TEXT: Lords of Gossamer & Shadow 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   by Matt Banach 
  
   
   
   
   
  Rite Publishing Presents: 
   
  Gossamer Worlds: 
  The Otherlands 
   
  Explorer (Author): Matt Banach 
  Seeker (Editor): Steven D. Russell 
  Searcher (Cover Artist):  Joe Darkbugg 
  Trailblazer (Interior Artists):  Joe Darkbugg,  
  Adrian Mark Gillespie, M.K. Amphitaman, Marek Rakuč  
  Pioneer (Trade Dress): James “Devin Knight” Hazelett  
  Lost Boy (Layout and Publisher): Steven D. Russell 
   
  Special Thanks to Jason Durall for his help in developing this.  
   
   
  Based on Lords of Gossamer & Shadow by Jason Durall 
   
   
   
  Gossamer Worlds: The Otherworld Copyright © 2015 Steven D. Russell All rights reserved. Lords of Gossamer and Shadow Copyright © 2012-2013 Steven D. Russell All rights 
  reserved. Erick Wujcik’s Diceless Role-Playing and associated marks and logos are trademarks of Diceless by Design Publishing, LLC, and are used under license.  
  See http://Rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=1447 for more information on Erick Wujcik’s Diceless Role-Playing. All Illustrations except, banners, and 
  tradedress are  licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/ 
  
   
  1 
   
  The Otherlands 
   
   
  “The staircase spiraled down into 
  depths, twisting wrong-wise, and I left 
  the sweltering heat of burning brass 
  behind as the eerie cool of alien stone took 
  over. I felt like I was burrowing down 
  into something ancient, something I 
  shouldn't be touching, something waiting 
  for me to touch it anyway. The staircase 
  unwound into an echoing cavern – the 
  dank, dark hub of the catacombs. 
  Stepping out onto the dirty yet barren 
  floor of packed barrow-earth, I looked 
  around for the nearest Door and caught 
  it staring at me from the recesses of a 
  rough-hewn alcove. It shone like pale 
  moonlight on a starless night, its crisp 
  and unmistakable shape an abomination 
  of rectangular perfection. This wasn't a 
  Door... it was what Doors dreamt of 
  becoming.”  
  - Yaeger's Travelogue 
   
   
  A Word of Warning 
  What I'm about to tell you isn't just 
  controversial 
  – 
  it's 
  heresy. 
  Maybe 
  Lucien's right, I am a sloppy researcher, 
  and a damned fool... but you be the judge. 
  Either way, if you repeat any of my 
  theories, don't expect the other Lords to 
  nod politely. This gets weird.  
   
   
  Description 
   
  The multiverse is a big place, filled 
  with infinite variations on infinite  
  themes, 
  iterating 
  every 
  conceivable 
  combination of gossamer matter across its 
  myriad realities. Just as striking as the 
  vast differences between worlds are the 
  occasional, eerie similarities. If you've 
  traveled the vast span of the Grand Stair 
  for any length of time, presumably you've 
  seen things like this: something seeming 
  to be the same person, place, or thing, yet 
  not, in truth separated from its gossamer 
  clones by a gulf as big as universes. I don't 
  claim to know exactly why or how these 
  mirror-like iterations occur – probably 
  something to do with 9th-dimensional 
  cosmic super-math that'd make my head 
  hurt – but I remark on the phenomenon 
  to highlight something... 
   
  You see, some realities out there don't 
  just sit around idle – some realities have a 
  way of spreading. So sometimes, when 
  you get that sense of deja vu, there really 
  might be something to it, not because you 
  remember this gossamer reality – but 
  because the reality remembers you.  
   
  Sometimes realities are people too. 
   
  'The Other' is a viral, empowered, 
  omni-sentient gossamer reality with the 
  ability to open Doors and propagate itself 
  throughout the multiverse via the Grand 
  Stair, spreading like an ever-sprawling 
  kudzu... or a virus... or a cancer. 
   
