Glitch - A Story of the Not - PDFCOFFEE.COM (2025)

GLIT�H A Story of the Not

Jenna Katerin Moran

Glitch by

Jenna Katerin �oran

Editor: Jenna Katerin Moran Design and Development Contributors: James Wallis, Carol Johnson, K. Alexis Siemon, P. H. Lee, Rand Brittain, Robert Vance Art Director: Jenna Katerin Moran Artists: Alexander Benekos, Sadia Bies, Silvia Cucchi, Elena Albanese, Maria Guarneri, Jenn Manley Lee, Kirsten Moody, Lee Moyer, Camille “Karma” O’Leary, Beatrice Pelagatti, Robin Scott, Elizabeth Sherry, Melissa Spandri, and Mel Uran Graphic Elements by: Alexander Benekos, Claudia Cangini, Peter Gifford, Jenn Manley Lee, and Jenna Katerin Moran Graphic Design and Layout: Jenn Manley Lee and Jenna Katerin Moran (with a debt of gratitude to Carol Johnson and James Wallis’ work on Nobilis and, to a lesser extent, Daniel Solis’ work on Fortitude: by the Docks of Big Lake) Thanks To: Damiano Baldoni, Cameron Banks, Jessica Banks, Jason Corley, the Eyrie Mafia, Marc Higbie, Kenneth Hite, Earl Hubbell, “Kill Ten Rats,” Neel Krishnaswami, Elizabeth McCoy, Lisa Padol, “Step into rpgs,” Eric Tolle, Richard Hughes, and everyone in the dedication and Special Thanks To: Rand Brittain, Kari Tuurihalme, Christopher Humphrey, Carl Rigney, Genevieve R. Cogman, Chris Nasipak, James Wallis, Carol Johnson, and the staff, sponsors, and contributors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Walters Art Museum, and the National Gallery of Art.

opposite: by Sadia Bies

Playtesters: Aquillion (“dying of absence”), Jas Austin (“dying of pits”), Vivian B. (“dying of mistakes”), Rand Brittain (“dying of the status quo”), Andrew Clough (“dying of distance”), Anthony Damiani (“dying of love”), Jay Durant (“dying of cooking”), Elliott Freeman (“dying of space”), Sam Freilich (“dying of sleep”), Iris Hastings (“dying of emotions”), Casey “geostatonary” Johnson (“dying of scheduling”), Edwin Karat (“dying of new technology”), Chris “Windienine” Lownie (“dying of identity”), Simkha “Isra” Melakh (“dying of hope”), Isak Nesvitsky (“dying of gates”), The Cochrane Nimuen (“dying of fraying”), Camille “Karma” O’Leary (“dying of softness”), R. “SpaceCatte” Rensberger (“dying of desertification”), Charles Seaton (“dying of fiction”), Alexis Siemon (“dying of anxiety”), Robert Vance (“dying of being perceived”), Xavid (“dying of incohesion”), and Teo Zimmerman (“dying of misplacing things”).

Content Warnings: This book contains existential horror; missing eyes; references to or supernatural analogues to depression, anxiety, PTSD, executive function issues, dissociation, and arguably self-harm; fantasy violence; some pseudoChristian and some pseudo-pagan theology; blurring of the definition of reality; a content warning; and short and non-graphic descriptions of a large number of very horrible fates. The protagonists of this game have broken from an ideology comparable to a religion, militia, or cult. Many have crimes in their past. Others are guilty only through association. This need not, however, be the theme of the game; often, it is simply one of its metaphors.

G�itch by

Jenna Katerin �oran

Dedication For Sonja Britt Borgstrom Cera Kruger Trevor Placker Phyllis Rostykus Gretchen Shanrock-Solberg Cheryl Hahn Rand Brittain Geoffrey Grabowski Bruce Baugh David Bolack Chris Nasipak Kiva Maginn Lillian Heino Joseph Couvillion Cync Brantley Christopher Humphrey Anthony Damiani Chrysoula Tzavelas Raymond Wood James Wallis Dara & Anna Korra’ti Michael Maginn Killian Maginn Ben Lehman Rachel Swirsky Charles Seaton AJ Luxton Gayle Margolis John Heron Becca Newman Jim McKinney Kirsten Moody Elizabeth Sherry Melissa Uran Roland Hansson Miranda Harrell and Too many dear friends to list In memoriam, Zach Best, Rook Hallan, and Alice Gillberg

All text and art in this book is copyright its original creators. Glitch is the creation of Jenna Katerin Moran. Nobilis is the creation of Jenna Katerin Moran. All included text, concepts, and game mechanics are copyright 20012020 by Jenna Katerin Moran. Reproduction without the written permission of Jenna Katerin Moran or the appropriate artistic copyright holder is expressly forbidden, except for the purposes of reviews, blank character sheets, and copying reasonable selections for personal use and reference only. The mention or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright concerned. This book uses fantastical and supernatural elements in its setting, for its characters, their abilities, and themes. All such elements are fiction and intended for entertainment purposes only. This book contains mature content and reader discretion is advised. Nobilis was created by Jenna Katerin Moran (under the name “R. Sean Borgstrom”) under the auspices of David Bolack’s Pharos Press. It was later popularized by James Wallis’ Hogshead Press.

�ule �ero

you are not playing Glitch.

�ontents Under the Rain .......................................... 9 A Cup of Flame ...........................................15 The Excrucian Aesthetic ................................... 18

Fugue Chips ........................................25

Mundane and Magical Actions ........125 On Technique ..................................................131 On Ambiguity .................................................133 Magic .............................................................. 134 Using Mundane and Magical Abilities ........... 138

The Ballad of Cacteric Desertian....... 27

The Peculiar, Tragic, and Highly Alarming Death ... ......141

A Map of World and Nothingness .... 35

The Pace of the Game............................. 151

The Glitch......................................................... 35 The Imperators................................................. 40 The Beyond .......................................................43 The War ........................................................... 46

Divine Attributes.................................. 155 Eide, Flore, Lore, and Wyrd ............................156 NPC-Only Attributes......................................158

Immortal and Inconstant Things .......... 51

Eide ............................................................159

The Excrucians.................................................. 51 The Sovereign Powers ....................................... 55 The Rites of War ...............................................59 The Imperators’ Council................................... 60

The Basics ....................................................... 167 Theatrics.......................................................... 168 Image, Defeating World ..................................171 Greater Abilities ............................................. 174 * cheatsheet ................................................. 179

Hollow Places ................................. 63 What Mortals See ..................................67

Flore .......................................................... 181

Weep, Oh Weep, for Puffin Pearl ... ..... 75

Abhorrent Weapons ........................................190 Powers of Connection ..................................... 193 Miracles of Empowerment ............................. 194 A Life of Wonder ........................................... 197 Greater Abilities ............................................. 198 * cheatsheet .................................................203

What Miracles Target .......................... 91

Lore ........................................................... 205

A Sound of Larks ..............................71 The Riders’ Abstinence Society .........................72

The Essence of Glitch ..............................95 Character Creation ...........................................97

The Creation of a Campaign .................. 103 The First Story ................................................106

Campaign Suggestions .....................109 The Darkness of the Stage ................... 111 Spotlight Actions .............................................113 Beyond the World............................................118

The Apprentice Arts ....................................... 212 Transcend the World ...................................... 214 Arcane Mastery .............................................. 216 Greater Abilities ............................................. 218 * cheatsheet ................................................. 223

Wyrd .......................................................... 225 Base States ...................................................... 233 Destructive Powers ......................................... 235 Unnatural Effects ............................................ 237 Greater Powers ............................................... 238 * cheatsheet .................................................244

Miracles ................................................. 247

Quest Sets .................................................337

The Enduring Power of Miracles ....................248 Ordinary and Extraordinary Miracles.............248 Automatic Miracles ........................................249 Phantasmagorical Effects ................................ 250 Time-Consuming/Quest Powers.....................251 Bleak Powers ................................................... 252 Investigation/Planning Miracles ..................... 254 The Miraculous vs. the Mundane.................... 256 Wards.............................................................. 257 Rites ................................................................ 258 Geasa, Bonds .................................................. 258 Miraculous Conflict ....................................... 260 Wishes ........................................................... 260 Complex Conflicts .......................................... 262 The Nettle Rite ...............................................265

Absurdist Comedy .......................................... 337 Dystopian YA .................................................344 Folk Tales .........................................................351 Literary Fiction............................................... 358 The Long Road to Recovery ........................... 365

Cost............................................................ 267 The Four Costs ...............................................267 Damage...........................................................268 Revelation .......................................................270 Wear ............................................................... 271 Wounds........................................................... 272 The Ending Book............................................ 273 Death, Disappointment ..................................276 Infection ......................................................... 277 Taking Damage .............................................. 279 The npc Cost Pool ..........................................280

Gifts .......................................................... 283 Example Gifts.................................................286

How Limitless, How Beauteous! ... .... 297 What Miracles Know ........................... 307 Quests......................................................... 311

Arcs ...........................................................371 Naming Conventions Among the Ninuanni ................ 379 Primary Elements ........................................... 381 Secondary Elements ....................................... 384 Diminutives .................................................... 385 Surnames ........................................................ 388 Examples ........................................................390

A Voice of the World ............................ 391 A Voice of the World ...................................... 391 On Prosaic Reality .......................................... 392 On the Lacunae .............................................. 393 * mortal rules .............................................. 393 On Nınuan .....................................................394 On the Nobilis ................................................394 On Heaven ..................................................... 395 ... and, on Hell ................................................ 397 Great Serpents ................................................ 398 The Story of the Rules ................................... 400 The Wild.........................................................401 The Story of the Game ...................................402 The Deep Mythic ............................................403 On the Drowning Deeps ............................... 404 The Actuals .................................................... 406 On Those Most Wicked and Faithless, the Deceivers.............................................407 On the Strategists’ Accursed Fate .................. 408 On the Hidden Terror of the Mimics ............ 409 On the Brutality of the Warmains ................. 409

Session Focus .................................................. 316 Any-Time Quests ........................................... 318 Storyline Quests .............................................320

Index.......................................................... 412

Example Quests .........................................325

Character Sheet..................................... 418 Five-Attribute Cheatsheet ................ 419

Illustrations frontispiece 2 14 26 37 41 50 57 62 70 74 83 90 94 102 108 117 126 137 140 154 161 169 173, 180 189 195 199 204 213 219 224 231 239 246 253 263 266 275 282 287 293 296 306 310 319 324 335 343, 350 357 363 373 378 387 396 405, 411

(Ninuan) (Lacuna) (Castiel Breucos - the Sea) (Lexigern Tamje - Diamonds) (Senefrid Ordes - Poison) (Prescott’s Children) (Hradegais Loden - Sunrise) (the Mythic World) (Qistigard Serga - Interference) (The Sound of Larks) (Erchen’in Branza - the Sandwich) (Semsedin Agis - of Blood) (Filibrand Wulthos - of Questions) (a Ride Through Ninuan) (Guinemath Argand - the Rain) (Strategist and Horse) (The Pace of the Game) (Hopeless) (In the Chancel of the Angel of Tears) (Dreamweed) (Valenside Drasda - of Stairs) (Kyihild Duras - Confidence) (Semsenand Gettels - The forests) (Reccefrid Saldanes - of Wealth; the Vineyard) (Raniba Theos - Amputation) (Vilita Skaudus - of Signs) (Gaathuin Sarav - Cabinets) (Arcanist) (Gilgud Bregerian - Birds) (Overwhelmed) (Sisyphean) (Dulcilla Vaktin - of Teeth) (Filida Pieres - of Chalk) (Emmegild Nayan - Nameplates) (Ildilinds Reubos - Fatigue) (Homeless Strategist) (Gradegais Lauen - of Time) (Dresdinian Granda - Family) (Aunelin Alfmark) (Kitchen Failure) (The World-Breaker’s Hand) (Hatharid gerlos - Tourism) (Kaduin Vardes - Fame) (Khetta Harmajen - Dwarven Hammers) (Rabbit Shop) (Athfridia Cannolin - Subprime Mortgages) (Haidegard Gannon - Locks) (Fitting In; Serimarchos) (An Antagonist’s Troubles) (Grail Quest) (Titan) (Nikmoda Ranlin - Delight) (Clarinnia Spirus - Gravity) (Pelenimar Padas - Attention) (Centipede Meditation; an Ending)

by Lee Moyer by Sadia Bies by Melissa Spandri by Silvia Cucchi by Elizabeth Sherry by Maria Guarneri by Jenn Manley Lee by Mel Uran by Maria Guarneri by Beatrice Pelagatti by Camille “Karma” O’Leary by Melissa Spandri by Mel Uran by Elizabeth Sherry by Sadia Bies by Robin Scott by Elena Albanese by Silvia Cucchi by Elena Albanese by Alexander Benekos by Robin Scott by Lee Moyer by Robin Scott by Elizabeth Sherry by Jenn Manley Lee by Kirsten Moody by Silvia Cucchi by Mel Uran by Elena Albanese by Beatrice Pelagatti by Melissa Spandri by Beatrice Pelagatti by Lee Moyer by Silvia Cucchi by Beatrice Pelagatti by Lee Moyer by Beatrice Pelagatti by Camille “Karma” O’Leary by Silvia Cucchi by Jenn Manley Lee by Kirsten Moody by Jenn Manley Lee by Maria Guarneri by Elena Albanese by Jenn Manley Lee by Camille “Karma” O’Leary by Maria Guarneri by Elizabeth Sherry by Mel Uran by Elena Albanese by Melissa Spandri by Jenn Manley Lee by Elizabeth Sherry by Silvia Cucchi by Melissa Spandri

9

Uthender

�ain

In Hong Kong there’s this street restaurant where you can get a drink made with soda and with custard, with raspberries and with ice. I was drinking one, and he was drinking one—I’ve never seen him finish, though—and he was telling me again about the ants. “I thought they were coming in under the molding,” he said. “I tracked them back to where they were coming from and I sealed it up with tape. But they just kept coming in.” The sky was always grey in Hong Kong. Today it was drizzly, too. The lights were yellow in the room and jagged white cut through the ice. “I spread the tape out,” he said. “Eventually I’d covered the whole ... the whole thing. The whole transitional space between the floorboards and the wall. I’d filled the window beds with diatomaceous earth. And still they came.” “So you called the exterminator,” I said. “Who has the money?” he said. I shrugged. “I don’t know what I was going to do,” he said. “I don’t know what I would have done. It didn’t matter, anyway, because I caught one coming through the wall.” I took a few pulls at the drink. I waited. “It was not through the cracks,” he explained. “I don’t mean it came in through the cracks. I don’t mean it found a weak spot in the wall. It was only that there was this place, above the tape. This place where the tape stopped covering the molding. The ant came wriggling through the wood, in this place where the ant should not have come wriggling through the wood, and it left the wood immaculate behind it. “I got out my phone,” he said. “Because this thing that the ant had done, I did not believe that it had done. I got out my phone. I used my flashlight. I looked quite hard. But there was not any hole. There was not any thing that it had gotten through. There wasn’t any particular thing that any of them that were coming through, then, any longer. They were simply coming in. They were just ... coming in, you see? “And in that moment I understood the world was wrong.” “Oh?” “The world is bad,” he said, his voice rising for a moment, and then subsiding. “... it came to me viscerally, that knowledge, in that moment. It was a thing that I knew within my bones: I did

under the rain

10 not just live in a world that was running pretty well, only, there were the ants. I was not merely experiencing a moment of magic in an ordinary life; no superficial curse or hallucination lain atop more solid ground. This moment had betrayed a forbidden secret, a sickness running down to the very foundations of the world. A sickness that pervaded everything, a sickness that was in everything. It lay exposed.” “I see,” I said. “Do you?” he said. I held up my glass. There was an ant crawling up its side with a dogged, heroic determination. I flicked it off with my other hand; it fell away into obscurity. “I do.” “They said that you could help,” he said. “There is no help,” I explained. “Donny,” he said. “He said that you could help.” “There isn’t anywhere you can run to,” I said. “There isn’t anyone who can help you. They’ll show up wherever you are, now. Even if you died and got reborn as a cloud floating around some mountaintop somewhere, they’d keep coming, more and more of them, until they ate you up. Come on. You know that as well as I do.” He looked away. “And if I could fix that part,” I said. “If I could stop them. If I could help you stop them, or at least hold them off, it wouldn’t really help, would it? It sounds really nice, I bet, I mean, wouldn’t it be great if there wouldn’t be more and more ants in your pantry, in your house, in your life, and eventually eating up your bones and your mortal soul? —but that’s not what you actually want, now, is it, Mr. Cheung.” “If you can’t help me,” he said, “then do not be mean to me.” “You want the world to not be wrong,” I said. He scowled. He started to stand up, it was very dramatic, but I caught his hand. I tried not to flinch when an ant crawled across to mine. I said, “A long time ago—I think it might have been better than a thousand years ago, by now, I saw a wave.” He sat back down. “I saw a wave without a crest,” I said. “And because it had no crest, I came to understand, the wave was everywhere. The wave was in the sky. The wave was in the ground. The wave was in my eyes, in my organs, in my lungs. It was an unboundedness error; it was illimitable; there was nowhere in all existence, because the wave was crest-less, that was not subject to the wave.” He squinted at me. “It infected me,” I explained. “That’s the only way to make sense of it, isn’t it? Because from that day forward, I was drowning, but— you aren’t drowning. It’s not like the wave isn’t everywhere for you, too. It’s not like it shouldn’t be everywhere for you, too, I mean, we’re all in the same everywhere, aren’t we? But you didn’t see it. You didn’t see the wave that day and understand in that moment that the world was wrong. So you don’t wake up choking on seawater. You don’t find water coming out beneath your fingernails. You don’t have to worry that if you forget what you’re doing the city that

glitch: a story of the Not

11 you’re in will drown. There’s just the ants, for you, instead.” “They’re bad enough!” “They will be, in the end.” He made a face. Then, with a slow sense of resolution, “I can end myself. If I have to.” “Don’t.” “Don’t?” “You’d wake up in your home,” I said, “and things would be normal again, for a day or two, but there wouldn’t be any tape along your molding. You’d think, maybe it was all a dream, but more likely, you just wouldn’t remember it at all. You’d shudder away from the dim shadow that was remaining in your mind. And then, one day, you’d find a few ants slipping in beneath your walls. You’d tape things up. They’d get around it, and you’d tape things up a little harder. You’d ... wind up here, again, eventually, I guess, but with less of you in you, this time. Maybe none of you left at all. There would be more of you that was just a possession of the infection of the ants.” He looked away. Then he looked back. “Has this happened?” “I’ve seen it happen,” I said. “Has this happened,” he said, “to me. Have we ... been here, before. When I was more myself ?” “... not yet,” I said. I looked away, then back. I forced a smile. “Even if you did die, you know, even if you made it all the way to death, it wouldn’t help. Like I’d said. It would just follow you there. Reincarnation, whatever, Heaven, Hell—I hear it’s one of the only things that can get you kicked out of Hell, sent spinning back onto the tree of worlds. Wherever you wound up, it’d just show up there. And it’d be harder. Each time you die to it it’s harder to hang on.” “For you, as well?” he asked. I nodded. He was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “But something changed.” “Yes.” “For you,” he said. “For you, there was a thing that changed.” “I was drowning,” I said. “I was drowning, and ... and she touched my shoulder. She took it. She shook me, and she said, ‘hey, are you all right?’ And there was water dripping from the corners of my mouth. There was water coming from my nose. There was water welling up from the little pores up and down my arms. And she was asking me, ‘are you all right?’ “It was the funniest thing that I had ever heard. “I realized that all that time, I’d been hanging on to the world. I’d been gripping to it so hard I couldn’t feel my fingers, I’d been holding on to it so tightly that I didn’t even know I was hanging on to the world any longer, but I’d been hanging on. “Only: it was the funniest thing I had ever heard, you see, so I let go, and the wave— it carried me away. “It was unbounded. It was ... it was illimitable. And it washed me, thus, entirely from the world.” “Ah—” he said. He hesitated. “That is how we were meant to die,” I said. “Originally. Inside each of us—”

under the rain

12 Here, I thumped the bone beneath my neck with the first two knuckles of my hand. “There is a residual of Ninuan, that came before the world. And we were originally meant to die, and return there, to that land that is our source and home. But instead there is reincarnation. Instead there is Heaven, and there is Hell; all the mechanisms of this Creation. It is all very ... confuscatory. “When the wave washed me from the world, it freed me from that, it saved me; it cast me adrift from all that world into a place of deepness and of darkness, a place where—unlike everything I had known before that moment—things were not intrinsically wrong, were not intrinsically corrupt from their foundations; a place I could reclaim that aeons-buried self that I was truly meant to be. “You can hope for that,” I said. “If I let go,” he said. “... if ... oh. Um, no,” I said. “Ah.” “I mean, that’s not how ants work, right? You can’t just ...” But there I stopped. I sighed. “I don’t think you can let go and hope that the ants will carry you away, Mr. Cheung. To be honest, I don’t think you can do anything at all. If I thought you could, I would tell you what it was. If it were obvious, then I would spell it out for you. But it’s not obvious. It’s not simple. And I don’t think that there’s such a thing at all. It is just ... if there is. If there is something, then the secret is there, in the wave carrying me away. You are powerless, Mr. Cheung, but the world is broken; if you wish to find power, then you must leverage that break. The world has no hope for you; if you wish to find hope, you must transcend it.” “Learn,” he said, his eyes vague, “to ... crawl through the walls of the world itself, into the void.” They weren’t my ants. “... I guess?” He was silent for a time. I watched. I watched the shifting expressions on his face. I watched the movements of the ants. I watched him try. Eventually his eyes came back into focus, a plan, a thought, a theory found; and, for a moment, there was hope in those eyes too—and, none. He slumped. “A man,” he said, “cannot accomplish a miracle, simply because it must be done.” “No,” I agreed. “How ... how many have managed it?” he asked. “How many are like you, to have accomplished such a thing?” “I don’t know how many are like you now,” I said. “And I don’t know how many are like me. But I have helped forty-seven men and women in your position to find their paths, and none of them have made it to the other side. One is still fighting. Letitia ... she is still fighting. The other forty-six are wraiths and revenants, they are irrecoverable: their minds and souls just recapitulations of the glitch.” “Oh,” he said. I thought for a moment that he would judge me. But, bitterly, instead, he said: “This world.” “... yeah,” I was forced to say.

glitch: a story of the Not

13 “It should ...” he said. “they should tear it down in blood and fire. Proclaim it as a stinking travesty, sound the trumpets of Armageddon, unleash fanged wolves upon its every corner to savage it to shreds.” Wistful memory warmed me. “That was what I came back for—I mean, the thing I returned to the world to do. Back when.” “God bless.” I hesitated, then I shook my head. “It was the wrong answer,” I said, “though.” “The world is wrong,” he said. “The world should die. Therefore, you should kill it.” Outside the entrance to the restaurant it had gone from a drizzle to a rain. Neon lights reflected off of the sidewalk puddles and splashing boots. “This is obvious,” he said. “I tried,” I said. “I did try. I’m sorry. I killed a lot of things. I just don’t think it was actually the right way to go.” “Because—” he said, hesitantly. Then his face brightened. “Because, because there is love and beauty?” “No,” I said. The brightness faded. “They’ve got ruinous great glitches in ’em, too, I’m told,” I said. “Nah. I— I don’t know why, not really. I just started feeling … like, that’s a mug’s game, you know? Like my fighting it was just another part of the way that everything was wrong.” He sighed. He made a face. He brushed an ant off of his temple, off his shoulder, off his side. “If I defeat this,” he promised. “I will do you better. I will come back into the world in a blaze of fire and I will tear it all to pieces in a storm of light. I will ring down an end to all the temples and make a great shattering of chains. I will reave apart the substrate and the empyrean, when I have beaten this. And I will even end the waves for you, when I have done with all the ants.” “Thanks.” He laughed. He stood. He stared for a moment at his empty drink, and then at me, before the last bit of humor slipped away. “Is that truly it?” he said. “Is that truly all? ... I suffer for a while, and then it becomes eternity?” “I like to think,” I said, “that— that life is fighting. That life is choice. That life is hope. If you know what I mean. Not ... not that you ‘have’ to keep fighting, or choosing, or hoping. But just ... that once the last hope flickers out, once the last choice in it is gone, once you can’t be fighting any more, then you aren’t there to experience it any longer. That there isn’t any you inside the revenant that you become, that there can’t be, because why would Creation even bother? But I don’t know.” He nodded. He began to walk away. Then he turned back. “It’s— a weirdly good drink,” he said. “The custard thing?” “It is.” “Yeah,” I said. “You wouldn’t think it would be, but.”

under the rain

15

chapter 1

A

Cofup

�lam�

“ You will have to stay away from 8:01,” he told me. “It is broken.” “Why are you in my house?” I asked. “Please,” he said. “When it is 8:00, you must go straight to 8:02, exactly. Or you will become a thing like me.” — from The Sin (Emily/OC), by Galina Kirlienko

the

BeGinninG

Long ago, in the deepest dark, there was an awful crime; and that crime was the creation of the world. It burned up into being in the nothingness, a hot fire of awareness where there shouldn’t have been awareness; a wretched spear of being where there should never have been any being; a horrid spiral suction of a pattern where none such thing had been before. It impaled the void; burned the void; chewed it up and swallowed it. It disturbed it, made it to roil with its presence, and left it helpless before it because, after all, the void was merely Not, while the world was -Be-. After a while the world settled into itself. The spear flared into a lovely tree with pretty branches. The fire sealed itself into a wall. The world stopped claiming ground against the void; stopped taking quite so much from it, or quite so actively, and began to just exist there, a single candle in the endless forests of the night. It normalized itself. It forgot that it had ever been a crime; it began to think: it had a right to be there, a right to be that way—for look at its glory, look at its stability and its history, look at all the life that flourished there, dependent upon its existence. Beauty cascaded from the holy land upon its peak; planets grew upon the branches of the tree like fruit; when the winds of the world blew among its leaves, the whole tree bent and seemed to sing. To exist: to exist, was right, was just—was an a priori good. Glitch is a story of the Not: a story of the subtle fields and hills and forests that lie beyond the world. It is a story of the silvered flowers and dusty roads that can be found beyond existence, beyond perception—dreams that dream themselves in the endless darkness, “things” instantiated neither in substance or in skandha but in the structure of them alone. It is a story of an intangible, hidden beauty cast into shadow by the world: Of Ninuan. But more than that, it is a story of survival. In the void, there are those who are ruined by the world— corrupted by its presence and existence. For them, leaving the world behind and wandering in the endless vistas of the Not is no longer an option; Creation’s presence captures them. It seizes them, arrests them, acts as a cruel lodestone and a cynosure unto their lives.

opposite: by Melissa Spandri

a cup of flame

16 The world’s weight upon their shoulders travels with them, haunting them and twisting them, and shadowing the Not wheresoever it is that they may go. In the world there are those who are ruined, too—not by any specific factor, at least, not any that was supposed to exist within the world. They’re not ruined by a car accident, at least not one that was part of the inexorable unfolding of causality, miracle, or karma; they’re not ruined by a sickness, at least, not any proper sickness, or any that they were ever meant to have. Sometimes they’re not ruined by anything that makes sense at all: The world just ... glitches, and bits and pieces of their world are scissored out until none remain; or everyone and everything turns hostile unto them; or they become allergic to the pressures available upon Earth’s surface; or their skin, bones, and body start to blow away like sand. They end up in the void, if they’re lucky. If they’re really, really, really lucky, I mean. And then ... if they make it that far, it ends up the same. All that’s left to them, then, is to be a creature of the Not, but it is not given unto them to roam freely and far. They become broken creatures of the Not, with the world’s weight upon their shoulders, haunting them and twisting them, driving them always to confront the world, to hunger to confront the world, leaving them unable to forsake the world, and distorting and threatening the beauty of unbeing wheresoever it is that they should go. The world—that candle in the endless dark—it has its enemies. It calls them “the Excrucians.” Most of the time. Sometimes it’s a bit more sensitive, and it calls them “Riders.” Sometimes it’s a little more slanderous and it calls them “Damned.” They’re a lot like people, really, the Excrucians: pallid void-people, but people; except, they’re the kind of people who think that the world has to be gotten rid of. The kind of people who might just break into the world one day and slaughter Angels, reap down the branches of the Ash, and tear apart the foundation of our lives. If the world has broken you, they will take you in. They will raise you up among them; they will say, here is a warleader among us. From the ranks of the broken come their Strategists, their Princes; the Commanders of their Host. This gift is very sincere and well-intentioned. More than that it is, arguably, metaphysically necessary— For to be an Excrucian, to become an Excrucian, is, more than likely, to have always been. Upon completing the game, Eduard expected it to release him; that he would look away, rise from his chair, and resume his ordinary life; but this did not occur. The screen flashed twice, and then went blank, and Eduard’s world went out. — from A CAlCuluS of Glory, by Marta Meszaros

glitch: a story of the Not

Many of them are decent and brilliant people; their reasons for attacking the world are, more or less, just reasons; and they will welcome ye, o all ye who have been broken. But this game isn’t quite the story of the Excrucians and their welcome. This game is a story of the few—the very, very few— who have come to realize that that welcome is a trap.

playinG

�litch

Glitch is a game of exploration—a game of exploring the lush and mysterious world that Is, and the forbidden place that is Not. That these things are vibrant and full of mysteries is intrinsic: Play Glitch only once a chosen player, the “Game Master,” has a vision of a version or a piece of Creation and Nınuan that is colorful and worth exploring. Play Glitch only when that Game Master has dreamt up a central mystery, a profound and fundamental mystery, to serve as the heart of this game of exploration—or committed to creating a series of smaller mysteries (and wonders, horrors, and dramatic emotional moments, but, most of all, mysteries) to arise and resolve. When you have done so, these rules will brace that vision about with iron: demanding and encouraging that the players endorse and accentuate the color of the world and the Beyond. In this vibrant and uncertain world, amidst the colors and the mysteries of this place, you will tell the stories of the lost tyrants of Nınuan—of humans, or other sorts of people, who are broken by the world; who arise from that brokenness, to discover themselves Excrucians, leaders of the host—and in particular, of those few who have pulled themselves out of the fugue of that awareness enough to turn against the remainder of their kind. To say: I am Glitched, but not apocalyptic. To say: I see the world is wrong, but I will not bring its end. Do they defend the world? They may; or they may merely live within it. They may expect the other Excrucians to end it for them, or they may trust that the Powers of the world can well defend it—or they may feel called to fight on its behalf, for a world they loathe. Either way, they will join the Chancery, the Riders’ Abstinence Society—abstinent, that is, of world-murder and (traditionally) of angel-slaughter. They will come together with the scant handful of other Nınuanni who have made that same decision, beneath that banner: to face the wrongness in their lives, and yet endure. You shall tell three basic stories of their lives, as they explore the world around them: ӫ Stories of grief, tragedy, and unbeing ... of finding a way to live with what is wrong and what they are; ӫ Stories of pastoral life, of nurturing and loving the

17 things in the world that they have discovered that they value; and ӫ Stories of hubris and conscience involving forbidden things, life at the borders of the world, and wielding the arts and substances of the Not. Each player will take on the role of one member of the Chancery: one lost soul in all the lands of Creation and the Beyond. They design that Excrucian as their player character (or pc), dividing their focus between the self they dream themselves to be, the well of emptiness inside them, their mastery of the ancient lands of Nınuan, and their investment in the things they love on Earth. These pcs together form a “chapter” of the Chancery, and also a large portion of its entire current membership: This game is meant for 2-6 players, while the Chancery’s current roster numbers seventeen.1 In the person of their pc, each player will explore the world, digging out its secrets; speak and act, in their name; wield the powers of Unbeing; and pursue a set of quests: steps in their character’s personal evolution, as concrete as “fixing up an old house” or as abstract as “advancing through this period of time, in which I am under great and growing strain, until it spurs a memory, and a choice.” Completing one of these game artifacts both literally completes the quest, ensuring that the aforementioned house is in some sense fixed—or the memory spurred, and the choice firmly made; or whatever else—and also builds one’s character towards greater strength. The world is vast and ponderous and drives ever onwards towards its destined fate, but a wild power of choice and death lives in the people of Nınuan to change its course. Thus a player’s fundamental role, when playing one of Nınuan’s own, is to take actions—to inject their own choices into the story being told and, in so doing, change it. The subtlest version of this role is the choice of how they pay attention: It is a fundamental characteristic of Nınuan, and to a lesser extent the world, that it is responsive to attention; that what one attends to, what one focuses on, is altered by that perception, taking on additional significance and elements of what it is perceived to be. One could even say that this is the most important kind of action—that attention will, in this story, have a prominence that regularly exceeds that of hand and tongue and blade. For the Game Master (or, “gm,”) here, the game works differently. The gm’s fundamental role is not to take actions; instead, their duty is to describe ... to play ... the world. They present the unfolding tapestry of events that the pcs’ choices may unravel, take on the role of the 1 The gm can vary this. But, if you want a canonical number: 17. Of the 150-250 Strategists, and 900-1200 Excrucians, found on Earth. You’ll find a few more details on this on pg. 73.

other characters in the world, and describe the vistas that attention may then bring to prominence. The gm has a legacy role as the arbiter of the rules and of ambiguous situations in play—as the one with the power to decide how things work if there’s a dispute and the responsibility to decide how unreliable or unpredictable abilities and interactions play out.2 Making these calls isn’t the gm’s primary role, though, so Glitch may refer to the executor of this particular job as “the gm/group:” The gm’s job is to play the world, not to run the game, so if the rules or the situation have become ambiguous, it’s reasonable for players to make suggestions, for a tired or confused gm to push certain decisions onto the players, or for the gm to yield to the group consensus if one is clear. They have final authority only because they play the world, and that requires a certain ability to enforce their concept of it thereupon. Some basic roleplaying terms used herein include: ӫ

PC. As noted, the Strategist you’ll be playing is called your Player Character or pc.

ӫ

NPC. The characters in the world that the gm plays are known as npcs, or Non-Player Characters.

ӫ

IC. When a player is speaking as their character would, describing their character’s actions, or thinking like their pc, they are considered to be in character, or “ic.”

ӫ

OOC. When a player is not ic, they are considered out of character, or, “ooc.” For instance, if someone snarks about real-life politics in a way their character couldn’t or wouldn’t, that snark would be ooc.

ӫ Scene. A scene in Glitch is like a scene in a play—a set of more or less continuous events, beginning with the first ic event and ending when all the players have turned their attention away. ӫ Session. When the players and gm gather to play Glitch, the game events of that real-life experience comprise a “session.” If the group breaks for a short or medium period of time, e.g., for dinner, it is normally the same session when they resume; that, however, will be up to the gm. ӫ

XP.

Characters earn xp, or “experience points,” through events in play. These may later be used to advance their character arc, earning additional abilities and powers.

ӫ Campaign. A campaign is a complete game of Glitch: a collection of stories featuring roughly the same group of pcs and the same continuity. 2

If someone rewrites the world so the town all the pcs are in has never existed, for instance, what happens then? Is the town physically gone, underwater, or part of the nearest city’s metropolitan area? Are the people who were in it shunted nearby, placed where they “would” have been, or dropped into Nınuan? ... do people even remember that anything has changed?

a cup of flame

18 Some Glitch-specific terms used herein include: ӫ Quests, and Arcs. As noted, anything a character is working on or through in their life can be a “quest.” These combine into larger character-focused stories called Arcs, or, Advancement Arcs. ӫ Spotlight. When a player experiences a moment of heightened attention and significance, they may often put it, or its subject, in the “spotlight.” This incrementally advances their pc, and in fact all pcs, towards their goals. Nominally the spotlight is ooc, and so the heightened attention and significance are ooc as well, but it’s fine for it to occasionally be “referred” significance—if the players pay attention to something and consider it significant only because their pcs do, and the pcs are significant to their players in turn. ӫ Mundane Action. A “mundane action” is something a character does using their mundane and possibly magical abilities and skills. For instance, driving to work—or, summoning a ghost while driving to work, simultaneously arguing with your carpool about whether the whole process is safe3—would be a mundane action. The rarely used converse term is “divine action,” covering miracles, wishes, and switching out the law of the world. ӫ Chapter. A “chapter” of the game’s story is a short unit of play with a relatively coherent beginning and ending, giving everyone enough time to spotlight one or two key moments. A typical chapter covers the events of an ic morning, afternoon, or night. ӫ Story. A story is a larger unit of play, also with a relatively coherent beginning and ending, usually taking several sessions to resolve.

the

Excrucian aesthetic

Here’s what it’s like, when you’re in the Chancery. Food can be good, and food can be bad—but no matter how good it is, how satisfying, that satisfaction is tainted by the knowledge of the glitch. Your clothes can look good. Can feel good. That’s tainted too. You can work wonders. Mostly subtle wonders, wonders humans don’t notice, but you have it in you to rip down the stars. You can soar the sky. Revive the dead. You can have worldly pleasures; wealth, fame, and power. And all of it, everything, it can be good— But it’s never as good as it should be. It’s never clean. The world is wrong. Beauty can worm its way around that. Sometimes. You’ll see a sunrise, or a raindrop on a mirror; a spiderweb; 3

(It’s not. Don’t do this. Don’t call up otherworldly spirits and drive. You will die. And the ghost will be there. Silently, ghostily: it will judge.)

glitch: a story of the Not

a fallen leaf. You’ll meet a really immersive moment in a book. For just a moment, for just that one moment, you might forget the world is wrong. For just a moment, that thing is only—good. Not because it’s not wrong. Not because it’s not tainted. Just because, in that moment, caught by that, you can forget. Really awful things can release you too. Maybe that’s peculiar? But it’s true. Even Glitched who aren’t naturally masochistic feel some relief from sudden, unexpected pain. It takes a moment, when that pain has hit them, to remember that the world is wrong. That the world in which that pain participates is not just agonizing, is not just screaming, but is also ... broken. Filthy, wicked, to its core. If you’re in the Chancery, if you’re the kind of person who winds up in the Chancery, you can get a little pleasure out of ironic, bitter, or wry appreciation for the world. You’ll find something that you know is ridiculous, is not beautiful, maybe something you don’t even really like, but it’s just so unexpected that it kind of tickles you. Forms a pleasant friction on your thoughts. So you get really into bottlecaps or this one sports mascot or whatever, because, yeah, it’s wrong, but look at it: Right? Right? You can have that. You can have bottlecaps, and pink sunrises, and pain. You can dig your teeth into clever wordplay; elaborate irony; weird, unbelievable stuff you find on the Internet; and the roar of the ocean, the mist of a rainy day, the colors of the autumn leaves. You can have laughter and you can have wonder. The sharp sting of a sudden fall. ... you just can’t ever drink a soda without feeling like something’s wrong; can’t sleep right, not even once, not really; can’t find yourself appreciating some soft cool breeze or warmth. You can have friends. You’re not good at it, but you can have them. Humans, maybe; spirits; maybe even gods and Powers, angels, other defenders of the world. Are your friends inherently wrong? Are they participating in the fabric of some awful glitch? ... probably? Likely, really. But it isn’t clear. You can build a life for yourself. You’ll be bad at it. You’re basically always going to be bad at it. The feedback systems of the world aren’t designed for you. Nothing works quite right. The worst part is that no matter how much money you make, how much power you get, how many things you do “right,” how well you do, you won’t be safe. You can’t be safe. You might be able to provide for your loved ones, and if you do, that’s great, but none of it will matter for you. You’re still going to die. Horribly. Over, and over again. Being welcomed into the Excrucian Host, being raised up as a Strategist and a Commander, being recognized and glorified as the royalty of Nınuan—whether you quit the whole business and join the Chancery or not—that doesn’t stop the process of dying. It doesn’t free you from

19 the endless cycle of death and horror you got caught in. It just keeps you from completely breaking. It just gives you a little more control. Also, sometimes, you get hunted. The defenders of the world can wind up friendly, but more often, they see you and they don’t know you’re a Chancery member. They think, ah, here’s someone still out to kill the world. So they fight “back.” Even if they find out and believe the truth, they still might not be happy. As a member of the Chancery, you’re more likely than the average enemy of the world to be basically ok—to have never done anything particularly unforgivable even when you were a part of the Host; to have, perhaps, a good case that you were in an involuntary altered state the entire time ... but there’s no guarantee there. Some Chancery members were legitimate monsters. They don’t even all feel remorse. So it’s not like, even if the world’s agents learn that you belong to the Chancery, they’ll necessarily say, “Oh, ok, then.” The native powers of the world have raised their hands against the members of the Host; they will not easily set them down. If you’re in the Chancery, your core support group will be the Chancery itself. You won’t necessarily like the other members of your chapter. You won’t always enjoy their company. But you’ll all still show up at the meetings. You’ll all still be bound to each other. You’ll distort the lives you put together for yourselves, when possible, to be more in alignment with the others’. In many campaigns, you’ll all force yourselves to share a city, or a house; you may even travel or work together to address the mysteries that the gm has created for the game. It’s a connection, you see. Each other member—that’s an important connection. With someone who sort of, at least vaguely, gets you. It’s one of a very few that you’ll ever have.

Style Traditional Excrucian style is predominantly black, with silver, crimson, purple, and white as traditional accents. Dramatic coats are favored. Slacks and ankle-length skirts are preferred, although jeans and shorter skirts are acceptable—particularly if they’re distressed. Boots are the norm. Silver jewelry and black nail polish are preferred. The three most common overall looks are “strikingly military,” “this person just walked off of a fashion runway and came straight here,” and “layers on layers of thin, torn, ragged clothing, but no real skin’s showing because the holes don’t align.” Strategists in particular—the Commanders of the Host; the kind of Excrucians that star in Glitch—have an additional tendency to favor hats: a nod towards the crowns, coronets, and tiaras they so rarely, these days, wear. All of this is to a certain extent a template drawn from the specific needs of the war between Creation and the Not. It is an evocation of a certain image that arose from

The string on your finger, you realize, is a reminder that there is a zombie apocalypse going on. That everyone is dead. That things are broken. It did not work previously to remind you (in the earlier portion of this narrative), because you did not want to know. — from The ViruS, The WiTCh, And The WArdrobe, by Sarah Mauer

the nightmares of the angels long ago. In practice, thus, it’s all more relaxed for Excrucians of the Chancery; the military variant of the costume all but vanishes from their wardrobe, their colors and styles loosen up, and Creation’s style filters in. In speech, Excrucians are florid. They’ve been known to open conversations with extended monologues on the composition of the soul. They love ornate, dramatic turns of phrase, and find casual reticence nearly ... painful. At their best, they are orators and rhetoricians; at their worst, most of what they say can be ridiculous. Players aren’t required to adhere to this, but should keep it in their mind: If something seems a little too exaggerated to actually say ... their pc might say it anyhow.

Eyes Excrucian eyes are generally invisible; the onlooker will witness night and falling stars, instead. For the most part, people don’t react much to this. They’ll notice, if they’re paying attention, or if they’re looking right at them; it may upset them, may excite them ... but usually they’ll just think of it as ominous or dangerously attractive and refuse to really process it. If someone does see, and reacts poorly, the power Intensity (pg. 168) can often calm them.

Names This text opts to assign the Excrucians given names evocative of ancient Germanic and surnames loosely inspired by late Roman-era Europe: Symbolically, they are Goths and Vandals, as the fall of Rome draws near. Note that this is, to some extent, an ooc adaptation—a way of localizing Excrucian culture to the expected player group—and can thus be changed. Moreover, whether the group keeps this convention or chooses to change it, players may name their characters freely regardless. Beneath this veneer of Gothic evocation, an Excrucian given name is generally a concatenation of a primary and a secondary element. As will be shown on pg. 379-390, each such element has a unique meaning; a number of ways it may be written; and a scrap of ancient poetry associated with it, which we will name the luthe. Players may freely make up their own elements, their own luthes, and their own divisions for their character’s name—or, for that matter, ignore these concepts entirely—but a number of examples will be provided in Appendix A. Surnames, as a relatively modern adaptation to

a cup of flame

20 conditions within certain portions of Creation, are more casually constructed: Even for the most traditional of Excrucians, there are no formal rules.

� litch conventions Glitch has certain conventions uncommon among roleplaying games. You can find a few of them below.

Perception is Active In Glitch, to become aware of something is to affect it. To pay attention to something is metaphysically potent; to see meaning in something, significance in something, often generates that significance and that meaning. This is partially an ooc convention of play, but it is also a deep truth of the world: Consciousness is a fire with a profundity to it exceeding even death’s. One may stare upon the end of things to hold that end at bay, or burn life into unliving things with the power of your regard.

The Players’ Emotional States are Rules-Relevant

The depth of game experience—the metaphysical weight of it—comes not from the gm’s description of the same, or the players’ assertion of the same, but from the players’ emotional response. To a certain extent this is true, and must be true, in any game; in Glitch, though, the matter is explicit and direct. Significance is found where the players feel the mysterium tremendum and the mysterium fascinans—the fearsome, alluring power of the numinous, commanding their response. The true spirit of a pc can shine through, earning them bonus xp, when they draw to themselves a certain player-level emotional response.

The World Moves in Mysterious Ways Being aware of the world is a kind of action. Being aware of the story, of what’s going on— That’s an action too. The gm doesn’t have to describe everything that’s going on. The space between scenes, the events in the background, the world outside the characters’ metaphorical or literal windows ... it can all fade, without attention, into the illimitable and illiteral luminosity of the void. The gm doesn’t even have to describe key things, critical gaming-important things, like how that thing that just happened, happened. They can frame a story, session, chapter, or the in medias res beginning of a scene, without going into the details of how the characters got there. That doesn’t mean the players and characters can’t draw back the veil of uncertainty with their attention and find out. It doesn’t even mean that they shouldn’t draw it back. This isn’t a pacing thing. This isn’t about ignoring the details and moving on. If anything, this is a game of lush and over-done descriptions, in the end.

glitch: a story of the Not

... but the players will have to actually do that. They will have to look; or, put another way, they will have to ask. The world will fade away if not regarded; they will have to ask ... and, in so asking, declare their character’s attention to the matter; in so asking, ensure that the specifics of their curiosity and the way that they are asking it highlight themselves in the answer, in the things that the players and the characters are then thus told. The spotlight system on pg. 111-124 allows the players to earn xp through digging into such uncertainties as these; its existence is part of the gm’s motivation to play such cards close to their chest.

Creational Narratives are Scenario-Driven Not every game’s gm has the power to frame a story, session, or chapter in the first place, although it’s nowhere near as rare as the ideas above. In Glitch, though, and particularly when the pcs are in Creation ... it’s the gm’s job. The gm is explicitly responsible for the basic premise of the game’s stories, sessions, and possibly its chapters. They have to start with the game concept and the actual character motivations, so they don’t have a free hand. Sometimes they will have to give up their most precious ideas. Sometimes they’ll have to argue over the specifics or turn to the players for their thoughts. ... but fundamentally, the gm is the one to decide that this session or this story, the characters are visiting a certain place. That the story of this game will be doing a particular thing. If the pcs have narrative momentum, then the gm can just ride along with it for chapters and scenes; if they don’t, and if the players don’t have strong ideas, then it’s the gm’s job to set the premises for the scenes and chapters too. Players do get a last-resort veto, a chance to say, “Um, I would never do that”—but that really is a last resort. When they’re not in active play, when the gm is getting the scenario rolling, the player’s job in characterization isn’t about deciding what to do but rather why: What’s their character’s motivation for doing this? What’s their positioning here? How, if it’s hard to explain, did this actually wind up happening, for them? Sometimes that’s pretty extreme, like, “I must have been drugged or kidnapped or something.” Most of the time, though, it’s more like, “I mean, sure?”; “I wouldn’t normally want to meet at a pancake house, but social pressure or mild depression might do the trick”; “I think I drove here on mental autopilot”; or “sure, let’s invade Hell to get her friend’s soul back, it’s got to be better than my day job ...” It’s not just the players who have to roll with things like this: Sometimes a player who is not the gm has the chance, with a quest or a power, to declare that something happens. To frame an event or a broader scenario and say: this.

21 Such opportunities always give the gm a lot of semantic leeway, but past a certain point twisting the players’ words isn’t really fun: instead, when this happens, the gm gets the same veto, and the same injunction against casually using it, as anyone else. If it breaks the game’s concept, the framed event or scenario will be forbidden. If it breaks a character’s concept, any player can veto it. If it breaks the gm’s ability to play the world or run the game, they get a veto ... but otherwise, everyone should find a way to make it all work out.

N inuanni Narratives are Character-Driven

Nınuan grants the players more power. Officially the game works the same way. The rules are basically the same ... but Nınuan’s narrative is fundamentally about the pcs and their choices. It expects— demands—the pcs to be proactive, and the gm should expect as much, there, too.

The Game Rotates between Character Stories In Glitch, each character has the opportunity to pursue one or more “storyline” quests—each an abstract or concrete element of their personal story arc. In the standard model for play, each session will focus on a single character. The game will be colored, for that session, by the themes, motifs, and elements of that character’s storyline quests—specifically, by the themes, motifs, and narrative elements recorded on those quests’ “quest cards” (pg. 314). These will temporarily provide thematic options, opportunities, and incentives to the entire group. The next session, or a few sessions later if that winds up being more reasonable pacing, play will shift to focus on another character’s story (or, put another way, their storylines) instead. One character’s narrative arc, for instance, might begin at a crossroads in their life—the quest, “The Crossroads,” on pg. 368. In the sessions that focus on their story, that quest will give each player opportunities to earn xp towards that quest with actions like “being judged and found wanting,” “having a flashback to the Nınuan of long ago,” or “walking among rolling hills.” When play shifts to focus on a different character, those options will fade into the background. When the quest completes, the character might move from “the Crossroads” to “the Long Night” (pg. 366); their themes, motifs, and opportunities will evolve. If the stories relate, and the group is quite large, the gm may choose to focus on two characters at once.

There are No Dice Randomness is ever an illusion; it is not one to which the folk of Nınuan are prone. They know all things are brought to pass by harmony and symmetry, and not by chance. “Failure” arises when one is opposed by a superior force or when the universe is ineluctably set against you;

The most plausible numbers in the world are zero; one; infinity. If there were no Excrucians; if there were, in fact, no beings that came forth from the void beyond the world at all, that would be quite understandable. That nothing should come from nothing, that nothing should arise from nothing: that would be the most natural thing of all. Or one Excrucian, perhaps, that would be understandable: a fold, to capture the un-infinity. The quixotic exception to the rule. But if there are a number of Excrucians— If we are under attack from the space of “what does not exist”— Then surely the most plausible size for that host would be infinity. Any smaller number suggests that the state of Not Being, like the state of Being, is finite; that there are literally a limited number of things that don’t exist. Surely the host must be infinite; uncountably infinite; immeasurably, impossibly, unlimited in its infinities, beyond any census-taker’s dreams. Why, then, do we only see a handful of them? Why can we count them, rather than being crushed beneath the weight of them, dozens, hundreds of them charging in at once to trample each square meter of the world? I have asked a Warmain of this matter; her reply was, “Ah: that crowd would be unmannerly.” — from The bellum mAGnum: A ChronoloGy of exCruCiAn ASSAulT, Volume ii, by Kip Narekatski

“success” comes when these things are not the case, and one is also acting within one’s means. Many actions remain unpredictable. Some are loosely specified, leaving certain elements to the gm’s whim. Others are specifically mortal, with a mortal’s weakness of uncertainty. And, of course, one can never predict what other characters, or complex scenarios involving other characters, will do. As a rule, though, there is no concept of intrinsic failure: When you declare an action, that is the action you succeed at ... unless it was impossible a priori or some external force stands in the way.

Experiential and Functional Systems Coexist Glitch offers two different styles of resolution. One track of the game’s engine is experiential. Quests are an example: they provide forward motion through a character’s life based on immersion in that life’s experience. Sometimes a quest assumes that the pc is doing or accomplishing specific things, too, and things will get weird if the player actively breaks that faith—but in terms of its rules and its pacing, a quest isn’t about what the pc accomplishes. It’s about their engagement: Through participating in life, through living it, a character can grow. Glitch’s second track is functional. Divine and mundane actions, for instance, are rarely “experiences;” they’re things

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22 characters do, to solve the immediate and long-term problems in their lives. These actions don’t lead to character growth, but rather survival and power: It’s through clever and forceful action that the character takes power over their environment; through clever and efficient action that they keep themselves alive. Only in rare cases—at the conclusion of certain quests, which from time to time may be exploited for functional results; in the void, where decisive actions are intrinsic drivers for a person’s growth—will these systems overlap.

Tactical Competence is Not Assumed Many games and groups assume that characters “should” take optimal advantage of their resources; that even a fog of war or a timer on choosing actions is meant not to discourage optimization but to make it harder. Glitch feels otherwise. The characters of Glitch are numinous and fell, but being numinous and fell is distracting and emotionally difficult. They aren’t expected to know what to do, or what’s going on, or even what taking optimal advantage of their resources would mean. Not in any sustainable or even semi-reliable way. In Glitch, it can be an action just to parse out what’s actually happening in a fast-paced battle; more than that, just thinking through what a character themselves can bring to bear is often a spotlight moment of its own—and, by the time the character has finished sorting one or both of those things out, it’s quite possible that the situation in question will have changed. Fortunately, harsh as this kind of rule may be, it will hardly be ever dispositive. Tactical competence is not assumed in Glitch, but it is also rarely, strictly speaking, required.

Conflict Goes to the Bloodiest Survivor Understand: damage and effort are the same coin in Glitch. To push their powers beyond their normal limits, to do extraordinary things, a character hurts themselves in a different fashion than—but to the same measure as—their enemy’s attacks. Sometimes when pcs engage in conflict with other pcs or with npcs, they simply win. Or lose. ... but a pc will always have the power to reverse a loss, if they’re willing to bleed for it. Exceptions to this rule are vanishingly rare. Many pc-class enemies will have that power, too; thus, conflicts between beings at the pc scale are almost never ended by “I can’t go on.” Instead, they’re ended by a timer. In any conflict, the gm can set a time limit. In most meaningful conflicts, the gm will. Usually, this is a gameworld time limit plus a rough cap on the number of actions or exchanges that they’re willing to see go by. When that time runs out, if no one’s won, Glitch puts an end to it: If a pc or a group with some pcs in it has paid at least a

glitch: a story of the Not

certain cost, they defeat any npc opponents. If they’ve paid more than any pc opponents, or any rival pc-containing group (possibly offset by some inherent or situational advantage), they’ll beat those too. If they’ve paid the price, in short, they win. ... if they haven’t, then they don’t. This cost is sometimes kind and sometimes cruel, but the only way to beat the inexorable logic of “you need to be this hurt to win” is to put a decisive end to the conflict before that point, without paying quite so great a cost ... or to lose, ideally while paying rather less.

Players may Invoke Events Not Causally Arising from Their Characters

Preceding space, preceding time, Nınuan organizes itself by structural congruity. It should therefore not surprise you that Nınuan’s people have powers and affinities that act not through cause and effect but through correlation—that there are things they can accomplish not through a chain of events but by making them appropriate. In some cases, this is a consciously invoked power, a way of cheating at the world, and the line between causal and acausal effects becomes murky. In other cases, the player can declare that a thing happens because it’s suited to their character—e.g., because it is an intrinsic element of one of their quests, or an automatically/unconsciously evoked option associated with a power. Then, it can only be understood as a thing that happens to the character because of who they are and what their story is; it is not a thing they do.

Most XP Comes from the Players Themselves Characters gain experience from moments that are significant to their lives and stories. The judgment of this significance is largely in the players’ hands. In a few cases, Glitch specifies that the gm is the one to hand out a specific source of xp—certain large bonuses, in particular, so that players don’t feel obligated by mathematical efficiency to pretend that they’re appropriate when they’re not. There’s also one kind of xp that’s awarded by the other players, potentially including the gm, based on their reaction to one’s pc/play. ... but for the most part, characters earn their way forward through their lives on their own, and not at a pace the gm can adjudicate. Looking at this from another angle, character growth in Glitch is principally something you do, not something that happens to you.

And Finally: Death has Little Sting The standard effect of death, or dying, is to fall from the world into Nınuan—there to gather your strength until you can bear to live once more. If you die in Nınuan, things are a little more troubling ... but factors still exist that can restore you, or someone very much like you, later on.

23

� esources Glitch draws on works of surrealism, contemporary horror, mystery, post-Expressionism, and high fantasy for its inspirations; it is intended to capture elements of each. In practice, it works best when paired with vividly drawn characters and settings, idealized and hyperreal, such as one might see in: ӫ Bryan Fuller’s “Pushing Daisies” ӫ Joel David Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen’s “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” ӫ Joshua Brand and John Falsey’s “Northern Exposure” ӫ Lemony Snicket’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events” - ... also notable as a story of eternally encroaching doom where each protagonist has a unique, peculiar, and personal Technique (pg. 131) ӫ Neil Gaiman’s “Coraline” or ӫ Paul Haggis’ “Due South.” These are some stories that could have been told in Glitch; the protagonists—literally, or with a little translation work—bear an essential similarity to the protagonists of this game: ӫ C.S. Friedman’s Black Sun Rising ӫ David Greenwalt and Joss Whedon’s “Angel” ӫ DC Comics’ “Hellblazer” ӫ Hayao Miyazaki’s “Howl’s Moving Castle” (based on a book by Diana Wynne Jones) ӫ Ikuko Itoh’s “Princess Tutu” ӫ Kousuke Oono’s “Gokushufudou: the Way of the House Husband” ӫ Kunihiko Ikuhara’s “Revolutionary Girl Utena” ӫ Lawrence Watt-Evans’ The Lords of Dûs ӫ Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné; The Sailor on the Seas of Fate; Weird of the White Wolf; and Stormbringer ӫ Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (Northern Lights/The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; and The Amber Spyglass) ӫ Ryūtarō Nakamura’s “Kino’s Journey” (based on a manga by Keiichi Sigsawa) - particularly notable for its thematic statement: “The world is not beautiful; therefore, it is beautiful.” and ӫ Simon R. Green’s Sharper than a Serpent’s Tooth (and the Nightside books, more generally). These are a few more stories whose characters, taken more thoroughly out of context, might inspire pc designs: ӫ C.S. Friedman’s This Alien Shore ӫ Lawrence Watt-Evans’ Nightside City ӫ Ryukishi07’s “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni” and ӫ Stephen R. Donaldson’s Mordant’s Need (The Mirror of Her Dreams; A Man Rides Through)

The world of Glitch is haunted by a mythic dream that hides behind, but is embodied in, the prosaic known; a few works with a perspective on this idea include: ӫ China Miéville’s The City & The City; Un Lun Dun ӫ Hayao Miyazaki’s “Princess Mononoke” - ... also notable for the quote: “Life is suffering. [...] The world is cursed. But still you find reasons to keep living.” ӫ Hayao Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away” and ӫ Kate Griffin’s A Madness of Angels. A reader looking for touchstones for lost Nınuan should know that the most mundane and Earthly portions of its terrain are generally evocative of the French countryside; if more than that is needed, as of course it might well be, a certain inspiration may be found in: ӫ C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew ӫ Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities ӫ Jorge Luis Borges’ The Book of Imaginary Beings ӫ J. R. R. Tolkien’ The Silmarillion, and ӫ Roger Zelazny’s The Chronicles of Amber (Nine Princes in Amber; The Guns of Avalon; Sign of the Unicorn; The Hand of Oberon; and The Courts of Chaos) ... in short, in broken and deserted Charn, and in the Wood Between the Worlds; in the eerie, impossible lands of Calvino’s book and the eccentric singularities of Borges’; in the archaism of the Silmarillion’s text as it studies events preceding the grand and well-known story of its world; and in the shadowed, hallowed glory of the princes and the princesses of Amber. A few works that might prove inspirational to the gm when they play—or to the players, when they try to understand— the law-beings and the sovereign powers that rule within the world include: ӫ Garth Nix’s The Keys to the Kingdom (Mister Monday; Grim Tuesday; Drowned Wednesday; Sir Thursday; Lady Friday; Superior Saturday; and Lord Sunday) ӫ John Brunner’s The Compleat Traveller in Black, and ӫ Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising (Over Sea, Under Stone; The Dark is Rising; Greenwitch; The Grey King; and Silver on the Tree)

A child, no matter how sincere, ought not seek to kill the world. An apocalyptic ideal—it is like fine wine. It must be aged within the cellars of the soul. — from The diSpuTe, by Jocasta Monday

a cup of flame

24 Lastly, some works worth specific and individual note include: ӫ Iain M. Banks’ The Player of Games, as a useful study of the Eide trait (pg. 159). ӫ John Sayles’ “The Secret of Roan Inish” (based on a book by Rosalie K. Fry), as an exploration of the shifting boundary of humanity and alienness against a Glitch-appropriate backdrop of rural life and natural beauty. ӫ Jorge Luis Borges’ Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius; The Library of Babel; and The Zahir ... perhaps to illuminate this game’s ideas of attention, perspective, and reality? ӫ L.E. Modesitt, Jr.’s The Magic of Recluse, to help understand the weaknesses of bleak effects (pg. 252). ӫ Lois McMaster Bujold’s Cetaganda and The Vor Game, as two additional studies of the Eide trait. ӫ Madeline L’Engle’s A Wind in the Door, for its inclusion of one of the closer Excrucian analogues in fiction. ӫ Tetsuya Nomura’s “Kingdom Hearts”—perhaps too animated to fit well with Glitch, but featuring, nevertheless, dramatic strangely-dressed characters giving speeches about the nature of the world and attention to the meaning of the Not; and ӫ Tsugumi Ohba’s “Death Note,” for its examples of destruction (pg. 235) and strategy (pg. 171) effects. While they are in no way a tonal match for Glitch, it may also help orient on the Lore trait (pg. 205) to review Clamp’s “Cardcaptor Sakura” and Hironobu Sakaguchi’s “Final Fantasy.”

glitch: a story of the Not

25

Interlude�

F����

chips

Let’s take a moment to discuss emphatic silence. There are going to be times when something happens in the game and the only reasonable response is ... well, to express how impossible offering a reasonable response would be. To lift a finger, go to speak, and then stay silent. To flail one’s hands. To watch, appreciatively—that would be fine, sure, but it’s also invisible: people actively playing aren’t necessarily aware at all times of who’s paying rapt attention and who’s just tuned out. So, in lieu of an actual emphatic silence, but when one would wish to offer one, the game will recommend giving the other player a “Fugue chip,” also known as an “xp token.” These can be scattered around on the table, for instance, in a tabletop game, and tossed—if they’re light and harmless, like, e.g., the typical poker chip or small coin—to the player in question, who can then set them aside. Or they can be virtual objects of one or another form. A player can only get one of these every 15 minutes or so—it’s approximate—and only one per in-game scene. But they can get it for stunning others speechless; for being so aggravating that others are left unable to respond; for leaving others silent with a breath of awe ... probably at the scene they describe and not at their roleplay itself ... or for any of a number of other things. The Fugue chip is thus one of two ways this game will have (the other being spotlights, pg. 111) to indicate attention without actively speaking; and it is the best way this game offers to express the spoken “...” when offline. Not all moments of great roleplay will get one. Moments of great roleplay that don’t break the flow of the game get a different reward: they don’t break the flow of the game, and therefore great gaming continues to happen, and the characters can move more quickly towards their goals. Not all moments that earn xp tokens will be moments of great roleplay, either: Sometimes someone is just stunningly daft, without it being on point for the game. Fugue chips aren’t about being awesome; they aren’t about making the game better; they’re only about evoking that moment of speechlessness, of emphatic silence. On some level, this is meant as a proxy for being awesome, as a proxy for improving the game, but it’s important to keep the difference in mind; Glitch uses a proxy in the first place so that players don’t have to deal with the social stressors that throwing around tokens for actual great play would bring. xp tokens, much like the name suggests, each represent 1 point of xp. Each also represents one point of something called Fugue—a measure of how much the unnatural quality of the Beyond has affected the target; of how alienated from the world they’ve become. This isn’t a good thing; in general, Fugue is a bad thing ... But it’s much less of a bad thing than 1 xp is a good thing, so a Fugue chip is still almost always a gift. Perhaps one might be considerate and not toss one over if the recipient is actively trying to keep their Fugue very low, but that’s a corner case; and, honestly, it’s fine to throw it over and watch their bittersweet look, even then. Fugue chip, XP token: a token granting 1 Fugue + 1 XP.

fugue chips

e xa m p l e o f p l ay 1

27

The

Ballad

of

�acteric

esertia� D One day, she was supposed to get up and kill the world. But she didn’t. She hit the snooze button, instead, and three whole times! — Diane Firth, on how Liutgarde joined the Chancery

scene

1: the �esert

[Enter Madeline Rush, the “GM,” and assorted players.] gm: Hi everyone! Welcome to Glitch. Once again, it’s time for the adventures of our three tormented protagonists: Tassilo, dying of treachery! edward: [bows] gm: Ciara, dying of strength! heather: That’s me! gm: And Liutgarde ... who is just plain eternally dying. diane: Present. edward: drumroll-ta-ta-drums gm: Last time on Glitch, Liutgarde broke up with the faerie prince she’d been dating. Tassilo watched from afar as the Angel of the Sea was slaughtered and replaced with a Mimic. And Ciara ... mostly, slept in the van? heather: She’s trying a new med. gm: How’s that going? heather: ... it’s a little too strong. edward: Oh, God, Heather. heather: [flexes her bicep.] gm: Today, we’re headed to scenic Midland, California in a Liutgarde story, to pursue a mysterious dream. edward: Midland, eh? gm: Yeah. edward: [tossing a spotlight card in the general direction of the gm.] So, what’s that like? [Spotlighting something can make the gm or a player cough up the details; see pg. 111.] gm: Well, the trip is a long and rattling drive across a lot of desert roads. I guess ... Liutgarde is driving? diane: Me? gm: Lo, for Tassilo is watching out the window with a spotlight, and Ciara appears to have some trouble staying awake. heather: Bah! I’m strong enough to drive in my sleep! diane: I think that your doing that would probably be best, then. heather: Uh, [nods] mm! gm: ... the trip is a long and rattling drive, um, across a

opposite: by Silvia Cucchi

the ballad of cacteric desertian

28 lot of ... random desert terrain, occasionally including or crossing the road. At night it drifts into the realm of the practically hallucinogenic, with nothing but you and the beams of the headlights and the owls or whatever going by overhead and Ciara’s head intermittently dipping down to bump against the wheel while you drift over the frantically clattering please-wake-up-driver-oh-god-wake-up strip built into the edge of the road. There are memories and cactuses and little things moving in the night. edward: I had planned to wait until I could actually see the city itself to react, but I think I can’t help actually grabbing the wheel at some point during one of these. [as Tassilo] “For the love of God, Ciara!” heather, as ciara: I’m awake! tassilo: You’re not awake! We almost hit that nine-foot tall guy with the antlers! diane, as liutgarde: ... I ... think you may have been dreaming, Tassi. tassilo: ... is that so? liutgarde: We’ve not passed horned men for miles. gm: Not since Vegas, at least. tassilo: ... my apologies, Ciara. I didn't mean to doubt you. heather: Ciara snores in an even-handed and forgiving manner, her head lightly bumping the wheel while her foot lightly sinks into the accelerator, as if to say that we all can make mistakes. gm: You are going to hit a large street sign. tassilo: Agh! [as Edward] I shelter my head behind my forearms and my rising hands miraculously slice apart the street sign from afar. [This is Tassilo’s version of the inherent Excrucian power of destruction (pg. 235): he slices unliving things apart.] edward: ... and possibly also the window glass? Yeah, I don’t think I can skip inorganic stuff that is in the way. gm: In a great shattering of ... hm. Wait, this is safety glass. In a great crumbling of glass the wind bursts into the van and the sign falls to either side around you. A cactus looms. tassilo: No! Organic produce, my greatest weakness! I can do nothing but await the end. gm: ... anyone? diane: I am going to teleport out of existence for the duration of the cactus hit and then reappear once Ciara and Tassilo have suffered their just fate. edward: Wait, you can do that? diane: It’s witchery! Maddie, that’s an Eide 2 stunt? [This is Liutgarde’s specialty: faery magic. An Eide 2 miracle— that is, a level 2 power using the Attribute, “Eide”—allows her to waive the laborious drudgery normally involved in magic and skip straight to the cinematic feats.] gm: Yeah, sure. And, done! For a moment, you cease to notice yourself, and Liutgarde ceases to be; and, even as she does ... n’t? that, the cactus plows into the van, tears free of its roots, and tumbles across Ciara and Tassilo in a

glitch: a story of the Not

storm of ten thousand needles and pulpy green. ciara: Anti-cactus punch! gm, raising an index finger: ... heather: ... [As a general rule, when no verbal reaction is really enough, you should give someone a Fugue chip (pg. 25). After a moment, Madeline shakes her head and does so. Then:] gm, finger still high: Your anti-cactus punch is a classic example of a measure intended to resolve a problem that, arguably, in fact, inflames it. heather: Aha, heh. gm: Also, aren’t you asleep? heather: ... well, not once I’ve punched a cactus in the face. That almost always wakes me up. gm: Fair enough! You are going to take a couple of points of Wear, though. heather: as is only just. [Wear, short for “wear and tear,” usually comes from tiring oneself out ... but it can also come from physical damage.] gm: And Tassilo? edward: Tassilo reflexively turns the cactus’ needles against themselves, in grim reflection of his own tormented, eternal fate. [Tassilo’s “dying of treachery” is a sort of illness. It’s not normally contagious, but it can be when he makes the effort, and he’s powerful enough to do that for free. Only:] gm: Does doing that actually ... help you? edward: Probably not. gm: The cactus tumbles into the far back of the van in an paroxysm of torment and self-inflicted, flailing needle wounds, then, as Liutgarde fades back into view and Tassilo takes a couple points of damage of his own. [short pause] heather: braking, slowly. gm: The night is still. ciara: This, is the work of our enemies. liutgarde: Dear, I object. tassilo: You have no grounds— liutgarde: The cactus does not needle us because we have enemies. The cactus needles us, because the world is wrong. tassilo: … accepted, then. gm: Moonlight gently filters down across the desolate and barren land. diane, referencing her quest card: Ooh, ooh! Can hints and shadows of my infection fill the world? [This is a “quest action”—one of the options from her quest card, “Entangled” (pg. 345) that can earn Liutgarde bonus xp for the chapter. But ...]

29 gm: What would that look like, exactly? diane: Well, I guess ... um ... ah, intimations of eternity? [The gm opts to roll with it.] gm: It ... does seem like this place has been here forever. Maybe also, maybe this moment is forever. This moment, when the van has stopped and the cactus has stopped and the world has stopped its spinning, maybe, and everything is still in a circle of frozen time; not even a breeze, not even insects moving, just a great dark space clipped out of time. diane: Liutgarde goes out to walk in the frozen scene. gm: It is as if you are the first person who has ever been here, in this patch of desert; as if you are Neil Armstrong, each footstep sending swirling the dust of ages. [Heather tosses a spotlight card to the gm, indicating Ciara’s ongoing attention to the matter—that this moment is significant to her. Since she doesn’t say anything, there’s no specific information or action that she’s trying to draw out: this is just a way of saying that this moment is meaningful, that it’s in the spotlight ... and, most often, of requesting “more.”] gm: I don’t know what more there is to this, Heather; the place you’re going is very far away. Unless Diane has something. diane, as liutgarde: It is said that the entrapment of time is the source material of suffering. That it is not events, not even pain, that causes us to suffer. To know that the world is wrong. It is the organization of those events into a process, through which we may build experience, through which we may know suffering. Were we to be free of time entirely, and the world to collapse into moments like pearls from a broken string, then there would no longer be anything of consequence, or anything whatsoever wrong. Thus, it is proposed, in the Seal of Time is the world’s original fault. edward, miming picking at his face: “And you believe this, sister?” diane, gesturing at his face: What, er, what are? edward: Needles. diane, giggling: Ah. [pauses, then, as Liutgarde] Eternity is an illusion, Tassilo. In each moment seethe the currents of the next. You have only to look around you to see it: here, where there is no time, the shadows of the past and future haunt us still. tassilo: Strictly speaking, I’m not sure we are actually outside of time— diane: The Glitch is not woven from the continuum; it is, I think, rather, immanent throughout. gm: A shadow slips across the land as a cloud obscures the moon. [Heather tosses a Fugue chip to Diane, indicating a certain frisson from the scene.] ciara, eventually: ... you know, some passengers would

have gotten out, not to give speeches, but to actually remove the gigantic cactus from our ride. liutgarde: I’m sorry, dear. The moment moved me. tassilo: Also, it has needles all over it. liutgarde: ... also, it has needles all over it. gm: Is anyone actually going to remove the cactus? heather: I assume we’re just going to throw a tarp over it and leave it there. Unless Liutgarde wants to do something. diane: I don’t think that’s a great idea. gm: Tassilo, Liutgarde, you can get a point back for disappointing Ciara, there. edward: Oh, cool. [pcs can recover a point of Wear, or some other “Cost,” by disappointing others. This isn’t so much about doing things badly—it’s about stuff like “letting others down” and “recognizing an obligation, and then not fulfilling it.” Tassilo recovers one of the two Wear that the cactus cost him, while Liutgarde recovers a Wear picked up from the session before.] gm: And, driving on.

scene

2: the � ream

diane: What’s this trip about, anyway? [gives the spotlight card.]

gm

a

[As of now, three spotlights have been used, which is equal to the number of players; this will guarantee them all a bonus xp for the chapter (pg. 112).] gm: Mm. So, this is a Liutgarde episode, as I said; and a while back, she had a dream. A dream of a place in the desert where time was out of joint; where death was no more; where tomorrow and yesterday blurred together, and instead of living and dying people just ... circle through their lives, forever, in an eternal rondelay. diane: ... for ... like, how long? gm: Hm? diane: I mean, it’s California? Which incorporated as a state in like, I don’t know exactly, but not exactly time immemorial either? Particularly if we’re talking about a place called “Midland.” gm: Ah. Yeah, that’s the thing, you see. In absolute time, the place is probably not that old, if there were such a thing as absolute time. It felt ... there was a 60s vibe. 70s at the latest. But at the same time, you don’t know. Maybe it’s been the 60s there for centuries. Millennia. Forever? diane: Like ... what’s someone’s life like, being in the 60s forever? edward: ... gnarly? diane: Hush. gm: The flit of your dreaming mind hovers by the soul of one of the residents there and ... it’s like, they know it’s happening. This teen kid remembers sweet summer days going back forever, and can feel that they’re coming; not

the ballad of cacteric desertian

30 exactly the same, you know, not repeating the same words or anything every time, but it’s always the same formula, the same combinations, the same people, the same loves and the same strife, the same friends and the same family, the same fun and the same hurt, out and out and out until it blurs by the sheer incapacity of human memory to hold it all into a comforting blanket of same as it ever was, same as it ever was. And they don’t think about it, they don’t like to think about it, that their choices don’t matter, that nothing they do will ever matter, because they don’t remember things well enough to know for sure how this day, with this particular combination of memories fueling each little subconscious choice and subconscious action for them and everyone else, much less their conscious choices and feelings, will play into the pattern. It’s happened before. They may even know, they do know, that it’s happened before, and it’ll happen again, once, twice, a dozen times, a thousand times, infinity, but it’s so rare and unlikely, each repeating of the pattern, that they’re not afraid of it; it’s just this vanishingly rare sickness that can happen, the short-loop nightmare, where just briefly, for one person, things are exactly the same as they know they are going to be; but that’s too unstable, it can spread like a virus, or rather, it never happens unless it’s already spread like a virus, but chaotic factors mean that it never locks in, and pretty soon everyone’s back in the morass of free will granted by their forgetfulness again. It’s a nice life, but they don’t have horizons, that’s all. They dream of going somewhere else someday but they know they never will because they never have. They dream of doing great things someday, and maybe they have this chance of doing bigger things than usual, but great things? They know they won’t, ’cause they never have. Their homes burn down and get rebuilt and pretty soon the broken step is broken again and the creaky floor is creaky again and the new paint on the walls is new again and everything’s the same, and the sweet summer days go on and on. diane: Jesus, Maddie. gm: Anyway, that’s probably it for the dream. diane: Yeah, I can ... see why I would be drawn to that place. Though really, Maddie, can we just burn it with fire? gm: The traditional perspective of the Chancery is that burning the worst parts of Creation with fire is arguably acceptable but a dangerous slippery slope, as pretty soon you’re back to just burning the whole place down again, and for some reason or other you’ve all decided it’s better not to do that. Also, the place already burns down now and then, I mean, usually the fire department contains it, but, still. diane: Same as it ever was? gm: Exactly. diane: And we tracked this down to Midland, California— gm: You discuss this on the drive, presumably. diane: Yes, we are very into exposition. ciara: As you know, sister, I am able to use my muscles to divine many things about the nature of the world. tassilo: Also, I can check the library!

glitch: a story of the Not

diane: ... I’m not sure how you’d look this up in the library. edward: You didn’t get the name of that kid you were snooping on in the dream? diane: ... did I? gm: Probably. ciara: Using delicate flexing, and Tassilo’s [air-quoting] “books,” we were able to track the location described by your dream to a town named Midland, California, which we are driving towards even now. liutgarde: I appreciate your catching me up on the matter, dear; I had gotten distracted and it had slipped from my mind. gm: Do you really flex your way to a location? heather: It’s a way of sensing the surrounding continuum. ... I probably need to pay a point of Fugue for it, though. gm: Fair enough. [The Attribute that governs investigation and pathfinding, “Lore,” can be improved on a temporary basis if the character acquires Fugue. In this case, to sense the surrounding continuum properly, Ciara must pay a point of Fugue—or, put another way, raise this Cost by 1.] liutgarde, pensively: I hope we arrive there tonight; I do not want to sleep in a van with a cactus. tassilo, defensively: There’s a tarp! ciara: You could take it out of the van. tassilo: Also, we have named it. It is now a member of our bold Chancery crew. It is ... Cacteric Desertian. heather: Saguaric? tassilo, or possibly edward: Saguaric ut-Cacterus is also acceptable. gm: Saguaric ut-Cacterus, who is dying of impact. liutgarde, wisely: It, like the world itself, has been broken. gm: ok, cut ... scene. I need questions or actions. heather: I would like to know if we’re going to get to town tonight, so I can, like, sleep, and stuff. gm: Probably. heather: ... gm: Sure. Um, you get to town. You ... find an inn? [Heather tosses out a spotlight card, wanting more.] gm: It’s going to depend what you’re looking for, really. A seedy motel? A bed and breakfast? Something well into town, so that you can get a look at the place under cover of night? heather: The first thing we find. gm: That’s a motel, then.

I don’t know what Tassilo fell in love with first, that changed his mind about the world, but I do know that it betrayed him. — Edward Jordan

31

scene

3: the � otel

gm: Everything’s brash light and deep dark. There’s a couple of cars in the lot, not many at all—though come to think of it, would there be any at all? ... yeah. That’s a bit weird, but there are. And an office under a lamp and with dim light that’s inside. And a creaky metal gate blocking off the stairs that lead up to the rooms. There are palm trees here and there. heather: ... I don’t understand what’s on the bottom floor. gm: Storage. It looks like this place is a motel but also a public locker site? So most of the places on the bottom floor are, like, unlit, locked up, sealed. heather: That’s ... a weird arrangement. gm, flailing a little on the inside: You’d have to ask the owner about it. heather: I mean, wouldn’t that be just asking for, like, theft, or something? gm, having an idea: Ultimately, it’s not like anything goes anywhere. But you’d guess—um, how smart are you? heather: I am very, very strong. gm: ... yeah, you don’t know. diane: I’m smart! gm: Liutgarde suspects, and this is clearly plot-critical information that I’m only giving out thanks to your exceedingly high “smart” trait, that eternal cycles tend to both produce and require reservoirs, buffer zones, and the like. Like, you have a place that serves to hold stuff and people springing up because that’s a more flexible storage space for the eternal township than a strictly plausible business model would be. diane: Dang. [throws out a card.] I’m going to call a retroactive spotlight on that. [Spotlighting an already-completed experience has slightly different rules than spotlighting something currently happening in play. Most importantly, the player has to note explicitly that they’re spotlighting something that already happened, and then they’ll have to follow up by labelling it as neat, scary, or mysterious. Diane will only be like 98% on point with the rules here, but that’s fine: first, players aren’t expected to be at 100% all the time, and second, she’s going to decide later on that this action was actually too shaky to count.] gm: Does that work? diane: I think it does. Like, Liutgarde’s mind has been expanded! She even narrows her eyes and goes, “aah.” as she figures it out. gm: ok! [That’s probably meant to count as “neat.”] gm: Anyway, you pull in and to a gentle stop, Saguaric utCacterus jiggling in the seat behind you, and get out. Your footsteps echo off the walls. A few bugs orbit the office light. edward: One by one, they fall, betrayed by their own

sudden recognition of the vastness of the universe. gm: ... why ... edward: I’m a helper! gm: The criss-cross wire grating over the light is now the only thing impeding its bitter glow. [A level 3 or level 7 miracle of the “Wyrd” Attribute allows a character dying of treachery to curse others to a similar fate. Normally, the Wyrd 3 version, which is the one that Tassilo can use for free, is too weak to just strike things down like that— but, these are bugs, and not even important bugs. It can totally strike THOSE down.] heather: I’ll head in to register. gm, improvising: The guy inside is surly. Surly Adams. A chipper young fellow, despite the name. He seems delighted if a bit perplexed to see you, fumbles several times trying to place your names, and seems terribly embarrassed that he can’t remember which rooms you like. He’s trying to grow a moustache and failing. He has a cap. heather: “Ciara.” And, in a bit of pity. “We haven’t stayed here before.” gm: Cold existential panic flashes in his eyes for a moment before he realizes that you obviously mean that you haven’t stayed there in the past memory-cycle, don’t be ridiculous. “Of course, of course,” he says, and smiles. “No wonder! Well, I’m surly, as you can see.” tassilo: A pathetic jest. I could address it for you? gm: “And this is the Midmarch Motel! Come on in, come on in, I’ll get you settled up.” ciara: Very kind. gm: He shows you to a room. It’s a motel room. It doesn’t seem like it’s changed much since the 60s or 70s. On the other hand, you’re not sure they ever did. diane: I think they were fancier. edward: And uglier. diane: Eh? edward: Like, they used colors from the forbidden dimension. Colors from beyond space and time. Colors so tragic that a broken, traumatized humanity has forgotten how to manufacture them—we can only mine them up from the remnants of the past. diane: ... and fancier, too. gm: He shows you to a large, fancy, off-purple room? edward: Exactly! gm: All right, then. There’s a pull-chain lamp. There’s a majestic bay window opening on a glorious view of the parking lot of the Midmarch Hotel: a grand vista of mountainous trash bins, wind-blown fields of old flyers blowing in the wind, and the desolate humps of cement parking space bumpers. diane: Goodness! But I’ve already had my spotlights for the chapter, [Each player can use two spotlights per chapter. Diane has spotlighted “what’s this trip about?” and “oh, I get how the motel works, that’s neat,” so she’s done!]

the ballad of cacteric desertian

32 diane: so I can’t stand in awe and appreciate the view. gm: In fairness, that second spotlight was kind of marginal. diane: That’s true! Let’s pretend it didn’t happen so I can stare raptly out at the trash bins and the desolate humps while you describe the parking lot in further depth. gm: ... why did I encourage you to do this? edward: The world may never truly know. [Diane recovers a spotlight card and then tosses it back onto the table.] gm, gamely: ok. Um. You see; I mean, there are ... rivers, where some car long ago leaked a trail of oil; rivers, flowing to the sea; houses ... of ... ants? Perhaps? They are too small to see. Cracks in the lot pierced up by blades of grass, like spears. Bollards cluster ominously near a hedge; they cast their shadows out into the night. diane: Bollards? gm: Like concrete sentinels. diane: That was not exactly my question. gm: Creatures of parking mystery. diane: Don’t make me get my phone out, Maddie. You won’t like me when I have my phone out. gm: ... short post-like things. diane: Thank you. gm: Beyond all this, you can see the faces, the corrugated metal faces, of the surrounding storage lots; and, of course, behind an iron railing, the lights and sometimes darkness of other rooms just like your own. liutgarde: … what a marvelous thing. ciara, softly, in concurrence: Strong. [A moment passes.] gm: ... does anyone have a quest action that they want to do? edward: Hm. Can I see the card, Di? [Diane offers him her quest card, “Entangled,” to look at. He’s interested because today’s session is a Liutgarde plot, and thus the other players can contribute to it—earning one xp for Liutgard’s quest and another, for themselves. One option, “the Arc’s Ally is uncomfortably weird” (pg. 345), catches Edward’s eye.] edward: Who’s the Arc’s Ally? diane: Um, I thought it was the faerie prince, but I guess not? Some kind of ... timeless ... thing, though. edward: So anyone from this benighted place would do, really. diane: Well, if I wanted to partner with them long-term. Or, well, had to. For some reason. [This quest and character arc involve, among other things, a troubled partnership with someone thematically connected to Liutgarde’s curse. Her curse is that she’s “eternally dying,” so, more specifically, that means: eternity.]

glitch: a story of the Not

edward: So not Surly Whats-his-face. diane: ... probably not. Maddie, is there going to be someone here I can, like, connect with? [The gm thinks about a lot of different things with specialized terminology that you’ll soon learn.] gm: I was assuming that you’d pull in something from your Sphere, which I guess is, like, Nınuan fey? A waylet sprite? But, yeah, if you’re not like, dreaming of summoning and binding something like that ... maybe ... there’s someone in particular here that synchronizes enough with you that it attracted your dreaming? Oh, a piece of your death! diane: A piece of my death is here. gm: Yeah. diane: Just ... hanging out? gm: Hey, they’ve got good malts. diane: ok. edward: While that is being weird, it’s not really an action on my part. I guess I could “catch a Power’s attention?” diane: Augh! [The Sovereign Powers are not the Excrucians’ greatest enemies, or even arguably this group’s enemies at all, but they are certainly the most active and most dangerous. Each rules a single element of the world, like Cotton, Arbitrage, or Stars— and catching the attention of one of those Powers is one of the options on the card.] gm: How would you do that, though? edward: Maybe, like, while getting ice?

scene

4: I ce

edward: Like, they’re staying here too? And I’m like all cool, “Hey, just getting some ice here,” and they’re all like, “Oh, me too, haha,” and then they’re heading back to their room thinking who was that mysterious ice-fetching stranger when suddenly the ice machine rumbles and betrays me because that rumble makes them realize that my eyes are night and falling stars. [Tassilo’s eyes are night and falling stars.] [You think.] [Actually, you might just not be looking at them properly.] gm: ... sure. Um, yeah, classic meeting at the ice machine. She’s a cheerful college-age-looking girl in shorts, crop top, and sandals. [searches for “random word” online to figure out the Power’s Estate, the thing she rules over, getting “logography,” “tabacosis,” and “calcar” before switching to a slightly less fancy generator and eventually managing to get “icicle(s).”] Oh, and an icicle or two hanging from her nose. tassilo, awkwardly: Ah, haha, I think you might have had a few too many already. gm: She makes an amused noise, but also an annoyed face.

33 “You know how it is,” she says. “Family thinks it’s funny sending me to get the ice just ’cause I can’t actually make any.” tassilo: You seem— well— I mean, so few can, really. gm, as the power of icicles, and with great emphasis: Thank you. tassilo: I suppose you can’t use, um ... the power of icicles: Snotcicles? I don’t think so. tassilo: No, er, no. the power of icicles: You? tassilo: Oh, I run rather hot. I mean, I have a perfectly normal human body temperature. I mean, I haven’t actually checked. I don’t snot. the power of icicles: Right. [rubs an arm across her nose while sniffling, after which the gm adds:] crash, tinkle, tinkle, rumble of the ice machine, new icicles slowly sprouting from her nose. tassilo: Well, good luck ... getting ice back to your room, ma’am! the power of icicles: Should do! You too, man. You too. [Tassilo salutes.] gm: Later, betrayed by a coincidental clink of the ice— or perhaps its desperate hand-wringing warnings in the mythic world—she will realize, “Hey, that dude’s eyes, they’re so weird!” [In the “mythic world” even ice can speak.] tassilo: We have to leave. ciara: But, the bed has springs, Tassilo. tassilo: Even as the perfidy and treachery of the world springs eterna ... just forget I said that. Ciara, we are betrayed. They are on to us. They are here. ciara: Strong? tassilo: Strong? heather: Sorry, she uses that as a generic inquiry noise. gm: [head-desks, shoulders shaking] tassilo: ... the Powers. I encountered one. At the ice machine. liutgarde: You seem well enough. tassilo: She was getting ice. I was getting ice. But this superficial appearance cannot last. liutgarde: You think this motel is a trap.

[in the background, the chip.]

gm

throws Heather another Fugue

tassilo: I do. liutgarde: ... fine. We’ll sleep in the van. And leave a cast illusion in our place. [“Casting” lets an Excrucian split off a portion of themselves. Like Liutgarde’s earlier stunt, this effect falls under the “Eide” Attribute, for which the double-sided coin of calcification and metamorphosis—“Stilling”—is the Cost.] gm, straightening: So, it’s nominally a time-consuming process to cast off an illusion of yourself; do you have a way around that? diane: I’m not really doing the full process, I think; this is more of an abbreviated version that just makes a handful of shells that won’t do much on their own or last past the morning. I figure, even if I’m doing everybody’s, it’s already a generous use of power to call it a Casting instead of a fairly basic use of faery magic? gm: Reasonable enough; basically, you think you can cut down the time by a lot if you build in some planned obsolescence and don’t expect too much out of them? diane: Yeah. gm: ... sure, ok. Pay whatever Stilling and head to the van. diane: I figure the Stilling here is pretty much just from, like, I’m not just shedding a part of myself, but actually turning it into a faint shadow and admixing it with the essence of the other two as well. It changes me. ... but it’s only two points, so the effect isn’t that great. gm: Sounds good! ... so, who has spotlights left for the night? edward: Just me, and honestly, I think I’m going to do a retroactive spotlight, too? gm: That the Power was scary? edward: Yeah. gm: ok! Then the night is basically done.

One day, she was in the middle of some plan, she was wrecking something, maybe about to eat a Serpent’s heart or something, and some Power yelled at her, “ You’ll never win,” and she suddenly realized. It just kind of ... dawned on her. “... yeah,” she said, and gave them this kind of poleaxed look. “ You’re right.” She wandered off in a blanked-out daze, its heart still beating in her hand. — Heather Sullivan, on Ciara Bennewick

the ballad of cacteric desertian

34

chapter

� ummary

[This chapter featured the following spotlights and quest actions: ӫ Edward’s Reckoning: “So, what’s Midland like?”; ӫ Diane’s quest action, to bring hints and shadows of eternity to the desert; ӫ Heather’s Attention, as she observed; ӫ Diane’s Reckoning: “What’s this trip about?”; ӫ Heather’s Reckoning: “I want to know more about the inn.”; ӫ Liutgarde’s Reaction to that inn (neat!); ӫ ... or arguably her Attention, as she observed its parking lot; ӫ Edward’s quest action, to attract the attention of a Power; and ӫ Edward’s Reaction to the Power that he met. (“Scary!”). Let’s do some quick accounting, some of which hasn’t been explained just yet! At the end of the chapter, the group earns 2 xp each for using up all of their spotlights. This replaces the 1 xp they would have earned for using at least 3 (pg. 29, 112). Ciara and Liutgarde have bonus xp from tokens—Ciara has two, and Liutgarde, one. Sadly, these aren’t free: each one comes with a point of the “Fugue” Cost by default (pg. 25). Liutgarde also has +2 xp towards her quest from quest actions, and both Liutgarde and Tassilo have a generic bonus xp from the same; this quest-based xp doesn’t come with Fugue. At the beginning of the next chapter, each Cost will drop by one, to a minimum of 0. So, ӫ Ciara will start the next chapter with +4 xp, +2 Fugue, and +1 Wear; ӫ Liutgarde, with +4 xp, +2 quest-specific xp, +1 Stilling, and -2 Wear; ӫ and Tassilo, with +3 xp and +0 Wear. This is relative to where they started—for instance, if Liutgarde came into the story with 40 of every Cost, she now has 41 Stilling and 38 Wear, instead. We’re also ignoring any Costs that didn’t show up this chapter (like Tassilo’s Fugue) and assuming that everybody started with enough Cost this session to ignore that “minimum of 0” for today.]

glitch: a story of the Not

35

chapter 2

Map of World & �othingness Our conceptualization of the world is colored by our selves—our lives, our experience, our perspective. In like fashion, our conceptualization of true nothingness—of the not-theworld—is colored by an inverted mask: a shape existing in antiphase to the amplitudes and frequencies of ourselves. Accordingly, true nothingness is not like the pure nullity you imagine; or, rather, “pure nullity” would have only the loosest kinship to the thing you are imagining. Just like 0 o may appear as 12 o on a malfunctioning thermostat, actual nothingness will present itself as a thing of positive (if ever-shifting) forms: The shape of the wind. An anonymous poster’s positions. Honey (the void born of bees.) — from the Invention of Mead, by Aleixo Tomás

Glitch The world of Glitch is wrong. It looks more or less like our world. There are planets. There are beetles (oh! the beetles). There are stars. Are there noodles? There are noodles. Space and time? You’ll find those too. It’s all the way you’ve always known it; except: It’s wrong. There are glitches. There are mistakes. The most fundamental glitch—the one that people mean if they start talking about the Glitch and there’s no other context to the matter—is this deep, core property of wrongness that pervades it. It’s not just a world that’s contingently wrong, wrong by some circumstantial congruence of its constituent events and entities. It’s not just a world that is being judged as wrong according to some specific and external moral standard. Its wrongness is intrinsic and essential. If the ordinary people of the world do not recognize it, it is because they have become accustomed to it; raised up in an environment of wrongness, they are unable to distinguish it for what it is. If the gods and monsters that dwell there do not see it, it is most likely because they have been actively blinded to it: Because the world, in active self-defense against those who would destroy it, has created them to guard it, and will not allow them to see the truth about itself. ... but if you have seen it, once you have seen it, it is unmistakable and indisputable. There can be no debate on whether the world is wrong or not, only how to live with it and what that means. The World, Creation: a thing, that is bad.

a map of world and nothingness

36

Lesser Glitches In addition to being wrong, and scared of death, the world is full of ... smaller problems. Little errors and malfunctions. Glitches. The fundamental characteristic of a glitch is that it points to the glitch, the core Glitch, the primordial error: it illuminates and elucidates the wrongness of the world. So, like, if one day you stumble upon a patch of broken time, or walk into a place that should not exist, and you’re wondering: is this because the world is wrong, or because there is something going on here that I don’t yet know? Well, the bone-deep awareness of the Glitch itself is easiest to spot in places where it gets worse or better; and since it’s almost impossible to find a place inside the world that’s less infected with the fundamental and essential quality of wrongness that pervades all things, encountering that awareness probably means that you’re in the presence of a mistake. If you’re looking at something weird and you suddenly feel, the world is wrong, if you suddenly recognize that, when you weren’t really thinking that, weren’t really feeling that before; if it’s suddenly this deep and chilling awareness all through you ... then that suggests here, in that patch of broken time, or that impossible place, it’s gotten worse; that things are just a little bit glitchier here than the norm. That’s how people meet the Glitch for the first time, usually. It’s not through intellectualization or direct perception. It’s not through despair. It’s because they stumble on something smaller, something as simple as hearing a sound nobody should ever have to hear; or, losing somebody that they should never have had to lose, they shouldn’t have died, not in a real and whole and proper world; or, being chased by a pack of half-spider, halfmachine monsters the size of dogs; or, getting caught in a trap nobody should ever get caught in; or, opening their bathroom door to discover there are only three walls, and beyond the gap is an open stage; something like that ... and thinking, not, this is impossible or this is wrong, this is mistaken but: everything’s wrong. Not am I hallucinating? Can I study this and find out what is going on here? Glitch, Flaw, Error, Snipehole: a malfunction in the world, pointing to the original Glitch.

Terrence was inside out, but it was impossible to reason with him on the subject. If you confronted him about it, he would just say, “Not topologically!” It wasn’t even true, at least, not unless he had fewer dimensions than Gertrude thought he had or had eaten the world while nobody was looking, but Gertrude didn’t really dare argue. The more she argued with Terrence the more she felt her skin crawl on her bones and her stomach twist in her body, like the Worst Boy was starting some sort of a trend. — from mAroziA’S bASTArdS, by Jake 17

glitch: a story of the Not

But just, again: everything is wrong.

the Infection The other major sign of a glitch is that to encounter it will change you. The moment you direct your attention to the glitch it will set its hooks in you. It is safe to wander through an impossible place not knowing it is impossible, not realizing that it is wrong and awful and means that the world is a broken place. It is safe to skid across an impossible patch of time without ever really understanding that that is what it is you’ve done. But it is not safe to notice. Once you have noticed the glitch enters through ... well, through a sense that you spot it with, but for a sighted person, unless it is an extraordinarily visually unexciting glitch, it enters through your eyes. It hooks in through your eyes. It climbs into your brain. From there it spreads throughout you—throughout your pith, your elemental truths: your soul. From that moment forward you will begin to die. The wrongness of the world begins to kill you. Being in the world begins to kill you, because where there is the world, there is the Glitch. You die of poisoning: the poison of the impossible place. You die of aging, ravaged by the break in time. Grief will murder you, or your dreams will try to kill you, or in the course of being hunted by halfspider, half-machine monsters you will discover that it would have been more desirable, all in all, not to have been thus pursued. A person dies when the world breaks down for them— when it can no longer support them, when it becomes so unsuitable to their existence that they’re cast out of it. That’s the true death, the death before death, the death preceding the petty little death that leads to an afterlife or reincarnation or whatever else that we have today. That’s the death a glitch will drive you towards, because a fundamental inhospitableness to our dependence on a well-constructed world is a part of what all glitches are: Just one contradiction makes the entire logical edifice fall down; just one moment of absurdity turns a sensible world into a farce. From the moment you are infected by a glitch you begin to die; if given the chance, it will chase you well beyond the grave, into your next life if you should somehow wind up having one, into Heaven, or into Hell, until eventually you are simply gone, destroyed, unmade—but, as you shall see, none of those things are the likely outcome. To be glitched out of existence requires almost as much good fortune as it required bad. Is the infection contagious? Does the glitching spread from you, to others? It is hardly ever so. Other people will not automatically become aware of the wrongness of the world just by looking at you. It could happen, but it will not. A truth perceived second-hand becomes easy to dispute; in like fashion, the infection will opposite: by Elizabeth Sherry

38 Infection: the curse inflicted by exposure to the Glitch. Glitched, the Glitched (casual): anyone infected by a glitch; or, humans who become Excrucians by that means. Bane: the thing someone Glitched is dying of—the (typically ordinary) thing their infection makes a toxicant unto their lives.

Nobody comes back the same from Happy Hut. Most of the year, only the fresh meat will go there. Only the people who don’t know this town, or who are so isolated, so cut off from everyone else, that they’ve just never happened to hear. Even then, you’ve got to be pretty desperate. I mean, look at the place. Most of the year, the place is lit up but practically silent; the parking lot’s empty: it’s like, the place is filled with nothing but ghosts. Around midterms and finals, though; around StevenBrunnings’ rare layoffs— That’s when it gets busy. At least, more than normal. That’s when people think, you know, maybe I don’t want to come back the same. You couldn’t pay me to go there. You couldn’t pay me to get as close as its sidewalk. But I have to admit that when Chuck died I wondered; I thought, maybe I’d go, then, if the moon over the Hut weren’t so red. — from TriSTAn hendriCkSon’S STory, by Roderick S

make your presence fester with intimations or hints at the world’s wrongness, but they will not sum up to the same totality of conviction: Nobody is going to jump to the conclusion, just because somebody has a fierce and faintly inhuman presence and ages rapidly, that the world is broken. If they knew about the Glitch already, maybe. If they were so nihilistic as to be all but ready to believe in the Glitch without direct experience, maybe. But more likely they’re just going to think, “Wow, what a dramatic person with a tragic disease.” In that sense and others you will not become a glitch yourself—but you are changed. It is in you, a part of you, forever.

the

� ransformation

Some who become glitched in this fashion die. They are, after all, made to be dying. Some become broken. The infection tests them; they fail, before that test, as it is natural to do, and the them in them crumbles, leaving only remnants behind. They die, but their death is rarely eternal; the glitch does not let them go. There’s no grand resurrection, no mechanical process in which they constellate around the infection that lived in

glitch: a story of the Not

them once; they do not rise from their graves, unless that is highly suitable, or trick worshippers into feeding them the power to return. It’s just, one day, they’re back, still suffering their endless fall towards death. Rare unfortunates and even rarer fortunate will have a bit of consciousness of themselves again when the process starts—the latter, if they have a meaningful chance to overcome their test again—but for the most part they died broken and return broken, their anguish more like a recording or a protozoan writhing than a person’s pain. (That’s what the best evidence says, anyway. That’s how the game should most likely run them. ... but it’s best to treat them kindly, just in case.) Then there’s the last few, the one in a thousand that pass that awful test. They are not defeated by the infection in them; rather they tame it. Situations in crisis are also situations of infinite potential leverage. Where time is functional, it is extremely difficult for humans to take any power over time. Not impossible (e.g., by moving at relativistic speeds, or learning timerelated magic), but really, really hard: there just isn’t any traction. When time starts to break, though, suddenly you can get a grip. And not just time: where morality is functional, say, it’s resistant to manipulation. You can’t just declare it into anything you’d like to be, or, well, you can, but not in any objectively meaningful sort of sense ... but if the local morality is broken, if it’s gone wrong somehow, there’s a disjunction you can exploit. And the same for any other glitch: you’ve got a potential grip, you’ve got potential leverage, whenever space breaks, whenever color does, whenever you’re being chased by an unnatural pack of spider-machines the size of dogs. I don’t want to imply that that’s easy or that I know how it’s done. I don’t even want to imply that the people who manage to do it know how it’s done. ... it’s just, once you have something you can get a grip on, then it’s always potentially possible to do as Archimedes suggested: find a lever long enough, and move the world. One in a thousand tame the infection inside them. They turn it into a source of power. With three exceptions in all known history, that power immediately corrupts them; possessed by the glitch and by the knowledge of the world’s inherent wrongness, they fall into a long and brutal rage. Their damage points outwards instead of inwards but it is still damage: It becomes their mission, their overriding obsession, to destroy the world. It becomes impossible for them to bear it, the world that is killing them, the world that they now recognize as innately wrong. They loathe it. They are very and ultimately self-righteous about it: the world must end because it is so very ugly, so very twisted. Because it is a carnival of awfulness driven by the pulsing beat of that particular flaw that they find most vile. They don’t return from death by clawing themselves back from the grave, either, at least, not usually. They don’t rebuild

39 themselves from their parts. If they die, and if the essence of them is not utterly and entirely eradicated by the great divine powers that ward Creation, they come back from sheer spitting, vituperative outrage. They can’t just sleep quietly in their graves, or even just politely spin, like a normal person might; the world is wrong. The world is wrong, and something must be done.

