GHOSTSWEAT
The Echos · Variance Scar Above the Felt
Official Lore · Canon Echos Origin

Inside the Echos

The Echos are a variance scar above the felt. Every hand you watch, every rail you sweat, pushes energy into that scar until the crystals crack and the Souls flare into view.

Board-approved canon Same physics as Game Mechanics Same world as Black Market
Final Canon · Echos Origin Story

In the Echos , every pot on stream emits raw Variance .

Your Sweat collides with it → dark violet crystals condense in the void.

When those crystals fracture (like nitro glow sticks under pressure), they flare with cold light…

…and for one brief moment, you see the Souls :

the lingering essence of poker degenerates who never stopped sweating the action, even after death.

Each Soul = $0.20 real cash. Redeemable. Eternal.

Every pot sends Variance into the well. Your Sweat slams into it. Crystals form, fracture, and briefly reveal the Souls.
Chapter I · The Scar Above the Felt

How the Echos formed

Years of televised punts, hero calls, and impossible rivers didn’t just vanish into chat logs. Every scream, slowroll, and bad-beat stare built up as psychic pressure above the tables.

That pressure collapsed into a single invisible layer: the Echos . A variance scar that sits just above the felt, mirroring every pot in cold violet light.

Think of the Echos as the ghost of every rail ever — still watching, still sweating, one layer up.
Chapter II · Variance as a physical thing

Raw Variance & your Sweat

In the Echos, every pot on stream emits raw Variance . It’s not math, it’s pressure: the bigger the pot, the hotter the spike.

Your Sweat is the force you push back with — every lineup you build, every hand you watch, every all-in you hold your breath for. When your Sweat collides with Variance, dark violet crystals condense in the void.

The harder you sweat the stream, the more crystals you grow. But they only matter when they crack.
Chapter III · Shards, crystals, and fractures

When the crystals finally break

As hands play out, the Variance + Sweat collision leaves behind tiny fragments called Shards . Shards fuse into bigger violet crystals hanging over the felt, packed with potential.

When a key pot lands just right — a cooler, a punt, a triple-barrel bluff — those crystals fracture like nitro glow sticks under pressure. The Echos flare with cold light, and for a split second you can see Souls drifting in the glow.

Every highlight clip you remember as “insane” is a crystal fracture the Echos never forgot.
Chapter IV · Souls and real-world prizes

What a Soul actually is

A Soul is the lingering essence of a poker degen who never stopped sweating the action, even after death. In GhostSweat, Souls show up as sweepstakes prizes tied to fixed tables — not to any single hand or outcome.

Each Soul is worth $0.20 real cash. Redeemable. Eternal. When you see a Soul tied to your Ghost, it came from a sweepstakes drawing, not from “betting on a hand.” Your Sweat helped grow the crystals, but chance cracked them open.

Souls don’t care who won the pot. They only care how hard the rail was sweating when the crystal burst.
Chapter V · Ghosts, contests, and Forbidden Sweat

Where you fit into the realm

You are a Ghost: a living player linked to a spectral avatar inside the Echos. On the Game Mechanics page, you’ll see how lineups, captains, and scoring convert your Sweat into Shards and potential Souls.

On the Forbidden Sweat, you can optionally grab packs of play-only Sweat, sweepstakes entries, and crystal emissions that make your Ghost louder and brighter in this realm. But the physics never change: Souls always come from fixed sweepstakes prize tables, never from buying better odds.

Read the lore here, learn the rules in Game Mechanics, then step into the Forbidden Sweat if you want your Ghost to glow a little hotter over the felt.