The Terminus

Once it was called Edanth, and for a moment, at the beginning of Creation, it was perfect. It was as perfect as the abstract quality of perfection, the platonic ideal of “perfect” embodied in the physical. Every visual detail was beauty, every sound harmonious, every scent pleasing. However, time is by definition change, and if you change perfection, as time must do, it must cease being perfect. When time began in Edanth, the first measurable fraction of a second brought agony to the universe. Unus, the First One, who was the sole being to exist at the moment of Creation, the only one to ever perceive Edanth in its unblemished glory, wept. From his tears were born the Alphians. Unus shaped them into his likeness and named them his brothers and sisters, and was joyous. Perfection had fallen, but love and laughter had taken its place, and who dares to say that fellowship and brotherhood is so much less than a still, silent moment of perfection? Edanth had fallen from perfection, but echoes of the perfect remained, as they do still in all worlds. The Alphians raced and wrestled and played and labored in the near-perfect world beneath the nascent stars. Songs they created, which universes have forgotten, that could enlighten beasts. Poems they inscribed, for they could not contain their hearts, but loosed them with their tongues in beautiful words. The Alphians were beautiful beyond measure, mighty beyond the dreams of the stumbling gods of later epochs, and they made the wisest spirits of later days look like fools by comparison. They could see everything in Creation. As universes formed around them, the Alphians found themselves no longer able to confine their love for one another; they wanted to share it with all Creation. Perhaps they should have contained their enthusiasm and allowed existence to unfold and mature on its own. But they wanted to love all of creation, and love makes fools of even the wisest of us.

The First, The Beloved

The Alphians sensed Shadow Worlds forming; they were unlovely places, where the first hatred of the universe was spawned. The Alphians chose not to look upon them. Other things existed of which they also did not take note. Their senses were drawn, inexorably, to the greatest of the early spheres, to the light of a world called Phos. There, a great civilization had emerged, and at the vanguard of this mighty and beautiful people were the first known superhumans, the champions of the people. They were creatures of unblemished magnificence, and the greatest of these was Phoros the Bright, a being of such power, beauty, and strength that he impressed even Unus, who saw in him qualities of perfection that he believed had fled from reality at the moment of creation. The champions of Phos spread enlightenment throughout the newly born dimensions of reality. However, the greatest champions were brought to Edanth to serve as companions of the Alphians, and Phoros was named Companion of Unus himself. Phoros begged the Alphians to aid the Phosion in their work, to spread their light throughout the worlds of reality. The Alphians could not refuse him. An age of enlightenment followed, the long Dawn of Creation. Wherever the Alphians and the Phosians traveled, the gnawing darkness between realities fled. Where they walked, worlds were born. Where they spoke, civilizations rose. Where they sang, the cosmos shaped itself into new, glorious forms. Where they wrestled, their struggle brought purpose, resolution, and resolve. Existence was sculpted towards as close as it could get to perfection outside the moment of its Birth. However, this period of flowering had its price; by speeding the process of creation, the Alphians aged the universes beyond what should have been. Soon, Unus sensed a new force at work in the cosmos: Entropy, which drags existence toward oblivion. Unus was driven to despair by the prospect of the end of the universe, but Phoros urged him to fight it, to find a way to exist forever. For a time, Unus held Entropy in check by the force of his will alone. Unfortunately, as time passed, Entropy grew, and Unus found himself growing weaker. It became apparent even he could not hold Entropy at bay for eternity. At Phoros’s urging, Unus built a machine to gather the force of Entropy and imprison it. This device was named the Doom-Coil, and much of Unus’s power rested within it. It was the greatest machine ever built, or that ever could be built, for it was the supreme flowering of the creativity of the Dawn of Time. Worlds died in its construction (a regrettable but necessary sacrifice). At last, the Doom-Coil was completed, and Unus rested. As the titan slept, Phoros crept to the edge of the Doom-Coil to see what he had made and to look upon the force that would devour universes. He looked upon Entropy, and it was not what he expected. It was… beautiful.

