The Moirae's Mirror - October

Hey all, and welcome to the first Moirae's Mirror, an in-depth preview sort of thing about some aspect of FoA and its world. This month, I'll be using some of the notes from Chapter Two (in progress) to talk a little bit about the Underworld and how it works, in particular the Erebus System!

First up, here we the PC experiencing a connection to 'Erebus.' The idea here, which is a lot harder to express without computer language, is that Erebus is essentially an AI, magically "programmed" by Hades and Hekate to make the Underworld more hospitable and accessible to its residents in various ways. Think of it as the equivalent of a message board, DM system, and computer navigation. It's also sort of a search engine, in that it can be used to relay questions to other people who might know their answers. 

Erebus, for those of you not familiar with Greek mythos, is the primordial god of shadows. The Erebus in FoA-verse actually used to be that Erebus, in a certain sense. The entity Erebus is, in this universe, deceased, but the domain—deific dominion over shadows—remains. As the Underworld is pretty much entirely shrouded, Erebus is in some sense able to "touch" everything and everyone in it, and so when the power was repurposed as a communication tool, achieving the correct scope was the easiest part. 

As Hades explains here, all of the functions of Erebus operate on a consent-based system. People can contact each other, and Erebus will, for example, let PC know if Pyri wants to talk to them or know their location, but responding to such communiques or giving out their location is entirely up to them—they can decline to do so at any time.

Erebus is, incidentally, how pronoun information is transmitted also! If PC or anyone else wakes up that day and their pronouns are different than the day before, they may notify Erebus, who will include this information in a daily update of sorts, that includes other useful information like the date, environmental conditions, and any system-wide announcements from the admins. Humorously, Erebus's uses can range anywhere from quite serious (notifying the residents of emergencies), to quite silly (Alekto publicly "shaming" Hermes for leaving his instruments laying around.)

The goal was to make something fun and interesting, that also shows a few important things about the world:

1. Hades and Hekate are very powerful magicians.
2. Deific domains can be loosely interpreted and applied.
3. Those domains can also be separated from the god that holds them.
4. The Underworld is a weird place and special tools are required to navigate it.

Of course, the fact that this AI is effectively in the PC's head means that it absolutely must be completely consent-operated; otherwise it's just invasive. So it's going to be interesting, writing out variations depending on whether PC is willing to participate in the system or not.