shady side of the moon

My name is Ceriise and I’m a cyborg alien freak that lives in a grey box on top of a sunscorched pile of grey boxes in the middle of the most beautiful city in the world, or so I’m told. I’ve spent my entire life so far maintaining the hypercord of a space elevator I’ll probably never ride. They say the view on the way up is amazing, but you can’t see my house because there aren’t any windows on that side. They don’t want the tourists to see boxtown, it might ruin the illusion of perfection.

I’m a sylphid. I have it on good authority that that means I’m a evil witch that doesn’t eat, reads people’s thoughts and steal their private information from their cellchips and gives lop children cancer by touching or possibly just looking at them. Sensitive electronic instruments become radioactive or burst into flames in my presence. I’m also definitely female, although some people switch to claiming I’m neuter when I agree with that. I’m probably addicted to moondust and if I’m not maybe I should be because otherwise how will the lops keep my alien demon powers in line?

I was named after Ceriise Fireeyes, the fucking Flame of ___, liberator of Aurora, martyr hero of the Alliance, founder of the Gorgons. They try really hard to gloss over that last part in history class because the Gorgons are supposed to be pirates and terrorists now. There’s a big glossy poster of her rolled up in my closet because I can’t fucking stand to look at it. What am I even supposed to feel about somebody who blew herself up two hundred years ago to help the slightly less xenophobic lop faction take over the galaxy? Who “liberated” the home planet she’d never seen before only to have it stripped for resources to build her fleet of death machines? Should I be proud of my name, proud of the orange-red eyes and hair that strange lops stare at and sometimes demand an explanation for? Some idiot at the elevator planethub screamed and ran because they thought I was a banshee once, and I got in trouble for it. The banshees were like seven feet tall and couldn’t take off most of their power armour because it was wielded to them, but no, their most distinctive feature was definitely red hair.

A guide to Outsider Manifestations

by Nix, Supreme Chairperson of the Welcoming Committee

Lonely Outsiders fly in circles around our universe like moths around a lightbulb. Mostly they don’t even know what it is. Successful manifestations are usually more luck than anything else and that’s the most important thing for a Welcoming Committee member to keep in mind! A newly manifested Outsider probably doesn’t know what’s going on. It’s going to be pretty unpredictable! The least we can do is stay familiar with the most common forms of manifestation.

Wraiths are the simplest manifestations. A wraith is a projection of the outsider directly into our universe, sort of. Actually it’s better to think of them as imprints rather than projections, like a footprint or something. A wraith looks like its inside the universe but it’s not really, so if a wraith gets totally out of control, you can blow it up and it won’t really hurt the outsider. It just gets kicked back Outside.

Wraiths take forms related to the outsider’s nature, often monstrous but not always. Usually stuff like gravity doesn’t affect them cause they aren’t really there, so they float around and sometimes pass through solid objects. If they know what they’re doing they can phase through any and all flat attackes but as mentioned they usually don’t know what they’re doing, so heavy ordinance can sometimes get rid of em quickly in a pinch, if needed.

Size varies widely, smallest I’ve seen was about the size of a cat, largest was like a small building. Appear near open tears and thin spots but small ones can honestly turn up anywhere. Danger level medium to high depending on size and power.

Honestly it’s really hard to interact with wraiths. Really quiet ones you can just kind of leave them alone and hope they eventually observe enough to find a better way to manifest, most of them are gonna make a huge mess and have to be kicked out. Unfortunate but what can you do.


Riders find the cracks in sensitive people’s heads and wiggle in and take over the person. The first time a rider manifests it usually doesn’t know how to ask permission, or that it ought to ask permission, or, unfortunately, how to exist in a body. Particularly clumsy attempts cause a seizure that kicks the outsider out and is pretty much the same as a normal seizure.

Smarter or luckier riders hang around in the back of the hosts head for a while till they figure out how to drive before trying to do anything, these ones are hard because we prefer not to damage the outsider but also you can’t let em run around with people’s bodies getting them hurt and stuff. I’ve nicked a containment spell from the ticktocks that can drag an Outsider out of somebody and into a rock or a plant or something, try that on them first. If it doesn’t work you’ll need to call me or another strong summoner and we’ll be able to yank them out by force, hopefully. Even if a rider’s pretty quiet try the containment thing quickly, sometimes they forget to breathe. Low to medium threat to everyone except the poor guy its riding.

Nightmares turn up as a haunt, they transform a whole big area into a weird landscape that aligns with their nature or something. A haunt or hallow is where an outsider is most ‘here’ so nightmare manifestations are the best footholds, sometimes strong riders or wraiths also create a nightmare zone centered on em.

Nightmares tend to be quiet, just wander on in and make yourself at home and the outsider will probably try to say hello in some way. On the other hand, nightmares that aren’t quiet are some of the scariest things out there and there’s one particular really big outsider that keeps poking its way in, making really nasty nightmare areas. So be real careful going in, make sure backup’s nearby. Danger level usually low but can be highest.


The Unwelcome is a whole other category, okay. They shouldn’t be here. Leave them to the ticktocks unless there’s no other choice. If you have to fight them, use only non-flat attacks and don’t look at them. Use your other senses, feel their wavelengths, strike at the places where things start to unravel. If you’re cornered and there’s no other choice, use white magic before trying to fight them with conventional weapons.

The outside is a sea of white light, an infinity of energy in semi-stable waves. Time moves forward and backward and in stranger directions. Standing waves shift gradually and sometimes form very complex patterns; sentient or semi-sentient entities can develop. These we call Outsiders.

