[Mage: The Awakening 2e] The Gate, Ouroboros & The Place Between

Out of Character (OOC):

Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler

Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum

The Gate, The Ocean Ouroboros, & 

The Place Between

In our current Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition Chronicle "The Dethroned Queen" Chimera (played by Hannah Nyland) and Jack Bismuth (played by Alex Van Belkum) having been learning about the Abyss from Fobax, an ex-Scelestus who runs a shop with the rest of his Cabal at an occult pawn shop that can only be found by those that are looking for it called The Black Zodiac.  The Black Zodiac and Fobax are a side item to major plots and this plot line in facilitating his redemption is actually a side-arc, completely done in Play-by-Post as part of the extended story called "Light that Falls."  The Fobax redemption arc summary can be found here for brevity, at the beginning of the Secret Order of the Gate post.

In order to save Fobax and stop the Ninth Calamity, Chimera reached out to a known Gatekeeper in Los Angeles, a young girl who is called the Letigium.  They make an Oath before the Thief of Names and the Letigium begins training Chimera in the metaphysics of the In-Between.  The Upside Down can be traveled and utilized with knowledge of the vile Attainments of the Legacy.  But to learn the Parametric Language that allows the Gatekeepers to command Gulmoth and travel the Place Between Chimera must traverse that place to the hovel on the shore of Ouroboros and entreet with the Other, the Gate...

Sources:

- Gatekeepers & the Gate from Seers of the Throne sourcebook for MtA1e

- The Gate as seen in Left-Handed Path sourcebook for MtA1e

- Na'Thraka as seen in The Summoners sourcebook for MtA1e

- The Gate as seen in Astral Realms sourcebook for MtA1e

- Fobax & The Black Zodiac originally designed by Lucas Powell Cencerros

- Flavor from The Laundry Files: The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

- Mechanics on the Place Between developed using post by 21C Hermit on 22 April 2018 here
- Mechanics on the Place Between developed using Legacies: The Rehashed found here

The Gate: Warder at the Threshold

The orders are clear on the subject of the Abyss. The anti-reality and the things that intrude on the Fallen World from it are the very antithesis of magic and must not be allowed any foothold. The Seers of the Throne believe the Abyss to be under the control of a solitary Exarch, the Gate, who occupies a Satanic role in their hagiography, representing those trapped in liminal states, and who must never be worshipped.

The Seers don’t regard some acts that would get a Pentacle mage branded as Left-Handed, or even crimes at all. The Ministries positively encourage treating Sleepers as resources just as long as the human race survives in miserable spiritual infancy. Destruction of magic is acceptable if it is the only way to keep secrets out of Pentacle hands. When it comes to dealing with external entities like the Abyss or Lower Depths, though, the Exarchs become jealous gods. Seers are forbidden to worship the Abyssal Exarch of the Gate, but secret Ministries of Scelesti Seers flaunt the restriction in

return for secret advantages in the sect’s never-ending power struggles.

The Eleventh Exarch

Among the Seers of the Throne's secret masters, there are ten great Seals, one for each of the ten Exarch lords of each Arcana. The greatest of these are the four Archigeitors.  The eleventh Seal is The Gate. He is not worshiped, rarely spoken of, and always feared.

Do not speak of The Gate. The Seventh Lesser Seal is the Dark Man at the Crossroads. She keeps the passwords to the Abyss that a mortal might use to cross the threshold — or that something from the Abyss could speak to enter the material plane. The Seers of the Throne fear him above all other Hidden Masters.  It is said even the other Exarchs fear the Gate.

The Exarchs rose upon one great idea: they could rule a world with limits and Flaws. But before the Fall, the cosmos could not be defined or contained. It gave birth to limitless wonders and horrors, and beyond the will of Atlantis’ mages. It made its own rules, unanswerable to even the High Speech.  It refused to bow to any Lord of the Aeon.

The Gate changed that. The Gate found a world beyond the world, where mocking reflections existed, but no self-sustained existence did. The Gate discovered the Abyss, or perhaps only named it —  maybe these acts are one in the same. His name (or hers — few of the Exarchs have definite genders) is the legacy of this act. The Exarchs don’t want to destroy the Fallen World, but it can’t be their prison without the Abyss. They let a bit of the rot that dwells Beyond reality blind every soul.

