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Mammoths

The mammoths, which once roamed the Physical Plane along with their close relatives the elephants, live on in the Etheric Plane.  A diverse genus before their physical extinction, only six species live on today - or at least have been spotted leaving Thresholds.

Plains mammoth - Mammuthus campus

These behemoths are the largest of the mammoths, standing at 14 feet tall hoof to shoulder, and weighing up to 11 tons.  It is found in chilly (but not quite frozen) regions such as Turkestan, southern Siberia, and the rolling meadows of central Canada.  Wandering through plains, these beasts use their trunks to pluck and eat tall grasses.

African mammoth - Mammuthus africanus

Bearing a resemblance to the African elephant (the main difference being their larger size, and longer, curved tusks), these are often mistaken for the smaller animals.  However, they are about three feet taller and about a ton heavier, clocking in at 11 feet and 5,100 pounds.  They mostly eat scrub from the savanna, although they occasionally venture into the rainforest to feed on ferns.

Wood mammoth - Mammuthus silvus

The smallest of the mammoths, this diminutive elephantid is scarcely larger than a large hog or boar.  About 4 feet tall and weighing 740 pounds, the wood mammoth lives deep within the temperate forests of Europe and North America.  Very rarely seen, it eats mostly moss and short grasses.  Despite its small size and thin, brittle tusks, it has no natural predators.

Java mammoth - Mammuthus javanensis

Seen here in a prehistoric setting being attacked by the pygmies of ancient Indonesia, the Java mammoth (which is actually seen mostly on the island of Sulawesi) is another dwarf mammoth.  It stands at a more respectable 6 feet tall and 1,300 pounds, and is easily recognizable by its lack of hair and spotted skin.  It is differentiable from the similar Asian elephant by its tusks.

Left: Woolly mammoth - Mammuthus primigenius

Right: American mammoth - Mammuthus columbi

The woolly mammoth, by far the most famous species of mammoth, stands out among its cousins for its humped skull, long fur, and especially curved tusks.  Only slightly smaller than the plains mammoth at 12 feet and 9.5 tons, it lives exclusively in Siberia and northern Scandinavia.  Unlike most mammoths, some woollies exist entirely in the Physical Plane.

The American mammoth is one of only two species to inhabit North America, along with the wood mammoth.  It stands at 10 feet and weighs 7.5 tons, eating the grasses and small plants that grow in the valleys of the western United States.  They live in fairly small family groups, and seem uniquely territorial.

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REALM  — Etheric Plane

The Etheric Plane is all around us.  It’s an analog to our plane of existence - the Physical or Gross Plane - that exists in a higher dimension.  To understand the relationship between the two planes, one has to understand a field of higher math called chaos theory.

Chaos theory states that for certain systems, changing the initial conditions even slightly influences the outcome extremely dramatically.  In order for a system to be considered mathematically chaotic, it must behave as such and also lack any periodicity; that is, it does not repeat itself at regular intervals.  Chaotic systems, when graphed on an x-dimensional set of axes (x being the number of dimensions the system inhabits), seem completely random, but when graphed on an x-plus-one-dimensional set of axes, it seems to form a pattern.  This pattern is called a strange or Lorenz attractor.

The set of outcomes that can befall any object in the world are changed dramatically when the initial conditions are changed even slightly, meaning that the entire universe is a chaotic system.  As such, when the outcomes of any action applied to or performed in the universe/any of its subspaces are graphed on a four-dimensional set of axes, they appear to form a pattern.  This pattern creates strange attractors corresponding to and in the shape of the universe and everything in it, including all humans.  These strange attractors are known as Etheric Bodies, and act based on the quantum behavior of their corresponding Physical Bodies, meaning that they cannot break out of the probability-determined set of outcomes that the quantum makeup of the Physical Bodies dictate.

An Etheric Body, therefore, cannot leave or differentiate itself from its Physical Body, except in special cases.  The Etheric Body of a human is better understood as a soul, and with an intense state of meditation, a human can separate their soul from their physical body by overriding the quantum dicta (comparable to the concept of a “fabric of reality”) using the extreme power of the complex human brain.  This process is called Etheric Projection, and usually takes years to master.  Etheric Projection is often (erroneously) called Astral Projection.

Every object in the Physical Plane exists in the Etheric, but it doesn’t always apply the other way around.  Objects complex enough to think, including animals, can simply appear in the folds of this Plane, and (infrequently) wander into our own Physical Plane through resonant areas in which the quantum dicta are extremely sparse, and the Physical and Etheric Planes do not reject each other.  Invariably these “Thresholds” are found in extremely remote areas where very little motion, thought, or other hypervariable actions occur.  Many of these areas were marked by unknown groups deep in ancient times with gateway-like markings, ranging from great arches to bridges to two decently large stones next to each other.  Most of these gateways have lost their status as Thresholds due to human settlement tightening the local fabric of reality, but it is assumed that new Thresholds can open at random.  Due to their remote locations and short lifespan, it is likely that the vast majority will never be found.

It is in these Thresholds that the portals to the Etheric are located, and in the next entry, we will enter one to find and discuss the fauna that reside within.

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This blog will serve as the home of my worldbuild, A Greater Horizon.  This project is going to focus on a version of reality that exists concurrently with our Earth, and later, extends upwards into the heavens above.  At least at the beginning, I’ll be focusing on the fauna that inhabit the spiritual realms, as well as the substance of these realms, so for now, treat this page as a kind of fictional bestiary.  Hope you enjoy your stay here.