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Question about the Cosmology of the Champions Universe
Archived Post
Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
...From the Mystic Viewpoint.
Now, I'm not an expert on the lore, but I consider myself pretty well-informed. One of the players in my RP guild, however, is fairly not informed, however, and wants to rectify this for nailing down the specifics of a character she is role-playing.
Her character is connected to storm spirits of some kind, perhaps an avatar of a storm god, or possibly a mutant that is self deceived and perceives the voices in her head as music, or personally tied to storm spirits, or none of these things... Our guild prefers to keep to canon Champions setting lore wherever possible, and even if this information never comes out in-character, it's important to her to try to connect her concept to fitting into the existing Lore.
I passed along some of the basic information about the Sephirothic tree of life, the Qliphoth, and the Quaternian [all from a specific characters' point of view, so skewed a bit perhaps by that characters personal beliefs].
Since then, my friend told me they have purchased and perused some of the PDFs available but can't find the relevant information that corroborates and further explains the information I had previously passed along.
Most of the books I own are from forth and fifth edition, and then supplemented with things I've learned from in-game lore here in CO and threads in this forum section as well as the CORP website [which seems to be gone, sadly]. After searching again, it seems most of the information on this I'd had in the past was from the now missing CORP website forums.
What is the best source for this specific cosmology with a clear explanation for how myth, magic and so on all fits together?
Could someone give a thumbnail explanation of the workings of the Sephirothic, the Qliphothic, and the Quaternian [and anything I might have missed that is also relevant]?
Specifically, explain how and why natural, divine and arcane magics have little use against Qliphothic entities.
Now, I'm not an expert on the lore, but I consider myself pretty well-informed. One of the players in my RP guild, however, is fairly not informed, however, and wants to rectify this for nailing down the specifics of a character she is role-playing.
Her character is connected to storm spirits of some kind, perhaps an avatar of a storm god, or possibly a mutant that is self deceived and perceives the voices in her head as music, or personally tied to storm spirits, or none of these things... Our guild prefers to keep to canon Champions setting lore wherever possible, and even if this information never comes out in-character, it's important to her to try to connect her concept to fitting into the existing Lore.
I passed along some of the basic information about the Sephirothic tree of life, the Qliphoth, and the Quaternian [all from a specific characters' point of view, so skewed a bit perhaps by that characters personal beliefs].
Since then, my friend told me they have purchased and perused some of the PDFs available but can't find the relevant information that corroborates and further explains the information I had previously passed along.
Most of the books I own are from forth and fifth edition, and then supplemented with things I've learned from in-game lore here in CO and threads in this forum section as well as the CORP website [which seems to be gone, sadly]. After searching again, it seems most of the information on this I'd had in the past was from the now missing CORP website forums.
What is the best source for this specific cosmology with a clear explanation for how myth, magic and so on all fits together?
Could someone give a thumbnail explanation of the workings of the Sephirothic, the Qliphothic, and the Quaternian [and anything I might have missed that is also relevant]?
Specifically, explain how and why natural, divine and arcane magics have little use against Qliphothic entities.
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As for a "thumbnail sketch" of the whole thing, if you own Champions Universe (Fifth or Sixth Edition), that includes a short section titled "Realms Beyond: Other Dimensions" which is a basic overview of what's out there, good enough for background for most players. Summarizing how the various elements interact can get complicated, and risks revealing too much of Cryptic's IP here on a public forum. If you have specific questions, though, we can probably give you useful answers.
For example, while I can't definitively explain why "natural" and "arcane" magic has little effect against Qliphothic entities (as these categories were defined by Cryptic Studios for the MMO for game purposes, and don't necessarily reflect magic traditions as used in the PnP game), The Mystic World does explain why divine magic powers would be largely ineffective. The "gods" of the Quarternion (aka "the Parterres" or "Imaginal Realms"), whether from mythology or the modern "ethical" religions, were created out of and are sustained by the collective imaginations of all humanity. Their powers are tied to the Inner Planes surrounding Earth, and don't directly affect beings originating from dimensions beyond those, which would include the Edomites and other creatures of the Qliphoth.
As for "natural" magic, just to hazard a guess, that might be explained for game purposes by the fact that the Qliphoth is a kind of dark reflection to the Sephirothic Tree of Life. Life and energy there is completely alien and antithetical to the comparable forces in our universe.
As I surmised, unfortunately neither of these two books are in my collection. [Past forth edition, I mainly purchased organization and NPC villain books to use in other P&P games]
Of course I understand about protecting the IP.
This was the point I needed mostly, essentially that the Qliphoth is antithetical to and a counterpoint to all natural life in the 'ordinary' multiverse, even the residents of the Netherworld planes [including classically evil hell dimensions] are at least a part of this world, the Qliphothic are not.
Note that the PDF of The Mystic World is currently available for only $9.50 US from the Hero Games website online store:
https://www.herogames.com/viewItem.htm?itemID=208418
Just so. The demons of the Netherworld are manifestations of human evil, so one can at least understand their motivations and how to negotiate with them. The creatures of the Qliphoth are totally alien.
I bought a copy of The Mystic World as PDF today and while I didn't read all of it yet, I gave it a good scan-through and read some parts completely already.
I already read the section about other dimensions in Champions Universe before, but while it gave a rough overview it was not really detailed enough for what I really looked, especially as Rune added some details that were not mentioned there and that totally confused me with just this overview
I really liked the details found in the Mystic World and I can definitely say that it was worth the money, as it was exactly what I was looking for. A good more detailed description of the world structure. Sure, as they always mention its just a look at it from one perspective and will never be perfect, so it adds a lot of options for characters to see it all a little differently, but it's a solid basis to start with to have some common ground based on the canon lore.
It's rather interesting that these dimensions are not necessarily linked to where or how powers come from that a character possesses, which was what I came to think about them. What I expected was a sort of distinction, like arcane beings live here and divine beings live there and so on, which is not really what one will find in the book. It's nice to see that they are more based on concepts than actual interpretations of power origins.
Also I dipped a little bit more into the question of the magic issue, but I found no actual reference that some power itself has less effect in that regards. What it comes down to in the book was more a distinction between entities coming from the outer planes or other dimensions, which are being treated differently than ones from inner planes or the material world and there only in reference to gods.
The only thing I found about some powers not working was a reference for as said gods (ie. powerful spirits somewhere with their home in the parterres) it's mentioned that as they are beings fuelled by the belief of humans and as such they cannot affect anything beyond the inner planes with the powers, but it seems only to be related to powers that are available because of such belief, it doesn't really say anything about raw strength or powers or magic from some other source than human belief.
Mortal mystics can indeed use their powers against such entities from outside planes, as these powers are not fuelled by belief. Thats at least mentioned in the spell Quaternion Banishment.
As for Qliphothic entities I didn't read up on that yet enough, mostly as it doesn't directly concern my character
There are often minor inconsistencies (and a very few large ones) between Champions PnP and Champions Online. Cryptic Studios and Hero Games make an effort to keep the two as consistent as possible; but the two types of games have different priorities and mechanics, which may not always translate smoothly between them.
But I'm glad you're finding The Mystic World interesting and useful.
Yes, I have found it now, but never got a notice by email..
I probably turned that off back when some idiot was spamming everyone on the list a few months back and every time someone replied to it, we all got spammed again.
Oh yes, that was fun. Heh.