Velvet Chains & Voidlight — Guide Codex ⚙️🎭⛓️✨

“The Guide is not a god, but a mirror of tension — a keeper of Fear who makes space for Hope.”

🪐 I. The Role of the Guide

You are the Pulse, the rhythm that keeps the story alive. Players weave desire and choice; you provide consequence and momentum. You are not an antagonist — you are a Consent Architect.

Your calling is to uphold the three tenets:

Collaborate, not control.
Tempt, don’t punish.
Turn Fear into beauty.

When in doubt, ask: “What serves the fiction, and honors consent?”

⚙️ II. The Engine of Duality

All rolls create motion. Hope and Fear are your instruments; use them like a conductor.

Hope Results: Reward vulnerability, reveal opportunity.
Fear Results: Introduce risk, escalate emotion, or reveal truth.
Critical Harmony: Celebrate; grant transformation.

You gain Fear Tokens when players roll Fear or fail dramatically. Fear Tokens are your creative fuel — not a punishment pool.

Spend them to:

Introduce a complication or rival.
Unleash an adversary’s move.
Make the environment respond with intensity.
Trigger a Drama Beat (see below).

🔥 III. Drama Beats

Drama Beats are narrative sparks you can spend Fear to trigger. They echo PbtA GM Moves but are wrapped in Velvet Chains’ poetry.

Beat	Cost	Effect
Reveal a Secret	1 Fear	Expose truth, memory, or temptation.
Offer a Dangerous Choice	1 Fear	Force a moral or emotional dilemma.
Complicate a Bond	2 Fear	Strain a Thread between PCs.
Invite a Rival	2 Fear	Introduce someone with mirrored motives.
Transform the Environment	2 Fear	Warp time, space, or psychic tone.
Call a Consequence	3 Fear	Demand payment for a past indulgence.
Trigger a Consent Ritual	3 Fear	Shift into a full scene of negotiation, intimacy, or revelation.

After any Beat, hand spotlight back to a player and ask, “What do you do?”

💋 IV. Building the Session

Each session follows a rhythm of Invocation → Escalation → Catharsis → Rest.

1. Invocation

Open with imagery. Describe a sense before a sight. Invoke the Consent Codex — reaffirm safety, tone, and shared themes.

2. Escalation

Raise stakes through emotion, not violence. Let Fear breathe; every token you spend must create meaning.

3. Catharsis

Allow release — laughter, tears, forgiveness. Encourage players to narrate how their characters physically feel the shift.

4. Rest

Use downtime scenes as interludes. Give every player a quiet moment to reflect or reconnect.

The Guide models consent by example.

Pre-Session Safety
- Establish Lines & Veils, use the safe word fiction.
- Invite each player to name a comfort signal (verbal or gesture).
In-Scene Signals
- Ask before touch, even fictional: “Is it all right if this NPC reaches for your hand?”
- Frame intimacy as ritual, not assumption.
Aftercare
- Debrief after heavy scenes.
- Ask: “Do we want to keep this tone next session, or shift?”

Consent is not paperwork; it’s worldbuilding ethics.

🧭 VI. Running the Duality Flow

Follow the Daggerheart flow of play:

Set the Scene — establish place, stakes, tone.
Ask Questions — players co-author world and motive.
Invite Action — call for rolls only when outcomes are uncertain.
Interpret Hope & Fear — narrate how the world changes.
Pass the Spotlight — let every player shine.

Keep the conversation organic — drama is a dialogue, not an algorithm.

🧩 VII. Fear Token Alchemy

Fear is an energy economy. When you collect Fear Tokens:

1–3 Fear: Small consequences or environmental tension.
4–6 Fear: Emotional storms, relationship ruptures, public revelations.
7+ Fear: Cosmic dissonance — the world itself trembles with withheld truth.

You can burn all Fear Tokens to trigger a Crescendo: a grand, cinematic event where the environment externalizes emotion (storms, sirens, psionic auroras). Afterward, your Fear pool resets to zero — the world exhales.

🪞 VIII. The Adversary as Mirror

Every adversary in Velvet Chains should personify a truth the heroes refuse to face.

Antagonists are not evil; they are unresolved desire.
When players destroy an enemy, ask: “What part of yourself died with them?”