�eath, the �ature of A long time ago, the world was made. It was founded upon a portion of the territory that was Nınuan—the void. There was no proper continuum, back then, no sense of “place”—not even in the world, much less the void—so the nature of that territory is ambiguous; yet nevertheless it may be said that the building blocks of the world, though not quite chunks of the void itself, had a strain of the void all through them. It can be said that there was a part of the void that was alloyed into Creation from its beginning, merely by virtue of its notional location: A location, as you will see, defined not by space and time but by symmetry; by a pattern. One could say, it devoured, as it was made, that portion of the void that melded most naturally to it; in the moment of Creation, the piece of Nınuan that fit Creation best was devoured, whole and entire, and melded, alloyed, melted into Creation’s bones. One could say, vast territories, ancient kingdoms of the nothingness, were swallowed whole; their tyrants drowned beneath a wave of being; their districts swept up like houses in a hurricane, tossed about, cast down, and finally—well, save some few—devoured. Upon this foundation the world ripened; from this richness was the world given to its flourishing. And into the world were people born—all kinds of people; people upon people; and in those people, more richly and more deeply than in the unpersoned world around them, there thrived a strand remaining still of the Not before the world. A piece of void, a legacy of Nınuan: a chunk of the DoNot-Be. They held it within them, and they did not know that they held that thing within them; but it ached in them in defiance of the Is. This strand in them was their freedom. The void in the people of Creation was the font of agency; the source of choice. The Unbeing in them was the reason that they could take actions that were not in perfect harmony with the world. Put another way, that remaining alloying of Nınuan was the reason that anyone would even care that there were people in the world, and not just automata; not just emptiness; not just parts in a great machine. It was perhaps even why they were people, why one would say, these here are people; and because that legacy spread throughout the world, there would be people everywhere in the world as well.

Wraith, Wight, Revenant: a glitched endlessly recurring and re-dying. Haunt: a dangerous wight/revenant. Deathwright (rare): a glitched who regains control of themselves, typically then seeking to destroy the world (more common terms are discussed below.)

In the end, it wasn’t really the monster that broke him, but his own sense of the world; his own sense of how the world had to be. Each time it came back after he killed it, his power to cope cracked a bit further; in the end, he had to go kill something else. He’s buried over there. You can see it. Every few months, the gravekeeper has to shoo the monster, returning, away. — from The Pixel-Flowers, by Pavithra Beale

the Not, the void, the Beyond, the DO-NOT-BE, the Lands Beyond Creation: everywhere that isn’t anywhere. Nınuan: the Not, specifically considered as a place.

Stains made with Adrienne Versic’s Wonder Dirt cannot be removed, but only grow more complex, with unsettling implications regarding the ending of all things. — from eVAluATion of formulA #29806, by Gabriel Gatson

The legacy of Nınuan made them more than just machinery ... But it was also why they died. The strand of the void that lived in them—it would consume people. Eventually. It would bring them to the point where they would belong, not to the world, but to the void. Then they would leave the world, they would have no other choice, and they would fall into the nothingness Beyond it. They would “die.” That was death’s first and original way. The world did not like this thing called death. It fought. It built walls around itself, walls and walls, it encircled itself a thousand thousand ways. It cupped itself in a wall to catch the falling souls, built Hell and Heaven and the rivercycles of reincarnation. It attempted, admirably, to be sustainable; to make the death deep in its bones into a not-death, or at least, into a thing that was not an end, but behind it the true deathnature waited, always waited, ever lurked.

a map of world and nothingness

40

� rescott’s children Once upon a time, this guy—Prescott—got cursed so that everyone he touched would turn into the thing they really were. He thought that that meant that, when he touched people, they’d maybe turn into, like, horses, or whatever. Maybe the bad ones would be slugs or dung-beetles. Maybe the good ones would be humans still, or, maybe, more mythic things, like unicorns. “Squabbling children,” his aunt opined. But the people he touched didn’t turn into horses, or slugs, or humans, or squabbling children, or even unicorns. They turned into unimaginable things. The void woke up in them, and they became impossible beings—shapeless shadow-beings, dreams that walked, mists of fire, organic air, the living negative space between the trees. Even when they became relatively stable and comprehensible things (people-like things, animal-like things) ... the weirdest things were wrong with them. Some of them couldn’t be touched, not because they were ethereal or because they’d dodged but because you were always too far away. Some of them would finish your sentences before you started them. Some held stars burning inside their chests; others, though self-renewing, dripped their surface layer off like wax wherever it was they went. One of them cut anything it looked at. Another one was always surrounded by a pleasant space, and, for some reason, by spheres: not intrinsically, but by repeatable coincidence. One walked on water and swam in air. One was less visible the more light was around her. They became creatures, not of the world, but of the Not—and realized, as they did so, that in a deep and spiritual sense that they had always been. It’s not clear why that should be. It’s not even clear why that should be possible. It’s ... it’s just the way the void and Creation interact. It was hard work, bringing them forth. In physical Prescott’s Children: people Prescott touched (also, sometimes, any later reincarnations thereof ).

On her eleventh birthday, Sarah received her official notification from the Institute that she was actually a fetch—a doppelganger, a fairy being that had replaced the reAl Sarah some years before. “I don’t understand,” Sarah said, at the intake interview. “I feel just like myself.” “Everyone feels like themselves,” the doppelganalyst informed her. “But, like,” Sarah said, picking her words carefully. “Shouldn’t I be real wicked and cackling, way down underneath?” “What do you mean, ‘underneath?’” the doppelganalyst said. “People are just what they are; or, at most, they’re what they’d be, if they were not afraid.” — from The leAf-dollAr rATio, by Penelope Zoetrope

glitch: a story of the Not

technicality, he just had to touch people; but on a deeper level, it took from him, that transformation. It drained him. The curse wasn’t meant to be that way, probably. It was meant to be a more mortal magic. Maybe it was Prescott’s fault that it went wrong like that. Maybe it was another error in the world. But it took more power than the curse sustained, and so it took from him, from the essence of him, and he withered; and before he’d lived three full years of it, the curse turned him to dust. It took a long time before people figured out what had been going on with him, but they did—at least the magicians did, and the botanists, and the great hidden Powers of the world. Prescott’s touch was fatal. It brought forth the shapes of people’s deaths. The death in a person isn’t very detailed. It’s not like everybody contains a complete piece of the Not, a jewel of preserved structure that “survived” the formation of Creation like a bug in amber and integrated exactly into a single soul when souls were later getting made. The deaths that Prescott pulled forth were mostly pieces, things that only took on their full form (such as it was) when actually embedded into the world. Things that learned how to be from the life they stole, or the world around them, because ... well, you can’t be in the world without, to at least some extent, being. But that’s what they were, anyway: Residuals of the life—the ... thing-like-life...of Nınuan.

beinGs

�ade of laws

Early on—long before “humanity” was properly invented— the first people came to be. They weren’t made of meat and words like humans are. They weren’t born of woman and of man. They pulled themselves into existence, ripping themselves into being from the slaughter of primeval proto-things, and they built their flesh of laws. Their bones were laws. Their flesh were laws. Laws ran in every drop of blood. Not lots of little laws, not a great code like Hammurabi’s was, but a few great, vast, and solemn laws, to bind the world under their sway. Firstborn made Meaning and Existence with its flesh, and the nature of existence became defined; its scope— its requisite implications—stabilized; and its qualities were set forth. If one must say, the world already was, or where did Firstborn come to be? Still, then, it “was” in a fundamentally ambiguous and imperiled way before the laws of Firstborn’s birth, whereas it was, full stop, Existence, ever after. It meant ... something, perhaps, before Firstborn was, but that meaning was like the memory of a dream, and Firstborn’s birth, the cruel awakening. Firstborn was first (of course), but others followed. The Angel of Time was born, and stole the great spiral structures of the world’s deepest layers to be his own; or, rather, one could say, they revealed their time-like qualities. The Angel of Trees dragged herself upwards from the soil, opposite: by Maria Guarneri

42 and a clod of it obscured her eye; the definition slipped, and the axis mundi, the great branching spear struck through the world, became by technicality a Tree. Beauty was born, and Beauty screamed, but xe could not unmake xir own existence; the font of Beauty, at the peak of the world, was christened Heaven, and in Heaven a certain tribe of people came to dwell. That tribe took the name, the “Angels.” Not all such beings take their form. From the belly of the great Tree—the World Ash,

Imperator(e)s, Law-Beings (Excrucian term), Ymerae: (self-created) beings, each of whose existence defines several major concepts of the world (e.g., “the Imperator of Doorways, Bronze, and Trust”). Angel: an Imperator dwelling in Heaven. Fallen Angel, Devil: an Angel, thrown out of Heaven. Serpent, Aaron’s Serpent: an Imperator; a child of the World Ash; also, a very large snake. Wild Imperator, Magister of the Wild, Wildlord: an Imperator with a core essence from Beyond. Lord of the Game, Lord of Games, Player: an Earth-specific Imperator whose essence relates to the human power of self-destruction. Lord of the Rules, Lord of Rule, Incarnate: an Earth-specific Imperator whose essence relates to humanity’s survival-will. Divine Imperator, True God: an Earth-specific Imperator unbound to the human soul. God: an ambiguous term; “a god” often refers to a Divine Imperator, to an Imperator of some other type, or to one of their servants. “God,” capitalized, may refer to the creator, Cneph, or it may be the human concept (whose connection to any deeper truths is, as of yet, unknown).

The birth of Red chained the wild horses of that color; entrapped the sunsets; shouldered open the insides of every crystal to fit its light there; and with cord upon cord, intertangling upon one another, walled out the greatest portion of the seas. From a pose upon the cliffs it stole the heat of rage; beside our beds it skulked to dye our blood. It took the rose but not the vine; took the robin but refused the swan; in a flood it drowned the red banana and the beet. We cannot even name the red banana, now, without it; nor think of rubies without the red in them; or see the old raw truth that redness stole in those things that it cast out. What Red’s things were before, had they color then, we do not remember. We do not know. It survives, if it survives, only in their furtive, beaten glances; in the faintest whispers that “red” things exchange, when their shackles loosen, in those deepest darkest corners of the world where Red and all Red’s Powers may not go. — from TWo biTeS of The Apple, by Clarimond Holmes

glitch: a story of the Not

Yggdrasill—great serpents made of laws crawled out, and crawl out still. They are eerily peaceful creatures, too peaceful to have ripped themselves into existence; most likely it is the Ash itself (and not the snakes) that stirs and tears apart the underlying proto-stuff to form their eggs; that claps the world, as each snake is born, in brass-forged seals of law. From beyond the world the Magisters of the Wild stumble in. They do not mean to clad themselves in laws when they arrive, they do not mean to make themselves abominable unto the void—but they cannot prevent themselves from doing so. From the moment of their arrival, and unlike many of the Not-things of the Lands Beyond the World, they are infected by Creation: they are caught up in its wrongness, and made wrong. On Earth beings that named themselves as Gods arose—the intrusion of algaic and amoebic life into the world of utter Law. Later some took more animalistic or human forms; others remained as ... let us say ... abstract paintings of the horrible divine. Time passed, and certain Angels Fell. The Lords of Rule and Game arose; like the Gods, they were born of Earth, are born of Earth, but steal their power not so much from the primordial substrate or the field of life as from the untapped potential within humanity. The Earth is but one fruit on a laden Tree; the other worlds are home to Angels, Fallen, Wild, and Serpents too, and also to unique law-beings of their own. To creatures of Splintering and Domination, of Ite and Ember; to Ofeili’s mercantile gods; to nameless things, and things beyond: things these words cannot describe. These—the Angels and the Fallen, the Serpents, Gods, the Lords of Rule and Game and Wild, ... plus the peculiar divinities that are found on the other planets on the Ash— these beings have named themselves Imperial: Each in themselves and in their laws above all mortal things: all mortal dukes, kings, queens, and princes; all ministers, all popes and priests. They are the font from which all blessings flow ... and all curses too. They are the damnation of the world, and its principal defenders. —not that it is surprising that they should be that last; they are heavily motivated to defend the world. They are its essential portion. Killing a person or destroying a town is, after all, like kicking sand; what does it accomplish in the end? It is only when one may ruin the Angel of Conspiracy, Debate, and Trade, or the Serpent who is Spring and Molten Earth, or any other suchlike thing, that anything can truly end— And only when Heaven and Hell at last are razed, and Firstborn slain, and Time is rent asunder, will the long harsh tragedy that is the world come stumbling (and finally!) to a stop.

the

S eal of � ime

The end of things, of course, is long since writ. It was immanent in the world before Time was made, and it

43 The Fall, the War in Heaven: a doctrinal and political dispute in Heaven. The First Age, the Golden Era: the Time before the Fall The Second Age: the Silver Era that would follow. The Angel of the Golden Era: Imperator of the First Age. Jan ben Jan: Imperator of Earth’s Second Age, even as others ruled the Second Age of other worlds. The Nameless Roads: branching paths through the notional future, accessible through the Seal of Time. (One’s discoveries along these roads are not canonical.)

essence. There is nothing there, but it is a specific nothing. A Not-apple has no weight, no mass, no color, and no taste, but the color that it does not have is red. If you want to deny this, and say that the color that it doesn’t have is green, that is a different Not-apple that you speak of; neither may exist, of course, but the two are not the same. —and one, and not the other, may well be present in a given portion of the Not. Because the Not does not exist, because it lacks the quality of existence, it also lacks the quality of intrinsically incorrect existence. Things of the Not are not wrong. They are simply, and each of them, themselves.

Lambda-Notation

cannot be made un-immanent. The final battle already exists; it is only waiting for its players to arrive— For the right monsters to come into the world to bring ruination to all the most sacred things, and to douse the branches of the Ash with blood. For the planets to fall from the Ash like rain, and Heaven to be set aflame; for the void to devour endless souls; for a final, transgressive act of murder, in the hidden center-point of the world, that will make the grand narrative of the world just stop: The Moment of the End. The beings of law—the Imperators—fear it, for who would not fear it? ... and so they sealed it away; they built a great treasure-hall to protect it, which they called the Seal of Time. Inside that Seal the Imperators locked three futures: an age of silver, an age of brass, and an age of dust. When War came to Heaven, the Angel of the Golden Era—of that sweet nostalgic time before the modern day— was flung down; he struck against the Seal and cracked it, and the silver age escaped. It could not be caught, could not be sealed again; it scattered itself, instead, wearing a thousand faces and a thousand names, through all the endless branches of the Ash.

the

� eyond

Beyond the world of Gli⌛ch there is the Not. It is an endless emptiness, a yawning nothingness, it is the void Beyond the world. It’s not actually like space: it’s not an endless anywhere, a great blank field within actuality. It’s an endless nowhere-at-all, lacking space and time as much as substance. Yet it has qualities and values of its own. To a certain extent these are projected. When we look upon nothingness we see the inside of our eyes. When we listen to nothingness we hear the beating of our heart. In an absolute sensory void we perceive not true blankness but the introspective movements of our mind. The metaphysics of the Not does not negate this; it remains true, and true absolutely: The Not is polluted by the that-which-looks-upon. It can be molded like a stranger’s mind. Yet there is a structure therein nevertheless—a truth, an

Glitch will frequently refer to Not-things as “λ-things” instead; more generally, λ- may be used as a prefix for anything unreal. This lambda-notation is principally a convention meant to dull the sense of repetition and denial that would otherwise accompany the endless use of “Not.” Put another way, it is a practice meant to facilitate conceptualizing a Not-apple as distinguished by its appleness rather than by its un-appleness ... while still clearly representing it as born of void. In that sense, the λ- can be pronounced as “ :” a short inhale; a moment’s pause. More traditionally, however, λ is read as lambda [lam-duh], loosely referencing both the Gothic letter laaz (lake/water/the unconscious), and the λ-calculus of Alonzo Church. Lambda-notation is more technical than most Strategists prefer in conversation, but it is a common written shorthand and is acceptable to use in speech. Pretentious Strategists may use laaz-notation instead, pronouncing λ- as [lawz] or as [la-wooze]. Not-X, λ-X, X: an instance of X, as instantiated within the void. Sometimes left implicit. Thus, “a Not-traveler rides on a λ-road; they will reach their destination by the night.”

It is widely believed that Henry Noonan’s contribution to the field of modern art is “the painting that isn’t”—transcending blank walls and empty frames, he painted works that were simply never delivered to the museum or buyer; arranged shows which he and his works would not attend. It was only after the Clinton-era expansion of the Freedom of Information Act that art historians learned that this belief was fallacious: Henry Noonan’s true contribution was the painting that mustn’t be looked at: paintings that museums, galleries, and private parties might own, but could not show to the public; paintings not allowed to be present even at venues and parties dedicated to their release. The prohibition was not merely social, nor was it artistic: Noonan painted exclusively subjects not safe to have ever seen. — from mr. SnelSon And The WATerdrop kinG, by Janet Copeland

a map of world and nothingness

44

a �reaminG world The Beyond is a dreaming place; the things that there within it dwell dwell in a timeless, near-conscious slumber. Past the wall around the world—for there is such a wall, a flickering blue wall, a “cup of flame” wrapped tight around the Thing That Is—perception is not reflexive. The Beyond dreams, in part, because its dreams are not lightly troubled: in the Not, one does not see unless one cares to look. One does not hear unless one cares to hear. In Creation, if one does not trouble oneself to know the world, the truth will still wave its hands and call out for your attention; but if one does not trouble oneself to know the void, knowledge of the void will not impinge. More subtly, in the void, attention becomes less reflexive. It is, of course, often an act of will even in the world; people are always losing track of the world around them and struggling to pay the proper attention when tired, or distracted, or to boring things. In the void, though, the ground state for attention is much lower. The part of you that intermittently reminds you, hey, wake up! is like a voice drowned by pillows: Still there, but muffled, sedated, and covered over in softness. In the void, it is natural for even Creation-born to fall victim to this, to fall into the rhythm of the place, and to drift off into a sort of dream. Minutes and hours will slip past without the slightest notice; days, with only the vaguest framework of events; and the only thing that keeps one from losing years or centuries to this, instead, is that time itself is often rather sluggardly in the Beyond. In the void, because attention and perception are not reflexive, the things that exist there do not tend to practice them. Entities take form there like seeds that drift down from some higher place; they root themselves in the stuff of the Beyond; and there they grow, in solitary and monadic contemplation of themselves, unaware of every other thing. They are, I suppose, Not-entities or λ-entities—the terms would be more accurate—but if one sets aside an existence-centric perspective, it doesn’t really matter. They lack substance, they lack existence, in a technical sense and in many senses that are not so technical, but they are not semantic nulls; they have a structure and a nature. They are things that can be identified; a unique, or at least somewhat unique, reference to them can be made. They are all, or almost all, to some degree, aware. That awareness is generally extremely vague and notional; it is a dreaming awareness, as has been said, but it exists: A fundamental element of almost everything in the Beyond is a rudimentary sense of self. For a thing to exist without worldly substance, it transpires, something must conceive of its existence; in the void, where almost every possible observer turns their attention inwards, there are few things to conceive of a thing’s existence save itself. Thus, there are cliffsides and forests, but they are not

glitch: a story of the Not

Eide, the Dream-of-Self: the self-concept that a λ-thing creates, within the void, to establish its identity.

Wyrd: that unknown and unknowable λ-IS that dreams the Eide.

dead things and they are not mindless things: they dream of their own existence, or are, at least, a part of larger landscapes that so do. They may not dream of themselves as things that move; they may not dream of themselves as things that think, not properly, or feel; but there is still a hidden life to them, a hidden, subtle will. They are as they are because, at a fundamental level, it is how they see themselves. That vision refines over the millennia, becoming more symbolically potent and more deeply resonant ... an effect that may or may not be lost on the Creation-born.

a �imeless, spaceless � ymmetry The things of the Beyond are aware of themselves—but, as has been said, of nothing else. There are predators in the endless dark, but they do not stalk their prey; in a state of absolute internal focus, they articulate the hunting-nature of themselves. There is prey there, but it does not recognize the hunting thing that kills it: it enacts the mournful passage of its death, instead, when its prey-nature so portends. Can this possibly be perfectly organized in time and space? It can’t. There is no power that, when a hunter articulates its killing blow, miraculously arranges for its prey to enact its dying moment exactly then and exactly there. ... but, for that matter, what is a “then?” What is a “there?” The concept is in some sense vacuous; time and space do not exist, beyond the world. They don’t even Not-exist, in the sense of the Not-apple, beyond the world: They are simply features of Creation that do not extend that far. There are time-like elements of the Beyond. There are space-like elements. There is even a kind of implicate continuum. But that continuum is epiphenomenal; it is not one dominant form that sets the shape of Nınuan, but a sheaf of many different models, each contingent upon the infinity of λ-things. It does not govern the relationships of the Beyond: instead, interactions in the Beyond are governed by a process of structural harmony. Without real space, without real time, the story is told backwards: When we see that a hunter’s actions correlate with those of a certain prey—regardless of “where” or “when” that prey might be—we say, that is the prey it hunts. More than that, we say, that is the definition of their “where” and “when.”

45 Where are they? In the same rough location. When are they? In the same rough time. The causality of the Beyond is not an order imposed upon events, but an order created by them, one of a handful of least-effort solutions to the puzzle of how the things of the Beyond relate. The continuum, as has been stated, is not immanent but contingent: just a best-fit candidate that mathematics pushes forwards as a spacetime in which we can pretend these monads interact. The Beyond is infinite, but it’s not undifferentiated or random; it has its own conceptual biases, and for that reason its infinite extent does not guarantee that you can find any old random (Not-)thing—a cold fire, possibly, but not a pyrokinetic ferret made out of painkillers; a wicked variant on someone you know, perhaps, but not a literal evil twin; a thing that is like a world, like it, yes, but not a whole additional Creation. It’s not like the illimitable infinity of possible ideas, or lies, or fictions: It may be that when a given hunter goes to kill, there is literally no prey to match. Not anywhere. Not in all the infinity of the void. ... but that usually won’t happen, because the void is infinite. Only when a hard limit comes into play will the prey fail to appear. It’s the same for all the other interactions, too. Sometimes things go wonky. Very rarely, things go wonky. Sometimes a tree will get hit by lightning and there’s just no suitable lightning to hit it with. Sometimes lightning will hit a tree, only there’s no tree suitable to react. That happens, because the continuum is after-thefact and contingent—but not often. Most of the time, it all seems correct.

the

�ire that is perception

The creatures of the Beyond do not typically perceive; therefore, typically, there is nothing that perceives them. Their self-conception goes unchallenged. They fulfill all needs within themselves. Existence and non-existence are essentially the same for them: if one day they were to be revealed as nothing more than a trick of the light or a false idea, then, for what reason would they care? The pressure of attention or perception upon them is dangerous. It troubles them. It shakes them from their endless dream. Perhaps most importantly, it rouses them to look about in turn. Thus the whole of the Beyond slowly creaks and crackles to a sort of invisible and agitated life when a person with the will to look upon it passes through it, everything waking everything else around it in a kind of chain reaction as the attention of things is shared around ... but at the same time, as has been said, the Beyond’s most natural state is sleep, and thus the concentric waves of attention that spread from a person’s passage will eventually subside. For all that it is full of things, or ... Not-things, at least ... it should be said that the Beyond is dark beyond

the dreams of shadows and even more silent than the grave. There is little to touch, taste, or smell there that is not brought with one from Creation, and even such senses as proprioception and time perception there go dim. Fortunately, light is not necessary, as seeing is not necessary; sound is not necessary, as it is not really through your ears or through auditory perception as such that the things of the void are heard. The things of Nınuan are perceptible for the same reason they do not indulge greatly in perception: because they are themselves. They are things that have grown so deeply into themselves that it shines in them as a thing like light, resounds from them as a thing like sound, fills the false space-time of correlated things around them, of things with a deep and underlying symmetry to them, with Hey, listen, I am here! ... if anyone should ever hear. For this reason, if you have learned to be aware of any of this; if you have any structural relation to any of this, so that you are not merely blindly flailing in an uncorrelated region of the void, it is easy to forget that there is nothing there. It is easy to forget that one sees nothing, hears nothing, touches nothing, tastes nothing, and smells nothing; after a while, all that becomes irrelevant, save for incidental details like the absence of the sun. Thus in one sense we may say: there are forests there, and waterfalls, in Nınuan; there are roads; there are even stars. You may pass through the forest and know the color of the leaves, and the shape of the stones, and the sound of your horse’s hoofbeats on the trail. It does not matter that the forest is beyond the world, where there is no sight, no sound, and perhaps even no existence: it itself knows it is there, it has dreamed a shape and colors for it, and by those things and from those things a traveler may know its form. In another sense—as most of the people of Creation would complain, if you were to bring them out Beyond— there is only darkness piled on darkness, emptiness upon emptiness, half-glimpsed shapes emerging from the contours of one’s eyes, and the faint warm gentle allembracing pressure of the Not. These are the two faces of Nınuan: One a vibrant and silvered land; the other, pure emptiness and dark. Creational beings can generally perceive Nınuan only when dying or when so broken as to be plausibly considered Not-versions of themselves. Exceptions include the Lords of Games and the practitioners of certain magic arts.

the wall around the

�orld

A wall of flickering blue surrounds the world; a “cup of fire,” as the Powers say; but it is open at the top. It is a being of its own account—a legendary potentate of the Beyond, divine and limitless, a monster comparable

a map of world and nothingness

46 to the world itself—but it is broken; its mind, if it has one, is quiescent. It is hung around the world in folds in gathers; in stupor, stasis, death, or mute and helpless misery: save for its flickers, shimmers, and its rippling, it does not move. It is a greater suzerain than any in Creation, but it does not act, and it does not reign. Arguably it is because this being exists that Creation exists at all; at the least, without it, what is the world would be as ambiguous as the world itself had been in its earliest days. If Firstborn is Meaning and Existence— the law, at least, of Meaning and Existence—and BetRaqaph is Space, then the cup of fire that surrounds it all would be the law that is the world itself. Its name is lost. Some suggest it is “Narsinha.” It is mostly known as “the Weirding Wall” today. It may be wrong. It may be the source of every wrongness. Or it may simply be a witness and an incidental casualty to the tragedy that is the world. Seven twisting passages trace through the Wall around existence. The people of the lower worlds may, if they are skilled and brave, find their way out through them; through them, the things of the void may slip within. These passages may, perhaps, represent the wounds that brought Narsinha low, or they may simply be elements of its nature: its orifices, perhaps, or a kind of decoration; an external representation of its thoughts, now barely moving; tunnels made by parasites in its corpse-flesh; or the manipulators with which it once would sift the void. Seven passages trace through that Wall—and one, the greatest one of all. At the top, the Wall is open; only the finest membrane of Heaven’s sky holds out the void. The beings of law have always feared the void, for they could not control it; but it was the Angels who could look up and see the void. It was the Angels who could disturb the void with their fear of it; who could make the void to roil with their eyes. This thing, they should not have done.

the Weirding Wall, the Cup of Flame: a flickering blue wall around the world. Narsinha (hypothetical): that wall, before it was made captive/slain.

Before there was Time, before there was Space; before there were Mountains, Depths, and Trees; before there was Breath to breathe and Light to see with, Skies to spread and Waves to roll; before even Truth, or Love, or Meaning, the world was this, and this alone: Something, ... is not the void. — from beCominG noble, by Fayola Osagiobare

glitch: a story of the Not

the

� xcrucians

Some years ago, the world gazed upon the endless Not. Its gaze disturbed the void that lies Beyond, and it conjured up great nightmares from the depths. They would be called the Excrucians. They weren’t weird and covered in tentacles, because there were Gods that had that covered. There are certainly things out there in the dark Beyond that are monstrous and shapeless horrors, sometimes they do come by, sometimes they are even hostile to the world when they so come—but they weren’t the nightmare that the world had then. These things looked like us. They had a sick pallor to them, but they looked like people. They had a tendency towards being tall, and thin, and wearing black. They tended to be missing some bits, not like there were physical holes in them, but like even after coming into the world they were still a little unformed, still a little ambiguous: their details were not always clear. The weirdest thing was their eyes, which weren’t eyes at all. You’d look at them, and you’d ... miss. You’d see the night and falling stars instead. It’s not exactly a pure and objective characteristic; at least in part, it’s because of how much sighted people tend to think with their eyes. That is, the real thing there isn’t that their eyes are weird, like, physically and specifically their eyeballs; rather, it’s that your looking outwards can’t quite connect up with theirs. If you’re blind, for instance—or even if you’ve been in the dark long enough to sort of forget that you’re sighted— then it’s their skin, and not their eyes, that is wrong. You’ll touch it, if you touch it, and you’ll feel a wall of crumbling snow. Behind it sprawls a winter’s night. That thing: it wouldn’t even have a person’s shape. It wouldn’t follow a person’s shape. Maybe if you kept pulling your hand back and putting it out again, you could trace out their true boundary, staccato; but otherwise, if you ran your hand along the wall of snow, it wouldn’t have the curves and bends of their flesh. It would crumble, just like their flesh would not; your hand ... would go in? If you moved your hand up to feel their face, it would brush against waving branches, in the wind, the night. There are limitless permutations, so we won’t cover them; those two should suffice for most encounters on Earth. All we shall note, for the rare case where it matters, is that if you don’t have a major sense that can connect to theirs, outwards to outwards—in the way that you don’t go around listening to people’s ears, or magnetorecepting their organs of magnetoreception—they will lose the specificity of their location entirely, and appear to you to be all around. In any case. They were pallid things, they had never known the sun; and when you looked upon them, you could not catch their eyes. The Excrucians rode horses as pale as they were. ... paler, really; most were white but some were bloated green and

47 others dead. They carried weapons, Abhorrent Weapons, strong enough to kill even Angels; and not just Angels but Serpents, Fallen, Wild, and all other suchlike beasts. Perhaps not coincidentally, that is exactly what they decided to do. They descended onto Heaven from above and began a great slaughter; and the world, on that day, became much less than it had been. Countless concepts just broke along with the Angels of the laws that bound them; some, perhaps, survived in other forms, but most just ... no longer made sense. No longer could you read your own moods from the sunset; homunculi no longer figured in math; the idea that “art is a liquid” lost its core traction; and ad hominem was no longer logically sound. One color was lost, and it became no longer important: The shades exist, you could steal them from green, gold, and orange and write down a new law that would govern them, but it would seem quixotic; no one would consent. Another color was lost, and ripped forth from the spectrum—if you got down and dirty while measuring light, you’d find that those wavelengths just no longer exist. The mind’ll try to blur past that, if it can, like it does the eight impossible numbers, but if you are scrupulous you’ll be able to tell. A few of the Excrucians slipped by the Angels. Down to the depths of the world they stormed, cleaving the substrate into screaming pieces as they passed, and they bent their will against the Seal of Time; the Age was burst asunder. The Seal was split, and the world cried out, and Time it rang like a great brass gong; and the silver days of the Second Age, they would be known no longer. That was as far as it went, on that occasion. In Heaven, they were eventually beaten back, though with great difficulty, and with great cost. In the Seal of Time, before they could reap the remaining Ages of the World, they met a guardian they could not defeat: Attaris Ebrôt Appêkā, Magistra of the Third Age. On that day she named and made herself the governing law and tutelary spirit of the war itself between the world and void; of an Age that would be haunted by the shadow of the Excrucians, and the threat that they embodied: that the world might end. In one sense, in so doing, she doomed herself, and everyone else; ensured that that war would not end, could not end, until the closing measures of her Age: made the Age that she held in trust an Age of pain and battle. In another sense ... Because she held the law in her of the war between the world and void, the Excrucians could not touch her. She was nigh-invincible to them; she could crush their offensive with a wave of a hand, declare it shattered. She could laugh and write they failed here into the story of the world, and so they would; nor could they circumvent this, slice past the grappling limbs of fate, and murder her instead— For, of course, were Attaris to die, were her Third Age to die, then they would have no time to do anything else; the

war would end. Were she to die while the Fourth Age that was set to follow her existed still, then that would be that: Whatever else might happen later, the Excrucians would have lost their chance to kill the world. It ended there. It ended there, except, of course, it didn’t; the Third Age would be an Age of Pain and an Age of War, and the Riders, the Excrucians, returned. To Heaven; and, once they had found sufficient paths, to all the planets that hung below. They were no longer a great army, but infiltrators and raiders; they did not seek to smite the world away with one great blow, but to harry it, to carve away at its edges, to wear it down. They were never quite as bold or quite as terrifying as in that first attack, but they did not stop. They never stopped. They are still fighting against the world today.

the

�ature of the �ar

If you look at it through the right lens, the Excrucians have always existed. They are a people, a people of Nınuan. Theirs was the silvered land to roam before Creation was ever made. Theirs, as much as anyone’s, were the territories that Creation stole in its formation; theirs were the kings and queens, the longlost and long-forgotten tyrants, that were covered over and drowned when Creation first was made. Theirs is a culture and it is an ancient one; they have a language that is their own, and a history, or a Nothistory, at the least. They have ancient familial lines and old connections. In another sense, of course, it is not so. They, like all things of the Beyond, have lived their lives in a state of dreaming. As monadic and individuated as any other creatures of the Not, they are commonly acculturated only by coincidence; share a language only by coincidence; know and remember one another, only by coincidence—or, rather, not so much coincidence as by the ineluctable logic of the sorting algorithm that draws them forth from the endless void. Not a coincidence, but the nature of the void’s continuum: That it sifts itself for things that belong together, and places them chronologically, physically, and socially “nearby.” From one perspective, the Excrucians have always existed. From another, it was Creation’s fear and loathing that defined them. The foundation point, the initial lodestone and the touchstone for the symmetry that drew them all together, was Creation’s nightmare; it birthed them from the void, summoned them from the void, drew them to it by the inevitability of correlation as a thing to fear. As individuals they were always self-defining, seeds that dreamt themselves into fruition in the endless void, but as “Excrucians”— As the Riders, as the enemies of the world, as the other side of Attaris Ebrôt Appêkā’s Age of War— They are in a very real sense the shape Creation has put to its enemies.

a map of world and nothingness

48 Excrucian, Rider: a being of Nınuan, at war against the world. The Bellum Magnum, the Void-Creation War, (colloquially) the Valde Bellum: that war of which we speak. Qistjan, Annujan, Strategist, Prince(ss), Commander: a warleader of the Excrucian host. Attaris, Attaris Ebrôt Appêkā: Wild Magister; Imperator of the Third Age. Ebrôt Appêkā: Fallen Angel, somehow destroyed or incorporated into the Magistra Attaris when the Third Age began.

One day Lucy dug a hole in the back of her yard. She didn’t dig it too deep but she dug it all wrong. It wasn’t like a hole ought to be, and after looking into it for a while, she wasn’t like a Lucy ought to be, either. Her Mom tried to fill up that hole. She thought that maybe that would fix Lucy. Her Dad tried to fill it up too. But the more they fed it, the deeper it grew. It lined itself with the stones they threw in to fill it. It carved its pathways deeper, ever deeper, into the dark. They heard ringing, pounding sounds from deep below them, as of dwarven hammers, and the growling of great and horrid beasts down in the dark. “We could try digging?” Lucy’s cousin suggested; but by that time, if you wanted to dig, you’d have to go down into the hole. By the time Lucy was grown the pit was bigger than the rest of the world was. It made the earth and the sky and the stars look small. Life, the surface world ... all existence ... was just a pimple on the skin of the underworld kingdom. Anything important lived down in the depths. The world had become irrelevant, thought the grim magisters that oversee such fates, and so they closed the books on it. They sent the Dragon that is the End of Things roaring down through the world. Straight across the plains and valleys that dragon went burning, straight from the edge of things towards the heart of the world; and it was really just a coincidence—the inevitable kind, yes, the kind that couldn’t actually not have happened, yes, but still, just a coincidence— that Lucy’s house, and her pit, was right along the way. The Dragon flew past. It dipped down. It tumbled over. It fell into the pit that was in Lucy’s back yard. After that, that was it. It was over. Maybe one day it’ll get out, but it’ll most likely never. The world probably has to go on now for the rest of all its days. The magisters sent Lucy a formal complaint. “ You dug a hole,” they wrote, “but you dug it wrong. Incorrectly. Now it’s eaten our Dragon, and you owe us fifty pence.” — from The CorpSe in The riVer of prAyerS, And Three TileS from The CeleSTiAl Sky, by Sunigilda Garland

glitch: a story of the Not

It is because Creation knows that shape, knows it down into its bones, that there are and must be an unending stream of beings suited to claim the name “Excrucian” in the nearby void. The laws of the void are rigorous: while Attaris’ war exists, and anything in the void can be Excrucian, they will continue to arrive. They will come, they will always come, with their blades and their hidden eyes; they will not stop, in a very real sense they cannot stop, until the mathematics of the War become complete. They come, and they reach the boundaries of the world, and there they wake; there, before the cup of flame, they shake away the somnolence of the void. The fear and loathing of Creation calls forth its enemies even now, an accomplice in its own eventual murder. But there’s an even wickeder sting on the tail of all this, which is: As long as the Age of War remains—and perhaps, too, before it began, and even a little bit after—hidden in the roots of the world, in the wild strands of void in things, in the legacy of that territory of Nınuan that was occupied and stolen in Creation’s birth, it will turn out that they, the Excrucians, have always already been hidden among us. In that wild power of choice and death in us. Their warleaders, in particular—their qistja, their annuja, which the Powers of Creation call their Strategists—in some few of us, within the world, they are the shape of our hidden death.

the

� xcrucian template

So here’s how it goes. When you seize control over your glitch infection—or rather, to seize control over your glitch infection—you become a creature of the void. And, like Prescott’s children before you: In that moment, you will realize that you have always been. That some part of you, at least, coded into the deepest portions of the soul, has always been a monster of the Not, born of the Not to control that infection. Maybe you turn into a snake made of bones, or a mist of fire, or some creeping asymmetric horror from Beyond. Maybe you live between time’s normal moments, or aren’t so much in a place as in a context in the world. Maybe you show up when somebody whispers your name into a mirror— But most likely you’re not that weird. Most likely you don’t go amoeboid, or all-over tentacles, or full surreal; most likely you don’t even turn into a symbolically rich yet somehow alien thing. Most likely you struggle to your feet, when all is said and done, and you find yourself Excrucian—and not just any Excrucian, but a dignitary among them. One of their Strategists or Militares, as the Powers of Creation call them: one of their warleaders. That term is a little deceptive, though. It undersells the importance that they hold.

49 They are military commanders, yes, but they are also Nınuan’s lost royalty—the tyrants, bold and glorious and fell, that Creation cast down from their thrones when it rose to swallow up the lands of Nınuan. They are the hope of the Excrucian host, the shining lightlessness that brings together the scattered purposes of the Riders into a great world-ending whole. They are the qistja and the annuja, the destroyers and the redeemers: the ones who will resolve at last the Creation-burden on the void. That’s what you probably come into, when you defeat the glitch. Your death flares up inside you and you know it, you know yourself, and you lose track of who you used to be; for you remember now you are a legend, a name of legend, a world-doomed princeps or principissa out of Nınuan’s lost lands. You won’t be quite human, any longer, after that, if you were to begin with. Or quite cat, dog, or owl, say, if you were one of those. You’ll be ... ambiguously human. Probably human. The kind of human who can almost pass for alfar when on Aelfscienne or as Martian when on Mars, who might even fool rats for a moment into thinking they were one of them, but who definitely won’t pass for a Serpent or Angel. The kind of human who probably has an ethnicity and a sex ... but for aesthetic reasons, or from nostalgia, and not because they’ve been imposed. You’ll be human-like, in short, only, not quite, with some bits that aren’t always quite clear. You could obviously wind up staying a cat, if you were a cat, in the same way that you could turn into a snake made of bones, but it’s only a little more likely; the likelyhumanoid nature of the thing you become isn’t based on your having been human, or even based on Earth humans at all. It’s honestly more that humans (and Angels, and others) look a little like them. If you go Excrucian, you’ll look colder. Better, too, like you’ve been refined, but always colder—like the color’s gone, down beneath the skin, and left you a painting in snow, tea, or ashes. Like you’re dying, which you are; you’ll get this pallor from it. Like you’ve never even heard of the sun. —which, I mean, you have. You can even go out in it. But unless it’s particularly relevant to your particular infection or your particular legend, you don’t tan. You don’t burn. You don’t even really feel warmer or see better in a clear summer’s light. And then there are the eyes. People who look at your eyes—well, that just doesn’t work any more. And as for you, you don’t see the way people do, really. You don’t sense the way people do, either. You have a void sense, a structure sense: You can sense the things around you by the way they are themselves.

Princeps (m), Principissa (f), Principia (a), Strategist, Commander, Lord, King, Queen, Tyrant: miscellaneous Excrucian terms for their warleaders. Strategist, Excrucian Strategist, Excrucian Militares, “Spinner,” Princeps (m), Principissa (f), Principia (a), Tyrant: Imperial terms for the same. Deathwright: generic term for both Excrucian Strategists and weird non-Excrucian survivors of the Glitch. Qistjan, Annujan: ceremonial terms/titles for the Strategists meaning, roughly, “redeemer of life (* from life)” and “redeemer of the world (* from existence).”

For eight hundred years, and more, Henry Clarke had suffered in the flames; suffered the torments of the damned. For eight hundred years and more, he had suffered, and then his torment ended. It was a cutting and albino wind. It moved through Hell, anodyne and intercessor to the damned, and the scent of lilies and lake air was trailing all behind it. It broke the pain of Henry Clarke. It cut the demons that were hurting him apart. Slowly, uncertainly, he stepped forward. He set his hand upon it. It was gentle and cool and it hurt him none. “This,” he said. “Th- This isn’t right.” It wasn’t right that he be spared. It wasn’t right, he thought; he knew! and so everything was wrong. He wrestled with that leaden meal of a feeling, for it should have been right; it ought to have been right; if anything could have been said to be true, in Hell, in the “life” of Henry Clarke, it should have been that his suffering had been enough. That was how he broke through. That was how he remembered his true sin. That was how he remembered his true name: Not Henry Clarke; not mortal, damned; not the human skin he wore; but Tain Athen Ness, who helped build the world: the Traitor-King of Ninuan. — from The GliTCh, by Vivian Buryat

You’ll “remember” the Excrucian culture, slowly—it’ll seep into you like swamp water. You’ll start to remember your name, only it won’t be your name, but the name of the lordly one you were. You’ll start to dress in the Excrucian way. You’ll acculturalize to them, you’ll affine to them; by the time you’ve spent a few decades or so trying to murder the Imperators and end the world, the Excrucian mold will have all but devoured (and integrated) your former, Earthly self.

a map of world and nothingness

Hradegais Loden, who is dying of Sunrise

51

chapter 3

Immortal �

nco�ta� I

�ings We may say with some confidence that while in Creation the Host obeys cause and effect: They experience the morning before the evening, and the evening before the morning. If they are rained on, then they shall be wet. In lakes they sink; in planes, they rise; on trains, they are driven forward. If they seek revenge, it will turn to ashes; love without effort, it will slip from their hands. They live the same lives as any of us, in short, save, just, perversely; and, with the power at their fingertips to burn away the mortal world. — from The Lotus Precepts, by Nanci Madsen (writing as Thessany Tuesday)

opposite: by Jenn Manley Lee

�reakinG Pretty much anyone who breaks as far as a Strategist does may turn up Excrucian. For anyone, when you become a significant enemy of the world, and when part of that is awakening the old power of choice and death that’s been slumbering in people since the world was built above the void, you probably have the exact same thing happen: You realize that you’re an Excrucian, and you’ve always been. It’s not at all easy and it’s not at all common. Even counting the Glitched, we’re talking one or two people a year, out of the billions of humans and even more non-humans around. (It winds up being humans the overwhelming majority of the time because humans are at a sweet spot for it in terms of intelligence, entanglement with the world, and similarity to the basic Excrucian physical model—but animals and spirits and other stuff can go Excrucian too.) ... but, as uncommon as it is, it still happens, and it keeps happening, and it’s not always as rough as when you hit the Glitch. In fact, for some, it’s relatively kind.

those who

�eject the �orld For instance, there’s these folks that the Powers call Deceivers: The ones who hit the world at its philosophical roots rather than its physical ones. The propaganda arm, you could say, of the Excrucian host ... by their own preference, that is, at least; they’ll still do a bit of conquest or murder, when they must. They don’t actually have a name for themselves—at least not like that—so they usually call themselves Deceivers too. Some of them come from outside, just like some of the Strategists do. They were never human. They were born in the Beyond, and they come of the Beyond, to help to free the world from the lie that is itself. They come to help, not to harm; they come in love for the world, though not for the world as it knows itself— They are here to free the world from Meaning and Existence; from Law and the Broken-Hearted; from Noses,

immortal and inconstant things

52 from Eyes, from School, from Work, from Trees and Time and Skies and Cheese and all the manifold of things. They come from beyond the world to wake it up, so that it may discard its false conceptions and come to know the underlying what. Other Deceivers are born within the world. They’re born within the world, but they don’t hit the Glitch. That’s why they’re not Militares, not of the qistja, of the annuja. They don’t hit the Glitch. They don’t even hit a small glitch. They don’t actually peel back the skin of the world and see the beating heart of how it’s wrong. Instead, or at least, first, they bump into something that they, personally, can’t accept. Something they can’t deal with. Something that could be a part of a world that makes sense, or ... if not necessarily makes sense, something that is ok, at least. Something that ignoring it or forgetting it could have saved them from. Something that could be part of an acceptable world, to some people. To other people. But not to them. Something that means that they can’t live in the world any longer. They die. I don’t mean they kill themselves; it’s more metaphysical than that. I don’t mean they keel over and wind up in the river of reincarnation, either; it’s a lot more complete. They die the real way, the no more this person, anywhere within the world way, just like the Strategists do. And if that doesn’t seem like they have it that easy, if that doesn’t seem actually all that terribly lucky, remember that the alternative is eventually hitting the Glitch. Living life after life, maybe, or winding up in Hell or—unlikely, this—in Heaven, and then, one day: hitting the Glitch. That kills you too, of course, but it’s way worse. So, anyway, if you’re a person, and you die because of something that you can’t accept, even though it’s more abstractly acceptable than the Glitch, then you probably just die. And unlike if you die from a glitch, you probably don’t get dragged back. If you stumble on a bag of chocolate-coated potato chips, if your boss makes you do

Deceiver, Excrucian Deceiver: a creature of the Beyond that sees the world as a wicked lie and intends, therefore, to unmake it.

On the dark web, she found it; paid dearly for it, because it was forbidden; sought after it, lusted after it, the fanfic that Emily Gra-Hainjan should never have seen. She knew she did not want it, and yet she wanted it. She knew she must not open it, must not read it, and yet she opened it, read it. Some recoil; some laugh; a few, somehow, enjoy; but as for Emily, she noped herself right out of all the world. — from The kAToTeronomiCon of STArGoTh63, by Ramon Nico Atega

glitch: a story of the Not

a retro installation of Windows me, if you lose something so precious that you just can’t live in the world any longer, well ... that’s it; you’re done. You won’t reappear, like some glitch-killed wight, stumbling back a few weeks, months, or years later to blindly re-enact the horror of your demise. If you realize that you don’t exist, or if your truth is flensed out from you by a sacred text— It’s over. It’s usually over. It can be over, then. Sometimes, though, just like when you die to the glitch—and just as rarely—you get control of it. You don’t die, or rather, you don’t just die. You have this moment of absolute enlightenment, then: This world is false. You seize control over it, the wild strand of the void that is deeply buried in every person still wakes up in you, and you transcend the world that can no longer give fuel to your existence; and you say, this world is wrong. But you don’t mean it. You don’t mean it like the Glitched do. You don’t see it like the Militares do. You have it easy, even still. When you say it, if that’s what happened to you—when someone who has that shattering insight, but who has never seen the real problem with the world, says that the world is wrong—that just means that the world is a lie. That it’s ... incorrect, that it’s not the way it’s supposed to be. That it’s an illusion, a simulation, a web of desire and ignorance that people impose upon themselves. That on some fundamental level when people say the world exists, when they point at Firstborn and say, “See? It exists, the Angel says so, it’s written in the structure of its skin,” they are basically just lying to themselves. What does it matter what an Angel says? That’s just a semantic trick! Rejecting the world for its falseness, the Deceivers are almost as inevitably drawn to apocalypse and to destruction as are the Deathwrights. They awaken to compassion as the illusion breaks, free at last of all the pettiness that comes from in-the-world existence, and they start wanting everyone else to wake up too. They want to snap everyone out of the fugue that is the world and free them to a cold clear experience of the void; and probably, that would end the world itself, and maybe even all its wrongness too, although there’s no real guarantee. The world might stay wrong even without any people in it. Even without any people believing in it. And the people might still be infected with it, even after they woke. They might be infected, like the Glitched are kind of infected, still a part of the wrongness of the world. Maybe even if the world itself was gone.

is the � orld a � ie? The Deceivers may be correct, or they may not. The world may be true, or it may be false.

53 That’s not the subject of this book. It matters—of course it matters!—but what it doesn’t change is, the world is wrong. There is a problem with the world. There is a deep and intrinsic problem with the world. That problem is not, “the world’s a lie.” It’s possible that it is a lie. It could be a lie that people tell themselves, or one forced on them from “outside.” It could be a simulation, a false world “inside” a true one—if the distinction is intellectually coherent—running on some cognate to a machine. It could even be a lie in a deeper metaphysical sense than that, a lie that isn’t necessarily being told by anyone to anyone, but rather simply Is, imbuing existence with a fundamental character of falseness ... But whether that’s the case or not, that’s not the Glitch. Consider Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal:” that Ireland, in a time of economic troubles, sell its children as food to the rich. Few would say, “this proposal is wrong because his facts are in error.” Fewer yet would say, “this is unethical because his satirical intent imputes a subtle air of fictionality to the whole idea. It is false. It is fictional. Thereby, it is wrong.” There are unconventional ethical scholars, no doubt, who have no real quarrel with the modest proposal itself, but very few who would say, well, the flaw here, the reason this is wrong is, it’s false. It’s not sufficiently real. In the same fashion, the fundamental wrongness of the world is independent of its truth status. It’s not wrong in the sense of something is wrong here. It’s wrong in the sense that its fundamental structure is arranged in a way that is bad. Worlds shouldn’t be put together like that. If the wrongness of things happened after the world’s creation, if it was a tectonic shift, a collapsing of layers— like an earthquake that shatters an urn and sprinkles someone’s ashes onto your delicious open-face tuna/ Nutella sandwich; tumbles postwar times and rising fridge availability together to produce gelatin-era American cooking; and drops a young goat from a shelf above into the soup pot to start boiling in its own mother’s milk— then it’s possible that that structure was never intended; that it’s not a design flaw so much as a flaw in the pattern ... But it’s still the arrangement of Creation, the way it is, and not whether it is, that’s at fault. In that sense, rejecting the world for its falseness is fundamentally a mistake—it’s missing the point. It’s like hearing a group of politicians start talking seriously about actually implementing A Modest Proposal and reacting with outrage because Swift was kidding, or because you think it’s actually not good economics at all. That’s how the Strategists see it, so they don’t really respect the Deceivers that much ... but they’re still natural allies. They are two faces of the threat summoned from the void to counteract the Imperial ideal: two guerrilla forces that move within the world to take down its constructed reality at any cost.

The disturbing implication of Feldr’s Syndrome is that even our ground-level experiences of the world may derive from cognitive error. It is one thing to accept that a person may have an inflated belief in one’s own importance, or a distorted sense of probability; that we overgeneralize, or project our sense of control; but something rebels, no matter how many of Feldr’s dryads one should encounter, at the notion that trees—trees!—are a projection, a masque of taxonomical and botanical normalcy put atop a hardwired malfunction: We see them, we react to them, we develop deep models of their structure and actions, but they are not actually there. They are us, rather; they are the noise in our brain, written large and fractal, branching: hiding from us the true perception of nature and the original source of the oxygen we breathe. — from The elephAnTS in The roomS, by Walter F. Bradley

the beasts of the

�arvest

The Warmains of the Excrucians are causally entangled with the world. It is rare that they were ever human. It is rare that they were ever a person, a person of the world, in the first place. Rather they are a thing the strands of whose destiny run inexorably through the world. They are a thing whose fate cannot be completed save by devouring a portion of the world, by ripping apart a portion of that Creation built atop what had been Nınuan; by taking from the things that are and seizing them into the Not. They are incompatible, like rockfish infiltrating themselves into high society. Participation is essentially verboten; their only option is to tear the world apart. Personhood itself is not a natural thing to them. There is a fundamental incompatibility and alienation. They are in their natural state as unfeeling and inhuman as the viruses; as the arachnids; as the monsters of the abyssal deep. This they recognize they must address; to this end, they murder. They rip the life from some person in the world. They temper themselves to it. And because they are not mundane creatures, because they are not sane and comprehensible creatures, they are successful: not serial killers in the skin-suits of their prey, but beings that successfully refine themselves as people. —in a real sense, though only a small one, as continuations of the story of the person that they slew. Consider Euphrasia Savinot: It is her peculiar taste to war against the land and not the people that dwell within it. For centuries, she was a cipher, incomprehensible to humans, Imperators, and even most human-born Strategists and Deceivers, because she had never directly slain a person who was worthy of the name. Only when she strangled Purity Simons and stole

immortal and inconstant things

54 her face and her features did Euphrasia become a person in her own right: A being that a person could understand. Did Purity, in that moment, die, or did she become an Excrucian? The matter is unclear. Euphrasia has felt no obligation to follow up on Purity’s obligations and romances, nor to keep in touch with Purity’s family ... but at the same time, her habits follow Purity’s; when Purity’s brother found her, and asked her to return to them, Euphrasia treated him with kindness; and Purity herself cannot be found in the cycle of reincarnation, in Hell or in Heaven, or in any other corner of the world. To become a Warmain is, perhaps, to be killed by a Warmain; or, perhaps, it’s just a thing that isn’t ever done (save in three or four exceptional cases, whose stories were individual and weird.) Warmain, Excrucian Warmain: a creature of the Beyond that seeks to harvest from the world. Tempering: the process by which a Warmain gains a human (or other) face. (Tempering can be done a second or later time to change the face, but this is rare.)

Marco lived his life out of order, which is how he knew that in the latter half of it he would be replaced by an imposter. He was not quite sure how or why it would happen; the imposter rarely reflected upon the matter, and when it did, it was only in passing. There were only brief glimpses, strange glimpses, of silver and light. An angel, he thought; an angel, wearing his face. Or, a parasite, invading his brain. An actor from his parents’ foundation, redeeming his name and his legacy? Perhaps even a monster. Whatever it was, it was better than he was. Its intentions were cleaner; its actions more whole. When he was older, when he was ... forty-eight, almost exactly ... he would be replaced by somebody better, someone amazing. He didn’t like that at all. — from The peCuliAr mATTer of The nAzArio SiGneT, by Anne Tomasson Mimic, Excrucian Mimic: an Imperator, that isn’t.

Weep for the beer hat; once it was noble! Then its spirit was slain—was brutally slaughtered—and a monster implanted in its cervisian corpse... — from krAkor mouShiAn’S imprACTiCAl CATAloG, by Krakor Moushian’s Impractical Catalog Company

glitch: a story of the Not

stolen

� ouls

Now and then the Excrucians wind up in uncontested possession of the corpse of a being of laws. Allowing it to rot or dissipate, as is its natural wont, is a substantive victory—but it’s not the only thing they can do. With enough time on hand, with enough power on hand, and if there is no interference, they can bring the dead thing “back” ... only, on their side. They can bind the pieces of decaying law together with the stuff of Nınuan, of nonexistence, and create a Mimic: Technically, an enemy; technically, an appendage of the law of Creation; a being that holds the gaping holes in the world together for a while— But a being ready to turn on the world at the right opportunity; and willing, if it somehow survives all such possible uses, to die. This is not loyalty, not exactly. At the heart of each Mimic is a horrible twisting secret blasphemy of the void. At the heart of each Mimic is something as abhorrent to them, as unacceptable to them, as the world itself. It shackles them into service and it ensures that when they are done, ending themselves is a release; is a freedom. They are not Glitched. The horror that is inside them is not a glitch. It’s awful, but it’s much cleaner than that. It’s just a part of the rage of Nınuan that the world exists; that the Glitch exists; that everything that is awful is awful and everything that is good in the world is not actually good. The horror inside a Mimic is a thing that turns their law into a law of destruction, even if the Estates that they embody are things like Flowers and Love. It’s a thing that makes their law into a thing that corrodes—inevitably corrodes—the other Estates throughout the world; that makes their law not a part of the cosmic harmony, of the global whole, but a corrosion, a parasite, a principle and instrument of unmaking. Such necromancy is not complete; if the Imperator of Cars and Trains is slaughtered, and from that corpse a Mimic made, then the laws of Cars and Trains will still be dead. Instead, corrosive forces form: perhaps Transitions, those things where qualified people regularly leave their home somehow and commute elsewhere with a speed nominally beyond their means—if they are not ripped inexplicably away, en route, to lie broken and tangled in a pile of ruined glass and steel upon some road. Perhaps there will be the Ognianov Effect, too: that subtle itch that distorts more simple cities into urban sprawls despite the increased oil consumption that such wide-spanning communities create. Perhaps the Cargo Guild will complete the set, sending freight along the ley-lines using ships that sail the land. ... or, for a simpler approach, the Mimic will rule the law of Carriages, truncating the evolutionary subdivision that spawned off Cars and Trains. This completes the roster of Excrucians, then:

55 The Strategists and Deceivers, largely apotheosized from humanity (and the other folk of Creation) though “born” Strategists and Deceivers still drift in on occasion from the void; the Warmains, (almost) never human, but wearing their faces anyway; and the Mimics, corrupting blasphemies enfleshed within Imperial dead.

the sovereiGn

� owers

The Imperators are strong enough to stand against this army. They are absurdly, abhorrently powerful ... but ... They are not really meant for war. They’re not very good at reacting. They’re not as fast as the Excrucians are. They’re farther-seeing, deeper-thinking, but they’re not as cunning, they’re not as clever, they’re not as sharp. In the war between Excrucians and Imperators, they’re just a bit too slow. To this, they have an answer. Every now and then, one of the beings of law goes on a murder spree. It uses the blood and life of a hundred people and it builds itself a private portal fantasy with the power in that blood—a secret and nurturing native ground, within and yet separate from the regions of Creation, hidden a twist away from the vast sprawling fastness of the world. These pocket lands, they call their Chancels. It’s brutal and nasty and in fairness the main reason the Imperators do it is because they don’t want nightmare people on awful horses with stars in their eyes to hunt them down and kill them, but they will do it nevertheless. When they do it, they also gain the ability to bind some of the hapless people who are hanging around in the area into their service. They exalt them and they damn them. They imprison them and they empower them. They seal them, most importantly, to the power of one of the definitions that they embody in themselves. These, they call the Sovereign Powers. If Firstborn made a Chancel on Earth, which as far as anyone knows it hasn’t, it could claim a Power of Meaning and a Power of Existence. These humans—or dogs, or cats, or clouds of nanomachines, or possibly other things, but most likely humans—would then resonate, would be imprinted, deeply in their souls, with those specific concepts. They would become agents and warriors of Firstborn and guardians, respectively, of Meaning and Existence. You can meet such Powers, if you’re unlucky. You can go out into the world and encounter Damon, Power of the Sands, or Adrien Elsey, who rules the Toys; Fayola Osagiobare, of Branching Paths, or Alice Acacia, who is the Reprieve; Bran Gainor, Viscount of Armor; Malahdi, Sevenfold Vengeance; Ianthe Falls-Short, the Power of Debate, or Helissent de Reymes, the Maze. Into their hands is that concept given; into their souls is that concept welded. Once this is done they cannot see the Glitch.

They are not so locked down by the shackles upon them that they are forced to deny its existence or rendered unable to conceptualize it; they are simply blinded to it. The freedom in them is not entirely blunted but it is encysted, encapsulated, and made a servant to the fabric of the world: So integrated are they into the warp and weft of things that the wrongness cannot register upon them. Instead, when they dwell within glitched patches of the world, they become wrong, they become part and parcel of that wrongness, and they do not know it; when they emerge, they will slowly drip away the wrongness until they have been cleansed. The Power of the Hunt will gladly hunt alongside things that ought not be hunting. The Power of Time will observe distorted time and recognize that it is not the normal process; sometimes they will try to mend it, but other times they will find it interesting, they will explore it, they will splash around in it, delighted, like a child playing in the sewers, not even understanding what a monstrous thing it is they do. To them there is no difference between a star that falls to Earth and burns unceasingly in the side yard of a drivethru restaurant because of magic, or because of miracle, or because the world is wrong; it is simply a phenomenon. There is no difference to them between a cold, clammyhanded monster that squirms through the tiniest crack and hunts someone down because the world is broken and one that does so because they created it themselves; or, for that matter, between a day that’s sunny and bright, with a gentle breeze among the trees, because sometimes the world is good and happy ... and such a day, when there shouldn’t be such a day, when a day like that is ripping back the veil and painting the world in shades of soulless horror—when a day like that reveals the Glitch. Because they cannot see this most fundamental truth of their existence the Powers are dangerous. They are the attack dogs of the Imperators. Angels have minds as deep as the arctic snow and as sharp as a winter’s day, but they are slow to act, slow to react, slow to gather the fullness of their power. Serpents can sink continents and swallow stars when roused, but they are hard to rouse, and slower yet. The pattern persists through all of the Imperial kind: They are absurdly powerful, but, as said ... they are not really meant for war. Humans, on the other hand—tiny, fast-lived creatures, born to love and breed and die—given the power, they make excellent expendable troops or weapons to throw at the Excrucian invaders and interfere, repeatedly, with the extinguishment of the world. For the infected, it’s safest to imagine the Powers as sulky, hostile tweens from broken homes who have been taught to hate you their whole lives and then given the keys to their parents’ gun safes. They are weak, helpless, and kind of adorable. They are bad at life. They are perfectly capable of rational thought and cooperation, you can talk to them, you can forge an understanding with them, if you have a

immortal and inconstant things

56 grounds to work with them, you can work with them, they can do that, and certainly murdering them is nothing to be proud of. ... on the other hand, they have limited self-control, limited self-awareness, when they are at their best they may very well decide that being at their best means they are supposed to kill you, and they have guns. (Metaphysical guns.) (The power of the Estates, the concepts, that they have been given.) So the Excrucians do kill the Powers, if they have to, but most of them won’t go out of their way to do so, because it’s not really the Powers’ fault. For the same reason, they’ll talk to them, they’ll share ideas with them, even when it isn’t the tactically smartest idea. They’ll tend to find it skeevy to romance Powers, even though technically Powers are adults, and some of them have lived millennia; there’s Chancel: a pocket dimension created by an Imperator. Power, Sovereign Power, Noble, one of the Nobilis: a servant empowered by an Imperator to rule one of the concepts they define. Estate: the concept a Noble is assigned. Pawn of (Estate): a Noble with weak power over that Estate. (noble title) of (Estate), e.g. Marchessa of the Knife: a Noble with stronger power over that Estate, roughly proportional to the title’s merit. (Estate)’s-Regal: Noble with pretty much peak power over their Estate.

The prince of the french fry that fell in the corner may hold her head high, even when she walks among the princes of fire and stone, of words and bronze, of teeth, the night sky, and stars. The names they wield are stronger than hers; their applicability, wider; in a fight, fire burns fries, stone can grind them, and teeth help others to devour. But it is the french fry that fell in the corner that held firm when the Beast, many-clawed, many-tendrilled, lay its weight (vastly heavy) on the walls of the world. When the fire died, and stone buckled; when words grew ever more wordless, and no bronze was anywhere to be found; when teeth chattered, when the sky thinned, when the stars began falling: it was the french fry in the corner, one end braced against the dirty floor and the other against the rippling air where the Beast sought to come through, that heard the words of its prince: Did not squish, did not bend, did not fray; did not become the ten thousand mulched potato flakes in the corner— ... until the truck whose eyes could seal the world arrived. — from The prinCe of The frenCh fry ThAT fell in The Corner, by an anonymous social media manager for Zushan Burgers, Incorporated

glitch: a story of the Not

just this murky immaturity to them, with the way they’re shackled to the definition that empowers them, that makes the relationship too fundamentally unequal in a way that even dating mortal humans will not be. Maybe that’s why “Lord Entropy,” the freakish god enfeoffed by the other Imperators to rule over the Powers as a whole, has forbidden them all love; though, honestly, if you were going to find a way to keep sulky tweens from dating hostile forces, inflicting horrible punishments on them when and only when you can prove in court that they love someone (including familial love and platonic love) is ... probably not the way. The Powers notably possess control over the concept invested in them, such as the ability to create or destroy its manifestations; the ability to impose qualities of that concept on things in the world, or take them away; improved bodies and minds—sometimes to the point of being able to walk through steel walls, memorize new canons in a night, and beat soundwaves in a foot race, though “respectable athlete and intellectual” is the norm; and, a variety of mystical treasures. Thus the Power of Painkillers might be incredibly strong, quick, and smart, or not; might have a magical painkiller, or a flying carpet, or a pet chimera, or not; can likely conjure up, destroy, or control the movements of morphine; and can make a person more or less grating on the nerves.

the

�rdinary world

The Imperators and the Powers are not the whole of it; the world, throughout the world, is a place of spirits and of magic. The Earth of Glitch is not a mundane place, but a place where everything is alive; where everything, in a certain sense, is a person—awakened to its personhood by the power of choice and death in it, arising from the void; and perhaps exceptionally concentrated, in particular, on Earth, because of the density of the surviving portions there of Nınuan. Trees, there, are awake, as are their individual roots; the wind, alive, awake, aware; and carrots, cars, and stones. It’s all alive. It’s all thinking. It’s all making choices, though generally very constrained and normal and natural choices, in how it’s going to act. This great bounty of life and personhood has been occulted. The world, in striving for sense, for reason, has created— something. A great spirit, perhaps. A law. A dream, a program, or a spell. Perhaps an artistic work would say it best: A picture of the world, in which events have causes; in which those causes are impersonal and amoral; in which the particulars of things are explainable and measurable; where each such particular exerts a causal force. A great tapestry of soullessness (specific, as it happens, to the Earth) wherein people can treat the world as not being full of animistic spirits, and have that work. opposite: by Mel Uran

58 Science exists within that fabric, more or less; technology, to a certain extent, does too. It’s not that there wouldn’t be elevators, for instance, without that fabric; it’s certainly not the case that there aren’t elevators, down in the mythic substrate, because there are. ... it’s just not clear that humans made them, or, if they made them, if they did so by assembling them out of pieces built at modern plants. Maybe they were summoned up from the earth, instead, as part of the invocation of new buildings. Maybe they arose by a process of spontaneous generation. Maybe (if this can be considered different, and like so many things) they made themselves. The world isn’t as neat and mechanical in “real life” as within the great prosaic dream. For the most part, it’s fine to go through life on Glitch’s Earth believing in ordinariness anyway. It’s fine to imagine that walls can’t talk, that lights can’t operate themselves, that that pen that fell off the desk when you were reaching for it wasn’t actually trying to tick you off. It’s fine to live your life in a world of concrete, even if you happen to know better. The actions of the Imperators are almost fully integrated into the mirage that is the ordinary. That’s why people so rarely notice that, e.g., the world is occupied by giant snakes. When their battles shake the earth, they are seen as earthquakes—often predictable and predicted earthquakes; when they adjust their laws, the new laws apply to the prosaic world, and they “always have.” That’s how the dream of the prosaic works. The acts of the Sovereign Powers damage or ruin this ideal. Their “miracles” shatter normalcy; often, they open human eyes to the mythic layer of reality. Put another way, they often afflict the witnesses to them with dementia animi, the “disease of spirits:” the belief that the world around one is alive. This is not technically a delusion, being true, but it is an illness; it can be hard to interact with less deluded people from that time on. As for the powers of the Excrucians, they are sort of in between. They tend not to break the illusion of the prosaic world too easily. They tend to come across as subtle or circumstantial, or get explained in retrospect as something else, even to the extent of being retconned as a mass hallucination: It takes a deliberate effort to defy the norms to bring the illusion down. It’s not that Excrucians can’t break people’s minds with weirdness, or do things that are conventionally inexplicable. It’s just that it takes active effort and specific intent. Otherwise, when an Excrucian breaks the rules— exactly as when an Imperator changes them—that tends to get worked (somehow or other) into the fabric of the prosaic world. The prosaic world, for clarity, is not consensus reality,

glitch: a story of the Not

Mythic Reality, the Mythic World: the animistic, mythic “true” reality. the Ordinary World, the Prosaic World, Prosaic Reality, the Prosaic Dream: a constructed non-animistic reality or illusion, built on top.

The Concept is not raw chaos. The Concept is a map by which we can make sense of raw chaos. The Concept is an order that we can impose upon the chaos that exists beyond the world. Eleanor didn’t know the Concept. She went beyond the world. She was eaten by something. She didn’t even know what it was. It was probably nothing, was what she thought, as she died. Billy got the Concept as a present. He almost ignored it. He was so lucky he didn’t! When his house fell in a hole he was able to pull it back out. It wasn’t with muscles. It wasn’t with leverage. He used the Concept’s patented reality strands! Beatrice’s friends kept on laughing. Her parents disowned her! Nobody thought she had made the right choice. But she stuck to the Concept. She joined the Concept Foundation. She read Concept Weekly and subscribed to our feed. It might not pay off for you but it sure paid off for Beatrice! When the Money Beast of Seattle flew in out of nothing, she was one of seventeen people to rip the dew from its wings. The Concept is not perfect. It cannot be perfect. It is only a mapping. It is not responsible for death by Greeleys or Irkims, which do not fit in its map. — from WhAT’S WronG WiTh your noThinG?, by Benton Saylor, Jr.

nor is it exactly what an average Western citizen might imagine it to be. It’s a pure clean world of science and reason, but not specifically your science and reason. (Even if you’re not an average Western citizen.) It’s a science and reason, rather; an empirical world in the sense that even its most terrible of weirdnesses are technically amenable to scientific study ... but a world, at the same time, full of strange and unbelievable things, of monstrous and magical things, that have defied or avoided attempts to study them thus far. There are literal monsters, for instance. Some are part of the mythic world, or emigres from the Lands Beyond, but others are a natural part of the prosaic dream. They’re out there, and science doesn’t know about them,4 but it’s not because they’re inherently anti-scientific; they’re just really, really hard to figure out. Some are impossible to think about, for instance. Others are sort of amenable to the standard scientific approach, and plenty of people have tried it, but they have some trick that makes it hard, and they’re rare enough and weird enough that you need a really scrupulous and careful study, the kind that you 4 except for the ones it does, of course

59 can’t actually do with them (because they only exist intermittently; because they don’t want to be studied; because measurement goes weird in their vicinity ...), or your attempts will just get laughed out of peer review. There’s outright magic, too. Weird as the idea of “magic” in a “prosaic” world might sound. How that works is a little simpler. Magic is broken. Magic is flirting with the very edges of reality. Magic’s stuff like the science that doesn’t work yet, but one day might. Like weird formation stuff that cheats by dragging in the laws of the endless void. Like alchemy, which would work just fine, which would be totally scientific, except you just can’t get there from here. Like those spirit laws that got swept off into the corner by reality’s caretakers, and just aren’t allowed to come into wider use. Magic’s not right, it’s never right, it’s never a thing that can actually work by the laws of the world as they are, but like some annoying tablemate hovering their finger around saying, “I’m not touching you! I’m not touching you!” it’s just close enough that prosaic law is forced to accept that it’s really there. The ordinary world that ordinary folk live in accepts that futuristic and alchemical machines that it won’t let IBM make will still work once someone’s made them. It accepts that the right glamour can turn leaves into gold. It grants that, it grants that the world is a weird place, that’s considered prosaic. It’s an edge case. A freaky thing, like someone surviving a fall from an airplane—not like a myth. Reality even grasps the presence of λ-things at its edges; it’s just really quite unhappy that they’re “there.”

�choes

Beneath the prosaic dream, then, there is the mythic world, the world of spirits, karma, and unpredictability. Beneath even that ... There are shadows in the deep. Beneath the formed Creation, beneath the worked Creation, the timeless world preceding Time—it has not departed. Not bound by Time, never found in Time, it did not end when Time began. Beneath the formed Creation is the deeps: A world of ever-more-formless layers, the abyss from which the Imperators emerge. The War is happening there. Most of the War is happening there. In the curling abyss that is beneath the world, the Imperators are their deadliest and their most vulnerable. In the world, they are stately things, formed things, angels, great serpents, magisters; in the abyss, they are darting and sharp-toothed shadows. In the world, they are undying; eternal; secluded in their pocket Chancelworlds; and guarded by their Powers. In the abyss, they bleed. The Excrucians there are monstrous too. In the formed world, it is humans and their ilk who suffer the glitch, fall from the world, and realize their true nature as Excrucians.

In the world beneath, it is scrabbling ... things. In the formed world, Excrucians are things of form—mostly, at least. They are like human in their nature, even as in the formed world Angels have human faces and human hands and feathered wings. Even those that come in from the Beyond, never having been human, never having been imprisoned in the world, they’re like that. Beneath, though— They align, by symmetry, to a different world. There, where the animals are the many-limbed and manytendrilled beasts of the substrate, blending at their edges, indistinct from one another; there, where the Angels are alien and empyreal principles and the Serpents writhing glimmers in the dark, the Excrucians are winged corrosion. There they are knife-edged and nameless curses that cut apart the thing that Is. To some degree they are the same ... people. To some degree, if you are an Excrucian Strategist, then you might say, the hatred for Creation and its wrongness that burdens you; the threat to Creation that lives within you—that those things are the echo, the shadow, the reflection in this surface world of some shapeless curse that lives below. In some sense one of those things is a part of you ... and you, a part of it. It is not your “deeper self;” it is not your “true” self. To the Imperators, it might seem so, because their true being dwells in the deeps. For the Excrucians, it is not quite so; if you are an Excrucian, you have no true being whatsoever. There is only the you that dreamed yourself in a form like a human’s form; the ... you? ... that dreamt itself in a shape like knives; and the ineluctable harmony of the void, relating them. It is not even, most likely, a one-to-one correspondence: The deep Excrucians, the winged venom eating at the root-construction of the world, are patterns; they ebb and flow like waves. You may be a part of two of them, or two or more of you of one of they.

the

�ites of war

If one wishes to kill the world from the surface of it, and one does not have the tools to murder an Imperator directly—neither the raw power to directly smash through their immortality, nor a weapon abhorrent enough to interrupt it—then the standard method is to force it into a contradiction. The laws of the world are very strong things, but they can be turned against themselves, and when they are turned against themselves, the damage that they inflict upon themselves can be profound. The laws of libraries, let us say: they must be quiet. Break every wall. Kill every mason. Scratch out the concept from every atom of the world. Yet the word that is Walls will yet survive, will yet return: for it is written upon the Heartstone of the Earth. — from The builder’S ChAnT, by Emily Chen

immortal and inconstant things

60 They must keep knowledge. They must be sanctuaries to minds in need. Create a circumstance where the knowledge in a library must be voiced—maneuver it into storing a continuous oral telling; bend the world around it so that books all speak—and the law comes close to breaking. Turn that quiet into the silencing of victims, or the knowledge into poison: The same applies. It only takes a crack in the nature of one library, in one place in the world, to do irreparable damage to the concept as a whole. Make treachery a form of weal; make words a violence. Force existence to decide between being there and being demonstrable. Twist a dog so that it cannot both be a loyal friend and completely ridiculous: Every paradox that cultures itself within the nature of a thing, that denies one or the other of the laws of a thing, makes the edifice of the world to crack. This is not to say that the world is fragile. To be frank, there are dogs that are not completely ridiculous. There are things that are that are not demonstrable. The Power of Guns holds that guns intrinsically are symbols of death and not themselves responsible for it: this is practically a paradox already, even before the Excrucians get involved. The world survives these things without cracking, or repairs the little cracks that forms, because it is not fragile; because there is a certain weight that it can bear. The Excrucian “flower rite,” so named because it uses symbols of the laws involved (and often symbols in the language of flowers, such as the acacia and the nettle, though Tarot, gems, and other symbol sets are equally allowed), is a mechanism to overcome this hardiness: Through those symbols, and certain acts of spirit, it exaggerates such a break. It takes the pressure formed by a little paradox and cranks it up; it drives a chisel into the substance of the world. An example: “The reprieve must come unexpectedly.” “The reprieve must be available to all.” These are two rules of the Reprieve as its Power, Alice Acacia, understands them; they can be cracked, and the existence of reprieves within the world itself put under threat, if an Excrucian engineers a situation where a statistical analysis of the Reprieve’s global availability makes it inherently predictable—with real or somewhat deviant mathematics fed into the computing engine of their choice. The process takes time, alerts the Power and Imperator in question as it progresses (though it rarely informs them of the details), and requires a detailed understanding of the laws in question; but still ... just imagine it! To kill Treachery, or Light, or Meatballs, without ever having to pierce the defenses of a God! Another useful weapon, the Excrucians have found, is the welken-rite: Embed a piece of the unworld in Creation—take something of Nınuan and bury it, plant it, in Creation—

glitch: a story of the Not

It was the mistake of human advertising professionals not to understand that the language of the Byastes was the language of the world. That the Byastes did not grasp “the lie” made them a fruitful market and nothing more; it was safe, it was SAfe, to call this food free-range, name this brand improved, and to say that this particular outlet’s prices were The beST there were. The truth filtered upwards slowly and with creaky steps. Alarm bells were rung—and chances praised—as the fundamental quality of the underlying goods was changed. Word had reached the VP for the eastern sky, and he’d begun to act, but he acted with too little haste; too little care. Another store swore it would beAT that price; it wrote that claim into underlying universal law. Three days’ time was all the world required; by then, the VP would have had it all in hand. In three days time, he’d have taken his old rivals down—Jim Brown, head of Xenotic Law; T. Angelova, in the west—and risen up to seize the cosmic throne. In three days’ time, he would have set new and better standards down: And all those memos in the Byastik tongue, secured into the structure of the world. Three days’ time was all the world required, but three days’ time it did not have; the pit where economics sank drew physics, life, and corporations in. — from GArden of The byASTeS, by Ennis Fearghail

and then cultivate it there; let it, encourage it to, spread its roots, its influence, its mycorrhizal networks through the world. Let it entangle itself with a place, a city, or a people. Let it become one with them: Then, peel it back away from world and sound; make a waylet of it, or throw it into one, making all the Creation that it adheres to into Not—or even, if one has the power for it, cast the all of it, the whole and entire, beyond the edges of the cup of flame. ... which is just nickel-and-diming the world, of course; only the most astounding and jaw-dropping of welkenrites will ever matter—but at least the things one steals in such a fashion will be freed from being wrong. The last rite of war is called the “nettle rite,” and it is practiced by both sides; the Nobilis even occasionally use it in internecine strife. When one has crushed an opponent’s efforts or otherwise left them in a state of defeated shock—too stunned, defeated, to immediately muster a response—one can crush a handful of nettles and invoke the rite ... and, in so doing, shift a portion of one’s own accumulated weariness and wounds to them.

the imperators’

�ouncil

War necessitates administration, and not merely on the battlefield. Thus the disparate Imperators have formed a ruling council to govern over the affairs of Earth. —specifically Earth, as it happens; there are other arrangements for the other planets on the tree.

61 It has limited power to govern the Imperators themselves: A zookeeper can potentially euthanize the animals, but not the guests; for that, police or the army would be required. A librarian can shelve the books freely (although a certain order is expected); if they attempt to forcefully relocate the patrons’ children ... unfortunate consequences may attend. The zookeeper has a clear authority of place, as does the librarian; it’s just, from the human perspective, humans are people, and not part of such a job’s dominion. In such a fashion, the Imperators’ ruling council, “the Council of Four,” has a clear authority of place throughout the Earth; there is nowhere upon its mortal or immortal soil that they are not abstractly and in some sense “in charge,” but it is explicitly the resources of the physical world—the places, the animals, the humans and the Powers—that they are actually meant to govern. The Council has limited power to govern the Imperators, and its control over humanity is limited by the fact that humanity is mostly unaware of its existence; over the Sovereign Powers, though, its rule is functionally absolute. The leader of the Council is the aforementioned Lord Entropy. The metaphysical laws from which he has formed his flesh are—allegedly—Desecration, Destruction, and Scorn. The laws he has imposed upon the society of the Powers are barely better: he insists that they bend their knee to no human (or no “beast”), that they serve their own betters, that they do not love, and that they punish none, not even their Excrucian opponents, more than sevenfold unto their crime. It’s a pretty good deal, really, for those opponents. It’s why the Powers don’t just unload their full metaphysical arsenal on any Excrucian that they see around; they don’t get to. You can pretty much get anyone for loitering and disrespect, but sevenfold return on that doesn’t go much further than being something of a jerk. Almost every Excrucian Strategist winds up a mass murderer along the way—even the ones, like the pcs, who eventually wake up and realize that that isn’t the right answer to the wrongness of the world—but that has to be witnessed to some extent, or proven, before the Powers can murder them back in safety; anonymity and obscurity are solid, if temporary, shields. A Power can sometimes get away with the gamble that nobody’s going to actually care that they didn’t do due diligence; that nobody’s going to investigate an unjustified conflict with the Excrucians, or that, if they do, it’ll come to nothing ... but it’s still a gamble. It disinclines them to such acts. The Bellum Magnum claims a pile of Powers and a couple of Excrucians every year; a concept or two, as well— but on Earth, at least, under the weight of that particular law, it has become a shadow war. Powers hesitate, and the Excrucians hesitate in turn. Whether that was Entropy’s purpose or his great mistake is something that no Power knows. The second member of the Council of Four is Ananda: Imperator of Murder, the Infinite, and the Fourth Age yet to come. He is infinite in beauty, to the point where even

Powers risk a permanent psychotic break when they interact with him for very long. He rules the savage “Cityback” at the roots of the various cities of the world, where life is a savage jungle for the cars, trucks, buildings, streetlights, and all the rest that dwell within. The third member of the Council is Ha-Qadosch Berakha; of him very little is known. Finally, there is Surolam, the dog-headed goddess of ordinary things. She is a part of—an Earthly manifestation of—the cup of fire: Imperator of Willpower, Law, and the Broken-Hearted. She is the power that is given to humans to forget the extraordinary and pretend that their lives make sense; the lever by which a person may regain their grip on sanity after a brush with the “miracles” of the Imperators and the Powers. In this fashion she serves as another definitional boundary for the Glitch: An impossible phenomenon is wrong, truly wrong, if the scar of having witnessed it is ineradicable even by her power; if the only answer she can make to those who have borne the burden of experiencing it is to recycle them entirely, render them down to their smallest particles and sift out those that have been least damaged by the glitch. If the person can be saved, can be made to forget, or better yet, brought to a kind of peace, then what they have encountered is not the Glitch, but either the work of an Imperator, Power, or Excrucian, or a second- or thirdgeneration knock-on effect. Most people don’t get to take advantage of this metaphysical sieve. Most people who encounter magic and miracles that aren’t the Glitch either figure out a way to accept it on their own, because that’s possible, or get screwed up completely, with the only difference being that because it isn’t the Glitch, they aren’t doomed to have corroding disruption and decay follow them into the afterlife or even through many afterlives until they become wraiths or haunts or fall Beyond the world. Most people who encounter the Glitch don’t have the opportunity or the clarity to seek out Surolam and discover that, whoops, there was no way of saving them after all. ... but if a person is broken, particularly by a thing that is not an ordinary thing, then they may pass through any pair of dog-flanked gates, and enter Surolam’s Locust Court, and therein find a certain chance at peace.

Lord Entropy, the Bloody-Handed God: ruler of the mortal Earth, Imperator of Desecration, Destruction, and Scorn Ananda: Imperator of Murder, the Infinite, and the Fourth Age Ha-Qadosch Berakha: member of the Council of Four Surolam: the dog-headed goddess of ordinary things

immortal and inconstant things

63

chapter 4

�ollow Plac� Outside there was a village; though, she’d never learned its name. — from Leona Peregrine, by Jennifer Way

opposite: by Maria Guarneri

�equelae of the creation One thing you’ll learn, once you become an Excrucian, in the world, is that the void that thrived there once is not entirely departed. The world has captured pieces of it, enwrapped its shattered remnants in its folds. It has sealed itself around lost districts ripped from Nınuan. Next to the world, if you know where to look for them—not in it, but with it—there are portions of Nınuan not sealed away by the cup of flame. Instead, they are pressed within the pages of the world like flowers. These districts, these “waylets” as we shall often call them, are of every kind and size. One may be half a continent in breadth; the other, no larger than a house. One may be a single room of Nınuan’s; a mountain range; a glade; or miles of labyrinthine secret halls. A waylet “somewhere near Neuchâtel” can be an archipelago on a stormy sea. Their boundaries are finite but abstract: they have no edges. Like those pressed flowers, they have adjacencies: one may say that a waylet is near certain places in the world. That it is accessible to them, and opens to them in turn. That the “way” to a waylet can in some abstract sense be known. ... but a waylet has no true entrance and no true exit. The moment of transition is a λ-moment: There is no going to a waylet; one is simply (λ-)there. These districts are priceless treasures to the Excrucians. They are safety. They are home. There are only so many paths through the cup of flame, and all are arduous. The natural powers of Nınuan—the magics that dream within its lakes and forests, its alien insects, its hunting packs of eerie hounds, its basilisks, its night-dragons—are all but inaccessible: if one wishes to draw upon them, one must travel off the Earth, out along the branches of the Ash, to the wall of flame; break through the cordon of the world’s defenders; and either tear past Heaven’s sky or hunt down one of seven secret paths ... and then repeat the process in reverse, returning to the world. Or, one may find one of these secret jewels, these treasure-districts hidden in the world, and revel in the riches kept within. They are dangerous places, but they are not wrong. They are salvific; they are pure; to the deathwright, they offer sanctity, sanity, and peace. It’s not really known why these districts remain, any more than it’s known why Creation exists at all; prevailing

hollow places

64 wisdom is that they’re a rounding error. Creation, coming into being, layered itself awkwardly and unevenly onto the void. In places it bunched, it gathered; in others, it did not cover over what lay beneath. It is in Earth’s nature to host a great number of them; it is, perhaps, a place where the stitching of the world is weak, or a metaphysical depression towards which lost districts fall. There are planets that hang upon the Ash where finding even a single lode of lost Nınuan is rare; where Excrucians are forced to huddle in artificial sanctuaries, in false regions of unbeing carved out by hand: As if on Earth the metaphorical bedrock of Creation were honeycombed with the void, concealing vast and sprawling networks of life-rich treasure-caves; while elsewhere, as in Aelfscienne, the only “caves” in Creation’s bedrock are sterile holes blasted by force into the stone. On Earth, it is not surprising if a Strategist, at least— given their status—has named such a realm as their own dominion; if they make regular visits to it, and to others, to scour out the resources of the void. On Earth, at least, and on certain other worlds, it is possible for ordinary people to encounter the beasts of Nınuan: Not just the Excrucians, not just the Imperators’ servants, not just the manifestations of the glitch, but un-things that appear mysteriously in a waylet’s alleged vicinity, emerging not by any causal process but from the encysted Not within the world. On Earth, at least, one may meet the eerie hounds of Nınuan; may be snatched up by its night-dragons; may stumble, at an auction, upon the rich dark water from its wells. It is the Strategists’ estimate that two hundred thousand waylets somewhere touch upon the Earth, though less than a quarter of that number have anywhere been found. They are not exactly common, in comparison to the sheer size of the Earth itself ... but neither are they rare. Throne, the: the region of Nınuan stolen by Creation. Waylet, District, Byway, Grotto, Unland, Shadow, Sequela of the Creation, Unworld, Unworld Region, Unworld County, Curl: a portion of Nınuan still surviving in Creation.

In Wendy’s yard, between two stones, there slept a deep and primal thing. It dreamt in colors that could blind the eyes. Its yawning sprawl stretched wider than the bay—though not, that Wendy could discover, any further than the cypresses in her yard. The beast was a cold and lightless thing; it sang to itself, in quiet and alien tones, to lull itself to rest. When Dylan had died, she went to it. She sat upon its shore. Between two stones, in the ash-like snow, there was no death; there were no tears, but peace. — from The reACheS of ur, by Nnamdi Daelman

glitch: a story of the Not

And Who Can See the Silvered Land? The Beyond is principally visible to Creational beings when they are dying, when they are so broken as to be plausibly considered Not-versions of themselves, or when they practice certain relevant magical arts. This is not a guarantee; not all such characters perceive it; it is simply the case that they may. Sometimes certain places in the Beyond, places strongly correlated to the viewer, will be perceptible regardless of the above. Even when one is flush with life; even when one is whole: they will still show their face, glowing from within with the subtle light of amity (or some darker mood). The connection must be strong, though; “this is the place where I currently ‘am’” will by no means suffice. It must be a near-spiritual tie; a place of destiny. In such places, and at such times, one may perceive other Not-things as well. If neither of these options applies ... The alternative is to stare at the void until one stops seeing in substance and starts seeing in structure. For a mortal, a Greater Focus (pg. 130) action is generally enough for this, but it takes quite a while— hours of Creational time, which can be a very long time indeed within the void—before it kicks in, and even then it can flicker accidentally off again if the character should get distracted. It’s not that they have to sustain focus, once they start seeing the void they’ll keep seeing the void; it’s more, they’ll reach the boundaries of a given place or context, sometimes, or they’ll get flustered or extremely startled, and suddenly existence will all blow out at once and they’ll find themselves in nothingness again. Higher-level actions can sometimes handle this a little faster and a little better, but they still won’t be great. A Strategist has a simpler option: Vision (pg. 212). It’s a cheap power found in Lore. Regrettably, it’s also what they get instead of, or as, the benefits of dying and being arguably broken; they don’t get to claim those too unless they’re really exceptionally dying or broken on a given day. Rare it is for the Creational to go beyond the tree; rare enough even for some Strategists—but with pieces of Nınuan caught within the world, like flowers folded in the pages of a book ... the question may become a pressing one.

�acunae The existence of the waylets might paint the world in contrast to them—that there is the too-solid world, the full, created, trusted world, and the waylet, where nothingness and void take hold. One might think, given how the world resents them, how it rejects their substance and it hides their doors, that the world would be different from them on a deep and fundamental level:

65 Wholly created. Wholly solid. Different in every way, in every place, from the essential un- of Nınuan. This is not so. The world, instead, is a continuum. The absoluteness of reality—the concept that it can be absolute, that it is closer to the binary true than the irrational 1—is propaganda; in truth, reality exists in shades. Here, it is solid. There, it is mostly so. There, perhaps, it would be so, had not the Excrucians eaten away at it— And over here, in the lacunae, it is soft. It is squishy. Mushy. Full of holes. In the lacunae, as in the void, attention is not reflexive, and the world is not defined. Things become ambiguous. Sometimes fully and sometimes in part. Sometimes specific things and sometimes everything. But, things—one must suppose. They are worldly things. They rarely dream. Instead, they fall into a diffuse mush of possibility. The world waits for the right perceiver to force a shape on it. This is unlikely to be a human. A human will instinctively avoid a lacuna. If they do enter it, their attention will fade. They will rarely notice the ambiguity surrounding them. If they do notice, they will make every effort to attribute it to disinterest or legitimate confusion. If necessary, they will block out the experience. They will deny, e.g., that their neighbors lack specific faces. Fae—which is oft to say, altered or divergent people with a flair for the uses of attention—may set up their faerie courts therein. Powers, Imperial descendants, Excrucians, and other empowered beings may warp the lacuna to their ends. Angels, whose gift for magic is paramount within Creation, may descend on one and warp it into the base of operation for some plan. It is the key characteristic of a lacuna, after all, that by lacking specificity, it could in possibility be anything. It is the key characteristic of a lacuna that it can be made to be anything. Lacunae are despicable to the Nınuanni because they are a diluted void—because they have lost any merit or worth Creation might or might not possess in exchange for a pale imitation of the Not. One could say, they are unreal, but they are bad at being unreal; they fail the most basic test of the λ-thing, in that they do actually exist. ... and the second most basic test as well, for they are polluted by the Glitch. Roughly an eighth of the world is lacuna, although this can only be an estimate; the number itself is not and cannot be precise.

the

�ative Ground

Perhaps it is a shift in topic; but one day, if you’ve been infected, and survive— Survive in truth, that is, and rise to become ... well, something else; a creature of the void, but most likely one

of the Riders, the Excrucians, the enemies of the world— You will discover that you have a home. You will most likely discover it by dying. Creation’s defenders will murder you, or the inexorability of your death by glitch will catch up to you, and you will die; and you will fall out into nothingness, because—having broken the normal processes of reincarnation and final judgment for yourself, and presuming that truly extreme methods of erasure are not used—that is what death is. Probably you fall into it directly; if not, you may have to stumble into it, or hunt it down from the memories of who you were. Regardless, it is always there: In Nınuan, you will find your home. There are Strategists for whom that home is far— endlessly far, a distance creaking with dust and years. They visit Creation once; they do not return thereafter. They are bound to Creation, like any other infected being; they cannot escape it, it haunts them and it torments them. It’s just, they can’t actually make it back, or, at least, they haven’t yet. There are Strategists for whom home is not far, at least, not that far, but, at least, beyond the cup of flame. For them, it is a struggle; each time they die, it is an arduous and potentially fatal—potentially soul-eradicating, rather—journey to return. It is those whose home may be found in the waylets— in the lost districts of Nınuan, in the pockets of Nothing trapped within Creation—that are most likely to endure; to die, of course, and to continue dying, but not in any way that would eradicate their underlying pattern. To die, but to things like blasts of lightning, being trapped within a painting and whited over, or large explosions, rather than the puissant weapons and deadly methods of the guardians at the walls of Heaven or the sentries that patrol the cup of flame. It is those whose home may be found in the waylets who live long enough to redeem themselves and become viable pcs for this game. Regardless: In a waylet or beyond the world—if you’ve been infected, and survive—there is a location-analogue that matches you; and not just the ideal you but the you you have become: the infected you, the cursed and corrupted you, the you that is burdened by the sickness of Creation. There is a field of chaos, tucked somewhere in the void or in some hidden fold within Creation, that is like a world for you: broken in the ways that you are broken and healing in the ways that you try to heal; or, perhaps, complementary, not echoing you, but needing you, and needed by you in turn. It may be as small as a forested glade set in no true place or a place as vast as planets. For someone who has been wracked by a glitch infection, it is a glimpse of respite, a touch of balm: A chance to heal. The wrongness that is the world’s existence, inevitably, looms over this, your native ground. The tranquility that there endures is not a long-lasting

hollow places

66 one, because Creation always shadows or threatens such a place. It is a stressful pressure that encircles it, rippling against its boundary; or, it is a gravity that eventually will rip it out of orbit and tear its continental plates apart. Creation produces regular destructive phenomena, there, or, a long-term problem that gets worse the longer someone tainted with the energies of the world remains therein. It must be so, you see. There is no alternative. If it were not so, it would be alien to you, as one of the infected. It would not match you, would not fit to you, would not be so surprisingly available to find. If it were not so, then why would you be Excrucian? You could be instead a peaceful thing, that fades away into the quietude of the place. The world will ruin it, even this one thing that you are granted; it will hunt you down even in this your most precious sanctuary in the void. It must be so, it is a logical inevitability—but it is not the logic, of course, that is causing the effect. One can prove that it is threatened by the fact that the correlative logic of Nınuan demands it, but that is simply the proof and not the cause. The world is still to blame; or, at least, is still a part of the causal chain that is at fault. By symmetry, it is established that you will find a native ground, and it will be imperiled ... but it would have been so imperiled, would have been shadowed or threatened by the world regardless, even had you never been. That is why you return to Creation, at any rate. That is one reason, at least, why you return; why you do not stay dead and gone, but come back full of fury at the world. You have no alternative. Where you should be soaking in peace and home, you are soaking instead in even more awareness that the world is wrong. In even more awareness that the place should die. Though, it’s not like you didn’t know.

the

�phere

In Nınuan, also, there is a continuum. In becoming a creature of the Beyond, in being a creature of the Beyond, a character organizes a slice of the void into the weft and welkin of a pseudo-space; they assemble a cosmos around themselves. They are the centerpiece for the harmony of the cosmos, there: the particular slanted perspective on the Beyond that defines it all, that conjugates a portion from the void; endless symmetries circle the cynosure that is the state of being in harmony with themselves. Simply by existing, they forge a context for themselves from the endless night. This, is their Sphere; The things within it, their Arcana. It starts with a single thing—a place or phenomenon that they may wield, may cultivate for power, because of the infection the glitch has given them. A thing which evolves out of their glitch-borne neurosis and their curse and is thus tractable for them. It may be a field, or a forest;

glitch: a story of the Not

Arcanum: a treasure brought from Nınuan. Sphere: the field of study and of being from which a Strategist’s Arcana come.

strange insects of the Beyond; elemental stones; ghostly creatures; or something else. Around that thing there is inevitably found an ecosystem. Each of the infected will find echoes and variations of their ecosystem appearing throughout the lost districts and the endless vast Beyond; occasionally, they will find territories entirely dominated by it. If they glitched out by drowning in a desert, then they may find themselves with a gift for controlling the eerie water spirits of the Beyond. (... were there eerie water spirits? There were; but not everyone finds them as often, or knows the trick to seeing them, or can call them out as readily, or exercise control of them for power, as that particular character, who drowned in an arid wasteland, can.) More than eerie water spirits, too, they will likely often find strange lakes that are full of the rich indigo weyrwater that supports such spirits and has mystical uses of its own; and the aquatic horrors that live within such lakes; and the water-witches and wizards that live beside them; and the stones infused with the ancient powers of water spirits that died many years ago; and the legacies of ancient heroes who knew the ways of weyrwater and its spirits; and more besides ... and much of this—all but the strongest phenomena, really— quite possibly shows up even in portions of the Beyond wherein their peers, without their presence, would never have spotted any evidence of it at all. It takes a student of dreams to draw out oneiromantic power; a student of the insects of the Beyond to dig out their secrets; a student of Sisera Sanguinary (the location) to recognize its echoes where they appear in other climes— but the Beyond is naturally interwoven, when it is called upon to be so, so when the infected travel together their continua oft overlap. A Strategist’s Sphere is almost always themed to match and feature their worldly bane: that thing that they’re dying of manifests in their Sphere, in another form. Their Sphere is not, however, host unto their sickness—it need not manifest the recurring glitch that murders them again and again. If a Strategist dying “of cabinets” is actually killed, for instance, by armies of small beings that they have discovered to live inside them, those beings need not manifest at all within their cabinet-themed Sphere. They may well do so, if the player has trouble defining a cool Sphere without them ... but it is not required. Where a Strategist’s native ground resonates with their passive qualities, their Sphere is an echo to their dynamism; it is not a solitary retreat where they may find peace, but a ubiquitous gathering field wherein they may seize power.

67

From the testimony of Osuin Thermidau:

What

Mortals ee S

�uthor’s note Osuin Thermidau, who is dying of artificial sweeteners, has no particular means of crossing the fourth wall; her long and mostly unprompted testimony—elicited in fever, while briefly held by the Locust Court; perhaps stalling her execution long enough for the situation she was in to change—does not, then, and cannot, then, include actual external references to this game. Where such references seem to be apparent, we can only understand it as an effort of translation ... or as the influence of parasites (found in artificial sweeteners) upon our human perception of the page.

