The Campaign Builder's Guild

I hope all is well, Vellum! I just wanted to post a link to something I found which I imagine you would all be interested in. It's a platform for story-games called StoryNexus. Their seminal work is called "Fallen London", and shares a very similar style with the Cadaverous Earth, set in a Gothic and grotesquely surreal Dickensian cityscape. Another really good one is "The Black Crown Project", which (like CE) is full of surreal, grotesque body horror, though the genre is different.

Links!

http://storynexus.com/
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/
http://www.blackcrownproject.com/

I love Magritte. A lot of it seems to be old 80s fantasy art too, or at least the character portraits do. Not that that's a bad thing.

Sort of both at once. I had the seed of an idea, and started looking for inspirational images, and they helped it evolve. I found the work of Moebius particularly inspiring, as you may have noticed. I have a lot more words and pictures to share, too, which I can post as soon as I get it all into a presentable format, but if you have any questions about the setting, I'd be happy to answer them.

Quote from: Light Dragon
I like the fabulist story-style with the integration of the surrealist pictures.
It reminds me a great deal of Age of Fable: http://www.apolitical.info/webgame/

Thank you! That looks very interesting! The painting is a Magritte, right?

The physical world is small and hard and sharp and dirty. It's full of flesh and blood, fire and ice, bricks and bones, sticks and stones. The conditions within Time (that is, within the material world) are too harsh for spirits to survive for long unprotected. The majority of unbodied spirits exist in the upper atmosphere, on other planets, or in the void between them. Here, the ambient radiation is much harsher, but spirits are much less bothered by waves and energies than by particles with mass. They can usually "ride" or "surf" low frequency vibrations, including wave-form light and other radiation. But to live for long in the world of matter, and especially to live near life, they need material bodies. Spirits are insubstantial and invisible to most people, but they can inhabit material beings, either animating a form, or taking it from (or sharing it with) another living spirit.



There are a wide variety of potential vessels. Essentially anything can theoretically be inhabited by a spirit. The trouble for a refugee from the Other Side is that most things already are. Corpses of the dead are popular choices for this reason. The living can be wholly or partially controlled, though more or less equal partnerships do exist. Spirits can also animate plants, objects and other substances such as smoke, fire, and water. They can be very useful when inhabiting a complex technological device, since they can control all its components with great precision and power. Spirits of the richer and more well-connected variety also often have bodies built (and/or grown) for them before they arrive. Finally, a Spirit may simply form a body out of ectoplasm. Such bodies are very difficult to damage, but they eventually drain away into the environment unless the ectoplasm is replenished. Ectoplasmic bodies are the most pliable, but many spirits can even transform solids.







When the Doors began opening, spirits started streaming out into the Universe. They had always been slipping through the cracks now and again, but now they came in droves. First a trickle, then a flood. As plants, animals, and objects were possessed, they started misbehaving, talking, and sometimes mutating wildly and uncontrollably. People were shunted out of their bodies, or suddenly melded with alien minds. The dead began to get up out of their graves and walk around, though only some of them were trying to eat living people and/or drink their blood. There were lots of often monstrous and occasionally beautiful mutations in all of those cases as well. As you might expect, this caused quite a bit of commotion and raised a lot of ruckus. A war was never officially declared, but there was a great deal of violence caused directly and indirectly by all of this, not to mention the other odd effects of ectoplasm and the Doors themselves, and of course all that came of the practice of Magic.



Although there are magical traditions in every culture in the world, in the 18th Century, much of the "civilized" world was at the tail end of a brutal and bloody repression and persecution of such practices. They were also engaged in conquering, killing, enslaving and generally oppressing people around the world who communicated regularly with the Spirit World. But of course, these practices still existed, as they always have and always will. And when the Doors began to open, the proverbial tables turned rather dramatically. The native nations, generally speaking, had long-standing relationships with various spirits and deities and some understanding of their world, though their particular perspectives naturally all differed, as did the details of their mythologies. But in general, the indigenous groups of the world were suddenly able to harness a very potent source of power.



Followers of western religions have their angels, but they are more often of the Ezekiel variety (many floating, fractal, interlocking wheels studded with eyes and wreathed in shining flames, for example) than winged men with harps and halos. Compared to the aboriginal Australians, say, the Catholic Church was much slower and less willing to accept that these beings were real (though the Inquisition kicked up another notch when the possessions started, and is still going strong to this day). This was even more true of the Empiricist Materialists. Though there were exceptions, of course (the Illuminati foremost among them), most citizens of the "Civilized" nations didn't want to accept what was happening. But it all kept happening. It didn't go away, and in fact, it got much, much worse. Or better, depending on your perspective.

It's an old story, told countless times in countless ways by every generation. Just beneath, behind, and beyond the surface of our reality is Something Else. It's everywhere and nowhere. It's just around the corner. It's standing right behind you. Every culture since the dawn of history has its stories about It. They caught glimpses of It, sometimes, in dreams and waking visions, or at twilight, out of the corners of their eyes. The mad see too much of It, but if they can understand a little of It, focus It, we sometimes call them geniuses and magicians. All of this has always been true, It has always leaked through, a little. But then, something changed. Someone opened Pandora's Box.



It has many names.



Faerie, Eden, Arcadia, The Dreamtime, The Spirit Worlds, The Elsewheres, The Wild True Yonder, The Beyond, The Bardos, The Astral Planes, The ImagiNations, Heaven & Hell, The Sephiroth & Qlippoth, The Super Sargasso Sea, The World Tree, The Shadowlands, Narnia, Neverland, Oz, AZ, Kaos, Fluxus, Mythos, The Madlands, The Mirror Maze, The Wyrdworlds, The Underworld, The Supernal Realms, The Invisible Kingdoms, The Animus, Psyspace, Pandora... The list goes on and on. But perhaps the most apt description is this: our world, our Reality is the Finite, It is the Infinite.

It is both a time and a place and a person, and It is many of each, and It is none of them, for their meanings distort and meld and finally disintegrate completely the deeper one ventures into It.



In 1777 AD, on the planet Earth, in a country called Bavaria, a man named Adam Weishaupt founded a group he named the Illuminati, and on that very night, he had a very vivid dream. He was standing on the roof of his childhood home, looking at the stars, and then the sky opened up, and from beyond it came a being, though he could not say what it was, for its form changed constantly. It flew down to him and whispered a great secret in his ear, the most beautiful and terrible truth any mortal has ever learned. When Weishaupt woke, he remembered some of the secret. Enough to make a breakthrough on the physical and metaphysical experiments he had been carrying out since long before he joined the Freemasons and created the Illuminati. He now believed he could not only unite the principles of science, magic, and religion, but that he could open a door between this world and the Other, a real and physical portal which would allow bodily travel into the Beyond. He immediately went to work.



