Awakened
Awakened Threats
AX.GIL.13.02
The Harmonic Traditions are understood, regulated, and institutionally managed. Practitioners train under credentialed programs, monitor their Friction loads, and operate within safety frameworks designed over centuries of accumulated knowledge. The system works.
Most of the time.
Awakened are what happens when the Harmonic Traditions work on a person who was not, or is no longer, capable of managing what they carry. They are not monsters in the traditional sense; they are people who have become something the system cannot classify. Some retain full awareness of what they are. Some do not. All of them represent a category of threat the orgs find deeply uncomfortable: the Harmonic problem that cannot be resolved with a credential check.
The term "Awakened" is institutional, not affectionate. The Harmonic Intelligence Authority coined it in a classified field manual that uses phrases like "unmanaged resonance expression" and "non-compliant Friction discharge." In practice, it means: a person whose Harmonic activity has exceeded containable parameters, by accident, by trauma, by deliberate choice, or by something no one fully understands yet.
Awakened threats are divided into three subcategories:
- Friction-Burned (practitioners whose Harmonic load has caused irreversible physical and psychological change)
- Collapse Conditions (biology-level Tectonic Harmonic inversion events)
- Zero-Day Souls (persons whose Axiomatic Covenant instruments have entangled with their mortality in ways that prevent normal death).
Design Notes
Sympathy is the distinguishing feature. Awakened threats should rarely feel like simple monsters. They are people, or were, and most of them did not choose what they became. GMs should build Awakened encounters with a backstory the players can discover: who this person was, what pushed them past the line, and whether there is anything that can be done about it short of violence. Sometimes the answer is no. The answer should never be no before the players have had a chance to find out.
Harmonic logic governs capability. Each Awakened type should behave consistently with the Tradition that produced it. A Friction-Burned Temporal practitioner warps probability and covenant, the space around them feels wrong, promises unmake themselves, cause and effect stutters. A Collapse Condition Tectonic case reshapes physical matter involuntarily. A Zero-Day Soul carries an active Axiomatic Covenant that bends reality to honor its terms. The capabilities should feel like natural extensions of the Tradition, not generic monster powers.
Institutional response as encounter layer. Every Awakened individual the party encounters has likely already been flagged by one or more orgs. The HIA tracks Awakened cases. BVHI has containment protocols for Collapse Conditions. The NTC monitors for anomalous resonance signatures. When the party encounters an Awakened, the question is not just "how do we stop this" but "how long before an org response team arrives, and whose team is it?" This creates time pressure and moral complexity simultaneously, the team that arrives may be less interested in the individual's welfare than the party has become.
Mechanical note, Awakened and Friction. Awakened threats operate outside the normal Friction rules. They may have access to Harmonic Tradition dice well beyond what a PC practitioner could safely maintain, and they do not accumulate Resonance Stress mid-encounter. The cost has already been paid, or is being paid continuously in ways they can no longer feel. GMs do not track Friction for Awakened threats. Their Tradition pools are always fully active, this is what makes them dangerous, and it is the mechanical expression of what makes them tragic.
13.02.01 - Friction-Burned
Practitioners who have sustained Harmonic activity beyond their physiological capacity to manage, resulting in permanent changes to their biology, cognition, and relationship to the Axioms with which they work.
The Friction Rule exists precisely to prevent this. Most practitioners never approach it. Some are pushed past it by circumstance, by desperation, or by someone else's agenda.
THE RESONANCE-SCARRED
Temporal Harmonics, Advanced Friction Overload
Tier: Standard–Elite | Role: Unstable temporal manipulation, environmental disruption
A Resonance-Scarred individual is what happens when a Temporal Harmonics practitioner burns through every Friction buffer they have and keeps going. The probability-manipulation that Temporal Harmonics relies on begins to operate without conscious direction, cause and effect stutters around them. Small promises break. Agreements unmake themselves. Objects return to positions they occupied hours ago. The practitioner is still there, still aware to varying degrees, but they are no longer in control of what they're doing.
They typically present as agitated, confused, and frightened of themselves. The danger is not malice; it is that the Axioms are still working, and the practitioner is no longer the one deciding what they work on.
