Friends, Foes, and Cosmic Forces

At the center of the universe, there is a vast ethereal construct which turns the infinite space, powered by the craftsmanship of the Celestials and the flow of Mana. Planets circle in fixed orbits, stars glow in their eternal places, comets, asteroids, moons, and other heavenly bodies move through space in patterns set by divine engineers, their watchful eyes guarding this Cosmic Machine from the incursion of evil outsiders too terrible to name, lurking just outside the bounds of Creation. Within the Cosmic Machine are many powerful forces at work, some good, many evil, and others with their own alien sense of morality. With Dragons, Daemons, Medicon, Eldain, Raksha, Elementals, Underkings, and a host of other beings above and beneath, Man is beset on all sides by gods and monsters.

Archerus: the Unworld

Parallel to the world of form and structure is an immaterial world of mist and shadows. This deep and disturbing place is known to occultists and seers by many names; Limbo, Archerus, the Unworld, Spiritus Mundi…whatever it is called, stories of the land where spirits dwell are told only in vagaries, spoken with hushed, furtive whispers. What little is known of Archerus has been passed down mostly through oral tradition or relayed by the mad few who claim to have seen beyond the Veil. Most serious researchers give little credence to such unreliable sources and as such, very little is actually known of the Unworld.

According to apocryphal sources, Archerus is a mirror of reality cast in shadow, veiled in surrealism, stepped in metaphor. All created things within the material world cast pale reflections of themselves into Archerus; objects, cities, landscapes…they all exist in some dark form within the phantom realm. Everything in the material world echoes profoundly across the mirrored Veil, these repercussions felt further and deeper in the fluid spirit world than in the static realm of the physical. New cities become shadowed necropoli, dammed rivers turn to vast deserts, and even crafted goods cast an image across the Veil, creating hyperbolic counterparts in the next world. 

Mortal Flesh

Gods, Celestials, Medicon, Dragons, Daemons...in their truest form, these are all beings of spirit. Even Man is not a body, but a soul wrapped in flesh. The laws of the Cosmic Machine are such that every being of spirit must take on a physical form when leaving the Unworld to enter the material plane. These forms are always a reflection of the spirit's character and desires as well as the nature of the world the spirit manifests on (just as the many races of The Sphere took on shapes according to the nature of their home world so long ago). When a Medicon manifests physically, her flesh reflects the domain over which she holds sway. When a Dragon appears, it is in great, winged glory as befits his powerful spirit. Even the Celestials are actual planets, stars, and heavenly bodies enormous enough to contain their power in fixed orbit within The Sphere. Every spirit that would manifest on the material plane must take on a suitable material form.
Those who inhabit the Unworld must take on physical form in order to cross over into the material plane. The more powerful the spirit, the more difficult this is and often requires the assistance of those on the other side.
Crossing the Veil
A barrier called the Veil separates the material and immaterial planes from one another, preventing those on either side from crossing over. While the two realms are joined to one another, it is difficult for one side to affect the other while the Veil is at its full strength. As the daylight wanes and the light of Setharkis, the moon of death, shines upon a world, the Veil becomes thin and frayed at the edges. The fuller the moon, the weaker the barrier between worlds becomes. Those with the desire to contact, influence, or even cross over to the other side are able to do so with relative ease. Ghosts walk in haunted places where the Veil is thin. Séances call across the weakened Veil for loved ones. And those who wander alone at night may find themselves traveling across strange grey landscapes where the boundaries between the physical and spiritual fade.

Spirits of the Unworld
Archerus is home to a host of dreadful and terrifying beings. Most human among these are ghosts; the souls of dead Men who have not yet entered the Jade Kingdom and are awaiting the next full moon when Setharkis opens a bridge between the Sphere and the land of the dead. Some ghosts with powerful ties to their previous lives remain anchored to the Sphere and cannot cross over to the next life. Weighed down by the heavy chains of their sins and fetters, these lost souls wonder aimlessly through the night, seeking to cast off their bonds by resolving whatever binds them to earth. With time, their light grows dim as their identity, sanity, and humanity fade away, giving way to inhuman madness. Those who lose themselves entirely become wraiths, violent and horrifying apparitions counted among the most numerous beings in Spiritus Mundi.
The Medicon, known to Men as “little gods”, are equally at home in Spiritus Mundi and the Sphere. While most spend the majority of their time in the physical realm, the petty gods are not averse to spreading their dominion over the ghostly realm as well. Medicon are vastly more powerful in the physical realm than they are in Archerus. Perhaps this is due to their dominion over places and forces that originate in the natural world. For whatever reason, any incursion into Spiritus Mundi is taken with great caution as there are many other beings within the shadow world more powerful than they. The same is true for their lesser, counterparts, the Elementals. Though these passionate beings exist primarily in a spiritual space (taking only dramatic, impressive physical forms as beings of living fire, rock, or stone), Elementals are far greater in the physical realm than they are in the spiritual. They remain primarily in spirit form due solely to the fact that their manifestations on the Sphere are destructive and require a great deal of power to maintain.

Demons also walk the Veil, hiding within the dark mists as betrayers and manipulators of Mankind. The Raksha are equally powerful in both realms, though all but the Furies are loathe to act in the open within the world of Men when they could just as easily affect events from the other side of the Veil. The greatest manipulators rarely venture outside Archerus, acting instead through proxies and sending lesser Raksha into the Sphere as necessity dictates.