Manteios, Realm Of Questions

[A little something that popped into my head while reading the Demi-Plane Contest Finalists. Extremely light on crunch since I don't have my materials on me, but hopefully evocative enough to be worth reading nonetheless.]

Quiet little tiefling
Bend your shuttered ear
The Questing Ones are thieving
The apekrines are near
So hush you now your grieving
Or it will cost you dear.

- Translation of an old yugoloth rhyme

It is feared by gods and desired by fiends, feared by fiends and desired by gods.
It is the birth of hope and the grave of hope.
It is the place where all questions are answered. Eventually.

Background

A curious legend floats around the Great Ring about a magical place of both fear and wonder. Little eladrin pages read about it in their storybooks, young osyluths have the story broken into their bones to remind that loose lips really can sink ships; guardinals and yugoloths spend their lives fighting its ephemeral touch. Some place it as a demiplane amidst the Deep Ethereal but cannier bloods claim to have surmounted its steps in the Hinterlands where reality itself comes undone.

What better place to find a realm where all questions are answered?

As with any legend there are many different versions, each with its own set of mysteries. The most common chant goes that aeons ago a prime wizard wanted to know the answers to all the multiverse's important questions: who started the Blood War? How do the powers wax and wane? What is the purpose of the multiverse? Unsatisfied with the usual responses and unable to gain access to the usual archives, he decided to answer his questions himself.

The catch, of course, was that researching the answers to all the relevant questions would take time, far longer than that of a mortal life. Nevertheless, he reasoned, every secret of the multiverse was known by some being, and presumably one of them would answer eventually answer questions about it. In order to comprehend the cosmos, then, all he had to do was to collect every answer ever uttered.

Easier said than done, you might think, yet he found a way. Manteios is the result.

Description

A traveller entering Manteios will be overwhelmed by a great sensation of motion and height. Semi-transparent beings of light whirl past faster than any eye can see on their eternal questing journeys, and an eternal susurration of millions buzzes and whispers just beyond the edge of consciousness. The "sky", such as it is, curves and caves both inwards and outwards, and the whole realm is illuminated by a sourceless blue light that makes all colors fade even as its brilliance fails to illuminate. Rising from the center is a structure so steep and vertiginous it would crush even a greater power with its presence. Beings new to Manteios must save at DC 25 or be overwhelmed by nausea for the remainder of their trip (-4 to all rolls until their departure on a failure, -2 to all rolls on success); repeat visitors need only save at DC 20 to avoid the nausea (now -2 to all rolls on failure, no penalty if success).

The nature of the structure in the center, known as the Manteion, depends on the traveller, though it will frequently appear analogous to something familiar-yet-unknown to them. Some see it as a great Sprire twin to the one in the Outlands, some as a ziggurat like Yetsirah, some a great Mount like Centerspire or Orthrys, some an infinite staircase; any and all are possible, even at the same time. Whatever form the structure takes, it is riddled with holes, caverns and passageways that give it the impression of being tiered, each tier somewhat smaller than the one that came before. The top of the structure is visible only as a blurred point-at-infinity high above, marked only by the ghostly stream of spirits surging up and screaming down to the myriad portals connecting the "ground" of Manteios to the outside world. These portals generally take the form of caves in the rock-like ground, but occasionally look like small rivers or doors; as with everything in Manteios the mere presence of a traveller can alter the physical superstructure without altering its essence.

The general shape of Manteios is that of a cone but there is a strange phenomenon known as "twisting" that complicates matters. Walk about three miles in any direction at the base and you'll return to where you started but inexplicably reversed somehow: what was once your left will become your right, and vice versa, turning you into the literal mirror image of your former self. Walking another three miles will undo the reversal. Because of the conical shape of Manteios, though, the further up the Manteion you go, the less distance you have to travel for the reversal to take effect. To make matters worse, some chant has it that that's not the only kind of reversal that takes place at higher levels: go far enough up and you can get your class reversed, or your alignment, or your gender, or your godhood...

