The Collapse opened up our realities up to a plethora of new threats, called ANOMALIES. While a few can be useful, most are destructive, consuming reality for its own growth. Left unchecked, they can spiral out of contol, consuming an entire World…or more.
DOWNWELLS
Wells are entities that feed off the dissonance between realities. To make this happen, they connect at one end to a World and the other end either to another World, forming a dangerous weakness in the ice.
A Well is a spiral that forms around an entity known as a NEMESIS. Nemeses can shape reality around themselves much like Hands or Legends but do so in a very parasitical fashion, devouring the resources from the Worlds they’re attached to in order to build the Well longer and deeper.
Most beings within a Well are simply extensions of the Nemesis itself, bits of power escaping as the Nemesis feeds, looking for all the world like an independent being. What’s worse is that people or foreign entities may get trapped in a Well and get swept along with the Nemesis’ version of reality.
UPWELL
Upwells are vastly more dangerous as they are composed of multiple Nemeses working together.
WHAT IS A NEMESIS?
A Nemesis is built of – and is fed by – emotion. Emotion amplified by power is even sweeter. Hands are delightful feasts. The form a Nemesis takes, along with the form of the Well that grows around it, may hint at the emotion it grows on.
There’s three ways to deal with a Nemesis:
FIGHT
Kill any Nemeses you find
GORGE
Overload the Nemesis with emotional Resonance, giving it more than it can handle
STARVE
Remove all beings within the Well that are feeding the Nemesis, however you can
All Nemeses are different and may have different conditions for their defeat. The Nemesis itself seems to be sapient, and is usually quite good at negotiating or stirring up empathy in the hearts of others, hoping to survive and continue to feed.
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE CAN YOU LET A NEMESIS SURVIVE. However you can, destroy them. As the Well grows, it weakens the walls of reality, turns our worlds into nacre for the spiral.
AFTER DEFEAT
A Well with a defeated Nemesis becomes safe passage for a short time before it dissipates, allowing easy transit between the connected Worlds or to the Threads (as safe as any exposure to the Threads can be).
FRACTURES
Fractures occur when someone capable of becoming a Hand or a Hand has developed a trauma response that overwrites their local reality. Fractures are one of the few Anomalies that generate RESONANCE; this Resonance will usually provide a clue as to why the Fracture formed in the first place.
Within a Fracture, sentients will develop double sets of memories, things done will become undone, the World itself will change as what the INCITER wants to be real clashes with what exists. As the Fracture grows, it becomes more and more unstable and can eventually destroy both the INCITER and everything within it.
Either recruiting, helping, or slaying the focus of the Fracture will end it.
HOLLOWS
Hollows are beautiful glades filled with soft golden light. Everything is quiet and peaceful. Everything is dying.
Hollows can be defeated by destroying the real creature that is generating the Hollow. The Outer Light can infect anything within reality. There are few indicators with a fresh infection – a bit of golden sparkle, a relaxing air – encouraging you to stop and stay, to become part of this horrible tableau.
While flora and fauna simply drift peacefully into an endless slumber where they are slowly taken apart as the Light spreads, it’s sentient beings that are the greater risk. Your memories of those you’ve met, each can be pulled from your head, each can be turned into an ounos – an undead imitation of that person. You become a nightmare factory. Even if you’re rescued from the Outer Light, any ounos that escape, built from your memories, are gone for good. It will take what’s in your head. You can’t let it.
The Outer Light is insidious. Long-term exposure leads to death, permanent death for a Hand. It is one of the few ways for Hands to die – take enough memories and there’s nothing left of you.
It’s so very peaceful – the warm, golden glow wraps around you. Wouldn’t you like to rest?
CANKERS
Cankers are when the ice has cracked and ataxia is leaking through.
Cankers can be defeated by extracting or destroying the ataxia from the infected beings and sealing the ice.
RIPPLES
Ripples are when alternative histories become overlaid. There is almost always an object or time period where these appear. They can interact with regular reality.
