RN's Rando Resource Reserve

RiverNotch

any pronouns
Original poster
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Invitation Status
  1. Look for groups
Title says it all. Some stuff's super useful, some stuff's total shit -- would post (did post, in a lot of cases) all this in my blog, but then the blog's dying, and I don't want to have to remember another password. Arranged into the following sections:

MYTHOS -- plots, etc. Hopefully I add to this an elaboration on my theories on Star Wars.
ETHOS -- settings, characters, etc. Hopefully I add to this a brief summary of basic biological principles, since biology's where I'm supposed to make money from in the future.
DIANOIA -- stuff on art, politics, religion, etc., in terms of using that stuff indirectly in one's stories (in other words, stuff about "themes", whatever that's supposed to mean), as well as various miscellany. I would also upload a butt ton of various books I possess, if that weren't for the most part illegal.
 
Last edited:
MYTHOS

Three very different story outlines, set in three very different settings, for a story I'll probably never write.

A - Greece

Invocation

Prologue - The Birth of the World
Prologue - The Birth of Ilya

Spring
[Song 1 - Ilya and the Tower
Song 2 - Ilya Alexandrovich's ecstasy
Song 3 - How Alexander became the Woodwarden
Song 4 - How Ilya got his possessions]

[Song 5 - The death of Alexander and the disappearance of Olga
Song 6 - The mad old man of the woods
Song 7 - The laws of hospitality between Ilya and Silenus
Song 8 - The days roll on; The white hart and the den of lions]

Song 9 - The fight with the lions
Song 10 - The pale stranger; Ilya is enchanted
Song 11 - The Fall of Actaeon
Song 12 - The mysteries of the gods

Song 13 - A great flame consumes Ilya's home
Song 14 - Ilya is rescued by a grey lady
Song 15 - In the house of the grey lady
Song 16 - Gifts from the hearth

Summer
[Song 17 - Ilya chases after his destiny (recalling the earlier season)
Song 18 - Hecate; Pan and the Flight from Death
Song 19 - Ilya is greeted by his host, Dionysus; The bards are introduced
Song 20 - A tour of the grove]

[Song 21 - On the theology of Dionysus; The first Theban Play
Song 22 - Bardic Love; The second Theban Play
Song 23 - The final Theban Play; The journey to the Summer City
Song 24 - The Seven Against Thebes; The Passing of Dionysus]

[Song 25 - The Gates of the Summer City
Song 26 - The House of the Lotus
Song 27 - The One-Eyed Host
Song 28 - Aeolus]

[Song 29 - The Brooding Ilya
Song 30 - The Battle with the Bear
Song 31 - The House of the Witch
Song 32 - Ilya's Escape]

[Song 33 - Ilya Hunts for his Mortal Love; The play is prepared for
Song 34 - Orpheus in the Underworld; Love passes into Shadow
Song 35 - Winter in the Summer (Ilya's deep despair)
Song 36 - The Passing of the Dead]

[Song 37 - The Witch's final blessing
Song 38 - The Last Song of the City
Song 39 - The Chase
Song 40 - The Final Escape]

Intermission - The Beginning of the End (4 Songs)

Autumn
[Song 41 - The Song of Ilya (recalling the earlier season); The Dead Linger On
Song 42 - The Passage of Hades; The Grove of the Oreads
Song 43 - The Flowers are Wilting; The Lively Village Girl
Song 44 - The Village of the Moon; The Great Feast]

[Song 45 - Forbidding Omens; Ilya Begins His Courtship
Song 46 - The Games of Young Men; Ilya's Vast Reward
Song 47 - Ilya's Betrothal; The Young Shepherd Boy
Song 48 - The House of the Gleaner-Witch; Demeter's Lamentation]

[Song 49 - The Fate of the Gods; The Rape of Persephone
Song 50 - Ilya Has His Guide; Ilya's Lamentation
Song 51 - His Final Goodbye to his Pastoral Love; The Last Song of the Village
Song 52 - The Climb Begins; The Brook and the Waterfall]

[Song 53 - The Meadows; The Pulsating Rhythm of Hephaestus's Hammer
Song 54 - The Slippery Rocks; The Piercing Cry from Up Above
Song 55 - The Battle with the Leopard; The Shadow Beyond
Song 56 - The First Snows Begin Their Fall; The Pass in the Mountains]

Winter
[Song 57 - The Blinding Storm; Pan's Appearance
Song 58 - Pan Takes Ilya's Guide Away; At the Door of the Winter Queen's Tower
Song 59 - The Winter Queen's Generosity
Song 60 - Persephone and Ilya Exchange Stories

[Song 61 - The Winter Queen is Enamored with Ilya; Agamemnon
Song 62 - The Winter Queen Begins Bewitching Ilya; The Libation Bearers
Song 63 - The Winter Queen Poisons Ilya; The Kindly Ones
Song 64 - Ilya is Saved by Athena; Prometheus]

[Song 65 - Gifts from the Gods; Ilya Remembers the Dream
Song 66 - Persephone's Agony; Ilya Climbs the Tower]
Song 67 - The War Begins; Ilya Finds Himself in a Vast Maze
Song 68 - The Golden Chamber; Ilya Battles with a Dragon

Song 69 - Ilya Finds no one in the Chamber; His Lamentation
Song 70 - The Blessings of the Gods; Journey to War
Song 71 - Titanomachy; The End of the World
Song 72 - The Breaking of Covenants; Athena's Vengeance

Song 73 - Theomachy; Oblivion
Song 74 - Ilya is Cast Out; The Coming Dawn
Song 75 - The Woman from his Dream; Cupid and Psyche
Song 76 - The Truth Unmasked; Damnation of the Gods

Epilogue - Return to the Waking World
Epilogue - Eternity

Conclusion

B - Russia

I - The Wheel of Fortune

01 On the Island, Grove -- Ilya encounters the goddess Artemis
02 On the Island, Hill -- Artemis leads Ilya up a hill to witness a pagan ritual, the pagan ritual enchants Ilya, the pagan ritual is interrupted by soldiers, Ilya and Artemis run down the hill to escape
03 On the Island, Grove -- Ilya is robbed by a masked figure (Iseult) and loses his cloak and ring and staff

04 Novgorod, Gardens -- Ilya tells all of these to Anya
05 Novgorod, Streets -- Ilya greets his mother Oinona
06 Novgorod, Guildhouse -- Ilya receives the lost cloak from his father Alexander, who is meeting with fellow guildsmen about the election of Yuri as prince
07 Novgorod, Bishop's House -- Ilya encounters the god Apollo while Alexander talks to Turnus, Turnus tells Ilya all about Vladimir and its University

08 Novgorod, Chapel -- Anya is married to Tristan
09 Novgorod, Guildhouse -- Ilya and Piotr only partly enjoy the corresponding wedding feast, Ilya encounters Dionysus and Aphrodite
10 Novgorod, Tristan's House -- Tristan seduces Anya

11 Novgorod, Streets -- Ilya and Piotr say farewell to the family, Ilya wonders about Anya's passage to Moscow
12 The Road, Before the Crossroads from Novgorod -- Tristan proves to be a debaucherer to Anya

--

13 Suzdal, Plaza -- Ioannes preaches on social justice, the tax collector arrives and is universally reviled
14 Suzdal, Barn -- Ioannes and the tax collector negotiate, Ioannes murders the tax collector, Ioannes declares his plans for a revolution
15 Suzdal, Plaza -- Ioannes is joined by a young lady named Vasilisa, some of the local boyars are pulled by their beards and hanged

16 Vladimir, Chapel -- Ivan confesses to Turnus
17 Vladimir, Palace -- Ivan encounters Zeus
18 Vladimir, Plaza -- Ivan greets his marching armies, Ilya and Piotr witness the procession in awe
19 Vladimir, University Grounds -- Ilya and Piotr enjoy the sights and sounds of their new community
20 Vladimir, University Halls -- Piotr acquaints himself with the educational system, and with his new fellows
21 Vladimir, Chapel -- Ilya greets his guardian Turnus

22 Vladimir, University Halls -- Ilya has lewd and energized dialogues with his new fellows, they discuss the studies they are ignoring and Piotr is busy in
23 Vladimir, University Grounds -- Ilya finds his own private pleasures at the carnival, again encountering Dionysus and Venus

--

24 Battlefield, Bloody Heart -- Ares proves to be a savage warrior joining no specific sides, then Ioannes declares victory for the rebels
25 Battlefield, Encampments -- Ioannes announces his plans for further battles, Ioannes commends his heroes including Vasilisa, Ioannes encounters Ares

26 Vladimir, Palace -- Ivan witnesses the return of his defeated troops and declares the punishment for the captured, then he encounters Hephaestus, then he argues with his wife Sophia about contacting his brother and his many affairs with boys, and finally he sends away the tribute to the Tatars
27 Vladimir, University Grounds -- Piotr announces to Ilya his intentions to journey to Moscow as apprentice to one of the teachers, then warns Ilya about his behavior
28 Vladimir, Plaza -- Ilya witnesses the hanging and drawing of the treasonouse captives, then the beheading of Zeus by Hephaestus and Athena's birth
29 Vladimir, University Grounds -- Ilya tries to justify his behavior both to Athena and his fellows
30 Vladimir, Chapel -- Ilya encounters Hestia, then Turnus tells Ilya all about the coming revolution and the monastery they are about to escape to

31 Vladimir, Plaza -- Ivan's presence calms some, but others remain intimidated or unruly
32 Vladimir, University Grounds -- The members of the university who remained meekly pray, but are suddenly attacked by local rioters
33 Vladimir, Plaza -- The gates are suddenly opened, Ioannes and the bulk of his men enter with pomp and grandeur, but some of his men including Ares ransack the city with the rioters, Ivan and his chancellors immediately retreat to the palace

II - The Hanged Man

34 Vladimir, Palace -- Ivan's chancellors begin to panic at the long wait, Ivan has another argument with his wife, then he encounters Athena
35 Vladimir, Plaza -- Ares is shown ravaging Maria, then Ioannes tries to stop Ares, then Ares asks Ioannes about the negotiations
36 Vladimir, Palace -- Ivan is forced to leave the palace barely guarded
37 Vladimir, Plaza -- Ivan witnesses the damage done by Ioannes' people, he reaches the gates and talks to Ioannes' lieutenant Vasilisa, the negotiations run smoothly and he reluctantly agrees with all of the people's demands, when the negotiation party scatters he notes that he understands what Ioannes has truly done
38 Vladimir, Palace -- Ioannes manages to enter the palace, he kills off most of Ivan's chancellors, he mocks Sophia then has her taken away, Ares finds Aphrodite and madly copulates with her, Hephaestus captures the adulterous lovers in a golden net, Ioannes is blinded by an unexpected Hephaestus

39 Vladimir, University Grounds -- Sophia weeps for her husband and ruined life but is calmed by the presence of Maria
40 Vladimir, Palace -- As Ioannes recovers he argues with his advisors about the place of his new plans with the negotiations having been successful, then he announces his intent to establish a revolutionary new government, Vasilisa rejects Ioannes' new plans as not being part of the original deal
41 The Road, Before the Monastery from Vladimir -- Ivan witnesses Hephaestus carrying away Ares and Aphrodite in a golden net, then he receives news on the coming of the Tatars

--

42 Monastery, Hall -- Ilya and Turnus participate in a solemn meal with the monks
43 Monastery, Clearing -- Ilya goes to Ivan's camp as Ivan's attendant for the winter
44 Monastery, Woods -- Ivan takes Ilya out to hunt, as he teaches Ilya how to ride and track and use a bow he and Ilya talk about their encounters with the gods
45 Monastery, Clearing -- Ivan's camp holds a very Dionysian feast, Ivan tries to seduce Ilya but Ilya rebuffs him
46 Monastery, Chapel -- Ilya joins Turnus and the monks at vespers

--

47 Monastery, Woods -- As Ilya practices his learned skills from Ivan he meets and talks with Iseult, when Iseult notices his cloak she beats him up, a badly beaten up Ilya is rescued by a mysterious goddess
48 Woods, Cabin -- The goddess asks Ilya who she is and Ilya tells the tale of Demeter [1], Iseult ends up apologizing for her behavior and explaining herself, Ilya accepts her apology and urges her to continue her tale [2], Iseult in turn asks Ilya about his world (of course it's not recounted here)
49 Monastery, Clearing -- Turnus asks Ivan to aid the search for his nephew
50 Monastery, Woods -- Ivan encounters Demeter
51 Woods, Cabin -- Iseult argues with Ilya about the nature of the goddess and tells the tale of Frigga [3], The goddess returns with Ivan and tells Ilya that he must go, Iseult returns Ilya his ring, Ivan cautiously eyes Iseult's mask
52 Monastery, Chapel -- Turnus greets his returning nephew and tells him about the end of spring, Ivan confesses to Turnus for the last time

--

53 Suzdal, Plaza -- The Tatars raid and destroy Suzdal
54 The Road, Before Vladimir from Suzdal -- The Tatars negotiate with a mysterious courier (from Moscow)

55 Vladimir, Plaza -- Everyone uniformly panics without rioting about the presence of the Tatars
56 Vladimir, Chapel -- Ioannes prays about the coming of the Tatars while wondering about Ivan's stunning failures, then hears the breaking in of the Tatars

57 Vladimir, Plaza -- The Tatars destroy everything
58 Vladimir, Palace -- The remaining soldiers of Ioannes try to defend from the Tatars but are defeated
59 Vladimir, University Grounds -- Sophia tries to defend Maria's virtue but is killed, the Tatar leader is enamored by Maria and so protects her from being raped
60 Vladimir, Chapel -- The remaining deacons scold Ioannes and pray to God for defense, the Tatars break through and kill almost everyone

61 The Road, Before the Monastery from Vladimir -- Maria manages to escape but breaks down outside the city
62 Vladimir, Chapel -- Ioannes is tortured, the mysterious courier arrives and examines the Tatars' work, Ioannes is angered by the Russian's appearance

