Chapter 000: Cosmology
Astrid Tops, Black Unicorn Campaign
Cosmology
In the beginning there was Chaos. As
Chaos is all-containing, it contained even Order. So from the Serpent of Chaos
was born her daughter, the Unicorn of Order. The Unicorn was not content to be a
part of Chaos forever, so she rebelled against her mother the Serpent and they
had a terrible fight, as the Unicorn wanted to take a lot of Power with her,
Power that her mother was not prepared to give her.
So they fought, and the Unicorn
surprised her mother and took one of her eyes. Then the Serpent cursed her
daughter and the Unicorn shatterend into an infinity of different beings, all
Order, but none of them the same. Now they were both wounded; the fight ended
and the Unicorn left Chaos to create her own Power. As all parts of her being
left in a different direction, each part of her created a different multiverse
with a different Eye. There was only one Chaos, but she was hurt and had to
rest.
While the Serpent rested, life began
in the shadows that had been created in the struggle and the leaving of the
Unicorn. The first life began near the Centre of Chaos, the Abyss also called
the Pit. These beings saw the sleeping Serpent and worshipped her. Thus were the
Courts of Chaos founded. The Serpent awoke, still weak, and adopted these
children of Chaos and decided to give them a limited access to her Power, so
that they would not walk away from her in anger as her daughter the Unicorn had.
She created the Logrus, so that the most worthy of them would share in her
Power. However, as each reality was only a result of each aspect of the Unicorn,
there were an infinite number of Courts, but they were very close and they all
had one thing in common: The Pit of Chaos, which intersected each reality
somewhere, and the Sign of the Logrus, which was the same in all realities.
Meanwhile the Unicorn had also
recovered and was studying the Power she had stolen from her mother. When she
noticed the beings her mother had adopted, she became jealous and wanted them to
worship her instead. In each reality, the tale is different, but in this one,
there were three brothers in the Courts that were young, but potentially the
most powerful beings in this reality, Dworkin, Suhuy and Galoran Barimen. She
approached Suhuy, but he was devoted to the Serpent and was content in
worshipping her. She approached Galoran, who was tempted, but refused, as he
foresaw that the wishes of the Unicorn would bring him into more conflict than
he could handle. Finally, she approached Dworkin, and he followed her, for he
had already access to the power of the Serpent, and the additional power would
make him, who was the youngest, the greatest of the Barimen brothers.
The Unicorn needed a transcript of
her Power that Dworkin would be able to access, so she gave him the Eye-Jewel to
create the Pattern, her interface with the creatures that were to worship her.
Dworkin wanted power, but he had no wish to rule the worlds of the Unicorn, so
with help of the Jewel he and the Unicorn made Oberon out of the living tissue
of Dworkin's body. Oberon was meant to rule and so he did. Dworkin fetched him a
bride from the Courts, Cymnea, who was to become his first wife.
The Serpent was enraged that the
Unicorn had converted some of her children, but she feared her daughter and
didn't wish to face her openly again, while she missed her Eye. She ordered
however that the Barimen house would be destroyed. So it was, and the two
remaining brothers Suhuy and Galoran, who hadn't renounced her, were adopted
into different families, and were never permitted to wear the hated Barimen name
again.
While Suhuy and Dworkin had allied
themselves with Chaos and Order, Galoran remained in between. He was always
asking questions about the state of the world, and though he acquired
information from both sides, he was not satisfied. He managed to find a lot of
pieces of the puzzle, but he couldn't get the picture completed. He would never
have find out, if he hadn't been approached by a third Power, the Nexus.
The Nexus, most ancient embodiment
of Chaos, bore the Serpent and she devoured her own Mother the Nexus and thus
took all Power and Chaos for herself. The Nexus, however, was never completely
defeated and waited for a chance. The battle between the Unicorn and the Serpent
provided that chance, and she stole Power from both of them and gradually
managed to cut herself loose from the Heart of Chaos, the Power of her daughter.
Unfortunately, she couldn't access her ancient powers, as the Serpent had
consumed them all and made them her own. The Nexus departed from Chaos and hid
herself in the many realities. The Serpent was sleeping and didn't notice, the
Unicorn was making her power operational and didn't notice either. Afterwards,
the Serpent felt the loss of power, but thought it to be the loss of her Eye.
The Nexus took Galoran and made him
an initiate of her Power. He left the Courts and roamed the many realities.
The Nexus has used a lot of power to
hide her operations from the Unicorn and the Serpent. By her nature, she can
access all realities directly and make corridors and communication between them
possible. Initiates of her powers can transport themselves to other realities,
and and/or communicate with people there. The only other way to travel to
different realities is to travel through the Pit of Chaos, which is very
dangerous and highly unreliable. Pit diving is nothing more than an exchange of
objects (and sometimes people) from different realities. As an interesting side
note, it was the fate of both Brand and Deirdre, who fell into the pit, to wind
up in different realities, where they are relatively powerless, as the Pattern
of Order there is not their Pattern. Only a Nexus-initiate could find them and
bring them home.