Environmental Tells: - Clocks in the area stop, reverse, or run at different speeds - Spoken agreements feel immediately untrustworthy, a vague compulsion not to commit to anything - Items move to previous positions when not observed directly - People near the Resonance-Scarred find themselves repeating phrases or movements they just performed
Typical Profile: - Body 2D, Speed 2D, Wit 3D (Temporal Harmonics 4D, uncontrolled) - Key Talents: Temporal Harmonics operates passively and continuously; the practitioner may attempt to direct it with a Wit + Temporal roll but cannot suppress it - Health: Reduced (sustained Friction damage is ongoing) - Defense: Probability distortion, attacks against the Resonance-Scarred require +1 Threshold above the target's normal Defense value. If the standard attack Threshold is Defense 1, attacks against this target are made at Threshold 2. This reflects unreliable local causality, not an active defensive action, the increase applies to all attack rolls regardless of the attacker's Tradition access or equipment.
Combat Behavior: The Resonance-Scarred do not engage in combat; they exist in an environment that becomes hostile to physical causality. Attackers may find their actions producing results a half-second removed from when they occurred, or not occurring at all despite succeeding. Resolution typically requires either creating enough physical distance that the passive Temporal field doesn't apply, or a controlled Harmonic intervention that establishes a new Covenant anchor for the practitioner's unregulated output.
Encounter Notes: A Resonance-Scarred individual in a populated area is a public emergency. The HIA's containment approach involves establishing a Temporal Covenant anchor, essentially, a new binding instrument that gives the practitioner's unregulated Temporal Harmonics something coherent to attach to. This is a skilled action requiring a Temporal practitioner, not a combat solution. Parties with a Temporal practitioner at Stage 3+ should be able to attempt it.
THE LOGIC-FRAYED
Technomancy, Silicon Demi-Plane Cognitive Integration Failure
Tier: Standard–Elite | Role: Digital-physical boundary dissolution, information hazard
NTC Technomancy practitioners interface with the Silicon Demi-Plane through controlled cognitive protocols. Extended immersion, particularly at high Friction loads, begins to erode the boundary between the practitioner's cognition and the Demi-Plane's information structure. A Logic-Frayed individual has passed the point where that boundary can be restored.
They experience reality as a partially overlaid interface; they see data streams, access nodes, authentication credentials as semi-physical objects. They can reach into digital systems without hardware interfaces. They can also inadvertently corrupt digital systems they are near, rewrite authentication records they brush against, and project Demi-Plane information into physical space in ways that range from disorienting to structurally damaging.
Environmental Tells: - Electronic devices in the area display corrupted output or respond to inputs that weren't given - The Logic-Frayed appears to be speaking to people who aren't there; they are interfacing with Demi-Plane entities that have become indistinguishable from physical presence - Credential systems in range authenticate incorrectly, granting access to unauthorized users, denying authorized ones - Sensitive data may spontaneously render physically, documents, credential files, private communications appearing as visible text in the air around the individual
Typical Profile: - Body 1D, Speed 2D, Wit 4D (Technomancy 5D, partially Demi-Plane integrated) - Key Talents: Technical 4D, Perception (digital/physical overlap) 3D - Special: Any electronic device within Near range is subject to uncontrolled Technomancy interference, GM determines effect each round
Combat Behavior: The Logic-Frayed are not physically dangerous, they are an information hazard and a systems hazard. They cannot be stopped by conventional combat in a meaningful sense: neutralizing them physically does not stop the Demi-Plane integration, and may destabilize it further. NTC containment protocol involves establishing a clean hardware anchor and walking them back through the integration layers, a Technical challenge, not a fight.
Encounter Notes: Logic-Frayed individuals make excellent encounter elements in NTC-adjacent locations, server facilities, relay stations, archived Demi-Plane access points. The encounter challenge is managing the environmental disruption (credential systems failing, information leaking, Demi-Plane entities becoming present) while attempting a resolution that doesn't destroy the person.
13.02.02 - Collapse Conditions
Tectonic Harmonic inversion events, cases where the Body-resonance that BVHI practitioners use to reshape stone and earth has inverted against the practitioner's own biology. Documented in BVHI field medicine under the classification "Resonance Inversion Syndrome, Biological" abbreviated clinically as RISB and called "Collapse Condition" in operational field reports.
Most cases are caught early and treated. BVHI has a medical division that handles Friction-related biological events and a containment protocol for cases that have progressed beyond treatment. The protocol exists for a reason.