  'Footholds' begin when a piece of the 
  Otherlands – typically an ambulatory 
  being such as an Emissary, but possibly an 
  artifact or a chunk of environmental  
  
   
  2 
   
   
   
  matter – enters the host-world via a Door. 
  Think of this like a seed. Once the seed 
  germinates and takes root, metaphorically 
  and metaphysically speaking, it begins 
  imprinting the local gossamer matter with 
  the template of the Other, absorbing, 
  digesting, and re-coding the local reality 
  into a new foothold region of the 
  Otherlands. This process is gradual and 
  slow, taking anywhere from years to 
  centuries. At first, only a small patch of 
  territory or handful of beings may show 
  change, such as an eerie forest glade filled 
  with toadstool rings frequented by a few 
  odd wanderers who all seem touched by 
  something strange. Maybe the locals 
  denizens try and fight this encroachment, 
  or maybe the influence seeps in all around 
  them too gradually to notice, but 
  
   
  3 
   
  eventually, 
  inevitably, 
  these 
  isolated 
  oddities become the way of the land. 
   
  'Chrysalis Realms' occur as when, 
  over the course of time and centuries 
  become millennia, these footholds mature 
  – regions ranging in size from that of a city 
  (e.g., a hidden faerie forest, or an alien 
  colony, or the floating island of weirdness) 
  to an entire parallel sub-dimension (e.g., 
  a dark-mirror fairyland, or haunted 
  demon realm, or arcane spirit world). In 
  these chrysalis realms, the Other has 
  completely appropriated the gossamer 
  matter of the host-world; it is, for all 
  intents 
  and 
  purposes, 
  part 
  of 
  the 
  Otherlands. 
  The 
  Other 
  maintains 
  connection 
  between 
  these 
  chrysalis 
  realms through the travels of Emissaries,  
  facilitated by constant manipulation of 
  the Doors of the Grand Stair via its 
  Mastery of the Grand Stair. The Other can 
  and will exert influence and energy to 
  maintain these outposts, defending them 
  from outright destruction as necessary, 
  though as an alien superconsciousness 
  with an attention span measured in eons, 
  the Other cares little about day-to-day 
  violence against its flora and fauna and 
  reacts only to the most apocalyptic of 
  threats against the realm itself.  
   
  'Echo Realms' occur when the Other 
  abandons a world, leaving a metaphorical 
  husk of gossamer matter behind. The 
  reasons for these withdrawals are not well 
  understood, but it is reported that during 
  the great war with the Dwimmerlaik the 
  Other 
  withdrew 
  its 
  influence 
  from 
  hundreds (if not thousands or more) of 
  gossamer worlds, retracting the vastness 
  of its sprawling empire of self down to a 
  mere handful of remote locations. An echo 
  realm appears much like it did as a 
  chrysalis realm – enchanted forests 
  remain, faerie kingdoms persist – but the 
  animus and power of the Other is missing; 
  while the echo realm may go through the 
  motions of existence for ages afterward, 
  the presence which defined the echo 
  realm as something other than the host 
  reality is gone, leaving the previously-
  templated gossamer matter vulnerable to 
  destruction, dilution, or re-absorption. 
  Many are the tales of faerie kingdoms 
  which once knew legendary greatness but 
  now linger as but a pale shadow of their 
  former selves... 
   
  For some reason, I don't think the 
  Other ever completely overwrites a host 
  reality. Even if the chrysalis realm is so 
  widespread 
  that 
  it 
  occupies 
  a 
  supermajority of the available space, as 
  far as I can tell there's always something 
  original left over, either in scattered 
  pockets or laced throughout. Variation 
  and adaptation breed strength, and by 
  incorporating some of the metaphysical 
  DNA of the host worlds into its myriad 
  colonies-of-self, the Other must gain some 
  sort of benefit. Maybe that's how it got this 
  far. 
  Maybe 
  that's 
  how 
  it 
  learns. 
  Theoretically, there might be some 
  original 'Otherland Prime', the first seed,  
  
   
  4 
   
   
   
  ancestor of them all... but before you ask, 
  No, I don't know where it is. That mystery 
  lays buried in the ashes and rubble of the 
  Dwimmerlaik War, and I can only imagine 
  that knowing such a secret, much less 
  going there, would be unfathomably 
  dangerous. Still, one wonders. 
   
