With 2009's National Novel Writing Month already ten days old, and with nothing but a pile of notes to show for it, I'm going to try writing something a little different here, just to get the creative juices flowing. I'm going to write about the Hero's Journey, something that I really love, but that I don't research nearly as much as I should. It's something that's an incredible asset to a writer of any kind. Without even getting into the psychological aspects of it—Joseph Campbell, the man who introduced the concept of the Monomyth in his book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, was a student of Carl Jung, and the concept features numerous Jungian archetypes, such as the Hero, the Mentor, the Temptress, the Shadow, etcetera etcetera—the concept itself is useful because it's archetypical. The Hero's Journey is, in it's purest form, a template. At least, that's the way that I see it.
Of course, this is all my own take on it, and in a way, every story is the exact same thing told a million times over with a million variations. It's been said that there are only three distinct plots: Man vs Man, Man vs Himself, and Man vs Nature. “There is nothing new under the sun”. “Creativity is about hiding your sources.” Not only does this come from research into the Hero's Journey (without actually reading much of Campbell's book), a lot of it comes from http://www.TVTropes.org. Almost everything capitalized has an entry, so check it out.
Well, that's what the Monomyth is. The source of all stories, consciously or unconsciously. You can see it in everything from the journey of Christ and Buddha, and since Campbell's book was one of the inspirations, you can see it in Star Wars. Pieces are rearranged and flipped over, some are left out, some are doubled up while others are barely mentioned, but every story has the Hero's Journey at it's heart. Especially a fantasy story.
The Journey is broken down into three main elements, from there broken up more. They are:
The Departure: The Hero meets with the Herald, and either accepts the Call, or it is thrust upon him. He is forced to leave his idyllic world, and experience the supernatural. The supernatural in this case need not be ghosts and wizards. It could be the world of fashion, as seen in The Devil Wears Prada. It could be just on the edge of an affair in I Think I Love My Wife. More obviously, Luke learns the ways of the Force, and goes from a life of boring moisture farming to the world of the Rebellion. The 'supernatural' might even be just the opposite. A supersoldier is thrust into a world of the mundane.
The Initiation: Wherein the Hero deals with the world he's been thrust into, and goes down the Road of Trials. Now in the supernatural world, the Hero is tested in ways he hasn't been before. They deal with Temptresses and slay Dragons. They encounter death in ways, from the literal—Luke could have died when rescuing Leia, and without his more competent allies, Frodo would have been Orc chow. This is the bulk of the story, where the hero undergoes the great adventure, meets his allies and enemies, and is tempted and tested.
The Return: Having survived the Road of Trials, the Hero uses all that he's learned to go back to the beginning and put everything that he's learned to the test. He returns the McGuffin to where it belongs, he starts a New Jedi Order, or realizes that he doesn't need another woman because he really does love his wife. Often, the Return is in the form of a race. The Hero makes a flight with the Elixer, running from the last of the forces that want to destroy him. The archetypical castle falling apart as the Big Bad is destroyed, or the villain inputting the self destruct sequence when the Hero thinks he's won. With the end of this stage, the Hero returns to his life, changed by the experiences he's had throughout the journey.
Each of the three stages is broken down, often into 12 stages. Each one represents another stepping stone for the Hero. Another trial, or a hurdle to leap over.
At the start of the story, the Hero is in The Ordinary World. This is where they live, and whether or not it's ordinary for the reader, viewer, or player, it is for them. Often, they wish that something would happen, something to take them away from their home, and give them an adventure. This is the stage where the bored farmboy sits looking out at the stars, or listening to the tales of travelers in the pubs.
Soon, the hero gets their wish, and the Herald comes into their life. Not necessarily a person, the Herald is the character or object in the story that brings the Hero The Call to Adventure. A man might stumble into the room shouting that zombies are coming, or a robot might play a message asking for help. Whatever it is, this is what will begin the Hero's journey. Often times, despite their wishful thinking, there is a Refusal of the Call. The Hero is reluctant, either out of fear, or insecurity. Sometimes, they might not even know the Call was the Call. If this happens, The Call Knows Where You Live. The stormtroopers hunt down the droids, and kill Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. The Call is an important part of the story, and in some cases it's a little more complicated. Luke Skywalker gets the Call for Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan trains Luke as his apprentice. In Kingdom Hearts, Sora unknowingly takes Riku's call from him. He later receives another. In Harry Potter, Hermione and Ron decide to make it a Conference Call. In some cases, the Hero's Call might just be that they couldn't deal with waiting for it. One case of a different Call is when the Hero Can't Stay Normal. They already have some supernatural power, and they strain to hide it. This is seen in modern stories such as X-Men and Heroes.
Whatever the case, in the end the Hero is thrust into The Supernatural whether they like it or not. They encounter Supernatural Aid, often in the form of a Mentor. Luke is given a lightsaber by Obi-wan. Neo becomes a Red Pill, and becomes a member of the Nebuchadnezzar, with Morpheus as his mentor. In some cases, the Mentor and the Supernatural Aid are one and the same. The Hero might find an ancient book of spells, and set about teaching himself magic.
With the aid, the hero undergoes The Crossing of the First Threshold. This is where the Hero can no longer turn back. They enter the world of monsters. It is here that the first true test of the hero is made. They face one or more Threshold Guardians, who while not necessarily antagonistic, will attempt to test the Hero to see if they are worthy to go on. This is the Council of Elrond, where Frodo speaks up and announces that he will take the ring to Mordor. This is Mos Eisley, where Luke has to convince Han Solo to aid them in saving Princess Leia from the first Death Star. The Hero may actually 'die' here, failing their journey, only to once more be pulled back. They may sit like Achilles in his Tent, only to renew themselves to the adventure, and return—often just in the nick of time to save those they love—This happens all the time in Spiderman.
Once the Threshold is crossed, there's no turning back. The Hero is exiled, the spaceship has launched, the train has started moving. This begins the Road of Trials. This is the bulk of the story, and the most open. Here, anything can happen, and the Hero will be tested. They will meet Allies and Enemies, and the adventures that they have will strengthen them for the climax.
Common elements of the Road of Trials are:
The Temptress, often a female figure who will attempt to distract the Hero from his quest. In a romantic movie, this is the other woman. Of course, if the Hero is swayed by the other woman, it can be a story in itself. After all, in Act I, Romeo was pining for Rozalin until he saw Juliet. The Temptress may not even know herself as such. The reason that Spiderman acts as Achilles in his tent so often is because of Mary Jane Watson(Parker, depending on the writer).
The Goddess, the Hero meets a woman of power. She may offer him aid, or might serve as another test. Galadril offering to take the One Ring serves as both a test of Frodo's resolve, as well as the Woman As Temptress of above.
Atonement With the Father. The Hero reconciles with the father, or their father figure. Perhaps they never saw eye to eye, and the Hero wants to resolve their differences, or perhaps the character's father is dead, and they want to live up to a name. Luke Skywalker convinces his father, Anakin, to turn on Palpatine, and he takes him over the edge with him. In this case, the Atonement also serves as the climax.
The Innermost Cave. The Hero journeys into the heart of his fears. Literally into a cave, or perhaps into the stronghold of the enemy. There they face their problems, hopefully coming out on the other side victorious. Quite literally, Luke journeys into the Jedi cave on Dantooine, and encounters the shade of Darth Vader. In angrily attacking it, he sees that he will only symbolically kill himself, the same way that Obi-wan claims Vader killed Anakin on Mustafar.
Often, there is a Rescue from Without. The Hero is saved by something outside of themselves. A good example of this is Han Solo coming to Luke's rescue after he got his reward and went their separate ways. Something saves the Hero, whether it's another character, or fate, or even that they're spared by one of the villains.
The Dragon. A right hand man to the Big Bad, or possibly even a real dragon or other monster that serves as a final test before the climax. They are the one who guards the lair to the final battle, and the one who serves to give the Hero that last bit of XP before they face the end boss.
Before the final showdown, there is often a time out. This is the Action Movie Quiet Drama Scene. It's the moment where the Hero and his crew sit around a campfire, preparing for the attack on the Big Bad's stronghold, where many of them will surely die, and the Hero will face the Final Boss of the story. Confessions are made, and the characters try not to think about the fact that they're most likely going to die. In modern stories, this could be the agents planning for a raid on the terrorist cell, or the plucky young heroine getting up the nerve to do something that will make her lose her job, but keep her dignity or integrity.
Then comes the Final Battle. The Hero fights against the Big Bad, and one of them may die. Whether it is the hero or not, there comes a Resurrection. The Hero is dead, the Big Bad has triumphed. When all seems lost, the Hero's hand comes up over the edge, and he climbs back up, determined once more. It is after this symbolic death that the Hero finally triumphs. Likewise, it's not uncommon for the Big Bad to return, only for the Hero to defeat them for real. Often in a jRPG, this will happen at least twice, with the Big Bad changing forms. In a romance, the Hero will confess their love, only for the girl of his dreams to be with someone else. Often, this false 'death' turns out to be just a good friend of her's, or a brother, or the Hero convinces her that he's the one.
With the defeat of the Big Bad, the Hero is granted The Ultimate Boon. Whether it is some mystical ability, some special item, or just a quality of character that the Hero needed to possess doesn't matter. The Hero now takes what he's gained or learned, called The Elixer by Campbell, and races along The Road Back. Oftentimes, the Hero will make a harrowing flight home, returning to the original world with the Elixer, often using it to save someone from their normal life. The Elixer itself may have served early on as the Call, where the Hero's Journey revolved around the quest for the Elixer.
Once the journey is complete, the Hero has The Freedom to Live. They are no longer under threat from the supernatural, and they often become The Master of Two Worlds. Mulan manages to save the world by using the skills she learned masquerading as a man, as well as no longer needing to hide her femininity. Luke Skywalker is no longer ordinary, he is now a full fledged Jedi, and creates a New Jedi Order.
That isn't always the end, though. The Hero's Journey is cyclic. When one journey is complete, the next can begin. This is most obvious in trilogies, where the first movie often encompasses it's own journey, while the sequels are a two part Hero's Journey. In The Matrix, Neo becomes the Master of Two Worlds by defeating Smith, and in Revolutions and Reloaded, he again undergoes a journey. The second movie even ends with a spiritual death, leading into the next. In Curse of the Black Pearl, Will Turner answers the Call and becomes a Pirate, saving Elizabeth and ending one cycle, only to begin another contained in Dead Man's Chest and At World's End.
After the Emperor is defeated, and a New Republic instated in the Galaxy, Luke, Han, and Leia are forced to deal with Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Heir to the Empire. Years later, Jacen Solo has to save the galaxy from the Yuzhang Vong.
Now, none of this needs to be taken at face value. The Wise Old Man that serves as a Mentor can just as easily be a Wise Old Man or a Magical Negro, but in modern times we don't always have old people or racist caricatures to aid us. Sometimes instead we have the cop's Rabbi, or the student's unique teacher. The Mentor can be a coach, or a doctor, or even a boss. The Mentor might be a Marine sniper who runs the team and smacks you on the back of the head when you act stupid.
