Fact is the unvarnished memory of what is: direct encounter, verifiable knowledge, and the persistent truths of a world.

Within ATET, a Fact is not merely “objective data,” but a fragment of experience that has stabilized in the weave of memory and narrative. It is what endures when story and belief are stripped away.

Nature of Fact

As players experience Tapestries through their Incarnations, some encounters leave behind Facts: observable truths, concrete events, and persistent phenomena.

However, Fact is not infallible. What is perceived as Fact may later be overturned, re-framed, or contested through the gathering of new experience. In this sense, Facts are not static “lore dumps,” but living elements of an evolving narrative fabric.

A Fact that is forgotten, mythologized, or deliberately obscured may cease to act as Fact, transforming into Fiction or even crystallizing into Faith.

Philosophical Frame

In narrative and gameplay terms, Fact resonates with several ideas:

• From Daoism: a Fact is an unadorned glimpse of reality—what simply is, prior to interpretation.
• From Empiricism: a Fact arises from repeatable observation and direct experience.
• From historical memory: a Fact is that which resists the erosion of time and myth, though never perfectly immune to it.

Importantly: Facts do not equal truth in a metaphysical sense. They are the closest approximation of truth as experienced and remembered by consciousness within the Tapestry.

Gameplay Function

Accumulating Facts

Players accumulate Fact Eidos through:

• Direct observation of natural phenomena or universal laws
• Surviving and witnessing key historical events
• Personal experience of major interactions, trauma, or discovery
• Rigorous investigation or scientific experimentation within a Tapestry
• Restoring forgotten truths hidden by Faiths or layered over with Fictions

Uses of Facts

Accumulated Facts enable:

• Creation of more stable, internally coherent Tapestries
• Unlocking narrative branches where accurate understanding of the world is required
• Defeating or transcending false Faiths or corrosive Fictions where knowledge is the key
• Crafting future Incarnations with informed worldviews or inherited understanding
• Seeding new Facts into woven Tapestries, shaping how the world will be perceived by others

Narrative Economy

Fact is not simply a collectible. It affects the player’s creative and interpretive powers:

• Certain branches or events may only become accessible when sufficient relevant Fact Eidos is known
• Some unstable Tapestries require a certain density of woven Facts to prevent collapse or incoherence
• NPCs may recognize the player’s understanding of certain Facts, granting trust, fear, or reverence

Design Intent

Why Facts exist:

• To anchor the otherwise fluid narrative space of ATET in persistent memory and meaning
• To allow players to uncover the deeper structure of the game’s worlds, not just invent them
• To enable interplay between stability (Fact) and dynamism (Fiction/Faith), fostering narrative emergence
• To support replayability: Facts learned in one Incarnation can transform understanding of the next

Key Design Notes

• Not all perceived truths are Facts; misremembered or mythologized knowledge may become Fiction or Faith instead
• The border between Fact and Fiction is intentionally permeable; players must sometimes decide what deserves to be treated as Fact
• Fact accumulation should feel like learning the world, not farming collectibles
• Facts discovered by one player may subtly affect future procedural generation, introducing a light global meta-history into ATET