STAGE 2 (CONTROLLED)
Tectonic Harmonics Inversion, Early Progression
Tier: Elite | Role: Uncontrolled biological Tectonic expression, physical hazard
Stage 2 Collapse Condition presents as involuntary biological Tectonic Harmonics, the practitioner's body begins expressing the reshaping properties of their Tradition inward and outward without direction. Physical contact produces stone-hardening effects on tissue. Extreme stress triggers involuntary Tectonic pulses that crack stone floors, shift load-bearing elements, and reshape nearby physical matter.
The practitioner is typically aware of their condition and terrified of it. They have usually been attempting to isolate themselves. The encounter begins when their isolation has failed.
Physical Presentation: Partially mineralized skin at stress points, knuckles, spine, orbital ridges. The mineralization is not uniform and not stable. Under emotional distress, it spreads. Under calm, it partially recedes.
Typical Profile: - Body 5D, Speed 1D, Wit 2D - Tectonic Harmonics: 3D, involuntary, triggers on emotional or physical stress (Threshold 2 Body Save to suppress when triggered) - Armor: Natural mineralization provides +1 Defense (Light equivalent) - Health: 40 (20 + Body 5 + Elite Threat Type Health Modifier 15)
Combat Behavior: Stage 2 subjects do not initiate. They retreat, warn, attempt to contain themselves. If cornered or if someone they care about is threatened, involuntary Tectonic expression activates, treat as an uncontrolled Tectonic Harmonics roll at the subject's full pool, targeting the nearest physical structure. Not the nearest person, the nearest structure. The practitioner is trying not to hurt anyone; they just can't control where the energy goes.
Treatment Options: BVHI containment teams carry Resonance Dampening equipment (Classified tier) that can suppress Tectonic expression long enough to initiate treatment. A party with a Tectonic practitioner and Backlash Buffer perk can attempt field stabilization using the Resonance Stability Track below.
RESONANCE STABILITY TRACK, Field Stabilization (Stage 2 Collapse Condition)
Skill Challenge, AX.C.14.03 framework. Requires 3 successes before 3 failures.
Primary Roll: Governing Attribute + Tectonic Harmonics vs Threshold 3
Backlash Buffer Requirement: At least one participating character must have the Backlash Buffer perk active. Without it, excess harmonic pressure from the subject has no bleed mechanism, the challenge cannot be initiated.
On Each Success: - 1st success: The subject's involuntary Tectonic pulses cease. Turn-based environmental damage and Prone triggers from involuntary expression end for the scene. - 2nd success: Mineralization of the subject's tissue is arrested. The subject remains Stressed and carries a Moderate Body Condition, but further inversion is halted for 24 hours. - 3rd success (Full Stabilization): The subject synchronizes with the controlled resonance pattern. The inversion enters remission. After a Long Rest, the subject recovers to a Stable state.
On Each Failure: - 1st–2nd failure: Each failure triggers a Harmonic Surge from the subject, the practitioner making the roll takes 1D6 Psychic damage from the harmonic bleed. - 3rd failure (Total Failure): The stabilization fails catastrophically. The subject immediately escalates to Stage 4 Critical Collapse. Treat as uncontrolled Stage 4 entry; the encounter environment changes immediately.
STAGE 4 (CRITICAL)
Tectonic Harmonics Inversion, Late Progression, Structural Threat
Tier: Elite | Role: Area threat, structural hazard, containment emergency
Stage 4 Collapse Condition has passed the point where the practitioner can be said to be controlling anything. The biological inversion is systemic, their body mass has partially converted to active Tectonic Harmonic material, meaning they are both a biological entity and an ongoing geological event. They reshape the physical environment continuously and cannot stop. They may or may not retain coherent cognition.
This is the threat BVHI's containment protocol was designed for and has failed to prevent.
Physical Presentation: Heavily mineralized, partially stone-merged with whatever surface they last remained stationary against. Movement causes visible Tectonic disturbance, cracks, shifts, partial collapses radiating from their position. Their voice, if they can still speak, carries subharmonic resonance that vibrates filled lungs and loose materials.
