The Abyss

The Abyss is not a realm, but rather the void between or outside all 
realms. It has been described as the absolute nothingness outside 
Creation, or the foundation of reality. Some mages claim it is a 
barrier which separates the divine from the mundane worlds. 
Others think it is a cosmic trash-heap left over from the creation of 
the universe, where leftovers and failed parts were discarded. 

The Abyss itself doesn't look like anything at all. It lacks 
everything, time, space, matter or energy. It is almost void of 
quintessence, being mostly defined as the absence of it. Anybody 
entering it will be a massive disturbance, having comparatively 
large amounts of quintessence with him and most important, his 
perceptions. When somebody enters the Abyss, his preconceptions 
of it will influence it. His quintessence will leak out slightly, and 
create a reality according to his beliefs. If a mage expects an 
infinite blackness, he will see it. Another person may see just mist, 
or an infinite, empty plain. 

The real danger of the Abyss is the fact that even slightest amount 
of quintessence matters. Even the quintessence of a sleeper is 
enough to cause some reality to form around him. It will take the 
shape he thinks it will, and as he sees it, it will strengthen. It is still 
a very fragile reality, but as long as its creator believes in it , it will 
remain. The slightest doubt, and it will dissolve into something else. 
Most persons entering the Abyss will unknowingly create a reality 
and stick to it as they react to it. Thus they will remain in the 
Abyss, surrounded by their hallucinations. Their quintessence will 
slowly leak away into its vastness, making them slowly and 
imperceptibly fade away. Finally they become too faint to perceive 
and disappear. If a victim manages to escape, he will be 
overwhelmed by the sheer power of reality outside until he can 
recover his quintessence. Some victims have been too weakened, 
and dissolve like dreams when subjected to normal reality.

The Abyss is also home to other things. Some beings or phenomena 
survive inside its emptiness, preying on the slightest spark of 
quintessence like the monstrous fishes of the deep sea. These 
beings are extremely good at hiding in the non-existence and avoid 
loosing quintessence at any cost. When something enters the Abyss, 
they flock to the source of quintessence. They take the form of 
objects, people or beings fitting the hallucinations of the enterer, 
and try to make him notice them, to give them more reality. In a 
way, they behave as hobgoblins. Some even try to attack the 
enterer, to kill him and steal the quintessence of his pattern. Others 
try to lure the enterer by creating illusions and phantasms, while 
others are content to just hang around him. Some inhabitants can 
even leave the realm to steal quintessence and then return into it 
for safety. 

One of the nice features of the Abyss is the extreme simplicity of 
creating a realm: just think about it. Due to the lack of quintessence, 
the realm will be very weak, and generally only exists around him. 
There is literally nothing there when nobody looks. If a constant 
source of quintessence appears, like somebody leading force from a 
node into it, a realm will quickly form. But these realms are 
polluted by the denizens, who do their best to conform to them just 
to steal quintessence. An object created here will dissolve in 
ordinary reality, like beings or persons from the Abyss. Another 
effect is that everything the creator believes can (and generally 
will) come true. This leads to an extremely malleable reality, where 
mages can do whatever magick they believe they can do, with no 
paradox unless they think they will get it. 


The Labyrinth

The Labyrinth is a large and strange realm. It stretches 
everywhere, interconnecting most realms and realities. By entering 
it, a traveller can reach almost any place, existing or not. But it is 
also quite dangerous. 

The Labyrinth looks like an endless labyrinth of tunnels, walls, 
rooms or anything else. Some parts are dark, musty cellars where 
nitre cover the walls, while others are sterile, brightly lit, white 
corridors. Further inside the realm the Labyrinth become less and 
less recognisable, and more chaotic. In some parts the walls are 
made of rotting shadows, and there is a place where it consists of 
crumbling stairs leading up and down through dark shafts. 
Generally the Labyrinth seems to meld seamlessly into whatever 
reality it connects to. It is often hard to tell where normal reality 
ends and the Labyrinth starts. It can be entered from sewers, 
unused dusty doors in cellars, through unknown trapdoors or by 
walking through the stacks in a large bookstore. In fact, sometimes 
sleepers wander into it unknowingly. Most never return.

