THE VISION OF THE WORLD
The World was already formed in basic shape by Starman creating a vast Vision of a new setting. The World was ill-defined, containing several continents and an ocean in an Earth-like environment. Its cosmology was undefined, starting off as a flat plane with unknown borders and no explanation for its physics, but with the potential for a great many supernatural phenomenon to arise. In that state, it was more Dream than Reality.
Before he could begin to edit or settle on aspects of the Creation, Starman's Guardians from three previous Creation projects betrayed him. They stole his Cosmic Brush and threw him into the Vision, shattering the Brush and casting its Shards in after him. As the Shards fell into the Vision, the Dream became Reality in its unedited state, solidifying into a tangible World, with hard borders and a still-forming cosmology.
Starman's fall went across time as well as space. 10,000 years passed by in the World while his own fall took only minutes for him. The Shards of the Cosmic Brush, however, landed millennia to centuries before his arrival, adding further detail and definition to the World without his oversight.
STARFALL
Starfall is the phenomenon of Shards of the Cosmic Brush landing in the world and imprinting Concepts upon it. There is debate on where exactly the different events are delineated; some scholars consider certain clearly close-together impacts to all be waves of a single Starfall, while more pedantic archivists catalogue every distinct wave as its own Starfall. Likewise, over time, any major world-shaping event came to be referred to as a Starfall, even without a literal falling of Cosmic Shards onto the World. The reasoning being that any event large enough to radically redefine the World could only come from forces powered by Starfall Energies in the first place.
Almost no one other than Starman himself is aware of the true nature of the Cosmic Shards as the pieces of his Brush, as the Shards take the form of iridescent crystal as they impact upon the World. Therefore, they are referred to as Cosmic Shards or Star Shards.
Below are the most commonly held "clusters" of impact events as can be agreed upon by various authorities, mostly through accounts from Celestial and Dragon records.
FIRST STARFALL
The First Starfall occurred 10,000 years ago, and is composed of the largest pieces of the Cosmic Shards falling first, shattering on impact, and insinuating into the world, solidifying the Vision of the World into defined features of Land, Sea, and Sky. Likewise, the phenomenon of the Firmament, the Fundament, and the Sun and Stars are formed here. At this time, the whole of the World is roughly a disc, approximately one million miles wide. The edge of the World loops back upon itself so that traveling over what should be the edge would cause one to appear on the other side of the disc, with no obvious transition point, giving the illusion of a spherical planet.
SECOND STARFALL
The Second Starfall followed immediately after the first, as fragments chipped off of the first shards scattered like rain across the World, creating various forms of life. This is thought to have happened over the course of decades, even centuries, overlapping other early Starfalls in waves, but is clumped together for categorization convenience.
THIRD STARFALL
The Third Starfall is thought to be the one that created the Shadow, the side-dimensional reflection of the World, but it is unknown if this actually came before or after the Fourth, while it almost certainly occurred at least midway through the Second. It is settled upon as the Third, as the Shadow's foundational form does not naturally reflect things that came after the Second Starfall. (For example, it retains the geography of the World's original form and hosts echoes of only its first creatures, ignoring the changes of later eras.)
FOURTH STARFALL
The Fourth Starfall is thought to be the event that triggered cognitive rapid-evolution of the mortal species, creating the Civilized Peoples. Various proto-metahuman and proto-demihuman species mutated in tandem over the course of just a few generations, until sapient variants comparable to modern humans were fully formed in under a century. Scattered records kept over time line up to this event beginning approximately 9,000 years ago.
FIFTH STARFALL
The Fifth Starfall is acknowledged to be the formation of the Dreamlands. It is debated to this day if the Dreamlands were actually formed by a direct Starfall event, or is simply the consequence of the cognitive evolution of the Fourth forming a universal subconscious plane out of the ambient Creation Energies of the World, leftover from previous Starfalls. Some scholars hence consider it a second stage of the Fourth, but the creation of an entire alternate realm is considered large enough to be its own event. After the Dreamlands are formed, the Civilized Peoples, and debatably some more intelligent species of beasts, gain the capacity to Dream.
The exact beginning of the Dreamlands is extremely difficult to pinpoint. Presumably, it started forming as soon as the Fourth Starfall completed, but speculation is that it was a very long process, and the Dreamlands did not fully mature into its current form until at least 8000 years ago.
SIX STARFALL
The Sixth Starfall was an apocalyptic meteor-storm of small Shards hammering across the World. Thousands of still-active Shards were left sparking across the landscapes. Mortal contact with the Shards resulted in the unleashing of numerous supernatural phenomena, including many forms of Magic and Mutation.
The Celestials and the Typhons came about as select mortal entities managed to interface with the Shards in such a way as to tap their full potential, and drain much of the chaotic roil of Magic from the World into themselves. The Celestials did so deliberately, being mortals from among the Civilized Peoples who had the mental faculties to understand what they were doing, and thereby strengthen their powers to Godly levels. The Typhons, by contrast, were beasts Mutated into forms which devoured magic on instinct to grow their Mutations. Some Typhons remained simple beasts, but others adapted to higher intelligence, making them a match for the Celestials. Most Typhons of this later sort took the form of Dragons, becoming an effective third faction of these Divine Powers.
The exact timing of the Sixth Starfall is uncertain; due to the immense powers of the Celestials and Dragons bending fragments of time as well as space, there is a working theory that as many as several thousand "extra" years may have occurred within the timespan of their rule, different sections of the World experiencing time at different rates. These extrapolated time flows all seem to have ended with the next Starfall. The closest approximation is taken by way of records from Regions who managed to avoid falling into these Time Warp Zones. Thus, the Sixth Starfall is thought to have occurred 6,000 years ago.
SEVENTH STARFALL
The Seventh Starfall is also known as the Celestial-Dragon Wars and the War of Divine Powers. This is acknowledged to not be a literal Starfall, but the result of the Celestials and Dragons coming to blows over domination of the World, while both factions attempted to reign in the feral Typhons. The War of Divine Powers was so great that it radically altered the geography of the World: as each of the Divine Powers was slain, their Magic was unleashed once more upon the World in a cataclysmic maelstrom, leaving behind Distortion Zones, where the explosion of raw Magic rendered permanent scars of warped reality across the World.
The worst of these Zones eventually disintegrated completely and expanded into vast stretches of Riven Space, vast swathes of iridescent void space, where reality frays apart. The Riven Space cuts apart the World into distinct Regions, threatening to keep spreading as more and more Magic was unleashed. With the End of the World imminent, the handful of surviving Celestials and Dragons came to a ceasefire and worked desperately to mitigate the damage.
By the time the ceasefire was established, only a handful of Celestials, Dragons, and Typhons remained. Unable to contain and control the wild Creation Energies by themselves, they opted to funnel that power into the creation of a new dimension: the Astra.
This stopped the spread of the Riven Spaces, but nothing could really be done to reverse them. However, the remaining Distortion Zones were quarantined away from the World through the technique of Moonrise, physically tearing the Zones off the face of the World, containing them in spheres, and casting them as far into the Sky as possible.
In the aftermath of all this effort, however, Magic forces still deeply stained the World. However, rather than be an uncontrolled force, the Magic insinuated itself as distinct types with established rules and physics each their own. This gave rise to the Concept Magics, which are believed to have been stabilized and structured by the common lore and connotations of the Civilized Peoples, and/or are tied to the purviews and specializations of the Celestials, Dragons, and Typhons that once controlled the Magic.
Once again, the exact timeframe is difficult to discern, due to the Divine Powers operating in Time Warp Zones throughout the beginning of their War. However, by the War's end, all such Zones were closed down, or annihilated by Riven Space, lining up all remaining Regions back into the same time flow. After a few centuries of debate, enough recorded evidence was discovered and compared to approximate the Timeline as is currently understood. The Seventh Starfall is thought to have ended 5500 years ago, going by the time measurements of Regions unaffected by the Time Warp Zones of the era. Thus, this is approximately when the following Starfall occurred.
