Line #20 Literature/Otherverse


1	The ''Otherverse'' is the second setting written by John [=McCrae=], a.k.a. Creator/{{Wildbow}}, featuring his second and fifth {{Web Serial Novel}}s. Taking a more supernatural bent compared to his previous [[Literature/{{Parahumans}} sci-fi series]], this universe is focused on the secret lives of magical Practitioners as they navigate the complicated BlueAndOrangeMorality system governing this hidden world of mysticism and the titular Others--the umbrella term for inhuman, magical individuals, ranging from foul-mouthed goblins to omnicidal demons.
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3	The setting was first referenced in ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' as the InUniverse ''Maggie Holt'' YA series, apparently focused on the {{Tritagonist}} of ''Pact''. Wildbow has stated he intends to eventually close out the universe with a serial tentatively entitled ''Pyre'', which will presumably star Maggie (or Mags, after she lost her original name to faerie shenanigans in the first book) in her third and final round of "blood, darkness, and fire."
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5	The main works in the series so far include:
6	[[index]]
7	* ''Literature/{{Pact}}'' (2013-2015): Blake Thorburn is a perpetually down on his luck handyman who wants nothing more than to escape the inheritance dispute that has torn his family apart, but when his cousin Molly, heir to their late grandmother's estate, is suddenly and gruesomely murdered, Blake finds himself the next in line. Working with a female vestige of himself, Rose, the two must contend with the secret life of magic and diabolism their grandmother left to them, along with the legions of enemies their family has made of the other local practitioners.
8	* ''Literature/{{Pale}}'' (2020-2023): After the murder of an influential Other, three girls--Verona, Lucy, and Avery--are awakened by the local powers to serve as impartial investigators into this crime. Along the way they end up unearthing a massive conspiracy to upend the natural order of Ontario, and their lives are changed forever in the process.
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10	Other short stories include:
11	* ''[[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bPsZs1iPqHAcsJr4N7UgW-W7Ne4OCTtUjfvcxIoBmdI/edit Poke]]'', centered around the strangely heartwarming relationship between a practitioner and a goblin.
12	* "Literature/{{Pate}}" (2022), featuring two practitioners visiting the Shrinefall of Meru for research into a guidebook on other realms.
13	[[/index]]
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15	There is also a tabletop role playing game run by Wildbow whose rules and characters are more or less canon, though not player actions in the instance he runs, ''[[https://pact-web-serial.fandom.com/wiki/PactDice [=PactDice=]]]''.
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19	!!The ''Otherverse'' contains example of:
20	* AbsurdBrandName: Brand names skew towards grossness or sexual innuendo. The soda brand "Gushing Granny Apple" and the restaurant "Yeast Inception" fall into both categories.
21	* AndIMustScream: Many Others were once human and became less so, unable to easily communicate, and tormented as a result of malign practice, Others, or simply universal phenomena, trapped by the patterns or powers that made them Other in the first place.
22	* AngelsDevilsAndSquid: There are three major cosmic powers. The angels are eldritch beings of order that oppose any damage to reality, but their efforts to stave off this devastation don't necessarily make them "good." Demons are AlwaysChaoticEvil creatures of oblivion, constantly working to tear down and slowly corrupt the universe; it is theorized that what remains of our world now is merely the scraps left behind after they devoured whatever reality previously was. And acting as a powerful rival to both is the Abyss, the remnants of primordial Chaos where everything that has lost connections to the world falls down into; its inhabitants are twisted until they are either destroyed or become Bogeymen.
23	* AnotherDimension: Apart from Earth, there are various Realms associated with different Others that can connect with one another:
24	** The Warrens are an underground Realm closely associated with Goblins, who are born from the earth.
25	** The Abyss is the home plane of Bogeymen, and notably has no Spirits, but similar forces that simultaneously make those who end up there resistant to change, but makes any changes they do acquire far more permanent. It breaks physical beings down into Bogeyman and other Abyss-related Others.
26	** The Ruins are a plane primarily inhabited by immaterial Others such as ghosts, and where immaterial things are broken down like what the Abyss does to physical things.
27	** The Paths are where things forgotten by even the Abyss go, inhabited by the Lost, Others birthed by the Paths or beings originally from other Realms that took on a Path's nature. Solving Paths can lead to a given explorer gaining boons that are normally the purview of difficult rituals, but failure comes with the risk of becoming Lost. It's also where one can witness the very gears of reality.
28	** Storms are short-lived Realms created by either the birth of an singular powerful Elemental, or the deaths of many. Storm Chasers will dive into them in order to gain greater power, but more often than not they end up harvesting their remains.