They owe The Gate everything, but the other Exarchs’ visions always say: do not worship him. Do not speak to her in your dreams. Of course, not everyone listens.  The Secret Order of the Gate, the hidden Ministry is founded upon doing pretty much exactly that...

Forbidden Names

Among the Seers who dabble in the dark arts or belong to the Secret Ministry, he is most commonly identified as male and has many names and titles: the Gate, the Gatekeeper, the Lonely Exarch, the Warder, the Fearful Reconciler, the King of Zero, the Forbidden Exarch,  the Eleventh Exarch, the Old Man, the Dark Man, the Dark Man at the Crossroads, the Old Man at the Sea, the Man in Black.  Among most mages of all stripes the being on the edge of Astral Space is usually referred to as The Other, short for the Other Aeon.

Among other Scelesti he is not universally thought to be an Exarch but is still usually identified as male.  He is more commonly thought to be an emissary Aeon from the Abyss itself, the hovel in which he lives is an embassy from the Outer Reaches.  Some Scelesti think the entity is more like the lure of an angler fish, more for attracting victims to a much much larger and more powerful entity, a greater Abyssal god, maybe even an Annunaki.  Living in the astral blood of the dead dragon Ouroboros, this gatekeeper entity has names separate from those among the Seers.  They call this entity Yog-Sothoth, The Key and the Gate, Aforgomon, Umr at-Tawil, the Key and the Guardian, The Lurker at the Threshold,  The Beyond One, Opener of the Way, The All-in-One.  It is also thought that this being is the Elder Diadem (a Daimon of a larger realm) of the ocean itself, the astral representation of the Abyss.

Yog-Sothoth is much more than an ambassador from the Abyss.  It is the Abyssal God responsible for allowing all passage through, into and out of the Abyss.  It is the ultimate Gatekeeper, but furthermore it is the Gate(s) and the key needed to open them.  When mana is consumed, it is feed to Yog-Sothoth to appear the Gatekeeper.  Like Papa Legba and Saint Peter in Voodoo tradition, the holder of the keys to all magic.  Through him all magic becomes possible.

Entreating with the Gate is an important milestone not just for Gatekeepers but for orthodox Scelesti on the path to becoming one of the Baalim, a Master Scelestus.  In order to become a Baalim, they must secure an Elder Diadem which is burned into their bodies and souls forever.

Returning Power

For many years, there has been a story circulating amongst the Pentacle orders that there is another, more sinister reason that the Seers destroy Atlantean Artifacts. According to a defector that left the Seers of the Throne in the 1950s and joined the Free Council, there are particular ceremonies that the Seers use when they are destroying Artifacts. The item is actually sacrificed to the Exarchs, and the magical energy stored within the Artifact is released back into the Supernal World to strengthen the Exarchs’ manipulations of reality.

Whether or not this story is true is unknown. Some Seers have heard of it and dismissed it as misinformation spread by the defector, who may have actually been a double agent for the Seers after all. Other Seers have considered the story and suggested that there could be some truth to the story, although it’s unlikely that they are sacrificing the Artifacts to all the Exarchs. They did not elaborate any further, apart from saying that perhaps the Seers who follow the will of the Gate would stop at nothing...

The Hollow: Citadel of the Other

At the edge of Astral Space, among the Aeonic Citadels on the shore of the Ocean Ouroboros, a small hut appeared shortly after the Fall. No soul that has entered has ever left without turning to the service of the Abyss, so it is impossible to describe what it's interior might be like.  A soul walking nearby along to shore of Ouroboros often hears a wailing, sobbing voice of no discernable gender. Is this the Other’s voice? A victim’s? A convert’s?

The Other is a small, old man. He has dark skin, but wrinkles, missing teeth and ubiquitous small scars have obliterated any signs of ethnicity. Souls often find him tending a fire just outside the Hollow. A small walking stick usually lies across his knees. He’s friendly, but he doesn’t blink or smile. The Other is the most well known representation of the Gate, and this is where the majority of mages go to entreat with it.

