This page discusses a particular aspect of the multiverse cosmology that I invented for this game, called ``The Other'' (yes, the people who named it were like that).
Linearly, the multiverse: Inner - Ethereal - Prime - Astral - Outer
The Inner planes are the planes of pure existance; of matter; of *stufF*. The Inner Planes are the `source' of pure material existance throughout the multiverse.
The Ethereal is the connective plane of `everything'; all possibility; of substance (any substance. Every substance). The plane of `body', of tangible, all mixed together (or not). Material swirling from the Inner planes towards the Prime.
The Prime is the plane of `experience', of `real'. A mixture of the `stuff' of the Inner planes filtered through the Ethereal and the `belief' of the Outer planes filtered through the Astral.
The Astral is the plane of `nothing'; the Silver Void that no one was actually ever meant to really see or visit. The plane of thought, of mind. The Astral is the connection between the relatively pure `belief' of the Outer Planes and the mish-mash hodgpodge of the Prime.
The Outer Planes are the planes of Belief, where what you think and why are as (or more!) important as who and what you are.
But... both `The Unity of Rings' and `The Rule of Threes' suggest that there is actually a third `connecting plane', between the Inner and Outer Planes.
This third connective plane is what is currently called `the Other', a heretofor inaccessible connection directly between the pure existance of the Inner Planes and the existentialism of the Outer Planes. While the Prime is the combination of Matter and Thought filtered through the buffers of Ethereal and Astral, the Other is the *direct* confluence of existance and understanding.
If the Silver Void was meant to be a connection that was never visited itself, the Other is a connection that was never meant to be opened; the pinch-point for the thumb and finger of the Whatever that created the Multiverse. A shortcut between Matter and Thought, left empty forever, and almost empty for another forever after that. The potential of the Other is almost unthinkable - a mixture of everything like the Prime without the dilluting, controlling, safety filtering of the Etheral/Astral. The Other exists as pure possibility, just waiting to be formed....
Most of the Other is emtpy now, safely sealed away from the shaping influence of existance... The boundary of the Other isn't completely sealed, however, and has been breached a number of times. (For example, the living god of the Mercurials is actually a single member of the original Mercurial race that rests constantly at a weak point between the Outer and the Other.)
In this multiverse, new worlds are constantly being formed, budded off of La href="world-ash.html">Yggdrasil, planted into The Other, and growing out into the Prime as isolated crystal spheres. As a world `matures' and gets `farther along', the crystal sphere eventually becomes more and more malleable, and the world may, over time, become accessible to the rest of the multiverse again.
Part of this creation process involves the Incarnations. Abstractly, The Incarnations are aspects of the existing world that are used to complete the new worlds thus formed -- they are representatives of certain ideas, ideals, and concepts, that are used in The Other (where such belief has essentially unlimited potential) to mold and shape the new world. In order to accomplish this while avoiding enforcing their own views over every new world, the Fraal and the Number create and `manage', to some degree, the Incarnates -- which appear inthe game as small, insubstantial glowing green balls that are keyed to a particular `concept'.
The Chosen are subverting this process, attempting to use the energies to revive Orcus/Tenebrous in the new world, acquiring large chunks of his portfolio for themselves (as intermediate powers) as they go. Since the Other is sort of the raw materials of this change, the Chosen are attempting to influence this change, and use the potential of the Other to create a world with Orcus and themselves as masters.