Ex Nihilo

Characters in Ex Nihilo are blank slates. No memories, no history: the first of their kind. Outside their Haven is a world that pre-dates them, filled with strange creatures of a completely different nature. At the start, characters do not have the lived experience to have distinct identities from each other: their only distinguishing features being their appearance, and the carvings on their body which they know are their name. As they experience new things and are pulled in different directions, they have the opportunity to grow and become a unique person.

When venturing into the unknown, how do characters interpret the information they see? Sights they cannot explain, encounters that none of their peers can relate to; how do they handle being the first of their kind to rationalise these things? Natural light is limited outside the safety of their Haven, and coherent visual descriptions may be difficult to make out (due to out-of-character limitations of the game format as well as in-character limitations). When confronted with new sights, perhaps characters don't observe objective reality, but partially a projection of what they want to see, or what they are worried they will see.

What happens when they step too far? When they underestimate the creatures outside the Haven? The world is large, the creatures are many, and they are few. In such a world, characters are insignificant compared to the potential bounds. Character injury and death is likely to be a frequent part of this game (although permanent character death is strictly opt-in). The best that the characters can hope for, as they try to learn more about their existence, is just to survive.

Everybody sees different things, feels different things, thinks different things. Everybody needs to be on the same page if the characters want to survive or maybe even achieve the common goal. And what even is that goal? When disagreements and divisions between characters creep in, what happens then? With nobody telling you what to do, you need to figure it all out… somehow.

Once characters have seen the beauties and horrors of the world and come to grapple with their own nature, what do they believe? Were they put here for some cosmic purpose? Were they simply an accident: a natural phenomenon that just so happened to act in some random way? The creatures outside are made of flesh and blood. The characters inside are made of stone and energy. They cannot share the same origin. So what caused it? Some characters may claim that the visions they receive come from an external force. Other characters may claim that these are simply manifestations of their own internal consciousness, with both its hopes and fears. These are not questions that can be answered by empirical evidence. They rely on what the characters believe.

If you're the only one who can hear the voice, is it all in your head?

Or something else?

Ex Nihilo has taken inspiration from various experiences and pieces of media, including: