World of Darkness: The Metaplot


Cosmology & Metaphysics


The following content is especially esoteric and personalized for my World of Darkness setting.

Cosmography
First, it needs to be noted that when discussing the spirit realms in broad strokes, the only supernatural creatures whose opinions matter are mages and shapeshifters. Normal humans, even nosy ones like Arcanum, have theories and snippets of stolen lore only. Kithain are clueless about spirit realms besides the Dreaming and wraiths don’t (and can’t really) know much beyond the Underworld. And vampires…well, as ignorant and clueless as ever except perhaps those few in the Black Hand (and perhaps Inconnu) who know their way around the Underworld, or at least the Byway that leads to Enoch. (Due to my metaplot shift on spirit realm visiting for the Kuei-jin, few of them are likewise well-acquainted with the spirit realms beyond broad sketches. They tend to know Yomi Wan better than they’d like to admit, however!)

Secondly, for the most part I accept the various game books’ description of the spirit realms, as contradictory as they sometimes seem. I say “seem” deliberately because it’s clear that there is overlap between Mage and Werewolf. Only terms vary for the most part though there is a bit more to it than that. For example, beyond the Penumbra/Near Umbra, the Middle/High Umbra expands. Garou call it the Middle Umbra because they tend to visit the Near Realms like Wolfhome. Mages call it the High Umbra, for here numerous abstract realms (like “Heaven”) link to the Astral Realm (which almost no shapeshifters ever visit or even know about). Beyond lies what the Garou call the Membrane, which is simply a pesky second Gauntlet for them to bypass through Anchorheads into the Deep Umbra, if they’re brave enough to visit there. But for mages, they call this the Horizon and claim numerous Horizon Realms and Shade/Shard Realms here. So, while the cosmology may be the same, different peoples have different focuses such that their naming traditions form around those interests.

True Hell
A Near Realm simply called “Hell” exists in the High Umbra; it reflects the belief of the masses in such a place. It is peopled with spirits who think they’re demons. For all intents and purposes, they are, and it’s not a hill worth dying on to convince them otherwise. (A similar situation exists in the Near Realm called the Arcadia Gateway, filled with spirits who insist that they’re faeries and that they’re in Arcadia. They get…upset…if you try to instruct them otherwise.) But True Demons reside in True Hell, which is a place that’s not a place (which is the point). If it can be reached at all, the path is only through the Astral Realm. Presumably, True Heaven would be reached similarly.

Deep Umbra/Void
Past the Anchorheads through the Membrane/Horizon, one enters the Deep Umbra (or Void as technomancers generally call it). This realm is infinite. Alien species are extant here: strange, bizarre, and ingeniously evil (collectively referred to as Outsiders). No creatures who are not native to the Void may survive in this realm without magic or hyper-scientific equipment. It is essentially like outer space: a lifeless, heatless vacuum. And even with such protection, the Void wears at the visitor, tearing away his essence until he effectively becomes a spirit (or less), lost to the Deep forever. Those who survive that often at least lose their mind, especially when witnessing the vast, sublime, and ineffable chaos of the infinite. It is truly wondrous and terrifying at once, like peering past the event horizon of a black hole.

Malfeas
Indeed, far flung into the Deep Umbra lies Malfeas, the labyrinthe home of the Wyrm itself (supposedly). Maeljin Incarna and dark totem spirits gather here. Direct access to Urge Wyrms is possible, and the Black Spiral is danced here. It is a place of unspeakable, unparalleled evil. Nobody visits here who wants to survive, or even keep their souls and sanity. And it is not so much a place as a thing: the literal beating heart of the Great Hydra (see below).