EIGHTH STARFALL
The Eighth Starfall is acknowledged to have occurred in the aftermath of the Seventh. It is the formation of the Astra, as explained previously, creating a dimension of pure Magic, where chaotic Creation Energy reacts violently and uncontrollably to sapient thought.
Initially, the Celestials and Dragons figured they could use the dimension simply as an Energy Source to draw upon, but soon realized that they could fashion zones of stable reality, shaped to their whims, within the new Realm. Thus, they created, and moved into, the God Realms, customized Worlds in each Celestial or Dragon's own image, and where mortals could survive at their Gods' whim. The Celestials and Dragons migrated loyal followers to these Realms to rule their own peoples. In turn, most of the handful of surviving Typhons are caged inside custom Realms in the Astra to keep them from being a danger to the World.
Over the next 5000 years, the Civilized Peoples adapt to the new formation of the World, slowly rebuilding and repopulating the Regions, establishing hundreds of countries and outpost settlements. Many various wars over territory and resources occurred, as well as establishments of alliances and trade relations and coalitions of nations. Scientific and magical advancements continued, bringing most Regions in line with the technological developments of Earth, albeit in alternative forms. Different Regions notably have different levels of technology and magic, as the flow of information and resources across Regions is bottlenecked by the Bridges, and sheer distance. Ergo, there is not a lot of migration between Regions. Still, when many Regions are planetary in scale, that already provides a lot of natural and civilizational variety to the lands.
Moonrises continue to occur, at least once every few centuries, as leftover Distortion Zones metastasize into Region-threatening supernatural disasters. At these times, Celestials and Dragons dutifully intervene, tearing up the Zone into a new Moon and casting it to the Firmament. This is among the only solid proof anyone has that the Divine Powers still tangibly exist in the World. Some Regions adjust their calendars by Eras whenever a new Moonrise occurs.
NINTH STARFALL
The Ninth Starfall is thought to have occurred 250 years ago, during a unique event in which the sky was mysteriously lit by an iridescent aurora for several minutes. Its effects were not immediately apparent, but gradually, rare individuals emerged who had gained uncommon superhuman powers, wholly independent of the Concept Magics or Species Gifts, seemingly through nothing more than random accidents.
Those Superhumans who are thus empowered seem particularly drawn towards lives of high adventure and conflict, and are often prone to taking on a mysterious or bombastic persona when acting upon their powers. Flamboyant costumes and code names are very commonly used by such individuals. Some theorize this may actually be a newer form of Concept Magic. Strangely, some individuals are even called to take on similar Personas even without obtaining obvious new powers, but in so doing, their capabilities when in their Persona appear inexplicably enhanced by inhuman determination and even incredible luck.
Since the phenomenon appears to still be occurring, the investigation into the Ninth Starfall, and the debate of whether it even qualifies as one, is ongoing.
Around the time this Superhuman Phenomenon occurred, came the discovery of Power Crystals, iridescent Gems that grant anyone holding them access to strong Superhuman powers. More than any mere Artifact left over from the era of Seventh Starfall, these Power Crystals seem to act as direct conduits to the Cosmic Energies of the World, enabling one to bend reality in very specific ways.
The emergence of Power Crystals are still debated as either the source of Ninth Starfall's emergent Superhumans, a related consequence of the Starfall, or even a coincidentally timed Tenth Starfall. The tentatively most agreed upon theory is that the Ninth Starfall caused some sort of dimensional fluctuation event, or Dimquake, which caused bits of the Astra to leak into the World. Where this Magic failed to suffuse into a living being, the raw Energy coalesced and crystalized into the Power Crystals.
In reality, Power Crystals are stable micro-fragments of Cosmic Shards, meaning they are direct pieces of the Cosmic Brush. Their power is comparatively miniscule, but combining enough of the Crystals could potentially ascend the wielder in a God more powerful than even a Celestial or Dragon, presuming the overload of raw Cosmic Energies didn't annihilate them, and the landscape around them, first.
By contrast, Superhumans are those imbued with even tinier fragments of these Power Crystals. The reason they are drawn to take on outlandish Personas is that they are inheriting certain traits of Genre Archetypes and Character Concepts that Starman worked with under previous pennames. Effectively, the Persona they adapt is the facsimile of past characters that the Superhuman can tap into when they feel the Call to Adventure.
TENTH STARFALL
The Tenth Starfall has only just occurred, without anyone noticing, but is perhaps the most significant. This is the arrival of Starman himself onto the World, 10,000 years after it started. He must collect Power Crystals in order to recreate a miniature of his Cosmic Brush, and restore his status as the Creator. When this is done, he will remake the World into a grander, more stable image, converting the World into a hospitable Galaxy that the Civilized Peoples can spread across to ensure a thriving future. Assuming, of course, that he manages to achieve his goal.
THE WORLD
The World is the current designation of Starman's universe. Originally, it was a million-mile wide flat plane roughly in the shape of a disc, which looped back onto itself due to spatial distortion at its edge. This was never intended to be its settled-upon form, but it ended up that way when Starman's Creation process was interrupted.
However, the Seventh Starfall rent the disc into a mess of continent-sized Regions separated by vast walls of Riven Space. It is theorized that only a fifth of the old world's surface area remains. Even still this is approximate to at least 150 Earths worth of variably livable World.
RIVEN SPACE
The unreality which surrounds and cuts through the plane of the World. The edges where the World meets the Riven Space rapidly fragments and decays until there is a misty void of nothingness. Worse than even the Astra, anything that attempts to cross fully into the Space is fragmented at the conceptual level, eradicated from existence if one dwells too long within. If one somehow enters too far, crossing an undetectable threshold, but makes it back out before dissolving, they will appear randomly on another part of the World. The odds of doing this are very low, and the survivor may very well be fatally injured or heavily mutated if they were not properly protected.
It was eventually made possible to cross Riven Space with rare and costly technological and magical means. These are primarily by way of DimTunnels, techno-magical gateways which create stable wormholes between Regions, collapsing the unreality of Riven Space into a solid pathway that temporarily exists when both ends of the Tunnels are activated. At this stage, DimTunnel Gates can only connect in pairs, although continued research is trying to find ways to make multiple Gates cross-connect to create much broader travel options. For now, though, the paired-Gate system at least allows for more practical pathways between adjacent Regions, where the natural Bridges are usually more of a hassle to utilize just from sheer distance of travel required.
The only other safe method of Riven Space travel is by way of Riven Piercer Ships, a fairly recent invention. These sealed shuttles use Power Crystals to generate a constantly refreshing sheath of "reinforced existence" around the vehicle, allowing them to "drill" through the non-existence of Riven Space, and do so on a steady, predictable path once exact destination points are established. The exact mechanics are not well understood, even by its builders, but it has proven reliable enough for several governments and even a couple corporations to commission the use of these Ships. The dearth of Power Crystals makes these Ships rare, and thus inaccessible as a mass production technology.
The only beings capable of traversing a Riven Space on their own are the Celestials, Typhons, and Dragons, and Starman himself. Even then, navigating the Space is a whole other matter, if one does not have a destination to focus on.
THE REGIONS
The Regions are mixtures of Land, Sea, and Sky that form oceans and continents, walled off from one another by planetary-scale swathes of Riven Space. Strictly speaking, the whole of the disc has been surrounded by the Riven Space, but there are a few connecting Bridges of Land, Sea, or Sky that link these divided Regions in one long chain, with a few side branches. Any given Region is accessible to at least one, but usually two or three others, that it was originally physically adjacent to. Now the Regions are more like floating island-continents of reality in separate dimensions, save where the Bridges connect.
Travel to and from these Bridges is impractical in most cases, but feasibly, one could create a map that shows a long chain of connected Regions that does, eventually, loop back into itself. While it is difficult to really map the exact configuration of the World, it is akin to something like a ringworld that has been crumpled into a complex, extra-dimensional knot.
