The Shifting Abyss

(The Realm of Xyr’athos, the Cradle of Chaos, the Unraveling Void)   To gaze into the Shifting Abyss is to witness infinity breaking apart and reforming in an endless, ceaseless cycle. It is not a place in the traditional sense—it has no fixed borders, no true form, and no singular laws to govern it. Even its name is not constant, for some have called it The Unstable Sea, The Fractured Expanse, or The Ever-Changing Maw. It is the realm where Chaos is given shape, and yet, it is the very concept of formlessness made manifest.   It does not exist on any known plane of reality; rather, it exists between all things—a wound in existence where possibility and impossibility collide. It is the source of Chaos, the heart of unmaking, the whisper of infinite futures that will never be. Everything that enters the Abyss is changed, and nothing that leaves it remains what it was.   To step into the Shifting Abyss is to risk losing oneself to its ever-changing nature—to have one’s body, soul, and mind rewritten by the will of Chaos itself. Some emerge stronger, evolved, unrecognizable even to themselves. Others are erased from existence, as though they had never been born at all. And some… some remain, drifting within the storm of uncreation, forever caught in a cycle of becoming and unbecoming.   The Landscape of Madness   The Shifting Abyss does not obey the logic of mortal minds. It does not stay still, and it does not remain the same. It is an endless expanse of contradictions and paradoxes, a world where cause and effect dissolve and reform as something new in every passing moment. To look upon it is to watch a universe being born and dying in the same breath.   The Sky That Never Was   There is no true sky, but above (if direction can be said to exist at all), there is a vast, cosmic expanse where colors that have never been named shift and swirl like liquid thought. There are fractured stars that flicker in and out of existence, void-wounds that open into unknown realms, and rivers of pure possibility that flow against gravity itself. Some claim the sky is alive, that it watches and whispers, that it bends and folds to consume those who stare too long.   The Land of Unmaking   The ground, where it exists, is never the same for long. It may be a city of spiraling towers that collapse the moment they are built, or an ocean of stone that rises in waves like liquid. Some areas are made of cracked glass, reflecting a thousand different realities at once, while others are nothing but howling void, where even thought struggles to take form.   The Rivers of Change   Throughout the Abyss, rivers of shifting energy carve their way through the ever-changing landscape. These are not waters but streams of pure chaos, unformed potential, and those who drink from them find themselves forever altered. Some gain knowledge they were never meant to have, others lose their identities, and a few become creatures of the Abyss, never to be whole again.   The Cities That Never Were There are places in the Abyss where civilizations rise and fall in the blink of an eye—entire cities appearing, thriving, and collapsing into dust within moments. These phantom metropolises are filled with ghostly figures, echoes of lives never lived, existing only for as long as the Abyss wills them to. Some travelers claim to have walked into a city only to emerge before it had ever been built. The Laws That Break Themselves The Shifting Abyss is not lawless, for lawlessness itself is a form of consistency. Instead, it is a realm where laws are written only to be rewritten an instant later. It follows its own strange, paradoxical rules, and to survive within it, one must learn to embrace uncertainty.   Time is Fluid   Time does not flow forward or backward. It flows where it wills, folding over itself, stretching, breaking, reforming. A traveler may walk for hours only to arrive before they set out, or live a lifetime in a single second. Some are lost in loops, repeating the same moment over and over, while others move so quickly that the world around them seems frozen in place.   Reality is Optional   A thing is only real for as long as it is believed to be. A door may lead nowhere until someone believes it leads somewhere—then it does. Objects change shape at will, mountains become whispers, rivers turn to music, the air itself becomes solid ground.     Names Have Power   In the Abyss, to name something is to shape it, and to speak something’s name is to risk rewriting it entirely. Those who enter without a strong sense of identity may lose themselves, their names dissolving into nothing. Some Weavers of the Unwritten claim they steal the names of the dead here, using them to rewrite their own fates.   Chaos Devours the Unchanging That which does not change is seen as a violation of the Abyss, and it is erased. Travelers who attempt to resist transformation, who cling too tightly to who they were, are often unmade. Those who embrace the shifting find themselves altered but alive, reshaped but whole. Inhabitants of the Shifting Abyss There are things that live here, beings that should not be, creatures that exist outside of logic and time.   The Forgotten   Figures who have been erased from reality, trapped in the Abyss, lingering without memory or purpose. They whisper of past lives, of names that no longer exist, and sometimes, they remember just enough to hunger for what was taken from them.   The Many-Voiced   Beings that speak in overlapping echoes, shifting in and out of phase, their words rippling across different moments in time. To hear them is to hear a thousand versions of the same truth, all contradicting, all correct.   The Chaos-born   Those who survive the Abyss too long become part of it, their forms breaking, shifting, becoming something inhuman. Some retain their minds, wandering as immortal heralds of Xyr’athos, while others dissolve into pure, uncontained entropy.   The Throne of Xyr’athos   Deep within the heart of the Shifting Abyss—if the Abyss can be said to have a heart at all—there is a place where even Chaos bows before something greater.   It is not a throne of gold, nor of stone. It is a place where existence itself fractures, where the will of Xyr’athos is so strong that the Abyss bends, warps, and reshapes itself endlessly in response to his presence.   Some say the Throne is a storm of shifting stars, others claim it is a doorway leading nowhere, yet containing everything. Some say it is a shattered mirror reflecting all possible versions of reality at once.   To look upon the Throne is to see all that could ever be. To sit upon it is to unmake oneself entirely.   It is here that Xyr’athos dreams, if a being such as he can be said to dream at all. And it is from here that Chaos spills into the world, shaping all things anew.