VERSES
Existence is defined by six known Verses: Fantasia, Synthex, Kaleidoscope, Gloom, Commedia, and Proxima.
Every piece of art and story the Para Initiative discovers belongs to one of them. TCG cards will have powers and utility based on their own story and the Verse they come from.
This is the Verse of magic, high fantasy, and folktale. The level of technology is much lower than our own, because the very essence of Fantasia is a powerful mystical energy, rendering technology in many ways unnecessary. Beings who can manipulate the fabric of the Verse in significant ways either wield arcane power, or are themselves inherently magical.
Hobbits, Faeries, Elves and the like are commonly found here. Intelligent animals and beast/human hybrids live in Fantasia. Structures are often organic in material components and appearance, and the very land itself is suffused with a palpable sense of life and sentience.
Much of the scenery is in greens and blues, as seas and forests are typical settings, but browns and rusty reds in caves, mountains, and underground lairs are not unusual. The most common forms of cities, when they do exist here, look to have been grown out of plant life, or sung out of living stone rather than constructed according to plan or blueprint. A fundamental premise here is living in harmony, with the environment, and with others.
Scientific design and process are the starting points for Synthex. The level of technology is typically advanced far beyond our own. Landscapes are angular, sleek, urban, or aboard spacefaring vessels. Beings who manipulate the fabric of the Verse are mathematical masterminds or skilled inventors who have conquered the environment with technological solutions, or extremely powerful artificial beings. Robots, androids, and AIs are frequently seen.
Fires, forges, foundries, and factories are key to the cycle that is the fundamental premise of Synthex. In this Verse, it is simply assumed that reshaping the environment for aesthetic or functional improvement requires significant, even violent, alteration of the old to make way for the new, and the establishment of hierarchal processes to achieve specific results.
Colors are likely to include the red glow of combustion, the greys and silvers of metal, and even the highly charged brights of excited noble gases. A guiding principle here is that “destruction” per se isn’t seen as a moral quandary, but rather as a step in the never-ending process of directed evolution.
Where do the things that go bump in the night live during the day? In Gloom. All living things fear for when they will come to an end, except perhaps the inhabitants of this Verse, and it is from this fear that Gloom derives its essence. Whether they can truly be said to be “living” is a matter of individual case, as well as debate. The landscape is dreary, dark, or even unfathomable.
Some say that a part of Gloom even exists outside of time and space, and that to glimpse it would drive a mortal mad instantly. The power of this Verse is invoked by warlocks, necromancers, and cursed kings, who would bargain with malevolent entities in desperate attempts to stave off their own demise. Demons and phantoms, brutal insectoid killers, and even worse are the denizens of the threatening place that takes purchase in our world’s collective unconscious.
The black of Gloom is cold and hungry, its greens and blues nauseatingly virulent or shockingly offensive, and its red is the iron red of spilled blood. The silence of space in our world is but a tiny approximation of this Verse’s deafening void. Magic and technology both exist in Gloom, but only as means to sinister ends. Threat—and making good on it—can be said to be its guiding principle.
Commedia isn’t really a place, but an idea. Well, it’s not really an idea, but a lot of ideas, or maybe even every idea, or maybe it’s the idea of how every idea interacts with every other idea. Maybe it is a place, after all, or the idea of a place? Nobody seems to be quite sure, but sometimes its residents have the gall to break your immersion and ask you if you have any idea. Other times, when they break your immersion, they tell you that they’re sure that you have no idea.
This Verse celebrates the joy inherent in communication, the happy shock of the unexpected, the timing of the setup and the delivery of the punchline. Its physical features can take any shape, so long as they are relevant to the point at hand; its citizens are equally diverse. One persistent feature of Commedia’s landscape, fittingly occupying the highest elevation, is the headquarters and distribution center of the ACME corporation.
The advent of the internet in our world has given the Verse much greater purchase than in the old days when it had to rely on the printing press or occupy the fleeting moments of a performance. Dank Meme Stashes abound in the 21st century, and Commedia couldn’t be happier about it. If a guy with a newspaper on his head tells you his Halloween costume is “Newspaper Head Man,” you should probably give him some candy. He’s from Commedia.
Kaleidoscope is a surreal and abstract plane/space/volume/place where pattern, connectedness, and allusion trump any sense of logic, or cause and effect. It is less of a landscape and more of a mindscape. Iterative forms and fractals swim wildly among the background while avatars and archetypes dominate the fore with universal implications. Quotidian reality can be altered in subtle, unexpected ways that surprise and delight in moments of wondrous discovery.
No particular type of form is more or less common in the endless dance, the only constant is the manner in which any form implies every form and recurses itself. Psychedelia, indigenous medicine, shamanism, divination, trance—these are some of the gateways from our world to catch a glimpse of the infinite chaos.
Every color, even unknown, invisible, and undiscovered colors are a part of glossy Kaleidoscope. Magic and technology are irrelevant to this Verse, as they are a means of controlling or changing the environment—when one has complete understanding of fundamental existence, control and change fall away into the acceptance that all is as it is and as it should be.
Proxima is a lot like our world, with one exception—an event transpired that made it diverge from our world. It’s the Verse with technology at a level similar to our own, or in the very least developed parts, at a level in our recorded history. It’s the place where things that could have happened, but didn’t, actually happen. It’s full of romance and sadness, and great achievements and terrible loss. It’s full of wild places and cities, and horses and airplanes.
The most common magic there is found in the same places we find it—the laugh of a child, an unexpected kindness, the thrill of a new experience. Adventurers raiding for treasure among the ruins of long-lost civilizations, cases of mistaken identity with unexpected consequences, and alternate histories; these are some examples of the fabric of Proxima.
