V'hanian Parterres?

[steriaca]

1 hour ago, Steve said:

This is an off-topic question, but it seems to relate.

 

How would the Qliphothic Realms fit into this? Is there only one version attached to the entire multiverse or does each universe have its own linked version?

 

If there is only one and the godlike denizens therein are also unique, DEMON becomes a multiversal threat, and there might be instances of different versions of DEMON working together across the dimensional barriers.

It is possible that they may be millions of Qliphothic Realms. Each with their own nightmarish creatures. It's just...each copy of such a creature operates as it has only one transdimentinal mind. Since it is of one mind, what one knows, all know.

 

As for transdimentinal DEMON plots, those are a possibility no matter what.

[Lord Liaden]

Interesting point to consider.

 

The Qliphoth is supposed to be the shadow or dark reflection of the Sephiroth, the plan of the Multiverse. The whole Sephiroth, down to the nadir of the Qliphoth and the Solipsist, antithesis to the Creator at the apex of the Sephiroth. Some of the dimensions of the Sephiroth are singular, with unique inhabitants, so I would presume some of the Qliphoth reflects that status. But the Qliphoth is explicitly made up of universes, plural. Decayed and decrepit, but still multitudinous. So perhaps some of them do have alternates.

 

Could there be multiple DEMONs working to free singular Kings of Edom? It seems possible. I remember a story from Marvel Comics in which many versions of the Serpent Crown from alternate universes merged into a single gigantic Crown powerful enough to physically conjure Set itself. But DEMON being what it is, I doubt multiple versions of it would cooperate that way. Its leader is a megalomaniac who wouldn't share power with anyone, not even himself.

 

 

[DShomshak]

If any version of Luther Black succeeds in his ascension, perhaps he absorbs all the other versions of Luther Black. That may indeed be part of the promise and plan he derived from the Liber Terribilis. Becoming a singular entity could indeed be part of his motivation. After all, thinking too much about alternate worlds can drive one mad... (review Niven's "All the Myriad Ways.")

 

The Kings of Edom themselves are definitely singular. There are no alternate Vulshoths or Dizzhoraths. They are too, well, "Outside the System" to exist in multiples.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Steve]

10 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

The Kings of Edom themselves are definitely singular. There are no alternate Vulshoths or Dizzhoraths. They are too, well, "Outside the System" to exist in multiples.

Since the Kings of Edom are singular, then what region of the Qliphothic Realms do they occupy? I thought they lurked amidst the dying worlds of the Qliphothic mirrors of Earth. They are apparently in a lower(?) plane of the tree since they have no alternates.

 

It’s interesting to learn that they are singular beings. That definitely gives them a far stranger feel and makes them more of a threat. They only have to succeed once with just one Luther Black.

They would also be causing problems for V’Han and her empire, and Edomite cults would be like a virulent infestation among her controlled worlds she can never completely wipe out because their source is beyond her reach.

[drunkonduty]

On 8/12/2022 at 5:13 PM, Lord Liaden said:

V'han is "multiversally unique." Neither she nor we know why, she just is. I would suggest that includes Parterres versions of her, because otherwise her uniqueness is diluted. The general rules clearly don't apply to her, since she continued to exist after accidentally wiping her own parents out of ever having existed.

 

Absolutely, that's the canon. And I admit my maunderings on Imaginal V'hans do contradict what is written in canon.

 

 

 

[steriaca]

4 hours ago, drunkonduty said:

 

Absolutely, that's the canon. And I admit my maunderings on Imaginal V'hans do contradict what is written in canon.

 

 

 

True, but...say it with ne...It's Your Game. You paid the cash to get it. You can twist it however you wish. Want multiple V'hans? Then their is. Want a murderous Foxbat? You got a murderous Foxbat. A heroic Doctor Destroyer? You got a heroic Doctor Destroyer. 

[DShomshak]

11 hours ago, Steve said:

Since the Kings of Edom are singular, then what region of the Qliphothic Realms do they occupy? I thought they lurked amidst the dying worlds of the Qliphothic mirrors of Earth. They are apparently in a lower(?) plane of the tree since they have no alternates.