There is no record of the Other having ever used force against a visitor. But there is something wrong with the Other. After a single innocuous conversation, one mage had nightmares about him that drove her to suicide. Another sorcerer said that, for an instant, she saw the Other’s stick turn into a child’s spinal column and skull, and that metal thorns grew in his footsteps.

There are many such stories. In some, the Other even comes into the material realm, where he wears many masks. He might be a cannibal pharaoh stricken from the records of the Old Kingdom, or the Dark Man at the crossroads who represents the devil in hoodoo bargains. Scelesti worship him, but he only tends a simple fire and invites visitors to enter the Hollow and rest.

Identification
Despite several hypothesis developed through various texts borrowed by the Scholomance and despite the similarities among various powerful Abyssal entities I think more is attributed to the Other than is factual.  I do not believe the Other is the Black Pharaoh.  I do not think he is the Crimson Prince or Crimson King.  He may, however, be the entity referred to as the Man in Black, a being who appears all around the world and leaves Gulmoth and Scelesti in his wake.  He may also be Maerlyn (but maybe not Merlin): a being that crawled from the primordial chaos after the Fall and claimed to be a sorcerer (like you would expect the Gate to).  If he is Maerlyn, this would mean he was responsible for the creation of the Bends O the Bow.  I am not sure what the full implications of those last two associations would be.  The Man Black (an alternate identity of Maerlyn) is a mischievous entity who creates havoc and who's motives seem alien, which is in opposition to the Gate's apparent neutral stance at the Hovel.  And what about the good stuff that Merlin did? The Diamond Orders all advertise that he was a Mysterium Acanthus... - Fobax, The Black Zodiac

The Thirteenth Exarch
This lore increases the number of known and named Exarchs we have heard of to thirteen.  The ten of the Tetragrammaton Arcana, the Dethroned Queen, the Fallen Exarch and the Gate makes thirteen.  This is significant if the Gate is actually the being known as Maerlyn and created the Rainbow Artifacts and particularly the final Bend.  Maerlyn, the 13th Exarch, created Black Thirteen of the "shadow of magic itself." Does this mean the Zodiac demons contained within are somehow Abyssal?  No Abyssal taint has been noted on the few other Orbs that have been studied and recorded except for Black 13.    Significant implications here and quite worrisome... - Azazel

The Last Ocean: Ouroboros

Beyond the Sidereal Wastes, explorers find a desolate beach on the shore of a light-absorbing sea: the Ocean Oroboros, Astral reflection of the Abyss. Along the beach, travelers find the citadels of the Aeons, mighty beings who represent the Arcana. All but one of them manifest in pairs matching the Path Arcana. The final Aeon, the Old Man of the Abyss, lives alone by a ramshackle hut.

Mages can go no further than the shores of Ouroboros. Even touching it is tantamount to entering the Abyss, and destroys the fool who does it. Mages sometimes cast things they don’t want into Ouroboros. This includes memories, souls they wish to damn, and even material items they’ve converted into ephemera for the journey. One need merely imagine the act of throwing something in your (Astral) possession away and it vanishes forever.

The Citadels are the Last Refuges.  They sit on a shoreline of dream-stuff: rusty metal sigils, crumbling idols and bones litter the beach. Oroboros waits beyond. Awakened sagas say that it was once the great dragon responsible for separating the material realm from the Supernal planes. The Celestial Ladder thrust through Ouroboros like a spear; it bled forth an ocean that swallowed its body. The depths poured in to the Abyss, and the Abyss welled up inside the sea of dream-blood, leaving the Last Ocean of Ouroboros behind. The shallows of the Ocean are the limits of Fallen being. Ouroboros is the Abyss in the form of a dead dragon’s black blood. 

Creatures crawl from Oroboros to seek succor in realms of thought, or to engage in some dark mirror of the quest for enlightenment. Some believe that this is why the Acamoth seek out powerful souls. After all, the Abyss is a realm of falsehoods and twisted wisdom, so its denizens must steal virtue from other domains. The Ocean also congeals into strange shapes: three-legged, scaled things with umbilici that snake back to the water’s edge, or headless birds with fanged mouths on their breasts.

