanic theory to be reasonably accurate magical "physics." Then a large cross-worldline threat could indeed originate from a plane of Briah, or from the Abyss, or from the sphere of Mars within Geburah. When I wrote up my Divided Land setting for Pyramid, I proposed that an elemental plane of Earth has reasonably strongly unique magical features that would make it a natural meeting point for planehopping adventurers from numerous magical worlds. TMWNMTK could be qlippoth, esentially making both the Cabal and Infinity wrong about at least some aspects of reality. Finally in this vein, perhaps Infinity is perfectly correct about worldline physics, but it just so happens that Quantum Zero contains only a single world, and that one is of some root importance compared to the others -- furthermore, your TMWNMTK are fully aware of the concept of anchor timelines, and there aren't terribly many of them. Perhaps there's some way to affect all anchor timelines at once by working on some common feature they have that radiates throughout the lattice of worldlines. That's enough to affect almost all of an IW setting. One last idea: perhaps the TMWNMTK has doubles like any other entity, but all of its doubles are aware of and linked to the others. Then for all practical purposes it's a single entity existing cross-timeline, and its threat potential could be indefinitely great.