The Really Basic Idea
Displacers take individuals and grant them powers, placing them in parallel versions of worlds in order to affect that world toward a goal: be it strengthening the world, weakening it or something else.
The Displaced retain free will, and rarely even know what their mission might be. It is enough that they have touched a world and events happen as they may, as pieces in a transcendent strategy game beyond mortal minds.
Cosmology: The Multiverse, Void and Forces
The Multiverse contains hundreds of thousands of Realities, each distinct and unique, all connected by The Void.
A Reality is distinct from the Void, in that things do not truly exist beyond a concept in the Void. It is an in-between place, where Realities are born and where they return to when they end. No one can truly be certain of the nature of the Void, beyond that it does exist.
While the Void may prove impossible for us mortals to understand, Realities are exactly what we do understand. A Reality is a universe, with all it’s individual events, characters and flow of time. While the events of an actual Reality - the primary, “normal” Reality - are nigh immutable, every possible outcome exists simultaneously as transcendent “Shards of Time” that have splintered off of the whole, like dust trailing from a comet. While it is nearly impossible to change the events of a Reality, the Shards are much easier for an outsider to manipulate, and contribute in very tiny ways to alter the Reality they sprang from. If enough Shards are changed in the same way, the Reality will begin to reflect that. It is from this behavior that a greater conflict arises.
Despite the all-encompassing effects, the vast majority of living beings within any given Reality or Shard know nothing of the mechanics of their the Multiverse, or the conflicts that likely drove them to be created. Only the Void Dwellers have any clue as to the true workings of Realities, and dispensing information is not something they do lightly, even to their most favored Displaced.
While some entities have the huge power needed to access The Void, most, if not all, of them hail from an original Reality. These Void Dwellers are often extraordinarily powerful, but Void travel is still difficult.
On top of that, intentionally moving through the Void attracts the attention of incredible, unimaginable Forces. The Forces are somehow native to the Void, and reflect different aspects of it, and influence those minds they encounter to their ends. There are three active Forces known and opposed to each other, the primary two being referred to as Genesis and Entropy by those who have pieced together their actions. While their means are often difficult to understand, Genesis wish to create and strengthen Realities, while Entropy seeks to return Realities to the Void.
A third force (suspect to be more than one by some, or possibly just unaffiliated Travelers driven mad by the Void) exists as well, with many names, but often called the A’on acts against both other Forces and sometimes even itself, or will assist them for equally inscrutable reasons. Many of its representatives are quite clearly nuts, yet just as many are sane and working toward some kind of goal. It wants something, but we don’t really understand what.
The High War: Shard Tendency and Influence
While the Forces clearly are powerful, they do not or cannot act directly. They use proxies to influence Realities in their favors.
However, the more touched by the Void a Shard is, the harder it is for the shard to influence it’s reality. Thus, champions who are relatively untainted are pulled from worlds as souls and placed in chosen Shards as The Displaced. Every Shard of Time is different, as is every soul, and Void Dwellers known as Displacers are masters of identifying the ones that will have the greatest desired effect and how much power can be granted to them before the Shard become useless in their schemes.
Displacers are fey individuals at a glance, often whisking away their chosen Displaced with little warning to their methods and dropping them into a Shard with little contact with their confused Displaced. However, Displacers are a varied bunch, with differing personalities, plans and methods.
Influencing a Shard is the result of the events The Displaced embroil themselves in, every battle they fight and life they touch changes the flow of events in the Shard. These are the stories chronicled in Displaced. The Displaced often will find their own way to get involved; the combinations of a new world and the new bodies granted to them are a potent catalyst to seek out or attract adventure.
Sometimes, a particularly strong Shard can touch another. This results in the Displaced of similar goals being able to help each other without crossing the void. Often, Tokens can be fashioned to enable this and shared among the various timelines by the Displacers, either drawing a “physical echo” of the Token’s creator to the Shard or even joining and fusing their Shards into one.
Warriors of Whim: The Displaced
In general, there are three “levels” of Displaced individuals:
Pawn Displaced are an exact or very close representation of the original individual taken, often with little to no power granted to them, making them ill-prepared for the worlds they enter. Disparagingly called “Pawns,” they are easy to Displace but are hard to use well.
Advent Displaced are the most common, usually just called “Displaced.” They have been granted as much power as they can (which varies wildly), usually formed from the Displaced own mind and impressions (in other words, their personal heroes and fiction). Of note is that some Displaced of this class are “conformed” to the common forms of the world they enter, either by their Displacers or energies unique to the world.
Finally, Godly Displaced are immensely powerful, enough to challenge the Void Dwellers, often pushing their Shard to the breaking point and beyond. Allowing uncontrolled G-Class Displaced to run amuck is dangerous, and all the Forces will act accordingly (often by obliterating the entire Shard, gaining nothing for anyone).
Pawn and Advent Displaced rarely know of the events surrounding their Displacement. They find themselves in a fantastical world and are left to their own devices. Some see it as being trapped in a strange land and strange body, some see it as the ultimate freedom, and everything in between: the Displaced are as unique as everyone else, they begin as common individuals from common worlds.
‘First Displacements’: In these Displacements, Displacers look for an empty shard and bring a Displaced to it, with the goal of influencing it in their favor. This is the most common way of being displaced, due to its simplicity and effectiveness, and the sheer number of Shards to be taken to.
‘Second Displacements’, also called ‘Counter Displacements’: In these Displacements, Displacers identify a Shard being influenced by another Displaced counter to their wishes, and insert a Displaced who is likely to negate or override the current Shard’s tendency. Though less common than the First Displacements, Counter Displacing is still routine when a Reality is strongly contested (as well as the pleasant tingly feeling that results from destroying the other side’s hard work). These can stack as more and more Displaced are thrown into a world, often causing great unrest.
Duels of Fates: Equestria
Among the younger races of the omniverse include the beings we know to be Ponies. Inhabitants of the Reality of Equestria, Ponies have adopted a philosophy that prizes life and the gifts of their world above all else, and as such Equestria leans heavily in Genesis’s favor. As the War has progressed, Equestria has been established as a Life-aligned keystone, one of Genesis’s most valued Realities.
This has lead to an disproportionate amount of Void Dweller attention; Entropy knows the destruction of Equestria would be a crippling blow, while Genesis clings desperately to its prize Reality. As such, it has been targeted by a swath of Displacers, all bent on winning Equestria to their respective Force’s side. Every Shard won or lost for either sides counts dearly. Thus the primary battleground for the chronicles of Displaced are here.
Footnotes:
1. The thing you need to ask yourself, the writer, is “Do my characters need to know for this to be a good story?” You lose the magic when you explain it all.
2. META NOTE: A “Reality” is what we would call “canon” to whatever given show or media the world is based on.
3. It is highly recommended you do not make Godly-Class Displaced. If you do, it is recommended you talk to some of the more experienced writers in the group first, so they can teach you how to write better characters that won’t make you look like a flailing child.