An Introductory Look at the Monsters

The Misshapen and Gargantuan

The neutral parties of the Shadowlands, predator and prey. The monsters are sometimes intelligent and sometimes not. The common feature of monsters is that they are not human in appearance, although they will often have human features. They grant few favors, either ignoring or hunting those humans they encounter, dependent upon their nature.

• The Abominations
• The Wendigo  (The Stillborn Army)
• The Giants (The Grigorim)
• The Chimera (The Bakumera, The Name Eater, The Story Hunter, )

Unsorted Thoughts, Number Epsilon (Food Poisoning for Thought Reprint)

(*Reprinted from Food Poisoning for Thought 

as part my ongoing process to unify my web presence.*)

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, 

it is because we do not dare that they are difficult."
- Seneca

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. 

The second best time is now.”
- Chinese Proverb

Fear (Food Poisoning for Thought Reprint)

(*Reprinted from Food Poisoning for Thought as part my ongoing process to unify my web presence.*)

I think my greatest fear is that I can take it. I fear that as much as I Hate the world, it won't break me. I won't truly commit to changing or fighting what I know to be evil. I fear I'll never reach the point of yelling, "no more!"

The Mystic Tools Skill Tree

The Mystic Tools available to Psychonauts break down into two branches: the Artifacts and the High Magick. High Magick is powerful and easily overwhelms opposition, but High Magick has a heavily maintenance cost. Artifacts are nowhere near as powerful, although still powerful. Artifacts are much easier to activate and maintain. 

A psychonaut can have up to three artifacts equipped and three spells equipped on any given incursion. 

However in order to equip each artifact and each spell, the psychonaut must learn a series of Shadowlands skills that are necessary to learn and use the artifacts and spells. 

The Ring

Psychonauts begin their first incursion in the Ring. During their first Incursion, psychonauts will not have access to their Vajra. Vajra is unlocked as part of the process of opening the Inner Eye. Since this is a major first step for the psychonauts, they will seek to open their Inner Eye. In order to do this, they must get to the Realm where a psychonaut is capable to open their Inner Eye. This Realm is the Foglands. The Foglands are the lands of ignorance and confusion, and so it here that the psychonaut must open their Inner Eye. 

The Inner Eye

The Inner Eye is how one views the Shadowlands. Once the Inner Eye is opened, the psychonaut may attune their eye through actions to one of three states. The default state is the Eye of Dusk. The other two states of the Inner Eye are the Enlightened Eye and the Darkened Eye. The darkened eye is attuned to the story and the shadowlands. An enlightened eye is attuned to the bonelands and to science. 

A darkened eye will also strengthen ability in the high magick. But the darkened eye opens one up to story and one with a darkened eye is more vulnerable to the attacks of abominations and denizens of the shadowlands and also more susceptible to high magick used by others. An enlightened eye will see through the former things take in the shadowlands to metaphor they represent, granting them resistance to attacks and high magick. But an enlightened eye sees fewer details of the shadowlands and has difficulty invoking the high magick. 

The Eye of Dusk offers none of those benefits. But it also offers none of the attached disadvantages. A psychonaut may atune their Inner Eye as they wish, but cannot spend vajra until the Inner Eye is opened and may not use artifacts or spell until the Inner Eye is open.

Flair and Style

Flair and Style are first twitches of High Magick and Artifact use. Both Flair and Style generate a passive each that useful on its own, but which has the primary purpose of shaping artifact and high magick use.

The Spark

A spark of genius or madness is necessary to work with artifacts and the artificer's craft. The Spark is the necessary ingredient to activate any artifact, and can only be gained from the Demon Courts of the Hidden Wood. There are twelve different sparks, each which provide a unique effect to all artifacts used by the psychonaut in question. An artificer's spark affect their capabilities as much as the three artifacts which they have equipped.

The Daemon

A minor demon of the Fair Folk Courts, the daemons are apprentices to the great Demons of the Courts. There are only four classes of daemons, one for each Court of the Solar Year, compared to the twelve types of Spark. The powers provided by each daemon still retains a substantial effect upon the Sorcerer's abilities. 

