[Curseborne] Actual Liminal Space #4

We’re fast counting down to the Kickstarter launch, so how about another couple of liminalities for you fine Curseborne followers? Hopefully with a few examples such as the ones provided in our blogs, you’ll have plenty of ideas for weird spaces and terrifying locations in which to set major scenes in your games.

Today, we’re visiting a couple of places in the outside. A temptation and a torment.

Temptations

At first, it’s typical for an Accursed to want to establish all moorings to the world they’ve known their entire life. As they realize that the communities they grew up in, the mortal families that raised them, and the jobs they held are nothing but shells for the truth, they develop desires to explore the world beyond.

There are many lures for what exists in the Outside. The promise of a world that won’t judge those with curses. The possibility of heightened powers. The hope for a future without danger. The knowledge that leaving one’s mortal family and friends behind will, in fact, keep them safer than remaining in their presence.

It’s a bleak realization, but that doesn’t prevent it from being true.

The temptations extend beyond passive promise. A creature known as the Bandy Man visits Accursed low on their luck and desperate for a change, and offers them a route to salvation in exchange for favors. The battleforged always leave a wake of destruction leading to a realm of conflict, but it’s known that passage through that realm leads to somewhere beautiful and peaceful. Ancient Sorcerers speak of a world where faeries rule, where wishes are granted and dreams come true. And they have proof. They just need to gesture at their own curses.

“Imagine,” says the Archivist with skin of silver, “a world of your own, where you can be as a god and never fear again.” That Archivist vanishes soon after, but leaves a trail of breadcrumbs for you to follow, should you wish to let temptation seize your soul.

It’s not a trap. The Outside boasts great rewards for those bold enough to seize them, and for many an Accursed, that’s good enough reason to risk the dangers of reaching it.

The Possibility Library

Sorcerers, Gaki, Raptors, and other, similarly knowledge-enthused Lineages and families find this segment of the Outside a true catnip. An Outside that offers vast catalogues of forbidden lore and texts of ancient origin is appealing to anyone seeking to enhance their power. The inhabitants — mostly imps of a peculiar intelligence but still prone to tricks — are content to make exchanges of information and memory in trade for one of the books, scrolls, or tablets in their stores.

The temptation to visit such a realm is huge. Who wouldn’t give up a fraction of their childhood for a hard drive filled with secrets? The only cost beyond it is that visitors aren’t allowed to leave with anything physical from the realm. They must read it there, on one of the many desks or monitors. Any attempt to do so results in imps swarming the “thief” and making the physical information a part of the visitor, merging them with a memory board, tattooing information on their skin, or simply ramming a book down their throat.

The addictive qualities of such a space are vast. Sorcerers are particularly vulnerable. They might give up the memory of their first girlfriend in exchange for knowledge of five other Outside realms. That’s like a 1:25 ratio in terms of exchange rate. So after that information is obtained, how about giving up those useless geography lessons learned at school in exchange for advanced spell lore, or memory of their parents’ last moments as trade for whereabouts of the nearest interstitial zones? And so on, and so on, and so on, until the visitor has forgotten who they were before arriving.

Torments

One of the first things any responsible family mentor tells a new family member is “Life down here may come with its share of struggles, but life out there promises nothing but torment.”

There’s good and bad to be found in any place. Some sections of the Outside are considerably worse than others. There’s still reason to visit, so long as the Accursed knows where the pitfalls are and which entities to trust. The truth can prove confusing, however, especially when the Outside itself revolts against those who intrude upon it.

Tormented Outside realms are less safe than the realms regarded as temptations, but the rewards can be massive, if the torments are survived.

The Shifting Prison

Each room in the shifting prison contains a fresh hell. Each one grinds and shifts along an axis every so often, soon taking any inmates (it would be incorrect to call anyone in this realm a “visitor” after they’ve been present for more than a few minutes) far from the portal or liminality through which they entered this distant, remote section of the Outside. Inmates need to survive the torments thrown at them before they can stand a chance at leaving, making a fleeting visit a horrific process.

So why step into the shifting prison? It’s not for the scenery. Torture devices, some obvious, some subtle. Barred windows, the views through which boast endless vistas of fire and wire. Bizarre mechanisms designed to rend and tear body, spirit, and mind. No, the only reason someone chooses to come to the shifting prison is to meet one of the “lifers.” Inmates who know how to survive the torments but are bound to this Outside.

According to the Furies, this is where family heads are consigned to spend eternity when their families are tired of them. There may be some truth to this suggestion. As recently as living memory, there’s been an account of a woman claiming to be the first of the Vorare chained to one of the walls in this space. A Hungry got close enough to free her, only to find this so-called family head absorbing the helpful vampire’s soul in one big swallow. The rest of his crew naturally fled, leaving the Vorare where they found her, pleading for release.