By Corvus (corvus@eurekanet.com)
All appropriate copyrights, including "World of Darkness", "Kindred," "Garou," "The Dreaming," "Oblivion" and such belong to White Wolf Game Studio. "Phoenix: The Eternal" and all its related concepts is an intellectual property of the author.
Comments and questions are welcomed and encouraged. The author can be contacted at:
and will attempt to answer all questions thoroughly. New ideas are also encouraged; Phoenix will never truly be complete.
Enough talk, on to the game!
The culture of the Eternal is unlike that of any other group in the World of Darkness. When you can live, love, hate, succeed, fail, give, take, foil, aid, laugh, cry and die just to do it all over again, over and over, you begin to develop a unique outlook on the world. So it is with the phoenixes.
The theme of Phoenix is, as stated, reincarnation and the interaction of past, present and future. Its mood is one of mystery and antiquity coupled with the Gothic-Punk of the World of Darkness. While Phoenix can indeed be played alone, it is designed for crossover use with the other games of the World of Darkness: Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Mage: The Ascencion, Wraith: The Oblivion, and Changeling: The Dreaming. It also works well with the historical "secondary" settings of these games, like the so-far released Vampire: The Dark Ages, Werewolf: The Wild West and Mage: The Sorceror's Crusade.
While Phoenix is based on characters who are, at the heart of it all, completely alien, the rules, suggestions and questions within are usable for any character who is reborn after death. Such mortals may not have access to Birthrights, but Memory is a powerful tool in its own right. The most important thing is to have fun and tell a good story. As with all games, especially in the World of Darkness, the Golden Rule applies -- there are no real rules, only suggestions.
The phoenixes are a race older than even this world, a race of beings formed from the Elements themselves. Their souls, tied to the Wheel of life and death, reincarnate, returning after death to the planes of existence as a different person after a respite in some unknown country. Only the corresponding loss of a great portion of the Eternal's memory upon rebirth keeps her from becoming unfathomably powerful as lifetimes of experiences pile up one upon the next.
This loss of memory is one of the things that helps to define who the Eternal are. Too many memories can send the phoenix spiraling into what is known as Discord, but no memories at all can leave him bereft and an easy target for the machinations of others who know his nature. It is a fine line the Eternal walk. Ironic indeed is the situation the phoenixes find themselves in, able to remember distant pasts and other lives but remaining ignorant of the beginning times and why they have come this far.
When the paths of two phoenixes cross, there is no telling what can happen. Even being of the same Element is no guarantee of friendship. Everything is determined on how the two have interacted in the past, what they had for breakfast, what sign the moon is in, and the price of peanut butter in Hong Kong -- in short, predictability is nigh impossible. The encounter could be violent, cold, friendly, loving, or mysterious, but it is usually fraught with emotion, memory and tension. Even those Eternal who have never met before at any time share a common beginning, and though they can not remember it, it harmonizes within them.
Many rumors abound. When pressed, those who claim to know will usually bend and admit that they are supposing quite a bit. Based on the actions of the Eternal in recent ages, it would seem that the Quest was a contest for supremacy initiated by a small group of individuals that snowballed into something beyond anyone's control . . . but again, that is only a guess. The only thing that can be said for certain is that the Quest exists, and that it is moving toward a conclusion in some unforseeable future.
The quest to recover the memory of the Quest's purpose consumes the lives of some Eternal, who devote many years, sometimes several lives in a row, to the search. It can be an addictive enigma, for at some times the Inkling will lead one to feel that they have found a vital clue, but the clue will often end up being a dead-end.
Whether the phoenix feels motivated by self-interest or the desire to aid and protect others, none can ignore the fact that their actions sometimes seem too familiar for comfort, like some mystical deja vu (a sensation known as the Inkling). Sometimes the pattern can be broken; other times the Eternal is a helpless witness to the passage of events. This too is seen as a part of the Quest.
Over the long years, many Eternal have stumbled into, upon, over, under and through various sub-plots and games-within-games. Often formalized into Compacts by the strange, powerful and somewhat dangerous ritual known as the Binding, these smaller games can be called for any purpose at all. Some are cooperative, reaching toward a common goal, while others are belligerent stuggles for supremacy.
While similar to the alchemical system of elements, the Five are more than just building blocks. They govern states of mind and ways of being as well as physicality. Earth is the realm of solid matter, patterns and resilience, both mental and physical. Air governs gaseous matter and logical thought patterns, logic and reasoning. Fire rules change and heat (which is also part of Energy) as well as passion and emotion. Water commands liquid substances, flow, depth and psychic sensitivity. Energy is the province of all forms of energy (electromagnetic, nuclear, kinetic, magickal) and the force of life itself, sometimes called Spirit. The Elements can be related in some ways to the types of Avatars found among the mages: Earth to Pattern, Fire to Dynamic, Air to Primordial, Water to Questing and Energy to the as-yet theoretical Infinite.
