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bethanythebogwitch · 3 months

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The Magical Girl TTRPG about fighting despair

Princess: the Hopeful is a tabletop roleplaying game in which players take the role of magical girls acting as the guardians of hope and light in a world of darkness and despair. And before I can really talk about it, I need to give some backstory. Princess: the Hopeful is a fan-made game for Chronicles of Darkness AKA the New World of Darkness. Chronicles of Darkness is a line of TTRPGS in which players take on the roles of monsters hiding amongst humanity. Each game has you play a different kind of monster, so there’s a vampire game, a werewolf game, etc. While each game can be played independently of any other, they are all in the same setting and they all use the same core rules. This is intended to make crossovers easy, but it also means that fans can pretty easily homebrew their own content, up to and including entire games. CoD is a pretty dark setting where the shadows run deep, humans are prey to monsters we don’t understand, and hope is vanishingly rare. So when a group of fans decided to make a magical girl game for the setting, it seemed like a joke. However, the finished project has become one of the most popular fan games and is just as good if not better than many of the official games (cough Beast cough). While the world of Princess: the Hopeful is as grim and bleak as the rest of CoD, you play as the people who refuse to give in to despair and fight to make the world a better place and you are going to dress fantastically to do it.

In the setting of Princess: the Hopeful, the ultimate force of evil is the All-Consuming Darkness. Born of fear, hate, despair, and every other negative aspect of life, the Darkness is less an entity and more a cosmic force of corruption that will not stop until the world is dragged into an eternal hell. When the Darkness first threatened the world, agents of light rose up to stop it. They wielded powerful magic and formed a civilization called the Kingdom which opposed the Darkness. And they won. The Darkness was beaten back and the Kingdom was at peace. This peace made them complacent and they failed to notice the Darkness building a counterattack until it was too late. The Darkness overwhelmed the Kingdom and destroyed many of queens and their courts. Of the 8 surviving courts, 5 were trapped within the Dreamlands, a dimension formed from the dreams and desires of humanity. This prison was perfect as the desires of its prisoners led them to not even realizing they were trapped. They lived in a fantasy of the world at peace, never realizing their predicament. The 3 remaining courts survived by becoming darkened. The corruption of the Darkness is found in them, but they are not its servants and are therefore known as the Twilight Courts. With the courts either trapped or corrupted, the Darkness had free reign over the world and turned it into the grimdark setting of Chronicles of Darkness. That was until 1969, when the first moon landing set off such a powerful surge of wonder and hope worldwide that it pierced the Dreamlands and alerted the imprisoned courts to the truth. The 5 imprisoned courts, the Radiant Courts, destroyed the prison and turned the Dreamlands into their new base of operations. They now face a world where the Darkness has effectively won. This hasn’t stopped the Radiant Courts and they have now resumed the war with the Darkness. Whether this war is an ultimately futile struggle or if the Radiant Courts do have a chance at actually turning things around is up to the players.

The player characters of PtH are the Nobility. Nobles, also called Princesses/Princes or the Hopeful, start out as people who remain good and hopeful despite living in a darkened world. The potential to become a Noble will remain as long as that person remains good, but it takes a major event to unlock it. This event must be something life-changing and can happen at any time in someone’s life, though it usually happens during, and as a result of, puberty. The person will go through the Blossoming and awaken the power of a Noble. While the game focuses on magical girl tropes, anyone of any gender and sex can become a Noble. Nobles gain a number of powers, including the ability to perform magic. However, most of their powers require them to go through the classic magical girl transformation sequence. After transforming, a Noble’s body will change to represent their idealized self and they will be wearing clothes and tools called Regalia. The idealized self can be quite different from your normal appearance and the game explicitly states that a transgender noble’s transformed appearance will match their gender identity. The transformed state also acts as a magical disguise. Even if a Noble looks identical pre- and post- transformation, you won’t be able to recognize the two forms as the same person unless the Noble tells you. A noble can only stay transformed temporarily before needing to change back and rest. Nobles get access to magic spells, most of which can only be used while transformed. Casting spells requires spending wisps, which are gained by inspiring happiness and goodness in others. In both forms, Nobles have a 6th sense which detects dark acts and thoughts. If someone is depressed or does something evil, every Noble in range will know about it. Given the state of the world, this 6th sense can become overwhelming and many Nobles will take trips to the Dreamlands to get some relief for a while. Nobles can also grant people some of their powers. These people are known as Sworn and many Nobles will grant powers to people they trust as allies or people they love as protection. Nobles are also often aided by Shikigami, inhabitants of the Drealands who inhabit small animals or toys to enter the real world and who act as mentors and advisors. Shikigami are good at tracking down potential Nobles and helping them Blossom, making them the magical girl mascot trope.

Fighting the Darkness is not just about battling monsters. While every Noble will eventually have to do battle with soul-sucking horrors from the netherrealms, most of the fight isn’t about violence. Anything that causes negativity is a tool of the darkness and you can’t exactly kick poverty or discrimination in the face. However, just as any negative emotion or cruel act empowers the Darkness, any act of kindness or that sparks joy fights it. Each Noble has a particular specialty called their Calling that determines how they inspire hope and joy the best. The callings are:

Champions: the defenders of the weak. Champions are classic heroes who fight for justice and protect others. They gain wisps by standing up for others. Champions are the most combat-oriented of the Callings and are typically the ones who do the fighting when creatures of Darkness are about. Example Champions include a knight who charges out to face the monsters, an activist pushing to end poverty, the manager of a shelter for the homeless, or the kid who stands up to bullies.

Graces: the messengers of hope. Graces prefer to guide others to the light through communication and support. Graces are skilled at social interaction and gain magic that lets them power up other people. They gain wisps by giving support and advice. Example Graces include a motivational speaker whose speeches are charmed with magic, a therapist who encourages patients to improve themselves, the person who always gives good advice, and the friend who is always ready to offer a shoulder to lean on.

Menders: the healers of the wounded. Menders aid people who are suffering, be it physically, mentally, or supernaturally. Menders will give aid to anyone they can and will not engage in violence, except against creatures of Darkness. Their magic focuses on healing and supporting others. They gain wisps by helping people. Example Menders include a first responder for disasters, an emergency room doctor who will stop at nothing to heal patients, a counselor who helps people fight depression, and a hero who helps people reject the corruption of Darkness.

