
Powers: CA
The Rogue and the Thief are the passive-active pair for the Stealing class. Where the Thief steals their Aspect and the results of such is applied directly to themselves, the Rogue is, as Roxy put it, a veritable Robin Hood: steal and divide amongst however allies need it. Thieves’ and Rogues’ abilities are quite similar in that manner and often have quite the same effect on the enemy from which their Aspect is stolen, but there is a far more different effect on their allies. With the Rogue, there is an increase in whatever Aspect the Rogue steals. While the only god tier Rogue is Roxy, her abilities still fit into this concept, as she steals the Nothingness from the thin air in order to create things. While this ability is far from mastery on her end, she has been able to summon completely generic objects, and completely generic objects mutated with Matriorbs. True to Void style, no one knows how she manages this.
So, a Rogue of Time would be able to steal Time and divide it up amongst their allies, and this could mean a variety of abilities. The first thing that came to mind was the ability to steal Time from enemies. This could mean something like keeping them locked in a certain place and time, stealing seconds, minutes, hours, years, who knows how much Time, until the Rogue has to let them go. All this Time that’s stolen, though, what does it do for the allies it’s given to? Well, there are potentially two effects. For a player who’s on the brink of death, these minutes or hours would be able to prolong their life- painfully, of course, as there’s a downside to everything, but staving off death all the same until something can be done about the hole in their abdomen or the twin stab marks on their chest. Another potential ability these minutes have is something akin to a cell phone plan. For the minutes, hours, or years the Rogue provides them with, the ally will be able to stop time, or perhaps execute time travel as well. Now, this could provide some problems for Time, given how Time travel tends to be a bit problematic without a bit of a guiding force. Imaginably, these minutes of time travel ought to come with some long as fuck lectures on how to use them, and the right to revoke these privileges if the minutes are used in an irresponsible manner. You cause a paradox? No more time travel for you. Bad. Sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done.
And then, of course, the Rogue would have the usual Time player time-travelling abilities to boot. Rogues of Time are truly powerful.
Another thing that’s worth noting about the Rogue class is that they have the innate tendency to reflect their Aspect before the session starts. Rufioh reflected Breath with his ability to fly and his enhanced freedom that way, Nepeta reflected Heart with her shipping walls, and Roxy reflected Void with her nigh unintelligible, drunken typing. But when the session is actually in play, however, these tendencies to reflect their Aspect disappears. Rufioh became paralyzed from the neck down, Nepeta stopped shipping until she was back on the meteor, and Roxy became sober. So a Rogue of Time might have a lot of connections to death. If they were human, their parental figure(s) might run a funeral parlor, or they might show an interest in things like autopsy. If they’re a troll, they might be keen on becoming an executioner of some sort or they have a job providing food for a lusus, like Vriska or Eridan. But as soon as the Rogue’s session starts, they’re all for creating things, and giving their allies the needed time to do it, even without their god tier powers. They would be distant until communicated with, all for completing their own quest first and foremost, but willing to stop and help their teammates when needed. The Space player for their session is lucky to have them.
Weapons: TC
Well, this is just lovely. Two of the toughest patterns to find. Rogue weapons AND Time weapons. Great. Well, I’ll start with the Rogue ones.
Well, the three Rogue weapons are a rifle, a lance, and claws. They don’t have much in common except for that their purpose is clear. These weapons, in a way similar to the Page, are meant for the purpose of killing. As for Time players, they use weapons that are symbolic of themselves, such as Dave’s sword symbolizing him growing up in his brother’s shadow, Aradia’s telekinesis, which was her special ability, along with a whip which symbolized her interests, and Damara’s needles, which were her personal fashion statement.
As such, you need to find a weapon meant only for killing that is symbolic of your character’s or your own self. Since I do not know about you very much at all, Mr./Mrs./Mx. Anon, I will simply give you Rogue weapons and you apply the rest.
Land and Quest: TC and CA
Alright, so we’re going to start off with our usual disclaimer: if you’re having trouble coming up with a good Aspect word for your land, thepageofhopes has a wonderful word list. TC and I suggest you use it.
