Other Worlds

The world of Curious Pastimes stretches beyond the continents of the True Plane. Many cultures and peoples are found spread across the different planes of the cosmos. These include many different mortal and immortal beings.

Some of the civilisations of other worlds are already known to the warhost. But mysteries abound, and who knows which other peoples will make their existence known in time?

The Planes

The cosmos consists of sixteen planes, in two general types.

• Mundane Planes: The seven mundane planes (Illusion, Number, Fertility, Movement, Solid, Death and the True Plane) are relatively normal, stable worlds teeming with life, peopled by living creatures not too dissimilar to the people of the Land, with all three spheres more or less in balance.
• Supernatural Planes: The nine supernatural planes (The Demonic Plane, The Plane of Undeath, The Plane of Constructs, Hope, Chance, Love, Mastery, Artifice, Fate) are dangerous, alien places, peopled by supernatural creatures with strongly imbalanced spheres – or missing a sphere entirely.

The five poles are not planes but single points in the cosmos, although any number of spirits, having no substance of their own, can exist at the pole of Spirit, and indeed all spirits are believed to go there when their bodies are killed.

Travel between the planes is difficult and dangerous, requiring either powerful exalted spells, great ritual magics or similarly extraordinary means. Rumours abound of secret roads, world-travelling pubs and stranger things, but finding and safely navigating these routes will require an extraordinary degree of luck.

Supernatural Creatures

Spirits, and the denizens of the supernatural planes, being strongly magically imbalanced, are very different from the people of the True Plane. Some are very long-lived (or wholly ageless), some fleeting; some have bodies formed of stone or plants, and some have no bodies at all, but are mere wisps of spirit and energy. Most have unusual powers or traits, and most see the world in ways that living creatures find hard to comprehend.

A spellcaster with the appropriate skill can learn the nature and powers of any supernatural creature via the relevant Discern Nature spell (e.g. Discern Nature of Undead or Discern Elemental Nature), and can banish them, destroying their forms and returning their magics to the world, via the relevant Banish spell (e.g. Banish Corporeal or Banish Demon).

Any supernatural creature can also be summoned, influenced or aided by a Conjunctional Magic discipline. The disciplines relating to the three closest supernatural planes – Demonology, Necromancy and Thaumaturgy – are widely studied on the True Plane, while the more esoteric disciplines relating to the other supernatural planes are little known.

Supernatural Level Every supernatural creature has a level, a measure of their connection to their plane. A supernatural’s level is a measure of how hard they are to summon, control or destroy, and a broad indicator of how powerful they are. Spells such as Banish Undead and rites such as Control Construct or Demonic Ward are also cast at a particular level, defines the level of supernatural they affect. As a very rough indicator: Level 1-5: Minor creatures (e.g. most zombies or imps). Level 6-15: Stronger creatures with distinctive traits (e.g. ghouls or nightmares). Level 16-30: Powerful creatures with a range of powers (e.g. hell hounds or wraiths). Level 31-50: Major threats that can only be killed by special means (e.g. liches or elemental lords).

The Plane of Movement

Lying between the Elemental pole, the Spiritual pole and the pole of Source, the mundane plane of Movement is a contradiction; a place of constant turmoil where upheaval itself has become a cloying constant. It is home to two civilisations.

The Skittians

The Skittians live in the moment. Long-lived, they have seen history and turned away, deciding that nothing ever changes even as everything comes and goes. As a result they are impatient, often cruel, and do not care for those who think planning should take precedence over the truth that whatever legacies one builds today, tomorrow they will crumble.

The Skittians are organised into loose families with a grand dukedom that provides some semblance of order to their society – overseeing as it does the monitoring and management of the more extreme members of society and providing, for those who have excelled where others have failed, a place to flaunt their superiority and politics to make others understand their inferiority.

One notable feature of their culture is they regard those they can dominate as morally inferior and treat their near neighbours, the elementals, as especially worthy of contempt. Many outsiders see the Skittians as slavers and detest them accordingly.

Not all Skittians are the same but nearly all will be quick to dismiss, quick to laugh at and find pleasure in cruelty.

