The Outer Darkness

Beyond the edge of a
world where the laws of Time govern over all properly ordered lands, and where
civilisation coddles the rational minds of men, there exists the emptiness of
lower heaven. Here, the wind whips wild and untamed in the void of space, its
incessant howls conspiring to deafen any who sail past well-chartered seas.
Supposing one’s life, in
the absence of oxygen and water could be sustained, and supposing one struck a
course out from the furthest reaches of creation, no mortal entities would be
observed, save the occasional sea-bird blown astray by a freak gale or the
occasional wyvern revelling in its natural element. To most, this realm would be considered
the harshest of environments, for even the briefest of gusts here is likely to catch
flyers and bring them to a swift death upon a protruding rock face.
If, however, one were to
traverse untold spans of distance beyond the great waterfalls that cascade over
the world’s flanks, the cacophony of hurricanes would fall to a mere whisper,
and in the perpetual twilight the very fabric of reason itself would begin to
bend and warp. Not even the most intrepid slyphs of air dare to venture out
this far from the safety of Mithras’s light, and nothing stirs in the dead
quietus except for the few angels that patrol the edge of reality itself.
To travel further still,
across countless multiverses of nothing to where logic and sanity stretch to
their limits and then proceed to snap, is to finally come to the Outer Darkness.
== The Outer Darkness ==
Far older than the
realms which compose reality, the Outer Darkness is the fundamental essence of
Oblivion. It is a place of amorphous blackness and primordial silence, a sea of
chaos in which float the tattered remnants of corroded worlds and the ashes of
dead suns. This lightless dimension is the home of demons.
=== Oblivion and the Void ===
In the beginning, there was only the emptiness of
space and the uniform blackness that filled it. Within the Void, Oblivion is said to have rested dormant, infinite
in its depths and glorious in its perfection. The eternal silence soothed the awful
entities that are said to have swum through an aphotic paradise, odd in their
proportions and grateful for the darkness which bathed them in timeless bliss.
Nothing aged, nothing died and everything hung unseen in immaculate splendour.
Then everything went horribly, tragically wrong.
=== The Curse of Time ===
At some point in timelessness, Tey’Kor-Akx emerged from the
Void, dragging its ineffable form from the nothingness and by its very existence
setting in motion universal laws that Oblivion knew would be the death of its paradise.
The fourth dimension of Time was constructed, and consequentially order was
brought forth from chaos, bringing contrast and distinction. Awakened from its
peaceful slumber by the agony of imperfection, Oblivion mourned the loss of its
black heaven and the finiteness that all things must now endure. As its great
eye opened in the writhing darkness, it looked upon the wreckage of its domain
in sorrow, for it knew that the worst was yet to come.
=== The Stain of Creation ===
The further violation of the World That Came Before emerged
in the form of the elder creators, whose elemental bodies were allowed for
within the bounds of Time. With each new atrocity inflicted upon the
increasingly impure darkness, which now seethed in confusion at its own defilement,
Oblivion descended into new depths of despair as its beautiful works were
trampled and its grand designs laid to waste. As the abomination which came to
be known as Thaelis-Y’Arda was bound together by Time, it became a cosmic sore
that brought pain where before there had been tranquillity, Oblivion’s sadness
turned to anger, and anger to unbridled rage. By what right had Tey’Kor-Akx
encroached upon Oblivion’s perfect dominion and remorselessly cast it into
turmoil? Its single eye fixed upon the conjoining of aberrant spirits below,
Oblivion set all of its intent upon undoing the unforgivable transgression of
reality.
The Outer Darkness which
lies outside of Thaelis-Y’Arda is now a place of ripping entropy and wrathful,
violent chaos. It incessantly seeks to penetrate the boundaries set in place by
Tey’Kor-Akx so that it may annihilate creation. Through undoing the world it
shall restore the faultless black uniformity that should reign throughout all
the cosmos.
=== The Moon ===
The single gibbous moon that dominates the sky each night is the
physical eye of Oblivion, unblinking and ever hungering for the destruction of
the Fleshlands and all who dwell within. This immense, corpse-pale planetoid possesses
countless craters which pock and mar its sickly, glowing surface. It is
speculated that abominable things of unknown horror lurk in wait in these pits,
beings that in previous worlds pleased Oblivion through debased acts and escaped
the annihilation of their own realities, clinging to half-existence in forms
unspeakable. Some of these blasphemous entities are said by theologians to have
already descended to colonise Thaelis-Y’Arda.
=== The Dawn Star ===
The only other significant body that floats in the ghastly
blackness is the purple star that is the disgraced child of Oblivion and its
hated enemy, the Sun. Arikel was cast into the Outer Darkness by Mithras as a
final act of justice against its treacherous daughter. This bitter and spiteful
goddess is the only known being in recorded history to have survived within the
ebon depths of primal chaos. Her star only shines brightly during the hours of
dawn, when her tears moisten the land as dew.
=== Corroded Worlds ===
Drifting listlessly through endless spans of entropic
darkness are various half-real scraps of the three previous worlds which have
all been unravelled by Oblivion, barely hanging together and almost entirely
digested by shadow. These dismal remnants of dead semi-solidity and the vast
spaces in between them are home to a plague of spirits which writhe and squirm
in bottomless rage. Their wrath, which is all-consuming to a degree impossible
for the mortal mind to comprehend, is directed towards all of Creation. These
wretched shadow-spawn are known as demons.