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woe. heightcharts upon thee

i always imagine Kris as significantly smaller, close to Angus’ height, but considering she’s a teenager of [REDACTED] species, she’s realistically just barely shorter than Scarlet

so Most of the cast is taller than Scarlet. she is not happy about this.

meanwhile Angus is by far the smallest (discounting some side characters) and is just Chilling. he’s honestly pretty tall for a kobold.

i should probably like, Introduce these characters at some point

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the thing they don’t tell you about creative writing is that you can name your characters and concepts whatever you want. i have three goblin sisters named Monterey Jack, Pepper Jack, and Cheddar Jack respectively, with Colby Jack being their ancestor

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y’know it’s fucked up cause i originally envisioned Catalyst as a sort of side piece to Ephemera that wasn’t necessary and just sought to explore the history of the world leading up to the War. but as i’ve written more and more for both series, they’ve become so deeply intertwined that i don’t really have a choice but to make both required to get the full story

like at this point Ephemera Act 4 is like, a thematic resolution to both Ephemera and Catalyst. so that’s fun

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so the plan for Ephemera and Catalyst is to make Ephemera have 4 Acts, and Catalyst have 3. like

E A1 -> C A1 -> E A2 -> C A2 -> E A3 -> C A3 -> E A4

So that’s the basic bit of how the series will be structured. except it’s actually So Much more complicated than that. not in the way of “oh there are more than these 7 Acts/Books” but more in the way of “yeah there are 7 books, but each book has a lot more than 1 Act in it.”

so the basic structure of each book can be summed up with this, using Act 1 as an example.

Act 1 Act 1 -> A1 Intermission -> A1A2 -> Intermission 1 A-Side -> Intermission 1 Downtime -> Intermission 1 B-Side

now i know what you’re thinking? why would i put myself or my readers through this hell? the answer is because this story has A Lot to cover, so not only would telling a single story in each book make the books Really Short, but i don’t really want to make readers have to buy like 50 books to get the full story.

plus, doing it like this not only lets me play with how the story is structured, but also makes it less likely for readers to skip an Intermission and suddenly have no idea what the hell is happening

so, what actually makes Acts, Intermissions, and Downtime different? well Acts are the main stories the primary characters go through, developing the parts of the world they experience, and their own character growth. Intermissions mostly feature side-characters, developing the surrounding world and the bigger plot at play. simply put, Acts are largely episodic, while Intermissions are serialized to bridge the gaps.

Downtime is where things get messy, though. the easiest way i can put it is that Downtime is an intermission to an Intermission. it usually follows the primary characters in their time between Acts, and are mostly focused on furthering character growth, and more lighthearted chapters that allow the characters to shine outside of Big Important Moments.

one of the main things i’m trying to reach with this weird ass structure is making the story feel like a TTRPG campaign. like, one of my first concepts for Ephemera from back when i was still in high school was the idea of a story where, when they get out of high stress situations, the characters actually take time to talk about and process everything they went through. i was so tired of stories that had crazy shit happen, and then the characters who experienced it just move on to the next thing, not allowing themselves to think about what they’ve been through.

Ephemera, when i have it written more, will be a story primarily about trauma and healing from it. each of the main party members have intense traumatic memories, and they all cope with them in different, often unhealthy ways.

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now that my players in Under the Fell Moon have been afflicted with their Curses (still have to work with them to decide how it will affect each of them), i can finally talk about the Kelsyn Zodiac, a system that is extremely important to the campaign, Ephemera, and less-so Catalyst.

The Kelsyn Zodiac is a system of organization that breaks into three parts, determining the Fate of a character. the three parts are such

The star you were born under (determines your Mark)

The Crest you are intrinsically aligned with

The Moon that shown the day you were born.

There are 6 stars with associated Marks, 32 Crests, and 2 Moons. In total, there are 384 possible signs.

The Stars

The six Stars that determine your Mark are associated with personality traits, specifically what drives a person

Ariz is the Conqueror star, whose marked are driven by passion and devotion, willing to put everything on the line for what they believe in. Its inverse is Keldris.

