LORE COMPENDIUM
THE NEXUS

The Convergence is the event that fundamentally altered the spacetime continuum by damaging the separation between realities and transforming the relationship of individually distinct Realms of existence. 

For countless eons, the boundaries between realities of the multiverse were absolute. Each Realm was entirely separate and self-contained. The Convergence broke that: it damaged the Veil separating realities and tore metaphysical Rifts into something that had never existed before; a place outside ordinary space and time called the Nexus.

It did not merge the Realms together, but gave them a shared point of contact that had no precedent. The Nexus is a dimension where possibilities that should have simply ceased to matter instead began to exist. The Realms gained the ability to influence the Nexus, and the Nexus gained the ability to influence them back.

The appearance of Rifts, the potential of Axions, and the Incursions that spill out of the Nexus into the Realms of reality are all consequences of the Convergence. Its cause remains unknown, but what is certain is its result: the old isolation of the Realms is gone, and existence itself is no longer reliable.

The Veil is the metaphysical boundary separating the Realms of reality from each other and the Nexus. This division was impassable for countless ages before the Convergence. The Veil is normally imperceptible, but Convergence dissolved parts of it, leaving Rifts in its place. The Realms are no longer entirely self-contained. 

Where a Rift damages the Veil, matter, energy, and possibility can cross between a Realm and the Nexus. A Rift is not the Veil itself, it is an unnatural tear in it.

The Realms are separate, self-contained realities within the greater Converged multiverse. Each has its own history, inhabitants, physical laws, and relationship with the forces that govern causality. They are not simply distant worlds within one shared plane of existence. Before the Convergence, each Realm was entirely sealed off from one another. Their inhabitants lived and died with no reason to suspect anything existed beyond their own reality.

The Convergence altered the fabric of spacetime. Realms did not merge and are not connected directly to another, however Rifts between all of them all lead to the Nexus. A Realm can be affected by what happens in the Nexus without ever becoming part of it, most significantly through an Anchor: a concentration of Axions tied to something within that Realm. When a Shaper influences an Anchor, the outcome can become part of that Realm's established history.

A Rift is a breach in the Veil: the boundary between a Realm and the Nexus, and the physical means by which anything crosses between the two. Some are temporary, others permanent, but none behave like a direct path as the two sides of a Rift belong to different dimensions entirely. They typically appear as a tear in space itself, fractured and overlapping. Where a Rift materializes, environments appear to exist in multiple states simultaneously.

Crossing into a Rift is a physical transition into a wholly different place. For a moment, reality overlaps on itself before a traveler emerges fully separated from where they started. A Rift connects a specific point in a Realm to a corresponding region of the Nexus, but the Nexus has its own geography, and what waits on the other side may bear no resemblance to what was left behind.

Every Rift links a Realm to the Nexus, never one Realm to another. Reaching a different Realm means crossing into the Nexus first and exiting through another Rift out. Rifts can be naturally occurring, artificially created, or produced as a consequence of an Anchor.

The stability of a Rift varies, and crossing into one does not guarantee an easy return. A traveler may return through the same opening if it remains stable, but Rifts may also collapse without warning. A Shaper can help stabilize a Rift but is not inherently required to create or traverse one.

Rifts are as much wounds as they are passages. What can cross one way can often cross the other, and something from the Nexus finding its way into a Realm is how a Nexus Incursion begins.

Shapers are metaphysical entities tethered to the Nexus. They possess an inherent trait no other ordinary being is capable of: Shapers have the ability to manipulate potential itself through Forging. They are exceptionally rare, and most Realmborn beings will never encounter one. The player represents a Shaper.

Shapers can resemble a person, creature, or something entirely different, but their true form is an ethereal consciousness. Their ability to manifest into a physical body requires a stable Resonance.

Shapers do not belong to any typical species or Realm. They have no predetermined affiliation, morality, or purpose; a Shaper may be benevolent, selfish, protective, destructive, or anything between. They do not inherently rule the forces that fight alongside them, gathering allies whose interests happen to align with theirs, often by coincidence rather than design.

A Shaper can recognize concentrations of unrealized potential invisible to ordinary beings, and follow the currents of Axions through the Nexus to strengthen or diminish the possibilities they find. Forging is incredibly powerful, but it is not unrestricted reality manipulation and does not allow a Shaper to imagine something impossible and force the Nexus to produce it. Anything that exists can potentially be changed, but a desired outcome must still be coherent. Shapers alter existing potential. 

