((In Character (IC) Document:
Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Chronicles of Darkness - Mage: The Awakening (Fallen World Chronicle)
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Cannibalized from multiple sources such as the Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Ed and the Chronicles of Darkness Corebook))
THE SHADOW REALM
A Pentacle Academy lecture series by Anton (MD), Dean of The Adamant College.
Part Four: Ephemeral Biology
Within the Hisil, teeming umia of spirits prey on one another, scrambling for the Essence leaking through the Gauntlet, waxing and waning in response to humanity’s blind actions and emotions. In their own world, spirits are dangerous.
When they break the natural order and cross the Gauntlet, they can be deadly. The ephemera forming spirits’ “bodies” is invisible and intangible to those blind to the Shadow, and humanity is not equipped to deal with an enemy it can’t see, hear, or touch — one that’s driven by hunger to rouse Essence, anchor itself, and above all not go back at any cost where survival is fierce.
THE SHADOWED LANDSCAPE
While traversing the Shadow brings its own dangers, from the spirit courts to the uncertainty of distances compared to the physical world, most of the time it follows the same rules as acting in the physical world. Mages can better sense Essence while in the Shadow, revealing spirits that aren’t actively hiding themselves, and the dim light and strange sounds of the Hisil make them rely on their spiritual senses more.
The unusual areas of Hisil geography described in Part II bring their own effects which should also be considered.
SHOALS
Shoals provoke lethargy in travelers, trapping them in the region of emptiness. ((Leaving a shoal requires a successful Resolve + Composure roll, and every failure imposes a –1 penalty on subsequent attempts. Dramatic failure means the character can only be rescued by being physically forced out of the shoal.)) Staying leads to spiritual and physical starvation and eventual lapse into coma and death.
GLADES
Glades are sought-after places of bargaining and peace. ((Fighting in a glade requires a successful Resolve roll, and all violent actions are at a -2 dice penalty.)) Glades can be valuable for special pacts, ceremonies, and spells. In general, these are the only places in the Shadow where things don’t actively try to eat you…
WOUNDS
Wounds drain life and energy out into the Maeljin’s hidden lairs. ((Within a Wound, Willpower rolls are at a –2 penalty, and all injuries suffered inside are worsened by one point of Health or Corpus.)) These places have horrible Resonance and sympathetic correspondence to the acts that caused them. They also may contain connections or “gates” to places like Abaddon, the Lower Depths, or even the Abyss. Keep in mind the Wounds also have the effects of Shoals.
BARRENS
Barrens require great effort to stir up the dregs of Essence left within their borders. ((Spirit magic, rites, Numina, Manifestations, and other powers drawing on the spirit world suffer a –3 penalty within the area of a Barren.))
LOCI
Some material objects, and even people, have such a strong connection to the Shadow that they focus spiritual energies, forming a locus of a particular kind of Essence. Loci are individual objects or creatures; loci affect increasing areas around the focal point in both the material and Shadow worlds as they grow in power.
((The Merit: Locus can be purchased to represent control of one of these items or locations. It follows similar rules to Hallow or a magic item.
Locus Rating Zone of Influence (Follows general size rating of Hallows/Safe Places)
• 2 yard radius (One small room)
•• 15 yard radius (An apartment with a few rooms)
••• A floor of a building, a forest clearing (a larger house)
•••• A whole building, a section of forest
••••• A city block, a lake
Loci are prized by Werewolves, mages and spirits as crossing points, vital territory, and oases of Essence.
• The zone of influence of a locus is permanently under the Open Condition linked to its resonance.
• Spirits of matching resonance within the zone of influence heal Corpus at twice the normal rate, and gain +2 dice to attempts to cross the Gauntlet
• No spirits require the Reaching Manifestation effect to use their powers across the Gauntlet in a locus’ zone of influence.
• Spirits of matching resonance may conceal themselves within the zone of influence. A spirit merged into a locus in this way can’t take any actions except reveal itself, but while concealed it is impossible to perceive without supernatural powers that reveal spirits, even to Uratha in the Hisil.
• Werewolves can use a locus to Reach and cross between worlds
• Finally, loci generate three times their level in Essence on the Shadow side per day, which often results in a brood of spirits vying for the chance to feed. The Essence matches the resonance of the locus. Loci arise naturally (if rarely) when large quantities of Essence build up around the focal point without attracting any spirits. Individual ecstasy or private tragedy is more likely to form a locus than a publically-known event. Beings can simulate the necessary conditions by clearing an area of spirits while allowing Essence to gather.
After around 150 points of same-resonance Essence collect for over a week, it settles into an object or person in the vicinity and becomes a one-dot locus. Loci increase in power if they continue to accumulate Essence — 150 points per dot, or 50 days of uninterrupted growth.))
If the focal item is destroyed, the Essence bound up in it is released. Unless the Essence is all removed quickly, the locus will reform into a new item within a few weeks — especially as the area is still Resonant. Mages wanting to be certain they’ve destroyed a locus have to counteract the resonance and remove the Essence, or flood the space with equal quantities of differently resonant Essence.
GATHRA (Spirit Pacts & Payment)
We often have to negotiate with spirits in order to manage their hunting grounds, conducting diplomacy in the First Tongue. Spirits are often willing to deal despite their distrust of the fully-fleshed, but require something in return — a gift the Forsaken call gathra (we know it as Chimage). The more powerful and high-ranking the spirit, and the more it hates the Uratha or mage its dealing with, the greater its price. Some spirits require service, tasks that will either generate sources of Essence or further the spirit’s position in the courts and Choir. Others simply require Essence as a one-off or repeated donation.