The Dreaming
The Dreaming exists parallel to the Umbra. However, only the fae and the Enchanted may even attempt to traverse it. Entering the Near Dreaming is relatively easy: portals are scattered in special places all over the world, but it is a wild and mercurial place. By Trod, and only by Trod, may the fae visit the Far Dreaming (comparable to the High Umbra), where they may lose themselves to a Mists-like effect but revel in what once was for the fae. The Far Dreaming is as far as the fae can get. Arcadia (the infinite parallel to the Deep Umbra) is locked off to them and the gateways cannot even be found. Presumably, Trods can and do cut through the Near and Far Dreaming directly to Arcadia. Few fae tarry in either the Near or Far Dreaming save those skilled at Dream Craft, though even they tend to stake out small claims in the Near Dreaming and ignore the rest (or rather, even with this Art, a small chunk is all they can hold onto).

There is no way to enter the Far Dreaming except by Trod. Not even the highest levels of true magick may do so (though they may help locate and navigate the appropriate Trods), should a mage even be aware of or interested in the Dreaming. Arcadia’s true gateways seem to be blocked and hidden from all points of the Autumn Realm and Near or Far Dreaming. However, there is probably a super-secret backdoor into Arcadia somewhere in the Deep Umbra. Nobody has ever found it, or at least returned to speak of it. (There is at least one such portal, but obviously nobody knows where it is.)

The Underworld
The Underworld (called the Dark Umbra by those few shapeshifters aware of or interested in it) follows the same patterns as other spirit realms. There are the Shadowlands, corresponding to the Penumbra, then the Tempest (Middle Umbra), and finally the Labyrinth (Deep Umbra). Byways cut through all of it. At the heart of the Labyrinth, beyond the Veinous Stair and all the rotting tombs of the Neverborn, lies the very same spiral of entropic madness found in Malfeas. (The Black Spiral Dancers obviously access it through the Deep Umbra, not the Tempest.) Meanwhile, an infinite-seeming number of Far Shores stud the Tempest and Sunless Sea. Not all are sanctuaries. The River of Death, the primary Byway in the Western Underworld, leads to the heart of Stygia, the Isle of Sorrow. But some Far Shores are paradisiacal, like Elysium. The best ones are always the best hidden (or else all wraiths would go to them)! Other examples of Far Shores include the Isle of Eurydice (where the Seat of Fate in Stygia rests), Enoch, the First City (controlled by the Black Hand vampire necromancers and their wraithly allies/slaves), Amenti (a sanctuary maintained by Horus for his torporific father, Osiris, and the Shemsu-Heru), Xibalba (where Tlazopilli Reborn rest during their death cycles), and the Hidden Isle (from which the Demonics called the Gorgon Sisters waylay hapless Tempest-travelers).

Ley Lines
Ley lines, moon paths, dragon lines, Trods, Byways—all are vital arteries that not only can lead spiritual travelers from the Earth realm into the spirit world, sometimes deep into it, but serve as internal pathways, too. Indeed, some places can only be reached by special and unique ley lines. The most important or hidden lines are usually well-protected by staunch and powerful protectors and/or defensive magical effects (or traps). Others grow wild and dangerous for even experienced travelers. Numerous Byways, even the River of Death, are overrun with spectral harassers that can even overpower Ferrymen. Chimerical beasts often hunt for easy prey along well-used but poorly defended Trods. Internal moon paths are often overwatched by Lunes, which even on the best of days are mercurial and unreliable spirits, and on bad days they can be downright psychotic. And yet, so vital are these paths, that some factions fight for control of them. The Ascension War sees battles fought over ley line access, especially in or around the Horizon, because they’re such a vital resource (BCD fighter pilots get to really shine then!).

Whatever their nature, ley lines can and do connect all realms to one another. No realm in all the cosmos exists that a ley line somewhere doesn’t connect it to another realm, if not directly back to Earth. Not even Arcadia. It’s just that many of those lines are hidden by forces beyond any supernatural creature’s ability to rediscover them until it’s time for them to be found.

