# The Coherence (a.k.a. “The Underpattern”, “The Thing In The Root”)

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## 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, 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]] calls it in reports.  
Most people don’t even know it exists. A few witnesses just call it “the thing that learned our names.”

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## 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**. 

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 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.

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.

> **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.**

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## 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:
  - 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.  

- **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.

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## 4. How It Manifests (Practical Table Use)

### 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.”  
  - Fouad’s occasional one-line fugue states. 
  - Joe’s Pappy-possessions getting just slightly off-script.

Mechanically:

- 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.

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### 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.

At this stage you still don’t need a stat block. Treat it as a **layer** over scenes involving the Root.

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### Tier III – Partial Possessions & Avatars (Late Junior / early Senior)

Now it gets teeth.

- **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’s diagrams.

At this tier, you can:

- 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.

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.

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### Tier IV – Full Manifestation Attempt (Senior Finale)

This is the “final boss” state.

By now, the Coherence has:

- 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.

#### 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:**
  - 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:**
  - 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.

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## 5. Relationship To Named NPCs 

- **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.

- **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.

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