Topology?
Imagine a disc shaped projection of a sphere.
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| Like this. |
Points of interest are evenly-ish spaced on a sphere, but when projected like this, the center becomes more dense than the edge. In addition, the South Pole forms a ring around the edge. But the Earth is a sphere, and we can change the center of the map to focus on the South Pole.
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| Like this. |
And it becomes inverted. Now imagine people lived on the projections. To them the world is disc shaped, the center is always denser than the edge, and there is a ring of water (or land) around the edge.
Wizards
But wizards are too cool for topological projection. In dreams, they can travel to the dreamlands, which is basically the Great Sea but inverted like you see above. Normally the great sea is in the middle, but in the dreamlands the great sea encircles the land. In addition, ruins in the waking world become more spaced out when you travel to the deserts, and more dense when travelling towards the sea (this may conflict with normal ideas of desert/ruin relationships, but just hold with me a bit). The reason why there isn't a huge pile of ruins in the middle of the Sea is because it's underwater (there are a few bits above the water. They belong to the last Neph). In the dreamlands, the ruins cluster in the center of the desert instead of the ocean, so there is a huge pile of ruins. Depending on who you ask, it's called Kadath, the Mountain of Sand, or the (False) Theophany. They call it this cause the gods live at the top.
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| needs more desert |
But You Said Everyone Worships One Of The Goddesses
As we all know from such a reputable scholar as Goblinpunch, spells are just soulstuff, bits of sentience, animals made of thought. The dreamlands is where these things reside, and where wizards snatch their spells from each night. Just as the greatest and most powerful men become kings, so do the greatest and most powerful spells. And a king made from nothing but thought and dream would, in the nomenclature of wizards, be a god. These gods sit at the ninth level of the Mountain of Sand. At the head of their table sits The Spell, Wish, exercising his dominion over all the dreamlands. At the gate stands their gatekeeper and messenger, Prismatic Wall. I'll go into detail about all the gods later. No one worships Wish any more than they worship a king, suffice to say. |
| Sometimes Prismatic Wall looks kinda like this, but made from thought |
Alright, But Is There Loot?
Yeah, probably. There is spells to steal, magic items to find, one story even tells about the location of the idea of wealth. The problem is that men of the waking world are as incorporeal spirits there. Bargains must be struck with the spells there, much as spells strike bargains with wizards to affect the waking world. In addition, some wizards can brew tangibility potions.
But I'm Not A Wizard, How Do I Get There?
Poets can help with this. Due to their already powerful connection to the soul, poets can specialize in lyrical techniques to transport non-wizards to other planes. The body stays in the waking world, though. It also takes a lot of magic drugs for these poems to work properly. I'll write up a post for a poet class sometime.
Conclusion
The gods of wizards are strange and powerful, and their lands are familiar and foreign. It is unwise to disturb their dreams.
