NaBloPoMo #2 – Shapes and Patterns
November 3, 2011
Bit late tonight, but with tea by my side and narwhals behind me (on the TV, just to clarify), I’ll try to bash something out. Hampered somewhat today by working from home, which in theory would have given me more time for this, but in fact means I’m in front of a Eclipse window until 8pm wrestling Javascript. Anyway, yesterday was a somewhat cursory look at the Rivers that underpin Broken’s cosmology; for today, the Patterns that they form.
Patterns
The energy that arises from the Rivers is chaotic and unformed. It pools and gathers in certain places, often forcing its way into the Void as a primal manifestation; mountains, volcanoes, seas and storms. However, there is one natural law above all others in this world; that over time any power seeks complexity and meaning. Unlike our world, where entropy – the ultimate disorder of matter – is the end-point of the universe, in this other world, it is complexity, meaning and the evolution of intricate River-Patterns of woven and knotted flows of power.
From these primal Patterns the physical world forms, as energy crystallises within the influence of the Void. The land; hills and mountains, streams, seas and the workings of the upper air are formed of great, homogenous Patterns, so loosely-bound that they cannot be examined in their entirity, and parts of the whole are easily seperated. These macro-Patterns can further evolve; a given mountain may attain a unique identity, or the metaphysical ‘flavour’ of one part of a sea can be different to another, but it’s when the Patterns that are formed are smaller, tighter and more complex that further changes occur.
Living beings; plants, animals and other, stranger manifestations, occur when two circumstances intersect; the possibility of a tightly-bound Pattern, and the presence of the energy of An, River of Life. When this happens, living creatures can be found, formed anew from the substance of the world, or inheriting a Pattern from their parents. These living Patterns are much more resilient than those of the non-living manifestations of the Rivers, and are the key to thought, instinct and higher intellect.
Some beings manage to take another step in terms of the evolution of their Pattern; they are Adept – those whose Patterns have changed enough from the base nature of their species that they are no longer truely part of it. Adepts exhibit strange and potent abilities, and are forever set apart from those around them through awe and fear. Most Adepts manifest from sapient species, such as the Thousand Tribes of Man; conscious thought and self-cultivation are the most reliable routes to Adepthood. Other Adept-creatures may arise through chance or experimentation, although rare, and likewise possess powers beyond those of their mortal kin.
There is a step beyond these Patterns; mortal and immortal. A deep meaning, that all that exists attempts to reach. It is a language, a system of meaning so deeply embedded that it is a natural facet of reality. So tomorrow, I’ll talk about Urtongue.
Whys and Wherefores
The nature of Adepthood originally began as a mechanism for PC-uniqueness, and I just decided to run with it. The idea of Patterns as a supernatural DNA kind of followed along, especially when I decided to go all the way and try to imagine a truely alien cosmology. They are your DNA, your soul, they very fabric of you. To be an Adept is to tamper with your very essential nature, to harness the supernatural forces that determine the nature of your body and mind. Forgetting the self-help tone; it’s also a way of permanently and irrevocably making yourself something very different to your fellow man. Perfect PC-material, come to think of it 
Mechanics
Once again, not too much (cos it’s late). Pattern is a core stat, and determines how tightly bound a creature is spiritually. Regular critters, and mortal sapients might be easily bound or undone with sorcery; powerful Adepts rather less so.
More tommorrow!
