#there's personal lore about the time period in which i wrote parts i and ii for architect-verse

[lorelune]

theoretically i love writing architect-verse however in practice i need to be a Little Insane in the moment to write blade effectively

[evilelitest2]

Warhammer Paper

I wrote this for a history class on Warhammer Fantasy, some people have asked me for it so here you go 

Neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire: Warhammer Fantasy’s Imagination of the Empire

A note on terminology.  Warhammer is the larger brand that all of the following games fall under, with a specific aesthetic, culture, and identity in the larger fantasy space.  The property is divided into two types of games, and two “settings”.  Warhammer Battle, a wargame, which players take armies of miniatures. Warhammer Roleplay, is a table-top roleplaying game ala Dungeons and Dragons set in the Warhammer world.  These games are split between two settings, an imagined world where the action of the games are supposed to take place, so the battles between the Ogre and Daemon armies are given a context within the world of the fantasy.  The settings include the original Warhammer Fantasy, and it's far more popular science fiction equivalent Warhammer 40000 (usually known as 40k).  This work will look primarily at Warhammer Fantasy and not 40K,  specifically its depiction of the Holy ROman Empire in its fantastical equivalent, the Empire of Man.  Warhammer Fantasy draws heavily upon early modern history for inspiration, down to its own world map.  

The world of Warhammer Fantasy, in contrast to works like as Lord of the Rings, draws primarily upon historical influences to populate its world.  The Kingdom of Bretonnia is obviously inspired by France, the Empire of Cathay and Nippon aren’t even hiding that they are based on China and Japan.  And the core part of  the setting where most of the action is set, is the Empire of Man, inspired by the Holy Roman Empire, with its Emperor elected by a series of Elector-Counts ruling over a deepy decentralized state.  While Warhammer Fantasy is a somewhat comedic game, it is worth studying how it depicts the Holy Roman Empire, because that is how much of its Anglophile audience is going to first learn about its real life equivalent. 

The subject of this paper is Warhammer Fantasy (WF), the series that started the Warhammer franchise.  This setting encompasses both the games of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFR) and Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB), and I will be using the books from those games interchangeably because, while they are different games, the setting and the lore is the same,.   Warhammer Fantasy is set in “The Old World”, a fantasy world under constant threat by supernatural forces.  While the world is populated by a variety of fantasy creatures like Ogres, Dwarves and Elves under threats of “Daemons”, the main focus of the world are the human kingdoms, roughly modelled after real life historical societies.  While the entire world is loosely sketched out, most of the action of the game is set in “The Empire of Man”, located in the middle of a fantastic version of early modern Europe.

The franchise of Warhammer is wargaming, where player enact battles with an army of miniatures on a board.  These miniatures must be purchased from Games Workshop and prices can run as high as over $100 dollars for a monster miniature, meaning the game is limited to an affluent fanbase.   Players don’t simply buy the minaturse, they also paint them, the miniatures when purchased as black and white pewter figurines which the player paints with brushes and paints also provided by Games Workshop.  The games website has recommended colors for each type of figure but players may customize their mainatures as they choose, giving players a personal connection to their own collection.  While players may purchase as many miniature as they wish, officially each set of minaturse is organized into different “armies”.  Each army has a theme and unique design, and units from a particular army is only supposed to work within its own army.  So for example, the High Elf Army are the only units who employ High Elf Mages.  The Knights of Bretonnia cannot be used in the armies of the Empire.  These armies each have a unique play style and most players can only afford to play with a few armies, generally leading to players committing to a single army they identify with.  In addition to buying miniatures and paints, players must also buy the rules for play. In addition to the general rule book must be bought by all the players, each specific army also has a special rule book known as a codex.  The codex does not only contain the specific rules for each army but also the story line, character descriptions and society of each faction.  For example the empire codex contains not only the specific rules for each unit but also the personalities of the individual important figures, the history and culture of the empire and the character of the empire as as a whole, complete with pictures.  

In game design terminology, the is the divide between what is called mechanics and story (or fluff).  Mechanics covers the actual game play such as how much damage each each unit deals and what special attacks they have, while the story covers the specific character of each unit.  Warhammer Fantasy was started in 1983 and has gone through 8 editions until the game eventually ended in 2010.  The first two editions were actually nothing but armies with no story with them at all beyond a few sentence, it wasn’t until third edition came about in 1987 that the actual setting was created and the Empire of Man existed as anything more than “The human faction”.   And from every edition since third, new codex have come with update the story, introduce new factions, or change the state of the world.  

The variant game Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay ues entirely different mechanics but the same story.   The experience of a tabletop game, modelled off Dungeons and Dragons, a form of interactive storytelling, consisting of several players sitting around a table.  One player is called the Game Master (GM) who creates the story and maintains the rules.  Each of the other players creates a single character who they control.  Each character has a set of powers and the characters can take actions which are determined by dice rolls.  So if one players wants theri character to attack a goblin, they roll dice to see if he is successful.   The characters work together to try to overcome the challenges the GM throws at them.  Rather than vast battles, the mechanics of roleplay tends to have a greater emphasis on character interaction, the day to day living of the characters, and small scale combat.  So mechanics exist not only for combat but also for socializing, stealth, and crafting objects, and these rules are laid out in large hard copies called Gamebooks.  For the game to be played one person in the groups must have the Core Rulebook, but supplementary rulebooks exist covering other aspects of the world and the game.  Each rule book contains both mechanics and story, however the story in these games is far more in depth and detailed than the Wargaming counterpart.  For example, the primary source for this paper is Heirs of Sigmar, a supplement book designed to flesh out the culture and history of Empire.  It contains some specific rules, but the vast majority of the book is simply story, which does not contradict the story of the Wargame.  Thus both games share the same story even as their mechanics are entirely different.   The fact that two games with entirely different mechanics can have the same story shows that the mechanics don’t contribute to the story, which is known in ludology as “Ludonarrative dissonance”.   

  Ludonarrative means ‘play narrative’ and refers to when a game’s narrative is expressed via its play.  To use an example from video games, in acclaimed horror game Silent Hill 2, the ending of the game changes depending on how the player acts in game.  Should the player use reckless tactics, rarely heal, and avoid stealth options, then the protagonist, James Sunderland, will commit suicide at the end of the game.  If the player is cautions and explores the area, they will leave the town to make a new life.  Ludonarrative dissonance is when the narrative of the play is in direct contrast to the narrative of the story itself.  In both games, the mechanics of Warhammer fantasy are largely disconnected from its themes and story.  All this to say, this essay will not be looking at the actual gameplay or mechanics, which have very little to do with its understanding of the empire.  The focus of this essay will be solely on the story content provided in the game books, thus little engagement will be made with ludology of the game, which could be the subject for a future paper.  As this franchise has been around since 1987, I will be drawing primarily upon the WFR book Heirs of Sigmar a guide to the Empire, and the 6th, 7th, and 8th Empire codexes, which go into the most detail about story rather than rules.    

The Empire is 2532 years old when the book is set, and its history is told through a series of epochs.  Humanity lives as primitive tribesmen until they discover the gift of iron, which leads to a time of barbarism and war. This ends only when a great warrior, Sigmar, unifies them though faith in his wolf god,and force of arms.  Sigmar ruled wisely and justly, setting up most of the institutions of the later empire, and upon his retirement, the 12 great Counts instituted the Elector system.  For a thousand years the empire goes through a prosperous golden age, expanding across the continent and becoming the greatest military force in human history, referred too as “The Birth of Nations”.  This time of wonder ends with the age of decadence, as the upper classes gave up their concerns for the state to enjoy affairs, fine foods, and frivolous spending (much of it on art and fashion).   Emperor Ludgiw II Honenbach “The Fat” makes his halfling cook an Elector, and the cult of Sigmar into the official state religion of the empire before “died in bad a short while later-smothered to death by his own neck fat”.  This period of luxury eventually ends with a great plague, and civil war, Boris Hohenbach “the Incompetent”, is so corrupt he effectively cedes all control to the feudal lords rather than the Empire.  It is the decentralization of the empire that marks its decline, known as the “Time of Judgement”.  It wasn’t until  the election of the martial Emperor Mandred I, whose reign brought stability if not prosperity to the realm, and his even more marshal successor Magnus who unified the Empire through “sheer force of will and belief” that this time of instability came to an end..  