Seekers: the scholars of the light. Seekers are defined by their curiosity and devotion to uncovering the truth. Lies and ignorance are tools of the Darkness and Seekers are here to uncover the truth. Their magic focuses on stealth and information gathering. They gain wisps by learning new things. Example Seekers include a bookworm who spends all their free time in the library, a spy who gathers intel on the Darkness’ activities, an archeologist who seeks out ancient artifacts of the Nobility, and a scientist who tries to reconcile the supernatural world with the scientific one.

Troubadours: the muses of joy. Troubadours seek to inspire wonder and joy in other people through their works. Natural artists and storytellers, troubadours gain wisps by inspiring others. Their magic focuses on illusions and supporting others. Example Troubadours include a party animal who always has a story to tell, a children’s book author whose work always includes positive morals, a graffiti artist who leaves messages of hope around town, an inspiring speaker who encourages people to fight the Darkness, and a jokester who can always make people laugh.

Noble society is centered around the courts. Each court is an alliance of like-minded Nobles led by a queen. Queens are immensely powerful and ancient Nobles who date back to before the imprisonment in the Dreamlands. There are 5 Radiant Courts and 3 Twilight Courts. A Noble’s Calling is innate to them and cannot be chanced, but membership in a court is optional and switching between them is accepted (by the Radiants anyway). Some people opt to remain courtless. Each court has a signature emotion or two that powers their unique magic. The Radiant Courts are:

The Court of Clubs practices a pseudo-Taoist philosophy of finding the balance where you can express your truest self while remaining in balance with the world. Accepting change and avoiding violence are part of this harmony. Don’t assume this means Clubs are helpless against attack. They aren’t allowed to start a fight, but they are allowed to finish it. Harmony with nature is also an important part of their beliefs and many Clubs prefer to live in the natural world and protect nature from the Darkness. Their emotions are harmony and tranquility.

The Court of Diamonds embraces enlightenment ideals and believes in the power of logic and reason to improve the world. They embrace modern science and technology and reject ignorance and misinformation as tools of the Darkness. Key among their teachings is that knowledge is to be shared freely with everyone, nor hoarded away or locked behind paywalls. They also reject the divide between the arts and sciences, seeing both as equally important. Diamonds tend to be excellent planners and strategists. Their emotions are curiosity and wonder.

The Court of Hearts is the one that takes the title of Nobility most seriously. They believe that the key to a better world is building and improving social institutions with them as the strong leaders. While Hearts view themselves as natural leaders, they also believe that authority is not owed, it is earned through the respect of others. They practice noblesse oblige, the philosophy that those in charge have a duty to improve the lives of their subjects and to be a wise and fair leader. The Hearts also take tradition seriously, believing that you must preserve the traditions that work and discard or improve those who do not. Their emotions are trust and duty.

The Court of Spades encourages creativity, going outside norms, and humor. Their skill is in questioning traditions and social institutions to find out what is valuable and what isn’t. Those institutions that cause harm are tools of the Darkness and should be dismantled. Above all, everyone needs some laughter in their life and so the Spades are great pranksters and jokesters. Many other courts stereotype the Spades as ineffective and annoying pranksters, but their skill at thinking outside the box can make them highly effective at finding new and unorthodox solutions to problems. Their emotion is humor.

The Court of Swords believes in following your heart and doing everything with burning passion. Love is the most important emotion to them, and not just romantic love but all kinds. They follow a morality code that emphasizes that harming someone is always wrong and that you should strive to broaden your horizons and embrace your passions. Many Swords are classic heroes, striving out for the sake of goodness and willing to do anything to protect their loved ones. The Swords also trust their members to be able to act autonomously, though of course if you can work with others, you should at least consider it. Their emotion is love.

While the Radiant Courts have only been active in the real world since 1969, the Twilight Courts have been active since the fall of the Kingdom. In order to survive the Darkness, they had to become darkened. While each Twilight Court is affected by the Darkness, they are still its enemies and do not serve it. Because they have been active for so much longer, the Twilight Courts have much greater populations than the Radiant Courts. If the Radiant Courts are the classic magical girls, the Twilight Courts are the dark magical girls.

The Court of Tears survived the coming of the Darkness by fleeing into it. The Queen of Tears moved her city, Alhambra, into the Dark World and converted it into a hollow sphere, with the city on the inside. The city is lit by lamps that keep the Darkness out, but they are fueled by hope. Nobles of Tears are tasked with stealing hope from the real world to keep the lamps burning. Key to their beliefs is that the Darkness has already won and all they can do is keep their loved ones safe in Alhambra. Thus, they will do whatever they can to keep the lamps burning. Their mission is ultimately futile as they are helping the Darkness win and once it does, nothing will keep Alhambra safe. The Queen of Tears constantly weeps over the sacrifices she made and it is implied that if she ever realizes the self-defeating nature of her mission, she will fully fall into despair and become an agent of the Darkness. Their signature emotions are depression and resolve.

The Court of Storms barely functions as a court anymore as their queen is not capable of leading anymore. To survive the Darkness, the Queen of Storms transformed herself into a living storm that rages within the Dark World, destroying all she touches. Nobles of Storms lash out against the Darkness in rage. They hate the Darkness and the state of the world and that hate leads them to do whatever they can to destroy it no matter who and what gets in the way. They believe that the world is already hopelessly corrupted and the only way out is to turn it to ashes and hope that whatever’s left is worth saving. Storms Nobles believe that when they die, their souls will merge with the storm that is the Queen and make it a bit bigger. Once enough of them die the Queen will grow enough to destroy the Darkness and rip the world apart. If there’s something left to rebuild after, that’s a nice bonus. Their emotions are rage and hate.

The Court of Mirrors isn’t a court in any sense of the word. The Queen of Mirrors fled when the Darkness came. SInce then, she has appeared to newly-Blossomed Nobles and informed them that they are the True Heir to the Kingdom and destined to be the one who defeats the Darkness and saves the world. Given how many people she does this to, her approach seems to be that if she tries enough times, eventually she’ll find the right person. Nobles of Mirrors become utterly convinced that they are the heroes of the story. They are vain, narcissistic solipsists convinced the world revolves around them. Most other Nobles view the Mirrors as obnoxious brats, but a narcissist with magic powers can prove to be a formidable threat. The Mirrors are incapable of working together and tend to fight each other when they meet. There can only be one True Heir after all. Their emotions are selfishness and solipsism.

