Jump to content

Main Page

From The Apparatus
Main

This wiki is part of the Secret Chamber group of RPG sites.

The Setting

This high fantasy setting is called The Apparatus. It has been a creative effort since 1987, with many revisions and collaborations throughout the years.

If you are looking for something specific, then you probably want to start with the Compendia, which is a list of different areas of the setting. Otherwise, if you are just browsing the wiki, then the information below is a good entry point.

Origins

The Apparatus is organized around four Origins of Power.

Integral Origin

The Integrum is the natural world as experienced by its inhabitants, the only Origin of Power governed by consistent, predictable natural laws. It is the sole Origin that can be understood through logic, observation, and empirical inquiry, making it the only scientifically knowable foundation of reality. In metaphysical terms, the Integrum functions as a vast, finely crafted mechanism: a clockwork universe whose orderly operation is known as the Apparatus, from which the campaign world takes its name.

The Integrum defines the default state of existence. Wherever its influence is unimpeded, reality behaves lawfully and coherently, producing an orderly and often idyllic environment for its denizens. All instability, contradiction, and suffering arise from interference by other Origins, which disrupt the normal function of the machine rather than originating within it. Though indifferent, the Integrum is not accidental: it is the enduring manifestation of the designs of its creators, the long-vanished Founders, whose will remains embedded in its structure even in their absence.

The main entry points for exploring The Integrum are:

Strange Origin

The Strange is an Origin of Power born from the first great cataclysm of the Integrum, known as The Shattering. When the Apparatus was broken, fragments of its orderly structure failed, and from those ruptures the Strange leaked into existence as a metaphysical residue of malfunctioning reality. Unlike the Integrum, which operates through consistent natural law, the Strange exists as a substantive force that pools, spreads, and persists wherever the integrity of reality is compromised.

The Strange by its nature defies simple definition. It is, at its core, an aberration or subversion of natural law. Events shaped by this Origin are coherent, but only through dream logic and narrative intuition rather than linear reason. Time, identity, and consequence lose their fixed forms. For example, beings born of the Strange cannot truly die, instead fading and reemerging with fractured memories that recall past lives out of order, as though remembered from a dream. Though the Strange itself possesses no will or intent, it readily absorbs the influence of minds within it, allowing places and phenomena to develop emergent, symbolic behaviors that reflect accumulated desire, fear, and identity.

Strange manifestations are both psychological and physical. It gives rise to dreams, madness, prophecy, and inspiration, as well as to monsters, mutations, and violations of biological finality that intrude upon the Integrum. Dangerous yet alluring, the Strange offers mortals power, meaning, or transcendence at a cost that is rarely understood in advance. Once established, it clings to reality, requiring active intervention to remove, and stands as the primary source of chaos within an otherwise lawful universe.

The primary entry points for exploring The Strange are:

Fury Origin

Void Origin

Rules

To see how the setting is expressed in various rule systems, you can click the rule systems below.

Notes

A place to take Notes that don't have a home yet.

Retrieved from "https://apparatus.secretchamber.org/index.php?title=Main_Page&oldid=5116"