The Metastructure

The 'Metastructure' is the broader cosmology of the world of Ten Sword Tales. The titular Ten Sword Isles exist in a physical layer of reality, but this does not make it the only physical reality that people and other creatures can exist in. More over, the existence of the Do entities, enablign the use of magic through the process of their cultivaiton, entails the existence of one or more unseen metapyhsical realms.

Geography

The Metastructure is a world-tree cosmology, albeit one that grows and branches both above and below the material plane. The overall shape of the cosmos is spherical, with the highest and lowest extents tapering down so that the most potent heavens and most punishing hells are much smaller places than the realms in which mortals, gods, daemons, and other creatures that live and breathe reside. Moreover, this sphericality also extends into the higher dimensions; the closer one approaches the apotheosis of their cosmological alignment, the close one finds oneself to the do entities and their own spiritual self - for better or for worse.
Undergirding all material realms are matching spiritual realms that coexist with, but have little direct interaction with, the material realms. In other words, the structure of the cosmos extends even into the so-called 'spiritual plane.' If a creature has a soul, that soul 'rides' within its physical body's location on the adjacent spiritual plane. Moreover, there are places, objects, and even concepts that have a strong enough psycho-spiritual presence that they, too, have a distinct form in the spiritual plane; this is the source of power from which many kami and yokai have evolved over the eons. One's presence in the spiritual plane is directly tied to one's impact in the temporal world, but also to one's level of Do Cultivation and, more indirectly, the strength of one's ties to entities with a large spiritual presence (i.e. religious practitioners).
The physical layer of the Metastructure can be broadly classified into five 'altitude' bands. Though the other parts of the Metastructure are physical in nature and can be traversed physically should one opt not to use magic, they are not always visible from within one another unless one is in a 'nexus' between them. In order from highest to lowest, these bands are:

• Canopy of Dreaming Heavens (World Canopy): The Canopy of Dreaming Heavens, or World Canopy, is the abode of the beneficent kami and the souls of righteous tied to their service in the celestial bureaucracy. A starry, brightly-lit realms, the World Canopy is a place in which the structure of reality seems to flow and shift in response to spiritual pressure, leading some to believe that it is where people's spirits touch in the course of vivid dreams. The World Canopy is timeless, mildy good dominant, and divinely morphic.
  Pockets of the World Canopy that descend down to brush the lower bands - known as the World Vines - can brush the psyches of sleeping creatures and mages using certain types of divinatory magic. These places tend to be highly (mentally) morphic) and mildly chaotic in alignment, though those associated with lucid dreaming tend to be mildly lawful-aligned instead. The aurorae that flow above the World Canopy are the bands of positive energy from which spirits are created and are highly (mentally) morphic and strongly positive-dominant).


• Branching Limbs of Ascension (World Branches): The Branching Limbs of Ascension, or World Branches, are a collection of branching cosomological structures that connect the 'upper realms' to one another and the Material World (see below). By physically traversing the World Branches or mentally 'tracing' them through the power of magic, a traveller may find themselves in one of several small pocket dimensions or, with persistent progress upwards, may eventually reach the Canopy of Dreaming Heavens (see above). The World Branches converge into a single 'trunk' that may be accessed for climbing in the Material World at the peak of Sky Mountain in the central island of the Ten Sword Isles.
  The terrain of the World Branches has a natural, if woody, appearance with one major distinction: gravity is subjective, pulling those who would traverse the World Branches down towards the curving 'trunk' and 'limbs' of this realm rather than back towards the Material World. The region surrounding the World Branches is air-dominant and appears to be a celestial void, complete with day and night cycles, a moon, swirling clouds, and a starscape that emerges as night falls. Time among the world-branches proceeds at half speed relative to the Material World. The World Branches are divinely morphic.
  
• Blooms of Possibility: - Branches of the Branching Limbs of Ascension sometimes terminate in small demiplanes that can have a variety of unusual features. Some of these demiplanes may even represent passages to alternate multiverses and lie outside the scope of the Ten Sword Tales setting. Where these demiplanes brush up against the Material World, it is sometimes possible to traverse into the World Branches without having to travel to Sky Mountain.


• Material World (Reality): The Material World, or simply Reality, is the physical world as naive residents of the Ten Sword Isles understand it. Reality has normal time, is alterably morphic, has no alignment, elemental, or energy traits, and pretty much conforms to human intuition with regards to how the physics there functions. Scholars and those who practice do cultivation in any of its many forms quickly come to understand that there is more to the world than meets the eye, but, should they choose not to delve too deeply into the lore of the cosmos, can generally live full and normal lives in the Material World.



• Veins of Sleeping Stone (World Roots): The Veins of Sleeping Stone, or the World Roots, are a vast network of caves that connect the Material world to the realms below it. From myriad lava tubes found beneath outlying prominences of Ten Sword Isles, including underwater entrances, travellers can physically move through the stony underworld to find caches of the raw materials from which reality itself was forged. Gravity is subjective here, pulling travellers out towards the nearest cavern wall. Time flows at half speed relative to the Material World, and the terrain is divinely morphic. These cosmic caverns are earth-dominant, but may be fire-dominant in magma pockets or water-dominant in regions with aquifers or hot springs. By travelling to the deepest points in the World Roots, a traveller may eventually make their way to the Abysm of Dark Nightmare (see below).
  
  
• Caves of Night: - Branches of the Veins of Sleeping Stone sometimes terminate in small demiplanes that can have a variety of unusual features. Some of these demiplanes may even represent passages to alternate multiverses and lie outside the scope of the Ten Sword Tales setting. Where these caves come near the surface, it may be possible to physically access the World Roots without having to travel to the edges of the known Material World.

Abysm of Dark Nightmare (World Cellar): The Abysm of Dark Nightmare, or World Cellar, is a vast, dark cavern that houses the spirits of the forgotten, evil daemons, and, in the deaper reaches, the souls of the damned. Swirling eddies of fog pervade the air, the mucky cavern floor is traced with slow-moving rivers of dark water, and scraggly, unhealthy-looking plants reach up to ensare the unwary. The World Cellar is timeless, mildly evil-aligned, and divinely morphic.
The World Cellar is anchored into the deeper bowels of the cosmos by a network of pits that descend into even further regions where the forgotten spirits of the wicked find their final destruction. These pits tend to be strongly evil-aligned and weakly negative-dominant. The deepest reaches of these pits are strongly negative-dominant crevices that suck in the spirits of the wicked and sometimes disgorge incorporeal undead. Some lava tubes extend upwards towards the Material World and can have an influence on the minds of dreamers and those using certain kinds of divination magic; these pockets tend to be highly morphic and mildly chaotic-dominant, though some associated with sleep paralysis or dreams of being ineffectual against a looming threat are lawful-dominant.

History

The Metastructure was forged in deep pre-history before the existence of any creatures that could exist beyond the spiritual plane. An island of stability was instantiated atop the primordial sea of cosmic possibility, creating the world-stuff into which the World Roots were excavated for their raw materials. The sucking void created from where most minerals were pulled became the World Cellar, and that place still holds a pocket of the roiling primordial sea unto this very day. From here, the World Branches took root and grew up into the starry heavens, eventually terminating with the World Canopy where it brushed against the currents of primordial vital essences that make up the aurorae. Thus connected, the aurorae rushed down from the heavens to fill every realm with life, first filling the spiritual realm with do entites before nucleating the surrounding worldstuff into the first physical organisms to which those entities become bound. It was so, then, that the world of the Ten Swords was formed.

Type

Multiverse

Included Locations

• Ten Sword Isles