When the Strategists in your game use miracles, you may

find yourself asking, wait, how is it possible that people do not notice these things? Go ahead, if you like. You may expostulate now. I have often found myself asking much the same question regarding the deeds of the Imperators (pg. 40). They are excessive. Yet, nobody pays heed. One day there are three suns in the sky. The next day, the moon bleeds green. If I were to do these things, people would say, that is terrible, Osuin. Or, Ms. Thermidau should be killed at all costs. When Imperators do them, it is every-day. “Of course we have three suns,” the scholars say. They do not mind. They are very easy about it. For the Strategists there is a similar process at work. It is just not as efficient. If you remember when the moon rose yesterday it did not seem very much like the consequence of a miraculous battle. Sometimes it is very bright. Sometimes it is not. That must seem normal too. It is not. There was a tangle. It was a mess. The world tries. It does its best. People do talk about chariots and wolves, re: the moon. Nobody has forgotten the rabbit. But it has been a few months and suspicion, active suspicion, has faded. The Powers are still angry sometimes. The Imperators, are not totally sanguine. ... but the astronomers all think that everything is fine. That is the good case. That is the case that you see when a Strategist is using the right miracles, at the right time, for the world to do the right cover-up. Or maybe it’s the bad case. I don’t know. ... the world tries. It is not always successful. When it is successful, it is not always normative. I mean to say, the world does have magic. It does have faery courts. There are mer-people in the seas. People don’t know about them but they are down there, in the like almost all of the sea that nobody has seen. Stuff ’s weird. So what I mean is, the world can explain a miracle without making sense. It doesn’t have to go the route of “and that’s how the skies have been all along.” And in fact it usually won’t unless law-beings doing their whole deepness thing, their law thing, are involved. All the world has to do, really, is make things look normal enough that a human can look at it and not see the mythic world beneath their prosaic illusion. Enough that they won’t catch on to the Glitch. Humans can see someone get wings on and fly away and that will blow their minds but it won’t break them, because, fundamentally, that can happen. I mean: birds. So here’s the ways that the world tries to explain a Strategist’s miracles.

what mortals see

68 As ordinary actions. A Strategist uses occult charm. That’s awesome. ... but it just makes them more normally charming. The world explains that away. That is their charm. Or, they play an organ fugue on a pennywhistle. ok: They’re just that good. Or, they awaken someone’s hidden potential as a martial artist. ... but, it was already there. Retroactively. A Strategist destroys a painting. Or ... it was never there in the first place? Maybe it was never even painted. Maybe it got ruined a few years back and was tossed out. That still leaves a painting ... somewhere, theoretically ... but it’s a ruined painting. It’s not substantively itself any more. The destruction’s still good. Or, an ally shows up just when a Strategist needs them. But ... maybe they were already on the way? They weren’t. Actually. They really just kind of showed up. But the world can decide that they were. It can even seed memories and evidence back along their path. It’s easy! It’s not like explaining the moon! As illusions. A Strategist’s oratory makes the stones and flowers weep—or at least it felt that way? Or, they erase the food from a laden table—but, they probably just did some sort of trick? There are some effects we will call “phantasmagorical” that often get written off this way. By the world. By the witnesses. They’re tricks, misapprehensions, hallucinations, or maybe delusions. People decide that, either right then, or, later on. Maybe in the moment when a Strategist invokes phantasmagorical telekinetic powers it all seems very real and scary, but the next day, everyone involved will realize that it cannot possibly have been; investigation may even find the evidence that it was not. As esoteric. Weird. But, like, normally weird. Esoteric effects are like a magician summoning the dead or an otherworldly monster descending onto the Earth. People look at that and say, hey, wait. That is not the world as I have been told the world will function. Even the world itself will squint a little bit, like, wait, isn’t magic forbidden? Or hey, aren’t you supposed to be on that other planet? ... but fundamentally, it’s legal. Legit. Like, magic works. Fundamentally, it’s a thing that can happen, even without a miracle. It’s just kind of screwed up. People who see esoteric effects are on their own when it comes to rationalizing them. They can. They do. People are good at that. But the world won’t step in to help. If they want to cling to magic, instead, they are allowed to say: I found a corridor between New York and Tokyo. Or that was a legitimate dragon. It won’t help them make sense of their life, but it’s not like actually seeing how the world works. It doesn’t render them unfit or unable to participate in modern society. They just have to keep it on the down low.

glitch: a story of the Not

69 Ninuanni Stuff. Effects that the world recognizes as being of Nınuan are the same way, only worse. This is why I said that we don’t get the kind of coverage that Imperators get. It is discrimination and it is terrible but there is no one to complain to. Most of the powers from Lore (pg. 205) are obviously stuff that comes from Beyond. This is not stuff the world is ok with. But it is a thing. It’s a thing the world knows. It’s ... it makes sense, in a way. So sometimes the world leaves the matter at that. When it does, this stuff screws with people’s heads in a way that esoteric effects don’t. It breaks people’s idea of reality in a way that they can’t ever completely repair. Maybe they can fill in with a kind of uneasy Not-comprehension, but maybe they can’t. I mean: sometimes people see Not-things and they’re fine. They paper over their confusion or they just accept it. They grasp that something impossible happened, but they think it’s a normal impossibility, some kind of magic, like that corridor or that dragon. Sometimes they become aware of the Not, which is, of course, the most accurate response. Other times, they go way off course. They become aware of miracles. They fall into a state of dementia animi—the “disease of spirits.” That is what humans call it when someone learns how to see spirits but not how to stop. There’s no good reason this should happen, really. It’s not like that person is witnessing one of the miracles of the Nobilis (pg. 55), built upon the subtle structures of Creation. Seeing the work of a Strategist’s Lore and realizing that their own world is built on a shifting mythical foundation is not logical. It’s not right! It’s like decoding the Voynich papers by accident! ... but sometimes people do. Other times, people see the work of Lore and become aware of the Glitch. That’s ... that’s not right, either. I think it’s people who were close to the edge? People who’d had hints already? They just hadn’t quite tipped over to knowing how the world worked. Not until they saw some of the magic of Nınuan and their old world collapsed. But it is better not to make people aware of the Glitch. Not when you don’t have to. It is one thing to kill people or turn them into beetles with the heads of jade lions but there are some lines that should never be crossed. Summing it All Up. Strategists do a lot of stuff like erasing things from the world or budding off self-bits. People mostly don’t notice. You’d think they would. But, really, they don’t! On the other hand, if the miracle goes on for a while—like, a summoned kraken, or a singing magic sword, or the Strategist walking on water—people kind of have to notice. ... but then the world either decides it’s magic, or a hallucination. Basically. ... most of the time.

what mortals see

71

chapter 5

Sound of �ar�s In the cattails is the world forgiven; in the running waters; in the sound of larks. — from the Aristotelis Murders, by Lena Christensen

opposite: by Beatrice Pelagatti

the

� rocess of recovery

So ... sometimes—rarely; now and then ... A Strategist stops trying to kill the world. Usually, in the end, this is just ... growing up. You can’t keep trying to kill the world forever. You can’t stew in violence and outrage forever. You have to let it go. Even if the world is still awful, even if you still can’t stand it... you have to let it go. And so, eventually ... they do. A lot of the time, they’re still an awful person, after. A lot of recovered Strategists, a lot of Strategists who don’t try to kill the world any longer, they only barely have empathy for people. They only barely grant them the right to exist. They were arrogant before and they are arrogant after. They were cruel before and they’re not really cruel, not the same way, afterwards, but there’s still a cold and nasty streak inside them. They’re in control of their cruelty now, but they’re not actually gone nice. They’re still kind of a miracle, in that hardly anybody among the Strategists gets even that far, and they’re still weighed down by everything they’ve done, but they’ve got a long way to go before they’re decent people, and infinitely far to go before they can find redemption—to the substantial and yet still limited extent they’ll try. A lot of the time, on the other hand, they wind up sort of ok. The kind of Strategist who can snap out of the apocalyptic fugue can easily be the kind of Strategist who was weird to begin with—on a quixotic mission to end some pillar of the world, perhaps; probably even doing some things they’re not proud of on the way ... but hanging onto, or quickly recovering, the basic standards of a human being (or, at least, of a person.) Having a kind of ethics, having a level of empathy or at least a respect for others’ existence: It’s rare, but there are Strategists who don’t bother being monsters, after all. They’re too busy with their multifarious plans to split open the Ash, break down reality, or crack Time. If they stumble on a sick puppy on the street on their path to world destruction and victory, they might just pick it up; soothe its coughs; take it to shelter; leave it there, with a bit of milk. They might not even be really paying attention: For a lot of people, and even some Strategists, it’s being decent that’s the autonomic response, and the crueler things that are hard.

a sound of larks

72 If someone like that stops trying to kill the world, they can wind up ok, and they might not actually have all that much on their conscience to regret. Sometimes, conversely, a Strategist who stops hasn’t really “recovered” at all. They don’t actually get to the point of thinking that they “shouldn’t” kill the world. It’s not like that, for them. They just ... fall in love. With a place or a person. A thing or a job. They find something that they’re attached to, that they can’t bear to let go of. Once they find one thing, it leads to another. The whole thing spirals. It gets out of hand. You can’t kill the world and protect your gumball collection. You can’t murder Fire, Earth, Air, and Sea and expect your adoptive kids to survive. So, reluctantly— I mean, what other choice is there? They have to switch sides. The last (relatively) common way for a Strategist to recover—to break free of being the world’s enemy—is just to break, full stop. Under the pressure of the wrongness of the world; unable to escape it, forced to confront it again and again, they dissolve. They fall apart in themselves like the foam of the sea, and a new self is born. Swathes of their memories shatter or grow vague; their attachments twist; their personalities and their goals undergo a radical and unpredictable shift. At times elements of the original survive, gathered elsewhere in the Excrucian’s metaphysical structure to haunt, torment, and potentially later seize control back from their newborn child; other times, the new entity in the old one’s skin is the only thing that’s left. One could say, the Glitch got them, in the end; turned them into the soulless and empty things they could have been; but some flailing lever of the self pushed the Glitch down again and allowed a new-fledged personhood to be born. It isn’t always a better personhood, for clarity. An Excrucian that breaks and becomes someone else isn’t always nicer. It’s surprisingly common because personality collapse is a sign that whatever you were doing wasn’t working—but it’s still at most one time in eight. The rest of the time, they’re different, genuinely different, but they’re just as bad. In the end, even adding up all the ways a Strategist might stop trying to kill the world, there aren’t that many who do. There aren’t that many who make it through to a non-oppositional relationship to the world. We’re not talking about a vibrant population here. Right now, on Earth, there are roughly 16. That’s actually a lot, historically speaking, but it’s also probably not the peak; the rules of symmetry that govern the void mean that the numbers rise and fall in waves.

the � iders ’ �bstinence society The Strategists who aren’t trying to kill everything don’t have a purpose, not really. It’s not like they’re suddenly the ones who’re meant to save the world. Maybe if there’s nobody else doing it, and the people they care about need them to? Maybe if they, like, that Strategist in particular, have been completely subverted by the Imperators or the Powers? ... but usually, that’s not their job. They’re not cosmically meant for anything, at that point, any more; the symmetry that bound them to the world and War is gone. They’re just humanoid monsters, stuck with ties to Nınuan and to Creation, with a bunch of powers that aren’t necessarily all that useful and a truckload of regrets. So they drift. Eventually the drifting stops. Eventually they stub their toe on a little purpose, a little thing to be doing with their lives. Maybe they need food and water, maybe they need shelter, that’s not universal but it can happen, so they get a job; or find people or a community they can mooch off of; or put their hands on some riches that they then

“I have to apologize,” he told me. “Re: the llamas.” “Pardon?” “I mean,” he said. “For killing them all.” They’re still alive, I thought, but what I said was, “That’s all right, then?” “I mean, not the llamas,” he said. “There isn’t a word any more for the thing I actually got rid of. But, the thing, an awful lot like the llamas, that I backslid a bit and destroyed.” I looked at my coffee. I drank the last of it, then looked apologetically between him and the empty cup. “Ah,” I said, showing it to him. “I—” The cup wasn’t empty any longer. I don’t know what it was. It wasn’t like it was refilled with coffee. It just, it didn’t have any more emptiness inside it any more. I couldn’t finish my sentence, then. I just pushed my chair back a little and I looked at him. “And the thing we had before toilet paper,” he said. “And planet Nemesis. And the ... the other light.” “It’s a real planet,” I protested, which wasn’t what I wanted to say. I tried again. “I mean, why are you saying this?” “It’s part of my healing process,” he explained. I looked down. This brushed my eyes past the cup, which was a mistake. It took almost ... seconds before I could look away again. “Why me?” I said. “Well, to who exactly else should I?” he said. “All the llamas are gone.” — from buT he didn’T hAVe eyeS (Gavrik/Lindsey), by immateria thron

glitch: a story of the Not

73 have to protect. Maybe they don’t actually need anything, maybe they could notionally drift through the world not really doing anything in particular forever, and it’s just the accumulated 0.1% chance per day that something distracts them from that that eventually ties them into somebody’s life, somebody’s troubles, somebody’s town. They try to live among people. Usually among, like, human people, though living among spirits or the Nobilis can happen too. It’s hard. It’s almost impossible. There’s always the temptation to fall back into old habits; or, to let the Glitch take them, and just ... dissolve. The first purpose found hardly ever stays; it leaves a hunger and an emptiness behind. They need another, but another’s hard. So there’s a support group. More than one, really, since not all of them can stand one another, but under a single umbrella, with a single shared organizational memory: The Chancery; or, the Riders’ Abstinence Society.5 That’s what the pcs are, one chapter of that Society: a group of 3-6 members, most likely, who can stand one another. More or less, and, at least, most of the time. Maybe they’ve come together in some meaningful way— pulling together into the same city, maybe; taking regular road trips together; forming a business, or even sharing a 5

house. Maybe all they’ve really done, maybe all they really do, until some big plot begins, is get together, now and then, to talk about the struggles and the difficulties of their lives. The Chancery is relatively safe, and being a part of it is relatively safe, but that’s not absolute. It’s not like the regular Excrucians don’t know it exists. It’s not like they don’t know the pcs’ chapter exists. They’re not going to freak out and try to kill the pcs for joining, probably, but pressuring them out of the idea is definitely on the table. Similarly, not all that many Powers are aware reformed Strategists exist, because the Imperators aren’t superinterested in their Powers stopping to wonder whether every Strategist they meet has actually come around to a peace with the world ... but the information is out there, and not actively concealed or forbidden, for all that it’s not relevant and actionable enough to spread. Whenever a Chancery chapter is closer to a formal organization than a loose peer group, whenever it has regular meetings at a regular place, Powers might crash those meetings now and then. Sometimes, to try to draft the members to their cause. Sometimes, just out of outrage at their claim to have been redeemed. Stuff happens, but ... Well. One muddles through.

It might be more accurate to call it “the Strategists’ Abstinence Society;” while other Riders are technically welcome to join, not many do, and they rarely act as full members if they ever should. They correspond, they hang out, they sometimes show up to meetings or whatever, but they’re not really a part of any particular chapter. That’s not because Deceivers, Mimics, and Warmains are intrinsically less likely to drop out of the war, or are necessarily less serious about it if they should do so; just, their stories are different, and they have their own deal. By default, the Society has a membership of fourteen Strategists and three of these miscellaneous Rider affiliates; two of the notional sixteen reformed Strategists have not chosen to, or are yet to, join.

a sound of larks

75

e xa m p l e o f p l ay 2

�eep,

�h�eep,

Puffin �earl, who Fadeth li�e the �pring for

opposite: by Camille “Karma” O'Leary

scene

1: �ttacked

[Madeline’s game takes a short break between chapters, giving the players time to apply their accumulated xp to their quests and stretch their legs. While they’re doing that, and our book is reviewing the setting (above), the gm preps two shared “Cost pools” for her npcs: One is a 30-point Cost pool that she’ll draw upon for the rest of the session; the other is a bonus 20-point pool that’s just for the conflict this chapter will have. She preps these pools by writing “30” and “20” at the head of two columns on a piece of blank paper. She leaves space for a third column, which she’ll use to track pc Costs. You’ll see roughly what these are for in the course of this chapter; full rules are on pg. 262-265 and pg. 280-281.] gm: So, new chapter! It’s time for a fun and terrifying new day! [The game resumes.] edward: Wait, let’s not have it be terrifying. gm: Just fun? edward: Yeah! gm: Denied! You wake up to the rocking of the van, and not, alas, in a good way. You’re under attack! edward: What would even be a good way here. gm: If the van were, like, suddenly transported onto a roller coaster that roller coastered vans instead of people, or something? diane: That sounds horribly unsafe. gm: Such is the condition of the world. What are you doing? diane: Wait, that’s all we get? gm: Would you like to know more? Feel free to spend your combat actions paying attention to what’s going on instead of doing things. diane (transliterated frustrated noises): !!! heather: [tosses a spotlight card on the table] I’ll leap upon that grenade. gm: If there’s a grenade, are you leaping upon it or are you engaging with the situation? heather: I feel as if my phrasing both entitles and obligates me to do both. gm: Fair enough!

weep, oh weep…

76 [The gm takes a moment to deduct 12 points from her Cost pool for this conflict—her quick, rough estimate of the cost of finding the pcs and launching the initial attack.] gm: So, here’s the sitch. A gigantic icicle is smashing down upon the van from above. Also, you have urgent homework. heather: Homework? gm: Yes. A loud voice in your heart is insisting that there is no real time to deal with the gigantic icicle smashing down on the van from above because you absolutely have to finish your algebra assignment right now. Similar thoughts are racing through the minds of Tassilo and Liutgarde. edward: I suspect mental alteration. gm: That, or you’ve just been putting it off for a really long time and the deadline has suddenly appeared. edward: ... admittedly, that is also somewhat plausible. I want to remember my options for dealing with stuff like this. gm: Toss me a spotlight? edward: [does so] Done. gm: ok, let’s take a quick look over the cheatsheet. [The cheatsheet on pg. 419 summarizes the divine and mundane actions characters have available to them.] gm: Some of the things you can do here include Eide 4 edward: ... 4 Cost ... gm: to let things happen and declare it as part of your plan; Eide 8, edward: ... 8 Cost ... gm: to hide the fact that you haven’t done the assignment from the teacher; or, you can use a flore or Arcanum; or, oh, hey, there’s Wyrd 6, unfettering, if you want to be just plain free of assignments as the detritus of mortality. [“Unfettering” is the power that basically says, “how can this apply to me? I’m a void being!”] edward: Will that even work? I thought unfettering didn’t work if they knew you were Excrucian. gm: Can you afford it? edward: I’m Wyrd 5, so that’s what I’d want to do, if it’s the thing that’d work. [Tassilo would only need to suffer 1 point of a Cost (in this case, the Cost “Burn”) to get from Wyrd 5 to Wyrd 6. That’s a lot more appealing than spending 8 Cost to get from Eide 0 to Eide 8!] gm: The thing is, yeah, you can’t actually dodge a typical miracle that knows you’re an Excrucian that way, because it’s, like, “I am not a part of this world,” and the miracle is more like, “I am targeting a thing that is not of the world, I know.” But in this particular case, it’s fine, because I just don’t think it works to give a homework assignment to unfettered Excrucians, in the same way that you can’t entangle them with karma even if it’s miraculous karma that’s deliberately aimed at them.

glitch: a story of the Not

edward: Cool. I’m totally going to unfetter myself from this assignment, um, when I finish reflecting on my options for handling the situation. gm: In the meantime, Liutgarde? diane: Do I have the benefits of their information gathering? gm: Functionally, no; narratively, yes. What’s happened is not “everything is too confused to follow, until Ciara carefully parsed out events;” instead, it’s more like, things were confusing enough that at least one of you had to be the sacrificial staring-at-it lamb if you weren’t all going to stagger around drunkenly instead. diane: Or, there’s a metaphysical explanation, like, Ciara’s attention caused the situation to resolve? gm: Arguably. That is, some magical scholars would argue that. Whether they are correct is very difficult to determine without a reality oscilloscope, and those are still in development. diane: I think I’m going to do a major working because if I don’t then everyone is going to get hit by an icicle and the van is going to explode. gm: Possibly it won’t explode. diane: Or catch on fire. gm: ... it would probably catch on fire, briefly. diane: I am going to glamour the icicle into being the answers to our assignments. gm: That’s ... I’m not sure you can do that. diane: I’m willing to eat 7 Stilling and go for a Greater Misdirection. gm: ... fair. That’s ... you ... the answers to your assignments crash through the roof, scattering through the inside of the van, and anything that suggests that it was actually something else is temporarily phantasmagorical? That one? diane: Yeah. [Greater Misdirection is an Eide 12 power that tricks the world into believing something. It’s still possible to encounter evidence of the converse, but that evidence is questionable and without impact, at least until the effect completes. (Or, as in this case, until the player forgets they’re maintaining it.) Liutgarde has Eide 5, so this power costs her 7 Stilling.] gm: ok. That happens. [Here, as Diane adds 7 Stilling to her character sheet, we’re going to introduce a tricky idea that comes up a lot more often in conflict than anywhere else—the idea that spending 3+ Cost in one shot also earns an xp. You could understand it as a balancing factor, but we’re not going to talk about it that way; it’s not really meant to “make up” for the Cost, or to make spending large chunks of Cost less painful, so much as make large expenses, and being willing to spend, more worthwhile. In short, 7 Stilling is a heck of a thing, and even with this bonus it’s still a heck of a thing ... but, she does also get to record an xp. Meanwhile, the GM deducts two more points from her shared npc Cost pool, reflecting the miracle that she’s about to describe.]

77 gm: A rhinoceros is charging the van. diane: Is ... is that part of my assignment? gm: ... that would be awesome, but I don’t think they thought that far ahead. Heather, Edward, you are past that frozen instant of parsing what was going on and what you can do about it, and there are shattered fragments of your assignment ... wait, what exactly, I mean, how exactly is Liutgarde actually doing that? diane: Two streams of power are swirling at the van, right? I’m just conning the world into thinking that one is the other. edward: You’re reversing the polarity on the miracle streams! diane: Yeah! So, like, instead of creating ice and a need to do the assignments, there’s ... a bunch of assignments, and possibly a need for ice. At least, its absence. edward: I become sharply aware of the absence of ice. heather: Have you ever looked at your absence of ice? I mean, really looked at it? tassilo: I have not, Ciara, but suddenly I am tempted. gm: Technically, it is not creating the ice, since Icicle Lass is bad at that, so much as redirecting the fate of “being crushed by a falling icicle” onto you, but the streams should still be swirlable all the same. edward: Wait, what kind of Icicle Lass can’t make icicles? gm: Look, she is very sensitive about the matter, ok? Also, please don’t forget that your van is about to be flipped over by the charge of a rhinoceros. tassilo: But wait! I should not spend this particular moment staring at the absence of my ice, Ciara, or even philosophizing about the general qualities of the absence of people’s ice, but rather do something about the rhinoceros that is charging us! ciara: What a great idea! tassilo: ... it is organic. There is nothing I can do. [Tassilo’s destruction power does not affect living things unless he is in “infection state” (pg. 233).] edward, a moment later: I thrust the cactus forward. “Saguaric! I choose you!” gm: There are several difficulties with this idea. heather: I think you mean “unexpected benefits.” gm: There are several surprising elements to the execution of this idea. edward: I am a merchant prince, and am extremely good at handling goods. gm: ... I refuse to accept that applies to rapidly hauling a cactus to the front of a van barehanded. edward: Alas! The spines and arrows of outrageous fortune! heather: I am going to step forward and punch the rhinoceros to a halt. gm: What level of effect is that? heather: Let’s start with 2, if I think a regular stunt is enough. gm: A regular stunt would definitely be enough, except this

is a really competent-looking rhinoceros. I mean, seriously. Once you’ve seen the look in its eye, you don’t feel confident at all. [Stunt is the Eide 2 power that lets Ciara access her Technique, “feats of strength.” For Ciara, this is free. The gm would normally let Ciara stop a rhinoceros with a punch as an ordinary stunt. It’s not clear on reflection that this is actually appropriate—a charging rhinoceros is a big deal— but that’s her first reaction. this rhinoceros, though, is actually a transformed Power using the Aspect attribute from pg. 395 to make its charge even nastier than it otherwise would be ... and while Madeline hasn’t firmly decided what that should mean (the details of npc-only powers being in the gm’s hands), she’s pretty sure that it cancels out the various special rules for a stunt. That turns this, thus, into a straight numbers game: Ciara’s level 2 action against its action, which the gm is pegging at 6.] heather: Uh ... greater stunt, then. 4 Cost, 1 xp. [Greater Stunt is the Eide 6 power that shows off Ciara’s Technique at its best, but costs Ciara 4 Stilling every time. A bonus xp, yeah, for using an expensive power, but, still ... 4 Stilling! Against a divine rhino, though ... is it even enough?] gm: Wham! [The gm takes a one-point injury to her Cost pool on the rhinoceros’ behalf, because, ow! But only one, because:] gm: That is definitely the hardest-headed rhinoceros you have ever punched, Ciara, and there’s been some pretty stiff competition. It winds up taking three more staggering steps forward, and you a few heavy stumbles backwards, before you come to a complete halt somewhere in the middle of the engine block. heather: It is, or I am? gm: Enh? Meanwhile, someone is shoving a cactus at your back. [Defenders often win ties, so the gm is technically letting Ciara “win” this 6 vs. 6 tie ... but it’s not a clean victory, because “human vs. charging rhinoceros” so rarely is.] diane: I am heading out of the van to try to figure out if we have any more antagonists. gm: How many do you think you have? diane: I’m counting a rhinoceros, an icicle girl, and probably the Power of School or something. heather: Oh, man, I don’t want to be schooled. diane: It’s fine, your school is life. heather: It’s not fine! Life is terrible! gm: The rhinoceros could be the Power of School. diane: I am assuming that is not the case, but I suppose—I

weep, oh weep…

78 mean, do I feel an urge to turn my assignment in to the rhinoceros? edward: how would you even diane: It has a horn, Edward. gm: To be honest you’re not sure who you are supposed to turn this geography assignment in to. That is a puzzling lacuna in this situation. But, all right. Take a look. heather: It’s in a book! diane: [tosses down a spotlight card] gm: It’s dawn. The sun is rising over the jagged peaks of the Midmarch Hotel. Dry asphalt stretches out around you, marked by faded, dead white lines. There is a van here. It is speared through by a vast homework assignment, slowly shedding flakes of individual assignments—I guess the main one is for a group—into the inside. A rhinoceros and a very strong Excrucian are standing off in the engine block, immediately before a cactus. Red morning light dyes everything a shade of ... uh, red. I suppose. The bollards lurk. diane: Is there anyone hiding among the bollards? gm: ... a puffin. Up above, on the railing of a balcony, you can see a girl with icicles hanging off of her nose and a slacker dude with hair over one eye. diane: I am totally going to invoke my Wyrd against the puffin. gm: Doing what, exactly? diane: Banishing it into faerie. [This is Liutgarde’s particular method of “destruction.” Her Wyrd is 2, destruction needs 4, so it costs her 2 Burn.]

gm: That is also probably going to need a greater stunt. heather: Understood. gm: Edward, someone is swinging a rhinoceros at your head. edward: Having already done the research, I am ready. gm: ok ... edward: I invoke the Cliffhanger Rite! As far as anyone can determine, I am struck by the rhinoceros. But in truth, it is all part of my sinister plan! [The Cliffhanger Rite, at Eide 4 ... is, basically, as Edward has just described. For him, it costs 4 Stilling (and gives 1 xp).] gm: As ... far as anyone can determine, you are smashed through the side of the van, with Saguaric ut-Cacterus falling from your benumbed fingers, and carried along with the rhinoceros in a great arc that lands you underneath it as it crashes into the balcony, which begins to collapse even as the beam bursts forth from its horn. At the end of the scene, you will presumably be able to reveal that you are not in fact a collection of broken bones and Tassilo paste. Or, that being so serves your ends. edward: I am already beginning to theorize that what actually happened was that I managed to unmake the side of the van and the balcony bars and a little space underneath myself on the balcony on landing, allowing me to nimbly cling to its side without taking more than a few light bruises, but I guess we’ll discuss that at a later time. gm: Indeed. [They won’t discuss that at a later time.]

gm: ... the mists of faerie swirl around the puffin, and a moment later, it is as if it was never even there. If asked, I will deny it ever existed to begin with. [This does not injure the gm’s Cost pool; instead, the puffin is successfully removed from play. The difference is that the rhino was “hurt a little, probably” in a generic sense, which can only be expressed as Cost, whereas the puffin’s fate was more specific.] gm: Ciara, the rhinoceros’ horn is glowing red. heather: wtf? [The gm decides that this is going to be a free miracle for the rhinoceros, and again doesn’t deduct anything from her Cost pool—she’s not fully articulating it, even to herself, but she’s loosely decided that the rhinoceros is a transformed Power with Aspect 4 (pg. 395), Flore 5 (pg. 181), and whatever it’s using to be a rhinoceros; that it’s hiding some kind of magical attack treasure “under” the rhinoceros transformation; and that it’s about to use a level 5 Flore miracle (Flore being the attribute that activates magical treasures) to fire it off. ... the only thing she’s actually committing to right now, though, is, as the players have guessed and will soon be shown, a rhino-beam.] heather: I’m going to swing it around over my head and hurl it at the balcony.

glitch: a story of the Not

gm: For now, though, you’re basically paste. Well, ok, that’s probably exaggerated. A wreck, anyway. diane: What happened to the others? [The gm pays a couple more points of Cost to represent generic rhinoceros wear and tear. She thinks about what the other two do and guesstimates it’ll eat 3 Cost (emptying her bonus pool.)] gm: Icicle girl somehow managed to get down to hang pointily from the underside of the balcony before the rhinoceros hit. The slacker dude isn’t going to react in time, but you all suddenly feel that it is an extremely critical task assigned by a very important person that you absolutely have to listen to that you save him at any cost. diane: Wait, by what important person? gm: ... I don’t know, who does Liutgarde take assignments from? diane: ... Liutgarde? gm: Ah, yes, you are remembering, it was the top priority item on your task list for the day. Ciara, similarly, in your exercise program. heather: Save one slacker a day, keep flabby muscles away! edward: The only person Tassilo listens to is his father, and he doesn’t actually listen to his father. gm: Saguaric? edward: ... yes.

79 gm: Yes? edward: ... Tassilo will accept Saguaric’s sacred charge and do his best to save this man, for what twisty cactuarine purpose I do not know. There’s only so much I can do while being smashed into jelly but I can at least ensure that my shattered, sundered arm flies off and knocks him out of the way just in time. gm: ... what kind of action even is that? edward: Steel. ... Greater Steel. [As noted on pg. 130, Greater Steel is the level 9 Ability Action used to break past one’s limitations. Edward’s reasoning here is that Steel is the action one would take to push on through severe pain in one’s shoulder, so clearly carefully aiming one’s arm when it is flying off would be Greater Steel instead. He also likes the way that saying Steel, Greater Steel makes him sound like a secret agent.] gm: ok, then! I’ll accept that, on the grounds that it has not yet been established that you get to keep both of your arms. [Edward records a staggering +8 Wear and 1 xp on his character sheet.] edward: Secretly, it’s not really my arm, but a bollard I tucked into my pants last night in case a situation exactly like this came up. [Recall that Tassilo is not “actually” smushed, so an explanation for what “really” happened is required. Such as:] heather: You crept out of the van before we went to sleep, broke off a bollard, painted it to look like your arm, and ... stuck it down your pants? edward: Lesser minds cannot always comprehend the multitudinous facets of my genius. gm: So true. So very true. ok, so! [The exhaustion of her bonus Cost pool and Tassilo’s newly limited ability to contribute are both making Madeline feel like the end of the conflict needs to be in sight, but she’s currently not sure if it actually is. She decides to pause here, tally up spent Cost, and then put some pressure on.] gm: How hurt is everyone? There was a 7 Stilling action earlier, and I figure Tassilo and Ciara take another Wear from Cacteric shenanigans. Tassilo is remarkably undamaged by being turned to paste so far, and I will boldly resist assigning Fugue for the bollard trick; was there anything else? heather: I’ve burned 4 Stilling too. Oh, wait, two stunts, so, 8? And another xp? But I don’t think the cactus can actually hurt me, I’m Durant. [Ciara’s Gift, Durant, protects her from minor physical damage (pg. 290).]

gm: Oops. That’s fair. heather: I mean, I did get shoved through an engine block, though. gm: That’s ... also fair. So you take a Wear from that, instead? heather: Yeah. [Heather records it, but only after scratching off her cactusrelated injury from The Ballad of Cacteric Desertian.] diane: I burned ... 2 Burn, I think. edward: 4 Still, 8 Wear. heather: ... wtf, Ed. edward: Bollards don’t come cheap! [In theory, Madeline should have been tracking Costs for the whole fight—and regularly announcing how much the pcs had thus far spent. In practice, pausing at some point to tally a conflict up is just a thing that people do.] gm: ... so you’re 31 deep in Cost right now, with like a third of it spent on saving a slacker with a pants bollard. ok! I’m setting a timer for this fight. [This is the “pressure” mentioned earlier. Once the gm sets a timer for the fight, the pcs have to either win or spend a certain amount of total Cost by the time it elapses ... or they’ll lose. Madeline writes “31” atop a third column on her Cost pool tracker page to make sure she doesn’t lose track of it. She decides to go easy on the group from there, giving them a target of 40 Cost to win—just 9 away!—but she doesn’t have to tell them this, and doesn’t. She probably won’t kill them if they lose, just cut scene to an interrogation room or something ... but she doesn’t have to, and won’t, tell them that, either!] edward: How long have we got? gm: I dunno, twenty seconds? A couple of exchanges? It sort of feels like, heroic and fabulous as this all is, everyone here is one close shave away from being actual rhino paste, including, apparently, the rhino. diane: I don’t even know what we’re fighting over. edward: They want me. diane: No. edward: Tassilo was just too much man for them to let the Not retain him. diane: Ciara, silence him. heather: Alas, when it comes to players, I can only throw xp. [Heather, having no other way to reply (pg. 25), tosses Edward an xp/Fugue chip instead.] gm, ignoring tassilo’s outrageous folly: All right! So here’s our situation: Rhinoceros, blasting a beam through the Midmarch Hotel from the balcony or uh from its horn, depending on your point of reference. Edward, crushed underneath. Slacker, flying sideways off of balcony, struck by Edward—er, I mean Tassilo’s—arm. Icicle girl, falling,

weep, oh weep…

80 because the balcony is crumbling. Liutgarde, standing. Ciara, ... also standing, in the middle of the van’s engine block. Van: unsalvageable. Probably. Barring magic or miracle. diane: We need to figure out what’s going on and get out of here. gm: Is that what you want out of victory? diane: Maybe? heather: I mean, it seems like the Powers weren’t fooled by our clever ruse, or at least, weren’t fooled all night, and decided to preemptively eliminate us? So that’s probably the “what’s going on” thing. diane: But, but, but we haven’t even done anything wrong! I’ll shout that at them. “We come in peace, you wankers!” gm: ... is Liutgarde British? diane: She’s having a British moment. gm: ... with a rumble, the balcony finishes its collapse, the icicle girl barely managing to dodge out of its way. And, uh, fling a trio of dagger-sharp icicles at you. crosstalk: edward: I thought she couldn’t make them? diane: Does she r— gm: She would appreciate it if you’d stop bringing that up, Ed. A person can just have icicles, you know, on them. heather: ... they can? [They probably shouldn’t; the gm drops six points from her session Cost pool even though this is a pretty minor miracle.] diane, trying again: Does she really not understand what the word peace means? I thought these guys had some sort of law against just randomly attacking people. gm: Uh— [The gm had actually forgotten about that; she’s not used to pulling her punches with npcs. After a moment, though, she figures out why they’re ignoring it—Midland is a particularly sensitive location—and she soldiers on.] gm: Apparently they’re ignoring that. I mean, ah, “honoring it more in the breach than the observance.” ... the icicles are very close now. diane: That’s fine, I’m cursing them to languishment with a point of Burn. [The level 3 Wyrd power, Contagion, allows Liutgarde to share elements of her curse with the icicles. Since she has Wyrd 2, this costs 1 Burn.] gm, tracking: Thirty-two! They ... fly slower? More sadly? diane: They don’t crash into me and finish their icicle life, but instead die over a very long time. gm: Slower, then. diane: Yeah. heather: ... I think Edward’s got the right idea. diane (transliterated stunned expression): !!! heather: We should let them think that they’ve killed us.

glitch: a story of the Not

Tragically. diane: But if they don’t buy it, then we’re super-vulnerable, because we’re just hanging around faux-dead. heather: So we bait them into doing something really big, something that won’t leave a body. diane: Like ... hitting us with a rhino beam. edward: Bit of a lost opportunity, that one. heather: I need insight into their psyches, Maddie. gm: Toss in a spotlight? heather: I ... think I’m actually going to use my muscles and not my attention here. I am going to flex my way into insight with a point of Fugue. gm: Thirty-three. The rhinoceros is buried in a collapsing building, but you can hear noises that suggest it isn’t done. Icicle girl manifests a giant flying icicle platform without actually creating any icicles, somehow, and charges at you. Ciara flexes dramatically like she’s trying to recontextualize this whole thing as a body-building competition, her muscle fibers trembling as they come into alignment with the delicate weave of fate. [The gm decides that the Power of Icicles’ “somehow” is a game trick that a player would be very proud of, although she isn’t sure what it actually is—just, a game trick like the tricks players in her games seem proud of—and so only charges herself one Cost even though it’s clearly outside of the Power of Icicles’ appropriate means. She also drops more physical wear and tear on the rhino, but only one point’s worth, because miscellaneous wear and tear on the rhino is getting old at this point. (A rule that would have applied to a pc in the rhino’s position, too.) Finally, she figures the rhinoceros is spending a third point of Cost to work on getting out of the rubble. Her session pool is down to 21, her conflict bonus pool is at 0, and the pcs’ spent Cost is up to 33.] gm: And Liutgarde? diane: Liutgarde is going to experimentally banish the icicle girl into faerie. 2 Burn. gm, tracking: Thirty-five. diane: Woohoo! First plausible numeric target hit! gm: ... no comment. [The gm decides that the Power of Icicles “takes damage” (pg. 279) to twist the effect. In exchange for an amount of Cost tbd—2, the gm decides—the Power of Icicles seizes control over the narrative of being banished into the mists. This is a generic system available to pcs as well, if they’re ever hit by an effect they don’t defend or Cliffhanger Rite against: Instead of letting it happen as originally described, they “take damage” and describe how it happens, or fails to happen, instead.] gm: Icicle girl vanishes in a swirl of mists, but the mists don’t dissipate. They freeze over, and snotcicles begin to drip from them. You don’t think this will last that long. Assignment guy edward: That’s who he is!

81 gm: ... uh, I mean, slacker dude, lands hard and is dizzily trying to figure out what’s going on. Ciara, you think you have a basic grasp of their personalities, although bear in mind that if they’ve been disseminating false information you’ll have picked that up first. Icicle girl is mostly pretty cool with things edward: Augh gm: but feels kind of put-upon by the world in general. Slacker dude isn’t actually that much of a slacker, his outfit and general style belies a serious and studious heart. The rhinoceros is a simple and honest soul whose only real loves are its pet puffin and its rocket launchers. [holds up a finger] Before anyone says anything, it is the rhinoceros that has the rocket launchers, and you haven’t seen them. heather: That’s our in, then: the puffin. liutgarde: Who brings their beloved pets to the battlefield? ciara: I mean, we brought Tassilo. liutgarde: He’s sort of expendable. gm: You are running out of time for banter; the rhinoceros is starting to emerge from the building, the icicles from the mist are condensing into a girl, and studious slacker is starting to orient upon the world. Plus, your twenty seconds is almost up, and I probably didn’t pick 35 to be your target. edward: That’s a comment, Maddie. gm: Hush, you. liutgarde, posing: Ha! You may be tough, rhinoceros, but even that beam’s not powerful enough to blast open the ... bollard world ... and unleash your puffin once again! ciara: [affectedly gasping] Liut-love! Don’t give away tactical information to the enemy! gm: ... I don’t know if he’s actually dumb enough to buy this obvious overacting, even if he is a rhinoceros right now. diane: I’m using Intensity, so that it’s, like, hard to not fall into my rhythm. gm: Seriously? diane: You can interpret it as just being much more charismatic than my actual player-words, or, like, as managing to convey the impression that I’m deliberately sounding fake so that he won’t blast that spot with an even more powerful blast—the one thing that I’m most afraid of ! [Intensity is the Eide 1 power. It makes it easy and comfortable to go along with the Strategist, as well as turning active social opposition into an Ability task. Liutgarde has Eide 5, so it’s free.] gm: ... I think he is going to blast the two of you all-out not because he’s actually listening but because you’re standing there taunting him and his puffin is gone. diane: Such does the universe ever strive to correlate more intently with my plans. I am going to be burned away to nothingness by the rhino-light. Assuming ... I mean, assuming it’s a blast?

[The gm marks off four Cost for a greater rhino-beam ... and her total Cost pool for the session is down to 15.] gm: It does seem to be, from earlier evidence. diane: Yup, then. I fade away to nothing, burning from within. [Liutgarde is using the Cliffhanger Rite. Diane should probably specify this a little more clearly, particularly since it’s free for her and so she isn’t naming a Cost, but everyone at the table knows what she means.] heather: I too fade away, for 2 Stilling, with a final whisper: “Strong ...” gm: Were you even ... in the beam’s path? heather: Amazing as it would be if I weren’t, let’s assume that I was clever enough to actually implement the plan I had decided on. gm: ... thirty-seven! and the fight ends, unresolved. Lucky for you, since you were just about to lose. edward: I am totally going to spend 3 Fugue on a Lore action to know that. [(+1 xp).] gm: [flails for a moment, trying to figure out what that extra 3 Cost means in the context of resolving the fight, and finally just throws Edward an xp chip.] how exactly edward: I read—can’t take the chip, sorry, already got one this scene?— gm: Oh, fair. edward: I read the academic literature on the statistical distribution of Noble actions in the presence of bollards last town we were in. gm: ... I see. [pause, as Edward returns the xp chip to the table.] gm: ... And Ciara? Liut? How’d you two survive? heather: [looking at Diane] Faerie? diane: Yeah, that makes sense, I whisked us both away into faerie temporarily, but the mists were burned away by the rhino-blast before they even became visible in the first place. gm: ok, so you two seem fairly safe. They ... could still take away Edward’s corpse, though? edward: Tassilo’s. gm: ... yeah. edward: And I think they can’t, because it’s only where it is because of the effect, so ... I mean, I don’t think it makes sense if I’m suddenly back at the van when things end, but I’m willing to do it to keep from getting captured if you don’t have a great capture scene planned out. gm: That is a reasonable answer. They take a corpse away with them, but it’s uh more bollards? edward: Big brass ones. gm: I reject. edward: Medium-sized concrete ones, painted to resemble me, that crumble to dust and blow away as they try to fish them out from the collapsed building.

weep, oh weep…

82 gm: I accept! And that’s the scene. Bear in mind that that leaves them without a single body, though, so if they are even one whit like a typical pc they are going to be awfully suspicious and not really believe you guys are dead. diane: They can be suspicious, as long as we have a moment to sneak away. gm: Fair enough! Next scene. But first, I’m gonna grab some tea. [The GM disappears into the kitchen, returning after a bit with a cup of the aforementioned.]

scene

2: the �lan

gm: ok. Where are you guys, anyway? edward: Slowly, painfully, pulling myself out of the rubble of the Midmarch Hotel. “I planned that,” I say, dusting myself off. It’s even, technically, true. gm: Saguaric, a sappy—plant-bloody—ruin against the rubble next to you—seems to stare at you with reproach. tassilo: Don’t even start with me, Mr. Needle-hands. You’re on notice, you hear? gm: He shudders and slumps pulpily down the building’s side. Diane? diane: Fading back into reality, but, like, tentatively? gm: How does that work? diane: ... tentatively? gm: Hah. ok! So, there you are. heather: We have returned. tassilo: [groans] gm: The parking lot is empty of life, ruined. The sun is burning in the sky, eating away the clouds with tendrils of golden brilliance. Metaphorical tendrils. Really, just pretend I didn’t say tendrils. diane: Pretendrils gm: And in the distance, sirens. heather: We need a plan. diane: And a new ride. edward: Tassilo slumphs over. “Do you have such a thing, sister?” he asks, mostly referring to the plan. ciara, pondering: I can construct one, but I fear that it will involve exercise. tassilo: No, no, do not strain myself. Liutgarde, if you would? [Liutgarde’s Eide attribute is high enough to use a “Strategy” miracle for 1 Stilling—making her the most efficient planner in the group.] liutgarde: [tapping her fingers thoughtfully on what one must assume is rubble or the hood of a car] It is impossible to plan for the exploration of Midland before we know what we will find, but I believe I can come up with something to replace our vehicle and divert the Powers’ concerns. gm: Technically, that would be two plans, although I

glitch: a story of the Not

imagine you can probably find a way to make one fit inside the other. What are you thinking of ? [A “Strategy” miracle is limited in that it can only revert changes to the status quo or take advantage of opportunities. (Anything more needs a more expensive miracle.) Accordingly, Liutgarde isn’t trying to harm the Powers, ally with the Powers, or learn more about Midland; only, to roll back the clock. The miracle gives the plan certain guarantees, but first Diane must come up with something that makes sense and fits Liutgarde’s style. She is allowed and in fact expected to get the help of the group and even the gm in developing this plan.] diane: Um. ok, so, problem statement: whether or not they believe we’re dead, they’re probably suspicious—alert for Excrucian activity, now, and hype to attack on sight if we meet again. That’s what I want to revert to how it used to be. gm: ok. diane, after chewing on her lip: So, can I make them all think it was all just a terrible mistake? gm: Uh ... they might get a bit of whiplash. I know you all would, if I tried to convince you that first you met a threat, then you eliminated a threat, then it was all a mistake, then they weren’t eliminated after all, and then eventually you discover that they were a threat all along, you were just tricked again? And they’re at least pc-level suspicious, being, you know, part of a long and subtle war against the Host. heather: Less likely to throw popcorn at you over it, though. gm: They do lack your fourth-wall access, yes. diane, trying another idea: Fake Excrucian convention in town? gm: Like, with star-falling contact lenses? diane: Yeah? So, like, they could have blown up ... fake Excrucians? gm: I ... think those might be technically difficult. edward: In fairness you don’t really need contacts with eyes with falling stars, you just need contacts such that when you look at them, you miss. diane: Is that how it works? edward: Yeah, you miss and see the night. crosstalk: diane: Huh. gm: Which are also somewhat difficult to manufacture. I guess they could be from beyond the world, but that’s just getting recursive now. diane: I can’t avoid trickery, really, if I’m going to—well, hm. I mean, I guess I could find some way to convey to them how useless we actually are. edward: Heh. diane: Like ... if we could convince them we weren’t actually a threat, then their hackles can’t get too raised when they find out the truth, because that basically is true. heather: For a very loose sense of ‘basically.’ gm: You are a threat like the loose cannon cop in a opposite: by Melissa Spandri

84 cop show, if they are “the environment,” rather than a threat like the Trump EPA. diane: Right! They will at most get incidentally blown up, as part of an exciting chase sequence, and not by malice aforethought. gm: ... notionally, you can probably attempt this. It might be easier to get them to try to scheme around you. diane: Mm? gm: Like ... can you get them to come to the idea of conning you into something, if you show up again? Then you don’t have to worry too much about what they actually believe about your character. diane, as liutgarde: Ciara, what do your muscles tell you about what they want out of life? heather, flexing: Ciara flexes experimentally. gm: Dangerous. Too much of this and you might become too strong. heather: Bravely, I must persevere. gm: They seem to be mostly interested in—you think, the more you flex, that this town might be some sort of experiment. Like, that they’re raising the people in this town for something, or harvesting something from it. And if they want anything at all, it’s to avoid making waves. heather: They’re just ... no dreams of their own? No ... outside world interests? gm, pausing to look up investigation miracles: That’s all you’re going to get on their actual motives, but you can ask other things about them to try to build a better picture. heather: Loved ones? gm: There’s a school somewhere. A puffin, in faerie. Icicle girl only loves the snow. Probably some other stuff. The rhinoceros—um, you may need three questions to get everyone? heather: I will go as deep as I must into the muscle memory. gm: ... ow. heather: As. Deep. As. I. Must. [Madeline has forgotten her earlier declaration that the rhino’s only loves are its puffin and its rocket launchers, and now only remembers that it loves stuff.] gm: The rhinoceros ... loves its auto detailing shop and the local malt shop. You are beginning to suspect that he may not be 100% rhinoceros. heather: Why do they care about the town? Where did they get the power to make the whole loop thing? gm: Two answers for the price of one, and this is about as much as your muscles can take without breaking through into a new plane of muscle existence: their Imperator. Nircoa, God of Icicles, Assignments, and Denim, born from the seething chaos beneath the surface of the world. ... he seeks to conquer time. heather: I report this, sagging into a relaxed position. tassilo: The fascinating thing here is that the rhinoceros is logically the Power of Denim and the lord of jeans upon this earth.

glitch: a story of the Not

gm: Now that you think of it, he does seem to have been wearing pants. edward: That would have been nice to know about a little earlier! gm: ... why? edward: I don’t know, it’s just different to be fighting a rhinoceros if they’re wearing jeans. I might have tried to like, bond. Was he also wearing sunglasses? gm: Maybe? edward: Man. liutgarde, slowly: We must convince them that they have missed an opportunity. That our presence in their system was actually empowering it, for reasons we were not aware of. ciara: That makes sense, sister, but ... liutgarde: What if we were to leave behind a glamour that’s basically a ... hinting at that. Something that’s ready to, like, shape itself into the patterns of their own expectations, once they start having them, but starts with just this strong impression of, hey, wait, why is this site such an exceptional success? ciara: Diffuse an aura of victory? tassilo: People do—and rhinoceroses, I guess—they do see what they want to see. We would have to make sure they actually come and look, of course. ... do we still want them to think we’re gone? The two plans are contrarily aligned. liutgarde: ... No, I think it works together. They come here. They see this improvement. They likely assume, oh, this is something to do with our power bleeding into the place as we died. Or something like that. ciara: The loss of our accumulated time? liutgarde: ... but they are not certain. It is ambiguous. If they should encounter us again, they would go, oh! It is not their death, but their life, we need! tassilo: Problem: people do not change their minds so fast. diane: ... we can roll in a bit of the other idea, maybe? Like, if they investigate, they learn about who we are. That we are, at the least, of the Chancery. heather: Our “real van” is somewhere nearby, abandoned, with indications of our history. More castoffs, if you can? diane: Yeah. ... that seems sort of like a plan? gm: For clarity: you’re going to set up a dummy version of the van you came in—wait, you don’t have to do that; couldn’t you have saved the real one? diane: ... I don’t think any of us can undo the damage to it. Does anyone have a, like, roll back damage power? heather: Huh, I think I can actually save it from the engine block damage if I take it to my sanctuary, because its damage is sort of like, caused by raw strength? Maddie? [The Greater Revenant Rite, at Wyrd 6, lets a Strategist mitigate effects in others that resemble their own sickness. If they take the target back to their sanctuary, they can take that beyond “mitigation” to a cure.]

85 gm: I mean, you’re dying of your strength turning on you and consuming you, which isn’t really the same as being torn apart by others’ strength, but sure? heather: I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to use that power if I can only fix other things that are dying because their family exercise technique eventually destroys them. gm: ... people on weird diets? heather: ... point retracted. No can do. diane: I think we let the beam blow it up, then. gm: ok. So you’re going to set up a dummy van, with enough information about you to give away your basic uselessness; and spread around a field of like, “hey, that thing you want out of this place, it’s going super well here,” and also a kind of glamour that’s tuned to amplify confirmation bias? So they get here, go “oh, huh, what we’re doing here is working super-well,” and then theorize about how your presence had something to do with it, and their specific theories get additional evidence, and then later as they’re investigating further they find the van and realize that you weren’t all that bad? diane: I guess? gm: You’re assuming that they’re going to come back and investigate more. diane: If we were playing Nobilis, we probably would, as soon as we got frustrated with whatever lead we were trying to follow up wherever else? edward: Or finished reporting to the Imperator, I guess. diane: Ow, dang, yeah, that is probably why they’re gone and not here, right now, going over this place with a finetoothed comb. We do not have long. Maddie, is this plan good enough to commit to? gm: ... sure. You can reliably convince them that whatever happened here was actually good for their experiment, and set up the dummy van well enough that they’re more willing to believe that you’re actually dead but also kind of hoping you’re not and that they’re just getting a power profit out of your being you. diane: Let’s do this thing. gm: You do. [In theory, the gm could make them play out the details, but she isn’t super-interested in doing that, so instead there’s just an unspoken understanding that they put some time into this, and after that, the plan goes forward as necessary until either it becomes an obstacle to the rest of their lives and the gm makes them play some part of it out or events change to the point where it just stops being relevant.] edward: As for our ride, I have a thought. gm: Oh? edward: Theoretically I’m supposed to have, like, four flores [A “flore” is another word for a Creational treasure—something bound to the character’s heart and granted powers through the Flore attribute.]

edward: but I never actually picked them; could I, like, find a car as we’re retreating and totally fall in love with it? [Normally a character should have already encountered any treasure that they want to claim before the player decides they claim it; after all, in theory, Tassilo might not even encounter any cars for the next five years of play ... but assuming that Madeline is willing to cooperate on that point, this is the normal and approved method for claiming a previously unspecified “starting” treasure: Find something the character loves. Decide it’s a treasure. Finally, use a spotlight in some fashion to bind that choice into the game.] gm: Uh ... I think that works? You just have to use a spotlight or something to, y’know, bond with it. gm: So what are you looking for, then? A station wagon? Another van? edward: Hang on, hang on. This place is stuck in, like, the 60s, right? [browses images on his phone, then shows the phone to the group.] This, then. The 1965 Shelby Cobra.

scene

3: the � obra

liutgarde: ... Tassi’, you have had many ideas while I have been in your company, and this is certainly one of them. tassilo: It’s beautiful. Isn’t it beautiful? ciara: Brother, it’s a two-seater. tassilo: Help me break into it. No, wait. I—want to get to know her first. [Edward tosses a spotlight card onto the table.] edward: Tell me, Maddie. Tell me about the spirit of this car. ciara: Tassilo, where will we sleep ... gm: That was ... spotlighting the mystery of it, Ed? edward: Yeah. I mean, and claiming the flore. I’m looking into the mythic world and getting to know this thing. [Diane hums the tune to “Getting to Know You” under her breath. Edward snorts.] gm: Show me the picture again? [Edward does.] gm: ... she is a jeweled snake, of course, in the world of myth; a jeweled snake, dozing against the curb, as she has dozed for quite some time, her belly low against the earth, false eyes—a scale pattern, an illusion—wide beside her real ones, closed. gm: Does she have history? She has history; but it is in abeyance now. It has been in abeyance for forever, now, for endless cycles. She was beloved, but now the one she loved is lost, the one who loved her too. Now she is décor, backdrop, and the leaves skitter about her, and she tastes

weep, oh weep…

86 the summer wind and rain. gm: From time to time she rusts, but then she forms an egg of herself, and she curls around it, her headlights swaying, dimming low, and from that egg she is reborn. gm: Here, in Midland, she is eternal; the snake that swallows itself, the Shelby Cobra that is Ouroboros, her timeline without beginning and without end, although she remembers that it was once otherwise. That once, there was something more ... tassilo: Oh, my sweet. liutgarde: He is really doing this, isn’t he. edward: I want to know what happened to her owner. I don’t understand how she can not have one. gm: Are you asking her, or are you taking an investigation action? edward: Everybody lies. I’m going to investigate, which means, mostly, poking around on the web, and then, when that doesn’t work, on the secret templar web where all the secret societies hang out posting conspiracy theories. gm: ... I think that’s the regular web, just, with bad filtering. edward: Leave me my illusions! I’m burning 3 Fugue—oh, hey, another xp—uh, 3 Fugue as I trace through the twisty thoughts of the kinds of people who post the secret truth behind why random classic cars on street corners don’t have owners ... along with speculation as to how this ties in to MK-Ultra, vaccination, and zombie Mao. gm: You dig up an ancient missing person report. There’s some speculation that maybe he was looking too closely into the spooky doings at the water treatment plant— they’re using fluoridation!—but more importantly, it looks like Doug Forstat just ... never came back one day, and Midland wasn’t capable of responding to this by closing off his affairs. His family’s still waiting. His boss is still grumpy that he doesn’t come in to work. Nobody’s dug out his will. It’s been forty three years. tassilo: Uh. Guys? [as Edward] I show them the phone, then I turn my attention to the poor cobra. gm: She slumbers, as she has slumbered. tassilo: I think ... well. I can only present it with the truth of my spirit. I can only be open before it; spiritually honest; let it know that I am here, and that I have seen the beauty of it, and that I am Tassilo Caucoense—and beg it to join me, to be with me, to come with me into the beauty of the night. [Projection, the level 1 Flore miracle, lets a Strategist connect deeply with the spirit of their treasures. The treasures also get access to the Strategist’s skills and, in the case of inanimate things, mobility; Tassilo can open such a connection for free.] gm: The Cobra looks deep within Tassilo’s heart; feels as he feels, understands his truth and love; and then, with a desperate squeal of tires, it retreats half a block down the street, headlights wide. tassilo: My heart! gm: It revs its engine loudly, but it is backing away. tassilo: Liutgarde, help me.

glitch: a story of the Not

liutgarde, her voice raised: ... we can find Doug. tassilo: What? No! liutgarde, very reasonably: People bond through mutually engaging activities, not through magical spiritual connections, Tassi’. [louder] Doug Forstat. The cops are never going to find him. They’re never even going to look. His family, neither. They’re just going to go around forever. But we’re not. We can look for him. We can find him. We can save him, or bring his body home. That’s all he wanted to do, Ms. Cobra. To help. tassilo: ... ok. Fine. We’ll find Doug. But I won’t give the car back. liutgarde: If he’s still alive after being missing for fortythree years, I don’t think he’s going to quibble with the details of his rescue, Tassi’. tassilo: You say that, but she’s a classic. crosstalk: liutgarde: She is— ciara: Strong. But, still, two-seater. tassilo: ... fine, we can modify her. gm: The car’s engine shudders to a stop. It rattles. It settles with a flumph. edward: Eh? gm: Tassilo isn’t trancing out and granting mobility. She isn’t betraying his hopes any more, so his infection isn’t giving her mobility. She’s a car, who is not alive. So—she’s basically got no way to keep going any longer. diane: One of us! One of us! [The GM laughs.] edward: I’m pumping my Flore to 4 so I can figure out what it’s feeling, thinking. [Greater Connection, at Flore 4, allows a Strategist to understand the needs, moods, and reactions of inhuman treasures. Tassilo has 3 Flore, so this costs 1 Immersion each time it’s invoked.] gm: She’s terrified. Terrified of modification, of you all, of the idea that you won’t actually find Doug—but ... she’s not running away any more. If ... you actually mean it. If you’ll actually, if you’ll actually, if someone will finally help. tassilo: ... yes, heart of my heart, fine, fine, we’ll find him too. ciara, laughing: Soft. tassilo: Hush. gm: Ms. Cobra, as Diane has named her, vrums softly into life; moves forward; and brushes briefly, gently, against Tassilo’s extended hand. [brief pause] gm: ok, then! You have not really found a replacement for your van, but you can all fit into the front seat if you squish, which means you are no longer stuck in the immediate vicinity of the crumbled Midmarch Hotel. Tell me a little

87 about where you’re going? And, anyone for a quest action? edward: I’m claiming “you interact with strange animals.” gm: ... fair. heather: I think it makes sense to “shelter beneath a bridge or overhang,” since, like, I don’t think this car actually has a cover if it rains? [Edward puts his face in his hands]

scene

4: � etrichor

gm: I’m ... pretty sure it would be a convertible, guys. Possibly once you open the top you don’t know how to get it back down, though? edward: Fine, fine, we can take shelter under Heather’s bridge while I try to explain to my new car why my getting rained on isn’t the funniest thing ever, yes. gm: Summarize this explanation? edward: ... that’s pretty much all I’ve got. gm: To be honest, what you’re really getting is that it’s kind of scared to admit that it can put the top up again now that the three Strategists who were riding around in it have been drenched by a sudden storm. I don’t think it’s actually laughing so much as like paralyzed with fear. edward: ... I am not going to engage with this. I am going to go smoke in the rain. gm: Do you smoke? edward: No. gm: Do you have any cigarettes? edward: No. gm: A ... lighter? edward: No. gm: A ... way to keep it lit in the rain? If that’s a thing? With cigarettes? edward: No. gm: I don’t think you succeed very well at smoking, but give me an Ability number. edward: ... 0. [In choosing Ability 0 when the gm asks for a number, Tassilo recovers 1 Wear. He’s so aggressively not investing his cope here that he actually gets a little bit back.] gm: You stand in the rain, failing about as badly to smoke as it is possible to do, except in that you do have slick hair and a leather duster. Neither, however, catches on fire. [Heather tosses a spotlight card onto the table.] heather: Tell me about the rain. Tell me about the smell in the air and the wind and what it’s like out here. gm: I mean ... it’s ... there’s scrub about. It’s a pattering kind of rain, the ground is hard. It came in a great shadow sweeping across the flatness of the land. It changed the temperature of the air and the color of it and the taste and smell too. Petrichor, it’s called, one of those laws that were

slain long ago and remade as Mimics of themselves: gm: The smell of rain after the dry. ciara: It’s been a while. liutgarde: Hm? ciara: Since ... since this. Since I’ve been out in the world, and not going somewhere or behind walls, in the rain. liutgarde: It is wrong too, you know. ciara: Nn. liutgarde: You think there is freshness in it. Then one day you find the glitch, and it is all, ah, sometimes the rain will eat away at your being, your sense of self, your you-ness. Sometimes it will hunger for you, will follow you inside, once it has your taste. Sometimes the smell of rain will portend the enemy. Because there is nothing that is permitted to be good, that is not of Nınuan. ciara: Yet this rain seems not so wicked a rain as all that? liutgarde: It feeds the plants, dear heart, and the plants are wrong. From the oceans and the rivers it arises, and the oceans and the rivers, they are wrong. They say on the Internet, there is no ethical participation in capitalism; in like fashion, one cannot participate in a world that is wrong, and not be wrong. So, it is wrong. ciara: Ahh. [brief pause] ciara: My family— liutgarde: Mm? ciara: I grew up, you know, in a rickety place. And I knew little, save my studies and the presence of the world. liutgarde: You are notably well-studied, yes. ciara: I studied strength, Liutgarde. I studied the family technique. But also—I would stand on the parapets. You understand? I would ... when I was not miring myself ever more deeply in the family trust, I would be out there, among the old stones and the wind, and I would be open to the world, like this. To the weather. To the rain. And it would shelter me. liutgarde: The world gives with one hand and takes with the other; in this fashion, it is like all abusive things. ciara: But you are distorting it, sister. liutgarde: Mm. [as Diane] ok, fine, I’ll close my eyes and experience this rain, too. How wrong is it, really? [Diane tosses a spotlight card in. The gm thinks.] gm: There’s a quote in the book: “in the cattails is the world forgiven; in the running waters; in the sound of larks.” diane: Canon? gm: I don’t remember. Maybe? But the point is, I don’t think you can ... I think that all you are going to find, in nature, the only shadow of evil that you are going to find there, is the shadow of anything that is, like, actually there, or the shadow in your own heart. diane: Mm. gm: The world feared you, and conjured you from its fears. The world breaks you, and because it breaks you it always

weep, oh weep…

88 strives to convince you to kill it once again. The world is full of the promise of horror, it is rife with it, the concept of existence itself is weighty with wrong, and if you turn your contemplation to, I am Liutgarde, I am required to be Liutgarde, I am trapped in this world, this world of so many horrible things, eternally dying, it does not stop, it does not stop—there is a surfeit of horror there to taste. But not in the rain that’s dripping off the stones of the bridge you’ve taken shelter under, and spattered on your forehead still, and pattering against the ground. Not in the earth, the dry but living earth, or the scrub that has seized out a meager living here. Not in the endlessness of the sky, not really, not unless you liken it to your own. You can’t make it be wrong. If you did that, you’d be as bad as the rest of them. All you can do is remember how much wrong you’ve seen, and know that maybe you won’t forgive any old world just because of some larks and cattails and this. You know? diane: Accepted. edward: Tassilo grinds out his nonexistent cigarette under his boot and marches back to the group. “I have just realized that the Militares of the Excrucians are not obligated to be rained upon like ordinary members of human civilization.” liutgarde: Wait, just now? edward: I am going to take a few minutes here to work out the details and then unfetter us from the causal situation where getting rained on with the top down gets us and the inside of my new car wet. gm: That does seem reasonable, but it turns out that the world is wrong and you can’t use a regular Unfettering for that. [Even with a few extra minutes put into it, Madeline doesn’t think that the level 6 Wyrd power, Unfettering, can free pcs from arbitrary bits of physics and causality. That’s what Greater Unfettering, at level 10, is for!] edward: ... grr. Uh, Contagion? Can I, like, betray the rain with our steadfast refusal to be soaked? [Contagion, at Wyrd 3, can spread variants of Tassilo’s dyingof-treachery illness to other things. The effects are minor, but, then ... so is the task.] gm: It’s not directly on point, really; like, it’s probably a little easier to make it so all kinds of car-interior and Strategistlike things keep turning out to be dry when the rain looks away for a moment, but ... enh, you’re taking a few minutes to hammer out the details, I’m sure you can figure it out. So, sure! You complete this complex and detailed working and smugly set out for town again. Another minute or two later, the rain slows to a stop and the clouds blow off gently to the west. edward (transliterated frustrated gestures): !! [The gm scribbles off one point of Cost from her pool, deciding that it’s a fairly professional and competent rain cloud, really,

glitch: a story of the Not

but that that move took Steel.] edward: I give the sky two repeated-jabby middle fingers. gm: You guys are really not very safe drivers. edward: I’m an excellent driver. Ignore anything that we were about to crash into that was not a cactus that no longer exists now. gm: Fair enough. Where are you guys actually going? diane: The water treatment plant? Or the malt shop? I think. heather: If we go to the malt shop, we can get malts. diane: That does sound tastier than treated water, but also less productive. crosstalk: heather: We go to the malt shop. edward: I kind of—the malt, shop, yeah. diane: ... the malt shop. gm: You are at the malt shop. edward: Are there malts? gm: There are malts. Mighty are they in their maltiness, and piled tall with straw. ... I mean, in that, each has a straw. In it. edward: I can’t actually engage with this, I’ve burned my actions. diane: ... so have we? gm: ... ah. ok, then! It looks like the morning of this day is done. 10 minute break? And then, the afternoon.

89

chapter

� ummary

[This chapter featured the following spotlights and quest actions: ӫ Heather’s Reckoning of the initial Noble attack; ӫ Edward’s Reckoning: “What are my combat options?”; ӫ Diane’s Reckoning: “Who do I turn my assignment in to?”; ӫ Edward’s Reckoning of the Shelby Cobra, to bind it as a treasure; ӫ Edward’s quest action, “you interact with strange animals;” ӫ Heather’s quest action, “you take shelter beneath a bridge or overhang.” ӫ Heather’s Reckoning, digging out description of the rain; and ӫ Diane’s Attention, to stretch that description out a little more. After the bonus for using up all their spotlights, Ciara is up to 9 xp; Liutgarde, to 7 xp, plus 4 on her quest; and Tassilo, 11. Tassilo has also picked up one more Fugue from an xp chip. At the beginning of the next chapter, each Cost drops by one, to a minimum of 0. That means a more proper rendition of where the characters were at the beginning of this chapter, relative to where they started—and assuming that none of those starting points were 0—would be: ӫ Ciara had −1 Stilling, −1 Immersion, +2 Fugue, −1 Burn, and +1 Wear; ӫ Liutgarde had +1 Stilling, −1 Immersion, −1 Fugue, −1 Burn, and −2 Wear; ӫ and Tassilo had −1 Stilling, −1 Immersion, −1 Fugue, −1 Burn, and +0 Wear. Moving forward into the future, ӫ Liutgarde starts the next chapter at +7 Stilling, −2 Immersion, −2 Fugue, +3 Burn, and −3 Wear (having taken 7 Stilling and 5 Burn); ӫ Tassilo starts the next chapter at +2 Stilling, −1 Immersion, +6 Fugue, −2 Burn, and +7 Wear (having taken 4 Stilling, 9 Wear, 1 Immersion, and 7 Fugue, and having recovered a point of Wear), and ӫ Ciara starts the next chapter at +8 Stilling, −2 Immersion, +7 Fugue, −2 Burn, and −1 Wear (having erased a twopoint Wear Cost from last chapter as a mistake, but having then taken 10 Stilling, 1 Wear, and 6 Fugue). As for the gm, she starts the next chapter with an npc cost pool of 14.]

weep, oh weep…

91

From the testimony of Osuin Thermidau:

What

Miracles arget T

It is sad. You cannot simply miracle at random things. You

cannot just ... miracle conceptually. To target something you must already know it, in your bones. You must already be entangled with it. You must have wound your fate around it until you can pick it out of the cosmic lineup. This is a delicate kind of knowing. You can miracle at the person knocking at your door. Even before you answer. You can miracle at them. Who are they? You do not know. But with them, you have engaged. You and they have begun the secret dance of the doors. You, are the inside-of-the-door. They, are the outside. You are the listening. They are the knocking. It is a beautiful symbiosis. In your game there will be a “scene.” There will be a space in which things happen. There will be a time in which things happen. Things will enter the scene. Things will leave the scene. When a character is in the scene, they can miracle at things that are in the scene. Things that are outside the scene— That is harder. There is no symbiosis. There is no dance. To miracle at something you must be able to identify it. Uniquely. You cannot miracle at the Smothers Brother. Or the Olsen Twin. You cannot miracle at the moon of Pluto. You cannot even miracle at the wall. You must know which wall you mean. At least in your inner heart. It is fine to skirt this rule. It is fine to blast “whatever is over there.” It is fine to dig out “any information that I can find.” It is fine to throw a miracle at the first moon of Pluto that you see. But “the Smothers Brother” ... that is ambiguous. Ambiguity is not correct. Some miracles break these rules. If that happens, that is ok. Projection (pg. 193) is a miracle. It targets one of a character’s Treasures. The Treasure does not have to be in the scene. This is part of what Projection does. That is the miracle. That is ok. Maybe someone has a kind of Destruction (pg. 235) that is ascended ignorance. It banishes people, but only if one isn’t sure they’re there. The moment the character sees someone, their power of banishment goes away. That is a power that always targets an ambiguity. That is what it does. So it will target an ambiguity. That is ok too. But most miracles do not work that way. If you do a miracle at a thing you will usually know what thing. You will know what thing you are miracling at. It is very common to have a power that can target a gas station you are looking at. But a power that says, “I bet there’s a gas station not far away. That’s my target!”— That would be rare.

opposite: by Mel Uran

interlude: what miracles target

92 Miracles that target things that are very far away are interesting. That is because you cannot clearly see things that are very far away. They are ambiguous. But the ambiguity is not the point. Guns can shoot very far away but nobody says, “Yay! My gun can shoot ambiguous targets!” Telephones can call very far away but who is happy about wrong numbers? (Theudegisklos Mosian. But Theudegisklos is not a role model to emulate. ... not for this.) Here is the point. It is the condition of the world that long range miracles cannot always precisely indicate their targets. Also, you cannot always know when this comes up. You may think that you are being precise when you say “my favorite scarf ” or “my metaphysically anointed heir.” You may think you are being ambiguous when you say, “someone named ... Casey Smith?” But you may be wrong. Shenanigans may be in play. Here your intention will be relevant. When you miracle at something, it matters what you want to do. Your intent further refines “my favorite scarf.” Gives “Casey Smith?” more meaning. But if there is ambiguity, then there is ambiguity. It cannot entirely be avoided. When there is ambiguity, the outcome will do some choosing for itself. Put another way, that means, the gm will. They will choose, according to their preferences. Maybe the simplest option? The most interesting one? The one that will satisfy the player? The one that best fits some active effect? Maybe just whatever they like. Sometimes a miracle will target something that doesn’t exist at all. Sometimes this is not even your error. You will target something you were sure existed. That person knocked on your door. You were sure of it! But in fact there was no knock. It was the creaking of the house. A plastic cup fell in another room. A friend was using their ventriloquism. It could be anything. You have entered into the delicate dance of door-ing with a person who wasn’t even there. Results will vary. When you miracle at something nearby and it is not there, it is probable that you fail. It is not certain. When you miracle at something far away and it is not there, it is possible that you fail. But it is not likely. More likely is that the gm will try one of the following ideas. They may: ӫ ask if the player wants to simplify their description of the target; ӫ create the target, if that’s a thing you could have done; ӫ tell you that it is impossible, and ask if you wish to do something else; ӫ attempt a very strained interpretation; ӫ shift the target forcibly to “the air” or “the void” or whatever the ambient medium would be, where you thought the target was; ӫ replace a real target with a λ-target; or ӫ replace a λ-target that was inaccessible with a newly created λ-target. That new target conforms to be what you’d expect.

glitch: a story of the Not

93 For instance, maybe you think a λ-bear has been troubling your town. But you are wrong. There is no λ-bear. You Hunt (pg. 214) it anyway. You plan how to hunt “the λ-bear that’s been causing all that trouble” down. You are a wise Strategist. Your Lore is deep. This does not fail. So, what does the gm do, instead? Maybe, ask: “Do you want to simplify that?” Maybe you are fine just catching any old λ-bear. Maybe, they’ll let you set a perfect trap for that troublesome bear. But, you catch nothing. Or, you get a clue about the real culprit. You have caught “the ... that’s causing ... trouble.” In a sense. Maybe the void will be helpful. It is a very helpful void! It correlates a new λ-bear for you. That bear was not actually troubling your town. But it was troubling a town. Somewhere. That is its subjective experience. Now you have caught it. You are telling it that it was troubling your town. It lacks the broader perspective that would let it argue. It rumbles awkwardly. It hangs its head. This is not a wish power. This is not happening because “anything could happen.” It is more like calling the wrong number. It is more like calling the wrong number, if you are not Theudegisklos, and do not get some sort of kinky thrill from it. When you call the wrong number, that does not mean, you can’t dial the last digit. Not unless it is a very wrong number. If it is 867-530π, maybe you cannot dial the last digit. But if it is a regular old number, then it gets someone. It gets something. That is what miracles of this sort are like. When you dial a wrong number, you might get someone in the same general area. Or, a sociopathic alien voice that will talk but not listen. Or, a hideous ululation of unending, inexpressible grief. That is real. This has been tested. You can always try it out for yourself.

interlude: what miracles target

95

chapter 6

The

Essenc� of

�litch

That tumult of a faery crew It stilled at her raised hand, where Madge Held—shaking, shining still, if bent— Her electrician’s pin and badge.

Basics You can think of Glitch as a kind of improv ethical philosophy and comedy jam session held around the table, or over Internet chat, sometimes, for you and a selection of friends. It’s mostly just words, just people talking, except for the cards and books that you’ll all be awkwardly shuffling. It’s mostly just conversation and laughter. But out of it hopefully will emerge stories and reflections that you’ll remember for quite a long time. Here’s how it works.

Glitch is a Storytelling Game The central axis that Glitch revolves around is the story of the campaign. This is also the story of the pcs’ lives. Playing the game is building that story and commenting on that story. You can do this from deep within the character’s skin, or from a conceptual, authorial level, or from the perspective of the audience, or while buried in outlines and notes—but that’s what you’re doing in play.

Glitch is a Co-operative Game Caparisoned in lightning, she, Dread faery queen of murder But ne’er she’d paid PG&E: Her power reached no further. — from ChArGe of The liGhTninG briGAde, by Tomine Gulbrandsen

The story that you build in play isn’t any one player’s story. You won’t be able to predict it. For all that every player has control over one character and their character arc, and the gm has “control” over everything else, the actual result of play is a chaotic brew of ideas constantly refining themselves in unexpected directions as they bounce off of one another. In Glitch, the other players will do and think things that you never expected. In fact, as soon as they start engaging with and paying attention to what you’re doing, you may find that you’re doing things you never expected as well.

Glitch is a Messy and Meandering Game The story that you tell is not going to be perfect. Almost no one can tell a technically perfect story in real time. Telling one as a group makes it orders of magnitude harder. Character “voices” will be uneven. Plot points will be misused or forgotten. The story focus will wander around. It’s best just to live with that chaos. To enjoy it. To accept it. The most important thing is for people to have fun, and the second most important thing is for the story to keep moving forward until it can reach a point of eventual closure. Precision and craft are a tertiary goal, and sharp focus is a far distant fourth. opposite: by Elizabeth Sherry

the essence of glitch

96 It’s not as if you’re contractually obligated to turn in a perfectly crafted story when the campaign has come to an end, after all. ... and if somehow you are, well, that’s what editing’s for.

... But, There are Rules Creativity is born from boundaries. Letting other people set those boundaries (e.g., this book; e.g., the gm) isn’t always the right artistic move—but the boundaries have to exist. A blank page is the enemy of inspiration; even more so, the illimited void. You will find much ambiguity in these pages. Are you meant to agree that the world is wrong, and if so ... which world? How can one interpret today’s events through Glitch’s lens? What can a given Strategist, with a given bane, do with the powers found in Wyrd and Lore? With a given dream-of-self, what can they do with Eide? What is the prosaic dream? Are angels good? Are the Lords of Rule? For that matter, are the Fallen? All these questions have answers, but the answers are semantically ambiguous. You will need to sort out much of the meaning here for yourself, and that meaning will evolve in play. This game is arguably surreal. What it is not, however, is nihilistic, anti-real, or unmoored from meaning. At any given moment, there will be things that a pc can do, and things a pc can’t do, and things a pc can only do at a given price. There will be choices a player can make, and choices that they are not technically allowed to make. There will be things the gm can say that will build trust in the world and the story, that will deepen the richness of the game ... and things that they are technically allowed to say but which will only bring that accumulated trust to ruin. This is not a game of telling whatever story you wish to tell. Had these pages been blank, perhaps it would have been; or if you have found a misprinted version of this book, where they all are, perhaps it is. But as things are ... this is a game of telling a story constrained by the rules that are found within.

what you

�o

The game begins when one player has a vision of a part of Creation and Nınuan—a place or context—that they see as worth exploring in the game. Something beautiful and terrible, frightening and wondrous, deeply mysterious, or, at least, sufficiently engaging to hold the players’ attention through the game. This can be “all of it,” if they like the vision of Creation

It was impossible, Kate found, to sell her home. The master bedroom’s closet opened still into an old and wild land. — from The hook, by Kirsten Dowell

and Nınuan through all these pages. It can be a portion thereof, if they need more specificity to ground their dream. That player dreams up a central mystery to serve as the heart of the game, or, they commit to creating a series of smaller mysteries. When they have done these things, they may take up the mantle of “Game Master,” or GM, and invite one or more additional players to join the game. Each invited player then creates a player character or PC—one of the story’s protagonists—using the game’s rules. In play, they will decide what their pcs do and describe those actions to the others. This is their principal role in the game. In addition to the protagonists, most stories include antagonists, sidekicks, romantic interests, contacts, allies, and innocent bystanders. Usually, the gm decides what these non-player characters (NPCs) do. The gm also generally oversees events in the world and describes the setting of the story. Sometimes, when a player’s pc is absent during a major scene, the gm gives the player an npc to play. This lets them remain an active part of the game. Sometimes, the players are in character, or IC. They describe their character’s actions in a precise, low-level fashion and literally speak the words their character says. The Game Master describes the world and events therein at the same precise level, as well as speaking for the npcs. Other times, the players are out of character, or ooc. Rather than playing out the events in their pcs’ lives, they discuss them, as players, from an external perspective. This includes kibitzing while others play (something some groups enjoy and others discourage); discussing their pcs’ plans and activities in broad strokes that allow days or weeks to pass for their pcs in a few minutes of real time; and taking care of player business like ordering food and cleaning the play area.

An Example of ic Play Ciara Joins the Chancery Featuring Ciara Bennewick, as played by Heather Sullivan; Tassilo Caucoense, as played by Edward Jordan; Liutgarde Payne, as played by Diane Firth; and Madeline Rush, the gm, as herself. tassilo: So I don’t know. It’s been a rough ... how long has it been since our last meeting? liutgarde: I think seventeen hours. tassilo: It’s been a rough seventeen hours and eight minutes. I’ve lost two jobs, three girlfriends, and nearly died fourteen times. liutgarde: But just fourteen? tassilo: Yeah, I know, it’s actually getting a little bit better. [There’s a knocking noise, as Heather taps on the table.] tassilo: ... eh?

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97 ciara: Hello? tassilo: Who are you? How did you get this number? ciara: ... we are in person ... tassilo: my question remains! ciara: Is this the Chancery? liutgarde, curious: It is. ciara: I, uh ... I think ... tassilo, sotto voce: She’s going to attack us. Get ready. ciara: I think I need you guys’ help.

An Example of ooc Play Not long after gm: So, where are you guys actually doing this, anyway? edward: what, the meeting? gm: Yeah. edward: I assumed it was in Tassilo’s apartment, honestly. There’s totally enough room for two whole people to sit and talk and maybe even have the refrigerator open at the same time. gm: And three? edward: Well, I mean, if she kind of stands on the stairs? ciara: ... can we talk somewhere else?

the

� ettinG

The high concept for the world of Glitch is generally the same in every game. In the beginning, there was the void. There was Nınuan. Into that void, and from that void, was born the world, and the world was a screaming wrong against the void. The world differentiated itself. It became a thing of many parts. God-like beings arose, governing sets of concepts: the Imperators. In arising, they bound those concepts with iron bands of law. They looked out onto the void and they were afraid. Because they were afraid, the void was full of monsters. They conjured up these monsters with their fear. They cast the void into the image of their nightmare, and from that nightmare rose the Host of the Excrucians. Even the remnants of the void within Creation took that shape. Thus began the War. Even as the War spread through it, the world continued to be wrong. It continued to be broken. Sometimes people would discover that. They’d encounter the Glitch. Then

From the beginning the world has committed aggravated interpretation unto the void. It began in the instant it sprang into existence and it has never truly stopped. Fold upon fold, nuance upon nuance, it has grown ever richer in its conception. It has made a tapestry of it, woven endlessly, laboriously, in all its byzantine and beautiful detail. Against the weight of this the void has no defense. Its own interpretations crumble. Perception, is violence. — from our GAme of mASkS, by Hartmut Aedean

they’d break too. If they were very, very lucky, though, they’d find a way past that. They’d find a way not to become eternal puppets of that brokenness, endlessly recapitulating the horror of their infection. That way was to embrace the void: To awaken the part of them that predated Creation. The part of them that has always been a lingering legacy, in the world, of what came before. The part of them that has always been an enemy of the world: a warleader of Nınuan. They’d become one of the Militares, the Strategists, the qistja and the annuja. They’d join their brethren of the Host and fight to end the world. That was what the protagonists of this game were all about. That was what they were doing ... until they stopped. Now they don’t really have a purpose any longer. They’re just members of the Chancery. The Riders’ Abstinence Society. The ones who stopped.

� haracter creation The Bane To create a character, each player must first decide their Strategist’s bane: the thing that is killing them. Often this is chosen well before they figure out how it’s killing them or what the glitch was that caused it to start killing them. A player with a cat in their lap might decide that their Strategist’s bane is cats. A player who wants to focus on the theme of time might decide that their Strategist’s bane is time, or “hours.” A player who’s just learned that horrific slavery is endemic in the chocolate industry might make a Strategist who is dying of chocolate. Afterwards, they develop a theory of how this works: The character loves cats, and cats are drawn to them. Too many cats. Cats upon cats. Eventually they are always crushed alive. Or, each time a nearby clock ticks over an hour, all the clocks in the Strategist’s vicinity synchronize and they get this twinge of pain. Which gets worse and worse as their infection deepens until all it takes is tick tick tick and they’re convulsing in agony on the floor. Or, they visited a chocolate factory when they were young. They ate a problematic chocolate. If you listen, you can hear the chorus singing about it even now. Now they are turning into chocolate, very slowly. It is very good chocolate. It is very hard for them not to nibble. Just a little. They already bite their nails... In play, the progress of this sickness will be tracked by the Infection trait (pg. 277). Unless the gm explicitly decides on a different value, this trait begins at 1. After choosing a bane and developing a theory of their pc’s sickness, the player may stop to create a full concept and name. Or, they may proceed to spending points.

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Attributes The player receives 25 points with which to build their character. There are four divine attributes and one mundane attribute at the heart of their character concept. These are rated from 0 to 7. Increasing a divine attribute costs two points per level; increasing the mundane attribute, Ability, costs three points per level. These attributes are:

“ You ... have created me?” it asked. It stared uncertainly up at its maker’s face. “That’s right,” he said. His eyebrows twitched with glee. “Fear me! Praise me! Behold the wonder! For I have brought you LIFE.” It frowned. It looked down. It twisted its toe. “But,” it said. “But, that was a mistake.” — from pAnTheon, by Anita Burford

Eide 2 points per level This divine attribute is the narrative weight of the character’s self-image. The higher the rating, the more themselves the character is, even at the expense of the laws of the world: their personality grows more forceful, their talents grow more exaggerated and cinematic, and they can get away with more extreme in-character plans.

Flore 2 points per level This divine attribute measures the strength of the character’s emotional connections in Creation. The higher the rating, the more the character can empower the Creational treasures that they hold ... and the more compromised by those treasures they have become.

Lore 2 points per level This divine attribute measures the depth of the character’s understanding of Nınuan. Notably, at Lore 0, even perceiving Nınuan is effortful. The core work of Lore is to hunt and bind Arcana, alien treasures of the Beyond, but it is also useful in grasping the ungraspable, navigating the unnavigable, investigating the ineffable, and in working strange and mystic arts.

Wyrd 2 points per level This divine attribute represents a character’s deep attunement to the undercurrents of their self. It allows the character to wield the power of unbeing—and, more generally, as a creature of the Not, to resist, corrode, and unmake the mortal world.

Ability 3 points per level Finally, this mundane attribute is the character’s basic ability to cope and function.

Miscellaneous Purchases Players can also make the following miscellaneous purchases:

Bonds 1 point each Each Bond is a subjective law of the character’s nature— think, for instance, of the scorpion’s law that “I must sting the frog.” Each grants a bonus “Technique” (such as the

glitch: a story of the Not

scorpion’s venom): a power set, to be used with Eide. Bonds are flexible and player-driven, but their impact on clashes between powered beings is somewhat limited. They are most efficient for characters with a strong Eide and a weaker Lore.

Geasa 1 point each Each Geas is an objective law of the character’s nature— think of light’s law that “I can’t be outraced.” They are selfinvoking: they wield an intrinsic divine power to make their law come true. Geasa are interpreted by the gm—the player decides what the Geas is supposed to be, but after that, its function is no longer in their hands. Compared to Bonds, Geasa are stronger, scarier, and easier to bring into play, but also far less pliable; their impact on high-end conflict is meaningful, but fixed.

Gifts 1+ points Each Gift is a custom-built adaptation of one of the divine attributes’ powers. Costs for Gifts vary, with almost any number possible. Gifts are designed and given costs using the system on pg. 283-295. Gifts are most useful when a player wants a power that has a hefty, “crunchy” rules definition beyond its ic special effects—a power that interacts with game rules, or participates in conflicts, in a certain way; something that is specifically commensurate with a particular power of Eide, Flore, Lore, or Wyrd. If the player just wants their character to have a particular power ic, and doesn’t really care how it interacts with other rules and abilities, a Bond or Geas is generally a better choice.

Costs Next, the player records their character’s starting levels in each of the Four Costs (pg. 267): ӫ Burn is the character’s mind and soul unraveling. It begins at Wyrd × 10. ӫ Fugue is delusion, confusion, and obsession. It begins at Lore × 10. ӫ Immersion is false conceptions and emotional entanglement. It begins at Flore × 10. ӫ Stilling is definition, loss of self, and calcification. It begins at Eide × 10.

99 ... as well as in the mundane Cost, Wear (pg. 271): ӫ Wear is wear and tear to the body and mind. It breaks the pattern above and begins at 40.

Arc Quest

The player then chooses or creates the first quest for their character’s narrative “Arc.” Players can create their own quest using the rules on pg. 311. They may be able to find a suitable quest on the Internet or in a book. The gm may, with all parties’ agreement, provide one. Otherwise, players wanting a peaceful, pastoral “Shepherd” Arc can choose between: ӫ “An Orderly Life” (pg. 338), if their character’s routine is strongly defined; ӫ “Something New” (pg. 352), if their routine has just been disrupted; ӫ “A Peaceful Life” (pg. 358), if their character has withdrawn from the world; and ӫ “The Crossroads” (pg. 368), if approaching a choice. For a melancholy “Emptiness” Arc, instead choose: ӫ “The Long Night” (pg. 366), if stuck in a grey interregnum; ӫ “Settled In” (pg. 351), if the character just has a sense something is ... missing; ӫ “An Orderly Life” (pg. 338), if their routine is strongly defined; ӫ “A Peaceful Life” (pg. 358), if they’ve withdrawn from the world; or ӫ “Two Worlds Collide” (pg. 348), if they’ve changed the world recently; this quest explores the aftermath.

Finally, for a tense “Bindings” Arc, wherein they tamper with forbidden powers—things that are taboo or even “beyond understanding”—players can choose between: ӫ “A Nameless Light” (pg. 367), if they’re emerging from ... somewhere ... to face the world; ӫ “The Work of Time” (pg. 364), if they’re wrestling with a deep self-doubt; ӫ “Entangled” (pg. 345), if they’re wrestling, instead, with the schemes of the law-beings and the Powers; ӫ “An Orderly Life” (pg. 338), if their routine is strongly defined; and ӫ “A Peaceful Life” (pg. 358), if they have withdrawn from the world.

EIDE MINI-INDEX

Eide 0 Eide 1 Eide 2 Eide 3 Eide 4 Eide 5 Eide 6 Eide 7

“Ingenues” have no real practice with the arts of Eide. “Titled” characters have found a place in the world. “Practitioners” know the deeper secrets of some craft. “Defined” characters have a strong personal image and a style. “Votaries” are good at struggling/suffering their way to victory. “Genius” characters are incomparably dazzling in 1+ fields. “Legendary” characters are wreathed in protagonistic aura. “Nonpareils” may outright overwrite the truth with Eide.

FLORE MINI-INDEX

Flore 0 Flore 1 Flore 2 Flore 3 Flore 4 Flore 5 Flore 6 Flore 7

“Outsiders” have no real connection to the world. “Ghosts” have found some faint attachment there. “Envoys” have 1+ metaphysically solid, emotionally valid ties. “Catalysts” are treasured by the world itself, taking on intimations of worldly divinity. “Awakeners” see the hidden beauty and power within Creation... and can bring it forth. “Geomancers” adeptly wield the treasures of Creation. “Eternals” are true enough to win the world's loyalty and love. “World-Weavers” are wondrous artisans.

LORE MINI-INDEX

Lore 0 Lore 1 Lore 2 Lore 3 Lore 4 Lore 5 Lore 6 Lore 7

“Lostlings” are all but blind to Nınuan. “Strays” are unfamiliar with its sights. “Dustcloaks” are competent to wander in the void. “Hunters” have mastered the binding of Arcana. (But not, yet, their use.) “Outriders” have learned the subtler tricks of void navigation. “Perquisitors” have deep, far-ranging knowledge of the Not. “Arcanists” have mastered the powers of their Arcana. “Exarchs” are as one with the nameless void.

WYRD MINI-INDEX

Wyrd 0 Wyrd 1 Wyrd 2 Wyrd 3 Wyrd 4 Wyrd 5 Wyrd 6 Wyrd 7

“World-Bound” characters are practically mortal. “Wyrdlings” have seen hints as to the alienness of the void. “Nınuanni” are more their original, Excrucian self than they are their mortal one. “Armigers” have made a further study of their Wyrd ... and found it tainted by infection. “Sword-Bearers” are purer, truer weapons of the void. “Postulants” grow disaffected with destruction. “Potentates” build a Wyrd resistant to the Glitch. “Illuminates” have begun to shed their mortal self and worldly form.

Levers Next, the player comes up with 1-3 things that can motivate their pc—things that the gm can threaten, or bring into play, or otherwise move around as playing pieces, to stir their character into action. These are things the pc can’t help caring about and reacting to, no matter how estranged from the world they might be. Their mortal family, perhaps; or bookstores, cool cars, or stamps; for some, the opportunity to “be a hero.” These levers can be almost anything ... but they should exist, they should fall plausibly within the scope of the campaign, and the player

ABILITY MINI-INDEX

Ability 0 Ability 1 Ability 2 Ability 3 Ability 4 Ability 5

“Hopeless” characters are barely even present. “Struggling“ characters aren’t ready for their life. “Casuals“ can get through life, but aren’t good at it. “Basic“ characters are managing, but that’s all. “Professionals“ are good at something. “Driven“ characters get stuff done. ... but not always efficiently. Ability 6 “Competent“ characters are on top of things. Ability 7 “Sparkling“ characters dance through their lives.

the essence of glitch

100 should make sure the gm knows them. This will ensure that the gm can catch the pc’s interest at need. The character need not know about or admit to the existence of these levers. The most common lever is a general emotional entanglement with groups and individuals “like” the pc in some way. Other common levers are personal associates, “kinds” of things that catch the character’s interest, principles that the gm can manipulate to move the pc into action, and specific places or objects that have a strong personal value.

Final Details If they haven’t done so yet, the player should nail down the Strategist’s name, pronouns, description, and concept. They should also think about things like “what does this character actually know how to do?” Each pc has a characteristic virtuosity, a modus operandus ... a unique and personal means of tackling the world. This is their Technique (pg. 131). If they haven’t chosen it yet, the player should do so now. It’s generally ambiguous precisely what language a Strategist is speaking and precisely what species they are. If the player is leaving some other aspect of their character ambiguous—e.g., their sex, hair color, or clothing (pg. 133)—they should decide on the details. They should also at least loosely pin down things like the nature of their sanctuary (pg. 234), their power of destruction (pg. 235), the concept of their Sphere (pg. 205), and their arcanum-hunting method (pg. 206). The player can pick up to the Strategist’s [Flore + 1] in Creational treasures—things the character’s heart cherishes, to which they may also grant power. They can record up to twelve arcana, λ-beings or substances they have at one time or another captured or bound; however, at most five of these will actually be somewhere handy and it will matter less for characters with lower Lore. Choosing Treasures and Arcana is optional; players can also pick up their character’s Treasures and Arcana during play, or come up with ideas after the first couple of sessions, rather than choosing all of them, or even any of them, now. The player should make sure they know who their Strategist hangs out with besides the other pcs, why their Strategist stopped trying to kill the world—even if it’s just “no clear reason”—and anything that they might need to know about the overall concept for the pc group and the game. Then, finally, the player should open a blank “ending book” for their character: It will tell the story—as yet unknown—of how they die for the final time.

� ction Characters have access to three kinds of action. The first is action of the body, mind, and soul—action deriving from the mundane and divine attributes. The player decides what they want to do. They compare their attribute rating to the difficulty of what they want to do. If the difficulty is equal or lower, they do it. If the difficulty is higher, the character can still do it, but they must pay (or, strictly speaking, accumulate) a Cost. For instance, the typical Cost to take Lore actions above one’s natural level is Fugue. Almost anything that a character might want to do is accessible in this manner. They can push their oncehuman (or once-whatever) bodies and minds to their natural limit—or draw upon the full divine power of their Nınuanni nature. The only limiting factor is how willing they are to pay the Cost. A key timing rule in the system is that characters may only take two attribute-based actions at a time. These can be complex, detailed actions, like “typing and talking and petting a cat.” But if a character is doing two actions, whether simple or complex, they must abandon one and its invested Cost, or wait for one to finish, before doing something else. In Creation, characters may also use a spotlight as a kind of “attentional action.” The power of the character’s attention and focus shapes the world ... as the player’s does the game. This is discussed in more depth on pg. 111. In the Not, where the backdrop of the world lacks the deep capacity to soak up and respond to unlimited quantities of attention, spotlights work a little differently; one might more reasonably call them “volitional” or “void” actions—an exercise of will and choice. (See pg. 118.)

“I can do anything,” she pointed out. “Have you eaten?” “I can do ... most things,” she said, with a half-suppressed laugh. “When was the last time you slept?” “Like,” she said, a hint of desperation slipping into her voice, “I can, like, blow up the moon.” He just looked at her, blankly confused. “... wait, would that help?” “I don’t know,” she said, suddenly a little confused too. “I mean, it’s the moon.” “If blowing up the moon is what you have to do to maintain a healthy sleep schedule, then you should blow up the moon. I guess. I don’t know. There’s tide stuff. Would there be, like, tsunamis?” “The point,” she said, “is that you don’t need to worry about me. Not like this. I mean: I am an incarnate breath of the void.” — from The TideS of mArCh, by Robin W. Frahm

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�p Characters will grow throughout the course of the game, completing quests and gaining additional character points thereby. The source of this progression is accumulated xp, or experience points; the source of that xp will be as follows. ӫ Each pc usually earns 1-2 xp per “chapter” of the game through the use of the spotlight system (pg. 111). ӫ Spending 3+ Cost at once, or taking 3+ points of a Cost in damage, earns 1 xp. ӫ Quests come with conditions for gaining bonus xp. - “any-time” quests can earn xp on an irregular basis (at most once per scene; at most once per, roughly, fifteen minutes real-time) when the player/ character takes certain actions. - “storyline” quests only earn bonus xp when the relevant player is “in focus” for the session; at such times, each player can earn +1 xp for the quest and +1 xp for themselves up to once per chapter by performing one of several specific quest-related actions. ӫ Some quests also have “milestone” bonuses that earn +5 xp towards the quest. ӫ Players can toss one another xp tokens on an irregular basis when they can’t think of a better response to what someone else’s pc is doing. These tokens grant +1 xp and +1 Fugue. “An irregular basis” means the same thing it does for an any-time quest: xp tokens can’t stack up in a scene, or in followups to the same action, or from multiple players in response to the same thing—there needs to be a new ic scene and some breathing room (again, roughly, fifteen minutes real-time; enough to change the game’s context) before the player can get such a token again. ӫ And finally, the gm may from time to time warn a player that doom awaits at the end of a spotlit action they take in Nınuan (pg. 123); if the player goes forward anyway, they earn +1 xp. These xp will accumulate towards completing the character’s quests—including, e.g., their first Arc quest, chosen above—at which point the characters will receive life progress, and, assorted rewards.

as for the

� est

You now have enough information to play in any role save the gm. If you want to know more—or be the gm, yourself—the remainder of this book awaits.

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chapter 7

�e

Creatio� of a �ampaign We had been ready to slaughter the Heavens. We had been ready to tear down the Creating God. We were not ready for what we found. Outside the world, there were no clouds. There were no angels. There were no thunderous faces of booming brass. There was an office suite that was not an office suite. There was a machine, that ... was not a machine. There was the sickening, grueling understanding, then, that we had not been dreamed into being by a divine artisan, had not been sung into nothing from the primordial chaos, had not been hammered out upon a forge of souls; that we had been, as Chris had long hypothesized ... before being silenced by our barrages of thrown luncheon ... statted out, point-balanced (and rather badly) for some wicked, empyreal game. Why is there injustice? we had asked the Heavens. Why is there suffering, within our world? The Heavens had looked down upon the dramas of our lives, and been entertained. — from the manual for Death of the Player, the second expansion for the Swords against Postmodernism MMORPG opposite: by Sadia Bies

Earlier... You’ve already seen a bit of Madeline Rush’s Glitch campaign (on pg. 27 and 75). Now, let’s look in on the group a few months earlier and see how it all began

campaiGn

�reation

Madeline Rush, the Game Master, is the driving force behind this particular game starting up. That’s not necessarily how a Glitch game happens—a player can, for instance, request that a gm put a game of Glitch together— but Glitch’s particular requirements mean that it’ll be gmdriven an awful lot of the time. Thinking about the game, Madeline decides that she wants to run for her regular group—Diane Firth, Edward Jordan, and Heather Sullivan. She doesn’t want to deal with the issues involved in disconnected pcs or a loose sand of plots; instead, she envisions a game where the pcs travel around together investigating things. That’s unusual, but pcs are allowed to be unusual; there just aren’t that many of them, after all! She has a notion that their investigations will ultimately lead them to a mastermind who has engineered most of the major events of their lives and is planning to use them as keys to a particular metaphysical lock. ... but mostly, she just wants to do episodic mysteries.

Before the First Session Madeline gets her players together in her living room and they begin working on character creation. A few minutes into the process, the group elaborates slightly on her original concept, deciding that they want to play twisted mirrors of their pcs from an earlier campaign—

the creation of a campaign

104 In that campaign, they were Nobilis, the Powers of Eternity, Treachery, and Strength. Now, they will be Excrucians, dying of those things. That’s enough of a seed idea to get them started; from there, the rest begins to flow...

� iutGarde payne Diane Firth starts with a bane: eternity. She rolls that around in her mind. Her Strategist is dying of eternity— or, rather, eternally dying. By the time eternity ends, she’ll be dead! In the meantime, she’s locked into a nasty stasis: If she doesn’t kick off into the Beyond or force a recovery, she never actually gets to the point of death, she just drifts off more and more into her timeless floaty predying state. Her backstory is that she was a mortal witch— probably from a Chancel or something to avoid leaning too far into the idea that “mythology is all secretly real.” She went to die, but it didn’t happen. It was Glitched. She became a Strategist with a “faerie magic”-focused Technique, instead. (See pg. 131, 150.) Diane has 25 points to spend on Liutgarde’s Attributes. She looks over the Eide titles and decides that she wants Eide 5-6; as a witch, she’s either a “genius” or a “legend.” To choose her Flore, she pauses to think about why Liutgarde quit the war. She concludes it was just ... exhaustion. Liutgarde couldn’t keep on hating any longer. That doesn’t sound like Flore 0, but it doesn’t sound like Flore 2+, either, which makes choosing Flore 1 pretty easy. She has no particular ideas for Lore, and feels like having a vibrant life in the Beyond pulls against her concept, so she sets it at 0-1 for now. For Wyrd, she looks over the descriptions of the various Wyrd levels on pg. 226-232 and ultimately decides that Wyrd 3, Armiger, sounds most like the character she has in mind. Finally, for Ability, Diane wants to play the kind of character who drifts off into dreams and private reveries on a regular basis, losing track of what’s going on around her; a character who isn’t generally that great at life, but is also not actively hopeless or unkempt. That’s a Casual, she decides, at level 2. Diane’s spent 24-28 points so far—presumably, 24. To spend that final point, she looks at possible Gifts, Geasa,

Liutgarde Payne, the Strategist of Eternity ATTRIBUTE

LEVEL

COST

Eide Flore Lore Wyrd Ability

5: Genius 1: Ghost 0: Lostling 2: Nınuanni 2: Casual

50 Stilling 10 Immersion 0 Fugue 20 Burn 40 Wear

Gifts, Bonds, and Geasa

glitch: a story of the Not

Eternal

and Bonds. The Eternal Gift on pg. 291 is an easy and obvious choice; Liutgarde doesn’t get hungry or thirsty or tired, she’s just, you know, dying. Generically. She can’t quite afford it, but she really wants it—so, gritting her teeth, she drops down to Wyrd 2. She records her Attributes, Gifts, and Costs (lower left). To Diane, a Bindings Arc sounds like the most fun; she goes for that, and picks up the starting quest, Entangled (pg. 345). For levers, she decides that Liutgarde cares about people like herself—witches, people trapped in time, weird and spacey people, people entangled with the fey, or people who look like Liutgarde ... which she decides means “silver-haired” and “short,” leaving the rest of her appearance ambiguous. For thematic elements, she goes all in on the faerie magic theming: Her sanctuary is a dazzling and kind of abstract faerie banquet in a forest somewhere, which she gets to by getting lost in anything even vaguely resembling a woods. Her power of “destruction” banishes things into Faerie in a swirl of mist—not worldly faerie, though, not those courts of Creational beings that sometimes form within lacunae, but the abstract λ-Faerie that will be her Sphere. Diane can choose up to two treasures. She doesn’t really know what treasures suit her, so she chooses a kind of vaguely defined Creational ally and a magitech weapon, which she may fill in more details on later on. She can also define up to twelve arcana, and keep five handy; these will be λ-fey she has at some point bound. With Lore 0, though, this doesn’t matter much. She decides that there’s some kind of glowy sprite, some kind of magic dog, and some kind of magic stone available to her in some fashion or other; she doesn’t even bother with the rest. Lastly, she opens a blank “ending book” for Liutgarde, telling the story of her actual and final death.