Typical Profile: - Body 6D, Speed 1D, Wit 1D–2D - Tectonic Harmonics: 5D, continuous and uncontrolled - Armor: Heavy mineralization, Defense equivalent to Heavy Armor - Health: 41 (20 + Body 6 + Elite Threat Type Health Modifier 15) - Area Effect: Each round, the Stage 4 subject generates a Tectonic pulse affecting all characters within Near range, Speed Save Threshold 3 or suffer Prone and take environmental damage from structural debris
Combat Behavior: Stage 4 subjects do not have combat behavior in any strategic sense; they are a geological event. What drives their movement, if they move, is residual cognition: toward familiar places, toward people they remember, away from intense stimuli. The danger is proximity. The solution is not combat but Harmonic intervention: establishing a resonance anchor strong enough to pull the subject into synchronization and begin a controlled release of their stored Tectonic energy into non-biological matter.
Encounter Notes: A Stage 4 encounter is less a fight and more an environmental challenge. The subject is the hazard; the objective is containment before structural collapse causes broader casualties. A Legendary-tier stat block is appropriate for a fully progressed Stage 4. Consider whether destruction is the only resolution or whether the party can find and reach the remnant of the person inside, a social or Harmonic challenge nested inside a survival encounter.
13.02.03 - Zero-Day Souls
The Linden-Green Trust's Axiomatic Covenant framework is the legal spine of the IL world. Covenants bind parties, transfer property, enforce obligations, and settle debts; they are living instruments, maintained in the Great Ledger, monitored for compliance, and formally dissolved when all terms are satisfied.
Most Covenants dissolve normally. A person dies, their obligations transfer or expire, the instrument closes, and the Ledger updates.
Some do not.
Zero-Day Souls are individuals whose death should have resolved their outstanding Covenants but did not, because the Covenant's terms were structured in a way that requires the continued existence and action of the deceased to fulfill them. The Harmonic system, operating on the principle that an active instrument must have active parties, refused to release them. The person's consciousness persists, bound to the instrument, unable to depart until the terms are satisfied or the instrument is formally voided.
The LGT has a sealed department, not acknowledged in any public documentation, that handles Zero-Day Soul cases. They call it the Testamentary Resolution Division. Externally it presents as an estate management firm. What it actually does is find ways to resolve Covenant instruments that have become entangled with deceased parties, before those parties become a problem.
Sometimes the Division is too slow.
COVENANT BOUND
Temporal Harmonics, Axiomatic Covenant Entanglement, Post-Mortem
Tier: Elite | Role: Specific objective pursuit, Covenant enforcement, environmental Temporal distortion*
A Covenant-Bound Zero-Day Soul is a legal entity that happens to also be a dead person, not a ghost in the traditional sense. The instrument that binds them has specific terms, and the Soul's behavior is entirely organized around those terms. They are not generically hostile. They are doing what the Covenant requires.
Understanding what the Covenant requires is the key to every Zero-Day Soul encounter. A Soul bound by a property protection Covenant will protect the property, from anyone, regardless of whether the intruder is authorized or not. A Soul bound by a debt collection Covenant will pursue the debtor. A Soul bound by a guardian Covenant will guard the person or place specified, indefinitely.
Physical Presentation: Variable. Some Zero-Day Souls present as nearly normal, slightly translucent in direct light, unnaturally still when not in motion, with a faint subharmonic hum that Temporal practitioners can hear. Others are clearly post-mortem, injuries from the cause of death are visible, time has continued to work on them inconsistently, they may be partially in a time-state that doesn't match the present.
Typical Profile: - Body 2D, Speed 3D, Wit 3D (Temporal Harmonics 4D, Covenant-directed) - Temporal Harmonics application: the Soul can enforce terms of their Covenant with the force of Axiomatic law; this functions mechanically as a Covenant-directed ability (see Covenant of the Accord perk for reference framework) - Immune to most physical damage, the Soul is an active instrument, and instruments don't take wounds; they must be voided or resolved, not destroyed - Health: Not applicable in standard form, damage does not kill them (they are already dead); sustained damage may disrupt their physical coherence, forcing a reset period
Combat Behavior: A Covenant-Bound Soul does not fight; it enforces. Its actions are always expressly toward completing the terms of its Covenant. Anything that impedes that completion will be addressed as an obstacle. The Soul does not escalate beyond what the Covenant requires: if the Covenant says "protect the contents of this vault," the Soul will prevent access to the vault. It will not pursue people who leave the vault's premises, because pursuit is not within the instrument's terms.
Resolution: Zero-Day Souls cannot be destroyed, the Soul itself is the instrument made manifest. Resolution requires one of three approaches: 1. Satisfy the Covenant terms, complete what the instrument requires; the Soul dissolves 2. Formally void the instrument, requires a Temporal practitioner with Covenant-level authority (Stage 3+) and access to the Great Ledger; a Threshold 4 Wit + Temporal roll with appropriate Foci 3. Find the bad faith clause, most Covenants that produce Zero-Day Souls have a structural flaw that caused the entanglement; identifying it (Wit + Lore, Threshold 3) creates an argument for voiding the instrument on technical grounds
Encounter Notes: Zero-Day Soul encounters work best as investigation-plus-resolution structures rather than combat encounters. The players need to understand what the Covenant requires before they can determine how to resolve the situation. This rewards research, social engagement with the Soul if it's capable of communication, and Lore-skilled characters. The combat pressure is real, the Soul will enforce its terms, but combat is not the solution.
COVENANT HOSTILE (THE WRONGED)
Temporal Harmonics, Voided or Breached Covenant, Post-Mortem
Tier: Elite–Legendary | Role: Aggressive Covenant enforcement, targeted harm, institutional disruption*
The most dangerous category of Zero-Day Soul is one whose Covenant was breached by the other party, and the breach was never remedied before the Soul's death. Where a Covenant-Bound Soul is operating within instrument terms, a Covenant Hostile Soul is operating in response to a violation of those terms.
The instrument's bad faith clause has activated. The Soul is not protecting or pursuing; it is collecting.
These are the cases the Testamentary Resolution Division most urgently manages, because a Hostile Soul does not limit its enforcement to the terms of the original Covenant. It is pursuing remedy for breach, and the scope of remedy can be... broadly interpreted.
Typical Profile: - Body 2D, Speed 3D, Wit 4D (Temporal Harmonics 5D, breach-amplified) - Temporal Harmonics applications include: Covenant revocation effects targeting the breaching party's active instruments (other contracts, credentials, property titles, the Soul can move to void them); Environmental Temporal distortion at higher magnitude than a standard Bound Soul - Immune to physical damage - The Soul's presence actively destabilizes nearby Covenant instruments, characters with active LGT credentials in Near range may find their credentials flagging, not through any deliberate action, but because the Soul's Temporal field interacts with Axiomatic instruments as a structural interference
Combat Behavior: A Hostile Soul identifies the party responsible for the breach (or their heirs, or their institutional successors) and pursues remedy. The "fight" is entirely determined by what the remedy looks like under the original Covenant. If the Soul is targeting a specific person, the encounter is personal and intense. If the Soul is targeting an institution, an org, a legal successor entity, the encounter may be incidental to the party unless they are affiliated with that institution.
Resolution: Same three paths as Covenant-Bound, with one addition, acknowledging the breach and making a remedy offer is a legitimate Temporal Harmonics action. A practitioner with Covenant-level access can present a formal remedy proposal to the Soul, which it must evaluate against the instrument's terms. If the proposed remedy is Covenant-sufficient, the Soul accepts and dissolves. If it isn't, the Soul resumes. This makes high-Wit, Temporal-practiced characters uniquely capable of resolving what physical force cannot.
Adventure Hooks
The Sympathy Problem, A Resonance-Scarred Temporal practitioner has taken refuge in a residential district. The environmental distortion is making the area uninhabitable. The HIA wants containment. The practitioner's family wants them back. The party is caught between institutional mandate and human reality, and has a limited window before the HIA's containment team arrives with a less selective approach.
The Miner's Case, A former BVHI Seismic Engineer has reached Stage 2 Collapse Condition in a deep-transit maintenance corridor. She's sealed the access points herself to protect the transit system and the people in it. She's been there three days. BVHI's containment team is four hours out. The party has arrived first. She can still talk.
Unresolved Business, The party's base of operations has a Zero-Day Soul in the basement. Previous tenants assumed the building was haunted; the party has the technical expertise to figure out what's actually happening. The Soul is Covenant-Bound to "protect the contents of the lower storage." The storage contains something that was important enough to bind a person to it past death. That something is still there.
The Hostile Instrument, A Covenant Hostile Soul has begun systematically voiding the LGT credentials of anyone connected to a property deal that went wrong sixty years ago. Three current executives of LGT subsidiary organizations have had their credentials spontaneously revoked in the past week. The LGT wants it stopped. The Soul's grievance is legitimate. The party is the only ones who have read the original Covenant and understand what was actually done.