Arkane is the Smith star, whose marked have a strong sense of justice, but struggle with restrictions. Its inverse is Malaka

Elleya is the Oracle star, whose marked are highly curious—often to a fault—seeking information on whatever piques their interest. Its inverse is Wiloné

Keldris is the Font star, whose marked desire to protect others, seeing no cost as too great. Its inverse is Ariz.

Malaka is the Hellion star, whose marked desire to help in any way they can, but struggle with new ideas. Its inverse is Arkane.

Wiloné is the Conduit star, whose marked can see the good in everything, but are often careless or even thoughtless. Its inverse is Elleya.

The Mark determines the first syllable of the Sign. being (in order) Ari-, Ark/Arka-, Ell/Elle-, Kel/Kela-, Mal/Mala-, or Wil/Wilo-.

The Crest

Each of the 32 Crests has two parts to them, which makes sorting them easily a bit of a pain. Simply put, each Crest is bound to one of the 32 Heroes of the Calamity (the primary characters of Catalyst), but also to one of the Eight, the last godly pantheon during Ephemera. So i’ll just put them in alphabetical order split by the 4 groups of Heroes, and then just say which god they go with.

Arbiter Crests

Achlys, bound to Kyria (-red-)

Adriel, bound to Zenith (-cel-)

Kalix, bound to Kairos (-rant-)

Kanros, bound to Capella (-kan-)

Pyra, bound to Nia (-pyr-)

Redfang, bound to Yllsée (-cas-)

Ventorian, bound to Marcelle (-tis-)

Vilethorne, bound to Aurora (-lyn-)

Exodus Crests

Adagio, bound to Nia (-lyr-)

Calliope, bound to Capella (-cal-)

Clove, bound to Yllsée (-sen-)

Endusa, bound to Kyria (-med-)

Isara, bound to Zenith (-sar-)

Kaszan, bound to Kairos (-zirc-)

Gell, bound to Marcelle (-ven-)

Xantar, bound to Aurora (-san-)

Flame Crests

Blackwood, bound to Nia (-rri-)

Drakk, bound to Kyria (-bot-)

Fox, bound to Marcelle (-shim-)

Kouris, bound to Capella (-bri-)

Monn, bound to Kairos (-ann-)

Nemi, bound to Zenith (-temi-)

Pangram, bound to Yllsée (-gran-)

Whistlethorn, bound to Aurora (-ney-)

Tyrant Crests

Daylily, bound to Yllsée (-lil-)

Brightbane, bound to Marcelle (-rim-)

Chasmera, bound to Kairos (-rid-)

Coralhelm, bound to Kyria (-cor-)

Fjeoux, bound to Zenith (-for-)

Kraska, bound to Capella (-ill-)

Nüna, bound to Nia (-unak-)

Poe, bound to Aurora (-nat-)

Only one part of the puzzle left

The Moons

Kelsys is a planet with two moons orbiting it. A day is 24 hours just like on earth, but each moon has a 48 hour orbital period, and are at opposite ends. So when one moon is visible at night, the other will be the next night. These two moons are the Bright Moon Celestine, and the Fell Moon Tenebris. In terms of how this affects a person’s personality, it’s as simple as tendency towards optimism vs pessimism.

Those born under Celestine end their signs in (-a). Those born under Tenebris end their signs in (-o)

Putting It Together

We have all the pieces, so let’s build a sign for a character. For this example we’re gonna be using one of Ephemera’s main characters, Scarlet.

Scarlet was born under the Fell Moon and under Ariz, the Conqueror Star. Her Crest is that of Drakk.

(Ari-) + (-bot-) + (-o) = Ariboto, the Slayer.