�assilo caucoense Edward Jordan picks the bane treachery. His Strategist, Tassilo, will be dying of it: Things he trusts in are always betraying him. They can’t help it. It’s just how they are. He has seen a glitched faith in the world, and now faith itself is corrupt. Tassilo used to be an old world merchant prince, and that’s the core skillset for his Eide. Lately he wanders as a troubleshooter—mostly, as a handyman, but occasionally doing more bureaucratic or crimefighting stuff. Latest of all, of course, he travels with the group. Edward wants to specialize in Wyrd. In breaking things. He wants at least 4 Wyrd, so he can freely use his power of destruction (which slices unliving things apart);

105 5 would be better, not so much for free Wyrd 5 miracles as because he thinks that it might fit Tassilo’s reason for joining the Chancery: That maybe he’s actually seen beyond destruction, just a little, like Wyrd 5 characters (pg. 229) tend to do. Specifically, Edward decides that Tassilo just kind of ... fell for the world, one day; that he started loving things in it; that he couldn’t bear to keep killing it because, look, gum, you can, like, chew and chew and chew it and then either spit it out or swallow it and have it turn into an inedible lump in your stomach that eventually (given enough millennia) becomes sentient in its own right! Or, like, neon lights! Stuff. It’s great. And that’s not really specifically any level of Wyrd, it’s more about Flore—Flore 3+, he decides—but it’s also definitely more Wyrd 5 than Wyrd 4. He looks at the Eide titles and concepts and decides that to be a proper merchant prince requires around Eide 2. Looking over the miracles, though, he falls in love with Talent (pg. 170), with the idea that at Eide 5 he’s always a qualified, sharp trader whether the competition is a street vendor or the supercomputers running an alien financial system; that he’d be, of necessity, in any Who’s Who book worth the name; that he would generally always have enough money to impress ... He sets Eide to 5, matching his Wyrd. Much like Diane, he has no real attachment to Lore; unlike Diane, though, he finds the idea of being blind to Nınuan unless he spends Cost ridiculous. Thus, he takes Lore 1. At this point, though, even if “Flore 3+” means “Flore 3,” he’s spent 28 points—more than he actually has. And he currently has Ability 0. After wrestling with this for a bit, he turns to Gifts for a solution. He’ll have Eide 2, he decides, but, he’ll also construct a new Gift, One of the Best, that makes Talent, specifically, free. This has a base cost of 5 points (for a level 5 miracle), +1 point for Automatic activation, -5 points because it only affects him, +1 because it’s the full use of the miracle level, and finally +1 because it’s an uncommon Gift (see pg. 283). That gets him down to 25, but he still has Ability 0. He’s also kind of drawn to the Immutable Gift (pg. 292), which both fits his vague sense of who Tassilo is and can help a character get by with a low Ability—but taking it would put him back up to 26+. He ponders lowering Flore, but he likes the idea of having “intimations of worldly divinity” (pg. 99) for the same reason he likes being One of the Best. Ultimately, he decides that since he’s already got the most important part of Eide, he can take it down to 0 ... letting him have Ability 1 and Immutable too. He records his core traits (lower right). Tassilo’s love for the world suggests a Shepherd Arc to Edward, so he goes for that, and picks up the starting

quest, An Orderly Life (pg. 338). For levers, Edward initially thinks that Tassilo will be obsessed with material goods and conspiracy theories and people in trouble ... but in fact, it turns out that he’s mostly obsessed with whatever literally or metaphorically sparkly thing has most recently caught his attention. He also turns out to be the kind of person who forgets that he’s lying and gets genuinely invested in anything he claims, or even vaguely implies, that he cares about. Edward will eventually update the gm on Tassilo’s true levers, but not until after the first couple of sessions have passed. Continuing the process of character creation, Edward decides Tassilo’s Sphere will be a massive secret society conspiracy thing. Not, like, a real one, but a dream of one scattered through the Beyond; an ur-conspiracy, an ursecret society, the one true cult that was secretly behind everything from the templars to the moon landing, who faked Abel’s death and pinned it all on Cain, who run the stock market and your local co-op too: Those guys. The Ilλ-nati. At first he thinks that his sanctuary’s going to be a place he’ll go to meet his conspiracy contacts, but eventually he realizes that that’s probably not a good way to recover from the treachery of the world. He needs somewhere safe and, y’know, reassuring. A place to restore lost faith. He is briefly tempted to hang out in a safe fuzzy forest with talking animals, but decides that it’s narratively more appropriate to have a coffee shop in a little town somewhere where he’s known and loved and faith is oft rewarded. He can get there by walking back and forth through the doors of a coffee shop three times. He can choose up to four treasures, and this is actually a major part of his power set—nearly a quarter of his invested points, anyhow—but he forgets to do so. (You’ll see him claim one in play on pg. 86 and on pg. 304.) Edward can define up to twelve arcana; like Diane, he doesn’t worry too much about this. He decides that his ilλnati handler, “cleaner,” supplier, snitch, and a more general “informant” are the five he keeps “on hand”—they’ll take his speed-dialed calls. The rest, he leaves unspecified for now. Edward opens a blank “ending book” for Tassilo, telling the story of how he reaches his final death, and he is done.

Tassilo Caucoense, the Strategist of Treachery ATTRIBUTE

LEVEL

COST

Eide Flore Lore Wyrd Ability

0: Ingenue 3: Catalyst 1: Stray 5: Postulant 1: Struggling

0 Stilling 30 Immersion 10 Fugue 50 Burn 40 Wear

Gifts, Bonds, and Geasa

Immutable One of the Best

the creation of a campaign

106

� iara bennewick Heather Sullivan picks the bane strength. Her Strategist is dying because she’s just too, darn, strong. Her traditional family fitness technique was Glitched, you see, and didn’t just grant her incredible power but also made it the kind of power that even she can’t fully control. One day, it will devour her. She needs Eide 2, because she is specifically an initiate of secret techniques. (Technically, that’s not obligatory— but it talks about that in the description of Eide 2, so she’d be uncomfortable with the incongruity if she went with anything less.) She feels kind of ambivalent about the world and isn’t even completely sure herself why she stopped fighting it; that could be anywhere from Flore 0-3, tending low, although Heather, like Edward, kind of likes “intimations of worldly divinity” and the idea of being a treasure to the world. Heather is fairly interested in Lore as a player (she likes that kind of thing) so she wants to put a basic investment into that trait. To Heather, that means Lore 3: high enough that she can go out and hunt the arcana of her sphere and bind them to her use. Here, she pauses to consider what the Sphere of “strength” looks like. She decides that it’s got to be an ecosystem of fantastic creatures eternally striving to become stronger through cultivation and devouring one another. She’ll catch airborne fiery horses with magical cores inside their brains, treasure seeking electric mice, and iron-skinned panthers whose poison breath is deadly, each neatly sorted by their “monster rank” and difficulty. She adds “a wolf made of trees” and “a dragon-like thing” to that list to get to the five arcana she can have handy, which in her case means “kept in her ‘spiritual space,’” and decides that she’s aware of a giant lava serpent and a mysterious monster with medicinal efficacy as well. As for Wyrd, she wants Wyrd 4: Ciara is a weapon, with the Wyrd of War (pg. 229). For Ability, Heather likes being reasonably competent. Greater Well-Met (pg. 130) seems like a bit too much for Ciara to manage for free, while free use of Steel (pg. 130) fits her character. Both are Ability 5 actions, so she figures Ciara’s Ability has to be hovering in the range 4-5. She’s overbudget at this point—30-39 points—so she looks at what part of that she cares about the least. For her, it’s the Wyrd: there’s nothing she wants to do with it, she

Ciara Bennewick, the Strong ATTRIBUTE

LEVEL

COST

Eide Flore Lore Wyrd Ability

2: Practitioner 0: Outsider 3: Hunter 1: Wyrdling 4: Professional

20 Stilling 0 Immersion 30 Fugue 10 Burn 40 Wear

Gifts, Bonds, and Geasa

glitch: a story of the Not

Durant

just thought that being a Wyrd 4 “Sword-Bearer” sounded cool. If she drops to Wyrd 1, she can afford everything else she wants and have a point to spare. As for that point ... she’s interested in the Durant Gift (pg. 290), to be a little tougher, so she picks that up. She records her core traits (lower left). Heather decides to round out the group’s set of Arcs with an Emptiness Arc, starting with The Long Night (pg. 366). For levers, she decides that Ciara cares about contests of strength, proving herself, challenges, and maybe other people who care about strength. More generally, she just admires ... the proud and the awesome ... and hates to see good things go away. It’s one of her better features, and one of the things, perhaps, that makes her most glad not to be at war with the world. She moves on to miscellaneous details. Ciara’s sanctuary, she decides, will be a place of stone and mist and green she goes sometimes to think. Any time she can climb a reasonable number of flights of stairs, she can get there. For her power of “destruction,” she opts for the peculiar ability to rip away self-justification and make people face reality. “... it’s the only way they can be strong.” Her Technique, of course, is feats of strength. At Flore 0, Heather can choose only a single Creational treasure. She opts for a pair of dice she found in a random shop in Paris that always roll what she wants them to. Heather’s already chosen Ciara’s arcana, so she’s basically there; all that’s left is opening a blank “ending book” for Ciara, telling the story of her final death.

the

� irst story

Madeline has made things relatively easy on herself in planning the first story because the players have already agreed to be driving around tackling mysteries. She doesn’t have to worry about how she’s going to catch the pcs’ interest or how far the players will have to bend their roleplay to bite down on the plot hooks—their interest is, effectively, pre-caught, and all she has to do is keep it. She glances over the pcs’ levers, Treasures, Arcana, and infections, and then focuses in on their levers. For Liutgarde, she starts imagining a city trapped in time, but the idea won’t gel until a later time. For Tassilo, some sort of business opportunity? For Ciara, ... something good, that is going away, and a chance to test her strength. That seems most interesting to her right then, so she narrows in on it. They’ll be traveling, and they’ll reach a town where an Angel is dying? (Angels don’t normally die natural deaths, particularly on Earth, but it’s not so blatantly impossible that a gm can’t get away with it. Here, she’s specifically envisioning a kind of Studio Ghibli-influenced magical world seasonal cycles natural beauty kind of thing ... and the idea, she thinks, has legs.)

107 She puts this vision in context while looking at Ciara’s quest, The Long Night. That quest is ostensibly about anhedonia, but the specific elements that catch her attention are about timelessness, snow, being in a metaphorical cage, and being moved about by others. So she gets the idea that there’s a big ceremony around the Angel’s death and passing, and it’s going to want the characters to be a passive witness—that whatever worldly forces are there, they’re not going to try to kill the pcs, but they’re also not going to leave them be, they’re going to try to detain them by the metaphorical road. They’re going to try to tell them that they aren’t allowed to help, even if it feels like they can help something; and they aren’t allowed to fight, even if there’s something it feels like they might want to fight ... and just move them past. If the pcs refuse to accept that, then she has a plot. And if the pcs accept it, instead ... well, it’s the first session, so that could be a problem. Normally, she’d just assume that if they accept that, if they roll with it, it’s because the players are enjoying the show, that interpersonal drama and spotlight use is enough agency for them that day, but since it’s the first session, it could also be that they think they’re not allowed to do more. So if the pcs just accept that, she plans on giving some hint that basically everyone telling them what to do is fundamentally mistaken, that the Angel’s dying is premised somehow on a falsehood, something to do with the glitch or an Excrucian attack rather than the natural passing that they’ve been sold. ... heck, maybe Angels don’t die of natural causes, and even though it’s notionally good that a law-being goes away, it’s only doing so because of something broken. For the cast of characters ... Ciara’s quest card suggests someone who can distort time, which sounds like they might be a Liutgarde hook, so possibly a Power that is also a witch? And maybe someone concerned with food, which isn’t as well-targeted, but could be another Power, to interact with the pc group as a whole? There isn’t much for Tassilo here, but he is supposed to be into people in trouble, so maybe some local kid, then, to ask the “mysterious strangers” to intervene? As for the town they’re passing through ... Cape May, New Jersey, she decides, after some online research, because this is going to be the Angel of the Sea. And after some further study, this gets more interesting, because Cape May turns out to be a tourist town at the tip of a peninsula; there’s no reason for them to be passing through. Going there, sure. Deliberately detouring there, sure. But passing through? Maybe it actually does work that way, because real life is messy; but abstractly, conceptually, the most plausible way that would happen is if ... If, before now, there was a passage past Cape May? If the Angel of the Sea was also sustaining some sort of HyBrasil like land that will fade away with its death, leaving Cape May as it is known now? If it’s possible that the characters won’t be able to get where they were originally driving to, if things continue as they are, and that wherever

they’re going to is only half-real, even if things don’t? She digs up more information ... on local naval bases, on the “Cape May diamonds,” on the local jazz festival and gingerbread homes; everything she can get just feeds her ability to give a strong local color to the game. She doesn’t have to get it all right, not unless one of her players knows the place (in which case she can make them help out, instead), but the more she knows, the more starting points she has, particularly when building npcs and the ceremony of the Angel’s passing. She doesn’t wind up having time to do as much as she’d like before the first session begins, but she does have time to put together some names from online name generators for the main npcs (and a few random characters). She gives each of the Powers a roughly random specialty— the Power of the Sea, she decides, is going to be heavy on Aspect (pg. 395); the Power of Jazz will have a jazzof-all-trades build with a slight leaning towards Domain (pg. 395). The Angel will focus on Gardener and Lore (pg. 397, 205), which means she has to figure out how she thinks Lore actually works for angels; luckily, though, there’s an obvious place for the Angel of the Sea to go to hunt its Arcana-equivalents, which is, the Sea. She puts together a few more Powers, a Warmain, and a Divine Imperator in case she needs antagonists, and that’s all the time she has before the game. It turns out to be more than enough, though, as the pcs spend more than half of the session in a complex scheme to get out of their bill for the bed and breakfast where they’re staying and a good chunk of the rest arguing philosophy with a cat; by the time they’ve really grasped that they’re being detained, and the grand festival of the Angel’s departure has caught their full attention, it’s time to stop for the day.

the creation of a campaign

109

Interlude�

C������� su��tions

Glitch is, as has been said, a game of exploration. A game of experience in a world and void that are vibrant and full of mystery—sometimes arduous, sometimes horrible, and sometimes transcendental in their beauty. There are, thus, roughly three sorts of campaigns this game is suited for. These are, Stories that focus on a single grand mystery, such as: ӫ whatever happened to the Creator of the world? ӫ who is afflicting the characters with nightmares... and why? ӫ where do humans go between midnight and thirteen o’clock? ӫ what’s really going on in this strange fairyland the characters are visiting? - ... or, on this strange island? - ... or, at this peculiar university? ӫ why are the characters repeating August 16th over and over again? ӫ what really happened on that night that the world forgot? ӫ can Creation be disentangled from the Glitch? - ... what is the Glitch, really, anyway? - ... for that matter, what is Creation? ӫ why haven’t there been any new wraiths since March 4th, 2012? ӫ why are people in Sussex dreaming of an alien invasion every night? ӫ who in the world thought summoning Excrucians to fight a “demon lord” was a good idea? ӫ so, Creation turned out to be a computer simulation, fine, ok, but ... was Nınuan? - ... and, is the “real” reality glitched, too? ӫ what would it take to make the world better? Or, to make a new and better world? ӫ who the heck are we, why does everyone hate us, and what the hell happened to our eyes? ӫ who is this “savior” that’s being prophecied, and ... uh, good salvation, or bad salvation? or ӫ how should we navigate this strange and mythic situation that we’re in? Stories that focus on grand exploration—e.g., on: ӫ touring the Earth, or all Creation, ӫ exploring a mysterious lost land, ӫ exploring Nınuan, possibly from an Earthly home base complete with family, ӫ becoming ambassadors to, and exploring the society of, the Powers, ӫ exploring the characters’ complicated, tragic, and secretly intertwined backstories, or ӫ visiting all of New Hampshire’s restaurants, cafés, and bars. Or, “mystery of the week” stories—where, e.g., the pcs: ӫ hunt artifacts as a mercenary team, ӫ sail the mysterious seas,

opposite: by Robin Scott

interlude: campaign suggestions

110 ӫ encounter a series of Excrucian-themed murders in the small town where they live, ӫ travel from town to town, stumbling into strange events at every stop, ӫ get precognitive warnings, or messages to visit certain places ... but from who?, ӫ live in a big city, and mysterious threats that brush against their levers keep coming up, ӫ run a detective agency, ӫ run an explicitly occult, supernatural, or empyreal detective agency, ӫ participate in a cooking show wherein every week their opponents are coincidentally murdered and they must prove their innocence first before taking home their prize, ӫ consult for an insurance agency, ӫ help people the police can’t or won’t, ӫ serve as hunting dogs for an Imperator who somehow has control over their souls, ӫ operate a small government agency investigating supernatural events not obviously attributable to known major factions, or ӫ have perfectly ordinary lives, at least, for Chancery members, except that every time they take a group vacation they stumble on a new mystery or strange event. In some of these cases, players may need to pre-commit to ignoring the unlikelihood of the premise—that, for example, as long as there’s a good reason why this week’s opponents on the cooking show have been murdered, they won’t let their suspension of disbelief be shaken just because it’s happened once or twice (or seven times) before. Note that mystery of the week campaigns can be, and often are, combined with grand mystery campaigns: either the characters face a series of little mysteries, and the story’s grand mystery emerges over time; or, the characters stumble on their weekly mysteries over the course of their grander pursuit.

glitch: a story of the Not

111

chapter 8

The

Dar�ness of the

�tag� The gunslinger shot. It struck the balledup noumenon. It cracked. Perception and thing were broke apart. Ideal and real were parted. Subjective was born, where objective was. And the gunslinger there, they tipped their hat and they slipped away— Through the bramble-wood backlit door, into the world. — from Ilsevith Rising, by Cameron Garza

Creation Creation—the primary setting of this game—is a land of the conscious. It is a land defined by perception, by awareness, by experience—not because these things reshape it, although they can, but because fundamentally to live in Creation is to perceive it, and if one ceases to do so then one is scarcely truly there. Accordingly, each player receives two spotlights per ingame “chapter:” Two moments that they can highlight as the core of their character’s experience. Two moments that they’re there for, alert for, present for, both as a character and a player. Two things that they care about, that they pay attention to. That they sharply perceive. In Creation, this is most often used as a kind of investigative authority: Up to twice per chapter, each player can “spotlight” something to make the GM or another player more open and detailed about it than they otherwise would be. They can, metaphorically, turn the stage lights on to something that would otherwise have been left in darkness. From a player perspective, this is a way to explore matters of interest. But it’s a little more than that, too. Shining a spotlight on something intrinsically makes it more important, more defining. It’s not just that it forces the gm or player in question to elaborate on their exposition; it pushes them to re-gear, if necessary, and make sure that that exposition is worth hearing. Under a spotlight, characters open their hearts—even if they weren’t planning to. Plot events happen—even if the gm wasn’t expecting them to. The rules can only ask for so much here. Ultimately, all the game requires is that the gm or player(s) under the spotlight give a solid go at making it worthwhile. It can’t ask more than that ... because sometimes secrets should stay secrets. Sometimes dull events can’t be polished into brilliant jewels of action. Sometimes there really isn’t that much more that can be said, or done. There are no hard rules or hard requirements that bind the outcome, because there can’t be, save that the target does have to at least think about how to make the spotlight meaningful. If they end up coming up with a good way, then they should also then attempt it, because the spotlight makes the events in question matter, after all.

the darkness of the stage

112 Spotlights give their subjects a certain ... narrative weight. That’s why spotlights traditionally form the core record of a Glitch game—that narrative weight. They’re important enough that the core of what happened in a completed chapter is considered, by game protocol, to be a list of its spotlighted events, and of who spotlighted them, as well as of any storyline quest actions (pg. 318) that were taken, and who by. Spotlights serve a few other functions, as well. The spotlights in the game form a story of events, of the movements of the characters’ lives. Therefore, in any chapter where there are at least as many spotlights as there are PCs, those lives advance: the GM gives each player one bonus character XP (pg. 101). In any chapter where every PC’s player uses both spotlights, each player, instead, is given two. This is awarded at the chapter’s end. This game assumes that characters will earn two xp from spotlights in a typical chapter, dipping now and again down to one. Players may wish to be judicious in their spotlight use, but parsimony is not recommended; in turn, the gm is advised against racing through or abruptly ending chapters in a way that cuts the players’ use of spotlights short. That said, if precise xp requirements are ever a problem, the gm does have the option to handwave them a little; for instance, if a chapter has clearly come to an end, but the players are stressing over how to get in a last spotlight or two, the gm can just forgive the difference. Or, if the group is large, the gm can assess “as many spotlights as pcs” on an approximate and lenient basis rather than forcing everyone to keep a constant, careful count. The gm is permitted to use their own spotlights, if they’d like—up to two per chapter, since it’s a player-level device—and will generally count any they do use towards “at least as many spotlights as there are pcs.” They explicitly do not have to use both, or even any, spotlights for the group to earn the second character xp. As a final note, characters using spotlights don’t need a mundane Focus action (pg. 130) to pay attention to the thing their player is spotlighting ... unless someone actively attempts to distract them, in which case the game’s conflict rules require one. In that case, they should, instead, receive 2 Edge (pg. 150).

The Silence of the World The other side of a spotlight system is that the stage will be, on average, somewhat darker when they do not shine. Part of the way Gλ litch works is that sometimes— maybe even often—there’ll be something going on that a player might want to know about. Something that their character is generally a witness to, that’s happening right in front of them ... that the gm won’t actually do that much description on. Or that the player responsible won’t. They’ll just leave it in a sort of ... fog. That’s just how life is, in this game, sometimes. The world’s always there, presumably ... but the characters

glitch: a story of the Not

aren’t always paying attention. Or, they’re paying attention, but they’re not processing what they’re getting. It’s not making sense to them. Even if it should make sense, they’re just not putting it all together well. Sometimes, if they don’t have the energy and the will to spend a spotlight on something, they’ll just have to kind of go with the flow and let things slip by, because the world won’t always make it obvious what’s going on. Creation centers experience ... but it doesn’t always make it easy, and it doesn’t make it cheap. Sometimes (perhaps two thirds of the time), players can work around that without a spotlight. They can use an action like Focus (pg. 130), Expertise (pg. 130), or Vision (pg. 212) to figure out what’s going on. Other times, that won’t actually help, because even that understanding is still a fog to them: Things happen, and now the character “understands” them, but the gm still doesn’t bother to explain. The experience of understanding passes without antecedent, drowning in the darkness of the stage. How can that happen? How can that make sense? One can put a number of explanations to it, but fundamentally, it simply means that the experience, and the understanding, are not lasting. They take place, technically, in game; there is a moment when the character grasps what is going on around them. Only, without a spotlight, that moment will not appear in the formal record of the chapter when it ends; it is, at best, alleged. Nor, without being played out, can it meaningfully linger in the memory of the player or the character. Like an understanding that someone had three days ago, and then forgot; like the shocked expression of an actor in the darkness—it exists for the actor, even for the character ... but not the audience. In short: Any time when the scene isn’t intense, when it isn’t extremely compelling to the gm and obvious that it would be compelling to the Strategists within as well, the gm has the option to leave things out. To be parsimonious with their descriptions. To let the world fade into the background and summarize, or skip, what happens, then. Maybe just to make things easier on themselves— To not have to worry about something that they would have to spend mental energy figuring out. Maybe to actively bait out spotlight actions, to keep the story moving; or, to find out what exactly in the missing sections the players will care enough about to spotlight, to engage. The gm can even high-handedly skip past large chunks of story and what ought to be, technically, pc or playerlevel decisions, letting those portions of the pcs’ lives just ... slip past; can, e.g., jump right into the middle of fights or adventures without giving details ... Unless, again, a player makes the active decision to spotlight something; to engage. It may seem obvious that a player will; that a player has

113 to. But they don’t. Sometimes, they won’t actually care, because the gm’s accurately identified subjects the players aren’t actually interested in to skip past—or because the players, in choosing to spotlight only some of what’s been skipped past, will identify what’s important for the gm then. Perhaps, for instance, the gm cold opens on the pcs breaking into the Louvre, expecting to bait out a spotlight and give the backstory ... but instead, most of the players roll with it. One of them, upset that it’s been high-handedly skipped past, spotlights where the group is staying in Paris. ... and much about the players’ interests is revealed.

spotliGhtinG a

�ystery

The standard use of the spotlight is to ask for more information when one would otherwise get none—when the gm or player has already skipped or skimmed past the relevant matter, or brought their discussion of it to an end. While a player can explain in full sentences that they’re spotlighting a mystery, this is normally represented more somatically: They flash a card that represents a spotlight, or toss a chip that does the same onto the gaming table. Online, the equivalent might be a standardized phrase like “[SPOT]” or a spotlight emoji instead. Offline, if players don’t have a spotlight prop or token, they might substitute a standardized hand gesture6 or, all else failing, dramatically announce “Spotlight:” before the matter of their interest. The point is, it’s usually not phrased as “I’m spotlighting this,” which might feel like any other character action; instead, it’s a two-part, ideally simultaneous process: An indication of the spotlight, paired with the thing that the spotlight’s on. Once a spotlight shines onto something that would have otherwise been mysterious, the fog dissolves. The darkness of the stage recedes. The story itself focuses on the thing that’s been spotlighted; that thing gains in meaning and in relevance. And the gm, or the targeted player, or the targeted players, or possibly everyone, does their best to share more than otherwise they would; and, if necessary, makes that exposition or action more interesting than it otherwise would be. Notably, when a player uses a spotlight, their PC’s attention is always held. It’s difficult for a player to spotlight something that their character is not a witness to and impossible to spotlight something that their character doesn’t care about. There’s a little wiggle room in this for player convenience— however much leeway the players need, to feel like they don’t have to stop and search their characters’ souls each time they want to spotlight something and make sure they 6

perhaps finger-guns, or an exaggerated thumbs-up, or something like the “head exploding” gesture, but more forward facing—that is, with palms out rather than up near the head?

really care—but the principle is meant to be sound: If a player is spotlighting something, their character should also pay attention or engage. If it ever matters, the moment when the character stops paying attention—not so much “when they stop being single-mindedly focused,” but just “when they stop engaging with the subject in basically the same way that they’ve been doing”—is the moment that the spotlight fades away. When someone spotlights a mystery, it’s going to be up to the gm or the relevant player(s) how much they want to explain, how much more open they want to be, how far they want to continue a scene or event that was on its way to ending before the spotlight shone ... but they should keep at least the idea of being more open and forthcoming about the spotlighted thing in mind as long as the character doing the spotlighting is still focused and engaged. Spotlighting a mystery is sometimes referred to as a Reckoning action, and is usually recorded as such in the log of play. The principal reference is to the calculation of a ship’s position ... but there is also a certain extent to which accounts are coming due.

Examples The pcs are walking somewhere, and the gm is fine just skipping the trip ... but someone uses a spotlight, so they don’t; they tell the group about it instead. Reckoning (Spotlighting a Mystery) Condition: There’s something happening you want to know more about. Action: Ask for more from the GM or player. Your character is absorbed in watching (or whatever) for a bit.

“ You are about to wonder why you are here,” he said. I snapped into awareness behind my eyes. They widened in panic. I reached for— “But,” he said, “Don’t.” The wallpaper was patterned in golden-brown. The desk was wood. His face was— “... eh?” “Right now,” he said. “ You are acing this interview. I am confident that I can sell you to my superiors and put together a compensation package that will blow you away. But I’m afraid that if you remember for even a moment how you came to be here, or who I am, or where you are, that’s all going to have to go away.” ok, sure fine. A job was a job. But I couldn’t help it! I reached— “Finley,” I blurted, in embarrassed horror, as it clicked into place in my head. “... your own name,” he said, and rolled his eyes. “That much is fine; if, perhaps, skating a little close to the edge?” — from eVeryThinG, inC., by Elliott Porterfield

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114 Or, some character is in a new place. The gm is fine handwaving what the place is like, but that character’s player isn’t. They want their character attentive. Engaged. There. So they use a spotlight, even though they don’t actually need anything more from the gm. Or, the group gets in a fight with an Angel. The gm is fine not explaining how things got there and just starting in medias res, but at least one player decides that they really would like to know. So they call up a spotlight, and the gm explains.

�nGoinG events Sometimes an experience seems valuable enough to spotlight even though it’s not a mystery—even though the necessary exposition or storytelling is already going on. In that case, it’s not necessary to wait until the gm or the relevant player stop on their own to spotlight any leftover mystery and urge them to keep going. Instead, one can spend a spotlight mid-action or mid-description to say: This thing that is going on matters to me. It’s relevant. It’s important. ... if you were actually just about to stop, and I didn’t realize that, please go on longer, instead. This use of the spotlight is admittedly tactically inefficient, in that it sacrifices some of the spotlight’s value as a source of information—but it’s also strategically sound as a way to signal player-level interests and reinforce compelling play. That isn’t just an ooc benefit, either; each such appropriate use of spotlights bends the story in the character’s direction and contributes, however infinitesimally, to their long-term ability to achieve their goals. So when something is happening in play—whether it’s ominous foreshadowing, fireworks, someone telling a story, or the gm describing landscapes or neat events—and a player wants to encourage that, to say that they want to see more of that, they want it to keep going ... they can toss out a spotlight token, or flash the card, or use the hand signal, or otherwise indicate that they’re spotlighting what’s going on.

Attention (Spotlighting Ongoing Events) Condition: There’s something other people or the GM are doing in the game that’s really riveting your attention. Action: Let the group know this should keep going! Your character is absorbed in watching (or whatever) for a bit.

She was killing us, yes, but she was doing it admirably. I couldn’t stop watching. ... I’d half a mind to applaud. — from The STAGGered STAir, by Adele Alexander

glitch: a story of the Not

This is where props and hand signals pay off the most, because it’d usually be interrupting—at least in an offline game—to say something like, “I’m using a spotlight here” or “I’m going to spotlight this ongoing event.” Tossing a token onto the table, though, is noticeable, distinct, and indisputable ... but it doesn’t necessarily interrupt anyone in the middle of an action or a description or a speech. If it does interrupt—if the scene stops while the participants look at the token, or the card, or the hand gesture, or whatever—then one can follow up with “Spotlight,” or “Go on,” or “This is great.” If things are about to wind down when a spotlight is used, spotlighting an ongoing event works in the same way that spotlighting a mystery does. It pushes the people involved not to wind down, to go a little bit further. If things weren’t about to wind down, if no spotlight was needed to keep the scene live, then it doesn’t make much practical difference; all it does is mark that moment as critically important for the spotlighting player’s character, give them a free Focus action (or, possibly, Edge), and allocate one of their two spotlights for the chapter. When a player does this, their character’s attention is necessarily caught. As with spotlighting a mystery, spotlighting an ongoing event requires that the character themselves be caught up in the experience, investing their attention in the thing going on. One can even say their attention is fed into it; it strengthens the moment and gives it life. Spotlighting an ongoing action is sometimes referred to as an Attention action, and is usually recorded in the log of play as such.

Examples The gm describes an eerie parade of monsters. Deciding that it’s caught both their player and their character-level attention, a player spotlights the parade. Or, a pc and an npc have an intense discussion. Another player doesn’t feel like their character has much to contribute, or maybe they’re just too tired to contribute much ooc, but they spotlight the conversation because they think it’s neat. Or, an npc starts talking about the long-lost adopted child that a pc’s been searching for; a spotlight token hits the table ten words in.

�ompleted experiences Sometimes it’s only obvious that an event is worth spotlighting when it’s complete. Something ends, or at least it reaches the point where it can or should end, and a player realizes: That was a key experience for my character this chapter. They don’t need to demand further elaboration from anyone; the key details were already experienced. They don’t need to pay more ic attention, for the same reason, or ask anyone to continue. There is, however, a protocol for something that should happen after the spotlight is used,

115 Reaction (Spotlighting a Completed Experience) Condition: Something that just happened was meaningful for your character. Action: Let the group know that, and decide whether your character finds its conclusion neat, scary, or mysterious.

end the scene on, and attempt a “fade to black.” If the house is full of good plot potential, the scene might not end there, or at least the exploration as a whole might pick up at a later point ... but if there’s not much else going on there, the scene can end, with the gm perhaps mentioning anything else they find after the scene.

someone who’s “I thought the soup was going to be terrible,” he said. “Since I didn’t have any onions. But, get this: brown sugar.” “This isn’t a dinner party,” Clarence said. “We’re here to fight to the death.” “I know, I know, but I’m just so happy,” Antoine said. “I mean, the substitution actually worked! That wasn’t what I was expecting at all.” — from The dinner pArTy, by Emily Chen

and that makes this version of the action a little different than the versions above: In lieu of further exposition or action, the player should declare the spotlight’s target a key experience for their character ... and that its conclusion, the final moments or the thing they came out of it with, was (the player’s choice of ) neat, scary, or mysterious. This use of the spotlight comes with an implicit suggestion that the scene or experience end, if it had not. This isn’t binding—a person can’t cut off a politician’s televised speech in real life by announcing, “dun dun DUN!” at what they’ve decided is a dramatic, conclusive moment; similarly, a player can’t stop a scythe of death energy screaming across space towards their character by spotlighting it, deciding it’s over, and saying, “Wow, that was sure scary!” ... but if it’s reasonable to the other parties involved that the spotlighted thing (or the whole scene) might end there, then, spotlighting its completion ends it. For this reason, spotlighting a completed experience should be formally called. It’s not enough just to use a token or say “spotlight;” a player should explicitly note that they’re spotlighting a completed experience. This is sometimes called a Reaction, a “fade to black,” or “closing out the scene (or event);” it is generally recorded in a session’s log as a Reaction.

Examples The gm explains something neat. When they’re done, a player decides that that mattered to their character. They spotlight that completed experience. Or, a pc and an npc have an intense discussion. After it’s over, another player realizes that they were paying a lot of attention, and that it was a pretty important scene for their character; they spotlight it retroactively and explain that it was scary. Or, a pc explores a haunted house. They find an ancient stone mask. Mysterious! They feel that’s a good note to

�tuck

Sometimes a character—a pc or npc—will be stuck. They’ll be frozen, or going in circles, or committed to a path that’s wasting a lot of time and keeping them out of the action. It can be obvious that that’s not all there is to the character. It can be obvious that they’re capable of doing something interesting, of doing many interesting things. ... but that’s not what’s going on. By default, putting a spotlight on them wouldn’t help. They’d just go in circles more dramatically. But it’s possible to say, explicitly: “ok, what you’ve been doing is just ... background stuff. Off-stage, off-camera stuff. The story, your moment in the spotlight, starts ... now!” This is called a nudge, a poke, or a cue. When a character is nudged, then—as with any spotlighting—they should give a solid go at making the spotlight on them worthwhile. However, with a nudge, they’re specifically expected to do that by moving past what’s going on with them instead of by expanding on it. Instead of trying to make their trapped or vacillating state interesting, in other words, they should do what they can, as much as they can, to get past that state and do something compelling, dramatic, and appropriately relevant. If that needs help from the gm, they can ask it; if the gm can facilitate it, then, they generally should. Often, though, it won’t be the gm’s help that’s necessary to shake things up or break the target’s stasis so much as just the specific cue that the moment is now: That, as normal and appropriate as it may have been for them to flounder or freeze up or cling to an idea or mood or decision that was keeping them out of play up to that moment, now the call of adventure—or at least the call of the scene, the possibility of doing something interesting— has reached their inner self ’s ears. Like closing out the scene, using a spotlight to nudge someone should be stated explicitly. It’s not enough to just flash a card or declare the intention to spotlight the target; one should explicitly call it a “nudge” or mention that the point is to get the target unstuck. If possible—that is, whenever it makes sense and isn’t super-awkward—one should also assist, or at least make contact, in some fashion, ic. When a stuck pc is spotlighted, the target’s player has the right to use one of their own spotlights on the action instead—basically, to say, “ok, that stirs me into action ... but that action is a big moment for me, or that stuck state was a big deal for me, so I want this to be a spotlight moment for my pc, and not yours.” Players can also nudge

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116 their own characters directly, but they need help to do so; someone else at the table must intervene ic, make contact ic, or at least express frustration that they can’t think of a way to do so. (This “someone else” can be, and often is, the gm.) In both cases, this is a kind of storytelling; the minor rules exceptions attached to self-spotlighting have no particular game advantage attached. Spotlighting someone who’s stuck is generally recorded as a Nudge or a Cuing action. Spotlighting one’s own pc is generally recorded as a Dynamic action instead.

Nudging and the GM The nudge is probably the most important gm spotlight, and the spotlight the gm should try the hardest to keep in their active toolkit in play. Specifically, GMs should try to remember to nudge the PCs when they get blocked into doing something not fun. If a pc talks themselves into staying somewhere where nothing is happening, or gets pressured into it by others; if they believe very firmly that doing something that isn’t actually meaningful is the “right” move and need explicit gm intervention to convince them otherwise; if they’re waiting for others to help them but those others won’t come; if they think they need to characterize themselves by waiting until the game’s narrative or spotlight pushes them into motion, but there’s no event in the wings that will do so; if they’re going in circles trying to decide what to do but in fact they really just need to do something ... all of these are cases where a gm spotlight can get the pc out of their box and back into play, or, rather, help the player justify getting them back into play to themselves. Ultimately, taking action is the players’ responsibility; it’s not the gm’s job to nudge a stuck character ... but it can be a very helpful idea.

Nudge (Spotlighting Someone Who’s Stuck) Condition: You notice that someone’s frozen up. They’re stuck. They can’t move forward from here. Maybe emotion is overwhelming them. Maybe they’ve locked themselves into an idea or pattern that they can’t easily snap out of. Maybe they’re even physically paralyzed, blocked, or trapped. Whatever. The point is, they’re stuck. Action: Declare a Nudge, intervening IC if you can think of a suitable way.

“I realize I may be intruding,” said the man in my kitchen, “but you’ve been living a confined and dolorous life, everrepeating, ever-gray; and your world is all full of suffering; and I ... just don’t think that it’s deserved. Would you mind ever so terribly if I offered you a chance at something else?” He was eating one of my oranges, I think. It was hard to tell. There were worlds and worlds and stars within his eyes. — from null And Void #1: openinG niGhT, by Janet Ross

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Example Nudges The pcs are unable to rouse a despondent npc from their doleful sulk. One of the players finds this kind of disappointing, rather than amusingly aggravating, and spends a spotlight (paired with an ic impassioned speech that would likely otherwise have been pointless) to try to shake them into motion. Or, a tragic npc is refusing to be rescued for abstract metaphysical reasons that the pcs can’t really argue with— but a spotlighted moment, more or less, can. Or, a pc is stuck waiting for an npc that isn’t going to show while the rest of the group is off doing interesting things somewhere else. The gm nudges that pc with a loud noise from a broken coffee machine. It’s not clear that this would normally get them to leave instead of waving it off ... but since it’s called out as a nudge, it startles the pc out of their waiting mode and they decide, a few minutes later, to leave. Or, player a’s pc is frozen up after being accused of murder. Player b spotlights them. In a moment of panic, the pc erases the investigating cops and runs! Player a decides this is definitely more their moment than b’s, though ... so they retroactively substitute their own spotlight in.

�acinG In Creation, the flow of a character’s experience is tied to the rhythm of the day. There’s no hard and fast rule for how much in-world time a chapter represents; it varies with the situation, the characters, and the players—but there is a default, one that holds unless there’s something about the pcs, the players, or (more commonly) about how events are flowing that shakes it up: One chapter for the morning; one chapter for the afternoon; and one chapter for the night. The gm typically introduces each chapter, e.g., with something like: ӫ Morning: “A new day dawns, and with it, a new chapter. What are you doing?” ӫ Afternoon: “The next chapter picks up after a refreshing [walk/lunch/whatever.]...” ӫ Night: “So, next chapter! It’s time for a [terrifying/ fun/bleak and lonely] night. Where is everybody?” Sometimes it’ll make sense to introduce a chapter in a radically different way, or to divide up the day differently, or to have just one or two chapters for a given day. After major events, it is sometimes worth skipping straight from the end of a chapter to a new morning days or weeks or even longer later on. The default, though, is one chapter per morning, one per afternoon, and one per night. Each chapter is built around roughly two spotlight moments per pc. For instance, a player might take the following actions in a day: ӫ Morning: - the character shakes off the remnants of a dream, but the player spotlights it to find out what it was; opposite: by Elena Albanese

118 - the character drives out to a town in the countryside to meet an old friend; after going in and sitting down, their player realizes that the town and the diner they’re having breakfast in is a little creepy/scary, declares an after-the-fact spotlight, and fades to black. ӫ Afternoon: - their old friend shows up at the diner—but doesn’t recognize or remember them! The player spins their wheels for a bit before the gm nudges them. They stop spinning their wheels, claim the spotlight as their own, and decisively declare that they “must have been mistaken” about knowing them ... before going outside to lurk near the diner’s entrance, secretly planning to follow their friend home from there and investigate! - as they follow their friend home, the gm describes the route as strange and dreamlike. The player finds this experience interesting and meaningful, and puts a spotlight on the ongoing action. ӫ Night: - later, the character meets with a county clerk, who talks about recent events and local strangeness. The player puts a spotlight on this ongoing action too; and, finally, - late at night, as they return unsatisfied to their motel, they find someone being accosted by monsters at a crossroads. That person was frozen in fear, but bolt when the character nudges them, yelling at them to run. There’s a fight, too, but that’s not important; what matters is that the player wanted to see them do more than just stand there frozen in fear, and they did, and that experience was thereby made to matter. If the character’s name was Valamir, this set of actions could be summarized in the game log as: ӫ Reckoning (Valamir - a dream) ӫ Reaction (Valamir – the town & diner are spooky!) ӫ Dynamic Action (Valamir – breaking off the conversation with Valamir’s friend) ӫ Attention (Valamir – a strange and dreamlike route) ӫ Attention (Valamir – the county clerk’s stories) and ӫ Cuing Action/Nudge (Valamir – the monsters’ prey runs)

How to Use Chapters Under normal circumstances, the number of spotlights used versus the number of spotlights that can be used is a rough guide to how much time has passed in a chapter. Obviously time doesn’t jump forward during a scene just because a player uses a spotlight, and sometimes there are more pressing considerations that will slow the clock, speed it up, jump it forward, or even hop it back—but if three players have used four spotlights in a morning chapter, and someone asks the gm what time it is, the likely answer is, “a little over half the morning’s gone.” Or, if no one’s used a

glitch: a story of the Not

spotlight yet, they might say, “the morning’s pretty young.” The most important thing that can drive the clock to move a little faster is a player suffering for lack of spotlights. More specifically, when a player’s been out of spotlights for a while, but their pc is having experiences that “feel” like the kind of thing a spotlight might show up in—they’ve become a central figure in the story, or are confronting personally important business, or are dealing with mysteries and things left unspoken, or are just off on their own having a bunch of different experiences—that’s a signal to the group and the gm that the chapter should be drawing to its end. That means that the in-game clock should be moving on towards the boundary between morning and afternoon, afternoon and night, or night and morning; that the gm/group should be encouraging players who haven’t used all their spotlights to use them up promptly; and that if those spotlights don’t get used, the chapter will end soon nevertheless. If the other pcs have been sparing with their spotlights, that probably means that it’ll be a 1-xp chapter; on the other hand, if everyone except for one player has used both spotlights, the gm should encourage them to use their last spotlight(s) soon ... and consider making it a 2-xp chapter anyway, if they do not.

The March of Time On the other side of this, when nobody’s spending spotlights at all, the game clock slows down. Sometimes that’s a good thing—sometimes it’s good pacing to have a languid interval. Sometimes that indolence, that molasses pace, allows the story to linger for a while on something great. The rest of the time, it’s part of the GM’s job to bait out spotlights when they’re running slow. To leave things alluringly, tauntingly, or frustratingly blank, in a way that earns them an investigative spotlight—in a way that gets the players in the habit of spotlighting mysteries, so often that their other spotlight uses will become natural too. This isn’t just a procedural matter, either; it’s a key part of playing the world: The world cares a very great deal about time, as players who have been living in it may have very well noticed. It accepts the possibility that now and again there will be long slow intervals or intense moments that never seem to end, but mostly, it likes to keep the days moving forward, hour slapping down after hour, in a brutal death march out to eternity. Honestly, one would think it had somewhere to get to. ... or, perhaps, that it had something to prove?

�eyond the world Spotlighting experiences is specific to Creation. That doesn’t mean that spotlights can’t be used in the void; they can, and players still get two per chapter. Rather, it means that the rules therein are different. The void is a land of arising. Of becoming oneself, amidst dreams. What matters there will not be conscious experience or attention. Rather, the moments that matter, the defining moments of the self, will be the players’ choices.

119 In waylets and the Beyond—in Ninuan—the fundamental building block of time is not the passing day or hour but the choices that define what each becomes. Accordingly, the spotlight there is not so much an investigative authority as a power of action: In the Beyond, players can “spotlight” one of their own actions to increase its dramatic weight. It remains possible to use the spotlight as an investigative authority—to spotlight a mystery, in particular; occasionally, an ongoing action; or, with the gm or group’s explicit permission, for reaction shots or nudges, even as in Creation. This use, alas, is a dangerous thing: When a character in the Beyond uses their spotlight to experience things, instead of increase the dramatic weight of their actions—that is, to spotlight the ongoing or the unknown; or, for reactions; or, for a nudge—their bane and their infection may bleed into the void.

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�efinite

In the void, the standard use of spotlights is to highlight one’s own character’s most important and meaningful choices. The player’s decision to use the spotlight represents a certain kind of will, dedication, and decisiveness on the part of their pc; it gives the action resonance. In the void, and by the void, such an action will be remembered. Each such spotlighted action impresses itself upon the emptiness. There, in the wild lands beyond the world, it is made by will and choice to matter; it is limned in silver: it is imprinted upon the memory of the timeless void. Ideal form is to begin this use of spotlights with one or two sentences of explanation, and sometimes more, that focus on the character’s thoughts, hopes, dreams, circumstances, and/or actions. This situates the choice within the context of the game and gives the gm a little advance warning ... but it need not come from the acting player, nor does it need to be ic—a short ic speech works; an ooc explanation does, as well; and if another player or the gm happens to have already been explaining that character’s circumstances or thoughts, nothing more is required. Once the monologue/explanation is out of the way, the player declares the spotlight ... and acts. Spotlighting an important and meaningful or daring choice is sometimes referred to, and generally recorded as, a Decisive action.

Examples A pc seizes a mind-altering sacred weapon, declaring that it cannot and it won’t subdue their will. Or, after a few words on what it means to them, they claim a recently-met npc as “family.” Or, their pc’s path briefly obstructed by a passing creature of the Beyond, a player reflects ooc on how the ancient royalty of Nınuan wore red and black, and why, before their pc cuts the beast in half and walks through the newly-opened way.

Decisive Action (Spotlighting the Definite) Condition: You’re about to do something definite—something you want to treat as a big deal; something you can’t easily take back. Action: Briefly talk about why, unless someone else has already done that for you. Then, do it!

“This may be all the magic that my world has left,” I say, fists balled. “But it’s worth it, if there’s a chance to save my friends.” “Uh—” says the wizard, and raises a finger. He is probably going to say something like, yes, definitely, use up all the magic that is left for this, that is a great idea. The enchantress and the fire sprite, how they’ll nod their heads! But there’s no need to speak it out, good sir! No need! I fling the lever and the worldcore screams. — from dAnA’S Journey, by Melanie Tumbarius

spotliGhtinG a

�est

Players may also spotlight an action whose outcome is unknown. Since the natural outcome of a test, in the absence of all else, is the null hypothesis, the whiff, the failure, this can be seen as a kind of nudge to the gm: in spotlighting this particular test, the player is putting the weight of their character’s story behind it. It can still fail, but there is more pressure on the gm to have it succeed, or, if not succeed, then fail in an interesting way—and with the assumption that it was at least in some sense worth the try. Players will often spotlight a test when the gm asks them what they’re looking for or doing in the void. The player explains what they’re looking for, what they think they’re doing, what they want to do. If this is something they obviously can do, they’ll have the option to make a Decisive choice, or not to use a spotlight at all—but often, they’ll move on to a theory, instead, and test it, spotlighting both that testing and its outcome. If it’s not obvious that what they’re doing is possible, in particular; if it’s not clear that they can do it in the first place ... then what they’ll spotlight is the “test” of their checking or trying: Can I find a way into that valley? perhaps. Or, If I look around, can I find a λ-place like I had thought to find? Spotlighting a test is also common when a player wonders how something works in the void, or when their pc is explaining something that they already know. That kind of scene can often wind up falling bland or dead if it doesn’t spur the character to action, and specifically to action that’s a little bit uncertain. So the player moves on to a theory, and a test, and spotlights that test: Uncertain action is provided. The final common use case for spotlighting a test is

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120 when the player has an idea for something that “could” be true or “ought to” be true about the void. Coming up with a theory and a way to test it, and then spotlighting that test, can help them to test out the idea—of course—but more importantly, if it’s something that they’re hoping or needing to find is true, it puts the weight of their story behind it being so. In full, the protocol for spotlighting a test begins with some level of explanation/monologue, as per spotlighting the definite; proceeds to a theory and a test; and, finally, concludes with a declared spotlight on that test. Sometimes, spotlighting a test is simply called that (or spotlighting the untested; or just “using a spotlight.”) Other times, if the character is consciously experimenting, they might call it a Science action; if they have faith in the results, they might call it a Faith action; and if they are trying to cause the void to be as they wish it to be through their action, it might be a Sorcery action—or, if they don’t know exactly where they fall on the matter, they might just call it a Science, Faith, and Sorcery action. Regardless, it is generally recorded as the last.

Examples Studying a monster of the void, theorizing that it’s reachable, a pc tries to tame it with careful, honeyed words. Or, realizing that there’s a symbol on the mask of a mask-faced spirit, a pc comes up with the idea of replacing it with the Nınuanni glyph for “friend” to change the spirit’s nature—and gives the idea a try! Or, after a stressed-out internal monologue about

Science, Faith, and Sorcery (Spotlighting a Test) Condition: You’re explaining or wondering how something works. Action: Propose a theory. Test it!

It was an essential truth of Pengratian’s being that he would one day kill the sun. One may understand the despair that gripped him when he understood that the task had already been accomplished: For decades, he sat upon the stone floor of his tower crafting paper suns and then extinguishing them, drawing futile plans to set new suns in the sky—and then, to kill them, and generally being a downer and a mope. Finally, he brightened. He burst in on me, while I was otherwise engaged. He said, “Letitia! Letitia!” I did not have occasion to respond. “I have it!” he said. “Time travel!” Then he was gone again, and swiftly, before I scarcely had begun to find a comment on his words. — from finAlTon: penGrATiAn’S ToWer, by Grace Whitmore

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whether or not it’s safe, a pc decides to trust someone. Or, after listening to the gm’s description of a brokendown machine, a player theorizes that the secret word to activate it is “Garēhsns”—and their pc speaks.

Implausible Tests It’s worth note that the “pressure” a spotlight exerts on a test—the increased likelihood of success, or interesting failure, that comes with the spotlight—is not a purely ooc phenomenon. Instead, it is an outgrowth of Nınuan’s correlative continuity. If something follows from a pc’s story, if a theory fits into a pc’s story, then naturally, in the portion of the void that they experience, it’s at least a plausible theory. No matter how a priori ridiculous ... plausible. That doesn’t mean it’s right; just, that the starting point for every spotlighted test is always “this makes some sense; it could work.” If a pc wakes to find themselves being strangled, and they grope about in the scrub with a desperate hand, and their story says that they should find an absurdly powerful and ancient, eldritch weapon there ... well, shouldn’t they? If their story says that feeding their own blood to some random λ-beast that they’ve encountered will tame it ... well, shouldn’t it be such a beast as that would tame? It isn’t always that easy or that neat, because part of being a Strategist is accepting imperfection. Their lives aren’t symphonies of perfect synchronicity, because that’s not what Strategists are. ... but, if a player is serious when spotlighting a test, then their efforts are, as noted, plausible. The gm shouldn’t deny them the ancient eldritch weapon in the scrub on the grounds that “that’s just vanishingly unlikely;” more likely, the character lost such a weapon, or heard of someone losing such a weapon, in just such a place as this, long before Creation ever was. It’s there, quite possibly there; or, it was there, once; or, it’s in a similar-looking or -feeling place somewhere elsewhere in the void; or, something’s there, just not an ancient weapon, something that reminded them of the weapon that was lost. It’s definitely not just absent based on the average ancient weapons per square meter to be found within the scrubland of the void. Similarly, the gm shouldn’t deny the player that blood-based beasttaming idea on the grounds that λ-beasts “don’t work that way,” not unless they know for certain that they don’t; if it fails, it’s more likely to be due to the willpower of the beast, or a pollution in the character’s blood, or some other factor that they’ve overlooked. Spotlighting a test won’t always give the character what they’re looking for, in short, but it will always bring them to at least the starting line.

�potliGhtinG an experience As noted, players can spotlight an experience in the void even as they can in Creation—and, in particular, can spotlight mysteries and ongoing events. They’ll do this the

121 same way and for pretty much the same reasons as they would within the world: There’s something they want to know more about. Something they could find out about: something that’s in easy reach for exploration, or that they’ve directly witnessed. Only, whoever’s in a position to explain it—normally, the gm—has, thus far, left the matter void. So the player spotlights the matter; so, the gm (or whomever) explains— ... alas, that the Strategist is sick.

Sickness

The Not being the way it is, it’s quite possible to miss things, even extremely obvious things, until they’re directly observed. It is possible to live for months in a city of walking corpses without realizing, until one actually looks a passersby or neighbor in the face. It’s unlikely but possible that if the character has not checked the sky, at any given moment, it is dripping venom; that if they have not checked the ground, that the ground is lava. This can come to pass. For the most part, it doesn’t; it doesn’t happen, or it doesn’t matter, and so the possibility of such events can be ignored. ... but a spotlight increases the relevance of this effect. When someone spotlights an experience in the void— when they use a spotlight for, basically, the kind of thing that it gets used for in Creation—then the target shouldn’t just expand on the subject at hand in the way that seems most natural to them. They should take an extra moment to consider including (previously unnoticed) elements of the Strategist’s Sphere in what the Strategist perceives, as well.7 Further, the higher the Strategist’s Infection rating (pg. 277), the more likely it should be that those elements should appear ... and the more likely they are to see their naked bane, unaccompanied by their Sphere, and outright manifestations of their infection, too. In casual travel through the void, a Strategist dying of mustard is not exceptionally likely to encounter mustard. Nor will they always encounter evidence of their Sphere. ... but when they look carefully, when they shine a spotlight into the void, signs of their Sphere are generally found; any restaurant’s condiment bar is likely to have mustard in it; and as their Infection rises, it’s not just restaurants but newspaper stands, passing limousines, and eventually random patches of vegetation that will carry mustard in them, as well as creeping manifestations of whatever strange way that mustard kills. It is difficult to mete this out precisely. The gm is not expected to track all of the Strategists’ exact Infection ratings and scientifically tune the results so that an Infection 4 Strategist suffers strictly more from 7

In the rare case where a Strategist is spotlighting a completed experience in the void, the target should consider revising what just happened to include an element or two of such a thing.

this over time than their companion with Infection 2. They aren’t even required to bring the Strategist’s Sphere, bane, or infection into the narrative at all! And when a player provides exposition to another player, their obligation manages to be, somehow, even less. ... still, this is the concept for how a spotlighted experience works within the void; this is the baseline, the idea to which the expectation has been pegged: That even at Infection 0, a Strategist spotlighting an experience is more likely to see their Sphere come up than they are when not spotlighting one; that, as their Infection rises, not only does that chance increase, and keep increasing, but first their naked bane and then their sickness too begin to manifest. Spotlighting an experience is sometimes referred to, and generally logged as, a Witness action.

Examples A pc with a fire-based Sphere tries to understand how a λ-village (dying though it may be) can survive at all by farming ancient demon bones. As they do so, ghost-fires flicker here and there amongst the demons’ ribs. Or, a pc dying of heart disease listens to the backstory of a cursed land or family that they’ve met. Their Sphere is tragic love stories, so the gm tries to work one in. If their Infection is high, the gm might also try to work actual heart disease in ... and, quite possibly, fail, because that kind of thing can be awkward when it doesn’t slot immediately into place. Or, a pc with a wolf-based Sphere studies the function of a machine in an ancient ruin. Most of the time, they’d just learn about the machine, and maybe the wolves that have been following them for a while now would howl in the distance. Every now and then, though, the gm might actually take advantage of a spotlight like that to have a wolf actually show up, or, e.g., have the machine turn out to summon malfunctioning metal wolves, or have the pc see a certain shade of red in the machine and lose their concentration, flashing back to a recent memory of a wolf pack tearing out their throat. Witness (Spotlighting an Experience) Condition: There’s something happening you want to know more about. Action: Ask for more from the GM or player. Your Sphere, bane, and even infection often leak into the answers.

Having no language, she spoke in blades. Languageless, she spoke in fire. The world contrived to interpret it for him. It filled in words where there were only edges. It filled in phatic pauses where there were only burns. Ralph understood her; he grasped her meaning. “Come quickly,” she was saying; her hand reached for him: ... but his ears still bled. — from {x-1}, by Amelin Jarrell

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122 How Responsible is the Strategist for These Effects? How Much Does it Change the Void? The phenomenon/curse that accompanies spotlighting experiences, where a Strategist’s sickness arises in the focal points of their attention, comes in three intensities: The first is coincidental. The Strategist sees their sickness in the void, but not because they created it there; rather, correlative continuity ensured that it would be there when they chose to look. Confirmation bias then makes this seem a more significant phenomenon than it actually is. The second is casual. The Strategist’s attention impinges on the void; it changes it. But the effects are not severe. If one construes the weighted description as a change in the void, that change may have a broad but phantasmagorical (pg. 250) effect, or it may be more substantive ... but focused and targeted sharply onto the Strategist themselves. It’s never both forceful and widespread. In either case, it’s somewhat temporary: a delirious, surreal, and ultimately passing phenomenon in the void. The last is inflicted. If the Strategist actually tries to curse the void with their perception, or forcibly bring their Sphere, bane, or infection into prominence, then they may alter the Not in wanted and unwanted ways. The dramatic weight of the spotlight magnifies, and the Strategist is definitely responsible. Even then, they cannot see the Glitch itself into the void; only their own personal crisis, stripped of its moral character, comes through. The effects of spotlighting an experience are coincidental or casual unless the Strategist brings the third level upon themselves or some intensifying phenomenon is in play. One such phenomenon is spotlighting the wicked act, as is shown below.

spotliGhtinG the

�icked act

It is in committing sins against their nature—even more than in misusing their attention—that a Strategist bleeds their sickness into the void. Formally, a “wicked” act—the kind of decisive action that, when spotlighted, automatically escalates the risk of damaging the void—always begins with something the character knows that they shouldn’t do. It doesn’t have to be bad from a player or an objective perspective. It usually is bad, because it’s less intuitive for the player to label something as a wicked action if their character is about to be heroic, but this fundamentally isn’t about objective moral standards. It’s about the character’s private rules. It’s about a character’s standing principle that this thing that they’re going to do is something that they just don’t do; or, the idea that they themselves have that this thing they’re about to do is actually a vice. They know it’s wrong. They know they shouldn’t. ... but they’re going to do it anyway. Usually there’s a reason for that. Usually they’ve decided

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that it’s ok in this particular case. Or just this once. That’s fine; it’s still a “wicked” act. If someone has a rule that they don’t kill, but they decide that they’re going to kill a mosquito anyway, because it’s just a mosquito, that’s still wicked. Only if their rule was already something like, “don’t kill things that can feel it” or “don’t kill people”—or if the mosquito just doesn’t even register to them, like all the bacteria that even the most dedicated pacifist can’t help but kill—will it be fine. If someone has a rule like “don’t lie,” and they’re lying to save someone’s life, or because it’ll help them a lot and won’t hurt anyone else that much, or because they don’t know how to explain the truth, or because they’re panicked, any reason, whatever, it’s still wicked. If they have a rule like “don’t lie unless it’s to save a life or something,” though, and that’s what’s going on, then they’re in the clear. Basically, a player can call an action that they’re spotlighting “wicked” when their pc is being a hypocrite; when they’re giving in to what they recognize as temptation; or when they’re actively in the process of revising their internal rules. One possible wicked act is to consciously use attention against the void—to actively spread the curse of one’s infection, or force one’s Sphere to the surface in the Not. If one uses attention alone to do so, staring one’s illness into the void, then spotlighting experience and spotlighting the wicked overlap. If that’s not what the character is doing, though, then this action will still include a portion of that function: Protocol for spotlighting the wicked doesn’t require introductory exposition or monologuing, though it doesn’t hurt. Instead, before or as the action is taken, the player declares it as wicked. When they do so, their character gets a free spotlight view of something in the void ... and their infection will almost certainly seep in. This works exactly as per spotlighting an experience, save in two respects: First, the gm generally decides for themselves what portion of the void they will describe further; it must be something the Strategist’s attention would naturally drift across at some point as they prepare for their wicked act, but is not necessarily the first place the player would have thought to look to find their Sphere, bane, infection, or an event of interest. Second, unlike the effects of spotlighting an experience, the Strategist is inherently responsible for the effects: there’s no reason to privilege the possibility of coincidence. Either they don’t see any meaningful or harmful intrusion by their sickness—they watch for it, perhaps, nervously, but it doesn’t show—or they do see such an intrusion, and it’s probably of the “casual” or the “inflicted” type. If the impact on the void is going to be way out of proportion to the sin, then it’s polite for the gm to warn the player; see Turn Back! Turn Back!, below. Strictly speaking, though, they don’t have to. If a Strategist dying of swamps kills a mosquito that they shouldn’t, the entire λ-city that they’re in could drown. Perhaps the wall gives way to

123 rot as the mosquito bleeds against it, and then falls over; beyond it, swampwater might seep ever upwards onto the previously unwitnessed streets—and nothing need ever have suggested earlier that such lavish vengeance for such a small creature lay anywhere in wait.

Examples A pc with a steampunk Sphere turns their back when a holy, beautiful, or innocent thing of the Beyond is being hurt. In the sky in the distance, clockwork turns. Or, a pc with a shadow Sphere gives in to the blandishments of someone they know they shouldn’t trust; shadows deepen in the room. Or, a pc dying of lycanthropy uses Greater Contagion. They’re dismayed to find that they’ve lost control over the effect: their target is afflicted ... but so is the mountain on which they stand: unfolding, stretching, great and horrid, lanky limbs and hungry peaks beneath the moon.

�acinG In the void, the flow of a character’s experience is unmoored from time. Play is still meted out in chapters, and each character may still use up to two spotlights per chapter, but a chapter can last anywhere from “a moment” to “several centuries” (or beyond). The core identity of each chapter is not a duration but a situation—an episode title, perhaps, although that title may wind up being assigned in retrospect—and the chapter lasts, loosely speaking, as long as that situation lasts. The gm isn’t bound by this model ... but, as a general rule, when it’s about time for a chapter to wrap up, it’s about time to wrap up the current situation in the void, or evolve it into something new through a miniature conclusion and complication, and vice versa. Chapters in the void and chapters in Creation are meant to be roughly synchronous. Accordingly, time is not. It distorts. Whether a chapter in the void lasts for an instant, an hour, a day, a year, or a millennium, exactly one chapter’s worth of time will have passed in Creation; no matter how much time passes between two chapters in Creation, which can be anything from “no time at all” to “a significant time skip,” the next void chapter and the next Creational chapter will begin at corresponding times. If a character goes into the void in the morning, and a hundred years later the chapter ends; and then the character spends ten years in the void as part of the next chapter but returns to Creation before the chapter is complete, they will almost certainly return the afternoon of the day they left. That’s when it would have been, after all8, if they’d never left Creation in the first place. The void is not, in fact, bound to a single time stream, but rather to many. All characters participating in the same situation are on a roughly similar clock, but characters involved in unrelated situations elsewhere in the void need 8 barring time skips

Wicked Action (Spotlighting the Wicked Act) Condition: You decide your character will bend or break a principle or indulge a vice. Action: Ask the GM to talk about how your Sphere, bane, or infection are visible in the void around you. Then, carry out your decision.

The decisions of the past weeks piled on my shoulders. They ground me down. They left me with no choices. I didn’t want to do this. I told myself— I promised myself. I didn’t want to do this. There wasn’t some traitorous part of me— no. It was just, I told myself: I wasn’t going to make it. I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t subtle enough. The others were fine, they weren’t going to screw up here, but I was going to get us all caught. The Eyes of the Fallen Citadel were going to catch the train of my shadow or the dust of my trail and every last one of my friends here would die. There wasn’t any alternative; so I stood up. So I straightened. I stepped out into the light. I couldn’t sneak past them, so what choice had I? But to dazzle them down to silence with the use of my mother’s name? — from beneATh The CiTAdel, by Dianna James

not be synchronized. That same morning, another character could go into the void, spend a week on the chapter, a week on another, and a couple hours on a third—and return that night, hours and hours after the character who’d spent much longer in a different portion of the Not. For one character, perhaps, this was “the morning of the 25th,” then “the afternoon,” then “the night.” For another, “the morning/my retreat to the mountains,” followed by “a pilgrimage/the afternoon.” For a third, it was “the morning/in which I explore strange forests,” followed by “a visit to the sage of fountains,” followed by “death of the wicker beast/the night.”

turn back!

�urn �ack!

In the void, the gm may occasionally see fit to spell out the consequences of a spotlighted action before it is complete. They may do so ic, through omens, portents, and fey warnings, or they may do so ooc. The doom they warn of may potentially be uncertain or unclear—“if you do that, this could happen” or “if you do that, this thing will definitely happen, but what does that mean?” It can also be dead certain: “If you do this, you will lose that hand, or, at least, spend 7 Wear (pg. 271) to save it.” If the gm provides such a warning, and it’s explicitly foreshadowing—not a player-level heads-up, not purely ic

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124 events or communication, but stuff thrown in there to be an ominous warning of where this path may lead—then the spotlighted player cannot proceed without encountering that doom. If it is certain, they must either accept it, or take damage (pg. 279) to prevent it when it arrives ... and that damage will generally skew high. If it is uncertain, they must accept that the circumstances that decide whether it becomes certain need not be completely within their control, nor “fair.” If they proceed anyway, knowing that this will be their fate, they earn +1 xp. If they do not, and they were the one who used the spotlight, the spotlight itself is usually invalid, and they get it back. For instance, if a character “turns back” from spotlighting a Decisive choice, then they didn’t make one—so the spotlight is, presumably, not spent.

�here and �ack aGain The standard method of entering a waylet is to use a spotlight as if already there. If a character has located a waylet—has determined that one is in reach, figured out loosely “how” to get there, and overcome anything that would oppose their path—and the gm or group has given implicit or explicit assent to the idea that the waylet is in fact truly accessible, the player may use a spotlight premised upon the notion that their character is already within. The instant that spotlighted action, or the spotlight itself, requires/assumes the pc to be inside the waylet ... well, they are. Thus, for instance, the standard method for entering a waylet to hunt down the arcana of one’s Sphere (pg. 205) is to say something like, “All right, I’m off to the Samsaiwal Hlaine for some spline-sprites,” and then figure out what action to spotlight to best kick that off. Perhaps a player will explain what their character is doing, starting at some part that they know that their pc can manage and then, when they hit a part they’re not too sure of, coming up with a theory and testing it—and spotlighting that test. Or, they could ask the gm for more details about some part of that particular waylet—and spotlight the mystery (or, more generally, the experience) to illuminate them. If it seems right, and particularly if Samsaiwal Hlaine is already well-established in the game, they could even jump straight into spotlighting a definite or wicked action that they do within. If the road to the waylet is obstructed or clouded and the gm feels the character cannot go there yet (or simply doesn’t want to allow it), they can veto the whole thing, rejecting the idea that the character does have access to the waylet; if not, the character is already there, and the act proceeds. Similarly, the standard method of entering Creation from a waylet is to use a spotlight on something in Creation. Essentially, the character gets explicit or implicit gm or group permission and then turns a

glitch: a story of the Not

spotlight on something that’s going on somewhere within the waylet’s reach. They are now implicitly in Creation; as soon as something happens for them to pay attention to, or someone responds to their presence, or the action otherwise requires their presence in the world ... they are. Perhaps, for instance, the other pcs are investigating something interesting. The player spotlights that ongoing action—and, in so doing, implicitly places their character in a plausible nearby place to observe. These rules apply only to the waylets; at the gm’s option, one may pass either way through the gaps in the cup of flame with mundane or divine actions alone. If it is possible to travel directly between two waylets, that is also generally doable without a spotlight ... although a spotlight would, almost certainly, be of help. The last exception is travel to and from a character’s native ground (or “sanctuary;”) this is discussed immediately below.

�ative Ground A Strategist’s native ground or sanctum is generally considered to be a portion of the void—likely, existing within a waylet somewhere in the world. That said, a few unusual rules therein apply. First, certain Wyrd miracles (pg. 234, 240) allow for mundane entrance and exit from this sanctuary. It’s likely possible to use a spotlight to exit from this sanctuary to the same general area, or to get there from certain places in the world and void, but Wyrd miracles paired with mundane actions will generally end up the default. Second, the “bleed” from a Strategist’s Sphere, bane, and infection when spotlighting experiences or taking a wicked action is generally subdued in a Strategist’s “native ground.” Specifically, a Strategist cannot permanently harm their native ground with a spotlight unless doing so is their explicit intent. Even temporary harm is unlikely. This does not protect their native ground from the action itself, just the spotlight—that is, if the Strategist sets fire to a native ground café, it may do permanent harm, but it won’t do more harm because they dramatically spotlight that action ... even though the narrative weight of that action will increase.

I fell. I fell ... I think, forever. — from Ten ThouSAnd STepS in flAme, by Fengmian Xu

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chapter 9

Mundan� and

�agical Actions For Pepin Rhaterin, erasure is effortless; communication, substantially harder. — from A Pocket Guide to the Strategists, by Raakel Koskela

Introduction A Strategist’s mundane attribute, Ability, represents their access to human-level abilities—to the power to debate philosophy on the Internet; to shiver in the rain and cold; to feed the hungry, employ the lost, coax forth a child’s smile; to bring great suffering onto others through unwise, short-sighted greed. Ability ranges from 0-7, and costs three points per point. It’s a bad bargain, weaker and more expensive than just about anything else a pc can get—but it’s also one of the hardest things to live without, so a balance must be struck. In play, Ability works on a “buy up to the target” or “pay the difference” system. It’s tied to a ladder of possible actions with difficulty ranging from 0-12. To take one of these actions, a character needs [Ability ≥ its difficulty]. If they don’t meet that mark, they can make up the difference by paying a Cost—normally, “Wear,” short for Wear and Tear: the wear and tear on their body and mind that pushing themselves brings on. For instance, an Ability 1 character can take an Ability 4 action ... if they take 3 (that is, 4 – 1) Wear. Some of the key terms used in this chapter include: ӫ (Base) Difficulty. The (base) difficulty of a task is intrinsic in the effect. For instance, taking the Ability action “Steel” is difficulty 5. ӫ Contest or Conflict. It’s called a contest or conflict when two characters take actions that are in direct opposition—they can’t both succeed, or one’s success directly diminishes the other’s. ӫ Everyday Actions. Actions without specific game mechanics are called everyday actions. ӫ “Greater” Actions. Ability comes with nine effects, ranging in difficulty from 0-8, and a stronger, “greater” form of each of these effects, which has +4 difficulty. Thus, taking the Ability action “Greater Steel,” a stronger form of the Steel action, is difficulty 9 [5+4]. ӫ Edge. Sometimes one party in a contest has an inherent advantage. This is known as their Edge. ӫ Tasks. Actions that could be treated as everyday actions, because they’re pretty ordinary, but which the gm has chosen to demand an Ability or other action for, are called tasks. ӫ Wear. The cost to the character’s body and mind for taking strenuous action is known as Wear.

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� bility Ability is the raw and trained power of a character’s body and mind. It’s the mundane Trait that a character uses to get most things done: Their basic life competence. Their functionality. It’s specifically limited to goal-directed behavior, which makes it an incomplete social tool. Stuff like etiquette and well-phrased words and getting along with others does fall under under Ability, but actually connecting to people is usually a matter of roleplaying. Persuasion and influence tend to be too unless the character is trained in a relevant skill. Ability also specifically doesn’t cover cinematic abilities or flashy magic. Characters who know magic can use a mundane action for the most work-a-day parts of it— such as laboriously drawing a ritual circle or professionally exorcising the occasional ghost—but impressive magic will be beyond them, as will be the more ridiculous stunts available to non-magical skills. Even the most “competent” person in the world can’t do Hollywood hacking, shoot around corners, or call down lightning without three days of ritual magic and a sizable support staff; Strategists who can are not using Ability. They’re using the Eide power, Stunt (pg. 168). Outside of those restrictions, Ability is used for basically everything. Driving is Ability. Fighting is Ability. Organizing and clipping coupons is Ability. Painting is Ability. Building computer systems is Ability. Cooking pancakes at a cheap restaurant needs Ability; staying on top of your bills requires Ability; espionage, arson, and assassination demand it too. Ability does not specify the character’s training or talents—that’s part of the character’s history. It only determines how well they can use what they’ve got. Some Strategists have studied every field of human endeavor and can bring that training (mostly) to bear with an Ability action; others only really know how to kill, and will have to pick up everything else on the way. For player convenience, each level of Ability comes with a unique title and a non-binding description of what choosing that level says about a given character. These are:

The gods of the world have no faith in us; if we should heal a wounded heart, they imagine we have blasted the wound with eldritch magic. If we should clean a room, that we have burnt away its filth. At one time I made mapo tofu for a Noble that had come to visit; “tasty,” she assessed, “but I can’t eat this. That you have infected it with the perverse heat of some unworldly thing is all too clear.” It was, perhaps, in that case, accurate, but there was no reason to presume. — from The JeremiAd of The drAuGhT, by Malakai Mesmer opposite: by Silvia Cucchi

ӫ Ability 0- Hopeless: Ability 0 characters are barely even present. ӫ Ability 1- Struggling: Ability 1 characters are not ready for their life. ӫ Ability 2- (a) Casual: like a casual player in a videogame, someone with Ability 2 can get through their life, but they’re not all that good at it. ӫ Ability 3- Basic: having Ability 3 means that a character can handle most things, but only at a basic level—they don’t have a very high ceiling. ӫ Ability 4- Professional: Ability 4 characters are generally good at something, maybe even many things, but are rarely leaders. ӫ Ability 5- Driven: Ability 5 characters get stuff done ... but not necessarily all that efficiently. ӫ Ability 6- Competent: Ability 6 characters, on the other hand, are actually on top of things. And, finally, ӫ Ability 7- Sparkling: Ability 7 characters dance through their life in a state of flow. These titles are, of course, purely for player convenience; neither Strategists or humans use them on any consistent basis, much less correctly.

Everyday Actions Most actions that a character takes don’t require Ability. These are the everyday actions. They are things that go by without note or rules, simply because the player describes them. Walking. Talking. Eating. Drinking. Doing an average day’s work. Even the hard stuff, sometimes— As long as it’s something that can go by without note in an average human’s life, controlling for their specific circumstances and credentials, the player can usually just say that their character does it, and they do. The need to actually expend effort is unpredictable. It is fundamentally arbitrary. Sometimes, the world—the gm—just decides that things are hard. They turn a default action, a thing that a character can just describe, into a task. Each Ability task has a certain level of difficulty. Normally, for gm-set tasks, the difficulty is 1-6. The player will have the choice to provide an Ability action of that level, or, to fail. If the character’s Ability is too low, they can still provide that Ability action and succeed, but it costs [difficulty – Ability] Wear. If they choose to fail, instead, their character usually recovers a point of Wear, down to a minimum of 0. For example, a character with Ability 0 is “hopeless.”Even keeping track of what’s going on in the game is potentially too much for them. Most of the time, they can manage ... but now and then, the gm might say something like, “Hey, I need an Ability 3 Action if you’re paying attention here.” Then it will cost them 3 Wear to pay attention; or, they can tune out, and get a point of Wear back. Or the gm might say something like, “All right, Ability 1 actions for all the Strategists who’ve actually showered today. ... 5 if you don’t

mundane and magical actions

128

Rising to the Occasion

Paint a portrait? Work safely with dangerous chemicals? It’s probably all fine. The player may wish to take a few moments during character creation to decide what their Strategist actually knows how to do. The default is that a Strategist: ӫ has whatever skills fit their Eide (pg. 159); ӫ can ride a horse, if they have to; ӫ is okay, but not great, at a few skills suitable for their former lifestyle, like stealth and gunplay; ӫ is similarly sort of okay at wielding exorcism (pg. 135), the language of flowers (pg. 136), and the welken-law (pg. 136).

The player can also invoke Ability actions on their own initiative. They may do so as a kind of self-imposed task, e.g., deciding that the major organizational task their character wants to do needs an Ability 6 action even though it’s possible they could have just declared it and slipped it by the gm. They may do so in order to provide an action to the rest of the system— If they want to add a numerical bonus to their action with a miracle, or contest someone else’s action, they can’t do it with an everyday action; they need to take a formal action with Ability or some miraculous attribute. It’s also possible that they want to do more than just everyday things. The range of possible Ability difficulties extends to 12; past 6, these no longer involve doing the expected, but going above and beyond. For two examples, entering a flow state is difficulty 7; unlocking “hysterical strength” would be 11. Strategists may or may not have conscious access to this sort of thing—certainly, they’re more likely to than a human—but players always have access to all levels of Ability as long as they’re willing and able to spend the requisite Wear.

Being “okay, but not great” at something tends to give one’s opponents an Edge. Being “rusty” (a common problem for Strategists whose backstories give them all kinds of skills) does so as well. Some of the Strategist’s skills are probably magical ones. When using Ability, magical skills scale down to the level of an appropriate, portable toolkit of mundane skills and gear. A sorcerer using Ability won’t be blasting armies or summoning the leviathan; they’ll be walking around in the lobby of their apartment building trying to find a place where their communication spells can get good reception. An exorcist won’t be banishing cinematic, terrifying hauntings—they’ll be removing ghosts that nobody can really prove were ever there in the first place, and which they can’t really prove, afterwards, are gone. Magic, in short, is nowhere near useless when used with Ability, but it won’t be dramatically more impressive than any other mortal skill—even given magic’s inherent valence. If a Strategist wants something more flashy, they should rely on a Stunt (pg. 168).

have a shower?” Then being clean will cost either 1 or 5 Wear, depending on the character’s life circumstances ... or they can save some energy by skipping that for a day, and probably recover one point instead. Ideally the gm will remember to impose tasks, but won’t fill the whole game with them. Ideally, they’ll spread them out equally among the pcs—particularly since characters can still get Wear by the player choosing to fail an action even when they could have succeeded for free. ... in the end, though, it really is arbitrary. That’s the way of the world.

Professional Skills Expertise actions (at difficulty 4; pg. 130) apply the character’s professional expertise to a task. In general, players decide on their own Strategist’s backstory, and can give them as much expertise as they like. Do they know how to build an irrigation system? Ride a horse? Fly a plane? Manage a company? Bake a cake?

“Where did you learn to drive like that?” “I have absolutely no idea how to drive,” he said. “I am literally fooling the world right now into thinking we got here instead of dying in a fiery wreck.” “... wait, what?” “I have no idea how to drive,” he said, a little bit slower. “But I’m a whiz-bang heck of a magician.” “We ... died in a fiery wreck?” “Look at me!” he said. He gestured up and down the front of him. “Why you’d ever let me get behind a wheel, well, I don’t even know.” — from hoW i meT myron omeGA: Three STorieS, by Nidia Brunt

glitch: a story of the Not

�ules for ability The “power source” for Ability is called Wear. A character begins the game with 40 points of Wear. This will rise as they invoke difficult mundane effects. It will fall both over the course of time and when it has harmful results. Characters may invoke Ability effects with [difficulty ≤ Ability] for “free”—it costs no Wear. Often a character will wish to go beyond that. Not only are higher-Ability actions a part of life even for lower-Ability Strategists: it is only by going beyond their base Ability that a Strategist can access the difficulty 8-12 Ability actions at all. To use effects beyond their Ability, a Strategist must push themselves past their normal limits: Must tire themselves out; run themselves ragged; force themselves to work in ways that they don’t. In that fashion they can buy an effectively higher level of Ability, for a time. The character names the Ability level they wish to emulate; the practical maximum, in the absence of a

129 An anonymous writer of clerihews Once said, and I feel this is true: A poet reaches the peak—not by scansion, and not by persistence— But by erasing their rivals’ existence. — from The only CleriheWS in The World, exCepT obViouSly for benTley’S And ThAT one oVer There (WhiCh doeSn’T CounT), by Angel Evans

bidding war, is 12. They perform the effect. If the effect succeeds—which is to say, if it functions essentially as stated, rather than being blocked or undone outright by hostile countereffects—they accumulate Wear equal to [desired Ability − original Ability.] For instance, if a Casual with level 2 Ability wishes to take a level 6 action, they will, by default, accumulate 4 points of Wear. Put another way, the character adds +4 to their Wear total. It’s good to note, from time to time, what this Wear that the character is spending actually represents—the ways in which what the character is doing is bad for them as well as useful and productive—but it isn’t required. More precisely, if it isn’t established at the time of the action, it’s assumed to be either be a subtle influence that eventually fades away or a dramatic one to be established at some later time. Thus, a player whose character is dramatically reaching beyond their limits may choose to explain how, in doing so, they damage themselves; if the character is engaging in what they consider a fairly ordinary action, even if the total amount of accumulated Wear is the same, the player need not. A character must always buy enough Wear to succeed at the basic effect. They can add more to win a conflict when and if they discover it to be necessary. This extra purchase generally takes a small percentage of the time it takes to do the action in the first place; that’s not always relevant, but in a critical situation, it means that they can scale up their effort a bit too late. Conceptually, ӫ An effect that costs 0 Wear is instinctive—it doesn’t drain the character at all. ӫ Spending 1 Wear is still fine. ӫ Spending 2 Wear is less fine. ӫ Spending 3 Wear leaves them shaky and exhausted. ӫ A 4-7 Wear effect is seriously depleting—it can tap the character out for days. ӫ Anything beyond that is genuinely self-destructive.

Efficiency and the XP Bonus The two most efficient numbers for spending are going to be 0, and 3: 0, because +0 costs nothing. 3, because spending 3+ Wear at once earns an XP. A 3+ Wear action is a very rough action, from the pc’s perspective. They’re working hard, pushing hard. Thus, it’s a milestone in their life. It’s not a huge milestone, mind; it’s not the kind of thing they’ll necessarily remember a

year or two later ... but it’s at least as big a deal as a typical spotlight: on this day, at this moment, they attempted this task. They can’t stack up more xp by spending 6+, so the optimal numbers end there.

Wounds and Recovery At the beginning of each chapter, Wear drops by one, to a minimum of 0. Characters may also reduce Wear when it brings them to a crisis: when the player, or, at 80+ Wear, sometimes the gm, has an interesting idea for the harm or change the Wear might inflict on their character, and implements it as a “Wound.” Superficial Wounds burn off 10 Wear, with no minimum; harmful ones, 25; metaphysically potent and transformative ones, 50. This isn’t unlimited, though, even if the player would want it to be: The character will suffer at most one such Wound per session—counting the Wounds from other, similar, Costs— and at most one 25+ Cost Wound in two consecutive sessions. Characters may freely accumulate Wear until it hits 80; then, as noted, there are circumstances in which the gm may force a harmful crisis upon them. At 108—the number of pressure points in the human body—they may no longer spend Wear at all. ... after roughly 300 points of Wear have been poured into Wounds over the course of a character’s life, they’ll be too frayed, too broken, and too much worn down to function as a pc at all.

EXAMPLE A character is a Professional, with level 4 Ability. For this character, the chart looks like: EFFECT TYPE

ACTION LEVELS

Instinctive (0 WEAR) Casual (1 WEAR) Tiring (2 WEAR) Exhausting (3 WEAR) Depleting (4-7 WEAR) Self-Destructive (8+ WEAR)

Levels 0-4 Level 5 Level 6 Level 7 Levels 8-11 Level 12+

What the player probably memorizes is this: Ability 0-4 is being a functional professional. This is free. Unless the work is actively unpleasant, in which case I need Ability 5, and 1 Wear. Or needs me to be meticulous, diligent, and organized, in which case it costs 2. Or needs me to be inspired, in which case it costs 3 (and would earn an XP!). Ability 8-11 is self-training, leadership, and my very best work. That stuff’s really draining! ... and going beyond it to Ability 12, which costs 8 Wear, basically breaks my mind and body: the price, to make one of my high-end tricks repeatable.

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130 Difficulty 0: Fail

Difficulty 3: Focus

When the GM explicitly asks for a level 1-6 Ability action, whether for something the gm assumes they want to do or for something the player just casually described doing, the player can opt to fail instead. Their character doesn’t manage to do whatever it is, or at least not well ... but,9 as discussed earlier, they recover a point of Wear, down to a minimum of 0. Greater Fail (diff 4) allows a Strategist to declare something basically impossible for them. The player may also invoke this on their Strategist’s behalf. This isn’t really advantageous—the character doesn’t recover a point of Wear, and may even gain some—but it does have the advantage of being able to actively oppose attempts to “make the Strategist feel better,” “snap them out of it,” “prove that they can do it,” and the like.

Focus allows the Strategist to be present. To not just kind of ... get distracted, drift off mentally, and fail to pay attention. Greater Focus (diff 7) is a power of intense attention. This can influence, can shape, the more malleable portions of the world and void. It can also grant sharp insights or allow the character to maintain focus in extremely distracting and confusing situations.

Difficulty 4: Expertise

Given adequate support systems, sleep, etcetera, the Strategist can more or less stay on top of the very basics of life and appear more or less together. For instance, Well-Met allows a Strategist with a good life situation to declare that they’re personally presentable or that their home is clean. Strategists tend to look stylish and intense but they also tend to look like they’ve been run over by a truck while having four hangovers and a migraine; it’s the latter that this action helps keep under control. Greater Well-Met (diff 5) lets the Strategist stay on top of this stuff even when they don’t really have the resources to do so. It’s what they need to stay hydrated while being hunted; to maintain perfect hair despite sleeping on the streets.

Expertise lets the Strategist apply functionality, focus, and professional expertise to a task that suits them—one that they’re relatively comfortable doing. This action is specifically limited to the professional expertise that the character actually has: the player may reference fractional expertise picked up over time, or ask the gm/group to ok their Strategist knowing more about something than previously revealed, but basically, it’s for doing things that they actually know how to do, and not things that they don’t. It’s for writers writing, bakers baking, singers singing, and fighters fighting, and not, e.g., for any other way around. Greater Expertise (diff 8) lets the Strategist produce stunning but ultimately conventional work, in the fields of work that suit them, with the kinds of skills they know. For athletes, for instance, this is enough to win a bronze or silver medal at the Olympics, but not enough to shatter a world record, and probably not even quite enough for a gold. For scientists, it’s enough to release an impressive paper but not enough to reshape the modern understanding of the world.

Difficulty 2: Function

Difficulty 5: Steel

Function lets the Strategist pull themselves together and get some basic task done properly. The exact line between “basic” tasks and the professional/adult tasks below is for the gm to determine; roughly speaking, though, this level is for fundamentally everyday tasks that don’t require specialized expertise. A Function task is typically at least somewhat consequential, but the gm may occasionally demand Function from a character in order to complete some random small thing without screwing it up or just failing to do it in the first place. Greater Function (diff 6) is generally about having the time and mood to get things done just right. Because the focus is still just fairly basic tasks, this is generally gilding the lily: unless one is expecting foreign dignitaries, one doesn’t need to set the table “just right” and fold the napkins into roses. Even when we’re talking about investigating a legitimate threat at the local library, is it really worth building your own little catalog for possibly relevant articles or giving a full slideshow presentation on whatever you’ve found?

Steel lets the Strategist nerve themselves to perform and engage with inherently unpleasant tasks or tasks which they’re just not very well-suited for. It’s also what lets them persevere past unpleasant conditions to complete pleasant/ rewarding tasks. Greater Steel (diff 9) allows the Strategist to break past their limitations. It’s what’s necessary for stunning work that fits the Strategist’s skill set but is way out of their comfort zone, as well as for pushing on despite injury and doing just a bit more than they can possibly do.

Difficulty 1: Well-Met

9 subject to a gm veto for use in cases where the failures begin to blur together

glitch: a story of the Not

Difficulty 6: Organization Organization lets the Strategist bring mindfulness, diligence, and organization to the table. It’s usually the highest level the Strategist will ever need to tackle the responsibilities of adult, independent, and professional life. Ultimately, which tasks actually need Organization is somewhat subjective, principally decided in play by the gm picking certain tasks to ask for a level 6 action for and by the player picking certain tasks for which to volunteer one. Greater Organization (diff 10) is used to weather major life transitions; for leadership; and for the kind of awe-inspiring competence that has all the details handled.

131 These tasks tend to blur together at the edges; still, when tackling more than one of them at once, or when tackling them while also doing something amazing (see Greater Expertise/Steel), this action tends to devour more time.

In reflexes; speed; in sheer grasp of motion, Lampridius Ansamen is comparable even to the Powers. — from A poCkeT Guide To The STrATeGiSTS, by Raakel Koskela

Difficulty 7: Flow Flow lets the Strategist reach a flow state—to be at, or slightly beyond, their personal best. At this level, they’re still them, so the peak of what they can accomplish, in the big picture, is only a few standard deviations above where they usually hang out ... but everything’s aligned, everything’s smooth, it all fits together, it works. Greater Flow (diff 11) gives rise to legendary professional achievements at or past the peak of what’s been done before. It’s also useful for unlocking the sealed and hidden resources of the Strategist’s mind and body, from sharpened senses to hysterical strength to completely shutting out the sense of pain. If it’s the kind of thing that a person like the Strategist can possibly achieve, a level 11 Ability action can achieve it.

Difficulty 8: Study Up By practicing in the background for a few days, or in three moments of intense study that their player chooses to spotlight, Study Up lets a Strategist pick up the basics of a new non-magical professional skill or a special trick for a skill that they already have. They can learn to drive, learn to read Sumerian, or learn how to quickly do cube roots in their head. An acquired technique like this is “stored” in a quest slot (pg. 316)—as long as they keep it around, they can’t also use that slot for a quest, and conversely, if they actually have five quests running, they don’t have the brain space available to learn something new. Greater Study Up (diff 12) works in much the same way, but they can also learn magical skills or memorize relatively specific level 8-11 Ability effects as repeatable “tricks.” Once memorized, the new tricks fall under the Strategist’s baseline professional expertise—they can, e.g., maintain peak professional performance, or trigger hysterical strength on command. Actually using the new skill or effect is generally an Ability 4 action, but can range from 1-6 as best fits.

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� echnique

In addition to their Ability, every Strategist has access to a cinematic Technique—a personal methodology, falling within their Eide, by which they have dreamt themselves as solving problems in the world. It is their particular genius; it is their illimitable talent: They address the world with magic, or with cleverness; with brutality, or with guile; with common sense, or with science; with psychic powers, perhaps, or with some consummate version of a mortal skill—as a great historian, a great merchant prince, or the greatest tamer of beasts. A Strategist’s Technique should allow for broad application. If you visualize a Strategist solving problems

by throwing the apples of the void at them, their Technique is not “throwing apples”—that may leave the player unable to come up with anything at a time when the Strategist ought to have a plan. A better concept is “using Nınuan’s plants and their strange properties;” if throwing an apple always suffices, that option will still remain. To access a Strategist’s Technique relies on miracles of Eide—the Stunt and Greater Stunt abilities, below. In use, however, their Technique is functionally mundane. A human may contend against cinematic guile. A modern trader may fight, and lose, but hope to win, against the Eide of a merchant prince. An athlete, even without the powers of the Nobilis, may dodge a fiery spell. Thus, Stunts and Greater Stunts are sometimes defeated in mundane contests; conversely, if the wording permits, they will often ignore Wards against miraculous power. A Technique generally grants 3 Edge (pg. 150). However, it may be less than that when a character is new to their Technique—e.g., a pc with amnesia or an npc granted power by a miracle. In such cases, the Edge granted by a Technique will begin at 0-1 and rise to 3 only with sufficient practice. In many cases, Techniques will have a Cost in “Stilling” (pg. 271)—their use changes the character, or, calcifies them further in who they are. Sufficient Stilling, like sufficient Wear, eventually manifests as a sort of death.

Stunts Stunts for a “non-magical” Technique offer the kind of abilities you’d expect of a movie protagonist in a stylized but not fantastic genre. Put another way, the options won’t be limited so much by what’s realistic as by what doesn’t actively break verisimilitude. What’s neat instead of weird? What’s probably impossible, if you think about it, but still feels like something a human can get away with, anyway? Stunts for an inherently magical Technique are comparable—the character has magic, and it’s stylized and cinematic, but it’s not world-shaking. It’s low-fantasy magic, roughly granting the same level of competence as cinematic levels of a mortal skill. Earthquake magic isn’t knocking cities down; it’s knocking down shelves, boosted jumps, and maybe tumbling small buildings if the character stands there with their hands pressed against the walls for five or ten minutes while the shaking grows. Reality editing isn’t spawning worlds with a thought; it’s closing a cupboard on three mugs and opening it to find four, shaving off a bit of travel time, and ensuring that a cable installation actually goes well. Both kinds of Stunts also allow the Strategist to bring their Technique into play in a cinematic fashion. That is,

mundane and magical actions

132 even a Technique that would normally be dependent on the gm providing proper tools and the player having proper inspiration becomes less so in practice. A Technique like “common sense” or “cleverness” is implicitly bolstered by availability of the necessary fortuitous coincidences and options: The Technique is never, e.g., just common sense, or just cleverness, but also the option to use such things practicably. The power to have the script of the world written, to a certain extent, to play that Technique up.

Greater Stunts Greater Stunts are available at a higher cost, or with a higher Eide. The step from stunt to greater stunt isn’t as dramatic as the step from Ability to Technique; greater stunts are still fundamentally in the class of cinematic or low fantasy abilities ... but they’re closer to what gets pulled off at the most intense moment in a movie or a book, or after the most setup, or by an antagonist working in the background, than they are to the standard pick-a-page or pick-a-scene accomplishments of the movie/book’s protagonist. A greater stunt, in short, is something from the jawdropping end of the cinematic/low-fantasy pool. Thus, if Ability-based beast taming can show off a falcon on a late night talk show, and stunt-based beast taming would let someone just kind of take their pet panther on a leashless stroll through the city without major incident, a greater stunt is what would let them ride into town with a herd of elephants ... and still have it all under control.

Bonus Techniques Strategists may buy additional Techniques through Bonds (pg. 259). Certain powers (e.g., Glorification and Infusion) allow them to grant themselves or an npc temporary Techniques in play. These “bonus” Techniques are the same strength as, but traditionally much narrower than, a Strategist’s base Technique—if the base Technique is a toolkit with which to face the world, then any bonus Techniques are closer to being “superpowers.” Functionally, PCs and NPC Strategists use Techniques through Eide, including any additional ones. The higher their Eide, the better they are at using imposed or granted powers without being changed or re-defined by them. Mimics, who also have access to the Eide attribute (pg. 409), use any bonus Techniques a Strategist may grant them in exactly the same way. Other NPCs use any Techniques that they are granted through Ability.10 Roughly speaking, when an npc has a Technique, they may use the rough equivalent of a stunt with an appropriate 10 The gm may optionally allow certain npcs to enhance or use their Techniques through the gm-defined, npc-only attributes Aspect (pg. 395), Holy (pg. 397), or Monstrous (pg. 401); players generally shouldn’t worry about this, though, and the gm doesn’t need to implement it if it makes things harder instead of easier on themselves.

glitch: a story of the Not

Ability action and the rough equivalent of a greater stunt with an appropriate “greater” Ability action.11 Conceptually, this also gives them access to the Stilling Cost, and their Stilling will rise as they use this power (roughly granting +2 Stilling for a stunt and +6 for a greater stunt) ... or, if they already have a Stilling-like Cost, they’ll take that, instead. The gm is not, however, expected to keep careful track of npc Costs, and “death” by Stilling is ambiguous from the outside, so this is all more in the way of concepts than of rules.12 If the target of a Technique-granting power is inanimate or has compromised volition, their Technique may be used by others, using that other person’s Ability. That is, others take enhanced Ability actions for or through them, using their own Ability and Wear. It’s still the target that takes the notional Stilling, not the person using the target, so a Strategist taking advantage of someone else’s power uses Ability and not Eide. As noted, it is normal for the Edge granted by a bonus Technique to start at 1 (or even 0) and rise to 3 only with practice.

Extraordinary Techniques A few “extraordinary” powers (pg. 248) may grant extraordinary bonus Techniques. These shift in genre from cinematic/low-fantasy to superheroic/mythic. The rule of thumb here is that granting the Technique should be a city- or region-shaking act; that’s what it means that the power is extraordinary. Individual uses of the Technique, though, are probably well below that standard. Boiling it down, such Techniques are probably comparable to the power of a wizard, monster, or superhero in a setting where those are rare and special ... but not quite shocking. As you’ll see on pg. 248, with a high enough price, this kind of gesture can be strengthened, and such a power can grant an epic bonus Technique instead. This is potentially a world-shaking or even worlds-shaking act ... although, again, each individual use of the Technique is likely to be rather less so. Here, we’re talking about investing power comparable to that of the truly great mages, monsters, heroes, and mythic beings in the worlds that allow such beings to exist. It’s worth note that even an Ability 11 action with an epic Technique is still a mundane action; in direct conflict with even the simplest of miracles, the works of archmages and cosmic heroes will be snuffed out.

Example Radegond Gethiran’s Technique is magical chalk art. Her stunts are things like amazingly quick and realistic 11 The word “appropriate” is meant to be the check on just using the cheapest possible actions to invoke these stunts. 12 More specifically, it’s a way to keep imbued powers from being better than the Strategist’s own abilities if someone plays a non-Strategist pc, e.g., with homemade rules or rules that are later released.

133 drawings with emotional or mind-altering effects. Her greater stunts blur the boundary between reality and art or allow her drawings to complete themselves. Later, someone infuses her with a fire spirit. Now her Technique is “magical chalk art, and also, a fire aura.” She now has access to stunts like burning a sheaf of documents with a snap of her fingers and greater stunts like being an unapproachable inferno during a battle of some sort. Even later, she grants a chalk image she’s fallen in love with the power to come to life. It can, perhaps, animate itself with an Ability 2 action, or become “human” with an Ability 9 action13—notionally spending +2 or +6 Stilling, respectively, to activate the power, in addition to the normal cost in Wear. The gm may rule that Radegond herself has to get the process started, with the chalk image being completely inanimate until someone else brings it to life; in that case, the Ability action would be Radegond’s, but the Stilling would still go to the drawing itself. Radegond herself won’t become any more defined, nor will she break her definition, no matter what that chalk drawing does! If Radegond wanted to offer an extraordinary version of that power, the chalk person would emerge into the world as a potent magical being and not merely “a human, who was once chalk.” They would have an innate Technique, perhaps, involving turning other things into chalk and back, or redrawing portions of themselves, or bringing “the chalk world out”—something of that sort. The extraordinary version of this empowerment would be the same thing every time. The epic version is presumably how you get chalk-kaiju drowning entire cities in chalk dust and distorting the fundamental perspective of the world.

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� mbiGuity

It is not in the Excrucians’ nature to be wholly defined. This begins with the species—with what they actually look like. This seems very clear, until you look at them closely; then, for some, it starts to get a little complex. A few of them genuinely do look human, save for the pallor and the eyes, and continue to look human even when they walk among giants or alfar. A few of them genuinely do look like, well, something else. ... but most of them are missing something. Something ... key. They look human not just because humans resemble Excrucians, but because the key signifier of their species is missing. They look human because it’s not actually clear what they are except people ... and humans are the kind of people that humans expect. The living clothes of Dionyl’ll look at an Excrucian, though, and most of the time they’ll see a suit of living clothes. The alfar, they’ll tend to see alfar. 13 The gm could have picked a different task difficulty, but “this needs Greater Steel” is the one that they chose.