Ouroboros has one virtue: a mage can cast almost anything into the Abyssal deep, formally declare

his sacrifice and concentrate (this costs a Willpower point) to divest himself of it forever. Ouroboros’s waters wash over him and claim the abandoned trait.  It vanishes from all realms... A mage who casts away his sight can never see through a pair of eyes again. A mage who casts away his body might vanish, while his sleeping material body collapses into dust. Most visitors are content to use the phenomenon to relinquish cannot cast away anything that is not theirs, and such definitions are based on symbolic truth instead of any form of legalese.


Most recently Witness (played by Korri Smith) cast the Robe of the Dethroned Queen into the ocean.  It did not stay gone though.  The impossible, the Artifact turned up in the Scepter Dream realm and Jack somehow retrieved it when they got out of the Dream of Sutterton Farms, pulled from the ocean and Astral Space.  An impossibility with only one explanation, that the Gate must have retrieved it for the Queen.
Nobody knows what happens to mages who give their souls, minds or selves to the Last Ocean. Tradition holds that the Supernal Realms lie on the other side of Ouroboros, but no astral barge or sailing ship has ever crossed the gulf. Ouroboros is the end of everything. Still... names are whispered about those who return as shells and sensory organs for the Abyss itself.  They whisper "Qlipoth." 

The Five Horsemen have visited the shore of Ouroboros on at least three occasions.  While always greeted politely by the Old Man, none have dared speak to the Gate.  Persephone, Kairos and Nergal all made their crossing of the Threshold from the shore. Nergal gathered the waters of the ocean for Death of the Endless here, and later dropped his corrupted Soul stone and banished the Darkness that Thirsts out of reality.  

The Place Between

The Letigium and her pack of Gulmoth escorted Chimera outside and onto the street. The air was dense, heavy, silent but for strange bass, infrasound Chimera could feel only in her bones and odd buzzing reverberations. Her eyeballs were jiggling in her skull, making things hard to focus on for more than a split second at a time. The sun beats down on them like a hateful stare but the heat from the sun is actually better, cooler than the humidity and fetid hot coming up from the street, from the the shadows.

Chimera chanced a look at the sun glaring down at them from a empty night sky. The sun's outline was red as smoldering coals, all but the corona was eclipsed, maybe the moon, in a total lunar eclipse that never ended. All light here had more of a reddish hue than it should. And the night sky wasn't empty. There were no clouds, sure, but there were a few stars here and there, tiny bits of red in a black sky. They were going out. The stars were going out.

The only exception to the red light was what was in the direction the group was walking. The street in front of the Letigium looked grey then greenish, the intensity of the shift changed with the speed she walked. There were brief hints of blue in the center of where their perceptions were headed at eye level. Just brief hints,when her walking speed jumped.

"You get places faster here than the Fallen World, not just because space is warping but time as well. Away from us reality accelerates towards entropy, what we approach is a collapsing universe instead of an ever-expanding one," The Letigium continued her lesson like a well practiced tour-guide.

"Maybe this gives you hope? A new big bang is a new beginning maybe? Or maybe it's just another death. Maybe all lights go out instead..." She smiled wickedly over her shoulder, taking in any tell of Chimera's expression, the face is more of a death-grimace.

Chimera gave her nothing but the continued flat look of an unimpressed Seer master. Inside she was very disturbed by the implications. The red shift was everything speeding away from each other faster than the speed of light, then what astrophysics said was possible. Accelerated past entropy constants, a malicious and rapidly approaching Heat Death of the Universe, as if the Old Gods were sucking the energy out of the cosmos through a straw. Where they headed, a blue shift, accelerating closer to a total collapse of reality itself. In the middle, this place.

The planet was a tomb, a carcass that was fucked until the soft parts were eaten by vermin, bones used in profane rituals, then fossilized and dusted by a million years of aging but not reclaimed by wildlife or bacteria. The mess was then slow roasted by a dying star, that never expanded to consume the planet, until the surface reached an even char and yet is somehow still completely recognizable as the school the group just left.

Odd infant cooing sounds and clicking come from a dilapidated brownstone nearby, "Don't dawdle." The Letigium waves her hand in the direction of the sound dismissively and presses on.

