It’s okay. Trust me when I say, that list is not long.
Team Analysis: TC and CA
Witch of Hope, Maid of Heart, Page of Life, Seer of Space, and Mage of Time
Well, congratulations, you passed the first main point, having a Space and a Time player. They are both required for a session to be anywhere near possible to succeed, so that’s down. You now have a chance of succeeding!
A possible problem however, that I saw with this team, is the fact that it has an uneven number of players. For a balanced session, an even number would be necessary, and it would be helpful to balance out the number of active and passive players. So the passive player we suggest to even out your session at six players would be a Sylph of Rage.
The Witch of Hope would be your main brawler. Lasers, a manipulation of faith, and an abrasive personality to match after the session starts, this is the character on your team who is going to be fighting the absolute most. But this faith you would place in them on the battlefield does not mean that they are anything even vaguely near leadership material. They do not know how to rally their teammates, they are more likely to enrage them and maybe never even know it. But on the battlefield, you cannot deny they are the most useful member of your team there. They have Hope to manipulate, to train freely. They would be not only be an object of faith for you in combat, but also an object of faith for whoever they would care to be, allocating the powerful energy of their Aspect as freely as they want. But under no circumstances should the remainder of this team place any faith in this character as a leader. Second-in-command? Yeah, sure, they’d probably have a pretty good hand in passing on orders and motivating their comrades and the like, but do NOT let this character be a leader.
The Maid of Heart, however, do allow to be a leader. This is a character in touch with the emotions of their comrades, at least slightly capable in battle by virtue of sheer numbers (making copies of yourself, who knew that splinters could be so useful?), and, while a tad manipulative and not entirely ethical, would be able to create emotions in their allies to defuse any given situation, even without using their god tier powers outright. The Maid would have a finger on the pulse of their team, would be able to keep a short leash on the enthusiastic-but-abrasive Witch, would provide words of encouragement to the Page as they struggle their way up to their god tier, and would have the sense to leave the Seer and the Mage alone to work by themselves—the Maid would find out that, by the fairly enigmatic virtue of their Aspects, the Seer and the Mage would prefer to work as a slightly separate unit. The Sylph and the Maid would likely serve as the two grounding forces of this team, one understanding the forces which would serve to undermine the team (Rage) the other understanding everyone’s emotions and selves. The Maid and the Sylph would likely prove to be close friends by the end of the session, if not already by the start, given how they would be so keen to confide in each other their fears and thoughts (Sylphs often prove a good listener given the intrinsic healing nature to their roles, and if you add that to the emotional nature of the Maid’s Aspect, these two would be each other’s best confidants and advisors—and I will add that it certainly helps these two are the active-passive pair of their classes). The Maid needs to be careful to not abuse their power, either as a leader or in their god tier form, but I believe their understanding of the gravity of their roles and the friend and adviser they will have in the Sylph will help.
Pages often start as the most passive of people, and in this session, the Page of Life will prove no different. Likely a very meek person, the Page of Life is all about choices, decisions to make in life. The Page, pre-session, might have been a person with a wide variety of opportunities before them, but was sort of overwhelmed by the amount of them, the fear that they might make the wrong choice, accordingly. Now, in-session, they’re sort of pigeonholed in a role, and it’s frustrating to them, to suddenly be void of all these choices and to be only offered now the one. To be honest, though, I can’t blame them for being frustrated, but they do only have one role. The Page of Life is an incredibly powerful healing class. They would potentially be the best cleric of all time, equipping their teammates with the incredible healing power of Life. It’s an amazing role to have, and a well-trained Page of Life could even bring a dead teammate back to life. But to achieve this role, they would need the aid of their comrades. The Seer of Space would tell them just how important, how necessary this role is, and how they alone would be able to fulfill it in their session. The Maid of Heart would try to aid them in accepting their role, help them be motivated to fill it. The Witch of Hope would also probably prove a source of motivation themselves, although this might be more of a, “Ha, ha, I’m better than you,” sort of deal. In any case, if this Page’s other teammates support them, they should prove quite the capable healer.
