Survivors of the Deluge

Unlike the Survivors who failed their Drowning, the Survivors found within the Celestial Ocean
are, without better words to describe them, weird. Due to the nature of the Celestial Ocean, the
Survivors within the Deluge always manifest as humans with the required basic aquatic features
to allow adequate movement underwater and survival underwater along with the ability to resist
the biome of the Waters they live in.

Their weirdness only continues when one inevitably notices how the Survivors within the
Celestial Ocean seem to correspond to the mortal in the antediluvian world. Not all mortals have
a Survivor counterpart within the Celestial Ocean, but all Survivors have a mortal counterpart in
the antediluvian world. To wit, there is only millions or so Survivors compared to the billions
who thrive on the Earth’s surface.

Why is this so? Not even the longest lived of any Current know for sure. Some theorize that if
the Survivors on Earth are those who failed their drowning, then the Survivors in the Celestial
Ocean are those who may drown in the future. Afterall, Survivors on Earth do not have any
further counterpart in the Celestial Ocean, and the people who have Survivor counterparts could
face troubles that escalate to allow a Drowning to occur. Even more evidence is that there is no
Survivor counterpart to any Siren or Earthbound Survivor, both of which who have already faced
their Drownings.

Despite all of this, there is a few things known of Survivors. Their psychology is about what
you’d expect of people who would live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland fighting each day to
survive: very pragmatic, selfish and the perfect example of Darwinism if humans had regressed
back to nature. That said, this methodology they all share make them very easy to deal with
simply by appealing to their sense of survival. It’s not hard for a Siren to simply head back to
earth and retrieve some food to give to a Survivor in exchange for information, shelter, or
whatever else the Siren asks for.

Another thing that is easy to tell with Survivors is how they seem to appear according to
problems in the human world. The nature of the “problem” Survivors pop up in regards to seems
to have a broad definition both in terms of what people have Survivor counterparts and what the
problem is dealing with. The people could be the perpetrators, the victims, the bystanders who
see it and do nothing about it or the people trying to fix it. The problem could be a dysfunctional
family that threatens to get their friends involved, political mudslinging and slander between two
candidates nobody likes, or even a base of Flensers causing problems which have a potential
number of victims in the mix. So long as it has the potential to hurt a community and it’s
inhabitants, it seems to be recognized as a “problem” to the Celestial Ocean.
Society of the Survivors
It’s unnatural but not uncommon to find lone Survivors living in the wastes of the Celestial
Ocean, namely whenever they’re out getting materials or food or a Siren finds out an empty
Grotto is not empty at all. The stark majority of Survivors tend to be family units for a loose
definition of “Family” depending on who the Survivors are counterparts to. These units are
bound together through the problem that occurs in reality, and their overall homelife reflects in
the Celestial Ocean as well by what they do in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. There’s always
jobs to be done, such as hunting for food, upkeep of the Grotto and gathering supplies. The
families of Survivors found in the Celestial Ocean can have any sort of relationships with each
other, be it amicable friendship, bitter rivalry or simple teamwork through gritted teeth.

How lone Survivors or families of them act with a different loner or group is a whole lot simpler:
they simply ignore the existence of the other faction, lest they begin intruding upon their territory
or it begins to affect one Survivor’s livelihood. These conflicts take the form of fighting over
territory, enforcing borders or even stealing supplies or Grottos from one another.
Coincidentally, some Sirens have noticed that when a problem in reality concerning the mortal
counterparts intersect, it seems to cause conflict on the Celestial Ocean side as well.

The end of these conflicts either end when the problems stop intersecting, but sometimes they
can become one bigger problem that ends with the losing Survivors being subsumed into the
winning Survivors. As a result, Celestial Sirens attempt to stop the problems from occurring or
becoming bigger problems on the mortal side by resolving them, whereas some Abyssal Sirens
may try to exacerbate problems until they’re entire festering problems on the mortal’s end.