The Darkness is a subtle and insidious force that operates wherever there is violence, hate, or misery. Places of sadness or where atrocities have been committed become tainted areas, where the influence of the Darkness is more pronounced. Tainted areas are more prone to violence, depression, and bigotry. The people who spend time there are also more likely to become Darkened. A Darkened person has the influence of the Darkness influencing their mind and body. It changes their sense of morality to encourage them to engage in immoral acts. Unlike other creatures of the Darkness, Darkened are redeemable. They can resist their malevolent urges and strive to be a good person. Nobles are charged with helping Darkened redeem themselves and can use magic to help purify their corruption. Darkened who are not redeemed turn into one of two types of monsters. The most common result is a Darkspawn. When a Darkened fully gives into the Darkness, they will die and their body (or part of it) will revive as a twisted monster. Darkspawn have no real intelligence, but there are an incredible variety of them and they are very dangerous. When a Darkened uses the Darkness to corrupt their minds rather than warp their bodies, they will become a Mnemosyne. These monsters still look human and remember their past lives. They are also highly intelligent, allowing them to command Darkspawn and scheme to spread the Darkness and corrupt other people. Another dark creature is a Cataphract, who are born from people who die in despair (often through suicide). They retain the memories of their human lives and will attempt to return to them, but are only capable of being twisted parodies of humanity. Probably the most feared creatures of Darkness are the Dethroned, Nobles who lost hope and turned to the Darkness. Dethroned usually spend their time wallowing in their own misery, only occasionally roused into action by other dark creatures. An active Dethroned is an enormous threat and even other dark creatures fear them. Even killing a Dethroned won’t save them as they will simply be reborn. There are only two ways to destroy one: utterly destroying their soul at the cost of your own, and taking their misery onto yourself and working through it, allowing the Dethroned to feel hope again before dying and being reincarnated.

There are a few versions of the game, which can be downloaded here, along with supplements and fan content. There is a Discord server also linked on that page. You will need the Chronicles of Darkness core rules to play.

#princess the hopeful #magical girl #mahou shoujo #chronicles of darkness #new world of darkness #world of darkness #ttrpg #rpg #role playing game #tabletop games #fan content #dark magical girl #magical girl mascot #magical girl transformation #grimdark #noblebright #lore

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divinewill · 6 months

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Capítulo Dieciocho: don't be scared, dino

I woke up earlier than Madison, and instead of disturbing her sleep, I silently got up and made my way to the basement gym. Keeping care to not make a sound as I gently guided the doorknob into the closed position before releasing it. As always, dad was already awake and in the process of making breakfast.

In the gym, I did my morning exercises, then made my way to my bathroom to take a cold shower.

When Madison woke up, she took a shower, got dressed, and joined us for breakfast. Dad changed the broadcast from the ongoing fear-mongering of kaijū attacks to more local news in other countries.

Something was on her mind, but she didn’t bring it up, so I probed.

“You look distracted. What’s on your mind?”

She said, “I had a strange dream yesterday.”

I asked her, “About everything going on?”

She told me, “Maybe? I don’t know.”

The confusion in her voice and face was obvious, but it didn’t show worry.

I told her, “Before you tell us about it, how about you write the contents down? That way, you don’t forget it.”

She asked me, “You think I should?”

I told her, “Of course. While some dreams are meaningless fluctuations of sense experience, God often talks to us in our dreams, so some dreams carry great significance. So I’ll help you review it when you’re done.��

I walked off, grabbed a ruled notebook, and handed it to her.

Before dad finished making breakfast, she started writing, and when she was done, he served her a plate of food.

Dad said, sarcastically, “Finish your breakfast before you psychoanalyze our guest, miss Jung.”

I complied with my father’s request.

While we ate, Madison asked me, “Could you tell me about your family?”

I asked her, “What specifically do you want to know?”

She requested, “Well, how about you tell me about the family in the picture we passed coming downstairs?”

My dad told her, “That’s Will’s biological parents.”

Madison said nothing. The lack of physical resemblance between me and my dad was obvious, so she accepted this disclosure without hesitation.

My dad told her, “They were murdered. We don’t know by who or by what means.”

Madison asked, “How could that be?”

My dad told her, “Let’s change the subject.”

Madison felt a twinge of guilt as she apologized, but my dad reassured her, “It’s fine, Madison. Curiosity about this kind of thing is understandable, but the unsolved murder of my best friends is something I still have difficulty talking about.”

My dad didn’t let this discomfort show in his face or demeanor. He never told me precisely what happened to my parents, and I trusted his judgement when he told me not to pry into the case.

I redirected the conversation to something lighthearted and spoke to Madison. “Oh, let’s work this into a little game. Guess what my lineage is! You’ve got three guesses! And, at the end, I’ll tell you the story of my family. In exchange, you’ll need to tell me about your family as well.”

Madison said, “Okay.”

She leaned in slightly, inspected my features, and guessed, “If I had to guess, I’d say you’re half-East Asian? But you don’t look Japanese or Korean, so Chinese?”

I snapped my fingers and confirmed her assumption. “Correct! Next guess?”

Madison was a bit more hesitant about the next guess. “Well, thinking about your room, you had an Isreali flag next to the American flag, but I thought Israelis were more olive skinned?”

I told her, with an amused smile on my face, “Most are, but that’s my nationality, not my lineage. Try again.”

She broke away from the game for just a moment and asked, “Your nationality? So you’re not American?”

My dad told her, “She’s both. She’s a birthright American citizen through jus soli as she was born in Corpus Christi, South Texas; but she’s also an Isreali citizen by jus sanguinis, as her biological parents were Isrealis who obtained their American citizenship while in the country on a work visa.”

I redirected the conversation back to the game. “You’ll hear about our life story over time, but you haven’t answered the question.”

Madison thought, “Well, you have straight hair, which is common among Indians, but not Africans or Australian Aboriginals … then again, your straight hair could be a trait from your father.”

I confirmed to her, “It is.”

Madison continued, “Well, considering the photo of your mom, I would guess African?”

I laughed. “That part was obvious. This game would have been over from the start if I just wanted a continent. Be more specific, please.”