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i swear the moment i run session 4 of my dnd campaign i will post a long ass thing about the Kelsyn Zodiac and its role in Ephemera, Catalyst, and the campaign

i would do it now while i’m thinking about it but i know at least one person in that campaign follows this account and i will not give spoilers

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i can promise that if i ever create a commercial published project that leads to a fandom and arguments, i will not be going on my official accounts to use my authority to say who is right or wrong. i will be making an anonymous account to partake and make it worse

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for some reason my brain won’t let me go to bed until i write this down so here goes

i have a lot of ideas about the Alignment system in D&D and other similar games. Its origins trace back to Gary Gygax, who firmly thought that Lawful Good was the best possible morality available.

But honestly? that’s so boring. it’s probably why so many people just ignore alignment altogether. My friends and i sometimes even replace the alignment system in our games with MTG’s color pie, choosing any number of colors for that character’s “alignment.” but say you wanted to still use traditional alignment, but in a way that is actually interesting and doesn’t make playing any of the picks from the bottom end of the chart a near impossibility in most games. here’s how i would handle it

so if we’re going this route, keeping Good-Neutral-Evil and Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic axes, i think the best way to go about it is redefine the terms a bit. i go about this by having the X-axis (left to right) represent how a character interacts with society, and the Y-axis (top to bottom) represent how a character interacts with people.

Lawful to Chaotic

This one is surprisingly enough the simpler one to handle. Lawful aligned characters would likely act in ways that best suit the needs of society and its structures, while Chaotic alignments would prefer to go against the grain. this one really doesn’t change that much in isolation from the Y-axis. speaking of:

Good to Evil

so for this axis, i always like to define “good” and “evil” as “selfless” and “selfish.” this isn’t to say that caring about yourself is evil, quite the opposite. under this, a Good aligned character would put the needs of others before themselves, while an Evil character would put themselves before others. this says little of their true morality, and not only allows evil player characters to exist more often, but makes going too far into a good alignment just as dangerous as going too far into evil. an extremist Good alignment would end up completely neglecting their own needs in favor of a compulsive need to be helpful to others. they could even go deep into ultra-utilitarianism, where they hurt the people they care about because doing so helps more people overall. meanwhile, an extremist evil character might become machiavellian in ethics, doing everything to benefit themselves, no matter what the cost to others may be.

Combining the Axes

now that we have that figured out, we can create examples for each alignment.

A Lawful Good character is inclined to serve the needs of the people, working within the structures of society to do so.

A Neutral Good character is inclined to serve the needs of the people, but does not exclusively work within societal structure.

A Chaotic Good character is inclined to serve the needs of the people, and will go against what society approves of to meet these ends.

A Lawful Neutral character is inclined to work within societal structures, but balances their own needs with those of others.

A True Neutral character balances their own needs with those of others, but may not always obey what is expected of them.

A Chaotic Neutral character is inclined to go against the grain of society, balancing their own needs with those of others.

A Lawful Evil character is inclined to help themselves before others, but will follow societal rule to do so.

A Neutral Evil character is inclined to help themselves before others, and doesn’t have any inclination towards working within or without the common rule.

A Chaotic Evil character is inclined to help themselves before others, and will go to any lengths to do so, regardless or even in spite of any societal rule.

that’s just my two cents about alignment. it’s your game to play, so do so however you see fit. if this gave you any ideas, that’s great, and i’d love to hear about them!

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the good thing about being told that writing about a certain cliché or concept should be avoided “because it’s overdone” is that you can simply. ignore that and write about it anyway if you so desire. like it is that easy

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Repentance

You create from repentance. There is a feeling of burdensomeness that you can't shake, that has led you to constantly repent. You feel as if your existence itself demands you apologize, and so your art is just that: an apology. It has become another aspect of your eternal repentance, a means of seeking forgiveness for simply existing as you are. For you, forgiveness is permission to be alive, to begin to shed the quilt of your painfully human self, with all its faults and imperfections. Your art is apologetic, presented as a means of making up for your own lacking. It seeks to produce something of worth to redeem the trouble you cause. Your work is the essence of your undeserved repentance, the culmination of your inability to forgive yourself for what could never be helped. It is an apology presented with an apology.

I just found this quiz and it’s, phenomenal