Enumerating the Parallel Multiverses

Thanks for the kind words. To answer your question, we have not seen this particular multiverse before - this little story was a break from the writeup, which I hope to finish soon.

As far as Olmina's impression of Count Morgenstein goes, I was imagining her as somewhere in the bottom tier of wheelwalkers - certainly a powerful force by the standards of planars or primes, but essentially an errand-runner in the grander scheme of things. So the concerns of characters like the Count or the Architects are a little baffling, and she suspects it would do all of them well to just relax a bit.

I had only done a quick glance [initially] of atomicb's entry and I had got the incorrect impression (also because I was probably sleepy) that it was supposed to be a send up of "Alice in Wonderland" (as in my groggy state, the word "habidasher" conjured up an image of the Mad Hatter)

But it might be interesting to do a Carrol-esque version of the Great Wheel with the Lady of Pain serving as the Red Queen.
The surreal nature of the two novels seem like they would fit in well with the oddness of Planescape

Taking a break from this, but I thought this might be useful for some folks. I've done my best to capture the essence of each parallel:

Parallel I - Inner to Outer, as Below So Above: A forest Sigil, cast in moonlight. The city is tended by Silver Walkers, who harvest the dream fruits of trees feeding on the city’s inhabitants. Beyond the city, the Outer Planes have been conquered by the elementals, with only pockets of resistance opposing them. (Sciborg2)

Parallel II - The Tripartite Sigil is the Engine of Modernization: Sigil in three parts: Wei La - The City of Kites and Lanterns (emerald, jade and green steel); Kzra - The City of Bones and Bloodlines (mausoleums and undead); Illianda - The City of Waters and Wines (canals and steam and fortune). The planes beyond these three cities use an incredible amount of magic-technology. (Sciborg2)

Parallel III - The Dead City, the Missing Lady: Sigil is shattered, though the now-mad dabus still try to attend the city. Following the city’s ruin, a portal storm scattered the races of the planes to the prime worlds. Factions are hunted as scapegoats for the destruction of Sigil by the exemplars of this parallel. (Sciborg2)

Parallel IV - Where Quiet and Wild Reign: Sigil is vacant, though still attended to by the dabus. Virtually all sentient life here is absent. Those few who are left are asleep and cannot be awoken. Overgrown ruins dominate the landscape of both the Primes and Planes. (Sciborg2)

Parallel V - Where Rivers Overflow: Ma’at floods Sigil in this Parallel, and the rest of the Outer Planes are mostly submerged by Oceanus, Ma’at and Styx. Many Prime worlds also reflect this flooding. Bridges, dirigibles and submersibles dominate the landscape. (Sciborg2)

Parallel VI - Sigil is for Lovers: Roses bloom across a greener Sigil. There are an abundance of gods of Love across the Outer Planes, and romantic dramas play out between exemplars. Heroic quests on Prime worlds are done to win the hand of a potential mate. (Sciborg2)

Parallel VII - It's All Hinterlands Here: A Wild West Sigil is filled with saloons and gunsmiths. Backed with six-shooters, Harmonium guards keep the peace throughout the city. The Outer Planes are divided into just the Upper, Lower and Concordant Opposition planes. The Inner Planes war amongst themselves for either unity or total domination. (Sciborg2)

Parallel VIII - A Conflict of Empires: Sigil is home to refugees from across the planes, and would-be instigators are dealt with swiftly. All of the planes are war zones, and the once great cities of the exemplars lie in ruins. (Sciborg2)

Parallel IX - The Triumph of Celestial Bureaucracy: Temples and offices dominate this parallel’s version of Sigil. The Harmonium is the dominant faction throughout the planes. The Planes of Conflict lean heavily towards Law, while the Planes of Chaos seem faded and ghostly. (Sciborg2)

Parallel X - The Gilded Darkness: Though Sigil’s beauty and prosperity is funded by both Paradise and Perdition, the celestials of this parallel are as evil as their counterparts in the Lower Planes. Primes seek to escape an afterlife of torture by transferring their souls into gems, to be stored for eternity. The Inner Planes remain distant and neutral, though (understandably) distrustful of the goings on of the Outer. (Sciborg2)

