BoM/TWS Message Forum

"At the Abode Above the Avenue of the Stars"  --> "A Betrayal In Multiple Layers" 

Stopping for the moment here, with what's essentially the ultimate cliffhanger.

First of all, I apologize for not posting anything yesterday. With the slightest of breezes and showers, I was left without power for almost an entire day, and even though others in the neighborhood alerted the power company, they did nothing until the next day. Irony of ironies, there's a sketch on a local comedy TV show that satirizes and criticizes that very same company, due to their bum-backwards customer support. The day's joke? How they prioritize power issues by "urgency", where the least urgent are dealt with first, and the most urgent left for later. (Never say life lacks a sense of humor - it has a twisted one.)

And speaking of twisted - yes, you saw it right. The cliffhanger has von Gersdorff, in the "flesh". Using the golem spell on someone.

Commentary on the sections as follows:
Kali

For this section, I didn't want to create an entire story out of it. There are other branches that deal with this dynamic. However, I wanted to use the opportunity to introduce a few things - making this our hero's first foray into the lore of the Stellae.

The first two chapters echo one of such branches - the one where a golemized Will gets sent to Kali to be checked up, where he meets Miko and Rick. That one has Will turned into a field agent because of his unique integration with the Libra; here, however, it's the complete opposite. Since that branch is quite complete, my focus was on what Kali could impart to Will - specifically, some history about the Stellae Errantes and the nature of the ousiarchs. I chose to specifically focus on the latter because Will understands nothing about it - but the reader might, therefore serving to expand that body of lore.

The last chapter also echoes a chapter in that branch - the chapter where Will learns how to meditate and seemingly disappears - but with a catch. It cements that Will was unconsciously meditating when taking naps back in the community center basement (in the BoM branch that precedes this), and his dreams were the way Sulva and Kenandandra communicated with him. As you'll see, there's a bigger emphasis on Kenandandra's appearance, but no matter what, Sulva's presence is overwhelming.

The end of that chapter also foreshadows something much, much later on. You'll see when I get to it.

John

It's rare to see Mr. Reilly, so he's there as another of Will's tutors. As Seuzz previously revealed to me, formal training with the Stellae is done through apprenticeship, where multiple people contribute to the adept's instruction. While Kali focused on very general aspects of the organization, John delves deep into its history, while allowing Will to transition into his new "Jeffrey Harrison" persona. (Reference semi-intended.)

The first chapter expands a bit on the forms of meditation, as I feel the chapter with golem-Will pretty much cemented how most people think Will meditates. There are multiple ways to do so, and John teaches him an alternative way that segues into a series of short stories detailing the history of specific adepts as a way to experience the history of the organization itself. The method is shown, then the first of the stories is immediately revealed.

An Omen of Sin
The first of the stories harkens to the time of the Babylonian Court of Stars, making it a first. I took some liberties with it, and as discussed with Seuzz, they don't (necessarily) contradict what's established in other branches.

The biggest liberty I took was on how the Court saw the ousiarchs. You may notice the term sukkalmah spread out a lot - this is in reference to the sukkals, or "viziers", of the Mesopotamian gods. Having the ousiarchs act as servants to the gods rather than gods themselves highly changes the dynamic of the ousiarchs themselves - not gods, but as stated in Kali's tales, helpers of the adepts. Thus, while I could've gone for Marduk, or Anu, or even Nanna (also known as Sin, hence the duality of the title), I went for their established sukkals or their closest counterparts. Therefore, it's not Ereshkigal who leads the adept, but her sukkal. Call it a quirk of mine, but equating the ousiarchs with gods diminishes their true nature.

The story shows the life and actions of the Court through one of its adepts, having a very specific pairing - Sulva and Arbol. One of the benefits of this method is to show how two adepts can be very different to each other - what Nannassar can do is very different from what Verity does in the chapters where she appears, because both are fundamentally different. Nannassar is deliberately a bit nerdy, so it could relate to Will, but one that's better developed.

You may also notice the cult of Lilitu and how it becomes the "villain of the week" for the Court. This one is deliberate, as the story has multiple warring factions and has always hinted at some "great evil" behind one, more or none of these. I took upon reference the mythological Lilith in her guise as queen of the night demons and a powerful sorceress herself. This reference didn't come at a whim - there's a big project I've occasionally mentioned to people and that I have extremely high hopes for that has her as one of the support cast. It's interesting how an author can develop two very distinct interpretations of the same mythological character - suffice to say, if both versions of Lilith were to meet each other, they'd be surprised to see how different they are. (Well, one of them, at least.)

The story ends with a connection to the branch where Mireya is the protagonist, effectively counting as a follow-up to "Meet the Harrisons" , where Robert (aka Marty) has been for several months in New Jersey while Will has only been for a few days at most. This allows seeing how Will thinks of Mireya, an inverse of the situation where Mireya tries to understand Will. If you read the branch, it's a good complement.

On Opposite Sides
This one moves forward to the Crusades and "introduces" a group of villains that have gained a lot of notoriety - the brotherhood of Baphomet.