An Eternal's Element helps to determine, but does not make iron-clad, his Nature and Demeanor. Earth phoenixes are generally strong of mind and body, Air phoenixes intelligent and crafty, Fire phoenixes dynamic and unpredictable, Water phoenixes sensitive and graceful, and Energy phoenixes commanding and intense. There is chaos in order and order in chaos, however, and even change is changeable; so it is with the phoenixes -- there is no guarantee that an Earth phoenix will not be sickly and weak-willed. One constant however, is that the Element of a phoenix grants that Eternal an affinity for the corresponding Elemancy (in game terms, a newly-created phoenix gains an additional dot in the related Elemancy Birthright, known as the Legacy.)
Contrary to once-popular belief, there is no system of dominance and submission among the Elements. Water enjoys no special power over Fire, nor Earth over Air nor Energy over any of the others. The only distinction among the elements is that Energy is considered to be the primal Element and can be found in all things (a theory borne out by modern science), but this grants Energy nothing more than respect.
More can be found on the individual Elements in Chapter Two.
The physical birth of a phoenix is still enshrouded in mystery. It is generally accepted that the soul of a "deceased" Eternal is joined to a physical body at the moment of conception. The phoenix is born enveloped in what is known as the Shell. Eventually some potent memory of a past beyond her current mortal life will break through the Shell and awaken within the phoenix, usually with encouragement from another Eternal. The Shell will be cracked and the reawakened phoenix will begin to remember more. As with the First Change of the lycanthropes, the Awakening of the mages and the Chrysalis of the fae, the breaking of the Shell (referred to by some flippant Eternal as the "Hatching"; the ancient term for this event has been lost) can be a bewildering period, leaving the phoenix open to attack and manipulation. The Right of Birds of a Feather (the first level of Anamnesis) is often used to find those just reawakening to their true nature (called "fledglings" by those same flippant Eternal).
Beyond the primal terror of death is the inconvenience of it. Well-laid plans and long-sought-after dreams fall out of one's grasp should one's life abruptly cease. When a phoenix dies her soul vacates the body and goes to an unknown place to await rebirth, possibly in another place, maybe not even as the same race. The Eternal have seen many worlds and many different planes of existence, even if they do not recall them.
The past lives of Eternal do not always become simple files in a folder for the phoenixes to page through and use. Sometimes a life will remain with the phoenix like an alternate personality, a ghost of yore that shares the phoenix's mind that is called a Phantom. These past ghosts are usually memory patterns of lives that ended in spectacular ways or achieved great or meaningful successes. They can occasionally seize control of a phoenix, whether by agreement or by struggle, in a process known as Subversion. Those Eternal with particularly strong Phantoms will find themselves with "roommates" constantly vying for control, though all phoenixes must live their lives having hidden mental conversations, debates and arguments with voices only they can hear. Subversion is not always bad, and many Eternal allow their past selves to act through them, using their own knowledge and skills for various ends, and sometimes ending up in heaps of trouble.
The past of a phoenix is a continuous thread, even if the Eternal can not remember some, or even most, of it. That portion of the past that has not imprinted itself as Phantoms is summed up within the Eternal's Memory. In this way, Memory and Phantoms are related.
Phantoms are not created equal. Each Phantom will have a varying degree of cohesive strength, a measure of how well it has "been imprinted" or "held together" that is known among the Eternal as that Phantom's Integrity. Strong-willed or eventful lives will generally make more of an imprint upon a phoenix's Memory than unremarkable ones.
Memory is the driving force that fuels an Eternal's Elemental gifts. It is an enigmatic force, Elemental power mingled with experience, flowing out of the past in an inexorable tide, yet serving as a link to the Wheel of life and death. It is tinged with the myriad colors, tones and flavors of the cosmos and is an intimate personal experience to every Eternal. It is also potential, and that potential often gives rise to Phantoms.
As Memory is the summation of an Eternal's existance, it resonates with his deeds, emotions and desires. When these are strong, they echo through the force of his Memory and establish themselves, giving rise to a Phantom in a process called Imprinting. A Phantom can be looked at as a "footprint" in the "beach" of the Eternal's Memory that remains through the tides when most other prints have been washed away. It is a recording come to life, a child of the past. A Phantom is not a "personality". It is energy given pattern, in its own way an Elemental -- an Elemental of Memory. It is a shard of the Eternal's past, a cast-off of what the phoenix used to be, a ghost of a former life. The psyche goes on to another life, its experiences of this life subsumed into Memory, but the Phantom remains, and remembers.
Phantoms do not retain their supernatual powers beyond death. However, if they gain control of the Eternal's body through Subversion, they can access that phoenix's Birthright powers, Memory and Discord. Their willpower is their own: contests between an Eternal and his Phantoms are contests of his Willpower against the Phantom's Integrity.