III - Fortitude

63 The Road, Before Vladimir from the Monastery -- Ivan asks for Efrosinia's help and Efrosinia relates the troubles of her husband in Lithuania, then the troubles of Mikhail with Ivan the youth, then the possible troubles of Yuri with Ivan the elder, and Efrosinia leaves Ivan suspicious and defeated
64 The Road, Before Vladimir from Moscow -- Efrosinia's husband Mikhail the prince of Moscow marches with his army to Vladimir
65 Woods, Cabin -- Demeter (Frigga) receives Dionysus (Baldr) and Persephone (Nanna) and Hermes (Hermod) into her home then releases Iseult, Iseult begins her search for the treasure and is joined by Hermes
66 The Road, Before Novgorod from the Monastery -- Iseult finds the treasure at a nearby cave, Iseult is ambushed by her former lover and his men, then by Ivan and his men, Ivan declares his intentions to reclaim Vladimir with the treasure, the Tatars suddenly pass by and annihilate everyone but Iseult and Ivan, Hermes helps Iseult escape with the treasure

67 Sinai, Caves -- Moses encounters the snake-woman Leviathan rising from a well, and slays her with his sword
68 Sinai, Hall -- Moses encounters the bull-lion Behemoth guarding the feast, and slays him with his staff
69 Sinai, Astronomer's Lab -- Moses encounters the giant eagle Ziz, and slays it with his sling
70 Sinai, Library -- Moses gets lost in a library, then reaches its heart and encounters a vision of Sephorah, then gets burned away along with the chamber

71 Novgorod, Gardens -- Ilya pulls himself out of his imaginarium then encounters Hermes then discovers Iseult, Iseult reports to Ilya in brief her plans to join with the merchant's guild, Ilya tells her about the hospitality of his house
72 Novgorod, Streets -- Ilya and Iseult witness a procession of the Panagia to ward off the Tatars
73 Novgorod, Guildhouse -- Ilya introduces Iseult to Alexander and Oinona, Iseult and Alexander become business partners, Ilya and Oinona discuss Ilya's future and compares it to that of Piotr

--

74 Moscow, Bishop's House -- Turnus tells the bishop about Vladimir, then he bids farewell to Ilya and Isaak
75 Moscow, Chapel -- Isaak introduces Ilya to his art, then Isaak very briefly introduces Ilya to his life from Suzdal to the monastery to the towns
76 Moscow, Hospital -- Piotr continues on his little practice with his master and Ilya
77 Moscow, Streets -- Ilya gathers materials for his grand work, then envisions his second imaginarium:

78 Israel, The Desert -- Jesus enters the desert and prays, the devil tempts him to make bread from stones
79 Israel, The Temple -- The devil tempts him to jump off the temple roof to be saved
80 Israel, The Mountain -- The devil tempts him to bow down to despair and gain the world
81 Israel, The Desert -- Jesus returns to the desert, encounters a good samaritan, and breaks his long fast

82 Moscow, Hospital -- Piotr is frustrated with Ilya's distracted nature
83 Moscow, Chapel -- Ilya gathers advice from Isaak
84 Moscow, Palace -- Efrosinia talks to Ilya about her husband and her son Yuri and her nephew Fyodor and the current shaky situation with Vladimir, then burns her copy of Ilya's latest work
85 Moscow, Chapel -- Ilya laments and again gathers advice from Isaak, Ilya is comforted by the presence of Maria, Isaak tells Ilya about his finding Maria on the road
86 Moscow, Hospital -- Efrosinia is admitted with a uterine hernia and Piotr and Ilya assist in the operation, Ilya takes care of the sick Efrosinia, Efrosinia talks about her children then admits her admiration for Ilya's work
87 Moscow, Hospital -- Piotr decides to return to Vladimir to help with the rebuilding and finish his studies
88 Moscow, Chapel -- The chapel holds a service of the Divine Liturgy, afterwards Isaak also decides to return to Vladimir with Maria to help with the rebuilding, Ilya's anxieties resurface and he somewhat lashes out on Maria, Ilya encounters Hera and is muted

--

89 Monastery, Woods -- Isaak mulls on the nature of Ilya's condition, Ilya and Maria play around like the fools they are, Anya interrupts their game and kisses Ilya cured
90 Monastery, Clearing -- Ilya and Isaak witness a baptism and chrismation, Ilya offers to help out on the monastery for a while again
91 Monastery, Chapel -- Ilya participates in vespers

92 Novgorod, Streets -- Iseult reports on her current successes with Alexander, Ilya reminisces on his lonely childhood
93 Novgorod, Guildhouse -- Ilya returns to his family and offers them his two imaginaria
94 Novgorod, Docks -- Ilya and Iseult take passage to the Island

95 On the Island, Town -- Iseult reminisces on her impoverished childhood, Ilya and Iseult take up room at the local guildhouse
96 On the Island, Grove -- Ilya encounters Poseidon, Ilya witnesses a procession of all the gods, Ilya is given a choice
97 On the Island, Town -- Ilya takes back his staff while giving Iseult another mask

--

98 Earth -- Mary dies, resurrects by the power of the Son, disappears
99 Space of Planets -- The soul of Mary floats away from earth by the hands of Mercury psychopomp, she ignores the tempting entreaties of Venus and Mars, she flirts with the power of Jupiter and the wisdom of Saturn
00 Space of Stars -- The soul of Mary surpasses the moon in its light, she encounters Abraham whose face is as bright as the sun and leaps over him
01 Heaven -- Mary is pulled up by Moses, then has a vision of the Son, then has an epiphany

02 Vladimir, Plaza -- Ivan's son Fyodor is crowned the prince of Vladimir with Mikhail watching in the background, Ilya encounters Hades who tells him about the death of Ivan by the Tatars and the death of Ioannes by the Muscovites, then tells him about impending visitations of the dead and departures of the living
03 Vladimir, Palace -- Fyodor and Mikhail argue about Fyodor's real position in the hierarchy of the princes, Fyodor looks angrily and suspiciously at Mikhail

04 Vladimir, Chapel -- Ilya again talks to Turnus about his life, Ilya offers to work for Isaak while elaborating on his muted condition, Ilya kisses Maria playfully on the cheek and Maria leaves pleasantly shocked, Turnus looks somewhat sick
05 Vladimir, University Halls -- Ilya volunteers to assist Piotr in rebuilding the university, then Piotr details his vision of the tenuous political situation among the three cities
06 Vladimir, University Grounds -- Ilya encounters the new prince and his uncle arguing and blesses them, then he finds Maria and discovers her newfound joy and sanity, then looks bravely on to his creating new works of art and returning to the university

IV - Justice

07 Vladimir, Chapel -- Ilya marries Maria in the fully completed chapel
08 Vladimir, Plaza -- Fyodor remembers the beauty of Maria in their childhood and his subsequent exchange with Yuri between the brothers Mikhail and Ivan, then his days in the campaigns of Ivan in Lithuania contrasting with Yuri's days as prince of Novgorod, then looks on jealously at Ilya and a vision of Yuri
09 Vladimir, Ilya's Home -- Ilya and Maria settle down at their new more private home, but their peace is jaunted by news of Turnus' illness
10 Vladimir, Palace -- Ilya assists Piotr in taking care of the sick Turnus, Fyodor prays for the sick Turnus and has an awkward meeting with Ilya, Turnus blesses Ilya's new life and warns him of its new responsibilities, then warns Fyodor not to turn too much to his dead father
11 Vladimir, Chapel -- A funeral is held for the dead Turnus, Ilya tepidly mourns while Fyodor loudly weeps

--

12 Vladimir, Ilya's Home -- While Maria contemplates and plays on Ilya tries to start on his fourth imaginarium, both realize that their household duties are incomplete and they argue, they settle down wondering what ethical spirit made them marry in the first place, Maria wonders about her pampered life before the revolution and Ilya wonders about his depraved experiences with Dionysus and Aphrodite, they reconcile just as quickly as they exploded and begin to work
13 Vladimir, Palace -- Fyodor encounters the spirit of his father Ivan who tells him about the lost tribute being in the hands of the two masked folk in the carnival, and about how to avenge his father's death against Mikhail
14 Suzdal, Peasant's House -- Vasilisa wonders about the new unsure lot of the peasants, then meets the ghost of Ioannes who tells her to press on her negotiations with Fyodor and perhaps get something better in turn
15 The Road, Before Vladimir from Novgorod -- Iseult hides a large part of the treasure in the same cave she hid it in before
16 Vladimir, Ilya's Home -- Iseult is somewhat disgusted by the condition of Ilya's home, but Ilya and Maria treat her lavishly, Maria giving her quite the feast and Ilya showing her his coming imaginarium, Iseult then reports to Ilya Alexander's plans to establish a branch of the guild in Vladimir
17 Vladimir, Plaza -- Vasilisa presses on the peasants' claim to Fyodor, Fyodor agrees as long as she joins him at a later mission

18 Vladimir, University Grounds -- Ilya and Iseult wear their masks for the carnival, Piotr tells Ilya his plans to establish himself at the more lucrative Moscow, Fyodor finds Ilya and Iseult his targets and has Vasilisa and her escort raid Ilya's home, while he himself talks to and charms Iseult
19 Vladimir, Plaza -- Fyodor follows Iseult out the city, while Vasilisa and her escort follow Ilya to his home
20 Vladimir, Ilya's Home -- Ilya invites Maria to the festivities and Maria continues to wonder about her old life, as they leave Vasilisa and her men raid the house, destroying Ilya's fourth imaginarium accidentally
21 The Road, Before Vladimir from Novgorod -- As Iseult prepares to take a piece of the treasure back to Vladimir, she is unexpectedly attacked by Fyodor and his men, who spare her life and freedom after a tense exchange in exchange for all her half of gold, but Iseult accidentally reveals the presence of the other half in Novgorod
22 The Road, Before the Monastery from Vladimir -- Fyodor assembles the peasants and his mercenaries, declares his agreement with Vasilisa, then prepares to march on Novgorod, planning to use that other half of the treasure to muster troops in attacking Moscow
23 Vladimir, Ilya's Home -- Ilya and Iseult lament their misfortunes, then when Iseult realizes what Fyodor will attempt to do next she races back to Novgorod to save Ilya's family

--

24 The Road, Before Novgorod from the Monastery -- Iseult witnesses Fyodor greet the congregation from Novgorod and is gladdened they do not include Alexander then moves on, Fyodor accuses the congregation of treachery against the people of Vladimir and the Rus', asserting that they plan to join Lithuania and that the title of Grand Prince still refers to Vladimir rather than Moscow, but ironically he asks the congregation to allow him in and enjoy the Divine Liturgy
25 Novgorod, Streets -- Iseult meets Oinona and warns her about Fyodor's passage
26 Novgorod, Chapel -- Fyodor enjoys the Divine Liturgy, then announces the treachery of Novgorod and has all Novgorod's leaders arrested
27 Novgorod, Guildhouse -- Iseult warns the guildemembers but barely manages to save only Alexander
28 Novgorod, Plaza -- Fyodor tensely negotiates with the assembly, then has each member of the assembly beaten to death, while his men raid the city for the treasure
29 Novgorod, Lakeside -- Oinona throws away the rest of the treasure into the lake, then flees with Alexander and Iseult

30 Novgorod, Palace -- Fyodor manages to arrest his cousin Yuri for treachery, then interrogates Yuri about his jealousies, but then laments when he discovers that all the treasure has been spirited away, with most of the loot only serving as payment to the peasants, Fyodor tries negotiating with Vasilisa but she declares that she has no power over the peasants, then the mercenaries who declare that he has no power without gold
31 The Road, Before Novgorod from Moscow -- Mikhail laments the state of affairs with how Fyodor has imitated his father's sickness, Efrosinia worries about the state of her son, the two march with Moscow's armies to Novgorod
32 Novgorod, Plaza -- Mikhail and Efrosinia manage to take Novgorod easily
33 Novgorod, Palace -- Mikhail and Efrosinia find their son Yuri dead by knife, the two find Fyodor who confronts his uncle about the death of his father, Mikhail tells of how his father was an uneven sort and how he treated Fyodor like a son, Fyodor ends up killing himself, Mikhail and Efrosinia lament the loss of the future of their line and the destruction of two great cities, then let Vasilisa go

34 Vladimir, Ilya's Home -- Ilya is glad to be reunited with his father and mother, the whole family then hears about the destruction of Novgorod and the houses of Mikhail and Ivan, Ilya/Maria and Alexander/Oinona begin arguing about reestablishing themselves in Moscow, with Ilya and Maria advocating for peace and temperance, and Alexander and Oinona visualizing certain doom for the princeless Vladimir
35 Vladimir, Plaza -- Iseult encounters Hestia who reminds her about the return of Demeter
36 Monastery, Town -- Alexander and Oinona join Iseult to the monastery to rest, Iseult meets with and disappears with a reappearing Demeter
37 Monastery, Woods -- Ilya and Maria wonder about the road they have chosen in escorting Alexander and Oinona to Piotr but staying to die with Vladimir themselves, Ilya ends up expanding and finally finishing his great work in the process [5], while Maria thanks a passing Anya for her service to Ilya

V - Appendix

[1] -- The tale of Demeter
01 Mount Olympus -- Zeus and Demeter make awkward incestuous love, Kore is born, Kore grows into a beautiful maiden
02 Earth -- Hades watches Kore and her handmaidens gather flowers, he appears and takes Kore down to his realm, Demeter appears and begins wandering the earth in sadness

03 Eleusis, Plaza -- A famine plagues the city, Demeter appears and becomes a guest of the local king Celeus and queen Metanira, she is drawn to the boys of Metanira Triptolemus and Demophon
04 Eleusis, Palace -- Metanira discovers Demeter burning Demophon's mortality, Demeter scolds Metanira for her lack of understanding
05 Eleusis, Plaza -- Demeter shares the secrets of agriculture to the boy Triptolemus

06 Earth -- Hermes petitions Demeter to stop her woe on Zeus' behalf, Demeter challenges Hermes and Zeus to return to her her daughter, Hermes joins Dionysus in his descent to hell
07 Hell -- Dionysus is torn apart by the furies, Hades holds a feast in honor of Hermes, Hermes petitions Hades to return Persephone to the surface as Persephone eats of a pomegranate, Hermes and Persephone and a reformed Dionysus return to the surface
08 Earth -- Demeter rejoices at Persephone's return but laments her eating off the underworld, the seasons are established, Persephone ambiguously looks back at her time in hell with fondness

[2] -- The tale of Iseult
01 On the Island, Grove -- Iseult robs Ilya
02 On the Island, Town -- Iseult's mother dies, she decides to join some relatives in Novgorod
03 At Sea -- Iseult takes up her first lover among the sailors who looks rather like Ilya
04 Novgorod, Docks -- As she disembarks she realizes her lover stole from her but he disappears

