Videre
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Videre refers to the subjective nature of the Umbra in the World of Darkness family of role-playing games. What a person encounters in the Umbra has much to do with what they believe and what their outlook towards the Tellurian (or multiverse) is. Videre specifically refers to the aspect that a person's surroundings takes on as a direct result of their own beliefs, as well as the act of perception that individuals use to impose their views on reality. Some regions in the Umbra have a concrete identity that is immutable, and is not affected by videre. In many cases, if such locations have an aspect that disagrees with a person's videre, that person simply cannot access (or find evidence of) that realm. It simply does not exist for them. Other regions are highly morphic, so much so that a group of individuals travelling together can see their surroundings in radically different ways. Most fall somewhere in between, with the videre most common in a group being dominant and only affecting the surroundings somewhat. While each person's expectations for the Umbra are subtly different from every other's, four broad categories of videre are common in the contemporary World of Darkness.
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[edit] Astral Videre
Beings with an astral videre include many mages, any being who has entered the Umbra through astral projection, and many Umbrood. An astral videre casts everything in the Umbra in terms of symbols, themes, and metaphors. At its most basic, an astral videre feels at once intensely real and fundamentally surreal. At its most extreme, every metaphor and symbol is composed of other metaphors and symbols, as deeply as a person is willing to delve.
[edit] Mortific Videre
Beings with a mortific videre include all wraiths and mages with an unhealthy fixation on death. It casts the Umbra as a decayed shadow of reality. The environments within this videre are familiar, but have been subjected to forces of decay, filth, and death. The Mortific Videre is also known as Videre Mortum.
[edit] Spiritual Videre
Beings with a spiritual videre include all werewolves, Kuei-jin, and shamanistic mages, as well as the Triat and its minions. This videre projects the Umbra as an interaction of primal forces such as life and death, order and chaos, and yin and yang. The Spiritual Videre is also known as Videre Spiritus.
[edit] Technological Videre
The most recently developed videre, the technological videre is held exclusively by the Technocracy and those mages who have split off from it. It depicts the Umbra either as deep space or as a series of parallel subdimensions. Interestingly, this videre carries with it a serious price - as the Umbral reaches get further distant from Earth, beings with a technological videre find them increasingly toxic. Many Technocrats find themselves requiring respirators or even space suits where shamanistic mages have no difficulty breathing.
