Guide to Alternate Universes

You want alternative realities, take a step inside the House of Ideas – Marvel Comics. Among their most epic is the Age of Apocalypse. Imagine if Professor Xavier's son travels back in time in an effort to kill Magneto, but accidentally kills his own father. Magneto, still Xavier's friend at the time (they were totally just chillin, eatin' hummus and scopin' out Sabra babes) takes Xavier's place as champion of Mutant-Human relations under the brutal regime of Apocalypse conquers most of the known world and wreaks havoc upon civilization. Roughly ten zillion crossover comics ensue.

Sometimes natural disasters bury everything and everyone you love in ash or water or in the ground. Other times, like in the case of a tornado, people go chasing after them. But, in the rarest of circumstances, a tornado whisks you away to place where midgets sing, lions cower and monkeys fly. The Wizard of Oz is one of the most famous depictions of reality similar to the one we know, but warped and twisted. Like the touch of a comfortable stranger, an alternate universe is strange and new while seeming very familiar. And this is stranger who has touched us oh so right.

A bored little girl with no supervision (that'll teach you to have writers for parents) finds a curious door in her new, creepy house. Wouldn't you know it leads to a replica of her own world...except everything is just a little cooler. Her mother makes fantastic meals, her father sings silly songs and people have replaced their eyeballs for buttons. Oh, wait, that's not good. And neither are the children trapped inside the full length mirror. Maybe this alternate reality isn't such a dream after all.

When Mystryl gave herself to save the Weave after Karsus' Folly, she was reborn again as a peasant girl name Mystra. Learning the ways of magic once more, Mystra finally harnessed her true power and re-created the weave with new rules: no spells would ever come close to the power the arrogant Netherese tried to harness. Centuries passed and it seems the Lady of Mysteries chose wisely, but, hiding silently and biding her time, her sister Shar created the Shadow Weave. The Lady of Loss created realms like Fane of Shadows, that bared resemblance to the Material Plane in Faerun but in all laws of nature and magic is the exact opposite. Birds were shadows, cantrips and other prestidigitations have no efficacy, and worst of all, the shadows begin to consume you. Indeed, this is an alternate universe so powerful it soon finds a way to interlock with the main reality and begin to take it over.