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The History of Prosaic Earth a part of Mundane History.

Prosaic history is plastic -- it can be molded, and will hold the shape it's given. Mythic history is liquid -- it just slops around to fill whatever container surrounds it. On Earth, prosaic history is all about consistency between witnesses. (On other worlds, it might work differently at GM's discretion.)

Prosaic history on Earth has aspirations to objectivity, and requires reliable witnesses to hold its shape. These witnesses are Imperators and their Nobles. Once an Imperator or Noble has seen a prosaic event it cannot be undone unless:

• you kill off (or Excruciate) all the Nobles and Imperators who've witnessed it
• an Imperial miracle makes history liquid for a time

With prosaic history, Nobles are free to change stuff that no Noble or Imperator has witnessed. Such changes may bring about insanity among mundanes, but won't directly mess with Nobles. You can intervene in prosaic history in a number of ways -- by performing suitable Miracles of Estate, or by walking trails through time to intervene personally.

Nobles can still mess with each other indirectly using prosaic history. Changes to prosaic history won't change the prosaic events that Nobles remember, but may change the mundane world's interpretation of those events, or the destinies of mundane things that Nobles care about.

What occurs when Nobles attack each other through prosaic history is that their prosaic history doesn't change, but the meaning of the prosaic history -- the link to mythic history -- gets damaged. The damage is good for plots and Nettle Rites, but doesn't undo the personality and memories of the affected Nobles.

Excrucians are not witnesses of Creation, so Nobles can attack them through prosaic history quite effectively. For instance, if you go back and kill the parents and friends and employers and bank managers of an Excrucian's Anchor, that Anchor will still exist, but will no longer have parents or friends or a job or a bank account -- just false memories of such things. To get around this, Excrucians often try to get Nobles to inadvertently Witness events that they want to "lock into" prosaic history.

See also

• Time And Chronology