The World
Completeness, Achievement, Wholeness, Denouement
That’s it! You did it!
You reached the end! You defeated the final boss!
You watched the credits! You found the monster at the end of this book!
There’s a sense of emptiness to it, a whole vibrant world disappearing before your eyes. Maybe there will be a sequel, maybe you can go back - but it’ll never be the same as your first time.
I hate this part most of all. Even a good story has to come to an end eventually, and the better the story the harder it is to go back to The World.
The cycle, however, continues: maybe not with this story, but with another, and every pass through you grow and evolve.
The World is also a place for metanarrative exploration. It describes the story itself, and so it can be a useful placeholder for the idea of the story.
Friends & Foes
The Heroes From an Earlier Era were the ones who rescued the world the last time that everything was on the line. They can still hit hard and their technique is legendary, but they aren’t as sharp or clear as in their halcyon days.
The Aeon is older than time, cryptic as heck, and utterly certain that the story will end well. They offer a key bit of information or artifact.
The Iconoclast has begun to see the pattern of the story, the cycle, and what they’re trying to do is to break free of it rather than continue to feed in to it.
The True Believer has heard of that same cycle and they’re wholly devoted to defending, maintaining and further propagating it.
The Eternal has simply been around for a very long time.
The Chessmaster has been manipulating everybody else throughout the story to try and bring their own plans to fruition.
The Nihilist Void is inevitably going to win, but their unlimited power is offset by the useful detail that they’re supernaturally patient so they don’t mind waiting just a little longer.
Hooks
The players are astonished to encounter a local Play Recapping Their Adventure So Far. It’s a good way to both re-tell the story up to this point and also see it from different perspectives.
In The Big Goodbye, players get an opportunity to have one last interaction with their favorite NPCs.
Players who spend too long in the Fantasy Realm become infinitely powerful, but gradually go insane, which is why You Have To Leave.
Locations
The Portal Home signifies the end of the adventure: our heroes returning to their mundane lives, improved and changed by the events that have transpired.
The Ship gives the players a kind of freedom that they’ve never had before: now they can go anywhere.
The Clock Tower is an utterly deterministic space, everything fully planned before arrival.
The Lemniscate Fractal is an interdimensional place containing doors to all kinds of different worlds at all kinds of different times.
Treasures
The Ouroboros Ring allows for time itself to be rewound to correct one error in the timeline.
The World Map provides an overview of the whole entire world, often with fun details to explore.
Names
Atlas, Amaia, Amit, Finn, Eric, Erica, Phoenix, Gwen, Khalid, Nitya, Constantine, Cantor, Zermelo, Anaximander, Apeiron, Zeno, Russell, January, December