The Seer of Space would be the central tactician of the team, given the nature of their classpect, and would rely on their teammate’s trust to better get them through their session—luckily, though, one already does trust them. The Mage of Time and Seer of Space should take to each other like a duck to water, if they haven’t before the session. So when they need something, the Seer of Space will be undoubtedly be the one to find it, to comb through all of paradox space, but the Mage of Time will likely be the one to get it. The Seer will also likely put a bit of a leash on their Mage, given how they would have some knowledge of how bad it would be if Time itself were to try and bite the session in the butt (the Page needs it to get even the vaguest understanding of their abilities, the Seer needs it for the frog, etc.), but other than that, they give the Mage full reign over their powers, as the Seer would be among the first to know that, to survive this session, they need a Time player who knows Time like the back of their hand. The Seer would serve as another advisor to the Maid, knowing the where of all things they might need, and would provide a more logical side to the Maid, in comparison to their more emotional self. Given their intrinsic knowledge of birth inherent of Space, they will likely not need as much coaching in the making of their frog from their denizen than anyone else. The Seer of Space will also put a leash on the Witch of Hope, a sort of unattached persona directing the Witch towards what they might need and what they might need to do. To the Page of Life, though, the Seer acts a tad more emotional, more parental, as it were, encouraging them to fulfill their role as no one else could. The Seer of Space would be the first to discover the Quest Beds, and also likely the first to figure out how to use them, and to suggest the use of them to all they and the Mage believe would need to use them.
Speaking of the Mage, they and the Seer would work best as an independent unit, for the most part. Without a Knight to work with, the Seer would depend most on the Time player for help in completing their world’s quest, but beyond even that, the two would be pushing each other’s limits, helping each other reach the highest point of their powers. Sure, they’d be helping the other members of the team, but their main concern would be each other—especially with the Mage. We’ve touched on this once or twice before with one or two other posts concerning a Mage of Time, but Mages of Time have a tendency to separate themselves from the rest of their team. While not quite true in regards to the Seer of Space, they would certainly avoid involving themselves with the other players in order to fulfill their own goals. Hell, if the Mage and the Seer develop their abilities well enough, it’s more than likely they might even be able to outright unravel the mysteries of SBURB in addition to realizing their own quests.
The reason why TC and I suggested the addition of a Sylph of Rage would be because, in addition to being a grounding force to the team and a good vent an adviser to the Maid of Heart, we noted you don’t have much in the way of combat power. Sure, you have that Witch of Hope, but until the Maid of Heart goes legitimate god tier, that Witch is all you’ve got. But the Sylph of Rage, with their ability to create Rage in others would essentially allow them the ability to give their teammates incredible power wrapped in the form of a berserker mode of sorts. In addition to that, the Sylph would be able to provide some sort of healing power with their ability to heal using Rage. While certainly….unusual in the way it sounds, the Sylph will be an incredible ally while the Page learns, the Maid leads, and the Witch fights.
So all in all, we think this team should be quite capable of taking the game on. They have a sound emotional base, a curious Space/Time duo, and a healer with a lot of potential. Just keep an eye on the Witch before the final fight, and you should be fine.
I’m glad you’re putting such faith in us. We’ll try to live up to your expectations.
This has been a long time coming.
Team Analysis: CA and TC
Knight of Light, Page of Doom, Sylph of Heart, Thief of Void, Witch of Mind, Prince of Breath, Mage of Time, and Seer of Space
Okay, you’ve got yourself quite the crew here. It passes the first two points of inspection, having a Space and Time player and having an even number of players. As far as Classes, the scales are a bit tipped towards the active side of things, but it’s nothing too worrisome: three passives to five actives should work out okay.
The Knight of Light is…a bit dangerous. We’ve talked about this with the, what, three-and-a-half (if you count the team ask) asks about Knights we’ve had? Knights’ Aspects are those that the session itself lacks. So in stark contrast to the Knight of Void’s session we discussed not too long ago, the Knight of Light would be very big problem to the session. The session would have absolutely, or at least next to, no luck at all. Anything that can go wrong for this group will go wrong, and it will go very very wrong. So when they arm themselves with Luck, they will need to be creative (hint: not all luck needs to be good to be luck), and arm themselves with what little of their Aspect exists in the session to help both themselves and their teammates proceed. Personalitywise, the Knight of Light would have a “mask” which would obscure their true personality, like Dave’s cool kid attitude, Karkat’s anger, and Latula’s radical gamer girl persona. In order to work well with their team, the Knight would need to learn to remove their mask and be true to themselves, which, thanks to the presence of a Sylph of Heart and a Witch of Mind, will likely not be an issue.
