On Dimensional Lords and the Multiverse

tenebrisnox

Hey everyone, I'll try to be brief. Recently I've been bouncing ideas in my head for a character that's meant to be an interdimensional villain. Current line of thought is that I'd like him to be a Lord of Artifice, obsessed with the concepts of Art and Creation to the point where he has little to no comprehension of human morality and sees human civilization as woefully lacking in creative potential. His attempts to "enlighten" mankind to the true purpose of life (creation in all its facets) naturally lead him into conflict with resident superheroes.

With that said while I'm not completely unfamiliar with the setting nor its multiverse, I do have a few questions:

• Can a regular human become a Lord of Artifice? Does being a Lord of X concept (pertaining to the four cosmic abstractions that are the domain of the prime avatars) require the person to already be a dimensional lord? I know Skarn the Shaper came about from the fusion between a Lord of Art, a Lord of Nature and the "original" Skarn but are there details on how one achieves the status of Lord of X? Does it involve directly dealing with the Zoa of that particular concept?
• Does the Ban influence dimensional entities not born of human thought (i.e., not belonging to the Parterres)? Would a dimensional lord be able to manifest in Earth freely without any particular hindrance (save perhaps for lesser levels of magic than other dimensions)?
• Is there precedent of Netzachic dimensional lords traveling to other dimensions? Is their power directly tied to their home dimension?
• Does each Assiatic dimension have its own set of Parterres (i.e., does Babylon represent the full breadth of human culture across all dimensions where humans exist or does each Earth have its own respective Babylon and remaining Parterres)? If, for example, a Multifarian mage were to deal with demons, would those demons originate from the same Netherworld as that of the main universe?

bulgarex

@tenebrisnox, I'm going to take this post to briefly run through a bit about the Champions Multiverse for readers who have no idea what the frack we're discussing. It sounds like you have a pretty good grasp of the concepts, so if you'd like to skip ahead to the next post, I'll address your specific questions there.

The Champions Multiverse includes an infinite variety of "dimensions" or "planes," some very like our own universe, others radically different. There are, for example, countless alternate versions of Earth's universe, each with an Earth differing from each other in lesser or greater ways. Universes like ours are referred to by mystics as in "Assiah" or "Assiatic" (the plan of the Champs Multiverse borrows from Kabbalah). In the Astral Plane near Earth are several dimensions which coalesced out of the collective imagination and belief of the human race, comprising all the Heavens, Hells, and mythic worlds humanity has conceived of, with all their attendant gods, demons, spirits, elves, etc. Collectively these dimensions are referred to as "the Parterres," the "Imaginal Realms," or Earth's "Inner Planes." But beyond these are "Outer Planes" which have no direct connection to humanity, often with their own distinctive inhabitants. Some of these have rulers of varying power, referred to as "Dimension Lords." Outer Planes with Dimension Lords are characterized as part of "Netzach."

As one gets "higher" in the Outer Planes, one reaches dimensions of pure concept, whose inhabitants embody those concepts in various ways. The greatest of these, which are the fundamental concepts underlying Reality, are the Four Zoas: Order, Chaos, Nature, and Artifice. (If that sounds familiar you've probably read the poetry of William Blake, another inspiration for the Champs Multiverse.) Each is populated with many varieties of spirit beings, but more powerful and unique ones are referred to as Lords of Order/Nature etc. Some of these Lords are dimension lords themselves.

This is a greatly simplified version of information mostly covered in the PnP Champions source book, The Mystic World; with more elaboration of the Multiverse in Book Of The Empress.

bulgarex

Now tenebrisnox, let's get to your questions in order.

To date there's been no story of a human who became a Lord of any of the Zoas. They all appear to be spirits embodying their respective concepts in one way or another, without any sort of mortal past. The example of Skarn the Shaper that you cite (a master villain and dimensional conqueror written up in Champions Villains Vol. 1) suggests that it's at least possible. Certainly mortal beings can become dimension lords -- more than one is mentioned in the lore (more on dimensions lords below). It's also established that mortals with sufficient knowledge and enlightenment can rise to the higher planes, thereby achieving an even more elevated status and greater power. I feel quite confident the writers of the PnP game would say that if a mortal becoming a Lord of a Zoa would make for a good story that a player wants for their character, there's no bar to it.

The Ban has no effect on supernatural entities not spawned from human imagination. (The Ban is a metaphysical barrier blocking god-level beings of human belief from manifesting on Earth with their full power -- although there are work-arounds.) Dimension lords needn't be concerned by it. However, there are dimension lords, and then there are dimension lords. Some of them have no more personal power than many mortal Earthly superhumans; but may command great resources in followers and magical artifacts in their home dimensions. The Lord of Order named Bromion (Champions Villains Vol. 3) falls in that category. Other dimension lords have tremendous personal power, often tied to their home dimensions in some way. Perhaps they are one with the essence of their dimension, or are worshiped as a god by their dimension's inhabitants, which adds to their power. Such lords may lack some of their powers in other universes (like Skarn), or gradually weaken and sicken when away from their domains (such as Tyrannon the Conqueror, also in CV Vol. 1). They may be able to overcome that limitation if they can gather enough worshipers on a new world, or plant an anchoring artifact there, or magically change the nature of another dimension so they can remain in it.

As mentioned above, some dimension lords do have at least some of their power tied to their home dimension; but that doesn't bar them from journeying to others. The more aggressive dimensional conquerors like Skarn and Tyrannon do this frequently, or send their subordinates in their place. In fact, in the past Skarn invaded the Parterres of Champions Earth, and defeated the war gods of several pantheons in personal combat. (That's another point -- the magic wielded by Earth's gods has no effect on godlike entities from the Outer Planes, while the latter can use their own magic against the gods without restraint.)

Book Of The Empress asserts that there is a practically infinite number of alternate Earths, some very similar to Champions Earth. A few other universes have innumerable alternates, such as V'ha, the home universe of Istvatha V'han. That book also points out that other worlds and species, both in other universes and on alien worlds in our own, can have their own versions of the Parterres, depending on the beliefs of their inhabitants. Although not explicitly stated, the strong implication is that every alternate Earth may have its own version of Babylon, the Netherworld, etc. with indigenous inhabitants, if the history, culture, and magical conditions of that world are amenable to it.

Whew! That was probably as much to take in as it was to lay out. You're welcome to pursue this topic more after you've digested all the above.

tenebrisnox

Thank you so much! That answer was definitely what I was looking for (especially in terms of power levels, I wanted the character to be powerful but not overwhelmingly so). It's certainly a lot to digest but I feel like pretty much every doubt I had was addressed. I'll make sure to post here again if I happen to have any further questions. Thanks again for sating my curiosity!