However, to accomplish what he sought to do, Weishaupt needed very particular physical conditions. Specifically, those beneath the Aurora Borealis at the North Pole. The energetic excitation of the air combined with the extreme and constant cold and dark removing any "background noise" created a very thin spot in space and time. Shortly after forming the order, Weishaupt chartered a ship to sail to the North Pole, captained by one James Cook. Though he was a military captain, Weishaupt and his followers had pulled strings to hire him, because he was arguably the best captain sailing the seas, and had already crossed the arctic circle, though on the Southern side. However, the two men's personalities clashed almost instantly. But the two of them and the crew (plus six of Weishaupt's fellow Illuminati and several expert Arctic explorers), reached the Arctic safely, managing to avoid both pirates and mutiny. They began the long trek inland, through the barren but beautiful wasteland, a desolate plain of intricate ice sculptures being constantly carved by the howling wind. They waited for the right conditions for weeks, and their food and fuel began to run out. Several men had died on the journey, and in the bitter and unending cold and darkness, the crew began to come undone. Cook decided to depart, but Weishaupt and the Illuminati refused, and would not be swayed. Cook and his men left them there beneath the Aurora, returned to the ship, and waited.



Just as the twenty-four hour ultimatum Cook had given Weishaupt ran out... something happened. Exactly what it was, neither Weishaupt nor Cook the crew nor anyone or anything else could say, nor would they ever be able to. But the Aurora suddenly flared, and its motions became ever quicker and stranger. Then at some point, something shifted, twisted, and broke open... and everything changed.



Weishaupt had succeeded and exceeded his wildest dreams. He had pierced the veil, broken through to the Other Side, torn a hole in reality. But it was a raw, ragged wound. And from it flowed the divine life-blood. Ectoplasm. Mana. Numina. Nectar of the Gods. Molten Mind. The Living Liquid Looking-Glass. The Clay of Creation. Prima Materia. It has many names. It is a solid, a liquid, a gas, and a plasma, and it is none of these. It is an extremely psychoreactive substance, responding to the minds of whoever is nearby. But it has a mind of its own. Indeed, some say that is what it is: pure, raw manifested Mind.



It spilled out through the sky, collecting around the "edges" of the opening and dripping down to the ground and up and out into the sky, forming into bizarre creatures which walked or crawled or flew or hopped or slithered away over the ice and snow. Ectoplasm can take any form, and its raw state is truly indescribable, but stuck on and in the border between realities, unbound, it looked a little like a Mobius Strip, a Klein Bottle, a Tesseract and a fractal Wormhole having having an orgiastic battle with a million mutated mythologies in the middle of a mercurial funhouse mirror maze, all melted and melded together into a seething sea of madness pouring into and out of a monstrous, ever-morphing maw. But though it was completely chaotic, it was unmistakably a portal, a passage, a doorway opening into Otherness, the Mysterium Tremendum. Weishaupt and the other Illuminati were quickly drawn upwards, flying and falling into the swirling vortex in the sky, and Captain Cook and the crew saw it all and departed post haste. But though they did not enter, none of them were unchanged, nor was the world. The voyage home was an interesting one, to say the least.



It is 1842, a generation later. The world is a very different place.

There are more Doors, many more.

And they open both ways.

OK, fair 'nuff. Thanks; I eagerly await your reply :-)

My thoughts exactly ;-D

Haha, yes, I thought I'd throw an altruistic monkey-wrench into the proceedings. Speaking of which, perhaps Somnus helps one or all of them out somehow? Or failing that, maybe they walk into his shop, and he recognizes them from a dream? The thing is, he's not exactly a "do-gooder", in that he doesn't seek out situations so that he can do good, and doesn't really even make many moral judgements. Rather, he's just generally kind and helpful to the people he happens to meet, unless they try to kill or torment him, of course. But even then, he's not the vicious or vindictive type, and will just send the person to sleep or distract them with daydreams, while he makes his escape. Anyway, on another note, here's a character sheet for the Jatayu courier. I'm still working on the story, but I can post it when it's finished if you're interested in the character. I'm equally interested in playing either one, and could even potentially play both.

[ooc=Rook]

XP: 0 Benefits Gained: None

Grit: 1 Pools (Edge): Might: 10 (0), Agilty: 14 (1), Intellect: 12 (0)

Defenses: Rook has expertise in Agility defense actions when not wearing armor. Due to their nomadic lifestyle, all Jatayi have expertise in Might defense rolls against starvation, exposure to hot climates, and other environmental hazards.
AC: 0 Might Cost: 0 Agility Penalty: 0
Damage Track: Hale Recovery Rolls: 1d6 + 1 Rolls Remaining: 4

Movement: Jatayi can fly with speed and skill, but less so if encumbered.
Languages: Jatayi, Magpie / Shambles, Jangle, Alleyspeak, Flicker / Fingerspeak,
Lifestyle: Indigent. Rook sleeps in various nooks and crannies in the heights of the city, and scavenges for his supper, generally eating what the restaurants throw away, or simply picking up various corpses from the streets.
Senses: Jatayi have avian eyes that can perceive magnetic fields and are not hindered by even very dim light.

Skills: Storytelling, Perception, Persuasion, Discerning, Discovering Deception, Tracking, Navigating, Investigating
Flaws: Rook is Illiterate and Necrophagic, as Jatayi do not read or write, and only eat decomposing meat. Because he values intuition over knowledge, he generally avoids laborious studying; the difficulty of tasks that involve academic discussion, didactic instruction, or rote memorization are one step higher for him.

Weapons: Eldritch bow (all arrows it shoots can mentally controlled by the archer while in flight), with 12 arrows (fletched with my own feathers), and 2 ensorcelled arrows (one explosive, one that will lead me to a named target). An ancestral obsidian knife, which resembles a large black feather.
Items: Light and loose but durable leggings (he goes without armor, shirt or shoes, they just get in the way). Leather quiver and bag strapped over his back, between the wings. 80 Crowns.

