noxabellus'

Anamnesis:

The Eidolon Tapestries

Psyche

The Architecture of the Mind & Soul

The Psyche is the intangible half of an Incarnation’s being; the mind, the soul, the software running on the hardware of the Vessel. It is the source of an Incarnation’s personality, beliefs, innate abilities, and inherited legacy. As outlined in the intro to Anatomy, the Psyche is not a static list of traits. It is a dynamic, generative system that produces complex and nuanced behaviors from a set of core, thematic principles.

This document details the architecture of the Psyche, from its foundational slots to the Valence & Attunement Model that serves as its creative engine.

Metaphysical & Cognitive Slots: The Blueprint of the Soul

Just as the Vessel has a physical blueprint, the Psyche has a metaphysical one. This is defined by a set of Metaphysical & Cognitive Slots, which provide a clear and legible structure for an Incarnation’s inner self. These slots are the home for the Psychic Components that define the core of a being’s personality and potential.

Slot NameDescriptionExample Archetypes
[Cognitive Model]Defines the Incarnation’s fundamental “operating system”; its core logic and way of processing the world. This shapes problem-solving, learning aptitude, and tactical decision-making.[logic], [intuition], [analysis], [creativity], [pattern_recognition]
[Metaphysical Attunement]Defines the nature of the soul itself and its innate connection to the narrative and energetic currents of the Tapestry. This governs “magical” potential and mythic resonance.[order], [chaos], [life], [death], [void], [harmony]
[Eidic Inheritance]The dedicated slot for the player’s direct authorial influence as an Eidolon. It is the home for the legacy Eidos harvested from a previous Thread, crystallizing a past life’s meaning into a new life’s foundation.[legacy_of_sacrifice], [echo_of_betrayal], [the_botanist's_gambit]

The Valence & Attunement Model: The Engine of Personality

A Psychic Component is not a static trait, like “Bonus to Logic +5”. It is a generator. It creates a spectrum of behaviors, beliefs, and abilities based on a simple but powerful three-part structure:

  1. Archetype: The core narrative concept or Symbol Tag the component is attuned to. This is the “what.” (e.g., [order], [chaos], [nature], [logic], [servitude]).
  2. Strength: (0.0 to 1.0) The intensity of the attunement. This is the “how much.” A high strength means this Archetype is a dominant, defining feature of the personality.
  3. Valence: (-1.0 to +1.0) The nature of the relationship to that Archetype. This is the “how” or “why.” A positive valence represents a relationship of love, reverence, or aspiration. A negative valence represents a relationship born of fear, resentment, or trauma.

This model allows for the creation of immense personality diversity from a small set of archetypal concepts.

Nuanced Examples: The Archetype of [nature]

The same Archetype can generate vastly different personalities based on the interplay of Strength and Valence.

  • High Strength (0.9), High Positive Valence (+0.8): The Devotee

    • Interpretation: A powerful, loving, and reverential relationship with Nature.
    • Emergent Personality: A classic druid, a devout naturalist, or a bio-engineer who sees the genetic code as sacred scripture. They find peace in the wild and seek to protect it.

  • High Strength (0.9), High Negative Valence (-0.8): The Conqueror

    • Interpretation: A powerful relationship with Nature, born from deep-seated fear and a desire to control it.
    • Emergent Personality: A ruthless industrialist who paves over forests, a terraformer who sees untamed worlds as hostile chaos to be “corrected,” or a colonist terrified of the alien wilderness. They seek to dominate nature, to tame it into submission.

  • High Strength (0.9), Low Positive Valence (+0.2): The Pragmatist

    • Interpretation: A powerful, but unemotional and instrumental relationship with Nature.
    • Emergent Personality: A master survivalist or a pragmatic farmer. They respect nature’s power and understand its rules intimately, but see it as a system to be manipulated for survival, not a spiritual force to be worshipped.

