The Path of the Grey

The Path of the Grey through Myth and Culture

The Grey begins its time in any new Shadowlands as nothing more than whisper of being. Fear of disorder. A desire for control. A flash of red or a reflective shine to the eyes of those who listen to the Grey as it whispers- first in their dreams and then during waking hours. The Grey prefers the dark and the cold. The grey prefers high altitudes and thin air and open spaces. And in these spaces one can hear the Grey more clearly.

And as one's story spins darkly out control, as impending doom approaches due to impersonal forces beyond one's control; then the Grey can sense one's mind and make its offer.

Grey Aliens

Assuming a physical form is possible for the Grey even in its weakest stages of development in this world. In its embryonic form, the Grey appears not unlike a Grey Alien: smooth grey skin, with an over sized head not unlike a Mayan Mummy. The eyes are black upon first inspection, but prove an impossible deep red if light its the eyes at the correct angle. The Grey will move itself as though gravity did not affect it, and without moving any of its body- levitating in total stillness with not limbs moving. Even as it grows in strength, the Grey will still assume this form in many dealings. It appears fond of the form.

The Grinning Man

A horrible precursor to the arrival of the Grey's more powerful Forms. The way will be paved for the Grey by a series of strange homunculi called the Grinning Men. They appear almost human, but their faces have no eyes, merely skin sunken into empty sockets with rictus grins cause by mouths with no lips. The Grinning Men speak without moving or opening their mouths, directly into the minds of the listeners without fail. They dress in anachronistic though formal clothing, ten or twenty years out of date. They do not walk, rather they simply appear in a different location when one blinks or looks away.

They act as evangelical ministers, spreading the word to those willing to hear the Grey's message. They offer warnings of impending real danger. They make promises of safety and good will. And they will insist that they "breath and eat and bleed as men do".

As people begin to listen to their warnings, and people will, despite their terrifying visage; the Grinning Men will begin to speak of a coming danger. And they will offer solace and safety through allegiance to their Elder: The Grey.

The Mothman

The Grey, like most elders, can assume an approximation of a human form once it has sufficient strength. Said form is a tall thin grey figure with reflective grey eyes. The Face looks like a strange mixture of insect and owl-like features- although without features or chitin. The avian/insect hybrid features are cast upon pallid grey skin stretched across a skull which appears overly large and elongated like a classic alien or a preserved Mayan mummy. The Grey wears a grey leather or skin cloak or overcoat which appears to merge with the body of the figure. The Interior of the coat is colored brown and umber and dusty ochre, in patterns which strongly suggest the wings of a moth. Sometimes, the figure will have hands separate from the cloak, sometimes the hands and arms will merge with the cloak. The cloak will move and spread like wings if the figure moves into the air.

The Grey makes sounds, but they are out of sync with it's movements. If it speaks, the mandibles in it's mouth will move after the words have been heard. The sounds of beating wings or scratching claws will come before or after the movements that should produce said sounds.

Ancient Astronauts theory

Stories have power, and the Grey and its homunculi will tell stories claiming credit for human advances int he Bonelands. They will claim increasing influence of the events depicted in recorded history. For as stories are retold, so does history change. As people come to revere the Grey, so does it's power grow. It devours the histories of other cultures and other gods to make itself strong. It will start with rumors and whispers, to make people talk about it. Then it will transform that talk into reverence. Then it will transform that reverence into religious fervor. And finally it will anchor that religious fervor with fear. And it will use that fear to institute control. And through control of the stories told, the Grey makes itself into the Elders and Gods and Demons and Spirits from other older stories. It travels back in time through the minds of those who believe its stories and remakes the history that they know.

And the world that these people live in becomes one where the Grey was always the one true God, and all other supernatural beings which survive in the cultural discourse are demons or evil spirits. The world becomes the story which people tell, and being born of fear becomes a god who rules through fear.

The Grey in more Depth

Fear is inescapable. Fear is inevitable. Heroes use fear as their sword and shield, as their drive and fuel. But some use fear as a cage within which they capture everyone, including themselves. In the hopes of total control, the Grey inspires the Locust King to cage and devour the world.

The Grey is a kidnapped infant demiurge. The grey as a reverse alien abduction. 'God' as an accidental prisoner from another story. Always an outsider to the story they infect. The Grey is an infant old one dragged into each new shadowland as an embodied hypersigil thoughtform by the desperate magick of the Locust and the Lion. The child godhead has been driven mad by fear and sensory overload in the new world. He is pain and fear and simple morality and id urges. Because demons and gods live in stories, the bootstrap Paradox is a viable option. The Lion and the Locust are faced with a Wendigo invasion. Wendigo are caused by the Locust touch and thus the Grey, but the paradox can eliminated if the Locust and Lion make the right choice in this retelling.

The Grey Locust/King and the Grey always start as Dead Gods from somebody else's story. They infect new stories. Pulled in when somebody else invokes and embodies their story as a means of power and/or survival. The Grey is anti life. It seeks silence and stillness and order. It seeks to make the world still . Because it is afraid. It is a being from the dark Era of the universe... when entropy has made everything uniform and dark and still. It can't handle the chaos and messiness of the Stellaferrous Era. And so it seeks to enforce order. It is a creature from the end of all stories. It does not understand middles.

Thus the Grey is not evil. The Grey is applying a morality that does not function in this story. It is not evil. It is alien. It is applying tools not appropriate to this world.

Some locations of the Southwestern Foglands

The Hart Stones

Venturing to the west in the Lowlands, psychonauts will enter the Skylines. And at the head of the great expanse of the Skylines, psychonauts will inevitably stumble upon the Hart Stones. A collection tall patterned stone menhirs which point travelers in the direction of City of Sleep to the south and the Skylines themselves to the west.

The Western Ruins

Past the skylines, carved into the earth across the great tractless lands, stand the Western Ruins. A series of monuments survive, but any metropolis associated with those monuments are all that remains.

The Broken Statues

The first of the ancient landmarks that the path marked by the Hart Stones that a traveler will find is the Broken Statues. This pair of enormous hollow statues are not in good repair, but psychonauts and scavengers can still dig around in the gigantic structures and risk the ire of the vermin that call the cracked colossi home. 

The Broke Stones

Two circles of massive standing stone stand just south of the Broken Ruins. As large as two men high, the stones are mostly still standing, although several have settled at angles or fallen entirely. On the Summer Solstice, the light of the setting sun will shine will mark a line between the two stone circles.

The Barrows

On the western border of the Sinister Valley stands a pair of earthen mounds raised above a pair of graves. Nature has reclaimed the mounds to such a state that unless one knows where to look, the Barrows can be quite hard to find. Grass has grown back across the earth, bushes and brambles have sprung through the rise in the dirt. 

The Dolmen

In the southwestern reach of the Skylines Region stand a pair of Dolmen: megalithic stone tombs that appear much more ancient that the other ruins in the west. Psychonauts who venture into the tombs will find that the two tombs are connected by a series of catacombs. But though the dolmen are ancient, the catacombs beneath are not empty. 

The North Central and Northeastern Region of the Foglands

The Spine of Glass

There is a version of the Glass Tower in all of the major Realms of the Shadowlands: The Foglands, the City of Glass, Arcadia and the Painted labyrinth. In the Foglands the tower is a twisted tower of malformed Glass bursting forth from the land like a boil and stretching into the sky. The surface of the Spine seems to be composed of glass formed when lightning strikes beach sand, opaque and marred by imperfections and pock marked holes that bore deep into the surface.

The Poison Tree

The Poison Tree coils around the Spine of Glass like Jormungand round the world tree. The fruit of the poison tree is sought by psychonauts of all stripes.

The Cave of the Cryptkeeper

The cliff that separates plateau from lowlands also divides the Canyon, with the Hollow Mountain marking the line between North and South. If Psychonauts wish to access the North of the Canyon, they must pass through the Cave of the Cryptkeeper.

