Key to the Void: World Bible

Jemini

This chapter is more than a little rough. I really never wrote this passage with the intent for anyone to see it. It was only meant to be for me as a reference guide.

However, since this is also an important piece of the world lore, I have decided to include it along with everything else. This chapter will likely be updated in the future in order to clean it up and add more useful detail.

Avatars are the physical embodiment of an idea larger than themselves, while also simultaneously being discrete individuals at the same time.

While most know of the concept of the avatars who serve as the vessels of gods, this is only an imitation of a natural phenomenon which the gods are mimicking in a more discreet fashion. Avatars that serve as the vessels of gods represent only one thing, the very god who created them.

Far greater in number are the avatars born from memes, powerful ideas that are shared among sentient creatures. Some memetic avatars even gain so much prominence among the beings who thought them up that they become worshiped as gods themselves. This worship will fill memetic avatar with true divine power, causing it to become a true god in it’s own right.

A memetic avatar, unlike the stunted imitation that is a divine avatar, is the embodiment of a concept. They are the purest form of everything that an avatar is supposed to be.

Memetic avatars can be born in one of two ways. An individual can ascend to power by coming to embody a concept themselves. This is done by accomplishing great deeds that are iconic and representative of the idea that they are to embody. The far more common method though is for an avatar to be born from nothing but a story. As that story gains prominence, a figure from the story who most captures the imagination of those who speak and hear it will come to exist in reality.

Memetic avatars can vary in strength both by the power of the concept they embody, and also by the perceived power their individual incarnation is supposed to have. A single avatar can also have the level of power it can manifest fluctuate in accordance with how closely the current situation calls for the concept they embody.

Power ranking of concepts.

The concepts that a memetic avatar can be born from are roughly divided into 9 tiers. These divisions represent how much power and resonance such ideas are capable of generating, as well as how central they are to existence itself. Those things which are inevitable and exist regardless of what one may try to do to deny it tend to move toward the top, while things that are discreet and things that are transitory inventions of society tend to rank closer to the bottom.

The 9 tiers into which memetic concepts are divided are as follows.

Transcendent concepts:

Concepts that transcend eternal concepts such as death. Primary examples of transcendent concepts are time, nature, and eternal resurgence.

By far the single most well known avatar of a transcendent concept is the Pheonix, who is the only known embodiment of eternal resurgence.

Eternal concepts:

Concepts that will exist even in absence of there being anyone to think about them, and are not subject to the influence of cultural values. By far the best known example of a concept at this level is death. Other well known examples are life, eternity, transition, and decay.

The various avatars of death are the best known of the avatars at this level. The grim reaper, the dullahan, Charon, and various others. Avatars of other eternal concepts tend to be rare, and when they appear they are often combined with other concepts which dilutes their attachment to the eternal concept that is also within their purview.

Inevitabilities of sentience:

Concepts which are dependent upon the existence of sentient creatures, but whenever a sentient species appears it becomes inevitable that these concepts will mingle in with their behaviors.

Examples would include Oppression, rebellion, lust, and desire. Most of the inevitabilities embody the seeds of uncontrolled chaos, always stronger than order and representing the need for the concepts representing order to be forever vigilant as the very moment order turns it’s back is the moment that the inevitable happens.

Vampires are quite likely the best known avatars of several of the inevitabilities of sentience all rolled into one.

Devices of cohesion:

Concepts necessary for a sentient species to overcome the inevitabilities of sentience, allowing them to form a cohesive unit.

Examples include Trust, Nurturing, Love, Protection, and Cooperation. The devices of cohesion all represent things that can fade if one does not pay a great deal of effort into maintaining them.

The folk heroes of many cultures can be said to be avatars of the devices of cohesion.

Embodiments of nature:

Concepts which embody aspects of nature that often have some form of powerful influence on a culture. Unlike the individual transcendent concept of nature which embodies nature in it’s entirety, these concepts embody smaller yet still immensely powerful parts that have enough significance to be taken note of and respected by sentient creatures.

Examples include, Light, Darkness, Wilderness, Geological features, Water features, Biomes, the 4 elements, natural disasters, and anything else that is significant and is part of the natural world. In a sufficiently advanced civilization, although it is not nature, an avatar of technology would also rate in at this level.

These concepts often have additional significance attached to them by a culture that is beyond the simple natural phenomenon, and it is this added significance that causes this force of nature to form an avatar.

This level represents the powerful forces of nature that are impossible for a single person to touch or hold.

Elements of decay:

Representations of the breakdown of the devices of cohesion. Most are lesser versions of the inevitabilities of sentience, seeds that may lead to their greater versions. Others are sub-parts or consequences of those greater concepts.

Examples would include Thievery, victimization, crime, suffering, and idleness.

The lesser villain characters in most stories, or the victims of those characters, tend to embody many of these concepts.

Elements of order:

Cultural devices or practices that a people might come up with in order to fight against the degradation of the devices of cohesion.

Examples include Vigilance, Leadership, Law, Structure, and Family.

Extracts of nature:

Distinct parts of the natural world, usually representing a single item or a species of animal.

Examples include Trees or other forms of flora, stones, individual animal species, soil, small descrete sources of water such as wells or ponds, or specific locations within the wilderness that have somehow been given their own significance.

Extracts of civilization:

Avitars representing distinct tools that a person can own, or distinct aspects of civilization such as specific jobs.

Examples would include shoe-making elves or Japanese Kasa obake, or various other versions of the same concept of incarnate household items as well as the many little-people in Irish folk-lore who would dwell within various spaces.