In a previous post, I talked about the concept of sources and sinks, where sources are where raw magical energy flow out and sinks are where magical energy flow in. I also went on about Ideal Planes being a source, and Chaotic Planes being sinks.

Now that I’ve had a chance to stew over this, I think I flipped it around. Let’s explain in more detail. Let me just add, that to some extent, we want to have some mapping to something resembling a traditional Dungeons and Dragons game.

The Multi-Planar Cosmos

The Glacial Model

Let’s start by imagining a lush mountain landscape, topped with thick white glacial ice. Now, heat, gravity and all sorts of forces act on the ice pack, so that it slowly melts down the slopes of this mountain.

The run-off from these glaciers follow different paths down the mountain— through crevasses and trenches, crags and tunnels. Eventually, some of the water gets collected in basins. And where there’s an abundance of water, life flourishes—these basins spawn and support diverse ecosystems.

Of course, these basins are continually filled with more of this run-off from the glaciers, and they begin to overflow, draining water further downstream. Often, it bring some of the minerals, nutrients and life with it, and it collects into a much larger basin further down the line, where all of the various networks of flowing water eventually collects.

The glaciers in the above analogy, are our sources, and each basin downstream are our sinks. We’re thinking of the snow-melt here as our raw magical energy, and each basin as zones where this energy has somehow pooled enough to sustain life, experiences and sapience. Along with an overflow of magical energy, these ideas that are fostered in these interstitial sinks, are carried off further down the line into bigger sinks.

Thinking about it in this way, makes sources of magical energy be completely devoid of anything except raw magic, which would be quite chaotic. Somehow, cosmic processes convert this raw magical energy into streams of slightly more usable energy and are collected into these downstream basins.

Elemental Streams

As water from the glaciers flow, it collects with it silt, minerals—materials from the fissures and tunnels of the mountain. So too with magic. Streams coming from the primordial magical source draws from the raw materials of the cosmos.

Vivial Basins

These are the various material planes, whose size and magical capacity are vastly different. I still don’t really have ideas on what controls these parameters. Suffice it to say, there’s some kind of cosmic morphology that is analogous to mountainous regions.

Categorical Lakes

As magical energy overflows from the basins, imbued with thoughts, experiences and egos of life bind to them. The stronger the idea, belief or story becomes, the larger the outflow of magical energy. Similar streams eventually converge down the mountain as Categorical Lakes. Here, the archetypal ideas that overflow from all the upstream Vivial Basins form separate idealized containers.

Conclusion

I think this is a good framework for us to develop moving forward. This could still turn out to be an in-world philosophical framework, instead of the actual model of the reality in which Thera exists. Either way, I think we can have some good fun melding it into the worldbuilding.