A story untold is a world that never was. Our purpose is to give every soul a voice in the grand performance.

Core Concept

The Chorus of the Concordant Self, often called “The Harmonists,” are the populists, diplomats, and entertainers of Grand Masquerade. They are the faction that believes the ultimate purpose of a story is to be shared, to build bridges of empathy, and to unite disparate souls into a state of harmonious understanding. They are the evangelists of art, and their sacred mission is to bring the beauty of their worldview to a universe they see as tragically starved of meaning.

Species

• Primary: Thespians. Their innate ability to embody different roles makes them the perfect diplomats and performers for the Chorus’s mission.
• Adherent: They are the most welcoming of the Masquerade factions, eagerly accepting anyone who shares their Faith in the power of art to unify. Many Calligraphers serve as their scribes, playwrights, and historians, documenting the great performances that have shaped their culture.

Ideology (Faith / Fiction)

• Core Faith: “The Audience is the Final Author.” The Harmonists believe that a work of art is only completed in the heart of the person who experiences it. A story’s value is not in its technical perfection or its author’s intent, but in its ability to create a shared emotional experience. Their entire society is built around the creation and performance of grand, public works that foster this sense of unity.

• Core Fiction: “The Myth of the First Audience.” Their founding myth tells of a time when the first beings were isolated, unable to understand one another. It was only when the first Thespian chose not to express their own inner state, but to perfectly mirror the sorrow of another, that empathy was born. In that moment of shared feeling, the first community was forged. This story codifies their belief that art is fundamentally an act of service to the other.

Goals & Motivations

• To Spread Harmony: Their primary goal is to export their philosophy. They believe that all conflict, from a tavern brawl to a galactic war, is a form of failed communication. They see it as their sacred duty to intervene in the disputes of other cultures and resolve them through the power of performance and shared narrative.
• To Build Bridges: They are master diplomats and socialites, seeking to create alliances and cultural exchanges between the Masquerade and the wider cosmos.
• To Create the Ultimate Performance: Their long-term, almost religious goal is to stage a “Performance of Concordance” so vast and so beautiful that it can be “heard” by every being in every Tapestry, bringing the entire universe into a momentary state of perfect, harmonious understanding.

Relations with Other Factions

• The Court of the Argent Mirror (The Jesters): They view the Jesters with a kind of sorrowful pity. They see their obsession with the self as a tragic, lonely pursuit, a beautiful song sung into a soundproof room. “A perfect poem is meaningless if it is not read.”
• The Chymical Conclave (The Shapers): They see the Shapers as brilliant but misguided artists who have become so obsessed with perfecting their instruments that they have forgotten to play the music.
• The Galactic Hegemony: A grand challenge. They see the Hegemony’s rigid order not as evil, but as a society suffering from a profound lack of empathy. They believe that if they can just stage the right play for the Amaranthine nobles, they can “cure” them of their fear of change.

Player Interaction

• Joining the Chorus is to become a cultural ambassador and a master of “soft power.” Your quests will revolve around performance, diplomacy, and social healing. You might be tasked with staging a play that will end a generational blood feud, composing a song that can calm a territorial beast, or acting as an envoy to a hostile, xenophobic faction.
• As an Ally, they are charismatic, generous, and possess a vast network of social contacts. They can open doors that weapons cannot.
• As an Enemy, they are rarely a physical threat. Their weapon is influence. They will not kill you; they will ruin you. They will turn your allies against you, destroy your reputation with a single, perfectly crafted satirical play, and make you a villain in a story so compelling that even you might start to believe it.