 

The way I wrote it, the Kings are bound in "hidden, empty prison dimensions and barren worlds" (Arcane Adversaries, p. 41). These can be Qliphothic, but don't have to be. Keeping in mind that these labels are human attempts to classify things that humans do not entirely understand. Is the prison dimension of D?eizzhorath the Dissolver qliphothic? It extends through all space and time, and other dimensions as well, outside any system of classification.

 

That's an important aspect of how I wrote the Kings as a class. One of their chief defining characteristics is that they don't fit in standard categories. They aren't aliens, although some aliens (such as the Elder Worm) serve them. They aren't mystic entities or dimension lords, though some mystics call upon their power. Even calling them "qliphothic" is to try forcing them into a box in which not all of them fit. Even a label such as "Kings of Edom" is an attempt to put them in a box.

 

Dean Shomshak

[steriaca]

Quite true Dean. Exactly what the Kings of Edom are, where they are, and what they do SHOULD be unknown and unknowable. For even having an understanding of them removes the horror around them.

 

Wouzar the Being Beyond Space should not be understandable. Wouzar might be able to be any size it wishes, can stretch to any length, and can litterly be as many places at once it wishes, but being able to understand it should not be possible. 

 

My solution is that the Kings of Edom have bodies which exist in multiple dimensions at once. Qlphonth is only ONE of them, and they might not ALL be their. 

 

It should be noted that the "Space Between Spaces" is it's own dimension to Dimensional Travel into. Thoes who travel their might encounter Wouzar...multiple times in one place, all the same Wouzar.

 

 ..I pulled that name out of my ass...your free to develop the concept and maybe create a new name which sounds better. Or not.

[Lord Liaden]

According to Book Of The Empress p. 185, among the first things Istvatha V'han does when conquering a universe containing an alternate Earth, is to exterminate the Elder Worm and destroy DEMON and anyone else connected to the Qliphoth. Experience has taught her it's best not to have anything to do with those dimensions or their inhabitants.

[Lord Liaden]

There are a few other godlike entities from the Qliphoth besides the Kings of Edom who have had an official impact on Champions Earth. Early Hero Universe books claimed that the Elder Worm worshiped the Kings, but that was retconned with Champions Beyond.  Per that book the Worm worship a pantheon of dozens of Qliphothic entities, with sacrifices of sapient beings. During the Malvan war the Elder Worm sacrificed the entire population of a planet, over 7 billion sapients, to conjure one of their gods bodily into the galaxy. These beings are described as "akin to, but not identical with, the shadowy Kings of Edom." (CB p. 208)

 

Another class of godlike Qliphothic being are called "the Presences Beyond."  They transformed the Atlantean rebel wizard, Dalsith the Orphan, into the terrible Sharna-Gorak the Destroyer, who brought about the Cataclysm that ended the Altantean Age. They are also responsible for empowering the alternate-Earth version of James Harmon as Shadow Destroyer, the faux-Doctor Destroyer introduced into continuity by Cryptic Studios after they bought the Champs IP.

 

(BTW the Qliphoth and the Kings of Edom became a major component of the Champions Online MMORPG; but how Cryptic presented them is nearly unrecognizable from our tabletop RPG version. OTOH that game names two of the "Bleak Ones," the gods who created the Lemurian race, as Esleggua and Orogtha, the names of two Kings of Edom.)

 

Neither the Elder Worm, Dalsith, nor Shadow Destroyer ever achieved true communion with the entities they propitiated. They believe those beings are pleased by their sacrifices, and grant them knowledge and power in exchange, but they're just too alien to beings from our "positive" universes to really be sure of their motives and responses. Like the Kings of Edom themselves.

 

 

[Steve]

Another question occurs to me regarding parterres. Do alien worlds have their own separate parterres without links to others? Or do all worlds in a given universe share them in some kind of greater structure that allows visits?

[Lord Liaden]

54 minutes ago, Steve said:

Another question occurs to me regarding parterres. Do alien worlds have their own separate parterres without links to others? Or do all worlds in a given universe share them in some kind of greater structure that allows visits?

