All there is, and all beyond even that... How many infinities of infinities does it take to sate your wanderlust?
Axocora
Axocora
Axocora
Note on Perspective
The perspective which most articles within Axocora is written in is that of the toxelugh. They are not omniscient, have not been able to sustainably do interdimensional travel for most of their history, and above all only have access to an infinitesimal sliver of the macrocosm that exists.Articles will primarily assume setting within the Evervoid, where the toxelugh live, unless explicitly stated otherwise. There is a reason the Evervoid is the background image for Axocora's Scope, after all. With that out of the way, let us get on with the cosmology. Forgive me if it gets too abstract.
- Smoothie
Cosmology
Axocora's cosmology is indescribably varied on all scales except for the very largest. It consists of many dimensions, each of which would require their own explanations for the concepts and foundational properties that give them their own structure. On the largest scale, however, one can quite easily explain the universe. A paradox, isn't it?
Spectrum of Dimensionality
Axocora is infinitely infinite. One can imagine all creation as a beam of light stretching from one end of perpetuity to the other, with every infinitely-thin cross-section of that beam being its own distinct "universe". These macrocosms, called dimensions, are uncountably infinite in number, separated along a spectrum of dimensionality. This is a continuous spectrum, but the precise coordinates along axes of "Wavelength" and "Phase" determine the dimension one may find themselves in.
So now we find ourselves in an endless two-dimensional plane of light, where one degree of freedom is given to the light's wavelength or color, and the other to the phase step in which that light is oscillating. The third degree of freedom may initially seem like amplitude from the light analogy, but it is actually "elevation" along the waves' fundamental oscillations. "Elevation" does not determine dimensions apart from one another, but rather determines what emanations correspond to which aspects of reality. It is a metadimensional code onto which the makeup of reality is written.
Spatial rifts can be made to "convert" matter along the frequency axis to shift it into another dimension with the desired frequency. Similar processes should be possible with phase, but no living being has ever accomplished such a thing.
Emanations
"The Nine Lights" are referenced numerous times throughout mentions of the toxelugh and in reference to dimensional characteristics. They are a set of nine of the innumerable fundamental "emanations" that form the macroscopic structure of Axocora. You can think of them as either elements or fundamental forces which prop up the infinite set of dimensions. As they oscillate each along the dimensional spectrum, they switch roles with one another and shuffle around, though few are ever absent from a dimension due to the sheer number of them. The specific order and patterns of these emanations is what determines the makeup and structure of a dimension.
The true form of each emanation is immensely complex. Even the toxelugh who connect to one of them via Attunement only interact with the role it takes up in the infinitesimally thin slice of creation that their dimension takes up. One emanation may be fire in one dimension and rotation in another, and ice or shadow or entropic enclaves in another dimension. Traversing the dimensions and "tracking" this emanation by its shifting properties and role may make no sense, but this tracing is the reason Attuned toxelugh have different abilities when travelling dimensions.
Since all emanations can fill any role within a dimension, what actually separates them from one another? What distinguishes them?
Named Dimensions
Uncountably infinite dimensions is quite a lot, and the scale of what has been explored is much less than that. The dimensions that have had one or two brief excursions as part of the secret Pioneer Initiative before being dismissed have not been named, and even the ones that show promise will not be named unless settlement is made there. What has been explored in any amount of detail is listed here.
The home realm of the toxelugh. Inhabited since time immemorial by millions of species. It is a rather stratified dimension, with several classes of object suspended at different heights beneath a dark open sky. It is the same no matter how far horizontally one travels, and it is infinitely wide horizontally. Gravity takes a direct homogenous vector and defines verticality.
Stars are unfathomably high up, a region unreachable by toxelugh even today. Below them, but still potentially hundreds of kilometers high above the rest, are the moons. They wander through the sky in irregular flowing patterns. Pressure is so unbearably low that high up that even the lowest-hanging moon is not survivable land.
The only other realm the toxelugh have ever inhabited. It is a somewhat stratified dimension, with innumerable floating islands hovering between a great endless sea of clouds and an unknowably distant and vast crescent sun. Verticality is defined as the direction towards or away from the Sea of Clouds and the Crescent Sun. Gravity follows a vector towards the Sea of Clouds as a general guideline, but is distorted around the floating islands.
Timekeeping
While time itself may differ across the infinite dimensions of Axocora, our perspective species, the toxelugh, have only ever inhabited two. Both of these have the same timescale, fortunately for the respected reader.
What constitutes a "day" is a bit arbitrary, as the Evervoid has never had a day/night cycle, but somehow or another it came to be made up of 24 equal hours, which were subdivided further into 60 minutes and 60 seconds. This roughly coincides with one period of the average toxelugh's sleep and activity cycle.
12 nameless months of 30 days each make up a year. This is kept regular for convenience, and no political reason has been enough to overturn thousands of years of history and rewrite every record. Informal subdivisions of months into either 5 6-day periods or 6 5-day periods exist, but are not quite widely used. Dates are in a Year/Month/Day format, but several documents in-universe may use Month/Day/Year. This is due to the tendency of the authors to write just the month and day on the far left of their document, and only adding in year later when it becomes relevant.
The years are divided into BCE and CE. These stand for Before Conduit Era and Conduit Era respectively, with 1 CE being the year in which the first Attuned toxelugh, Khythis Allseer obtained their Attunement. The current year is 1,066 CE.