The Djinn

The origins of the djinn are unclear. Some say they migrated from Chance to Demonology before finding their current home on Movement. Whether that is true or not, it encapsulates their essence better than any other tale.

The djinn are themselves supernatural beings. Similar to the Oathbound in many respects, including being bound by oaths they make, but in others they are not. They relish wealth and ostentation as a culture – looking to lavish spectacle as a sign of power.

They are organised by family. The process of growing Djinn families is unknown but the evidence of those families is clear – Djinn do not care for social obligation, only family bonds. Justice for a family member follows different rules to that of an outsider and for the Djinn, your importance is measured by how far you stand from the Iarch of the family. To be called brother, sister or kin is the greatest honour and comes with significant protections and responsibilities.

Fertility

Lying between the Corporeal pole, the Spiritual pole and the pole of End, the mundane plane of Fertility is a place full of life and growth.

The Gardeners

The gardeners are an agrarian culture focused on cultivation, farming and life. Their view of the world is one of growth and living in harmony with those around them – specifically nature. They have neighbours but their borders are largely peaceful and, in truth, they are not a biological unity but a host of different types who live together as a community. They are populous and their focus on magicks that support fertility (i.e. abundant crops, living in harmony with nature) mean that they are not particularly aggressive or warlike.

Those with more aggressive natures are harnessed in their soldiers – a fraction of the population whose main goal is to look after and protect the rest of the Gardeners.

They regard all of life, including death, as part of the normal scheme of things and even see the undead as not particularly problematic. Their view is that if the universe didn’t like undead they wouldn’t exist in the first place, so they must have a function and far be it from them to object to such a situation.

They are omnivores – all things have their place in the cycle of life. They are relatively cultured but with a slant towards the agrarian. They have gifted crafters and alchemists but don’t head into mathematics or smithing etc.

Their communities live for one another and they also revere Ritual (almost as a god) as they see ritual as the lifeblood of the cosmos.

Fate

Lying between the Corporeal pole and the pole of Source, the supernatural plane of Fate is a place shaped by stasis and the weird forces of time itself.

The Gidanti

The supernatural Gidanti are a society of loners. They come together frequently and live in cities but they are a people who see the self as the nexus of fate and hence bigger groups are seen as, at best, places where fate is worked out. They are slow to make decisions, partly because they don’t see the rush when everything is fated already but also because they are close to the pole of Corporeal and this means they are slow to act anyway.

They are a people who seek their fates. They are practitioners of omen seeking, fortune telling etc.

They are largely rocklike in appearance and are typically organised into small conclaves who vote on matters which might involve others but generally live for themselves.

Weirdly, people who practise skills like crafting and smithing will only commit to these professions depending on whether they believe they are called to them. No one does these things for fun or just because.

Hope

Lying between the Spiritual pole and the pole of End, the supernatural plane of Hope is a place of austere beauty.

The Twins (The Dessimae and the Olurai)

The supernatural Dessimae and the Olurai are a predator/prey symbiosis. The Dessimae are incarnations of hope, full of spirit and energy and change. The Olurai are incarnations of despair, also full of spirit and energy and movement.

The culture is ancient and full of art and knowledge and culture. The society refers to itself as ‘The Twins’.

Their cities are great places full of stark contrasts, art, theatres, universities and the practising of magic. Their society is best described as an oligopoly as the Olurai come from a smaller number of families whose presence among the ruling class is delineated according to family bloodlines.

The Twins are a culture that venerates learning and the new. They seek out what they don’t know, looking for novelty and adventure, setbacks and opportunities with equal fervour.

Mastery

Lying between the Spiritual pole and the pole of Source, the supernatural plane of Mastery is a place of extraordinary control.

The Icarna

The supernatural Icarna are shapeshifters and inhabitors of others’ forms. It is vanishingly rare to see one in its natural form. Their natural forms are ephemeral but slow changing and they have a culture built around inhabiting others’ shapes.

They are a people who are focused on practice, on collaboration, and think nothing of spending vast portions of time on single tasks.