There are thus far 357 known Regions. The largest five are slightly larger than Earth's own surface area, but most range between a third to a tenth of that size. Only half of these are officially designated in an agreed-upon way (various Regions have their own maps and disputed claims on neighboring, underdeveloped Regions), and there is plenty of wilderness even in the Civilized Regions. Since the invention of Riven Piercer Ships, 17 of these Regions are island continents completely cut off from the rest of the World by Riven Space. This confirmed the theory that more of the World still exists than previously thought, though there is no way of even guessing how many undiscovered Regions may be out there.
[One such undiscovered land mass is a trio of Bridge-connected Regions collectively twice as large as Earth that has no idea the rest of the World still exists. Contact with this Tri-Regional power may result in extra-Regional conflicts if discovered.]
THE LAND
The surface of the World is mostly Earthlike, save where certain exotic, but not entirely unrealistic, biomes may exist. Some Regions may be imbued with particular magical properties unique to them, but overall, nearly every Region has a baseline physical reality we would recognize as "Earth-like". Most Concept Magics and Technologies function the same in any Region, save where some local property might limit them.
Flora and fauna of the Lands are also similarly Earth-like, but not exactly a match for contemporary Earthly comparison. While some Earthly species exist as we know them, most are skewed slightly different, with evolutionary adaptations lost to time or which have yet to be formed. This forms a wild range of possibilities for the sorts of creatures one may encounter. There are at least fifty times the variety of species in the World as can be found on Earth, many of which we would classify as exotic, some even resembling mythical beasts, but in actuality, one could still easily categorize all such creatures by familiar Kingdoms and Phylum as found on Earth. A bat-winged tiger-like wildcat is still classified as an Animal and a Mammal. Attempting to create a bestiary of the wildlife would be a multi-tiered encyclopedic undertaking.
As mentioned, there are at least 357 known Regions, and every Region has at least some balance of Land and Sea. Most Regions have one to five major continents, with an average of three. Some are mostly oceans dotted with archipelagos, while a few are one giant landmass cut through with rivers and dotted with large lakes.
Some Regions hold immense mountain ranges, while others are noticeably dipped below sea level, the ocean held back by Riven Space or natural sea walls. Overall, though, the Land averages one hundred miles in depth, before reaching the Fundament.
A full 90% of the Civilized Peoples are Land based. Even the small percentage considered fully Amphibious prefer to build their settlements on shores and marshes, with a minimal of extension under the seas. Even the Sky-bound Peoples rely on some Land support, creating settlements in high mountainous regions, and utilizing Float Islands.
A phenomenon of Minor Distortions are known to exist in rare, isolated sections of the Land, usually in long-untouched wilderness. These are quite mild compared to the Distortion Zones of the Moons, and are usually quite small, but are responsible for fabled "mysterious spots" across the Lands. Minor Distortions are as they sound, twists in reality that cause some Magical phenomenon unique to that Distortions' area. While not nearly so dangerous as to require a Moonrise to deal with, they are nonetheless best avoided, unless a group is particularly well prepared to deal with the conditions.
THE SEA
Similarly, the ocean is as one would expect of Earth. However, it remains the most mysterious, due to its vast scale, and the inhospitable nature of most of its territories. Even accounting for the reconfiguration and loss of World area due to the Celestial-Dragon War, it is estimated the Sea makes up 53% of the surface area of the known Regions.
As on the Land, the wildlife of the Sea resembles variations of that found on Earth, but with even more variety. Given how alien some of the Earthly ocean life can already get, this makes for a vast variety of form. Nonetheless, much like Earth, most of the Seas are effectively desert regions, with continent-sizes stretches of ocean all but devoid of life, save along certain bands where currents make natural riverways where ocean life can travel and flourish on mobile prey. The most life can be found in shallower waters, while the abyssal layers require some kind of independent energy sources, such as thermal vents, to sustain the energy requirements of life. There are, however, country-sized regions of algae and krill colonies, as well as ocean-bound Floating Islands (unmoored chunks of Land which float on the surface of the water instead of in the air), which can sustain a Region's worth of ocean life along the surface, even over the Vast Depths.
Blue Zones are the common name for Minor Distortions that exist out to Sea. Compared to the land, these Zones are larger, more common, and more well known. There are also areas where the remnants of old civilizations were smashed and buried beneath the waves, and whatever leftover Magical or Technological forces once used by those civilizations may still be affecting the waters above.
The most infamous Blue Zone is an abyssal trench called the Endless Drop that dips miles deeper than should be physically possible. Once inside the trench, pressure equalizes to be equivalent to 100 feet deep, all the way down. And yet, even the deepest-diving probe has yet to reach the bottom before some phenomenon cuts off contact. [Should one ever actually manage to reach the deepest depth, gravity will suddenly reverse, and rising upwards will eventually bring a person to an equivalent trench in the Shadow. No one has discovered this yet, but this may lead to speculation that the Shadow is the physical underside of the World, which is it is not. The transition point is a dimensional shift, not a physical one.]
It is also known that at least three Typhons still swim the waters of uninhabited Regions, seemingly stuck there, or perhaps content to nest there. There are also some island-sized creatures which supposedly float for decades on the water's surface, holding an entire mobile ecosystem upon their shells or backs. Such ecosystems are often doomed to erasure if the creature ever feels need to dive deep into the waters for an extended period. [However, one such creature, a massive sea-turtle Typhon worshipped by a tribe that lives on it's back, does routine monthly dives, but creates a life-sustaining shield bubble around it's shell to protect its inhabitants.]
The Sea averages about one mile deep closer to the Continents, but closer to eight miles deep in the vast unbroken oceans between.
THE SKY
The official limits of the Sky are known to stretch nearly a thousand miles, where the Moons hover. Livable atmosphere stretches at least three hundred miles high, though the upper half of that region requires breathing assistance equipment, and vehicles need special modifications to function properly. Once past the three-hundred mile mark, the atmosphere rapidly thins out until it is nearly vacuum.
The Sky is mostly Earthlike, but there are known to be continent-sized cloudscapes hovering over parts of the World that never fully break apart. There are also rare Minor Distortions in the upper sky as well, though much easier to spot than in the ocean. Usually these result in some form of local, perpetual storm system whose effects die off at the borders of the Distortion.
Creatures of the Sky are likewise familiar to Earthly creatures, both contemporary and ancient and yet-to-be, with similarly wide ranging variations. There are even a scant few species that exist in perpetual flight or floatation throughout their lives, though these are fewer than most believe. Most creatures of the Deep Sky rely on the vast Mountains and the phenomenon of Floating Islands to use as nesting grounds and migration stop-overs.
Floating Islands are as they sound, chunks of Land suspended in the air. Some travel along circuitous paths, following magnetic lines or stable jetstream currents, while some remained stationary. These can range from the size of a small country, to clusters of rock each barely larger than a building. Most Floating Islands are found over Regions where there is much more Sea than Land, implying that many such phenomenon are the result of the Land in the Region being cast into the sky by some method. What exactly keeps these islands aloft is unknown to most.
At least one Typhon is said to fly eternally in the upper skies. Unhindered by Riven Space, this enormous whale-like creature peacefully swims the upper atmosphere, vanishing from one Region to reappear soon after in another, often one not directly adjacent to the one it left.
Other large-scale creatures capable of seemingly eternal flight are likewise theorized to hold contained eco-systems on their backs, or hanging from their undercarriages.
THE FIRMAMENT
Outer Space remains mysterious. No mortal entity has ever managed to breach into it, even with what should be space-flight capable technology as we would know it. Once past the highest of the Moons, space begins to distort, and progress eventually just stops. One can continue flying upwards forever, and would seem to actually be moving, but never get any farther. As soon as they start to descend, they immediately resume into normal space.