29	* AllThereInTheManual: ''[=PactDice=]'' serves as essentially an addendum to the main ''Otherverse'' stories, going into aspects of the universe only hinted at in individual works.
30	* ArcWords: "Blood, darkness, and fire." Explained in ''Pale'' to be metaphors for wars of practice: bloody fights are knock-down, dragged out affairs where it's just two forces crashing against each other until one cannot continue, dark fights are wars of definition and politics, and wars of fire are those that threaten to break the world.
31	* AuraVision: Upon Awakening, all Practitioners gain the ability to use the Sight, an ability that allows them to see what others cannot, with different variants depending on things ranging from the nature of their Awakening to their Practice specialization.
32	* CannotTellALie: One of the integral rules of magic is that practitioners cannot lie--while perfectly capable of it, doing so hurts one's karma and drains their power. Others bound by the Seal of Solomon are also forbidden from lying, with the consequence for doing so being getting unmade.
33	* TheClan: One of the major ways in which practitioners can be awakened is if they are already part of a powerful family that can pass down the knowledge and power they've accumulated. Two of the major antagonistic factions of ''Pact'', the Behaims and the Duchamps, continue their legacies this way, although it has the unfortunate impact of solidifying harmful traditions such as {{Arranged Marriage}}s.
34	* ConvertedIntoAWeapon: Goblins can transform into weapons upon being bound, with the form generally being innate, though it is possible for a goblin to control what form the weapon takes to some degree. They can even still turn into weapons after being killed.
35	* DisciplinesOfMagic: The various Practice groupings in ''[=PactDice=]'' are separated into five major schools of Conflict, Deals, Material, Immaterial, and Divine, with sub-schools of Conjure, Prices, Tools, Realms, Interaction, Lore, and Protection for each one:
36	** Main Schools:
37	*** Conflict: Practice based on direct confrontation, ie. combat.
38	*** Deals: Practice involving pre-existing relationships, such as contract summoning.
39	*** Material: Practice dealing with visceral Others and powers who have physical bodies.
40	*** Immaterial: Practice dealing with Others that lack physical bodies, such as ghosts.
41	*** Divine: Practice dealing with gods and other Greater Powers.
42	** Sub-schools:
43	*** Conjure: Summoning things from thin air.
44	*** Prices: Practice with strong results but a [[PowerAtAPrice heavy cost]], often to the user.
45	*** Tools: Practice involving the use of magical items.
46	*** Realms: Practice dealing with various Realms, such as traversal (eg. Path Runners) or manipulation.
47	*** Interaction: Practice involving social networks, such as connection manipulation.
48	*** Lore: Practice based around the use of information.
49	*** Protection: Practice based around defending oneself or others, such as barrier creation.
50	* ExactWords: Practitioners and Others bound to the Seal of Solomon can't outright lie, lest they temporarily lose their power, and breaking a vow will leave them forsworn, which equals permanently losing magic and becoming the universe's punching bag. However, this means that things they say can be ''technically'' true, but leave out important details.
51	* FateWorseThanDeath: There are many, ''many'' ways to inflict or be subjected to one of these via the Practice or by hateful Others, such as being Foresworn but left alive to be preyed on by hostile Spirits.
52	* GreaterScopeVillain: Gerhild the Redcap Queen was the leader of the goblins that wiped out Maggie's hometown and condemned her to experience two more rounds of "blood, darkness, and fire," which ultimately leads to the battle for Lordship in Jacob's Bell escalating into a desperate scramble to prevent the town from either falling into the Abyss or being claimed by a demon. Her forces continue to work in the background throughout the events of ''Pale'' six years later, with one of her minions entering the contest for the Carmine Throne to escape from her, and her growing power signals that she will almost certainly become a major threat to everyone within a few years. That is, until she's killed by the New Fae offscreen in ''Pale'''s final epilogue and they take the reins as the new major antagonist on the horizon, subverting it.
53	* HedgeMage: Many practitioners Awaken by coming across a copy of ''Essentials'' and undergoing the Awakening ritual. Since the information in ''Essentials'' is mostly basic, independently Awakened practitioners have little in the way of formal training and everything they learn tends to be through trial and error or via deals with established practitioners or Others if someone doesn't take them on as a mentor or they enroll at a WizardingSchool.
54	* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade: The Seal of Solomon protects ''Innocence'' but not ''Innocents'', so if a practitioner or Other wishing to kill Innocents can do it in a manner that doesn't violate the Seal, or otherwise serves to shore it up, they'll attempt it to the best of their ability. Amongst the more unscrupulous it's widely accepted if not outright encouraged to do so due to the fact that any Innocents a practitioner ends up introducing (intentionally or not) to the world of magic becomes their karmic responsibility, especially if they end up Awakening.