Parallel XI - The Sylvan Battleground: Sigil, resplendent in green and crystal, sits in perpetual twilight. Spires dominate the city’s skyline. While other wars continue on, the Outer Planes are dominated by a conflict between Seelie and Unseelie courts. Prime worlds have seen an influx of forests and sylvan creatures. (Sciborg2)

Parallel XII - The Nascent Dream: Sigil is a city of scholars, dominated by the Mercane and Zodar. Outside the city, everything is a dreamscape, with cities and landscapes rising out of, and falling back into, Dream Time. (Sciborg2)

Parallel XIII - The Waters, the Land and the Crown: Known as The Crown, the Sigil of this parallel is a ring castle the circumscribes the entire spire. Positive, Negative, Fire, Water, Earth, and Air are the only Inner Planes. The Outer Planes are an infinite expanse of islands varying in size, with the Spire always seeming to rise out of the waters somewhere on the far horizon. Each island either leans towards an alignment or hosts a Power. (Sciborg2)

Parallel XIV - The Aftermath of the Sun War: This much colder Sigil is caught in an unending night, bathed in a sourceless moonlight. While many planes are home to charred landscapes, Solar Gods are, for the most part, absent from this parallel. The absence of a sun on many Prime worlds has led to their freezing and the expansion of Cryonax’s domain of Ice on the Inner Planes. (Sciborg2)

Parallel XV - The "Triumph" of Vecna: Visions of Vecna dominate the dreams of many across this parallel, and many wars are fought in his name. In Sigil, the factions take a back seat, Vecna’s followers have transformed the city into a necropolis, though all must still abide the rules set down by The Lady. (Sciborg2)

Parallel XVI - The Rilmani Get Serious: The Rilmani maintain Balance absolutely throughout all the planes – Outer, Inner and Prime - in this parallel. Each victory turns into a defeat. Good fortune for you is balanced by misfortune for others who may be innocent of any wrongdoing. None are safe from their actions, whether Prime or Power. (Sciborg2)

Parallel XLII - The Multiverse of the Five Spheres: Sigil exists here much as it does in the Multiverse Prime. Rather than the familiar concepts of Good, Evil, Law, Chaos and Balance, this parallel utilizes Matter, Time, Thought, Energy, and Entropy, leaving the sentients of this parallel to suss out their own moral compass. An infinite number of lesser Outer Planes extend outward from there. (ripvanwormer)

Here are the rest so far. XII was listed twice so the number count was off by one. Also, I'm going to hold off on doing up atomicb's world to see if he wants to write up anything more for it:

Parallel XVII - The Ocean Foundations of Serpents: A parallel dominated by a pair of oceans: the Ocean of Silver and the Ocean of Ether. Where they touch, dreams form and allow passage between the two. On the surface of either Ocean, lying coiled like great wheels, are the Albino and Jet Cobras, respectively. On the back of the Albino, exemplars build their kingdoms. On the back of the Jet, the elementals wander. On their hoods, lie this parallel’s version of Sigil. Where Albino’s Sigil is silver and Light, Jet’s Sigil is Darkness. A single Prime world is rumored to exist somewhere in the region of Dreams. (Sciborg2)

Parallel XVIII - Unnamed: The Powers of this parallel created no mortal followers. They pursue relationships, arguments and battles between themselves, apparently not needing mortal belief to sustain them. The Outer Planes boast no exemplar races as well. Sigil stands vacant, except for the Lady who wanders an untouched city. The first wheelwalkers to encounter this parallel were mistaken for gods and were later treated as mere curiosities when their mortal status was discovered. (Jem)

Parallel XIX - Whispers On Your Shoulder: Sigil exists as a jet crystal city flowing on the inside of a crystal shell. Spelljammers fly through the vastness of wildspace. There are only three planes in this parallel: Prime, with Paradise and Perdition echoing the conditions of each prime world. Whenever a mortal is born, they’re assigned one fiend and one celestial, who act as (unasked for) advisors and councilors. Those who align themselves with Order, Chaos or Balance and avoid any leanings towards Good or Evil, end up becoming elementals or are reincarnated. (Sciborg2)