Even the term Hero can be altered. The Hero could just as easily be a Villain, going along the same journey. He's called to adventure by himself, deciding that he needs to take over the world. The final battle is nothing more than the Hero—in this case a villain—attempting to defeat the one hero who could stop him. It can also just as easily be a heroine.
The character's atonement with the 'father' could be with their mother. Or it could be with a brother or a friend that they betrayed, or that they feel betrayed them. It can be Luke and Anakin making nice, or it can be Han coming back to save Luke, deciding he doesn't need to be a smuggler.
While the original reason for the Temptress is as an aspect of the Hero's Anima, his female soul, the Temptress could just as easily be something else. Aunt May is just as much reason for Peter Parker to put away the Spiderman costume as Mary Jane is. It could be doubts and fears that the Hero faces, things they experienced during the Refusal of the Call and never quite got over.
The Final Battle could easily, easily be anything else. The last game of the championship game, the Hero standing up for something they believe in. It could represent nothing more than a turning point. The Hero 'defeats' the Big Bad, where the Big Bad is themselves. They make a choice they have to make, to save something or someone, whether metaphorically or literally. It could be Peter Parker realizing that the world needs Spiderman.
The pieces themselves are all just symbolism. Change them around and the story becomes more interesting, more varied. Rearrange the pieces if you want. Creativity is about hiding the sources, after all, because there's nothing new under the sun.
That's what the Hero's Journey is, though. It's the Monomyth. It's a template, tried and tested from the dawn of civilization, speaking to us from something archetypical. It's a guideline for anyone who chooses to write anything. Change the pieces, flip them around. The story is the same and yet different every time. From drama to action, and everything in between. One Hero, of a Thousand Faces.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Project Rundown
I need to write more. This is a given. I want to be able to add more things to my portfolio, specifically more creative things than just modeling (which I also need to do more of). There are so many good and bad ideas that I've forgotten, though, and I'm going to try to remember as many of these as possible and write them down here.
I'm going to try something similar to Stephen King's method. I'm going to just write something each day and hope it sticks. I expect a lot of crap, but hey, Stephen King has also written 66 books and over 100 short stories, as well as a book on writing (called On Writing, naturally), most of which have been best sellers and gone on to become movies or miniseries. Hopefully something will come of it, since it's by this method that he wrote Carrie. Of course, in his own words, most of it is crap.
Without further ado, the rundown.
Vindae, and Einher/Sephirot: the single largest project here. It encompasses not only a story, but an entire fictional world. The story side of things is intended to be my take on fantasy stories. It mixes magic with science fiction, but stays closer to the Final Fantasy games than it does to the 'sword and planet' genre of scifi presented in books like Edgar Rice Borough'sJohn Carter of Mars series.
I'm going to try something similar to Stephen King's method. I'm going to just write something each day and hope it sticks. I expect a lot of crap, but hey, Stephen King has also written 66 books and over 100 short stories, as well as a book on writing (called On Writing, naturally), most of which have been best sellers and gone on to become movies or miniseries. Hopefully something will come of it, since it's by this method that he wrote Carrie. Of course, in his own words, most of it is crap.
Without further ado, the rundown.
Vindae, and Einher/Sephirot: the single largest project here. It encompasses not only a story, but an entire fictional world. The story side of things is intended to be my take on fantasy stories. It mixes magic with science fiction, but stays closer to the Final Fantasy games than it does to the 'sword and planet' genre of scifi presented in books like Edgar Rice Borough'sJohn Carter of Mars series.
The Science Fantasy feel of this picture is what I want Vindae to be like.
Also, for those of you slow on the uptake, that's Pokemon as a fantasy setting.
Also, for those of you slow on the uptake, that's Pokemon as a fantasy setting.
The story concerns a boy named Aiden, and the young girl who falls from the sky with no memory. The girl is a homonculus, an artifical human, created by the group Sefirot in an attempt to unlock the gates of Heaven and use the power that resides in the Tree of Life to erase Creation and start over. The story follows Aiden and Riza, the girl, as they uncover her past (and the fact that being a homonculus, she doesn't have one, as she only woke when Aiden found her), and avoid being killed by the Sefirot.
The villains in the story each have a personality based on one of the seven sins, though except for one of them none of them are truly evil. Their leader, Kether, only wants to 'destroy' the world so that he can remake it without strife and hatred. He's actually something like Adrien Viedt. He knows that what he's doing is wrong, but that his goal is ultimately Good. He plans to punish himself when the ordeal is over, banishing his own soul to the Abyss, a place characterized by an eternity of conscious non-existence.
Kether's backup plan is that the entire world will raise up against him as one, proving that he does not need to destroy the world to make it a better place. In the journey to uphold the promise to protect Riza, Aiden ends up gathering together a multiethnic party and defeating Kether. In this way the story is intended to be like Final Fantasy as well. The story is written with the conscious feel of an RPG in mind.
The story is also meant to be written as if it was translated from a fictional language, with footnotes explaining nonexistent translations, idioms, and other things.
The volume of information I have on the story as well as the setting is enough to fill it's own Note, or even Notes, and covers religion, magical items, holidays, countries and races, and even the different types of magic.
Ashcroft is the second of my large projects, and though I've already written notes about it, I'm going to put it here anyway.
Silent Hill is one of the things that inspired Ashcroft, and the main character originally wore a white vest, green skirt, and boots in homage to Heather.
The story is intended to be a game, and has always been written as something between Silent Hill and a point and click adventure game. The first draft even made mention of the protagonist's inventory.
Ashcroft follows the journey of Ashleigh Harker, who wakes up after crashing her car on the outskirts of a haunted town with no memory. In dealing with the town's demons, she learns what part she had in the town's current state, and why she's been brought to the town after four years.
Ashleigh faces the minor demons of the town, as well as the seven people who turned the town into Hell by destroying the life of a young girl, a young girl created in a laboratory as a psychic weapon. The malevolence of the town itself also plays a part in it, an entity that wants to take the girl's power for itself.
This twisted abomination is likely to end up an enemy in Ashcroft.
With that, I leave the more defined projects, and go into ones that exist as nothing more than a vague concept and maybe a few notes.
The Celestial War: In the beginning, the Creator made Creation, and with it, Eden. When Creation was formed, the Creator faded away. In the Creator's place where left the Celestials. For a while, there was peace. After a great earthquake, Eden was split. The Celestials in the West became known as Demons, and the Celestials in the East became known as Angels. For a time, things were still peaceful. There was trade and travel between the two nations.
As the years grew longer, distance created dissent, and the Angels and Demons went to war with each other. No one knows how it started, who first attacked or why.
The Celestial War is nothing like this, but I like giving everything a picture.
Lead by the brothers, Michael and Lucifer, the two armies battled for years. Eventually the Demons were defeated, and Lucifer and the demons were taken to Mount Purgatory and cast down into Hell. In that empty world, Lucifer and his celestials set to work rebuilding. Meanwhile, Michael declared himself God, ruler of all Creation.
In Hell, in the golden fields of Elysium, the city of Pandeamonium was built. For a time, things were good. Despite being exiled from their home as punishment for losing, the demons lived content in Hell, far from their enemies in Heaven. After the city was completed, Lucifer was declared God, and ruled his new nation.
Now, everything has changed. For two thousand years, the war has been over, but for Lucifer's Lieutenant, Azazel, a new home cannot fill the whole left by the loss of the old. Scarcely had Lucifer been crowned regent of that new world before Azazel began to stir dissent. Lucifer was deposed by those he had once led, and once called friends. He was exiled from the home that he built with his own hands and the sweat of his brow once again. He was banished to Earth, the world of humanity.
Now, 2000 years later, Azazel makes his move. He seeks to awaken the beast Apollyon, chained beneath Creation, ultimately leading to the end of the world, as prophecised by Metatron, the half-mad blind oracle kept chained in Eden's capital of Arcadia, who is believed to hear the voice of the creator. Yeshua, a strange urchin has appeared, taking care of Elyon, stirring her to deeper prophecy than ever before. To save the world, Lucifer must find his way back to Heaven and Hell, and convince his brother Michael that Azazel must be stopped. Unfortunately, the deposed God of Hell is nowhere to be found. The Four Riders are coming, and Apollyon stirs. The only one who can save creation is the missing Daystar.
The Rat God: A story set in Vindae before it's main story. It tells the story of Gaetta the Rat, a demigod and trickster, who sets out to defeat Bahamut, the last of the Old Gods that holds Vindae in a grip of terror.
Bahamut, along with it's brothers Ziz and Leviathan, fell to the planet Vindae a millennium ago in an event that shattered two of the three moons and left the planet with three massive craters. For ages they slept, but eventually they awakened, and resumed their eons old war. They were Ziz, God of the Skies and Father of the Wyvern, the massive bird capable of blotting out the sun with it's wings; Leviathan, the God of the Oceans, and Mother of the Wyrm, the great sea serpent with the power to cause tidal waves and flooding with a flick of it's tail; and Bahamut, Lord of the Earth and Flames, and Father of the Behemoi, who's burning grip engulfed the world the longest. Ziz and Leviathan had been sealed away, and Bahamut was left to rule the world. A great alien creature so powerful that it could defeat the Gods of Vindae.
This is where Gaetta comes along. Setting out to bind up Bahamut as Ziz and Leviathan had been, he traveled to the burning kingdom of the South, with a waitress as his companion, and used a magical necklace to defeat the Lord of Earth and Flame.
The story was originally thought of as a parable for why Behemoths, large elephant like creatures, would be afraid of mice and rats. The answer being that a rat defeated their creator.
The World's Greatest Theif Jack of Diamonds The only thing I've thought of that would actually be a series, the Jack of Diamonds is a young boy who happens to be the worlds greatest thief. Originally it was intended to be yet another story set in Vindae, though somewhat lighter. In fact, it's possible it could be a children's or young adult story. Jack's misadventures would involve him attempting to steal something impossible, all while avoiding the pursuit of a beautiful female detective, and at the same time, he would be stealing from people who were thieves themselves, exposing them as he took their riches for himself, and gave what he didn't need back to the victims. Something like Robin Hood, but in it for the challenge.
Further owing to it's possibility as a children's series, Jack of Diamonds is likely to be accompanied by a wise cracking animal sidekick.
I think I settled on either a red panda or a fruit bat.
I think I settled on either a red panda or a fruit bat.
Possible exploits include being framed for murder, escaping prison, and whatever other misadventures I could think of. Think of him as my version of Sly Raccoon, Jing: King of Bandits, Lupin III, Phantom Thief Dark, the Leverage team, and other similar thieves who aren't necessarily villains.
I don't know, I think I could write a pretty good young adult series.
Theme: One Character Gives Up Their Life for Another
1. A soldier who saves a child in a wartorn land
2. A woman goes after the man who killed her father and falls in love, thereby giving up her life of revenge for him. Or, he kills himself. Or she kills him, then herself.
3. A man and woman fall in love, and have some sort of great adventure together. They have sex, he dies saving her, and she lives on with his children having no father. I think I actually stole this one from a Trigun fansite that theorized Milly and Wolfwood made love the night before he died, and that Milly was pregnant.
