Cosmological
Glossary
In the interests of making
things clear so that like, not everyone has to read
through my kind of...poetically written Creation Myth for
my setting, here are some important terms and their
meanings!
- The
Ordered Cosmos: The Universe itself. Beyond
which exists only The Dark (Chaos, Infinite
Possibility, The Primordial Void etc.,)
- The
World That Is: Everything that exists,
including the Dark and, perhaps, the universes
that lie beyond its boundaries.
- The
Dark aka Chaos, Infinite Possibility, The
Primordial Void: What existed before the Cosmos
was ordered and the Material World was brought
into existence. Also used to refer to the space
between each Universal Bubble.
- The
Primordial Divine: A set of concepts/ideas from
which sprang everything that exists within the
Ordered Cosmos. These are:
-Life
& Death: The beginning and end of
everything. Lovers & Enemies whose Divine
Chase creates the Lesser Cycle
-Fate
& Time: The Great
Weaver and the Spinner who together create the
Tapestry which tells the story of all that exist
in the World That Is
-Night: The first
artist, architect and mathematician -- Night
created all of the stars and planets and made
from the Dark the Ordered Cosmos.
-Light,
Heat and Force: The first
hildren of Night who came into existence when
they madethe First Star.
-Hunt: The Divine
Chase personified. Ever hiding, ever running,
ever seeking, ever hungry. Hunt is predator and
prey in one.
-Love
& Dream: Created by
Night and Hunt. They are things ever sought which
flourish in the darkness of night.
-War: Rage and Anger Personified.
Born from the first droplet of blood that fell
from Life as it fought with Death in the
Lesser Cycle across Night's newly Ordered Cosmos
- The
Lesser Cycle: The cycle
through which energy in the World That is is
recycled.Something is born, it dies, it is reborn.
- The
Divine Chase: Another term for the Lesser
Cycle
- The
Cycle of Life, Death and Rebirth: See Above
- The
Material World: The Ordered Cosmos, but more
specifically the physical world. Matter.
- The
Spiritual World: The Rules
which govern the function of the Ordered Cosmos.
Energy and Natural Forces.
- Magic
(only when written 'Magic'): Another term for the Spiritual
world/Natural Forces.
-magic: The
manipulation of Natural Forces by a sapient being.
- The
Sundering:
When the Primordial Divine were
broken by Fate and Time to create the Gods,
representing the beginning of History.
- The
Myriad aka The Myriad Eyes, The Watchful Moon,
The Creeping Dark, That Which Watches: Something
that came into the main universe of the setting
from Outside of the boundaries of Ordered Cosmos.
The Myriad is an incredibly powerful being that
consumes the matter and energy contained within
each universal bubble in order to add to itself.
Infinitely powerful but currently restrained.
Sort of the Big Bad of the Rozen Rot multiverse.
- Universal
Bubble:
Each universe in my multiverse setting
exists as a little bubble which can bump into
other bubbles, meld with other bubbles or...pop.
A universal bubble is, basically, just another
word for a universe within the multiverse.
- The
Tapestry: Basically,
the story of everything that ever has been,
currently is and ever will be. The story of the
World That Is.
- The
Gods of the World That Is/The Gods: This is kinda
self-explanatory. After the Sundering, the
Primordial Divine were broken into what amounts
to functionally infinite shards which manifested
into individual gods (though often these shards
were combined with one another). Every God that
humans (and other creatures!) believe in comes
from these shards.
- The
Time Before: The mythic era. Prehistory,
basically.
- History:
Beginning
about 20,000 years ago when the Sundering
occurred and the Primordial Divine were broken
into pieces to prevent the Myriad from furthering
its corruption of the Ordered Cosmos
- Stars-Like-Eyes: The being
that came into existence when The Myriad
corrupted Night.
- The
Infernal Abyss: This is
Hell. Like, Christian Hell but also every
conceptual "hell" that has ever existed.
- Faerie/The
Land Beyond the Mists/Under The Hill/Etc.,: This was originally a part of
the Mundane World but was sectioned off into a
separate plane of existence when it was found
that the Myriad Eyes was still influencing the
World, even after its "death".
Basically, the Fae saw that things were still
being corrupted and disordered by this Outside
Being and said "fuck this shit, we're taking
our shit and leaving". This world is still
accessible from the Mundane world but it's
usually only under specific circumstances.
- The
Celestial Firmament: Christian
Heaven and any "positive" afterlife
that might exist (i.e., the Elysian Fields)
- The
Land of the Dead: The middle
place. Purgatory and Limbo, the Asphodel Meadows,tc.,
I promise I will later explain the planes of
existence and the afterlifes and how they play
into the Divine Chase. Just not in the glossary!!!
- The
World That Was: The universe that existed
before this one, part of the Great Cycle
- The
World That Will Be: The universe
that will be born from the ashes of this one.
- The
Great Cycle: The Cycle of Life and Rebirth
on a cosmic scale. Each universe dies
and from its corpse comes the next. Death is
reborn as Life and Life is reborn as Death. Fate
and Time create a new Tapestry.
I think this covers a lot of
the basic/cosmological terminology.
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