Tricks:

Eidetic: Due to a combination of innate qualities and cultural upbringing, Jatayi have memories bordering, if not transcending, the eidetic. They have expertise in tasks that that involve remembering or memorizing things they experience directly. Rook is particularly skilled at this due to his Intuitive Disposition, able to recall every moment of every day of his life with perfect clarity. He also knows many facts and rumors and stories, and knows all the Stories by heart.

Flex Skill: At the beginning of the day, Rook gains expertise in any one skill for the rest of the day.

Pierce (1 Agility point): Rook inflicts 1 additional point of damage with shots from his bow. Action.

Trained Without Armor: Rook has expertise in Agility defense actions while not wearing armor. Enabler.[/ooc]

Hey, no problem, I completely understand. Reality is ever so irksome, isn't it?

By the way, I'm aware that Somnus doesn't quite fit the tone of the rest of the characters (or the Cadaverous Earth in general, for that matter). He's just too nice, and would be "Neutral Good" in D&D terms. But I wanted to clarify that this was intentional: I was trying to create an interesting contrast with the party and setting. I'm not sure how he'll get involved with the plots of this motley of rogues and assassins, but it ought to be fun to find out :-D

That said, I also have another idea for a character: an Intuitive Jatayi Rogue who works as a messenger and courier, who would be more dynamic and possibly easier to work into the story. Though that's a lot of Rogues.

Hello everyone! Is there any room left in this game? I love the Cadaverous Earth setting; it (and the rest of Steerpike's stuff) was a big part of what brought me to this site. I don't know all the details of the world and Penumbra is all new to me, but I'd love to play if I can. Anyway, I've taken the liberty of writing up a character sheet and background, though I am of course willing to adjust anything you want me to. I think I've followed all the rules, but it's entirely possible I've missed something, so let me know if anything's wrong with my build. I've made up a tentative tier for a new focus (Oneiromancy), and I've tried to make it both flavorful and useful without being overpowered, but don't really understand the intricacies of the system, so any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks! Anyway, here it is:

[ooc=Somnus]

XP: 0 Benefits Gained: None Grit: 1
Pools (Edge): Might 8 (0), Agility 8 (1), Intellect 16 (1)
Damage Track: Hale Recovery Rolls: 1d6 + 1 (2 Actions) Rolls Left: 4
AC: 0 Defenses: Expertise in Intellect rolls vs. Witchcraft

Languages: Shambles, Hex-tongue / Witch-speak, Hellspeak

Lifestyle: Affluent

Senses: Sight based perception. He can see in dim light, has Hexsight, and his eyes always glow.

Skills: Erudite: Oneiric, Aetheric, and Witchcraft Lore, Sheevra: Divination, Persuasion

Flaws: It is harder for Somnus to hide, since his skin and eyes glow with an amber light.

He is always drowsy, and sleeps for at least nine to twelve hours a night, plus many catnaps throughout the day, and requires more time to recover.

He is less adept at social situations due to his otherworldly dreaminess and tendency to yawn and nod off.

His Oneiric blood and nomadic lifestyle result in some discrimination in Skein, among other areas.

He not only needs to breathe and drink and eat and sleep (a lot), but also needs to feed on a steady diet of the dreams of other beings. Preferably, fresh from a sleeper's psyche, but he can eat a person's dream as long as they still remember it. This does have benefits. When he eats a dream, he experiences it instantaneously as though he had dreamed it himself. He can also eat stories, fantasies, hopes, myths, memories, legends, and even tales made up on the spot can nourish him. But they're a little like the appetizers and sauces for the entree: there's nothing like a good dream. Because he can consume dreams, he is sometimes asked to eat a client's nightmares. He usually offers this service pro bono: he likes to help people, and besides, nightmares are the delicious savory contrast to the sweeter dreams.

Items:

Mundane Items: Clothing (Loose and earth-toned, mostly silk, with some cotton and a little leather). A blackthorn walking stick with a brass handle. His father's fountain pen.

Eldritch Oddities and Theurgic Devices: A Book of Dreams (A leather-bound notebook containing spells, notes, sketches, poems, and records and interpretations of his own dreams and those of others). Three Dream Bottles (can capture and store dreams for later use or consumption, and can even trap some Oneiric entities). Lastly, his Library, which is stored within his main Theurgic item: a winged caravan, which is also his home.

Weapons: None, really, except his walking stick.

Esoteries

Sheevra

Hexsight/Dreamsight (2 Intellect points): This invocation causes Somnus' eyes to glow more brightly, but allows him to perceive and potentially identify aetheric and oneiric auras. Scanning an item or creature requires concentration, and each use of this ability can last up to one minute. Scanning a target reveals whether it can perform witchcraft, and if so, its level. If the target is asleep, it reveals how deeply and whether it is dreaming. If it is dreaming, it supplies some information about their dream: important images and emotional content. It also reveals whatever facts the GM feels are pertinent about the aether or oneiros in that area. Many materials and eldritch fields prevent or resist this hex.

Gutter-Witchcraft (1 Intellect point): Minor telekinesis and telepathy, various practical prestidigitations, cantrips, glyphs, sigils, charms, hexes, wards, transmutations, conjurations, divinations, and obfuscations. This also includes sleight-of-hand and mundane "magic" tricks and mental manipulation techniques, supplemented by some spells. Somnus mostly learned this magic from his mother, a Gutter (and Hedge) Witch.

Lugent Vessel (2 Intellect points): Although a Sheevra's skin and eyes constantly produce dim illumination in the immediate distance surrounding them, they can temporarily amplify and even transfer some of this radiance to another object, person, or place. To do so, a sheevra must touch the intended target. If successful, the target sheds bright illumination up to a short distance for ten minutes.

(Oneiromancy - Witchcraft and/or Psionics): Tier 1

Lullaby (1 Intellect point): This functions like a Mind Strike, except that the effect of a success is that the target falls asleep instantly, though if they are in the middle of a battle, they will likely wake up again quite quickly. At higher tiers, it can affect many people simultaneously, and the sleep can become much deeper, even permanent.

Daydream (1 Intellect point): This allows the Oneiromancer to create illusions, and is again a type of Mind Strike. These phantoms can be much more complex and detailed than those created by Gutter-Witchcraft, and can also draw on the subject's subconscious mental material to add realism and emotional impact. They can even fill and obscure the target's entire visual field and/or deafen him with phantom voices. However, they are always temporary and can affect only the visual and auditory senses (because they are insubstantial). This power can also be used to alter the Oneiromancer's appearance, and to make them invisible, both achieved by altering not the caster's own form but the way they are perceived in the minds of others. However, impersonating specific people is still quite difficult, and an invisible Oneiromancer can still be detected by other means.

