A world in which shadows stretch across realities, connecting analogs in a never-ending cycle of violence.
"The deceptive self-evidence of myth has shrouded truth from mortal eyes for ages. From our high perch, we see death for the illusion it is. We see self for the delusion it is. It pains us to even speak; if we could make you know as we know, we would. But what we know must be known to you, even if we must navigate the crude language of being to communicate it. We no longer have the luxury of time. Beware, mortals -- the devourers are coming, those who cannot cast shadows. They are coming, and your only hope is to seek your salvation from within."
--English transcript of The Broadcast, Dec. 19, 2063.
On Dec. 19, 2063, a message is delivered to each individual; the experience seems to travel in a wave, speaking to each recipient in the early afternoon, local time. News of the mass contact, called The Broadcast, rapidly spreads across the world. Most technologically connected people are aware of the phenomenon for hours before the experience it themselves. The next day, on Dec. 20, a black fog descends on coastal portions of Washington and Oregon states in the U.S., the northern coast of Quebec province in Canada, Djibouti, northern Somalia and the Kansai region of Japan. Contact with the regions is lost; rescue and reconnaissance teams sent into the fog disappear. When the fog finally lifts a little over a week later, the land has been scoured to the bedrock. Nothing is left of the land; even the soil is gone. Many of the regions are now below sea level, and the ocean quickly pours in, making investigation difficult. Especially in Japan, networks and power lines are disrupted.
In the aftermath of the black fog, millions of individuals begin having vivid dreams of "themselves, but different." Tens of millions more become deeply listless, losing interest in life and wasting away.
(A note: Unlike the adventure and exploration worlds I wrote up in Day 1 and 2, this world's primary mystery isn't really a variable that can be used as a hook for stories and games. In those worlds, the primary mystery – whether it's the history of the sky roads or the nature of a worldwide cataclysm – can be whatever the users wish. The mystery isn't mechanical, it's simply there as the question mark that teases users into a story. In this world, the mystery is the structure of creation; without knowing the mystery, it would simply seem like a typical unknown-enemy, near-future setting. In a game or novel format, the nature of the world would be slowly teased out, the same way the cause of Day 2's mysterious lights would be. The "question mark" hook of this world is a secondary mystery, instead – the obvious candidates are the aims, nature and source of the devourers.
(TL;DR – This world will not be as interesting in this format because it wouldn't make any sense if the mystery of the world wasn't spoiled.)
The modern Earth is only one of three realities – it resides in the long shadows of another world, and its own shadows are cast across another. Each of these realities is linked; what happens in one influences the other. When an event happens on any one reality, it's repeated in the next world by its analogous actors. It's then copied in the third, which soon causes the first reality to re-enact it. All actions mirror each other, in a lengthy chain of cause-and-effect with no discernable cause and no ultimate effect.
The well-used saw, "Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it," captures only half of the dreadful truth – that all are doomed to repeat history. Some ancient clash reverberates across the realities; wherever it began originally, it has made itself felt over and over again as the realities' actors leap and whirl in an interminably repeated tragedy.
Mankind has always understood this in a dim, primal way. Ancient obsessions with fate and a sense that supernatural states or worlds were dual – heaven and hell, naraka and nirvana – reflected the partially grasped truths of reflections cast across a three-fold reality. Mystic traditions peered beneath the veil using trances or drugs; they dimly perceived the fractured mirror of worlds. Scientific methods deduced the existence and, in time, the nature of other multiple dimensions. Eventually, a critical mass of knowledge – or a critical mass of history – allows an important question to arise: "What germ of difference colors any conflict?" Within the context of a given reality, "How does war and bloodshed become justified, time and time again?"
The answer is simple – the reflection isn't perfect. The shadows that bind realities aren't absolute; the puppet strings that pull and bind across the worlds cannot perfectly replicate events, places or people. Within those distinctions, individuals can grasp for true self-awareness. Within those distinctions, individuals can command fate, staying or co-opting – at least for a time – the chaotic eddies of violence cycling throughout reality. The most astute and self-aware of these individuals can draw a bead upon their analogs in other realities. With proper understanding, they can become of one mind, creating tripartate kingdoms that span the face of creation. In time, these individuals – one mind and purpose across three realities – come to cast their own shadows onto some unknown place. Only those who have undertaken this journey know where it leads, or if there's a place where shadows are no longer cast – a place where self-determination can truly rest, where will creates a land free of fate.
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