The Realm of Liminality

Names: The Place Between, the In-Between, the Between, the Realm of Liminality, the Upside Down, the Abyssal World, the Liminal Emanation, the Other World,

Most mages reject the theory that alongside the Fallen World and the overlay of the Supernal World seen with Mage Sight there may exist an Abyssal World at also reflects and overlaps the Fallen World.  

Other mages are less sure, having caught glimpses of this "Abyssal World" with those same mystic sights in places were Abyssal Verges and Paradox Anomalies have occurred.  Who would want to look further?  As a result, the vast majority of the worlds mage population (including even most Scelesti) don't know that such a place exists.

And it does exist. The Place Between is an Emanation Realm of the Gate, perhaps the Gate IS the realm. It is an Emanation Realm of the Abyss and the Space Arcanum. It is a twisted border-realm which appears much as the world where the realm was entered, however everything is twisted, rotten and corroded. Everything new in the real is a ruin, covered in thick scrawled sigils, the sun pale and the stars a sickly red arranged in foreign formations. To those who have studied the Abyss it looks an awful lot like a Qlippoth Nightmare Realm, however not as extreme. In this realm, the Abyss can manifest freely without the enervating effects of reality, for it is not truly an Emanation Realm of the Supernal, but the true shore of the Abyss.It IS perhaps the inside of the hovel on the shore of Ouroboros. The Citadel of the Other is the Astral representation of this place...Now you know what is inside...

Know best to Gulmoth and the hidden Seer Ministry called the Secret Order of the Gate, the realm is mostly empty but for the Gatekeepers and their attendants. Gatekeepers whisper that the Forbidden Exarch bargained with the Abyss so that it would curse the world with the Lie. The Gate stood between the Fallen World and the Abyss to conduct its negotiations. Members of his secret Ministry learn to enter that the Liminal Emanation, which resembles a ruined, distorted mirror of the material realm. Abyssal entities haunt the Place Between, and spatial distortions allow for shortcuts between mirrored locations. Irises manifest in Abyssal Verges, or at the site of the most extreme Space Paradoxes.

Distance is a fragmented, tenuous concept here. The mage uses esoteric insights to find shortcuts, so that even though he takes a normal pace in the Place, he moves much faster relative to the material plane. If a traveler cannot find or make an exit they become trapped in the Place Between. Since Abyssal manifestations easily hide and slip into the realm and there is no clean food or water to sustain life, the traveler is probably doomed to a slow death. On the other hand, Intruder possessed Gatekeepers occasionally DO come back...
The realm has no true natives. The transient Gulmoth population tend to be scathing but more interested in tempting and bargaining than immediately trying to devour explorers. This is perhaps because the realm forces them to define themselves with inherent vulnerability. Gulmoth stalk the wasted borderland, corrupting and consuming what Resonates with them. They are especially interested in beings and objects fresh from the Fallen World.

The conspiracy within their ranks of the Seers of the Throne, those initiates of the Secret Order of the Gate are priests of the Other Aeon and enjoy privileges in the Place Between. Sometimes, for reasons even the Secret Order of the Gate is yet unaware of, when exiting the Place Between a traveler may find himself in the shores of the Ocean Oroboros, usually near the hut of the Old Man. Such mages are in the flesh, not their dream form. Thus he uses Health in place of Dream Health, which leaves him vulnerable to true death. The Ecstatic Winds function as normal but the Amnion can be raised as normal.  The victim then has to face either a hard road back to the physical world or back into the Place Between after a brief visit.

Anomalies and Features

The Place Between is a direct reflection of the Fallen World with some significant changes.  The cosmic entropy constant is accelerated.  Objects and buildings appear significantly aged even when their Fallen World counterpart is brand new.  When the sun is visible its red and always in a state of total lunar eclipse.  The realm is affected by the space/time shifting of relativistic speeds and the entropy of the Abyss draining all visible light.

The Place Between shares many traits simultaneously of both a Supernal and Abyssal Verge.  But whereas a Supernal Verge of Pandemonium would normally have a Mind Arcanum component (however subdued), the Place Between only resonates with the Space Arcanum because of its resonance with travel and liminal spaces.