Dreamwalking (1 - 3 Intellect points): This has several effects. First, it allows the Oneiromancer to dream lucidly at will. Second, they may move quickly and easily through the Oneiros. Finally, they may enter and alter (though not completely control) the dreams of another person. However, altering dreams costs more Intellect points depending on the degree of change, and to enter the dream of a particular person, they must physically touch the sleeping body (though this is not necessary at higher tiers).

The Gates of Horn (2 Intellect points): This gives the Oneiromancer limited oracular abilities. In waking life, they can read fortunes and divine answers to questions with relative reliability, through various methods of augury. And while asleep, occasionally (and unpredictably) they will have prophetic dreams.[/ooc]

Somnus is a very tall man, at a hair over seven feet, with long, willowy limbs and a large but slim head and torso. He face is well-sculpted, yet there is something uncanny about the length and lines of his limbs and face, an impression which is strengthened by the soft golden glow of his tawny skin and his eyes, which look like twin pools of molten amber. But what is strangest about Somnus is his genuine kindness and happiness. Even though he lacks many social graces, and often drifts off in the middle of people's sentences, and even while awake often seems to be lost in a world of his own, even though he is often preoccupied with the Oneiros and his own thoughts over the everyday world, he doesn't have a malevolent bone in his body. He's no fool, but his good nature, so out of place in the Cadaverous Earth, has gotten him both into and out of trouble many times before. Most people assume he must be putting up a front, or working some angle, but he isn't. He's just a sincerely nice, generous person. Bizarre, huh?

Not that Somnus hasn't been through his share of hardship. He was an orphan, found on the streets of Somnambulon and adopted by another Sheevra, a fortune-telling gutter-witch, who gave him his name after the city and the fact that he was fast asleep in a trash-filled gutter when she found him. He was raised by her and a band of travelling performers, tinkers, and traders, who travelled between cities and settlements, scraping by on what they could scavenge and sell and steal, surviving the myriad dangers of the wild. Until they didn't. One day, as they were crossing the Slaughterlands, they were beset by abominations. All were killed save Somnus, who escaped in the flying caravan, into which his adoptive mother had pushed him after a thing that looked like the mutant child of a squid, a spider, and a shark had closed its monstrous maw around her legs. Even high above, he could still hear the screams. Sometimes, he still hears them in his dreams.

Somnus is also a very passionate, driven person, as all Sheevra are, although it may not be apparent at first glance. It is simply that all his desire and passionate intensity is focused inward. His purpose and pleasure is to explore the Inner World, and to learn as much as possible about it. He delights in the pleasures of the physical senses, as all do, but his deepest satisfaction comes from seeing and tasting the worlds inside him and all the others around him, the aetheric sea of subconsciousness just on the other side of sleep, from whence all magic flows. Though he also enjoys exploring and learning about the waking world, it is not his home. Somnus feels his true home is the Oneiros, that dreams are just as (if not more) real than the Cadaverous Earth.

Today, in his waking life, he runs a small but somewhat successful business out of his caravan, selling books and various curios and arcane trinkets, and telling fortunes, mostly through interpreting dreams. The caravan is bigger on the inside than on the outside, about seven times bigger, to be precise. It looks like a tiny cottage with a thatched roof and walls made of ancient stone and wood, inlaid with intricate arcane patterns in amber and burnished metals, all partially covered in ivy and lichen. But most of the interior is a huge seven-sided room, big as a cathedral, and with similarly vaulted ceilings, these painted with images of the Oneiros and Ker-Iz. The room is filled to the brim with shelves of books and odd objects, with a single large and chaotically cluttered round table in the center, surrounded by several soft chairs, which Somnus uses for eating, for reading and writing, occasional naps, and for all his transactions and divinations.

There are also a large number of other comfortable chairs, cushions, and couches scattered about the room. Somnus can often be found snoozing on one of these, most often sprawled out over several and partially buried by books and the sphinx-cats that appear in the house and then disappear just as mysteriously, though there are always at least a few slinking around, they come and go as they please. The whole atmosphere of the place is peaceful, sleepy, and even cozy despite the large space; it is partitioned by the many shelves and seats. Dust drifts lazily through colored beams of sunlight refracted through the shining windows. The air smells of ancient paper and spiced smoke and waxed wood. It is almost perfectly silent, the noises of the street dampened by walls and wards, a rare island of tranquility in the cacophony of the city.

Behind and above the shop is a small apartment, with a compact kitchen and bathroom, secure storage areas, and a spacious and comfortable sleeping loft. The caravan but it is well-warded, and it is moved and guarded by an Oneiric spirit, which calls itself, alternately: "Bird Brain", "Baba Yaga", "Four and Twenty Blackbirds" and "The Parliament of Rooks" and "Cat Lady". It can cause the little house to grow large feline or avian legs and wings like those of a raven or a bat, which let it move from place to place. It feeds on the dust, detritus and waste in the house, and so the spirit also keeps the place clean and tidy. The spirit can speak to Somnus and anyone else in the vicinity of the house through the sphinx-cats (who otherwise only ever speak in whispered riddles), and it has a rather... idiosyncratic personality, though it (usually) behaves around guests.

Many of the books and items in the caravan are for sale, but Somnus keeps the relatively rare and powerful tomes and objects in a private section at the back, for perusal but not removal (unless the price is right). Most of the buyable books are either mythology, fiction and folktales, or on the lore of the Other Worlds, the Oneiros and the Aether, as well as other generally Occult and esoteric subjects, though there are rarely any texts at all on techno-thaumaturgy or gearworking.

There is a sign which hangs by the door, words in serifed script formed by gold and amber inlaid on an ebony board:

Dude. This setting is off the proverbial chain, and the hook too! Seriously, you've done such an awesome job of melding and mutating various sci-fi and fantasy tropes. I like how you've left a lot to the imagination too, though I would love more details. The Gods as the "new rich" of the setting is a stroke of genius; though I wonder, are there perhaps more "abstract" Gods, or those whose concerns are at least not quite so petty? You have them in the Titans and the Elder Things, but maybe some of the Gods are a little closer to their parents, and some are closer to their children? And as for races, my vote is for a combination. What if the basic human form is the "template" all or most of the Gods used, and the "demi-humans" or their equivalents are the result of each God "customizing" their respective people? Of course, some probably went a little further in their alterations, but they'd probably be less common...

