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The mirror world looks and feels diffrent for every one. Every thing in it that didn`t originate from a diffrent world reflects the traveler and relative to him, even the native creatures.
Diffrent things in the mirror world can reflect travelers in many diffrent ways. Sometimes just in one way, sometimes in a lot of ways. It could reflect the traveler appearence, size, thoughts, emotions, desires, location and much, much more. The native creatures can manipulate how exectly they and/or the area would reflect the traveler.
Most regions in the mirror world, but not all of them, are dark. Glass mirrors if it has darkness beyond it, so it seemed fitting. How dark it is is of course, relative to the traveler, so night vision is pretty useless, unless the traveler can see perfectly no matter how dark it is.
Mirrors from their side
Spoiler
Every time someone makes a mirror (or a diffrent reflective surface), a window to his world appears near a being in the mirror world, from which you can see everything the mirror can reflect (and usually also hear), and it projects light into the mirror world.
Creatures that get too near might get trapped, and forced to mimic every movement that heppens from the other world. Their shape change accordingly. Even if there are enough creatures to mimic every movement, more could be trapped and would be hidden by another being (so there could be ten diffrent beings each copying the same movement from the other world, standing one beyond the other).
When a creature is trapped, there is no knowing when he will be free. It is likely to be many years (in which he doesn`t age). When he finally does break free, he can run away, or move towards the other world, entaring it and destroying the reflective ability of the mirror (in regular mirrors, it simply breaks it. If it is water, it creates a big splash and makes the portion of the water that he came from non reflective).
No matter what they do after they break free, they can never be trapped again, and they would likely feel a great grudge towards beings from the other world. Travelers who get trapped and break free almost always froget who they were, and tend to forget almost everything else too.
Only one being can entar another world at a time. After he does it, it becomes impossible from that specific mirror (becuse it is destroyed), but some native creatures can throw beings from the world they entared to the mirror world immediatly after entaring.
Native beings rarely get trapped, as they are much more carefull and more aware of the danger. Travelers who are trapped and manage to break free are locked to the form they mimicked, and some native creatures also lose some of their shaping freedom.
Travelers who were trapped and broke free don`t invoke hostility in natives, and natives can tell the diffrence between them and a regular travelers.
It is impossible to effect those portals except by using them to pass to another world and destroying them.
About native creatures
Spoiler
Native creatures are very hostile towards travelers from diffrent worlds, as they consider and call each traveler a mirror builder. They will usually eithar attack or try to manipulate the traveler to be trapped infront of a portal to another world (a portal created by a mirror, as addrassed in the mirrors from their side section).
The more powerfull the mirror creature is, the better he is at altering the reflective properities of himself and/or the area. Native cretures that never left the mirror world don`t have any abilities that don`t relate to one of the two. Some of them can mimick abilities of beings around them, a basic ability that is held by almost every mirror creature is the ability to speak the languages of the beings around him.
It is also true that the more powerfull the mirror creature, the more intelligent he is. Most of the natives have medicore intelligence.
Mirror creatures do not talk much to each other, and when they do it`s usually about practical matters. Most of them feel a strong bond between each other, so they will usually help other mirror creatures in need.
Native mirror creatures almost always generalize (which help explain their attidute to travelers).
Some of them reflect the personality of those around them.
Native creatures in combat:
Spoiler
Altering their shape so they will have a naturel weapon, like claws for exemple, is a simple ability that is shared by all native mirror creatures. But they will not risk direct combat without some edge.
They can employ many diffrent tactics, but those are exemples of a few common ones:
1. Always beyond the target – natives who employ this tactic are good at relative location altering. No matter how fast the target can spin, the aggresor would always be beyond him. The aggresor chooses a specific body part to be beyond, so this might not be a problam for very flexible targets. If the creature attacks a group of travelers, for each traveler he is beyond him, so attacking beyond an ally is useless. Those natives who can attack all enemies in a single attack are rare.
2. Twice as fast – the native creature is twice as fast as the fastest being in the group he attacks. He will usually employ hit and run tactics with impressive acrobatic ability.
3. From a few directions at once (usually just two) – the creature is at a few directions at a time and attacks from them all at once. He seems like a bunch of identical creatures (it doesn`t matter which side you attack, it damages him the same). Natives who use this tactic are usually only relative in location to one target, unless they can attack all targets at once.
4. More and more pits – natives who employ this tactic constantly create pits infront of their target/s. If they can they also alter the pit to have spikes at the bottom.