Madison asked, “Didn’t I see a miniature flag of South Africa in your room?”

I sighed, “Lucky.”

Madison asked, “Care to explain?”

I told her, “Yeah, I have no connection to the slave-borne diaspora indigenous to the Americas. My family was never subject to the transatlantic slave trade, nor the Muslim slave trades, for that matter. My mother’s family is Lemba, a lineage of Bantu Jews, from the Limpopo province of South Africa. They moved to Isreal under the Law of Return just before the South African genocide kicked off in the 2030s.”

Madison asked, “What about your paternal bio-family?”

I told her, “My paternal family comprises Jews from Kāifēng, in the Hénán province of China, who escaped to Taiwan just before the technocratic element of the communist dictatorship came into full effect. My father immigrated to Israel under the Law of Return as well. They moved to the United States, South Texas specifically, immediately after they got married because my father had a job offer and that’s where I was born.”

Madison asked, “If I may ask, why didn’t your biological family adopt you when your parents died?”

I bluntly told her, “My Chinese family wasn’t exactly accepting of my father’s marriage to a ‘hēiguǐ’, so the head of the family disowned my parents, and consequently, me as well. My Bantu family is part of an ultra-Orthodox cult, so when my father helped my mother escape the cult, they cut all ties with her. Even held a mock funeral for her to drive the point home. So, when my parents wrote their last will and testament, they intentionally left custody of me to the Trueman family, who were their closest friends."

Madison asked, “If it’s not too much to ask … could you go into a little more detail?”

I agreed, “Sure, my mother was raised in and escaped from an ultra-Orthodox Jewish cult, but even inside it she refused the practice of Shidduch (שִׁדּוּךְ): a practice where a matchmaker arranges a rapid marriage, often between people who’ve never met each other, for the purposes of producing children within the cult, so that the cult can leverage the relationship with the children to keep the parents within their control. When she refused this matchmaker’s influence, her family severely punished her, under the guidance of an authoritarian rabbi.”

Madison asked me, “Why did she forsake the matchmaker? Were they incompetent?”

I told her, “Because she was already in love with an eligible man. You see, this cult forbids its members from interacting with goyim, or non-Jews, at all and even discouraged interacting with Jews not part of the cult. My father met my mother when she was in the cult. He was her line to the real world outside of the cult’s cabalistic hyperreality, despite her family and friend’s objections, and it was because of his influence that she left the cult and converted to Messianic Judaism. When my mother apostatized, she basically lost everything. Outside of my father, everyone she knew was part of the cult. Her family, her friends, her neighbors all cut ties with her. They evicted her from her house and the community staged a mock funeral in her dishonor.”

I continued, “On the other hand, my paternal grandparents weren’t thrilled at the prospect of having a ‘Cushite’ sūnnǚ, so when my parents started dating, my yéye and nǎinai strongly opposed the relationship. When they got engaged to each other, they threatened to disown my parents in the event of marriage or conception, and they made good on this promise when my father married my mother.”

“By the time my parents got married, my dad had a job waiting for him in South Texas. So, he moved to South Texas, became fast friends with the Trueman family, their neighbors. There’s only three people on the paternal side of my bio-family I’ve ever talked to. Everyone else has sided with my grandparents … but my mom isn’t the only one to escape the cult. I have an auntie, my mainini, who escaped as well, though it came at the cost of losing custody of her children.”

Madison simply said, “That’s awful…”

Dad interrupted my retelling of events, “Honey, look at the TV.”

We turned our attention to the news and found a channel discussing a lesser-known topic of international importance from across the globe. In the Free Republic of Liberland, a metahuman family was giving a press conference on DistribuTV, a competitor to DistribuTube. In real time, the translator rendered the interview from Czech into English.

Three of the children had the power to conjure extinct animals. This family sought to exploit their powers to pursue their own self-interest while simultaneously sating the curiosity of paleontologists, biologists, and zoo goers around the world. Using this interview with the local press to advertise their novel startup company. I could respect the hustle and the entrepreneurship which was characteristic of that micronation.

The first critter they showcased was in an environmentally controlled tank. The merchant interviewed identified it as Oestocephalus amphiuminus. A lesser-known animal from the carboniferous period. The next creature up for display and advertisement was allegedly a Mieridduryn bonniae, a middle Ordivician invertebrate belonging to Dinocaridida. A class of animal which had gone extinct long before the birth of any synapsid. The third tank had what appeared to be Hallucigenia sparsa. Apparently, the plan was to expand the marketing immediately, as the merchants promised the ability to deliver on all manner of aïstopods, opabiniids, and lobopods.

Unsurprisingly, the bidding had already begun. Considering that this new company had solidly cornered the market for these organisms, they could already make a tremendous profit with the few sales they had already made, and projections showed they would become wildly profitable. Unsurprising, as they succeeded by merit of their own innate powers where back-breeding, cross-species cloning, and genetic engineering efforts failed with uncalculated billions of dollars and some of the most talented and knowledgeable biologists across generations. They either raised a species from the grave, or at least emulated it sufficiently well as to pass for a true de-extinction. Moreover, they did so across hundreds of millions of years: a timespan which would have always remained impossible by biotechnological and chemical engineering means.

I looked up the New Providence Zoo on my laptop and found that it had already “commissioned” a set of all three species. This brought a question to mind. “What the hell does it mean to commission an organism?”

Their father explained, “Our family specializes in conjuring animals, out of thin air, and I’d wager we are not alone. I suspect that there are many families who can summon animals, extant and extinct, from all eras, and possibly even other worlds!”

He reached out to other metahumans to contact him so that they could work together to return the wonders lost in deep time to the peoples of the world. Something they could use to foster a friendship between the nations of the world and the metahumans who are now known to exist.

During his eloquent elocution, my father received an emergency note on his phone accompanied by the attention grabbing buzzing and cacophonous ringtone.

“A wild animal warning?” He said, bemused.

Madison and I got the same alert on her own phones.

Father changed the channel and found that in the city of New Providence, New Hampshire, a similar power was causing absolute chaos. We saw that a flock of what appeared to be a flock of pterosaurs, each as tall as a giraffe, perched atop of and flying around skyscrapers’ roofs. There appeared to be four hundred individuals of two different species in this flock, Hatzegopteryx thambema and Quetzalcoatlus northropi. The news drones showed that one of these animals seemed to have what appeared to be a deceased mackerel tabby at the end of its beak.