Inhabitants

Other than the occasional knowledge-seeking pilgrim the majority of the inhabitants of Manteios are the apekrines, tiny little zephyr-like points of not-quite-light that race from the peak of the Manteion out into the multiverse. Known as the Questing Ones in some ancient texts, each apekrine has but one purpose: to listen for a specific question and return to the Manteion with its answer. An apekrine might have to wait for centuries for the question to be asked, let alone answered, but it seems to make no difference; they do not age, they do not require sustenance and, it seems, they are essentially undetectable and unstoppable. Once the answer has been given, or the answerer been destroyed, the apekrine returns to the Manteion to report and receive a new mission.

High up the structure reside the masters of the apekrines, the zitimae. Tending to adopt the crude outlines of the form of whomever they are speaking to, they too look and sound insubtantial, as if they were made of light that does not illuminate and noise that makes no sound. They communicate by something akin to telepathy, their voices resonating in their supplicants' heads without passing through the air or aether between them. Zitimae tend to speak in short, clipped sentences unless answering a supplication when their answers emerge as if channeling the first of those who answered the question. Their names are all questions, "What Is The Proper Way To Balance National Security Against Civil Liberties?" being the best known of them; why they name themselves thusly is anyone's guess.

Rumors exist of even more powerful beings that reside at the peak of the Manteion, but no confirmed reports have ever emerged.

The Manteion

The vertiginous structure known as the Manteion is divided into several hundred tiers, each of which is divided into about ten major parts consisting of dozens of chambers. Most of the chambers are filled with books, scrolls and other recording devices that track a myriad of related questions and sketches of their answers; as a general rule, the higher one ascends in the Manteion, the more general and abstract the questions become. A few chambers are filled with dancing apekrines or what passes for a zitima's quarters; these tend to be almost completely empty with walls which are in permanent flux without ever moving. Near the center there are a few chambers filled with quasi-mechanical looking devices seemingly more at home on the plane of Lightning than in the Hinterlands; the zitimae tend these machines very carefully, though no supplicant has ever figured out why.

Ascending and descending in the Manteion are quite different things. To ascend, the supplicant must find one of the myriad staircases and attempt to climb it. At lower levels (less than twenty tiers off the base) this is a relatively trivial task; at higher levels this becomes more and more difficult. [Insert crunch here.] Since the more powerful zitimae begin at around the 60th tier, this means that only the most powerful of beings will be able force their way up the stairs to meet with the Questioners.

Descending may be performed in two ways, one perilous, one not. The staircases may be descended without difficulty, although they seem much longer going down than coming up. In addition, perusing a recording device in any of the chambers necessitates a Will save at a DC of one-half the tier; if it is failed, the supplicant will be instantaneously teleported to a lower chamber, in the presence of what appears to be an identical recording device on a more detailed variation of the original question. Unless they are careful, the supplicant will find themselves perusing this new device, which will result in them being teleported still lower...

Lone zitimae roam the interior of the Manteion, maintaining the records and, for a small answer or two, guiding supplicants upwards. Supplicants in possession of multiple tidbits of knowledge can actually use these to barter with the zitimae, some of whom are capable of reversing the descending effect of the recording devices and thus catapulting the supplicant up multiple tiers. If threatened -- hard to do against an enemy with no meaningful form -- a zitima will typically just wander away. The only thing that will rouse them to action is if a supplicant takes arms against the recording devices themselves, whereupon they will likely expel the transgressor (see below).

Supplication

The only reason a blood would have for travelling to the Manteios, besides the sheer thrill of finding something that don't want to be found, is that the zitimae will answer almost any question in exchange for an equivalent piece of knowledge. Since the apekrines can only collect knowledge actually given from one being to another, the zitimae are desperate to learn the answers to questions asked but never answered. A canny basher will have collected tidbits of knowledge unknown to the Questing Ones before supplicating themselves before the zitimae, lest they be asked to answer as question such as "What did Asmodeus have to eat the day that Cantrum died?"

