The REAL fundamentals: part of fantasy setting design that I never even thought about

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

Reading through a certain book, I have recently realised that all too often, fantasy settings are written with no regard for the basement upon which they are constructed. I mean, some fantasy settings generally lack a clear cosmology, so this issue simply doesn't apply to them; I'm not sure, but Song of Ice and Fire seems to be that sort of setting, but I'm not familiar enough with it to tell for sure. Some settings do provide superficial cosmological information, such as which god created what, but don't look any deeper. Incidentally, real-life mythologies that seem to have taken this approach are Greek, Roman, Abrahamic etc.

But the example I found really did dig deeper. Here's the short version of the very beginning:

The natural state of existence 'was' timeless. It's actually not correct that the Timeless state existed before time, but that's the only way timed beings can envision it. Everything existed, but it existed in no place. This region was infinite, and all things within it were infinite as well. Nothing was apart. There was nothing from which to be apart. Everything was all at one point, which was the wholeness of infinity. Everything was possible, but nothing was necessary or likely. Infinity was whole, and existence was perfection.
Then 'came' the Principle of Separation. One of the things it did was separate knowledge from ignorence, and in doing that, it separated itself from everything else, including the Timelessness. It also separated other Principles from Timelessness and from each other. Among them were the Principle of Properties, which allowed entities to have them. The Principle of Identity, which made it so that two entities with different properties were not one and the same. The Principle of Communication, which allowed entities to affect/influence each other. The Principle of Space and Location.
It is not proper to say that the Principle of Separation was the 'first' principle or that it somehow created other Principles, because in Timelessness, there can be no 'first' and nothing can be 'created' - things can merely be separate from one another, which allowed the existing Principles to self-realise. Every separation was simultaneous, including that between one moment and the next one. Only 'after' the separations was Timelessness gone, and the possibility of something being 'first' or 'later' realised.

I find it fascinating. A worldbuilding approach that actually addresses the setting beginning from the very basics, from providing the method to the existence of conditions that make possible the things that are all too often taken for granted, such as time, space, entities, let alone the gods that are considering the idea of creating a universe to play in. Have you seen such a level of setting design often? Because I've only found it in Exalted so far (published in Graceful Wicked Masques), and I get a feeling that something like that can be found in the mythologies of Buddhism and/or Hinduism. Mage the Ascension feels like a setting that should contain such info, but I don't recall finding much in the way of it (other than the Cosmological Constants box in one of the books).

Have you tried doing that level of setting design when making your homebrews? How about an unorthodox approach for a science-fiction setting (e.g. some alternative to the Big Bang)? What other thoughts or comments do you have on the topic?

Thanks in advance!