Remnant
Contents
The Origins
Remnant was, originally, created by Kyrikain. Not intended at first for mortal hands, it was his method of understanding his own capabilities; the powers lodged within his domains. Through Remnant, the fledgling God helped craft some of the intricacies of the human mind, and how it interacted with dreams and memories. While these ideas were prototypal, the God now interacting with mortal cognition in much more complex ways, the... remnant left behind remains the way in which mortal magi continue to interact with dreams and memories, even now.
Concepts
Engrams: The first concept a Remnomancer - a practitioner of Remnant - interacts with is called The Engram, or Engrams. Before anything else can be learned, one must understand the physical and arcane significance of the Engram, and its relationship with the brain. In Neuropsychology, an Engram is a permanent change left upon the brain due to the existence of a memory, or, more succinctly: a memory trace. While this definition is accurate, a Remnomancer views an Engram as a visual structure. Using ether, the magi is capable of distinguishing Engrams from within the tangle of the mind, acting as a beacon within the otherwise complex structure. Engrams act as focal points within dreams and memories; formed by significant events, thoughts or experiences, they serve as hubs of recognition. While over time they fade if not activated, a Remnomancer can discover even the most latent Engrams within the mind.
Visually, a Remnomancer enters the tangle of the brain through a complex structure known as the Mindscape. Depending on their state - waking or sleeping - the elements of the Mindscape may be more permanent and visual, or may occur to them more as flashes of imagery, disjointed. Whatever the case, as they tread through the Mindscape, Engrams will appear to them as glowing red centers: often a sphere or a globe, they exist as complex jungles of thought and recognition, each tied - typically - to either a certain and significant event, or a period in one's life. Through the magic, the Remnomancer may activate and restore the contents of an Engram, through a process known as Reclamation.
Reclamation: An Engram will appear more or less vibrant depending on its remaining significance to the brain. Dormant Engrams, such as those which have long since been utilized and may have occurred long ago, are 'forgotten' - a process effectively irreversible, as the Engram enters a sleep that cannot be physically recovered from. Remnomancers are capable of undoing this dormancy, reactivating old Engrams, their vibrancy returning as old memories return to the weave of the mind. Reclamation can do this, and more; it can move certain thoughts and memories to the forefront, perhaps making a man's most vivid memories those he had as a young child. It can also, paradoxically, be used to make memories dormant, even very recent ones. Reclamation is, effectively, the ability to rekindle or dim Engrams within the Mindscape, changing the landscape of it around them, and adjusting the Mindscape's more visual surface: the Memory Palace.
The Memory Palace: Dreams and memories are, in many ways, one and the same. By altering one's Engrams and restoring or dimming memories, the Memory Palace is altered. The Memory Palace is a visual manifestation of one's mind. It is often called 'the dream world', 'the subconscious', or even 'memory' itself. Within the internal memory of one's mind exists a collision of ideas; memories and experiences, fears, doubts, desires, creative concepts, imagined splendor and much more. These all go into sculpting the Memory Palace. To put it into example, a person may have been raised in the slums of Nivenhain; they may have served on a ship for years, experiencing other cultures, and dreaming of many. They may fear the man who murdered their mother, and nightmarishly witness him often. They may desire to be a Lord. All of these experiences, memories, fears and desires coalesce within the Memory Palace, which converges into a both dystopian and hopeful amalgamation of their thoughts. Perhaps a twisted form of Nivenhain, surrounded by an open sea, prowled by the man who murdered their mother - now a Lord - and his informants which hunt the dreamer as prey. A complex, imaginary world, it is very much living even while dormant, as the dreamer lies awake.
The Remnomancer can access this Memory Palace, and as if enacting change upon the physical world, can alter it. Remnomancers, in truth, can live within many minds; their own, those they've acquired access to, and eventually even those very distant.
