To start with, I have this idea for going extremely detailed on a world without evolution in any sense, instead being governed by Platonic Forms (also known as Platonic Ideals, the Theory of Forms, etc.). Let's call this world Orgathra for now, to keep confusion to a minimum. I don't like the name because it's too similar to Ulgrotha, but it's only a placeholder.

To balance the concept out, I figured there would be an appropriate level of importance placed on souls and spirits, which would likely have something to do with the Forms themselves. I also figured I'd try letting this be where my story A Lesson in Necromancy takes place in, which would preclude a spirit world type of overlay, as well.

Therefore, I think there would end up being three "layers" to this world: the world of Forms, which contains all the Ideals that the material world is based on; the world of spirits; and the material world. To make it simpler, I think it makes sense for souls to be from the world of Forms, and THAT is what mostly influences the shape of things in the material world.

Alternatively, there might be the possibility that the spirit world is the world of forms, and that change in the material world is brought about because of the spiritual memories brought back as souls return after death. This would make all of the spirit world, considered as a whole, act as a sort of Gaia entity, guiding the shape of the material world.

One of the first things I worked out is that genetics would not play any sort of role whatsoever in this world, which has a lot of implications:

1. There would be no bloodlines because there would be no inheritance in the way we understand it, as features and powers would arise and disappear in other ways independent of a child's blood



2. Without genetics and inheritance, there's a great boon and a big problem that arises:





3. Different creatures could be based off of the same Form, like snakes and wurms (and possibly even worms) being based on some nebulous celestial noodle. This makes all the humanoid races sharing the same shape make a lot of sense, and possibly explain the ability to inter-breed, but raises its own set of problems:





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Now, with the metaphysical spirit world being included, I also have a great BOON in that spirits could literally be the cause of diseases as they come into contact with living beings' souls, and this could even be expanded to include non-evil spirits, as long as their Form is different. Like, say if the spirit of a Form of something unmoving, like a mountain, comes into contact with someone's soul, then they might slowly become paralyzed because of it.

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Magical capability could easily be tied to the soul, to explain why some people can cast magic and some can't. It's also just a shortcut to explain how planeswalkers could arise from such a world, in all honesty, but I also like having a limitation on who is capable of spellcasting. If everyone can do it, then it doesn't seem very magical.

The original concept was stolen from a reddit post about someone who made the dragons of their world symbiotic with fire elementals, and wanted to be slain in order to infect the dragonslayer and become a new dragon. I took that concept, ditched the symbiotic idea, added a dash of KSBD, and fit it into the notion of a world based on Forms rather than strict biology. I originally wanted to call them wyrms (because of an unfinished story based on the second plane), but I think "salamanders" works better for the associations.

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Salamanders are the unformed fire made flesh. Their bodies are their souls and their Form, and thus they can shape it freely because true fire has no set Form.

As beings of fire, they must consume, though they leave naught but ash behind, which most will shed by their breath. Those with strong enough flames may eat heavy things such as metal or solid rock, which, if laid low, can keep their inner flame alive for some time. A flame left unfed will eventually die out, so too is it with salamanders, their bodies rotting away but for the stony remnants of their innards. A well-fed fire will continue to grow, and so salamanders are gluttonous creatures, ever seeking more to feed upon.

Though they have flesh, there are no hatchling salamanders, no babes nor young. Rather, a salamander procreates by burning away the soul of another to fill it with their same fire. Doing so lessens them, splitting their flame between themselves and their "newborn." In time, both will grow again, though they are easier to snuff out while so weakened, and many might wait for this moment to strike down a rival or menace. The process itself is done through the breath, and may be done willingly or unwillingly, though as this is no true death, it is rare for a kindling to be forced upon someone, as the parent risks facing the ire of one suddenly their equal.

There is but one known “family” of salamanders, of a power each comparable to a mortal, together perhaps a hundred strong. They have chosen a life contrary to most salamanders, living as a noble house, undying but for the weakness of their flesh. Taken together, they may be as strong as any great salamander, but their individual frailty has kept them below the notice of any rivals, whilst they expand their realm within the human lands.

I may end up dropping this entirely for being too complicated, but I'd like to explore, as CKY did with Solphos, an in-universe alternative to simply labelling things with the different colors of mana, just to have a bit more character to the world. It would be easy enough to translate the actual spellwork into Magic colors, but as experienced through someone actually living on the plane, it wouldn't be so straightforward.

The classical elements shared by a whole lot of cultures are earth, fire, water, and wind/air. In Western philosophy, æther was sometimes seen as a fifth, transcendent element, but since that has a rather specific meaning in the multiverse, that didn't seem so good to associate with a single color. The other problem, then, is that those four elements are basically only split between two colors, in general: blue gets air and water, while red gets earth and fire.