4. A woman finds a man lying half dead in a river, nurses him back to health. The man gives up his life to save her. From a monster, perhaps. The idea being that whatever almost killed him is what he saves her from. Perhaps mixing this with 3, because nothing says drama like a baby with only a mama.
Phantom Brave actually did inspire Shadow Wars a bit. The spirits in that game are called Phantoms, and they need to be bound to a material object before they can interact with the world.
And that's all I can find at the moment. I think I have some other journals lying around with other ideas in them.
This is what I have, though. I don't think it even touches the tip of the iceberg, though.
In addition, there's still the game related ideas.
Odyssean, the game about powerful mages in modern society who are cursed to never be able to settle down at the cost of the gift of magic.
and
Shadow War, which features magicians teaming up with spirits to fight hungry ghosts.
Monday, August 31, 2009
A List of Curious Objects
A pen that lets you communicate with people over a distance. When you write something with it, it shows up somewhere in the vicinity of the person you want to communicate with. Making sure they see it is the hard part. There's also no way for them to communicate with you.
A key that opens and unlocks any door that it fits in. The key is an average pin and tumbler type, and can fit into any similar lock. However, every time the key is used, then a lock that the user has closed will become open. This doesn't cause anyone to come seeking whatever was locked up, but it does allow anyone sneaking about to find a now unlocked lock. People who use the key take extra precautions when they plan on using it.
A bus ticket that can be used on any bus. When the driver takes it, he'll look at it, and hand it back to you absentmindedly, wiping his hands on his shirt like he's glad to be rid of it. Unfortunately, over the course of the next week, the user of the bus ticket will lose one and a half times the cost of the ticket from various places. Pennies go missing in the couch, never to be seen, a dollar falls from the wallet into a storm drain. The money is lost slowly, and from different places, but still amounts to one and a half times the cost of the ticket.
A compass that always points to whatever you want most. However, it only works so long as something precious has been sacrificed. Love letters from a childhood sweetheart, a lock of hair from a dead lover, a momento of a childhood hero. In more obscure sacrifices, breaking an engagement, ruining a longstanding friendship, or even killing someone dear to you is necessary for the compass to work. It's been said that it can find anything that exists, and that there is more that exists than can possibly be dreamed of.
A knife that can cut through anything except for glass. When any amount of pressure is placed on the knife, the tip will press it's way through anything, even concrete or steel, provided that some force is placed upon it, with the exception of glass. Even the most fragile glass refuses to be cut, and attempting to shatter the glass with the blade makes it seem as if it's twice as strong as it should be. Whenever the user removes the blade from it's completely unassuming leather holster, they will cut themselves, no matter what methods they take to prevent it. Even by wearing chainmail or armoured gloves, the user will nick their thumb, prick their forefinger, or otherwise cause one of their digits to bleed.
An Ace of Hearts that stops you from bleeding. No matter how much damage you sustain, no matter how many times you're shot or stabbed, your blood will never run. However, this only stops you from bleeding. Helpful in healing, it doesn't prevent organs from being damaged. It also seems to make the damage sustained from any blunt force worse than it would otherwise be. Those who hold the Ace of Hearts often find themselves bruising more easily.
An Ace of Spades that stops you from aging as long as the Ace is on your person. However, the user may never actually look at it or they will begin to feel the effects of aging happen rapidly. This isn't likely to kill them, but it is very painful. This usually results in the ace being wrapped up, or kept bound in leather. Being unable to age does not mean being unable to die. The character will stay spry and young, but at the end of their lifespan, they will die of a heart attack.
An Ace of Clubs that can be used to knock someone unconscious with a touch. The touch can't be a light tap, it must be a solid smack across the head, as if using a real club to knock someone unconscious. Other than that, the card functions as a blackjack, despite it's apparent flexibility.
An Ace of Diamonds that can be used as valid currency in any part of the world. The cashier will then hand it back to you as if you had payed. Unlike the bus ticket, which is similar, the Ace does not cause the money to fall away or get lost forever. Instead, for the next day after using it, the user will become obsessed with keeping their money. They will not use the card, and they will not use any physical cash that they have. They will become distracted, constantly thinking about checking their wallet or bank account, often at inappropriate times.
A Polaroid Impulse from 1988. The camera is indestructable, and never needs film. It will allow the user to take instant photos as usual, but if a single drop of blood is spilled on the lens, then any image taken will show a live image from whatever angle the image was taken, like a surveillance camera.
A penny that will cause the holder to benefit from extreme luck against firearms. Bullets will seem to veer off just so, and the gun jams when used too close. Any injuries that are sustained by a bullet--and only a bullet--are never fatal, and heal within half the time. It has a habit of getting lost, though.
A pair of old walkman headphones. When put into any headphone slot, they'll allow you to hear distant sounds, specifically conversations. They will work even when whatever they're plugged into has no batteries, the user simply turns the device on and listens. After using them for too long, though, the user will often have their hearing dulled, and when they can't hear anything else, they will often hear static. Occasionally users will hear EVP in the static that comes from no where.
A waster--a wooden practice sword--dating from somewhere in 18th century Europe. It's rather unremarkable looking, and shows the signs of age and use. It's made from mahogany, has slight engravings on it, made more to pass the time than out of artistry. When the user pricks their finger on a splinter sticking out from the handle, the sword will act as a real sword, cutting despite it's blunt edge. This effect lasts as long as the user's blood continues to run.
An alarm clock that puts anyone within earshot to sleep. This even effects people who are wearing sound canceling ear protection. It does not, however, effect the deaf. Whoever used the alarm will find that they cannot find rest for the next 12 hours. This means nothing if they use the clock when they've recently had a good rest, but using it after they've been awake for 14 hours means that they will find sleep impossible that night.
An original Nintendo Entertainment System controller missing it's plug. When the START button is pressed, the holder may control the actions of any person within their vision. They may not make them do anything that is harmful or against their nature (for instance, causing them to step in front of a truck, or attack a police officer). The control lasts no more than about five minutes, but when the duration is up, the controlled person will feel strange, but they won't feel like they've been controlled. They may wonder why they did the things they did, though. When the user next sleeps, they will be afflicted with dreams of being unable to control themselves. In these dreams they will often die multiple times, with the feeling that they are running out of time. When using the controller, the holder needs only keep it in their hands and concentrate, but that doesn't stop most people from pressing buttons.
A glass of wine that turns any liquid poured into it into water. The liquid is incredibly refreshing and no matter what it was before, it now tastes like a crisp, cool spring. It will refresh the character as if they had never been thirsty. However, it only staves off the thirst, it does not quench it fully. If the character does not find suitable drink within the next eight hours, they will become dehydrated, as if they'd gone a full day without water. Within those eight hours, they will not thirst at all, and will be completely refreshed.
A pair of running shoes that seem to double the wearer's stamina. They can run further, jump higher, and last longer as long as they wear these shoes. When the wearer finally stops and sits down, or even stands still, they will feel restless and uncomfortable until they start moving again. If they sit still for too long, they will become fatigued until they remove the shoes or start to move.
A pair of glasses that allows the user to see through any illusion. This isn't just learning the trick behind how that big shot magician does his thing, it also dispels for the user everything from real magic that creates phantasmal images, as well as mundane illusions such as lying. The user can spot any hidden object, and 'see through' any lie within their presence. Knowing how to spot a lie also gives the user better understanding of how to craft one, making them more gifted with the silver tongue. This ability comes at a price, though. Being able to see through illusions great and small is depressing. Many have tried trying to destroy the glasses, torn between being addicted to their power, and devastated by their curse.
A pocket watch with only one hand. The hand works as a compass, floating freely and pointing in different directions. The direction it points is towards the direction of the least intelligent choice that the user can make. The implications of this are obvious. Narrow down your choices by taking away whatever the least intelligent is. This can even work with choices written down on paper. However, one can never know just what question is being answered.
A hazel glass eye that allows the person wearing it to be able to see the structurally weakest point of an object, and to strike it with great accuracy. This item only shows the weakest points in objects, but is otherwise very handy. The "Destroyer's Eye" can even be used to bypass any form of armour, from ancient plate to modern Dragonskin. However, it's greatest drawback is the fact that it requires the user to cut out their own eye. If they already had a missing eye, and place it in that socket, it won't do anything. It seems to need the shedding of blood to function. One good thing is that using the eye allows one to see through it. When the eye is in use, the user experiences a sharp pain.
A red glass eye that allows the person wearing it to be able to see the time until someone's death. The time isn't exactly in any known measure, though the numbers are readable as Arabic numerals, or at least, they are to any Western users. Others report seeing the numbers as Roman or Chinese numerals, or whatever their native numbering system is. The numbers correspond to roughly one third of a second. The eye even seems to know when a subject is going to die due to illness or chance, such as being hit with a piano or being hit by a stray bullet. The greatest drawback of these "Reaper's Eyes" is that they require the user to sacrifice their own eye. Without giving up an eye and cutting it out themselves, the red glass eye is useless. When it is used, it allows the user to see through it as if it was real, but causes a sharp pain.
A green glass eye that allows the person using it to be able to tell the health of any person or creature they gaze upon. The user can instinctively distinguish between a healthy and an injured individual, and will be able to see where a person is injured, even if they've hidden their injuries. Injuries, as well as any diseases, can be seen as dark spots around the individual. By concentrating, the user can even see deeper into a body, getting a clearer picture of any illnesses. This isn't the stereotypical 'X-ray vision', but the user can get a sense of how deep a stain lies and see the inner workings of the body with an inhuman efficiency. As with other glass eyes, the "Healer's Eye" requires the price of an eye, one of the user's. As well, when it's being used it allows the user to see as if it was their own flesh and blood eye, but with an intense pain in the socket.
A key that opens and unlocks any door that it fits in. The key is an average pin and tumbler type, and can fit into any similar lock. However, every time the key is used, then a lock that the user has closed will become open. This doesn't cause anyone to come seeking whatever was locked up, but it does allow anyone sneaking about to find a now unlocked lock. People who use the key take extra precautions when they plan on using it.
A bus ticket that can be used on any bus. When the driver takes it, he'll look at it, and hand it back to you absentmindedly, wiping his hands on his shirt like he's glad to be rid of it. Unfortunately, over the course of the next week, the user of the bus ticket will lose one and a half times the cost of the ticket from various places. Pennies go missing in the couch, never to be seen, a dollar falls from the wallet into a storm drain. The money is lost slowly, and from different places, but still amounts to one and a half times the cost of the ticket.
A compass that always points to whatever you want most. However, it only works so long as something precious has been sacrificed. Love letters from a childhood sweetheart, a lock of hair from a dead lover, a momento of a childhood hero. In more obscure sacrifices, breaking an engagement, ruining a longstanding friendship, or even killing someone dear to you is necessary for the compass to work. It's been said that it can find anything that exists, and that there is more that exists than can possibly be dreamed of.
A knife that can cut through anything except for glass. When any amount of pressure is placed on the knife, the tip will press it's way through anything, even concrete or steel, provided that some force is placed upon it, with the exception of glass. Even the most fragile glass refuses to be cut, and attempting to shatter the glass with the blade makes it seem as if it's twice as strong as it should be. Whenever the user removes the blade from it's completely unassuming leather holster, they will cut themselves, no matter what methods they take to prevent it. Even by wearing chainmail or armoured gloves, the user will nick their thumb, prick their forefinger, or otherwise cause one of their digits to bleed.
