Cosmology

Imagine a tesseract. The “Normal” universe is the cube in the center. Surrounding it on all six sides are the realms of Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Light/Darkness, and Energy (called “branes”). Surrounding all of that is the Spirit Realm, which is coterminous with all of the other realms, and acts as a bridge to the rest of them. It is the outer cube. The Spirit Realm is a hazy, sparkly, purple/magenta place of Thought, Dream, and Will, mostly empty mist, but with occasional chunks of solidified matter. Those chunks are the fragments of will, formed by those whose minds can encompass the entirety of the land they are wishing into reality. Think the flux of the Soulrider series (which is where the visuals come from). The Spirit Realm is a kind of glue that permeates all of the aspects of reality. It even extends into the Chaos, although the interaction of that much Chaos on the thought-matter of the Spirit Realm makes traveling through it impossible.
That tesseract floats in a sea of Chaos. Also floating in the sea of Chaos are the Lands Like Islands, which are where the Gods live. Few living beings are able to traverse the Primal Chaos; it is really only the Gods and other Primals that can do so.

The Elemental Branes

These are the spaces that surround the central cube of the tesseract. They are the realms of Air, Fire, Water, Earth, Light and Darkness, and Energy. The areas “closest” to the Material Brane are most like the normal universe. As one moves farther away, it gets more and more…alien, odd, and closer to the idealized concept of the the brane. Elementals and element-aspected creatures thrive here. “Closest” is somewhat subjective.

Air Brane

The most adjacent areas look like a windswept landscape. Traveling farther in, the land drops away as a cliff, the bottom of which cannot be seen. Floating islands can be seen hovering in the air, and if one travels past those, eventually one gets to a place with no land at all. Just a big, empty space, filled with air. The air currents and weather are…impressive.

Fire Brane

The areas most adjacent to normality look like normal landscapes. Smoke can be seen in the distance, however, and as one gets closer, wildfires can be seen. Farther in, the land grows more rocky, and soon magma rivers can be found. Volcanoes abound, as well as geysers, hot winds, and a burning sun squatting on the horizon. Far enough in, and a sea of magma is reached. It is said that past the magma sea is the sun itself.

Water Brane

The Water Brane is not all water. The area "closest" to the Material Brane appears to be a flooded landscape. It is this area that forms the "landing zone" where most planar travelers emerge into the Brane of Water.
The “landing zone” is a spot in the valley between some low hills. The area is covered in vegetation, with trees, brush, and ground cover. The area is swampy, with about an inch of water lapping at the visitors’ feet. It’s either raining (3-12 on 3d) or there is fog (13-18). Either way, the humidity is high, and it’s utterly windless. The temperature is around 55° F. Visibility (from either rain or fog) is limited to about 50-100 feet. The “sky” is overcast, not that it can be seen anyway, due to the rain and fog. But the light given off is about the same as an overcast, rainy day. The audio soundscape is a bit off, here. There are no birds; the only sounds are the slopping noises of the water flowing past objects. There are few sounds of animal life, although there is some here in the swampy areas, likely from “bleed through” from other Branes. Frogs croaking and the whirr of insect wings is about all that breaks the silence besides the dripping of water from leaves (if foggy) or the rushing sound of the rain. Frogs and fish are abundant, as are water bugs, dragonflies, mosquitoes, and water striders. But there is something else in the water, seen mostly as movement out of the corner of the eye. Or the impression of movement.
There is an entire ecology of water elementals. They are all more or less animated water, but they take different forms, and fulfill different functions in the web of water-life. The smallest ones are the size of microbes, and fulfill that basic function. They are simply tiny blobs of animated water, completely invisible in the (actual) water. Call them “aquaplankton”. The movement that the PCs “see” are small tadpole like critters (we will call them “wigglers”). They are basically the size of earthworms, but with an enlarged head much like a tadpole. They are near the base of the food chain, eating/assimilating the aquaplankton. Above them are “water snakes”, looking like snakes, but made out of water, and ranging from 1’ to 4’ long, and up to about 2” in diameter. They consume the wigglers and smaller water snakes. At this trophic level there are also the Bundles, which appear as clusters of watery tentacles, ranging from 5” across to 2’ across. They look like two squid, stuck head to head, with a tubular body with groups of tentacles at both ends.
The next highest trophic level includes the Whorls, which look like mobile whirlpools about 2’ in diameter, and the Cyclonic Tubeworms, which are similar to the Whorls, but horizontal, looking like a rotating tube of water moving around like a stubby snake. They range from 1’ in diameter and 4’ long to 3’ in diameter and 15’ long. Above that is the apex predator: the Fetch. Its form is simply that of an area of water. It is indistinguishable from the water in which it lives, and ranges in size from 8’ across to 50’ across.
Most of the movement “seen” is either the wigglers, or the water snakes. Bundles are less common, and might be seen as momentary “humps” in the water as they rotate around and their limbs break the surface. But things at this level and below generally won’t harm anyone. Just don’t allow them inside your body…. Whorls and Cyclonic Tubeworms might attack, although they are more likely to go after fish. They will defend themselves or their territory if they feel threatened, however. Whorls can batter prey with their spinning water, and the Tubeworms can trap prey in their tubes, potentially drowning victims as they are held underwater. The Fetches are the most dangerous, with the most mass, strength, and size. They can engulf a victim, drowning them, or batter them with moving water, or extrude pseudopods and whack the heck out of victims. Grappling and squeezing is also a common attack form.
Moving away from the landing zone, the ground is subtly sloped; it’s not likely that anyone would really notice, given the other variations in ground level. The vegetation changes, though, turning from “regular” trees to mangroves, and the visitors will definitely notice that the water is getting deeper. Fewer land animals will be evident, and fewer insects. People may not notice this right away. As the water gets deeper, the more fish species can be seen. Other critters can be seen as well: Bzastra (appearing as rings of coral threaded through with bluish vines of kelp), whales and dolphins (rare, and tend to stay near the vast bubbles of air that dot the volume of water like bubbles of carbonation), Oozes, Seamaws (elemental predator that appears like a giant set of shark jaws, complete with teeth), Hydrax (crab-like creature of deep blue ice and water), Marids (think of a water elemental/merperson hybrid), Klyndes (misinform creatures that primarily live in the vast air bubbles, although some live near the landing area), Mist Mephits (small misty “fairies” that live in the air bubbles and near the landing area), Suisseen (transparent membranes that float through the water; they attack by entangling prey and dissolving them with acidic digestive enzymes), Ungulosin (its physical form is a swarm of sea creatures, the overall shape of which is based upon the creatures making up its “body”), Spitter (looks like a frog with a long tail, with a ridged body), giant nautilus, giant squids and octopuses, sea monsters, creatures of the Permian, such as trilobites and anomalacarus, and crustaceans. Note that some of these creatures are from “Denizens of the Inner Planes”.
Going further out from the landing zone, walking turns to wading, which turns to swimming. At this point the sea and sky have merged, with no discernible difference between the two. Scuba gear (or the equivalent) is necessary, as finding air is problematic. It takes about an hour of fast paced travel to get to this point. Once into the “full ocean”, light is localized, with some areas lit by light that seems to come from no where in particular, and areas of full darkness, lit only by phosphorescence from animals and plants. Mapped out in 3D space, the Water Brane would appear like a dark volume with scattered globes of light. Some areas look like the Great Barrier Reef, others like the deep sea floor.
Somewhere, in this vast expanse of ocean, is the Lord of the Deeps, the oldest and most powerful of the the Water Elementals, with godlike power and influence.

