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Horror

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A Horror, also called corrugated, folded or plicate,<ref name="ppp"/> is a label earned by Others created when practice goes wrong; the 'material' or 'victim' can vary as can the means.

Nature

When various types of practice go wrong you get horror. The diversity of the means, material and results translates into a lack of anything working for everything called a 'Horror'.<ref name="SH"/>

A common or classical horror will usually have an Abyssal nature, though something Spiritual might be tied into it.<ref name="Ch"/> Their creation often results in negative Karma as their mere existence means that a practitioner has been neglecting their duties in some way.<ref>Practitioners have a responsibility to tidy up messes and keep ordinary people from being inconvenienced. - Excerpt from Lost for Words 1.3</ref>

Are known for not having names as part of their mutilation or mutation, other things will also be taken away or twisted.<ref>Srentystrpleth.  The name had changed, but as Francis thought about it, he couldn’t remember the permutation of sounds from before, and he knew exactly who it was meant to refer to this time.

An anti-binding measure?  A way for it to slip easy labeling and summoning?

It fell in the right ballpark for horrors and darker things. - Excerpt from Break 4</ref>

They are so warped that many of the Pillars of Human Existence won't touch them.<ref name=":8"/>

Variants

The power and abilities of a given example as stated depend on the victim and the process in question. Even things like ambient spirits or small animals can be caught in an effect, though in that case, it may result in a 'lesser' horror.<ref>Something was inside his left ear, the flesh cut and sewn to provide a barrier, etched with a small rune.  When the blow separated fresh stitches, Moss screamed, and so did Art, who pulled away as fingers with too many segments and clawed tips gripped his fist.  It seemed to hurt Moss as much as it hurt Art, the arm reeling out, the lesser horror following.  It had been a mouse once, maybe. - Excerpt from One After Another 10.z</ref>

A classical horror is generally formed through the misuse of practice. Mainly it going wrong, and specifically when Realms go wrong, the drawbridge coming down and smashing someone as the gate opens.<ref name="Ch">Horrors

Horrors are most commonly wrought as a result of practice run amuck, or the folding in of spaces.  They may appear at the fringes of a town heavily affected by practice, or when a quarantined place gets put 'out of the way', sunken or elevated into another Realm, or made inaccessible by some warping of reality.  They were never human (or animal, or whatever the source was), but the lingering human-ness of a place can be compressed into jumbled, disturbing forms with their own consciousnesses.  Multiple arms, heads, or body parts are common.  They are most often associated with Prices and Realms practices.

Common Horrors are those horrors who may arise as a place or person is elevated, dropped, or moved to another realm.  Abyssal influences are common, even if the path isn't to the abyss; a distorted or accidental relocation to the spirit world may suffuse the horror with complex spiritstuff, while outer limbs are tainted or bent with the abyssal influence.  It may have ulcerous, startlingly red spirit-growths at its upper chest, framed with branches of cherry blossoms, and blackened, bent limbs at its twisted extremities.  They bring a little bit of 'crookedness' wherever they go, and may have an enhanced ability to access spaces, as well as warping the presence of whatever realm they were derived from (warping the spiritual, or the emotional, for example).  They often place survival as their first priority, and gravitate toward those places most connected to their origin, making them sometimes accidental watchdogs of gateways and access points, taking payment through their territory, which may just so happen to be the easiest local way to get to a given realm.

With the High Horror, enough power is expended to break them free or give them more of a 'beating heart'.  The human-like representation is drawn out across the bridge or gap, and the outside influences pour into them as vessels.  Stretched out, detached from reality, they are more likely to be finely decorated with motifs, to float, and to have some fair amounts of crude power at their disposal.  The edges, crown or motifs are often touched with the abyssal.  They may, in their own crude ways, try to open the holes bigger, so to speak, but if stable, may be intermediaries. - Wildbow on Discord</ref> Do not derive from humans usually, being only an aftereffect of practitioner carelessness.

Horror Debauchee are tied more to specific rituals, failed ones, then to some mistaken use of Realms practice.<ref name="Hd">Horror Debauchee

The Horror Debauchee is a variant of horror most commonly derived from a ritual (gone wrong), with at least two of: a time-specific aspect, a group participating in the ritual, and a broader observance of some associated events, times, holidays, or symbols.  They may be religious or associated with mass casualties in disaster or war, or may be linked to times like midwinter or midsummer.  They swell in strength and presence and roam more as the linked occasions draw near, and are often content to drink in the occasion, though they may defend it against those who would defame it or cause some chaos by the fleeting glimpses people get of them, or damage they do in sating the appetites that awake at the same time they do (potential missing pets or store break-ins).  Outside of the set occasions, they are very dormant, and at worst a child exploring the woods may look into a hole and see a contorted, greasy, half-asleep figure curled up inside (in such a case the Other may seek out the child when the occasion rolls around, as a link gets formed).