05 Novgorod, Aunt's House -- Iseult becomes a sort of Cinderella to her aunt
06 Novgorod, Gardens -- Her aunt eventually introduces her to Tristan with whom she is charmed, as she and Tristan talk she grows somewhat more uncomfortable of him
07 Novgorod, Streets -- She witnesses Tristan's debauchery and is angered, she finds her second lover among the peasants instead, she and the peasant boy escape

08 Suzdal, Peasant's House -- Iseult enjoys her return to freedom but finds it unsatisfying and her new husband unfulfilling
09 Suzdal, Plaza -- The peasant boy joins Ioannes' army, Iseult leaves their home

10 The Road, Before the Monastery from Suzdal -- Iseult finds Anya lamenting her husband lost to syphilis in the middle of the road, Iseult and Anya are captured, Anya ends up becoming their servant while Iseult becomes a member, Iseult takes up a third lover from among their ranks
11 The Road, Before the Monastery from Vladimir -- Her bandit clan steals the tribute to the Tatars
12 The Road, Before the Monastery from Suzdal -- While she is tasked with hiding a good part of the loot Muscovite soldiers attack, Anya their servant makes her escape, Iseult is left by her third lover for dead, she finds refuge with Demeter

[3] -- The tale of Frigga
01 Asgard, Plaza -- Baldr is born, Baldr courts Nanna, Baldr marries Nanna
02 Asgard, Hall -- Nanna reports Baldr's evil dreams to Frigga her mother-in-law
03 Earth -- Frigga gathers promises from all things not to harm Baldr, Loki discovers by his malice her failure to get to the mistletoe plant
04 Asgard, Hall -- The gods play games with Baldr's impenetrability, Loki tricks Hodr Baldr's blind half-brother to throw a spear of mistletoe at Baldr, Baldr dies
05 Asgard, Plaza -- Baldr is cremated, Nanna immolates herself, Frigga weeps for both

06 Hell -- Hermod has a feast with Hel, Hel challenges Hermod that if all things weep for Baldr and Nanna then she would allow them to leave
07 Earth -- Frigga gathers promises from al things to weep for Baldr, a disguised Loki refuses
08 Hell -- Frigga herself visits Hel and Hel laughs at Frigga's misery, the seasons are established

[4] -- The tale of Troy, part one
[5] -- The tale of Troy, part two

C - New Rome

PART ONE: THE WINTER TOWER

ACT ONE
I - THE MAGICIAN
The Thirteenth Year, Summer
ILYA and his guardian TURNUS rescue ANYA from the ocean. They take refuge from the storm in a nearby cave, where they exchange stories: Turnus is merely Ilya's guardian, having been a good friend of Ilya's father ALEXANDER (and a former paramour of Ilya's mother OLGA) before their deaths of plague; while Anya journeyed from Spain to Bordeaux following a message by her mother, KARIN, who had left her to her father, HECTOR, when she was yet a baby. When the three travel along the coast, both in return to the city of Bordeaux and in search of any other survivors, they are attacked by a giant, FERRAGUS, who mortally wounds Ilya. The party is rescued by BACCHUS, the wine god, who returns them to the city after a feast.
II - THE POPESS
The Thirteenth Year, Summer
ILYA, ANYA, and TURNUS live, for a few weeks, a fairly idyllic life, with Ilya practicing for a local hunting competition, Turnus organizing the defenses of the city, and Anya corresponding with a local mercenary company (the company her mother was a member of, before journeying to Spain). Eventually, Anya joins the mercenary company, marching out of the city with them when the city's armies are summoned by TRISTRAM, the crown prince of Aquitaine.
III - THE EMPRESS
The Thirteenth Year, Late Summer, until the Fourteenth Year, Summer
ILYA loses the competition; in dealing with both this loss and the departure of (his developing romance with) Anya, he joins a troupe of mummers, led by the matronly HERMA and her young daughter MARJATTA. Ilya falls in love with Marjatta as they rehearse for a play, Orpheus in the Underworld, but Marjatta rejects him on the winter of that year. On the spring of the next year, they present the play; TURNUS is not pleased, with Ilya not only having neglected his work as a hunter and assistant to the city marshal, but having associated with suspected pagans.
IIII - THE EMPEROR
The Thirteenth Year, Late Summer, until the Fourteenth Year, Summer
ANYA, guided by the mercenary company's leader LYDIA, fight the Saracens besieging the city of Toulouse. Victorious, TRISTRAM leads them to his household for payment, and along the way Anya grows infatuated with him. While Lydia negotiates with the king, EUDUS, Anya discovers Tristram being married to ISOLDE, a Burgundian princess; in a fit of jealousy, she pledges her service to Tristram, disregarding the rules of the company. Lydia furiously kicks her out, and Eudus commends the care of Anya to his marshal, BARCA, who was once in a relationship with Lydia.
V - THE POPE
The Fourteenth Year, Late Summer
While HERMA and her troupe prepare yet another show, TURNUS and ILYA scramble to prepare Bordeaux's defenses. The attacking Saracens are forced to besiege it as they pass, but Turnus recognizes the hopelessness of the situation. Ilya receives a vision from MINERVA, the goddess of war, and just as the Saracens break through the gates, Ilya follows this vision to lead much of the citizens out through a secret tunnel; Turnus dies keeping the Saracens at bay. The court of Aquitaine receives this news, and musters their troops to fight; along the way, TRISTRAM confronts ANYA on her infatuation with him. As the army crosses the River Garonne, they are attacked by the Saracens and utterly destroyed, with Tristram dying in the battle. Anya manages to save BARCA, and after the battle carries Tristram's body back to court. There, a funeral is held, then King EUDUS leads his remaining men to France, in the hopes that France's lord would help him against the Saracens, while ISOLDE returns to her home country of Burgundy.

ACT TWO
VI - THE LOVERS
The Fourteenth Year, Autumn
ILYA leads the people of Bordeaux to refuge, assuming the role of steward to his aunt EFROSINIA and his infant cousin CASSIUS THE YOUNGER. With the master gone, they are barred out of the house of Efrosinia's noble brother, CASSIUS THE ELDER, and are forced to go further east, to Burgundy. Before reaching Burgundy's palace, HERMA and her troupe leave the party; at the palace, the lady ISOLDE treats with the remaining, especially with Ilya. Sharing griefs, Ilya and Isolde become lovers, with Isolde warning Ilya not to enter the nearby wood. But Ilya cannot resist the call to hunt, and in the wood he encounters Herma's troupe, summoning through yet another show the goddess CERES, who emboldens Ilya to begin journeying up the Winter Tower.
VII - THE CHARIOT
The Fourteenth Year, Autumn
At the camp outside the city of Tours, ANYA and BARCA guard their lords, King EUDUS and his remaining son HUNALD, as they discuss strategies with the lords of France, the lord mayor CAROLUS and his sons, CARLOMAN, PEPIN, and GRIFO. That morning, the Saracens, led personally by their lord ABDULRAHMAN, attack, but the experienced lines of Carolus' army hold. The Aquitainian army then attack the Saracen camp, and the Saracens fall into a panicked retreat. Abdulrahman is accidentally trapped by his own men, and Anya manages to kill him. After the battle, King Eudus is forced to recognize Lord Carolus' sovereignty, Anya is knighted under Pepin's banner, and Lord Carolus takes Pepin to the court of Burgundy.
VIII - JUSTICE
The Fourteenth Year, Winter
Climbing the mountains of Burgundy, ILYA meets MERCURY, the psychopomp, who becomes his guide to the summit. At the summit, Mercury leaves him, and he finds the entrance to the Winter Tower, where he is welcomed by its lady, PROSERPINA. Leaving the queen of the underworld behind, he continues climbing up the winter tower, encountering a monstrous mermaid (LEVIATHAN), a horned tiger (BEHEMOTH), a gigantic bird (ZIZ), and a red-haired lady (BABALON), before being consumed by fire.
VIIII - THE HERMIT
The Fourteenth Year, Late Winter
HERMA leads the mummers on a performance of The Frogs as ISOLDE entertains her new guests, Lord CAROLUS, PEPIN, and their knights, including ANYA. After the show, Herma leads Anya to the woods, introducing her to VESTA. Vesta emboldens Anya to also journey up the winter tower, this time to rescue ILYA, which she does.

ACT THREE
X - THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE
The Fourteenth Year, Late Winter
ILYA and ANYA return to the court of Burgundy. Lord CAROLUS declares Burgundy to be the dominion of his son, PEPIN, under no objections by ISOLDE. After petitioning Pepin to supply his people on their return to Bordeaux, Ilya invites Isolde to join them, which she accepts. On learning about the Saracens' surrender, Lord Carolus commands his son redirect the army northward, against the pagans of Frisia.
XI - FORTITUDE
The Fourteenth Year, Spring, until the Fifteenth Year, Spring
PEPIN trains his knights in the art of chivalry, practicing on renegade communities of pagans. ANYA relents to his wooing only when he breaks off his affair with MARJATTA. On reaching the city of Brygge, the mummer troupe leaves the army, and Anya, at the behest of the troupe leader HERMA, follows them, witnessing another pagan ritual. The army continues into the marshland, where Pepin's knights are forced to give up their horses. BUBO, the duke of Frisia, ambushes them, yet Pepin still claims victory. The army then follows Bubo's trail to the pagan capital, which they ravage.
Pepin and Anya return to Paris, parading the defeated duke. Lord CAROLUS declares peace for France, dismissing the army after ten straight years of service. When Anya asks to winter in Pepin's court, she is dismissed, with Pepin fearing the jealousy of his wife; instead, she joins GRIFO, who asks for escort to Aquitaine. There, EUDUS is forced to retire to a monastery, and the crown is passed on to HUNALD, with whom Grifo and Anya winter. At spring, Anya leaves court and returns to the mercenary company. LYDIA forgives her, and she leads the company through various raids.
XII - THE HANGED MAN
The Fourteenth Year, Summer, until the Fifteenth Year, Spring
As ILYA leads the efforts to rebuild, IOANNES, a representative of the people, and ISOLDE plot a revolt against EFROSINIA. The revolt is sparked, and PIERRE, Efrosinia's marshal, leads her soldiers against the city, but Ilya manages an effective enough defense; Ioannes wounds Pierre, while Isolde, on imprisoning Efrosinia, murders CASSIUS THE YOUNGER. Afterwards, Ilya and Isolde winter outside of Bordeaux, at his family's old hunting lodge, where they entertain APOLLO, the god of music, and DIANA, the goddess of the hunt. Here, Ilya tells Isolde of how TURNUS, his former guardian, lost the hunting contest for the hand of OLGA, Ilya's mother, to his good friend ALEXANDER, Ilya's father, and how he came to be Ilya's guardian after the other two died of plague.
At spring, they receive a summons from HUNALD. Isolde refuses to join, despising the new king, so Ilya takes Ioannes with him to court. There, they participate in two contests held in the king's honor; Ilya wins the hunting contest, while Ioannes is wounded by Pierre, now sponsored by CASSIUS THE ELDER, who is revealed to be have been the king's mentor. Ilya then introduces himself as Bordeaux's new lord, promising friendship with Cassius and paying homage to the king.

PART TWO: NOVA ROMA

ACT ONE
XIII - THE UNNAMED ONE
The Eighteenth Year, Spring, until the Nineteenth Year, Summer
MAURONTUS, the lord of Provence, has surrendered his cities to ABDULRAHMAN THE YOUNGER, and now the returning Saracens move against France. The three sons of Lord CAROLUS make their move: CARLOMAN heads to Lombardy to summon France's allies, PEPIN sends his cavaliers to attack the Saracens at Nimes, and GRIFO leads King HUNALD to take the forts still barely occupied by the Saracens. ILYA leaves IOANNES and ISOLDE to take care of Bordeaux, as he follows King Hunald's summons. ANYA and LYDIA lead the mercenary company to join Pepin, and altogether they capture Nimes, destroying its fortifications. Carloman and King LIUTPRAND, the leader of the Lombards, lead a direct assault against Arles, taking it through sheer force. Lord Carolus now assembles everyone around Avignon, whose fortifications they find nigh impenetrable. Ilya offers to take the city from the inside, leading a number of his men as spies. Once Ilya opens the gates, the combined forces of France, Aquitaine, and Lombardy destroy the city, driving Maurontus out into the alps. For this, Ilya is well recognized, but the affair reopens an old wound.
XIIII - TEMPERANCE
The Nineteenth Year, Summer, until the Nineteenth Year, Late Summer
LIUTPRAND is forced by domestic troubles to withdraw his men; PEPIN, unsure about his funds, dismisses the mercenary company, although LYDIA offers her personal service to ANYA. The rest of the grand army march upon Narbonne, the center of Saracen presence in the region. CARLOMAN and GRIFO find common ground in encouraging their father, Lord CAROLUS, into besieging Narbonne, while Pepin remains cautious and weary. Suddenly, reports arrive that the Saracens have assembled another large army from Spain, intent on intercepting the combined French and Aquitainian force before they reach Narbonne. Pepin offers to ambush them with his cavaliers, and he and Anya intercept the Saracens crossing the River Berre; though victorious, Pepin is wounded in the battle. As the grand army prepares to surround Narbonne, HUNALD also pulls out his men. The besieging forces win another victory against the Saracens, this time facing soldiers from the Narbonne garrison, but Lord Carolus, against his soldiers' opinion, chooses to offer terms. ABDULRAHMAN THE YOUNGER readily accepts, and the French army enters Narbonne peacefully.

