Once, there came to be not one world, but many.

While many theorize that this is the work of some divine force, others believe it to be some sort of scientific miracle happening only by miraculous chance, nobody, pretentiously pedantic academia notwithstanding, has any clue as to the real reason or methodology behind this.

That being said, these worlds exist.

By world, it must be clarified that the word “world” is used to denote a sort of dimensional plane with connections to its fellows. Scientists have determined that each plane is curved into an orb, with the fabric of the reality surrounding each orb on the upper edges of the sky. Gaps in said fabric, formally termed “Gates,” allow leaping from one world into to another.

Each of these worlds, of which there were thirteen, is uniquely made with different environments, natural resources, and animals populating its surface. However, it must be noted that twelve of the thirteen worlds were comparably smaller than the one other world. This giant world, Charnarie, was unique in the fact that it was the birthplace of the most remarkable species within the worlds: the Phika. The Phika were the only species capable of enough sentience to rule the worlds. They could take the shape of beasts and wield the magic energy imbued in what was around them: the sun, the moon, the wind, the earth, the sea, and the et cetera.

The Phika soon spread across the worlds, often changing as they encountered new things. Civilization flourished, and for a long time, there was relative peace.

Then, everything changed.

Above each of the worlds, a great void opened in the sky. This would have been alarming in and of itself, but shortly after its appearance, creatures by the likes of which the Phika had never seen, and a strange energy they had never known flooded through the great void!

In wake of the Opening of the Rift, there was absolute chaos. Many predicted the end of the worlds, for good reason (but thankfully, they were wrong). The Gates, once thought consistent as time itself, vanished. Natural disasters ravaged across every world. Most notably, there were now a lot of very strange creatures in the Charnarian System.

These strangers (termed “Whaigorre,” a bastardization of a Phikan word for “outsider”) were unlike anything the Phika had ever seen. They appeared to be from many different places and spoke many different tongues and looked so very different from one another. It was quite disorienting.

The initial collision of Phika and Whaigorre varied from place to place. Many of the more peaceful Phika used their magic to communicate with the Whaigorre and to make peace. With other clans, more prone to warmongering, conflict blossomed immediately. Oftentimes, the initial response was somewhere in between the two. The diversity in responses led the worlds to become as we knew them today.

Eventually, the Gates reopened, but not as the Phika once knew them: they were hopelessly inconsistent, changing in location and destination with the seasons, sometimes reappearing, sometimes never to be seen again. Additionally, while the smaller worlds regained communication with each other, no Gate ever led to Charnarnie. Why, it is unknown.

These, now, are the worlds we live in.

(An excerpt from Aleunroyn Pijenocy’s book History of the Chanarian System, a massive tome that details Phikan history in encyclical detail, and the most universally disliked book by secondary school students. In fact, after the advent of the social media platform Wysta, the opening lines became widely mocked in popular culture.)