Gnosis Verse

The Gnosis verse is a an original universe/multiverse that is one of the many worlds that appears and reappears in the *Ancient Ones* roleplay and is the home universe to several characters and factions, the most prominent examples being Elizabeth Ashwood and the Aegis Foundation.

## A World in Darkness

This is a world of twisting corridors, alleys and streets within the mazes that are our great cities. The dichotomy between rich and poor, influential and weak, powerful and powerless, is much more pronounced than in our world; Decadence, cynicism and corruption are common. Secret words are spoken over sweaty glasses of bourbon in seedy bar corners. Forgotten Gods are revived by neon lights and street noises, and live again to tread their dance of death in trendy clubs. Every doorway, every rusted iron staircases leading underground can be entrances to hell itself.

Secret Societies meet in elegant conference centers to plot and reach for the powers they have glimpsed in the shadows beyond. Condemned men and women hunt for the secrets of immortality. International Corporations waste unfathomable fortunes trying to decipher characters carved by mad men in the walls of subway tunnels. Power-hungry mortals have access to forbidden, magical knowledge, gladly trading their souls to cloaked strangers for snippets of demonic spells, or for ancient artifacts that open gateways to worlds beyond. Subhuman creatures scuttle in the shadows, peering out of steam grates or boarded-up warehouse windows. Mysterious strangers seem to know too much and harbor nothing but either indifference or malice toward humanity. The disenfranchised worship forgotten gods in the sewers and band together to protect themselves from the Realities that they have seen.

The Witches of our times either seek the paths towards power, pleasures and riches for their dark souls, they all crave for hegemony. Magicians take upon themselves to risk the jaws of insanity and death to glean for dark, forbidden knowledge and eldritch truths of reality itself, others learn how to summon otherworldly beings, command unknown forces, and open to gates to the beyond to survive in a world much more dangerous than what they have originally thought, but live the constant danger that the demons they summon will one day come for their souls or that they will be lost in those alien worlds that they see and go too. Some use their knowledge, will and powers that they have to fight against the darkness that they know all to well, to act as the few specks of lights in a world in darkness. All who call themselves magi are searching for keys for the many riddles about the diversities in their reality.

But nothing is what it seems. Only a handful of the many facets of our reality can be accessible by our senses.

The borderlines between the inner and outer worlds are very thin in this world. Allowing for dreams and nightmares, illusions and hallucinations to be given shape in the real world and madness and horror can contort one's body and provide insanity a road to the physical world. The atrocities and wickedness of man can not only weaken the delicate membrane that keeps alien realities away from the world but can attract malicious otherworldly beings, sometimes these dark actions and emotions of man can be the catalyst to give birth to horrific entities.

If one looks hard enough they can that within the shadows of both human civilization and within the occult underground lies a vast, complicated and confusing array of conspiracies, where no one is quite sure who is on top and why these conspiracies exist in the first place. The facets of reality that most are not able to see can be glimpse by putting one's own mind in a higher state. Whether it is done by the use of magical rituals and artifacts, drugs, emotional shock and trauma, once you put your mind above it's usual level you can begin to see the world for what it truly is. There are many artifacts that are link to alien worlds and beings, some acting as contact methods are even keys to open gateways to worlds beyond time and space, beyond life and death.

The beasts of nature and the machines of man may not be as they appear. The beasts can be creatures and beings wearing a form most comfortable for us so they can hide in plain sight, making it easier for them to watch us, stalk us, hunt us. Machines can possess their own intelligence, be controlled by another intelligence or being a life-form themselves or a part of a life-form. The lines between science and technology, mythology and the occult, can become a blur to those who don’t take care on keeping the two separated.

Old powers bear weak memories of a time long since past, of a time where there was divine order. But now the ancient patterns are falling apart as mortal scientist propose that chaos is a fundamental principle of reality. Many old powers now roam lost in a world where they have no purpose, searching for worships to survive in an increasing colder and harsher world. Some being are brought anew by the collective hopes for a better world, whether it be from ages long forgotten or a possible bright tomorrow that will never happen. Many in this world can sense that something is on the horizon. Many believe that what is coming would bring forth a great change that would forever alter the world, a change of which there is no way to undone once it occurs. Some believe that a new world will be born from the decaying carcass of the old while others believe that the end of days is approaching and that the world is reaching it's final cycle.