Artifacts and Spell Slots

Unlocking the spark and daemon allows the psychonaut to access the sphere of high magick and the artificer's craft, but without artifact and spell slots they have nothing with which to work. A psychonaut may unlock up to three slots for both artifacts and spells. A psychonaut may learn any number of spells from the available options, but may equip no more than their current number of spell slots on any one incursion. And the same is true for the artifact slots. The psychonaut may have a library full of spells and workshop jammed with artifacts, but may only ever equip a maximum of three for each during a particular incursion.

Unlocking The Capacity

• Unlock the Gate to the Foglands
• Enter the Foglands
• Open the Inner Eye

 The Artifier Branch

• Style
• Activate Avatar's Style
• Find a Spark
• Open First Artifact Slot
• Obtain Artifact
• Open Second Artifact Slot
• Obtain Artifact
• Open Third Artifact Slot
• Obtain Artifact

The Sorcerer Branch

• Flair
• Activate Avatar's Flair
• Befriend and bond with a Demon
• Open First Spell Slot
• Obtain Spell
• Open Second Spell Slot
• Obtain Spell
• Open Third Spell Slot
• Obtain Spell

The Lexicon

Even the least thorough reader is going to notice a lot of strange terminology. What is the Shadowlands? Who are the Psychonauts? What is an Outsider? How does one obtain and Avatar and how does an Avatar Shatter? And so on and so on. The Lexicon will help with this. Not, you know, a lot -if you don't read the rest of this- but some.

A

• Arcadia: This is not utopian or idyllic, but many mistake it as such to their pain and surprise. This is the land of the Free Peoples, and it is wild and independent, so be wary and be strong.
• Aura: The Aura is the energetic force field that keeps your avatar in the Shadowlands during an incursion. You invest your Avatar with Vajra activate the Aura, and if your Avatar is threatened by the stress of the story, the aura could waiver and even shatter. And then you could wind up on your ass back in the Bonelands while your team carries on.
• Autumn: The last season prior to the Dark. The Autumn months are the last months with regular lengths, compared to the variable lengths of the Dark Months.
• Avatar: Blood Red Dreaming is a game that takes place mostly in the realm of shared stories: The Shadowlands. But your body isn't made of story stuff. Your body belongs in the Bonelands. So you need to create a virtual body, a body for the realm of stories: your Avatar. Think about the Matrix and you got it. Your Avatar is you, but just a little bit cooler. Just don't take it into the Shadowlands naked and without an Aura.

B

• Becoming Dark: The variable month of the largest size. The Becoming Dark goes from the end of Autumn until the day of the dark solstice, commonly called the winter solstice in other calendars.
• Blood Feud, the: Used to describe the first conflict that split the Great Tribe in the ancient stories of the Painted Labyrinth.
• Bonelands, the: The so-called real world, the world of flesh and bone, the world of fact and science- the alien world so far beyond the capacity of the human mind that we created the Shadowlands again and again to escape it.
• Broken, the: The mighty giants which inhabit the Foglands, also the Giants and technically referred to as Gregorim. The Broken are mysterious and silent, but near invulnerable and enormous. They will generall ignore psychonauts, unless one breaks their arcane and labyrinthine laws- after which they are wrath and fury personified.

C

• City of Glass: The name of both the third Realm as one descends and also the capital city of the Hungry Empire. The land of the Locust King and his Hungry Empire, his false utopia that hovers- a castle city in the sky. Without secret knowledge of the Free Peoples, wanderers in the Shadowlands will be hard pressed to move deeper, beyond the grip of the False King and his Hungry Empire.
• Corrupt, the: Those who have been destroyed by the influence of the Grey Locust. Notable sub groups include the Wendigo and the Stillborn Army.
• Crescent Sun: a common term used to describe the 6 season lunisolar calendar used in the Blood Red Dreaming.