The Drowned City

Surrounded by the Circle of Rust stands a vast inland Salt Sea, under which sits the great Drowned City. inhabited by slavers and scavengers, Wendigo and wanderers, the Circle of Rust is one of the few areas that welcomes outsiders and psychonauts, in much the same way that a spider welcomes a fly.

The Grave of Brine

A vast stagnant Salt Sea dominates the landscape of the Northeastern portion of the Foglands. Ancient rust encrusted towers push up from the black surface of the water, salt crystals crawling up their metal skins. Beneath the waters lurks the drowned city, and the things that make their home within the sunken ruins.

The Drowned City

If crumbling Babylon City marks the remains of the Capital of the Hungry Empire, the Drowned City is the gravesite of the once great economic center of the Hungry Empire. The rusted spires of antique towers peak from the oil waters like monsters hunting for prey.

The Circle of Rust

Not all of what is now called the Drowned City was engulfed by the grave of Brine. Some of the structures still stand upon dry land, though layered in several strata of salt. Scavengers continue to pick at the remains of this urban husk and sell their wares at the Salt Market.

The Asylum

The Last King has the Dead Forest and the Iron Gallows with which to dispatch those who displease him. The Salt Market uses the Asylum; a decaying old building that perhaps once served as hospital or prison, but which has deteriorated so far that the truth will be lost forever. Half submerged in salt crusted shores, the Scavengers of the Salt Market lower those deemed guilty or just unlucky into the Asylum to die, go mad or devour each other as a horde watches from the roof and gamble on the outcome.

The Salt Market

Seedy and dangerous, the Salt Market is the best place in the Foglands to obtain secret knowledge and dangerous goods. Little more than a sprawling colony of tents and shanties scavenged from the corpse of the Drowned City, the Salt Market is nonetheless the living heart of the Plateau.

The Burning Lands

A strange Collection of buildings Stands on the northwestern shore of the Brine, The plants there are locked in withered states, and creatures there are distorted dark mirrors of their intended forms. The Three-petal Flower design marks signs and buildings all through the the Burning Lands, and those who tarry too long there fall ill and do not recover.

The Last Daytower

Anomolous amongst the rusting structures the make of the bulk of the Circle of Rust and the Drowned City, stands the last Daytower. Build of sandstone, the last Daytower is a thin cylinder with a domed parapet at the top. A Polished metal mirror is aimed to catch the dawn's first light at winter solstice.

Jawbone Ridge

Inhabitants of the Plateau insist that Jawbone ridge, with its white protruding outcroppings, is the actual jawbone of the great being whose ribs stand over Ribcage Castle. But while the ribcage is clearly the remains of some great being, the ridge is less clearly part of any corpse. But still, the wind whips across the ridge in strange ways and wanderers and psychonauts alike will hear strange voices whispered on the cutting cold winds at the edge of the plateau.

A Few Brief Descriptions of Foglands Landmarks

Location: Foglands, Northwest Plateau, Ribcage

The Ribcage Castle

A vast monolithic ribcage rests upon the Northwestern edge of the plateau. The inhabitants of the plateau have made guesses at the origin of the enormous bones, some ancient kaiju father or mother of the Giants is a popular theory. In any case, resting in the embrace of the enormous ribs is the moldering ruins of Ribcage Castle. The last resting place of the line of the Locust King, the castle is largely abandoned in the era of the Foglands, inhabited only by scavenging monsters a few loyal locust-touched and the Last King himself.

Babylon City

During the Ten Thousand Years of Darkness, the City of Glass extended nearly across all the arable land of the known world, the remaining Free Tribes pushed to to the edges and the margins and the miserable places to survive with the independence intact. In the era of the Foglands, this has changed and all that remains of the expansive devouring City of Glass is a scattering of scavengers and refugees huddling in the remains of the Capital: Babylon City.

The Empty Quarter

Babylon City contracted during the declining years of the Ten Thousands of Darkness, drawing in resources and focusing upon the survival and illusory prosperity of the Capital. The Nobility spoke about making the Capital glorious once more, returning it to a previous golden age. But in the end, the Nobles merely drained the surrounding areas in monstrous parasitic fashion. And while most of the Old City of Glass has fallen in to such disrepair that a traveler might not realize they walked through ruins at all, the Empty Quarter still stands in the shelter of the castle walls as testament to what once ruled the known world.

The Dead Forest

Nobody survives who knows if the lines of metal poles outside the walls of Ribcage Castle were once used for different purposes. They now stand as a means of displaying the perceived traitors whom the Last King has had executed and then stuck on these steel poles for all to see. Travelers are warned that any who pass too near the Ribcage risk running a foul of the King's entourage of loyalists and being branded a traitor, for torture and execution of 'traitors' is one of the few indulgences left to the rotting court of the Last King.

The Iron Gallows

Among the forest of iron spikes rising up before the walls of Ribcage Castle is an enormous metal structure now used by the surviving Nobles as a gallows. Likely used for something other than execution during the heyday of the City of Glass, the structure is now a place of execution, perhaps a sign of the fall of the Hungry Empire which feeds upon itself in the era of the Foglands. 

The Gates of Sorrow

Babylon City and the Empty Quarter sit within the walls of Ribcage Castle, as does the Castle Keep itself. Even during the era of the Foglands the walls still stand tall, when the Hungry Empire has disintegrated and the Locust forces have been scattered and turned to scavenging and cannibalism. The only way to enter within the wall of Ribcage Castle is to enter through the front door: an enormous colossal thing known now as the Gates of Sorrow.

Locations of the Foglands in more depth

After leaving the Ring for the first time, the Foglands are where rookie psychonauts will end up.

 

The Plateau

The lands to the North stand upon a great shelf, rising above the rest of the landscape.

The Ribcage

In the Northwest stands the ruins of Ribcage Castle and the remains of Babylon City.

• The Ribcage Castle
  • The Ribcage Castle
  • Babylon City
  • The Empty Quarter
• The Dead Forest
  • The Iron Gallows
  • The Gates of Sorrow

The Canyon

A canyon runs North to South, a vast scar across the horizon.

• The Ghost Station
  • Inbound Station
  • Outbound Station
• The Spine of Glass
  • The Spine of Glass
  • The Poison Tree
• The Cave of the Cryptkeeper
  • The Upper Cave

The Drowned City

Surrounded by the Circle of Rust stands a vast inland Salt Sea, under which sits the great Drowned City.

• The Grave of Brine
  • The Drowned City
• The Circle of Rust
  • The Asylum
  • The Salt Market
  • The Burning Lands
  • The Last Daytower
• Jawbone Ridge

The Lowlands

To the South are the lowlands.

The Skylines

Amidst a stretching rocky desert are carved strange designs in the earth visible the sky: the so-called Skylines.

• The Hart Stones
• The Western Ruins
  • The Broken Ruins
  • The Broke Stones
  • The Barrows
  • The Dolmen
• The Buried Maze
• The Sinister Valley
  • The City of Sleep
  • The Boar Temple

The Canyon

A canyon runs North to South, a vast scar across the horizon.

• The Hollow Mountain
• The Odd Cemetery
  • The Great Cemetery
  • The Mausoleum
  • The Old Cemetery
  • The Cave of the Cryptkeeper
    • The Lower Cave
• The Ghost Station
  • The Southern Station

The Wastelands

The vast marsh and the Altar Stone: a strange monument sacred to the Giants, fill the Wastelands of the Southeast.

• The Marsh Wastes
  • The Haypenny Camp
  • The Witch Hut
  • The Fading Lake
    • The Stilt Shrine
    • The Glass Altar
• The Altar Stone
  • The Altar Stone
  • The Thinking Stone
  • The Weeping Stone
  • The Screaming Stone
• The Womb
  • The Torii Gate
  • The Kiva Hole
  • The Womb
    • The Cave of Joining
    • The Hidden Passage
    • The Innermost Cave
    • The Cave of Unborn Elders
• The Eastern Reach
  • The Totems
  • The Sky Altar
• The Tailbone

Rough Bits of the Foglands again

After leaving the Ring for the first time, the Foglands are where rookie psychonauts will end up.