Earth Brane

The Earth Brane starts off as rolling hills of stone, and gradually turns into something like the Grand Canyon or southwestern Utah. All kinds of rocks, in all kinds of formations. In the distance is what appears to be a volcano. Overall, and in general, the land slopes upwards, until the air thins to vacuum. Occasionally holes or caves dot the landscape, leading to immense complexes of caverns. Crystals dot the landscape, especially underground. It is a kaleidoscope of minerals.

Energy Brane

The Energy Brane looks like an unending plain of scorched, burned, and cracked stone. The air smells of smoke and ozone, and everything seems to have a static charge (no carpet required). The air is filled with electrical discharges, and the clouds appear to be made of clouds of roiling plasma. It is very hot. Several suns hang in the sky, when the sky is visible, against a starry backdrop complete with nebulae. It is inhospitable, to say the least, and surviving it requires special gear and/or preparation.

Light and Darkness Brane

The Light and Darkness Brane appears to be a flat, featureless plain of white chalk, crisscrossed in random directions with straight lines cut into it like expansion joints in cement. The sky is black, with no stars. The only light source is a single sun, white, and hovers perpetually about halfway between the flat horizon and the zenith. After a long while of traveling into the area, oddly shaped “pillars” start appearing, at first short and widely spaced, but eventually getting more and more taller and more populous. They, like the plain itself, appear to be made of white stone or chalk. The bright sun casts their unmoving shadows. They don’t move, except when you aren’t looking, silently teleporting around from place to place. But always “off camera”.

Lands Like Islands

Each god has their own. It is theorized that they can come and go into any other Land Like Island that they wish, and often do, to visit their fellow gods. However, some of the Lands Like Islands serve as the afterlife. These include such places as The House of the Dark One, Asphodel Meadows, Mourning Fields, Elysium, Isles of the Blessed, the Lands of Aman, The Grey Lands, The Halls of Gorok, The Land of Toil, the Otherworld, Duzakh, and Khuvesta.
When a being dies, their spirit is taken to their appropriate afterlife by servants of the gods. For some souls, the gods know where they belong. For others, the souls may be fought over, especially those that don’t have a specific patron deity who has jurisdiction. Some of those might end up in one afterlife, then get dragged off to another by a god who thinks they were put in the wrong place. Some become Lost Souls, which are souls who don’t go somewhere in particular, and end up floating in the Primal Chaos until the chaos dissolves them into itself. The living consider being a Lost Soul to be one of the worst things to have happen to someone. As long as a soul is in the afterlife, it’s possible for them to reincarnate, be resurrected, or just be with their god.

Soul-Eating Weapons

Soul eating weapons (Morganti weapons, think Stormbringer and Mournblade) have the same effect: they create what amounts to a Lost Soul, albeit a very short-lived one. No one knows how to make Morganti weapons. They just turn up. No one knows why, or where they come from, but they are all very, very old. Some think that the Elves made them, but have since forgotten the art. Others think that the gods made them as divine weapons. All have black blades, and they all give off a sense of hunger. Some have described it as a kind of sentience, still others say that the blades seem to control the wielder, rather than the other way around. In any case, if you are killed by a Morganti weapon, you are done. No resurrection possible, even if you know a god who might be willing to do so. Your soul is gone.
There are three known ways for a normal mortal to prevent their soul being eaten: • Die first. Morganti weapons cannot destroy the soul of one already dead. (The It-Can't-Get-Any-Worse clause) • Don't be anywhere close to one. (The You-Can't-Get-Me clause) • Kill the other person with one first. (The First-Come-First-Kill clause)