Editing Abyss (section)

==Rules==
Inside any manifestation, certain rules hold true, such as cardinal directions. You are what you eat and lose your sense of Self. Its entire purpose is to break down whatever falls in and, if you want out, the only way is to go through by changing, adapting, eating, and getting stronger.

Regular spirits are practically nonexistent in the Abyss. Instead the Abyss relies on something spirit-like but it's colder, more detached, and tends to only follow its own rules. Generally it gets brought in or leaked from elsewhere, thus often manifesting as a leaking effect. It also has an insulation effect that makes whatever it covers gradually change into something more difficult yet also resistant to change from outside factors.<ref name='Abyss QA'>'''are there other potential uses for this portal?'''<br>
Yes.<br><br>
'''For example, if the practitioner can also pass through the portal, there are probably a significant amount of non-quite-bogeyman and other unfortunate ex-people who would love to negotiate for a way to exit'''<br>
Yes. But you just sacrificed something valuable to get there. One could argue that overall, given a longer period of time, you're probably going to break even or fall short when it comes to finding useful Others and people in the Abyss. Some of them will backfire on you, because even if you're not specifically selecting Bogeymen, you're picking people who are at least a few steps closer than normal to being Bogeymen. By and large, you're probably only going to get more than your money's worth if you're interested in violence and terrorizing or if you need very desperate individuals for something. Think in terms of like, "For this job, we're going to have to limit ourselves to the ex-con homeless" somethings. Filling out the roster with ask-no-questions, doesn't-matter-if-they're-pretty people for your out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere pyramid of sacrifice? Good stuff, go shopping for your dredge cultists in the Abyss. Bank robbery? Probably not, unless the 'robbery' is more on the bloody side.<br>
If you're good at negotiating and finding talented individuals, you might do better than break even for a while, until you get burned a few times, at which point you're only breaking even.<br><br>
'''Or, if you're a Nomad/City Mage, could you communicate with the Abyss for favors and whatnot?'''<br>
You can communicate. For favors? Well, you'd be talking with a personification/representative of the Abyss, and the Abyss eats up and digests people and spits out monsters. You're not going to get a wholly civil conversation here, and it's not necessarily going to be on a level playing field. So... you open a door or tap a door you've already made, you venture into The Abattoir, and you find a clearing big enough to open a discourse with the embodiment of that specific region of the Abyss. Chances are this conversation is going to happen with a very hostile, intractable, abrasive personification of this very hostile, intractable place. It may happen with a time limit, a horror movie deathtrap slowly setting itself up around you as you try to establish terms and talk, or it might be that Others are on the approach, reacting to unconscious signals from the Abattoir personification- the Ram-headed Man, the Milkmaid, the Calfbone Child, and the Font of Meat converging on your location while you talk.<br>Is it doable? Yes. But probably for very specific purposes. More often it'd be to broker passage or establish a place-as-an-ongoing-ritual scenario, one that would involve feeding the Abyss. More of an endgame play for a specific scenario than something one would set up for later gains.<br><br>'''Are there even regular spirits in the Abyss, and if so, are they subject to the "cosmic in-sink garbage disposal" effect?'''<br>Not regular spirits. Something spirit-like is in effect, but it's colder, more detached and self-referential, and tends to follow its own rules. Brought elsewhere or allowed to leak elsewhere, it would manifest in leaking effects from the relevant area. Corrosion, persistent ulcerous rust, bloodstains where there shouldn't be any, and an insulation effect, where things become both changing and stubbornly resistant to outside factors - spirits would have a harder time affecting a door that refused to close properly or lock, that creaked loudly as it swung open and closed, banged violently at the slightest brush of wind, and seemed to get more troublesome over time... but spirits would have a harder time affecting it. To an extent, you'll have a harder time affecting it too... this means connections to these things may not form, they may slip out of one's possession very easily, or not get any easier to use with time. Of course, that gets easier if one becomes more like them, meeting them halfway.<br>Around areas where the Abyss is closer to the surface (which happen to be areas which are less linked in to the rest of the world... and areas that are less likely to call news stations and say "Hey, I've got this weird thing!"), these things tend to find a way in. It's usually a harbinger (though not Harbinger) that a specific place is on the way out. People and animals can collect these traits too - family generations with more mutations or stubborn health issues (physical or mental), that somehow prove very long-lived and more and more detached from the rest of the world. Scourges may collect or extract that essence for use or fashioning crooked things, but it's a tricky process that requires more of a biopsy and then nurturing of the biopsied part, or a more complete extraction, but then with a 'it has no connection to you so it slips from your grasp' limited time as the metaphysical pocket has a hole in it and that essence is steadily lost over time until spent. - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/9qky6w/more_abyss_questions/ More Abyss Questions] ([[Wildbow]], Reddit.com, 2018-10-23)</ref> This also applies to items taken from the Abyss; they tend to be durable and inflict enduring effects.<ref>Saturated; items that have spent a time away from our reality may pick up properties of the place they were set.  Includes…<br>
'''Warrens''' - Often have properties of disease, disruption, violence.<br>
'''Abyss''' - Items that endure the abyss tend to be durable and inflict enduring effects.<br><br>
'''Spirit''' - Time in the Spirit makes an item a hallow, then shapes it according to the spirits that have habitually used that hallow.  Then the item is saturated and the spirits become inextricable.<br>
'''Ruins''' - Tie into emotion, soul, and are peripheral to Incarnations.<br>
'''Paths''' - Weird uses only tangentially related to the ‘idea’ of the item.  High utility, often with sharp and unrelated drawbacks.<br>
<br>Again, may be latent. <br>
- [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Od3iu2TXe5r677wHEMCudG5hDUrlM6-E0kgiuvlkuuw/edit# Pact Dice: Collectors]</ref>

Practitioners attempting to communicate with the Abyss for favors will have to do so with a personification of the Abyss. Since the Abyss is quite hostile and abrasive, the personification will be as well. It's likely that a time limit will be placed during negotiations, with death traps being set up around them and Others converging on their location.<ref name='Abyss QA'></ref>

By cooperating with Limbo, it provides an avenue of escape should the person in question be able to reach it. However, it will still have a hold on them and can pull them back.

=== Nemesis ===
The Abyss forces you to deal with your fears through visions and phantom pursuers. These solid entities aren't actually Others, but parts of the people in question that they have been trying to run away from.  These torments are extremely varied and personal.<ref name=":2">Q: Are the shadows that pursue you in the abyss, like Carl and the black fish, as well as the visions Blake sees, unique to the drains or universal to everywhere in the abyss?<br><br>A: Universal, but very personal to the individuals, to the extent that I would urge avoiding lumping them into one category.  Green Eyes' shadow, for example, isn't a bundle of memory and just wants to cause her physical harm.  She is always, so long as she is in the abyss, prey of the Black Fish. - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/4keygh/carl/ Wildbow on Reddit]</ref>

Possibilities include:
* A predator which pursues you and tries to kill you, reminding you of your place on the food chain.<ref name=":2" />
* A personification of a specific trauma you suffered, which can either be escaped by sacrificing the memories or embraced (enduring a distorted vision of the trauma once again).
* True but misleading visions of how people you knew are coping without you in the real world.
* A detailed and highly specific dream of an entire potential life lived in cooperation with the Abyss, filled with knowledge that it's a real possibility.