D

• Darkening, the: The last season of the Crescent Sun, consisting of The Becoming Dark and The Full Dark.
• Demon: Also called the Fair Folk. The keepers of the High Magick and the evil foes of the Locust King's propaganda.
• Denizen: Many beings delve into the Shadowlands on their ill thought out incursions. But many more beings make the Shadowlands their permanent home. These beings are born, live and die in the Shadowlands. The Bonelands is toxic to these beings, they are purely denizens of the Shadowlands and have no power outside it.

E

• Elder: the greatest denizens of the Shadowlands, beyond everything else in the Shadowlands. The Elders have many forms, although none of them are able to fully approximate human form with any skill. They are sympathetic to humans in the Shadowlands, but think in such alien ways that they are very dangerous to deal with directly or from whom to seek aid. The Elders are the personification of concepts, and only Man of Void/Lady of Fire might ever have a connection to some actual human.
• Expedition: These incursions are linked to locations in the Shadowlands and unlocked by reaching that location's counterpart in the Bonelands first.

F

• Fair Folk, the: The Greater Sorcerers of the Shadowlands - also known as the Demons. The Fair Folk are the mythic beings that wear human forms: Elves and Goblins and Gnomes. They are the keepers of Magick and will be teachers and patrons to human sorcerers. Often mistaken for Gods, the difference is that Fair Folk need no worship or offerings. The Fair Folk will normally trade or barter for their favor or their instruction. The Fair Folk may appear most human like, but they are not human. Like the Elders they are sympathetic to humans in the Shadowlands. But also like the Elders, their minds are alien and they do not see things as humans do.
• Foglands, the: The land of ignorance and obscurity. The first place everyone who enters the Shadowlands ends up in after they pass through (or bypass) the Ring. The Fogslands is the unformed land of the unconscious: Urizen and Eden, depending upon how the player enters and what happens. This is how people end up in the Shadowlands if untrained. This is always the first mission. This is the equivalent of the Astral Plane or the realm of dreams and many dreamers end up here.
• Free Peoples: Those who live by the Song of Seven and follow the Freepath are collectively known as the Free Peoples. They are, as one would expect of a group name as such, a very loose affiliation of many disparate groups. The Free Peoples are contrasted to the Locust Touched.

G

• Giants, the: Another name for the Gregorim, also called the Broken.
• God: The Bankers of Vajra and Souls. Gods are composite beings. Incorporeal as Spirits, derived from concepts as Elders, and bearing anthropomorphic avatars as Fair Folk; Gods have one unifying factor. Gods require human belief, human prayer, sacrifice and offerings.
• Great Tribe, the: This term pulls double duty, referring to both the first life to arise back in ancient times, and also for the brought alliance of all Tribes who follow the Freepath and the Song of Seven.
• Gregorim, the: Though they seem unable or unwilling to speak, legends of legends told by people long dead suggest that Gregorim is the name that the Broken Giants give to themselves.
• Greenlands, the: This is another name for the realm of Arcadia.

H

• High Magick: the raw essence of the Shadowlands; a weaponized essence of story. High Magick is learned through the Witches and Wizards. When High Magick is used, the caster is channeling the power of the Demons known as the Fair Folk.
• Hidden Heart, the: Another name for the Hollow Heart, the secret Realm at the heart of the Shadowlands.
• Hollow Heart, the: The Secret Heart of the Shadowlands and the counterpoint to the Ring. The Hollow Heart is the bottom or the 'root' of the Shadowlands. A dimension of darkness. This is the source code of the Shadowlands and the cheat code of the realms.
• Hungry Empire, the: If there is a villain in this tale, it is the Hungry Empire. Lead by the Locust King, powered by Falsenight and guided by the Grey, the Hungry Empire spreads like cancer and consumes its host in the end.

I

• Incursion: When an avatar steps through the Ring and into the Shadowlands, they have made an incursion into the Shadowlands. Incursions can be divided into three types. The first type of incursions are unguided incursions with no intentional purpose or goal. More common are expeditions, and quests, which have goals set at the start of the incursion.

J

• Juggler: Once a psychonaut opens their inner eye and gains access to both High Magick and Low Magick. A psychonaut who specializes in Low Magick is called a Juggler.

