~*Game Play*~

The game is structured into two main areas of play: Eidolon City and The Dream, with Eidolon City being the main game arena. However, as you can see from the premise, Eidolon City is, in fact, a dream and The Dream is actually the real world.

The world that serves as the central focus of the game is not, in fact, real. It exists as a shared, imposed dream on its inhabitants. It is the shared dream of those people (known as 'Wakings') who are, in the real world, in an induced coma. Everything within the dream - Eidolon City, the surroundings, the people, everyone's histories, Aspects, everything, is a creation of this shared dream and the finer details each character experiences are coloured by all within it.

~*Eidolon City*~
What this means is that because the city isn't real, there is a certain amount of leeway with what happens within it. This doesn't mean that it is a place where anything is possible - there is no ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound, or walking through walls or x-ray vision or anything like that, but it does mean there is room for a certain amount of 'convenience'.

What this means is that whilst a trip from the 6th Street Bridge to the Harbour would normally take an hour, when a character is driven by the urge to get there just in time, they will. If their preferences say that they can't make it in time, they won't. If the lights should stop flickering to dramatically reveal them? They will. In this regard, the city operates on very cinematic principles as dictated by its Waking citizens and their latent abilities.

Think about the city like a movie - it's very cinematic in nature. There are the main characters, and then there are the extras and, conveniently, things happen to the main characters again and again and nobody ever thinks that's strange. Likewise, the same places within the city are used time and again for significant events and this is accepted and 'normal' to people.

People in Eidolon City know that there is a world outside the city limits - for example, everyone knows that there's a war going on overseas, some people even know that they have friends and relatives who have left the city to go and fight in the war, or who have returned home injured in the war, but no character ever actually leaves to go to war. They may have memories of having returned from the war at some point themselves, have memories of having visited places outside of the city, or have even memories of having grown up elsewhere. People may talk about one day leaving Eidolon City, but if they talk of leaving, then it is never in the near future, and nobody actually ever leaves (though they may fade into the background of the population of the city). Likewise, nobody is ever new in Eidolon City. If someone wasn't born here, then they have been in the city long enough to know their way around without issue. Everyone seems to have been here at least a year.

~*Wakings*~
Wakings is the collective name of anyone who, in the real world, is one of the coma victims. In the real world they are in a coma, or persistent vegetative state. However they now 'live' in the city and their only experience of the real world is as fleeting, enigmatic dreams whenever their character goes to sleep in the city. As far as Wakings are concerned, the city is the real world. No matter how long they have really been in the city for, Wakings have a full lifetime's worth of memories about their upbringing in the world of the city. Conversely, they have no memory of their 'former' life in the modern world.

A Waking is a significant person in Eidolon City. That's not that they have to be someone important, or a person of power, but that they are never going to be a faceless nobody on the street. It is not unusual within Eidolon City for events to focus and revolve around a significant person/persons.

The personal experience of Wakings bleed into the city in a multitude of ways, by creating racial or gender attitudes, altering the way that NPCs around them speak etc.

What this means for the game is that although Eidolon City appears to be set in the early part of the twentieth century, it is not totally accurate. It is taking from the twenties, thirties and forties. Due to the influence of the Wakings, the mentality of the time (for example, heavy racism) isn't necessarily in play. If a character believes it is (eg, if a character is a racist, or believes themselves to be persecuted due to their race), then it's real for them, but that does not mean that everyone in the city behaves with the views which were running rampant at the time. Likewise, the language and patina of speech which was around at the time is not always adhered to and people often speak in much more 'modern' speech patterns.

However one thing that Wakings seem to have had little affect on is the available technology. This is distinctly absent from the city and is much more of the time. There are no cell phones, and not every house even has its own land line - going down the street to the pay phone on the corner is a common event if you need to make a call. Likewise, not everyone has television, and those that do, it's strictly black and white with a maximum of three channels. Most people get their home entertainment from the radio or scratchy grammaphone records. People can't be Tivo-ing their favorite shows. Transport-wise, some people have cars and there's a bus system that works (though the buses have all seen better days) and there's theoretically an underground system - though it's pot-luck whether a train will turn up at all, never mind at a given time, and the system is crime-ridden and the tunnels the home of the city's large homeless population. few people dare to venture underground without good reason.

~*Aspects*~
Aspects is the collective name for those who, whilst a creation of the collective unconscious like the rest of the city, are still 'main characters' in the world of Eidolon City. Aspects are an unexpected addition to this world, there because humanity needs a certain amount of fantasy to properly function. Aspects are the embodiment of old gods, of legends and fairytales, of emotions and fokelore.

Aspects are not immortal, or all powerful, but they are driven by the subconscious themes which people give to them on a fundamental level. For example, whilst The Big Bad Wolf would not actually be a overly large wolf, as a person he or she may operate on levels of greed, be motivated to lay traps, or possibly be particularly inclined to prey on women in red.