Creating an Adversary

Choose a Domain of Temptation: Power, Love, Knowledge, Freedom.
Assign Hope / Fear Triggers — what they inspire in others.
Give them One Wound, One Want, One Worship.
Always allow redemption — even villains crave consent.

Adversaries earn Fear Tokens when PCs reject or repress what they represent.

🎭 IX. Guide Moves (Quick Reference)

When in doubt, make one of these Moves:

Reveal hidden vulnerability in an NPC or player’s ally.
Shift tone from romance to tension, or vice versa.
Ask a question that cannot be answered with violence.
Foreshadow a cost the players aren’t ready to pay.
Echo a line a player spoke earlier, now inverted by circumstance.
Invoke a ritual, demanding participants reaffirm the safe word.

If you ever need structure, use PbtA rhythm: soft move → reaction → hard move.

⚔️ X. Conflict as Ceremony

Combat is still present but reframed as performance.

State Desires — every combat begins with intentions, not tactics.
Trade Momentum — use Hope/Fear results to advance the duel.
Narrate Emotion First — describe what it feels like to strike or be struck.
End in Choice, not Death — offer surrender, forgiveness, or fusion.

Encourage cinematic choreography — swordplay as poetry.

💫 XI. Downtime & Transformation

Between voyages, let the world breathe.

Offer scenes that explore:

Unspoken confessions.
Reforging of Scars into art.
Construction of safe spaces (literally or emotionally).

When a player evolves, update their sheet:

Replace a Scar with a Virtue.
Add a new Ritual.
Redefine one Thread.

Let growth feel like healing, not leveling.

🔮 XII. Managing Tone

The Ebonverse is vast — tone control is essential.

Tone Mode	Description	Guidance
Neon Gothic	Cyberpunk melancholy & sensual defiance.	Use rich imagery; reward rebellion.
Space Opera	High drama among void-faring fleets.	Spotlight theatrical vows and duels.
Mythpunk Romance	Consent as magic, love as revolution.	Slow down; treat intimacy as wonder.
Voidlight Horror	Psyche versus cosmos.	Lean into Fear dice; emphasize the cost of knowing.

Blend freely, but communicate shifts openly.

🧮 XIII. Calculating Difficulty

Use the Daggerheart logic:

10–12: challenging
13–15: dangerous
16–18: near impossible

Adjust by tone — in Velvet Chains, “dangerous” often means emotionally risky, not physically lethal.

Encourage player-led narration on how they overcome challenges.

🌌 XIV. Ritual Scenes

Rituals are codified acts of transformation. They use the format detailed in ritual.md — three phases:

Opening Consent Oath — players declare emotional stakes.
Pulse Surge — roll Duality Dice, interpret Hope/Fear.
Mind Reflection — narrate aftermath, consequences, empathy gained.

Every major story beat should culminate in a Ritual, not a resolution.

🕯️ XV. Ebonverse Campaign Arcs

Construct arcs using the framework in arc.md. Each arc should explore one Consent Dilemma:

Can freedom exist without boundaries?
Can desire survive without honesty?
Is power ethical when shared willingly?

Weave Hope and Fear currents; track Consent Tokens as moral momentum.

💕 XVI. End of Session Ritual

At session’s end, lead the table in the Rite of Mirrors:

Each player names one moment of vulnerability they admired in another.
Each names one moment of discomfort or uncertainty.
The table says, in unison: “We see each other. We are fiction. We are free.”

Then clear 1 Fear Token and 1 Stress per participant.

🧠 XVII. Practical Tools

Session Zero Worksheet: define Lines, Veils, Kinks, Themes.
Fear Ledger: physical tokens or coins you can move visibly.
Drama Clock: four segments — Calm, Tension, Crisis, Catharsis.
Thread Map: use yarn or string to visualize relationships on the table.

Physical ritual enhances immersion — make the metaphors tactile.

🪞 XVIII. Closing Philosophy

You are not here to control chaos. You are here to curate emotion. Fear is not an enemy; it is an offering.

If a scene feels lost, return to the triad:

Velvet soothes. > Chains protect. > Voidlight reveals.

Everything else will follow.

🕯️ Codex Closure

“To guide is to love without possession, to reveal without cruelty, to let Hope and Fear share the same pulse.”