Monday, September 5, 2022

Views on the Great Wheel


Intelligent beings of planar aware civilizations have attempted to conceptualize the meaning of the Outer Planes. Some of the these explanations are mutual exclusive, but that does not mean they are false. The planes are beyond human understanding in their totality. Or best theories are vastly simplified models.

Pseudo-Xrieixes in his frequently cited commentaries to the Analects of Law, proposed that the cosmos was in fact driven by seven syzygies, with the concepts in the pairs being conceptualized as planes, but unable to be fully comprehended in isolation. The earliest of the these was Law and Chaos, but others were elaborated in an increasingly complicated universe:

Community and Isolation
Abnegation of self and egotism
Willing service and imprisonment
Contentment and despair
The natural world and perversion of nature
Liberty and authority
Noble struggle and senseless conflict

Seswura views the planes are distinct entities. She is less concerned with their opposing planes across the wheel, and more concerned with the "major gravities" of concept in the local area. She states their various ethe in the following way (in Grelmarthan's translation):

Mechanus: The Program is All. Execute the Program and Unity will be restored.
Archeron: Law is what Authority makes it. An Army will be forged and subdue enemies without and within.
Hell: The Law must punish all transgression. If Unity cannot be restored we will fashion a new Order.
Gehenna: Nothing burns in Hell but Self-will, and we will immolate it for the New Order.
Hades: All that is left of self is Despair.
Carceri: The Demons of Self-Will must be chained and taught to self-confine.
Abyss: There is only Self and only ever was. All else is ugly falsehood and must be destroyed.
Pandemonium: Is there self? What are these voices that torment?
Limbo: Change is all. Unity is eternal and also never was.
Ysgard: All things are impermanent but the contest. We will harness chaos through noble struggle.
Arborea: Revel in freedom and passion, and let others do the same.
Beastlands: There is a cycle to all things. Be in the moment.
Elysium: What is the Godhead but Joy?
Bytopia: Be content in good works at the foot of the Mountain.
Heaven: There is a Mountain and at its Peak you may know the utter self-lessness of Unity.
Arcadia: Not all may scale the Mountain, but all can find meaning in Law at its foot.

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