What lies beyond Creation?

Jewish mythology has this concept of an 'unfinished corner' of Creation. I was introduced to it, like many other kids, through ghost stories. Older kids tried to scare me and my friends by telling us about the empty blanks of the far North, inhabited only by wicked spirits who just loved to gobble up little girls....

I re-encountered the myth as an adult in the book Tree of Souls by Howard Schwartz, then began to find references to it in other Jewish mythological works as well. He provides the text of the myth in the book sample on his website:

All of Creation had been completed except for the north corner of the world. God began
to create it, but left it unfinished, saying, “Whoever declares himself to be God, let him come and finish this corner, and then all shall know he is a god.” There, in that unfinished corner, demons, winds, earthquakes, and evil spirits dwell, and from there  they come forth to the world, as it is said, From the north shall disaster break loose (Jer. 1:14).
When the Sabbath departs, great bands of evil spirits set out from there and roam the world. Because of the cold north wind, the north was identified as the abode of evil spirits.This myth explains why—because that part of creation is unfinished. Here God makes a challenge to those who assert that they are divinities. The true test for a divinity is the ability to create a world. So God left one corner of the world unfinished, with the challenge that anyone who could finish it would indeed be a true god. Of course, the clear implication is that such a creation would be impossible.Rabbi Moshe Hayim Luzzatto offers a different perspective about unfinished creation:“God began Creation but left it unfinished so that man could eventually bring itto completion” (Adir ba-Marom).
The Kotzker Rebbe said of this unfinished corner of creation: “One little corner—God left one little corner in darkness so that we may hide in it!”
Sources: Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 3 ; Midrash Konen in Beit ha-Midrash 2:30; Sefer ha- Zikhronot 1:7;
The Book of Jubilees 2:2; Zohar 1:14b; Siah Sarfei Kodesh; Or ha-Ganuz.

So, Creation was intentionally left 'unfinished' up North. What interests me is that things very much are stated to exist in this place- yet apparently because of their malicious nature they mark the very place as separate from the normal, 'finished' world. Is this an innate quality of evil things- that they detach their own worlds from those created without such evil?

I'm also interested in the challenge the unfinished corner represents. It's a pretty great power move on God's part- if you think you're so great, go turn this awful wasteland into a proper part of reality, then we'll talk. Sounds like an excuse for an adventure in a frozen hellscape to me!

Welcome to the Argent Isles

This is an introduction to my custom sandbox setting. Erika in the OSR Discord was really helpful with editing and readability.

On the planet Terra, gods are pretty common. It’s estimated that twenty-seven pantheons currently exist, with thousands more having disbanded over the years. Civilizations grow quickly with their gods’ strength and fall just as quickly as rival pantheons wage war upon each other. As such, most history is lost, jumbled, or even made up (the job of an archaeologist is incredibly difficult due to having so much badly-preserved history to sort through, so they occupy a very privileged place in most societies). For the past five thousand years, the three most powerful pantheons have settled into an uneasy truce….

Each of the Three Exalted Pantheons (as they are often called) rules over a different part of Terra.

• The XEN-342 Research Team- This group of five extradimensional eldritch anthropologists came to Terra for research thousands of years ago but got stranded when a stray hyper-comet destroyed their home dimension. Powerful enough to destroy Terra with a blink of one of their billion eyes, the Research Team is content to benevolently rule over their domain, Xetuhil.

• The Seething Guild- Long ago, an ultraviolent seven-member adventuring party slew an existing pantheon and took their place. Each member of the Seething Guild has grown to hate the others and they remain locked in stalemate, each always searching for an opening to strike against the others and steal their power. They rule the Land of the Jagged Cliffs with caprice and cruelty, but are usually too busy backstabbing each other to bother hurting mortals.

• The Ascended Duchy of the Argent Isles- These eighteen archfey rule the Argent Isles but spend most of their time partying in dimensions beyond mortal comprehension. If a mortal is able to catch their attention they are gracious (in the Flannery O’Connor sense of the word).

Our adventure begins in the Argent Isles, whose continents are:

• The Verwood, a continent whose main eco-biomes are temperate forests, with swathes of desert throughout the southwestern part of the continent. Considered the most ‘settled’ part of the Argent Isles, about 3/4 of the continent is inhabited territory (including the largest city in the Argent Isles, Melidad-upon-Riversfolly) divided into independent kingdoms, which exist in harmony with one another. In the past it was mostly home to elves, but it now has large populations of humans, halflings, dwarves and gnomes as well. Bordton (the starting location) is by the southeast coast in the kingdom of Solan. The Verwood is full of ruins from a technologically advanced elven civilization that was destroyed by gods ten thousand years ago.