It is well-documented that there is no rhyme nor reason to the memories an Eternal will have in a particular life. She may recall the previous lifetime, or she may remember something that happened three thousand years ago on the other side of the planet. Memory can be fickle even as it is one source of an Eternal's strength.
Grudges between phoenixes can span times that would make an elder of the Kindred recoil. Because of the "time-outs" that death often calls and the mis-timing of rebirth, enemies can become separated, with one alive and one dead, or both in different places, and be forced to bide their time, waiting for a chance to strike at each other. The same can be said for friendship and love. The trials that two lovers can go through to reunite after dying are the stuff of legends. Emotions run deep in the Eternal, and as the past is so important to them, it can slowly consume them.
More specific details on Memory, and its application in game terms, are found in Chapter Four.
As Discord grows, a phoenix begins to confuse the present and the past, falling out of touch with current time. Previous lifetimes can intrude on the present. The less the phoenix has been able to harmonize with her present life the more Discordant she is and the wilder the fluctuations will be. The Discord chart in the Appendix gives an idea of what happens at various stages of Discord.
The Eternal have developed a Birthright known as Concord specifically to deal with this problem. Those skilled in Concord are generally treated with respect by most Eternal, whatever their aims, because without them the all phoenixes might slowly go totally insane.
More can be found about Discord in Chapter Four, including its application in game mechanics.
The true nature of the Shell is unknown. It is surmised that it is related to the Mists the fae encounter and the loss of memory in elder Kindred and Reborn (those strange beings commonly called mummies). The Shell and the dangerous force of Discord might also be related to the mages' bane, known as Paradox, but again this is only a theory as unbelief does not affect phoenixes.
But it isn't easy.
Like the Reborn, the souls of the phoenixes are nearly completely beyond harm. They can't even be tracked into the Underworld, because they go somewhere . . . else when they die. Perhaps great magicks can extinguish their Elemental hearts, but such powerful mages are busy with their own agendas and can't be troubled with a few "bothersome" phoenixes.
It is not known for certain what happens to an Eternal who succumbs to Discord. It is widely assumed that they burn out and die, to be reborn safely within the Shell at some later date, their Memory packed away again. Rumor persists that those Eternal who fall this way may carry their Discord with them, or that this is the one true way to extinguish a phoenix. Certainly it is a jagged weapon in the hands of those who know about Discord, and it might even be true that by invoking Discord one could finally crush the soul out of the Eternal.
Not even the Eternal themselves are certain how, or if, they can ever escape the Wheel by methods other than destruction. Some say that a phoenix can voluntarily give up her ability to reincarnate -- but who would want to risk oblivion for an unknown promise of something else? Most Eternal are all too happy to put up with the pains of the mortal coil, and shiver when the rare thought of never coming back crosses their minds. To most phoenixes, Nirvana is a lie. Nothingness is not bliss -- it is Hell. Identity and existence are the paramount things, the most blessed of gifts. Some more religious Eternal would consider it sacrilegious to give them up.
Compacts are formed for a multitude of reasons. The most common compacts are agreements of friendship, vows of neverending love between phoenixes, and statements of common purpose, but other Compacts exist for the sole purpose of keeping competitors, rivals and bitter enemies chained to each other for various purposes.
Breaking a Compact is usually accomplished when any set terms of the Binding are met. Vows of love usually do not contain such terms. Antagonistic Bindings may or may not contain set terms, depending upon the degree of animosity among the participating Eternal. Other than meeting set terms, constant resistance against the Binding's purpose can eventually, after several incarnations, can begin to weaken the Binding's force.
Conflict is at the heart of any exciting story. There are many different types of conflict, and some of the most relevant are listed below.
Memory vs. Discord: This is the major conflict in Phoenix: the Eternal. The balance between remembrance and confusion is the razor's edge that all phoenixes walk and that dominates their existences.
Past vs. Present: This is the internal battle between Memory and current experience that causes Discord.
Element vs. Element: Differences in philosophy can mount until physical, spiritual and psychic warfare erupts between Eternal. In historical times this was the most common conflict between phoenixes, but in modern day the fighting has split along even finer lines. This conflict can also be represented as Compact vs. Compact, with opposing groups of Eternal working against each other.
Eternal vs. Eternal: The most common inter-phoenix conflict today is this, on the individual level. Ages of interaction, clashing of goals and Binding agreements can heighten tensions between Eternal until they break.
Eternal vs. Others: Phoenixes are not alone in the World of Darkness. Vampires stalk the night, werecreatures defend the forests, mages bend reality, wraiths wait right across the Shroud and the fae wander in plain sight. All have their own goals and methods, which often conflict with those of the Eternal. This type of story will be one of the most common, especially if only one or two Eternal characters are present in a game.