The Page of Doom, as all Pages do, will start with a lack of their aspect, but will attempt to make up for this lack with overcompensation. An example of this would be Jake believing everything that he was told. As such, this Page of Doom will likely have a hard time obeying the rules, and then will attempt to enforce the rules on everybody else. This behavior might end up alienating them from the rest of the team by being a total nuisance to everyone else, which is bad, since the theory is that Pages may need some help to reach their full potential. The only major example of this is Aranea helping Jake. However, if the Page does end up reaching his full potential, then he will make the team a force to be reckoned with. The Page would be the one who allowed people the ability to arm themselves with destruction and rules, and while their enforcing of the rules would certainly arm their teammates with them, to arm their teammates with destruction, they will likely need a bit of ability to cooperate. Just imagine what would happen if they got into a fight while armed with the Page’s abilities.
The Sylph of Heart is one of the two players which could help the Page reach their full potential, with the other being the Witch of Mind. The Sylph would be very (and I do mean VERY) good at resolving disputes between their teammates. They would understand emotion, and would know how to get the desired results between two parties, i.e., reconciliation. Of course, if they were to desire to bring two people further apart emotionally, they could do that, too. Really, it’s about creating animosity or the desire to reconcile between two people, and boy, oh boy, can the Sylph do that. Furthermore, most Sylphs have a tendency to meddle in their aspect, so the Sylph of Heart would most likely meddle in romantic affairs of their colleagues, so they would WANT to resolve these disputes as well. The Sylph wouldn’t be very likely to be the grounding force of this team, as, despite the human element to their aspect, they would be more concerned with their teammates than the larger picture of the goals around them.
The Thief of Void would be able to steal the nothingness out of thin air, much like Roxy’s abilities (as one would imagine, given the similarities between the Stealing classes), but where Roxy does it for someone else’s sake, the Thief would use their powers to get what they want. But I would advise one thing: the Page of Doom and the Thief of Void should never go anywhere near each other for prolonged periods of time, they will be at each others’ throats faster than you can say, “No, dude, don’t,” ‘cuz if you’re looking for a rule breaker, the Thief of Void is it. Impatient, has powers that break the basic laws of matter, not very likely to give them up, the Thief of Void is everything the Page hates, as while the Page knows sacrifice and rules are necessary to keep a system running, the Thief is just running around and bypassing everything they know and love on the average Tuesday. Not very helpful to their blood pressure. When it comes to opposing viewpoints, boy, do these guys have them. The leader of this session, provided they’re at least partially knowledgeable concerning their abilities and Aspects, will be glad to have the two of them by their side as advisers. And if things should come to a fight, the Sylph of Heart and the Witch of Mind should be able to put a leash of the two to keep them apart.
The Witch of Mind would be like Sherlock Holmes, except not. The Witch would be able to make astounding leaps of logic that make NO SENSE, but still turn out to be correct. They would have a sort of intuitive understanding of what they were saying, just perhaps no real way to express it because to them, these little neurons connecting, adding information one after another, really just only make sense to them, being the only Mind player in their session. Now, there could be a really good reason for why they can’t get these words out in a reasonable manner. Maybe they’re prone to sesquipedalian loquaciousness, like I (CA) am. Maybe they have a speech impediment like a stutter, or a lisp. Maybe they’re deaf and can’t speak very well or easily, or maybe they’re just outright mute. But if they can get their teammates to trust them (and that is very vital), they should be alright. Their teammates will be able to put their outright faith in them, regardless of whether or not it makes sense to them that the Witch just KNOWS that Snape didn’t kill Dumbledore, or that Laura was always scared of Kevin. And what’s better is that the Witch would be able to put leashes on their teammates, by manipulating the consequences of them doing bad things, like the Thief and the Page fighting. Thief punches Page, Witch makes it so Page punches back harder, and the Thief decides, hey, maybe punching my teammate isn’t that great an idea. However, manipulating consequences, which fall under the category of the Doom aspect as well, might annoy the overzealous Page if they catch on. Therefore, it is vital that the Witch remain discreet with their actions.