Within the Nexus, a Shaper moves freely without the need for conventional travel. They cannot simply appear wherever they wish, but are able to easily traverse the Nexus in ways that do not correspond to ordinary physical distance. A Shaper can enter a Realm, but the Nexus is their true environment. Outside of it, their power is diminished and their presence is limited to the physical form they manifested.

A Shaper's command over their forces is never absolute. They do not create these beings, own them, or control their minds. Every asset under a Shaper's authority is an independent being with its own agency and its own reason for engaging. Their reasons may be protection, ambition, ideology, coercion, or simple recognition that a Shaper is the only one capable of accomplishing their goals.

What a Shaper offers in return is something none of them can achieve alone: the ability to change the stakes of the conflict itself, and establish a new reality.

Axions are dark matter given form. These primordial fragments of unrealized possibility are found only within the Nexus and are the raw material through which any possibility can become real. An Axion is not a wish or a predetermined event; it is pure potential, until something forces it into permanence.

Most beings cannot interact with this potential. Some carry a natural sensitivity to Axions, and Nexus exposure can heighten that sensitivity into a lasting Imprint. Extremely rare beings may undergo an Awakening that grants them a limited ability to Forge, but such cases are quite exceptional. Without this ability, even being capable of clearly perceiving Axions cannot meaningfully control them. Only a Shaper can take hold of an Axion and reshape it.

Anything that exists can potentially be altered through Forging. However, this does not mean that anything imaginable can simply be created. A possibility must have a coherent relationship to existing causality before it can be Forged. The Nexus reflects reality and its potential consequences, not an unlimited well of arbitrary and unrestricted desire.

Axions exist in two states. Volatile Axions are newly loosened or unsettled possibilities, still contesting for permanence. Axions in a volatile form are most tied to active Forging, whereas stabilized Axions have already settled into the Nexus's current state. They are tangible and no longer at risk of collapsing back into uncertainty. When Axions concentrate heavily enough around something whose alteration could produce enormous consequences, they can form an Anchor.

Axions can literally reform reality, but that incredible power comes paired with a comparable danger: force too many changes too quickly, and the paradoxes created begin to destabilize existence itself.

An Anchor is a piece of established reality whose possible alteration carries enough causal weight to draw a concentration of Axions. A person, object, event, or circumstance whose outcomes could produce significant consequences beyond itself can become an Anchor. 

The extent of a change is what makes an Anchor, not just the ability to change something. An unknown person's death may have little consequence, or it might trigger a cascade of events that makes them an Anchor entirely because of how far the consequences travel. That reach is causal weight, and it is not always obvious. Something that appears insignificant may become an Anchor if its alteration would produce effects that propagate throughout reality.

An Anchor's manifestation in the Nexus doesn't necessarily resemble what its counterpart in a Realm. They are a representation of a possible state, not a direct reflection. Most events resolve quietly within a Realm and never produce enough weight to form one at all.

Anchors are a direct connection between what happens in the Nexus and what becomes true in the Realms of reality. Conflict elsewhere in the Nexus may happen for its own reasons, but Forging an Anchor shapes an outcome that will eventually become something’s history, and a Shaper's influence is measured by their ability to strengthen their desired possibility by overcoming competing attempts to establish another reality.

Anchors resolve and dissipate when one outcome is decided and the alternatives can no longer contest it. It then becomes part of the connected Realm's established history. Possibilities that fail to actualize usually disappear, but in rare circumstances a rejected potential retains enough existential stability to persist as an Echo.

Most, but when a Shaper builds a specific connection to one, that Anchor is no longer contested at all. Some Anchors can be intrinsically claimed and bound permanently to a Shaper rather than left open to rival futures. This is what the Nexus recognizes as a Catalyst: an Anchor that has stopped being a question and instead became an answer.

Anchors are fiercely contested, but some remain open to competing possibilities and a clear outcome may be difficult to establish. In rare cases, a Shaper can form a connection so persistent that their own claim to it no longer depends on how exactly an Anchor resolves. The Nexus recognizes this connection as a Catalyst: a permanent bond between a Shaper and an Anchor that gives the Shaper a stable means of interacting with the Axion potential surrounding it. A Catalyst is not the Anchor itself, but the Nexus manifestation of the Shaper’s connection to it. Through that connection, a Shaper establishes a persistent claim over a possibility and is able to manifest it independently of the Anchor.

A Catalyst is the manifestation of a Shaper’s connection to an Anchor. When a Shaper establishes a sufficiently strong connection to an Anchor, they can draw out and bind the Axion potential accumulated around it. This creates a Catalyst which allows the Shaper to carry that potential with them rather than remain tied to the Anchor itself.

