The Lexicon

Even the least thorough reader is going to notice a lot of strange terminology. What is the Shadowlands? Who are the Psychonauts? What is an Outsider? How does one obtain and Avatar and how does an Avatar Shatter? And so on and so on. The Lexicon will help with this. Not, you know, a lot -if you don't read the rest of this- but some.

A

* **Ancients, the**: Those **Giants** (The **Gregorim**) who are unique, singular in nature. **The Sentinel** and **the Behemoth** and **the Leviathan** are examples of **the Ancients**.
* **Arcadia:** This is not utopian or idyllic, but many mistake it as such to their pain and surprise. This is the land of the **Free Peoples**, and it is wild and independent, so be wary and be strong.
* **Aura:** The **Aura** is the energetic force field that keeps your **avatar** in the **Shadowlands** during an **incursion**. You invest your **Avatar** with **Vajra** activate the **Aura**, and if your **Avatar** is threatened by the stress of the story, the aura could waiver and even shatter. And then you could wind up on your ass back in the **Bonelands** while your team carries on.
* **Autumn**: The last season prior to the **Dark**. The **Autumn** months are the last months with regular lengths, compared to the variable lengths of the **Dark** Months.
* **Avatar:** Blood Red Dreaming is a game that takes place mostly in the **realm** of shared stories: The **Shadowlands**. But your body isn't made of story stuff. Your body belongs in the **Bonelands**. So you need to create a virtual body, a body for the realm of stories: your **Avatar**. Think about the Matrix and you got it. Your **Avatar** is you, but just a little bit cooler. Just don't take it into the **Shadowlands** naked and without an **Aura**.

B

* **Becoming Dark:** The variable month of the largest size. The **Becoming Dark** goes from the end of **Autumn** until the day of the **dark solstice**, commonly called the winter solstice in other calendars.
* **Blood Feud, the:** Used to describe the first conflict that split the **Great Tribe** in the ancient stories of the **Painted Labyrinth**.
* **Bonelands, the:** The so-called real world, the world of flesh and bone, the world of fact and science- the alien world so far beyond the capacity of the human mind that we created the **Shadowlands** again and again to escape it.
* **Broken, the:** The great corrupted **Fair Folk** now enslaved into the Service of **the False King**. Some **Scavenger Tribes** in the **Foglands** refer to the **Giants** as The **Broken**, though scholars are unclear as to why.

C

* **City of Glass:** The name of both the third Realm as one descends and also the capital city of the Hungry Empire. The land of the Locust King and his Hungry Empire, his false utopia that hovers- a castle city in the sky. Without secret knowledge of the Free Peoples, wanderers in the Shadowlands will be hard pressed to move deeper, beyond the grip of the False King and his Hungry Empire.
* **Corrupt, the:** Those who have been destroyed by the influence of the **Grey Locust**. Notable sub groups include the **Wendigo** and the **Stillborn Army**.
* **Crescent Sun**: a common term used to describe the 6 season lunisolar calendar used in the Blood Red Dreaming.

D

* **Darkening, the:** The last season of the **Crescent Sun**, consisting of **The Becoming Dark** and **The Full Dark**.
* **Demon**: Also called the **Fair Folk**. The keepers of the **High Magick** and the evil foes of the **Locust King**'s propaganda.
* **Denizen**: Many beings delve into the **Shadowlands** on their ill thought out **incursions**. But many more beings make the **Shadowlands** their permanent home. These beings are born, live and die in the **Shadowlands**. The **Bonelands** is toxic to these beings, they are purely **denizens** of the **Shadowlands** and have no power outside it.

E

* **Elder:** the greatest **denizens** of the **Shadowlands**, beyond everything else in the **Shadowlands**. The **Elders** have many forms, although none of them are able to fully approximate human form with any skill. They are sympathetic to humans in the **Shadowlands**, but think in such alien ways that they are very dangerous to deal with directly or from whom to seek aid. The **Elders** are the personification of concepts, and only **Man of Void/Lady of Fire** might ever have a connection to some actual human.
* **Expedition**: These **incursions** are linked to locations in the **Shadowlands** and unlocked by reaching that location's counterpart in the **Bonelands** first.

