Ask a simple question, get a simple answer - Beast edition.

[ArcaneArts]

Short version: It's your id-shadow, and that your id-shadow blankets the countryside and so acts as all's shadows does not divorce it from the fact.

[Demigod Beast]

A two part question:

Can a Beast use Primordial Pathways to follow a mummy who’s heading to Duat after a Descent?

And if so, could a Beast have a Chamber in Duat?

[Satchel]

Can a Beast use Primordial Pathways to follow a mummy who’s heading to Duat after a Descent?

Considering that Duat is not a consistent world engaged with through game mechanics, I would say no, much the same as they can't follow a Prospect along on their Awakening into the Supernal World or a vampire into their torpor dreams.

The Oneiros contains powerful memories like the dreams that form Chambers, and the Dreaming Roads are protean enough to justify being where attempts to access the Hedge through Primordial Pathways end up, but Duat isn't visited by anyone whose psyche participates in the Bright or Primordial Dreams.

It's a timeless Hell whose residents use images of themselves to breach containment. Plot devices might allow it, but there's multiple layers of justification you'd have to go through to get there and then you wouldn't be able to get out, since you're not rolling for anything there, including attempts to open a Primordial Pathway back home.

[Demigod Beast]

Ok! Thanks!

[Demigod Beast]

Well, then....if a Beast accompanies an archmaster into a Lustrum, could the Beast form a Chamber either in the mage’s Golden Path or in the Lustrum?

[Satchel]

Well, then....if a Beast accompanies an archmaster into a Lustrum, could the Beast form a Chamber either in the mage’s Golden Path or in the Lustrum?

The Lustrum ceases to exist once the archmaster stops being able to sustain it and the circumstances required to form a Chamber still apply. The Golden Road is more persistent, but the same caveat about forming Chambers applies with the further addition of "what Lair Traits are you going to hang Chamber formation off of in a space where there's basically nothing there but the exits?"

A Chantry would be a different story, because a Chantry is a proper world to some degree (being formed from a seed location not entirely unlike how Chambers are), but "a shining pathway of Pneuma stretching through a darkened landscape that flickers with emotional color and flashes with spellcasting" doesn't give much space for things to happen on compared to the worlds it provides access to.

[Demigod Beast]

I imagine Void Moment Insatiable would find it rather comforting, a Golden Road.

[Demigod Beast]

What is the “reach” of an Apex? A city? A region? How do I define where one Apex’s dominion in the Primordial Dream ends and another Apex’s begins?

[Satchel]

What is the “reach” of an Apex? A city? A region? How do I define where one Apex’s dominion in the Primordial Dream ends and another Apex’s begins?

An Apex affects a hive, and a hive corresponds to a population center. That might translate to a metropolitan area or a borough or a town. A reasonable reading would probably be "within the range that people consider a place with a discrete unifying cultural identity." New York City and Chicago and other major cities with large culturally-recognized subdivisions might have Apexes for separate boroughs or major neighborhoods, and "the outskirts" or "the edge of town" might be close enough to demarcate the borders of the hive within the larger dreamscape, but individual streets and entire counties alike are probably too small or large, respectively. Building A Legend has the shifting interface between the Apexes of Minnesota's Twin Cities as a story hook, and also dedicates its entire first chapter and a not-insignificant portion of its second chapter to talking about the region in which a chronicle takes place.

Since hives are made from Chambers and Chambers come from the Bright Dream by way of people, it's going to be a fuzzier boundary than you might get in a game that didn't have "no neat little boxes" as a running theme.

[Omichli]

Is it possible to create and play new, nonmythological beasts of our own imagination? I've always been intrigued with the idea of Changeling the Lost's myriad Kiths and Deviant the Renegade's all-you-can-eat buffet of supernatural creatures. I keep thinking that it should be the same with Beast, but I can't help but feel that it's mostly limited to mythology-only creatures. I'm intrigued by the setting of Beast, though.

[Demigod Beast]

Sure! I once made up an Ugallu whose Horror was an all-per asive surveillance system in his city-Lair, very Orwellian.

[Satchel]

Is it possible to create and play new, nonmythological beasts of our own imagination? I've always been intrigued with the idea of Changeling the Lost's myriad Kiths and Deviant the Renegade's all-you-can-eat buffet of supernatural creatures. I keep thinking that it should be the same with Beast, but I can't help but feel that it's mostly limited to mythology-only creatures. I'm intrigued by the setting of Beast, though.

