First Post: Cosmology!

Quick and Dirty Cosmology:

Haven is a flat, irregular disk. On one side is the Mortal Realm, where humans and elves live. On the other side is the Demon Realm, populated entirely by fiends.  The disk itself is quite thick, and is riddled with tunnels and caverns leading down for miles and miles.
Things like the Sky and the Sun are not objects or physical locations but Gods embodying concepts, mirrored on the flip side by poor demonic imitations.  The limits of three dimensional space and linear time apply only to the mortal races and the lesser demonic fiends, created by the Gods for us as a framework that does not apply to the souls of the dead or the gods in Heaven.
Alongside the mortal realm, but unbound by time and space, is the Spirit Realm, which serves as the Ethereal and Astral planes, as well as the land of dreams and other nebulous concepts. It is populated mainly by spiritual beings of various complexity and power, ranging from non-sentient motes to powers that rival the Gods. The Spirit Realm is largely separate from the Divine and Profane realms, the Gods do not see what happens there, nor care, and they are not responsible for its existence, unlike the rest of Haven. There is likely to be an obverse Spirit Realm on the demonic side of Haven.
Surrounding Haven, but beyond Time and Space, is a great bubble of divine force, itself alive in an alien fashion. This bubble keeps the Great Sea of Chaos out of Haven, along with most of the random lifeforms that periodically spawn in the endless tide of Possibility. While the Divine Barrier is perceived best as a two-dimensional barrier with a dull sense of self-awareness on an epic scale (containing a world, after all), it is within the Barrier that the Gods have created their Heaven, as well as a realm for the souls of the dead, known creatively enough as the Lands of the Dead.  These two realms, and potentially a multitude of sub-realms, are linked.  The bodies and souls of the dead are physically sent to the Lands via a variety of funeral rites, generally involving a not-entirely-symbolic passage.  There are legends of living people entering the Lands of the Dead, and returning.
At least since the Banality, nearly two thousand years earlier, the Gods have not physically involved themselves with the Mortal Realm directly, and only send their servants to deal with gross violations of Divine Law (Demonic incursions, widespread outbreaks of undead and other esoteric disasters), with the sole exception of Death, who never leaves the Mortal Realm.   When not occupied with Ending lives, 'He' may be found in the Ruins of Ysithideri outside the Great Sepulcher of the Warlord, sipping tea and waiting for the End of the World. His servants are referred to as Handmaidens, and in general Death is viewed as a kindly God, if unwelcome. The Handmaidens do not make any sound at all.

There is a vast gulf between necromantic magic and Necromancy.  One is simply an extension of natural law (not unlike Newton's laws of physics) and the other is a grotesque violation of Divine Law, the art and skill of escaping the Lands of the Dead.  One doesn't need to be a spell caster to study Necromancy, but it helps. Learning Necromancy automatically makes one Profane/Unholy, and subject to being treated as a Supernatural Evil by spells and so forth, with rare exception. Necromancy is a skill, cross class to every class, and Wisdom based.  A character with Necromancy may chose to roll it after death to try and come back as an Undead...  
Demonology may also be learned as a cross class skill. It is safer for your soul than Necromancy, but far more dangerous to your body. Wizardly summoning binding is much safer, as it includes safeguards like binding circles, and generally doesn't demand human sacrifices and other acts designed to placate the summoned Demon. No Demon can remain in the Mortal Realm beyond the next Dawn without violating Divine Law, and by Demonic Law (a much loser set of rules) they are not obligated to any deals short of a full pact once they return to their own realm.  A pact grants the summoner a measure of demonic power (making him Profane/unholy) as part of a long-term agreement. The exact nature of the Pact is flexible, but one example would be the Disciples of the Skin Prestige Class.  
Demons eat souls, though it is exceptionally difficult for them to consume more than a portion of a mortal soul due to the dual nature of mortal bodies and souls. However, this does make human sacrifices a much more evil act, as one is not merely killing the body, but consigning the soul to oblivion as food.  If a mortal dies in the demon realm, or his soul is sent there after death for some reason it immediately embodies as a demonic body (though it is not truly considered a demon unless they were already Profane in life... meaning they can leave and enter the lands of the dead) just as they were in life.  
ALL magic comes in some fashion from Chaos.  Wizards use knowledge of natural law, and memorized formulas, to draw tiny amounts of raw Chaos through the Divine Barrier and shape it into desired effects. The process is corrupting, which is why wizards use staves and wands and other focusing objects (replace most components with a 'casting focus' the wizard ritually prepares and must have in hand) for most spells.  Clerics channel a more refined chaos directed to them by the Gods. It is believed that most Spirits simply gather ambient residue trapped between worlds to power their natural abilities, but the most powerful function as Gods, able to safely draw vast quantities directly and shape it safely.
The entire demonic 'ecosystem' is, ultimately, a round-about way of circulating magical power. The greatest Elder Demons draw in vast quantities, shedding it constantly as they spawn least demons, or are fed off of by lesser demons. Demonic bodies are suffused with refined magic, which is used to power their supernatural effects.  
This is most evident with the rare Wish spell, where sharp eyed observers may witness raw, liquid chaos pouring into reality and shaping itself into desired things (or suffusing a body, living or dead, to alter it) as the wizard concentrates.  Should a Wish be disrupted, however, a magical disaster always occurs as the Chaos is released.

