apocalypsehowmods | The Magnus Archives 101

A Quick Guide to The Magnus Archives

Apocalypse How is set in a universe parallel to The Magnus Archives. To that end, this is a quick(ish) primer on relevant concepts that characters will encounter throughout their time in the game.

Please be advised, Apocalypse How's setting is inherently a spoiler for aspects of The Magnus Archives. No particular plot points or characters will be used, but the setting concepts draw heavily on material from all seasons.

The 15 Fears

Broadly speaking, the Fears (also known as the Entities or the Dread Powers) are eldritch creatures that exist just outside the reality of the world. They are amorphous and not entirely sentient in the normal sense. Despite the fact that they exist outside reality, they are able to influence it indirectly in various ways. The most important of these are: artefacts, avatars and even occasionally locations (which will be touched on later). Everything supernatural - be it person, thing, or occurrence - that exists in the world is tied to the Fears. Everything supernatural is terrifying.

Each Entity represents an aspect of things that people (and even animals) are afraid of. Some of the distinctions between the Fears are a little hazy (one character explains them as being "like colors, if colors hated me") and many similar permutations of a kind of fear can fit within the broader category, or overlap between two.

For example, fear of the ocean may be tied to:

The Buried: The fear of being pulled to the crushing depths and drowning.
The Dark: The fear of what might be lurking in the unknown depths.
The Hunt: The fear of a predator you cannot outswim pursuing you through the water.
The Vast: The fear of how small one is in comparison to the enormous expanse of the ocean.

Many fears can be spun toward different Entities. Even if the base idea of the fear is the same, the reasoning behind it matters.

If your character has powers that would be considered fantastical or otherwise abnormal for our world, using them will come at a price, and that price will be feeding one of the Fears. The Fear that provides power to a character will either be the one they are most drawn towards, or most afraid of. To help you choose, in that case, here is a brief overview of all of the Fear domains:

➥ The Fears (click to expand)

The Buried
Types of fears associated with the Buried include claustrophobia, suffocating, drowning, or being buried alive. More figuratively, it can include fears of being stifled or crushed in non-literal ways, most often by some sort of financial distress (such as poverty or debt).

The Corruption
Types of fears associated with the Corruption include rot/decay, disease, filth, germs, and insects (particularly infestations). The Corruption is also often associated with obsessive or unhealthy love and relationships, as well as xenophobia and political corruption.

The Dark
Types of fears associated with the Dark are, obviously, a fear of the dark itself, as well as what might be hiding in it and what lies beyond what we cannot see. On a more figurative level, the Dark is also a fear of not having enough information or being kept 'in the dark.'

The Desolation
Types of fears associated with the Desolation are pain, loss, fire/burning, and especially the senseless/mindless destruction of something. Notably, servants of the Desolation feed it by destroying people or things that had unrealized potential or something to look forward to. This can include relationships of all varieties.

The End
Very simply, the End represents the fear of death and dying, the demise of the self and decay into nothingness.

The Extinction
The Extinction is a Fear that is not fully realized and isn't quite on the same level as the other Entities. It represents the fear of catastrophic change, destruction of nature, destruction of human skin and tissue, the destruction of humanity itself and its replacement by something different. It is especially linked to humanity's own contribution to the eventuality of these things.

The Eye
The types of fears associated with the Eye are ones dealing with having secrets exposed, being watched, being known, or being followed. It can also manifest as a terror of knowing too much and finding the one piece of knowledge that may destroy you or someone you know. People drawn to the Eye often have a drive to uncover knowledge even at cost to themselves or those they love.

The Flesh
The Flesh is one of the newer Fears to have emerged, and it has largely arisen from the industrial slaughter of animals. However, in humans it is still associated with the sense (or fear) of one's body being animated meat and bones. The fear of mutilation of the flesh or having your body changed or destroyed is also part of the Flesh. Another common theme for the flesh is insecurity and self-hatred connected to one's body image.

The Hunt
The Hunt is another one of the Fears that has its roots in animal terrors and is associated with a fear of being chased or hunted. It can be associated with pack-mentality and the fear of being othered and targeted by a group you were once a part of. More abstractly, the Hunt is a fear that can manifest as obsession with pursuing a goal, chasing after something that can never be reached, and destroying yourself and everything you know and love in the process.

The Lonely
The types of fears associated with the Lonely are ones of being cut off from other people, being isolated in some way, or being alone. The Lonely is about emotional isolation as much as it is about the physical act of being alone. It can also manifest from fears related to being unnoticed or unacknowledged for one's accomplishments. Additionally, the fear of losing one's memories and, as a result, one's friends, family, and self, tie into the Lonely.

The Slaughter
The types of fears associated with the Slaughter are ones of random or unmotivated - but unavoidable - violence or pain. Often, it is also the fear of violence you know is coming but don't know exactly when or how to prevent. It often has ties to war and music.

The Spiral
The types of fears associated with the Spiral are ones related to madness, of the world you know being wrong or your perception of it being wrong. It is the fear of being lied to or deceived, either by other people or by yourself.

The Stranger
The fears associated with the Stranger are best summed up by the Uncanny Valley. Its domain is of the unknown, the unfamiliar. More specifically, it is often the not quite familiar or beings that are almost but not exactly human, things that are not quite right. The fear of of losing oneself and one's identity, of being replaceable, is also tied to the Stranger.

The Vast
The fears associated with the Vast are ones of heights, of falling, or of wide open spaces (such as space, the sea, or the sky) and/or losing oneself in that space. A little more abstractly, it is related to the fear of ones own insignificance in the face of an enormous universe, the forces of nature, and/or society and humanity, as a whole.

The Web
The fears associated with the Web are ones of being manipulated (with or without your knowledge, but especially without) or being trapped by something or someone. The controlling entity might not even be a person or something with thought, as this fear has been tied to addictions.

A fan-made song neatly summarizes most of the Entities, as well. And you can find further examples of ways to feed an Entity HERE.

Avatars and Entity-Aligned Characters

Occasionally, a person might become tied to one of the Fears, either through their own efforts, through the efforts of others, or simply because they were unlucky. In the process, they gain certain abilities that generally line up with the Fear that they serve (or are tied to). Many such people find themselves merely aligned to an Entity, still human (or whatever they were before), with weak and inconsistent powers that must be stabilized and strengthened by feeding that Entity. Becoming a full avatar requires a conscious choice of some sort on the person's end. This does not necessarily have to be a fair choice (death or avatarhood isn't much of a choice, but it is technically one) or one that they realize they are making at the time, but it will always be a choice. It also means that they must feed their "patron" in some way, or they will find themselves growing weaker. They also generally become less human in some way.

There are ways to cease being an avatar, as well, but the main means of accomplishing this is typically death. While alternative methods of extracting oneself from an Entity exist and vary by patron, the consequences are often temporarily or permanently debilitating.

Artefacts

Artefacts are items that have some connection to one of the Fears, which all exhibit some sort of (terrifying) supernatural effect on the people that come across them. They can be anything, from books that do various terrible things to you if you read them or interact with them in a certain way, to tables, whistles, vases, or paintings.

Rituals

The Fears exist just outside of our own reality and feed on terror in that space. However, various rituals have been designed by followers and avatars of the Fears in an attempt to draw them properly into the world. They generally involve some sort of abstract sacrifice or a mass inducement of fear that would please and/or feed the Fear that's meant to be summoned, as well as fundamentally alter the fabric of reality to make more amenable to the Fear. Because rituals are designed by avatars, they are often unique and stopping one Desolation apocalypse does not mean that you now have the means to stop all Desolation apocalypses.

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