The games presentation of history is standard for the fantasy genre, and is both simplistic and rather conservative.   Every event in the Empire’s history has a single cause, whole centuries can be summed up with rough generalization, and history is moved by individual men.  And it is always men, during the first 1750 years of history only 3 women are mentioned, a nameless priestess to the goddess of diplomacy, a frivolous vain noblewoman, and a failed usurper, each with half a sentence of description.    The lack of female representation is a consistent pattern across the Warhammer franchise.  The good rulers are universally military commanders whose reigns last decades, as prosperous as they are vague.  The Empire has an astronomical time frame but largely does not change except in the way of technology, it is always Germanic, decentralized, highly militant, and worshiping the same gods.  The Empire is largely timeless, only changing when an in-game event requires it.  

The effect is a state that is largely timeless, an eternal stereotype that simply exists with only slight variations, a deterministic view of society that fits many fantasy settings.  Fantasy tends to imagine the past as one of stasis, the states that exist have done so for a long time and will continue to do so unless something truly cataclysmic occurs.  Within that existence, they will stay largely the same across there history, if changes occur it will be due to a specific ruler or a major event.  Fantasy imagines time as a stalled machine, awaiting a radical push to make it move slightly ahead before stalling out.  If fantasy serves as one introduction to historical societies, it can give the impression that the Empire was a static entity, existing for centuries largely unchanged.  This can very easily move into essentialism, one can simply dismiss the empire as a thousand years of stagnation and its people effectively the same.  We see this essentialist approach later when the book describes the specific provinces, all of which have been largely the same for 2500 years, as having a specific character that defines them, even at some point implying it is due to bloodline.  

At their worst, Nordlanders are churlish, uncouth, and thoughtless speakers. Even the merchants of Nordland have this blunt approach, though they seem to be fine with double dealing. Indeed, they have found that shouting the final price of something loudly and repeatedly has a profound effect upon merchants used to the subtleties of barter and negotiation. Many provinces point out that this is because of their mongrel Was Jutone, Teutogen, and Norscan bloodlines. This mixed heritage has been a source of Nordlander shame. Modern Imperials look on Norscans with a mixture of admiration and fear, seeing them both as powerful warriors and wild, uncivilised barbarians, not to be trusted around one’s daughters or sheep. A popular Imperial saying runs “Character is in the blood,” meaning that ancestry determines character. Thus Nordlanders, though of the Empire, are often regarded as “not quite one of us,” rougher and more uncouth even than the wild and hairy Middenlanders.

It effectively buys into primordialist narratives of human society, that when human beings first emerged they have characteristics that stay with them across all of time, like French Nationalist narratives claiming the Gauls and modern French share similar values and disposition.  This is a common trope in fantasy, but by tying it to a real life historical entity, it gives the impression that this has some relation to German history.  

As to what the Empire’s essential qualities are, Warhammer seems to been written with Voltaire’s misunderstood condemnation in mind.  The Empire is deeply incompetent, disorganized, corrupt, and maddingly complicated. As Warhammer Fantasy was originally a comedy game, the section on the political structure of the empire was originally presented as a joke at the expense of the Empire.  

But while the rhetoric around the empire is mocking contempt for its decentralization and overlapping spheres of influence, the Empire of Man in fact is not that complicated.  While it is a decentralized feudal state with an elected monarch, and overlapping legal systems, it is actually less complicated than the real Holy Roman Empire.  The Vatican is located within the Empire, the royal family has no international element to it, there is no equivalent to the Spanish Habsburgs or the American Colonies, no crownlands or Greater Hungary, and of course the empire has one language.  In fact, the Holy Empire seems far more like a unified Nation-State than its real life counterpart..  One of the most notable changes made is that it doesn’t have an equivalent to the Hapsburgs, the Emperor is simply elected from among the Electors rather than from an Imperial family, and so one of the greatest elements of internationality has been removed. The fact that the empire is so much more cohesive and yet is mocked by its creators for its instability indicates just how much the ide of the nation-state has become normalized that a state not being utterly centralized is seen as strange.

Where this simplification and disinterest in the empire gets interesting is its approach to nationality or rather lack of one, as the Holy Empire is entirely German.  The word German never appears in the books of course (though the term Teutonic certainly does) but the culture of the Empire is clearly German, the Emperor is named Karl Franz, its greatest warrior is named Lugwig Schwarzhelm, and the Reiksmarshal is named Kurt Helborg.  The capital city is Altdorf (Vienna), and one of its famed military units are known as the Landsknecht.  However the empire has no stand in for Hungary, Bohemia, Slovenian, Slovakia, or Poland, the culture is almost entirely German.  The only exception is the semi-independent province of Sylvania, which is loosely based on Romania, though its depiction owes more to Bram Stoker than historical reality, ruled as it is by the vampire counts, and clearly based on Transylvania but with a Romanian cultural influence.  

This Germanization shouldn’t be surprising considering that Games Workshop is a British company whose audience is overwhelmingly American and Canadian.  None of the major designers are historians or have any expertise in the region nor do any of them mention any central European heritage.  The Anglo-American world and the fantasy genre is not particularly well informed about Eastern/Central Europe, to the point that The Witcher, a Polish inspired fantasy game was released, it was praised for bringing attention to an unappreciated region.  Germany is far more familiar, as is Romania thanks to Dracula, but as there are no major fantasy works featuring any of the other components of the Holy Roman Empire. Thus the Empire becomes a Germanic one, simply decentralized, with no Slavic, Magyar or Ottoman cultural influences to be found within its defined borders.  This general ignorance of the region also explains the rather reductive embrace of Western dismissals of the Holy Roman Empire.  In fact compared to most fantasy narratives, Warhammer is almost orientalist in its approach to German culture, the book presents German culture as exotic and strange, an the art work empathises the Gothic architecture and black armor much like similar fantasy exoticizes fantastical depictions of Japan.  

Ironically, this ignorance of the region means that the Empire avoids many of most common troubled narratives of the empire, by reimagining the Empire as fully German, it reject a Nationalist critique of the Empire.  For all its faults, the Empire isn’t oppressing ethnic groups yearning to be free, nor do any of its weaknesses come from diversity or lack of linguistic unity.  Though the Empire slogan is “Let Us Take Strength From our Diversity”  In a similar vein, Warhammer also unintentionally rejects the Clash of Civilization narrative, by the lack of an Ottoman presence.  While there is a fantasy Islamic empire (The Araby Caliphate) it is both Arabic and largely irrelevant to the events of the main story.  While the Empire does claim legitimacy by being the protectors of the true faith and the defenders of civilization, it’s rival are inhuman Daemons rather an exoticized oriental potentate. In fact while the empire considers itself the supreme cultural power, they do not seem particularly hostile towards any of their humans neighbours, nor do they have an enmity towards the Islamic inspired nations.

