Axis Omni: Introduction
First few entries in the Traveler's Sketchbook, in which an unknown individual details the structure of his world - Omnicosmos - and depicts it's realms, races, factions and more.
In these introductory pages, he outlines the structure of this enigmatic universe called Omnicosmos, the ethereal plane between all planes called Axis Omni, mythical dragons and their imperial ambitions, and realms of mortal races, who fought for their freedom in the ancient past. But beware! For as the traveler discovered himself, all is not what it seems in creation.
It is true that from the love and strife of the Two was Omnicosmos made into what it is now, but that is not the whole truth, despite what fools and wicked would have you believe. Few know in our dark age that Allfather and Allmother were but the hands with which the one true creator, Ideal, weaved Omnicosmos into being.
Despite appearances, no celestial bodies orbit the Axis Omni. Hovering pieces of land, known simply as Shards, are the only objects that dot the seemingly endless ethereal space called the Inbetween, surrounding the World Pillar. These numerous floating islands, varying in shape and size, appear to be fragments of the Mortal Realms, translocated into this plane and anchored with powerful magics in ancient times. Some of these Shards can be positively described as quite vast, but each and every one is all but dwarfed by the sheer immensity of Nusqvam. Most of these islands are inhabited by various peoples from across the Omnicosmos, living slow and quiet lives outside the walls of busy and bustling city on the Axis. Due to conditions of this plane, aerial crafts powered by the abundant ether are commonplace here, and see widespread use for transportation, commerce and everyday life. Shards themselves, though separated by the great distances of ethereal nothingness, seem to be the source of various exotic flora and fauna found throughout this plane. These lifeforms, heavily mutated by millennia of exposure to the ether, have adapted to life in the air - developing traits for flight and gliding - thus creating an intricate, otherworldly biosphere unique to Axis Omni alone.
Axis is now home to many beings, but once it was the domain of dragons, who were bestowed the role of judges over all other races by The Two in the ancient past. Today, many centuries after the dragons abandoned their divine mission and the tyrannical Dragon Empire fell, the race of dragons is nearly extinct, with only few survivors in hiding. Now absent from Nusqvam, dragons are hated and feared across all of Omnicosmos.
Dragons once ruled the Omnicosmos with an iron fist from Nusqvam. Now, loathed and feared, they are hunted to the ends of each Mortal Realm.
"But what lies beyond?" you might ask. Above the skies of these planets lies the Great Dark - an endless nothingness of outer space, with virtually indistinguishable cosmic structure and celestial bodies in each dimension. However, some of the celestial bodies are habitable - notably, certain moons of the six Mortal Realms, with travel facilitated by the few remaining ancient portals, akin to those connecting the realms with Axis Omni. Outside of these cases, the Great Dark remains unconquered, as to this day, no mortal race has been able to invent a way to traverse it.
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