The Plateau

The lands to the North stand upon a great shelf, rising above the rest of the landscape.

The Ribcage

In the Northwest stands the ruins of Ribcage Castle and the remains of Babylon City.

The Canyon

A canyon runs North to South, a vast scar across the horizon.

The Drowned City

Surrounded by the Circle of Rust stands a vast inland Salt Sea, under which sits the great Drowned City.

---

The Lowlands

To the South are the lowlands.

The Skylines

Amidst a stretching rocky desert are carved strange designs in the earth visible the sky: the so-called Skylines.

The Canyon

A canyon runs North to South, a vast scar across the horizon.

The Wastelands

The vast marsh and the Altar Stone: a strange monument sacred to the Giants, fill the Wastelands of the Southeast.

A First look at the Map of the Foglands

Blood Red Radio Short: Childish Things

Once again I'm posting a little bit of a blood-red radio. Musings and rambling conversations I had. Much background noise probably poor audio. You have been warned.

Listen here.

Back up url below.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwwpqAOXF57ZXzYzSTVQVjNfTzQ/view?usp=drivesdk

First attempt at Blood Red Radio

This is my first attempt at blood-red radio. Recorded will walking my dog, so expect Street noises and occasional barkfest. I have not adjusted the audio anyway. So start with the volume a little lower left it Blow Your eardrums out.

Episode One

Back up url below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwwpqAOXF57Zb2NDeW9sZTVxcnc/view?usp=drivesdk

Sample Format for Individual Strongholds

An Introductory Look at the Green Peoples

Humble Allies in Arcadia and the City of Glass: vine and bulb, leaf and flower. Concrete cracks as life breaks through. The Peoples are the green tribes, and it is a foolish Psychonauts who does not respect the trees. For in the Shadowlands, the plants make known their preferences.

• The Five Clans
  •  The One Leaf People
  •  The Two Leaf People
  •  The Winter Leaf People
  •  The Water Green People
  •  The Blade Green People
•  The Stone Crack People
•  The Village Treaty People

An expanded look at the Fair Folk

The Greater Magi of the Shadowlands - also known as the Demons

The Fair Folk are the mythic beings that wear human forms: Sheedr and Faidr and Gnomon. They are the keepers of Magick and will be teachers and patrons to human sorcerers. Often mistaken for Gods, the difference is that Fair Folk need no worship or offerings. The Fair Folk will normally trade or barter for their favor or their instruction. The Fair Folk may appear most human like, but they are not human. Like the Elders they are sympathetic to humans in the Shadowlands. But also like the Elders, their minds are alien and they do not see things as humans do.

Deal with Devils and not with Gods.

For Devils will bargain for your soul, 

while Gods will demand it for free.

The Aelfen

These fair folk look noble but are treacherous. The fair folk come from the future and feed on the present. They can provide prophecy for a price.

Sheedr

The fair folk of the Dark. Beautiful, regal, treacherous and cold. Rumor says that they come from the future and feed upon the present.

The Darkened Court

Tales of the Magus of Dark Solstice are many. Tales of his Court are told in whisperers. There is more to this solstice than stockings and gifts.

• The Magus: The Wondermaker
• The Four
  • The Caretaker: The Lady of Icy Waters
  • The Messenger: The Blind Dark
  • The Mediator: The Wild Huntsman
  • The Scholar: The Cold Wind
• The Fortuneteller: The Keeper of the Seed

Faidr

The fair folk of the Waning, said to be of the future. They whisper that harvesting the present is necessary to keep wheel of time whole.

The Twilight Rebels

The Court that is not. Day and night imagine themselves as a dichotomy. The changing of light rebels against such clean labels.

• The Magus: The Purifier
• The Four
  • The Caretaker: The Sheltering Wind
  • The Messenger: The Guardian of the Gate
  • The Mediator: The Mountain Beast
  • The Scholar: The Ascetic
• The Fortuneteller: The Summer Storm

The Kobalen

The goblin folk look vile and scary but are just and kind. The goblin folk come from the past and give to the present. They will take messages to the past for a price.

Gobn

The fair folk of summer. They defend the present, sending aid from the past. It is said they can undo past mistakes.

The Midnight Court

They guard the night during its weakest point. The Solar Solstice is their great siege. They preserve the cycle for another year.

• The Magus: Walker of the Crossroads
• The Four
  • The Caretaker: The Hearthkeeper
  • The Messenger: The Cryptwalker
  • The Mediator: Child of the Rainbow
  • The Scholar: Watcher on the Wind
• The Fortuneteller: Lady of Grace

Bogn

The fair folk of the Waning. Shriveled, squat, ugly, joyous and friendly. Hailing from the past, feeding past to present to bring the harvest.

The Noonday Court

Bright, shining and glorious. One would never guess the nature of these splendid arch devils. Who knows what emerges from the cocoon?

• The Magus: The Splendid Peacock
• The Four
  • The Caretaker: The Walking Worm
  • The Messenger: The Resurrectionist
  • The Mediator: The Giver of Libations
  • The Scholar: The Lightbringer
• The Fortuneteller: The Remover of Obstacles

The Gnomon

The Gnomon are the Fair Folk of science present moment and of science. Xaokn are researchers. Saign are Educators. The Gnomon are always willing to help but tend to be oblivious to consequences and will help Locust forces just as readily.

Saign

The Gnomon of Education. Closely aligned with the modern mind. They help, but they help everyone, tribe and city alike.

The Bone Shrine Court

The Bone Shrine Court teaches insights from the Bonelands. Remember how large is the universe. Remember how small is the human skull.

• The Magus: The Sage of Motion
• The Four
  • The Caretaker: The Sage of Time
  • The Messenger: The Sage of Descent
  • The Mediator: The Sage of Radiation
  • The Scholar: The Sage of Orbits
• The Fortuneteller: The Safe of Lightning

Xaokn

Gnomon of science. The Xoakn are dedicated to research, But they provide their research to the Locust just as readily as to you.

The Bonewood Court

Hidden in the Bone Forest. The court whose magick peers into the Bonelands. Magick ends and Science begins when we seek to prove ourselves wrong.

• The Magus: Eldest Teacher
• The Four
  • The Caretaker: The Teacher in the Library
  • The Messenger: The Teacher in the Observatory
  • The Mediator: The Teacher in Miniature
  • The Scholar: The Teacher in the Garden
• The Fortuneteller: The Teacher in the Cage

Locust Touched Fair Folk

Not all of the Fair Folk retain their independence in the face of the spreading conquest of the Hungry Empire. As it devours everything, either assimilating or destroying whatever it encounters, many of the Fair Folk who once were are no more. And many more Fair Folk now hold forms unrecognizable to what they once were.

The Sold Ones

The Hungry Empire expands across the land, spewing new gods and conquering lands and Denizens, people and stories and mind, The Sold Ones are Fair Folk corrupted by the Locust.

• Wheat Goblin
• Rice Spriggan

The Broken

The Broken are the Fair Folk, beings who were once part of the great Courts, corrupted and twisted into incomprehensible forms by the corruption of the Grey and the Locust King.

• The Grey Locust
• Falsenight

The Court of Eternal Summer

The Conquered Court. The Demon Servants to the Locust. Magick caged like a songbird

The Court of Eternal Summer is the Captive Court of the Locust King. They celebrate The Whore's Holiday (Valentine's Day), The Chimney Sweeper's Rest (May Long Weekend), The Worker's Holiday (Labor Day), And Black Market Day (Nov 1). These holidays are commercial mockeries of Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain. They serve the Grey and Falsenight. They are the keeper of consumption and immortality and absolute right and wrong.