What constitutes "equivalent" knowledge, then? Unfortunately, the zitimae have no real conception of the difficulty involved in obtaining the answers to such questions, only in how long the question has remained extant. Aeons of failure have taught them that the answers to certain questions will be much harder to come by if those involved have passed into dust, so they will prize those answers correspondingly; conversely, if all the principals are still alive, what do the zitimae care if those principals happen to be Demogorgon and Graz'zt? A question is a question is a question; those who supplicate at the Font Of Queries must be prepared to procure the answer to anything if they wish their question answered in turn.

Supplicants may communicate amongst themselves in any fashion and at any length, the zitimae having no real perception of time. They may even fight amongst themselves, although the zitimae generally frown up the killing of supplicants. The worst they will do is expel the offenders unless the supplicant in question is in the act of answering a zitima's question in which case they will be mind-raped (see below).

To mark oneself as a supplicant, it is sufficient simply to declare oneself such upon entry into the Manteion. Many supplicants drape themselves in blue or purple shrouds, to harmonize themselves with the general color scheme, but this is unnecessary; the apekrines can't tell the difference and the zitimae don't care. The greater problem is to decide who one should supplicate oneself to. In general, a zitima should be sought with a name that roughly corresponds to the question one is trying to answer (e.g. a zitima named "What do fiends eat?" would be a good bet when trying to figure out how to poison a goristro), but the zitima might well refer the supplicant to a zitima farther up the Manteion, claiming that the knowledge required to answer that question is beyond their purview.

Expulsion

The zitimae rarely trouble themselves with the supplicants until they get out of hand, whereupon they are expelled. Expulsion comes in three forms: internal (sometimes known as a "love-tap" by experienced supplicants), Manteian, and planar.

An internal expulsion simply sends the supplicant several tiers down inside the Manteion. The supplicant must make a Fortitude save against DC 15 + 1/five tiers above the base from where the supplicant was expelled; the supplicant then takes Nd6 damage (where N is the number of tiers down which the supplicant was thrown), or half if the save is made. For obvious reasons, the zitimae rarely internally expel people more than about 10 tiers.

A Manteian expulsion simply kicks the supplicant out of the Manteion, landing them on the base without physical harm. There are possible mental side-effects, however; the supplicant must make a Will save against DC 20 + 1/five tiers above the base or lose the use of one skill per point of failure on the save for 1-20 days, starting with the most advanced skills. If the supplicant doesn't have enough skills to lose, they must make up the remainder with feats.

[By way of example, if Misha were expelled from the 23 tier, she would have to make a Will save against DC 20 + [23/5] = 24. If her attempt (roll + modifiers) were an 18, she'd lose the use of 6 skills for 1-20 days. If she had only 5 skills, she would lose the use of all of them plus one feat of her choice.]

A planar expulsion kicks the supplicant out of the Manteion altogether. They land on a random planar layer of a random plane (potentially an Inner Plane or a Transitive Plane as well as the Prime and the Outer Planes) suffering the effects of a confusion spell without save. In addition, the zitimae are sometimes known to do a casual kind of mind-rape en passant (see below); if the supplicant is being expelled for something the zitima would perceive as a major crime [i.e. at the GM's discretion] the supplicant must make a Will save at DC 25 + 1/five tiers above the base or lose half their skill points in their most advanced skill permanently.

Mind-rape

This somewhat colorful term is the invention of supplicants; the zitimae themselves refer to it as "Answering In Full". What little is known about it suggest that the zitimae forcibly extract the answers to questions from the victim's head and -- this being the important thing -- leave very little behind. The mind-raped victim's body is then expelled to a random plane (see above).

It is said that a mind-raped victim is usually capable of simple Common speech and of answering general questions, but lacks all specific knowledge they might have possessed prior to the zitimae's ministrations. Family, lovers, enemies... all gone, for reasons known only to the zitimae. Since the expulsion is random, very few mind-raped victims have been recovered; none have been capable of returning to their former lives.