Parallel Universes
Parallel universes exist, if primarily as a footnote of curiosity. That is also because there is absolutely no way to deliberately open a portal from anywhere (even the Void) to any known or theorized parallel universe. Such gateways open spontaneously or, perhaps, accidentally, and close as whimsically. The only reason that their existence can even be confirmed by those lorists specializing in Deep Umbra knowledge is by those terrifying Outsiders who claim to be from beyond this dimension. Anecdotal evidence has also been collected over the ages by those few who have gone to these places and returned. So far, 20 dimensions have been named. They are:

  • 7th World (Shadowrun)
  • Aster Archai (Star Wars: The Old Republic)
  • Asterion (Star Wars: Dark Cabal)
  • Cael (DnD)
  • Capstone (Streetfighter)
  • Cradle (Dragonlance)
  • Dzungar (Hyboria)
  • Ebbing (Dragon Age)
  • Geiga (Aliens/Predator)
  • Grey, The (Greyhawk/Forgotten Realms)
  • Land of Death (Deadlands)
  • Locus, The (Wrathblade)
  • Lost (Avatars of Fate Homeworld)
  • Nether, The (World of Warcraft)
  • Odyssey (Star Trek)
  • Outlands (Mortal Kombat)
  • Realm-93 (Marvel Universe)
  • Sanctum (Diablo)
  • Terminus (Final Fantasy)

    Incidentally, Outsiders name this dimension the Shadow World, which puzzles those who know. Why would this world be called “Shadow World”, they wonder? (See below!)

    The Triat
    In Werewolf, the entities of the Weaver, Wyld, and Wyrm are widely discussed as if they were great gods that somehow could be elevated or destroyed, at least piecemeal. However, their status as Greater Celestines puts them far beyond an anthropomorphic scale. They cannot be thought of as limited beings because their existence expands as vast as the universe: which is to say, infinite. Only finite beings could ever be “encountered”. Urge Wyrms are monumental enough and they couldn’t ever be “defeated” either. The idea that the Croatan werewolves sacrificed themselves to “defeat” the Eater-of-Souls is tragic and erroneous (90% of Native Americans—well over 50 million people—still perished by the diseases the Wyrmcomer colonists brought with them). It’s adorable to imagine mighty Croatan snapping their teeth at a titanic slobbery spirit-worm-thing washing ashore with the English. But it just didn’t happen. On the other hand, massacring entire colonies off the coast of Virginia, that had a concrete effect—if only a delay.

    The Triat, referred to by mages as Stasis, Dynamism, and Entropy respectively, are beyond this. In fact, they permeate all things and at all times. They are the forces of creation itself. Does that mean there cannot be a malevolent or at least alien intellect behind those forces? Of course, there is: but that intellect coalesces into avatars of those forces at the Lesser Celestine level at best (e.g., Urge Wyrms). Otherwise, those forces’ “motivations” are simply to do what they do.

    However, the Garou aren’t wrong to notice that the Wyrm/Entropy is disproportionately corruptive and destructive. That is why the dimension is referred to by Outsiders as the Shadow World. For whatever reason, the forces of creation in this dimension are out of whack. (For some Outsiders, that makes this universe deliciously ripe for exploitation…) Why that is so isn’t known to almost anyone in the Shadow World. The reason is simple: it was made this way, deliberately flawed to twist inwards and inevitably implode under the weight of its own inequity. (Compare to the Odyssey dimension, for example, where despite the threat from the Borg or war with alien empires, the universe arches gradually towards justice and goodness.)

    Entropy wins. It is inevitable. It will even consume itself, for destruction (Oblivion) will consume corruption (the Wyrm) and leave nothing at all. And nothing can change this doom. Only the timeline can be altered, delayed (maybe). And while this black hole-like singularity may be at the heart of all universes, it is accelerated in the Shadow World compared to some dimensions. Not, of course, that any denizens of the Shadow World universe would ever really recognize this: the accelerated entropy of their universe is the norm.

    Moral Axioms
    Every supernatural species in the World of Darkness has a mission it was especially designed to play. These are the only moral rules that apply. They apply as responsibilities to balance the privileges of power that the supernatural enjoys. The balance was instituted by the Creator. Other beliefs and paths might be followed but they are simply wrong, and the followers of such paths will only bring more misery and suffering to themselves and others in the trying. Note that normal humans, even gifted ones like psychics and hedge mages, have no moral axioms derived from the existence of those powers.

