Hexian Cosmologies

The Six Planes

Although a multitude of pocket-dimensions, demiplanes, pseudo-planes, and otherworldly subcreations have been documented by metaphysicians, mystics, and wizards, reality seems to consist of six primary planes. Although there are innumerable cosmologies, religions, and metaphysical models, relatively few dispute the reality of these six planes, though some may posit the potential existence of further planes of existence that remain inaccessible. The six principal planes are as follows:

Anathema

Little is known about the alien universe known as Anathema, homeland of the Unspeakable Ones and possibly the Librarians themselves. Some have suggested that this plane of existence is the source of all magic, and that spells are in fact spurts of this aberrant reality spilling into our own world. Whether or not this is true, Anathema is said to be so fundamentally different from our own existence that no sapient mind native to this reality could withstand its strangeness – even the best-honed mind would be reduced to madness in moments.

The Dreamlands

The world of sleep is sometimes called the Dreamlands, a plane of existence to which countless dreamers nightly travel. Most confine their explorations to the misty outskirts of this amorphous realm, but studied dreamers can journey further to discover such places as Dylath-Leen, Ooth-Nargai, Quiddity, Fiddler’s Green, Pegana, and of course the famous Plateau of Leng, that spider-haunted region of horror from whence the Lengians originate. In the Dreamlands, logic and sense are amorphous and the very physical substance of the world is malleable. Many gates and portals to the Dreamlands can be found scattered throughout the planes, including the Gate of Horn in the city of Hex.

Faerie

Faerie is the world of the Fair Folk, more properly known as Elfhame to its denizens. Unlike the Dreamlands, Faerie is subject to very strict rules – albeit rules that mortals find bizarre or nonsensical. Faerie is saturated with magic: indeed, the elves might be said to be made of magic. The capitol of Faerie is the city of Gossamer, which lies at the converge of its four principal realms – Logris, Annwn, Tír na nÓg, and Mag Mell – but Elfhame functionally consists of countless individual fiefdoms ruled by powerful nobles, though there are also various unclaimed lands given over to strange beasts. Pathways to Faerie are reasonably common but difficult to find unless one knows where to look. Several can be found in the Tangle, as well the Feypark of Hex, and in many other places throughout the Mortal World.

Jotunheim

The world of giants, Jotunheim was once accessible from the other planes, but has ceased to be so, apparently knocked loose from the rest of the cosmology, reputedly due to an ancient conflict between its denizens and the Fair Folk, the “Enormity Wars.” Said to be a place of impossible vastness and scale, Jotunheim is now but a strange memory; however, remnants of this plane can still be found in the other worlds, including various giant-folk, trolls, and other creatures. Many speculate that oddities such as the Godwhale Genial Jack or the gigantic die that makes up the Propitious Isle may have originated from Jotunheim, but the most obvious fragment is the island-continent of Terra Prodigiosa, where trees tower high as mountains and the mountains themselves pierce the sky.

The Material Plane

The Material Plane, or Mortal Realm, also called the Waking World, is the plane on which Hex resides – a vast universe, of which the planet of Og is but one of countless others. Some believe that the Material is but one of infinite variations of the same plane, repeating endlessly through time and space. A veil lies between the Mortal Realm and the Netherworld, the Ethereal, a realm of shadows and ghosts, but it is not a true plane – more like a kind of membrane or liminal state between planes.

The Netherworld

Also known as Hell, the Netherworld is the afterlife, the destination to which the souls of the departed arrive. Some virtuous souls (or those with sufficient leverage over the denizens of the Netherworld) may retire to the various Meadows of Rest or choose reincarnation or the comforts of oblivion. Most souls simply dwell in the Netherworld as citizens, some eventually earning passage back to the world of the living via reincarnation. The truly vile are condemned to the lower levels of Hell – some say by their own guilt rather than any cosmic law – where demons of various kinds act as tormentors of the damned. The Netherworld is ruled over by the Chthonic Gods, primordial deities of earth and death and bone.

Twelve Cosmologies

Metaphysicians in Hex have a number of different cosmological models. Their speculations are largely untested, although travel between this world and others is certainly known – conjuration magic, of course, largely depends on such travel. Most of the denizens of other worlds, however, have no greater understanding as to the nature of the multiverse than do the learned cosmologists or ontologists of Hex. The following thus represents the most commonly accepted hypotheses rather than established fact, and constitute only a smattering of the many models and theories denizens of Og, and indeed the six planes of existence more broadly, have posited.

Notably missing here is any form of Elfin cosmology. The Fair Folk lack all religion save for certain forms of ancestor worship; this distaste for matters theological seems to extend to metaphysics, and when asked about how the cosmos is organized or how it came to be, most Elves respond with perplexity and indifference, wondering how anyone could possibly consider the question important. It has been suggested this may be a side-effect of Elfin egocentrism (though saying as much is not recommended in earshot of the Fair Folk themselves).