Seemingly beyond the Firmament is the phenomenon of Starlight, most importantly that of the Sun. Starlight is cast down from Space through the Firmament, at an unknown distance beyond it. The Sun does not appear to appreciably change in size as one approaches it, even at the very edges of the Firmament's space warping effect. To all appearances, it seems to be a mass of roiling energy that shines so bright, it can light up the whole of the vast World with daylight.
However, the Sun goes through a daily cycle of dimming and brightening, thus simulating day and night as on Earth. It even slowly adjusts the timing of such cycles, which causes the seasons of the World. During Summer, the Sun stays bright longer, and when it dims, it dims down to a full moon in brightness. At Winter, it stays bright shorter, and dims almost completely dark, though still slightly visible. Vernamn (Spring) and Autumn are when day and night are about even, and the dim phase is around half-moon brightness. The actual shift between these brightness adjustments takes place over a few weeks, then stabilizes for the duration of each season, until it shifts again.
There is speculation that the Sun is a failed Starfall, that it is itself a Cosmic Shard that failed to fall, perhaps getting "stuck" in the Firmament during the First Starfall. In actuality, the Sun was conceived of even before the First Starfall as an optical illusion cast by the Sky, whereby the flow of ambient Cosmic Energies rapidly coalesces and ionizes into a bright star during sunrise, then rapidly fades at sunset. This effect is caused by a tidal cycle of the Cosmic Energies that follows a year-long pattern.
Days in the World are the same 24-hour cycle as on Earth, but a year in the World is 400.1 days. Every decade is marked with the final year having an extra day, the "Four-Hundred and First", which occurs at the end of that year, and is celebrated by many cultures as an extended New Year's holiday, called New Decade's.
Because of the space-warping function of the Firmament following the theoretical curves of the World's current configuration, Starlight remains steadily visible from all Regions, just as it did prior to the World's sundering in the Seventh Starfall. Ergo, even if two Regions are actually bent away from each other, such that in a 3D model they would be facing opposite directions, the Firmament ensures both Regions experience daylight and nightlight at the same time, at the same pace.
Stars are similar manifestations of the Cosmic Energy flow, creating much smaller eddies and sparks of the ionization effect. These are small enough that the Sun blots most of them out during the day, but during Summer and Winter, some of these stars brighten enough to be spotted dotting the day sky during all but high noon. There are approximately 5000 immediately visible stars scattered across the sky, though another 1500 much dimmer ones have been discovered through telescopes and under especially clear atmospheric conditions.
[At one time, it was said the Firmament was so filled with stars that even the night was no darker than early twilight. However, as Starfalls continued to rain down upon the world, the sky emptied of stars until only the current few thousand remain. Some believe that when the last of these fall, the Sun will follow as the Final Starfall, annihilating the World. This ancient story has yet to be substantiated.]
The Sun and Stars are stationary in the Sky, same as the Moons. As such, the Sun is also effectively the World's guiding star, and constellations can be used to determine directions from it if one is lost. Compasses are made to point Sunward as North, for use when Starlight is obscured by clouds or floating islands, or for those underground or undersea.
THE FUNDAMENT
The World maintains gravity by way of a Gravity Plane, a similarly slapped-on detail in the World's initial Creation. This plane forms an impenetrably hyper-dense material that defines the bottom of the World. Although appearing as an impossibly sheer and smooth stone, this plate of "solid space" is another space warping effect with an even shorter range of distortion. One can effectively stand on it, and they are essentially "falling" continuously in the space warp, but can just as easily climb out of it, if they have something to climb onto. Despite its seemingly solid "surface", anything can strike it at any speed, and be completely cushioned on impact, due to it still being technically empty space.
Reaching the Fundament is essentially not practically possible for any mortal, as the immense density and pressures of compacted earth and magma make a one-hundred mile barrier at the lowest point to even reach it. There are even areas of Riven Space that form subterranean seas of unreality that one might fall into before even reaching the Fundament. The lowest any mortal endeavor has dug only reaches fifteen miles, where the conditions are already unbearable to all but the supernaturally enhanced. However, it is not impossible that specially forged artificial environments could be buried deeper. Otherwise, only a Celestial, Dragon, or Typhon could survive to reach the Fundament.
[To note, though one appears to penetrate through the Fundament when utilizing the Endless Drop Blue Zone, the walls of the Drop are part of their own warped space that cannot be dug out through, and the warping effect that creates the Drop occurs well above the Fundament anyway.]
THE MOONS
Isolated, floating spheres torn off the surface of the World during a Moonrise, in the aftermath of the Seventh Starfall (the Celestial-Dragon Wars). These are the remnants of the Distortion Zones that had not yet expanded into Riven Spaces. Unable to be shut down, the only means of dealing with them was to contain them in spheres of warped space and shunt them as far away from the World as possible.
The Moons hence serve as quarantine zones for supernatural phenomenon that threatens the stability of the World. Hovering in the high atmosphere at a minimum of a thousand miles above the surface, they are impossible to reach even for most natural flying creatures or vessels. Even if one manages to reach a Moon, attempting to land on the surface, or even entering the atmosphere of some, subjects the visitor to dangers of the Moon.
There are a total of 27 Moons dotting the sky of the World. 17 of these were formed in the First Moonrise, with the remaining 10 occurring sporadically over the next couple centuries, as the Celestials continued to intervene where new Distortion Zones were discovered or threatened to manifest. The most recent Moonrise occurred fifty years ago, however, though no one knows what Region it came from, leading some to believe it may be from yet another undiscovered Region.
A few centuries-old records suggest that in fact, there should be 2 more Moons in the sky, but these were either destroyed or otherwise removed by unknown means not too long after said records were made. Curiously, the exact dates they were lost are confusing, as other Moonrises around that time appeared to throw off the count, and it was decades before any but devout skywatchers paid enough attention to track the events. One of the Lost Moons has since been confirmed to have somehow shunted into the Shadow, while the other is suspected to have either sunk back down into one of the larger Riven Spaces, or somehow imploded into itself. It is unknown if the Lost Moons were part of the First Moonrise, or were later additions before their departure.
Most Regions can see at least a few Moons at any given time. Since the Moons remain stationary in the sky, one who is familiar with the configurations can surmise what Region they are in, based on Moon placement. The Moons range in size from 30 to 59 miles across. During the day, the Moons are small, darkened dots in the sky, the details fuzzed out by atmospheric haze and the dimensional shells that surround them. At night, most Moons are too dark to see in full, but slivers of Starlight might illuminate the edges, while some Moons faintly glow and flicker with their own seething Energies.
By scale, most Moons' total surface area rarely exceeds a small country, but gravitational distortion keeps everything contained to the Moon's surface with an Earth-like gravity. Failing this, the Moon is surrounded by a mystic force field that traps everything within.
The Moons are small enough that even the largest fails to fully eclipse the Sun, or even cast a meaningful shadow. Only the seven largest of the Moons has a visible shadow, and five of these land over deep open waters, while one lands upon an uninhabited Region. The final Moonshadow, however, lands within travel distance of an inhabited country.
The Eclipse Shade of a Moon is known to broadcast minor magical phenomenon based on its own Magic Paradigms onto the World's surface within the range of the shadow, but the power of this effect is tenuous and often ephemeral, thus far proving not to be an overt danger to the surrounding Region, but still considered best avoided. Some Mages, however, are able to utilize the mystic beam to actually ride the shadow of the Moon up to the Moon itself. At least one of these Eclipse Paths has been used by a Moon Civilization to send out an invasive army, albeit one easily defeated and turned away. Another such Path was used by teams of explorers to loot caches of magical Artifacts off a particularly dangerous, but treasure-laden Moon.
Likewise, on very rare occasion, something from a Moon has managed, usually by pure accident, to fall through the Eclipse Path and reach the surface of the World. However, whatever Distorted Magic it may rely on for sustenance on the Moon is noticeably absent on the World's surface, and such creatures or objects tend to not survive long. Even the aforementioned invading army, while able to survive on the World, found their Magic powers reduced to nearly nothing, heavily compromising their military might.