  Since the Otherlands are not just one 
  world, but many worlds, with each one of 
  those worlds an amalgamation of the 
  Other and artifacts of the native host 
  reality, describing this gossamer reality is 
  damn 
  near 
  impossible. 
  There 
  are, 
  however, several strong themes which 
  appear 
  throughout 
  the 
  various 
  Otherlands: they are strange realms, 
  filled with alien entities and warped 
  landscapes; they are supernatural worlds, 
  run by primal magics and powerful 
  spirits; and they are surreal, unfettered by 
  rigid physical laws and prone to weird 
  metaphysical arrangements like dualism, 
  mirror-realms, 
  and 
  dreamscapes. 
  Oftentimes they are, or contain, powerful 
  faerie realms and shadowy spirit worlds, 
  and I think there's a reason such myths 
  are so prevalent across all the gossamer 
  worlds up and down the Grand Stair – 
  how do you know if the fey kingdom or 
  demon-plane on gossamer world X is 
  really part of gossamer world X at all? Did 
  it form that way of its own accord, or 
  because the Other taught it how? 
   
  To give you a more concrete example, 
  I'll tell you about the Otherland I last 
  visited. It was a mystic, primordial faerie-
  alien realm arranged on the spiral arms of 
  a cloud of thought-mutable gossamer 
  matter, laid out in the shape of a seven-
  armed starfish the size of a solar system. 
  The underside of the spiral-world was a 
  spooky demonic mirror-world, prone to 
  bubbling up into the fey kingdoms at 
  night, when invoked, or really any time 
  
   
  5 
   
  the demon princes got their nerve up. 
  After entering through the Shining Door 
  (accessed in the center of the Barrow-
  Mound Catacombs, the part you can get to 
  just below the Tower of Boiling Brass), 
  crossing over into the main part of the 
  world itself required passage on a glass 
  boat with hovering concentric circles for 
  sails – the cackling ferryman gleefully let 
  slip that the roiling not-water we were 
  sailing across was an ocean of unborn 
  souls. Past the broken-glass shore there 
  was a labyrinth of rows of emerald hills, 
  each pregnant mound carved with the 
  runes of the barrow-tribes dancing 
  beneath. The portion of the world I 
  traipsed about was an immense forest of 
  gigantic dreaming mother-trees, each 
  with a resurrection-womb of a star-child 
  beating at the center of her trunk. Every 
  pool of water or other reflective surface 
  served as a portal to the demonic under-
  verse, and the one time I tried to shave I 
  nearly got my soul stolen by a rather 
  handsome 
  but 
  still 
  nefarious 
  doppelganger. Every flower was filled 
  with eyes, and every moment of every day 
  I felt like I was being watched by 
  something that had watched me before.  
   
  You know, one of those places. 
   
   
  Typical Denizens 
   
  “Faelien” (fae + alien) are how I would 
  describe the typical denizens of the 
  Otherlands. These bizarre creatures may 
  share some superficial qualities and 
  features with the fair folk of common 
  myth (and in many worlds, fact) but seem 
  rooted in a reality far more primordial and 
  strange. I put it this way: what faeries are 
  to humans, faeliens would be to faeries. 
  These are not the creatures of legend, they 
  are of the legends that even the legends 
  have forgotten to tell. 
   
  Shining Ones are a quirky yet prolific 
  breed of faelien, closest in mannerism and 
  activity to humanoids as you or I might 
  understand them. There are myriad 
  different subspecies, but the shining ones 
  I encountered looked like willow-thin 
  bejeweled dryads with stars for brains – 
  an odd but harmonious chimera of 
  animal, vegetable, mineral, and raw 
  energy. Some were bipedal, but others 
  glided about on skirts of tentacle-esque 
  vines like half-hovering octopi. You know, 
  normal folk. When I arrived in their 
  midst, a few of the more curious ones 
  shifted their shapes so that their torsos 
  resembled comely androgynes, but the 
  accommodation struck me as eerily 
  patronizing, like someone speaking to a 
  nine-year-old in baby talk. Attuned to the 
  Eidolon and the high harmonies of its 
  pattern, they practiced ritualistic arts 
  which seamlessly blended song, dance, 
  magic, and mathematics; I witnessed one 
  orgiastic rave which was equal parts 
  midsummer festival, demon summoning, 
  and cellular rejuvenation treatment. In 
  other Otherlands, the shining ones may 
  translate as the ethereal ur-elves who  
  
   
  6 
   
   
   
  Scattered One 
   
  dwell in distant heavens, as primal 
  natural muses and dryad-spirits, or even 
  as starry-eyed aliens in flying saucers. 
   