What they all can agree on is that the world that they all know is dying and that there is nothing that anyone or anything can do to stop it, all they can do is to slow down the inevitable for as long as possible or accelerate the world to it's conclusion with the hopes of a fresh beginning or that the end would bring peace. In a world where one can not tell what is real and what is not, where so many powers and forces control everything. It is easy for one to feel like they are a prisoner and puppets, being pulled by unseen manipulators and secret masters and that the world is not the world that humanity thought it was, but is a deliberate deceit.

On the borderlands between terror and madness, death and dreams. Death is only the beginning and can one find the truth in a world that seems to be an illusion, and should the truth be discovered, should it be found?

## The Words of Power- Magic

Magic in Gnosis which has many names is much more different than those of other worlds. Magic, almost known as sorcery, thaumaturgy, magecraft, the dark arts or simply the art; is a dangerous, invisible and all-powerful force that many humans and creatures come into in contact with. Magicians use the Art to wield mystical and metaphysical forces and study occultism, the inner truth existing below the material surface: *the truth is hidden in plain sight.*

Most magicians in Gnosis differs greatly from the ones in traditional roleplays. It is because magicians in this world leans towards histroical recordings, myths and real world occult and religious traditions than the fantasy driven magic.

Because of these factors, magicians in the Gnosis verse are almost depicted as nigh-omnipotent and spontaneous like sympathetic magic and synchronicity wave travelling, rather than the glamorous shoot-fire-from-your-wand magic from from traditional fantasy fiction (though supernatural beings and powerful magic users have been known to do feats that fall into this type of magic).  Also, unlike some fantasy magician that is sometimes limited by "mana" or other forms of energy similar to it, magic in the world is all-powerful and unlimited, but it can be increased and empowered by factors such as sacrifices, arcane knowledge, and making dealing with otherworldly beings. It can however be limited by the magician's magical knowledge, will and belief.

There are several rules in magic, The first two are the Law of Contagion and the Law of Similarity. They may be summed up thusly: 'The part affects the whole,' and 'Like produces like.' It should be noted that just having an object held by someone or something and seeing them still counts as the first two laws.

The most important rule is Observation changes Reality, the will, knowledge and belief of the thaumaturge can induce a change on the tapestry of existence. However to think that their own minds alone will do it is arrogant, instead a mage needs to have a paradigm behind them to give them a view how their magic can change the world.

A paradigm is a system of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality. Generally when it comes to paradigms the more widely known or accepted a paradigm is the more powerful it will be, however even those underground still have more power than those recently made who only has little sparks due to their infancy stage. This state of weak infancy can only change if the new paradigm spreads and gains new followers.

However paradigms are not enough for you see even with a paradigm a mage still needs to find a way to to focus their paradigm to achieve a desired effect via thaumaturgy. As such foci or focus are used. Foci are items, rituals, and practices that mages use to tap their magical power. The foci changes depending on which paradigm you are dealing with but there are recurring ones that play important roles in magic.

The most important one is visualization, the art of using your imagination to envision your spell taking shape and manifestation on to reality as an actual Thaumaturgical effect. The visualization process not only acts as a way of setting the mood for the mage for their magecraft but it assists in their observation of the world while acting as a form of self hypnosis, thus setting the right state of mind for magic. The second one are incantations. For incantations anything that comes out from the mage's mouth will work. Chants, prayers, mantras, reciting poetry or a line from a novel, singing or speaking in another language or a made up one or even gibberish.

Like visualization the incantations are a form of self hypnosis. For incantations whatever is being spoken or song must have meaning to the mage. The third is gestures which the is physical counterpart to the previous two and any physical actions taken by a mage during their thaumaturgical work will be counted as a gesture. From there materials that go align with the paradigm of the mage is used.

