LeviathanTempest:ChapterOne

Chapter 1 : The World That Is (and Was)

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters."

- Genesis 1:1-2.

In a sense, the story of the Tribe begins here - at the origins of creation. But the formless world did not remain that way. Nothing emerges from nothing - the Tribe's legacy is encoded in the history of the Primordial Waters and the bloodlines of the Progenitors, realized in the Strains of the Tribe. A Leviathan is the inheritor of these bygone days - the points before definition, the world before the parting of the waters. The world before mankind and their mandate over the land and sky and seas. Before all this, the formless chaos of Tiamat and her offspring. After it, the Tempest.

Bereshit - The Tribe

A Leviathan is a man or woman born into a bloodline mixed with the blood of a Progenitor, who comes into that power and changes into an inhuman being, a divine essence limited and warped by the confines of flesh. Together, the Leviathans form the Tribe - united in blood and by circumstance, they are - for good or ill - the remnant of an aborted stage of creation. For the excesses of their ancestors and the riotous hunger encoded into their blood, Leviathans are immortalized in the myths and residual memory of mankind as the Wicked Tribe - the aboriginal Other, from whom all horrors descend.

Members of the Tribe do not have the luxury of dismissing this negative portrayal of their lineage. Their existence is unequivocally something horrific, something wrong - the world distorts around them. Their instincts guide them inevitably towards the pursuit of sin and excess - the abuse of others, the destruction and perversion of minds. The blood of the Progenitors cries out for the destruction of this new, diluted creation - this world cast in the image of mankind and not their own. A Leviathan cannot plead necessity or make excuses for themselves - they should not be. The expression of their Bloodline - the point at which they become something other than human - thrusts them solidly into an untenable position - a point from which they must become something else. The crucible of change is not kind to a Leviathan, instinctively cleaving to their human life while simultaneously urged to run rampant and indulge in the most unrestrained depths of sin and cruelty. Most never progress, endlessly recapitulating periods of growth, stability, and eventual collapse. Some simply stop - becoming the monstrosity that their lineage directs them to become. They become Typhons, creatures of pure appetite, whose outrages reproduce the worst horrors of the lost age of Progenitor supremacy.

The Rift

The Rift is what remains. It's what Leviathans can access now instead of permanently bathing in the glory that was the Primordial Sea. It is a separate reality, while the Primordial Sea was a part of the physical world; it is a stunted, narrow place, while the Sea was all-encompassing. It is a dark, claustrophobic, tormented place, and for good reason. The Rift is an embodiment of the collective subconscious of all Leviathans, Lahmasu, and all descendents of the Progenitors. It is also a living graveyard where neuroses, afflictions and fears survive long after their owners and originators have physically died. And it is the closest thing that Leviathans have to a home.

Getting there

All Leviathans can in theory access the Rift. Water, in its various forms, is a powerful conduit and a Leviathan needs to be submerged in one of its variations to attempt to dive into the Rift. Sea water is the most powerful of these, but in a pinch, clear water, fog or blood can serve. The Storyteller remains final judge of whether or not a Leviathan is "submerged" at the time, but ideally the character should be invisible from those outside the lake, fog bank or other obscuring feature.

Mechanically, the Leviathan rolls his Tranquility and spends a point of Ichor and slips into the alternate reality of the Rift. Attempting this in sea water carries no penalty. Blood or natural clear water (lake, river) impose a -1 penalty. Tap water is further removed from nature and therefore carries a -2 dice penalty. Other cases are left at the appreciation of the storyteller. The Leviathan can carry other people into the Rift if they are in physical contact with her; one additional success is necessary per extra person.

When diving into the Rift, the Leviathan entirely disappears from the Shore (the real world). He does not carry through any items unless he spends a Willpower point to do so; even then, some items may stubbornly refuse to go through. Crossing over creates turmoil: waves, wind, storm or fog may be left behind, possibly making the area (such as a tub of tap water) unsuitable for return.

In some areas, called Gatewaters, the Rift is much closer to our reality. Humans will get sucked in sometimes, and even those who don't are more likely to develop Derangements (these areas give a -1 penalty on all rolls to avoid getting Derangements). Most Gatewaters are in areas deeply associated with water: either on the ocean itself, around certain islands, or in marshes, bogs or river deltas.