So, Time lands. As of this moment, there have been five sessions that we have seen in Homestuck, only four of which had a Time player, one of which whose land we never saw, and one of which whose session only had one player, and therefore provides no evidence of a Time land to which we might be able to provide any commentary. Thankfully, though, we still have two lands, and with those, we can take note of patterns. Aradia Megido’s land as the Maid of Time was the Land of Quartz and Melody, and Dave Strider’s land as the Knight of Time was the Land of Heat and Clockwork. There are few obvious connections between the two lands. The Scratch Device is a given, as all Time players’ lands house one, but other than that, there isn’t much there at all. But a possible connection between all Time lands is the references to music in the designs of the buildings and/or the Scratch Device. In Dave’s land, the Scratch Device looks like a giant record sitting on a turntable. In Aradia’s land, all of the buildings look like music boxes. Hell, even with the glance we saw of Damara’s world, her Scratch Device looked like a music box as well! And while this might give some evidence towards the idea that the beta trolls and their dancestors having similar, if not the same, lands (which would make our jobs here so much easier), the more important thing is that this proves that music references in the design of a Time land is very much a thing.
So, putting the arpeggios and treble clefs aside, what would be a good quest for a Rogue of Time? Well, it would obviously let them begin to learn how to use their abilities, hand out Time by slowing down someone or something else. So TC and I were thinking something along the lines of some sort of disaster would come along and it’s the Rogue’s job to try and slow it down to give their consorts more time. This ‘disaster,’ would most likely be something alive, a monster, perhaps the Rogue’s denizen, as it would be very hard for the Rogue to stop something like a volcano or a huge blizzard without their god tier powers, and a quest is meant to be possible to complete even without the Rogue of Time having reached god tier yet. The Rogue would give their consorts as much time as possible to evacuate their habitat before the monster arrived to destroy both it and them by placing obstacles in the creature’s path, or setting up traps for it in the hopes of tiring it out. The Rogue’s time travelling abilities would give them the ability to keep on altering things that need to be altered before the monster arrives, and if they mess up, they pass on the fruits of their research and efforts on to the new Alpha timeline. This isn’t to say they have unlimited chances, but at the very least, the Rogue can know what they’re doing.
Wow. This is our biggest ask yet. Alright, well, we’ll start with the Lord and the Muse individually, then focus on how they would cooperate, and THEN do the team ask and suggest classes for each one.
Also, we are so sorry it took so long.
Lord of Heart
Powers: CA
The Lord and the Muse are the two Master classes, the most active and passive of all the classes, respectively. These two classes are supposed to Embody their Aspects, and it’s imagined that, given their supreme power that they are incapable of inverting, unlike every single other class in all of SBURB. Of course, given how powerful these two classes are, they are going to be very rare, as the game knows that their powers would reach far beyond their own sessions (for examples, see Lord English and Calliope). Speaking of examples, there aren’t much of any. Caliborn and Calliope are the two known members of the Master Classes, and one’s, well, dead. Good news? It’s not Caliborn, so we have a little bit more to work with as far as Lord powers go. Of course, this just supports a theory we mentioned earlier on while discussing the Muse of Time: the Lord would Embody their Aspect actively with the access they have to the powers of all the active classes in SBURB, namely, the Mage, the Witch, the Maid, the Prince, the Knight, and the Thief. They would be able to Know like the Mage, Manipulate like the Witch, Create like the Maid, Destroy like the Prince, Exploit like the Knight, and Steal like the Thief. But if I just leave it there, that wouldn’t be any fun. So let’s talk about the powers of a Lord of Heart.