  Scattered Ones are breeds of faeliens 
  tied closely to the Umbra, which means 
  their activities tend to be creative, chaotic, 
  destructive, and they're prone to mutation 
  and 
  shape-changing, 
  defying 
  easy 
  description. One scattered one I met 
  began as a hunched goblinoid about four 
  feet 
  tall, 
  cackling 
  as 
  she 
  painted 
  apocalyptic runes on a cave wall; then she 
  laughed herself out of her own body, 
  floating about as a smoky haze; then when 
  she 
  grew 
  bored 
  her 
  smoke-body 
  condensed into a burbling slick of tar-
  black ooze, seeping down into the 
  underground to speak-meld with other of 
  her ilk in a subterranean city more like an 
  oil reservoir than any burg. While 'evil' is 
  far too facile a label for the scattered ones, 
  they certainly aren't interested in your 
  well-being or your feelings, and the 
  closest they get to polite behavior is 
  sinister, snarky doom-saying as they try 
  and trick you into some sort of devil's 
  bargain. Many scattered ones are devils 
  and demons, but not all devils and 
  demons are scattered ones. In other 
  Otherlands, scattered ones translate as 
  wicked 
  leprechauns, 
  mischievous 
  gremlins, or even naughty grey aliens out 
  there mutilating cattle and probing 
  backwater yokels. 
   
  Hungry Ones are a bigger, more 
  physically potent breed of common 
  faelien – the stuff of man-eating-ogre 
  tales and legendary giants, but twisted by  
  
   
  7 
   
   
   
  Hungry One 
   
  eldritch influences which give them 
  appetites far darker and more sinister 
  than the classic 'blood of an Englishmun'. 
  The few hungry ones I've encountered 
  were a breed with deep ultraviolet skin, 
  twenty feet tall on average and armored in 
  rocky formations grown from some 
  symbiotic 
  super-fungus. 
  They 
  were 
  powerful shamans capable of terrible 
  magics, including their own eldritch 
  techniques for manipulating true names, 
  binding souls, and trapping mystical 
  energy and beings long enough to be 
  eaten. As I met that particular tribe, their 
  
   
  8 
   
  mages were in the process of taking over a 
  forest 
  from 
  some 
  Shining 
  Ones, 
  constructing an immense array of upside-
  down pyramidal structures which I later 
  learned were used to trap, freeze, and 
  digest a swath of territory the size of a 
  small moon. In other Otherlands, hungry 
  ones translate as nefarious ogre-mages, 
  arcane giant-kings, or, in one notable 
  case, hulking devourers of worlds. 
   
  Threats 
   
   
  Emissaries are the most potent 
  creatures of the Other, defending its 
  network of realms both in the gossamer 
  realities themselves and out along the 
  expanses of the Grand Stair. Emissaries 
  come in many forms – shining archangels, 
  acid-tongued demon lords, ethereal faerie 
  princesses, alien heralds, or stranger still. 
  While Emissaries do the divine bidding of 
  the Other and often speak as though they 
  held its singular authority (if it can be 
  even considered to have a singular 
  identity in any form we'd recognize), it is 
  a mistake to conceptualize an Emissary as 
  an avatar of the Other itself; the 
  superconsciousness of the Other is far too 
  vast to be embodied in a single form, nor 
  could any connection to such a small 
  extension be vital enough to serve as a 
  route to the reality's true, deep psyche. In 
  other words, destroying or influencing an 
  Emissary doesn't actually gain you any 
  ground in controlling the Other itself – 
  they are but minor appendages, tools the 
  overmind can drop from its grasp should 
  they become compromised. That said, 
  Emissaries should be respected and/or 
  feared, especially in locations where they 
  can draw upon the full power of the Other, 
  as they've proven to be some of the most 
  potent and terrifying walkers of the Grand 
  Stair ever encountered. 
   
