The Skin of the World — Background

Mother

The Universal Mother created the universe, and that’s pretty much all we know about her. She’s never told anyone where she came from, how she came into being. She has long silver hair, and wears elegant gossamer most of the time. She appears as a beautiful lady, with an oval face, long nails, green eyes that go blue and black, with silver lightning bolts when she’s angry. She likes to dance, likes music. Doesn’t take kindly to contradictions. She fires lightning bolts at those who make her angry. She does occasionally have a sense of humor. She is the master of chaos magic, the most powerful, and can transform anything into anything. She’s all powerful, but mostly hands off in how she runs everything, at least, until someone breaks a rule.

The Gods

The Gods are the essence of the Gods that mankind created over the millennia. Mother took those essences and brought them to live, creating incarnations to suit her purposes, either single incarnations, (Thor and Apollo,) or amalgamations, (Mischief and Constantine.) 

  • Mischief, is the Trickster is the God of chaos. Her job is to make a world where humanity can take the chaos magic, enhance it with their creativity, and have it flow back to the courts.  Her main area of control on Ivernia is in the north, where her people, the Medials, reside. She is also acknowledged as the ‘Maker’ by the creatures that have been created/mutated by the chaos magic.
  • Constantine is Mischief’s opposite, lord of order and logic. His job is to balance what Mischief does, to dampen the chaos that’s sent back to the court. His domain is the central plains of Ivernia. He wants all humans to return to what he created before, a single culture, where everyone behaves, and does the same things, speaks the same language.

Chaos Magic and the Flow

Humanity was made to be chaotic, to be creative. Creativity is the combination of chaos and logic.

All human imaginings come back to the Universal Court. Mother chooses which ones to bring to life. She creates single type creatures based on human thought, (dragons,) or amalgamations, (Mischief and Constantine.) Most were created to simply entertain her. Some were created with purpose, (Mischief, Constantine, Apollo, Thor.)

Chaos magic flows out to the human world, where it is transformed by the activity of humans. It affects the world around it, enhancing the chaos that is there naturally, increasing it. It can cause mutation in both plants, (the Blackberry Collective,) or creatures. The creativity of both humans and nature, the combination of chaos and order to produce something new, enhances the magic, and it comes back to the courts, driving Mother, and everything there, giving them life.

The Cataclysm and its Effects

There was an imbalance in the world, between chaos and logic, with logic triumphant. Mother gave Mischief the ability to adjust the flow, to send more chaos out from the courts, into the world. She went too far, and broke it wide open. Mother shut it down, but the increased flow went through the world. Continents were altered, mountains rose, there were massive earthquakes and tidal waves. Some of the few people and animals left were changed, combined into new forms, (such as elves and man-wolves.) Sometimes this came from the essence of some supernatural creature of the courts, from the history of man, entangled with something in the real world. Often as with the wolves and elves, this was a human. 

Some creatures so created can reproduce. Some, like dragons and Gods, are immortal, though the creatures can die.

Chaos magic attracts the essence of the creatures. If someone has too much magic, that’s one of the things that can happen. Stray ‘ghosts’ wander the landscape, and then when someone is struck with chaos, they can either mutate, or attract one of the ‘ghosts’, the essence of a supernatural creature.

The chaos magic continues to spawn new things, change what’s there. In the Shambles and old cities, it’s very strong. In some spots it’s like a well, oozing into the human world in greater volume.

Some creatures go near it to gain more ability. Man-wolves developed the ability to talk. Elves increased their control of the magic.

The chaos magic is also tied to emotion. When terrible things are happening, it gets affected by the terror, the pain, and that goes back to the courts. Mother doesn’t mind a little, but too much is not a good thing.

The Chaos Wells

They are seeping pools of chaos magic. New creatures come out of them. Old creatures can go near, and get more magic, learn more, and change. It’s an unpredictable process. But some people or creatures can go into the center, and become the keeper, essentially a god, a master of chaos. Mother has put constraints on them, as to what they can do. They can’t leave the vicinity of the Well. They can do transformations to help fix problems. They can defend the area around the Well. They are restricted by Mother from simply transforming one being into another; just because you want to be an elf, a mage, a dragon, isn’t a good enough reason. But additional powers can be given, problems cleaned up.

Sometimes when people go in, they are destroyed or transformed into something else, and they don’t become the keeper. Or they become a horrendous keeper. Not everyone who goes in and is successful is nice or kind. As a result, the well keepers may be more or less ready to do anything. They don’t have to do anything at all if they don’t want to. 

Chaos Magic – The Powers it Gives

The magic is one of transformation, the ability to bend chaos to make changes. But certain creatures and people gain abilities from it:

  • Angels sense people strong in it, who have a destiny as mage, chaordic, or shaman.They call to them, tell them to come and be transformed. They inject more chaos magic into these people, giving special abilities, and they become, for the most part, shamans, mages, or chaordics. Sometimes this breaks those so affected, and they go mad.
  • Shamans provide guidance on how the magic affects the people around them. They read the cards, and interpret futures. They can communicate/persuade the creatures to do things. They interpret dreams potential magic users receive from the angels. Much of what they do is done through song and dance.
  • Chaordics are super soldiers, driven by alchemy and chaos magic. They are there to protect the Medials, Mischief’s people, from both the monsters, and Constantine’s soldiers.
  • Dialectics are members of Constantine’s church in the plains. They possess sensitivity to magic, which would have meant becoming a shaman, chaordic or mage in the Shambles or Medials. In Constantine’s lands, having the ability to sense or work with magic means becoming a Dialectic, or death. Dialectics are the inquisitors of Constantine. In the end, he gives them the ability to remove magic, so that they can disassemble the creatures attacking them.
  • Mages can transform creatures and things, and heal. They can heal minor infections and cuts. But major trauma, such as a severed limb or cancer, require a very powerful mage, and not all things can be fixed. They can mutate non sentient things like plants and rocks, but not make them sentient. They can transform sentient things, with their permission. They can disassemble supernatural creatures, removing the chaos magic and the creature essence, absorbing both. The stronger the mage, the more chaos magic they can absorb, but eventually they have to dump it, through either ran angel, or a well keeper. They can inject chaos magic as well, and transform it. To intentionally transform something into a supernatural creature, they must be holding the essence of their target creature. There’s a difference between a mage ‘absorbing’ magic, and a creature being transformed by it. The mage can control the magic, can sequester it inside. But creatures get created, and are functional, while mages can only absorb so much. The creatures, when first transformed, have a learning period where they slowly grow in control and understanding. Taking the magic in, and absorbing its essence to become that creature, is less strenuous than taking it in and controlling it, keeping it from taking over your body. Both angels and chaos well keepers can absorb extra magic, if a mage is holding too much. Mages try to accumulate chaos magic to make a stronger spell. But too much chaos to a mind that can’t handle it drives them mad. If mages lose control of the magic they absorbed it can affect them or turn them into something.

Tarot Cards

The tarot cards are given by the angels to the shamans; the first angel, Evangelina, gave a set to Mischief as well. They work like any tarot cards, being used to interpret events, look to the future, figure out the past, but in the case of the tarot cards of Ivernia, they are tied into the chaos magic. The shamans use them as part of their job, the interpretation of what magic is doing around them, what it means to their villagers. Mischief uses them in the same way, though perhaps with somewhat larger stakes place on the outcome.

The suits and major arcana are all the same as the tarot cards of our world.

Creatures

Some creatures are just a combination of too much chaos magic, and something living. The mutated plants like the Blackberry Collective are part of this. Most of the creatures, the one most often seen, contain some creature or plant from the real world (often a human), some chaos magic, and the essence of a supernatural creature/being that came from human minds. This essence is part of what goes to the courts, that touch of creativity, the enhancement to the flow. But when the Skin was torn by Mischief, much of this essence escaped into the world, and ongoing, it continues to get out through the wells.

Most of the more sentient creatures are made up of essence and human. Many humans were transformed on the day of the cataclysm. As creatures, they may or may not be able to reproduce. More continue to pop out of the chaos wells. Whether created or born, they have a touch of the chaos magic in them, and the essence of the creature.

When they die, their body remains. If they are disassembled by a Medial Mage or Dialectic, their essence is drawn off, and whatever body is left is generally still alive. So if a man-wolf has his or her werewolf essence and chaos magic removed then generally a human remains, who may or may not remember who he or she was before.

The Afterworld

Both those in the plains, and the Medials, believe their essence goes on. Mother may know what actually happens, but won’t tell. Plains people are told they have a purgatory, then heaven, but there’s no real explanation by anyone as to what any of it looks like it, or how it works. Perhaps the souls of those who aren’t ready to die come back into the world, reincarnated as new creatures, along with whatever essence was available at the time, and sometimes other real world creatures. The Medials know that their essence joins the great beyond, and they may come back as a creature, in particular if they are unhappy with dying, or felt they had something to go back to.

Format

The Skin of the World is both a series, (hopefully a few series,) and an initial book. The initial book is a serial story. It’s distributed through my mailing list, two sections a month.

I decided to write a long story to start off my journey through this universe, and use it to do my world building. I wanted a world where anything was possible, where all the major creatures that fantasy fans love could show up: dragons, elves, werewolves, a dark lord, a trickster, mages, shamans. I wanted magic that could change things, bring out new creatures, new spells, new ways to influence things. So I did that — read the magic and cosmology document to see more, and to learn about the struggle between Mischief the Trickster, and Constantine, Lord of Order and Logic, that fuels the story.

Organization — The Tarot

There are 22 segments to the story, each based on one of the major arcana of the tarot: the fool, the emperor, the tower, the hanged man, etc. In tarot each of these has a particular meaning, and linked together in the proper order, they tell the story of the fool, and his journey to understanding the world around him.

Why did I do this? I bought a set of tarot cards to use for writing inspiration; it’s a common tactic, to use them as prompts, both the meaning of the cards and the pictures. Then I thought, I’ll include the reading of cards into my world, as tarot has a long history of being associated with magic. That’s when I got really crazy, and decided to base the serial story on the fool’s journey: 22 cards, 22 segments. Did it work? I think so, but I’m happy to hear any feedback.

More Series

At the writing of this book, I’m still contemplating what will come after. I intend to write multiple series in this world. Mischief and Constantine will be there, I’ll see how much or how little they appear in the stories; it’s about the people, and what happens to them.

Style

This is clean fantasy, in that there is no detailed descriptions of sex, and there is no graphic violence. There is sex, that is fade to black. There is violence, but not in gory detail, no descriptions of rape or torture. There is humor, a lot of humor.

 

Stay Connected

Follow my work through my newsletter. ➡️