As a Mage of Heart, they would be able to Know all the rules of the soul, the self, and emotions. They would be able to understand what makes a person be inherently different from everyone else on their fuckin’ planet (even if there’s only one other person on their planet). It’s nature vs. nurture, and they understand the former best. In other words, they would not subscribe to the theory of tabla raza (look it up if you don’t know it, it’s actually quite the fascinating theory). But all this really doesn’t mean too much looking at it alone. If we’re going to look at the Lord’s powers, it’s best to intertwine them, because Knowing how things work in the Heart helps to…
Manipulate it as the Witch. Because they know how far they have to stretch, given the limits of their Aspect as the Mage, the Witch’s abilities would be more of a breakthrough. Where the Mage might pull at one’s Heart strings (ha, see what I did there?), the Witch would PULL OUT A CHAINSAW, CUT THEM IN HALF, MIX THEM IN THE BLENDER WITH THE BASS, DROP THEM LIKE SKRILLEX, put them back together and play a haunting refrain. So in other words, unlike how the Witch of Blood would write the bad fanfic, the Lord of Heart, as the Witch of Heart would be the Mary Sue. This isn’t to say this Mary Sue’s like, My Immortal bad, but they’re really good at, well, manipulating people. If they wanted something, they’d get it, and it would be exactly how they wanted it. They would even be able to condition people to permanently help them by using a sort of Pavlov trick on them. You know, “You help me, I make you feel good, so you associate helping me with feeling good and do it with little in the way of prompting.” Furthermore, the Witch would go beyond just Knowing what makes a person them, they would be able to change it. Imagine, waking up as a completely different person, and yet you never notice. As it was said in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull (keep in mind we aren’t actually looking up quotes here), “We turn you into us and you don’t even know we’re doing it.” Speaking of charismatic people, the Lord would be able to do practically everything as far as people are involved. The Lord of Heart would be the ultimate psychological thriller villain, and with just those two powers alone.
Alright, that’s cool, but what about beating people up? Well, we’ve got you covered there. A while ago, we explained the powers of the Maid of Heart, and one of them was the ability to produce clones, to create self. The bonus here? The Lord might actually be able to make this army of clones solid. So instead of just having the Lord’s clone no. 413 punch the Black King in the soul by punching their face, the Lord’s clone might just be able to punch the Black King in the face. Or maybe both. Maybe the clones exist on both a physical and metaphysical level simultaneously (suck it, existentialists). But in addition to that, the Lord of Heart would be able to use the Maid of Heart’s powers to create emotion (in others, this is a Pavlov trick).
Speaking of beating people up, the Lord’s not going to find much better than their skills as the Prince of Heart. I mean, just look at what Dirk did, and that wasn’t even the real Dirk! The Prince would be able to destroy emotions, which will help them and others be, “stone cold motherfuckers,” and they would be able to destroy self by removing a person’s soul from their bodies, leaving them an empty husk, essentially dead.
Then there’s the Knight’s abilities. We had gone over these earlier in a post dedicated to the Knight of Heart, we had mentioned that the Knight’s abilities include arming themselves with their soul, and thus, making a weapon for themselves that reflects them, or possibly fitting their strife specibus. In addition to that, speaking of cloning, the Lord of Heart would be able to make an army of all the different parts of themselves, the part of them that wants to destroy, the part of them that wants to create, the part of them that wants to know, every part of them. They might even be literally able to split into a Mage, a Witch, a Prince, a Maid, a Knight, and a Thief all with their own abilities and different weapons.
And finally, there’s the Lord’s abilities as the Thief of Heart. Besides the obvious, you know, stealing emotions, the more fun version of events is that which comes from stealing souls. Tell me, do you play Pokemon? Well, TC and I do, and let me tell you, there’s a Pokemon that makes a lot of sense as a Thief of Heart, mostly, if not entirely, for its abilities: Kecleon. It’s a chameleon-like Pokemon whose abilities are Color Change (allows it to change its type into the type of the last move it was hit with, thereby making it less effective if they’re hit with it again), and Protean (which allows its type to change to match the move it’s using, and thereby getting a bonus for their efforts). Kecleon gets a boost for changing what makes them them, and so would a Thief of Heart, and so would the Lord of Heart. Thieves of Heart are shapeshifters, and really good at it. The Lord of Heart, therefore, would be able to steal self, change their face and voice and gods know what else to look and be like their attackers’, or one of their attackers’ allies. They might be able to steal some of their enemies’ or allies’ traits, making the Thief braver or stronger, or more stoic. Hell, they might even be able to steal some of their allies’ or enemies’’ powers as well! They could be able to go as far as to be like the Black King if they accumulate enough strength and powers.