  Xana Mega is one of the Otherlands' 
  most legendary emissaries – the faerie 
  queen to rule all faerie queens. Appearing 
  as a tall elfin woman with a crown of 
  brambles and emerald light, this aloof 
  alien goddess radiates an aura of beauty 
  and awe so overwhelming her mere sight 
  has been known to strike mortals blind 
  and prompt even Gossamer Lords to 
  wince and shed a tear. Carrying with her a 
  branch of silver apple blossoms which 
  releases shimmering reality-seeds with 
  every swish, Xana Mega is responsible for 
  the propagation of the Other to an untold 
  number of gossamer worlds.  
   
  Xana Mega, the Shining One 
  Xana Mega has the following qualities: 
  • Immense Vitality [4 Points] 
  • Tireless Stamina [4 Points] 
  • Combat Reflexes [2 Points] – 
  adept at archery as well as 
  brawling with teeth and talons 
  • Deadly Damage [4 Points] – 
  capable of unleashing blasts of 
  reality-rending faerie-fire, as well 
  as shooting bolts of psychic 
  lightning from her silver bow 
   
  
   
  9 
   
  
   
  10 
   
  • Invulnerable 
  to 
  Conventional 
  Weapons [4 Points] – with skin 
  brighter 
  and 
  harder 
  than 
  diamonds, and a glare hot enough 
  to burn swords to ash 
  • Psychic Barrier [4 Points] 
  • Danger Sensitivity [2 Points] 
  • Search Through Worlds [4 Points] 
  • Mold 
  Gossamer 
  Creatures 
  [2 
  Points] – adept at god-like mind 
  control and emotional command 
  • Rapid Healing [2 Points] 
  • Limited Shape Shift [4 Points] – 
  can take the form of a beautiful 
  female of any race or species 
  • 
  True Name is Warded [2 Points] 
   
  Powers: Xana Mega has her own suite of 
  innate mystical abilities, the equivalent of 
  all the common Sorcery spells. Also, the 
  Other can use its Master of the Grand 
  Stair abilities through Xana Mega, as if 
  the Power were her own. 
   
  When located in one of the Otherlands, or 
  a well-developed Chrysalis Realm, Xana 
  Mega draws additional power directly 
  from the reality of the Other and her 
  qualities improve to include: 
  • Stupendous Vitality [8 Points] 
  • Destructive Damage [8 Points] 
  • Impervious to Harm [8 Points] 
  • Mold Gossamer Reality [4 Points] 
  • Regeneration [4 Points] 
   
   
   
  Doppelgangers 
  are 
  dangerous 
  spirits of the Otherlands with the ability 
  not only to mimic their prey, but steadily 
  grow in power until they are the very equal 
  of their quarry. They start out as bodiless, 
  invisible concepts laying dormant, fond of 
  nesting in reflective surfaces, malleable 
  substances such as mud or sand, and in 
  stray 
  personal 
  possessions. 
  Mystical 
  power is very attractive to doppelgangers, 
  so the have a penchant for targeting 
  sorcerers or anyone carrying potent 
  artifacts. A doppelganger stalking begins 
  with faint, creepy encounters, like your 
  reflection in a pool of water winking back, 
  or a nearby sand dune shifting to resemble 
  your collapsed body; but the longer the 
  doppelganger stalks its prey, the greater 
  its interest, and the more mystical energy 
  and gossamer matter it will pull from the 
  surrounding environment to make itself a 
  body-in-replica. A mid-stage doppel-
  ganger might appear as a mud-man, or a 
  tangle of vegetation that walks and talks 
  like you, picking up your things and 
  watching you while you sleep.  
   