Ripple ghosts can be slain temporarily, but also spoken with to prevent harm. Ripples make reality weaker and allow for other Anomalies to more easily spawn but are not inherently dangerous themselves.
LEGENDS
Immortal beings that can cross the ice. Varying levels of danger.
Legends can be slain but will eventually resurrect. They do not retain memories between lives.
ICEBLOOM
Sometimes the ice will splinter and begin forming creatures that match the local reality.
Destroy the creatures.
TRIBULATION
A glittering, unreal version of a location is projected upside down in the sky. Powerful opponents will try to prevent anyone from reaching the Heart as it absorbs power of the original location and becomes more real.
Destroy the Heart.
SWARMS
Thread that has burrowed through the ice begins growing a new reality inside an existing World based on the attributes of the Thread.
Find and destroy the thread fragment.
ROAD OF LIGHT
These capillaries built of radiant golden light descend from the sky and implant themselves. Though superficially they resemble the Outer Light, Roads can’t create ounos and don’t have the same impact. They’re very useful as well – entering a Road of Light allows for faster than sound travel which can be important during a crisis. The Road spreads itself wherever it can reach. It doesn’t harm those who enter, it doesn’t leech from the world in a detectable way.
What it does is make you fight. Within the Road itself, you are locked into combat with any beings you meet, forced to fight for your lives until one side dies. For a Hand, this is a temporary death – your Rings are spat back out, able to be resurrected – but non-Hands are not so lucky.
Furthermore, Roads SPREAD. The more they’re used, the faster they propagate, and there’s at least one instance of a World choked into nothing but its Roads. Use them if you must, kill them when you’re done. Or just when you find them.
ARTIFACTS
These objects appear at random, growing and spreading their effects; some beneficial, some not.
To destroy an artifact, determine what action related to its effect will trigger this.
THE THREADS
As you venture outside the Cluster, a whole new host of threats are waiting for you.
OUTER WORLDS
Where Threads meet, they grow new realities. These young, new worlds can be microscopic or almost as large as a normal World. Here, Resonance is especially strong as the reality fights for its existence. As these Worlds can be anything, it’s up to you to determine how benign or malignant one might be.
ATAXIAN STORMS
Tumultous clusters of ataxia, these iridescent dark storms change reality as you pass through them. The changes are temporary, but must be dealt with.
DEAD GIANTS
Planets that didn’t make it. These decimated husks are massive dungeon crawls, filled with ruins and strange, wraith-like opponents.
DREAMING ONES
These massive entities float through the Threads, bodies miles long. Getting too close to one pulls other beings into their dream, which may be difficult to escape.
DREAMING ONES
These massive entities float through the Threads, bodies miles long. Getting too close to one pulls other beings into their dream, which may be difficult to escape.
OTHER THREATS
Anomalies aren’t the only dangers to look out for. Not only are many Worlds difficult to survive in, certain groups have arisen looking to exploit or destroy reality for their own reasons. Some are tragic – incompatible with reality itself – but for many, it’s a choice they make.
CRASHERS
When a non-Hand or animal is exposed to ataxia, the proto-matter that builds reality, it corrupts both their form and perception of the world. A Crasher becomes stronger, faster, more powerful…and completely overwhelmed by the chaos that’s taken over.
You can save a Crasher. Ataxia responds to force – beat the stuffing out of a Crasher to extract it – and the being will return to normal, no worse for the wear.
BRINGERS OF PEACE
An organization that seeks to collect Rings, preventing them from bonding with Hands. Believes Rings to be malevolent entities. Also known to try and prevent bonded Rings from returning to Hope.
THE REGIMENT
Bringing order to the Cluster, as long as you join. A fungal collective bent on assimilation.
Do what you can. Don’t breathe.
GIVERS
They look so cute! Fluffy and small and seemingly harmless, the Givers are psychic animals that will grant your wishes as long as you pay what they ask. They can always find you. They will always find you. They will take what you least want to give.