Lens Rupture Tracks

Each Lens Aspect has a rupture track, a series of boxes that measure how stable that part of your identity is. As the story unfolds, these boxes will be marked or blacked out in response to your choices, compels, and the weight of events.

Marks represent temporary strain: the Aspect is stressed, distorted, or compromised, but it can recover with time and effort. Blackouts represent permanent rupture: the Aspect has been broken, erased, or rewritten, and only major milestones or extraordinary narrative action can restore it.

When an Aspect’s rupture track is completely blacked out, the Lens ruptures. The character must replace it with a new Aspect that reflects how their identity has changed. The rupture track is the heartbeat of Forgotten Gods: it shows which parts of your self can endure, and which will fracture under pressure.

Rupture need not be a negative. It is simply the dissolution of an existing Lens, a marker of growth, not just loss. An existing Lens must be ruptured in order for a new Lens to be introduced.

Lens Tracks measure the stability of each Lens Aspect. Boxes may be marked (temporary strain) or blacked out (permanent rupture).

Marks represent temporary but weighty strain. They can be cleared through downtime, milestones, or significant narrative action.

A Lens box may be marked when:

• Make A Hard Choice: choosing corruption on a failed roll
• Accept a Compel on the Lens Aspect or a twisted Expression
• Ritual or miracle backlash when power is overreached
• Narrative Pressure of obligations or duties that erode selfhood
• Voluntary narrative compromise by the player
• Acting against the Imperative of the Lens Aspect (must be explicitly called out and acknowledged by the table)

Blackouts represent permanent rupture. They are not cleared through normal recovery, only through extraordinary narrative action, replacement at milestone, or miracle-level redemption.

A Lens box may be blacked out when:

• Loss of a key Anchor tied to the Lens
• Catastrophic narrative trauma that erases or redefines the identity
• Corruption escalation beyond what a mark can represent (full surrender to temptation)
• GM fiat at milestone when fiction demands permanence
• Lens-Quest completion: the player intentionally pursues a personal arc that ends in transforming or discarding the Lens.