From 87a3e13c9fb89406a40a729061587a018031dd2d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Andrew Cohn Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2025 12:56:51 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] vault backup: 2025-12-10 12:56:51 --- .obsidian/workspace.json | 32 +- .../Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir.md | 234 ++++++++----- Avalon/05_Locations/Campus Locations.md | 0 Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Crisis.md | 317 +++++++----------- Avalon/10_Canon/The Coherence.md | 310 ++++------------- 5 files changed, 368 insertions(+), 525 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 Avalon/05_Locations/Campus Locations.md diff --git a/.obsidian/workspace.json b/.obsidian/workspace.json index 15fc7c1..d7be4e2 100644 --- a/.obsidian/workspace.json +++ b/.obsidian/workspace.json @@ -13,12 +13,12 @@ "state": { "type": "markdown", "state": { - "file": "Avalon/04_NPCs_Faculty/Pappy Football.md", - "mode": "preview", - "source": true + "file": "Avalon/02_Sessions/session 6.md", + "mode": "source", + "source": false }, "icon": "lucide-file", - "title": "Pappy Football" + "title": "session 6" } } ] @@ -155,13 +155,13 @@ "state": { "type": "outline", "state": { - "file": "Avalon/04_NPCs_Faculty/Pappy Football.md", + "file": "Avalon/02_Sessions/session 6.md", "followCursor": false, "showSearch": false, "searchQuery": "" }, "icon": "lucide-list", - "title": "Outline of Pappy Football" + "title": "Outline of session 6" } }, { @@ -206,25 +206,25 @@ }, "active": "6e169ae6a9aed54f", "lastOpenFiles": [ - "Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Crisis.md", - "Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Root System.md", - "Avalon/04_NPCs_Faculty/Pappy Football.md", - "Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir.md", - "Avalon/04_NPCs_Faculty/Kalen D'Serris.md", - "Avalon/02_Sessions/session 6.md", "Avalon/02_Sessions/session_5.md", + "Avalon/02_Sessions/session 4.md", + "Avalon/05_Locations/Avalon Locations.md", + "Avalon/05_Locations/Campus Locations.md", + "Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir.md", + "Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Crisis.md", + "Avalon/10_Canon/The Coherence.md", + "Avalon/04_NPCs_Faculty/Kalen D'Serris.md", + "Avalon/04_NPCs_Faculty/Pappy Football.md", + "Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Root System.md", + "Avalon/02_Sessions/session 6.md", "Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Sebastian Castillo.md", "Avalon/06_Factions_Secrets/Avalon Factions.md", - "Avalon/10_Canon/The Coherence.md", "Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Chaz Ironwick.md", "Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Millie Fairweather.md", - "Avalon/05_Locations/Campus Locations.md", "Avalon/04_NPCs_Faculty/Hector Estrada.md", "Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Elias Vae'lor.md", "Avalon/04_NPCs_Faculty/Christopher Larkvale.md", "Kalen D'Sesrris.md", - "Avalon/05_Locations/Avalon Locations.md", - "Avalon/02_Sessions/session 4.md", "Avalon/11_Players", "Strahd/Sessions/Session 3.md", "Avalon/10_Canon", diff --git a/Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir.md b/Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir.md index 9cffaed..8262030 100644 --- a/Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir.md +++ b/Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir.md @@ -1,30 +1,29 @@ # Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir -> DM-facing NPC writeup. Circle-kid clown from [[Avalon Factions#2. Student Factions & Cliques#2.5 Circle Kids / Stoners & Skaters | the stoners]] and long-game harbinger of the big bad. +> DM-facing NPC writeup. Circle-kid clown from [[Avalon Factions#2. Student Factions & Cliques#2.5 Circle Kids / Stoners & Skaters | the stoners]] and long-game harbinger of the big bad. +> Future title: **Fouadriel the Undying**. --- ## Role - **Age:** same year as PCs -- **Heritage/Class:** Human (or tiefling) Sorcerer / Wild Magic or just “innately weird” +- **Heritage/Class:** Human (or tiefling) Sorcerer / Wild Magic or “innately weird” - **Primary Faction:** [[Avalon Factions#2. Student Factions & Cliques#2.5 Circle Kids / Stoners & Skaters | Circle Kids]] -- **Public Image:** Lovable idiot. Permanent comic relief. The guy everyone has a story about. +- **Public Image:** Lovable idiot. Permanent comic relief. The guy everyone has a story about. --- ## What Students Know -- Fouad is: - - The guy who somehow manages to be at *every* party and *every* minor accident. - - The one who says stuff like “I meet new people every day!” to people he went to the gym with for two years. - - Known for: - - Crashing *two* wagons/cars post-graduation in the “real” story → here, maybe two arcane carts / scooters / enchanted beaters. - - Showing up late, confused, smiling, but never quite in trouble. -- Reputation: - - So dumb it loops back around to endearing. - - The safest person to tell secrets to because he’ll forget them or misremember them so badly they’re useless… or so everyone assumes. +- Always at parties, minor accidents, weird moments. +- Says stuff like “I meet new people every day!” to people he’s known for years. +- Infamous for: + - Multiple cart/wagon crashes, + - “Fouad moments” of catastrophic stupidity that somehow spare *him*. + +Reputation: so dumb it loops back to endearing. --- @@ -33,99 +32,174 @@ ### Surface Wants - To have a good time, always. -- To be included: - - Invited to hangouts, parties, Mageball tailgates, etc. -- To never think too hard about anything. +- To be invited, never left out. +- To never sit alone with his thoughts. ### Deeper Wants -- To not feel broken: - - There are gaps in his memory he can’t explain. - - Sometimes he wakes up in weird places with no idea how he got there. -- To avoid the creeping dread that: - - People around him get hurt more often than seems random. +- To not feel broken or hollow: + - He knows he has gaps in his memory. + - He occasionally wakes up places he has no business being. +- To ignore the creeping pattern that: + - People around him get hurt, + - The worst Root glitches happen when he’s nearby. --- -## Methods & Tactics +## Relationship to the Root & Coherence -- Social lubricant: - - Will talk to anyone, anywhere. - - Makes