ACT TWO
XV - THE DEVIL
The Nineteenth Year, Late Summer
LYDIA and ANYA elect to winter in Narbonne, where Lydia tells of how Anya's mother KARIN became the hero of Narbonne as it fell to the Saracens. A mutilated woman, REBEKAH, interrupts, telling of how Karin's return to France was to try to spark the fight against the Saracens, but of Lydia's company, only Rebekah answered, while of the noblemen, not a single soul, with CASSIUS THE ELDER even imprisoning and abusing the two women. Anya learns that Karin died imprisoned, and vows vengeance.
XVI - THE HOUSE GOD
The Nineteenth Year, Late Summer
ILYA returns to an emergency: with the garrison of Bordeaux much decreased by war, EFROSINIA managed to escape, and it is reported that she had sought refuge in the house of her brother, CASSIUS THE ELDER. Ilya, ISOLDE, and IOANNES prepare the defenses of the city; Cassius, Efrosinia, and PIERRE attack, and though at first they are repelled, Isolde is gravely wounded. Ilya sends out Ioannes to seek aid.
XVII - THE STAR
The Nineteenth Year, Autumn
IOANNES finds ANYA arguing with LYDIA; when Ioannes explains his predicament to both, Lydia refuses, fearing CASSIUS THE ELDER. Anya and Ioannes are both forced to search for different allies; Anya journeys to Aquitaine and her old master BARCA, while Ioannes journeys to Paris. Barca also refuses, knowing Cassius to be his new master's close ally. PEPIN, however, finds himself invested, especially with the involvement of Ilya and Anya, and with Cassius being an especially powerful ally. He sends out a small force of his cavaliers, whom Anya joins near Lydia's stronghold. Lydia is finally convinced to join the battle, and just as Cassius is about to break through Bordeaux's defenses, Anya's soldiers plow through the battlefield, killing PIERRE, wounding EFROSINIA, and capturing Cassius.
XVIII - THE MOON
The Nineteenth Year, Autumn
ILYA and ANYA debate on what to do with CASSIUS THE ELDER, with Ilya preferring ransom and Anya preferring execution. Cassius reasons with Ilya, claiming his significance to the court and, more importantly, the possibility of Anya and her cavaliers being traitors. Suddenly, the cavaliers attack, murdering Cassius and restraining everyone else, including Anya; when IOANNES, just outside of the hall, tries to escape, LYDIA maims him. PEPIN arrives, trying to make Ilya pledge fealty to him. Ilya, in his loyalty to Aquitaine, refuses, instead presenting an alternative: Ioannes, revealed to be his distant cousin, is free to claim lordship over Bordeaux if Ilya excuses himself, Ioannes having made no oaths to Aquitaine. Pepin agrees, Ilya abdicates, ISOLDE and EFROSINIA are both locked up in monasteries, Ioannes is honored as Bordeaux's new lord, and Anya is forced to marry Ioannes.

ACT THREE
XVIIII - THE SUN
The Nineteenth Year, Winter, until the Twentieth Year, Winter
ILYA sails with ISAAC, a theologian, from Rome to Constantinople. In Constantinope, the two stay at a monastery as guests. At Christmas, Isaac invites Ilya to his family's feast. Ilya eventually offers to stay with ISMAEL, the head of the family. At spring, he forms an attachment with MARIA, Ismael's youngest daughter, through his songs. At summer, Ismael holds a hunting contest for the position of his forest's warden; Ilya wins the contest, gaining a permanent place in Ismael's household. At autumn, Ilya and Maria get married, their bliss continuing through winter and beyond.
XX - JUDGMENT
The Nineteenth Year, Spring, until the Twentieth Year, Winter
The invitation ANYA sent to her father, HECTOR, returns with tragedy: her father's ship was taken by the sea. She builds a cenotaph to her father next to the cenotaph of her mother, KARIN, then marches her armies upon the stronghold of LYDIA, again to call for aid. Their combined forces reach Toulouse, where they destroy Aquitaine's assembled army; here, Anya slays in a duel BARCA. Her army then continues on to the Aquitainian court, now bolstered by the forces of PEPIN and CARLOMAN, where they force HUNALD into a monastery, with Hunald's young son WAIFER vowing vengeance. Pepin then divides Aquitaine between three of his vassals (including Anya), and Anya visits the tomb of TRISTRAM. After dispersing the armies, Anya returns to IOANNES, at long last offering to produce with him a child.

I've played with the outline, though this might mean a good deal of change for the setting. It still follows the Tarot, albeit with more of an influence from Rider-Waite-Smith (particularly Waite's exegesis), and with more direct lines from the monomyth (which a certain article in this very site has made me revisit, thanks @Sir Basil ) and humorism. It should now pass in four episodes, only three of which would actually be played by the group; the fourth one, or rather the first one, should be composed of a series of one-on-ones, perhaps played as the other episodes progressed. Of course, because this is quite a young change-of-course, most of the ideas here are still abstract.

The Fool -- the force that moves the plot, such as the contradiction between Light and Darkness, or Existence and the World Eater.
The Magician -- the person that brings said force into the world: the alchemist that builds the Bastion, along with the various wars that established the two settings.

Part One: ORIGINS
Setting: The Human World
The Popess -- Introducing: The Scholar/Theurgist, elaborating on the world of the gentleman/lady, the university, and the coven.
The Empress -- Introducing: The Rogue, elaborating on the grummy city slums
The Emperor -- Introducing: The Soldier, elaborating on the ravaged countryside
The Pope -- Introducing: The Priest, elaborating on the church, foreign peoples, and the conflict between Light and Darkness

Part Two: THE BASTION
Setting: The Human World
The Lovers -- Converging questlines
The Chariot -- Encounter with the first villain, the Lackey
Justice -- Meeting with the Crone; introduction to the Bastion
The Hermit -- Meeting with the Hermit; magical tools
The Wheel of Fortune -- Defeating the Lackey and unifying humanity
Fortitude -- Awakening the Bastion, in turn meeting with the Mother; venturing out

Part Three: THE DARK WORLD
Setting: The Dark World
The Hanged Man -- Crossing into the realm of the interstellar; encounter with the villain of all flesh, the World Eater
The Unnamed One -- Landing in the world of opposites, of Venus and Mars; encounter with the villain of the harmonious soul, the Temptress
Temperance -- The Light in the Middle of the Darkness, or the goddess' third emanation: the Maiden
The Devil -- Escape from the Temptress' double world, and into the gaseous desolation of Jupiter
The House God -- Encounter with the villain of the Spirit, the Big Bad, and a crushing defeat; escape to the refuge of Saturn

Part Four: HEAVENLY BODIES
Setting: The Dark World
The Star -- Comfort among the united emanations of the triple goddess; introduction to the greater boon
The Moon -- The Big Bad, still a mortal, defeated by his excesses; the four heroes entering the World Eater, finding within the penultimate planet, the Moon
The Sun -- Passing through arcs of light into the final planet, the Sun; conquering death and claiming the Boon
Judgment -- Reconciling the Big Bad, and returning with him and the Boon to the Human World; A Flight of Visions
The World -- Using Mortal Godhood to solidify humanity's unity by either reconciling or destroying the factions now warring again; either revoking mortal godhood for a life of human peace (which in turn is either a position of newfound power, or a less glamorous retirement), using mortal godhood to ascend into the Light World, or renewing the cycle by claiming a godhood beyond one's means

PS, written almost a year after the original post: I've essentially reworked the outline into a somewhat cleaner, yet somehow more abstract, outline, that I'll post along with the aforementioned Star Wars dissection, since that outline is basically Star Wars.

Since I already have stuff for this, I'm gonna post this as a category, unlike my proposed dissection of Star Wars and discussion of biology. That said, expect major revisions to come to this category at some point in the future.
PS the following is to be revised, once I have enough time to binge watch again, in order to account for the new seasons.

I prepared this list for a paper that fizzled out. All of the episodes that contain important story elements -- will definitely miss a lot of details, particularly brick jokes, but that's to be expected. Numbers mean I watched them for said paper; the loopy numbering system is because I divided the list according to season, with season five (52 versus the regular 26) and season six (43) being broken in twain. This was written some time before season seven, so nothing on season seven -- really, if you manage to go through this entire list and still want more, just go watch the whole of that season. It's not as intricately designed as season six, which remains my favorite season, but it has, in my opinion, some of the cleanest, sweetest stories of the more mature era of the show (where Finn had essentially entered the world of adolescence, eventually adulthood, I think best symbolized by his relationship with Flame Princess and the rediscovered relationship between Ice King and Marceline, both of which flower in season four). Anyway, as for the unnumbered episodes and the asterisks, I really don't know what they mean anymore -- I suppose unnumbered episodes are episodes that may be skipped, but I'd included because they were episode I had at that point only cursorily watched.

01 Slumber Party Panic
02 Prisoners of Love
03 The Enchiridion!
04 Ricardio the Heart Guy
05 My Two Favorite People
06 Memories of Boom Boom Mountain
07 Evicted!
08 What is Life?
09 Ocean of Fear
Dungeon
10 Freak City
11 Henchman
12 His Hero

01 It Came from the Nightosphere
02 The Eyes
Blood Under the Skin
03 Power Animal
04 The Other Tarts
05 To Cut a Woman's Hair
06 Her Parents
07 The Silent King
08 The Real You
09 Death in Bloom
10 Susan Strong
11 Mystery Train
12 Go With Me
13 Belly of the Beast
14 The Limit
15 Video Makers
16 Mortal Folly
17 Mortal Recoil

01 Memory of a Memory
02 Too Young
03 The Monster
04 Wizard Battle
05 Fionna and Cake
06 What Was Missing
07 Apple Thief
08 The Creeps
09 Beautopia
10 No One Can Hear You
11 Jake vs Me-Mow
12 Thank You
13 The New Frontier
14 Holly Jolly Secrets, part one
15 Holly Jolly Secrets, part two
16 Marceline's Closet
17 Another Way*
18 Ghost Princess
19 Dad's Dungeon
20 Incendium

01 Hot to the Touch
Web Weirdos
02 Dream of Love
03 Return to the Nightosphere
04 Daddy's Little Monster
05 In Your Footsteps
06 Princess Monster Wife
07 Goliad
08 Gotcha!
09 Princess Cookie
10 Sons of Mars
11 Burning Low
12 BMO Noire
13 King Worm
14 Lady & Peebles
15 You Made Me
16 Who Would Win*
17 Ignition Point
18 Reign of Gunters
19 I Remember You
20 The Lich

01 Finn the Human
02 Jake the Dog
03 All the Little People
04 Jake the Dad
05 Mystery Dungeon
06 All Your Fault
07 Little Dude
08 Bad Little Boy
09 Vault of Bones
10 The Great Bird Man
11 Simon & Marcy
12 A Glitch is a Glitch
13 Puhoy
14 BMO Lost
15 James Baxter the Horse
16 Shh!
17 The Suitor
18 The Party's Over, Isla de Senorita
19 One Last Job
Candy Streets
20 Wizards Only, Fools

01 Jake Suit*
02 Be More
03 Sky Witch
04 Frost & Fire
05 Too Old
06 Earth & Water
07 The Vault
08 Love Games
Red Starved*
09 Dungeon Train
10 We Fixed a Truck
11 Play Date
12 The Pit
13 Root Beer Guy
14 Apple Wedding
15 Blade of Grass
16 Rattleballs
17 The Red Throne*
18 Betty
19 Bad Timing
20 Lemonhope, part one
21 Lemonhope, part two
22 Billy's Bucket List

01 Wake Up
02 Escape from the Citadel
03 The Tower
04 Breezy
05 Food Chain
06 Furniture & Meat
07 The Prince Who Wanted Everything
08 Something Big
09 Little Brother
10 Ocarina
11 Thanks for the Crabapples, Giuseppe
12 Princess Day
13 Nemesis
14 Joshua and Margaret Investigations
15 Is That You?
16 Jake the Brick
17 Dentist
18 The Cooler

01 The Pajama War
02 Evergreen
03 Astral Plane
04 Gold Stars
05 The Visitor
06 The Mountain
07 Dark Purple
08 The Diary
09 Walnuts and Rain
10 Friends Forever
11 Jermaine
12 Hoots
13 You Forgot Your Floaties
14 Be Sweet
15 Orgalorg
16 On the Lam
17 Hot Diggity Doom
18 The Comet

ACT ONE

Scene One: Harbor Town.

Isolde is wedded to Tristram.
Because Ilya crushes on Isolde, he mourns.
To cheer him up, Piotr introduces him to Anya.
Giving meat to their conversation, Anya talks about her mother, Karin, and how she idolizes her.
Anya talks about how Karin once worked for the local mercenary company, alongside its current leader, Lydia.
She laments that her father has forbidden her from joining Lydia -- and has in fact forced upon her the responsibility of working under her aunt Herma's theater troupe, which should soon travel to the Summer City. (NARRATION)
She leaves when she is called by her aunt and her father.

On leaving, Piotr opens up about his crush on Anya.
Their conversation is interrupted by Oenone, his mother, entering, and introducing Turnus, Ilya's uncle, to Piotr.
Turnus, the bishop of the Summer City, is to be the guardian of Ilya and Piotr when they journey to the Summer City.
Ilya and Piotr, it is revealed, are to be the apprentices of Turnus's friend, the plague doctor Tiberius.
When Oenone and Turnus take Piotr aside in order to further discuss their living arrangements, Ilya finds his feelings for Isolde being transferred to Anya. (MONOLOGUE)
Ilya leaves the stage when he is called by Oenone and Turnus, just as the lights focus squarely on the newlyweds.

Isolde and Tristram find few feelings in their mostly political arrangement.
Nevertheless, Tristram regrets having to leave his wife so early, due to his commitment in protecting his brother Ivan from the Tatars.
Ivan, it turns out, lost his annual tribute to the Tatars, and with the people still indignant about their taxes having gone to nought, as well as the prince having been wounded in a hunting expedition, Ivan has no one to depend on except his brothers. (NARRATION)
Isolde promises to pray for her new husband, as a devoted wife should.

