AndrewNotes/Avalon/10_Canon/The Coherence.md

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 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 & 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 ’ 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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