Photographic images are an art style that is quite common in this Verse. Proxima is a pretty cool place all in all, not without its trials and tribulations, but more often than not, what happens there happens for a reason.
This is the Verse of magic, high fantasy, and folktale. The level of technology is much lower than our own, because the very essence of Fantasia is a powerful mystical energy, rendering technology in many ways unnecessary. Beings who can manipulate the fabric of the Verse in significant ways either wield arcane power, or are themselves inherently magical.
Hobbits, Faeries, Elves and the like are commonly found here. Intelligent animals and beast/human hybrids live in Fantasia. Structures are often organic in material components and appearance, and the very land itself is suffused with a palpable sense of life and sentience.
Much of the scenery is in green and blue, as seas and forests are typical settings, but browns and rusty reds in caves, mountains, and underground lairs are not unusual. The most common forms of cities, when they do exist here, look to have been grown out of plant life, or sung out of living stone rather than constructed according to plan or blueprint. A fundamental premise here is living in harmony, with the environment, and with others.
Scientific design and process are the starting points for Synthex. The level of technology is typically advanced far beyond our own. Landscapes are angular, sleek, urban, or aboard spacefaring vessels. Beings who manipulate the fabric of the Verse are mathematical masterminds or skilled inventors who have conquered the environment with technological solutions, or extremely powerful artificial beings. Robots, androids, and AIs are frequently seen.
Fires, forges, foundries, and factories are key to the cycle that is the fundamental premise of Synthex. In this Verse, it is simply assumed that reshaping the environment for aesthetic or functional improvement requires significant, even violent, alteration of the old to make way for the new, and the establishment of hierarchal processes to achieve specific results.
Colors are likely to include the red glow of combustion, the greys and silvers of metal, and even the highly charged brights of excited noble gases. A guiding principle here is that “destruction” per se isn’t seen as a moral quandary, rather as a step in the never-ending process of directed evolution.
Kaleidoscope is a surreal and abstract plane/space/volume/place where pattern, connectedness, and allusion trump any sense of logic, or cause and effect. It is less of a landscape and more of a mindscape. Iterative forms and fractals swim wildly among the background while avatars and archetypes dominate the fore with universal implications. Quotidian reality can be altered in subtle, unexpected ways that surprise and delight in moments of wondrous discovery.
No particular type of form is more or less common in the endless dance, the only constant is the manner in which any form implies every form and recurses itself. Psychedelia, indigenous medicine, shamanism, divination, trance—these are some of the gateways from our world to catch a glimpse of the infinite chaos.
Every color, and even unknown, invisible, and undiscovered colors are a part of glossy Kaleidoscope. Magic and technology are irrelevant to this Verse, as they are a means of controlling or changing the environment—when one has complete understanding of fundamental existence, control and change fall away into the acceptance that all is as it is and as it should be.
Where do the things that go bump in the night live during the day? In Gloom. All living things fear for when they will come to an end, except perhaps the inhabitants of this Verse, and it is from this fear that Gloom derives its essence. Whether they can truly be said to be “living” is a matter of individual case, as well as debate. The landscape is dreary, dark, or even unfathomable.
Some say that a part of Gloom even exists outside of time and space, and that to glimpse it would drive a mortal mad instantly. The power of this Verse is invoked by warlocks, necromancers, and cursed kings, who would bargain with malevolent entities in desperate attempts to stave off their own demise. Demons and phantoms, brutal insectoid killers, and even worse are the denizens of the threatening place that takes purchase in our world’s collective unconscious.
The black of Gloom is cold and hungry, its greens and blues nauseatingly virulent or shockingly offensive, and its red is the iron red of spilled blood. The silence of space in our world is but a tiny approximation of this Verse’s deafening void. Magic and technology both exist in Gloom, but only as means to sinister ends. Threat—and making good on it—can be said to be its guiding principle.
Commedia isn’t really a place, but an idea. Well, it’s not really an idea, but a lot of ideas, or maybe even every idea, or maybe it’s the idea of how every idea interacts with every other idea. Maybe it is a place, after all, or the idea of a place? Nobody seems to be quite sure, but sometimes its residents have the gall to break your immersion and ask you if you have any idea. Other times, when they break your immersion, they tell you that they’re sure that you have no idea.
This Verse is the joy inherent in communication, the happy shock of the unexpected, the timing of the setup and the delivery of the punchline. Its physical features can take any shape, so long as they are relevant to the point at hand; its citizens are equally diverse. One persistent feature of Commedia’s landscape, fittingly occupying the highest elevation, is the headquarters and distribution center of the ACME corporation.
The advent of the internet in our world has given the Verse much greater purchase than in the old days when it had to rely on the printing press or occupy the fleeting moments of a performance. Dank Meme Stashes abound in the 21st century, and Commedia couldn’t be happier about it. If a guy with a newspaper on his head tells you his Halloween costume is “Newspaper Head Man,” you should probably give him some candy. He’s from Commedia.
Proxima is a lot like our world, with one exception—an event transpired that made it diverge from our world. It’s the Verse with technology at a level similar to our own, or in the very least developed parts, at a level in our recorded history. It’s the place where things that could have happened, but didn’t, actually happened. It’s full of romance and sadness, and great achievements and terrible loss. It’s full of wild places and cities, and horses and airplanes.
The most common magic there is found in the same places we find it—the laugh of a child, an unexpected kindness, the thrill of new experience. Adventurers raiding for treasure among the ruins of long-lost civilizations, cases of mistaken identity with unexpected consequences, alternate histories; these are some examples of the fabric of Proxima.
Photographic images are an art style that is quite common in this Verse. Proxima is a pretty cool place all in all, not without its trials and tribulations, but more often than not, what happens there happens for a reason.
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