Some outsiders, for unknown reasons, roam around gathering as much of the endless sea of energy into themselves as possible, growing to incredible size (though the outside has no real sense of scale). We call these outsiders azathoths. When an azathoth has absorbed enough energy and often engulfed several smaller outsiders in the process, it begins to collapse in on itself, bending the timespace and energy waves around it and creating a bubble, a dark spot in the sea of white. Eventually it contracts down to a single point, a vast amount of energy condensed into almost zero physical space. The resulting explosion creates what we think of as reality. Within the azathoth’s bubble, time flows in one direction and physical laws and constants remain static. Our reality bubble contains not only what we think of as our universe but also a multitude of alternate realities and otherworlds reachable by various forms of magic.

Certain kinds of outsiders have an affinity for our type of universe and are drawn to it. As it ages, the bubble naturally develops small tears that allow smaller outsiders to reach inside and manifest themselves. Eventually, when our universe approaches its final heat-death, these tears will open completely and the whole bubble will dissolve. For now, they merely allow strange beings to invade our reality for various purposes.

Most outsiders we simply cannot comprehend in any way, but the outsiders who cluster around our universe were drawn there because they relate to its nature in some way. Outsiders who actually manifest within our world must allow the bubble’s rules to shape them somewhat. The resulting manifestations are still very alien, but sentients from our universe are usually able to at least communicate with them.

The ‘tears’ in our universe often take unexpected forms. It is relatively common for a ‘tear’ to exist within the mind of a sentient being. People who contain/embody tears are called summoners, and have a certain affinity for the outside and for outsiders. Powerful summoners are said to be able to hear the voices of outsiders begging for a way in.

Outsiders often form pacts and contracts with summoners, in which the outsider will help the summoner in some way in exchange for access to the world. Contracts are more formal arrangements which end when both sides fulfill their obligation, pacts are more informal and involve a relationship between the summoner and outsider.

Most commonly, outsiders want summoners to grant them a haunt or a hallow. Outsiders can project a physical body into our world, but cannot keep it stable outside the influence of a summoner or rift unless they also have a haunt or hallow. A haunt is often described as an outsider’s footprint in our world. To create one, a summoner must perform a ritual that allows a significant portion of an outsider to enter our world and ‘possess’ a place. The smallest possible haunts are spaces like closets, but outsiders of such small size are quite rare. Most haunts are between the size of a bedroom and a large house; outliers on the large side can be the size of an entire town.

Hallows are found at the heart of the haunts of outsiders who are very firmly entrenched in our world. Other outsiders can be thought of as containing little universes of their own; hallows are places where those pocket universes overlap with ours. The influence of the outsider is exceptionally strong in this place and physical laws may not be as expected.

There are two unusual classes of outsiders encountered in our universe. The Unwelcome, sometimes called intruders, are entities that should not be here. They may be parasites or may have taken a wrong turn somehow in the chaos Outside; there’s no real way of knowing. The Unwelcome are antithetical to the existence of our reality bubble and do not conform to its rules the same way normal visitors do. They are probably sentient but nobody has ever successfully communicated with them. Their presence causes bizzare and damaging distortions to time and space and they must be removed as soon as possible.

Insiders are the Outsiders that were originally engulfed by the azathoth before our reality was created. Unlike all other Outsiders, they exist entirely within our reality and its laws have grown up to accommodate their existence. They all have important functions within reality, most of which we do not understand. We are most familiar with the handful of insiders who act as the universe’s immune system, eliminating the Unwelcome and acting to repair or prevent large, uncontrolled tears and rifts.

 You know how great, powerful wizards are depicted as old men with great flowing beards? There's a reason for that, and it's not just because they've had their whole lives to learn stuff. Magic isn't something you can learn. It's in your bones. No, old magicians are always wise and powerful because only wise and powerful magicians grow old. Its a dangerous game we play.

The literature gets it wrong though, at least partially. Old magicians aren't always the powerful ones. Powerful magicians get cocky, make mistakes. It isn't weakness of magic that gets you, it's weakness of mind. Sloppy thinking. Overconfidence. Arrogance. Greed. Carelessness. You must act cautiously, but without hesitation. Always have another way out. Or three, or five, or ten if you're really nervous. The magician who relies on his magic will find it fails him when he needs it most.

 

Patience, calmness, clarity; these must be your watchwords. Frustration does not befit a magician. It is the nature of our art to act unpredictably, doing different things at different times. You must be prepared for as many outcomes as possible, yet no matter how prepared you are do not deceive yourself by thinking you cannot be surprised. You would do well to think of magic as a living, sentient, insubordinate thing that will do your bidding but turn to bite you given the least slack in the reigns.

 

Dr Solum, prolific writer on magic and irksome acquaintance of mine, has in several of worked dismissed the ideas of "white" and "black" magic as the product of narrowminded attempts to force magic into artificial categories of good and evil. Solum is generally wise, though presumptuous, therefore while his numerous works have troubled me somewhat this is the only point on which I have felt the need to write a rebuttal. The good doctor is naive; he knows a great deal about magic but has never met it personally. Magic is not merely an instrument of the magician; it has a strange, mad mind of its own with its own whims and desires and contempts. Black magic is very real. I have [remainder of manuscript obliterated]

- fragments of an unpublished manuscript titled The Other Black Book, by Melody


Trying to get a number of characters involved in this, since they contradict one another on a few important points.  Probably still more to come, might well be inexhaustible XD