The Black Pillars (Verse)

WIP. Making a verse page for my main story instead of leaving it all on the Monarchverse page.

Disclaimer: No pictures on this page are mine, and all credit goes to their original creators and owners.

Summary
The Black Pillars is a verse created and owned by Monarch Laciel. For centuries, the twin worlds of the Everworld, the "normal" world of mankind, and the Neverworld, the supernatural world of belief and possibility, had co-existed peacefully. However, the discovery of the Black Pillars shattered that peace. Each Pillar was inscribed with the advanced knowledge and immense powers of the Archeans, a mysterious precursor civilization, and collectively the Pillars held the power to rewrite the entire universe.

Immediately, factions arose to claim the Pillars for themselves. Over the course of the 20th century, on the background of the Everworld's mundane conflicts, the supernatural denizens of the Neverworld and the sorcerers of the Everworld warred with each other for control of the Pillars. Eventually, each of the Pillars were claimed by the strongest factions, and the world settled into an uneasy stalemate, none willing to make a move on the others for fear of retaliation and mutually assured destruction.

The story begins with the kidnapping of the as-of-yet-unnamed protagonist's sister, and his attempt to save her that leads him into the high stakes world of the Neverworld, and the conflict over the Black Pillars. As he travels through the many layers of the Neverworld, often finding himself embroiled in the various conflicts of the world, he meets various beings and factions and comes to learn the story of the fall of the Archeans, and the true purpose of the Black Pillars.

Powers of the Verse
The power of this verse is somewhat difficult to quantify, as many characters have powers and abilities that are outerversal / 1-A in nature, if not in potency, and physical power varies quite a bit. Additionally, there is a system that allows characters to defeat those who are vastly stronger than them due to having more "belief" in them than another character (see below). However, on a surface level, the lowest characters in the verse range from Street Level to Small Building Level. Stronger characters can range from Large Building Level to City Level, but are generally glass cannons. The Neverworld Lords are extremely powerful, as they are the incarnations of characters from myths and works of fiction in the Everworld, and all have power levels reflecting what those legends stated around their power, with Satan reahing High 6-A for causing earthquakes across all of Hell, and Nyarlathotep and Azathoth  reaching 1-A for being vastly beyond the concept of dimensions. Alaya is even stronger than Nyarlathotep, and the collectively, the titular Black Pillars are even stronger than Alaya. The Void Incarnate is comparable, if not superior to Alaya, while the Overseer is stronger than them all. Beyond the Overseer lies the Primordial World of Kadmon, where all beings are even more powerful. Finally, the verse has a Tier 0 and questionable omnipotent, the Zeroth.

Additionally, the hax of the verse is also quite powerful. While basic sorcerers can merely control the elements, more advanced sorcerers are capable of ripping out souls and manipulating biology, while high level sorcerers are capable of controlling fundamental forces of the universe to warp time and space, control matter and create black holes. Almost all sorcerers are capable of portal creation to and from varying areas of the Neverworld. Hallows and Archeans are capable of warping the laws and concepts of reality in a Domain around them to achieve various effects, and the Divine Laws are capable of altering the laws and concepts they embody to warp space-time, souls, gravity, causality, etc on a universal scale.

In terms of speed, the verse is lacking, currently topping out at around subsonic to supersonic.

An explanation on battles between Neverworld Lords

In the verse, a Neverworld Lord is a unique being of significant power, someone from a myth or story. Most gods or named monsters from myths are Neverworld Lords, as are significant beings from works of fiction. Within their layer of the Neverworld, the myths and stories surrounding them are literally true - hence why beings such as Nyarlathotep are still Outerversal in nature.

However, when considering a battle between Neverworld Lords, there is something more important than the legends surrounding their power - the amount of "belief" in them. The more sentient beings in the Everworld that are aware of the Neverworld Lord and their legends, and the more "belief" in those Lords there is, the more powerful that Lord is in comparison to another Lord.

It is for this reason that Nyarlathotep was able to defeat Azathoth, Yog Sothoth and the other beings of the Yog Sothothium. More people knew of Nyarlathotep and its "legend" than they knew of Azathoth and Yog Sothoth, so Nyarlathotep had a higher level of belief than those entities, and thus even if by the "legend" Azathoth and Yog Sothoth were immeasurably more pwoerful than Nyarlathotep, Nyarlathotep was able to defeat them.

Fun fact: Due to the amount of knowledge and "belief" about Cthulhu, Cthulhu would actually have beaten Nyarlathotep if he had fought back. However, Cthulhu was asleep, so Nyarlathotep devoured him without any problems.

Explanations
The Everworld: The Everworld is the most common name for the "normal" world. Just think of the Everworld as our world. The Everworld is the "dominant paradigm" of reality, existing on top of the Neverworld. Beings in the Everworld are capable of unconsciously altering the Neverworld through their beliefs, creating new layers with from their belief in stories and myths, though certain beings can create their own layers through sheer willpower.

The Neverworld: The Neverworld is an alternate world existing "beneath" the Everworld. The Neverworld is comprised of countless "layers", which can vary in size or even have different natural laws governing them. The Neverworld manifests itself as a twisted replica of the reality on the other side, with its buildings and spaces distorted. Some areas of the Neverworld are beautiful, and other areas are hellish, and in many areas the same reality is layered on itself, creating different versions of the same area based on people's differing perspectives of the same location. Any story or belief that does not fit with the dominant paradigm of the Everworld (things like "fairies exist", "vampires exist", "Zeus exist", etc.) becomes a reality in the Neverworld. Similar layers will merge together, while differing layers will remain separate. The "deeper" the layer in the Neverworld, the less in common it has with the Everworld.