K

• Kudavbin King, the: Associated with the legend of Mordred by the propaganda of the Glass City, the Kudavbin King is the older brother of the First Mother. The rebel son of the Locust Kings. He is the king who denies his crown and thus makes his father the Last King.

L

• Locust Touched, the: Those who have drawn their sustenance from the Grey are broadly defined as the Locust Touched.
• Low Magick, the: It stands in opposition to the High Magick. The Low Magick is the illusion of magic- sleight of hand and misdirection. But only a fool would discount the Low Magick and its powerful utility in the Shadowlands.

M

• Magick: Language and story, myth and legend, shaping perception and memory. This is magick. One does not hurl fireballs. Magick is more subtle and more powerful than that. Magick is divided into High Magick and Low Magick and the two cannot be used together. Choose your magick before your incursion and pray your choice is correct.
• Mirrored City: Another name for the City of Glass.
• Monsters: The Misshapen and Gargantuan. The neutral parties of the Shadowlands, predator and prey. The monsters are sometimes intelligent and sometimes not. The common feature of monsters is that they are not human in appearance, although they will often have human features. They grant no favors, either ignoring or hunting those humans they encounter, dependent upon their nature.

N

O

• Old Ones, the: Another name for the Elders.
• Outsiders: Another name for the Elders.

P

• Painted Labyrinth, the: The place of trials, the deepest part of the Shadowlands, a realm of initiation and the keeper of ancient mysteries. All who seek to become warriors must journey here, but have a care- the labyrinth devours the unwary.
• Poison Tree: A great limbless tree, bleached white by age, the Poison Tree is the version of the Glass Tower as it appears in the Foglands.
• Psychonaut: Those who venture into the Shadowlands are known as Psychonauts.
• Psychopomps, the: As the Shadowlands are the lands of fiction and story, so are they also they also the lands of the afterlife. The Psychopomps are the caravans and carriages between the Realms. If a psychonaut wishes to move between realms without braving the Glass Tower.

Q

• Quest: These story driven incursions enable Psychonauts to re-enact the legends of the old and thereby gain access of artifacts of legend and learn the secrets of various High and Low Magicks.

R

• Rains, the: The second season of the Crescent Sun, following Winter and preceding Spring, consisting of Cold Rain and Fresh Rain.
• Realm: The distinct but connected worlds of the Shadowlands. The Shadowlands are divided into six Realms: The Ring, The Foglands, The Mirrored City, Arcadia, The Painted Labyrinth, and the Hidden Heart. The non-liminal realms of the Foglands, the City of Glass, Arcadia, and the Painted Labyrinth are connected by the Glass Tower.
• Ring, the: The chamber at the end of universe, but is it this universe or the last one? The Ring is the permeable shell through which avatars enter the Waking Shadowlands and through which they must pass to use any gates to move from gate to gate. Think 'Event Horizon' or Nightcrawler's teleport ability. But it's a drug trip. This implies that drug trips dip people into the ring unprotected with their minds exposed.

S

• Serpent Lines:
• Shadowlands, the: Human minds cannot handle the cold reality of the Bonelands. And so humans built new worlds of fantasy out of their stories and fled their to protect their minds from running over. And these worlds of illusion are the Shadowlands. You will spend your whole life in the Shadowlands, but only by entering consciously as a Psychonaut can one take an active role in the shape of the Shadowlands.
• Sorcerer: Once a psychonaut opens their inner eye and gains access to both High Magick and Low Magick. A psychonaut who specializes in High Magick is a Sorcerer.
• Spirits, the: The personification of illness and disease, of medicine and of places. They are beings without a form or body, though many bear a ghostly image; humans in the Shadowlands are unable to interact with spirits in a corporeal manner.
• Spring, the: The third season of the Crescent Sun, following the Rains and preceding Summer, consisting of New Spring and Warm Spring.
• Stillborn Army, the: Former humans, these are victims of the shrapnel of the Hungry Empire. The Wendigo Hordes and other Locust Touched unaligned with the Hungry Empire formally.
• Storyteller: When people invest their auras and launch an incursion into the Shadowlands, one must remain behind and guide the incursion. This person is the Storyteller and since magick is story, the storyteller's role is sacred. Groups should swap Storyteller duties regularly.