 

Book Of The Empress p. 99 is very clear on that point:

 

"Furthermore, other species, both within Earth’s dimension and from other dimensions that are home to sentient life, have their own Parterres based on their cultures, their perspectives on Reality, and so forth. Typically dimensional travelers (of any sort) are only aware of the Imaginal Realms pertaining to their own species; they can’t perceive (much less travel to) other species’s Parterres. That’s why Humans don’t find Perseids, Mon’dabi, V’hanians, or Ka-ree in Faerie or Babylon, and why those realms don’t reflect other species’s thoughts and beliefs. However, some powerful mystics (including the likes of Skarn and Tyrannon) can visit any Parterre they know of."

 

[Lord Liaden]

On 7/30/2022 at 1:34 PM, DShomshak said:

I'd be interested to know if Book of the Empress says anything about how Istvatha V'han deals with the Parterres of the Earths she's conquered. If she leaves them alone, the various godly entities might not object to her conquest. After all, she doesn't generally try to impose or suppress native religions. They also might be reluctant to intervene because it's a setting rule that Earth's spirits are very weak against creatures from the Outer Planes. (A rule created so humanity must rely on its own heroes to stop dimensional conquerors, rather than relying on gods.) So it seems quite possible that on some alternate Earths, V'hanian forces conquered the Parterres as well. Heh, imagine a world where the Mythic Resistance Front is led by Tezcatlipoca, Marduk, Mephistopheles and the Archangel Michael. Yeah, these guys are not going to have an easy time working together.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

On further review of Book Of The Empress, I did find reference to how V'han responded to her rival, Skarn the Shaper, invading Champions Earth's dimension of Faerie in 2001. Istvatha countered by warning Human mystics who came to the aid of the gods of Faerie, and by sending her forces to attack Skarn's directly.

 

"After she defeated Skarn with Humanity’s help, Istvatha considered adopting his strategy and continuing his attack on Earth through its Parterres. Ultimately she had to back down and retreat to her own territory, though. It was not clear to her whether Earth’s gods’ powers would work against her forces, since they were technological rather than mystical, and she didn’t want to risk it when her plans for another invasion of Earth were almost complete."

 

(Can I just say, I never cease to be impressed by the degree to which the Champions Universe is interconnected and internally consistent.)

[Steve]

46 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Book Of The Empress p. 99 is very clear on that point:

 

"Furthermore, other species, both within Earth’s dimension and from other dimensions that are home to sentient life, have their own Parterres based on their cultures, their perspectives on Reality, and so forth. Typically dimensional travelers (of any sort) are only aware of the Imaginal Realms pertaining to their own species; they can’t perceive (much less travel to) other species’s Parterres. That’s why Humans don’t find Perseids, Mon’dabi, V’hanians, or Ka-ree in Faerie or Babylon, and why those realms don’t reflect other species’s thoughts and beliefs. However, some powerful mystics (including the likes of Skarn and Tyrannon) can visit any Parterre they know of."

 

So it sounds like near-godlike entities can do this, but lower-powered sorts can’t.

 

That said, I guess a human mage could take their Perseid buddy to Babylon. The Perseid just couldn’t go on their own.

[Lord Liaden]

Well, The Mystic World p. 23 (the Faerie chapter) has a picture of the Champions talking with what I presume is a group of multi-ethnic gods, and which includes Ironclad. So you're free to take that as tacit validation of your guess.

[DShomshak]

Yeah, it would be very difficult for a Perseid mystic to find the dimensional 'path' to any of Earth's Imaginal Realms, and it would be very difficult for Witchcraft to find the way to any Imaginal Realms that Perseids might have. Not impossible, though -- especially for Witchcraft, because she's (effectively) a PC. PCs manage to do things that NPCs don't -- or at least the NPCs don't want it enough.

 

In the CU, mystics of most species probably didn't even know of each other's existence until their respective species attain FTL and meet each other. So why would Earth mystics even think to look for Perseid or Hzeel Parterres? They don't even know those species exist. (Until now.)

