*EDIT* Right, spelling error - POV it should be not POW

Ok, here’s just a little fluff from my POW in how the sixth world is set up/designed.

The background talks about how the magic “came back� into the world allowing extraplanar creatures and spirits to get into our world. I have a slightly different view.

Since all the known “facts� are based upon the theory of how magic works through old human writings and/or tribal lore, old dragon legends and the writings of immortal elves the facts might not be entirely right since so many aspects about magic remains unknown and much even for dragons is legend.

Instead of magic coming back it is more about a cycle of multiverses and mirror dimensions getting closer to each other. We could call it a scientific approach that will make several hippie elves and back to nature mages and religious groups in shadowrun to get hissy fits.

There are several different realities that clash at different time intervals, the chronological order is an approximate figure as some creatures or entities manages to cross over earlier than others.

Certain stronger extraplanar menaces from these universes can cross over earlier (like horrors) but usually the melding of universes goes in that order.

Dragons for example have managed to sleep over and ignore the fact that they should have returned or faded back to the fey regions and horrors have hidden inside people.

1. Mundane Land (Yay us normal boring humans)
2. The Astral Plane (Mana Space – awakening the metagene in humans)
3. The Fey Region (All magical creatures including & dragons)
4. Metaplanes (The Spirit Land – All basic spirits)

It is not in fact magic coming back into the world but rather the astral plane mirror universe that coincides with ours. When this happens the mundane world and astral world meld together and more sensitive people can use magic.

After this initial “joining� of the mirror universes the metaplanes can enter ours through the Astral plane as the astral plane and the metaplanes are fused together as well.

One way of seeing is that we have borders. Land A (mundane) can be reached through Land B (Astral Plane) through Land C (Metaplane).

The first three planes are basically melded into one plane of existence for a prolonged time.

A little later in time other universes starts to notice ours as the mana levels rise and starts to slip over but they demand a higher concentration of mana from the Astral Plane, a buildup of enery if you like in order for the universes to cross over. When this happens a few new universes will start to arrive.

5. Otherland – Toxic spirits and other spiritual threats (Shedim for example)
6. Invae Universe – The insects starts to arrive but need host bodies to survive
7. The Elderverse – The horrors home (yes, include Chtulhu here if you like)
8. Other...(No, not star trek verse)

This can open up some interesting games as scientists can (and probably will) find ways to use technology to jump universes.

Good examples for these things are movies like “Event Horizon� for horrors aboard spaceships or a small outbreak of aliens (insects spirits). Stargate themes are also possible.

Lets just say that people can by accident slip over the other way and crossing into the Elderverse is a quick way to madness and death.

Going through into the plane where Invae rule could be an interesting ride into worlds with insectide societies that actually don’t need humans for bodies, they might like you for food though…

I like Grant Morrison's take on multi-universal theory in the Invisibles. Essentially the world we live in is a hologram created by the overlapping of two larger meta-universes. One universe is a "healthy" universe of love, compassion, and freedom and the other universe is a "sick" universe of a control, intolerance, and slavery. There are points in each meta-universe which touches "our" universe: in the healthy universe this is known as the Invisible College, in the sick universe, the Outer Church. In the end of the series Morrison goes on to explain that there's really no difference between the two, that we're all part of the same coin and how the world comes to an end, when the two universes pull apart, will only be affected by our perceptions.

That said I don't feel that there is intrinsically anything less-scientific about the idea of mana (the catch-all term for the intrinsic universal force that allows intelligent beings to break scientific law) waxing and waning in a cyclical cycle. It's theorized that Earth's geomagnetic poles have shifted in the past in cycles. And we know that sunspot activity runs in cycles as well. Mana is always present on Earth but its only during the Even-Numbered cycles when its strong enough to manipulate or to cut through the quantum foam of non-physical space into the parallel "astral" universe. The phrase "astral plane" definitely has a hippie, New Agey feel to it which is unfortunate but people often fall back on older, primitive terms to deal with concepts they can't grasp.

Well, that's essentially my point. The view of the world from the average man (the average wageslave in SR4) is very pop culture influenced and also from movies and books. This means that everything "magical" is viewed as just that since everyone calls it magic - regardless of the fact that they might be completely wrong and that it could be science.

I have a feeling that several Hermetic Magicians who simply regard magic as potential energy to be manipulated don't like teh word "magic" as they don't see it as magic as they treat it as pure science.

This could open up some interesting technological breakthroughs where some obscure magician manages to create technology that imitates magic and/or interact with magic (like a technological gate for planar travel.)

This could make a very plausible reason for playing the "mad scientist" who is actually right and the rest of teh world IS wrong since they have found a way to tap into the "superscience" and parallell dimension technology.

Sure, they will still have to be "magically" active but that is just a buzzword for people who are a catalyst for extradimensional influences.

You say tomatoe and I say tomatoe.