T

• Tribe: A group of people not yet beholden to the Hungry Empire.

U

V

• Vajra: The fuel on which the Avatars function. Vajra is the mystical energy of the human will and of story.

W

• Wendigo: a type of Corrupt who are always hungry, and always starving. Their hunger has warped their senses and a psychonaut will be hard pressed to communicate with any of the corrupt... unless one considers the sounds of digestion to be communication.
• Witch: Resistance to the Hungry Empire, and mentors to Psychonauts. It is through the teaching of the Witches and Wizards that Sorcerers learn Magick, both High Magick and Low Magick.
• Wizard: Like the Witches, the wizards are the guerilla war against the Locust King and the Obi-Won to many Sorcerers.

X

Y

Z

• 
  

An Introductory look at the Spirits

The Clean and Unclean, The Pestilent and the Guardians
 
The spirits are the personification of illness and disease, of medicine and of places. They are beings without a form or body, though many bear a ghostly image; humans in the Shadowlands are unable to interact with spirits in a corporeal manner.

• The Old Spirits (The Quiet Ones, The Sickly Ones)
• The Miscreated
• The Psychopomps (The Iron Horses, The Rust Vultures, Ghost Bears, Stone Turtles, Stellar Jays)

An Introduction to Artifacts

Artifacts are empowered items that inhabitants and psychonauts can wield to extend their capabilities in the Shadowlands

How Artifacts Work

To use the High Magick, a psychonaut must seek out the representatives of the Wild Folk and the Green People as they are in the Bonelands. But this works only once the Psychonaut Sorcerer has first met with the appropriate Witch or Wizard and through their guidance met and made their pact with the Demon which grants the use of that spell.

As such, the spells of the High Magick are hard to obtain and hard to obtain the fuel needed to use them. But the pay off of this high cost is that the High Magick is impressive in its power. By contrast, the Artifacts are relatively easier to obtain and relatively easy for which to obtain fuel. Of course the cost of being easier to obtain and use means that the power contained in the Artifacts is less impressive than the effects of the Spells of High Magick.

Types of Artifacts

If you've played other tabletop or computer based Role-playing Games, you'll be familiar with the concept of magic items. A key difference here however, is what items can be enchanted and imbued with magic. In most other games, the most common types of magic items are weapons and armor.

In the Shadowlands, weapons and armor are immune to the enchantment process of creating Artifacts. It is important that a Sorcerer (and especially the Storyteller) realize that this is not a technical limitation with textual loopholes. Something cannot be made an Artifact if it is intended for use as a weapon or armor, intended to attack or injure another, intended to protect the bearer or another.

The only way that this prohibition can be worked around is if the sorcerer finds a way to indirectly use the artifact offensively or defensively. Anything designed to directly attack or defend will simply fail to function.

Find Artifacts

The Shadowlands are littered with the legendary artifacts of story, ready to be re-enchanted by the Wild Folk and Green People in their role as the protectors of the Artifacts. The Artifact will be found either in a Quest that retells the tale of a previous user's acheivement, or an expedition to a location associated by myth to the artifact itself (typically its creation or destruction or greatest use).

Enchanting Artifacts

An Artifact is always found 'in the rust', its power drained and abilities depleted. In order to be used, the artifact must be re-enchanted. The process of re-enchanting the Artifact is identical to the process of charging a Spell of High Magick. The appropriate animal must be found and marked (typically photographed) by the Sorcerer. The important difference is that the Spell require a new charge before each Incursion use, while the Artifact need only be re-enchanted for each new user.

Charging Artifacts

Whereas the Spells of High Magick needs to be charged between Incursions and uses, Artifacts need only be re-enchanted. A probably enchanted Artifact can be used once per incursion.