Travel and even keeping your bearings is very difficult and traitorous in the Place Between.  People tend to get lost easily despite how easy the intervening space appears to be.  Space folds and warps strangely and apparent distances expand and contract both physically and perceptively. STs can multiply or divide distances in the Place between by the rating of the Extreme Environment Tilt for a given area.

While gravity remains unchanged, it can be in different directions and change suddenly as space is warping the direction of the gravitational force, usually along with piece of terrain that used to be the ground. Objects sometimes roll uphill, fall sideways or float if caught between two gravitational axises. There are also small Thuraes and unstable Irises ripped into into other planes sometimes aligning with Abyssal Verge in the Fallen World or other planes.

Space folds into fractals and contorts itself within the Place Between and create a variety of extreme weather and environmental conditions. What makes it an Extreme Environment are areas of extreme heat or cold, shifts in direction of gravity, intense pressure, vacuum, sudden micro-decompressions. Radiation, toxic gases, heat lightning, very rare but acidic precipitation, very high/violent winds, flying abrasive material and particles. In general the realm in its calmest places is described as humid, hot and light from the eclipsed sun is red shifted and weak.

The Place Between is sterile, without bacteria, micro organism or viruses. The only exception to this rule are Gulmoth and other Abyssal intrusions and manifestations that may take the form or substance of these micro organisms. This doesn't mean that food and drink found in the Place Between is safe for consumption. All such edibles almost always have light irradiation, severe spoiling and soiled with toxic chemicals. Explorers should bring their own supplies and exercise great care of contamination when breaking them open. Even with this care its very common that explorers that do not insulate themselves with Shielding spells will contract mild radiation sickness and food poisoning if they breath in, swallow or eat anything in the realm.
The messed up thing is that the Place Between is pretty nice and safe compared to other parts of the Abyss I have designed (future posts promised).  This is one of the places in the Abyss that is closest to Earth.

TILT: Extreme Environment

While characters are exposed to these conditions, they suffer the level of the environment as a penalty to all actions. After a number of hours/scenes equal to the character’s Stamina, he takes bashing damage equal to the environment’s level once per hour. In the case of a Level 3 exposure, the damage is lethal instead of bashing. Fourth-level environments cause lethal damage each turn after a number of turns equal to the character’s Stamina. Any damage caused by levels 2–4 exposure leaves lasting marks, scars, and tissue damage. Damage caused by Extreme Environments cannot be healed until the character is back in a safe environment.  Examples: Level 1 - Light snow, heavy storms; too cold to sleep safely; air. pressure causes shortness of breath; sweltering sun can cause first-degree burns. Level 2 - Heavy snow; cold causes physical pain and potential hypothermia; sun quickly causes first degree burns, can cause second degree burns with time; minor radiation poisoning. Level 3 - Desert exposure; heat rapidly causing second-degree burns; moderate radiation exposure. Level 4 - Desert sandstorm, severe hurricane, tornado, tsunami.

Between Being and Unbeing

The symbolism of the Place Between is that of liminality, the silence of non-existence between every point of existence. The following is an exhaustive list of the unique laws and aspects the Place Between display:

1. Space Yantras: The realm can be used as a +2 Environmental Yantra for the Space Arcanum.  While the realm shares a lot of traits with a Supernal Verge, Space spells do not have unlimited Reach but this is offset by the lower starting Paradox levels.

2. Summoning Gulmoth: The realm grants a +2 bonus to rituals and spells to Summon Abyssal Entities (other than Supernal Summonings).

3. Abyssal Incursions: The Storyteller's Abyssal Incursion roll during a Supernal Summonings is a Rote action.

4. Paradox: Space Magic does not automatically risk Paradox, all other Arcana spells do risk Paradox (Starts at a pool of +1).

5. Dissonance: All active magical spells risks Dissonance at the end of every scene.  10 dice are rolled as the Integrity pool for Dissonance rolls.  Objects in or taken from the Place Between cause the same issues with Dissonance (see rules below).

6. Skill Penalties: Skill Rolls dealing with directions, travel, distance, mapping, navigation or Survival take a -3 penalty.