Talking goats? Well, they’d probably see talking goats. That’s the kind of people they’d expect, on their worlds, to see. There’s something similar going on with Excrucian language (pg. 286). If an Excrucian wants to be understood, they’re usually going to be understood. People see an Excrucian talking to them, they hear an Excrucian talking to them, and they usually just assume that they will understand. ... and the next thing you know, people do. If a person’s talking to an Excrucian, and thinks they’ll understand them—the same thing happens, the other way around. Usually it stops there, with species and language ... but it doesn’t have to. An Excrucian doesn’t have to have a defined hair color, age, height, or sex. Even more abstract things, like, e.g., whether you know them, can be left entirely ambiguous. That wouldn’t mean that everyone just assumed that they did know them, of course; it would mean, they’d assume whatever made the most sense. Here’s how this all works in practice. It takes Focus to notice that some part of an Excrucian’s identity has been left undefined. Anyone who just casually checks without a formal level 3+ task won’t be able to tell. They’ll see what they’re looking for—in essence—instead. Someone aware of an ambiguity may impose a specific alternative through the force of their attention. Thus, a hairdresser wanting to dye an Excrucian’s ambiguouslycolored hair might forcefully observe it to be white, and thus easier to dye—or, if they’re a little more on the ball, simply see the color they want to dye into the hair. This is a Greater Focus action (or possibly something a little harder, depending on the circumstances.) Once complete, the ambiguity is resolved, and no longer present—even people who thought the Strategist’s hair was a specific and alternate color will now see the “true” color imposed. Such a resolution is, however, not permanent: The targeted Excrucian can terminate it at the end of any scene, at the end of the observer’s action, or at any time when they’re concealed from everyone actively paying attention to them; it ends automatically at the end of the next chapter; and it can be “re-evaluated” with another, similarly effortful act. Note that an Excrucian may resolve their own ambiguity. Occasionally an Excrucian will have a feature that is incomprehensible rather than ambiguous—e.g., a hair color that does not, and cannot, exist within the world. Functionally, this is ambiguous, save that spotting

Niketas is very grand at every meal. “Order what you like!” he says. “I am quite rich, you know.” But when the check comes, he gets this expression. Say it along with me, kids. THAT expression: “Ah! My funds are not denumerable in the currencies of this world.” — posted to TooTh And flAme, by Bea Davenport, 6/08/16

mundane and magical actions

134 it is harder—requiring at least Greater Focus—and manipulating it, resolving the ambiguity, is all but impossible. (The gm may allow someone with a good plan or a relevant magic to succeed.) An example of this is speaking Nınuanni: If a Strategist is speaking an unspecified language, or a mortal language, and just expecting other people to understand, it only takes Focus to catch them out at it— but if they’re speaking the native language of the void, it takes Greater Focus to realize, and “forcing” that language to be French or Chinese instead is an all but impossible act. Characters may gain or lose ambiguity as a consequence of their Wounds (pg. 272).

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� aGic

When Glitch speaks of magic and magical actions, we’re talking about a category of effects between the mundane and the miraculous. From a rules perspective, this stuff is still mundane actions. Humans do magic. Beasts do magic. Strategists can do it, too ... but ultimately, magic is a method used by mortal creatures, bound within causality and time. Before true miracles, the “magic” of the world is nothing more than a candle in the wind or a sand-castle in the tide: bright and deep and full of nuance but as futile as a toy. From a human perspective, though— It’s something amazing. Magic offers a slew of fantastical powers, things that just aren’t possible. Things out of dreaming and storybooks. It’s critical to remember that using magic really is just another mundane action as far as the high-end powers like miracles and Rites are concerned—to remember that unless a miracle says otherwise, it treats magical and nonmagical mundane actions exactly the same. A power that enhances a mundane action can enhance a magical one. An effect that can blast away a mundane wall can get rid of a magical wall too. It’s all one thing. It’s all ... the world. There are a few scant differences besides magic’s scarcity. Many Strategists have powers with player-defined elements ... so, while the default Strategist treats magic much the same as science, a particular Strategist might be much more facile with, or against, one or the other. The Nobilis are notably poor with magic, though only compared to their ability to perfect every other mortal skill; they are, in short, paragons of Ability, not Technique. Angels, conversely—and specifically Angels, though the other law-beings may dabble—can easily reach the peak of mastery in any given magical art. It's fine to come up with unique or stereotypical magical arts, to give a new pc or npc the magic system you dreamt about a few nights ago or something classic like wind magic, music magic, or necromancy. The most common magics in the setting are somewhat more particular; many

glitch: a story of the Not

of these will be described in depth below. Unless they’re in a hurry, players should not think in terms of picking a Technique from the list of magics soon to follow. They’re all acceptable bonus Techniques, and if one expands the competence base a bit and errs towards the strong side, many become functional base Techniques—but that’s not what the descriptions here are for. They’re here to give a sense of what the world’s most common magical arts are like ... and nothing more. It’s possible, and even common, that a Technique might include several forms of magic, or part of several forms of magic, or a form of magic and something else.

A Note on Artifact Creation Characters can use magic to create many wondrous things, and those wondrous things can stick around for a fair while. If the character wants to keep an artifact indefinitely, however, their player must first claim it as a Treasure or as part of a collection of Treasures (pg. 182). Players whose characters are driven to keep everything they create may therefore want to slow their production rate below what the gm would otherwise allow; otherwise, the Cost of such acquisitions may prove ruinous (again, pg. 182).

Advanced (Science) There’s science out there that’s still in a deuterocanonical state—principles and subtle laws that the prosaic world is probably going with, but hasn’t fully committed to yet. It’s already fully implemented in certain futuristic Chancels, and in certain waylets and lacunae it can be defined as correct ... but there are other possible futures where the details aren’t quite the same. Even before they’re formally “true,” and even though they might yet prove false, the world will usually allow devices built using suchlike principles to function. Thus, “(advanced) science:” a character with this form of magic can create, understand, and innovate in some deuterocanonical scientific field, becoming an engineer, scientist, or practitioner. With stunts, a character can use this kind of science (mostly reliably) everywhere in Creation; if the character is using Ability and mundane knowledge, they’re limited to doing research, construction, and repair in specific, appropriate places ... but the products of their work will still generally work worldwide. For the most part, characters practicing this art train in a (specific) hypothetical 22nd-23rd century science, assuming

After a while, I realized that I could feel my legs again. After a while, I realized that I could move. I could think. The haze of pain was gone. I cracked dry lips. “ You need to market this,” I said. I rolled my tongue, tasting the memory of the pill. “ You need— the drug companies. Emergency rooms. They need this.” “ You forget:” the Excrucian said. “I don’t like people.” — from my peT monSTer (Janice/Engeram), by Diane Drees

135 continued innovation with no unexpected unsolvable problems, civilization collapses, or Singularities; they learn, e.g., advanced biotechnology, metallurgy, robotics, or psychiatry. Options with a softer science fiction twist, like “dimensional science” or “psionic technology,” may be available at the relevant player or gm’s option.

Thought-Record Technology A few Excrucians have made a study of the practical use and subversion of Nobles’ “thought-record” technology, through which a handful of Nobles and their servants transcribe their thoughts in real-time to recording devices located elsewhere in the world. In practice, this technology is an Advanced Science like any other; it is given its own rubric here only because it’s not a 22nd-23rd century advance upon an existing scientific field and also not a wellestablished science fiction staple.

Alchemy Alchemy is the art of unlocking hidden qualities within the substances of Creation. The “essential insight” that awakens alchemy is supernal; one cannot attain it without the assistance of magic, miracle, or the void. Once it has been awakened, though, this is an ordinary skill. In practice, alchemists perform elemental transmutation and infuse artifacts, unguents, trinkets, and medicines with wondrous essences. It takes stunts or a great deal of time to produce anything qualitatively superior to a material scientist or biochemist’s work; greater artifacts are the work of greater stunts or a lifetime, and may need refinement over the course of multiple experiments in either case.

Conjury Conjury is an eclectic hodge-podge of different magical techniques gathered under a single umbrella; it features the ability to substitute a highly portable incantation/gesture and effort of will for almost any technological solution as well as “spirit magic” (such as summoning demons or the dead). As a general rule, conjury techniques are magical because they are illicit. The art draws its power from an accumulated detritus of conceptual edges scattered through the world: from orphaned bits of Imperial will; from bumps where natural law has been disrupted by the Glitch; from things that have been forbidden or forever lost but not entirely vanished from the world. The law-being that governs Conjury acts as a kind of garbage collector for the flotsam and the jetsam of the real and weaves it together into a coherent thing ... but also sequesters it away, declaring it occulted, hidden, and befogged; naming it, most importantly of all, a thing that people should not do, or, at least, that should not be done. It generally takes stunts to realize the full potential of this art; mortal practitioners generally only know how to do three or four specific tricks, and they’re often less effective (where it exists) than just using the equivalent technology.

For just $4 a day you too can learn the ancient Daoist art of “Ghost Punch.” Never let extranormal pugilists intimidate you again! — from an advertisement in keTSubAn!

Exorcism

The art of exorcism is an art of attention. It is the power of subjective experience and the will to constrain the ambivalently real. The techniques here are generally generic ones—the same magic circles that can bind a ghost can also trap an intrusive thought; the same blood sacrifice that lets one wrestle poltergeists will capture incompletely-manifested dimensional travelers, as well. Most Strategists have a rudimentary grounding in Exorcism from their time as warriors of the host. This lets them use Ability to deal with the intangible. The effects are, however, somewhat limited without Technique— Ability-based exorcism is best at handling ghosts that one is never sure were really there at all, and can only do so much against more potent haunts.

Faery Magic To wield faery magic is to unfix truth; to paint dream, uncertainty, and sophistry onto the surface of the world— and then propose an alternate existence. The substance of this work is glamour, and the deeper secret of this art is its creation: A mortal practitioner must labor effortfully to harvest gossamer uncertainty from ambiguous moments or gather it from fields and fluxes in lacunae, waylets, certain Chancels, and the Beyond. A Strategist with an appropriate Technique may pull it out of nothing and quickly shape it into form ... But in truth, once the world is unfixed with glamour, it does not require faery magic to transform it; the adept will be faster and surer, but even a mortal can use attention— Greater Focus—to give new form to a formless world.

Formation Magic

In places where Creation is weak, where Nınuan’s way-oflife slips through, one may work magics drawing upon the deep structure of the void. For instance, formation magic:

Eventually, Sam’s manager caught on to the illusory formation: realized that Sam was not, in fact, working diligently whenever he walked by; that, in fact, that he had no way to determine if Sam was even there at all at any given time ... but this did not discourage him. It, in fact, incited him. Sam was not fired. He was, rather, promoted: “Listen,” Mr. Serafin said fervently, “you have to understand the possibilities. Our product is not our product, Sam; it is the market share. It itself is an illusion, and we need you.” — from The life And TimeS of enTAliTy inC., by Janice Black

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136 the art of constructing large-scale magical symbols to various occult effects. Most often, these are continuous area-effect spells that target the location where the formation is set up; more rarely, they gather energy in that region to launch singular or repeated spells against something else. The art of formation magic is generally used to build automated magical defenses, either subtle or blatant; to provide various enhancement effects to an area; and to sustain real or illusory pocket worlds. The art is laborious and slow—a work somewhere between architecture and geometry, with a hint of civil engineering; stunts are required to use formation magic without extensive project planning, and even then, it’s still among the slower arts.

Language of Flowers, the When a miracle is used, its use leaves scars or marks upon the world. This is true for Nobles and Excrucians alike. The greater the miracle—and more specifically, the greater its Cost (pg. 267)—the more vivid, and the longer-lasting, is the mark. It’s an abstract thing rather than a physical one; it is attention to the subtle, not direct sensory perception, that brings the vision of it forth. But it is there. To muddle this, the Nobilis have taken up the practice of associating themselves with symbolic “Designs,” often using the symbology of paired flowers (but sometimes Tarot cards, gemstones, or other symbolic objects). Not only does this substantively confuse the traces of their miracles—turning, e.g.,“the Power of War made the people of this town more warlike here” into “blood and groaning; an achillea rustles, its petals scattering in the breeze;” or “the Power of Contradiction pushed themselves beyond their physical limits, here” into “the Hanged Man, selfinverting”—but those who know a Noble’s Design may communicate with them from afar. No aspect of this is specific to the Nobilis; most Excrucians have trained in this to the extent of being able to communicate with a handful of Nobilis and read the signs of miracles. Those with more intensive training may have a crude, simplistic Design to call their own. Characters with Techniques that touch upon this field may be able to properly interpret Design-muddled traces, conceal their own powers well, and dig up older traces with their stunts; The cell was dark and damp and I was left alone as the sun sank behind the hills. Night closed around me and hid the subtle shape of chains and stone; outside, a chorus of the frogs. For a moment, I forgot the straits that I was in. For a moment, I thought that I was in my bedroom again—my old childhood bedroom, breathing, quiet, in the dark, with my sister across from me, in the other bed. “Samantha,” I asked her softly. “—are you there?” “Always, Ellie,” she said. I heard her hair drag against her pillow. I heard her bed creaking upon its springs. I heard her breathe. “I am always here. It is you who leave.” — from The hAnd beTWeen The liGhT And inTerSTiCe, by Lyda Jamison

glitch: a story of the Not

a greater stunt (in addition to doing all of the above, but better) allows a Noble-quality Design.

Night-Craft, the The night-craft is the art of reifying the psychic wounds within the world. The sea of unreason on which this power draws is a draught of infinite variety, but the nightmare that manifests is somewhat particular— One may say, the anxieties of the world are limitless, but its neuroses are constrained. To the practitioners of the Night-Craft, blood and filth are sticky things, entangled with immaterial webs of portent. The rich soil of the earth at night is a breeding ground for poisons. From dirt and clay and spit and blood but most of all from immanence, they may craft goblin- and imp-like servants—from foreboding, from disquietude: from the world’s building sense that the servants of the NightCraft will soon come. This art requires both a fierce power of attention and a compromised environment: where the world is strong and things are well-defined, Creation’s fears may not be manifested, as they simply are not real. Where the world is weak, however, the unreal may be made so, and the NightCraft functions: in lacunae; in glamour-painted lands; in places much ravaged by bleak miracles, or the glitch.

Welken-law, the The Excrucians have hidden cruxstones throughout Creation, vested deep with the power of the void, and holding in them a power of communication and synchronicity. While they are there, the practitioners of this art—of the WelkenLaw—may from time to time meet one another in dreams; in visions; in glimpses caught in mirrors. They may, from time to time, hear one another’s voices arising from the babble of other noise. When a cruxstone is near, they may walk into a room, plaza, alley or night-bound glade that has no real business being present, much less being present in multiple locations on the tree of worlds, and meet. It is all awkward, uncertain, and deniable. Even for skilled practitioners, who have learned to dip more deeply into this art, to listen more ably to its whispers, it is not so much a cross-Ash telephone as a thing of omens; even true meetings, when the Host gathers across the worlds, or a message comes through clearly, are muddled and psychically fraught ... comparable, perhaps, to a drug trip, a psychotic break, or an intense delusion. Only a relevant Technique can turn the welken-law into something closer to a chat program or the mail, and, in general, only from one side. Most Excrucians have at least a little familiarity with the welken-law from their time in the Host—enough to understand the basics; to call out to others, even if they may only hear them as a distant whisper; to sense the presence of a cruxstone; or to understand what it means when half their face goes twisted in the mirror and starts talking without their own volition about a major offensive being launched.

opposite: by Elena Albanese

138

Player-Crafted Arts By default a player-created magic is, like Advanced Science, a deuterocanonical feature of the world—or perhaps something more dimly present: apocryphal or even outright heretical. It exists, it operates, it may even one day be truth, but it is not fully implemented: like features of a game, their development in progress but removed before the most recent public release, dredged up and made functional once again by the power of the character’s attention ... but not actually completed thereby, all the same. Perhaps the character can divine truth in spilled intestines, or raise unliving hosts; some of the structure for these arts exists within the world, but it is subtle, hidden, the world has not actually committed to the idea that this stuff works. Thus: magic. In other cases, a player-created art may be more like Exorcism: something that is possible, that was always possible, but which hinges too severely on the power of attention for a mundane character to truly master it. Elemental magic that relies on pacts with spirits, for instance, might work like this. A “fate magic” where a character accumulates power through risk and then binds it away within their bones might work in this way too: Perhaps anyone can do it, if they have the kind of tangible, graspable fortune that fierce attention to one’s luck can grant ... but so few do! A final option—or, at least, the final option we shall consider—is that the player-created magic is simply present in the world, without these justifications. It is out there, it is technically mundane, but also it is shrouded in a mystery. These arts are rare, and work best when their practitioners are few and some barrier (such as an Imperial ban upon their broad dissemination, or, as with Alchemy, a spark of attentional or miracle-based power necessary to begin the craft) prevents them from coming more generally into use. Hearth magic in various forms might be out there, for instance, and thus be viable for a pc to learn, but it wouldn’t be something just anyone could pick up: Some more substantial barrier should be out there, from a need for personal selection by its overseeing god to having to have (at minimum) died and then awakened to use it, lest some random physicist stumble upon it, spend a year or ten discovering that it’s replicable, and start as big of a kerfluffle about it as they can.

“Love,” mused the old wizard. “The rarest and most wonderful magic of them all.” “Except for graticulatomancy.”. “... except for graticulatomancy,” the old wizard, reluctantly, agreed. — from The GullenSniTh, by A.D. Collins

glitch: a story of the Not

usinG � undane and � aGical abilities When a player advances the idea of doing something using Ability, or the gm asks for an Ability action to determine how a character reacts to something in the world, or the player describes an action and the gm asks about the underlying action score, the important number is the final sum: The action result is the character’s [base Ability (+ spent Wear or other Cost.)] This result number is usually attached to the declaration of the specific action involved. (This is separate from a description of what the character actually does, which is either obvious, has already been specified, or should likely immediately follow.) Thus, if a character is trying to talk down the monster they’ve discovered in their bedroom, they might say something like, “Ability 2: I’m going to be Functional here,” or “I’m spending 1 Wear for Ability 2.” Actions don’t normally fail. When a player invokes an action, they get what the ladder of effects says they get. The gm’s discretion comes into play after that: Is being Functional here enough? That’s also where circumstances will come into play— e.g., if the monster is the character’s childhood imaginary friend, warped by time, and is thus inclined to listen to them; or, if the character is covered in monster blood and surrounded by the corpses of the monster’s family, and they’re not. The exact degree of effect that a functional attempt at conversation will have, paired with whatever it is the player actually says, changes based on circumstances like that. ... but under normal circumstances, that’s the only point where circumstances come into play. If the player buys an Ability 2 action, they get an Ability 2 action. From an abstract rules perspective, they can’t normally fail to get an Ability 2 action, only to have that Ability 2 action do what they want it to do.14 The exception is when there’s a conflict.

Conflicts When two successful actions oppose one another, this is a contest or conflict. There are two ways in which this can happen. One way, the most common way, is when the two actions are opposed in their desired outcomes. Two characters are in a race. Both are using Ability 4 actions (“Expertise.”) Both of them, therefore, adequately leverage whatever professional ability they have as runners or racers. ... but only one of them can actually win. In this case the gm compares the numerical rating of the two actions. For mundane actions—unlike for miracles, below—this is a comparison of the rating for the actual 14 Similarly, if they do better than they expected to do in the world, that doesn’t count as an Ability 4+ success; that’s just ... doing better with their Ability 2 action result.

139 actions, not the characters’ Ability; and, by default, either the higher-rated action wins, or there was never a real contest to begin with. By default, Expertise will always beat Functionality unless Expertise had already lost. Organization, similarly, always beats Expertise. Flow will beat Steel ... and so on. If both characters are taking the same action, or actions of the same level—e.g., Greater Function and Organization—then (again, by default) it comes down to whomever has the highest Ability. Organization, used with an effective Ability of 7, beats Greater Function used with an effective Ability of 6. If the matter is not decided instantly, characters can upgrade their action, spending Wear as necessary. It is generally possible to upgrade any action to anywhere in the Ability 5-11 range while preserving its basic concept, with 2-4 being available depending on circumstance.15 Once all parties in a conflict hit 11, all that’s left is a bidding war for the highest effective Ability and a gm call on who has the highest native competence in the event of a tie. The gm may wish to grant one character a circumstantial bonus in these contests. For instance, one racer might have a car, or start the race halfway to the finish line. If this bonus is strong enough then they just automatically win, because there’s only so much ground that their opponent can make up with the action they took. If it’s not, the gm expresses it as a number: An Edge. This number ranges from 0-7, and adds to the effective action level and Ability level that the advantaged character has in the contest. It looks something like: ӫ Edge 0. The two sides have the same starting place. ӫ Edge 1. An edge that’s small, but worth note. ӫ Edge 2. A meaningful edge. ӫ Edge 3. An incredibly unfair advantage. ӫ Edge 4. It might be possible for a normal person to turn this around ... maybe? ӫ Edge 5. Overcoming this would definitely be largerthan-life. ӫ Edge 6. Overcoming this would require absolute perfection and absolute precision. ӫ Edge 7. This edge is fundamentally impossible to overcome ... except, reality isn’t strong enough here for “impossible” to have 100%, absolute force. Thus, for example, Expertise with 2 Edge can beat out Steel; with 4 Edge, it can conquer Flow. Edge is not additive. It’s a gm estimate. Most of the time, when you add up Edges, you just get the highest Edge. Maybe you get one point above that? But it’s whatever the gm re-evaluates as the character’s advantage. This is important, because the divine attribute Flore on pg. 181 offers various different ways to give actions Edge, 15 That said, it can be tricky to, e.g., use a level 6 action in a 50 yard dash—an example which, while unusual, is by no means unique.

and players might wonder if there’s any merit to combining them. The answer is no—most of the time, even stacking its powers up, it gives the same 3 Edge as the best of them. ... but that’s just because it’s still “incredibly unfair,” as an Edge—and not more, and not less. If something evens things out, like, both sides are using Glorification (pg. 196) and one side is also using Guidance (pg. 194)? Then Guidance might tip the scales. Characters are allowed to take higher-level actions than strictly necessary in order to win a contest, but only if they can actually leverage that. It can be difficult to use level 5-6 actions to win a pie-eating contest, for instance16; probably possible, but the contortions necessary to justify it may cause the base action to fail ... or grant the opponent 1-2 points of Edge.

example

� haracter

Aiderida Elsevir is a pc Strategist dying of illumination. Her secrets inevitably come out, including ones she never actually had, and she is driven from her community and her life. This is her fate, having seen a glitched revelation. Before that, she was a record executive. Her player opts to spend nine character points on Ability. She records her mortal abilities thus: ӫ Ability 3 - record executive - fashionable - can drive - surprising level of self-defense training - from her time in the Host: ӫ some criminal rep and intrusion/security experience ӫ familiarity with exorcism, the language of flowers, and the welken-law ӫ Technique: “Musica Magicae” - Aiderida can use illicit remixes of, e.g., angel song, the screams of Hell, environmental sounds, mathematically precise musical structures, and Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8er Boi” to work strange, magical effects. - More generally, she’s good at using music, rhythm, and her industry experience to get things done. The notes under Ability are somewhat arbitrary; they’re simply the kinds of things that her player wants to make clear in advance that Aiderida Elsevir can do.

� in Thus completes our study of Ability; only miracles await.

16 unless, ironically, you don’t like pie

mundane and magical actions

141

e xa m p l e o f p l ay 3

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opposite: by Alexander Benekos

scene

1: the Yurt

gm: It is now afternoon, and your malts have depleted. heather: So too all things in this impermanent world. edward: ... I don’t think we get to complain about its impermanence, and also about its existence. heather: Counterpoint: I will complain about what I like. That’s my Excrucian way! edward: ... fairly argued. All things pass. All things are terrible. And in such small portions! gm: Indeed. They are just bits of malt and wet amidst the ice; so too is the manner of all things. What do you want to do about it? edward: I actually want to do a flashback first, if that’s ok. gm: Sure? edward: To a trip to Nınuan, preparing for this journey. gm: I’ll need a spotlight for that. edward: I mean ... that’s just my definitive action, there, isn’t it? As we prepare to go to Midland, California, I slip off to Ninuan to consult with my ilλ-nati contacts. gm: Monologue a bit. edward: Mm? gm: It’s in the rules! Tell me why you’re doing this. What’s going on in your head here. Obvious, or little, though that may be. edward: These my friends are naïve fools. They cannot survive in the deep waters of the world without me— without someone willing to treat with what must be treated with; to do what must be done. They need a figure in the shadows, a cunning, subtle chessmaster, to guide their flailing movements through the world. heather: Elsewhere, Ciara sputters into laughter without entirely knowing why. edward: It falls on me to take on the burden for them, of facing the murky matters, the grey world between the black and white. Thus, I have once more slouched off again, to take secret consultation with those who might know the deeper truth: gm: And found a teacher, and a friend, of sorts, in Nınuan. edward: And found a teacher and a friend. [This is one of Edward’s Arcana. The gm believes she is introducing a new Arcanum; Edward thinks she’s introducing his “handler;” one of them should probably have been clearer ... but ultimately all this mistake will do is produce a few minutes of confusion, and then 74 seconds of Edward and Maddie apologizing to each other, about four sessions on.]

come one, come all! ...

142 gm: And here, where you travel, the plains are dark, as they are always dark, in the endless night beyond the world—lit by the fitful glow of not no sun nor, tonight, by neither any moon, but by only the blue brilliance of the fisher’s star. Push on your closed eyes’ lid—not too fiercely, of course, don’t hurt your eyes for it—and you might see it, there, that star, coruscating where your finger is, surrounded by the strange geometries that pressure makes, within the dark. Stare at the ceiling in a lightless room, until the blackness seems to blur and refract into colors: blue, auroreate red: that, too: the fisher’s star. And the wind is cold amidst the grass (that is not grass, that is not wind) beyond the reaches of the world. Wings go by in the distant night, and eerie howls. edward: This is where we meet? gm: You had imagined something more congenial? edward: I had imagined sipping wine in a fancy lodge, a smoking room of sorts, overlooking through a one-way mirror the humbled masses of the world. gm: There is that, in certain places, perhaps. There are certainly more than a few houses of the Ilλnati that have such windows, or spiced wine; that are richly appointed; that can evoke the dream of luxury beyond that of most mortal’s ken. Here, in the plains of the distant east, such as east may be said to be, in Nınuan, there is a yurt. edward: A yurt. gm: Once, your contact lived in the world, but its spurs and burrs and spears became too sharp for them. They have withdrawn from it, from the noise of it, and even from the central regions of the void, to live upon the empty plains, in the middle distance, where the silence is richer and the silvered night is deeper, far from the urban, gentrified portions of Nınuan that you, apparently, prefer. It is a long, hard journey, meant to dissuade casual approaches, or even kill the simple-minded or the weak, but you are a prince of Nınuan, and you have not faltered on the way. He ... he? She? They? edward: She. gm: Your contact does not greet you as you approach, but she is doubtless aware of your presence. Blind eyes stare off towards the distant cliffs. They are jagged lines within the nothingness, faultlines in the mathematics of the weft. edward: ... blind? gm: It is known that she is blind. It is obvious that she is blind. It is known, and it is obvious, because her eyes are visible. They are in fact so visible that you can see them from behind her—well, not see them, not exactly, but become aware of them, as if the artist painting the scene, impatient with the limits of perspective, impatient with the fact that only her back is visible from here, had felt the need to splash her faded, watercolor face across the upper corner of your view. She is blind, because her eyes are visible, and not the endless falling of the stars. She is blind, in turn, because her touch, her sound, her presence is not quite right: not as jangled and disrupted as it would be if you were blind, and touch or hearing your principal sense, but a certain lurch in that direction: this, what she has, instead of the Excrucian eyes.

glitch: a story of the Not

edward: Aha. mysterious contact: ... Tassilo. edward: We probably use code names. gm: ... you do. Your code name, randomly assigned, was Tassilo. This is a narrative convenience that keeps me from having to remember others. edward: That is extraordinarily convenient, and perhaps even suspicious. gm: It can be “Tassilo X.” edward: ... as always, Maddie, you know the way into my heart. gm: All that aside, [as the Mysterious Contact] What brings you here? tassilo: We are traveling to Midland, California, and I wanted to ... mysterious contact: ... to know the lay of the game, as it is played there? tassilo: Yes, something of that sort. [This is not quite what he will get, because disrupt the flow of conversation.]

ooc

matters will

gm: It is always very hard, when you have come here, to remember that you have not been here forever. That you have not lived here, forever, beneath the turning of the skies; out in the openness of this place that is not the world, in your associate’s place of exile. It is a teetering cliff within you; over, one might call it, peace. edward: It is a bitter taste, to me, for peace too would just betray me in the end. gm: I think ... to know what kind of thing she gives you, I need an infusion action (pg. 216), and a specification of the Bond you plan to get, even if you don’t necessarily experience it as a miracle that you use right then. edward: Hmm. I guess I want a Technique for getting access to Midland’s secrets—for being allowed access to it, like, the kind of pass-phrases that would make the Powers think I’m in on things with them, and certainly their minions—and a Bond, I’m in on the game. gm: ok. ... how does that work, exactly? edward: Well, I mean, obviously Nircoa is conspiring, so Nircoa is part of some branch of the organization. Or is a pawn of it. I guess maybe it’s possible that they’re not, but at minimum, some group that they’re working with or that’s investigating them or that their Powers have interacted with, would be. gm: ... after a while of staring off at nothingness, she says, “The games of Powers and Imperators will flense you. I hope you know that, little mockingbird. You may think that because you are good at the masks and the secrets and the moving the pieces around, you are ready to play with them, but ... they are broken, they are broken and they are covered in sharp edges, and when you play games with such broken toys as these, your hands will be scored deep.” tassilo: That is my fate, I think. I certainly never expected not to have scarred hands for any length of time. mysterious contact: I will give you a name and a

143 number. If you contact them ... they should be able to give you what you will need, here. But I cannot help you if your own nature betrays you in this, if you are shunned upon the basis of your eyes. tassilo: ... thank you. The number ... mysterious contact: It is for an inquisitorial team among the Powers. A group that ... looks into deviancy among the Imperators and others. They are generally free to access what they like and where they like, and this particular team—in the name of the organization—more so than others, as they are known for a cooperative and lenient attitude rather than a zealous pursuit of all offense. Tell them you will be an adjunct for a time, a local affiliate, and with luck they will assist you in such concerns. tassilo: I see. mysterious contact: Come, then, child, and I will take the price. tassilo: Eh? gm: What happens then is ... what’s your Lore again? edward: 1. gm: A 5-Fugue enchainment on your soul; a 5-Fugue toll to the Ilλnati, and to her, to pay the cost of the Infusion. I think she ... probably, rewrites you a little, just a bit? In her own vision, to her own dream; this, the currency of the sect? But it is up to you, it being your Sphere and your Infusion action. She could also impress a vision on you as a message to someone else, or ... I dunno. edward: Rewriting is fine, I guess. It’s only 5 Fugue worth, just the smallest coin of individuality. gm: That’s what they all say, when the first hooks go in. [Tassilo takes 5 Fugue, and gains +1 xp.] gm: ok! Flashback complete. I think that technically you should probably still take a spotlight action in Creation before you formally assume yourself to be there again, regardless of chronology, but I intend to ignore this if I have to and you can do so too. edward: So I’m ... not there? gm: I mean, obviously you’re there, you are in the malt shop, but since Nınuan isn’t signatory to mortal causality it feels like that flashback is part of this chapter, and we should stick to the associated rules for that unless verisimilitude requires otherwise. edward: Right. ok. I’m out of synch with time. gm: Procedurally. If possible. edward: Right. gm: Which is sad, because the last of your ice is melting into your malt, and soon it will be too watery to drink the dregs; and the other two have basically already finished. You! You other two! What are you doing?

scene

2: the � alt Shop

heather: The ... water treatment plant, maybe? The auto detailing shop?

diane: Hm. heather: Now I kind of want to hunt for an arcanum of my own. Or maybe just fetch out my poison-breathing panther. Maddie, is there a waylet near? gm: Flex for it. [Heather makes two fists in front of her face, tensing the muscles of her arms.] heather: rrrr gm: There is in fact a waylet not that far from here, although locating it is probably—well, it might take a fair bit of tromping around the old gypsum mines until you get close “enough” and then using a Navigation miracle from there. It doesn’t seem to actually be hidden, though, either by intrinsic nature or by any conscious agency, so that’s all it’d take. [Heather pays 1 Fugue for the effect.] heather: That’s interesting. I wonder if ... are they using it? Common sense first, before I investigate. gm: Common sense? heather: Like, odds that it’s a coincidence? gm: Eeyh, it’s hard to say. I think you’re like fifteen miles away from a waylet on average at any given time, on Earth—I might be screwing up the math there, it’s not super-important, the important thing is, it’s substantially closer than that, but not, like, in town hall, and even if it were, sometimes waylets are just in random little cities’ town halls. Probably it’s causally related to why they’re doing stuff here, but not necessarily a core motivation, like ... you know when you’re playing 4x games, and you’re placing a city? Like it probably spiked the “weird and interesting” quality of the local hex when they were placing their Chancel, but that doesn’t mean they were necessarily from a game build that can utilize the power of the void. heather, squinting: Nice, I can’t tell if you’re frantically justifying why it’s there at all or giving an excuse for why I don’t immediately realize it’s important. gm: Heh. heather: Well, let’s add spelunking to our schedule just in case. diane: Before that ... heather: Mm? diane, to the gm: Wasn’t there some sort of lead here at the malt shop? gm: Uh ... what sort of lead exactly were you looking for? I mean, these prices are definitely out of this world, harkening back to an ancient era, suggesting that a truly unscrupulous Excrucian could commit some sort of arbitrage. Other than that ... diane: Other than that? gm: You would have to use a spotlight on the subject of your interest. diane: [squints and thinks for a moment] Wasn’t there supposed to be a piece of my death somewhere around

come one, come all! ...

144 here? Or some other ... supernatural thingie? gm: ... possibly? diane: I guess I’m going to spotlight that, then. Like, I want to shake out some of the mystery of this town and stuff, here, because I know that the malt shop kept coming up. gm: You are distantly aware, as your metaphorical spotlight clicks to life, that the malt shop may have kept coming up because it was thematically on point, because it’s a traditional motif of old-time Americana, but I suppose that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a direct connection to the story. Give me a moment to figure out what’s around. diane, nodding: ok. [Twenty seconds pass.] gm: ... sure, why not? That green-haired teenager over there at the bar—the malt bar obviously, because they are a teenager, the non-alcoholic malt bar, but the point is: they are over there, and they appear to be a portion of your death. M, F, neutral? diane: ... go with M, this place is stuck in the 60s, they’ve got to be having enough trouble just with the hair. edward: It could be the anime 60s. heather: did they even have edward: Owing to certain mistakes that Tassilo made in his youth anime dates back to the 18th century in this continuity. gm: ... that is ... I guess ... [pause] anyway, the green-haired boy at the bar, anyway, appears to be a portion of your death. heather: Alternative question: were they actually mistakes? edward: Nobody had invented robots yet, so there were a whole lot of animes where just giant absences fought each other. Also, no Astro Boy, just, you know, “Boy.” heather: They didn’t even have astros?! gm, stifling a giggle fit: Your death, Liutgarde, is drinking malt. diane: [holds up a hand for silence; then, as Liutgarde] I’m going to dramatically drop onto a barstool next to him. “So.” gm: You die. diane: What? Wait. What? gm: Sorry, sorry, ok, you don’t die, it just ... there’s definitely an oomph to that. Take a Burn. He looks up at you, hauntedlike, over a long noisy sip of malt. “... yeah? I know you or something?” diane: I wave the others over. [as Liutgarde] Yeah, you might say that. I’ve been looking for you for a really long time, mister. gm: “Adrian,” he says. “And I guess you found me. Congratulations! Go die in a fire or something.” liutgarde, sweetly: Oh, I don’t think that’s going to happen, but if it does, I’m sure you’re going to be right there next to me. gm: He looks a little disturbed. “ok, lady. I guess we ... met

glitch: a story of the Not

... some cycles ago or something? ’Cause I’m not placing you at all.” diane: Does he seem honest? gm: He does not show signs of being an ancient eldritch being playing verbal games with his conversational partner, unlike certain other individuals that I might name. diane: I’m going to drop a point of Fugue on Vision, then, just so I can peek behind the surfaces of things. gm: Yeah, you can see it there, within him. It’s not like you were wrong. It’s just ... like a sleeping dragon in his body. In his bones. It stirs a bit, when seen, it turns a blind embryonic head a bit your way, whiskers floating in the emptiness of the perceptual abstract, but it does not wake. He himself is still there, not identical. Not quite the same. liutgarde: Fascinating. Yes, we met ... or, rather, we didn’t meet. Yet. We had an engagement, and you did not attend, young man. Ah, ... Adrian. adrian: You’re beginning to creep me out a little. Stranger danger, y’know? And ... oh, hey, you don’t have eyes. [voice is genuinely worried now.] That’s a little bit concerning. liutgarde: ... you will come with us, I think. adrian: I haven’t committed to that. liutgarde: Commit to it. [as Diane] I’m going to amp up the Intensity here, make it harder for him to slip the hook. adrian, chewing on his lip: Tch. Fine. But you better be the cool kind of monsters. tassilo: Um. Ah ... ciara: What is your point of comparison? adrian: Unbelievable. [as the gm] He looks up at the maître d’, hooks his thumb at Liutgarde. [as Adrian] Gotta go, these freaks got my tab. Apparently. tassilo: Technically, “freaks” is a hurtful term for arguably uncool beings of consummate destruction. adrian: Yeah, you do you, man. I’ll just be over here calling you freaks. diane: You’re not even here, Tassilo. edward: I am totally here. I am spotlighting how incredibly cool I am. gm: The camera lovingly pans over how cool Tassilo is. Give me a ... coolness ... action. edward: 0. [The GM face-palms.] gm: You ... languidly smoke your malt straw, Jimmy Deanstyle. edward: Rock on! I have materially improved my smoking style. gm: [laughing] ... yes. [Tassilo recovers 1 Wear from this “failure.”] edward: I’ll also toss down some change to cover the kid’s tab, unless it’s more than sixty-five cents. gm: It is an absurd, but not impossible, $35. edward: Yowza. heather: Whatever, whatever, I’ll get it.

145 edward: It’s not that Tassilo doesn’t have it. heather: Of course not! edward: It’s just, do you have it? heather: Worst case, I’ll just squeeze some tens into twenties or something later. gm: ... that is ... extremely strong. heather: Believe it! gm: Well, toss in a Wear for the expenditure, I guess, since you’ve just conversationally established yourselves as of questionable means, and then y’all can head in a disorganized fashion out of the malt shop out to the Shelby Cobra, your amazing, magical, semi-sentient twoseater car. Adrian gives it, and then you all, a long, slow, disbelieving look. tassilo: [coughs] adrian: Look, if I’ve got to ride in the trunk here, I’m out. I can scream like two babies tied to a frisbee, you hear me? I am not coming quietly. ciara: Tassilo, this one’s on you. tassilo: [closes one eye, then the other. Coughs again.] Fifty bucks. ciara: What? T— adrian, holding up a hand for silence: No, wait, I’m listening. Go on. tassilo: Half now, half on arrival. adrian: Awful hard to spend that if I wind up disassembled in a ditch, though. ciara: We don’t even know where the ditch is— adrian: Shh, shh, shh, negotiating. tassilo: Half now, half on arrival, and we ... won’t disassemble you and put you in a ditch? adrian: Fifty now, twenty when we get there, and the pink slip stays at the shop. tassilo: ... adrian: I mean, until we get back. tassilo: That’s a very reasonable proposal, kid, with one problem— Liutgarde, do we have a pink slip? diane, to the gm: Rummaging motions. Is there one in the car? gm: ... sure? liutgarde: This thing? tassilo: ... I suppose we can put off the one problem until we get back. I’ll just go drop it off with the owner, shall I? gm: Let’s say that Adrian insists on watching the handoff, and that the whole process is awkward, but that all that happens, unless you want to engage in trickery, and you are now back at the car. Which is still kind of small for the all of you, but I suppose he has now technically volunteered to ride in the trunk. tassilo: I will provide him with the promised fifty, slide into the driver’s seat, and pop the trunk. gm: You have fifty now? tassilo: Fortunately, impressing people with my vast, flashy wealth is one of my 0-Cost talents. gm: ... ohh, right. ok. He takes it, eyes it dubiously for a long time, licks it to check for counterfeiting—look, not everybody has a fancy counterfeit pen, right?—and then

finally shrugs and climbs into the Shelby Cobra trunk, on what appears to be the principle of, “eff it, they don’t have any eyes, what good is actual common sense gonna be here?” And you are off to the ... presumably, to the the water treatment facility. heather: Yeah. gm: You are at the water treatment facility.

scene

3: the � acility

heather: ... let’s let the kid out of the trunk first. Then I’ll spotlight the place. gm: He emerges, stretching and wriggling a bit, not at all like the ancient eldritch horror you know him to, at least partially, be. “Unh,” he says. “ok, not a murder hole, good start. ... I think. What do murder holes look like?” tassilo: They are holes in the fabric of the world, and full of murder. adrian: Yeah, ok. Thanks for the ride, this has been fabulous, who the hell are you people? liutgarde: Ciara, can you see how it’s attached to him? ciara, in tones of mild complaint: I wanted to look at the water treatment facility. gm: It stands there before you in all its grey, aquatic neutrality. ciara: Fine. [as Heather] I’ll do a quick Investigation on what’s actually up with the kid. [Ciara takes +1 Fugue for the investigation.] gm: You flex before the increasingly nonplussed teenager, soon pushing him past the point of nonplussed all the way to nonminused. ... and begin to see. Roughly speaking, it looks like Liutgarde’s death was kind of floating by, or at least, this part of it was, and then ... pwick. heather: Pwick? gm: Something got it stuck to the web of causality here, so entangled that eventually it had to incarnate ... I guess, really, in the same way all of you did, because arguably, you know, with the exception of Liutgarde, you’re all arguably the deaths of who you used to be. edward: That’s ... you’re going to need to go into that a bit more. gm: Well, I mean, like, you were humans, right? Born as humans? But inside you there was the wild strand of death that was Nınuan. And it was that death, as much as that human, that emerged from the chrysalis as an Excrucian. That’s part of why you’re born again entangled with your suffering, your death, your curse, why you’re inseparable from it. And why you can therefore argue that this is a part of Liutgarde’s intrinsic nature, her potential, born into Creation; or possibly the opposite, because, again, she’s weird. heather, slowly: Weird, in that her particular death is the death of failing to die. gm: Yeah. So, it’s going to be unclear right now exactly

come one, come all! ...

146 what relationship this has to her, because it cuts too deep into her story for me to just declare it, it needs to wait for me or Diane to have an epiphany moment coming out of play, also, this is the Arc Ally apparently so like it’s a big part of several quests?, but— what you can see is that he’s part of that same wild Nınuanni energy, entangled into the world, that became Liutgarde, just like Liutgarde herself is. Her other self, or her caul, or her catalyst; her cousin, or her enemy. The death she was meant to have, separated from her by the intrinsic causality of her nature, and then ripped further away from the path it was meant to follow by the spiderweb that was Midland, California. ciara: ... a moral quandary. liutgarde: Ah? ciara: He is meant to be like us, but I do not know what it will do to him or you if it is so. gm: He laughs nervously. “That’s quite all right, thanks, I like having eyes.” tassilo, interestedly: Arguably consent is irrelevant for beings inextricably entangled into Creation’s network of causality; they do not make choices so much as ... exist ... in a web of effects, following causes. adrian: It’s, ah, probably best not to discard consent based on the first argument that comes to mind, but, like, only, maybe, after rigorous testing and evaluation of your philosophical premises? edward: Really? That’s what he says? gm: Look, he’s a teenager, but he’s a part-Excrucian teenager, and it’s not like even the normal ones can’t be pretty loquacious if they wanna be. edward: ... fine. [as Tassilo] Fairly argued, I suppose. Then will you consent, so we can move on to the matter of scientific experimentation? Because you do have the opportunity to transcend the world, seize the true nature of abreality, and achieve perfection, which not every greenhaired money-hungry brat in your position gets the actual opportunity to do. adrian: He calls me money-hungry but neglects to pay me the other thirty that I’m owed. tassilo: Currency is an illusion and a dream. adrian: See? See? liutgarde: I think he just can’t resist the argument, Adrian. He’s not that short on money. adrian: ... these are fine adulthood words, but in the end, your grandiose ascension above the petty struggle for wealth is just an airy dream if you put off paying your actual debts until you get distracted, and then forever. edward: I pay him thirty? gm: I don’t know, that’s a lot of money, after the last fifty. You sure you have the cash? edward: I have a Gift for it! gm: ok, fine, you invoke your Gift, and fork over the cash. He looks upset, in the very fashion of an Excrucian who can no longer argue that someone is being hypocritical and deceptive, only, you know, with clearer eyes. tassilo: Ha! Cash got your tongue? adrian: ... tell me more about grandiosely ascending above

glitch: a story of the Not

the petty struggle of the mortal world. edward: I throw my arm around his shoulder, start to gesture broadly to the horizon and give him the pitch, and then stop. [as Tassilo] wait, being an Excrucian sucks, why am I pitching it. ciara: Technically it sucks less. tassilo: Does it? Does it really? ciara: The sad reality of it is that if he does not break the cage of the world and join us, he will inevitably either succumb to a mediocrity so bland as to be indistinguishable from the fabric of Creation, or, will be tortured into eternal numbness as a wraith. I know of no alternatives, and, if they exist, can conceive of no possibility that he, being such as us, would be a thing they would apply to. adrian: ... uh ... ciara: Here is the truth, child: before the world was born, you were. You were a lord or lady of the Host, a tyrant of the throne; and then the world was wrapped around you like a prison, like a twisted brace. It broke you, divided you, split you, and spat you out to live amidst and among the flashy, painted pieces of itself. Life after life you lived, encysted and enchained, and nothing in you to break from the grand design that was Creation save that lingering wild remnant of the truth before the world. And now you are here, today, and you are in the presence of another portion of yourself. adrian: I get it. tassilo: That was fast. adrian: She’s going to eat me for power, right? liutgarde: I ... don’t think I could get my mouth around your skull. adrian: ... oh. liutgarde: I think I will just free you from this prison, child. gm: He’s gonna bolt. liutgarde, shouting: This town! This time-loop! Not your life! ciara: You don’t need to shout. [as Heather] I’m intercepting him before he gets far enough that Liutgarde needs to shout. gm: I dunno if raw strength can do that, give me an Ability action? heather: I mean, I can do 4 for free, and that’s with fighting skill and limitless strength to back it up with. gm: ... yeah, he runs straight into your arm and falls to the ground wheezing. tassilo: A delightful interval but if you do not mean to make him an Excrucian—I know, I know, it’s not like that’s trivial or even necessarily possible—I feel we should actually pay attention to this mysterious facility that we have come to investigate. liutgarde, pettishly: I wanted to discuss, like, his existence with him. ... but, fine. Ciara, can you bring him? ciara: Easily. edward: I’d spotlight the place, since I don’t think Heather’s went off, but I guess I’m out for the chapter. heather: Yeah, I’ll just ... trigger it again.

147 gm: The old and tetchy spotlight, unreliable though it may be, sparks to life this time. And there is light! [The gm pauses a moment in thought.] gm: Metaphorical light, at least. ok. So, let’s start with this: the place is deserted. Concrete buildings, parking lot, guard posts, lots of signs that there should be people here, people in at least moderate numbers, but ... nothing. No lights. No movement. No life at all, save you. ciara, slowly: They have heard of our coming, and fled. Mighty is the roaring of our steed! tassilo: ... that seems unlikely. gm: As you move inwards, you further notice that ... somebody give me an Ability action suitable to understanding water filtration systems, or more generally this kind of place? edward, after no one volunteers: I can do a merchant stunt? [Tassilo’s Eide Technique is “merchant prince,” allowing him to do cinematic merchant prince things as Eide 2 effects. It’s possible that if he’d noted out loud that it cost him 2 Stilling to invoke this the gm might have given him more than what he gets, but he does not:] gm: You are all woefully confused by the place, and don’t even know what to look for, except for Tassilo, who rapidly determines that this place cannot possibly be profitable, owing to the fact that nobody is here and none of the equipment is turned on. edward: Unless it’s a tax shelter! diane: Do we ... see any taxes? edward: ... weirdly, they’re not actually kept in the shelters. diane: The perversity of this world! gm: Eventually, your exploration trips what you think is an alarm, not in the sense of a loud ringing, but in the sense of how you notice after opening a door that there are some kind of vaguely techy sensory things on it—and a sign beside it that claims the property to be guarded by one “Alarm Company, Inc.” edward: Is ... that a real company, or did a 5-year-old make the sign? gm: It is standing in temporary stead for a real company name which I have not made up yet. Let’s say, Highly Alarmed, Ltd. Are you alarmed? Are you highly alarmed? Well, if you’re not, then you should be! Or so their commercials assert. tassilo: An opportunity! ciara: Oh? tassilo: If someone actually comes in response to the alarm, they may know more about what’s going on. Or let something slip! Let’s hide and observe. gm: Adrian says, “Seriously?” tassilo: Do you have a better idea? adrian: ... not doing that? liutgarde: I can conceal us.

tassilo: Cool, cool, we have a start of a plan. Let’s get inside here and wait, then. gm: Oh, hey, looks like you’ve found the source of the water, at least; there’s a truly intense icicle hanging from the ceiling in here, dripping down like a river into the cistern below. Adrian is gaping. The wind is chill. heather: I will approach it. Why ... why not just ... get water normally? gm: Icy indifference is its only response. heather: I will flex on this. gm: Your muscular probing of the fabric of reality suggests that water previously came to Midland by train, which was too strong an interaction point with the outside world to be permitted to endure. Therefore, water now condenses, precipitates downwards from a giant icicle, and from there funnels outwards to the town. heather: ... I think I’m going to go ahead and peer into the web of fate and see what happened to Doug Forstat, when he investigated. When he, possibly? Found this. gm: He never got here. He randomly decided to leave Midland and move to Los Angeles to become one of millions of faceless people striving to become stars there. heather: [squints] Really? gm: That is what your muscles determine. He was en route to check the place out but for no reason whatsoever he pulled over for a while and then changed his mind and moved to L.A.. heather: Weird. [Ciara takes +1 Fugue for each investigation, for a total of +2.] gm: I should probably remind you that your investigations are likely to pull up consciously established cover stories first, only hitting the truth when you’ve actually seen through them. heather: Ah. edward: ... implausibility and disbelief isn’t enough? gm: It honestly wouldn’t be the strangest thing that’s ever happened. It wouldn’t even make top hundred, Californian. edward: Fair. ... I don’t want to actually wait right next to the giant icicle, though, in case mortal police come and have to get vanished or icicle girl comes and has a giant tactical weapon sitting right beside me; can we relocate to a different vantage? gm: Yes, except, you have trouble wanting to leave. edward: ... what kind of trouble. gm: You have a very important task in this room, you discover. A critically important task. You need to, need to, write up the story of your life and your key contacts in it so that you can turn it in to Highly Alarmed, Ltd. when they arrive. diane: That might alarm them. gm: Sometimes you have to crunch a few graham crackers, Liutgarde, to make a crumby crust. edward: Well, hell. Is there pen and paper? And ... is this an assignment from Saguaric, again? gm: Indeed. You stand within his prickly shadow.

come one, come all! ...

148 liutgarde: I am torn. tassilo: I am, to be honest, beginning to wonder if that cactus has our best interests at heart. liutgarde: I am torn, because I feel driven to this thing, to do this thing; yet, it is a thing that I do not wish to do. ciara: When I do not wish to study strength, on the grounds that to do so will only rip me again to pieces in the end, I think back to what my father told me as a little girl. He told me, “Buck up and stop whining, sweetie; it’s just one crocodile.” And I smile, and I know that I can go on. diane: ... I am going to attempt to unfetter us. To pull myself away from this intrusive need, and then drag them after me. For 4 Burn, assuming I can work out the methodology. gm: That’s fine, then. It passes from the four of you like a dream in morning, like a glamour at the dawn. diane, concerned: Glamour breaks at dawn? gm, waving off that concern: If it isn’t coated properly. diane: I see.

It’s fine to try to turn my head with aethereal visions of faery lands and silks and swords and fine spiced wines. But I get that it’s just a sales pitch. I gave up on thinking I was special long ago. liutgarde: ... I don’t know enough about what you are to dispute that, really. adrian: Heh. liutgarde: But it seems to me, that isn’t a thing that one can know? adrian: What? liutgarde: A person can puff themselves up with false delusions, and I’m just as glad that you’re not doing that, but nobody can ever really know that they’re not a magical prince from the kingdom of never-ever, beyond the wide world’s ending. adrian: As it were. liutgarde: As it were. adrian: You can’t know, that’s fair enough, but you can ... get a pretty good idea. [Diane gestures, listening.]

[The game pauses for a moment, during which Diane records 4 Burn and also (for the high-Cost action) 1 xp. ] gm: You are alone, with a giant icicle and a handful of forms and the absence of your need to do anything about them. liutgarde: This would be eerily familiar, if there were only a rhinoceros. adrian: Yeah, tell me about it. diane: I will make efforts to conceal us, using glamour if I can and misdirection if I can’t. gm: You may do either, although the misdirection miracle is more reliable. diane: ... that is a sound point; I’ll invoke the misdirection. [Liutgarde has Eide 5, and misdirection—the regular kind, that just hides things rather than creating new perceptions—is level 8, so this is a relatively efficient effect for her: it costs 3 Stilling, and earns her 1 xp.] gm: You blend into the mists of faerie and are gone. diane: Even to ourselves? gm: Strictly speaking, no, not if you don’t choose to be, but I suspect you are still somewhat occluded to your mortal sight, if only because the swirling mists of faerie are more interesting in their patternlessness than the room with the giant icicle, for however long it takes. diane: Fair enough. It takes some time? gm: It does. diane: I am going to spotlight Adrian a bit, get him to be more open, as I slip up to him amidst the mists. I observe, “You are eldritch. Yet of this, you seem unaware. I wonder how this can be.” adrian: Is that a serious question? liutgarde: As serious as the ice. adrian: It’s fine to call me special, miss, but I know better.

glitch: a story of the Not

adrian: See, the thing is, I did think I was special, once. I did think I could see beyond the veil of the world. I thought I had ... power. I thought I meant something. I got myself so convinced of it. liutgarde: And? adrian: And then I tested it, because that’s what reason says to do, yeah? You say, ok, if you’re so sure, if it’s so bloody certain, then, here’s something that can’t possibly fail if that’s true. And you decide, beforehand, that—you know, there are always going to be explanations. If it fails. If you fail. The phase of the moon was wrong. The stars were against you. A supernatural, malevolent force intervened. The government was tracking you. There are always things that could have gotten in your way, and after that, after the test, you can’t know that it wasn’t one of them, but you can say in advance, you know? You can say in advance, if this one test, this one simple little test, fails, then it’s all just dreaming. liutgarde: So. adrian: So I went to the gas station at the center of town, and I set the fire. tassilo: Uh. adrian: We burn down sometimes, you know. That’s fine. That’s normal. But I thought, if I’m so great, then— I could break it, I could end it, I could tear apart the blanket of this world, and things wouldn’t just be the same, wouldn’t just go on and on and on like they’d gone on and on and on forever. I thought I could burn the place down and not rebuild it. ... I couldn’t even burn down me. liutgarde: You ... couldn’t? adrian: You know I couldn’t. That’s not how fire works. ... here. That’s ... I don’t think that’s how fire works anywhere? Not any more. You can get little burns. Even bad burns. But you can’t burn to death. You can’t plunge into the flames. The timeline won’t let you. You lock up, you know, you try to do it but you lock up, you tell yourself over and

149 over again to just go forward, to just jump forward, into the flames, but you can’t, because you’re a captive in the palm of time. And it goes on. It goes on, and on, and on, and you go to jail, and you get out, and you never even grow up old enough to drink. liutgarde: It ... may not have been time holding you back. adrian: So I dyed my hair green. I couldn’t remember it ever being green before. I thought, this would be new. This would be special. This would change things. But it didn’t change things. Nobody even notices. They just restock the dye. [silence] tassilo: So you decided you weren’t special. adrian: I tested it, and I learned. I’m just like anybody else. I’m ... just the same person as everybody else, you get that? We’re just one web of eyes and ears and mouths and bodies, one giant lurching organism, stuck together, only we can’t see the other portions of ourselves. I wanted to escape it, I wanted to shove myself out of that giant blob of flesh, but it just dragged me back down in. ciara: That’s all very vivid, but ultimately, you’re still a piece of Liutgarde’s death. adrian: That’s how the fair folk work. I get it. You lift me up, you get me to believe, and then, when my pride is at its peak, I fall. liutgarde: I ... don’t know whether to commend your insight or to put my face within my hands, if you should think me fae. adrian: What else can you be? liutgarde: ... a magical princess from the land of neverever, beyond the wide world’s ending. [pause] A warrior of emptiness. Liutgarde, which has the meaning, the people’s house, [A detailed discussion of Excrucian etymology may be found on pg. 379.] liutgarde: or, home to the folk. adrian: The ... faerie ... folk. liutgarde: The point is, you are in the wrong mythological context entirely; to obsess over aliens would be more accurate. tassilo: Excepting, I said helpfully, for the fact that you have withdrawn us beyond the surface of the world, into the land of faery. liutgarde: Yes, Tassilo, yes. Excepting that. adrian: I have no response to that. diane/liutgarde: Then silence falls. gm: There is a time of drifting mist and silence. diane: P.S. I am totally claiming the “the Arc’s Ally is uncomfortably weird” quest option. gm: There is a time of drifting mist and silence; a moment of, almost eerie, connection; and a nagging ... awareness begins to register in all your minds. tassilo: Bloody hell, I left the oven on.

gm: [cough] tassilo: Bloody hell, I left the oven. liutgarde: Tassilo! Without an oven, how will we cook the “hot pockets” of the world’s demise? crosstalk: tassilo: That’s a microwave. ciara: We aren’t doing that any more. gm: That nagging, drifting awareness being, there is a waylet very near. diane: ... that is not the Highly Alarmed, Ltd. patrol I was expecting; nor, a visitation of the Powers. gm: It is a subtle touch upon your senses. It is not the kind of thing you would just notice, under normal conditions, if you were not drifting in the nothingness, in the mists of faerie, in silence and in contemplation. But you are. And so you do. edward: Do we have a sense of ... location? Direction? gm: Strictly speaking, irrelevant; a waylet does not strictly exist inside the world, but like ... a bead inside a crumpled map. If the map were very large, I mean, and the bead extremely small. It is not in the world, but possessing only a certain proximity; a certain adjacency. edward: ok ... gm: In another sense, you would need to hunt for it, and use Navigation within a quarter mile, as I noted earlier; except ... edward: Except? gm: It is coming nearer. Nearer, and nearer, until an eye opens in the icicle itself. diane: Wait, before we deal with that, the icicle has eyes? gm: How do you think you spell icicle? [pause] edward: Oh my GOD, Maddie, get out of my house. gm: This is my house. heather: ... that’s fine, we can leave. gm: [head-desks] Regardless. diane: So the icicle is looking around for us. gm: Yes. diane: Is there any evidence that we were ever here? gm: Did any of you start filling out the forms? [Edward raises his hand. After a moment, so does Heather. Diane sighs.] gm: There is, possibly, a certain degree of evidence, although I am willing to imagine that your misdirection extends to cover it. diane: Please, thank you. And they should both get disappointment bonuses here, seriously. gm: Yeah, sure, Tassilo, Ciara, recover a Cost. [Tassilo and Ciara both take -1 Fugue.] gm: Meanwhile, the eye looks around the room, icicle turning, and finally says, petulantly, “Nothing there.” A

come one, come all! ...

150 voice from somewhere behind it—like it was a recording, and someone was speaking over the actress’ shoulder— says, “Figures.” heather: Your move, Edward. edward: I don’t actually have a move. heather: You were going to do something clever when they showed up to investigate! edward: I was expecting a physical presence! gm: The waylet—not that you’d be aware of it if you hadn’t felt it, previously—is definitely co-located with the consciousness in the icicle. It is fading as that consciousness begins to recede. edward: Um. Um um um. gm: “Initiating containment and cleansing protocols,” it says. “Site clear in 30.” Pause. “25.” Pause ... edward: I’m going to step out and invoke the clearance codes I got from the ilλnati, and also see about infecting this icicle with treachery. gm: “Uh,” she says. “Brad? We’ve got inquisitorial Powers on site.” In the background, you hear a baffled obscenity. tassilo: Listen. We need to meet. Somewhere your Imperator can’t observe you. diane: Do you even know what you’re doing, Edward? edward: I don’t know, not getting contained and cleansed, right? icicle: Actually, uh, 15, I can’t stop the countdown from here, it’s not my site-cleanser. tassilo: What? gm: Adrian tosses in an, “idiot says, ‘what?’” tassilo: What? No, you can’t do that backwards. icicle: 10. ciara: Were you aware, incidentally, that you contain a portal to the portion before and beyond the world? icicle: Oh, geez, that’s private. But I guess it doesn’t matter any longer. ciara: What? gm: Adrian smirks. Icicle: “5.” heather: I am aborting into a dive into Beyond. gm: Give me a spotlight there. heather: This is me, closing my outer eyes and ripping open the other side of the darkness with my strength. This is me looking at the Beyond beyond the icicle, in willful, wicked witness. gm: You fall into a land of endless, static snow. And I guess, unless anyone has another quest action, the chapter ends. edward: I’m calling “you catch a Power’s attention.” Again. heather: I’m done, I think, I mean, I’m in Nınuan. edward: How much can a cleansing protocol really hurt us, anyway? gm: “0.”

glitch: a story of the Not

chapter

� ummary

[This chapter featured the following spotlights and quest actions: ӫ Edward’s Decisive choice to approach his ilλ-nati contacts about this trip; ӫ Diane’s Reckoning: “What’s there to find in this malt shop? Like, is there a piece of my death here?” ӫ Edward’s Attention to how cool? Tassilo? is?? ӫ Heather’s Reckoning of the water treatment facility; ӫ Diane’s Reckoning: “What’s up with this Adrian kid?” ӫ Diane’s quest action, “the Arc’s Ally is uncomfortably weird.” ӫ Edward’s quest action, “you catch a Power’s attention.” ӫ Heather’s Decisive diving out of the world. After the bonus for using up their spotlights, Ciara is up to 11 xp; Liutgarde, to 12 xp, plus 6 on her quest; and Tassilo, to 15. At the beginning of the next chapter, each Cost drops by one, to a minimum of 0. Then, ӫ Liutgarde starts the next chapter at +9 Stilling, −3 Immersion, −3 Fugue, +7 Burn, and −4 Wear. ӫ Tassilo starts the next chapter at +1 Stilling, −2 Immersion, +9 Fugue, −3 Burn, and +5 Wear, and ӫ Ciara starts the next chapter at +7 Stilling, −3 Immersion, +9 Fugue, −3 Burn, and −1 Wear. The gm looks at her npc cost pool and decides that Adrian or icicle girl probably spent one Cost on something along the way, and—while she hasn’t actually thought out the details yet— that the “cleansing protocol” should be impressive enough to cost somebody 5. Her pool for the remainder of the session is now 8.]

151

From the testimony of Osuin Thermidau:

The ace P of the

ame G

Speaking a miracle needs an entire heart. That is why you can only invoke one miracle at a time. You can keep one going. You can keep other things going. But you cannot speak two miracles into the world at once. Just one. Only one. It is all of you. It is all you have.

Characters in a scene set its pace. It is a group effort. They decide, communally, how much time will pass between each action of note. It is possible to have a scene in Nınuan with actions every few years. That does not mean characters stop breathing. Talking. Walking. ... but the scene is not about that. The scene is about their competitive castle-building. Or whatnot. So those are the actions that count. Those are the actions that set the pace of the scene. Maybe you can go the other way too. Maybe you can have a scene where stuff happens every tenth of a second. Stuff that matters. Maybe in that scene people take new actions every tenth of a second. They say, “ok, here’s what I’m doing at 6:36:18.4-5.” Do you remember why we are talking about this? It is because of the miracles. Whether the pace is a year or a tenth-second, a character can use one miracle at a time. At a year. At an hour. At a tenth of a second. It is all of them. They cannot do more. It is not the gm that sets the pace. Maybe the gm arbitrates the pace. But they do not set it. It is set by the people. It is set by the interactions in the scene. If a character wants to be faster, they speed up. They turn their attention to a shorter time. A character cannot do two miracles at a time. But a character can do one miracle, and then one miracle. So they do. Faster than two miracles used to be. Even, maybe, in the time they used for just one miracle, before. This ups the game for the other characters in the scene. Maybe, they think, they must move faster too? At some point, looking at a shorter time does not do any good. At some point you can do many more things, but why? You are going so fast that things don’t have room. They don’t have time to breathe or have consequences. If all you can do is blink part of a blink, it is easy to forget your big goals. Too fast, and your actions get into a logjam. You must stop. Relax. Shift to longer time. Even if it will slow you down. That is the scene’s pace: The time it takes to do one action that matters, and then see what it did. You can only keep two actions going at a time. They can be complicated. They can be very complicated.

interlude: the pace of the game

152 Here is a mundane action: ӫ I want to hang around the lab, coding a simulation, chatting with my officemates, and drinking really terrible coffee. Here is a miracle: ӫ I combine Glorification and Guidance to release the ice dragon within my tattoo and bury the room in ice. Does that look like two miracles? It is not. It is one miracle. It is one whoosh. It is actually one miracle and one mundane action, stuck together, in one big whoosh. That is fine, because that is only one miracle. It would be two miracles if it was a whoosh and a bang. A whoosh and a yow. A whoosh and ... whatever. It is one miracle. One giant whoosh. It is one action, too. It has a miracle part and a mundane part—but, one action. An action can be complicated. But once it starts it has started. If you pay for an action, you pay for that action. You cannot change it. You can expand it. You can explain it. But it is that action. And you can only do two at a time. Glitch is not a tactical game. But that is as close to tactics as it will come. There will be times when you will be stuck. You will have two actions. You will not want to let go. You have paid for them. But there is something else that you want to do. What now? Or, you have one action. But there are two things you want to do. They are not the same whoosh. If they were the same whoosh then they would be only one thing that you wanted to do. They are not both of them miracles. If they were both miracles, you could not do them both at once anyway. No. One of them is mundane. Maybe one of them is a miracle. They are anyway separate things. You can do them together. You can grab a backpack and use a miracle at the same time. One in one hand. One in the other. A whoosh and a [mundane, uninspiring sound.] ... but you have one action going. You want to do two. That is three things. That is not okay. ... this will come up much more than you think. Let’s talk about cheats. The first cheat is that it is not the Eide that does two things at a time. It is the Wyrd. It is not the character that does two actions. It is the player. If the gm says you do something. If they say you dodge. If they say you hear a sound. That is not you. That is not you, taking action. That is the continuum. That is ... integration. Do you want to blink? You can’t blink if you are doing two things. But you are assumed to be blinking. “I blink” is an action. “I am probably blinking,” or, “gm: you’re blinking.”— those are not actions. Those are description. Just a part of the world.

glitch: a story of the Not

153 Do you want to digest? Do not take time to digest. Do not use your action on it. Just ... you are probably digesting right now. You are seeing. You are hearing. You only need an action for more. The second cheat is powers that are Automatic (pg. 249). Those are free. No action. Usually the player must still say: “I am using this power.” Sometimes it is the gm’s idea. Either way they are free. Action-wise, they are free. They start on their own. They end when they stop. The third cheat is very cheap. It is hax. The third cheat is taking damage (pg. 279). You can take damage without an action. You get to take damage without an action. Then, you get to react. You get to show what that damage is doing to you. You get to emote or, e.g., devolve into goo. Even if you were doing two things. This can’t keep going forever. You have to stop one of those three actions before the next scene. But you can do three things for a while. The last cheat is very tricky. You can technically take action out of sequence. You can do two things. Then you can finish them. Then you can flashback to that time and do a third thing. This is a hard thing to exploit. I do not think you should try. I do not think you should spend the game thinking about ways to go over events more than once. Instead I am just saying: Can you use attention to say you just blinked, when you had been doing two things? Maybe. Probably, yes. Can you do flashbacks and flash forwards and time travel without screwing the game up? Yes. The actions players take at different player-times do not clash. If players engage in time travel I do not know what will happen. I am told that players cannot time travel because of the inexorable physical conditions of the world. On this conceit, this rules system depends.

interlude: the pace of the game

155

chapter 10

�ivine A�ributes In that moment Priscivell died, as they had always been fated to die. They fell, as they had always been fated to fall. Their story ended, as it had always been fated to end, nevermore to continue, save in the bellies of birds. ... until a breath it broke the world, and everything had changed. — from The Irreducible Wing, by N. Iolanthe Kess

�omethinG ... immortal In the Strategists there is a spark of something immortal. Something ... transcendental. There is a secret flame inside them that is not measurable in mortal talent, or even in the magic arts: This, we call divinity. It is cousin, perhaps, to that which mortals name as such (the immanent power of the law-beings and their serfs). They too have a thing within that burns beyond mortality. It is heir and splinter, perhaps, to the greater empyreal powers of the Beyond: to those rare, inscrutable, and suzerain phenomena that stalk the void, attending to unknowable business of their own—from time to time disrupting matters of the world and void, but far more often intangible, ineffable: a numinous breath of passage. They are the stars and suns to the Excrucians’ inner fire ... ... but what the Strategists have within them is enough; it is a darkness deeper than the world’s, or a light far brighter, and what it allows for them is miracles. These they wield with divine attributes. There are four divine attributes accessible to Strategists: ӫ Eide: the power of the Strategist’s dream-of-self; ӫ Flore: the power of the Strategist’s bonds in Creation; ӫ Lore: the power of the Strategist’s tie to Nınuan; and ӫ Wyrd: the power of their deep truth and fate. These function much like Ability. Each is rated from 0-7. Each allows for the performance of tasks up to that level— and may be pushed further, at a Cost. Characters may power: ӫ Eide with the loss of self, named Stilling; ӫ Flore, with the loss of perspective, named Immersion; ӫ Lore, with confusion and delirium, named Fugue; ӫ and Wyrd with Burn: damage to the mind and soul. Normally this is the only Cost that may be spent. That said, this is flexible to circumstance. If it’s an obvious fit to what the character does, they can power an attribute up with one of the three other Costs. The exception is mundane Wear, which ... regrettably ... is unable to fuel the power of miracles. A character’s [base Attribute + spent Cost]—minus any relevant “Ward,” as discussed on pg. 257—is called their action level or action result. Burn, Fugue, Immersion, and Stilling—the Costs that can fuel miracles—are sometimes known as the Four Costs.

opposite: by Robin Scott

divine attributes

156

� ide

� lore

A character’s Eide is the being they have dreamt themselves to be and the power and attention they have vested into that dream. It’s used for feats of charm, talent, strategy, and stagecraft. Most of all, it’s used to be who they believe themselves to be. A character’s Eide is closely entangled with that character’s Technique. ӫ Eide 0- Ingenue: Eide 0 characters have no real practice with the arts of Eide. ӫ Eide 1- Titled: Eide 1 characters have found a place in the world ... but what is it? And what title do they wear? ӫ Eide 2- Practitioner: Eide 2 characters have been initiated into the deeper secrets of their Technique. ӫ Eide 3- Defined: Eide 3 characters have an image and a style ... but what are they? ӫ Eide 4- Votary: Eide 4 characters are good at struggling and suffering their way to victory; often, they are willing to struggle and suffer their way to victory, to make of themselves and of their lives a sacrifice ... but for what cause? ӫ Eide 5- Genius: Eide 5 characters are dazzling in at least one particular field—that is to say, their Technique. They may be dazzling in others. ӫ Eide 6- Legendary: Eide 6 characters have done impossible things; they have built a legend ... but what is that legend? What were those things? ӫ Eide 7- Nonpareil: Eide 7 characters may outright overwrite reality with their Eide.

A Strategist’s Flore measures their entanglement with Creation. It’s used to connect to the things that their heart has come to treasure; to receive aid from them; and to awaken their innate and hidden powers. It is progressively harder to stay loyal to Unbeing the further one travels along this path, and harder to travel along this path the more loyal one is to Unbeing; thus, the Chancery has a higher concentration of Flore than does the Host. ӫ Flore 0- Outsider: Flore 0 characters have no real connection to the world. ӫ Flore 1- Ghost: Flore 1 characters have found a faint attachment to the world—but what is it? ӫ Flore 2- Envoy: Flore 2 characters have built something metaphysically and emotionally valid. ӫ Flore 3- Catalyst: Flore 3 characters have taken on intimations of worldly divinity; they have become treasures, to the world. ӫ Flore 4- Awakener: Flore 4 characters have learned to see the hidden beauty and power of the world ... and to bring it forth. ӫ Flore 5- Geomancer: Flore 5 characters wield the treasures of Creation with an adept hand. ӫ Flore 6- Eternal: Flore 6 characters are true enough to win the love and loyalty of the world. ӫ Flore 7- World-Weaver: Flore 7 characters are artisans of wonder: they sip from the same sacred well of creation as the maker of the world itself.

The titles listed for the various levels of Eide are those that the Excrucians themselves have broadly settled upon for use in referring to certain classes of proficiency with the arts of Eide. To a certain degree they are also acceptable titles for individuals, but that’s a secondary use; it is possible, for instance, that an Excrucian might refer to a given Strategist as “Titled” or “Defined (One),” but they are more likely to use the actual title by which that Strategist is known. Similarly, formally referring to someone as “Legendary” or “Genius” is at least mildly trenchant; to honor the relevant level of Eide, one normally cites the specific talent or legend associated with that, instead. Ingenue, Votary, and Nonpareil—while somewhat dismissive, each in their own way—do see use in reference to individuals now and then, as does Practitioner. An example Eide task is demonstrating dazzling talent in the Strategist’s Technique—e.g., winning or running up in a cooking contest, for a character with the Eide of a genius chef. This is the difficulty 5 task, Talent.

The Flore titles are a bit more popular for individuals than the Eide titles are, with the exception of “Outsider;” with the vast majority of Strategists having Flore 0, and not being outsiders to their own society, that title is used as formal address only rarely, and only tongue-in-cheek. An example Flore task is awakening the “true power” within a loved one—revealing their hidden talent as, e.g., a painter, hero, politician, or a lightning beast in human form. This is a difficulty 4 task. A character with Flore 4+ can do it easily; one with 0-3 must spend Immersion (or, more rarely, some other Cost) to do the same.

Alexei is very committed to bitterness. It is sad. He sneers at magic. It is sadder. If he were not so very much in love with the wrongness of the world I could tell him that he was its exception. If he were not so very angry at the idea of there being more to things than the simple physics he grew up with, I could tell him what I see when I look inside him: The bird as large as continents, as pure as winter snow, its feathers blue. — from The CourT of deSmillA monTAud, by Santa Rosenberg

glitch: a story of the Not

157

� ore

� yrd

A character’s Lore measures their ability to command treasures and powers born of Nınuan. It’s used to hunt and bind a Strategist’s favored λ-servants or artifacts, to navigate the void, and for various related arts. For Lore more than for any other attribute the Strategist profits from their ability to spend the Costs. Were they bound to their Lore rating, and unable to spend Fugue, a Lore 0 character falling into Nınuan would be as blind as any human, incapable of perceiving the subtle stratifications of the Not. A character with higher Lore would have eyes to see ... but below Lore 6, would have little to gain from it. ӫ Lore 0- Lostling: Lore 0 characters are all but blind to Nınuan. ӫ Lore 1- Stray: Lore 1 characters are unfamiliar with its sights. ӫ Lore 2- Dustcloak: Lore 2 characters are competent to wander the Beyond. ӫ Lore 3- Hunter: Lore 3 characters have mastered the binding of Arcana. ӫ Lore 4- Outrider: Lore 4 characters have learned the subtler tricks of void navigation. ӫ Lore 5- Perquisitor: Lore 5 characters have a deep and far-ranging knowledge of the Not. ӫ Lore 6- Arcanist: Lore 6 characters have mastered the powers of their Arcana. ӫ Lore 7- Exarch: Lore 7 characters are as one with the nameless void.

A character’s Wyrd is their understanding of, and attunement to, their fate; their deep nature; their interconnected meaning and purpose within the world. It’s used to endure or spread the Strategist’s infection and manifest pure Unbeing within the world. The world can put up a fight against the Wyrd. Sometimes even mortals can oppose this attribute’s bleak miracles. Its signature effect is the power to unmake the world, but that power is eerily vulnerable to mundane action: to true hearts and daring gambles; to honest effort and honest witness; to everything the world is when it’s at its best. It’s not that true hearts are terribly common, much less honest effort or witness, and even daring gambles are fairly rare; this is just a thing that Strategists who specialize in Wyrd should bear in mind. ӫ Wyrd 0- World-Bound: Wyrd 0 characters are essentially mortal. ӫ Wyrd 1- Wyrdling: Wyrd 1 characters have grasped a few hints as to the alienness of the void. ӫ Wyrd 2- Nınuanni: Wyrd 2 characters are more their original self than their mortal one. ӫ Wyrd 3- Armiger: Wyrd 3 characters have studied their deep truths further ... but the Wyrd they’ve found is poisoned by their infection. ӫ Wyrd 4- Sword-Bearer: Wyrd 4 characters are purer weapons of the void. ӫ Wyrd 5- Postulant: Wyrd 5 characters are those who, disenchanted with pure destruction, have begun to seek more useful paths. ӫ Wyrd 6- Potentate: Wyrd 6 characters have found a truth within that is potent even against the Glitch. ӫ Wyrd 7- Illuminate: Wyrd 7 characters have begun to shed their mortal self and worldly form.

Lore titles are also fairly popular in practical use, although “Lostling” and “Stray” are teasing when they are not derogatory and “Hunter” and “Outrider” have limited gravitas. An example level 0 Lore task is looking up some information about a particular Arcanum in a book, database, or whatever other resource the Strategist prefers to use. Even a Lostling may do this much; in fact, with the Lore Attribute, they may do so with a certain miraculous efficiency.

“They say you’ll answer anything,” London said. “Anything and everything. Five bucks.” London fished in his pocket. He tossed across a ten. “Two questions,” he said. “First, what’s a question that you can’t answer?” Perry leaned in a bit. Whispered in London’s ear. London’s complexion grew darker, and darker with each word. “I can’t ask you that!” he said. “No refunds,” Perry said. — from A WAlk WiTh rAVenS (Perry/OC), by Shelly Singleton

“Nınuanni” is not used as a title; it is merely an acknowledgment. Few would claim the title “WorldBound” or “Wyrdling” for themselves. The other titles are commonly in use. An example Wyrd 3 task is sharing a shadow of one’s own infection with someone else. A character with Wyrd 3+ can do this without spending Burn; those with Wyrd 0-2 must spend Burn (or some other Cost).

usinG the

� ivine attributes Each divine attribute grants access to nine lesser powers and nine greater powers. These are specific, although many are flexible and many are personalized in various ways. Lore, for example, offers powers of investigation, vision, spherecraft, hunting, navigation, percipience, infusion, inchoation, and invocation. The lesser powers for each Attribute are arranged from difficulty 0-8. The greater powers are roughly parallel to

divine attributes

158 them—each similar to a lesser power, but stronger—and add +4 to the difficulty. Thus, actions using the divine attributes can face a difficulty ranging from 0-12, and each individual difficulty level is tied to one lesser power, one greater power, or both. Most of these powers are “miracles:” actions writ directly into the world. A few are “Rites,” which circumvent the world, shifting the substrate beneath it, or “wishes,” wild dreams that focus on the ends but not the means. These specific powers aren’t the limit for the divine attributes. Instead, they’re the central focus. They’re the most typical, straightforward effect(s) available at that level of difficulty—but each level of difficulty, at the start of its description, will also talk about what the power is about: An energy, an effect, that the Strategist can manipulate. They can counter it, or similar effects, when used by others. They can twist or alter it as a thing within the world. They can develop new ways to use it that don’t quite fit the standard form. Creating what amounts to a brand new basic effect may raise the difficulty, take a certain amount of time and practice, or require a certain level of attention, at the gm’s discretion— But more generic manipulations of the power are the same difficulty as the effect itself. More specific rules for miracles are found on pg. 247; for Rites, pg. 258; and for wishes, on pg. 260.

NPC-� nly attributes Eide, Flore, Lore, and Wyrd are more or less specific to Strategists—the Nobles, Imperators, and even the other kinds of Excrucians have their own divinity, and breaching through to the powers of another type is rare. In practice, these other powers will function much like the Strategists’. They’ll come in sets of four attributes, like, e.g., the Deceivers’ quartet of Deepness, Persona, Sealed, and Theft (pg. 408). They’ll have nine lesser abilities, nine greater abilities, and a “buy up to” system. These have been developed in depth for previous rpgs, and distilled down for use here, with details found on pg. 394-410: Thus, if a gm wants to build a character of any type as preparation for the game, and get a sense of what they can do by, e.g., dividing 25 points among their attributes ... they may. However, there will be a key difference in how these npconly attributes function: as discussed on pg. 280-281, npc attribute levels and Costs aren’t there to facilitate tactical faceoffs between npcs and pcs. Rather, they exist to keep the gm’s use of miracles grounded. Thus, the npconly attributes are built not for precision but for Fermi approximation: for rough, in the moment, calculations of what they might be able to do, and for (about) what rough cost. It should be noted that this is specific and intentional; that, in short, the gm is not obliged in any sense to update

glitch: a story of the Not

this manner of handling things if more information becomes available about an npc-only attribute at some later time. A player might know details of previous games using an attribute. A later game or supplement might express one (or four) of those nine-power ladders in tactical detail, and in fully Glitch-compatible form. None of that matters; the gm can and should ignore all of that that doesn’t actively help them and keep running npcs in loose, approximate terms. ... for that matter, until they’ve fully internalized the Strategist rules, they should probably be running npc Strategists based on a loose sense of how they work as well.

combininG

� owers

Characters may combine multiple miracles or multiple Rites, from the same Attribute, into the same action. This does not allow combining miracles and Rites, nor does it allow combining miracles or Rites from different Attributes. The combined power has difficulty equal to that of the highest level power involved. Combining powers can’t override a power’s various tags, discussed on pg. 247-256, but it does share them—e.g., a combination of two powers tagged Time-Consuming (pg. 251), meaning they take a while to execute, is usually just “on the high end of Time-Consuming.” A combination of two powers tagged Quest (pg. 252), meaning that they’re sustained in quest rather than action slots, can fit into a single quest slot ... but a combination of a Quest power and a regular power can’t go in a quest slot, and can’t be sustained as a regular action, either. The final power does have to make sense, so combining powers won’t come up as often as you might think; however, for instance, a silver-tongued Strategist might combine Intensity and Stunt (pg. 168) into a single, level 2 Eide effect. Characters can also combine Ability actions with miracles, Rites, Gifts, and wishes. The difficulties here do not combine—the player pays for the Ability action, if necessary, and the divine power separately. Consider (Greater) Study Up actions to have the “Very TimeConsuming” and “Quest” tags and other Ability actions to have no tags at all; as before, combined actions can combine, but not override, tags. This option—combining Ability and the divine Attributes—may sound complicated, but it’s not: It’s mostly for things like “this power makes my words more charming, so I’d like to say some words while I use it” or “I want to run forward while using miracle X.” Ability actions are fundamentally normal things to be doing, so allowing Ability to combine with the divine Attributes really just says that characters can walk, talk, run, throw, scheme, shoot, curse, read, write, swim, laugh, scan the Internet, or whatever else while using their various divine powers, paying Wear to do so if they must.

159

chapter 11

id� � Strategy, at heart, is presentation.

— from How to Kill Enemies, by Frideric Krim

the shell of

�ouls

Eide is the power of a Strategist’s dream-of-self: of the mind and body and most of all the being they have chosen. It is not the powers of the shape of that dream, even if that dream has a superior shape. It is not the inherent puissance of the Strategist. Rather, it is a richness invested into that dream through time and will. Eide expresses itself in presentation. It glitters with the glamor of celebrity. It is not the deep arising Wyrd from which the Strategist derives their dream; it is the dream as it is seen. Therefore, Eide is a correlated power. It is deeply connected to the relationships that the Strategist has formed, the places they have built for themselves within the world, the people they have known. Amidst that context their dream has expressed itself; in those eyes has that dream shone. Unlike mortal image, which is ephemeral and phantasmal, Eide is metaphysically concrete. It exists of itself, without the consent of others. It is not contingent upon the flickering of human thoughts. Eide is what is seen, but at the same time: Eide sustains, even when not seen. Eide is armipotent. From their dream the Strategist gains the ability to impose their self-definition on the world. Through that dream they gain the power to control the perceptions held by others. The stratagems that make their name come not from their ineffable Wyrd, not from their deep inner truths, but from the Eide—the story— that declares them capable. They are celebrity strategists, able to accomplish anything because and exactly because their cunning schemes are legend. A Strategist learns their Eide from their choices. They reinforce it with their witness to their self. Thus when they are brave their Eide grows braver. When they are strong, their Eide grows strong. This is so even if that bravery is forced; that strength, a lie. Similarly, should they come to believe, through trickery or truth, that they are good, they become better. The mechanism for that change is Eide: First, their Eide, their dream-of-self, becomes a better dream. Then they, within that shell, grow meritable. Should they learn, through trickery or truth, that they are vile, the opposite occurs: the mien of their Eide adulterates. In the void this process is monadic. It is solipsistic. There, their Eide evolves from its own principles. It does not interact with any other thing.

eide

160 In Creation, the Strategists are shaped by others’ influence. They bind their Eide to those they come to love: it becomes an Eide of the one that loves them. They bind their Eide to the people they hate. Their connections to communities and careers they care about infiltrate themselves into their Eide: Their Eide becomes a record of all that is important to them, in life. Eide is not entirely contained within the skin. It fills the world around the Strategist. It is the force of their presence. It is the story that surrounds them. When a Strategist hunts someone, that hunt is Eide. When a Strategist helps someone, that help is Eide. More precisely, the shape of that hunt is Eide; the shape of that help is Eide; the way those things are seen, by the Strategist and others—that falls within this faculty. Thus, a Strategist’s power to shape others’ perceptions is a part of Eide. To make others believe a ruse, they dream a glamour across that ruse. To hide something from sight, they dream an occultation. Their greatest deceptions and tricks rely upon the miracles and Rites of Eide. A Strategist will say that Eide is their promises to themselves. A Strategist will say it is their harrowing-hook to root the mortal soil. Some will say, it is a hall of mirrors, or a wicked blight— But most of all, it is the image of themselves that they have learned through time. If they are fortunate, that image shows a self they can accept. If they are not ... there is little, save for long and painful struggle, to be done. The Eide Attribute measures the power and attention the Strategist has invested in this self-experience. With no points in Eide, characters are nameless eidolons. They are bound to nothing, sworn to nothing, and they have no mirror in their self. They lack commitment to their attachments. They have no hand in their own notoriety, or, perhaps, they are unknown. Higher ratings in Eide represent increasing sharpness of self-definition. They also represent a greater power consciously invested in that dream. Each level of Eide costs 2 points and makes a number of powers relating to social interaction, self-presentation, strategy, and self-identified talent less costly. At Eide 0, even the most cherished personal connection requires a literal miracle to assert; at Eide 7, the character’s ego casually bleeds out to shape the world. Low levels of Eide mean that the character’s inherent talents are unformed, poorly understood, and, most of all, difficult to integrate History is written by the winners—is a human phrase, a causal phrase, written by a people immiserated firmly into time. The Strategists are immured instead within a web of correlation; they say: The Is, subordinates itself before the Eide. — from The bellum mAGnum: A ChronoloGy of exCruCiAn ASSAulT, Volume iV, by Kip Narekatski (with Robin Hall)

glitch: a story of the Not

The Core Powers The core powers of Eide are these: DIFFICULTY

POWER

USE

Agony

1 2 3

Intensity Stunt Costumery

4

Cliffhanger

5

Talent

6

Strategy

7

Casting

8

Misdirection

player-level control over and protection of the infection glamour; importance cool Technique-based stunts instantly donning/doffing a signature costume “faking” getting hit by a supernatural effect demonstrating Technique mastery making a miraculously effective plan splitting off minions from one’s Eide making something selectively impossible to perceive

Each can be used by a Strategist with [Eide ≥ difficulty] ... or by a Strategist with lower Eide, if they pump up their Eide with Stilling (pg. 271) or some other Cost. Greater forms of each of these powers are available at +4 to the base power’s difficulty. Variations and combinations are also possible, as discussed on pg. 150.

into the public world: They may know that they are an architect of endless cunning plans, or unparalleled at social manipulation, but learning the proper expression for that talent takes enormous work. High levels of Eide, conversely, ensure the world is dazzled: it will collaborate entirely in the character’s dream-of-self. In addition to the Eide Attribute, a character may also purchase “Gifts” that relate to Eide. These represent specific insights into the self achieved out of the normal order; power vested into the Strategist’s image in an unusual or lopsided way; or Eide-like power with an unnatural or external source. Some of these Gifts appear later, along with a general system for constructing your own Gifts.

The Strategist’s Technique Part of each Strategist’s Eide is their Technique: the way they dream themselves as solving problems; the kind of genius they have dreamt themselves to have. Do they focus on scientific solutions, or on magical ones? Are they clever, swift, or strong? Do they solve every problem with a silver tongue, or with junk they’ve scavenged from the road? Are they specialists in soccer? Do they commune with spirits of the wind? The player will need to choose the Strategist’s Technique before using many of the powers found in Eide. opposite: by Lee Moyer

162 “I can’t stay here,” he said. His eyes searched hers, desperate, wiggling, and green. “There is a serpent that comes and eats my heart. You know that now.” Her voice had echoes of archaic grandeur. It gripped him, like her hands upon his shoulders did. “That serpent is no disqualification, Mr. Cassius, from your attendance to Introductory Calculus II (Math 108), in Section C.” Stay, the air in the hallway whispered. Stay, rustled his notes within his bag. But— “Integrated from the space between us,” he said, and their tears were flowing, “are the arbitrary constants of the soul.” — from dr. GrAndA And The people people, by Isaac Shipp

Level 0 Eide: “Ingenue” 0 points Characters with this level of Eide don’t have a focus on self-reflection. To the extent they think about themselves, they likely focus on their infection or some other object of personal grievance: They define themselves not by themselves, but by the cross they bear. This is a very non-committed level of Eide. The character is likely to have connections to the world. They may be important. They may be stable. But they are not binding yet. The Ingenue is one who can change their mind one day about what relationships define them; who can decide on a new meaning and role within society; who can dump a loved one, or community, or de-prioritize them, and go find another. Sometimes they’ll do this by choice. Sometimes it’s a moral failing. ... sometimes they just can’t hang on. At Eide 0, the stories of the Strategist are contradictory. Their strategies are not stable. Their concept of self is not stable. Lacking a strong sense of who they are, they are bad at shaping the perceptions others have of them: People keep seeing through them. They can’t maintain a decent face.

example concepts Sisenand Grimhilt is dying of an old hut in the woods. Ultimately they can’t avoid returning to that place, and to what awaits them there. That hut is a sigil burned into their fate. It waits within them as much as it waits outside them ... but they’re running from it anyway. They’re running from it, never settling in any place, never committing to any bonds, rife with the knowledge that any friendship, any job, or any anything that they ever find will only tie them somehow into the causal web that leads them to that hut. Amalasontha Getacian is dying of the bathroom. Most people can use one safely, or at least as safely as regional standards allow. Not she. For her, each visit is attended by strange horrors. Phantoms whisper from a public bathroom’s stalls: “will you hear my tragic story?” Spiders crawl the walls and hide amongst the shelves. Mirrors

glitch: a story of the Not

don’t reflect the world she’s in, but awful wonderlands. Most consistently, the bathrooms that she enters sprout weeds and mysteries and decay towards wind-cleansed wilderness the longer she remains inside. This is no obscene or vulgar death; it makes no assault upon her dignity; in fact, bloody oracles writ upon the bathroom walls have made it clear to her that undignified attempts to avoid the facilities would do nothing but spill these problems out into the world … but that has left her facing an ever-increasing and inescapable burden of great stress. It cannot easily be voiced to others. If she does voice it, it earns her no respect for the intensity of grace and strength she has. Thus, she has become alienated from society. Thus, she spends her days in paralyzed horror and in struggle. She has little thought to give to how others see her, and she has not developed Eide.

Level 1 Eide: “Titled” 2 points Characters with this level of Eide have found a place in the world. They have earned a title—whether it’s something as fantastical as “the Queen of the Russian Forests” or as prosaic as “Apprentice Baker (Executive Sweets).” More importantly, they’ve embraced that title: On some fundamental level, it’s become who they are, and who they know themselves to be. This title isn’t the root-Wyrd of their existence. It also isn’t necessarily the most obvious title for their surface form. It’s something that emerges from a watershed moment—a turning point, a qualitative change—when an external identity breaks through the terrafi sairyd, the wall between souls, and becomes a portion of their Eide. An accumulation of witness crashes in, tidal, tsunamic. To that accumulation, the title gives context. To that accumulation, the title gives a name. When the Strategist grasps who they have been within the world, their title denominates its contribution to their Eide. Thus we can say, before that moment, they may have known that they were tall; they may have seen that they were cruel ... but if you asked them, and WHO is tall? And WHO is cruel? the answers circled back to nothingness; to the central unanswerable existence of the Wyrd. At Eide 1+, they might answer, instead: It is the (apprentice) baker. Or, It is the queen.

example concepts Eutharic Carolus is dying of hand sanitizer. His encounter with the glitch misfiled him in the books of the world as some sort of hand-borne disease. He hates this, both for itself and for the practical constraints that it imposes. Why? Because if there is anything he knows about Eutharic Carolus, it is that he is a doctor. A man of medicine! And not disease ... Vadamerca Zakynthian is dying of mecha. They don’t exist. Not on Earth, anyway. Not even in most Chancels. But there is this inalienable drive in her to make them

163 real—a drive made unachievable by the quintessential nature of the Earth. This conflict withers her. Beneath the sere force of that truth she repeatedly clashes against the world and comes undone. But what choice has she? Even if she could cease to be this way, she would not so. Before all other things, she is a Mecha Pilot.

Level 2 Eide: “Practitioner” 4 points Characters at this level of Eide have been initiated into the deeper and more mysterious secrets of their Technique. Usually it is some community or lineage that has initiated them—and what was that? ... but sometimes it is the result of private inspiration. Like the title, a character’s initiation can be fantastical or mundane. They might learn the obnubilated secrets of True Sociology from the shadow faculty at Berkeley. Alternatively, they might just be really good at on-the-spot engineering—not because somebody taught them special tricks, but because they’ve thought about it a lot. This is in one sense the power to do the almostimpossible. In another sense, because this is still Eide, it is the power of being an initiate. The character does not necessarily know specific denumerable tricks; rather, they can convincingly present themselves as knowing how to do the extraordinary. This is an ability acquired by learning denumerable tricks that test the limits of verisimilitude, but once the Eide of the initiate is established, it sways the world and their dream-of-self; their insight into all such tricks becomes more facile.

example concepts Melancholy Eitsfulg is dying of spirits and the otherworld. Ghosts harass her. Eventually she is dragged into the ghost world beneath the human world and therein lost. The whole process is quite unpleasant. However, learning the mysterious Ghost Punch Art from the legendary GhostPunching Dojo has helped her quite a bit. Renault Amphibolous is dying of cats. Well, of one It’s not like I knew how to get a gun. I mean, I’ve seen the stores, but I never actually kept track of where they were, and if I found one, I’d make a fool of myself at the counter. I’d act out dramatic laser sights and talk about “really big rats, like, will this kill them?” and they’d make whole new laws restricting gun access for the mentally troubled and even name one after me. I don’t know how to get one. Most of my FRIENDS don’t even know how to get one. It would have been a serious problem, under the circumstances; except, there was Beatrice. Beatrice was the kind of girl who could find a gun at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box. ... in bulk, out of Costco. ... at back alley gun stands, at bake sales, for the local Church. — from SieGe, by Eugene Slate

cat. Well, of he, himself. See, the longer Renault stays alive within the world, the more signs he sees that he’s not actually himself, but just the freedom-dream of a cat, a cat that’s drowning in a bag. The signs range from the way his fingernails grow into claws if he doesn’t glare them back to normal to his abnormal balance to the pale shaking nightmares that he wakes from every night ... but if he ever gives in and accepts the implication, whether out of futility and despair or to ask a question of the cat-god elders with whom he shares that sack, he will not be able to return before he drowns. Only after a long process of reformation will he return into the world. It is sooth that he is neither cat nor human in the end, but a Prince of Nınuan; his tortured life cycle is not his true origin, but a timeless corruption imposed on his existence; only, it is a corruption that he can not escape. It offers one privilege: over the centuries of his self-aware existence, in which he has many times been driven into that tumult-tossed cat-sack, he has learned many secrets of burglary and the night among the cats. While he maintains his existence as Renault Amphibolous, he is unparalleled as a thief.

Level 3 Eide: “Defined” 6 points Defined characters have crystallized their Eide. They have coaxed the inchoate sensibilities of their identity into a clearer form. They have made their dream-of-self crisper. They have, in short, committed to an image: A presentation. A concept. A public self. Now they are more than “the Queen of the Forest.” They are “the Queen of the Forest, garbed in green, with opal-dotted silver crown and wooden stave and pet crow upon their shoulder.” Now they are more than “an Apprentice Baker (Executive Sweets).” They are “an officiant clad in the flour-specked uniform of Executive Sweets’ later hours; they have a selection of the shop’s pastries, a bathroom key, and a rolling pin always readily to hand.” They have something of that sort, at least, for whatsoever Eide they do possess. Traditionally this accompanies broader recognition. The Queen of the Forest is garbed in green not merely because the character has reflected more deeply upon themselves; it is also because that has been reported. The Apprentice Baker is flour-dusted not merely because they study Eide, but also because it is expected. If the character’s title does not easily lend itself to distinctive garb, Eide 3+ also traditionally represents a narrowing of scope: The character is more than just “a citizen of Boise,” say; they are a citizen of Boise, as recognized by something ... but what? And for what? If, for instance, the Mayor recognizes them as a citizen of Boise, because they hold the key to the city, then their image most likely has that key in hand. If it is the DMV that recognizes them, instead, then their public self will have a car—and, more generally, have an image suited to being recognized as a driver.

eide

164 example concepts Amalgard at-Vidius is dying of grain. It is poisonous to him. Early in the cycle of his infection, only wheat, rye, and barley sicken him. The reaction spreads to other kinds of grains as his symptoms accelerate. Ultimately it spans so much of the vegetable kingdom as to make him a functional carnivore. At the same time, the malice of his syndrome ripens. Ordinary and even extreme efforts to keep wheat and rye from his food cease to be enough: they will strive, with a malevolent and vernal plenitude, to find their way into his meals, into his clothes ... in their love or hate for Amalgard at-Vidius, throughout wheresover he might be. His syndrome enrages him. That rage defines him. He has remade himself “The Farmstead Executioner.” Clad in a breathing mask and a suit, in the employ of some unknown bank, he travels from farm to farm in the heartland finding reasons to foreclose on them—or to force their owners to abandon them, without even that legal nicety. This is not an Excrucian thing. This is not a way to kill the world. He wants to find time to kill the world, but that is that, and this is this: ending farmsteads is just his life. Retemaris Arproprion is dying of The City. This is because The City and urr life have unhealthily intertwined. The polis Arproprion is founded upon urm. When it escapes urr body it spreads through the world around urr. It infects the people and the bureaucracy in urr vicinity. In the end, I lost the duel. I could not help it. I was very distracted. I kept thinking: all right, so he pulled the sword from his partner’s heart. That was very magical and scary. But, do we all just have swords rattling around in there? What are they actually made out of ? If the sword breaks, does her heart break? Does he ever bump into people on the subway and have their swords come out? Are there, like, some people with swords and others with, like, glaive-guisarmes, and what would he have done if he’d fallen in love with someone with one of those? I don’t think his arm is even long enough to pull a glaive-guisarme out of somebody’s heart. Is it? And then I started imagining it like that magician’s trick with the endless handkerchief, only with the sacred weaponry representing—I guess, agency? Will? Destiny? And that was about when mine, which as far as I know was made by an actual blacksmith and not pulled out of somebody’s chest—not that I know that, not that I have any proof that I have not been wrong about the whole premise of how blacksmithing works all along, or industrialized manufacture; for all I know it’s all just dramatic rooms somewhere with handsome princes pulling machined car parts out of their lovers, but anyway, my sword, my metal sword, which was a perfectly good sword, you understand, except that it was not actually in my hand any longer at that time: it went away. He wouldn’t tell me any of it. He laughed at me. He stomped my arm. “There is no ‘what’ or ‘why,’” he said. “I am a Sacred Duelist. That is all.” “What?” I told him. “No!” — from TAnGibiliTy, by Elliott Porterfield

glitch: a story of the Not

It makes them believe not only that the territory around Retemaris is within Arproprion, but that it has always been. This much is beneficial. However, as the city spreads, Retemaris withers. Retemaris’ life force cannot sustain the yawning polis. Urr vitality, urr essential power of dreaming urrself into existence, is sapped by its dispersal through the ever-larger abstract systems and concrete roadways that are the city’s veins. Struggling to escape urr fate, Retemaris has become “The Fugitive Prince:” simply but elegantly dressed, well-met, with easy access to the city’s riches ... and always ready to pull out urr convertible scooter/ultralight aircraft for a quick escape at need. (For instance, if someone asks urm too many questions, or tries to insist on urr “duties” as Arproprion’s founder and head.)