In fact the Empire’s relationship to religion is complicated.  Like most fantasy works, the state religion has the aesthetic, organization, and place in society as the Catholic Church, with grand cathedrals and hierarchy of priests, complete with its own Pope, the Grand Theogonist.  However the actual faith is polytheistic, with a pantheon of deities each of whom governs an aspect of reality. Its chief god used to be the wolf god Ulric, whose chosen Sigmar founded the empire, but  the Cult of Sigmar has since become the state sect of the Empire.  These gods exist in opposition to the Chaos Gods, whose Daemonic armies serve as the primary antagonists of the setting.   Each god has its own organized church, but all of them are ultimately lead by the Cult of Sigmar, whose main job seems to be the maintenance of the inquisition.  In Warhammer, the Inquisition, employs Witch Hunters and Templars in order to hunt down renegade spell casters and worshipers of Chaos, who purged via fire.  In the world of Warhammer, the world is under attack by the forces of Chaos, divine cosmic forces of destruction and corruption.  While they openly invade the empire from the north with their great Daemon armies, within the empire the lords of Chaos attempt to spread their influence through Chaos Cults.  Individuals join for magical power and pledge their souls to Daemon overlords, eventually twisting their minds and body into combinations, and are instructed to try to overthrow the empire.  The main obstacle to these cults are the inquisition, who can hunt down these secretive groups and destroy them through fire.   The game evokes the imagery of the inquisition and witch hunts, but in this fantastical setting, the actions of the church are largely justified as chaos cults are legitimately threaten the world.  In the universe of Warhammer, torture, mass execution and the constant repression of the citizenry is shown to be a justified necessary evil to prevent the empire from falling to chaos.  Since Chaos often spreads through the reading of forbidden tombs and hedonistic ‘pleasure cults”, sexual puritanism and limiting freedom of information are shown to be entirely justified.   Effectively Warhammer has created a world where the Inquisition isn’t not just necessarily but just in its actions, while doing most of the same activities as its real life counterpart.  

This approach towards religion is common in fantasy, likely do to wanting to mix the excitement of Greek mythology with the familiar structures of Catholicism, or simply because the norms of Christianity are so normal to the writers that they struggle to imagine religion differently.  For example, in Dungeons and Dragons, the pantheon of gods who exist within the world are clearly polytheistic in nature, however each god has a very Catholic inspired temple with an organized church hierarchy, using the imagery of christianity in a non Christian context.  With the Inquisition hunting down and destroying hidden heretics within the empire, the game’s trappings are mimicking that of the Protestant reformation, but the role of Protestants is being played by Chaos Cultists, and the Inquisition is actually hunting witches.  This means that the Empire losses much of its ideological nuances, one is left with the impression that faith in the empire is mostly a practical tool to battle Chaos, and the church is universally made up of corrupt hypocrites or zealous fanatics. 

The game makes a point of mocking the Holy Roman Empire for its needless complexity, but the society is reduced on every level, which makes it easier to simply dismiss.  This approach extends to almost all other aspects of the Empire, almost everything within it is defined in extremely broad strokes without much attention to detail.  The Empire has a strict class system, with an aristocracy characterized as decadent, selfish, and vain ruling over a mass of peasants who are shown as ignorant, superstitious and xenophobic.  The history is vast but sparse on details, and tends to fall into patterns, as periods of decline are ended when a warrior emperor drives back an external invader. This approach to world building is rather typical of most fantasy, as it generally hopes to work within broad archetypes rather than specific narratives.  

All this is only worth considering because the larger Warhammer franchise has come under much discussion regarding nationalist themes in its work, though mostly focusing on its far more popular 40k franchise.  The series enduring popularity with White Natioanlist and Trump supporters has been well documented, Trump’s official reddit page /thedonald regularly refers to “God Emperor Trump” a reference to 40k universe.   The 40k universe has been accused its embrace of militarism, authoritarianism and xenophobic narratives, expressed through its protagonists being the dictatorial human supremacist “Imperium of Man”.  Very little has been written about the original Warhammer Fantasy due to its relatively unpopularity compared to its spinoff, but it is worth considering from a nationalist narrative.  The Empire of Man’s embrace of German culture and folklore is telling, in particular a blond warrior unifying the forest tribes to create an Empire via war.  All of the good emperors are marshall, and the bad are defined as decedent and corrupt, with women confined to marginal roles.  The Inquisition is shown as a necessary evil and the empire has a primordialism attitude towards the tribes that make up its ranks.  A nationalist reading isn’t necessarily intentional, but it is possible, though not the traditional narratives associated with Central Europe.  Rather it is more likely some of the long standing conservative sentiments that have long been associated with the fantasy genre.  

First released in 1983, Warhammer is among the oldest and most popular fantasy properties in the gaming space, and it is one of the few fantasy franchises which plays a major part in changing the pop mersculture landscape rather than being fully insulated within the fantasy sub-culture.  Warhammer 40K is the most popular wargame in history and the label has more than 50 video game spinoffs, Warcraft famously was originally planned to be Warhammer game before they lost the license and made their own universe.  In fact most fantasy wargames owe their legacy in some way to Warhammer, which can be found in hobby shops across Europe and North America, though Games Workshop does not own the shops directly.   It is almost impossible to be within fantasy gamer culture without at least passible familiarity with the Warhammer franchise, and so to many people, Warhammer Fantasy is their first real introduction to the Holy Roman Empire, albeit in a bastardized fantasy form.  

In his influential 1936 essay, Beowulf: The Monsters and and the Critics, J.R.R. Tolkien lays out his understanding of the fantasy genre.  At the time, Beowulf was valued primarily as a historical work and not a literary, a trend Tolkien argued against, making the argument that fantasy should be appreciated as stories within their own context rather than simply reflections of our reality.  This approach is empathised in  Lord of the Rings, where the emotional stakes within the confines of the fantasy universe.  The reader hopes Frodo will succeed not because he represents something external to the story, but because we value the character and want what is best for him.   Tolkien, in his prelude to Fellowship of the Ring, famously said he despised allegory and didn’t wish his work to be read with real life parallels.  Most fantasy follows in Tolkien’s footsteps, Fantasy has long expected stories to be understood within their own context but that standard becomes confusing when real life elements are consciousnessly moved into the fantastical space.  So when Warhammer Fantasy features a society obviously inspired by the Holy Roman Empire, the audience is expected to engage with the empire within the framework of its world, our investment in its success depending on our investment with its characters and setting.  However we can’t ignore the fact that it is obviously inspired by a real life society, and that the game is unintentionally setting the groundwork for its players engagement with the historiography surrounding the empire.  And so, while it is clear that the designers didn’t have any intention to make a statement about the historiography, instead using the Empire to give their game a unique aesthetic and stand apart from other fantasy properties, Warhammer does unintentionally make a statement about history.  The stereotypes of the empire as incompetent and needlessly complicated, the view of history as largely static, that history is to be understood as mostly driven by great men, and that the decline of empires is inexorably tied to its embrace of luxury.  The game enforces the notion of the Nation-State as normal and the Empire as abnormal for departing from said model.  The game presents many institutions of the empire without contextualizing them, and doesn’t acknowledge the actual complexities of the real empire.  Ultimately while this is the only prominent fantasy work which asks the players to imagine things from the Empire’s perspective, it very much enforces many of the same stereotypes that Habsburg historians have been trying to escape from, while also endorsing many false views of history itself.  The games understanding of history is just close enough to reality that the uninformed player might take it as fact, without realizing just how essentialist Warhammer fantasy actually is.  Much more attention needs to be paid to how history is understood via fantasy, because many people get their knowledge and interest in history from fantasy, and many concepts long since debunked in history, continue to live on in fantasy uninterrupted.  

