The Rest of All Possible Worlds: Names, Planes and Alternate Realms

Noisms of Monster and Manuals has a Kickstarter up for a zine called In the Hall of the Third Blue Wizard. Being a discerning sort, you may very well wish to back it. Now, back to our scheduled programming.

This is another 'problem post' detailing debates and questions confronting the community of magic-users in TRoAPW. 

This is arguably a late-game problem to confront players; if not a 'theory of everything' then at least one that unifies a great many other questions. 

The student of magic - not of spellcraft, but the full scope of magic - eventually realises two things. Firstly, that magic is otherworldly, it is unnatural - or rather perhaps, it is as natural as a lightning strike or the eruption of a geyser. Secondly, that it is taught. Spells are not created by accident. To realise the existence of such things without aid is unthinkable. 

Two questions, therefore. Who taught mankind magic? Where do they come from?

The Question of Antecedants

Premise

As the Schoolmen will tell you, mankind has been visited by otherworldly beings before. Mages, generally speaking, hold themselves a little distant from the Schools - and so therefore, it is a shock for wizards to learn the truth of matters: that the oldest colleges and unbroken traditions of magic have ongoing relations with- and perhaps even absolute obligations to - otherworldly things. A mage will tend to be deep into the 'journeyman' stage of their careers before they learn this to be so, and some may never learn it at all. They had thought that the image of the diabolic compact was something purely from moralising dramas. 

The State of the Art

Those mages that are admitted to the deepest secrets of one of the old colleges are either so advanced that they have to know or are pursuing a particular line of research. Many had thought that the business of initiations and secret orders was beyond them - or, at least, would proceed in a fairly predictable fashion. There are hidden and obscure chambers even in the airy halls of magical sects and in these places, communion is had with alien entities. That this is less viscerally foul than popular dramatists would have you believe is not necessarily much comfort. 

Quite what that entity is will vary between institutions of magic. It may be something deeply squamous and non-Euclidian that should only be interacted with fleetingly. It may be one of the old folk, the eldar beings of grove and barrow who shun mankind, with their cold iron and their cold sun. It may be that the horror stories are true, and that brimstone-scented demons glower at the contracts made by long-dead archmages with their true names. Some traditions may have traffic with the potent dead, the Eidolons spoken of by the Words of Procophon - what would the Primus of Malicarn say to that? 

Other options are whispered of: the old, shrunken Gods of Horato, shining celestial Star Archons, the ancient sentient forces called Elementals, the bird-headed apkallu, the monstrous Elder Beasts, kings or princes of their respective kinds - even the mysterious masters of the Dreamlands called oneirocrats, who claim to have once been humans. 

Dealing with Antecedents

While the Question of Antecedents is unlike the other wizarding debates in Calliste in that disruptive innovators and revolutionaries have by and large been kept out of the circles that actually discover the truth of the origins of Callistan magic, there is still quiet but fierce debate on how best to engage with Antecedents. 

The old methods repeat the actions of the first masters of a tradition. Similar forms of etiquette, summoning rituals and offerings are repeated as they have been throughout the centuries. Those who stick to these in their original form are known as Ritualists.

There are then those who suggest gentle changes to ritual and negotiating technique. Surely different offerings are apt for different requests? What does an Antecedant want? No doubt it must be something, or why would they be in contact with human magic-users. Let us find out, and use that to our advantage.  The proponents of such a view are known as Realists.

Finally - and perhaps most controversially - there are those who propose dealing with Antecedants (though probably not the demons) as part of a grand moral compact. An Antecedant can communicate, after a fashion, therefore can be educated and brought to a proper state of understanding regarding mortals. Mutual advantage, respect and equality will spring from this. Those who assert this are known as Idealists.*

Implications

The Ritualists hope to keep everything running smoothly. A steady drip of magical knowledge inspiring generation after generation of new magic-users. Even those outside their particular tradition are playing their part by producing new spells in their happy ignorance. 

The Realists and Idealists, in their respective fashions, want to create a new wave of magic to radically transform the lot of man and produce a brave new extraordinary world. There are those who say that this has already happened. 

Of course, all the above relies on everything going to plan. That nobody interrupts the rituals or negotiations. That an Antecedent doesn't have a change of heart. That an Antecedant's fellows don't object to the noise.

The Realms Beyond

Premise

Antecedants have to come from somewhere. Wizards can summon beasts to do their bidding - they have to come from somewhere. Wizards can step into pocket dimensions to hide from their foes - where are they going?

So there are Realms, planes of existence beyond this one. There are existing gates between them and the right magic-user can make new breaches all of their own. 