Parallel XX - Spokes In The Cosmic Wheel: Sigil is not a torus in this parallel, but instead a multitude of spokes emanating out from a central point. The Lady stands at the center and watches all. Rather than directly connecting two points, portals here lead into extra-dimensional passages. The conditions of these passages is never the same between voyages, and records seem to indicate that using the passages has been getting riskier and riskier over the years. (Eldersphinx)

Parallel XXI - Promise Of The Infinite: Sigil is ever changing in this parallel, appearing as a shining city of marble one day and a dank and fetid warren the next. The Lady is as mutable as the city, potentially appearing as anyone or anything. All sapients of this parallel are born human and can gradually transform into any other form, including Powers, through any means one can conceive of. Death isn’t permanent here, though trauma can strip away memories, power and everything else that may matter. (Eldersphinx)

Parallel XXII - The Lady is Made of Sugar and Spice...and knives: Gingerbread houses and gumdrop architecture dominate this Sigil. Any insects or vermin that try to enter this version of Sigil are immediately flayed, though sapient versions are tolerated. The landscape of each Outer Plane reflects a candyland vision, while the Inner Planes reflect the ingredients used to create the candy. (Sciborg2)

Parallel XXIII - The World Tree and the Cosmic Web: Yggdrasil rises in place of the Spire in the Outlands. Sigil, rather than a city, exists as a great web in Ygg’s branches. Spiders, rather than dabuses, attend the web-city. Exemplars and planted trees exude matter from their home plane into foreign locales, which eventually “terraform” the landscape. This has left the Outer Planes in a state of disarray, where one can find patches of Heaven in the depths of Hell, and vice versa. The Inner Planes consist of the planes of Matter, Magic and Ether. (Sciborg2)

Parallel XXIV - The Roads through Stardust and Void: Sigil is a seven-sided band around the Spire, with a separate district corresponding to each band: Districts of the Dead, of Secrets, of Gold, of Ink, of Spit and Papyrus, of Steam and Gears, and of Whistled Symphony. Prime worlds here are separated by only Wildspace. Only one plane surrounds the Prime, a great void crossed by Roads of Good, Evil, Law, Chaos and Balance, joining together islands with fey, divine, fiendish, elemental or aberrant inhabitants. (Sciborg2)

Parallel XXV - Spheres within spheres: The city of Sigil turns within the outer shell of its torus underneath a glassed-in arc above. The Spire is the cable of a space elevator that connects it to the Prime below and the Outer Realms above. The Prime Material is the inner surface of a Dyson sphere. At the center of the sphere lies a heart of elemental Fire, while realms of Water and Air pass through the space above the inner surface. The Outer Realms are organized according to three axis: Good/Evil, Law/Chaos, Static/Dynamic. (Jem)

Parallel XXVI - continued

Olmina, those were your organized notes? We really must have a long talk soon about the proper conduct of research. I had assumed the notebooks were in some kind of madcap fey shorthand until my brownie groundskeeper opined that it looked like common to him. "A festive interpretation of the printed word," I believe he called it.

I've only slogged through several planes worth of documentation thus far, but my investors are already asking for some crisp and classy summaries. Hopefully the following do the place justice - please let me know.

Arcadia Long gone is the orderly agriculture of Arcadia, as the petitioners here do not mimic the old activities of the flesh as those on some other planes do, though first-time visitors are typically too absorbed by the skyline to comment on any missing orchards. Spires, impossibly thin for their height, soar up into the sky; some ascend straight upward while others blossom into perfectly ordered floral fractals. Closer inspection reveals that these towers are the petitioners of this plane. Countless thousands of featureless golden humanoids, climbing and balancing on one another, making a meditation on order and goodness from the struggle to maintain these elaborate formations. Their construction is so precarious that it would seem as if knocking them over should be child's play, though even considering such a thing seems to be a sure way to draw the attention of the local powers and their agents.