An Ace of Hearts that stops you from bleeding. No matter how much damage you sustain, no matter how many times you're shot or stabbed, your blood will never run. However, this only stops you from bleeding. Helpful in healing, it doesn't prevent organs from being damaged. It also seems to make the damage sustained from any blunt force worse than it would otherwise be. Those who hold the Ace of Hearts often find themselves bruising more easily.
An Ace of Spades that stops you from aging as long as the Ace is on your person. However, the user may never actually look at it or they will begin to feel the effects of aging happen rapidly. This isn't likely to kill them, but it is very painful. This usually results in the ace being wrapped up, or kept bound in leather. Being unable to age does not mean being unable to die. The character will stay spry and young, but at the end of their lifespan, they will die of a heart attack.
An Ace of Clubs that can be used to knock someone unconscious with a touch. The touch can't be a light tap, it must be a solid smack across the head, as if using a real club to knock someone unconscious. Other than that, the card functions as a blackjack, despite it's apparent flexibility.
An Ace of Diamonds that can be used as valid currency in any part of the world. The cashier will then hand it back to you as if you had payed. Unlike the bus ticket, which is similar, the Ace does not cause the money to fall away or get lost forever. Instead, for the next day after using it, the user will become obsessed with keeping their money. They will not use the card, and they will not use any physical cash that they have. They will become distracted, constantly thinking about checking their wallet or bank account, often at inappropriate times.
A Polaroid Impulse from 1988. The camera is indestructable, and never needs film. It will allow the user to take instant photos as usual, but if a single drop of blood is spilled on the lens, then any image taken will show a live image from whatever angle the image was taken, like a surveillance camera.
A penny that will cause the holder to benefit from extreme luck against firearms. Bullets will seem to veer off just so, and the gun jams when used too close. Any injuries that are sustained by a bullet--and only a bullet--are never fatal, and heal within half the time. It has a habit of getting lost, though.
A pair of old walkman headphones. When put into any headphone slot, they'll allow you to hear distant sounds, specifically conversations. They will work even when whatever they're plugged into has no batteries, the user simply turns the device on and listens. After using them for too long, though, the user will often have their hearing dulled, and when they can't hear anything else, they will often hear static. Occasionally users will hear EVP in the static that comes from no where.
A waster--a wooden practice sword--dating from somewhere in 18th century Europe. It's rather unremarkable looking, and shows the signs of age and use. It's made from mahogany, has slight engravings on it, made more to pass the time than out of artistry. When the user pricks their finger on a splinter sticking out from the handle, the sword will act as a real sword, cutting despite it's blunt edge. This effect lasts as long as the user's blood continues to run.
An alarm clock that puts anyone within earshot to sleep. This even effects people who are wearing sound canceling ear protection. It does not, however, effect the deaf. Whoever used the alarm will find that they cannot find rest for the next 12 hours. This means nothing if they use the clock when they've recently had a good rest, but using it after they've been awake for 14 hours means that they will find sleep impossible that night.
An original Nintendo Entertainment System controller missing it's plug. When the START button is pressed, the holder may control the actions of any person within their vision. They may not make them do anything that is harmful or against their nature (for instance, causing them to step in front of a truck, or attack a police officer). The control lasts no more than about five minutes, but when the duration is up, the controlled person will feel strange, but they won't feel like they've been controlled. They may wonder why they did the things they did, though. When the user next sleeps, they will be afflicted with dreams of being unable to control themselves. In these dreams they will often die multiple times, with the feeling that they are running out of time. When using the controller, the holder needs only keep it in their hands and concentrate, but that doesn't stop most people from pressing buttons.
A glass of wine that turns any liquid poured into it into water. The liquid is incredibly refreshing and no matter what it was before, it now tastes like a crisp, cool spring. It will refresh the character as if they had never been thirsty. However, it only staves off the thirst, it does not quench it fully. If the character does not find suitable drink within the next eight hours, they will become dehydrated, as if they'd gone a full day without water. Within those eight hours, they will not thirst at all, and will be completely refreshed.
A pair of running shoes that seem to double the wearer's stamina. They can run further, jump higher, and last longer as long as they wear these shoes. When the wearer finally stops and sits down, or even stands still, they will feel restless and uncomfortable until they start moving again. If they sit still for too long, they will become fatigued until they remove the shoes or start to move.
A pair of glasses that allows the user to see through any illusion. This isn't just learning the trick behind how that big shot magician does his thing, it also dispels for the user everything from real magic that creates phantasmal images, as well as mundane illusions such as lying. The user can spot any hidden object, and 'see through' any lie within their presence. Knowing how to spot a lie also gives the user better understanding of how to craft one, making them more gifted with the silver tongue. This ability comes at a price, though. Being able to see through illusions great and small is depressing. Many have tried trying to destroy the glasses, torn between being addicted to their power, and devastated by their curse.
A pocket watch with only one hand. The hand works as a compass, floating freely and pointing in different directions. The direction it points is towards the direction of the least intelligent choice that the user can make. The implications of this are obvious. Narrow down your choices by taking away whatever the least intelligent is. This can even work with choices written down on paper. However, one can never know just what question is being answered.
A hazel glass eye that allows the person wearing it to be able to see the structurally weakest point of an object, and to strike it with great accuracy. This item only shows the weakest points in objects, but is otherwise very handy. The "Destroyer's Eye" can even be used to bypass any form of armour, from ancient plate to modern Dragonskin. However, it's greatest drawback is the fact that it requires the user to cut out their own eye. If they already had a missing eye, and place it in that socket, it won't do anything. It seems to need the shedding of blood to function. One good thing is that using the eye allows one to see through it. When the eye is in use, the user experiences a sharp pain.
A red glass eye that allows the person wearing it to be able to see the time until someone's death. The time isn't exactly in any known measure, though the numbers are readable as Arabic numerals, or at least, they are to any Western users. Others report seeing the numbers as Roman or Chinese numerals, or whatever their native numbering system is. The numbers correspond to roughly one third of a second. The eye even seems to know when a subject is going to die due to illness or chance, such as being hit with a piano or being hit by a stray bullet. The greatest drawback of these "Reaper's Eyes" is that they require the user to sacrifice their own eye. Without giving up an eye and cutting it out themselves, the red glass eye is useless. When it is used, it allows the user to see through it as if it was real, but causes a sharp pain.
A green glass eye that allows the person using it to be able to tell the health of any person or creature they gaze upon. The user can instinctively distinguish between a healthy and an injured individual, and will be able to see where a person is injured, even if they've hidden their injuries. Injuries, as well as any diseases, can be seen as dark spots around the individual. By concentrating, the user can even see deeper into a body, getting a clearer picture of any illnesses. This isn't the stereotypical 'X-ray vision', but the user can get a sense of how deep a stain lies and see the inner workings of the body with an inhuman efficiency. As with other glass eyes, the "Healer's Eye" requires the price of an eye, one of the user's. As well, when it's being used it allows the user to see as if it was their own flesh and blood eye, but with an intense pain in the socket.
Phantoms | Freewriting inspired by Geist
A long time ago, I was going to try to make a game based on a concept that was somewhat cobbled together from a bunch of sources. Some of it was Fate/Stay Night's and Negima's concept of a team of two people fighting together to amplify each other's strengths (in both series, one of the team is a mage and the other is a warrior. In Fate the Servants begin as warriors, while in Negima, the Minister Magi becomes a warrior by dint of the Pactio).
Some of it was Bleach and what little I knew about Geist at the time, the idea of fighting against ghosts with swords and magic. Some of it was other things from the World of Darkness games, like how Werewolves deal with Spirits, and Spirits in general. Each Spirit is something conceptual. Not exactly a ghost, but in a way just like one. It's a totemic thing.
There might be a Wolf Spirit, but it isn't the spirit of a particular wolf so much as it is a spirit of the concept of Wolves. It embodies the real aspects of wolves, but also the concepts that humanity associates with them.
There was also a little bit of Phantom Brave in the original idea. Each mage had a Phantom that they would be bound to, and to give that Phantom a physical body, they needed to bind their soul to some object. Whatever the object was, the Phantom would have abilities related to that. Some kind of memento might allow it deeper insight into emotions, or a rock would make it sturdy and immovable. A Phantom materialized with a book would have knowledge of that book, and a greater affinity for books and knowledge in general.
The concept of Phantoms in the game is that they weren't necessarily dead people, they were those same kinds of totemic spirits like in Werewolf and WoD. They wouldn't necessarily have been spirits of objects, but special spirits of the concept of Phantoms.
The enemies of this Phantom game would have been Hungry Ghosts. This is one of the concepts I took from Bleach, though it of course took if from Buddhism. In a way, the Hungry Ghosts are spirits (whether totemic or human) that have been stained with death. Maybe there was a church were someone was mugged and beaten to death, and now the spiritual essence of that church is stained with the violence of the attack, and the suffering of the victim and the fear of their death. With the spirit stained, instead of sending out the feeling of the impressive gothic architecture and the comfort of God, it instead sends out negative vibes, and another murder happens there. Eventually the spirit can't cope. It gives off a resonance comparable to what it feeds on, but as that resonance grows darker, it starts to break at the spirit.
Eventually, unable to passively endure the trauma, it takes on a semiphysical form, one that eventually becomes capable of crossing over the barrier and reeking havoc on the living.
When one of the Hungry Ghosts kills a human, then that human's resonance is stained when they die, and they're more likely to come back as a Hungry Ghost as well.
What's capable of stopping them, then, is the bond between a Mage and a Phantom. They join together as two sides of the same coin and they become able to operate on the same wavelength as the Hungry Ghost, and beat it into submission. The way spirits work, killing a Hungry Ghost is a release, and allows it to be reborn.
Well, after reading the new World of Darkness book, Geist: The Sin-Eaters, I got some more ideas. The new game is basically about Sin-Eaters, people who have died and come back thanks to creatures called Geist (pl. Geister). Geister are basically a cross between ghosts and World of Darkness's Spirits. They're ghosts that are closer to spirits. Instead of just being dead humans, they've transcended that into being dead Spirits. One example is a Discarded Man, made of newspapers and beerbottles. Another is the Drowned Gardener, bloated and wet and covered in chains.
Well, they gave me some ideas, and I just started freewriting.
--------------------------
Sometimes, the dead aren't restful. They die alone, lonely, sad and pathetically. Sometimes they die by diseases that aren't content to leave the soul untouched, and consume it as readily as the body. Sometimes it's violence and hatred that takes them out, leaving a harsh stain on their echoes. Sometimes it's not how they left the world that matters, but how they existed in it. A young girl teased and tormented by her classmates because she's quiet and dresses all in black, her long hair covering her face. A middle aged man who put up with abuse from his mother now goes out and enacts revenge on women who look like her, raping them and leaving them in the woods for the coyotes. Another man runs with a crew of three, each one as bad as the next, they hit every bank in town and shoot the place up before anyone can get there. A woman knows her client's guilt, and how he'll kill again if he's not locked up and treated, but still she smiles when the verdict comes, because the money helps her sleep at night.