• The Magus: The Lord of Lords and Builder of Cities (The Broken Bird)
• The Four
  • The Caretaker: The Lady of The Bloody Fountain (The Martyred Mother)
  • The Messenger: The Lord of Extermination (The Caged Huntsman)
  • The Mediator: The Lady of Unification and Conquest (Captive Citizen)
  • The Scholar: The Oracle Skull of Knowledge (The Toy in the Glass Tower)
• The Fortuneteller: The Quintuple Lords of Misfortune (The Curse of Cities)

The Broken

The Hungry Empire expands across the land, spewing new gods and conquering lands and Denizens, people and stories and mind. The Broken are the Fair Folk, beings who were once part of the great Courts, corrupted and twisted into incomprehensible forms by the corruption of the Grey and the Locust King.

The Grey Locust

The Locust Spirit is not villainous alone, twisted by addiction and fear. A plague of hunger and paranoia devours those it does not convert. The Grey Locust is some bizarre gestalt form, a minor spirit empowered by one of the fear touched Elders, latched parasitically upon a nameless lost Magus of a long forgotten Demon Court. This strange legion of beings is what transformed the youngest of the Seven Siblings from the Archetype known as Lion, into the Archetype now known as the Locust King.

Falsenight

An oily smoky skeletal fossil powering dark ambition with stolen fuel. This is what powers the Hungry Empire's Expansion, a forgotten Fortuneteller from the same now nameless Demon Court that birthed what become the Grey Locust. To give his captured Demon the power he needed, the Locust King bonded this captured demon with corrupted flesh stolen from the Great Serpent. But Falsenight needs tribute to provide its power, and the tribute must be paid.

The Guides of the Fallen

The Psychopomp, the Guide of the Fallen is a feature of practically human cultures. Fear of death and fear of the unknown combine in human mind and causes storytellers to allay the fears of their brethern by conjuring guides and protectors of the dead. In the Shadowlands, the Guides of the Fallen oversee travel between the Realms of the Shadowlands, and it only through their intervention that psychonauts may reach the Realms of Light and endeavor to reclaim a soul they may have foolishly lost to some avaricious god.

The Little Green Man

The great instructor and the regenerator. Death is the source of all life in Arcadia. Don't fear the reaper.

The Rainbow Moth

The rainbow is used by so many cultures to symbolize transportation and tramsission of messages. The Rainbow Moth beats wings made of iridescent light as it glistens through the dark caverns of the Painted Labyrinth

The Fear Touched

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. - HP Lovecraft

Pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of danger are the two primary drivers of living beings: desire and fear.

Void and Fire

Man of Void and Lady of Fire

The Man of Void and the Lady of Fire walk the circle of time and vastness of space. They share a human shape and are sympathetic to sentient beings. Their minds are alien, and yet quite familiar. The most disquieting of the Elders for their similarity to humanity while never quite getting it right.

The Hound

The Grey is fear from which springs paranoia and the need for control. The Hound is fear from which springs panic. The Hound is inescapable, an event horizon as implacable hunter. Face your fear or be devoured.

The Grey

Fear is inescapable. Fear is inevitable. Heroes use fear as their sword and shield, as their drive and fuel. But some use fear as a cage within which they capture everyone, including themselves. In the hopes of total control, the Grey inspires the Locust King to cage and devour the world.

The Living Four

The four 'younger' elders- no older than life itself.

The Survivor

That Which Survives

Older than the dead gods of the Glass City, The Elders exist without the worship of humans. That Which Survives is the essence of endurance and perseverance. This archdemon is what taught the first tribe the art of survival, just as the Pale Shepherd taught adaptation.

The Shepherd

The Pale Shepherd

Progress is an illusion. There is only change. Progress is a story we tell ourselves to keep ourselves sane. The walking worms shrouded in the pale cloak leads the midwives that tear change- stillborn- into the world.

The Sleeper

The Sleeping Beast

There are secrets, sleeping, in the deep. There are pieces of knowledge that torture the mind. Progress drives us beyond our safe illusions. The Bonelands shatter the mind, and the Sleeping Beast is an elder who opens the eye to the Bonelands.

The Primal

The Primal One

Life is an aberration. An anomaly in the vast cold blackness of an expanding universe, life is a tiny flickering light. The Primal One is the candle that feeds that hollow light in the darkness.

The Three Unknowable

The Three Unknowable are the three of the Elders most sympathetic to the Free Peoples.

Mystery

The Firebird is the Phoenix, and MYSTERY. The Firebird is the fire that inspires the story. It is the Shadowlands and more, born with the first breath of every "once upon a time", and dying with every "The End'. The Firebird sits just outside of understanding, pushing back the mystery just deepens it.

The Great Serpent

The source of all ambition and drive. The root of the heroic instinct, and the fire that burns within the heart of every legend. The Great Serpent echoes in the stories of Quetzecoatl and the Rainbow Serpent.

The Weaver

The spirit of the story, the teller of tales, keeper of the narrative, the great weaver. The Weaver is the guide to First Mother and the source of much of her annoyance. Inscrutable and wrapped in schemes and tricks. The Weaver is an ally to the story, but serves nobody.

The Sold Ones

The Hungry Empire expands across the land, spewing new gods and conquering lands and denizens, people and stories and mind, The Sold Ones are Fair Folk corrupted by the Locust.
 
The Wheat Goblin
(A Corrupted Gobn)

A small yellow goblin with a beard of wheat stalks and huge long floppy ears that look like leaves on a stalk of wheat. It can shapeshift but will always have a long braided beard or braided hair and it will always have it's ears. It tries to sell or offer freely wheat cakes that, if eaten, will render the victim unable to survive on anything but the wheat cakes or (just barely alive) on normal wheat products. Easy to fight and kill, they are not warriors.

But the wheat cakes will give temporary strength and speed to the Wheat Goblin itself and others who eat it. Foolish warriors will occasionally become willingly addicted to the wheat cakes.

The Rice Spriggan
(A Corrupted Bogn)

An amorphous spirit that lives in any stagnant water, but especially loves rice padi water. It can form a body out of the muck and vegetation and fish bones in it's home to fight if it needs or wants to do so. However, it's preference is to use fish teeth and bones to cut curse sigils onto the exposed feet and ankles of people who tread in the padi water.

The sigils render the victim week against cholera and malaria and Typhus spirits that will attack the victim every night for weeks (depending on the strength drawn for the curse and the strength drawn for the spirit itself). A Rice Spriggan can only be destroyed by draining it's watery home or purifying the water.

An Introductory Look at the Wild Folk

The other Tribes of Arcadia, wearing fur and scale and Feather. The Folk know the Locust by his scorn. The psychonaut would do well to remember that the fox and game fowl are his friends. The whale and wolf are her sisters. The rabbit and the rat are his aunt and uncle.

The wild folk are you neighbours and rivals as you explore the Shadowlands, they are your foes and friends, they are your trading partners and the hated raiders in the night.

• The Seven Clans
  •  The Free Folk
  •  The Cold Folk
  •  The Silent Folk
  •  The Wise Folk
  •  The Swift Folk
  •  The Gentle Folk
  •  The New Folk
•  The Sea Folk
  •  The Old Folk
  •  The Constant Folk
  •  The Strong Folk
  •  The Clever Folk
  •  The Singing Folk
  •  The Dancing Folk
  •  The Ghost Folk

The Mirrors in the Sky

The Glass City is the land of the Locust King, his false utopia that hovers- a castle city in the sky.

The Wards of The City of Mirrors

The City of Mirrors is modelled after the city of old London and Prague and Paris. The place has a glamour of shining crystal towers and skycastles. Beneath the Glamour is smog filled, ash stained, dirty old Londontown from the tales of Charles Dickens. A Grimdark Gaslamp Fantasy world. The City of Mirrors is composed of Wards built from the corpses and sacrifice of the Dead Gods after whom they are named.