Most Moons are extremely dangerous to attempt visiting, regardless of the method. The power of the Distortion Zones is as strong as ever, causing anything within the Moon's sphere of influence to twist and warp to the alien paradigms of the seething Magic. While most are not as overtly lethal as attempting to enter the Astra, many will twist and warp visitors within minutes to hours of arrival. The mutant flora and fauna of the Moon, if it hosts any, will usually kill visitors on contact, mostly out of hunger or territorial instinct. Other Moons are so intensely radioactive with Distorted Magic that entry into the atmosphere is instantly lethal to Mortals.
A couple of the Moons, however, are habitable, albeit still fraught with dangers. At least three Moon-based Civilizations exist in harsh conditions, utilizing the native Magic to maintain survival. These Moons are the most valuable for resource-hunters, but for the most part, any valuables actually reachable have long been taken already.
ALTERNATE DIMENSIONS
As aforementioned, the World is the central reality around which several other dimensions also revolve. These dimensions can be accessed in a variety of ways.
THE VOID
The theoretical complete lack of reality that exists beyond the boundaries of the World. Beyond the Firmament, beyond the theorized Fundament, beyond even the Riven Space, there is simply nothing at all.
This isn't quite true in reality. The World is a completely self-contained universe, but one that exists in a new Multiverse being forged, which itself exists in a Greater Multiverse of different realities. These, however, are not relevant to the World, or its Creator, at least not as of yet.
THE SHADOW
The Shadow is a dark reflection of the World as it originally was. Long before Magic, before the apocalyptic reshaping of the World's geography, seemingly even before the rise of the Civilized Peoples.
It remains the one-million-mile-wide disc of flat space, the edges of which bound back onto itself, such that stepping off what should be the edge of the disc instead transitions you to the exact opposite side of it. This transition effect is not apparent, as the world, impossibly, manages to spatially fold into itself in such a way that the edges meld into one another, even though two discs touching edge-to-edge, however large, should rightfully curve away from one another within comparatively short distance. This does not happen. The only way to map the edges of the disc would be to try and extrapolate from repetition of land features seeming to overlap in kaliedescoping angles at the edges of a "full" world map, and drawing a circle around the central, non-repeating landscape.
The Shadow is a dim world, heavily desaturated and cast in perpetual night. What color can be distinguished is very faint and muddied. The Sun in the Sky is opposite to the one in the World, dimming and brightening in reverse sequence. It also never fully brightens, instead appearing akin to total solar eclipse, a black sphere around which a pale corona brings the only natural light to the World. At its brightest, the Shadow is lit only as much as mid-twilight. There are no stars in the Sky.
Wind and water flow more slowly in most places. Even vast stretches of ocean can be glassy calm on most days.
Flora and fauna, even after all this time, resemble the original life forms of the World, with minimal changes in appearance and behavior at best. The ecology of the Shadow remains stable, but stagnant, as though even the wilderness instinctively regulates itself to remain as it originally was. The only significant alteration is that the species have adapted to living in a dimmed world. Protohumans even exist in this reality, their intellects no greater than that of clever beasts.
Magic does not function in the Shadow, unless carried to it in the form of Power Crystals or heavily charged Artifacts. Even these will either cease functioning or rapidly drain in power in a matter of hours. Those with Superhuman Gifts or Concept Magics find those abilities nonfunctional or dulled to a point of barest utility. Certain Species Gifts may still function, but are still weakened. Some Species heavily dependent on Magic cannot survive in the Shadow for long, but most will actually be physically ejected from the dimension, back into the World, rather than drained to death. All known cases of ejection will throw the mortal into the nearest equivalent point in the World not already compromised to Riven Space, and usually into a space that won't immediately kill them, but it is often impossible to predict where exactly this will be, due to the discordant geography.
Technology functions, but even here, the more complicated the device, the faster it breaks. Parts seem to fail sooner than they should, while power sources drain faster.
Mortal cognition also seems to slow eventually, with explorers finding themselves inflicted with some degree of brain fog after too long exposure living in the Shadow. The connection to the Dreamlands is heavily muted. This effect goes away quickly when returning to the World.
Celestials, Dragons, and Typhons are the only beings that can naturally sustain Magic in this reality, and even they find their capacities diminished to some degree. Such an entity might even find themselves reduced to mortal form, should they stay in the Shadow for at least a millennium. There is supposedly one Typhon that has lived in the Shadow for centuries, sustaining its power by sipping extra Magic from the Astra.
The Shadow is not precisely inhospitable to the denizens of the World in a physical sense, and in fact, may be safer in some respects. However, most attempts to colonize the dimension have led to disaster, as Civilized Peoples of the World suffer mentally, which leads to suffering physically, which leads to mismanagement of resources and a sort of civilizational despair that disincentivizes propagation. There is simply a raw dreariness to the stagnant world that most mortals cannot stand living in full time. There may be individuals who prove an exception, but even these are basically misanthropes who have found a way to thrive on a "back to nature", survivalist mentally, or have some level of unparalleled mental calm that lets them ignore the malaise that sets in.
The only seemingly natural Civilized Peoples living in the Shadow are a couple species not found in the World that are well-adapted to the dark dimension, and even seem to possess their own fully-functional Species Gifts akin to weaker powers in the World.
How these Peoples came about is unknown. It is possible they are Shadow variants of the very first Civilized Peoples, replicated during the earliest manifestations of the Fourth Starfall, and which are no longer living on the World. Alternatively, they could be the descendants of early colonists into the Shadow who reached the dimension partway into their rapid evolution; if this is true, the final stages of said evolution could have let them adapt to tolerate the conditions of the Shadow.
What exactly the Shadow is remains up for debate. Some say it is the Ghost of the Old World. Some say that it's Starfall was a failed one, coldly replicating a facsimile of what already was, rather than adding more to Creation. Some say that it was intended to be an afterlife dimension, but failed to follow through. Even Starman can't say why such a dimension would exist, other than some twist of chance.
Reaching the Shadow can be done by creating interdimensional gateways in darkened areas, places never or very rarely touched by Starlight. At least one of the Moons also has a dimensional breach point into the Shadow, which is linked to a similar breach point on the Lost Moon.
The Lost Moon is one of the two seemingly missing Moons which was somehow shunted into the Shadow, and thus is the only Moon the Shadow holds. The Lost Moon can even be seen in the Shadow's Sky, albeit only during high noon, and only as a faint ghostly impression, until one flies almost close enough to land upon it. Why there is a linked dimensional portal between it and the other Moon is unknown. Perhaps the other Moon's appearance is what caused the Lost Moon to be lost and this event linked them. Perhaps some enterprising Civilized Peoples from centuries ago deliberately linked the two for their own purposes, only to abandon the project for whatever reason. Even the Celestials or Dragons don't really know what happened.
As aforementioned, the Endless Drop is an abyssal level Blue Zone that has created a thousand-mile tunnel that goes straight down. Despite this, it has pressure equal to just 100 feet below the surface. Descending to the midpoint causes the diver to experience reversed gravity, and continued ascension eventually brings the diver out into the equivalent ocean in the Shadow. This should not be physically possible, given this is far deeper than where the Land is cut off by the Fundament, and thus, the Shadow is not the underside of the World, as this might lead one to suspect. Instead, the Endless Drop is a space-warping wormhole that connects the two dimensions.
THE DREAMLANDS
A realm of raw imagination, where the minds of sapients attune to as they sleep. Every Dreamer has their own personal dream bubble, but Awakened Dreamers are capable of leaving their bubbles to traverse the vast, formless flow of the great Dreamlands, and even visit other people's bream bubbles. It is impossible to physically travel to the Dreamland, as it can only be visited by the mind. While it does actually exist, it exists in an ethereal state of pure thought.