Sorcerers: Sorcerers are those born with magical ability. They are capable of recreating any phenomena that exists or has the potential to exist within the Everworld or Neverworld. However they cannot control phenomena outside those boundaries (in practice, this essentially means they can't manipulate concepts). These phenomena range from merely controlling things such as air, lightning and fire, to manipulating cellular decay and the natural pull of the soul to the afterlife (allowing them to rip out and BFR/seal souls), to manipulating effects such as the expansion and contraction of space, warping time through gravitational dilation, and controlling nuclear forces.

Aether: Aether is the divine emanations of the Zeroth and the "force" that allows everything else in the verse to exist, not exist, or be whatever other state of existence things are. "Everything else" includes such things as physical matter, thoughts and minds, memories, souls, concepts, events, systems of causality, dimensions, existence and non-existence, etc.

Hallows: Hallows are beings who have a larger amount of Aether present within them. Upon "activating" this Aether, they become a sort of lesser god, granting them superhuman physical characteristics, enhanced senses, extrasensory preception, and reality warping over a period of time. They also all have innate resistances to several abilities as a result of their natures, detailed here. The process of gaining more abilities and becoming stronger is called Apotheosis.

Commandment: Commandment, also known as Divine Influence, is the power of Hallows to enforce their wills on reality. It is a higher stage of Apotheosis that must be practiced with to develop. Commandments twists reality, overturning the very laws and concepts that govern reality and replacing them with the Hallow's own to bring about desired effects.

Domain: A Hallow's Domain is the area within which they can manifest the powers of their Commandment. Domains emanate out from Hallows at various ranges depending on their strength, with ranges naturally stretching past the horizon in with even the weakest Domain. However, due to Alaya's own Domain crushing all other others, most Hallows' Domains are confined to within centimetres to millimetres of their bodies. However, Hallows are capable of imbuing things with their Domains in order to increase their range and/or effectiveness, such as Chrysaor imbuing his sword with his Domain, Anthony Barone imbuing his blood with his Domain, and Nox imbuing his shadow with his Domain. When two Domains overlap, unless they are Sympathetic, they will slowly attempt to overwrite and crush the other Domain, with the stronger Domain being the victor.

Affinity: Hallows often find one sort of phenomena easier to cause through their Commandment then others, this phenomena being called their "Affinity". Affinities are determined by a Hallow's mindset, often based around a strong need, belief or desire. For example, Chrysaor's Affinity is severing things, a result of his life experience of severing ties repeatedly, and Markus Adams' Affinity is dreams, a result of his delusional belief that he is simply dreaming everything.

Alaya: Alaya is the collective consciousness of all sentient beings in the universe. As Aether is the sustaining force of everything, everything has Aether. Thus, even if a being has not enough Aether to become a Hallow, they still wield a miniscule fraction of its power. Because of this, the collective beliefs and desires of all sentient beings generate their own Commandment and Domain. This is called Alaya, an abstract force that maintains the laws, concepts and events of the universe as most sentient beings believe the universe to be. Hallows are separated from Alaya and do not contribute their own beliefs and desires towards it.

The Black Pillars: The Black Pillars are massive monoliths of pitch-black stone. Their existence is a highly kept secret in both the Everworld and the Neverworld. As of the beginning of the story, two Pillars have been discovered, one controlled by The Corporation, and the other controlled by the radicalist supernatural faction, Mythos.

Kadmon: Kadmon is the original infinite and endless World that exists beyond all others, no matter their magnitude. The Realms are mere shadows and illusions compared to the greatness of Kadmon. It matters not if a layer is created that has infinite outerverses, each with their own layers, each infinitely greater than the last - Kadmon will still be beyond them all.

The Abyss: The Abyss is where the Ultimate Ones go when they are killed (read: annihilated, erased, obliterated, destroyed, etc). Once in the Abyss, they can just climb back out in a few minutes. If they are killed when already in the Abyss, they fall deeper, and it takes them a few more minutes to climb back out. And if they are killed when they are already deeper in the Abyss, they fall even further in, and it takes them even more minutes to climb back out. Ad infinium. The Abyss is infinite.

Cosmology of the verse
Cosmology Blog to be added. With pictures, quotes and diagrams!

For now, terms to know are:

Realms: A Realm is a world created by an Ultimate One. They can be created as the Ultimate One wishes, having completely different sizes, concepts and cosmologies to each other.

Kadmon: The Primordial World, the First Reality, the Ur-Reality. The infinite, transcendent world of the Ultimate Ones, beyond the Realm.

The Abyss: Also known as the Ultimate Void and the Outer Darkness. When an Ultimate One is "killed" they simply fall into the Abyss, and can climb back out within minutes and return, good as new. If they are killed when already in the Abyss, they fall deeper. This can continue forever, as the Abyss is infinte.

The Zeroth: Beyond even the final limits of the infinite Kadmon and Abyss, lies God, if God was the highest plane of reality from which everything else stemmed. 

Music
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these. All rights go to the original creators

Main Theme

The Neverworld Theme

Beasts of the Void

Protagonists

 * Pro
 * Fae Girl

The Corporation

 * CEO

Novum Dei

 * The Truthful
 * The Loving
 * The One
 * The Immutable
 * The Incomprehensible
 * The Omnipresent
 * The Omniscient
 * The Omnipotent

The Void

 * Voidborn
 * Void Prince 1
 * Void Prince 2
 * Void Prince 3
 * Void Princess 1
 * Void Princess 2
 * The Void Incarnate

Weapons

 * Weapon 1
 * Weapon 2

Vehicles

 * Vehicle 1
 * Vehicle 2