• The Ward of Gildguld (God of Tax Collectors- The Merchant District)
• The Ward of Mitchuas (The Son of Ash- The Church District)
• The Ward of Gaibrus (The Birdgod of the Dawn- The Palace District)
• The Ward of Zeudin Vashas (The Six Faced Lord of Thunder- The Court District
• The Ward of Lamris (The God of Obedience and the Underworld- Graveyard District)
• The Ward of Friedites (The Goddess of Sin and Purity- The Red light District)
• The Ward of Valstaris (The Goddess of Love and war- The Barracks District)
• The Ward of Xerfer  (The Goddess of Jealousy and Greed- The Guild District)

An Introductory look at the Gods

The Bankers of Vajra and Souls

Gods are composite beings. Incorporeal as Spirits, derived from concepts as Elders, and bearing anthropomorphic avatars as Fair Folk; Gods have one unifying factor. Gods require human belief, human prayer, sacrifice and offerings. Gods are empty vessels that cannot generate any power of their own. They are bankers or insurance brokers, absorbing the Vajra and Souls offered them from a multitude of worshipers and giving back some small measure to the occasional worshiper as a miracle.

Gods can be a source of great power, but the cost is high. And it is difficult for a Freepath Sorcerer to use the power of the gods without breaking the first of the four great laws and worshiping that god.

• The Dead Gods 

Charge Bonuses (Vajra Accumulation)

The Vajra totals are accumulated and spent separately. As psychonauts progress through the lunisolar year, their achievements will earn them progress points which will translate into Vajra (of the appropriate type) at the end of each month. Vajra from the previous month (and only the previous month) can be spent as progress point in order to help warriors maintain streaks and obtain Charge bonuses.

The Charge bonus is how we encourage people to keep achieving and to make a habit out of their own successes. Each Vajra has a Threshold. Earning three Vajra of any type is considered a 'Charge'. Players can
build their charge by continually earning charge status month after month. The first month that a player charges a Vajra type, they earn 1 additional Vajra of that type. Each successive month that they earn the charge the charge pays out an additional Vajra to a maximum of 3 (ie. the sixth month that a player charges a Vajra type, they will still receive 3 Vajra, and so forth).

Theoretically, this means that a player could earn an additional 12 Vajra each month (3 Ether Vajra, 3 Air Vajra, 3 Water Vajra, and 3 Earth Vajra) by the third month if they area able to generate enough progress points to charge all Vajra types.

Vajra can be burned (as stated above) on a one to one basis to fill in blank progress point slots in any Vajra category in order to earn the Vajra necessary to maintain charges. This can be instrumental in allowing players to maintain their Charge Vajra on busy months so that they don't lose their three bonus Vajra.

An Introduction to the Ghostlands

The Ghostlands are the most familiar and most bizarre of the Shadowlands. When you sleepwalk through your daily life, you are not living in the 'real' world. Your body may inhabit the Bonelands, but that psychically hostile place is toxic to your fragile human mind. And so while your body cannot escape the Bonelands, your mind has already fled into a psychic spacesuit- it's own unconsciously built Shadow Realm. And all of these realms, these micro kingdoms for 7 billion sleepwalkers, are stitched together into a collective whole called the Ghostlands.

An Introduction to the Inner Eye

Tenebrati Darkened Dark eye or Black eye			Eye of Dusk Wine-drunk eye Red eye			Illuminati illuminated Lit eye or Bright eye
3	2	1	0	1	2	3

The Inner Eye is how one views the Shadowlands. The Inner eye begins closed and must be opened for avatars to reach any part of the Shadowlands beyond the Foglands. Those who enter the Shadowlands with a  closed inner eye end up in the Ring, or at best, the Foglands. There are benefits to all three variations on the Inner Eye.

The Darkened eye is attuned to the story and the Shadowlands. One with a darkened eye will see the secrets of the story and the weak points of foes more readily. A darkened eye will also strengthen ability in the high magick. But the darkened eye opens one up to story and one with a darkened eye is more vulnerable to the attacks of denizens of the shadowlands and also more susceptible to high magick used by others. Further, with a darkened eye the shadowlands can entrance send mesmerize one, Leaving them vulnerable and helpless.

An enlightened eye is attuned to the bonelands and to science. An enlightened eye will see through the forms that things take in the shadowlands to the metaphors they represent, granting them improved resistance to attacks and high magick. An enlightened eye also grants improved ability in the low magick. But this all comes at a cost. Seeing the bonelands clearly is taxing to the mind. The skull can overflow with the scope and scale observed. One who looks too deeply through the enlightened eye may find their mind has cracked. Further, an enlightened eye sees fewer details of the shadowlands and has difficulty invoking the high magick. In addition, the affinity for low magick also means the enlightened eye is vulnerable to low magick as well.

The eye of dusk is also sometimes called the wine drunk eye, or even beer goggles. The Eye of Dusk offers none of those benefits. But it also offers none of the attached disadvantages.

A Preliminary Travel Guide to the Ring

The Ring is the place where everyone begins their quest into the Shadowlands. People wander through the Shadowlands in a haze before awakening and beginning their lucid dreaming endeavors into the Shadowlands. The Ring appears innocuous to most travelers, who remain ignorant of where they truly reside when they step into the ring. The Ring is the refuge of a dying universe in the Dark Era. It may be a shadowlands future for our universe. It may be the universe preceding our own, the universe from which the Man of Void and Lady of Fire sent their message, which guaranteed their rebirth in the new universe- through message, through story.

Characteristics

• Name: The Ring
• Location Type: Liminal Plane
• Attunement: The Grey

Denizens

The Ring is bereft of inhabitants of any magnitude less than elder. Nothing else survives in the Ring save by the mercy of the Elders already dwelling in the Ring. And among the residents only Man of Void and Lady of Fire are receptive to the needs of lesser beings.

Elders

The Ring is home to three (four) of the Elders (le ranmi): The Grey, The Hound, and The Man of Void/Lady of Fire. All three (four) of these beings are embodiments of fear. The Grey is fear of chaos, fear of losing control, fear of disorder. The Grey fears the feeling of powerlessness that manifests when one is out of one's depth. The Hound is fear for one's safety and life, fear causing panic and hesitation. The Man of Void/Lady of Fire embody fear of regret, fear of looking back and feeling shame.

Man of Void / Lady of Fire

Few beings are as powerful and as benevolent as the Man of Void and Lady of Fire. And few are as dangerous. The pair of linked Elders are rumored to be surviving sorcerers from the last universe, able to travel through time with the same ease that others travel through space. This impossible movement, limited only by the edges of spacetime itself, has warped the pair's ability to understand and relate to their beloved humans. Here they protect both Free Peoples and Locust Touched alike as they travel between Bonelands and Shadowlands. Man of Void and Lady of Fire will never be seen in person in the Ring, but may interact with beings who stop to meditate or lucid dream in the Ring.

The Grey

Like Man of Void and Lady of Fire, the Grey does not manifest physically in the Ring. The Grey makes its residence in Void House, where the intense cold of Man of Void keeps things near heat death as the Grey likes things. Any sorcerer of the Locust who enters into Void House may converse with the Grey by meditating in the Cheesboard Hall, at their own risk. A Sorcerer of the Free Peoples would have to find a way into Void House to risk communing with the Grey.

The Hound

Few creatures are a relentless as the Hound. Unlike other Elders, the Hound does manifest in the Ring. The Hound lives and rests in Stellar House, behaving like a big friendly monster puppy. The contrast between the Behavior of the Hound in the Shadowlands and the Ring can catch many Sorcerers off guard. But the Locust Touched Sorcerers would have to find a way into Stellar House to see this friendly and helpful side to the Hound and the kindness of its fear.

The Monsters

The Ring is home to a single Monster. A sole Giant (or Gregorim) guards the Gate Room, trapped within the Red Ring inscribed upon its floor. This ancient Giant is the last of its kind, no other Gregorim shares its characteristics. How it came to guard the Gate Room, what happened to other Giants like it (or even if there ever were others like it) are lost to Forgotten Wastes of the Outer Foglands, well beyond the memory of living stories.