The Ancient Chinese had a convenient five-element system: water, fire, earth, and then wood and metal. Also, conveniently enough, they all interact with each other in clear cycles (such as fire "creating" metal out of earth), but it's all just a little too convenient. I'm sure there are already plenty of worlds and games that have already adapted the Chinese elements, a lot of them done more thematically, and I'd rather avoid just doing a 1:1 conversion anyway; I'd rather add something at least semi-unique to my world.

Buddhism also had an earth-air-fire-water quadrilogy, with an additional element of void which represented, again, kind of a transcendental element that was, in essence, the energy of empty space. This has all the problems of both of the above, but what's interesting is that Buddhism was also widespread across China, so that if you count them together, there's actually 7 elements that Chinese beliefs held: earth, air/wind, water, fire, wood, metal, and void. Perhaps a bit better, but I'm not sold on a few things. In my mind, plants, as living things, would be a mixture of elements, rather than being their own element. I also don't see how to consider metal as an element, especially as separate from earth. If I could work out some sort of odd supercycle where there's an interaction from the soul, through the five colors, to the seven (or six if I use "void" to represent the soul instead), then I could maybe get it to work, but the further issue compounding the problem is that fire basically can't be anywhere but red and water basically can't be anywhere but blue.

So, in search of alternatives, I went looking through Pokémon types, and there is some promise there. If I convert some of the less elemental types (such as turning Flying into wind/air), and subtract the ones that don't obviously work, I'm left with a nice list of nine: a core of earth, air, fire, and water, and then darkness, decay, spirit, metal, and magic (converted from dark, poison, ghost, steel, and fairy, respectively). Since souls and spirits are supposed to be important to the world, I suppose having that as an "element" isn't a bad idea. Under this system, I could say that the long-lived elves would have less decay in their bodies than humans, and more magical races like changelings might have more magic in their bodies. I'm really not sure how viable this is as of yet, but it's what I have that isn't just the color pie with a coat of paint over it.

Gaia
The vast territory outside of the shadow of the World Tree is referred to as Gaia. Most races of the surface claim their territory in Gaia, rather than the Fae Lands under the World Tree.

The World Tree
The World Tree is the cosmological center of Ultea. While the sun may rise and set according to the vast river of Vis in the sky, the Thirteen Moons of Ultea orbit around the World Tree. Their orbits are complex yet orderly, passing between the boughs of the World Tree’s crown from time to time in predictable paths. The World Tree’s roots reach down through the Underworld, bringing the Vis of the world up through its body and out into the sky — thus it is said that the World Tree keeps the flow of Vis through earth and sky and the movement celestial bodies in order.

While the World Tree nurtures and affects life at any height, life is concentrated in two places: the earth surrounding its trunk, and in its crown. The large stretches of earth around the base of the World Tree are marked as the Fae Lands, because the large amounts of Vis which the world tree infuses those lands which has changed the nature of life around it. Most of the beings of the Fae Land are terrestrial in nature, many hailing from Gaia in eons past. The Canopy, on the other hand, houses mostly creatures originally from the Thirteen Moons of Ultea. The environment and creatures here are strange, but not as affected by the same wild Vis which affect the Fae Lands below. The Thirteen Moons pass between the boughs of the Canopy regularly, allowing creatures to migrate and intermingle.

Fae Lands
In the shadow of the World Tree, wild Vis brought up from the world’s heart has changed the life over a large territory called the Fae Lands. Because of the altered nature of reality in the Fae Lands, flora and fauna may not behave as they would in Gaia or on the Thirteen Moons. The chaotic nature of the biomes of the Fae Lands has given rise to the highly structured laws enforced by contract magic — magic which largely isn’t as effective outside the Fae Lands.

The first race of Elves were said to have ruled the Fae Lands in the dawn of the world, but were killed off violently, their descendants forced out into the greater world. Unicorns now rule the Fae Courts, the equivalent of kingdoms in Gaia. The Fae Courts ensure that the Fae Lands do not succumb to chaos, passing and enforcing the magical contracts which rule over all their territory.

Canopy
The crown of the World Tree has its own ecosystem, referred to as the Canopy. The environment of the Canopy is strange due to its removal from the earth below. Rain does not fall, for instance, and solid ground is hard to come by. Most of the life here is not originally from the Canopy, rather from the terrestrial world or from one of the Thirteen Moons. There is a nearly palpable flow of Vis among the boughs of the Canopy, along which the Moons drift.

