There are multiple things referred to as "the void" in broken dimensions. The first of these things is voidspace, which is to interdimensional travelers as the sea is to mariners of old, meaning they believe:
Voidspace has a mind of its own that can be sometimes be predictable (and sometimes not). and
Voidspace can be traveled through or across to reach a set destination.
Voidspace itself is the non-material space between dimensions. Referring back to the "Worldbuilding - Literally!" post, if the plums in the plum pudding are dimensions, then the rest of the pudding is Voidspace.
It may also help to think of the Broken Dimensions universe like layers of a cake, or layers of the crust of the earth. Some dimensions exist in one layer, called a reality plane. More exist on another layer/reality plane, and yet more worlds on another, and so on. Voidspace is sometimes a vacuum, sometimes a multi-plane pocket of magic and cosmic debris called a zio’nebulis, and sometimes a literal plane (Planar Voidspace is something else entirely and is incredibly rare).
There are also different categorizations of voidspace, such as zio'cerual, the "blue" void, and zio'ajay, the "gray" void. Zio’cerual is thought to be a derivative of the quantum realm, but its inhabitants are much larger and more dense than an inhabitant of any one dimension. It is thought to be a naturally-occurring layer of voidspace, whose pockets are traversable only by its wormhole-creating inhabitants (ex: Starspawn, creatures Ev encounters in the first sections of Fractal Alliances). Other sub-categories, such as zio'ajay, are man-made, or were generated by some (inter)dimensional Crisis or another. Zio’ajay is, in fact, a prison dimension created sometime after Crisis 4—once the man-made Artificial Planar Void TR-5, known better as Tartarus, failed to appropriately contain the Seven Heathen Mages.
( Please visit "Worldbuilding - Literally!" for a visual representation of "the jello model" of the Broken Dimensions universe. )
The second thing someone might mean when referencing "the void" is The Void (sentient). Folks in-universe often refer to voidspace as "the void" because it's shorter, but they might also be talking loosely about the sentience within voidspace, which is an arcane entity that has lain dormant since the end of Era 1, the era in which the gods fought the War for Balance. To be more precise, The Void (sentient) is the sentient-but-dormant remnant of The Eternal Darkness, sibling-god to Solorana, Mother of the Gods. Because names have power—especially archaic deity names, like TED's real name, or even "The Eternal Darkness"—people will often simply refer to "the void" when they want to reference (or tell off) The Void (sentient).
( Sometimes, if they really feel like trying their luck, a pissed off traveller might skip over the simplicity of calling it "the void" and call The Void (sentient) "Ted." It is generally not advisable to do so, even if The Void (sentient) does appear to think it's funny. Sometimes. )
The third and final thing someone might mean when referring to "the void" is a personal void. Personal voids are the Broken Dimensions equivalent of Hammerspace: a seemingly endless inventory that exists just off the physical planes of reality that is accessible with the right instructions, and can contain some impossible things. Most people use their personal voids for basic item storage—a spare sweater or pair of socks, extra pens, important notebooks for spell reference, extra weapons, or extra snacks. That sort of thing.
There are limits to what a person can put in their personal void, however. Living beings do not survive being put in a personal void, and neither do plants or fires (vacuum, no oxygen). Explosives are also advised against being put in a personal void, as they could interact with or be triggered by the other things kept in that space, and the explosion could kill the person the personal void is "attached" to. Large objects (larger than the person trying to "vanish" it) also do not go easily into a personal void due to the sheer amount of effort and focus it would take to "vanish" them.
It is also not advised to put firearms (or as they're called in-universe due to their hyperactivity and plasma components, "hyperarms") in one's personal void for similar reasons to explosives. You will notice that nearly every hyperarm-carrying characters does it anyway. (Theoretically, disarming the weapon before storing it in your personal void should prevent any fatal discharges...)
And finally: theoretically, all personal voids really exist on the same massive reality plane, otherwise physically inaccessible to sentients and gods alike, regardless of power or status. This has, however, never been proven, nor has anyone ever pulled something from “their void” that they didn’t put there or otherwise acquire themselves. In a similar vein, personal voids cannot be accessed by someone else (with the exception of mind-breakers, who may take control of a person and force them to remove an item themselves). Additionally, most people after the Revival of Era 3 learn to access their voids in school, as a rite of passage or family tradition, or through independent study. Some choose not to, but seeing as it is primarily an extremely useful commodity to have access to, this becomes increasingly rarer with each generation that succeeds the Revival.
The next post will also deal with void-related things, however it focuses more on Void Demons, the zio'andar, and void magic. Stay tuned!
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