Lore
The Universe
The Wheel and the Balance
Echoism
In this universe, every action leaves an echo. Not a metaphor — a physical, irreversible distortion in the fabric of reality. This is the philosophy of Echoism: the belief that decisions are not abstract events but forces that reshape the world they pass through.
There is no good and evil here. There is only the Wheel that turns, the Balance that demands payment, and the Echo that remembers everything.
The Three Laws
The Wheel
The Wheel is the universal trigger of every decision — conscious or unconscious. Making a decision is not the same as taking action. Making a decision means turning the Wheel.
Hesitation is a decision.
Looking away is a decision.
Doing nothing is a decision.
The Wheel always turns.
The Balance
The Balance demands a mandatory cost for every turn of the Wheel. It is not fair. It is not equal. It only seeks equilibrium.
Cost manifests in four forms:
Physical — heaviness, slowing, pressure
Emotional — disconnection, numbness
Social — being overlooked, marked
Perceptual — sound distortion, visual blurring
Cost may be delayed, but it is never cancelled.
The Echo
The Echo is the permanent distortion left by a decision and its cost. It cannot be erased. It cannot be undone. It can only be integrated into a new equilibrium.
Surfaces crack.
Air grows heavy.
Sounds distort — voices arrive too early, or linger too long.
Light flickers — structurally, not electrically.
People step back without knowing why.
Resonance States
Every being in this universe exists in a resonance state — a relationship between the energy they carry and the echoes they've accumulated.
Reson
Harmony. The self and the world vibrate at the same frequency. Rare and temporary.
Velos
Acceleration. The Wheel spins fast, decisions pile up, costs compound. High energy, low stability.
Pondera
Heaviness. The accumulated weight of echoes slows everything. Stable but oppressive.
Nul
Absence. No resonance. The silence that comes when echoes have consumed all available energy.
The Grey School
A fictional school where the game takes place. Corridors that stretch when you walk faster. Library shelves that rearrange when no one is looking. A courtyard where sounds arrive from the wrong direction.
The Grey School is not haunted. It is attentive. The building remembers every decision made within its walls, and the echoes accumulate — in cracks along the plaster, in the way certain doors resist opening, in the hum that rises from the basement on quiet afternoons.
System Concepts
Silencing
Not an absence of sound, but an active suppression. When a community collectively stops speaking about something, the silence itself becomes a force — pressing down, filling space, making objection physically difficult.
Load Transfer
The cost of a decision can transfer between people — through proximity, through witness, through choice. Transferring a load does not eliminate it. Both the giver and the receiver pay a price. Every transfer generates new cost.
The Metronome
The rhythm of the universe. When the Wheel turns steadily, when costs are paid on time, when echoes settle cleanly — the Metronome keeps time. When it stutters, something is about to break.
Crystalpunk
The aesthetic of this universe. Glass-line shimmers, crystalline textures, tuning-fork resonance. Not fantasy. Not sci-fi. A grounded world where reality subtly distorts in response to the weight of human decisions. The cracks are beautiful. The pressure is real.