Extended Planar Cartography and How The Egg Might Hatch.

Ittimin, winter 1109 - 1110

Introduction - does she need our help?

Over the winter I conducted some experiments. They were spurred by my thoughts after the destruction of Ashlar Everoth (the last remaining transformed Ancient of Famine, which we collectively named Entropy, not entirely correctly). Ashlar Everoth was trying to hatch Erdreja, and the truth is I never actually manage to prove once and for all that his plan wouldn't have worked. I tried - but in the end made the decision that I couldn't risk the possible consequences of his plan going wrong, and used the power of the final ritual to force him to see my point of view. This resulted in his unmaking himself and the emptying of the void's fourth column. Our last words ... "Stay and help me hatch her", "You don't need me to do that".

The thing was though - the ancients failed to hatch Erdreja, both with and without the Elder races, no documented attempt seems to have been made since the Younger Races were created, and the thought I couldn't get out of my head was that I had just destroyed the only powerful being left who was actively following a plan to try and hatch her. Now I don't want to find out in a few hundred years time that we should have done something now to help her hatch and now it is too late. So - I set up some experiments to try and find out how to hatch her, or whether in fact she needs any help at all.

The experiment consisted of a number of replica eggs - small mirrors of our world. On each I put a different action into motion, and watched to see how each would fare. It resulted in not only seeing how she may hatch in some scenarios (though it must be noted that I cannot predict all of what will happen, and therefore it is only a guide to understanding how things work, rather than a prediction of the future), but also a greater understand of the world outside our own – out where the cosmic dragons reside and beyond. ,I

The Cosmic Dragons

What they are doing? The purpose of the balance, and a greater understanding of ritual magic.
The first thing I noticed is that the Cosmic Dragons (otherwise referred to as the 'parent dragons') have a large effect on Erdreja. They also aren't exactly as we originally thought. They are not Law, Good and Chaos ... they are more complicated than that. It is more as if they are Cadres - Peace, Feast and War (The Sun, the White Moon and the Dark Moon respectively). Both Moons are working to maintain the World Barrier - the barrier around the egg that is in the sky as far as we are concerned, and is bent down to form the seals on ritual circles. I'm going to call it the 'Inner World Barrier' from now on as it is not the only barrier out there - we'll get to that in a bit. The Sun is throwing huge amounts of energy in a continuous stream towards Erdreja. The energy is not aligned to anything in particular, it is perfectly balanced. The sun has been doing this since Erdreja was laid, to give her the energy to hatch, though he is getting gradually weaker over time as a result. The energy he is giving explains somewhat the 'Magic' mentioned in the quote from Padre Aldan's timeline:

" A third Cosmic dragon finds Erdreja and for reasons beyond our Knowing sets planet on to an Axis slowing down its Hatching Cycle due to the uneven soaking of Magic into the Shell.

This however contradicts the notion (also recorded in Padre Aldan's work) that the cosmic dragons left Erdreja once laid, and whilst they were gone the Dark Moon tipped Erdreja on its axis (our understanding at this point s that 'planet' in this quote refers to our egg). My rites, if sent back to the beginning, show that the Cosmic Dragons never left, though this could be a foible of the rite. Further research is required (or another conversation with the White Moon).

Anyway, the energy being given to Erdreja by the Sun made ritual magic fall into place for me (many people I think may already know this, but I'll write it anyway for those that don't). When you seal a ritual circle you bend the Inner World Barrier down into the ground from the sky. This creates a direct route for the energy from the Sun to flow into the egg. Ritual circles are constructed to break this energy down into the sixteen aspects. It is this energy the ritualist uses in the circle, not energy from the void inside the egg (the one that normal void maps depict). Also, the ritual only uses a fraction of the energy flowing through the circle - the vast majority flows into Erdreja. So the good news is that rituals in general are pretty fantastic for the health of the egg (as long as the power is used responsibly of course).