  • Low Strength (0.3), High Positive Valence (+0.9): The Appreciator

    • Interpretation: A gentle, loving, but non-defining relationship with Nature.
    • Emergent Personality: A city-dweller who loves their houseplants, enjoys weekend hikes, and advocates for parks. Nature is a source of joy and beauty, but not the central, organizing principle of their life.

How Attunement Generates a Playable Character

When a Psychic Component is slotted into the Psyche, its Valence & Attunement parameters automatically generate a suite of emergent traits that are directly integrated into the game’s other systems.

  • Generates Beliefs: The component’s Archetype, Strength, and Valence directly seed the AgentBeliefStore with a foundational, high-strength Faith. The Valence determines the content and emotional flavor of that Faith. “The Devotee” develops a Faith that “The wild is sacred.” “The Conqueror” develops a Faith that “Nature is chaos that must be tamed for civilization to survive.”

  • Generates Skills & Abilities: The attunement manifests as tangible gameplay mechanics.

    • Positive valence to [nature] might grant a gentle Soothe Animal ability and a natural aptitude for the Botany skill.
    • Negative valence to [nature] might grant a fearful Primal Scream ability that terrifies predators and an aptitude for skills related to hazard survival.

  • Generates Social Tags (The Social Genome): The attunement projects a social aura that NPCs can perceive and react to, tying the Psyche directly into the Social Simulation.

    • { Archetype:[logic], Valence:+0.7 } adds the tag [social:analytical], which might appeal to scientists but frustrate artists.
    • { Archetype:[servitude], Valence:-0.9 } adds the tag [social:defiant], which might inspire rebels but anger authority figures.

  • Enables Dynamic Traits (Living Histories): The Psyche is not static. A component’s Strength or Valence can be altered by significant life events, representing personal growth or the cementing of trauma. An Incarnation who is repeatedly betrayed may see the Valence of their [trust] Archetype shift from positive to negative, fundamentally changing their personality and abilities mid-game. This makes the Psyche a living, evolving system and a core part of the player’s journey.

The Architecture of Social Identity

While the Vessel defines the physical hardware of an Incarnation, the Psyche is the home of its true social and personal identity. This is modeled through a core Psychic Component dedicated to the internal experience of the self in relation to the social world.

  • [social_identity] Component: This component is the seat of an agent’s internal sense of self. It does not generate a fixed identity, but instead measures the agent’s innate alignment with the available Social Role Schemas (e.g., gender roles, class roles, family roles) provided by their culture and Faction. An agent’s core identity is a dynamic value representing which of these social roles feels most authentic to its Psyche. Additionally, this component models the internal experience of the alignment (or misalignment) between an agent’s internal identity and their performed social role. It is the engine of euphoria and dysphoria, and its effects are governed by the relative Valence.
    • Positive Valence: When an agent’s performed social role is congruent with their internal social_identity, this component generates a state of euphoria, providing a powerful buff to Willpower and Satisfaction.
    • Negative Valence: When an agent is forced to perform a role that is incongruent with their internal identity, this component generates a state of dysphoria, inflicting a persistent, stacking debuff to Willpower and morale, and creating a state of Cognitive Dissonance.

This establishes the core psychological engine for the game’s social simulation, grounding the complex experiences of gender and social identity in a clear, mechanically significant, and character-driven framework.

Design Intent: The Soul as a System

The architecture of the Psyche is designed to be the narrative and mechanical heart of an Incarnation.

  • To Make Personality Playable: It transforms abstract personality concepts into a clear, interactive, and mechanically significant system. The player’s choices during creation have a direct and predictable, yet emergent and complex, impact on gameplay.
  • To Drive Emergent Narrative: By creating innate contradictions and harmonies (e.g., a [logic]-driven mind with a [nature]-loving soul), the system is a powerful engine for generating the internal conflicts that are central to the ATET experience.
  • To Provide a Thematic Core: The system is the ultimate expression of the game’s core loop. The player lives a life to generate Eidos (Anamnesis), and then uses that Eidos to quite literally craft the soul of their next life (Eidolon), choosing the very themes and struggles they wish to explore next.