Places

As a storytelling tool, Chimares allow exposition about a character in the way nothing short of direct statements can accomplish. Take the opportunity to examine a Storyteller characters’ psyches in depth. Even if it’s not directly relevant to the story, add little symbols and hints about who the character is deep down inside. Even for otherwise no-name characters, this lets the Storyteller infuse them with identity. And who knows? The players may grab onto some of these threads and run with them, giving the chronicle a new and engaging direction.

Epiphs exist as purified, solitary conceptual experiences. They’re ideas become pocket realms; an unfiltered, singular con­ cept stretched into the entirety of reality in these surreal places.

If that sounds complicated, it’s because it is. As three-di­ mensional, fleshy creatures with five senses can’t entirely fathom what a given Epiph truly is. Who would want to visit somewhere in which the rules make no sense, where

the visitor’s body doesn’t work the way he expects it to, and where exactly one thing exists? Every Epiph stands on its own merit. Those that visit Epiphs successfully soon find their understanding in great demand, it isn’t a job that any werewolf can jump into; it requires a fundamental under­ standing of raw, conceptual reality.

Finding an Epiph can be as much a struggle as under­ standing one; a traveler has to find a pure example of a concept then hope that it has bled over into the Penumbra. To find an Epiph of sex, he’d have to find the single place on Earth that most embodies “sex” as a concept. Needless to say, many werewolves balk at the challenge.