Cosmology

The universe has many different planes of existence. This list is not exhaustive, but includes many of the most important ones. The use of TADA to generate different kinds of magical effects is associated with portals to different planes.

Many Material Worlds
There are many material worlds, each its own separate plane / dimension. They are all fairly similar in form, having land, sea, and sky, and being usually inhabited by various forms of plant and animal life. Some creatures may be strange and different, but most of the living things one would encounter are typically at least somewhat familiar in form. Weird and alien life-forms are the exception, not the rule. "Habitable" means the same thing from world to world.

Associated Magic: conjuration of ordinary things

The Elemental Chaos
A realm of primordial matter from which the material worlds are formed. Composed of the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. There are four "poles" that consist of only a single element. The elemental planes are the regions near the poles were one element predominates. Between them, the elements mix together. At the very center is a formless, churning void of pure unshaped matter. This is the plane of origin for elementals.

Associated Magic: conjuration of the elements

The Empyrean Deep
The realm beyond the sky. An endless space with no gravity. Filled with the aether, sourceless light, strange clouds, energy fields, space anomalies, etc. The source of non-elemental energies. (Light, dark, thunder, lightning, force, cold, prismatic, vitality, etc.) [Note: gravity is the Empyrean pushing things away.]  It might be the space between material worlds, or might not.

Magic: evocation of non-elemental energies

The Spirit World
The world of spirits lies right next to the real world and echoes it, but with extra directions. As you move further away from the real world, the similarity gets less and less. Spirits, ranging from weak will-o-wisp orbs to powerful deities, live here. This is the plane of origin for fiends and celestials. This is also the plane used for ethereal and astral effects. This is the place where deities are. Mortal spirits can end up here if attached to a spirit (e.g, a deity, or a fiend) that calls this place home.

Associated Magic: etherealness

Spirit Realms
There are many different "away" directions in the Spirit World. They include:


 * Deosil: vibrance and transcendence (Feywild)
 * Widdershins: gloom and decay (Shadowfell)
 * Inward: primal and natural (World-Heart)
 * Outward: aberrent and unnatural (Far Realms)
 * Downward: corruption and negative emotion (Infernal)
 * Upward: purity and positive emotion (Celestial)

Powerful spirits / deities (especially when banded together into a pantheon) can create their own directions toward a realm perfectly tailored to their nature.

Associated Magic: conjuration of things or spirits/entities appropriate to that direction (e.g., tentacles from the Far Realms, animals from the World-Heart, angels from the Celestial, fiends from the Infernal, ghosts from the Shadowfell, pixies from the Feywild)

The Numinon
The realm of pure ideas. Mathematics is here, but also art, theology, and dreams. The beings that exist here are minds whose "physical" forms are either incidental or accidental and reflect the ideas associated with them. Visitors to the Numinon often find it fluid and dream-like; many things are known directly without being perceived, and the environment may suddenly be different without having changed. Groups of visitors may find that their experiences, while similar in outline, differ in detail.

Associated Magic: illusion, mind-alteration, communication

The Akashic Library
Importantly, while there is truth in the Numinon, there are also lies. The Akasha are an order of beings dedicated to filtering what is true from the Numinon and collecting it in their seemingly endless library. There are reports of those who have discovered complex and novel truths being brought to the library to explain their findings before a tribunal of the Akasha; although these victims always return, they are greatly changed.

Associated Magic: divination

The Source
All mortal existence -- all life, all becoming that transcends being, everything that differentiates growth and development from mere change -- radiates forth from a singular point in the transdimensional cosmos. It is not a place that can be visited; it has no space or time. (Indeed, some argue that it creates time, and possibly space as well.) Some believe it is a doorway to the infinite, absolute, and ultimate.

The goal of many immortal residents of the Spirit World is develop a closer connection to the Source, which they do by collecting the allegiance of beings whose existence is sustained by the Source.

