Pillars of Creation

At the very edge of the Astral lie the five Pillars of Creation, or funadments: the Fountain, the fundament of life; the Keystone, the fundament of creation; the Gate, the fundament of death; the Pit, the fundament of destruction; and the Worldsoul, the fundament of actualization. These five fundaments maintain the borders of creation, and define every living thing contained within the multiverse: they are all created, they all live, they are all actualized, they all die, and ultimately they are destroyed.

Though they are known by countless name throughout myth and legend, most scholars refer to them by translations of their Atlantean names. Though the Island Kingdom is long gone, fragments of their lore still remain, and the Atlanteans were the first humans to truly push at the boundaries of creation to see what lay beyond--for good and for ill.

The Fountain

At the heart of Faerie stands the legendary Fountain of Youth, also known as the Well of Souls. The Fountain is the source of all the anima--or life force--in the cosmos, and is the cause of Faerie's exceptional vitality.

The Keystone

Chaos' cosmic foundation is the Keystone, or the Cosmic Egg, a great monolith upon which is written all the natural laws of reality. It is the Keystone that determines the strength of gravity, the interactions of the nuclear forces, the properties of electromagnetism, the speed of light, and all those other fundamental properties needed for the rest of creation to exist as it does.

The Gate

The pillar of the Underworld is only hypothesized, as no one has ever been able to confirm the existence of the Gates to the Afterlife. What is known is that the Underworld is not the final destination for the souls of the dead--there is something that lies beyond.

The Pit

At the deepest, darkest part of Shadow lies the Pit, the End of Everything itself. The Pit is oblivion, entropy, and the inevitable heat death of the universe made manifest. However, destruction is a necessary part of creation, for it allows room for new creation to flourish. The Pit is especially notable for being the end point for both the anima produced by the Fountain and the raw matter generated by the Keystone. The horrors' Parliament of Shadows hangs suspended above the Pit by great chains of adamant, crafted by some unknown civilization in a long-forgotten age.

The Worldsoul

The pillar of the Spirit World is the World Soul, the greatest of all the spirits of the spirit world. It goes by many names across time and myth, from Gaia to Mother Nature to the Earth Mother. It is the spirit of Earth, and represents the zeitgeist of our age. It is also the only pillar known to be sentient, and willing to converse with mortals who are able to brave the strangest and most abstract reaches of creation.