Aspects do possess some larger-than-life qualities as well; tendencies or traits the Wakings associate them (for example, a hero figure a la Hercules may be genuinely tireless), however this is never to the extent that their basis may have (eg, a god figure based on Thor cannot smite people with thunderbolts)

Like Wakings, Aspects do not know that the city is not real. They believe that the city is real, and that they have always lived in the world. Like Wakings, they have a full lifetime's worth of memories to back this up. Aspects are different to Wakings, but they are not aware of this - neither are Wakings aware that Aspects are any different from them. Both Aspects and Wakings appear human, much as everybody in the city does!

~*The Village*~
Within the world of Eidolon City, and located in the woods to the east of Bedlam, the village is the natural home of Fairytale Aspects. It is a break in the constructed world of Eidolon City. Whilst there, any Aspects who have their origins in fairytales will 'become' that fairytale character. Also whilst there, any Wakings will be able to access their real world personas more easily.

The village has no altering effect on other Aspect types, though they will treat the Fairytale Aspects as their character, rather than their city persona.
(Note: This is only a very short summary, for full details, see here!)

~*Death in the Game*~
Because the world of Eidolon City is not real, 'death' is a fluid concept. Real death for a Waking will only occur if they die in the real world (for example if they are left to starve to death). If they die within the city, a Waking will always reappear in one fashion or another. For example, if a Waking dies in a mob shooting tonight, they will reappear tomorrow (or some player determined amount of time), however they will not be the same person they were before. Whilst their personality will remain the same, the history of their city identity will rewrite itself so as not to contradict what others have experienced (and so it doesn't look like someone has just performed a miracle in rising from the dead!).

Aspects, also, will be reborn in another form if they die within the city. Because Aspects are created from a need or drive in the Wakings to have certain qualities present in the dream, they are constant in one form or another, but, like Wakings, if an Aspect is reborn it is with a different history. When Aspects are reborn, they can either be reborn in the same shape and utilising the same constants and qualities as in their previous life, or they may choose different constants. For example, The Big Bad Wolf in his first incarnation may have the qualities of greed; a motivation to lay traps and an inclination to prey on women in red, in a second incarnation these constants may remain, or they may alter to, say, an unstoppable need to break into houses; an ability to charm little old ladies and and attraction to innocence.

When the city rewrites the history of their city identity, what occurs is known as a Ripple. Ripples are, in essence, the rewriting of the city's 'script'. They are a shift in the shape of the dream that allows for new Aspects or Waking personas to take shape without drawing too much attention from others in the city. They bring a feeling of confusion as each inhabitant's memory realigns to make room for the new changes.

Ripples do not ever erase who someone used to be. For example, if a Waking was a waitress at a cafe and she is shot in the street, she may return the next day as a bar singer, however anyone who ever knew the waitress will still remember her, even after the ripples have passed. They will remember they knew a waitress, they will have memories of their interactions with her, but they will also remember that she was shot and that she died. They may even go through the reality of her funeral and remember everything about the mourning process - however by this stage, the waitress will be a bar singer and will have memories only of ever being a bar singer and will not remember ever having lived a life as that waitress. The two incarnations may even look the same, but nobody will register the similarity.

The convenience of ripples and the shared nature of everything means that all PCs (whether Aspects or Wakings) have some vague knowledge of each other as well.

Maybe they pass each other in the street regularly, maybe they frequent the same bars, but there is an instinctive recognition between all Wakings and Aspects, a base feeling that the person they're seing shares some level of significance. Things like going to sit at a table across from a stranger who just happens to be another player character, rather than sitting alone at another open table? This isn't shocking in the city.

In other words, coincidence is alive and well in the city and nobody ever questions this, it's just an accepted way things work. The entire environment is there to cater to the people, to make them 'special' in whatever ways they can, to give them roles and importance. So, nobody is ever just 'the anonymous man on the street' - even 'yet another homeless bum under 6th Street Bridge' isn't a faceless person if he's a player character. No, he'd happen to be 'the homeless bum under 6th Street Bridge who the cops always go to for information when they need it and who gets meals from the girl at the soup kitchen who happens to be a dancer at the Kitten Club and helps out because she'd really got a heart of gold'.

~*The Dream*~
Wakings are the only characters who can experience the real world and they do this in the form of 'dreams'. Aspects cannot experience these dreams, because they are creations of Eidolon City and do not have any existence outside of that world.

When Wakings sleep within the world of Eidolon City, they may experience fleeting, enigmatic dreams of another world. These dreams are of the world they left behind - the world in which they lie in a coma. How they experience these dreams is dependent upon what 'type' of Waking they are. For example, Spires have sweeping dreams of world events, but they never find detail, or experience anything on a personal level.

Sometimes, due to the communal nature of the dream that makes up the world of the city, events from the real world may turn up within the city. For example, a news item for a real world event may turn up in a paper a few days old which has been abandoned in a trash can, or left in the doctor's surgery. A picture of someone from the real world may be uncovered when someone is taking down the first layer of a billboard poster etc. If this happens, however, it will be detailed in a time update or mod event.