LoGaS-Infinity's Call:Stair

The Grand Stair

What Is The Grand Stair?

Imagine the multiverse as a grapevine stretching into infinity. The Grand Stair is the vine, and Gossamer worlds are the grapes it nurtures. It is said that every possibility can be found behind a Door on the stair. The steps of the Stair are the safest means of travelling between the Gossamer worlds - the ultimate secret passage and backstage pass. Wrighting relies on having a specific person at your destination, and Sorcery is like flinging yourself to a distant land upon a catapult, but most creatures can walk (or slither, or ooze) along the steps of the Grand Stair.

Despite this, the Grand Stair is unpredictable and dangerous to the uninitiated. Strange beings can walk the Stair, and there is no guarantee they will be friendly when encountered. The Grand Stair occasionally changes shape and configuration, growing stranger the further it is traversed - though extended travel is rare.

Travelers don't undertake journeys solely along the Grand Stair. Travel typically involves entering Gossamer worlds through a Door and then reentering the Stair through another Door that is located in a completely different section, thus leapfrogging along its length. The route to a destination is sometimes bizarre and circuitous. There are known routes preferred by those who wish to play it safe, and unknown paths that are welcomed by explorers wishing to experience new things.

When Is A Staircase Not A Staircase?

The Grand Stair is no simple staircase. Just as the Gossamer Worlds connected to it contain an infinite variety of realities, the Stair is endlessly varied in its appearance. To quote one of the prominent Gossamer Lords, it is "almost a crazy-quilt collection of staircases, halls, foyers, vestibules, landings, anterooms, passages, apparent lobbies, corridors, halls and amphitheaters, and even more convoluted sections of architecture, all connected in a branching, infinite fashion."

The walls are an endless variety of materials, though they tend to be wood more often than anything else. Brick, stone, and even metal walls are not uncommon, and there is one particular section of the Grand Stair with walls of plaster with the most garish wallpaper and artwork ever witnessed by a sentient being. The floor of the Grand Stair likewise varies between bare stone, carpet, tile, or countless other substances.

The most notable characteristic of the Grand Stair is that regardless of its appearance, it is eternal. Through its endless history, weapons of incalculable power have been used along its length. Bombs, lasers, chemical agents, fusion weapons, and more have been tried, and nothing has been able to destroy it. Walls have been scorched, light fixtures damaged or destroyed, and stone cracked, but any large-scale force has been weakened in the confines of the Stair. Furthermore, damage seems to repair itself by regrowing, regenerating, or simply reappearing intact as soon as no one is looking.

Beings pass through the Grand Stair, but no one has ever seen a living plant growing naturally along its length.

Technology and Powers

The nature of the Grand Stair limits technology. Signals cannot pass through Doors to Gossamer worlds, and even point-to-point technology like radio ('walkie-talkies') has its range significantly lessened. Powered items lose their charge quickly, and power-producing items are uncharacteristically weakened. In many areas of the Stair, it is worse. Some stretches of the Grand Stair cause technology (including non-mechanical tech such as chemical devices) to fail completely, while in others they work only to a limited degree.

Smaller devices with self-contained usage behave normally within these constraints, but the larger or more advanced the item, the more likely it is to fail. Most Gossamer Lords rely very little on technology while on the Grand Stair. Devices with few moving parts are best - a sword is a sharp piece of metal with a handle even in the most unwelcoming areas of the Stair. Some Gossamer Lords invest a portion of their own power into a signature item, making it resistant (but not immune) to such interference. Those seeking to acquire a similar item should seek out the Agora.

The greater powers tend to function normally within the Grand Stair, though even they cannot destroy it or make significant changes. Only a few beings can change the Grand Stair itself, including the one Gossamer Lord that refers to himself as the Lord of the Grand Stair.

Doors

The inhabitants of Gossamer Worlds see a door as simply a door. A Warden sees some doors as what they truly are - a Door, a way to travel from a Gossamer world to the Grand Stair, and vice-versa. To a Master of the Grand Stair, nearly all doors have the potential to become Doors, either to the Stair or elsewhere within the same Gossamer world.

There is no direct correlation between Door locations on the Stair and their adjoining Gossamer world. Two Doors adjacent in a single Gossamer world could lead to locations on the Grand Stair that are separated by days or even weeks of travel. Likewise, two adjacent Doors on the Grand Stair could lead to completely different Gossamer worlds, or two separate locations on the same Gossamer world separated by thousands of miles.

Door Characteristics

• Most Doors are two to three meters in height and roughly a meter wide. If they feature windows they are fogged and dark, or translucent enough that only light streams through.
• A Door on the Grand Stair must link with an actual physical door in a Gossamer world.
• Two Doors cannot link to the same door, nor can two doors link to the same Door.
• Only a functional door can be turned into a Door. It cannot be solely decorative or freestanding without a connecting wall. If the door does not block progress in some fashion, it cannot be a Door.
• Doors always open out from the Grand Stair, into the Gossamer worlds - never the reverse.
• Locks to Doors cannot be picked, though there should always be a Key that opens that particular Door.
• The orientation of a door and a Door must be identical. Doors on the Grand Stair are almost always upright and vertical. A vertically-oriented Door cannot be linked to a door in a ceiling or floor.
• If the Gossamer world door is destroyed or damaged beyond usability, it no longer links to the Door in the Grand Stair. Repairing the door will not relink the two.
• A Door on the Grand Stair that is not linked to a Gossamer world will not open.
• Anyone in the Grand Stair, Warden or not, can open any Door that has not been secured.
• Doors will close on their own (usually quickly) even if blocked open.
• If a Gossamer world door is in a hostile environment, the Door eminates a field (like a membrane) that keeps the Grand Stair safe.

Wardens and Doors

Wardens have an attunement to the Grand Stair that instills a sense of direction (described in simple terms as 'up' and 'down', or 'through the Door'). Wardens generally know what Doors open where, and how to take shortcuts through the Grand Stair to reach a desired destination.

A Final Note

For every rule about the infinite, there are countless exceptions, and more surprises.

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