Cosmology

The Supernal Realms: The Supernal is a poorly understood set of five planes that exist 'above' the material world. They're realms of platonic truths and higher wisdom. By very definition, 99.99...% of humanity cannot grasp Supernal Truth -- the exceptions are mages, who can access a tiny fragment, which allows them to use their magic. Even then, mages can only understand the Supernal Truth through the filter of symbols (their Paradigms). The five Supernal Realms are Arcadia (the Realm of Fate and Time), Pandemonium (the Realm of the Mind and Space), the Primal Wild (the Realm of Life and Spirit), the Aether (the Realm of Prime/Magic and Forces), and Stygia (the Realm of Death and base Matter). All mages travel the Astral Plane to one of the Supernal Realms when they awaken by virtue of the Watchtowers, but that's the only time they can manage it, because of the Abyss (see below).

The Principle and the God-Machine

The Principle is some sort of guiding program/intelligence/entity/divinity that exists somewhere and sends Qashmallim down to earth to do some quite incomprehensible things to further a 'Mission'. It's one of the most mysterious aspects of the cosmology, but the general air of non-understanding suggests that it exists from a level above ours. Maybe more than one level. The God-Machine, in the meantime, is a similar... thing... that constructs various Infrastructure in the Material Plane and produces Angels, all to achieve some manner of... goal. Like the Principle, it is very purpose-driven and uses servitors with a distinctly angelic cast to them, though unlike the Principle it appears to be native to the Material Plane and in Interstitial Terrain.

The relationship between the Principle and the God-Machine is unknown. They may be manifestations of the same thing, one may be some manner of rogue program or virus of the other, they may be rivals... it is simply unknown. Indeed, only the most erudite of occultists have even an inkling that they exist, and the store of actual, hard facts on either of them is vanishingly small.

• The Material Plane: This is basically Earth as we know it, various called the Material Plane, the Physical Realm, the Fallen World, or the Phenomenal World. It occupies the center of the cosmology so far as people are concerned.
  • Interstitial Terrain: These are what you might call 'pocket dimensions'. They are areas of the Material Plane that do not seem to link up to the rest of the space-time continuum in a traditional fashion (the classic example is the building which is bigger on the inside than the outside). They're usually of limited size, not connected to one another but instead somehow attached or folded into the material plane, and have the same physical properties as the Material Plane, though they may have very strange inhabitants or artifacts in them. They're most associated with angels, though powerful mages have been known to create them as well.

• The Twilight: This is a precise reflection of the material world, the material world but a step sideways, so to speak. It's identical to the Material Plane except that it's washed out, cold, and basically uninhabited and lifeless. A building in the Twilight looks exactly the same as one in the Material, except greyed out. This is where ghosts go when they first die, before being pulled down into the Underworld, it's where disembodied demons and spirits hang out when they reach the Material, and so forth. It has no native inhabitants, and even with all the ghosts and such, tends to be pretty barren.

• The Astral Plane: The Astral Plane, or more simply the land of dreams, sits in between the Material and the Supernal. This is the world of the human soul, and is the only one that is explicitly created by humanity. It's subdivided in four 'bands' so to speak, which get less individualized as one goes up. The Skein or the Dream is just that -- it's the dream-world. The Oneiros is the subconscious, highly personal and highly-symbolic dream-world of each individual. The Temenos is the band of collective dreams -- the collective unconscious, so to speak. Here you find things and ideas that are dreamed about by many people at once, such as celebrities or religious figures. Finally, the Animus Mundi or the Dreamtime is the dream of the world as a whole, very primal and very trippy, since it is extremely close to the Supernal Truths of the level above ours. However, passage is blocked by the Abyss.
  • The Gauntlet: The Gauntlet is one of the Realms Invisible. It separates the Shadow Realm from the Realms Material and is in a constant flux depending on location and supernatural activity. Manipulation of the Gauntlet falls under the Spirit Arcana.

• The Abyss: The Abyss is a kind of null-void that lies between the Material Realm and the Supernal Realm. It's a spiritual-conceptual vacuum, and it produces... snippets of unreality. They're called Abyssal Entities (Intruders when they reach the Material Plane), and can range from everything fairly traditional Lovecraftian horrors or cunning demons, to entire twisted dimensions or pieces of anti-physics and anti-history that degrade reality by their very presence. The general mark of Abyssal horrors is that they try to destroy.

Now, arranged around the Material Plane are a set of attendant planes.

• The Shadow: We get into this one later on in greater detail. Basically, it's the realm of concepts and symbols and essences -- it reflects the key concepts/symbols. So a building in the Shadow won't necessarily look very much like the same building in the Material, but it will show whatever is most spiritually/conceptually important (so it might look overgrown with jungle or corroded or possess non-Euclidean architecture). You can find much more on the Shadow here.

• The Underworld: This is an afterlife -- after a ghost loses all of its anchors, it falls down here. The upper levels of the Underworld basically look like extremely creepy tunnels, which eventually come out to one of the Rivers of the Underworld (which might flow with water, blood, fire, scorpions...). Afterwards, one enters the Dead Dominions, which are essentially smaller underworlds ruled by Kerberoi, until one eventually reaches the very bottom, which is occupied by the Ocean of Fragments, where a submerged being can lose its identity. A key point is that the Underworld is only where ghosts go -- it's not the afterlife so much as an extended stop along the way to whatever the real afterlife is. People that don't leave ghosts don't show up in the Underworld.

• Arcadia: This is the realm of the True Fae, and may be the same as the Supernal Arcadia -- or may not be. It's subdivided into a significant number of realms which belong to the True Fae, who are like local gods there. Arcadian Realms can look like quite nearly anything under the sun, but they're characterized by the presence of the Gentry and their Changeling slaves. Arcadia is excruciatingly dangerous to visit.
  • The Hedge: The Hedge is a thick barrier between the Material Plane and changeling-Arcadia. It's an eternal, endless maze of soul-consuming thorns and a subjective notion of distance -- go deep enough and you hit Arcadia. It's inhabitants are hobgoblins, an endlessly bizarre assortment of creatures out of the Grimm Brothers' worst nightmares.

• Inferno/Hell: Hell is the domain of demons -- who are a distinct subspecies of creature that feeds on vice and corruption. Key point: While Abyssal horrors and demons are both very bad, an abyssal horror wants to destroy, while a demon wants to corrupt and control. Demons like the world quite a lot, they just want to rule it. Going to Inferno is not an option. Looking into it through a portal is bound to turn a mortal mind mad, people who visit do not come back.

• Empyrean: In theory, according to the Gnostic cosmology, there should also be a realm of angels to complete the set of five, parallel to the Aether. If so, no one has been able to reach it or speak with the inhabitants, as angels are likely the most mysterious and little-seen of all beings in the gnostic cosmos. Links to the Principle of the God-Machine are often theorized but remain unproven.

• The Lower Depths: This is the level below us, accessible through the very depths of the Underworld and possibly through other paths. It is... empty, and alien, and inhabited by Cthonians, also called the Neverborn, things which are neither alive nor dead in any proper sense. In it's own way it's just as incomprehensible as the Supernal Realms, but significantly less pleasant and even less understood.

• Parallel Dimensions: So what are other dimensions? Generally speaking, despite what quantum physicists and the more kooky occultists argue, there appears to be only one real Material Plane. When people speak of other dimensions, they are usually referring to a motley collection of Abyssal anti-worlds, very large Arcadian realms, elaborate dream-worlds, large-scale Interstitial Terrain, and possibly some places quite a bit stranger. That said, nearly everyone agrees that there are other realms out there, and figuring out how all of them fit is a massive and as yet incomplete job.