Oh, boy, do I (CA) know the Prince of Breath. As an alternate god tier title for myself, I did a fair bit of research into what it would mean to be the Prince, whether thematic aspects of my life fitted the Sylph role or the Prince role. From what I found, Princes lack their Aspect as an integral part of who they are (Dirk being a stone cold motherfucker, Eridan lacking faith in something he so obviously loved, magic, and Kurloz being a very chill dude), so the Prince of Breath would be lacking freedom. The Prince could easily be the one who is home stuck until the session starts, but even then they might find that their portals are just a little bit too far to reach, so that just means that they have to take things into their own hands when it comes to their freedom. The Prince wouldn’t be the optimal choice of leader, as them lacking their Aspect generally leads to some sort of inevitable backlash in an abundance of their Aspect destroying things through them, and between Eridan destroying lives and the only Hope left for his race, Dirk throwing himself into the fuzzy pixel mess Caliborn had made by shoving everything at once into the game cartridge, and Kurloz sewing his mouth shut, it doesn’t end well for the Prince, nor anyone else involved. So no Prince leaders. But the Prince would be a really REALLY big help towards killing the Black King, being able to destroy everything by simply remaining unhindered in their path (or by destroying everything that would hinder them). The Prince would be rather emotionally attached to other people, reflecting the denial of Breath (and therefore acceptance of Blood), and while these bonds might become troublesome, the Sylph of Heart would be able to weaken or strengthen the emotion joining them, and therefore weaken or strengthen the bond as the situation required. If there was ever a perfect auspistice for the Prince, then the Sylph would be it.
Well, the Mage of Time is a role that we have done before. You know pretty much exactly what they can do, so I’ll skip to the interpersonal relationships! While the rest of the Justice League are out fighting crime, getting their hands dirty… WITH JUSTICE, the Mage of TIme will be Martian Manhunter, staying in the Watchtower, looking over everything from a distance. This would make them a poor leader, but a decent advisor, as they would remain rather detached from the rest of the players, and as such it would be incredibly difficult to have a very close relationship with them. Therefore, it would be incredibly difficult to even get them to hate you, so if you want them to be someone’s kismesis, moirail, auspistice, or matesprit, you’ll have your work cut out for you. The Mage may also be too constantly busy with their own task of keeping the timelines stable to assist with anyone else’s problems, but they will, through their own tasks, keep everyone safe as best they can. One word of caution, though. KEEP THEM AWAY FROM THE PRINCE!!! While, yes, every Mage has had a history of being screwed over by their aspects, a Prince has had a hand in the downfall of Mages everywhere. Examples of this are Eridan blinding and half killing Sollux and Kurloz deafening and mind-controlling Meulin. Luckily, the Mage of Time’s detachment should help in distancing themselves from the Prince.
The Seer of Space is the optimal leader for this session given the classpects you have provided for us. They would be able to see into the whole of creation, to search for what they needed, and while this doesn’t seem to be quite as perpetually nifty as another Seer’s abilities to look for path to take or fortuitous action, that’s because they don’t need to know all that. You see, with this variety of cohorts working with them (eight people is a fairly large session, and while it adds a lot of variety to the Black King’s abilities, it also gives the players a huge amount of variety in abilities), the Seer would have their back covered, given the variety of Aspects around them. They would able to find what people need to get things done. Like Heimdall….actually, that’s really not that bad a metaphor for the Seer of Space. Only Void Players could escape their view, or perhaps a Prince of Light, who could use their powers to effectively blind the Seer. But, seeing as there is no Prince of Light in this particular session, the only Player who could hide themselves from the Seer of Space is the Thief of Void. This could lead to one of two things happening. Either the Seer would harbor some animosity towards the slippery Thief, perhaps send the Prince of Breath or Knight of Light after them to keep the Thief on a short leash, or the Seer, who would probably be more relaxed than the one who took the former option, would have to become far more skilled than the Thief in order to possibly hope to keep tabs on their teammates. However, most Seers are the types to want to know everything, and might initially try for the former of the two options rather than the latter. This is not what Seers are made for, though, and they will have to overcome this adversity in order to perform their tasks more effectively.
All in all, the team is all right. While it definitely will have its fair share of struggles, these can be overcome with enough work put in by the players. The Sylph, Witch, and Seer are undeniably the MVPs, what with the former two keeping pretty much everyone on a leash and the Seer leading the whole damn circus to town, but if they can get everyone under control and try to work around the utter deficiency of luck the Knight’s set up for them, it should be alright. A challenge? Most certainly. But alright in the end.
Mage of Time
Starting off, TC and I have decided to do our own titles. We thought it would prove a useful exercise to start off with, and might help people who share our titles.
For the first post, we've decided to do TC’s title. And with nothing better to do, we’re doing the whole shebang: power(s), a good weapon, and a land and quest. So with no further ado, let’s begin!