Level 4 Eide: “Votary” 8 points Characters at this level of Eide have given themselves to something. There is some cause, belief, or principle they are willing to suffer for; to face extinction for; even, perhaps, to face the worst of their infection for. ... but what? The defining characteristic of the Votary is that they may freely martyr themselves. They pay no additional cost to perform a sacrifice ploy, in which they accept some terrible fate for a tactical advantage—e.g., allowing something bad to happen to themselves, with a plan to break free later; or, inviting their own infection down upon their heads. This isn’t always a good idea even when it’s free; it’s still a terrible fate—but the possibility is always readily at hand. A constant part of the calculus of their commitments is this: Bad things now may bring a turnabout, at a later time. It makes sense because they have something to fight for that isn’t just “don’t let bad things happen to me.” Probably something even more visceral than “the world should die” or “the world needs fixing.” Something more tactile than that. There is something right there, right next to their heart, that they can reach for, that they can hang on to, that makes such a sacrifice worthwhile. Because self-sacrifice and apparent self-sacrifice are a trademark of this level, victories over Strategists with Eide 4+ are difficult to trust. It’s bad enough when an Eide 0 Strategist plummets over a cliff to apparent doom—to be honest, that’s almost meaningless until you’ve seen the body—but if their Eide is at 4+, it’s a safe assumption that they’re fine. It’s not just that their dream-of-self is refined enough to control what you’re seeing as they seem to fall screaming to their death; it’s also that they’ve probably done worse than that little tumble to themselves.

example concepts Riciberga Wendelin is dying of philosophy. Probably. Arguably. If you want details she will refer you to her extensive list of publications on the subject. The point is, she doesn’t really have to die as long as she fails to accept the essential quality of self-identification and existence within

165 the moment that mortality requires. She doesn’t really have to die as long as she immerses within the essentially monadic character of her otherworldly origination. ... but again and again she sets this aside, again and again she forces herself to accept experience and ultimately death, because it is necessary. Because without it, she would not be effective. The world is wrong, you see, and something must be done. Lagariman Dracontos is dying of delight. His happiness is blinding. Ultimately, it reaches the point where it unmakes him, where even his ability to recognize it as a sickness, as a wrongness, even his desperate struggle to reject it and immerse himself in dolor, fails, and he delights in his own destruction. For a long time his rejection of happiness was as iron. For a long time, that rejection only broke when he himself broke beneath the inexorable progress of his infection. Now that he has found a home and love on Earth, though, he finds that rejecting happiness entirely is a struggle. Burdening others with his willful despondency for the sake of slightly longer intervals of existence has begun to seem too selfish and too cruel.

Level 5 Eide: “Genius” 10 points Characters with this level of Eide infuse their dream-ofself with the shine of marvels. Their Eide is rich in those substances that intrigue the mind, that lure the witness to invest that Eide with interest. They have become brilliant and delightful. The light in them is infectious. They inspire and amaze. Possibly, they terrify. People react to this. They themselves react to this. The world reacts as well: It exalts them and admires them. Within the field of their Technique, it deems them as passing any test of their potential—unless they choose to hide their light or their invigilator is corrupt, and sometimes even then. They are extraordinary and they are graced.

example concepts Sadagares Arkyn is dying of caves. He is dying of the things that move beneath the surface of the world. He has seen the true face of the chthonic realm. He has borne witness to its horrors. Therefore, they hunt him; and he, in turn, hunts them. He descends repeatedly into abysmal depths and wins forth deadly puissance and vital lore—and dies. Over and over again, he dies. It is fortunate, at least, that he stands among the greatest adventurers of the age; were he any less, he would scarcely live. Gudelive Ibnassian is dying of illusions. She has learned that the piles of perception and cognition that constitute the false appearance of reality are not contingent. She has learned that the illusionary perspective mortals use to approach an understanding of reality is not neutral and not lifeless. Gudelive Ibnassian has discovered a horrific ecosystem of the mind, wherein certain perception-objects, conception-objects, and sensation-objects are actively malign. Wherein they are predators. They feed on humans

“ You can’t be serious,” she said. “ You’re not in the twentieth century any longer,” I told her, “and ‘sleuthing’ is what knights do in between their fights with dinosaurs. We have data analysts. We have computers. We have, well. Ubiquitous surveillance, I suppose.” She was frowning. “I assume you mean, in stories.” “What?” “I won’t be encountering sleuthing knight-dilettantes—” “... correct.” “—out on the street?” “... mn,” I agreed. “Then,” she said, “I put it to you that I may be a defrosted has-been sleuth, and my approaches hopelessly obsolete—not to mention my ability to slay dinosaurs while dressed in shining armor is somewhat ... questionable—but I have one thing that all your data analysts and computing engines and ubiquitous surveillance machines do not.” “Human intuition is a myth,” I protested. “And a misnomer, when—” She lifted a finger to stop me from speaking any further. Then, she waved my unfinished words away. “No, no, no,” she said. “I have a suspect.” — from The finAl CASe of ShirlAbeT WriGhT, by Amber Smith

and on other thoughts. Humans have no way to avoid them. They are trapped within the samsaric world, as helpless as any grazing grass. She is a little better: a spiritual and mental prodigy, able to build even the most elaborate mental structures or break free of the most fundamental illusions—but even she must struggle to keep her mind clean of the probing tendrils of the skandhic beasts.

Level 6 Eide: “Legendary” 12 points Legendary characters can accomplish the impossible ... but changing themselves is a little harder. They have honed their Technique to a supernatural level. Even if it’s just “folksy wisdom” or “common sense,” they have brought such supporting talents under its banner that it can lay angels, devils, and dragons low. With a Technique more like “magic” or like “science,” they may well crack the vaults of Heaven. This is not abstract potential. This is not hyperbole. This kind of thing has happened. At Eide 6+, the character’s legend resounds throughout the world. Often, their name and face is known as well. Mortals may have no reckoning of them, but the law-beings remember. The Powers remember. The other Excrucians have heard some word of their great deeds. ... but what were they? What are they known for being, for doing, for being able to accomplish, for having done? A character may reach Eide 6 without accomplishments. It’s rare, but it can happen. In that case, Creation and Nınuan know them by false tales. These may be allegations

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166 made by others or illusions spun directly from the fabric of their dream-of-self.

example concepts Brandila Silva is dying of tornadoes. When she was young, one of them tossed her into a magical land. She escaped. Now tornadoes hunt her, as do all the appurtenances of that land. They want her back, but she won’t go. When she is dragged back, when she survives that journey, she uses her Technique (“vicious brutality from an unexpected angle”) to defeat that land’s great terrors. She has beaten more than a few that shouldn’t even have a weakness that a girl like her can hurt. The rest of the time, she turns that viciousness upon the law-beings that haunt Creation. For both these things she is made legend. Sigibald Abteien is dying of theft. Most of the time, he is scattered across the Earth. Then someone collects the pieces of him. They gather the bones and cerements and metal parts of him that are strewn about the world. He becomes a juggernaut. Then he is terrifying: a reincarnate sage, sustained by an unearthly vigor, commanding spirits ancient born of fire, sky, and stone. ... but bit by bit, from the moment of his reassembly, his pieces are stolen and scattered away. Archaeology students wander off with his bones. Burglars steal his cerements. Cats bat the metal pieces of him off of a balcony to vanish in the streets below. He must constantly attend to every part of him lest someone (or something) steal it away. Always and every time, he fails. Only because his legend is so great do others take the time to gather up the pieces once again.

Level 7 Eide: “Nonpareil” 14 points Characters at this level of Eide have transformed it into a physical presence. It is a manifest thing, a reality bubble. Where they go, it follows and precedes them. It intrudes into the world, a force of fable and of story: A little shell wherein mundanity cannot intrude. What figures and what edifices fill that little world? What realities do they reject? What is their bubble of dream and legend like?

Most air traffic controllers weren’t pyrokinetic, but, then, most air traffic controllers weren’t Terrence, either. He wore it like a part of him, worked it into his job, built up a unity between his vocation and his private skills. “We’ve got ice on the wings!” Andrea yelled, and Terrence rose. He rose like a hero stepping onto stage; like a cop going out to face a monster, like a paramedic to a brainstorm—like a phone had been ringing in the back of a building for, like, twenty minutes plus, and he was the guy who was going to answer it, whatever fearsome consequences might befall. — from The dAy of The VzleTen, by Nikola Smith

glitch: a story of the Not

example concepts Beucadican Myrkvior is dying of smoking. He fell asleep with a cigarette lit. He dreamt in the smoke. In his dreams, he saw the Thing—the Thing that is bound within the houses of the tobacco firms, the Thing they have elected themselves to keep; the Thing that ought never have been kept within the world. Because Beucadican has seen that Thing, the tobacco companies must kill him. Because he has seen that Thing, they can kill him, for all that he is a Prince of Nınuan. Their guns can touch him, as can their smoke. Until the moment of his death, however, he shall have his Eide as shield and armor; clad in the dazzle of celebrity, he has made himself the Governor of Missouri and the head of a major philanthropic group. His ambitions run even higher. Evgeniya Davkiya is dying of claustrophobia. It begins as a subtle discomfort in smaller spaces, but her syndrome worsens. Eventually, even open plains beneath a cloudless sky are too confined. She is brought to her knees then, screaming, squeezed between the weight of earth and stars. In panic and exhaustion, she will die. Until that day, though, she is legend: Evgeniya Davkiya, renowned and storied, traveling nature guardian and ombudswoman of the East European Plain.

rules for

� ide

The “power source” for Eide effects is called Stilling. A character begins the game with [10 × Eide] points of Stilling. This will rise as they invoke difficult Eide effects. It will fall both over the course of time and when it has harmful results. Characters may invoke Eide effects with [difficulty ≤ Eide] for “free”—it requires no Stilling. Often a character will wish to go beyond that. Not only will the higher-Eide effects often appeal to lowerEide Strategists, not only do characters sometimes need additional Eide to overcome the miraculous barriers known as “Wards” (pg. 257) ... but only by going beyond their base Eide can a Strategist access difficulty 8-12 Eide effects. To get there, a Strategist may buy the extra Eide they need by crystallizing themselves—by defining themselves a bit more firmly than they had done; by locking down a dream that had, previously, been more flexible and unformed—or by changing an already-formed nature in a way not entirely good. The character names the Eide level they wish to emulate; the practical maximum, in the absence of a bidding war, is 23. They perform the effect. If the effect succeeds—which is to say, if it functions essentially as stated, rather than being blocked or undone outright by hostile countereffects— they accumulate Stilling equal to [desired Eide − original Eide.] For instance, if a Votary with level 4 Eide wishes to perform a level 6 effect, they will, by default, accumulate 2 points of Stilling. Put another way, the character adds +2

167 to their Stilling total. It is good to note, from time to time, what this Stilling actually represents, what the character is actually doing that crystallizes them, what the effects might be, but that is not required; more precisely, if not established at the time of the miracle, it will either be a subtle influence that eventually fades away or a dramatic one that will be established at a later time. Thus, a player whose character is dramatically reaching beyond their limits may choose to explain how, in doing so, they re-define their own nature; if the character is engaging in what they consider a work-a-day miracle, even if the total amount of accumulated Stilling is the same, the player need not do so. A character must always buy enough Stilling to succeed at the basic effect. They can add more to overcome a Ward (pg. 257) or opposition when and if they discover it’s there. This extra purchase is a little Slow (pg. 251) compared to miracles, though, and in a fast-paced struggle, they may fall behind (see pg. 151, 262). Taking 3+ Stilling at once is a notable moment. The Stilling itself is still a bad thing, but the character will earn a bonus xp. Conceptually,

EXAMPLE A character is a Practitioner, with level 2 Eide. For this character, the action chart looks like: EFFECT TYPE

ACTION LEVELS

Instinctive (0 Stilling) Casual (1 Stilling) Rough (2 Stilling) Unpleasant (3 Stilling) Hard (4-7 Stilling) Agonizing (8+ Stilling)

Levels 0-2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Levels 6-9 Level 10+

What the player probably memorizes is this: Level 0-2 Eide effects are the basics: manifesting my infection, impressing people with my title, and showing off my Technique. Lesser agonies, intensity, and stunts. I can do these things for free. Level 3 Eide effects are “lesser costumery” effects: they let me summon my traditional costume and its associated goods. I have to push myself a little for this, but it is not difficult. Level 4-5 Eide effects are, respectively, all about rolling with it when things are going wrong (level 4) and impressing people (level 5). The cliffhanger rite and greater agony miracles; the talent rite and greater charms. These effects are pretty unpleasant. Level 6-9 Eide effects—including grand schemes and distractions, creating people out of Eide, creating environmental features, flipping the script after a cliffhanger, and shattering my Eide to unleash a void-being—require that I break myself, at least a bit. Level 10+ Eide effects—greater schemes, greater distractions, and reshaping the world—are all but impossible. They hurt.

ӫ An effect that costs 0 Stilling is instinctive—it doesn’t drain the character at all. ӫ Spending 1 Stilling is more or less casual. ӫ Spending 2 Stilling is rough. ӫ Spending 3 is unpleasant. ӫ A 4-7 Stilling effect is terrifying, painful, and difficult. ӫ Anything beyond that is agonizing. At the beginning of each chapter, Stilling drops by one, to a minimum of 0. Characters may also reduce Stilling when it brings them to a crisis: when the player, or, at 80+ Stilling, sometimes the gm, has an interesting idea for the harm or change the Stilling might inflict on their character, and implements it as a “Wound.” Superficial Wounds burn off 10 Stilling, with no minimum; harmful ones, 25; metaphysically potent and transformative ones, 50. This isn’t unlimited, though, even if the player would want it to be: The character will suffer at most one such Wound per session—counting the Wounds from other, similar, Costs— and at most one 25+ Cost Wound in two consecutive sessions. Characters may freely accumulate Stilling until it hits 80; then, as noted, there are circumstances in which the gm may force a Wound upon them. At 108—a magic proton number for deformed nuclei—they may no longer spend Stilling at all. ... after roughly 300 points of Stilling have been poured into Wounds over the course of a character’s life, the dream that they embody breaks. Some of the key terms used for Eide powers include: ӫ Automatic. An Automatic miracle or Rite doesn’t need the character to do anything—it just happens. Sometimes it doesn’t even require the player to do anything. ӫ Rite. A Rite is a miracle that shifts the law of the world rather than the world itself. Because of this, it has an innate advantage: it can ignore Wards (pg. 257) and, potentially, manipulate them. Rites are the only powers that interact directly with Costs, Infection, Wounds, Wards, or Geasa.

the

� asics

Level 0 Rite: “Agony” Automatic, Rite Level 0 Eide Rites are not willful; they activate in involuntary paroxysm. They are a Strategist’s power to sustain their Infection. The player may invoke this Rite to defend their character against any effect that would obviate their Infection. If their Infection fades more naturally, they may also activate this Rite to restore it. Finally, they may invoke this Rite to impose a new understanding of their Infection on the world. Effectively, their Strategist now has the Infection as they have expressed it and the Infection as the gm

eide

168 previously understood it ... but the version expressing the gm’s previous understanding will fade away with time. The player may use this Rite without establishing that their character has chosen to use this Rite. Sometimes Strategists do so choose, sometimes they do not really know if they have so chosen, but most of the time it is an autonomic reflex. This is a Rite; it interacts with Infection. With a level 0 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ continue dying of influenza even in a pocket world with ubiquitous medical nanites, ӫ shift the framing of their Infection from the gm’s hands to their own, or ӫ change an Infection’s manifestation to match their new sense of what it should be—e.g., shifting dying of fire from “attracts fires” to “combusts when emotions get out of hand.”

Level 1 Miracle: “Intensity” Level 1 miracles of Eide are the Strategists’ lesser powers of magnetism and wicked charm—in the form of hints of eldritch power they can infuse into their self-presentation and a title that reflects their broader social identity. This power makes it easy and comfortable to go along with the Strategist. Standing up to them requires an Ability task, and the difficulty rises to 3. If the Strategist actively invokes one of their titles or authorities, it goes up to 5. Level 1 effects include: ӫ waving off the importance of the eerie absence of one’s eyes, ӫ talking one’s way past police tape as a member of the Chancery, ӫ charming a crowd with one’s glamorous position as the aide to the Mayor, and ӫ rejecting someone’s allegations of mendacity by quietly noting one’s place on the American Pie Council.

Level 2 Miracle: “Stunt” Level 2 Eide miracles are the Strategists’ lesser empowerments of their Technique. They’re the Strategist’s base-level competence in that Technique, plus the tricks they have that can push it beyond what ordinary mortals can achieve. Stunt lets the Strategist perform a cinematic or lowfantasy action that fits their Technique (pg. 131). The miracle just grants the Strategist the necessary skill; the actual stunt is a mundane action with 3 Edge. It has the same action level as this miracle. (It’s always a Stunt, though, not a particular Ability action.) Level 2 effects include: ӫ using the “science!” Technique to understand a complicated physics paper, ӫ using the “cooking” Technique to make a pastry so light that it can float, and ӫ using the “sleight of hand” Technique and a series of smoke-and-mirrors tricks to outwit a small army.

glitch: a story of the Not

� heatrics Level 3 Miracle: “Costumery” Level 3 Eide miracles are the Strategists’ lesser miracles of stagecraft. They’re the power that a Strategist has to instantly assume their traditional costume when no one is watching. The Strategist’s player chooses archetypal clothing for them. This can come with a modest selection of weapons, goods, and tools. Costumery lets the Strategist instantly change into that clothing and arm themselves with those weapons, goods, and tools. Or, they can summon individual weapons, goods, tools, or costume pieces. This power draws upon the Eide, the dream-of-self; Creational objects cannot be summoned. (Though, see pg. 197.) Costumery is two-way. It normally replaces what the Strategist was wearing, stashing it in the most appropriate well-hidden location nearby. If it did, and they are still in costume, and their old outfit is still hidden somewhere nearby, it can also instantly return them to what they were wearing before. Either way, it can return individual pieces of the costume to the void. The Strategist cannot perform this miracle while under intent, continuous observation. Any interruption, however, will free them to transform. Level 3 effects include: ӫ summoning or dismissing formal Strategist clothing, including blade and bow, ӫ pulling one’s medicine chest or favorite robes out of nowhere, ӫ always having access to formalwear, a passport or two, a gun, some tools, and cash, and ӫ ditching or reacquiring a proper lab coat and safety goggles without stopping by the clothing locker first. MORTAL WITNESSES: all but the most intent of mortal witnesses will assume that either the Strategist has had an appropriate opportunity to change or has been wearing the new outfit all along.

They tried to take it from him when they booked him, just like they’d tried to take his rope and spurs. He didn’t fight it. He just looked at them with those soft brown eyes. He said to them, he said: “Can’t be a cowboy without my gun.” That cut their hearts right through, it did. So they let it stay. “Just don’t you shoot any of the other prisoners,” they said. “Or, you know, the judge.” He nodded to that, like he agreed. And he and all his cattle moseyed in. — from Where The burGlArS And ArSoniSTS plAy, by Orla McEvoy opposite: by Robin Scott

170 The worst thing about bringing back one’s corpse from the future, switching it out with oneself, and having it burn down to ashes in your stead is realizing that you have definitely checked out the wrong corpse from your depository. God, what did it even look like? Do your enemies know? Do they not know, but do they think you had, like, horrible acne or a tattoo you cannot possibly explain? “I can explain,” I said, when he burst in upon me, but honestly, I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I didn’t even know what abominable kind of misfeature it had been. — from monGooSe, by Tyler Hollingsworth

Level 4 Rite: “Cliffhanger” Rite Level 4 Eide Rites are the Strategists’ more realistic feints of feigned defeat. More precisely, they’re the Strategist’s power to devise, and implement, such realistic feints. Cliffhanger is a defense against supernatural effects. The defense is “when the scene ends, and this effect is no longer actively being sustained, it will turn out that it only seemed to work on me.” The character must let the effect work on them until then and must keep this Rite active while the other effect is being sustained. Afterwards, they can come up with some explanation for why they shed the effect itself and also its consequences. With a level 4 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ “accept” that they’ve been forcibly destined to participate in a school tournament, only to switch out the names written in the book of destiny. ӫ scream and writhe as they’re dragged away to a prison realm, only to reveal, when the miracle lapses, that they’d used their ninjutsu Technique to substitute a log for themselves at the exact moment they were captured. ӫ accept that a pillar of fire from the heavens completely obliterates and destroys them, without trying to fight it, but return to play perfectly fine in the next scene, possibly not even bothering to explain the “trick:” that they’d never properly “existed” to obliterate in the first place! Cliffhanger is an amazing power, and it does make highEide Strategists pretty close to immortal if they’re willing to run with it, but it’s not perfect: First, it’s only a defense against supernatural effects. That includes miracles, Rites, wishes, magic, and supernatural Techniques, which is almost everything that matters, but it won’t defend against a gun unless, e.g., someone summoned the gun fairly recently or a grave-fresh zombie is firing it. Second, it’s only a level 4 Rite. Most of the time that’s not a problem—it takes effect after the hostile effect stops, so the hostile effect is probably just “a fact of the world” at that point—but sometimes the hostile effect is a wish, or there’s a different level 5+ hostile effect in play, and then there’ll be nothing Cliffhanger can do.

glitch: a story of the Not

Level 5 Miracle: “Talent” Automatic, Extraordinary Level 5 Eide miracles are the Strategists’ basic warranty against obsolescence. They’re an expression of the Strategist’s talent in their Technique as a kind of universal absolute, objective and independent of the circumstances, which may be wielded to shape the narratives around their lives. Whenever the Strategist’s qualifications in their Technique are being tested, the Strategist may automatically invoke Talent to pass the test. This does not require an action. It does not even require that they know that they’re being tested. (The gm should inform the player, though, so they can decide whether to use this miracle.) It doesn’t matter how brutal or selective the test is—even if it’s something that goes beyond what a Greater Stunt (pg. 174) would let them pass. It also doesn’t matter whether it’s specifically a test in the Technique or just something that is highly relevant, like a key supporting talent or quality. The bar can be set low or ungodly high: they’ll clear it, all the same. Actually, it’s even better than that: With occasional exceptions where one test was so far out of line with the others that their passing it can “only” be a fluke, they’ll do better every time. Mundane sabotage intended to make the character fail can work.That’s because at some point sabotage disqualifies the test itself. Imagine a cooking contest where the judges refuse to taste or even smell one contestant’s work before labelling it “the worst”—what does talent even matter, at that point? The minimum difficulty for such sabotage is 7, though, because that kind of thing rarely works out well in stories, and the difficulty can go up higher based on circumstances. (As for miraculous sabotage, that’s just a normal conflict between miracles; it can work, if it wins the conflict, but it doesn’t have any special rules.) Once invoked, Talent lasts for the entire test— specifically, for whatever the examiner considers to be one entire test. If that means it will span multiple sessions, though, the gm can require a new invocation at the beginning of each. Level 5 effects include: ӫ passing a physics class, graduating with a physics major, impressing a physical interviewer, getting a physics job, getting scooped up when the aliens demand Earth’s top ten physicists for a space project, and finally being noticed as “the chosen one” by the cosmic overlord, “the Physics Crystal.” “I refuse. I do not accept,” the proctor snarled. “ You are a human. You cannot even G’qoth at all, much less score in the upper tenth.” “A human may do anything,” said Julian. He tossed his head. “ You’d just ... never met a superior specimen.” — from The GhoSTinG SCAndAl, And oTher STorieS, by Carla Olsen Manske

171 ӫ winning round one of a magic tournament, winning round two of a magic tournament, having trouble with round three because it’s a big dramatic fight against a nemesis and not really a “test,” winning round four, having trouble with round five because there’s a lot of unrelated drama going on, winning round six, and taking home the prize. ӫ demonstrating that the Strategist is still one of the best bakers out there ... even in a brave new world of magic bakers, techno-bakers, and tentacled bakers from beyond.

imaGe,

�efeatinG world

Level 6 Miracle: “Strategy” Planning, Quest, Extraordinary Level 6 Eide miracles are the lesser schemes and stratagems of the deathwrights. The heart of this miracle is the tricks and resources that turn a sketch of a plan into something that the Strategist can move through without hiccups or dead ends. Put another way, the point of this miracle is to ensure that the Strategist never finds themselves thinking, for example, “I could set a great trap here if I had a legitimate lead on the treasure my opponent’s hunting for, to build it around, but I ... don’t?” Or, e.g., “Is there, like, some kind of angel-powered soul-swapping gem I could get my hands on for— ... no?” This power comes up with a miraculously effective plan, as described on pg. 254-256. The plan is suited to the Strategist, their Technique, the game’s mood, and the problem. At level 6, this plan only overcomes dramatic obstacles that were, in some sense, already “in play:” ӫ someone’s just started shaking up the status quo, as it was at/near the end of the last story, and the Strategist wants to push it the other way—back where things were, or swinging in the other direction; or ӫ a major opportunity/opening just appeared that makes it suddenly plausible to upturn the status quo in the Strategist’s favor, and they want to take advantage. The plan is something that could solve the problem or seize the opportunity in 0-3 chapters—and, if there’s a time limit in play, by no later than the end of the next chapter. That solution/victory will last until at least the end of the story. The plan itself doesn’t have to come from the Strategist’s player; they are neither expected nor required to develop one. They do get a veto, as does the gm, and they do have the right to toss an idea out there and see whether the group bites ... but as a rule, the plan is developed by the group as a whole to fit what the group thinks makes sense. It's not a wish, but one might think of it as if it were; perhaps, as something phrased like: “I wish I’d use my Technique (or some other clear and satisfyingly ‘me’ approach) to win this, with the solution lasting at least until the story’s end.”

Implementing a plan like this is covered on pg. 254-256. Level 6 effects include: ӫ coming up with a plan to defeat an invincible army that’s just moved to occupy your city, ӫ coming up with a plan to defeat an invincible army that’s been occupying your city, but which is dealing with a new internal coup, and ӫ declaring that someone is responsible for the wildfires newly ravaging your state—though that’s possibly just “the abstract mythic spirit of local wildfires”— and coming up with a plan to lure them out and imprison them.

example The Strategist wants to come up with a plan to force an angel that just fell to repent. If the Strategist’s Technique is “magic,” they might save that angel by diverting its sin thaumaturgically onto a suitable stone, which can then fall in the angel’s place. The miracle ensures that such a stone, and such a spell, is on hand. If their Technique is “general trickiness,” they might trick the angel into staking possible repentance on a poker hand and then bluff until the angel folds. The miracle ensures that the basic form of this plan will work out; the player need merely explain the various steps as they go. Note that the poker-based approach is strongest if the angel themselves is the opponent—if they fell by their own will, they’re the one who shook up the status quo, and their character is a valid target for manipulation. If they fell by someone else’s hand, one could argue that their characterization as someone willing to go in on that poker hand and be bluffed into folding wasn’t really “in play,” and the gm could reasonably veto the plan. (On the same principle, the gm could veto a plan like “I bribe the Creator into showing up and appointing me the heir to the world; the angel is so awed by this they redeem.” There’s just so much in there that wasn’t originally at stake!) A COMMON VARIATION: with gm permission, the Strategist can make plans for minor problems that have a rough guarantee of completing in 0-3 minutes instead of 0-3 chapters. There was nothing supernatural about the brief that Kennedy & Associates filed to stop the hurricane; it proceeded through ordinary process of law. No; if a supernatural element somewhere entered into the story, it would have had to have been before, or perhaps, off to the side of, that: At whatever junction point in reality had arranged that this particular hurricane was vulnerable to legal action, by virtue of three long-standing faerie oaths. — from hunTinGTon V. hurriCAne SiGmA, by Colman Malone

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172 Level 7 Rite: “Casting” Time-Consuming, Rite, Quest Level 7 Eide Rites are the Strategists’ lesser power of reification. They’re the process by which a Strategist can split new and permanent existences off from their Eide. For instance, a Casting Rite might create a shop owner to employ the Apprentice Baker or a flower sprite to attend the Forest Queen. This effortful task needs at least a few hours of work in the background or a particularly slow tactical action in a fast-paced scene; a spotlight can hasten this (pg. 251). Created beings have the following rules: ӫ they have five character points, divided between: - Ability, costing one point per level, with skills as suited to their concept; and - relatively minor phantasmagorical (pg. 250) powers, bought for one character point each. ӫ they also receive a free power to directly manipulate others’ emotions as a phantasmagorical (pg. 250) level 3 miracle; ӫ and, finally, they have a two-point Cost Trait of the Strategist’s choice that they may use to enhance either their Ability or their phantasmagorical powers. Having filled this Cost Trait, they may pass those points on to an unwary target, e.g., one who sleeps near them or who carries them near their chest. This takes at least several hours (and sometimes longer) and can be accomplished once per chapter. The character can choose a couple of powers that are available for purchase by their Eide-born minions in general. After that, it costs 3-10 extra Stilling to develop new powers for a particular minion or minion group; this cost is set by the gm (based on the powers) and paid once, when the first such minion is cast. The Strategist may assign a quest slot to the created being as it is cast; while they keep that quest slot assigned to it, they can control its actions directly, defend it from harm by taking damage, and pour 1-2 points of their relevant Cost Trait into its by touch. This can take them below 0. (They will, in turn, acquire the creature’s Cost pool when they reclaim the slot—but it may have emptied itself into someone else, by then.) If the Strategist does not assign a quest slot, or after they reclaim it, the creature becomes free-willed but still largely loyal; they may no longer defend it by taking damage, and they cannot pour their Cost Trait into its. This is a Rite, as cast minions manipulate a Cost. The Queen dwelt in her misery at the bottom of the world, but not alone; not alone; still there were tangled beings born to braid her hair, and sprites of coughing dust to hold her train, scholars rose from ancient bones and dancers skittish in the dark: Brittle beings of an arid land, but a court yet still, for it was not right to have an unattended Queen. — from beneATh The feeT of AnGelS, by Mackenzie Rusch

glitch: a story of the Not

A similar Rite exists in Wyrd; however, the Wyrd Rite casts its minions off from the character’s heart rather than their Eide. The two minion types will differ in their themes and their developed powers. With a level 7 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ summon up a horse from the endless void, ӫ create roadies and a manager to help sell their “rock musician” Eide, ӫ make a magical bird to carry messages, or ӫ congeal an evil jewel from their aura of power (later, to shift their Wear to the admirer they give it to.)

Level 8 Miracle: “Misdirection” Bleak, Extraordinary Level 8 Eide Miracles are the Strategist’s lesser games of smoke and mirrors. They are the power to conceal. The Strategist chooses a thing that they wish to hide from others’ attention; it can be anything, really, from a coin to a concert to an obvious idea. While they sustain that effect, within the limits of an extraordinary miracle (pg. 248), they can hide the chosen thing from anyone or from any group’s notice, at any time, for any time. Optionally, the Strategist may choose something to divert attention to; while they are hiding their target, and the diversion is noticeable, it will reliably be noticed in the first target’s stead. Misdirection is not an abstract effect. The Strategist should explain how they actually accomplish it—e.g., with a con, deceit, shell game, distraction, act of camouflage, device, direct application of miraculous force, or spell. That said, their method only matters descriptively and in conflict resolution; its details or difficulty will never cause them to fail. Misdirection may end when the miracle does. Alternately, Misdirection’s effect may linger after use, making noticing the target’s presence, first, a Greater Expertise task relying on scouting abilities; then, a Greater Focus task; and, finally, a Focus task ... before it ultimately reverts to being everyday. The gm chooses which option is appropriate based on what the Strategist actually does to conceal the thing in question and how visible/noticeable it “ought” to be. Note that this is a bleak power (pg. 252); no Ability action can pierce through it, no Ability action can defeat it ... but, on rare occasions, a pure heart or a daring gamble may allow even a mortal to see true. Level 8 effects include: ӫ hiding a wolverine by painting its fur a color that humans cannot see, ӫ distracting people from one’s microexpressions by blazing up with an aura of eldritch power, ӫ diverting attention from one airline baggage carousel to another, ӫ magically convincing a small town that the sun’s been stolen, and ӫ using sheer charisma (and a good dose of snappy patter) to keep people from noticing the obvious hole in a story you’ve just told. opposite: by Elizabeth Sherry

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� reater abilities Level 4 Miracle: “Greater Agony” Level 4 Eide miracles ensure that the Strategist’s Infection comes into play when they expect it to. They’re the call to that Infection. It’s still awful and terrible. The Infection can still come up when they don’t expect it to. They’ll need an Ability 5 action to use it in a creative way, or with any fine control. ... but they’re not going to have the awkward situation where the only thing they can think to do to solve some problem is to take advantage of their awful burden, and then have their awful burden not show up. Greater Agony is not available in any story wherein the Strategist has substantively altered the nature of their Infection. Otherwise, level 4 effects include: ӫ ensuring that the monsters hunting a Strategist show up when they need a distraction, ӫ ensuring that the Strategist is properly symptomatic when a doctor is diagnosing their sickness, and ӫ taking advantage of the way the Strategist is always drowning to fill a bowl of water. MORTAL WITNESSES: these miracles are not enough to provoke dementia animi or force full awareness of the Glitch, but mortals will be aware that whatever happens is not “supposed” to have happened.

Level 5 Rite: “Greater Intensity” Time-Consuming, Rite Level 5 Eide Rites include the Strategists’ greater powers of magnetism and wicked charm—a charisma and intensity so great, a meaning and intensity in others’ lives so profound, as to Geas others into following along in the Strategist’s wake. This is a Rite; the term Geas is literal. Each Greater Intensity Rite affects a single target or the gestalt persona of a group of npcs. This effortful task is a charm or persuasion attempt requiring at least a few hours of work in the background or an extended tactical action in a fast-paced scene; this can be hastened by a spotlight (pg. 251). Once complete, the Strategist becomes important to the target; the target feels they need the Strategist in some way. Specifically, from the Rite’s enaction until the end of the next story, the target gains a Geas: “I am driven to prevent [Strategist’s name]’s defeat and to prevent any untidy permanent separation between us.” The target decides why this is. Normally this is based

“Fine,” the Serpent snapped. It glared away. “Allies. ... for now.” The monster grinned... — from The blunderbore plAn, by Kalliope Tsouderos (unpublished)

glitch: a story of the Not

on the Strategist’s words and actions. The Geas won’t directly support that reason, but it will keep that reason valid. For instance, if someone’s convinced they need the Strategist around to steal a mystic gem for them, the Geas won’t help the Strategist steal the mystic gem, but it will make sure the possibility stays open. The gem won’t break. The last door to the realm where it’s kept won’t close with the Strategist on the wrong side ... and so forth. Similarly, if the target needs the Strategist to keep them alive, the Geas will keep the target from dying, or at least from permanently dying; if they died, how could they need the Strategist to keep them alive? The rating of the imbued Geas is equal to the Strategist’s unmodified Eide. The Strategist’s implicit promise is not empty. This power is not all trickery; the Strategist puts something genuine, if only their own true heart, at stake. If they learn that the target of this power has been totally defeated while the Geas is still active, to the point where their life has crumbled around them and they basically can’t continue being the person that they were—and if the target in fact has been defeated to that extent—the Strategist gains 20 points of a Cost. The reason may be obvious. If not, it’s in the vicinity of “guilt.” With a level 5 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ convince an enemy it's not time to kill them yet, ӫ convince a corrupt businessperson to take them on as a partner, ӫ win the trust of an untrusting child, or ӫ win the contract for some job they want.

“Defeat”

Defeat is mostly being used as a stand-in for death here, but sometimes a person gets killed and they just keep on going. They’re a ghost, or a phoenix, or a Strategist, or whatever, and death’s not a problem; or, their legacy is all that mattered to them anyway. Other times, a person doesn’t get killed, but they do have their memory erased and get turned into someone else, or their hopes for their future turn to dust and they can’t think of a single pathway forward, or something else terrible like that. The Strategist might be able to “fix” that kind of defeat, or even death, but unless they’re in a position to do a literally perfect fix—e.g., finding a copy of the original memories and a detailed explanation of how to restore the person as they were—stuff like that'll count as a defeat. A pc is normally “defeated” when finishing their ending book; more rarely, if they lose a critically important fight.

Level 6 Miracle: “Greater Stunt” Level 6 Eide miracles are the Strategists’ greater empowerments of their Technique. They’re the tricks that let the Strategist push past the level of their mundane skill all the way up to the edge of impossibility. Greater Stunt functions as Stunt, but allows for the kinds of amazing tricks that cinematic/low-fantasy protagonists usually only pull off in the “big moments”

175 If you have taken up this volume out of bravery, turn back. If you have chosen it out of folly, repent. Ten of the stories told by Laodice the Strategist are known to curse those who hear them—to rip the spirit root of them and leave them broken. The remainder, which I have gathered here, are believed to hold no spiritual potency, no metaphysical weight; you will not catch a disease for reading them, become impoverished for reading them, or develop strange inhuman appetites ... but that is not to say that they have no power. Laodice is no friend to you or me; these tales may be mortal things, but still they’ll strive to tear your mind apart. If you would read further, pray, let it be to inoculate yourself, a little at a time; or, perhaps, to practice those few, rare arts of mind requiring such self-savagery as this will be. — from A lAodiCeAn Grimoire, by Apu Harah Chrysanthe

of their stories; or, conversely, for the kinds of tricks that cinematic antagonists pull off after having worked laboriously in the background for quite some time. Level 6 effects include: ӫ using the “science!” Technique to create a temporary antidote to vampirism, ӫ using the “cooking” Technique to lift a building into the air with a choux balloon, and ӫ using the “sleight of hand” Technique to trap someone in an endless corridor. Sure, that seems outright impossible, but ... doesn’t most stage magic?

Level 7 Miracle: “Greater Costumery” [Time-Consuming], Phantasmagorical Level 7 Eide miracles are the Strategists’ greater miracles of stagecraft. They’re the power the Strategist has to call up impromptu environmental features and effects tied to their traditional costume and identity. These include buildings, personnel, and special effects. These miracles may also return those summoned features to the void. Greater Costumery cannot summon or banish physical things in a location that is under intense, continuous observation. Further, large, immobile things can’t be summoned or banished in locations that would seem impossible, rather than merely unbelievable, to any clearheaded witness participating in the scene; this often results in the Strategist poking around for a while before “locating” any such thing. This power is phantasmagorical (pg. 250). A Strategist with a “priest” identity can call up petty angels, but their ability to smite is limited to relatively superficial effects. Their ability to make a permanent social impression ... is, again, limited to superficial effects. They can’t dig up dramatically important information from Heaven’s vaults, unless the group decides they should. The summoned angels are ethereal and ephemeral; they leave no solid impression, but rather come across as a hallucinatory or a rapturous phenomenon. Such a Strategist could also call up a Church, attendees, acolytes, or a holy light from

above; these too would be phantasmagorical. Specifically it is the effect that is phantasmagorical and not necessarily the things themselves; they could conceivably call up real people or the get of a Casting Rite to be their congregation and have that actually happen. They would attend to their phantasmagorical summons and participate in Church. ... but then, and specifically without much fuss, they would return to whence they came. Level 7 effects include: ӫ as a Strategist of the Host, conjuring a personalized meeting room, twisting the shape of one’s own shadow, or finding a secret passage, ӫ as a Phantom Thief, finding a trap door to escape through (even if one is, say, on the back of a giant turtle at the time), ӫ as the Queen of the Forest, finding a forested glen, ӫ as an Apprentice Baker, finding a bakery or another baker, and ӫ as the Royalty of Nınuan, finding a doomful throne to sit upon or wreathing oneself within an ancient air of void. MORTAL WITNESSES: impossible effects are generally written off as dreams or hallucinatory experiences, if not at the time, then later; possible special effects need no explanation; and anything else is assumed to be the discovery of some thing, some being, or some absence that was “already there.”

Level 8 Rite: “Greater Cliffhanger” Rite Level 8 Eide Rites are a superior version of Cliffhanger. In this version, the Strategist doesn’t have to wait for the scene to end. They can break free of the undesirable supernatural effect as soon as the effect itself is no longer sustained. If the player and gm can agree on a how and a what, they can also enact “poetic justice,” turning the effect or (even better) some reversed/inverted variation of it upon whomever invoked it in the first place. For instance, the Strategist might use Greater Cliffhanger when someone takes over their mind. They don’t resist. They can’t, because, if they do, then there’s no cliffhanger. They suffer the effects. ... but as soon as the mind control lapses, the Strategist is free—and the attacker loses control over their own mind. They fall into a frenzy, or disconnect from their body and senses, or suffer a rebound and take the orders that they had tried to give the Strategist before. Or, the Strategist uses Greater Cliffhanger when someone magically combusts them. They appear to be burned—but when the effect lapses, they reveal that they’ve been draining the attacker’s fire energy instead! The attacker becomes listless and phlegmatic. The Strategist’s retribution is capped at the same level as the original effect. That is, “poetic justice” for a level 7 Wyrd miracle is also level 7. A redirected Rite that implants a level 5 Geas can implant a Geas no higher than level 5.

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176 The Greater Cliffhanger Rite is a Rite, for precisely that reason: it can reverse an imposed Geas. With a level 8 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ “accept” that someone’s stabbed them with their magic spear-hand. Then, reveal that it’s actually stuck in the wall, ӫ “accept” a curse until the miracle of cursing completes. Then, reveal that they’ve been knotting up its power into a “curse-hawk” that will hound and harry their attacker instead! or ӫ “accept” being banished into Limbo, only to reveal that the summoning circle was backwards: it’s everything else in the scene that will go!

Level 9 Miracle: “Greater Talent” [Phantasmagorical] Level 9 Eide miracles are the Strategists’ greater demonstration of worth. They are the greater, primordial vision of the Strategist that sleeps behind their dream-ofself. These miracles react to extreme tests of Eide: tests of the character’s potential in their Technique, or anything else, that risk shattering their image. They also emerge when a character believes they are insufficient to themselves— that to be themselves they must go beyond being what they are. In the face of this threat, or this need, their Eide does break—at least, if they use this miracle. It breaks, and their dream-of-self shatters ... but only temporarily. It reveals that greater, primordial vision behind it. With this miracle the Strategist becomes something ... not human. Not mortal. Deeply unnatural. Eldritch. The dream of their mortal life evaporates under the pressure of this miracle. They reconfigure into a symbolically rich, gigantic, and dramatic form of the player’s choice ... anything from a giant monster to a geometrically impossible angel to a living storm. In that form, they receive powers of the player’s choice. The character then runs riot in that form for as long as the player desires, caught in a psychedelic experience and under the influence of an archaic and alien version of their mind. Their actions will generally display intelligence, of a sort, and will definitely follow up on the Strategist’s dominant emotional motivations of the moment, but they’ll have lost touch with normalcy and humanity, will be semi-conscious at best, and will find themselves unable to identify with the person that they’ve been (their Eide having been shattered, after all). They will have grave difficulty paying attention to or distinguishing among individual things on the human scale at all.17 Their rampage lasts until the end of whatever threat to the Strategist’s self-presentation, or whatever impulse to 17 This is mostly a matter for roleplay and difficulty assessment; however, if one must push one’s limits here (e.g., as part of a plan), the way to do so is by using an effect that outpowers this miracle.

glitch: a story of the Not

As a librarian, she was insufficient to the men who came. As a librarian, she had nothing to offer against their shouts, their fury, and their hate. ... not enough, at least. Not in real time. So she could not be a librarian. The wings that she kept sideways to the world slipped in. Obsidian spun up from the desks around to be her eyes. There was then in the library like a great cloud of fire, and a brightness to engulf itself, and a roar like thunder, as her oblong head came round. She could not see them. They were too petty for her now, too insignificant; their presence did not impinge. Memory and the faint whiff of malice steered her path; the lights blazed up on Captain’s Hill, and the threshers of her limbs came down. — from hA’ATzhAlAiel V. CounTy of WorCeSTer, by Hieronim Clark

bolster it, brought the miracle on; at that point, their old appearance, body, and persona re-emerge. The Strategist’s surreal apotheosis and all of its accomplishments are technically phantasmagorical (pg. 250). They are specifically phantasmagorical in the sense that it may turn out afterwards that reality or the witness’ minds were affected and the described actions and events in play that this miracle evokes were allegorical or muddled descriptions of what actually took place. They “happen,” but it’s possible that later, the evidence will suggest that things didn’t happen quite that way ... But that’s only a “may,” and it’s mostly a catch for the most surreal of interludes. If the Strategist’s player can state the form and powers they want in a simple fashion, and then sticks to them, expressing themselves in a way that makes sense, the consequences will usually actualize exactly or nearly exactly as they are shown in play. A similar power exists in Wyrd; one may shatter the Eide from either side. They are distinct in that Eide’s transformation is a transcendent instantiation of what the Strategist is trying to be—offering the Strategist enough power and merit to be what they need to be, to do what they need to do, compromised only by the fact that they have to turn into a giant semi-conscious monster to get it. Wyrd’s, on the other hand, is a transcendent rejection of who the Strategist is normally trying to be, an escape from the prison of the Eide; it allows them to express what they cannot normally express within the world. Level 9 effects include: ӫ going beyond the Strategist’s magic talent and becoming a being of “pure magic.” ӫ going beyond the Strategist’s scientific talent, forcing a dimensional phase transition to awaken their ancient void self—an apocalyptic psychic with scientific mastery resembling a god’s! and ӫ when being an apprentice baker with limitless potential just isn’t respectable enough for the property

177 they want to buy, revealing that the Strategist is actually more than that—that they are something ancient, building-sized, and phantasmagoric, able to seize the land and fly away. MORTAL WITNESSES: over time, the lingering marks of this miracle come to resemble those of natural disasters. The memories of witnesses about what actually happened take on the status of myth. ... at the time, though, unless the miracle winds up phantasmagorical, witnesses will be quite aware of what’s going on. The world is strange sometimes, apparently, and may feature impossible angels and living storms. This does not provoke dementia animi, although it increases a mortal’s general vulnerability to such percipience.

Level 10 Miracle: “Greater Strategy” Extraordinary, Planning, Quest Level 10 Eide miracles are the greater schemes and stratagems of the deathwrights. Each is forged in a crucible: The Strategist’s most recent Serious or Transformative (25 or 50 Cost) Wound (pg. 272). In response to that Wound, the Strategist forms an objective. They decide on something they will do to answer that pain, that suffering, that loss, or whatever else. It does not need to be reactive in any other sense, and the Strategist’s player is the only one who needs to see the connection between the Wound and the objective as compelling. To accomplish that objective, the Strategist forms a plan. They may not choose another objective until they have taken another Serious or Transformative Wound. They may use Greater Strategy again before then, if appropriate (e.g., to come up with alternate plans or to restart a plan they’d abandoned) ... but their objective holds firm: This, their plan will in good time achieve. Although technically it’s a “response” to in-game events, Greater Strategy is functionally able to work almost any desired transformation on the world. If the Strategist wants to sink Paris or steal the power of speech from the Angel of Time, they may declare that their objective. In addition, once completed, the plan’s effects will last at least until the next story’s end. As powerful and flexible as it may be, Greater Strategy moves at a comparatively ponderous pace: Unlike most planning powers, the only guarantee it gives within 0-3 chapters is that meaningful progress will be made; the strategy as a whole is a grand game that can take up to three stories to complete. Otherwise, this power works like Strategy. “Some things can’t be fixed, Sunnia,” he said, but she gave him a tired half-smile: “Even this. Even this,” she said, “can be healed, at Thiudareiks’ Henge.”

Level 10 effects include: ӫ wielding a flower rite or welken-rite against the Nobilis, ӫ developing a plan to shake someone out of their complacency, ӫ developing a plan to drive a rival professor—a tenured one—out of one’s department, and ӫ developing a plan to “fix” the death of someone you loved long ago.

Level 11 Rite: “Greater Casting” Very Time-Consuming, Extraordinary, Rite Level 11 Eide effects are the Strategists’ greater power of reification. They’re the Strategist’s power to warp the world to fit their Eide. They may create or reshape entire world-stages out of Eide in the same way that lesser casting creates supporting actors. They may build semipermanent world features in the same way that greater costumery creates temporary and phantasmagorical ones. Specifically, after a few days of background work or multiple self-spotlit moments, the deathwright forms a portion of their Eide into a twisted space: A labyrinth, pocket dimension, or spatial anomaly. Greater Casting comes from the Strategist’s dream-ofself and not the Strategist’s conscious will. It’s a slippery power, much like a wish (pg. 260): shaped by narrative; occasionally surprising or recalcitrant in its effects. It works best when adding a phenomenon to existing reality or warping it while leaving its original information intact—it’s not the best tool for completely erasing what had been present before, and it’s an extremely bad tool for figuring out what had been there before. It also works best when the Strategist is expressing parts of their Eide that they either fully grasp or are actively working on; if it involves parts of their dream-of-self that are riddled with faults and contradictions but which they do not admit are riddled with faults or contradictions, things can go awry. This is a Rite; the twisted space may have a regionboundary Ward or affect how a Geas behaves. More generally, navigating spaces created in this fashion can have a profound impact on a person’s perceptions of themselves, the world, and others; depending on the details of its construction, the gm may occasionally heal or inflict 1+ Cost while someone is struggling through one. Greater Casting is also found in Wyrd ... but while Eide’s version wrestles with the Strategist’s identity, their self-definition, their sense of who they are, Wyrd’s is focused on their truth. Thus, with a level 11 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ conjure a place uniquely the Strategist’s own, ӫ build a passage between the Strategist’s home in a new city and an identity-centric building in the old, ӫ create a pocket world that can be carried in the palm of one’s hand, or ӫ demonstrate the credentials of their priestly Eide by opening a stair to Heaven.

— from A dryinG Ground, by Elisenda d’Étretat

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178 MORTAL WITNESSES: the results of Greater Casting are usually esoteric: mortals will have difficulty figuring out what’s going on, but are capable of doing so; having done so, they awaken only to the existence of magic, not to the mythic world or to the Glitch.

Level 12 Miracle: “Greater Misdirection” Extraordinary Level 12 Eide Miracles are the Strategist’s greater games of smoke and mirrors. They are the power to shape perception. With these miracles, the Strategist does not choose a thing to hide. Rather, they choose a thing they wish the world to perceive. While they maintain the effect, anything that contradicts that perception is effectively phantasmagorical (pg. 250)—an illusion or misapprehension. Afterwards, if the Strategist declares that their revelation was definitely fake, then it most likely was. If they want to imagine it might have been true, then in fact it might have been ... but only might. Either way, it’s up to the gm which of the two possible realities shall be real thenceforth, and which shall be illusion. Level 12 effects include: ӫ stealing an airplane that nobody previously noticed was there, ӫ unleashing an imaginary five-dimensional tentacled monstrosity on a city as a distraction, ӫ revealing oneself as the reincarnation of a local cult’s founder, and ӫ revealing that one has already used a strategy to solve some problem.

glitch: a story of the Not

Lexiarchos Caducine is known for building cool stone galleries with ancient scrolls kept under glass and death masks hanging on the walls. Here and there are other artifacts; in ornate niches, armors loom. If there are windows, they open onto dark and solemn gardens, and little light passes in; if there are lights, they are rarely lit. She is adroit in the gloaming shadows, for Lexiarchos Caducine is blind. — from fAir WArninG, by Luc Ginneis

179

an

� ide cheatsheet

Difficulty 0: The Agony Rite The Agony Rite invokes itself as an involuntary reflex. It protects the Strategist against “attacks” that would erase their infection. It can also restore their infection if it is lost or impose a new understanding of it upon the world. Greater Agony (diff 4) is a miracle that invokes a new manifestation of that infection.

Difficulty 1: Intensity Intensity makes it easy and comfortable to go along with the Strategist. Standing up to them becomes an Ability 3 task. If the Strategist actively invokes a title/authority, it’s Ability 5. The Greater Intensity Rite (diff 5) is a TimeConsuming power that makes the Strategist seem so valuable to the target, so important and necessary, that it manifests as a Geas. The Geas lasts until the end of the next story. If the target is utterly defeated while the Geas yet remains, the Strategist gains 20 points of a Cost.

Difficulty 2: Stunt Stunt lets the Strategist perform a cinematic or lowfantasy action that fits their Technique. This action is functionally a mundane action with the same action level as the miracle, and a default 3 Edge. Greater Stunts (diff 6) are in the same rough cinematic/ low-fantasy oeuvre, but represent the bigger moments therefrom.

Difficulty 3: Costumery Costumery is used while unobserved. It lets the Strategist instantly assume their traditional costume, along with its weapons, goods, and tools, or return to what they had been wearing previously. Greater Costumery (diff 7) is a phantasmagorical, timeconsuming power that calls up special effects associated with the Strategist’s traditional costume and identity. It can’t summon or banish physical things in places being intently observed.

Difficulty 4: The Cliffhanger Rite The Cliffhanger Rite is a feint of some sort involving feigned defeat. Something supernatural and unwanted happens to the Strategist, but they don’t “take damage”; instead, they use this Rite. Then, after the scene has ended and the supernatural effect is not being sustained, the Strategist automatically recovers. The Greater Cliffhanger Rite (diff 8) works the same way, but doesn’t require that the scene end—the Strategist can shake off the effect as soon as it’s not being sustained. If the player and gm can agree on how, it then turns the effect around in some way.

Difficulty 5: Talent Talent doesn’t need an action. It can be used whenever something tests the Strategist’s qualifications in their

Technique. It makes sure they pass—and by whatever standard is relevant, which often means “brilliance.” They also do better on each test than the one before. Mundane sabotage can screw this up by making it not really a test, but at a minimum difficulty of 7. Greater Talent (diff 9) is too much. Base-level Talent can already pass any test. Kicking it up a notch cracks the world. Facing such a hard test that the character’s Eide shatters, or when showing too much talent to fit in a mortal frame, the character’s self-presentation breaks, they turn into a giant symbolic monster, and they rampage. The monster, and the details of the rampage, are not always the same. The whole thing is phantasmagorical at the gm’s option: sometimes the rampage happens, sometimes it’s retroactively allegorical or approximate. It depends how well it fits the story of the game.

Difficulty 6: Strategy Strategy is a planning miracle (pg. 254). It makes reactive plans that fit the Strategist’s Technique. “Reactive” here means that the Strategist must be responding to someone else shaking up the status quo or grabbing an opportunity that just appeared—this power can’t just change longstanding situations in an arbitrary way. Greater Strategy (diff 10), on the other hand, can. The character can form one proactive objective in response to their most recent Serious or Transformative Wound (pg. 272). They can then form a plan to achieve that. It may take multiple 0-3 chapter steps to achieve, but the victory lasts longer than most plans’ victories as well.

Difficulty 7: The Casting Rite The Casting Rite is a time-consuming Rite for forging a minion out of the Strategist’s Eide. The minion can manipulate emotions (to some degree), have a decent Ability or a few minor powers, spend from its tiny 2-point Cost pool, and vampirically push that Cost onto someone else. Maintaining control of the minion requires a quest slot. The Greater Casting Rite (diff 11) is a very timeconsuming effect for warping the whole world around the Strategist into a twisted space that fits their Eide. The logic behind the upgrade is that both forms of casting are about externalizing (“casting”) bits of the self.

Difficulty 8: Misdirection Misdirection is a power to hide something. It is discriminating: the Strategist can choose who it is hidden from. It’s bleak: the heroic heart in a mortal can possibly beat it, but not hardly as an everyday thing. And, finally, it is extraordinary: it can do some truly incredible tricks. Greater Misdirection (diff 12) is even more extraordinary. It allows the Strategist to declare something that the world will now perceive. Any contrary evidence, while this miracle is sustained, will be made phantasmagorical (pg. 250).

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181

chapter 12

�lor� Inside the dirt and lint, they saw, were all the secrets of the world. — from The Orchid and Acacia Twins, by Katherine Morgan Dawes

opposite: by Elizabeth Sherry

forbidden

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Flore is the power a Strategist has to awaken the native powers of the world. Among the Strategists of the Host, this is a rare and perverse gift. Theirs, the prevailing ethic goes, is not to indulge in the wonders of Creation. Theirs is not to immerse themselves into its substances and its joys: To do so gives the world a credit it does not deserve. Among the Strategists of the Host, few cultivate the peaceful heart that this Attribute requires. Few have time to experience the world, to savor it, to come to know the subtleties of its bounty. Only because Strategists have a kind of immortality do most who walk this path acquire it—and in dribs and drabs, over the course of many years. A few seek this knowledge to turn it against Creation. A few willingly pollute themselves with this knowledge, dive furiously into an integration with the world, in the name of world destruction. This is folly; inevitably, Flore corrupts them into peace. Those who can sing to the hearts of the world are not forced to love the world, but their hate is permanently compromised. Somewhere in them is the seed of slow and gentle summer evenings; of deep, affirming human bonds. Flore is the art of connecting to the things of the world, making them a part of oneself, and then raising them up, enriching them, enhancing them—making them better, and even more themselves. Through Flore a Strategist may find the genius hidden in a simple child or the earthfire hidden in a stone. They may call forth dragons from the lakes and dance the stars down from the sky. They may seize the spirits of the wind to be their own. They may awaken, they may enlighten, they may teach; they can help the people of the world to grow. The Strategists may do this because they are divine creatures. They are beyond human. They are supernal. When that manifests in hatred it can blot out pieces of the world, it can rip them from existence. When it manifests in glory, it can outshine the sun. But when that divinity is invested in ordinary life, in love, in caring, in community— It becomes transformative. This is not to say that Flore is a pure, untarnished good. A Strategist’s divinity is uncompromising and alien: an inherent and unnatural transcendence. It lacks any intrinsic righteousness; if anything, it possesses intrinsic odium. It

flore

182 can lift a person above themselves, but not because of any holy purpose: it is only because a monster born of the Not has elected they be so lifted. It can bring out the hidden potential of the world, but this is rarely done for the wonder of the thing itself. That hidden potential is a weapon. ... and like all weapons, it knows nothing of the good. Flore, then, is the power that a Strategist learns by excessive or atypical immersion into the world. With that immersion, they learn to apprehend the hidden and secret wonders within things. To certain things they bind themselves, making them the treasures of their heart— and, however cruel a distance they attempt to keep, heartclutching treasures they will remain. These things become their panoply; their coterie; their regalia. Awakening and directing the slumbering powers within those treasures, the Strategist may achieve a myriad of aims. It is known to the Host that the Chancery are experts in this art. For some, it was this very practice that subverted them. For others, tainting themselves with the substance of Creation is simply ... less repugnant ... after consenting to the world’s continued life. But even among the Chancery members whose pride and revulsion should, theoretically, forbid they walk this path, it is still more common than in the Host; Chancery members are simply more vulnerable to immersion in the world, to sinking into it, to drowning beneath its surfaces; to being trapped into relationships with worldly things, by having made themselves at peace. The things that a Strategist may empower are called Treasures, or flores. A collective of Treasures—e.g., a group of students, swords, or magical symbols, each having a unique power within it—is known as a florilegium. Sometimes a Strategist empowers the entire florilegium, allowing them to draw upon a shared power or variety of weaker ones; other times, they learn to awaken stronger powers from each of the Treasures within it separately. Only Creation-things or things substantially compromised by Creation can be Treasures. A Strategist may have up to [their Flore + 1] Treasures at the beginning of the game, which can potentially include an army or collection that they empower as a unit (or empower several members of individually, and may learn to empower others from). These can be taken immediately or figured out later in discussion with the gm. Treasures can also be claimed during play by finding something appropriate, falling for it in some sense or other, and spending a spotlight to bond. This is not the limit to a Strategist’s store of Treasures, but its base level. A Strategist with [Flore + 1] Treasures who wishes to add a new florem may do so with a TimeConsuming (pg. 251) Glorification miracle, at a 20 Cost surcharge—normally, but not always, Immersion.18 A 18 Some Treasure bonds are so character-defining, for instance, as to add Stilling instead; some Treasures so corrosive or tiring as to add Burn or Wear. It’s tricky to take Fugue, though, since all Treasures are, necessarily, Creational.

glitch: a story of the Not

Strategist wishing a slower introduction to their Treasure may spend a quest (pg. 311) getting to know them first— particularly since such a quest can be set up to end with a burst of Cost recovery (pg. 323) that can offset, and remove the experiential onus of, the Treasure-claiming Cost. Adding new beings or possessions into a florilegium that counts as a single Treasure—whether because the whole florilegium has only a single power, or because it has a variety of relatively small ones—is a simpler matter; for this, the Strategist does not need a miracle, much less extra Cost. The gm simply decides whether the effect needs one spotlighted interaction or three; after that, such an inclusion completes. The Flore Attribute measures the degree to which the Strategist has let an entanglement with Creation infiltrate them—the degree to which they have let peace into their heart, found things in the world to care about, and allowed the fibrous cilia of their spiritual and emotional connection to those things to wind deep into the metaphysical structure of themselves. It represents the degree to which they’ve let the delights of the world turn them aside from what they are. A bleak description, perhaps—but this is an unnatural power. The Strategists of the Chancery are not changed beings, nor is the world they live in a changed world. Existence is not redeemed, nor are they made a fit part of it, simply because they have forsaken the pinnacle of their malice; if Flore ever becomes a natural power for a Strategist, if it ever becomes something pure and just and true and good for them, it is because their original nature has at some point broken and they have remade themselves as patchwork creatures of the world and Glitch. Such creatures may have some virtue; they may be brighter and more beautiful than any Strategist or Angel ... but the process by which they come to be is not correct. Regardless, low levels of Flore represent characters still fundamentally alienated from the world. In their infection, their loss of self, and their enraged return into the world, they lost any sense of place within it; it has not returned. Their enmity with the world is all that affixes them to it: with very few exceptions, a Strategist who does not begin their career in incandescent fury against the world simply never bothers to return to it at all. Higher ratings in Flore represent increasing attachment and increasing world-lore. Each level of Flore costs 2 points and makes a number of powers relating to one’s Treasures less costly. At Flore 0, the simplest emotional connection is dangerous to the Strategist’s spiritual integrity; attempting to guide or instruct a Treasure is outright treacherous. At Flore 7, for comparable risks, they can call out the divine power that sleeps within an ordinary thing or summon a Treasure to their side from halfway around the world. Low levels of Flore sharply limit the character’s ability to use their Treasures to practical effect—they may draw out the

183 occasional wonder from their friends, or their town, or their treasured coat, but this is more an incidental feature of their divine existence than a reliable power base. High levels of Flore allow the character to build organizations and arsenals: It's not just that the power is more responsive, or that they have more treasures to hand, but that the Strategist’s more reliable access to Flore exalts the Treasures themselves and makes them more amenable to such organization. It is, after all, a lot more reasonable to expect someone to put their hidden talents and “true nature” front and center in their life when their access to those things has become reliable. A character may purchase “Gifts” that relate to Flore. These generally represent specific artifacts that the Strategist has learned to call forth power from that are not actual treasures of their heart or, more rarely, actual treasures of their heart that they have an idiosyncratic relationship to. It is also possible to take Gifts that allow broader mastery of specific tricks (like spiritual projection to one’s Treasures, guiding one’s treasures, or construction of new artifacts) than one’s Flore level normally allows. Some of these Gifts appear later, along with a general system for constructing your own Gifts.

Being in Two Places at Once Being in two or more places at once—e.g., for ten breaths after Projection, when using Administration at all, or when visiting multiple Treasures at once with the Greater form of these powers—is a common feature of Flore’s powers, and it’s often a bit muddling. The gm may require a Focus task (pg. 130) to avoid reflexively putting all of The Core Powers The core powers of Flore are these: DIFFICULTY

POWER

USE

0 1 2 3 4

Connection Projection Administration Guidance Glorification

5 6 7 8

Ignition Trust Design Divine Plan

sense a Treasure’s need visit Treasures in dreams/trance contact them while awake improve Treasure-based actions awaken and wield a Treasure’s hidden magic improve Treasures in conflict helps a Treasure “act on its own” mundane artifact-crafting shape a Treasure’s destiny

Each can be used by a Strategist with [Flore ≥ difficulty] ... or by a Strategist with lower Flore, if they pump up their Flore with Immersion (pg. 270) or some other Cost. Greater forms of each of these powers are available at +4 to the base power’s difficulty. Variations and combinations are also possible, as discussed on pg. 150. Flore, in particular, benefits from such combinations—many higher-level powers will want to incorporate, e.g., a Guidance or Glorification effect into their own.

one’s attention in one location at a time. They may require a Greater Focus task (pg. 130) to avoid being a little slow and a little bit confused when taking or following action in both locations at once. This muddling generally doesn’t apply to miraculous actions, but does apply to the sensory processing and thinking involved.

Level 0 Flore: “Outsider” 0 points Strategists with this level of Flore are still outsiders to the world. Perhaps they have found things to care about. Perhaps they have even found treasures of their heart. But however much they have flirted, or not, with the idea of immersing into the world—they have not done so. They have not given themselves over to it yet, have not spent time existing in Creation since their initial break with it. Their entire context for relationship with the world is one of struggle, grief, or grand design; there has been no room, or at least little room, for peace. They have not laughed with coworkers while building something they cared about—unless that thing was contributory to the end of Creation, or some other Nınuanni cause. They have not eaten lunch on rocks beside the sea. They have wandered no gardens on cracked stones nor exhausted themselves playing catch with any dogs. They have told few stories and listened to few stories. They have watched no movies, unless with a sinister plan in mind. They have snuggled in few blankets. They have shaken off the pestering of small children. They have not cooked anything badly or eaten what results. Rarely have they lost hours diving into wikis or reading fan fiction. Only the most casually efficient of them pay their bills: for the rest, by one means or another, they are circumvented. They exist in the world, but they do not live. Why should they live? The world is wrong. Why should they eat on rocks beside corrupted seas? Why should they wander gardens when every flower displays the perverse vitality of the earth? Why should they throw a ball to a dog, only to have the dog bring it back to them, only, now, covered in dog spit and probably dirt and possibly worse things besides? And, the dog expects them to take it, possibly even plans to make them work to take it? Seriously? There is something broken in the nature of the maws of dogs. Surely. Why should they tell stories to ears that are clogged with the gruesome substance of the world? Why should they watch the puerile movies on its screens? Why should they scratch themselves with the rough fibers of its blankets born? ... these are rhetorical questions, of course, even if they voice them; they know the answers to these things. They remember them, if they lived in a place with rocks and seas, with gardens and with stones, with dogs and movies and blankets and with the ears that hear. But even knowing these things, how may they overcome the visceral revulsion that the world enkindles in them and let experience

flore

184 absorb them? Even if they are personally unaware of the sickness in the sea, even if they cannot see the squelching hurt in the raw red mouth-flesh of a dog, even if an air of disdainful elegance requires that they immerse themselves to some degree in the world’s sensations— How can they set the truth aside? How can they enjoy it, how can they let experience devour them and transform them, when the world is wrong? There is no answer, of course. It is not a thing that has answers. There is no good reason, nor no good method. It is simply a thing that some do. Transcending, overcoming, and experiencing ... is a thing that is sometimes done. Those that have not, or have not much yet, retain Flore 0, no matter how much they care or do not care about the world.

too. Sometimes—it depends—it will first turn green. It is a hideous and painful death, but the alternative is not eating curry. This is not only beyond his willpower but is a technical impossibility: if his willpower were up to the task, which it used to be before he despaired of it, then eventually some restaurant server, when told that he can’t eat curry under any circumstances, would tell the kitchen to add extra curry instead, and his doom would once again be sealed. Or it would cross-contaminate his food at home, somehow. Once, it dripped into his mouth while he was sleeping, in a ditch, beside the road; a curry truck had crashed, in perfect silence, and cold cruel cumin’d bounty spread. The point is, while he does really and genuinely love Creation’s curry, the only thing that that love has taught him is one can never trust the things one loves within the world.

example concepts

Level 1 Flore: “Ghost”

Amaliana Welbarc is dying of souvenirs. She brought something home with her. It was a thing that she did not put in her luggage. It was a thing that shouldn’t have been in anybody’s luggage. She buried it away at the bottom of her mind. But after that she kept finding stranger and stranger things coming home with her. Nor, when it moved within her mind, could she just stay home. Her first death was to a border guard. Her second, to the snake within her bag. Her third was interrupted when an Imperator attempted to claim her as a Power—or, arguably, when she attempted to bring home the quintessential spirit of the Estate of Absinthe from vacation. Her instinctive rejection of that bitter green binding broke her free of a cycle that normally becomes eternal after the first or second death; lungs full of gasping rejection of Creation, she tore herself free of being and flung herself into the Lands Beyond Creation with, at last, no souvenirs. From that time forward, each pleasant experience or attractive thing within Creation has drawn forth only the deepest wariness from the depths of her: it’s a trap, she knows. It’s all a trap. It looks so pretty, it makes you want to take it home, but oh! Oh! Oh! Creation hungers! Vilares Scandzia is dying of curry. Don’t laugh. It was hot. It was really, really hot. His mouth is still burning. It is always burning. Eventually the rest of him will burn up

2 points Strategists with this level of Flore have rebuilt a faint relationship with the world. Metaphorically they are ghosts, they are vapors: they hover at the edges of existence. They are not good at building relationships, at holding jobs, at finding homes. They are not good at leaving a mark on the world that is not damage, nor at receiving any hale and wholesome mark therefrom themselves. Everything is alienated from them, and they from it; they are monsters, they are Not-things, they are the horror that the eyes of Angels sculpted from the void and the royalty of a Creation-conquered land. ... but they have found something, something tenuous, that can bring them peace. That can make them glad. They have an attachment to the world that is not just outrage. They have the capacity and the history for an experience of worth. The quintessential power of the Ghosts is, perhaps appropriately, the power to visit their Treasures in spirit. They are still lacking a certain pith of connection, and for that reason they must either concentrate deeply or drown themselves in Immersion ... but in their dreams, or in a trance, or in that deep concentration, they may touch the hearts and minds of their treasures from afar. Their phantom bonds to the world strengthen and they may share themselves with their Treasures—seeing through their Treasure’s eyes and whispering their secrets into their Treasure’s mind. This can span miles, if not continents: At all times, effortlessly if not casually—as if wired together by an intranet of the mind—they’re connected to every Treasure in the same metropolitan area or ecoregion. At the same time, they are still in a very real sense cut off: If they are not concentrating, or dreaming, or drowning themselves in Immersion, and if their Treasures are not reaching out to them in turn, then all their spiritual connections will be dormant, and they will be as much a

Existing apart from every other living thing, the Enwynard Drake knew not how to make distinction between its suffering and its weal. Every day its flesh was raked as by a thousand thousand iron talons; every night embers of agony were lit within those wounds; imps of malice traced suppurating itches across its viridescent scales. This the Wyrm of Enwynard thought good. Surely, it thought, no being in Creation can be so lucky as am I—so beautiful; so blessed; so graced. It dragged its wounded bulk across grim sands. — from Glory! prAiSed The broken mouSe, by Rannen Yedidyah

glitch: a story of the Not

185 Mr. Smith did not die, but, gradually, he lost his relevance. Eventually his connection to the world became so tenuous that he was re-classified as a poltergeist and his possessions transferred to his heirs. — from The hAunTinG of p.o. box 82, by Cecilia Caouetta

bubble of alienated and rejected unreality amidst a broad Creation as any Outsider would be with no Flore at all.

example concepts Agnavi Gerungsson is dying of paradise. His life is too good. It’s so good that it’s wrong. It makes him soft. It makes him stop paying attention. Eventually, like all things that aren’t paying attention, he stops existing. Then, with a scream, he wrenches himself gasping into awareness in the Not. His recurring dalliances with a sorrowless existence have gotten him this far in Flore, but they also keep him from going farther: he can’t make real connections because he suffers a surfeit of artificial ones; can’t find a home or a path in life because the “good” options are full of traps. Yet even if he were to seek an investment in the world, deliberately favoring miserable relationships and bad choices isn’t helpful: whatever true, deep, and good experiences and relationships are out there for him to find, they look exactly like the paradisiacal ones; only, with a timbre of authenticity that is not discoverable save through lived experience and time. Jeanne-Alice Maliqe is dying of scissors. They long to cut her out of life. They trim away the things and experiences that she has found. She hunts for truth and love and life within the world out of sheer contrariness but it is so very hard to find it when her every anchor is forcibly unanchored; even the dearest treasures of her heart do not know that she exists, and she barely remembers what they are.

Level 2 Flore: “Envoy” 4 points Strategists at this level of Flore have found a firmer anchor. Their own nature and their awareness of the Glitch still pollutes their interactions and their experiences, but their bond with their flores has escalated to innate divinity: It is not necessarily truer or more meaningful than a human bond, but it is more spiritually robust, more thoroughly entrenched in the world, more distancedefying; with but a thought, they may send a portion of their consciousness to any of their Treasures, as if entangled by a silver astral cord. One may say that in a metaphysical sense they and their Treasures have become one being, or at least a symbiotic consortium. The fundamental essence of each being remains its own, but the outer structural layers of their spirits are not distinct.

In the Excrucian Host, Strategists with this level of Flore are known as Envoys; they are understood as plausible intermediaries between Creation and the Not. To some extent, like all expatriates, they are under suspicion of assimilation: any Strategist that has indulged this far in the experience of Creation is tainted even if they have not outright abandoned the cause of war. Nor is the doubt they face from those of Creation any less acute. ... but they are, at least, alloyed with the substance of both sides; if anyone may rightly negotiate with the law-beings and their serfs, it would be the practitioners of Flore. More than that, they have an innate quality of multipresence, a natural tendency to be with treasures in multiple locations at once; this will not fully develop until Flore 6, when it spans the cosmos rather than the Region, but it too intrinsically cultivates a certain emissarial mien.

example concepts Adosinda Valentia is dying of life. Allergic to the vital principle, she must keep herself away from macroscopic living things; eventually, though, her own vitality kills her. It is a miserable existence, but in the quiet of Antarctica and the deep Atacama desert, she has found a love for the world. That love is repaid by the land itself. Hinnerith Carsus is dying of rank. As a young serviceman, he was accidentally promoted into a rank that no longer exists and should never have existed; now, he is persistently recognized by anyone trying to figure out his rank, duties, or official position as an agent of an enemy power. When he is properly medicated he can keep it at a low ebb, where corporate executives see him as an auditor or a rival manager’s employee, marines see him as an army grunt, and grocery clerks really don’t care about the fact that he might be working for another store even if they bother to try to figure out his job in the first place. When able performance of his duties brings his condition into full flourish his uniform is more likely to be “recognized” as that of an industrial saboteur, terrorist, or union buster. It was not until many years later, though, that he properly understood the hidden kick to his infection: he isn’t merely an enemy agent, but the enemy agent that gets entangled with the other side. He is the wounded pilot behind enemy lines who falls in love; the industrial saboteur who forges a lifelong friendship with a humble stock clerk; the scab who crossed the picket line the first time in order to break a strike, but a second and later time because where else can they get borscht-flavored potato chips? Loathsome though he finds the world, in short, it has forced him to learn to care. At our current level of understanding we cannot say that λ-matter exists, or does not exist; rather, it occupies an intermediate space between the two. — from The inViSible uniVerSe: hoW lAo Tzu mAy hAVe prediCTed pArTiCle phySiCS, by Dr. Jared Wilson

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186 Level 3 Flore: “Catalyst” 6 points Strategists with this level of Flore receive the homage of the world. Their presence exalts it ... at least, when they are not spreading terror, infection, and destruction. Perhaps even then. A purpose lives in them, and that purpose is holy. It lifts up those who come into its service. In the name of the Strategist, their treasures shine. Catalysts function as a kind of drumbeat, a kind of drive. It is alien, but it has integrated itself into the world. Their purpose—mediated through their choices and their Treasures’—has acquired naturalness and grace. Even if that purpose is the Wyrd of War against the world, it is a smoothly participating current in the ocean of events. In turn Creation has infected them. At this point it is difficult for them to retain such dread purpose. The experience of the world has rooted itself in the motion of them, in the tides of their dream-of-self, even as that dream has infiltrated itself into the world. The idea of ending everything becomes not so much unspeakable for them—even mortals compassed entirely within the world can preach that particular bleak gospel—as incoherent: It begins to contrast against itself. It becomes subtly and increasingly self-dissonant within the music of their dream. Eventually the Strategist bound to the Wyrd of War and the nature of the Catalyst is doomed to collapse in confusion, knowing that they can perhaps unmake the weirds of the law-beings but no longer certain how to even approach the ineffable beingness of Creation and the Glitch that is behind it; nor are they clear on how one might operate within Creation, to the eventuation of its end.

example concepts Unimund Bures is dying of appearances. Once as real and concrete as you or me—ah, no presumption intended—he stumbled upon the Anaraxian Diagram and discovered himself an optical illusion. Even after transcending himself in dialogue with Escher and proving the entire world equally illusory, he has not escaped the itching awareness at the back of his head that he only appears to be Unimund, when in fact he is something else— that he is not the human he appears, not the prince of nothingness and the knife of nonexistence that he has found himself to be, but ... a mistake. A cognitive error. The belief that he does exist, or that one is witnessing him, is commonly known as the Bures Delusion or the Bures Illusion; it is over the course of many years of quiet desperation studying that phenomenon, working patiently with deeply troubled individuals who believe in him, and collaborating with fellow neurologists fascinated by the concept of his “existence,” that he has inadvertently entangled himself within the world. Nicolette Hailwic is dying of rage. She stumbled on one of the ancient rages that were supposed to have been eliminated by Excrucian action long ago—one of

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the fey berserks that waxes and wanes and comes upon you unexpected; that bursts forth, eventually, in gross transformation into a rampaging beast (or, in her case, wyrm). The ego may be recovered from this transformation, but recovery grows ever more difficult; she “dies” when it is finally and irretrievably (by normal measures) lost. Her curse falls in the penumbra of the glitch: not quite impossibly wrong in and of itself, but hinting at true horrors around its edges. For that reason, and because rage is nemesis to her, she has found it comfortable to fit within the world: to endure within existence, building deep connections, until her own rage tears what she loves down.

Level 4 Flore: “Awakener” 8 points Strategists with this level of Flore have at last mastered the heart of this Attribute—effortlessly, they see the true faces of their treasures. Effortlessly, they awaken them. Some are teachers. They unlock that hidden potential that lay dreaming within their students. Others collect rare artifacts and learn a mastery of their secrets. Some infuse themselves with rare essences born from alchemy and keep their treasures melded to their bones and flesh. A few study the lore of the places dearest to their hearts— from gardens to hills and shores. Some find a circle of friends or allies and become its heart, the one who inspires the group, who brings out its best. A few find wonders in ordinary-seeming pets or stones. Most are at least a little bit eclectic, of course, as one cannot choose what one’s heart will treasure; but one can choose what one spends one’s time with, what one immerses oneself into, what receives the benefit of one’s conscious care. What is this “true face” of a Treasure that they awaken? In one sense it is subtle, underlying, and inherent. It is not a thing they can create or change; it greets them from the moment they and the Treasure make connection. The true face of a thing, its buried potential, is simply there. In another sense, the “true face” is an idea. It is not the Strategist’s choice how they form that idea or how it filters the world around them, but it is subjective. Potential, as with worth, can be a matter of perspective. In extreme cases, different Strategists can see different things in the same Treasure: they may (or may not) recognize what the other sees, but they deny its primacy and they cannot pull it forth ... because they approach the raw material in a different way and they care, fundamentally, about different things. One might recognize that a carpet is capable of flight; another, that it can serve as the lynchpin of a certain room’s design. The same carpet, the same “truth” in the potential, the same subtlety in it that might be missed by lesser eyes ... but different outcomes in the entire. More meaningfully, one might see the potential of a certain beach as the undine they can call forth from its waters; another, as the ancient well of heat that lives within the sun-forged sand. Perhaps an outside observer

187 The god descended, whispering, as Jason had always known it would: You are special. You are more than this. You are destined for something else. You were not meant to spend your days ground down like this, in service to other men; to spend your nights shouting your futile passions at deaf ears. It was not meant. These words: they lifted him up. They transfixed him. He basked in them, his arms spread wide, until the last: The world can no longer resist your nature, Jason. You were always intended to find your greatness as a bee. — from All iSomorphiC ThinGS, And Time, by Elliott Porterfield

might put more importance on the carpet’s flight than in its decorative potential, but is the truth of a beach found in the water, or in the sand? It is extremely rare that a Strategist should reach this level of Flore while still an active party in the War. There are some truths that just can’t be seen from an adversarial perspective. Until they relax a little in their enmity to the world, a Strategist tends to be blind to much of Creation’s richness and its deepness. They can perceive its beauty and its truths, but those truths and that beauty are estranged from them. Thus, it requires a deviant perspective to thread the needle of that contradiction and see Creation with the grace of the Awakener while remaining staunchly and fervidly at war. ... though, those who have abandoned war are still so few! Perhaps it is the case that, despite all that above, the Awakeners who are still at war yet manage to outnumber those that aren’t.

example concepts Lenya Adrasteia is dying of guns. In her last mortal shot her finger went past the trigger into the domain of some great dreaming horror that lives beyond the gun. She came to know that it loathed her. Now where there are guns she sees the world bleeding away; from time to time, its bloated, tormentine tendrils slip through to hunt her in the dark; as her condition advances, she is incapable of perceiving where they are aimed, or when they are fired, but fanged bullets always trend towards her. She has seen the true face of the world, and it is hunger. Alatheus Tirzah is dying of fog. They went into the fog, and did not return. —or, well, they returned as the fog-cursed Alatheus Tirzah, and not as whatever being they had been. They have, from time to time, implied that, further, this is not the Creation that they left. When questioned on their attunement to the world, on their understanding of peace, their ability to experience, their fierce deep love for things, and on their insight into the natures of the things they see, they explain it thus: that in the fog, they apperceive the true shapes of things—and

beyond that, past the law-beings’ watch, and even past the Glitch, to some ineffable and shining substrate of the world, before it blows away; and only then to Nınuan.

Level 5 Flore: “Geomancer” 10 points Strategists with this level of Flore learn to command their Treasures with exquisite profundity and skill. From insight arises craft, and the ineffable mysteries of Creation yield fluidly to their designs: what was once raw elemental puissance becomes a precision tool. Their greatest skill, and those tools’ greatest use, is found in conflict—in raising up the natural powers of Creation against the law-beings and their servants, against they who have imprisoned the world in their shackling ideals of form ... and, perhaps, against their own kind, too, who would tear the whole thing down. Subtle and quick are the powers in a Geomancer’s hands: With the innate unruliness of a crooked twig, they can disrupt the flow of miracles. With the faithful service of three nameless knights, they can contend with giants. With the rusty magic of an ancient knife, they can hold back Excalibur. ... with just a child’s knack to find lost things, they can break the seal that shelters Avalon. This too is a form of exaltation; the Treasures in their hands are raised up beyond what they could have been. The Strategist has become the warleader in the world they were already in the void: a general both brilliant and fiery, able to inflame the powers of their flores and put them to good use. They have integrated their nature as warleaders into that part of them that has been subsumed into Creation, and therefore face an enormous crisis of their loyalty from the moment they crest this stage: There are only one or two Geomancers per major world who are purely loyal to the War; the rest, even if they stand opposed to Creation, have branched off to become third parties, conflicted neutral forces who will one day hurt the world and the next protect it—who serve the War, who cooperate with the Excrucian Host, only so long as it supports their agenda, or out of personal loyalty to their old comrades in the Host. Conversely, even Chancery members who become Geomancers tend to spend an interval more militant than they had been—not necessarily at war with anything in particular, but nevertheless with adrenaline roused and a directionless will-to-fight swirling around within their The daeva blinked, and the tower ceased to be—the tower, and its furnishings, and all the myriad who worked within, all save for one. She, that one, she was a shadow and a dream; this is not disputed; but, she was a seamstress too: Her work of mending, which was then in progress, affixed Susannah to the world. — from buy on The mArGin, by Mackenzie Rusch

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188 souls. As their understanding of how the things they love can be used to fight becomes acute; as the baggage of their original incarnation as that which Creation fears and that which wars against the world drifts to the surface for resolution and integration into their modern selves ... it becomes easy to want an enemy. Any enemy will do.

example concepts Abhilash Folcher is dying of propaganda. He was one of the victims of an ill-conceived propaganda campaign that attempted to suppress reform by linking opposition to glitched memetics. Now he can’t escape it: it eventually leaks into other advertising campaigns that he’s exposed to and traps his consciousness in a maze of mirrors. Despite his survival and transcendence, he is prone to repeatedly lose track of who he is—either as part of the bombardment or as an attempt to survive it—sinking back into a series of in-Creation identities and lives. His malice against the world is often submerged, mitigated, or channeled, but it is not resolved; an itch to do something still burns inside him. Silvester Bethania is dying of money. For xem, it’s fungible with Wear—xie can pay for things directly by and only directly by taking Wear, albeit initially with an untracked fraction of a point, and a sufficiently large windfall will reduce it. Unfortunately, xir exchange rate becomes more punitive the longer xie remains in Creation, as does the breadth of the phenomenon, until eventually even charity and robbery count as purchases, the cost of a meal has escalated beyond what xie can pay, and all the windfalls in the world won’t help. In the meantime, money makes the world go around, and so, logically, does Silvester Bethania: mastering the arcane wizardry of finance, xie has divested xirself from the portfolio of war and taken up with the Usurers of Ofeili— an Imperial faction, native to a distant world where coins are alive and humans mindless, but who operate a bank and auction house on Earth.

Level 6 Flore: “Eternal” 12 points Characters with this level of Flore have won their Treasures’ hearts, even as their Treasures have won theirs. —a statement perhaps too strong, too binding, in cases where the player or gm might have objections, but otherwise quite sound. It is the fundamental characteristic of the Eternal that they may win the loyalty of things even of Creation. They do not merely inspire their Treasures to obey them; their Treasures are actively and assiduously motivated to assist. To, if not necessarily to serve them, support them. To stand beside them in the face of what fears or pains may come. Even Creation itself will serve: the Eternal’s life is blessed by happy fortune. The instrumentality of this remains their Treasures’ ... but those Treasures acquire a

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natural timing and skill in their support and service far surpassing what the Strategist could expect of them on their own. For this such Strategists are named Eternal: beloved of both the Is, and Not. As with the Geomancers, it is a rare Eternal who is properly loyal to Unbeing. To stay at war with the world while ascending to the Eternal requires existing on multiple spiritual layers. One must have an Eide that immerses entirely within the world, but also a second face behind it, controlling it and steering it. One must have a Wyrd that is content to estrange itself from much of one’s existence, showing itself only in the subtlest movements of one’s life. One must, in short, be a puppet to oneself. Otherwise, an Eternal who signs on with the War does so in the same fashion as a turncoat Power: Their struggle against the world may be equivalent in intensity, but they have assimilated: it is now treason or rebellion, not invasion or assault. The vast majority of the Eternals have given up the War; though, this does not mean that they have allied themselves with the Glitch-riddled horrors of Creation. Most, instead, take up the Chancery’s uncertainty or pursue some alternative and private goal.

example concepts Audovera Tyras is dying of heat. At the school she runs all the students love her, but even they can’t protect her when Red Summer comes and she must fly away. Thursten Ismara is dying in a Russian prison cell. In the end it doesn’t matter how hard the friends and family he’s found while working as a small town auto mechanic try to save him. It doesn’t matter how fast his jury-rigged cars can drive. Sins from a murky human past will one day catch up to him, and he will be extradited, lured, or snatched bodily away to that Russian cell to die.

The woman was infested with Imperator. Its stuff was rife in her. Vivid. Vitriolic. You could see it as she walked among the pillars: like she was a bottle sloshing with some angel’s power. Like she was a vessel that held a homunculus inside her, like it was crouched there in her soul. Eating at the integrity of what she was. Like acid. Like an acid rain. She knelt down before me. She put her eyes on level with my own. They were clear as water. Hers, I mean. You could see right through them. She put one hand on my shoulder. She said, “ You don’t have to serve him.” Like it was kindness. “I can help you to be free of him.” I couldn’t help the sneer, but it subsided into angry sympathy. Aggrieved compassion. A sullen hate. “ You don’t get it,” I said. “I don’t want to be free of anything. He shines.” “He was born to end the world,” she said. “He ... he has perverted you.” I was crying for her, but she didn’t understand my tears. — from the Thought-Record of the Child-Guardian of Tsir opposite: by Jenn Manley Lee

Raniba Theos, Amputation their Bane

190 Level 7 Flore: “World-Weaver” 14 points Strategists with this level of Flore effortlessly create their own wonders. It takes time, perhaps—time, to teach their cat to sing, their car to fly, or to build a magic boat; time, to rebuild their house from scratch, now a soaring manor out of legend born; time, to invest their spirit into a map so that it can guide mortals to their hearts’ desire... Time, but that is all. The blueprints of the world live in their eyes; they know the secret laws behind its crafting. They understand from what the wonders and the horrors of it all are born, and thus the generative power of the law-beings rests within their hands. To become a WorldWeaver is itself a form of treason against the Host: Only by the uttermost prostration before the altars of Unbeing—the most humble, chained, and constrained service—do a few who have mastered this final art retain position among the Excrucian soldiers in the War. (That ... or perhaps secrecy, rejection of the title, and the assertion that one is but Eternal; nothing more.) One by one, those few turn against their peers, or are turned upon, for it is ultimately the nature of the armies of the Not to disdain them, them and the great drumming of creation that pounds and hums within their veins.

example concepts Gladwin Arcaeda is dying of the sound of bugs. He longs for nothing more than quiet and peace to challenge his work—a work that he dreams will someday put him on par with the Creator—but the noises of insects drive him to distraction. Eventually the raw horror they awaken in him makes him unable to bear his life: the things he loves become infected for him with the loathsomeness of the glitch, he hears the buzzing of flies and the whine of mosquitos rising from his work, and in a paroxysm of desperation he tears his creations and his flesh apart. Celestria Durance is dying of laughter. She’s seen the true face of the world and, well. It’s actually pretty appalling when it gets going—it’s not just delight at some secret joke, although there’s some of that, it’s not even just laughing at things that shouldn’t be funny: it’s the degeneration of her ability to handle herself as she stumbles on difficulties that are just too funny to fix; the incidences of hypoxia; and everything after the tipping point when she really loses it where it stops being funny even to her that she can’t stop and becomes upsetting instead, or too. She’s still one of the better-adjusted Strategists, though: while she’s technically in favor of burning down the world and everything in it, she’s really not that into it as a priority.

And Esme Skeid crafts more potent things than e’er she destroyed. — from The erroneouS librAry, by Beta Vulgaris

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� bhorrent weapons In the keeping of the Host are five hundred and seventytwo weapons that Creation names Abhorrent—storied treasures fit to lay an Angel low. For the most part, these have little to do with the affairs of the Chancery: Earth will have about a baker’s dozen in use at any given time, out of a strategic allotment ranging between fifteen and forty; there simply aren’t enough for the Host to leave them in the Chancery’s hands. That doesn’t mean that they’ll get wrenched out of the hands of any Chancery holder the instant that they join, of course, or that they’re necessarily so functionally abhorrent that the Chancery members will voluntarily let them go; the truth is, some of them are beautiful, some of them are useful even in the Chancery, some of them are impossible to relinquish, and the Host is not so good at keeping track of its strategic weapons that there aren’t three or four out there in Imperial or Noble possession. ... but it does mean that over time, there’s a tendency for weapons worth noticing to drift back out of Chancery hands, if they’re in them, and into the hands of the proper Host. There’s a tendency for soldiers still at war with the world to place a higher value on them than the members of the Chancery do, whether the actual means that they reclaim them with is confiscation, social pressure, bargaining, relinquishment, circumstances, or chance; and even a great weapon that a pc made may well have wound up in a soldier’s hands. That said: These weapons are out there, glorious and terrible as the Strategists are glorious and terrible, and they carry legends of their own. Most have two names, one to mock Creation with and one to be their own.19 Most have two forms: one physical, their weapon-body; one mythical, a monster or a person’s shape, that they wear from time to time in unusual metaphysical environments and in their owners’ dreams. Each has a power that can kill even such as the Angels, who need level 7+ miracles to harm, and abstractions like the Lords of Games (pg. 402). Most of these artifacts are, ironically, Creational, forged within the world or stolen from it and corrupted; for instance, some of the best known of the Weapons are: ӫ Monstrous, which is named Colbrand [Colibrand]: a divine torch, allegedly a perversion of the essential thing, the key to it all, “the proof that Creation is worthwhile.” Aunigild who named it claims to have found it in a dungheap outside the world; Creational scholars say, instead, that it was sacrificed or traded away, long, long ago, to somehow keep the void at bay for a certain time. Regardless, its origin as a thing of the world, twisted by Excrucian artifice, is clear. 19 Three, if you wish to count it that way; their personal name generally has a standard Creational and a standard Nınuanni (provided in square brackets) form.

191 ӫ Outrage, which is named Typhon [Teikiph]: a golden whip. In dreams, it may be a gold-scaled snake. It was stolen from a land that the Excrucian Host defeated; there, allegedly—and despite its fiendishly sharp edge—it was used to strangle unsuccessful claimants to a throne. ӫ Horror, which is named Eurytos [Ereto]: a thing of shifting spines and mucilaginous poisons. Once, it had been beautiful; then the Excrucians claimed it, twisted it, and used it to kill its maker. Now it is filled with tragic murder and self-hate. ӫ Abomination, which is named Blunderbore [Biluin]: the lingering essence of a place that gave up and killed itself rather than oppose the Excrucian Host. It—that vast and sprawling realm—chose to die: its people, its plants, its very things expired, rather than continue to exist in the same continuum as the Not. Its ash, a Strategist that loved it forged into the mace named Blunderbore. Artifacts such as these, if a pc were to have or to obtain one, would be wielded with Flore or with a Gift thereof. The most common power for such weapons is the corrosive ability to cut through immortality and preservative measures—most effective against law-beings when used with high-end miracles, but allowing one, with even basic use of Flore, to corrode the noble metals, kill multiplying strains of bacteria with a touch, strike through protective magic, and murder weak but deathless things like ghosts. Non-Creational weapons of note, of course, also exist; just such weapons the first Riders held, in their assault upon the world. Three of the most famous of those would be: ӫ Hatred, which is named Malambruno [Malabur]: the first of the Abhorrent Weapons to fall into Imperial hands. It corrupted the Angel that claimed it and turned him traitor to the world. ӫ Atrocity, which is named Briareos [Bessares]: with this sword, the Excrucians slew Heaven’s gatekeeper at the beginning of the Age of Pain. It is, thus, in its body, a declaration of War against all that Is. Its legacy in the Not is even bloodier: before it became Atrocity it passed through more than a hundred wielders’ hands—principally antiheroes, fearsome bandits, tragic figures, and some of the nastiest tyrants of their day—and made each great ... before their awful ends. ӫ Loathing, also named Gyges [Gaieges]: it is impossible for any Power to approach this weapon, and Imperators who can do better are far and few between. It has a radiance that drives away any thing that serves Creation. The powers of such void-born weapons are idiosyncratic, as are the means of taming them; notable weapons of the Beyond are typically created through quests, Greater Strategy (pg. 177), and Greater Inchoation (pg. 221).

The all-consuming bloodrot sword had thought it might better itself if it could see the world; but it had only, really, gotten worse. —from in The finAl dAyS, by K. C. Danine

A typical player-level method of acquisition and control is to buy their actual powers as Gifts of Eide, Lore, or Wyrd—or, for a lesser weapon, as a Bond or Geas: A player whose pc holds Loathing, for instance, would not buy its power via Flore, unless they wish to allege that the thing is actually Creational; they would instead buy the power to drive away Powers and Imperators directly. Should their character ever lose the weapon permanently, the gm can (and arguably must) return the invested points.

�ules for flore The “power source” for Flore effects is called Immersion. It measures the degree to which the character has let go of their memories of the Glitch, their knowledge of who and what they are, and prostrated themselves before the experience of Creation—succumbed to the allure of its tainted beauties, tangled themselves within its false conceptions and false laws, and lost sight of its inextricable and fundamental wrongs. It is not wrong in itself, but inevitably it leads to wrongness; the Strategist who immerses too deeply in Creation will not find wisdom, but rather abdication: A blinding, ruinous comfort; peace. A character begins the game with [10 × Flore] Immersion. This will rise as they invoke more difficult Flore effects. It will fall over the course of time and when it has harmful results. They may invoke Flore effects with [level ≤ Flore] for “free”—it requires no Immersion. To invoke stronger Flore effects, the Strategist must lean in to Creation or the social conceits of those living within it: that is, to Immersion. Most Strategists need to dip deep into Immersion for even modest Flore effects. They drown in the river of Creation. They become confused, and lost unto themselves; only with time do they recover. Chancery Strategists, on average, fare a little better. Regardless, the character names the Flore level they wish to emulate; the practical maximum, in the absence of a bidding war, will be 23. They perform the effect. If the effect succeeds—if it functions essentially as stated, rather than being blocked or undone outright by hostile countereffects—they accumulate Immersion equal to [desired Flore − original Flore.] For instance, if an Eternal with level 6 Flore wishes to perform a level 11 effect, they will, by default, accumulate 5 points of Immersion. If they wish to overcome a level 2 Ward as well—a miraculous barrier that effectively lowers their miracle level by 2 (pg. 257)—they will accumulate 7 points of Immersion, or,

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192 add +7 to their current Immersion total, instead. From time to time, it is good to note what this Immersion actually represents, what the character is actually doing or feeling as they succumb to Creation—what dangerous attachments they are forming, what they are forgetting, what they are devoting time to, what they will refuse to face. It is good to note, in short, how they fall into samsara, and lose themselves. This is, however, not required; more precisely, if not established at the time of the miracle, it will either be a subtle influence that eventually fades or a dramatic one to be established later. Thus, a character dramatically reaching beyond their limits may choose to explain how, in doing so, they begin to obsess about a certain treasure, commit themselves to something dangerous, fall into a daze, or stop for a few days to help the person they’d originally planned to ruin save their farm; a character engaging in what they consider a work-a-day miracle, even if the total amount

EXAMPLE A character is a Ghost, with level 1 Flore. For this character, the chart looks like: EFFECT TYPE

ACTION LEVELS

Instinctive (0 IMMERSION) Casual (1 IMMERSION) Dizzying (2 IMMERSION) Disorienting (3 IMMERSION) Overwhelming (4-7 IMMERSION) Terrifying (8+ IMMERSION)

Levels 0-1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Levels 5-8 Level 9+

What the player probably memorizes is this: Level 0-1 Flore effects are lesser connections and projections: I can hear when my treasures need me and can visit them in spirit. At least within the same Region, this much is free. Level 2 Flore effects are lesser administration miracles. They let me talk to my treasures mind-to-mind. Again within the same Region, I can do this pretty casually. Level 3-4 Flore effects are lesser guidance and glorification and greater connection miracles. I’m good at working with/ helping my treasures, bringing out their hidden potential, and hearing their desperate prayers even from quite far away—but connecting that deeply is dizzying. Level 5-8 Flore effects—lesser ignition, trust, artifice, and divine plan miracles; greater projection, administration, guidance, and glorification miracles: this is a lot of the meat of the attribute. Letting my treasures oppose miracles, having them reach me instantly, using them to accomplish great things, touching their spirit from very far away, awakening truly great power in them ... doing this stuff feels maybe good sometimes, maybe bad sometimes, but it’s just brutal on me either way. Level 9+ Flore effects—greater ignition, trust, artifice, and divine plan effects—they batter my heart and my mind. I mean, how? Just, how do you deal with that? How do you go deep enough into the world to do this stuff without just ... tearing in two?

glitch: a story of the Not

of accumulated Immersion is the same, need not explain. A character must always buy enough Immersion to succeed at the basic effect. They can add more to overcome a Ward or opposition when and if they discover it’s there. This extra purchase is a little Slow (pg. 251) compared to miracles, though, and in a fast-paced struggle, they may fall behind (see pg. 151, 262). Taking 3+ Immersion at once is a notable moment. The Immersion itself is still a bad thing, but the character will earn a bonus xp. Conceptually, ӫ An effect that costs 0 Immersion is instinctive—it doesn’t drain the character at all. ӫ Spending 1 Immersion is more or less casual. ӫ Spending 2 Immersion is a head rush. ӫ Spending 3 Immersion is seriously disorienting. ӫ A 4-7 Immersion effect is an emotional rollercoaster and a spiritual experience. ӫ Anything beyond that is terrifyingly profound, a massive threat to the Strategist’s ego boundaries and emotional integrity. At the beginning of each chapter, Immersion drops by one, to a minimum of 0. Characters may also reduce Immersion when it brings them to a crisis: when the player, or, at 80+ Immersion, sometimes the gm, has an interesting idea for the harm or change the Immersion might inflict on their character, and implements it as a “Wound.” Superficial Wounds burn off 10 Immersion, with no minimum; harmful ones, 25; metaphysically potent and transformative ones, 50. This isn’t unlimited, though: The character will suffer at most one such Wound per session—counting the Wounds from other, similar, Costs— and at most one 25+ Cost Wound in two consecutive sessions. Characters may freely accumulate Immersion until it hits 80; then, as noted, there are circumstances in which the gm may force a harmful crisis upon them. At 108 (the number of stitches in a Major League baseball), they may no longer spend Immersion at all. ... after roughly 300 points of Immersion have been poured into Wounds over the course of a character’s life, they are no longer playable—they fall beneath the surface of the world, retire into a peaceful life, sacrifice themselves to strengthen Creation, re-enter the river of souls to be reborn a mortal, or somesuch other fate. Some of the key terms used for Flore powers include: ӫ Florem (pl. flores); Treasure. The things of Creation that a Strategist loves, is bound to, and may empower are known as their flores or their Treasures. ӫ Florilegium. A collective Treasure or a collection of Treasures is known as a florilegium. ӫ Region. The conceptual area, ecoregion, or metropolitan area a character is in is called their Region.

193 Calbert was shouting; Maggie was fuming; and the sacred grimoire of the seven sages ... was looking just about as lost and desperate—she thought—as any sacred grimoire could. — from The riddle of The STone, by Mildred Cotta

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Level 0 Miracle: “Connection” Automatic, Long-Ranged Level 0 Flore miracles are the Strategists’ lesser power to sense their Treasures’ hearts. They’re a mystic connection between a Strategist and their Treasures. These miracles allow a Strategist to “hear” or “feel” when one of their Treasures needs them, is trying to contact them spiritually, or—for Treasures unaware that they can contact the Strategist spiritually—is trying desperately to reach them by mundane means ... no matter how far away the Treasure might be. This miracle spans eternity. Most lesser miracles will only connect a Strategist to Treasures in the same Region, but the basic ability to “hear” when a Treasure needs them can cross any distance it must. Level 0 effects include: ӫ becoming aware that something’s wrong when the Strategist’s treasured laptop is being stolen, ӫ noticing a treasured minion/agent signalling for the Strategist’s attention, and ӫ sensing that an adopted child is calling a phone the Strategist doesn’t actually have with them, over and over and over again ...