Sources 

Ragan, Anthony, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Heirs of Sigmar: A Guide to the Empire, Fantasy Flight Games, Green Ronin Publishing, 2005

Pramas, Chris, Warhammer Fantasy Core Rulebook, A Grim World of Perilous Adventure, Fantasy Flight Games, Green Ronin Publishing, 2005

Schwalb, Robert J, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Tome of Salvation: Priests of the Old World, Fantasy Flight Gaming, Green Ronin Publishing, 2007

Straufer, Marijan von, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Realms of Sorcery, black Industries, Fantasy Flight Games, Black Industries Publishing, 2005

Schwalb, Robert J, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Tome of Corruption: Secrets from the Realm of Chaos, Fantasy Flight Games, Black Industries Publishing 2006

Chart, David, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Knights of the Grail: A guide to Bretonnia, Fantasy Flight Games, Black Industries, Green Ronin Publishing, 2006

Cruddace, Robin, Warhammer Armies: The Empire (8th Edition), Games Workshop Publishing, 2010

McNeill, Graham, Warhammer Armies: The Empire (7th Edition), Games Workshop Publishing, 2007

Cavatore, Alessio, Warhammer Armies: The Empire (6th Edition), Games worship Publishing, 2000

Tolkien, J.R.R, Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1936

Tolkien, J.R.R., Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Del Rey, Reissue edition, 1986

[lightshielded]

today i would like to talk a little about the late queen catherine lightshield, the late - king jarvan lightshield iii and the little riot shone for a brief moment in the slight development of their characters and how this light needed to be smothered to continue the story they wished. this is not a post to condemn riot for this decision, for the reason for doing so is understandable and they are not champions so less important, but a post to talk more about what i personally theorise why these decisions came about during maybe character development and what would have happened in lore had riot not made these decisions ( in short, lore would be nice but more boring as the champions would be doing nothing ) and my reasoning behind this. -- also i know it is entirely possible that they did this purely for drama and i know that jarv is my muse and thats basically all he is used for by this point but look this was fun and interesting and i just like the two characters a lot -- so this is just a little brain storming “what if” if you will, so i hope you enjoy if you continue to read along. part one is my rambling explanation, part two is a what if at the end.

MY RAMBLING

in previous lore ( meaning lore with new lore demacia but prior to recent changes with new champions ), the crown royals of demacia were never quite developed, there was ultimately no need. their ambitious and scarce mentions in their son’s lore gave way to reasonable assumptions of their character and we can assume they were very generic demacias. would could also imagine them both as characters which actually opposed their son in ideology based on the state of this demacia ( the laws were closer to the ones instated by most recent lore jarv with the hardest line mage suppression ).

however, with the newer lores for demacia, riot ultimately wanted to provide xin.zhao with a backstory to fit into the new lore and this is the first large change. now while this lore was not released first, we can assume they were worked on in development together due to the closeness of their update times and this proves a crux to my point. prior, jarv ii was the one who had rescued him from noxus but with the new lore this is jarv iii. now we can assume this is for age reasons as well as making more things relevant in lore ( tho jarv ii does get a nod to in the story and i do like this fact ) by having all active characters closely tied to each other. now we know OLDEST lore demacia raided noxus to free some of their slaves, this is not possible with new lore demacia as they don’t raid nor are they close enough that they can just grab their army and take it to the heart of noxus casually. so noxus had to be the aggressor for it to work, hence xin.zhao’s position as a slave soldier in this story.

but, this inspires a first change in the character of jarv iii - to accept a stranger, a noxian soldier, into demacia he had to be significantly compassionate. so by establishing the king as someone kind enough to release noxian slaves, prisoners of war, and entrust himself to one, to call one friend. BUT this essentially sets up a very kind man who is enforcing harsh, prejudice based laws on a population of his people. obviously, this is a paradox and riot also noticed it and changed it. and with the newer bits of lore we find out multiple new things: 

one) this newer lore jarv iii didn’t teach his son to be suspicious of magical beings. this was mentioned before in his old lore that jarv iv was like most demacians on this and this part was removed on revision, even then enforced that this was not true by his uncle remarking on that is was very unlike him to be so during aftermath. so we can assume he was at least not vocal about his opinions or was genuinely trying not to be prejudiced. two) the laws of stone were introduced and presented us with a not much better but step in the right direction set of laws for demacia which is implied to be done by jarv iii. through they were subsequently slowly undone by the council of nobles as seen in a couple mentions in lore of how the laws were tightening in ways the lightshields disliked and how the king had been giving the council more power. three) the king welcomes shyv when it was open that she was a dragon and the nobles questioned his wisdom in it which meant he openly supported the idea of his son having a dragon guard. (old lore had her hiding it and people just thought she looked weird and were super sus of her). four) all the extra lore we got with the royal family publicly helping mage exiles and meeting with them on conference and other things and all.

essentially made him a king trying to be good for mages. in addition to these changes they wanted to make him a likeable person as well. they worked this into jarv iv’s lore by him being genuinely happy for his sons return rather than emotionless, mentioning how his father genuinely cared for him for one and basically having him present. but in the development of his father they also wished to develop his mother. previously it had be a loveless arranged marriage which tied them together but i guess they figured that wasn’t the route they wanted to go now with this new kinder and more emotional jarv iii so they had them romantically inclined with court whispers, gossip and all. so given this opportunity they went to develop her a little bit, giving catherine strong leadership traits and they likely decided they wanted to show these as plainly and briefly as possible, which apparently in demacian lore is how quickly you can shut down a arms race. which she did instantaneously essentially. she basically kisses the king and said stop and the entire nation was like oh shit we need to stop. no arms race civil war for a good spot near the king’s ear. so, yeah, a queen who can shut down civil war and convince nobles to her side every easily that is much beloved by the nation.

in short, they fixed the paradox of a nice king being cruel to a nice king trying to be good. and then added a powerful queen ruler who stands at his side who is greatly loved and just as influential. HOW LOVELY! however, this causes the issue of why could the good of a now markedly feudal kingdom ( they were constitution monarchy in old lore and still kinda are cause the council and they elect the king but we aren’t here to talk about that ) not just make the decisions they wish? i believe this was their point of realisation of their mistake. the realisation that these two would just do what they want, and that the entire lore of demacia for the 26 years prior would be altered. you have an idealistic king and a queen whom the entire nation adores and bends knee to? they SHOULD be able to do everything they want. and likely did some as it is mentioned the king wants his son to finish what they started and achieve his dreams. have to start something to finish it.

alas, by wanting to develop these characters for the sake of champions like jarv and xin, the essentially wrote themselves into a space of, if they continue to exist we can’t have the story we want. so they basically stopped them existing. first they killed of catherine, in all previous lores as far as we know she was alive just wasn’t romantically interested in her husband. but they did royal stuff together, watched her son get almost killed with a poison crossbow once. good ol days. i imagine they were like good business partners. but for the first time in all lores they had her killed, removed her ( they also removed jarv’s capture by noxus too which has existed just as long but thats a discussion for another day ). now this one move is easy since they put fault on the time period, its olden days in terms of technology in demacia, and unfortunately deaths in childbirth were common. so a very easy disposal which not only removed the civil war ending queen but also injures the motivation of the king by making him emotionally worn out ( in an already emotionally taxing job )

essentially, in one fell swoop they pushed back the pro mage changes to be completed by jarv iv based on his lore as had been written. which is then removed from him and he is given the role of the villain with the comic. funny that if they had just left them both ambiguous they could have just easily had the king the villain cause there wouldn’t have been paradoxes. though i’m not sure how xin.zhao would have gotten in... maybe he escapes and they find him fighting noxians. seems alright? oh well at least we get the cute uncle/nephew relationship in this version of lore. this gives me strength. but ye, so it gets interesting from here because you can sit and just think, what would have happened if she didn’t die?

WHAT IF?

for one, the power couple would have been able to do so much more. i like to think they would have been slowly working down the laws for the betterment of their people and since jarv is not emotionally weakened and lady catherine has the entire council at her beck and call, there would be little resistance amongst the nobility. slowly the laws would lower from mageseekers having to register all emergent mages and ensuring they don’t slip up or they’re out to all emergent mages having to attend classes with members of the lightbringers to learn how to have basic control of their magic -- something they are all too happy to do for they have been doing their best without aid until now -- this would then evolve to allowing more experienced mages to take these classes as an assistant and then a teacher, the lightbringers allowing their secret inner circle to take these places and serve in the open for the first time in so long.

 slowly mages are given voices in positions of leadership and exiles from “slip ups” are lowered as mages are not repressed and know how to control their magic. this would change to not fearing slip ups as use of magic is less restricted for people are less likely to fear what they understand, magic usage becomes legal on school grounds then ever growing territories, eventually towns would have mage quarters where all manor of magic is permitted. although greater usage of magic would likely not be permitted in older parts of cities as it is known to discolour walls and there is only so much you can replace in instance of greying and flaking. got to keep it simple around the grander structures. but maybe over time the mortar can be replaced to not contain petricite, or maybe the bold amongst them might design builds intended to be saturated so their ceilings flake free and reveal the magic like opals within.

slowly magic is phased into the way of life, a smithy apprentice might be permitted to light his own flame without a flint or builder help ease the load of stone. and then ( as jarv seems to have been doing with shyv prior to the comics ) mages might be permitted to don the blue if they so wished, integrating magic into what demacia sees as their pride and joy. their heroes. the mageseekers would become more a force for protecting against mages in war rather than at home, a battalion rather than a power hungry force governed by a few. or maybe they would remain a police force, part of the city guard like any other just they possess protection from magic so are called for a mage criminal while the non magic protected are called for a person swinging a sword. right armour against the right weapon. also as likely, they will lose their name, and their tools simply be another weapon to the people that wear the blue. the tainted history of the name remembered but not allowed to continue on.

slowly, it becomes a nation that embraces magic rather than shuns it out of century old fears. together it is a country that could have healed its wounds both given and inflicted on each other. and our beloved champions could have grown up in a much brighter demacia. frankly, i imagine that within the 20 years from finding xin to the “now” of this universe, much of this could have been accomplished given what we know of them. i do hope, once all the pain and suffering if through in our version of the lore that maybe these steps could be walked by the true of our champions.

[minatsuki-on-main]

BTB background info masterpost

BTB’s lore is hard to keep in mind so here’s a comprehensive list under the cut. Obviously, this contains every possible spoiler. This is a description of parties at play, concepts and past events (I’m not summarizing the anime’s plot in its entirety) so it’s by no means exhaustive. I’ll make more posts later with details on the characters themselves. There’s a lot more even than what I wrote here, so if you have a question about anything (even plot-related), send me an ask and there’s a chance I’ll know. 

Contents:

Setting

RIS

Killer B

Jaula Blanca

Story of the Attack on Jaula Blanca

Restored Gods

Reggies

Market Maker

The Jetblack Epitaph Prophecy

Scientific Details

Erika Flick’s Death and the Dead Kyle Saga

Setting

The anime is set in a monarchy (more precisely a government led by a king) called Cremona

It’s an archipelago made up of several islands:

Most of the plot seems to happen on one of the bigger island complex on the right, but smaller ones are visited by characters in various instances too (for example Morta Island [not noted on the map] and Hols Island)

The anime is set in a timeline that deviates from ours around the 16th century but our culture and history exists in this universe up to that point (the Bible and Germany are mentioned)

The MCs seem to live in the capital city

Police and military are under the king’s supervision, as well as Market Maker

RIS (Royal Investigative Services)

Investigative division of the Royal Police

Various main characters work at the Coastal Branch (a group among RIS), specifically: Lily, Keith, Kaela, Mario, Brandon, Eric, Boris, Jean and others

This group gets assigned the case of Killer B at the beginning of the story

They’re under government supervision like every other entity

Market Maker has priority over them as an organization; they start secretly surveilling RIS and get granted access to their files by the government

The government also threatens to disband RIS (in the second half of the story) as a consequence of Keith’s disappearance after Jean’s death and RIS’s reluctance in investigating him

Killer B

Koku’s secret identity

Serial killer, his victim count is at 15 at the beginning of the anime

Murders by him are connected by him leaving behind a ‘BIIII’ shaped sign in various forms (written or carved onto surfaces, constructed from objects)

His crimes have two purposes:

Eliminating reggies involved in the Jaula Blanca attack out of revenge

Signalling to Yuna that he’s alive through their special sign (the BIIII symbol)

Story of Jaula Blanca Royal Scientific Institute

13 winged skeletons were discovered at the Jetblack Epitaph [a stone tablet with an encoded inscription on Mount Cremona] in the 16th century

They were initially thought to be gods who were humanity’s progenitors

Scientists began a research project to restore them

The king decided to politically exploit the project

Jaula Blanca was a research institute built with the funds to restore the gods but the scientists were corrupt (and presumably opium addicts)

They created the reggies (then called Promised Ones) through inbreeding (later repeated for centuries), deemed them failed byproducts and disposed of them or locked them up

The research was planned to be terminated

One researcher proposed to the king to create an organization (which would later become Market Maker) to earn money and get enough scientists to proceed with the project

The proposal was accepted

Jaula Blanca survived in order to produce reggies who became intelligence agents for the Royal Government and manipulated war and peace for money

Three cellular biologists arrived from Japan (among whom Heath Kazama Flick) and helped the project reach success

Jaula Blanca produced Koku and Yuna, successfully restored gods, then others based on them (see: the Restored Gods paragraph)

An attack against Jaula Blanca was carried out, destroying it and resulting in the deaths of most children there (see: the Story of the Attack on Jaula Blanca paragraph)

CEO at the time was Albert Puzo

Gilbert’s father

First person his son killed

His approach to research ‘softened’ gradually and got closer to Heath’s (which is why Gilbert killed him)

Story of the Attack on Jaula Blanca

Ideated and led by Gilbert Ross with the assistance of Market Maker reggies

The goal was taking Minatsuki away so Gilbert could keep him alive and manipulate him in order to use his brainwashing ability (see: the Reggies paragraph)

Took form in a sudden bombing and assault at nighttime in the time period when Koku was a child (around 10)

Heath Flick told Kirisame to watch over Koku and take him to a secret shelter, different from the one the other children were sent to

Koku was looking for Yuna instead of escaping

Eventually Heath found Koku before Kirisame could and told him to leave and that he’d find Yuna

At the same time Gilbert convinced Minatsuki to cooperate with him (see: the Jetblack Epitaph Prophecy paragraph)

Yuna was hiding in a classroom where Minatsuki (along with Izanami) found her, lied about being Koku’s brother and convinced her to come with him

Minatsuki, Izanami, Heath and Gilbert (followed by reggie soldiers) all met in the same place, where Minatsuki stabbed Heath

Gilbert left and took Minatsuki, Izanami, Yuna and Phantom Minatsuki (who had just been brainwashed by Minatsuki) with himself

Kirisame and Koku arrived at the secret shelter but were attacked by reggies

In order to protect Koku, Kirisame and some of the other restored gods sacrificed their lives

Koku went back to look for Yuna but only found their symbol on the blackboard, meaning that she had already been taken away

He found the mortally wounded Heath who gave him some pages of his notebook containing information about the gods and revealed that he could integrate the other gods’ body parts in his body (see: the Restored Gods paragraph)

Koku went back to his companions’ bodies and attached their body parts to himself

The Restored Gods

Successful experiment products from after Heath Flick’s arrival at Jaula Blanca

Actual reincarnations of the 13 winged skeletons

They were given numbers from 1 to 13

Have special body parts that can be transformed into steel called lohengrin

Koku and Yuna were created first and the others were based on them

Koku was number XIII

Resurrected Black-winged King

The gods’ appointed leader

His original special body part was his eyes (the right one was transplanted into Minatsuki; see: the Reggies paragraph) with memory manipulation and brainwashing abilities

Physically weaker than the others

Yuna was the chosen shrine maiden, number IV (written as IIII in Jaula Blanca)

Izanami was the other shrine maiden, number V

Numbers I, II and III were integrated in Koku’s body after the attack

The other gods beside him were also called Koku’s guardians and had the duty to protect him

When significant events mentioned on the Jetblack Epitaph are about to take place, Koku and Yuna undergo silver nuptial coloration which turns their hair a white-ish colour