Finding Manteios

As one might expect from such a legendary place, no-one knows exactly where it is. It's generally hypothesized to be in the Deep Etheral, the plane of Dreams, though some place it in the Hinterlands where reality breaks down. That said, it is also chanted that people have simply walked into a portal and accidentally ended up in Manteios. Still others chant that it's not possible to find Manteios yourself, it must find you. Which, if any, of these is true is a mystery.

Rumors

A slew of rumors concerning Manteios:

• As mentioned above, it is rumored that there are beings at the peak of the Manteion who are to the zitimae as the zitimae are to the apekrines. Nothing is known of them, however.
• There are said to be chambers starting at the 50th tier in which questions are actually created. What this means, and whether one can gain access to those chambers, is anyone's guess.
• Ptolemy Fairchild, a warden at the Gatehouse, is said to be a mind-raped victim of the zitimae. He certainly possesses the distracted air of someone for whom everything is new again and has enough scars to suggest a lifetime of combat, but categorically refuses to answer any questions about his former life or, indeed, anything. Any who presses the issue will be attacked furiously, if ineffectively, by the wailing tiefling.
• The yugoloths have put a huge reward on the capture of Yentli Beergallow, a halfling ranger who claims to have discovered a surefire way of getting to Manteios from Sigil. Beergallow was last seen fleeing from a mezzoloth strike squad near the Hinterlands of Tradegate.

The Dark

The dark of Manteios, such as it is known, is that all the rumors are true and then some. The name of the prime wizard who sought all the answers is lost to time, but it is known that he sought the advice of the mirror-mages of the kamerel before their disappearance. Using their subtle techniques and his formidable will, he created the paraplane of Manteios out of the fabric of a multitude of other planes (including the Etheral, the Astral and the Hinterlands) and set it out about finding the answers for him.

He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

Manteios, you see, literally is The Question incarnate. The Manteion, the physical manfiestation of The Question Answered.

No-one knows how he managed to do it -- least of all he, before perishing at the hands of fiend desperate for the knowledge -- but he somehow gave the very act of questioning an existence independent of the interrogation itself. Apekrines are more than just insubstantial points of light, they are the essence of a particular question, created the moment the question is uttered. When the answer is finally given, the apekrine is completed and it returns to Manteios to be integrated into the very fabric of the plane itself.

A zitima is a conglomerations of millions and millions of individual apekrines, each of which acts as an extension of the zitima, synthesized into one larger, living question. When a zitima gives its name as "What Is The Proper Way To Balance National Security Against Civil Liberties?", it isn't kidding around -- in some fundamental way, it really is the personification of that question. And like questions, the whole is greater than the some of its parts; where apekrines are nothing more than mindless automatons for Manteios, zitima are sentient enough to act as traders ("What Is The Proper Way To Balance National Security Against Civil Liberties?"), wardens ("What Are The Baernaloths Planning?") and overseers ("Who Is The Lady Of Pain?"). Some zitimae are even so intent on answering their questions that they will actually snare bashers mid-portal transit if the zitima thinks they'll be of use.

Each zitima, though, is part of one (maybe several) larger questions; the hierarchy of the zitimae is thus the hierarchy of the questions they represent. The very pinnacle of the hierarchy consists of zitima-questions whose answers are of incredible power; the best known of these are "What Is The Nature Of Existence?", "Why Is There Suffering?" and "How Did The Multiverse Come To Exist?" Far above the zitima, though, lie the proto-questions underlying the very essence of questioning itself: "Who?", "Why?", "How?". These beings, called the Exetazim, are the rulers of Manteios, equal in might to any power. It is said that, as the apekrines are but facets of the zitima, the zitima are but facets of the Exetazim; and perhaps they too are but facets of some primordial ur-power Manteios, the paraplanar personification of the act of questioning itself.

Where does Manteios reside? Wherever questions are asked. What does it know? Every answer to every question asked since its creation. How was it created? No-one knows. Every power in existence wants a piece of it, to know how it was made, to know what it knows, to know how it doesn't quite exist in the multiverse proper, but ain't none of them can figure out the dark of it and that's a fact.

One thing is for sure, though: the Questing Ones will be thieving and the apekrines will be near. Always and forever.