7. Extreme Environment: All parts of the the Realm have an Extreme Environmental Tilt rated from 1 to 3 and do Resistant damage.  The rating of the Extreme Environment corresponds directly correlated to how distance in that area is either multiplied or divided.  A rating of 1 is by far the most common.

8. Perception Penalties: With the warping of the realm and its spatiality all Perception checks except for taste and touch take a -2 Penalty.  This penalty does not stack with the -3 Skill penalty even if the Skill rolls are heavily relying on mundane senses.  Instead, the highest penalty is used.

9. Infested: While the realm looks desolate and mostly empty, devoid of all life. There are lots of Gulmoth here either seeping in from the Abyss via Thuraes, Gulmoth cast-offs from summonings or left here by Gatekeepers.  All Gulmoth are considered to have the Materialized Manifestation and cannot have a Twilight Manifestation.  One of the benefits of dealing with Gulmoth in the realm is that they are forced a shape with its own Bans and Banes without hiding in Twilight.  If they lose all Corpus they can heal as a Spirit does in the Shadow.  If they lose all Corpus and Essence they are banished back into the Abyss.

10. Space Entry/Escape: Attempting to use Space magic to Teleport or Portal into or out of the Place Between automatically fail, only Thuraes, special locations and rituals allow for an explorer to enter the realm or escape back into the Fallen World. in the Place Between.  The Place Between is considered another plane of existence and is resistant to use of Space Magic across realms as if it were the Underworld of the Hedge.

11. Resistant Spatiality: Using Space magic to teleport or portal inside destinations within the Place Between does not work as the realm's space resists folding in any helpful way (unless you have the Parametric Language or have the special Attainments of Gatekeepers.  Using Space magic to help navigate takes a -3 penalty but functions as normal but can only boost or assist in navigation rolls and escape rolls outlined below.

12. Traveling the Liminal Realm: Within the realm an explorer can attempt to devise a relatively linear path to a location in the realm that corresponds to a destination in the Fallen World.  Depending on how successful the roll, this dangerous place can get somewhere much faster on foot then in the Fallen World.  To attempt to navigate the twisted maze of the Place Between an explorer rolls Resolve + Survival (-3 total penalty and Environmental Tilts may make this worse).  A roll represents a Scene of travel and at the end of each Scene the party takes the damage for the Environmental Tilt they are in the majority of the time. Results are as follows:

• Dramatic Failure: Take a Beat, Lose a Willpower point, Gain the Lost Condition, you gain no progress to navigating to where you are trying to reach and must discard the Lost Condition before you can roll again which takes another Scene/Hour.  You also will most likely run afoul of a strong Gulmoth or a pack of lesser Gulmoth.
  
• Failure:  You can travel no faster than normal Speed but make no progress towards your destination.  You may also have to dodge a Gulmoth or run into a narrative obstacle. 
• Success: You plot a course for the duration of the Scene to your destination.  Narrative elements along the way do not impede your travel time/speed/distance and are considered included. The amount of ground you cover during that time correlates directly to distances in the Fallen World.   is equivalent to your base Speed (or lowest Speed of the party) to the Power of your Successes +1. Speed can be calculated into Miles per Hour to determine how far the group can travel in a Scene (1 Hour): Speed is feet per second (or yards in 3 seconds) x 60 seconds x 60 minutes divided by 5,280 feet in a mile = MPH or how much distance you cover in the Fallen World in miles.  Once you arrive at the realm's reflection of your destination in the Fallen World you still need to find a way out near your destination.
• Exceptional Success: Additional successes dramatically increase the ground covered and effective Speed.  Your travel is boring and relatively safe thanks to your effective navigation. In addition, take a Willpower Point and gain the Informed (Place Between) Condition.  At your destination this will come in handy for finding a pathway back into the Fallen World. 