Dying cold and alone, wasting away in a hospital bed, murder most foul. A life of quiet pain and depression, or one of violence and hatred, one driven by avarice and pride. These are the things that cause a death to go bad. In these circumstances, the dead aren't restful. They scream, and they shout, and they rage against any they encounter.
A death stained with sadness creates an echo that takes others into that sadness, making them weep until they die, laying in a bathtub drawn with hot water, they lean back and let the blackness embrace them as the blood drains from their wrists. Misery loves company.
A brutal murderer and rapist escapes prosecution only to meet his death at the hands of the survivor. His anger and hatred fuel his echo, and he returns to continue his bloody 'work'.
A man does nothing more than stumble into the wrong place at the wrong time. His car broke down in front of an old mansion. If he was able to look back now with cognizance, he would laugh at something so cliche. He stumbled in from the rain and looked around for the owner only to find just that, the owner. The only one who's truly ever owned the estate, and killed anyone who would claim otherwise. Now he's among the number, just one more echo in the cacophony of anguish that haunts the site.
I've met them. The echoes. Some are quiet, and some are restful.
Others aren't. They're cold, and cruel, their corpus twisted and altered from years or decades of self inflicted pain that most of them can't even see. The dangers to themselves that comes from indulging those malicious desires. The desire to write a wrong or save a loved one, a desire that mutates and manifests as something wholly unlike what it might have been.
Some of it was Bleach and what little I knew about Geist at the time, the idea of fighting against ghosts with swords and magic. Some of it was other things from the World of Darkness games, like how Werewolves deal with Spirits, and Spirits in general. Each Spirit is something conceptual. Not exactly a ghost, but in a way just like one. It's a totemic thing.
There might be a Wolf Spirit, but it isn't the spirit of a particular wolf so much as it is a spirit of the concept of Wolves. It embodies the real aspects of wolves, but also the concepts that humanity associates with them.
There was also a little bit of Phantom Brave in the original idea. Each mage had a Phantom that they would be bound to, and to give that Phantom a physical body, they needed to bind their soul to some object. Whatever the object was, the Phantom would have abilities related to that. Some kind of memento might allow it deeper insight into emotions, or a rock would make it sturdy and immovable. A Phantom materialized with a book would have knowledge of that book, and a greater affinity for books and knowledge in general.
The concept of Phantoms in the game is that they weren't necessarily dead people, they were those same kinds of totemic spirits like in Werewolf and WoD. They wouldn't necessarily have been spirits of objects, but special spirits of the concept of Phantoms.
The enemies of this Phantom game would have been Hungry Ghosts. This is one of the concepts I took from Bleach, though it of course took if from Buddhism. In a way, the Hungry Ghosts are spirits (whether totemic or human) that have been stained with death. Maybe there was a church were someone was mugged and beaten to death, and now the spiritual essence of that church is stained with the violence of the attack, and the suffering of the victim and the fear of their death. With the spirit stained, instead of sending out the feeling of the impressive gothic architecture and the comfort of God, it instead sends out negative vibes, and another murder happens there. Eventually the spirit can't cope. It gives off a resonance comparable to what it feeds on, but as that resonance grows darker, it starts to break at the spirit.
Eventually, unable to passively endure the trauma, it takes on a semiphysical form, one that eventually becomes capable of crossing over the barrier and reeking havoc on the living.
When one of the Hungry Ghosts kills a human, then that human's resonance is stained when they die, and they're more likely to come back as a Hungry Ghost as well.
What's capable of stopping them, then, is the bond between a Mage and a Phantom. They join together as two sides of the same coin and they become able to operate on the same wavelength as the Hungry Ghost, and beat it into submission. The way spirits work, killing a Hungry Ghost is a release, and allows it to be reborn.
Well, after reading the new World of Darkness book, Geist: The Sin-Eaters, I got some more ideas. The new game is basically about Sin-Eaters, people who have died and come back thanks to creatures called Geist (pl. Geister). Geister are basically a cross between ghosts and World of Darkness's Spirits. They're ghosts that are closer to spirits. Instead of just being dead humans, they've transcended that into being dead Spirits. One example is a Discarded Man, made of newspapers and beerbottles. Another is the Drowned Gardener, bloated and wet and covered in chains.
Well, they gave me some ideas, and I just started freewriting.
--------------------------
Sometimes, the dead aren't restful. They die alone, lonely, sad and pathetically. Sometimes they die by diseases that aren't content to leave the soul untouched, and consume it as readily as the body. Sometimes it's violence and hatred that takes them out, leaving a harsh stain on their echoes. Sometimes it's not how they left the world that matters, but how they existed in it. A young girl teased and tormented by her classmates because she's quiet and dresses all in black, her long hair covering her face. A middle aged man who put up with abuse from his mother now goes out and enacts revenge on women who look like her, raping them and leaving them in the woods for the coyotes. Another man runs with a crew of three, each one as bad as the next, they hit every bank in town and shoot the place up before anyone can get there. A woman knows her client's guilt, and how he'll kill again if he's not locked up and treated, but still she smiles when the verdict comes, because the money helps her sleep at night.
Dying cold and alone, wasting away in a hospital bed, murder most foul. A life of quiet pain and depression, or one of violence and hatred, one driven by avarice and pride. These are the things that cause a death to go bad. In these circumstances, the dead aren't restful. They scream, and they shout, and they rage against any they encounter.
A death stained with sadness creates an echo that takes others into that sadness, making them weep until they die, laying in a bathtub drawn with hot water, they lean back and let the blackness embrace them as the blood drains from their wrists. Misery loves company.
A brutal murderer and rapist escapes prosecution only to meet his death at the hands of the survivor. His anger and hatred fuel his echo, and he returns to continue his bloody 'work'.
A man does nothing more than stumble into the wrong place at the wrong time. His car broke down in front of an old mansion. If he was able to look back now with cognizance, he would laugh at something so cliche. He stumbled in from the rain and looked around for the owner only to find just that, the owner. The only one who's truly ever owned the estate, and killed anyone who would claim otherwise. Now he's among the number, just one more echo in the cacophony of anguish that haunts the site.
I've met them. The echoes. Some are quiet, and some are restful.
Others aren't. They're cold, and cruel, their corpus twisted and altered from years or decades of self inflicted pain that most of them can't even see. The dangers to themselves that comes from indulging those malicious desires. The desire to write a wrong or save a loved one, a desire that mutates and manifests as something wholly unlike what it might have been.
When echoes become obsessed with a concept, they grow Hungry, feeding off of mortals and creating more of their kind.
Those echoes that become something unhuman, something almost primordial, they torment the living and destroy reality with their existence, passively fraying the ends of everything and chewing and digesting it just by being there.
The worst of it is that they consume souls. They do it to sustain their blasphemous unlife, or perhaps to fill some hollow part of themselves, to fill up the empty shell that they know are. The Buddhists have a name for them. They call them Preta, the Hungry Ghosts. They have "mouths as small as needles, and stomaches the size of mountains." Colourful imagery. That's what they do, though, they eat and feed, trying to fill that mountain with needle sized bites of humanity. The Japanese call them the gaki or Jikininki, and they were greedy, jealous people in life. They come back with an insatiable hunger, be it for corpses or shit. In the Book of Enoch, something similar is described. Great beings with unrivaled hunger, completely devoid of a mouth to sate it.
Whatever their origins, people who die deaths with a great stain might become one. What's worse, one of these hungry echoes will often leave more of it's own kind birthed by it's voracious wake.
They're hard to stop, the echoes of people who died terrible deaths--and even those who had their echoes stained before they even died. They come back when you kill them, because they're already dead. They can be banished back to whatever Hell they came from, but that's a stopgap. The dead come back, until you can kill them once and for all. Sometimes it's as simple as offering something to them. A simple meal. Sometimes you'll have to find a corpse, dig it up, salt it and burn it.
If only it was always that simple.
Sometimes you have to take an exceptionally old and well made sword, blessed by some religious figure, and cut the echo until it dies once and for all and never plagues the living with it's Hunger.
Sometimes even that, a fight to the death with steel and will, is too simple. Sometimes you have to reenact the death. An act that can be painful even if the echo in question is terrorizing innocents with it's Hunger. How much conviction does a hunter need to find the soul of a little girl causing young women to take their own lives in depression and berate her and torment her until she takes her own life again, this time with a definite finality. Or what of dragging an innocent man unaware of what his Hunger is doing along the same road he was murdered on, scaring him to death as he's pulled from a car by chains soaked in holy water.
That's what it's like to see the dead.
It means seeing the innocents who are lost, and doomed to repeat their actions, echoes of hurt who can't move on. It means helping them, whether by destroying what ties them to the world, or resolving their issues.
It unfortunately also means dealing with the restless dead, the merciless demons that a person can become when they don't get help, when they're hung up on it all and can't move on to the Beyond. They become predators, their Hunger withering and killing lives both metaphorically and literally.
It means dealing with the things that are wrong in society, and sometimes it means doing things that shouldn't be done, things that leave a bad taste in your mouth. You'd damned well better swallow it down and chase it with something less bitter. Sometimes you have to fight off the echo of a lonely girl who met her end in an alleyway at the tip of a knife. Sometimes the innocents go bad. It isn't their fault. What happened to them would scare anyone shitless. They don't even know what's going on half of the time. They just exist, like animals. Fear drives them. The fear of a death they've already faced but refuse to face. Refuse to accept and acknowledge. They lash out, frightened and alone.
When they become like that, when an echo's Hunger starts to take them over, starts to become all they are, they change. Usually it's the face that changes the most. Their eyes and mouths become... less. Less than human, mostly, but sometimes they become smaller. They may even vanish. Their clothing becomes less clothing, and more symbolic. The old image of Jacob Marley in chains, his earthly greed tethering him to the mortal world, denying him entry into heaven. This is how the Hunger starts for an echo. They think they're missing something. Something that ties them to the world, something that they can get from others, but they're too simple, too animalistic, to do anything more than Hunger for that thing.
That's when they try to take it. That's when they start to become defined by their Hunger and feed off of the resonance left behind by whatever it is they think they lack. Even the kindest soul can become Hungry after death, no one knows what causes it, other than a thick and ponderous stain on their echo. Even the innocent can become monsters after death, their echoes feeding on friends and family.
Their essence shifts and twists until they become nothing more than a living symbol of their Hunger, a demonic and tortured soul that can do nothing more than attempt to ease that torture by spreading it on to others and consuming what's left in the wake, all while hoping that they can obtain whatever ephemeral quality it is that they're missing.
Feeding their Hunger just makes them Hungrier. With every bite, their stomachs grow emptier, and their souls become hollow.
The worst of it is that they consume souls. They do it to sustain their blasphemous unlife, or perhaps to fill some hollow part of themselves, to fill up the empty shell that they know are. The Buddhists have a name for them. They call them Preta, the Hungry Ghosts. They have "mouths as small as needles, and stomaches the size of mountains." Colourful imagery. That's what they do, though, they eat and feed, trying to fill that mountain with needle sized bites of humanity. The Japanese call them the gaki or Jikininki, and they were greedy, jealous people in life. They come back with an insatiable hunger, be it for corpses or shit. In the Book of Enoch, something similar is described. Great beings with unrivaled hunger, completely devoid of a mouth to sate it.
