Ğ-ğ The Spirit World Ğ-ğ

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**So keep any questions that don't involve the game to yerselves**
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The Umbra
There is a place, another dimension that lies just outside of the material world we know so well and love so much. It's a place full of mystery, wonder, and much much more... more than anyone could ever imagine, each tiny step in this spirit world is an adventure in itself. This truly magnificent yet horrifying place is known as the Umbra. It is the soul of Gaia and the source of great evil.

The Umbra is made up entirely by spiritual energy, and is separated from the mundane world by a vast barrier called the Gauntlet. Believe it or not, but the spirit and matter world used to be combined as one at one time, but are now two worlds yearning to reconnect but kept apart by harsh reality. The only ones who travel freely between the two worlds are Gaia's chosen, such as the garou, but they are only one of a few who have the ability.

Within the Umbra are many pocket dimensions, called Realms, and each is governed by different laws of reality. A Realm can look and behave like anything at any time. Certain Realms utterly defy all of Earth's physical laws. However, most of the realms visited by the Garou look and feel like the physical world.

Despite the division between the Realms of matter and spirit, the two resemble one another. One portion of the spirit world, called the Penumbra, reflects the material world. Powerful actions on the physical plane send emanations into the spirit world that pattern the Penumbra in distinctive ways. The most powerful of these psychic emanations ripple past the Penumbra into the Near Umbra, where they create whole Realms based around a single idea or mythological construct. These emanations are too weak to affect the Deep Umbra, which houses the pure, abstract forms known as the Wyld, the Weaver, and the Wyrm.

The Umbra is filled with spirits, which are both helpful and hostile to the Garou. The Garou see them as natural phenomena (animals, trees, etc.) or supernatural forces (hideous monsters and living dumps of pollution). These spirits are without physical substance and can usually enter the physical world only by being bound into a fetish, person, or creature. Certain spirits, the more powerful ones, can will themselves into the physical Realm, albeit at a great cost of energy. To the probing intellects of the Stargazers, these spirits are symbolic forms that have gained a measure of self-awareness.


The Tellurian
The Garou refer to all of reality as Gaia, especially when they wish to describe the living parts of creation that must be protected from the ravages of marauders. But they also call all of reality the Tellurian. They use this term when they wish to refer to the parts of the universe from which monsters issue – the parts of creation that are dark and evil. (The Garou differ on many points about the Tellurian. The only thing on which they seem to agree is that a Garou's being can never emcompass and understand the whole of reality.)


The Nature of the World
The Tellurian comprises innumerable locales: vast, natural vistas; choking ctyscapes; deep, infernal pits; indescribable chaotic Realms. The Garou see gaia as the center of the universe, anchoring creation and emanating through the myriad Realms of the Tellurian.

The Umbra envelopes the material Realm in something akin to Earth's atmosphere. The Garou believe that three levels compos the Umbra. There is the middle world, which lies on the back of the great World Turtle. The Heaveans lie above the Turtle, and the Underworlds lie in his guts. The place of Garou (and humans and animals) is in the middle world on the Turtle's back.

The Umbra is not an unknowable cipher, but a real place to be explored and understood. The Garou feel that if you heal a problem in the spirit world, you heal it in the physical world. This is the essential guiding principle behind all Garou actions: find the true, spiritual source of a physical manifestation, understand it, and change it in spirit.

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More 'Bout The Umbra

The Umbral Environment
The Nature of Spirits


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