THE MULTIVERSAL LORE COMPENDIUM

As preserved in the Aetheric Archives of Apothrica

I. The Shape of Creation

The Multiverse is not a straight line but a spiraling helix—
a cosmic vine twisting around a single, impossible truth:
All magic begins at the center.

At the core lies the Cosmic Mana Pool, a vast reservoir of liquefied arcana older than the gods themselves. Its tides radiate outward in shimmering waves, nourishing the realms that orbit it like drifting petals.

• Realms closest to the Pool sing with high magic.
  
  

• Realms further out whisper, thin and quiet.
  
  

Arcainia rests in the inner coil—bright, volatile, alive.
Earth sleeps in the outer dark, half-forgotten, half-protected.

Beneath the helix, clinging like parasites to its shadow, the Hells fester.

And far beyond them, gnawing at the dying tip of creation, yawns The Maw, a wound in the cosmos that never heals.

II. Arcainia — The Mortal Realm

Arcainia was shaped from the four primal elements—Aqua, Terra, Pyra, and Aether—woven together by divine will. It is the realm where physical bodies grow and die: a place of iron, blood, breath, and consequence.

Mortals carry a spark of mana within them. Small, fragile, unmistakable.
It makes them bright.
It makes them hunted.

When a mortal dies, their spirit steps out of the flesh and is met by Revan, the Angel of Death, who carries them across the Veil into Umbra Vitae, the Underworld.

III. Umbra Vitae

Umbra Vitae (“The Shadow of Life”) is a twilight realm of quiet roads and echoing halls, where souls arrive unburdened by body yet shrouded in memory.

At its heart stands the Chamber of Weighing, ruled by The Fates, an ancient council of liches who judge every soul.

These liches were once archmages who sought to perfect the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. For their hubris, they were entombed alive and became something sterner, colder, wiser than mortality. Their scales do not lie.

• If a soul is light, it may rest with loved ones in peaceful domains…
  or choose reincarnation, returning to Arcainia to rise, fall, and rise again.
  
  

• If the soul is heavy, the spirit is cast into one of the Hells.
  
  

• But if the scales tip too far, the wicked are not permitted even the torments of Devils—they are fed to The Maw, where they are twisted by Lilith, the Dreamweaver, into demons.

Some call this obliteration.
Some call it rebirth into horror.

Both are correct.

IV. The Hells

The Hells are countless pocket dimensions, each sculpted by the will of a Devil Lord. Their landscapes reflect mania, cruelty, and exquisite logic.

Devils crave authority, not flesh.
Every contract carved in desperation feeds them.
Every soul bound in fine print strengthens their dominion.

Their wars are legalistic—armies built from signatures, loopholes, and victims who never learned to read the small script.

Devils fight each other constantly. Territory, prestige, and “soul quotas” drive endless infernal politics.

And always, at the furthest edges of their realms, the Devils clash with demons clawing their way up from The Maw.

Most days, they hold.

Most.

V. The Maw

The Maw is not a plane. It is a wound carved into the lowest root of creation, where reality thins, rots, and falls inward.

It births demons—not schemers, but predators wearing the idea of a face.
Creatures of hunger, panic, and power without restraint.

At the center of this abyss reigns Lilith, the Dreamweaver, the First Demon. She twists damned souls into abominations that seek to devour every spark of light and will.

Where devils plan, demons devour.
Where devils build, demons break.
Where devils bargain, demons bite.

Demons that escape the pit ravage whatever they can reach—the Hells first… and from there, anything foolish enough to be downstream.

Their ultimate prize is a living body. Flesh is shelter; flesh is leverage; flesh is a throne.

VI. Dreaming and the Veilstream

When mortals sleep, their spirits drift into the Veilstream, the shimmering current between realms. It flows dangerously close to the Mana Pool and far too close to the Maw.

Ordinary dreamers skim its surface like feathers on water.

But mages, especially those with high affinity or fraying sanity, dip deeper—pulling raw magic through the Veilstream, bending weather, conjuring storms, opening tears.

Demons hunger for those dips.
They stalk the Veilstream like sharks beneath a raft.

Possess.
Influence.
Ride the dreamer back into the waking world wearing dawn like stolen skin.

VII. The Elemental Planes

Orbiting the Cosmic Pool like jeweled satellites, the Elemental Realms remain both primordial and eternal.

Aqua — The Endless Sea

A boundless ocean beneath a sky of glass. At its center churns the Maelstrom, a vortex that drinks with endless thirst.
Atlas, god of seas and storms, dwells in its eye.

Terra — The Cavernous World

Mountains turned inside-out. Labyrinthine caverns lit by crystalline suns. Rivers of stone flowing like molten water.
Giants walk here with steps that echo for eons.

Pyra — The Blazing Continent

An obsidian realm riddled with molten rivers and drifting basalt shards. At its core slumbers the Ignis, a fire-titan older than the first gods.

Aether — The Endless Sky

A plane without ground—just cloud continents, lightning birds, wind saints, and drifting temples of forgotten gods.

From these four realms, the gods gathered the raw matter that formed Arcainia.
Their harmony sustains all life.

VIII. The Cosmic Mana Pool

The Pool is the origin of every spark of magic.

• Its outer tides nourish.
  
  

• Its inner core annihilates.
  
  

Mortals who draw too deeply combust into radiant ash or crystallize into statues of Arcainium.

Legends say Magificus, the Seer-God, dipped an eye into the Pool itself, granting him sight into the past, present, and future. His followers claim he cried tears of raw mana for centuries afterward.

Some call the Pool the First God.
Some call it the Last.

Both agree it is not to be worshiped lightly.

IX. Earth — The Veiled Realm

Earth lies on the outermost coil of the helix, distant and thin-blooded with mana.

Long ago, a great Glamour veiled it—either to hide magic from unready mortals, or to hide mortals from something unready to be seen.

Only the gifted pierce the veil.
The rest walk blind, dreaming of wonders they will never recognize.

Earth sleeps.

But sleepers, inevitably, wake.

X. Divine Realms

The gods dwell across the multiverse, shaping homes that echo their domain and nature. Gods feud, ally, betray, fall, and resurrect. The multiverse shifts around them the way branches bend for wind—for gods shape creation even as creation reshapes them.

The Archives of Apothrica

A floating archive in the upper Aether, containing the knowledge of every sentient species. Books rearrange themselves when no one watches.

Durrin’s Forge-Between-Planes

A citadel suspended between Pyra and Terra. Here, mountains are melted into metal and stars hammered into blades. Time itself warps under Durrin’s forge-hammer.

Mechanus

The mechanical heart of Time. A realm of gears the size of planets and ticks that echo across eternity. Should its rhythm falter, all time would freeze mid-breath.