Embers, a live-action role-playing game, by Embers Productions

Copyright 1999, Embers Productions. All rights reserved.

Many years ago, the world was unified. The sacred spirits and base matter commingled and were one. The ancestral spirits talked to their descendants daily. The world had magic then. But then, spirit and matter separated into the Umbra and the real world.

Separated from us by the Weaver's Gauntlet, the Umbra is a mystery to humanity. The Umbra is what the Gnostics mean when they describe what we were before Ialdaboag forced a material body upon us. The Amerindian shaman tries to reach the Umbra when he sweats himself into a stupor. The Christian mystics tried to whip themselves back to the Umbra. Since the 60s, hippies have tried to medicate their way back to the Umbra using LSD.

None of them will ever succeed.

The Umbra was once a part of everything and everything was part of the Umbra. Now it has been forced from humanity, split off from them, and their every spiritual endeavor is a vain attempt to bring it back. But the Garou can walk in the Umbra. They can visit it and journey through it and sometimes bring something back. And the Umbra changes those who dwell in it, no matter how briefly.

Many spirits live in the Umbra. It is a place without substance but it somehow defines substance. Those in the real world and those in the Umbra can't directly see or experience each other, but their actions and even their feelings affect the other in subtle and powerful ways. Humans can no longer refresh themselves in the reflection of the world that is the Umbra. But the Garou can, and the visions they receive of themselves and of their place in life - the cool, clear draughts of insight that they find in the Umbra - can remind them what it is they fight for.

But the Umbra can also bring confusion and suffering. Not everything there is good. There are creatures which live in the Umbra - minions of the Wyrm which are using it as a gateway to further poison Gaia’s soul, and, of course, the tools of the Weaver, which are trying to further separate the two realities.

The Gauntlet is what separates the real world from the Umbra. It has been described as both a membrane and as a web. When traveling from the real world to the Umbra (and vice versa), you must first break through the Gauntlet.

Far from uniform, the Gauntlet tends to be strongest in highly civilized areas like cities and military compounds and weakest around strong Caerns and other natural places. If the Gauntlet were to weaken completely, the real world and Umbra would coexist once more. If it were to become completely impermeable, then the Umbra and real world would be completely shut off from each other there - the results of that are too terrible to contemplate.

There are a select few who can cross through the Gauntlet.. The Garou are chief among them, though others are able to do so as well. Some humans have been known to accidentally cross through in dreams, though few have been known to do so voluntarily. Many agents of the Wyrm and the Weaver can cross through the Gauntlet. Most spirits are stuck in the Umbra, but some are able to cross the Gauntlet.

All Garou can enter the Umbra, however most are not skilled or subtle at it. A fast, crude attempt to enter the Umbra can have many consequences. One result is simple failure - the attempt failed and the Garou will need to try again. A crude entry into the Umbra can also bring about the attention of Weaver minions posted throughout the Umbra, many of whom are simply observers, but others of which pounce upon intruders and either kill them or encapsulate them into the fabric of the Gauntlet. Garou have also been known to get stuck halfway between the Umbra and the real world, their minds and bodies separated by the Gauntlet for the rest of their pitiful lives.

To pass through the Gauntlet, a Garou must meditate upon his own reflection. This period of reflection is important to ground himself in the real world, but simultaneously open himself up to the spirit world of the Umbra. The Gauntlet takes less notice of calm and centered Garou, and the Umbra tends to be less…tempestuous when the Garou's thoughts are themselves not chaotic. A useful metaphor is diving into water - a hurried, frantic dive will splash up an enormous amount of water, while a controlled, calm dive will go deeper and produce less disturbance of the water. After contemplating his image, the Garou then attempts to step sideways through it. Note: There are some Theurges so proficient at passing into the Umbra that they no longer require a reflective surface to enter it, but most Garou require a reflecting surface that is large enough for them to pass through (i.e. a pocket mirror is not big enough).

Passing through the Gauntlet is a profoundly disturbing experience. It can feel like a million hands grabbing at you and pulling you back to the real world, or like fly paper sticking to every surface of your mind. The more centered the Garou is, the longer she has reflected upon herself, the less pull she feels and the more easily she slips into the Umbra. Garou who have not sufficiently prepared themselves for the Umbra have been eradicated by the Gauntlet, or even subsumed into its crystalline lattice.

No matter how much a Garou meditates before entering the Umbra, there is one terrifying moment where she no longer exists in the real world, and has not yet begun to imagine her existence in the Umbra. But Luna smiles upon her children and helps them through this moment of nothingness - they pass on through to the Umbra.

System: Anyone who wishes to enter the Umbra MUST speak to a GM. The Garou will need to succeed in a Static Mental Challenge versus the local Gauntlet. The difficulty will be determined by the GM, and will be affected by the amount of meditation the player has done beforehand. If the player succeeds in the Challenge, he will pass into the Umbra.

The Umbral landscape can be eerie and disorienting. The Moon, many times the size of her Earthly countenance, is always in the sky and always outshines the feeble sun. The geography is changeable. There are no humans and the spirits tend to hide themselves. It is a wild and often lonely place.

Near the real world, the Umbra resembles reality. There are houses, the Umbral hills correspond with real hills, and the wildlife is appropriately represented. New items and forgotten items tend not to be represented in the near Umbra, but older and beloved things are - an empty doorway may lead to an old house that has been in the family for generations, a treasured necklace may exist in the Umbra as a flash of light, and an ancient tree may be the home to spirits. The near Umbra is a melange of these images, overlaid on top of each other. This makes it difficult to navigate with any accuracy, but there are well traveled paths, and the experienced Navigator can make correlations between the Umbral world and the real world.

The deeper you go into the Umbra, though, the less it resembles the real world. The symbolism has less to do with objects, and starts having more to do with areas. Then, if you continue to go deeper, the symbolism has more to do with emotions, continues to get more and more primal the deeper you go. Most Garou, even the seasoned Navigators, never go much farther than the near Umbra. Beyond that, things get strange and disorienting. There are many who have gone deeper and never came back. There are others who have come back, speaking in hushed tones of Anchorheads which led into the Deep Umbra. They describe looking through this Anchorheads is like looking up into a black void sprinkled with stars, or looking down off the edge of the world.

Finding your way in the Umbra is a lot like interpreting a dream. Much in the Umbra is shrouded in symbol and metaphor, and spirits rarely talk plainly. It takes training and skill to interpret the events and the geography. Because the real world affects the Umbra, and the Umbra influences the real world, the geography of the Umbra is in constant flux. Most areas experience gradual drift, but entire regions can be transmogrified in the blink of an eye. Umbral Navigators have good knowledge of a large area of the local Umbra, and generally have a passing knowledge of the surrounding regions.

System: Travelling within the Umbra will rely heavily on Storytelling, and will depend strongly on the situation. Those characters with appropriate skills and abilities will be able to use those skills as described in their character packet.