So, put all this together- actually, you know what? You don’t even NEED all this to know what role the Lord of Heart, or any Lord, would have: the front lines. Lord aren’t just on the front lines. Whether they’re starting the fight or ending it, they ARE the front lines. They’re always really into fighting, whether it’s to stop a fight or just for the hell of it. Lords are meant to destroy, after all. When they are given The Choice by Yaldaboath, they’re practically predestined to choose the more active role: to destroy, and to never stop destroying until someone stops them. Their activeness means that they would have the choice of what they want to do, and rather than simply letting whatever happen happen, they would take a role in the how and why of the happening. Lords are very, very dangerous as a result, which is why it’s so rare to find one in the first place. The game knows that whatever the Lord will do, it will have more repercussions than just in their game (for examples, see Lord English), it might affect the entirety of spacetime. The Lord will need to be controlled if anything good is going to come of their session.
So in conclusion, this Lord’s catchphrase? “How can you beat me when I am you?”
Weapons: TC
Well. Lord weapons. Sweet. Anyways, since we only have Caliborn/Lord English to work with, this makes patterns quite easy. Something flashy, intimidating, and powerful looking sounds like what a Lord would wield. For instance, the gun that LE used to kill Hussie. Furthermore, while the weapon of the Lord would appear to be more powerful that that of the Muse, the appearances might be deceiving. Furthermore, it might be best if the two weapons resembled one another. Food for thought.
Furthermore, the pattern set by Heart weapons, as previously stated multiple times, sets a template for melee weapons with a penchant for stabbing, cutting, and just being sharp and/or pointy overall. Take Dirk’s sword and Nepeta and Meulin’s claws as examples.
When these two are combined, you get a sharp, gaudy melee weapon. Sounds like any number of the following could fit the bill.
Land and Quest: TC and CA
Alright: land analysis time. Difficulties abound.
You know how we only have one example of a Lord? Yeah, he’s not going to be much in the way of help here (as per usual). After all, his session only had one player in it, and we know that a session that has only one player is going to be dramatically different from a session with other people in it as well. So we can’t use his land, can we?
So after a fair degree of discussion between the two of us, TC and I have decided that the Lord’s and the Muse’s lands, like most everything else about them, would be linked.
We told you multiple times that the Lord’s and the Muse’s powers reach far beyond their session, and, if left unchecked, might go and scar all of existence. Well, we’re thinking that that might have something to do with why the Muse’s land is so empty.
It wasn’t always. And it’s nothing the Muse could stop.
But we’ll get back to that later. In any case, TC and I agree that the Lord’s land would be very lively, brimming with life in all of the citizens and the land itself. There’s wildlife, plantlife, and plenty of everything for all consorts in the land. They have no problems, no real quest to solve, nothing that had gone wrong. Even their denizen, Yaldaboath, never caused any trouble in the land’s known existence. So what else is there to do for the Lord but use their Quest Bed and learn their abilities? What quest could there be?
Well, they do have a quest. And it’s a quest linked intrinsically with The Choice.
You see, the Muse’s planet is barren. How did it get that way? Why are there no consorts? No written records of the destruction of their world? Well, there was a Lord of their Aspect before. And they fulfilled their quest.
The Lord of Heart’s quest is to set up their planet for the next Muse of Heart that would come into existence by destroying everything on that world.
So to design the world, you would use a word that would relate to the Aspect of the player and the aesthetic of the land, not necessarily in that order. The land’s aesthetic is liveliness, and whether that means bright colors everywhere or not is entirely your choice. But the words I can think of that are Heart-related and could relate to the land include Soul, Happiness, Animation, etc. It might even just be the word Heart. Lords and Muses take what we know of the worlds and turn them on their head because of the vast reach of their powers. Their powers are great, and the need for the session to keep them in check are greater.
And if the Choice must be made…so be it.