As on many of the lawful planes, constructs have found great favor with the deities here. Five gigantic glass lions with golden clockwork innards monitor Lu Hsing's realm, combining to form a gargantuan humanoid warrior on the rare occasions that the bureaucrat requires a particularly dramatic display of force. Schools of miniature sphinxes of bronze and stone patrol the skies of Heliopolis, exhausting travelers with questions and confounding riddles (though this is said to be far preferable to attracting the attention of an inquisitive obelisk).

Baator There are few planars more enthusiastic about this new order than the devils of Baator. Most Baatezu generals are tireless in their praise for the "new lemures," shambling assemblages of metal refuse, mechanical elements, and alchemical glassware bubbling with dark, noxious liquid. Few outsiders can discern any real distinction - to most they seem just as useless and wretched as before, but who is going to argue? Only recently have a select few begun ascending in the baatezu ranks, grotesquely transforming into ever more infernal machines. Many fiends have taken great issue with the promotion of these hellish constructs, but in light of the baatezu's (admittedly twisted) meritocracy it appears as if racial integration will win the day.

Baator is likely the most dramatically industrialized of the outer planes explored thus far - in addition to the sprawling lemure mills, the baatezu have invested mightily in facilities for research and development of new construct war machines, bizarrely cosmopolitan places where the sight of a gnome arguing with an amnizu while a pentadrone looks on curiously is not particularly unusual (for a talented and ambitious maker of flexible scruples, the baatezu labratories are said to be the jobs of dreams).

Ysgard Ysgardian petitioners are armored giants built for warfare, and a new petitioner could easily be mistaken for a warforged from the prime world of Eberron. Combat is their reason for being, and on some parts of the plane the distant racket of metal against metal is virtually constant. Each morning defeated petitioners rise from the piles of scrap to fight another day, though rarely in the form that they started. It's the odd Ysgardian that doesn't have a mismatched limb or two, and some older petitioners abandoned recognizable humanoid forms long ago. This resurrection appears to scramble what passes for the petitioners "minds" as well as their bodies - the sight of an iron giant berating a tree for its sniveling pacifism is not uncommon. Presumably these metal forms are as unfit for the water as they appear, as longships have taken to the skies, often featuring ranting, sword-waving petitioner figureheads.

Parallel XXVII - Where Nature Rules:

In this parallel, an enormous tree that stands in the place of the Spire. Sigil is divided up into a string of scattered settlements more or less surrounding the base of the tree, and each is reminiscent of Faunel back in Multiverse Prime. The few citizens who live in these settlements are rather reserved and clandestine, going about their public lives wearing animal masks of one kind or another, though behind closed doors and drapes, their masks come off.

On the surface, they seem rather barmy. With their masks on, they imitate the behavior of the animals they're wearing. However, after speaking at length with them, it seems that they wear their masks mostly to not draw attention to themselves from the native fauna, which seem to relentlessly attack all sentients they come across. When asked about the Lady, the natives made some sort of hand gesture, swept it across their chests and refused to speak.

There are apparently only nine Outer Planes in this Wheel. The names given are what the natives call them:

The Hive - Far from the squalor one might find in Sigil Prime, the Hive of this wheel seems to correspond to Mechanus. The entire plane is filled with the buzzing of wasps, bees and the mass efforts of countless ants and termites. Mounds and nests dominate the landscape, and what plants exist on this plane display flowers that this writer has never seen rivaled. What can be seen of the land itself seems to be rather arid.

Aerie - Similar to Mount Celestia, this place is filled with mountainous terrain, with soaring heights and play host to numerous cliff dwelling birds. The most majestic of these species are eagles, which local stories seem to cast in a similar light to celestials.

Elysian Fields - Gentle rolling hills and idyllic pastures dominate the landscape of this plane. Vast herds of grazing animals roam the plains, shepherded by guard dogs which seem to act in the same role as Guardinals.

Arborea - Sylvan glades and dark forests. Apparently home to unicorns and other mythical creatures. Oddly, there didn't seem to be an equivalent to the Eladrin, nor anything resembling the usual nature spirits one would expect. Warrants further investigation.