Sentinel

The Sentinel is the Guardian of the Gate Room. The Sentinel is a unique Gregorim, unlike its brethren in the Foglands. Perhaps the Sentinel was a special creation made to guard the Gate Room. Perhaps the Sentinel is the last of a previously numerous type of Gregorim. Nobody who knows is talking and nobody who is talking seems to know. The two most obvious ways of dealing with the sentinel are stealth and guile. Avatars may succeed in sneaking or dodging past the Sentinel. More dramatically, avatars may damage the red trough which stops the Sentinel's charging attacks and prevents it from escaping the Gate Room. Damaging the red trough means that when the Sentinel begins a charge towards an area of the trough that has been removed the Sentinel will be unable to stop. The Sentinel will, if it passes through the damaged trough, smash through the wall and float harmlessly away in to the emptiness beyond. The Sentinel will always be found in a restored Gate Room upon return, no mater what its fate in a previous incursion.

Locations

The Ring is a crumbling pair of houses in a universe bereft of light and heat. Only the warmth provided by Lady of Fire makes the Ring habitable. Two 'Houses' sit inside the Ring: Void House- the house tended by Man of Void and the residence of the Grey's Spirit, and Stellar House- tended by Lady of Fire and the residence of the Hound. Between Void House and Stellar House lies the Lotus Garden- a shifting and twisting collection of stone rooms and hallways that lead to the two Houses and, in the back, to the Gate Room. The 'rooms' and corridors of the Lotus Garden sit in what appears to be deep space. And some corridors lead only one way, dilatin iris doors spiraling closed as avatars move through them. The Lotus Garden is a dangerous place and denizens not of the Ring can become lost and trapped there. The gate room is guarded by a Grigorim sentinel.

The Threshold

The Threshold is where one enters the Ring: an impossibly huge flat stone plinth floating in the quasi space-like void that is the Ring.

The Threshold is a windswept and barren area. Stray things are blown away, gone in an instant. Cloaks and jackets whip back and forth. Much of the Ring is well lit. Though lights are not visible, much of Ring is lit like a sitcom. The Threshold is dark and ill lit and foreboding. Sound seems to resonate well in the Threshold, the place seems to pick up the sounds of the rest of the Ring like a speaker. Eerie howls mingle with screams and the sound of sword strokes and gunshots.

The Lotus Garden

The Mazelike expanse of the Lotus Garden is disorienting. There is no horizon and few clean sight lines in the Lotus Garden. The paths slowly shift and one can never be certain the room is in the same place or that one has returned to the same room. The Lotus Garden is filled with archways and overlapping layers, split paths and sharp turns, all of this obscures line of sight and confuse the senses.

The Lotus Garden resonates with a low thrumming vibration that can be felt simply by paying attention. It appears to change in intensity as one moves through the Maze-like garden.

The Lotus Garden is a maze and a map at the heart of the Ring. The Lotus Garden is a replica of the lands of Arcadia in Miniature. But also a maze in three dimensions where paths climb and fall, with bridges and tunnels and arch ways to numerous to compile. The Regions of the Lotus Garden can become charged with mystic effects drawn from the code of the Tenfold Path, but these are only visible to and accessible by beings whose Inner Eye has been opened. The Lotus Garden has ten sections that make up the whole, seven of which form the central garden maze and three of which are bridges to the further sections of the Ring. The central section of Lotus Garden is called The Scavenging Room. This section of the Garden is constructed with colorful mosaics of village life. The art is friendly and Welcoming. Next to The Scavenging Room is The Ignoring Room. This Section looks like the inside of some sort of Catacombs or Mausoleum. The art is death focused and grim. Adjacent to both the Scavenging Room and the Ignoring Room is a larger section: The Gorging Room. This Section is damp, water seeping through the walls with White marble and blue slate stones. To the 'north' of these three earlier rooms is The Squeamishing Room with Red and Grey Stone work, Big and Monolithic and heavy. The Squeamishing Room is exceptionally hot and dry. To the 'west' of these rooms is the Betrayal Room. The Betrayal Room has Green stone work. This room is accented with dark Stones, and is built with lots of narrow pillars and archways. To the 'south' of all these previous rooms, opening to the Void House, is the Cursing Room. The Cursing Room is much larger, a collection of big open chambers, sandstone and white marble and compared to the previous rooms- very windy. The Deferring Room is to the 'east' of the other rooms of the Lotus Garden. It is as large as all the previous rooms combined, and holding the access points to the Threshold but also to the bridges to the Stellar House and the Gate Room. The Deferring Room appears seemingly ancient and worn down, covered in cracks and fissures, filled with dust and sand from worn down black stones. Through the innumerable cracks, water has seeped in until whole sections of the Room are filled to knee high depth with water.

Although the Threshold leads directly into the Lotus Garden, but bridges connect the Lotus Garden to the three other larger sections of the RIng: Void House, Stellar House, and the Gate Room. The Settler's Bridge connects the Deferring Room of the Lotus Garden to Stellar House. The Child's Bridge connects the Cursing Room to Void House. And the Slave's Bridge connects Deferring Room to the Gate Room.

Stellar House

Stellar House the Realm of Lady of Fire and is the burning hear of a star. Stellar House walls boil with stellar fusion, like observation windows in the heart of a volcano. Those with problems regarding enclosed spaces will find the suffocating heat and gravity of Stellar House to be an intense challenge. Despite the lethal appearance of their descriptions, since both Void House and Stellar House are conceptual locations, the danger is purely to the will and not the body.

Stellar House swelters with a dry arid heat. Denizens unaccustomed to such temperature will find themselves sweating profusely and easily exhausted. Stellar House is the location in the Shadowlands attuned to the Lady of Fire. Actions taken may draw her notice, especially if those actions are those of which she may approve or may disapprove. Space in Stellar House is distorted. Things may seem or actually be closer or further away than they appear to be at first glance.

Void House

Void House is the Realm of Man of Void and is absolute zero of the void for which he is named. Void House glitters with stars in the night. The walls appear hollow, literally the voids of deep interstellar space with impossible walls that threaten to break the mind. Despite the lethal appearance of their descriptions, since both Void House and Stellar House are conceptual locations, the danger is purely to the will and not the body.

The air in Void House is cold. Skin prickles and denizens not accustomed to the cold find themselves shivering and may even risk hypothermia or frost bite it still too long. Void House is the location in the Shadowlands attuned to the Man of Void. Actions taken may draw his notice, especially if those actions are those of which he may approve or may disapprove. Time is Distorted in VoidHouse. Denizens will sometimes experience events before the happen or after they happen. The past and future may be glimpsed in flashes.

The Gate Room

The Gate Room is a single room, divided in two by a great gate. The front half of the Gate Room is guarded by The Sentinel, a Gregorim- One of the Giants of the Foglands. The second half the Room contains the gates leading to the other realms. Each realm has a Key that can be found to enable direct travel to that realm from the Ring.

The Gate Room is crumbling, blocks have already drifted loose into the emptiness beyond and starlight twinkles through the gaps. Stones feel loose and shift beneath feet. Dust drifts in the air and streams of loose dust fall from the ceiling.

The six great pillars in the Gate Room are all wider than any normal human. And there is no position in the room where they do not restrict the sight lines somewhat. Carved upon the pillars are strange sigils and each pillar bears one of the following words: gluttony, submission, collaboration, intolerance, hubris, and iconoclasm.

A trough, roughly the width and depth of a fist runs in a rough rectangle around the room, inside the six pillars. The Trough has been painted a bright red. The Sentinel seems to refuse to step beyond the trough, but its enormous hammer can clearly reach well beyond the boundary of the trough.

An Introductory Look at the Monsters

The Misshapen and Gargantuan

The neutral parties of the Shadowlands, predator and prey. The monsters are sometimes intelligent and sometimes not. The common feature of monsters is that they are not human in appearance, although they will often have human features. They grant few favors, either ignoring or hunting those humans they encounter, dependent upon their nature.

