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Powers: CA
The Muse and the Lord are the two Master Classes, the most passive and most active (respectively) out of all the classes, and are extremely rare titles (only one character has ever had the title of Muse in the webcomic, and sadly, she’s dead. Her brother might still be alive, but the Lord of Time doesn’t talk much about his abilities). As such, there is very little known about the Master Classes. But I will, all the same, try to relate to you what I can.
They are hypothesized to Embody their Aspects, and, as such, are hypothesized to have all the abilities of the classes that fit their descriptions as passive or active. For the Muse, that would mean they would have the Seer’s ability to Know, the Heir’s ability to Manipulate, the Sylph’s ability to Create, the Bard’s ability to Destroy, the Page’s ability to Exploit, and the Rogue’s ability to Steal. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, most of these classes have to do with other people and their ability to use their Aspect in conjunction to others. The Muse would Know their Aspect and generally give that knowledge to others to work out amongst themselves. They would be able to Manipulate their Aspect, but be controlled by its whims, and perhaps, in a way, inherit their Aspect. They would be able to Create their Aspect for others, and perhaps heal them using their Aspect. Just as similarly, they would be able to Destroy their Aspect by giving others the tools to do it for them (or something similar). They would be able to allow their teammates (or just other people in general) to Exploit their Aspect as a weapon, and, to reach higher levels of power, would be forced to depend on others (not a bad thing, perhaps a little time-consuming, but not bad). And finally, they would be able to Steal their Aspect and give the spoils of their efforts to their teammates or allies.Furthermore, even better, is that it may very well be impossible for either the Muse or the Lord to invert their Class and Aspect. They would suffer no risk for inversion, meaning that they would have no need for balance between the use of their abilities and the lack of use of their abilities.
So, now that we’ve figured all that out, how would a Muse of Time function? What would their powers be? This is going to be a very long post here on abilities.
Well, to start out with, in working as a Seer of Time, they are unbelievably useful. The abilities of a Seer of Time (to put it simply because this is going to be a long enough post already) are to find what they’re looking for information on throughout all of time. If they wanted to know what the future would hold and if there were any way to avoid it if necessary, they would be able to look for that information, and if it exists, they would be able to find it. As such, their abilities would allow the Muse to guide their teammates towards the best possible Alpha timeline.
As an Heir of Time, the Muse would be able to manipulate Time, while still being constrained by its rules. Imagine Time as a parental figure. You cannot stop this thing from happening, they say. You try it. It keeps you from doing it by creating another problem somewhere else that you need to fix. The Muse would inherit Time in a sense, but really, in this context, as soon as they “receive,” Time, they’d likely just give it away to someone else. Which leads us on to our next role.
As a Sylph of Time, the Muse would be able to create Time for others, and, speculatively, heal using Time (or just heal Time). To create Time for others, I think that the Muse would be able to impart a sort of time travel gift to her teammates and allies (likely by collecting the minutes that they receive as the Heir). That would buy them time. It would allow them to become stronger, more skilled. It would relate back to the Page ability that I’ll mention later: the Muse, by giving their allies Time, would allow them to weaponize it to make themselves stronger. It would give all of their teammates Time to exploit. The Muse would basically be able to make all of their teammates Knights of Time, if only for a short while. Again, incredibly useful, and unbelievably powerful. And to heal Time or heal using Time is similar to the ability mentioned not long ago in the Sylph of Space post. Time would be the one deciding what needs to be healed if the Sylph means to heal others. If Time doesn’t miss it (or, rather, won’t miss it), then a person can’t be healed. But if the idea of healing Time is what the Muse is after, they would know who or what needs to be in when and where in order to, say, undo a paradox and set a timeline right again, and therefore heal Time.
As a Bard of Time, the Muse would be able to destroy Time using others, and invite destruction through Time. Destroying through Time is fairly simple to imagine. It’s like how aging can destroy anything. But to be honest, if things were just that easy, that would make them a Prince. Say that a teammate is about to do something incredibly stupid, and the Muse doesn’t want them to do it. The Muse would be able to convince them (again, the voice is the most powerful weapon a Bard has) to either stop doing the thing, or, if that fails, convince them to do something else first, and have them waste their minutes as the Knight of Time (read: have someone else destroy Time), and then not give them that ability again until they can convince them that what they were doing was stupid.
As a Page of Time, the Muse would rely on others to learn to reach their full potential, and in doing so, become incredibly powerful, and allow others to exploit Time as a weapon. This relates back to the Sylph abilities. They would be able to allow their teammates to exploit Time more actively than they ever could. The Muse would be able to give them the abilities of a Knight of Time, making time their weapon and their tool.
And finally, as a Rogue of Time, the Muse would be able to steal Time from others, and give their teammates the power-ups that come as a result. They could easily steal Time from beings that are around them, perhaps steal minutes from their lives, and give them to their allies. They would be able to prolong someone’s life as long as there are beings from which they could steal Time from. Of course, this could mean more than just minutes of life. It could mean that they could use those minutes for time travel. Almost like a cell phone plan, in hindsight.