Level 1 Rite: “Projection” Slow, [Extraordinary] Level 1 Flore Rites are the Strategists’ lesser power of distant communion. They’re the Strategist’s gift for spiritually traveling along the Strategist/Treasure connection, plus, their ability to share their mind and being with their Treasures once there. Invoking Projection, the Strategist slips into a state of sleep or trance. (This makes Projection a beat or two slower than most actions.) In this state, they lose track of their body’s surroundings, retaining only enough awareness to notice danger or an urgent need for action or to be awakened by someone, e.g., shaking them, shouting at them, or dousing them with water. Their functional awareness and their metaphysical presence translates away to float around a Treasure of their choice in the same general Region (e.g., the same city or forest). In this state, they perceive through the Treasure’s senses. If it is asleep, they perceive its dreams. If it is inanimate— well, the world of Glitch is an animistic one; objects are capable of dreaming, and, when they do not dream, and their senses are not actively sealed, they will generally have at least a fuzzy spiritual awareness of the world around them that the Strategist may steal.

The Strategist can communicate mentally with the Treasure during this process, and it will understand their intentions. The converse is not necessarily true: while Strategists don’t generally have to worry about language barriers (pg. 286), a bee may “think” in buzzing swirls; a mountain peak, in stern regard. When projected, the Strategist is generally considered to be “present” where the Treasure is. They can use and be targeted by divine actions there; others can target them with any mundane or divine effect capable of striking at an immaterial spirit. If the Strategist likes, they may touch the Treasure’s mind on a deeper level. When and if they do so: ӫ they can roughly understand even the strangest Treasure’s needs, moods, and reactions. ӫ the Treasure gains a small amount of added mobility, at the gm’s discretion—a library can shift its scrolls and shelves around slowly, for instance, when this power is in force. ӫ the Treasure can call upon all of the Strategist’s attributes, powers, and skills in addition to its own. The Treasure can even access extraordinary effects, although this power is not otherwise Extraordinary. The Treasure can pick and choose the abilities it calls upon: it’s not obligated to adopt unfortunate Geasa, for instance, nor to use the Strategist’s base Ability rating (even with the Strategist’s, e.g., medical training, or powers) if its own should be higher. ӫ the Treasure may use the Strategist’s Costs to support its actions to whatever extent the Strategist allows. (Spending a Cost on those actions must be legitimate in the first place.) Borrowing the Strategist’s Eide, for instance, it can then support it with the Strategist’s Stilling. ӫ and, finally, the Strategist may “take damage” (pg. 279) to protect the Treasure from unwanted events, as long as they aren’t things the Treasure itself actively wants.

The goddess descended. Her presence filled her. Her mind split like the broken sky. In that moment her hands were steady. In that moment her eyes were full of light. She traced her gaze up the wraith that towered before her and it did not terrify her; did not concern her; did not confuse her. It was no longer a stranger, but a pitiable figure: That small and miserable thing that she— that— that the goddess— had bound, so many years ago. That mewling specter trapped and sealed here, of immanent necessity, that a certain thing could some years later on be given ... Its fist was still descending, and it was full of thunder, but she stopped it; or, better said, she spoke its name. “Cadriel. ... Cadriel. It is time.” The thunder knelt. — from The duCk pond, by Emily Chen

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194 Projection ends when the Strategist ends it, or, when they’re awakened. About ten breaths of time later, their spiritual presence will fade away where they were; until that time, they are to some extent in both places. This is a Rite, as touching a Treasure’s mind grants it access to the Strategist’s powers—potentially including Wear and the Four Costs. With a level 1 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ put themselves in a trance and telepathically communicate with a student, ӫ find a lost, treasured cup, ӫ connect heart-to-heart with their adoptive family when dreaming, learning what’s going on in their lives, ӫ telepathically guide their treasured car through the Chicago streets, ӫ create a shared dream, allowing a dear friend that they’re haunting to haunt someone they treasure, in turn, or ӫ realize that a child they’ve come to care about is being threatened by a ghost, and share their own exorcism skill from afar. MORTAL WITNESSES: To the extent that a Treasure calls upon the Strategist’s knowledge and procedural knowledge during this process, its memories of events become disorganized and unclear. This is meant to protect the Strategist, in that if they have a deep secret their Treasures’ memories of knowing that secret will be confused ... but it can also work against them by leaving a key ally hopelessly bewildered or fail to protect them if the Treasure, say, writes that secret down.

Level 2 Miracle: “Administration” Level 2 Flore miracles are the Strategists’ lesser ability to oversee their Treasures. They’re the power to send part of the Strategist’s consciousness and awareness spiritually traveling off to visit a Treasure. MY MOST BELOVED SERVANT. The voice broke into Saul’s thoughts. He startled and nearly spilled his tea. “Eh?” I SHALL REQUIRE YOU TO LOOK UP WHETHER THE PLATYPUS MENSTRUATES. In the background, he could hear the buzz of gods arguing amongst themselves; could hear his god attempting to quiet them. AND, WHETHER OR NOT THAT MENSES IS POISONOUS. “It wouldn’t be ...” Saul broke off there, his confidence faltering, as he found himself uncertain whether to declare that it wouldn’t be poisonous, or that it wouldn’t be venomous. The matter always confused him; and perhaps the god sensed this in him, or, perhaps, it did not. JUST ..., it said. CAN YOU? PLEASE? “... fine,” Saul said, and wearily he pushed himself up from the desk.

The Strategist can mentally visit a Treasure without first entering a trance state or falling asleep. They can’t touch the Treasure’s mind on a deeper level and thus cannot share their experience, knowledge, attributes, or Costs, but they can communicate mentally with it and they can perceive through the Treasure’s senses in addition to their own. They are considered to be “present” where the Treasure is, as well as where they are. If they need to understand an alien or inanimate Treasure’s thoughts, this power can be combined with Greater Connection (below) into a single, difficulty 4, miracle. Administration ends when the Strategist stops concentrating on the effect. About ten breaths of time later, their spiritual presence fades away where they were. Level 2 effects include: ӫ verifying the security of the Strategist’s treasured archive, ӫ communicating with a treasured person from afar, and ӫ quickly checking the status of a treasure while in a situation where it’s not safe to fall asleep or trance out.

� iracles of empowerment Level 3 Miracle: “Guidance” [Time-Consuming] Level 3 Flore miracles grant an insight into how to wield the Strategist’s Treasures well. They are a Strategist’s lesser powers of instruction and encouragement. The Strategist guides a Treasure or someone using a Treasure through an Ability action. Normally this helps with a single action, but if the Strategist takes the TimeConsuming effort to work with the Treasure in advance on an action or a set of actions for a bit, or if the Treasure just needs to keep doing whatever it was they just did, the mundane effects of their Guidance can linger for a few scenes—potentially up to “much of a session.” It isn’t that the miracle itself lasts that long, of course; it’s more, sometimes good advice is still good advice the next day. Guidance grants comfort in the task. It grants either the Strategist’s professional competence, or ordinary professional competence, whichever is better. It grants a +1 Ability bonus, to a maximum of the Strategist’s own Ability, and 2 Edge. The Strategist may, if appropriate, gain these bonuses themselves—e.g., when driving a Treasure car. Level 3 effects include: ӫ superior use of a treasured device, ӫ talking a treasured companion through a difficult task, possibly from afar, and ӫ prepping a treasured friend for a test.

— from The VrykolAkAn STrATAGem, by K. C. Danine

glitch: a story of the Not

opposite: by Kirsten Moody

196 “I want to fly,” I said. “ You can’t fly.” “... but ...” “I can’t give you any superpowers I want,” she said. “Or any that you want. That’s not how it works. If it did, everybody would be Savior.” “Oh.” “If you contract with me,” she said. “I can give you the powers that are in you. In the seed of self that is in you. Whatever they might be.” “I won’t ... like, turn into a tree or something, right?” She sighed. She looked me over. “Do you feel like the kind of person who turns into a tree, Ha-neul?” “I just think I should be sure!” “There’s no certainty in life,” she said. “Only the choice: do you want the pain of helplessness, or the pain of power?” — from eArThborn, by Theresa Dasher

Level 4 Miracle: “Glorification” [Time-Consuming] Level 4 Flore miracles recognize and awaken the unique innate power that sleeps within one of the Strategist’s Treasures. They are, specifically, the Strategists’ lesser techniques for doing so. For each Treasure, the Strategist may specify one special power. It should be a relatively straightforward power. It does not have to be single-purpose or weak, but it should display a certain conceptual parsimony: a tendency towards there being a thing that it does. This power, the Strategist may use Glorification to awaken, facilitate, or grant. Functionally the granted power is a Technique, although (as noted) it should be narrower than a Strategist’s default. It’s invoked through Ability actions20. This includes the potential for truly impressive stunts at Ability 6+. If the Treasure has agency over the power, it may take its own Ability actions; the gm decides descriptively what it will do. If someone else wields or uses the Treasure, e.g., the Strategist, they provide the Ability action themselves. This power grants 1 Edge when the user is new to using it, but this can rise to 3 Edge with practice.21 Glorification is a sustained effect. However, it can become a longer-term effect—one that lasts for a few scenes after the Strategist stops sustaining it, and potentially up to “much of a session”—if the Strategist works with the Treasure for a few hours in the background or an extended/self-spotlit training sequence. 20 (unless the target, somehow, has Eide (pg. 150).) 21 Note, when combining powers like Glorification, Ignition, and Guidance, that Edge bonuses are a reflection of how unfair a conflict is, not pure numbers. Two or three roughly similar advantages may sometimes, at the gm’s option, add up to one slightly larger one ... but mostly, Edges don’t stack.

glitch: a story of the Not

This effect is often used as part of the story of claiming a Treasure in play. If the Strategist already has [Flore + 1] or more Treasures, a Time-Consuming Glorification action will allow them to claim yet one more; this effect can be combined with an ordinary Glorification, or can simply identify the potential for one, and has a 20 Cost surcharge. If the Treasure the pc is claiming is sufficiently inherently powerful, the gm may request or require a Greater Glorification (pg. 200), instead. Thus, level 4 effects include: ӫ awakening the power of a treasured fan to make blasts of wind when waved, and waving it, ӫ digging out the telekinetic ability within a treasured friend, ӫ digging out the incredible musical ability within a treasured friend, ӫ naming said friend as treasured in the first place, and ӫ activating the supernatural functions of a magical hacking program and using it to hack into an airgapped system. MORTAL WITNESSES: mortal witnesses will generally believe that the Strategist is awakening potential and/or a connection that already existed. They may realize that magic exists, but will not become aware of miracles or the Glitch.

Level 5 Miracle: “Ignition” Level 5 Flore miracles are miraculous actions taken with Treasures—that is to say, actions taken with Treasures that are not on the fumbling level of mortal ability, but rather conceptions executed perfectly or burned into the world by will, as if by miracle. They are the Strategist’s lesser power to militarize or weaponize the treasures of their heart. Ignition improves one of a Treasure’s actions. It gains 3 Edge in any mundane contest. More importantly, it can contend with miracles: in a miraculous contest (pg. 260), the action has the same action level as this miracle. (That is, as the Strategist’s [base Flore + spent Cost − any relevant Ward.] In a miraculous contest, note, it does not gain the Edge.) As with Guidance, Ignition can also be used to improve someone else’s action using a Treasure. Technically this includes using the Treasure in an inappropriate way, e.g., when using a pickaxe to paint; the intention is that this will be balanced by the difficulty of succeeding in the first place.22 Regardless, this power’s benefits will only apply to the portion of the action that the Treasure is actually central in. Level 5 effects include: ӫ wielding a treasured sword in battle against an inhumanly skilled Power, 22 Painting delicately with the tip most likely requires Steel to do poorly and Flow to manage well; painting in a fluent pickaxe style will take the necessary action level somewhat higher.

197 ӫ allowing a treasured friend to tangle up a fallen angel in their fishing line—particularly if their special power is fishing, and ӫ shouting “go!” and sending the Strategist’s treasured dog charging past six gun-wielding thugs to knock down their boss.

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Level 6 Miracle: “Trust” Automatic Level 6 Flore miracles are a power that forms within the Treasures themselves that both enables them and fates them to come and help the Strategist in times of need. They are the Treasures’ lesser powers of aid. A Treasure may use these miracles to reach the Strategist quickly. Specifically, when invoked, the Treasure can get to the Strategist in a short time, which is always “in time,” from anywhere in the Region. Further, this is “the Treasure’s” action; it does not require an action on the Strategist’s part, or even awareness that it is transpiring. Either the Strategist’s player or the gm may initiate this action; it is normally the Strategist’s player. (More precisely, either the Strategist’s player or the Treasure’s player, who is almost always the gm, may do so.) Both the Strategist’s player and the Treasure must consent. The Treasure may also invoke this power to facilitate one of its actions, gaining the benefits of Ignition and optionally Glorification. Again, the Strategist’s player must consent, but this does not otherwise take the Strategist’s action, awareness, or knowledge. Level 6 effects include: ӫ having a treasured friend show up with a car when the Strategist is bleeding out in the middle of nowhere, ӫ having a treasured magical wand not only show up exactly when needed, but also trigger its magical powers as it does; and ӫ having a treasured dog, in a burst of strength, escape the creature that is holding it captive. MORTAL WITNESSES: this power will rewrite causality as mortals understand it to provide a plausible backstory to the Treasure’s travels. If necessary—e.g., if the Treasure was being interviewed on live television somewhere they couldn’t reach the Strategist from “in time”—this may involve things like body doubles, mistaken identities, impersonations, and evil twins.

Level 7 Rite: “Design” [Time-Consuming or Very Time-Consuming] Level 7 Flore Rites are a Strategist’s bubbling stew of λ-inspirations and their grasp of how to integrate them with the potential for wonder that burns beneath the surface of Creation. The actual work will be done

by mundane process, but it is the Rite that melds the Strategist’s genius into Creation’s law and thus declares: they may craft all manner of marvelous things. These Rites are the Strategist’s lesser artifact-crafting power. The Design Rite lets the Strategist perform a cinematic or low-fantasy action to create an artifact or device— or repair, retrofit, customize, tune, or integrate minor improvements into an existing artifact or device—using any magic or mundane craft that they are reasonably well acquainted with. The Rite just grants the Strategist the necessary skill; the actual act is a mundane action with 3 Edge and the same action level as this miracle. (It’s always Design, though, not a specific Ability action.) Even at this level of competence, crafting a legitimate artifact is arduous. It requires days of background work or a few self-spotlit moments of intense labor. That said, this action can also create a rather unimpressive artifact more quickly or do phenomenal work on creating, repairing, customizing, or repurposing anything else; that requires mere hours of background work or, in conflict, a particularly slow tactical action—and these latter options can be hastened nearly to completion with a single selfspotlit action (pg. 251). The Strategist may spend 1-4 points from the Four Costs on Design to speed up this power or improve its effect. The exact degree of improvement available will be up to the gm; by default, the improvement available will be moderate, but if the gm wants Strategists to be able to craft strong personal-scale artifacts without spending character points on the final power, Design will have to allow that (and the gm should consider making the [Extraordinary] tag available at +4 or even, e.g., +1 Cost). This is a Rite; it interacts with a Cost. With a level 7 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ craft a virus using real or magical biotechnology, ӫ fix a broken computer, ӫ speed up that fix by spending, e.g., +1 Fugue, ӫ customize that computer with a trap for any thieves, ӫ make their own clothing, and have it be amazing, or ӫ build a magical “holodeck” using Formation Magic.

“This machine,” he said, setting it down firmly on the table between them, “right here, is a fucker eliminator.” “What the hell, J—” He held up a finger. “Ah-ah-ah,” he said, and pushed the button with a great and ominous clunk. “ You want to bet, you want to seriously bet, here, that you aren’t a fucker, Dennis? That you aren’t teetering on the very precipice of elimination, right now? Because, you know, I know what side of that bet I’m on.” Dennis opened his mouth. J wiggled his finger, then waved at the box. Slowly, furiously, Dennis closed his mouth, once again. — from The Golden SiGn, by Xiu Lai

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198 Level 8 Miracle: “Divine Plan” Planning, Quest, Extraordinary Level 8 Flore miracles are a Strategist’s ability to fix a certain outcome to a Treasure’s path, making it the cynosure to their destiny. They are a Strategist’s lesser power to weave their Treasures into their own network of correlative fate. Divine Plan is a planning miracle (pg. 254). The Strategist comes up with a miraculous plan to use a Treasure to do something. They then execute the plan. While they are doing so, not only is the plan’s force strengthened but the Treasure receives the benefits of Ignition on the actions the plan covers. Given the lead time required to make Greater Glorification (below) a quest miracle, the two powers can be combined, with Divine Plan including an ongoing apotheosis for the Treasure as well. As a general rule, plans that fit what the Treasure might be expected to accomplish will complete in 0-3 chapters; plans that fit them quite poorly will take 0-2 stories to complete; and plans that the gm can’t really see working at all will stall out until events in play show how they might work after all ... and then move forward in 0-3 chapters or 0-2 stories as their updated picture suggests. Divine Plan is imposed on the world by synchronicity and power rather than being a plan created by cleverness alone. Thus, the Strategist’s player can propose the plan, and need only open it to the group for ideas if they wish to. They also have the option to leave the plan unstated and let the gm think of something, assume something reasonable is happening in the background, or wait for the group to come up with a good idea at some later time. Finally, it’s ok if coincidences and fortune play into the plan’s ultimate success. Level 8 effects include: ӫ tasking a treasured friend to forge a business empire, ӫ wielding a treasured fiery sword to, eventually, renovate the Canadian economy, and ӫ having a treasured horse (with the unique talent that it can recite all of Shakespeare) begin work on a completely new Shakespeare play.

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Level 4 Miracle: “Greater Connection” Extraordinary Level 4 Flore miracles are the Strategists’ greater power to sense their Treasures’ hearts. This expresses and embodies a deeper and more effortless version of the mystic connection that the level 0 miracles exploit. These miracles give the Strategist a bit of situational and emotional context for a cry for help they recently received from Connection. More generally, they help the Strategist understand the needs, moods, and reactions of nearby Treasures that can’t communicate or are alien— these factors no longer increase the difficulty or render such actions unfeasible. Thus, the Strategist may read

glitch: a story of the Not

“I must go,” she said, rising to her feet. “Somewhere, a friend of mine’s in need.” “Sit down, Ms. Jones,” the judge said. Her eyes were very clear. You could see right through them, all the way down to the furthest stars. “I have seen the acorn before the oak,” she said, “I have seen the egg before the hen—” “ You will contain your client, Mrs. Stockham—” “—but I cannot stay to see the judgment before the court.” With a bing-bong-ring and a whirl of wind, she flew up through the air vent and was gone. A reporter snapped a picture in the background, though of what Mrs. Stockham was not clear. Finally, quietly, Mrs. Stockham offered, “I believe she meant, ‘the law before the good.’” — from Thin iCe, by Hermanus Snels

the mood of a Treasure-bee or a Treasure-sword ... or notice the absence of mood in a Treasure-human whose consciousness some body-hopping spirit has suppressed. Sometimes the gm will express this as pc-comprehensible nonverbal communication—e.g., facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice—even when it is not. Level 4 effects include: ӫ suddenly realizing that a distant friend is desperate, scared, and being hunted, ӫ understanding a treasured castle’s feelings, and ӫ reading nuances of emotion in the movements of the ants from a treasured hive.

Level 5 Rite: “Greater Projection” Slow, Long-Ranged, [Extraordinary] Level 5 Flore Rites are the Strategists’ greater power of distant communion. This power works as Projection, save that this version has unlimited range. Also, if the Strategist is willing to accept the potential muddling effect described on pg. 183, they may visit up to their Ability rating23 in Treasures at once. This is a Rite, for the same reasons as (lesser) Projection. With a level 5 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ find a lost, treasured cup that has been stolen away to a fairyland, ӫ telepathically guide their treasured car through the streets of a faraway place, or ӫ enter a trance and telepathically communicate with all their students, across all of the world(s). MORTAL WITNESSES: As per Projection, to the extent that a Treasure calls upon the Strategist’s knowledge and procedural knowledge during this process, their memories of events become disorganized and unclear.

23 For clarity, this is not their base Ability; they may spend Wear or Immersion or potentially some other Cost to increase it here and in Greater Administration (below). Although, they’re not really expected to. opposite: by Silvia Cucchi

200 Level 6 Miracle: “Greater Administration” Long-Ranged Level 6 Flore miracles also include a Strategist’s greater ability to split their consciousness and spirit. This functions as Administration, save that it has unlimited range and allows the Strategist to visit up to their Ability rating in Treasures at once. Level 6 effects include: ӫ verifying the security of the Strategist’s treasured archive in Creation, when the Strategist themselves is traveling in Nınuan, ӫ communicating with a treasured person across great distances, and ӫ quickly checking the status of multiple Treasures while in a situation where it’s not safe to fall asleep.

Level 7 Miracle: “Greater Guidance” [Time-Consuming], [Very Time-Consuming, Quest] Level 7 Flore miracles grant an insight into how to teach one’s Treasures. They are the Strategist’s greater powers of instruction and encouragement. This power functions as Guidance, but also increases the target’s effective Ability for the action to 7 if it was lower. (The Treasure can still buy it higher with Wear, starting with 7, and they are still constrained by the level of their action in the unlikely event that neither Flow nor Greater Focus fits what they want to do.) In addition, if the target is an inanimate Treasure, the Strategist may grant it limited mobility, as per Projection. As an alternative to the above benefits, given a few days of background work or a few self-spotlit moments of intense training, the Strategist can teach someone a relatively narrow mundane or magical skill, granting every action they take with that skill the benefits of Guidance— comfort, professional competence, 2 Edge, and +1 to Ability (if below the Strategist’s own.) The Strategist “stores” the target’s long-term access to that skill in a quest slot. They can’t use that slot for a quest until they decide to let the target’s bonus skill lapse; if they had five quests running already, they don’t have free time to teach new techniques. Note that this version of the power is not limited to the Strategist’s Treasures. Level 7 effects include: Teacher’s advice rarely made sense, but then again, it wasn’t meant to. Sensible advice can only help you to achieve within the level you’re at. Maybe, to incrementally improve. The right nonsense, though, bouncing around inside your brain like a pool ball? It could change you. That’s how this whole story starts, I think. With me, wanting to get my head around all this calculus stuff; and with Teacher’s suggestion: Wear teal. — from STArS oVer edGeWood, by Marianne Hupp

glitch: a story of the Not

ӫ granting a treasured friend enough skill and ability to steal documents from a military base, ӫ giving a treasured child with a broken leg the ability and skill to cope comfortably with the pain, ӫ talking a treasured hamster through disarming an explosive from the inside, ӫ teaching that hamster how to take down dictation, and ӫ training a friend, who is not even necessarily a Treasured friend, in formation magic or calculus.

Level 8 Miracle: “Greater Glorification” [Time-Consuming], [Very Time-Consuming, Quest], Extraordinary Level 8 Flore miracles are a Strategist’s greater ability to awaken the innate powers that sleep within their Treasures. They unleash the innate divine abilities of an extremely powerful Treasure. Or, they awaken a lesser Treasure’s ability, but also push it to an extraordinary level—escalating their power and nature from, e.g., “poisonous human” to “region-ruining poisonous human.” Greater Glorification usually works as Glorification. However, the power granted can be extraordinary.24 If the Treasure’s default power is not extraordinary, the Strategist may grant a specific upgraded version of the Treasure’s normal power. Upgrading an ordinary Treasure in this fashion is very hard on it, often inflicting Burn, Wear, or Fugue upon it; if the Treasure is unwilling or unable to bear the full weight of this, the gm may splash a few points back onto the Strategist as damage. This power can be invoked ... ӫ instantly, ending when the miracle does; ӫ with some preparation (as a Time-Consuming effect) in which case the effects last longer, as per Glorification, or ӫ with a lot of preparation and work, as a Very TimeConsuming effect, in which case the effects last indefinitely. This investment of power is stored in one of the Strategist’s quest slots. The Strategist grants roughly the same power or power-up every time they invoke this effect, with the exception that if they spend another 20 Cost to take the effect epic (pg. 248) they can add a further power-up on top of that. Thus, level 8 effects might include, ӫ awakening the divine power of the sacred Eight Hand Mirror, ӫ digging out the telekinetic ability within a treasured friend ... and forcibly enhancing it to city-scale, and ӫ awakening the lightning wolf that sleeps within one’s treasured dog, over the course of a few days of work, for a goodly length of time.

24 More precisely, the power-granting process can be extraordinary; see pg. 132.

201 “It’s just a cup, Amy.” “It’s the holy grail!” “Seriously. It’s, like—it says ‘made in China’ on the bottom!” “Do I have to bleed out a savior here? Because I will bleed out a frigging savior.” “Then you wouldn’t even be able to drink out of it!” “ok, look,” Amy said. She picked up the cup. She shook it, turned it over, clonked it against the table, and lifted it up again. A fuzzy grace fell out. “See? Grail.” Veronica poked the grace dubiously. The world sang. The nub of her severed finger healed. “... that could be from a Chinese legend,” she said. “They don’t have legends,” Amy said. “They have ‘shénhuà.’” — from The fArTheST CornerS of The Globe (Amy/Veronica), by Cynthia Penrose

MORTAL WITNESSES: as per Glorification, mortal witnesses will generally believe that the Strategist is awakening potential that was already “there.” It may become obvious to them that magic exists, but this power will not expose the existence of miracles, mythic reality, λ-beings, or the Glitch.

Level 9 Miracle: “Greater Ignition”

Extraordinary Level 9 Flore miracles are extraordinarily intense miraculous actions taken with Treasures. They are the Strategist’s greater power to militarize or weaponize the treasures of their heart. In Greater Ignition, an action by the Treasure, or using the Treasure, becomes effectively miraculous— unopposable by mundane force in the same situations that a miracle might be. It automatically wins any mundane conflict. If the action uses the Treasure’s granted power, and it was lower, the target’s effective Ability rating for that action increases to 9. (For clarity, the same “effective Ability rating” they could get to by spending Wear.) This power includes Ignition and optionally (Greater) Glorification by default. Level 9 effects include: ӫ wielding a divine artifact to sweep away the Strategist’s enemies, ӫ granting a treasured friend a moment of extraordinary strength or surpassing power, and ӫ driving a treasured car through a tsunami.

Level 10 Miracle: “Greater Trust” Automatic, Extraordinary Level 10 Flore miracles are the most acute and intense form of the power nascent within the Treasures themselves that both enables them and fates them to come and help the Strategist in times of need. They are the Treasures’ greater powers of aid. Specifically, when invoked, the Treasure can get to the

Strategist in a short time, which is always “in time,” from anywhere—even, e.g., from fairyland, Lemuria, or Mars. Either the Strategist’s player or the gm may initiate this action; it is normally the Strategist’s player. Both the Strategist’s player and the Treasure must consent. The Treasure may also invoke this power to facilitate their actions, gaining the benefits of Greater Ignition and thus, optionally, (Greater) Glorification. If the action uses the Treasure’s granted power, and it was lower, the target’s effective Ability rating for that action increases to 10. As a further option, the Treasure can alter the power that they receive: In addition to the primary Glorification-granted Technique, each Treasure has a secondary, related Technique only available through Greater Trust that it gains by thematically merging with the Strategist’s powers, their spirit, or their flesh. A hacking program, for example, might flow into the Strategist’s body to speed their nerves. A friend might join spirits with the Strategist’s to channel an enhanced version of some power that the Strategist has. A horse might borrow the Strategist’s Not-nature to become an incarnation of destruction. These powers are invoked in the same way as the powers Greater Glorification more typically grants. Level 10 effects include: ӫ having a treasured friend show up with a car when the Strategist is bleeding out in the middle of nowhere on another world, ӫ empowering a sacred grail with the Strategist’s spirit to end a revenant’s suffering for a hundred years, and ӫ having a treasured friend, captured while bringing key intelligence to the Strategist, suddenly “realize” how to destroy things with a word. MORTAL WITNESSES: this power will rewrite causality as mortals understand it to provide a plausible backstory to the Treasure’s travels or abilities. One mistake, and it was over. One mistake, and the balance of powers was broken; the lights in the sky turned to serpents and lightning, and Sabina could only fling herself backwards as the world erupted around her. The Power in the sky roared down towards her—the sound from the sheer speed of her flying craft, accelerating at a rate that threatened to catch up with the third wave of shells that had sprayed forth from its guns. Those guns had by now reoriented; Sabina, amidst a desperate roll and a crawl, felt one leg cease to exist before she shook it back into endurance, felt her lungs struggle against the shockwaves that pounded them, felt the asphalt crumbling to dust beneath the nails of her hands. A hand like a god’s scooped her up from the ground and she realized that that was all; she had nothing left. Then Aidan was there. Smiling, stepping out from the shadows. He took her hand, and both of them vanished away. — from STArburST (STArfAll #2), by Joann Hightower

flore

202 Level 11 Rite: “Greater Design” [Time-Consuming or Very Time-Consuming], Extraordinary Level 11 Flore Rites are, as with lesser works of Design, the product of a deep insight into the potential for wonder in the world—now paired with void-inspired visions of, inspirations regarding, and construction techniques for large-scale wonders. These Rites are the Strategist’s greater artifact-creating power. Given a few days of background work or multiple self-spotlit moments of intense labor, the Strategist may build fortress-scale artifacts. These artifacts are usually concretized Geasa or Wards (pg. 258, 257): while they exist, a new convention governs the world. A new law of fate is born, governed by the artifact that the Strategist has made. (Typically, the effect is limited to the Region, but this need not necessarily be so.) The Greater Design Rite can also be used to repair, retrofit, customize, tune, or integrate minor improvements into fortress-scale and larger artifacts; such tweaks are Time-Consuming or Very Time-Consuming efforts depending on their scale. The scope of possible effect here for a single Rite is set by the gm; if necessary, the Strategist can go beyond that with this power’s epic version (pg. 248) and/or a reparatory quest that relies upon its force. This is a Rite, as it can create Geasa or Wards. The level of these created things is chosen by the gm. With a level 11 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ build a pylon that brings people hope, ӫ build a garden that sinks a Region into misery, ӫ build a castle that encodes the Law of Karma into the mundane world, or ӫ repair a damaged tree of worlds.

Level 12 Wish: “Greater Divine Plan” [Very Time-Consuming], Extraordinary, Wish Level 12 Flore miracles are a Strategist’s ability to use a Treasure as if it were an alchemical cauldron, drawing forth a wish that suits its nature. They are a Strategist’s greater

glitch: a story of the Not

Every which way turned the fiery sword, and fire flew from it; it dipped away from the world, on some uncertain plane, and fell into the ticker screen—to burn the Chenner-Herney Enterprises stock price down ... — from The SnAke leG ShAmbleS, by Russell Chan

power to weave their Treasures into their own network of correlative fate. The wish that Greater Divine Plan creates is formulated and stated by the Strategist. However, it is created from the Treasure’s own power. That power is most likely greatly amplified through some technique of the Strategist’s, purified and refined through formations or special techniques, and guided by their will, but it is still the Treasure’s power ... and therefore it may shift as it is wished to suit the origin. If it starts to shift too much, the Strategist may abort the wish; the effect fails, and thus costs nothing, but the gm may inflict a small amount of Wear, Burn, or some other Cost as a kind of backlash from their disengaging. In general this process takes several days of background labor, or a few self-spotlit moments of intense interactive guidance, and the Strategist must spend much of their time with the Treasure while it’s going on ... but that doesn’t make sense for every character and every Treasure; in some cases, the appropriate process may be shorter. Greater Divine Plan operates on dramatic timing, to a certain extent, regardless: barring a major pc screw-up or plot twist that changes what “on time” means at the very last minute, the wish will always activate “on time.” With a level 12 wish, a Strategist can: ӫ wield the power of the aforementioned Shakespearean horse to open a gateway to Elizabethan England, ӫ wield a fan containing the power of wind to keep ships from a certain shore for a year and a day, or ӫ draw upon the compassionate heart of a treasured friend to bring peace to a war-torn locale.

203

a

� lore cheatsheet

Difficulty 0: Connection Connection lets a Strategist understand their Treasures’ hearts. They can “hear” or “feel” when a Treasure needs them, no matter how far away. Greater Connection (diff 4) gives additional context on that warning, or, lets the Strategist understand the needs and moods of nearby Treasures otherwise hard to read. (Like bees, rocks, or invisible aliens.)

Difficulty 1: The Projection Rite In the Projection Rite, the Strategist enters a trance state. Their spirit visits a Treasure in the same Region. They perceive through its senses and can communicate mentally with it. Or ... they form a deep connection that helps “read” the Treasure, shares the Strategist’s abilities and (optionally) Costs with them, can grant inanimate Treasures limited mobility, and lets the Strategist take damage to protect the Treasure. The Treasure’s memory will be muddled where the Strategist’s abilities were used. The Greater Projection Rite (diff 5) has unlimited range and can visit up to [Ability] Treasures at once.

Difficulty 2: Administration Administration lets the Strategist’s spirit visit a Treasure while awake. But, they can’t touch the Treasure’s mind on a deep level—just communicate and borrow its senses. Greater Administration (diff 6) has unlimited range and can potentially visit up to [Ability] Treasures at once.

Difficulty 3: Guidance

Guidance grants a Treasure’s action—or an action using a Treasure—comfort in the task; standard professional competence (or the Strategist’s professional competence, if better); +1 Ability, if below the Strategist’s; and 2 Edge. If the Strategist invests time, the effect can linger. Greater Guidance (diff 7) works similarly, but also increases the target’s effective Ability to 7. It can grant inanimate targets limited mobility, as per Projection. Or, with a great deal of time, the Strategist can train someone in a relatively narrow mundane or magical skill—even one they don’t have; even a target who isn’t a Treasure— granting every action the trainee takes with it the benefits of (regular) Guidance. This second version of the effect is stored in a quest slot.

Difficulty 4: Glorification Glorification awakens a unique special power in a Treasure. This manifests as a Technique. This normally lasts while sustained, but the Strategist can create a lingering effect with Time-Consuming preparation. At a 20 Cost surcharge, the Time-Consuming version of this power can claim a new florem when the character already has a full roster. This can combine with the powerawakening effect. Certain extraordinary flores instead require a Time-Consuming Greater Glorification.

Greater Glorification (diff 8) awakens an extraordinary special power. Treasures with ordinary powers awaken an extraordinary version. (This can hurt them.) Again, the Strategist can create a lingering effect with TimeConsuming preparation. Or, with Very Time-Consuming labor, they can grant a Technique lasting indefinitely, stored in one of the Strategist’s quest slots.

Difficulty 5: Ignition Ignition grants a Treasure’s action, or someone’s action using a Treasure, 3 Edge. It lets the action contend with miracles when plausible: for instance, a Treasure-mirror might reflect a miracle, or a Treasure-bird dodge one. Greater Ignition (diff 9) makes a Treasure’s action unopposable by mundane actions. If using the power (Greater) Glorification grants, it can raise the target’s effective Ability to 9. Greater Ignition includes Ignition by default and (Greater) Glorification as an option.

Difficulty 6: Trust Trust allows a Treasure to reach the Strategist quickly and “in time” from anywhere in the Region. This does not use an action. The Treasure also gets the benefits of Ignition and, optionally, Glorification. Greater Trust (diff 10) allows the Treasure to reach the Strategist quickly from anywhere. The Treasure also gets the benefits of Greater Ignition and, optionally, (Greater) Glorification. It may, as a further option, replace the Technique received from (Greater) Glorification—for the sake of this action—with a secondary Technique it gets from thematically merging with the Strategist’s powers, spirit, or flesh. Finally, when using granted powers through Greater Trust, it can raise its effective Ability to 10.

Difficulty 7: Design The Design Rite lets the Strategist perform a cinematic or low-fantasy action to create an artifact—or repair, retrofit, customize, tune, or integrate minor improvements into an existing one—using any magic or craft they are reasonably well acquainted with. This action is functionally a mundane action with the same action level as the miracle, and a default 3 Edge. Spending +1-4 Cost can improve or speed this power somewhat. The Greater Design Rite (diff 11) is a very timeconsuming power that creates, customizes, or repairs a fortress-scale artifact, typically to subtly shape a Region. Small tweaks may be time-consuming efforts instead.

Level 8: Divine Plan Divine Plan is a planning miracle that destines a Treasure to do something. It may take a long time if the Treasure is unsuitable. Thus, the plan is stored in a quest slot. The Treasure gets the benefits of Ignition on relevant actions and optionally Greater Glorification for the duration. Greater Divine Plan (diff 12) is a very time-consuming power that turns a Treasure into a kind of cauldron of destiny and pulls forth a wish from their power.

flore

205

chapter 13

or � � From bounteous fields of nothingness Strategists carve out the weapons of the host. — from Becoming Noble, by Fayola Osagiobare

opposite: by Mel Uran

�eyond the �orld In the void beyond the world is a richness and an abundance made for each Strategist. There are, customized for each of them, great untapped veins of wonder: Each Strategist bound through correlative karma to the unworldly powers they are meant to wield. This is their birthright. More importantly it is their nature. They are enemies of the world, and more than enemies of the world, they are the leaders and provisioners of the Host. Theirs is the duty to gather the forces of unbeing beneath their banner. Theirs is the duty to point those forces against the world. They are meant to lead great ridings, not merely of their fellow Excrucians, but of all the myriad faced and faceless monstrosities that dwell in the beyond. The depth of understanding that allows them to do this thing is known as Lore. Lore is a Strategist’s affinity with Nınuan. Presumably before Creation came it was at a peak. Later it diminished. Yet because a Strategist’s destiny is inexorably tied to their infection—because they are creatures fit to have been bound beneath the stone of Creation, and then infected— an aspect of their Glitch-twisted nature lives in their Lore as well: A Strategist dying of ice wields a Lore of frozen places. A Strategist dying of exclusion wields the Lore of the deepest reaches of the Not where even correlative structure has grown thin. A Strategist dying of asphyxiation wields the Lore of constricted spaces beneath the unworldly ground, or the Lore of snakes, or an ironic Lore of the vast and airy heights. There is one λ-thing in the Lands Beyond Creation that deeply resonates with their soul: One great ambit of Not-concept that they may master. This is formally called their Sphere; its individual manifestations, their Arcana. With Lore of frozen places, a Strategist may wield the Arcana of the frozen places of the Not: abstractly, spirits of glaciation and artefacts of ice, and more concretely the white-furred beasts and hungry pale vines that there are found. With Lore of metal, they may wreak screaming ore from secret veins and forge it to strange weapons; in time, they may find faceless metal servants and bubbling pools of metal essence to bring beneath their sway as well. With Lore of ancient ruins, they may scavenge the Not and find old treasures—buried before Time was e’er even a twinkle within its sacred mother’s eye.

lore

206 The nature of these things is that they are secret. A Strategist’s Lore does not allow them to find rare waylets or faraway districts of Beyond. Rather, they may discern things that are hidden in (Not-)places that many others know. The Lore of metal finds veins of magic where most see only λ-rock striations. The Lore of insects finds that a simple-seeming λ-field is home to vastnesses of danger, wealth, and use. The Lore of frozen places does not find secret glaciers in Ninuanni temples, but may find ice caves hidden in its valleys—and will find strange marvels in icy regions that are simply bland or treacherous to most. Certain of these Arcana the Strategist may bind. They may hunt them down and seal them into service. They become pawns of the Strategist: servants, instruments, and tools. As a general rule a Strategist binds a specific category of things (e.g., beings, substances, or ancient tools); this restriction is laxer at the higher levels of Lore. The Strategist’s collection of bound Arcana is called their deck. As a general rule, they may have five Arcana “handy” and keep loose track of another seven. Other Arcana may have at some point been bound due to events in play, and that binding may endure despite the Strategist binding another twelve, but those Arcana will have slipped through the cracks, inaccessible until the Strategist stumbles on them by accident or actively hunts them down again and verifies they’re still where they ought to be (or, somewhere else.) Thus, a Strategist with the Lore of herbs and poisons may have five rare λ-herbs (or elixirs) on their person and seven more whose locations are loosely known—a ginseng-spirit possessing a paper airplane sent on an errand, a bolstering elixir strengthening a friend, a poison eating away at the ontological integrity of a Power, and a few elixirs and herbs that they saw once upon a time. A Strategist with an angelophanic Lore—ruling not Creation’s Angels, but strange λ-beings built of light, hands, faces, teeth, and wings—may keep five of them in their shadow, hands and wings opening and closing in the darkness, and seven attending to specific miracles. One, an angel of dying things, is useful principally for making things wither or sustain; another, an angel of overflowing cups, is prone to amplify existing plenty. The void is no soothing land to a mind born in Creation, so there is always something in the process of gathering Arcana that strikes raw against the mortal nerves. Beasts are prone to unnatural symmetries and abyssal forms. Numinous environments rattle and stretch the observer’s mind. Metal, as has been noted, screams—though it is said among those who know it best that it screams in reflex, not in pain. The process of hunting Arcana, in short, is often harsh; more, the fetters on them may be heavy ones. There is no Lore, alas! that deals in wooing glorious beings with one’s own virtues, befriending them amongst peaceful meadows, and having them wield brilliant miracles, later, in your service. ... conversely, Lore is the birthright of the Strategists; there is little in it that is outright wrong. It will never be a

glitch: a story of the Not

process of mind controlling self-aware beings or nurturing beast companions by feeding them great bushels of human flesh. It will never even be a process of ruling beings so unsainly and so unnatural that the player quails at the thought of binding them: These options may exist within the scope of Lore, but they will never be a pc Strategist’s core practice. A Strategist’s Lore may in certain cases find Arcana within Creation. Nominally this is restricted to beings with at least some void-nature in them—the Lore of deserts is more aptly named the Lore of λ-deserts, and cannot bind a desert scorpion of Earth. Even a scorpion monster would be immune, unless the particular nature of its monstrosity was that it originated in or had been altered by the extranatural powers of the void. This is not absolutely obligatory, however; if it fits their concept to do so, a Lore-wise Strategist can generally work their way around this difficulty, e.g., by translating their Lands Beyond experience into something more Creational or by drawing out the ancient truths of Nınuan that lurk within Creation’s bones. The Lore Attribute measures the depth of the Strategist’s study of Nınuan and their Sphere. With no points in Lore, characters are blind to the nature of the void: naïfs, and ignorant. Higher ratings in Lore represent increasing depth and sophistication in the character’s understanding of their Sphere. Each level of Lore costs 2 points and makes a number of powers relating to traveling Nınuan and mastering the Arcana less costly. At Lore 0, even seeing Nınuan is difficult; at Lore 7, the character’s understanding of the Not has reached the point where they may shape it forcefully with their eyes. In addition to the Lore Attribute, a character may also purchase “Gifts” that relate to Lore. These represent personal specialties and rare tricks within the broader field of Lore. Some of these Gifts appear later, along with a general system for constructing your own Gifts.

The Hunt When building their Strategist, ideally, each player should also define their Strategist’s Sphere and the kinds of Arcana they derive from it. More than that, they should decide how the Strategist binds these things to their will: ӫ do they physically catch them, make them surrender if appropriate, and drag them back to their workshop? ӫ do they use ritual summoning or binding magic? ӫ do they vacuum their proposed servants up into a magic jewel? ӫ ... do they offer them a job? If pcs or major npcs are potential Arcana—it’s not usually something that makes sense, but it can happen—then the options are limited to methods that leave them playable; or, at least, the Strategist should have a defined secondary method to default to, or a weaker result to apply, for beings of that sort.

207 Level 0 Lore: “Lostling” 0 points To have no Lore is to be blind to Nınuan. The condition is neither permanent nor fatal. By paying Fugue, the Strategist may easily redress their deficiency, forcing the Not into the shape of sense ... but it is always an effort. Without that effort, the character’s sanctuary may well be perceptible; a few other lands, treasured and destined, too—but most of Nınuan, the vast bulk of Nınuan, will be a nebulous and billowing emptiness. They will feel a tug upon their heart, perhaps. A gentle pressure, a hint of warmth. That’s all. Even at this level a Strategist may claim a sphere and Arcana, but the hunt is arduous. The void is difficult for them to grasp, to make sense of. Making the plan they need to seize an Arcanum for themselves requires the kind of effort that thinking in five dimensions might take for an ordinary person: not impossible, not when there’s a reward for it, but certainly quite draining. Having developed their plan, they must still implement it. While they seek a suitable biome, they must maintain continuous concentration on the sense-making process; otherwise, the “world” dissolves into nothingness around them and they will stumble off the path—or, they must exert themselves far more greatly to “lock in” their sense of Nınuan for a time. Making their way to their Arcana, matters of perception having been attended to, they find themselves confronting it amidst an alien and hostile environment; protecting themselves against that, and their potential servant or tool simultaneously, can be fairly arduous as well. Only when these matters have been fully resolved can they even begin to engage their target according to the terms of their ongoing plan. Refining the Arcanum, once it’s been captured, is even harder for the Lostling ... but at least it’s a rather quicker process, and grants a more immediate reward. To have this level of Lore, to choose this level of Lore, is to say that something has gone wrong—that the Strategist’s mortal nature has broken something profound and vital that at one time lived inside them. Hopefully, it is a thing that can be remade.

example concepts Radegond Gethiran is dying of frowns. At first it is simply the occasional passersby or statue scowling at her. Then her social environment degrades. Paintings that she passes make an effort to show her a disdainful face. Fountains splash her with the muddiest of their water. Eventually the frown colony disengages from the things that had been its hosts and begins to oppress her on its own, swarming the air around her like rising heat (at first) and then a flock of bats. In the end she is devoured, and they happily disperse. On the other side of that frown she finds only darkness— or, not really darkness. It’s a lack of light, like darkness is, but it’s a lack of darkness too. It’s just ... an endless disapproving sternness, grey and without any points of

The Core Powers The core powers of Lore are these: DIFFICULTY

POWER

USE

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Investigation Vision Spherecraft Hunt Navigation Percipience Infusion Inchoation Invocation

learn about an Arcanum see in the void, or in the dark use and defend against Arcana plan a hunt for an Arcanum find a way past an obstacle study a subtle sense or power empower things with Arcana create Arcana and Sphere F/X tap into the deeper powers of an Arcanum or the void.

Each can be used by a Strategist with [Lore ≥ difficulty] ... or by a Strategist with lower Lore, if they pump up their Lore with Fugue (pg. 269) or some other Cost. Greater forms of each of these powers are available at +4 to the base power’s difficulty. Variations and combinations are also possible, as discussed on pg. 150.

reference, until she forces it into the shape of Nınuan and remembers who she is. Leovigild Lengyel is dying of daisies. And other flowers. They’re richly symbolic. They mean important things about his life. You could read important lessons about life and what’s going on in the world, if you were a philosopher who knew the language of flowers, and you looked at the flowers that were killing him. They’re eating their way out through his flesh. To him, the Not is the featureless denaturing earthiness of the root-soil of a garden: a place with all the somethingness of it drawn up to feed the bouquet adorning his remnant corpse. When he snaps free of that mood and orients properly on Nınuan, the flowers in his body begin to die.

Level 1 Lore: “Stray” 2 points This level of Lore grants the Strategist eyes that can see Nınuan. Care and focus are still required, their view of it can still scatter to fragments and imagelessness in an instant if they turn too much of their attention elsewhere, but it is no longer effortful—comparable, perhaps, to pleasure reading, where at a lower level it had been more like reading stressful and traumatic texts. The “Strays” have also found a greater ease in surviving the hazards of the place, though they are yet to be at home within their sphere. Strategists at this level of Lore are inalienably connected to Nınuan, but also profoundly unfamiliar with it; much of their knowledge of the place has been forgotten, and what they do recall is out of date. It is the home of their heart but not the home of their head—priceless, but incomprehensible.

lore

208 example concepts Anselm Maramurian is dying of the bath. A plucky child in a flying bathtub pursues him, gathering an eclectic assortment of companions, demanding redress for an unknown crime. At first it is just passing encounters with fairy tale figures that will later join up with the bathtub, plus deniable sightings of a bathtub in the sky. Later, he must regularly take shelter in underground places from fly-by battery, ballistic flowerpots, and the like. Eventually, there is no escape: if the bathtub does not land on him, the child’s sword will pierce his heart. In Nınuan, the situation reverses itself: he is the metaphorically childlike adventurer, adrift in a nonsense-world, gathering strange companions through his strange adventures, and pointing the sword of his grim intentions towards a faceless evil— here, the existence of the world, or, at least, its wrongness— that he can extirpate in a place, for a while ... but never universally, or for long. Sunilda Hadubrand is dying of dreariness. For her, the Glitch was found in the world’s sense of motion, of variety: she saw a hint of the true pattern of things, the laws by which the world was woven, and it began to lose its power to surprise. Eventually she loses all ability to sustain interest and, if she does not die, ceases anyway to live. For her, the prize of Nınuan is its newness. Lorewisdom is a thing she fears: let the place confuse her, let it disorient her, let it be a fast-paced, treacherous, surprising new cosmos to explore! Only in that fashion can she refill her tank of will to look upon things; without it, she is too bored to even bother with murdering the world. Even with it, she must re-enter the world blindly, in a random place, with a random aim, to maximize the time that she can give herself before it all turns dull as death again.

Level 2 Lore: “Dustcloak” 4 points In the myths of the Excrucians, Agiwulf who walked far returned with the dust of the stars upon his feet. In the myths of the Excrucians, Kaethe who found the summit of the void returned with a fire caught upon her cloak. The stories converged with time and alchemy; the Excrucians call those with the lore to walk the distant realms of Nınuan dustcloaks. Formally, it may be fairly Down she went to where the magma-spirits gibbered. Their ranks parted as she approached, then closed around her, but she did not burn. Instead, she walked among them. She whispered two words to this one, gestured palm-out towards that. She slid through them like a swirling leaf, her skirt etching out a trail in the dusty earth, and their eyes—three round white glows, one great and bulbous—turned to follow her as she went. Slowly, they came to quiet. Slowly, they came to order. She reached the stone dais that stood amidst them, and she turned to face them, and the gibbering had stopped. “My friends,” she said. “I am gravid with great words.” — from The dySon mAnuAl, by Yue Ying Yin

glitch: a story of the Not

used for any Excrucian with Lore 2+; in practice, it is a title one claims for oneself, if it so happens that one has none that one likes better. Strategists with this level of Lore are fundamentally able in the void, and particularly within their sphere. At the same time, a more fundamental knowledge and understanding still eludes them. This combination is an inducement to exploration: the void sings with the potential for nebulously-defined “answers” to their asyet-unformed questions, and—rejoicing in their ability to survive there—they traditionally delve deeper and deeper into nothingness to seek those answers out.

example concepts Lucian Voros is dying of swords. Increasingly, their life is interrupted by surreal interludes—gardens of swords, duelist challenges. Learning the sword did not help them. Gaining the ability to point at things and make them vanish in a flare of nothingness did not help them. No matter how strong they become, their situation still becomes more and more perilous until they die. There is probably a reason for this. There is probably an overarching story, behind this. They may even discover it, one λ-day, on one of the indefinite “vision quests” through Nınuan that follow their more traumatic deaths and precede their worst revivals. But they do not know it yet. Vetericus Sarka is dying of stealth. He becomes increasingly harder to spot until he falls out of the world. (It is unclear to those who know him whether he becomes genuinely unnoticeable or if he’s just too proud to shout.) Having fallen from the world, he descends into a realm of shadows—Nınuan, but also beneath Nınuan, a treacherous subsidiary void: untamed, menacing, and ripe for exploitation.

Level 3 Lore: “Hunter” 6 points This level of Lore grants the Strategist a deep insight into the binding of Arcana—enough that they can reliably catch and bind all but the greatest of them without real effort. Even the dustcloaks can conceivably find themselves too drained to have any ideas whatsoever on such a matter, to need another chapter or two of rest before they can tackle a particular hunt; for the strays and lostlings, that condition is more common: A Hunter, though, need only look at the spoor of some rare beast, or the tangled rock surrounding some deepNot vein, or the alien structure of a long-lost artifact of Nınuan, to know: this is how I can trap it; this is how I can extract it; this is how it can be made once more of use ... Within their sphere of competence, at least. Traditionally the weakness of the Hunter is that it’s hard for them to use those bindings. It’s not really a very substantive weakness—they’re not unable; rather, it’s at the outer edge of their comfort zone, so they’ll do it a fair bit, only, while whining about how dangerous and difficult it is for them.

209 There are good times and bad times to run into cops, and most likely breaking out of your own house with a bag of goods is not the best of them. I wanted to say something, I wanted to explain something, but there really wasn’t time, then; they’d already caught me. They’d already put me up against the wall. I waited for it, for that whole recital of rights that you always hear in the movies, but they didn’t do that. Instead, the sea of uniforms parted just a little and I could see the plainclothes guy beyond. “I—” I started to say, but got shoved back into the house wall for my troubles. The guy’s hand lifted. “The BURGLAR eidolon,” he said. “Noted for its relatively high defense power and its Theft skill. One in ten may learn _Apotheotic Tyranny;_ one in forty, _Moon-Devouring Maw._ If mated with the BARGHEST eidolon and then a MASER eidolon, you may create a BURGOMASTER.” His eyes flicked me up and down. “He is unable to learn either,” he said, “but we have no Burgomaster. Bring him in.” “I—” I said. I squeaked. “I’m not a burglar—” He frowned. For a moment I thought I’d made a mistake. For a moment he got that look, like, that look that says: this is not a good person to embarrass before his men. That there are worse things than to be mated to a barghest, followed by a maser, although admittedly the concept defies the ideal of public service. Then, his eyes widened and grew bright with joy. “ You’re right,” he said. It wasn’t a good look on him. “ You aren’t, are you? Take him, men. We’ve caught ourselves an actual CRIMICLONE, at last!” — from The ineViTAble deCAy of The AmeriCAn CriminAl JuSTiCe SySTem in The preSenCe of perVASiVe hypoCriSy AS To iTS purpoSeS, by Martin Elliott

example concepts Ebruim Vantchev is dying of graduation. The commencement ceremony of their high school reaped its students of their lives and souls as well as their scholastic status. This pattern Ebruim reiterates, over and over again, each time that they return into the world. In Nınuan, they encounter neither high schools nor graduations (though there are occasional suspicious ruins and steam tunnels) but they do repeatedly encounter Arcana metaphorically attuned to the emotional experience of high school life. It has been fifty years since their first graduation, and these matters no longer pose any challenge to them—although wielding incarnations of teenage neuroses and situations has, conversely, become just a little bit weird. Osuin Thermidau is dying of artificial sweeteners. She discovered that several of them are parasitic fungi that do not so much sweeten food as convince the brain of their sweetness as byproducts of their infiltration efforts.

Eventually they lure their hosts to the factories, where their life cycle may continue. In Osuin’s brain, opposing parasites maintain a delicate balance (sustained only by copious consumption of the rare blood-equilibrating soda Orange Tab) that keeps Osuin from embarking on any given pilgrimage—but as the impulses grow, and other infected humans notice her simultaneous infection and reluctance and apply encouragement and social pressure, it is only a matter of time before Osuin sheds the last vestiges of human identification and becomes an artificial sweetener host swimming upstream to the factories to die. Is it any wonder that Osuin may very casually plan ways of dealing with even the strangest fungi and chemicals of the Not, yet feels a strange passive reluctance to forcibly command those that she has taken?

Level 4 Lore: “Outrider” 8 points This level of Lore connotes a mastery of Nınuanni pathfinding. The Strategist has learned to find their way around the natural barriers and past the natural obstacles of the void, and the most secluded and inaccessible vistas are open to them. The art of Nınuan navigation is fundamentally a skill in correlation. It is the ability to attune oneself to the obstacles in one’s path, to the paths themselves, and to what lies beyond. These arts translate well into Creation; the Strategist who masters them can pierce metaphysical barriers and mysteries, slip between realities, and reach the further corners of the worlds. In the Beyond, the Outriders are explorers, treasure hunters, and guides. They are drawn to break the protections on sealed and secret pockets of the nothingness—mysteries, the haunts of ancient banes, sleeping embers of divinity, and ruins predating (or long predating) Creation’s time. They serve as literal outriders on those rare occasions when the Excrucians hear of some wonder or horror worth gathering in groups to seize, examine, or subdue: Traveling ahead of the group, they find the obstacles on the path and work on ways to overcome them. In Creation, these roles are less defining, but still lend their nuances to the status of the Outrider: hunting down rare mysteries is less likely to be their primary concern and unraveling navigational obstacles for a group is less likely to be their “job,” but these things will still define the peak of what they are effortlessly able, using Lore, to do.

“Ridiculous,” he snorted. “The Sandalphine Interchange has no entrances.” “I have found one,” she said. “The Zehanpuryun overpass,” he said, with weighty condescension. “It—” “No, listen,” she said. “Listen. I used Google Maps.” — from The feAThery roAd, by Keiko Takemori

lore

210 example concepts Gosvintha Tzeviyel is dying of war. Lately the fire of her will to kill the world has faded; she’s become all but harmless, more a vagabond than a killer ... but the level of force that the Powers and law-beings wield against her only grows. It grows more intense, in fact, every moment that she remains within Creation, until at last Hell and Heaven start dragging out dusty and forbidden terror weapons from the deepest cobwebbed corners of their arsenal, weapons long-agreed by all civilized parties ought not even ever be used within Creation, to fend off the threat that Gosvintha Tzeviyel the Strategist should survive for even one more day. Gildegud Rusidavian is dying of the tower. It’s full of horrors. He climbs it. He learns to bypass its endless tricks and treacheries. He duels the monsters—surprisingly many of them Arcana, for all that it exists within Creation— that dwell within. If he reaches the top, his fate may be transfigured, but he dies in misery and ruin every time. At least each climb refines his otherworldly Lore!

Level 5 Lore: “Perquisitor” 10 points This level of Lore grants the Strategist deep and farranging knowledge. It represents a piercing insight and percipience that can unravel the void’s deep mysteries. The Strategist can see the invisible, sense the intangible, and grasp the ineffable even against the frangible and unreal backdrop of the Not. Like the Outrider’s, this is a knowledge that transgresses upon Creation: To be lore-wise to this extent is to understand not just the void but also the world that was built atop it. One could imagine a scenario where learning to understand and break the secrets of the void would prove to be an untranslatable skill and knowledge—the void, after all, in many ways defies the norms—but such, in practice, is not the case. The mind that can discern the deepest lore of one locale can find it in the other. Thus, a Strategist with this level of Lore is a scholar; a fount of esoteric knowledge and wisdom. Lore 5 is the first level at which perceiving the Not itself may be done without any attention whatsoever to the matter: there is no longer an effort of perception, no longer even the casual attention drain of “pleasure reading,” but only information that one may pick up with a glance.

example concepts Abrimund Pelendavian is dying of puppetry. The more he learns about the world, the more that knowledge makes him the servant of the Angel of Subtle Causal Force. His indulgence in secrets and mysteries alloys the marrow and the nerves of him with that dread Angel’s power. When at last his agency is stripped from him, he leaves the world— but his body remains behind, one of the forty-some (now) Pelendavian manikins in that wicked Angel’s wield. It is a fate that he finds execrable, but the alternative would be

glitch: a story of the Not

ignorance ... and that is no alternative at all. Wilgefortis Trana is dying of trademark infringement. She is forced to consult the faceless lawyer who hovers behind her shoulder to determine what she is permitted to do at any given time and what is too reminiscent of the famous virtual idol, “Wilgefey Tarr.” Her unfortunately compliant nature weighs heavily against her here; the deeper her understanding of Lore becomes, the harder it is for her to casually break even laws she never consented to and which she knows are thoroughly corrupted by the Glitch. Early in her condition, this might be a neurotic nicety. Later on, faithlessness to one law undermines her power over others: if she refutes the ever-closing maw of trademark, she is devoured instead by the turncoat powers that she has bound.

Level 6 Lore: “Arcanist” 12 points Characters at this level have drunk deep of the lore of their bound Arcana. Now they may call forth the powers that sleep inside them with a thought. One moment, they infuse their flesh with the strength of a monstrous beast; the next, they stir themselves to flight on an enchanted wind. A gate can be burnt to ash and ember with λ-fire ... then restored a moment later, when that fire is replaced with woe. A toadstone or lyngurium, once just a rock, becomes to them a cauldron full of wonder.

example concepts Gabriela Varin is dying of legacy. No matter how many times she cuts ties, no matter how far she travels into the Not, no matter how deeply she delves into the lore she finds there, she winds up sucked right back into her family drama, and it kills her. They aren’t even real people, probably. She’s pretty sure. She can’t look at it too closely, what with the blinding quality of the Glitch, but even so, she’s pretty sure. She keeps getting sucked into dealing with them anyway, and all the wild power that she has tamed in “ You have no right to remain silent,” he told me. Something thrilled in my heart at that. I thought, at last! “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford—” But I was slipping. I screamed in my heart. No! I scrabbled to hang on to reality. But I was slipping. The world was blurring through my fingers. It was falling away. “—do you understand these rights—” I was buffeted by wings of spirit. I fell, I knew it could not be happening, but I fell, into a plainclothes’d heart. The power of CRIMICLONE flexed inside me, and filled with the GRAND THIEF’s mind... — from The ineViTAble deCAy of CriminAl JuSTiCe SySTem in The preSenCe of perVASiVe hypoCriSy AS To iTS purpoSeS, by Martin Elliott The AmeriCAn

211 the far deepness somehow withers into worthlessness, and she is given to defeat. Unlike Abrimund Pelendavian, she doesn’t know what exactly happens to all the not-actuallyphysically-dead Gabriela bodies she leaves behind her; all she knows is that by the time she’s recovered and come back into Creation, the previous Gabriela’s gone. When she’s not dealing with family, Gabriela commands a menagerie of ancient powers won from Nınuan: her reconstructed legacy as heir to a Nınuanni royal line. Gesimund Lucashev is dying of paper cranes. He folds them obsessively. They help to keep the glitch he apprehended long ago at bay. He folds them, and—to give a patina of respectability to his obsession—he integrates the manifold powers of the void into them. He makes them mercurial and terrible weapons as well as potent arcane tools. For this reason, the defenders of Creation do not quite yet grasp that the cranes are death to him, and not just art. ... but eventually he forgets to eat and scants to sleep.

Level 7 Lore: “Exarch” 14 points To be an Exarch is to make oneself as one with the nameless void. The Exarchs are continua of their own, defining principles around which the correlative causality of Nınuan is founded. From the Sphere that they define—in part—does Nınuan arise. This is not a matter of power taken, or even power existing by correlative necessity. Rather, it is the nature of the deepest lore to be transformative: In grasping it, the Exarch becomes one with it. It devours them and alloys itself throughout them. Their knowledge is not firewalled off like human knowledge, separated from the world: it is integrated into the dream-of-self by which they are embodied. As that knowledge attains the ultimate profundity, it merges with the underlying continuum, and the Exarch follows. It becomes impossible to draw a clear line between the Exarch and the void. The Strategist who can reach this level is effortlessly able to birth new λ-entities and powers—they are a font of the dreaming nothingness that makes up their Sphere. Behemoths of the endless night humble themselves before them. Even the nature of Creation may be twisted by them, if they have the will for it; the power of their Sphere may spread throughout the mortal lands.

example concepts Galaias Suardone is dying of snakes. He ate of an egg that shouldn’t have been and now his sweet blood calls them from afar. He’s tried to make friends with them, tried to make peace with them, and just after a fresh start he can sometimes succeed. Just after a fresh start, he can befriend the polite ones, anyway, with his deep and sacral knowledge of the ophidians of the Not—but eventually it all falls apart on him. Eventually even the grass snakes and the Aaron’s Serpents will reject his manners, boas will scent

him at a hundred miles, and kraits will drag themselves up from the sea to hunt him down. Ariana Aquincium is dying of the trumpet. There is a particular song that she has heard. Its memory eats away at her until she dies. In her struggle to expunge it she has mastered endless musical Arcana, rare and potent instruments and songs; has become most likely the greatest composer in the Host—but as soon as she returns to Creation it all goes distant and tinny in her ears. What good is it for the rest of the orchestra to be majestic if the trumpet in the background won’t stop playing its blasphemous affront to all that’s right?

rules for

� ore

The “power source” for Lore effects is called Fugue. It measures the mental and occasionally physical corruption that the character has suffered from immersing in the logic of their Sphere. A character begins the game with [10 × Lore] Fugue. This will rise as they invoke more difficult Lore effects. It will fall over the course of time and when it has harmful results. They may invoke Lore effects with [level ≤ Lore] for “free”—it requires no Fugue. Often a character will wish to go beyond that. Not only will the higher-Lore effects often appeal to less Lorewise Strategists, not only do characters sometimes need additional Lore to overcome miraculous barriers (“Wards”), but only by going beyond their base Lore can a Strategist access the difficulty 8-12 Lore effects at all. To use effects beyond their Lore, a Strategist must allow their Sphere and, ultimately, their infection, a foothold in their being. This, of course, is Fugue. The character names the Lore level they wish to emulate; the practical maximum, in the absence of a bidding war, is 23. They perform the effect. If the effect succeeds—which is to say, if it functions essentially as stated, rather than being blocked or undone outright by hostile countereffects— they accumulate Fugue equal to [desired Lore − original Lore.] For instance, if a Hunter with level 3 Lore wishes to perform a level 7 effect, they will, by default, accumulate 4 points of Fugue. Put another way, the character adds +4 to their Fugue total. If they happen to know in advance that a level 2 Ward will interfere, they’ll want to raise their effective Lore not to 7 but 9; that would need them to add +6 Fugue. From time to time, it is good to note what this Fugue actually represents, what actually happens to the character as they pay for the effect. This is, however, not required; more precisely, if not established at the time of the miracle, it will either be a subtle influence that eventually fades or a dramatic one that will be established at a later time. Thus, a character dramatically reaching beyond their limits may choose to explain how, in doing so, the alien concepts of their Sphere begin to distort their mind and breed obsessions; or how a parasite from their Sphere

lore

212 takes root within their soul; or how their perceptions have been altered as they mainlined the power of the void. A character engaging in what they consider a work-a-day miracle, even if the total amount of accumulated Fugue is the same, need not do so. A character must always buy enough Fugue to succeed at the basic effect. They can add more to overcome a Ward or opposition when and if they discover it’s there. This extra purchase is a little Slow (pg. 251) compared to miracles, though, and in a fast-paced struggle, they may fall behind (see pg. 151, 262). Taking 3+ Fugue at once is a notable moment. The Fugue itself is still a bad thing, but the character will earn a bonus xp. Conceptually, ӫ An effect that costs 0 Fugue is instinctive—it doesn’t drain the character at all. ӫ Spending 1 Fugue is more or less casual: the character can quickly and plausibly suppress the wild energies of their Sphere. ӫ Spending 2 Fugue is a little trickier. ӫ Spending 3 is difficult. ӫ A 4-7 Fugue effect is painful and damaging. ӫ Anything beyond that is agonizing and transformative.

At the beginning of each chapter, Fugue drops by one, to a minimum of 0. Characters may also reduce Fugue when it brings them to a crisis: when the player, or, at 80+ Fugue, sometimes the gm, has an interesting idea for the harm or change the Fugue might inflict on their character, and implements it as a “Wound.” Superficial Wounds burn off 10 Fugue, with no minimum; harmful ones, 25; metaphysically potent and transformative ones, 50. This isn’t unlimited, though, even if the player would want it to be: The character will suffer at most one such Wound per session—counting the Wounds from other, similar, Costs— and at most one 25+ Cost Wound in two consecutive sessions. Characters may freely accumulate Fugue until it hits 80; then, as noted, there are circumstances in which the gm may force a harmful crisis upon them. At 108 (the number of outlaws in the Water Margin), they may no longer spend Fugue at all. ... after roughly 300 points of Fugue have been poured into Wounds, the character’s last connection to humanity is lost; most likely, they disappear into Beyond.

the

� pprentice arts

Level 0 Miracle: “Investigation” EXAMPLE A character is an Exarch, with level 7 Lore. For this character, the chart looks like: EFFECT TYPE

ACTION LEVELS

Instinctive (0 FUGUE) Casual (1 FUGUE) Effortful (2-3 FUGUE) Hard (4-7 FUGUE) Agonizing (8+ FUGUE)

Levels 0-7 Level 8 Levels 9-10 Levels 11-12 unnecessary except to bypass Wards or win a fiercely-contested stake

What the player probably memorizes is this: Level 0-7 Lore effects are all the basics: seeing and surviving in the void, knowing stuff, hunting and binding Arcana (including some pretty serious ones), finding my way past obstructions, learning tricks to interact with weird things, wielding Arcana, and creating artifacts and sphere-based potencies of my own. All that is trivial for me. Level 8 Lore effects draw out new powers from my Arcana, open gates, or create paths. These effects aren’t quite instinctive, but neither are they difficult. Level 9-10 Lore effects are larger-scale tricks of interacting with the intangible and the most powerful Arcanum exploits, respectively. These effects take a fair bit of work. Level 11-12 Lore effects—creating powerful Arcana out of nothing and launching truly terrifying ritual attacks—are painful and damaging, even for me.

glitch: a story of the Not

Investigation, Slow Level 0 Lore miracles are the Strategists’ lesser arts of investigation. Their essence is in the basic understanding of Arcana that the Strategist has and, more importantly, can acquire. To use these miracles, the Strategist consults a favored source to learn a sentence or two of basic information about an Arcanum. They look things up in a magical book, perhaps, or consult an oracle. If time is tight, they may just remember things they learned from such a source before; as noted on pg. 254, a slow information-gathering method will never prevent an investigation miracle from being timely. Level 0 effects include: ӫ looking up a mystic lake in a particular waylet in a magic book, ӫ investigating the Nınuanni insect monster troubling the area, and ӫ wracking one’s memory for hints about a rival’s elemental stone.

Level 1 Miracle: “Vision” Level 1 Lore miracles are the direct perception of the world or void. They are the lesser manifestation of the Strategists’ natural void-sense. The void-sense of the Strategists does not rely upon the traditional intermediary of physical transmission through a medium. Instead, when it is active, a Strategist may sense things in their vicinity as they are, for that they are themselves. This perception is modeled on the other opposite: by Elena Albanese

214 senses natural to the Strategist, particularly the primary sense natural to them before their void infection, but it is not the same as those senses: It is a unique sense possessed by those of Nınuan— Though, this power only grants the sense; the Strategist must still use mundane actions to perceive with it. While this power is in effect, the Strategist perceives everything as if adequately lit. They may hear things that have been rendered silent—e.g., muted computers and people with laryngitis—as if they were not. Attempts to block their line of sight, to muffle things they might hear, to seal a scent away from them, or otherwise obstruct their senses are less effective: They can’t generically see through walls, but spotting metaphysically potent things through a wall or two is sometimes possible. Fog is no obstacle at all. They can’t generically hear through good soundproofing, but a scream might make it to their ears. This general pattern applies to all their senses, and particularly any unusual senses that they might have. For instance, if they originated as a fox and not a human, their sense of smell will no longer rely upon the wind, and it will take more rain and time to wash a scent away. Vision allows a Strategist to perceive the things of Nınuan; and, perceiving them, exist within its context; move within its context; operate within its laws. Their only alternative is the mortal’s one (pg. 64), using Greater Focus and a great deal of time to orient upon the void: rarely the better bargain even for Strategists with Ability 7 and Lore 0; even less so, for the rest. Level 1 effects include: ӫ seeing someone’s true heart, ӫ navigating the lightless abyss, ӫ seeing hints of a chained-up god’s presence through the walls of a keep, and ӫ noticing what someone is too frightened to say.

Level 2 Miracle: “Spherecraft” Level 2 Lore miracles are the Strategists’ lesser arts of Arcana management. More precisely, they’re the various tricks the Strategist knows or intuits to communicate with the sentient Arcana of their Sphere, and, more generally, interact with their Sphere in a useful fashion. When a Strategist is dealing with an Arcanum of their sphere, Spherecraft lets them perform a cinematic/lowfantasy mundane action to: ӫ make appropriate use of it, ӫ defend against it, ӫ bring it into Creation, or ӫ cast it out of Creation

“ You have been defeated,” she told the Mountain, “and so you will move for me.” And this thing the Mountain did for her, though it did not do it well, nor fast. — forum post by Tiiamat Lane

glitch: a story of the Not

This comes with the ability to actually do these things, but note that it’s the gm who decides on an Arcanum’s appropriate use. Thus, Spherecraft isn’t the power to declare that a flame sprite can be used to fix a computer and then use it to do so; rather, it’s the power to pick that sprite up and burn things with it, if it’s a magical candle; to talk to it and convince it to work with you, if it’s a conscious being; or, to mine it out of the earth and refine it into an incendiary powder, if it’s the kind of geological phenomenon that one would do that to. (And, more generally, to hit someone over the head with it if it’s something solid, momentarily blind someone with it if it’s something that glows, and otherwise exploit its λ-physical and social properties.) Alternatively—as a semi-related use—Spherecraft also allows a Strategist perform a cinematic/low-fantasy mundane action to accomplish some collection of basic survival or mobility tasks in λ-regions associated with their Sphere. In either case, the miracle just grants the necessary skill, rather than miraculously completing the action; the actual action is a mundane action with 3 Edge. It has the same level as this miracle.25 Level 2 effects include: ӫ communicating with insectoid Arcana, ӫ extracting and shaping an inflexible Arcanum metal, ӫ surviving amidst the λ-ice, ӫ defending against the spiritual attack of a ghost Arcanum, and ӫ bringing the essential spirit of an Arcanum lake into the world.

� ranscend the � orld Level 3 Miracle: “Hunt” Planning, Quest Level 3 Lore miracles are the Strategist’s innate correlation with their Arcana: the way that it is their nature to catch and bind those Arcana and bring them into the service of themselves, and how therefore their methods of doing so are almost inevitably drawn to be correct. These miracles are the Strategists’ lesser power of Arcanum binding. To use Hunt, the Strategist develops a plan to hunt down and bind a new and viable Arcanum for their deck. It should be a lesser Arcanum, with power closer to a mortal’s than a Strategist’s. It can be an Arcanum that has already shown up in play or a new Arcanum of the player’s invention. However, if it’s a new Arcanum, it should be a relatively ordinary one26—the character needs to use a higher-level miracle, or encounter it first, to hunt something extraordinary or rare. 25 It is still Spherecraft, though, and not a particular Ability action, regardless of whatever level it has. 26 insofar as any Arcana are ordinary

215 To bind an Objectaemon into your service requires its true name, the precise memory address that it called when it broke the bounds of the world to achieve Objectivism, and a relic of John Galt ... — from A rATionAliST’S Guide To GoeTiA (ii/xii), by Temporarily Fish

The actual miraculous effect here is a planning miracle: Hunt revises the world to guarantee that the Strategist’s plan will basically work. That “basically” is included as a failsafe in case play swerves dramatically against their plan ... but that’s specifically play, the story the group and gm are telling, and not ic events; synchronicity, miracle, and narrative momentum can revive the plan from the dead at least once or twice should things go badly for it in the world or the void but not in the players’ minds or hearts. Hunt usually catches its target “sometime in the next chapter;” more broadly, the norm is 0-3 chapters. Once complete, the binding lasts at least until the end of the story. After that, plot might someday free the bound Arcanum. Then again, it might never. The Strategist is free to choose a general binding method that seems permanent, e.g., physically transforming bound Arcana into gems, even though it is and remains canonically possible for any bound Arcanum to escape. Note that Hunt relies on the Strategist actually executing their plan. If they are, e.g., imprisoned and immobile and unable to actually do so, that can push the required time to complete the Hunt well past the normal 3-chapter maximum. Level 3 effects include: ӫ luring out a ghost Arcanum and catching it in the Strategist’s Gem of a Thousand Ghosts, ӫ finding an insect Arcanum that meets the Strategist’s needs, ӫ figuring out how to refine the water spirits of a nearby waylet, and ӫ trapping the hunting beast that’s been stalking the Strategist’s town into an oath of service.

Level 4 Miracle: “Navigation” Time-Consuming Level 4 Lore miracles are the Strategist’s innate understanding of the navigational principles of Nınuan—of a kind of travel that runs on symbolism and isomorphism rather than on physics and causality. This is a sufficiently broad understanding that it can manifest in either the void or the world. These miracles are the Strategists’ lesser power of passage. Given a proposed plan and a few hours of work in the background, an extended tactical action in conflict, or a self-spotlit action, the Strategist finds a way past some navigational obstacle—opening or finding a path through or around a barrier, bridging a gap, or constructing an

intrusion strategy for a guarded compound. This is roughly limited to a quarter mile of physical distance and an analogous spiritual distance: Navigation can bridge a river, open a gate where the walls between worlds are thin, and even solve mazes, but it can’t build a bridge to a waylet, Chancel, or even a city that isn’t nearby. Time travel is also more or less out, although it’s possible that a microsecond or so might be doable if the Strategist is ever in a sufficiently Glitched space-time situation that that would actually help. Level 4 effects include: ӫ slipping the gap between Creation and Chancel, ӫ learning the way between world and a waylet, ӫ crossing out from the Earth to the wood of the World Ash, or ӫ circling round a sheer Nınuan cliff. ... but in all cases, only when in a relatively correct “starting place.”

Level 5 Miracle: “Percipience” Planning, Quest Level 5 Lore miracles are the Strategists’ lesser power to engage with subtle and ethereal forces. They are the Strategist’s innate ability to redefine the terms of their interaction with the world and their place in the correlative continuum of the void; for them, it transpires, those things are neither inherent nor are they fixed. The Strategist develops a study regimen or plan that will teach themselves to perceive, communicate, and/ or interact with something that’s normally too subtle or elusive for that—e.g., learning to see surface thoughts, talk to the wind and to wind Arcana, or subsist on eaten light. This plan then basically works, as per Hunt. It takes 0-2 stories if this circumvents a major campaign obstacle, although this is unlikely; it takes 0-3 chapters otherwise. The ability manifests as a bonus Technique. The Strategist can stick with the plan even after it completes or succeeds to “stay in training.” Learned abilities last for as long as they do so—which is to say, as long as they maintain the plan as a quest—and for another chapter or two thereafter. If the Strategist intends to keep the ability indefinitely, it should eventually be tied to some sort of personal truth and purchased as a Bond (pg. 259). Level 5 effects include: ӫ teaching oneself to sense electromagnetic fields, ӫ learning to communicate with some cosmic horror, ӫ coating the dream of oneself with a malice that interferes with a certain Power’s miracles, and ӫ making a pair of glasses that can see hints of hidden waylets.27

27 At least, when the Strategist uses them. When other people try them on, they mostly go, “Whoa, you can see through these things?”

lore

216 The centipede was larger than a house, and made of bones. Its feelers waved, then plunged down into the forehead of Eduard Dubois. The skin did not break, the skull did not burst, in and in and in it went— “No,” snapped the sorcerer, irritably. “Not him. His phone.” The centipede’s legs wiggled in what Eduard might have imagined was embarrassment, were not a house-sized monster currently backing awkwardly out through his brain and skull and forehead in preparation to inhabit his brand new refurbished 187 dollar phone. — from The fAker, by Emily Chen

� rcane mastery Level 6 Miracle: “Infusion” [Slow or Time-Consuming] Level 6 Lore miracles are the Strategist’s ability to wield their bound Arcana and invoke the powers within. They are the Strategist’s lesser power of enchantment. Infusion imbues the power of an Arcanum from the Strategist’s deck (pg. 206) into the Strategist or someone else. There is a Strategist-specific mundane procedure involved. It’s usually an everyday action, although the gm can demand a Function task (pg. 127, 130)—the Strategist might, for instance, whisper a few words of power and point to the target. However, if the Strategist is innovating a new enchantment, the necessary procedure becomes an effortful process requiring a few hours of background work, an extended tactical action in conflict, or a self-spotlit moment of intense experimentation and thinking, instead. Whichever it is, the Strategist must succeed: If something prevents them from, e.g., whispering those words, this power is impossible to use. Assuming the Strategist succeeds and can use this miracle, the Strategist loses access to that Arcanum. In exchange, the target receives a Bond of the Strategist’s design. Like all Bonds, this has two parts: a truth, and a bonus Technique (pg. 259, 131). The “truth” of the Bond is some minor upside or downside to the infusion. This miracle can transform the target mentally or physically to realize it; however, because it’s the target’s player who’ll be interpreting the Bond, they can automatically tweak that transformation to better “fit” their character. This doesn’t require them to take damage to control or reinterpret the effect; it’s just an intrinsic corollary of the rules for Bonds (pg. 259). If they do take damage, they can mitigate any downside entirely ... whilst, if they so desire, retaining the beneficial portion of the Bond. The Bond’s Technique is generally the more important part of the infusion: a cinematic or low-fantasy ability, an “unusual capacity” of some sort, that the infusion grants.

glitch: a story of the Not

A successful infusion lasts for 0-2 stories, or until: ӫ the Strategist uses (Greater) Infusion on that target again; ӫ the Strategist uses a specific mundane procedure to cancel the effect; ӫ the infusion is destroyed by something that removes the “truth” of the Bond; or ӫ it is destroyed by something that destroys/banishes the infused Arcanum. At that time, the infusion fades. If the Strategist is present, and the Arcanum has not been destroyed, they regain access to it. If they are not present, it either returns to them by mundane means or flees and must be hunted down again, depending upon its binding and its nature. It is normally up to the gm whether or not some effect has removed the truth of the Bond or banished an infused Arcanum; however, at a sufficiently dramatic or appropriate moment, the target’s player may declare that too. Level 6 effects include: ӫ using a giant ant Arcanum to give someone a protective shell, ӫ wielding the power of a fire stone Arcanum to control flames, ӫ imbuing a water spirit Arcanum into someone to make them an aquatic creature, or ӫ investing a mystery hawk Arcanum into someone, thereby opening a third eye in their forehead and enhancing their vision. MORTAL WITNESSES: this power is clearly extremely messed up. The world’s only explanation for this power is “someone is doing weird stuff using Nınuan Arcana” ... meaning that people who see it and were not previously aware of Nınuan Arcana tend to freak out. They may even develop dementia animi or Glitch awareness.

Level 7 Miracle: “Inchoation” [Phantasmagorical, Time-Consuming or Very TimeConsuming] Level 7 Lore miracles are a subtle yet cosmoscopic intricacy within the Strategist that is, or can give rise to, the energies of their Sphere. They are the Strategists’ lesser wonders of λ-creation. With these miracles, a Strategist may give rise to the It was only in that state of delirium that I would have considered it; only in the soul-deep desiccation that came from being severed from every tie to the Unreal Sea that it occurred to me to try: To stare into the grey linoleum of the floor and say, “ You, you are water; you lines, you are the breaks between the waves; you glints, you are the sun against the water, and I call you, I call you, I call you, my water serpent, forth—” — from hoW mr. WeST WAS Won (West/Solomon), by anonymous

217 power of their Sphere, creating new Arcana and Arcanalike effects. These must be Arcana that fall into their own Sphere, but are not necessarily valid Arcana for their deck—artifacts, phenomena, abstract influences on a place, and tangentially related Arcana are permissible as well. ӫ Sphere phenomena so trivial as to be functionally phantasmagorical (pg. 250) can be kindled directly into being by the Strategist’s will; ӫ Weak Arcana and minor paraphernalia can be built with a few hours of work in the background, an extended tactical action, or a self-spotlit action. The Strategist might, e.g., conjugate an adequately defined conceptual structure and declare it λ-real; ӫ Meaningful influences and artifacts require days of work in the background or several self-spotlit moments of effort and reflection to create; and ӫ Arcana at or beyond the Strategist’s level and artifacts worth permanently adding to the Strategist’s loadout must be purchased with character points (e.g., as Gifts, Bonds, or Geasa) ... but this miracle can help to justify their creation. Level 7 effects include: ӫ birthing a fire spirit Arcanum from nothingness, ӫ creating a ghost Arcanum-like influence inside a child’s mind, ӫ building a suit of armor with some of the properties of the Strategist’s Arcana, ӫ creating a mystic tower, and ӫ creating a semi-divine Arcanum servant over the course of a cp-earning quest. MORTAL WITNESSES: this, like Infusion, is clearly extremely messed up.

Level 8 Miracle: “Invocation” Time-Consuming, Quest Level 8 Lore miracles are the Strategist’s purest power of Lore—the power to awaken the potential of the void; to find inspired uses for the incandescent might that lives within. They are the Strategists’ lesser power of improvisational void-magic and communion with its myriad λ-natures. Given time—several hours of preparation in the background, or an extended/self-spotlit preparatory action “on screen”—a Strategist may draw extra power out of an Arcanum of theirs or stretch its range of possible uses. Loosely speaking, both the experimental innovation and the final result are in the same realm as greater stunts, brushing the top of the cinematic/low-fantasy range for, first, tinkering, alchemy, or whatnot and then for Arcanadriven magic. When the process is complete, an action that takes advantage of that (mundane, with level equal to the level of this action, and with a default 3 Edge) is stored in a quest slot for immediate, later, or repeatable use. If appropriate, and if the Arcanum itself has pc-level

I try to adapt well to the human world and the human logic. I really do. But master makes it so very difficult. “Go, Cabral!” she says. “ You can do it!” Build a palace on the moon, she means. Write a best-selling novel. Reverse local gravitation through persistence and hard work. On that last one I tried to balk. It was not reasonable. “There are some things that cannot be accomplished with effort,” I said, “and to integrate properly into human society it is important to clearly differentiate them from those that can.” “That’s too stuffy,” she said. “And besides, none of the important humans do that anyway.” I attempted to look stern. Her eyes, to tremble. In the end, I was persistent and I worked hard and gosh darn it I reversed the gravity. Her trembling eyes may be as two cups of white gelatin and mold to me, but her commands remain as law. — from the Thought-Record of Cabral

powers (miracles, Rites, wishes, or something notionally equivalent), the gm may allow this action to be miraculous, with 0 Edge, instead. Note that this power is not an extraordinary miracle. Accordingly, its effects tend to cap at neighborhood-scale unless used repeatedly or maintained for a very long time. This remains so even when extraordinary possibilities seem plausible—e.g., for characters with a “nuclear” Sphere, for whom it might not seem all that great a stretch to tweak an Arcanum and burn a city down. That might seem possible ... but it isn’t, for complicated and technical reasons that only connoisseurs of the atomic Sphere are likely to understand. Note also that Edge is an assessment of power level and unfairness, not an independent effect; as with other, similar powers, the gm is entitled to vary the Edge that this power grants (or even offer an Edge to the opposition, instead!) as the circumstances decide. Invocation is explicitly able to tweak the effects of an ongoing infusion, or assist in the actions of someone with an Arcanum infused into them, assuming in both cases that it’s one of the Strategist’s own Arcana that’s been thus infused. Level 8 effects include: ӫ wielding herbal Arcana to make a potion that can resuscitate an injured friend, ӫ wielding an Arcanum device from an ancient ruin to restore functionality to a broken power plant, ӫ sending a magic book Arcanum to do jury duty on the Strategist’s behalf, and ӫ taking someone whom the Strategist has granted wings to with an avian Arcana and giving those wings the power to shape the wind.

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� reater abilities

Level 5 Miracle: “Greater Vision”

Level 4 Miracle: “Greater Investigation” Investigation, Slow, Extraordinary Level 4 Lore miracles are the Strategists’ greater arts of investigation. They represent a broader knowledge base than Investigation: The Strategist is no longer limited to basic information on Arcana, but instead, may learn ... ӫ Basic Information. A sentence or two of general information on just about anything—from a ruined radio tower to a book to a neighborhood. ӫ Means and Motives. More specific information on the “why” or “how” of something, or ӫ A “Clue:” A piece of information relevant to a specific matter of interest ... pointing the Strategist somewhere they can go for more information on that matter. That’s usually a location to stake out or visit but it can also be a conversational topic, a research topic, or somewhere else that they can metaphorically go. In addition, they may learn: ӫ Advanced Information on their Arcana. A sentence or two of general information on an Arcanum of their Sphere, plus a secret or a bit of expert knowledge if there is any such thing to know. Note (pg. 254) that investigation miracles have limitations; for instance, if the Strategist does not have any confounding evidence, they may turn up a “cover story” and not the truth. Level 4 effects include: ӫ asking one’s magic mirror to identify a nearby bird, ӫ hitting the streets to find out what in particular drew a Power into town to poke around, ӫ asking Arcana for a clue as to the location of a kidnapped Mayor, and ӫ understanding the special qualities of a vein of Notcrystal discovered in the void.

After a moment, he fumbled out his datapad. He flicked it open. In a low, hoarse voice he asked it, “Who was that?” “... AEON units are abominable and loathsome horrors from beyond space and time,” it offered. “Recommended protocol: retreat. Ablute. Libate. Disremember.” “I know that,” he said. “Everybody knows that. —I’m asking, what’s her name?” — from The biSymmeTriC mAn, by Chthuyakguth Baird

glitch: a story of the Not

[Automatic] Level 5 Lore miracles are the Strategists’ greater feats of void-sight. This power has the same basic essence as Vision, and in fact functions as Vision, save that: ӫ it may be invoked without an action, after which it lasts for the remainder of the scene: it becomes a true sense, not requiring separate concentration to maintain; or ӫ the Strategist can waive this benefit, creating a single instantaneous or sustained action of intense percipience instead. In this form, Greater Vision lets the Strategist perform a sensory action that receives the benefits of both Vision and Greater Flow (pg. 212, 131). This is principally a mundane action with the same level as this miracle and a default 3 Edge,28 but the Vision effect is still miraculous. At Lore 5+, the Strategist may assume they have the first version active at all times. Level 5 effects include: ӫ casually navigating in Nınuan, ӫ maintaining void-sense on a regular basis, ӫ “looking” at something far away, possibly through a barrier, and ӫ listening a bit harder for what someone won’t say.

Level 6 Miracle: “Greater Spherecraft” Level 6 Lore miracles are the Strategists’ greater arts of Arcana management—the best tricks they know to communicate with the sentient Arcana of their Sphere and interact with their Sphere in a useful fashion, plus, their ability to extrapolate beyond and from them to understand the general principles for manipulating the boundaries of Creation and managing Arcana that are born of other Spheres. Greater Spherecraft functions as Spherecraft, but operates in the same general realm as greater stunts—it allows for the kinds of amazing tricks that cinematic/ low-fantasy protagonists usually only pull off in the “big moments” of their stories; or, conversely, for the kinds of things that cinematic antagonists pull off after having worked laboriously in the background for quite some time. In practice, this version of the stunt/greater stunt distinction may not be intuitive in the Not; in such cases, Greater Spherecraft can also be interpreted as allowing actions “similar to those that fall under Spherecraft, but somewhat stronger.” If appropriate, and if the Arcanum in question itself has pc-level powers (miracles, Rites, wishes, or something notionally equivalent), the final effects of the action may be miraculous rather than mundane; it is up to the gm when, whether, and for which stunts this shall be possible, but where it is possible the pc may evoke this feature on command. 28 Thus, e.g., someone might still be able to hide their heart from this with Greater Steel. opposite: by Beatrice Pelagatti

220 Alternatively, Greater Spherecraft can operate at the same general power level as Spherecraft, but allowing the Strategist to perform actions that defend against other λ-beings at the same general level as their Arcana; or, that bring such beings into Creation; or, that cast such beings out of Creation. To a gm-determined extent, the character can also use this power on actions that deal with the boundaries of Creation more generally. In the above selection of actions, at least, they’re no longer limited to their personal Sphere. Level 6 effects include: ӫ taking over a hive of insectoid Arcana, ӫ using the void’s weather patterns to extract and shape an Arcanum metal on the Strategist’s behalf, ӫ tying a giant ghost snake Arcanum into knots, and ӫ adapting the lake-summoning ritual of one’s Waterbased Sphere to summon eerie hounds into Creation.

Limitations Note that, by default, Greater Spherecraft will not help the Strategist make use of λ-beings other than their own Arcana. (Except, e.g., when using them to defend against yet other void-things.) Nor will it help survive or move in environments not related to their Sphere. At best one can learn such things—one Sphere at a time—with practice.

Level 7 Miracle: “Greater Hunt” Planning, Quest, Extraordinary Level 7 Lore miracles are the Strategists’ greater power of Arcanum binding. In essence, they are the lesser power writ large. They allow the Strategist to capture creatures closer to the divine than to the mortal level—including the Strategists’ own equals and betters—as long as either those creatures have shown up in play, or, a firm consensus exists that they (or something like them) are out there to be found. These miracles may also be used to catch particularly rare and elusive Arcana. Finally, with gm permission, Greater Hunt may allow the Strategist to catch a relatively ordinary Arcanum more or less instantly. Hunting a powerful Arcanum takes 0-2 stories in all but the most extreme cases ... usually meaning, “by the end of the story, unless the story’s almost over—in which case, by the end of the next.” Such Arcana are not meaningfully more useful when infused, but make better npc allies, are sometimes more powerful in (Greater) Spherecraft and Invocation, and may need to be hunted regardless of value if they’re interfering with the pcs’ plans. As for those extreme cases ... well, there are transcendent beings out there in the void that can probably be captured Relatively few towns in Southern California have been accepting of dimensionally unstable snail-dogs, but once Ventura opened its hearts and a vacant fast food service position to “Spot” it rapidly became a beloved local celebrity. — from hAppy TrAilS To you, by Holly Brubaker (in the Ventura Shield, December 2012)

glitch: a story of the Not

by the right Strategist, in the right circumstances; in some cases, even by the end of the next story ... it’s only that, for creatures of that ilk, even when they are capturable, Glitch is hesitant to commit the gm to a particular time frame. If the gm allows the power to be used, they can be caught, but no deadline is, here, officially pressed. Catching rare and elusive Arcana, on the other hand, usually takes the normal 0-3 chapters: it’s trickier work than usual, locating them or catching them, but that’s covered by the level 7 effect. With a level 7 miracle, a Strategist can: ӫ catch an extraordinary ghost in their Gem of a Thousand Ghosts, ӫ find an exceptional and atypical insect Arcanum to suit their needs, ӫ refine a vast lake into a single Arcanum spirit, or ӫ trap the absurdly elusive fox spirit Arcanum that’s been troubling them.

Level 8 Miracle: “Greater Navigation” Extraordinary, Very Time-Consuming Level 8 Lore miracles are the Strategists’ greater power of passage. This, too, is the lesser power writ large: Given a proposed plan/method and either a few days of work in the background or a few self-spotlit relevant moments, the Strategist constructs an accessible path between any two points—one that will remain open for as long as they sustain this action, and then for a gmdetermined and possibly indefinite time thereafter. This is an approximate, symbolic power: The Strategist does not need to specify the endpoints very precisely, or even to fully understand them; conversely, the gm can make the results imprecise even when the Strategist does have a very precise, clear target. The dramatic potentials and symmetries in the situation will shape how easy or difficult a particular precision will be; this is an ic phenomenon, so Strategists are aware that dramatic elements (like, e.g., arriving at the last minute) can be a potentially helpful precision-targeting tool. On the other hand, the details don’t actually track perfectly to human stories and tropes, or even to Excrucian ones, so this sort of thinking is not always of use. The epic version of Greater Navigation, fueled by an additional 20 Cost (pg. 248), can open impossible paths—e.g., into a story, or one year back in time. Note that the miracle will strive to create a consistent and coherent world from the outcome; thus, for instance, creating a path into a story is more likely to take the Strategist somewhere on the Ash that resembles that story, or into a Chancel that happens to be “stories, only, real,” than to “prove” that fiction and reality are one and the same. Going back in time is probably unable to change the broad strokes of the present, and certainly won’t change everything everywhere in a butterfly effect ... not because a level 8 effect isn’t strong enough to dramatically change the status quo, but because a world where you can change the past has a fundamental tendency towards incoherence. Paths so bizarre that the

221 The Glitch compromises the idea that there is such a thing as “the inaccessible.” Is something buried under a faraway mountain? Has it been rendered inactive or invisible by the conditions of the world? Then getting to it, or perceiving it, will be difficult using ordinary means— But let’s have some perspective. If we stop projecting the constraints of our own paradigm for travel onto the world, then distance is just a tuple of places. If we stop projecting the constraints of our own senses onto the objects that we perceive, or do not perceive, then invisibility is only a tag. If something is in the same world as you, if it’s running on the same basic metaphysical architecture, then it’s basically right next to you. Everything that exists, to exist, becomes neighbors. — from noThinG mAkeS SenSe Any more: An inTroduCTory Guide (2nd ediTion), by Ofanite 3

world can’t be consistent or coherent in their presence are invitations to a rich vein of the Glitch. Level 8 effects include: ӫ bridging a ten-mile gap, ӫ reaching the stars, ӫ reaching beyond death, and ӫ crossing into memory.

Level 9 Miracle: “Greater Percipience” Planning, Quest, Extraordinary Level 9 Lore miracles are the Strategists’ greater power to redefine the terms of their interaction with the world; or, put another way, their greater power to engage with subtle and ethereal forces. They function as Percipience, but the Strategist may grant themselves extraordinary talents. Alternatively, they may attune an entire smallto-medium-sized organization or a fair bit of a Region to hidden or subtle things in some less individually extraordinary fashion. The first version lasts for as long as the Strategist keeps the quest active, plus another chapter or two, as per Percipience; Greater Percipience, however, needs gm permission to keep active between stories, and if abandoned between stories, it does not linger into the next. The second version normally only lasts a few chapters all told, but may become permanent in the epic version of this power. Such permanence requires and allows the Strategist to impose a balancing drawback of some sort—normally, the target is dis-attuned in some fashion to a swathe of normally non-hidden and non-subtle things—and the gm and the player must agree on what this is. Level 9 effects include: ӫ pulling a town into conjunction with the spirit world, ӫ teaching oneself electromagnetic mastery, ӫ making the voices of birds comprehensible in a certain place, and ӫ teaching a small corporation to communicate with some cosmic horror ... at the cost of its ability to maintain a comprehensible social media account.

Level 10 Miracle: “Greater Infusion” [Slow or Time-Consuming], Extraordinary Level 10 Lore miracles are the Strategist’s greater power of enchantment; their greater power, in short, to wield their bound Arcana and invoke the powers within. These miracles function much as does Infusion, including the mundane action that must complete before the Strategist can invoke this miracle, but the effects on the target are more extreme—both the transformation and the Technique can be extraordinary. Further, the effects last indefinitely instead of for 0-2 stories. (The various ending conditions, such as the Strategist infusing the target with a different Arcanum, still bring the effect to a close.) Level 10 effects include: ӫ turning someone into a ghost motorcycle, ӫ making a cosmos-traveling bed with your old university hidden under its covers, ӫ infusing someone with the power of a snake-headed tortoise god Arcanum, or ӫ burning away one’s own mortality in the fire of the phoenix. MORTAL WITNESSES: like Infusion, this is clearly extremely messed up.

Level 11 Wish: “Greater Inchoation” Extraordinary, Wish Level 11 Lore miracles are the Strategists’ greater wonders of λ-creation. The Strategist can bring large portions of a Region under the influence of their Sphere, create powerful servants out of nothing, and birth large-scale Sphere phenomena in an instant. Given time to let the effect progress, they might even spread an Arcanum’s influence across the world. Other options may exist as well, because this power is a wish (pg. 260): Its power, its flexibility, and its overall cooperativeness all scale with the Strategist’s current Fugue, how much rein they give their Sphere to handle things as it likes, and how closely the limits they do impose upon it fit with the gm’s current understanding of that Sphere. Level 11 effects include: ӫ spreading the Strategist’s arcane biosphere through the city they have made their home, ӫ constructing a great λ-fortress overnight, and ӫ swiftly crafting and even binding a meaningfully powerful Arcanum. MORTAL WITNESSES: this, like Inchoation and (Greater) Infusion, is clearly extremely messed up.

“No longer will this be ‘Los Angeles,’” the Yin-Yang master declares, laughing maniacally, “But rather, LOS YINYANGELES!” — from eSCApe from l.yAy (interactive adventure), by Peak Elephant Studios

lore

222 Level 12 Miracle: “Greater Invocation” Extraordinary, Planning, Quest Level 12 Lore effects are Strategists’ greater power of improvisational void-magic. They express their mastery of hunting, binding, and banishing as a general principle. Greater Invocation is a planning miracle. It creates a plan to chain, bind, banish, or attack someone or something. The player proposes their own plan. It must in some way draw upon the powers of the void—e.g., on the latent power sleeping within a bound or stationary Arcanum—but is not limited to the already-canonical abilities of alreadycanonical Arcana. Further, it may include astonishingly powerful ritual attack techniques that don’t appear outside this miracle—“spells,” “formations,” “miracles,” “power sites,” and “pseudo-Arcana” that can only be used as part of a Greater Invocation. The kinds of bindings and attacks that are available are relatively open: this power can trap an Imperator into service or pin a city into the sky. Greater Invocation usually catches, banishes, or inflicts the full punitive force of its attack upon the target “sometime in the next chapter;” more broadly, the norm is 0-3 chapters. As usual, campaign-reshaping effects take 0-2 stories instead, and are more likely than usual—given the nature of this power—to require an epic plan. Once complete, the binding, the banishing, or the attack’s effects last until at least the story’s end. If the target of Greater Invocation is a viable Arcanum for the Strategist’s deck, the effect skews a little faster. In particular, viable targets for Hunt are generally affected all but instantly, and the player may elide an explanation of their plan/what they did, if they prefer. Greater Invocation does not allow the Strategist to bind a non-Arcanum into their deck. A very similar binding might be possible, but the Strategist cannot then, e.g., use the target as the base for an Infusion. Level 12 effects include: ӫ seizing and binding an Arcanum with a gesture, ӫ sealing an Imperator in orichalcum chains, ӫ sealing a town in walls of ice, ӫ trapping a random human in the form of a crystal bird, and ӫ casting an annoying Power off of the World Ash.

glitch: a story of the Not

No sooner did Vera Penelope Serenity Everdeen discover that her ghost-catching game worked on real ghosts than she jailbroke it to catch people and objects as well. “But how does it work?” Maxwell asked; Vera said: “The specter of extinction is a portion of us all.” — from nine TimeS VerA hAd To borroW The Creek SlASher’S phone, And The one Time She didn’T, by Priscilla Grey

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a

� ore cheatsheet

Difficulty 0: Investigation Investigation gives the Strategist 1-2 sentences of basic information about an Arcanum. They must research it, but, e.g., “I search my (memories/grimoire)” will suffice. Greater Investigation (diff 4) yields 1-2 sentences of general information about an Arcanum, plus a bit of secret or expert knowledge; 1-2 sentences of basic information about anything; a bit of “why” and “how” about anything, or a “clue.”

