Of Lore and Concept Art

Author: Salireths

In this post I'm sharing some fresh new concept art, though if it was just images alone, I feel it wouldn't paint the whole picture... That's why I also prepared a bunch of text explaining some key points in the lore!

I know it's a lot to read, but it will give you a better understanding of the unusual setting TGOR is set in.

Personal Motivation

I started the world of The Gateway of Realities from the moment when I created my "sona", long time ago, before the game.

It developed over time, inspired by my dreams, meditations and fun brainstorming conversations with my best and most trusted friends. Its always an exploration journey to develop it, it keeps surprising me what I sometimes find there.

For me creating this world is not about coming up with some "cool fiction" - it's deeply personal and emotional. It's almost like I'm trying to remember something I've long forgotten, my home.

The world of TGOR is on a different "plane of existence" with its own natural laws that differ from our "conventional" universe. It connects everything together in an infinite multiverse without space and time separation of various lifeforms, cultures and their acquired knowledge.

With our game I'm trying to provide at least a small window into this world, and hopefully, players will get a feeling of what it's like to live there. Why? Because it's my utopia, and I want to share it with you!

The Gateway of Realities

Once upon a spacetime, there was a universe; an ancient and powerful Dragon civilization lived there.

Prospered for eons, Dragons mastered all kinds of technologies: organics, synthetics, and their signature crystallic arts. They've had many worlds under their wings, many lifeforms were raised by their care.

But ageless Dragons had to witness many species come and go: some got extinct, some evolved into completely different kinds. Though natural, it was not aligning with their mission of preserving all life.

Dragon civilization was aware that they themselves weren't behind all the great filters. As their universe was getting older, it would eventually approach it's inevitable heat death, where no life or machine could keep existing, no memory or knowledge would remain.

Too proud to accept the fate of the universe and too determined to save what they loved, they challenged the laws of nature. And through all of their ingenuity, they successfully cheated death on a cosmic scale.

They restored every species that ever lived in a place free of constraints of time and space. They gave them a new life to keep exploring and learning, experiencing new feelings, meeting other species from other times and worlds...

They opened a passage into a space of endless possibilities, an eternal existence.
They called it the Gateway of Realities.

The Planes

When Gateway is activated, it transports the Reality travelers (referred to as Gatekeepers), into a strange multidimensional universe, where past and future, dreams and nightmares - all exist within its endless sea of possibilities.

Gatekeepers use visualization techniques to create/find areas of physical order within it. They can ensure their safety by imagining places with air they can breathe, with ground they can walk on. However depending on the skill of the Gatekeeper, there is a chance of encountering unstable Realities that crumble into chaos.

To compensate for that, Dragons have created a "template" for Realities, which provided a foundation to minimize such instabilities. They established optimal and safe regulations for most known species and provided a number of crystallic technologies that safely generate gravity, atmosphere, weather and other necessary natural phenomena.

With this set of guidelines, the Planes originated - chunks of land encased in crystallic structures arranged next each other, together forming interconnected systems.

These structures are formed next to infinite Sources that provide light/heat energy in sufficient amounts. The Sources are more similar to wormholes rather than to stars, with their second purpose to connect all the different systems together, forming a cohesive and infinite world.

From the gameplay perspective these floating Planes provide a nice boundary between the edge of the playable world and the background. From the art perspective other Planes provide a nice view and a sense of a vast world outside the map bounds.

Just putting a single floating platform in empty blank void would achieve only loneliness and isolation - obviously not something I'm going for here.

But sadly those distant Planes have to be inaccessible in-game: despite Lore describing an infinite space, our abilities to make the game are limited by efforts of just two people.

Interspace

Not every Reality follows a template of course. One of such examples would be the Interspace. Covered in mysterious fog, without flow of time; like in a dream, the physical Reality is uncertain here.

Physical entities and living organisms appear in a non-material state in this Reality. Their processes are suspended: they don't need to eat or sleep, they cant perform any bodily functions.

However with the power of a Gatekeeper's Aura they can still be moved, like puppets. With sufficient knowledge and practice the body can be stored for future use or altered, changing its anatomy and appearance.

This blurry realm is where the Gateway resides; because of this close connection, it is easy to materialize anything with just the power of thought. Gatekeepers use this place as a hub to repair and change their physical bodies, create new equipment, and prepare for the expeditions into new Realities.

Ones who arrive here for the first time are greeted by an automated system, this is when their Consciousness is saved and their Aura is born. To help newcomers materialize their first body, the Dragon civilization has collected many sample species into the Interspace data-vaults.

Aura is a force-field that gives special and powerful abilities to Gatekeepers. Subspace inventory, environmental hazard protection, movement enhancements, weapons and tools - it does it all, provided user has the knowledge for it. Aura is not related to technology or magic, it's just another natural law of this world.

Though strong, Aura is not indestructible. The Gatekeeper's body can still die - but that is not their end. Consciousness of all living beings are safe and remote from the body, stored somewhere within the Interspace itself. Ones who die still keep all their knowledge, memory, feelings. In this sense, the body is no more than a set of clothes one can change at will, and get a replacement if need be.

Khzandithri

Any sufficiently travelled crossroad eventually grows into a city. With more and more creatures flowing in this verse from multiple dimensions, Khzandithri (Kh-zaa-n'-di-three) was formed. It means "the Endless City Between Realities" on Dragon language.

Regarding the language, I'd love to develop proper a grammar and make it an actual language one could use. I hope that I'll get to work on it one day, if not for the game, at least just to finish it in the lore.

Densely packed buildings of different forms and cultures sit on the sides from each other. The core of the economy here is personal experiences, twisted pleasures and reputation within factions. Creatures of all shapes filling up multilayered streets that are peppered with wild technologies and exquisite arts.

I won't go into much detail about the central district, because we're not currently planning to recreate it in game. For now we instead focus on "wild" parts of the Endless City.

It has enough of topics to develop already: exploration of crystallic vaults designed by the Dragon civilization, interacting with nature in non-exploitative ways, various survival challenges, instabilities, physical anomalies to encounter, etc... All set in vast open areas with occasional self-sufficient outposts for creatures living there.

Conclusion

It wouldn't be wise to attempt to explain this strange multiverse with scientific words. I purposefully don't use names of established things like periodic elements, plant or animal species, even some cultural concepts - because different species would have different ideas about them anyway.

Same goes for "it's just magic" explanations; despite many esoteric references I prefer avoiding topic of magic entirely, instead its better to define solid laws of nature, even though its different to what we're used to.

If you made it that far, thank you so much for reading it all! It truly means a lot to me that you care about this world I put so much of my love into.

Please do let me know of your thoughts, maybe some ideas and suggestions - with its focus on many Realities it can easily be a collaborative effort. Anyone can have their own part in an endless multiverse.

PS: Don't forget that all the high-resolution art is available to download in the links at the bottom of the post!