The fantastical source is a realm of all concepts, each soul leading to a different place in it. Although fundamentally the fantastical source is, well, fantastical and so unexplainable by reason, it might appear to mortals in a way they can comprehend: a collection of elemental planes, the source of mana of each element. If one traverses the soul of a pond, they end up in a specific place in the water elemental plane. These are not material dimensions, the fantastical source is something that truly cannot be explained. Though characters might perceive it in certain ways, I impose no structure or self-consistency, anything goes.
Dimensions
The setting has 19 material dimensions. In order of ‘highest’ to ‘lowest’ they are:
The 9th heaven, 8th heaven… 1st heaven, overworld, 1st hell, 2nd hell… 9th hell.
- Each dimension has a (3d)
- Each dimension is 2 times larger than the one ‘above’ it
- Each dimension has 2 times faster time than the one ‘above’ it (1 day in the 1st heaven = 2 overworld days)
Samsara
In this animism-based setting everything has a soul. Something is alive if and only if its soul is capable of growing, becoming a greater source of mana over time. Hence, a soul can be either:
- Alive: capable of growth
- Dead: was alive but no longer is
- Inert: was never alive and so hasn’t died
A dead or inert soul can be artificially modified, damaged, or even combined together with other souls, but it can never grow in and of itself.
In the overworld, dead souls are naturally drawn towards things that have a symbolic connection with the hells (e.g. a sinkhole). Once enough souls accumulate at such a location, a real connection is formed to the 1st hell. Once in the hells, souls continue their journey covered in a substance I’ll name Phleg (after the Pyriphlegethon in Greek mythology) that pulls any non-inert soul along its current. They reach the next hell in the same manner as the first. Once past the 9th hell, the souls form a bridge at the edge of reality to the 9th heaven. Here, they split, disperse and decompose, and anything that leaves reality ceases to exist by definition. The partially decomposed souls reincarnate as life in the 9th heaven, at this point they are once again truly alive. Instead of dying again, the souls that die in the 9th heaven immediately move to the edge of reality where they once again form a bridge where they further decompose, this time to the 8th heaven. This repeats until reincarnation in the overworld. The dead do not exist in the heavens, thus any dead soul that reaches the heavens regains its capacity to grow -- true resurrection. In the overworld, souls with strong obsessions imprinted on them may become undead. Within the hells, such souls may form a body of Phleg and leave the flow -- the birth of demons.
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Soul shield
Between the 9th hell and the 9th heaven, between the heavens themselves, and between the overworld and the 1st heaven is a flow of souls at the edge of reality. This forms a shield against anything foreign to reality, and the souls that form it are worn down as a result. Just like a material body, they decompose, mix, and form the souls of new living beings. On average, the total amount of soul growth in the setting should match the amount lost in the shield.
Dimension configuration
The overworld is a universe much like our own, except we’re pretty sure the real universe has a euclidean geometry, not a spherical one like the setting. The heavens and hells however have significantly altered physics:
- A single unified direction for gravity, with the same intensity everywhere
- A ‘bottom’ that matter rests on
The result is a huge flat world, where space loops back on itself in all directions (spherical geometry). Each dimension has the same amount of resources, but they are more concentrated in time in space the higher the dimension.
Purpose of the structure of reality
This setting provides reasons for mythical beings to function in ways we might expect:
- Souls can be wielded through worship in the heavens, those that wield them are incentivised to preserve the soul shield, so gods are naturally in a position of protecting reality.
- Worshiping souls can be used to protect oneself from unreality, making it easier to travel the soul shield. This provides a coherent way of ascending to godhood.
- Demons have a purpose: eating intrusions into reality that make it past the soul shield.
Many incentives to ascend are also built in:
- Prestige
- Higher concentration of resources
- Reincarnation in case of death (caveat: only the soul reincarnates, methods required to preserve memories/the mind + the soul can be damaged)
- Worshipers reincarnating in the shield of souls provide mana that also worships the god in question
- Time dilation can be desirable
Demons have reasons to act, well, demonic:
- Driven by mad obsessions
- Eat souls and intrusions into reality in order to gain power to fulfill their obsessions
- Might raid higher dimensions for easier, more concentrated food
- Generally want to descend to lower hells where there are more intrusions to eat