The Labyrinth seems to underlie reality, like some kind of 
basement-dimension or the flip side of reality. It is the home for 
everything lost or banished, the beings which lure outside all 
realms. Some mages has likened it to a cosmic sewer system, where 
unused or spent quintessence is flushed out and discarded patterns 
flourish. It is the realm of the Qlippoth, the empty shells of creation, 
of dead obsessions and beings without names or forms. It is a 
dangerous place, and more than one mage have met his doom down 
here.

Some of the beings have no own form, but possesses whatever 
pattern is handy, like the clothes of their victim or the trash around 
him. Other beings try to lure people deeper into the Labyrinth, to 
feast on their despair when they realise they are lost. Other beings 
just follow mages, trying to use them to find a way out of the 
Labyrinth and into reality. Other beings are more neutral, and just 
inhabit some places. 

There is a strange order of mages, the Guardians of the Labyrinth, 
who inhabit it. Nobody knows who the hooded and secretive mages 
are or where in the Labyrinth they live. They sometimes act as 
guides or protectors for travellers, but they are very strict on 
payment; if somebody defaults on payment or angers them, their 
revenge is vicious. Often they just open a way into the Labyrinth 
for the faithless traveller, who stumbles into It and cannot find his 
way out. 

The Library

This realm is near the labyrinth, and both be reached from each 
other. It is an infinite library, containing every book, both written 
and unwritten. Endless alleys of bookshelves, filled to the brim with 
books, old and new, big and small, fact and fiction. The air is dry 
and filled with the smell of dusty bindings. Here and there small 
reading-tables are placed, often covered with piles of books. 
Pulpits, with chained rarities flank galleries and archives filled with 
documents stretch towards eternity. The floor is covered with a soft 
carpet, dampening all sounds. It is very silent, and sounds seem to 
fade away quickly.

The books range from the cheapest pulp to ancient and extremely 
powerful magickal tomes. In the shelves decaying scrolls filled with 
hieroglyphics lie side by side with modern encyclopaedias and clay 
tablets. The system the books are ordered after is extremely odd, 
and while all books in the same shelf may have something in 
common, it is seldom easy to understand. One shelf may be filled 
with books involving beekeeping, however obliquely. Another may 
contain maps, regardless of what they are maps of. Another may 
contain only books with 343 pages. Finding the book you want is a 
nightmare, and can take years. And there are also false books, 
books looking like the sought but containing subtle errors or 
falsehoods, blank pages or something altogether different.

Anyone may borrow books here freely, but he must return them. If 
the book have not been returned after a reasonable time, the 
Library turns against him. Exactly what happens is not known, 
since most such persons have simply vanished. The few that remain 
refuse to talk about it, and it may be noted that they have returned 
their books. Some mages travel into the Library to browse or to 
find a particular tome. This is dangerous, since many mages have 
been overwhelmed by their thirst for knowledge and never left the 
realm. Many have become Librarians or died within the Library.

The Librarians are quit, slightly myopic persons who keep the 
Library neat and tidy, sort the books and try to catalogue them. 
They are a fairly rare sight, but often very helpful if the helpseeker 
can stand their peculiarities. Many of them seems to be more than a 
little otherworldly, and sometimes drift off into interesting research 
or pressing duties. They tend to be irritated by loud noises, 
disorder or anything that threatens their dear books. 

The Library stretches into the physical world at many places and 
times in large libraries, used bookstores or collections. All 
sufficiently large collections of books, especially magickal books, 
tend to get close to the Library. Many chantry libraries connect to 
the Library. Most of the time these portals are impossible to find or 
just one way out from the Library, but sometimes they open 
spontaneously or because somebody seeking a book has 
accidentally found their way out. Some chantries have developed 
permanent portals into this realm, but most mages are suspicious of 
it. They have the feeling the Library is expanding into their 
libraries, and will slowly engulf them.