Where the Horror Debauchee is most problematic is when the event falters.  They live for and because of the event, the ritual, or the idea, and without it they diminish.  Should the event cease to be minded, they may target those diminishing it, or make crude and sometimes macabre attempts at reminding people. - Wildbow on Discord</ref> Their existence is more periodical then other horrors; only existing part of the time between their rituals.<ref name="Hd"/> This time span can that of a week, a month or a year, outside of their active phase they will be dormant but when awakened will hunt any who disturbed them or their place of interest.<ref name="Hd"/> May draw from people but were not people themselves rather events or rituals who have been twisted.

Immaterial Others can be caught in these effects as well they are usually given the label "plicate" like a plicate echo, elemental, spirit or similar.<ref name="SH">

Email Reply From: Verona (VHayward@tbaynorth.ca)
Yep.  Yepyepyepyepyep.  Elemental seems to map to this yes.
:thumbsup:
Looked up folded spirits and didn’t find much but did find about Plicate Spirits.  Fits Monty here.
Um.  So when you do big rituals, especialllly realms practices  like opening doors between our world and spirit or our world and abyss (loooking at you Ave) you can catch bystanders in the way as space folds and worlds bend to make room.  Especially if you rush it or do a bad diagram.  If that bystander is a human you can get a horror that’s all stretched out and bent and operates by slightly different rules.  Horrors.  The plicate spirit is this but for spirits (or plicate echo, or plicate elemental).  Folded up, stretched out, twisted up with something else, and operating by different logic.  Think implicate and ‘plicate: folded, crumpled, or corrugated, in biology.’
This book sums a lot of it up as ‘each one is different so no one thing works perfectly’, ‘apply lots of fire’, and ‘here’s how you should diagnose or deal with a plicate spirit overriding your diagram’ (which is basically cut off all power and run).  Not very useful stuff.
Email Reply From: Matthew Moss (Mossball@Mooseboop.ca)
Elemental makes sense. - New Other Correspondence #1</ref><ref>“That is a good question,” Miss said.  She turned to look toward Kennet, standing on the other side of Rook, who blocked their view of her face until Rook could move the mask back into position.  “A plicate spirit, or a spiritual horror, has taken up claim over the boundary.  He influences everything inside Kennet, only for brief times, but-” - Excerpt from One After Another 10.4</ref>

Fervid Horrors come from those people, generally innocents, that perform some whispered ritual for an esoteric benefit, they risk dying should someone innocent catch sight of them without their 'face' on.<ref>The Fervid Horror will crop up here or there in pockets, primarily as an artifact of subculture and niche religion or cults. Individuals, often non-practitioners, may intentionally seek out the rituals that others would consider broken or disrupted, intentionally becoming horrors, folding space and distorting reality, while distorting themselves in mind and body at the same time. Oftentimes this may be an effort to reach out (so to speak) to their god by opening the way to that deity's realm, over a drawn out series of rituals, an effort to produce a desired physical transformation (such as weight loss or artificial beauty on the outside at the cost of becoming twisted inside), or both (drawing out angel wings by way of distorted or combining flesh).

Fervid Horrors are often very fragile and some may even die if exposed to the innocent who run against their faith or beauty, leading them to stick to shadows or hide the distorted parts of themselves, at least from those who aren't of like mind. Often have a spark of divine power and/or the ability to invoke awe. - Wildbow from Discord</ref> Associated with Prices more, they commonly have something of the divine within such as the ability to beget numinosity.

Advanced versions are called high horrors,<ref name="Ch"/> and even "celestial" horrors are known to exist.

Notable Examples


[...]
Including the man chained to the wall, too many limbs, mouth in his side that reached from his bellybutton to his asshole, with hunger inside him to match the size of that mouth. Death wouldn’t touch him. Nature wouldn’t wither him for not eating. Fate had no plans for him. Time wouldn’t change him, for better or for worse… not that there was much worse. His War was entirely internal. Tearing him up inside, fighting with his own body, struggling. Bad luck - Excerpt form Let Slip 20.b</ref>

Trivia

  • Plicate is best known as being part of words like implicate or explicate. But it is also used in the sense of 'folded', as would be used in describing prions.

References

<references/>

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