((Treat negotiations with a spirit as a Social maneuvering action (see Chronicles of Darkness Social Maneuvering rules). Most spirits have average or hostile first impressions with mages, and require Soft Leverage in the form of gathra to Open Doors. Unlike mortal subjects of Social maneuvering, spirits can’t agree to deals unless they’ve been paid — until then, the Character’s player doesn’t roll to open Doors. Hard Leverage — threats of attack, and other strong-arm tactics — might force a spirit to accept a proposition after a perfunctory gift.))
((The scale of gathra varies, decided by the Storyteller, but in general two points of Essence, removing a Hursih from politics, or a change to the material world that will produce a small amount of Essence are the bare minimum, and would move the first impression of a Hursih. Any lesser offering requires Hard Leverage.))
BROODS
Spirits have Cabals of their own, or something similar to the concept. While all the spirits in a region answering to the local Ensahim or Dihim regardless of umia (Choir) are called a court, they’re more acknowledgments of strength and the ruling spirit’s dominance over the Shadow than organizations. A brood is an association of spirits that have banded together for common purpose — carrion spirits following predatory spirits, for example.
CROSSING OVER
A spirit that is capable of using its powers through the Gauntlet might, as its self-awareness grows with power, decide to create food sources for itself by influencing what sort of spirits and Essence will be created around it. The true culprit behind an unusual pattern of domestic murders, for example, might be a murder spirit using its abilities to heighten arguments to homicide.
Other spirits cross over completely, fleeing predation from others of their kind, attempting to create sources of Essence, or even out of simple curiosity. Once in the physical world, spirits find themselves refugees and escapees. They constantly strive to maintain their Essence, desperate to avoid returning to their own world. Without an easy source of Essence, spirits must anchor themselves by finding objects or people that reflect their nature, and tying their ephemeral bodies to them. The spirit remains intangible — and is often actually “inside” the host — but is safe from starvation as long as the host generates enough Essence to feed it. Many items thought of as having “wills of their own” or as being cursed actually house spirits; and although living victims’ loved ones might notice their unusual behavior, spiritual possession is only understood by a rare few human occultists. By influencing the host, or humans interacting with a material host, to more closely reflect its nature, the spirit gets a ready supply of Essence and may move on to more permanent forms of possession. If allowed to continue unchecked, the process of possession sometimes evolves into twisted half-flesh, half-spirit Claimed.
MANIFESTATION AND POSSESSION
In the Hisil, spirits are as at home as humans are in the physical world. If they cross the Gauntlet, they enter a state of Twilight. Instead of bodies formed of flesh and bone, spirits are made up of spiritual matter called ephemera. This substance is invisible to most beings and intangible to anything not comprised of the same sort of ephemera — spirits can see and touch one another, but are invisible to most living people and pass through solid objects. They happily float through walls and ignore mundane dangers, but are incapable of interacting with people without help.
Almost every spirit powerful enough to Reach also has the ability to Manifest — to make its presence known and to affect the physical world. Manifestations range from remaining invisible but using powers, appearing as insubstantial but visible images, or even possessing a victim, sending his soul into hibernation and warping the commandeered body to suit the spirit’s own uses. Some are more skilled at it than others — those so weak they can’t Manifest at all are essentially impotent in the physical world and can’t interact with humans — but all require certain appropriate conditions before they can use these powers.
A spirit that wants to shift into physical form or to inhabit an object, animal, or person requires the emotional resonance of the area or victim-host to match its own, represented as an increasingly potent set of Conditions.
The more powerful Manifestations require stronger Conditions.
The most powerful physical forms and tightly-held victims are the result of careful husbandry by the Manifesting spirit, slowly building up the necessary Condition by leveraging whatever Manifestation it can produce at first. Unless
Conditions are very strong or the possessing spirit extremely powerful, a human being falling victim to a possession is first Urged to follow the spirit’s wishes instead of his own, then later forced to do its bidding, and only then physically mutated into a bizarre amalgamation of nature and supernatural power.
Rites to summon or exorcise spirits from the physical world are a matter of creating or destroying the appropriate resonance for the creature, preferably near to a place it can Reach across the Gauntlet. Most spirits waste away as though starving outside of the needed Conditions, so breaking those Conditions is a sure-fire way of forcing the being to abandon its attempt at Manifestation and sending it fleeing toward either a way “home” or another appropriate vessel.
OTHER ENTITIES
((The various World of Darkness games have used the spirit rules to represent many different beings, from ghosts, to demonic owls made of smoke with a strange connection to vampires, to the inhabitants of an astral world visited by mages. Although some beings have rare powers that affect other “ephemeral entities,” for the most part the different types of ephemera are mutually exclusive — spirits and ghosts are both made of ephemera, and both exist in a state of Twilight when in the physical world, but they remain “out of phase” and can’t see or interact with one another without a Numen to allow it.))
DORMANCY AND AWAKENING
Only conceptual spirits and nature spirits of most animals, fish, and birds begin existence as mobile and active muthra or Hursihim. Most spirits are born from the Essence of objects, plants, and natural features, and begin existence sleeping. They exist in the Hisil as faint outlines of the earthly phenomena they draw Essence from, but if they aren’t consumed by other spirits, they eventually develop into dormant Hursihim with the capacity to awaken.
Dormant spirits sometimes awaken when an object they’re tied to is destroyed, instinctively rousing to
one point of Essence.))
No comments:
Post a Comment