Primes

## Summary

The Primes are cosmic forces built into the foundation of reality; representing all that exists in the mortal realm. They are forces connecting life, elements, sentience, thought, and other natural orders together. They are both sentient and not. They live and yet are non-living. They act on instinct, but also on thought and calculation. They both defy the natural order of things and yet also define the very same things.

Each Prime embodies one general concept, the nature of one thing; though each also carries connotations beyond its core concept, and many overlap with other Primes. Sometimes, a Prime may originate as a facet existing in another Prime, but eventually grew large and important enough to demand its own independence. For example: The Storm originated as a tempestuous facet of the White, but eventually grew in power and became its own Prime.

### Parliaments of Elements

Living within a Prime are multiple aspects of its concept. Known as avatars, these different aspects are connected with different cultures and represent different facets of the Prime's concept. They are entities in their own right, complete with personalities, goals, plans, and rivalries. Each is on par with the mightiest of the old gods or angelic Virtues in terms of power. Many avatars were even worshiped, or at least respected and revered, as mighty divinities by early humanity; some even became ancestors for certain pantheons.

In the case of the Primes and their avatars, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. A Prime possesses illimitable power, but only vague will to use it. It is not explicitly malicious. Rather, it possesses an instinctive urge to exercise its power and spread its concept. Avatars give that vague will definition, turning instinct into desire and purpose. Each avatar commands a significant portion of the Prime's power, wielding it with more intelligence and strategic awareness than the unguided Prime could.

A Prime often has multiple avatars, each brandishing enormous strength; the Prime itself is weaker than all its avatars working in concert. An avatar is not the whole of a Prime but possesses much of its power. A Prime multiplies its power by fielding its avatars to fight, all of whom wield powers that can be countered only by the strongest gods. Each is a separate entity, so the wounds or ailments inflicted on one affect only that one and not any of its sibling-aspects. Avatars can either be born as creations of the Prime itself or they can be former cosmic beings who rose to avatarhood after achieving absolute alignment with the Prime's will. However, for the former, the ascension to the status of an avatar could also be seen as character-death as their mind became completely attuned to the Prime's will.

### A World Within

All Primes, aside from being sources of magical energies, also have, are, and occupy a world-sized realm within the Void. A Prime is vast, with space enough for all of Earth and more beside. Inside a Prime, everything reflects the Prime's nature. Its concept colors the realm's landscape, creatures, and even its natural laws. Each presents unique challenges to intruders. Physical difficulties are commonplace, such as fires hot enough to melt stone and watery depths capable of crushing submarines. A Prime contains swarms of bestial primals, birthed naturally from its depths as a by-product of its existence. Some of these creatures are familiar enough to those knowledgeable in mythology, but others are unique to the Prime's interiors. All thrive in their inhospitable environments.

A Prime has complete control over its internal features, including its spawns and terrain. It can override any number of primals within its realm with its own directives, usually little more than instincts to swarm or flee. The Prime can also shift aspects of the realm to make it more threatening to interlopers - as impossible as it might seem to already-beleaguered visitors.

Luckily for any intruder, the Primes are absent overlords. Their simple minds focus on their realms in a grand sense, like making sure that no light sneaks into the Darkness or that the fires of the Burn, well, burn without end. If it comes down to a flat-out brawl between a group of powerful mages and a single Prime, the Prime shall release its elemental fury in a storm none can survive. That said, a Prime ignores the minutiae of its innards. Primes are too large and complex for a single mind to watch over every aspect of them at every moment.

Even then, a voyage into a Prime’s inner space isn’t a particularly fantastic one. Like an enormous body, a Prime contains autonomic systems that defend it from intruders. These defenses make up its internal ecosystem, a unique variety of primals (bestial and humanoid) designed to consider newcomers to environmental threats or food and to act accordingly. Most have enough intelligence to attack in a way that affords them the greatest advantage and little more. The efforts of avatars and intelligent primals to guard a Prime’s realm can coexist with or displace the more animalistic defenses. For example, the entrenchment of Surtr’s fire giants in Muspelheim represents the extreme intelligent primal displacement of a Prime’s instinctual defenses.

Events that attract the Prime’s full and deadly attention are few. A daimon’s ascension to Celestine Form is a display of power that the Prime cannot ignore. Likewise, the death of an avatar is a disaster that drives the Prime to action. Having three or more of a Prime’s avatars in one place and unleashing their power at once attracts the attention of the Prime. As such, stealth and strategy are necessary components of any raid into a Prime for resources.