ACT TWO

Scene One: The Summer City

Anya has received news that Lydia's mercenary company has had to station itself in the Summer City, due to being hired out for Tristram's war.
As such, she celebrates, wondering if such is to be her chance at glory. (MONOLOGUE)
She goes to Herma, who is busy holding auditions for a play she had envisioned.
The play, it is revealed, is to involve Anya as the central actress, following Herma's eccentricities.
Ilya lines up at an audition for the play -- Piotr has joined him, as their day's round of work for Tiberius has ended.
Piotr laments that Tiberius finds his two new apprentices rather incompetent, with Ilya's distractedness and Piotr's lovesickness.
During the audition of an unnamed rival, Anya convinces Herma that it is fate which has given her such a chance -- Herma, somehow convinced, persuades Anya to continue her work on the play, at least until the Tatars have arrived.
Herma hopes that shocking Anya with the corresponding bloodshed would dispel Anya's unhealthy fascination. (ASIDE)
Ilya feels conflicted emotions about this turn of events: he does not want Anya to leave, but has at least been granted some time with her; and all of these emotions come out during his performance, as Herma orders him to reenact the wedding of Orpheus and Eurydice, when Eurydice is killed by an asp's bite. (MONOLOGUE)
Herma is twice surprised: first, that she had thought it was Piotr who was so lovesick for Anya, with Piotr, not Ilya, wanting to audtion; and second, that Ilya's audition turned out so well. (ASIDE)
Nevertheless, although she gives Ilya and Piotr a rather neutral reaction, it's obvious Ilya got the part.
Herma and Anya leave the stage, in order to observe the rest of the auditions.
Ilya, elated by his success, discusses with Piotr his next course of action.
Piotr, however, is too distracted by his apprehensions concerning their apprenticeship -- he could not even perform to win Anya's heart, freely giving her away to Ilya.
He reveals the study of contrasts between his past and Ilya's: though both lived decidedly manic-depressive lives, coming from affectionate households, yet being outcast by their peers for various peculiarities, it is Ilya who ultimately had greater fortune, and thus greater capacity for distraction, with Ilya's father and mother having been relatively rich burghers of Harbor Town, while Piotr's grandmother, the only relative of his capable of taking care of him, was quite poor, seeing the apprenticeship as Piotr's one chance to rise to stability, if not respectability. (NARRATION)

Scene Two: The Summer City

During the intermission of their play, Anya thoroughly rejects Ilya.
He suspects infidelity, but of course the reason is much simpler: Anya could not afford such follies, as reports have come in that the Tatars have arrived, and she is soon to leave her aunt's company.
Ilya's jealousy seethes: as Anya leaves to apply new make-up, he meets Herma to rehearse the following part, and Herma finds he is not projecting the right emotions.
The show nevertheless continues: Ilya, as Orpheus, gradually veers off-script, as his Orpheus, journeying down the underworld, imagines Eurydice to have disappeared with Aristaeus in a tryst, rather than in an episode of assault, and is now whoring herself out to the dead, or even to Hades' dread king. (MONOLOGUE)
Herma, as Proserpina, clumsily improvises a response: that Ilya's jealousy could not have brought him so far.
Ilya then speaks about jealousy -- in fact, all vice -- being the root of romance -- in fact, all kinds of love.
Herma then abruptly returns to the script, presenting Eurydice.
Anya remains quiet throughout, as befits a deceased soul, though visibly she grows more and more distressed as Ilya's jealous slander turns from imagining Eurydice's faults, to comparing Eurydice's faults and Orpheus' tumultuous emotions to the hellscape that surrounds them, to finally insulting Anya herself, as well as his friend Piotr, whose absences of late he imagines were due to going on trysts with Anya. (MONOLOGUE)
When he turns to scornfully bear his final judgment upon Eurydice, he finds Anya has disappeared -- as per the myth.
Ilya realizes his loss of composure, and weeps -- returning to the script.
The audience applauds.

Scene Three: The Summer City

Anya's embarrassed rage at Ilya transforms into a sort of calm, as she watches Tristram inspire his men with a speech. (SPEECH)
Tristram's soldiers march off to fight -- at first, Anya is horrified, but her horror turns into interest, and eventually delight.
Anya is naturally concerned by this latent bloodthirst, until she realizes that this might be what propelled her mother to glory. (MONOLOGUE)

She questions Lydia as to why the company should not now fight.
Lydia talks about the pay dispute she has with Tristram, emphasizing the value of money throughout her own mercenary vision of history. (SPEECH)
Anya is not convinced, referring to Tristram's speech about honor.
Lydia, in turn, points out that Anya is just like her mother: uncompromising -- insolent -- foolish.
She then deepens her historical overview, this time relating it to the history of her mercenary company, as well as to the various adventures Karin had that Lydia did not want Anya to hear about, at first: she talks about how wars are now transformed from petty squabbles between noblemen, to threats of invasion by infidels, then warns Anya that the sort of verve that made Karin bear Anya -- and, ultimately, made Karin leave Anya and the Harbor Town -- is what would have gotten her killed. (NARRATION)
Anya, still unconvinced, approaches the triumphant Tristram, who with his men return from the battlefield.

Tristram addresses his men, congratulating them for a good day's work. (SPEECH)
Anya asks Tristram if there is any work yet to be done, and Tristram claims that there is, as the camp of the Tatars has yet to be dispersed.
Anya volunteers her service, relating her childhood of sneaking off to Lydia's company, and from them, learning both the tales of her mother's exploits, and those same skills that allowed them. (NARRATION)
Tristram merrily allows her to join, especially when he notices how much Lydia is spited by Anya's offer.
Lydia warns Anya of the consequences of breaking her old oath, particularly as she now breaks it of her own volition.

ACT THREE

Scene One: The Summer City

Ilya regrets the offence he has caused Anya, especially as it turns out that the performance was their last proper meeting. (MONOLOGUE)
He returns to his master's office, where he finds Tiberius mad about his two apprentices' frequent absences.
Tiberius dismisses Ilya, leaving Ilya even more melancholy.
Before Ilya leaves the stage, he is found by Turnus.
Turnus relates how the army of Tristram, now on their way to the Tatar camp, was ambushed, with Tristram and much of his army lost. (NARRATION)
Turnus now encourages the citizens of his city to bolster the defences; he does not trust them, however, telling Ilya to flee with his master Turnus to a local monastery, which he is sure would not be attacked by the Tatars due to its general austerity.
An apprehensive Ilya is thus forced to reveal how he was dismissed by Tiberius.
Turnus tells Ilya to suck it up, as much more than Ilya's career is here at stake.
Ilya then asks Turnus if he will be joining them.
Turnus emphasizes that, although he has a responsibility over Ilya, he has a much greater responsibility over his flock, and he fully trusts Tiberius.

Scene Two: The Monastery

Ilya joins another guest at the monastery, the Prince Ivan, for a hunt.
Ivan teaches Ilya how to use a bow, claiming that it is the only weapon he was ever good at.
Ilya outshoots the prince, leading to the prince's outburst.
Ivan laments his utter powerlessness in the course of all these events, essentially repeating Tristram's observations in act one.
He then compares himself to his brothers, with Tristram the eldest being far nobler and stronger, and Fyodor the youngest being far more cunning; he imagines that, although he received the richest of the three lands, he is the least worthy to rule. (MONOLOGUE)
He then dismisses Ilya, ordering him to return to the monastery.

Ilya, however, does not wish to face Tiberius, especially with yet another failure under his belt: he failed to find Piotr before he and Tiberius had left. (MONOLOGUE)
Instead, he pursues a strange sound emanating from the forest.
He finds another guest house, this time far secluded from the monastery: the house of women.
Out of the house emerges Isolde, along with Herma's company.
Herma sets up a pagan ritual, seemingly by order of the lady Isolde.
The ritual is for communicating with the dead: Isolde with Tristram, Herma with Anya.
Isolde easily finds Tristram, asking Tristram for any final bits of advice.
Tristram simply warns her that by endorsing such a ritual, she sells her soul to the devil.
Isolde does not care -- she has realized how much she loves him, even when they had barely met, elaborating on Ilya's thesis that all love comes from vice. (SPEECH)
Afterwards, Herma searches for Anya: Ilya, who fears to witness Anya in such a gory state as Tristram, leaves.

Ilya reaches the end of the monastery's wood, and the beginnings of a wild forest.
He stumbles on to the aftermath of a battle, with bandits seemingly having killed each other over some sort of dispute.
One of the outlaws asks for Ilya's help, and Ilya helps the masked bandit out of his/her predicament.
The outlaw finds Ilya to be utterly nonthreatening, guessing him to be one of the local monks, and finds that he/she is perhaps too wounded to threaten Ilya anyway: instead, he/she promises Ilya a share of the remaining treasure, if Ilya would help him/her locate any survivors, as well as help him/her excavate the treasure.
Ilya, out of fear, refuses the offer -- at least, the offer for a share, in exchange for a truly binding oath not to harm him, as he assumes he/she harmed his/her companions.
The outlaw, however, notes his/her innocence, as he/she was trapped in the cave before the bloody confrontation even started.
As Ilya helps the outlaw out, he asks him/her various questions, particularly about the outlaw's origins, and the source of the outlaw's treasure.
The outlaw refuses to answer.
Instead, he/she laments the death of one of his/her friends, then finds the friend lying over the bandits' treasure cove.
Ilya helps the outlaw lift the stone, and the two find an immense amount of treasure.
The outlaw then drops his/her weapon, and lets Ilya go.

Scene Three: The Battlefield

Fyodor surveys the battlefield, then orders the survivors of the massacre lined up before him.
Included among the survivors is a woman, whom Fyodor assumes is the first mark against his brother's virtue.
Anya notes, however, that her relationship with the prince remained chaste: she only served him as soldier.
Fyodor orders her to recall the battle.
Anya recalls talking with Tristram of home: of how the prince would soon return to his loving wife, while Anya would functionally have none, her guardian Herma she expected to have moved to another city at that point, and her father being a presence she yet fears.
As Tristram offered to let her stay with him as his squire, the Tatars unexpectedly moved up the nearby hill, then charged down Tristram's army.
The army, being in the middle of crossing the river, didn't stand a chance.
Tristram was trampled to death at the rear -- Anya had no choice but to hide in the water until the massacre was over.
The river ran red with blood, and so was Anya bathed.
When she emerged, the first thing she did was not to wash herself upstream, but to attend to her lord.
Finding him but a naked corpse, his armor having been stripped off by the enemy, she removed her own armor, not wanting to dishonor any of the fallen, then carried Tristram's corpse up the hill, and buried him thus.
Afterwards, she was found by a local peasant family, whom she helped bury the rest of the dead, as well as tend to the others remaining. (NARRATION)
Fyodor, awed by her boldness, asks the other survivors to confirm her story, which they do.
Fyodor then laments that he arrived too late to save his brother, or to spare the Summer City its devastation.
He then remarks that he is glad to have found survivors in the Summer City, at the very least -- including its bishop, Turnus, who after being tortured by the Tatars was left for dead, yet by God's grace managed to survive, and even to bind the wounds of the other survivors.
He swears vengeance against the Tatars -- along with Anya, who decides to take joining Fyodor's army as her reward.
Herma then enters, having heard of Anya's survival from the earlier ritual.
She is stunned to find Anya willing to return to war, but Anya convinces her, as she did much earlier, that it is fate that she should return to war.
Herma, having realized the gravity of her responsibility over Anya, refuses to allow Anya this.
Thus, Anya requests that Fyodor expel Herma from the camp, which he obliges.
 
Last edited:
ETHOS

A resource for all you nerds out there. By the poet Maron.

I - Creation.

Nocteus and his brothers, Manneh and Partheh, emerged from chaos and created the world. Out of this creation sprang He, the allmother, who was not born but also arrived, and her two brothers, Set the painter and Sef the musician. Nocteus then married He, and renamed himself Arda, the allfather.

II - Cycles of Birth.

Manneh and Partheh, protectors of thought and memory, leave the world to create their own. Thus Arda retired from the world, and out of the sea sprang Proteus, the artificer, to finish what Arda started.

At first Proteus created demons for assistants, six of whom were chief: Sarge, Mog, Tahge, Berhart, Dock, and Pons. Sarge and Mog set the rules of the world, with Sarge creating magic and Mog creating dreams. Tahge and Berhart set the ethereal components of life, with Tahge creating the spirit and Berhart creating the soul. Dock and Pons set the material components of life, with Dock creating beasts and Pons creating plants.

Then Proteus created four sons, to shape this primeval work: Mons, Mobius, Larissa, and Lemna. Mons, the eldest, worked on the realm closest to Proteus' heart, the sea. Mobius, the youngest, worked on the realm farthest from Proteus' heart, the underworld. Larissa, the eldest daughter, worked on the wilderness; Lemna, the youngest daughter, worked on the city.

Pons one day saw the two daughters, and attempted to seduce them. Only Larissa accepted his advances, and when the two were discovered by Proteus, he was forced to marry Larissa. Thus Pons became the consort of Larissa, and Larissa was the first of the children of Proteus to have a consort.

III - The Children of Arda.

Manneh and Partheh, before their exit, prophesied: the children of Arda shall be the destruction of his household. Thus Arda, in fear, swallowed his first two children, the twins Dana and Elisef, as He produced them from her womb. When she bore her third child, Crum, she devised a plan: in Crum's place she would produce a stone, while Proteus sported the babe to his household.

The plan worked. Yet Crum grew up in Proteus' house a strong and volatile child, preferring the company of the demons over the company of Proteus and his three children. This opened him up to the machinations of three of the chief demons, Mog, Tahge, and Berhart, who plotted not only against him, but also against Arda, Proteus, and the rest of creation.

One day, they revealed to the boy the full details of his heritage, as well as his immediate destiny.

With this knowledge Crum grew impatient, or perhaps proud: he demanded from the three the prophesied tol by which he should save his siblings.

The three demons would grant him his wish, they said, if Crum and his siblings, once freed, would allow them to touch their work with Proteus.

Crum accepted. Thus the three demons tricked Sarge, the eldest, sagest, and yet most distant of the demons, to produce the Thunderbolt, and when Crum received this weapon, he immediately flew to heaven and challenged Arda, with the resulting battle destroying all of heaven. Crum was triumphant; he freed his two siblings by tearing nigh in twain his father's body.

After the battle, Set and Sef were tasked with recreating heaven. Set, the painter, affixed upon its center a great, glowing orb, akin to the extinguished light of Arda: the sun.

But Sef, the musician, did not want heaven to remain static, as it had in the former rule: he set it to follow the cycles of his music, creating day and night.

Set responded by painting into existence another orb, this time merely reflective, so that the night would not be plunged into complete darkness: the moon.

At last, the two brothers, having finished their magnum opus, decided to retire, capping heaven with a like realm, upon which they set thousands of little lights: the stars.

Afterwards, Crum crowned himself prince of the heavens, Dana king of the sun, and Elisef queen of the moon. Out of gratefulness, he also rewarded Proteus with the hands in marriage of his two siblings; Mons accepted, while Lemna refused, declaring her desire to remain a virgin. Thus Mons became the consort of Elisef, as Lemna was recognized as a virgin goddess.

* * *

Proteus had long wished to create one last intelligent form of being, fundamentally tied to his creations, such that they should become actors upon the world, and the caretakers of his world. For this, he asked for aid from the children of Arda. Crum worked with the basest element, earth, to create the Dwarf; Elisef worked with earth's slimy cousin, water, to create the Ogre; Dana worked with the opposite of water, fire, to create the Gnome; and Proteus himself worked alone with the element that surrounds us all, air, to create the Elf.

The demons under Sarge, Mog, Tahge, and Berhart then possessed these newly created beings, with only Sarge having Proteus' permission; according to their vow with Crum, the demons under Mog entered the dwarfs, those under Tahge entered the ogres, those under berhart the gnomes, and Sarge the elfs.

Thus began the Golden Age, governed by the eldest of the children of Arda, Dana.

IV - The War of the Gods.

This Golden Age ended when Set and Sef retired to the realm of the stars, and prophesied to Crum the end of his reign and the end of the entire world. Crum, distressed, disappeared, which Mog, Tahge, and Berhart took as a sign.

* * *

Out of the corpse of Arda, which after his battle with Crum fell into the sea, arose a new goddess, Hela. And as Pons wooed Larissa, so too did Hela woo Mobius, and succeed.

Beneath his realm she, like Set and Sef, affixed another, which she named after herself. Seeking to populate her realm, she petitioned all throughout the world to help her in her purpose. Only Sarge accepted her offer, wishing to escape the bothersome appeals of his more devious brothers.

But Hela liked neither Sarge nor his experiments -- she allowed him to reside in her realm merely as part of her grander plan. She reached out again to Mog, Tahge, and Berhart, and struck a deal: she would channel all of Sarge's spent energies to them if they would make her realm their base of operations.

This deal allowed the three to gain enough power to war against the gods. Dreams became nightmares, or vacated the sleeper completely; the spirit was sickened with despair; and, over the soul, discord gathered like a storm. The various demihuman races followed suit, according to the domain of demon that possessed them. The dwarfs refused to take part, both on the side of the gods and on the side of the demons; the ogres sided with the enemy at once, hungry for death; and the gnomes were divided between the gods, the usurpers, and the fear or impudence of neutrality. Only the elfs, whose bodies were created by the most experienced creator, and whose souls and spirits were commanded by an utterly apathetic party, remained in worship of the gods.

Yet even the gods and demons were divided, though not, at least, to the point of joining their enemies. Dock remained neutral, seeing through his brothers' folly. So too Mobius and Pons, though more by the influence of their spouses, and not by any reasons of their own. And Dana relinquished his leadership to Elisef, for she was the general between the two of them.

Thus war was for ten years waged.

* * *

At the last year of the war, when things looked most desperate for the gods, He appeared before her daughter. She prophesied that the war could only be eneded with Crum's intervention, but that the only way to find Crum was to read the signs born upon her entrails.

At first, her children refused, but eventually she convinced them, and as Elisef held her down, Dana cut her open.

A funeral was held; afterwards, while Elisef led the gods in battle, Dana followed the signs to an island grown on the spot where Hela emerged. There, he found Crum, now much older, half-blind, and hanging upside down from a tree. Cutting him down, Dana learned why he had disappeared: to figure out how to stop the end of the world. He was just about to figure it out -- nevertheless, he thanked his brother for the warning, and sprang into action.

The enemy was swiftly defeated. To the treacherous demons, hell became a prison, each now receiving a punishment according to his evil. Pons also was punished, for in secret he supported his brothers: his form was made bestial, both to the delight and disgust of his wife Larissa. Finally, the dead dwarfs, gnomes, and ogres were also cast into hell, though not all receiving punishment, the judgment belonging to Hela. The dead elfs, meanwhwile, would be sent to the bosom of Proteus, for them an eternal paradise.

V - The Arrival of Mankind.

The ashes of He were also cast into the sea, and out of this marriage was born the goddess Winthra, as well as an island. Proteus retired to this island, tired of his creation after all the chaos of the last war; nevertheless, his aid in creating the very final race of humanity, Man, was deemed necessary by Crum, so that Proteus, helped by Winthra, returned to the world for the last time.

Here, Proteus would act only as guide. Dock was the first god to work: based on his experience working on beasts, he provided the framework out of earth, the stability of man. Elisef contributed water, the virility of man. Dana contributed fire, the intelligence of man. Crum contributed air, the life-giving spirit of man, as passed onto him by Proteus.

The other gods, too, offered their own contributions. Mons gave man a love of adventure; Mobius, a love of wealth; Larissa, a love of the wilderness; and Lemna, a love of order. Hela was not invited, but Dock snuck her in, knowing she was necessary to complete man: she granted man all their vices, all their imperfections. At this, Crum grew mad, and cast Dock out of the venture, then chained him to an island where he should be forever punished.

Proteus, however, remained calm, and asked his caretaker Winthra to provide the final contribution, one to counteract those of Hela. She provided man the greatest of his virtues, faith, hope, and love, thus completing the new race. Afterwards, Proteus returned to his retirement, but asked Winthra to stay with the gods, as he knew humanity would need far more care than him. In his position as artificer, he was replaced by Severina, the daughter of Mons and Elisef.

* * *

Man was released to the world by Crum. The first wave took to the earth, disappearing with the dwarfs into the depths. The second wave took to the water, breeding not only amongst themselves, but also with the elfs, the dwarfs, the gnomes, and even the ogres. This second wave angered Elisef, who took under her wing the third wave, training them to pass her judgment like an inferno. At this, Winthra intervened, sparing the household of Pyrius and Noelia, then sending the fourth and final wave to Dana, who would teach them the ways of air, of artful culture and peaceful civilization.

This peaceful civilization, however, also proved quite proud. As the first wave dug deeper and deeper into the earth, Hela intervened, getting them so lost that they returned to the surface, and to their fellow man they passed on the knowledge of the dwarfs. With this knowledge, mankind attempted to reach the heavens, building a great tower. Crum, seeing this hubris, called for Tovonin, the son of Hela and Mobius, and as his thunderbolt destroyed the tower in one magnificent stroke, Tovonin divided man by inventing all the world's languages, and confusing mankind's tongues.

Thus began the Bronze Age, when mankind ruled the earth, and Crum ruled mankind.

VI - Javeth, the Mortal God.

(Here my copy of the Cosmogony grows sparse -- I resort to summarizing summaries. Nevertheless I've heard that a complete copy has been recently discovered, if I remember right in the archives of some distant monastery...)

A chronicle of the house of Aran, detailing
1) the migration of Aran, and his covenant with Crum;
2) the tale of his two children, and the banishment of the elder for the younger;
3) the search of a wife for the younger child;
4) the two grandsons of Aran, and their conflict over inheritance;
5) the birth of Elisefa to one brother, the birth of Sinon to another, and the two falling in love, getting married, and reconciling the two houses;
6) the reconciliation leading to Hund, enemy of the elder brother, attempting to destroy both brothers, and in fact the entire household;
7) the birth of the twelve sons of Sinon, who attack with a vengeance;
8) the birth of Mara, their sole daughter, who is married to the last living son of Hund, Linus, in order to restore the peace.

Mara gave birth to Javeth, whom Linus believed was his son; in fact Javeth was the son of Crum, who one night visited Mara in the guise of Linus.

Linus taught the boy, but grew more and more resentful of him, as he began to realize that the boy truly wasn't his son; the boy's stepbrothers, meanwhile, abused him, resenting their newfound relation with their most hated enemies.

Eventually, Linus beat Javeth so hard that Javeth was forced to retaliate, tearing Linus into pieces. At this, Javeth's stepbrothers grew mad, and betrayed the house of Aran, murdering eleven of the twelve sons of Sinon, then doing unto Mara what Javeth did unto their father. Again, Javeth retaliated, but this time under a far greater frenzy: not only did he slay his stepbrothers, but also the remaining elders of the house of Hund, and any of their allies he encountered along the way.

Belona, the last and youngest of the sons of Sinon, managed to tame Javeth, and taught him the arts of ritual and poetry, in the hope that this should give the boy some measure of peace.

For this, Javeth was grateful, eventually establishing an entire kingdom for his uncle; in turn, Belona offered Javeth his daughter, whom Javeth married. Yet under another spell of madness, Javeth murdered his wife, and for this he was exiled from his uncle's realm, until he should perform penance, supervised perhaps by one of Belona's allies.

This Javeth did: the twelve labors of Javeth.

After these twelve labors, Belona forgave Javeth, and welcomed him back into the realm, though never again would uncle and nephew have so warm a relationship.

Within Belona's realm, Javeth found his dearest friend Agon mourning the death of his wife, Commelina, after she offered her life to Death in place of her husband. Javeth vowed to descend into the underworld and bring her back to life; not only did he fulfill this vow, but he also brought back to life his own former wife, Belona's daughter, whose death had dissolved their bonds of marriage, as well as discovered the fate of Mara, who had been blessed after death by Crum to herself become the divine caretaker of Proteus. Afterwards, he left not only Belona's realm, but also all of civilization, in order to fully reveal his divine nature.

On one of his adventures into the wilderness, he reached the island of Dock. There, Dock had discovered the complete solution for stopping the end of the world, and had decided to reconcile himself with Crum. Recognizing that Javeth, as the acknowledged son of Crum, had practically the same authority as his father, he petitioned Javeth to free him from his bondage. This Javeth did, and Dock returned to the heavens and whispered the solution into Crum's ear -- all according to Crum's plan.

* * *

Eventually Javeth returned to civilization, and as he passed through the various kingdoms of man, sign after sign revealed him to be the son of Crum. Nevertheless, one of these kings, none other than Penirus, the beloved son of Belona, denied his divinity, and even disrespected him as he made his visit; for this, Javeth made mad the mother, daughters, and female servants of Penirus, such that one night, they took him to the wilderness and tore him apart.

After this vengeance, Javeth claimed the kingdom of his uncle for his own, and married Regina, supposedly the daughter of an ally of his uncle's. Yet this ally, it turned out, was a former enemy, and had a longstanding grudge against the house of Aran, especially against Javeth himself, who had killed many of their sons on Javeth's decimation of the house of Hund. Thus, Regina proved to be his end: one night, she called for her remaining brothers, and did unto Javeth what he did unto Penirus, what he had done unto Linus. And, in fear that he should immediately return to life and wreak his vengeance upon them, she took the body parts and cast them into the fireplace, believing that ash would be far harder to reform than flesh and blood.

But her act was the final act Javeth needed to become a god, and by burning away his flesh, she also burned away his mortality: with the smoke of the fireplace rose the spirit and soul of Javeth, now become a god, who joined the rest of the pantheon of the gods as the god of heroes and poets. Here, he was married to his final wife, Thorn, the daughter of Larissa and Pons, and the goddess of agriculture and the seasons.

Thus began the Iron Age, when Javeth ruled jointly with his father, Crum, and when the last generation of gods were fully assembled.

(This is the age we live in, and the age prophesied to be the one that should last until the end of days: man is prophesied to take after Hund instead of Aran, growing worse and worse until even our newborns are grey-haired and wrinkled, and we have all forsaken not just the worship but also the justice of the gods. At this point, Manneh and Partheh shall return, heralding the end of days, while Crum shall enact his plan. Then, some say, the souls of those mortals who were pious and virtuous shall find a home among the stars, while a new world is created below them.)

SETTING

The nature of the plot demands multiple settings existing on multiple levels. The first act shall be set in our characters' native world, a temperate, 16th century post-post-apocalyptic world of harquebuses, aristocrats, inquisitions, witches, and weird alien ruins. The second act shall begin in a world where the extremes of the first are stretched: a red-as-rust volcanic wasteland evoking a fusion of Mars and Venus, of indulgent, art nouveau "femininity", and industrial, art deco "masculinity". The latter part of the second act and much of the third act shall hop around various worlds, while the fourth act shall begin to test the limits of what being a world means.

For now, let's focus on the native world. I want to use as plain a language as possible throughout, so their world shall just be called "Earth". In terms of geography, it's got nothing special, excluding the very occasional splattering of weird alien ruins. These ruins are, again, very occasional, and people tend to avoid them, bar those sociopathic, death-driven Adventurers -- they are, as said, weird, assumed coming from some alien (or, framed from their zeitgeist, "divine") place in the heavens, and littered with technology and phenomena unknown to even the most advanced scholars. Of course, these ruins are nothing important, and our characters will never get to explore them.

With most of the initial excitement coming from these ruins, I'll not divulge too much about them here. Instead, what you need to know about is the larger world, the world outside these ruins, the world that should shape your characters. I'm a medievalist at heart, particularly the High Middle Ages, so working with a world a little later than that is a bit strange to me, although, and I think the French Revolution validates me on this, the social structures should be relatively the same: we have the Aristocrats, the men who rule; the Technopriests, the men who pray; and the Peasants, the men who work, and the folks we won't really care about because all tales of high adventure are fundamentally elitist (note, too, that I didn't say "those" -- sexism is the rule). But, at this point, there should be growing a fourth class, a middle class, the Bourgeoisie, the men who, er, sell, or trade, or do various, specialized stuff for a living, basing themselves in the city -- from this fourth class should come one of the characters, The Specialist, who'll get to do all of the things everyone else can't really.

The other three characters come from the different estates invested into this. From the aristocrats shall come....well, the Aristocrat, who could either be a smarmy Scarlet Pimpernel, or a classic Knight in Shining Armor, depending on one's style, and the sort of characters everyone else gets to choose. There's no discrimination in terms of sex here: though women are not particularly liberated, rich, secular women have far more excuses than most. The Aristocrat here is assumed to belong to some factions -- that's what aristocrats do, right? -- and own a good deal of land: for this, invent! Just make sure your character is grounded to the realities of a 16th century Holy Roman count, and he or she is no member of any factions that are openly (or obviously, or even ostensibly) against the King.

From the technopriests shall come the Technopriest (yes, I'm copying the name off of the Incal -- no, I'm hoping the copyright of the book "The Technopriests" doesn't expand to this sort of usage). The technopriests derive their power from belief, just as real priests do, and this belief is rooted on some revelation based around the local alien ruins -- thus, technopriests -- with the associated doctrines and such based on Christian, particularly Latin Catholic, tradition. Thus, no Technopriestess -- the sort of Technopriest we need is university educated, and initiated into the secret rites of the Church, such that he's already handled his fair share of alien tech. A bishop probably wouldn't be involved in an undertaking as dangerous as this, so rank-wise the Technopriest should be, well, a priest. Keep in mind that it is in this time period that two very dangerous bits of the Church were in full swing, the Reformation and the witch-hunty form of the Inquisition.

Speaking of witches, our fourth character shall be the Witch. In this world, magic is real, but not directly tied to alien tech -- sort of like Adventure Time, with what horror brought the long-ago apocalypse now awakening the native elder forces of the world. Thus, witches, whose ranks are mostly filled by peasants, are not merely the overblown delusion of a misogynistic society, and with all the trouble they're getting into and all the crucial discoveries they're accumulating, they've sort of banded together. The Witch -- not the Warlock, I want to make her relationship with the Technopriest that much more complex -- was sent here as a delegate of the unofficially recognized Society of Witches, invited to the party due to the desperation of the court. Since she's a peasant and the Society isn't nearly as organized as the Church, her background should be far more personal -- she also shouldn't be a member of the upper echelons of the Society, for the sake of not endangering the party once the third chapter arrives.

The final faction I have to talk about, though technically a part of the aristocrats, is the faction of the King's court. Their representative here is technically the Aristocrat, as the loyalty of the Aristocrat and his or her associated factions are assumed to be so great, but of course in the game of thrones loyalties fade as easily as a summer snowflake, it's just that none of their truly loyal members are expendable. This faction, of course, revolves around the royal family, their most important members composed of the King, his wife. The King is depressed -- you won't get to meet him this early on, so that's all you need to know for now. His current wife is only his second, though she was xth in a long line of mistresses when he was married to his first -- she's a bit of a bumbling wastrel, not at all involved in this mission. As mistress, she bore him a son, legitimized by their marriage: his youngest and most spoiled, though the spoilage is sort of justified, as the boy won't inherit. The elder two were born to his first wife -- the eldest has retired to the monastery, leaving the second as heir and, considering the follies of the current queen, regent.

The second's the one pulling all the strings for this mission: he loves, or at least professes to love, his dad too much to just let the old man wither. The reason for why he's sent you off to this far away ruin is because he thinks the ruins are tied to the King's melancholia, and the reason for that is the following story. The King's first wife, you see, was a right proper Queen, ruling the house in a fair and frugal manner. One day, the King chose to entertain a fool -- the Queen sort of dug this, as it wasn't the first time the King had engaged in such games. And yes, the fool was, for the first few days, fun -- grating, as all fools were, but by all means welcome. As the weeks wore on, however, this welcome got stretched, some say because of the fool's excess, others because of the Queen's cheapness, such that after forty days, she sent him an ultimatum he truly didn't like. At court, he cursed the household, unveiling a strange device that, he said, should enact his little threat -- a device that, along with him, disappeared into a puff of smoke, when the guards attempted arrest. Another forty days, and melancholia filled the Queen -- in yet another forty days, she fell from a high tower -- and in yet another, the King declared his intention to remarry, obvious to all as the beginning of his own melancholia.

After the marriage, the King, or rather his still-involved, still-unspoiled son, tried saner means of curing him, involving priests and physicians, eventually folk doctors and witches, but to no avail. His own personal studies, however, fixated upon the fool's strange device, leading him to the world of the alien ruins, or at least the aspect of that world untouched by priestly scholarship -- and thus, this expedition. The rest of the big details have already been described -- the smaller ones, such as your inventory, we'll tackle in the next section.
A greater rush than the second outline to write, and thus may contain spoilers (if the outline ever becomes a proper story), plus a good deal of confusion.

The Magician. The man who built the Bastion. A nobleman with a barren wife who made a deal with the Triple Goddess -- in exchange for bearing child with his wife, he would build for them a sort-of ark, the Bastion. Built and almost finished the Bastion, then to his surprise his wife offered up her soul to power the Bastion's core -- part of their deal with the Triple Goddess -- by which he grew depressed. His depression led to the destruction of his own realm.

The Triple Goddess. A force of nature in the solar system, composed of three emanations: the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone. The Maiden is represented by the Perfect Woman, or the Light in the Middle of the Darkness, an agent of light in the heart of the divided world of Venus-Mars. The Mother is represented by the Magician's Wife, communicating through the Bastion. The Crone is represented by the Immortal Witch, a wise woman and wanderer about the realms of Terra. It's not typically recognized by the church, and when it is, it's considered pagan and evil; whether it's either of those things remains to be seen.

The Bastion has, in fact, existed in three other incarnations previously, all of which preceded a world-changing cataclysm. The first Bastion was an ark, preceding a world wide flood; the second Bastion was a pyramid-temple, preceding an invasion of various barbarian peoples; the third Bastion was a catacomb-temple, preceding the collapse of the mighty empire that possessed it; and the current Bastion is a sort of spaceship. The Bastion appears between intervals of about 2000 years, the position of the new Bastion being more westward than the previous, though few people realize this, at least not until it's too late.

The Big Bad* is, in fact, the Magician's child; as the story proceeds, it should seem like the Magician himself is the villain, with the Priest assuming that he is the Magician's son. The destruction of the Magician's realm ultimately led to the Magician's death, and the Magician's children finding refuge in different places: the Priest in the church, the Big Bad in the planet Mercury, using the Bastion for the first time. When he arrived at the planet, however, the Bastion was recalled, such that he ended up being abandoned -- and vengeful. Rescued by the Temptress, he grew up in the divided world of Venus-Mars to become a mighty soldier and leader of men, following his new-mother's bidding in sending his apprentice, the Lackey, to steal the Bastion. An argument with the Temptress, however, led him to abandon Venus-Mars for Jupiter, there attempting to take control of a far more powerful, far more volatile force: the World Eater.

The Temptress is the queen of Venus-Mars, and the twin sister of the Perfect Woman. Their relationship should probably mirror the relationship between the Big Bad and the Priest. Her overall goal is to take over the solar system and whatever; ie, she's the typical swashbuckler villain to the Big Bad's typical operatic villain.

The Lackey,* a citizen of Venus-Mars, isn't particularly special; he's probably another orphan, treated as a son by the Temptress and the Big Bad. His overall goal is to serve his two masters.

The World Eater is yet another force of nature. It's not sure whether it's opposed to the Triple Goddess or not, but what is sure is that it is opposed to light, to life, and to creation itself. Its appearance is as a dark cloud, roaming the solar system -- eventually, it is revealed to be the very force that moves the solar system, such that its opposition to light is what defines light and existence. Nevertheless, it's extremely dangerous, and the Big Bad, upon unleashing it, fails to take control.

The Priest* stands in opposition to the Big Bad, as an agent of the church. He should start out as a missionary, elaborating on the worlds outside of the story's setting; that is to say, on the realms beyond the realms the Scholar, Rogue, and Soldier originate from, and on the metaphysical realms of light and darkness.

The Rogue* stands in opposition to the Temptress. He is yet another survivor, this time from the city, and he'd probably live most comfortably in the world of Venus-Mars. His goal is probably to get massively rich, or become ridiculously influential, or live a peaceful (perhaps debaucherous) life -- ie, the most shallow goal of the group.

The Scholar* stands in opposition to the Lackey, as the group's de facto leader for the second episode. This is because of his extensive knowledge of the Bastion as a piece of technology, of the cycles that govern the Bastion's existence, and of the Triple Goddess running the whole show. For the most part, he adventures on his own, being the only aristocratic member of the party, though he is a member of the local university (or, if female, at least a noteworthy colleague of it), as well as a noteworthy colleague of the local coven of witches (or, if female, an actual member).

The Soldier* stands in opposition to the World Eater. He is a rattled veteran of immense skill and power, and his confrontation with the World Eater is effectively a confrontation with his dark side, the side that caused (and helped him survive) much destruction in the countryside.

The Church purports to worship the masculine God of light and life, the creator of all existence and the only being to exist of its own. Of course, much of the power of this masculine God remains only recorded in his holy book and the lives of his saints, such that at first glance, he seems distant, even absent -- in fact, his power in the world only works by faith. Basically modeled after the real world Christian Church, and just as divided -- in this world, mainly between two groups, the West and the East, plus dying-out groups of Heretics, and burgeoning groups of Protestants. This Church also professes the message of a Messiah (and so, contradicts the world's version of Judaism), and works to fight against a very different sort of church growing in the east (the world's version of Islam). Obviously, since his power works only by faith, magic doesn't really exist, it's just that his more devout followers seem to get a disproportionate amount of good luck.

The Planets. Seven planets are recognized by Terrans: Mercury, never visited by the heroes, although represented by the Bastion; Venus, a volcanic wasteland of sex, drugs, and general excess; Mars, a metallic wasteland made so by constant war; Jupiter, a heroic planet from a distance, yet a crushing gas giant at its core; Saturn, a desert planet littered with the ruins of a long-decaying civilization; the Moon, a silver disk in the middle of the darkness; and the Sun, the solar system's ever-burning source of all light. Mercury and the Moon share the same features, although the Moon is populated, unlike Mercury. Venus and Mars are treated throughout the work as one planet, with the Temptress' domain being the celestial city that unites the two. Jupiter, though a murderer disguised as a hero, happens to be surrounded by moons filled with water and life, a stark contrast to most of the other planets. Saturn is the home base of the Triple Goddess, revealed to represent a civilization far more ancient than that of either Venus-Mars or Terra; both Saturn and Venus-Mars had experienced the Bastion-cycles, with their current states being examples of possible endpoints (my current take is that Saturn succeeded incompletely, and its denizens, instead of getting recreated, just got raptured to a higher plane; while Venus-Mars failed miserably, its heroes assuming a power beyond their reach and turning the planets into wastelands). The Sun contains within it a representative of the one true God, bearing with him the Ultimate Boon. Seven planets are also recognized by the Triple Goddess: Venus and Mars are one, the Moon is replaced by the field of stars, the Sun is considered to be "the planet of planets", and the seventh planet is ultimately Terra, aka Earth.

Humanity is considered to exist beyond Terra; in fact, there is only one intelligent species throughout the solar system, and that is humanity. The old civilization of Saturn was emptied of humans after its Bastion-cycle; the population of Venus-Mars, though now all alien-looking and technologically augmented, were once regular humans; and, of course, Terra is filled with humans. The Triple Goddess and the representative of the Masculine God were all once humans until their greater purpose arrived. Terra is the only world considered to be Human, however, because the civilizations within it start out not knowing about Saturn and Venus-Mars, and because the denizens of Venus-Mars, though still biologically humans, have as a whole sort of lost their humanity.

* -- The sexes of these characters are undetermined; I use masculine pronouns only out of convenience. It doesn't matter as much if they're men or women (unlike the Triple Goddess and her emanations, or the masculine God of the Church and the various leaders of the Human World's society, with their sexes being important in the sense of reinforcing parallels between the story's universe and our own).

** -- The technology level of the Human World should follow the technology level of the previous version of the Bones of Good Fortune, that is, that of the late Medieval-early Renaissance-Reformation era. Societies, too, would be modeled after societies of the period, particularly those that really stood out, such as late Medieval France, early Renaissance Italy, and Reformation era Germany -- it should be a real hodge-podge -- though really, this stuff ain't formulated yet, and I'll probably need some help for this, I'm out of practice making worlds.
 
Last edited:
DIANOIA

"Dungeons & Dragons" really should be considered its own theme, its own genre -- certain stuff, such as (non-sociological) class divisions and the prioritizing of greed and violence are too well baked into the system. Anyway, the following are suggested modifications for the Basic/Expert set, one of the earlier, in my opinion cleaner, editions of the game.

CLASSES

Fighter: Hunter
Fighter: Soldier
Mage: Conjurer
Mage: Wizard
Priest: Cleric
Priest: Mystic
Thief: Burglar
Thief: Minstrel

Remember that in terms of HD, fighting ability, saving throws, equipment restrictions (bar the priest), and level progression, each grouping follows the source material (fighter for fighter, magic-user for mage, cleric for priest, thief for thief). The revised spell progression will be posted when needed, ie when the gaming is going, with spells coming from both B/X and "B/X Companion".

Fighter - Hunter

Level 1, Surveyor: Track according to "Labyrinth Lord" rules.
Level 4, Ranger: Distill poisons from venomous monsters, with each monster dealing one dose per hit die.
Level 8, Ranger: 2 attacks every other round.
Level 9, Knight: Establish stronghold; surprised only when asleep, drunk, or unconscious.
Level 15, Knight: 2 attacks every round.

Fighter - Soldier

Level 1, Veteran: +1 bonus to hit and damage for one class of weapon (eg spear, battleaxe, dagger).
Level 4, Esquire: Gain a loyal and reasonably intelligent animal for a pet (eg war horse, hunting dog, falcon).
Level 8, Esquire: 2 attacks every other round.
Level 9, Knight: Establish stronghold; +1 to reaction rolls and henchman morale, due to experience of character.
Level 15, Knight: 2 attacks every round.

Mage - Conjurer

Level 1, Associate: Perform simple illusions and sleight of hand tricks, and pick pockets as a thief of the same level.
Level 4, Bachelor: Manipulate smoke, summon mist to hide in shadows as a thief of the same level.
Level 9, Master: Magical research; full gagging necessary to prevent spellcasting.
Level 11, Master: Establish college.
Level 15, Master: Astral projection.

Mage - Wizard

Level 1, Zealot: Unrestricted weapon selection, with the mage now able to benefit from potions of heroism.
Level 4, Adept: Gain a familiar, played according to "Adventurer Conqueror King" rules.
Level 9, Master: Magical research; identify most plants and fauna, as well as understand the speech of birds and beasts.
Level 11, Master: Establish tower.
Level 15, Master: Astral projection.

Priest - Cleric

Level 1, Subdeacon: Unrestricted weapon selection.
Level 4, Deacon: identify undead and save versus paralysis for energy drain.
Level 9, Priest: Establish stronghold; detect spellcasters and whether arcane magic has been cast for the past 24 hours within 60 feet.
Level 15, Priest: Destroy 4d6 HD undead.

Priest - Mystic

Level 1, Robe-bearer: Cast spells as priest of one level higher, but weapon selection restricted to clubs, staves, daggers, and slings.
Level 4, Cross-bearer: Upon entering a meditative trance, gain a spell by the hour or 1d6 hit points over night.
Level 9, Prior: Establish monastery; animals have a +2 to reaction rolls.
Level 15, Prior: Destroy 4d6 HD undead.

Thief - Burglar

Level 1, Apprentice: Disguise as per "Labyrinth Lord" rules; balance on thin ledges or tightropes as per climb sheer surfaces, and a half the chance of the same skill to catch and reduce fall damage.
Level 4, Journeyman: Read languages at 80%; receive +15% to find and remove traps, as well as the skill to make or repair them.
Level 9, Master: Establish hideout; receive +15% to open locks, as well as the skill to make or repair them.
Level 10, Master: Read magic and cast mage scrolls at 90%.
Level 15, Master: Throw voice as per "Ventriloquism" spell; backstab at 3x damage.

Thief - Minstrel

Level 1, Associate: Disguise as per "Labyrinth Lord" rules; sing and play music to get 1d6 silver pieces per day, serenade members of the desiring gender as per "Charm Person" spell, or cast "Sleep" over monsters, though only out of combat, and after singing or playing for more than a round
Level 4, Bachelor: Read languages at 80%; identify magical item, historical and literary knowledge, or obscure trivia at 50%.
Level 9, Master: Establish college; speak with any intelligent humanoid.
Level 10, Master: Read magic and cast mage scrolls at 90%.
Level 15, Master: Throw voice as per "Ventriloquism" spell; backstab at 3x damage.