Whatever their origins, people who die deaths with a great stain might become one. What's worse, one of these hungry echoes will often leave more of it's own kind birthed by it's voracious wake.
They're hard to stop, the echoes of people who died terrible deaths--and even those who had their echoes stained before they even died. They come back when you kill them, because they're already dead. They can be banished back to whatever Hell they came from, but that's a stopgap. The dead come back, until you can kill them once and for all. Sometimes it's as simple as offering something to them. A simple meal. Sometimes you'll have to find a corpse, dig it up, salt it and burn it.
If only it was always that simple.
Sometimes you have to take an exceptionally old and well made sword, blessed by some religious figure, and cut the echo until it dies once and for all and never plagues the living with it's Hunger.
Sometimes even that, a fight to the death with steel and will, is too simple. Sometimes you have to reenact the death. An act that can be painful even if the echo in question is terrorizing innocents with it's Hunger. How much conviction does a hunter need to find the soul of a little girl causing young women to take their own lives in depression and berate her and torment her until she takes her own life again, this time with a definite finality. Or what of dragging an innocent man unaware of what his Hunger is doing along the same road he was murdered on, scaring him to death as he's pulled from a car by chains soaked in holy water.
That's what it's like to see the dead.
It means seeing the innocents who are lost, and doomed to repeat their actions, echoes of hurt who can't move on. It means helping them, whether by destroying what ties them to the world, or resolving their issues.
It unfortunately also means dealing with the restless dead, the merciless demons that a person can become when they don't get help, when they're hung up on it all and can't move on to the Beyond. They become predators, their Hunger withering and killing lives both metaphorically and literally.
It means dealing with the things that are wrong in society, and sometimes it means doing things that shouldn't be done, things that leave a bad taste in your mouth. You'd damned well better swallow it down and chase it with something less bitter. Sometimes you have to fight off the echo of a lonely girl who met her end in an alleyway at the tip of a knife. Sometimes the innocents go bad. It isn't their fault. What happened to them would scare anyone shitless. They don't even know what's going on half of the time. They just exist, like animals. Fear drives them. The fear of a death they've already faced but refuse to face. Refuse to accept and acknowledge. They lash out, frightened and alone.
When they become like that, when an echo's Hunger starts to take them over, starts to become all they are, they change. Usually it's the face that changes the most. Their eyes and mouths become... less. Less than human, mostly, but sometimes they become smaller. They may even vanish. Their clothing becomes less clothing, and more symbolic. The old image of Jacob Marley in chains, his earthly greed tethering him to the mortal world, denying him entry into heaven. This is how the Hunger starts for an echo. They think they're missing something. Something that ties them to the world, something that they can get from others, but they're too simple, too animalistic, to do anything more than Hunger for that thing.
That's when they try to take it. That's when they start to become defined by their Hunger and feed off of the resonance left behind by whatever it is they think they lack. Even the kindest soul can become Hungry after death, no one knows what causes it, other than a thick and ponderous stain on their echo. Even the innocent can become monsters after death, their echoes feeding on friends and family.
Their essence shifts and twists until they become nothing more than a living symbol of their Hunger, a demonic and tortured soul that can do nothing more than attempt to ease that torture by spreading it on to others and consuming what's left in the wake, all while hoping that they can obtain whatever ephemeral quality it is that they're missing.
Feeding their Hunger just makes them Hungrier. With every bite, their stomachs grow emptier, and their souls become hollow.
Disturbing Dream
Alright, it took place in a corporation complex that was more of a huge, walled city. Originally it was actually some strange dream about ant infestations that played out like some Discovery Channel documentary, but that was just what they were telling the people or something.
Everyone's watching this documentary or whatever, then it switches to inside the domed city, and it's these people wandering about, looking slightly diseased. One woman has a thin, gaunt face and a splotch on the side that looks like a skull. A guy in a nice suit looks around, people check cell phones, that kind of thing. There's one lady talking about about how someone she knew's baby died or came out wrong when she was giving birth or something. No one knows what to do, and they're all just wandering about.
The guy that the whole thing is focusing on, who you'd have the impression was the main character if it was a movie, tries to make some speech about sticking together, but then someone comes up behind him in the crowd and garrotes him, then someone breaks a bat or a board on the back of the guy chocking the first guy.
Then everyone gets into a riot, knocking the crap out of each other.
This one guy who was inciting violence--at first it was a stereotypical rap guy, but it changed to a football captain type dude when one of the dream people said something, because dreams never stay straight. It may have happened because the guy he was talking to was supposed to have been a nerd, but looked like Emilio Estaves' character from the Breakfast Club. One thing was that he had a big diamond ring, and when he was saying something, someone said they should take his ring and punch him in the nose with it.--so the football captain/rapper is pinned to a wall by someone's foot, and he's telling everyone how he can get everyone out, and lead everyone to safety, and how things are different than they were before.
He mentions how the nerd-who-looks-like-a-foot
One of the guys in DEGD has a game planned for his next capstone called Extinction. It's apparently Dead Space meets Mass Effect, and is about a virus that enhances people's emotions before making them into monsters. That was a really freaky, fucked up dream, even when it felt like I fell asleep in front of the TV and my mind was messing with infomercials or a Discovery doc.
So, note to self. It's good to write down dreams, especially the freaky ones.
Everyone's watching this documentary or whatever, then it switches to inside the domed city, and it's these people wandering about, looking slightly diseased. One woman has a thin, gaunt face and a splotch on the side that looks like a skull. A guy in a nice suit looks around, people check cell phones, that kind of thing. There's one lady talking about about how someone she knew's baby died or came out wrong when she was giving birth or something. No one knows what to do, and they're all just wandering about.
The guy that the whole thing is focusing on, who you'd have the impression was the main character if it was a movie, tries to make some speech about sticking together, but then someone comes up behind him in the crowd and garrotes him, then someone breaks a bat or a board on the back of the guy chocking the first guy.
Then everyone gets into a riot, knocking the crap out of each other.
This one guy who was inciting violence--at first it was a stereotypical rap guy, but it changed to a football captain type dude when one of the dream people said something, because dreams never stay straight. It may have happened because the guy he was talking to was supposed to have been a nerd, but looked like Emilio Estaves' character from the Breakfast Club. One thing was that he had a big diamond ring, and when he was saying something, someone said they should take his ring and punch him in the nose with it.--so the football captain/rapper is pinned to a wall by someone's foot, and he's telling everyone how he can get everyone out, and lead everyone to safety, and how things are different than they were before.
He mentions how the nerd-who-looks-like-a-foot
One of the guys in DEGD has a game planned for his next capstone called Extinction. It's apparently Dead Space meets Mass Effect, and is about a virus that enhances people's emotions before making them into monsters. That was a really freaky, fucked up dream, even when it felt like I fell asleep in front of the TV and my mind was messing with infomercials or a Discovery doc.
So, note to self. It's good to write down dreams, especially the freaky ones.
Tactics game
The idea for this game is that it's a miniature tactics game. Instead of controlling one adventurer, the game harkens back to wargames such as Chainmail and Warhammer. In some ways though, it's a mixture of a roleplaying game and a miniature wargame.
Each player takes control of their army, here called a guild, and either works together or against themselves to get to the center of a dungeon and defeat any monsters they encounter. The other possibility is of a Dungeon Master type referee player who sets up a series of challenges and the players Guilds try to overcome them and race to the finish, working together when it's necessary, but ultimately competing. There's also the possibility of one player--and one referee--games. The whole thing ends up something between early Dungeons and Dragons, and a wargame.
Players create their Guilds using two things. One is the limit, which tells how many units you can take with you. This number is always just ten. The other is the total unit cost. Each unit costs a certain amount of points, generally from 1-10, and players are given a point total used to 'buy' units.
Each unit has
HIT: A unit's skill with hitting in combat with weapons.
INT: A unit's skill with using magical abilities.
For HIT and INT, characters roll 2d10+ INT/HIT against the target's AGI+10.
AGI: The unit's ability to avoid damage. This number is added to 10 to determine if an attack against the unit misses.
MOV: The movement allowance of a unit. Measured in one inch squares representing five feet, this is the total distance a unit can move in a single turn.
-- JMP: Based on MOV/3, how many squares a unit can move vertically, used if the terrain has any variances.
TOUGH: The unit's ability to withstand or negate damage. Any time the unit is damaged, they roll TOUGH (2d10+TOUGH) against the rating of the damage. Each time the unit fails, they take a -1 to their TOUGH rolls. When a unit fails a TOUGH roll by five points, they are rendered unconscious.
DMG: The rating of a unit's damage. This isn't actually a native stat, but is something important. The unit might have special maneuvers or abilities with different levels of damage. Damage is 10+Rating, meaning a character with a damage of 3 attacking a character of TOUGH 0 would cause the unit to be wounded on a roll of 13 or less. Damage is static, and unrolled.
More to come.
Each player takes control of their army, here called a guild, and either works together or against themselves to get to the center of a dungeon and defeat any monsters they encounter. The other possibility is of a Dungeon Master type referee player who sets up a series of challenges and the players Guilds try to overcome them and race to the finish, working together when it's necessary, but ultimately competing. There's also the possibility of one player--and one referee--games. The whole thing ends up something between early Dungeons and Dragons, and a wargame.
Players create their Guilds using two things. One is the limit, which tells how many units you can take with you. This number is always just ten. The other is the total unit cost. Each unit costs a certain amount of points, generally from 1-10, and players are given a point total used to 'buy' units.
Each unit has
HIT: A unit's skill with hitting in combat with weapons.
INT: A unit's skill with using magical abilities.
For HIT and INT, characters roll 2d10+ INT/HIT against the target's AGI+10.
AGI: The unit's ability to avoid damage. This number is added to 10 to determine if an attack against the unit misses.
MOV: The movement allowance of a unit. Measured in one inch squares representing five feet, this is the total distance a unit can move in a single turn.
-- JMP: Based on MOV/3, how many squares a unit can move vertically, used if the terrain has any variances.
TOUGH: The unit's ability to withstand or negate damage. Any time the unit is damaged, they roll TOUGH (2d10+TOUGH) against the rating of the damage. Each time the unit fails, they take a -1 to their TOUGH rolls. When a unit fails a TOUGH roll by five points, they are rendered unconscious.
DMG: The rating of a unit's damage. This isn't actually a native stat, but is something important. The unit might have special maneuvers or abilities with different levels of damage. Damage is 10+Rating, meaning a character with a damage of 3 attacking a character of TOUGH 0 would cause the unit to be wounded on a roll of 13 or less. Damage is static, and unrolled.
More to come.
Odyssean
The idea is basically that these people, called Travelers, have been cursed with power. They can perform magic and miracles, but they're burdened with the Odysseus curse. They can never go home, and in their case they can never settle down. If they try to, their curse manifests however it does for them. They might become paranoid or frightened of everything, they might become easily angered, or they might become agitated to the point where they're forced to leave. They can still own bank accounts and such, but they can't get a home or anything. In fact, if they do have a way of getting rid of the curse and staying in the same place, then they'd still have to stay only in some magically barriered building. So they either have to roam or stay in one spot without even being able to go into their backyards.
