Blackmount Chronicle Excerpt: Back to Basics
"There are currently one hundred and thirty-eight worlds in the cosmos possessed of orcs.
Orcs are the singlemost prevalent, though apparently not the only, race of interstellar travellers.
They cannot truly be called 'spacefaring' because the spaces between worlds are still as closed to them as they are to most planetbound bipedal species - perhaps more closed, since their kind has yet to place any great priority on technological innovation - yet interplanetary travellers they are, through dimensional shunts they call Dark Portals.
Their travel takes the rough idea of interdimensional folding to their extrapolatively logical conclusion, if one could logically extrapolate the course that research into mystic arts might take in the same way one can with technological progress.
This progress has led them - predictably or not - to the point of being able to, on a given world, create terminals they call altars which serve a number of functions related to point-to-point matter teleportation.
These functions include the creation of temporary point to point linking of places within a given radius of the altar, creation of gates between some planes of existence (through deliberate misuse of the altar's core principles), the enchantment of certain crystals to enable them to move with mass-limited payloads between points within the active radius of an altar, and through the construction of a network of such altars, allow for the creation of a Worldgate.
A worldgate is an expansion on the idea of a portal altar, allowing for interplanetary travel.
Worldgates are made possible by the combined massing of interplanar conductivity a - spacetime destabilization effect - generated by the presence of dark portal altars individually and multiply in greater numbers.
When a critical number of altars - anchors, in this context - is reached, the mass of the planet itself can be utilized by the enchantment as a point of reference by which to find other similar bodies in the heavens and link to the nearest best match.
This process of guided randomness has guided the orc species, collectively known as Horde, in their spread and conquest among the habitable worlds of the Milky Way galaxy to the current total of one hundred and thirty-eight.
On some of these worlds, magic is strong. On others, nearly nonexistent. It in this way resembles gold, lead, radiation, oxygen and heat as variables present within the cosmos in nonuniform distribution, yet following laws predictable patterns all the same, just as other variables are governed by their own particular sets of rules.
It is in this context which one should view the further discussion of magic within this volume. A natural and quantifiable part of the observable universe. No more subject to questions of veracity and belief than the skin you the reader are no doubt comprised of and the metabolism that sustains it. Both the observed effect, and the unobserved mechanics by which it operates, working in unison and through the sum of them giving a complete enough account of its being to be worth the reading.
Therefore let us, since you as the reader can be demanded to have no better a grasp on the workings of the neurology or geology of the characters and places involved in the tale, relegate the existence and workings of magic to the same level of assumption granted to the aforementioned aspects of it.
Those parts of all of these aspects which become relevant to the tale will be divulged, you have my devout assurances, as the tale requires for comprehension - but it will not be burdened by them - you have my promise.
With these small measures of formality and translation behind us, we may now explore what this historian must describe as a most unique history, for like any history, its effects will have more to say about the present and future course of your corner of the material universe than any fairy-story.
One further leap is needed of you. Just as there is magic, to understand the tale I have to tell you must accept the existence of gods.
Let me reassure you no religion is asked or expected in this understanding.
Just as there are a nearly infinite number of orders of being upon every world, creating amongst them a functioning ecosystem, and so within it is the variety of life forms so broad such that only the highest of orders within it can comprehend that all of them are forms of life and not simply curiosities, oddities, abberations or phenomena; So it is within the cosmos that a great array of beings exist, ranging in power and scope from microbes to great disembodied minds existing both everywhere and nowhere - and everything in between.
And just as cattle and hounds are the domesticated servants of man, so too do lower orders throughout the worlds and between serve beings of greater orders than themselves - some for loyalty, some for a sense of purpose, some for fear, and others for gain.
To understand the cosmos in this way is not religion but the naturalist's perspective.
This perspective is needed in order to prevent the inevitable tide of connotation and hokum that come with any being when dealing with orders sufficiently different, whether lower and higher, than itself.
In the course of this tale, you will doubtless meet a great many beings of a higher order than yourself. Please try not to make the mistake of worshiping any of them. Great and small, they are but animals of the Maker's design."
Excerpted From: Annotated Guide to 'The Remembrance' Vol. I
by Friar Jocien Ansbach
Order of the Silver Circle
Included in the syllabus of required reading for new Initiates to the Order by request of the author.
