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entities [2021/07/22 11:56]
gm_leah [Life and Death] |
entities [2021/07/28 23:21] (current)
gm_sophia |
| ====== Entities ====== | ====== Entities ====== |
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| ===== What is an Entity? ===== | The in-game supermarket Emporium caters to a wide variety of god-like Entities from diverse planes of reality. Characters in //Emporium// have manifested only a fraction of their true power to exist within the store. They will remain in this state until the end of the game. |
| Entities in //Emporium// are distinctly non-human, immortal beings that exist across the multiverse and characteristically operate on a cosmic scale. Players are given the freedom to define their character's own homeworld, and their station within it. All Entities have a [[souls|soul]], and are both sentient and sapient. | |
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| Within the setting of //Emporium//, Entities may be categorised as Chimerae, Glories, or Implements. While these categories serve an OC mechanical function, and may be referred to IC, they do not refer to any inherent metaphysical distinction, but exist in-universe for practical and colloquial purposes of classification, and describe general trends in the nature of Entities across the multiverse. | This page aims to illustrate the nature of Entities within the wider world of //Emporium// the game, as opposed to within the store. The former has less immediate relevance to the game, but may help inform how your character sees the world and how they reconcile their experience in-store with their day-to-day existence. For more information on how Entities manifest within Emporium, please see the [[manifestations|Manifestations in-store]] page. |
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| ===== Life and Death ===== | ===== What is an Entity? ===== |
| Across the multiverse, Entities are united by their incomprehensibly vast and extraordinary lifespans, which lends them a very different perspective on life and death than may be seen among mortal beings. All Entities are functionally immortal, and very difficult to kill, but not all Entities are eternal or everlasting. A Chimera tasked with guarding a gate between worlds may only be able to be killed by the individual prophesied to take them down; a Glory may fade into oblivion when the ideal they represent no longer exists; an Implement pursuing a new purpose in life may alter their mind and body beyond the point of recognition: if you replace the head and handle of an axe, is it still the same axe? Entities in //Emporium// are as varied in their conception of death as they are in any other matter, and we encourage players to consider what life, death, and immortality mean to your character as they shop at Emporium. | |
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| The creation of Entities is similarly variable: Entities are commonly created spontaneously, when a large enough [[souls|soul]] is attracted to the right circumstance, however they may have been born or created physically, or they may simply be as old as time. Since most Entities do not have families, they tend to form other kinds of relationships, such as a work relationship, a harmony or rivalry between ideals, or some cosmic alignment or opposition. | Entities in //Emporium// are powerful and abstract beings who are both functionally immortal, and typically extremely difficult or impossible to kill. All Entities have a soul, and are fully sapient. Entities can be found anywhere in the multiverse and vary greatly in form and function. Your character doesn't need to be the one god of their reality. Indeed, it is unusual for there to be only one Entity on a single plane of existence! |
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| Entities may be able to create life by introducing souls into sufficiently complex systems, and the creation of life may be part of a character's backstory. | To mortals, Entities may be known as gods, monsters, spirits, or other suitably powerful and unfathomable beings. Alternatively, their existence may be unknown to mortals entirely: they may embody an abstract concept, work behind the scenes to regulate the laws of space and time within their homeplane, walk amongst mortals in disguise, or exist on a plane where there are no mortal beings. |
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| While Entities may mature at different rates, and the manifestation of their age may be varied, our [[conduct_and_themes|Conduct and Themes Policy]] requires that all characters (PC and NPC) should have a capacity for decision-making equivalent to that of the average human adult, and it is forbidden to portray intentionally childlike appearances, mannerisms and speech patterns, regardless of your character's psychological age. | ===== How do Entities Relate to Emporium? ===== |
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| ===== Relation to Mortals ===== | However god-like Entities may seem to mortals unfamiliar with the workings of the cosmos, they are by no means all-powerful beings. Outside of the reality they are used to, referred to as an Entity's [[character_creation#homeplane|homeplane]], their influence is usually much diminished, as can be seen in Emporium, where Entities manifest according to the laws of reality imposed by the supermarket. While travel between planes is possible, and corporations like [[emporium#the_orbital_conglomerate|the Orbital Conglomerate]] do operate across planes, true omniscience or omnipotence across planes is impossible within the setting of //Emporium//. |