The Kyrikaric Principle: The Kyrikaric Principle is a philosophical concept relating to the dualism of the God Kyrikain; his state, equally, as God of Dreams, and Lord of Nightmares. While primarily noted by his followers through a breadth of examples, each of Kyrikain's good deeds equalized by a dark imprint, this Principle appears most real to a practitioner of Remnant. The Kyrikaric Principle is core to the magic of Remnant. Just as there is splendor, potential for connection and healing beyond the level of what mortals may otherwise find possible, within Remnant - and the Memory Palace itself - there is lingering terror, danger and dread. Every Memory Palace contains within it a lurching overcast of Nightmare; apparitions whether inherent to the Palace or from Reverie that wish to harm. Further, damage or death dealt to a Remnomancer and their fellow dreamer is often permanent, scarring the mind or even affecting the body in strange ways. These effects are more severe as one's mastery of Remnant brings dream-cognition closer to reality, making the magic one of the few that is more dangerous to practice the more experienced one is.
All Memory Palaces have an ominous nature to them somewhere, whether it is predominant, or lying beneath the surface. There is always as much fear and dystopia as there is hope and comity. This principle extends to the Mark of Remnant itself, demonstrated by the fact that Remnant is the only magic with two branching Ascensions.
Initiation
Initiation into Remnant is performed uniquely, in that the Mark of Control is created by connecting Engrams within the initiate's mind. The Engrams form a constellation-like tapestry, akin to a map of synapses, as they are linked together within the Mindscape, one that ultimately appears upon the scalp of the initiate once the process is complete, a visual manifestation of their Mark.
In order to succeed in the initiation, the aspiring Remnomancer must learn to navigate their own Mindscape, guiding their initiator from Engram to Engram to experience facets of their memories, either from birth to the current time or other tangles significant to their cognition. An aspiring Remnomancer who fails to locate other Engrams may become lost within their own Mindscape forever, the initiator likely to abandon them as they feel their ether nearing dangerous fatigue. Failure to complete the initiation often results in the Remnomancer entering a permanent coma, though the damage can actually be reversible through the aide of a Master Remnomancer, who would guide them back to the surface of their Mindscape.
Overstepping
The drawbacks listed below do not always come in pairs, and certainly not simultaneously. Some may come and others may not.
Lesser: Nausea, fatigue, headaches, muscle spasms, dehydration
Moderate: Bleeding through the nose, eyes and ears, intense cramps, seizure-like shocks and spasms, internal bleeding, vomiting and weakness
Collapse: Collapse, or Engram-Collapse is a common result of Moderate Overstepping. The over-use of ether causes the Remnomancer's Mindscape to experience backlash, resulting in a very real impact to their memories, especially recent ones. This can lead to moderate or even severe amnesia, with large swaths of one's life being forgotten in more extreme cases. While this damage is reversible through the help of another Remnomancer, practitioners of Remnant find it difficult to reverse this damage themselves, as they often find these areas of their memory to be clouded, foggy and difficult to navigate by traditional means.
Abject Paranoia: This negative feedback often occurs if the moderate overstepping took place within a Memory Palace. Abject Paranoia is a constant, lingering feeling of extreme dread and anxiety that will accompany the Remnomancer through all hours of the day, a feeling as if they are being targeted by strange beings, apparitions and hallucinations in the real world. In dreams, they see nightmares all around them; nightmares that are real, and can actually do further harm to the Remnomancer. For this reason, Remnomancers who are experiencing this drawback will often intentionally fragment their sleep dramatically, preventing them from going into a deep sleep until this effect fades. While this can result in severe sleep deprivation, it is typically preferable to the alternative.
Severe
The Memory Prison: This severe backlash is reminiscent of the dangers of a Remnomancer's initiation; the risk of being lost within one's own mind, and the fear associated. This fear never truly goes away, as the danger of this occurring does not truly end no matter how advanced one becomes as a practitioner of Remnant. Severe overstepping is typically known to result in one of two things; physical trauma that often leads to death, or the loss of one's ability to navigate through cognition on their own terms. The Memory Prison is variable in how it might occur, or where, but its result is that the Remnomancer becomes permanently locked within a particular Memory Palace, unable to leave.
This leads to a coma that is largely considered incurable, save for some outliers. Most often, the Memory Prison is an incurable backlash because the Remnomancer will typically be slain by a nightmare within a few evenings of their imprisonment, permanently collapsing their Engrams and the synapses between them, turning them mentally vegetative. Only if they are rescued from this dreamscape by a Master Remnomancer before this happens can they hope to survive, though often with permanent trauma as the dreamscape they were trapped within leaks hallucinogenically into their real world.