Not that this would necessarily surprise anyone in Calliste. Wizardry is commonly known to have contact with the extraordinary, and the Schoolmen suggest a world of possibility through the teachings of the Majestic Vision. 

The State of the Art

Now, the mage that focuses on planar spells - whether they call themselves a Conjurer or a Master of Gates - is a relatively rare beast. Summons can be difficult to control, or unnerving - as can inter-dimensional travel. Still, there are enough of them to have discovered that magic is quite literally otherworldly. It is not merely 'an unseen arm' that levitates the stone, it is an intruding and unnatural force. 

This force is not produced by mages, but used by them - a wizard is not a man running across a field, he is a man holding a sail out to catch the wind to propel himself. In either case, effort is required, as is technique - but the source of power differs. Further, spells are living things - or at least as lifelike in their actions as a pennant or kite that moves like a living thing in the wind. Therefore, spells must have a medium in which to exist and exert themselves. 

The most obvious entry point of an otherworldly power is the very gates and breaches made by or known of by wizards. Few would dispute that other unknown portals must exist, but there are also those who claim that there are myriad 'pinprick breaches' through which magic enters the world. Either way, a current of magic moves through the world, with sufficient regularity to allow mages to cast reliably - but still with enough fluctuation to allow for concentrations of magic.

Quite what is in these other realms is suggested by the nature of some Antecedents above, but some may be places very like Calliste. 

Planar Policy

Having established to their own satisfaction that magic requires portals of some kind, several options present themselves to those mages who know and care. 

Firstly, to leave well alone. You may drink from the river, but do not think to drain or divert it. Most magic-users inhabit this position by default. Such mages are known as Pastorals, for their (perceived) rustic simplicity and humbleness. (A Pastoral can still live, of course, in a sapphire pagoda with platinum wheels pulled by manticores. Wizarding humility is a strange thing.)

Secondly, to plug every breach and drain magic from the world. Even if this is possible (and those who assert the existence of 'pinprick breaches' do not think it is), no wizard wants to do this. 

Thirdly, to make (eventually) as many breaches as possible and let magic rush through every corner of the world. Let there be intercourse with every realm! Wealth, beauty and novelty await! A strange and brilliant new world! For their willingness to connect, those who hold this position are known as Conjuncts.** 

Fourthly (and finally), to establish a state of being in which there are as few breaches and portals as possible (to as few realms as possible) while maintaining a given flow of magic. Those who long for such a thing are called Autarks. The very danger of summoning and planar magic makes this a desirable position. 

A devout follower of the Majestic Vision might well be an Autark, looking to restrict portals other than to the Hereafter. It may even be that humanity could come into full ownership of a certain small number of realms, freeing it completely from the control or influence of demons and eldritch things. Those Autarks who hold to this last point are deeply interested in those Antecedents called oneirocrats.

Implications

Neither Conjuncts nor Autarks have advanced their plans very far yet, of course. The Autark model is more appealing to wizard-friendly magically inclined princes and ministers: fewer risks involved, more chances to control trade. The loop of worlds described by Patrick Stuart's Great Fold is something like what Autarks might produce - though naturally, all involved would rather not link in the realm of terrifying mega-fauna. 

Conjuncts quite like the idea of Planescape's Sigil. The more sober might acknowledge that most lands will not become a grand inter-dimensional freeport, but rather take their place in a layer of one of many realms bound together like a quire of paper. In this case, some of the descriptions of commerce between realms in Stuart's Great Fold describe backwaters, while wizards surf the tide of magical energy flowing between worlds. New mage-tyrants will arise, reshaping the world as they see fit, fighting their competitors and outside invaders. 

This could very easily turn into Kenneth Hite's Qelong.  While the archmages turn into the main characters from Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. And you can't tell if your land is being invaded by the pike-and-shot regiments of your terrestrial neighbour, the world where the Horatione Empire never fell and now has zeppelins and mechanical walkers (but no gunpowder), the Legions of Hell, the frost giants or King Arthur - and it might not even matter. 

Comments, nitpicks, &c welcome - I'd rather work out the problems now than later.

*The actions of Dr Faustus have something of the Ritualist in them; the Government of New Crobuzon in Perdido Street Station are something like Realists in their dealings with Hell and the Weavers; and some of the later dealings of the protagonists in His Dark Materials form an image of the Idealist school of thought. 

** The malevolent Conjunct probably looks (or at least, acts) rather like the cultists of Lovecraftian fiction. A benevolent Conjunct owes something more instead to Ursula Le Guin and the later entries in her Earthsea series. If they aren't Heraclitan all-is-flux types.