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Chapter 2: Building Games / Building Worlds / Cosmology

The Universe

Source GM Core pg. 140
The reality in which mortals live out their short existence is known to sages and scholars by many names—the Universe or the mortal realm, among others. The structure of the physical universe might follow any of the following models, or it might be something completely different.

Vast: The universe is an unimaginably sparse void of infinite space, littered with stars, planets, and various bits of detritus.

Limited: The physical universe in your campaign world may be smaller in scope yet far more fanciful. For example, in Hinduism, the cosmos is supported on the backs of four elephants, themselves standing upon the shell of a world-sized tortoise, whereas Norse cosmology describes nine worlds connected by an immense ash tree.

Bizarre: Sometimes the universe is more complex than the previous two categories, or possibly nested within multiple realities. What if the universe the PCs first know is in fact a magical or mechanical simulation of such complexity that its inhabitants are unaware that they themselves exist as an artificial consciousness?