Project Lacuna Briefing Dossier Appendix F - 7

"Nothing ever really changes.

That's a lie! Things change all the time! Something huge has changed very recently. It started with the yew-mans, of course, the upstart apes. Off in their static reality, the Far Folk had largely written them off and forgotten about them. They were in prison, after all, their fallen spirits held tight in cages of matter. How could such sluggish things, such gross and heavy beings, ever possibly pose any threat or even be of any relevance? Their fleshy bodies kept them focused on the world of feeding, fighting, and fucking. But then the moneys found a backdoor. They would visit the World in their dreams, through the eyes of their avatars, and every once in a while, one of the monkeys would make a jailbreak, and pop its head out of its skull and into Reality, and it would run around for a while and then either go back to jail or die. If it went back, the other monkeys would either call it a genius or call it crazy or call it a heretic or call it a prophet, and sometimes they'd worship it, and sometimes they'd torture and kill it, and often they'd do both. And they started changing, but we dismissed it, they took the word and then they took fire and then a thousand thousand other things and they bound it into their tekne. They figured a few things out and their tekne, that alien matter-magic, it took off like one of their rockets. Everything in the world changed, all almost within the blink of an eye, and then something happened that had never happened before. You all know what I mean. A hole opened up. No-one knows how, but there was a tear, a wound, a crack, a real portal, that let the meat-monkeys actually enter the World. Not just their souls, but their heavy, solid, powerful flesh and blood bodies, still welded to their soul-minds. Worse, their tekne can apparently also cross the barrier. They have made little progress so far, and they can certainly be damaged, killed, and tend to be driven mad by exposure to the True Reality, and their tek breaks down the further they travel, just as our magic does in their land. But it is only a matter of time before the human demons of curiosity and greed drive them to pour through that gap in their million and billions, or even make more, and destroy us all! We must unite, brethren, and drive the human menace back before it crushes us! We must close the Gate before it's too late! Say it with me! Close the Gate, before it's too late! CLOSE THE GATE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE! CLOSE THE GATE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!"

- Senator Xavias Victual, delivering a speech to the Parliament of Rooks, mentally recorded by Agent "Librarian"

Lacuna Project Internal Report: Vernacular Categories Used by Agents for Non-human Entities

This is by no means a comprehensive list, a complete taxonomy would be impossible, especially since these entities do not seem to subscribe to what we fondly think of as the "Laws" of genetics, or indeed many if any biological constraints at all. But this list does describe several broad categories of commonly encountered non-human entities. These beings are most often found in the Green and Red levels. Though present in Blue and Silver, in Blue they are far outnumbered by the human analogues or "Dops", and in Silver by entities so bizarre and variable that there has been little attempt made to categorize them. Such beings and many others exist on all levels, and these categories are, again, only approximations. There are exceptions to every 'rule', variations on every theme, and endless novelty to be found. That said, there are at least noticeable morphological trends...

Humanoids

The "Faeries" or "Fae" are shape-shifters who can also transform others. They each appear to represent some specific aspect of nature, but they generally try to keep the knowledge of their true self secret since any action taken against their particular animal, tree, or stream could harm them as well. Some have only two forms: a humanoid one and their "true body", though others have a much wider transformative range. They appear to be generated spontaneously, or by some mysterious mechanism we have yet to uncover.

Each "Nom" looks different, though most have claws and sharp teeth and are roughly humanoid, but they appear to absorb characteristics of whatever they eat. They will eat almost anything they can chew up, and they grow bigger the more they eat, though they get smaller if they don't eat enough, and will eventually waste away if starved. They reproduce as others would excrete, usually a few times a day. Sometimes they produce litters of smaller children, and sometimes a single larger child, with a size depending on that of the parent. Most are semi-nomadic, settling briefly in an area, then hunting and raiding until there is nothing left for them to eat, and moving on, often returning when it has regenerated. They are divided into five general categories based on their size, though they can all shift between them. over time. From smallest to largest they are called: "Goblin" (smaller than an adult Human), "Orc" (about the size of an adult Human), "Ogre" (larger than a Human), "Troll" (larger than a building or adult tree), and "Giant" (no apparent upward limit).

The "Elves" or "Elv" are humanoid but androgynous beings with skin, hair, and eyes in an endless variety of colors, and each many hues at once. All have intricate fractal patterns running across their whole bodies, embedded in the contrasting tones of hair and skin, even in the colors of their eyes. These all change at varying rates, and their particular patterns constitute a complex visual language. They reproduce only once: when one of the Elv dies, a baby begins to form in an egg within the corpse. It feeds on the body and emerges once it has decayed. All seem to be telepathic and telekinetic, to different degrees.

Most "Dwarves" or "Dwr" are male, and all males are very short, stocky, and strong. They are, in fact, physically identical. But each clan is centered around a single female, each of which is unique in appearance, though she is always an extremely powerful user of "Magic", (another vernacular term) and is always very tall. No male Dwr can use "Magic", though they can absorb and redirect it. Male Dwr have copious and intricately styled facial hair, as well as a multitude of tattoos and piercings, all of which identify them as individuals. The Queen of each clan births a litter of male children whenever she wishes, and births a female (though twins and triplets do occur) once, always unexpectedly. When a new female is born, she is raised to maturity and then leaves to create her own clan with twelve male volunteers. They live underground, mostly in caves beneath mountains, though there are a few clans living in burrows beneath hills and in the subterranean labyrinths beneath some cities.

The "Spooks" or "Zoms" are the dead who didn't die, and who hang on in the other levels of reality. They generally eat only rotten meat and/or ashes, and drink only blood and/or strong alcohol. There are many varieties, zombies, vampires, ghouls, ghosts, ghasts, revenants, "frankensteins", barghests, wraiths, spectres, and banshees, among others. Most but not all are apparently ex-humans.

A "Cyber" or "Cyb" is a non-organic being: robots, golems, animate statues and objects, including all wholly or partially cybernetic or artificial entities and also those which also incorporate plant material. Most but not all are patterned after human, animal, or insect bodies, though some are quite simple or surreal. One of the most common kind to appear in cities are the "Junk-folk", tatterdemalions composed of junk, scrap, trash, detritus, rubble, lost and broken objects, and cast-away clothes.