Society is built around guilds. Guild masters are little mayors of their domains and because of their spread across the plane and the different physical forms they take, there are often multiple guilds covering the same subject (such as alchemy) in the same place. In other words, there could be three alchemist guilds in one settlement but all of which have slightly different foci and members.

There have been scholars who suggest that if they ever focused on making war they would be terrifying because that same discipline that leads them to mastery would be applied to their war goals and training and technology.

Number

Lying between the Corporeal pole, the Elemental pole and the pole of End, the mundane plane of Number is highly organised and structured.

The Novae

The stout, bearded folk of Number are organised by legion. They have a striated social structure with those at the top being masters of their fields of learning. Although they call these legions, they are not particularly military - only that they’re mathematically precise social structures. It’s a society where everyone has their place and advancement is by learning and passing exams.

Their cities are places of crafted wonder with technologies and magics far more advanced than those seen on the true plane among the warhost. They prize logic, foundational thinking and making sure a decision is the right one.

There’s a saying ‘take a day to prepare’ which really sums up their approach to life, decision making and work. All young people are educated, can read, write and have at least one crafting skill be it smithing, alchemy, magic, cooking, ritual etc.

Where art exists (and it does in abundance) it serves a purpose - drawing plans, theatre that presents new ideas, music that explains new maths. All of it is in the service of learning and creating new things.

Chance

Lying between the Elemental pole and the Pole of End, the supernatural plane of Chance is a place of chaos and change.

The Petremeg

Lovers of games, puzzles and also learning how to bend and avoid the rules. The Petremeg are the world given sentience. From rocks to clouds to flowers and butterflies, the Petremeg take many forms not seen as sentient on other planes. They don’t really see their forms as guiding the kind of people they are although outsiders might note that sentient clouds have subtly different concerns to sentient trees.

They are ruled by a parliament whose members are chosen by lot every two years. Obviously, with a love of cheating and finding shortcuts, the process is ridden with people trying to ensure their preferred candidates are chosen via the ‘random’ process.

Education is a strong part of their culture and younger members are schooled in mathematics, logic and creative arts so they can better tackle life’s puzzles.

They hate the idea of accepting the hand they’ve been dealt and will challenge and prod to see how to change the world. They are a people of motion and change. Impulsive but ready to work hard to beat challenges.

The Demonic Plane

Lying between the Elemental and Spiritual poles, the supernatural Demonic Plane is a place of domination, obligation and conflict. There are three civilisations there.

The Oathbound

The Oathbound are beings who call the plane of demonology home. They are largely spiritual in nature and are driven by the idea of social obligation.

Obligation could be to help someone in their time of need, to defend them, to negotiate on their behalf or feed them when hungry. Obligation could also be to kill one’s enemy, to harm someone for the sake of it or inflict humiliation at another’s request.

The nature of the plane means that the very weakest of the oathbound have no one to whom they can turn but also nearly always owe someone else something significant.

The great demonic city of Chronicle is the place where all contracts are kept and overseen by the fearsome Magisters whose powers derive from the nature of contracts themselves.

Oathbound demons make deals as readily as most of us eat dinner and they take it just as seriously. They will always seek advantage but this is seen as being within the bounds of making a good deal. There is nothing malicious in being a good bargainer as any good diplomat will tell you. However, if a demon is malicious by nature its deals will reflect this even if it too is entirely oathbound to honour the deals it does make.

The Horde

The Horde sits equidistant from the pole of Element and the pole of Spirit and those who live there share in both spheres. Beyond this there is little coherency or uniformity among those entities who are captured by this designation. There are aggressive spiritually based elementals, cultured but elementally focused spirits and everything in between.

Engaging with the horde is the most difficult of the three ‘courts’ of the plane for a couple of reasons. The first being that because there’s no real unifying civilisation here it is hard for people from outside the plane to get a grasp of what is happening, who is powerful and how to influence them.

For example, the crown and the sceptre are the items of Authority for the Spiritual and Elemental Courts. There is no known equivalent among those of the horde.

The Elemental Courts

If the Oathbound are about social reciprocity, the elementals are about raw, naked, power. As with elemental demonologists, elementals rule by might and by showing they’re the most powerful being in the room.