Celestial Toad Theory

According to the Dagonians, the entire multiverse is in fact being born aloft through the void by the Star Toad, an unfathomably huge being who swims the astral seas and leaps from cosmic lily pad to lily pad. The planes are in fact the Star Toad’s young, who are currently eggs being borne upon her back. These eggs will eventually hatch, ending the universe as we know it and transforming it into a new and sublime form. This is what Dagonian mystics believe occurred to Jotunheim. In Dagonian lore, the Netherworld is a stillborn larva which will never mature to adulthood, while Anathema is a form of mutant, a “rotten child”; the Mortal Plane, the Dreamlands, and Faerie, however, are coequal sibling-planes who will eventually hatch together and ascend into the void to become Star Toads themselves. This process can be assisted by observing certain spiritual and ethical axioms.

The Cosmic Web

In Lengian cosmology, the multiverse was spun into existence by the Mother of Spiders, with the Dreamlands at its centre. The other planes are in fact morsels which have become snared in the Cosmic Web. Their destiny is to be consumed by the Mother of Spiders so that the Cosmic Web can be sustained. Jotunheim, in this cosmology, managed to wriggle free from the Web and has now passed on to some distant corner of creation, beyond the Mother’s grasp. One of the Sacred Secrets of the Mother’s worship – revealed only to certain of Her most devoted nuns – is that the Lengian diaspora throughout the planes will hasten the Devouring, as the Lengians are the Mother’s literal young, implanted into the planes; eventually they will eat these planes from the inside-out, like the parasitic larvae of certain arachnids and insects.

Cultivated Universe Theory

This theory, common among Transmuters and specialists in the Old City, argues that the multiverse was not actively designed in the sense posited by Magisterialists but was rather “grown” intentionally by the Elder Species, often the Librarians specifically. As evidence for this theory, Cultivars (as the theory’s proponents are called) point to various Librarian technologies which seem to indicate such Elders were growing additional universes in this one. Many believe that Anathema is a level “above” the other five planes, as the homeworld of the Elders, though some have also argued that Anathema itself was likely cultivated by some other, even older species, possibly with no point of true origin. Certain radical Cultivar theorists claim that eventually universe-creation could be revived on the Material or other planes, producing new universes – and that perhaps, eventually, another version of Anathema will be created, which will then give rise to another version of the Elder Species, who will then cultivate universes similar to the Material, and so on ad infinitum.

Demonism

When asked about the nature of the universe, Demons describe reality in vertical terms, with the Netherworld at the base of reality, the bedrock from which all else emerges. According to Demonic metaphysics, the Netherworld is the bubbling cauldron of everything, a steaming, sizzling sea of energy which gave birth to souls, eternal beings who gradually explored the Netherworld and then began to ascend – first to the Mortal Realm and Jotunheim, where they took on physical bodies like deep-sea divers wearing suits to explore the reaches of the ocean, then on to the more rarefied realms of Faerie and the Dreamlands, and finally to the terrifying Outer Realms of Anathema. Over time, however, this grand ascent will cease and reverse, with all creation collapsing back into the Netherworld once more, perhaps forever, and darkness and death will reign illimitable.

The Godhive

The waspkin have a monist view of reality which is interestingly both broadly congruent and distinct from views such as Tenebrous Idealism or Cultivated Universe Theory. Pantheists and panpsychists, they believe that all beings, objects, matter, and spirit are enmeshed in a complexly branching network which together forms a harmonious totality, comparable to an individual consciousness, but greater than any individual creature’s mind. The Elder Trees, in this cosmology, are not “gods” as such but embodied symbols of the divine immanence of Nature, making visible what is all around us – the truth that everything is connected, and that what seem to be individual beings are ultimately One, a unity which human translators term the “Godhive,” though the waspkin have indicated the term is a rather anthropocentric rendition. In this sense, the six planes are simply parts of the Godhive – the waspkin refer to them as “Cells.” The waspkin in fact suggest that the six planes may be only the most familiar Cells of the Godhive, and that other Godhives may also exist, themselves but Cells in an even larger totality, and so on in ever larger and grander structures.

The Great Game

Cultists of the Antinomian describe the universe as a fantastically complex game which the Antinomian himself invented, played by a host of gods at the Laughing Lord’s table. Proponents of this viewpoint point to the prevalence of randomness in the universe as evidence that reality itself is governed by celestial rolls of the dice. In this theory, all living beings are essentially game pieces being moved about the “boards” of the six planes for the amusement of the Antinomian and his guests, playthings for the Lawbreaker. This view has significant overlap with the claims of Tenebrous Idealism and the Universal Play model, though followers of the Antinomian suggest that given the status of the world-as-game, it behooves us to endeavour to amuse the Laughing Mad God and his friends as best we can, in hopes that we will not be discarded.

