The Parisian Desolace: A Style-Guide

Alright, so I've had this question raised, and given the brand new setting and feel of a Post-apocalyptic wasteland, where does the classes like the Forgotten, Rogues and Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapons fit into the world's lore, when it comes to the aspects of creating a character. Lets start with the Elephant in the Room first.

The Forgotten and Rogues.

As a Forgotten Shadow/Demon Weapon, you've fallen victim to one of Demeter's Vile experiments on Humans after the fall. Either you were kidnapped from a vault, plucked from the wilds as a Vagrant, or you were chosen amongst the Slaves to take part in this study. Despite everything, Demeter's highly interested in the maluable souls that Mankind posses, and have tried to Fuse Shadows and in some cases even the essence of Lesser demons into them. The result is a human who can call upon the powers of a Demon or Shadow at their own behest, though not everyone has it that easy.

A Rogue Persona is born through this same process, except that they have an innate but slumbering Persona that rejects the Shadow or Demon Essence, though this does not come without causing some damage to the Soul. These Personas are highly unstable, and are often found to be difficult to control. Since you don't have access to "Pills" to quell your persona in this universe, you'll instead have to take shadow essence in from the enemies you slay. The essence itself is the rather repulsive looking, inky remains of a shadow after it's been slain. You drink from this to Activate Overdose.

The Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapons are the last bits of human technology that survived The Fall (Vaults nonwithstanding). Most of the surviving units are created by the Halcyon Collective, who used to study both Shadows and Personas in the past. The Core of an Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon is very fragile, much like a human Soul, and thus is capable of summoning Personas themselves. If this core is somehow damaged, the Android can no longer access their persona until its repaired, however, the Umbral Skills can still be used, as they stem from another source altogether. Abzu is an example of this. She's a Darkened Shadow Weapon, who cannot summon their persona due to their core being damaged. You'll need a Plume of Dusk to repair one, although to Damage a Core you'll need such an excessive amount of force, you'll most likely never encounter this yourself, unless you willingly expose yourself to circumstances that allow it.

So where do I start as any of the classes?

Well, All Classes (barring the Velvet Room Attendants) can start as either Vagrants (Survivors of the Fall who wander the Desolace without a place to call home) or Enslaved (Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapons are exempt from this).

Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapons, Persona Users and Nyarlathotep Children also have the Option to start as a Vault Dweller, in which case you'll start your journey in one of the many Vaults hidden beneath the surface of Paris. As of Writing this, Vault Olympia is the only Vault uncovered in the story, but you're 100% free to add your own, or if more have been found by the time you're reading this, you can start in any Discovered Vault that's livable.

Style-Guide for Vaults: The Vaults themselves are, for the most part, made by the Halcyon Collective, and have been built in pretty much every major city across France and Germany. Namewise, I tend to base the names loosely on Places of Myth or some such (Like Vault Olympia is obviously based on Mount Olympos).

For the sake of starting the story, I do recommend either starting off as a Vagrant, Enslaved or a Dweller from Vault Olympia.

Alright, so onto the Topic of Shadow Selves and Awakenings.

Unlike the games, I'm taking some Creative Liberty with the Shadow Selves in this universe. Seeing as we don't really have a "Metaverse" or TV world to rely on for Mirrored Images of ourselves, A Shadow Self is simply put a Vagrant or some other unlucky soul who was killed by a roaming Shadow. Here, normal Shadows are essentially the demonized remains of humans once a demon kills them. Rather than letting them get their eternal rest, the Demons prefer to keep a shred of them around, either as some guard dogs, or potential recruits to their army. Shadow Selves are created when a Normal shadow finds a body to assimilate. The Bodiless Shadows yearn for a way to become whole again, and taking another's body as a host somewhat fills the gnawing void left behind after their "Death". Though the assimilation isn't perfect, as there's always going to be some kind of disconnect between the Shadow and the Host's body.

When a Shadow Self is born, they know nothing about who they took, or what even their old name was (In both the sense of the body, and the shadow that used to be human), so in essence it's a fresh start. Much like Teddie in Persona 4, The Shadow Self isn't even aware of what they are. When put through immense pressure or stress, their true form may expose itself in a rather violent and earthshaking fashion.

Awakenings are dealt with in the same way Persona 3 handled it. The flame within ignites when one's life, or anothers, is in danger of being lost to either demons or shadows. So nothing's really changed there. Same goes for typically every class with a Persona, Shadow weapon or a True Self. The only one who stands out as different is the Nyarlathotep Child, who is gifted their powers by "The Countess".