Powers: CA
The Mage and the Seer are the active-passive Knowing pair. What that means is the Mage and the Seer have their use of knowledge in common. But while they both use it, they generally use it in drastically different ways. A Seer would gather the knowledge they need of their Aspect in general and then give it to their teammates to allow them to use that knowledge to their advantage for them (i.e., Rose, as Seer of Light, would gather knowledge of the most fortuitous path and pass it on to her teammates for them to follow to the letter). A Mage, however, would use the knowledge to their own advantage. The average Mage would gather knowledge of the rules of their Aspect, and use those rules to their own advantage as they manipulate their Aspect themselves. Their intimate knowledge of their Aspect would allow them to use the rules, whatever loopholes there are, to their advantage. Or maybe the rules suit them just perfectly and the parameters there are work just fine for the Mage in question. Either way, despite what similarities there are between a Witch and a Mage as far as powers, there is one key difference: where a Mage may bend the rules of their Aspect, they never outright break them, like a Witch easily would.
But consider this a warning: the Mages tend to get a little bit of backlash from their Aspect, and although there are only two canon Mages, both seem to have gotten at least slightly bitten in the butt by their Aspect (i.e., Meulin’s luck with her romantic partner (Heart) and being deafened by him in the end, and Sollux’s, well…dying 2.5 times), and where two may be a coincidence, I would still advise caution to those Mages out there in the case that it may be a pattern.
So, as far as powers, there’s the obvious time travel imparted to all Time players. In addition to that, a Mage of Time would be very good at making as little damage as possible as far as dooming timelines. They would make as few doomed timelines as necessary to keep the Alpha timeline afloat, and their intimate knowledge of the rules of Time would allow the most daring Mages of Time to dance the line keeping the parameters of their Aspect in check. Finally, there’s a fascinating ability to escape paradoxes they may have created. Given their knowledge of the rules, Mages of Time would likely be able to undo any damage they may have caused to the timelines.
As far as militarizing their abilities, Mages of Time, have at least one major unique ability that I can see: using their manipulation of Time to create time loops for their enemies. What this would entail is keeping certain enemies in place doing a certain action as though it was the first time repeatedly. It would be like a skipping record, over and over, and over. While this would not kill enemies under most circumstances, the Mage can either be creative with where they place the time loop for the enemy, or keep the enemy in place long enough for them to be killed by the Mage themselves or perhaps a teammate. As far as somewhat regular abilities for a Time player to be able to militarize, there’s always the clone thing: summoning your non-Alpha selves from doomed timelines to have an enemy face not just one you, but as many as you know to be necessary.
So, in conclusion? Mages of Time are very powerful. But a team is necessary for them to be protected from a near inevitable backlash.
Weapon(s): CA and TC
As I previously stated, a Mage would use knowledge to their advantage. And not just any knowledge: knowledge of Time itself. Paired with an ability to put any of their enemies in a time loop, you can imagine Time is no object. Projectile weapons are probably the best choice for a Mage of Time, so that they may continue to evaluate their situation from a distance. And given how Time is no problem to them, Time spent aiming, reloading, recharging, or retrieving isn’t a problem. Therefore, depending on the Mage of Time specifically, the following strife specibi are up for consideration:
TC’s weapon falls into the bowkind specibus group.
Land and Quest: TC
The land for a Time player is very important. Its importance is only dwarfed by that of the Space player, who has the duty of breeding the Genesis Frog. After all, the Time player’s world is where the Scratch device is. But as for what the Mage of Time’s quest is, well, that depends on the Mage themselves. The land’s name is, as most of you already know, formatted as “Land of x and y”, with x and y being the quest word and a word relating to the Aspect, which is, in this case, Time. For instance, my land is, “The Land of Pendulums and Dragons.” As for the description of the land, it is covered in golden pendulums of various shapes and sizes, like the kind you would find on old clocks. The pendulums have attracted dragons who are attempting to take the pendulums for their own and destroy the rest of the land with their fire. My quest, as you probably have guessed, is to be the hero and slay the dragons. It’s almost… storybook.
I used this word list to help create my Land, courtesy of thepageofhopes. It gives a list of words related to each Aspect, which can help you create your Land. But that’s only half of it. You have to come up with a quest to suit your character. My quest is my quest because I’m so experienced with storybook endings. Time is the Aspect of experience, and my experience will aid me in my quest. My ability to be a hero, however, is a little questionable. However, if you should need any help with finding a specific quest to suit you or your character, you need only ask.