Integral Origin

From The Hidden Room

Template:Apparatus Integrum

Overview

The Integrum is the central aspect of the setting. It is where most games are played and where most characters are from. It is the closest to the "natural world", in that The Integrum is where natural laws are intuitive and predictable.

The Integrum was created by the Creators using The Apparatus during The First Age. As a cosmological force, The Integrum is opposed to Fury, Strange, and Void. Fury was conquered by the Creators and is used as fuel for The Apparatus. Strange is only possible when The Apparatus malfunctions. Void is opposed to all of forces in the setting.

Physically, The Integrum is composed of a planetary sphere contained within a hollow outer sphere. The surface of interior sphere is where the continents that are the mortal realms are located. The inner surface of the outer sphere is where the divine realms are located. Between the mortal realms and divine realms is the Astral Sky.

Laws of Nature

Gravity

Gravity in the real world is the attraction of massive bodies in an inverse square relationship. However, in The Integrum, massive bodies are not attracted to other massive bodies. Instead, there is a gravitational plane of attraction that all massive bodies are drawn toward. Bodies are only attracted to the single, nearest gravitational plane. The strength of the attraction is still governed by something akin to the mass of the substance, such that heavy objects (like stones) are more strongly attracted than light objects (like clouds). Magic can alter these properties, to make a stone lighter than a cloud, for example.

Luminescence

Unlike the real world, where darkness is experienced as the absence of radiated or reflected light, in The Integrum both darkness and light are radiated and reflected. This means that in The Integrum, if there is no darkness and no light, the natural state of luminescence is experienced as a dim twilight where things appear muted, monochrome, and indistinct, but are still visible.

Temperature

Unlike the real world, where cold is experienced as the absence of kinetically excited particles (heat), in The Integrum both cold and heat are radiated energies. This means that in The Integrum, if there is no cold or heat, the natural state of temperature is experienced as something akin to "room temperature", which is a temperature that is not noticeable to most creatures.

Life and Death

In the real world, life and death have a somewhat blurry boundary involving the function of the living cells of an organism, and how reversible non-functioning of those cells is. In The Integrum, however, there are no living cells. Instead, there is a force, called life, which binds a spirit to a vessel.

Spirit and Vessels

The spirit in this context is a combination of mind (instinct, memory, reason, sleep) and energy (light, dark, cold, heat, life, death) which combine to provide a motivating agency. The vessel in this context is a combination of physical substances (marrow, stone, water, wind, wood) that is designed to be motivated by a spirit. This applies to everything in the natural world of The Integrum, including nor humans (largely reason and marrow), animals (largely instinct and marrow), plants (largely memory and wood), and even rocks (largely sleep and stone).

Death, in contrast, is the force which pulls spirits away from vessels. This can manifest in a number of ways, and varies from vessel to vessel. In creatures of marrow, it could be disease, old age, or violent trauma. In rocks it could be rust or erosion. The result is the same, when the forces of death overcome the forces of life, the spirit separates from the vessel, and the vessel is broken down according to laws of The Integrum into new shapes. Marrow decays, wood withers, water evaporates, wind stills and condenses, and rock breaks apart. These new shapes get new motivating spirits, and the cycle continues. In very long observations of time, the forces of life and death describe entire ecosystems of substance transformations - wind may condense into rain to become water, water may evaporate to become wind, stone may break down into soil to become wood, wood may be eaten to become flesh, flesh may decay to become stone.

Life and death magic, such as that of heralds, can influence this to-and-fro. Life magic can heal wounds, cure disease, and even repair wood, metal, and stone. All of these strengthen the bond between spirit and vessel. Death magic can cause wounds, inflict disease, and even wither wood, rust metal, and erode stone. All of these weaken the bond between spirit and vessel.

Death and Souls

To understand the true boundary between life and death, however, we must examine when the magics of life and death are effective. When a vessel first dies, if its spirit does not reside within a mortal soul, it is immediately and irreversibly moved to its next stage in the life-death cycle of transformation. Life and death magic cannot affect something that is already dead unless its spirit resides within a mortal soul.

If a vessel has a spirit inside of a mortal soul, then when it first dies, the soul is considered to be in a "resting dead" state. Note that these processes only affected Integral mortal souls. Strange and Fury creatures follow other laws when they are destroyed. In this resting dead state, the Integral soul is still present, within or invisible near the vessel. The soul can no longer animate the vessel, but the attachment delays the the decay of the vessel into its death transformation.

Souls remain in a resting dead state for an amount of time dependent on the nature of the soul. Most souls remain resting dead for a day, but this can be longer if the soul was very powerful or has some compelling will to live (like unfinished business). When the resting dead soul leaves its resting dead state, it usually enters the fully dead state. This is when the vessel begins to decay, and the soul is no longer in the vicinity of the vessel (it is either in The Conduit or The Crucible).

While in the resting dead state, many other outcomes are possible through magic. Life magic can keep the spirit tethered to the vessel, delaying the progression of the resting dead spirit to the fully dead or the restless dead states. Sufficiently powerful life heraldry can even reconnect the resting dead soul to the vessel, returning it to life. Death heraldry can force the soul into The Conduit, forcing it to become fully dead.

While the soul is fully dead, only incredibly powerful life magics can bring it back. The longer it is fully dead, the more powerful life magic is required. Eventually the fully dead soul is simply lost to the reincarnation cycle, and no life magic can restore it.

Undeath

Sometimes when a soul leaves the resting dead state, it does not go to a fully dead state as normal. The longer a soul remains in a resting dead state, the more likely it will enter a restless dead state instead, also called undeath. More powerful souls or souls with a strong will to persist (such as unfinished business) are more likely to become undead, since they stay in the resting dead state longer. Sufficiently powerful death magic can also force a soul into an undead state, though this is generally considered a violation of the grand design by servitors and gods of death.

While undead, the soul is able to animate the vessel once again. However the binding properties of life and death are reversed with an undead soul. Death actually binds the undead soul to the vessel and life pulls the soul away from the vessel. This means that for the undead, death magic will heal their wounds and ailments while life magic will cause wounds and ailments.

Usually the vessel begins to decay when the soul becomes undead, though this decay can be delayed or reversed if the undead soul feeds on the life energy of other creatures with souls. If the vessel decays sufficiently, the undead soul becomes detached from it, but still remains an insubstantial entity, like a ghost or phantom. Some such creatures are able to affect the world even while insubstantial, while others are able to possess other dead vessels to interact with the world.

Undead vessels can be destroyed in the usual ways, with trauma or with life magic, but the undead soul lives on. Only sufficiently powerful life or death magic is able to permanently send an undead soul to a fully dead state. The more powerful the undead soul, the more powerful the magic is required to send it permanently into death.

Language

In the real world, languages are learned by way of exposure, both during critical development stages (when language are learned most easily) as well as throughout life (when languages are harder to learn). In The Integrum, however, language is inherent known through the Grand Design of the Codex and the mental aspects of spirit.

The result of this is that all creatures of The Integrum are born with a basic understanding of a lingua franca, called tradespeak. Animals and babies are not fluent in the language not because they do not understand it, but because they are not intelligent enough to use it well. There are still individual languages among mortals of The Integrum. These develop culturally among populations of mortals, sometimes diverging from tradespeak and other times created entirely new by its speakers.

History

Realms

Creatures

  • Mortals
    • Sahf: Natives of Keshvar
    • Fey: Natives of Pelithos
    • Nor: Natives of Acrolon
    • Ruk: Natives of Tonwei Unchained
    • Scions: Natives of Anahuac Archipelago
  • Telar: Plants and animals of The Integrum

More at Creatures

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