Open Questions¶

Unresolved worldbuilding and design questions to be addressed. Add to this list as they arise. Questions reference concepts detailed in Cosmology, Locations, Factions, and Devices.

Eidolons¶

See Cosmology — The Eidolons for the current known table.

[ ] What are all the Eidolons and their corresponding shadows? (Known: Wisdom/TBD, Hope/Despair, Temperance/TBD, Humility/Pride, Courage/TBD, Justice/TBD, Truthfulness/TBD, Innovation/TBD, Liberation/TBD)
[x] ~~Which Eidolon is tied to Vanarism (body-shaping)?~~ Temperance.
[x] ~~Which Eidolon's gift is Investment/Imbuing?~~ Innovation.
[ ] What is the shadow corresponding to Wisdom?
[ ] What is the shadow corresponding to Innovation?
[ ] Which Eidolon is targeted by the Ascension Ceremony? Humility himself yearns to escape this world (per Skyne) — does that make him a willing target, a hidden architect, or unrelated to the Elders' pick?
[ ] How many Eidolons exist in total?
[ ] What are the specific Glyphein bloodline clusters corresponding to each Eidolon? Which unassigned Eidolons (Courage, Justice, Truthfulness, Liberation) correspond to Glyphein clusters vs. distinct races?
[ ] What are the titles for each Eidolon?
[ ] What is Wisdom's race called?
[ ] What magic types correspond to each unassigned Eidolon?

Eidolon mechanics (inhabitation, blending, new arisals):

[ ] Who is the current Katochos of each known Eidolon? Are they mortal, long-lived, or indefinite? Are any of them named historical figures?
[ ] Under what conditions does a new Virtue/Eidolon arise and take its first Katochos? Has this happened in recorded history? Are there dormant Virtues that have never been inhabited?
[ ] When two peoples intermix enough to blend their Eidolons, what does the process look like — slow merger, discrete event, or something triggered by a specific act? Does a single Katochos emerge from the blending, or does the throne sit empty until a new one arises?
[ ] Do the Vices have their own Katochoi, or is the Vice always carried by the same person holding the Virtue (just a dominant face versus a suppressed one)?
[ ] Can the people → Eidolon drift ever be reversed at speed, or is it always the generational slow pull?

Magic & Exousia¶

See Cosmology — Exousia, Praxis, Hypodochē.

[ ] Which Exousia waveform property encodes Archē-alignment? (Frequency, amplitude, rotation, or something else?)
[ ] What are the distinct forms of magic corresponding to each Archē-bloodline?

Praxis, Exousia, and Husks:

[x] ~~How is a soulshard produced?~~ Willing partial surrender; it remains open whether forcible extraction is possible (see below).
[ ] Can a soulshard be forcibly extracted against the donor's will? If so, the output would be toxic — but what would the extraction itself do to the donor? (Potential plot-rich horror.)
[ ] Can Praxis itself (as opposed to a crystallized soulshard) be extracted? The current framing says no, but the setting wants to leave room for an exotic method or ancient apparatus that could do it. (Also in IdeaBank — Will Extraction.)
[ ] Could artificial Praxis exist — a Device or apparatus that directs Exousia without a living soul? (Also in IdeaBank — Artificial Praxis.)
[ ] What does the Praxis / Hypodochē treatment look like for the other forms of magic — Primal, Shaping, Blooming? Investment has a clean treatment; the others need analogous work. (Also in IdeaBank — Other-Form Metaphysics.)
[ ] How much permanent Investment in how short a span tips a caster into Husk territory? (What's the rough pacing?)
[ ] Are Husks salvageable — can the emptied soul be restored? Or is the transformation terminal?
[ ] Are Husks a present-day phenomenon (encountered in the Forest, for example), a historical artifact of old Kyanos's excesses, or both?
[ ] In hybrid workings with a soulshard, whose Archē-signature does the result carry — the Investor's, the donor's, or a mixed signature?

The Disruption¶

See Cosmology — The Disruption and Locations — Kuklos.

[ ] What is the Disruption, in light of the new metaphysics? An earlier framing positioned it as magical overcharge — a runaway excess in the Exousia economy that rewarded users short-term but was addictive, producing insanity and dis-alignment from one's Archē. That reading needs reworking with the Praxis / Hypodochē / Ekkenōsis metaphysics in place. Candidate mechanisms worth considering: toxic Exousia feedback loops at civilizational scale; mass Ekkenōsis across a population (a city's worth of Husks); coerced Praxis withdrawal destabilizing an Archē; a botched Skorpismos event.
[ ] What are the specific stages of the metaphysical terraforming occurring in the Disruption zones?
[ ] How does the Exousia-inert zone around Kuklos work mechanically? What maintains it?
[ ] What are the "purpose-built magical devices" that initiated the ceremony? Where are they?

The Disruption Problem — a chain of constraints that creates complications for technology:

People have Exousia.
Land has Exousia.
The land realigns itself over time to match the Exousia of its residents.
The Disruption changed the Exousia of the land.
Devices require Exousia specific to the land.
Devices require runes specific to the land.

This means pre-Disruption Devices no longer function properly in terraformed zones, and new Devices must account for the altered Exousia landscape. How exactly does this work in practice?

Ascension¶

See Cosmology — Ascension and Skyne.