Madison noticed this anomalous behavior. “Why are they perching atop of skyscrapers?”

My dad stoically realized, “Because they’ve encountered men.”

Madison asked, “What makes you say that, sir?”

He explained, “Those appear to be Azhdarchids. In their time, they would have rested on the ground preying on small mammals and archosaurs, as well as scavenging the carcasses of larger animals.”

I began putting the pieces together, “So why would they choose to perch atop of the buildings, unless they encountered something on the ground which is prolific and dangerous enough to keep them from the ground? It can’t be a bear, as bears wouldn’t challenge an animal as apparently large as this.”

Madison thought, “But if they already know to fear man, then why would they perch in a city?”

Dad pondered, “The Azhdarchids could certainly swallow animals up to three feet wide, but would probably struggle to eat over 100 pounds in one sitting. So, if they identified humans as potentially dangerous, it would make sense to pick a nesting spot away from us … but if they also pieced together than human beings, or at least their pets, are a plentiful source of food, it might provide an incentive to stay closer to the abundant food source.”

Madison asked, “So you think they eat people?”

Dad told her, “We wouldn’t likely be the first on their menu, but hungry animals can be desperate. Like a lion or bear with a broken tooth will often resort to anthropophagy out of desperate starvation. Any of those pterosaurs could swallow either of you whole, then still be able to fly afterwards.”

At that moment, the drone spotted another one atop another building, which seemed to swallow what appeared to be the severed shoulder and arm of a human being. The camera zoomed in, and from what little that we could see, it appeared to have belonged to the left hand of a woman with light brown skin. The ring on her finger showed that, in life, she was married.

The gravity of this situation immediately hit Madison and me.

My dad told us, “For the time being, neither of you are to go outside unattended.”

He returned with a .50 caliber rifle, loaded with a magazine of armor-piercing rounds.

I asked him, “That caliber’s a little overkill, isn’t it?”

He explained, “Possibly, but I’m not taking any chances.”

Madison asked me, “What do you mean?”

I told her, “The minimum caliber suggested for giraffe hunting is .375. While these animals may be comparable to giraffes in height, their constitution is necessarily more fragile because of the requirements of their aerial lifestyles. A hunter could probably use a lighter caliber to take one of these out.”

Dad explained, “Same principle as with bears and elephants. A dangerous animal needs to be stopped as immediately as possible, so I do not think it is overkill.”

I understood the reasoning, but explained, “My worry isn’t that it’s too much for the welfare of the animals, but that the round might pass through the target and potentially injure someone or damage property.”

Dad told me, “Concern noted, but when have you known me to be reckless with a firearm?”

The answer was, of course, never, so I did not oppose the measure.

“Alright, dad. I trust you.” I told him.

My dad was an experienced combat veteran and had defended a friend’s house from a bear attack in Alaska at one point.

Madison wondered aloud, “What are we going to do?”

My father assured her, “The law enforcement is going to have to kill this flock, as they do with any animal who associates human beings with food. But we just need to stay put. Azhdarchids were not built for the climate of New Hampshire, so when this heat spell breaks tomorrow, if they haven’t already been put down, they’ll fly south for the winter.”

I suggested, “Madison, let’s go up to my room and play a game to take our minds off of this.”

Dad said, “Alright you two, but keep the windows and curtains closed.”

I grabbed our Blokus box from the game closet and asked Madison, “Have you ever played this?”

Madison admitted with an eager grin, “Yes! I quite enjoy this one.”

While we were making our way up to my room, I asked her, “You weren’t just asking about us, just then, were you? You’re worried about your parents?”

You could hear her voice quake as she said, “Yes.”

I asked her, “Do you trust them?”

She said, “Of course.”

I told her, “Then pray for them. That’s all we can do, and it’s always the best thing we can do.”

Now in my room with Madison, then, after closing the windows, summoned my alter ego at 550 m from the house. Each time I summoned my alter ego, I made it a point to push the boundaries of how far she could be manifested. An effort to protect my friends and family from prying eyes of both the curious and the malicious.

* * *

Falling from 50 m, I used what I had learned about controlling my descent to land on a wooden light pole. Using my tactile telekinesis to protect the poles as I leapt 500 m into the air and towards the center of town, where the creatures were.

Even miles away, my penetrating vision immediately confirmed our fears. Human beings were on the menu, and among the poor souls swallowed whole included a seven-year-old boy and a six-week pregnant woman of abnormally short stature.

Reaching the apex of my jump, I felt something appear in my hand. The sudden novel stimuli startled the beasts, who leapt off the edges of the buildings and took to the skies in all directions. As far as I knew, I couldn’t fly, and the mechanics of jumping would prove detrimental to following all these beasts at once. Luckily, though, they weren’t flying away, but assessing the situations.

I realized the object in my hand was the All-Slayer in the silhouette of a Mousterian spear. Remembering the promise made, I focused on my target and threw the spear, which moved far faster than expected. The All-Slayer didn’t just create a trail of sparks from the blade cleaving electrons off of atoms, but it produced a hypersonic boom and the illumination of Čerenkov radiation. The attack killed the creature instantly and painlessly. Puncturing the braincase with no more resistance than the air and creating an electrical surge throughout the new corpse, which cauterized the wounds.

The lightning-like flash of Čerenkov radiation and the crack of thunder startled the rest of the flock, which attempted to fly off. I thought about chasing after them but realized that there was no way to ground these animals safely if they fled. To my luck, I watched them as they flew around me and attempted to mob me like starlings defending their territory to protect their crudely constructed nests.

I had no interest in crushing the eggs of these beasts, which were laid in crudely made nests and positioned behind parts of the building which protected them from the winds. What they might teach us about paleobiology was too valuable to kill the eggs. Especially since humanity could easily contain these flyers and keep them for the wonderment of men and women around the world. A cursory glance with my penetrating vision showed that these eggs were still a long way away from hatching.