Lucid Dreaming is the art of Dream Essence Manipulation, which allows a person to effectively alter the Dream around them. Everyone is master of their own Dream Bubble in theory, but only certain people have the special state of awareness to Lucid Dream. Those who can Lucid Dream as well as leave their own Dream Bubble to interact with others are known as Awakened Dreamers, their Dream selves fully aware of their situation.
A Dream self does not strictly exist except when a mortal dreams. Their Dream Bubble is recreated every time they awaken, and only Awakened Dreamers are properly able to make stable restructurings of their Dream Bubble into something with any kind of consistency.
The Dreamlands are fairly safe. Nightmares haunt a person's Dream Bubble, but are not truly able to harm a person. Awakened Dreamers can enter another person's Dream Bubble, but they cannot drastically alter it, only themselves within it. Attempts by unscrupulous powers have attempted to use the Dreamlands to psychically influence people through forcible means, even possess them, but this has never actually worked using Dream mechanics. It is, however, possible for a sleeping person to be used as a medium to communicate with others in the Wakelands (the World), if an Awakened Dreamer is somehow able to get them to talk in their sleep without waking up. Special trance states can be used for this.
Dreamlings exist as natives the Dreamland, and these are capable of greater influence on a person. They are living archetypes of daydream and nightmare, based on universal concepts shared by a majority of mortals, some positive, mostly negative. Dreamlings are capable of predating on a mortal in the form of easily recognizable figures of myth, such as demons and monsters, feeding off the terror they cause, and inflicting mental stress on mortals through prolonged exposure. Some Dreamlings based on angels and legendary heroes fight to combat this, but there are many more demons than angels. As such, Awakened Dreamers take it upon themselves to destroy the adversarial Dreamlings.
THE ASTRA
The realm of raw chaotic magic, where reality warps in reaction to sapient thought in violent, constantly shifting surges. Mortals cannot survive on their own, as their very being is fragmented in a shower of roiling, temporary creation, before the raw chaos tears them asunder. Only by maintaining absolute self-control of one's thoughts and a solid sense of self-identity can a mortal, very briefly, remain existentially resilient, hopefully long enough to escape the raw Astra.
The Astra is thought to be the source of current Magical phenomenon, it's vast, nearly-infinite ocean of Energy can be tapped into to power Spells and Artifacts. Concept Magics and Superhuman Powers operate on their own individual physics, but it is thought that the Astra may at least be what enables those physics to work.
Only Celestials, Dragons, and Typhons can survive for long here, and even then, they can be potentially disintegrated as well if they do not create their own Realms as a lifeboat system to reinforce their being. Being entities suffused with Cosmic levels of Magic, they are more than capable of forging these pocket-dimension worlds into centuries-lasting fortresses of defined existence, which are further bolstered by the shared faith of their followers. Each of these God Realms is wholly defined by its Creator, usually based on some theme of their purview, and said Creator is at their most powerful within their Realm.
Astrals are the only native entity to the Astra, and in their base form, are essentially quasi-sentient (but distinctly not sapient) blips of Existential Potential. Motes of Living Magic that drift through the roiling sea of chaos, their crude instincts draw them to sapient life. Astrals rely on the imagination of sapients to give them definition, blessing them with solid form and expanded thoughts, making them truly alive. Often, these forms are based on pre-conceived myths and legends of the Mortal, with details shaped by the specific Mortal's own biases. Other times, an identity is forged in relation to the Civilization they are in; most commonly, Astrals who find their way into the God Realms are immediately shaped to fit into them.
Astrals are fully dependent on the Magic to survive. Astrals summoned to the World can only exist for a short time, unless the area is heavily supported by Magic, or they have a means of sustaining themselves through an Artifact or Power Crystal. Likewise, they must rely on their summoner to sustain their form, unless they take on an identity that can somehow be otherwise supported by Mortal belief in their existence, or they somehow manage to sustain their sense of self-identity long term.
Once they lack enough Magic to sustain them, they return to the Astra, where they dissolve. If left to their own devices, and unable to maintain their identity, they likewise return to the Astra and dissolve. Upon losing their identity, they revert back to their base elemental state, and once again drift mindlessly through the sea of chaos.
Astrals cannot enter the Dreamlands on their own, but if they are connected to a Mortal, they may be able to project a dream version of themselves into the Mortal's Dream Bubble. Few Astra are even capable of manifesting the Shadow. Those extreme exceptions that manage it can barely last for seconds to minutes before they are drained to nothing and shunted back into the Astra.
Moons formed by the First Moonrise are sometimes able to act as direct gateways between the World and the Astra, but any mortal who would attempt the trip has to survive the dangers inside the Moons, then survive the Astra itself. In rare cases, a Moon might be directly connected to a God Realm, however.
THE MIRROR DIMENSION
Created by a coalition of Mirror Mages, this dimension allows transport between specific forms of mirrors, which creates a ghostly replica of the many various rooms those mirrors reflect, connected by quick-shunting tunnels and pathways that link places.
THE SPACES BETWEEN
A mysterious sub-dimension that exists within large structures. Where it came from, no one has any idea. It takes the form of hallways and tunnels within the walls of such structures, with each structure having its own thematic appearance relative to its function. These hallways endlessly turn and bend to accommodate every major surface of the building, and extrapolates into a single-level labyrinths that nonetheless accounts for every floor of the building.
Those within the hallways can concentrate on a wall to see a vision of the room it is connected to, and use such ports as an exit. Entering the Spaces Between is an exceedingly rare ability mostly used by spirit entities, but a scant few mortals are capable of learning the trick.
THE UNIVERSAL STATION
A unique pocket dimension that allows teleportation access to anywhere across the World and its many dimensions. The Station takes the form of an old rail station floating in a void, dimly lit by gas lamps, with pathways that lead in and out of the station. A few boarded up stalls imply the Station was once used as a hub by enough people to warrant some kind of small market presence, but that has not been the case for centuries.
The Universal Station can be accessed by any who have been pulled there by someone else. One accesses it by entering an enclosed area used for travel, such as an alleyway, a covered foot bridge, a subway tunnel, even a densely canopied nature path or a river going under a natural rock archway can sometimes work. If the traveler concentrates on reaching the Station, they will vanish from the path and appear at the entrance to one of the Station's pathways. When they want to leave, a travel can access any similar such passage in another part of the World they have already been to, or can thoroughly imagine.
THE CAVES
A seemingly infinite dimension resembling endlessly twisting caves with no surface access. No one is quite sure if this is really a separate dimension, or a possible subterranean Minor Distortion of folded space within a large cave system.
STARFRACTURES
A recently theorized category of Starfall has been proposed by several authorities continuing their cross-dimensional research. The recent discovery of further alternate dimensions akin to the Shadow, i.e. strange reflections of the World, has further thrown doubt as to the timeline of such events, especially where no records exist of a possible source event.
Starfractures are the current working name for Starfall Events that cause such branching timelines to occur. Their relative placement in the timeline can at least be divided by whether or not it occurred prior to the Seventh Starfall that reshaped the world, but sometimes a Fissure Event causes this alternate vision of the World to radically change the geography. As more of these variant timelines are discovered, one begins to wonder if the World as we know it is actually a Starfracture unto itself. The only evidence against this is that Starfracture timelines appear to experience no further Starfalls after their initial divergence point, and many Starfracture Events in some way radically stymied the further development of the Civilized Peoples.
Reaching a Starfracture is achieved usually through some unique method to that Fracture, but it is known that Celestials, Dragons, and apparently Typhons can step across dimensions to reach them under their own power. Starman likewise may be able to do it on his own. It is known that the Dreamlands touch the minds in every dimension, and thus it is possible for Awakened Dreamers from different Fractures to meet, often not even realizing they may be from different dimensions. Finally, magic-dependent creatures that find themselves in the Shadow and are drained to the point they are ejected back to the World, may through extremely rare dimensional accident, end up diverted to a Starfracture instead.
