And what about the other interest groups or factions, what would be their opinion?
As far as the factions go....I think they like to pretend it doesn't exist..
Funny thing about the Far Realm is that its more chaotic than Limbo and Limbo is supposed to represent chaos incarnate. So this opens up alot of possibilities, such as, Chaos beyond Chaos, Evil beyond evil, law beyond law etc.
Theres another place called "Hyper-Reality", which like the Far Realm, next to nothing is known about it. By comparison, things in the Hyper Reality are more real if that were possible, its like comparing a vivid dream to the waking world, and the Hyper Reality is as more real to the waking world as the waking world is to a vivid dream.
The Far Realm is not chaotic. It is bound by strictures that seem incomprehensible to any of us - such matters as dimension, causality, logic, beauty and truth are defined by them in a completely different paradigm or are absent entirely, replaced with concepts alien beyond comprehension. Some have even speculated that the disorder and capriciousness that we dub as 'chaos' is actually a benign and civilizing force within the Far Realm - the only way in which collections of individuals can break past the weird strictures that would otherwise chain all life into savagery and achieve some measure of civilization. But the Far Realm has its own internal order, and those who live within it see our existence as maddening and inconsistent as theirs is to us.
The Far Realm defies any simple classification of 'alignment', or 'belief', or 'philosophy'. It's all of existence, put through a metaphysical funhouse mirror, and recasts all existing exemplars in a weird new unlight. The Far Realm is not good or evil, lawful or chaotic, solid or fluid, harmony or teal. It simply is.
Theres another place called "Hyper-Reality", which like the Far Realm, next to nothing is known about it. By comparison, things in the Hyper Reality are more real if that were possible, its like comparing a vivid dream to the waking world, and the Hyper Reality is as more real to the waking world as the waking world is to a vivid dream.
It is the domain of the mercurials.
The 2e PS adventure module -- Doors to the Unknown -- has more.
Some ideas I have about that:
-Most planars propably ignore them, if they know about them at all
-I'd say even among the planars, most are ignorant of the existance of the far realm
-Of the factions, I'd say some barmy sensates are propably the most likely to make contact with the far realm. At least I've got a Elven Alienist/Sensate factol on my mind that's avoided by her faction peers, because she's become strange and detatched. Many factions wouldn't care one way or another or try to ignore the far realm. Some Sinker may see potential in the realm and perhaps the Godsmen are curious. Also I'd imagine one or two athar going barmy and believing the far realm to be their "true deity", but those would propably be expelled sooner or later.
And then there's the possibility of a alienist sect.
It simply is.
Actually, that's doubtful. it is nonspace out of time, and may or may not "exist" per say, but then again, try defining what exists in terms of the far Realms. you can't, really. leastthat's my theory
I always thought this story was a reference to the Far Realms.
*grin*
Perhaps. That's one interpretation certainly. I tried to leave it vague enough to include other possibilities, but The Far Realm, or something like it, another multiverse, or something -Outside- was the intention. I was getting my Lovecraft homage going ;)
I've peppered my stuff over the years, primarily in my campaigns, but also in my writing in a few places with vague hints of other multiverses, or hints that the Great Wheel was only a tiny pocket of something undefined but tremendously more vast in scope and scale. For instance, I had one previously thought dead Baernaloth, Yrsinius the Elder, make a brief appearance and make reference to "...this insignificant multiverse. How quaint you think this reality holds value."
It, and a few of its kindred, have also referred to their own origin, or Evil itself, as existing outside and seperate of the Wheel, though it might only be a matter of semantics. I don't really intend to pin anything down, at least not anytime soon.
I've also dropped some hints to the same effect outside of the Baernaloths involving certain things in the Inner Planes, and in the prelude/1st entry to my 2nd storyhour in the scene with Anubis.
I've peppered my stuff over the years, primarily in my campaigns, but also in my writing in a few places with vague hints of other multiverses, or hints that the Great Wheel was only a tiny pocket of something undefined but tremendously more vast in scope and scale.