I landed atop one skyscraper, which held eggs, and the pterosaurs immediately began mobbing me to defend their young. As one pecked at me, I dodged and grabbed its beak, pulled it towards me and used the All-Slayer as a knife to puncture its braincase and kill it instantly, then quickly dragged the body onto the top of the building, where it would not fall. Its twitching body and sudden inactivity startled the creatures off. The pterosaurs landed on other buildings, unaware of the ranges in which I could attack them. Something which worked to my specific advantage.

I threw the All-Slayer at another one and it, too, died instantly. Falling onto the roof of the building, but not off it. At this moment, the animals seemed to realize that I was a threat even at a distance and flew away.

I killed another one with a throw of the spear and jumped to intercept the falling body of the creature. Ensuring it would fall safely onto the room of a 10-storey building, with both the corpse and property unharmed. The plan was to shoot down these pterosaurs, intercept them as they fell to ensure the safety of human life and property, then repeat the process as necessary.

This is where something went wrong. I watched in astonishment, and subtle horror, as the weapon would rotate in motion and then sharply change direction, seemingly instantly. Something it did repeatedly as it punctured the braincases of the pterosaurs. All the while wildly exceeding the speed of light in the atmosphere. The world around me seemed to grind to a halt as my perception accelerated in response to the adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream.

I outstretched my hand, at which point the weapon stopped its automated culling and returned to my hand at light speed and jumped towards the scene. Now I had to catch four hundred falling giraffe-sized bodies with the mass of a colossal bear.

Wall jumping off windows like a character from a platformer, using tactile telekinesis to keep the windows unblemished, at speeds blitzing human perception, placing the bodies of the aerial creatures atop the roofs of the buildings. Miraculously, I kept any of the bodies from crashing into the ground below.

At the end of this nightmarish scene, my hands were shaking with adrenaline, so I took a moment to catch my breath, to calm myself down. By the time this was all over, the world went from seeming silent stillness to its normal speed.

I then gathered the eggs I could, of which there weren’t many. Holding the clutch in my dress like a makeshift bag and protecting them along with the light pole I landed on when I stepped off the edge of the skyscraper. I took off my superhuman leaping towards the New Providence Zoo, presented them to the staff, and went back and forth for five trips. One of the female staffers joked about this being the inverse of a stork delivering human babies, which amused me. I knew that they would have the monetary incentive to not only keep the beasts alive but also, having met the owner before, I knew he would donate proceeds to the families of the victims of these creatures.

Back and forth, I went for about five trips before I finished, and as I leapt down to the ground and took off in the opposite direction, to frustrate the news copter stalking me, I disappeared into thin air.

* * *

Madison asked me, “Can you call her back from there?”

I confessed, “I don’t think I can. I assumed that my ability to call her back would have the same range as the ability to summon her.”

She asked me, “Have you tried?”

I confessed, “No … but, now that you mention it, this would make an excellent test of my abilities.”

The process by which I summoned my alter ego was quite simple. I simply needed to actively will her appearance and there she spawned. Consequently, the exact inverse was also true. To make her disappear, I actively will it to happen, and even at this distance, it turned out to be true. We watched as, on the livestream, my alter ego disappeared from the camera view and her memories and experiences flooded back into my subconscious mind, ready to be accessed.

This flabbergasted me. So, I admitted, without thinking, “I didn’t know I could do that.”

Madison observed, “If there is a symmetry between your ability to summon and call back your alter, as you suspect, then you should be able to summon your alter far further removed from your location than you currently do.”

I responded by an observation of my own, “Assuming that I’m correct that there is such a symmetry.”

I turned off the livestream and put in a film-disc of Lord Dunsany’s The King of Elfland’s Daughter. A faithful film adaptation made after the end of the Cold Civil War.

While we watched the film, we returned to our riveting game. I dwelt on a thought in my head for about ten minutes before I told her, “I’m thinking of visiting Sakura as the Lolita Princess.”

Madison told me, “That’s a splendid idea. What brought this on?”

I told her, “I’d like to see if I can help find her parents.”

Madison asked me, “How might you do that?”

I revealed, “I have an eidetic memory. I remember every face I have ever seen, and if I can ascribe a name to that face, I can locate the precise places and times that I saw them. Moreover, from that information, we can reconstruct a probabilistic skeletal profile to help find them.”

Madison suggested, “I think you should come forward with that information. You might be able to help a lot of families in desperate need of reunion, or at least closure.”

I confessed, “That’s the plan … Only there’s one problem. I don’t speak a lick of Japanese. So, I’d need a translator to enact the plan.”

Madison confessed, “I can help you with that. We can find a translator, and…”

I interrupted her, “I’d like it if you could help teach me.”

Madison, dumbstruck, said, “何だと?”

I explained, “It took me approximately three weeks to become conversational in Arabic, and another 3 weeks to become conversational in Hebrew, but those were situations when I was fully immersed in the culture. Latin took me a bit longer because I didn’t have the luxury of going to a country where people speak it as a native language, but I still mastered the language within a month’s time. I am certain that I can do the same with Japanese.”

Madison volunteered, “At that rate, I could simply translate for you over a phone.”

I reminded her, “I refuse to burden you with the vicarious trauma experienced with this kind of search and rescue missions. The purpose of a superhero is to protect people, and to shoulder the burdens that others cannot. Moreover, it is my responsibility, as the only one who can do this.”

Madison asked me, “Then what am I supposed to do?”

I smiled and told her, “You can be my friend, who knows my secret, whom I can ask for council, and to whom I confide. Be part of that reality to which I can return, which knows nothing of the pains of eldritch terror.”

Madison relented, “Okay…”

I further confessed, “I’d still like to talk to Sakura, as I am now, as well.”

Madison said, “Naturally. As I’ve already promised, I will set up a conversation between you two when I can.”

I thanked her, and we discussed how we might help our distraught classmate as we played our board game. That was, until the movie was over, and it was time for lunch.

Father called us down, and he was watching a different live broadcast from an independent investigator from CANZUK. It was through this vector of online reporting by an unaffiliated commentator; we found that other parts of the world were dealing with a similar problem: creatures displaced from time and space. Although, the degree of displacement they were dealing with was far greater than anything in the USA.

Video from Perth showed what appeared to be a monitor lizard with a dimetrodon-like sail on its back and two horns which raised straight up from the top of its ocular ridges and curved forward. The creature was huge, at 80 ft in length and weighing in at 15 tons. Local law enforcement had dispatched it. Another predatory reptile, a crocodylomorph with two rows of outward facing spines along its back, measuring at 96 ft long, was yet to be found and was spotted along the northern shores of Tasmania.