| All Entities are by nature alien to mortals: their unending lifespan, alien minds, and mutable, timeless, or non-Euclidean bodies allow them to operate on a cosmic scale that mortals can hardly dream of grasping. Similarly, it is nigh impossible for an Entity to understand quite what it is like to live a mortal life, as their experience even of an ordinary act such as grocery shopping is prone to balloon into something quite extraordinary, which nevertheless collapses back into yet another mere blip in their infinite existence at the end of the day. | |
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| That said, it's a lot of work for a mortal player to try to portray a truly alien mind (we know, we've tried). So while you are more than welcome to experiment with whatever non-human concepts you care to imagine, we don't require any minimum level of strangeness from player characters. | Some Entities may have powers of creation on their homeplane, but every Entity's power is limited. It is unusual for an Entity to be able to source everything they need within their own plane. A few rare commodities may be found across all worlds, such as [[souls]], but it is common for an entity to lack some key element; specific materials, the power to shape them, the will to do so or even an //idea// for how to address a certain problem. Such resources may be in abundance on other planes, but only large interplanar organisations like Orbital possess the necessary infrastructure to transport them across the interplanar gulf efficiently: small scale trade between Entities simply isn't worth the divine effort. This is where [[Emporium]] comes in: whatever you lack, Emporium is one of the few places in all existence where you can find //everything// you might be looking for. |
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| It is up to you whether your character has had much exposure to mortal beings and what exactly this looked like. They might have walked amongst mortals in disguise, be worshipped by them, regulate the laws of space and time which allow them to experience their realities, or only ever heard of them in theory. All of these are scenarios you may like to consider when [[character_creation#homeworld|designing your homeworld]]. | All you need to enter Emporium as a customer is sufficient power and/or responsibility, and the freedom to take some time away from home. For this reason, it is much more common to see divine servitors making the trip, rather than the overgods of entire planes: you'd hate to get home and find your world stopped existing without your constant micromanagement! However, such servitors must have the confidence of those on their homeplane, as once they are in the store, they will have the power to barter away vast swathes of their world. Whether you are shopping for yourself, or shopping on behalf of another Entity, the exchanges you make will matter to everyone on your homeplane ... and they might be upset if you give away something important. |
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| ===== Identity, Gender, Pronouns ===== | Once one has contacted Emporium to book their place in the queue and convinced them that their credit is good, it is time to wait. A very, very, //very// long time. Aeons, in fact: Emporium's products are in high demand across a more-than-infinite multiverse. Even for Entities, the wait time is almost unreasonable: so much so that they will go to tremendous lengths to protect their [[Manifestations]] once they finally get into the store. The wait is so long, many Entities will actually sign on as Employees in hopes of reducing the amount of time they have to wait for access to the store's products. |
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| //Emporium// aims to explore themes of selfhood and identity in the context of characters' immortal existence, and the interactions - both extraordinary and mundane - that take place within it. There is no convention for the gendering of Entities (subject to the limitations present under the [[gm:conduct_and_themes|CAT policy]] - no gender relations that replicate real-world oppression), and we encourage players to consider what, if anything, gender means to their characters. | |
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| One character might identify as masculine, employing he/him pronouns; another might find concepts of binary gender alien, identifying zirself using zie/zir pronouns; another still might reject gendered personhood in its entirety, seeing itself as embodying or enacting an abstract principle or process, and employing it/its pronouns. Be respectful of people's character choices, especially when using pronouns such as it/its which are sometimes points of sensitivity, and assume good faith as other players explore themes that they are interested in! | ===== Life and Death ===== |
| | Across the multiverse, Entities are united by their incomprehensibly vast and extraordinary lifespans. This lends them a very different perspective on life and death than may be seen among mortal beings. All Entities are functionally immortal, and very difficult to kill, but not all Entities are everlasting. A Chimera tasked with guarding a gate between worlds may only be able to be killed by the individual prophesied to take them down. A Glory may fade into oblivion only when the ideal they represent no longer exists. An Implement pursuing a new purpose in life may alter their mind and body beyond the point of recognition: if you replace the head and handle of an axe, is it still the same axe? Entities in //Emporium// are as varied in their conception of death as they are in any other matter. We encourage players to consider what life, death, and immortality mean to their characters as they shop at Emporium. |