Eternal vs. Destiny: Represented by the forces of the Binding as well as many unknown factors, Destiny can be an incredible driving force in a chronicle, sweeping the characters along.
Eternal vs. Self: Between divided urges and the will of Phantoms, the phoenix hosts within herself a multitude of possible opponents.
Akasha: The powers of spirit and other worlds.
Anamnesis: The powers of memory and past lives.
The Binding: A powerful ritual in which Eternal mingle their memories in an effort to link their souls. It causes them to reincarnate in the same general times and geographic locations until it is broken or some purpose is fulfilled.
Birthright: Generally, a group of related magical abilities, also known as a Right; sometimes used to mean a specific power within the group.
Compact: A group of Eternal who, through fate, luck or the ritual called the Binding (q.v.) continue to reincarnate in similar times and places; also the agreement to join in the Binding.
Concord: The powers of harmony, sanity, and emotion. Used to fight Discord (q.v.).
Discord: An insanity-like state caused by a misalignment between a phoenix and the world around him, the inability to integrate past life memories into present time or handle great degrees of information.
The Elements: The five primal and magickal forces that make up the world, also summations of philosopical ideals, personality traits and universal archetypes; the Elements are Air, Earth, Energy, Fire and Water.
Elemancy: One of the five related Birthrights that deal with the Elements: Aeromancy, Electromancy, Hydromancy, Pyromancy, and Terramancy. Also any other (much rarer) Birthright drawing on Elemental power, usually a variation or inversion of the Five. These Rights will generally be called Elemancies rather than Birthrights, but both terms are correct.
Eternal: Another name for the phoenixes; singular and plural.
The Five: Another term for the Elements; also the collective name given to the five Elemental groups.
Inkling: Phoenix term for deja vu, but it also carries a greater weight than the common sensation.
Legacy: The Elemancy associated with a particular Element; it is easier for Eternal to use this Elemancy than any other.
Nemesis: The powers of fate and destiny.
Phantom: A past life memory-pattern within a phoenix's mind, like an alternate personality, with its own retained personality traits and skills.
Phoenix: A reincarnating soul, member of a race of elemental beings. Named for the mythical firebird that would self-destruct, then arise from its own ashes to live again.
Psyche: The powers of the mind; alternatively, the dominant personality, the "current incarnation."
The Quest: The now forgotten purpose of the Eternal's existence, their goals and ambitions; also existence itself, especially concerning the phoenixes.
The Shell: The mystical force which erases memories of past lives; some say it is a protective force.
Subversion: The process by which a Phantom personality takes control of a phoenix.
The Wheel: The cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
Aquati: The name given to the Eternal whose Element is Water; singular and plural.
Avatar: A Phantom (q.v.), so named because they can be seen like the Avatars of mages and often function in similar manners as mentors or adversaries, and are possibly related. Eternal who Awaken as mages often suspect their Phantoms of being mage Avatars.
Elementalist: An Eternal who specializes in Elemancies. Elementalists were once common, but in modern times they have become exceedingly rare as the need for excellence in the non-Elemantic Birthrights has increased dramatically.
Pyrati: The Eternal of Fire; singluar and plural.
Solari: Phoenixes of Energy; singular and plural.
Terrati: Group name of the Eternal of Earth; singular and plural.
The Tourney: The Quest (q.v.).
Zephyri: Name given to Eternal of the Element of Air; singluar and plural.
The Chains: The Binding, the forces binding a Compact.
Cluster: A Compact (short for a well-known vulgar description of wild, anarchic confusion or a mob).
Dreamchild: A faerie, such as one of the Kithain, or other such creatures born of dreams and creativity; an Eternal who dallies with the fae.
Fish: An Eternal whose Phantom(s) constantly vie for control of her body, as in "flipping like a."
Fledgling: Slang for an Eternal who has just broken her Shell.
The Hatching: The breaking of the Shell, when a phoenix begins to remember his past.
Lycanthrope: A shapechanger, such as the Garou werewolves; occasionally derogatory in tone, harkening back to the mythical disease of lycanthropy. Sometimes used to describe an Eternal who spends a great deal of time with them.
Merlin: A mage, especially of the Order of Hermes; also, a phoenix who utilizes Birthrights, especially Elemancies, a lot or consorts with mages.
Parasite: A vampire; sometimes used for Eternal who have extensive dealings with the Kindred.
Ramses: A mummy; taken from popular literature. Female Reborn are sometimes known as Cleopatras.
Roomie: A Phantom, particularly a strong one that is a constant influence.
The Rush; Term relating to the sensation of Elemental power running through one's body during the use of an Elemancy; in very rare cases, addictive.
Spook: A wraith.
Top Dog: The main psyche of an Eternal, or, in some cases, who has control of an Eternal's body.
Zombie: A Risen, one of the Walking Dead.