Chapter 1: The Evil Genius
From Summoner
Contents |
The Blank World
What if the world is nothing more than a thought? What if everything we know, everything we perceive, is only such because we think it to be so? Why, then, do we live in a World of Darkness, where the shadows are deep and rarely empty? Do we wish this to be so?
Or is something else at work?
Rene Descartes, in his Meditations, considered the nature of existence. What can we know, beyond suspicion? Our friends can lie to us, as can our loved ones. Our religions could be fabrications. Our own senses can lie, with mirages and hallucinations. What can we believe, if everything we know could be an illusion, perhaps some grand fantasy crafted by an evil genius?
Many walk through the world, ignorant of this uncertainty. Some, however, feel an itching in their hearts, a doubt, or a need for an absolute truth. Descartes felt a similar drive, which drove him to his question: What can I know to be true?
His answer is the resounding truth of those who call themselves Summoners. Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am.
This truth awakens an inner mutability in the souls, spirits, consciousness...in the whatever of certain people, and opens their perspective to a new world. When looking back, the rest of the world seems oddly oblivious. They just don't know. To most of them, they wouldn't want to know if they could. There's a certain comfort in taking one's existence for granted. However, this leaves them vulnerable to many forces, defenseless when the hungry things from behind the Mirror find a way out.
Those called Summoners are not defenseless. By knowing themselves, they can bring to bear their own inner heroes and demons, legends and monsters, and turn them into a weapon to assert their point of view onto the blank slate of the world. They can deny the soul hunger of the Demons with a battle cry and their Arts.
They define their own world, on their terms. The road of Ego, however, can be as much of a prison as the Blank World ever was...
Drawing the Fool
(Placeholder)The pivotal moment where one accepts one's Ego and comes face to face with a facet of their souls: the Alter Self
The difference between any other person and a Summoner is Ego. Not to be mistaken with egotism (though you'll certainly find it among many Summoners), Ego in this case represents consciousness. A Summoner, by nature, is aware of himself, and of the world around him. Ego serves as a mediator between the Self and Reality, and that sense of identity is what eventually gives birth to the Alter Self, an ideal abstraction of one part of a Summoner's psyche.
Cutting the Deck
The first step to awakening Ego is to realize that something is amiss. Many walk through this world with the potential to realize their Ego, but never do so. They tend towards looking for answers, either through organized religions, scientific enquiry, cults, drugs, or more unusual explorations of their limits and boundaries. Many forget that uncertainty and return calmly to their sleep. Others, continually disturbed, seek out the answers with renewed vigor.
What, then, triggers the change? Many forces can contribute to the shift. More often than not, a brush with the supernatural can set someone along the road to an awakened Ego. Many suffer terrifying and beautiful nightmares. Others receive a more direct shock, as demons seek out their simmering Id as a rather delicious meal. Most confusing, others are visited by beings of the Mirror, who mentally prepare them for the transition. These last draw the most interest and suspicion from other Summoners. Who is out there, awakening Summoners, and for what purpose?
Regardless of the method, someone with a wakeful Ego but is otherwise normal makes for a shining beacon to Summoners and free Demons. It is usually a race to see if they are found by those with friendly intentions, Devoured into empty husks of matter, or awaken to their power on their own. Most often, it is a close dash between the latter two.
The Alter Self
The Alter Self, called the Persona by some, is an outward manifestation of the Ego, and a powerful one at that. The Alter Self is a need, a desire, or a behavior given shape and truth. Someone who, in Drawing the Fool, had the need to protect and preserve a loved one might call out an Alter Self with great gleaming armor, a shield, or even a 'living shield', riddled with hardened bones and scarred flesh. The imagery can range from platonic perfection to a terror Giger would conceive. It all depends on the psyche and Ego that draws the spirit out.
The first time a Persona is called, it represents the full awakening from simply a being with Ego to a true Summoner. Demons grow wary, or attack outright. The Blank World recoils and warps from the pressure of an awakened spirit. The event is felt by anyone with the proper sensitivity, and in rare cases, even other supernaturals may grow aware of a particularly traumatic or powerful Alter Self's ascension to the fore.
Alter Selves tend towards the mythological, and can sometimes surprise even the Summoner, being based on knowledge they never had about stories they've never heard. This phenomenon has many, especially the Wand Peasantry, convinced of some sort of link between the Ego, a Summoner's personal Unconscious, and the deeper wonders and perspectives of the Mirror. Regardless, the Alter Soul resounds with the truth of an Ego's needs, and takes on an arcanum best suited to what it is meant to represent.
The Unconscious
The dreams where a Summoner and their Alter Selves may interact. Here, they may learn new Arts, look inward for answers in the collective of dreams and thoughts...and perhaps even forge a new Self from the aether.
Demons
Beings of thought and meaning, there is a Demon for every passion or deception of the human mind. Distant cousins to spirits, these Demons exist as mere thoughts within the Mirror, unable to touch the World...until some part of the Mirror cracks.
The Mirror
The world of Demons, a reactive place of perspective and relation. A world of chains and blood and symbols. Some call it Pandemonium, others Hell or Heaven. In the end...it is all in your point of view.
The Undefined
When demons walk the World, mortals without defenses are often helpless to face them. The Undefined are the result of one who has been deeply harvested for Id.
Shells
Here are the hollow men, the straw men...
Memes
Anonymous is powerful, because Anonymous is no one...but Anonymous becomes oneself, and then there is no self...there is only Anonymous. And Anonymous does not forgive.
Phantoms
Everyone knows the story...everyone knows the word on the street. And even if it wasn't true...rumors have a way of seeping into the empty places...and taking root.
