[Torg] Inspiration Sidebars (Core Earth World Laws 11 of 11)

[Jones Jasyn]

Possibility Energy and Morality

A good question could be asked: Why? Why do the World Laws of Earth engineer clashes between heroes and villains?

The answer is found in the nature of Possibility Energy itself. Possibility Energy is a bipart energy source, embodying both creation and destruction. This is shown in its red/blue color scheme: red for destruction, blue for creation. Possibility Energy is constantly driving both these opposing effects, destruction embodied in High Lords and creation (or preservation) in Eternity Shards and Storm Knights.

On Core Earth, the struggle against destruction and creation takes the form of the Threat of Villainy and the Power of Hope. They are the local manifestation of a cosmversal struggle between the two halves of Possibility Energy.

Fiction and Realities

One consequence of the Gift of Inspiration is that Core Earth’s fiction (including folklore, myths, and stories) is more flexible, more varied, more multi-facted and contradictory than that of other realities. In one sense, this limits other cosms, they’re just not as flexible as Core Earth. Core Earthers are just as limited, though. We can only dream of magic, in Aysle it’s real. We can only tell tales of miracles, in the Living Land they actually happen. We can only dream of traveling the stars, while the Akashans do.

In that sense, our existence is the more tragic: We dream of other worlds, we long for other worlds, other worlds seem real to us and we want them to be real, but in the end we only live in this world. Other realities are beyond our grasp.

Believing in Another Reality

It takes more than mere fascination for ords or stormers to support an alien reality. Reality informs one’s world view. People innately feel that their reality is right, that this is the way existence should be. In cosms that have never had contact with alien realities, people usually believe that their reality is the only possible one, that any other reality simply doesn’t exist.

Even before the Wars, many Earthers could accept the existence of other realities: they believed (even if unconsciously) that other realities could exist. Some went even further. They didn’t just believe in other realities in general, they accepted the truths underlying some other reality, possibly even rejecting this reality.

People who sincerely believe that another reality would be better than the real world, and wished that the other world existed, could qualify as supporters (even if they didn’t believe that other world was real). Someone who strongly desired to live in a world of chivalrous knights, castles, and dragons might be susceptible to Ayslish reality (even if Aysle doesn’t fulfill all their expectations). Those who believe in the Singularity and look forward to it, might become believers in an invading science fiction reality.

To count as a supporter of another reality, the individual would have to show more than mere interest or enthusiasm for some aspect of that reality. Typically, they would be enthusiastic to the point of eccentricity, perhaps to the point of loathing or hating their own world because it doesn’t measure up to the one they imagine.
It is up to players and gamemasters to determine if any given Core Earth player character qualifies. Gamemasters decide for non-player characters, of course.
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Jasyn Jones
jasynj (at) gmail (dot) com

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson

Check out my Torg webpage, Storm Knights:
web.me.com/stormknights/