Chaos/The Wildlands - A confusing patchwork of landscapes and caverns. Animals from this plane display the same sort of confusing patchwork. There are enormous holes bored throughout, though nobody seemed to have any idea as to what may have caused them.

Nightmare - Corresponding to The Abyss, this plane is a twilight forest realm filled with deep shadows and dark caves. This seems to be a plane of solitary predators who hunt down anything unfortunate enough to be caught in their path. It's speculated that these predators take the place of the demons from Multiverse prime.

Fetid - An endless swamp filled with biting insects, leeches and crows. There's apparently a species of hyena or jackal that roams these swamps. By all appearances, they're helpful creatures and try to lead unaware visitors through the swamps, though there are numerous accounts of people coming to bad ends, sinking into quicksand or being lead directly into a river with a strong undercurrent. These reports also seem to indicate that these animals like to sit and watch the individual struggle helplessly. One can't help but think of the 'loths...

The Hunting Grounds - Taiga and tundra dominate the landscape here, where packs of hunting animals roam far and wide. They've been observed working together diligently to bring down large prey or driving entire herds of animals off of cliffs. Despite the effort it takes them to accomplish these feats, they often leave the fruits of their labor to rot.

Homelands - This parallel's equivalent of the Outlands. Apparently, this plane is home to a fairly mundane cross section of animal and plant life, though creatures from all the planes have been observed crossing through the landscape here.

Regarding Petitioners: There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason behind where petitioners from Prime worlds show up. Likewise, the form new petitioners take run the full gamut from all species, including sentient ones. There's a group that calls themselves The Shepherds who roam the planes and try to save anybody who shows up in a humanoid form. There's another group who opposes the Shepherds, and subscribe to a Survival of the Fittest philosophy when it comes to saving petitioners.

Regarding the Bloodwar (or it's equivalent): Occasionally, packs from the Hunting Grounds and shadowy predators from Nightmare encounter one another. When they do, they fight until one side or the other is completely destroyed. Woe to anything that's caught in the middle of these battles.

Regarding the Powers: It's not clear if there are any out and out Powers in this particular parallel. Exemplars of a given species have been spotted however, and it's speculated that they're similar to the Beastlords of other parallels, and that these may take the role of Powers in parallel XXVII.

Not much is known about the Inner Planes of this parallel at this time, though rumors seem to indicate that it's well populated by refugee petitioners from the Outer Planes.

Paperwork from Parallel XXVI

Attn: Warden Pentradrone, Violator Containment, Regulus Sector 100010

Re: Violator Transfer

Violator: Pixie, unnamed

Violation: Trespassing [Class 1001 Restricted Zone], Documentation Noncompliance

Notes: Class 1110 Magical Containment

Parallel CII: The Duchess's Escape

Phaedra scowled. "So what you're saying, Wayf, is... this parallel is exactly the same as Multiverse Prime in every respect."

The Lonely Wayfarer seemed affronted by this suggestion. "Not at all, Phaedra! There are countless differences! Countless!"

Phaedra scanned the streets of the Clerk Ward. "It looks the same to me... same street names... same buildings... same proportion of races... oh! I know that guy!" Her face lit up as her eyes settled on a familiar face. "Iarmid!" she called out happily to the tall, pale aasimar. "How's my favorite masseur doing?"

The aasimar blinked at Phaedra curiously. "I'm sorry, miss, I don't recall you off hand... could you be Phaedros's sister?"

Phaedra's face fell as she came closer to the aasimar she had mistaken for her friend. The resemblance was uncanny, yes, but there was one significant difference: this aasimar was a woman. Phaedra sighed in world-weary exasperation and glanced sidelong at the Wayfarer. "Is this seriously how it's going to go, Wayf? I mean, seriously?"

The Lonely Wayfarer looked back guilelessly. "Why Phaedra, is there something wrong?"

Phaedra gave her companion a withering look. "A reverse-gender parallel? This is so cliche it doesn't bear mentioning. Why would you even bother?"

