1. Chapter 1: Brief historical overview of theoretical metacosmology up to the current astromantic revolution.
Although even the most primitive ancient shamans were surely aware their powers came from someplace “other”, questions about the nature of such realms only began to be seriously asked in recent millennia, with the advent of organized wizardry. Conceptions of the multiverse – and our place within it – have varied greatly over that time, with several theoretical frameworks coming in and out of vogue.
1.1. Origins of the Great Wheel model of the multiverse. Early mages spent thousands of years debating whether “the gods” were literal beings or just personifications of a magical energy field like the Weave. The first attempt at a complete cosmological model to gain widespread acceptance was the Great Wheel, formulated in the wake of the first documented instances of planar travel. The discovery of Sigil, the City of Doors, put to rest any doubts that other inhabited planes of reality exist. Explorations of the vast, circular world – called The Outlands or, archaically, “Concordant Opposition” – inspired the circular conception of 16 philosophically-defined planes. Eventually, a separate spherical model was added on, as a way of explaining the elemental nature of physical reality.
1.2. The World Tree model. For some reason, scholars decided for a time that a better way to understand the multiverse was as a giant tree, whose roots and branches connect the various planes of existence. Probably, the rise in acceptance of this model was related to the growth of elven arcane scholarship, as the undeniably tree-shaped planar conduit known as “Yggdrasil” has a root in the elven divine realm of Arvandor , on the plane of Arborea.
1.3. The World Axis. This model is a prime example of what can happen when an entire field becomes obsessed with the “elegance” and “simplicity” of their theories, and begins prioritizing them over such trivialities as “testability” and “evidence”. For a time, the community decided to adopt a materiocentric view of the multiverse with a sea of “good” planes floating above and the Elemental Planes simplified into a chaotic sea below, with “bad” planes floating therein. In its arrogance, the scholarly community took it upon itself to redefine all gods into a single, “orderly” pantheon, insisting that many diverse deities were, in fact, all the same, or had never existed. This worldview even proposed to rewrite the rules of morality itself, stating that Chaos is the extreme of Evil, and Law is the extreme of Good. Needless to say, modern wizards tend to pretend the World Axis model never existed, and hope the rest of the world forgets it.
1.4. Most recently, a consensus has reemerged in favor of the Great Wheel model, with some modifications to account for newer discoveries. The current prevailing opinion holds that the Great Wheel theory, for all its complexity, was a much better fit to observations than all subsequent alternative theories. After millennia of wrong thinking about the Transitive Planes, the Astral and Ethereal have been restored to essentially their original hyperspatial conceptualities. The Feywild and Shadowfell have been added to the model, as the Material Echoes are relatively recent discoveries, and the Inner Planes now comprise only the Elemental Planes, reflecting a more modern understanding of the relationships of the Positive and Negative Planes to the rest of the multiverse.
1.5. The development of astromancy revolutionized metacosmology by shifting the focus back to the Material Plane. The discovery 500 years ago that Sage Mordenkainen’s controversial Manifesto of Balance had, in fact, originated on another world led to a realization that the sky of our home plane could hold its own secrets. Information and, occasionally individuals, have translocated via Outer Planar conduits to and from worlds including Oerth, Aebir-Toril, Exandria, etc., but it was the invention of telescrying that enabled them to be understood as physical, Material spheres. More recently, the discovery of tithonism – and subsequent development of tithonography – unlocked the study of the extramaterial realms in their Material context, via telescry detection of transdimensional tithonic ray leakage.
2. Chapter 2: Methods
2.1. Fabrication of sciamultiplier array
- 2.1.1. Prepare tithonic substrate material. Create a thoroughly homogenous mixture of 499 parts diamond, 500 parts volcanic basaltic glass , and 1 part ruby, either by liquifying all three materials using Transmute Rock or similar magicks, or by incomplete atomization via controlled usage of Disintegrate (the recommended method).
- 2.1.2. Fabricate inscribed tithonic multiplier plates. Using the Fabricate spell, transmute the previously-prepared tithonic substrate into 23 panels of 2ft. x 2ft. x 0.00164ft., taking care to form the exact patterns of tithonic inscription as presented in the Figures. Note that skill in fine craftwork, such as jewelcraft, is nearly essential to ensuring correct reproduction of the panel inscriptions.
- 2.1.3. Prepare liquid metal parabolic reflector. Circular dish, 3ft diameter and 6 inches deep, that can be filled with 1 inch of a liquid metal such as quicksilver, or a eutectic alloy of gallium, indium, and tin, and that is able to be lifted by a Floating Disk spell.
2.2. Assembly of tithonographic scintillator apparatus
- 2.2.1. Mount the 23 tithonic multiplier plates in the appropriate order (see Fig.). If device will be attached to an azimuthal telescrying telescope, horizontally position the plates, evenly spaced to form a precise 2 ft cube. Otherwise, the angles of the plates must be adjusted – rotating around the “bottom” edges so as to maintain their positioning. The lowermost plate must remain parallel to the floor, the uppermost must be normal to the incident angle of the incoming tithonic rays, and the plates between must form a smooth curve to guide the rays toward the perpendicular.
- 2.2.2. Install the array adjacent to the objective of your telescope, with room beneath for the Floating Disk. If possible, adjust the position and/or angle of your telescope’s telescrying objective orb such that all of the tithonic plates will be as nearly parallel to the Floating Disk as possible.
- 2.2.3. Orient the telescope toward the island universe MGC1762. See the accompanying star chart for precise coordinates in the night sky. This distant object is located near the center of the Na’aru constellation, and is not typically visible to the elf eye unaided.
- 2.2.4. Activate parabolic reflector. Levitate the dish of liquid metal upon a Floating Disk to just below the lowermost plate of the tithonic multiplier array, and begin rotating the Disk at a slow but even rate. Gradually, and smoothly, increase the rate of rotation until the edge of the liquid metal is nearly even with the rim of the dish, then maintain this rate of rotation until the completion of observations.
- 2.2.5. Utilize language comprehension spells to interpret the three-dimensional patterns of light and darkness that will begin appearing within the tithonic array. This is the “voice” of the noctilucine solar.
2.3. Construction of transmitter
- 2.3.1. Fired clay pyramid (hollow)
- 2.3.2. Wound around with 117,348 turns of pure copper wire
- 2.3.3. Combining Tongues and Sending spells, communicate as with the image displayed within the tithonographic array.
Respect and humility are strongly recommended.
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