Mutations
Like Mentalism, a common and negative mutation of Remnant is a hormonal shift within one's brain that leads to dream-addiction, the Remnomancer spending upwards of sixteen hours a day dreaming. Dreaming becomes an incurable fixation of theirs, their pull to it stronger than any drug, unable to truly become rehabilitated from.
Aside from this, Remnant's mutations are vast and variable. Many of them are more subtle, and tend to only affect the Remnomancer's own cognition; a dream-like alteration to their perception of the world, a shift in personality. More commonly, and in the positive strand, Remnomancers often find their ability to memorize, and their overall long-term memory significantly enhanced. They also find that they dream almost every night, even without needing to use Voyage, though these dreams are less vivid and offer them less control. Overall, Mutations of Remnant tend to be psychological, though there are many exceptions.
Abilities
Voyage: Acquired at Novice. The Voyage is sometimes known as 'Dreamdiving'; it is the ability to enter one's Mindscape, a corridor through which lie many doors, all leading to separate junctions within the Memory Palace. These doors may take one to different parts of the same city, which serves as a crux or nucleus of the dreamer's cognition. Or, perhaps, they will take the dreamer to multiple different realms of cognition, each distinct and separate. The complexity of the Voyage and the sites through which the Remnomancer may dive all depend on the complex experiences, aspirations, fears and so on of the person whose mind is being dived into. One individual's Memory Palace may resemble a nation, even a continent in depth and potential, while another's may resemble a hamlet, and another's may encompass a great city of seemingly endless scale.
The Voyage is inherent to the Mark of Remnant. An initiated Remnomancer can Voyage, and as a Novice, does so by entering a sleeping state and exploring their own mind. As they begin to be able to navigate their own Mindscape and Memory Palace, becoming more familiar with Dreamdiving, they learn to enter others. At Apprentice, a Remnomancer can - by entering sleep - enter the minds of those sleeping around them, with a less resistant mind allowing them greater clarity, access and depth. As one progresses, and particularly around the latter stages of Journeyman expertise, one can dramatically widen the distance through which one may Voyage, capable of entering the dreams of those familiar to them from hundreds, even thousands of miles away. Sometimes, a Remnomancer may dive through a random mind, experiencing the cognition of a stranger purely by chance, or as a result of the exceptional depth of their Engrams. Interestingly, Elves experience these dream-invaders more often than other mortals, as their enhanced lifespan naturally produces more Engrams, inherently drawing in more Remnomancers by accident as they Voyage.
Guidance: Acquired at Novice. While the inklings of this ability appear even amidst the Remnant mage's initiation, they manifest more potently as an ability as one progresses through their Novice Mark. Guidance is the power to locate Engrams, filtering ether through a Mindscape to uncover them. This will cause them to light up red; brighter and more vibrant for more recent or compelling Engrams, or dimmer and more dulled for those less remembered or utilized.
Junction: Acquired at Apprentice. As an Apprentice, once one has learned to locate Engrams through Guidance, Junction allows the mage to activate or dim those memories upon encountering them within the Mindscape. Junction occurs when the mage suffuses ether within their hand and makes physical contact with the Engram, activating it one way or another. The target and the Remnomancer will then be given the opportunity to experience memories within the Engram, vividly reliving those memories, or dulling and dimming them to reduce their significance. Junction occurs as a result of the mage's ether stimulating the neural network between Engrams, resulting in synaptic reactions. This ability is the core of Reclamation, allowing one to more predominantly remember or forget certain occurrences. Importantly, however, it is far more difficult to dim recent memories, and to reactivate ones much further back. These more challenging applications can typically only be performed as an Expert, or beyond.
Pervade: Acquired at Apprentice. Within the latter progression through Apprentice Remnomancy, as one learns to wield Junction and activate or stimulate Engrams, many realize it is capable to suffuse the 'mnemonic trace' of Engrams onto objects, or even places. The Remnomancer's ether stores within it a sort of seared memory of other's own experiences, one that can be withdrawn at will, and imparted. Pervade allows the Remnomancer to place these thoughts, concepts, ideas or visual memories onto an object or thing, resulting in a reaction if touched or interacted with by others. As an example, one may impart a visual memory onto a page of a book, resulting in the reader visually experiencing that memory or concept as they turn the page, making contact with the Pervading Engram. The application of this ability is very diverse, varying greatly between mages and their mastery over the magic.
