Lore

The Multiverse's Structure

Most individuals in any given world do not know anything about the structure of the multiverse. Those who study planar mechanics may use the term "multiverse" to refer to their Prime Material plane and its connected planes. However, this is still a very limited perspective. Each universe has its own set of planes, its own pantheon, its own history, and its own cosmology.

The truth is, when you look into the night sky, each star you see is likely a portal on the inside of your crystal sphere, leading out of your universe and into Voidspace. In rare cases, a crystal sphere may be semitransparent from the inside. In this instance, the only light powerful enough to pierce through the crystal sphere is the light directly shed by other crystal spheres. Either way, there is no way to gain a full view of the multiverse within the limited bounds of a single sphere.

Space: Void and Wild

A Shared History

While every individual crystal sphere develops in a slightly different way, there are many similarities between how they develop. The development of a new crystal sphere is not something that can be actively observed, but certain patterns can be identified by studying the religious history of each world as it opens to the multiverse.

Every universe starts as a war between two major factions: Gods, born of divine energy, and Primordials, born of primal arcane elements. This conflict is known to most universes as The Dawn War.

In every known universe we have been able to study, the Gods won this war. It is unknown if it is even possible for the Primordials to win. On rare occasions, however, certain abberations may get involved in a universe's Dawn War. In this case, it has been proven possible for both the Gods and Primordials to lose, allowing creatures such as Beholders, Illithids, or Aboleths to take over a crystal sphere and claim it for their own. These crystal spheres have proven quite difficult to study, as their inhabitants are extremely hostile towards outsiders. As such, the specifics of their history are limited to speculation at best.

The Far Realm

Abberations come from a world known only to us as The Far Realm, a place completely disconnected from the Ascendant Multiverse we know. The Far Realm is seemingly connected equally to every universe, as well as being the one other "plane" that can be accessed from Voidspace. However, its usefulness in this regard is diminished as studying the Far Realm inevitably leads to madness.

What we can do, however, is theorize about the nature of the Far Realm based on the evidence we can make sense of. Distance, time, and thought seemingly work so differently in the Far Realm as to make them incomprehensible to non-abberations, but the arcane methods by which to create portals to the Far Realm are strikingly similar to the rituals used for planar travel within a crystal sphere. This leads to the current prevailing theory - that the multiverse is "nested."

Those who have only ever known their own crystal sphere perceive their universe's planescape as a "multiverse." These planescapes are connected through Voidspace, with each one's Material Plane presenting in a Crystal Sphere. Now consider that Voidspace is itself just one plane/universe in a much larger multiverse. By extension, the Far Realm must be a neighboring universe to Voidspace, with its own nesting complexities. It may even be possible for there to be multiple worlds which we call "The Far Realm" that are as distinguishable to an Aboleth as The Nine Hells is to Arborea for us.