Denizen

Those called Undercity Denizens, and sometimes Dark Reflections,<ref name=blah>

Dark Reflections are dark inverses of either people on Earth or representative of communities on Earth.  Their general patterns, mentality and nature resemble the Fraward or Hydes, being anti-civilization, anti-society, anti-nicety, or something in that realm, but are typically less pronounced in just how stark this may be.  Dark Reflections may appear in groups when they appear, and generally crop up when an entire community is reflected.  Often violent and transgressive.  Are less about being an idealization of everything their other half isn’t, even when directly reflecting someone. - Bestiary: Fraward</ref> are meant to be an inverse of humanity.<ref name=pd>Undercity denizens (sometimes just called ‘denizens’) are dark reflections of other populations, often free of usual rules, including innocence, and can be impulsive and aggressive by nature. They can mingle with Others without really flinching; expect to see many Prices Others, Aware, and the victims of Rapacious practices in Undercities. The warping of undercity denizens tends to be subtler, and has to do with proportions - when the ‘smarts’ get handed out, so to speak, more get shortchanged and more get benefits. Roles or capabilities can get exaggerated, and other kinds of distortion can happen, depending on the nature of the undercity and how it formed. An undercity that formed out of a reflexive need for Nature could see feral features (fangs, horns) in the denizens, and one that formed out of a power imbalance could create a subset of the population with too much or too little power. It is not uncommon for the city’s residents to instinctively and actively seek out means of managing or capitalizing on the balance - a ritual of feeding the weak or feeding visitors to animals for the Nature imbalance, or formalized, ongoing gang struggles to feed the city that had a War vacuum.
[...]
Fitting In:[...]Denizens of the undercities may come and go, but are often offputting or intimidating, with 5-15% percent who can’t pass because they’ve become so exaggerated or twisted. - PACT DICE: Knots</ref>

Abilities

According to the Carmine Exile they can be thought of as close to humanity in its original form, from around the bronze age.<ref>“You’ve written it in your notes.  Others have said it outright.  This is, in a sense, what humanity once was.  Before the Seal.  On the one hand, they are less literate, fiercer, tribalist.  But the Seal doesn’t only empower.  It constrains, limits.  Back in early history, there was more room for the exceptional to emerge on their own.  And there was room for those individuals to grapple with whatever aspects of the practice they needed.  Before it was practice.”

“Just so I can pin down a timeline, what kind of before was this?” Connor asked.

“Bronze age, I’m guessing?” Verona replied.

Lucy nodded.

“Bronze age,” Charles confirmed.  “Before even the written word was easily spread.  Information spread by way of word of mouth and by stories, and we all know how much a single message can mutate, if passed through enough mouths.  It was all mutable.”

“Okay,” Connor replied.

“This is a return to that.  Some differences.  A finger rests on the scales. - Excerpt from Wild Abandon 18.5</ref> Thus they are not protected or hindered by Innocence of the magical world.<ref name=:0/><ref name=:1/> They can more easily gain abilities close to that of the Aware or become something close to being a practitioner or Other.

Weaknesses

As visceral people, Denizens can be bound and otherwise restrained just like actual people. They are also considered human enough to be components in various rapacious practices.

Formation

They can be born as they are, spontaneously manifest, or be innocents who wander into an undercity and find themselves "home".<ref name=:0>Miss explained, “Knotted persons have already started filtering in. Tashlit could tell you more, so perhaps reach out to her to speak with her in dreams, I know her brother has experience. [...] There are people drawn to knotted spaces, and there are people who will spontaneously appear in those spaces. The line between the two things is indistinct. They usually keep the company of other knotted persons, but not completely. Some will cross that indistinct line.”

“What in the heck does that mean?” Lucy asked.

Miss went on, “They’ll show up. Broad daylight. They don’t always flinch at or care about Others and they aren’t innocent. We don’t know the particulars yet, but you’ll want to watch out for them. Perhaps guide them back where they came from.” - Excerpt from Fall Out 14.2</ref><ref name=:1>“Bit of a weird out-of-nowhere question, I know, but are you like… newborn?” Verona asked.[...] “Do you have an existence before Kennet?”

“Ohhh.  Me?  I guess.  I’ve been places, you know?  Surviving.  I was too young to remember, then I was here.  But there are definitely new people.  Mostly they go with the flow.  And then there’s people who… you know they’re from outside.  They’re pulled here, maybe they filter through society at a downward angle instead of filtering straight.  That doesn’t make sense.  It’s dumb.”