The Rise of Entropy

At that moment, Phoros dedicated himself to a new master. He knew that Entropy was greater than the Alphians, greater than Unus, greater even than Creation itself, for it was destined to conquer everything. Phoros worshipped the Devourer, he sang songs that fed it and were twisted into dark designs: hate, malice, murder, corruption. These evils infected his heart until he had no love left for the Alphians. Finally, in honor of his new master, he changed his name to Omega, the End, for what other name could a servant of Entropy take? Omega introduced many of the Phosian heroes to the Doom-Coil, and they also came to love and worship Entropy. These became the Annihilists, the adopted children of Entropy. Those few Phosians who didn’t join their ranks were given as gifts to the Devourer. Entropy fed off their power and increased its strength. Without warning, the Alphians began to age and grow feeble; as they lost their youthful vigor, the power of Entropy grew. Most Alphians had no idea what was happening to them. A few chose to confront the problem, but they were defeated and imprisoned within the Doom-Coil, which fed from their power. These shackled gods were incorporated into the Doom-Coil, their bodies stretched over its surface to form the Ouroboros Skin that protects the Doom-Coil from harm. Unus awoke and sensed the wrongness in the air, but it was too late. The Doom-Coil had grown too powerful even for him to unravel. However, the Doom-Coil could not kill Unus, not until every last creature in creation was dead, for that was his destiny, to see time’s last moment. However, he could be diminished. They battled for centuries, creator against creation, until Omega fed his home universe of Phos into the Doom-Coil. It was the first universe ever to be consumed within the Doom-Coil. It is unclear which defeated Unus: the sudden surge in power or Omega’s sheer malice in betraying the people he’d championed. Unus was struck down. He was reduced to a barely coherent, gibbering creature wandering in confusion around the great castle that sat at the cornerstone of Creation, the one he had raised at the moment of enlightening. Striding into this pathetic scene came Artexia the Weeper. She was first born of all the Alphians, and saddest because she bore most of Unus’s regret for Creation’s fall from grace. She had not traveled with the other Alphians, but had hid in the dark places between universes, lamenting the fall. However, her voice traversed the gap between existences, and those who learned to discern it learned wisdom and (ultimately) comfort in the face of mortality. She had no power to face Omega, but neither could he face her, for the fear of death or corruption could not touch her heart. Artexia could not heal Unus, but she could forge a weapon. She stared into the recesses of the First One’s mind, where alone the memory of Creation Inviolate was contained, and in her womb she formed an incarnate image of that perfection. This was her son, child of her body and Unus’s thought, the only son of the Alphians, and she died giving birth to him. This man was called the Throne, for he contained the Seat of Creation within himself. The Throne leapt into the Doom-Coil. Omega grappled with him, but he was cast aside, for the Throne was might incarnate. “Down, traitor!” he snarled. Even his words dealt grave wounds to Omega. “You are nothing in the scheme of creation. A far greater foe awaits me.” Graver still was the harm Omega suffered from even a brief contact with the Doom-Coil. The once beautiful Phoros was truly gone; in his place was a burning, skeletal corpse sustained by hatred and an endless thirst for destruction. For eons, the Throne wrestled the Doom-Coil to a standstill, as Entropy could not affect one fixed in the image of the moment of creation. However, the Throne could not overthrow his enemy, and as Omega sent universe after universe into the Doom-Coil, it grew, and Entropy increased. The Throne never abandoned the struggle, nor was he ever defeated, but the machine grew around him and continued its work unabated. Omega took the great seat of Edanth as his own, and he renamed the dimension the Terminus, for it would be the ultimate end of all things. The Throne remains imprisoned within the Doom-Coil, continuing his struggle.

By Omega’s Command

Omega believed the Throne was no longer a major threat. He continued to feed universes to Entropy. Before they died, he corrupted their greatest heroes to bolster the ranks of the Annihilists, he stole their best engineers and artisans to serve as proles, and he transformed the noblest soldiers and warrior-heroes into Omegadrones, who terrorized many universes. Some of the Alphians escaped their fate and placed their incarnate thoughts within the remaining champions of Phos, giving birth to a race that could resist Omega. These were the Furions, a people born to vengeance and liberty. They reside within the Terminus and seek to free the Throne from the confines of the Doom-Coil. One Furion made a pact with the Shadow World the Alphians had ignored and elevated himself in power. He was Taarvon the Undying, a puissant wizard whose command of dark sorceries made him a rival of Omega. Periodically, he has waged war on Nihilor, hoping to seize the Doom-Coil and change its mastery from Entropy to Shadow. Omega considers him but a minor nuisance, and the Furions he holds in even lower regard. Over time, the universes devoured by the Terminus grew, and the ranks of the Annihilists swelled. On a universe very much like Freedom City’s, Omega encountered Steelguard, a genius in a metal skin who had come to view the other protectors of his world as dangerous. Omega offered to assist him in his betrayal. After the war of brother against brother that followed, Steelguard became Shadivan Steelgrave, the most corrupt servant of the Terminus, maker of its weapons of war. Omega has known of Freedom City’s Earth since a scientist from a conquered universe sent his infant son there in a last desperate act. Long he desired to crush that universe beneath his heel, but he was denied by Freedom City’s greatest champion, the Centurion, and his various allies, including the Furions. Finally, Omega seized an opportunity to launch a strike against Freedom City. The Terminus Invasion followed, a bloody struggle that had occurred in a hundred different universes. But this time, the world’s greatest superhuman champion would not be beaten. Shadivan Steelgrave offered him great prizes, but the Centurion would not yield. Omega offered to spare his life, and the lives of his loved ones, but the champion of Freedom would not back down. The epic battle that followed has been the subject of tales told throughout the universe and beyond. Omega killed him eventually, of course, but the Centurion had damaged his life-support mechanisms so badly the titan was forced to retreat. A defeat! He had not known defeat in countless centuries! Word of the setback reached the Furions, filling them with… hope. Omega swore to draw Freedom City’s universe into the Terminus and destroy it. He sensed within that universe certain energies not unlike those of his native Phos. Perhaps this universe even contains enough energy to trigger a quantum slide, an event that will take Entropy beyond the tipping point needed to collapse all realities, destroying the Omniverse in one stroke.