Obviously rituals are not the only way the energy is getting through to Erdreja. Sinkholes are also a direct channel. In general how much energy of each aspect reaches the dragon is dictated by what we currently call 'The Balance'. The stronger an aspect on the balance, the more energy of that aspect reaches the dragon. This explains the purpose of the balance - what it does not explain is exactly how it works. We know there are three physical representations of the balance. One in the northern wastes, one on Hellenica, and one who's location moves. Exactly how it dictates the balance of energy
being fed to Erdreja is yet to be researched. to over see, so it was brief and an extremely small number compared to the number of gateways! The other eggs are all slightly different to our own.

 

Diagram of Erdreja

The Stars - What Are They?

There are two types of stars - ones that move across the sky if you watch them over many nights, and those that stay in a constant tapestry.

The stars that move are things that are orbiting the egg. There are 16 of these 'planets', each aligned to one of the aspects, orbiting in four paths around the egg. As to their purpose I do not yet know (though we are working to find out). They seem to be linked to the balance in some ways, in that at the most recent cataclysm all four Feast aligned planets moved to be aligned one above the other right above the crown of the world.

The stationary stars are something much further away. If you go out from the surface where we are, out through the inner world barrier, past the planets, past the Sun and the Moons, out there is the Outer World Barrier - a vast yet perfect sphere surrounding our world. Through it there are gateways, hundreds of them, each leading to another 'nest', with other eggs in the centre. These gateways we see as stars.

Curiosity got the better of me and I performed some rights to have a quick look through some of the gateways, though I hadn't much time with the other rites to over see, so it was brief and an extremely small number compared to the number of gateways! The other eggs are all slightly different to our own. I do not know what.

It made me think ... are the cosmic dragons 'parent dragons' at all? If you think there are all these eggs attached to each other, does that not sound like one big nest rather than many nests? There were 16 ancient dragons on the egg when she was laid, who were there to help her hatch, what if the cosmic dragons are just another set of ancients? This time four of them, aligned to each of the cadres? And the parent dragons are actually outside of the Outer World Barrier looking after the nest as a whole? The question also stands where is the cosmic dragon (or ancient) of Famine? Is it out there and we just can't see it yet, because we can't see how it is interacting with Erdreja?

The Hatching Scenarios - Scenario 1: Leave her be.

Does she hatch if we just carry on our day to day lives and don't try to do anything in particular to help? The answer is yes, she does, and beautifully (provided that nothing else interferes).

In this scenario the people on the surface of the egg fight each other bitterly for years. This however leads them to strive to be better than their enemies, and over time they become hugely advanced compared to us now. Their understanding of magic seems far superior to ours. Everyone gradually becomes awakened, but no two beings are the same, there is huge variety. Imagine if you will that each race is a different colour. Right now each race is a block of solid colour - for instance imagine all elves being red and all fey being yellow. Well in the future, it is not a block of red and a block of yellow, it is red fading through orange into yellow (please note, colours chosen are not significant, it's just a way of visualising the diversity).

Over time the beings on the surface become more and more linked to the dragon inside the egg. Until eventually they are almost embodiments of Erdreja herself. At this point, if the people on the surface are destroyed, Erdreja herself also dies.

Individuals start popping up who can manipulate their own patterns without the aid of ritual magic. And because of their, now inherent, link with Erdreja the manipulation of their patterns also changes her - so they can nudge her in a particular direction. These individuals become more common over time. It is not one-sided however, Erdreja can also can manipulate her own pattern to nudge the patterns of the people on the surface.

The result of all this is that Erdreja hatches having had the most diverse experiences and patterns nurture her, and leads her to reaching what seems to be the best of her potential in all Aspects of her pattern.

In all the other scenarios I saw exactly what her pattern was like after she hatched. However this scenario seemed to be interfered with. As if something did not want me to see. Interestingly the balance spiked in Fate as the interference took place (to do with the interference not the level of Fate in the scenario). Fortunately, however, I did see enough to see that she hatches as the most beautiful dragon.

Scenario 2 – Feed her, hatch her:

The opposite [of] leaving her be the previous scenario would be to try as best we could to hatch her. The best means of which, as we can see at the moment, is to feed her as much energy as possible.