They have no ranks among themselves, only a never ending jockeying for power which sees them pit their skills and powers against each other again and again.

Most elementals are solitary in nature - especially in the day to day. Elementals largely reside in the areas of the plane that suit them most. Acid elementals in the great acid oceans while the ice elementals prefer the frigid wastes. Yet they can and do travel and their society is one of wary comradeship which solidifies into hard solidarity in the face of external threats. Like a perpetually squabbling family who unite when a stranger harrasses one of them.

Most elementals are defined by their nature. Weaker elementals can barely communicate and will follow their nature first - fire will burn, water will flow and acid with corrode. It is only the more powerful who have the capacity to stop and develop a perspective through which they can communicate and seek more complex goals.

Lord Fire is currently the ruler of all elementals although this rule doesn’t read across like a king but more like the largest Kaiju being pre-eminent among the other monsters.

The Plane of Undeath

Lying between the Corporeal and Spiritual poles, the Plane of Undeath is a place of gloom, stasis, and endless decay. The people of the factions have encountered at least six cultures of this world.

Vampires

Vampires typically organise themselves as Houses. These Houses have a founding member, the leader of that House while all who come after jostle for status both inside the House but among the other Houses too.

They value loyalty above all and deviousness, cunning and intelligence. They reward demonstrations of cunning and obvious triumphs. They love seeing others brought down for the benefit of the house.

Vampires often appear newly dead, as in pale, bloodless and tired. Yet they can also appear as withered husks and bloated fat corpses slithering across the floor of a crypt.

Those of the major houses value appearance as much as power but that does not mean their fashions are those of the true plane. One season it might be important to look as putrid as possible while another it might be the height of fashion to appear skeletal.

Mummies

Mummies, or the Preserved as they call themselves, are lore keepers. While they often do not understand the import of the knowledge they seek, it is the having it that matters, they are diligent and wil protect and preserve where they can. They cannot be bargained with but they can be bought with suitably enticing knowledge.

Mummies are often fanatically religious librarians (are there any other kind?). They are also known to be Watchers. Mummies DO NOT all appear as Egyptian stereotypes. Many could pass for alive if a little desiccated and others would be little more than clothes wrapped around a skeleton.

Wraiths

Their main role, self-appointed, is to protect and serve the Spectre. The ranks of the wraiths are secret and only by rising through those ranks does anyone learn how the hierarchy works.

The Wraiths act without division and so the only thing that matters to them is your rank within the organisation. Unfortunately the organisation is labyrinthine and opaque even to other wraiths so your rank may not be clear regardless.

There are a hundred or more ranks among the Wraiths, many of them tiny increments or temporary or even sideways moves.

A talkative Wraith is like a quiet Vampire - up to something.

Death Knights

Death Knights are organised into multiple companies, at one end those purely mercenary, at the other those dedicated to fighting for the Spectre with the whole spectrum in between.

The Captains of these companies form a loose council which governs the overall affairs of all the companies, deciding who has breached a contract, who has the right to take new work etc.

Death Knights may be honourable or not depending on their company but one thing is certain, when a full company arrives to fight those already on the field often decide the battle is over.

Liches

There are fewer Liches than other undead. Those that do exist tend to spend their time trying to stop other Liches from being made and stopping those who do exist from getting more powerful.

Liches are inward looking. They have many minions, including other, lesser liches, but their goals are simple – become the most powerful lich in all the cosmos and stop any others from achieving that same end.

Ghouls

Ghouls exist as loose hive minds. Young ghouls have their own minds and are mostly recognisably intelligent. As they age they gain in power and also gain the ability to look through and take control of younger ghouls. Older ghouls become detached from the people they were before they became ghouls and, driven by their hunger, can be much more feral.

Ancient ghouls are formidable magic users and necromancers and can control hundreds of younger ghouls to do their bidding. All they care about is the impossible job of sating their hunger.

Ghouls will become tame around those who feed them or who organise food for them. Food does not necessarily mean flesh but it does mean corporeal matter in some form and flesh is tasty, easily consumed and plentiful.