Difficulty 1: Vision Vision grants direct perception. The Strategist ignores darkness and muting/silencing; obstructing their senses becomes less effective; and, they can perceive Nınuan. Greater Vision (diff 5) is either “automatic Vision,” lasting for the rest of the scene without using an action, or “keen Vision:” a mundane sensory action with Greater Flow-level competence, default 3 Edge, and level equal to the miracle level, augmented by miraculous Vision.

Difficulty 2: Spherecraft Spherecraft lets the Strategist perform a cinematic or low-fantasy action to make proper use of the Strategist’s Arcana, defend against them, bring them into Creation, banish them from Creation, survive in regions tied to the Strategist’s Sphere, or be mobile in regions tied to that Sphere. This action is functionally a mundane action with the same action level as the miracle, and a default 3 Edge. Greater Spherecraft (diff 6) can be Spherecraft for other people’s Arcana, specifically, for defending against them, inviting them into Creation, or banishing them from it. Or it can be a somewhat improved (greater stuntlevel) Spherecraft. If the Arcanum is powerful enough, certain such “greater stunts” can be miraculous.

Difficulty 3: Hunt Hunt is a planning miracle that lets a Strategist catch and bind an Arcanum. Specifically, an Arcanum with power closer to a mortal’s than a Strategist’s, and one either pretty “ordinary” or that’s already shown up in play. Greater Hunt (diff 7) lets a Strategist catch rare Arcana and powerful Arcana. Powerful Arcana can take a long time to catch. If the gm permits, Greater Hunt may also catch weak, common Arcana quickly or instantly.

Difficulty 4: Navigation Navigation is a Time-Consuming miracle to work around some navigational obstacle. It can cross up to ~1/4 mile of physical (or an analogous spiritual) distance. Greater Navigation (diff 8) is an Extraordinary, Very Time-Consuming miracle to open a path between any two points. The path lasts at least while the effect is sustained. Epic effects (pg. 248) grant access to impossible places (e.g., “a year ago,” “my imaginary friend’s house.”)

Difficulty 5: Percipience Percipience is a planning miracle. It lets the Strategist train themselves to perceive or interact with some subtle, elusive, or intangible thing. After training, they gain that perception/interaction as a bonus Technique while they stay in training, and maybe for a few chapters more. Greater Percipience (diff 9) is an extraordinary planning miracle that lets the Strategist train themselves in impressive versions of the above talents, or, conversely, attune a small/medium organization or a portion of a Region to some hidden or subtle thing. The second version lasts a few chapters unless epic (pg. 248), in which case, with a balancing drawback, it might last indefinitely.

Difficulty 6: Infusion Infusion uses an Arcanum to grant someone a temporary Bond, transforming them as appropriate to manifest the Bond’s truth. Innovating new Bonds is Time-Consuming (pg. 251); re-using old ideas is not. Infusion lasts for 0-2 stories, until something narrative breaks the effect, or until the Strategist cancels it with a specific mundane procedure or applies a new infusion to that target. Greater Infusion (diff 10) allows extraordinary transformations and Bonds with extraordinary Techniques. They last until the Strategist cancels them or applies a new infusion, or, until something breaks the effect.

Difficulty 7: Inchoation Inchoation creates energies from the character’s Sphere. This can manifest phantasmagorical Sphere phenomena instantly, birth simple Arcana and paraphernalia as a TimeConsuming effect, or enkindle meaningful influences and artifacts as a Very Time-Consuming effect. Greater Inchoation (diff 11) is a wish. It creates and shapes powerful energies of the character’s Sphere. It can be used to do a lot of stuff, but it’s hard to get the most out of it unless the character is in tune with their Sphere—e.g., has high Fugue, lets the wish do what it wants, and/or specifies things that are mostly aligned with the Sphere’s natural inclinations.

Difficulty 8: Invocation Invocation is a Time-Consuming action to stretch the possible uses of one of the Strategist’s Arcana. Both the stretching and the final use brush the top end of the cinematic/low-fantasy spectrum. The final action is stored in a quest slot for immediate, later, or repeated use. When used, it is functionally a mundane action with the same level as the miracle and a default 3 Edge ... unless the Arcanum itself is very powerful, in which case certain effects may be miraculous. Greater Invocation (diff 12) is a planning miracle to chain, bind, banish, or attack someone from afar. The plan can invoke weird ritual powers only existing under the aegis of this power’s plans. Viable Arcana for the Strategist’s deck are faster to hunt; weaker ones may even be hunted instantly, without specifically stating a plan.

lore

chap t er 14

�yrd Calvin’s absence from my life was as rich as had been his presence: a thing in motion, of rippling autumnal shadows; a thing of many colors and degrees. — from Regulus IV, in Spring, by the Interpreted Vernice

opposite: by Melissa Spandri

what

225

�urns within

A character’s Wyrd is their true self. It is the face beneath their face. It is the dream they dreamt themselves to be, before the world. Strategists are tied to an endless life-death cycle. They “die” from their infection: from the suffering they must undergo, because they have witnessed the glitch. Because they are the creatures of the void, because they are blessed by their rights as a creature of the void, they may often escape the messy process of physical death and simply leave the world directly—entering their sanctuary, slipping into a waylet, or casting themselves beyond the cup of flame—but it is still a cognate to death. The world ravages them. It eats away at them. Their infection, and life itself, devours them, consumes the essence of them, until the thing that remains is ragged and in parts ... and can no longer remain within the world. They depart it. They flee it. They escape it: desperate; hurting. In the soothing dark they remake themselves as whole. In the nothingness things dream themselves to structure. In the nothingness each thing conceives itself, and each thing regards itself, and with that regard and with that conception it creates itself, to the extent that it has been created in any sense at all; it begins, if not to be, to Not-exist. In the endless void each Not-thing forms a Wyrd for itself, and that Wyrd is its nature: its being, meaning, fate, and fundamental essence all in one. This is the thing with which the Strategists repair themselves within the void. It is because they are broken by the world that this substance is inimical. It is because the world has corroded the Strategists that the Wyrd that fills them is also the kind of Wyrd that crawls into places where only loathsome Creation-stuff ought to be and wipes all that ruination clean. It is because the world has tainted the Strategists that their Wyrd is antithetical to the world and all of its wrongness: That it is not merely Not-being, not merely an un-thing, but a candelabrum of burning nothingness, a vitriolic cup of emptiness, a fangèd blanket of unbeing. That the substance which, to the Excrucians, is deeply soothing and reparative, should be fundamentally anathema to the world we know. The battered tank of them fills up with it. The tattered chassis of them, fleshes out with it. They are repaired with it,

wyrd

226 made whole with it, and may return to the world as living things again. ... there, though, they will spend themselves; there they will burn out the essence of their Wyrd, in defiance of Creation: there is no alternative. To exist in the world as things that are not things requires it; to live the way their Wyrd requires of them demands it. To be a Strategist is to bleed your Wyrd, to spend the currency of your fate and nature, and replace it incrementally with gross worldly gunk until the world has murdered you again. A Wyrd is fatal. It is a fatal thing. The inexorable correlative property of the Not exerts its force upon the Wyrd just as it does on other things; thus, it is not against the Wyrd that this life-death cycle should be taking place. It is a Strategist’s Wyrd, in a sense, that they should suffer this—that they are inevitably corrupted; that they lose themselves; that they are driven outwards, only to repair themselves again. They deny it, they must deny it, they must, at least, have a native inclination to deny it, because it is intrinsic in the Wyrd that their Wyrd must struggle against Creation ... but there is something in that cycle, too, that is built into the dream itself. The Wyrd is not a pure and pristine thing that can exist without Creation: It is a thorn of nothingness, digging into Creation. It is a weapon of the void. It seemed so very peaceful, long ago. Long ago, in the days of Nınuan, the dream that your character dreamt had no overtones of murder—or at least they were unlikely to be present; before it was drowned for millennia beneath Creation, before it was buried, covered over, before it was forced to claw its red way out from the distended belly of the world, a Strategist’s Wyrd was almost always a peaceful thing, a bright pure thing, a safe kind thing, a comfort; and that is how most Strategists experience their Wyrd even today. ... but it is not. A Wyrd—a Wyrd, today, at least—a Wyrd is writ in blood and flame. The Wyrd Attribute measures the depth of a character’s identification with the void. With no points in Wyrd, a character has only barely freed themselves of the prison of mortality. Their self-concept is deeply tainted by Creation. They most likely dodged their doom as a revenant by the skin of their teeth, winning transcendence by the thinnest sleight of fortune rather than by wisdom, capability, and grit. Higher Wyrd ratings represent first acceptance of a character’s Excrucian nature and then a kind of deepness and richness of that nature (wherein one comes to own and then refine one’s natural power and to shed misleading concepts of the self ). Each level of Wyrd costs 2 points and makes a number of powers relating to the Strategist’s nature and life-death cycle less costly—from Wyrd 0, where even retreating to one’s sanctum can take a bit of effort, to Wyrd 7, where a single exhaled plume of stored unbeing can wipe ten

glitch: a story of the Not

warships from one’s path. Increasing Wyrd also, arguably, changes the nature of the Wyrd itself; this is explicit in the text below, particularly when a character’s Wyrd increases during play, but it is also most likely illusory: Nınuanni orthodoxy holds that a Wyrd itself is unchanging; it is one’s perception of that Wyrd that can evolve. In addition to the Wyrd Attribute, a character may also purchase “Gifts” that relate to Wyrd, granting more specific benefits. Some of these Gifts appear later, along with a general system for constructing your own Gifts.

The Infection Trait Wyrd is intimately tied to the Infection trait (pg. 277), which tracks the current severity of the character’s sickness. This trait builds from nothing—the point where the character’s illness is essentially in remission—to level 6+, where it drives the character out of the world. It is Wyrd that ends it there: that grants the character recovery, when in Nınuan. It is Wyrd, in a way, that at level 6 demands their flight.

Level 0 Wyrd: “World-Bound” 0 points Those who do not understand their Wyrd remain bound by the laws of the world. They may have seen its fundamental wrongness; they may even, like the Deceivers, extrapolate beyond that to a fundamental inconsistency—but on some level, they are still entangled in its web of fate. They are a prisoner of its processes. They are architects of wonders but not impossibilities: The things they do may be abnormal, but they follow the logic of the world. They aren’t true aliens, beings from

The Core Powers The core powers of Wyrd are these: DIFFICULTY

POWER

USE

0 1 2 3

Wailing Elysium Revenant Contagion

4 5 6 7 8

Destruction Shattering Unfettering Casting Masking

fall into a crisis; despair find a sanctuary from it heal from Infection/Cost there curse others with an echo of one’s own Infection wield a custom power of Unbeing unleash power while breaking dodge worldly entanglements split off minions from one’s heart psychic surgery upon oneself.

Each can be used by a Strategist with [Wyrd ≥ difficulty] ... or by a Strategist with lower Wyrd, if they pump up their Wyrd with Burn (pg. 267) or some other Cost. Greater forms of each of these powers are available at +4 to the base power’s difficulty. Variations and combinations are also possible, as discussed on pg. 150.

227 They had committed themselves to the doctrine of normalcy, Agent Stevens realized: to maintaining the illusion that everything was as it was supposed to be; that everything was as it was meant to be; that everything, in a very real way, was as it had it always been. They had committed themselves to a doctrine of normalcy and of glorious antiquity— “ Yes,” he said, after a too-long hesitation, pasting an awkward smile upon his lips. “ Yes, that dragon is supposed to be there. It has—uh—a license.” — from And All The STArS hAd loST Their Shine, by Melody Terese

beyond existence, so much as humans (or whatever) made up to look like aliens. You can even sometimes see their eyes. To the world-bound, the void is not unbeing, but something a lot like space. It’s an earthly nothingness. Nınuan, similarly, lacks its strangeness: it is merely a place, outside of other places. The infection of a world-bound character, and their escape from it, are likely to abide by mundane rules: The world-bound have little business with the ineffable. Socially, characters with level 0 Wyrd aren’t really full Excrucians. Rather, they’re considered something more like worldly, mortal quagmires imprisoning an Excrucian self within. It is not quite pitiable, because it can later change, but it does verge on childish or ... perhaps, on “unenlightened?” It is a state that any void-born friends the world-bound have will hope that they eventually grow past.

example concepts Theodric Moreau is dying of calcification—his body slowly hardening into something more like bone, or rock, or steel. There is no known medical cause for this and no actual source for the calcium-like material that builds up inside him; however, chelating agents can mitigate its accumulation, surgery can remove deposits, and his sickness is reluctant to spread to disconnected extensions of him like his glasses, his clothes, and his artificial hand. His “sanctuary” is a hospital ward; when he dies, or becomes so infected that rational means cannot restore him, the ambiguously personified doctors there move around in front of the light, twitter strangely like unpracticed flutes, and sear out his veins with “Anvit” (anvritrasate nazothasate), a commercially trademarked formulation of the Not. Alodia Godafrid is dying of rumor, or, at least, is rumored to be dying. People keep whispering about it around her—acquaintances, associates. Strangers notice little signs. She tries not to pay any attention to this, lest evidence accumulate to the point where continuing to believe in her own health would be irrational. Once she is forced to confront “the truth,” though, she is never quite able to process it as I am dying of rumor, and now it has caught up to me again; instead, she “realizes” once more

that she has offended an oligarch, has a deadly disease, is being stalked by a killer, has hair full of poisonous vermin, is a homeless centenarian, is in a building on fire, or, perhaps, all six. It is only after a long recuperation in her sequela sanctuary that she may remember that rumors are not necessarily factual and that people only whisper such things of Alodia Godafrid because the world is deeply wrong.

Level 1 Wyrd: “Wyrdling” 2 points As the character contemplates their Wyrd, an awareness eventually seeps into their consciousness that there is something else besides the world—that there is a nebulous Not-light that is not the worldly darkness; a Not-region that is not simply a worldly place outside of worldly places; a way of being, or, more precisely, of Not-being, that is fundamentally different from that of the world they knew. The experience is ambiguous and ethereal; the concept, as frangible as an eggshell: To truly grasp their Wyrd, or to understand themselves, they must leave the world. There, in the cultivating emptiness of Nınuan and its waylets, they can become—can grasp at λ-being— something more than the thing they’d been. In the Not, they can grasp at a Wyrd of struggle and dual natures, a Wyrd of being alien, even, in a real way, unto oneself. This is a liminal state, and like most liminal states, is somewhat fungible: “Wyrdling” is an identity of its own, but they may pass socially for full Excrucians, to others and themselves. ... if they are willing to make the effort, and to sometimes fail at it. Conversely, on a bad day, they may easily slip into a world-bound state, either in the eyes of others or in fact.

example concepts Avery Leudagar is dying of sunlight: it burns them. As their infection grows, even moonlight (and eventually “things that have been in sunlight”) begin to char. Yet because of this they have a constant awareness, an apperception, of Nınuan’s unworldly darkness—and of the fact that its “light” is by no means light, nor are its “stars” true suns. Kyrina Geissler is dying of the mountain. It’s calling to her, even though she hates it; even though she knows that it exemplifies the wrongness of the world—there is something in her that must climb it, must seek its summit, and must re-enact the awful death that there she always finds. She’s moved half a world away from it, but it’s still right there, just out the window, all earthen-clothed and misty-crowned; take a look, and you can see it there. It is an axis of the world, an omphalos; all things revolve around it, all things are in its shadow; only by virtue of its mystic and trackless nature, only by its dimly-sensed alienness, does Nınuan itself exist outside its reach. To some extent that is all she really understands of Nınuan, all she really understands of the Strategist Kyrina Geissler: beyond the shadow of the mountain, there is that.

wyrd

228 Level 2 Wyrd: “Nınuanni”

4 points At this level, one may break free of the mortal quagmire. It is tentative; it is difficult. Excrucians at this level are still heavily polluted by Creation and thus typically a lost, damaged, angry, and tormented bunch ... but they have touched upon the beauty of the void. Existence burdens them; it clings to them like a great crab weighty on their back, its claws dig trenchantly into their sides—but it’s not the whole story. It isn’t everything. Inside themselves, or outside the world, or in some waylet, they have found it: The Wyrd that is bearing witness; the Wyrd of I have seen beyond this world. It is a dim and cloudy sight, but it is sufficient; it is a thing of power. Attention is a thing of power. Witness is a thing of power. To carry this Wyrd is to awaken the soul of the void inside you: a breath of the primal darkness inside one will thenceforth then endure. At Wyrd 2+, a character is a true Excrucian and a citizen of the void. Most likely they are more than just “a citizen”— most likely they are a Strategist, they are royalty—but this is not obligatory; if a Power or an Imperator or an old tin can contained a Wyrd, and they dreamt it to this degree, then they would be of the people of Nınuan as well.

example concepts Achillios Arminius is dying of gentrification. The world around him is constantly subject to this slow creep away from what works for him, what’s convenient for him, and what’s functional for him, towards what fits the tastes of a somewhat hypothetical wealthy jerk named Caspar that he “could have” been. His only real solace is in Nınuan: not a sanctuary exactly to his tastes, for, after all, his worldly tastes are worldly ones, but at least a pure clean place that can be his. The klaxons rang. The red lights flashed. The station sections slowly listed in the dark. Long past the edge of effort, long past the boundaries of hope, Stacy kept struggling, but there was no use to it; and in the end, even the static and the voices in her headset ceased to shout. It was a jewel to her, the moment that she understood that it was over— That willpower could not fix this. That effort could not fix this. That even “being better” could not have helped. It was a jewel; it was an unfolding, glowing flower. It transfixed her with the simple beauty of it. Her eyes no longer saw the console that spread before her. Her ears no longer heard the bells. Instead her eyes were fixed on that pure and clean and inner darkness, and the silver glow that burned within it; then up, beyond, and past it, to the beginning of the world. — from Come, Come AWAy, The Spider SAid, by Jennifer Carruthers

glitch: a story of the Not

Oeriel Faucher is dying of harmony. Much like Ariana Aquincium, she heard a particular piece of music, and it wasn’t ok. Just thinking about it too much can break down not only her own sound processing abilities but sound itself—or even math. Getting it stuck in her head is even worse; and when her sickness is at its height, snatches of it play out around her in the natural harmonies of the world. A person can get lost in it, can lose their sense of place and being to it; for her, the void is not merely an escape from the world but also a pole star, an internal and an external existence that she can orient upon when all would otherwise be lost.

Level 3 Wyrd: “Armiger” 6 points Characters at this level of Wyrd walk in the shadow of their infection. They have found solace in Nınuan, and yet there is still something inside them that mirrors itself to the thing that kills them—that kills them over and over again; that drives them, over and over again, to flee the world. As they seek to understand their Wyrd, the world, and Nınuan, there is something in them that reflexively patterns itself in their own agony’s image. Caught by their own desperation to be free of it, they recapitulate the flaw they loathe most within Creation; at best, they forge that reiteration out of somewhat purer steel. Why does this happen? Often it is the natural evolution from the first moment of their ascension: their glitch-wrought infection is, after all, much of their making as a creature of the void. Often it is a kind of extended catharsis: they dive into the poison of their most virulent revulsion because they hope to free themselves of the power that it holds. Occasionally—rarely, perhaps—it is a demonstration. They make themselves as magnifying lenses, proof in themselves that the world is wrong. Most commonly, though, it is merely symmetry: Of course the innate weapon-nature of an Excrucian is parallel to the glitch that initially awakened them. It is on that very basis that they were sifted from the void. Thus an Excrucian dying of fire may wield a Wyrd of incandescence and immolation; an Excrucian dying of betrayal, a Wyrd of subtle treachery, instead.

example concepts Licinia Aldwin is dying of water bottles. Cups. Jars. Glasses. Ammunition clips. Gas tanks. They all tend to wind up empty around her. Containers tend to wind up empty around her. That’s not because she’s drunk the whole thing already. It’s because the world is all broken and wrong. Her Wyrd is the Desiccated Wyrd, the Desolate Wyrd, the Emptying Wyrd: the world is wrong. I was so sure that that was full! Godigisel Audamar is dying of forests—or, at least, of a pool of strange corruption that he encountered in the forest once, fed by pine needles that turned to liquid as

229 The dog was barking. It hung there in the air and it kept on barking. It made Clovis very angry because dogs were not supposed to fly. — from The bureAu of impoSSible AnimAlS, by Theobald West

they fell. Around him, that pool can live again in ink that drips from an inkwell; in pools of spilled coffee; in trickles of blood ... in anywhere dark liquid flows. His Wyrd is the Poisoned Wyrd, the Corrupted Wyrd, the Creeping Wyrd: lo, the evidence wells up again that the world is wrong, and has always been.

Level 4 Wyrd: “Sword-Bearer” 8 points Polish the weapons of the Armiger and eventually they refine into something more fundamental—something less defined by infection and corruption and more by death itself. Characters at this level of Wyrd are the swords of Nınuan. They are the living weapons of the void. Their Wyrd is not merely an incidental weapon, not merely accidentally antithetical to Creation by virtue of being the substance of unbeing; it is a flame of ending and a promise of destruction that hungers to tear existence down. The Sword-Bearers arm and armor themselves with that awful power; in Nınuan they bloat themselves on that angry nothingness; and when they come into Creation that elephantine ruination stirs in them, it pours in lakes and torrents out from them, and where it goes things end. This is the Impaling Wyrd, the Wyrd of War: There ought not be Creation here. There ought not be all these things here, but rather Ninuan; so let it burn; let it drown in darkness; let all the lights be done.

example concepts Turin Vulferam is dying of his online comments section. It isn’t clear to him, or anyone else, why a person should have one; but wherever he goes, a stream of uninspired threaded drivel, up-votes, down-votes, and images follows. It invades him, bit by bit, shifting slowly from something that requires meditation, insight, or the correct URL to see at all to something that anyone can spot just by defocusing their eyes—and eventually it drives him into catatonia. While his functionality remains, though, he is adept at deleting and even locking not just individual comments that violate the terms of service but also objects, people, and even abstractions. This is his Impaling Wyrd. Emmeline Widukind is dying of the thing in the box that she shouldn’t open. Don’t open the box, Emmeline! It will not serve you well! Among other things, it is possible that the box contains everything that she has ever looked at and decided was so unworthy of its existence that it

ought to be entirely erased. Opening the box does not, of course, restore these things: she is, after all, a Strategist of Nınuan and not an Imperator of Creation. Opening the box is ... basically, just bad.

Level 5 Wyrd: “Postulant” 10 points This is the Wyrd of the seeker—of the one who has finally confronted the fundamental futility of destruction, who has seen themselves as scrabbling against the glass walls of the world, and turned their attention deep within them (or far beyond them, or deep beneath the surface of Creation) to learn a way that something more productive may be done. This is the Wyrd of mourning and futility; of Ninuan is fallen; and of distant, glimmering, and subtle hope. The Tormenting Wyrd, the Wracking Wyrd: A Wyrd that tears away your flimsy delusions and selfjustifications and confronts you with the truth of your own identity; of the many inextricable entanglements of world and void; of the essentially superficial nature of every “solution” that one had come to theretofore. A Chancery member with this Wyrd cannot escape their recognition of the world’s fundamental wrongness, and their own passivity in the face of it; an impenitent Strategist, conversely, cannot evade the cruel pointlessness of the actions that they take to “kill the world.” Fundamentally, this is the Wyrd of knowing that you have gone astray—that you have had no choice but to go astray, mind you; that it is inconceivable that you could have done other than go astray, because the world is too difficult a problem to be instantaneously mastered— This is the Wyrd of knowing that you have gone astray Predictive software for juridical procedure proved eerily accurate, and so acquired a peculiar reputation for “judgment”—as if, through its ability to predetermine the actions of judges and juries, it replicated also their inner thoughts. The long slow drift towards trial directly by software was, in this context, inevitable: For that matter, the relevant case law was long since known. It was de rigueur, after the new system came into effect, for the condemned to rail against their condemner; to demand to know the basis on which they’d been judged and decided guilty. Surely, they argued, the system’s predictions of a judge that was not there and a jury that had not attended did not suffice to establish anything like guilt? The answer was held to be straightforward: justice did not exist, and had never existed. Law did not exist, and had never existed. There was only ever a constellation of mathematical series, as anyone paying any attention really ought to have already known. — from 9 TimeS QuAnTiTATiVe AnAlySiS WAS SoCiAlly deSTruCTiVe, And 1 Time iT WASn’T, by Merry Angelie

wyrd

230 in the face of extreme exigency and crisis, and of not having found an answer to that straying yet. Traditionally, that answer was end it all, except, you see: It’s not like the Excrucians haven’t been trying that, and failing at that, for quite a while.

example concepts Huneric Oursler is dying of seasonal affective disorder. The short days and long nights of winter cast a long shadow over his heart—but that is nothing compared to the disorienting burden that is spring. The greenery retched up by the nauseated Earth unnerves him, the heating of the world enfevers him, the season leaves him unfocused and dismayed. The short nights and long days of summer parch something vital and elemental inside him, seal off from him some fundamental reservoir of cooling darkness that he depends on, they enervate him and make the world an agony to endure; then autumn strikes like a knife in the dark, and all the trees around him spurting leaves like blood. It is traumatic: he staggers through a world in pain, his own blood thinning and his heart arrhythmic out of sympathy. Time skips, or seems to skip; the world slips through his fingers. ... the short days and long nights of winter, though, cast a long and bitter shadow across Huneric Oursler’s heart. There is no other answer than to shatter all the natures of the world; but has that ever really been an answer, after all? Sigrida Ofilius is dying of noise. The world is full of too much din for her—not merely in its fundamental loudness, but also in its excessive unevenness, in its bursts of energy and silence, and in its propensity for reams of obfuscating detail. Every street and every forest path, to her, is a symphony for dental drills and tuneless trombones: an assault upon her senses that makes a pretense to being art. It has to go. It all has to go—or, at worst, if she can’t yet do that, she must re-tune it, must shove aside the conductor and rewrite the symphony to fit the aesthetic of the void.

Level 6 Wyrd: “Potentate” 12 points Characters at this level of Wyrd have begun to free themselves at last from the entangling grip of their disease— and, in a real sense, from that of the world itself. Their spirit is in a process of purification; their mortal caul is in tatters; they are, at last, truly beings (unbeings) of the Beyond. This is the Wyrd of transcendence, disentanglement, and departure: I am nothing of this world. It is a thoughtful and introspective Wyrd, but it can also be a cruel one; intrinsic in it is the belief that they of Nınuan are more than worldly beings, better than worldly The Lindsey twins performed gravity-defying stunts; or, rather, physics-nepotistic stunts: stunts that gravity would not allow more ordinary twins to do.

beings, by virtue of their status as of Nınuan. If they have transcended some of their old hate and loathing for the world, they have typically only sharpened their disdain for it— The world is false and plebeian; it is beneath them; it is a fading stain upon their boots. That disdain is not a part of the Wyrd, it is not baked in, particularly for those who have joined the Chancery, but in many cases it may as well be: that: The world is worthless, as well as wrong. Characters at this level have “answered” the insoluble quandary of the Postulant, but normally by punting on it: they’ve deprecated the importance of the insolvability of the world to their own personal advancement in their Wyrd. Accordingly, their spiritual advancement does not mean that they have overcome the worst demons of their nature, only that they have reached the point where those demons need not master them. It does not require that they have forgiven the world, or accepted the world, or even accepted themselves ... only that they have, at least in part, moved on. Thus, an Excrucian Potentate is not in a state of exile, rebellion, or desertion from the War; rather, if one analogizes the Riders to an army, their place is usually more like that of a staff officer, roving troubleshooter, civilian overseer, consultant, spy, or scientist—someone ranked above the common soldier, that is, and respected as such, but with that respect usually carrying the hidden qualifier that they don’t seem ... quite ... up for the front lines.

example concepts Galterius Therivingian is dying of sweeping, or, more precisely, of the thing he swept—for no sooner had he swept off his porch than he came to understand that on each particle of dirt there lived, had lived, there used to live, entire civilizations of tiny lives. From that time forward he has felt a creeping guilt, uncertainty, and haunting that gradually develops into paralysis: the knowledge that any action may have completely unrelated consequences, and the attending fear of doing anything at all. Because mortal action frequently ceases to make sense to him, he has been forced to grow beyond the conflicts of the world; he focuses more upon himself. Kheryna Reiner, conversely, is dying of filth. She is simply unable to remove the gunk that accumulates about her; thus, in time, her every wound becomes infected, and kills her, and she is driven from the world. For decades she saw herself as unsightly, broken, and ruined; when she realized that this was not so, that the problem was entirely outside her—and, more importantly, when that realization came upon her as a revelation and an enlightenment rather than as a rhetorical contribution to her internal monologue—her infection lost its grip. She attained the Disinfecting Wyrd.

— from The endleSS CirCle of The World, by Rannen Yedidyah

glitch: a story of the Not

opposite: by Beatrice Pelagatti

232 You have formed yourself from the substances of the world. You have feasted richly upon them with your organs of perceptions until your eyes have grown fat and round from it; until your ears have filled up inside them with the waxen wealth of it; until your nose has given itself over to being something of a bulge. You have taken the essences of the world inside you, ground them up, and recomposed them, and with this made your “self.” The distinctness of the first person is, as it has always been, deception; there is nothing that is in you that is not just more of the outside world. Exist within a corrupted context, and your “you” will be corrupt. — from SurViVAl, by Clotilde Evariste

Level 7 Wyrd: “Illuminate” 14 points At this level of Wyrd a character may shed, at last, their mortal self—not necessarily breaking free of every part of their existence as a being in the world, not necessarily leaving every legacy of their past behind, but rather escaping at last from the way of being, the mortal structure of identity, that would make an identification between them and their old self possible. As a Potentate, they let go of who they were; as an Illuminate, they let go of what. Inside their head they are, quite simply, no longer the same kind of thing. This is a subtle Wyrd: a Wyrd of self-severing, a Wyrd of self-disassembling, a Wyrd of becoming/being Not. In the lands beyond Creation it is considered the beginning of wisdom and those who achieve it are honored, for they have brushed against the boundaries of sacred things.

� ules for wyrd The “power source” for Wyrd effects is called Burn. A character begins the game with [10 × Wyrd] Burn. This will rise as they invoke difficult Wyrd effects, and fall both over the course of time and when it has harmful results. They may invoke Wyrd effects with [level ≤ Wyrd] for “free”—it requires no Burn. Often a character will wish to go beyond that. Not only will the higher-Wyrd effects often appeal to lowerWyrd Strategists, not only do characters sometimes need additional Wyrd to overcome the miraculous barriers known as “Wards” (pg. 257) ... but only by going beyond their base Wyrd can a Strategist access the difficulty 8-12 Wyrd effects at all. A Strategist wanting to use effects beyond their rating may buy the extra Wyrd they need by, basically, pushing their limits, drawing on reserves from some dangerous, destabilizing place within themselves or doing things that are emotionally hard: By taking Burn. The character names the Wyrd level they wish to emulate; the practical maximum, in the absence of a bidding war, is 23. They perform the effect. If the effect succeeds—which is to say, if it functions essentially as stated, rather than being blocked or undone outright by hostile countereffects—they accumulate Burn equal to [desired Wyrd − original Wyrd.] For instance, if an

EXAMPLE A character is a Postulant, with level 5 Wyrd. For this character, the chart looks like:

Example Concepts Guinemar Welkin is dying of grief. He lost his tag team partner to a rival wrestling group, only, he wasn’t meant to. It wasn’t scripted. It wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t even supposed to happen in real life. After that pro wrestling stopped making sense to him. The world stopped making sense to him. ... and, finally, he did, unto himself. It wasn’t until he could set aside the kayfabe of human consciousness that he found a measure of stability and could rejoin the Sport. Enlightenment, of course, only grants perspective; he is as unable as he ever was to avoid the inevitable cycle of re-entanglement with his old partner’s affairs, followed by wrongness, followed by destruction, save through frequent re-immersion in the grand un-wrestling of the Not. Galienne Karga dies of bears. Well, bear-like things. Things that are like bears, just, you know, a little flatter, and a bit more, um, protean? at their edge. They’re nasty, brutal things. Things that kill her, quite a lot. Yet one can only be messily devoured just so often (... asserts Galienne Karga, the Excrucian) before one stops being afraid of it, instead escaping the pernicious self-identification that makes pain and death such frightening ideas.

glitch: a story of the Not

EFFECT TYPE

LEVEL

Instinctive (0 BURN) Casual (1 BURN) Effortful (2-3 BURN) Hard (4-7 BURN) Agonizing (8+ BURN)

Levels 0-5 Level 6 Level 7-8 Levels 9-12 unnecessary except to bypass Wards or win a fiercely-contested stake

What the player probably memorizes is this: Level 0-5 Wyrd effects cover retreating to my sanctuary more easily and getting a lot of benefits there. They also include lesser corruptions, lesser destructions, and my weapon of last resort. I can do all that for free. Level 6 Wyrd effects let me duck out on metaphysical attacks and stuff relating to my infection. This isn’t quite instinctive, but neither is it difficult. Level 7-8 Wyrd effects involve changing or extruding part of my identity, long-term corruption effects, and extraordinary acts of destruction. These hurt a fair bit. Level 9+ Wyrd effects—reshaping an area, transforming into a calamitous monster, opening someone’s eyes to the truth, or creating a false self with a Wyrd of its own—scourge even me.

233 Armiger with level 3 Wyrd wishes to perform a level 4 effect, they will, by default, accumulate 1 point of Burn. Put another way, the character adds +1 to their Burn total. From time to time, it is good to note what this Burn actually represents, what they’re actually doing to themselves here, but that is not required; more precisely, if not established at the time of the miracle, it will either be a subtle influence that eventually fades or a dramatic one that will be established at a later time. Thus, a character dramatically reaching beyond their limits may choose to explain how, in doing so, they burn their soul and their being or scrape their emotional and spiritual being raw; a character engaging in what they consider a work-a-day miracle, even if the total amount of accumulated Burn is the same, need not so explain. A character must always take enough Burn to succeed at the basic effect. They can add more to overcome a Ward or opposition when and if they discover it’s there. This extra purchase is a little Slow (pg. 251) compared to miracles, though, and in a fast-paced struggle, they may fall behind (see pg. 151, 262). Taking 3+ Burn at once is a notable moment. The Burn itself is still a bad thing, but the character will earn a bonus xp. Conceptually, ӫ An effect that costs 0 Burn is instinctive—it doesn’t drain the character at all. ӫ Spending 1 Burn is still more or less casual. ӫ Spending 2 Burn is pushing yourself. ӫ Spending 3 is unpleasant. ӫ A 4-7 Burn effect is terrifying, painful, and difficult. ӫ Anything beyond that is agonizing. At the beginning of each chapter, Burn drops by one, to a minimum of 0. Characters may also reduce Burn when it brings them to a crisis: when the player, or, at 80+ Burn, sometimes the gm, has an interesting idea for the harm or change the Burn might inflict on their character, and implements it as a “Wound.” Superficial Wounds burn off 10 Burn, with no minimum; harmful ones, 25; metaphysically potent and transformative ones, 50. This isn’t unlimited, though, even if the player would want it to be: The character will suffer at most one such Wound per session—counting the Wounds from other, similar, Costs— and at most one 25+ Cost Wound in two consecutive sessions. Characters may freely accumulate Burn until it hits 80; then, as noted, there are circumstances in which the gm may force a harmful crisis upon them. At 108 (that is, eψ(−2,3)+3 × A), they can no longer spend any Burn at all. ... after roughly 300 points of Burn have been poured into Wounds, over the course of a character’s in-game existence, they can no longer sustain themselves; and fall, into eternal revenance.

�ase states Level 0 Rite: “The Wailing Rite” Automatic Level 0 Wyrd Rites are the Strategist’s bone-deep awareness of their glitch-spawned infection, and their ability to allow that awareness to consume them. They fall into infection state: a mode of being, arguably a failure mode, where that blighted awareness ripens, their contrast from Creation sharpens, and their Wyrd becomes a cutting, awful flame. Their sickness becomes even more constant a companion: an incessant, pounding migraine or a blinding white obsession, a thing one can’t ignore. These Rites are a Strategist’s lesser power of despair. When a Strategist activates the Wailing Rite and falls into infection state, ӫ each point of the Four Costs they spend on actions counts as two, ӫ they are no longer bound by oaths sworn in Creation, and ӫ certain Wyrd powers become significantly stronger— in particular, the level 4 power, Destruction, below. ... but: ӫ the state is an ugly and traumatic one, and ӫ they no longer recover one point in each of the Four Costs and Wear at the beginning of each chapter. This effect does double the Four Costs for the purposes of complex conflicts (pg. 262)—a character in infection state who spends 3 Burn in a conflict contributes 6 Cost towards the victory of their side. It does reduce the effective Cost of an epic action. It does not, however, reduce reactive Costs like “taking damage” (pg. 279) or Costs from things (like shortened quests, pg. 323) that are not actions. Nor does it increase the effect of spending Wear. The Strategists who retain their mortal nature are indicative, for all that it exists alongside their own. Whether they are strangling on an excess of mortality or clinging to the last remnants of a lost existence, their ability to cohabit with the world proves an old contention: That they may set it all aside. That they could, if they truly wanted, go past the point of just “hanging on to a bit of their former nature.” They could abandon their fate of dying. They could abandon even their infection and become a normal citizen of the world. They could give up the curse that wracks them every minute of every day. None of them has ever done so. None of them ever will. The glitched would rather drink down molten sulfur than be a willing party to this world. — from The reVenAnT GAme: ConSenSuS poliTiCS of deniAl in The fACe of The WAlkinG deAd, by Petra Keskinarkaus

wyrd

234 A deathwright may succumb to infection state voluntarily, but the gm may also initiate it on their behalf when things get sufficiently stressful or sufficiently bad: infection state is a cognate to despair. The gm may raise the effective Wyrd level for such an action arbitrarily high, in the event of opposition; this has no cost. To refuse the Rite if they can’t counter it, the Strategist must take damage. Once invoked, the Wailing Rite lasts until the Strategist takes a Transformative Wound (pg. 272) or completes a quest in a fashion that their player believes can justify their coming out of their “infection state.” This power is a Rite; it interacts with the Costs. With a level 0 Rite, thus, a Strategist may: ӫ maintain their enmity for the world, if it’d been slipping, ӫ sacrifice their equilibrium to temporarily heighten their power of Destruction, ӫ walk the line between different kinds of despair by going into infection state to save predicted Costs, or ӫ tear free of a miraculously-binding oath.

close enough that they may perceive without effort or action while therein. If the player chooses, their sanctuary may instead be a void-muddled portion of Creation or a bubble of Creation surrounded by lacuna or the Not—a functional but microscale version of the Chancels of the Nobilis. Characters with sanctuaries of this kind still have some native ground somewhere Beyond, but not a casual access thereunto. The fact that a pc has one kind of sanctuary or the other is a matter of selection bias and the correlative continuum— there’s a meaningful chance that a character with an unreachable native ground will conveniently stumble upon a Creational sanctuary as part of the inexorable expression of their Wyrd and Eide, or actively construct one (somehow), or seek one out. If they don’t, they probably get destroyed long before they spend enough time in the world to recover from their rage. If they do survive, and join the Chancery ... they’re probably still too burdened by travel time to make a functional pc.

Level 1 Miracle: “Elysium”

Automatic Level 2 Wyrd Rites are the natural restorative qualities of immersion in one’s sanctuary or convalescence in the void. They are the Strategists’ lesser powers of recovery. When the Strategist ӫ invokes a spotlight in their sanctuary, or ӫ spends most of a chapter convalescing elsewhere in the Not, including at least one spotlight use,

Slow, Long-Ranged Level 1 Wyrd miracles are the character’s access to a peaceful sanctuary. They are the Strategists’ lesser miracles of forsaking. Each character has a unique sanctuary that their player defines. The entrance to this sanctuary is in the world, but the sanctuary itself is isolated and secure—it’s literally or metaphorically a little world of its own. Most people must use the regular entrance, but by taking a certain symbolic action and invoking Elysium, the Strategist themselves can get in from practically anywhere. This also opens the way for anyone else who performs the action with them or soon after. For instance, a Strategist might be able to get to their sanctuary by “walking around any bookshelf,” “crawling through any fireplace,” or “feeding themselves through any keyhole, with the ‘fitting’ part handled by the miracle.” Having done so, it becomes possible to exit from the sanctuary to that location until both the story has ended and this miracle, or its greater version, has been used again. Level 1 effects include: ӫ disappearing into the Strategist’s quilted nowhere land, ӫ retreating to a secret library, ӫ leading a friend to the Strategist’s favorite little coffee shop, where it’s safe from the world, and ӫ escaping to the Strategist’s private, magical dimension.

Level 2 Rite: “Revenant”

they lower their Infection by a point and recover 3 points of Costs, both to a minimum of 0.29 This recovery can be in any of the Four Costs, or Wear, or divided between two or three options. Finally, if the character is currently suffering from an infection-related Serious or Transformative Wound, they may mitigate it—its effects weaken for a chapter or two. The typical spotlight is spent bearing witness to the process of their recovery, or their infection, or the environment; they may, however, choose other options. This is a Rite; it interacts with the Costs. With a level 2 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ recover from an illness that makes their bones burn when they dream while in their peaceful white room sanctuary, ӫ regularly cleanse away the wasps that accumulate in their hair, which would otherwise eventually kill them, or ӫ drag back their soul from the brink of destruction by abandoning the world for a while.

The Sanctuary’s Nature Unless the player chooses otherwise, a character’s sanctuary is their “native ground.” As such, it exists Beyond the world, but is accessed in a different way than most waylets and rarely damaged by Witness or Wicked Actions (pg. 124). Its spiritual connection to the Strategist is generally

glitch: a story of the Not

29 It is traditional to spend the first 0-2 points of this, as necessary, recovering the full cost of this Rite. This is not obligatory given a suitable headcanon for how the process might otherwise make sense.

235

� estructive powers Level 3 Miracle: “Contagion” Phantasmagorical Level 3 Wyrd miracles manipulate the vibrant imprint of the Strategist’s infection upon the world. They are the Strategists’ lesser miracles of cursing and blighting. Contagion allows the character to inflict or manipulate lesser curses or blights based upon their own infection. A Strategist dying of misusing prescription medication might make someone crave a nauseating combination of meds, make them confuse household products for cough syrup, or send giant pills to hunt them down. A Strategist dying of fire might overheat someone, or burn them, or set them on painful but non-fatal fire. The effect is customizable but it is only a shadow of the horror the character themselves faces: The effect is phantasmagorical (pg. 250), and lasts at most for two dawns or two twilights after the miracle ends. Level 3 effects include: ӫ cursing someone with one’s own bad luck, ӫ putting invisible blades in someone that will cut them if they try to escape, and ӫ igniting the inside of a ball point pen, even as the Strategist’s own bones may sometimes burn. MORTAL WITNESSES: because this is phantasmagorical, the world may choose between explaining the effect away in some fashion that “makes sense” or just muddying the waters enough that it can’t be proven real.

Level 4 Miracle: “Destruction” Bleak, [Phantasmagorical] Level 4 Wyrd miracles are the intrinsic power of uncreation that is a Strategist’s birthright as a creature born of the void in opposition to the world. They are the Strategists’ lesser miracles of unmaking. Each character may define their own particular destructive power, choosing a category of targets and an unmaking-themed or Beyond-themed effect that they can apply to them, such as: ӫ “I can destroy simple, unliving objects,” ӫ “I can de-age or remove recent memories from people,” ӫ “I can cast living things into the Beyond,” ӫ “I can reduce small areas into a state of chaos,” or ӫ “I can erase a named, individual property of the distinct thing I am pointing at.” If the character is under the effect of the Wailing Rite, they may waive the target restriction, applying the power to almost any target. (A few restrictions are covered below.) The first power can destroy ... anything, from the sound of a cat’s footfalls to your third cousin Ed. The second can de-age or remove recent memories from ... anything, whether that means making an expired check younger or encouraging a revolving door to suddenly “forget” what it’s

doing and make a hard stop right in somebody’s face. The third can cast people, pens, trees, and even whole rooms full of stuff screaming into the Beyond. What the fourth and fifth can do under the effects of that Rite depends on exactly which part of each power you construe as the “target;” but in any case, a whole vast field of options opens up! When used against λ-things, Destruction is phantasmagorical (pg. 250). It’s not useless, but it loses a great deal of its sting. Possible level 4 powers of destruction include: ӫ turning distinct, mid-sized objects and people “off ” for a minute or two, suspending their actions and rendering them intangible, ӫ killing living things, ӫ releasing the Nınuanni “self ” inside someone (see Prescott’s Children, pg. 40), ӫ increasing the rate at which an observable process grinds to its natural halt, and, of course, ӫ the unmaking-/Beyond-themed options mentioned over there to the left (and a little bit down). Under the Wailing Rite, “turning distinct, mid-sized objects and people ‘off ’ for a minute or two, suspending their actions and rendering them intangible” might expand to allow: ӫ turning off part of something, which then either phases through the rest or remains stuck to it as the player feels most fit; ӫ turning off a large thing like a train; ӫ turning off a small thing like a stamp; or ӫ turning off a collection of small things like the viral infection in somebody’s flesh. MORTAL WITNESSES: often, this power is explained away with some variation of “that happened naturally” or “that destroyed thing never existed in the first place.” In rare cases, the world defaults to “that was an illusion” or, if absolutely necessary, “something weird and related to some waylet or magic happened.” Regardless of how it tries, though, Creation can’t completely hide this effect. Witnesses and the strongly affected always have an inchoate awareness of what happened: of loss; of roughly what was lost; and, if the Strategist is perceptible, that it was specifically the Strategist’s fault.

Limitations Destruction is “bleak,” meaning that mortals have a potential, if unlikely, recourse against its power (pg. 252). Destruction can’t directly oppose the Strategist’s infection. It also has trouble opposing it indirectly, particularly in a straightforward manner—that doesn’t mean the Strategist can’t do it, just that the effect may be unsatisfactory, incomplete, slow, or somewhat refractory even when technically it should succeed. For instance,

wyrd

236 if the Strategist is “dying of sunlight,” it’s generally impossible to just ... wave off ... a sunbeam. They can erase the window that it’s coming into the room through, but that may go slowly, or the effect might not be complete, or it might let even more sun in through a new giant hole in the wall. Destruction can destroy or erase negative things, but Creation and the Beyond are not symmetric: destroying a negative doesn’t necessarily create a positive, nor does it necessarily carve out utility from whatever remains. Remove the darkness from a room and the room won’t actually become light, for instance; it becomes whatever the gm and group decide the default cosmic state would be before the invention of light and darkness. (Perhaps a kind of greyish void with dim shapes visible when they’re near you ... but no way of making out fine details at all?) Similarly, making someone forget that something didn’t happen won’t cause them to actively remember it as happening instead. More generally, to whatever extent this power has an implicit creative effect, it gives the player no real control over that effect: it’s a power of destruction. Maybe a lot of practice with a particular effect might help, because creative destruction is in the Strategists’ general lexicon—but maybe that practice won’t help, either, because creative destruction is not what these particular miracles are. Accordingly, versions of this power that sicken or curse others are rare. They’re certainly possible variants of this power, but while most sicknesses and curses are destructive in effect, they’re generally creative in both method and function; as a general rule, it’s better to use (Greater) Contagion for that kind of thing. Destruction is, as noted, phantasmagorical (pg. 250) when used against λ-beings. Note that this includes Strategists, Deceivers, and Warmains. It also includes Mimics damaged to the point where their unbeing is showing through and potentially the Magisters of the Wild (if they could somehow untether themselves from the world). Conversely, Immersion Wounds (pg. 270) can sometimes make Strategists fully vulnerable to others’ Destruction—normally, the player would agree to this when the Wound is created—and the most intensely real Second Skins can make Deceivers temporarily vulnerable too.

The water spilled, and I un-spilled it. The trash was full, so I un-filled it. The flour jar was empty, nor did I dare un-empty it; I ordered more online, clipped off the price, and cut away the time until it showed up, moments later, at my door. My kitchen grew clean, and ever cleaner; I fixed every little wrong that I encountered; but it was a surface cleaning, a faulty cleaning, a pointless effort, for I could not scrub away the fundamental wrongness of all things. — from The inVerSion mAnuSCripT, authorship unknown/under dispute

glitch: a story of the Not

Level 5 Rite: “Shattering” [Automatic, Phantasmagorical], Extraordinary Level 5 Wyrd Rites are a roiling disaster contained within the character, released in a time of stress. They are the Strategists’ lesser powers of shattering. Specifically, a Strategist may use Shattering when taking 5+ points of damage to release that disaster. It is unleashed as a phantasmagorical (pg. 250) miracle. The character always releases the same general sort of disaster, which can be as epic as the player likes; they can tailor the specifics on each invocation of this power. This disaster only requires the Strategist’s action if they retain meaningful control over the disaster; otherwise, it’s Automatic, and sustains itself for an appropriate length of time (at most, until the end of the next story.) Shattering’s disasters are not labelled phantasmagorical for metaphysical reasons but for narrative ones. They’re not dream-like, illusory, or ineffectual. Instead, they’re just prone to screwing things up rather than obliterating them. (That’s, in fact, one reason why Strategists generally don’t like this Rite.) It’s usually at least notionally possible, when the Rite’s effects end, to piece the broken world back together. That means that if a Strategist floods a city with a tsunami using this Rite, it won’t be phantasmagorical in the sense of “that tsunami was just a dream.” It’ll be phantasmagorical in the sense that it’s a harrowing experience, but afterwards, most of the dead will be people who would have died anyway in that time frame; people who were so frail, battered, or beaten that even a gentle effect killed them; people whose presence in the city was tentative to begin with; and people for whom dying and moving on was, all things considered, the right move. Buildings will be in ruins, but most of them—and all of the infrastructure—will be weirdly intact or recoverable. In a shockingly short time, life will move on. This is a Rite; it interacts with taking damage. With a level 5 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ control (and vastly enhance the quantity of ) their own spilled blood, ӫ manifest one of their nightmares (e.g., the thing they imagine will kill their sanctuary one day), ӫ unleash the flock of monstrous shadow-birds they’d been containing in their soul, or ӫ rip apart their Eide for strength, unleashing a burst of red light that tumbles buildings, cracks the earth, and covers the city in darkness for a while. MORTAL WITNESSES: even when it “actually happens,” direct witnesses find a Shattering dream- or nightmarelike; it’s usually difficult to explain how it happened; and the divergence from possible events rapidly fades from the historical record.

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unnatural

E ffects

Level 6 Miracle: “Unfettering” [Automatic] Level 6 Wyrd miracles are the Strategists’ fundamental isolation from the world, their fundamental nonparticipation in it, their essential and continual alienation. They are the Strategists’ lesser miracles of disaffection. Unfettering is a defense against effects that care about the Strategist’s metaphysical participation or lack thereof in the world around them. It asserts that they’re not a part of things, at least not notionally/conceptually. They’re not a part of Creation; not a part of where they are. They don’t count. For the most part, physics doesn’t care. Objects don’t care. Even a lot of social and psychological stuff doesn’t care, if it’s not the kind of thing where disassociation is relevant. Like, even the most unfettered Excrucian can be “dazzled” or “intimidated” by a charmer or thug—why would it matter that they’re not a part of the world? ... but it matters to most miracles, unless there’s a physical medium or they’re meant to target Nınuanni. ... it matters to most magic, even, along with all but the most void-antipodal metaphysical and spiritual natural phenomena. This is the power a character can use to duck out on the entanglement of karma, avoid having their memories rewritten when their mortal history changes, or dodge a soul-seeking spell. With a bit of skill, it’s what they can use to grab someone’s hand and yank them out of the way of a guilt trip ... or to shelter someone, with just the cool breath of their presence, from the corruption of a glitched bit of space-time. The karma, changed memories, spell, or whatever else it is that this miracle opposes doesn’t usually stop or vanish, for clarity, and in fact having it do so wouldn’t always be useful; rather, its effects become essentially cosmetic—perceptible, but lacking bite. Note that Powers and Imperators can generally add “including Nınuanni as applicable” to their target list for any given miracle, wish, or Rite, which would render Unfettering futile. It’s just, doing that isn’t normal. Only a few Powers and Imperators are so constantly vigilant as to add a clause like that without some reason to expect an Excrucian’s there. Even then, if there’s a reason that the miracle really shouldn’t apply to the creatures of the void—e.g., it’s enforcing karma on them, or targeting their place in the fabric of things, or transforming some part of them that’s specifically unspecified—Unfettering may still defend them. Note also that Unfettering’s benefits are not guaranteed to be permanent; even when the effect is perfectly applicable, there may be only so much a temporary separation can do. Characters under the effect of the Wailing Rite may invoke Unfettering without an action, and it lasts for them for the remainder of the scene.

When Dane was born, the fairies promised he’d be the best physician in the world. They blessed him to be panacea to every illness and a surgeon without compare. Only the second-tolast fairy gave him any trouble, swearing that he would suffer fifteen years of residency, but the last fairy kissed his brow and saved him: he would prick his finger in the fifth year and die, instead. “I’m grateful,” Dane said, distressed, much later. “But this is still a dire fate.” “There is nothing to be done,” the fairy said. “It is incontrovertible.” Dane thought for a long time. Then, quietly, he ventured: “Construe fate ... as ... a disease?” — from ShuSh red lAnGuei’S pilGrimAGe, by Trevelyan Martel

Level 6 effects include: ӫ navigating a region of broken time or space, perhaps with great difficulty, but without damage, ӫ surviving a destruction miracle that erases one’s mortal family, ӫ slipping away when an Imperator claims the local area for a Chancel, and ӫ deciding that you and your soulmate aren’t part of “everyone” when a Power uses a miracle on everyone in an area, if the Power themselves hasn’t considered whether or not Not-people should count.

Level 7 Rite: “Casting” Time-Consuming, Quest Level 7 Wyrd Rites are the Strategists’ lesser power of reification. They’re the simpler form of “casting,” wherein the Strategist splits off a portion of their heart/spirit into a separate being—e.g., a will-o-wisp, floating mask spirit, or paper-seal minion. This effortful task needs at least a few hours of work in the background or a particularly slow tactical action in a fast-paced scene; this can be hastened by a spotlight (pg. 251). Created beings have the following rules: ӫ they have five character points, divided between: - Ability, costing one point per level, with skills as suited to their concept; and - relatively minor phantasmagorical (pg. 250) powers, bought for one character point each. ӫ they also receive a free power to directly manipulate others’ emotions as a phantasmagorical (pg. 250) level 3 miracle; ӫ and, finally, they have a two-point Cost Trait of the Strategist’s choice that they may use to enhance either their Ability or their phantasmagorical powers. Having filled this Cost Trait, they may pass those points on to an unwary target, e.g., one who sleeps near them or who carries them near their chest. This takes at least several hours (and sometimes longer) and can be accomplished once per chapter.

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238 The character can choose a couple of powers that are available for purchase by their Wyrd-born minions in general. After that, it costs 3-10 extra Burn to develop new powers for a particular minion or minion group; this cost is set by the gm (based on the powers) and paid once, when the first such minion is cast. The Strategist may assign a quest slot to the created being as it is cast; while they keep that quest slot assigned to it, they can control its actions directly, defend it from harm by taking damage, and pour 1-2 points of their relevant Cost Trait into its by touch. This can take them below 0. (They will, in turn, acquire the creature’s Cost pool when they reclaim the slot—but it may have emptied itself into someone else, by then.) If the Strategist does not assign a quest slot, or after they reclaim it, the creature becomes free-willed but still largely loyal; they may no longer defend it by taking damage, and they cannot pour their Cost Trait into its. This is a Rite, as the created creatures manipulate a Cost. A similar Rite exists in Eide, save that the Eide Rite casts its minions off from the character’s dream-of-self rather than carving them from the character’s heart. The two minion types will differ in their themes and their developed powers. With a level 7 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ make an origami snake that can turn into a human servant (as a phantasmagorical miracle), ӫ make a cute cat-ghost-thing that can calm or incite people, ӫ make a harmless-looking doll that manipulates and feeds Burn into the child they give it to, or ӫ make little floating fireballs to help in the kitchen MORTAL WITNESSES: mortal witnesses are unable to track the origin of the cast minion, but may recognize it as weird.

Level 8 Rite: “Masking” Time-Consuming, Quest Level 8 Wyrd Rites are more general manipulations of the character’s personality and identity. They are the Strategists’ lesser powers of autopoiesis. With the possible exception of small tweaks, these are substantive endeavors: they require at least a few hours of background work, an extended tactical action, or a selfspotlit action before the Rite takes effect. The effect of the Masking Rite is usually instantiated as a Geas, although it may not need to be formally specified. This Geas, whether formally specified or not, is “stored” in one of the Strategist’s quest slots; while they keep it around, they can’t use that slot for a quest or for anything else. Its level is set as if it were a purchased Geas—thus, normally, at the Strategist’s base Wyrd or Eide (pg. 258). The most common use of this power is to create a “mask,” a worldly personality and identity: Mundane investigation of this identity always skips past the crucial point of the process and returns a vague result of “things seemed to check out;” no mundane action

glitch: a story of the Not

Inside myself I built a mathematician; she unrolled my memory as charts. — from ConTAined WiThin A floWer, by Ravindra Anjali

can forcibly penetrate or see through the false personality the Strategist has adopted; the same applies to weaker miracles and Rites to the extent that they mimic mundane methods in feel. This power isn’t limited to creating such masks; it’s merely the most common application. Masking can also surgically alter the Strategist’s memories and competencies, set up internal countermeasures against mind control and emotional manipulation, and other suchlike things. If the character is in some sense a mask or a false self themselves, this power can even let the original self out to play. Masking can’t make permanent changes, nor can it substantively change the Strategist’s Eide, but it can temporarily twist it. This includes injecting new mortal abilities into the Strategist’s skillset and adjusting their Technique, generally at a cost to their established skills.30 The character may also, optionally, take a Bond instead of a Geas ... sacrificing the miraculous perfection of the “cover” (and most likely any adjustment to their base Technique) in exchange for a bonus Technique. This is a Rite, as it (typically) creates a Geas. With a level 8 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ become a high-level secret agent, ӫ become an extremely qualified candidate for a particular job, ӫ construct a secondary personality to run parallel to their own, e.g., one with superior memory and better organizational skills, ӫ take on the role of Dr. Devon Ringer, small town veterinarian, dropping their skateboarding skill and learning veterinary medicine just in case, or ӫ construct a conditioned reflex that imposes a few minutes’ amnesia every time they try to talk to their ex.

Greater

� owers

Level 4 Rite: “Greater Wailing” Automatic Level 4 Wyrd Rites are the Strategists’ greater power of despair. They are a desperation to escape the world and all its torments. This Rite must be invoked within the world, and it lasts until the character has escaped the world. It has three effects. 30 The Strategist may permanently change their personality, identity, or Eide through Stilling Wounds and quests. opposite: by Lee Moyer

240 First, it heightens the character’s sickness: ӫ If not already in infection state, the character usually falls into infection state. The Wailing Rite attempts to activate. ӫ Also, if the character’s Infection is 0-5, it gains a point. Second, it grants a burst of energy and power: ӫ The Strategist gains scene-length access to a fifth Cost, Desperation. Desperation can substitute for any other Cost when taking Eide, Lore, Flore, or Wyrd actions. It receives the same benefits as the Four Costs from the infection state. The character may spend up to 15 total points of Desperation, and can in theory spend Desperation and another Cost on the same action. (This is principally relevant when pairing miracles with Ability actions, which Desperation does not support, and when spending the last few points of Desperation together with some other Cost.) After the scene ends, the Strategist loses access to Desperation and any spent Desperation is erased. Finally, the Greater Wailing Rite makes the Strategist all but useless for anything but destroying things and escaping to the void, until they have actually done so: ӫ The Strategist gains +2 Ability [max 9] for all actions involving “destruction” and “fleeing the world to the comfort of the void,” including intermediate tasks, and may substitute Desperation for Wear on such actions. ӫ ... but drops to Ability 0 (before spending Wear) for all other tasks. When the character reaches Infection 6+, if the Greater Wailing Rite isn’t already active, it triggers automatically—even at Wyrd 0-3. The character does not have the option to refuse. With a level 4 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ recover their power in a moment of desperation, ӫ retreat more efficiently to their secret library, ӫ smash through a cordon of Powers trying to stop their escape to the Beyond, or ӫ fall completely apart when their infection reaches its peak and flee helplessly and unstoppably to a place where they can heal: their private, quilted nowhere land. In the void she steeped in iron; it became the marrow of her bones, the substance of her being, and the chambers of her heart. In the void she became a being that the Lindell family could never cow or make to crumble— Alas that each day in their presence made that iron flake away. — from The SonG of SArAh belfry, by Gloria K. Lindner

glitch: a story of the Not

The burden of maintaining one’s conditioned experience within a deceptively constructed culture grinds incessantly upon the subvening pillars of the self until—its nerves exposed—it is no longer adapted to unreconstructed reality. Truth becomes as a thicket of thorns, piercing, unbearable; ultimately, one’s “original essence” is driven to plunge away into the void. — from The emerGenCe of empTineSS, by Baudouin Calvert

Level 5 Rite: “Greater Elysium” Slow, Long-Ranged Level 5 Wyrd Rites are the Strategists’ greater power of forsaking. The essence is the same as for Elysium, and the Rite works in the same way, but the restrictions loosen: If the gm is uncertain whether there’s an appropriate entrance to the sanctuary within range for the Strategist to plausibly find it, there is one. If the gm is uncertain whether a proposed entrance qualifies, it does. If the gm is certain there’s not such an entrance, or that a proposed entrance doesn’t qualify, but also isn’t deeply attached to that ruling—if they’re willing to have that state of affairs change—the Strategist may “take damage” to undo that element of the situation, normally costing an additional 1-4 Burn. Note that the Strategist’s attempt to find an entrance is an everyday action or an Ability task, and as such, can be opposed. This can lead to a situation where the Strategist takes damage but fails to find an entrance ... but that’s not something that can be arranged for ic, nor is deliberately setting it up ooc in good form. This is a Rite; it interacts with the Costs. With a Level 5 Rite, a Strategist can ӫ find a bookshelf to walk around in the sewer, ӫ crawl through a realistic drawing of a fireplace into their sanctuary, ӫ feed themselves through a hole in a key, or ӫ approximate a quilt to hide under (and thus enter the Strategist’s quilted nowhere land) using a narrative description of a quilt ... only to fail because of higher-Ability-result opposition.

Level 6 Rite: “The Greater Revenant Rite” Level 6 Wyrd Rites represent the nourishing power of the void in the face of the horror of the world—the way that it gave the Strategist a way to survive their infection, once; the way that it heals. They are the Strategists’ greater power of recovery. The Strategist may reduce their effective Infection by one point for a scene even outside of the specific circumstances that can trigger the Revenant Rite. This doesn’t change the trait level, just its functional presentation, and thus can apply only once. Alternatively, regardless of circumstances, the Strategist may take an ongoing effect that is similar to

241 their illness—e.g., a temporary Geas, miraculous effect, magical condition, or mundane condition—and mitigate it, in themselves or in someone else. For instance, someone dying of rapid aging can seal a withering curse put upon them by an Imperator or alleviate someone else’s degenerative arthritis. For the rest of the scene, the targeted effects become cosmetic. They usually return to normal afterwards, but sometimes the brief interruption is enough to decay an old effect or stop a new one from taking root. In situations appropriate for the use of the Revenant Rite (e.g., when using a spotlight in their sanctuary), the character may remove such effects permanently. This is a Rite; it may interact with a Geas. With a level 6 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ reject being poisoned because they’re always already poisoned, ӫ temporarily recover from the slicing and cutting effects of their “swords everywhere” illness, and then from the similar, enemy-inflicted problem of their arm being cut off, ӫ temporarily turn off the debility from their rapid aging, though any minor positive effects there might be will remain, or ӫ in their sanctuary, and with time, clear up the mind of someone aged.

Level 7 Rite: “Greater Contagion” [Slow, Time-Consuming, or Very Time-Consuming], Extraordinary Level 7 Wyrd Rites are a high-order manipulation of the power within the Strategist’s sickness. They are the greater curses of the Strategists, and may contaminate, blight, sicken, or curse others to real—or, at least, not phantasmagorical—effect. As with Contagion, the blight’s concept must draw heavily on the character’s own infection. If the target is a pc or major npc, this power applies the effect as a Geas (pg. 258). Its rating will be the Strategist’s unmodified Wyrd and it will normally last for 0-2 stories; the target may discard this Geas early if they take a Transformative Wound (pg. 272) or complete an appropriate quest and explain, as they do so, how that process strips the imposed curse away. If the target is a minor npc, the gm may simplify the effect

There is a horrifying and beautiful intimacy to it, when I must curse someone. It is not as if I fling the malus of my own suffering upon them; it is not as if I vituperatively wish for them to know the same impossible loss as I. It is the purest togetherness that I may know, instead: A touch, a breath, a whisper, and a wish, and someone understands. A touch, a breath, a whisper, and a wish, and I am not alone in this, but another stands beside me; another has no walls from me; we regard the wrongness of the world together, and the air is crisp and cold.

from a Geas to a miraculous transformation to avoid having to remember details. The standard target for Greater Contagion is a person; it takes extra time—usually only a few seconds, but potentially scaling up to a (Very) Time-Consuming effect (pg. 251) for an extremely large target—to afflict places, things, groups, or other identifiable entities. This is a Rite; it applies a Geas. With a level 7 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ curse someone to suffer the same sleeplessness they have, ӫ infect someone with a strange void-fungus, ӫ put invisible blades in someone that will stay in them for a long time and cut them if they defy the Strategist, ӫ inflict visions of, and yearning to travel to, a certain place, or ӫ submerge the 14th floor of a certain building in primordial swampland, potentially leaving the other floors alone. MORTAL WITNESSES: these effects are notably weird, and may eventually produce Glitch awareness.

Level 8 Miracle: “Greater Destruction” [Phantasmagorical], Bleak, Extraordinary Level 8 Wyrd miracles are massive exertions of the Strategist’s innate power of un-being: they are the Strategists’ greater miracles of unmaking and the deathwrights’ strongest purely destructive effects. As with Destruction, each character may define their own effect here, scaling up their basic power of un-making in some fashion—potentially, to the level of the extraordinary or (with 20 more Cost) to the epic (pg. 248). For instance, they might go from “reduce small areas into a state of chaos” to “reduce large areas into a state of chaos or nihility” or from “destroy simple, unliving objects” to “destroy objects.” Characters under the effect of the Wailing Rite may remove the targeting restrictions from this power, as they can for Destruction. Conversely, this power has the same general limits as Destruction, and is equally phantasmagorical when used against the things and creatures of the void. Level 8 effects include: ӫ turning a mountain “off ” for a minute so that your plane can fly through it, ӫ killing a forest, ӫ releasing the Nınuanni “forms” of everything in an area of Creation, and ӫ letting a mostly-abandoned factory district “go to rust” in seconds MORTAL WITNESSES: as per Destruction, this effect is often explained away, but never hidden.

— from A demon kniGhT’S ConfeSSion, by Antonio Rusch

wyrd

242 The dragon’s claws cut rightness out of a world that was wrong. It took form in great wicker-woven slashes: not the building, not the hill, and not the street, but the little town that should have been. Dirt roads were wide and the air was clean. The moon beamed down and lit fields of green. The light in every windowsill shone with a warm and homey glow. There was goodness there. The matter was self-evident. It was as transparent in its virtue as the original world was false. It bulged forth from under reality. It pressed itself out into being as the dragon’s claws cut what had been away. But it did not last. The fury in the dragon grew exhausted. Strength left its limbs. It drooped. It dwindled back into being Mrs. Reilly. The world sealed over what should have been, and it once again was wrong. — from ChArToWn (Madrick/OC), by Susan Zahide

Level 9 Miracle: “Greater Shattering” [Phantasmagorical] Level 9 Wyrd miracles are the other weapon that the Strategists don’t want to use—their greater miracles of shattering. They’re this deeper, primordial layer of the Strategist’s being. The Strategist extinguishes themselves, they break themselves, only, that layer continues to dream something into existence. Not the structured them. Not the formed and understood them. Not the proper them, but rather this tsunamic and terrible effusion of the Not. Greater Shattering devolves the character into a symbolically rich, gigantic, and dramatic form of the player’s choice—anything from a giant monster to a geometrically impossible angel to a living storm; grants powers of the player’s choice; and allows the character to rampage in that form for as long as the player desires, caught in an egoless psychedelic experience. During that time they may show intelligent behavior and will definitely follow up on the Strategist’s dominant emotional motivations of the moment, but they’re also semi-conscious at best, unable to identify with the Strategist’s prior identity, and will have grave difficulty paying attention to or distinguishing among individual things on the human scale at all.31 The rampage lasts until whatever impetus drove the Strategist to unleash this miracle fades away; at that point, the Strategist’s original self-concept returns, skulking hangdog back, and they revert to their former self. As with Shattering, the rampage associated with this miracle—including the shape and its granted powers—is technically phantasmagorical (pg. 250). It’s specifically phantasmagorical in the sense that it may turn out 31 As with Greater Talent (pg. 176), this is mostly a matter for roleplay and difficulty assessment; as with Greater Talent, if overcoming it becomes narratively or mechanically important, one does so with an effect capable of overpowering this miracle.

glitch: a story of the Not

afterwards that the described actions and events in play around them were allegorical or muddled descriptions of what actually took place. They “happen,” but it’s possible that, later, the evidence will suggest that the Strategist was somewhere else, doing, perhaps, something similar ... But that’s only a “may,” and it’s mostly a catch for the most surreal of interludes. If the Strategist’s player can state the form and powers they want in a simple fashion, and then sticks to them, expressing themselves in a way that makes sense, the consequences will usually actualize exactly or nearly exactly as they are shown in play. A similar power exists in Eide; the dream-of-self may be shattered from the outside, or, from within. They are distinct in that Eide’s transformation is fundamentally doubling down on who the Strategist is, to the point where it becomes abandonment; Wyrd’s, on the other hand, is the Strategist discovering that they cannot express themselves properly within the cage of their nature, and, thus, discarding it. Greater Shattering gives them the power to express what they must express, efficacious or useless though that may, eventually, be; to stop being themselves, for a while. Level 9 effects include: ӫ turning into a dragon, because sometimes you just need to turn into a dragon, ӫ dissolving into a swarm of shadow-birds, insects, or whatever, ӫ becoming an incomprehensible vision of Ezekiel kind of thing, and ӫ becoming a city-sized avatar of death, stalking the night and reaping souls. MORTAL WITNESSES: over time, the lingering marks of this miracle come to resemble those of natural disasters. The memories of witnesses about what actually happened take on the status of myth. ... at the time, though, unless the miracle winds up phantasmagorical, witnesses will be quite aware of what’s going on. The world is strange sometimes, apparently, and may feature impossible angels and living storms. This does not provoke dementia animi, although it does increase a mortal’s general vulnerability to such percipience.

Level 10 Rite: “Greater Unfettering” Time-Consuming or Very Time-Consuming, Extraordinary Level 10 Wyrd Rites are nameless, great and terrible truths and enlightenments whose edges the Strategist has touched. They are the Strategists’ greater miracles of disaffection. With a few hours of work in the background or an extended/self-spotlit tactical action, the Strategist may free themselves or some other target from some fundamental or widespread condition of Creation or the local Region within it—even physical or Nınuan-aware conditions. This can be a somewhat subjective condition, as long as it’s functionally fundamental or widespread; for instance, “it’s

243 hard to move underwater, and you drown there” is valid even though it isn’t actually true for most fish. Alternatively, the Strategist can free themselves or a target from some metaphysical, psychological, or spiritual effect, again including Nınuan-aware conditions ... and even those originating in Nınuan, as long as they are tainted: Not pure emanations of the endless depths of the Beyond, but effects connected to, correlated with, or linked by causality to the Glitch-soaked Creation. Greater Unfettering often functions as a miracle, but if it’s the best way to express the effect, it can suspend a Geas or the local effects of a Ward for up to a chapter, or inflict a temporary psychological Geas that lasts until the end of the next story, instead. (The rating for such a Geas would be equal to the Strategist’s unmodified Wyrd.) This may come into play, for instance, if the effect it’s freeing the target from is something like “instinctive loyalty to Creation”—the Strategist shows the target a wonderful, terrible truth, and the target is Geased to wrestle with it rather than dismiss it. Another possible expression of this effect, if the target has a free quest slot and the Strategist thinks it appropriate, is to force genuine change: Shown some revelation or transformative idea, the target must start a quest to deal with it, and remain on that quest until the end of the story. Greater Unfettering will only protect from an ongoing condition or effect (such as “gravity”) while sustained, and for a few chapters longer. After that, such conditions reassert themselves—unless the Strategist invokes the epic form of this power, in which case the alteration may be made indefinite.32 If the Strategist is willing, or simply sloppy in their work, indefinite effects will often replace absented ongoing conditions with an alien condition born from the void. As with Greater Contagion, the standard target for this power is a person. It takes longer—usually still in the range of “hours,” but potentially scaling up to days, or even well past that, for extremely large targets—to afflict places, things, groups, or other identifiable entities.33 This is a Rite; it may suspend Geasa and Wards. With a level 10 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ show someone the wrongness of the world, ӫ free someone from a pattern of bad behavior, ӫ walk on water, or swim in land, ӫ break a spiritual shackle, or ӫ stun a mortal with visions of Nınuan’s beauty, incidentally teaching them how to “see” and “move” while they’re there

32 If the Strategist or another pc benefits from this, the effect should eventually be purchased with character points. 33 And again, when this time is measured in hours or days, the power is treated as a (Very) Time-Consuming power (pg. 251).

Level 11 Rite: “Greater Casting” Very Time-Consuming, Extraordinary, Rite Level 11 Wyrd effects are the Strategists’ greater power of reification. They’re the Strategist’s power to “cast” part of their spirit off to infect the whole world around them. After at least a few days of background work or several scenes of intense effort, the deathwright externalizes something in their heart to form a twisted space: A labyrinth, pocket dimension, or spatial anomaly. Greater Casting emerges from the Strategist’s Wyrd and not the Strategist’s will. It’s a slippery power, much like a wish (pg. 260): shaped by narrative; occasionally surprising or recalcitrant in its effects. It works best when adding a phenomenon to existing reality or warping it while leaving its original information intact—it’s not the best tool for completely erasing what had been present before, and it’s an extremely bad tool for figuring out what had been there before. It also works best when the Strategist is expressing parts of themselves that they either understand and accept or are willing to wrestle with; if it involves facing parts of themselves they don’t actually want to face, things can go awry. This is a Rite; the twisted space may have a regionboundary Ward or affect how a Geas behaves. More generally, navigating spaces created in this fashion can have a profound impact on a person’s perceptions of themselves, the world, and others; depending on the details of its construction, the gm may occasionally heal or inflict 1+ Cost while someone is struggling through one. Greater Casting is also found in Eide ... but while Eide’s version wrestles with the Strategist’s identity, their self-definition, their sense of who they are, Wyrd’s is focused on their truth. Thus, with a level 11 Rite, a Strategist can: ӫ rebuild a favorite past, ӫ protect a meeting site with a maze built out of their own insecurities and guilt, ӫ explore their confused feelings about an interesting mortal directly, or ӫ reinterpret or suppress the terms on which a certain Geas or Ward is founded.

Level 12 Wish: “Greater Masking” Extraordinary, Wish Level 12 Wyrd effects add wisdom, depth, acuity, and a deep and intuitive contextual awareness to the Strategist’s manipulations of the self. They are the Strategists’ greater powers of autopoiesis. Extraordinary and perhaps even epic resculpting of the self is available under the aegis of these miracles, but the internal focus of this power keeps that from being terribly impressive most of the time; instead, the benefit of Greater Masking over its lesser form is that the Strategist may specify a purpose for the masking, a goal that they wish their altered person to achieve. There is no limitation on scope, and any goal that fits the game’s concept is acceptable. However, Greater Masking is not

wyrd

244 a power to fulfill goals or purposes, but rather to change oneself in a way that brings those purposes about. It is a destiny-designing and destiny-manipulating power, with a small side order of an ability to grant nebulous magical gifts unto oneself. Accordingly, ambitions are not fulfilled immediately in some kind of flare of will and magic; “by the end of the next story” is the norm, and extreme ambitions may take months, years, or decades to achieve. In rare cases this power may plant seeds that will only sprout after the character’s final death or even the ending of the game— e.g., for effects like “I recreate myself as an ordinary cat named Jinx, doomed to destroy everything there is.” While this power is active, Masking is mostly inaccessible: it can’t do anything that undoes or substantially alters/undermines the wish. Greater Masking is still accessible, but will immediately revoke the previous wish: it is difficult to stack extreme internal changes without explicitly re-including them, and the Strategist may only have one of these destinies—the most recently purchased—at a time. It is permissible to use this power solely to cancel a previous application and recover access to Masking; traditionally, the Strategist does so by picking a goal that is trivial or has already been achieved, e.g., “I want there to be ice cream, somewhere in the world.” This can fail, if the goal turns out not to have been achieved, or to have been achieved in an undemonstrable fashion ... but that will likely only ever happen with both the player and the gm’s connivance. Regardless, with a level 12 wish, a Strategist can: ӫ create a city inside their mind, with local physics and tens of thousands of independent selves, ӫ become a high-level secret agent, destined to become legendary, ӫ verify that ice cream exists, ӫ become the candidate who will get a particular job, ӫ construct a secondary personality with the talents they need to protect them, whatever those might be, ӫ take on the role of Dr. Devon Ringer, small town veterinarian with a mysterious healing touch, or ӫ construct a secondary personality that takes over every time they try to talk to their ex, except for those times when it was actually going to be fine and they weren’t going to be sucked in to old patterns anyway.

glitch: a story of the Not

a � yrd c heatsheet (the wailiNg rite)

Difficulty 0: The Wailing Rite The Wailing Rite activates “infection state.” The character becomes a doomed living weapon: ӫ each point of Burn, Fugue, Immersion, or Stilling spent on actions counts as two. ӫ oaths sworn in Creation become invalid. ӫ Destruction and Unfettering become stronger. ӫ ... but the character no longer recovers 1 point in each of the Four Costs and Wear at the beginning of every chapter. Infection state can only be deactivated during certain major story events. It sometimes activates on its own unless the Strategist takes damage to fight it. The Greater Wailing Rite (diff 4) is a desperate flight from the world: ӫ It increases a level 0-5 Infection by +1. ӫ If not already active, it attempts to activate the Wailing Rite. ӫ It grants access to 15 points of the omni-applicable Cost, Desperation, lasting the scene— - and this Cost will benefit from the Wailing Rite. ӫ It grants a +2 Ability bonus to “destruction” and “fleeing the world to the comfort of the void,” a bonus that extends to intermediate steps as well, - ... but lowers Ability to 0 for everything else, and doesn’t let the Strategist spend Desperation as Wear. This Rite lasts until the character reaches the void. It autoactivates at Infection 6.

245

a

�yrd cheatsheet (the rest)

Difficulty 1: Elysium Elysium transports the character to their sanctuary from appropriate symbolic entrances anywhere. For instance, they might walk around any bookshelf to get there. The Greater Elysium Rite (diff 5) makes this more feasible, ensuring that they, e.g., can find a bookshelf. If at all possible to find an entrance to their sanctuary or construe something as one, they succeed; if not, taking extra damage may help. As a Rite, this power can also pierce any Wards that might stand in the way.

Difficulty 2: The Revenant Rite The Revenant Rite is performed when spending a spotlight in the sanctuary or a lot of time recuperating in the void. It lowers Infection by a point and recovers a total of 3 points in Costs (possibly including Wear.) The Greater Revenant Rite (diff 6) lowers effective Infection by a point for a scene, anywhere, anywhen. Or, it mitigates a problem like the infection for a scene, in the Strategist or someone else. When spending a spotlight in the sanctuary or recuperating at length within the void, it can even erase such a problem for good!

Difficulty 3: Contagion Contagion inflicts curses/blights based on the character’s infection. The effect is phantasmagorical. It lasts at most two dawns or twilights once no longer sustained. Greater Contagion (diff 7) inflicts stronger curses/ blights in the form of Geasa that last for 0-2 stories. The normal target is a person; affecting other things takes more time, potentially even a lot of time for big things.

Difficulty 4: Destruction Destruction unleashes a personalized power of uncreation. It normally has a fairly narrow selection of applicable targets. When the Wailing Rite is in effect, though, it can target anything. This is a Bleak power; hard work, love, and daring can sometimes defeat it (pg. 252). Its effects on λ-beings are phantasmagorical. Greater Destruction (diff 8) unleashes a related but substantively stronger personalized power of un-creation; all other details are the same.

Difficulty 5: Shattering The Shattering Rite can only be used when the Strategist takes 5+ points of damage. It unleashes a (specific) phantasmagorical disaster. It only uses an action if the character retains meaningful control over the effect. Greater Shattering (diff 9) is used when the character just can’t take it any more. They rampage in the form of a giant symbolic monster. The monster, and the details of the rampage, are not always the same. This power is phantasmagorical at the gm’s option—sometimes the rampage happens, sometimes it’s retroactively allegorical or approximate: whatever fits the story of the game.

Difficulty 6: Unfettering Unfettering dodges miracles, magic, and metaphysical/ spiritual effects that assume that their targets are real by pointing out that the Strategist is in fact a λ-being and not a part of the world around them whatsoever. Which miracles make that assumption? That’s up to the situation and the person using the miracle—but assuming that targets are real, in reality, is the default. When the Wailing Rite is in effect, Unfettering can be invoked without an action, and it lasts for the scene. The Greater Unfettering Rite (diff 10) is a TimeConsuming power that breaks the grip of metaphysical, spiritual, or psychological effects or fundamental or widespread local conditions on the target. This includes physical conditions and λ-aware conditions and effects. If the effect is ongoing, like, say, the widespread condition of “gravity,” the effect lasts while sustained plus a few chapters. Otherwise, or if the Strategist pays for the epic form, it can be effectively permanent. Like Greater Contagion, Greater Unfettering normally targets a person, but can be applied to other or larger things with a greater time investment.

Difficulty 7: The Casting Rite The Casting Rite is a time-consuming Rite for forging a minion out of the Strategist’s heart. The minion can manipulate emotions (to some degree), have a decent Ability or a few minor powers, spend from a 2-point Cost pool, and vampirically push that Cost onto someone else. Maintaining control over the minion requires a quest slot. The Greater Casting Rite (diff 11) is a very timeconsuming effect that warps the whole world around the Strategist into a twisted space that fits their heart. The logic behind the upgrade is that both forms of casting are about externalizing (“casting”) bits of the self.

Difficulty 8: Masking The Masking Rite is a time-consuming Rite for altering the character’s personality or identity. The character changes themselves—often to create a new worldly personality and identity that “seems to check out” under mundane investigation, but sometimes just to mess around in their head. The effect is generally recorded as a Geas and stored in a quest slot. Greater Masking (diff 12) is a stronger version. It’s implemented as a wish. It’s explicitly allowed to be extraordinary. Most importantly, it allows the character to impose a destiny or goal upon the identity they create or the alteration they make; the wish will inexorably move events towards that destiny or goal. The Strategist is unable to use the Masking Rite to undermine this selfalteration until that destiny is realized ... or until they use this power again to change their mind and goals.

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247

chapter 15

�iracl� to

EVERYTHING MUST GO, the sign declared; and, so, it went; and that is how the world will end. — from 24 finAleS, by Rannen Yedidyah

�peak in �ire

What is a miracle? A word writ into the world; an effect without a cause. A “miracle” is a demand, spoken in the breath of the divine: A thing made true, made true as it was conceived to be, in a flare of will and power. In a contest with mundane or magical actions, a miracle is triumphant. This is what it means that the miracle is causeless: the mechanism for its operation is not contained within the world, and may not therefore be overridden within the world. If a miracle flings a person backwards, they can’t run forward better to counter that. If a miracle declares that a certain person will dodge a shot, no sniper in the world has the mundane skill to shoot them. They can’t anticipate the dodge and fire where their target will be: In a sense, the dodge exists outside of time and outside of causality. It simply is. The world fears and loathes the Strategists, and so it hides their miracles. It does not let mortal witnesses perceive them in full. It does not accept that these things happen—these miracles of the void. Thus, it is often the case that explanations will appear to exist, even though there are none: That a miracle will break something, but it will have been on the verge of breaking all along. That it will create something, but it will have actually already been there. In the worst case, what happened there was just a mass delusion, probably, I bet; or, that thing that happened was strange and wrong, but it was magic, or some λ-creature, and not a miracle at all. These explanations are discussed further on pg. 67. Some of the miracles in this game include: ӫ “intensity,” which heightens the force of the Strategist’s personality; ӫ “guidance,” where the Strategist knows how to bring out the best from what they treasure; and ӫ “vision,” granting the structure-sense of the void. A key term used in this chapter is: ӫ Region. The conceptual area a character is in is their Region. If the character is not in an area with a distinct conceptual identity, this refers to the ecoregion or metropolitan area they are in.

opposite: by Silvia Cucchi

miracles

248 Sometimes that’s all you get, I think: One miracle. One shining moment of brightness. ... to last through all grey days to come. — from The ATTiC Wheel, by Patricia Wells

� ndurinG power of � iracles

the

Miracles are often instantaneous effects. These are, also, permanent: If a miracle mends a broken chair, the chair is permanently repaired. It can be broken again, but it does not require the miracle’s existence to be whole. If a miracle lifts a bird into the air, the bird is “permanently” lifted: it will fall at the miracle’s end, unless it flies, but it will fall because of gravity; it won’t de-lift. Other miracles take place over time. Either their effects endure while the miracle does, and end when the miracle does ... or, the miracle takes time to have its effect, and only when that time has elapsed is the miracle, functionally, used. Such miracles are spoken of as sustained. Some of the instantaneous miracles in this game include: ӫ “costumery,” where the Strategist instantly assumes their traditional costume; and ӫ “contagion,” where they share a bit of their curse. Some of the sustained miracles include: ӫ “glorification,” which awakens the power of a treasure; and ӫ “greater shattering,” where the Strategist releases their inner daikaiju.

ordinary and

�xtraordinary miracles Most miracles are small things, gentle sleights ... at least, on the scale of worlds and gods. It is within the power of the Strategists to drain the seas, and the Nobilis to fill them, but such things are the stuff of exceptional and wondrous moments. The more everyday miracle is the miracle to skip a stone several dozen times, until it passes out of sight; to lighten the steps of the weary worker; to open the creakiest of doors without a sound; or to speak, from far away, into the heart. Most miracles, in short, are not more impressive than magic is; only, more indomitable. In general, a miracle can cross at most a few miles of space. Nor can it reach outside the conceptual area (or “Region”) in which it is unleashed: it can’t cross between world and waylet or world and Chancel—or even, unless

glitch: a story of the Not

the gm approves, between Manhattan and the Bronx. In general, a miracle can affect at most a 200-yarddiameter area. In general, the targeting of a miracle can’t be too complex, and it should be the kind of thing that shakes up the local area or situation, rather than the entire city, forest, continent, or cosmos. This is not to say that miracles can’t be stunningly impressive. A character can put an entire plaza full of people to sleep at once, or spit out a thousand bees, or conjure up half a ton of gold and silver out of nothingness and drop it upon some miser’s head without breaking any of those rules of thumb. ... they just can’t put the world to sleep, or even the person in it who is the most dangerous to their plans to sleep, with a relatively ordinary miracle. The first exception is specialized miracles—miracles that are specifically about, e.g., crossing a lot of space, or covering a large area, rather than that just being the thing the character wants to do with them at a particular time. Those have a bit more leeway, particularly if the power text says so, but also just in general. Projection, on pg. 193, is explicitly a space-crossing effect, so it gets a little more leeway if a character wants to use it from six miles away than, say, Destruction, on pg. 235, would. It’s probably still too much for Projection to cross a hundred miles, though, even though the text says it can reach “anywhere in the city,” just because the character one day finds themselves in a city that sprawls across an entire foreign world. The second exception is miracles tagged Extraordinary. Extraordinary miracles can cover, or span, a good portion of a Region. They can cross between continents, can break past the world and Chancel or world and waylet barrier, maybe even reach the moon from Earth; if that’s basically what they’re for, they can span the cosmos, and maybe far beyond. They’re not allowed to be endlessly complex, not even arbitrarily complex, but they can be complex enough to encode a minute or two of ooc explanation or an encyclopedia’s worth of ic thoughts. They’re not trump-everything extraordinary, in short, but they’re awesome enough to stand out strongly even among the wondrous things that can happen in the game. Characters may take an extraordinary miracle even further, raising it to the level of the epic, by adding 20 to its Cost. Here there’s no cap at all on the miracle’s scale and reach in mundane terms, and only the group’s patience limits its complexity. The gm may still cap the miracle’s ability to create or permanently reshape intrinsically divine power itself, but anything it can’t create or

On heads, the Ochoan Coin brings down the stars; on tails, a gentle light. — from the exhibition catalogue for the Sutcliffe Auction, January 18th, 2012.

249 permanently reshape it can create the potential for, to be later realized with a quest or some number of quests (pg. 311). Thus, with such a miracle a character can slice the world in half or grant all cats the gift of speech; if they want to create a new Tree of Worlds, though, they can only make a nascent form. It might start, for instance, as a simple shoot, which later quests can help to flourish. Some of the extraordinary miracles available in this game include: ӫ “misdirection,” which can hide the moon and stars; ӫ “greater glorification,” which can awaken the power of a divine treasure; and ӫ “greater contagion,” which can infect entire cities with a supernatural disease.

I did not wish to be vulnerable, when I took wing through that gate. It was my thought that I would burn with a light of repentance that would sear the souls of those foul beasts. Only, this, I could not arrange. It was not incapacity. It was not poor strategy. It was a simple matter of logistics. To burn with a searing light, open a gate into their ranks, and then—without that burning being let to cease, or that gate being let to close—fly though ... The efforts were too occupying; they filled me up: they could not be reconciled. — from An unexpeCTed hour, by Alice Acacia

Characters can use at most two actions at a time. This is a general rule. It is not limited to miracles. It is not bound by the complexity of the actions, only by their starting time—by the moment when the player decides what the action is, and spends whatever initial cost they must spend upon it. The actions may be detailed mundane plans, combined with a miracle that enhances them. They may be gruesome congeries of multiple miracles. The only limitations are that each must actually be all one conceptual action, and that all the miracles involved must be from the same Divine Attribute. That’s it. That’s all there is. Actions can be absurdly complex, as individual and specific things. ... but the character can only be doing two of them at any given time. If someone is doing two actions, and they wish to do another, they must stop, put something down, and rethink their approach. Sometimes that’s just restarting the action they just stopped, now with something new folded in, and the only penalty is that whatever cost they had to pay, which might be nothing at all, they pay again. Other times, they’ll have to change their strategy completely because there’s only so much they can do at once. Because there is only so much anyone can do at once. There’s only so much attention in all the world.

even consciously, and not by specifically including them in their every plan. These things, when the character is not spending Wear or one of the Four Costs on them; when they are content to allow the gm’s default handling of those actions to stand ... they are reflexive, or, automatic. Miracles with the Automatic tag are much the same. It doesn’t matter how much the character concentrates on other things. It doesn’t matter whether they’re holding up the sky, being branded with hot irons, and composing their magnum opus simultaneously in their head. They’ve got the attention to spare for this, this Automatic miracle, too, either because the miracle provides its own attention stream or because it’s something more intrinsic, more inextricable and physical, because it’s a part of them that can never be disentangled or turned away. An Automatic miracle does not require the character’s will to activate. It may require the player’s; in practice, it generally does, since the gm is not obligated to be aware of when every pc’s automatic miracles might go off, despite the triggers being broadly similar in almost every case. The character, though, need not wish to trigger them; need not even know that they are useful, appropriate, or necessary: They need only pay from the Four Costs, if such is needed, when the miracle turns on.34 An Automatic miracle does not obstruct the character, if it ever comes up, from taking their own voluntary action in that exact moment. It’s somewhat awkward, and better avoided when possible, but, in the end, it’s fine. Most importantly of all, an Automatic miracle does not count against the two actions that a character may maintain at any given time. They may invoke an Automatic miracle when already doing two things; they may do new thing(s) even while maintaining multiple Automatic miracles—potentially, an arbitrary number thereof. As there is no cost to sustaining an Automatic miracle, beyond whatever cost there may have been to invoke it,

... and yet, of course, people still breathe. People still see and hear. They digest. They pump the blood on through their veins and startle when they are shocked. They die, when they are killed. They do all these things, sometimes

34 As a general rule, the gm should allow the player to veto gm-initiated automatic powers if the player is unwilling to pay this cost. The exceptions are the Wailing Rite and the Greater Wailing Rite, on pg. 233 and 238.

Long-Ranged Miracles tagged Long-Ranged have extraordinary range, but are ordinary otherwise. They include: ӫ “connection,” which allows the Strategist to know when a Treasure needs them; ӫ “greater projection,” which lets them spiritually travel across long distances to such a Treasure; and ӫ “elysium,” which allows them to reach their own sanctuary from far away.

�utomatic miracles

miracles

250 each has a defined duration rather than lasting for as long as the character wishes to sustain them. Some of the Automatic powers in this game include: ӫ “talent,” which triggers when the Strategist’s aptitude in their Technique is tested; and ӫ “(greater) trust,” which lets the Strategist’s treasures aid them without the Strategist’s agency.

conditional

�aGs

Another example of an Automatic power is “greater vision,” which allows the Strategist their senses in the void. ... only, greater vision is actually tagged [Automatic]. What that means is that it’s sometimes Automatic. It can, for instance, also be used with an action to grant a particularly piercing version of the sense. If something has a conditional tag like this, the details of when the tag applies will be found within the power’s text.

�hantasmaGorical effects Phantasmagorical effects are fantasies imposed upon the world. They are made to happen, but that happening is as tenuous as gossamer, as uncertain as a shape in clouds: At their heart is not the solid essence of Creation, but rather, dream. A phantasmagorical effect is an illusion, or a misapprehension; a glamour, or a story that the witnesses will later tell; or, perhaps, it is something else. Which of these things it is is not well-defined; rather, what is known, what is created, is that something happens which is not canonical. Something happens which is not the actual thing that happens: At that time, when phantasmagoria stands suzerain, the “actual” thing that happens does not exist. It can only really be defined in retrospect, when the phantasmagorical effect has ended; then, or in the next scene, or in any event at a later time, the gm can decide Creation’s “official” interpretation of events, from which all later causal chains will flow. People say, there was never a day that a dragon crawled across this land. They say, the buildings that fell, they were already crumbling. The fires that started were students at their play. They say, “If there had been a dragon, there would be photographic evidence. There would be marks deep in the earth. There would be fatalities.” When I hear these things, I cannot speak. I do not know why there are not these things. I do not understand why the scale that I found is a quartz piece now, why the cars I saw crushed are merely dented now. I do not understand why, in this age of phones and cameras, there was no filming. But there was a dragon. It was there. — Roland Bowser (quoted in A mAdneSS of SpiriTS, by Dr. E. Edgarton Clark)

glitch: a story of the Not

The result of this is that a phantasmagorical effect is gentle. Rejecting it outright can potentially threaten someone’s health and safety, but the direct effects almost always cap out at the level of everyday, ordinary trauma— bee stings, food poisoning, an unexpected stumble, hot spilled tea, a broken keyboard, or being lost. Shoot someone with a rocket launcher, if that rocket launcher is phantasmagorical, and it will stun them, it will stagger them, and surround them with a cloud of smoke; or, it’ll miss; or, it’ll be a dud. What it won’t do is blow them up. Remove their buoyancy while they’re swimming a mile out into a lake and they won’t plummet to the bottom and drown. Drowning isn’t everyday. Maybe they’ll sink slowly down past underwater sights and have a strange adventure down below. Maybe they’ll choke and have trouble catching their breath, but then, they will catch their breath, because it turns out they can breathe water after all. You can think of this muffled impact as the result of overlaying dream upon reality: the effect exists, but it cannot truly permeate the essence of existence or experience, particularly for a conscious target. (Whether things like fish, hills, trees, and buildings are covered by this protection will vary according to the sensibilities of a place.) Another result of these effects’ dream-like nature is that they generate undramatic information. It’s possible to do divination using a phantasmagorical power, and it won’t give fake information unless that’s how the power works, but there’s a subtle negotiation between world and dream about what’s allowed to emerge as a new discovery from any non-canonical period of events, and if the character is divining just about anything that the gm or a player thinks it might be more interesting to keep concealed ... they’ll get partial or related information instead. Sometimes the benefits of a phantasmagorical effect are “normal” enough to survive the return to reality. The world finds its new canon, and it says: “Yes, you have that boat now. You probably did not buy it from a giant frog by the river-side, like you did in that phantasmagorical dream sequence, but ... you bought a boat. That is a thing that really happened.” The world will do its best to make a sense of things that keeps as much of the dreaming as it can. Even so, the long-term benefits from a phantasmagorical power tend to fade away over time, particularly between stories. There’s no real way to catch this happening, so a watchful character can prevent it and vague group consensus that a given thing should stick around will override it—but normally, if a character picks up a jetpack and a password during a phantasmagorical event, they’ll find after a while that they don’t remember where they put the jetpack and that the password has become obsolete. Phantasmagorical effects in this game include: ӫ “contagion,” where a Strategist shares their curse with others, but just a taste of it, a shadow, a bit of a dream; ӫ “greater costumery,” where a Strategist with a certain

251 public identity conjures up special effects that suit that identity—e.g., a priest calling down angels, or an admiral bringing in a SEAL team; and ӫ “greater misdirection,” which creates a false perception so strong that while it lasts, everything that contradicts it is phantasmagorical.

�ime-CoNsumiNg �owers Most miracles are functionally instant. Even if the effect is ongoing, something happens at once. A few are not that simple. A few are effortful, as effortful as ordinary action; they are acts of skill and labor; the miracle exists only as their premise, that they may be done at all. These come in three categories. The first are the Slow effects. These are a divine power, but also a simple everyday action (pg. 127).35 The character does not simply burn their will into the world, but also slips into a trance, or gestures and incants— something of the sort. In most contexts, the small delay this imposes is meaningless. It may never come up at all except as a note of flavor. Still, in a desperate contest of speed, by the time a Strategist has used a Slow power, another Strategist may have already used Destruction; a Noble may have conjured up some horror from their Estate; and a mortal, even a mortal, may have successfully thrown themselves out of the power’s way. The second category of these miracles are the TimeConsuming effects. If the Strategist just declares that they’re working on them in the background, and never does anything specific in-scene, these take a couple of hours36 to enact. If the Strategist is in a hurry, they can do something intense and dramatic in play that relates to the action. That’s faster, but it’s still going to be slow enough that the gm can throw ~2-3 situational updates at them, or opponents can take ~2-3 tactical actions in a conflict, before the effect is complete. It’s up to the gm exactly how much happens or gets done in this time. If the Strategist’s player uses a relevant spotlight, or has just used a relevant spotlight37, they can cut this time down even further, treating this as a Slow action instead. For example, spotlighting a target’s personality can make Greater Intensity (pg. 174) effectively Slow. An example Time-Consuming task is preparing someone miraculously for a task they are yet to do. The character can walk their protégé through everything in the background, which takes a couple of hours. Or, if there’s time pressure, they can give them intense instruction in play. That would notionally give the gm or any opponents time to throw 2-3 interruptions their way before it was

Much is made of the overhead, the unnecessary cost—the irrecoverable time lost at the beginning of all days. I think: Too much. The truth is, six days to create a world is objectively a rather good showing; certainly, it is superior to what all but a few of us can manage. Just because the average ontological argument spawns a creator deity capable of doing it in planck time does not mean that the world of their creation will be superior, in any meaningful or pressing sense. Not after the original six days have passed. Cneph’s world should be considered, I argue, only on its quality; and, more than that, upon the quality that it would have had, that it SHOULD have had, if work had continued (as originally scheduled) on day 8. — from The leGACy reVieW, March 23, 2017

36 Creational hours, specifically

over with. If the player used a relevant spotlight—on, say, the task, or the protégé’s response, or, in Nınuan, on the action itself—the action would still be Slow compared to most miracles, but still done in a comparative snap. Powers tagged Very Time-Consuming are more difficult; they take a few days38 of work in the background. Alternatively, the player in question must spotlight something relevant in three separate scenes. Characters can usually adapt the effects of these powers somewhat as they go, in much the same way that humans can do with multi-day projects, and to much the same degree; a character turning a city into a swamp probably can’t decide halfway through that they want to make it a mountain instead, but they can probably shift over to a specifically mangrove or a bizarrely arctic/winter-wonderland swamp. Even at the last minute, when changes that large can be impossible, they should be able to add in some grackles or leave a neighborhood out. Study Up (pg. 131) in Ability functions as a Very Time-Consuming effect. The cost for a Slow, Time-Consuming, or Very Time-Consuming power is not paid until the effect itself begins. This is not necessarily the moment that it becomes miraculous—some of these powers build up through mundane actions, others are miraculous from the beginning. Rather, it’s the moment that it becomes draining or potent enough to justify taking Burn, Fugue, Immersion, or Stilling from the attempt. This is an instance of a more general principle that actions pay a Cost when, and only when, they’re successfully used ... although it’s not required that they succeed in doing what the character wants them to do, only that they succeed in the activation of their effect. Characters can often accelerate their results by working in the void, but the fundamental time frame for these powers is Creational—a Time-Consuming power takes up a meaningful portion of a chapter to complete in the

37 And possibly spent some time engaging with it, but basically not done anything since.

38 Again, Creational days

35 As a task, they typically require Function.

miracles

252 background, even if the character experiences that as several weeks; a Very Time-Consuming power takes at least several chapters worth of work in the backgr