Changes, in Summary.
Subclasses are introduced to fulfill niches without resorting to the addition of classes proper; they are fundamentally the same as in B/X, albeit, borrowing rules from "The Complete B/X Adventurer" by Jonathan Becker, they gain additional powers at 1st, 4th, and 9th levels. Titles are changed according to what I consider to be a more realistic hierarchy. The level limit is extended up to level 18, roughly following the guidelines of "B/X Companion" by Jonathan Becker, with all classes receiving a bonus to their powers by level 15, and the spell progression of mages and priests modified as appropriate. Finally, thieves receive an additional skill on the onset, "Disguise", following "Labyrinth Lord" guidelines. There are no demihuman races in this setting.

CURRENCY

Copper
copper coin: mite (m)
copper bar: copper bullion (b)
Silver
small silver coin: farthing (f)
silver coin: penny (d)
large silver coin: groat (g)
silver bar: silver bullion (l)
Gold
gold coin: noble (n)
gold bar: gold bullion (a)

Matrix of Values.
--m-------f------d------g-----n-----b----l----a
m 1-------2------10-----50----100---400--2000-10000
f 1/2-----1------5------25----50----200--1000-5000
d 1/10----1/5----1------5-----10----40---200--1000
g 1/50----1/25---1/5----1-----2-----8----40---200
n 1/100---1/50---1/10---1/2---1-----4----20---100
b 1/400---1/200--1/40---1/8---1/4---1----5----25
l 1/2000--1/1000-1/200--1/40--1/20--1/5--1----5
a 1/10000-1/5000-1/1000-1/200-1/100-1/25-1/5--1

The silver standard prevails, such that all prices listed are now in pennies. Gold is for the rich, copper is for the rural, and bullions belong to banks, though the silver bullion is occasionally used by the urban classes as currency. I'm not sure, however, if I should apply the same change to experience, or, to not break the economy so easily, I should award experience by the mite.

The weights are also modified. Each bullion weighs a pound, while coins weigh according to their value relative to their metals' corresponding bullion: thus, a mite weighs 1/400 of a pound, a farthing 1/1000, a penny 1/200, a groat 1/40, and a noble 1/100.

ARMAMENTS

Broad axe (2h)
Battle axe - may be thrown
Crossbow
Longbow
Short bow
Dagger
Short sword
Arming sword
Falchion - functionally and financially the same as the arming sword, distinguished only as it has a singular cutting edge, like a machete
Longsword (2h)
Club
Mace
Warhammer
Staff (2h)
Spear - this includes the lance and the javelin, just as "polearm" abstracts the category
Polearm (2h)
Sling

Barding
Padded jack - functionally and financially the same as leather.
Mail - as in chain
Half plate - functionally and financially the same as plate, here considered as half plate because the setting technology-wise is closer to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Thus, it contains a coat of plates, pauldrons, greaves, gauntlets, poleyns, and bascinet, as well as a whole suit of padded mail armor.
Shield

The costs and weights are all the same as in the default game. Mystics are limited to the most basic weapons, the dagger, the club, and the staff, and the shepherd's sling.

Variable Damage Table.
1d4 - dagger (thrown or otherwise), club, sling
1d6 - battle axe (thrown or otherwise), short sword, staff, spear (thrown or otherwise), short bow
1d8 - broad axe, arming sword, falchion, war hammer, mace, longbow, crossbow
1d10 - longsword, polearm

MAGIC

I might not use the cosmogony I presented in the world building forum, instead resorting to religions far closer to home. Divine magic is presented as miracles granted to God's representatives on earth; while Arcane magic is power gained from various spirits without heavenly sanction (though neither with heavenly prohibition, unless said spirits are explicitly demonic, or the work of the arcane caster is against the church).

MORALITY

I find the explanation of alignment to be unsatisfactory, if only because Neutrality is treated as a striving for balance. Neutrality should not be "striving" at all; instead, it should be the unintended balancing act of a character who serves the self without unacknowledging the existence of others. Law, meanwhile, is the serving, not only of others, but of the Other, with all service to the self being purely for the sustenance of the self which is necessary to serving both others and the Other; while Chaos does not acknowledge the existence of either others or the Other at all, or if it does, it outright rejects service for them, in exchange for the pure ennoblement of the self. Thus, many extremists are as lawful as the pope, the average person is neutral, and chaos is more the purview of the solipsist, the nihilist, and the academic.

Alignment is, in this sense, divorced from religious devotion, and thus from the powers of the priest: the forces of chaos sometimes have access to such power simply because "God wills it". Of course, that does not mean the Other is apathetic, it's just that his power manifests in far more mysterious ways (as it should), and though the Other always looks at a person's heart, only he can truly know whether the heart connects to the hands.

Alignment is also, in this sense, removed from the idea of a cosmic battle, at least in the immediate purview of the stories here told. Considering this, there are no alignment languages for this setting.

LANGUAGES

Speaking of languages, I have yet to really tinker with the setting's ecology, but I'd like for languages to reflect on the realities of period living, at least for the sake of more interesting PC-NPC relations. Regions are typically divided by language, such that without a translator at hand, bands of adventurers venturing far from their home bases will have a difficult time performing commerce.

For a roleplay I never held.

SHELTER: An Atomic Tragedy

MYTHOS

The big events shall be divided into three acts: the first, the events before the announcement of war; the second, the events between the war's start and the bombs' fall; the third, the events right before, upon, and beyond the fallout's autumn. The little events shall be divided according to the passage of the scenes, themselves defined by the passage of the game. For the beginning, the focus on the big events shall be scant (unless one of our characters/players happens to be interested in geopolitics), and the scenes here presented shall only be the main characters' scatterbrained meetings, with most of the actual actions driving the story being told, not shown. Of course, most of the specifics of the plot, we'll make up as we go along.

ETHOS

The present characters are all teenagers from different families, drawn to each other by forces both known and unknown; for the rest of the story, the point of view should be limited to these characters alone. Each of you may control only one character, although with most of the families' actions being, for now, told and not shown, you pretty much control your characters' entire families, too. Other characters in the future will be created and controlled by the GM, of course, or by whomever he assigns them to. The stage shall be some small, nondescript town somewhere in America, sometime in the near future, and the sets for our first few scenes shall be our character's nights in some nearby abandoned house: other details will again be developed as we proceed.

DIANOIA

The goal here is less playing a game, and more trying to tell a good, relevant story, a story more of ideas and atmospheres than of spectacles and dramatics (although with our plot, expect a lot of dramatics anyway, mostly in the mid to late game). The ideas are gonna be formed as we go along, though as a GM, I'd love it if we focused as much on sociopolitical themes as we would on existential and romantic ones, what with all this talk of elections lately. As a player, however, I'll probably focus on familial relationships, alienation, the power of (erotic) love, the importance of faith, and various other notes on existentialism, coming-of-age type deals, and the occult. Do note that my discourse on those things are probably gonna be pretentious and amateurish, myself being my young self, though, as should really be with this sort of storytelling, all this will be more subtly woven into the tale anyway.

MELOS, LEXIS, and OPSIS

The voices to be adopted may be anything from the filled-with-faults to the filled-with-falutiness, as long as they're appropriate for your characters, and, when you go for the filled-with-errors, your style is actually deliberate; as much as I'd want this game to be as open as possible, I find it somewhat harder to try and comprehend bad English. Grammatically bad, that is, and not rhetorically: I'm no real judge or master (hell, even adept) for the second. And again, these voices are all only limited to your teens, but that doesn't mean you'll have to go first-person in the IC.
The actual passage of the story shall happen in the OOC thread, while the IC thread will present those interactions as compiled by the GM and presented by the players through their characters' eyes; this is to keep the story as clean yet democratic as possible. The frequency and alternation of all posts in the IC thread and the story-driving posts in the OOC thread shall be determined by whatever rhythm we eventually fall into, but everyone is required to post at least once a day in the OOC thread, to keep the game going.

Keep in mind that although you're not really telling the story as you elaborate on your character's part of it in the OOC thread, the rough rule of no one-liners shall still be enforced, at least for that thread's story-driving posts: keeping these things as detailed as possible will make things easier for whoever's telling the tale in the IC thread. If your characters are involved in a conversation, just do the conversation through PM, then post the whole dialogue later, and if your characters are involved in nothing, just PM someone whose character is doing something, and have him or her note your character's continued absence. When you do do these chats, however, always directly involve everyone, especially the GM, since these little chats are still parts of the game. Of course, the joke is since I expect these first scenes of the plot to have nothing happening in them, most of our early game will be limited to our inboxes, but that's alright.

Also keep in mind, and this applies to all aspects of the story, that although the storytelling here is democratic, the game itself is not. Any cases of God-modding, Mary-Suing, or other such acts of assholery, and I've got the right to respond in kind. But if, like me, you've an unwitting tendency to be so, don't worry: unlike most other dictators, I'll always listen to your case, if you present it douche-free.

A system inspired by Fate and Pendragon, displayed here for feedback, as well as to take note of those interested: I might host a game in the coming months. For this system, characters must be NOBLES, and members of NOBLE FAMILIES. It is assumed that all participants have enough knowledge on early to high medieval society, as well as the more popular romances of the day; if the assumption is mistaken, please note below. Further details forthcoming.


Each character has four basic attributes: WEALTH, PIETY, LOYALTY, and GLORY. Only WEALTH is considered on a per-family basis, unless one is far away from one's family, although all attributes may gain bonuses according to certain family characteristics. For the three personal attributes, there are two values: a permanent attribute, and an impermanent attribute. The permanent attribute is what one has by default; it is determined by one's family characteristics, one's personal characteristics, and whatever consequences one receives from an adventure. The impermanent attribute is what is gained according to one's choice of LABORS throughout the year: it acts as a bonus on any actions requiring checks on the attribute, and is reset as one recovers from an adventure.

PIETY determines a character's favor with God, favor with the church, and the amount of additional WEALTH the church may take every year. Negative PIETY, and God's wrath may fall upon a character, either through the church's acts or through something greater. With regards to adventures, PIETY increases the chance one witnesses the miraculous.

LOYALTY determines a character's favor with their subjects, granting a bonus to the WEALTH they gain per harvest, improving the morale of their levies, and possibly giving them access to additional information for each adventure. Negative LOYALTY, and one's subjects may revolt.

GLORY determines a character's reputation among their peers, and the chances of success any actions throughout an adventure may have. Negative GLORY, and one cannot hope to succeed in an adventure, nor charm one's peers.

WEALTH is pretty straightforward. WEALTH is always gained during the autumn harvest, and lost during the spring reckoning. The amount lost and gained is determined by the level of maintenance of one's holdings, the LOYALTY of one's subjects, and the PIETY one's family has displayed throughout the year. Negative WEALTH, and one is necessarily in debt: either one has permanent maluses to their annual WEALTH gain, one has permanent maluses to their other attributes, or one falls into the service of one's creditor.


This system divides the year into six phases, according to the time of year.

SPRING PHASE: Reckoning.
Here, WEALTH is spent, and LABORS are chosen: the characters may serve the church, gaining PIETY, aid their subjects, gaining LOYALTY, or train for battle, gaining GLORY. Some LABORS may require checks on any of the attributes in order to gain increased bonuses.

SPRING PHASE: Easter.
Here, the characters play hosts (or guests) to a feast. They may gain additional LOYALTY, PIETY, or GLORY by being particularly generous, or according to whatever events demand their attention during the feast. Political affairs typically begin here, what with the increased traffic of peers.

SUMMER PHASE: Preparation.
Here is yet another chance to gain more attribute points, again through LABORS. WEALTH may also be spent to improve one's arms, or to hire out mercenaries.

SUMMER PHASE: Adventure.
Some adventures are restricted, such that only males of a certain age and rank may lead, but more often than not women are at least allowed to observe, offering them their own chance at bonuses. Throughout the adventure, the characters may perform multiple actions, from which they may receive CONSEQUENCES: negative if they fail, and positive if they succeed. Success or failure is determined, for the most part, by their GLORY. The characters also get a chance at stumbling upon vast amounts of WEALTH.

AUTUMN PHASE: Harvest.
Certain negative CONSEQUENCES may be lost here by spending time in recovery, while certain positive ones require further training and meditation. Positive CONSEQUENCES grant permanent bonuses to one's personal attributes, while negative CONSEQUENCES grant permanent maluses. If the characters elect not or do not need to spend time for themselves, then, after harvest, they may begin LABORING for the next year.

WINTER PHASE: Christmas.
Another feast, with the same chances at gaining bonuses to attributes as Easter. Political affairs are typically negotiated here, as everyone settles in for the cold. Mysterious visions may also add further interest for this season.

Trumps_Page_1.jpg
 
Last edited:
25.xi.2017

UPDATE: First posts! Ilya and Anya, The Bones of Good Fortune, Cosmogony, and notes on B/X and a post-apocalyptic roleplay I never held, plus an initial viewing list for Adventure Time. I hope I manage to put in a more detailed discussion of both Ilya and Anya and Adventure Time, as well as my proposed dissection of Star Wars and overview of biology.
 
25.ii.2018

ANOTHER UPDATE: Basic Medieval System, an RP I proposed recently but didn't get any responses for (and I'm pretty sure I didn't have the metier to pull it off anyway). Further updates forthcoming: in particular, an Orthodox calendar (for Dianoia), a list of Biblical books (also for Dianoia), notes on Tarotic correspondences with various esoterica (again, Dianoia), and another version of Ilya and Anya. Also, because a class I'm currently taking has forced me to analyze Adventure Time, I might post a few more notes on the show some time soon.
 
26.ii.2018

MYTHOS UPDATE: Ilya and Anya final! As in, I'm more or less confident this is the version of Ilya and Anya on which I'll work. That said, it's supposed to be a five act play: the last two acts, I still have no idea for.

Up next is all them fancy charts!
 
4.iii.2018
DIANOIA UPDATE: First table of Tarotic associations. The next table will take a while, as I've found it needs a bit more research.
 
Studying Tarotic associations with more specialized occult stuff is a chore -- now I have to read an archaic translation of Agrippa von Netteheim! That said, I'm starting to think of more roleplay-ey uses for this task, so I've revisited my notes on B/X. I'll post an update on those notes when I'm posting the Tarot update.