Reggies

Short for Regulus Ginedrive Immoral Egersis

Produced by Jaula Blanca

Regarded as failed byproducts of the research to restore the gods by scientists

Reincarnations of a species of ancient demihumans created for fighting (not to be confused with the 13 restored gods)

They become unstable at age 20 with increasing murderous urges and loss of rational thought

Their weakness is blue steel, if it penetrates a part of their body it needs to be cut off and the blue steel has to be extracted (this was written in Heath’s notebook; both Koku and Keith knew about it)

The government uses them as intelligence agents (Market Maker members) and releases them into society as soon as they become uncontrollable

Having them unstable is profitable for the government as they would otherwise become too strong and leak the conspiracy behind the Jaula Blanca funds

Can remain humane for longer with the gold solution (see: the Scientific Details paragraph)

Their mental deterioration can be classified in grades (Keith rates Dead Kyle a grade-C)

The only reggie stabilized through treatment at Jaula Blanca was Minatsuki

Showed no signs of rejecting Koku’s right eye, which was transplanted into him

Could have been a dangerous military force and a basis for a vaccine to stabilize reggies so the government wanted him dead

Kept locked-up and hidden

Memory manipulation and brainwashing abilities like Koku’s

Was manipulated by Gilbert during the attack

Market Maker

Government group of intelligence agents who manipulate war and peace

Made entirely of reggies (see: the Reggies paragraph)

Main villains (Phantom Minatsuki, Laica/Real Minatsuki, Yuna, Izanami, Kamui, Kukuri, Takeru, Quinn, rabbit boy) are part of a special branch responsible for social disorder

Specialize in orchestrated crimes and wars, assassination, sabotage and infiltration

They utilize brainwashing (through Minatsuki’s eye)

Headquarters on the Moby Dick [a huge, white airship built during the war]

Members have a skull tattoo on their hand (which they usually cover up with gloves)

Involved in many gold thefts to acquire materials for the gold solution

Led by the real Minatsuki (who goes by ‘Laica’)

Want to capture Koku (Minatsuki’s personal goal)

Cooperating with Gilbert in covering up his crimes by brainwashing reggies into confessing to them, but not dependent on him

Privileged by the government over other entities

The Jetblack Epitaph Prophecy

Jetblack Epitaph: stone tablet on Mount Cremona with a codified inscription

Contains as much information as the Bible

Meaning changes according to combination and reading direction

Decoded by 12-year-old Keith Flick

Similies and metaphors

Uses ‘black’ as a synonym for ‘perfect’

Cremona’s first king defeated the original Black-winged King at the Jetblack Epitaph

Prevents Koku’s regenerative ability

Transcribed passages:

When Canopus shines bright, to the right is a new First, illegitimate spawns of the gods. Wings of pure madness will bring low the ephemeral people, and the howls of the dead will bring order to their brethren.

To the left, another Fourth. A cycle of evil slaughter. The moon of carnage traces out its eternal ellipse, and the hour the ash-colored dragon beats its wings will come at last. People of the black bones, gather ye together.

The Tale of the Two Shrine Maidens [the only unambiguous passage]: On the night of the 13th full moon the man chosen by the two shrine maidens gained power, companions and wings, and became the black-winged king. Their purpose fulfilled, the two maidens presented to him a blade that burned blue. “Decapitate one of us,” they said. The maiden whose head was cut off turned to ash and merged with the king, granting him still another power. The remaining maiden became his wife and fought at his side at Cremona’s summit, and shared his fate when the end came.

Gilbert convinced Minatsuki (when he was a kid) that if he killed Koku at the Jetblack Epitaph he would become an invincible king, a lie Minatsuki kept believing in as an adult

Scientific Details

Genetic information to revive the 13 gods comes from the Jetblack Epitaph deciphered by Keith

Inscription contains info about the form and abilities of the gods’ bones

At their 20th birthday, the reggies’ testosterone and dopamine levels get skewed (presumably high T and low dopa)

Gold solution:

Adjusts reggies’ hormonal levels

Requires actual gold to be made

Acts as a drug (probably due to being a dopamine agonist)

Withdrawal symptoms: bleeding from the eyes, mouth and nose; memory issues; increased aggressiveness; physical weakness

Can be taken orally or intravenously

Blue steel is some sort of oxidized form of steel and can be created from normal steel through heating

Erika Flick’s Death and the Dead Kyle Saga

Erika Flick

Keith’s adoptive sister

Similar to Lily physically and in character

Fell in love with a man she (in Gilbert’s opinion) shouldn’t have [implied to be Keith but never explicitly stated]

Gilbert was in love with her

Went to university with both of them

Killed by Gilbert

Dead Kyle

Nicknamed ‘Raven-haired Murder Machine’

Serial killer

Reggie

Participated in the Jaula Blanca attack

His adoptive father was a navy man and got him admitted to Ramon Psychiatric Hospital [in the Ramon Ports & Harbor District closed military area; full of reggies, Gilbert operates here too]

The one Erika’s murder was pinned on

8 years before the anime’s timeline Erika’s body was found cut-up and dumped in the mountains

Gilbert murdered her in (what appears to be) a fit of jealousy

Dead Kyle confessed (in a trial that was mostly for show) to being Erika’s killer, confirmed the murder’s location and the weapon, and passed the polygraph because of Minatsuki’s brainwashing at Gilbert’s request

Keith suspected Dead Kyle to be lying from this murder being different than his previous ones

Dead Kyle was hospitalized at Ramon Psychiatric Hospital

Eric and his team were planning to kidnap him to expose more covered-up crimes

Keith abducted him from the hospital and tortured him without authorization so Eric was forced to arrest him (which is why he was sent to the Archives Division for 7 years)

Dead Kyle escaped and was killed by Killer B (Koku) just before committing another crime

Gilbert proposed to stitch Erika’s body back together and leaked that the corpse had cedar and pine pollen on it, in order to reveal the murder’s location to Keith for his later plans

Next post will be about details on RIS members and generally people related to Keith’s side of the story; the one afterwards about restored gods and reggies. I also have a few screencaps to transcribe and theories about background events. Don’t hesitate to ask me about anything that is still unclear or correct me if I made a mistake/typo. This post might undergo updates.

Part two | Part three (soon)

[sharktoraptor]

Survivor Daemons

Here’s a whole bunch of blabber that no one asked for about my Dbd daemon AU, featuring the reasoning behind the forms of the survivor’s daemons and a little about their personalities. Why? Because I can and I felt like typing a whole bunch of stuff that no one will read

There are a lot of additional rules and complications for daemons in trials, and I’m probably going to make a separate post both for that and for the Killer’s daemons (or... current lack thereof), because this got VERY long.

And before we get started, here’s a plug for my currently abandoned fic playing with this concept. Ima get back to it at some point.

First off, I had some limits for survivor forms. Their daemons have to be small, and easy to carry around in a trial. Most of them ended up being birds, with a couple of exceptions. Also, only a couple of the names mean anything- I got almost all of them from a fantasy name generator and just picked one that sounded nice.

Dwight and Zefrita

Zefrita (Zeffie) is a mourning dove, and I chose her form for a couple of reasons. Mourning doves are entirely defenseless against their predators (except for natural camouflage) and are therefore very flighty, anxious birds. They are also known for forming close, lifelong pair-bonds, and since Dwight’s perks are all about teamwork and literal bonds between survivors, that seemed to resonate with him.

Zefrita is a very quiet daemon, and only talks to the other survivor’s daemons (and Dwight, of course). While Dwight stammers and hesitates a lot when he’s flustered or anxious, Zefrita only talks when they have enough conviction about something that she can articulate it clearly. So, it’s a pretty big deal if she says something important- it usually means that it is.

