The Astral Plane lies at the outermost regions of its planisphere, connected innately with the Ethereal and Elemental planes, and it is known by a host of names that fail completely to understand its nature.
To understand the nature of the Astral Plane, one must understand its role as a subtle pull, the slow creep of small to great, the state of inertia yielding to force, of one force yielding to another, and one must understand that this role was conveyed across the multiverse as the call of power to power. A mind that grasps Astral energies is able to slowly pull on this gradient, and combine the energies within themselves.
Divinity
When the planes converged, the empty Astral state radiated its own Rays across the multiverse, catalysing the slow coalescence of complex energies that would one day become Divine.
A seed of emotion, a seed of life, a seed of spirit, any little piece of power that can draw in a little Astral power is able to pull energies into itself, and any energy that is able to do so for long enough will begin to manifest, as thoughts and emotions pool within, as souls are drawn to it, as the material world yields to its pull, and as it does, it begins to understand how to draw those powers consciously. Once it has learned how to draw power, it can learn how to wield power, and in doing so becomes a deity.
Any concept that is given enough care, thought and sacrifice can become a Divinity, from an honoured ancestor to the village protector spirit, from an interpretation of the Moon to the personification of the warm hearth.
By expending the energy they have gathered to themselves, a Divinity can perform miracles, reshaping the world and wielding the powers of the multiverse, but in doing so, expend that energy, leaving themselves that much weaker. Deities that take too active a role in the world risk being challenged by other Divinities, and not having the power to respond to more calculated threats to themselves or their worshipers. A Divinity without sufficient followers to provide energy lose themselves, and risk being undone completely.
Aspect
Once a Divinity has grasped the use of its powers, it is able to effect its own growth by drawing power from various sources, including the thoughts and feelings of mortalkind. By absorbing powers that are directed towards ends other than itself, the Divine begins to develop inconsistencies ( for example, one village may view the Sun as a male healer, while the next may view it as a female warrior) and this poses a risk to the Divine in question - the idea of the warrior still lives on within the healer, and as the worship of the warrior grows, it may well become strong enough to break free, and become a Divinity in its own right, subsuming all the energy that went into making it.
These disparate personalities are called Aspects, and unless the Divinity can keep ahead of the burgeoning Aspect, it risks significant injury and the manifestation of a direct rival. By converting, destroying, or dispersing the opposing Aspect's following, a Divinity can avoid calamity, but risks the same at the hands of the opposing Aspect's followers. By absorbing the Aspect as one facet of their own manifestation however, the Divinity diversifies, and gains the strength of both. Thus, the more ancient and powerful deities have been known by many names, by different peoples, having subsumed and incorporated the worship of other Aspects.
Celestials
A creature shaped by a Divinity around an Astral seed, a Celestial could take any form. Though they are almost always subservient to the Divine that created them, this is not an inexorable fact of their being, it is a choice that the creature has made to honour their creator. A Celestial could in theory turn on their creator, betray them to their enemies, kill their followers, or even usurp their Divinity.
Examples of Celestials might include unicorns, supernatural animals and servants, angels, couatls, ki-rins, pegasi and more.
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