I noted in disturbed amusement, “I’m glad no one died, but that kinda looks like a slurpasaur.”

Madison asked me, “A what?”

Dad explained, “Slurpasaurs are an old school film technique where real animals are used as a stand in for extinct or fictional beasts. Like matts of fur on an elephant to make it look like a mammoth, horns on an armadillo to make it look like a glyptodon, or just splicing and resizing footage of a tarantula to make it look monstrous in scale.”

Madison’s expression suggested she knew what we were talking about, but had never heard the term before.

While we ate, Madison asked, “Is it possible that cryptozoology and ufology are related to metahumans?”

Dad asked her, “Care to elaborate?”

I think he knew where she was going with this, but simply wanted to hear her expand on it herself.

She explained, “Well, we saw that one family had prehistoric animals in their possession earlier today, and we saw some supermundane creatures helping people recover bodies in the GSSDO’s aid to Japan, and now we have this?”

My father asked, “You mean sightings of entities like black triangles and mokèlé-mbèmbé?”

Madison agreed, “Yes … so is it possible that things such as Dutch Flying Jellyfish or Issie are real artifacts of metahuman powers?”

My dad told her, “It would be unwise to disregard the evidence of deceptive reporting in cryptozoology and ufology. While it’s now entirely reasonable to assume that *some* of these entities and phenomena may result from metahuman activities, it in no way justifies any specific claims yet. We’d still have to prove that the relevant sightings were first, genuine, second, that the witnesses’ interpretation of what they’ve witness is correct, and finally, that it really is related to metahuman powers. Which will probably prove very difficult, given that these powers were hidden for as long and effectively as they were.”

I added that, “Some of the supernatural phenomena described from ufology, for example, might not be metahuman even if real. Some of it may be the domain of angelology or theology, such as the miracle of the sun.”

Madison asked me, “The miracle of the sun?”

Dad explained, “It was a miracle witnessed on 13 October 1917 in the city of Fátima, Portugal. Will’ll tell you more about it later.”

We talked about it for a bit, before dad interrupted our conversation and asked, “Madison, do you know how to defend yourself?”

Madison asked, “What do you mean, Mr. Trueman?”

Dad clarified, “Do you know how to fight?”

Madison admitted, “No.”

Dad asked, “Have you ever used a firearm before?”

Madison again admitted, “No.”

Dad asked, “how about a knife?”

Madison confessed, “Not in that way…”

Dad asked, “How are you as a runner?”

Madison admitted, “I wouldn’t exactly qualify for the track and field teams.”

He asked, “Do you have anything to defend yourself with?”

Madison admitted, “I usually have bodyguards with me, and when I’m out of their sight, I carry a personal alarm with me.”

Dad finally asked, “Do you dance?”

Madison revealed, “Yes. My father has a passion for dance, and when he found out I was interested in the subject, he enrolled me into a few dance classes: ballet, modern interpretive dance, breakdancing.”

Dad smiled and said, “Excellent,” before explaining, “As a guest in our house, it is the obligation of my daughter and I to ensure your safety. It also is a moral obligation of everyone to ensure their own well-being to the best of their ability. So, starting tomorrow, you will begin training with Will.”

Dad addressed me directly, “I want you to test her on the basics and we’ll move forward from there.”

I said, “Yes, father.”

Dad explained to Madison, “I’m one of the best marksmen in the world, but I’m also still a one hundred percent disabled veteran. It may not be apparently obvious, but my body has been ravaged by autoimmunity induced organ failure. My daughter may be exceptionally skilled as a fighter, freerunner, and shooter, but she’s still a young girl, like yourself, and that comes with its own intrinsic limitations. Neither of us are metahumans, so part of our protecting you will be catching you up to speed as much as we can in the presumably limited time we have together. Luckily, as a dancer, you should understand the importance of footwork and athleticism.”

Madison looked a little concerned and eager simultaneously. She clearly had a love for martial arts animations, but she was also afraid of violence.

I placed my hand on her shoulder and reassured her, “Don’t worry, we’ve got you.”

Madison jokingly asked, breaking the tension inside, “So, should I call you sensei, or would you prefer shifu?”

My father played along, “You hear that Ms. Shi-Trueman, you’re a shīfu now.”

This turn of the conversation was quite embarrassing, but I didn’t want to interrupt their fun. Especially with everything going on in the news.

At the end of the day, Madison and I returned to my room, and nothing of note seemed to happen in the city.

When I was preparing for my evening shower, I opened the closet door, but behind it wasn’t the geometry and the contents of the closet. Rather, an entire other building disconnected from the house. It was a liminal space, between the abandoned and the immaculate. At once spotless and yet unattended, with bright but soft lights in the stone ceiling.

Both me and Madison were dumbfounded, to the point of not processing what just happened, and then I heard a familiar voice ask, “Are you free to talk, Princess?”

That snapped me back to reality, and I asked the voice, which sounded familiar, in a whisper, “Kauākṣara?“

The entity stepped into view, with Akhbar sleeping on its shoulders like a ferret, but nowhere near the door and using ASL, explained, “Yes. I apologize for the intrusion, but I have no intention of entering your house. I understand your need for secrecy in the role you have chosen from the Almighty’s authorship. At your word, we can reconvene elsewhere and elsewhen.”

I asked him, in ASL, “How did you just do that?”

Kauākṣara simply said, “A favor, from a good friend. A metahuman, such as yourself.”

With a motion of its beak, Kauākṣara alerted me to Madison being silently paralyzed with terror, and I reassured her with a hand on her shoulder and summoning my alter ego in my room, “It’s okay, Madison. I know this creature.”

That seemed to help her.

He certainly wasn’t lying when he told me he could easily find me.

I noted, in ASL, “You mentioned the Almighty. Do you believe in God?”

Kauākṣara specified, “I am old enough to remember when encosmic and ancestral ‘gods’ roamed the earth alongside men and warred amongst themselves. In the eras of Titanomachy, Gigantomachy, and the Æsir–Vanir War, but I am a devotee of none of them. I am old enough to remember times when tribes began to forget and forsake the Eternal One in favor of these spirits. My God is the God of the Philosophers. The God of the Primitives, abandoned and forgotten in the age of polytheism.”