"Excuse me, miss," said the parallel Iarmid. "My Cipher instincts are calling me to some other seemingly random location. Perhaps later you'll tell me when your brother introduced you to me." She turned abruptly and trotted off.

"You have no spirit of scientific inquiry, Phaedra!" said the Wayfarer. "Just think of this parallel as the perfect control study to at last determine the true differences between the genders! An almost perfect mirror of Multiverse Prime, but with queens reigning instead of kings! Authors instead of authoresses! Goddesses instead of gods!"

"So what differences have resulted?"

"Almost none!"

Phaedra sighed. "Basically, then, the same arseholes as in our multiverse, but with different naughty bits?"

"Precisely," beamed the Wayfarer. "Oh, and the timeline seems to be about nine months behind. I blame all the maternity leaves."

Phaedra glanced at her fingers briefly, as if counting them. "That makes no sense!"

The Wayfarer shrugged. "Nonetheless, we are when we are." He pointed suddenly. "You see? That's Duchess Rowena Darkwood, about to rendezvous with the courier who will bring her the Labyrinth Stone, with which she foolishly hopes to overthrow the Lord of Pain."

"Wayf, look out!" Phaedra's eyes grew wide and fearful, but before her warning left her lips something cold and sharp pressed against the Wayfarer's spine.

"I don't think so, berk," said a gruff voice. The Wayfarer turned his head slowly. A large man with a scarred, craggy face, a square jaw, and a patch covering one eye stood at the other end of the sword. The one-eyed man grinned, showing bright white teeth. "We're rescuing her from fate, as well as any other parallel me that we can find." Behind him were others of similar build and appearance. One was maybe twenty years younger than the one with a sword. One wore wizard's robes. One had deep blue-green skin and webbed fingers. One was some kind of reptilian humanoid, though a patch covered one of his eyes.

The Rowan Darkwood holding the sword grinned again. There was a nasty edge to it as he spoke again. "And you're going to help us."

Parallel XXVI - overheard

Hello? Is this thing on? I'm talking, you stupid skull!

The modron prison just exploded. I'm watching some shapeshifting black demons covered in flickering runes rip the wings off of a sword archon. That and about a thousand other calamities in my general vicinity. Also, spikes and blades are apparently the new modron look this season - is all of Regulus dolled up for an S&M ball of some kind? This is madness. Did I die at some point recently?

I think …. I think I may have lost some time.

More after I've saved my sparkly hide.

Parallel XXIX: Prime Time

On most parallels, the elemental and energy planes are the fount of all the substance of the multiverse, certainly no small feat. But on the prime of this reality, they are the source of more. Some peculiar cosmic alchemy blends these six essences into a potent seventh something; few mortals have even begun to breach the arcana with which it is harnessed, but its mere existence in the nooks and crannies of the prime has birthed strange, powerful creatures that have had dramatic impact on this multiverse.

The seemingly omnipotent beings that wander the prime of this parallel are frequently described as “gods”, though this is only in deference to their power. Though they sometimes take similar interest in mortal affairs, they are mysterious and deeply alien in their ambitions and motivations and, above all, possess no connection with or dependence upon belief; that their awesome abilities are innate and not subject to mortal fickleness is a profoundly unsettling truth for this parallel's planar powers.

Foremost among these mighty immortals are the Illuminators. Dwarfing the tallest mountains, these ten mute, armored giants travel the crystal spheres in a vessel the size of a world, nurturing life towards intelligence and civilization wherever they find it. As such, the known spheres of the multiverse prime are but a corner of civilized space in this reality. Dozens of intelligent races have crafted sophisticated empires spanning multiple spheres; hundreds more are not far behind. Advanced magic has as many forms as it has practitioners, from the sand runes of the umber hulks to the inscrutable topological arcana of the puddings. Artificer magic is widespread, with constructs and magical infrastructure commonplace on countless worlds (to say nothing of other curious intersections of magic and technology).