Non-Humanoids

"Dragons" or "Drakes" are all different, but they all share certain qualities: they are all reptilian, scaled and often serpentine, with sharp teeth and claws, most but not all have wings and most but not all can sing songs in a language which can make their breath into fire, among other things. They are of all colors, shapes and sizes. Their size seems to depends partially on their age, as do their other powers. The Dinosaurs who dwell in the Jungle and on the plains are a type of flightless dragon without the power of flight or magical breath, though they are still quite deadly. Some quite closely resemble the dinosaurs which once existed on Earth, but many are only loosely related to extant species.

"Demons" are horrifying abominations all, hideous patchworks of flesh and bone and metal. In one agent's words, "HP Lovecraft's Great Old Ones crossed with HR Geiger's Aliens, Clive Barker's Cenobites, the works of Salvador Dali, and a dash of good ol' fire and brimstone".

"Angels" are sometimes humanoid, sometimes bizarre or abstract, but each and every one is beyond beautiful, each is radiant, effulgent, glorious. Agents have been known to collapse in tears or laughter at their presence, and prolonged exposure can lead to obsession, among other side effects. Other phenomena have also been witnessed in their proximity: phantom music, flowers and other plants sprouting and growing spontaneously, animals speaking and singing, spontaneous combustion, vortexes of air centered on them, and nearby objects and creatures turning to gold and/or diamond. It has been theorized that both Angels and Demons are partial projections or "sections" of larger creatures on the Gold and White levels. Whether the hypothetical Black level could contain such creatures is unknown.

The "Beastfolk" are various groups of beings which seem to be hybrids of the human form and various other creatures: there are the Rat-folk, the Cat-folk, the Bird-folk, The Goat-folk, the Wolf-folk, the Bug-folk, and the Lizard-folk, though these are only the most common. Some seem to be able to shift between various levels of anthropomorphism, while others have static forms.

"Aliens" are a sort of catchall term for beings that don't belong in any other category, though it is also used to describe a certain type which appear in flying ships, often seemingly from nowhere. They sometimes resemble the aliens of popular folklore, but more often they truly live up to their name.

[note]Characters

You are a newly recruited agent assigned to Project Lacuna. You were told that it is a top-secret project with almost unlimited black-budget funding. You heard the rumors, about alternate dimensions, weird phenomena, and "occult" experiments. They scared the others away, but only made you more fascinated. Eventually, they noticed you. Hand-picked from the best and the brightest, you were brought to a remote location (blindfolded, by an unmarked black helicopter). For 'security reasons' your death has been faked, and all records of your existence and identity have been expunged. You may be a scientist, a soldier, or anything in-between, but you are the best at what you do. Yet within minutes of being briefed, you've begun to think you may be out of your depth...

Character Sheet:

Name:
Codename:
Age:
Clearance:
Buddy:

Strength:
Speed:
Stamina:

Smarts:
Senses:
Spirit:

Skills & Abilities:

[/note]

Project Lacuna Briefing Dossier: Appendix A

Seven Simple Rules to Live By

1. Do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES attempt to enter the Lacuna without authorization.

2. Do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES enter the Lacuna alone.

3. Do not attempt to enter Levels of the Lacuna you are not cleared or briefed for.

4. With some exceptions made for extreme situations and emergencies, do not engage with or respond to any denizens of the Lacuna without orders or authorization.

5. If you, your "buddy", or any other agent believes you are suffering from symptoms of mental stress, or manifesting any abilities, they or you must contact a staff psychiatrist immediately.

6. You will be given a (mandatory) leave period of recuperation in the civilian world after each expedition, though for your own safety, you will be under surveillance during that time. The length of this period is determined by the Level of the expedition, among other factors.

7. All rooms are opened with a keycard, issued to you upon your arrival. All agents are cleared to enter the center's dining area and common areas, while dormitory doors and offices are keyed to each individual. The kitchens, laboratories, storage spaces, maintenance areas, archives, armories, the medical and psychiatric wards, and the management meeting rooms are all off-limits except to specially cleared personnel. The Lacuna, contained deep beneath the facility, is not open to agents at all times, but temporary clearance will be issued if and when a mission calls for an agent's particular talents.

Project Lacuna Briefing Dossier: Appendix B

All agents will be assigned a shared dormitory. The other occupant will be their "buddy", and they will be responsible for one another's physical and mental safety at all times. Dormitories are identical, each 20 x 20 feet, all are climate controlled, each come equipped with two bathrooms, and a shared central room which includes the following furniture:

2 Full-size beds with mattresses, pillows, covers, and blankets
2 Desks with chairs and built in shelving and storage drawers
2 sets of shelves and 2 sets of drawers, built into the walls and beneath the beds

Dormitories are windowless but are lit by full-spectrum "daylight" bulbs.

All agents will also be issued a uniform, standardized but tailored to each individual's measurements:

7 undershirts, black
7 collared shirts, black
7 pairs of slacks, black
7 pairs of undergarments, black
7 suit jackets, black
7 pairs of socks, black
4 ties, black
2 leather belts, black
1 pair of leather shoes with laces, black
1 pair of leather gloves, black
1 pair of sunglasses, black

Other personal possessions are allowed, and most items can be ordered through the Commissary, but no weapons of any kind are permitted anywhere except in the armory and when in use during missions, though some personnel are cleared for the use of non-lethal weapons, usually to subdue victims of psychological breakdown. Other gear will be issued as individual missions require.

Project Lacuna Briefing Dossier: Appendix M - 4

The Baker's Dozen

The original thirteen agents. Of them, only five: Agents Seer, Smith, Wraith, Wires, and Librarian, remain loyal to the project. The others are AWOL. Some are still on Level 0, though several have settled in the deeper layers. All have extraordinary abilities which are effective on Level 0, though they are "normalized" here and are much more dangerous on the other Levels. Each set of abilities also seems to come with a "catch", as well as some sort of severe mental illness. Although the mechanism and precise source of development of these abilities and their side-effects has not yet been determined, it is known to be caused by intense and prolonged exposure to the Lacuna. However, our new procedures should minimize the risk of long-term mental instability.

King is able to telepathically communicate with and directly control the movements of anyone and everyone around him. Catch: he can never directly acknowledge another's authority. Psychological Diagnosis: Megalomania.

Queen can sense, create and control emotions within people, and enthrall them entirely with prolonged effort. Catch: she can never refuse a direct request. Psychological Diagnosis: Nymphomania and Bipolar disorder.