“Nah.  Not that dumb.  So there’s people… kinda appeared.  Haven’t really carved out a niche?”

“Or found a gig, niche, style.  I dunno.  How do people show up in other places?  Where you’re from?”

“Pregnancy and they get born there, or they move in.”

“Can you verify that for everyone?” Mal asked.  “Did you see everyone getting born?”

“No.  But-”

“But wait, let me finish.  You didn’t see them getting born, but you assume they were born, right?  Most of them?”

“Pretty much all.  Others excepted.”

“Sure.  I can assume or pretend most people here were born too.  Easy.  I assume I was born too, but I definitely don’t remember that.  Do you?  Remember being born? [...] So… does it really complicate things compared to here? Pretending or assuming I was born, pretend-assuming the same for others”

Verona debated arguing but she decided she’d rather get more important info first.  “Okay, but then there’s ones like you… maybe you half-existed somewhere, filtered out, filtered back in? [...] And then, third group, there’s people who- I guess they might be the outsiders in reality, and they become non-outsiders here?  We call them innocents, but that might be generous.”

“Sure.  Like there’s guys who just sorta wandered in, saw people fighting in the street, or there was a shady bar and people doing mystery drugs in the alley and they were like, ‘I’m home!’.  Or they didn’t care.”

“Or life kicked their asses enough they can’t tell the difference between this and reality.”

“Fuck you,” Mal retorted, unexpectedly hostile. “This is real.” - Excerpt from Fall Out 14.3</ref>

Behavior

Anti-social is putting it lightly.<ref name=blah/> Can usually pass for humans appearance wise but their attitude requires a serious adjustment.<ref name=pd/> Their behavior will also b influenced by how the city formed in the first place and what balance is being addressed in its formation.<ref> - PACT DICE</ref>

Variations

Leaders

Those who find their way into positions of power and importance can knot, filling specific roles almost as an inverse to animus.<ref>And there are spirits that track broader patterns and labels.  The teacher, the cook, the terrible child, the madman.  And sometimes those broader patterns and labels can make impressions deep enough that the animus will form, and that leads to the Great Teacher, who contrives to exist despite having no prior existence, arrives on a scene, imparts a great lesson onto those who need a teacher, and then moves on to other locations and venues, sustaining herself as a role.

Up until a location was disturbed.  That which was flat and ordered becomes uneven, with droughts and floods of meaning and concept.  Spiritual flows concentrate, interrupt, feed back on one another, and disrupt.

And that which was hidden becomes obvious, and the obvious is buried, and much of this is subtle, except for places where it is not.  The same spaces that could form an animus if given enough depth are all there, as shallow impressions and greater ones, or even ones that aren’t actually meant to be, that are jarred into existence by the great shuffling and confusion, or pressed in by the flows of certain spirits into certain impressions, digging those impressions deep.

And as a town forms a dark half, the impressions are filled, the universe contrives, power flows and people form, with vague memories of histories that become sharper as they are defined and clarified, with roles as simple as ‘the third smartest child in class’ or ‘the boy who is good at sports’, until a rough balance has been reached. - Excerpt from Wild Abandon 18.a</ref>

Known Denizens

• Bracken Fry‎
  • Bag Fry (formerly)
• Family Man
• Foreman
• The Resident
• Vice Principal
• Mallory
• Suze<ref>Wild Abandon 18.5</ref>
• White-haired ghostly Spirit-eater<ref>White-haired - Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.11</ref>
• Lookout kid<ref>As she did, a boy a few years younger than her stepped into the display window, looking through the fence. A lookout. He turned his head back to say something to the people inside the store, but Lucy couldn’t make much sense out of that.
  [...]
  The eyes of the boy in the window fell on her, and her anklet went haywire.  It wasn’t one bead that kicked off, spinning so fast it whirred, but the ones adjacent to it as well, and the ones adjacent to those.
  
  “What the-?” Lucy asked.
  
  “Felt that,” Toadswallow said.
  
  “He’s special?  Aware?”
  
  “Something.  Get ready.  I’ll be around.” - Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.11</ref>
• Oldbodies

See Also

• Crossed
• Fraward
• Oddfolk
• People of the Valley

References

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