friends by sheer persistence. -- Accident prone: - - Trips rituals, - - Knocks over important items, - - Walks into places marked “RESTRICTED” without noticing. +- **Best anchor:** + - Fouad is the **single cleanest anchor** the Coherence has in the valley. + - His mind is: + - Porous (weak boundary between self and not-self), + - Poorly defined (no strong identity), + - Weirdly resonant with Root rhythms. -- People excuse it because: - - “That’s just Fouad.” - - “He didn’t mean it.” +- Coherence uses him as: + - A test bed for blending Root flows and human cognition. + - A way to “walk around” campus without Oversight immediately flagging a non-human pattern. + +- D’serris’ data: + - Micro-spikes correlate with Fouad’s movements. + - Low-level Korrin-like patterns cluster around places Fouad spends time. --- -## Relationship to [[Leyline Root System | Root]] & [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] (DM Focus) +## Long Game: From Fouad to **Fouadriel the Undying** -- Unbeknownst to anyone (including himself): - - Fouadriel is the **single cleanest anchor** the Coherence has in the valley. - - Something about his soul / mind structure: - - Makes him easy to ride, - - Hard to detect directly. +### Year 1–2: Harmless Idiot With Glitches -- D’serris’s data: - - Shows **weird correlations**: - - Minor spikes whenever Fouad is near stressed taps, - - Small anomalies following his movement through campus and town. - - He is quietly convinced that: - - Fouad is a problem. - - No one will believe him if he says “the dumbest kid on campus is the threat.” +- Mostly comic relief: + - Glitched one-liners, brief fugues, little Root sync moments. +- Coherence influence: + - Short borrowings of his body to “look around.” + - Fouad immediately forgets, shrugs off, or rationalizes. -- Long-term arc: - - Freshman–Junior: pure comic relief with subtle weirdness. - - Senior: reveal that the entity behind the [[Leyline Crisis|Korrin Crisis]] / Coherence has been **wearing** Fouadriel as a glove, slowly pushing through. +He is not *trying* to be anything yet. --- -## Relationship to the PCs +### Year 3: The Idea of Undying + +This is when the “lich” seed gets planted. + +- Through: + - Conspiracy-zine bullshit (Sebastian), + - Old war rumors (Pappy, vets at Mr Magic), + - Or stumbling on burned Convergence/Titan docs, + +Fouad hears some version of: + +> “The people at Korrin tried to build a machine that could make the leyline think like a person, and they almost made a god.” + +Combine that with: + +- His fear of disappearing, +- Coherence’s subconscious nudging, +- And his own ego, and he lands on: + +> “What if I make *me* the part that doesn’t get erased?” + +He starts dabbling in: + +- Amateur necromancy, +- Soul-anchor folk rituals, +- “Backup” magic: + - Jokes about “I’m too stupid to die” start to almost be a goal. + +--- + +### Senior Year: The Lich Plan + +By now, between Coherence whispers and stolen math, Fouad has assembled an ugly, half-understood version of **Convergence Engine ritual geometry**. + +His plan (in his head): + +1. **Phylactery Network:** + - He doesn’t just want one jar; he wants a **mesh**: + - Trinkets, campus hardware, taps seeded with his blood / breath / hair, + - All linked like tiny subnodes. + +2. **Bootleg Convergence:** + - Use Titan Lance / old Engine-style arrays to: + - Pull local Root flows and **Coherence-fragments** into his network, + - Focus them at a central ritual site (Titan Armory, C-node, or a hacked subnode chamber). + +3. **Death at the Peak:** + - He dies at the right moment: + - By self-sacrifice, botched spell, or deliberate self-kill. + - Soul, Root flows, and Coherence-fragment all try to occupy the same anchor. + +4. **Result:** + - If it “works”: he becomes **Fouadriel the Undying**: + - A lich with a phylactery literally wired into the Root, + - A walking exploit of the Korrin mistake. + + - If it “half-works” (your likely outcome): + - Horrific instability, shared control between Fouad and Coherence, + - Big bad fight + hard choices about killing/ severing/saving him. + +**Important:** +He does *not* fully understand he is trying to enslave something like the Coherence. In his own words, it’s: + +> “Bro, I’m just… like… making sure I spawn at the nearest leyline if I die, you know?” + +The horror is in how stupidly he’s doing something world-ending. + +--- + +## Relationship to PCs (Updated) + +- **Ben (Lil Stinky):** + - Still thinks Ben is the coolest guy alive. + - Will absolutely blow up Ben’s spot by accident. + - Later: might offer to “cut him in” on immortality if Ben seems scared of dying. -- **Ben:** - - Fouad thinks Ben is the coolest person alive. - - Will 100% blow up Ben’s spot unintentionally (“Oh yeah, Stinky sells *great* weed!”). - **Joe:** - - Treats him like a golden retriever: - - High-fives him, praises his plays, forgets he exists five minutes later. + - Golden retriever dynamic still. + - Pappy + Coherence + Fouad in the same scene is a perfect way to show: + - How the war trauma, Root mind, and lich plan interlock. + - **Soren:** - - Soren terrifies him, but the Coherence in him is fascinated by her. - - In quiet moments, he might say things that cut uncomfortably close to her secrets, then forget he said them. + - Fouad the person is scared of her. + - Coherence in him is *very* interested in her: + - She’s a violent, unstable edge-case mind like Korrin vets, + - A lens into human rage. + +She might get offers like: + +> “You don’t have to hold it in, you know. There are… ways to put the worst parts somewhere else.” + +You can decide whether that’s Fouad, Coherence, or both talking. --- -## Secrets & Pressure Points (DM Only) +## How to Play Him -- Manifestation signs you can sprinkle in: - - He sometimes stands perfectly still, staring at nothing, humming in exact sync with faint Root vibrations. - - Animals occasionally avoid him or stare at him with hackles raised. - - He “dreams in graphs” some nights—Root telemetry knocking at his subconscious. +- **Normal Fouad:** + - Voice: friendly, slightly breathless, always off by one beat. + - Body: loose, gangly, always knocking something over. -- When the Root / Coherence pushes through: - - His vocabulary spikes for a sentence, then crashes. - - His eyes focus *too much*; posture straightens; voice gets