Travelling the Rift

The Rift appears as a vast expanse of a breathable, water-like substance. A roiling bright light shines through the Shallows (the upper parts of the Rift), but disappears as you dive deeper. A Leviathan who breaks through into the Rift always appears near the surface (Depth 0).

The Rift posesses Depths, exactly as transforming Leviathans experience them. This is not surprising; as the Rift is essentially an expression of Leviathan psyche, it mimics the experience of Tribe members coming closer to their monstrous heritage. Leviathans appear to transform as they go deeper into the Rift, so that they take the shape of the corresponding Depth to their environment.

The Rift is pretty much synonymous with the Tempest. Most of it is continually wracked by violent currents, arc lightning and fast, sharp ice or rocks. The existence of this realm ensure the continuation of the Tribe's curse of restlessness and madness, just as the Leviathans' chaotic behaviour encourage a more chaotic Rift. The Tempest usually worsens as one goes deeper. However, certain areas of perfect calm exist as well; called Doldrums, they are sometimes large enough to hold sunken cities of eerie quiet and stillness.

Someone who makes no effort appears stationary in the Rift unless acted upon by the Rift itself. Moving around requires Athletics rolls, with the characteristics depending on the type of movement required (Stamina for sustained travel, Strength for brute speed and power, Dexterity for fine manoeuvring). To go deeper, however, a Leviathan also needs to transform into the corresponding Depth of his own shape.

Mortals can not go deeper than the first Depth, unless a Leviathan physically carries them. There is one exception to this rule: Atolls are unaffected by Depth in all cases, although they are still quite vulnerable to other dangers that lurk in the Rift.

Ecology

The Rift, like the mundane ocean, is a deceptively empty place, prowled by ungainly beasts. Memories take form down there, as well as neuroses, phobias and dark impulses which become predator beasts, parasitic worms or spiked monstrosities. There are islands made up of the bones of Progenitors, hard remaining nuggets of a sense of identity long left behind by a dead monster-god. From time to time, one can find fossilised information about older times, sometimes guarded by the psychological complex which gave it worth to the long-disappeared creature that knew them.

This is why Leviathans brave the dangers of the Rift: because despite all it forces them to face, they can find things forgotten by all under the surface of this dark, unsettling realm. The natural dangers of the Rift are many, but the Leviathan also brings some with him. Any person who goes into the Rift while possessing Derangements creates one monster for each of them. These are highly personalised, sometimes quite cunning beings, who want nothing more than the death of their originator as an overall solution to their own existence. Killing them does not destroy the Derangement, either: it is still just as present when the Afflicted person gets back to the Shore.

The Rift possesses a strange structure, like an inverted cone. At the surface, the Rift seems endless, as unfathomably wide as the myriad minds that it reflects are. But the deeper one goes, the more constrained you feel, until at the deepest, down in the dark, where you reach the oldest, most primordial beings and memories, you feel that all of the world is a single oppressive point and individuality is a lost concept. This is where the most dangerous creatures of the Rift survive, where the most incomprehensible lore can be found, inscribed in illegible alphabets on the surface of rock walls that seem to be the inside of your own skull.

Going deeper yet would, according to Tribe lore, allow a Leviathan to find the Primordial Sea again. Beyond the Tempest, coming out of the other end, so to speak, lie the tranquil, perfect and awesome world that Leviathans truly belong to. needless to say, no one who has reached it has come back to tell the tale.

Getting back

While going down is fairly straightforward for Leviathans, going back up is much more difficult. A Leviathan in the deepest part of the Rift forgets his own identity bit by bit, reverting to the primal monster their blood is urging them towards. To reduce Depth, the Leviathan needs not only to transform into a lesser Depth, but also to roll (Tranquility - their current Depth level).

Once just beneath the Surface (Depth 0), breaking through to the Shore is fairly straightforward. A final Tranquility roll allows the Leviathan to come back, in the closest suitable space (that is, submerged by water in some form) to the one from which the character entered the Rift. To reach another point of re-entry, the Leviathan may have to navigate the surface of the Rift, with appropriate Intelligence+Navigation rolls.

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