11. Egress: Finding a way out of the Place Between is even more difficult than finding a Thurae in. Places in the Fallen World that have Thuraes or Abyssal Verges may offer a path back into the Fallen World from the realm.  Closed and invisible irises occasionally open through Abyssal Verges and locations in the Fallen World where the worst Space Paradoxes occurred or are occurring.  Creating excessive and repeated Space Anomalies may create a way out but come with their own serious risks.  Natural exits caused by thin space fabric or folds can be found and opened using some sort of ritual or condition but they are not readily visible in the Place Between, nor do they look like one.  An explorer can attempt to intuit a ritual or action to create or find an Iris by making a Intelligence + Occult (with the -3 Skill Penalty and possible Environmental Penalties) roll once per Scene (hour).  Results are as follows:

• Dramatic Failure: Take a Beat, Lose a Willpower point.  Not only do you fail to come up with a ritual or find a natural Iris but you also botch the chances of finding one in this area.  The explorer is forced to attempt to travel to a new place near their destination in search of a way out.  The failure wastes a Scene on location and no doubt attracts the attention of hungry Gulmoth.
• Failure:  You spend the scene in an area looking for an Iris or trying to develop a ritual to escape but don't find or come up with anything.  There may be an additional narrative obstacle based on Storyteller discretion.
• Success: You find traces of an Iris or other point of egress and come up with some ideas on how it may be opened using a ritual act, key or conditional trigger.  Ritual ideas often look counterintuitive or nonsensical, such as chaining oneself to a wall or maiming one's own feet with a loose piece of pavement.  The ritual or Iris will cost something in harm or sacrifice.
• Exceptional Success: You find a hidden Iris or develop a ritual and you and your party may pass through easily and immediately.  Take an Arcane Beat and recover one Willpower Point.  The egress does not have much of a cost at all.

Gatekeeper Pro Tip: Causing a serious Space Paradox in a future destination may actually make a way for a traveler to escape to that place at a later time.  Of course if you can go to your destination to set that up why do you need to travel the Place Between to get there?  Still, Gatekeepers will create such damage to the fabric of Space in their Sanctums and Safe Houses so they can retreat from an enemy through the Place Between and arrive back at their Sanctum safely and without anyone following them.

Objects from the Upside Down

Visitors to the Place Between may pick up debris in it, and with effort carry it back to the Fallen World. Carrying such a piece saps one Willpower point each scene, until the visitor abandons it or exits the Emanation. Once back in the Fallen World, the object counts as a Sleeper with an Integrity of 10 for the purpose of Dissonance. All debris picked carried back this way count as Sympathy Yantras to the Place Between, and have at least a Weak sympathetic connection to the Emanation itself. The sympathy is stronger the more warped a piece is compared to its Fallen counterpart.  As a regular Tool Yantra it counts as either a +1 or +2 bonus depending on the object and the spell.  Objects also have the Resonant Condition with respect to the Abyss.

For Reference: Dissonance

Dissonance does not only affect the spells of mages, but any exposure to the Supernal. Worse, it makes Abyssal entities stronger. At the end of a scene in which a Sleeper (or object in this case) witnesses (within the Scene) obvious Supernal magic, roll her Integrity (Objects from the Place Between roll 10) as a dice pool, Withstood by the spell’s dots, the Rank of a Supernal entity, or a number set by the Storyteller for other magical phenomena. Dissonance against Demesnes is Withstood by the number of soul stones creating the Demesne. Multiple Sleepers do not roll more than once, but apply a dice trick to the roll in the same way as Paradox rolls.

Dramatic Failure: The phenomenon is unaffected, and the Sleeper suffers a breaking point against Integrity.

Failure: The phenomenon is unaffected.

Success: If the roll achieves successes beyond the phenomenon’s Withstand rating:

• Spells: Each success reduces one spell factor by a level, primary factor last, to a minimum of the lowest level of each factor table. If all factors have been reduced to minimum, any further success destroys the spell.
• Supernal Entities: The entity suffers lethal damage equal to successes.
• Demesnes: The Demesne is suppressed, ceasing to function until no Sleepers have been present for the roll’s successes in weeks.

Exceptional Success: As above, and also;

• Spells: One Reach effect incorporated into the spell is removed.
• Supernal Entities: The damage inflicted is aggravated.
• Demesnes: The Demesne is permanently destroyed. This does not affect the soul stones, which can be used to build a new Demesne.

Legacy Attainments and Emanation Realms are immune to Dissonance. Treat Abyssal beings as Supernal for the dice roll, but they do not Withstand successes and Dissonance heals the roll’s successes in Corpus as well as giving the Abyssal entity successes in points of Essence.