Sages of the Dying Light

The multiverse is dying. An unstoppable force known as the Entropy is affecting planes at random, causing them to gradually dissipate into nothingness. Once the Entropy begins to eat away at a plane, in a matter of years the plane has dissolved, destroying any thing and anyone who has not managed to escape. It will take millions of years for every plane to fall to the Entropy, but each day a new plane begins its unravelling and another lost completely. The millions of planes are as diverse as each one is unique. There is a vast range of setting, geography, technology, magic, politics, races across the planes. In response to the Entropy a loose, non-hierarchical confederation of magic users from across many planes has formed, the Sages of the Dying Light. Your player character is a newly inducted Sage guided by two more experienced Sages. Sages adopt three principles when joining the Dying Light. First Principle: the Entropy cannot be stopped. Many of the greatest minds of the multiverse have wasted their lives trying to understand it. This is a fool’s errand. Second Principle: mitigate the effects of the Entropy on an affected plane to the best of your ability. Third Principle: save as many as you can from the Entropy. Sages often form into a small cell to travel to planes afflicted by the Entropy. A plane impacted by the Entropy quickly falls into chaos and so Sages work to relieve disasters, stabilise politics, extract important individuals and prevent opportunistic evildoers. Travel between planes is only possible through powerful magic available to a few, so mass refugee and evacuation efforts are rare, but there have been instances. Upon joining the Sages, each new Sage is granted two essential magical items by the Sage who inducts them. A Key of Potential: doors on any plane are simple things, they connect one space to another. A Key of Potential is phenomenally rare and powerful, but wonderfully simple magical tool - it tricks the door to open to the other side of any door in any plane the Sage holds in their mind when they turn the key. If the Sage empties their mind when they turn the key, it commands the door to open into a random door in a random plane. The Keys of Potential have a special functionality inbuilt to enable Sages to go where they are needed - if a Sage incants “take me where the light is dying”, the key will make the door open into a plane afflicted by the Entropy. An Amber Mirror - these delicate handheld mirrors respond to the name of any Sage who bears one, connecting the two Sages so they can see and hear their interlocutor in their corresponding mirror.

The multiverse is hugely varied. Use Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering lore as a starting point.

The multiverse is hugely varied. Use Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering lore as a starting point.

Each world afflicted by the Entropy faces political, economic and security issues such as fighting over resource and space, political upheaval, civil unrest, natural disasters, opportunistic evil etc. The Entropy cannot be understood or stopped - do not introduce quests to try to investigate and stop the Entropy. It is a core and defining feature of the world.

Magic users are found on most planes, but for more than one magic user to be powerful enough to warrant recruitment to the Sages is rare.

Travel and communication between the realms requires rare and powerful magic so is extremely rare. The arrival of Sages on a plane is consequently a major event.

The multiverse is hugely varied. Use Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering lore as a starting point.

The multiverse is hugely varied. Use Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering lore as a starting point.

The multiverse is hugely varied. Use Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering lore as a starting point.

The multiverse is hugely varied. Use Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering lore as a starting point.