Meg and Skiflit

Skiflit (Skif) is a northern goshawk. I used this analysis to come up with his form, mostly because of the interpretations of loyalty, determination/being goal-driven, and assertiveness, which I all think fit with Meg- or at least, my version of Meg, who’s caring but a bit of a hothead.

Skif talks about as much as Meg does, which is quite a lot, especially in fireside arguments. He’s also the most likely to get physical with the other daemons, whether aggressively or for support/comfort.

Jake and Dancha

Dancha (Dawn) is a raccoon, which I just love for Jake for so many reasons and I was so happy that the form analysis worked out. It really boils down to what he said in the actual fic- they’re highly adaptable/resourceful, conflict-avoidant, and independent animals. Their also curious but in a killed-the-cat sort of way, which seems true to Jake’s character to me.

Dawn tends to let Jake do most of the talking, and really only interacts with the original four survivors daemons, sometimes including Nea and Laurie’s daes if she feels up to it. She and Jake are pretty slow to trust, and even though they feel perfectly comfortable around all the survivors (though they clash with Ace) Dawn keeps her interactions to a minimum to stay in her comfort zone. They don’t have much of any comfort left, after all.

Claudette and Laefertes

Laefertes (Laef) is a barn owl, and I actually think I named him after Laertes from Hamlet for some reason? I think I just had the name stuck in my head, no significance to it. The two traits that really stuck out to me for his form were barn owls having a surprising amount of foresight in caching their extra food and their egg care habits, and the analysis I read also listed owls as being very perceptive, for obvious reasons, which fits well with Claudette’s Empathy (perk and trait) to me.

Claudette and Laef are kind of the greeters of the group, so when someone new shows up at the campfire they do all the explaining and “welcome to a Bad Time” talk. Claudette tends to say more comforting things than hard truths, and Laef compliments her by being the opposite- almost anything out of his mouth is what needs to be said, not necessarily what people want to hear.

Nea and Bayonai

Bayonai (Bayo) is a Siamese cat and listen I have a lot of reasons for it. He’s a cat for obvious reasons- Baker literally describes Nea as catlike in the journal entry- as well as cats being generally friendly, but independent for the most part. Siamese cats in particular are known for being loud attention seekers like no other, and we know that Nea was the epitome of Rebellious Teen (tm) in her day. They also tend to be curious (again, in a killed-the-cat sort of way).

Bayo is my favorite daemon of the bunch, probably because I started writing him first. He and Nea are less counterparts of one another than they are the same person divided into two parts. Bayo has a little more of their caution, but he’s like the friend who is saying “this is a terrible idea, oh my god” while filming it. They have street smarts more than school smarts, but Bayo has a little bit of an edge on Nea when it comes to critical thinking.

Laurie and Aurelio

Aurelio (Ori, which accidentally means they’re Laurie and Ori) is a European robin. His name comes from the Latin word for golden. His form was really hard to find, mostly because the original survivors have just a few canon character traits, whereas Laurie Strode has a whole franchise worth of characterization to sort through. I ended up just using Halloween I and II for my form finding. I used this analysis for Aurelio and I don’t have much to say about it, other than I was relieved to finally find a form that fit.

Aurelio and Laurie are Survivors (tm) in the truest sense of the word, so in my ‘verse they’re kind of dry and cynical. Aurelio tends not to talk very much, and when he does he often says things that are too dark for the conversation he’s contributing to, and is reprimanded by Laurie. They had a perfectly normal human-daemon bond before Myers, but it changed after, and they were never the same.

Ace and Kesina

Kesina (Kess or occasionally Kesi) is an American bullfrog. She’s the only reptile form among the survivors. I’m honestly not even going to say anything else about her form, just link to the analysis because IMO it’s so Ace it hurts. Laid-back is the main trait that I like that I don’t see listed as a major point in the analysis, but frogs are chill as fuck.

Kesina says all the sarcastic and biting things that Ace doesn’t, but in a dismissively calm way that gets a rise out of whoever she’s said it to. Not that he wouldn’t, it’s just funnier if she calls Jake a dumbass in Argentine Spanish than if he does. She and Ace talk to each other almost exclusively in that dialect when they’re being snarky or sarcastic, even if they’re doing the “what do you want to have for dinner!?” routine, because no one can understand what they’re saying and it pisses everyone else off.

Bill and Portril

Portril (no nickname) is a summer tanager, a kind of smallish songbird. Frankly there’s not very much personality lore for Bill out there, even in what Left 4 Dead stuff I tried to dig up, so I went with my personal HC’s for him- grumpy and quiet but altruistic and perceptive old man. Here’s the analysis if anyone is actually reading this, but this is more for my own benefit let’s be real. There’s not a ton of real solid behavior for summer tanagers, but I liked what this person wrote so I went with it.

Bill is quiet and Portril is quieter. Bill contributes a few sentences to the conversation at the campfire every now and then, but the majority of the survivors have never heard Portril say a word.

Feng and Maeslin

Maeslin (Maes) is a numbat (google it), and tbh I should have picked a Chinese-sounding name for him, but I’m too attached to Feng having a daemon she calls Mace to change it. I’d never heard of a numbat before form finding for Feng, but I love how well the weird little things fit with her character. Numbats are specialized eaters and ONLY eat termites. They have to eat 20,000 of the things a day to stay alive. What I get out of that is that the are specialized/single-focus type people, like Feng and her gaming, and work really fucking hard to be good/keep at it.

I haven’t done a lot of thinking about Maes’ personality. I think he and Feng are a Chaotic Neutral disaster duo. He’s a very mobile daemon and tends to climb all over Feng, never staying in one place for too long- it’s a habit he learned very quickly to not bring into trials.

David and Ezriana

Ezriana (Ez) is a magnificent frigatebird and it’s SUCH a shame that she’s not male, because the main reason I picked that form for David is because of the absolute pompous showoffs that male frigatebirds are with that throat pouch of theirs. Frigatebirds are also known for being opportunistically aggressive and basically getting into fights with other species of coastal birds to steal their catches. There’s some more, non-fighty traits that made me decide on frigatebird for Ezriana, but those are really the two main reasons I picked it.

Ezriana is kinda the “kick his ass baby I got yo flower” of the pair, and she always tends to kind of stay out of the thick of it, circling overhead and yelling out insults and encouragement. Her actual personality is pretty laid back when not in conflict mode, and she’s pretty good for conversation around the campfire. Her way of talking is a little more... coherent.. than David, who’s excitable and can get a little carried away.

Quentin and Nynta

Nynta (Nyn, pronounced Nihn) is an earwig. Earwigs are tough little insects and are very adaptable and actually protect their eggs and then care for their young, showing a lot of duty and dedication. I think that fits with what I managed to gather of Quentin’s role in NoES 2010, which I haven’t actually watched. Additionally, fitting into the daemonverse, earwigs are very small, and Quentin keeps Nynta in a lanyard, so that Freddy and no one else has any possible access to touching her.

Nynta never talks, period. No one knows what her and Quentin’s relationship is like, taking into consideration Laurie and Aurelio’s slightly trauma-damaged bond, but everyone knows that Nynta probably doesn’t trust anyone. They’ve never seen her outside of her clear plastic lanyard, which locks from the inside with a one digit combination that only Nynta can open. I imagine she probably settled during the events of NoES 2010.

Tapp and Soliel

Soliel (Sol) is a Florida scrub jay. Scrub jays are committed birds, both to their mates and their territory, and keen and clever observers of what happens in their area and to their things (food caches and stuff). These to me seem like good traits to match a detective’s personality. These birds are also highly specialized to their environment, though, and are unadaptable- that combination of traits makes sense, because Tapp became borderline obsessed with the Saw case in his lore.

Soliel is as focused as her human is, and accepts facts and information readily. Being older than most of the others, she tends not to talk too much unless they’re having an interesting discussion, rather than a time-killing or social conversation.

