~*Game Play*~

The game takes place in a shared dreamscape. It’s based in a city in the 1930s-1940s period that reflects a noir sort of feel in general, but also takes into account different cinematic feels, literary themes, etc. It’s a place made up of the hopes and dreams of a collective unconscious, and therefore incorporates many things. There are certain affects the dream has on the environment and gameplay.

~*Eidolon City*~
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 movie-like principles.

Think about the city like a constantly evolving 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 few months.

~*Dreamers*~
These are the collective name of anyone who, in the real world, are creating the dreamscape. In the real world they are in a coma, or persistent vegetative state. However they now 'live' in the city and their only experience is inside that dream. As far as Dreamers are concerned, the city is the real world. No matter how long they have really been in the city for, they have a full lifetime's worth of memories about their lives. Conversely, they have no memory of their 'former' life in the modern world. They are ‘main characters’ in the city and the life of it.

The personal experience of Dreamers 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 Dreamers, 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 Dreamers 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 the train 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. There are tunnels beneath the city, 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 addition to this world because humanity needs a certain amount of fantasy to properly function. Aspects are the embodiment of old gods, of legends and fairytales, of fokelore and literary characters and concepts.

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 Dreamers 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 Dreamers, 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!

~*Death in the Game*~
Because the world of Eidolon City is not real, 'death' is a fluid concept. If anyone dies within the city, they can reappear in one fashion or another. For example, if a character dies in a mob shooting tonight, they can reappear tomorrow (or some player determined amount of time), however they will not be the same person they were before. Certain things may stay the same if the player chooses(pb, age, name, etc), but 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!).

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 Dreamer 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 Dreamer 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 Dreamers) 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 Dreamers and Aspects, a base feeling that the person they're seeing 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'.