The line's fiction anthology includes a character whose Horror is a freaky thing with IV lines running down its arms, the line's Ready-Made Characters include a character whose Horror is a crumbling mass of soot and dirt, and the Introduction of the corebook outright says that Horrors run the gamut from storied monsters of legend to forgotten tales from dead cultures to modern inventions.

A Beast is the human point of contact for a being that is equal parts local cryptid and manifest communal anxiety; the Horror takes its shape from the bits of human culture that have been springing up around traumatic contact with the supernatural and the baneful elements of the world itself. Sometimes that's a dragon, sometimes it's a gremlin, sometimes it's a weird nest of eyes and mouths, sometimes it's a big crocodile that catches you when you're drunk, thrashes you into mist, and inhales you. A well-established Doylist audience isn't a precondition for a Horror's form, and lord knows there's been some weird stuff in folklore and mythology before.

tl;dr: Nope, go nuts if you've got something you think you can spin into an interesting story.

[ArcaneArts]

"Tyrannical gods, the world itself a Lie? Distant Cousin, do not deny all that is dark as some external force of evil. It is as natural as the light. And the limits you overcome every day mean nothing without it"- a Beast to a mage

So it's weird for me to be asking this, because I'm me, but somehow, despite having a notion that Beasts might get caught up in Awakenings and wanting to explore that, and otherwise knowing that, for as invisible the Invisible Tyrants are, Exarchial influence and effect do have ready presence in the world that a Beast can nominally come across and know about, I actually haven't considered how they would actually approach the idea of the Lie and the Exarchs-and I'm at work, so I can't do any deep dive thinking on it until later today.

So, to kickstart said thinking-uh, yeah, how do y'all think the Begotten interact with this view of reality?

[TempleBuilder]

So, to kickstart said thinking-uh, yeah, how do y'all think the Begotten interact with this view of reality?

I’m not going to claim any particular insight into the Begotten mindset, but my initial feeling is that their response would be incredibly divided over the matter. Like, way worse than even Mages. As I understand, the Lie can be summarized as “this is all there is”. The longer version might be “There isn’t enlightenment, the world is fundamentally uncontrollable and unknowable, and you can’t do anything make things better”. There are going to be Horrors who internal story revolves around such themes. Heck, some might feed by inducing such concepts into people. And plenty do the opposite. And some will say “ok, so what?”. Or only care about it when their Mage kin are around. And a good chunk just won’t really understand. The most unified response probably will be a polite refusal to talk about the Lie, so as not to anger anyone in the Family.

[Primordial newcomer]

So it's weird for me to be asking this, because I'm me, but somehow, despite having a notion that Beasts might get caught up in Awakenings and wanting to explore that, and otherwise knowing that, for as invisible the Invisible Tyrants are, Exarchial influence and effect do have ready presence in the world that a Beast can nominally come across and know about, I actually haven't considered how they would actually approach the idea of the Lie and the Exarchs-and I'm at work, so I can't do any deep dive thinking on it until later today.

So, to kickstart said thinking-uh, yeah, how do y'all think the Begotten interact with this view of reality?

Happy that quote got a reaction lol.

I actually only came up with it in the spot, but I've always felt Beasts beliefs on it would range from "the exarchs represent harsh Truths, much like us.", to "the Lie is not a good thing...if you're human" to "disgustingly similar to the breach of agency heroes represent, except in a scale even we can't imagine"

One very real possibility I see, is that Beasts come to their understanding of mages through the Astral Aeons alongside interacting with mages. I think one reaction possible is that Beasts see the Arcana as a natural aspect of humanity and its place in the collective consciousness, and may see exarchal influence as an artifical stamping out of true enlightenment and self determinations Beasts may see themselves as representative of.

EDIT: oh and of course, the viewpoint of the beast in the quote, that exarchal influence is really a natural consequence of human behavior (as they are invested in the Fallen, and the way ministries spread exarchal influence is ultimately with methods reflective of humanity as a whole, and thus reflected in the Astral and Primordial dream). That said, I am assuming this view with beast poijt of view bias AND lack of understanding as mages do