    Mages: Their task is to shepherd fellow human beings against the dark enemies threatening them, including other supernatural beings who fall astray from their true paths. Mages are prophets and mortal angels. (This means that the Technocracy tends to be on the correct side of the moral equation. But their conceit often has them treat Sleepers as cattle, which is immoral.)
    Shapeshifters: Every Fera has its own directive as presented by Gaia. So long as they keep to those directives, they are in the right. This may even mean “culling” humans to some extent…
    Fae: Both Kithain and Pure Land fae (Nunnehi and such)’s truest path is to achieve the status of Síocháin (harmony between Glamour and Banality).
    Hsien: Hsien are meant to earn their way back into Heaven through enlightened living, transcending the flesh and becoming pure elemental spirits once more.
    Vampires: Both Cainites and Kuei-jin are meant to achieve an enlightened state of peace and harmony. Only Kuei-jin accept this (even if they often stray from it). “Golconda” is often a dirty word to greedy and malevolent Cainites, whose intents (even when good) invariably put them at odds with the protectors of the world (particularly mages and shapeshifters).
    Wraiths: Ghosts, like vampires, are meant to Transcend their cursed state and move onto a better state of existence. Both wraiths and vampires are really no different than normal humans who have been blessed and cursed with longevity for the purpose of achieving true happiness and harmony. (See below about souls.)
    Mummies: Though undead, mummies are not burdened with the task of individual enlightenment, but rather as the watchers of the cycle. Their immortal existence enables them to keep track of the turning of the Wheel of Ages, acting as surgeons to remove obstacles only their endless series of lives gives them perspective to notice.

    Souls
    Though atheists may wish to disbelieve in the existence of souls, souls don’t really care. They simply exist. And they are not a simple matter of one soul per person. That is the case for Sleepers (actually for all living things), but that is what I will here differentiate between “soul” and “spirit”, repurposing these medieval categories for the World of Darkness.

    A soul is the core of a being. When that person dies, the soul is drawn out of the Shadow World (and indeed, out of the universe) for its final reward. However, all living things leave bioenergy signatures in the world, and that energy doesn’t simply go away. It transforms dead matter into something else, and remnants of that matter populate the Underworld. From relic blades of grass to conscious ghosts (or not-so-conscious, known as Drones), dead spirits are not the actual souls of people but rather the lingering (and suffering) remnants of their personas (split between Psyche and Shadow).

    By contrast, Cainites are humans whose souls are locked into their bodies until Final Death comes. (This is why a dead vampire could actually return as a wraith.) Kuei-jin, on the other hand, experience the splitting of their Psyche and Shadow (Hun and P’o) but regain their once-human bodies, while their actual souls moved on when the mortal first perished. Kuei-jin are, effectively, a special case of the Risen Dead. (This is why Kuei-jin cannot return as wraiths should they meet Final Death.)

    Werewolves are a special case. Their human (or animal) lives are merely adaptive camouflage for entirely unique species. Lycanthropy isn’t some curse or affliction, after all, but a rare genetic composition. (In short, their hybrid “war” forms are actually their truest forms. It is no coincidence that metis breed are born in this form, nor that the prehistorical Lizard Kings walked the Earth in Archid forms always.) Their souls are their spirits. There is no distinction for the Fera. Their souls/spirits always reincarnate, provided the genetic composition is available (lineages aren’t extinct). When those lines are gone, or in special circumstances (such as being “promoted” by a tribal totem to becoming an Ancestor-spirit), their souls/spirits dwell in the depths of the Umbra, typically in special tribal Near Realms.

    Changelings vary depending on their origins. The fae that have undergone the changeling way are similar to shapeshifters in that their faerie spirit binds to a human soul that connects them through genetic lineages (Kinain). Pure Land fae (Nunnehi and such) enjoy this, too. Should these fae be Undone, the fae spirit is erased utterly and only a human soul remains.