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| ===== Naming Conventions ===== | The creation of Entities is similarly variable. Entities are commonly created spontaneously, when a large enough [[souls|soul]] is attracted to the right circumstance, but others may have been born or created physically, or simply be as old as time. Since most Entities do not have families, they tend to form other kinds of relationships, such as a working relationship, a harmony or rivalry between ideals, or some cosmic alignment or opposition. |
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| Perhaps a Chimera’s name had never been spelled out by anything but the flight path of peregrines. Perhaps a Glory’s name can only be sung out by a choir of ten thousand voices, over three days and three nights. Perhaps an Implement worked so discreetly and smoothly, its presence was never known, and it never had a name before. | Entities may have the power to create life by introducing souls into sufficiently complex systems. The creation of life may be part of a character's backstory. |
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| Regardless, Entities’ names all manifest in a certain way in Emporium, and when one Entity addresses another, the Emporium Translation Matrix fills in the name for them just as quickly and discreetly as if they had known it all along. Typically, each type of Entity’s name manifests in one of two ways, as presented below. | While Entities may mature at different rates, and the manifestation of their age may be varied, our [[conduct_and_themes|Conduct and Themes Policy]] requires that all characters (PC and NPC) should have a capacity for decision-making equivalent to that of a human adult. It is forbidden to portray intentionally childlike appearances, mannerisms and speech patterns, regardless of your character's psychological age. |
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| __DON'T__ | |
| * use unicode characters or Emojis! This could break the email system! | |
| * make direct reference to real world mythological/religious entities, real world figures, or characters from real world media. (See the relevant section in our [[gm:conduct_and_themes|Conduct and Themes]] policy.) | |
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| __DO__ | |
| * let us know if there is a particular part of your character's name that you would like us to prioritise in their email address, as we will most likely need to simplify them if they are long. | |
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| ====Glory==== | |
| A Glory’s name tends to either signify their metaphysical purity and aloofness (1), or display their unbound glory and absolute magnificence (2). | |
| *1. One word (relatively) abstract noun: eg “Time”, “Apocalypse”, “Knowledge” | |
| *2. Extravagant epithets (with esoteric names that abide to alien/made up phonologies): eg “The Twilit Mbwambwali”, “The Triumphant Radiance”, “Euphoria in Excelsis, Huntress Sublime, She Who Makes the Stars Bleed” | |
| Note: If you choose 2, please indicate which name/epithet is the most core to your character. This will appear as your wiki username and in your IC email address. If you do not, we will choose one for you. | |
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| ====Chimera==== | |
| A Chimera’s name tends to either match their own vibrant immediacy and overwhelming presence (1), or demonstrate their chimeric and complex nature (2). | |
| *1. Colour name in the style of how paints are named, often evoking natural (mineral/flora/fauna/etc) and emotional motifs: eg “Molten Amber”, “Pale Rose Blush”, “Vitriol of Copper”, “Quinacridone Violet” | |
| * 2. Four word name in the form of “Adj-Adj-Adj (Noun)”: eg “Vibrant-Mellifluous-Sweet (Joy)”, “Good-Bad-Nonsensical (Truth)”, “Shielding-Warping-Embracing (Shadow)”, “Smiling-Singing-Waiting (Maw)” | |
| Note: Chimerae with names in the form of 2 tend to be known as one of the three adjectives, while the noun part of their name is treated as a true name or a close personal secret that reveals too much. If you choose 2, the noun part of your name will not appear in your username or your IC email address. | |
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| ====Implement==== | |
| An Implement’s name tends to either reflect their dual nature of having jobs of cosmic importance and yet being oddly mundane (1), or hint at their place within a larger structure or community of similar Entities (2). | |
| *1. Human first name with an occupational surname, either a real world surname with occupational roots (eg Fisher, Piper, Smith), or just put “-er” on the end of a verb or noun: eg “Ahmed Fisher”, “Johnny Gangster”, “Michelle Organiser” | |
| *2. Human first name followed by a string of numbers: eg “Virginia487, Scott003, Nanako77” | |
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| | ===== Identity, Gender, Pronouns ===== |
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| | //Emporium// aims to explore themes of selfhood and identity in the context of characters' immortal existence, and the interactions - both extraordinary and mundane - that take place within it. There is no cross-universal convention for the gendering of Entities, and a wide range of modes of expression result (subject to the limitations present under the [[conduct_and_themes|CAT policy]] - no gender relations that replicate real-world oppression). We encourage players to consider what, if anything, gender means to their characters. |
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| | One character might identify as masculine, employing he/him pronouns. Another might find concepts of binary gender alien, identifying zirself using zie/zir pronouns. Another still might reject gendered personhood in its entirety, seeing itself as embodying or enacting an abstract principle or process, and employing it/it pronouns. Be respectful of people's character choices, especially when using pronouns such as it/it which are sometimes points of sensitivity. Assume good faith as other players explore themes they are interested in! |