Dryad is able to communicate with, change, and control plants, and to transform her flesh into plant matter. Catch: though she must eat normally for nutrition, her powers are fueled by photosynthesis; she must spend several hours a day "eating" sunlight. Psychological Diagnosis: Claustrophobia, Nyctophobia, Anorexia, and Dissociative Disorder.

Dragon can communicate with and control reptiles, can cause spontaneous combustion, and is himself immune to any damage from fire or high heat. Catch: she is very vulnerable and sensitive to the cold. Psychological Diagnosis: Pyromania and Psychopathy.

Wild is able to communicate with and control non-human animals, and can transform itself into any human or nonhuman animal it has killed and eaten. Catch: he must eat only meat he has personally hunted and killed, and his proximity causes complex technology to break or malfunction. Psychological Diagnosis: Multiple Personality Disorder.

Witch and Warlock are able to manipulate luck, coincidence and chance. Catch: they are regularly beset by improbable accidents. Psychological Diagnoses: Codependency and Antisocial Personality Disorders with Paranoid, Schizophrenic, Psychopathic and Sociopathic tendencies.

Wires is able to communicate with and control computers and electronics, and can create and control electric and magnetic fields. Catch: Her body is mildly magnetic and radioactive, though it becomes more so in proportion to her use of her powers. Her presence will turn on and sometimes short-circuit non-insulated electronics. Psychological Diagnosis: Autism Spectrum Disorder and Agoraphobia.

Wraith can become invisible and insubstantial, and has telekinesis which can be applied to living beings. Catch: he cannot completely turn off these abilities. Psychological Diagnosis: Sociopathy.

Seer has extremely enhanced senses and a precognitive "sixth sense". Catch: she is vulnerable to sensory overload. Psychological Diagnosis: Schizophrenia and Synaesthesia.

Smith is able to communicate with, control, create and change inanimate objects. Catch: he cannot speak, though he can understand speech and can use sign-language. Psychological Diagnosis: Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder.

Magus is able to locally distort space, time and gravity, and can "vanish" objects. Catch: his powers become less effective the more people there are to witness them. Psychological Diagnosis: Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Librarian can absorb and process information at astounding rates, and retains and recalls everything perfectly. He can also manipulate information, knowledge, and words in subtle but powerful ways. Catch: he can never tell a lie. Psychological Diagnosis: Serial Monomaniacal Obsession.

Project Lacuna Briefing Dossier: Section A, Document 4.2

Though the "spaces" beyond the Lacuna cannot be "mapped" in the traditional sense, we have identified eight relatively distinct "layers" or "levels", though these "levels" cannot be said to "ascend" or "descend", or indeed to conform to any traditional geometry, and it is possible to cross from one to another without going through the "intervening" levels. However, they are relatively reliable classifications of general removal from our reality. Agents selected for further briefing on and potential exploration of a level will be issued the appropriate clearance. Agents may apply for higher clearance but must have good reason beyond simple curiosity.

Level 0, Clear
Our Universe. Very stable, though its 'rules' can be bent, there is always "normalization". See appendix M.

Level 1, Blue
We have the most information about this level, but there are still many unknowns. Based on agent reports, we know that it seems very similar to our world, yet subtly different. Small things and little details will be "off". Everything looks entirely "real", but there's something "weird" about the air and the light. Buildings and money and brands and clothes and even faces will be slightly different, distorted, twisted. Time passes inconsistently. Cause and effect work a bit differently (sometimes causes have strange or incongruous effects, and sometimes effects have no apparent cause). Weather is unpredictable or follows strange patterns. Some things, particularly people, words, mirrors, images, and screens, often behave in bizarre ways. Text may be backwards, incoherent or nonsensical, may be in an alien script, or may reflect the true intent of the author with brutal honesty. Writing, and other usually static things as well, will sometimes change or rearrange themselves when you look away. There is an analogue, reflection, or "doppelganger" for almost everyone on Level 0, though there are "extras" and other discrepancies. Almost everyone looks human, though they may appear to be "caricatures" of themselves, and will speak and behave in apparently insane though usually harmless ways. This level is subtly "psychomorphic". People on televisions seem to be speaking directly to the viewer, and random graffiti or news articles will also seem to address them directly. Distinct faces and images will often appear in clouds, trees, burn and wear patterns, television static, and other chaotic visual fields. Phantom music and voices are fairly common, as are generally "Fortean" phenomena. Additionally, strange doors and/or passages will often appear, sometimes as normal-seeming doors in odd locations, extra buttons on elevators, stairs that keep going past the building, etc. Often, a "door" will appear in a mirror or other reflective surface (like a body of water), a painting, or a screen. The image in it will usually "open up" into three dimensions, allowing someone to walk or crawl inside. These doors usually lead to the "Labyrinth", which leads to other locations in other Levels. Do not attempt to open or pass through any such openings without accompaniment and authorization.

Level 2, Green
At first glance, in some places, it resembles Level 1, but "humans" are much rarer. Cities are mostly abandoned, ever-crumbling clusters of architecture and twisted knots of roads filled with cracks and holes through which grows a multitude of fecund vegetation. Despite the absence of people, these ruins are filled with words, from loose pages blowing in the wind to intricate graffiti filling empty walls. But it is always fragmented, incomplete, and is often unreadable, nonsensical "gibberish", or simply surreal. Those human analogues who do exist on this level tend to be even more mentally unstable than those on Level 1, and are often more violent. Inhabited cities, some built on top of the ruins, are mostly disturbingly mutated urban dreamscapes filled with much more "Wildlife" than humanity. There are some mostly human towns and villages, often embedded in the ruined cities, but they are few and far between. Between and beyond them stretches the Wilderness, and here there be Dragons. These are the borderlands, the real edge of our Reality and the beginning of the Other. This is the end of the Shallows, the place where the safe, sandy floor starts to drop away and it's sink or swim.

Level 3, Red
These Realms bear little direct relationship to our reality. But many places and beings do indirectly represent or reflect the essences or "spirits" of their counterparts in our world. However, such relationships are often difficult to discern, being buried in esoteric and surreal symbolism. The relationships between these things are also often very distorted, and mixed with entirely alien elements. Thoughts, beliefs and emotions can also be materially manifested here. "Impossible" geographies such as places where the ground continually flows and drips upward into the sky, places where "day" and "night" are static and one must walk toward the "Sun" to feel its warmth, or large islands of earth floating in the air. Space and time are deeply distorted, and are also psycho-responsive. There are more humanoid beings living on this level than on the previous one, but something about their physiology and/or mentality will always be subtly or drastically different, with cultures and customs that are all different from the current modern one to some degree. There are few direct historical analogues, but many groups are pseudo-feudal-medieval, though their "Royalty" are mostly alien and often monstrous spirits, sometimes with an upper-echelon of more or less idle nobility. This level is strongly psychomorphic: almost everything seems to possesses an intelligence of some sort, and the terrain itself will respond directly to focused will and intention.

