Bridges to Reality

Let's define "autonomous fantasy": a work about a world not our own, without attempting within the text to place the created world in relation to our own world (henceforth known as "Earth").

But if you look at literature, autonomous fantasy is actually pretty rare. George R. R. Martin's wildly popular world is one such world. But most of the D&D inspiration list "Appendix N" is not. Most of the works there have some kind of link between the fantasy world and the real Earth.

Below is a list of the ways in fantasy world-building to link the created world ("you") to our own Earth. The list is, of course, exhaustive (this claim is meant to stir the blood to objection, so object away!)

It is also only coincidence that there are twelve is the number of entries in the list and twelve is the number of sides of that funny-looking die you have lying on your table there. Please do not leave such momentous decisions as the very nature of reality to the whim of the roll.

1. You are in Earth's far or mythic past.
Examples: Tolkien's Middle Earth, Howard's barbarians, Moorcock's Melnibone

2. You are in the real world's future
Examples: Wolfe's New Sun, Lanier's Hiero, Gerber's Thundarr the Barbarian, Okorafor's Who Fears Death, Boulle's Planet of the Apes

3. You are in a parallel dimension, communicable to Earth
Examples: D&D's default cosmos, Pratt & De Camp's Incomplete Enchanter, Moorcock's multiverse

4. You are on a distant planet where fantasy/magic holds sway
Examples: Farmer's World of Tiers, Barker's Tekumel, McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern

5. Your world and Earth are both the dream/simulation/shadow of a higher world
Example; Zelazny's Amber series

6. You are in the dream of someone on Earth
Examples: Lovecraft's Dreamlands, McCay's Little Nemo

The rest have less of a fictional pedigree to my knowledge, but are no less fascinating.

7. You are in a simulation run by someone on Earth
8. Earth is the dream of someone on your world
9. Your world is the afterlife of Earth
10. Earth is the afterlife of your world
11. You are in a fiction maintained by someone on Earth (the literal truth, and the doctrine of Narrativism, no, not that kind of Narrativism)
12. The wall is absolute (Westeros and all other self-contained worlds such as Earthsea)


At any rate, each idea suggests itself strongly as a Big Reveal that is hinted at in the middle of a fantasy gaming campaign, and that outright drives events in the later stages of such a campaign. And in the next post: what implications each of these ideas carry.

From the Valemental Plane of Elementines

They are too nice. An entire plane of existence spawns and confines these simpering cherubs, pigeon-toed kewpies, toddler sweethearts; the cloying animistic objects who love, the yams, the fried eggs, the self-slicing baloneys. Unspeakable affinities. Obsessions whose desire can never be refused, only endured. Love proclaimed in a mute pun. Laugh to keep from wailing.

They are too nice. Faced with the truly monstrous, the denizens of this saccharine dimension are powerless to raise a chubby fist. Brutal blades must be hired from across the omniverse, a price doled out in philtres. Hard steps must fall on candied soil. The Violentine must slay the Beast Beloved.

You find yourself changing; conforming to the local phenotype. Roll d8 and consult the Monster Manual.

1. Lycanthrope, Wererat

2.Fungi, Violet

3. Men, Caveman

4. Orc

 5. Golem, Flesh

6. Devil, Horned (Malebranche)

7. Ochre Jelly

8. Gelatinous Cube

Only by succeeding can you ever hope to leave.