Geography

The Terminus is not a world; it’s a universe. It is a small universe by our standards, composed of a hundred worlds in orbit around the DoomCoil, though this is deceiving, for the Terminus has dimensional tendrils (called “The Ravel”) that reach out between all universes. Long ago, the Doom-Coil consumed the stars of the Terminus universe, but their destruction produced a malleable chaos that produces the warmth and light necessary to sustain worlds. Beneath hazy red skies, the hundred worlds bathe in the energies unleashed by the destruction of universes, and they bow to (or raise their fists to defy) the will of its dark master. The key factions and worlds of the Terminus, the keys to this titanic struggle, are as follows:

Nihilhor

The Doom-Coil is suspended within the hollow interior of the planet Nihilhor, the massive world Omega calls home. Once its blackened surface was a garden paradise beyond compare, planted and tended by the Alphians, their blooms singing as they flowered, but beauty no longer exists on Nihilhor. The Ouroboros Skin now covers the surface of the world; a blackened expanse of nigh-indestructible iron where the bodies of Alphians who were defeated by the Doom-Coil lay, stretched and distorted in hideous ways to form an armored surface, a living skin composed of hopelessly trapped gods. The Terminus Stream, a plume of cosmic fire, flows out of a rift on the planet’s surface, spiraling down into the endless blackness of the Void at the center of the Terminus. This is how universes die, in fire, as their concentrated energies are sucked into the great engine of Entropy, and then spewed out into the maw of annihilation. The Terminus Stream combines the vast pressures of a black hole formed by a collapsing universe with the primal temperatures found in its heat death, closer to oblivion incarnate than any death god of any culture ever conceived. Anyone touching the Stream must make a DC 40 Fortitude save; those who make the Save are disabled and thrown clear of the Stream, while those who fail are instantly consumed and utterly destroyed. It requires a special Immunity to survive physical contact; the only ones who’ve done so for any length of time are Freedom Bird and the Throne. Dotting the Ouroboros Skin are numerous grim towers and palaces. The largest is Omega’s great palace complex, housing the Omegadrone factories, which churn and spew foul smoke and belch flame. This was once the Dawncastle of Unus. Here, the captured heroes of fallen wars are fused with the machines of Shadivan Steelgrave to produce Omegadrones. Here, Physician Friendly and his Nightmare Nurses perform obscene medical experiments on captives from a hundred universes. Here, Madrigal Martinet drills the Final Armada with an iron fist. Here, Abby-Brio, the Counter, prostrates himself in Omega’s treasury, counting the stolen fortunes of the Omniverse. Each of the Annihilists has a fortress and petty-kingdom, and sometimes they go to war with each other. So long as their petty quarrels do not affect him, Omega does not care. Forces of Omegadrones patrol the skies over the Annihilists’ fortresses, a constant reminder not to take their “games” too far.