I'd be interested in hearing more about that, if you have anything to share. See, I <3 Planescape, I really do. But I also really like the planar setup presented in Beyond Countless Doorways. In fact, if I wasn't so enamoured with PS, I'd say that planar setup was better. So, I've been considering various ways that I could maintain the integrity of PS while working in the Countless Doorways view of things.
That's a pretty sad name for a plane.
--Erik
"Hyper-reality" is more a category to which certain regions of the planes belong than a plane in themselves. It's part of the hierarchy of realities introduced in the Nightmare Lands boxed set for Ravenloft and touched on in Doors to the Unknown and A Guide to the Ethereal Plane. The idea is that ordinary dreams represent the lowest, most primitive form of reality. "True" dreams represent the second level of reality. Waking reality is level three. "Hyperreality" is level four, and ordinary creatures are like dreams compared to the strange beings who live in hyperreal space.
The various levels of reality are part of the standard cosmology, rather than being a new plane or extra-cosmological space like the Far Realm.
The mercurials are from a hyperreal realm in the second Heaven, Mercuria (thus their name).
--Erik
There's also a conversion here.
I have decided in my game that the Far Realm is the "space" between the different infinite Universes. When 2 Parallel Universes (each with their own cosmology) collided with each other, it creates a rift between the Parallel Universes and that the epic castrophic incident creates major "Cerebrotic Blots" in the collided Universes to and from the Far Realm.
The Powers that May Be of the respective Cosmology are trying to save their Universe. Whole Primal Worlds will be destroyed, snuff like candles. Plane of Existence will merge with other Planes. Planes of one Universe will swallow the other, like galaxies eating smaller ones. Gods on one side will wage terrible wars onto the others counterpart Gods.
In the end, the Far Realm will consume both Universe and doing so will regurgitates the material in a cosmic vibrations which will created a newborn Universe....
Now i have to figure out how to intergrate this grand idea into a campaign and how 2 1st level Hero (eventually to Epic) will affect the outcome.
Where do I read about the Far Realm? As stated almost evertime I post, I'm still new to all the updates in DnD, so haven't heard of alot of stuff.
See this thread for a list of every mention of the Far Realm in any product ever.
If you want to work Limbo into this idea, then make it the sort of gateway into the Far Realm, the way that the border towns of the Outlands are the gateways into the Outer Planes. In the deepest recesses of Limbo, even the structure of Belief itself breaks down, giving way to the entropic madness of the Far Realm.
To take this idea even one step farther, it would make Mechanus the Outer Plane most directly in opposition to the Far Realm, which fits the concept perfectly--Mechanus represents the clockwork engine that turns the Great Wheel, and gives it its ultimate structure (perhaps the reason that the Modrons march around the Great Wheel every few million years); while the Far Realm, through Limbo, represents the entropy attempting to undo that structure. If the Far Realm were ever to spill into the Great Wheel, it could unravel the Outer Planes and unmake the multiverse itself.
This fits even further into the concept that Law and Chaos are the primary organizing principles of the multiverse--much as they were in the earliest days of D&D--rather than moral issues like Good and Evil, which have always ultimately been relative. (For example, is it Evil to kill an orc baby? Is it Good to save a helpless, wounded wyvern? and so on.)
In that respect, you can even entertain the idea that the forces of the Far Realm have tricked mortals into primarily seeing things in terms of Good and Evil, rather than the struggle between Law and Chaos--which represents the true threat to the multiverse.
All just IMHO.
Pax,
KRad
Bear with me for instance that the video game "Pacman" is a 2 dimension world. You are a 3-dimensional being with lenght, height, and width. Pacman world is only lenght and width. You are god-like to the pacmans and ghosts of Pacman World.
Imagine what it would like to him when you put your hand through his world...
Your fingers would appear as 5 roundish alien beings...
Think what a 4 (geometric) dimensional creature looks like when he puts his hand in our universe.