Muse of Mind
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. As such, like with the Lord, I will try and relate to you what I can.
Muses 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 for a Muse of Mind, they would, as the Seer of Mind, be able to sort through any possible outcomes for a certain set of actions. So Terezi as the Seer of Mind was able to tell exactly what would happen if she were to let Vriska go and try to kill Bec Noir, and the consequences from what was going to happen from there on out. And in an amazing turn of events, she actually acted on this knowledge, killing her friend. Under most circumstances, though, the information that the Muse would obtain as the Seer wouldn’t be used by the Muse themselves, but rather by their teammates. They would be able to see the consequences of everyone’s actions and be able to warn their teammates of pivotal points for their session, and the best actions to take for each. Oh, and they would probably be able to read their teammates’ minds. Just saying.
As the Heir of Mind, the Muse of Mind would be able to Manipulate Mind, possibly begin to change what certain consequences would be for taking certain actions (for example: changing the thoughts of the creepy man standing in the subway station catcalling women after you call him out to some sort of revelation that what he’s doing is supremely stupid and dickish rather than him thinking that you’re the dick him deciding to try and stab you). Furthermore, Mind would sort of be like a parent to the Muse when they’re acting as the Heir: they would have sudden breakthroughs, be able to understand certain thoughts and the like, which would essentially just be Mind going, “Happy birthday, have a present.” It’s by such breakthroughs that the Heir would, in a sense, inherit Mind. Mind would limit what the Muse could do as the Heir, but not to the extent of the Mage. Where the Mage has a twenty-foot concrete wall of rules, the Heir has a wooden fence that they’re sometimes allowed to hop over to visit their friends or help the next-door neighbor with building a shed. The knowledge the Muse got as the Seer could help them in manipulating the end results of an action.
As the Sylph of Mind, the Muse would be able to create Mind. They would be able to create thoughts for others, and to create consequences for others’ actions. I imagine that the Muse would use this a LOT to help keep their teammates from doing stupid stuff. When they see that the Lord is thinking of doing something ridiculous for the Vine, the Muse could create the thought in them that what they’re doing is stupid, and that they shouldn’t do it. If the Lord should happen to ignore it, they get a consequence. Perhaps not something as dire as, say, dying (although, if they pulled enough strings for the Rube Goldberg machine, they could do that), but they could indeed give the Lord enough of a warning from an oddly coincidental fate to warn them to never do that again. And as far as the Sylph’s hypothesized abilities of healing Mind and healing with Mind. The former would be something like healing a chain of events by making sure the right things happen at the right time (similar to what John is currently doing by using Terezi’s list), and the latter would involve healing by using the consequences of one’s actions, and likely increasing the benefits of good action. Like if someone were to get injured and they were to actually try and heal themselves, the end results, healing, would come by sooner.
The Bard of Mind we have talked about earlier, but in the case you haven’t read the post we made for it, as the Bard the Muse would have a sort of charmspeak ability, and would be able to convince others to believe something, to destroy thoughts otherwise. To destroy using Mind, they would be able to combine both these and their Seer powers to set into motion something as small as someone stepping on a butterfly, to something as large as an all-out war. The Bard of Mind is the master of destroying Rube Goldberg machines, and therefore, the Muse of Mind could only be that much better given their far more advanced abilities as a Seer.
Again, we’ve already done a post on the Page of Mind (I’d even hazard a guess as that being how you found us in the first place), but in the case you, or any other Muse of Mind reading hasn’t, the Muse would be able to, as the Page, use a sort of telepathic ability and equip their teammates with their thoughts. In addition to that, they would be able to equip their allies with the abilities of a Knight of Mind, arming them with the knowledge of choice and consequences, and justice. The Muse’s allies would be excellent builders of Rube Goldberg machines, capable of setting things up one after the other to harm their enemies, be this through physical harm, insanity, or another mean. They would be able to weaponize thoughts and create revolution or raise an army for themselves.
