As you may have gathered from the title, this chapter is for the GM. Players can read it if they wish—there are no metaplot secrets or spoilers—but reading this chapter is a lot like learning how a magic trick works. And trust me, learning how a trick works is a lot less sexy than watching the trick in the audience.
In the audience, everything appears effortless. Magic. Once you know about the trap door in the floor or the marked cards or the slight hand gesture that hides the bird from plain sight… trust me, knowing how the trick works isn’t as cool as it sounds.
And using a magician metaphor is entirely appropriate here. After all, a GM is a kind of magician. Magicians create something out of nothing. Pulling rabbits out of hats, making beautiful assistants appear and disappear, pulling your card out of a deck of 52. Creating something from nothing.
Shanri and the ven do not exist. Not anymore, anyway. But the GM’s job is to convince you that your character does exist. To pull emotions out of you from pure fiction.
When you feel the danger of the ork.
When you feel the passion of Revenge.
When you feel the mystery of a puzzle house.
Magician. Making something from nothing.
The ven called this altrua. (Do not believe scholars who say this is the true root of the word “altruism” or “truth.” They’re talking out of their hats.) The best translation for this word is the Greek pathos.
In a dark theater, watching the hero on the screen, and you feel his pain as your own.
Watching the TV, feeling the heroine’s heart break, the pain as real as your own.
Reading the novel, the suspense in the detective’s chest, pounding as hard as your own.
Altrua. Pathos.
This is your primary goal as the GM. To make the players feel what the characters feel. What they see. What they smell. A hint of danger. That whiff of scented hair. The taste of the wine. The bliss of new love. The cut of steel against flesh.
All of these things are possible. Something from nothing.
Magic.
Let me show you.