This is a shadow of a hypercube... a 4th dimension cube. As to Pacman you draw a cube on his world to explain to him what is the 3rd dimension.
This is tesseract, a 2D representation of a hypercube. Kinda weird i'm using a 2 dimensional medium to explain the 4th dimension.
So us, humans, our brain are so wired to see 3 dimensional world. It's natural. Try to imagine a 4 dimension geometric universe. It's nearly impossible, and only for a few sec can i grasp it before i say "madness".
Back in the wolrd of fantasy and DnD, the multiverse is of Good, Evil, Neutral, Law, and Chaos. The Far Realm is outside that cosmology. A entity of the Far Realm entering in our DnD wolrd is trying to unsterstand and adapt to this multiverse. That is my explanation as to the weird and often chaotic looking aberration-like creatures. A brave planar traveller going to the Far Realm is seeing that there is something beyond Lawful and Chaotic, beyond Good and Evil....but as our mind is tuned to 3rd dimensional space, our now poor planar traveller is tuned to his comsology view...He doesn't understand and that "truth" shatters his mind. Another view i can think of, is that the Far Realm is the "chaotic" planes of the 4th spacial dimension.
-----
edit: google Edwin A. Abbott's Flatlands, a 2d being interacting with a 3d being.
2nd edit note; As to tie for PS, the Lady of Pain, that is my theory fo her. She's a entity of 4 spacial dimensional (not the Far Realm) who just got stranded in the multiverse.
This is a shadow of a hypercube... a 4th dimension cube. As to Pacman you draw a cube on his world to explain to him what is the 3rd dimension.
Actually, not to get too technical (too late!) but that's not the shadow of a hypercube... it's a drawing of the shadow of a hypercube. An actual shadow of a hypercube would be three-dimensional, not two-dimensional.
Everything else you wrote is quite intriguing, however.
Pax,
Krad
The Outer Planes are based on the concept of "Belief"--but Madness is the opposite of Belief, making the Far Realm the sort of "antimatter" realm to the Outer Planes.
That's a pretty cool slant on it.
Not exactly related, but to those familiar, where would you guys place a city like
Carcosa?
Anyway i wasn't asking what the Far Realm is/was/going to be, i was asking what's the Factions' opinion on it was. I guess most of them would think, if i ignore it, it will go away.
*pop*
~the last thing Factor Enverdain said before disappearing
:p
i'm not too knowledgable of the Far Realm, but i do like the idea posted earlier of an interdimensional/multi-dimensional "space" between parallel and/or perpendicular multiverses...a sort of "ethereal plane" between realities where alien ideas, thoughts, forms, energies, philosophies, dreams roil and seethe without bound or design. a place of obtuse and inconceivable dimensions of space/time filled with the antithesis of existences, an inverse of energy and matter...sounds fun to me!
An Abyssal Layer and primal soup from Limbo are two concepts that a planar traveller can imagine and grasp. Far Realm is suppose to be something you can't understand or comprehend. The Far Realm in my playing Universe is a higher geometric dimension with another axis of alignment added to the usual good, evil, chaotic, lawful, and neutral.
Anyway i wasn't asking what the Far Realm is/was/going to be, i was asking what's the Factions' opinion on it was. I guess most of them would think, if i ignore it, it will go away.
My statement was in jest, mainly. I will say that I fail to see what is so unknowable about the Far Realms, compared to other outer planes. My point being, that it's sort of the new kid on the block, that steals the thunder from a few other planes conceptually. Semantics, I know...
More to the point of the thread, I can see the Guvners having lost members due to bendings of their Loophole abilities, perhaps looking to "understand" the place.
Seems like it'd be a place for the truly adventurous Signers to try and find.
Athar might seek to conceptualize it, in order to show proof of a non-divinely inspired chunk of the multiverse.
Godsmen of significant power might seek to "tame" such a place as evidence of their obvious path towards ultimate overgod status...