Phantasm: Acquired at Journeyman. Phantasm is a fundamental ability of Remnant, and it is one that introduces a new and unexpected element: the inclusion of illusions into the magic. One gains access to Phantasm as a mid-level practitioner, and while it does not immediately allow for illusory applications, it creates the framework for its successor ability. Phantasm allows the Remnomancer to memorize aspects, particularly visual or physical experiences, apparitions, or even entities from another's Palace, bringing them into their own, affecting their own mental landscape. The effects of this are typically difficult to control as a Journeyman, though a Master Remnomancer can often sequester these copied recognitions into separate sectors or ecosystems within their mind, reducing the impact on their most surface cognition in memories and dreams. Nevertheless, Phantasm allows one to greatly expand the diversity of their Memory Palace, which has uses later.
Falsification: Acquired at Journeyman. Falsification allows the Remnomancer to adjust existing memories - their own or others - in subtle ways, tweaking individual aspects of memories in a plethora of different ways. This may be done by adjusting a number of minute details, and given the Remnomancer's ability to wade through memories at this point, a clever Remnant mage can reconstruct entire narratives based on adjusting these small details. This can and often does impact the Memory Palace of the individual being 'falsified', for better or worse. The greatest limitation of Falsification is that it must be reasonably in line with the target individual's reality or experiences.
Mind-Collision: Acquired at Journeyman. Mind-Collision is a simple, but essential ability. It allows a Remnomancer to link multiple dreamers into one dream. At this point, the Remnomancer is capable of marginally manipulating the level of vividness and cognition experienced by the other dreamers, and therefore this ability can be used for a variety of different purposes. It is performed by reaching out and finding familiarized Mindscapes, tethering their edges together and allowing an intersection between doors of the Memory Palace. The Remnomancer then chooses one specific destination for all invited minds to enter, whether a dream, or an Engram (or array of Engrams). By Master, a Remnomancer can perfectly adjust and tune the level of vividness and cognition of their fellow dreamers, making them fully lucid or fully asleep within the dream. This does not apply to Trial.
Mnemonic Impression: Acquired at Journeyman. Mnemonic Impression is effectively a passive ability, but it must be learned in order to be utilized, and does not come inherently with the progression of one's Mark. Mnemonic Impression allows the Remnomancer, and those given vivid cognition within a Memory Palace, to actually leave an impact upon the Memory Palace in their wanderings. While Dreamdiving, to this point, the Remnomancer has had the ability to experience and perceive their own or other's Memory Palaces, but not to actually significantly change their structure, elements, or other details. Mnemonic Impression allows one to enact change upon a dreamscape; to hunt nightmares, to bring them forth, to change the passing faces of the landscape, to begin to marginally alter the landscape itself, and so on. The potential depth of Mnemonic Impression is great, and its potency increases as one masters the magic, as well as Ascends.
Phantasmal Reckoning: Acquired at Expert. Phantasmal Reckoning is the core of Remnant's illusory capabilities, allowing the Remnomancer to project Phantasms onto visual reality in the form of tangible illusions. This ability can impart a vast, even infinite number of effects onto the world around them, though Phantasmal Reckoning itself is often used to conjure dream apparitions -- often friendly dreams, or even nightmares -- into reality, illusions capable of inflicting harm upon others. While this harm is typically psychological, it can manifest in physical ways as a result of the brain reacting to the illusory backlash as if physical. No individual, magical or mundane, can resist this cognitive-physical effect on their body, even if knowledgeable on the methodology of Remnomancers. This means that these illusory images must be dealt with as if real, and cannot be ignored.
Phantasmal Reckoning consumes exponentially more ether based on the complexity (particularly the danger) of the Phantasm, especially if trying to induce other magical effects. Attempting to replicate magical abilities through Phantasms can be done, but it is very costly, and therefore significantly less efficient than doing so through other magics. Phantasmal Apparitions, on the other hand, are notably more reliable.