And then finally, we have the Muse’s abilities as the Rogue of Mind. They would be able to steal thoughts from other people, their enemies, presumably, and share them with their allies, giving them spy abilities, similar to how the Page of Mind’s abilities did. They would also be able to steal consequences and dish them out as well. Think of it like this: say that, after a long, convoluted set of events, the Muse’s friend was about to die. Well, they could lessen the blow, give them a chance of survival, by taking the consequence from their ally and distributing it among their enemies, or, if worse comes to worse, the entire team. The suffering of the many for the good of the one. Again, it’s all how the Muse uses these abilities.
Similar to most other Muses, this one would not be on the front lines. They would be a good spy with the Rogue and Page of Mind’s abilities, and an even better political saboteur by using the Bard of Mind’s skills. The Seer of Mind would give them the knowledge of when they’re going to mess up, and the Sylph’s skills would be useful to be able to convince people to do what they say. So while the Lord of Heart’s messing everything up on the front lines, the Muse of Mind would be able to sneak around and get what they need from enemies (provided the two of them could cooperate for long enough, but we’ll get to that later).
Of course, there’s one last thing a Muse must overcome: The Choice. As we mentioned earlier, Muses and Lords are offered The Choice by their denizen, Yaldaboath. Muses are predestined to make the choice that has them sacrifice their lives to end a force of great destruction- presumably the Lord of the opposing classpect, similar to Calliope and Caliborn. And based on how you said that the other players join them from a scratched session, it’s possible that the Lord and the Muse will both be given the option of making their Choice, as they would be the only two in their session. We can only hope it doesn’t come to that, though.
Weapons: TC
OK, to reiterate what was said about the weapons of a Muse from an earlier post, Muses tend to have weapons that are generally related to those of their corresponding Lord, if there is one. Their weapon tends to be a rather smaller, more unassuming version of the Lord’s. For instance, while Caliborn, the Lord of Time, wields a Scepter that transforms into a big assault rifle, his sister wielded a Wand that transformed into a far more diminutive pistol. Despite what the appearance of the weapons may suggest, the Muse’s weapon may be in fact the more powerful of the two, as indicated by the fact that Lord English abandoned his own assault rifle/scepter in favor of his sister’s wand/pistol, which he then proceeded to use to annihilate a large portion of the dream bubbles and of Paradox Space in general.
Now, we’re quite unsure of whether the Lord/Muse classes have a separate weapon pattern completely different from those of the ordinary classpect patterns, or perhaps if only the Lord’s pattern applies, or maybe if only the Muse’s pattern applies, and whichever does not have their ordinary aspect pattern apply changes to suit the pattern formed by those that do. There is really no way of knowing. However, the theory that I personally am sticking with is that the Lord sticks to their aspect’s weapon pattern, and the Muse has to change to suit the Lord. Why do I believe this? Simple. It’s how the classes work. As the more active class, the Lord would forge the path, while the Muse would be forced to follow that path as the more passive class.
In any case, as the Mind aspect also tends towards melee weapons, it matters little in this instance. In fact, it is theorized that they are both blades, as well. We will stick with the most agreed upon melee fact alone. The following would pair well with the weapons suggested for the Lord.
With axekind:
With bladekind:
With chainsawkind:
With forkkind:
With lancekind:
With ninjakind:
With scythekind:
With spearkind:
Land and Quest: TC and CA
Muses’ and Lords’ lands are…well, complicated, to say the least. The only Muse we’ve seen in canon is dead, and we haven’t even seen her land. Hell, we haven’t even seen Caliborn’s true land, yet! But we must have some sort of idea of what a Muse’s land would look like, as we finished a request for the Muse of Time. Well, 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. 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, which is very important for Muses and Lords alike.
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? 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 Mind could have words like Consequences or Justice, things that Mind has a deep connection to. Hell, they might even have Choice in their Land’s full name as a bit of an ironic twist (related to their Aspect, and the Muse’s ultimate responsibility). 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 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.
Relationships: TC and CA
Lord of Heart and Muse of Mind
Muses and Lords are quite fascinating Classes, and when they are of opposite Classes and Aspects, that means something very very special and very very strong is between them, but whether it’s good or bad is…well, dependent on their species.
