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| == The Realm of Day ==
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| === What are the Themes of the Realm? ===
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| Day is a realm of spirit, and of shining light. It is a realm that celebrates the dominance of reason over impulse, thought over instinct, harmony over passion. It is the Realm of the higher mind – the ego and the superego. It is the Realm that echoes with the idea that the entirety of creation can be mapped, understood, codified and studied. There is nothing so lost or so hidden that it cannot be revealed and comprehended.
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| The Realm of Day drives towards the discovery of every fact, and the understanding of the entire universe. They have vast libraries where facts are recorded on pieces of living crystal, or as a complex series of knots that hang in great curtains, or on the very walls of a palace or a labyrinth.
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| It is a Realm of Hierarchy. Because it enshrines the value of harmony and order, everyone knows their place in life comparative to everyone else. In actuality, it is fairer to say that there are at least two Hierarchies here – the Hierarchy of the Depths, which concerns itself with the discovery of secrets and new truths; and the Hierarchy of the Heights which concerns itself with contemplation and mastery of existing truths. Yet a creature that is part of one Hierarchy always and instinctively knows whether it outranks or is subordinate to any other creature encountered – while the system is unutterably byzantine to outsiders, the Eternals of Day instinctively understand it.
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| If there is a negative side to this Realm it is that sometimes the truth is painful or damaging to a person, a group or the mind of the individual. Sometimes secrets are secret for a reason, and dragging them into the open is harmful. Sometimes a person cannot survive the experience of having their true nature exposed, even to themselves. While an individual can have a profound affect on the local scale, in terms of the magnitude of the cosmos and the entirety of time itself, the individual actions are close to meaningless. It can be difficult for limited mortal minds to process this revelation and remain sane.
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| === What kind of Magic does it cover? ===
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| The most obvious use for the magic of Day is in divination. Rituals of the magic of Day are effective at scrying the present, but they might also be used to uncover details about past events. They are least effective when trying to divine the future – the magic can make educated guesses about the likely outcome of events, but it becomes less and less effective as the number of variables increases. It is impossible to divine who will survive on a battlefield, for example, because there is so much randomness and chaos.
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| It also covers magic of revelation – specifically about revealing facts to an individual that they are concealing from themselves. It penetrates and dispels illusions and deceptions.
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| It can be used to counter, protect against and suppress roleplaying effects related to passion and madness – to a degree.
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| It may also be a component of magic that deals with blindness, whether physical or more metaphorical in nature.
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| It is a component of magic that purifies – it can be used to destroy poisons and corruptions of various sorts, and restore things to pristine, unsullied forms – although in doing so it can destroy qualities such as experience or taste. Food that is purified with the magic of Day tends to end up tasting quite bland, and alcohol is purified to the point where it is just water.
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| Of interest to religious characters, it may possess rites that allow one to learn about ones’ past lives, with reference to their actions and their thoughts. It is useless for finding out motivations or emotions with past lives, however.
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| === What is the Realm like physically? ===
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| The Realm of Day is full of light. That air itself glows with a golden radiance that can be hard to get used to. There may be no sun in the sky (depending on whether we envision PCs visiting it or not) – rather it is a limitless vault that becomes brighter and brighter as one looks upwards until it is too bright to see anything. The clouds are shimmering fields of silver and gold that drift lazily around in proscribed orbits, never diminishing or increasing in size. The realm itself is a vast ocean of clear water that becomes darker and darker blue as the depth increases. Several miles beneath the surface are structures or creatures that glow with their own light, and to an observer on the surface it might appear that the depths of the ocean are full of stars.
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| Pure, fresh water is almost unknown in this Realm and must be created magically on the rare occasion it is required. All the water tastes salty, slightly bitter.
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| The Realm is scattered with a multitude of islands, ranging in size from a few dozen metres across to great landmasses that approach the size of an Imperial Territory. These islands do not exist just on the surface of the water, however. Great blocks of stone and coral hang impossibly in the air, or are drowned deep in the ocean. The inhabitants of the realm move between them with great facility – but the further from the surface an island is, the more important and powerful the Eternals who dwell on it.
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| Because the air itself glows there are no shadows here. The water of the ocean is so clear that it is many many fathoms before this glow becomes hazy, and due to a peculiar property of the realm the ability to perceive is never impeded. Even deep underwater, where the light from the sky has faded almost to nothing, a mortal can see and hear as if they stood on the surface.
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| One group of pre-Imperial mystical scholars suggest that if one were to go down far enough into the ocean, to the point where the very last of the light is gone, one could travel directly to the highest parts of the Realm of Night – this is one of the beliefs of those who teach that the Realm of Day and the Realm of Night are the same realm, rather than two different realms. Eternals of Day and Night both find the idea unbelievable and foolish.
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| === What are the inhabitants of the Realm like? ===
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| The Eternals of Day are like serpentine dragons – to a degree. The further up a Hierarchy a creature progresses, the more like a draconic creature they become. Those at the lowest levels of the Hierarchy appear almost humanoid, but possess qualities that mark them out such as scaled skin, gills, horns, webbed fingers, fins and wings (depending how they progress in the Hierarchy). The most powerful Eternals do not look very humanoid at all, and may approach gargantuan size.