While I tighten up the world overview, I want to do a quick overview of 'Fate' and what it means mechanically.

Everything that happens in the world is known to the Gods. Maybe not every God, maybe no single God has all the pieces of major events, but every thing is recorded somewhere. Machinations in Heaven and events in the Lands of the Dead are also known, and for some time now, they have watched the Spirit World as well, though not without some failures and loss.

THis, of course, is part and parcel of being Gods, how they pass down word to their followers about upcoming events, prophecies and more.

Collectively, all this information is referred to as Fate. The Loom of Fate, the Threads of Fate... all just fancy talk for 'knowing what the fuck is going on'.

There are, of course, problems. WHile the Gods are not restricted to the same flow of time as mortals are, they are still subject to Causality and, in some respects the passage of events.  Their perceptions may be more fluid, but not so much so as to grant perfect knowledge of every future event.

As it happens, between the terms of the Treaty between God and Demon, and the machinations of The First, Demons are exempt from all this scrutiny. Completely.

Oh, a Demon in the Mortal world can be seen, even with scrying magic and so forth, but the Gods don't record what the Demons DO.. unless they actively violate the terms of the Treaty. The Gods CAN'T watch the Demon Realms, not unless they want another War.

Since Fate is really nothing more than a probability engine, its major weakness is, of course, things that it can't predict. Like... Demons.  Most demonic action remains confined, of course, and nothing is stopping Fate from recording Demonologists. But the moment Demons enter into the equation, all bets are off the table.  Demons are therefor said to be 'outside of Fate'.

They aren't the only ones. By definition, anything from Outside of Creation is Outside of Fate as well. Eventually these rogue variables are found and eliminated, but it can take time for 'Fate' to correct for their interference.

Plus you have Gods that occasionally work deep plots that they shouldn't be messing with... and Gods have the power (or at least SOME Gods do) to actively cloak their actions, and occasionally those of their agents.

Men with evil intent have long sought ways to avoid divine retribution, and occasionally they find a way that works, if only intermittantly.

So there are lots of things that are 'beyond Fate', and lots of key ways that any prediction or prophecy can fail. While there is no specific God of Fate, there are any number of Gods who see it as their divine duty to ensure that prophecies are true, that predictions are accurate. Some see themselves as 'Gods of Fate'.  There are Gods as well (usually with the Trickery, luck or Chaos domains) that actively work to see predictions fail... or at least the ones they don't like.

One Example:  When Fate's first, and most important prediction (one that is mostly kept from Mortals) was that there would come a day when Death would End all of Haven. The details of the prophecy grow exceedingly slowly even by divine standards, but it IS going to happen.  THe Sun, among other Gods, has chosen to not act on this prophecy, and instead intends to wait until Death does something irrevocable, like Killing Divine Law (which no one, not even Death, is sure is even possible. Its not like Divine Law is a THING, much less a Person.  Even by the conceptual standards the Gods operate by, this is problematic...)

Naturally most gods who don't care for Fate would rather like to prevent this from happening at all costs... which to some means preventing any prophecy from coming true, thus derailing the entire shebang, though it is a matter of Divine Law (again!) that Fate is not interfered with.


For the record, Fate is one of The Smith's early works, pre-existing Man, and made concurrently with the construct that is 'mortal time'. It is a vast web of interconnected strands that interleave all of Haven (once it covered the demon realms, but those strands were brutally hacked away but The First when the Demons took possession of that side of Haven), too fine to see even by the tiniest motes of the Spirit World... though portentous events thicken the relevant strands enough to be found by the knowledgable.  In Heaven the 'Loom' listens to all the vibrations of the Strands (which flow through heaven as well...), repairing strands that are deliberately severed if it can, and singing out predictions constantly. Gods that Mortals mistakenly refer to as 'the fates' or even calling the Loom itself "Fate', listen constantly, recording most of it for the Divine Library, and occasionally dispatching their servants to deal with problems.  The Loom, however, is not Fate, merely the means by which Fate may be heard.

The Smith would go on to create the Great Engine, abandoning his 'finest' creation for a new toy, as usual.