Some Sirens believe that the moment the Celestial Ocean is populated entirely by Survivors,
each a counterpart to a person on the Earth, will be the moment the Deluge begins. For Sirens,
this doesn’t sound far from the truth.

Sidebar: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

So now there only comes a single question. Given that the people on Earth can have a Survivor
Counterpart, what happens if the two met? What happens if someone from a possible future
meets with their actual past self?

Well, explaining what happens next is still a point of contention in metaphysics for Siren
scholars. The baseline of what happens is that the person stops existing entirely. Everything
according to their identity and past is gone, and they leave behind nothing detailing their
existence. No amount of family records will report them, nor will they appear according to the
Trace or supernatural methods (save those that can deal with Time retcons).
So naturally, many Sirens have taken up forcing such “meetings” as a way to get rid of people
without a trace of their existence. In fact, this is the reason most people depict Sirens taking
people to a watery grave…

The Ruins of Existence and their Rulers

In the Celestial Ocean, the possibility of the end of existence is reflected within its waters within
the Survivors, Trinkets and Clues it creates. However, it doesn’t mean what’s done in the
Celestial Ocean doesn’t have an impact within reality as well. Like two mirrors reflecting each
other, one in the sky and one under the sea, actions in either world can have a distorted but
visible effect upon each other.

As such, there is a way one can affect problems manifested in the Celestial Ocean within the
Celestial Ocean itself. Each problem, each den of Survivors connected by the chain of
destruction made possible by the Deluge are known within as “Ruins”. So long as they fester,
they remain a problem for the safety of their community, their ecology, their politics or the
financial state or whatever their touch invades. Thematically speaking, a Ruin could arise from
any problem on Earth.

Within Ruins can a Siren find a majority of Clues pertaining towards the reasons for their
existence, as well as Survivors who could tell the Siren what is causing (or has caused, the
Celestial Ocean is post-Deluge afterall) their downfall. The answers can be as varied as the
Survivors one can meet. In most, if not all cases, a Siren will find that one or a few people are
responsible for causing a Ruin. These people at the center of the Ruin are known as the Despots,
the rulers of the Ruins who wrap them and the people they can hurt around their fingers.

Dealing With Ruins

Given the nature of a Ruin, the next question that comes up is “how to stop the Ruin from
continuing”. As is known, a Ruin is synonymous to an event causing harm in reality. Stopping
the event in reality will end the Ruin’s existence, up to the point that the the various Survivors
making it up disappearing in sea foam. Given that within Ruins lies the Clues to key events that
caused the ruin to manifest be they Survivor versions of people on the Earth outside or scraps of
items found within the event, Ruins are a viable way for the Storyteller to introduce plot hooks or
to find a plethora of information about the current plot.

Of course, some Survivors may recognize the value of Clues and the like and keep them for
themselves, or dealing with them may also be a requirement to get anything meaningful out of a
Ruin. Ruins, their contents and the like should be if not hard, then at least attainable. Once a
Siren has the information she feels she needs, then can any potential scenarios come into play.
For example, a Siren can learn there is corrupt financing at work with a supermarket, paying
health inspectors bribes to keep their on-the-verge-of-molding foods on the shelves for another
day and endangering a community to food poisoning. It may take some simple clues (possibly
locked away in the store’s safe) to find this information out, and then may a Siren go about
attempting to fix the problem. Perhaps she exposes the financial records to the police, or she gets
together the community to notice the wrongs in their very food. Perhaps she hires an actual
health inspector to close down the store.

Of course, as theoretically simple it is to learn how a Ruin operates and figuring out how to stop
it, it’s equally theoretically simple for a Siren to manipulate a Ruin. They do have Clues that can
lead to, more often than not, incriminating things. Why not cash in on it? From the above
sample, perhaps the Siren tries to blackmail the stores owners to paying them in cash, depriving
them of money to stay afloat to serve the Siren’s needs. Perhaps they try to make the situation
worse by introducing viruses to the food while nobody’s looking, or find some sap to tempt. Or
perhaps she just burns the damn place down and finds the Ruin is no more when she returns,
problem solved right?

