Places

Life for humans is remarkably different than it is for spiritually questing werewolves. Humanity has always been divided, forming conflicting nations, kingdoms, religions, and societies. The Garou have their own conflicts, but they’re united by one belief above all others: their reverence for Gaia. The word “goddess” doesn’t quite describe Her (with a reverent, capital “H”). Her name has endured throughout human myths and legends, but Gaia transcends those tales. In fact, She is not limited to the Earth — all of the living parts of creation collectively form Gaia, whether they’re within the physical world or beyond it.

The Garou also speak of something larger than Gaia, a concept so encompassing that it includes not only the physical reality we know, but all alternative and impossible realities contained within the spirit world. The Tellurian is all of reality, including the living creation of Gaia and all alternatives to reality in the spirit world. It’s more than the universe as we know it, as it includes all shadows, reflections, and variations of reality that are above, below, and surrounding our world. Such simple words hardly do it justice.

The spirit world is a spectrum of realities that werewolves see and experience. Each realm of the Tellurian has its own laws and rules, but the farther one travels in the spirit world, the more the rules vary from those of the physical world. In fact, the very concept of “rules” becomes mutable. The best way to understand the Tellurian is to experience it, piece by piece, whether on a vision quest into the Umbra or listening to those who survived the experience. With a few words of guidance, your pack will be ready to undertake those same journeys.

The Shape of the Spirit World

With this in mind, any description of the shape or form of the spirit world, by its very nature, will sound philosophical, theoretical, or poetic. Some mystics and spirituals use analogies when describing the spirit world, since we can only define what we’ve never known in terms of what we do know. Lupus Garou are frustrated by these efforts to define reality by what they call “monkey babble.” For all the elaborate tales Theurges and Galliards tell, all of these descriptions are irrelevant if they don’t match what you smell and see in worlds beyond.

Despite this, the stories all start simply: The Earth is at the center of Gaia. The Heavens reach above it; the Underworld lies below it; the spirit world of the Umbra surrounds it on all sides. The Garou recite a line attributed to a legendary Galliard: “realms beyond the one you know… worlds above and worlds below.” From this truism, accounts and details vary. The Pure Ones tell stories of a World Tree that rises through the center of creation; for the Stargazers, it’s called the Axis Mundi; for the Get of Fenris, it’s Yggdrasil; in more elaborate legends, the roots of the tree grow from the back of a World Turtle on an endless sea. All of these stories are different, and all of them are equally true.

When cubs hear these many stories, they may sound like contradictions, but the tales are more than mere stories. Travelers seeking the truth in the spirit world can climb the branches of Yggdrasil, stand on the back of that turtle swimming in an endless sea of stars, or plunge into the icy sea to swim the depths of the Underworld. No two journeys are ever really the same, since what travelers find often depends on what they’re seeking. Infinity accommodates myriad realities and their variations.