ANDERS MAGE PAGE 2.0

The Abyss

The Abyss is not a realm, but rather the void between or outside all realms. It has been described as the absolute nothingness outside Creation, or the foundation of reality. Some mages claim it is a barrier which separates the divine from the mundane worlds. Others think it is a cosmic trash heap left over from the creation of the universe, where leftovers and failed parts were discarded.

The Abyss itself doesn't look like anything at all. It lacks everything, time, space, matter or energy. It is almost void of quintessence, being mostly defined as the absence of it. Anyone entering it will be a massive disturbance, having comparatively large amounts of quintessence with him and most important, his perceptions. When someone enters the Abyss, his preconceptions of it will influence it. His quintessence will leak out slightly and create a reality according to his beliefs. If a mage expects an infinite blackness, he will see it. Another person may see just mist or an infinite, empty plain.

The real danger of the Abyss is the fact that even the slightest amount of quintessence matters. Even the quintessence of a Sleeper is enough to cause some reality to form around him. It will take the shape he thinks it will and as he sees it, it will strengthen. It is a very fragile reality, but as long as its creator believes in it, it will remain. The slightest doubt, and it will dissolve into something else. Most people entering the Abyss will unknowingly create a reality and stick to it as they react to it. Thus they will remain in the Abyss, surrounded by their hallucinations. Their quintessence will slowly leak away into its vastness, making them slowly and imperceptibly fade away. Finally they become too faint to perceive and disappear. If a victim manages to escape, he will be overwhelmed by the sheer power of reality outside until he can recover his quintessence. Some victims have been too weakened, and dissolve like dreams when subjected to normal reality.

The Abyss is also home to other things. Some beings or phenomena survive inside its emptiness, preying on the slightest spark of quintessence like the monstrous fish of the deep sea. These beings are extremely good at hiding in the non-existence and avoid losing quintessence at any cost. When something enters the Abyss, they flock to the source of quintessence. They take the form of objects, people or beings fitting the hallucinations of the visitor and try to make him notice them, to give them more reality. In a way, they behave as hobgoblins. Some even try to attack the visitor to kill him and steal the quintessence of his pattern. Others try to lure the visitor by creating illusions and phantasms, while others are content to just hang around him. Some inhabitants can even leave the realm to steal quintessence and then return for safety.

One of the nice features of the Abyss is the extreme simplicity of creating a realm: just think about it. Due to the lack of quintessence, the realm will be very weak and generally only exists around the creator. There is literally nothing there when no one looks. If a constant source of quintessence appears, like someone bringing force from a Node, a realm will quickly form. However, these realms are polluted by the denizens, who do their best to conform to them just to steal quintessence. An object created here will dissolve in ordinary reality, like beings from the Abyss. Another effect is that everything the creator believes can (and generally will) come true. This leads to an extremely malleable reality, where mages can do whatever magick they believe they can do, with no Paradox unless they think they will get it.

The Labyrinth

The Labyrinth is a large and strange realm. It stretches everywhere, interconnecting most realms and realities. By entering it, a traveler can reach almost any place, existing or not. It is also quite dangerous.

The Labyrinth looks like an endless maze of tunnels, walls, rooms or anything else. Some parts are dark, musty cellars where nitre cover the walls, while others are sterile, brightly lit, white corridors. Further inside the realm the Labyrinth becomes less and less recognizable and more chaotic. In some parts the walls are made of rotting shadows and there is a place where it consists of crumbling stairs leading up and down through dark shafts. Generally the Labyrinth seems to meld seamlessly into whatever reality to which it connects. It is often hard to tell where normal reality ends and the Labyrinth starts. It can be entered from sewers, unused dusty doors in cellars, through unknown trapdoors or by walking through the stacks in a large bookstore. In fact, sometimes Sleepers wander into it unknowingly. Most never return.

The Labyrinth seems to underlie reality, like some kind of basement dimension or the flip side of the world. It is the home for everything lost or banished, the beings which lurk outside all realms. Some mages have likened it to a cosmic sewer system where unused or spent quintessence is flushed out and discarded patterns flourish. It is the realm of the Qlippoth, the empty shells of creation, of dead obsessions and beings without names or forms. It is a dangerous place, and more than one mage has met his doom down here.

Some of the beings have no form of their own but possess whatever pattern is handy, like the clothes of their victim or the trash around him. Other beings try to lure people deeper into the Labyrinth, to feast on their despair when they realize they are lost. Others just follow mages, trying to use them to find a way out of the Labyrinth and into reality. There are those who are more neutral, and just inhabit some places.

There is a strange order of mages, the Guardians of the Labyrinth, who inhabit it. No one knows who the hooded and secretive mages are or where in the Labyrinth they live. They sometimes act as guides or protectors for travelers, but they are very strict on payment. If someone defaults on payment or angers them, their revenge is vicious. Often they just open a way into the Labyrinth for the faithless traveler, who stumbles into it and cannot find a way out.

The Library

This realm is near the labyrinth and each can be reached from the other. It is an infinite library containing every book, both written and unwritten. Endless alleys of bookshelves, filled to the brim with books, old and new, big and small, fact and fiction. The air is dry and filled with the smell of dusty bindings. Here and there small reading tables are placed, often covered with piles of books. Pulpits, with chained rarities flank galleries and archives filled with documents stretch towards eternity. The floor is covered with a soft carpet, dampening all sounds. It is silent, and sounds seem to fade away quickly.

The books range from the cheapest pulp to ancient and extremely powerful magickal tomes. In the shelves decaying scrolls filled with hieroglyphics lie side by side with modern encyclopedias and clay tablets. The system the books are ordered after is extremely odd and while all books in the same shelf may have something in common, it is seldom easy to discern. One shelf may be filled with books involving beekeeping, however obliquely. Another may contain maps, regardless of what they are maps of. Another may contain only books with 343 pages. Finding the book you want is a nightmare and can take years. There are also false books, books looking like those sought but containing subtle errors or falsehoods, blank pages or something altogether different.

Anyone may borrow books here freely, but they must return them. If the book has not been returned after a reasonable time, the Library turns against him. Exactly what happens is not known, since most such people have simply vanished. The few that remain refuse to talk about it, and it may be noted that they have returned their books. Some mages travel into the Library to browse or to find a particular tome. This is dangerous, since many mages have been overwhelmed by their thirst for knowledge and never left the realm. Many have become Librarians or died within the Library.

The Librarians are quiet, slightly myopic people who keep the Library neat and tidy, sort the books and try to catalogue them. They are a fairly rare sight, but often very helpful if the seeker can stand their peculiarities. Many of them seems to be more than a little otherworldly and sometimes drift off into interesting research or pressing duties. They tend to be irritated by loud noises, disorder or anything that threatens their dear books.

The Library stretches into the physical world at many places and times in large libraries, used bookstores or collections. All sufficiently large collections of books, especially magickal books, tend to get close to the Library. Many Chantry libraries connect to the Library. Most of the time these portals are impossible to find or just one way out of the Library, but sometimes they open spontaneously or because someone seeking a book has accidentally found their way out. Some Chantries have developed permanent portals into this realm, but most mages are suspicious of it. They have the feeling the Library is expanding into their libraries, and will slowly engulf them.