Again we see conflict in this scenario - this time between those who want to hatch her and those who do not, whether that be because think the method is wrong, or that they are scared of dying during the hatching, or just don't care about things that detached from their every day lives. It is a hugely bloody conflict, which ends in those that wish to hatch her become dominant, but at the cost of around two whole thirds of the beings on the surface being killed in the conflict. These survivors set up a council of sorts, who activate and maintain all sixteen wellsprings and do everything in their power to feed the dragon as much as possible of the Sun's energy.

It works - she hatches, and quickly. However, she is no where near as complete and diverse as she was in the previous

Scenario 3 - Push her towards one aspect:

As we know, we can affect The Balance by our actions. This in turn affects what type of energy is prevalent in Erdreja's development. In theory we have always thought it possible that she would hatch aligned to whatever element influenced her most, or in fact that she had to hatch aligned to one aspect or another. This is not quite accurate.

If we push the balance too far, although we see no further cataclysms on the surface of the egg in any of the scenarios I conducted, smaller cataclysms can occur in the inner void - which readdresses the balance.

If however one aspect is particularly influential during her development it does indeed effect what she becomes when she hatches. She does not hatch aligned to an aspect, but aligned to that aspect's cadre (like the cosmic dragons). What is not yet clear is whether the cadres of the cosmic dragons, and/or Erdreja, match the cadres as we see them now, or as they were originally.

Scenario 4 - Unlife, or 'The Draco-liche':

Boris of the Faculty had theorised about the possibility of hatching Erdreja whilst leaving our world (the shell) intact in order to leave us free to live on the surface. His thoughts on how this would be achieved [were] to turn Erdreja into an incorporeal unliving, or a 'Draco-liche' as he named it. Allowing her to float out through her shell. It is very likely that those on the surface would be unable to exist if the dragon is no longer in the egg, as the cycles of energy we depend on would likely leave with the dragon, however as the scenarios were for the purpose of learning, I thought it would be interesting to run.

The theory used for turning Erdreja Unliving was to make Unlife more dominant than Life on the surface. It was based on the concept that because the surface is linked to the cycles in the void, which is linked to Erdreja – they can influence each other to an extent. This is not something that would be likely to be achieved in reality, as the power required to raise or create more unliving than there are living is gargantuan. However, in order to negate that flaw in the plan and learn from the results of the scenario, I started the egg with more unliving than are in reality present.

As Unlife became more dominant than Life on the surface the Cycle of Unlife started to expand and grow in the void. When it was powerful enough it started to consume the other planes around it in the void. This is bad news for anything on the surface - our patterns mirror the planes in the void, and as the planes in the void are consumed the people on the surface start to die. Their patterns are being destroyed from within. By the time Erdreja is nearing hatching the surface is a barren wasteland. Erdreja takes much much longer to hatch in this scenario than any other, due to the fact that Unlife as a cycle is much slower than Life. The cosmic dragon of Peace (the sun) watches this, but never stops giving all the energy he can to Erdreja. He gets weaker and weaker, but never stops. She does indeed become this 'draco-Iiche', and floats out of the egg leaving the shell intact (not that it matters anymore, as there is nothing there to care about). Erdreja floats out of her shell and turns on the cosmic dragons (the sun and moons), destroying them, as unlike the other scenarios the sun is now too weak to stand up to her.

Scenario 5 - The Nosta-Ka:

In the final scenario I wanted to see what might pose a danger to Erdreja, so I ran this one backwards. Starting with a dead dragon and running back to see what might have happened. Again, obviously this is just one possibility.

The result was the return of the Nosta-ka killing Erdreja. There were flashes of light in what would be the North-western sky if you were stood in the Heartlands, and then the Nosta-ka gate in the South lands opens and the Nosta-ka come through. Perhaps the Nosta-ka gates act a little like our transport circles do, but using the gateways to the other worlds (the stars) instead of the paths of light. This may explain the flashes in the sky ...

The reason it kills her is because the Nosta-ka, over time, kill off all the natural life on Erdreja. They try to stay here and make the egg their home, but their patterns are not able to function in the cycles of life, death and Unlife that Erdreja has developed. This causes Erdreja to starve to death. I can only assume from lack of energy within these cycles.