A world where the laws of reality are breaking

[UltimaBahamut93]

I'm building a world for one of my stories and wanted some opinions and suggestions on it. I'm still working out many details and they are likely to change, but this is what I have so far: The gods lived in a realm of pure magical energy but the energy was chaotic and without order. They used something called the "Elder Words/Sacred Lexicon" to create/write the laws of reality for the physical world they created. Think of it like how a video game operates and functions with coding language, being invisible but controlling everything. I'm still working out the details of this, but the basic idea is that through a terrible event of blasphemy, majority of the gods are dead and the ones that are alive had to withdraw from the world. The world is now cut off from the divine influence and the sacred seal of the world containing the runes of order is broken.

Imagine the world with infinite and unseen dimensions of energy overlayed on it. Now picture these dimensions shattering but has not fallen completely apart yet. Through the shifting of energies, these shards also shift and when they do, they cause the natural order of the real world to warp and bend. In the physical world, literal cracks in reality can appear, causing Rifts to open to other realms and realities. Realms can overlap each other and cause things to exist in both realms at the same time, or get swallowed up and sent to another reality. Lands can be locked in permanent darkness or only the color blue can exist in a 50 mile radius because of a distortion. Gates to the demonic realms can bleed into the world causing fiends to invade. Time can slow down or speed up in different areas. A blistering desert can have an area that never stops snowing.


What do you think of this idea? Do you have any suggestions for interesting effects to distort the world with? While I am not trying to do grim dark, I do want a bleak world, or at least a world that is naturally very dangerous. Mortal races use various magics to help "prop up" reality in great cities so these areas are more stable but the further away from them you go, the most intense the distortions of reality can be.

(This story is about a order of knights that become paladins, forgotten warriors of legend who fought for the divine law, in a world that has butchered their own gods, in an attempt to restore order and banish the evil bleeding into the world)

 

[ThinkerX]

You are describing a variant of the Lovecraftian Apocalypse.

 

[Queshire]

Sounds cool. First thing that springs to mind when talking about chaotic settings like this is to wonder what the tech level is at.

 

[JBCrowson]

Its certainly doable. I'd say creating a believable chaos is harder than believable alternate rules though. If I were trying something like that I'd have the basic rules really well nailed down, and then be very clear in my own mind / notes in exactly what limited way each variant is different to that pattern.

 

[bhart]

Sounds interesting. My mind was going crazy just envisioning what you have described. Creating a multitude of realities and worlds with varying rules can be challenging, just make sure you keep your realities in line and there isn't too much as a reader might get confused.

 

[pmmg]

This also struck me as lovecraftian, but....so what...

With infinite realities all intersecting, I think crazy would be a common occurrence.

With Paladins, I suspect their efforts at maintaining their own personal honor would be high, but that might be hard to achieve if in alternate realities, they were different people. Suppose part of the struggle was not just, Am I good and on the right path, but are all renditions of me good and on the right path? Cause so quickly I could be in a different place with different rules, and I might become someone else entirely.

 

[skip.knox]

Also look at Ray Feist's Riftworld stuff.

Since all this is invented by you, it's up to you to decide what is "normal" for each reality and what "laws" to break. My sole advice is to start with story. Only break what needs to be broken for the sake of that story.