F

* **Fair Folk, the:** The Greater **Sorcerers** of the **Shadowlands** - also known as the **Demons**. The **Fair Folk** are the mythic beings that wear human forms: **Elves** and **Goblins** and **Gnomes**. They are the keepers of **Magick** and will be teachers and patrons to human **sorcerers**. Often mistaken for **Gods**, the difference is that **Fair Folk** need no worship or offerings. The **Fair Folk** will normally trade or barter for their favor or their instruction. The **Fair Folk** may appear most human like, but they are not human. Like the **Elders** they are sympathetic to humans in the **Shadowlands**. But also like the **Elders**, their minds are alien and they do not see things as humans do.
* **Foglands, the:** The land of ignorance and obscurity. The first place everyone who enters the **Shadowlands** ends up in after they pass through (or bypass) **the Ring**. The **Fogslands** is the unformed land of the unconscious: Urizen and Eden, depending upon how the player enters and what happens. This is how people end up in the **Shadowlands** if untrained. This is always the first mission. This is the equivalent of the Astral Plane or the **realm** of dreams and many dreamers end up here.
* **Free Peoples:** Those who live by the **Song of Seven** and follow the **Freepath** are collectively known as the **Free Peoples**. They are, as one would expect of a group name as such, a very loose affiliation of many disparate groups. The Free Peoples are contrasted to the **Locust Touched**.

G

* **Giants, the:** Another name for the **Gregorim.** The mighty giants which inhabit the **Foglands** and technically referred to as **Gregorim**. **The Giants** are mysterious and silent, but near invulnerable and enormous. They will generally ignore **psychonauts**, unless one breaks their arcane and labyrinthine laws- after which they are wrath and fury personified.
* **God:** The Bankers of **Vajra** and Souls. **Gods** are composite beings. Incorporeal as **Spirits**, derived from concepts as **Elders**, and bearing anthropomorphic **avatars** as **Fair Folk**; **Gods** have one unifying factor. **Gods** require human belief, human prayer, sacrifice and offerings.
* **Great Tribe, the:** This term pulls double duty, referring to both the first life to arise back in ancient times, and also for the brought alliance of all Tribes who follow the **Freepath** and the **Song of Seven**.
* **Gregorim, the:** Though they seem unable or unwilling to speak, legends of legends told by people long dead suggest that **Gregorim** is the name that the **Broken** **Giants** give to themselves.
* **Greenlands, the:** This is another name for the realm of **Arcadia**.

H

* **High Magick:** the raw essence of the **Shadowlands**; a weaponized essence of story. **High Magick** is learned through the **Witches** and **Wizards**. When **High Magick** is used, the caster is channeling the power of the **Demons** known as the **Fair Folk**.
* **Hidden Heart, the:** Another name for the **Hollow Heart**, the secret **Realm** at the heart of the **Shadowlands**.
* **Hollow Heart, the:** The Secret Heart of the **Shadowlands** and the counterpoint to the **Ring**. The **Hollow Heart** is the bottom or the 'root' of the **Shadowlands**. A dimension of darkness. This is the source code of the **Shadowlands** and the cheat code of the **realms**.
* **Hungry Empire, the:** If there is a villain in this tale, it is the **Hungry Empire**. Lead by the **Locust King**, powered by **Falsenight** and guided by the **Grey**, the **Hungry Empire** spreads like cancer and consumes its host in the end.

I

* **Incursion**: When an **avatar** steps through the **Ring** and into the **Shadowlands**, they have made an **incursion** into the **Shadowlands**. **Incursions** can be divided into three types. The first type of incursions are unguided **incursions** with no intentional purpose or goal. More common are **expeditions**, and **quests**, which have goals set at the start of the incursion.

J

* **Juggler:** Once a **psychonaut** opens their **inner eye** and gains access to both **High Magick** and **Low Magick**. A **psychonaut** who specializes in **Low Magick** is called a **Juggler**.

K

* **Kudavbin King, the:** Associated with the legend of Mordred by the propaganda of the **Glass City**, the **Kudavbin King** is the older brother of the **First Mother**. The rebel son of the **Locust Kings**. He is the king who denies his crown and thus makes his father the **Last King**.

L

* **Locust Touched, the:** Those who have drawn their sustenance from the **Grey** are broadly defined as the **Locust Touched**.
* **Low Magick, the:** It stands in opposition to the **High Magick**. The **Low Magick** is the illusion of magic- sleight of hand and misdirection. But only a fool would discount the **Low Magick** and its powerful utility in the **Shadowlands**.

M

* **Magick:** Language and story, myth and legend, shaping perception and memory. This is **magick**. One does not hurl fireballs. **Magick** is more subtle and more powerful than that. **Magick** is divided into **High Magick** and **Low Magick** and the two cannot be used together. Choose your **magick** before your **incursion** and pray your choice is correct.
* **Mirrored City:** Another name for the **City of Glass**.
* **Monsters:** The Misshapen and Gargantuan. The neutral parties of the **Shadowlands**, predator and prey. The monsters are sometimes intelligent and sometimes not. The common feature of monsters is that they are not human in appearance, although they will often have human features. They grant no favors, either ignoring or hunting those humans they encounter, dependent upon their nature.

N

O

* **Old Ones, the:** Another name for the **Elders**.
* **Outsiders**: Another name for the **Elders**.