Level 4, Silver
These are the truly bizarre Realms, bearing almost no resemblance to our "reality". Here, all of our concepts, including those of space and time, begin to break down. It is extremely chaotic and dangerous, though there are stable patches called "Isles". Physics may still apply, but unreliably. It is extremely psychomorphic: scenery can be altered easily, with a thought, unless your will is being opposed by another's.

Level 5, Gold
This Level may be completely beyond human comprehension. Most who try to travel here intentionally generally fail, go insane and/or die. Those who don't can remember or relate next to nothing of their experiences, save that it is far more bizarre and beautiful than anything we've ever known. One agent spent several months recuperating after a visit to Gold level, drawing intricate fractal art on any surface he could reach, while wordlessly singing Mozart's "Ode to Joy", for almost every waking moment, and he slept very little. After the first month, he started singing new songs, and gradually regained his linguistic faculties. Another got his hands on a scalpel and had injured himself and restrained and partially vivisected his "buddy", trying to "find and free their souls", before he was subdued and placed in intensive care. Both subsequently recovered, but his "buddy" never forgave him. Let these stories be a lesson to you: curiosity killed the Cat.

Level 6, White
This is a hypothesized Level containing the underlying "machinery" creating "reality". This is the "projector" playing the cosmic movie, the fire throwing all the shadows on the walls of Plato's Cave. It has been referred to by various books and beings, but never found, or at least, nothing has seen it directly and returned to tell the tale. The doors which might lead there are all apparently locked or blocked.

Level 7, Black
This is another hypothesized Level, which is a total and absolute Void. The End of the Line, the End of the World, the End of Everything. The Abyss. Nothingness. Null. Silence. Sunyata. Divide by Zero. Its "existence" can only be deduced and not observed, because it is theorized that anyone who comes into contact with it not only ceases to exist, but is "wiped" from reality and never existed in the first place.

Level X, Indigo
This is "The Labyrinth", aka "The Mirror Maze", "Backstage", "The Cobweb", "The Alleyways", and "The House of Doors". It is the Level that connects and possibly holds all the others together.

The Other Colors
Also called the "Skerries" and the "Cul-de-sacs", these are seemingly free-floating levels that also intersect with others.

Project Lacuna Briefing Dossier: Appendix X - 7

What follows is a partial transcript of the psychiatric evaluation of a John Doe who had been arrested and charged with numerous crimes, later identified as Rogue Agent "Warlock". He escaped police custody shortly after this interview, while being transferred to a mental institution, and almost all records of his presence were either lost, accidentally thrown away or shredded, or somehow rendered indecipherable. This was one of a few remaining fragments. It is included in this file in part because it is one of the only clues as to the whereabouts of this rogue agent and his accomplice, "Witch". However, it also includes a fairly accurate description of the apparent metaphysical situation, though of course the agent's "unique" perspective must be take into account, and all such descriptions and explanations should always be regarded as partial and always subject to revision:

Police Psychiatrist: OK. So. Why do you think you're here?

John Doe: Here? Well... this... the material, physical Universe of sticks and stones, bricks and bones, is ... it's basically a cosmic grease-trap... slash filtering mechanism. Not the most elegant or romantic metaphor, I know. But a grease-trap has a very important function, you see. All the grit and grime, all the dust and dirt and cosmic effluvia, all the grease, the sticky stuff of life, it all floats down to the bottom of the trap, to be filtered away from the pure water, the spirit, if you want to get religious about it. The wheat from the chaff. Though it's more complicated than that... there's always a little wheat left... well, you get the picture and I'm mixing metaphors. Anyway, all that stuff, the stuff that ends up here, we call matter. The filter, or the net, or the Hedge, or... well, it has dozens of names... the scientists call it the Higgs Field... Whatever. It's what makes matter matter, what gives it mass, what separates it from energy. The Hedge is what divides possibility from actuality. It 'regulates' the quantum flux, the primordial sea of Kaos, as much as anything can... but there are always mistakes, gaps, lacunae... It... it's also related to what's called Dark Matter and Dark Energy, which are just words they use because they don't understand... they don't... it's difficult to describe... my thoughts run away with me sometimes... The individual human mind, the brain/body assemblage... is also a sort of filter. Part of its purpose is to constrict perception, to only sense what is relevant to its little space-time bubble, to allow the rest of it to... function, to get along. It's like the harp of Eolia... if the wind played all the notes at once you couldn't hear anything... But imagine if you could go through the Net, climb over the Hedge and see the maze from above... if you could open the filter, re-tune your cranial harp. If you could see and hear and feel what's always there but which you don't notice because you weren't paying attention, because you didn't have the right perspective? You could wander off to those other worlds... to the Invisible Kingdoms, to Arcadia, to Wonderland, Faerieland, Neverland, NarniOz... [laughter] but you see, the difficulty is closing it again... Now imagine if the filter broke, if it tore so that some of the grit got out into the pipes. Me? I'm just a bit of grit. Some dirt stuck deep down in the celestial septic tank. As for why? Didn't they teach you in school not to ask silly questions? But I'll tell you that I am only here because I wish to be, despite what you may think.

PP: I'll rephrase: what do you think is the reason for your being here, now, in this room, with me?

JD: You mindfuck yourself every damn day, why do you need me to do it?

PP: Now just a...

JD: Whatever. It's more like masturbation anyway, so I'm happy to oblige, I guess. I am here because I know something you don't know. Won't know.

PP: And what's that?

JD: "Reality" is way, way bigger and scarier and weirder and wilder than your tiny little calcified pea-brain can even begin to comprehend, and it's so squishy and full of holes and everything you think of as safe and stable and sane is just the beach and barest shallows of a vast and stormy sea, and you can call me crazy but what you really mean is that I know what you don't know, can't bear to know, that I've seen what you hope never to see, and it scares the shit out of you. All of you.

PP: Is that a fact?

JD: No. It is the Truth.