Editing LeviathanTempest:ChapterFive (section)

===Atolls===

[Picture: A young Japanese woman is lying fast asleep on a handsome giant turtle' head, with her head resting on it's shell. She's using a tanning mirror. The turtle has a blissed out expression, the kind that usually requires illegal drugs. All around them the sea is calm.] 

The mirror image of the Beloved, an Atoll is an otherwise normal human being who, for whatever reason, exert a fascination on Leviathans. They are the leading lady in ''Creature of the Black Lagoon'', the relentless investigator in Cthulhu mythos stories, or the one blonde girl who survives in the surf horror movie. They serve as naturally-occuring sinkholes for the forces surrounding the Tribe. Leviathans can only watch from afar, but are unable to keep away for long. Atolls are their doom and their salvation. 

This ability - to stand unmoved and untouched by the Deep - also means that contact - social or physical - with an Atoll has an immediate calming effect on members of the Tribe. An Atoll's touch, or smile, clears churning primordial instincts that surround a Leviathan, leaving them with a deep sense of peace and security. Unsurprisingly, the Tribe are obsessed with Atolls, reacting to them in much the same way as they react to anything else they want - overwhelming desire, tinged with the implied privilege of their divine natures.

But Atolls are untouched by the supposed majesty of the Tribe; if a Leviathan wants to interact with one, they have to do so on the level of mere men. Frustrated Leviathans, desperate for the Tanquility of contact with an Atoll, go to huge lengths to attempt to secure them - resorting to kidnapping or stalking. More moderate Leviathans are no less obsessed, merely more subtle - they find themselves drawn to the places the Atoll works or resides, and attempt, with all the awkwardness that the absence of the Wake brings to their social endeavors, to find a place in the Atoll's life. 

Even if access to an Atoll can be secured, the threat to a Leviathan is not diminished. The addictive effect of an Atoll's presence is such that an Atoll, wittingly or not, can easily manipulate a member of the Tribe - the terror of losing their source of comfort can drive them to absurd lengths to please the Atoll. Unscrupulous Atolls who become aware of what power they have can enslave a Leviathan and his Cult with hardly any effort at all. 

Nobody knows what makes an Atoll so special. Leviathans, mostly those of the School of the Fog, have determined that Atolls are almost never related to Tribe families. One hypothesis holds that Marduk was the first Atoll, and he was able to approach Tiamat through the love she had for him.

In rules terms, consider that not only Atolls are immune to the Wake, but they actually exert a powerful Wake on Leviathans themselves. They benefit from the Rote Action rules on all Social Skill rolls against Leviathans, and Leviathans suffer from a penalty on their Subterfuge rolls against them equal to their own Sheol. A Leviathan in the presence of an Atoll treats her Tranquillity as though it were three dots higher for Tranquility rolls, measuring which Derangements and Afflictions are currently active, the benefits of Still Mind, and of course for behaviour purposes. This bonus has no effect on Tranquillity Disruptions, or the rolls to see if a Leviathan develops a Derangement or Affliction after degeneration. 

If a Leviathan has met and identified an Atoll and knows she is in the area, it becomes difficult for the Leviathan to think of anything else. Spending too much time away from the Atoll becomes a sin against Tranquillity. Some Leviathans have been known to finally detach from this fascination through sheer willpower, but in most cases, it will only end with the death of one or the other party.