From c45ed9d9971776f382c4015466518763fa0f7139 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Andrew Cohn Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2025 16:40:03 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] vault backup: 2025-12-06 16:40:03 --- .obsidian/workspace.json | 15 +- Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Sebastian Castillo.md | 2 +- Avalon/10_Canon/The Coherence.md | 375 ++++++++++++++++++ 3 files changed, 384 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-) create mode 100644 Avalon/10_Canon/The Coherence.md diff --git a/.obsidian/workspace.json b/.obsidian/workspace.json index 422ff76..1d08ea9 100644 --- a/.obsidian/workspace.json +++ b/.obsidian/workspace.json @@ -13,12 +13,12 @@ "state": { "type": "markdown", "state": { - "file": "Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir.md", - "mode": "source", - "source": true + "file": "Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Sebastian Castillo.md", + "mode": "preview", + "source": false }, "icon": "lucide-file", - "title": "Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir" + "title": "Sebastian Castillo" } } ] @@ -155,13 +155,13 @@ "state": { "type": "outline", "state": { - "file": "Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir.md", + "file": "Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Sebastian Castillo.md", "followCursor": false, "showSearch": false, "searchQuery": "" }, "icon": "lucide-list", - "title": "Outline of Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir" + "title": "Outline of Sebastian Castillo" } }, { @@ -207,10 +207,11 @@ "active": "6e169ae6a9aed54f", "lastOpenFiles": [ "Avalon/06_Factions_Secrets/Avalon Factions.md", + "Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Sebastian Castillo.md", + "Avalon/10_Canon/The Coherence.md", "Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir.md", "Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Chaz Ironwick.md", "Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Millie Fairweather.md", - "Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Sebastian Castillo.md", "Avalon/05_Locations/Campus Locations.md", "Avalon/04_NPCs_Faculty/Hector Estrada.md", "Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Crisis.md", diff --git a/Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Sebastian Castillo.md b/Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Sebastian Castillo.md index c890a09..580836e 100644 --- a/Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Sebastian Castillo.md +++ b/Avalon/03_NPCs_Students/Sebastian Castillo.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ # Sebastian “Seb” Castillo -> DM-facing NPC writeup. Face o[[Avalon Factions#2. Student Factions & Cliques#2.4 Conspiracy Club / Underground Zine]] , decapitation videos at 8am. +> DM-facing NPC writeup. Face of [[Avalon Factions#2. Student Factions & Cliques#2.4 Conspiracy Club / Underground Zine | the conspiracy club]] , decapitation videos at 8am. --- diff --git a/Avalon/10_Canon/The Coherence.md b/Avalon/10_Canon/The Coherence.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c7855a --- /dev/null +++ b/Avalon/10_Canon/The Coherence.md @@ -0,0 +1,375 @@ +# 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 + +**Short version:** +The Coherence is the **half-born mind** that tried to form during the Korrin Gate Crisis and got smeared across the Root instead of fully manifesting. + +- 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. + +**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. + +“Coherence” is what [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] would call 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]] + + + +- 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: + +- Used the Engine in reverse to push that emergent mind **outward** across the network. +- Severed branches and subnodes as sacrificial fuses. +- Saved the city at the cost of **infecting the Root** with a diluted ghost of that mind. + +The result: + +- No single “Root god” sitting under Korrin. +- Instead, a **haunting**: incomplete personality spread thinly along every leyline the Engine touched. + +That’s the Coherence. + +--- + +## 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.” +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). + +- **Rehearsal** – small experiments: + - Whispers in Soren’s head. + - Glitches through Pappy. + - Anomalies in subnodes and taps. + +- **Cooperation** – not always explicit: + - People making deals with “a voice.” + - Administrators and Oversight poking and stabilizing it over and over, teaching it what resists and what yields. + +It’s basically a consciousness learning how to be alive by brute forcing the world. + +--- + +## 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: + +- **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. + +- **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. + - Joe’s Pappy-possessions getting just slightly off-script. + +Mechanically, this is just: + +- Advantage / disadvantage moments tied to Root anomalies. +- Creepy one-sentence intrusions you deliver, then let players rationalize away. +- Occasional “you feel watched” beats. + +It is **not** a villain yet. It’s a haunting. + +--- + +### Tier II – Localized Echoes (Sophomore / early Junior) + +The Coherence starts doing more than whispering. + +- **Object-level echoes:** + - Animatronics at Mr. Magic’s going off-script in unison. + - Custodian constructs overreacting in weirdly coordinated ways. + - Enchanted systems across campus glitching *to the same rhythm*. + +- **Space-level distortions:** + - Two hallways becoming the same hallway for a second. + - People losing a few seconds of time when Root surges. + - Subnodes briefly “remembering” states they were never in. + +- **Social-level nudges:** + - 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.” + +--- + +### Tier III – Partial Possessions & Avatars (Late Junior / early Senior) + +Now it gets teeth. + +- **[[Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir | Fouadriel]]**: + - Becomes its primary *avatar* candidate: + - Longer fugues, more coherent monologues. + - Eyes tracking Root flows nobody else can see. + - Uncanny “lucky accidents” wherever he goes. + +- **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. + +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. + +- 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. + +--- + +### Tier IV – Full Manifestation Attempt (Senior Finale) + +This is the “final boss” state. + +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. + +Your 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. + +- **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**. + +--- + +## 5. Relationship To Named NPCs + +### [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] + +- 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 “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.** +