 

For Spells of the Devachan, though, I deliberately reversed this. Long ago, mystics from different species in the Milky Way Galaxy met each other in the Outer Planes and so learned of each others' species. That includes humans. Earth mystics have been using astral travel to visit other worlds, and their Parterres, for centuries. There isn't just a Mystic World, there's a Sorcerer's Galaxy. But the gods and spirits generally need mortal help if they want to act beyond their native worlds and Imaginal Realms.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

 

[DShomshak]

In the CU, the Gadroon lost most of tyheir population along with their home planet. Champions Beyond says some Gadroon still practice various religions, though 70% now disdain the old religions -- any hypothetical gods couldn't have been worth much since they didn't prevent the homeworld's destruction. So... Since the Gadroon had supernatural beliefs, they probably had Imaginal Realms as homes for their gods and spirits. A GM might pull some stories from this question: What happened to the Gadroon gods and Parterres after the planet blew up?

 

Quite possibly, the event was a catastrophic for the Parterres as for the planet. Spirit realms imploding, the death of gods mixing with the death of billions of mortal Gadroon. A supernatural supernova sending mystical shockwaves throughout the Galaxy, disturbing things meant to be sealed and sleeping until the end of Time. And as a supernova can leave a neutron star or black hole as a remnant, what remnant was left by the Gadroon implosion? And what use might someone like Tyrannon or Xarriel find for such a remnant?

 

Or maybe the Gadroon Parterres were cut loose and sent drifting through the dimensions. The Parterres themselves are crumbling and the gods and spirits face death without a without a sufficient population of Gadroon to sustain them. The gods might attempt ploys as desperate as the Gadroon's attempts to conquer Earth as they try to reconnect to their people -- or to any people. Or they might be vulnerable to exploitation.

 

Or maybe the Imaginal Realms are drifting but the gods retain a tenuous link to the remaining Gadroon worshipers. The Gadroon managed to secure a beachhead in Canada and hold it against human counterattack. Are the Gadroon Gods making their own invasion attempt against Earth's spirit realms? Or since humans and their gods are sometimes not very nice, are any attacks going the other way? Tezcatlipoca, for one, might see pantheons of weakened gods as sacrificial victims to fuel his own campaigns. Takofanes could see similar potential. The Devil's Advocates would likely be sneakier, possibly investigating ways to use the Gadroon gods against the technological mortal Gadroon.  And whatever the Dragon thinks of these spiritual immigrants, its goals are undoubtedly evil. OTOH the Gadroon and their spirits have no connection to the Dragon: It cannot see their dreams, nor whisper in their unconscious thoughts. A farsighted mystic might see possibilities here, if some peace can be worked out between humans and Gadroon.

 

As for the nature of the /Gadroon Parterres, well, Champions Beyond lists four main surviving religions, and basic mystic reasonuing would correlate them to the Four Zoas. So postulate four Gadroon Parterres, representing the ways Order, Chaos, Art and Nature express themselves in Gadroon thought. But that's an arbitrary tidiness. I wouldn't insist on it. It might be more interesting for the Gadroon to be, as it were, mystically unbalanced, adding a cosmic conceptual dimension to the conflicts.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

Fascinating speculation.

 

I remember the description of the Qliphothic dimension of Tatterdemalion, in which surviving fragments of dead, decayed dimensions drew close through arcane "gravity," and "stitched" together into a patchwork reality. Perhaps the Gadroon gods combined their dimensions, pooling their reserve of mystic energy to prolong their survival. I'm visualizing a four-sided pyramid, with a god-realm planted on each face, drifting through the Astral plane.

[Lord Liaden]

Champions Beyond mentions several other Milky Way races who were in recent decades rendered extinct or near-extinct: Anthari, Kuzane, Naxari, Pelgonites, Sirians, Ta'shar-n. Perhaps somewhere in the Astral Plane of the Milky Way, there is a "land of orphaned gods" where the deities of dead worlds gather to commiserate and await their inevitable dissipation.

[DShomshak]

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I'm visualizing a four-sided pyramid, with a god-realm planted on each face, drifting through the Astral plane.

Something like...?

MC Escher Planetoid Fine Art Print 60x60cm Giclee Gallery - Etsy

 

Dean Shomshak