Orcs are the singlemost prevalent, though apparently not the only, race of interstellar travellers.
They cannot truly be called 'spacefaring' because the spaces between worlds are still as closed to them as they are to most planetbound bipedal species - perhaps more closed, since their kind has yet to place any great priority on technological innovation - yet interplanetary travellers they are, through dimensional shunts they call Dark Portals.
Their travel takes the rough idea of interdimensional folding to their extrapolatively logical conclusion, if one could logically extrapolate the course that research into mystic arts might take in the same way one can with technological progress.
This progress has led them - predictably or not - to the point of being able to, on a given world, create terminals they call altars which serve a number of functions related to point-to-point matter teleportation.
These functions include the creation of temporary point to point linking of places within a given radius of the altar, creation of gates between some planes of existence (through deliberate misuse of the altar's core principles), the enchantment of certain crystals to enable them to move with mass-limited payloads between points within the active radius of an altar, and through the construction of a network of such altars, allow for the creation of a Worldgate.
A worldgate is an expansion on the idea of a portal altar, allowing for interplanetary travel.
Worldgates are made possible by the combined massing of interplanar conductivity a - spacetime destabilization effect - generated by the presence of dark portal altars individually and multiply in greater numbers.
When a critical number of altars - anchors, in this context - is reached, the mass of the planet itself can be utilized by the enchantment as a point of reference by which to find other similar bodies in the heavens and link to the nearest best match.
This process of guided randomness has guided the orc species, collectively known as Horde, in their spread and conquest among the habitable worlds of the Milky Way galaxy to the current total of one hundred and thirty-eight.
On some of these worlds, magic is strong. On others, nearly nonexistent. It in this way resembles gold, lead, radiation, oxygen and heat as variables present within the cosmos in nonuniform distribution, yet following laws predictable patterns all the same, just as other variables are governed by their own particular sets of rules.
It is in this context which one should view the further discussion of magic within this volume. A natural and quantifiable part of the observable universe. No more subject to questions of veracity and belief than the skin you the reader are no doubt comprised of and the metabolism that sustains it. Both the observed effect, and the unobserved mechanics by which it operates, working in unison and through the sum of them giving a complete enough account of its being to be worth the reading.
Therefore let us, since you as the reader can be demanded to have no better a grasp on the workings of the neurology or geology of the characters and places involved in the tale, relegate the existence and workings of magic to the same level of assumption granted to the aforementioned aspects of it.
Those parts of all of these aspects which become relevant to the tale will be divulged, you have my devout assurances, as the tale requires for comprehension - but it will not be burdened by them - you have my promise.
With these small measures of formality and translation behind us, we may now explore what this historian must describe as a most unique history, for like any history, its effects will have more to say about the present and future course of your corner of the material universe than any fairy-story.
One further leap is needed of you. Just as there is magic, to understand the tale I have to tell you must accept the existence of gods.
Let me reassure you no religion is asked or expected in this understanding.
Just as there are a nearly infinite number of orders of being upon every world, creating amongst them a functioning ecosystem, and so within it is the variety of life forms so broad such that only the highest of orders within it can comprehend that all of them are forms of life and not simply curiosities, oddities, abberations or phenomena; So it is within the cosmos that a great array of beings exist, ranging in power and scope from microbes to great disembodied minds existing both everywhere and nowhere - and everything in between.
And just as cattle and hounds are the domesticated servants of man, so too do lower orders throughout the worlds and between serve beings of greater orders than themselves - some for loyalty, some for a sense of purpose, some for fear, and others for gain.
To understand the cosmos in this way is not religion but the naturalist's perspective.
This perspective is needed in order to prevent the inevitable tide of connotation and hokum that come with any being when dealing with orders sufficiently different, whether lower and higher, than itself.
In the course of this tale, you will doubtless meet a great many beings of a higher order than yourself. Please try not to make the mistake of worshiping any of them. Great and small, they are but animals of the Maker's design."
Excerpted From: Annotated Guide to 'The Remembrance' Vol. I
by Friar Jocien Ansbach
Order of the Silver Circle
Included in the syllabus of required reading for new Initiates to the Order by request of the author.