• The Abominations
• The Wendigo  (The Stillborn Army)
• The Giants (The Grigorim)
• The Chimera (The Bakumera, The Name Eater, The Story Hunter, )

The Mystic Tools Skill Tree

The Mystic Tools available to Psychonauts break down into two branches: the Artifacts and the High Magick. High Magick is powerful and easily overwhelms opposition, but High Magick has a heavily maintenance cost. Artifacts are nowhere near as powerful, although still powerful. Artifacts are much easier to activate and maintain. 

A psychonaut can have up to three artifacts equipped and three spells equipped on any given incursion. 

However in order to equip each artifact and each spell, the psychonaut must learn a series of Shadowlands skills that are necessary to learn and use the artifacts and spells. 

The Ring

Psychonauts begin their first incursion in the Ring. During their first Incursion, psychonauts will not have access to their Vajra. Vajra is unlocked as part of the process of opening the Inner Eye. Since this is a major first step for the psychonauts, they will seek to open their Inner Eye. In order to do this, they must get to the Realm where a psychonaut is capable to open their Inner Eye. This Realm is the Foglands. The Foglands are the lands of ignorance and confusion, and so it here that the psychonaut must open their Inner Eye. 

The Inner Eye

The Inner Eye is how one views the Shadowlands. Once the Inner Eye is opened, the psychonaut may attune their eye through actions to one of three states. The default state is the Eye of Dusk. The other two states of the Inner Eye are the Enlightened Eye and the Darkened Eye. The darkened eye is attuned to the story and the shadowlands. An enlightened eye is attuned to the bonelands and to science. 

A darkened eye will also strengthen ability in the high magick. But the darkened eye opens one up to story and one with a darkened eye is more vulnerable to the attacks of abominations and denizens of the shadowlands and also more susceptible to high magick used by others. An enlightened eye will see through the former things take in the shadowlands to metaphor they represent, granting them resistance to attacks and high magick. But an enlightened eye sees fewer details of the shadowlands and has difficulty invoking the high magick. 

The Eye of Dusk offers none of those benefits. But it also offers none of the attached disadvantages. A psychonaut may atune their Inner Eye as they wish, but cannot spend vajra until the Inner Eye is opened and may not use artifacts or spell until the Inner Eye is open.

Flair and Style

Flair and Style are first twitches of High Magick and Artifact use. Both Flair and Style generate a passive each that useful on its own, but which has the primary purpose of shaping artifact and high magick use.

The Spark

A spark of genius or madness is necessary to work with artifacts and the artificer's craft. The Spark is the necessary ingredient to activate any artifact, and can only be gained from the Demon Courts of the Hidden Wood. There are twelve different sparks, each which provide a unique effect to all artifacts used by the psychonaut in question. An artificer's spark affect their capabilities as much as the three artifacts which they have equipped.

The Daemon

A minor demon of the Fair Folk Courts, the daemons are apprentices to the great Demons of the Courts. There are only four classes of daemons, one for each Court of the Solar Year, compared to the twelve types of Spark. The powers provided by each daemon still retains a substantial effect upon the Sorcerer's abilities. 

Artifacts and Spell Slots

Unlocking the spark and daemon allows the psychonaut to access the sphere of high magick and the artificer's craft, but without artifact and spell slots they have nothing with which to work. A psychonaut may unlock up to three slots for both artifacts and spells. A psychonaut may learn any number of spells from the available options, but may equip no more than their current number of spell slots on any one incursion. And the same is true for the artifact slots. The psychonaut may have a library full of spells and workshop jammed with artifacts, but may only ever equip a maximum of three for each during a particular incursion.

Unlocking The Capacity

• Unlock the Gate to the Foglands
• Enter the Foglands
• Open the Inner Eye

 The Artifier Branch

• Style
• Activate Avatar's Style
• Find a Spark
• Open First Artifact Slot
• Obtain Artifact
• Open Second Artifact Slot
• Obtain Artifact
• Open Third Artifact Slot
• Obtain Artifact

The Sorcerer Branch

• Flair
• Activate Avatar's Flair
• Befriend and bond with a Demon
• Open First Spell Slot
• Obtain Spell
• Open Second Spell Slot
• Obtain Spell
• Open Third Spell Slot
• Obtain Spell

The Lexicon

Even the least thorough reader is going to notice a lot of strange terminology. What is the Shadowlands? Who are the Psychonauts? What is an Outsider? How does one obtain and Avatar and how does an Avatar Shatter? And so on and so on. The Lexicon will help with this. Not, you know, a lot -if you don't read the rest of this- but some.

A

• Arcadia: This is not utopian or idyllic, but many mistake it as such to their pain and surprise. This is the land of the Free Peoples, and it is wild and independent, so be wary and be strong.
• Aura: The Aura is the energetic force field that keeps your avatar in the Shadowlands during an incursion. You invest your Avatar with Vajra activate the Aura, and if your Avatar is threatened by the stress of the story, the aura could waiver and even shatter. And then you could wind up on your ass back in the Bonelands while your team carries on.
• Autumn: The last season prior to the Dark. The Autumn months are the last months with regular lengths, compared to the variable lengths of the Dark Months.
• Avatar: Blood Red Dreaming is a game that takes place mostly in the realm of shared stories: The Shadowlands. But your body isn't made of story stuff. Your body belongs in the Bonelands. So you need to create a virtual body, a body for the realm of stories: your Avatar. Think about the Matrix and you got it. Your Avatar is you, but just a little bit cooler. Just don't take it into the Shadowlands naked and without an Aura.

B

• Becoming Dark: The variable month of the largest size. The Becoming Dark goes from the end of Autumn until the day of the dark solstice, commonly called the winter solstice in other calendars.
• Blood Feud, the: Used to describe the first conflict that split the Great Tribe in the ancient stories of the Painted Labyrinth.
• Bonelands, the: The so-called real world, the world of flesh and bone, the world of fact and science- the alien world so far beyond the capacity of the human mind that we created the Shadowlands again and again to escape it.
• Broken, the: The mighty giants which inhabit the Foglands, also the Giants and technically referred to as Gregorim. The Broken are mysterious and silent, but near invulnerable and enormous. They will generall ignore psychonauts, unless one breaks their arcane and labyrinthine laws- after which they are wrath and fury personified.

C

• City of Glass: The name of both the third Realm as one descends and also the capital city of the Hungry Empire. The land of the Locust King and his Hungry Empire, his false utopia that hovers- a castle city in the sky. Without secret knowledge of the Free Peoples, wanderers in the Shadowlands will be hard pressed to move deeper, beyond the grip of the False King and his Hungry Empire.
• Corrupt, the: Those who have been destroyed by the influence of the Grey Locust. Notable sub groups include the Wendigo and the Stillborn Army.
• Crescent Sun: a common term used to describe the 6 season lunisolar calendar used in the Blood Red Dreaming.

D

• Darkening, the: The last season of the Crescent Sun, consisting of The Becoming Dark and The Full Dark.
• Demon: Also called the Fair Folk. The keepers of the High Magick and the evil foes of the Locust King's propaganda.
• Denizen: Many beings delve into the Shadowlands on their ill thought out incursions. But many more beings make the Shadowlands their permanent home. These beings are born, live and die in the Shadowlands. The Bonelands is toxic to these beings, they are purely denizens of the Shadowlands and have no power outside it.

E

• Elder: the greatest denizens of the Shadowlands, beyond everything else in the Shadowlands. The Elders have many forms, although none of them are able to fully approximate human form with any skill. They are sympathetic to humans in the Shadowlands, but think in such alien ways that they are very dangerous to deal with directly or from whom to seek aid. The Elders are the personification of concepts, and only Man of Void/Lady of Fire might ever have a connection to some actual human.
• Expedition: These incursions are linked to locations in the Shadowlands and unlocked by reaching that location's counterpart in the Bonelands first.