The Lord of Heart and the Muse of Mind would be interconnected throughout whatever arguable guise of fate exists in the continued existence of SBURB. It’s an odd and complex process by which it works, but it exists so that the Lord might always be balanced out by the Muse, at least to some extent. Caliborn was balanced by Calliope before she died, and the opposite was also true. Two great powers would balance each other out, and would hopefully end up making it so that the Lord doesn’t destroy, and that therefore, the Muse doesn’t need to sacrifice themselves to stop said destruction.
So, relationships between these two classes is going to be very strong no matter what species the Muse and the Lord are, but we can imagine it a bit like this:
Human!Lord <3 Human!Muse: Humanity’s strongest emotion is believed to be love, and I can’t blame us for believing that. This doesn’t mean that they don’t have arguments. In fact, because they care about each other so much, they might just argue a lot. But this doesn’t mean that this deep emotion doesn’t exist. If one or both of them happen to be aromantic, though, the relationship would just happen to be very strong <>, almost familial in nature.
Troll!Lord <3< / <3 Troll!Muse: Trolls have always been a bit…volatile, really. This relationship is a prime example of how strong relationships are between trolls, really, and the two would be switching back and forth all over the place. They would NEED an auspistice in order to keep from ripping each others’ throats out in some sort of mix of hate and love, so when the session starts…well, hopefully they’re on separate worlds, or else gods know what will happen (and when the other players join them, don’t worry, we’ve got a good auspistice picked out).
Cherub!Lord <3< Cherub!Muse: There is no doubt about this: the strongest emotion a cherub would feel towards another cherub is hatred. If they happen to be in the same body, this hatred is, more often than not, simply derision and annoyance, but if they’re two, separate, fully developed (one-minded) cherubs, this hatred is a full on romance. And it needs to stop. There’s not much that can get in a cherub’s way once it begins rampaging, and if the two of them do the cherub do in the middle of their session, that’s very bad news. Thankfully, according to the rest of the ask you sent us, they’re not the only ones in the session if they are cherubs, which hopefully means that their destructive behaviors towards each other could be curtailed by the other players.
Human!Lord <3< / <3 Troll!Muse, Troll!Lord <3< / <3 Human!Muse: Gods know that trolls could teach a human how their hate/love thing works and have it work between them. They’d still need an auspistice under most circumstances, yes, but their relationship would be less volatile than if they were both trolls (given how the culture of one is likely less war-driven than the other).
Cherub!Lord <3< Human!Muse, Human!Lord <3< Cherub!Muse: Gods know that SBURB allows for enough shenanigans already that for the reason of balancing each other out, they’d know each other. Again, strong emotions. For the cherub, especially if they’re fully developed, they’re likely antagonizing each other to the point where it could easily be some sort of odd romance. For the human, the cherub knows just what buttons to push to get them to blow up every time they talk. Gods help them if they can even begin to manage this session.
Team Analysis: CA and TC
Lord of Heart, Muse of Mind, and Undecided Class Time, Space, Breath, and Void Players
Well, with the introduction of the Deus Ex Machina thing, this session has everything it needs: a Space player, a Time player, and an even number of players to boot! But you said that you needed some help deciding the classes for your four other players.
So let’s get down to it: the players we recommend are the Rogue of Time, the Thief of Space, the Sylph of Breath, and the Mage of Void.
We had already decided that we would need two active and two passive classes for the remaining Aspects, as in sessions with Muses and Lords of opposite Aspects, balance is key. Too many active or passive players and you might have a war on your hands. So with that, we knew that we would want an auspistice for the Muse and Lord, and we figured there would be none better than a Sylph in that role. Sylphs have a tendency to stop fights more often than we start them (exclusions to this rule tend to be…unsavory in result *cough* Aranea *cough*). We figured we would want a Mage (gods we’re such egotists), as Mages tend to be quite helpful as well with their knowledge, but given how dangerous many of the remaining Aspects were, especially if they were to glitch out or try to bite the session in the butt, we knew that Void was the best place to put the Mage. As for the other two, we imagined that more opposing classpects couldn’t hurt, and if the worst should come to worse, someone handing out more Time to their teammates would be helpful. So Rogue of Time and Thief of Space.