Kate and Torelian

Torelian (Tori) is a fennec fox. Fennec foxes are super extroverted and sociable animals, and tough critters that are well adapted for going long periods of time without commodities, but not without other people around them. Kate traveled a lot for her music career, but she seems to me like a caring and outgoing person that really connected with her fans. He also matches her aesthetic, and is a cute/attractive form- perfect for a performer’s daemon.

Torelian is as much of a performer as Kate. He can’t play and instrument, but they can sing duets and are, of course, completely in sync at all times. It’s great for cheering up the campfire after rough trials and moments of (extra) hopelessness. He’s a good ear to talk to and offers wholesome advice.

Adam and Samia

Samia (no nickname) is a northern cardinal. I chose the form this morning and frankly I’m tired of resummarizing bird analyses at this point, so here ya go.

I’ve done no character exploration for Samia yet, might edit this when/if I come up with some more for her. Most of the daemons outside the first five or six I’ve done more developing here than otherwise, so we’ll see!

If you got this far you’re my new favorite human, and thank you for listening to my impassioned rambling about my two current hyperfixations mashed into one <3

[neriad13]

How I Write

It’s only very recently, after a lifetime of wrangling, that I’ve gotten my writing process down to a science. It feels good to get the method on paper and if it helps someone else, well, here it is.

1. Immersing Myself in Research

There’ll be a period of at least three to six months or perhaps even longer in which I will be totally absorbed in the subject I've decided to embark on. I'll come home from work, immediately sit down, pull up two dozen articles about it and spend the next four hours reading. I'll barely read anything but that subject. If it isn't about Vikings, it doesn't matter. If it isn't Skyrim lore, precious little can even get me interested. The goal is to drown myself in the world I want to write, to know what I can about it from top to bottom, to be able to look through the eyes of someone long dead and know exactly what there was to be seen.

In my experience, it is also a very good idea to go into your research with only the vaguest of plot threads ready to go. The insights your research will probably yield are in all likelihood going to be a far cry from the things you assumed to be true.

Case in point: I spent a good chunk of my teenage years writing and rewriting a grim tale of witchcraft and demon possession. At one point I figured that I should probably know something about historical witchcraft and got every single book I could possibly find about it from the library. This is what led me to the insane asylum that is "The Hammer of Witches" and a dozen other books about the terrifying human costs of witch scares. And after I'd learned about all that, everything I'd ever written into my story looked like such horseshit. There was no conceivable way that I could portray witches like that any longer, not with my conscience intact. That work never got off the ground and all the labor I'd put into it amounted to nothing. There's probably a good story about witchcraft somewhere in there, still. But it'd be entirely different from the one I went into my research with.

And finally, how do I know when enough research is enough? Mostly, I'll find myself reading the same things over and over in different books. I'll be getting increasingly bored by the persistent lack of new information that I'm butting up against, day in and day out. I'll be sick at the thought of reading one more solitary word about Vikings. And most importantly, the path that the story will take will be shining clearer every day, beckoning me seductively to start.

When I'm in research mode, I see myself as something of a silkworm - eating endlessly, digesting thoroughly, sifting through the parts of the meal that matter most and finally, excreting a fine thread that is the distillation of what it is that's most important about everything I have learned.

2. First Draft/Sketching

I recently discovered that my writing process is almost an exact mirror of my drawing process. It was a realization that really helped me, as I have always struggled with revision and worried a bit too much about getting things right on the first shot. But the truth is that every drawing I ever did, no matter how much I thought I was procrastinating at the time, was a miniature exercise in editing.

The first step is the roughest of sketches.

I've used two different approaches to writing first drafts and can recommend both, depending on how you feel about the story that you're telling. The first (and the one that I used for most of my life, oftentimes with a great deal of frustration when applied to the wrong type of story) involves writing down events in linear order as they'd appear to a reader. The best use of this for me was when I was writing about a long, dangerous journey with very little idea of what the endpoint would be. It was imperative that I experienced the story as the character was going through it. His shock at weird turns of events was the same as mine. His trauma at the sudden onset of disaster was just as rare and red as my own, a fact I needed to exploit to the fullest to make this first-person narrative work.

The second model is entirely excitement-based. Quick! What's your favorite scene? You know the one. The one you're aching to get down, that drives the heart of the story, that makes everything else matter, even though it takes place awfully close to the end. WRITE IT NOW! Scrawl it in the dirt, write it in foggy window, just get it down THIS INSTANT. So what if you don't know details? I don't give a shit. You gotta fart this stuff out while it's hot. Ideas are cheap, passion is not. Don't force yourself to go through the boring stuff to get to the things you're passionate about right this moment. Write that good scene. And then write your second-favorite scene. Don't worry overmuch about chronology. The more you write, the easier it'll all fall into place on its own.

And don't forget that the first draft is just a sketch. Go off on strange tangents, try out that stupid sideplot. No one's watching. No one cares. I'll use the same adjective five times in a paragraph, I will and you can't do a thing about it.

I don't concern myself with coherent sentences in this stage, descriptive detail or terrible amounts of logic. The object of the exercise is to get it down, make it real. You're laying down the outline for what you're going to write in the future. Everything you can get down at this stage is helpful in the long run.

3. Marinating

Okay, we're switching from a drawing metaphor here to a cooking one. I have a day job as a chef. What do you want?

I think a good window for first draft marination, for me at least, is a month or two (or more if you feel like procrastinating, but nobody does that, right?), though the mileage may vary widely on that one. The main thing is that you have to be able to look at the draft with something of an objective eye, but not one quite so far gone that you've entirely forgotten about what you wrote.

Going back into it too soon tends to result in me thinking that the first draft is absolutely fine as it is and refusing to change anything. This is not fine.

4. Second Draft/Inking

When I ink a drawing, I remove what is extraneous and bring the form of the subject to the surface. I decide what lines can accomplish this task and what cannot. Something that looked cool in pencil may not necessarily work out in ink.

The second draft is primarily one where the cutting takes place. I'll hack a manuscript to bits and paste every moderately good hunk I slice off into a separate document for safekeeping. Just in case.

Realistically, I never open that document again.

Mainly, I'm looking for inconsistencies, plotholes, segues that don't make sense, moments where my aim fell off the mark, unappealing details that somehow made it in when I meant to say something else entirely. The end goal of this draft is a functional story that makes logical sense and follows the rules of grammar. By the end of it, you should have a version of the manuscript that reads well enough and doesn't leave you hanging at any one point.

But is it something special? Not yet.

It's getting very close though. Looking at it this way, you also get to examine the structure as a whole and see bigger things that you may not have noticed in the close view. The ending was never quite finished after all, was it?

There. Much better.

5. Marinating Part II

Be sure to marinate your meat for another month or so for maximum flavor and tenderness. Get your favorite BBQ sauce ready in the meantime!

6. Third Draft/Detailing

Details are pain. Drawing realistic hairs is pain. Spending five hours on a background with 50 gazillion overlapping ferns is not something I would recommend. I'm still not sure why I decided to draw an entire series of plant people, each and every one of which needs to be covered in intricate moss and flowers. Someone needs to hit me. Anyone, please.

So it goes with detailing a manuscript. But is this the part that I procrastinate the most on? Nahhhh, I'm better than that (no, you're not).

This is where neglected backstories get filled in, hence-ignored visual details are given life, characters begin to gesture rather than merely speak. Emotions are no longer stated, but implied through body language that I didn't have the patience to write in earlier. Backgrounds are no longer just background noise, but a living part of the world itself.

This is the draft where buds burst into bloom. It's hard, slow work, not without its frustrations. I have been known to stare at a paragraph for twenty minutes before I finally figured out what I wanted to do with it. I spend a great deal of time wishing I could go faster on this.

But that's okay. It's still a work in progress for me. There's precious few stories that I have ever gotten this far with in my life and the ones that do make it are more than worth it. Be kind to yourself here. It'll happen. And it'll be breathtaking.