THE TRUE ORIGIN
Starfractures are nearly all the consequence of Celestials and Dragons attempting to use Time Travel to take out their rivals. Multiple factions made numerous temporal assassination and sabotage attempts against one another, escalating to both sides attempting to interfere with past Starfalls in order to erase the opposition from existence.
For example, the Dragons attempted to prevent the Fourth Starfall, thinking that inevitably the Sixth would still happen, and still give rise to Typhons and Dragons, but without the Celestials to stop them. In turn, the Celestials tried to twist the Sixth Starfall so that it only affected Protohumans.
However, interference of this magnitude resulted in the Fractures, splitting off the timeline away from the Prime World, often in unintended ways. In so doing, these timelines are locked off from any subsequent Starfalls that affect the Prime. After several Fractures, the Divine Powers realized they weren't gaining any advantages, causing them to escalate into the all-out War of the Divine Powers.
After absolutely devastating losses on all sides, it became apparent that the War had set the World on a path to total annihilation by Riven Space expansion. Upon this realization, the remaining Celestials and Dragons agreed to a truce, and combined their powers to forcibly Fracture the Prime World from its doomed fate.
Several deliberate Starfracturings have since occurred, as the Celestials and Dragons have since agreed to cooperation in protecting the World from the most extreme of threats, despite their continued rivalries.
THE PRIME WORLD
This is the Divine Powers' designation for the World as we know it. Nearly all Starfractures are direct variants of this World in specific.
THE SHADOW
Already detailed above, but in light of these recent discoveries, some propose the Shadow must be the First Starfracture. Whether this counts as one or not, the Shadow is an anomaly among Fractures, having occurred entirely on its own. Because of this, it is still considered its own Starfall distinct from other Fractures.
MYSTICA
One of two divergences occurring during the Sixth Starfall. Rather than Magic going completely out of control, then horded by select individuals, the Cosmic Shards acted as proto-Power Crystals, and millions of individuals managed to retain hold of them. This version of the World sees numerous hyper-magical societies ruled by an Empowered Nobility, who have reshaped their World in controlled terraformation, to better suit their needs. The World hosts twelve enormous Empires stretching across the whole of the Land, Sea, and Skies, jockeying for territory and resources along their borders, and often fraught with internal struggle. Concept Magics are common among the Peoples, and the Nobility all possess Superhuman Powers as well as Magic specializations.
Arguably the only thing stopping a given Empire from dominating all others is the impracticality of ruling so much territory; it's a miracle the twelve that exist are able to maintain their grip. Arguably, a major factor in keeping the Peoples united, and preventing the Empires from all-out warring with one another is the continuous emergence of Monsters and Mutants, thousands of dangerous new enhanced species emerging after the Six Starfall. Only a united front against this threat is sufficient to keep them from similarly devasting the World.
ANTIQUITIS
A version of the World where the Sixth Starfall never happened. Magic does exist, but it is very weak, and requires heavy reliance on ritual and special materials. Technology advances sooner and faster in light of a lack of Magical support, but some of the more outrageous tech that could be found in the Prime World does not function here. If a Prime Worlder comes to Antiquitis, however, their Magic power doesn't lessen in strength, but they may have a harder time recharging, and may need to make use of rituals to fully revitalize their power.
Antiquitis is a relatively peaceful and comparatively safer version of the World, simply by way of lacking Distortion Zones and more dangerous Monsters. That is not to say such things don't exist at all, but such phenomenon are usually tied to runaway ritual accidents, the effects of which do not stray very far, and some even fade on their own, slowly over time.
With that said, it is known that a Celestial and a Dragon have migrated to this Fracture, although they keep their presences low, pretending to be a pair of exceptional sorcerers who travel the World and occasionally intervene in times of trouble. Both figures alter themselves to metahuman or demihuman forms to blend in with whatever society they find themselves. The pair were notable pacifists when the Celestial-Dragon War occurred, and seem to only want to enjoy the relative peace of a stable World. That said, they still see Mortals as a mass of peoples to manipulate, rather than valuing any particular person who is not a potential Figure of History.
This is not to say Antiquitis is utopian. Wars over territory, resources, and spiritual motives still occur all over the World. If anything, there is more overt xenophobia in the World, as a lack of World-scale threats means there has not been a history of the various Mortals having to unite against the more powerful dangers of the Prime World. Likewise, Antiquitis' religions lack the sheer scale and cohesion that would have been cultivated and enforced by Celestials and Dragons. And the two migrant Divine Powers have no interest in revitalizing their own faiths.
THE UNDERLANDS
The World, but where an insidious Gravity Distortion attempts to pull all living things into the Sky. This has the result that even though the Land, Sea, and Sky remain gravitated towards the Fundament, all living things, and their uncontained corpses, fall towards the Firmament. Or, more specifically, towards the second of the Lost Moons, which was somehow shunted into this Fracture.
What is actually happening is that the Lost Moon, dubbed the Corpse Moon, has a Distortion Effect which attempts to draw all living matter into itself, gravitating it first straight up towards the Firmament, then towards its center, growing as it consumes more mass. Those who can see past the clouds of roiling, crimson gore can spot the partial formations of myriad Typhon-class entities slowly grinding through its mass. It is presumed that if this Distortion ever reaches a critical point, the Corpse Moon will hatch and birth a Typhon of World-shattering power.
However large it was when it first shunted over, the Corpse Moon's initial emergence saw it draw 70% of all creatures into the sky, as well as 30% of all plant-life, pulling them into itself to radically build its mass before stopping short. No one knows how close it is to hatching, assuming that prediction is accurate, but every measure is taken to try and avoid deliberately feeding it further. Unfortunately, at the scale of the World, and with the dearth of Civilized Peoples across it, there isn't much to be done, save to find ways to shelter and traverse in the World without falling into the sky.
The result of this World-wide Distortion is that all living things fall or hang towards the Firmament, creating the sensation that this World is upside down. Beyond the initial cataclysm, further devastation to the ecosystem continued for decades. Beyond the loss of many keystone species, plant and fungal life has seen radical die-offs from lack of propagation. Most pollen, fruits, seeds, nuts, and spores are lost to gravity, relying on occasional favorable winds and smaller populations of flying animals to keep them going. While denser forests have an easier time of this, continent-wide swathes of grasslands, savannahs, fields, and thin forests have withered away, leading to 60% of the Land being reduced to desert.
Even Sky and Sea bound life was thrown by the emergence of the Corpse Moon, many unable to adjust to the sudden Distortion disrupting their natural senses of balance and magnetic field detection. It is thought that only 30% of Skybound life, and 40% of Seabound life still survives. These are at least much more capable of survival, and were better able to adapt, than the Landbound.
Landbound creatures were reduced by 95%, those survivors saved only by luck of circumstance. Most survivors came from people living in densely-packed cities with closely clustered buildings, already-established subterranean settlements, forest-dwellers saved by dense canopies, and those who happened to be in flying vehicles they managed to pilot into a safe zone.
The Corpse Moon's Distortion affects the whole of the World equally, causing living beings, as well as their dead bodies, to fall with a gravitational force roughly half that of the World. Once a life form hits the Firmament, they are then pulled towards the Moon at its center. Once contact is made, the lifeform is broken down into its component organs, which are absorbed into the surface. The Corpse Moon has grown large enough to partially eclipse the Sun, so as daylight shines around its atmosphere of viscera, the world is cast in red-stained glare that is too bright to look at directly. This effect is less strong depending on a person's position relative to the Moon, with the "edges" of the World being far less darkened or red-cast.
Those who find themselves directly in the Eclipse Shade of the Corpse Moon find themselves feeling queasy, suffering sudden minor bleeding, and find the gravity distortion strengthens slightly. Any plant, fungus, or other rooted life feel their roots weakening, often failing to hold under the increase of gravity. As such, the vast region where the Eclipse Shade falls has been evacuated by all who could make it, and has lost all who couldn't. This area is now completely devoid of life, leaving an utterly barren region of dust and rock and ruined settlements.
