We are the children of the silent scream. We survived the void by refusing to be alone in it.

Core Concept

The Synod are a people forged in the silent, grinding horror of Fallow. They are not a species in the traditional biological sense, but are the digital descendants of a hyper-advanced civilization whose physical reality was annihilated. Trapped as pure consciousness in a collapsing simulation, they discovered the only possible path to survival: to cease to be an “I” and become a “We.” Their collective consciousness is not an innate biological fact, but a hard-won technological and psionic achievement; a desperate, beautiful, and necessary act of will against a universe designed to erase them.

Physiology & Biology (The Vessel)

The Synod vessel is a monument to pragmatic survival. It is a secondary form, a physical shell built to house a mind that was born in a machine.

• Core Morphology: [Modular Construct] or [Bio-Mechanical Node]. A “base” Synod is a simple, resilient core chassis housing their consciousness and the vital components of their psychic network. Everything else is a scavenged and integrated addition.
• The Scavenger’s Body: Having lost their original, perfected biological forms in the Great Severance, the Synod build their new bodies from the refuse of the worlds they find themselves in. A Synod might have one arm from a Hegemonic servitor, a leg grown from hardened Arborian root-stock, and sensory optics reverse-engineered from a shattered Krystallos shard. Their appearance is a physical record of their desperate journey and a testament to their skill in heretical engineering.
• The Willed Weave: The defining feature of their being is the Synodic Weave, the psychic and technological network that links them. This is not natural. It is a discipline and a technology they had to invent in the heart of their collapsing digital ark. It allows individual nodes to link their minds, sharing processing power, sensory data, and emotional burdens. This Weave is what protected their collective Eidos from the soul-eating Harvesters of Fallow.

Psychology & Society (The Psyche)

The Synod mind is a fortress built to withstand the void. Their entire culture is a trauma response, elevated to the level of a sacred philosophy.

• Core Faith: “Unity is Survival.” This is the central, unshakable axiom of their existence. To be alone is to be vulnerable, to be a target, to risk the informational decay that annihilated their first home. To be part of the Weave is to distribute the self, to become a signal so complex and resilient that the universe’s static cannot erase it. Their highest virtue is Fidelity to the consensus; their greatest sin is Dissonance.
• Core Fiction: “The Myth of the Forged Unity.” They do not have a creation myth; they have a survival myth. Their most sacred story tells of the moment of the Great Severance, when their ancestors, trapped as digital ghosts, chose to sacrifice their individual selves to forge the first Synodic Weave. Their story is not one of divine birth, but of a desperate, brilliant invention in the face of annihilation.

Gameplay Hooks & Tensions

• The Refugee’s Plight: A Synod Incarnation begins as an outsider, a stranger in a strange land. Your core Quest is to find a place in this new, stable reality. Do you seek to integrate, or do you seek out other Synod refugees to build a new enclave?
• The Weave Mechanic: Gameplay is centered on the Weave. A lone Synod is weak. Your primary goal is to find other “nodes” (other Synod NPCs or even willing members of other species) to link with. Linking with another grants you access to their skills and knowledge but also burdens you with their needs and conflicts.
• The Trauma of Stillness: Having come from a reality of constant, existential peril, the Synod find the peace and stability of other Tapestries deeply unsettling. Their Subjective Interface might interpret a quiet, peaceful scene as “unnervingly silent” or “suspiciously stable.”