Our hero, Bertrand, shows a different set of prodigies than Frank, with which he shares the pairing of ousiarchs. Some of the prodigies are based greatly on the powers a Paladin (from Dungeons & Dragons, for example) would get, while others are based on what I consider my favorite form of "tanking" in games - damage redirection. When I devised Bertrand mechanically, I thought of what I like as a tank, which includes some healing magic, some defensive magic, and the ability to take damage from allies and return it to the enemy. From there, I devised the general traits associated with him - courage, piety, a deep feeling of penance for his actions, a strong sense of justice - and built him from the ground up.

One thing I wanted to work with was the fate of the Templars. Their real-life counterparts weren't saints - they effectively created the first multi-national corporation and are the wet dream of cap[italists by taking lands and effectively creating a "corporate state", but were played a bad hand by the jealous authorities of the era. Bertrand represents the genuinely faithful people that served in the Crusades out of piety, only to see the crude reality of war and the profiteering of warmongers. This, of course, has its supernatural twist, which makes the brotherhood of Baphomet the perfect counterpart.

What does this mean? Does that mean there may be a secret society of mundane mage-hunters tracing their legacy to the Knights Templar, whose purpose is to erase the stain that corrupted and destroyed the original Order? Or is it simply a cute story of how the Templars were not all that bad? It's a good story hook, at the very least.

As you can see, Bertrand isn't the only protagonist in the story. There is also a Sulvan, who happens to be on the opposite side (hence the title). You will notice the obvious thing, so let's make this clear - YES, the Sulvan is an assassin, and the whole thing is to reference the Assassin's Creed series of games - with the irony that the secret society from which the assassin hails isn't the eponymous Assassin Order, but the Wandering Stars. It also emphasizes one thing that's seen at the beginning of this branch (in TWS, at least) - if you're born as an adept, you can't join the Stellae because you are already part of the order - you can only reject them. And Bertrand, of course, did this - because his loyalties laid elsewhere.

Of course, what with Frank being canonically Catholic and sharing the same ousiarchs, it's natural to expect that he's an unrepentant fanboy. I like how that developed, since I feel Frank would look for a role model to base his life on, and Bertrand fits perfectly. Thus, expect to see Frank making references to Bertrand if I write more stuff with them and it goes that deep. And wouldn't it be interesting to see if that secret society is real, and Frank defects the Stellae to join them? (Or better yet - what if Frank's destiny is tied to them? Ideas, ideas...)

A Betrayal in Multiple Layers
This chapter was always meant to be a cliffhanger - revealing the motivations and actions of that mysterious author of the Libra, Hieronymus von Gernsdorff. It's also part of the overarching theme in Will's personal story - how it relates to the Libra and what it (indirectly) did to him, by revealing how professor Blackwell turned his father into stone and how the Libra itself is related to the Stellae by means of its author.

One thing I can say is - as I devised him, Christopher Lee came to mind. It's a shame that he's no longer with us, but I feel he would've done a magnificent von Gernsdorff. Maybe it's because of his interpretation of Saruman, the gravitas he imparted to the character, or the fact that he had such a lovely baritone, but I can't imagine von G speaking in any other voice but his.

EDIT: I feel I must clarify this before things go out of control. Though Christopher Lee has reasons why to be depicted as one of the influences of von G, there's a bigger one that fits better. Perhaps you've heard of David Warner? He's also a man with a charming voice who also represented an infamous villain, except this time on video games - Jon Irenicus, from Baldur's Gate 2. I was playing BG2 pretty hard back then, and the way he toys with the main character in both SoD and the start of the game fits von G more than Saruman could. And I seriously want you to imagine von G talking to a waking Will Prescott and saying "ahh; the lapdog of lord Sulva has finally awakened. It is time for more... experiments. The pain will be passing; you should survive the process" before excising his essentia... in this smug, soothing voice  . (And do listen to everything before and after!!)

The story harkens to a moment in life where von G wasn't writing the Libra but devising the spells within it. Eagle-eyed readers will notice where he's "at" regarding the Libra's spells, but the method he uses is deliberately left in the dark.

You may also notice that von G has an entry on the Wiki where it mentions most of his life, his achievements and some of the events in his life. As you can see, the reference to Philip Lang being "replaced" correlates to this chapter, showing what really happened.

What else I can say? Well, most of the mythos behind von G puts him as creating something to face an enemy he dreaded - the so-called "Eater of the Stars". Could it be that the "Eater of the Stars" be a metaphor for something, or someone very real?

I sincerely hope these chapters create speculation that further deepens the story.

And Something Else!

You may notice the last chapter has a fork on the branch, with an option to see more of these stories. The three previous ones are simply more important to the story, but that doesn't mean there can't be more such stories.

I did this intentionally not just to deepen the lore of the Stellae through stories, but also to have you guys collaborate. The beauty of this fork in the branch is that stories don't need to be told in chronological order - you can write just whatever you want, provided it's related to the history of the organization itself, seen through the eyes of historical adepts.

I know most of you guys might find writing on someone else's branch as disrespectful or overwhelming, but I'd really appreciate if you'd contribute to it.

So, what's next?

Of course, working on subsequent chapters showing off Will's training. There's one such set, but I'm saving it for another rainy day - and it's a very fun one, as it reveals a character from which very little has been talked about. And she (yes, she) ended up being a very fun character to develop.