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.

Since before time was born, two worlds existed. Touching each other only in the rarest moments for the briefest instant, these two worlds existed unaware of each other.

But at the dawn of the 21st century, something happened. No one is certain why - though some suspect - but the Everworld and the Neverworld were drawn together, connecting as they had never been able to before.

The Gateways between the worlds, so rare in the past, opened chaotically across the planet. And with the Gateways, came monsters. Every day, there was the chance of a Gateway opening, tearing apart space as it did so, and releasing hordes of beings born from human imagination into the world, to pillage, take and destroy. Worse still, these creatures could not be harmed by human weapons - they were Fantasies, living ideas, and ideas are bulletproof.

In response to this, a new global organisation was formed. Human Existence Reserve Organisation. Initially failing due to the Fantasies invulnerability, the tides were turned by the discovery of a method to kill Fantasies, and the creation of the Narrators. Newly armed against their foes, H.E.R.O pushed the invasion back to the Neverworld, and defends the planet against the Fantasies' attacks wherever they appeared.

With the threat at bay, H.E.R.O went about covering up the invasions, erasing it from the annals of history. For in their work, they had discovered the true nature of their universe - the Everworld and the Neverworld existed on the two sides of the same coin. The Everworld was the World of Reality, the Dominant World, while the Neverworld was the World of Fantasy, the Recessive World. And if enough of humanity knew that the Neverworld existed, it would become Dominant as well, merging with the Everworld in a cataclysmic event that would reduce the entire universe to rubble.

The story begins with the kidnapping of the as-of-yet-unnamed protagonist's sister during an invasion, and his attempt to save her that leads him into the Neverworld. There, he discovers that not all Fantasies are hostile towards humanity, and the invasions have been perpetuated by a group named Mythos. Teaming up with the fae girl Kat, he saves his sister from the clutches of Mythos, and joins with H.E.R.O. As he travels through the many layers of the Neverworld, he finds himself embroiled in the various conflicts of the world, meeting various beings and factions, and comes to learn the story of the Archeans, the truth of the world, and the Black Pillars...

Powers of the Verse
The power of this verse is deceptively high. Although most characters tend to sit around 9-C to 9-B physically, and can be higher with Tales (albeit they are generally glass cannons), the actual mechanics by which their powers work are far higher. See below for more detail. However, there are several extremely powerful characters in the verse, the Neverworld Lords. 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, the collective concentration of humanity's innate Aether (and thus reality warping powers) is even stronger than Nyarlathotep, and the collectively, the titular Black Pillars are even stronger than Alaya. The Void Incarnate is superior to Alaya, while the Overseer is stronger than them all. Beyond the Overseer lies the Primordial World of Kadmon, and the Ultimate Ones. 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, though it does have several irrelevant characters.

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
Emanation: Emanation (with a capital E) is the term for ... everything except the Zeroth, and Egos. All things come from the Aether that the Zeroth began to emanate, so it is called Emanation. Emanation is everything else. Kadmon, Abyss, Void, Grains, Ultimate Ones, Alaya, the Everworld, the Neverworld, concepts, events, physics, magic, souls, minds, etc etc etc. The only thing that is not Emanation are the Zeroth itself (can't be your own emanation) and Egos (the equal and opposite of Aether).

Phantasia: Phantasia is the essence of the Neverworld, and the source of power for Narrators. Phantasia lies within all Recessive Concepts of the Neverworld, and can be extracted from physical objects of the Neverworld as a fluid substance. Additionally, with the contact between the Neverworld and the Everworld, some humans have begun to be born with the ability to naturally produce Phantasia within themselves.

Tales: Tales are the "spells" used by Narrators. Tales are essentially a form of plot manipulation, expending Phantasia to overwrite the Everworld with a "plot" from the Neverworld. By focusing on a specific story (or an aspect of the story), generally by chanting the words of the story, Narrators can enforce the plot of these stories on the world around them in order to achieve a variety of effects ranging from throwing fireballs to slowing time - in essence, they have "X power via plot manipulation". Tales are extremely potent, as the Phantasia energy it uses is produced by Alaya and even present in 1-A spaces such as the Yog Sothothium, and is thus 1-A in nature, capable of even working on the plots of 1-A spaces such as the Yog-Sothothium.

Narrators: Narrators are people who use Phantasia to cast Tales on the world. Rarely, a person might be capable of internally producing their own Phantasia, something only possible with the heightened contact between the Neverworld and Everworld.

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: Certain beings in the world are born with stronger Egos than others. Upon awakening to this, they become able to absorb the Aether that sustains them from the world around them to increase their power, becoming a sort of lesser god, granting them various benefits such as 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.

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, upwards of 200m in height. They have strange symbols that glow with red light carved into their surfaces. 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. Their existence is a main plot point (though considering the verse name, I hope you guessed that). The Black Pillars come from a previous timeline of the Universe (which includes all cycles of big bangs and big crunches), and were created by the Archeans.

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:

Grains: A Grain is the term for the infinite worlds that compose the landscape of Kadmon, named as such because they are like the grains of sand of the endless desert of Kadmon. Grains can be created by the Ultimate Ones, or they can naturally form from the coalescing emanation of the Zeroth. Different Grains can be completely different to each other, having completely different sizes, concepts and cosmologies to each other.

Universe: Within the context of The Black Pillars, a Universe (capital 'U') refers to a world within a Grain that is ruled over by Alaya. Because of this, a Universe can contain both the Everworld and the Neverworld, and the Neverworld can itself contain multiple layers universal (or larger) in size, so a Universe is actually a multiverse.

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.

The Sea of Imagination: The Sea of Imagination is the "lowest", and "deepest" layer of the Neverworld. It is a swirling, endless vortex of the Recessive Concepts of the world, lacking any Dominant Concepts to hold it together or give it structure. It is a world that exists free of anything that exists in the Everworld. Concepts such as time, space, light and dark, matter and energy, as concepts that exist in the Everworld, do not exist in this place. It is a world of pure fantasy and fiction.

The Void: The Void is a lightless "place" that is outside the Universes, but still within the Grain itself. The Void is a true void, containing pure non-existence. Beings of the void cannot be truely perceived, as their concepts simply do not and cannot be exist, leading to them appearing like holes in reality of indeterminable shape. The Void itself is sentient, and actively attempts to destroy Universes.

The Nexus: The Nexus is a plane of the world that exists simultaneously at the centre of the Grain, yet also beyond it and everything within, Universes and Void included. To help you visualise this, imagine a circle drawn on a piece of paper. That circle is the Grain. Now, in the very centre of that circle, put a coin. That coin is the Nexus. Simultaneously existing at the centre of the Grain, yet also beyond it).

Kadmon: Kadmon is a metaphysical location, the original world to spontaneously generate from the Aether of the Zeroth, and is the second highest "location" is the cosmological structure of the world, only surpassed by the Zeroth itself. Because of this, it is the purest world, and will always transcend any other to be created, no matter the cosmological magnitude of that world. Kadmon typically appears as an endless desert of silver sands, with the Zeroth in the sky above.

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

Alternate Theme

The Neverworld Theme

Beasts of the Void

Supporters
Dreaming Serpent

H.E.R.O

 * Adrian Ainsworth Days

The Corporation

 * CEO

Novum Dei

 * The Immutable
 * The Incomprehensible
 * The Omnipresent

Weapons

 * Weapon 1
 * Weapon 2

Vehicles

 * Vehicle 1
 * Vehicle 2