Forge of the Worldsoul

The Mind of the Maker

Before anything existed, the Maker dreamed. It dreamt motes of nova-bright light never-ending shrouded in dark mists. It dreamed of subtance that buoys the feet yet crumbles into grain between fingers. The Maker dreamed of fire.

The Maker opened its eyes. Flame filled its mind. The Maker thought, and in thinking discovered thoughts the same as its dreams. The Maker thought again and time flowed. Whirling gas condensed and stars shone into being. Worlds formed from sudden implosions of matter and ether. Life made its first shuddering steps in the wake of the Maker’s stream of thought. The Maker wove all that is into existence with furious passion and vision, his mind at the center of vast expanding web of being.

Not even the Maker can sustain such passion without strain or without limit. Now that life was beginning, it needed to be nurtured. The Maker’s presence was still required in through the creation of the cosmos and beyond. The true beauty of the Maker’s creations would be that would change and grow, but it could not without guidance. The Maker distributed attention through every strand of creation’s web, its thoughts galloping on etheric threads to the worlds built and now growing.

Though it could provide guidance and some protection to all creation, the Maker knew that it must provoke change with force, not mere observation. The last of the Maker’s will was kept for the Maker itself. With it the Maker created a hammer. It shaped a mountain in the lands floating around its body into the shape of an anvil which gathered the energies surrounding the Maker to its face.

With its last shred of consciousness, the Maker compelled its own body into the rhythm of striking the anvil’s face with its hammer.

When the hammer strikes the anvil, the collected energy flies apart, breaking away from the face in all direction. The sparks travel the infinite expanse of creation, imperceptible until they burst and manifest as dreams, as people, as gods, as planets, as stars.

All who have received the Maker’s Gift knows this story.

The Maker’s Gift

The Maker has never manifested in psychic or physical form, but its consciousness exists in all things. In the infinity of existence, it is always observing even as its body mindlessly toils at the Forge. It is content to watch for aeons, playing no part in the cycle of existence. The Maker loves all existence but loves living things the most. A star will always work as the Maker made it, as will a mountain, as will a flame. But life emerges from the Maker’s intentions at dizzying vectors and angles, impossible for the Maker to know fully.

On rare occasions, it grants a living being a gift. It transmits the first dreams of the Maker, filling the recipients mind with the images and sounds of the true story of existence. The gift informs the recipient how to visit the Maker’s realm. Last, the recipient receives a message in the form of a compulsion: Offer yourself to the anvil, and receive your deepest wish.

Most cannot receive the Maker’s Gift. The cosmos laid bare before them, unfortunate recipients typically become incoherent and mad, turning away from the Maker’s light. Those who retain their sanity often become known to their fellows as madmen or crazed, false prophets speaking of realities unheard and unheralded. Very few are able to hold the Maker’s Gift and their sense of self at the same time. They speak of the Maker little or not at all. These souls become known as the wisest men and women of their age, possessing a truly advanced understanding of reality.

Fewer still are those emboldened with that knowledge to make the pilgrimage to the Worldsoul, and fewer those who survive the journey.

But for those few, all things become possible.

The Forge of the Worldsoul

The Worldsoul is the Maker’s realm, a vast strip of land looping around its body. The landscape shifts constantly into new vistas and terrains. Plains become oceans and oceans become flame and flames become plains once again. The black sky is finds it light in the Maker’s aura, its form dwarfing planets and unable to be seen fully from anywhere in the Worldsoul. At most one can glimpse only a portion of the Maker’s form.

Sparks from the forge occasionally strike the Worldsoul itself , giving birth to many creations on the land of the Forge itself. The creatures of the Maker’s realm are the most unlikely sort, creations unlikely to be seen in any of the infinity of worlds. Whole races rise, live and die in the Worldsoul, as do beings of god-like power. Those who visit the Worldsoul are forever imprinted by the sprawling diversity and strangeness of beings and sites found in the Maker’s realm.

The only constant in the Worldsoul is change. And the Forge.

Almost anywhere you stand on the Worldsoul you can see the Forge on the horizon. It is a field of corruscating energy with an immense mountain shaped by the Maker’s thoughts into an anvil. Forge of the Worldsoul is the heart of creation.

The most difficult task in all worlds is to enter the Forge and ascend to the Anvil’s face. The Forge drains and tests and drains again the body and will of those who seek to conquer it. At the end of the journey, the ascendant traveller meets his reward. The thunderous breaking of sky, the sudden paralyzing shadow of the hammer’s descent…and the fulfillment of any wish.

The Forge of the Worldsoul is the first in a series of wondrous places for your 4e game.  The next part will be continuation describing how to use the Maker and the Worldsoul in your game, as well as key personalities and sites.  Like what you’re seeing?  Please comment and share!

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