  Doppelgangers can be attacked, harmed, 
  and temporarily dispelled at this stage, 
  but 
  barring 
  extraordinary 
  mystical 
  remedies they usually just revert to being 
  bodiless spirits... and resume stalking 
  their quarry almost immediately. They're 
  tenacious. If allowed to lurk and perfect 
  their mimicry for too long, a doppelganger 
  will eventually craft itself into a flawless 
  clone 
  of 
  its 
  target, 
  complete 
  with 
  replication of any magical abilities or 
  other Powers the spirit might've seen the 
  target use. And yes, just so you know, 
  doppelgangers can effectively mimic a 
  being as powerful as a Gossamer Lord, 
  given enough time to study their quarry. 
  So, should you ever find yourself in the 
  
   
  11 
   
  Otherlands staring through the mists at a 
  mirror image of yourself, take care – a 
  doppelganger's ultimate goal is to destroy, 
  consume, and replace its victim, achieving 
  some sort of metaphysical apotheosis so 
  ecstatic and profound that it will eagerly 
  pursue 
  such 
  end 
  for 
  an 
  eternity. 
  Doppelgangers are supremely patient, 
  too, so just because you gave one the slip 
  a century ago doesn't mean the same foul 
  presence isn't waiting for you on the other 
  side of that Door, eager to resume the 
  hunt.  
   
   
  Doors in the Otherlands are a 
  threat all their own, due to the disturbing 
  fact that the omnisentience of the Other 
  can employ all the dirty tricks of a Master 
  of the Grand Stair. This is really pretty 
  horrifying, if you think about it for more 
  than half a second. The Other can create 
  Doors, theoretically linking any door 
  inside its multitudinous sub-realms to the 
  vast span of Grand Stair. It can bridge 
  doors within its worlds, allowing its 
  agents and minions to traverse its breadth 
  and 
  width 
  nigh-instantly, 
  bringing 
  specialists and hordes to bear against any 
  problematic situation in a blink. Once 
  you're inside the Otherlands, it can sever 
  the Door through which you entered, 
  trapping you wherever it pleases. Should 
  the Other take an interest in you, it can 
  even, through its Emissaries, manipulate 
  Doors along the Grand Stair to bring you 
  to one of its realms, diverting a Door from 
  its natural destination and shrouding that 
  divergence such that you might not realize 
  the switch until you're through. Making 
  matters even worse, the Other can even 
  affect the Grand Stair, with great effort 
  rearranging its configuration to frustrate 
  foes or ensnare victims. Scared yet? We 
  among the Gossamer Lords are perhaps 
  too comfortable believing that most 
  problems can be evaded simply by 
  stepping through the nearest Door and 
  traipsing away, but... sometimes it isn't 
  that easy. So, no matter what you do, do 
  not make an enemy of the Other – it 
  survived war with the Dwimmerlaik, after 
  all. It can find you. It can reach you. It can 
  twist this whole crazy multiverse around 
  its finger and make you dance on 
  gossamer strings. There's a reason why, 
  all over the multiverse, there are so many 
  eerily 
  similar 
  legendary 
  tales 
  and 
  mythological odysseys which begin with 
  the hero stepping through an odd door 
  and emerging in a strange shining 
  otherworld beyond the sea... 
   
   
  Notable Locations 
   
  Tír na nÓg is verdant land of ever-
  lasting youth, its grassy hillocks covered 
  with sun-dappled dryad-groves and lucky 
  clover meadows. Sometimes it may seem 
  to be Valhalla, or Nirvana, or the Elysian 
  Fields, as local gossamer reality subtly (or 
  not-so-subtly) shifts itself to appeal to 
  visitors – and there are  
  
   
  12 
   
   
   
  Tír na nÓg 
   
  visitors a-plenty, tricked or tempted 
  through the land's multitudinous but 
  constantly-shifting Doors. Home to many 
  ancient tribes of Shining Ones, the realm 
  appears at first and second glance to be a 
  faerie 
  paradise 
  where 
  intoxicating 
  ambrosia drips from every flower petal 
  and not even the night can be called dim, 
  what with all the dancing star-children 
  and laughing pixie-fire. One might be 
  tempted to relax and even luxuriate in 
  such a blissful place, laying down for a 
  day-drunken nap with a buxom nymph or 
  three... only to find time and self and 
  willpower slipping away like sand castles 
  before the tide. Despite its pleasures – 
  actually, because of its pleasures – Tír na 
  nÓg is profoundly dangerous place. The 
  Other lets the pace of time-flow fluctuate 
  wildly in this realm, and one day can 
  easily become a week... or a century... or a 
  lifetime. Beneath every toadstool ring lays 
  the moldering corpse of a wayward 
  traveler, and the place is filled with 
  toadstool rings. Really and truly, I think 
  Tír na nÓg is an entire sub-realm 
  designed by the Other to be ensnare juicy 
  beings from other realities, like the sickly-
  sweet lure of a flytrap just waiting to seal 
  shut around a little buzzing thing like you 
  or me. 
   
