The Unalterable Circle

[SA]

[ooc]This is my interpretation of the classic cosmology of Third Edition (or, in homage to the esteemed Banastre Lornebridge, "the Former Regime", as this effort is intended for Pathfinder, not D&D). My gaming group often debates the reason why humans are so much more prevalent than other species in the cosmos, and one of us (I can't remember who) suggested that it might have something to do with reincarnation. So I decided to re-imagine the Great Wheel in the context of rebirth, but keeping any elements the same if they did not conflict with this vision. Here's the result:[/ooc]YUH and ETA
The First and Last Completeness
In the strange, secret woods of Arborea there exists a perfect flower in whose petals are embodied all the virtues of nature. Each of its kind blossoms only once in an age, and the genius of water and wind sings from it, engulfing the plane in a cataclysm of verdant glory. The opening of the aeon flower is called YUH, and even gods are known to send their best servants in search of one so that they may return with an account of immaculate creation.  The closing of the flower is an event of tragedy and darkness. To see it is to behold the truest incarnation of death, crueller and hungrier than any astral chasm or ravening wyrm, and no mortal soul can survive it. It is called ETA.

In homage to this most beautiful of objects the plane of force, creation and vitality is also called YUH. The plane of utter yearning, dissolution and void, the nadir of existence, is called ETA. YUH is the fount from which new matter and virgin spirit is born. It is utterly amoral, dissonant as well as harmonious, and jealous gods of ego and vibrant madness are catapulted from its tumult as often as are beneficent divinities. ETA is the shadowy other face of creation, the necessary annihilation of existing things so that new things may be born. ETA has been called the gate to life, the door through which the defeated pass into new hope. Numberless are the weary souls, denuded by a thousand profitless cycles of life, who seek its sepulchral stairs, going ever inward to the uttermost shadow and then the irrepressible light of pure absolution and true rebirth.

THE NATURE OF THE MORTAL PEOPLES
Across all the worlds of the Material, these peoples can be found, and in every world their natures are the same. The nature of one's life defines the character of one's rebirth, so that, for instance, a degenerate solipsist artist might be reborn as a drow (even elves may be reborn as drow); while a spirited wanderer, optimist or entertainer, especially one whose humour masked a troubled soul, might become a gnome.

Dwarves are beings of patience, reserve and fierce conviction. As the mountain stands stalwart until its eventual transformation by churning waters and gnawing winds, a dwarf does not change his mind but rather yields to undeniable truth. This is the fundamental property of the dwarven soul: for any dwarf, in any situation, there is only one proper course of action, one safe path through a maze of uncertainty. This course is not the same for every dwarf, but every dwarf cleaves unerringly to his own, though it may lead him in strange tangles or to bitter ends.

Elves embody that which is perfect in the corporeal. This is partly true in their physical selves, as their bodies endure longer than other races, but also in the aesthetic and therapeutic qualities of their environment. They seek the elegance and poetry in things, but this does not mean that they are spiritual or lofty thinkers. Many more elves are vain, superficial and hedonistic than are humble creators or philosophers. This is exacerbated by the fact that while they develop intellectually at a slower rate than humans they perceive the passage of time on a similar scale. It is this inner contradiction that inspires their famous melancholies; their desperate scramblings to preserve failing glories while often being unable to adapt quickly enough to master the changing logic of their world, or learn from their mistakes.

Gnomes are governed by fleeting whimsies and uncertain joys. Their good humour comes unbidden, from a wordless place all gnomes share, and cannot be rationalised as the humour of other races can. Happiness is the great strength of these people, who can retain their spirits in the face of great tragedy, but it is also their chief weakness, for though they know fear, hate, lust and despair, these black passions do not seem natural to them. The gnomish heart rails against unhappiness, but often without seeking legitimate pleasure in its stead, and the counterfeit joy that conceals their unease can be more dangerous than the emotion that inspired it.

What about halflings? I am admittedly not sure how to properly differentiate halflings and gnomes as spirituals beings, and at any rate I was never very fond of halflings. Instead of standing as a race in their own right their name is a pejorative term for a gnome.

Half-elves seem to live between the pages of mortal histories, lost amid tides that are neither welcoming nor comprehending. They do not live in the same chronological vantage as either of their parent races, one seeming to hurry by while the other will endure long after they have passed. They yearn for grand and intricate beauties but haven't the patience to linger and comprehend them as true elves would. Though they might be ambitious, human beings, who flit through the world like mayflies soon to die, far exceed them in instinctual desperation and will usually pre-empt their efforts. The ultimate challenge for any half-elf is to not try to emulate either race. In the delicate alchemy of the half-elf soul there is a beauty unlike human or elf, and a unique potential for greatness, but because they have no cultural heritage of their own each half-elf must learn this truth for herself.