Associated Magic: healing, transmutation, true resurrection

The Void
The gulf of nothingness into which mortal existence eventually flows. Like its counterpart the Source, it is not a place that can be visited, but a phenomenon beyond space and time. However, because the flow of vital essence has been slowed by its passage through the universe, it tends to pool and collect before drifting away into oblivion. Echoes of things long dead and gone can linger on the edge of existence in these pools.

''Associated Magic: abjuration, necrotic energy"

The Bardo
Unless bonded to a deity or powerful spirit, when mortals die their spirits normally reincarnate until they have been refined to sufficient perfection to return to The Source. The Bardo is where they go for a period of reflection between incarnations. It floats like an iceberg, or perhaps sargassum, on the ocean of dissipated life energy atop the Void.

The mimicry of life in the undead is achieved by focusing or reflecting the Source through the Bardo, similarly to how things lit by moonlight are illuminated by reflected sunlight.

Associated Magic: necromancy, contacting and raising the dead

Sagola
Sagola is the name of the material world of Lemuria and Kumari Kamdam. It is unusual, perhaps unique, in that it is connected to some kind of quintessence "vacuum" or "low pressure" zone. When a portal is opened between this world and another, it draws quintessence in, absorbing structure and information. This pressure weakens the barriers between the planes. Portals to other planes are easier to open here. Sometimes they open spontaneously, pulling in creatures from other planes, and sometimes there are strange or unexpected phenomenon as physics briefly changes to the rules of other universes. It also affects the portals themselves, causing them to decay quickly and making most gateways to this world one-way.

What is the nature of the quintessence vacuum? No-one knows. It's not that Sagola is closer to the Void, because that would make it a dying world dominated by gloom and decay, and this world is as living and vibrant as any normal world. And it affects not just life energy, but raw existence. Is there a leak where the quintessence is running out? Is something eating it, or stealing it? Did this world just somehow end up with less of it at the beginning of things? Is it temporary or permanent? Will it get worse? Is it something that needs to be fixed? Will it eventually balance itself out once enough quintessence has been absorbed? All very good questions, to which there are, as yet, no answers.

Associated Magic: teleportation, scrying, manipulation of space and time, disintegration

Quintessence Engines
Quintessence engines are structures that channel the flow of quintessence much like a turbine capturing the flow of water in a dam. You can snag things out of the flow and produce them like grabbing flotsam off of a river. Anything that has a structure can be pulled out of a quintessence engine. Unfortunately, that increases the entropy of things near the engine, which isn't a huge deal on a small scale, but build a bunch of them and all of a sudden the bedrock of your continent is losing its structure and becomes Swiss cheese.

In normal operation, a quintessence engine channels the flow from another plane into this one. It is also possible to set one up that channels quintessence from its surroundings into the vacuum. When this happens, you get a flood of information about the region nearby because quintessence contains information. You get glimpses of things nearby and farther away. You get glimpses of stuff that recently happened, as well as stuff that will happen in the future. It's a confusing mash-up of haphazard information, but it can be filtered for items of interest, like the location of resources or gems. It also tends to pick up on things connected to those who are nearby, as the quintessence flow entangles itself with them. Naturally, this use of QE tech for scanning is used very sparingly, as continued use would be highly damaging to everything in the local environment. (This is how the "gemfinder" works, and why it's important to use it only once per region, not for ongoing surveillance.)

The optimal location for an ongoing quintessence engine is on top of a strong ambient quintessence flow. These locations are often dramatically different than the surrounding area, and can be easily detected with a quintessence scan. They are often somewhat dangerous and unusual, possibly a bit less "real" than other parts of the region.

Gems are essential to the QE because their quintessence is highly structured and enduring, so they tolerate a lot more entropy than other materials. Different gems also have attunements to different planes. QEs are mostly just an array of micro-portal generators, housings for the gems, and adjustable baffles to control and direct the flow of quintessence through the gems.