The Great Celestial Web

And the branches of the world tree

 

And so, the world did shatter with the breaking of the Staff of El. From the fragments of the world did rise the many realms of the Multiverse, and the infinite mirrors of the first and the forms therein.

Yet to those upon these infinite worlds the fracturing was all but unknown, lost amidst the turmoil of the great upheaval from below. Too upon that time did the Dragons finally become aware of the realms, at last seeing one realm within each facet of their great eyes. And it was upon the great strands of the celestial web that linked each realm to the next that the Dragons went from realm to realm, and unto each did they herald their arrival in ways wholly unknown until that time.

Many lifetimes did pass betwixt the shattering of the realms and the discovery of those realms now estranged. Great were the attempts to bridge the spaces between each realm, and yet little success did it yield save for on the rarest of occasion. Again and again did those in every realm attempt the bridging, and time and again across the many realms did their crafting of bridge and path meet with such horrors as to scar their realms forever more. To some realms did this bridging bring unparalleled disaster, bringing a close to the story of those realms and covering them in shadow henceforth.

Upon a time long after the shattering of the staff of El and the fragmenting of the realms did come to the middle of all the Realms a Being, a Being carried aloft upon the wings of a great fire headed serpent. Great was this Being in the ways of knowledge and wisdom, and teach it did the peoples of that realm the ways of bridging the voids between worlds. For bridges it knew existed, and the ways of divination and discovery of these natural pathways between the realms it did teach unto the world.

For it was in the telling of the knowledge that the peoples of the realm did first hear of the great Celestial Web, or of the World Tree. It was said that the pathways ‘Elder’ in nature did run along the very strands and branches that linked each realm to the other. To the children of Dwar did they see this great entwining of the realms liken to that of a web and thus the celestial web was born in mind. In similar ways did the children of El see it as the branches and roots of a great celestial tree that links each and all of the worlds within the universe. And so in mind and understanding were the Elder pathways set, forevermore the branches and strands of both web and tree alike.

 

Upon the now much is known of these pathways, yet there too is great mystery. For among the countless pathways that cross from one realm to another, few are known well to the many scholars of each realm and great mystery still surrounds the greater majority that reside in isolation, scattered about the lands of each and every realm.