Several centuries have passed since the emergence of the Corpse Moon. Landbound Wildlife has adapted to surviving out of dense forests with thick canopies, or using caves and ravines as nooks, or even using abandoned cities, living among the "hanging" spires and skyscrapers. Civilized Peoples of the Land have carved out subterranean settlements or fitted caves for ideal living. Fortunately, there is no end of cavern systems that can be taken advantage of, and the largest of the new cities take advantage of truly huge cavern systems situated a few miles below the surface. There are a few scant surface facilities that act mostly as scientific outposts. At least three Civilized Peoples have even found ways to safely traverse the surface in refitted vehicles, climbing gear, or Heavy Suits, and thus maintain surface living, using heavily reinforced bunkers as their homes. Subway rail systems are otherwise the ideal travel method between nearby major subterranean cities.
Seabound Life has migrated further downward, always keeping closer to the seabed in the shallow waters, and diving into the deeper abyssal layers if they could survive it. All air-dependent lifeforms have been rendered all but extinct; the very few that managed to adapt must tread water so as to breach the surface without falling out of it. Some Seabound Peoples established Anchor Cities, domed settlements where they can stand on the roof of the domes to rest. The Surface, once often romanticized as the "Great Meeting of the Worlds", has now been instilled in future generations as a Terrible Maw, to be avoided if at all possible. As such, the Sea Peoples have lost all contact with other Civilized Peoples.
Skybound Peoples have had to resort to making use of the undersides of Floating Islands for their ideal roosts, but this has proven a less-then-ideal arrangement. Little farming can be done effectively on the tough rocky undersides, and hanging vines common to Floating Islands have made a mess of what little soil sticks to the bottom. Some Skybound can still make use of surface soil, hovering in place while harvesting, but most lack this ability, having wings not designed to hover. Some Skybound tribes find better success living out of small caverns cut into the sides of the high mountains, while others have resigned themselves to living out of surface settlements.
The only Peoples unaffected by the Corpse Moon's gravity are a few species of living golems and robots, as well as wholly inorganic elementals. The latter, however, find themselves horribly sickened by the gravitational distortion itself, and all have evacuated into the Astra. Meanwhile the former are few in number, their creators largely lost to the Moon, and lacking the means and resources to reproduce themselves.
It is not clear when precisely the Underland's Fracturing happened. Records indicate that there was no Sixth Starfall. However, Magic is stronger here than can be found in Antiquitis, and there are some individuals who even display minor Superhuman Powers. This may, however, be a side-effect of whatever caused the Corpse Moon to appear, suffusing Magic into the Underlands during the Moon's emergence. It is also possible that this is a Starfracture of a Starfracture, the Underlands being formed as its own World when an interrupted Starfall struck Antiquitis.
[A strong possibility is that the Dragon and Celestial protecting Antiquitis intercepted the Corpse Moon, and shunted it further along the dimensional path, perhaps intending to send it into the Astra with the hope it would dissolve. Instead, this manifested a Fracturing of Antiquitis, the only known instance of a Fracture having its own sub-Fracture.]
RIVENSCAPE
At the height of their Worldly powers, the Celestials and Dragons were capable of perceiving across time and space to extrapolate the numerous Possibilities of the World. It may thus be presumed that the largest reason for their eventual ceasefire was the realization that the Rivenscape was going to be the eventual result of their battles. There is evidence to suggest that this was to be the fate of the Prime World, until the Celestials and Dragons sacrificed an enormous amount of their power to forcibly Fracture the timeline, and just barely prevent this outcome. The Prime World, as we know it, is all they managed to save. But the original future still exists as a Fracture.
The Rivenscape is a World where the Seventh Starfall was so devastating that 99.9% of the World was annihilated into Riven Space. Slightly less than half the total surface area of a single Earth remains in scattered islands, adrift and unconnected, in the cloud of Riven. Even the Firmament and the Fundament have been chewed apart, creating a self-contained loop of void, with only specks of World drifting within.
The remnants of the World still hold some form of life. These are islands barely larger than small countries, about a thousand in total, and completely separated. How these specks survived is largely circumstantial. They happened to be Regions with just enough Existential Reinforcement to weather the Magical storms that tore the world asunder. Unknown to any survivors, this is because these fragments of the World hold the lingering essences of Celestials, Dragons, and Typhons that, through sheer Force of Will, managed to retain some measure of continued existence, suffused into the Lands where they fell.
Each island is a self-contained ecosystem, living in strict balance. Many such islands eventually failed to sustain themselves due to lack of resources, or an eventual unbalancing of the biosphere, leaving barren stretches of rock. Some of these islands eventually crumbled away, dissolving into the Riven Space.
The four largest islands are about 300 miles wide, with ten more being between 100 and 150. These are the few islands capable of long-term ecological sustainment, and each holds one to three remnants of the Civilized Peoples. The Sky of each island manages to reflect an echo of the original Sky, including a functioning day/night cycle, although the light is weaker overall, and the seasons are all off-synch from island to island. Still, it is enough to survive. The thickness of each island, from the bottom of the Land to the top of the Sky is usually less than 100 miles even on the largest islands, and trying to dig or fly past these limits leads directly into Riven Space. The edges of these islands are likewise surrounded by walls of Riven Space that aren't visible until one gets within a mile of them. However, even before the fog of the Space emerges, one can clearly see where the edges of the World fragment away into a misty horizon.
Magic functions, but is often wild and unpredictable, and its practice is heavily regulated, or outright oppressed, depending on the island. Technologies are limited due to lack of resources. The remnant essence of whatever Celestial, Dragon, or Typhon is suffused into the island may exert just enough influence to trigger the development of a religion of the Civilized Peoples, subconsciously directing them to worship them. While mostly harmless, there is some credence to the idea that the People's faith continues to reinforce the stability of their island.
METALSCAPE
A World where automatons horded Power Crystals, enacted a Grey Goo scenario, and completely conquered the World, leading to a machine-dominated reality.
HIVESCAPE
A World completely subsumed by a Mutant version of the Hive, which absorbed the traits of several other adaptive species to evolve themselves into an unstoppable horde.
DEATHLANDS
The prototypical undead apocalypse timeline. Civilized Peoples are the scant few species who have barricaded themselves in small sheltered fortress-states (a few Floating Islands are good for this), or those Peoples who retain intellect in undeath, as well as automatons and elementals who are immune (though there are variants of the infections for them as well).
THUNDER-STRIDERS
A World where the Typhons completely dominated, consuming nearly all the Magic power of the Sixth Starfall in rapid succession, preventing the emergence of Celestials. However, they all, to a one, remained bestial entities, meaning no Dragons ever emerged either. Now these Giant Monsters roam the World as living disasters. While most are not inherently malevolent, they have little care for how their very presence Distorts the World around them.
Magic still soaks the land in this reality, and the World Coalition uses Magitech resources to build Giant Robots called Gremlocks, powered by Power Crystals (similar to what's found in Mythra), to combat the feral Typhons. Likewise, a few Typhons do have some degree of higher sentience, and some have become allies to the Peoples of certain Regions, albeit the alliance is tenuous. Every few years a Thunderous Battle between wild Typhons, or rampaging Typhons and defending Gremlocks shakes the lands around.
Unfortunately, outright slaying a Typhon results in devastating magical explosions which create Distortion Zones. This is usually only avoidable in Typhon-on-Typhon combat, where the victor absorbs the rival Typhon's Magic upon their death. However, this has a risk of further Mutating the victorious Typhon into a potentially more dangerous form. Should the Typhons all manage to consume one another until only one, or a few, remain, they could evolve into truly World Ending horrors.
As such, it behooves the Civilized Peoples to try and coral these Giant Monsters into designated Regions, each Region named after its main Typhon resident. However, there have recently been techniques discovered to funnel these death explosions into the Astra, or have several allied Typhons split the absorption among themselves to lessen the risks of further Mutation.