The other big thing is that instead of just learning spells by spending the points for them, you'd learn spells by finding and translating scrolls and rituals, or devising your own, and doing research. Once you learn a spell, to be able to use it, you'd have to make some sort of sacrifice. For something like a healing spell, you might need to set a broken bone or something without magic, or for a luck spell you might have to reverse pickpocket someone a hundred bucks.
For something like a dangerous damaging spell, you might have to stab yourself, cut a mark into your body, or even sacrifice an animal or human being.
Of course, if you're one of those not-so-nice guys who wants to heal himself, you might not wait around for someone to break a bone.
Once you've learned a spell though, you wouldn't have to do it again. So if you needed to rip your own tooth out for the spell to work, you'd only need to do it once.
The other big thing is that instead of just learning spells by spending the points for them, you'd learn spells by finding and translating scrolls and rituals, or devising your own, and doing research. Once you learn a spell, to be able to use it, you'd have to make some sort of sacrifice. For something like a healing spell, you might need to set a broken bone or something without magic, or for a luck spell you might have to reverse pickpocket someone a hundred bucks.
For something like a dangerous damaging spell, you might have to stab yourself, cut a mark into your body, or even sacrifice an animal or human being.
Of course, if you're one of those not-so-nice guys who wants to heal himself, you might not wait around for someone to break a bone.
Once you've learned a spell though, you wouldn't have to do it again. So if you needed to rip your own tooth out for the spell to work, you'd only need to do it once.
How much are you willing to give for power?
Ashcroft | Bram Hellsing
Abraham Hellsing was one of the ranking members of ParaSol, and he was the head of Ashcroft's wing of Neurological Enhancement and Application Research, what most people called The Cradle.
First, to understand things better, it's necessary to know more about the Cradle. The project had it's roots in the late Sixties, after the end of the MK-ULTRA trials. NEAR was designed to "create and cultivate psychic and parapsychic potential in the individual", and to achieve this goal they created the Espers. Young children, often either clones or orphans, that had their neurological abilities enhanced, made stronger, brought out.
NEAR's espers were designed with a variety of applications, from simple remote viewing to more direct operations. Though the Cradle's projects still failed in most cases to live up to the military expectations, they still made great strides. Unfortunately, there were side effects. While MK-ULTRA's trails involved LSD and hypnosis, NEAR worked with genetic manipulation and neurological engineering. The children of the Cradle became quiet, reserved, and completely obedient to their handlers without a second thought. All qualities that any parent would want, but in a way that no child would normally be. The children were often described as 'creepy', 'ethereal', and in at least five cases 'evil'. Studies revealed that the Cradle's espers emitted a low level psychic field that caused unease in those around them, specifically their handlers.
The children themselves often had problems. The were often plagued by nightmares, and the espers labeled Watchers, the ones involved in remote viewing, would have visions, seeing things that weren't there. The children called them Faeries, and more often than not they took forms that were disturbing and wrong, much like the feelings that the children themselves emmitted. They would look perfectly normal, but at the same time they would appear off, as if everything about them was shifted one micrometer in the wrong direction, or their shadows twisted and changed while they stayed the same, or they had smiles that were too wide. They saw things that weren't there, things that couldn't be explained even by the tests that revealed the low level psychic disturbances caused by the children.
But every single one of the children described the same creatures.
Either way, the Cradle suffered from a number of psychological problems, and had a high rate of suicide. In at least two cases there were murders, but both cases were considered to be unrelated to NEAR.
Bram oversaw the Cradle of the Sariel Project, one of the most promising subjects. She had relatively few of the problems that the other handful of current Cradle children did; she didn't see dark creatures between the seams of reality, she didn't unnerve her handlers, her nightmares were easily manageable. She was the most talented esper of the lot of them, and people would stand to make a lot of money if things had gone well.
Now, with all of this it would be easy to paint Bram as a monster, a cruel man who only wanted to make money. This isn't true, though. Yes, he was motivated by his own greed, and it was that greed that he was punished for when Sariel snapped. He also treated her like a daughter. While his primary goal was for wealth and power that would come from the success of NEAR, he was still a decent enough human being if not for his insatiable avarice. He cared for Sariel, treated her kindly. He was still strict, but he would treat her as gently as possible. He had a grandfatherly demeanor, though he was capable of outbursts of anger. He managed to restrain that temper around Sariel, and not only because she was important and expensive. He truly cared for the child so long as it didn't interfere with any money or power that he would gain.
It was Ashleigh Harker, Sariel's handler, who was the one who stopped that. She grew too close to Sariel, and as she got older, and the tests got harder, she couldn't deal with what she had to do to the girl to force her potential. She went to the head of ParaSol, and she lobbyed to cut back on the project. With results not being what they wanted, they scaled back the Sariel Project. Or at least, that's what the official unofficial statement was. Bram made it so that the project would be going into a new phase, to watch and wait. Sarah was given surgery that would hamper her abilities, her memory was erased, and she was placed in adoption to be adopted by Micheal Carpenter.
After Sarah was raped and Michael killed Andrew Cunningham and himself, Bram was there to pick up the pieces. Ashleigh, shaken deeply by the incident, ran away, fleeing to Boston, Maryland to start a new life. Hellsing continued the project without her, and Sarah once again became Sariel. Things quickly spiraled out of control, though, and Sariel slipped deeper into the same problems that the other Cradle children had. Her demeanor became the same hollow shell that the other espers had, and she began seeing the Faeries--and the other things that either couldn't be seen or didn't exist--more and more. Her nightmares increased, and her new handler was unable to help her cope. He hanged himself less than a week after starting, despite maintaining his composure through three of the Cradle's other espers. This was three days after Paul Krueger was found murdered in the California Hotel, and by the end of the month, Ashcroft stopped existing as it had and became part of the Otherworld.
Hellsing, for his part in it, sits in the Operating Room of the Ashcroft Medical Research Hospital, between the main hospital and the branch used in the Cradle. His new form represents the Greed that drove him to make and break a little girl, and is punishment for his part in Sarah's death, and Sariel's rebirth.
First, to understand things better, it's necessary to know more about the Cradle. The project had it's roots in the late Sixties, after the end of the MK-ULTRA trials. NEAR was designed to "create and cultivate psychic and parapsychic potential in the individual", and to achieve this goal they created the Espers. Young children, often either clones or orphans, that had their neurological abilities enhanced, made stronger, brought out.
NEAR's espers were designed with a variety of applications, from simple remote viewing to more direct operations. Though the Cradle's projects still failed in most cases to live up to the military expectations, they still made great strides. Unfortunately, there were side effects. While MK-ULTRA's trails involved LSD and hypnosis, NEAR worked with genetic manipulation and neurological engineering. The children of the Cradle became quiet, reserved, and completely obedient to their handlers without a second thought. All qualities that any parent would want, but in a way that no child would normally be. The children were often described as 'creepy', 'ethereal', and in at least five cases 'evil'. Studies revealed that the Cradle's espers emitted a low level psychic field that caused unease in those around them, specifically their handlers.
The children themselves often had problems. The were often plagued by nightmares, and the espers labeled Watchers, the ones involved in remote viewing, would have visions, seeing things that weren't there. The children called them Faeries, and more often than not they took forms that were disturbing and wrong, much like the feelings that the children themselves emmitted. They would look perfectly normal, but at the same time they would appear off, as if everything about them was shifted one micrometer in the wrong direction, or their shadows twisted and changed while they stayed the same, or they had smiles that were too wide. They saw things that weren't there, things that couldn't be explained even by the tests that revealed the low level psychic disturbances caused by the children.
But every single one of the children described the same creatures.
Either way, the Cradle suffered from a number of psychological problems, and had a high rate of suicide. In at least two cases there were murders, but both cases were considered to be unrelated to NEAR.
Bram oversaw the Cradle of the Sariel Project, one of the most promising subjects. She had relatively few of the problems that the other handful of current Cradle children did; she didn't see dark creatures between the seams of reality, she didn't unnerve her handlers, her nightmares were easily manageable. She was the most talented esper of the lot of them, and people would stand to make a lot of money if things had gone well.
Now, with all of this it would be easy to paint Bram as a monster, a cruel man who only wanted to make money. This isn't true, though. Yes, he was motivated by his own greed, and it was that greed that he was punished for when Sariel snapped. He also treated her like a daughter. While his primary goal was for wealth and power that would come from the success of NEAR, he was still a decent enough human being if not for his insatiable avarice. He cared for Sariel, treated her kindly. He was still strict, but he would treat her as gently as possible. He had a grandfatherly demeanor, though he was capable of outbursts of anger. He managed to restrain that temper around Sariel, and not only because she was important and expensive. He truly cared for the child so long as it didn't interfere with any money or power that he would gain.
It was Ashleigh Harker, Sariel's handler, who was the one who stopped that. She grew too close to Sariel, and as she got older, and the tests got harder, she couldn't deal with what she had to do to the girl to force her potential. She went to the head of ParaSol, and she lobbyed to cut back on the project. With results not being what they wanted, they scaled back the Sariel Project. Or at least, that's what the official unofficial statement was. Bram made it so that the project would be going into a new phase, to watch and wait. Sarah was given surgery that would hamper her abilities, her memory was erased, and she was placed in adoption to be adopted by Micheal Carpenter.
After Sarah was raped and Michael killed Andrew Cunningham and himself, Bram was there to pick up the pieces. Ashleigh, shaken deeply by the incident, ran away, fleeing to Boston, Maryland to start a new life. Hellsing continued the project without her, and Sarah once again became Sariel. Things quickly spiraled out of control, though, and Sariel slipped deeper into the same problems that the other Cradle children had. Her demeanor became the same hollow shell that the other espers had, and she began seeing the Faeries--and the other things that either couldn't be seen or didn't exist--more and more. Her nightmares increased, and her new handler was unable to help her cope. He hanged himself less than a week after starting, despite maintaining his composure through three of the Cradle's other espers. This was three days after Paul Krueger was found murdered in the California Hotel, and by the end of the month, Ashcroft stopped existing as it had and became part of the Otherworld.
Hellsing, for his part in it, sits in the Operating Room of the Ashcroft Medical Research Hospital, between the main hospital and the branch used in the Cradle. His new form represents the Greed that drove him to make and break a little girl, and is punishment for his part in Sarah's death, and Sariel's rebirth.
On Angels and Demons
God is a bastard. Angels are like white blood cells.
The armies of the Almighty cleanse any infection that might threaten the whole of the planet. In doing so they stir the flames of doubt and fear. What God would allow such a thing to happen?
Angels are robotic, and think of nothing but eliminating anything that creates a problem for the rest of the body, the body being humanity. In fact, if you look at it, the MOST holy thing for them to do is to kill anyone who doubts, as well as kill anyone who met that person. An angel sees doubt and blasphemy like a white blood cell sees infection.
