A Stage for the Sovereign Self

The Cinder is what remains when a sovereign will has burned its own world down and rebuilt it from the ashes as a monument to its own glorious, terrible victory. This Tapestry is not a sprawling galaxy; it is a single, city-planet necropolis, a neon-drenched ghost of a dead cyberpunk dystopia, resurrected and held in perpetual twilight within an infinite void. It is the personal sanctum and eternal stage for the dark Eidolon born from the Heresy of Nyx.

Ideological Root

The Heresy of Nyx and the Solipsid philosophy made manifest.

• Radical Individualism
• Narcissism as a Metaphysical Principle
• Life as a Zero-Sum Game

Ruling Principle

The self is the only god, and all others are merely players in its divine drama. The Cinder is the stage for this eternal game, a reality where empathy is a design flaw and trust is a tactical error to be punished.

High-Level Design Philosophy

The Cinder is a neon-drenched ghost, a single city-planet adrift in an endless void. It is the reconstructed memory of a cyberpunk dystopia that its creator, the dark Eidolon Nyx, loved and lost. The player’s journey is one of narrative survival in a world where every social interaction is a high-stakes power play, and where the oppressive beauty of the city is a constant reminder of its creator’s profound, unshakeable loneliness.

Core Mechanical Differentiators

The World as a Locus: The Law of Ash

The unique rules of The Cinder are not arbitrary; they are the direct, ambient effect of the entire world being a single, massive Symbolic Locus saturated with Nyx’s personal Eidos. This creates a constant, ambient metaphysical pressure that enforces her will upon reality.

1. The Ash-Stained Bargain (The Inversion of Relationship)

• Mechanic: The Locus actively seeks out and punishes genuine social bonds while rewarding dominance.
  • The Cost of Connection: Forming a positive, trusting bond with another agent incurs a stacking debuff: [Vulnerability Exploit]. Your love literally becomes their weapon, a psychic weakness the world itself can exploit.
  • The Reward of Dominion: Conversely, successfully dominating, manipulating, or betraying another agent grants a powerful, temporary buff: [Sovereign's Glee], which boosts Willpower and Charisma. The Locus itself grants you a rush for acting in accordance with Nyx’s Faith.
• Design Intent: This creates a world of constant, gnawing paranoia. It forces the player into a cold, ruthless calculus, where every potential friend is also the most likely and most dangerous future enemy.

2. The Game of Masks (Identity as Performance)

• Mechanic: Drawing from the philosophy of the Thespians, identity in The Cinder is a fluid, performative act. Agents can adopt Personas, social masks that grant specific abilities and dialogue options but may conceal their true intentions. An agent presenting the [Wounded Poet] Persona might be a master manipulator running a [Spymaster] Persona underneath.
• Design Intent: Every social interaction becomes a high-stakes intelligence game. The player must use their Insight and Perception skills not just to read an opponent’s mood, but to pierce their mask and uncover the true “game” they are playing, before their own mask is shattered.

3. The Narrative Coup (Conflict over a Shared Stage)

• Mechanic: Conflict is rarely about resources; it is about narrative control. Factions are not stable institutions, but temporary alliances of powerful individuals who seek to impose their story on a piece of the world. Wars are fought not for territory, but to decide whose version of history will become the accepted Fact.
• Design Intent: This makes quests and factional struggles a form of collaborative, competitive storytelling. Victory is not just defeating an enemy, but successfully reframing their heroic last stand as a pathetic, foolish gesture in the eyes of the world, thereby stealing the Eidos of their story.

Player Experience & Goals

• From Trust to Paranoia: The player must unlearn the social instincts of other Tapestries. The goal is to become the ultimate player in a world of players, mastering the arts of deception, manipulation, and the perfectly timed betrayal.
• The Lonely Throne: The ultimate prize in this world is not community or safety, but isolation. To win is to stand alone atop a pyramid of broken alliances and dominated wills, having proven that your story is the only one that truly matters.
• The Antagonist is the System: There is no single “villain.” The true antagonist is the Locus itself, the pervasive, narcissistic logic of Nyx’s own mind made manifest as the laws of physics.

Integration into the Broader Game

An Incarnation might find themselves in The Cinder through:

• A failed Psyche-weaving ritual that attunes them to a nihilistic frequency.
• Deliberately following the forbidden path laid out in the Heresy of Nyx to its ultimate conclusion.
• As the ultimate test for a character who has mastered the arts of social domination and wishes to prove themselves on the grandest stage.

Its purpose is to serve as a beautiful, seductive, and ultimately tragic world that asks the player: What good is it to build a monument to yourself, if you are the only one left to worship it?