One idea could also be influencing the Despot. If they’re able to manipulate or persuade the
person responsible for creating the Ruin, then they could simply end it by stopping their impact
on reality, right? Once more this is only theoretically simple. In reality, it’s really hard. Most
people wouldn’t believe that “their actions will have a grave impact on the future” and Despots
aren’t any different from “most people”. Despots, both human and Survivor sides, are often
unaware of their impact on reality or that they’re considered a special threat in the eyes of the
Sirens. The only thing that really sets them apart from other Survivors is that the Despots alone
are responsible for creating a Ruin.

Granted, there is one way a Siren can directly manipulate a Despot and with that the Ruin. When
a Ruin is created, it holds an impression of the Despot’s reasons for making the Ruin, the
manifestation of his soul given form in the Celestial Ocean. These manifestations belong to the
Despots and Despots alone, but they may be taken from them as the Celestial Ocean gives them
physical form.

Treasures
Within every Ruin lies a Despot, the creator or reason the Ruin exists. And for every Despot
does a Treasure exist, the manifestation of their soul that forced the Ruin to come to be. Why
these Treasures manifest alongside Ruins and Despots is often a point of contention to Sirens.
Perhaps it’s because the Survivors who are Despots are recognized as more of a threat by the
Celestial Ocean, and as such their Treasures are made in recognition of their station. Or maybe
it’s because Despots are of recognized value in reality, and their souls become a Treasure in the
Celestial Ocean.
Whatever the case, each Despot only has one Treasure just as every human has only one soul.
Treasures can only be found within the Celestial Ocean, specifically in the areas that the Ruin
takes place at. Since it’s possible for there to be multiple Despots at one Ruin, it’s equally
possible that there’s multiple Treasures in a Ruin.

Finding Treasures is almost ridiculously easy for Sirens in theory. Since it’s connected to the
Despot’s soul, all a Siren needs is something relating to that person (or better yet, the person
themselves but the general area of the Ruin will work just as well) and her Trace to seek it out in
the Celestial Ocean.

Getting them, however, is a whole ‘nother story. Treasures are almost always kept on the person
of the Despot or somewhere safe, normally somewhere a Siren wouldn’t be able to get into. If
getting something meaningful from a Ruin is supposed to be an attainable task, then getting a
Treasure should be, in all circumstances, hard. Almost all Survivors connected to a Ruin will
attempt to keep the Treasure within the Ruin’s bounds, and they protect it with the utmost
secrecy. Killing a Survivor is the same as killing a human for Sirens, so those more attached to
Civilization Stability may suffer if they try to go through that method.

But for all the difficulties that should be present to attain a Treasure, they hold so much of a boon
in the hands of a Siren. For one, Treasures connect very deeply to the Despot and their human
counterpart. When a Siren attempts to use a Verse on them, she may target them through the
Treasure, and her Amour rating is considered to be at the same stage as Sensory. A Siren may
even kiss a Treasure, draining Pneuma directly from the Despot’s soul as if she had fed through
Once Kissed, Twice Shy. Furthermore, if she Traces the Despot to whom the Treasure belongs to,
she doesn’t need to invest within the Range of the Trace to see him.

There is a third way that Sirens can use Treasures to not only their benefit, but that which can
lead to the disintegration (or the exacerbation) of a Ruin. They can do so by warping the
Despot’s Treasure, thus warping their soul.

A Change of Heart
When Sirens had first attempted to Trace the Despots using their own Treasures, they stumbled
upon an amazing discovery. Not only did the Trace look through events of the Despot’s live with
amazing clarity, but the Trace is capable of impressing itself upon a Treasure. Changing its
shape, color, texture or the like as the Sirens desired. It’s not the cosmetic changes to the
Treasure that was impressive, but the fact that by changing the Treasure, they also affected the
soul of the Despot it belonged to. In other words, using the Trace on a Treasure allows Sirens to
read and affect a Despot’s Soul.
To manipulate a Treasure, Trace may be used as per normal. Pneuma is spent and multiple Sirens
can help in a Teamwork action. The Despot doesn’t receive any roll to resist any changes either.
The only change is that each part of the Trace changes in function, each of which twisting the
Treasure and thus soul in a particular way.