The Doom-Coil

The Doom-Coil itself is located inside the planet’s hollow shell. It’s massive enough on its own, but it also has the reality-distorting mass of a thousand collapsed universes within it. There are only two entrances into the Doom-Coil. One is the energy port where the Terminus Stream flows—impassible to any vulnerable to the Stream’s devastating power. The other is the Silent Stair, which descends for miles from Omega’s personal quarters. The Doom-Coil is destruction incarnate. It cannot be harmed, and merely looking into its depths is enough for most to give in to despair, hopelessness, and their darkest impulses. The GM should set a Will save DC to resist this, as suits the story, since the whole of the Doom-Coil is a powerful plot device. The Doom-Coil is constantly searching, reaching, for other universes to devour. When it finds a candidate, it seeks out its key world, the nexus of that dimension’s reality (typically a planet rich in superhuman power sources). Once it’s discovered, Omega and his Final Armada are dispatched to capture it. The conquered world is converted into a focus for the Doom-Coil. When the focus is activated, the Doom-Coil directs the Terminus Stream into that universe and sucks it in like a man drinking through a straw, until that universe collapses and is devoured. Deep within the Coil is the Throne, who is slowly, millimeter by millimeter, fighting his way into the heart of the machine, struggling against forces beyond imagination. One day, the Furions say, the Throne will reach the heart, and the final battle will begin.

The Hundred Worlds

Beyond the Doom-Coil are the Hundred Worlds, the scattered surviving planets of diverse universes consumed by the Doom-Coil. Seeing that they have their uses, Omega permits them to exist as chattel. On these worlds, there are factories and farms to serve the ever-expanding appetites of Nihilhor, the gladiator world-pit of the Mixed Murder Arts, where elite soldiers from conquered worlds fight to the death for the “honor” of becoming Omegadrones. Some worlds claim independence, but they are so dependent on Omega for “protection” from raiders that they may as well be slaves. There are, however, pockets of freedom within the Hundred Worlds. One is the World-Library of Tomen the Archivist, keeper of the SourceBook, and the only Alphian not defeated by Omega. Another is the Shadow World of the sorcerer Taarvon the Undying, as grim a place as Nihilhor. The one great bastion is the Shining World of the Furions, which maintains its freedom by use of the Liberty Shield (which shuts down any Omegadrone that approaches it) and a planetary teleporter that can shift its position within the Terminus.

The Warpwold

Beyond the Hundred Worlds is the Warpwold, also called the Outer Terminus. This is a debris field left by the Terminus Stream, full of asteroids, strange energies, and the lost artifacts and frozen exiles of devoured universes. Few creatures live in this vast wasteland. There are the Frozen Men, telepaths whose bodies are trapped in the icy grip of space, but whose minds remain active; they scheme to take the bodies of the living. Some, called Woldsmiths, telekinetically alter asteroids to form the bodies of giants, and then use them to navigate the void. Some derelict ships contain the bodies of survivors (though Omega’s proles constantly scour them for useful parts). The Warpwold is also home to a fleet of refugees called the High-Exiles; these alien nobles and highborn managed to survive the destruction of their universes and have banded together to get revenge on every inhabitant of the Terminus; Omega, Furions, and Shadowbane alike. Omega refers to them as “barbarian rabble” and, despite the arrogance of the name, he’s not wrong. They are a mesh of a thousand cultures that have descended into barbarism, following whoever’s strong enough to hold the fleet together (otherwise they turn on each other). The Warpwold has another unusual property: it’s permeated by a purple gas, also called warpwold, that can be shaped into any form by the will of the people who traverse it. This is treated like the Create Object power (M&M, page 80), but anyone in the Warpwold can use it at a rank equal to the character’s Wisdom modifier or power level (whichever is less). This effect allows people to survive in the Warpwold by making what they need virtually out of nothing. In all other respects, the Warpwold is a terrible place. The long-term effects on the mind are not pretty; those who spend more than a week in the Warpwold feel frayed, like someone chronically overworked without sleep. It’s easy for people to get on each other’s nerves out on the edges of reality. The effects intensify for about a year before people adjust to them; those who survive that year are still irritable, callous, and paranoid toward outsiders, inclined towards violence and barbaric behavior.

The Ravel

Beyond the Warpwold is the Ravel, where existence frays into loose, threadbare strands. Nothing exists out in the Ravel. It is an uninhabited void between dimensions, extending out forever, so far as anyone knows. The Ravel isn’t an escape from the Terminus, however, unless one considers endless nothingness and darkness an escape. Some have been known to succumb to despair in the Warpwold and set course out into the Ravel. They are never heard from again. The Ravel is intertwined with the Cosmic Coil, the space between dimensions traversed by mystics. Some say the Cosmic Coil was created to grapple with the Ravel and keep it from extending into mystic dimensions to devour them. Terminus Tunnels also snake through the Ravel, skirting the edges of the dire dimension; a failed dimensional transition has been known to dump unwary travelers into the Warpwold rather than their intended destination.

Type

Dimensional plane