[Torg] Fringe Realities

[Jones Jasyn]

In doing design work on a new Living Land and the Magic axiom, I needed certain features of a cosm to exist. I found them in an extant Torg concept, the Fringe Reality. Fringe realities are temporary pocket dimensions that can come into existence or fade away.

The following is a description of Fringe Realities, including descriptions of them, why they occur and what can happen with one.

Fringe Realities

Definition: A fringe reality is a temporary pocket dimension whose existence is contingent on folklore or beliefs in the primary dimension. They can come into existence or fade away based on those beliefs and change according to those beliefs. Possibility energy causes these effects to occur.

Rules

A cosm is a universe physically separate from all other universes at the time of its creation. Within each cosm are a number of dimensions (or “planes”). Possibility Energy circulates between the dimensions of the cosm, and is most concentrated in the cosm’s Possibility Nexus. The Possibility Nexus is the source for the Possibility Energy of the cosm. The dimension it is located in is the primary dimension of the cosm.

Example: In Aysle, the Diskworld is the primary dimension, the Demon Dimension and the Dimension of Scholarly Spirits are secondary dimensions.

Secondary dimensions are also frequently referred to as “pocket” dimensions. Most dimensions came into existence when the cosm did, and will last as long as the cosm does. Traveling to other dimensions is difficult, it requires tools of a high Axiom, either Tech, Magic, or Spirit. Absent those tools, each dimension in a cosm remains apart from the others: no travel between them is possible.

In Torg, some dimensions are contingent: they only exist because of the beliefs or folklore of the primary dimension. In Earth, these include Avalon, Atlantis, and the Land Below. Such contingent dimensions are called fringe realities.

As the primary dimension is the home of the Possibility Nexus, the cultures of the primary dimension influence the PE that leaves the nexus and circulates to other dimensions. This influence is sometimes strong enough to cause a fringe reality to come into existence. The fringe reality is as the folklore of the primary dimension depict it. When those beliefs change, the reality changes. If belief in the fringe reality fades, it ceases to exist.

The axioms and world laws of fringe realities are contingent on the beliefs that created it. If the beliefs claim it is a more magical place, it may have a higher Magic axiom than the primary dimension.

Because the fringe reality springs from the primary dimension, the dimensional borders between the two are uncertain. At times, it may be fully separate (as a pocket dimension), and at other times it can “phase in” (or become permeable). When phased in, it is possible to travel between the primary dimension and the fringe reality spatially: by walking, flying, running, taking a ship, whatever. No high Axiom tools are required.

In rare instances, it may phase in fully, seeming to be a part of the primary dimension. Whether it exists as an island, a cave, a mountain peak or whatever, it will seem to be- and is, for the duration of the event- a part of the primary dimension.

Eventually, most of these will phase out (partially or fully), but it is possible, albeit rare, for the fringe reality to cease being separate and to become one with the primary dimension. In such a case, belief no longer affects the fringe reality. (In fact, in a sense it doesn't exist any more, there is no fringe reality, just a chunk of land that didn't use to be there.)

Conversely, fringe realities can evolve into dimensions. If this occurs, the new pocket dimension is no longer contingent on the primary dimension. It will continue to exist as long as the cosm exists, even if all belief in it fades away. When beliefs about the dimension change, the dimension itself (and its axioms and world laws) does not change. 

The process of evolving into a dimension is fairly random and poorly understood. Stronger belief in its existence makes it more likely, but not guaranteed.

“Terra incognito” or legendary lands (Avalon, Tir Nan Og, the 7 Cities of Cibola, the Hollow Earth) are a common feature of folklore. If belief supports it, these lands may actually come to exist.

As fringe realities are created by possibility energy, the more energy a cosm has, the more likely fringe realities are to form. When the possibility energy of a cosm starts to fall (either naturally or as a result of an invasion), fringe realities are among the first parts of a cosm to die. They cease to exist, and everything in them disappears as well.
--
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/