Just a figment of your imagination
The Cognitive Realm is a mortal interpretation of the metaphysical substrate of reality that focuses on beings of and related to thought; it is the universe’s metaphysics viewed through a lens that shows the reflection of the conscious thoughts of all sentient creatures. It is not governed by mortal concepts of reality and is thus fundamentally unknowable to mortal minds; what is experienced is an interpretation, a mapping of the exotic abstract into terms a mortal mind can understand.
It is the ‘home’ of Figments, and mortals often experience it as the discrete domain of a specific Figment. The experience tends towards having some semblance of mortal logic, albeit tainted by metaphor, but so too does the perceived reality appear to bend at the whim of the host Figment.
FIGMENTS
Figments are the apparent sentient embodiments of the conscious thoughts of sentient beings, which exist in proportion to the cohesion and significance of those thoughts. Their existence is on a spectrum; every thought has some metaphysical echo, but it takes a fair degree of presence and traction to be considered a Figment.
As with the definition of the Cognitive Realm that they comprise, Figments are fundamentally abstract and their appearance on Altera entails a fair degree of metaphor and interpretation. Notably, they are not strictly discrete entities in the way mortals are; there may exist multiple Figments that are distinct variations of the same underlying idea and share much of the same underlying metaphysical ‘substance’ but are independent entities. There may exist Figments that fall under the umbrella of a broader concept; such figments are generally affiliated with the larger one, and are considered to be within its ‘court’.
Figments are conscious and sentient, but not exactly in the way a mortal is; they can think and act and decide things for themselves, but they are also intrinsically bound to their core concept, and wax and wane should it collectively change in mortal minds.
They are inherently magical entities and are capable of affecting the mortal realm when summoned, generally in proportion to their power and relevance to their domain. Most are relatively weak in this regard; historical examples such as Strange or Know are highly noteworthy outliers to their general kin.
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