Palaces
The latest hot topic on The Dark Side of Sumaru are Palaces, personalized cognitive worlds ruled over by distorted individuals known as Rulers. News of them began circulating shortly after the Phantom Thieves of Hearts made a splash in the Tokyo news media.
Where the rumor originally came from is unknown at this time, and some Rumormongers speculate the Phantom Thieves, cool and elegant as they must surely all be, started it themselves as a taunt to "Catch us if you can~!" How true this is gets hotly contended among them as they attempt to locate the original source.
Ever since, the supernatural community has been doing their best to investigate, but has had considerably more difficulty figuring access to Palaces out than Mementos. After weeks of scouting by various urban explorers and involved discussions on how one might enter, eventually several facts have come to light.
Getting In To Palaces
The original rumor spoke of a mysterious app known as the Meta-Nav, but so far the Rumor community hasn't figured out how to obtain it. Access to a smartphone definitely doesn't guarantee it, it's not available for download, and there's no hints of its presence online.
After combing the newly erected Phantom Thieves Aficionado Website for clues on their next potential target, and much time spent on misses, the online personality known only as Baofu has stated he's been inside of a Palace. "It's just a matter of harnessing your chi to see the signs," he claims.
What he's discovered is that:
- When a Palace is in the area, the area feels wrong to the spirit. By following the trail closer to the signs, you can sometimes hear echoes of cognitive world signs of whose Palace it is and what form it takes.
The rumormonger community then followed up with information after much trial and error.
- By then spreading a rumor that has the format of the name of the person, the location of the area, and the form the Palace takes, you can create a route of entry into the Palace that persists. Note: the Kuzunoha Detective Agency won't spread a rumor that will potentially get normal people trapped inside, and require you pick a method that's off the beaten path.
And then the mysterious Rumormonger Moriae of Strega posted a cryptic message:
- "There's an easier way, if you've got the guts and the talent." It's an enticing breadcrumb without further hints.
OOC Notes: Getting In!
- Palaces only register to Resonance if you're within about half a kilometer of the area where they're associated with and if someone with the Meta-Nav has been inside recently. After they have, the Palace is typically connected spiritually to the material world for roughly a week after and can be sensed. If a rumor is spread strongly enough, the path inside will remain so long as the Palace does, even if the signs fade to your Resonance.
- There may be a way to prevent those signs from appearing in the real world, but at this time it's unclear how one does so. The Phantom Thieves of Hearts upon investigation may find no further Palaces they can detect in Tokyo using these methods, which may indicate there is a way. After all, 'the one in the Black Mask' is supposedly out there.
- Strega has found that trying to summon a Persona through use of an Evoker, or through Takaya summoning his Persona while concentrating on both the person in question and the form the Palace takes, will get them in. They're not sharing. For some reason, this is only available for those with this form of The Potential.
- The Phantom Thieves know internally they did not spread this rumor! At least, they're pretty sure. You can never tell with Skull being such a loudmouth all the time.
- There may be other ways to get in! If you want to figure out/suggest alternatives, then staff can tell you if it works. Warning: other methods may be much less safe than this.
Once inside...
In the days that followed confirmation of gaining access, the Rumor community noted that Palaces are extremely dangerous even to veteran Persona Users. The cognitive world inside takes strange forms that appear to fit the personality of the Shadow of the person in question. Some have started calling them the Rulers of those Palaces because, in all the (admittedly scant) examples seen so far, they command all the other local Shadows. It's not clear who used the word first, only that it's caught on quickly.
The other Shadows within fit the theme of the Palace in the form they take, but otherwise function much like the Shadows in Mementos by taking on other forms when provoked--with a single caveat. "If you're not careful, then most of the time other Shadows start converging, and more appear all over! I barely escaped with my life! It's like they're all working together as security guards!"
Stealth seems to be the only way to navigate a Palace safely. The few Rumormongers who have managed to get in far enough undetected have noted there's people inside--or what look and act like people when talked to. They're not Shadows, but they're not exactly human beings, either... Currently, most of them are not sure what to make of the phenomenon known as Cognitions, but recently Rumormonger Moriae of Strega posted their disappointment that "killing these 'people' inside the Palaces seems to have no effect on them in reality. It only stirs up the Shadows."
The rumormonger community has had a heated debate ever since on the morality of testing things in Palaces like that, but with more than you might expect coming out on the side of Strega. "You can't make an omelette without cracking a few eggs." It appears much of the rumormonger community is quick to set aside moral outrage if it means that juicier rumors might flow through.
OOC Notes: Once Inside!
- There is a dedicated sector of the rumormonger community that will reward characters for information regarding Palaces. This has been a motivating factor for many Persona Users to band together and explore. The Persona 1 characters are particularly alarmed and have all been monitoring Palace rumors with increasing scrutiny. There's been some talk of getting the band back together to look into it.
- Most non-Will of Rebellion PCs haven't had much opportunity yet to figure Cognitions out by the start of the Velvet Room MUSH. After all, they don't have a Morgana, and haven't had a great deal of time to figure it out.
- No one without a Will of Rebellion has yet been far enough to see the amorphous form of The Treasure. Only the Phantom Thieves currently understand its significance or what it's called. That doesn't mean that getting that far within a Palace doesn't carry its own rewards, however.
- Only PCs with the Will of Rebellion may have had the opportunity to already understand that you can alter cognition in real life to change the internal form of the Palace. Ordinarily this kind of speculation takes guidance, like Morgana's, or some trial and error.
- There are numerous opportunities to do things in or to Palaces that neither the Phantom Thieves or Morgana would think of, much less the 'one in the black mask.' If you want your Will of Rebellion PC to have figured out a hook with Palaces prior to the start of the game, especially if they have their own PC group, then contact staff with the thing you want to do and we'll discuss with you if it's possible. Understand that some things just may not be, but there are a lot more aspects to the psyche than Persona 5 ever touches upon that have been integrated here.
- For non-Will of Rebellion characters, we'll handle it after the start of the game. Some groups just have more resources and the motivation to try the experiments that one would need to carry out to do certain things, while membership in other groups might just give you a leg up information-wise.
Safe Rooms
Safe Rooms are liminal areas that serve to anchor a Palace to a location in reality. In essence, think of them as a place where the veil is thin enough to see the flickering between a place in reality and the cognitive dimension of the Palace.
It should be made abundantly clear. Each Palace has many safe rooms, but in a sense, they're all anchored to the exact same fixed point in reality. Because of this, you're able to transition between different safe rooms as a very simple form of Cognitive Psience by willing it to occur. This can only happen if all of the people in the Safe Room currently have been there before. If even one person hasn't, then you won't be able to transition to a Safe Room deeper in the Palace than everyone has been.
Conversely, if a second party were to enter a safe room while a first party is present, you'd all be in the same room together. The same rules of transitioning apply. If one party there has never been to any safe rooms deeper within the Palace, then that person would have to leave the room for the others to make that trip.
A Safe Room truly is a Safe Room. In the liminal state present within, powers which would attack others won't function properly. While it's technically possible to still attack others with Weapons in these places, your Personas won't work to their full capability due to everyone perceiving this as a 'safe space.' They will however, arise to /defend/ you, making attempts to ambush others with weapons an exercise in futility. If Persona Users want to brawl due to a heated argument, they simply gain the instinct to 'take it outside'.
OOC Minutia
- There may be tricks for interacting with Safe Rooms that aren't presented within Persona 5. If you want to try something, then make a Request to staff and we can tell you what happens.
- Feel free to use the 'It's the same room' as a scene hook to multiple parties exploring a Palace to interact with each other. It's a good excuse for why two parties come into contact!
Security Level
Anyone who's tried to get through a Palace without some degree of subterfuge runs into a problem nearly immediately. As the Shadows within the Palace notice your presence, more will appear, sometimes even while you're tied up fighting them.
What gives?
Security Level represents the 'anxiety' of the Palace ruler towards an invasion within the Palace. As the Ruler becomes more paranoid, anxious or fearful more Shadows are summoned from the Metaverse in order to come to their defense. They continue to appear until the situation becomes untenable and the Persona Users must flee. This can be a problem even for two separate groups exploring a Palace simultaneously. If one isn't as deft as the other, it threatens both of them!
This anxiety manifests even within the ego in reality. The person the Ruler is will consequently grow more anxious or fearful that someone is out to get them. Observant Persona Users can thus predict when someone is potentially invading this individual's Palace if they witness more erratic behavior than usual.
Due to the nature of a Palace, when the Treasure is directly threatened as if by 'Calling Cards' of the Phantom Thieves, the Security Level will rise to maximum for the next day as the object manifests as something tangible. This is the only time when a maximum security level will not make entering a Palace a doomed affair, typically the problem of endless Shadows are 'skipped' by having the Palace mapped out and using Safe Rooms as above to transport yourself near the Treasure.
As for why those Shadows are absent when fighting a Ruler, rather than overwhelming the Persona Users the answer is.
They aren't absent at all.
The great horde of Shadows are typically summoned as part of the 'armor' that a Ruler summons to take on a monstrous, Arch-demonic form. Sometimes there are some left over. When Shadows /do/ appear, they simply weren't all needed for the form the Ruler took.
OOC Minutia
- Unless otherwise specified, Security Level is primarily a roleplay tool when going through Palace Monads. If you want to represent failure to a challenge by Security Level going up, or Security Level reaching Maximum by the 'Escape' result, then feel free!