Myriad

The Myriad is the vast world that resides outside the realm of reality, away from the sentient races of Aanar’ Barl and indeed the rest of the World. The Realm of the Divine as it is sometimes known is Heaven, Purgatory and Hell in one screaming perplexity of twisting, paradoxical tunnels, caves, passageways and corridors. Incomprehensibly huge and baffling beyond the human mind, the Myriad is where every conceivable Deity and mythical creature resides be them inherently good or malevolently cruel. It is speculated by some of the most superior or most controversial minds in the World that we are indeed the imagination of the Gods and the Gods are made in turn via our imagination. Symbiotic, created at exactly the same time on either side of the reality. Both are reality and both are dream-like. This is mere speculation but it is well known that the Gods, given enough power, can pass through the barrier of reality and travel between the Myriad and the ‘real’ world. Mortal beings are incapable of generating enough power to do this. Mortals can communicate with the Gods or God-like beings in other ways. Through dreams and nightmares, neuroses of the mind and extreme dementia and madness can bring about a certain susceptibility to conversing with the beings of the Myriad. Inebriation and being rendered in a narcotic, hallucinogenic stupor has been known to bare the fruit of the mighty ones too.

The Myriad itself is impossible to quantify for two reasons. The first reason being that no sentient being has ever been able, in the current history of the world to travel to the Myriad, never mind measure its breadth and secondly, even if a sentient being was able to cross the barrier, actually measuring the Myriad’s size has been said to take a million lifetimes if not an indefinite task without completion. Having said that, the Myriad is known to contain large chasm like cave districts that swirl and sweep with mind altering rock formations, dark pathways lead off to unknown places. Seemingly man made, cavernous corridor districts much like that of castle walls stretch up and up with staircases, drawbridges and gravity defying buildings that lead to thousands more pathways to the unknown. For every path that can be taken there is a ‘room’, every single one of these rooms are as vast if not more immeasurable than the Myriad itself. These rooms are the abodes of Gods. These abodes usually embody what that God represents and stands for intrinsically. For example, the Earth Mother, Erga, resides in Elysia, a ‘room’ that stretches out into lush farmland plains that cannot ever be traversed fully. As far as the eye can see is plant life and rural township. In comparison, the Almighty God of Man, the Magnata, resides in a huge Castle City known as Firmament that bristles with holy energy produced by the omnipotent being on his throne or Atla, Aero and Quarr, the triplet Gods of the Centaurs, are inherent in the ‘Schismatic Plates’, A gigantic world split thrice to divide the three Gods territories as equally as possible, although the three are always at war with one another over ownership of reality and divinity. The scope for any world potentially created by these celestial beings is endless and is too, unquantifiable.

When a sentient being dies, they are transported to Jiriman the Undying Judger. He weighs up their life and sets them on their way through the Myriad. He either gives them correct directions or directions to the wrong room depending on his judgment. If the judged is given the right directions then he or she will eventually, following an arduous journey through the Myriad, reach the room they are looking for where they will be accepted into their patron Gods room/world with open arms for all eternity. Comparatively, if the being is given the wrong directions then the arduous task still must be undertaken to reach the room. But upon getting there they are transformed into what is known as a Darkling.

The Darkling are little more than husks of their former selves, creatures bent on devouring the souls of the recently deceased that, like they did too, are making the journey to either the right or wrong room. The Darkling are a mostly featureless version of themselves in life apart from all black eyes and a large needle toothed maw, completely naked but without discerning genitalia or bodily markings. The Darkling have two choices at this stage. The vast majority of them will forever eke out an existence in the endless caverns and corridors of the Myriad, preying on the souls of the deceased. For the few that manage to keep some of their selves within the greatly emptied shell, there is only one hope of salvation. Large pilgrimages of Darkling start to encircle the rooms of the Dark Gods, those Gods that embody evil and disdain, hopelessness and brutality. The smirking Gods are only too happy to accept more adoration for their dark and evil scheming. Thus the armies of the Dark Lords bulge and eternally grow in size with the powerful redeemed Darkling.

The Myriad is a strange, bizarre but altogether celestial ecosystem of good and evil. It houses our very thoughts, dreams and ambitions as well as our most feared nightmares. We must value it and realize that it is because of this wonderful, unseen world that we exist and it is because of this unbalanced world that we live in that both the Realm of the Divine and the many Gods that inhabit the Realm are made possible to exist.

Penned in due haste by means of scribe on the deathbed of,

Head Theologian, Diamond Mage - Sovereignus Malavore

5660PW