Time of the Trace: All of the other powers of the Trace leave an impression upon the soul of the
Despot. But for how long does this impression remain? This is what the Time of the Trace is
used for when reformatting a soul: directing how long the changes last upon the target. With
enough successes invested in the Time of the Trace, it’s possible for a Siren to make the changes
last quite awhile. For each success invested in Time, the Despot’s soul is affected for one month
per success.

Range of the Trace: Instead of covering how far away a Siren may direct her Trace, Range of
the Trace affects how much a Siren changes the soul. There are many things a Siren can change
about the person. “Change” is defined as “adding, removing or editing” pieces within the target’s
Soul. What a Siren can change in the person’s soul includes their Virtue, Vice, Integrity,
Aspirations, Memories and Conditions that affect the mind or soul. The Siren may change one
condition she can change per success she invests in Range.

Clarity of the Trace: The Despot cannot hide anything from the Siren who holds their Treasure,
for she can read him like an open book. The Clarity of the Trace, when used on a Treasure,
allows the Siren to do just that, reading through the Despot’s memories, experiences, skills and
the like. In out of character terms, it’s somewhat like reading the Despot’s character sheet and
backstory. What a Siren can view with Clarity is limited to Attributes, Skills, Skill Specialites,
Virtue and Vice, Integrity, Merits, Conditions, Aspirations, Memories, and any supernatural
powers the character may have.

To be more precise, for each success a Siren puts into Clarity, she may choose one specific part
of each category, or more than one if she uses multiple successes on the same category to
different ends, to read and get a general idea of. For example, say a Siren invests 4 successes into
Clarity. She chooses Attributes twice, Skill and Skill Specialties. She chooses Presence,
Composure, Academics, and any Academics Specialties. She finds that the Despot is quite
charming (Presence 3), able to keep their head cool under pressure even if they were to die
(Composure 5), he’s quite well learned in multiple areas, but a place he really shines is in ancient
history (Academics 4 with Ancient History Specialty).

When it comes to extremely broad categories like Memories, Aspirations, Conditions, Merits
and/or Skill Specialties, a Siren is free to spend successes in them if she chooses and allow the
ST to randomly pick what she sees. Sirens who get answers from this can do the Trace at a later
time and ask if there’s anything other than what she’s seen to narrow down the rest. It is possible
for there to be no answers as well.
Audience of the Trace: Humanity is a social creature, and Despots are no different. A Siren
who invokes the Audience of the Trace upon a Despots Treasure may affect how he relates to
people in his life, or how weak or strong this relationship is.

In game terms, for each success a Siren invests into Audience, she may raise or lower the
Despot’s feelings for another according to the Amour Chart. For example, if a Despot has few
feelings for a victim, but a Siren wants to use Audience upon the Despot to force them to feel
concerned for the Victim, compassionate to them. She would need two successes invested to
move up from Few Feelings to Acquainted, then Acquainted to Concerned.

If a Siren wishes to change how a Despot views a relationship, such as changing love into hatred,
then the process is similar. The Siren needs as many successes equal to the step of the Amour
Modifier the Despot has for the target. So for example, Passionate needs 5 successes, Partiality
needs 4, Concerned needs 3 and so on and so forth.

Verse of the Trace: Unlike most functions of the Trace, the Verse of the Trace is the only thing
that has no changes. A Siren may still use the Verse of the Trace as she does in a regular Trace.
If a Siren uses the Verse of a Trace upon an event described in the Despot’s memories, then it
changes the event rather than the memories to add in what the Siren used the Verse for.