Half-orcs have a quiet rage at their heart every bit as terrible as the ungovernable brutality of their fiercer parents. The orcish soul, after all, is so very different, so very much crueller and wilder than the human one that it does not lie on a clear-cut continuum of civility and barbarism with humanity, but seems to exist in an altogether different category. Half-orcs are therefore not 'half as wicked' as orcs and 'half as cunning' as humans, but somehow both vicious and compassionate, intelligent and feral. To survive as a half-orc is not to achieve a safe middle ground, but to embrace the more comfortable extreme. Either they are orcs, humans or a bizarre gestalt of both, but never a little of each.

Humans sometimes indicate the overwhelming frequency of humanlike body- and thought-types throughout the cosmos and gloat that their kind must therefore be sovereign, but they could not be further from the truth. The human shape is indeed the baseline, but that very fact is indicative of individual human triviality. Pure human-ness is something to be transcended, and a sequence of human rebirths reflects an unremarkable soul without ambition or purpose.

Lizardfolk cling to the safe and familiar, even when it could destroy them. This is not apathy, but insular fervour; every lizardfellow sees an unbroken continuum of being from the first of their kind to themselves in the present, and to stray even marginally from a path so long in the making is seen as equivalent to suicide.

The Dark Races
Some races possess a more native villainy than others. Generally speaking these are the people who in earlier lives were selfish, cruel, violent or intemperate, but not so much as to define their being and thus destine them for the lower planes. A cowardly, alcoholic abuser might become a goblin while a wilful and gleefully malicious governess might fall into Hades. Anyone who rejoices in murder will soon enjoy the company of fiends, as a pathetic dretch or lemure.

Tragically, many more dark folk (particularly goblinoids) are destined for the lower planes than those of more moderate races, and the oppressive evil of these planes will motivate most to further darkness. However, this number is not nearly as great as some would expect: the majority of dark folk, having lived unremarkable lives by the standard of their kind, will then be reborn as humans, though ones with a sardonic, dour or marginally selfish nature.

Unfortunately, the karmic rhythms of the universe are not as equitable as many would hope. A soul is destined for rebirth in an environment that reflects its character, so incredibly covetous beings can end up in a realm where everyone is forever scheming after the possessions of others, and if they are exceptional in this arena they may profit by continued villainy. Indeed, the entire hierarchy of Hell depends on wicked souls who advance in form as they embrace greater heights of monstrosity.

Drow existence, it has been argued, was necessary because without the liberated expression of artistic darkness the elven soul would have self-destructed. The essence of the drow is in unrestrained invention to the exclusion of other purposes. Therefore the spiderweb motif is tragically apt: all of life is but an object to be consumed and discarded in an individual dark elf's personal pursuit of splendour.

Duergar possess such confidence of purpose that anything that might contradict their intent must be not only destroyed, but erased and forgotten. The enduring spirit of truth must be uncorrupted by even the merest memory of false thought. Any duergar defeated by another duergar will either destroy himself to prevent corruption or else capitulate to the whims of the victor, adopting his philosophies wholesale. If their cosmic cousins the dwarves are linear beings, duergar are a straight line with a razored edge, ruining everything in their path. (Some people say that their instinctual need to annihilate contrary perspectives reflects the natural frailty of the duergar soul. They are not only incapable of open-mindedness but allergic to it)

Goblins exist in a state of primordial fear. They kill eagerly, often thoughtlessly because they know all too well how fragile their own safety is, but their paranoia is so great that they will invent enemies and then anguish over how to kill their phantom foes. By natural course of goblin reasoning, the whole world soon becomes the enemy, and in the face of so indomitable a foe they must resort to cowardly ritual appeasement, usually by killing something else. Make no mistake: a goblin who feels herself to be perfectly secure (if such a thing exists) is still a murderous thing. Like all goblinoids they yearn for roasted bodies and the heady stench of blood.

Hobgoblins are creatures so obsessed with duty that many begin to loathe their own self-imposed restraints. Alas, they can no more refuse to obey their spiritual nature than a bird can refuse to sing, so they channel their unrest into the glorified savagery they call war, carving the proof of their individuality in the flesh of their victims. The devastation wrought by a hobgoblin is a better expression of his seething heart than his words, his arts or his physical image could ever attest.

Orcs live outrageous, libidinous and confrontational lives. They are not, as the stereotype paints them, perfectly selfish and violent, but they are lovers of the path of least resistance. They haven't the patience to wait even when the profits of restraint are clear, they haven't the will to stand firm in the face of dire threats to the things they love, and they haven't the wit to bargain for things better gained by diplomacy than force.