  The Underworld lurks beneath all of 
  the 
  Otherlands, 
  either 
  physically, 
  symbolically, 
  or 
  sub-dimensionally. 
  Entrance into the Underworld can be 
  made through the dark caves, which 
  appear beneath green hills, crossing a 
  river in the right or wrong way, or perhaps 
  merely making a psychic shift that reveals  
  
   
  13 
   
   
   
  Underworld 
   
  the underlay of a shadowy parallel realm. 
  Ferrymen and guardian hounds are 
  common encounters, but such figures pre-
  date classical Charon and Cerberus by 
  untold eons; these are the deepest roots of 
  legend, the Platonic ideals of which our 
  familiar icons are but flickering shadows 
  on the cave wall. The Underworld is a 
  realm of spirits and a land of the dead – of 
  ghosts, walking corpses (some ghastly, 
  some merely pallid), and beings otherwise 
  turned the wrong way down the highway 
  of life.  
   
  I'll note that in Chrysalis Realms 
  where the Other has overwritten and co-
  opted the native reality, oftentimes the 
  local translation of the Underworld is the 
  one remaining place you can find the souls 
  and semblances of those beings who died 
  during the takeover, refusing to surrender 
  to the dominant paradigm and consigned 
  to an eternity of pale remembrance. But in 
  the cavernous subterranean Underworld 
  of the Otherlands which I visited, dead 
  things hung about in cocoon-like coffin-
  pods spun from milky-white gossamer, 
  transmitting 
  photonic 
  data-streams 
  amongst each other along glimmering 
  silken wires, forming a vast super-
  computer as large as death itself. Twisted 
  little Scattered Ones scurried about like 
  elemental 
  cockroaches, 
  nibbling 
  at 
  untended 
  nodes 
  and 
  occasionally 
  dragging defunct pods down into the 
  terminal abyss of Shadow. Even the dead 
  can die a bit more, I suppose, so the visit 
  simply reinforced my preexisting and 
  staunchly-held belief that dying in the 
  Otherlands is a very, very bad idea. 
   
  The 
  Mirrored 
  Labyrinth 
  is 
  a 
  maddening 
  echo-chamber 
  of 
  reality 
  where the Otherland warps itself to reflect 
  
   
  14 
   
  and accommodate any visitor, resembling 
  a twisted version of some other gossamer 
  reality familiar to the interloper. Were the 
  labyrinth ever inclined to reveal its 'true' 
  form, it might appear as a twisted mirror-
  maze, or an infinite field of reflecting 
  pools, but rarely will the labyrinth appear 
  as itself – it is a doppelganger as large as 
  an entire sub-dimension, and loves 
  nothing more than toying with prey 
  who've recently stumbled in from the 
  Grand Stair. The whole area is infested 
  with 
  doppelganger-spirits 
  simply 
  salivating at the thought of fresh meat to 
  mimic. Unfortunately, Doors to the 
  Otherlands 
  often 
  open 
  into 
  the 
  metaphorical vestibule of the Mirrored 
  Labyrinth, affording visitors the horrible 
  opportunity to either go one way and find 
  themselves in some insidious mirror-
  realm rabbit-hole, or go the other way and 
  maybe make it to the riverbank where you 
  can grab a ferry. The last time I visited the 
  Otherlands, the shining Door through 
  which I stepped brought me into what 
  appeared to be one of my favorite 
  penthouse apartments, decorated exactly 
  as I'd left it... except all the corpses had 
  been replaced by undulating violet 
  tentacle-things which were doing their 
  best impression of my fallen friends and 
  lovers. I took a quick left and didn't stay. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Final Thoughts  
   
   
  The 
  thought 
  of 
  a 
  mobile, 
  expanding, and sentient reality should 
  scare you – it certainly scares me. Maybe 
  I'm completely off my rocker and all of 
  this is the idiotic speculation of a reckless 
  fool... but maybe I'm right, and that 
  means there's a presence out there with 
  the potential to absorb and become all of 
  existence. Maybe the Dwimmerlaik went 
  to war with this thing for good reason. 
   