F

• Fair Folk, the: The Greater Sorcerers of the Shadowlands - also known as the Demons. The Fair Folk are the mythic beings that wear human forms: Elves and Goblins and Gnomes. They are the keepers of Magick and will be teachers and patrons to human sorcerers. Often mistaken for Gods, the difference is that Fair Folk need no worship or offerings. The Fair Folk will normally trade or barter for their favor or their instruction. The Fair Folk may appear most human like, but they are not human. Like the Elders they are sympathetic to humans in the Shadowlands. But also like the Elders, their minds are alien and they do not see things as humans do.
• Foglands, the: The land of ignorance and obscurity. The first place everyone who enters the Shadowlands ends up in after they pass through (or bypass) the Ring. The Fogslands is the unformed land of the unconscious: Urizen and Eden, depending upon how the player enters and what happens. This is how people end up in the Shadowlands if untrained. This is always the first mission. This is the equivalent of the Astral Plane or the realm of dreams and many dreamers end up here.
• Free Peoples: Those who live by the Song of Seven and follow the Freepath are collectively known as the Free Peoples. They are, as one would expect of a group name as such, a very loose affiliation of many disparate groups. The Free Peoples are contrasted to the Locust Touched.

G

• Giants, the: Another name for the Gregorim, also called the Broken.
• God: The Bankers of Vajra and Souls. Gods are composite beings. Incorporeal as Spirits, derived from concepts as Elders, and bearing anthropomorphic avatars as Fair Folk; Gods have one unifying factor. Gods require human belief, human prayer, sacrifice and offerings.
• Great Tribe, the: This term pulls double duty, referring to both the first life to arise back in ancient times, and also for the brought alliance of all Tribes who follow the Freepath and the Song of Seven.
• Gregorim, the: Though they seem unable or unwilling to speak, legends of legends told by people long dead suggest that Gregorim is the name that the Broken Giants give to themselves.
• Greenlands, the: This is another name for the realm of Arcadia.

H

• High Magick: the raw essence of the Shadowlands; a weaponized essence of story. High Magick is learned through the Witches and Wizards. When High Magick is used, the caster is channeling the power of the Demons known as the Fair Folk.
• Hidden Heart, the: Another name for the Hollow Heart, the secret Realm at the heart of the Shadowlands.
• Hollow Heart, the: The Secret Heart of the Shadowlands and the counterpoint to the Ring. The Hollow Heart is the bottom or the 'root' of the Shadowlands. A dimension of darkness. This is the source code of the Shadowlands and the cheat code of the realms.
• Hungry Empire, the: If there is a villain in this tale, it is the Hungry Empire. Lead by the Locust King, powered by Falsenight and guided by the Grey, the Hungry Empire spreads like cancer and consumes its host in the end.

I

• Incursion: When an avatar steps through the Ring and into the Shadowlands, they have made an incursion into the Shadowlands. Incursions can be divided into three types. The first type of incursions are unguided incursions with no intentional purpose or goal. More common are expeditions, and quests, which have goals set at the start of the incursion.

J

• Juggler: Once a psychonaut opens their inner eye and gains access to both High Magick and Low Magick. A psychonaut who specializes in Low Magick is called a Juggler.

K

• Kudavbin King, the: Associated with the legend of Mordred by the propaganda of the Glass City, the Kudavbin King is the older brother of the First Mother. The rebel son of the Locust Kings. He is the king who denies his crown and thus makes his father the Last King.

L

• Locust Touched, the: Those who have drawn their sustenance from the Grey are broadly defined as the Locust Touched.
• Low Magick, the: It stands in opposition to the High Magick. The Low Magick is the illusion of magic- sleight of hand and misdirection. But only a fool would discount the Low Magick and its powerful utility in the Shadowlands.

M

• Magick: Language and story, myth and legend, shaping perception and memory. This is magick. One does not hurl fireballs. Magick is more subtle and more powerful than that. Magick is divided into High Magick and Low Magick and the two cannot be used together. Choose your magick before your incursion and pray your choice is correct.
• Mirrored City: Another name for the City of Glass.
• Monsters: The Misshapen and Gargantuan. The neutral parties of the Shadowlands, predator and prey. The monsters are sometimes intelligent and sometimes not. The common feature of monsters is that they are not human in appearance, although they will often have human features. They grant no favors, either ignoring or hunting those humans they encounter, dependent upon their nature.

N

O

• Old Ones, the: Another name for the Elders.
• Outsiders: Another name for the Elders.

P

• Painted Labyrinth, the: The place of trials, the deepest part of the Shadowlands, a realm of initiation and the keeper of ancient mysteries. All who seek to become warriors must journey here, but have a care- the labyrinth devours the unwary.
• Poison Tree: A great limbless tree, bleached white by age, the Poison Tree is the version of the Glass Tower as it appears in the Foglands.
• Psychonaut: Those who venture into the Shadowlands are known as Psychonauts.
• Psychopomps, the: As the Shadowlands are the lands of fiction and story, so are they also they also the lands of the afterlife. The Psychopomps are the caravans and carriages between the Realms. If a psychonaut wishes to move between realms without braving the Glass Tower.

Q

• Quest: These story driven incursions enable Psychonauts to re-enact the legends of the old and thereby gain access of artifacts of legend and learn the secrets of various High and Low Magicks.

R

• Rains, the: The second season of the Crescent Sun, following Winter and preceding Spring, consisting of Cold Rain and Fresh Rain.
• Realm: The distinct but connected worlds of the Shadowlands. The Shadowlands are divided into six Realms: The Ring, The Foglands, The Mirrored City, Arcadia, The Painted Labyrinth, and the Hidden Heart. The non-liminal realms of the Foglands, the City of Glass, Arcadia, and the Painted Labyrinth are connected by the Glass Tower.
• Ring, the: The chamber at the end of universe, but is it this universe or the last one? The Ring is the permeable shell through which avatars enter the Waking Shadowlands and through which they must pass to use any gates to move from gate to gate. Think 'Event Horizon' or Nightcrawler's teleport ability. But it's a drug trip. This implies that drug trips dip people into the ring unprotected with their minds exposed.

S

• Serpent Lines:
• Shadowlands, the: Human minds cannot handle the cold reality of the Bonelands. And so humans built new worlds of fantasy out of their stories and fled their to protect their minds from running over. And these worlds of illusion are the Shadowlands. You will spend your whole life in the Shadowlands, but only by entering consciously as a Psychonaut can one take an active role in the shape of the Shadowlands.
• Sorcerer: Once a psychonaut opens their inner eye and gains access to both High Magick and Low Magick. A psychonaut who specializes in High Magick is a Sorcerer.
• Spirits, the: The personification of illness and disease, of medicine and of places. They are beings without a form or body, though many bear a ghostly image; humans in the Shadowlands are unable to interact with spirits in a corporeal manner.
• Spring, the: The third season of the Crescent Sun, following the Rains and preceding Summer, consisting of New Spring and Warm Spring.
• Stillborn Army, the: Former humans, these are victims of the shrapnel of the Hungry Empire. The Wendigo Hordes and other Locust Touched unaligned with the Hungry Empire formally.
• Storyteller: When people invest their auras and launch an incursion into the Shadowlands, one must remain behind and guide the incursion. This person is the Storyteller and since magick is story, the storyteller's role is sacred. Groups should swap Storyteller duties regularly.

T

• Tribe: A group of people not yet beholden to the Hungry Empire.

U

V

• Vajra: The fuel on which the Avatars function. Vajra is the mystical energy of the human will and of story.

W

• Wendigo: a type of Corrupt who are always hungry, and always starving. Their hunger has warped their senses and a psychonaut will be hard pressed to communicate with any of the corrupt... unless one considers the sounds of digestion to be communication.
• Witch: Resistance to the Hungry Empire, and mentors to Psychonauts. It is through the teaching of the Witches and Wizards that Sorcerers learn Magick, both High Magick and Low Magick.
• Wizard: Like the Witches, the wizards are the guerilla war against the Locust King and the Obi-Won to many Sorcerers.

X

Y

Z

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