55	* MagicKnight: War mages (A catchall term for practitioners whose practice is centered around combat) have the martial skill to match their magical prowess, the latter often enhancing the former.
56	* MasqueradeEnforcer:
57	** The Seal of Solomon enforces a separation between the mundane world and the world of practitioners, with the unawakened or Innocent having a natural tendency to either rationalize away or outright forget any magical things they have seen.
58	** More unscrupulous practitioners and Others will kill Innocents if it can be argued as protecting the Seal or if they can trick them into a place where it doesn't apply. It's for this reason that malicious Others and users of rapacious Practices such as Necromancy tend to prey on Innocents that live on the edges of society, such as the homeless, who are less likely to be believed.
59	* TheOathbreaker: Breaking an oath renders practitioners foresworn, which essentially makes them outlaws in the eyes of the spirits. Their word means nothing, people automatically distrust them, and Others can attack them with impunity. It's also implied their afterlife will most likely suck as well. Others on the other hand are simply [[CessationOfExistence unmade]] if they break oaths.
60	* OrderVersusChaos: The angels, representing natural order, are opposed by demons, who represent entropy.
61	* RedIsViolent: Many combat associated Others, and the Pillar of War, are closely associated with the color red.
62	* TheRedMage: Dabblers are practitioners (Most often those who Awakened independently of any mentors) who can use bits of different Practices, but to relatively poor effect compared to specialists in a given Practice, though they can serve to shore up said specialists in a place they're lacking. If they do manage to achieve parity with specialists in multiple Practices, they're then known as [[MasterOfAll Sorcerors.]]
63	* SaltSolution: Salt is one of the most effective weapons against ghosts, wraiths, and echoes, and weaker ones can be dissolved simply by throwing a handful of salt through them. Of course, the issue is that such beings tend to be very numerous when they do appear, and there's only so much salt a person can carry with them...
64	* SelfMadeMan: Some of the strongest practitioners didn't come from established families or have Other patrons but instead came into magic by coming across a copy of ''Essentials'' and Awakening on their own, before clawing their way up to power.
65	* SpellBook: There are many, though they are simply mundane books on their own, it's the knowledge in them that's magic. Most Practioner families have a personal library of spellbooks detailing their own Practice, and such books can be very valuable items in trades between Practicioners. One notable book is ''Essentials'', a tome used as a introduction to the world of Practice, including instructions on how to Awaken, basic information on Others and the Seal of Solomon, and how to use the Sight.
66	* StarkNakedSorcery: While not strictly necessary, the Awakening ritual that a person undergoes to become a practitioner is most often done naked because it's seen as baring yourself honestly as much as possible to the spirits.
67	* UpliftedAnimal:
68	** A common skill of Shamans is the ability to Otherize an animal, giving it human intelligence.
69	** It's common for practitioners whose practice has aspects that would be bad for them to take on by using an Other related to their practice as a familiar to Otherize mundane animals for that role instead. It's implied that Rose Thorborn Sr. in ''Pact'', a diabolist, did this with the cat she was with when Blake met her, as it died the same time she did.
70	** Boon companions are baby animals that have been taken on the Forest Ribbon Trail path and Otherized, their human forms and skills taking after the person they went on the Path with in a way similar to BrainUploading.
71	* UrbanFantasy: The world of the ''Otherverse'', on the surface, is quite similar to ours, with the magical horrors encountered by the protagonists kept hidden from the public.
72	* WasOnceAMan: The failure state for various Practices is becoming an Other related to said Practice, such as war mages becoming Dogs of War variants or Collectors turning into Graspings.
73	* TheWitchHunter:
74	** Witch Hunters are a form of Aware, those who have seen past the {{Masquerade}} and lost much of their Innocence, forfeiting most protections against practitioners and Others. While the exact ideology and hostility of Witch Hunter groups towards Others and practitioners can vary, any Aware that chooses to become a Witch Hunter is most likely to be a fanatic in some form, and so they're infamous for [[VanHelsingHateCrimes not distinguishing between good and bad practitioners]] to the point most WouldHurtAChild.
75	** Inquisitors are similar to Witch Hunters except for being even more uncompromising when it comes to the destruction of Others and practitioners, particularly diabolists. While Witch Hunters can be found in the employ of or working alongside magical beings, even if solely in an EnemyMine sense, Inquisitors work alone.
76	* WizardingSchool: There exist schools where practitioners can learn about magic, such as the Blue Heron Institute introduced in ''Pale''. While the secretive nature of practitioner families means certain knowledge can and will be hoarded, it does give lucky students a more rounded magical education than they would have if they were solely limited to what their families or direct mentors know, or what knowledge they can scrounge if they Awakened independently.

Context Literature / Otherverse