Thirteen Moons
The Thirteen Moons of Ultea each orbit the World Tree, high in the sky. They float along the flow of Vis which surrounds the Canopy, passing between the branches in predictable patterns. All but one of the Moons are a small habitable world in their own rights, eons of intermingling life with the Canopy giving them all highly similar biomes — though they differ notably in their actual environments. The thirteenth Moon, Sin, is a blasted landscape which once supported life but now sits like a cracked marble in the sky. Supernal Elves now claim the Thirteen Moons as their own territory, and have forced Owls, which once lived on the Moons, down to the earth.

Luna
Selene
Iah
Chang’e
Kaguya
Chandra
Metzli
Sin

Demons are beings without form, originating on Orgathra rather than the world of Forms. There are also a finite number of what can be called "true demons" -- those that have lived long enough and amassed enough power to truly stand among the immortals.

Demons begin life as shapeless masses of organic matter or sludge that form along ley lines, like oozes made of oil or tar. New demons are slow to be "born" because of the rare conditions needed for them to arise. They are not mindless in the traditional sense, but possess no coherent senses, being a confused amalgam of remnant consciousness.

Infant demons possess fractured instinct which hunger for Form, but it takes long before they have developed enough to take one. They may spend a century or more silently feeding before it assumes its first animalistic shape. Every creature they eat becomes part of the demon, and it only becomes sentient as these acquired consciousnesses outnumber or overpower the broken pieces it was born with.

Sapience takes many humanoid victims, and some demons may never swallow enough of them to achieve higher thought, and others may take many more centuries to become intelligent enough to reach this adolescent stage, where it can walk among humanoids. The hunger that compels them leads them to feed ever more on humanoids, though they utilize guile to ingratiate themselves and infiltrate the races upon which they feed.

Adolescent demons are known as changelings, for their shapeshifting abilities. Changelings live disguised among the populace of a humanoid race, becoming a trusted member of the community while plotting its next meal. A channeling is protective over its "flock" and will stealthily defend its claim from creatures of the night. Many changelings and older demons have a particular hatred for lower demons (those with only animal intelligence) and will lend aid even to angels to destroy them.

Along a rugged and rocky coastline, dangerous but beloved by pirates and merfolk for its many cavernous cliffs, there lives the reclusive demoness Scylla and her mother, Charybdis. In the form of a monstrous merfolk, her waist lined with the heads of beasts, Scylla watches over the sedentary Charybdis, whose form is more akin to a gibbering leviathan, but who rests upon the seafloor.

While their past has been lost to mortal history, Scylla is a rare ascended devil, originally made of the high-Form cast-off of the powerful demoness Charybdis. Carybdis once ruled a territory along the very coast she now resides, but 'sacrificed' herself to save it, consuming a rampaging sea beast. With the size and will of the creature, her mind fractured again under the strain, losing herself in the process but retreating to the sea. For a very short time, Scylla reigned in her mother's stead, but once she discovered Charybdis's pitiful fate, pledged herself to restoring her back to her former glory. Scylla consumed entire towns of Charybdis's former queendom, bringing a hopeful 'tribute' for her mother to consume and overwhelm the bestial part of her. Charybdis still retained enough of her senses, though, to mourn over the loss of her realm, and refused to eat. Thus began Scylla's centuries-long task.

As Charybdis became the target of both other immortals and would-be monster slayers, Scylla's role became as much protector as nurse. She adopted the form she now wears to insinuate herself into legend, both drawing attention away from the creature of the depths -- her mother -- as well as deterring the foolish who would go after the more sedentary Charybdis. Over time, Charybdis's fractured mind forgot its grief, and she began eating Scylla's offerings. However, it takes many mortal Forms to equal and overpower the beasts a demon keeps within them, and Scylla's work is far from finished.

It is the five souls of the mortal races which allow them to transcend above the animals and plants, and through their corruption that we see sickness and disease.

The first soul is the soul of belonging, which resides in the beating heart of every being. It spreads out like roots from the seed of the heart, uniting all the souls together.

The second soul is the soul of identity, which resides in the liver. It is a grounding force and the characteristic of the strong-willed.

The third soul is the soul of desire, which resides in the gut. In some it may be easily sated, but the soul of desire always pushes mortals onward toward greater things.

The fourth soul is the soul of passion, which resides in the breath and the lungs. It carries a swiftness, and can bring love, strife, and fear in equal measure.

Three fifth soul is the soul of thought, which resides in the skull and twines down the backbone. It is slower and more sensitive than the other souls, but can bloom if nurtured.

The heart and blood vessels form the seat of mana, and are a force for community and connection.

The liver is seat of mana, so important for many functions of life and capable of regeneration.

The gastrointestinal tract (more specifically from the stomach downward) is the seat of mana, always needing to be fed yet importantly providing you energy.

The lungs are the seat of mana, since your breathing quickens whenever you're excited, be it for any reason.

The nervous system (more specifically the brain) is the seat of mana because of course it would be.