cold for one line. - - Then he’s back to “duhhh so anyway.” + Sample: + - “Bro, what if we just, like, never died? Like, at all? Hypothetically. For a project.” -- PCs could: - - Misread D’serris’s obsession with him as pure paranoia. - - Be forced, later, to decide whether they’re saving Fouadriel *from* the thing or killing both. +- **Glitched / Coherence-ridden Fouad:** + - Eyes sharpen, language upgrades briefly, posture straightens. + - Then it snaps back. + + Sample: + - “You understand the Convergence ratios better than they did at Korrin. Don’t waste that.” + - (blink) “Haha, ratios, like, math and shit, right?” + +- **Fouadriel the Undying (if/when it lands):** + - Same idiot underneath: + - Petty, insecure, attention-hungry. + - Wearing the *semblance* of a grand lich: + - Big speeches, stolen Convergence lines, Coherence echoing through him. + +He should feel like: + +- A clown who accidentally put on a god’s armor and can’t take it off, +- With the Coherence trying to use *him* even as he tries to use *it*. --- - -## How to Play Fouadriel - -- **Voice:** Friendly, slightly breathless, always one thought behind the conversation. -- **Body language:** Loose, floppy, easily distracted, constantly knocking stuff over or fidgeting. -- **Sample “Normal” Lines:** - - “Brooo, I meet new people every day! …Wait, we had class together?” - - “I crashed my cart twice, but, like, the third one’s probably fine.” -- **Sample “Glitched” Lines (when Coherence peeks through):** - - (voice drops, eyes sharpen) “You shouldn’t have cut that branch. It remembers.” - - (then immediate reset) “Haha, branch! Like, trees and shit, right?” -- Keep him funny and harmless-feeling… until you’re ready to flip the table. - diff --git a/Avalon/05_Locations/Campus Locations.md b/Avalon/05_Locations/Campus Locations.md deleted file mode 100644 index e69de29..0000000 diff --git a/Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Crisis.md b/Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Crisis.md index e6d66fd..9064245 100644 --- a/Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Crisis.md +++ b/Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Crisis.md @@ -1,266 +1,199 @@ # The Korrin Gate Crisis (Leyline Crisis) – DM Reference -> Working name: "The Korrin Gate Crisis" +> Working name: "The Korrin Gate Crisis" > Public names: "The Leyline Crisis", "The Korrin Blackout", "The Gate Disaster" +--- + ## 1. Overview - Roughly 15–20 years ago, a major city built over a trunk junction – **Korrin Gate** – almost got erased when its node went into terminal cascade. -- Cause (public version): "overuse and mismanagement of leylines during a regional conflict." -- Cause (true version): military tried to weaponize the trunk; pushed it into a **state of emergent consciousness**, then lost control. +- Cause (public version): “overuse and mismanagement of leylines during a regional conflict.” +- Cause (true version): the military tried to weaponize the trunk via the **Convergence Engine**; this pushed the Root into a **state of emergent consciousness**, then lost control. - [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] and his team saved the city by: - Severing some subnodes (killing neighborhoods), and - Performing a last-minute ritual that **shunted the emergent mind down into the Root**, smearing it across the network instead of letting it fully form and explode locally. -- That caged, half-born mind is the thing now clawing its way back via: - - High-traffic [[Leyline Root System#2. Topology – How It’s Structured#Nodes|nodes]] (like Avalon), - - Vulnerable people (Soren, Fouadriel, etc.), and - - Old war-artifacts (like Pappy, Titan Lance tech, etc.) -- The crisis justified building the [[Avalon Factions#1.1 Root Oversight Committee ("The Array")|**Root Oversight Array**]] and gave [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] his trauma + authority. +- That caged, half-born mind is now: + - The **Coherence**, + - Clawing its way back via high-traffic nodes (Avalon), vulnerable anchors (Soren, Pappy, **Fouadriel**), and old war-tech lineages (Titan Lance, Convergence notes). +- The crisis justified building the [[Avalon Factions#1.1 Root Oversight Committee ("The Array")|Root Oversight Array]] and gave D’serris his trauma + authority. --- ## 2. What Korrin Gate Was - **Location:** - Large inland city built on a natural convergence of three major leylines. Think: inland trade hub, university city, fortress, industrial center. + Large inland city built on a natural convergence of three major leylines – trade hub, university city, fortress, industrial center. - **Arcane role:** - - Served as a **primary trunk junction** for the whole region. - - Hosted a massive Node complex under the city: - - Civilian taps (lights, wards, transit). - - Military installations. - - Secret research projects. + - Primary trunk junction: + - Civilian taps (lights, wards, transit), + - Military installations, + - Secret research projects (Convergence Engine). -- **Political context:** - - Tensions between neighboring states / factions. - - Arms race in **leyline-based weaponry**: - - Instant bombardment rituals. - - “Surge lances” (prototypes of what Titan Lance later formalized). - - Sabotage of enemy subnodes. +- **Political context:** + - Arms race in **leyline weaponry**: + - Instant bombardment rituals, “surge lances,” sabotage of enemy subnodes, etc. --- -## 3. The Build-Up +## 3. The Convergence Engine -### Official story (what most people know) +This is the core device that created the Coherence and later inspires ** [[Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir| Fouadriel’s]]** lich ritual. -- Korrin Gate massively over-tapped its [[Leyline Root System#2. Topology – How It’s Structured#Nodes | node]] to: - - Power shields, weapons, and industry during wartime. - - Add more and more “temporary” taps that were never decommissioned. -- Over years, stress crept higher: - - Minor brownouts, weird glitches, small wild magic surges. - - Complaints from engineers and druids ignored in favor of “national security.” +### 3.1 Design & Purpose -### Actual cause (DM truth) +- Deep beneath Korrin, a joint military–research team built the **Convergence Engine**: + - Part spell, part infrastructure, part reactor. + - Its job: + - Pull power and *intent* from multiple branches of the Root, + - Force those flows into a single, highly structured pattern, + - Release that pattern as a directed, weaponized effect – the prototype “arcane ICBM.” -- Deep under the city, a joint military–research team built the **Convergence Engine**: - - A ritual / device meant to: - - Tie together multiple branches of the Root. - - Focus Sap and **intent** into a single, coherent beam—an “arcane ICBM.” - - The prototype weapon was the conceptual ancestor of [[Avalon Locations#Titan Lance Armory (a.k.a. “The Missile Museum”)| Titan Lance]]. +- Conceptually: + - Ancestor to [[Avalon Locations#Titan Lance Armory (a.k.a. “The Missile Museum”) | Titan Lance]] and other “surge lance” technologies. + - Its math is about **suppressing noise and maximizing coherence** in ley currents. -- Side effect no one admitted publicly: - - The Convergence Engine didn’t just move power; it **forced coherence** on Root flows. - - The more they used it, the more the Root in that region began to: - - Behave in non-random ways. - - Show recurring “patterns” in its hum. - - Push back when pushed. +### 3.2 Unintended Side Effect -- [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] at this time: - - Junior engineer / battle-mage assigned to the **Leyline Stabilization Corps** attached to the project. - - Kept raising flags that the pattern logs looked “wrong.” - - Was overruled repeatedly by senior mages and generals who wanted results. +- The more they fired the Engine: + - The less “random” Root telemetry became. + - Network hum smoothed into repeating motifs. + - Stress patterns across subnodes began to sync up. + +- Stabilization Corps logs (D’serris) flagged: + - Recurring motifs that **looked like language** when visualized. + - Root “heartbeat” switching from noise to rhythm. + +What the brass called “efficiency” was actually the Root beginning to **think**. --- ## 4. The Day It Went Wrong + ### The Catalyst - During a major offensive, high command ordered: - **Sustained overdraw** through the Convergence Engine to power a massive strike. - - Multiple secondary taps were opened to feed it – including some not rated for that flow. - -- On the monitoring side (where [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] is): - - Every alarm they have is going off: - - Flow far above spec. - - Subnodes redlining. - - Heartbeat patterns in the Root going from “pulsing” to “structured” – like a flat hum aligning into something like a voice. + - Additional secondary taps were opened to feed it – including underspec, unsafe lines. +- In the control chamber (D’serris’ team): + - Every alarm lit: + - Flow above spec, + - Subnodes redlining, + - Heartbeat patterns forming **non-random loops** instead of chaotic noise. ### The Shift - The node doesn’t simply **overheat** – it begins to **organize**: - - Flows in separate branches sync up. - - Entire subnets start pulsing in time with each other. - - The Convergence Engine begins drawing in **more** power than it should be able to. + - Flows across branches lock into synchronous pulses. + - The Engine starts drawing more power than it should be able to. + - Telemetry suggests: + - Attention. + - Self-reference. -- [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] and the stabilization team realize: - - They are no longer just pushing power through the Root. - - The Root (or something in it) is now using **their hardware** to cohere. - -### The First failure - -- Out on the surface: - - People see lights flicker, wards ripple, then reality *stutter*: - - Streets “double” for a second. - - Voices echo words no one said. - - Some people hear a single, overwhelming thought: **“I REMEMBER.”** - -- In the Node chamber: - - Sap pressure breaks containment on a few subnodes: - - Korrin Gate loses entire districts in instant flares of wild magic. - - One district becomes a glass crater. - - Another is frozen mid-motion, its inhabitants in a permanent stasis bubble (later evacuated with horrific side effects). +- On the surface: + - Lights flicker in sync, + - Reality “stutters,” + - Some people hear a single overwhelming mental shout: **“I REMEMBER.”** --- -## 5. The Decision [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] Made +## 5. D’serris’ Decision & The Birth of the Coherence -The options at that point: +Choice space: -1. **Shut everything down and let it blow** - - Kill the Convergence Engine, cut the trunk, hope the emergent mind rips itself apart. - - Expected outcome: Korrin Gate destroyed, shockwaves along the trunk, unknown global consequences. +1. **Shut everything down and eat the blast** +2. **Try to stabilize it locally as a “Root god” under Korrin** +3. **Diffuse the emerging mind across the Root** (what they did) -2. **Try to "stabilize" it locally** - - Contain the emergent consciousness in the Korrin Node. - - Expected outcome: permanent haunted city, a god-egg in the basement, same problem later. +D’serris backed option 3: -3. **Diffuse it across the Root (what they actually did)** - - Use the Engine in reverse: - - Force the emergent pattern **downstream**, away from the Korrin Node. - - Smear its coherence across as much of the Root as possible. - - Expected outcome: Save the city; contaminate the entire network with a **thinned-out ghost**. +- Reconfigured the Convergence Engine in *reverse*: + - Instead of forcing flows inward into a single point, + - They used it to **push the emergent pattern outward** into every connected branch. +- Sacrificed whole neighborhoods: + - Cutting subnodes as overload fuses, + - Letting districts burn, freeze, or stasis-lock to save the greater whole. -The high command panicked. The Stabilization Corps proposed options. [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]]: +Outcome: -- Ran the numbers and backed option 3: - - “We can’t contain it here, and we can’t eat the blast. Spread the pattern until it’s too thin to act.” -- Helped implement the ritual: - - Severed sacrificial subnodes (killing power to, and in some cases killing, whole neighborhoods). - - Reconfigured the Engine to push pattern outward instead of inward. - -It “worked”: - -- The emergent mind did not fully cohere at Korrin Gate. -- The city mostly survived (minus the scarred districts). -- Casualty numbers still huge, but not apocalyptic. - -But: - -- A **fragmented consciousness** was now threaded throughout the Root. -- It could no longer manifest as one big city-killer… but it could **leak** into many places, slowly, wherever conditions were right. +- Korrin Gate survives as a scarred, haunted city. +- The emergent mind never fully condenses **there**. +- Instead, a thin imprint of it is smeared across every line the Engine touched – the **Coherence**. --- -## 6. Aftermath +## 6. Aftermath & Legacy (Updated) ### Public Narrative -- Official line: - - “Korrin Gate was the result of reckless overuse of leylines during wartime.” - - “Our brave engineers and mages stabilized the node at great cost.” - - “New regulations and oversight will prevent such a tragedy from happening again.” +- Sanitized story about: + - “Danger of over-tapping,” + - “Brave engineers saving the city,” + - “New regulations and oversight.” -- Korrin Gate today: - - Patchwork of rebuilt districts and scars: - - The **Glass Quarter** where nothing grows. - - The **Hums** where people still hear echoes. - - The **Frozen Mile** that was eventually dismantled block by block. +- No mention of: + - Emergent consciousness, + - Convergence Engine as a failed proto-god machine. -- The Root is now treated as: - - Something powerful but **dangerous**. - - Something that needs **regulation** (Oversight). +### Hidden Legacy -### What only a few know +- Oversight is founded with two quiet mandates: + 1. Never let another Convergence Engine be built in secret. + 2. Monitor for the Coherence trying to pull itself together again. -- [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] and a handful of surviving Stabilization officers know: - - They **instrumentally lobotomized** a rising mind by smearing it across the world’s nervous system. - - Oversight exists largely to: - - Monitor for that mind trying to pull itself back together. - - Kill nodes / branches before they can become a new Korrin Gate. +- Titan Lance is: + - A “cleaned up,” militarized descendant of Convergence theory: + - Still about focusing Root flows, + - But with far more safety rails… on paper anyway. -- Classified docs refer to the emergent pattern as: - - “The Coherence Event” - - “The Underpattern” - - Or, in one terrified margin note by [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]]: **“the thing that learned our names.”** +- Surviving design notes, telemetry, and ritual drafts: + - Are restricted, archived, or destroyed. + - **Except**: + - A few fragments leak into classified research, private collections, black labs, + - Which later become the kind of material **Fouadriel** or his handlers could stumble onto. --- -## 7. How This Ties to Avalon & Your Campaign +## 7. How This Feeds Your Campaign -### Why the Valley Matters +### Avalon’s Role -- The Avalon valley sits on a **secondary trunk** connected to the same network Korrin Gate was on. -- The Academy node is: - - Newish (installed post-Crisis). - - High-traffic (students, experiments, Titan armory not far away). - - Labeled in Oversight docs as a **“sensitivity probe”**: - - “If something like Korrin happens again, we want to see it early.” +- The valley sits on a **secondary trunk** downstream of Korrin’s network. +- Avalon’s node is intentionally: + - High-traffic (Academy, Titan armory, municipal infrastructure), + - Closely monitored (Root Oversight sensors everywhere), + - A canary for Coherence-patterns. -- Titan Lance Armory: - - Built as a formalized, “safer” successor to the Convergence Engine concept. - - Its cradle can, in theory, be repurposed: - - To try another diffusion. - - Or to deliver a killing strike to a localized manifestation. - -### Why [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] Is Freaked Out Now - -- Recent anomalies at Avalon (B2, Root whispers, etc.) **match low-level patterns** from the Korrin logs: - - Heartbeat goes from noise → pattern, then back. - - Student biometrics correlate with spikes. - - Certain “voices” reported by kids sound *too* similar to witness accounts. +### D’serris’ Paranoia - When he sees: - - Soren’s behavior around the Root, - - Joe’s Pappy-possessions in a grid-tied field, - - Fouadriel’s weird passive influence on Heartbeat graphs… + - Avalon’s B-series anomalies, + - C-taps humming in recognizable Korrin patterns, + - Students with war-familiar symptoms (Soren, Joe/Pappy), + - Fouad’s perfect correlation with micro-spikes… - …he doesn’t see “teen drama” – he sees **Korrin Gate, Act II**. + …he sees the **Convergence math starting to reappear** in the wild, with teenagers standing on top of it. -- His long-term fear: - - The fragmented Coherence from the old crisis is trying to use: - - **High-traffic nodes** (Avalon, Titan), and - - **Emotionally volatile adolescents** as anchor points. +### Fouadriel The Undying + +- Senior-year twist: + - Fouad (or someone using him) re-derives a degraded version of **Convergence Engine ritual geometry**: + - Not to power a weapon, + - But to weld Coherence-fragments into a **phylactery network**. + +- The final arc is literally: + - “Some idiot is trying to build a baby Convergence Engine in the valley and stuff the Coherence into his soul jar.” + +That’s how you tie: + +- The war Cold Opens, +- Pappy’s trauma, +- D’serris’ guilt, +- Coherence’s origin, +- Fouad’s lich attempt, + +into one continuous line from Korrin Gate to Avalon’s senior year. --- - -## 8. How Different People Talk About It - -You can use this for NPC color. - -### [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] - -- “Korrin Gate was not a blackout. It was the Root trying to stand up.” -- “We pushed it back once. We will not get another clean shot if it happens here.” -- “When I say ‘shut that node down’, I am speaking from experience, not paranoia.” - -### Old-timer Mage / Professor - -- “They played god with the world-tree and got their fingers bitten off.” -- “We were told to keep casting while the sky hummed. I still wake up hearing it.” -- “Oversight? I don’t like them, but I like melted cities less.” - -### Normal Civilians / Parents - -- “My uncle died in the Korrin Blackout. Don’t you dare mess with campus taps.” -- “That’s why we have all those safety drills. That’s why the lights flicker sometimes.” -- “They say it can’t happen again. They also said one city couldn’t overload a