Now why does the mind play a role in this? Because it serves as a gateway to the real source of Thaumaturgy, the soul. In Gnosis  the soul is the source of magic for most mages and other beings that use magic. The reason being that the soul produces a vast quantity of a primal energy called Quintessence (though the name changes depending on who you are talking too). Quintessence as been called both a life and spirit energy, a magical particle, the essence of existence, the data of reality, these and many more are gross oversimplifications of what it is.

This energy exists throughout existence and it is thanks to Quintessence that mages can even use their wills to warp reality. However how Quintessence does it is interesting. You see when the mage is performing their work their inner Quintessence leaves and interacts with the Quintessence outside, in particular the Quintessence that has formed a existential pattern. Existential Patterns (or patterns) are metaphorical vessels of Quintessence, and as such, constitute all known reality, acting as "lego bricks" to Prime's "building blocks". Using their own will a magi using their own Quintessence to override the information contained within a targeted pattern(s) and change the information within them and change definition of what those patterns) use to say, as such warping reality.

Patterns are formed when threads of the tapestry of reality and existence, also called "Spheres", interject, bringing context into possibility and acting as variables, functions and instances. Patterns are usually composed of numerous smaller Patterns, for example, the Pattern of a human body contains individual Patterns for its internal organs, limbs and overall appearance. As a result, every Pattern is unique, and because they are constantly in flux through the eternal stream of Quintessence, they are not static.

Patterns do not only compose the material parts of existence, it also composes ephemeral substance like spirits, thoughts and even powers like time, space and entropy are affected since these forces govern how and in what relation these Patterns interact. Note that the term Pattern is a generic term for many magi have different terms like the Platonic world Eidos.

Now here is where we get to the crazy part. You see while the soul is the main source the subconscious mind is also helping. You see there is an unknown link between the subconscious and the soul and when the Quintessence of a mage is changing a pattern all of that information from the pattern is flooding into the mage, however while their conscious mind is focus on the thaumaturgical working the subconscious and soul are the ones doing the heavy duty computation to understand the information of the patterns and learn how to change and override them.

However having this vast cosmic, existential knowledge does have it's drawbacks. For some species, like humans, having that information continuously go through their heads will slowly drive them mad due to information overload among other hazards, like attracting lovecraftian horrors who may find the extra bit of information in their heads tasty and want to nibble on it and their juicy brain.

Before you ask, yes, having a work being interrupted in while it is going on does cause problems as the conscious mind gets exposed to alien information in their mind fully. Also they suffer physical exhaustion from ritual work and anything else they done in their works but otherwise never have to suffer from mana drain or stuff like that. Back lashes are a mage's true enemy. Each shift in reality causes a backlash which can take on any form. Ways to counter them have always been to use casting circles and geometric patterns: to redirect the backlash into predictable patterns.

Using reagents, incantations and one's own will can also help settle down backlashes and while some mages can use glyphs around the circles themselves a few take a step further and cast the backlashes on themselves, into their own minds and bodies. Insanity, mutations and death are to follow for those who deal with backlash in this manner.

Another drawback to magic is that it's addictive. This addiction bites in two ways; on one hand it gives a magi the motivation and enthusiasms to study and work their craft but on the other it makes them desperate to gain even more scraps of knowledge and power to be willing to sell their souls to dark powers and can push them into self destructive actions, sometimes it can even cause them to harm others around them. Depending on your paradigm you may find restrictions as you are forced to follow a set of mindsets and avoid taboos, your paradigm even restricts how your magic will work. Also another reason magic can be addictive is the fact that many magi who perform magic claim that once they are making and casting their effect they feel a sense of euphoria and a sense that they have become gods for a few seconds, this feeling becomes the main addictive hook for most mages.

More importantly there is a major weakness to thaumaturgy that is also another rule, Equivalent Exchange. Nothing is free in this world and not even magic is free. Every spell, ritual, summoning, curse, scrying and divination will always have a price and while some may be immediate others will come in latter time. Some of these prices can either last for a few hours, days, months or years or they can last for life or even generations. The path of a mage is one of dedication and conviction along with will.

A few beings like the Archons and Daevas seem to have found ways to break some of the rules of magic, in particular they can use magic by their own will alone and they seem to either be immune to backlashes or they found a way to deal with them to create the illusion of immunity.