    Sidhe and other fae who have recently arrived from Arcadia and have not yet adapted the changeling way, nor (re-)established Kinain bloodlines, are in worse shape. When they take on a human Seeming, the human soul is actually ejected from the body—effectively ending that human’s life. Consequently, returning Sidhe typically choose weak-willed and supercilious people (whose vacuousness does at least tend to lend to their physical beauty), since their Chrysalis involves a contest of wills. (The soul and spirit do not “swap places”, where the human soul lives in bliss in Arcadia. The human soul simply moves on.) Such a fae who faces the Undoing rarely persists in living. Lacking a human soul or fae spirit, such a tragic case would be a living drone (not unlike some of the clones that the Progenitors craft but far more pathetic).

    Finally, hsien hybridize both approaches: they occupy the body of a human being (though always when that human is dying or just died, such that the human soul has already departed and left a husk). Should a hsien die before achieving the Jade Key, her spirit reincarnates and takes another human shell at a later date. Hsien who die after achieving the Jade Key have purified their karmic debt and do not reincarnate as hsien but rather as pure spirits in the Celestial Realms if they have not already departed the Middle Kingdom permanently anyway.

    Mummies take on multiple spirits at once. Firstly, like vampires, their human souls are locked into being. However, the splitting of a mummy’s soul isn’t into a simplistic Psyche/Shadow configuration. They instead take on a semblage of a unique kind of multi-tiered spirit (Ba and Ka) that co-exists through time and space and stays anchored by the immortalized human soul. Should the mummy ever face the erasure of their immortal souls (such as through Ren-Hekau 5), the soul finally moves onto its final destination while the multi-tiered spirit ceases to exist.

    Finally, the spirits of mages may be the most complex or at least substantial. Like mummies, mages have both a mage spirit and human soul that co-exist. When the mage dies, the human soul moves on but the mage spirit (Avatar or Genius) reincarnates into another human at a later date. An Avatar subjected to Gilgul is effectively erased from existence. An Avatar that persists through the ages, especially the stronger ones, often carry memories of their paired human lives over time. Such Avatars may share those lives’ wisdom and goals with the current mage.

    Faerie spirits are the embodiment of dreams lost and trapped in the Autumn Realm. Mummy and shapeshifter spirits are perpetually reincarnated servants of Gaia and/or Heaven. Vampires and wraith spirits are really just human souls given a longer but harder opportunity to become better people. Mages are both the most human and most alien of all denizens of the World of Darkness. Their Avatar/Genius are essentially fragments of a Demiurge, the materialistic will of the Creator/Prime/Supreme being (“God”), given the task of protecting, shepherding, and ushering all of one of the Creator’s favorite species (humanity) toward greatness (Ascension).

    These soul metaphysics are by and large unknown to all but the wisest members of the supernatural species. Old Man Coyote likely knows the truth, as might the Oracles. (Note that this means any connection to, and content of, Exalted is rejected.)

    Terms for Entities
    The following are terms employed in general occult, folklore, and pan-indigenous circles by both Awakened and Sleepers. These terms refer to supernatural beings, including: vampires, mages, werewolves and other Changing Breeds, faeries, wraiths (and spectres), revenants, mummies, angels, demons, familiars, Bygones, and possessed humans like fomori (but generally not Umbrood spirits, chimerical entities, or Whistimmu in the Tempest, nor to partially Awakened mortals like psychics and hedge mages), as a quick catch-all referential word. A degree of ethnocentric scorn sometimes applies. For example, Kuei-jin acknowledge themselves as shen as part of the spiritual tradition from the Mandates of Heaven, but will not call Cainites shen.

    The West: Daemoni or Cryptids (favored by more contemporary researchers/lorists, though Technocrats tend to stick to "Reality Deviants")
    The East: Shen
    Africa: Pepo
    North America: Dadiyinigii
    South America: Supay

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