• Lejker-Sil, which was once a single temperate continent that shattered into a hundred islands when a sleeping giga-serpent underneath it rolled over in its sleep. Now these islands and archipelagos are linked by bridges made of the silk of domesticated spiders. The native dragonborn have splintered into factions over the years, and piracy is common. Many dwarves now make their home in Lejker-Sil, claiming that the ocean breezes contribute to the making of a particularly strong form of iron, and grand magical colleges can be found in the coastal cities.

• Erdemir, a continent dominated by vast stretches of savanna crossed by mighty rivers who flood their banks every time it rains. The unstable, often-muddy ground has led Erdemir’s inhabitants, who have historically been mostly orcs descended from a pacifist cult, bird-people, and tabaxi, to master the art of building treehouses. Erdemiri wildlife all have potentially-destructive magical powers, down to the lowliest earthworm, necessitating the presence of vast groups of druids to keep the wildlife calm and happy.

• Hellsreach, which is primarily subtropical and downright tropical in the southernmost regions. This continent is primarily settled by tieflings, who are indeed creatures of Hell- but since Hell is only one of the many underworlds in the Terran cosmology, it’s not really a big deal. They’re actually very friendly to newcomers these days and many of the Argent Isles’ wealthiest live by the beautiful Hellsreach beaches. There are many entrances to the underground realm known as the Underdark in the Argent Isles, but most of them are in Hellsreach, which is inconvenient since the Underdark’s drow hate tieflings.

So, a wizard set you on fire

3 types of magical fire. They’re often illegal in civilized places. 

Astral Bloom

Casting an astral bloom steals a wisp of fire from the nearest star to create a mini-star.

It’s called an astral bloom because the little new star is unstable- when it explodes it looks like a beautiful blooming flower just before it nukes the surrounding area. 

It's about a foot in diameter, too bright to look directly at it, smells like ozone, and will burn you to death in an instant if you touch it. The sound of its internal combustions is as loud as a jet turbine.

Direct exposure to an astral bloom causes sunburn, radiation sickness, mutations, and death.

All stars have nature spirits called Pleiades, of course. An astral bloom’s newly-formed Pleiad is loyal, naïve, friendly, and easy to manipulate.

An astral bloom is so small that its lifespan is only a few years; when it dies it explodes into a supernova, then a black hole, and its Pleiad becomes a hateful, starving specter.

Temporal Blaze

It begins its existence as a massive inferno & when left alone dwindles into nothing. Everything that makes a normal fire smaller makes a temporal fire grow, & vice versa.

It looks like an inverted version of a normal fire- red smoldering core with blue flames leaping around the edges. It smells like old books & sounds like a high-pitched staticky hiss- a TV with no signal. It doesn’t hurt you when you touch it. 

In the smoke that curls up from a temporal fire, you can see the past & the future in a disjointed conflation. When you see a person through the smoke, you may see them as they looked when they were younger & as they will look when they are dead.

when a blaze is big enough, things can come out of the smoke-visions, exploding into the present. Sometimes these things are monsters you’re supposed to fight in twenty years. Sometimes people you watched die a long time ago come into the present & thus escape their fate.

Temporal blazes emit pure oxygen. Breathing causes oxygen toxicity. You get dazed, nauseated, pass out, your central nervous system falls apart & spasms until you die or get help.

When you pass out your scorched psyche bombards you with fragments of your past & your future. These visions are always accurate but there’s no context provided. if you’re going to die in the temporal blaze, you see your own death. that’s all that’s left in your future. 

Atlantean Fire-in-Water

Innocent name, evil purpose. The gods cursed the people of Atlantis for inventing Fire-in-Water.

This is a liquid form of fire, slick and oily and as hot as lava. Stinks like burning gasoline. It feeds on other liquids. A drop of Fire-in-Water can set a pond aflame. 

Sweat, spit, tears, blood- all commingle with Fire-in-Water. At least half of the human body is water and therefore flammable. 

Weapons dipped in oil and then set on Fire-in-Water are terrifically destructive. They pierce the skin, inject Fire-in-Water right into the body, and then all your blood’s on fire. Ouch.