Pith and Vinegar

This is still the early stages yet. I’m essentially creating four new supernatural types from scratch, after all. I don’t want to just settle, I want to work on something which is thematically appropriate and interesting to play.

In broad strokes, just considering one-for-one replacements of each of the individual elements is probably the easy part. The challenging part will be in motivations. It’s all well and good to say that an extended stay in the Primal Wilds turns you into a centaur, but why would a mortal end up in the Primal Wilds? What keeps them there? Why would they try to escape? Then you get to more mechanical considerations: has the mortal been missed by his friends and family? How does the theme of loss manifest? What prevents mages from using the “long way” rather than the arduous crossing of the Abyss?

Thinking of these considerations, the first thing to pop into my head was the river Styx and the rest of the rivers of Hades in Greek mythology. I see the River Styx is already in use as a river within Stygia, but most people are unaware that it was actually the River Acheron which provided passage to Hades. It’s the first of several rivers to be crossed, and it — not the Styx — drained the memories of those who drank its waters. There’s an obvious motivation for mortals to cross, in finding or rescuing loved ones who have died. This term appears to be unused, so it’s what I’ll work with as the Stygian Hedge. There’s a toll to be paid, both the literal toll to the ferryman, and the potential loss of memory. So this sounds like an excellent starting point. We’ll do Stygia first.

Perhaps passage is such that any traveller would inhale the vapours rising from the water’s surface, not enough to wipe their memories entirely, but enough to erase the most vibrant memory they have. Those who find themselves on the other side may know they’re looking for a loved one, but can’t remember who. The Supernal being more vibrant than the Fallen, mages may simply forget their magic.

There may also be merit in mining the myth of Persephone, where she ate a pomegranate while in Hades, and was thus forced to spend one month there for each of the six pomegranate seed she’d eaten, explaining autumn and winter to the Greeks. Perhaps travellers are offered food and thus trapped in Stygia for a certain period depending on how much they’d eaten?

More work is warranted, but I’m getting somewhere.

Last time I ruminated about this project, I was stopped by some people, who declared that these new Lost already existed. Vampires were aligned to Stygia, werewolves to the Primal Wilds, Prometheans to the Aether, and so on. But this is a simplistic view at best. Changelings are explicitly forged in the Arcadian Realm and return to Earth. Vampires haven’t. Just because they’re undead and Stygia is a Realm of Death, doesn’t mean that  the two are related in any way other than the superficial. At best, vampires are a Fallen reflection of Supernal death concepts. Likewise for Prometheans; their Azoth may be a reflection of the Primal energies of the Aether, but the Created themselves do not come from the Aether and seem to have no concept of it.

Werewolves are even worse; they have their own Realm to go gallivanting off to: the Shadow.  But again, even saying the Shadow is a Fallen reflection of the Primal Wilds is specious at best, and more of a square peg-in-round hole argument from those looking to neatly slot existing supernaturals into Supernal categories. This argument may actually come from a leftover association with the Shadow as the Umbra of the old WOD. The Shadow is a bizarre, disturbing realm in which spirits live, but is not inherently opposed or antagonistic towards cities or other modern accoutrements; they simply breed a different type of spirit. The Primal Wilds, however, are exactly what the name suggests: a Realm where Nature itself rules all.

But I digress. Existing supernaturals are clearly not Supernal Lost, and any Supernal Lost are not any of the existing supernaturals… although they might possibly be mistaken for them.

For a while I’ve been pondering Changelings in the (new) World of Darkness. First, let me explain the relevant cosmology of the WOD.

Way back in history, there was the Fallen World, which contains Earth, and the Supernal Realms, with the Supernal metaphorically above the Fallen World. For ease of diagramming, listed below as left to right should be visualized as down to up.

Fallen World –> Supernal Realms

Uppity mages from Atlantis pulled a Tower of Babel and decided they’d physically bridge the two, so they could control reality directly from the Supernal. Other mages disagreed, a big war happened, and a vast gulf was created between the two, called the Abyss.

Fallen World –> Abyss –> Supernal Realms

One of these Supernal Realms is Arcadia*, the homeland of the Fae. There’s a sort of mid-realm connecting Arcadia to Earth called the Hedge which bypasses the Abyss, at the cost of one’s soul (important for mages).

Fallen World –> Abyss –>  Arcadia

\——- Hedge ——–/

The Fae like coming to Earth via the Hedge, kidnapping humans, and then twisting them and putting them to work in their fiefdoms. Occasionally the humans return, fighting their way back through the Hedge, but they’ve been twisted and changed by their time spent in Arcadia. These returned humans are changelings.

So I wondered… there are four other (known) Supernal Realms. Do they have their own Hedge-equivalents, by which mortals can access them (although at a cost unpalatable to mages)? What reason would mortals have to go there? What reason would they have to return? Would they be changed by their durance?

The Lost Project is an effort to answer those questions by developing alternate versions of the Lost for each of the other four Supernal Realms: The Aether, Pandemonium, the Primal Wilds, and Stygia.

*There’s some debate about whether or not Mage’s Arcadia is the same place as Changeling’s Arcadia. For the purpose of this project, I consider them the same.