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| While the Realm is Hierarchical it is not static. Individuals can be promoted or demoted within the Hierarchy, and when they change status they change physical form as well. Occasionally, new positions are created in the Hierarchy as new facts or pursuits come to light.
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| The lowest rank of Eternals are rarely encountered by mortals – they serve as functionaries, scribes and aides. Many of them fish or even farm, although precisely what it is that they cultivate is not clear. The middle rank of Eternals are more commonly encountered – they are bureaucrats, scholars and skilled craftsmen who seek out facts or new understanding. They are divided into Ministries, Courts, Kingdoms and Departments each with an Eternal of the next rank as the leader, and an Eternal of the most powerful rank heading up individual groups. The highest level Eternals of Day are rarely encountered – they are dragons, oceanic behemoths who contemplate the vastness of creation.
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| Eternals of the Realm of Day only interact with mortals during daylight hours. In fact, there is a great deal of speculation that the hours of night in the mortal realm do not properly exist from them – that the entire Realm “skips” from the moment of sunset to the moment of the next sunrise. There is little evidence to support this fanciful claim, and the Realm seems to have plenty of information about events that have happened during the night, albeit these could have been gained from any number of magical or mundane sources.
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| According to other speculation, the very highest rank Eternals cease to be material beings at all, becoming spiritual creatures of pure light or water, unrestrained by physical limitations. A very powerful Eternal of Day might come with a non-physical manifestation.
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| Within the Empire the lineage of Merrow is associated with the Realm of Day. These people are driven to uncover new things, and their connection to the water strongly suggests that the source of their lineage is a member of the Hierarchy of the Depths rather than the Hierarchy of the Heights. Eternals of either Hierarchy will treat a Merrow with some respect, and grant the character an assumed status that is higher the stronger the blood. A very strongly blooded Merrow might well find a messenger or functionary of the Realm treats them as if they were a superior.
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| === What do the Eternals want from Mortals? ===
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| The Eternals of Day want facts, and they want secrets. They want to know about new discoveries and new ideas, as well as new theories and the evidence that supports them. They want unique artefacts that possess interesting qualities. They want historical data. They want intelligent conversation.
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| They also want to influence the Empire and make it more rational and more learned. They encourage mortals to build libraries and universities for study, and monastaries for contemplation and meditation.
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| They oppose conflict, and encourage compromise. Where compromise cannot be achieved, they encourage swift resolution that causes the minimum of suffering to the smallest number of people – but they do not balk to encourage assassinations or murders if that will resolve a situation quickly.
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| They almost always support the needs of the many over the needs of the few, and the creation of social hierarchy where everyone has the certainty of a known place. They encourage the spread of social ideas that, for example, restrict personal freedoms but increase general security.
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| === What are some things these Eternals can give to Mortals? ===
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| They have records that stretch back thousands of years and cover thousands of topics. Information about past events can be a valuable currency.
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| They can provide articles that enhance or focus the magic of Day. A particular resource they can offer is sometimes called “liquid light” (the fluorescent stuff from light sticks maybe) that can temporarily boost a Day ritual.
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| They should also offer things that are challenges. If the Eternal gives someone a document or a ritual focus, it could well be in code so that the person who wants to use it has to use their brains to get the most out of it. I can imagine them giving out ritual foci or boosters that are puzzles that need to be solved to get the most out of them.
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| They might lend a mortal artifacts that create useful effects to do with truth, harmony, revalation and calmness. They could even make minor adjustments to an individual to allow them to breathe water or avoid speaking falsehoods.
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| They might be able to help the spread of rational ideas or social reforms, or give assistance in creating structures designed to spread order or learning.
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| They can offer the water of the ocean of Day – all water in the Realm tastes salty but when consumed by mortals it causes them to remember all details of their current lives, every slight and error, every imperfection, every shameful act or secret desire. It can be quite debilitating. The one who drinks it either confronts and accepts these desires, and is spiritually refreshed or refuses to accept them and suffers tormented nightmares.
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| === What themes aren’t appropriate to this Realm? ===
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| This isn’t heaven – the inhabitants are not angels. Their rationality and obsession with facts does not make them “good” although they may tend to think in philosophical terms of the “greater good for the most creatures.”
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| While there are some themes of cosmic horror that will work in the Realm, it is certainly not a Lovecraftian horror domain. There may be weird tentacled beings in the benthic depths, whose minds work differently to motals, but they are still closer to Eastern Dragons than to Dagon.
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| The inhabitants are creatures of reason and rationality, and they tend not to be very passionate, but they are not emotionless automatons.They are incapable of corruption, but they can still create a course of action that while entirely rational and reasonable is evil, misguided or misdirected.
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| This isn’t a realm of sinister tyrants – their Hierarchy is somewhat fluid and meritocratic, although nowhere near as meritocratic as the Empire is.
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| This could be a Realm of Vorlons, but even then I think their gnomic utterances will be a little more comprehensible to our heroes.
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| [[Category:Realms]] | |
| [[Category:The World]]
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