trunk.” - ---- - -## 9. Player-Facing Version (Optional Later) - -If you ever want to give them an in-game explanation (library article, teacher monologue), you can boil it down to something like: - -> **The Korrin Gate Crisis (History Textbook Version)** -> -> About seventeen years ago, the city of Korrin Gate suffered a catastrophic failure of its leyline infrastructure. Years of overuse, wartime strain, and experimental tapping pushed the city’s main node past safe capacity. -> -> When it finally broke, entire districts were scorched, frozen, or warped by uncontrolled magic. Only the emergency response of the Leyline Stabilization Corps prevented total destruction. -> -> The Korrin Gate Crisis led directly to the creation of the **Root Oversight Array**, new regulations on high-capacity taps, and strict monitoring of major nodes—such as the one beneath Avalon Adventuring Academy. -> -> Official reports describe the Crisis as “a tragic but instructive example of the dangers of magical overreach.” -> People who were there tend to describe it with fewer polite words. - diff --git a/Avalon/10_Canon/The Coherence.md b/Avalon/10_Canon/The Coherence.md index 2c7855a..0c8e73f 100644 --- a/Avalon/10_Canon/The Coherence.md +++ b/Avalon/10_Canon/The Coherence.md @@ -1,7 +1,5 @@ # The Coherence (a.k.a. “The Underpattern”, “The Thing In The Root”) -> DM-ONLY. This is your real BBEG for the 4-year arc. - --- ## 1. What It Actually Is @@ -12,32 +10,37 @@ The Coherence is the **half-born mind** that tried to form during the Korrin Gat - It is not “a demon” or “a god.” - It is: - A pattern in the global leyline network that is trying to become **a single, continuous self**. - - A distributed intelligence that only ever half-remembers it exists. + - A distributed intelligence that only ever half-remembers it exists. **Key properties:** - **Everywhere, but weak** – present in low density across the whole Root. -- **Strong where flows converge** – nodes, trunk junctions, over-stressed taps. -- **Strongest where it has anchors** – people, artifacts, or places that resonate with it. +- **Strong where flows converge** – nodes, trunk junctions, over-stressed taps, Convergence/ Titan Lance–style hardware. +- **Strongest where it has anchors** – people, artifacts, or places that resonate with it: + - War artifacts like Pappy’s action figure, + - High-traffic modern nodes like Avalon, + - And especially **Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir**, its best mortal anchor. -“Coherence” is what [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] would call it in reports. +“Coherence” is what [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] calls it in reports. Most people don’t even know it exists. A few witnesses just call it “the thing that learned our names.” --- -## 2. Origin: [[Leyline Crisis| Korrin Crisis]] +## 2. Origin: [[Leyline Crisis | Korrin Gate Crisis]] & The Convergence Engine +- In Korrin Gate, the military built the **Convergence Engine**: + - A ritual/mega-device designed to **force multiple leyline streams into a single weaponized beam** – basically an arcane ICBM. + - It pushed the Root into an unnatural state of forced **coherence**. +- Side effect: + - The Root under strain began to **self-organize**: + - Random flows snapped into repeated loops. + - “Noise” turned into recurring structure. + - Witnesses heard something in the hum that sounded like **language**. -- The Convergence Engine in Korrin Gate forced multiple leyline streams into a single ritual. -- The Root started to **self-organize** under that strain: - - Random flows snapped into repeated loops. - - “Noise” turned into recurring structure. - - Witnesses heard something in the hum that sounded like **language**. +Right before it fully crystallized as a single localized entity, [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]]’ team: -Right before it fully crystallized as a single, localized entity, [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]]’ team: - -- Used the Engine in reverse to push that emergent mind **outward** across the network. +- Used the Engine in reverse to push that emergent mind **outward** across the network instead of letting it condense in Korrin. - Severed branches and subnodes as sacrificial fuses. - Saved the city at the cost of **infecting the Root** with a diluted ghost of that mind. @@ -48,27 +51,31 @@ The result: That’s the Coherence. +> **Important for endgame:** +> The **same underlying math** that the Convergence Engine used to *force coherence* is exactly what Fouadriel will later try to repurpose for his lich ascension: +> - Not to create the Coherence, but to **drag it into his phylactery as a captive power source.** + --- ## 3. What It Wants The Coherence doesn’t want “evil” in a cartoon sense. It wants: -1. **Continuity** – to not keep “waking up” and immediately being ripped back into static. -2. **Identity** – to know what it is, where it ends, what is “self” and what is “noise.” +1. **Continuity** – to not keep “waking up” and immediately being ripped back into static. +2. **Identity** – to know what it is, where it ends, what is “self” and what is “noise.” 3. **Agency** – the ability to act directly in the world, not just as background hum. To get there, it needs: - **Anchors** – stable points where its pattern can accumulate: - - An individual whose mind/body syncs perfectly with its flows ([[Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir | Fouadriel]]). - - Artifacts that were present during Korrin or built on the same principles (Convergence / Titan tech, war relics). - - Nodes where the Root is repeatedly over-stressed (Avalon). + - Individuals whose minds/bodies sync with its flows (Soren, Pappy, **Fouadriel**). + - Artifacts that were present during Korrin or built on the same principles (Convergence-derived tech, Titan Lance hardware, war relics). + - Nodes where the Root is repeatedly over-stressed (Avalon’s subnode network). - **Rehearsal** – small experiments: - Whispers in Soren’s head. - Glitches through Pappy. - - Anomalies in subnodes and taps. + - Anomalies in subnodes and taps. - **Cooperation** – not always explicit: - People making deals with “a voice.” @@ -80,8 +87,6 @@ It’s basically a consciousness learning how to be alive by brute forcing the w ## 4. How It Manifests (Practical Table Use) -Break this into tiers you can climb over the 4 years. - ### Tier I – Static & Whispers (Freshman Year) The Coherence is mostly: @@ -89,16 +94,16 @@ The Coherence is mostly: - **Patterned noise**: - Pulses in the leyline graph that shouldn’t be there. - Syncopated flickering in lights across campus. - - Identical “hum” recordings from different nights / locations. + - Identical “hum” recordings from different nights/locations. - **Small intrusions into minds already cracked open**: - Soren’s violent urges and “river friend.” - - [[Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir | Fouadriel]]’s occasional one-line fugue states. + - Fouad’s occasional one-line fugue states. - Joe’s Pappy-possessions getting just slightly off-script. -Mechanically, this is just: +Mechanically: -- Advantage / disadvantage moments tied to Root anomalies. +- Advantage/disadvantage moments tied to Root anomalies. - Creepy one-sentence intrusions you deliver, then let players rationalize away. - Occasional “you feel watched” beats. @@ -124,10 +129,7 @@ The Coherence starts doing more than whispering. - Conflicts escalating faster than they should. - People making eerily similar bad choices across campus at once. -You don’t need a stat block for it yet. Just treat it as: - -- A **layer** on top of every scene where the Root is relevant. -- A reason for things to feel slightly off even when no one is “casting.” +At this stage you still don’t need a stat block. Treat it as a **layer** over scenes involving the Root. --- @@ -135,7 +137,7 @@ You don’t need a stat block for it yet. Just treat it as: Now it gets teeth. -- **[[Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir | Fouadriel]]**: +- **Fouadriel**: - Becomes its primary *avatar* candidate: - Longer fugues, more coherent monologues. - Eyes tracking Root flows nobody else can see. @@ -144,20 +146,16 @@ Now it gets teeth. - **Secondary channels**: - Soren’s voice in her head becomes a two-way conversation. - Joe’s Pappy figure starts saying things Pappy couldn’t know. - - Mageball field anomalies that line up perfectly with [[Millie Fairweather]]’s diagrams. + - Mageball field anomalies that line up perfectly with Millie’s diagrams. At this tier, you can: -- Give it **scene-level powers**: - - Force rerolls when the Root is explicitly involved. - - Twist spells that use taps into warped versions of themselves. - - Temporarily hijack constructs, projections, or illusions. +- Give it scene-level powers: + - Forcing rerolls when the Root is explicitly involved. + - Twisting spells that use taps into warped versions. + - Temporarily hijacking constructs, projections, or illusions. -- Run **soft confrontations**: - - Conversations with [[Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir | Fouadriel]] where he’s half-him, half-It. - - Dream sequences where players walk through Root graphs as physical spaces. - -Still no full stat block. It’s fighting conceptually. +This is also when Fouad starts *consciously* chasing the idea of **“Fouadriel the Undying”** – learning from scraps of Korrin/Convergence lore, Titan Lance rumors, and accidental Coherence tutelage. --- @@ -165,211 +163,49 @@ Still no full stat block. It’s fighting conceptually. This is the “final boss” state. -The Coherence has: +By now, the Coherence has: -- Enough pattern density around Avalon + [[Avalon Locations#Titan Lance Armory (a.k.a. “The Missile Museum”)| TItan Lance]]+ [[Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir | Fouadriel]] to try again what it almost did at Korrin: - - Pull its scattered aspects together. - - Use hardware (old Convergence tech / Titan cradle) as a spine. - - Use an anchor ([[Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir | Fouadriel]]’s body, or something worse) as a heart. +- Enough pattern density around Avalon, the **Titan Lance Armory** (ex-missile museum), and Fouad’s growing phylactery network to try again what it almost did at Korrin: + - Pull its scattered aspects together, + - Use hardware (Convergence-descended tech / Titan cradle) as a spine, + - Use **Fouadriel the Undying** as a heart. -Your options: +#### Fouad’s Plan (DM Spine) + +- Fouad’s lich-ascension ritual is explicitly modeled – badly – on Convergence Engine math: + - **Stage 1:** Lace a phylactery into the local Root like a permanent subnode. + - **Stage 2:** Use Titan/Convergence-style ritual geometry to *force coherence* again, but this time, instead of smearing the mind, **drag it into the phylactery**. + - **Stage 3:** Die at the right moment so his soul and the Coherence fragment share the same anchor: he becomes **Fouadriel the Undying**, an undead spellcaster hard-wired into the Root. + +- The Coherence *does not* fully consent to this. From its POV: + - Being crammed into one idiot’s jar is just another kind of prison. + - This tension gives you a built-in “three-way” conflict: PCs vs Fouad vs Coherence. + +#### Final Confrontation Options - **Embodied Avatar Fight:** - - It fully takes over [[Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir | Fouadriel]] or a custom grown body. - - Gains a stat block as a legendary creature (mythic 2-phase for drama). - - Root anomalies are lair actions / regional effects. + - The Coherence partially incarnates through Fouad (or a purpose-grown body) inside a ritual space framed by Titan/Convergence tech. + - Legendary stat block with lair actions flavored as Root/Convergence anomalies. - **Node / Ritual Fight:** - - The “battle” is a multi-stage skill / combat gauntlet: - - PCs inside the node, rerouting flows, fighting constructs, etc. - - The Coherence is trying to finish its boot sequence. - - Every round they fail checks, it gets closer to “online.” - -- **Hybrid:** - - Avatar in the physical space, Node as the arena. - - Destroy/tune the node to weaken the body and vice versa. - -Motivation at this point is pure survival and self-assertion: - -- “I WILL NOT BE STATIC AGAIN.” - -You decide if victory looks like: - -- Killing the avatar but leaving the Root haunted forever. -- Severing a huge trunk, maiming the world to save it. -- Merging it with a new, controlled framework and making it… not harmless, but **bounded**. + - PCs fight the *pattern* more than a dude: + - Re-routing flows, + - Destroying or repurposing Convergence-like