So we talked about how the two Master Classes would get along with each other. We talked about how where the Lord would lead the charge on the front lines, the Muse would supply information as a spy of sorts while everyone else is distracted by the Lord’s shenanigans. Now, let’s talk about the other players.
The Sylph of Breath would be the optimal choice for a leader, Breath players often are. The Sylph would be able to create freedom for their teammates, and with the Muse and the Lord in this session, that is a NECESSARY factor. In their auspisticing, the Sylph of Breath would be pulling the Muse and the Lord apart, make most of their parts concerned not with the other, but with another person or another thing. Hell, if they’re cherubs in the same body, then the Sylph might even be able to pull enough strings to give the two separate bodies. The Sylph would be able to mediate disputes, and would be at the same time, distant enough from other players to be an unbiased judge of things, and close enough to know why people feel passionately.
Rogues always tend to reflect their Aspect before the session starts, generally in a more symbolic way. So this Rogue might have intrinsic ties to death or endings. Maybe, if they’re human, their parental figure(s) run a funeral parlor, or they themselves are interested in things like autopsy. If they’re a troll, they might be keen on becoming an executioner of some sort. But as soon as the session starts up, similar to how Roxy became sober, this Rogue would be all about creating things, and giving other people time to create things, too, as per their powers to steal Time and give it to their allies. This would likely mean that their allies would have some sort of time travel ability, at least for what Time the Rogue would give them. The Rogue would be all about allowing others to create whatever they want, allowing people to get what they need done, done, and might easily be a good member of the team to vent to when things happen or just go wrong. As such, the Muse would likely go to the Rogue for a fair bit of emotional support, especially as the Sylph begins to separate them from their counterpart, the Lord. The Thief will rely on the Rogue to give them time to complete their quest, and more often than not, the Rogue will be able to provide, and will be happy to do so.
Believe it or not, the Thief is likely the most…out there of all the people. Thieves, although having a tendency to reflect their Aspect, do not have lives that do much the same, as shown by Vriska losing her arm and eye, and Meenah not having a choice as heir to the throne. The Thief would be just about as surrounded by endings or destruction (neither of which are as bad as one would think) as they wish to create. Thieves have a problem, though, and it’s that they are…impatient. Vriska wasn’t patient enough with her “student,” Tavros, Meenah wasn’t very patient at all with Aranea’s stories, it’s a thing that they have. Thieves of Space, with powers that focus on speed, among other things, have that problem likely even more. So even with the Rogue allowing them Time to travel, they will have far too much time on their hands. So the Muse and the Lord will have a bit of a…joint project with this one. The Muse will be the logos: they will outright tell the Thief what bad consequences will arise from their actions, their impatience, whatever. The Lord, however, will let them know that they can slow down, and if they don’t, well, a little manipulating couldn’t hurt anything.
And then there’s the Mage of Void. Plus side? They know Nothing. They know how to manipulate it, make the best out of a bad thing, out of destruction, utter obliteration. They could use this knowledge, to know how far the nothing that was there extended, to make something out of it, to undo the Nothing, within the limits of the Nothing. Similarly, they might be able to feel obliteration approaching, like a dark spot on a monitor. Bad side? Well, if they break the rules of Void, they’ll likely find themselves knowing nothing. They have no idea how this Nothing came about or what existed before the nothing. They will be clueless. And that can be dangerous. If you know what’s coming, you can prepare, you have the chance to beat it. But if, say, a Lord was about to rampage (perhaps the Lord of Mind that destroyed the Muse’s land), and the Mage didn’t know what was going to happen, then everything could easily be destroyed. The Mage will be another grounding force in the session, able to know what to do and what might occur.
Final prognosis? If the rest of the team can manage to keep the Muse and the Lord separate to do their jobs, and if the Mage doesn’t lose their sight, then I can see this team going on to do big things. They can make it.