5. Light manipulation – the native eithar makes the area completly dark, or, if he can, make it so bright that it would blind the targets. They of course see perfectly well, and use it to their advandge.
Native creatures in manipulations:
Spoiler
Native creatures who try to manipulate their target to be trapped infront of a portal to a diffrent world are rarer, but exist. Travelers often don`t know the dangers of standing near such a portal so they are usually easily fooled (see the mirrors from their side section if you have no idea what I`m talking about).
If any of those tactics fail, they will usually try to use physical power to push the target/s towards the portal (for exemple, making the ground under them a slippery slope).
1. Simple bluff – something along the lines of: "if you go there you can come back home, without any risk" or "if you go to the light you will gain immortality".
2. Desires – this tactic uses the target desires to get them too close and trapped. It`s usually an illusion of something very valuable, and if the target reaches to take it he gets trapped.
3. Seeming scary – native creatures who use this tactic appear as the target worst nightmare (or something very scary at least) and chases them so their escape path will get them trapped.
Creatures from the mirror world in diffrent worlds
Spoiler
When native mirror creatures reach another world, they still have their abilities that relate to reflecting beings around them, but weaker and more restricted. Often they will be unable to keep a permenant appearance, and their appearence will depand on who is looking. If they entared another world thru a naturel portal (most likely), they are more likely to be able to keep the shape they mimicked, or maybe they would even be imprisoned to it.
Becuse mirror creatures feel a strong bond between them as mentioned earlier, and the effects mirrors have in their world, they will likely try to destroy every mirror they can find, and murder people who build mirrors for a living.
Some try to fly under the radar, and build themselves a new life. They usually fail horribly, as they usually don`t know very much about the world they reached. Those of them that had abilities to reflect thoughts and/or memories in the mirror world will have some telepathic ability in other worlds, which would help them greatly.
There is an organization of mirror breakers, supposedly to protact creatures of other worlds from invaders from the mirror world. This organization and his many variations is managed by mirror creatures, and many of his members are mirror creatures. They secretly and actively try to make mirrors seem as dangerous as possible, which often includes murder.
Exemple areas
Spoiler
1. The island just one mile above and left – no matter where you are, this island is a big disk above you. This is a popular meeting place for native creatures, as travelers can`t ever reach it. If you look from it downwards, you see the place you came from. You can`t fall from it, as it`s location is relative to you, so to move you must change it`s relative location to you.
2. Vallay of letters – this vallay ground is coloured at your least favourite colour, and the letters are coloured at your favourite colour. Each sound you make causes wierd and unreconizable letters to come out of your mouth, who get away and quickely grow to be twice your height and width. The letters spin quickely, and every few minutes all the letters stop and form some phrase. If you try to use some ability to understand it, you get a telepathic messege saying: "It`s not going to be that easy", but it greatly helps you decipher the meaning. Some natives became obssesed with figuring out what it means, and a few claim they realized, and then ran away from the vallay as fast as they could and never came back.
Notes
Spoiler
I haven`t decided what it will say about vampires, as they don`t reflect in mirrors. I might never will, as I don`t use vampires.
If native mirror creatures stand in front of a mirror in a diffrent world, several things could happen.
Spoiler
A. The mirror reflects them regulary.
B. They don`t appear in the mirror.
C. The creatures that are supposed to reflect them from the mirror world beome free, and they can communicate with them, and maybe even bring them to their side.
D. They decide what heppens.
Any of this options could be true for any mirror creature, but the more powerfull the mirror creature, the more likely the last three would be true. Also, the fourth option is extremly rare for those that haven`t been in diffrent worlds for a long period of time, even if they are very powerfull (it`s essentially a learned skill that is hard to master).
Usually objects are not reflected in the mirror world. It more depands on which region you in then the properities of the object.
I made no mechanics at all for any of this.
Demiplanes of reflections: legands say that between the mirror world and each other world their is a demiplane which shows everyting each mirror reflects in that world. I might expand on it later.
Teleportion doesn`t help to overcome distance created by relative location, the thing you try to reach moves accordingly. Only specialized magic or help from natives could help.
The way you entar the mirror world effects your stay there. I haven`t decided how yet.
If you bring a mirror to the mirror world it doesn`t reflect there and the portal that it created while it was on a diffrent world dissappers.
I thought about integrating this as a plane in one of my campaign settings, but I`m having problams deciding to which one. I might not integrate it to any of my settings in the end, so I decided to share this with you.
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A world beyond the mirror (stand alone plane)