You need to destroy it and keep it from spreading, even if you have to destroy a relatively small part of the body in the process. It's better to amputate and stop the infection than it is to keep a full body that is crawling with disease and infection. That's what an angel does when it destroys cities, cleansing them from the planet with divine fire.
That's what makes them so scary. They're the embodiment of all that is GOOD in the world, and nothing they do is wrong. Even if they kill billions of innocent people, because the individual is nothing to them. In fact, they literally surpass good and evil in that they are capable of doing monumental amounts of good by doing incredible evil. If a new messiah comes into the world then the most good would be to kill it before it ages, to smother it in the womb or the cradle and to kill it's mother and father and wetnurse. To keep the infection from spreading. Quarantine. Amputate. Cleanse.
A demon, on the other hand, that's something that has feelings, something that's learned the difference of right and wrong, something capable of more than cold, biological pragmatism. A demon is 'fallen', but what is it that they've fallen from? Oh, far too often a demon will go too far, a demon will fall from being the implacable, unremorseful thing that an angel is and go straight in the other direction. Overcome with the sensations of the lives of mortals--a life of sinning, winning, uncertainty, great pain and great pleasure, a life that is so full of pain and hurt and joy and bliss--a demon will go too far. In becoming more human they instinctively amplify their negative traits. So many demons hate what they were before, what better way to get back at their former colleagues than to become everything that they hate and stand against. But those that don't, those that fall just far enough to know what it's like to be human, those are the ones that hurt the most. It's far easier for anyone, even a divine being, to grow darkness in their own hearts than it is for them to slay the darkness in the heart of another. Those that go halfway, falling enough to live and learn and laugh and cry and hurt, they're willing to protect humanity from their brothers and sisters, both the other demons and the angels.
Even those that fall halfway, the ones who do their best to be good and don't hurt anyone, even the demons who protect humans and extol the virtues of faith hope and goodwill... even the most just demon is seen by an angel as a beacon, a beacon of something that needs to be cut out, destroyed before it can spread to the rest of the populace and infect them with their nature. A nature of something that is what it should not be. And that puts everybody that they know or who knows them in danger, all because angels are cold and pragmatic.
Ashcroft
A few years ago in the town of Ashcroft, Bram Hellsing made Sariel, a little girl with psychic powers. After Ashleigh Harker, one of the members of the project, became endeared to Sariel, she had the Sariel project was shut down, and then some scifi-y stuff was done to the girl's brain to make her forget. She became Sarah, a little orphan girl.
Sarah was adopted by Michael Carpenter, a devout member of the pseudoCatholic religion of the town. He adopted her after his wife died, and made sure that she had everything she could ever need, and so Sarah got to go to the fancy private school. There she met Andrew Cunningham, who tormented and teased her because he secretly loved her, but was too prideful to risk his social standing to associate with the poor little orphan girl, and teased her instead.
Sarah's life changed when she and Ashleigh, who stayed in contact with the young girl, were walking home from the park one day. They were kidnapped and held hostage by a man namedPaul Craven, a sexual deviant and rapist. They eventually got free, but Sarah was never the same.
Ashleigh up and ran away to Boston and tried her best to bury the memories, and Sarah became introverted and withdrawn.
Now, while normally this would just be a sad occurrence, there'd always been a malevolent presence in the town of Ashcroft. The natives were hostile and savage, and sacrificed to dark things, killing or enslaving other tribes. The people who came over from the Old World were quick to get swept up in the witch trials, and even in the modern age people would occassionally be killed gruesomely, or pets would go missing.
In fact, there was such a killer going around at the time. The papers called him the Ripper, though that was just the journalistic nature of comparing things to Jack the Ripper. He would hang his victims with chains, and slowly cut them to pieces.
But this was not a normal case. Michael could tell what had happened, and he took revenge on the one who did it. Or at least, who he thought had done it. Michael found Andrew, and he beat him. He beat him so bad that he died from it. It was something that he regretted, and he took his own life the next day. The sin of breaking not only his religious beliefs, but his ideals as an officer of the law was too much for him.
With Michael out of the picture, Bram Hellsing did what he had wanted to do for some time.
He took Sarah away, and he restarted the Sariel Project.
He took a scared, frightened, emotionally and physically abused little girl--who had just lost her best friend, the man she called her father, and the boy that she had a crush on--and turned her back into a weapon. All for the monetary gain and political clout that would be his if he was to perfect the project.
The first thing that happened was that Paul Krueger was found dead in the seedy California Hotel, hung by chains through his skin, long strips of flesh torn from his chest. This was two days after the Ashcroft Ripper hung himself.
The second, more overt change, was that the town become darker. Bram Hellsing became a representation of Greed, trapped beneath the hospital. Paul Krueger became Lust, burning in his own fire in room 1312 of the California Hotel.
Andrew was brought back to life as an embodiment of Pride, unable to express his feelings because of the effect it would have on his social standing. Overcome by grief and anger, enough to make him forget his social codes, Michael is Wrath.
Sarah, or Sariel, so full of power but so incapable of protecting herself when it mattered most, is Sloth.
And the serial killer who would hang his victims and torture them to find out what made them tick, who would dress up in their clothes and pretend to be them until the time came to move on, was given a second chance, and now wanders the darkened town as a man with no memories. He introduces himself as Jack, and he is unique in that he has the choice to break free of the town and start a new life, or he can give in to his nature and become Envy.
The last thing to happen was that in Boston, Ashleigh's perceptions continually shifted to the now hellish Ashcroft, as if it was reaching out to her, and calling her. She would walk into a room or a building, and find herself in the old ruins of her hometown, the monsters lurking about. The phone would ring, and she would hear the voice of an old friend, or someone from Ashcroft. Sometimes it would be static, sometimes it would be a quiet voice begging for help.
Either way, there's only one thing that she can do. She has to go back, she has to recover her lost memories, and she has to put an end to the dark nature of the town, once and for all.
Sarah was adopted by Michael Carpenter, a devout member of the pseudoCatholic religion of the town. He adopted her after his wife died, and made sure that she had everything she could ever need, and so Sarah got to go to the fancy private school. There she met Andrew Cunningham, who tormented and teased her because he secretly loved her, but was too prideful to risk his social standing to associate with the poor little orphan girl, and teased her instead.
Sarah's life changed when she and Ashleigh, who stayed in contact with the young girl, were walking home from the park one day. They were kidnapped and held hostage by a man namedPaul Craven, a sexual deviant and rapist. They eventually got free, but Sarah was never the same.
Ashleigh up and ran away to Boston and tried her best to bury the memories, and Sarah became introverted and withdrawn.
Now, while normally this would just be a sad occurrence, there'd always been a malevolent presence in the town of Ashcroft. The natives were hostile and savage, and sacrificed to dark things, killing or enslaving other tribes. The people who came over from the Old World were quick to get swept up in the witch trials, and even in the modern age people would occassionally be killed gruesomely, or pets would go missing.
In fact, there was such a killer going around at the time. The papers called him the Ripper, though that was just the journalistic nature of comparing things to Jack the Ripper. He would hang his victims with chains, and slowly cut them to pieces.
But this was not a normal case. Michael could tell what had happened, and he took revenge on the one who did it. Or at least, who he thought had done it. Michael found Andrew, and he beat him. He beat him so bad that he died from it. It was something that he regretted, and he took his own life the next day. The sin of breaking not only his religious beliefs, but his ideals as an officer of the law was too much for him.
With Michael out of the picture, Bram Hellsing did what he had wanted to do for some time.
He took Sarah away, and he restarted the Sariel Project.
He took a scared, frightened, emotionally and physically abused little girl--who had just lost her best friend, the man she called her father, and the boy that she had a crush on--and turned her back into a weapon. All for the monetary gain and political clout that would be his if he was to perfect the project.
The first thing that happened was that Paul Krueger was found dead in the seedy California Hotel, hung by chains through his skin, long strips of flesh torn from his chest. This was two days after the Ashcroft Ripper hung himself.
The second, more overt change, was that the town become darker. Bram Hellsing became a representation of Greed, trapped beneath the hospital. Paul Krueger became Lust, burning in his own fire in room 1312 of the California Hotel.
Andrew was brought back to life as an embodiment of Pride, unable to express his feelings because of the effect it would have on his social standing. Overcome by grief and anger, enough to make him forget his social codes, Michael is Wrath.
Sarah, or Sariel, so full of power but so incapable of protecting herself when it mattered most, is Sloth.
And the serial killer who would hang his victims and torture them to find out what made them tick, who would dress up in their clothes and pretend to be them until the time came to move on, was given a second chance, and now wanders the darkened town as a man with no memories. He introduces himself as Jack, and he is unique in that he has the choice to break free of the town and start a new life, or he can give in to his nature and become Envy.
The last thing to happen was that in Boston, Ashleigh's perceptions continually shifted to the now hellish Ashcroft, as if it was reaching out to her, and calling her. She would walk into a room or a building, and find herself in the old ruins of her hometown, the monsters lurking about. The phone would ring, and she would hear the voice of an old friend, or someone from Ashcroft. Sometimes it would be static, sometimes it would be a quiet voice begging for help.
Either way, there's only one thing that she can do. She has to go back, she has to recover her lost memories, and she has to put an end to the dark nature of the town, once and for all.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Shades of Grey: Mages
Mages are ordinary, mundane muggles who've had their eyes opened to the rest of the world. Often times it happens because they almost die--or actually die--and Awaken to the abilities they have. While most people see their lives flash before their eyes, Mages experience a sort of spiritual journey where they look deep into themselves and find the ability to do what they need to do.
In addition to not dying when killed, Mages are gifted with magic. They can call forth spirits and summon up fire and all that jazz. When they awaken they are usually (and often quickly) found by the Mages' Association and they are either learned in the ways of magic (generally made to understand the rules of magic and then dumped on an apprenticeship). Some find that their modest or miniscule talents aren't worth it, and they don't bother practicing the Ars Arcana. They see it as too difficult to become skilled, too dangerous. Others do, and are the ones who go on to become Mages.
Their greatest task is to make a Pact with a Phantom and protect society at large.
I'll deal with the laws of magic later. For now, the Mage's relationship with Phantoms.
Mages are human beings who can tap into spiritual energy, the same energy that powers and makes up spirits. They can use their willpower and emotions to manipulate that energy, allowing them to perform magic. Now, there are many different forms of magic, from tracking to just plain old shooting fireballs, but one of the most important things that mages do is making a Pact with a Phantom.
The Pact isn't really so much an agreement as a binding process. The Mage enables themselves to channel mana into their Phantom, allowing the Phantom to use more power. They also embody the Phantom. Embodiment will be covered later as well, but the short version is that they give the Phantom a physical form.
Together, the mage and the phantom form a fighting team. Of course, it's perfectly possible for them to talk out any differences that they have. Possible, but not likely. The life of a mage is never a simple one, and there's a reason most of them live in seclusion.
While the Minister and Magister are likely in their partnership to take on any number of supernatural baddies to keep the place safe, the original Pacts were formed to deal with Shades. More on those later as well. The short story: Evil spirits.
That's about it for now. Later I'll get into how magic works, why bad magic is bad, and of course Phantoms and Shades.
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