P

* **Painted Labyrinth, the:** The place of trials, the deepest part of the **Shadowlands**, a **realm** of initiation and the keeper of ancient mysteries. All who seek to become warriors must journey here, but have a care- the labyrinth devours the unwary.
* **Poison Tree:** A great limbless tree, bleached white by age, the **Poison Tree** is the version of the **Glass Tower** as it appears in the **Foglands**.
* **Psychonaut**: Those who venture into the **Shadowlands** are known as **Psychonauts**.
* **Psychopomps, the:** As the **Shadowlands** are the lands of fiction and story, so are they also they also the lands of the afterlife. The **Psychopomps** are the caravans and carriages between the **Realms**. If a **psychonaut** wishes to move between **realms** without braving the **Glass Tower.**

Q

* **Quest**: These story driven **incursions** enable **Psychonauts** to re-enact the legends of the old and thereby gain access of **artifacts** of legend and learn the secrets of various **High** and **Low Magicks**.

R

* **Rains, the:** The second season of the **Crescent Sun**, following **Winter** and preceding **Spring**, consisting of **Cold Rain** and **Fresh Rain**.
* **Realm**: The distinct but connected worlds of the **Shadowlands**. The **Shadowlands** are divided into six **Realms**: The **Ring**, The **Foglands**, The **Mirrored City**, **Arcadia**, The **Painted Labyrinth**, and the H**idden Heart**. The non-liminal **realms** of the **Foglands**, the **City of Glass**, **Arcadia**, and the **Painted Labyrinth** are connected by the **Glass Tower**.
* **Ring, the:** The chamber at the end of universe, but is it this universe or the last one? **The Ring** is the permeable shell through which avatars enter the Waking **Shadowlands** and through which they must pass to use any gates to move from gate to gate. Think 'Event Horizon' or Nightcrawler's teleport ability. But it's a drug trip. This implies that drug trips dip people into the ring unprotected with their minds exposed.

S

* **Scavenger Tribes, The**: Some humans in the **Foglands** have found themselves free of the rule of either the **Last King** or some **Warlord** pretender, but are not living as the **Free Tribes** do. These are known as the **Scavenger Tribes**.
* Serpent Lines:
* **Shadowlands, the:** Human minds cannot handle the cold reality of the **Bonelands**. And so humans built new worlds of fantasy out of their stories and fled their to protect their minds from running over. And these worlds of illusion are the **Shadowlands**. You will spend your whole life in the **Shadowlands**, but only by entering consciously as a **Psychonaut** can one take an active role in the shape of the **Shadowlands**.
* **Sorcerer:** Once a **psychonaut** opens their **inner eye** and gains access to both **High Magick** and **Low Magick**. A **psychonaut** who specializes in **High Magick** is a **Sorcerer**.
* **Spirits, the:** The personification of illness and disease, of medicine and of places. They are beings without a form or body, though many bear a ghostly image; humans in the **Shadowlands** are unable to interact with **spirits** in a corporeal manner.
* **Spring, the:** The third season of the **Crescent Sun**, following **the Rains** and preceding **Summer**, consisting of **New Spring** and **Warm Spring**.
* **Stillborn Army, the:** Former humans, these are victims of the shrapnel of the **Hungry Empire**. The **Wendigo** Hordes and other **Locust Touched** unaligned with the **Hungry Empire** formally.
* **Storyteller:** When people invest their **auras** and launch an **incursion** into the **Shadowlands**, one must remain behind and guide the **incursion**. This person is the **Storyteller** and since **magick** is story, the **storyteller**'s role is sacred. Groups should swap **Storyteller** duties regularly.

T

* **Tribe**: A group of people not yet beholden to the **Hungry Empire**.
* **Toaster**: A pejorative term for the **Spellsmiths**.

U

* **Unborn Elders, the**: The name the **Free Peoples** give to future generations. Prayers are offered to the **Unborn Elders**, not as requests for favor- but as oaths the speaker promises to fulfill.

V

* **Vajra**: The fuel on which the **Avatars** function. **Vajra** is the mystical energy of the human will and of story.

W

* **Wendigo:** a type of **Corrupt** who are always hungry, and always starving. Their hunger has warped their senses and a **psychonaut** will be hard pressed to communicate with any of the corrupt... unless one considers the sounds of digestion to be communication.
* **Witch**: Resistance to the **Hungry Empire**, and mentors to **Psychonauts**. It is through the teaching of the **Witches** and **Wizards** that **Sorcerers** learn **Magick**, both **High Magick** and **Low Magick**.
* **Wizard**: Like the **Witches**, the **wizards** are the guerilla war against the **Locust King** and the Obi-Won to many **Sorcerers**.

X

Y

Z