   
  ~ Yaeger Zane
   
   
   
  
   
  15 
   
  The Otherlands Domain Table 
  Technology 
  Level: 
  Primitive/Other (high magic replaces technology) 
  Magic 
  Level: 
  Magic Nullifies Technology 
  Security: 
  Guarded [4 Points] (by the Emissaries and the world itself; all Doors 
  reaching the Otherlands are under the realm's complete control, though 
  most travelers are allowed to come and go freely) 
  Type: 
  Primal World [4 Points] (permanent owner: The Other) 
  Control: 
  Control of Destiny [4 Points] 
  Influence 
  on 
  the 
  Powers: 
  Eidolon – Powerful  Umbra – Powerful  Wrighting – Blocked 
  Special: 
  Gossamer World/Gossamer Lord – The Other is a supersentient 
  gossamer reality which possesses its own Powers, including Master of 
  the Grand Stair and all the sub-abilities such Power entails; hence, it 
  can create new Doors, sever Doors, manipulate Doors, and traverse the 
  Grand Stair (through its Emissaries), etc. Using this frightening level of 
  access to the multiverse, the Other can and does spread itself virally into 
  other gossamer worlds – see Footholds, Chrysalis Worlds, & Echo 
  Realms, above. 
   
   
   
  How to Use The Otherlands 
  • Use the Otherlands to shock and humble your players, presenting them with an 
  adversary far greater in scope than even the vaunted Gossamer Lords. The Other 
  doesn't just influence multiple gossamer worlds... it is multiple gossamer worlds.  
  • Hint at the existence of the Other slowly, dispensing small clues, only understandable 
  in retrospect, across the multiverse. Many, many worlds can be chrysalis realms of the 
  expansive Otherlands, and the reveal will be all the more surprising when the 
  characters realize they've already been there, time and again. 
  • The characters meet an Emissary of the Otherlands along the Grand Stair, but the 
  strange being merely passes them by, busy on its own errands. The Emissary can be 
  followed back to a freshly-sown foothold region of the Otherlands where the 
  characters can witness the Other's amazing process of replication and expansion.  
  • The Other manipulates a Door or two along the Grand Stair to bring the characters 
  into the Otherlands, subjecting them to the maddening reality-traps of the Mirrored 
  Labyrinth and the blissful temptations of Tír na nÓg. While occupied with the realm's 
  
   
  16 
   
  strangeness, the characters attract the attention of some doppelgangers intent on 
  stalking their newfound prey for eternity. 
  • Maybe Yaeger's Zane's theory on the Otherlands is misguided nonsense, nothing more 
  than a tall tale; the characters shouldn't believe everything they're told. 
  • The Otherlands has been spreading aggressively recently, increasing the rate of its 
  expansion exponentially. The Gossamer Lords have taken notice, and the character's 
  mentor implores them to research the phenomenon.  
  • An ancient rumor hints of a Dwimmerlaik plot to combat the Other with an opposing 
  expansive reality, acting like a predatory species to keep the population of Otherlands 
  under control. But, is the solution worse than the problem? The answers, and more 
  questions, can be found in a long-lost Dwimmerlaik research facility in one of the most 
  hostile environments imaginable, and the facility is not as abandoned as the rumors 
  led the characters to believe. 
  • Maybe history got it wrong, and the Dwimmerlaik were the heroes all along, fighting 
  against a cancerous reality threatening to overtake the multiverse when they were 
  prevented from eradicating this foe by the misinformed meddling of the Gossamer 
  Lords. Can they return from exile in time to save us? Will they? 
   
   
   
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Amber/Lords Of Gossamer And Shadow/Gossamer Worlds/The Otherlands.pdf