My Briny Heaven

by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan

The goal of the Ocean Game is to reach Briny Heaven, a drowned magical city under the ocean. It is, deliberately, an esoteric, disturbing or even contradictory goal. Part of the appeal of Briny Heaven is that it is the only way out of the Game; no matter what’s down there, it’s better than being trapped in a cavalcade of murder, betrayal and razor-wielding monkeys. However, inquisitive or hesitant players (or Players) may seek out more information about Briny Heaven, in which case, deploy some or all of the following options.

Drowned Atlantis

A drowned city of magic? Here’s one we prepared earlier! Briny Heaven is Atlantis, the city of scholars and scientists, the root of all secret teachings and esoteric philosophy. Once you start down the Atlantis route through Theosophy and Edgar Cayce and mysticism, there’s a wealth of material to use (true, a lot of it soaked in racism and fascism or quantum woo, so pick and choose carefully.) In this interpretation, Briny Heaven is a city of temples and weed-garlanded libraries, where togaed philosophers walk about in the silty gloom bearing lamps of wisdom.

Ask players who glimpse Briny Heaven/who meet travellers who returned from Briny Heaven/find an account describing it, etc.:

• What great sage or philosopher did you encounter down there?

• What cosmic secret can be learned down there?

• What wound or discomfort is healed just by being there?

• An enchanted palace awaits you in Briny Heaven. What’s there?

• What form do the spirits or angel attendants take in Briny Heaven?

The Realm of Rebirth

The ocean is our collective unconscious, the great collective soul from which we all come and to which we all return. The vast, vast majority of people are like raindrops – born in flesh, they join the collective river of society that rushes back down towards the ocean and oblivion. Those who have reached Briny Heaven have souls of insoluble diamond; they can retain their individuality and remain conscious even when they return to that collective. And oh, the delights that await them there! Briny Heaven is the realm of archetypes, it’s the shared desires of all humanity. The city is all cities. The food there is the quintessence of satisfaction, the drink is every thirst that was ever quenched, from a newborn’s first taste of its mother’s milk to the last sip of water on a deathbed. Those who reach Briny Heaven can choose to be reborn at any point in human history, and while they dimly recall elements of their past while alive, they recall everything when they return once more to the ocean. Maybe the Players have already won, and they’re just going home…

• What are the archetypal buildings in the drowned eternal city?

• When in Briny Heaven, you take on the form of your best past life – how do you appear there?

• As well as the immortal winners of the Ocean Game, Briny Heaven is inhabited by Jungian archetypes – the Mother, the Wise Old Man, the Shadow – and as more esoteric figures glimpsed through the Tarot, like the Hanged Man or the Empress. Who have you encountered there?

Inner Light

One Membrane protects Earth from the Outer Dark. A second Membrane, which blind humans perceive as the salty waters of the ocean, protects Briny Heaven from the tainted substance of the upper world. Briny Heaven is the last refuge of the world as it should be, a reality untainted by the malign forces of the Outer Dark. Take humanity, subtract every fear spawned by the Outer Dark, take away the sordid echoes of the Sisterites and the Shatters, cleanse us of the burdens of the Motherlode and the Ovvashi, scrub our genetic material free of our ancestry of Cuckoo Mothers and all the other horrors – and all the self-inflicted evils inspired by those horrors – and you get Briny Heaven.

It is not a comforting place. The light here is the light the True Humans see, a light of revelation that strips away all illusions. It is not merciful or gentle; the pressure of perfection is as crushing as the pressure of the ocean depths. But it is the only true opposition to the Outer Dark, the only refuge.

• The structures down in Briny Heaven are the remnants of fortresses and sanctums of the Light that were destroyed by the Outer Dark; they’re the echoes of lost havens. They’re Camelot and Avalon and Eden before the Fall. What else is down there?

• What forces defend Briny Heaven against the Outer Dark? What trophies have they brought back to Briny Heaven?

• While Briny Heaven’s mostly in a defensive posture, there is evidence of some counterstrategy or counter-measure – although it is one that might seem cruel or disturbing to an ordinary human. How is Briny Heaven preparing ordinary, blind humanity to resist the Dark?

A Balm for Horror

Every player’s Ocean Game begins with a Moment of Horror. Their game should end, therefore, with a moment of release, of healing. Briny Heaven is the place where the Player is reconciled to the horror, where they are relieved of the burden of memory or come to understand how the horror happened and what it means. Premature encounters with Briny Heaven, therefore, involve a return to the Moment of Horror from another perspective, revealing more context or meaning but also slowly erasing it.

• You see your Moment of Horror as if you’re looking in through a rain-streaked window. What new aspect of the moment do you notice?

• You come upon a tableau of your Moment of Horror, but it’s a sculpture made of sand on the shore. What do you learn before the waves wash it away?