The Mask: Acquired at Expert. As one learns to harness dreams and memories for the sake of illusion, the Mask becomes available to the Remnomancer, allowing them to project memory onto physical reality. The Mask is, in many ways, quite limited, but it is also rather incredible. This ability allows the Remnomancer to wield their mnemonic traces as a boon to themselves, masking their present being with a projected self from the past. This can alter their appearance and even rekindle past physicality and health, and while it is active, only infers a very slight, passive drain from the mage that does not exceed one's natural management of radioether. This means it is not capable of inflicting Overstepping on its own, but Masking can make recovery slower, and can prevent Magithermal Entropy from being lowered as quickly. An elderly Remnomancer can appear as and effectively be a healthy, strong young man through the Mask, and can even mask Mutations in doing so. As a drawback, overstepping results in the Mask dwindling and eventually fully receding, marginally losing effect from Light to Severe Overstepping.
Glamour: Acquired at Expert. Glamour allows the Remnomancer to tweak the Mask, enabling them to adjust its characteristics to allow for a greater variety of tangible illusions. At first, this means that a Remnomancer can only adjust moderate details of their Mask, perhaps changing their hair or eye color, but through time Glamour's potency may be expanded through increased training and frequency of use. After significant experimentation is performed, Glamour may be used to sculpt faces, add or remove hair to substantial degrees, and change skin tone and voice quality. Due to the complexity of creating adequate imitations of the characteristics of other sexes or sentient races, a Remnomancer cannot construct a convincing disguise regarding those two classifications until Master. Additionally, all comprehensive disguises (such as those significantly distinct from the person's typical Mask) require fine-tuned construction, forging temporary Engrams and mannerisms that are associated with that specific Glamour. Rather than allowing for a loose and infinite array of Masks, Glamour allows the Remnomancer to construct a finely-crafted, small retinue of disguises, each with their own identity.
Astralization: Acquired at Master. Astralization allows one to project aspects of an entire Palace onto the world, resulting in mass illusions. This can shift entire landscapes to appear akin to memorized details from a Palace, though within a pocket, the full span only increasing with further expenditure of ether. Nevertheless, this allows the Remnomancer some level of control over a given area, as their familiarity with the Memory Palaces they've made into Phantasms gives them a considerable edge in navigating them. This can have dramatic effects upon the world, turning entire blocks of a city into a dream-illusory version of one, with even some of the dreamscape's inhabitants appearing within. Astralization has great potential, but can be extremely costly to use depending on the span and depth of its application.
Trial: Acquired at Master. While the Remnomancer is capable of visiting other people in dreams, it is only at this point - as a Master - that they are capable of pulling one into a Memory Palace while waking, and by force. Trial forces the target individual and the Remnomancer, physically, into the Remnomancer's Memory Palace, or the target's. The two will actually physically disappear, as if sucked into that realm by portal, their bodies unable to be found or interacted with while the two engage in the Trial within the dreamscape. This ability is typically used to hunt, a Remnomancer pulling another into their own Dreamscape, a land they've effectively mastered at this point. Isolating their foe, they wield their confusion against them. Trial is an exceptionally powerful ability for this reason, and it is often performed by mage-assassins. The danger of Trial is that it continuously consumes ether while active, meaning the target must be located and dispatched before the Remnomancer is ethereally deprived. Death in the Trial results in death in the physical world. When the Trial ends, the Remnomancer and their target will both appear separately at a random location within ten miles of the place where the ability was performed, ejected by the dreamscape.
While within Trial, a Remnomancer cannot invite others into the dreamscape through Mind-Collision, and any presently within the dreamscape will be ejected when Trial is performed, resulting in them waking up.
Abyssal Abilities
These abilities are largely unknown. There is only one Abyssal ability that has ever been acknowledged by magical society, known as the 'Mind Leech'. According to claims, the Mind Leech is implanted into a target's Mindscape, rapidly consuming their memories, the integrity of their dreamscape and their cognitive capabilities. The full truth of these assertions, however, is not known.
Dreamwalker Abilities
Like with the Abyssal, the Dreamwalker's abilities are anomalous and unknown. One ability that has been more reliably chronicled is one called 'The Bridge', through which the Dreamwalker blends, bridges or connects multiple Memory Palaces together, forming a complex weave within Reverie. The full impact and purpose of this ability is uncertain, and few credible sources have elaborated further.
Novice
As a Novice Remnomancer, one begins to learn how to Dreamdive through Voyage, as well as locating Engrams through Guidance. This stage forms the foundation for exploring and navigating the Mindscape, and even the Memory Palace, though the Remnomancer is greatly limited in what they can do. The Remnomancer begins to notice their dreams becoming considerably more vivid, as their dream world becomes almost comparable to their waking reality in its impact upon them. This can cause myriad effects to them psychologically, and is only the beginning of this dive into a split reality.
Apprentice
An Apprentice Remnant mage gains access to Junction, allowing one to activate or dim Engrams, as well as experience - mutually or individually - their own memories, or the memories of others, more or less vividly depending on their mastery or lackthereof. Later, after mastering Junction, the Apprentice Remnomancer learns to impart impressions from Engrams onto objects or other physical things through touch, gaining access to this ability through Pervade. The Apprentice Remnomancer can now, finally, explore the Memory Palaces of others, mutually dreaming with other individuals. At this point, the Remnomancer may initiate another mage, though only towards the latter part of their progression as an Apprentice.
Journeyman
Journeyman is a keystone in the progression of the Remnomancer, imparting them with multiple new abilities, and greatly expanding their ability to influence dreams. To begin with, they gain the ability to learn Phantasm, allowing the Remnant mage to memorize aspects; places, entities or attributes of another's Memory Palace, introducing those things to their own. This acts as the foundation of Remnant's illusory capabilities, though is not fully realized at this point. Falsification allows one to marginally adjust others' memories, and Mind-Collision allows the Remnomancer to invite multiple people into one dream, for a variety of different reasons. Finally, the Journeyman gains access to a passive, fourth ability known as Mnemonic Impression, allowing them to actually impact Memory Palaces in significant ways, turning these dream realities into worlds shapeable by their own hands, and those they experience the dream with. All of this exists beneath the clear and obvious fact that the Remnomancer has learned to fully experience the dream reality as an equal facet of life, and - while dreaming with others - naturally imparts this upon them as well. Through Journeyman, the capable applications of Remnant greatly broaden.
Expert
Expert is the pinnacle of the Remnomancer's introduction to their own illusory capabilities, focused entirely on this fact. They gain access to Phantasmal Reckoning, allowing them to project dream apparitions as physical-illusions, capable of affecting reality through perturbing others' cognition. A powerful and diverse ability, this serves as a reliable illusory function going forward. Further, they gain access to the Mask, which allows them to wield prior versions of themselves as a physical-illusory representation, ensuring prolonged youth (though not immortality), health and function, while also allowing them to conceal Mutations and Marks.
Master
A Master Remnant mage gains access to two, powerful new abilities: Trial and Astralization. Trial allows the Remnomancer to pull an individual into their dreamscape, or that individual's dreamscape, forcibly and whether dreaming or awoken, their physical body being converged into this reality and creating the potential for lethal harm. Astralization is effectively the inverse, projecting large sections of a dreamscape onto the outside world, though with limitations.
At this point, the abilities of Remnomancy and their application have truly been mastered, with the foundational Concepts much more easily and wholly enacted. The underlying pinnacle of Master Remnomancy is the fact that the Remnomancer is now capable of waking and dreaming at the same time, interchangeably, if they so wish. Their ability to process and understand both realities simultaneously is a strange novelty to many, but it is a thing that is natural to them. Because of this, all abilities of Remnant can now be performed while waking, and on waking targets.
Ascension: The Duality
At the most central point of Reverie, there is a great tree: the Calus, a yew that stands seven kilometers tall, its branches expanding outward miles and miles. Once a dreamer leaves a Dreamscape, one of Reverie's many microcosms, the image of the Calus becomes immediately viewable. The tree has dark bark and crimson red leaves, and at its foot lies a pale white ruin: broken towers and a tattered, descending stairwell, which serves as the entrance to the Abstract Realm, the foundry where dreams and nightmares are formed. For most who somehow lucidly wander through Reverie, the Calus is an inaccessible mystery. For a Dreamwalker and for an Abyssal, it is the place in which they are born. x
For more information, see: The Ascendant.
Notes
- The Remnomancer cannot determine facts about another individual's Memory Palace without their consent. This magic is meant to be collaborative and must be played as such.
- A Mentalist's Mindscape and Memory Palace tends to be considerably more unique than the typical person's. The Neurocrux makes their Mindscape much more complex and difficult to navigate. Additionally, their mastery over the Mosaic often results in greater emotional division within their Palace, often resulting in segregated sectors within their dream-cognition. This can be determined and played between the Mentalist and Remnomancer, but is important to note.