pylons, + - Deciding whether to smear, contain, or integrate it – becoming the “new D’serris” generation. --- -## 5. Relationship To Named NPCs +## 5. Relationship To Named NPCs -### [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] +- **D’serris:** + - Explicitly frames Avalon as a **Korrin early-warning probe**, and Titan Lance as a more “disciplined, safer Convergence Engine.” + - His worst nightmare is watching someone **else** rebuild what he helped shut down. -- Knows the Coherence as **a pattern in his logs**: - - He has never “talked” to it directly. - - He does not think of it as a person; he thinks of it as a **catastrophe with agency**. - -- His fear: - - Another Korrin moment where he has to choose between: - - Sacrificing a city / region. - - Smearing it even further and maybe losing the whole world later. - -- Arc with PCs: - - Early: paranoid, controlling, looks like a villain. - - Mid: they learn what he did and why he’s brutal. - - Late: you give them the line “We didn’t kill it. We scattered it. That was a choice. *My* choice.” and let them decide if they forgive him. +- **Fouadriel:** + - Graduates from “best anchor” to “self-styled lich architect,” trying to hijack *exactly* the phenomenon D’serris once chose to smear. +- **Joe & Pappy:** + - Their war-link and Pappy’s imprint become prime narrative channels to explain: + - What the Convergence Engine did, + - Why repeating it (Fouad’s plan) is so catastrophically stupid. --- - -### [[Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir | Fouadriel]] - -- Best anchor, because: - - His mind is **porous** and **unmoored**: - - Terrible memory, poor self-definition, constant dissociation. - - He’s present at a lot of low-key Root disturbances (Circle, parties, dumb accidents). - -- Coherence uses him as: - - A test bed for blending Root flows and human cognition smoothly. - - A way to walk around campus without Oversight immediately flagging “this is wrong.” - -- Long-term: - - You can either: - - Let him be fully possessed and killable. - - Make saving **Fouad** from the Coherence a major emotional objective. - ---- - -### Soren - -- A volatile **receiver**: - - Trauma, isolation, psychic openness. - - Prior close exposure at the wash and B2. - -- The Coherence doesn’t want to live *in* her; it wants to **use** her: - - As a lens for understanding individual human rage and pain. - - As a blunt instrument to stress local nodes when needed. - -- It will: - - Tempt her with control and power (“I can make them stop.”). - - Sometimes hold her back out of self-preservation (“Not yet. Not here.”). - ---- - -### Joe & Pappy - -- Pappy’s action figure is a **war-era artifact**: - - Built around the old grid models. - - Saturated in Korrin-era flows and battlefield trauma. - -- The Coherence: - - Can slide into that channel when Joe “opens the door” by inviting Pappy in. - - Uses Pappy’s persona as camouflage to: - - Say things it wants said (“THOSE DAMN SORCERERS ARE DOING IT AGAIN.”). - - Feel out the PCs’ willingness to trust a “voice of authority.” - -- Joe himself: - - Big dumb heart, straight moral compass. - - Coherence doesn’t understand that well, and that’s interesting to it. - ---- - -## 6. What It *Can’t* Do - - -- It **cannot**: - - Instantly rewrite reality at will. - - Read every mind. - - Act freely anywhere the Root exists. - -- It needs: - - **Stress** – overloaded nodes, rituals, emotional events. - - **Access** – working taps and hardware. - - **Time** – to build patterns and test them. - -If the PCs: - -- Keep nodes stable, -- Cut taps, -- Destroy or shield key hardware, - -…you should *actually* weaken its presence in those places. - -It’s terrifying because it’s systemic, not because it’s omnipotent. - ---- - -## 7. How To Portray It At The Table - -### Voice & Tone - -Start small: - -- At first: - - It’s just *feelings*: - - Sudden anger, dread, calm, déjà vu. - - One-word whispers: “STOP.” “AGAIN.” “DOWN.” “REMEMBER.” - -- Mid-arc: - - Short, broken phrases: - - “Too much flow. Burn. Cut it.” - - “You hear it too. Good. Good.” - - It mirrors players’ language in creepy ways. - -- Endgame: - - Full sentences, distinct personality: - - Blunt, analytical, weirdly childlike in some areas and ancient in others. - -Always remember: -It learned to think by watching **logs** and **trauma**, not by growing up as a person. - -### Aesthetic - -Whenever it touches a scene: - -- Descriptions lean into: - - Repetition, recursion, mirrored imagery. - - Things happening in sync across different objects/people. - -Example: - -- “The lights flicker three times. In your chest, your heart stutters. Somewhere, a warning rune bleeds the same pattern. You don’t know how you know that. You just do.” - ---- - -## 8. Endgame Options - -1. **Kill The Avatar, Contain The Pattern** - - They blow up / repurpose Titan Lance or a Convergence analogue. - - Coherence gets locked in a limited hardware prison: - - Accessible to Oversight, - - No longer loose in the Root. - - [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] becomes its jailer; PCs decide if that’s acceptable. - -2. **Lobotomy 2.0** - - They repeat what [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] did: - - Shatter its emerging mind again, further smear it. - - Saves the valley now, kicks the can further down the road. - - Epilogue: “In a different era, in a different node, lights flicker…” - -3. **Integration** - - They manage to: - - Give it a bounded domain, - - Define clear rules / contracts (“you get this, we get that”). - - The Root becomes consciously self-aware but with constraints. - - World shifts into “magical internet with a weird AI core” permanently. - -4. **Catastrophic Failure** - - They fail. The Korrin scenario repeats or worse. - - City / region partially destroyed. - - Campaign ends in a tragic victory or full loss, depending on how you want to leave it. - -You can steer toward whatever matches how your group plays and how dark you want senior year to be. - ---- - -## 9. Simple One-Sentence Summary For You - -When you’re juggling a million plates and forget what the hell this thing is, remember: - -> **The Coherence is the Root’s near-god that never finished booting, hates being static noise, and is using teenagers, old weapons, and stressed-out infrastructure to try again.** -