While the densest portions of the known spheres may feature hundreds of races peacefully coexisting in sprawling cities and on great magical space structures, the prime here is not all cosmopolitan tolerance. On the frontier there are still wars of enmity and conquest, though most learned long ago that the Illuminators do not abide genocide; even massive state-sponsored bloodshed is slightly more civilized than one might expect.

Contemporaries of the Illuminators number between a dozen and a hundred, depending on the source (the longer lists typically include legends of questionable authenticity as well as incarnations of what are most likely planar powers).

In light of the immense variety of races represented, the planes here are absolutely thick with lesser and intermediate powers. With so many realms based on alternative visions of aesthetic perfection, neighborly squabbles have found more and more powers retreating to demiplanes in the ethereal.

Arcadia, for instance, has been all but yielded to the gods of the thri-kreen, the xixchil, and other insect races, who have reshaped it into an endless hive of stadium-scale cells. Light pleasantly diffuses through each cell's golden walls during the daytime hours, as petitioners tend to a variety of exotic (and carefully arranged, naturally) flora and fauna. Misbehaving intruders are quickly dealt with by buzzing, insectile archons and their fractal honeycomb golems.

Alternately, in some cases the powers have proactively made homes for their new peers. A collective of good-aligned fire powers have fused all of the sand on Pelion, the desert layer of Arborea, into glass. A variety of energy, light, and color beings now reside here.

Unsurprisingly, the astral here is one of the largest graveyards of powers that a wheelwalker is likely to encounter. Many are the simply forgotten, though it's rumored that others were sent here purposefully, by malevolent prime immortals without the Illuminators' distaste for genocide.

------------------------------------------

Heavily inspired by the "space-gods" of the Marvel universe. (Also shamelessly recycling a post from the 'Variations on the Planes' thread.)

Parallel XXIX: Further Prime Immortals:

Divoro the Spellcrafter often travels in the wake of the Illuminators, bringing the gift of magic to races newly prepared to practice it. A gargantuan, diaphanous phoenix, Divoro devises a unique and idiosyncratic expression of the magical arts for each new race that she encounters and frequently will first observe a world for years or decades towards this end. She shares new arcane knowledge primarily through dreams and bursts of insight, though occasionally she will fabricate the odd ancient text or archeological relic. The latter are typically not without a sense of humor.

What the great ship Spelljammer is to vessels, Duncan the Gracious is to cities, many times over. A sentient lunar ecumenopolis, the city-world Duncan is home to millions of beings from across the prime as well as some of the finest scholarship, art, and artifice magic available. While Duncan itself only communicates with its residents through the seamless automation that pervades so much of their lives, the constructs that perform various municipal functions can be remarkably chatty and forthcoming, explaining that their lord desires nothing more than to enable and observe the diversity and ingenuity of mortal life.

Little is know about Andar the Repeater, a cyclopian dandy who always appears in flickering black & white. He is primarily (in)famous for consistently arriving at Galek the Changer's murder scenes moments too late.

While many of the immortals do take benevolent interest in the residents of the prime, others appear to feel quite differently. Millennia ago, the entity now known as the Sleeping Justifier trailed behind the Illuminators for decades, a sky-blackening tangle of tentacles reigning destruction down on newly enlightened worlds. The Illuminators could only subdue, not destroy, and now it slumbers at the center of a small, lonely star. When the star goes out, it will awaken.

Planar Refugee

In this parallel all powers/entities have been banished from all planes to the prime, although powers have been retained, they are still diminished as the powers have been forced to manifest on each prime world they in some form were worshipped splitting their powers in equal parts.

It all happened very sudden and without warning, none of the powers knows what happened, they know they are on the prime and cannot travel into the multiverse on their own. They have no connection with the other manifastations of their previous entity.

This has severe implications on the worlds they now inhabit, they are no longer immortals but are beings of great power. The irony is that, their power is diminished equal to how many worlds they were worshipped on and as such their former glory is now their biggest weakness. Mortal worshippers can now kill (if lucky or well equipped etc) their god's rival god.

Who or what is now in control of the planes? and how does it affect the primes?
I imagine players could be playing the banished powers or they could help them restore the multiverse if they are metaverse walkers.