A Catalyst can be manifested anywhere within the Nexus and does not need to remain near its original Anchor. Its form represents the possibility claimed by the Shaper rather than the Anchor from which that potential was drawn. The Anchor is the source of a potential, and the Catalyst is a Shaper’s means of manifesting the bond they created with it.

The potential bound in a Catalyst remains available to its Shaper whenever they have sufficient existential coherence. Even if the original Anchor has resolved, a Catalyst remains tethered to a Shaper’s connection to its possibility. Shapers can call upon their Catalysts to manifest wherever they are in the Nexus, making it a permanent source of power at their disposal.

Catalysts are unique to their Shaper and cannot normally be affected by other beings. They cannot be destroyed or removed through ordinary means, as they are not physical entities but latent potential bound to a Shaper. Catalysts are therefore the one constant Shapers carry into every battle: a lasting connection to an Anchor and the possibility extracted from it.

An Echo is a remnant of an Anchor that was established into reality. It is a rejected outcome from an Anchor that retains enough existential weight to manifest in the Nexus anyway, persisting in a paradoxical state outside causal reality.

An Echo is a manifestation of a version of an entity that existed within an Anchor’s rejected potential. If an Anchor resolves against a possibility in which someone died, the resulting Echo is not that individual restored from death, but the version of them that existed within the rejected outcome. That version was real until the possibility was rejected and may have developed different memories, experiences, and history before the Anchor resolved. Because of this, an Echo may genuinely believe itself to be the original, but it is wholly separate from the original version even if their histories are nearly identical. Encounters between an Echo and its actualized counterpart can be profoundly dangerous as both may believe themselves to be real.

Some Echoes resent the reality that rejected them while others simply want to understand or survive. Regardless, their continued existence often depends on replacing the current version of reality that hindered their actualization.

An Echo cannot simply cross a Rift and overwrite another possibility as universal truth. But one that gathers enough existential stability to breach the Veil into a Realm becomes something else entirely: a Nexus Incursion. These are rare and dangerous since reality has already settled on a one that contradicts it, and only the strongest Echoes survive a destabilizing paradox for long. The consequences of an Incursion can be enormous.

Resonance is a Shaper's tether to existence. It is the strength of the connection that lets a Shaper's consciousness hold a coherent physical presence in the Nexus. A Shaper's true form is ethereal; the form they take is a manifestation built to interact with something physical, and Resonance determines whether that manifestation holds together or collapses back into the ethereal state beneath it.

Damaging to a Shaper is not an injury in the way a Realmborn creature is hurt. It erodes the coherence of their manifestation and pushes it toward collapse. A Shaper who maintains Resonance can hold their form against that pressure, but when their Resonance is exhausted, the Nexus stops recognizing their presence as valid.

Shapers do not experience death in the traditional sense as they are not purely physical beings to begin with. Destroying a Shaper’s Resonance is closer to being unmade; expulsion from active existence in the Nexus until a stable Resonance can be reestablished. They do not die so much as fail to be.

Resonance belongs to Shapers alone. The forces a Shaper commands are true, physical beings drawn from the Realms and cease to exist when destroyed.

Dominance is the measure of a Shaper's ability to impose their will on the Nexus. It has nothing to do with whether they survive a confrontation, only with what they have actually accomplished in it.

A Shaper earns Dominance forcibly by eliminating a rival's army and Forged manifestations. Each victory does more than remove an obstacle, it stops an alternate future that might otherwise have taken hold, and the Nexus responds by strengthening the standing of the triumphant Shaper.

Shapers can survive a confrontation and maintain their Resonance while still failing to accumulate meaningful Dominance. Enduring keeps their tether to the Nexus intact, but it says nothing about whose vision of reality prevails. Dominance alone measures that, and the Nexus grants it only to those willing to act decisively. 

The Flux is how Axions behave during an active confrontation. Every act of Forging is existential theft that takes one possibility at the expense of every other that might have existed. Displaced potential does not simply vanish, but lingers as volatile Axions that drift away from those who alter them. The more a Shaper Forges, the harder it becomes and the more potential surges out into the Nexus.

The Nexus cannot hold this surplus indefinitely. When too much competing potential accumulates, the Nexus grows unstable and begins to collapse on itself. This Fracture of existence can be catastrophic, damaging a Shaper’s and their ability to remain in the Nexus at all.

A Fracture is a catastrophic breakdown in the stability of the Nexus caused by excessive contradicting paradoxes. They are the result of Forged Axions destabilizing existence.

Reality ordinarily rejects competing possibilities. When the amount of unresolved volatile potential in the Nexus becomes too great and contradictions are forced to occupy the same space, an existential Fracture occurs.

Fractures are the ultimate danger of uncontrolled Forging. They are the point where possibility stops waiting for reality to choose, and forces an outcome regardless. Fractures disrupt a Shaper’s resonance and can have far reaching consequences. 

A Nexus Imprint is a permanent alteration caused by significant exposure to the environmental hazards and metaphysical phenomena of the Nexus. Brief contact rarely leaves a lasting effect, but the governing laws of ordinary reality do not apply in the Nexus and prolonged or intense exposure can alter matter permanently; biology, senses, capability, memory, or how something interacts with reality both in and outside of the Nexus.

An Imprint does not inherently grant the ability to influence Axions. It may apply unusual sensitivity to Axions or the capability to perceive their currents or recognize an Anchor, but perception is not control. In extremely rare circumstances, an Imprint can develop beyond these limitations, and a non-Shaper who receive a substantial Imprint and gain the ability to manipulate Axions by becoming Awakened.

An Awakening is a rare event where a being gains the ability to influence Axions. Awakened beings have limited power compared to the true Forging capability of a Shaper. It only occurs in those that have already developed a significant Nexus Imprint, and even then, exposure alone is not enough; something has to push an individual's connection to the Nexus across an unknown threshold.

No specific cause is known to reliably trigger an Awakening. Extreme physical, emotional, or environmental circumstances typically precede an Awakening, but the process cannot be reproduced on demand.

Awakening is treacherous, and the conditions surrounding it can produce catastrophic results. Many who undergo an Awakening do not survive, but those who do may emerge with the capability of Forging reality. 

A Nexus Incursion occurs when something from the Nexus crosses through a Rift and into another physical Realm. Incursions are possible because Rifts are two-way breaches leading both into and out of the Nexus. An Incursion may be an Echo, a being native to the Nexus, an interdimensional object, a being from another Realm, or other phenomenon that acquired enough stability to breach the Veil.

An Incursion does not require intent and can occur purely an accident or coincidence. The important distinction is origin as an Incursion is something from inside the Nexus that has entered an established Realm of reality.

Axion Currents are visible concentrations of Axions moving through the Nexus, and the only reliable way to navigate it. Strong currents connect regions of high Nexus activity such as Rifts, Anchors, Echoes, and other Shapers.

A being with enough sensitivity can see an Axion current as a stream of luminous particles. A Shaper sees far more, reading them clearly enough to traverse the Nexus by their pull alone and know exactly what awaits at their destination.

A Clash is an individual game of Axion Forge representing a conflict between Shapers. Ordinary Clashes are not an automatic piece of permanent canon. Each match represents one possible outcome of the ongoing story, solidifying Anchors, and potentially creating Echoes.

Shapers rarely fight over something as simple as good versus evil. Competing objectives, incompatible alliances, or entirely subjective visions of what reality should be motivates a Shaper’s actions. A Clash may center on an Anchor, an Echo, a Rift, or any other contested ground. Winning a Clash is never just defeating an army, but creating reality’s destiny.

Anything whose existence began within the reality of a Realm is Realmborn. Entering the Nexus, becoming Imprinted, or even Awakening does not change that. A Realmborn entity remains Realmborn regardless of what happens to them afterward.

Realmborn beings possess their own histories, loyalties, and motivations. They remain independent of any Shaper they might fight alongside.

A Nexusborn entity has a native affinity for the Nexus's power, and may hold a limited ability to influence Axions on its own. If a Nexusborn being crosses a Rift into a Realm, it becomes a Nexus Incursion.

Reality is the established state of existence within a Realm. It is whatever has settled enough that the multiverse recognizes it as the actual outcome, not one of several still-competing alternatives. Reality is not synonymous with everything that has ever happened as the Nexus can retain a rejected possibility long after reality has settled on something else. In rare cases, it can force that rejected possibility back into relevance. Truth itself is mutable. 

A possibility is an outcome that could become established but has not yet. Potential exists in every degree of likelihood, though never without limitations. The Nexus does not contain every imaginable event, only what can hold a causal relationship to existing circumstances.

Axions are the material through which possibiliies accumulate and can be manipulated.  Forging is how a Shaper alters an outcome. An Anchor is where the most important possibilities that have far-reaching consequences concentrate. When an Anchor is settled, an Echo is what can remain of a possibility that did not.