Places

It is at once easy and difficult for a Storyteller to capture the sense of chaos that defines the Flux Realm. If a story set in the Realm seems carefully planned to her players, it doesn’t feel like the weird chaos one would expect from the Realm of “constant change and infinite possibility.” If the Storyteller gets too carried away with coming up with random events and creatures for the pack to encounter, however, it ceases to feel like a story. Every journey into the Flux Realm should have some purpose to it, and it is important that the pack and Storyteller not lose track of that purpose. However, the actual path to that destination should also make it clear that these are alien landscapes that do not follow the rules of the material world. Here is a shortcut:

The Storyteller should decide how difficult it will be for the pack to achieve its stated goal in entering the Flux Realm. This complexity rating might be one for a brief peek into the chaos to throw a pursuer off their trail or climb. It might climb to six or more for something like traveling a year back in time while simultaneously forging a Wyld-imbued klaive that will instantly kill the powerful Bane that killed their mentor. Virtually anything is possible in the Flux Realm, but some feats are easier to achieve than others.

The Storyteller should then multiply the complexity of the task by the size of the pack to determine the number of successful Wits + Enigmas rolls — not successes — the pack’s members must make in order to achieve that objective. A pack of four shapeshifters who set out to accomplish a task with a complexity rating of three would require twelve successful rolls.

The Storyteller then sets the first scene by whatever means suits her style. She might have several weird scenarios carefully built ahead of time, or she might trust to her improvisational abilities. In the second case, some form of random input generator might prove helpful — clicking Random Article in Wikipedia a couple times and cobbling together a scene based on what comes out, for example, or scattering all the books and DVDs in the living room on the floor and throwing handfuls of pennies to determine which two or three of them will serve as the basis for the

next scene. Not only does random input give improvisation a foundation to build upon, but it tends to create an atmosphere of chaos at the gaming table.

Each scene should involve some threat, conflict, or challenge. The members of the pack must navigate the scene successfully using any number of skills or Gifts at their disposal. Trying to direct a sky-shark might require Dexterity + Animal Ken rolls, while the epic trivia contest against the bovine trivia champion could demand Intelligence + Academics rolls. The Storyteller shouldn’t limit the characters to a single option. If they invent a clever way of resolving the scene’s conflict to their advantage, the Storyteller should let them roll something appropriate.

Each member of the pack who succeeds in the scene may make a Wits + Enigmas roll (difficulty 8) to make progress on the pack’s overall goal. Members of the pack who fail in the scene do not make this roll and may suffer an additional handicap in the next scene, at the Storyteller’s discretion. If all the members of the pack fail in a single scene, or if one of them botches on the Wits + Enigmas roll, the pack loses all accumulated successes and suffers some major complication in addition to being forced to start over on the intended task.

The Storyteller then creates a new scene and handles it the same way. This continues until the pack has accumulated the necessary number of successes to accomplish their aim or gives up.

The Flux Realm is a domain of the Wyld and therefore accessible from any Moon Path. Spirits of the Weaver have spun a vast cocoon of Pattern Web around the Realm, making it more difficult to reach than it once was. The Cocoon is a vast, three-dimensional labyrinth guarded by Pattern Spiders and other Weaver spirits. Its proximity to the chaotic fury at the heart of the Flux Realm causes this maze’s exact form to change with every visit. Sometimes it is the classic Greek labyrinth, complete with minotaurs. Other times it is a vast jungle inhabited by panthers and leopards, or a seemingly infinite museum guarded by elaborate security systems, or an ancient crypt defended by the unquiet dead.

Travelers must penetrate the Cocoon in order to enter the Flux Realm. Finding a path through the labyrinth requires an Intelligence + Enigmas roll (difficulty 9). Once a shapeshifter has identified a route through the Cocoon he must still overcome the obstacles that stand in his way. To maintain a clear connection to his destination he must calibrate his spirit. This requires a Gnosis roll (difficulty 9). Failure on this Gnosis roll attracts the attention of the Weaver’s servants, which attack the intruders at critical moments during their journey through the labyrinth.

Once the visitor has locked onto the Wyld energies with her Gnosis, she cannot lose her way in the labyrinth. The Cocoon however manifests obstacles in the intruder’s path to prevent her from entering the Flux Realm’s heart. Barriers, elaborate traps, complicated puzzles, and hazardous environments spring up before her, and she must overcome each one before she can continue toward her destination. Attacks by Weaver spirits further complicate the most difficult of these challenges. Once the traveler overcomes (7 - half her Gnosis, rounded up) challenges, she successfully penetrates the Cocoon and enters the heart of the Flux Realm.

Weaver spirits cannot survive within the Realm itself and so seldom pursue intruders beyond the inner boundary of the Cocoon. The Wyld energies tear apart any Weaver spirits that stray into the chaos.

The most powerful inhabitant of the Realm is a Wyld Incarna known as the Coil. This ancient being never appears in the same form twice as it plays and cavorts in the most chaotic manifestations of the Flux Realm’s maelstroms. The Coil wields almost absolute power over the Realm, laughing as it creates temporary bubbles of perfect calm or whips the mountains into a frenzy of volcanic fury. Some Theurges speculate that the Coil has transcended its spirit nature to become a fragment of the Wyld itself, akin to one of the heads of the Triatic Wyrm.

Visitors to the Flux Realm seldom encounter the Coil, and those who do so and survive shudder when they look back on the experience. The Realm may be chaos made manifest, but the Coil is an intelligent manifestation of chaos — one that enjoys playing games with outsiders who wander into its domain. It plays with its prey like a cat with a mouse, transforming the landscape and visiting bizarre manifestations on intruders just to see how they’ll respond.

The Coil’s favorite trick is to convince a visitor that she has escaped the Flux Realm by sealing her in a bubble of temporary order that looks like a familiar place. The victim might spend days or weeks in the pocket of order before she notices something that doesn’t jive with the way things should be — a friend with the wrong name, a building that wasn’t there before, a Moon Bridge that returns the traveler to his point of origin. Once this happens, the chaos reasserts itself, and the wanderer discovers he has never left the Flux Realm. What’s worse, the Coil often chooses to do this several times until the visitor spends the rest of his life a little wary of change — always afraid that anything unexpected might herald a rapid collapse into the chaotic reality of the Flux Realm.

The Coil appears to recognize the spark of the Wyld in shapeshifters and is less likely to toy with them — unless they somehow anger it or it happens to be in a particularly playful mood. In fact, the Incarna frequently shows favor to those shapeshifters who beg a boon from it and will grant their requests with a cheerful, helpful attitude. Asking a favor from the Coil is incredibly dangerous, however. The way it grants wishes often creates as many problems as it solves. This is not out any malevolence on the part of the spirit. The Coil simply does not understand that other creatures can’t simply reverse any unintended consequences its boons might have. While they may not have the variety of power that the Coil has, it cannot comprehend creatures that do not have control of reality in some fashion. A request to bless a klaive so it can defeat a powerful Bane might result in a weapon that, quite incidentally, tears small holes in the fabric of time and space whenever it is used —through which monsters and hostile spirits slip into the world to wreak havoc.