List of Artifacts

• The Five Clans
  • The Magus - The One Leaf People 
  • The Scroll of Truth
  • A rolled scroll that, when a yes/no question related to the Incursion objective with burn to a cinder if the answer is no, and crumbles to dust if the answer is yes. The scroll will be whole upon next incursion.
  • The Scholar -  The Two Leaf People 
  • Incense Oil
  • A vial of Oil (ever full once re-enchanted) that, when lit, enables normal automatic success on a single Mind oriented action. This can be used once per incursion.
  • The Mediator - The Winter Leaf People 
  • The Hunter's Hook
  • A bone and cordage hook with a cordage line that, once per incursion, if thrown and hooked to a denizen prevents the denizen from fleeing the area.
  • The Messenger - The Water Green People 
  • The Message Trap
  • A Fish Trap that allows a psychonaut to leave a verbal message of 25 words or less. The trap returns to the psychonaut upon activation. This can be used once per incursion.
  • The Fortuneteller - The Blade Green People 
  • The Digging Stick
  • A wooden root digger, that allows the psychonaut to pierce the earth once per incursion and see an important event that happened at this spot previously.
• The Caretaker - The Village Treaty People 
• The Aura Basket 
• Once per Incursion this prevents shattering of aura, psychonaut can't take other actions beyond moving.
• The Locust - The Stone Crack People  
• The Fire Seed
• Although it does no damage or injury to any living thing (Other plants included), the fire seed will grow explosively into kudzu vines that shatters all cracks and weak spots in the surface that it is dropped/planted upon. This can be used once per incursion.

• The Seven Clans
  • The Magus - The Free Folk 
  • The Pendulum Compass 
  • Points towards Incursion objective at all times.
  • The Scholar -  The Cold Folk 
  • The Seeing Lens 
  • Translates written words in any language found in the Shadowlands. This can be used once per incursion.
  • The Mediator - The Silent Folk 
  • The Soft Moccasins 
  • Removes sound made by the psychonaut, including voice- must remove moccasins to speak.
  • The Messenger - The Wise Folk 
  • The Crystal Bee
  • Delivers non-verbal message to target instantly, message delivered by motion of the bee. This can be used once per incursion.
  • The Fortuneteller - The Swift Folk 
  • The Climbing Claw
  • A pair of gloves decorated with wolf claws, which enables climbing up any vertical or near vertical surface. Psychonaut must remove gloves to hold any object or manipulate anything with the hands.
  • The Caretaker - The Gentle Folk 
  • Spine Bone Ring
  • A bone ring carved from a single piece of spinal column of an ungulate, which enables normal automatic success on a single Hands oriented action. This can be used once per incursion.
  • The Locust - The New Folk 
  • The Salt Charm
  • Acts as bait and draw a particular type of denizen, must have some piece of something related to prey. This can be used once per incursion.
•  The Sea Folk
  • The Magus - The Old Folk 
  • The Scaled Bracelet
  • A beaded bracelet decorated with large fish scales. Once per incursion it grants a normal success on the next Scoundrel action attempted.
  • The Scholar -  The Constant Folk 
  • The Blood Bowl
  • If the character fills the bowl with salt and water (or salt water), and then bleeds into it, they can ask any one question and see a vision within the same realm of the Shadowlands that best answers the question. There is no audio and no context provided. This can be used once per incursion.
  • The Mediator - The Strong Folk 
  •  The Peace Pipe
  • Can be used once per Incursion to to remove oneself from any conflict by smoking the pipe.
  • The Messenger - The Clever Folk 
  • The Charmed Vambraces
  • A set of leather vambraces worn on the forearms that enables normal automatic success on a single Body oriented action. This can be used once per incursion.
  • The Fortuneteller - The Singing Folk 
  • The Pig Bone Pan Flute
  • Playing the Pig Bone Pan Flute before an open flame will cause the smoke from the fire to form into the shape of the chief opposition for the current incursion. 
  • The Caretaker - The Dancing Folk 
  • The Shaman Drum
  • Playing the Drum grants a normal success on the next Hero action attempted. This can be used once per incursion.
  • The Locust - The Ghost Folk
  • The Oil Lamp
  • Lighting the Oil Lamp grants a normal success on the next Villain action attempted. This can be used once per incursion.