This all seems really, REALLY awesome, right? Well, it is. The Muse isn’t a Master class for nothing. But a Muse will be really busy during the session, and furthermore, the Muse will have to keep all of these Time-related shenanigans straight. It’s possible that the Muse might cause a lot of problems if they accidentally (or otherwise) create a problematic paradox. Will they know how to avoid it? Yes, they would. Would they be able to undo it if the need arises? Yes, they would. But not all damage can be undone, and its negative repercussions might harm a lot of people, including the Muse themselves.
Another facet of the Muse was explained by Yaldaboath. When meeting with Yaldaboath, there are two choices that are presented to the player. Lords presumably always pick the choice that would grant them the power to “destroy anything they want for as long as they want,” while Muses assumably always take the other choice that was offered: “to give up all ambition and accept one’s death in exchange for the promise that their sacrifice will benefit all who ever lived by ending a force of unfathomable evil and destruction.” In other words, they are promised that their sacrifice will stop the person who made the first choice. Although this power may only be relevant in one-person (or maybe two-person) sessions, this does have a huge link to the Muse’s rating as the most passive of classes. After all, if everything works out okay, Calliope’s sacrifice as the Muse of Space would work out to everyone’s advantage, as it means that she would stop Caliborn’s rampage, and the only thing she had to do was die.
These abilities would not place the Muse in the front lines. They would likely be behind the scenes, far out of reach of the enemy, where they can orchestrate a battle as it goes along. They would give pretty much everything to their teammates, give them a clear path to victory and try to clear out any brush that might accidentally get in their way. A leadership role might be a good one for a Muse of Time, given their propensity for directing their teammates towards the ultimate goal. If not a leader, then at the very least a tactician.
Altogether, the abilities of a Muse of Time can be summed up pretty easily:
With great power comes great responsibility.
Weapons: TC
Well, my guess as to what weapons someone that belongs to either of the master classes would wield some of the more powerful weapons, but with Muses having more unassuming weapons than Lords. The main evidence for this would be Calliope’s wand/pistol being less threatening looking than Caliborn’s scepter/assault rifle. However, despite the unassuming appearance of Calliope’s weapon, it is assumed to be more powerful than Caliborn’s, as he abandoned his own weapon in favor of his sister’s, which he used to double kill some ghosts (and which Hussie tried to use to presumably kill him).
As such, these seem to be the type of weapons that a Muse of Time would use:
The top four out of these weapon types are Artkind, Bookkind, Cardkind, and Penkind.
Land and Quest: TC and CA
Okay. Last bit. And possibly the most challenging.
See, the Muse, as one of the Master Classes, might have a land that is different from the other classes. The only problem is none of us know. The only Master Class player whose session we’ve seen is Caliborn, and his session was a one-player session, which we already know to be automatically different from that of any other kind of session. So we have no clue what type of world the Muse or the Lord, when found in another type of session (one with other people), would have. But personally, TC and I tend to agree on a sort of headcanon world for the Lord or Muse of anything in any session that has other people:
It would be completely barren. Almost like the worlds in Jane’s, Jake’s, Dirk’s, and Roxy’s Void session, but with fewer enemies, and possibly with no life on it in the first place. There would be no consorts in the land for the Muse to investigate. There would be no puzzles to solve. Nothing, save for the Muse’s quest bed and the Scratch Device, a necessary component to all Time lands. We imagine that the Muse’s denizen would be Yaldaboath, but there’s no certainty for Muses. It would allow them to make the choice that all Muses are expected to make.
But what, then, is their quest? If they have no definition to their land, no consorts, and practically the only monster in their land being the Denizen whose only act would be to offer them to choice all Muses must face, what quest could there possibly be for them? Well, the only possible quest that I can think of is the one that reflects their abilities: everyone else’s.
That’s right. Their quest is to make sure that everyone else’s quests happen while the session is still ongoing. Before the Black King is defeated, their quest is to give everyone else enough time, to give them enough ability to complete their own quests, all the while preparing for the final battle with the Black King. They have to use their abilities to the fullest here. They have to be able to see what needs to be done to defeat the Black King, to secure their session, they have to be able to give both themselves and their teammates enough time, and they have to make sure nothing gets messed up along the way, and then simultaneously try to set things up so that their teammates can finish their quests, so that they can finish their own, and so they all may better from it.
So how, then, would one design the land of a Muse of Time? Well, you could use the parts of this land that we hypothesize to actually exist. A word to describe the world’s aesthetic could be something related to the barrenness of the land. The other word could be a word that relates to both the Aspect of the Muse and the aesthetic of the world. For example, the Muse of Time could have words like Endings, Termination, or Death in their Land’s full name, given how Time is viewed as an Aspect connected to endings (as compared to Space, which has connections to beginnings). They might just even have their own Aspect as their Aspect word. Again, Muses and Lords take what we know of the rules of creating things like lands and quests and turn them on their heads. Which is entirely why we imagine that Muses and Lords wouldn’t have a quest word for their lands. They’re in charge of managing others’ quests, and, if the time should come, making the choice to sacrifice their lives to stop a force of great evil.