Realm_of_Bells

The "Realm of Bells" is the shared meta-setting that the player of Suzune Otomo (selfsame, Suzune, for convenience) writes their alts from the perspective of. The name, for the record, is a joke off of the name Suzune - It literally reads as "bell" "sound" when broken into the kanji used for it. Either way, the Realm of Bells is a large multiversal existence, united by common themes. If you were to ask someone from a world in the Realm that actually knows of it, they'd describe the true multiverse as like a fractal, infinitely re-iterating in on itself, and that the Realm is one particular branch at a larger portion of it - but not the largest! - that informs the traits of the subsidiary universes rooting off of it, but themselves are formed from the universes that it itself roots from. Some more poetic societies even hint to this by calling the world the 'Bellflower', for it is a flower on the stem, that has the essence of bells.

...Why bells? Few know, as the concept has implanted itself into the Realm's collective unconscious, but those with more of an idea suggest that the bell is somehow sacred to the 'tender' of the Realm. Either way, from here, there are numerous running commonalities, and other strange coincidences that suggest a certain truth to all of these whispers of interconnection.

On an OOC note, this profile exists both as a general setting bible for Suzune's stuff... and to play out GMed scenes within it.

>Meta: Things That Pervade The Realm

Across the Realm of Bells, there are some strange constants or common factors, other than the obvious one that the same OOC author is responsible for all of them.

---Metaphysics---

The metaphysics of the Realm of Bells, while sometimes grossly deviant from one universe to the next, are mostly compatible. Here's a few:

There are few things that conspire to limit the growth of technology - if a setting is medieval or similar, it is either because there was some more compelling reason for technology to not be adopted, or it is simply in that era of history. Magic tends to disrupt the development of formal technology (for the simple fact that a mage solves a number of problems technology is needed for) but it is not a flawless solution, either. Sometimes, they instead integrate together. Other times, magic falls out of favor, or some event disrupts it.

Magic tends to exist somewhere between thought and physical law, and while many universes share a specific underpinning, others do not. Still, it can usually be more rigorously explained, and /is/ often more rigorously explained, though there are still spiritual mysteries out there. Common expressions of this truth include: Most forms of rote wizardry rely on some kind of psychic connection to the universe, that allows arcane patterns to produce measured results - there is usually some form of initiation or other unnatural function, but after that it has a sort of language, symbol, kind of concept. Kitsune and other natural illusionist monsterfolk in many Realm worlds work on a concept of illusionism where they are in fact using their spiritual will to blur the line between what they say is real, what their victim believes, and what truly is real. Divine miracles are usually based on the god somehow internalizing the world's concepts within them and then being able to bend them as easily as if changing their physiology or flexing a muscle. ...and so on.

There is no One God over the entire Realm, nor does the Realm unilaterally recognize the authority of total godhood from elsewhere. Most gods only are relevant in their own universes, though there are, at times, beings that transcend them. One being is thought to have favor of the Outer One responsible for the Realm, but acts solely as their agent, unable to 'write the story' except when explicitly permitted. Despite the vague implication the OOC player is a divinity of the world, this isn't taken seriously - the player has all the narrative control a player always does, and no more.

Like many of the 'branches' here and elsewhere, there are Earths. There are enough cases of non-Earths being relevant to make it not look suspicious to dimensional travelers, but there are still some theories that Earth is somehow a dimensional keystone to the Realm.

The Mythosphere, one of the notable worlds, is the highest universe of the Realm, the one that the rest branch from. This is not because it inspires them, but because it is the best at containing and creating them.

---The Seven Unspeakable Nobles---

Dread eldritch beings somehow related to the Realm of Bells' nature of magic, its divinities, or some other fabric of it. The Nobles are some of the most powerful beings in the Realm, and in fact some believe only the Outer One itself, or maybe its agent tapping its power, could singlehandedly contend with a Noble. That they are numbered together does not mean that the Nobles are together - the only unifying factor is that they are of similar nature; born from magic, sin, and terrible things. Yet... Something about the Nobles is uncanny, even alluring. It is as if they are somehow born of pleasantly horrible things, rather than mere horrible things with no mitigation. Some even go so far as to suggest they are the dark desires of the Outer One, and that is in part why they have not been extinguished by it yet - or ever.

Thus follows the Nobles in no particular order.

- The All-Devouring Pleasure

This Noble is a being of consumption, madness, and (like all of the Nobles on some level), lust. It is one that repulses possibly many, for it is involved in the consumption and destruction of living beings for its ends. The Pleasure is usually conceived of as an impossibly large, bloated mass of horror with endless maws and organs, a parody of life itself, that takes up the space of thousands of universes, yet does not collapse into a singularity or any other seeming physical consequence.

The All-Devouring Pleasure has the singular power to eat anything it can grasp, and 'digest' it into any debased state it wishes. The proof of how powerful this ability is, is that within it are the places whispered of in the dark tomes about it - The Thousand Realms of Consumption, which are universes eaten by this Noble, and are currently (or eternally, time begins to lose meaning once you leave a universe) digesting into a form that better pleases it, or maybe even simply an indistinct part of its mass. In these Realms, horrors are manifested by its desire to consume: Sometimes, universes are beset by plagues of voracious creatures, in others all life has gained the ability to eat others whole and alive in unimaginable ways.

OOC-wise, the All-Devouring Pleasure is a manifestation of the fetish of vore in various forms, and possible concept seeds that lead back to it might be running into its cultists (even ones running corny Lovecraft-themed restaurant chains with dark secrets >.> ), or being in worlds twisted by it to be, in all colloquiality, 'Magical Realms' that serve the fetish. Such is its dark aim.

- The Thousandfold Mother of Carnage

This Noble is a being of lust, reproduction, and the variety of life. It has no true physical form, instead existing entirely in its avatars, whether those are pure embodiments of motherhood, or red-in-tooth-and-fang monsters. Without avatars, the Mother is, at best, a meme - the idea of breeding. In this sense, the Mother is deeply tied with life, and it is believed that as soon as the Outer One allowed sexual reproduction to take place, the Mother was there.

The Thousandfold Mother of Carnage is not a gentle being, and its singular power is to allow life to bloom. Impregnation, growth, birthing, and the creation of monsters is its specialty, and the hordes of those given its bloodline in immaculate conception are so numerous as to be countless, a larger infinity than most in an infinite multiversal branch. The Echidna, mother of monsters, is merely one of its avatars, were you to find Echidna in the Realm of Bells. Likewise, the monsterkin, especially monstergirls (for of course it favors those that can be mothers) are its chosen, and it has them and their possible Monster Lords instead of any mere mortal cult. Sometimes, the Formless Shaper draws upon the Mother's designs, which it allows with glee.

OOCly speaking, the Thousandfold Mother of Carnage represents fetishes dealing with reproduction itself - breeding, oviposition, birth, etc - and also steps into the realm of monstergirls and similar genres. The Mother might be the ultimate background cause of, say, a monstergirl encyclopedia-esque plague of monstergirls, or might be responsible for horrible sexual parasites of an eldritch sort.

- The Formless Shaper

This Noble has not been encountered yet, and goes undocumented. [Transformation]

- ???

This Noble has not been encountered yet, and goes undocumented. [Peril/Helplessness]

- ???

This Noble has not been encountered yet, and goes undocumented. [Unnatural, monstrous things]

- The Ineffable and Final Logos

This Noble has not been encountered yet, and goes undocumented. [Mind Control/Alteration]

- ???

This Noble has not been encountered yet, and goes undocumented. [Love, Pleasure, Sensuality]

---Story and RP With The Realm---

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