Magisterialism

Devotees of the Magistra argue that the universe is a simulation which they believe has been programmed by an intelligence which they call the Magistra, a remote over-goddess who almost never interferes in her creation save through occasional miracles, interventions by which she rewrites the cosmic code. According to this theory, the universe is essentially a gigantic machine, an analytical engine of astonishing complexity. Magic, in the view of Magisterialists, is a way of hacking the cosmic source-code of creation, reconfiguring it for new uses. Some believe that select consciousnesses who impress the Magistra with their creativity and ingenuity will be rewarded by transcending the simulation, having their consciousnesses implanted into new forms in the upper level of reality the Magistra herself occupies. A number of Magisterialists claim that Anathema itself is not a true part of the simulation but some manner of virus introduced into the system by unknown agents. Many gnomes also hold to versions of Magisterialism.

Mythosolipsistic Subcreationism

A popular recent theory among Hexian metaphysicians, Mythosolipsistic Subcreationism, or MSS for short, advances the suggestion that all planes of reality are fundamentally extensions of humanoid consciousness. According to this theory, the Material World is generated by our conscious minds, the Netherworld is a reflection of our elemental desires and drives, the Dreamlands are generated from our anxieties, fears, and secret wishes, Faerie is a distorted manifestation of our laws, narratives, and stories, and Anathema is quite literally a plane of madness. How then, to explain Jotunheim? MSS has struggled with this errant plane, with some believing it is a kind of tumour (“overgrown”) which was somehow excised, others insisting it never truly existed and that the Behemoth bones scattered throughout the world are a kind of prank on the part of the Elder Species.

Planar Budding Theory

Originally advanced by certain fungoid thinkers, Planar Budding Theory has gained traction among a group of Hexian metaphysicians as an alternative to other popular ontologies. Like MSS it centres the Material, but holds that other planes are just as “real” as our own and not dependent on consciousness, positing that the planes formed by a process called Planar Budding, wherein a plane eventually splits in two in response to some dramatic cosmic Event. These Events have included the emergence of life and thus of death, which led to the budding of the Netherworld from the Material; the development of consciousness and unconsciousness, which led to the budding of the Dreamlands from the Material; the appearance of language and narrative, which led to the budding of Faerie from the Dreamlands; and the development of war, which led to the budding of Jotunheim from Faerie. Anathema has been posited as another budding from the Dreamlands, but some Planar Budding Theorists hold it is a second “original” universe, or possibly that the Material itself was preceded by Anathema.

The Universal Play

Followers of the Queen in Yellow have suggested that the entire universe is an intricate play being conducted by a figure they called the Dramaturge, who is himself a servant of the Queen, his patron. According to this theory, all of reality is a kind of performance being put on in the Court of Carcosa for the Queen in Yellow’s enjoyment, sustained by the divine imagination of the Queen and her courtiers. Some believe the play to be improvisational (Libertarian Carcosans), while others insist it is rigorously pre-scripted (Determinist Carcosans). Both sects suggest that the world and all within it are part of a series of metaphors or allegories – that everything from the lowliest insect to the tallest mountain is a grand Symbol and can be read as such. By becoming aware of our parts in the Universal Play and working to make it more beautiful, we may be assured of the Queen’s favour when the Play ends and we once more become fully aware of ourselves as spirits in her Court.

Tenebrous Idealism

A theory favoured by many illusionists, Tenebrous Idealism suggests that the Material World – indeed all of the planes – is an illusion, a representation, and that some deeper, untouchable reality produced or preceded it. According to Tenebrous Idealism, all levels of reality are equally real (or rather unreal), potentially including the “worlds” created by works of art or secondary illusions. Unlike Magisterialists or Carcosans, Tenebrous Idealists are highly sceptical that the fundamental noumenal reality undergirding the world of illusions could ever be reached by denizens of the six planes, believing themselves and everyone around them to be creatures of shadow and thought, ephemeral constructs in the minds of unknowable gods, who may themselves merely be representations in the minds of some other entities, and so on.

The Worldstone

As the trolls tell things, the various planes of the universe were once one, bound together in a single conglomerate, a vast rock hurtling through space known as the Worldstone. Eventually, the Worldstone fragmented into six pieces due to the stirring of Yawp, the primordial ur-giant embedded within, who formed like a geode. The largest of these fragments became Jotunheim, which circled the others for a time before colliding with the shard of Faerie and hurtling off into space. The others now orbit one another but are destined to eventually collide and break into smaller components. In the long run, however, the various shards will again coalesce back into the Worldstone, eventually producing a new Yawp who stirs and begins the cycle again, repeating events in precisely the same order as before. Fate goes ever as fate must.