[ ] What are the specific conditions Cyrus would need to know/fulfill for the secret ending Ascension?
[ ] When the Elders plan to "disable their own protection and ascend in one fell swoop" — what does this look like in practice? Is there a physical device, a ritual, both?
[ ] Humility's yearning for the higher world (via blood memories of Skyne) is established as a motive force. How directly does he act on it? Is the Enlightenment revelation to the Sophronoi Elders his doing, an envoy's, or unrelated?
[ ] If Ascension succeeds, does the ascendant reach the higher world Skyne came from, or only take the dead god's echo-throne in this one?

Locations¶

See Locations for detailed location descriptions.

Kyanos (pre-Disruption):

[ ] How did Devices and Exousia technology develop over time?
[ ] What role did the desert tribes play in the city's cultural identity?

Kuklos Anankes (post-Disruption):

[x] ~~Where does the farmland sit?~~ Small but highly productive strip near the second city gate (see Locations — Kuklos).
[ ] Where do they get clothes, and from what fibers?
[ ] What does the religion look like in practice?
[ ] What do they use for currency?
[ ] What is the total population? (Size: ~2-mile diameter, ~3.14 sq mi interior, moderately dense.)
[ ] What does the government structure (The Union) look like in detail? How does the Union share the Decagram with the Collective in practice?
[ ] What exactly is the Research District? Its remit is currently tentative.
[ ] How are the three outer gates and the three outer districts oriented relative to each other, the river, and the Forest?

Races & Peoples¶

See Factions for detailed profiles of known races and peoples.

[ ] Are there other non-Glyphein races besides the Vanarites, Elpidi, and Sophronoi?
[ ] Cheria Sofias (Greek: Xeria Sofias, lit. "Hands of Wisdom") — also called the Yomenites. One of the Eidolon of Wisdom's tribes that wandered the desert. Adapted to desert life, treated water as gold, battled other tribes, wore animal skins, pilgrimaged to mountains (West), seas (North), and wetlands (East). What is their relationship to the Vanarites — ancestors, a separate group, or a renamed people?
[x] ~~What is the Vanarites' relationship to the Eidolons?~~ They have their own Eidolon (TBD), tied to Shaping magic.
[x] ~~Are the Elpidi a distinct race?~~ Yes. Eidolon: Hope, shadow: Despair, Magic: Blooming.

Apotheosis¶

The umbrella name for character-specific transformations triggered by the gauge previously called "Burst." Each playable character has a uniquely-named Apotheosis form (Harmonic Resonance for Paidi, Maelstrom for Sophia, Shadow Lord for Euphen, Crimson Vessel for Chiranjeevi, Omnific Mirror for Lione, Magnum Opus for Adam, with Cyrus/Vaughn/Phaidros still in design).

[ ] The entire Apotheosis system needs comprehensive worldbuilding development. Currently it exists as a mechanical concept (a gauge that fills and triggers a transformation) but has no metaphysical, social, or historical grounding. Open question categories:
- Metaphysics. What is Apotheosis? A manifestation of Praxis at peak intensity? An Eidolon-touched moment? A separate magic? How does it relate to existing concepts (Exousia, Hypodochē, Skorpismos, Investment, Husking)?
- Phenomenology. What does it look and feel like to witness an Apotheosis? To undergo one? Visual signatures common across forms, or wildly variable per character?
- Specificity. Why does each character have a unique form? Tied to their Archē? Bloodline? Training? Wound? Devotion?
- Knowledge. Who in the world knows about Apotheosis? Is it documented history, a Collective secret, fringe folklore? Are there pre-Disruption cases?
- Access. Why are these nine specific characters capable of it? Rare gift, common-but-rarely-activated, trauma-triggered, condition-gated?
- Cost. Beyond the gauge, is there a price? Does repeated use deplete, damage, or bind something?
- History. Have prior Apotheoses shaped the world? Could the Eidolons themselves be "permanent" Apotheoses of long-ago mortals?
Until this is built out, every individual character's Apotheosis description is mechanical-only and the cast's combined Apotheoses don't add up to a coherent system. Significant lore project — likely deserves a dedicated brainstorming session and its own canonical wiki page, not just a single-thread question.

Factions & Characters¶

[ ] Paidi's tradition vs. the Elpidi. Paidi's combat archetype is built on musical performance as a discipline — her resource is Harmony, her Burst is Harmonic Resonance, and her stances ("Miens") use musical-performance names (Legato, Cantabile, Staccato, etc.). But Paidi is canonically a member of the Elpidi (Order of Pious Sun), whose current characterization is sun-cult / pious / monastic — no musical practice. Two paths to resolve: (a) overhaul the Elpidi to incorporate a musical/harmonic discipline as part of their devotional practice (the sun has its own song, etc.); or (b) move Paidi to a different group (a separate musical monastic order, or make her a defector / cross-trained) and leave the Elpidi alone. Pick one before her character page or the Elpidi entry get further work.

Story¶

See Factions — Key Figures for known character details.

[ ] What exactly did "The Master of Those Who Know" reveal during the Enlightenment?
[ ] What is Dominus's identity among the Seven Elders?

Set Aside — Concepts for Reuse¶

Terms and scraps that were considered but set aside for potential use elsewhere have moved to IdeaBank.