The Supernal and the Fallen World intersect, but the gap between them is represented by The Curse
The Supernal makes up parts of the Fallen World, and those parts show up as messages and symbols direct from the source. But those messages come through The Abyss and are tainted by it. Sleepers, us — most of us anyway, every Joe, Joji, and Amina on the planet — see these warped messages instead of the Truth.
A Sleeper’s soul is given a choice, between a Truth that cannot be understood and a terrible, impossible alternative as offered by The Abyss.
Her choice is a non-choice, and so she Sleeps.
That non-choice is the Curse.
The Curse Hurts
There’s no right answer for the Sleeper when she is confronted with Supernal forces.
Any time she is faced with this painful non-choice, as her mind and soul wrestle with conflicting and impossible messages, it hurts her deep inside. Some part of her breaks under the strain of wrestling with the impossible, and recovery from that may be an uphill struggle or frankly, never happen.
This is known as a Breaking Point.
Hubris Begets Curse and Vice Versa
Any time a mage afflicts the Curse’s painful manifestation on a Sleeper, it violates his Wisdom as well as the Sleeper’s Integrity
Causing a Sleeper to risk losing Integrity because of your magic is an Act of Hubris for Enlightened and Understanding Wisdom characters.
The Curse Feeds Paradox
Exposing a Sleeper to the Supernal means she must give thought to the twisted symbols from The Abyss, even if the symbol is pure and perfect (and therefore risks little or no Paradox on its own).
By her inability to separate what the Supernal says from the alternate Lie The Abyss suggests, she brings a part of The Abyss with her, corrupting what the Awakened hope to do.
Any Sleeper witnesses to an obvious spell increase Paradox risk by a die. This may cause a spell that would otherwise not risk Paradox to do so.
Dissonance Made Manifest
When a Sleeper struggles with the non-choice she’s been given by reality, it creates internal conflict, and that cycles back into the system. This conflict, this discord between what can and can’t be real, degrades not just her own soul and mind, but also symbols of the Supernal when she is exposed to them. The Awakened call it Dissonance, and it is the brutal aftereffect of the Curse on the magics they attempt to create. Dissonance does not only affect the spells of mages, but any exposure to the Supernal. Worse, it makes Abyssal entities stronger.
At the end of a scene in which a Sleeper witnesses obvious Supernal magic, roll her Integrity as a dice pool, Withstood by the spell’s dots, the Rank of a Supernal entity, or a number set by the Storyteller for other magical phenomena. Dissonance against Demesnes is Withstood by the number of soul stones creating the Demesne. Multiple Sleepers do not roll more than once, but apply a dice trick to the roll in the same way as Paradox rolls.
Dramatic Failure: The phenomenon is unaffected, and the Sleeper suffers a Breaking Point against Integrity.
Failure: The phenomenon is unaffected.
Success: If the roll achieves successes beyond the phenomenon’s Withstand rating:
- Spells: Each success reduces one spell factor by a level, primary factor last, to a minimum of the lowest level of each factor table. If all factors have been reduced to minimum, any further success destroys the spell.
- Supernal Entities: The entity suffers lethal damage equal to successes.
- Demesnes: The Demesne is suppressed, ceasing to function until no Sleepers have been present for the roll’s successes in weeks.
Exceptional Success: As above, and also;
- Spells: One Reach effect incorporated into the spell is removed.
- Supernal Entities: The damage inflicted is aggravated.
- Demesnes: The Demesne is permanently destroyed. This does not affect the soul stones, which can be used to build a new Demesne.
Legacy Attainments and Emanation Realms are immune to Dissonance.
Treat Abyssal beings as Supernal for the dice roll, but they do not Withstand successes and Dissonance heals the roll’s successes in Corpus as well as giving the Abyssal entity successes in points of Essence.