It then continued, with the quotations in an audible whisper, “As the Maharṣi sang, ‘He in his might surveyed the floods containing productive force and generating Worship. He is the God of gods, and none beside him. What God shall we adore with our oblation?’ or, as Saint Moses wrote, ‘For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name.’”

The first quotation being from the Rig Veda, book 10, hymn 121, otherwise known as the Hiraṇyagarbha Sūkta, verse 8. The second quotation being from the King James Version of the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 10 verses 17-20.

This all aligned with the contemporary evolutionary anthropology, which moved away from the animist hypothesis of humanity’s urreligion origins and vindicated the Urmonotheistic theory of Andrew Lang FBA.

As enticing as this information was, I decided to cut to the chase, “I would love to talk theology, but I presume you had a more pressing reason to contact me in the manner that you did?”

Kauākṣara confirmed, “Indeed. I have information about the entity which concerns you, and some ideas regarding how to intercept and stop them…”

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thethirdgenesisbooks · 4 months

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A Shortcut to Crafting Fictional Languages

Whether it’s Elvish, Klingon, or Dothraki, one big thing that people love about fantasy and science fiction settings is the array of fictional languages that exist in these settings. Tolkien was a linguist, so he was able to use his vast education on the subject to craft the languages in Middle Earth. Professional linguists also crafted the Klingon language from the Star Trek series, but I would argue that you don’t need to be a professional linguist to craft a fictional language for your world.

Here are seven steps to building a fictional language with relative ease.

Start By Picking a Base Language from Real Life:

If you don’t know all the rules of how languages work, it can be difficult to come up with new words and craft things like grammar and sentence structure. So, start by picking a real life language that, in some way, reflects the culture you are trying to portray in your world. If your fantasy novel has an empire that rules most of the known world, then perhaps a good base language is Latin or Mandarin Chinese. Bear in mind, you won’t actually be using this language as the fictional one, but you will be using it as the basis of what you’re looking to build. It helps if this is a language that you already know something about, but it’s not entirely necessary.

Google Translate Is Your Friend:

When writing a scene where certain characters are speaking in a fictional language, write out the bit of dialogue in English first. Once you’ve gotten down what you want your characters to say, copy what you’ve written and paste it into Google Translate, and translate it into the base language you’ve chosen.

Translate the Individual Words:

Once you’ve translated the whole phrase into the base language, open Google Translate again in another window and translate each word back into English individually. In learning what the individual words mean, you’ll learn a little something about grammar and sentence structure in that other tongue. If you keep this in mind, you can prevent your fictional language from simply having the same grammatical structure as English.

Alter the Words One at a Time:

Once you know what each word means, open a Word document, and start putting them one by one into the document. This Word document will serve as your dictionary, which you will build as you write. Obviously, you don’t want to leave the words as they are, unless you’re fine with your fictional language being identical to a real-life one. So, once you’ve got the dictionary built, go through and change just a few letters in each word. Change the consonants to alternative consonants and the vowels to alternative vowels.

You usually only have to make a few small changes in order to craft new words. For example, when crafting a language using Latin as the base, I needed a word that meant “we” or “us.” The Latin word for that was “nos,” so I changed it to “noth.” In another case, when crafting a language that used Hebrew as the base, I needed a word for “human.” I found that one of the Hebrew words for man is “Ysh,” so I changed the word to “Yash,” and had my word for human. For shorter and less well-known foreign words, you need only change one or two letters, but for longer words or for more well-known foreign words, you’ll need to change more letters.

Consider How You Want the Language to Feel:

Fictional languages are meant to invoke certain emotions. The Klingon language, for example, is meant to sound threatening. To accomplish this, it uses a lot of hard consonants, a lot of “K” sounds, and even the vowels tend to be guttural, and the sorts of sounds that could be made in the back of the throat. On the other hand, Parseltongue is meant to be the language of snakes, so it focuses on “S” and “Th” sounds. Consider what letters you want to make more common in your fictional language to give it the intended feel.

Consider Cultural Implications:

A culture’s language can reveal things about that culture, and it’s important to keep that in mind. One example is the Hawaiian word "aloha." In Hawaiian culture, "aloha" is more than just a greeting or a farewell; it more literally means “love,” “compassion,” “affection,” “peace,” and “mercy.” Similarly, the Hebrew word “Shalom” is used as a greeting but means “Peace.” In German the word for friend is “Freund,” while the German word for joy is “Freude.” These come from the same root words, showing how friends and joy are closely linked in the German mindset. The Rastafarian dialect uses the phrase “I and I” rather than “You and I” or “He and I” because it emphasizes the oneness of all humanity.

So, as you build your language, consider what the meaning of certain words might imply about the culture. In my Third Genesis series, I needed a Fiendish word for the Archons, who are the fiends’ traditional enemies. I had the word for enemy, “Mal,” and the word for sky, “Shah,” so, because archons can usually fly, I created the word “Mal’shah,” literally meaning “Sky Enemy” as the Fiendish word for archons. Similarly, when inventing a language for a culture of robots, I had to consider whether they had a word for “love.” So, as you build your language, consider what words might well have double meanings, or what words you can make minor changes to in order to invent a word with a similar meaning. In a militaristic culture, perhaps the term “friend” and the term “ally” are similar. Little touches like this will make the language seem more “real” and the world feel more lived-in.

Build as You Go:

You might be tempted to build the entire fictional language from the ground up before writing your story. I actually advise against this when you’re using this method for your language building. For one thing, the English language has hundreds of thousands of words. A study conducted by researchers at Ghent University in Belgium estimated that the average English-speaking adult knows around 42,000 words. Honestly, that is simply too many to build ahead of time.

So, write your story, and when you come to a place where characters speak a fictional tongue, stop and translate the specific phrases they are speaking into your fictional language, and build your dictionary over time. Then, as you write more, consult that which you’ve already written to craft conversations in that tongue. If you do it this way, you can even include the dictionary of the fictional language at the back of your book, and dedicated readers can go back and translate the phrases if they want.

With these seven steps, you should be ready to craft a fictional language for your fantasy or science fiction story. Admittedly, linguists will likely be able to point out certain flaws in the language, but most of your readers will not be linguists. Now, go forth and write!

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